Thoughtful video game design offers more than an escape for many trans players. It can also help create pathways to joy, identity affirmation and inclusion.

Gaming is huge. According to Forbes business magazine, the sector’s global revenue is more than the music and movie industries combined. That is a lot of people engaged in game stories and game characters. So how does gender fluidity fit in and what, in gaming, is gender euphoria?

Monash’s Associate Professor Phoebe Toups Dugas works in human centred computing at the Exertion Games Lab in the Faculty of Information Technology, and in a new paper she coordinated explores this idea of euphoria for transgender gamers.

She says euphoria in the context of “digital play” is about the joy, comfort and wellbeing felt when gender identity is seen, felt, or expressed in a game in a way that resonates with who they are.

“I think gender euphoria is really applicable to anyone, but it is a moment ‘in-game’ where your identity and your experience of your identity are truly aligned, and they are described as being bright, intense moments, wonderful moments.”

  • MentalEdge@sopuli.xyzEnglish
    12·
    2 days ago

    That’s nice.

    Even for the rest of us, I think it’s just good for a person to experience other versions of “me”.

    I’m a white dude, but games can give me hints about what’s it like to be someone else, and it doesn’t have to match my reality in any way whatsoever. Even more than books, games immerse me into the perspectives of others.

  • TamsinEnglish
    13·
    2 days ago

    I still remember playing Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines. Seeing those slender elegant fingers (*my* fingers) picking a lock gave me such a good feeling that I can still recall it up to today.
    Of course back then I was totally oblivious and didn’t understand where that feeling came from.