Thread by @enibolas

It's already Day 4/10 of my anti-racist #gamestudies thread series.

This is to highlight research for game devs who are interested in what's going in race, social justice & games research.

I discuss texts in random order, using my words. Feel free to share & discuss ideas 🌈🙏

Today, I'm introducing the text "Racial Diversity in Indie Games: Patterns, Challenges, and Opportunities" by @CalePassmore, Max Birk, Rowan Yates & Regan Mandryk. It gives a statistical foundation which proves our idea wrong that “indie games are more diverse” than AAA.

The authors start by looking at data from other media industries. There’s better diversity in streaming than in traditional broadcasting corporations w/ more PoC on screen & holding market shares. Is this also true for games?

Do indie studios do better at putting PoC on screen?

The authors make it short: Nope.

That's based on an analysis of characters in 80 indie games released by independent studios (2012-2015). In these games, main characters are 52% White, 5.5% Asian, 4.1% African-American, 1.4% Native/Indigenous, 0% Hispanic.

That's strange compared numbers of actual players in the US:

A lower percentage of White Americans (48%) play than Hispanic (51%) or Black Americans (53%). If we look to the upcoming generation of gamers, there’s even a tendency that PoC will be overtaking White players.

And yet, diversity in indie games is declining rather than increasing. Why? The authors name 2 factors: 1) the diversity breakdown of the industry itself 2) false assumptions about what gamers of colour actually want.

1) There’s the *creating what you know* effect. This means that a lack of in-game diversity matches the lack of PoC employed in game studios. In 2005, 83.3% of game devs are White, 7.5% Asian, 2.5% Hispanic, 2% are Black. This number matches in-game representation of the time

2) Still, devs and players are both in favour of greater diversity. But there are assumptions about what PoC actually want, e.g. military FPS and sports games. We don’t know whether these games are ‘more diverse’ because of player preference or because that’s what the market does

What we know from data on cinema and TV is that “racialised representations that mirror America’s actual diversity show benefits in both market and experiential outcomes - without detriment to an existing audience”. There’s 0 signs that the market is harmed by increased diversity

But when it comes to gaming, there is a long way to go. Based on the study results, “The diversity in Indie games is overall very similar to the racial diversity in AAA games”. So what to do next? The authors name 3 challenges...

1) we need to develop tech solutions that represent PoC body features accurately (e.g. Afro hair)
2) we need to offer customisation beyond skin color to make characters more nuanced
3) we need better methods to understand actual player preferences.

I find this study important because it makes clear that our hopes in indie games as solution to diversity might be misplaced. It leaves me with a question:

Why do we expect Indies to solve problems w representation? and are technical solutions enough to achieve inclusion?

As always, these tweets are just a teaser, I warmly recommend reading the whole text which you can find here: 🌈👇♥️
hci.usask.ca/uploads/516-p1…