From New Bordeaux to Harlem

“This might sound blasphemous, but the women in Mafia III and Luke Cage fascinate me most. These women are simultaneously complex and maddeningly shallow. I say this to mean there is centuries of tears, laughter, abuse, and love tied up in each and every one of them, but at the same time all of this history and all of these emotions all seem to (by design) fall in service to the narratives’ main male protagonists. ” – Samantha Blackmon, Not Your Mama’s Gamer

Sex Workers and Video Games

“Although countless studies have researched violence in video games and the sexualization of women in video games, there has yet to be academic research on sex workers and video games – a topic that sits at a unique intersection of those two prevalent themes.” – Kaeleigh Evans and Emma Traver, First Person Scholar

Lost Wage Rampage

“Two mall shop-girls find out they’ve been stiffed wages that the men in their department haven’t. Can you help them make up the difference?” – About, Lost Wage Rampage

The Gamer’s Gaze

“With very few exceptions, a film director or a game designer doesn’t set out actively thinking, “I am going to make this to appeal directly to straight white men and everyone else can get bent.” Rather, the likelihood is high that the creator himself is a straight white male, and so comes to production with unconscious biases in place…And even if the creator in question is not all three (straight, white, male), the media landscape has been dominated by those elements for such a long time that this perspective is the default, and its point of view may not be challenged. Thus: the male gaze.”

Another Lost Phone

“This game is designed as a narrative investigation where you must piece together elements from the different applications, messages and pictures to progress. Scrolling through the phone’s content, you will find out everything about Laura: her friendships, her professional life and the events that led to her mysterious disappearance and the loss of this phone.” – Developer

Why is motherhood so poorly portrayed in video games?

“I’ve never had a baby. I once had one of those dolls that you could feed and it periodically pissed itself, but I gather this represents only a fraction of the maternal experience. I’ll tell you what I have done, though: I have played a lot of video games. And games, you may be startled to discover, are not too great at portraying motherhood – though they seem to have fatherhood all figured out.” – Kate Gray, The Guardian

The Birth of the Chess Queen

“Everyone knows that the queen is the most dominant piece in chess, but few people know that the game existed for five hundred years without her. It wasn’t until chess became a popular pastime for European royals during the Middle Ages that the queen was born and was gradually empowered to become the king’s fierce warrior and protector.” – Publisher

Suffragetto

“Suffragetto is a contest of occupation between two opposing factions, The Suffragettes and The Police. The goal of the Suffragettes is to break past Police lines and enter the House of Commons. At the same time, The Suffragettes must also prevent the Police from entering Albert Hall, an oft-used meeting space of the Women’s Social and Political Union.” – Official Rules (Revised)

Race, Gender, and Deviance in Xbox Live

“This book examines the nature of social interactions within Xbox Live, which are often riddled with deviant behavior, including but not limited to racism and sexism. The text situates video games within a hegemonic framework deploying whiteness and masculinity as the norm. The experiences of the marginalized bodies are situated within the framework of deviance as they fail to conform to the hegemonic norm and become victims of racism, sexism, and other types of harassment.” – Publisher

Gaming at the Edge

“Adrienne Shaw argues that video game players experience race, gender, and sexuality concurrently, revealing how representation comes to matter to participants and considering the high stakes in politics of representation debates. She finds new insight on the edge of media consumption with the invisible, marginalized gamers who are surprising in both their numbers and their influence in mainstream gamer culture.” – Publisher