“An excellent analysis of gaming and extremism, which highlights some of the most complex challenges in tackling abuse of a constantly-changing technology space. A perfect introduction for a novice and expert alike.” – Charley Gleeson, Open-Source Intelligence Analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, UK “For too long, policy and practice related to gaming and extremism have been based on little more than anecdote and gut feeling. This book is the antidote to that. Full of erudite chapters from world-leading experts, this volume is required reading for policy makers and practitioners alike.” – Ross Frenett, Founder and Co-CEO of Moonshot, UK http://taylorandfrancis.com http://taylorandfrancis.com GAMING AND EXTREMISM Charting the increase in the use of games for the dissemination of extremist propaganda, radicalization, recruitment, and mobilization, this book examines the “gamification of extremism.” Editors Linda Schlegel and Rachel Kowert bring together a range of insights from world-leading experts in the field to provide the first comprehensive overview of gaming and extremism. The potential nexus between gaming and extremism has become a key area of concern for researchers, policymakers, and practitioners seeking to prevent and counter radicalization and this book offers insights into key trends and debates, future directions, and potential prevention efforts. This includes the exploration of how games and game adjacent spaces, such as Discord, Twitch, Steam, and DLive, are being leveraged by extremists for the purposes of radicalization, recruitment, and mobilization. Additionally, the book presents the latest counterterrorism techniques, surveys promising preventing/countering violent extremism (P/CVE) measures currently being utilized in the gaming sphere, and examines the ongoing challenges, controversies, and current gaps in knowledge in the field. This text will be of interest to students and scholars of gaming and gaming culture, as well as an essential resource for researchers and practitioners working in prevention and counter-extremism, professionals working at gaming-related tech companies, and policymakers. Linda Schlegel is a Research Fellow at modusIzad, a founding member of the Extremism and Gaming Research Network, and an Associate Fellow at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt. Her research interests include gaming/gamification and radicalization, digital P/CVE, and narrative campaigns against extremism. Rachel Kowert is a Research Psychologist, the Research Director of Take This, and the founder of Psychgeist, a multimedia content production studio for the science of games and pop culture. She is a world-renowned researcher on the uses and effects of digital games and currently serves as one of the primary investigators on the first grant-funded project from the Department of Homeland Security about games and extremism. To learn more about Rachel and her work, visit www.rkowert.com. www.rkowert.com GAMING AND EXTREMISM The Radicalization of Digital Playgrounds Edited by Linda Schlegel and Rachel Kowert https://www.routledge.com Designed cover image: © Andrey Suslov/Getty Images First published 2024 by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 and by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2024 selection and editorial matter, Linda Schlegel and Rachel Kowert; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Linda Schlegel and Rachel Kowert to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Schlegel, Linda, 1992- editor. | Kowert, Rachel, editor. Title: Gaming and extremism : the radicalization of digital playgrounds / edited by Linda Schlegel and Rachel Kowert. Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2024. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2023042073 (print) | LCCN 2023042074 (ebook) | ISBN 9781032483016 (hardback) | ISBN 9781032482996 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003388371 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Video games‐‐Political aspects. | Video gamers‐‐Political activity. | Radicalization. | Radicalism. Classification: LCC GV1469.34.P65 G36 2024 (print) | LCC GV1469.34.P65 (ebook) | DDC 794.8‐‐dc23/eng/20231127 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023042073 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2023042074 ISBN: 978-1-032-48301-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-48299-6 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-38837-1 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003388371 Typeset in Sabon by MPS Limited, Dehradun https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003388371 CONTENTS List of Contributors ix Foreword by Jessica White xiv Introduction: Extremism in Digital Gaming Spaces 1 Linda Schlegel and Rachel Kowert 1 Introduction to Videogames and the Extremist Ecosystem 9 Constance Steinkuehler and Kurt Squire 2 Theories of Digital Games and Radicalization 32 Galen Lamphere-Englund 3 Extremist Games and Modifications – the “Metapolitics” of Anti-Democratic Forces 57 Mick Prinz 4 Digital Games as Vehicles for Extremist Recruitment and Mobilization 72 Alex Newhouse and Rachel Kowert 5 Extremism on Gaming (-Adjacent) Platforms 95 Jacob Davey 6 Hate and Extremism on Gaming Platforms: Insights from Surveys with the Gaming Community 110 Amarnath Amarasingam and Daniel Kelley 7 Beauty is Power: The Use of Gaming References and Gaming Aesthetics in Extremist Propaganda 130 Ashton Kingdon 8 A is for Apple, B is for Bullet: The Gamification of (Violent) Extremism 148 Suraj Lakhani 9 Level Up: Policies, Practices, and Positive Interventions to Counter Terrorism and Violent Extremism in Gaming Spaces 163 Erin Saltman and Nagham El Karhili 10 Preventing and Countering Extremism in Gaming Spaces 185 Linda Schlegel Concluding Thoughts 202 Rachel Kowert and Linda Schlegel Index 206 viii Contents CONTRIBUTORS Dr. Amarnath Amarasingam is an Assistant Professor in the School of Religion, and is cross-appointed to the Department of Political Studies, at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. His research interests are in terrorism, radicalization and extremism, conspiracy theories, online communities, diaspora politics, post-war reconstruction, and the sociology of religion. He is the author of Pain, Pride, and Politics: Sri Lankan Tamil Activism in Canada (2015), and the co-editor of Stress Tested: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Canadian National Security (2021) and Sri Lanka: The Struggle for Peace in the Aftermath of War (2016). He has also published over 60 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, has presented papers at over 100 national and international conferences, and has written for the New York Times, The Monkey Case, the Washington Post, CNN, Politico, The Atlantic, and Foreign Affairs. He has been interviewed on CNN, PBS Newshour, CBC, BBC, and a variety of other media outlets. He tweets at @AmarAmarasingam. Jacob Davey is Head of Research & Policy, Counter Hate at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). He has led a wide range of projects tracking extremism and hate globally, including a major project of work analyzing ideologically motivated violent extremism in Canada, and work tracking right-wing extremism in the United Kingdom. Jacob regularly advises senior policymakers and has provided evidence to inquiries, including testifying at the UK Intelligence and Security Committee’s inquiry into Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism, the UK Home Affairs Committee inquiry into Hate Crime and its Violent Consequences, as well as leading ISD’s contribution of written evidence to the United States House Select Committee on the January 6 attack. Jacob sits on the steering board for the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN). His work has been featured in the BBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Vice, Wired, and NPR, among other outlets. Dr. Nagham El Karhili is the Programs and Partnerships Lead at the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT). She was previously the Program and Research Manager at the Horizon Forum. Dr. El Karhili has developed and coordinated research and programming agendas at think-do tanks focused on countering hate-based extremism. She was a Presidential Fellow at Georgia State University’s Transcultural Conflict and Violence Initiative where her research focussed on projects at the intersection of violent extremism, organizational religious identity, and civil society. As a scholar of communication, Dr. El Karhili has authored numerous research articles published in academic peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Media and Religion, Dynamics of Asymmetric Conflict, and Media, War, & Conflict, along with sector policy reports. Her academic background also led her to hold teaching positions at Georgia State University and Indiana University Perdue University. Dr. El Karhili is a graduate of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (BS; MS), and Georgia State University (PhD). Daniel Kelley (he/him/his) is the Director of Strategy and Operations of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Center for Technology and Society (CTS). CTS works through research and advocacy to fight for justice and fair treatment for all in digital social spaces from social media to online games and beyond. For the last five years, Daniel has been the lead author of the first nationally representative survey of hate, harassment and positive social experiences in online games. He is also the co-author of the Disruption and Harms in Online Games Framework (together with members of the Fair Play Alliance), a resource to define harms in online multiplayer games. He also leads CTS’ tech accountability research efforts, such as its Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial Report Card, which looks at ways to create research grounded advocacy products to inform the public about the nature of hate and harassment online and to hold tech companies accountable. Dr. Ashton Kingdon is a lecturer in criminology at the University of Southampton. She is also an Advisory Board Member at the Accelera- tionism Research Consortium, a research fellow at Vox-POL, a member of x Contributors the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN), a member of the steering committee for the British Society of Criminology’s Hate Crime Network and former head of Technology and Research Ethics at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right. Her research is interdisciplinary, combining criminology, history, and computer science to explore the ways in which extremists utilize technology for recruitment and radicalisation, while giving equal weight to the subcultural elements of the users of this technology. In addition to extremists’ use of technology to recruit and radicalize, her expertise lies in analyzing the relationship existing between terrorism and climate change. Dr. Suraj Lakhani is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at the University of Sussex. He also holds the roles of Research Fellow at VoxPol, Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, and part of the Steering Board for the Extremism and Gaming Research Network. His research interests include violent extremism and video gaming, violent extremism and the metaverse, terrorism and the internet, and counterterrorism policy. Suraj has acted as primary investigator on research projects funded by, for example, the Home Office, European Commission, Research England, ESRC, British Academy, and the Leverhulme Trust. Galen Lamphere-Englund is a senior research and strategic communication professional working at the nexus of violent extremism, conflict, and tech issues. For over 14 years, he has examined how various forms of radicalization can lead to violence and how to foster resilience to societal divides. He has led global research and programming in over 30 countries for United Nations agencies, governments, humanitarian agencies, think tanks, and many of the largest tech platforms. Galen co-founded the Extremism and Gaming Research Network and advises a range of clients on preventing online space exploitation by extremist and terrorist actors. He is an Associate Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a member of the EU Radicalization Awareness Network (RAN) group of experts, and serves on GIFCT working groups. Galen holds honors degrees, including an MA in Public Policy from CEU, an MA in Development & Public Policy from IBEI, and BA in Global Studies from ASU. Alex Newhouse is a senior research fellow at the Center on Terrorism, Extremism, and Counterterrorism at Middlebury. He is an expert in far- right extremism, and he specializes in mixed-methods research of how far- right movements exploit technologies such as social media and video Contributors xi games. His work has been published in the CTC Sentinel and GNET, and he has been cited in media outlets such as the Washington Post, VICE News, the New York Times, and The Atlantic. He holds degrees from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Middlebury College, and Georgia Tech. Mick Prinz is a social scientist from Germany and works at the Amadeu Antonio Foundation in Berlin. His main focus is the extreme right within gaming culture. As project manager of the project “Good Gaming – Well Played Democracy,” he analyzes the instrumentalization of gaming culture by right-wing groups. At the same time, he talks to gamers about how more digital courage in gaming can succeed. Dr. Erin Saltman is the Director of Programs and Partnerships at the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism (GIFCT). She has worked in the technology, NGO, and academic sector building out counterterrorism strategies and counter-extremism programs internationally. Dr Saltman’s background and expertise includes both white supremacy and Islamist extremist processes of radicalization within a range of regional and socio- political contexts. Her academic and NGO research and publications have focussed on the evolving nature of violent extremism online, youth radicalization, and the evaluation of counterspeech methodologies. She was formerly Meta’s Head of Counterterrorism and Dangerous Organizations Policy across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. She also spent time as a practitioner working for ISD Global and other CT/ CVE NGOs before joining GIFCT. Dr. Saltman is a graduate of Columbia University (BA) and University College London (MA; PhD). Dr. Constance Steinkuehler is a Professor in the Department of Informatics at the University of California, Irvine where she researches culture, cognition, and learning in the context of multiplayer online videogames. She is an ADL Belfer Fellow, Chair of UCI’s Game Design and Interactive Media Program, and Co-Director of the Games+Learning+Society (GLS) Center. Her current projects include investigations of toxicity and extremism in online games, an audit of game company policies related to player-vs-player behavior, reasoning with misinformation, and a literature review of the impact of gaming tech on adjacent and distal fields. Constance formerly served as Senior Policy Analyst under the Obama administration in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, advising on videogames and digital media. She is the founder of the Federal Games Guild, a working group across federal agencies using games and simulations as tools for thought, and the xii Contributors Higher Education Video Games Alliance, an academic non-for-profit organization of game-related programs in higher education. Her research has been funded by the Anti-Defamation League, the Samueli Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Gates Foundation, the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Universities of Cambridge, Wisconsin-Madison, and California-Irvine. She has published over 100 articles and book chapters and worked closely with the National Research Council and National Academy of Education on special reports relate to videogames, and her work has been featured in Science, Wired, USA Today, the New York Times, LA Times, ABC, CBS, CNN NPR, BBC and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Constance has a PhD in Literacy Studies, an MS in Educational Psychology, and three Bachelor’s Degrees in Mathematics, English, and Religious Studies. Her dissertation was a cognitive ethnography of the MMOs Lineage I and II where she ran a large siege guild. Dr. Kurt D. Squire is a professor at The University of California, Irvine, member of the Connected Learning Laboratory, and former director of the Games, Learning & Society Initiative at the University of Wisconsin- Madison, best known for his research into game design for education. Contributors xiii FOREWORD The landscape of counterterrorism is constantly changing, having to adapt and adjust as the threat itself adapts and adjusts. However, the movement of society towards increasing engagement in and connection to online spaces has challenged counterterrorism frameworks, as they have been imagined and designed over the last two decades. When scanning the future threat horizon, it becomes quickly apparent that increased understanding is needed of online gaming and gaming-adjacent spaces, a gap that this book aims to fill. As evidence from interventions in the field of preventing and countering violent extremism shows, it is essential that efforts take lessons learned from adjacent fields that can bring complementary and augmenting knowledge in order to better understand and counter the spread of extremism through all media and methods. This book usefully brings together the knowledge and research from experts in the fields of both gaming studies and countering terrorism and violent extremism. As someone who comes from over a decade of experience in countering terrorism, I can attest that there is a lot to learn from one another. This book compiles a vast amount of knowledge in one place for those seeking to learn about the nexus of online gaming and extremism, in an effort to counter the exploitation of these spaces by extremists. Without experience of the online gaming world, it is easy to underestimate the mammoth size of the industry – larger by far than the film, music, and television industries combined. There are billions of gamers worldwide – one-third of the global population – and that figure will only keep increasing as access continues to improve globally and more and more opportunities present themselves for online/virtual engagement and reality building. At the same time, concerns of extremism in society continue to grow, as the mainstreaming of extremism across political and social discourse teams with polarization of politics and global crises such as pandemics, climate change, conflicts, etc. These concerns are reflected in the spaces in which people spend their time, including in online gaming and gaming-adjacent spaces. Thus, now is the time to build knowledge of how to prevent and counter the spread of extremism in gaming spaces and to counter the exploitation of these spaces by extremists. I have had the pleasure and honor of working with the editors of this book, Dr. Rachel Kowert and Linda Schlegel, as well as many of the contributing authors, several of whom are members of the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN). The authors of these chapters make accessible the world of online gaming and explore the intricacies of how to protect what makes online gaming special while aiming to reinforce its spaces against potential harm. There are so many avenues to explore within the complexity of what is the online gaming ecosystem. Many of these are investigated with the latest insights presented throughout the chapters of this book. The authors introduce readers to what makes up the ecosystem, how people interact within gaming environments, potential harms and exploitations of these spaces, as well as ways in which gaming is being used to prevent and counter extremism and terrorism. There are fascinating elements to explore throughout, including how people form identities and create communities and the highly gendered and racialized nature of these dynamics. Understanding better how these interactions occur within the transnational spaces of online gaming will only improve our understanding of how to prevent potential harms in these spaces. Even as potential harms and the prevention of extremism in online gaming spaces are the focus of this book, it remains important to remember that these efforts are made to protect gaming spaces and communities from harm. The authors of this book are seeking to keep gaming spaces as or return them to the positive, interactive environments, and communities that are essential for many. It has certainly been the effort of the Extremism and Gaming Research Network, as well as the authors of this book, to acknowledge, where harms are being perpetrated, not demonization, but encouragement to preventative and protective efforts of online gaming spaces. This book offers invaluable insights into the nexus of gaming and extremism that will be useful across many fields, including for policymakers Foreword xv working on counterterrorism or countering online harms; practitioners working in the prevention and countering of violent extremism; and, other researchers working to build the evidence base around online gaming in order to help better understand and protect these spaces from exploitation and the spreading of extremism. Dr. Jessica White Co-Founder and Co-Convenor of the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN) xvi Foreword INTRODUCTION Extremism in Digital Gaming Spaces Linda Schlegel and Rachel Kowert Gaming is one of the most popular leisure activities of our time. More people than ever before are playing games and congregating in gaming- related digital spaces. An estimated 3.2 billion people are playing vi- deogames – a whopping one-third of the world’s population – and the forecasts predict that this number will continue to grow in the coming years (Statista, 2021a). Today, millions of fans are filling esports arenas (some as big as soccer stadiums) and even more people use gaming (-adjacent) platforms such as Steam (www.store.steampowered.com), Discord (www.discord.com), Twitch (www.twitch.tv), or DLive (www. dlive.tv) to talk about gaming, stay informed about their favorite videogames, watch livestreams of popular gaming influencers, and connect with other players. In fact, in the first quarter of 2021, an astonishing 8.8 billion hours of streamed content has been watched on the livestreaming platform Twitch alone (Statista, 2021b). Unsurprisingly, the booming gaming industry is expected to continue to increase in size and revenue (World Economic Forum, 2022). In accordance with the rising popularity of gaming activities across the world, research on videogames, gaming-related content, and digital gaming spaces has also been gaining momentum and is steadily increasing since the 1990s (Kowert & Quandt, 2016). Over the last few decades, a substantial body of research on the social and psychological appeal of games, on gaming communities, gamification, as well as the potential negative and positive effects of gaming and related activities has been amassed (see Hodent, 2021 for an overview). However, until recently, research on the alleged negative impact of playing videogames has largely DOI: 10.4324/9781003388371-1 www.store.steampowered.com www.discord.com www.twitch.tv www.dlive.tv www.dlive.tv https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003388371-1 focussed on and controversially discussed a potential link between gaming and aggression or gaming addiction. However, a new key area of concern has recently come to the center of attention: A potential connection between gaming and extremism. On March 15, 2019, a right-wing extremist entered two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and opened fire. He killed 51 and left over 50 others severely injured. Because the perpetrator livestreamed the attack in the style of popular “let’s play” videos and mirrored the visual aesthetics of first-person shooter games (Lakhani and Wiedlitzka, 2022), concerns surrounding a potential nexus between gaming culture and extremism arose among governments and policymakers, tech companies, researchers, and actors working in the field of preventing and countering (violent) extremism (P/CVE). From the EU Commission’s Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN, 2020; 2021a; 2021b; 2022) to the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism (Schlegel & Amarasingam, 2022) and even the UN Security Council,1 a range of international actors have displayed a strong interest in gaming and extremism since the Christchurch attack. Even a dedicated research network, the Extremism and Gaming Research Network (EGRN),2 was founded to examine new questions such as: Was this an isolated incident or could there be a “gamification of terror” (Mackintosh & Mezzofiore, 2019)? Could extremists exploit gaming, gaming-related digital spaces, and gaming culture to facilitate radicaliza- tion or even mobilization processes? Is there a link between gaming culture and extremist propaganda? Is gaming only relevant for right-wing ex- tremism or also for jihadism and other extremist ideologies? And how can extremists’ exploitation of gaming spaces be countered or prevented? Suddenly, such questions were placed at the top of the agenda and gaming became a “hot topic” in extremism research. Current Volume The aim of this edited volume is to shed light on these questions and present the current state of knowledge on gaming and extremism. While much of the existing research is dispersed across think tank reports, policy papers, and academic articles, this volume presents the current state of knowledge and provides a comprehensive discussion on gaming and extremism in a collection of overview articles. Across this book, leading scholars and practitioners currently on the forefront of research efforts in this field showcase their recent empirical and theoretical findings. They examine the theoretical basis of gaming and extremism (Chapters 1 and 2), discuss how extremists are seeking to leverage videogames (Chapters 3 and 4), analyze extremist activity on gaming (-adjacent) platforms (Chapters 5 and 6), 2 Schlegel and Kowert investigate the use of gaming cultural references in propaganda (Chapter 7), and examine the gamification of violence (Chapter 8). In addition, gaming- related prevention and counter-extremism efforts are explored (Chapters 9 and 10), addressing how the impact of extremist actors and content in gaming spaces can be mitigated. It is important to note that while most research efforts in this space have focussed on right-wing extremism, we strove to include as much information as possible regarding the use of gaming among other extreme groups such as jihadists. Before diving in, it is important to provide a context and shared lan- guage around gaming and extremism to better understand how these spaces are being leveraged for propaganda dissemination, radicalization, and mobilization by extremist groups. Although videogames and the appropriation of gaming aesthetics have been used in both right-wing extremist and jihadist propaganda for a substantial amount of time, only the Christchurch attack pulled a poten- tial connection between gaming and extremism to the center of attention and sparked a stark increase in research efforts on this issue. In spite of these efforts, research on gaming and extremism is still in its infancy. At the time of writing, a mere four years have passed since the Christchurch attack – hardly enough time for research and practice to analyze, evaluate, and comprehend all aspects of this issue in their entirety. Consequently, the number of studies on gaming and extremism is still small and our understanding of gaming and extremism must be regarded as limited and in constant flux. As the Extremism and Gaming Research Network pos- tulates, insights on gaming still constitute a large research gap within extremism studies (EGRN, 2021). Nevertheless, research conducted over the last years has shown that extremists are seeking to use gaming and related content in various ways. The RAN developed a now prominent typology to demonstrate the diverse types of link between gaming and extremism (RAN, 2020). It details five main ways extremists seek to exploit gaming: The production of bespoke games, the use of existing games by developing modifications (“mods”)3 or leveraging in-game chats to communicate with gamers, extremists’ presence on gaming (-adjacent) platforms, the use of gaming (cultural) references in propaganda, and gamification. These are briefly described in more detail below: • Bespoke games: Extremist actors have produced bespoke games since the 1980s. This includes both jihadists and right-wing extremists. For example, Hezbollah has developed a whole series of videogames called Special Forces (Rose, 2018; see also Lakomy, 2019) and the German- speaking branch of the Identitarian Movement recently developed a Introduction 3 jump’n’run game, Heimatdefender: Rebellion, in which players fight against the Antifa and shoot politicians (Schlegel, 2020b). Aside from the publicity these games afford extremist actors, it is controversially debated why such games are being produced and whether they are means of “preaching to the (already radicalized) choir” or may also contribute to radicalization processes (Schlegel, 2020a; Robinson & Whittaker, 2021). • Existing games: Existing videogames have been used by extremists in various ways, including the organization of gaming tournaments, the creation of modifications, and the use of in-game communication fea- tures. For instance, mods have been developed by extremists and rad- icalized individuals since the early 2000s when Al Qaeda modified the game Quest for Saddam (Petrilla Entertainment) into Quest for Bush (Schlegel, 2018). This “tradition” continues until today, exemplified by various modifications of popular video games such as Minecraft (Mojang Studios) or The Sims (Electronic Arts), which allow players to experience the Christchurch attack in a game format. There is also growing concern that extremist recruiters and radicalized individuals could seek to communicate, build trust, and potentially groom (young) players via in-game communication features such as text- or voice- based chats (RAN, 2021c). While it is currently still unclear in which (types of) games extremists are using in-game communication features, a recent UNOCT study (Schlegel & Amarasingam, 2022, p. 16) sug- gests that games may be especially prone to the dissemination of violent and hateful content in chats if: • “Interacting with others via chat is necessary/useful to coordinate and win • It is a popular game with a large player base • The game is highly competitive • It involves fighting and violence • It is an online multiplayer game • It is a PvP game4 • Players are assigned into match-based teams with strangers • Failure can be attributed to individual team members • There is little moderation/regulation • There are no real consequences for breaking the rules and using hateful language” • Gaming (-adjacent) platforms: Extremist actors have also established a presence on gaming and gaming-adjacent platforms such as Twitch, DLive, Odysee (www.odysee.com), Discord, Steam, and Roblox (www.roblox.com) (RAN, 2021b). Not only were various attacks and 4 Schlegel and Kowert http://www.odysee.com www.roblox.com violent acts such as the January 6 storm on the US Capitol livestreamed, these platforms have also been used for internal communication and planning: For instance, the Unite The Right rally in 2017 was planned via Discord and the 2016 Munich attack has been linked to commu- nication on Steam. While jihadists currently remain largely hidden in these spaces, right-wing extremists are often using these platforms openly and loudly (Davey, 2021). • Gaming (cultural) references: Videogame references, gamer language, and gaming aesthetics have been employed by extremist actors to increase the appeal of their propaganda. This includes, for instance, the use of helmet cameras to mimic first-person shooter games in both ji- hadist and right-wing extremist videos and livestreams in the style of popular “let’s play” videos (Scaife, 2017; Schlegel, 2020a). Other pieces of propaganda have employed direct references to popular videogames or used “gamer language.” An ISIS recruiter, for instance, referenced Call of Duty (Activision) and tweeted: “You can sit at home and play call of duty or you can come and respond to the real call of duty … the choice is yours” (Schlegel, 2020c). Other ISIS propaganda included the tag line “This is our Call of Duty and we respawn5 in jannah [para- dise]” (Dauber et al., 2019, p. 18). It is currently believed that extremist actors employ gaming references to benefit from the “cool” pop- cultural appeal of gaming content. Recent work has also indicted gamer identities themselves are potentially being leveraged to cultivate stronger in-group identities (Kowert, Martel, & Swann, 2022). • Gamification: Gamification is the “use of game design elements within non-game contexts” (Deterding et al., 2011, p. 1) and describes the process of transferring game components such as points, badges, lea- derboards, quests, guilds, etc., to contexts not traditionally regarded as games. There is evidence that gamification has been used both strate- gically by extremist groups to facilitate engagement with propaganda as well as organically by individuals who are radicalized but not affiliated to a specific group (RAN, 2021a). For example, jihadist groups have employed “radicalization meters” in their online forums to visualize users’ degree of radicalization and the far-right Identitarian Movement sought to develop an app, Patriot Peer, through which individuals could collect points for attending certain events, participating in dem- onstrations, or visiting certain historical sites (Schlegel, 2021). Some right-wing extremist attacks too arguably employed gamified elements (Lakhani & Wiedlitzka, 2022). Before getting started, it is important to note that while this book brings together state-of-the-art research on the issue, it is merely a snapshot of a Introduction 5 young and constantly evolving area of research and should be read accordingly. It is also important to remember that many spaces on the internet are being actively utilized by extremist groups. In this respect, digital games and those who play them are just one of the many. Nevertheless, extremists’ use of gaming deserves heightened attention as a new digital space such actors are actively involved in. This book provides a valuable starting point for academics, policymakers, journalists, P/CVE practitioners, and students of both game studies and extremism research, who seek to gain and expand their understanding of the potential nexus between gaming and extremism in all its facets. Notes 1 Open meeting of the Counter-Terrorism Committee on “Countering terrorist narratives and preventing the use of the Internet for terrorist purposes” (2022), https://media.un.org/en/asset/k18/k18xtu7fdl. 2 https://extremismandgaming.org/. 3 Modding “refers to the process of editing or changing the structure, syntax or code of a game. Modification is performed to change the operations of a game in par with the requirements, environment, or end result or experience [and] is performed to allow a gamer to play a game different from its original released version” ( Techopedia, 2017). 4 PvP is the abbreviation of player versus player and refers to gaming experiences against other humans rather than opponents being controlled by the game itself (PvE = player versus environment). 5 Respawn is a term used by gamers and refers to restarting a level after failing. References Activision (2011). Call of Duty. [Videogame] Dauber, C. Robinson, M., Basilous, J., & Blair, A. (2019). Call of Duty: Jihad – How the Video Game Motif Has Migrated Downstream from Islamic State Propaganda Videos. Perspectives on Terrorism, 13(3), 17–31. Davey, J. (2021). Gamers Who Hate: An Introduction to ISD’s Gaming and Extremism Series. https://www.isdglobal.org/isd-publications/gamers-who-hate- an-introduction-to-isds-gamingand-extremism-series/ Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011). From Game Design Elements to Gamefulness: Defining Gamification. https://www.researchgate. net/publication/230854710_From_Game_Design_Elements_to_Gamefulness_ Defining_Gamification/link/00b7d5315ab1be3c37000000/download. EGRN (2021). State of Play: Reviewing the Literature on Gaming and Extremism. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1AatJSq8vhXenjnvXHFrsPLmxyH4aONRU/ view. Electronic Arts (2000). The Sims. [Videogame] Hodent, C. (2021). The Psychology of Video Games. Routledge. Kowert, R., Martel, A., & Swann, B. (2022). Not Just a Game: Identity usion and Extremism in Gaming Cultures. Frontiers in Communication, 7. 10.3389/fcomm. 2022.1007128. 6 Schlegel and Kowert https://media.un.org https://extremismandgaming.org https://www.isdglobal.org https://www.isdglobal.org https://www.researchgate.net https://www.researchgate.net https://www.researchgate.net https://drive.google.com https://drive.google.com https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.1007128 https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2022.1007128 Kowert, R. & Quandt, T. (2016). The Video Game Debate: Unraveling the physical, social, and psychological effects of digital games. Routledge. Lakhani, S. & Wiedlitzka, S. (2022). “Press F to Pay Respects”: An Empirical Exploration of the Mechanics of Gamification in Relation to the Christchurch Attack. Terrorism and Political Violence. Online First. 10.1080/09546553.2022. 2064746. Lakomy, M. (2019). Let’s Play a Video Game: Jihadi Propaganda in the World of Electronic Entertainment. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 42(4), 383–406. Mackintosh, E. & Mezzofiore, G. (2019). How the Extreme-Right Gamified Terror. CNN (October 10, 2019). https://edition.cnn.com/2019/10/10/europe/ germany-synagogueattack-extremism-gamified-grm-intl/index.html. Mojang Studios (2011). Minecraft. [Videogame] Petrilla Entertainment (2003). Quest for Saddam. [Videogame] RAN (2020). Extremists’ Use of Video Gaming – Strategies and Narratives. https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/system/files/2020-11/ran_cn_conclusion_ paper_videogames_15-17092020_en.pdf. RAN (2021a). The Gamification of Violent Extremism & Lessons for P/CVE. https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu/networks/radicalisation-awareness-network- ran/publications/gamification-violent-extremism-lessons-pcve-2021_en. RAN (2021b). Extremists’ Use of Gaming (-Adjacent) Platforms ‒ Insights Regarding Primary and Secondary Prevention Measures. https://home-affairs. ec.europa.eu/networks/radicalisation-awareness-network-ran/publications/ extremists-use-gaming-adjacent-platforms-insights-regarding-primary-and- secondary-prevention_en. RAN (2021c). Digital Grooming Tactics on Video Gaming & Video Gaming Adjacent Platforms: Threats and Opportunities. https://ec.europa.eu/home- affairs/system/files/2021-05/ran_cn_conclusion_paper_grooming_through_ gaming_15-16032021_en.pdf. RAN (2022). Countering the Misuse of Gaming-Related Content & Spaces: Inspiring practices and opportunities for cooperation with tech companies. https://home- affairs.ec.europa.eu/whats-new/publications/countering-misuse-gaming- relatedcontent-spaces-inspiring-practices-and-opportunities-cooperation_en. Robinson, N. & Whittaker, J. (2021). Playing for Hate? Extremism, Terrorism, and Videogames. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. Online First. 10.1080/ 105 7610X.2020.1866740 Rose, S. (2018). “Holy Defence”: Hezbollah Issues Call of Duty to Video Gamers. https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/holy-defence-hezbollah-issues-call-duty- videogamers. Scaife, L. (2017). Social Networks as the New Frontier of Terrorism: #Terror. Routledge. Schlegel, L. (2018). Playing Jihad: The Gamification of Radicalization. https:// www.thedefensepost.com/2018/07/05/gamification-of-radicalization-opinion/. Schlegel, L. (2020a). Jumanji Extremism? How Games and Gamification Could Facilitate Radicalization Processes. Journal for Deradicalization, 23, 1–44. Schlegel, L. (2020b). No Child’s Play: The Identitarian Movement’s “Patriotic” Video Game. https://gnet-research.org/2020/09/17/no-childs-play-the- identitarian-movements-patriotic-videogame/. Introduction 7 https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2022.2064746 https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2022.2064746 https://edition.cnn.com https://edition.cnn.com https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu https://ec.europa.eu https://ec.europa.eu https://ec.europa.eu https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu https://home-affairs.ec.europa.eu https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 1057610X.2020.1866740 https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 1057610X.2020.1866740 https://www.middleeasteye.net https://www.middleeasteye.net https://www.thedefensepost.com https://www.thedefensepost.com https://gnet-research.org https://gnet-research.org Schlegel, L. (2020c). Can You Hear Your Call of Duty? The Gamification of Radicalization and Extremist Violence. https://eeradicalization.com/can-you- hear-your-call-of-duty-the-gamificationof-radicalization-and-extremist- violence/. Schlegel, L. (2021). Working Paper 1/2021: The Role of Gamification in Radicalization Processes. https://modus-zad.de/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/ modus-working-paper12021.pdf. Schlegel, L. (2022). Playing Against Radicalization: Why Extremists Are Gaming and How P/CVE Can Leverage the Positive Effects of Video Games to Prevent Radicalization. https://www.scenor.at/_files/ugd/ff9c7a_9f5f3687937b4f3384e 2b0a7eac8c33f.pdf. Schlegel, L. & Amarasingam, A. (2022). Examining the Intersection Between Gaming and Violent Extremism. UNOCT Action Research. https://www.un.org/ counterterrorism/sites/www.un.org.counterterrorism/files/221005_research_ launch_on_gaming_ve.pdf. Statista (2021a). Number of Video Gamers Worldwide in 2021, by Region. https://www.statista.com/statistics/293304/number-video-gamers/. Statista (2021b). Number of Hours of Video Game Live Streams Watched on Streaming Platforms Worldwide in Q1 2019 to Q1 2021. https://www.statista. com/statistics/1125469/video-gamestream-hourswatched/#:~:text=Video %20game%20live%20streaming%20hours%20watched% 202019%2D2021& text=In%20the%20first%20quarter%20of,billion%20hours%20two%20years %20previously. Techopedia (2017). Modification (Mod). https://www.techopedia.com/definition/ 3841/modification-mod#:~:text=In%20gaming%2C%20modification %20(mod),or%20end%20result%20or%20experience. World Economic Forum (2022). Gaming Is Booming and Is Expected to Keep Growing. This Chart Tells You All You Need to Know. https://www.weforum. org/agenda/2022/07/gaming-pandemic-lockdowns-pwc-growth/. 8 Schlegel and Kowert https://eeradicalization.com https://eeradicalization.com https://eeradicalization.com https://modus-zad.de https://modus-zad.de https://www.scenor.at https://www.scenor.at https://www.un.org https://www.un.org https://www.un.org https://www.statista.com https://www.statista.com https://www.statista.com https://www.statista.com https://www.statista.com https://www.statista.com https://www.techopedia.com https://www.techopedia.com https://www.techopedia.com https://www.weforum.org https://www.weforum.org 1 INTRODUCTION TO VIDEOGAMES AND THE EXTREMIST ECOSYSTEM Constance Steinkuehler and Kurt Squire In February 2023, two young men were arrested in Singapore for plotting violent jihadist terrorist attacks including bombings, beheadings, and knife attacks on public spaces (Dass, 2023). At 15 and 16 years of age, they were the youngest individuals ever arrested for terrorist activity in the country. Both had been radicalized through an Islamic State (IS)-themed server on the gaming platform Roblox (Roblox Corporation, 2006) and game-adjacent platform Discord (Discord, Incorporated, 2015). Such cases have raised significant concern among researchers, policy- makers, and the public. According to the Global Terrorism Index 2022 (Institute for Economics and Peace, 2022), while the global number of deaths from terrorism fell to only-one third of its 2015 peak, the number of attacks has increased by 17% to 5,226. In the report, videogames and game- adjacent platforms such as Discord, Twitch (Twitch Interactive, 2011) and the like were pronounced the new “‘hotbeds’ for radicalisation” (p. 74). Given their global dominance as an entertainment medium of choice, par- ticularly among younger adults, such declarations indeed raise the alarm. The global entertainment industry complex is worth an estimated $207.06 billion in 2023 (“Global Video Game Market Value”, 2023) with revenues growing at a rate of 7.17% annually. Today’s game marketplace is predominantly online and notably long tailed with the top ten computer and console games representing around 10% of total industry revenues while, at the other end of the distribution, the entire indie games market represents about 4.3% (Bruce, 2022). Moreover, the social impact of the medium is hard to deny, particularly in a post-pandemic world during which games provided one of the few spaces in which players could DOI: 10.4324/9781003388371-2 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003388371-2 socialize and engage in joint activity. Today, games are among the most common platforms for socializing with friends, acquaintances, and strangers – in both the digital playground of Roblox (Roblox Corporation, 2006), Fortnite (Epic Games, 2017) and similar titles and on physical play- grounds and hangouts of old, “what game you’re into” may well determine the social groups in which you participate (Kutner & Olson, 2008). Whether joining friends after school to play Minecraft online (Mojang Studios, 2011) or buying Robux (the in-game currency in Roblox) to purchase new skins or piling onto Discord to voice chat with friends, game and game-related on- and offline fandom spaces serve as a vital platform for the creation and maintenance of informal social networks of affiliation and disaffiliation, loosely tied together through online technologies in spaces “corporate owned but player constituted” (Steinkuehler, 2006). This chapter provides a broad overview of videogames and their player communities with an eye toward those aspects that bear on the patterns of extremist activity we see today. We provide an introduction to videogames, their definition and defining elements, the issue of violence, key industry stakeholders in their development, and discuss the centrality of rules and systems to games, on the one hand, and player action, reaction, and inter- pretation, on the other. We then discuss the nature of game communities, including what we know about player demographics, their varying moti- vations for play, the structural features that game communities have in common, and how extremists exploit them. We then consider games as social platforms, including both online game titles (and specialized content creation servers within them) and online game-adjacent platforms, and compare and contrast them to other traditional social platforms. We conclude with a discussion of the vulnerabilities in the current gaming ecosystem. Understanding Videogames Videogames are not monolithic. Originally the entertainment medium of the computer, they now span numerous platforms including computer, console, tablet, smart phone, and augmented reality/virtual reality head- sets, enabling a breathtaking range of gameplay from tiny button-mashing arcade experiences lasting only a few seconds as in Flappy Bird (Nguyen, 2013) to sprawling persistent virtual worlds, for example, World of Warcraft (Blizzard, 2004) to multiplayer online battle arenas including League of Legends (Riot Games, 2013), the world’s largest esport played by 150 million players (“League of Legends Live Player Count”, 2023) and drawing over 100 million unique viewers to its championship events (Webb, 2019). Dominant brands around the globe include a broad range of genres and familiar titles from Minecraft, Pokemon (Nintendo, 1996) 10 Steinkuehler and Squire and Candy Crush (King, 2012) to Call of Duty (Activision, 2003), Grand Theft Auto (Rockstar Games, 1997), and League of Legends, yet games are more than just these top sellers. Rapidly evolving genres and sub- genres, from first- person shooters to bird flying simulators, means that almost any audience can find almost any activity of their liking remediated as a game, and there is a game for nearly any market segment imaginable. We know relatively little about how the range of specific game genres and mechanics are leveraged by varying extremist groups (Schlegel & Amarasingam, 2022). Still, all games have some key elements in common. Systems and Rules A game is a “system in which players engage in an artificial conflict defined by rules that results in a quantifiable outcome” (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004, p. 11). Games are essentially systems, constituted by the interactions among their elements and their player(s). From this perspective, we can think of games as a kind of computational model or simulation of some system or dynamic, either real or imagined. In this way, games are a kind of argument about how the world (again, real or imagined) works; they have a procedural rhetoric (Bogost, 2007). Indeed, the earliest video- games, such as Pong (Alcorn, 1972), originally a game designed for an oscilloscope entitled Tennis for Two (Higinbotham, 1958), were models of well-known physical and social activities. Game systems are defined by rules or mechanics, which, simply put, are statements or directives that govern behavior within the system. Rules determine both what players can and cannot do as well as how the game system processes and responds to players’ actions. These cycles of game stimuli, player action, game system processing and then feedback are re- ferred to as game loops, and they are key to understanding how games operate (Cook, 2012). From the player’s perspective, these loops are the game play, and good game play is simply “a series of interesting choices” (Meier, as cited on Rollings & Morris, 2000, p. 38). Artificial conflict is core to games; games are goal-directed activities in which the rules of the game pose an unnecessary or “unnatural” challenge to obtaining the goal (Suits, 2004). Indeed, it is just this challenge, resulting from the artificial conflict, that gives games their stickiness. Together, these elements func- tion to create a designed experience for the player (Squire, 2006). Violence in Games But if games are arguments or models of how systems work, then are games essentially arguments for conflict, since conflict is at the heart of gameplay? Links between games and violent extremism renew concerns Videogames and the Extremist Ecosystem 11 that videogame play might cause aggression and violence. Shooters in both the 2019 terrorist attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, and in El Paso, Texas, for example, made explicit references to first-person shooter games and games culture more broadly (Robinson & Whitaker, 2021). However, case studies of violent behavior reveal the role of prior exposure to abuse, violence in the home, bullying, social ostracization, and other social factors (Ferguson & Wang, 2019), leading the American Psychological Association (2020) to conclude that, “violence is a complex social problem that likely stems from many factors that warrant attention from researchers, policy makers and the public. Attributing violence to violent video gaming is not scientifically sound and draws attention away from other factors” (p. 1). Indeed, the rise of videogame play, including violent videogame play, has coincided with an overall decline in violence in society, supporting a kind of “catharsis effect” from videogames (Ferguson, 2015). This is not to posit that cultural references to games among violent ex- tremists are harmless; rather, it is to point to the proliferation of games and pervasiveness of game culture globally in how we communicate, network, and socialize. Research on violence and aggression in games, like much of the media effects research, employs an exposure model whereby players’ intentions, experiences, goals, and interpretations of an experience are largely irrelevant. Such an approach discards context (such as why would one choose to play a game) and ascribes agency to media, rather than to players, which has been called an active media approach (Egenfeldt- Nielsen & Smith, 2004). In contrast, an active player (or user) approach, assumes that people are active sense-making organisms, with interests, goals, reasons for choosing and participating in the media that they do. The role of researchers in this context is to understand the choices that people make, the impact that it has on their lives, and the contexts in which they consume media. These dynamics are true to any media, but are especially important in games, where, for example, one player might play Grand Theft Auto to connect with friends whereas another plays out of an interest in car culture, and a third player enjoys its transgressive elements (DeVane & Squire, 2008). The interactive elements of games require us to account for users’ intentions and actions to understand play. This shift in focus from the active media to active player problematizes theories of radicalization via games (and other forms) in which extremists create games that radicalize unwitting players into their ideologies in some straightforward way. As Robinson and Whittaker (2021) argue: “[P]layers retain independent thought and judgment and bring their critical faculties into their engagement with games. They are not brainwashed by their engagement with games, but are thinking ‘player subjects,’ exercising a 12 Steinkuehler and Squire particular type of subjectivity when they play games, which has minimal implications for their broader subjectivity” (p. 15). Narrative Games typically have a narrative or at least a narrative premise that frames play. Like written literary works, games use standard narrative devices including characters, context, plot structure, pacing, dialog, and, in some cases, cutscenes. Game narratives are more often complicated branching structures rather than standard linear plot structures. They are what Jenkins (2002) calls “narrative architectures.” Unlike written literary works, games also use spatiality as a key means for storytelling in games: The internal world or geography of the game is often designed for nar- rative potential such as characters with backstories that help shape the action and its meaning or props and resources that convey context. Because games are interactive, the stories they tell must be collaboratively accomplished, often with the player situated as the main protagonist as in Campbell’s (1949) hero’s journey, with the game serving as a kind of authoring environment for the player to then write within. Indeed, one common way that extremists leverage game narratives is by positioning violent extremists as protagonists who battle ideologically opposed forces (Selepak, 2010). For example, pro-IS mods of ARMA 3 (Bohemia Interactive, 2013) depict IS fighters in victorious combat against the Syrian Arab Army and Iraqi forces as seen in the series of YouTube (www.youtube.com) videos posted by Jihadi Mark (Lakomy, 2019).1 Similar games can be found across the political spectrum; Osama bin Laden and George Bush were featured in Flash shooting games in the 2000s; similar games were subsequently developed involving Presidents Obama and Trump and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (Fiadotau, 2020; Neys & Jansz, 2010). Treatment A game’s treatment is “the cohesive whole formed by visual art, visual effects, sound effects, tactile effects and music” (Swink, 2008, p. 189). It determines a game’s feel, signaling the presumed audience for the game and setting player expectations about how the system will behave. Does the game treatment consist of vivid primary colors and geometric shapes with forgiving touchscreen sensitivity for children under six? High fidelity graphics in sepia tones with a complex user interface overlaying a sweeping landscape shot for dads who love historical simulations? Pastel 2D rounded squares tucked snugly together on a 6.06-inch diagonal rectangle just aching to be moved into arrays of three by two thumbs in a Videogames and the Extremist Ecosystem 13 www.youtube.com slow checkout line at the grocer? A game’s treatment may be abstract, as the objects falling in space in Tetris (Pajitnov, 1984) or iconic, as in the pie-shaped character gobbling up pellets while dodging three hungry ghosts trying to eat him in Pac-Man (Namco, 1980) or representational, as in the high fidelity battle-torn French and German territories whose fascist Nazi occupiers you must push back in Call of Duty: World War II (Sledgehammer Games, 2017). In each case, the game’s treatment is not merely eye candy or visual wrapping; it fundamentally helps constitute the game experience and meanings conveyed. In a well-polished game, the game treatment, narrative, and core game mechanics (system) cohere, which takes time and resources, design expertise, and typically teams of individuals in specialized roles. Game Development Game development is a rapidly evolving ecosystem transitioning from a physical distribution system (where games were distributed via physical media such as cartridges, discs) to a digital distribution system, wherein games are developed and distributed digitally. This transition, when combined with a democratization of game development tools, has led to the proliferation of game titles and content. Whereas previously, devel- opers needed to meet content standards to be placed on a console or compete for shelf space at a store, today, almost anyone can assemble a team, make a game (of uncertain quality), and attempt to sell it online. This leveling of the ecosystem is often considered good for the industry in that it diversifies the marketplace in healthy ways, but the loss of content gatekeeping structures leaves the industry open to extremist actors and other abuses. Likewise, the development of online games (particularly “software-as-a service” models) means that game content is not wholly defined by developers; rather, more and more game systems include online modes or other ways for users to generate and share content, which creates additional openings within the game ecosystem to extremism and other dangerous content. Game Developers Game developers are the artists, programmers, writers, designers, sound engineers, and producers who create game software working together at a game studio. Game studios can be independent (indie), meaning that they are not owned by a game publisher, or they might be AAA (triple A, a term borrowed from the credit industry) meaning they are owned by a publisher. The size of game development teams varies by orders of magnitude. Whereas the original Minecraft was made primarily by the single developer 14 Steinkuehler and Squire Notch and Call of Duty teams are the size of small villages, most devel- opment teams fall somewhere in between these two extremes. Indie teams often feature around a dozen developers, including both artists and pro- grammers, whereas smaller AAA teams may only have a few hundred developers. Game Engines and Mods Game developers use a variety of tools and engines to make games. While specialized genres may require custom game tools to optimize game per- formance, general purpose game development platforms lower the bar to entry for development. Unity (Unity Technologies, 2005) and Unreal Engine (Epic Games, 1998) are powerful tools for game making, requiring only basic programming skills and offering extensive tutorials and blueprints to aid independent development. Today, many commercial games also provide users access to the tools they themselves used such that creating new content and levels or modifying (or “modding”) existing ones is relatively easy even for novices. The combination of accessible game development engines, modding capabilities within commercial titles, and digital distribution platforms (described later) has democratized game development, allowing a much wider range of people to design and share their work, largely free from institutional (and perhaps even financial) constraints. As a result, there are more and more varied games available today than ever before. Game Publishers Game publishers fund game projects, market games, handle distribution, and provide legal and business support. In the retail era, publishers were a necessity. They ensured that games were accepted by console manufac- turers (which exercised their own authority), negotiated deals to place games in retail stores, and promoted games in the press. With respect to extremism, publishers played a critical role in shaping and gatekeeping – although publishers were hardly a purely benevolent force, neither were they all equal. Rockstar Games, for example, tolerated (if not cultivated) sexist themes and questionably violent content in many titles while Nintendo maintained some of the strictest of content standards. Still, publishers added accountability with respect to game content and themes. Game Distribution Platforms Game distribution platforms such as Steam (https://steamcommunity.com), Google Play (https://play.google.com/store/games) and Itchi.io (https://itch. io) allow game developers to market straight to game audiences globally. Videogames and the Extremist Ecosystem 15 https://steamcommunity.com https://play.google.com https://itch.io https://itch.io Anyone can make a game, upload it to one of these services, and, if approved, sell their game online. As a result, millions of games are now available: roughly 500,000 on both Apple iOS and Google Play (“Number of Available Gaming Apps”, 2023), 700,000 on itch.io (“Top Games”, 2023), 40,000 on console (Kowalcyzk, 2021), and 50,000 games on Steam (Bailey, 2023) with 10,000 new ones added annually. Apart from perhaps Itch.io, online distributors generally exercise some degree of content cura- tion and quality control, filtering content and providing some minimal level of developer and player customer support. The question is whether this is enough. Extremist Games Early extremist games were mostly awkward combinations of popular game mechanics (e.g., Pac-Man) with a new hate-based narrative premise and treatment applied – essentially, abstract or symbolic games rebranded with extremist imagery and symbols. Examples include white nationalist computer games posted online by American neo-Nazi Gerhard Rex Lauck (the Farmbelt Fuehrer) such as SA-Mann, Aryan 3, Shoot the Blacks, NSDoom, WPDoom (Anti-Defamation League, 2002), KZ Manager Millennium: Hamburg Edition, and Watch Out Behind You Hunter! (White Aryan Resistance, n.d.a, n.d.b). Here, game mechanics with thin to no relationship to the revised narrative premise and treatments result in a notably amateur final product allowing players to interact with extremist content but in mostly irrelevant ways. Such games are generally poor in quality (Selepak, 2010) due to lack of design experience and skills (Schlegel & Amarasingam, 2022); as a result, made-from-scratch games by extremists are largely on the wane (Robinson & Whittaker, 2021). Extremist titles beginning in the early 2000s took playing hate to a new level, moving beyond unpolished reskins of popular game mechanics to games whose narrative and treatment align and amplify their procedural rhetoric (Bogost, 2007). One key enabling factor was the availability of open-source game engines such as Genesis3D (Eclipse Entertainment, 1997), an early predecessor of today’s Unity and Unreal Engines, and the capacity to mod commercially produced titles (Selepak, 2010; Lakomy, 2019). Examples include Hezbollah’s Special Force (2003) and Special Force 2: Tale of the Truthful Pledge (2007), and the National Alliance’s (2002) Ethnic Cleansing. With such tools, a new generation of extremist games emerged, one that raised the bar to better match consumer ex- pectations on the open game market. Consensus, however, is that extremist games are less effective for recruitment of new members than they are for solidifying the already 16 Steinkuehler and Squire existing base. As Robinson and Whittaker (2021) describe: “[T]he games contain iconography and specialist knowledge that is clearly intended for audiences that are already invested in the underlying ideology” (pp. 2–3). As a result, only those with some prior recognition of the game’s treatment and narrative are likely to seek it out. Rather, extremist communities on Steam and similar platforms appear to use their games “to promote political affiliation, as a means of roleplaying extremist fantasies, or as a means of building communities” (Vaux, Gallagher, & Davey, 2021). Active Media vs Active Player Yet, it is worth noting that even games intended overtly to inculcate players with specific knowledge, skills, and dispositions only do so under specific conditions, including a willing player. Players draw interpretations from gameplay based on their own gameplay intentions, experiences, models of the world, and ideologies. For example, an historian playing Civilization (Meier, 1991) might play to test materialist theories of world history and generate new insights about comparative world history, whereas a younger player might play the game for escape. Similarly, an African American male might play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rockstar North, 2004) and reflect on the nature of structural racism in American cities, whereas a feminist player may identify structural gender inequities encoded in the game (DeVane & Squire, 2008). Although most contemporary theories of media emphasize how audiences shape meanings, in games, such differences can be profound. As a thoroughly interactive medium, by definition, different players taking different sequences of actions in the same game title results in vastly different play experiences. Understanding Game Communities If videogames are diverse, then so too are the communities that form in relation to them. Different designs appeal to different audiences and gen- erate different gameplay cultures as a result. Nintendo’s Animal Crossing (Eguchi & Nogami, 2001) in which players collect and design items in a cartoon world of cute animals is designed to be a cozy game; as a result, its game community has remarkably caring cultural ethos (Zhu, 2021). In contrast, Player Unknown Battleground (PUBG Studios, 2017), is a “king of the mountain” style survival game in which players parachute onto an island, scavenge for equipment, and then fight to be the last one standing in a dark world of industrial decay. Perhaps not surprisingly then, its game community has a reputation for being hostile and humiliating; in fact, one study suggests that amount of PUBG gameplay is significantly (albeit weakly) associated with feelings of aggression and underachievement Videogames and the Extremist Ecosystem 17 (Ohno, 2022). In this way, different games draw different player bases and broad generalizations across them are as suspect as broad generalizations about the medium of “games” as a whole. Still, their communities do share some common structural features salient to the study of extremism within them. Here we review the basics on who plays and then describe these community structures and norms. Demographics Game communities are broad, networked, diverse and global, drawing and connecting players from disparate backgrounds. Gone are the days when gaming was purely the domain of adolescent males; now more than 3.2 billion people of all ages (roughly 40%) from around the world play games (Newzoo, 2022). The largest growth regions continue to be Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, spurred by improving mobile internet infrastructure, a growing number of smartphone users, free-to-play gaming models, and a growing middle class. Public reports on global player demographics are inconsistent; however, industry reports from the United States (Entertainment Software Association, 2022) suggest a few notable trends: Today, 48% of female-identifying individuals and 52% of male- identifying individuals’ game. Three-fourths of the player base are adults over the age of 18 and the average age of players is 33, a number that continues to rise each year. Of the 13 hours a week on average players spend gaming, 41% is spent playing with others (25% online, 16% in-person). Play Motivations Colloquially, people think of gaming as escapist diversion, but under closer scrutiny, gaming is a multifaceted activity that draws different people for different reasons, and games researchers have long sought to tease out just what those motivations may be. Early research focused on how games leverage fantasy, control, challenge, curiosity, competition, and cooperation to engage players (Malone & Lepper, 1987). Studies of players in virtual worlds distinguish between those who orient to games as achievers, explorers, socializers, and “player killers” (actors on other players; Bartle, 2003). Yee’s gamer motivation model (Quantic Foundry, 2023) is the most comprehensive approach to understanding player motivations, and it describes six key motivations: Action, social connec- tion, mastery, achievement, immersion, and creativity. For the purposes of understanding extremism and games, it may be less important to distin- guish between these motivations than to realize that people game for different reasons at different times – and that those motivations shape their gameplay and the meanings they draw from it. 18 Steinkuehler and Squire Structural Features of Game Communities Despite their variations by game title and region, game communities do still generally share some common structural features. Online game communities function as third places for social interaction (Steinkuehler & Williams, 2006): spaces that are neither home nor work, allow social engagement, and provide a sense of shared place. As third places, the bridging social networks created within them are typically more diverse than on online social platforms where we choose the content and people we connect with, typically in ways that reify our own worldview. Discovering that your closest clan member has political views contrary to your own can be a source of joy or consternation or both. Game com- munities are notably flat in organizational structure, at least compared to other social institutions, whereby anyone interested can participate (Gee, 2004). Games communities typically applaud meritocracy and believe that skill alone should determine who wins (Steinkuehler, 2005), but often ignore the forms of social, cultural, and material capital beyond the game that advantage some while excluding others, resulting is a kind of toxic meritocracy (Paul, 2018) in which structural inequities are ignored and those who cannot compete equally are seen as less competent rather than differently advantaged. Extremist Exploitation Extremists take advantage of these common game community character- istics in myriad ways. While there is little evidence of overt large-scale recruitment in game communities, extremist subgroups do use game contexts to build community and bonds among peers (Koehler, Fiebig, & Jugl, 2023). Among individuals who already agree, sharing one’s political or social views in the context of a shared game may “[metamorphosize] into an echo chamber where the existing beliefs of members of these small groups are amplified, facilitating their psychological pathway further into extremism” (Dass, 2023). Case studies of individuals who have been radicalized in game communities show that gaming together in shared spaces creates opportunities for radicalization to occur, particularly among individuals seeking a sense of belonging and group membership (Koehler, Fiebig, & Jugl, 2023). Indeed, the relationships formed online through games may be virtual, but they are no less real; indeed, joint activity in multiplayer and online games may engender “band of brothers” effects (Whitehouse et al., 2014) even though the conflict players share is artificial. Understanding how these dynamics of trust among networks of high diversity may contribute to radicalization (Schlegel & Amarasingam, 2022) requires additional research. One important means for player Videogames and the Extremist Ecosystem 19 development is the in-game enculturation of lower level players into more advanced skills and practices by higher level ones, but these forms of mentoring can also serve to enculturate players into particular ideologies related to the game and perhaps even beyond it (Steinkuehler & Oh, 2012); more detailed analyses of the dynamics of radicalization is needed. Understanding Games as Social Platforms Although not all games themselves are multiplayer and online, the prev- alence of gaming-adjacent platforms – online digital platforms that are commonly used simultaneously or consecutively to support and enhance gameplay – means that most game players are, at some point in their activity, participating online in game communities and cultures. Thus, game communities manifest online and across multiple online platforms, even when the game is single player. Online Games Online games are 2- or 3D virtual spaces hosted on servers, typically divided by continental region to reduce latencies, that enable multiplayer gameplay. Such games offer a wide range of experiences, from parallel gameplay with lightweight chat and resource-sharing functions such as Candy Crush Saga to the formation of complex virtual communities in persistent online worlds (Koster, 2011) including World of Warcraft and Eve Online (Simon & Schuster Interactive, 2003) to team-based competition and esports on multiplayer online battle arenas (MOBAs), for example, League of Legends, notorious for their toxicity toward new or unskilled players, including the common use of racial, ethnic, or gender-based slurs. Online gameplay is pervasive, with the number of players projected to reach 1.25 billion by 2027 or more than half of the global game players, roughly one-fifth of the human population (“Online Games Worldwide,” 2023). They are unique as social platforms because they position players in joint activity whereby they are engaged in common tasks. Playing together requires developing shared perspectives as they make game preparations, discuss the state of the game world, coordinate action, make sense of feedback given from the game world, and then repeat. In short, players engage in the same game loop. During each phase, players must communicate to coordinate; thus, online game titles feature in-game text chat systems and occasionally voice chat. Perhaps not surprisingly then, hate-based harassment extremism tends to flourish in such spaces since interaction cannot easily be avoided (Schlegel & Amarasingam, 2022). As players communicate, opportunities to introduce extremist, derogatory 20 Steinkuehler and Squire ideas (often under the guise of humor) constantly arise. One key related concern is that extremist ideology may spread virally as a byproduct of the need for players to achieve intersubjectivity in order to coordinate play. Online games are a key site for extremist activity. According to the latest Anti-Defamation League (2022b) report, 20% of adult online players and 15% of youth aged 13–17 in the United States are exposed to white supremacist ideology, more than double the number three years ago. Identity-based harassment in online games is on the rise, with Jewish (34%), Latino (31%) and Muslim players (30%) reporting the highest rates of targeted hate. Team-based competition games, such as those en- abled by MOBAs, show by far the highest rates of in-game toxicity and harassment than other forms. Indeed, one might argue that it is here, in the deeply interactive spaces of online games and their adjacent communica- tive platform, that extremists currently seem to thrive most. Specialized Content Creation Servers Specialized content creation servers with their own unique gameplay modes within larger online games such as Minecraft and Roblox deserve special mention given the number of young players they attract and high- profile cases of radicalization and extremism (see the introduction). Hypixel (https://hypixel.net), for example, is a Minecraft mini-game server serving ten million players and with an average of 150,000 concurrent users. Using the Minecraft engine, Hypixel games are mostly remediations of classic games, such as Capture the Flag or Building with Blocks. Hypixel servers support general chat and direct messaging, which is moderated by the company Hypixel, Incorporated and not Microsoft, the developers and publishers of Minecraft, who have little control over what communication and activities on their teeming servers. Roblox is another, similar game property featuring specialized game servers. With a market capitalization of $22 billion as of this writing, Roblox is its own behe- moth, boasting almost 60 million active users daily (Ruby, 2023). Using their building tool Roblox Studio, over 9.5 million developers have cre- ated over 50 million games for players, earning millions of dollars in profit as players buy their wares using the “Robux” virtual currency. Today, such game creation servers are the latest game spaces to be taken up by extremists (Schlegel & Amarasingam, 2022). Because such spaces are hybridized amalgamations of game creation and distribution mixed with both corporatized (e.g., Hypixel) and amateur/indie games for con- sumers to play, they are particularly susceptible to extremist content. Both Roblox and Minecraft are behemoths on the current market, with 202 million (Ruby, 2023) and 93 million (Curry, 2023) active monthly users Videogames and the Extremist Ecosystem 21 https://hypixel.net respectively; the sheet scale of the platforms and its pro-am developer communities make the enforcement of content standards challenging. Both are under constant threat of inadvertently hosting wildly problematic content including several high-profile examples of games with extremist ideologies (Farivar, 2019; D’Anastasio, 2021; Miller & Silva, 2021; Anti- Defamation League, 2022a; Dass, 2023). Gaming-Adjacent Platforms The game ecosystem is increasingly overlapped and integrated through cross-platform games and third-party services offering gaming-adjacent platforms (Newzoo, 2022) used to share information, build the meta, search for FAQs and walk-thrus, and find friends. Common examples include text and voice communication platforms including Discord, TeamSpeak (Teamspeak Systems, Inc., 2002), D-Live (https://community. dlive.tv) and Slack (Slack Technologies, 2013); game distribution plat- forms with community functions such as Steam and the Epic Games Store (https://store.epicgames.com), streaming platforms such as Twitch and YouTube Gaming (https://www.youtube.com/gaming), and even other more prototypical social platforms, most notably Facebook (Meta Platforms, 2004) and Twitter (Twitter Incorporated, 2006). Gaming- adjacent platforms can be thought of as an ecosystem that participants engage across and within. A recent study by Schlegel and Amarasingam (2022) found the follow respective rates of use by players: Discord (83%), Twitch (45%), YouTube (39%), and Reddit (24%), with Twitter, Steam, Facebook, and general internet forums also mentioned. Today, many games rely on just such out-of-game platforms to enable gameplay. Take, for example, the popular multiplayer game Among Us (Inner Sloth, 2018) which is designed to be played in groups of four to 15 but features no real matchmaking services for group formation or inte- grated voice communication for coordination and discussion. Here, game design just assumes the use of external chat platforms such as Discord as part and parcel of gameplay. Today, Discord (founded in 2015) is used by hundreds of millions for gaming and other activities, and has become the de facto voice over internet protocol (VoIP) service for most gamers, allowing users to host their own “servers” that enable individuals to communicate by text, voice, and files. Such servers might be hosted and administered by formal groups such as schools or clubs or informal groups of friends and fellow players. Fully monitoring such communication is outside the purview of games companies. Indeed, moderation at all is fraught with technical, social, privacy, and province challenges well beyond the scope of this chapter. To 22 Steinkuehler and Squire https://community.dlive.tv https://community.dlive.tv https://store.epicgames.com https://www.youtube.com illustrate the dynamics, imagine a scenario in which a group of long- standing friends sets up their own Discord server to communicate while playing World of Warcraft, reasonably expecting privacy from uninvited guests and surveillance. The same group could become politically engaged, start using Discord for political organizing, and soon find themselves fo- menting increasingly radical positions. Or not. By contrast, a teenager might purchase the Western game Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games, 2018), open multiplayer on their Xbox, and be surprised to hear racial epithets spewed by complete strangers over voice chat and wonder how or why this is allowed. Providers such as Sony enable voice recording for moderation purposes, but most require users to opt in for legal and privacy concerns. Game-adjacent platforms play an integral role in gameplay and how teens meet and interact with friends (Lenhart et al., 2015). Together, they constitute a kind of affinity space, “a place or set of places where people affiliate with others based primarily on shared activities, interests, and goals, not shared race, class culture, ethnicity, or gender” (Gee, 2004, p. 67). Yet platforms such as Discord and Twitch have garnered much attention as sites on which extremist, racist, toxic, or otherwise antisocial content and behaviors can proliferate. Such servers are often moderated, either by administrators or users themselves. However, the porous nature of game communities inevitably means that people – including youth – encounter people with ideas and agendas that would not flourish in less supervised spaces. For example, Koehler, Fiebig, and Jugl (2023), report on a study by Gallagher and colleagues (2021) in which: Discord users who were active in the extreme-right groups were generally very young (average age of 15). In those groups, discussing ideologically framed online social activities such as in-game raids against perceived enemies was one of the most common themes. Furthermore, 13 of the 24 far-right Discord servers used forms of ideological vetting to assure only those with some level of ideology-specific knowledge and already present degree of radicalization entered. This shows that according to this ISD report, Discord as well does not appear to be used strategically by extreme-right groups beyond the building of a virtual community for insiders. (Gallagher et al., 2021, p. 423) While recent news stories of recruitment and radicalization on game platforms have captured public attention, recent studies indicate that game-adjacent platforms are largely used for “social interaction and community building within a comparatively safe and private space” (Koehler, Fiebig, & Jugl, 2023, p. 423) rather than recruitment of new Videogames and the Extremist Ecosystem 23 members. In a survey conducted by Schlegel and Amarasingam (2022), 30% of participants reported encountering “toxic, hateful or violent content predominantly in in-game chat” while 41% reported encountering it “across all platforms listed, which included in-game chats, live audio conversations and streams, as well as Discord servers” (p. 16). A study by Vaux and colleagues (2021) found that Steam had the largest and active extremist activity among the platform studied, while later work by Davey (2022) documented higher numbers elsewhere: “45 public groups asso- ciated with the extreme right on Steam, 24 extreme right chat servers on Discord, 100 extreme right channels on DLive and 91 channels on Twitch” (Davey, 2022, p. 8). Games versus Other Social Platforms The claim that games are social platforms is contested within the industry, largely in response to recent efforts at regulation to tamp down the spread of extremism, misinformation, and privacy concerns (e.g., “Social Media Companies,” 2022). Yet, online games and gaming-adjacent spaces do indeed meet the definition: They offer “public or semipublic internet-based services in which one substantial function is to connect players so they may interact socially within the game, and players (1) create public or semipublic profiles, (2) populate a list of other players to whom they are connected in the system, and (3) post content shared with others (in the form of chatroom style messages) that includes content generated by other players” (Steinkuehler, 2023, p. 8). Table 1.1 broadly compares basic features of the two. We know relatively little about the overall rates of extremist activity across social platforms. Such activity is rarely shared in public, and companies do not release data on– private communications. Further, the majority of such content most certainly would occur on private channels, through direct messages, and on private servers (see Lavin, 2020, for a description of the processes involved in penetrating such servers). Vulnerabilities in the Gaming Ecosystem Although every sector of society is vulnerable to extremism (and most have undergone elements of it), videogames and associated platforms have their own vulnerabilities. Transgressive play is common – even honored – within gaming culture and communities, where the so-called “magic circle” (Huizinga, 1955) deters in-game actions from having beyond-game consequences (Jorgensen & Karlsen, 2018). Players can introduce “softer” extremist content under the rubric of joking (j/k) as generally toxic, racist, or misogynistic behavior, which can normalize such ideas as well as recruit others to their cause. On North American and European servers, there is a 24 Steinkuehler and Squire pervasive hardcore gamer identity in games that is coded as male, white (or Asian), and heterosexual (Parkin, 2013), and this identity has become increasingly defined in opposition to the politically correct (read: socially sensitive) mainstream. Recent research by Kowert, Martel, and Swann (2022) provides some of our first insights into how identity fusion with gamer culture acts as a mechanism through which extremist ideologies can take root. Current in-game tools and tactics (muting, blocking, reporting,) for victims of hate-based harassment and extremism often fail to adequately address the issues, leave the dynamic of the interaction in place, lack TABLE 1.1 Comparison of games and prototypical social platforms Online games and game-adjacent spaces Social platforms Primary purpose: Entertainment through interactive gameplay, typically featuring multiplayer modes that enable joint activity Primary purpose: Communication, connection, and content sharing, enabling users to form and maintain social relationships, communities Secondary purpose: Communication, connection, and content sharing, enabling users to form and maintain social relationships, communities Secondary purpose: Entertainment through social interaction Interactivity: Players interact with the game environment and other players, make decisions, and take actions to progress through the content Interactivity: Users interact with other people through shared text, images, videos, or other multimedia content Focus on gameplay: Main objective is to achieve specific goals or objectives requiring the development of skills and strategies Focus on communication: Primary focus is social networking through communication with connected individuals Designed treatment: Art, animations, and sound combine to create an immersive environment for gameplay Emergent aesthetic: Visual and auditory elements are user, rather than designer, generated, with emergent aesthetics Storytelling: Typically include narratives or narrative premises to contextualize gameplay Storytelling: Storytelling may emerge through shared content, but personal and less structured Competition and collaboration: Often include competitive or collaborative elements Competition and collaboration: Focus is connection and collaboration, with competition (e.g., for “likes”) possible but less common In-game tools: Reporting, blocking, banning, in-game moderation tools, code of conduct, parental controls, private servers or groups, community engagement Platform tools: Reporting, blocking and muting, privacy settings, content filters, community guidelines and moderation, educational resources Videogames and the Extremist Ecosystem 25 follow up with the originator of the complaint so that the information loop is closed, do nothing to repair the breach of social contract, and are implemented inconsistently or not at all. As previously discussed, mod- eration across both text and voice communications across the multitude of platforms in which gameplay arises is exceedingly difficult to implement. Game companies’ policies against extremism and hate speech on their platforms (and few do) end up burying those policies deep in their online annual of legal documents that players do not access when, instead, they might swap out their mandatory click-through EULA for a clear and concise code of conduct in plain language to make the corporate and community norms explicit and therefore enforceable. Together, these vulnerabilities in the current gaming ecosystem leave the medium and its players easy targets. Concluding Thoughts Videogame playing communities are garnering increased interest for their potential role as platforms on which extremists can radicalize and recruit. Understanding the videogame industry, the content and mechanics of games, and the other aspects of their ecosystem are critical in understanding the potential role that videogames may, and may not, play in this space. Research has identified vulnerabilities in the structural and social features of games, and gaming- adjacent platforms, indicating greater attention should be placed on examining and understanding these social spaces. Note 1 A “mod” is a modification of an existing game. References Activision (2003). Call of Duty. [Videogame] Alcorn, A. (1972). Pong. [Videogame] American Psychological Association (2020). APA RESOLUTION on Violent Video Games. https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-violent-video-games.pdf. Anti-Defamation League (2002). Racist Groups Use Computer Gaming to Promote Hate. https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/documents/assets/pdf/combating- hate/Racist-groups-use-computer-gaming.pdf. Anti-Defamation League (2022a). Breaking the Building Blocks of Hate: A Case Study of Minecraft Servers. https://www.adl.org/resources/report/breaking- building-blocks-hate-case-study-minecraft-servers. Anti-Defamation League (2022b). Hate Is no Game: Hate and Harassment in Online Games 2022. https://www.adl.org/resources/report/hate-no-game-hate- and-harassment-online-games-2022. 26 Steinkuehler and Squire https://www.apa.org https://www.adl.org https://www.adl.org https://www.adl.org https://www.adl.org https://www.adl.org https://www.adl.org Anti-Defamation League (2022c). Deplatform Tucker Carlson and the “Great Replacement” Theory. https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/deplatform-tucker- carlson-and-great-replacement-theory. Bailey, D. (2023). Steam just Reached 50,000 Total Games Listed. PCGamesN. https://www.pcgamesn.com/steam/total-games. Bartle, R. (2003). Designing Virtual Worlds. New Riders. Blizzard (2004). World of Warcraft. [Videogame] Bogost, I (2007). Persuasive Games: The expressive power of videogames. MIT Press. Bohemia Interactive (2013). ARMA 3. [Videogame] Bruce, G. (2022). Charting the Rise of Indie Video Games. YouGov. https:// business.yougov.com/content/41600-us-charting-rise-indie-video-games. Campbell, J. (1949). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton University Press. Cook, D. (2012). Loops and Arcs. Lost Garden. https://lostgarden.home.blog/ 2012/04/30/loops-and-arcs/. Curry, D. (2023, January 9). Minecraft Revenue and Usage Statistics Business of Apps. https://www.businessofapps.com/data/minecraft-statistics/. D’Anastasio, C. (2021, June 10). How “Roblox” Became a Playground for Virtual Fascists. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/roblox-online-games-irl-fascism- roman-empire/. Dass, R. (2023, March 8). The Link Between Gaming and Violent Extremism. The Diplomat. https://thediplomat.com/2023/03/the-link-between-gaming-and- violent-extremism/. DeVane, B. & Squire, K.D. (2008). The Meaning of Race and Violence in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Games and Culture, 3(3–4), 264–285. 10.1177/1555412 00831730. Davey, J. (2021). Gamers Who Hate: An Introduction to ISD’s Gaming and Extremism Series. Institute for Strategic Dialogue. https://www.isdglobal.org/ isd-publications/gamers-who-hate-an-introduction-to-isds-gaming-and- extremism-series/. Davey, J. (2022, March 31). Radicalization and the Role of Video Games. Fair Observer. https://www.fairobserver.com/politics/extremism/jacob-davey-right- wing-extremism-radical-right-video-games-radicalization-32902/. Discord, Incorporated (2015). Discord. [Computer software] Eclipse Entertainment (1997). Genesis3D. [Computer software] Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S. & Smith, J.H. (2004). Playing with Fire: How do computer games influence the player? University of Gothenburg Press. Eguchi, K. & Nogami, H. (2001). Animal Crossing. [Videogame] Entertainment Software Association (2022). Essential Facts about the Video Game Industry. https://www.theesa.com/resource/2022-essential-facts-about-the- video-game-industry/. Epic Games (1998). Unreal Game Engine. [Computer software] Epic Games (2017). Fortnite. [Videogame] Farivar, C. (2019, August 21). Extremists Creep into Roblox, an Online Game Popular with Children. NBC news. https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/ extremists-%20creep-roblox-online-game-popular-children-n1045056. Videogames and the Extremist Ecosystem 27 https://www.adl.org https://www.adl.org https://www.pcgamesn.com https://business.yougov.com https://business.yougov.com https://lostgarden.home.blog https://lostgarden.home.blog https://www.businessofapps.com https://www.wired.com https://www.wired.com https://thediplomat.com https://thediplomat.com https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/155541200831730 https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/155541200831730 https://www.isdglobal.org https://www.isdglobal.org https://www.isdglobal.org https://www.fairobserver.com https://www.fairobserver.com https://www.theesa.com https://www.theesa.com https://www.nbcnews.com https://www.nbcnews.com Ferguson, C.J. (2015). Do Angry Birds Make for Angry Children? A Meta- Analysis of Video Game Influences on Children’s and Adolescents’ Aggression, Mental Health, Prosocial Behavior, and Academic Performance. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(5), 646–666. Ferguson, C. & Wang, J. (2019). Aggressive Video Games Are not a Risk Factor for Future Aggression in Youth: A Longitudinal Study. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 48(1), 439–451. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/ s10964-019-01069-0. Fiadotau, M. (2020). Growing Old on Newgrounds: The Hopes and Quandaries of Flash Game Preservation. First Monday, 25(8). 10.5210/fm.v25i8.10306. Gallagher, A., O’Connor, C., Vaux, P., Thomas, E., & Davey, J. (2021). The Extreme Right on Discord. Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). https://www.isdglobal. org/isd-publications/gaming-and-extremism-the-extreme-right-on-discord/. Gee, J.P. (2004). Situated Language and Learning: A critique of traditional schooling. Routledge. “Global Video Game Market Value from 2020 to 2025” (2023). Statista. https:// www.statista.com/statistics/292056/video-game-market-value-worldwide/. Hezbollah (2003). Special Force. [Videogame] Hezbollah (2007). Special Force 2: Tale of the Truthful Pledge. [Videogame] Higinbotham, W. (1958). Tennis for Two. [VideoGame] Huizinga, J. (1955). Homo Ludens: A study of the play-element in culture. Beacon Press. Inner Sloth (2018). Among Us. [Videogame] Institute for Economics and Peace (2022). Global Terrorism Index 2022: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism. https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/ uploads/2022/03/GTI-2022-web.pdf. Jenkins, H. (2002). Game Design as Narrative Architecture. In P. Harrington & N. Frup-Waldrop (Eds.). First person. MIT Press. http://www.anabiosispress.org/ VM606/1stPerson_hjenkins.pdf. Jenkins, H., Ito, M., & Boyd, D. (2015). Participatory Culture in a Networked Era: