FIFA

Indiana University Press

Chapter Title: Exploiting Nationalism and Banal Cosmopolitanism: EA’s FIFA World Cup 2010 Chapter Author(s): Andrew Baerg

Book Title: Playing to Win Book Subtitle: Sports, Video Games, and the Culture of Play Book Editor(s): Robert Alan Brookey, Thomas P. Oates Published by: Indiana University Press. (2015) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt16gzgbt.11

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172

Exploiting Nationalism and Banal Cosmopolitanism: EA’s

FIFA World Cup 2010

S p or t a n d i ts r e pr e s e n tat ion i n m e di a h av e l ong be e n a site for the communication and perpetuation of national identity. Inter- national mediated sporting events such as the Olympics and World Cup have tended to become sites allowing for the expression of myths about collective, national identities. As such, it might be expected that this tight relationship between sport and the nation-state would continue in the comparatively new medium of the sports video game, especially one representing a competition between nations.

This chapter addresses this argument by performing a textual analy- sis of Electronic Arts’ soccer video game 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa (hereafter F I FA WC 10) in order to learn how it positions its users. By working through and applying cosmopolitan theory and then apply- ing this theory to the text, the chapter argues that F I FA WC 10 departs from a traditionally national orientation to the mediation of world soccer toward a cosmopolitan mediation of the sport. As such, rather than posi- tion players as national subjects, F I FA WC 10’s various gameplay options position its users as global, cosmopolitan subjects.

S p o r t, N a t i o n a l I d e n t i t y, a n d C o s m o p o l i t a n i s m

Over the past two decades, sport sociologists and sports media scholars have followed the theoretical work on the nation as imagined commu- nity with invented traditions to study specific examples of the relation- ship between sport, media, and national identity.1 More recent work has addressed the issue of American national identity through media

Andrew Baerg

e i g h t

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Exploiting Nationalism and Banal Cosmopolitanism 173

coverage of the Ryder Cup golf tournament and the rhetorical construc- tion of post-9/11 American national identity through Disney’s Miracle, a cinematic treatment of the 1980 men’s Olympic hockey victory over the Soviet Union.2

Sport has been understood to be particularly useful for the construc- tion of collective identities such as national identity. Boyle and Haynes argue that sport’s prominent use of symbols, focus on competition, and uniting of fan groups lend itself to an emphasis on national traits and, by extension, national identity. Sports media tend to affirm this identity by mediating between broader ideological discourses attached to national identity and the meaning of sporting events. Sports media typically ar- ticulate national team performances to a nation’s perception of itself or cultural developments within that nation or both. They attach these performances to national myths as a way to express and affirm a sense of collective identity, myths that may invoke celebrations of national pride or criticism over apparent failures of national character. Even as the sports media may not be at the core of identity formation, and identities themselves exist in a state of fluidity and dynamism, Boyle and Haynes argue that the mediation of international sport has the potential to play a vital role within the broader context of collective identity formations. Mediated sport has the capacity to “reproduce, reinforce and even nor- malize attitudes and values which exist in other spheres of political or cultural life.”3

To this point, the study of how these attitudes and values are re- produced and reinforced in new media like sports video games is only beginning. Baerg has addressed how sports video games position users to adopt a hegemonic masculinity, has spoken of the consequences of the games’ player attribute rating systems, and discussed the sports game’s relationship to history. Others such as Cree Plymire and Crawford have studied the implications of experiencing sport through the video game in the context of comparisons to other media.4 In spite of these efforts, scholarship connecting the sports video game to media studies and sport sociology remains sparse.

One of the ways these connections might be developed concerns an investigation into the link between the sports video game and its relationship to globalizing processes. Sport, and its broader mediation,

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174 Andrew Baerg

has been important for global studies given that it has energized and served as an unofficial measure of transnational change.5 Globalization, especially the globalization that occurs through globally mediated sport- ing events such as the Olympics and World Cup, would appear to usher in a concurrent process of cosmopolitanization and its accompanying perspective, cosmopolitanism. Tomlinson and Young have noted how sport spectacles such as the Olympics and the World Cup can serve as important sites for engaging questions concerning the potential for cosmopolitanism that allows for competition, respect, and mutual un- derstanding between diverse cultures. The mediation of these events via new media may open up opportunities for discussing the nature of cosmopolitanism and how it is expressed.6

Even as it has been deemed an epistemological necessity for twenty- first-century living,7 cosmopolitanism has been a contested term in so- cial theory for both its indeterminacy and its inescapability. Cosmo- politanism appears difficult to define while simultaneously serving as an increasingly prevalent part of contemporary experience.8 This lack of clarity is furthered by cosmopolitanism’s uneven development.9 Clifford goes so far as to say that the term cosmopolitanism may not even speak to a coherent idea or set of experiences. In a similar vein, Pollock et al. have a difficult time ascertaining what constitutes cosmopolitanism and cos- mopolitan practice. They assert that what has traditionally been under- stood to be cosmopolitanism has often been a product of the place from which one begins, especially with respect to the Western philosophical tradition and European intellectual history. Neatly defining cosmopoli- tanism, they say, “definitely is an uncosmopolitan thing to do.”10

In spite of this uncertainty over definitions, other scholars have made a concerted effort to provide solidity to the concept of cosmopoli- tanism. Harvey cites Nussbaum’s definition of cosmopolitanism as “a set of loyalties to humanity as a whole, to be inculcated through a distinctive educational program emphasizing commonalities and responsibilities of global citizenship.” Similarly, Robbins argues that cosmopolitanism has traditionally been “understood as a fundamental devotion to the inter- ests of humanity as a whole” and something that claims universality as a consequence of “its independence, its detachment from bonds, commit- ments, and affiliations.”11 If cosmopolitanism is defined around a broad

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Exploiting Nationalism and Banal Cosmopolitanism 175

interest in humanity and over and against attachments, bonds, com- mitments, and affiliations, then it would seem to be difficult to connect cosmopolitanism to nationalism and cosmopolitan identity to national identity. Yet many scholars have taken up this relationship to examine cosmopolitanism’s relation to the nation and national identity.

Some see the ongoing importance of the nation within a cosmopoli- tan frame. Appiah argues for what he calls a “rooted liberal cosmopoli- tanism.” Appiah speaks of the rooted cosmopolitan as one who is “at- tached to a home of his or her own, with its own cultural particularities, but taking pleasure from the presence of other, different places that are home to other, different people.” This rooted liberal cosmopolitanism acknowledges difference by understanding that there is no need for a global culture of homogeneity. Given this acknowledgment of differ- ence, the liberal cosmopolitan advocates for the freedom to create the self by drawing on a variety of social sites for the discursive and nor- mative resources needed to create identity. The nation remains one of these important resource-providing sites. In contrast to Appiah’s cos- mopolitanism that remains tied to a cultural space of a national home, Ree asserts a cosmopolitanism as that which moves beyond nationality and its accompanying broader political structure of internationality. For him, cosmopolitanism allows people to think of themselves beyond a reference to the nation. Similarly, Wilson allows for a cosmopolitan per- spective that is free of “particularized prejudices, fixed ties, and narrow local/national boundaries.” Even in Clifford’s reluctance to embrace cosmopolitan as a useful term, he argues that it still provides a way to think about an undercutting of ethnic absolutisms that often flow in and through nation-state, tribe, or minority.12

Other scholars perceive room for both national and global attach- ments within cosmopolitanism. Cheah locates the philosophical roots of a Western understanding of cosmopolitanism in Kant, noting that Kant’s cosmopolitanism predates the contemporary nation-state. Cheah main- tains that Kant’s cosmopolitanism actively opposed the dynastic politi- cal system rather than the national system. As such, nationalism can still exist within Kant’s cosmopolitan framework. This coexistence may not necessarily always be congenial, as popular forms of cosmopolitan con- sumption can oppose an oppressive national politics and the hegemony

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176 Andrew Baerg

of discourses surrounding the nation-state. Cheah sees these processes fostering “popular cosmopolitanisms understood as pluralized forms of popular global political consciousness comparable to the national imagining of political community.” In the same way that people once thought of themselves as part of an imagined national community, they now have the ability to imagine themselves as part of a larger and more diverse global community. Cheah is conscious about the degree to which this cosmopolitanism expresses itself experientially and institutionally in the contemporary context, but does acknowledge its possibility.13

This experience of cosmopolitanism has been theorized through the lens of a diversity of attachment. Robbins argues that cosmopolitan identity construction works via “a reality of (re)attachment, multiple attachment, or attachment at a distance.” Cosmopolitanism recognizes and affirms the potential for connections to identities associated with one’s local, national, and global communities. Given the range of attach- ments possible, a spatial proximity to others is not as important for iden- tity formation within cosmopolitanism. Clifford agrees with Robbins’s emphasis on the diversity of attachment. Within a cosmopolitan frame, he affirms that identity revolves around “displacement and relocation, the experience of sustaining and mediating complex affiliations, multiple attachments.”14

Like Robbins, Anderson also emphasizes the notion of distance, but from a different perspective. W hereas Robbins argues for these various forms of attachment at a distance in the direction of the other, Ander- son argues for a cosmopolitanism that emphasizes a “reflective distance from one’s cultural affiliations” that thereby enables an understanding of the other. She suggests that in the twentieth century, this distanc- ing occurred from nation, race, and ethnicity. For her, engaging in this kind of reflexivity may mean a distancing that results in either a lack of attachment to any specific culture or an acceptance of a variety of dif- ferent cultures or both. As such, this form of cosmopolitan distancing forges a dialectic between exclusionary cosmopolitanism, which does not link itself to any specific culture, and an inclusionary cosmopol- itanism, which accepts all kinds of cultures.15 As a consequence, the exclusionary-inclusionary cosmopolitanism allows for both a global cos-

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Exploiting Nationalism and Banal Cosmopolitanism 177

mopolitanism and a multiplicity of local cosmopolitanisms to operate simultaneously.

Beck also argues for an understanding of cosmopolitanism within the framework of the global and the national. For him the cosmopolitan is one who is involved in imagined dialogue with other cultures and rationalities such that this dialogue occurs with an internalized other. This dialogue necessitates “the negotiation of contradictory cultural ex- periences into the centre of activities: in the political, the economic, the scientific and the social.” This dialogue suggests an elision of borders with the implication that borders no longer predetermine but exist as fluid and chosen. He suggests that globalization is a process by which the global and the local are mutually implicating. Cosmopolitanism and the process of becoming more cosmopolitan, that is, cosmopolitanization, are oriented around “internal globalization, globalization from within the national societies.” As this cosmopolitanization occurs, consciousness and identity begin to take on a different shape as the global becomes im- bricated in local experience. Beck is careful to assert that cosmopolitani- zation does not automatically mean that we will all be cosmopolitans, but this process does entail that vital questions surrounding things such as ways of life and identities can no longer be confined in the national and the local. Cosmopolitanism alters our relationship to space, time, and identity.16

Beck goes on to pick up on Billig’s notion of banal nationalism, but adapts it to discuss what he terms “banal cosmopolitanism.” He defines banal cosmopolitanism as a process by “which everyday nationalism is circumvented and undermined and we experience ourselves integrated into global processes and phenomena.” Elsewhere, Beck explains the everyday nature of banal cosmopolitanism as something latent, uncon- scious, and passive. Banal cosmopolitanism sits behind the primary cultural signifiers that speak to national identity and consciousness. This banal cosmopolitanism is experienced in everything from youth culture to food to content in the mediascape. Banal cosmopolitanism is increasingly commodified as people buy and sell goods reflecting and reinforcing a cosmopolitan perspective. Beck argues that people do not necessarily conspicuously demonstrate “symbols of banal cosmopoli-

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178 Andrew Baerg

tanism, but intentionally or unintentionally they do show their colours, as it were, in a cosmopolitan way.”17 These expressions of cosmopolitan become increasingly commonplace in the context of a global media and the global circulation of goods.

Studies addressing this banal cosmopolitanism have been scant. Kuipers and de K loet’s reception study of The Lord of the Rings film repre- sents one of the few applications of Beck ’s theory.18 Their work revisited a previous large-scale cross-national survey on the movie’s fans and their response to the movie. Because of the similar ways in which diverse na- tions of audiences interpreted the film, Kuipers and de K loet concluded that this audience shared more of a global, homogenous understanding of the film. In this understanding, they find evidence of a banal cosmo- politanism, one that is, in part, constructed by the Holly wood movie industry.

This chapter represents another study on banal cosmopolitanism, but focuses on the new media text of a sports video game. It builds on the scholarship above by arguing that E A’s soccer simulation of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, F I FA WC 10, exploits the tension between positioning users to consider themselves as members of an inclusionary and exclu- sionary cosmopolitan global community. The ensuing sections apply both Beck ’s notion of banal cosmopolitanism and Anderson’s ideas on inclusionary and exclusionary cosmopolitanism to see F I FA WC 10 situ- ating users within a cosmopolitan framework. Even as it is grounded in simulating a nation-based competition, F I FA WC 10 exists as an example of banal cosmopolitanism as a global media commodity circumventing and potentially undermining the very national orientation of the event it simulates. It expresses this banal cosmopolitanism by positioning users to adopt both an inclusionary and an exclusionary cosmopolitanism. By examining various aspects of its representation and gameplay options, the chapter explains how this positioning occurs and discusses some of the potential implications of this positioning for the user.

B a n a l C o s m o p o l i t a n i s m i n F I FA WC 10

To build from the work above, the rest of the chapter provides a textual analysis of E A’s soccer simulation F I FA WC 10. F I FA WC 10 moves between

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Exploiting Nationalism and Banal Cosmopolitanism 179

positioning the player between two forms of banal cosmopolitanism, an inclusionary cosmopolitanism that enables attachment from a dis- tance through an acceptance of various kinds of national cultures and an exclusionary cosmopolitanism that does not attach itself to a specific national identity.

Inclusionary Banal Cosmopolitanism

Throughout various aspects of the F I FA WC 10 experience, users are con- stantly invited and incited to select nations with which to align them- selves. By allowing for this process to occur, the game positions users to identify with an inclusionary banal cosmopolitanism. Every opportunity to select a nation becomes another chance to demonstrate acceptance of another culture. This invitation occurs from the very first time the user places the disc in the console’s tray and loads up the game and continues every time the user plays the game thereafter. With each loading of the game, users see an opening screen where they are asked to select their preferred language of choice: English, French, or Spanish. This choice appears every time the game is played such that F I FA WC 10 encourages users to experiment with a language other than the default language assigned by region. The fact that users cannot, as in many other games, make their language choice once, never having to choose again, positions them to experiment with the different language options.

The first time users play F I FA WC 10, subscribers to Xbox Live, Mi- crosoft’s online player matching system, are connected to the service. Upon this connection, gamers are asked to select a nation. This nation will become the one they represent in a global contest for online soc- cer supremacy. However, in this step, users are not required to select their geographical location. They are free to choose whatever F I FA- recognized nation they wish. A fter this choice has been made, every action the user performs in the game from this point forward makes a contribution to that user’s selected nation’s ranking. If a user selects the Netherlands, every game the user plays generates points that go toward the Netherlands’ overall ranking on Xbox Live. W hether a user plays the game strictly as the Netherlands or with a variety of teams, each of that user’s actions contributes to the overall score of the nation that has

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180 Andrew Baerg

been initially selected. The same rules apply to individual actions as well. If a user plays online with nineteen other users around the world, that user’s points will still be allocated to the Netherlands, irrespective of whether the user’s team was the Netherlands. However, users are never tied to continuing to accrue points for their initially chosen nation. They are free to switch between nations at will by altering their game profile. A national affinity subsequently becomes an ongoing choice users can make at any point in the game experience.

The ability to be aligned with different nations continues into game- play. Gameplay is oriented around three modes: the “2010 FIFA World Cup,” “Captain Your Country,” and “The Story of Qualifying.” Each of these three modes enables the user to select an affiliation with a chosen nation and play as that nation over the duration of the mode. The “2010 FIFA World Cup” mode allows the user to start from the continentally based qualification stages, play through the qualifying games to gain entry to the World Cup, and then compete for the World Cup itself. The qualification stages range from six games in the Oceania region to eigh- teen games in South America. The second major game mode is called “Captain Your Country.” In this mode, the user creates an individual avatar, assigns that avatar to any national team, and controls only that avatar as the mode unfolds. The user is then tasked with making the se- lected nation’s first team, contributing to the team’s success through the World Cup qualifying competition, and ultimately helping the country in the World Cup itself. The goal of this mode is to do well enough to be given the captain’s armband and win the World Cup for the user’s chosen nation. Finally, “The Story of Qualifying” mode presents the player with various historically based qualification scenarios that ask the user to equal or better a given team’s performance in that match. One notorious example presents players with the opportunity to lead Ireland to victory after France tied a crucial qualifying game with help from a blatant, but uncalled, Thierry Henry handball.

No matter the mode, users are free to select any F I FA-recognized nation as their chosen squad. W hether it be Uruguay, Uzbekistan, or the United States, numerous opportunities exist for users to work through different experiences of making a national team in Captain Your Coun-

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Exploiting Nationalism and Banal Cosmopolitanism 181

try or helping a national team on their way through the World Cup qualifying process. Due to the relatively short nature of these qualify- ing campaigns, users are positioned to replay them with teams from different qualifying groups and different continents. Some users may appreciate the challenge of qualifying with a middling nation in the European group, while others may choose a comparatively easier task such as qualifying with Mexico or the United States in the North and Central American group. These different roads to the World Cup and the game’s diversity of represented nations position the user to accept various cultures in keeping with inclusionary banal cosmopolitanism.

The Xbox Live version of the game furthers this aspect of the user’s positioning within inclusionary banal cosmopolitan by linking various achievements to an identification with those who are not part of one’s home country. Achievement points are awarded for qualifying for the World Cup with a country from every continent. Achievement points are also awarded for merely playing the first stage of the World Cup online with various levels of teams. As a consequence, users receive points for playing as teams with comparatively poor ratings all the way up to play- ing as the best teams in the game. Considerably more points are awarded if a user is able to win an online World Cup with one of the world’s soc- cer minnows. To be awarded these achievement points for success with countries other than one’s own encourages a recognition, acceptance, and at least potential appreciation of other cultures.

Other elements of the game also contribute to this inclusionary ba- nal cosmopolitanism. F I FA WC 10 is rife with national symbols. W hile players wait for each segment of gameplay to begin, a splash screen ap- pears with a map highlighting a given country, accompanied by a fact about that country. The countries featured on this screen will usually be those unaffiliated with the player’s immediate competition, both in terms of the next match and within qualifying itself. The map provides a visual symbol of that nation as a kind of geography lesson for those potentially unfamiliar with the locations of Algeria or New Caledonia. It also provides factual information about the country with respect to its capital city, population, or World Cup history. To move into the core gameplay of the respective 2010 FIFA World Cup, Captain Your Country,

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182 Andrew Baerg

and Story of Qualifying modes is to see a continuation of the pervasive presence of various symbols of the selected playing nations. These sym- bols include flags, national colors displayed in the crowds at the stadi- ums, nation-specific chants from these crowds in the language of that nation, national uniforms, and national anthems presented ahead of each match. Much like the maps appearing on the splash screen preceding each match, these visual and aural markers of nationality position users to recognize and appreciate the diversity of global soccer cultures and their accompanying national fan cultures.

In the same way that the game positions users to adopt an inclusion- ary banal cosmopolitanism through its consistent allowance of nation selection, so too is this form of cosmopolitanism affirmed by the game’s soundtrack. The game’s soundtrack represents an eclectic mix of styles and nations of origin. The artists hail from a diversity of places, including Senegal, Portugal, England, Netherlands, Canada, South Africa, Chile, and India, among others. It would seem that few users would recognize a majority of these artists or the songs on the soundtrack. However, repeated play in the game’s menus has the potential to move them to investigate these artists further and begin to appreciate a different cul- ture’s musical genre.

Inclusionary banal cosmopolitanism is fostered by an ongoing rec- ognition of alternative national possibilities and cultural symbols. By encouraging users to align with a variety of different cultures and their national teams, F I FA WC 10 positions them to develop multiple attach- ments and belongings (and belongings at a distance) characteristic of an inclusionary cosmopolitanism.

Exclusionary Banal Cosmopolitanism

W hile F I FA WC 10 positions users to adopt an inclusionary banal cosmo- politanism, it simultaneously positions them to adopt an exclusionary banal cosmopolitanism as well. W here inclusionary banal cosmopoli- tanism welcomes different perspectives and ideas, exclusionary banal cosmopolitanism denies the potential for connections to specific na- tional cultures and forms of attachments. In F I FA WC 10 exclusionary ba-

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Exploiting Nationalism and Banal Cosmopolitanism 183

nal cosmopolitanism operates primarily through its hypergeneric forms of representation and through its quantification of player performance and skill.

First, exclusionary cosmopolitanism occurs in the amount of generic content in F I FA WC 10. The generic nature of the experience is expressed in the game’s media reports, player animations, and team playing styles. W hether a user chooses to play the regular qualifying or World Cup tournament or Captain Your Country modes, the game provides brief news reports assessing the user’s team’s performance. Typically, these stories will informally gauge an expected outcome versus how the user’s match actually unfolded. As an example, if a user had chosen a soccer power such as Spain and her Spanish squad had only narrowly defeated the tiny nation of Luxembourg, the news story would talk about how the team had performed poorly in spite of the victory. Similar headlines and stories would appear for upsets when a user’s team had exceeded expectations and for draws or wins when expectations had been met.

Although these respective stories do speak to the details of match outcomes, they do so in a generic manner. For a user to try to take Bu- rundi, the Bahamas, or Brazil to the World Cup is to see the same types of news stories appear each time the game is played. These stories fail to provide any political or cultural context that differentiates one nation’s experience from another. The generic nature of these stories becomes that much more important in light of the way that the sports media have played such a vital role in perpetuating discourses of national identity for self and other.19

Player animations also appear highly generic. During on-field game- play sequences, each team in the game is allocated a generalized assort- ment of dribbling, shooting, passing, and tackling options. Some of the more talented players on the better teams will have a wider variety of trick moves and more of an ability to successfully shoot, pass, and tackle than less talented players. However, the available actions remain rela- tively similar irrespective of the team chosen. Every one of the game’s players dribbles, kicks, and passes the ball the same way. Additionally, each time the user takes control of a given player, a generic bar at the bot- tom of the screen indicates the name of that player, the player’s stamina,

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184 Andrew Baerg

and his national affiliation. These labels do not exist as stylized in a par- ticular, country-specific font but are the same across each nation in the game.

The generic nature of the animations carries over into the generic playing styles of the respective national teams. Although it is entirely possible for users to edit each team’s tactics individually (an arduous, te- dious task), on the game’s default settings every team plays with the same style. Different teams will play with different formations depending on their personnel, but without exception every national team employs a quick, pressing, short-passing style that, in reality, is used by only the most skilled and physically capable teams in the world. With Vanuatu playing the same way as Russia, Chad, and Venezuela, F I FA WC 10 de- faults to a supranational playing style that departs from any concrete link to specific national styles such as Brazil’s “samba football” or Holland’s “total football” or Spain’s “tiki-taka” style. To watch a F I FA WC 10 match without knowing who was playing would be to see a very standardized and, due to the nature of the event being simulated, globally similar style of soccer.

To look at the generic media reports, generic animations, and ge- neric team playing styles is to see a simulation that denies any concrete links to specific national cultures. The game assumes this generic layer of representation can be laid over top of what have traditionally been more culturally specific expressions. These representations subsequently become emblematic of banal exclusionary cosmopolitanism.

These forms of generic representation are not the only way in which the game positions its users within a banal exclusionary cosmopolitan- ism. F I FA WC 10 also positions its users within this frame through its player performance and attribute rating systems. Both systems effec- tively impose a global, quantitatively oriented surveillance upon the population of the game’s soccer players. Each and every player in the game from all of F I FA’s 199 real-world teams is subjected to both an individual rating for each match the player plays and a broader skill and ability rating representing an aggregate of the player’s physical, techni- cal, and mental prowess.

At the match level, players are constantly assessed during the game on a 1-to-10 scale, with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best. Points

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Exploiting Nationalism and Banal Cosmopolitanism 185

are awarded and deducted based on a given player’s performance in the match. Successful passes, tackles, and shots will yield a higher match per- formance score, while fouls, cards, and missed passes will yield deduc- tions. The match rating system does not discriminate in its application to the global category of the soccer player. Every single match a user plays, no matter which team the user controls or which opponent has been se- lected, invokes the match rating system. No distinctive, nation-specific systems of rating can be invoked by the user. Strikers from Burkina Faso are measured by the same system as defenders from Costa R ica. As such, a link to a culturally specific means of assessing individual player perfor- mance is implicitly denied in the face of what is presented as a universal means of tracking what players have and have not done.

In delegating player attributes, every player is assigned a number in a variety of skill categories from a low of 1 to a high of 100. Among the thirty-three ranked attributes are acceleration, dribbling, free-kick accuracy, positioning, shot power, and tactical awareness. As with the match rating system, this player attribute rating system exists as a global assessment grid laid over players from each nation. A variety of culturally specific forms of assessing player skill is nonexistent, as the far-reaching attribute rating system touches each player represented in the game the same way. Because the attribute rating system is applied to every player the same way, it subsequently positions users to perceive it as a suprana- tional form of player measurement as opposed to the arguably Western form of assessment it represents.20

W hether it be the highly generic nature of its media reports, player animations, and team playing styles or the all-encompassing grid of quantitative rationality imposed on virtual soccer players via the match and player attribute rating systems, F I FA WC 10 positions users within the parameters of an exclusionary banal cosmopolitanism that denies overt connections to nation-specific practices.

I m p l i c a t i o n s

F I FA WC 10 positions its users to simultaneously adopt both an inclusion- ary banal cosmopolitanism, representing an acceptance of a diversity of cultures, and an exclusionary banal cosmopolitanism, which de-empha-

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186 Andrew Baerg

sizes attachment to particular national cultures. W hat follows from the presence of these two forms of banal cosmopolitanism?

In terms of inclusionary banal cosmopolitanism, the persistent incitement to nation choosing combined with the game’s eclectic soundtrack illustrate that identities are not linked to geography. Clearly, the game’s designers could have created a default in which gamers would play with the nation where their console is registered. It could even have confined the number of playable teams to only those who had qualified for the 2010 World Cup instead of representing every one of the 199 teams involved in F I FA . But the game does not do this, and as a result users may develop an attachment to nations having little to do with their place of origin as a result of playing the game. If a gamer lives in the United States but would like to play as Wales in online play, she can do so. This Ameri- can may be motivated to learn more about the Welsh as a consequence of trying to qualify for the World Cup with a nation she may know little about. As such, the game allows for a potential connection to others across distance even if this connection is only imagined.

At the same time, the game’s affordance of national choice implic- itly recognizes the possibility that some of its users may already possess diverse forms of attachment. F I FA WC 10’s design affirms that those who play the game may have attachments to potential places of origin or an- cestral places of origin. If a user lives in France but has ties to the Ivory Coast, he can choose to compete on behalf of the African side known as “Les Elephants.” If a user lives in Brazil but maintains a connection to Portugal, controlling the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo becomes a real possibility. F I FA WC 10 freely enables a transnational deterritorialization to occur with this choice. Again, this expression of inclusionary banal cosmopolitanism enables imagined community with others outside of one’s own immediate geographic space.

With respect to exclusionary banal cosmopolitanism, the highly generic nature of F I FA WC 10’s media reports, player animations, and attribute rating system has consequences for the user’s perception of soccer. Although the media reports add some depth to the experience of qualifying and to the tournament itself, reading the same bland stories applied to the same situations renders their inclusion relatively mean-

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Exploiting Nationalism and Banal Cosmopolitanism 187

ingless. As stated above, the mediation of national soccer matches has played an important role in the formation of national identities over the past century. These generic media reports position users outside of the uniquely colorful representations of the game that have been produced in the past.

Additionally, the quantitative systems of player assessment, at the levels of both match and ability, present themselves as a global standard of measure in F I FA WC 10. However, even as the game represents these numbers as a universally applicable system and thereby positions users to perceive them as universal, these ratings systems and their thoroughly statistical orientation normalize a very Western epistemology. Over the past several centuries, numbers have played an important role in the West’s economic and political development.21 Given the Western form of vision afforded by numbers in a game such as F I FA WC 10, it appears that banal exclusionary cosmopolitanism has the potential to obfuscate the more culturally specific nature of certain epistemologies and represent them as something global.

W hether it be inclusionary or exclusionary banal cosmopolitanism, this discussion must acknowledge that forms of cosmopolitanism may foster resistance. Certainly, those who play F I FA WC 10 may participate in a restricted tribalism in which they do nothing but play the game as their birth nation. They may devote all of their efforts to doing everything they can to see their nation at the top of the overall global rankings. They may play through the qualifying tournament and the Captain Your Country modes several times with their birth nation. However, in doing so, they miss out on the wider range of ways to play the game and some of the rewards provided to those who step outside of this narrower form of play. Users may also recognize some of the more generic aspects of the game’s mediation and wonder why these elements of the experience appear so bland. In doing so, users may work against F I FA WC 10’s inclusionary or exclusionary banal cosmopolitanism.

Given the potential resistance to the game’s positioning, this chapter subsequently encourages a direct study of users who play sports video games involving national competition. W here many international sport- ing competitions are still mediated through a national mass communi-

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188 Andrew Baerg

cation lens, the sports video game serves as a site where this national lens is potentially replaced by an alternative. How users respond to this difference and how it shapes their perception of their own national and potentially extranational identities represent topics for further study.

C o n c l u s i o n

This chapter has examined cosmopolitan theory and applied this theory to E A’s soccer simulation F I FA WC 10. It has explained how the game positions users within the framework of inclusionary and exclusionary banal cosmopolitanism. With its encouragement of aligning the user with a variety of different cultures and their national teams, F I FA WC 10 positions users to develop multiple attachments and belongings charac- teristic of inclusionary cosmopolitanism. With its generic media repre- sentations, animation, playing styles, and forms of player assessment, the game positions users to perceive soccer as supranational and above specific attachments to culture and nation.

The types of banal cosmopolitanism discussed here may not neces- sarily be confined to games like F I FA WC 10 but might be extrapolated to many different contemporary game genres that enable the possibil- ity of multiple attachments and attachment at a distance. The chapter raises questions about the tensions existing between inclusionary and exclusionary forms of cosmopolitanism and their interaction within new media. W hether the sports video game, or the video game more broadly, allows for the expression of cosmopolitanism is ultimately open to question.

N o t e s

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