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Tanya DePass explains the lack of diversity in video games and how to help – Yahoo News

Video games

She even started a not-for-profit organization called “I Need Diverse Games”

Video Transcript

TANYA DEPASS: I was watching the announcement of games coming out. And again, it was the same thing about usual protagonists, nobody who looks like me, no women, nothing like that. And so I tweeted about how I need diverse games. And it was just right time, right place.

People caught on to it. They kept tweeting it. It went viral for a couple of days. It was basically a right place, right time accident that worked out for the best.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Hi, I’m Tanya DePass, a Twitch streamer known as CYPHEROTYFR Tiara and founder of I Need Diverse Games. It’s a community. I’ve made friends across the globe. I’ve made friends locally. It’s the community that’s built up, because streaming isn’t just game play. It’s so many different things that are on the platform, you know, no matter where you’re at, is there are people that are willing to come and hang out while I just paint ice and all you see are my hands and some ink, and some ice I’ve made, or play a game somewhat OK, not quite badly.

We just talk about how the world itself is diverse. The industry is not, sadly. So the International Game Developers Association does an annual survey called the Developer Satisfaction Survey or DSS. And every year the majority of developers that participate are white or European ethnically. We still have 67% as of last year’s survey, making games. So we’re just simply not in the room.

Black developers, depending on what part of Asia we’re counting, less than 4%. But we need to be in the room. Less than 4% is still too small, in an industry as large as the game development industry. As for people who are trying to fix it, there’s a lot of incubator programs, Pixelles in Montreal. They are a group that is focusing on getting women, non-binary gender nonconforming folks into the industry.

And they often participate in the GDC scholarship program. And they do stuff locally for them in Montreal. MYNNO, M-Y-N-N-O, is a newer group that’s focusing on getting people of color in the industry, founded by another developer in the industry who’s been doing this a really long time. There’s also I Need Diverse Games.

But we’ve done things like do micrograms for developers, trying to help marginalized streamers get some equipment upgrades. So we’re here. Reach out, say hi. We still stream on our Twitch channel. Be critical of the games you play. When you see something that doesn’t have good representation or no representation, be vocal about it.

When people come up and say that what we do makes a difference, when there are people even in the industry today that say, you know, I got a pass from you to go to GDC, and it opened the door for me to get in the industry. Or I finally see someone like me talking about these things, and that I know I’m not alone, because so many people feel like they must be the only person that cares about this stuff. And it’s not why I do this, and it’s very humbling and gratifying, but it’s one of the coolest things, because so many people don’t feel like they’re making a difference.

Source: https://news.yahoo.com/tanya-depass-explains-lack-diversity-140000526.html