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The Gamification of Violent Extremism: An Empirical Exploration of the Christchurch Attack  (Suraj Lakhani, GNET)
In March 2019, New Zealand suffered one of its deadliest terrorist attacks in history. Brenton Tarrant, a 28-year-old Australian national and self-described ‘ethno-nationalist’ and ‘eco-fascist’, murdered 51 Muslim worshippers and attempted to kill 40 more, primarily at the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre, before being apprehended by police reportedly on his way to a third location. He used a number of often complimentary online and offline resources and strategies, which included: a 74-page manifesto; live-streaming his attack on Facebook; and the initiation of a thread around 10–20 minutes before the commencement of the attack on the now-banned imageboard, 8chan. These outputs were littered with various culturally relevant symbols, sayings, and other indicators, including those relating to video gaming.
Although the intersection between video gaming and (violent) extremism has existed for decades (and some research has been undertaken), our knowledge of it still remains “poorly understood.” Of the six “types of video game strategies related to extremist activity” outlined in a Radicalisation Awareness Network paper in 2020, it can be reasonably argued that our understanding of the ‘gamification’ of (violent) extremism remains particularly scant. Still, this concept has been widely associated with the Christchurch attack. Originally developed for addressing various business challenges, at its core gamification refers to “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts”. It is about “facilitating behavioural change,” and harnessing the “motivational potential of video games,” where there is the “implementation of elements familiar from games to create similar experiences as games commonly do.”
Saying that, academic literature, news articles, and investigative journalism, amongst others, have at least (mostly anecdotally) started to describe instances of extremist and violent extremist networks adopting aspects that resemble some degree of the concept. Speaking broadly, within the context of violent extremism, gamification can be thought of as either “top-down” or “bottom-up.” Top-down gamification primarily refers to the strategic use of gamification by (violent) extremist networks and organisations in order to recruit, disseminate propaganda, or encourage engagement and commitment, for example. (Cont.)