| Summary: | Since their creation, video games seem to cause multiple controversies. In the French-speaking world, researches have mostly focused on controversies understood as specific topics. This article provides a longitudinal analysis of situations related to the video game industry and deemed sufficiently “problematic” to be covered by the media, from the first controversy surrounding the content of the game Death Race (Exidy, 1976) to the toxic work environment cases that have shaken triple A studios such as Ubisoft in 2020 and Activision-Blizzard-King in 2021. First, the article clarifies what is meant by the term “videogame controversy” as it applies to the nearly 300 occurrences recorded over the past 50 years, and how some of these situations participate in the circulation of certain controversies over time. Second, it looks at the “noise” that these situations generate and how different audiences experience them. The result is that controversies have become part of the contexts of production and play, which is why it is necessary to look at them not as singular events but as permanent processes that are part of the socio-cultural context in which video games are created and played.
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