The Bottom Line: How Brands Can Fast-Track Diversity in Gaming
Diversity in gaming is poised to be big business.
Even before lockdown, gaming was setting new records, like the $10.9B spent by Americans in Q1. Over the last 10 weeks, gaming has continued to dominate, showcasing the power of digital communities and entertainment experiences that can be shared from a distance, such as the 27.7M fans who watched Travis Scott’s in-game Fortnite concert.
66% of Americans play video games, representing a wide variety of profiles. One can only hope that our image of a “gamer” similarly evolves to encompass that reality. Forbes reports that the ten highest-paid players pocketed a collective $120 million in 2019. All 10 of these players are male, and almost all of them are white.
Tyler “Ninja” Blevins, #1 on that list, has broken significant ground for the industry as a whole, including major endorsement deals with Red Bull and Nike. Other brands are differentiating themselves by aligning with unique streamers who are not yet household names.
Dating app Bumble, whose brand positioning celebrates women making the first move, became first-movers themselves by forming an all-female Fortnite team last summer. Bumble also became an official partner for Kristen “KittyPlays” Valnicek and #TeamKitty with the vision of “empower(ing) women trailblazers and mak(ing) it easier for them to connect with their community,” according to Chelsea Maclin, VP of Marketing.
G FUEL, The Official Energy Drink of Esports®, recently launched a guava flavor inspired by FIFA legend Edwin “Castro1021” Castro. The spot features mariachi and a bilingual tagline. Scotty Tidwell, Chief Community Officer at G FUEL Energy, said the company “is a very diverse workforce internally, and (they) work extremely hard within (their) partnership program to echo that diversity externally.” Tidwell points to the “amazing” consumer response to their Castro partnership, which started in 2017. Tidwell states that they are “always looking for new people to work with from all walks of life.”
HyperX recently signed Soleil “Ewok” Wheeler as an ambassador for their gaming hardware, hailing the teenage pro who was born deaf as a “HyperX Hero” in the announcement. Wheeler says she “feel(s) it’s important to show others that there are no limits to what you can accomplish” and hopes to “serve as an inspiration for others.”
The gaming industry has addressed diversity and inclusion head on in recent years. Microsoft and Xbox touted their 2019 gamescom booth as their “most accessible ever”, and last year’s TwitchCon featured a range of related panels highlighting the platform’s rich communities, including LGBTQIA+ streamers.
Nika Nour, Executive Director of the International Game Developers Association Foundation, states that “diversity of all kinds in-game development leads to better and more successful products and companies, and happier and more successful game developers. The best way to achieve this goal is to support an industry that is representative of the world’s population, and we still have a long way to go.”
Perhaps commercial successes like the Castro x G FUEL partnership can help Nour make her case. And to that, I say, ¡Guaaaa-vamossss!
Sources:
https://www.theverge.com/2020/5/15/21260364/american-gaming-spending-new-quarterly-record
https://gfuel.com/blogs/news/g-fuel-castro-1021-release-guava-flavor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHgvA6X_1Mc
https://www.thegamer.com/diversity-twitchcon-2019/
https://igdafoundation.org/2019/07/nika-nour-takes-over-as-executive-director-for-igda-foundation/