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Start Date
23-6-2022 12:00 AM
End Date
23-6-2022 12:00 AM
Abstract
This presentation investigates how advertisements for the Nintendo Switch foreground the system’s portability to construct an idealized urban young adult audience while continuing harmful stereotypes about women gamers. The 2010s saw the continued expansion of feminist and queer scholarship, research, and critical discussions of gaming environments and the birth of the Nintendo Switch, a system that revitalized the company’s economic dominance. The initial trailer for the Switch was published amid these ongoing feminist discussions, providing an apt text to explore how dominant gaming companies operated within the discourses of gender and games. Following the failure of the Wii U, the debut trailer for the Switch received high praise for its emphasis on the system’s portability and its centering of women gamers, particularly as the commercial portrays men- and women-presenting individuals playing together, even in hypermasculinized spaces like sports arenas. Yet, the ads continued to stereotype women as players of feminized casual and multiplayer games, specifically through its portrayal of portability. Masculinized games and players move across and between urban environments, echoing previous work on masculinized boy’s play outside domestic spaces. Feminized games and players shift through urban space, reflecting the feminized, mobile play as discussed in Shira Chess’ Ready Player Two. The intersections of the portable and the feminized player highlight how this Nintendo ad both reinvents their idealized core gamer as urban youth while maintaining stereotypes of women in gaming environments, representing another way in which gaming companies negotiate their portrayal of women gamers in the historical moment.
“So be yourself and try to have a good time:” Reinventing the Gendered Urban Gamer in the “First Look at Nintendo Switch”
This presentation investigates how advertisements for the Nintendo Switch foreground the system’s portability to construct an idealized urban young adult audience while continuing harmful stereotypes about women gamers. The 2010s saw the continued expansion of feminist and queer scholarship, research, and critical discussions of gaming environments and the birth of the Nintendo Switch, a system that revitalized the company’s economic dominance. The initial trailer for the Switch was published amid these ongoing feminist discussions, providing an apt text to explore how dominant gaming companies operated within the discourses of gender and games. Following the failure of the Wii U, the debut trailer for the Switch received high praise for its emphasis on the system’s portability and its centering of women gamers, particularly as the commercial portrays men- and women-presenting individuals playing together, even in hypermasculinized spaces like sports arenas. Yet, the ads continued to stereotype women as players of feminized casual and multiplayer games, specifically through its portrayal of portability. Masculinized games and players move across and between urban environments, echoing previous work on masculinized boy’s play outside domestic spaces. Feminized games and players shift through urban space, reflecting the feminized, mobile play as discussed in Shira Chess’ Ready Player Two. The intersections of the portable and the feminized player highlight how this Nintendo ad both reinvents their idealized core gamer as urban youth while maintaining stereotypes of women in gaming environments, representing another way in which gaming companies negotiate their portrayal of women gamers in the historical moment.
Bio
David Kocik is a second year PhD student in the Media, Cinema and Digital Studies plan in the English Department at University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, where he is the Social Media Director for Serious Play, a graduate student research group interested in games and game cultures. Kocik hosts a weekly Twitch show called Fan Game Follies, where he explores video game fan labor. His academic work focuses on the political, economic, and social intersections of video games production, queer fandoms, and fan games. He holds a BA in English Education from University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire and an MA in Media Studies from University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.