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."

Comments

Double Standard, anyone?

[TripMaster Monkey]

From TFA:

"CJ," as he's known by his pals, is black -- and to some in the video game industry, that's a problem.

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...)

Hypocrisy

[BlackCobra43]

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?

What about Japanese?

[Daemonik]

Many games are developed in Japan and are just translated for the US/Euro markets. Is anyone sweating Sony and Nintendo to hire more non-Japanese programmers?

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?

Non-game programmer statistics?

[SeekerDarksteel]

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.

I see

[fixer007]

"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.