Mobilização de mulheres em jogos online: um estudo de caso sobre o grupo brasileiro OVERD.VAS

Abstract

Women have claimed for their space in digital games for a variety of reasons, such as games that marginalize and objectify women based on the notion of pleasure oriented to the male gaze, and the harassment targeted at the female audience in the online environment. Due to this scenario, women have organized into groups to create safe gaming environments. In order to study how these groups of marginalized people act about the inhospitality of the gaming environment, focusing on women’s experiences, I propose an analysis based on the case study of the Brazilian group “OverD.vas”. The methodology included a systematic review, a search by the terms “gender”, “games” and “women”, in order to compose the theoretical body. For the case study, the data regarding OverD.vas (on their social networks and YouTube videos) were analyzed. A semi-structured interview was conducted with the group’s organizer as well. As the conclusions of the work, it is understood that the creation of this kind of group comes as an answer both to the difficulties for women to enter the gaming community, and due to the lack of women in the eSports championships. The OverD.vas championship represents one of the many ways that women have found to face the barriers they experience within the online gaming communities.