I am very pleased to share that my latest academic publication has finally hit the digital shelves. The International Journal of Communication has published my article that investigates the way gamers talk about the presence of so-called “politics” in videogames.
The abstract:
Through a close analysis of online video game commentary, this article argues that the flashpoint conflict identified as GamerGate levered open a space in mainstream online spaces for highly partisan interpretation of video games. In online spaces such as Reddit and YouTube, semianonymous players and semiprofessional commentators perform lengthy analyses of game content and interpretations of developers’ purported political agendas to identify the embedded meanings that they allege are implanted into video games. These game critics feel that these typically left-leaning, “woke” political perspectives are forced into games as part of an organized campaign driven, in part, by the desire to estrange the “traditional” gamer demographic and to attract investment from capital investment firms.
As I’ve said elsewhere, I do wish I had been in a position to have written this kind of article earlier. Ten years after #GamerGate feels like an absurdly long time to contribute this sort of research, but then the discourse about “politics in games” still seems equally absurd.
Absurd, but important.
Open Access to the Full Article here: International Journal of Communication: Vol 19.