When you think of the terms ‘male gamer’ and ‘gender psychology’, key research terms that come to mind probably include violence, sexism, and hypermasculinity. One area of gender psychology research explores whether playing videogames reinforces male-centric worldviews in the male gamer. The framing of the research in this area often implies that male heroism, overly-sexualized women, a valuing of physical strength, a lack of emotionality, and the prizing of aggression, elitism, and competition, all constitute male-centric worldviews. Let us look at some of the latest research on different ways in which male gamers are affected by the male-dominant competitive gaming industry, analyze for gender bias in the research processes presented, and consider some potential changes in approach to this area of research.

When we talk about masculinity in videogames, we refer to the prominence of a male player base, a great majority of male characters in the games’ stories, and a rewarding of stereotypically male-dominant skills in the videogames. In 2016 and 2017, Paaßen et al find that the male gamer stereotype of a true, hard-core, or more skilled gamer compared to the female gamer, is only an accurate stereotype depending on how the gamer is defined, that it is perpetuated by the prominence of male icons in the gaming communities, and that it renders female gamers invisible. In running with the definition of gamers as hard-core ones who play games that are represented mostly by males, this study’s conceptual framework shows a bias for the outdated notion of masculinity that includes high competitiveness, rather than potentially newer forms of masculinity that may include other play styles (Ribbens and Malliet, 2015). Paaßen et al do not dismantle the term ‘gamer’ in order to show that the definition logically includes players of diverse game types, but rather it associates an exclusive criterion to the stereotyped term that it attempts to explore. This inhibits the research from considering how the male gamer of less-competitive genres (open-world, simulators, story-rich games, etc.), may still be considered a skilled, competitive, or otherwise masculine gamer.

The use of exaggerated male bodies in videogames was researched by Gilbert et al in 2021, who conducted a thorough historical and cultural analysis. They found that the use of formidability in videogame characters predicted the game’s inclusion of violent behaviour and use of weapons (Gilbert et al, 2021), showing a clear association between exaggerated masculinity and violence within videogames. Ideally, they would also have studied whether the use of formidable videogame characters predicated the game’s use of multiple play styles that allow for more or less violence (e.g., in the Halo videogame series, which characteristically features a more formidable-than-realistic male protagonist, social game types such as ‘infection’ or fan-created types such as ‘fat kid’ include moving through obstacles undetected, with the focus being on avoiding becoming the shooter). In using the less-common word, formidability, to describe strength and massiveness, Gilbert et al de-sensationalize the buzzwords that contribute to the stereotype of a massive, strong male as the iconic videogame character in the research area.

Masculinity in videogames has been associated primarily with excessive violence, and with the finding that gamers who partake in that excessive violence in-game, go on to partake in it in real life. In 2021 and 2019, Allen and Anderson found that the extent to which a player identifies with his in-game avatar, affects the extent to which that player expresses a violent worldview after playing violent portions of the game. This study effectively disentangles violence in videogames from its real-life effects, showing a moderator variable (i.e., the extent of connection between the in-game avatar and real-life player) in the cause-and-effect relationship. This finding is important, because it disproves the stigmatizing idea that being a gamer necessarily makes one violent. Alternatively, it could have explored whether gamers tend to choose avatars that they identify with, or instead choose to disconnect themselves from the game by playing with an avatar they do not relate to (e.g., alter ego, escapism, etc.,) so as to more freely engage in violent acts. This research could have explored a possible divide, wherein some gamers tend toward identification and others toward disengaging, researching whether players who choose to disengage show high levels of violent worldviews to begin with, possibly reversing the directional arrow in the cause-and-effect relationship.

Masculinity in videogames has been associated with the oversexualization of female characters. In 2021, Sarda et al found that males gamers who identified with their in-game avatars before playing a sexist scene, later identified more strongly with masculinity but not with the objectification of women. This shows, similarly to how playing violent videogames does not necessarily make one more violent, that playing sexist videogames does not necessarily make one more sexist. These results successfully counteract the association of male gamers with the perpetuation of sexism through their choice of videogames, and yet, it could have explored whether using less stereotypically masculine in-game avatars produced the same redirection of identity to masculinity (e.g., if these gamers were given the chance to play a videogame with a gender-neutral character that they identified with the most, and who nonetheless committed a sexist act in-game, would they later show the same redirection of their identity, from the sexist character to masculinity, or would they have a different way to redirect their destabilized engagement with the videogame?). Further research could explore how sexist content in videogames influences male gamers’ self-perception generally, rather than their explicit identification of self with masculinity alone (e.g., maybe there is an unexplored counter-effect, whereby after a sexist scene, male gamers identify more strongly with anti-sexism).

Some male gamers play with female avatars, which allows them experimentation with non-masculinity. Chou et al ran a qualitative study in 2014, in which they interviewed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) players, and identified their main reasons for gender swapping (ranging from obtaining free gifts and playing superior avatars, to seeking fantasy experiences), and generally concluded that gender swapping provided male gamers with fun gaming experiences. It would have been informative for this study to evaluate self-reported levels of identification with masculinity, so as to provide a basis for the idea that a version of masculinity involves fantasy experiences of playing as a female, so as to dismantle implicit ideas of masculinity by default avoiding exploring or identifying with femininity (i.e., the binary and heteronormativity). If a sizable amount of the interviewed players self-identified as masculine, while providing the reason of enjoying the fantasy experiences of role-playing as female, then the research could conclude that masculine selfhood has space for femininity.

Gamers have different play styles that allow them diverse points of identity expression. In 2015, Ribbens and Malliet found that young male gamers interact with violence in videogames through a few different play styles (narration or action, discovery or mission-based, and reaction or strategic play), and that these styles suggest that there is some individuality in the amount and representation of virtual violence that these young male gamers find. This study suggests that videogame violence can be conceptually redefined to include the idea of an individuality to each player’s in-game-violence-footprint. This research further dismantles the idea that male gamers must play competitive shooter games, instead broadening the stereotype of the gamer guy to include different types of play, through which lesser-sensationalized traits of masculinity are given space (e.g., strategy and mission-based games are a smaller subcategory of game types that are culturally associated with masculinity, yet less problematically tied to the ideas of sexism, violence, and hypermasculine characters).

Overall, research finds that many male gamers play videogames that ultimately throw an ongoing celebration of outdated notions of masculinity; that these players do not necessarily identify with sexism as a result of identifying with sexist characters; that while they associate themselves with masculinity, they do not necessarily find unjustified violence in the videogames morally right; that some highly competitive videogames, especially MMORPGs, allow for males to gender swap and experience a variety of different gender experiences in gameplay; and that there are different play styles that gamers use, which allow them self-expression through their in-game problem-solving, essentially allowing them to explore different aspects of their masculine/other identities. Thus, there is overall research supporting the idea that the hypermasculine, sexist, violent, competitive gamer may simply be a stereotype that has increasing room to be deconstructed. Yet there is room for improvement in the research area of masculinity in gaming, such as lessening the use of sensationalism in associating hypermasculinity to videogames, or male gamer to competitive gamer, or gamer to sexism, or gamer to violence, in framing the relevant research findings; starting research that questions the directional arrow within the common findings of increased videogame violence leading to increased real-life violence, or increased videogame sexist attitudes leading to increased real-life sexist attitudes; and starting more research into the different videogame types and genres, which show a wide variation in male gamers’ expression of their masculinity within the wider videogame industry.

References
Allen, J. J., & Anderson, C. A. (2021;2019;). Does avatar identification make unjustified videogame violence more morally consequential? Media Psychology, 24(2), 236-258. https://doi.org/10.1080/15213269.2019.1683030
Chou, Y., Lo, S., & Teng, C. (2014). Reasons for avatar gender swapping by online game players: A qualitative interview-based study. International Journal of e-Business Research, 10(4), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.4018/ijebr.2014100101
Gilbert, M., Lynch, T., Burridge, S., & Archipley, L. (2021). Formidability of male videogame characters over 45 years. Information, Communication & Society, 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.2013921
Paaßen, B., Morgenroth, T., & Stratemeyer, M. (2016;2017;). What is a true gamer? the male gamer stereotype and the marginalization of women in videogame culture. Sex Roles, 76(7-8), 421-435. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-016-0678-y
Ribbens, W., & Malliet, S. (2015). How male young adults construe their playing style in violent videogames. New Media & Society, 17(10), 1624-1642. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814530821
Sarda, E., Zerhouni, O., Gentile, D. A., Bry, C., & Bègue, L. (2021). Some effects of sexist videogames on self-masculinity associations. Information, Communication & Society, 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2021.1877770

Originally written for PSY 535 at Toronto Metropolitan University, Prof. Gurevich, 2022.