Gender and representation in popular culture and new media: LGBTI+ Visibility in digital games

Digital games and digital gameplay, in which different people with all kinds of demographic characteristics participate voluntarily with various motivations thanks to the facilities granted by communication technologies, are attractive and important topics considering both the growing share of the gaming industry in the market in recent years and the changing daily habits of the society and the cultural circuit in these games. Digital games may be the most important new media channels where cultural interaction takes place after social networks, regardless of whether they are online or not. Based on this, it can be said that digital games have considerable effects on society and culture. In this context, the representations in digital games can be a guide for both in understanding the current cultural changes, or determining the place of the represented (or excluded) segments of the society in society, or predicting how their future is determined, or discuss what kind of benefit or harm this visibility brings to the social acceptance of minorities. In this study, LGBTI+ representations in mainstream digital games, which were among the "best computer games of the year" between 2016-2020, were examined. A content analysis was performed on the digital games that constitute the sample. It has been determined how LGBTI+ characters in mainstream digital games are being represented in the light of the data obtained, and the relationship between low LGBTI+ visibility and late capitalist cultural politics was discussed.