Forms of representation in games

Trigger warnings:
Due to the nature of this article, it does mention explicit references to sex and sexuality and contains some coarse language. There are also quick mentions of suicide, depression, rape, and trauma. Many of the games mentioned contain explicit images and touch on very heavy subjects.

Representation in any medium is a complicated subject; there are a multitude of ways of approaching it, and the pitfalls are numerous and complex to foresee. Games, as is the case with any medium, are often all too happy to fall back on using middle-aged, neurotypical, straight white men as their protagonists, to such a degree that it is often seen as the “default”. And with recent political changes, particularly in the US, there is the risk of the media becoming even less diverse than it already is. In this piece, I will not argue why representation matters, because it simply does, and it shouldn’t even be a discussion. Instead, I want to examine the ways in which representation manifests in games and the different ways it can be approached, as well as the strengths and weaknesses that come from the various approaches and forms of representation. It is worth noting that the games given as examples are far from a comprehensive list, and the reader is encouraged to seek out as many games as possible that represent historically underrepresented groups, whether that be in established ways or new ways.

The three parts of a game where representation can happen.
It is my opinion that there are three ways for a game to include representation:
• Gameplay: representation that has a direct effect on the gameplay experience of the player(s)
• Story: representation that has a direct effect on the story of the game.
• Background: Representation that does not directly affect the game in any significant way.

It is important to note that these three aspects are not exclusive; rather, they should be seen as a three-way spectrum where games can be placed.

Story

The purest example of story representation in games is the visual novel, which often features minimal gameplay but caters to a diverse range of people through its stories and visuals. Visual novels, as a genre, inherit many of the strengths of books while also incorporating visuals to enhance the narrative sense. Moreover, they are relatively easy to create, which has allowed the genre to flourish in LGBTQ+ circles. It is not difficult to find visual novels that cater to various tastes and include characters from diverse identities and sexualities. It is also a genre where diversity is easy, and the method of showing representation (through text and images) allows most creators to tell the story they want. Many visual novels are about dating and falling in love; many are also pornographic in nature, which isn’t exactly a surprise. Given the ease of production, it is only natural that people who are interested in distributing pornographic images via games often fall back on the visual novel. That isn't to say that there isn’t value in the pornographic games as a form of representation; it is essential that these games exist, and as long as their representation is done respectfully, there isn’t really an issue. It is, however, important that representation, especially of sexuality, isn’t purely pornographic in nature, and luckily, there are some games, like Kisune Tails and Get In the Car, Loser!, which treat the subject more soberly

The weakness of the story approach to representation in it’s pure form is, firstly, its limited interaction, which makes them feel more like something which is told to you, rather than something you yourself experience; furthermore, it can be difficult for the story to make players understand any given viewpoint, not that it can’t be done, it is often just challenging to impart strong emotions purely trough words and images. The strength of the story approach is that it a very direct form of representation, while abstraction and metaphor isn’t absent, it is still easier to be direct in a story than in other forms of representation, another strength is that this approach is more straightforward to get right (though it must be stressed that it still isn’t easy, and hundreds of story based representation still fail, in one way or another) and as such it is arguably also the most successful form of representation.

Background

Background representation happens in many different games, and there isn’t really a pure example to point out. However, some examples include, but are not limited to Mislav from The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Clare Russell from Cyberpunk 2077, pride flags and pride items in The Sims 4, and same-sex partners in Universim. These are all characters and aspects of the various games which could be easily altered or removed with little to no effect on the gameplay or story of the game. It is not a bad thing that these background elements are present, and indeed, they can, when handled correctly, give a sense of normalising diversity and representation. By treating representation as mundane and as a natural part of the world, these background details can skirt the difficult aspects of representation while still supporting diversity and inclusion.

However, games where the representation is purely or mainly in the background do run into the issue of creating a sense that the groups being represented are not good enough for the main game; moreover, many background representations run the risk of, at best, feeling token and, at worst, being tasteless if handled poorly.

Gameplay

Gameplay is the rarest and also most challenging way of doing representation in games, it is where the gameplay in some shape or form is informed by the representation taking place in the game and often the gameplay will seek to make the players feel as the aspect being represented, the most common examples of these games are educational games which seek to teach people what it is like living with any given disability. It is, however, not just educational games which try to use gameplay as a way of representing different aspects of the human experience. There are also games like The Vale: Shadow of the Crown, which builds its gameplay around a specific disability (in this case, blindness) in order to create engaging gameplay. For these games, it is most often a physical disability which is being represented, though a few have tried to represent neurodiversity, sexuality, gender, or hidden disabilities.

Gameplay is by far the most difficult to get right, as it is easy to design gameplay which feels wrong or gives the wrong impression about the group being represented. It is further complicated by the need for the gameplay to remain engaging in non-educational contexts and the need to consider commercial viability. The strength of gameplay-based representation is that lets the player have a closer connection to the represented via embodiment when done correctly, moreover, gameplay-based representation has the potential to give better insight into the lived experience of the group being represented.

I personally know just how difficult it is to do representation via gameplay, in my thesis project, I tried to represent autism in a game, using mainly the story of the game and its gameplay. A huge issue is that all attempts at representation will by necessity be simplistic when compared to the real-world experience of those being represented, and this simplicity is felt the most when a game tries to present its representation through gameplay. In story and background the simplicity can be a strength because the players can insert their own experience onto the character(s) however in gameplay a specific experience is prescribed to the player via the gameplay, and if that experience does not align well with the lived experience of the players who fall under the group being represented, then the whole game falls apart. That is not to say that it isn’t worth trying, just that it should be done with utmost care, and that anyone attempting it needs to consult extensively with the represented group, and ideally, some people of the represented group should also be directly involved in the design of the game.

Approaches to representation:

In the previous section, I discussed the various ways in which representation can exist in games. Here, I will be discussing the approaches taken by various games in various fields of representation.

Gender:

There are some games which attempt to represent specific gender experiences, one example is: He fucked the Girl Out of Me, which represents a trans girls experience with sex work, rape, gender struggles, and the trauma inflicted on her. The representation is grounded in the story, and although there is some gameplay, it primarily consists of walking from one story moment to another. It is clearly a deeply personal story and the text-heavy way of telling it, helps both with distancing the player somewhat from the heavy subjects while also ensuring that the story and emotions are told exactly the way the author wishes. While it’s impossible to guard entirely against misinterpretation by audiences, the nature of the story and the clarity with which it is presented through text and pixel art scenes do guard somewhat against people interpreting it in a completely different way than desired. This game is a good example of a personal story about the gender experience being filtered through the medium of games, highlighting the specific strengths of games that focus almost exclusively on the narrative. While personal stories like He fucked the Girl Out of Me, are incredibly important, and powerful in their representation, they are still limited to being representative of a single persons experience (something the author of the game freely admits in the beginning of the game) and there is, in my observation, a general lack of attempts at broader representations of gender experiences be it, trans, nonbinary, a-gender, female, male, or any other gender identity.

There are a few games which has this broader gender representation, such as Alien: Isolation, which inherits the horror aspects of the original Alien films, which were very grounded in the horror of pregnancy, rape, and involuntary birth.

However, I think it is fair to say that besides the somewhat rare games which tell personal stories around the author's personal experience with a gender identity, or where gender is used as an underpinning for the story in general. Gender is generally seen as just another character customisation option in most games and is often only a background aspect of the representation. It is furthermore telling that the games where gender representation is the main aspect of the game, are trying to represent minority and historically repressed genders, such as trans, nonbinary, a-gender, and female.

(Note: the positioning of the games in this figure should not be taken as absolute, but rather as a way of showing the general trend I’ve observed amongst the games trying, one way or another, to represent gender)

Sexuality:

There are many games which represent many different sexualities; many of these games are either fully pornographic or semi pornographic. Many of these games are also visual novels, and they vary significantly in quality. Dating sims are a common sight within this area of representation, and a primary goal for many games that try to represent sexuality is escapism and/or titillation.

Some games do try to use sexuality as a point of tension in a story, an example of this is Blackberry Honey, which, while it does include explicit sex scenes and is meant to titillate, it also tries to explore what being lesbian means in a society which does not accept it as a legitimate sexuality. Another example is Ladykiller in a Bind, where sex and kink are used as a point of tension in the game and its general story. There are of course also many other games where sexuality is an important aspect of the game which are not pornographic in nature, such as Small Town Emo, and Queer Man Peering Into A Rock Pool.jpg

There also exist games that attempt to be more educational in their approach to sexuality, and even though many of these are more academic in nature, such as Pussy Palette, which is an especially interesting example, because while it is a limited demo, it still tried to represent some aspect of sexuality via some forms of game play interactions and as such offer some interesting insights into how games might be used for education and exploration of sexuality. This inclusion of a gameplay aspect to sexuality is also largely absent outside of some small experiments.

Sexuality in general is in an interesting place when it comes to representation in games; it is often in one of the extremes, either it is almost purely part of the background, or it is the singular focus of a particular game. It is a subject where there are far more games with a broad approach to representation than those that tell personal stories. Furthermore, there seems to be a general disinterest in taking the subject as seriously as gender or other aspects of the human condition, not that nobody tries.

Physical disability:

Physical disability is the aspect of representation where I have personally observed the highest concentration of gameplay-focused representations. Blindness is a semi-populated area of representation in gameplay-focused games such as The Vale: Sadow of the Crown, Beyond Eyes, and Blind, all taking different approaches to representing blind people. Another example of physical disability being used in gameplay is The Surge, which features a character who uses a wheelchair at the beginning of the game, which does impact gameplay very briefly due to navigational difficulties. That is not to say that physical disability is unrepresented in stories nor background (though they are absolutely underrepresented in all three forms)

Physical disabilities are by no means a common aspect of representation in games, and they are still largely underexplored and often handled with varying degrees of tone deafness. However, it is still in my observation the area of representation where gameplay representation is most often seen, and seemingly the only area where the gameplay approach has achieved some commercial success, in stark contrast to the other areas of representation where gameplay as a way of representation is rarely, if ever, present.

Neurodiversity and mental disability

Games have a strained relationship with neurodiversity and mental disability. While many games incorporate elements that are explained by neurodiversity or a mental disability, it is rare to find games that handle the subject with any understanding or even basic respect. While educational games exist and some are even somewhat successful in explaining a specific diagnosis, they are almost always relegated to teaching people about their own diagnosis and are, as such, not really present in the general gaming landscape. For the most part, neurodiversity and mental disability are flattened in games, and far too often, it is purely presented as insanity. There do exist attempts to represent neurodiversity and mental disability in gameplay, but often these attempts fall flat, and just as often, they can be outright offensive to an audience who knows about the specific diagnosis that a game attempts to represent.

Games about neurodiversity and mental disability, in my opinion, most often succeed when they tell stories with somewhat hidden elements of neurodiversity and/or mental disability. These games are more “subtle” about the subject and show it more as a natural part of the character(s) in the game. Games such as Spiritfarer, Gris, and Night in the Woods are all more or less direct about the subjects of depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. These games rarely state directly what they are about, though they still make it clear through character interactions and the game's story in other words, for the most part, neurodiversity and mental disability exist is partly as story representation and partly as background representation. In the indie space, some games are more directly about one or more aspects of Neurodiversity and/or mental disability. Games like Growth, the interview, and the Spectrum Soup are all games that touch on specific aspects of neurodiversity and/or mental disability. Growth in particular, is very directly a personal story about the personal trauma experienced by its author, partly as a result of their diagnosis. Games like growth works much in the same way as He fucked the girl out of me, and also has the same weakness in the ability to represent a broader group of people.

There are, in my opinion, some interesting parallels between gender and neurodiversity as areas of representation. While both can be approached medically, some of the strongest experiences come from approaching them as identities and sharing personal stories about what it’s like to live a particular experience.

Culture, subcultures, and fandoms:

Culture, subcultures, and fandoms are a huge part of the human experience, and interestingly, these are areas of the human experience where there seem to be few to no games trying to explore them directly. Instead, this is an area where games, rather than being representative, seem to be artefacts of cultural interests. An example of this is the Furry subculture, which doesn’t seem to have games that represent them as a subculture; instead, they have games which become almost part of the subculture itself e.g. Sonic, Night in the Woods, and Sly Cooper. It is interesting how in fandoms, culture, and subcultures, games exist more as an entry point than as a representation of the fandom/subculture itself. This is likely because these cultures, subcultures and fandoms are not unified around specific experiences; rather, they are unified around particular interests or cultural signifiers.

Closing remarks

It is important to point out that not all representation is good, or even positive; some are actively harmful, though I’ve tried my best to exclude any that are actively harmful from this article. There are plenty of games that harbor negative and harmful stereotypes about the groups being represented in the game, even some games that clearly try their best, still stumble into harmful stereotypes and as such are part of perpetuating these harmful stereotypes. However, that it’s difficult to get right does not mean that we should not try, nor that we should not experiment with how to do representation in different ways. Personally speaking, I would love to see more representation done via gameplay in all aspects of representation. I personally think it’s a neglected aspect of representation with a lot of potential for powerful and meaningful experiences. I would also love to have representation be a more natural part of games, which we can take for granted, rather than the exception to the norm.

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