Players’ perceptions of sexuality and gender-inclusive video games a pragmatic content analysis of steam reviews

Abstract

Video games reflect the current culture and society. Games stand as points of transmission that reflect cultural trends and social norms, although not comprehensively. While it seems that more games have tried to be inclusive of diverse gender and sexual identities recently, there is still a lack of studies that discuss how real video game players see LGBTQ+ inclusive games. To understand the game players’ perceptions in this regard, this study qualitatively analyzes online video game review postings from Steam, focusing on user reviews of gender and sexuality inclusive games. Based on four gender and sexuality inclusive video games selected, we collected 400 user-generated video game reviews as our dataset. Our findings identified 22 primary themes, including Mood/Emotions, Social/Cultural Importance and Representation. This paper further discusses some of the critical topics discovered, such as identity, conflicts in game communities and representation.