https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419851078 Television & New Media 1–12 © The Author(s) 2019 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/1527476419851078 journals.sagepub.com/home/tvn Contested Formations of Digital Game Labor - Article Speaking in Public: What Women Say about Working in the Video Game Industry Suzanne de Castell 1 and Karen Skardzius 2 Abstract Since the 1990s, conversations about the dearth of women working in the video game industry have centered on three topics: (1) ways to draw more women into the field, (2) the experiences of women working in the industry, and (3) the experiences of those who once worked in the industry but left. Although there has been considerable research on the conditions and occupational identities of video game developers, less scholarly attention has been devoted to women in gameswork, the barriers/obstacles and challenges/opportunities they face, and how they talk about their experiences. This article offers a feminist approach that demonstrates how discourse focused on affect can be reread as intimately related to silences about power and how the rhetorical constraints that public speech imposes upon what can be said about “women in games” aid us in understanding what might remain unspoken, and why. Keywords women in games, politics of speech, feminist methodology, creative industries, gender equity, discourse analysis Background Since the 1990s, there has been increasing alarm expressed about the dearth of women working in the video games industry, increasing interest in ways to attract more women to the field and increasing concern about the experiences of women employed in the 1 University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Oshawa, Canada 2 York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Corresponding Author: Suzanne de Castell, Faculty of Education, University of Ontario Institute of Technology, 11 Simcoe Street North, P.O. Box 385, Oshawa, Ontario, Canada L1H 7L7. Email: decaste@gmail.com 851078TVN XX X 10.1177/1527476419851078Television & New Mediade Castell and Skardzius research-article 2019