Video Games Have Always Been Queer
Video Games Have Always Been Queer by Bo Ruberg, published by NYU Press on March 19, 2019, is a thought-provoking exploration of the intersection between video games and queer theory. This 288-page book delves into the queer potential of video games, challenging the notion that queerness in gaming is solely about representation in mainstream titles. Ruberg argues that video games can be interpreted and designed in queer ways, regardless of explicit LGBTQ content, thereby expanding the conversation around queerness in this medium.
Readers will find a comprehensive analysis that bridges game studies and queer theory, as Ruberg examines how various games allow players to engage with queer experiences and desires. By drawing connections between classic titles and queer theoretical frameworks, the book reveals how gaming culture has always included queer elements, even in environments that may seem unwelcoming. Through this lens, Video Games Have Always Been Queer invites readers to reconsider the narratives surrounding diversity in gaming and recognize the inherent queerness of the medium itself.
Official synopsis Publisher
Argues for the queer potential of video games
While popular discussions about queerness in video games often focus on big-name, mainstream games that feature LGBTQ characters, like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, Bonnie Ruberg pushes the concept of queerness in games beyond a matter of representation, exploring how video games can be played, interpreted, and designed queerly, whether or not they include overtly LGBTQ content. Video Games Have Always Been Queer argues that the medium of video games itself can—and should—be read queerly.
In the first book dedicated to bridging game studies and queer theory, Ruberg resists the common, reductive narrative that games are only now becoming more diverse. Revealing what reading D. A. Miller can bring to the popular 2007 video game Portal, or what Eve Sedgwick offers Pong, Ruberg models the ways game worlds offer players the opportunity to explore queer experience, affect, and desire. As players attempt to ‘pass’ in Octodad or explore the pleasure of failure in Burnout: Revenge, Ruberg asserts that, even within a dominant gaming culture that has proved to be openly hostile to those perceived as different, queer people have always belonged in video games—because video games have, in fact, always been queer.
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