A screenshot from the game Black Room - the image depicts a woman in the bottom right hand corner, wearing a white shirt and long blue skirt, facing down a large street awash in intense colours reminiscent of burning and fire. A dark red pervades the image, creating a surreal and dreamlike atmosphere.
Screenshot of Black Room - Cassie McQuater 2017

Artgames After Gamergate

part of Lunchtime Talks

Talk

Please note: This event ended on 14 November 2025

In this Lunchtime Talk, we'll be joined by Dr. Rob Gallagher, who’ll be discussing his new book Artgames after Gamergate. 

In the early 2010s ideas of what video games could be - and who they could be by and for - seemed to be expanding. Gamedate was a controversial online harassment campaign that began in 2014 and threw these hopes into doubt by targeting women, minorities, and progressives. 

This talk will show how artgames creators used new tools and platforms to twist familiar genres, characters and mechanics into strange new shapes, taking Gamergate as a spur to imagine more inventive and inclusive futures for gaming.

About Dr. Rob Gallagher

Rob is a lecturer in Digital Media Industries at King’s College London. He has written about games and digital culture for The Guardian, The New Inquiry and The Architectural Review, and is the author of two books: Videogames, Identity and Digital Subjectivity (2017) and Artgames after Gamergate (2025).


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