Video Games and Social Inequalities: Understanding Gaming Culture Through Online and Offline Practices Anna Cameron Charlottesville, Virginia M.A. Sociology, University of Virginia, 2016 B.A.H. Political Studies, Queen’s University, 2013 A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Sociology University of Virginia May 2020 i Abstract This dissertation examines gender inequality in video game culture. The domination of “geek masculinity” in this field has resulted in an environment where white women, people of color, and LGBTQ people face persistent hostility and harassment. This project looks at how dominant and subordinated groups who play video games understand their role in the culture and how they challenge and perpetuate social inequalities within it. By considering race, class, gender, and sexualities, this work seeks to understand the connections between media, community, and gender inequality. To answer these questions, I conducted 78 interviews between June 2017 and September 2018 with people over the age of 18 who play video games. I also observed two weekend long gaming conventions as well as eight meetings of a weekly gaming group. I found that cisgender heterosexual men typically began playing games at an early age that allowed them to effortlessly develop gaming habitus and gaming capital, making them oblivious to the larger structures of inequality they were enmeshed in. Women with these high-status men in their networks repeated these values to find status for themselves, thereby replicating the barriers that prevent gaming from becoming more diverse. Marginalized players tended to avoid the types of mainstream, competitive games that gave some players status and the opportunity to social connections, which I attribute in part to differences in embodied experiences. I attribute differences in attitudes about representation to differences in trust in gaming institutions, with players typically taken into account by the gaming industry finding industry solutions sufficient if they acknowledge a problem at all. In contrast, players marginalized by the gaming industry tended to be skeptical of industry attempts at diversity, and often did not expect or look ii for representation in games at all. These findings show that gaming culture contains many different facets that are often ignored in favor of the most public elements and shows how unnoticed daily practices can accumulate into larger inequalities. iii Dedication This dissertation is dedicated to my family. iv Acknowledgments This dissertation could not have been possible without the support of so many people, and I am eternally grateful to everyone who hand a hand in making this document a real and final product. First, I would like to thank the chair of my dissertation committee and advisor of seven years, Andrea Press. Her ongoing dedication and support to a project on a topic she was always enthusiastic about meant everything to me, and I could not have done this without her. I hope she learned something about games during this process, just as I have learned so much from her. Second, I would like to thank the other members of my dissertation committee, Sarah Corse and Sabrina Pendergrass. From my first qualitative methods course with Sarah through to the end of this dissertation, she has been the practical voice I needed to refine a project into something worth pursuing and ultimately see it through to the end. Sabrina has also been invaluable in how I thought about shaping my findings, and her support for the project has been nothing but generous from the beginning. I would also like to thank Bruce Williams, my outside reader. His deep knowledge of gaming helped me find a new way of thinking about the problem of social inequalities in gaming, and his recommendation that I watch The Guild led me to a sampling strategy at conventions based on its creator. In addition to all these wonderful scholars, the University of Virginia also provided me with financial support for this project through a qualitative research grant, which helped me access research sites that proved essential for this project. In equal measure, I am thankful to all the people who made the time for me to interview them and allowed me to observe their activities. I am grateful to all 78 v participants for giving me their time, energy, thoughtfulness, and candor with no financial incentives whatsoever beyond the occasional cup of coffee. I am also grateful to everyone who could not be interviewed themselves but helped put me in touch with interested participants. There were times when my sampling strategies had stalled, and I thought I had reached the end of volunteers, but then someone would come forward with a friend or group of friends who were willing to be contacted. This project could not have happened without your participation. At UVA, I need to thank my endlessly patient support network. As my wonderful friend and one-woman-writing group, Catalina Vallejo got me writing every day and helped me find joy in this long and sometimes arduous process. I would not have finished without her. I also benefitted from the support and input of Elissa Zeno and Sarah Johnson, who helped me talk through ideas and make sense of everything I wanted to say. Additionally, I would like to thank my other friends and colleagues at UVA for their support: Elene Kekelia, Hexuan Zhang, Jaime Hartless, Mary Collier Wilks, Gabriella Smith, Leigh Miller, Kennedy Castillo, Bailey Troia, and Brooke Dinsmore. My friend outside of UVA, Susannah Green, and her team at gnovis journal were incredibly helpful in turning the theoretical section of the document into the best article it could be, and I am grateful for her support as well as for her years of friendship. I would also like to thank my colleagues at ICF Next for giving me the time and flexibility I needed to finish this project, and especially Laura Turner Reid for her endless support and kindness and Pollie Barden for her wisdom, her sympathetic ear, and her Saturday mornings. Last but most importantly, I would like to thank my family. My sisters Heather and Audrey were as integral to this project as they have been to the rest of my life. vi Audrey taught me enough about video games to not seem like an imposter, something I could never have accomplished on my own. Heather is the hardest working person I have ever met and always reminds me what can be possible if you just never stop, but to always know the value of fries, friends, frivolity, and secret trips. My cat friend Pistachio belongs in this section for sleeping next to me throughout so much of the writing process, showing me the importance of companionship and resting. My parents, Cathy and Grant, always gave me a place to come home to when I needed it most and always believed in me despite my complaining and unpleasantness. Thank you so much to everyone who made this possible! vii Table of Contents Introduction….....…………….……………………………………………………………1 Chapter 1: Theoretical Approach...…………………...………………………………… 16 Chapter 2: Methods…………………………………………………,,,,…………………35 Chapter 3: A Typology of Gaming Sociality…………….…………,,…………………..45 Chapter 4: “It Is What You Make of It”: Perceived Meritocracy and Heterosexual Cisgender Men…...67 Chapter 5: Honorary Bros: Women Receiving Patriarchal Dividends.………………….86 Chapter 6: Gender and Embodied Experiences of Video Games……………..………..107 Chapter 7: “That’s Kind of the Best You Can Do”: Limited Expectations and Representation…..….139 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...………182 Works Cited……………………………………………………………….……………186 Methodological Appendices……………………………………………………………196 viii Introduction On a rainy Friday in June in a large Western city in Canada, I once again ride the bus for 90 minutes to reach a popular mall in the suburbs. It is my third visit to this mall, and while the lengthy bus trip to get there never gets any easier, my sense of trepidation has decreased and for the first time I find myself looking forward to my visit. The mall, while also a destination shopping center for residents of the surrounding area, is the site of the community gaming group that has agreed to let me observe and participate for the summer. The first time I visited the group, I was not sure what to expect. Previous sites I had attempted to observe had been less successful than I had hoped. An online calendar of gaming tournaments I found turned out to be a list of games being demonstrated at a computer store that were only attended by a few wandering children looking for distractions while their parents shopped. I had also attended a nerd trivia event at a well- known local nerd-themed bar that had some gaming elements in the bar itself. While the questions were focused on a range of science fiction, space, history, science, and popular culture topics, the event itself was otherwise indistinguishable from any other trivia event. The crowd was approximately evenly distributed between men and women, mostly white, with most attendees being in their 20s and 30s with a few older participants. When people I spoke with about nerd culture described it as mainstream and ubiquitous, this is what they were referring to. Given my previous experience with events that had ultimately been no different from any other day at a computer store or trivia event, as I ride the bus on my way to the gaming group, I have some concerns that my project will need some significant 1 reframing. How can I study gaming culture if every gaming-related event I found said more about the neighborhood I was in and the time of day than it did about any potentially distinct gaming culture? Has gaming culture become completely mainstream? While this was an argument I would hear from video game players with high status in gaming terms for the next 15 months, I soon found that gaming culture does in fact amplify patterns of larger inequality in distinctive ways.