”I think the future of gaming is having different voices, colors, shapes, and bodies as much as possible,” Says Anya Combs. “I think we as a nation, especially in the US, are changing pretty drastically, so it would make sense that games, art, and entertainment would follow suit with that.”
“When we’re talking about inclusion when it comes to games themselves and the representation that we see within characters, there are two things we started to see. We started to see that the representation that we’ve seen in video games have become multilayered, and they’re not as stereotypical,” Erin Simon explains.
For example, if you look at the first Street Fighter, those characters, especially ones who are people of color, they’re very stereotypical and borderline racist. The companies behind these games are starting to understand that can’t be the representation that you see. They started to make some of these characters that people found problematic more complex. They gave them have layers of different personalities especially within the storyline. We’re starting to see that.
Customization of characters has been another big one. Allowing people to pick the skins and giving people options to pick if they want to play as a male or a female. Within the options of playing as a male or a female, they’re able to pick the skin color that they would like, the hair, and have that option to mold and build a character that they feel could look like them. Of course, there are some bumps along the road with that.
“As we know, African Americans are very underrepresented in the game industry- especially from an ownership perspective. The last statistics that came out and only 3% of developers are African American. The issue with that is without that representation, we’re not able to move the industry forward,” Says Ahmed Abdullah.
“We’ve seen this in other industries, as well. You go back in history, and every time we’re able to open up who actually gets into that industry, we get different games. We get different types of content.”
That’s happened in sports, where African Americans excelled very well. It’s also now happening in the entertainment industry. You’re now seeing the movie industry starting to take in people of color for more of a directing role. Now you’re seeing different, unique content. It only helps everybody.
It’s very important for African Americans to really take in this industry because there’s so much more to grow here. It’s going to happen, and it starts with you. It starts with all the people that are young to go ahead and make sure this next generation can really dive into this industry.
