ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an innovative and rigorous methodology for studying the discursive construction of female characters in online and offline gaming environments. Female characters in some computer games seem to finally have moved away from being the damsel in distress, but in many others their roles have not progressed much. Role-Playing Game (RPG) started as pen-and-paper games based on the art of participatory storytelling. Although both Diablo and WoW are generally seen as forms of RPGs, there are some basic differences that make them very different games, and which affect the ‘gameplay’—the total experience of playing the game. RPGs have started to become the objects of study for both synchronous and asynchronous communication scholars in the field of computer-mediated communication. Critical discourse analysis can be used in different ways to deconstruct institutionalized gender representations in given discourses, and the way these discourses are inculcated and operationalized.
