Queer Game Studies

by Bonnie Ruberg (Editor), Adrienne Shaw (Editor)

Video games have developed into a rich, growing field at many top universities, but they have rarely been considered from a queer perspective. Immersion in new worlds, video games seem to offer the perfect opportunity to explore the alterity that queer culture longs for, but often sexism and discrimination in gamer culture steal the spotlight. Queer Game Studies provides a welcome corrective, revealing the capacious albeit underappreciated communities that are making, playing, and studying queer games. These in-depth, diverse, and accessible essays use queerness to challenge the ideas that have dominated gaming discussions. Demonstrating the centrality of LGBTQ issues to the gamer world, they establish an alternative lens for examining this increasingly important culture. Queer Game Studies covers important subjects such as the representation of queer bodies, the casual misogyny prevalent in video games, the need for greater diversity in gamer culture, and reading popular games like Bayonetta , Mass Effect , and Metal Gear Solid from a queer perspective.  Perfect for both everyday readers and instructors looking to add diversity to their courses, Queer Game Studies is the ideal introduction to the vast and vibrant realm of queer gaming.  Leigh Alexander; Gregory L. Bagnall, U of Rhode Island; Hanna Brady; Mattie Brice; Derek Burrill, U of California, Riverside; Edmond Y. Chang, U of Oregon; Naomi M. Clark; Katherine Cross, CUNY; Kim d’Amazing, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology; Aubrey Gabel, U of California, Berkeley; Christopher Goetz, U of Iowa; Jack Halberstam, U of Southern California; Todd Harper, U of Baltimore; Larissa Hjorth, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology; Chelsea Howe; Jesper Juul, Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts; merritt kopas; Colleen Macklin, Parsons School of Design; Amanda Phillips, Georgetown U; Gabriela T. Richard, Pennsylvania State U; Toni Rocca; Sarah Schoemann, Georgia Institute of Technology; Kathryn Bond Stockton, U of Utah; Zoya Street, U of Lancaster; Peter Wonica; Robert Yang, Parsons School of Design; Jordan Youngblood, Eastern Connecticut State U.

Genres: Nonfiction, Video Games, LGBT, Queer, Games, School, Queer Studies

336 pages, Hardcover

Published March 28, 2017

Reviews

[auré]

"The trouble with communities is that too often we speak as though the goal is to create one great community rather than providing space for multiple communities to coexist. [...] Having multiple game cultures does not inherently displace others. Individuals can live in, be in, and thrive in multiple communities simultaneously."

Discourse on the intersection between the role of failure in games and games' innate queerness was particularly interesting. Also applying theory to real-life examples helped illustrate the concepts more clearly.

"My hope is that the training they received in modifying the rules of game systems might empower them to modify the rules of real-life systems."

Would love to read more on the subject from a more recent source.

[Oliver Terrones · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sobre lo cuir en los videojuegos. Qué hace a un videojuego cuir, quiénes juegan, por qué juegan. Las preguntas de varixs investigadorxs sobre la intersección entre lo cuir y los videojuegos. Buena la bibliografía y también muchas de las preguntas que se hacen lxs autorxs.

[Matt Sautman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although one reviewer describes this as a mixed bag, I came close to rating this book much lower as the entire first section and about a fourth of the second section in this reader come off as fairly general to a scholarly reader already familiar with queer theory. I feared that as an academic book, the scholarship present here was going to disappoint me. Thankfully works like “Creating a Queer Mythology” and Halberstam’s “Queergaming” ensure that original scholarly ideas regarding the intersection of queer theory and game studies can be located from this book. If those topics interest a person, Queer Game Theory is definitely worth a read, but if a reader has a similar background in queer theory like I do as an amateur scholar, save yourself the time and skip the first section. The first section is perhaps worthwhile though for those who approach this text without any foreknowledge of queer theory at all.

[Jordi de Paco · Rating 4 out of 5]

As in any collection of essays, the quality and interest of each article in the book are variable, but overall it's been a super interesting reading. Many points of views expressed not only around LGTB+ representation in games and its communities, but also nonnormative game design and new approaches to game development and game playing/reading. A very insightful and enriching read.

[Léane]

le truc est totalement indigeste aled

[Nicolas Lontel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Une anthologie de courts textes (et quelques entrevues/table ronde) sur les liens entre jeux et théories/lectures queer. Je dois avouer que la première partie m'a laissé de marbre, je n'avais pas l'impression de rien apprendre (ou d'avoir déjà lu tout ça dans les livres d'Anthropy Rise of the Videogame Zinesters: How Freaks, Normals, Amateurs, Artists, Dreamers, Drop-outs, Queers, Housewives, and People Like You Are Taking Back an Art Form ou encore le Video Games Have Always Been Queer de Bonnie Ruberg (sans compter les références constantes à The Queer Art of Failure tout au long de l'essai). Bref, on a l'impression de composer avec un minuscule corpus de textes théoriques ou d'objets d'étude.

Cependant, à partir de la deuxième partie, une panoplie d'analyses uniques, originales, intéressantes émergent et rendent la lecture enfin instructive et intéressante. Des analyses en apparence contre-intuitive de Bayonetta à un super essai de J. Jack Halberstam sur le "going turbo" et l'échec mélangeant jeux vidéo, films et jeux vidéo dans les films en passant par des analyses de Metal Gear Solid, de groupes de joueuses et l'essentialisation du genre et évidemment, de manière très large le harcèlement, l'homophobie et le sexisme dans le monde du jeux vidéo.

Malgré un accrochage au début (bien que certains concepts théoriques sont très bien vulgarisés), cette anthologie a un excellente potentiel de livre du genre Queer Game Studies 101 (son titre est clairement bien déterminant dans ce positionnement) et couvre pas seulement les jeux vidéo, mais aussi les jeux de table et jeux d'imagination ce qui permet de sortir un peu de discours hégémoniques sur le vidéo-ludisme.

[Ondřej Trhoň · Rating 5 out of 5]

úplně skvělý, kritici, autoři a hlavně akademici, spoustu super odlišných perspektiv, jen pár slabších interview s queer festivaly a tak, ale jinak doporučuju velmi všem, co je téma zajímá. Perfketní jako úvod i pro pokročilé.

[Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book changed my life