In an age where being online is the norm, so many of us look to these online communities to forge a sense of identity and find a group of like-minded people to connect with.
This is something incredibly common within the gaming community. You can interact and play games with people from anywhere in the world and forge some really meaningful relationships. But how can the actual games themselves help you forge a sense of identity?
For women, this experience is different. We aren’t always granted the role of the strong protagonist within video games. So although this representation is lacking, female gamers had made do with the representation they have and look at it as a way to explore deeper questions about their identity.
Recently, we have been seeing some changes surrounding the types of stories that can be told through video games. Slowly, the industry is working on a better representation of gender identities and experiences of those who are not your typical cisgender man. This is partly due to increased diversity happening on the production side of video games.
Having a more diverse production team leads to more diverse content, helping to combat the issue of gender discrimination within video games. There’s one game in particular that garnered some attention because it asks you to enter your gender at the very beginning, only to swap it on you for the actual gameplay. This game is called Acceptance.
Acceptance is a game made by transgender video game journalist, and author, Laura Kate Dale as well as Alex Roberts, 8BitGoggles, and Joanna Blackhart. The player is allowed to make a series of choices about how they want to live their day. Which bathroom do they use? How do they get home? Etc. The added twist is, each choice shows the player how dangerous it can be to live as a trans person.
So often do games avoid conversations surrounding gender and fall on male conventions and exploiting women to get by. It is a formula that has proven to sell. This game is not afraid to do the opposite and make gender be a part of its entire foundation. The game is about gender and what it is like to be constantly invalidated and misgender when you are just trying to exist. It can be used as a way to get cisgender people to understand the Trans experience more, but it can also be a tool for the player to get a sense of their own gender identity and explore what gender means for them.
Check out the trailer for Acceptance below