Elizabeth D. Kilmer and Rachel Kowert are members of the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN). The EGRN works together to uncover how malign actors exploit gaming, to build resilience in gaming communities to online harms, and to discover new ways to use gaming for good.
Introduction
There is a common assumption researchers make when they are working to develop tools and insights to increase community health and safety – that the groups these researchers aim to help (in this case, video game developers) will welcome them with open arms, happy to support the researchers in their work.
Those same researchers (ourselves included) are then often shocked and frustrated when those developers instead greet us with distrust, derision, or don’t return our emails. It is easy, comfortable even, for us as researchers to blame the developers. Perhaps they don’t care, they don’t understand, and they don’t know what’s best for them. Though that narrative is often comfortable for us academics, it fails to acknowledge the larger context and does not get us any closer to effective collaboration with studios.
This Insight will contextualise the historical and current tensions in the relationship between game developers and researchers. It will provide recommendations for how trust can be maintained between parties, in addition to suggestions for researchers in this niche space. In particular, the need to approach such relationships from a perspective of cultural humility, and the importance of prior knowledge and respect of gaming spaces.
A History of Moral Panic and Disrespect
Video games have been caught up in a series of moral panics and are regularly vilified by academics, politicians and the media, fueling further misunderstanding by the public at large. Many developers spend significant time and energy pushing back on myths about the dangers and uselessness of video games. Additionally, at summits and policy sessions aimed to impact games and gaming spaces, there are often few individuals with actual gaming or game design experience included in these conversations. With so much effort needed to address unfair allegations that their games are “corrupting the youth” or are a “waste of time” from some researchers and policymakers, it’s easy to see why developers might not immediately trust well-meaning researchers. This can be particularly true when the research being done requires significant nuance and complexity to conduct and communicate to avoid reinforcing harmful myths about video games. For example, research exploring problematic topics in gaming spaces, such as radicalisation or exploitation, may lead the public to overgeneralise games themselves as the problem if not communicated effectively.
The ability to effectively engage in research about safety in gaming communities must be done with care not to fuel moral panic or misinformation inadvertently, and requires not just an understanding of safety-related topics, but digital game and gaming culture knowledge as well. When engaging in this work without basic knowledge about video games and gaming culture, the likelihood of perpetuating misinformed tropes escalates, and the likelihood that developers will be willing to trust or work with you plummets. Because of the history of digital games being maligned by researchers, we have a responsibility to do what we can to ensure that harm is not further perpetuated. The need for continued worry about inappropriate fear-mongering of games inhibits effective conversations about real problems and vulnerabilities within games and gaming communities.
Cultural Competence and Humility
When building knowledge and competence about games and gaming communities to support effective communication with developers, researchers should consider approaching these topics from a stance of respect and humility. Cultural competence is a term commonly used in research and healthcare settings to describe the importance of understanding basic information about the culture within which a patient exists. In the late 1990s, the concept of cultural humility was introduced, as cultural competence fell short of supporting inclusion and respect by reducing a cultural experience to a list of facts. Cultural humility refers to an approach where the researcher or provider centres the experience of the community they are working with, sets the community as the expert in their experiences, and seeks a greater understanding of cultural practices and values from a place of respect and curiosity. Many current approaches blend the two concepts, from the justification that researchers and providers should work to educate themselves in basic knowledge about a culture and then approach the client or community from a stance of cultural humility. Though cultural competence and humility are often discussed with regard to identities such as gender, race, and religion, the same principles can be applied to work within other cultural groups, such as gamers and game developers. Researchers can learn basic information about the history of digital games, common cultural touchstones, and language, and approach research from a perspective of cultural humility. They may also benefit from examining any biases they hold towards games and those who play them (for example, that video games are just for children or are less valuable hobbies than physical sports). Ideally, this will not only increase the likelihood of developers returning your emails, it will improve the quality of your research. Missing a confounding variable because you can’t tell the difference between a MOBA and an MMORPG is doing yourself and the games industry a disservice.
Researcher Knowledge in Practice
In 2023, Take This conducted focus groups with developers to learn more about what the industry is currently doing to combat hate, harassment, and extremist exploitation of gaming spaces. These focus groups covered the importance of cross-industry communication about challenges and tactics, roadblocks to solutions, and currently employed strategies from the perspective of game developers. As a nonprofit organisation with a long history of serving the gaming industry and gaming communities, Take This had established connections with many developers, which aided in recruitment for the focus groups. Even so, prior to the groups, several developers expressed concerns that talking to researchers about extremism in digital games would be a significant risk to their jobs or that the data would be used inappropriately. During the groups themselves, the conversation and subsequent data analysis required knowledge of games and gaming history. Having background information about the topics and games discussed allowed the researchers to ask more meaningful follow-up questions instead of being stuck with surface-level explanations or relying on the group members to fill in the basics for the researchers. When the researchers’ knowledge of and care for games was made clear through the focus groups, a few participants expressed their explicit gratitude for the researchers’ knowledge of and respect for digital games and game history.
The book The Power of Positive Deviance illustrates the value of looking for solutions within a community – assuming that a community has members who have solved or started to solve some of the issues that exist in the larger group. Outsiders, such as researchers, can support this identification process and can even be valuable in helping the community develop systems to put them into practice – but this approach requires both knowledge of and respect for the community and their work.
Conclusions
Researchers’ knowledge of digital games and respect for the medium are not the only roadblocks to research on violent extremism in games, but they are clear and surmountable ones. Though researchers do not need to become experts in digital games history or top the ranks in popular games, they should have both academic and practical experience with digital games in multiple genres. Gaining experience in games as a player and consumer should support their respect for the medium and industry, and improve the quality of their work. As with research within any community, researchers who are more informed about the communities and medium within which their research interests lie may be more likely to ask more relevant research questions and identify potential vulnerabilities within such gaming spaces. The extremist exploitation of gaming ecosystems is an important and urgent area for research and prevention. Effective collaboration between researchers and the industry is vital for the safety and well-being of both our digital and physical communities.
