Queer Elves and Aliens - Players' Perception of Sexuality in WRPGs

This project is the culmination of two studies I completed both as a graduate student at Southern Methodist University and an independent researcher.  In it, I discovered and investigated a new variable, "Frequency of Sexuality Influence" (FSI) and it's relationship to the romantic selection players make in Western Roleplaying games and their perception of diverse sexualities ("Parsing the Paramour", n=1,001, 2023). I also explored the perception of pre-release marketing materials for games with romanceable companions and the influence that attraction to non-human romances had on player choices ("More than Human", n=491,  2024). This research was presented at GDC 2025 in San Francisco as part of the panel, "What's New in Games Research".  (You can click the above image to watch the talk on the GDC Vault - no login required!)