Adding to the growing literature around intersectional perspectives in games studies, this interdisciplinary text goes beyond exploring representations and depictions of marginalized bodies in games; rather, this text explores the boundaries, borders, and margins of gaming and gaming culture to explicate the interconnectedness of games to larger societal injustices. While this collection documents the role of gaming as an incubator and teacher of inequity and oppression, it is more concerned about the spaces and potential for opposition. The growing diversity in contemporary video games, diverseness of gamers, and diverse perspectives hidden within gaming culture, reveal the power and potential for marginalized communities to resist, and otherwise challenge dehumanizing representations inside and outside of virtual reality. Through these works, we see the ample potential and possibility of gaming culture.
From #GamerGate to the 2016 election, to the daily experiences of marginalized perspectives, the ways gaming is entangled with mainstream cultures of systematic exploitation and oppression is clear. Video games perpetuate injustice and mirrors those inequities and violence that permeate society. Whether visible in the persistent color line that shapes the production, dissemination, and legitimization of dominant stereotypes within the industry itself, or in the dehumanizing representations commonplace within virtual spaces, video games encode the injustices that pervade society as a whole. This accessible text is appropriate for a variety of readers and audiences including the traditional academic classroom, blogs and podcasts, and other everyday spaces concerned with the trend to “make games great again.” |