Munther 1

Gayth Munther
Professor Agosta
UWRT 1102-018
4 November 2014
Annotated Bibliography
What are the stereotypes of gamers?
How do stereotypes affect the identity of gamer?
Dickerman, Charles, Jeff Christensen, and Stella Beatrz Kerl-McClain. "Big Breasts And Bad
Guys: Depictions Of Gender And Race In Video Games." Journal Of Creativity In
Mental Health 3.1 (2008): 20-29. Academic Search Complete. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.
Gender in video games is a highly debated topic and the depictions of women in games
are scarce and is stereotypical. Women are usually minor characters, are seen as victims
rather than protagonists, and are depicted in highly sexualized ways. Gender and racial
stereotyping in video games is discussed in the sources as well as way to raise awareness
of the issue. The article mainly argues that gender and race should be taken into
consideration when creating characters and story plots in video games.
This sources mainly talks about how video games are advertised to the general public. It
sheds light on how advertisements affect the image of gamers and how women and
people of color are represented in those advertisements. This article can be used to
illustrate how stereotypes of gamers can to be and how the general public has responded
to the issues discussed above. This is a strong example of a credible source because
Dickerman, Christensen, and Kerl-McClain have all done much research to arrive at the
information that they presented and the conclusions that they established.

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How will advertisements for future games be affected due to the growing complaints about
the depiction of gender and racial stereotypes?

What are the demographics of the people who play games?

Gamer Statistics. Survey. 26 Oct. 2014. < http://gaythmunther.weebly.com/blog/surveyresults>.
This is a survey I created to compare the statistics of the sources listed above versus the
statistics that I gathered. The survey included questions about the demographics of
gamers and that helps me answer some of my inquiry questions. This survey confirms the
results of the survey that Williams and Nick conducted.
I will show the results of the survey and compare them with the results that Williams and
Nick got from theirs. I dont think that this is a credible source because the barrier to
enter the survey was low. I posted the survey on reddit under the subreddit gaming. The
participants of that subreddit might not play video games or share experiences with the
gamer group. This survey is mostly created to compare my results versus other survey
results.
How will the results differ if the survey was posted to a different subreddit?

How does the image of a gamer change the identity of the people that associate
themselves with that identity?
Gee, James Paul. "Identity as an Analytic Lens for Research in Education." JSTOR. N.p., n.d.
Web. 30 Oct. 2014.
This article describes the different types of identity that one can associate themselves
with. This includes Nature identity such as being tall, Institutional identity such as being

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a teacher, Discourse identity such as being recognized as friendly and Affinity identity in
which one shares a common experience within a group. The article helps define some of
the terms used in the research as well as give examples of how identity can be
interpreted. The main idea behind this source is that identity has to have a power that
reinforces the trait of that identity.
Affinity identity is defined as a common experience shared in the practice of a common
group. This definition is going to be very important in my research because I can talk
about common experiences of gamers in the past and today and compare the two states.
Gee uses a lot of sources to back up his findings as well as his observation so it is safe to
say that this is a credible source.
Are there other ways to view identity? If so, what is their source of power?

What are the different subgroups of gamers?

Van Horn, Royal. Violence and Video Games. The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Oct.,
1999), pp. 173-174
This source talks about how violent games affect the behavior of two subgroups of
gamers. The news article brings up how media coverage has affected the medium of
video games. Two studies were recently published and Royal Van Horn comments on
how the general public has reacted to toward the information in the studies. There were
two sides to the story and both of them hold extreme views.
This article was published in 1999 which is a long time in terms of the video game
medium. It is interesting to see the history behind the debate today and how it has change
throughout time. Looking at the opinion of someone from the past and analyzing their
stand on the matter can give insight into how video games are seen by the general public.

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This article was written from a first person perspective which shows the opinion of Royal
Van Horn on the matter of video game violence. He mostly uses the two studies with lots
of evidence to back up his opinion which is why this is a credible source.
Did other mediums such as books or music go through the same process that video games
are going through today?

What are the stereotypes of gamers today?

What kind of practices and experiences make someone a gamer?
Williams, Dmitri, Nick Yee, and Scott E. Caplan. "Who Plays, How Much, and Why?
Debunking the Stereotypical Gamer Profile." Journal of Computer-Mediated
Communitcation. N.p., 2 Sept. 2008. Web. 30 Oct. 2014.
Williams and Nick created a survey that was given to people who play massively
multiplayer online games (MMOs). The participants were players of the popular game
EverQuest 2. This survey asked about the behavior of players when they were offline.
Over 7000 players participated and their data was used to generalize player behavior. The
survey results were counterintuitive and defied gamer stereotypes. This sources also
answers lot of the inquiry questions brought forward. The main idea behind this survey is
to understand player behavior as well as debunking the stereotypes of people whom play
video games on a regular basis. Researchers in this field saw that most published studies
were skewed and that a company benefitting from the results was sponsoring the data
gatherers. Williams and Nick in this case wanted a clear way to test the statistics of the
other results.
As expected, the results of the survey showed that the demographics of people who play
video games now are very different than what they used to be. This is very helpful in

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answering most of inquiry questions about the demographics of people who play video
games. This source is very credible because it showed academically sound measures and
procedures to gather the shown data.
How will the new generation of gamers affect society in terms of economics?