Shira’s critical work on redefining gamer culture quickly made her a target. She explained, ‘There was an incident early on during GamerGate where a colleague and I were accused of being part of a rather robust conspiracy [to destroy video games and the video game industry].’

A shared Google document she and Adrienne created to discuss an upcoming games conference and the topic of feminism in games was hijacked by 4chan, who quickly began sabotaging the document by deleting or rewriting parts of it, later connecting them to a government-wide conspiracy to ruin video games. In an article she later wrote about the experience with her colleague Adrienne Shaw, she described it as ‘a moment where masculine gaming culture became aware of and responding to feminist game scholars’.

‘It was both terrifying and hilarious, all at once,’ she admitted. However, it hasn’t stopped her and she’s been working harder than ever – in fact, she recently published a series of feminist video game essays in her new book Ready Player Two.

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