In Real Life

The messaging is a little heavy-handed, but I liked all the badass lady characters and the fact that the main character a. is plus-sized and b. dyes her hair to match her avatar's. A fun action/adventure story with a social message.

Note to self: you may be tempted to give this to children, but don't. Has some adult language and themes.

In Real Life is a short graphic novel about gaming and gold farming with a little lesson about economics thrown in from, Cory Doctorow. It's not very subtle and definitely aimed at the younger end of young adult. Anda befriends a poor Chinese player in Coarsegold Online. Raymond is a gold farmer, working long hours for low pay but he also loves the game and plays it in his spare time too. Anda falls in with a crowd who are paid to kill gold farmers, leaving her with a choice.

Raymond explains to Anda how he hurt his back and doesn't get healthcare in his job. She decides to make him campaign for it, without really knowing his circumstances or how well strikes go down in China... It's a bit ironic an American preaching about healthcare when theirs is such a mess. Anyway, Jen Wang's artwork is cute and it does try and make a point.

As a girl gamer who sticks to tabletop RPGs and trading card games, this graphic novel still hit me right in the damn feels.

I remember when Destiny came out, I was so excited to play my first (and very belated) massive online multiplayer. I created my character (badass magical alien babe with yellow eyes and purple hair, obviously) and was ready to fight my way through the solar system and face down Oryx. But, the more I played, the more I played alone. I eventually shut off my audio stream, and then the game altogether because of bullying. I'm 25 years old and online bullying from cruel, male gamers really, really hurts.

I read this graphic novel in one sitting and fell in love with this game, world, and character. Anda is smart and fearless. She's unwavering as a gamer and a friend, fiercely loyal and incredibly kind. When her male classmates shut down a "preppy girl" who asks them to be D&D ambassadors to her board game club, Anda invites her back to play D&D with them. This kind of empathy even translates to her gaming, when she encounters Raymond, a gold farmer who she's bound to hunt down as per her guild's mission in the game. Anda and Raymond develop a beautiful friendship, despite time zone differences and language barriers, and eventually, economic barriers as Anda learns about the very real occupation of gold farming in MMORPGs.

I spend a lot of time thinking about gaming culture and how I experience and navigate and make a place for myself in male- dominated spaces. This graphic novel tackles the problem of gatekeeping while addressing the issues of economics and game culture, and it's a truly fascinating and beautifully crafted story.

Fun read, nice illustrations. Deals with some serious issue of digital economy and its impact on people's lives.

Graphic novel in which a girl gamer who wants to do the right thing by exposing fraud discovers that there are real human beings behind the practice of racking up game points and selling them to players who want to skip the boring bits and advance more quickly. Nice if rather slight mix of gaming, gender, friendship, and learning how the gaming industry intersects with a global economy that isn't fair.