Just in case you thought I had a bee in my bonnet at times (bonnet?! imagine), IGDA have just released the results of their game developer demographics survey. Guess who, then? Mm. According to Gamepolitics, "straight, college-educated, white men".
- Male = 88.5%, Female = 11.5%
- White = 83.3%, Black = 2.0%, Hispanic/Latino = 2.5%, Asian = 7.5%, Other = 4.7%
- Heterosexual = 92%, Lesbian/Gay = 2.7%, Bisexual = 2.7%
- Average age = 31 years
Not a hetero-white-bloke? Don't want things to look like this in the future? If you too have a sneaking feeling that the people who make the games also affect what ends up on the shelves (hmm, SuperBikeTastic 11 or HotRodRacer 8, which shall I get?), well... join up, sign up, homebrew, doorstep, write - do whatever it takes, but get in to this industry. It needs you.
UPDATE: The Escapist also has comment this week:
"The fact is, despite these few examples of influence, games are far whiter than any other American media."
Sure, that's what all that's evil about the industry comes from... let's all hire all the one-legged Muslim Afro lesbians and the shelves will start overflowing with original, multibioecodiverse, organic titles!
Posted by: white hetero bloke | October 19, 2005 at 11:47
You'll note from The Escapist article that the average black-american teen plays more games than their white bretheren...
Now surely if games are horribly white-ified and badly targetted that stat would be the other way round?
"If you too have a sneaking feeling that the people who make the games also affect what ends up on the shelves" - Hmm.. if only..
Posted by: Shard | October 19, 2005 at 12:23
"The fact is, despite these few examples of influence, games are far whiter than any other American media."
Hmmm... I'm sure the largest PS2 game of last year might knock those figures askew somewhat? The latest GTA encarnation, and with games like 'Warriors' due out shortly they'll get another nudge...
Posted by: WandringSoul | October 19, 2005 at 14:55
This is a bit of a bizarre post I must say - so does this mean you think creativity is based on the concept of skin colour or if you are hetero or not? So how would game design differ if the stats were skewed the other way? 50 cent doing his own shooter (just an example) ends up like just any other generic "white" shooter title so what do you think the evening out of the stats would produce? If the answer is better and more different games then I'd like to know why you think that would be the case?
Posted by: yeahitsme | October 19, 2005 at 17:44
Hard to predict, so I won't, but I can't believe that a homogenous development base is likely to produce works appealing to all types of culture, no.
It's just a matter of experience - if everyone has the same experience, output may well become repetitive.
Posted by: Alice | October 19, 2005 at 17:50
Output is already very repetitive. And the market doesn't seem to encourage original design. Aimed as it is at teen boyz.
Besides, where are the schemes to encourage *anyone* to join the games industry, let alone non-white-het-blokes etc.?
Posted by: almost witty | October 20, 2005 at 13:28