Queering through Gaming: Counter-playing the normativities of digitized societies

Systematic discrimination suggests that societal systems such as governmental, legal, medical educational systems are biased, and positioning certain groups and individuals in a more privileged position than others. Firstly, this article looks at digitalization in relation to Gilles Deleuze’s concept “Societies of Control” to reveal the controlling power that informatics systems hold. It argues that informatics systems do not only duplicate the already existing biases and norms but also establishes new methods to keep them functioning. Furthermore, it realizes that the controlling aspect is woven with the formal qualities of the digital such as binary digital encoding, algorithms and the actions that they allow and forbid. This article perceives the certainty and the binary limitations that are promised by the informatics systems as a danger for queer, diverse and inclusive understandings of reality. By analyzing Merrit Kopas’s video game Lim through a queer theoretical framework...Show moreSystematic discrimination suggests that societal systems such as governmental, legal, medical educational systems are biased, and positioning certain groups and individuals in a more privileged position than others. Firstly, this article looks at digitalization in relation to Gilles Deleuze’s concept “Societies of Control” to reveal the controlling power that informatics systems hold. It argues that informatics systems do not only duplicate the already existing biases and norms but also establishes new methods to keep them functioning. Furthermore, it realizes that the controlling aspect is woven with the formal qualities of the digital such as binary digital encoding, algorithms and the actions that they allow and forbid. This article perceives the certainty and the binary limitations that are promised by the informatics systems as a danger for queer, diverse and inclusive understandings of reality. By analyzing Merrit Kopas’s video game Lim through a queer theoretical framework that is provided by the book Queer Game Studies, edited by Bonnie Ruberg and Adrienne Shaw, it illustrates the queering potential of video games against the normativities and the control power the informatics systems hold. The analysis shows that video games as an action-based medium, can teach about the politics of the informatics age and therefore can raise an awareness but also provide strategies to counter-play with the normativities and the controlling power. As a result, it suggests video games as the tools that carry a potential for resistance against the promised certainty and to build more inclusive, queer futures.Show less

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Queering through Gaming: Counter-playing the normativities of digitized societies