New uses and challenges for video games: streaming, gender issues and online harassment

Abstract

To play video games no longer means staying consecutive hours in front of a screen. In the culture of video games there are new phenomena in which the new generation of players want to know more about games, watch others play, see their fans, interact, following their idols, participate and become better and better. But there is also a dark side, which has to do with harassment issues, sexism, aggression and / or discrimination in online games. Increasingly visible, this issue is becoming the object of analysis in specific debates and digital platforms. In the recent past, a large number of news about online games have focused on harassment and violence online, thus reinforcing the importance of the dimensions of tolerance, diversity and inclusion. In this research, we start by focusing on the context of development of new environments and online gaming communities, analyzing in particular the expansion and specificity of the big emerging platforms, then we discuss the issue of discrimination and / or exclusion and online harassment and how to overcome this problem by introducing specific codes to improve the classification of content, as well as through community management strategies that promote diversity and inclusion in online games.