Mia Consalvo, "Hot Dates and Fairy-Tale Romances: Studying Sexuality in Video Games"

(In The Video Game Theory Reader)

- Sexuality is almost always present in one form or another in games, and can be manifest on two levels - the "surface" of representation and in the performance/activity of gameplay
- How to study sexuality in games? Using what theories? How to distinguish between different layers of games? How is sexuality expressed in games?
- Final Fantasy IX example
- Idealized, naturalized heterosexual romance in the narrative
- How does identification work in games?
- Simplification/abstraction (or perhaps complexity and realism, depending who you ask) allows the player to identify more easily (based on McCloud's hardly watertight theory of identification)
- Problem of the male player caring about a male character is solved by a homosocial erotic triangle between player/avatar/love interest
- Both male player and avatar "get the girl" (but also compete somehow, according to Consalvo) and thus the game validates heterosexual masculinity
- This whole argument, as well as Consalvo's conception of identification is extremely shaky
- A female player who is not hailed, and the system collapses, Consalvo claims?
- Role-playing: avatar as mask (experimentation with identities within the established system of the game, this makes much more sense than the strange erotic triangle argument)
- "normative construction of games [...] for male players"
- The Sims example
- Analysis of the game manual and how it puts forward heterosexuality as normal through images (not nearly enough of this kind of paratextual analysis in game studies)
- The text, however, uses gender-neutral pronouns leaving open homosexual possibilities
- Polygamy is more accepted than gay marriage in The Sims
- Sex/gender conflation in the game
- Sexualities are not essential in The Sims, rather it is a performed activity
- A "gay window" that allows gay interpretations without being overt (easily ignored by homophobic players)
- Consalvo notes that "options not explored will not surface," but in The Sims isn't it possible for two male characters to fall in love unexpectedly? Maybe only in later iterations.
- Consalvo seeks to judge games like The Sims based on how well they model reality and its complexities (a naive and unimaginative argument!)
- Openness in gameplay causes us to be less invested in our Sims, which Consalvo seems to think is a negative thing... but perhaps it also creates critical/reflective distance?
- Games can (always?) be subverted, queered