DEI and Gaming: Change from the Inside Out
05.11.2021
By Natalie Hords, Hassan Khan and Kat Tischler, InVision Communications
DEI and Gaming: Change from the Inside Out
As gamers continue to diversify, game developers remain culturally monolithic. This disconnect is being felt now more than ever, as many verticals push to reform in the face of current injustices. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) in video games is underrepresented and/or poorly represented and the call for change can no longer be ignored.
InVision is helping our gaming clients explore how they are addressing DEI, what their potential growth areas are, and how we can be instrumental in helping drive change.
When It Comes to Gamers
46% of them identify as female, and that number continues to increase year-over-year. However, many women feel they are not taken seriously as gamers and some go as far as disguising their identity in order to be viewed as an equal. They are not “Gamer Girls”, they are gamers and want to be seen, with street cred like their male counterparts. This is also exemplified by gaming advertisements that typically ignore women, with their main focus on men. On top of that, female characters in games are often hypersexualized and do not offer a realistic depiction of women in the real world.
This gender inequality was emphasized further in a recent study conducted by the Associated Press. Male gamers compromised 90% of the roster on university eSports teams, and received 88% of scholarships. The University of South Carolina-Sumter was the only school in their sample to have a 50-50 ratio.
By 2030, Black, Indigenous and People of Color (BIPOC) gamers (ages 6 to 29) will represent 57% of the gaming audience (link). 83% of African American teens already play video games, which surpasses the 71% of white teens who play (link). A Northwestern University study found, on average, black students play video games 30 minutes more per day than white students. Proof is in the data; the gaming population is becoming more diverse with time.
Twenty percent of video gamers are disabled, and research shows they desire to see more video game characters like themselves, and for those characters to be portrayed realistically. Sometimes representation is left at the surface level. Within Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you can run into Nook’s Cranny and purchase yourself a wheelchair. The extent of play is limited to customizing your seat and sitting. You’re unable to actually use it, as it is essentially a piece of decor in the game.
10% of gamers over the age of 18 identify as LGBTQ (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning). They tend to spend 8% more on video games than heterosexual players, yet only 0.015% of games incorporate LGBTQ characters. That’s 179 out of 1,181,019 video games. Out of the 179 games, less than half of the LGBTQ characters are actually playable and many of them are hard to cross paths with naturally in-game play. To give more perspective, it took over 60 years for a gay person of color to show up as a major character in a mainstream release.
Developing the Future
We dug further to get to the root of this imbalance and concluded that there is an undeniable lack of internal DEI within gaming companies, specifically video game developers. Currently, game developers are 81% White/Caucasian/European, 7% Hispanic and 2% African American and about 71% of them identify as male (link).
As the gaming population continues to grow and diversify, the responsibility is on the gaming industry to advocate for better representation within their own companies. This will help break painful stigmas portrayed in video games and build more inclusive stories and diverse characters. After all, storytelling can greatly improve when voices from groups you are trying to represent are included in the development process.
The Shifting Paradigm
We’re seeing some brands taking strides toward prioritizing DEI in their games. They’re doing it through:
Realistic Representation
2018’s Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Designers are using animation technology to make women characters more representative and realistic with hair and makeup that add to the game’s plot rather than distract from it.
Inclusive Character Modification Options
Sims 4: In 2018, designers updated the game with a wider variety of deeper skin tones, heightening the diversity in the game as players could create avatars that look more like themselves.
Diverse Perspectives in Storylines
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales 2020: Follows the story of a diverse superhero who comes from an interracial family living in New York. We see a variety of ages in characters, as well as different traditions and pride in what makes them unique.
Transparency and Taking Initiative
Electronic Arts, the world’s biggest maker of interactive games, recently released its first diversity report, which showed African American workers accounted for 3.2% of its roughly 10,000 employees in 2020. The company has adopted outreach programs that include internships and mentoring from employees, including top managers.
Let’s Talk
We’ve learned firsthand from conversations with our clients and from our own analysis that if change doesn’t start from within, then there’s no true and authentic way for you to stand by the principles of DEI.
Addressing DEI starts with an honest conversation. To explore ways to Make Change, Not Noise, within your own company say hello at info@iv.com.