Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien and the Bavarian Family Ministry have commissioned a study about extremism in gaming. The results, presented at the Ministry by researchers from PRIF and modus zad today: Right-wing extremism is most prevalent, and most online games don't do enough.
At an event at the Bavarian Ministry for Family today, the Bavarian State Office for New Media (Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien, BLM) and the Ministry have presented a new study commissioned by the two state entities centered around extremism, especially right-wing extremism, in and around online gaming. The study called „(Rechts)Extremismus und Online-Games“ has been executed by Modus – Zentrum für angewandte Deradikalisierungsforschung (modus zad) and the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt of Leibniz-Institut für Friedens- und Konfliktforschung (PRIF). The researchers included were extremism and gaming expert Linda Schlegel and Vivienne Ohlenforst from modus zad, as well as Constantin Winkler and Lars Wiegold of PRIF. The event was moderated by Viola Tensil.
The study includes participant observations in eight different online games and platforms, including Roblox, Fortnite, Minecraft, Valorant, League of Legends and more. It also includes semi-guided interviews with more than a dozen experts from the games industry, extremism research and youth media work, as well as semi-guided interviews with gamers about their experiences in online games.
The work concludes that right-wing extremism is the most prevalent form of extremism in online games, and that games that are played by children and young adults are especially at risk. It also defines several frameworks to use when talking about extremism in games, such as differentiations between occurrences in games, in gaming-platforms, in memes with gaming visuals and more.
It is currently not publicly available, but will be made so early 2026.
Apart from the presentation of the study results, the even was framed by two panel talks, one by serious game developer Sebastian Grünwald and games journalist Christian Schiffer about the potential of games in cultural contexts, and one by Vivienne Ohlenforst of modus zad, Elisabeth Secker of USK, Sebastian Ring of Medienzentrum München – JFF and Benjamin Strobel of Behind the Screens about the usage of games against extremism and youth protection in the context of gaming.
