Queerness & Video Games Special Issue of Game Studies

Amanda Phillips and Bo Ruberg are very proud to announce that the “Queerness & Video Games” special issue of Game Studies is now out! The issue includes eleven original peer-review articles on a variety of topics relating to queerness, gender, sexuality, games, and play, as well as an introduction from the special issue editors, Amanda and Bo. They hope that you will have the chance to read, teach, and share this wonderful and important collection of work:

– “Not Gay as in Happy: Queer Resistance and Video Games” (introduction), Bo Ruberg and Amanda Phillips

– “Queer Games After Empathy: Feminism and Haptic Game Design Aesthetics from Consent to Cuteness to the Radically Soft,” Teddy Pozo

– “Time and Reparative Game Design: Queerness, Disability, and Affect,” Kara Stone

– “When (and What) Queerness Counts: Homonationalism and Militarism in the Mass Effect Series,” Jordan Youngblood

– “‘theyre all trans sharon’: Authoring Gender in Video Game Fan Fiction,” Brianna Dym, Jed Brubaker, Casey Fiesler

– “Queering Control(lers) Through Reflective Game Design Practices,” Jess Marcotte

– “Coin of Another Realm: Gaming’s Queer Economy,” Christopher Goetz

– “Daddy’s Play: Subversion and Normativity in Dream Daddy’s Queer World,” Braidon Schaufert

– “Backtrack, Pause, Rewind, Reset: Queering Chrononormativity in Gaming,” Matt Knutson

– “The Affectively Necessary Labour of Queer Mods,” Tom Welch

– “Queer Easter Eggs and their Hierarchies of Play,” Eric James

– “Engineering Queerness in the Game Development Pipeline,” Eric Freedman

This issue has been a number of years in the making and represents the hard work of many, many people — including the authors, the reviewers, the Game Studies editors, and our supportive network of colleagues in queer game studies and queer game communities.