Q U E E R N E S S I N P L AY eds. todd harper : meghan blythe adams : nicholas taylor Palgrave Games in Context Series Editors Neil Randall The Games Institute University of Waterloo Waterloo, ON, Canada Steve Wilcox Game Design and Development Wilfrid Laurier University Brantford, ON, Canada Games are pervasive in contemporary life, intersecting with leisure, work, health, culture, history, technology, politics, industry, and beyond. These contexts span topics, cross disciplines, and bridge professions. Palgrave Games in Context situates games and play within such interdisci- plinary and interprofessional contexts, resulting in accessible, applicable, and practical scholarship for students, researchers, game designers, and industry professionals. What does it mean to study, critique, and create games in con- text? This series eschews conventional classifications—such as academic disci- pline or game genre—and instead looks to practical, real-world situations to shape analysis and ground discussion. A single text might bring together pro- fessionals working in the field, critics, scholars, researchers, and designers. The result is a broad range of voices from a variety of disciplinary and professional backgrounds contributing to an accessible, practical series on the various and varied roles of games and play. More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/16027 Todd Harper • Meghan Blythe Adams Nicholas Taylor Editors Queerness in Play Gerald Voorhees Managing Editor Editors Todd Harper Meghan Blythe Adams Division of Science, Information Arts Department of English and Writing Studies and Technologies University of Western Ontario University of Baltimore London, ON, Canada Baltimore, MD, USA Nicholas Taylor Department of Communication North Carolina State University Raleigh, NC, USA Palgrave Games in Context ISBN 978-3-319-90541-9 ISBN 978-3-319-90542-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90542-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018957198 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover design by Fatima Jamadar This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Acknowledgments We are greatly indebted to the many reviewers who generously donated their time and expertise evaluating manuscripts for this volume. The editors would like to thank Bridget Blodgett, Chris Kampe, Erika Behrmann, Alexandra Orlando, and Elise Vist for their service, without which this work would not have been possible. Considerable thanks are also due to the editorial teams for the companion volumes to our own: Gerald Voorhees, Kishonna L. Gray, and Emma Vossen. Situated as it is in the liminal space of queerness, our work both stands on its own but is deeply enmeshed in the scholarship on gender in games these other volumes are engaged with. The knowledge and insight our fellow editors shared with us during this process has been invaluable. v Contents 1 Queer Game Studies: Young But Not New 1 Todd Harper, Nicholas Taylor, and Meghan Blythe Adams Part I Queer Foundations 15 2 Queer(ing) Game Studies: Reviewing Research on Digital Play and Non-normativity 17 Sarah Evans 3 Envisioning Queer Game Studies: Ludology and the Study of  Queer Game Content 35 Evan W. Lauteria Part II Representing Queerness 55 4 The Representation (or the Lack of It) of Same-Sex Relationships in Digital Games 57 Yowei Kang and Kenneth C. C. Yang 5 Affliction or Affection: The Inclusion of a Same-Sex Relationship in The Last of Us 81 Daniel Sipocz vii viii Contents 6 What If Zelda Wasn’t a Girl? Problematizing Ocarina of Time’s Great Gender Debate 97 Chris Lawrence 7 Maidens and Muscleheads, White Mages and Wimps, from the Light Warriors to Lightning Returns 115 Mark Filipowich 8 The Big Reveal: Exploring (Trans)Femininity in Metroid 131 Evelyn Deshane and R. Travis Morton 9 Bye, Bye, Birdo: Heroic Androgyny and Villainous Gender- Variance in Video Games 147 Meghan Blythe Adams Part III Un-gendering Assemblages 165 10 Cues for Queer Play: Carving a Possibility Space for LGBTQ Role-Play 167 Tanja Sihvonen and Jaakko Stenros 11 “Sexified” Male Characters: Video Game Erotic Modding for  Pleasure and Power 185 Nathan Thompson 12 Let’s Come Out! On Gender and Sexuality, Encouraging Dialogue, and Acceptance 203 Maresa Bertolo, Ilaria Mariani, and Clara Gargano Part IV No Fear of a Queer Planet: Gaming and Social Futures 223 13 Outside the Lanes: Supporting a Non- normative League of  Legends Community 225 Nicholas Taylor and Randall Hammond Contents ix 14 The Abject Scapegoat: Boundary Erosion and Maintenance in League of Legends 243 Elyse Janish 15 Out on Proudmoore: Climate Issues on an MMO 261 Carol A. Stabile and Laura Strait Index 273 Notes on Contributors Meghan Blythe Adams is a PhD candidate at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Her research interests include representations of androgyny in media, as well as death and difficulty in games. Her work has appeared in Loading, Kinephanos, and First Person Scholar. She tweets at @mblytheadams. Maresa  Bertolo is a researcher in the Department of Design at Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy, where she deals with game studies, with attention to games as a vehicle for communication, learning, and social dialogue. Evelyn Deshane has appeared in Plenitude Magazine, Briarpatch Magazine, and Bitch Magazine. Evelyn (pronounced Eve-a-lyn) received an MA from Trent University, Canada, and is completing a PhD at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Her most recent project #Trans is an edited collection about transgender and nonbi- nary identity online. Find more info on http://evedeshane.wordpress.com or follow @evelyndeshane. Sarah Evans is a PhD candidate at North Carolina State University, USA, in the Communication, Rhetoric, and Digital Media program. She is an editorial board member for the international, student-run Press Start Journal. Her research has appeared in QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking and Hyperrhiz: New Media Cultures. Mark Filipowich is a curator at Critical Distance, a video game criticism database. He is pursuing his PhD in Communications at Concordia University, USA. Clara Gargano graduated in BFA Graphic Design at Brera Academy, Italy, and is finishing her MSc in Communication Design at Polytechnic University of Milan, Italy. She got closer to the LGBT community during her five-month exchange pro- gram at the University of Michigan, USA, in 2015. Since then she has been focusing her thesis research on LGBT and gender studies. Her investigation led her to center xi