Implementing Positive Gaming Interventions: A Toolkit for Practitioners

The project 'Examining Socialization with a Nexus to Radicalization Across Gaming (-Adjacent) Platforms Through a Gender Lens’ is funded by Public Safety Canada, led by RUSI and implemented by a consortium of members of the Extremism and Gaming Research Network.

Overview

In an increasingly digital world, gaming and gaming-adjacent platforms have emerged as vital social spaces, attracting more than 3 billion active users globally. These platforms, which range from immersive video games to forums and livestreaming sites, offer unique opportunities to build communities, foster creativity and promote education. However, they also present risks, as they are exploited by harmful actors who disseminate extremist ideologies, propagate hate and target vulnerable individuals.

Prevention of harms in these social spaces is a growing need. However, resources to help practitioners navigate these sometimes unfamiliar spaces and design effective interventions are scarce. This toolkit aims to help fill this gap, drawing on findings from the project ‘Examining Socialization with a Nexus to Radicalization Across Gaming (-Adjacent) Platforms Through a Gender Lens’, which was funded by Public Safety Canada, led by RUSI and implemented by a consortium of members of the Extremism and Gaming Research Network.

The toolkit is designed to highlight the opportunities gaming spaces provide and help practitioners harness the many potentials gaming offers for promoting resilience, inclusivity and positive social engagement. Practitioners are encouraged to adopt gender-responsive and culturally informed approaches, ensuring their efforts resonate with diverse identities and experiences of gaming communities. The toolkit is broken down into three interconnected chapters:

1. Designing Countering Radicalisation to Violence (CRV) in Gaming Spaces: This chapter highlights important questions and specific aspects to consider when designing interventions in gaming spaces.
    
2. Optimising Opportunities in Gaming Spaces: This chapter provides an in-depth look at the range of gaming and gaming-adjacent spaces, the specific characteristics of the game or platform, and what these mean for CRV intervention efforts and practitioners.
    
3. How Might CRV Continue to Develop in Gaming Spaces?: This chapter provides a forward-looking lens on changes and advances in gaming and what future directions of gaming ecosystems to consider in CRV work.

The success of intervention efforts using gaming depends on continuous learning, robust monitoring and evaluation, and a commitment to ethical and inclusive practices. This toolkit seeks to provide a resource for practitioners working on CRV interventions to understand and use the gaming ecosystem to its fullest positive potential.