A diverse workforce is critical to serving an increasingly diverse and global community of gamers. To showcase how Entertainment Software Association members are investing in the movement toward greater equality and inclusion in the games industry, ESA hosted the second annual Diversity in Gaming Lunch at this year’s GamesBeat Summit 2024.
Today, nearly half of all gamers in the U.S. are female, but no two demographics are the same. “There are no games for girls or for boys,” says Aubrey Quinn, senior vice president of communications and public affairs at ESA. The challenge is to develop games that appeal to a diverse community of gamers, she says.
“When we think about creating content, when we think about creating a character or an agent for Valorant or any of our other games, we think about the global audience that we serve,” said Farah Sutton, director of diversity and inclusion at Riot Games. “The first thing we think about is authenticity. How do we create content that resonates with players, not just because of the gameplay, but also because of aspects of their identity? And in doing that, we’re really careful to make sure we’re speaking to the exact audience that we’re serving.”
In games like NBA2K and Top Spin, Take-Two wants to create characters that reflect the real world, says Chanel Ward, the company’s director of global, diversity, equity and inclusion. And to do that, given the content they create and the communities they represent, they need to build solid relationships with that community in an emotionally intelligent way.
“We need to grasp the nature of their intersectional identity, their essence, who they are, their cultural context,” Ward explained. “We need to humble ourselves very often and say: what don’t we know? We need to make sure we’re in a practice where we’re really listening, learning and building trusting relationships. That’s basically just a simple way of saying we’re responsible for our behavior. We’re responsible for not co-opting, but just going, taking and saying thank you.”
And that goes for the developer side, too, says Laura Teclemariam, senior director of product management at LinkedIn. She previously worked at EA in research and development and was the only woman on the team working on the Star Wars Galaxy of Heroes title – and she took a big step when she proposed a group of all-female characters to the male developers and designers in the room.
“I consider them allies now. They didn’t know they were allies back then, but just hearing my voice in the room, allowing me to care about gender diversity and making sure the game was representative was a step forward in building a team that received great reviews,” she said. “It’s just one example of how a diverse team can not only help the game develop and make it more universal for more players, but also enable inclusion so that everyone on the team feels welcome and a sense of belonging.”
Build teams that reflect the real world
Developers in decision-making roles have the opportunity – and responsibility – to look around the room and consider who might be missing from the room and the conversations, Quinn added.
“The diverse gaming community deserves diverse developers,” she said. “Are we intentionally finding and building teams that look different, that have different life experiences, different ages, genders, sexual orientations, races, military experience, whatever that means? If you’re building a game, you better make sure you have that person in the room.”
This sometimes means bringing in consultants who can provide important, often overlooked perspectives.
“When we think about diversity, it’s so easy for us to think about all these checkboxes, race and gender and gender expression and belief, disability,” Ward said. “But what about the aggregation of all these things, and what role does intersectionality play in how this new content merges with our world and our knowledge? These pieces are so crucial that it would be difficult to do it alone.”
The trend towards competency-based hiring rather than experience-based hiring is an important part of the DE&I discussion for the gaming industry, Teclemariam added, because it gives opportunities to candidates from a wide variety of backgrounds and regardless of their skills.
“I think we need to refocus on teaching the skills and the craft,” she said. “By developing programs like this, we can bring more people into the industry, especially as it continues to grow globally.”
Actionable steps for change
So how should developers proceed? Panelists suggested some steps that game industry professionals can take now to create change. One important step, Sutton said, is simply recognizing what you don’t know.
“It’s a tricky thing, but it’s also an empowering thing,” Sutton said. “To be able to say we’ve kind of reached our limits with this, and to do that in an authentic way, we need to ask for help, whether it’s through an SME, a consultant, or someone else in the company. My instruction to people is to ask for help when you need it. Seek that help from people who have the experience we’ve talked about, who have the skills and the background. Because without that, we’re just not going to be able to do authentic work that serves the players.”
In her work forming employee resource groups at various large gaming companies, Teclemariam came up with a top five list. The first is that it starts from the top—getting leadership to align with the vision. The second is training both managers and employees to create safe spaces, speak up, and advocate for themselves and others. The third, performance, is taking ownership across the ecosystem for achieving your culture goals. The fourth is retention—bringing those diverse voices into the conversation and making them feel safe and valued enough to actually stay and make your vision a reality. And last but not least, once you’ve taken those first four steps, celebrate.
“Too often we celebrate the game, but we forget to celebrate the journey of building a diverse team, selling our games to diverse audiences, and creating diverse stories that have never been seen before,” she said. “These aspects of storytelling are such great moments that move our industry forward.”
Ward stressed that the industry is still relatively new and therefore has a lot of opportunity to engage more deeply with its culture and understand what makes games important to people of all demographics, generations and life experiences. This requires cultural competency.
“We need to be able to understand and acknowledge the diversity in the room, visible and invisible,” Ward explains. “And beyond that, we need to develop the social skills to be confident in conversations about identity and diversity. How can we give people a space to make mistakes and give them the grace to say, ‘It’s OK, I know that wasn’t your intention.’ And we’re here to figure that out together.”
“It’s so easy to get frustrated when you see where we are right now, if you don’t zoom out and look at the whole arc and say, wow, we’ve come a long way,” Quinn added. “It’s not always pretty. We haven’t been perfect. But there is progress.” And as Teclememariam reminds us, that deserves to be celebrated.
