For the final week of lecture, we decided to talk a little about competitive gaming or esports (electronic sports) as a way to close off the semester. Although I did follow some competitive gaming competitions in the past, it was interesting to learn how big the industry has gotten over the years. According to Nicholas Thiel Taylor, “watching other people play competitive videogames is driving an industry worth between one half to one billion dollars” (Taylor). Most of the revenue from esports are generated through advertisements, sponsorships, and ticket sales. This shocked me because I never really thought there was going to be this much appeal for gaming. However, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense why esports become so popular. One of the main points that was touched upon during the lecture was the similarities between esports and regular sports.

One aspect that’s extremely similar are how teams are set up. Both esports and regular sports have professional teams that compete with each other for a prize. All the players on each team are all highly skilled and have significant knowledge of the game. This allows these players to pull off some of the craziest strategies or plays. Unlike regular sports, esports teams usually live in a team house (Taylor). This team house is where “sponsored teams sleep, eat, cohabitate and train for up to 10 hours a day” (Taylor). In my personal opinion, I find it absolutely crazy that esports players basically merge their personal and professional lives together like this. Both esports and regular sports teams also have their own dedicated fans which can start rivalries and bring people together.

In addition to how the teams are set up, both sports and esports are presented, to an extent, in the same fashion. When watching either sports or esports, there usually is a commentator explaining what is happening to an audience. These commentators usually have good knowledge of the game and even significant knowledge of the players. When we watched the League of Legends European Masters match, the commentators seemed to know the histories of each of the players and what champions they’re experienced with. These commentators also use a lot of game jargon just like in regular sports which also use their own game jargon. For a newcomer, I can definitely see how it would be difficult to follow or start watching either esports or sports. Like regular sports, esports matches online only show the audience where the action is. For example, in League of Legends, this usually comes in the form of when there’s a fight. For regular sports like football, it’s when a player has the ball.

Although it really surprised me how big the esports industry got, the more I thought about it the more it made sense. Esports follows the exact basic formula of regular sports in terms of audience retention and revenue generation. Although sports are ever so popular, I can definitely see esports catching up in popularity in the far future. Despite the differences, both sports and esports are important parts of our culture and serve as a way to bring everyone closer together.

Citations:

Taylor, N. T. (2016). Now you’re playing with audience power: The work of watching games. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 33(4), 293-307. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2016.1215481

League of Legends is a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed by Riot Games for the PC. The game is a competitive team game where players are split into two teams. The object of the game is to destroy the enemy team’s nexus using the various abilities each champion (playable characters) have. I actually loved League of Legends and began playing it at the beginning of middle school. Unfortunately, I decided to quit after seeing how toxic the community had become. Unfortunately, League is only one example of a game with a toxic community of players. The question is why are people toxic in video games and is there anything we can do?

What is toxicity? Is it when people troll, act like jerks, or spew profanity? According to the article “How League of Legends could make the internet a better place,” Andrew Webster states that it’s all of this and more. However, Webster argues that these toxic players only account for a small percentage of overall players in a game community. Jeffrey Lin, a Riot developer, states that “More than 90 percent of the vitriol comes from normal players who occasionally act out while playing.” The problem Lin says he’s trying to solve is “how do you get them, when they have a bad day, to not rage in the middle of the game.” In my personal opinion, the simple answer is you can’t. Many people, myself included, enjoy settling down and playing video games after a long day. The reality of the situation is that people play videogames as an escape from reality or a stress reliever. In a way, videogames create a virtual world that allows the player to be in control. When players begin losing in a game they become frustrated as they lose the feeling of control. As I’ve discussed in my second blog, “trolling breeds trolling” (Cook 3331). This means once a toxic player goes off on another player, there is a possibility this negatively is passed onto that player turning them “toxic” as well.

Despite all of this, Lin and Riot have still tried many things to combat toxicity in League of Legends. For example, Riot games have developed a machine algorithm that can “find racist, homophobic, and otherwise abusive language in the in-game chat” to find toxic behavior and send these players a warning. I was surprised to hear that this actually prevented toxic behavior about 50 percent of the time as I always thought a warning would be useless. In addition to this, League has also developed an honor system where players can choose an award to give to someone in the game. These awards range from “they’re a good teammate” to “friendly.” Lin says that “reputation means a lot” and this honor system gives players an incentive to be nice to strangers. From my own personal experience, the honor system isn’t all that great. Most of the time when I’m playing League, I usually play with a friend. After a game, we usually honor each other instead of other players. I’ll admit, people like me aren’t making the game better by doing things like that but the point is the honor system doesn’t work as well as it ideally should.

Although Riot games have really tried to make an effort to stop toxicity in League of Legends, toxicity will also be part of gaming culture. Just like in real life, bad and mean people exist and they aren’t going away anytime soon. The best thing that we all can do is stay positive, not let toxic people ruin our enjoyment, and keep doing what we all enjoy- playing video games.

Work Cited:

Cook, C., Schaafsma, J., & Antheunis, M. (2017). Under the bridge: An in-depth examination of online trolling in the gaming context. New Media & Society, 20(9), 3323-3340. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817748578

Webster, A. (2015, March 6). How league of legends could make the internet a better place. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2015/3/6/8161955/league-of-legends-online-happy-place

What makes a game a game? For some games it’s a specific mechanic such as reversing time. For other’s it’s the community within the game. Almost every modern game series nowadays has their very own community. These communities offer up a play where people playing a specific game can begin discussions, connect with each other, and (at times) produce content. The community produced content comes in the form of fan art, gameplay modifications (mods), lore, and much much more. Based on my gaming experience and opinion, no other game has more user generated content than the simple block building game Minecraft.

User generated content is often defined as “In-game material and resources created by players rather than developers” (Newman 277). This content usually comes in the form of mods (modifications) to a specific game. One example of a mod that eventually became its own game was a World of Warcraft III mod that eventually became the popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game Defense of the Ancients (DOTA). Modding is also seen extensively in the popular block survival game Minecraft. Examples of such mods include the Portal Gun Mod by IChun which brings portal guns into Minecraft. Another example is Thaumcraft which brings magic into the game. The list of mods in Minecraft is extensive and there even exists modpacks that bundle mods into an easy to download file and can radically change gameplay. However, modding isn’t what makes Minecraft unique. What makes Minecraft unique is it allows players to become the content generator.

James Newman in his passage “Minecraft: User-Generated Content” states that “to play Minecraft is to become a content generator” (Newman 278). As a long time Minecraft player, I agree to his statement. Being a sandbox game, Minecraft gives players the ability to create whatever they want in the game as well as make up whatever narrative they want. Ever since the game’s release, Minecrafters (Minecraft players) have created some amazing builds that range from a simple townhouse to a replica of King’s Landing. I myself have spent years building up a Minecraft world with my friends on our free time. Although there was no specific purpose of story to the created world, over time we created our own narratives and game lore. At the beginning of our project, we each took a specific area of the world and made plans to create our own kingdoms. For one of my friends, he decided to make a grand castle with a huge airship. For me, I created an elvish city in the middle of an enchanted forest. Not only were each of our build’s unique, they all had their very own narrative to them. In this way, Minecraft essentially became “a platform for storytelling and game-making” (Newman 278).

User generated content is an important aspect to any game. As we’ve seen from sandbox games such as Minecraft, user generated content can become the game. Allowing players to build their own game and express themselves creatively isn’t a unique idea. However, no one game shows the importance of this simple idea than Minecraft itself.

Work Cited:
Huntemann, N. (2019). How to play video games. NYU Press.

Last week in class there was a discussion on social justice representation in video games. One of the topics that we discussed were about queer and indie games. We played a little bit of the popular indie game Journey produced by thatgamecompany and analyzed a few aspects to the game. One thing that was brought up during all of our discussions was one about how queer games weren’t fun. That got me thinking- do games need to be fun?

When you think of a fun game, what game or type of game comes to mind? The answer to this question varies from person to person because “fun” is a subjective term. According to the paper “Game Studies for Great Justice” by Amanda Phillips, “un-fun” or bad games include those that “annoy, anger, disappoint, and hurt” (Phillips 4) These games can be further categorized as “easy games, boring games, ugly games, amateurish games, glitchy games, experimental games, and unfinished games” (Phillips 4). This is the total opposite of big budget AAA games that are often well crafted, has interesting narrative, and is aesthetically pleasing. However, Phillip does argue that these “un-fun” games still offer something extremely important: art and creativity. A lot of mainstream AAA games are usually limited in creativity and has only one purpose: to make money. One example I can think of was the increasing popularity of multiplayer online battleground games when I was in middle school. At the time, there were many titles to choose from such as league of legends, DOTA 2, Heroes of the Storm, etc. To me all of them were basically the same game with different paint jobs. It was pretty obvious these game companies were trying to capitalize on the MOBA genre popularity. If you really think about it, this situation isn’t unique. A lot of games that are our there are usually very similar to each other with the only difference being their aesthetics and narratives.

When examining Journey, it may seem like a boring exploration game. However, it’s narrative gives something (at least I think) more valuable: an experience. At the beginning of making my Twine game for my creative project, I feared that it was going to be boring. I was stressing out on what can be done to make the game more fun. I planned on adding mini games to each stat up choice. However, I quickly realized I couldn’t go it by the due date due to Twine’s limitations as well as my own limitations when it comes to programming. After stressing about it for a few weeks, I was a little relieved after this class. Our discussion really did help me realize that it was okay for my game to be boring. To be totally honest, the boring aspect to it really fits into the overall narrative of my game.

At the end of the day we should realize that games don’t need to be fun. Games can be used as an art form to convey a narrative, an experience, an emotion, or a message. In a way, that’s more valuable than fun.

Work Cited:

Phillips, A. (2018). Game studies for great justice. The Routledge Companion to Media Studies and Digital Humanities, 117-127. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315730479-12

When people say videogame platform, what pops into your mind? For many people they might picture a specific console, for others it might be a personal computer. Indeed, for many years, the videogame industry was dominated by console gaming. Most triple A rated game are only available on a console or on your PC. However, mobile gaming is increasingly becoming more popular over the years as accessibility and technology has improved. Heck, I love mobile games I think they’re great. Mobile games are easy to play and can be played everywhere. Despite the rise in popularity, mobile gaming still has not been able to rid itself of the label of “casual.” So what exactly is casual gaming and why are mobile games label as casual?

Angry Birds, Cut The Rope, and Candy Crush Saga. All three of these titles are mobile games but are mobile games just games you play on a phone? According to Gregory Steirer and Jeremy Barnes in their passage “Angry Birds: Mobile Gaming,” they “identify the four components of mobile gaming: gameplay accessibility, software accessibility, everyday ubiquity, and variable monetization” (Huntemann 217). Looking at the three games I mentioned earlier, they all have those traits. Gameplay accessibility can be defined as the skill/experience needed to play the game. All three games have simple controls and can be played by new and veteran game players. Since mobile games can be found on the app or google play stores, the second component (software accessibility) can be checked off the list. In terms of everyday ubiquity mobile games can be played everywhere. I mean let’s be honest here, who hasn’t played a mobile game while on the toilet? Finally, for variable monetization, all three games are free to play. Angry Birds makes money via in app purchases of game enhancements such as the Mighty Eagle. Cut The Rope and Candy Crush Saga implement an energy system that can be recharged instantly with real life dollars. So mobile games are defined basically as games that are easy to play, can be acquired anywhere, can be played anywhere, and are usually free to play. So why are they labeled “casual”?

Casual games are defined as “games that are easy to learn to play, fit well with a large number of players and work in many different situations” (Huntemann 217). What this means is casual game are games that require little to no skill and can be played whenever. This is one reason why mobile gaming was quickly labeled as casual. Let’s take a mobile game like Angry Birds as an example. Like with many mobile games, the controls in Angry Birds is relatively simple- your pull back the slingshot with your finger and release. Easy right? Well one of the few reasons for these simple control can be due to the technological limitations of a phone. You just can’t have the amount of inputs on a phone like with a console or PC. However, due to its simple mechanic, it takes little to no skill to play the game. Maybe that’s why Angry Birds was downloaded “50 million times, with total play time, according to Rovio, averaging 200 million minutes a day globally” (Huntemann 217).

Sure hardcore games have their appeals but so do casual games and mobile games. We shouldn’t label one as better than the other since they’re actually quite different. So no matter what the game, or what platform you play on, we shouldn’t criticize people for being a casual gamer or a hardcore gamer. At the end of the day, games are just games.

Citation:

Huntemann, N. (2019). How to play video games. NYU Press.

Growing up, I was lucky enough to be exposed to a myriad of games. Some of my favorites included Super Mario, Yoshi’s Island, Kirby, Pokémon, and Animal Crossing. In fact, the first game I ever got on my Nintendo DS was Animal Crossing and it became the game I enjoyed the most. Although all these games were extremely popular at the time, I sometimes received criticism for playing Animal Crossing as it was “a girl’s game.” Being a young kid in elementary school, I never really understood what was so girly about Animal Crossing. Was it because of the cute animal? Or was it because Animal Crossing just wasn’t as exciting of a game?

What makes a game girly or manly? Who is it that determines what games should a person play? These ideas are explored in Shira Chess’ book Ready Player Two. In the book, Chess splits the gaming community into two categories: Player one and Player two. Chess describes Player one to be a person who in bodies the mythical norm, “… white, cis-, heterosexual, young, abled, and middle-class male” (Chess 6). She therefore describes Player Two to be the total opposite of Player One or a person who is deemed “different” by societal standards. Chess categorizes females into this category of Player Two and cites an interview with the author Sheri Graner Ray where she talks about the problem of the videogame industry. “We have a problem where the game industry does not see women as a market. They see women as a genre” (Chess 39). This view not only has created a closed environment for women but has also created a stereotype when it comes to “female” games.

When you think of female games, what games come to mind? For most people, games like Kim Kardashian: Hollywood or Animal Crossing come to mind. I think this stereotype or, as Chess puts it, “designed identity” is incorrect. Chess describes this designed identity as “a hybrid outcome of industry conventions, textual constructs, and audience placements in the design and structure of video games” (Chess 5). The industry convention of associating the label of casual gaming with a female audience has been cited throughout the history of games. In fact, the first serious attempt to market games towards female audiences fell into this association. In the mid-1980s, Nintendo introduced the Nintendo Knitting Machine that allowed players to knit via the Nintendo Entertainment system. Although it was an attempt to sell games to a female audience, I would say it wasn’t a good attempt nor would I classify the knitting machine as a game. Chess describes how the home is seen as less of a place for leisure and relaxation and more of like a workplace to women as they’re usually responsible for house chores. For me I like to play video games for fun and relaxation and I would say the knitting machine was more like work for women rather than a game.

Since the gaming industry is forever evolving and changing I hope to see less gender disparity among gaming. Sure, demographic wise females are more interested in casual games such as Animal Crossing but there are also a huge population of females that play other games that are seen as more masculine such as Dead by Daylight or The World Of Warcraft. At the same time, there are many non-females who enjoy playing games like Animal Crossing. Although change can’t happen overnight, I do like the direction the gaming industry has been moving towards: gender inclusivity in gaming.

Work Cited:

Chess, S. (2017). Ready player two: Women gamers and designed identity. University of Minnesota Press.

Politics and political movements have been a huge part of everyone’s life. Whether you like it or not, no one can escape the grasp of politics. Last week in class, we explored how political games and coding in general can be. I was fascinated to learn that there have been many programming languages created as more of a political statement rather than for more practical uses. In addition to this, it was interesting to explore how some elements of games also have more of a political aspect to them.

One of the articles that was discussed during class was a Vice article by Julianne Tveten called “Code is Political.” In the article, Tveten goes over several codes that were created for an ulterior motive. One of the more obvious example that the author used was TrumpScript a “satirical Python-based programming language targeting the eponymous presidential candidate” (Tveten). I also thought programming languages all had more of a practical purpose but I was clearly wrong. Unlike most programming languages, TrumpScript doesn’t run in China and Mexico and have several other quirks. Surprisingly, TrumpScript isn’t the only programming language made for a more political purpose. In fact, a number of “esoteric” languages exist such as LOLCODE and the 4Chan anti-feminist language C+=.

When it comes to programming languages, I never realized anglocentric most of them are. I was surprised to learn that major programming languages a lot of them are written in American English. In the same Vice article, Tveten talks about the programming language Alb which is entirely written in Arabic in 2013 by Lebanese computer scientist Ramsey Nasser (Tveten). The goal of this programming language was to begin the conversation of why there aren’t programming languages in other languages.

In addition to politics in programming languages, politics also exists in the many video games. One of the more extreme examples of this was explored in class when we discussed the “Feminist Whore Purna” chapter by Robert Yang. In the game Dead Island, an open world zombie shooter, there was a scandal over a development error. On September 8, 2011 players of Dead Island were surprised to find that a data file in the game contained a skill power named FeministWhorePurna (Yang 97). This skill was unique to one of the female character Purna. The skill allowed Purna to “increase [her] damage when killing an enemy of the opposite sex” (Yang 97). The developer quickly released a statement addressing the inappropriate character skill but this still lead to a huge scandal. Many people wondered why the file was named that way as well as comments about how this shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

It’s obvious that politics and political statements will be part of every aspect of our lives. Despite how scary this may sound; it is interesting to see how these statements are made. To me, I feel like it’s a double edged sword. On one hand, it can lead to meaningful discussions such as with the programming language Alb. On the other hand, it can lead to hurtful or harmful messages such as the Dead Island incident. No matter what, the way these political statements are made are all “works of art.”

Works Cited

Ruberg, B., et al. Queer Game Studies. University of Minnesota Press, 2017.

Tveten, Julianne. “Code Is Political.” Vice, 1 Mar. 2016, http://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3dak5w/code-is-political.

There has been a long debate over if video games should include narratives or not. On one side of the argument are the ludologists who believe games and narratives should be separate from each other. On the other side of the argument are the narratologists who believe the stories are what make the game a game. Environmental storytelling has become one of the most debated topics in the game studies world. According to Ian Bogost in his article “Video Games Are Better Without Stories,” environmental storytelling “invite players to discover and reconstruct a fixed story from the environment itself.” (Bogost). Ludologists believe that environmental storytelling isn’t interactive like a game at all. Instead, environmental storytelling is comparable to cinema, tv shows, or a book. According to Bogost “Games’ obsession with story obscures more ambitious goals” (Bogost). Although both sides have provided valid arguments, I personally believe narratives are important to help enhance gameplay as well as a player’s immersion.

“Narration functions both to draw us into the character and add a framework of humor to the journey” (Salter 30). I totally agree with this quote as I do feel that the story or journey in a video game is what enhances our gameplay as well as enjoyment. In King’s Quest: A Knight to Remember everyone knows that Graham will become a king as that’s how the story begins. However, it’s the individual journey and interactions that make the narrative of the story. Many games utilize this mechanic of choice in their gameplay such as Until Dawn where our choices impact certain elements of the game that occur later on. This unique mechanic is what I believe makes Until Dawn fun and different. Despite all of this, narration also serves another purpose: world building.

When it comes to environmental storytelling and narratives in a games, the word world building comes to mind. I believe that narratives and environmental storytelling help build the world of whatever game you’re playing. One game that utilizes this technique to create an immersive world is BioShock Infinite. Right at the start of the game we are introduced to the environment of the “lower world” that is shown to be rainy, gloomy, dark, and dangerous. When we (the main character) are blasted into the utopian city of Columbia, the environment is shown to be bright, pure, and peaceful. The lower world is depicted to be old since everything looks run down. At the same time Columbia is shown to be a safe haven or Eden. In addition to this, players are able to find a museum in Columbia which offers a “state-sponsored version of historical events” (Wolf 77). This museum gives players more narrative to better immersive themselves into the culture and history of BioShock’s world. The game also is not open world. Although this is seen as a negative to many gamers, Wolf argues that “this creative choice to withhold information, ironically, makes the world seem more complete, even as it retains an air of mystery” (Wolf 77).

Environmental storytelling and narratives help players get more immersed into the magic circle of a game. Although there are games like Tetris that have no narrative, games like BioShock (in my opinion) have more depth and immersion. I am a firm believer that it’s the journey that matters, not the destination. Games with stories show the progression of a journey which allows players to create their own little narratives.

References

Bogost, I. (2017, April 25). Video Games Are Better Without Stories. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/04/video-games-stories/524148/

Huntemann, N. (2019). How to Play Video Games. New York, NY: NYU Press.

We all know what trolls are, those mythical ugly dwarfs who dwell under a bridge preventing passersby from crossing. However, in the real world there exists a similar creature called the internet troll. We’ve all encountered these beings that love to harass and mess with the citizens of the interwebs in whatever way they could. The question is why? Why do these people decide to cause such havoc and negativity in this digital world? This question was explored during the second week of class where we analyzed the research article “Under the bridge: An in-depth examination of online trolling in the gaming context” by Christine Cook, Juliette Schaafsma, and Marjolijn Antheunis.

                My first personal encounter with trolls was in middle school when I began playing the multiplayer online battle area (MOBA) game League of Legends. In League the objective of the game is to protect your base from the enemy team and at the same time destroy the enemy’s base in order to secure victory. However, one of my teammates decided it was a good idea to intentionally feed (give kills to) the enemy champion making the character unbelievably powerful. At that time, I didn’t know what trolling was and just thought my teammate was “dumb” for playing the game wrong and costing us the game. I was confused what my teammate’s motivation was for ruining the game for me and the rest of my team.

According to Cook et. al, “[trolling] can be generally split into three categories… attack, sensation seeking, and interaction seeking.” (3328) My teammate’s decision to feed falls into two of the three categories: attack and sensation seeking. Cook describes attack as anti-social and antagonistic which perfectly describes my teammate whose goal was to ruin the game of my team. At the same time, my teammate also was sensation seeking or trying to create drama and get a reaction from my team (3328). Although these things paint a picture of someone who possess components of the Dark Tetrad, not all trolling is bad. Let me explain.

After years of playing games I found myself delving into interaction seeking trolling with my friends in a game called Combat Arms. Combat Arms is a first person shooter game that my friends and I found to be extremely fun and a good way to blow off steam after school. We used to play custom matches splitting the friend group into two teams at war with each other. After a while, the game got stale and we began walking down the road of interaction seeking trolling. Since Combat Arms was a fairly old game, it was full of glitches and insane things you could do. One of these ridiculous things was jumping on a teammate who was squatting and completely immobilizing them as well as body blocking. This behavior can be seen as antagonistic but also helped enhance turn the game into something new.

Today trolling become ingrained in internet culture as an evil since trolling can lead to harassment and cyber bullying. Thankfully however, there are resources online that can help combat harassment such as the Center for Solutions and the Crash Override Network. Although evil, trolling can also (at times) enhance gameplay. For example, the game Dead by Daylight focuses on four survivors trying to escape from a killer by repairing generators and opening the gate out. The concept of the game is extremely simple and if played strictly with the objective in mind, it can get pretty boring. However, trolling has become ingrained in the culture of the game and has become an unwritten rule. Often times, players are seen taunting the killer to catch his attention or shining a flashlight in the killer’s face. All of these things are done for fun and to enhance the gameplay.

As Cook says “Trolling appears to breed trolling” (3331) and in order to combat this, we should all learn to be respectful and not overstep boundaries.

Center for Solutions to Online Violence: http://femtechnet.org/csov/

Crash Override Network: http://www.crashoverridenetwork.com/

Before I attended the first week DMS 448 I thought the course would focus more on the history of games as my naïve self never really saw games as something with a huge cultural significance. Games have always been a past time for me, a way to just pass time. It has been almost two weeks now and boy was I wrong. Since the beginning of the first class, I quickly realized my initial thoughts were totally wrong as I learned more about the cultural impact and straight discrimination in the video game industry and culture as a whole. We analyzed passages from Lorde’s “Age, Race, Class, and Sex”, the events gamergate, and what happened to both Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn.

Although Lorde’s “Age, Race, Class, and Sex” has little to do with gaming culture in general, the message in the passage explain many of the issues that arise in the gaming industry. According to Lorde, society has sort of created a “mythical norm” usually described as a “white thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure” (116). After looking into my past gaming history, I have found that many of my games followed this mythical norm where the hero is usually someone who fits that exact description. One example of such a game is Fire Emblem: The Blazing Sword where the story follows three main characters. Although one of the main character’s, Lynn, is a female and doesn’t follow the mythical norm, her story is quickly overshadowed by the other two characters, Hector and Eliwood who are the exact definitions of the mythical norm.

This type of discrimination against women are also seen in other popular game series such as The Legend of Zelda series as well as the Super Mario series. What both of these games have in common are a male hero saving a damsel in distress. This common trope has become ingrained in game culture as well as the gaming industry. Anita Sarkeesian was one of the few women who spoke out against sexism in the gaming industry on her YouTube channel Feminist Frequency. However, it wasn’t well received or respected as she faced a ton of backlash, rape threats, sexual assault, and doxing.  Unfortunately, other women have faced similar backlash for speaking out against sexism in the gaming industry such as Zoe Quinn.

Zoe Quinn was a game developer who was caught up in an internet controversy called Gamergate. In her book Crash Override Zoe she details her story and the events of gamergate. Her story begins when her ex-boyfriend posted on an online blog about how Zoe was sleeping with game reviewers to get good ratings for her game Depression Quest. These rumors quickly turned into a virulent harassment campaign against Zoe. Many people threatened her as well as her family. There was one paragraph that Zoe wrote in her book that spoke to me and it was:

“You might have heard stories about the darker side of the internet— hackers, hordes of anonymous people attacking an unlucky target, private nude photos made public by vengeful exes—but to you they remain just that: stories. Surely these things would never happen to you. You’re not famous. You don’t go around picking fights with anyone online. Who would even think to mess with you?” (8)

I was honestly extremely surprised about many of the events of gamergate. In fact, I’m still confused why it turned into such a huge hate campaign since it was, as Zoe put it, “just a breakup between two nerds” (11). However, the stories of both Anita Sarkeesian and Zoe Quinn show the sexism in the gaming industry where women are seen as a group that doesn’t belong. It was inspiring to see how despite the amount of backlash and harassment they received, they stood strong and continued to fight not only for themselves but others who looked up to them. They’ve already made a huge impact in the gaming and online world with the creation of the Zoe Quinn’s Crash Override Network as well as the continuation of Anita Sarkeesian’s project: Tropes V.S Women. For the rest of this semester, I will definitely need to reassess my thoughts and past belief of games but for now, I’ll end off on an inspirational quote by Zoe herself:

“…although what was done to me was heinous, those responsible for obliterating my old life have overlooked one important thing: I’m better at games than they are.”

(Quinn 13)