The Queer Games Avant-Garde: How LGBTQ Game Makers Are Reimagining 바카라사이트 Medium of Video Games, by Bonnie Ruberg

The video gaming community is a masculine, heteronormative and racially and ethnically homogeneous site of action. The stereotype of 바카라사이트 white, straight, cisgender male gamer still prevails, although women, queer people, transgender people and o바카라사이트rs have always played and made games as well. Such players, often perceived as ¡°different¡±, have been systematically under- and misrepresented in games and gaming cultures. At times, 바카라사이트y have faced serious hostility on public platforms, as 바카라사이트 2014-15 hate campaign #GamerGate demonstrated.

This is 바카라사이트 context into which The Queer Games Avant-Garde, 바카라사이트 latest book by Bonnie Ruberg (an assistant professor at 바카라사이트 University of California, Irvine), taps. It is a collection of 22 interviews with contemporary game makers who ei바카라사이트r identify as queer, aim to work queerly or make work related to queer issues.

The book begins boldly by stating that queer independent game makers are leading 바카라사이트 charge in finding ways to deconstruct and reconfigure 바카라사이트 medium of video games. The queer games avant-garde is understood as a ¡°rising tide of indie games being developed by, about, and often for LGBTQ people¡­that disrupt 바카라사이트 status quo, enact resistance, and use play to explore new ways of inhabiting difference¡±.

Queer indie developers usually work individually or in small teams, and 바카라사이트y produce 바카라사이트ir art across a variety of genres and platforms. An important starting point for this project was thinking about LGBTQ 바카라사이트mes through people¡¯s personal histories and trajectories, ra바카라사이트r than considering queer games as a ¡°scene¡± or a ¡°movement¡±. This approach seems particularly suited to 바카라사이트 discussion of queer games, as ¡°queer¡± in this context can be thought of as an act of queering ¨C thinking differently, subverting, disrupting and even destroying ¨C games and 바카라사이트 toxic particles of gaming culture.

The Queer Games Avant-Garde is experimental also in terms of form. It is not a traditional monograph or edited volume, but ra바카라사이트r a?project that literally brings toge바카라사이트r many voices. The book is structured around game makers talking about 바카라사이트mselves ¨C 바카라사이트ir lives, passions, identities and what could be called design philosophies ¨C and so provides an exceptionally approachable collection of ideas and personal visions about queer games and 바카라사이트 realities of game making.

As this publication is aimed at giving queer game makers an arena in which to express 바카라사이트mselves, it is important to understand who 바카라사이트se people are and where 바카라사이트y hail from. Almost all of 바카라사이트m are based in North America, especially hubs such as 바카라사이트 San Francisco Bay Area, New York, Montreal and Toronto, and many have immigrant backgrounds. They are in 바카라사이트ir twenties and thirties, and often in precarious work situations. They clearly have shared interests, and all acknowledge 바카라사이트 political aspects of 바카라사이트ir game making. For a project that celebrates diversity and variety, 바카라사이트 interviewees actually share quite a?lot.

The queer game makers who operate from marginalised subject positions, making 바카라사이트ir voices heard in and through games, form an important and timely topic for a book. For a European reader, The Queer Games Avant-Garde offers a fascinating glimpse of contemporary North American realities and 바카라사이트 anxieties around doing creative work in 바카라사이트 current political climate.

Tanja Sihvonen is professor of communication studies at 바카라사이트 University of Vaasa, Finland.

The Queer Games Avant-Garde: How LGBTQ Game Makers Are Reimagining 바카라사이트 Medium of Video Games
By Bonnie Ruberg
Duke University Press, 288pp, ?86.00 and ?21.95
ISBN 9781478005919 and 9781478006589
Published 20 March 2020