I wanted to start off with the second portion of the week’s discussion of streaming/esports. I thought the whole idea of the spectatorship chapter was interesting, especially since it was based around one of my favorite game series, Counterstrike. I would not agree with the points made in class about the hype moments being the sole driver for the rise of esports in general. There is a lot more to this, one has to consider the fact that the community around the game are really passionate about the games, even though the hype moments are great it’s not the glue of the industry. Streaming and esports rise can go hand and hand because some of the earliest forms of streaming were related to lan events. Even though Twitch was the platform that rose when streaming became popular the only reason Twitch was able to thrive was because of the following it had before it became Twitch, it was previously known as Justin TV.

Moving on the some past/current day issues of the aforementioned “titty streamer problem”, the problem with this topic is that some people on the platform (Twitch) are actually being the so called “titty streamer”, but the issue is now that other women on the platform are being harassed solely based on the fact that they are a women on a men dominated media. We went into some detail about the gap between top male and female streamers and the video was shown about it, from my extensive experience within the Twitch community I feel that the way they are measuring the gap between the top male and female streamers are wrong. They are not taking into account sponsorships, donations, etc: they are only focusing on sub money from being partnered (the only way to get a sub button is to  have 100 followers and around 5 concurrent viewers within your streams then you can apply for partnership and then you can get sub money, which is usually at first split 50/50 between you and Twitch). The problems with that is there are some influencers on Twitch that to their metric make nothing, but are crazy successful an example of that until recently is a person named “itssliker” (or sliker) who was way past the requirements for partnership, and never got it till now. Also aside from that the way the topic streamers brand themselves is much different from the top male and female streamers. You can’t blame Twitch if someone who happened to be a guy branded themselves better than a women on the platform, it’s not a question of male or female there it’s how they make the best of their content and brand.

 I’m not going to say there are no sextist themes within the Twitch community completely. The problem with Twitch addressing this issue is that they are doing the right things for the wrong reason. They are making some changes for the sake of public relations. Twitch is focusing only on the top of the food chain to make sure there is peace with the sponsors. The change is a great move in the right direction, don’t get me wrong, but it needs to be equally distributed to all if they really cared for the people on their platform.

Women in gaming communities have found discrimination and hate in a variety of ways. One of the main ways is trolling. Although it is not just a gender problem, the issue is that the comments utilized are targeted specifically against the minorities’ characteristics. Women are flamed for their gender, which is a strong reminder of their oppression. I personally do not feel the harmful effects of the comments as others do. So at times, I believed that the method of an eye for an eye would work in treating these flaming situations, but in the end, it can always simply worsen the issue. The stigma of women not being real gamers or unable to play certain roles derives within flaming and can be noted in other environments besides just the game lobbies. One issue, due to the rise of streaming platforms, is the label known as cam girl. In the article, “Nothing but a ‘titty streamer’”, the notion that women abuse their looks for views is a complicated problem. Many people who find these females as a difficulty believe that the streamers do not play enough video games. They cover their screen with the majority of their camera or wear “scandalous” clothing. There are some cases that accurately describe this, but in other cases, women are judged just for their appearance alone. This unnecessary discrimination against females only justifies the existence of a power struggle to uphold gaming masculinity. 

The combination of masculinity and the spectacle of women’s breasts/physiques is seen throughout gaming. It is not only notable through the harrassing from twitch viewers, but it is a part of many games’ designs. An example is the troll character model within World of Warcraft. The alpha models have females and males looking strictly similar with only minor changes. This contrasts greatly with the new models that have women looking quite generic as if they were ready to head onto a fashion runway, while the males look like they were hit with an ugly stick. The forced addition of large breasts and wide hips leave nothing to the imagination. Creativity is stunted in order to appease the target male audience. The sexualization of women is profitable. Maybe if personality was considered sexy in the market, characters could be profitable and have a wide range of body types and designs that attract a larger audience. The belief that male sexual desires have to be catered for in order to attract and keep people playing is just a stereotype on men that hurts them as well as women.

Overall, if designers chose to produce more abstract female characters, there would be a change in attitude towards women in some ways. Maybe the change from objectification to humanization of females might adjust the gaming community in a direction where people no longer find women with skin showing as pandering and sexual. However, there are still other forms of media that present women as a spectacle and treating this problem at the source may be much more complex than realized.

Works Cited

Bonnie Ruberg, Amanda L. L. Cullen & Kathryn Brewster (2019) Nothing but a “titty streamer”: legitimacy, labor, and the debate over women’s breasts in video game live streaming, Critical Studies in Media Communication, 36:5, 466-481, DOI: 10.1080/15295036.2019.1658886

This week started off with playing “World of Warcraft”, which drops you into an open world full of magic and wonder to explore and fight to your heart’s content. However, the first thing the game asks you to do is create a character. The custom character is a huge part of many games, whether they be RPG’s, Action oriented games, Fighting games, or other wise. Developers add the “create a character” function to give players the freedom to express themselves in their worlds, and that was major part of what we discussed in class with the Shaw and Brett pieces. World of Warcraft, for example, has a character creator which gives the player options between several races and classes to choose. While the possibilities of race and class combinations are endless, the character creator itself is a bit limiting. Firstly, there is a small pool of hair styles and clothes for players to start with, no matter which race is picked. In addition, physiques are strictly locked between “Male” and “Female”, which is the bulk of Brett’s piece on limitation and restriction in the game. In most other character creators, sliders are built into the game, in order to make the character look any way you want, and that does mean ANY way you want. You can make the character look like yourself, no matter your gender or body type, or make your character a strange randomization, whichever you like. This should be the point of character builders, giving the player true freedom. In addition, we talked about emotionally investing into characters in games, and putting ourselves in their shoes in one way or another. Whether it be sympathizing with a character or pretending to be the character, everyone attaches themselves to their favorite characters for a reason or another. As for the pyschology of this, everyone has come from different backgrounds and connect with different playstyles. The idea of a “main” comes from attaching to a character, and can tell you a lot about a person, just based on who they play in a fighting game or RPG. When it comes to the characters I play, I have found I always gravitate towards the goofy characters, or the “joke” characters that were put in the game for people to laugh at. For as long as I can remember, I have loved playing King Dedede in Kirby games and in the Smash Bros. series due to his nature and due to Kirby being one of my favorite game series. A big blue penguin that can fly, throw spiked balls named “Gordos”, and lauds himself as a king, only for Kirby to trounce his spotlight every time? Sure, I’ll play as that guy. Some gravitate towards the macho characters, such as Cloud from “Final Fantasy” or Snake from “Metal Gear Solid”, but I have always adored the weird characters in games. Perhaps it’s because, due to my personality, I think it’s funny to beat people as characters that should never be taken seriously, or maybe it’s because I have found myself to be the outcast in real life, and my escape is with these goofballs. Either way, I love to embrace the weird. Claptrap in Borderlands, Murky in Heroes of The Storm, the yordles, such as Veigar and Tristana, in League of Legends. Ever since beating “Luigi’s Mansion” years ago for the first time, it seems I’ve always rooted for the second banana. It’s something that I would be interested in researching more, and why people love the characters they do. As for me, I find my sanctuary in slimy fish babies and little blue sorcerers who “ARE evil, stop laughing”.

Streaming is a very challenging occupation in general.  It requires a lot of time and energy with very little security.  Even the most successful streamers can lose their success overnight due to taking a break or making a public mistake that angers their viewers. It is upsetting that it is even more challenging for women to even become successful streamers in the first place.  I find it interesting that there are many people out there who complain about the fact that some women become successful streamers by showing their body instead of actually playing games. But they don’t realize that the reason those women become successful is because there are people who want to see that. I feel like those who only view women’s stream to treat them like objects are the same people who go to other women’s streams expecting to see more of their body.  I feel like that is where the harassment comes into play.  Within the article “Nothing but a “titty streamer”: legitimacy, labor, and the debate over women’s breasts in video game live streaming” by Bonnie Ruberg, Amanda L. L. Cullen and Kathryn Brewster it states, “Yet, even as these commenters insist that their grievance is with how much (or little) these women streamers play, their language returns to women’s bodies. Breasts become markers of illegitimacy” (474).  When there is a conversation about female streamers it almost always ends up being a conversation about their body. When it comes to a male streamer, there is almost no conversations about his body or any other excuses for how he got successful.  Even if a woman streamer were to become successful, there will always be people who will question her success and attribute it to her body. Even the women who do use the platform for its purpose and are serious about gaming are harassed by people who expect them to show their bodies.

This issue around women’s bodies are also reflected in the games that people are so used to playing.  There are many games now that try so hard to create female characters and avatars to fit player cultural expectations about gender.  Female characters and avatars mostly now have specific physical parameters they fall into. Within the article “Revision of Queer Bodies: Modifications of Sexual Affordances in World of Warcraft” by Noel Brett discussed the evolution of character structure through the years.  It is clear that game designers are gearing characters toward what society believes would be the ideal bodies for both male and female.  Although these high expectations are represented for both males and females, I feel that females are the ones who are held to those standards more and are compared to those standards more.  I stream sometimes but I only really ever stream for my friends.  Even when I do stream, I never stream with a camera.  I have considered streaming more often, and maybe even building it up to stream more regularly and with a bigger audience but instances where women don’t get taken seriously or are harassed hinder my motivation to take streaming more seriously.  It is a shame that women have to take these things into account when streaming, and they can’t just engage in their hobbies free of judgement.

Works Cited

Bonnie Ruberg, Amanda L. L. Cullen & Kathryn Brewster (2019) Nothing but a “titty streamer”: legitimacy, labor, and the debate over women’s breasts in video game live streaming, Critical Studies in Media Communication.

Brett, Noel. (2018). Revision of Queer Bodies: Modifications of Sexual Affordances in World of Warcraft.

 

The player character in a game can be a point of identification for some players, where the character they play serves as an extension that allows the player to experience the world of the game. However, having the player character be identifiable with the player is not a necessary experience for all players. For some players, there is no need to identify with the player they play as. From reading Shaw, he surmises that the differences may be between the socially interactive aspects of a game versus the narrative aspects of the game. More specifically, social aspects help more to allow players to identify as the character they play as, while narrative aspects help more to allow players to identify with the character they play as.

I think that games that emphasize player freedom and social situations are more likely to create scenarios where players see themselves more as the character they play as, rather than a character separate from themselves. The freedom gives the player character a blank slate in terms of personality and appearance, which the players can impose themselves onto. In a way, it allows players to insert themselves into the story and create the story around them. Meanwhile, games with strong narratives also tend to borrow more practices from stories of other fictional media, where stories from books and films emphasize a protagonist with a fleshed out personality and background. As such, there are narratively emphasized games where the player character already has a story of their own outside of the player. 

However, this does not mean that a player character with an already defined personality and background cannot be identifiable with the player. Like other forms of fictional media, many people have found protagonists identifiable even with differing backgrounds. 

In addition, games with more freedom of customization does not automatically mean that the player will create a character that the player can identify as. I have created characters where I wanted to follow a theme and created based on a backstory I made up in my head. 

Another thing is that some games that are very narrative heavy still contain player characters as blank slates that are meant for the player to impose themselves on and identify as. The example that I can think of off the top of my head is Undertale, where the player character is displayed as racially and gender ambiguous, with no outward discernible personality. However, the story of the game is one of the most important aspects of it. However, I feel that the lack of customization in the game still prevents true freedom from the player to identify with the player character.

There is also the problem where some games that offer player customization do not offer enough design options that allow the player to create a character that they want to play. A key example is World of Warcraft’s customizer for female characters, where for most races, the female versions have similar body shapes. There is also the issue where body shapes cannot be adjusted in World of Warcraft (Brett, 2). 

I think because games are different from other mediums, where the audience can create an embodied experience of a narrative, the subject of identity and representation is important. It allows players to feel represented from their own customization, as well as to push players’ creativity with creating their own narratives.

Sources:

Shaw, Adrienne. “He Could Be a Bunny Rabbit for All I Care!” Gaming at the Edge, 2015, pp. 97–146., doi:10.5749/minnesota/9780816693153.003.0004.

Brett, Noel. Revision of Queer Bodies: Modifications of Sexual Affordances in World of Warcraft.

Representation tends to be a touchy subject no matter what form of media you are talking about. People in online communities are especially vocal about this, especially when it comes to video games. This is probably because playing a video game requires you to have a higher immersion and level of empathy for the character you are playing as than a TV show, film, or book would require. To many, controlling a character in a game is either an extension of your own self, or it is like experiencing an adventure with a longtime friend. Whether a person is for or against inclusion in video games, that idea rests on whether or not that person wants to partake in an adventure in which they interact with someone who is part of that minority group.

In the How to Play Video Games chapter of Leisure Suit Larry; LGBTQ Representation, writer Adrienne Shaw points out the abundance of queer representation in the Leisure Suit Larry game series. Overall, the series seems to have an abundance of queer representation for a series of video games made in the eighties and nineties. Instead of not mentioning the LGBT community at all, there are many different identities represented over the series, including gay men, lesbian women, and transgender women. The problem with Leisure Suit Larry is that these depictions were all cruel, making the characters very existence a joke, or a spectacle of disgust. In one of the games, if the player decided to try the option to romance a gay man, it would result in a ‘game over’ sequence, in which the player’s own masculinity is taken into question and joked about. Larry’s wife, Kalalu, divorces him to become a ‘cannibal, bike riding lesbian’, and an encounter with a transgender woman, Shablee, in another game suggests a rape scene, with dialogue from the main character expressing disgust towards Shablee. The message this type of representation might send to a viewer is one of queer people being unlovable. A woman coming out as a lesbian labels her as a cannibal, a trait that is disgusting and inhumane for any person. Even if Larry is shown to be attracted towards Shablee, his repulsed and horrified reactions after he knows that she is transgender marks her as unlovable and unpleasant, despite Larry being the one to pursue her. When Larry decides to pursue the gay man, Gary, the game over text you receive upon flirting with him implies that being gay is bad, that you are inherently less masculine if you choose this option. And even then, the game over only comes after Larry laments “Oh no, what have I done?!” out loud, showing his remorse over the mistake of whistling at Gary. It is very clearly a mistake as well, as it is the same type of game over you get if you enter the sauna by mistake and melt to death, or if you jump into the pool and are pulled under and drowned by the weight of your clothes. And that’s really all the LGBT people mean to the creators of games, shows, and movies that make these jokes at the expense of any actual human beings that they pertain to.  It reinforces thoughts that queer people are disgusting, are unlovable, are inhumane, are mistakes. And leaving cheap jokes like these as viable forms of queer representation in media only reinforces terrible stereotypes and allows people who are uninvolved or ignorant to LGBT problems to disregard these representations as legitimate. The cheap joke and vitriol version of representation in video games borders on being needlessly cruel, as people who identify as any of the people being made fun of and who are being openly and viciously insulted are going to have to be subjected to the immersion and having empathy towards a character and a world that either hates them or wants to ignore their existence entirely.

Works Cited

Shaw, Adrienne. “Leisure Suit Larry; LGBTQ Representation.” How to Play Video Games, by Matthew Thomas Payne and Nina Huntemann, New York University Press, 2019, pp. 110–117.

Individuals from all over the world play online games to connect with others in digital settings. For many, these digital settings exist as an escape from their real-world issues and/or busy schedules. They are places in which players can experience the thrill of being somewhere or someone totally different from what they’re used to in their daily lives. Whether the game takes place in a torn-up dystopian environment or in an immediately recognizable modern setting, players are able to deeply immerse themselves for the duration of their playtime. Ideally, an online gaming community is a place where people, despite their differences, can come together to share in a universally good time—to talk to others while working toward whatever the goal in the game they’re playing is. Unfortunately, online gaming is not such a black and white ordeal. In Deviant bodies, stigmatized identities, and racist acts, Kishonna Leah Gray-Denson writes, “Video game culture has evolved from a simple entertainment outlet into a massive mediated environment catering to a variety of users beyond gamers. This trifecta of video game culture constitutes the multibillion dollar industry that video game culture has become.” (Gray, 261) The gaming industry in today’s world is viewed, in turn, not just as a basic producer of entertainment but a thorough process of media usage and development. This inevitably impacts the way online gaming in particular works.

Due to the simple fact that thousands upon thousands of people play online daily all over the world, online gaming has become increasingly diverse as well as a topic of discussion amongst many. While this is far from a bad thing, there are those within gaming communities determined to ruin the experiences of others simply because they’re different from the typical norm. Whether it be that they are people of color, LGBT, women, disabled or otherwise distanced from the picture of what certain people believe to be a true “gamer”, they’ll be met with discrimination at the hands of the ignorant. This ties into further issues surrounding online gaming, as well. Intertwined with the sexism, racism, homophobia and transphobia which tends to plague online gaming communities is the issue of gatekeeping. There have been several instances of players—for whatever vastly different and usually trivial reasons—believing they are inherently better than others and, therefore, think they get to decide who does what and where inside of digital, interactive places. This is an issue which doesn’t only exist in gaming communities, but in those surrounding t.v. shows, movies and books, as well. There are those just trying to have a good time and possibly even get to know people who are met with the incessant use of slurs and/or personal attacks directly related to the tangible aspects of their identities. This transforms online gaming communities from places of joy to places that induce discomfort and internalized invalidation. I think it’s up to those willing to make a difference to help decrease this damaging form of harassment so that online gaming can truly be a place of inclusion, joy and understanding for those involved.

Works Cited

K.L. Gray (2012): Deviant bodies, stigmatized identities, and racist acts: examining the experiences of African-American gamers in Xbox Live, New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia, 18:4, 261-276

            I never thought so much about what it really means to identify with a character before reading the “He Could Be a Bunny Rabbit for All I Care!” piece[1]. I found myself trying to reflect what makes me connect with a character or avatar and having a hard time putting my finger on it.

            Generally, when making a custom avatar, I don’t tend to make them look like me. An exception to this is that I will often match my avatar’s hair color to my real-life current hair color. That’s about where the similarities end. I feel like when I’m making an avatar, I usually go for what I would like to look like instead of how I actually look. This typically means light grey eyes, a smaller nose, fuller lips. I don’t necessarily hate the way I look, but I also don’t want to spend hours looking at myself. Making a different looking character also helps me get into role-playing a bit more, I think. I feel like I would be too focused on my own real-world limitations with a character that looked just like me.

            Depending on the game, I might make my avatar look like another character from a game that I really like. Usually, in games where I’m playing as a caster (magic user), I will model my avatar after Yennefer from The Witcher 3. For example, I did this in Dark Souls 3 where I gave my pyromancy-welding avatar a small frame, luxurious black hair, and purple eyes. In The Witcher 3, you cannot play as Yennefer, so it’s extra fun for me to imagine being as badass as her in another game.

            In a lot of games that I play (Dark Souls 3, Red Dead Online, Bloodborne, Fallout 3, New Vegas, and 4, etc.), how your avatar looks has no bearing on how you play the game. However, when we were creating characters in World of Warcraft in class, I found my decisions were being limited by functional gameplay choices. Aesthetically, I was immediately drawn to the Draenei race; Something about humanoids with horns is really appealing to me. However, when I was looking over the class options, I noticed that the Draenei can’t be warlocks. I’ve played WoW in the past and the warlock class is my favorite. I generally like to play games as morally grey characters and I also really like demonic lore, so the warlock class fits perfectly with those preferences. In the end, I chose to make an undead character. I actually do really like the undead race and they were a close second choice for me, regardless of their ability to be warlocks. Obviously, I don’t identify with being a rotting reanimated corpse, but there are a few things I could relate to; A fascination with the macabre and a spookier/grumpier disposition. And the hair color, of course.

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[1] Shaw, Arienne. Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture, University of Minnesota Press, 2015.

The avatar represents the player’s character in a game. It is who they play or who they choose to play. In single player games, the avatar is the protagonist of the game, whether it be a character that the developers made or one that you created yourself. In multiplayer online games, the avatar is one that you choose from a variety of avatars or in MMORPGs, one that you made yourself to represent you. When it comes to character creation, most games lack the diverse choices seen in real life. One big issue is the lack in variety of body types for characters in MMORPGs. More often than not, body types in some of these games range from lean to muscular for males and petite to voluptuous for females and as a result, limits players from creating a character exactly to their visions. Not only does this cause many characters to look very similar in body type to each other, but it becomes harder for some players to be fully invested with their online avatars which might hinder their experience. 

Having more complex character creation systems is important for players because it lets them create the type of character they want to create and be more attached to said character. In Shaw’s He Could Be a Bunny Rabbit for All I Care!, she writes that “players put something of themselves into choices they make in games. Investment in the character was not, however, always synonymous with identification. In fact, sometimes identification named the relation between an interviewee and the game or between an interviewee and the type of objects or beings in a given game” (Shaw, 136). Players don’t necessarily have to identify with a character but avatar creation creates an investment in the avatar by the player. 

In this section of the chapter, Shaw talks about the different contexts that shapes the choices of the players during character creation. Some players choose to make their characters look themselves to be represented in the game, some players made avatars completely unlike them and based them off of other people or an idea. Personally, when I make a character to play games it varies based on what type of game it is. When I play MMORPGs with my friends, I like to create interesting characters from scratch that look nothing like me. I build a backstory and scenarios for my character based on the game’s settings and lore. However, when I play single player RPGs I found myself often making avatars that somewhat resembles what I would look like in that game’s universe. Usually when I do not have the option of creating a character that looks like me, I like to give the character glasses if the game allows it as it helps me identify with the character as a glasses wearer myself.

Going back to my first serious encounter with video games was when I was in the third grade. It was whatever night of Hanukkah and I opened up a brand new pink DS. This was something that I had wanted as most of the other girls that I knew on the bus also had a DS as well. It was the hip thing back then. Ecstatic I booted it up to play the only game that I could on there, Pictochat. Pictochat was a go to multiplayer game, as every DS was capable of connecting with local wireless. Through this game it allowed all of us to have our creativity sore free. While there was the standard chatting option, we were more focused on the drawing portion of it. One of the fondest memories I have is coloring the whole screen black and then drawing with the easer.

I eventually got games for my DS, many of which were more female oriented games. At the time it was what I was into and enjoyed playing. However, my current self now plays a different set of games then what I first used to play. To a typical gamer, the games that I played such as Cooking Mama, Petz, and more wouldn’t be considered “hardcore” games. Huntemann states “Technological changes made video games rapidly available to more diverse audiences. Around 2006, Nintendo was highly invested in marketing to women audiences via its portable Nintendo DS system and Wii gaming console. Equally important, the rise and popularity of smartphones made gaming more accessible and ubiquitous to a variety of people—many of them adult women. In this way, video games as a feminist topic have rapidly shifted from only conversations about “hard-core” games that are not necessarily intended for women to an equal amount of research on the steady influx of games that are intentionally made for feminine audiences. These games have a necessarily messy relationship to feminism: they are often essentializing yet liberating, condescending yet intoxicating.” (How to Play Video Games, 94) It was through these games that I was able to start my adventure into the video game world. While I did grow up with two brothers who play video games as well, there are plenty of females who are in a similar situation and don’t end up playing video games.

To say what really got me into video games, I’m unsure of. I would most link it back to getting my first handheld console, the DS and all the time I spent not just playing Pokémon, but the other games I had for it. It was from these games that I gained appreciation for gaming. Eventually our family got a Wii, which me and my younger brother would spend hours on. I played my fair share of Wii sports and making my Mii character. By getting a Wii, it transferred me to the more “hard-core” games such as Mario and Smash Bros. Being curious and wanting to learn more, I watch hours of YouTube videos on Nintendo, learning about series such as Fire Emblem and the Mother series. I stayed in my Nintendo bubble for a while, playing mostly Mario and Pokémon till I entered high school. Due to exposure from my brothers, I was mostly aware of some other games, but mostly the Call of Duty series or COD. YouTube was what gave me the information on other games and through that I explored new worlds.

Today games are even more accessible thanks to the mobile phone market. As such “Video game companies began to market to girls, some as a feminist response to the industry and others commodifying a demographic. Eventually, by the mid-2000s, game marketing and design also began to target adult females. These games were often shorthanded as the “casual games market.” Casual games (such as Diner Dash [Gamelab, 2004]), hidden object games, and cell phone puzzle games) are cheap or free, easy to learn, and minimalist in narrative. They also easily fit into busy schedules by being playable for either shorter or longer periods, depending on the needs of the player.” (How to Play Video Games, 93-94) It has been debated by many if casual players are considered gamers. With the plethora of mobile games, one can find themselves occupied with some game. I’d argue that casual players are gamers, as a mobile phone is a different medium that is used to play video games. Many of the current mobile games have story and art better than many of the early video games. Like the DS was for me, I hope that mobile games will allow for many to explore the larger world of video games. Many see the big mainstream games but if you dig deep enough you can find hidden gems. However, it takes one’s own interest in learning about games to take this first step outside this realm.