I think you have to start by understanding that "gaming" or "geek" culture seeming like it leads to reactionary views or pipelines has a lot more to do with who "gamers" actually are, not what their hobby happens to be.

In most cases, videogames, table top RPGs, Warhammer 40k, pretty much any of the stuff you'd typically associate with the subculture, all of these things have been nearly entirely out of the reach of the vast majority of poorer working class kids in the past 30 odd years. As tough as it might be to hear, these have always been expensive and toys, hobbies and privileges to take part in, with maybe the exception of comic books, nearly everything else has a fairly steep entry fee, needing to buy computers, several books, figurines, videogames, merchandise etc.

It's really no wonder then, that the majority of people who are actually able to keep up with these costs will disproportionately be cis white men from the imperial core, as the group that happens to be at the top of the social structure of the world with the most amount of disposable income. And I think this is where the problem really stems from.

It's not that geeks and gamers just happen to be more likely to become reactionary, it's actually somewhat the opposite. Reactionaries, through their inherent privileged position in the world, are simply more able to get into this lifestyle in the first place. Geek culture and fascist/reactionary views might seem correlated, but they're both just part of a path of least resistance for a certain type of person.

I'd say it depends on the environment. TTRPG tends to attract analytical types and when there's actual roleplay, is effectively an exercise in taking on the perspective of others. As well, classical RPG fare tends to come down hard on people who act in an oppressive way.

There are many video games that are exercises in empathy (That software company), looking at the bigger picture, and sorting through noise to figure out what's going on (Torment, Disco Elysium). Additionally, mega corporations are so vilified as to be useable as comedy (Portal). Additionally, there are games which paint the government as morally gray (Control, and yes I know but still).

Then, of course, there's Fallout.

Games like this are useful because they are narrative simulations; they let you try out different ideas by playing them out. As long as there is some critical thinking and/or media literacy skills present, engaging with these will challenge right wing thinking on different levels.

That was me. Went from angry reactionary gamer guy to angry communist trans woman.

If you play Fursan Al-Aqsa, then turn to leftism, I think it's possible. Unfortunately, most gamers are pissed at much dumber things such as complaining about in-game females not being naked enough.

If given everything happening around us you get angry over video games, probably there's no direct path to the left.

But "angry about genocide / abject poverty / failing social services / so on and forth" pipeline to the left exists and that's the important one.

Angry or not, is geek/nerd/gamer really even a coherent grouping of people?

With that said, I think that some, perhaps many, BreadTubers originally thought their project was to pull these people away from the alt-right pipeline and toward “the left.” But BreadTube was/is largely anti-communist; it’s mostly radlibs, socdems, and anarchists. On lemmy.ml, the admins ended up booting the anticommunist c/breadtube mods and making me mod.

One thing to consider is that the far right actively recruits in gamer circles. They are very good at slowly exposing angry guys to more and more extreme views. There is very little comparable on the left.

I'm not sure about the angry part (I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be angry about in this context), but I'm a lifelong gamer, and I'm here. The circles I inhabit tend to be fairly progressive, usually pretty liberal, but occasionally actually leftist. I don't usually feel unsafe hoisting the red flag in my groups, so perhaps I am part of a pipeline to the left.

I don't do twitch or youtubers, so I haven't really noticed much of a pipeline to the right. But I do occasionally see nonsense about random games being "woke" for insane reasons, so I am vaguely aware of their existence. It's just not a crowd I associate with.

I don't know. I can tell you, seeing what the game industry did to video games certainly helped me adopt an anti-capitalist lens. It was influences significantly beyond that though, that got me all the way to communism.

I mean, the game industry killed most of my passion for video games in a death by a thousand cuts. But that didn't on its own get me in front of people who were talking anti-imperialism, talking Lenin, George Jackson, Michael Parenti.

I mean, nerds usually learn history, so therefore if they do learn actual history then yes.

Well, I'd rather ask why gamers have that far right pipeline

To know why gamers are led to the far right, it's probably cuz the most vocal of them are in places where the wealth has flowed to (hint: unequal exchange), thus having more money to invest in not only Internet but gaming consoles and devices

This includes North America, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea... (Tis no wonder gaming blew up in 1990s, after the Cold war)

Liberalism and fascism, the ideological defenses of capitalism, weren't needed much anymore

And thus their conditions for such growth in gaming are set...

Anything that disturbs the status quo of those ideologies, could be viewed as an attack on all, including gamers...

That's my half brained explanation...

(Ask me for anything else)

I'm also an angry gamer but I'm Black, so that probably helped

If it doesn't, let's build it.