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Drawing Minorities Into Gaming
UnseenOperation writes "CNN has up entitled an article Drawing Minorities Into Gaming, which discusses the lack of minority heroes in games as well as the lack of minorities in game development. The article states that black and hispanic youths spend more time playing videogames than whites but members of those groups make up less than 7 percent of the industry workforce." From the article: "Roughly 80 percent of video game programmers are white, according to preliminary results of an International Game Developers Association survey. About four percent of designers are Hispanic, and less than three percent are black...A March study by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that black youths between 8 and 18 years old played video and computer games roughly 90 minutes a day -- almost 30 minutes more than white youths. And Hispanics play about 10 minutes more per day than whites."
From TFA:
But in GTA: Vice City, Tommy Vercetti is Italian, and that's OK? As the fiancee of an American of Italian descent, I find that offensive!
Waitaminit....in RTCW, the Nazis were German! As an American of German descent, I find that offensive!
Hold on...in IGN's NCAA Football, they have the Notre Dame Fighting Irish??? As an American of Irish descent, I find that offensive!
(I could keep going, but I trust you all see the absurdity at this point...at least I hope you do...)
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~ |rip/\/\aster /\/\onkey
No one complained that the hero of the first *4* GTAs were white american males, but suddently a black man appears and OH MY GOD RACIAL STEROTYPING RACISM HAVE YOU NO SHAME?
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
More affirmative action crap. Why not just let people do what they want? Why does it matter if a game is developed by a black, white, man, woman, child etc?
Why don't we have more white people in basket ball?
how about Blacks in hockey?
Do what you're good at and what you like.
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Besides, if more minorities are playing games than whites, wouldn't it be reasonable to say that the programmers, although white, appear to be making games that appeal more to minority interests than white kids? How would hiring more minority programmers alter this?
80% of game developers may be white but what is a rough breakdown of ethnicity percentages of US citizens? I really have no idea but as a rough guess, the ratio seems fine by me.
...4 percent hispanic, less than 3 percent black.
but what I really want to know is...
Where da asians at?
Hey, it's my OPINION that dogs have eight legs and make a sound like a car horn every time they take a piss.
I wonder how the ratio of minority programmers in video games compres to the ratio of minority programmers in non-video game jobs. In my class of 40-50 CS/CE students, I know of two blacks and no hispanics. Maybe the problem isn't with the video game industry, but with the entire programming field itself.
The laws of probability forbid it!
Why is it always about stressing the diferences in skin color? or sex of religion or anything else?
No offense intended, but, man, let it be...
Let the ones who want to play play... and the ones who don't, don't... Why is that bad?
Look, if you like games and can afford them, play them. If you don't, don't. Whatever.
I'm tired of hearing every other day about how transvestite inuite natives transplanted to the lower SE of California, born on Tuesdays are brutally neglected from videogaming.
I'm a white male in my late 20s and I grew up during the biggest days of gaming and MTV and didn't indulge in either of those things until I was an adult. Guess what? I was okay. My life wasn't destroyed because I couldn't play Megaman on the NES.
As for the characters in games - who cares? As long as they just feel appropriate, it's fine with me. I didn't play GTA:SA and think "oh this sucks, the main character is a black man. There is no possible way I can identify with him and enjoy playing this game!".
I'm beginning to think that the real "racism" is harbored by those who implicate the industry in some sort of "unintentional racism".
As evidenced by the overwhelming number of Ashkenazi Jewish developers and Ashkenzi Jewish game characters in the industry.
Elementary, my dear Watson!
I am sure that an arbitrary number derived from a pointless test is the best indicator for how well someone can function in the game industry.
This is not a videogame-specific problem. This has been a problem in nearly every form of media ever conceived: plays, novels, film, comics, and now video games. The biggest issue is the lack of role models. In general, for the last few centuries, whites have had access to technology, ideas and resources that few other ethnic groups have. It should be no surprise that they still make up a large percentage of the workforce in industries that are driven by technology. It is self-perpetuating; all of my role models and idols are white guys in the game industry (with a couple of old japanese guys too). Say you are an underprivileged latino or black youth; where are your visible role models? AMD? nVidia? Konami? or MTV?
Where are your role models in gaming if you are a woman?
It seems a bit chicken-and-egg, doesn't it.
"If you've got kids who can sit in front of a game for eight hours, then they have the cognitive thought process to learn how to build the game,"
That just about sums up the entire article...
Ummmm no... I've seen some of these kids, trust me they can't do much more than sit in front of a TV for 8 hours.
1) More minorities play games than whites.
2) Most game programmers are white.
Then they go on to say that these facts mean we must have more minority developers. Why? What does it accomplish? So that there are more minorities who will play games? They're already playing more. Someone tell me why! Just let people decide what they want to do rather than starting a new campaign or some other such nonsense.
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
Those game development jobs will have fully escaped U.S. borders
Creating games isn't like coding a database or writing back-end bank account managing software; there are many cultural aspects involved that will prevent the "escape" of these jobs outside of US borders. I don't ever see an Indian company (or any other tech-export country) creating a game that is able to strike American gamers' emotional chords as well as a US or Japanese publisher. Japan has retained their quality game development companies, as had the US, and I don't see those jobs going anywhere soon.
In spite of that, I do agree with your first statement that ethnic distribution doesn't matter. Any efforts to change the "ethnic distribution" would come off just as every other attempt in other industries has: shallow, insensitive, disruptive, and ultimately ineffective.
What I don't understand is what the number of hours a particular ethnicity plays videogames per week has to do with what percentage of that ethnicity there should be in gaming.
The fact is that almost 81.7% of the country is caucasian. So obviously there will statistically be far more caucasians in any one area than there are of any other group.
So I guess someone needs to figure out how we're going to start relating population to employment in each industry. And what is going to happen when we run out of minorities to balance out the numbers? I mean, if they think we need to have exactly 50% white and 50% black and hispanic, we're going to end up with a massive population of unemployed white people and WAY TOO FEW minorities to fill that other 50%. I mean, if only 12% of the population is of a particular ethnicity, there's no way that 12% can fill 50% of the positions... So... we need some sort of an agreed formula.
And if there aren't enough people of a certain color who are interested in a certain field, the government should force them to pick up a certain career. And if you don't accept it, you should be put in prison until you change your mind.
So every profession must maintain the exact equal representation that exists in the overall population according to the US Census?
Not by mandate, but theoretically that's the way it should be. Unless you're going to make some lame-brained argument about how some races are "predisposed" to certain professions - i.e. whites make good game developers, blacks make good basketball players. That's the only way you can counter-argue the point. (Next you'll start getting into issues of "natural bouyancy.") I don't think you're going there, are you?
Assuming an employer is an equal opportunity employer (as all large corporations are), then any reasonably large industry (with a large enough sample size) should have a fairly representative workforce.
If it doesn't, that doesn't necessarily mean it's the industry's fault. But if you start from an assumption that all races are equal, and you then realize that non-whites play games more than whites (in other words, there is an obvious interest in games), then the fact that whites seem to get a disproportionate share of game development jobs indicates a problem somewhere. Maybe it's the educational system. Maybe it's the latent class system. Maybe it's differing regional cultures (though plenty of blacks and hispanics live in southern California, where most game developers are). Maybe it's George Bush or Hillary Clinton or whoever else. But the fact of the matter is, if you start from that assumption - that all races are equal - then there must be something - some link in the chain somewhere - holding these ethnic groups back from getting these jobs.
It's a problem that's obviously not unique to the game industry, and it's not necessarily the industry's responsibility to fix it either. But in a perfect world, yes, the racial makeup of large industries would reflect the real world. We do not live in a perfect world, so it doesn't always happen. But that doesn't mean you don't set that as a goal and strive for it, as a society.
I hope you were being sarcastic, i really do. The axis were Nazis, there weren't too keen on black people.
"Roughly 80 percent of video game programmers are white"
Wow I had no idea all the hundreds of Japanese games I play all the time were created by mostly WHITE MALES!? Where the hell did they get that number?Creative Demolition
Doesn't show that there's nothing wrong w/ the system? If 80% of the programmers are white, and blacks are playing the games longer than whites as it is, what's the problem?? I think it just shows that the current way things are, people from all ethnicities enjoy the games almost equally! If anything needs to change, we need different cultures in the programming and planning aspects of the games.
Posting with out proof reading since 2001.
It's not that they are genetically "predisposed," it's that they are culturally acclimatized. Doesn't really make any damn difference. If you're a black kid growing up in a black neighborhood, everyone around you plays basketball. So you do to. And that's not as true (or nearly as much a focus) in white neighborhoods.
So it would be pretty goddamn stupid to expect the NBA to employ 80% whites and 13% blacks. And it's just as stupid to expect similar ratios in the video game industry, when whites and Asians are raised to be so much more comfortable with computers and technology.
You want to change it, head down to your nearest black neighborhood and start up a computer programming class (and start up a basketball camp in your nearest white neighborhood while you're at it). Otherwise, stop crying.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Dr. James Naismith (inventor of basketball) was once asked by one of his physiology students at Kansas U. about what he thought about Jesse Owens and how he won a Gold Medal at the 1936 Olympics.
;)
He said "Look at the the previous two winners. [I beleive Eddie Tolan, the previous winner, was also black, but I could be wrong] It can't be the physique. It must be in the mind. You have people who've been put down, so they have more incentive, because they don't want to be discriminated against."
Another white student asked "So when will we catch up?" Doc replied, "The day everyone is treated equal. Then everyone has a chance to be first."
I think the same holds true today, and this still speaks volumes about how people in positions of power treat others. And you're right - none of those effect whether you're a good game developer or not.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"