These visualizations draw all of their data from the LGBTQ Video Game Archive, founded by Adrienne Shaw at Temple University. You can explore the archive here. More games are constantly being added, and there’s no shortage of work to be done on the archive, so please reach out to Dr. Shaw if you’re interested in contributing!

The data that these visualizations pull from is publicly available in this spreadsheet, which I’ll continue to update as the LGBTQ Video Game Archive expands or I add new visualizations:

Visualization Spreadsheets

Please also feel free to e-mail me with any questions or concerns! My e-mail is mejeurco@msu.edu.

 

Other Visualizations

Two other publications have produced different visualizations of the LGBTQ Video Game Archive, with notably different lenses that complement the visualizations here:

  1. “Analyzing trends in LGBTQ digital game representation”, by Adrienne Shaw, Evan W. Lauteria, Christopher J. Persaud, and Alayna M. Cole. Forthcoming from Refig.
  2. Utsch, S., Braganca, L. C., Ramos, P., Caldeira, P. and Tenorio, J. Queer Identities in Video Games: Data Visualization for a Quantitative Analysis of Representation. SBGames 2017. Available here.

 

Additional Reading

Queer Game Studies is a growing field with a lot to say about queerness in games! The readings listed below are only a handful of the amazing scholarly texts available, not to mention the many popular pieces of games journalism and commentary! For a more thorough reading (and playing!) list, see Bonnie Ruberg’s Queer Game Studies 101.

Chang, Edmond Y. “Love Is in the Air: Queer (Im)Possibility and Straightwashing in FrontierVille and World of Warcraft.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, vol. 2, no. 2, July 2015, pp. 6–31.

Condis, Megan. “No Homosexuals in Star Wars? BioWare, ‘gamer’ Identity, and the Politics of Privilege in a Convergence Culture.” Convergence, vol. 21, no. 2, May 2015, pp. 198–212. SAGE Journals, doi:10.1177/1354856514527205.

Engel, Maureen. “Perverting Play: Theorizing a Queer Game Mechanic.” Television & New Media, vol. 18, no. 4, May 2017, pp. 351–60. CrossRef, doi:10.1177/1527476416669234.

Halberstam, Jack. “Queer Gaming: Gaming, Hacking, and Going Turbo.” Queer Game Studies, edited by Adrienne Shaw and Bonnie Ruberg, University of Minnesota Press, 2017, pp. 187–200.

Malkowski, Jennifer, and TreaAndrea M. Russworm, editors. Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games. Indiana University Press, 2017.

Ruberg, Bonnie. “Permalife: Video Games and the Queerness of Living.” Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds, vol. 9, no. 2, June 2017, pp. 159–73. CrossRef, doi:10.1386/jgvw.9.2.159_1.

Shaw, Adrienne. “Circles, Charmed and Magic: Queering Game Studies.” QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, vol. 2, no. 2, July 2015, pp. 64–97.

Shaw, Adrienne, and Elizaveta Friesem. “Where Is the Queerness in Games?: Types of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Content in Digital Games.” International Journal of Communication, vol. 10, 2016, p. 13.