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racism

Abstract image evoking bird silhouette

February 25th

…on the Nintendo Girls Club, and the second is Krystal Carr, who took the time to highlight 12 black videogame characters and explain her interest in them. Given that many of these pieces concern mainstream games and the big industry, I’m wondering why none of these writers are being picked up for larger sites.

And lastly, I’d like to highlight Dr. Kishonna L Gray, who has written extensively on the experience of being a minority gamer on Xbox Live. You can download her paper on the racism and stigmatization faced by minority gamers here.

A Conclusion

I…

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March 9th

…and Racism,’ which I cannot recommend highly enough.

A Rape in Cyberspace

(This section bears a CONTENT WARNING for discussion of rape, assault and harassment.)

On RE:roll, Angus Morrison conducts (rather, attempts) an anthropological study of DayZ, only to find that the deck is stacked against him — and, indeed, he’s not immune to the game’s psychological effects.

Elsewhere, avid DayZ player Kim Correa shares a traumatic experience in the game (TW: rape) and muses on the point at which the game’s sociopathy stops being harmless.

And back on Kill Screen, Matt Albrecht describes his…

April 20th

…newsmedia, not only led to me questioning and resenting my own blackness, is part of the fear of black men that caused the desegregation anxieties which led to [school desegregation] programs like M to M shaping my entire childhood. How astonished my 14 year old self would’ve been to learn that video games, my bulwark against racism, borrowed the very same portrayals of black men on the nightly news that fed my distrust of “thuggish” black men.

So ask me again why I have to object, loudly and uncompromisingly, to problematic racist imagery in my favorite medium. Why I…

June 15th

…than “strong,” she laments that games are “still largely populated by men who feel unsure about how to write and build nuanced women.” On the other hand, Rhea Monique, argues that we should embrace, rather than bristle at Croft’s weakness because she takes the player along with her, through every part of her journey, including her pain and her healing.

Not So Fast, E3, We Aren’t Finished With You Yet

Zack Kotzer reminds us that “Blockbuster Video Games Still Suck at Handling Racism” as well.

Alternatively, rather than calling out games for what they lack, Martin calls…

October 19th

Someone still loves you, Jakob Dylan. Not, you know, for “One Headlight” or anything. Just because someone has to.

Anyhow, readers — it’s the weekend after IndieCade and I’m back in the saddle. Let’s tuck in with This Week in Videogame Blogging!

Come On Back to the Five and Dime, IndieCade, IndieCade

Speaking of IndieCade, if you didn’t happen to attend, you missed out on some great talks!

Over on Gamasutra, Bryant Francis has an excellent write-up on a well-received panel led by Shawn Alexander Allen (Treachery in Beatdown City) on issues of racism in

February 1st

…their voices recognized AT ALL when they have often been silenced in favor of others. Never mind the fact that gaming — particularly video gaming — has long been a bastion of racism, sexism, and hatred of queer people with significant class and SES-related problems (such as the cost of home PCs).

To put it bluntly, many of the people who take issue at the notion of “ludocentrism” (a term I use under duress, for ease of understanding) are not simply targeting what they see as a problematic rhetoric in the ontology of games. They take issue at what…

May 31st

…stop lest we be swept away and forgotten. If I were ever to stop, then five years from now, someone quite like me will not have known of me.”

Responding to both, but also responding to neither, Stephen Beirne examined his own reasons for writing about games, and whether we should even want to preserve them.

Sick Bio Warez

Writing for Gamasutra, Katherine Cross compares the systemization of morality in D&D, Pathfinder and Bioware games. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Sampat wrote a blog post about othering, fantasy racism and the evolution of the portrayal of the Qun across the…

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June 7th

…whose skin color can be chosen by the player. And at RH Reality Check, Shonte Daniels reflects how recent pushback on this topic together with current events have turned videogames from a hobby into a source of distress (Content Warning: discussion of violence, racism, mental health).

Virtual Bodies

At his blog Arms Folded Tight, Daniel Parker muses on the aesthetics of games’ “power fantasies,” many of which go beyond our conventional understanding of the term. In doing so, Parker surveys several recent articles on the subject of avatars and how these writers engage in a “power fantasy” of…

December 13th

…still miss Eve sometimes–when I see a screenshot of one of the many majestic vistas of New Eden, or when the nullsec drama bubbles over and makes mainstream gaming news. But not enough to go back, at least not now. I already spend enough time in real life dealing with the consequences of sexism and racism, I don’t want to spend my leisure hours dealing with it, too.

[Header Missing, but It’s the JRPG One]

Over at ZEAL, Austin Howe describes Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter as a JRPG that mechanically mimics poverty. It’s a nuanced argument…

April 24th

…the dominance of white cultural signifiers.

  • Unpacking Rust, Race, and Player Reactions to Change | Antenna (Content warning: racism) Adrienne Shaw unpacks the fallout from Rust’s assignment of skin color at random to player avatars.
  • Are LGBT Characters “Forced” Into Games? | YouTube (Video, captions auto-generated) Rantasmo provides a useful framework for discussing inclusivity with regard to minor characters
  • Why All the Hate?: A History of Internet Trolls | Unwinnable (Content warning: harassment) Megan Condis gives us a bitesized run-down of how trolling began and why it has intensified.
  • “The game of trolling was…