Adrienne Shaw Books

Video games have long been seen as the exclusive territory of young, heterosexual white males. In a media landscape dominated by such gamers, players who do not fit this mold, including women, people of color, and LGBT people, are often brutalized in forums and in public channels in online play. Discussion of representation of such groups in games has frequently been limited and cursory. This book builds on feminist, queer, and postcolonial theories of identity and draws on qualitative audience research methods to make sense of how representation comes to matter. Shaw argues that video game players experience race, gender, and sexuality concurrently. She asks: How do players identify with characters? How do they separate identification and interactivity? What is the role of fantasy in representation? What is the importance of understanding market logic? In addressing these questions Shaw reveals how representation comes to matter to participants and offers a perceptive consideration of the high stakes in politics of representation debates

Video games have become a significant aspect of cultural history in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Despite a shift in perception over the past decade, they are still often viewed as non-historical and non-political. While museums and cultural institutions are beginning to recognize video games as an art form, their socio-political significance—especially regarding identity, sexuality, and gender—remains largely unexamined. The exhibition at Berlin's Schwules Museum is the first to delve into the relationship between video games and queerness, building on the foundational work of the LGBTQ Game Archive and Adrienne Shaw from Temple University. The catalog features over 100 games, including "Caper in the Castro" (1989), often cited as the first queer video game. It investigates how social discourses are mirrored in video games and highlights advancements in queer representation within entertainment media. Additionally, the catalog addresses issues of digital memory and the challenges that digital culture poses for archives, particularly regarding the absence of contemporary queer media history. Funded by 764 Kickstarter supporters, the research culminated in this comprehensive exhibition catalog, which includes a detailed directory and contributions from curators, designers, and artists. The exhibition showcases the integral role of queerness in video game culture.