La Famiglia: The Mafia and Videogames

Mafia games have been booming for decades now. Between the release of U.S. Gold’s The Godfather (1991) and games of the Grand Theft Auto series (1997–present), organised crime is a popular trope for game makers and players alike (Dainotto, 2015). We are drawn to these surrogate in-game families, which invite us to become part of them through their alluring system of favours and a strong sense of hierarchy, which offers you the world if you play by the rules but haunts you if you break them.

In her talk, Dr Regina Seiwald explores the relationship between the mafia and videogames from different perspectives. At the core of her research is the idea of the mafia’s organisation resembling familial structures, with a don leading as a patriarch and members taking on various roles. These family ties are underpinned by a strong sense of honour and loyalty. At the same time, this closed-off unit creates very specific relationships to external influences, such as the historical development of individual mafia strands, stereotyping the mafia gangster, socio-economic disparity in the past and present as well as racism and marginalisation (Lupetti, 2023).

The talk begins with a journey through time: The image of the Italian mafioso, which is arguably the most frequent strand of mafia we encounter in videogames in particular and popular media more broadly, is traced from a historical perspective. It will be argued that especially for American game makers, this representation can be linked to ideas of the American Dream. This image of the Italian mobster is subsequently mapped onto ludological and narratological representations in and characteristics of the mafia game genre, and its distinguished features are explored in various exemplary games, such as US Gold’s The Godfather (1991), EA’s The Godfather (2006), Mafia (2002), Mafia: Definitive Edition (2020), and Omerta: City of Gangsters (2013).

To counterbalance this focus on the Italian mafia, other strands of the mafia that often feature in videogames will also be addressed: the Japanese Yakuza, the Mexican La Eme, and the Russian Bratva. While they are all organised in familial structures akin to the ones that can be found in the Italian mafia, they attach different forms of honour codes to their hierarchical organisation. Furthermore, the kinds of crimes they are involved in and the status they have within the societies in which they operate are markedly different. This is also carried into the individual games centring on these branches of the mafia, and ludological and narratological peculiarities will be explored by looking at Yakuza: Like a Dragon (2005), games of the Grand Theft Auto (1997–present) series, Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel (2013), Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands (2017), Hitman 2: Silent Assassin (2002), Hotline Miami (2012) and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (2015).

Besides these – often glorious – in-game images of the gangster, who may justify their evil actions by emphasising the marginalisation they and generations before them experienced at the hands of authority, the real-life mafia is also intrinsically linked to games and gaming. Taking Grand Theft Auto Online as a case study, this talk concludes by stepping out of gameworlds and into reality by analysing how mafia gangs use online games to recruit drug mules for their criminal endeavours.