Feminism in the gaming world is…well, it’s complicated. Feminist games and gamers are certainly out there, but there is definitely more that could be done.

While many games in 2018, and many upcoming 2019 titles, include female protagonists; the roster is still pretty white, conventionally attractive, and very heteronormative. Triple A games like Anthem, The last of Us 2, and Assassins Creed Odyssey are diamonds in the rough. A rough that badly needs to be made way more intersectionally feminist.

Luckily, there are a handful of feminist game devs, and let’s players out there who are making the industry a better place. And one of these channels is Hex Code Girls, a group of four queer friends who enjoy streaming LGBTQIAP+ games, and critiquing problematic franchises.

I spoke with Petra, Elise, KT, and Omi about their thoughts on how feminism fits into the gaming industry:

FEMBOT: Hey everyone! How did you first start your channel, and how has the process been for you all since?



PETRA: Years ago, probably 2012~2014 I was making let’s play videos on my own channel on YouTube. The videos were… terrible. In the sense that my equipment was bad and I was just starting to understand audio and video editing software. I was doing it for fun, and I would post just a couple videos months apart. Though my videos were rough and I never had any views, I learned a lot of skills that made it much smoother for us when we all decided to launch a channel together.

I think it was in 2015 that we decided to really take a stab at let’s playing, and to start taking it more seriously. We were inspired by other queer and femme channels that had begun to get more recognition on YouTube too. Geek Remix was a big inspiration, and still is, for simply being two women who never held any punches on being critical of the games they were playing. It was channels like theirs and a couple others where women were putting out feminist opinions on YouTube, in this let’s play community that we always considered to be a boy’s club, that really made us feel that we could do this too. It was also around the same time that a lot of the old let’s play channels that we would watch just… didn’t satisfy us anymore. We wanted to listen and watch more women, more queer folx, and we were absolutely exhausted with awful comments and slurs being thrown out there so casually by all of the popular YouTube. And even more subtly, just the fact that there were so few channels out there doing any critical thinking. Maybe they weren’t outwardly problematic but when they gloss over a moment in a game that made us stop and say “hey, that was really transphobic/racist/sexist/etc,” it felt isolating, like no one else cared about the things we care about.

When we had enough momentum we bought better equipment, and we’re really glad to have put so much energy into this project. It’s slowly but steadily been growing and paying off. We’re so happy to have found a place on youtube where our content is appreciated.

FEMBOT: Are there any particular games from this or last year that shocked you in terms of bigotry?

Elise: You know what shocked me? When Petra and I tried to get into Wolfenstein because the sequel was coming out and the trailers for Wolfenstein 2 looked amazing! And everyone was raving about the first one, and I saw cutscene clips that looked fantastic. But we load up Wolfenstein and our first introduction is the game calling me basically a weak, cowardly baby if I DARE to choose an easy difficulty level. Which was instantly off putting and almost made me just turn it off. But it also made me choose a difficulty level I wouldn’t have chosen because it just really got to me, and partly due to the hardness being too high I couldn’t get past the mundane opening scenes of FPS war time shooter stuff and it left such a bad taste in my mouth I didn’t keep playing. I just really think it’s a shame that a game that supposedly has amazing story and characters has this gate-keeper-y type opening as if only if you can make it through the shooting do you get the good game. Not to mention the taunting difficulty level screen. I get that it’s been like that since og Wolfenstein games but in my opinion just because something has always been that way doesn’t mean it’s good or should continue that way. There’s no reason to scold the consumer who literally spent their own real money on your game for choosing the difficulty level they’re comfortable with. Not to mention how blatantly ableist that is, like laughably one of the most embarrassingly tone-deaf things we’ve seen in a while.

FEMBOT: What do you think the games industry needs to improve in terms of making games more accessible to marginalized groups, as well as disabled players who may need separate game mechanics?

Petra: There’s a lot that could be improved upon to be honest. I think one of the big things that sets developers back from creating games that are accessible to wider audiences, is that most companies are still married to the idea of creating games for a very specific demographic. When a developer’s sole market is defaulted to white cis-het and able gamers, then a great number of issues fall through the cracks. Bigger companies want to create games that suit where they think the market is. Which is ironic when women, poc, queer, and disabled gamers make up just as much of the market as the supposed gold standard. Companies just want to make money, and if the creatives on a development team aren’t thinking about the diverse group of people playing their games, then no one will honestly. We as a community have to repeatedly voice that we are here, I think, and willing to spend money on their games in order for developers to recognize that if they don’t create games that cater to their diverse audience – that they will literally lose money.

KT: It’s also looking at who these developers are, they’re not seeing the diverse group of consumers because they themselves are mostly white cis-het and able bodied. The only way to create change is to hire people of color, queer, trans, and disabled developers onto their teams and really take their experiences and opinions seriously.

Petra: Exactly! We both need to be vocal fans and consumers, yet also be vocal developers. Which I think we’re on our way to really doing. I keep seeing more queer representation at gaming cons and more

queer-friendly independent games seeing more attention and praise. I think we’re on a good trend to seeing change.

KT: Yes! I love all the diverse independent games I’m seeing being developed. In a small way we, as a channel, are trying to help push for improvements within the industry is by streaming and playing these games. Giving what little exposure we can and to support them financially if we’re in the position to.

FEMBOT: For our readers who are a bit nervous about setting up their own gaming channel, especially young women/non-binary gamers, do you have any tips?

KT: First: just go for it! One set back I see a lot of people go through when wanting to start a channel is giving themselves excuses and giving into procrastination. List out all your reasons as to why you’re not putting content out there and figure out which ones are linked to insecurities and which ones are tangible (for example: specific equipment). Don’t let the idea of being a perfectionist hold you back. All channels start out rough, don’t expect to have professional quality videos within the first year (or even longer) and that’s totally OK! A lot of our first videos have never seen the light of day, but we had to start somewhere. Create, edit, and work on improvements, and then start posting, yes even the rough ones. Trial and error and then improving upon that is what I tell myself as Omi and I work to get on the same level as Elise and Petra are right now. You can’t get better if you don’t put yourself out there!

As far as getting past those insecurities like for example, the fear of hateful comments. Especially being a new channel (and queer femmes on top of that) you’ll read them all, it’s all about your attitude and how you choose to deal with them. A rule we tend to follow is not to engage in them. It’s the hardest rule to follow of course! But anything malicious, derogatory, or overly rude we just delete (as we grow this will be harder to manage and an interesting hurdle we’ll have to go through), but right now we’re small enough that sifting through the negative comments are easy and honestly the positive ones outweigh them exponentially.

Elise: Also speaking of comments, you just have to understand that people just Do Not watch their tone online. It’s one of the hardest things for me honestly. I don’t even look at comments really, which is okay too, you could get a friend to help you look through comments if you do the channel on your own (Petra just brings me the good comments on a silver platter or screen caps the ridiculous ones and we vent our frustration in the group chat and move on haha). But yeah, just read every comment with like a grain of sugar, try and assume good intent and it’ll make things a little smoother.

Petra: Yes I love what KT and Elise said above! We have a strict rule that we just don’t engage with negative comments. I will screen-grab them and we can vent to each other in a private group chat, but then I either leave it without replying or I’ll just remove it. We don’t tolerate any negativity, you have the tools to do what you can and keep things under control. We’re not afraid of disabling comments either if we one day find that to be the best solution. We will ensure that our channel is a space where everyone can come and enjoy the content that they love. We never want anyone to feel apprehensive or unwelcome.

A tip that I wanted to mention is to consider the kind of games that you’re going to play on your channel. I think first and foremost, playing games that you know and really want to play is the best advice to give since it just makes the whole experience better and much more fun. My second tip is to then see if you can find games that your intended audience might enjoy. We’ve found that the audience that we initially intended to have has grown since we’ve uploaded more queer and femme-centric games. While the big blockbusters certainly gave us the views, we get such lovely comments and community interaction when we upload games like Butterfly Soup and Life is Strange. We still try and play games like NieR: Automata and Resident Evil 7, since we’re interested in channel growth, but we found the comments section for those games a lot more mixed and heated. It all depends on what you’re interested in with your channel, and the kind of engagements you want to try and have with viewers.

If you get hate online, just take a step back and remember its context. Remember they’re words typed out onto the internet, from someone you’ve never met and most likely never will. Remember the goals of your channel and that you ultimately have control of every word on your page. Negative comments can really sting at first, but I promise you that over time you will see them as just words on the internet. I have pretty severe social anxiety and in the beginning I was like “well me reading all the comments will be a mistake but let’s just see,” and I’ve noticed a lot of growth in myself. I will never let negativity keep me from being visible online and speaking my mind. I’m invested in created space for queer women online and I know that I’m not alone in my endeavors.

We’re also not afraid to be wrong, or called out by the community for any ignorance we have in what we say on our channel. We all want to make the best space possible for everyone. So we understand that we will always be learning and listening so that we can better do that.

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