Serious games and gender based violence. A ludic-narrative analysis of ‘the kite’ trilogy

Abstract

This research approaches the video games industry in search of indicators that make it an ally to help combat gender violence. The object of study is the trilogy made up of The Kite, Little Kite and Repentant (Anate Studio, 2012-2018); three titles that demonstrate how the video game is not only a purely recreational format, but also offers experiences with other purposes, such as raising awareness of social problems. We start from the hypothesis that, although gender violence appears as a central theme in these games, it does it in a way that perpetuates stereotypes; and we propose as the main objective to analyze the way in which gender violence is represented, using a playful-narrative analysis, and as a secondary objective to reflect on the potential of video games to conceptualize gender violence as a social problem and make known about its importance. The results show that, although this trilogy is a good starting point to contribute to social change, the vision it offers of gender violence is reduced to the domestic sphere and is associated with alcoholism and marginalization.