{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,1]],"date-time":"2026-05-01T14:27:42Z","timestamp":1777645662777,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"5","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2016,5,22]],"date-time":"2016-05-22T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1463875200000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Games and Culture"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2016,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>This article investigates discursive procedures in From Software\u2019s 2011 videogame Dark Souls. By combining procedural rhetorics, discourse analysis, and autoethnographical research play, it is argued that Dark Souls features post-Panoptical gameplay mechanics of both continuous surveillance and playful exhibitionism and a hybrid gameplay experience of both subjectivation and empowerment. Players randomly confront one another in a notoriously difficult and unforgiving game space that requires commitment and perseverance. The game, it is shown, provides a metaphor for online surveillance mechanics in which players\/netizens are not just democratically gazing at each other but subjected to a procedural system determining who can see whom. Simultaneously, players are offered a number of procedural methods and moral archetypes to normalize and empower them.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/1555412015570967","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2015,2,11]],"date-time":"2015-02-11T00:44:09Z","timestamp":1423615449000},"page":"510-527","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":15,"title":["Playing the Panopticon"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"11","author":[{"given":"Tom","family":"van Nuenen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Culture Studies, School of Humanities, Tilburg University, Tilburg, Netherlands"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2016,5,22]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-1555412015570967","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.3726\/978-3-653-01459-4"},{"key":"bibr111-1555412015570967","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2307\/2393374"},{"key":"bibr2-1555412015570967","unstructured":"Battletoads. 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