Video Games Have Always Been Queer

Bonnie Ruberg

Published by New York University Press 2019

Video Games Have Always Been Queer

Bonnie Ruberg

Volume 16 in the series Postmillennial Pop

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479893904.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

Argues for the queer potential of video games

While popular discussions about queerness in video games often focus on big-name, mainstream games that feature LGBTQ characters, like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, Bonnie Ruberg pushes the concept of queerness in games beyond a matter of representation, exploring how video games can be played, interpreted, and designed queerly, whether or not they include overtly LGBTQ content. Video Games Have Always Been Queer argues that the medium of video games itself can—and should—be read queerly.

In the first book dedicated to bridging game studies and queer theory, Ruberg resists the common, reductive narrative that games are only now becoming more diverse. Revealing what reading D. A. Miller can bring to the popular 2007 video game Portal, or what Eve Sedgwick offers Pong, Ruberg models the ways game worlds offer players the opportunity to explore queer experience, affect, and desire. As players attempt to 'pass' in Octodad or explore the pleasure of failure in Burnout: Revenge, Ruberg asserts that, even within a dominant gaming culture that has proved to be openly hostile to those perceived as different, queer people have always belonged in video games—because video games have, in fact, always been queer.

Author information

Ruberg Bonnie :

Bonnie Ruberg is Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine and is the co-editor (with Adrienne Shaw) of Queer Games Studies (2017).Bonnie Ruberg is Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine and is the co-editor (with Adrienne Shaw) of Queer Games Studies (2017).

Reviews

T. L. Taylor,Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
Offers an innovative and critical contribution to not just the study of games, but media more broadly. Video Games Have Always Been Queer asks us to take not simply representation, but play itself, seriously and provides powerful ways for thinking about queerness and games. Its an exciting contribution to the field and a must-read for all media scholars.

Mia Consalvo,author of Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames:
Bonnie Ruberg is one of the most innovative and original thinkers in the field of game studies. Rubergs latest work gives us a nuanced and insightful approach to thinking about games through a queer lens. Its essential reading for anyone interested in the cutting edge of theorization about digital games.

Critical Studies in Media Communication:
This book helps us to identify the dominant preconceived notions surrounding games, which allows us to resist the heteronormative logic’s preferred ways to interpret and play games....I believe this book is a cornerstone of queer game studies, which will inspire scholars to think beyond the preconceived notions around queerness in, of, and around video games... The book is useful for everyone but especially ideal for students and scholars of queer studies and game studies, who defend and celebrate the different identities, activities, pleasures, and meanings that are available in video games.

Real Life Magazine:
Ruberg offers a polemical intervention into game studies, discovering queer frisson through close readings of how games are played, from the touching shoulders of two men playing a Pong cabinet in the 1970s to the modern trend of speed running or glitching games that transforms the temporality and meaning of play

Feminist Media Studies:
Ruberg powerfully calls for the reclaiming of the entirety of the games medium, identifying how LGBTQ players have always belonged in games (209) … I strongly recommend this book for researchers and students of queer studies and game studies and for scholars focused on media and culture.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Part I. Discovering Queerness in Video Games
1. Between Paddles: Pong, Between Men, and Queer Intimacy in Video Games Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
2. Getting Too Close: Portal, “Anal Rope,” and the Perils of Queer Interpretation Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	56
3. “Loving Father, Caring Husband, Secret Octopus”: Queer Embodiment and Passing in Octodad Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	84
4. Kissing for Absolutely No Reason: Realistic Kissing Simulator, Consentacle, and Queer Game Design Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
Part II. Bringing Queerness to Video Games
5. Playing to Lose: Burnout and the Queer Art of Failing at Video Games Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	135
6. No Fun: Queer Affect and the Disruptive Potential of Video Games that Disappoint, Sadden, and Hurt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	158
7. Speed Runs, Slow Strolls, and the Politics of Walking: Queer Movements through Space and Time Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	184
Conclusion: Video Games’ Queer Future: The Queer Games Avant-Garde Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	209
Acknowledgments Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Works Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271