People in games, listen.
Hidden Figures
– Budget: $25M
– Box office: $228.4M
9X
Moonlight
– Budget: $1.5M
– Box office: $55.8M
– An academy award
37.2X
Get Out
– Budget: $4.5M
– Box office: $194.9M
43X
Empire the TV show renewed for a new season, averages 15M viewers.
Fate of the Furious, directed by a black man, just crossed the billion dollar mark at the box office, making four times what it cost.
ALL of those are prominently about black people, minorities and sport a diverse cast.
ALL of those are doing more than extremely well. What does the game industry offer this year?
Another WWII shooter. Another walking simulator where everybody is dead and you’re a white dude smashing aliens or whatever. Another RPG where your white self crafts stuff and roams endlessly. I mean.
Blizzard paid attention and included a diverse cast in its last game Overwatch. It won all of the awards, has apparently 30 million players monthly and is now a billion dollar franchise. IN ONE YEAR.
It’s nuts to me how bad we are in games at listening and paying attention to society, societal changes. Game development is an ultra risky business and we refuse to do anything to help sustain ourselves, despite answers being around us. 2017.
It’s mind-blowing.