Forced: Perceptions of “Woke” Politics in Video Games

Abstract

Through a close analysis of online video game commentary, this article argues that the flashpoint conflict identified as GamerGate levered open a space in mainstream online spaces for highly partisan interpretation of video games. In online spaces such as Reddit and YouTube, semianonymous players and semiprofessional commentators perform lengthy analyses of game content and interpretations of developers’ purported political agendas to identify the embedded meanings that they allege are implanted into video games. These game critics feel that these typically left-leaning, “woke” political perspectives are forced into games as part of an organized campaign driven, in part, by the desire to estrange the “traditional” gamer demographic and to attract investment from capital investment firms.