Ayça Becerir, Media Governance and Industries Research Lab, University of Vienna.
This contribution explores how video games can drive societal change within the broader context of media and cultural governance. Drawing on three research papers presented at the ECREA conference, it argues that creating a more inclusive, diverse, and equitable ecosystem requires addressing structural inequalities embedded in the gaming industry practices, player experiences, and content representation. While video games offer significant benefits, persistent challenges remain. By bringing together research on women-led initiatives, transformative potential of video games, and science communication with children, this contribution highlights the interconnected nature of these issues and raises critical questions about how the gaming ecosystem is governed, particularly regarding equality, representation, participation, and responsibility for sustainable social change.
This past September, the GAMEHEARTS team from the Media Governance and Industries Research Lab at the University of Vienna attended the 11th ECREA 2026 conference organised in Brno, between 8-11 September. While approaching the end of the project, we considered this conference as a great opportunity to share our research findings and receive feedback from the academic community to better outline next research steps. Our team presented three papers to the international research community, engaging in lively discussions around structural change and media governance. Together, our papers examine the overarching question of how video games can create positive societal impact from three different angles, focusing on women in the industry, women in games, and science communication with children who play video games.
The first paper we presented was Rewriting the Rules: Women-Led Initiatives and Gender Equity in the Gaming Ecosystem. The paper was co-authored by Katharine Sarikakis, Oleksandra Gudkova, Ayça Becerir, and Lisa Baumgartner, and presented by Oleksandra Gudkova at the conference. Building upon the findings from our Deliverable 4.3 Report Women, we recognised the crucial role of women-led initiatives in changing the industry practices and making it a more inclusive and diverse space. With the aim of increasing the voices of women and highlighting their voluntary efforts, we decided to conduct research focusing specifically on women-led initiatives in Europe. In this paper, we first identify the structural challenges women face in the industry across different stages of their career, and investigate how women-led initiatives intervene to challenge these obstacles. We argue that while they significantly contribute to transforming the industry’s norms from grassroots level, their reliance on unpaid labour places an extra labour on their shoulders. We call for a more accountable industry that creates better environments and implements concrete policies to facilitate women’s participation and advancement in their career.
The second paper we presented was titled Between Empowerment and Constraints: Understating the Promise of Video Games in Women’s Lives— From Transformative Potential to Agency Under Constraint. The paper was co-authored by Katharine Sarikakis, Ayça Becerir, Oleksandra Gudkova, and Lisa Baumgartner, and presented by Ayça Becerir at the conference. Drawing on the findings from the Deliverable 4.3 Report Women, this paper expands upon our published journal article, Asymmetries and Limits in the Transformative Power of Video Games for Women, representing the second phase of this research line. In the first phase of this research, our team explored the potential and the limits of video games in changing women’s lives by analytically separating personal change, such as confidence, friendships, skills and belonging, from structural change, such as gendered cultural norms and practices. In ECREA, we presented the ongoing second phase, which examines women’s agency in changing these structural issues, focusing on how women navigate, negotiate and resist these conditions, and when this can lead to societal change.
The last paper we presented was Reflective Approaches to Video Game Diversity: Engaging Children in Science Communication. The paper was co-authored by Katharine Sarikakis, Ourania Maria Ventista, Grigorios Arkoumanis, Oleksandra Gudkova, Ayça Becerir, and Lisa Baumgartner, and presented by Lisa Baumgartner at the conference. This paper draws on the team’s experiences in communicating research findings about character diversity in video games with children through three workshops organised in 2025 as part of the University of Vienna’s KinderUni program and held in German, English, and Turkish. These workshops were part of the team’s broader engagement with KinderUni over three years, during which we conducted a total of eight workshops in different languages. Adopting self-reflexive and collective self-study approaches, we discuss how we selected age-appropriate workshop materials for children, how we engaged with these materials to initiate open discussion among children, and what we observed regarding our own practices in science communication with children. Through this paper, we highlight the value of considering children as active citizens in science communication, particularly regarding video games, given the considerable time they spend playing them. We also emphasise the importance of researchers’ reflexive approaches when sharing scientific knowledge with young audiences.
These three papers reflect the holistic approach we adopted throughout our research in the GAMEHEARTS project to better understand gaming culture and its broader societal impacts.
By bringing together findings across different aspects of the video game ecosystem, we put industry practices and gameplay experiences into dialogue and highlight how these dimensions are deeply interrelated and mutually affecting. For instance, character diversity is a topic directly related to gendered cultural norms that women-led initiatives actively strive to overcome. In this regard, engaging children with this topic fosters early awareness and empower them to drive change as future industry actors. Similarly, research into the transformative power of video games significantly contributes to the discussion on positive play and healthy gaming habits taught to children. Likewise, identifying the limits of these transformations provides industry actors with critical insights for shaping game content and design. Taken together, these perspectives demonstrate that the societal impact of video games cannot be understood solely through individual experiences, representation, or educational interventions. It is considerably shaped by the cultural, institutional and industrial structures that determine whose voices are represented, who can participate, and whose interests are priorities. While video games can create opportunities for empowerment and social connection, these possibilities exist alongside persistent inequalities that limit their potential effects.
As we constantly emphasise, we cannot create well-rooted and sustainable change in the video game ecosystem by addressing the challenges in isolation. Therefore, each research enriches the others and contributes to the development of new policy recommendations. Bringing these perspectives together allows us to see the wider picture of the video game ecosystem, inviting researchers and practitioners alike to reflect on the conditions necessary for a more inclusive, equitable, and engaging gaming landscape.
In this context, presenting our works at ECREA created a mutually enriching dialogue with the international scholarly community. By engaging in collective knowledge sharing and co-production, we offered critical insights into media governance while gaining valuable perspectives to inform our future studies. These conversations also reinforced the importance of connecting empirical research with broader questions of accountability and institutional responsibility, particularly in examining the inequalities and power relations that shape the gaming ecosystem. As the GAMEHEARTS project approaches its conclusion, this integrated perspective offers a foundation for further research and continued dialogue among researchers, industry practitioners, and policymakers.
This blog post is part of GAMEHEARTS: Games, Heritage, Arts, & Sport: the economic, social, and cultural values of the European video game ecosystem project. This project has received funding from the Horizon Europe program of the European Union under the Grant Agreements No 101132543 and No 101029543. It does not reflect the views of the European Union and is a publication encapsulated within the project.
Photo by Elissa Garcia on Unsplash
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