Loading...
Start Date
23-6-2022 12:00 AM
End Date
23-6-2022 12:00 AM
Abstract
A subculture centered around replaying and preserving the past (Thomasson, 2014; Stuckey et.al., 2015), the retrogaming community has not seen considerable attention from game studies as a unique subculture. Although the community may mirror many of the beliefs of the wider gaming community, in its nostalgia for the past and how things “used to be” the community may hold unique insights into the continued barriers of inclusion for marginalized gamers. Concurrently, this reverence for the past may be at odds with the extensive scholarly push to critique and reorient game history away from the veneration of the so-called ‘founding fathers,’ ‘hacker heroes,’ and ‘game gods’ (Nooney, 2013) and towards one that values the contribution of actors from diverse backgrounds both culturally and geographically (Kocurek, 2015; Wolf 2015). A generative first step to understanding these relations may be to focus analysis on prominent public figures in the community. Accordingly, this paper analyzes the content of 10 of t popular retrogaming channels on the streaming site “Youtube” to understand how notions of gaming past are brought to bear on the present. Findings suggest that content creators draw upon personal histories and well-trodden discussions to present informational content about products of the past. However, these accounts are often situated in privileged and gendered accounts that are indicative of what Salter and Blodgett term “Toxic Geek Masculinity” (2015). Although seemingly innocuous, these narratives potentially contribute to barriers of entry into the retrogaming community for marginalized individuals that do not fit within the hegemonic gaming norm.
Privileging the Past: Problematic and Gendered Rhetoric in Retro Gaming Content
A subculture centered around replaying and preserving the past (Thomasson, 2014; Stuckey et.al., 2015), the retrogaming community has not seen considerable attention from game studies as a unique subculture. Although the community may mirror many of the beliefs of the wider gaming community, in its nostalgia for the past and how things “used to be” the community may hold unique insights into the continued barriers of inclusion for marginalized gamers. Concurrently, this reverence for the past may be at odds with the extensive scholarly push to critique and reorient game history away from the veneration of the so-called ‘founding fathers,’ ‘hacker heroes,’ and ‘game gods’ (Nooney, 2013) and towards one that values the contribution of actors from diverse backgrounds both culturally and geographically (Kocurek, 2015; Wolf 2015). A generative first step to understanding these relations may be to focus analysis on prominent public figures in the community. Accordingly, this paper analyzes the content of 10 of t popular retrogaming channels on the streaming site “Youtube” to understand how notions of gaming past are brought to bear on the present. Findings suggest that content creators draw upon personal histories and well-trodden discussions to present informational content about products of the past. However, these accounts are often situated in privileged and gendered accounts that are indicative of what Salter and Blodgett term “Toxic Geek Masculinity” (2015). Although seemingly innocuous, these narratives potentially contribute to barriers of entry into the retrogaming community for marginalized individuals that do not fit within the hegemonic gaming norm.
Bio
Ian R. Larson is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of California, Irvine in the Informatics department. His research focuses on exploring alternative histories of play through analysis of devices, games, and communities that fall at the cultural and geographical gaming peripheries.