Todd Harper: “Fight Like Gentlemen: The Culture of Fighting Games”

The culture of fighting games — digital games of competitive martial arts-style combat—is one of the most interesting and contentious of gamer subcultures. This talk examines the influences and norms of that community, including its spiritual and physical roots in the arcade, common gameplay practices, and how issues of ethnicity and gender collide with gamer identity in the ‘FGC’.

Todd Harper is a researcher at the MIT Game Lab with a background in mass communication and cultural studies. His current research focuses on both competitive communities and their cultural norms, as well as queer and gender representation and issues in gaming culture.