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The latest survey of diversity in the video game workplace paints a sobering picture: Black and Indigenous employees each make up only 4% of the industry’s workforce, dramatically underrepresented when compared to the overall population.
Those figures haven’t changed much in the past 20 years, according to Jim Huntley, a professor in USC’s Interactive Media & Games Division of the Cinematic Arts Department.
He’s working hard to change that.
Huntley is leading the charge on a first-of-its-kind scholarship program named after the Black video game pioneer, Gerald A. Lawson. Huntley hopes the Gerald A. Lawson Fund will move the gaming industry forward when it comes to increasing its Black and Indigenous employment numbers.
In the scholarship program that Huntley is spearheading, Sony Interactive Entertainment announced on Sept. 6 a $3 million contribution to support USC’s diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in the gaming industry.
“I’ve been teaching part time and then full time, and what I’ve noticed was that there was a lack of representation in terms of Black and Indigenous students,” Huntley said. “I’m looking for the numbers to match the racial makeup of Los Angeles and our program doesn’t reflect that yet.”
The money is meant for both incoming undergraduate and graduate students, majoring in anything related to video games. Huntley hopes that over the next three years, at least 20 students a year will have their tuition covered.
Often, the primary barrier for underrepresented students is the rising costs of education. According to USC Games, “College tuition nationwide has nearly doubled over the last 20 years and regularly increases at twice the rate of inflation. And for those Black and Indigenous students who go on to earn their degrees, they graduate with much higher student debt, putting them at a disadvantage as they begin their careers.”
In a basement lounge at USC’s Games department on Wednesday, Ashley Ware, a junior majoring in interactive media and game design, said they’re often the only Black student in their classes.
The diversity effort is “kind of exciting,” they said.
“Hopefully it gets more people that look like me in the program,” Ware said. “One of the most intimidating things to me was the sticker price, so I hope future students don’t have to face that.”