The stories Allen could tell probably wouldn't surprise Dr. "I don't feel safe diving in too specifically for fear of reprisal from these abusers, should they stumble on this article, because the abuses are very specific instances from very specific people." "I have been the victim of disparaging remarks about my racial heritage, I've had to check numerous people for overuse of racial slurs even in context of them being relevant toward cutscenes in games, and I have heard of terrible interactions between higher-ups and other people where there was clearly race-driven lack of respect," he said. Last year at E3, for example, someone asked him, "What are you?"
He said he'd never experienced "outright harassment," but he described scenes from his time in the industry that contained elements of harassment, or at least subtle forms of racism. Nuchallenger's About section includes the following line: "The goal is to eventually build into a company that can help train, employ and empower those who do not have voices in the games industry."Īllen is biracial, black and white. He now owns his own studio, Nuchallenger, where he writes and designs. I mention prominent because while many other cultural forms like music, movies and writing have a dearth of black voices, they at least have people who are out there making their culture better at all levels and are very visible."Īllen handled publishing aspects, marketing and minor game development duties at Rockstar Games from 2007 to 2012. "We don't see many prominent black or Latino (or really any other minority populace) representation in protagonists, critics, marketing or creators. "The games industry is hurting badly as a creative medium in terms of diverse voices," Treachery in Beatdown City developer Shawn Alexander Allen told me. Compared to the numbers for women developers – 11.5 percent in 2005 and 22 percent in 2014 – this growth is particularly insubstantial. In nine years, the number of black developers in the gaming industry rose by just. From a diversity standpoint, these numbers are better than the 2005 results, which found 83 percent of respondents identified as white and 2 percent identified as black. The IGDA found that 79 percent of respondents identified as white, while 2.5 percent identified as black. The IGDA offers one of the most relevant summaries of race and ethnicity in gaming with the IGDA Developer Satisfaction Survey 2014, which collected responses from 2,202 developers worldwide between March 17 and April 28. There is less conversation about the racial diversity – or homogeny – of game developers. Most reputable diversity studies hinge on the breakdown of men and women in gaming, a hot issue in the current conversation – and a relevant one, considering the ESA estimates that women compose 48 percent of the consumer gaming market.
CASUAL GAMES 2015 SOFTWARE
The Entertainment Software Association doesn't address race in its Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry report, though it offers a fellowship program designed to encourage minority students to get involved in gaming. Information about race in the gaming industry is hard to come by. One thing that Planet Money found notable about computer ads in the 1980s was that they featured "just men, all men." Another aspect the ads shared was that they overwhelmingly starred a specific type of man: white.
Pop culture followed suit, depicting men as computer geeks in movies, books and journalism. Computers were more readily available at stores that catered to men and advertisements pushed the narrative that these new-fangled home devices were made for men. NPR's Planet Money reported last year on a culture shift in 1984 that drove many women away from pursuing computer science degrees.
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