Hamidreza Ghaneei

Hamidreza Ghaneei is a Cultural Studies PhD student at Queen's University. He comes from a small town in the west of Iran called Borujerd. He has a Bachelor's degree in Cultural Affairs Management and a Master's in English Language and Literature. His MA project, completed at the University of Tehran, explores the connection between artificial consciousness and personality development in a video game (Detroit: Become Human) and a novel (Klara and the Sun). Hamidreza's research interests span a variety of topics, including media studies, game studies, popular culture, semiotics, and science fiction. He has worked as a managing director, journalist, and PR manager in the media and entertainment industry for over ten years.  

Combining professional experience and academic engagement in the field, coupled with a personal passion for video games, motivated him to select two video games as case studies for his PhD thesis. In this project, he will trace the evolution of video games as cultural artifacts by examining NieR Replicant and NieR: Automata, two video games focused on themes of dystopian futures, artificial intelligence, and reiterative existence. He takes a holistic approach that analyzes different components of each game, such as music, gameplay, and narrative, to describe how these components work together to support the creation of sophisticated interactive digital narratives.