This is part of an ongoing research project by Dr. Adrienne Shaw (Temple University). Early work  on this project was sponsored by Refiguring Innovation in Games (ReFiG) and the Temple Digital Scholarship Center. Dr. Shaw is an associate professor in the Department of Media Studies and Production at Temple University and a Lew Klein College of Media and Communications PhD program faculty member. Her primary areas of research are video games, gaming culture, the politics of representation, gender and sexuality, and qualitative research. She is author of the book Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture (University of Minnesota Press, 2014).

Recent Volunteers/Assistants:

Hibby Thach is a Temple University 2020 graduate, attending the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Fall for an MA in Communication. Their research interests include: queer/trans and multiracial representation in digital media, mental health and illness in queer/trans gaming communities, and using digital media as a medium for storytelling. Currently, they are in the process of revising an academic paper on trans representation in video games using the LGBTQ Game Archive. They have worked as a research assistant to the Archive in Spring 2019, Fall 2019, Spring 2020, and currently Summer 2020.

Hana Darling-Wolf is an undergraduate studying computer science and gender studies in the Bachelor of Arts and Science program at McGill University.

Research assistance from Temple University has been provided by:

Summer 2016/Spring 2017: Christopher Persaud a senior at Temple University studying Sociology, French, and LGBT Studies. His research interests broadly include popular culture, identity construction on/through digital mediums, and the social dimensions of new media technologies. He hopes to pursue graduate school opportunities in Sociology and/or Media Studies sometime in the near future.

Fall 2016/Spring 2017: Nirvan West a senior at Temple University studying Visual Anthropology. His research involves ethnographic analysis of digital worlds and the systems that dictate them. His work touches on subcultures based on/around gaming and the evolution of the gamer identity.

Spring/Summer 2015: Elizaveta Friesem (PhD, Temple University; PhD, St. Petersburg State University, Russia) is an affiliated faculty of Media Education Lab. In her primary research Elizaveta combines principles of media literacy education, media studies, and gender studies in order to promote gender equality and diversity. http://www.elizavetafriesem.com

Spring 2015: Zara Trommer

Information architecture and design support provided by:

Shane A. McGarry a PhD candidate in Digital Humanities at Maynooth University in Ireland. His work is focused on the exploration of new UI metaphors in support of alternative reading modalities in digital environments. Prior to his PhD, Shane spent 15 years as a Software Engineer and UI Designer. Find him on twitter at @irishgeek79 or on his website: www.shanemcgarry.com.

Research related to this archive has been conducted along with researchers at the UC Davis ModLab, specifically Evan W. Lauteria:

Evan W. Lauteria is a PhD student in Sociology at the University of California-Davis, where he works in the UC-Davis “ModLab,” an interdisciplinary digital humanities and video games research lab. His primary research interests include production of culture, formal organizations, video games, gender and sexuality, and comparative-historical methods. He is the co-editor of Rated M for Mature: Sex and Sexuality in Video Games (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015), and his current research is a comparative-historical analysis of Nintendo and Sega’s business practices in the 1980s and 90s.

Additional entries on specific games have been added by:

Lisa A. has an interest and passion in video games and diversity in media.

Olivia Bradberry has no notable academic or career achievements but studied Wildlife Biology at McGill University. In her free time she plays Ice Hockey, does Muay Thai, embroiders, hunts, plays video games, and refinishes wood furniture.

Xavier Ho is the creator of Roguelike Universe, Smoke and Fire, and other interactive data visualisations. He is a hybrid design and software practitioner-researcher appointed at Monash Art, Design and Architecture.

Jeremy Brenner-Levoy is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cincinnati. His research interests include gender, sexuality, and race in nerd culture. His current research examines how social inequality is replicated within the nerd spaces, interaction, and content.

Joshua D. Savage is a PhD student at Maynooth University in Ireland. He is a writer, designer, educator, and former game developer who has taught in the United States, Japan, and Europe. His research interests include behaviour in online game playing communities, learning in digital games, and data preservation. He is a contributing writer for gamedevelopers.ie.

Mass Effect entries by: Leandro Augusto Borges Lima is a PhD candidate at King’s College London, department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries. My research explores the uses of videogame as a medium for political conversation, focusing on matters of gender and sexuality, through a case study of the game Mass Effect.

Divine Divinity entries by: Sawyer Kemp is a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Davis studying contemporary performance, accessibility, and digital gaming.  They are currently collaborating with the UC Davis ModLab on the motion-capture performance game Play The Knave, a Shakespeare video game with installations at multiple theater sites in the US & Canada.

BioShock entries by: Cody Mejeur recieved their PhD student in English from Michigan State University, where they studied narrative theory and video game narrative in particular. They are now a faculty member at SUNY-University at Buffalo. You can find more information about their work here: http://cmejeur.org/.

An additional entry for BioShock Infinite was sent in by: Emily R Foster-Brown is currently an MA student at the University of Sheffield where her research focuses on Judeo-Christian religions & video games, through a lens of feminist theory. In October 2016 she will start work on her PhD currently titled “Religion, Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Video Games”. http://www.emilyfosterbrown.co.uk

Simon the Sorcerer 2 entry by: Benjamin Sipes is a third year Animal Biology major with a double minor in Sociology and Psychology at the University of California, Davis. His interests span from the biological, through the neurological, and into the networks of the social world. His current projects are on intranasal oxytocin in Titi monkeys and an analysis of JRPG strategy and complexity.

A Closed World entry by: Todd Harper is a professor in the program in Simulation and Digital Entertainment at the University of Baltimore. His research focuses on queer and gender issues in games, particularly representation, as well as e-sports and competitive gaming. Website: http://www.chaoticblue.com

Dreamfall Chapters and Firewatch entries by: Mike Burns is a PhD candidate at the Caspersen School of Graduate Studies at Drew University, where he studies gender and sexuality in American popular culture, internet culture and online communities, as well as the role of technology in the formation of queer identity. His current research focuses on the history of masculinity and heteronormativity in “geek” subcultures such as videogames and comics, and how this history informs movements against greater diversity in these spaces.

The Sims entries by: Kady Kidd is a doctoral student in English and Women’s Studies at the University of Michigan. Their research focuses on reparative and paranoid practices in video game fandoms.

Men Bang, Looking Back, and Coming Out on Top entries by: Samuel Poirier-Poulin is a master’s student in game studies at Tampereen yliopisto/Tampere University, Finland. His current research centers on understanding how fear is created in the horror genre at large and in survival horror games in particular. Samuel is the director and founder of Pika-Pi!, a reading circle that works toward decentering game studies.

Tales of Berseria entry by: John Francis

Overwatch entries by: Peach Reneau

Editorial assistance provided by:

Cathy Hannabach, www.cathyhannabach.com

Web content assistance provided by:

Cathy Heard, www.cathleenmheard.com