Videos, Research, and Data Visualizations

This page will provide an ongoing collection of citations and links to data visualizations or additional resources generated from the LGBTQ archive.

In Fall 2024 Adrienne Shaw created a long form infographic highlighting key moments in LGBTQ+ Game and US History and main numbers from research published from this archive in recent years. It is available here.

Here is a list of recorded presentations on the LGBTQ Game Archive research presented by Adrienne Shaw:

• Diving into the LGBTQ Game Archive for the William Way LGBT Community Center’s Queering the Quarantine Learning Lunches series.
• Interview about the LGBTQ Game Archive and Rainbow Arcade with the Computerspielemuseum in Berlin, Germany
• Radio Interview with CBC’s The Spark on the LGBTQ Game Archive and Rainbow Arcade
• Presentation for IGDA Scotland on Gaming at the Edge and the LGBTQ Game Archive.

Blog posts about this and related projects:

1. Shaw, A. (2018, November 7) Reclaiming video games’ queer past before it disappears. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/reclaiming-video-games-queer-past-before-itdisappears-104045
2. Shaw, A., Schnorrenberg, J., and Rudolph, S. (2018, July 19). LGBTQ game history is fleeting—that’s why curation is necessary. Venture Beat. Retrieved from https://venturebeat.com/2018/07/19/lgbtq-game-history-is-fleeting-thats-why-curation-is-necessary/
3. Shaw, A. (2017, February 15). Making publicly available LGBTQ video game history. Temple Digital Scholarship Center Blog.

Here is a list of publications by Adrienne Shaw and/or past research assistants or collaborators based on the LGBTQ Game Archive Project:

• Shaw, A. and Persaud, C.J. (2020). Beyond texts: Using queer readings to document LGBTQ game content. First Monday 25(8): https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i8.10439
• Shaw, A. (2019). Archival Serendipity, Excitement, and Whiplash: Affects and collisions in doing LGBTQ Game History. RomChip: A journal of game histories 1(2): https://romchip.org/index.php/romchip-journal/article/view/92
• Shaw, A., Rudolph, S., and Schnorrenberg, J. (2019). Rainbow Arcade: Over 30 years of queer video game history. Berlin: Schwules Museum/winterwork.
• Shaw, A., Lauteria, E.W., Yang, H., Persaud, C.J., Cole, A.M. (2019). Counting Queerness in Games: Trends in LGBTQ digital game representation 1985-2005. International Journal of Communication 13: 1544-1569. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/9754/2611
• Shaw, A. (2019). Leisure Suit Larry and LGBTQ representation. In N. Huntemann & M. Payne (Eds.), How to Play Video Games (pp. 110-117). New York, NY: NYU Press.
• Fischer, M., Haimson, O.L., Rios, C., Shaw, A., Thakor, M., Gieseking, J.J., Cockayne, D. (2018). A conversation: Queer digital media resources and research. First Monday 23(7). DOI: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v23i7.9255
• Ruberg, B. (2017). Creating an archive of LGBTQ video game content: An interview with Adrienne Shaw. Camera Obscura 32(2): 165-173
• Shaw, A. (2017). What’s next?: The LGBTQ video game archive. Critical Studies in Media Communication 34(1): 88-94.
• Shaw, A. (2017).  Beyond sex and romance: LGBTQ representation in games and the Grand Theft Auto series. In P. Messaris & L. Humphreys (Eds.) Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communication (2^nd Edition) (pp. 205-212). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
• Shaw, A., & Friesem, E. (2016). Where is the queerness in games?: Types of lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer content in games. International Journal of Communication, 10, 3877–3889.

Additionally, here is a list of work citing the LGBTQ Game Archive:

• Thach, H. (2020, April). A cross-game look at transgender representation in video games. Online poster presented at the meeting of the Temple University Symposium for Undergraduate Research and Creativity, Philadelphia, PA.
• Vanlee, F., Dhaenens, F., & Van Bauwel, S. (2020). LGBT+ televisibility in Flanders: The presence of sexual and gender diversity in Flemish television fiction (2001-2016). Digest.
• Dym, B., Brubaker, J., & Fiesler, C. (2018). theyre all trans sharon”: Authoring gender in video game fan fiction. Game Studies, 18(3).
• James, E. A. (2018). Queer Easter Eggs and their Hierarchies of Play. Game Studies, 18(3).
• Mejeur, C. (2018). Queer Intersections: Visualizing the LGBTQ Video Game Archive. Published on http://queerintersections.cmejeur.org/.
• Mejeur, C. (2018). ‘Look At Me, Boy!’: Carnivalesque, Masks, and Queer Performativity in BioShock. Beyond the Sea: Navigating Bioshock, 113-142.
• Utsch, S., Bragança, L. C., Ramos, P., Caldeira, P., & Tenorio, J. (2017). Queer Identities in Video Games: Data visualization for a quantitative analysis of representation. Proceedings of SBGames, 850-851. Interactive visualization here.

If YOU have used the LGBTQ game archive for research that is either published or available online somewhere, please let us know!