Extremist Activities in Digital Gaming Spaces: New Research Findings Shed Light on Identity-based Hate and Extremist Content in Mod Forums
date: 29/04/2025
Reading time: 4 min
After several terrorists made references to video games and gaming culture in the livestreams of their attacks or their manifestos, including in Christchurch (New Zealand) and Halle (Germany), the potential nexus between gaming and extremism has become a crucial new area for both extremism research and counter-extremism practice. Extremists’ exploitation of digital gaming content and spaces takes various forms, including the production of propaganda games, the instrumentalisation of commercial games, the appropriation of gaming aesthetics in propaganda content, and the use of digital gaming platforms to spread identity-based hate and extremist messages.
The RadiGaMe project seeks to shed light on how users spread and communicate about extremist and hateful ideologies in hitherto underexplored gaming platforms. These digital platforms have become crucial arenas for political and societal discourses and, far from being niche, often draw hundreds of millions of users in various age groups. Propaganda could therefore have considerable reach in digital gaming spaces.
This brief contribution summarises the main preliminary findings of extremist content on Mod DB, a popular mod forum. ‘Mods’ are user-made modifications of existing commercial games which are often shared on designated forums such as Mod DB, which currently hosts over 30.000 mods, 37.000 groups, and nearly 600.000 posts in the forum. We collected 500 publicly accessible posts and profiles on Mod DB via keyword searches pertaining to right-wing extremism, antisemitism, racism, conspiracy narratives, jihadism, and Islamism.
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Roughly 120 posts fell on the Islamist spectrum, often posting in both Arabic and English to express support for jihadist groups and/or jihad, including a diary of a self-proclaimed ISIS fighter.
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Over 200 posts expressed support for right-wing extremism or borderline content, including the glorification of National Socialism and racism as well as the spread of white genocide narratives.
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Over 70% of the posts contained antisemitic elements, including holocaust denial, anti-Israel slogans, and/or content surrounding the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, suggesting that antisemitism is a crucial bridging narrative between different ideologies.
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A small but relevant number of posts and user profiles crossed ideological boundaries and were therefore classified as ‘mixed or unclear ideology’, supporting the notion that ‘salad bar extremism’, where individuals pick and choose from different (often opposing) extremist ideologies, is relevant in online radicalisation processes.
Important takeaways include:
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The digital gaming ecosystem is vast and heterogenous, extending far beyond video games to a network of gaming-related platforms. P/CVE efforts should therefore take the entirety of the gaming space into account.
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Our research suggests that while extremist content is present on many gaming-related platforms, it may differ considerably in form, style, and content due to vastly different platform affordances, user communities, and communication norms. These differences should be explored further and inform tailored P/CVE measures.
Gaming is not inherently risky or related to extremism. On the contrary, it can have many positive outcomes. Therefore, content and spaces do not only pose new risks but also new opportunities for P/CVE.
Gaming content and platforms are frequented by millions of users – a trend that is projected to further increase in the future. Therefore, it is crucial to examine extremist content and potential radicalisation processes in these spaces in more detail while simultaneously testing how P/CVE efforts can benefit from and be implemented in digital gaming spaces.
To learn more, visit RadiGaMe's website: https://www.radigame.de/en/
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