Animal Crossing, The Sims, and Minecraft are all worldwide sensations made by what one would now consider to be AAA companies, and yet, since not one of these games has violence as a core mechanic, each and every one of them has been criticized as not being ‘game-y’ enough.

The fact that the same criticism is levied at so-called ‘casual games’ and ‘casual gamers’ reveals a link between the two: games that don’t include violence as a core mechanic are perceived by the community as being fundamentally more feminine than games that do. Games with women-majority audiences, women-majority casts, and women-majority dev teams are frequently lumped in with this kind of critique.

Violence, goes the logic, is what makes a game masculine — and, by extension — being masculine is what makes a video game a video game.