You may or may not believe this, but studying games isn’t always fun. In fact, sometimes it’s downright horrible. Ask any PhD student who is researching video games from any kind of critical perspective and they will tell you: games are full of some of the most defeating, vitriolic, toxic shit a human being can spew. After writing for NYMG for five years, studying video games for seven, teaching video games for two, and playing games my entire life, I have to admit that it feels like too much. Wading through social media makes me want to just shut down. Once I shut down, where do I turn for release? Not to games. Games are work; games are toxic. This has been the limbo I was in about a year ago.
How do you overcome the toxic sludge that comes with the media you love? I don’t know if I can answer that question, but I can say that at long last I have found joy in games again. But I’ll step back for a moment and talk about how games lost their fun in the first place. Games became a mixed bag for me when I started researching for my dissertation. I focused on harassment, hiring practices, and other things as they influence gender representation in the video game industry. I connected the things happening behind the scene in games with things happening in the community (ie. harassment, attacks on women, etc). This research was not fun to do, as one could imagine, but it is well worth it. By identifying ways that harassment isn’t just a handful of people being jerks helps uncover how systematic the mistreatment of women is. Systems can be changed even if human beings cannot.
It’s easy to lose faith that the work you do day in and day out is making any difference. It certainly seems like that in the gaming industry, when things like GamerGate happened after I started my diss research. And I naively thought things couldn’t get any worse. GG really hit me—and many other people—like a ton of bricks. Things were getting better, weren’t they?
Well as the so called Social Justice Warriors began to make positive changes, the backlash was forming. A core group of gamers wanted nothing to do with change and innovation; nothing to do with diverse protagonists, storylines, or players; and nothing to do with new types of games. The reaction was violent. This was incredibly disheartening, as things were finally starting to get a little better.
It’s not as if I consciously made a decision to find games not very fun anymore. But I found myself playing less, writing less, and thinking about them less. I respect the hell out of people who can stay strong in this environment for so long, but it almost defeated me. I was tired of having the same arguments, fighting opponents on both sides—those who thought games weren’t worthy of study and those who thought I should suffer for studying them.
But then something happened. It wasn’t a big moment, but many little things that resurrected the absolute joy I used to feel while gaming. 1) People (with power!) at my institution totally bought into game studies. They support curriculum, ideas, and events about games. It is a true support too, which is not always common in academia 2) I taught a Video Game Culture class to a room full of some of the most interesting and brilliant students I’ve ever had. They soaked up theories and ideas, though complaining about some of the more outdated ones (cough… Huizinga). It made me feel like if I can help a room of 22 students discover how much games influence our culture, think critically about the ways people are represented in games, and talk about online interactions in a critical way, then fuck. I am influencing people. 3) This may seem silly, but a bunch of great games came out! I got the Destiny expansion and was able to play with my buds again. PVZGW2, while not the most amazing game, still is incredibly fun and retained all the things I love about the first game. The Witness blew my mind—it was like something new and something old all wrapped into one game. And last, but not least, The Division. Oh The Division. I love that game with a fervor I haven’t had in years.
I am so glad the world conspired to remind me of my love for games. It is too easy to stay in all the negative stuff surrounding games. It’s like Artax losing faith and drowning in the mud, despite how hard Atreyu tries to pull him out. I have decided to be an Atreyu, not an Artax. That may not change the swamp, but it sure as hell helps me pull myself out of it.
