Envisioning Queer Game Studies: Ludology and the Study of Queer Game Content

Abstract

This chapter explores and unpacks the affordances and limitations of ludological concepts and approaches in studying queer game content. It identifies one major point of oversight in ludology—the messy construction of the player-subject position—that has been of primary interest to much of queer game scholarship since the early 2000s. In adopting this focal point to expand ludological frames, the author conducts a content analysis of a sample of 17 transgender characters in 91 commercial mainstream games from 1987 to 2015. This chapter suggests the hailing and interpellation processes of play are central to understanding how transgender identities circulate in gamic spaces, how these relations have changed over time, and how the representational and simulative facets of queer game content relate intimately.