Black Workers Find Little Opportunity in Growing Video Game Industry

The racial justice movement sparked last year by the police killing of George Floyd exposed the dearth of Black professionals in numerous industries. Black in Gaming, a networking and advocacy group in the world of video gaming, proposed to do something about it.

The group, citing surveys that just 2% of professionals in the video game industry are Black compared with 13% of the U.S. population, launched the Big Five in Five campaign with its supporters to boost Black employment to 5% in the next five years. But the challenge for change surpasses simple math.

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The inequality in the video game business mirrors the overwhelmingly White, male, corporate culture found across Silicon Valley. Black workers are in single-digits at the biggest technology companies, particularly in leadership roles. It’s a similar story in venture capital. The Kapor Center for Social Impact reported in 2019 that just 1% of the estimated 10,000 tech startups receiving $137 billion in funding were led by a Black founder. Since 2015, Black and Latinx founders have raised about $15 billion, representing just 2.4% of the total capital raised during that time.

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Gordon Bellamy, a veteran video game executive recognized for his advocacy on behalf of marginalized groups in the industry and now a professor at the University of Southern California, said Black professionals must be hired in major areas that generate value for the game companies if significant change is to occur: design, monetization, conversation and customization.

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Electronic Arts Inc., the world’s biggest maker of interactive games, recently released its first diversity report, which showed Black 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.

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Chelsea Blasko, the co-CEO of Iron Galaxy Studios, has made inclusive hiring a focus at her Chicago-based company. Black employees make up 5% of the game developer’s 170 workers while 17% are women or non-male identified; the national average is 24%. Blasko said internships programs have helped to build a hiring pipeline for potential employees.

Creating diversity that lasts is dependent on Blasko’s kind of senior leadership commitment, said Nika Nour, the executive director of the IGDA Foundation. “It doesn’t mean a budget line, or a talking point or a checked box. You can’t say you did this training. It’s an intrinsic value you must practice day in, day out,” Nour said.

Investments in education and financial support for Black game creators are essential components of making the industry more diverse, said Stanley Pierre-Louis, president and CEO of the Entertainment Software Association, the advocacy organization for the $43 billion U.S. video game industry. {snip}

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