Games offer a unique site to understand how culture operates and works upon us. With the recent push for more representation of LGBTQ bodies... Show moreGames offer a unique site to understand how culture operates and works upon us. With the recent push for more representation of LGBTQ bodies and experiences in AAA games, queerness provides a necessary framework to critique the politics of these representations. In this project, I question the extent to which games marketed to gay men challenge or reify problematic values of heteronormativity and hegemonic masculinity. I argue that discussing representation in games necessitates interrogation beyond visual and narrative elements to include mechanics, constraints, rules, and systems. Here, I emphasize understanding how these components of games allow players to play with bodies or limit interactions in games and what these affordances/constraints relay about gender identity and sexuality. In my second chapter, I investigate how a game played on RuPaul’s Drag Race with male underwear models codes male/female binaries into gay sexuality. In Chapter 3, I analyze Drag Bingo through participant observation and oral histories with drag queen hosts and discuss how these hosts develop a liminal space in which players can joyfully play with gender and sexuality. I “close play” Robert Yang’s Cobra Club in Chapter 4, locating the game within the history of surveilling homosexuality. A design discussion of Bulge Lab, an Alternate Reality Game I developed that focuses on body image, masculinity, and viruses, comprises my fifth chapter. Show less
