Video Games and Gender Assemblages

In this book, Sian Tomkinson examines why, despite around half of gamers being female, highly-gendered stereotypical assumptions pervade the video game industry and communities of play, leading to toxic attitudes and events such as Gamergate and beyond. Tomkinson utilizes a Deleuzoguattarian lens through critique of categories to encourage a shift away from the binary oppositions that often lie at the root of this tension. Through the use of concepts including the assemblage, faciality, and the refrain, the book argues that the increased diversity of games, producers, and players have challenged traditional gamer identities. Gamers faced with this challenge, Tomkinson posits, can either embrace new experiences and affects - deterritorialising this identity - or become destructively reactionary by reterritorializing and refusing to meaningfully engage with difference. Ultimately, this book demonstrates how video game cultures and communities have a unique assemblage of influences while also functioning as a microcosm of broader social, cultural, and political tensions. Scholars of media studies, video game studies, women's and gender studies, philosophy, and sociology will find this book of particular interest.

Dr. Sian Tomkinson is a media, culture, and philosophy scholar based in Perth, Western Australia. Her main project examines the complexities of gender and video games through a Deleuzoguattarian lens. Sian is working and has published on projects including meaning-making; why players enjoy certain games and what impact these games have on attitudes and behaviours; the economics of game production; how game design can impact communities of play, and how social media communities regulate toxic gamer behaviour. Sian has also conducted research on manosphere groups including incels. Sian's work has been published in Continuum, Games and Culture, and the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, among others.

Chapter 1: Gendered Play Chapter 2: The Industry and Gender Chapter 3: The Witcher 3: A Game Assemblage Chapter 4: Assemblages in Detail Chapter 5: Player Norms and Categories Chapter 6: What Do Games Do? Chapter 7: Gamergate: Fear and Hate Index About the Author