Abstrakt
The video game industry is known for its secretive nature, which limits the amount of public disclosure about video game production. In this context, in which even developer postmortems are believed to systematically omit key information, comedy series Mythic Quest: Raven's Banquet promises to deliver an authentic, albeit fictionalized representation of the industry.
Based on a qualitative analysis, I show that although this TV show, which was co-produced by the video game publisher Ubisoft, satirically addresses various problematic aspects of the video game industry, including workplace hierarchies, diversity, labor conditions, and toxic player communities, it ultimately normalizes the current status quo. As such, it can be understood in terms of the shadow academy-the analytical concept describing the industry practice of mimicking critical discourses, but instead of exposing production cultures, it inoculates them from being challenged in practice and reinforces the existing processes and structures.