ENG 225 Rhetoric and Gaming

Yang, S. (2014). Effects of avatar race in violent video games on racial attitudes and aggression The article claims that the media frequently portrays Black characters as violent in video games. These characters reinforce racial stereotypes and aggression perpetuating racist or prejudice tendencies amongst White gamers. There were 126 White college students, which is 60% male and 40% female; the gender of the participants was not relevant to the experiment though. The participants were told that they were only being tested on their gaming skills. After giving their consent, participants played Saints Row 2, a game that is Grand Theft Auto, for 20 min on a Playstation 3. The participants were randomly assigned to play the game as either a Black or White male avatar. Prior to the participants’ arrival at the experiment, the experimenter set up the game with the appropriate avatar and rotated the game view, so that the avatar was seen face on by the participant when he or she star...

Lavigne, C. (2015). "I'm Batman" (and You Can Be Too): "Gender" and Constrictive Play in the "Arkham" Game Series. Cinema Journal Vol. 55, No. 1 (Fall 2015), pp. 133-141 Lavigne used Batman: Arkham City (2013, Rocksteady) to create a qualitative review of dangerous tropes in mainstream games. The article shows that the character Batman “advances heteronormative, hypergendered stereotypes” with his “ripped” physique, justified violence, and having to rescue almost every female he comes in contact with. Catwoman is brought up as an equally dangerous character in regards to tropes. She fights in heels, kisses thugs, and is programmed to show all of her curves while playing as her. This, in addition to NPC interactions with her, make Catwoman a dangerous stereotype. This article shows that mainstream media can be instrumental to stereotypes being brought forward. It also shows that game design is still entrenched in the “typical male fantasy”, and that...

Sarkeesian, A., Petit, C. (2019). Female Representation in Videogames Isn't Getting Any Better. WIRED 2019. This article proves that representative equality in the video game industry is still far behind where it should be. Sarkeesian & Petit used data from the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E 3 ) from 2015 to 2019 to quantify gender representation in the video game industry. The time frame is significant due to Gamergate in 2014, a misogynist movement that used video game as its platform. While open character creation options are more prevalent than in previous years, games with only a female protagonist are few.  Sarkeesian & Petit quantified the data by counting the number of games at E 3 with male, female, gender-ambiguous, and open character options. The data show that in those years, there were 3-10x more male protagonists than female. Sarkeesian & Petit also counted presenters featured at 2019 E 3 , and found that there were about 4x as many male prese...

Greitemeyer, T., Osswald, S., & Brauer, M. (2010). Playing Prosocial Video Games Increases Empathy and Decreases Schadenfreude . American Psychological Association 2010, Vol. 10, No. 6, 796 – 802. This article covers two experiments by Greitemeyer, et al, to show levels of malicious pleasure (schadenfreude) after playing games that were rated as “prosocial”, “antisocial”, and “neutral” in regards to the game’s theme. The first experiment used Tetris (Pajitnov, A., 1984) and Lemmings (Psygnosis, 1991) as the neutral and prosocial games, respectively. The participants were then asked how they felt about a celebrity's misfortune. Those who played the prosocial game were more likely to not feel schadenfreude about the celebrity. The second experiment included the antisocial game Lamers (MobyGames, 1992), a parody of Lemmings where the goal is to kill all of the animals, rather than save them. Those who played the antisocial game experienced the highest level of schadenfreude...