Essay 002
Controlling Identity, Class, and Gender:
Investigating Gaming Culture Through Materiality
December 15, 2022
On April 20, 2020, Sony released two images that showed off their new wireless game controller, named the DualSense, for the PlayStation 5, their upcoming video game console. The marketing images showed the new white and black aesthetic—a departure from the all black color scheme found in previous generation PlayStation controllers (Figure 1-2). The images stirred online controversy among a vocal minority of fans, prompting some of them to doctor the images themselves to suit their own aesthetic sensibilities (Figure 3). This seemingly minor interaction raised the question: why were images of the unreleased controllers inciting such intense reactions from those in the gaming community? Perhaps the controller mean more to those in the community than at first glance. By observing and analyzing a set of images of past and present controllers—not merely as video game controllers, but as material artifacts—deeper insights can be gleaned about gaming culture. Historian of anthropology, George W. Stocking, Jr. famously argued that all material objects are multi-dimensional, and that in order to understand an object, we must look beyond its physical dimensions, and study the object in the context of time, power, wealth, and aesthetics (Welsch and Vivanco 395-396). While indeed video game controllers must serve its primary intended function—to be the physical interface between the player and the games. Assessing the controllers as material artifacts, rather than simply controllers for video games will give us insight into gaming culture—how identity, class, and gender are constructed and reinforced through its materiality.
With more than 2 billion players worldwide, gaming culture has progressed to be one of the largest transnational communities in the world (Santucci). Therefore, it should be no surprise that there are so many sub-cultures within the larger gaming community. More than ever before, gaming culture is about maintaining and extending the social relationships, and as a result, gaming culture has been the focus of much academic research. Furthermore, with hardware manufacturers controlling the consoles, games, and the community, the lines of divide tend to run along the platform. Aside from the library of games, the platform that someone chooses is largely determined by their pre-existing social networks. In other words, which console your friends are playing on determines which console you will play on. But where do the controllers fit into the socio-cultural picture? Much of the academic research on gaming culture focuses on the players’ relationship to the games and the community, and the research that exists on controllers tend to look at them in the context of the games. The motivation to put the main focus on the games is understandable—the controllers and games are seemingly inseparable. However, looking at various images of controllers and gaming culture, we observe certain patterns that give insight into the role controllers play as material artifact in gaming culture.
But to set the context, we must ask the question of: why has video games become so popular? The common answers are: interactive entertainment, storytelling, and escapism. It should go without saying that the more immersive the experience, the more engaged people will be. In other words, the primary function of the controller is to immerse the players through control and sensory feedback. Furthermore, the research suggests that the more engaged people are, the more vested they will be in the culture. For example, more naturally mapped controllers seem to help improve immersion, which in turn allow more presence and enjoyment (McGloin 309). The primary functions of the controllers are the tasks that these objects were specifically designed to accomplish—to be used as an interface between the player and the games. And with each console generation, this interface between the players and the controllers has become more standardized. For example, looking at the lineage of PlayStation controllers, spatial movements in-game are controlled by buttons that translate player input located on the left-hand side of the controllers, and other actions are controlled with buttons on the right-hand side (Figure 4). The advent of three-dimensional games necessitated the use of two joysticks: one joystick for movement and the other for camera controls. A key takeaway from this trend is that, across nearly all platforms, the paradigm for controller design has been standardized, and for those who want to participate in the community, they need to accept and understand these patterns. To drive the point home, apprehending the way actions in game are mapped to actions in the physical world, builds a common mental model of reality—a fact that unifies social relationships among those in the group (i.e. platform) (Guest 35-36).
Nevertheless, the aspects of the controllers that differ between platforms give us deeper insight into how the controllers are used as symbolic objects. For instance, the action-specific buttons on the right-hand side of the controller are labeled with a platform-specific system of symbols. As an example, on the PlayStation controllers, the four buttons are marked with the glyphs that depict a pink square, a green triangle, a red circle, and a blue cross (Figure 4). Conversely, on the competing Microsoft Xbox controllers, the action buttons are marked with the letters: “A”, “B”, “X”, “Y” (Figure 6). Along with the platform’s brand identity, these iconographic systems are another way people within these groups create solidarity amongst one another. For example, the PlayStation system of glyphs can be found on t-shirts and other apparel (Figure 5). Gamers are aligning themselves to a specific group by visually outfitting themselves with the symbols originally found on the controllers to align themselves. It is important to note that the images suggest that people are develop their identity and social relationships within a particular group beyond the context of the games themselves. Rather, meaning and relationships are formed through the material aspects of the controllers. The late Anthropologist, Clifford Geertz, developed a concept known as: “thick description” as a framework to describe an action in a cultural context (Geertz 7-10). So, to thickly describe this phenomena, the graphical labels on the controllers are being repurposed as a way to signal a group identity—for the individual and to others. But, to be sure, a more comprehensive ethnographic study would be needed to properly interpret a culture.
Beyond the primary functions of the controllers, the materiality of these devices, affect social relationships, values, and norms in gaming culture—what we can refer to in the context of culture as secondary functions. By observing images of game controllers and other peripheral accessories in a historical and cultural context, three distinct categories of secondary functions emerge: (1) functions that help create identity; (2) functions that construct class structures; and (3) functions that create and reinforce gender norms. Previously, we observed how the symbolic systems associated with specific platforms were used as a visual reference point to support their group identity; this is an example of a controller performing a secondary function for the group. Furthermore, through visual and material aesthetics, there are subtle—more intrapersonal—ways that the controllers are used to construct the concept of self and group. To illustrate the point, the act of doctoring the DualSense controller images is a gamer’s act of protest—helping to reinforce their own sense of identity to the group. For these gamers and aspiring graphic artists, this overt act of dissent also helps to build solidarity among others in the group. By adjusting the controller to the more familiar grey and black color palettes from previous PlayStation controllers, the doctoring of the images are an attempt at pulling the new, off-lineage aesthetics of the upcoming controller, back into more familiar territory (Figure 3, 4). In other words, the seemingly radical white and black design of the DualSense controller (Figure 1-2) threatened their core mental model of the PlayStation aesthetic. In fact, we know from other research that for gamers in the PC gaming community, the aesthetic of their PC computer is core to their sense of identity within the group, and PC gamers are often seen showing off their hardware at social gatherings known as LAN parties (Simon 175-176). So, a minor change in aesthetics represents an act of subjugation. In other words, the fight for aesthetics symbolizes the struggle for power over the identity. This push and pull dynamic between the players and the platform and hardware manufacturers is central to gaming culture. In fact, looking at the images of the next generation Xbox controller, Microsoft seems to understand that maintaining a consistent aesthetic lineage is paramount to the Xbox identity, and the aesthetic changes to the next generation Xbox controller are not as drastic as the DualSense (Figure 6). In other words, Microsoft is not keen on agitating the player community and losing market share to Sony. Interestingly, looking at the image in figure 7, Microsoft seems to have embraced the idea of customization, and has relinquished some control over the aesthetics of their platform. While their primary marketing images of the Xbox controller maintains the black aesthetic, Microsoft is both maintaining control of the overall identity of the platform while clearly acquiescing to the player community’s desire for power over identity.
However, gaming culture is not entirely held together through solidarity—competition is a fundamental reason people wish to join the community. In contemporary gaming, social relationships are built through results—more often than not, the binary state of winning or losing. Through what are known as leaderboards, many popular games display results of each player’s performance in a very quantitative fashion (Velez 425). In other words, the social relationships in gaming culture are built around a meritocracy. To better understand how these social relationships are formed, we could look at competitive gaming culture through the lens of social comparison theory, which states that people define their own skills and value systems through by comparing themselves to others (Velez 425). As a result, players are constantly stack ranked and placed into classes or ranks based on relative performance. In other words, this social structure means that hierarchy and power is based on how well you perform in-game. Which is why professional players have reached celebrity status—explaining the underlying factors in the growing popularity of professional gaming (eSports). While some may say that the meritocratic design of games discourages self-reflection, resulting in a “toxic” culture, it can be said that the skill-based design of games are fundamental reason of why people find meaning and connection in the gaming community (Paul 163-164). Regardless of a person’s circumstance in the real world—socioeconomic status, education level, ethnicity, race, and the like—results in games are based on performance and results, and people find meaning in these alternative social structures. So, with gaming being a meritocracy, it should be no surprise that controllers express those same class structures through their product design and marketing positioning. To take a case in point, Logitech G, the gaming-related sub-brand of computer accessories, sells their best products under the “Pro Series” moniker, claiming that these are the same products that professional eSports players use (Figure 10). In fact, Logitech G sponsors popular professional players to reinforce that claim and prompt a halo effect for their products. Moreover, Microsoft’s premium version of their Xbox controller, called the Xbox Elite Controller, is marketed and sold on the premise that this version of the controller will help players maximize their performance (Figure 8). Through such performance-focused product marketing, manufacturers are tapping into the fact that gaming’s material culture reinforces the idea of social hierarchy and mobility through skill, performance, and results.
With the rising popularity of video game streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube, other types of social classes have emerged. Popular video game streamers—who are often professional players—have amassed a large group of viewers based on their personalities. As a result, this phenomenon has created a social class of celebrity in gaming culture. Accordingly, this social structure is reflected and reinforced in certain gaming’s material culture. For example, in figure 12, we see a marketing image of a gaming microphone built by Razer, a gaming hardware manufacturer; the highlight feature of this product is that an array of LED lights that face away from the user can be customized to show affect through custom graphics, including emojis. While it is true that such products are simply responding to market trends, it is also true that the materiality of gaming is reinforcing the class structures within the gaming community. In other words, the secondary functions of gaming products are supplanting its primary functions. This seems to be especially true of commoditized devices—where a microphone ceases to be a microphone, and its main task is to reinforce the identity of the player.
As in any culture, gender and the way gender is constructed is important to how it affects their sense of identity within the group and the social interactions. For the past decade or so, video game culture have been closely associated with the persona of the “true gamer”—a mid-twenty something, single, white male (Todd 64). Even though, as of 2019, around half of all gamers are women, that perception and stereotype still exists in gaming culture (Santucci). In 2014, an online movement known as GamerGate was reported to be a response to the growing diversification of gaming culture (Todd 64). Women in the gaming community received rape and death threats, and were victims of doxing—a malicious act of publicly posting their private information online (Todd 65). For GamerGate supporters (who make up a small minority of the overall gaming community) the ideal of a “true gamer” is a male player who approaches gaming much more seriously. However, there is little evidence that women are playing games more casually—women seem to be playing the same type of games as men and at the same cadence (Paaßen 421-422). Regardless, the stereotype persists in gaming culture, and in context of material culture, the aesthetics of gaming hardware reinforces the traditional male “gamer” cliché. To take a case in point, consoles, controllers, and other peripherals are almost always sold in black colors—hues that are often associated with masculinity (Figure 4, 6)(Chevalier et al. 219). Interestingly, gaming hardware manufacturers have responded to the recent cultural wars by designing and producing gaming-related accessories targeted at women. As an example, the aesthetic shift seen on the DualSense controller could be viewed as a response to the more masculine lineage. Furthermore, Razer seems to be acknowledging the diversification of gaming culture by marketing two versions of their gaming headphones—a more feminine pink version, alongside the more traditional masculine black version (Figure 13). These sorts of cultural shifts by hardware manufacturers can be viewed as pandering to feminist gamers, or simply capitalizing on a market opportunity, but whatever business or ethical reasons that underscore their motivations, the fact is that hardware manufacturers play a core role in gaming culture, and their decisions have a meaningful effect on the community’s social structures. Furthermore, once again looking back at the images of the DualSense controller, Sony’s decision to move away from the masculine black aesthetic to something more gender neutral (i.e. white) can be seen as an attempt to disrupt these gender norms in gaming culture. Conversely, Microsoft’s decision to maintain their more masculine black color scheme for their upcoming Xbox Series X controllers, can be interpreted as maintaining the status quo. The decisions around aesthetics for the Sony and Microsoft’s future gaming consoles also provide insight into the differences in corporate cultures. In conclusion, it is important to observe that various types of cultures (i.e. corporate, social, geographical) can challenge and influence one another. This seems to have always been the case, and it is clearly evident in the case of gaming culture (Welsch and Vivanco 121-122).
Video game controllers, like all other material objects in human history, serves many purposes beyond its intended functions. In the early history of video games, the controller was originally viewed as a family entertainment device, but now—nearly fifty years later—it has transformed into a something that symbolizes the core identity for many people around the world. Steve Jobs once said that humans are tool builders, and we build tools to amplify our innate human abilities—this predisposition defines us as a species (“Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview,” 01:05:04–01:05:20). In hindsight, it may sound obvious, but, sometimes it is easy to forget because of the volume and depth of integration of the objects in our everyday lives. Clifford Geertz once agreed with the German sociologist, Max Weber, and argued that: “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.” (Geertz 5). For video game controllers, it is the analog gateway to the infinite possibilities of the digital frontier. Perhaps, this is why the stakes seem especially high to those in the community. Many people view video games as simply entertainment or a form of escapism. However, I would argue that for many players, gaming and its material culture—form, function, materials, and aesthetics—provides a deep, meaningful sense of identity that help to construct social relationships. With the mass adoption of smartphones, computers, and other personal technology devices, it is no wonder that the technology and fashion is becoming more deeply integrated into the fabric of our society. And although control over these devices is becoming consolidated within a handful of tech companies, the way each people incorporates those products into their own culture is how meaning and value are constructed. In order to truly understand people, we must also understand its material objects, not simply on its face value, but for the meaning and value we instill into them, and apply these interpretations to the broader cultural and social context.
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