On the Cultural Inaccessibility of Gaming: Invading, Creating, and Reclaiming the Cultural Clubhouse by Emma Vossen A thesis presented to the University of Waterloo in fulfillment of the thesis requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Waterloo, Ontario, Canada 2018 © Emma Vossen 2018 Examining Committee Membership The following served on the Examining Committee for this thesis. The decision of the Examining Committee is by majority vote. External Examiner Dr. Todd Harper Assistant Professor Supervisor(s) Dr. Neil Randall Associate Professor Internal Member Dr. Aimée Morrison Associate Professor Internal-external Member Dr. Shana MacDonald Assistant Professor Other Member(s) Dr. Jennifer R. Whitson Assistant Professor ii Authors Declaration I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners. I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public. iii Abstract This dissertation uses intersectional feminist theory and Autoethnography to develop the concept of “cultural inaccessibility”. Cultural inaccessibility is a concept I’ve created to describe the ways that women are made to feel unwelcome in spaces of game play and games culture, both offline and online. Although there are few formal barriers preventing women from purchasing games, playing games, or acquiring jobs in the games industry, this dissertation explores the formidable cultural barriers which define women as “space invaders” and outsiders in games culture. Women are routinely subjected to gendered harassment while playing games, and in physical spaces of games culture, such as conventions, stores, and tournaments. This harassment and abuse is intensified toward female journalists, developers and academics who choose to speak publicly about sexism within the culture, particularly since the 2014 rise of Gamergate. This dissertation illustrates the parallel development of games culture and women’s continued exclusion from it, from the exclusionary sexism of J. R. R. Tolkien’s writing to the development of the “Gamer” as a fixed (and stereotypically cis-male) identity in the pages of video game magazines of the 1980s and ‘90s, to the online “Gamer activism” of today. At the same time, I also explore my own experiences as a female gamer and academic in the 2010s, using projects I have been a part of as a means of reflecting on developments in the broader culture. I first discuss a short machinima (a film made within a video game) that Elise Vist and I created within the 2007 Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Lord of the Rings Online entitled Lady Hobbits. Lady Hobbits becomes an entry point to consider the historical cultural inaccessibility of women’s representations in seminal male-dominated media such as The Lord of the Rings. I then discuss the gender and games advocacy group that I co-founded at the University of Waterloo, The Games Institute Janes (GI Janes), and the many gaming events that iv we ran, comparing the experience of our gender-integrated and women-only game nights. The challenges I experienced organizing GI Janes fuels my analysis of the cultural inaccessibility of game play for girls and women, as demonstrated by the tangled gender dynamics at play in the eSports community and Super Smash Brothers fandom. Lastly, I discuss my experiences as a staff member, and eventual first female editor-in-chief, of game studies publication First Person Scholar (FPS). This chapter interrogates the cultural inaccessibility of writing and publishing about games for women in the academic field of game studies, and the ways in which game studies’ links to gamer identity replicate games culture’s troubling sexism. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the more recent connections between games culture, Gamergate, and conservative political groups such as the Alt-right. The conclusion asks how women can study games culture and the politically-motivated violence with which it is has recently been linked if doing so puts us at risk of becoming a target of harassment and abuse. It underscores the importance of future social justice-oriented work in academia and at large. In summary this dissertation moves from examining the historical inaccessibility of representation and participation (chapter 2), to the inaccessibility of game play (chapter 3), to the inaccessibility of participation in the discourse of games culture (chapter 4), before finally moving to a conclusion about Gamergate and politics in 2018 and how cultural inaccessibility has become a problem that is much larger than just games culture (chapter 5). v Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank my family and friends for their patience through my 11 years of postsecondary education. Thanks to my brother for always sharing with me: for letting me play the N64 first on Christmas morning, for giving me his second Game Boy when he got two, and for never ever displaying any of the harmful gamer behaviors that I write about in this dissertation. Thanks to my Mother not just for her endless support but for being the first person to foster my love of learning by opening her many bookshelves up to me at a young age and letting me read whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted (even at 3 in the morning). Thanks to my Stepdad for ensuring that I got wherever I was going in one piece, with CAA, winter tires, and his expert car repair on my side. Thanks to Keith for loving me, for making sure I ate and slept and for taking the brunt of my frustration, tears, and occasional joy about grad school. Thanks to Elise for letting me aggressively insist that we were best friends after knowing each other for an hour and for being with me for every step of the PhD journey from writing our applications together in 2011 to my defense in 2018. Thanks to Lauren for being the friend I did all three of my degrees with, and for inspiring me (and a lot of others) to come to Waterloo. Thanks to JM who, over 11 years of friendship, has read and given incredible feedback on countless of pages of my writing without ever making me feel stupid. Thanks to Rob and Emily for keeping me calm and being my “bridesmaids” on the day of my defense. I’m sorry I spilled curry in your car. Thanks to Thea, Ruby, Luke, Kelly, Matt, Caitlin, Nick, Amelia, Tess and all my other non-academic buds for being so understanding when I barely had a single second of free time for you over the past six years. Most importantly, thanks to my committee. Thanks to Aimée for sticking with me through my topic changes and for once telling me that I was “too funny to be a PhD student”. Also, thanks for continuing to speak to me even though the first time we met I was so nervous that I introduced myself as Aimée and called you Emma. Thanks to Jen for holding my hand through everything from my first ethics application to how to use a voice recorder. Thanks for repeatedly telling me what I needed to hear over pancakes with homemade whipped cream and for your mind-boggling speedy, careful, and detailed edits. I really don't know how you do it, but I'm glad I get to benefit from it! Thanks to Neil for believing in every idea that I had over the past six years, the ones that took off and the ones that fell flat. Thanks especially for making me apply to the SSHRC Storytellers contest, for pushing me so enthusiastically to take the position of EIC of FPS, and for driving me across the Golden Gate bridge for the first time. Also, thank you for insisting that I shouldn’t quit FPS (or the PhD) even when I reallllly wanted to. Thanks to Todd and Shana and my whole committee for making my defense so enjoyable as a time of serious reflection as well as fun and laughter. Thanks to He for She, The Games Institute, IMMERSe, ReFIG, and SSHRC for financially supporting portions of this and other research over the course of my PhD. Lastly, thanks to my colleagues. Thanks to Gerald for your support and for getting me involved in so many cool projects. Thanks to the folks at NYMG for inspiring me to see what game studies can be. Thanks especially to Alisha, who is without a doubt, the “ideal reader” of this dissertation. Thanks to all the feminist game scholars who showed me the ropes especially Emily, Kelly, Kishonna and Steph. Thanks to Jen Jenson and all of ReFIG, first of all for just existing, but also for so much support over the years. Thanks to all the present and past editors of FPS, not only for their contributions to this dissertation but also for their friendship. Thanks especially to Steve who pushed me to be a leader despite the fact that I would have happily spent the rest of my PhD as his second in command. Thanks to Alex and Betsy for making me feel like I could retire as long as the publication was in their capable hands. Thanks to Judy, Elise, and everyone who ever attended a GI Janes event. Most of all, thanks to all the game scholars who let me know that my work is game studies and that I do in fact belong here. vi Dedication To every little girl who had to beg her brother, cousin, neighbor, or friend to share because no one was going to buy her her own games. To every girlfriend who has thrown a match against their boyfriend to avoid his ire.