Ignoring the Blood on the Tracks: Exits and Departures From Game Studies
Critical Studies in Media Communication, 39 (3):
173-180 (2022)DOI: 10.1080/15295036.2022.2080847
Abstract
In this article I examine game studies’ role in training students who go on to work in or study the games industry. Using a feminist lens to critique the leaky pipeline metaphor, I discuss how this metaphor assists in a collective amnesia that allows game studies to ignore the larger culture problems associated with games and the industry that makes them. In its place, I offer up Neil deGrasse Tyson’s use of “blood on the tracks” to describe how some people are actively pushed out of our field. As a way forward, I suggest that by reimagining how we teach game studies’ genesis point, it will offer up the potential for a brighter, more diverse future for our field.