Illegitimate, monstrous and out there: female 'Quake' players and inappropriate pleasures

This chapter was written during AHRC funded leave (2003 - 2004) and from Kennedy's PhD work involving an online study of female games playing cultures, clans, websites over 2 years from 2001 - 2003. Findings were presented as a conference paper at 'Playing the Future', Manchester 2002 and at the Digital Games Research Association inaugural conference, Utrecht 2003, as a keynote, at the Inaugural Women In Games conference, Portsmouth, June 2004, an invited paper for the ESRC seminar series 'New Femininities' December 2005 and an invited paper ITU Copenhagen, Denmark January 2006. It also led to the launch by Kennedy of a SIG (Special Interest Group) as part of the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) based around research in women and games, and an invitation by the International Games Development Association to participate in both public conferences and smaller workshops around 'gender-inclusive games design'.