Den andre spelaren : En etnologisk studie av kvinnliga gamers i en manlig spelkultur

The gaming community is generally regarded as highly masculine. Gamers are often identified as white, heterosexual, young men. Women who play games are viewed as an anomaly. In reality many women play, and depending on which games that count, women are the majority of game consumers. The gaming industry has gone through changes and now companies try to satisfy a variety of consumers. The transition to a more including community has woken outrage among those who are no longer the core group of the gamer identity. Drawing upon discourse theory by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and by Stuart Hall's thoughts on identity, this thesis examines how gamer identity is constructed and the conflict that occurs when women enter the masculine imprinted scene of gaming. The empirical material consists mainly of interviews with women who play games as well as a Facebook group made for the informants. The study shows that there are competing definitions of who is a gamer and that even the most inclusive definition sets up boundaries that distinguishes gamers from non-gamers. A diversity in the gaming community and in the games is a cause of friction. An inclusion of characters that are not representative of the white, young, heterosexual male gamer are sometimes viewed as political statements, which are both celebrated and detested, which leads to a question of how a discourse of politics plays a role in the construction and reproduction of a gamer identity.