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It was long time coming, but Insomnia Gaming Festival finally made its return to the Birmingham NEC last week. A lot has changed since the previous event took place in summer 2019.
We’ve seen international movements like Black Lives Matter and Me Too in gaming and beyond, raising awareness of the inequality that exists in society. In respect of this, i68 held a couple of panels to discuss diversity and its current state in the wider gaming industry. Jack ‘Jackelbat’ Freeman reports.
The importance of being seen and the impact of unconscious bias, with Melanin Gamers
This panel was held on Friday (April 15th 2022) by London-based organisation Melanin Gamers, a community that promotes inclusion and diversity in the video games industry. They focus on providing a safe space for people of colour to come together and connect through video games, such as tournaments, panels, streams, and their podcast called MG Podcast.
Annabel ‘Anzy’ Ashalley-Anthony, Koye John-Charles and Alan Ashalley-Anthony spoke about the types of biases and what it means to be exposed to a single narrative portrayed in the media. They pointed out that bias consists of a pre-existing prejudice which exists in many forms, and while they’re somewhat similar to stereotypes, biases are unique in the sense that they’re preconceptions within a person instead of society.
Using representation, they demonstrated how unconscious bias is formed and how it can negatively affect people, especially for people of colour. They also delved into the portrayal of female characters in video games.
Koye said: “I’m of the mind that video games [are more immersive than] movies and TV series. So we have to be extra vigilant when it comes to video games about reinforcing certain stereotypes and […] elevating certain biases that we may hold.”
Moreover, they showed how commonly overseen features, such as character creation, can also have an impact. It’s common in RPG-style games to define the look of the character which you’ll play throughout the game. However, they said that they see features like this lacking representation for people of colour.
In the Q&A, a point was raised about the potential for cultural appropriation when bringing in these cultural/racial characteristics in character creation tools. Alan said that while context heavily matters, it’s more important to understand where it comes from and the history behind it.
Together they aimed to illustrate that these concepts can not only be challenged, but also redefined in the gaming industry, using Apex Legends’ diverse gallery characters as an example and Koye stating how we can learn about each other’s cultures through gaming.
The panel also spoke about how the industry and consumers can combat unconscious bias.
Alan said: “We understand that combatting unconscious bias is an ongoing battle. There is no workshop, there is no [singular] cure for it.”
Anzy added: “It’s difficult because you have to try and see people holistically and not as one dimensional, for example where one person [can only be] a bad person.”
Driving diversity and inclusion in influencer marketing
Representatives from gaming companies with influencer programs were present for this panel, such as (from left to right) Zara Waqar, senior global influencer marketing manager at 2K, David Robson, global influencer manager at Deep Silver, streamer/presenter Bex Donald (aka bexbomb) and Cassie Hughes, director of Nox Lumina co-founder of Black Twitch UK).
The first point was what companies could do to promote diversity in the gaming industry. There was a strong call for them to push for diversity, highlighting that it shouldn’t be solely the role of a creator to cultivate an inclusive community, and for developers to let the community know which positive decisions are being made by them.
Zara stressed: “We got some steps forwards like having the ‘W’ in WNBA (Women’s National Basketball Association) represented in the game, but you know that’s still not enough. We need to do more and we are fully aware of that and we’re working on it.”
Cassie was promoting Black Twitch UK at the recent BAFTA Games Awards, and spoke about feeling represented in games such as Deathloop which has a playable black female main character, and how special it was to cosplay for the first time, as a character that looked like them.
Cassie added: “In an ideal world we wouldn’t need to have these groups […] but at least for the interim, or however long that interim period needs to be, it’s good that we’ve got some representation out there and people are forming their own communities.”
Additionally, there was a call for more mentorship in the industry, specifically when treating content creation as a business.
There was also a big emphasis on improving career pathways in gaming starting from education in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Maths (STEAM) subjects as early as possible.
Finally, they discussed the hotly contested topic of unpaid internships, which they called for an end to. Davey reasoned that these types of internships required a certain level of financial stability to live and work without a source of income, and therefore they only attract a certain type of people.
Zara commented: “It’s a barrier to entry in terms of internships and unpaid stuff. Some people can’t afford to do that and that means that we lop off a whole load of diverse people and creatives from getting into the industry.”
While it’s clear there’s much for the community and industry to work on, it was promising to see such a good turnout for these panels and willingness from the community to listen and learn. It may take time, but progress can be made – for us now and for generations to come.
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