Close your eyes and let your mind wander for a moment. Now what do you see when you envision the idea of a ‘Gamer’? If your description consists along the lines of the male gender isolated in an unkempt corner of the room, then you are not the only one.

Amanda C. Cote and Cody Mejeur explains in their article that “Over the course of video game studies’ history, numerous researchers have pointed out how games have been constructed as a masculine space (pg2).” There is a preconceived notion that typifies the use of technology without much connection to femininity, resulting in a long build up of gender-bias in the gaming industry.

Despite the growing attempts to rectify this misconception, new disputes arise and the situation creates more complications. The Guild, for example, began as a budget-tight television series designed by actress Felicia Day. She aimed to convey her experiences as a female gamer as well as a sense of realism in respect to the daily life of a gamer.

Combined with humor and drama, The Guild presents itself as a successful and popular production showcasing the ‘world of gaming’. While there appears to be both gender and race diversity, it is also these same elements of the show that Cote and Mejeur believes consequently instigates stereotypes. They express a point in which “gamer identity manifests as cruel optimism, presenting itself as a ideal everyone relates to…promising a consistent subculture and a sense of belonging, but ultimately trapping them in narrow roles and identity constructs (pg2).”

This belief is introduced in the very first episode where various ‘types’ of gamers are implicitly defined. The first being Felicia herself, who plays the role of an individual receiving therapy for her immense addiction to gaming and unwilling connection to the ‘outside world’. Then there is April (who presents a crude and youthful vibe), Simon (who casually makes sexual jokes towards his female guild members), Clara (who puts The Game before the well being of her children), Herman (who performs as a dull accountant), and Sujan (who stalks Felicia with his technical skills).

What then becomes a common theme, Cote and Mejeur continues, is that “each character demonstrates an inability to navigate ‘real life’, and a reliance on games as an escape mechanism that allows them to avoid dealing with their problems… (pg 9).” The attempts to redress the perception of a male-dominated gaming culture has now unintentionally provided a basis in which gamers are conceived as hermits of their own. The forgotten interpretation that there are others who socialize and work steady jobs are forgotten and simply lumped with the rest of the addicted circle.

Moreover, The Guild can be said to have inadvertently dismissed a representation of LGBTQ in the society of gamers. We repeatedly identify the constructs of ‘male’ and ‘female’ but what about queer representation? Noticeably every character of the show is represented in the Game as their biological gender, an act in which implicates a form of ‘normality’ society deems to be.

Works Cited:
Amanda C. Cote & Cody Mejeur (2017): Gamers, gender, and cruel
optimism: the limits of social identity constructs in The Guild, Feminist Media Studies, DOI:
10.1080/14680777.2017.1376699