Month: April 2013

GTFO: A Film About Women in Gaming

GTFO: A Film About Women in Gaming

Another interesting kickstarter has sprung up this week: GTFO: A Film about Women in Gaming.

What is it and why should you care? the GTFO campaign is a kickstarter to fund a documentary about women in gaming-

GTFO is a film exposing the harassment of women in video games. It features gamers, bloggers, scholars, developers, and other experts.

Neat. But is this importannttt? Despite making up a big portion of the gaming populace, women in gaming are still treated as second class gamers. Sexual harassment, under or misrepresentation, and backlash to their participation in the gaming world are amongst a few issues that female gamers encounter. A gaming world that is hostile to half the population of the world is quite an issue. Bringing this issue to the forefront is the first step in making our gaming world a more accepting and diverse place.

Kickstarter for Documentary about LBGT Community in Games

Kickstarter for Documentary about LBGT Community in Games

This interesting bit of news came out (no pun intended) last month. It’s a documentary focusing on the LBGT community in video games: Gaming in Color

In their own words:

Gaming In Color is a full length feature documentary on one of the fastest growing communities in the fastest growing entertainment sector in the world: Gaming. For too long gamers have been painted in a very specific light, and the mosaic of gamers have lacked the diversity of minorities, queers, women, and members of LGBT communities.

So, why should you fund this documentary…or even care for the matter? The gaming communities is one of the fastest growing communities out there, and while it’s typically painted as being dominated by pre-pubescent teenage boys calling each other “fags”, it’s a far more diverse community than just that. That said, there’s still a considerable amount of misrepresentation and under representation of the LBGT community in gaming (Tingle doesn’t count). Video games are a growing socialization tool for kids, and without proper (or any) representation of the LBGT community in video games they may be getting wrong or mixed messages.

Plus, it’s cool and it’ll be interesting to see.  Entertainment. Yay.

-I

WELCOME TO SOCIOLOGY OF VIDEO GAMES

If you are reading this then you’ve already wasted a few moments of your time, so why not waste more? This is a blog dedicated to everything video games and sociology. Sometimes these two distinctive world mix (Sometimes? All the time? Often? Never? Who knows!) and when they do it’s…something worth talking about I suppose. So that’s what I’m going to do; explore the sociological world of gaming. “Hey what would Durkheim say about King DeeDee“, or “Hey, what sociological perspective can best be applied to my catching of Wigglytuff?“. All of these questions and more will be explored!* So please stay tuned, subscribe if you like, and share with your friends and family.

-I

*They probably won’t be explored.