Written by TY
I have always looked at people based on their values and what good/bad energy they spread around them. With February approaching, which I learned recently was a celebration of the Black culture and achievements, I did a bit more research about this in the gaming industry.
The gaming industry has come a long way since it started, but there is still a lack of representation for black people. Not only is this problematic, but for the industry itself, as a lack of diversity in the gaming industry can lead to a lack of representation in the games created which can display false and harmful stereotypes and limit innovation and creativity. This was discussed thoroughly in a series of game dev meetings that I attended at UBC in 2022.
After the unfortunate event of the 25th of May in 2020, when George Floyd was killed during an unjust arrest, which wasn’t the first incident of that sort, but was the first to make people speak up, people spoke up very loudly. The protests in the US sparked gaming companies like EA, Epic games, and many others, after which they donated to relevant advocacy organizations condemning racism across social media. However, despite their good intentions, the most significant impact they could’ve had is to fix the existing racial bias within games and among people who develop the games.
Generally, hard to have an equal workforce percentage in the gaming industry for each race as black people, for example, represent 12.1% of the United States population, and only 2% of the workforce in the gaming industry is black. This lack in the industry might also be the leading reason why 10.7% of the main characters in video games are black, and most of those characters are portrayed as athletes, gang members, or in the best-case scenarios (in my opinion) vigilantes. On a positive note, we see diversity implemented in workplaces and schools more often than ever. And, while the gaming industry still has a long way to go before fixing the racial bias in their workplaces and products, the direction is somewhat promising. I know that I’m stating the obvious, but skills were never relevant to a person’s colour.