From Political Economy to Identity Politics: A Forum Study of Political Discussions Between Players

Jørgensen and Sekanina's study examines how players discuss politics in two major English-language gaming forums in the wake of the #gamergate controversy. Drawing on a broad understanding of politics that encompasses both political economy, such as corporate ownership, platformization, and regulation, and identity politics, including gender, race, and diversity, the authors ask how gaming culture engages with the same range of political concerns found in wider society. Their central conclusion is that gaming forums reflect this political breadth, with political-economy and identity-related topics appearing side by side while discussions largely remain on-topic and civil.

The research, conducted in 2019 and 2020, reviewed roughly 944 threads across the two forums. Politically oriented discussions made up about 10 percent of threads in the first case (26 of 260) and 5 percent in the second (32 of 684), with the first forum showing markedly stronger engagement, particularly around identity politics. Platform economy emerged as the most frequent political-economy theme, though these exchanges were often brief, and some users explicitly rejected political framing altogether. Recurring concerns included toxic behavior, controversial industry marketing, microtransaction criticism, and persistent distrust of gaming journalism, which users often viewed as compromised by industry ties or ideological bias.

Identity debates were most explicit in threads about particular titles, notably The Last of Us Part II and Assassin's Creed Odyssey. The forum that took an explicit stance against #gamergate hosted more vivid identity-politics discussion, while the strictly moderated forum concentrated more on political economy, though its most contentious thread, a boycott poll concerning a game with lesbian content, carried #gamergate-style rhetoric. Overall conflict remained low, a pattern the authors attribute to factors such as radical users migrating to less accessible spaces, strict moderation, or users avoiding contentious topics. The study also suggests that political discussion can operate as a form of silencing, as seen in the flagging of a pro-pride thread as off-topic and the neglect of #GamerGate-associated viewpoints.