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Black Voices in Gaming and the journey to sustainability
15.08.2023 - 14:49 / gamesindustry.biz
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Creating a more inclusive games industry requires a lot of work and longevity. Such efforts across the business sector have gained traction over the years. Recent years have seen a number of organizations and platforms created to help overlooked communities find a place in the industry, among them Black Voices in Gaming.
Since its establishment in 2020, Black Voices in Gaming has tried to stay the course with its mission statement: to uplift and showcase the contributions of Black game developers and has become a staple at media showcases.
Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Black Voices in Gaming director and co-founder Justin Woodward says the most significant lesson for the organization has been creating work that leads to more sustainability for Black professionals within the industry.
Woodward says, "I would say the takeaway is how do you create a nonprofit organization, find the funding involved to help developers, find the opportunities to fund the organization to pay your team and get the work done? A lot of this stuff is [still] pro bono.
"I still work with Humble on the Black Game Developer Fund. So how do we transcend a fund [and deliver] critical information and knowledge necessary to make sustainable businesses?
The Black Voices in Gaming director explains just as the summer protests of 2020 spoke for Black equality; the message remains the same: people of color must be in more decision-making positions within the industry. Addressing that opportunity and getting more developers from overlooked communities is why Black Voices in Gaming exists.
As the organization focuses on spotlighting Back game developers, it has maintained a consistent media presence. It places games to be featured in the Media Indie Exchange [MIX], which Woodward owns, and the Guerrilla Collective showcase. It has been regularly featured in larger publications as well.
Woodward explains that the organization's broadcasting being so present is also a business decision to help it maintain its mission statement.
"[This] needs to encompass multiple people, but we already have our hooks sunk into our partners, partnerships with others, with the broadcasting teams. [For example], we work with IGN, a MIX client. We help run their promotional platform, so we provide them with a lot of content from our events," he says."Every time we have a MIX event, we feed them all of our trailers, so they can utilize them however they want."
He continues, "I'm not saying [many] of these websites/platforms don't have the means to create or support diversity initiatives.
"Their bread and butter are ads supporting AAA trailers, interviews, and the like. So
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