- The Hegemony of Play
http://ict.usc.edu/pubs/The%20Hegemony%20of%20Play.pdfThis article was written in 2007 but makes many good points on gender and diversity bias in the culture of gaming. It also provides interesting historical anecdotes about women’s roles in the history of game development in the early 19th and 20th century board game industry.1. What do the authors mean by “hegemony of play?” Define.
2. How does the current production environment influence this hegemony?
3. How do video games perpetuate this hegemony?
4. What were women’s roles in early board game development and how were the game narratives different and more inclusive to people of differing ages, genders and ethnicities?
5. What do the authors mean by the “third gender?”
6. Is there any hope for the future? - Interview with Anna Anthropy
http://www.autostraddle.com/anna-anthropy-the-autostraddle-interview-143395/Discuss how Anna Anthropy is trying to change the culture of gaming by showing a few examples of her games. How does the format challenge the hegemonies of play? What tactics does she use to create a more inclusive space for gaming? - Playing with privilege: the invisible benefits of gaming while male
http://www.polygon.com/2014/4/23/5640678/playing-with-privilege-the-invisible-benefits-of-gaming-while-male
Pick 3 of the DAILY EFFECTS OF MALE GAMER PRIVILEGE and briefly discuss how they impact game play.
Department of Art, SUNY Buffalo
Designed Play – Spring 2016 
1. What do the authors mean by “hegemony of play?”
The Hegemony of Play is the way in which the gaming industry markets its products and its effects on the consumer culture. The gaming industry creates a hegemonic elite society that often benefits male ideologies.
2/3 How does the current production environment influence this hegemony?How do video games perpetuate this hegemony?
Production influences hegemony at the highest levels of game development; the conception, programming, and marketing. Certain games which are released into the mainstream gaming market are often wise targeted towards the hard-core gamer (predominantly male) demographic. For instance, take the high acclaim of the Call of Duty series; a game which is often played competitively and whose target demographic is young males. The popularity and high budgets of titles such as these re-enforce the hegemonic structure in gaming.
4. What were women’s roles in early board game development and how were the game narratives different and more inclusive to people of differing ages, genders and ethnicities?
Women’s roles were much more prominent in early board game development compared to the modern video game industry. Games back then were often produced privately and encompassed individual ideologies as opposed to market based ideologies. An example would be Lizzie Magie’s ‘The Landlord’s Game’ which specifically created an anti-capitalistic commentary on the exploitation of tenants by land owners. The lesser hegemonic restraints on the gaming industry allowed for more diversity in the creation of games than today.
5. What do the authors mean by the “third gender?”
The third gender is what we often classify as the hard-core gamer. This gender is what appears to be the main demographic of the gaming industry, or at the very least the main target. Being predominantly male, the hard-core gamer demographic holds its interests in violence, fast-paced gameplay, and in some cases male fetishization.
6. Is there any hope for the future?
I think that with the advent of the internet and online distribution programs like steam, there is more promise against the hegemony of play within the indie-game industry. Independent developers are not so much concerned with marketing to the core demographic as do the AAA game companies, so they are able to take more liberties in diversifying their audience and player base. It would be similar to how early board games were more individually tailored to specific issues.
Interview with Anna Anthropy
Anthropy uses games as an avenue to display marginalized perspective that is not often seen in mainstream video games due to the majority of game developers being white males. There is this idea that if more people of diverse and minority backgrounds, being black or Mexican, gay or lesbian or even transgender, agency within the game development can shift to incorporate these often overlooked or negatively presented viewpoints. Anthropy doesn’t develop games with a clear goal in mind, as there is little hand holding in the issues that she commentates on within her games. This is what makes her designs stand out more from the mainstream games as when we often purchase a title an play it, we expect some form of gratification or reward for completing a level or mission. Anthropy’s approach makes the game more of a simulative struggle such as not knowing who or what you are when transitioning as a transgender in Dis4ia. This approach gives more agency and voice to the individual game developer as opposed to the will of a target demographic that creates a better connection to the core values that the independent developer wants to pursue.
Playing with privilege: the invisible benefits of gaming while male
“4. I will never be asked to “prove my gaming cred” simply because of my gender”
Men are often more welcome to a gaming session than women off the bat. Women often feel isolated in this instance as some sort of ‘right of passage’ is needed in order to participate in a competitive gaming environment.
“8. I will never be asked or expected to speak for all other gamers who share my gender”
Men do not need to feel like they are an ambassador for male gamers as Women may do when they enter a game. This stigma often place un-needed pressure on the female player who simply wants to play a game for the same reasons men do.
“16. I will almost always have the option to play a character of my gender, as most protagonists or heroes will be male by default.”
Many times it is more often that the option of playing a female character comes from a character creation screen as opposed to a default, personality developed main character. We often see the protagonist of mainstream games be a male character trying to overcome a great task or evil as opposed to conflicting with societal norms.
The Hegemony of Play
1) Hegemony of play refers to how video games affect the global culture of play. It creates a system of supply and demand in which products of play are marginalized and devalued.
2) The production environment affects on the context of hegemony mostly on the game development process such as the marketing process, or the production of the games in general.
3) Most games are made to target certain group of gamers such as hard-core gamers.
4) Women roles during the creation of 19th century board games were to create games that are meant for personal play unlike modern companies.
5) The “third gender” predominantly meant hardcore-gamers.
6) The hegemony of play seems to be slowly moving as the internet afforded alternate distribution channels.
Interview with Anne Anthropy
1) Anthropy wants to redefined the ideal notion of what a video game would needs to be. For example, Dys4ia, which contains the rating of drug preference, sexual themes, and nudity. However, her idea of these ratings are different, considering that her version are meant to examplify actual themes like gender, sexuality, and identity. According to her, when people see the game for the first time, what they would about the games is that it would be a typical shooter, judging by the name of the game. Her games are meant to make people understand about the current topics that we faced but not taking it seriously.
Playing With Privilege: the Invisible Benefits of Gaming While Male
1) “9. I can be sure that my gaming performance (good or bad) won’t be attributed to or reflect on my gender as a whole.” When playing a competitive game, males sometimes can get away without being seeing as the loser within the the competitive community.
2) “15. I can walk into any gaming store and see images of my gender widely represented as powerful heroes, villains and non-playable characters alike.” Marketing strategy always place males as the lead characters in video games on wallpapers.
3) “16. I will almost always have the option to play a character of my gender, as most protagonists or heroes will be male by default.” When playing games that allowed custom character build, the option of playing as a female character come up in a definite amount, compare to using the default male character.
Hegemony of Play is the connection between the status quo of white males in the video game industry and the consumers that purchase the products.
The idea behind the excerpt of the reading is that white heterosexual males make videogames that other white heterosexual males would like to play, creating the exclusive gamer culture.
The games created under this development model purposefully alienate other users that do not fit into the demographic and reinforce the gamer culture to not allow others into this “club.”
Women’s roles in board games, like in programming and early video game development, was much more prominent. It was only until marketing that the industry decided that videogames were something meant for boys (at the time only for boys and not men). When this happened females were removed or simply not hired as their ideology for diverse games did not fit the model that was currently running.
The third gender is “hard-core gamers.” Even more exclusive than the “gamer” club except this one will call you a fag and hurl death threats over the internet when you beat them.
There is no hope for the future, better to leave the game design field now. Unless you are a white heterosexual male… I’m kidding. Things are already looking up with game design colleges increasing female attendance to be that over male attendance and games taking on a more mature outlook. The hopefully future is already here.
Anna Anthropy has some really cool stuff displayed here. What she has created is in direct response to the previous Hegemony of Play. These are all topics that would never be displayed in a mainstream game today. These are all issues being presented from a “minority” for “minorities.” I love that this is something that she is trying to do for certainly this is an uphill battle. What I would like the most however is for this to be translated into something more developed, a game with depth one that will be played not only for its commentary on society but for its quality as a game too.
7) When I go to to a gaming convention or event, I can be relatively certain that I won’t be harassed, groped, propositioned or catcalled by total strangers.
This is a big one as conventions where the community is meant to band together is alienating females by just how shitty guys can be. This paints us in a bad light and is something that needs to mature significantly before any real progress can be made.
12) I can openly say that my favorite games are casual, odd, non-violent, artistic , or cute without fear that my opinions will reinforce a stereotype that men are not real gamers.
This goes back to the exclusive gamer club that white males have. It needs to be broken, all need to be allowed into this group to increase the quality of content that we all play.
17) I do not have to carefully navigate my engagement with online communities or gaming spaces in order to avoid or mitigate the possibility of being harassed because of my gender.
This goes back to the 7th point of making others feel uncomfortable but even before being in a real life scenario. Much of the fun of video games is connecting with others online and meeting new people. If I was unable to do this I am not sure how set I would be in the video game culture.
(1)
1.The hegemony of play refers to the influence that the gaming industry has over society and is typically biased towards the cis*male demographic.
2.3. The game makers “office” and behind the scenes are dominated by men and because video games are primarily made by white males for white males, and advertised on avenues mostly populated by these same white males and thus excluding everyone else, the hegemony of play is allowed to continue its existence.
4. In early game development, women actually did a lot of the game design and game making. If they weren’t the creators of the game, they were often the ones who helped create the game pieces or painted on the decorations/ads. The early games were very highly inclusive across both genders and all ages teaching moral values and trivia tidbits as well as creating and strengthening player to player bonds.
5. The “third gender” refers to the “hardcore gamers”, the male gamers who were into the usually sexual and violent games involving the objectification of women and over masculinity of men.
6. According to the paper (written almost a decade ago), there is hope in Nintendo’s Wii which explored and expanded out to the rest of the demographic that were not the “third gender”. It sought to bring back the time of “early games” bringing in new and different games that can be shared with both genders and across all ages. And in terms of the present, there is hope because the internet makes possible a whole new level of gaming and game making which allows all kinds of “niche” platforms to prosper and grow (for example, in reference to this week’s reading, people like Anna Anthropy).
(2)Anthropy brings her own unique experiences into the game world by designing games based upon her struggles and frustrations as a trans woman. Her games are completely out of what most would consider “the norm”. Her games are very frustrating and does not allow the player to feel the same satisfaction that mainstream games allow their players to feel. However, because of her personal touch, it becomes more inclusive for those who are typically not part of the gaming culture (namely LGBT and women).
(3)Every single thing in his list makes the gaming environment very uncomfortable and less approachable for female gamers, especially the over sexualization of both female characters and the real life player. It certainly can foster sexual harassment both online and leading into the real world in the form of stalking. It also can cause a lot of mental stress for the average female from being made fun of for her gender. I think this unconscious “male privilege” contributes to a really unwelcoming environment for females, and even unconsciously intimidating for those who want to play but don’t. As a result, females can’t share the same gaming experience as males, whether it is because they are bullied for their gender or because they spend too much effort trying to hide their gender, sacrificing certain aspects of game play such as voice chats for the sake of mental peace. (Honestly, the game market would probably double if the game environment was more female friendly).
(1) The Hegemony of Play
1.
Hegemony of Play refers to the game industry’s cultivation of a narrow concept of values and norms reinforced through a cyclical system of supply and demand, leaving games that do not fit these molds devalued.
2.
Most game development workers seem to be white heterosexual males with a somewhat narrow concept of what a game should be. Someone coming from a different background with a different perspective regarding games would be assumed less qualified by the industry’s “conventional wisdom” and ideas that do not fit a specific mold would not be given a real chance. According to the article, the game development work environment appears to have a “boys’ club” culture that focuses on remaking the same ideas and excluding others with different ideas, which continues the cycle.
3.
Video games dictate rules and modes of play to the player. Video games do not have the same freedom of “house rules” other kinds of games may have, so all players have to fit into the single mode of play offered by the video game. The game favors certain skills and styles of play, leaving players who prefer a different style of play excluded.
4.
Women held many roles in early board game development from painting and printing board and box art work, to cutting puzzle pieces, and to even developing some of the first American board games. The game narratives mostly reflected concepts that were accessible to any middle class family member of any age or gender, instead of only focusing on violent fantasies of young men.
5.
The third gender is the “gamer.” They are considered a third gender because the concept of the “gamer” really has very little to do with an average male, and nothing to do with a female. The male perspective is often considered normal and the female perspective is the “other,” but in the video game world, both average male and female perspectives would be the “other” compared to the standard gamer persona.
6.
Yes. The article mentions Nintendo’s DS and Wii launching with multiple games and play styles aimed at non-“gamer” markets. Since that happened a few years ago, it seems that it worked well for Nintendo and many other game developers have started taking non-gamers as more serious players. Games for smart phones also became more popular for the non-gamer players. I think games will continue to grow this way and people will become more bored of the “gamer” culture.
(2) Interview with Anna Anthropy
Anna Anthropy developed games to reach audiences traditionally excluded from the video game industry. Dys4ia is a game about a queer trans woman that can help people understand and relate to frustrations by playing simple games with an ever-changing avatar. She uses confusion and frustration in the game play to communicate the feeling experienced by many people in the real world. Other games like Mighty Jill Off explore social inequality and sexism through a sub/dom relationship by giving the player a game experience that feels not fair at all.
(3) Playing with privilege: the invisible benefits of gaming while male
“9. I can be sure that my gaming performance (good or bad) won’t be attributed to or reflect on my gender as a whole.”
: Having a person’s performance in a game be attributed to their gender makes the players not care about participating in the game. If the game is competitive, the player will have no interest in competing if they cannot succeed as an individual. The player feels that they cannot make any progress or gain anything from the game on their own. If the player does not care about playing, the game is not fun at all.
“12. I can openly say that my favorite games are casual, odd, non-violent, artistic, or cute without fear that my opinions will reinforce a stereotype that men are not real gamers.”
: If a woman likes to play video games, it is almost always assumed by others she likes to play casual and cute games. Video games marketed towards women (usually made by men) are almost always “casual” and “cute” without any complexity or value as a game. Even though I might want to play a casual game, someone could use this simple preference to perpetuate the stereotype that women do not have interest or skill in “real” games.
“16. I will almost always have the option to play a character of my gender, as most protagonists or heroes will be male by default.”
: Almost all video game heroes are men. These days there are sometimes female characters to choose, but those are mostly personality-less sexualized characters designed by men for creepy men to play with. It is difficult to immerse a player in a game if the player is controlling an avatar that does not appear or act like the player would at all. It is a constant reminder that this game is not for you.
The Hegemony of Play
1. By “hegemony of play,” the authors are referring to the way in which the game industry has influenced the global culture of play; the industry is comprised of white, heterosexual men that are making games that are aimed at other white, heterosexual men, which creates an atmosphere in which women and minorities are unwelcome or ignored and the same types of games keep getting recycled.
2. The homogeneity of the game development community has turned the production environment into a “boy’s club,” which makes it incredibly difficult to create games that deviate from the norm. Any failed attempt at something new, such as with Purple Moon, is held up as proof that other similar projects will be unsuccessful, effectively preventing different types of games from being made and reaching out to new, diverse audiences that would then potentially take an interest in game development.
3. Video games perpetuate the hegemony through both hardware and gameplay. Larger console controllers may be too big for children and women to comfortably hold, which may affect gameplay performance and discourage continued use. Games that require spatial rotation skills to succeed may also put women at a disadvantage due to cognitive differences between males and females.
4. Early board game development was much more inclusive than today’s game development is, with women involved in stage. Female factory workers carried over their skills to the assembly, cutting, and hand-painting of game boards and pieces. Because they were already involved in the manufacturing process, women were also involved in the playtesting stage of development. Women were involved in the creative process as well, and are credited with designing several early, influential board games. The games themselves often had a variety of themes intended to teach life lessons, and the box art typically showed the game being played by (generally white) people of both genders and a variety of ages – both of which helped to create a more inclusive environment for all kinds of players.
5. The “third gender” refers to the game industry’s construction of the hardcore male gamer persona, embodying a perpetual adolescent that is drawn to stylized graphical violence, male power fantasies, hyper-sexualized and objectified women, and racial stereotyping and discrimination.
6. Though the game industry still has a long way to go, there is definitely hope for the future. The Nintendo Wii has had a huge role in bringing video games to people that were left behind by other manufacturers, due either to the cost of the hardware itself, or due the selection of games available. Indie games, which often differ from mainstream games in both gameplay and narrative are becoming increasingly popular, and there are a number of tools available to enable anyone with access to a computer to make a video game of their own. While there is still a huge diversity issue in the game development industry, there are now ways to more easily find different, more personal games that are created outside of the hegemony.
Interview with Anna Anthropy
Anna Anthropy has made a number of games, with many – but not all – of them based upon her experiences as both a lesbian and a trans woman. This is incredibly significant because those are experiences that are seldom reflected in video games, and almost never with respect. What’s especially noteworthy is the concept of these games being created as labors of love, rather than creating them to be the next source of economic success that so many mainstream games strive to be. Anthropy acknowledges how stagnant the game industry is, and wants to encourage everyone, especially those who are marginalized, to take back the medium and use it to express themselves. The desire to make marginalized voices heard directly challenges the hegemony of play, which seeks to keep them silenced in favor of maintaining the interest of the “hardcore gamer.”
Playing with Privilege
#1. Because most men will likely never experience any of the specific online harassment that women face to the same extent, especially in games and the online spaces dedicated them, they have the ability to tune out one of the biggest issues within the industry and are able to ignore the remaining twenty-four items on this list if they so choose.
#14. According to the IGDA 2015 Developer Satisfaction Survey, the vast majority of game developers are white (76%), male (75%), and heterosexual (73%), and are continuing to make games largely influenced by that perspective. While some bigger games have managed to stray from the norm, many of the current releases are just more of the same.
#16. With the exception of games that have character creators and customizable options, a majority of games still exclusively feature white, male playable protagonists, reinforcing the idea that women and minorities are not wholly welcome in these spaces.
1. The hegemony that they are talking about is primarily the environment in which males are controlling the gaming environment and the way in which that creates an ecosystem in which the ruling class is a demographic that holds more weight that it does in terms of straight logistics.
2. Gaming culture has, up until very recently been geared towards the young male demographic—this is where the profit margins are most in the favor of the distributors and game developers.
3. Male gamers are predominantly the most vocal and therefore the most represented demographic regardless of their overall stake in the gaming market in a completely realistic sense. The way in which gaming, and much of digital culture in general, is marketed in a predominantly male-centric manner perpetuates the hegemony of the male gamer and consumer because of the general disinterest of the industry and culture to change in a manner that would more effectively project the interests of their consumer base.
4. In the early stages of game manufacturing women played a large part in constructing the games and the mode of play that would go on to become the industry norm. They constructed boards and mechanisms of play that were both enticing to the player and commentary on the world around them. There was inclusion through the way in which the game was created and played, something that would later be subverted and apprehended in the later 20th century.
5. The third gender is in reference to the individuals who are genderless in the eyes of the producers, they are the gamers that consume the product and play in the constructed spaces in a manner that legitimizes the medium. They are the serious players, the individuals that put in the time in order to reap whatever benefits the game space in question has to offer.
6. I like to think that there is hope for the future. The hope stems from the direction that gaming culture and the culture of mainstream consumer culture has been moving. There is far less of a divide (to traditionally gender the issue) between what males predominantly consume and what females predominantly consume than there was 10 years ago. Women hold at least an equal stake in the consumption of gaming and interactive media consumer culture, and because of that I feel there will be a necessity for those in charge of the industry to shift the trajectory to reflect that or else there will be a hard decline in profits.
7. Through her game she is creating an environment that is a more realistic depiction of gender roles and sexuality for many gamers than is common in normative culture, let alone video game culture. She uses traditional, or at least quasi-common modes of play in video games and constructs environments in which her own personal narrative and experience can be brought to the forefront of the game itself. She uses the tactics of games that already exist to create an inclusive environment for the gamer, one in which they don’t necessarily feel challenged by the otherwise potentially challenging content of the game itself in terms of social and societal commentary.
8.6- Males can look at virtually any gaming site or program and know that they as a sex will be represented, and have he open ability to have their voices be heard. This leads directly to the male orienting of the gaming industry because it is their opinions that are most represented and most heard.
8- There is no pressure on male gamers to “represent” the larger male community when participating in a gaming event. This allows the male gamer to have a more genuine experience whenever they are playing online and their gender is visible in some manner.
16-The ability to almost always play as a male character is something that allows men to relate to the avatar immediately on a base level. This is something that women cannot do because of their underrepresentation in video games, and very often if there is a female option it is so scantily clad or sexualized that it removes the player from it by a certain degree still.
1. The hegemony of play is a term used to describe the gaming industry. There is a hierarchy where the ‘power elite’ or big gaming companies, use marketing tactics to target a specific exclusive audience.
2. The current production environment furthers this cycle by trying to appeal to a predominantly male demographic, since that is what has always worked.
3. Video games perpetuate this by the market continuing to be dominated by games that appeal to the male demographic. The top games are mostly first person shooters that appeal to young males.
4. When board games were popular, women were some of the primary game developers and reflected their own ideology instead of one that appeals to the masses.
5. The ‘third gender’ is what they use to refer to the main demographic in the game development industry. This, of course, is predominantly male and enjoy the simple male ideologies.
6. I think there is a lot of hope for the future. This paper was written in 2007, games that go against the hegemony of play have increased over the years. The indie game market is flooded with games that go against the grain and with their increasing popularity, they can break the cycle. Also, there is an increase in interest of video games as a medium of art, which gives hope as well.
Anna Anthropy
She is one of the game developers that wants to go against the grain, like I said, and wants to challenge your typical notion of what a video game really is. Her game dis4ia has almost nothing similar to you’re typical video game when you boil it down to bare bones. This game, for example, attacks issues of gender, sexuality, and identity, especially with the increase in the transgender community over the years. Anthropy is someone who is looking to change the game industry.
4. “I will never be asked to “prove my gaming cred” simply because of my gender.”
This can affect both male and females. For females, it can create a lot of pressure for them to be a certain adequacy in gaming. For males, people have to prove their ‘gaming cred’ plenty to other gamers.
9. “I can be sure that my gaming performance (good or bad) won’t be attributed to or reflect on my gender as a whole.”
This stigma can turn females off to playing video games. If a girl is terrible at a game, they may feel this way and choose to not play video games anymore or at least that game.
18. “I probably never think about hiding my real-life gender online through my gamer-name, my avatar choice, or by muting voice-chat, out of fear of harassment resulting from my being male.”
This is something that can be a serious problem with the gaming community. This can shy people away from many communities, when all should be accepting, no matter who is playing. Especially since a lot of game developers appeal to younger males, they might not be very mature and can cause this widely male demographic to further its dominance.
The Hegemony of Play
1. The Hegemony of Play refers to the way in which the video game industry is predisposed to the creation of marginalized games. The gaming culture reinforces a cyclical system of supply and demand that ignores anyone that is other than a white male.
2. According to a 2005 survey by the International Game Developers Association, the production environment was 88.5% male, 83.3% were white, and 92% were heterosexual. The authors believe that the exclusionary make up of the game developers has limited the commercial success of the industry.
3. In some cases it is the design of the video game that perpetuates the hegemony. The software of the game dictates and enforces rules automatically as well as “determines which play styles will be favored and which skill sets will be valorized” resulting in the player being placed at a disadvantage against the computer. Also, automation relative to the hardware puts females at a disadvantage, if features allowed for modification by the user so that their skills and play preferences were accommodated, it would level the playing field for all players and not allow for male players to be at an advantage.
4. Women played a large role in early game board development. According to the authors, the percentage of women contributors in board game development was higher in the 19th century than in the video game industry, games were designed as well as playtested by women. The 19th and early 20th century board games were the first form of home entertainment, the games were more inclusive and relevant than today’s video games. The Landlord Game, designed by Lizzie Magie, which was the first board game that was issued a patent, was a game that exhibited how tenants were exploited by land-owners. It was the precursor to Monopoly. The board games reflected everyday life and did not marginalize people based on their age, race, gender, or socio-economic class. There were games about commerce, running and managing a store, and telephone etiquette to name a few.
5. When the authors refer to the third gender they are referring to the traditional gaming industry’s target market – hard core gamers – typically male, of any age with an adolescent responsiveness that enjoys “graphical violence, male fantasies of power and domination, hyper-sexualized, objectified depictions of women, and rampant racial stereotyping and discrimination.”
6. Regarding whether there is hope for the future of gaming with respect to the bringing diversity to the industry, at the time The Hegemony of Play, was written, a shift was starting to take place. Nintendo created the Wii system and started to target families with their games and advertising. Nintendo also took steps to reach the growing retirement age market (Baby Boomers) when it set up a both at the American Association of Retired Person’s annual convention.
Interview with Anna Anthropy
Anna Anthropy is trying to change the culture of gaming by creating games that tell the stories of gay and trans women. Her games look at inequalities, sexism and transphobia and they do not have happy endings. Her games are designed to take control away from the player, she will manipulate the player and only allow the gamer to experience the game the way that she wants the player to experience the game. In Realistic Female First-Person Shooter the player experiences failure because women “just can’t do things.” Dys4ia, an interactive memoir, is the story about transitioning and the loss of control over the process. With an ever-changing avatar, the player is put into different scenarios without knowing what is supposed to happen which reflects the reality for anyone going through transitioning. Anthropy’s ability to design games that create disorder and aggravation brings a different experience to the gamer. Anna Anthropy is a marginalized person that is creating games that speak to marginalized gamers.
Playing with privilege: the invisible benefits of gaming while male
3. I can publicly post my username, gamertag or contact information online without having to fear being stalked or sexually harassed because of my gender.
Female players that are stalked or sexually harassed are not able to be who they are and with the continuation of this behavior toward female/marginalized players, any diversity of players will become non-existent. To protect themselves, these targeted players have to create different identities to make it look as though they are just another young white male player – just like the other young white males.
6. I can look at practically any gaming review site, show, blog or magazine and see the voices of people of my own gender widely represented.
Due to the issues in #3, the representation may look like my gender is the only gender being represented, however, it is highly likely that marginalized players are contributing under the guise of the young white male player. If everyone were able to actually contribute openly without the necessity of creating another identity perhaps gamers would learn more from different points of view.
14. The vast majority of game studios, past and present, have been led and populated primarily by people of my own gender and as such most of their products have been specifically designed to cater to my demographic.
The gaming industry has created this dynamic and won’t let go of what it believes is the only way that “works”, producing games that fit a certain mold. Nick Wingfield’s article in The New York Times, on March 7, 2016, indicated that Microsoft is shutting down two game development studios. Lionhead Studios, maker of the Fable series, and Press Play Studios, developers of Project Knoxville, are being closed to cut costs. “[G]ames with more narrow audiences tougher to justify,” or in other words, games for marginalized players are not important and do not cater to our base player.
1.The way in which the digital game
industry has influenced the global culture of play.
2. It is predominately
white, and secondarily Asian, male-dominated corporate
and creative elite that represents a select group of large,
global publishing companies in conjunction with a handful
of massive chain retail distributors.
3. We see video games catering to a specific stereotype or audience and not to everyone equally.
4. Women were able to contribute much more to the board game industry and it allowed a lot more room for anyone of any race, gender or class to design a game, though other people would take credit for it.
5.A male gamer persona characterized by an adolescent
male sensibility that transcends physical age and embraces
highly stylized graphical violence, male fantasies of power
and domination, hyper-sexualized, objectified depictions of
women, and rampant racial stereotyping and discrimination
6. Yes.
Interview with Anna Anthropy
Her games are more of a personal story than anything else. They are an example of her struggles as an individual and this individual made this game separate from the companies that normally dictate how games should be made.
Playing with privilege: the invisible benefits of gaming while male
#2 Because no one will ever question what I am doing playing video games.
#11 If I sound like a guy, people won’t question what I say in video games.
#23 People regardless of your gender will insinuate whatever they want about you and your general appearance and they’ll also relate it to what your character looks like as well.
I think that they means how he games that we play and create affect the world of play in the … well world. We have seen a shift into the war genre of games in our lives and we have started to see the world recognizing that these aren’t the only games that can be made.
It effects who the games are being made for. Which ethnicity and which gender, all of which seems to be a white males as a majority of the target base.
The majority of the playable characters in \videogames today are white males. There are more and more games that are coming out where you can create your own character, but when you don’t get the choice, most of the time it is a white male that you can play as.
Women’s roles in game design where much different when the industry was predominantly board games. These games also seems to revolve around societal issues more that promoting war. Games like the Landlord’s Game for example was the first form of monopoly and it taught people why monopolies are not a good thing.
It basically means a hard-core gamer.
It seems as though there is hope for the future. There has been this shift in society that pulls attention to race and gender, and the issues that they face. So long as these movement continue to happen, I believe that gaming companies have no choice but to change with the times to continue to be as successful as they are.
1. Interview with Anna Anthropy
It seems to me pretty clear that she is challenging the current hegemonies of play. In her game she is using sexuality as the basis for the game and not just changing the sex of the gamer in the game. She is basing her games of being a women and the issue that they face on a day-to-day basis. She takes themes like sex and make them none objective in her games. At the moment, when people see a females body parts, it is led to thinking about “getting off” and “being attracted” to those parts. At the moment there is no discussion about who that person is or what they do, they are simply a sex symbol. Her games start to give a different perspective and flip that notion in it’s head.
2. Playing with privilege: the invisible benefits of gaming while male
I chose the first three statements to talk about because they are something that I either cannot relate to or topics that piss me off.
1) I choose to remain completely oblivious, or indifferent to the harassment that many women face in gaming spaces.
a. For me this is simply nothing that I have experience in my life. For the majority of my gaming life, I’ve spent it offline and never really talked to people. When I started in the online experience it was with GTAV and to be honest I got really lucky. The group of people that I became friends with is a very cool and chill group. There are all types of people in it (Race, sex, sexual preferences, and from different countries) and I have never experienced anything but respect, simply because I don’t really venture outside of that group very often. However I can see where this is the case from some of the conversations that I’ve had with people. When you see a picture of a female gamer, in today’s society she is a sex symbol. She’s the perfect women, beautiful and loves to play games. I have a few female gamer friends and they have told me a few stories that really piss me off. I don’t tolerate stuff like this and I would absolutely never ignore it.
2) I am never told that video games or the surrounding culture is not intended for me because I am a male.
a. And a white male at that. No I have never been told that ever in my life. I have never been discriminated against because of my sex or the color of my skin. But again these are things that I just don’t understand. It is something that never made sense to me. I read a quote once and it made me laugh, so I’m going to share it here. “Fighting about race and gender is like fighting about which color M&M is better. They only look different but are all the same on the inside.” That’s how I feel about people. The fact that we need to divid everything based on “race” and “gender” ticks me off because we are the “HUMAN RACE”. There are not smaller races within that larger race. We are all people.
3) I can publicly post my username, gamertag or contact information online without having the fear to be stalked or sexually harassed because of my gender.
a. Again, no I have never been harassed because of my gender. And no I am not afraid of putting my things up publicly for this reason (Other reasons, but not this one). This topic again ticks me off, not because I don’t think it should be talked about, but because I can’t wrap my head around people being so shady. How can people become so bored or messed up in the head that they need to stalk people online and have a fantasy about them. Then they have the nerve to go and harass that person. Go online, porn is free. Like I really don’t understand the creepy factor in people that would do something like this.
1. Hegemony of Play refers to the game industry’s cultivation of a narrow concept of values and norms reinforced through a cyclical system of supply and demand, leaving games that do not fit these molds devalued.
2. Most game development workers seem to be white heterosexual males with a somewhat narrow concept of what a game should be. Someone coming from a different background with a different perspective regarding games would be assumed less qualified by the industry’s “conventional wisdom” and ideas that do not fit a specific mold would not be given a real chance. According to the article, the game development work environment appears to have a “boys’ club” culture that focuses on remaking the same ideas and excluding others with different ideas, which continues the cycle.
3. Video games dictate rules and modes of play to the player. Video games do not have the same freedom of “house rules” other kinds of games may have, so all players have to fit into the single mode of play offered by the video game. The game favors certain skills and styles of play, leaving players who prefer a different style of play excluded.
4. Women held many roles in early board game development from painting and printing board and box art work, to cutting puzzle pieces, and to even developing some of the first American board games. The game narratives mostly reflected concepts that were accessible to any middle class family member of any age or gender, instead of only focusing on violent fantasies of young men.
5. The third gender is the “gamer.” They are considered a third gender because the concept of the “gamer” really has very little to do with an average male, and nothing to do with a female. The male perspective is often considered normal and the female perspective is the “other,” but in the video game world, both average male and female perspectives would be the “other” compared to the standard gamer persona.
6. Yes. The article mentions Nintendo’s DS and Wii launching with multiple games and play styles aimed at non-“gamer” markets. Since that happened a few years ago, it seems that it worked well for Nintendo and many other game developers have started taking non-gamers as more serious players. Games for smart phones also became more popular for the non-gamer players. I think games will continue to grow this way and people will become more bored of the “gamer” culture.
(Interview with Anna Anthropy)
Anna Anthropy developed games to reach audiences traditionally excluded from the video game industry. Dys4ia is a game about a queer trans woman that can help people understand and relate to frustrations by playing simple games with an ever-changing avatar. She uses confusion and frustration in the game play to communicate the feeling experienced by many people in the real world. Other games like Mighty Jill Off explore social inequality and sexism through a sub/dom relationship by giving the player a game experience that feels not fair at all.
(Playing with privilege: the invisible benefits of gaming while male)
“9. I can be sure that my gaming performance (good or bad) won’t be attributed to or reflect on my gender as a whole.”
Having a person’s performance in a game be attributed to their gender makes the players not care about participating in the game. If the game is competitive, the player will have no interest in competing if they cannot succeed as an individual. The player feels that they cannot make any progress or gain anything from the game on their own. If the player does not care about playing, the game is not fun at all.
“12. I can openly say that my favorite games are casual, odd, non-violent, artistic, or cute without fear that my opinions will reinforce a stereotype that men are not real gamers.”
If a woman likes to play video games, it is almost always assumed by others she likes to play casual and cute games. Video games marketed towards women (usually made by men) are almost always “casual” and “cute” without any complexity or value as a game. Even though I might want to play a casual game, someone could use this simple preference to perpetuate the stereotype that women do not have interest or skill in “real” games.
“16. I will almost always have the option to play a character of my gender, as most protagonists or heroes will be male by default.”
Almost all video game heroes are men. These days there are sometimes female characters to choose, but those are mostly personality-less sexualized characters designed by men for creepy men to play with. It is difficult to immerse a player in a game if the player is controlling an avatar that does not appear or act like the player would at all. It is a constant reminder that this game is not for you.
Q1
a) The Situationist International was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists, prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972
b) Psychogeography is an approach to geography that emphasizes playfulness and “drifting” around urban environments. It has links to the Situationist International.
Q2
a) One of the basic situationist practices is the dérive, a technique of rapid passage through varied ambiences. Dérives involve playful-constructive behavior and awareness of psychogeographical effects.
In psychogeography, a dérive is an unplanned journey through a landscape, usually urban, on which the subtle aesthetic contours of the surrounding architecture and geography subconsciously direct the travelers, with the ultimate goal of encountering an entirely new and authentic experience.
Q3
a) It has the similar concept of “Teleportation”. It brings “the players” to another space. And of course, the “implicit rules” can be applied to the “teleportation”. For example, derive is “USUALLY” an unplanned journey through a land scape. The word usually is an indication of what “derive” should be. Thus, it acts like an implicit rule.
Q4
a) The public sphere is an area in social life where individuals can come together to freely discuss and identify societal problems, and through that discussion, it influences political action. Gerard Hauser has defined it as “a discursive space in which individuals and groups associate to discuss matters of mutual interest and, where possible, to reach a common judgment about them.
The public sphere can be seen as “a theater in modern societies in which political participation is enacted through the medium of talk “ and “a realm of social life in which public opinion can be formed.”
Q5
a) All the technologies listed only can link the “thoughts” of people together, but not the actual people. In the old days, both “thoughts” and “people” are gathered together. However, the modern public sphere definitely able to gather /link a lot more “thoughts” together than the old public sphere.
Q6
a) The locked down street, based around centralized proprietary systems, can be surmised to struggle with localization. Intrinsic local detail will tend to require collaborative updates from local users themselves. Broader platforms that draw on such openly produced collaborative efforts (cf. Google) may well continue to be popular, but is dependent on the kindness, and quality, of strangers.
The open source street, in a sense, the entire street itself can now be thought of as having an API, conveying its overall behavior to the world, each aspect of it increasingly beginning to generate and recombine data.
Q7
a) Computer (internet), cell phone, Alarm Clock’s radio. The invisible ones are the functionalities / events of those device that you are not aware of. Such as the “data” gather from your cookies when you visit a site, or simply when a random hacker check out the stuff you stored on any devices that connect to internet.
The Hegemony of Play
1/2/3. Hegemony of play is when the game industry creates and affirms the dominate culture in the industry and society. In the current game industry’s case, the marginalization of everyone that is not male, white, and heterosexual and a hardcore gamer. Video games hypersexualize females, fetishes other cultures that are not like their own, and the games are targeted for the same people that make them.
4. Some of the most prominent game designers in the earlier years of the industry were women designing board games like The Landlord Game, which led to the creation of Monopoly later on.
5. The third gender are the hardcore gamers of society, which are usually male, heterosexual, and likes high-pace, violence, and male fantasy – hypersexualization of women.
6. There is hope in the future as the industry is becoming more diverse again, including people of all races and genders. This is probably due to the fact that society is becoming more accepting and as games reflect society, so does the industry.
Interview with Anna Anthropy
Anna Anthropy’s Dys4ia breaks the mold of “both guns” – biceps and firearms – and it’s attribution to the hyper masculine male, and tells a story about a queer transwoman. Instead of fast paced, shoot’em up game, it dwells deeper into issues of body image, HRT and the underrepresented frustrations of a lesbian transwoman. It challenges the hegemony of play and the industry that promotes the masculine male and hypersexualized female. By creating a game that offers insight into a different gender, it creates a more diverse game industry.
Playing with privilege: the invisible benefits of gaming while male
“I am never told that video games or the surrounding culture is not intended for me because I am male.” This impacts game play because games are often considered a male privilege, and not something females play. I’ve been told to not play games because they are a waste of time, but not due to my gender. It lets males play without much gripe, while females have to deal with all the social stigmas.
“I can be sure that my gaming performance (good or bad) won’t be attributed to or reflect on my gender as a whole.” Whether one is male or female, games are mainly based around the mechanics and skills of the player. For example, in Starcraft 2, while most of the top players are male, there are also a lot of female players. In League of Legends, Remi was in the LCS, which represents the top players of the region. Although females are still underrepresented in competitive play, it is not due to one’s skill, but probably due to the stigma and pressure.
“If I am trash-talked or verbally berated while playing online, it will not be because I am male nor will my gender be invoked as an insult.” This argument actually doesn’t really apply in current MMOs. There are plenty of guys that insult other guys because they are male, and same for females. The toxic nature of online gaming culture has grown to a new level, especially in games such as League of Legends. If a female does bad in a game, some may joke about how females shouldn’t play games. But when a male does bad, people trash-talk about the guy’s life, and how they are degenerate losers with no girlfriends. So overall, the game play may not change, but the experience that both male and females take away from the game are similar in this regards.
*Previous Post was a mistake*
Q1.
1) The Hegemony of Play illustrates how “the ways in which the exclusionary power structures of the computer game industry have narrowed the conception of both play and player in the digital sphere”.
2) The current production environment influences this hegemony, because game industry is just like other industries; its production will be based on the market. Profit is the first priority, and that will affect many decision making.
3) The notion of “the gamer” as devised by the industry perpetuates this hegemony , in that the potential for the player to play, interpret, and explore infinite meanings is cut short and curtailed by the industry attempting to attach a history and definition to the user of the game.
4) As always, women are sexualized and objectified in games. One of the main reasons is probably the lack of women in game development teams, or development related fields such as computer science. Besides that, the “gamers” are also mostly dominated by males.
5) “Male hardcore gamer” is characterized by an adolescent male sensibility that transcends physical age and embraces highly stylized graphical violence, male fantasies of power and domination, hyper-sexualized, objectified depictions of women, and rampant racial stereotyping and discrimination. Co-author Fullerton has astutely referred to this male gamer persona as “the third gender.”
6) Of course there is… we just need to find out the answers to “how to increase the diversity of development teams” or “how to attract female to technology fields”.
Q2.
1) In Dys4ia, you are confronted with an ever-changing avatar — in one mini-game you might be one thing, and in the next game, you are something completely different. It’s an experience of immediate confusion as Anthropy sends you into each mini-game without directions or clues.
Q3.
1) Privilege #14: this will affect game play, because the contents will be created to meet “male” expectations.
2) Privilege #16: the default setting of the heroes might make the game play less interesting. What happen if the player wants to control a female hero…?
3) Privilege #23: No hard feelings will be inserted into game… that way the player can be more focused on the game.
Better late than never:
Hegemony of Play refers to the domination of both development and consumption of digital games by the same demographic – white males – which in turn reinforces the status quo of existing game-related practices and stereotypes.
The production environment tends to be a part of hegemony of play for several reasons. One of them is the development technology itself. Unlike the earlier “analog” games that engaged a player in a way that would allow for improvisation and imagination, the digital games, due to their scripted/programmed nature force a player to engage in a specific way. Thus they create a certain pathway for “beating” the game. This sort of narrows down the elements that could implemented into the game play. So majority of commercial games often follow the same proven tactics. Another reason production environment influences the hegemony is the fact that the vast majority of employees working in the game development are white males. This lack of diversity in the production environment provides for the lack of thereof in the product designs and ideas, and in customer base.
Video games themselves adopt the stereotypes that exist in the environment where they are produced. They also follow a set of tactics that have proven to work for a target demographic in the past.
In early game development women were employed as both designers, crafters and testers of games. Their perspective on life can be traced in many early board games that were designed to attract the whole family. Their craft skills such as sewing allowed them to become creators of intricate and exclusive physical pieces of games such as jigsaw puzzles. They also were testing games by playing them. It seems like the games created by women were more attractive to diverse populations because they tended to focus on a wide range of relevant concepts, such as economics, art, wisdom, household management. They have dealt a lot with systems rather than focus on a single narrative or character.
Authors use “third gender” to refer to a special group of people who are considered to be “gamers”. “Third gender” term emphasizes that fact that this group has as little to do with men as it does with women. It is a very narrow target market of majority of commercial games that is perceived to have certain ideological preferences. In turn, the industry itself reinforces these ideological preferences onto the target market to keep the status quo.
As for the hope for the future, authors speak of different technologies and different platforms that were in development at the time this article was written. They speak of Wii console as one that can present games that would attract a diverse customer base. Judging by the popularity of the Wii console, it seems that Nintendo succeeded so far.
Anna Anthropy
The games Anthropy creates are a pure expression of her own experience and just in that sense they are already very different of the games produced by the Hegemony of Play. She does not try to cater to a specific audience in order to make profit. She wants to share her story with others who may relate their own lives to hers, and find a personal connection to a game. Her games also let player dive into the experience of underrepresented groups of people such as women, LGBTQ community and other.
Three Privileges
”When I enter an online game, I can be relatively sure I won’t be attacked or harassed when and if my real-life gender is made public”
I think this affects the gameplay in a way that women either do not play online games at all, or they create a male avatar and assign it a username that is male in order to simply avoid harassment. This means they have less options in the choices that the gameplay presents.
2) “If I choose to point out sexism in gaming, my observations will not be seen as self-serving, and will therefore be perceived as more credible and worthy of respect than those of my female counterparts, even if they are saying the exact same thing.”
This points out the fact that even game critiques are taken quite differently depending on the gender of the authors. This refers to a hostile environment that women face when they simply want to talk about existing ideological problems in games, including those that directly relate to the problem of brutal sexism.
3) “I do not have to carefully navigate my engagement with online communities or gaming spaces in order to avoid or mitigate the possibility of being harassed because of my gender.”
Again, this refers to the fact that women experience the games differently as they try to navigate the same game environments in much more limited way than men do. They simply just do not get to enjoy games to the extent that games are designed to be enjoyed.