Poisoned Play

Gaming communities are often accused of toxicity in public discourse. Toxic behaviour can be found in semiotic practices in games, like tea bagging, looting, and grieving, communication in (voice) chat, on platforms, like Twitch and Discord, or in discourses about games via social networks. Gaming is no longer a niche phenomenon so understanding toxic practices is key for educating about and countering them. With interdisciplinary approaches like discourse analysis, surveys, and multimodal investigations, the contributors address phenomena such as sexist male online spaces, alt-right movements using gaming discourses as vehicles for ideologies or toxic work practices in game development.