The Stupid,the Ridiculous,the Camp: How Goat Simulator's “Messy” Design Facilitates Queer Play

Abstract

This article identifies the queer potentialities of Goat Simulator by exploring how the gameplay mechanics can be understood as “stupid” and “Camp.” Moving away from representational notions of queerness, I argue that queering a game requires an alternative way to create and play. Often, the normative method of designing a videogame prioritizes technological precision and purposeful gameplay experiences. However, Goat Simulator does not fix its errors, nor does it have a cohesive narrative, instead it incorporates brokenness and goallessness as core gameplay mechanics. Goat Simulator embraces messiness as an alternative—and arguably queer—way to design and play a videogame. I conclude by arguing the importance of brokenness and stupidity as a useful pushback against normative game design and gameplay values of precision, perfection, and seriousness.

Keywords

Camp queerness queer play stupidity

Introduction

Ever wondered what it would be like to be a goat? Not just a normal goat, but one that defies gravity, with inhuman strength, skateboarding skills, and a super-glue-like sticky tongue? In Coffee Stain Studio's Goat Simulator (2014), you do not have to wonder. Initially, the product of a joke game jam, Goat Simulator became an internet sensation (or rather a meme) and was later made into a full game distributed first on PC and later to consoles. The gameplay is simple: players control an invincible goat in a sandbox environment containing a suburban area, a funfair, a construction site, and many more locations to get their hoofs stuck into. In the corner of the screen, you see a point tally increase each time you fling an unwitting pedestrian into the air with your frog-like sticky tongue, explode a car with a gentle push, or trampoline jump your way above the Earth's atmosphere. Goat Simulator is purposefully messy—it embraces being broken through sustaining glitches and bugs, while also rejecting seriousness through goalless gameplay and nods to internet meme culture. In this article, I argue that Goat Simulator's mechanics, structures, and brokenness of the game facilitate a queer way to create and play.

Queer game scholars position videogames and queerness in a shared dialogue to reveal their similarities and complexities (Harper et al., 2018; Ruberg, 2019; Ruberg & Shaw, 2017). In doing so—their ethos of possibility—in which worlds are reimagined and borders examined, pushed, or undone is made visible (Harper et al., 2018, p. 5). This can be through challenging the notion that the ideal player is adolescent, straight, white, cisgender, masculine, able, “hardcore body,” while at the same time, embracing modding practices, glitches, and failures as methods of queer play (Chang, 2017, pp. 15–17). Queerness in this article surpasses notions of identity and representation, to instead illustrate how Goat Simulator's intentionally messy game design becomes a locus of queerness in how the game is made and is also played (Ruberg, 2019, 2020; Ruberg & Shaw, 2017).

In its most common contexts, messiness can refer to objects that are out of place and order. A messy house has clothes littered on the floor, dishes around the kitchen, and “stuff” everywhere—it is chaotic and disorganized. Playing with messiness is equally chaotic and disorganized. In this article, I understand messiness as a form of queer play, as both mess and queerness articulate “activities and actions” that disturb “states/status, positions, identities, and orientations” (Manalansan, 2014, p. 97). Here, messiness occurs when interacting with the Goat Simulator's glitches and bugs as well as its goalless structure, often oriented around causing mischief in the game's virtual space. I show how these gaming mechanics/structures provoke a playstyle that is disorderly, chaotic, and above all, messy.

Through this messiness, Goat Simulator stands in stark contrast to the values prescribed by more “mainstream” videogames. The major publishers with economic and cultural legitimacy in the videogame industry are informally—yet widely—known as “Triple-A” (or AAA). Year after year, Triple-A companies such as Ubisoft, Blizzard, and Electronic Arts (to name a few) are expected to release blockbuster videogames with beautiful graphics, cohesive storytelling, and smooth gameplay. Keogh (2023, p. 113 ) remarks that Triple-A companies are often regarded as the “core,” “central,” and “default mode of production that other forms of videogames—indie, mobile, serious, social, etc.—are explicitly not.” Award-winning titles like Assassins Creed Origins (Ubisoft, 2017), Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Studios, 2018), and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Activision, 2019) reproduce the hegemonic cultural imagining of videogames. These games are driven by a political economy that incentivizes profitability by “developing and distributing successful blockbusters” (Nieborg, 2014, p. 50). This is particularly prominent under a neoliberal games market that fosters a formulaic culture of predictability and standardization. This is not to say that Triple-A games are expected to be completely flawless, indeed many are extremely flawed. Games produced and distributed by Bethesda Softworks for instance are notoriously buggy, with many players anticipating a broken game upon release (Breslin, 2023). However, what sets Triple-A studios apart from their indie counterparts is the sheer amount of economic and human resources at their disposal, which are often unavailable to smaller game studios. Triple-A companies are responsible for maintaining the prescribed hegemonic boundaries of how games “should” look, perform, and play.

At the same time, indie games are getting their foot in the door in terms of cultural legitimacy and commercial success. Minecraft (Mojang Studios, 2009), one of the most popular video games in existence, was initially developed by one man without a massive budget or company behind his back. Goat Simulator is also a pushback against the serious, optimal, and precise nature of videogame experiences that are often pioneered by Triple-A companies. Instead of fixing bugs, optimizing performance, and making the game pretty and the controls smooth, Goat Simulator intentionally incorporates messiness as an alternative way of doing game design. Indeed, Goat Simulator's gameplay appears to be structured around queer excess and failure. Goat Simulator resonates with concepts of “stupidity” from Halberstam's (2011) The Queer Art of Failure and Sontag's “Camp” (1964) from Notes of Camp—where silliness and excess are prioritized above precision and success.

Goat Simulator's queer potentials arise from its messy design which affords a gameplay style that is built on disorderly logics that are simultaneously stupid and Camp. Goat Simulator has had many installations since its initial release in 2014, such as DLC expansion packs and two sequels. However, I primarily focus on the first version as it is the one that originally embraced this alternative philosophy of game design. I begin this article with an exploration of the theoretical foundations that underpin my approach to Goat Simulator, unpacking Halberstam's (2011) “stupidity” and Sontag's (1964) “Camp.” This is followed by two analysis sections. The first looks at the implications of embracing glitches, arguing that bugs and brokenness afford new, queer experiences. The second explores the goalless and arguably silly ethos of the game as a pushback against the seriousness of the Triple-AAA games industry. Both sections argue that queer play can be found in moments where a game performs in a way that it “should not,” especially in relation to player expectations.

Theoretical Foundations

When we fail, we do something the wrong way—the stupid way. Stupidity and failure are widely conceived as negative. To look stupid or to be unsuccessful must be avoided at all costs. Culturally, success and seriousness are to be strived for—you want to pass the test, get the job, and be respected in social life. However, queer theorists imagine failure and stupidity as practices that allow us to overlook success and embrace “counterintuitive modes of knowing” (Halberstam, 2011, p. 11). Not knowing and failing forces us to ask questions and to think/act differently. This is developed in Jack Halberstam's (2011) The Queer Art of Failure, where he suggests, in a somewhat utopian sentiment, that “failing, losing, forgetting, unmaking, undoing, unbecoming, not knowing may in fact offer more creative, more cooperative ways of being in the world” (Halberstam, 2011, pp. 2–3). In this way, failure throws us off the straight and successful course forward, giving us room to explore, reorientate, and challenge the structures that once constrained us.

Drawing on Avital Ronell's Stupidity (2002), Halberstam (2011) discusses the queer potentials of stupidity. In doing so, he questions the structural limits of knowing and knowledge production while stupidity offers “new and different forms of relation and action” (Halberstam, 2011, p. 54). Allowing yourself to be stupid invites individuals to reevaluate the very categories and standards of knowing to reimagine new ones. Not getting the answer right the first time lets you explore all the answers that are “wrong.” For instance, in scientific research, Schwartz (2008, p. 1771) advocates for “absolute stupidity” which entails a willful ignorance that is “inherent in our efforts to push our way into the unknown.” It allows you to say, “I don’t know,” because not knowing becomes a new form of knowing in and of itself. With each failure and each wrong answer, you learn and grow.

At the same time, to use stupidity as an analytical tool, one must first situate it. This is not an attempt to define what is stupid, as, like queerness, stupidity evades description, as “it switches and regroups, turns around and even fascinates” (Ronell, 2002, p. 1). For this article, stupidity is located in willful ignorance and exaggeration. It is “too much,” the ridiculous, in which the senses are prioritized above visual intelligibility, success, seriousness, and precision. As such, stupidity can be found in the “accumulation of audio/visual signifiers divorced from any apparent significance – BOOM! For the sake of things going BOOM! ‘Ohhhh,’ for the sake of ‘ohhhh!’” (Kerner & Hoxter, 2019, p. 9). These moments escape meaning to generate visceral affective and sensory experiences. In this way, players sense stupidity when they feel their faces tense when they cringe at Goat Simulator's glitching avatar, roll their eyes at the ridiculousness of a goat skateboarding, or feel the sides of their mouths lift when they laugh at the utter foolishness of the game world's name—“Goatsville.” Stupidity, therefore, entails an embrace of everything that pushes back against seriousness and success.

But what is stupidity related to in terms of videogame culture? Ronell's (2002) concept of stupidity emerged within the context of fine arts, which contains certain cultural values, tastes, and knowledge that shape how art is understood. However, there are also hierarchies of legitimacy in gaming cultures that continually shift and change based on time, the gamer community, and genre. As such, videogames have an array of different dimensions and communities through which games are judged. This for Flynn-Jones (2015, p. 255) causes a challenge in locating a standard that “bad” (or in my case, stupid) videogames may resist. However, I argue that Goat Simulator stresses the ethos of being stupid by not fixing the game, nor orientating it around a competitive or completionist goal. This is because Goat Simulator has an aimlessness that allows players to focus their efforts on doing stupid things (like performing a backflip as a goat) which contrasts with normative play values that revolve around neoliberal meritocratic structures of leveling up, narrative resolution, competition, and player success (Paul, 2018).

Camp first emerged in an academic context during the 1960s when Sontag (1964) released her now classical text Notes on Camp. While it has been more than six decades since Notes on Camp (1964) was initially published, Campness continues to be an aesthetic sensibility relevant to a contemporary context—if not updated, diversified, and critiqued (LaBruce, 2014). Despite continually shifting and changing, the heart of Camp remains the same. Camp is first and foremost the “love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration” (Sontag, 1964, p. 1). Campness is a stylized aesthetic sensibility, it is a “vision of the world”—a way of reading the “too much” and reveling in it (Sontag, 1964, p. 3). Camp is not simply something that is but is something that can be done—“to Camp,” employed as a verb or action. To Camp something is to exercise flamboyant and extravagant mannerisms while also subverting serious conventions and logics of containment. In this way, Camp pushes past normative boundaries that say, “enough is enough” and does not put a stop to its affection for the excessive. Above all, Camp expresses a different, more excessive way of interacting with the world.

Much of the language used to discuss stupidity resonates with the vocabulary surrounding Camp. Their resemblances lie in their similar emphasis on stylization and exaggeration. Like stupidity, Camp opposes seriousness. They both critique seriousness and success as the core signifiers of value and progression and embrace exaggeration, excess, and ridiculousness instead. By contrast to Sontag (1964, p. 1) who remarks that “taste has no system and no proofs,” I see Campness and stupidity as inherently political and subversive—they work within systems of value and cultural capital. Put simply, Camp and stupidity do not operate in a vacuum; stupidity is relational to knowledge and success. Equally, Camp is relational to seriousness. These values create hierarchies against which people and objects are valued. Next, I'll examine value in the context of the videogame market, especially considering how Goat Simulator affords experiences outside of normative game design and game play.

In an industry dominated by Triple-A developers, some videogame characteristics are valued above others—which in turn legitimates certain videogame design practices. Triple-A companies promote an ethos of visual and technological optimization, and games that fail to meet this standard are culturally regarded as “poorly made” or “bad” games. The virtual sensation of broken or goalless play can lead to jankiness or disconnection for players (Schmalzer, 2020). If games are too janky or too broken, they can be defined as failures, often, hindering their reputation. For instance, following the release of the highly anticipated sci-fi RPG Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt (2020), many reviews defined the game as “unplayable” through its many bugs and glitches (Cauthon, 2022). There was a widespread outcry that led to the developers refunding thousands of copies of Cyberpunk 2077 back to audiences. For a short amount of time, Sony even pulled the title from online stores (Isaac & Browning, 2020).

At the same time, Cyberpunk 2077 still sold exceptionally well and is respected by many in the gaming community, particularly after it was fixed and updated (Fenlon, 2023; Pope, 2021; Schutt, 2023). This illustrates the difference between the reception of the industry and the point of view of players. By industry standards, the game was deemed a failure and yet is still loved by fans.

Equally, it is not always just the industry who set expectations around game mechanics. Often, whole communities of players, particularly the modding community, technologically, mechanically, and aesthetically adapt games and even “fix” games. For instance, despite, being released over two decades ago, the Sims 2 (Maxis Redwood Shores, 2004) and RuneScape (Jagex, 2001) still amass a player base as they offer are iterative games that can be continuously adapted and modified to enable new interactions and forms of play through player support.

These distinctions highlight the standards that Goat Simulator “go against,” as well as act within. Taste, culture, and value surrounding videogames is a complex landscape to navigate as it contains multiple debates that articulate different standards and expectations. In this way, Goat Simulator by industry and design standards is a broken game but is well loved for its brokenness by many members of the games community. In its ridiculousness and brokenness, Goat Simulator embodies an inherent misalignment with play and game standards. These logics, as I will illustrate in the next two sections, highlight the political potential of messiness, stupidity, and Campness.

In this section, I reworked Halberstam's (2011) stupidity and Sontag's (1964) “Camp”—both not necessarily in absolute agreement—to tease out what is useful about each to understand Goat Simulator's messiness as potentially an alternative way to both design and play a game. In my analysis, I use stupidity and Camp interchangeably—not because they are the same thing, but because they often arise simultaneously. They are built on similar logics—failure, extravagance, alternativeness, and ridiculousness and often appear within the same moments in design and play. Both, “open up other routes to transformative knowing” and in doing so create a new knowledge built on brokenness and excess (Halberstam, 2011, p. 58).

Goat Simulator's Queer Limitations

Before I venture into the queer potentials of Goat Simulator, I want to first discuss its queer limitations. Ruberg (2020, p. 649) expresses the importance for queer game studies scholars to “confront the limitations, ambivalences, and complexities of absence that circulate around queerness in video games.” Not every game with potential queerness is wholly queer, nor do all facets of some videogames fulfill potential queerness. In fact, much of Goat Simulator is explicitly not queer. On a representational level sexuality and desire is not a topic that is touched on in the game. Yet, as I have argued in the section above, it is the gameplay mechanics that facilitate Goat Simulator's queerness as an explicit embrace of messiness and failure. At the same time, Goat Simulator and its adjacent culture feed into straight and masculine narratives surrounding gameplay. This is because gaming communities often manifest a “hidden reality of harassment, cyberbullying, sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, and other injustices” (Gray & Leonard, 2018, p. 20). For instance, #Gamergame, an online hate movement directed at protecting the sanctity of videogames from so-called “wokeness,” lashed out at games and game creators who attempted to increase diversity and inclusion in a space made by and for the straight white cisgender man. In turn, both representational and mechanical elements of queerness come under scrutiny, as, some players do not want games with queer characters nor games with mechanics that question the ingrained normativity of videogames. One example is the backlash faced by Fullbright's Gone Home (2013), an interactive exploration game that many deemed as a “walking simulator,” questioning it as a “real game” through its disruption on the “expectations normally placed on player movement in video games” (Ruberg, 2020, p. 638).

Much of Goat Simulator's widespread popularity can be attributed to mainstream gaming culture. A popular figure in mainstream gaming culture, Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg—widely known as PewDiePie¹—played a large role in Goat Simulator's widespread appeal. The Swedish YouTuber, who boasted the highest number of subscribers on the site at the peak of his popularity, released a Goat Simulator playthrough that quickly amassed millions of views. The video was a key example of how the intersection between YouTubers and gaming culture is regarded as a site that contributes to the reproduction of hegemonic masculinities, often alienating female and queer players (Maloney et al., 2018, p. 1698). For instance, during PewDiePie's Goat Simulator playthrough, a female NPC attached itself to the streamer's goat avatar. In turn, he laughed as he said things like, “Yeah, that right you ride that goat baby,” “get off me bitch, you’re riding the wrong thing, you stupid hoe,” and “this bitch is riding me like she's never ridden a … goat … before” (PewDiePie, 2014). These sexual innuendos and derogatory language toward women contribute to the alienation of female and queer gamers, reiterating that gaming is a space for the straight, white, cisgender man.

As such, PewDiePie's playthrough expresses the limits of Goat Simulator's potential queerness, as the game's “stupidity” became a space for the performance of a toxic straight masculinity that echoes larger debates in game studies surrounding the exclusion of female players, people of color and the queer community. In this way, Goat Simulator's ridiculous and silly gameplay can also facilitate the enactment of problematic playful behavior which straightens instead of queers its supposedly Camp mechanics. The same criticism can be said for stupidity which Halberstam (2011, p. 55) acknowledges as a “part of masculine charm” for straight white men, where others are not given the same leniency. As such, stupidity often reinforces male power while punishing others for the same transgressions (Halberstam, 2011, p. 55). Suggesting that Goat Simulator's stupidity is absent of such elements would be wrong. Instead, individuals can play Goat Simulator how they please. At times, this can be a vessel of gimmicky humor that feeds the desires of straight, white, adolescent men by often letting players be stupid in a contained way that does not challenge dominant hierarchies of gaming and instead reinforces them.

What the point above speaks to is that videogames are always explicitly entangled in the real social world—in fact, systems of power or structures of “essentialized normativity” operate in and around videogames (Burrill, 2017, p. 65). ( Essentialized normativity refers to the power that acts as “an organized set of constraints” as well as a “regulatory mechanism” that reproduces and reinstitutes individual and social action (Butler, 2004, p. 50). Put simply, power shapes how videogames are designed: who is “allowed” to play and how, particularly in relation to structures of class, gender, race, sexuality, and disability. This is not only true in terms of gaming representation and inclusion but in terms of function. For instance, Chang (2017, p. 17) illustrates that games culture has an ideal player defined as an adolescent, “straight,” “white,” “cisgender,” “masculine,” “hardcore” able-bodied man. In turn, this shapes the conventionally playful experience provided by studios with cultural legitimacy in gaming communities.

Many analogue wargames reflect a masculinised style of play defined through ‘militaristic and patriarchal values’ that promote violence and domination over the more feminised forms of expression (Trammell, 2018, p. 135). Such values have translated to videogames. We can see this through many key game mechanics that focus on progression, kill times, completion, and competition (such as online first-person shooters). Equally, videogames are created to encourage fluidity and control orientated around normative (particularly able) bodies which assumes all players approach play in the same manner. Both notions above are also explicitly shaped by profit, which assumes the ideal player is the primary consumer of videogames. Therefore, when a videogame is read and understood in a queer way, it expresses a reinvention of “systems of power, privilege, and interpersonal connections” (Ruberg, 2019, p. 27). When games are messy or do not function, they are not aligned with the mainstream norms surrounding both play and design.

Embracing the Glitch

There are certain ideological expectations that influence how a game is made, distributed, played, and socially valued—one of which is the value and desire for “self-consistency and verisimilitude” (Švelch, 2015, p. 56 cited in Gualeni, 2019, p. 2). What are widely known as “glitches” are technological malfunctions that alter, warp, and distort the conventional functioning of this consistency and verisimilitude. Glitches can manifest as mechanical failures, dysfunctions in software processes, and system errors—all of which, despite occurring within the lines of code disrupt the spatial reality of in-game environments. The form in which glitches appear to players is vast. It can be as simple as missing textures that distort visual components of a videogame, to larger scale malfunctions that can impact gameplay. For example, in the 2005 World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004) “pandemic” a character-weakening debuff glitched and operated akin to a virus in the physical world—spreading across the virtual population and infecting thousands of player characters, making them “ill.” As a result of their unique and unexpected nature, glitches facilitate new outcomes and experiences for players (Janik, 2017, p. 66).

In The Glitch Moment(um) Menkman (2011, p. 9) describes the glitch as a “break from an expected or conventional flow of information or meaning within (digital) communication systems that results in a perceived accident or error.” In this framing of the glitch, Menkman (2011) stresses how glitches do not just relate to technological failures but occur as an interplay between humans (the player) and machine behavior (the console or computer with the technological anomaly). Put simply, the “glitch” is not solely a fault and error in code, but also located within a broader context of player perception concerning the conventional working and experience of gaming technology (Švelch, 2015, p. 56). For instance, it is only through knowledge and context that the “manimals” glitch in the action-adventure game Red Dead Redemption (Rockstar Games, 2010) in which animal nonplayer characters (NPCs) had human avatar skins, became known as a glitch. This glitch changed the “skin” or appearance of the animals in the game but maintained their shape. Where they “should” look like a pig or bird, they had humanoid faces, skin, and clothes. Here, there was nothing to say that there is an “error,” that Red Dead Redemption developers did not intentionally create a cowboy dystopia with bird-people and pig-human hybrids—that is, if you have no knowledge surrounding the conventional working of videogames and technology.

After a glitch is found in a videogame it is a common practice for developers to “patch” the game, to remove the “glitchy” object or behaviors (Švelch, 2015, p. 58). This happened with the “manimals” glitch mentioned above, when Rockstar updated Red Dead Redemption, changing the human-animal hybrids back to the originally intended animals. Bugs and glitches can have negative impacts on players and developers, affecting sales and reputation while disrupting or breaking a gaming experience (Truelove et al., 2021, p. 736), with many players finding glitches “irritating and unwanted” (Janik, 2017, p. 66). Yet, some glitches can be useful for players to exploit or explore the game's fabric or act as a core source of pleasure and enjoyment. For instance, there are glitches that allow players to bypass in-game microtransactions, saving them time and money (Švelch, 2015), while others increase the efficiency of speedruns by skipping areas or making bosses easier to kill (Hemmingsen, 2021). Glitches can also be used to cheat and exploit mechanics to gain in-game advantages against other players (Meades, 2013) or become a method to build on the game's narratives as “glitch generated fiction” (Van de Mosselaer & Wildman, 2021).

Sometimes glitches are so well loved by gaming communities that become a feature of the game. A prime example of this is the Minecraft creeper. A coding error in the game Minecraft resulted in the model of a pig becoming corrupted. This glitch inspired the shape and texture of a new creature, the creeper, which has become an iconic staple of the game. Likewise, in Goat Simulator, as opposed to fixing or ignoring glitches, Coffee Stain Studios incorporates them as a core mechanic of gameplay. Without the bugs, Goat Simulator would be relatively boring. Players would simply wander around a poorly textured spatial landscape as a goat—like a goat, they would have minimal things to do but walk and graze on grass. The ridiculous ragdoll physics, the incredibly buggy sticky tongue, and the unpredictable behavior of in-game objects and NPCs are where the play in Goat Simulator comes alive. On Steam, a digital platform created to distribute PC games, Goat Simulator is advertised by Coffee Stain Studios as having: “MILLIONS OF BUGS! We're only eliminating the crash-bugs, everything else is hilarious and we're keeping it” (Coffee Stain Studios, Steam store).

Unlike other companies that fix and patch their games, Coffee Stain Studios embraces failure as part of the structure of Goat Simulator. In doing so, they create a new experience that “fight genres, interfaces, and expectations” (Menkman, 2011, p. 11). Glitches create an experience that is formed on messiness, stupidity, and excess. One of the most evident examples of the glitch in Goat Simulator is its “janky” physics system—in which the goat and the objects surrounding it defy the logics of gravity and mass in a simultaneously excessive and ridiculous way. For instance, in-game gravity is supposed to “not work” in order to create new and unexpected interactions with the game's spatial environment, like flailing and warping through the air as a screaming goat.

Schmalzer (2020) describes “jank” as a disconnection between player expectations and gaming literacies (how videogames should supposedly behave) in relation to moments in play that break these preconceptions. The incoherent physics and rapid motions of the goat avatar can create an excessive on-screen aesthetic. Here, the technological disorder and the failure of the game's physics engine present an opportunity in which unpredictable and ridiculous modes of being create an alternative gameplay experience. In the physical world, gravity gives weight to bodies and objects. That is, it pulls and holds us in place. While worlds in videogames are often modeled to have relatively life-like gravity, bodies are created in a similarly realistic fashion. This ensures a certain verisimilitude of the game world and the bodies that reside within it, where; players comprehend movement and objects through their relation to movement and objects in the so-called real world. This standardizes the types of movements players can make and therefore limits the potential experiences evoked by videogames. However, that is not to say that the movement here was not unpredictable, ridiculous, and excessive.

Goat Simulators gravity and bodies work somewhat differently in real life. During my own play sessions, gentle pushes of the goat's head can lead to cars launching into the air as if they weigh nothing, and bodies twist, turn, and contort into positions impossible for the average human and goat. In this way, gravity and bodies do not work as they “should”—a goat should not cause a car to spin uncontrollably, nor should its neck twist and turn as if it were made from rubber. This subverts not only real-world physics but also the physics typically implemented in videogames. This, in turn, queers the space of play as it lies on excessive and exaggerated logics which provokes an “immersion in alternative dimensions that exceed and confound one's expectations about virtual realities, affect, and potential” (Halberstam, 2017, p. 198).

Part of the appeal of Camp is the love of the “off”—or “of things-being-what-they are not” (Sontag, 1964, p. 3). This includes things that have unusual characteristics like a wine glass in the shape of a high heel shoe or a light fixture in the shape of a fire extinguisher. The goat in Goat Simulator is “off,” it is an anarchist made of Silly Putty. Its body is always stretching, distorting, and bouncing in a ridiculous fashion, whenever a player jumps off a significant height or hits an object with any form of mass. It is the unrealistic way the goat moves, its unmatchable strength, and the ridiculous and excessive moments that occur because of this which create a Camp aesthetic.

Much of this “off” nature also comes from the videogames glitchy “ragdoll” effect. In the videogame industry “ragdoll” refers to the physics applied to in-game avatars and NPCs. Often, developers strive for bodies to move as they do in the material world—giving the appearance of normal mass, bones, and flesh. However, when bodies are subject to “ragdoll” physics in videogames, they go limp and limbless as if they were made from the cotton stuffing of a ragdoll. Often, they are a source of humor—bodies “should not” move like that and it is fun to see how ridiculously they move when they do. Unsurprisingly, Goat Simulator exaggerates the ragdoll effect. Where bodies would normally fall toward the ground, in Goat Simulator they are flung. Instead of stuffing, the ragdoll in Goat Simulator is made from elastic.

For instance, during my own playthrough, I climbed up a crane with the front legs of the goat on the ladders and the back legs rigidly suspended in mid-air while the goats’ head was squashed, floating in and out of the ladder, its tongue stretching and pulling. At the top of the crane, I jump off, spinning, turning, and morphing in an exaggerated and ridiculous fashion. This glitch did not negatively impact my playing experience; rather, it enhanced it. I went to the top of the crane with the initial intention of viewing Goatsville from a great height but was instead met by a ridiculous ragdoll experience which was arguably far better than admiring the scenery.

In their exaggeration, Goat Simulator's glitches can function in a similar way to some of the aesthetics and logics of drag. In drag, performers imitate a highly stylized femininity (for queens) or masculinity (for kings), as a parody and subversion of the genders they are attempting to emulate. For instance, drag queens will adorn big wigs, fake breasts, flamboyant dresses, and heaps of makeup to perform the role of “womanhood.” Here, there is a similar exaggeration. Where drag queens overstate their femininity, Goat Simulator overstates its messiness. Characteristics of drag, namely, “irony, glamour and Camp” (Fleisher, 1999 cited in Niles, 2013, p. 36) are seen in the characteristics of glitches in Goat Simulator, which are self-aware, satirical and exaggerated. They are also both formed on the logics of “too much.” Where drag queens wear “too much” makeup to be considered an authentic understanding of femininity, Goat Simulators glitches are similarly “too much” as they go beyond a normative understanding of brokenness in videogames. When the goat falls from a building it gets flung “too far,” its elastic tongue is “too stretchy” and its strength “too powerful.” All these instances reveal the dual Camp and subversive nature of glitches within Goat Simulator.

For Halberstam (2017), the glitch is not just a technological failure but allegorizes a way to live queerly. In bending and breaking, distorting, and disrupting, glitches offer an alternative form of being that rejects normative protocol and success. This is a sentiment shared by Chang (2013) who argues that glitches contain queer potential as they denaturalize and destabilize the “technonormativity” of videogames and by virtue of resistance they provide opportunities “for exploration, for different rules, for nonproductive goals, and even for the radical potential of failure.” The greatest thing about bugs is that they result in events that would never happen without them. Absurd things, like bouncing up 1,000 meters in the air or phasing through a wall, can be fun and refreshing to see when they appear in glitch form. Thus, by opening the door to glitches, Goat Simulator lets in new and unexpected queer experiences.

Taking a future-oriented perspective on game design, Atkins (2006, p. 138) argues that “video games are all about anticipation.” Videogame developers (typically Triple-A companies) are primarily focused on the continual advancement—of new and better consoles, technology, graphics, sequels, and new experiences that always push a conceivable future for videogame players. They always strive to look better, sound better, and play better. We see this in expansion packs, games that update their content, iterations of next-gen consoles, and developments in immersive technologies such as VR. However, for Goat Simulator to revel in a play that is messy, and imperfect is to reject future progression—an arguably queer sentiment (Edelman, 2004). However, we must acknowledge that for Goat Simulator stupidity sells—the reason Goat Simulator is so widely known is because it is ridiculous. Further installments must rely on this similar logic, or they risk becoming another game that relies on expected conventions.

Graphics and smooth gameplay matter little in Goat Simulator. What is prioritized above all is fun—particularly through humor. By having a broken game, the mess and the weird experiences that arise out of that mess become the entire point of play. Lists online and YouTube videos such “Goat Simulator Funny Moments—Glitches! Explosions! Goat Tower!” (MattShea, 2014) and “Goat Simulator—Bugs, Glitches & Funny Moments” (Queiroz Gaming, 2016) illustrate that seeking out these glitches is a primary source of fun and enjoyment for players. Glitches are unpredictable, and the unpredictable is often a welcome change of pace from the predictable.

However, Goat Simulator does not entirely embrace the radical potential of brokenness. Coffee Stain Studios will not let the game break entirely through glitches and will fix the ones that crash the game. It is always still playable. This speaks to the limit of queerness within Goat Simulator. Even though the game embraces glitches it does so in a way that still ensures playability and human control. When analyzing the San Andreas Deer Cam, a modification (or “mod” as it is referred to in gaming communities)/art piece for the free-roam action game Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar North, 2013), Ruberg (2022) looks at the queer potential of post-humanism. The mod replaces human avatars with a deer, but even more radically, it redirects control of the avatar from the player to the computer.

While this is a mod rather than a glitch, it highlights similar logics of brokenness: that an object fails to act in accordance with its expected (unbroken) state. In players not being able to play Grand Theft Auto V how they should (or at all), Ruberg (2022, p. 427) illustrates that queer play is sometimes unplayable. By disrupting conventional norms of interactivity and agency, not-playing performs a radical un-interactivity that is “challenging the centrality of the human: a deeply queer endeavour” (Ruberg, 2022, p. 428). Goat Simulator does not offer this challenge. While broken, it still requires a standard level of “fixedness” to ensure that individuals can still interact and play it. These notions can be tied to a similar impossibility of life for queer subjects outside of virtual spaces, where they must perform an excruciating balancing act between existing authentically while being subject to the norms of a heteropatriarchal culture—there is a similar “fixedness” at which they must adhere too.

The Queer Sensibilities of “Playing Just Because”

In videogame studies, little attention has been paid to Triple-A as a classification (Keogh, 2023), rather, it appears to be a normalized category that speaks to large production companies with large budgets and the “largest prospective returns, aimed at selling the highest possible number of final products” as the legitimate creators of videogames (Bernevega & Gekker, 2022, p. 48). What Triple-A as a label represents is a dominant imagining of videogames and the videogame industry more broadly. Due to their historical and cultural legitimacy, these companies are both “the dominant and normative mode of video game production” (Keogh, 2023, p. 115). As mentioned in the introduction of this article, Goat Simulator is explicitly not a Triple-A game. While vague in nature, Goat Simulator could arguably come within the “indie” bracket because of its small budget, small developer team, low price, and “indie mindset” (where a game appears to come from gamers as opposed to corporations) (Grabarczyk & Garda, 2016, np). Goat Simulator lacks a massive budget which also enables it to have creative freedom to experiment with a broken, anti-serious, and goalless structure. Triple-A companies have been defined as being “risk-averse” (Whitson, 2019, p. 797). They are often polished and serious—pushing the boundaries of graphical beauty, gameplay mechanics, and immersive storytelling. They are everything that Goat Simulator is not. This knowledge forms a background to how videogames are perceived by players.

Here, I intend to avoid suggesting that Triple-A videogames and companies are heteronormative and indie games——Goat Simulator more precisely—are queer. Rather, Triple-A companies create a shared vision of what is considered as standard, and Goat Simulator simultaneously reinforces and questions that standard. Goat Simulator intentionally (and comedically) draws on Triple-A games. For instance, it copies the infamous opening cut scene from The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim (Bethesda Game Studios, 2011), and its trailer was a satirical copy of the Dead Island 2 trailer (Deep Silver, 2023). These parodies highlight a self-awareness of wider cultural discourses in the videogame industry. The opening scene of Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim was and is still a “meme,” Goat Simulator draws on this as a game that is a meme. By including references to Triple-A games, Goat Simulator highlights how silly Triple-A games are by enveloping aspects of them into their even more silly game.

In doing so it illustrates how it is a parody of gaming more widely. It is an ironic play on the Triple-A gaming market, positioning itself within/against conventional expectations. In its self-awareness, it is joking more widely about gaming behaviors and particularly the seriousness of mainstream productions. Goat Simulator could be argued to be a form of meta-fiction that questions itself as a videogame. This is akin to The Stanley Parable (Galactic Café, 2013), a videogame about videogames whose gameplay mechanics ironically expose many videogames norms and conventions. For example, Fest (2016, p. 16) understands The Stanley Parable as a humorous jab at the gaming industry's “obsession” with in-gaming rankings, coherent narratives, player choice, and so on. Like The Stanley Parable, Goat Simulator speaks to other games and itself as a game—it exposes the obsessions with graphics, smooth gameplay, narrative, competitiveness, and completion by subverting the need for them. As I will develop later in this section, Goat Simulator is without a story or system which values the players' time playing.

At the same time, despite its misleading title, Goat Simulator is not really a simulator in the conventional sense. Operating as a genre within videogames, simulator games are attempts to present a facsimile of real-world activities such as owning a farm (Farm Simulator (GIANTS Software, 2008)), driving a truck (Euro Truck Simulator (SCS Software, 2008)) or recreating “real life” (The Sims 4 (Maxis, 2014)). Often, these games endeavor to offer a sense of realism through graphics or fundamental aspects of gameplay. Some simulator games have complex systems and interfaces to manage activities, which can blur into serious and professional contexts. For instance, the U.S. naval force conducted a study that found Microsoft Flight Simulator (Xbox Game Studios, 2020) to have extensive training value for students learning to fly actual planes (Macedonia, 2002, p. 164). Often realism, in graphics, physics, and mechanics can be a measure of what makes a simulator good, in terms of review scores (Ruberg, 2019, p. 116). However, Goat Simulator, as opposed to offering complexity and realism advocates for stupidity—it is more of a parody of simulator games than an actual attempt to replicate the experience of being a goat in real life.

Coffee Stain Studios advertises Goat Simulator on a simple premise: “causing as much destruction as you possibly can as a goat” (Coffee Stains Studio, nd). Goat Simulator questions the value of realism—its physics are unrealistic; its graphics are mediocre and the mechanics that structure gameplay are largely meaningless. It is not the only game to do this. For instance, titles such as Surgeon Simulator (Bossa Studios, 2013) and Rock Simulator (Vinoo, 2019) belong in the simulator parody genre created for comedic, rather than serious, purposes. In this way, these games are riddled with stupidity. They make little sense and that's the point. Halberstam (2011, p. 15) remarks that “being taken seriously means missing out on the chance to be frivolous, promiscuous, and irrelevant.” By not taking itself seriously, Goat Simulator takes every opportunity to be frivolous, irrelevant, and even Camp.

In Video Games Have Always Been Queer (2019), Bo Ruberg looks at the browser-based game Realistic Kissing Simulator (Andrews & Schmidt, 2014). The game is not realistic by any means, it instead, displays two simplistic human avatars whose faces take on a profile view across the screen. Sitting at the same keyboard, players navigate their in-game tongues to attempt to kiss—entering the other players’ mouths. During their analysis of Realistic Kissing Simulator, Ruberg (2019) argues that the game induces queerness as a part of the rules and systems that shape gaming mechanics. In doing so, they suggest that the game's “goallessness” destabilizes normative assumptions surrounding videogames—that there is something to win or an end state (Ruberg, 2019, p. 114). Ruberg (2019) goes on to suggest that this is a process of "de-gamification" that takes away game-like structures such as systems of goals, point scoring, or narrative completion. Such processes often overscore value and worth in Western Neoliberal contexts that define success and seriousness through productivity and resolution. This, in turn, questions the hegemonic structures that shape how a game is supposed to be made and played.

While offering a bit more structure than Realistic Kissing Simulator, Goat Simulator similarly lacks traditional goals and structures of success. In Goat Simulator, the more in-game actions you perform such as jumping off a trampoline or pushing over a pedestrian, tops up points scored in the corner of the screen. Coffee Stain Studios has compared this type of scoring system to skateboarding games. However, where in a skateboarding game you gain points by kickflipping or landing an “ollie,” the Goat Simulator rewards you when you “wreck stuff” (Coffee Stain Studios, nd). The points system is the only thing that gives the game structure, but the structure is meaningless. The player is not required to gain points, nor does it amount to anything if they do. There is no narrative, no overarching goal to achieve nor any route to follow. There are in-game activities such as getting all the hats or performing 10 front flips in one trick that gains Gamerscore, trophies, or Steam achievements, depending on the platform you are playing on. These objectives and the small gold goat statues hidden in the game's world are the only tangible proof that a game is being played.

In Goat Simulator you move from random action to random action—traversing around the spatial environment, ramming your goat's head into anything it can find, and licking as many objects as possible. When analyzing the queer potential of videogame narratives, Chess (2016) argues that unlike traditional forms of media such as books and films, videogames are not built around conventional notions of climax or resolution. That is, traditional media is typically structured around a culmination of events that escalate into solutions and satisfaction. This can be seen in the typical formula: the good guy fights the bad guy, and the good guy struggles until he eventually wins. Chess (2016) suggests videogames are not like this, instead, she argues that the pleasure of videogames is not in “reproductive completion, but in the process of play” (Chess, 2016, p. 90). This is perhaps even more so the case for goalless videogames such as Goat Simulator, where there are no checkpoints to reach nor a campaign to complete. Instead, of a “point” Goat Simulator's play is characterized by stupidity through a “mess about” mentality.

Goat Simulator facilitates pushing the boundaries of the in-game environments which evokes a queer form of play built around excess. This relates to stupid moments in films mentioned previously, the “BOOM! For the sake of things going BOOM!” (Kerner & Hoxter, 2019, p. 9), whereby play is devoid of any notable significance or value. This is playing for the sake of play, without goal, objective, or purpose. Players can have moments of flamboyance and extravagance due to the ridiculous situations that Goat Simulator facilitates—jumping on a trampoline for the sake of jumping on a trampoline, destroying a petrol station for the sake of destroying a petrol station, being an invincible goat for the sake of being an invincible goat. In response to games without objectives, Ruberg (2019, p. 124) suggests videogames “rarely remain goal-less for long.” As such, by not having a clear winning state or an objective to strive for, players respond by creating their own goals. Arguably, in the case of Goat Simulator, not having a goal is the goal. Play is figured around seeing what happens “just because.” This further subverts the norms of player/game relationships as it contrasts the conventional understanding of games as designed texts, where the game's crafted structures set the goals and decide/dictate the winning conditions.

However, after playing for an extended period the novel “stupid” experience of Goat Simulators can become dull. Its silliness becomes tiresome and its goallessness makes continuing to play pointless. In a review of Goat Simulator, Stanton (2014) concludes by suggesting “This is a 10-minute laugh, if that—the kind of thing that's here today, gone tomorrow, but for a brief moment in history is the talk of Shoreditch and Twitter.” In this way, Goat Simulator's stupidity also characterizes its demise. Instead of being full of ridiculous and excessive moments, the game can be empty and boring at times. For some, it is a game exclusively orientated around short bursts of play, without much commitment or involvement.

Conclusion

This work is situated within current academic discussions surrounding queerness in videogames “beyond surface level LGBTQ+ representation” toward a more radical questioning of the norms surrounding games and play (Ruberg, 2020, p. 649). What ultimately sets Goat Simulator apart from many other videogames is that it was consciously created without seriousness and/or success in mind. This article has argued that Goat Simulator can pose a challenge to normative understanding surrounding how a videogame should be designed. By embracing glitches and goallessness, Goat Simulator does not strive to be a perfect game that is played for thousands of hours. Instead, it is broken, ridiculous, and excessive and it does not mind being so. Goat Simulator denies hegemonic logics of perfection, success, and progression. As a result, it illustrates how messiness can become an alternative way to design a videogame that, in a queer sentiment, refuses to adhere to the standards set by more mainstream gaming markets.

While these theoretical assertions may not be applicable to all experiences of Goat Simulator, this article provides an example of how messiness as a design practice can become a vehicle for new, unexpected, and arguably queer experiences. Goat Simulator is not queer, but the way it embraces stupidity, mess, and excess is queer in sentiment. Therefore, by designing and celebrating with games that may not boast impressive visuals, flawless gameplay, bug-free updates, or fulfill completionist desires, we can recognize the significance these games hold within the broader gaming culture. In offering alternative playful experiences, broken and messy games prompt us to reflect critically on normative game design and gameplay values which can pave the way to embrace glitches, pointlessness, and downright stupidity.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Hollie Wistow

Notes

Correction (September 2024):

Year of references, ‘Sontag, 1964’ and ‘Trammell, 2019’ has been updated in the article since its online publication.

Author Biography

Hollie Wistow is a PhD student at the University of Nottingham in the Department of Culture, Media, and Visual Studies. Her work intersects at queer and game studies, looking at the “queer” potentialities that can arise in time and space during videogame play.

References

Activision. (2019). Call of duty: Modern warfare [Xbox series X, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows]. Game directed by Jack O'Hara, published by Activision.

Andrews & Schmidt . (2014). Realistic kissing simulator [Online game]. Digital games published by Andrews and Schmidt. http://jimmylands.com/experiments/kissing/

Atkins

(2006). What are we really looking at?: The future-orientation of video game play. Games and Culture, 1(2), 127–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412006286687

Bernevega

Gekker

(2022). The industry of landlords: Exploring the assetization of the triple-A game. Games and Culture, 17(1), 47–69. https://doi.org/10.1177/15554120211014151

Bethesda Game Studios. (2011). Elder scrolls V: Skyrim [Microsoft Windows, PS3, Xbox 360]. Digital game directed by Todd Howard, published by Bethesda Softworks.

Blizzard Entertainment. (v. 2.4.1, 2008). (2004). World of warcraft [Microsoft Windows]. Digital game directed by Rob Pardo, Jeff Kaplan, and Tom Chilton, published by Blizzard Entertainment.

Bossa Studios. (2013). Surgeon simulator [Microsoft Windows]. Digital game directed by Tom Jackson, Jack Good, Luke Williams and James Broadley, published by Bossa Studios.

Breslin

(2023, July 20). Starfield fans have ‘no doubt’ game will be buggy at launch. Gaming Bible. Retrieved June 12, 2024, from https://www.gamingbible.com/news/starfield-fans-no-doubt-game-will-be-buggy-170427-20230720

Burrill

(2017) Queer theory, the body, and video games. In Queer Game Studies (pp. 25–33). University of Minnesota Press.

10.

Butler

(2004). Undoing gender (1st ed.). Taylor & Francis Group.

11.

Cauthon

(2022, March 6). Cyberpunk 2077. Rpgfan. Retrieved July 20, 2023, from https://www.rpgfan.com/review/cyberpunk-2077-2/#:∼:text=There's%20an%20order%20to%20Cyberpunk's,initial%20hours%20in%20Night%20City

12.

CD Project Red. (2020). Cyberpunk 2077 [Microsoft Windows]. Digital game directed by Adam Badowski, Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, and Gabe Amatangelo, published by CD Project Red.

13.

Chang

E. Y.

(2013, October 7). Queer glitches, or the recuperation of Vanellope Von Schweetz. Edmondchang, Retrieved June 30, 2023, from http://www.edmondchang.com/2013/10/07/queer-glitches-or-the-recuperation-of-vanellope-von-schweetz/

14.

Chang

E. Y.

(2017). Queergaming. In Ruberg

Shaw

(Eds.), Queer game studies (pp. 15–23). University of Minnesota Press.

15.

Chess

(2016). The queer case of video games: Orgasms, heteronormativity, and video game narrative. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 33(1), 84–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2015.1129066

16.

Coffee Stains Studio. (n.d). The latest in goat simulation technology. Coffee Stains Studio. Retrieved August 22, 2023 from https://www.coffeestainstudios.com/games/goat-simulator/

17.

Coffee Stain Studios. (2014). Goat simulator [Microsoft Windows]. Digital game directed by Armin Ibrisagic, published by Coffee Stain Studios.

18.

Deep Silver. (2023). Dead island 2 [Microsoft Windows, PS5, Xbox Series S/X]. Digital game directed by David Stenton and James Worrall, published by Deep Silver.

19.

Edelman

(2004). No future. Queer theory and the death drive. Duke University Press.

20.

Fenlon

(2023, September 20). How Cyberpunk 2077 clawed its way back from disaster to complete one of the greatest redemption arcs in gaming history. PCgamer. Retrieved June 12, 2024, from https://www.pcgamer.com/how-cyberpunk-2077-clawed-its-way-back-from-disaster-to-complete-one-of-the-greatest-redemption-arcs-in-gaming-history/

21.

Fest

B. J.

(2016). Metaproceduralism: The Stanley Parable and the legacies of postmodern metafiction. Wide Screen, 6(1), 1–23 https://mla.hcommons.org/deposits/objects/mla:982/datastreams/CONTENT/content

22.

Flynn-Jones

(2015), Bad romance: For the love of ‘bad’ video games . In Game love: Essays on play and affection (pp. 253–264). McFarland and Company, Inc.

23.

The Fullbright Company. (2013). Gone home [Microsoft Windows]. Digital game directed by Steve Gaynor, published by The Fullbright Company.

24.

Galactic Café. (2013). The Stanley Parable [Microsoft Windows]. Digital game directed by Davey Wreden and William Pugh, published by Galactic Café.

25.

GIANTS Software. (2008). Farm simulator [Microsoft Windows]. Digital game directed by GIANTS Software, published by Astragon.

26.

Grabarczyk

Garda

(2016). Is every indie game independent? Towards the concept of independent game. Game Studies, 16(1). https://gamestudies.org/1601/articles/gardagrabarczyk

27.

Gray

K. L.

Leonard

D. J.

(Eds.). (2018). Woke gaming: Digital challenges to oppression and social injustice. University of Washington Press.

28.

Gualeni

(2019, August). On the de-familiarizing and re-ontologizing effects of glitches and glitch-alikes [Paper presentation]. Proceedings of DiGRA Conference: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix. DiGRA. Retrieved August 24, 2023, from http://www.digra.org/digital-library/publications/on-the-de-familiarizing-and-re-ontologizing-effects-of-glitches-and-glitch-alikes/

29.

Halberstam

(2011). The queer art of failure. Duke University Press.

30.

Halberstam

(2017). Queer gaming, hacking, and going turbo. In Ruberg

Shaw

(Eds.), Queer game studies (222–234). University of Minnesota Press.

31.

Harper

Adams

M. B.

Taylor

(2018). Queerness in play. Springer International Publishing AG.

32.

Hemmingsen

(2021). Code is law: Subversion and collective knowledge in the ethos of video game speedrunning. Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 15(3), 435–460. https://doi.org/10.1080/17511321.2020.1796773

33.

Isaac

Browning

(2020, December 19). Cyberpunk 2077 was supposed to be the biggest video game of the year. What happened?. The New York Times. Retrived July 20, 2023, from https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/19/style/cyberpunk-2077-video-game-disaster.html#:∼:text=New%20York%20Times-,Cyberpunk%202077%20Was%20Supposed%20to%20Be%20the%20Biggest%20Video%20Game,a%20possible%20class%2Daction%20lawsuit

34.

Jagex. (2001). RuneScape [Microsoft Windows]. Digital game directed by Andrew Gower and Paul Gower, published by Jagex.

35.

Janik

(2017). Glitched perception: Beyond the transparency and visibility of the video game object. TransMissions, 2(2), 65–82. https://www.academia.edu/70433217/Glitched_perception_On_the_transparency_and_visibility_of_the_video_game_medium_1

36.

Kaufman

(2023). Silence, distance and disclosure. The bleed between the far-right and gaming. Gamevironments, 18, 1–37. https://doi.org/10.48783/gameviron.v18i18.232

37.

Keogh

(2023). Triple-A games. In Wolf

Perron

(Eds.), The Routledge companion to video game studies. (pp. 112–119). Routledge.

38.

Kerner

Hoxter

(2019). Theorizing stupid media: De-naturalizing story structures in the cinematic, televisual, and videogames. Springer International Publishing.

39.

LaBruce

(2014). Notes on camp and anti-camp. The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide, 21(2), 10–14. https://link-gale-com.nottingham.idm.oclc.org/apps/doc/RRIMCS832769773/AHSI?u=univnott&sid=bookmark-AHSI&xid=9ceb8ba7

40.

Macedonia

(2002). Games soldiers play. Ieee Spectrum, 39(3), 32–37. https://doi.org/10.1109/6.988702

41.

Maloney

Roberts

Caruso

(2018). Mmm… I love it, bro!’: Performances of masculinity in YouTube gaming. New Media & Society, 20(5), 1697–1714. https://doi.org/10.1177/146144481770336

42.

Manalansan

M. F.

IV . (2014). The “stuff” of archives: Mess, migration, and queer lives. Radical History Review, 2014(120), 94–107. https://doi.org/10.1215/01636545-2703742

43.

MattShea. (2014, March 28). Goat simulator funny moments – Glitches! Explosions! Goat tower! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX3VyzhSFRs

44.

Maxis. (2014). The Sims 4 [Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One]. Digital game directed by Micheal Duke, Berjes Enriquez, Jim Rogers, Robert Vernick, published by Electronic Arts.

45.

Maxis Redwood Shores (2004). The Sims 2 [Microsoft Windows]. Digital game directed by Charles London, published by Electronic Arts.

46.

Meades

(2013). Why we glitch: Process, meaning and pleasure in the discovery, documentation, sharing and use of videogame exploits. Well Played Journal, 2(2), 79–98. ISSN 2164-344X.

47.

Menkman

(2011). The glitch moment(um) . Institute of Network Cultures. Vol. 4 https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/19296

48.

Mojang Studios (2009). Minecraft [Microsoft Windows]. Digital Game directed by Markus Persson and Jens Bergensten, published by Mojang Studios.

49.

Nieborg

D. B.

(2014). Prolonging the magic: The political economy of the 7th generation console game. Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture, 8(1), 47–63. https://doi.org/10.7557/23.6155

50.

Niles

(2013). Wigs, laughter, and subversion: Charles Busch and strategies of drag performance. In Underwoodm

(Ed.), The drag queen anthology (pp. 35–53). Routledge.

51.

Paul

C. A.

(2018). The toxic meritocracy of video games: Why gaming culture is the worst. University of Minnesota Press.

52.

PewDiePie. (2014, May 29). Goat is back! [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-HzcB8c3eE&t=191s

53.

Pope

(2021, January 7). Why I LOVE Cyberpunk 2077 | Video Essay [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbWweChn1j0

54.

Queiroz Gaming. (2016, 28 July). Goat Simulator – Bugs, glitches & funny moments [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf2F8-lEd94

55.

Rockstar Games . (2010). Red dead redemption [PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4] Digital game directed by Dan Houser, Michael Unsworth and Christian Cantamessa, published by Rockstar Games.

56.

Rockstar North. (2013). Grand Theft Auto V [Microsoft Windows, PS3, Xbox 360]. Digital Game directed by Dan Houser and Rupert Humphries, published by Rockstar Games.

57.

Rockstar Studios. (2018). Red dead redemption 2 [Sony PlayStation 4]. Digital game directed by Sam Houser, Dan Houser, & Rob Nelson, published by Rockstar Games.

58.

Ronell

(2002). Stupidity. University of Illinois Press.

59.

Ruberg

(2019). Video games have always been queer. New York University Press.

60.

Ruberg

(2020). Straight paths through queer walking simulators: Wandering on rails and speedrunning in gone home. Games and Culture, 15(6), 632–652. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1555412019826746

61.

Ruberg

(2022). After agency: The queer posthumanism of video games that cannot be played. Convergence, 28(2), 413–430. https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856522109425

62.

Ruberg

Shaw

(2017). Queer game studies. University of Minnesota Press.

63.

Schmalzer

M. D.

(2020). Janky controls and embodied play: disrupting the cybernetic gameplay circuit. Game Studies, 20(3). https://www.gamestudies.org/2003/articles/schmalzer

64.

Schutt

(2023, October 16) Cyberpunk 2077 & more games prove we’re in an era of gaming comebacks. Escapist Magazine. Retrieved June 15, 2024, from https://www.escapistmagazine.com/cyberpunk-2077-more-games-prove-were-in-an-era-of-gaming-comebacks/

65.

Schwartz

M. A.

(2008). The importance of stupidity in scientific research. Journal of Cell Science, 121(11), 1771–1771. https://doi.org/10.1242/jcs.033340

66.

SCS Software. (2008). Euro Truck Simulator [Microsoft Windows]. Digital game directed by SCS Software, published by Microsoft Windows.

67.

Sontag

(1964). Notes on Camp. Penguin UK.

68.

Stanton

(2014, April 2) Goat simulator review – You have got to be kidding. The Guardian. Retrieved September 21, 2023, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/apr/02/goat-simulator-review-video-game

69.

Švelch

(2015). Negotiating a glitch: Identifying and using glitches in video games with microtransactions. In Proceedings of the central and eastern European game studies conference Brno 2014: In new perspectives in game studies (pp. 55–70). Masarykova univerzita.

70.

Trammell

(2018). Militarism and masculinity in dungeons & dragons. In Taylor

& Voorhees

(Eds.), Masculinities in play. Springer International Publishing AG.

71.

Truelove

de Almeida

E.S.

Ahmed

, (2021, May). We'll fix it in post: What do bug fixes in video game update notes tell us?. In Proceedings of IEEE/ACM 43rd international conference on software engineering (ICSE) (pp. 736–747). IEEE.

72.

Ubisoft Montreal. (2017). Assassin's creed origins [Microsoft Windows, PS 3, PS 4, Xbox 360, Xbox One]. Digital game directed by Jean Guesdon and Ashraf Ismail, published by Ubisoft.

73.

Van De Mosselaer

Wildman

(2021). Glitches as fictional (mis) communication. In Barker

Korolkova

(Eds.), Miscommunications: Errors, mistakes, media (pp. 300–315). Bloomsbury Publishing USA.

74.

Vinoo. (2019). Rock simulator [Microsoft Windows]. Digital game directed by Vinoo, published by Vinoo.

75.

Whitson

J. R.

(2019). The new spirit of capitalism in the game industry. Television & New Media, 20(8), 789–801. https://doi.org/10.1177/1527476419851086

76.

Xbox Game Studios . (2020). Microsoft flight simulator [Microsoft Windows, Xbox Series X/S] Digital game directed by Jörg Neumann and David Dedeine, published by Xbox Game Studios.