A push to make the video game industry more diverse is underway. But is it enough?

THE video game industry has long been criticised for being dominated by white males. But has it finally learnt its lesson?

I AM a white male in the business end of his 20s that has always loved video games — a fact that is hardly surprising given the demographic I just described.

With the industry dominated by white males, it was always exceptionally easy for me to select from the plethora of caucasian protagonists with whom I could connect.

Unfortunately women and under-represented minorities didn’t share the same pleasures.

Sure, they did have some options, but they were few and far between in comparison.

This lack of diversity and race has long been a criticism of the gaming industry, which has frequently been highlighted through the ongoing #gamergate controversy — an online campaign focusing on issues of sexism and progressivism in video game culture.

While supporters of #gamergate will argue it is concerned with ethics in game journalism, history shows the movement has been used as an online harassment campaign with the purpose of discrediting the reputation of females working in the male-dominated industry.

Despite the efforts of a narrow-minded minority, there has been an active effort to address this issue in recent years and it appears to be working.

The Global Games Market Report predicts the industry to be worth more than $106 billion by 2017 and it’s hard to think this would be possible without increased diversity.

Statistics further prove this with the 2016 Digital Australia Report showing the total number of female video gamers has grown to 47 per cent of the total market over the past five years.

Similarly, the Entertainment Software Association’s 2016 Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry report said 41 per cent of gamers in the US were female.

The UK also had a similar trend with the UK Games Industry Fact Sheet 06 June 2016 showing females make up 42 per cent of gamers.

Dishonoured 2 has included the option to play as a female in the lead role.

THE NEED FOR A ROLE MODEL

“A lot of women players inside the world are responding like you wouldn’t believe and it’s extremely gratifying,” Arkane Studios creative director Harvey Smith told news.com.au.

We were at the E3 — the world’s largest video game conference — talking about Bethesda’s landmark title Dishonoured 2, which now featured “prominent characters” of different race, gender and sexual orientation.

The privilege of being a white male working in the industry for the past 23 years has not been lost on Mr Smith and is the exact reason he has been pushing for this change.

“When we were younger and looking for aspirational and iconic figures, white males could see a character like Bruce Wayne as someone we could use as a North Star — for better or worse,” he said.

“Now imagine you are a young black male or a female. It becomes increasingly hard to find those figures you can project yourself onto in escapist fantasy.”

Mr Smith said critics might assume the developers are just riding a trend, but he assures its something that has been in the works for a very long time.

“If the media landscape didn’t show anyone that resembled you, it would be easy to think you are made wrong or don’t fit in anywhere,” he said.

“This is why what we are doing is so powerful. In addition to making a fun video game and an interesting world to explore, we wanted to expand the number of people that can project themselves into that world to make it a richer place.”

As part of this push, players will have the option to complete the game as either the male hero of the predecessor or the new female lead, Emily Kaldwin.

Mr Smith said developing a diverse character that was more than a friend or sidekick was exciting, but also created a lot of pressure.

“What we did with Dishonoured 2 was one of those moments we felt a great sense of responsibility because everyone was watching what we were doing,” he said.

“It’s a little scary because if you f*** it up or do it wrong, you are going to end up looking like an ass.

“I evaluate my performance at things like based on the ratio of negative to positive comments and have never seen anything like this. I’m usually happy if I get 90 positive comments and 10 negative, but I have found we have been getting 1000 positive comments before even get one negative.”

Xbox title ReCore has a female lead, but the diversity reaches past that.

MORE THAN JUST GAMES

Head of Xbox Phil Spenser is well aware of the shift in the gaming industry and couldn’t be more welcoming to the change.

“We got this initiative which we kind of champion inside of Xbox called ‘gaming for everyone’. It’s about giving people choice in how they want to play and who they want to play with,” he told news.com.au.

“We let you choose what kind of characters you want to play online. If you’re playing Gears co-op you can play as African-American, you can play as female or you can play as male.

“Letting people have choice and customisation is important. People like to show their identity and who they are through their gaming experience.”

But for the gaming company, the concept of diversity expands past character selection, which is why it has developed a new feature for Xbox Live known as “clubs”.

Xbox Group Program Manager Jeff Henshaw said clubs was about giving players options.

“We all know from personal experience that playing multiplayer is more fun when you actually enjoy the people you’re playing with,” he said.

“One really unique thing we’re doing is letting gamers specify how they want to play. If you’re not up for trash talking right now, you can join a group that’s on the same page as you.”

What makes this interesting is the fact clubs are user owned and managed, meaning there are endless options available.

“Ultimately, club membership is completely owner driven in terms of who is able to stay in the club and who’s not. The owners and moderators get to enforce the culture they want to create and that their front door is about them expressing “hey, this is the kind of place this is. You’re welcome to come in if you follow those rules,” he said.

During a meeting at E3, Mr Henshaw demonstrated the type of options available by highlighting a club for The Division, which was made for “Female Only”.

While the concept of providing a safe haven for the female gaming community sounds great in practice, the very nature of #gamergate means this could just be asking for trouble.

Luckily, Mr Henshaw said there would practices in place to police these groups.

“I’m going to answer this very carefully because it’s important that everyone understand,” he said.

“Our goal is to make Xbox Live a fun, safe, reliable place for everyone to play. The community is going to be the first line of enforcement. But that’s not always enough.

“We understand and respect that. So when an issue needs to be escalated, Microsoft will continue to deploy Xbox Live’s security and enforcement team when the community can’t resolve something on its own.

“We have a standard of conduct for Xbox Live already and that standard of conduct will be applied to user-generated content as well. It has to be fun and safe for everyone.”

The lead of Mafia III is African-American.

NOT JUST ONE TITLE

As Bethesda leads the way for diversity with its changes to Dishonoured 2, a number of other titles have also worked hard to ensure they are representing different ethnicities in lead roles.

Following its predecessors, which focused on the on Italian-American gangsters from New York, Chicago and San Francisco from the 1930s to the 1950s, Mafia III introduced a new format inspired by the African-American crime syndicates of New Orleans from the 1960s.

As such, the lead protagonist of the game is a bi-racial orphan and Vietnam vet known as Lincoln Clay who will battle against the police, Italian mobsters and the Ku Klux Klan.

In the follow up to its highly popular 2014 title Watch Dogs, Ubisoft has replaced the white lead character for the sequel set in San Francisco.

No longer will players control Chicago local Aiden Pierce; rather they will take control of an African-American vigilante hacker known as Marcus Holloway.

EA’s FIFA 17 has also opted away from a white-centric lead character, with the game’s first ever story mode putting players in control of a black Englishman known as Alex Hunter.

Players will be responsible for taking the player from the minor leagues all the way to the top of the sport where he will rival greats like David Beckham.

Tacoma, the follow-up to Fullbright’s first-person adventure exploration Gone Home, has opted for Indian-American female lead to portray astronaut Amy Ferrier.

The character will be tasked with discovering what happened to a six-person crew — including one Aussie — and an AI called Odin aboard a doomed space station.

Sticking with the female lead, PlayStation’s exclusive third-person, action role-playing title Horizon Zero Dawn gives players the ability to control Aloy — a hunter and archer fighting her way through a post-apocalyptic land ruled by mechanised creatures.

Action-adventure ReCore has also opted for a female lead, with players controlling a young woman exploring a vast desert with her robotic dog.

Are you happy to see this diversity? Continue the discussion on Twitter @mattydunn11

Matthew Dunn travelled to E3 as a guest of Microsoft.

Originally published as A push to make the video game industry more diverse is underway. But is it enough?