Queerness in Games: Comprehensive Notes (What Is Queerness in Games, Anyway?)
Two Currents in Queerness and Games
The chapter frames queerness in games as having two large, divergent currents, both fundamentally aiming to challenge established norms but targeting distinct aspects of the field.
The two primary currents identified are:
Diversifying the content of games and representation of marginalized identities within the industry. This approach focuses on who is seen in games, who makes them, and whose experiences are reflected in game narratives (the content/representation approach).
Queering the structure of games itself, which involves a formal or structural critique of how games function, challenging their underlying mechanics and conventions (the formal/structural critique).
Public discourse, particularly in mainstream media, has largely reduced the concept of “queerness in games” predominantly to matters of representation and inclusion. This often focuses on who is involved in game creation, who is depicted in fictional game worlds, and whose lived experiences inform game stories.
The prevailing status quo within the game industry is that games have historically been rarely made by or for queer individuals, nor with queer perspectives in mind. Production has largely been dominated by young to middle-aged white and Asian men, with a similar demographic as the primary audience.
This situation mirrors parallel struggles for greater inclusion of women and people of color in other cultural spheres and industries, reflecting broader societal debates on representation.
Todd Harper's influential 2014 GDC panel emphasized that inclusive storytelling significantly expands empathic possibilities within games. His notable quote explains empathy as:
"Empathy is the ability to see what matters to other people. It’s the ability to see what matters to someone who isn’t you. Empathy is a muscle, and like any muscle you have to flex and use it over and over until it becomes strong."
Harper further suggested practical "identity flips" – for instance, transforming a stereotypical bald, white, cismale space marine into a half-shaved head, purple-haired, trans-woman Latina space marine – as a method to broaden narrative perspectives and foster deeper empathy.
The second, divergent current in queer game creation also profoundly focuses on questioning established norms and conventions that traditionally govern how games are expected to function, aiming to deconstruct their inherent rules and systems.
Avery McDaldno and Joli St. Patrick, at the 2013 Queerness and Games Conference, explored over a dozen techniques specifically for independent, non-digital RPGs. They critically argued against the conventional notion that a character in RPGs must be exclusively controlled by a single human player, opening up possibilities for shared or distributed agency.
merritt kopas, in her 2014 work, urged for a deconstruction of traditional game genres. Her aim was to locate and intentionally rupture unspoken, often heteronormative or cisnormative, norms that underpin these genres, thereby enabling radical queer reinterpretations and new structural forms of play.
These tactics, focusing on deconstruction and structural critique, align closely with queer theory’s broader methodological approach. Queer theory seeks to reveal hidden norms, assumptions, and power structures within any given field, subsequently destabilizing them to open up novel possibilities and alternative ways of seeing and being.
Why this matters beyond games: ethics, politics, and longer-term questions
Beyond the realm of games, external spaces like LGBTQ activism and organizing often perceive elements of queer politics as being at odds with the goals of the mainstream LGBT movement. The latter frequently focuses on assimilation into existing societal institutions, such as advocating for marriage equality or military service for LGBTQ individuals.
In contrast, anti-assimilationist queer activism emphasizes a deeper interrogation of who is excluded by existing institutions and how these structures inherently maintain the status quo, often reinforcing capitalism and other systems of power.
It is crucial to differentiate between representation aims and broader political strategies, recognizing that they serve different, though sometimes complementary, functions:
Representation can serve as a vital lifeline for marginalized players, particularly for queer youth who might discover validating experiences and experiments outside of large-budget, mainstream studios.
Crucially, inclusive representation is not inherently assimilationist. It can function effectively alongside independent, subaltern creative projects that actively rupture conventions, suggesting a pluralistic approach to queer engagement.
Samantha Allen, a notable panelist, argued compellingly for a plurality of tactics to “bring down the monolith” of dominant cultural narratives and structures. This principle applies equally to the independent games sphere as it does to more mainstream, institutional efforts.
The author’s personal experience with Anna Anthropy’s seminal work, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters (2012), is used as a poignant illustration. It demonstrates how marginalized creators, through DIY and independent approaches, can effectively push for entirely new kinds of games and alternative forms of play.
Case studies: queer games as both content and method
Mighty Jill Off (2008) by Anna Anthropy: This game uniquely depicts a queer BDSM relationship not just in its narrative content but overtly through its gameplay mechanics. The player experiences submission and dominance via the game's challenging platforming and punishing systems, powerfully illustrating how form and content can deeply reinforce each other to convey a specific queer experience.
dys4ia (2012) by Anna Anthropy: An autobiographical work in its content, dys4ia expresses the experience of gender transition through a system-driven, interactive experience rather than relying solely on words or images. This game demonstrates how interactive systems can destabilize the conventional requirement that games must always include explicit choices affecting the system’s state. It immerses the player in a controlled, often uncomfortable experience mirroring the lack of agency many feel during transition. This challenged critics who claimed much of dys4ia could have been simply a non-interactive presentation like PowerPoint; the work’s profound authenticity lies precisely in the way real-life situations and emotions are represented and mediated through its interactive systems.
Realistic Kissing Simulator (2014) by Jimmy Andrews and Loren Schmidt: This game ingeniously uses two gender-ambiguous heads, explicitly designed to avoid imposing a typical gay/straight binary. By doing so, it effectively dismantles conventional dating sim tropes, encouraging players to explore non-normative relationship dynamics and expressions of intimacy freed from traditional gendered expectations.
eat (2013) by Mattie Brice: This game features a complex rules system designed to mirror the overwhelming and often impossible everyday life challenges faced by a Black trans woman. The system is intentionally so daunting and oppressive that playing it fully through to completion remains more a theoretical possibility than a practical, enjoyable activity, thus conveying a powerful political message about systemic burdens.
Analogue: A Hate Story (2012) by Christine Love: Utilizing a visual-novel/dating-sim form, this game delves into intricate themes of privacy, historical records, and female responses to patriarchal oppression within a sci-fi setting. Its unique gameplay emphasizes epistolary, past-focused interaction (deciphering old messages and logs) rather than direct, real-time action, creating a sense of distance and historical investigation.
Lim (2012) by merritt kopas: This game explores the visceral experience of attempting to “pass” as a particular gender (and beyond) while simultaneously facing harassment and misunderstanding. The game intentionally foregrounds the non-passing protagonist and explores the blurred boundary between gameplay mechanics and psychological trauma. The ambiguity about whether certain visual and interactive effects are intentional design choices or glitches allows players to interpret the experience as a metaphor for the instability and precarity of identity. Kopas emphasizes that Lim’s effects can function as a powerful metaphor for the challenges of passing across multiple intersecting identities, including racial, gendered, and other marginalized experiences.
Collectively, these works represent a broader and cohesive strategy: queer creators leverage and manipulate the game form itself not only to vividly depict lived queer experiences but also to fundamentally challenge how games operate at a structural and systemic level.
The nagging tension between narrative and systems (ludology vs narratology)
The historiography of game studies has been marked by a long-standing and often contentious debate regarding the primacy of narrative (dramatic elements) versus game mechanics (formal elements) in defining what a game is and how it should be analyzed.
Dramatic elements (narrative) encompass aspects like characters, plot, the fictional world, dialogue, and overall storytelling, as extensively discussed by Tracy Fullerton in her Game Design Workshop.
Formal elements (ludology), conversely, focus on the inherent rules, player interactions, choices, underlying algorithms, and physics that govern the game system.
Historically, these two sides have been framed as often irreconcilable tensions that game designers must carefully manage. This tension is frequently described through the concept of ludonarrative dissonance (LND).
Ludonarrative dissonance (LND), a term famously coined by Clint Hocking, refers specifically to the misalignment or tension that arises when what happens in a game’s story contradicts or clashes with what the player is doing or is mechanically capable of doing within the game’s actual mechanics (e.g., a narrative hero acting brutally in gameplay).
Critics sometimes dismiss queer games, particularly those emphasizing personal stories or experimental mechanics, as not being “real games.” This critique often stems from a reductive focus solely on formal elements, neglecting the broader experiential and thematic aspects — a narrow perspective that even game theorist Raph Koster raised but later revised.
The author strongly argues that reducing queer games merely to their formal skeleton profoundly misses the “flesh” – the rich, lived, real-world contexts and human experiences they represent and engage with. By embracing queer modes of creation, new and integrated relationships between different aspects of games (narrative and systems) can emerge.
In the queer games discussed, the typical “dualism” or artificial separation between narrative and systems often dissolves. This is because the queer content itself is deeply intertwined with the game’s systemic workings and the player’s interactive experiences, creating a holistic and mutually reinforcing whole.
The chapter thus suggests that we should not only question whether representation in big-budget games should be expanded but also critically examine whether we should maintain a rigid, artificial separation between narrative and systems in game design and analysis in the first place.
The political economy of games: assimilation, legitimacy, and productivity
A central concern within queer game studies is the potential trade-offs and sacrifices made when games are assimilated into established social institutions or are primarily framed as mere tools for achieving social good.
The long-standing debate about whether games can — or should — be considered “art” is revisited. The inclusion of games like Pac-Man in MoMA’s permanent collection signals a growing legitimacy for the medium. Yet, some prominent figures, like Eric Zimmerman, express resistance to games being categorized as standard academic or institutional art forms, fearing that such assimilation could lead to a loss of their inherent disruptive and playful power.
The Grasshopper and The Ant and the Grasshopper analogy, drawn from Bernard Suits’ seminal work The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia, is used to discuss whether games should primarily serve pure play (grasshopper’s song) or productive ends (ant’s labor). Suits argues persuasively for the pursuit of “ultimate goods” — activities pursued for their own intrinsic ends, like play — and critiques the notion that games should primarily serve instrumental, productive purposes.
A significant tension exists between the rehabilitation or assimilation of games into utilitarian roles such as education, propaganda, or nonprofit work, and the imperative to preserve games as autonomous spaces for unproductive, liberatory play.
Jane McGonigal’s widely recognized work, including Reality Is Broken (2011) and SuperBetter (2015), is presented as a prime illustration of a productive, instrumental approach to games. She advocates for channeling the inherent energy of play toward achieving tangible real-world goals, such as PTSD prevention, public-awareness campaigns, or personal self-improvement.
McGonigal’s design principles prominently involve creating “voluntary obstacles” along a path to productive goals. This aligns with Bernard Suits’ profound idea that games essentially create value through the deliberate, voluntary embrace of challenges.
The very concept of voluntary obstacles is central to motivating play and effectively directing that playful energy toward achieving specified productive ends, transforming difficult tasks into engaging challenges.
Bernard Suits’ philosophical stance on play is then sharply contrasted with McGonigal’s pragmatic instrumentalism:
McGonigal emphasizes leveraging games to improve life, health, and broader social outcomes, seeing them as powerful tools for change.
Suits, conversely, emphasizes the intrinsic value of play itself, questioning whether games should be yoked to external productive purposes, arguing for play’s inherent worth.
The chapter cautions against the potential risks of instrumentalizing games, suggesting that this approach might inadvertently erase the inherently liberatory, subversive, or critically playful potential of games, especially when viewed through queer contexts.
The broader concern is: as games progressively gain legitimacy (e.g., being recognized as art, educational tools, or social instruments), what valuable aspects might be lost if their inherent experimentation, subversion, and creative freedom are forced to conform to corporate or institutional priorities and expectations?
The outside/inside spectrum: production contexts and market realities
Most of the influential queer games discussed in the chapter were created outside highly profitable market contexts or developed without the traditional support structures of mainstream publishers.
The author specifically notes that queer modes of creation often rely heavily on non-traditional funding, alternative distribution channels, and innovative production pipelines. These unconventional approaches are frequently necessary to maintain creative freedom and to effectively challenge dominant conventions and expectations within the game industry.
There is a persistent and crucial call to recognize that representation within mainstream titles and the innovative work of independent queer projects are not mutually exclusive. Instead, they can and often do complement one another, collectively expanding the definition of what games can be and whom they can genuinely serve.
The risk of assimilation into mainstream channels includes the potential homogenization of queer content. This could occur as creators attempt to tailor their work to fit broader audiences or to maximize profits, thereby potentially diminishing the subversive, experimental, or critically sharp edges that define much of queer game design.
Real-world relevance and implications
Advocates for queer game studies emphasize the critical importance of fostering diversified pipelines for game creation and distribution, including indie collectives, academic initiatives, and activist circles. This is crucial for preserving vital spaces for experimental, non-normative design and narrative approaches.
The chapter strongly emphasizes that representation alone is insufficient. It must be coupled with structural questions about how games are made, who controls their production, and what kinds of play are enabled or constrained by their inherent systems.
It is paramount to strike a careful balance between inclusive content and a rigorous critical inquiry into game form, practice, and economy. This balanced approach is essential to avoid cementing a monolithic, singular narrative of what games should be, thereby allowing for diverse and challenging forms to flourish.
The discussion inherently links to broader debates about the role of media in social life, including how entertainment interfaces with political movements, and how creative work can either contribute to or fundamentally challenge existing power structures and ideologies.
Key definitions, terms, and references (with explicit concepts)
Queerness in games: A multi-faceted inquiry into how LGBTQ+ lives, experiences, and queer theories intersect with and inform game content, design practices, reception, and broader game culture.
Representation (content): Aims to diversify who appears in game narratives, who creates games, and what kinds of stories are told, often focusing on visibility and inclusion.
Queer mechanics: Innovative techniques for bending or breaking established game genre conventions to reveal and enable alternate forms of play; strongly associated with independent non-digital tabletop games and do-it-yourself (DIY) game design ethos.
Queer theory approach to history and knowledge: A critical methodology focused on locating unspoken norms, destabilizing ingrained assumptions, and opening up academic fields or cultural practices to broader, more inclusive possibilities and interpretations.
Anti-assimilationist queer activism: A critical stance within queer politics that critiques the integration of queer identities into existing societal institutions without first addressing fundamental structural inequalities and power imbalances that define those institutions.
Empathy as a design value: The idea that diverse narratives and experiences within games can expand players’ capacity for empathy, fostering their ability to understand and relate to perspectives different from their own.
Two cultures of game study (narratology vs ludology):
Narratology: Focuses on the dramatic elements of games, such as story, characters, fictional worlds, and plot development.
Ludology: Focuses on the formal elements of games, including rules, mechanics, player interactions, and underlying systems.
Ludonarrative dissonance (LND): The tension, misalignment, or contradiction between a game's overarching narrative or thematic content and its actual gameplay mechanics or player actions.
Voluntary obstacles: A concept originating from Bernard Suits, describing the deliberate challenges or difficulties that players willingly choose to undertake in order to achieve the defined goals within a game, central to the experience of play.
Notable figures and works cited:
Todd Harper, How to Subversively Queer Your Work (GDC panel, 2014) – a call for inclusive storytelling.
Avery McDaldno & Joli St. Patrick, Beyond Representation: Queer Mechanics in Tabletop Games (2013) – exploring alternative RPG mechanics.
merritt kopas, Interrupting Play: Queer Games and Futurity (2014) – advocating for deconstructing game genres and norms.
Anna Anthropy, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters (2012) – a foundational text for DIY game development.
Mighty Jill Off (2008) by Anthropy – a platformer illustrating BDSM through mechanics.
dys4ia (2012) by Anthropy – an autobiographical game about gender transition.
Realistic Kissing Simulator (2014) by Jimmy Andrews and Loren Schmidt – challenging dating sim tropes.
eat (2013) by Mattie Brice – a rule system mirroring challenges for a Black trans woman.
Analogue: A Hate Story (2012) by Christine Love – a visual novel exploring privacy and patriarchal oppression.
Lim (2012) by merritt kopas – exploring experiences of passing and harassment through ambiguous mechanics.
Gone Home (2013) by Fullbright Company – a prominent narrative-driven walking simulator.
The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia by Bernard Suits – a philosophical treatise on play.
The Grasshopper analogy: Highlights the contrast between productive (ant) and utopian (grasshopper) ends of activity, applied to games.
Ebert’s critique of games as art; MoMA exhibit of videogames; Zimmerman’s Manifesto for the Ludic Century (2013) and subsequent critique (Games, Stay Away from Art. Please, 2014) – debates on games' artistic legitimacy.
Jane McGonigal, Reality Is Broken (2011); SuperBetter (2015) – advocating for instrumentalizing games for real-world well-being.
Eric Zimmerman, Manifesto for the Ludic Century (2013); Games, Stay Away from Art. Please (2014) – critical perspectives on games' artistic and cultural roles.
Clint Hocking, Ludonarrative Dissonance in BioShock (2007) – origin of the LND concept.
Tracey Fullerton, Game Design Workshop (2008) – a widely used textbook on game design principles.
Summary of implications for study and future work
The study of queerness in games cannot be reductively confined to representation alone. It necessitates a comprehensive examination of how games are designed, who designs them, and what kinds of play they inherently enable or constrain through their structures and systems.
There exists a productive and dynamic tension between preserving play for its own intrinsic sake (autotelic play) and leveraging games for broader social or political goals (instrumental play). While both approaches can be complementary in expanding the scope of games, practitioners and scholars must remain acutely aware of potential losses, such as diminished creative autonomy, blunted subversion, or a compromised critical edge.
The vigorous emergence of queer game design vividly demonstrates that games are capable of far more than merely telling stories or simulating experiences. They possess a unique capacity to fundamentally reconfigure what constitutes play, how players relate to and interact with systemic rules, and how identities are experienced and performed within both digital and non-digital interactive spaces.
For exam preparation: remember to articulate the key examples (Mighty Jill Off, dys4ia, Lim, eat, Realistic Kissing Simulator, Analogue: A Hate Story), central theoretical concepts (ludonarrative dissonance, voluntary obstacles, queer mechanics), and the overarching central debate between achieving representation and conducting a structural critique of games.