BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Changing the face of the games industry
“At the height of Monument Valley’s success, we were winning Apple Design Awards and BAFTAs.”
Although Mike Anderson, associate producer at ustwo Games, is rightly proud of this achievement, this isn’t him bragging. Instead he’s explaining a moment that would change his career for a very different reason.
“It wasn’t until the night of the BAFTAs that I noticed I was the only black person in the room. There were more waiting staff who were black than people representing developer companies or teams. At first I just thought, ‘this is weird’ then I thought ‘this can’t be right’.”
After working within the gaming sector for over a decade, this was a pivotal moment for Anderson. Despite having never felt the colour of his skin had held him back, he quickly realised there was a major diversity problem in the industry he loves.
“I was in denial,” he tells us. “I thought there had to be other black people within the industry. There were developers there from places like L.A. where there are massive black communities and I couldn’t believe they weren’t represented here.”
“From then I started looking at team pages of different games companies and I could only point out one or two other black people. As a proportion of the population, these numbers just felt far too low.”
There were more waiting staff who were black than people representing developer companies or teams.
Anderson looked to shake things up, setting himself a goal of improving the games industry’s diversity and make it easier for other people of colour to find their way into the sector.
To this end, as well as joining a mentorship programme, he has become a founding member of POC in Play, an organisation that’s supporting and boosting opportunities for people of colour within the gaming industry.
Holding monthly meet-ups where established and budding developers from ethnic minorities can share their experiences and advice, POC in Play has already seen hugely positive reactions, despite only launching in early 2019.
“As soon as we launched we started to get some really nice comments,” Anderson explains. "Things just started blowing up. We’ve seen a lot of people saying they didn’t realise there were others like them and that they thought they were alone.”
With significant support from ustwo Games allowing POC in Play to offer access to cutting edge game studios and provide travel bursaries to attendees, one of the ways Anderson is attempting to break down barriers is by simply making the industry more visible to those from minority backgrounds.
“When you see successful black people they are either athletes, musicians or entertainers. The development world and the tech industry just aren’t places where you see many black faces.“
“You can’t be what you can’t see, and for some people it’s just a matter of representation. You need to see someone else do it before you can project yourself into that space. If someone sees me at an event and it makes them think they can get into making games because I’m already there from the same sort of background with Afro-Caribbean parents, even affecting one or two people would be absolutely amazing.”
We’ve seen a lot of people saying they didn’t realise there were others like them and that they thought they were alone.
Beyond offering new opportunities to the often overlooked, Anderson believes everyone will benefit from a more diverse developer community.
“We’re going to get some amazing new games,” he explains. “People were blown away by the traditional African influences in Marvel’s Black Panther. The costumes and the visuals were so new and fresh for people. Imagine if you had games which were also feeding into that.”
“One of the things that people loved about Monument Valley is that we took influence from all of these different things around the world. If more developers were in that mindset we could have some amazing new gaming experiences for people to share.”
“At POC in Play we’ve got a bunch of lofty ambitions. We’ve got a few projects we’d like to kick off but most importantly we just want to normalise these things.”