This week on the cast, I was joined by contributor James Ellerby and his friend Ezekiel Jackson to talk about the issues of diversity in game design when it comes to POC.
We started with talking to Ezekiel about his background playing games and the ones he enjoys the most. There wasn’t much news available at the time of casting; we recorded it just before GDC week. For games we’ve played, I talked about my enjoyment of the Pinball Arcade and classic pinball design. Then I talked about my recent obsession with Stardew Valley and why I’m loving it.
Ezekiel talked briefly about the Division as well as Shadows of Mordor. That led to talking about some of our favorite open world games and what they did right.
For our main topic, we talked more about POC and improving diversity in games. Both James and Ezekiel gave their thoughts on great characters who were POC, as well as avoiding tokenism in game development and general writing. We talked about some games from Japan and their take on POC, such as with Resident Evil 5. We also talked about the heavily debated topic of historical accuracy vs. inclusiveness when it comes to games built around either realistic or fantasy settings.
James had some connection issues during that night and it caused the call to get a little stuttery. This was also recorded just before I left for my vacation, which if it isn’t clear yet, I’m now back from. If you enjoyed the cast, please consider donating to the Patreon Campaign. Your donations help to keep Game-Wisdom ad free and allow me to keep putting out great content like the sites.
- Here is the link to the previous cast talking about women in the Game Industry and female characters in games
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