Gamer Trouble

Complicating perspectives on diversity in video gamesGamers have been troublemakers as long as games have existed. As our popular understanding of “gamer” shifts beyond its historical construction as a white, straight, adolescent, cisgender male, the troubles that emerge both confirm and challenge our understanding of identity politics. In Gamer Trouble, Amanda Phillips excavates the turbulent relationships between surface and depth in contemporary gaming culture, taking readers under the hood of the mechanisms of video games in order to understand the ways that difference gets baked into its technological, ludic, ideological, and social systems.By centering the insights of queer and women of color feminisms in readings of online harassment campaigns, industry animation practices, and popular video games like Portal and Mass Effect, Phillips adds essential analytical tools to our conversations about video games. She embraces the trouble that attends disciplinary crossroads, linking the violent hate speech of trolls and the representational practices marginalizing people of color, women, and queers in entertainment media to the dehumanizing logic undergirding computation and the optimization strategies of gameplay. From the microcosmic level of electricity and flicks of a thumb to the grand stages of identity politics and global capitalism, wherever gamers find themselves, gamer trouble follows. As reinvigorated forms of racism, sexism, and homophobia thrive in games and gaming communities, Phillips follows the lead of those who have been making good trouble all along, agitating for a better world.

Gamer Trouble is a much-needed twist on representation, gaming culture, and the technology–human interaction through a feminist lens in gaming studies ... Embracing the generative power of troubling ruptures in gaming conversations, Phillips moves the discussion surrounding gaming studies toward a productive avenue that will change how understand the relationship between games, people, and politics., Absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in video games or game studies. Inspired by queer (and) women of color feminism, this much-needed, timely, and insightful book troubles the figure of the gamer and boldly shifts how we understand video games and their place in society., As Phillips demonstrates, the gaming world is no stranger to the turbulence and struggle over meaning, identity, and culture. But by historicizing both the racism and sexism in the industry, Gamer Trouble demands a different kind of engagement by the user: one that does not shy away from this complexity. Rather, Phillips lifts the hood to understand how these histories are made both part and parcel of gameplay., I learnt a lot from Gamer Trouble, from its feminist citational multiplicity, alternative methods of textual analysis, and inspirational structural flow. All of these will have a lasting influence towards my own approaches to studying and writing about video games.

Amanda Phillips is Assistant Professor of English and Film and Media Studies at Georgetown University.