Video game industry seeking minorities

A five-week Baltimore program began June 27, with 50 high school students getting a tour of Maryland's tech-friendly Hunt Valley and a visit in the fall with Sid Meier, an industry pioneer.

In Atlanta, more than 200 applicants applied for roughly 20 spots in a two-week program set to begin in early August. Another camp in Washington, D.C. spearheaded by Roderick Woodruff, who runs a minority gaming Web site, begins later.

Organizers say they aren't surprised interest is so high.  A March study by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that black youths between 8 and 18 years old played video and computer games roughly 90 minutes a day — almost 30 minutes more than white youths.  And Hispanics play about 10 minutes more per day than whites.

"If you've got kids who can sit in front of a game for eight hours, then they have the cognitive thought process to learn how to build the game," Saulter said.

Some in the industry believe race in games is a serious issue that has been ignored for too long.  "For a long time, we've talked in the game industry about gender diversity as the one problem on the radar, but the racial split is worse," said Ian Bogost, a Georgia Tech game design professor who recently published a book on video game criticism.

Jason Della Rocca, IGDA's executive director, said the industry must confront a cycle that threatens its creativity: Educated, young white males create games for other educated, young white males.

"Games are an expressive medium.  They are an art form, just like movies, theater and literature," Della Rocca said.  "We're seeing, to a large extent, that the games that are being designed unconsciously include the biases, opinions and reflections of their creators."

In a way, he said, stubborness to diversify runs counter to the industry's tolerant roots.  "We like to think that game design is a higher calling and that no one really cares what your skin color is or your sexual orientation," Della Rocca said.  "But that doesn't seem to manifest itself in terms of a more diversified workplace."

Reaching out to minorities might also make financial sense.  "Look at the Sims, the best-selling game of all-time.  The development team was very gender-balanced," Della Rocca said.

Imagine, he pondered, what an ethnically diverse team could create.

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