Friday, March 01, 2024

Have we seen peak gaming?

I noticed this story on NPR:

Close to 1 in 5 American gamers identify as LGBTQ+, according to new research from GLAAD. But LGBTQ+ gamers often face harassment in gaming communities and games with voice chats that anybody can join — common in multiplayer, team-based games.

The research indicates that 52% of LGBTQ+ gamers faced harassment while playing online, and 42% have avoided a game due to anticipated harassment.

"It's difficult when you're trans to hop on voice chat with random people because you open yourself up to criticism or potential harassment," said Veronica Ripley, also known as Nikatine, a full-time Twitch streamer and founder of the Discord community Transmission Gaming for trans gamers.

I guess this feels not so surprising:  it kind of aligns with my expectation that people who identify as queer are likely overrepresented in the cosplay community.  As explained further in that NPR story:

"A lot of folks in our community use video gaming to see that representation and want to see themselves in characters," said Ray Lancione, president of Qweerty Gamers, streamer, and former video game community manager. "Our community [uses] it to find each other ... finding people that are like-minded or similar sexualities, genders."

But it all makes me wonder, too: have we already reached "peak gaming"?   We always seem to be hearing of smaller games companies winding up, and bigger companies laying off staff.  And it feels like a long time since there seemed to be much excitement about forthcoming games.   (Not that I go looking for game trailers or anything.  And also, it does seem that the odd phenomena of Twitch streaming of game play is still very popular - but I wonder if that phenomena itself makes people feel less need to play the game themselves?)   I also wonder whether the rise in queer presence make bro boys question their own interest in gaming?   

This is not an important topic, but just wondering.  

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