The Invisible Gamers: Can African Americans Get in the Game?

Electronic Gaming Business, July 28, 2004

Getting in the Game

In fact, African Americans are much more likely (12%) to play educational titles than whites (5%), and Woodruff thinks that this is a much-overlooked opportunity for game companies. Initiatives throughout the African American community to improve local schools dove-tails perfectly with one of this community's favorite pursuits, gaming. "These kids can play games but they can't read," he says. "We think the future of gaming is huge and we see more in education. Urban schools need it." He already sees Microsoft and others starting to spend a lot of time and money exploring the school and educational market and starting to see how classic game design skills apply here. "Simulation will be the wave of the future. It will be how children are taught," he says.

As with Hollywood film, music and TV before it, games will better reflect and include the audiences who use this medium when African Americans and Latinos themselves are designing the games, not just buying them. Neither Saulter nor Woodruff contend that the gaming industry in any way excludes African Americans from the design workforce, but it is important to have minority voices contribute to the fundamental designs.

"It's the puppeteer's point of view," says Saulter. "If I want an African American character to be in my game, then who is the puppeteer? When I take all the clothes off a 3D character and put on the baggy pants, the character moves differently, the clothes move around differently. It's a different kind of jump."

If the game industry really wants to speak to ethnic minorities and the considerable markets of ultra-loyal consumers they represent, then it needs to cultivate designers, writers and executives of color who sit at the table when the scripting decisions are made, when the media are bought, and when the green lights are given. "If Black folks and Latino folks are waiting on white folks to write these stories, it ain't going to happen," says Woodruff.

Contact: Rod and Connie Woodruff, 443/367-0023; Joseph Saulter, 404/965-5937

Do You Spend Half or More of Your Playing Time... ?
: Playing with someone else in the room?
White: 26.10%
Afr.-Am.: 36.40%
Latino: 34.60%

: Playing with someone else online?
White: 1.30%
Afr.-Am.: 3.90%
Latino: 6.90%

: Playing with others In the room against  others online?
White: 0.80%
Afr.-Am.: 4.40%
Latino: 3.50%

Source: Forrester Research

[Copyright 2004 PBI Media, LLC. All rights reserved.]