This week at GDC’s #1ReasonToBe panel, as we excitedly discussed on our podcast, Leigh Alexander and Laura Hudson announced the relaunch of BoingBoing’s Offworld as a site focused on women’s and minority voices in gaming. Longtime critic and author Alexander will serve as Offworld’s new editor-in-chief, and Laura Hudson, Senior Editor at Wired, will take on the role of senior editor.
Offworld, originally founded by Brandon Boyer, was created as a hub for indie games and gaming culture in 2008, but was later folded into Boing Boing proper around 2010.
The relaunch of Offworld comes at just the moment when the voices of women and minorities are struggling against being actively silenced in the games community. It is because of this that we have decided to do a bit of a round-up to once again bring the voices of these folks to the fore. While this is by no means a comprehensive list, it’s an opportunity to talk about some of the other sites we love and follow.
Gaming Sites:
- Tiny Girl Tiny Games
- Spawn On Me (blog and podcast)
- Geek Girl Authority
- FemHype
- Go Make Me a Sandwich
- The Mary Sue’s Gaming Section
- Game On Girl
- Chic Pixel
- The Learned Fangirl Technology Section
- Feminist Frequency – Obviously. Adding so y’all don’t think we forgot.
- Gamasutra – Obviously not focused solely on issues for women and minorities, but one of the best damned gaming sites around for balanced, investigative content in line with our own interests
Podcasts and More:
- Justice Points
- Isometric
- Nerdette Podcast
- Geek & Sundry
- Ctrl Alt WoW
- The Missfits
- Gamertag Radio
- Not a Game
- Anomaly
Tumblr:
- Why I Need Diverse Games
- Diverse Gaming Lists
- Gaming Feminism
- Gamers of Color
- Black Girl Nerds (also podcast)
- The Trolliest Critic
- Equality in Games
Fora and Discussion Sites:
- reddit: GirlGamers, GamerGhazi, and blackgirlgamers
- Girl Tribe Gaming – Community and podcast
- NeoGAF – The long-running forum features community threads for women and minorities, and discussions on cultural issues in gaming, while sometimes heated, can take thoughtful turns
Non-gaming Sites with Occasional Gaming Focus:
- Racialicious – check out the video game tag on this site dedicated to studies of race and culture
- The Frisky – feminist site with occasional video game and culture coverage
- Feministing – feminist site with featured column by Katherine Cross, a researcher specializing in online harassment and gender in virtual worlds (and if you’re not reading her, you should be)
- Everyday Feminism – While they don’t have a specific gaming tag, they sometimes cover relevant issues
Resources:
- IGDA’s Women in Games
- Zoe Quinn’s sortingh.at set of game creation resources – for the next time someone says, “why not just make your own games?”
- Crash Override Online Anti-Harassment Task Force
- Good Game Auto Blocker
Obviously, there are a lot of great regular gaming sites we would recommend, many of which often take feminist angles or write about representation in games, but it’s not like we need to direct you to a site like Paste Magazine or Polygon, or writers like Kotaku’s Patricia Hernandez; you’re probably already reading them. If, however, we’ve missed something you think should be included here, let us know! While we’re not trying to create a master list, we do want a good one, and there can never be too much spotlight on voices so often silenced.
2 thoughts on “Dismantling the Master’s House: Celebrating Offworld and Current Worlds”
Thanks for writing this, I would ask you to check out our podcast called Spawn On Me as well. We are spotlighting the space as well.
Thank you, I will! I expect we’re going to make this a persistent resource rather than just a post, so tell people and let’s gather folks together.