DiGRA scholar says games and gamers should be studied as "hostile objects resulting from a hostile culture"

I recommend you do further research and don't assume Sargon to be accurate. Sargon labels everyone who's ever done any cultural study, regardless of it's outcome, regardless of any other pieces they've done, and in some case, just because they were female, as feminists.

I took the time to check Sargon's research, since I know he's biased and shit. There are 11 current members of the DiGRA board. I could find no evidence of feminist influence on seven of them.

For example, Jose Zagal is no evidence of feminism.

Ashley Brown studies sexuality and gaming, but again, not gender - sexuality.

Jussi Holopainen studies psychology and design - mostly around emotional response, neuropsychology and game design.

Remember that study that everybody in KiA would not shut the fuck up about from about a 3-year period they studied 825 people and found no link between video game usage and sexist attitudes? Rachel Kowert has a credit on that paper. You know, cause feminism.

Lindsay Grace builds experimental games to study neuropsychology. His games are related to language retention, affection, linguistics, and sexuality. I would imagine his overarching narrative is building effective educational games.

Jessika Weber's only paper is about marketing tourism via games.

William Robinson's work seems to be about work and performance within play state. Ludonarratives and whatnot.


Of the four that remained, Paul has one document that may be feminist, published in 2002. I can't read it because it's behind a paywall.

Waern had one paper that I'd consider even remotely feminist from 2013. The rest have fuck all to do with feminism.

Hanna Wilman has maybe a half-dozen papers on gender theory, and about ten on gameplay with Orangutans.

That leaves Mia Consalvo, who is the only consistent feminist.


Of course, none of them are specifically feminist game theorists - all of them have papers that are (or maybe in Paul's case) contain feminist theory, and the rest is general game design theory and facets in a diversity of study.

Consalvo's work goes from feminism to pure game theory, to game design, to player psychology about cheating. Feel free to do your own research: http://concordia.academia.edu/MiaConsalvo

Annika Waern studies gender theory, but mostly how it relates to storytelling and how to make games more impactful. Her theories are about building narratives. She has one paper in 2013 that would be considered vaguely feminist - it was about building narratives that better interest female players: https://annikawaern.wordpress.com/publications/

Hanna Wirman studies meta-interaction. Her focus is on non-human game interaction with Orangutans and how human players derive gaming avatars. http://www.hannawirman.net/#pubs

Christopher Paul studies MMO design and theory, focusing on language, the psychology of reward, and how rhetoric builds gaming communities. He has a paper that would be considered feminist, but fuck if I could find it outside of EBSCOHost, and I don't have a subscription to read it - https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=93tqcMEAAAAJ&hl=en


As a final note, Sargon never actually discusses any of the research from DiGRA. He presents no evidence that any of the study produced by DiGRA has been corrupted or biased in any way. Even in the studies that could be feminist in nature from the individual members, he makes no case that the studies are inaccurate or biased in any way, shape, or form. He simply assumes that by saying the word feminist and conspiracy, you'll put two and two together and blanket discredit their work even though he can give you no evidence to do so, and most of what he said was subjective slander wholly unsupported by the fucking evidence.

P.S. It took me far longer to type and link all this shit then to find it. If you had done even a cursory google search, you'd realize that Sargon is completely full or shit, but it seems that if you sound British and austere and say something GamerGate likes, that no fact checking or questioning will ever occur.

Trust, but Verify might be the biggest lie GamerGate has ever told itself. GGers do not trust when they do not like the opinion, and they do not verify when they do.

/r/AgainstGamerGate Thread Parent