Shame on the Creators, Praise for the Players? On Gender Stereotypes and Subversive Gaming in Digital Games

Abstract

The article attempts to capture the current value shifts taking place in the game industry by looking at the debate on the contemporary digital game Kingdom Come: Deliverance by the Czech development studio Warhorse. For the purposes of contextualisation, the article also reflects on a case known as Gamergate, which served to highlight certain issues in the conception of games and questions about representation and diversity in games. Digital games are no longer the domain of young men alone as gamers now come from all genders and many age groups. Through a gender analysis of this digital game and a discussion/analysis of the controversy surrounding the historical authenticity of representation that has arisen around it, the article highlights the difficulties associated with trying to achieve historical accuracy. A digital game is considered a work of fiction that has its own rules of truthfulness within its own fictional universe. Increasingly, open-world games allow for the suppression of the leading role of the narrator that the game designers created. This tendency is only expected to grow stronger. The role of education and critical engagement with the game medium also need to be considered in the study of this issue.