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Who are the most well known and influential black people in the gaming industry ?
- Thread starter junpei
- Start date
As a former co-worker and friend, I'll add Peet Cooper to the thread. He is currently an Art Director at Riot games, and was formerly a Senior Artist on Diablo 3 and has worked on many other projects in the game industry.
He also co-founded and is the V.P. and Creative Director of Gamers for Good, a non-profit organization that helps Gamers give back by connecting them with charity and service opportunities.
I can't say enough good things about the guy. I'm not sure what levels of influence someone needs to be mentioned in this thread, but his contributions to the industry are far beyond deserving.
He also co-founded and is the V.P. and Creative Director of Gamers for Good, a non-profit organization that helps Gamers give back by connecting them with charity and service opportunities.
I can't say enough good things about the guy. I'm not sure what levels of influence someone needs to be mentioned in this thread, but his contributions to the industry are far beyond deserving.
Weltall Zero
Member
Count me in as not having a clue Reggie was black until now, a definitive "today I learned" moment. Reggie's going to be hard to top as most influential, I think.
Yeah, that was obvious even before clicking the thread. :/
Yeah, that was obvious even before clicking the thread. :/
Vigilant Gambit
Member
I'm hesitant to say never, but there will never be a comparable game. Not in our lifetime.
Moonlight won because it's one of the things in black people's "lane:" sports/athletics and entertainment.
Literally anything outside of those two umbrellas is an exception/rarity for black people.
Look at this thread, and really look. Ignore all the responses of people with the loosest ties to the industry, and you're left with:
Jerry Lawson (tragically underappreciated)
Reggie Fils-Aime
Jace Hall
Like, remove the word "black" from this title and suddenly you have dozens of names to add.
KraftyKrankins
Member
But he's a liar tho.
very few people came to mind besides reggie sadly
i guess there's mark grigsby (Ssgt griggs in MW1, rapped the end song, formerly an animator with IW and now with Respawn), but he's not really that influential
there are people who didn't know reggie fils-aime was black?
i mean look at a photo of him.
reminds me when someone thought i was messing around when we were asked about our favorite black authors and i said alexander dumas.
this is not a thread about greatest frauds in gaming
i guess there's mark grigsby (Ssgt griggs in MW1, rapped the end song, formerly an animator with IW and now with Respawn), but he's not really that influential
there are people who didn't know reggie fils-aime was black?
i mean look at a photo of him.
reminds me when someone thought i was messing around when we were asked about our favorite black authors and i said alexander dumas.
Miguel Percy-Fauntleroy Rossington IV
this is not a thread about greatest frauds in gaming
I said Austin Walker on page one as did Neptonic
Edit also N'Gai was mentioned on page one
EdwardTeach
Member
I don't understand how anyone could not realize Reggie is black?
I did right before your post.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Neither well known nor influential but I think Kiro'o Games deserve a mention as the developers of the first ARPG (African RPG) ever:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1207944
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1207944
EdwardTivrusky
Member
Mike Pondsmith is a boss. This guy has touched a lot of great properties in both the tabletop and video gaming industries (even assisting on the original Ultima), and even spent time teaching game design at digipen.
Yup, I was just about to mention him. He's designing/consulting on Cyberpunk 2077 which now that Numenera and Zelda are here is my most anticipated title by far. I can wait but i'm not happy about it
Zurick
Banned
Well known and influential?
Neither well known nor influential but I think Kiro'o Games deserve a mention as the developers of the first ARPG (African RPG) ever:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1207944
I'd love to see a documentary on this team, the game didn't look bad either!
War Machine
Member
Reggie is the only "well-known" Black person in the industry. If you want this to change, the best way to do that as a consumer is to buy games by Black developers. Most of the Black development community releases games for PC and there are high quality games on Steam that you can buy right now.
SillyEskimo
Member
Matthew Crump was a childhood friend of mine. Sadly, he passed away a few years ago and he was only in his early 40's. He even had a video game award named after him.
Matthew Crump Cultural Innovation Award
It is given out at SXSW.
He was a great guy.
Matthew Crump Cultural Innovation Award
It is given out at SXSW.
He was a great guy.
This is why I think indie games are so important.
Beatofficer
Member
Austin Walker is a pretty good dude. He's awesome with Waypoint and I enjoy his writing.
I think a lot of people have no idea that he is Haitian.
panama chief
Member
Fighting Game Communities own...Low Tier God. Hahahahha
EdwardTeach
Member
Why would you call a Sri Lankan "black"? There is no relation,they are South asian.
Ohh Awesome!!
To be fair I wasn't even completely sure that he was black. He just looks like he could be mixed.
NipplesAndToes23
Member
You ain't lying. I hope I can help with this problem someday.
protomouse
Member
Reggie has Afro-Haitian roots, and thus black.
I think when it comes to non-indie developers in the west you don't get to hear names often. You'll only hear of the "auteurs" and more often than not the Japanese ones.
Since the J in JRPG refers to the country this should CRPG.
Fighting Game Communities own...Low Tier God. Hahahahha
Come on now. If we're going I to the fgc at least post the OG OG.
Scott Popular of the FRB and also lightning up the mean streets of Tokyo with his sweet dance moves.... Or nipples at everyone's eye lvl XD
Que? Lied about not being I to Naruto for the past year?
________
This thread is really depressing on so many levels because all I think of is white or Japanese devs.
Only ones I could think of was Mike Pondsmith and that was because his work on cyberpunk and that he is helping CDPR with Cyberpunk 2077.
And yes Reggie, for some reason I still think of him as a bser than a games person.
For sure the video game industry lacks diversity, but this thread is also indicative of a similar if not larger problem in the industry...we have more known game journalists, voice actors, celebrities that come in from other industries and youtubers/livestreamers than we do known people who actually MAKE the games.
Seriously, most of the industry celebs we have are designers that have been in the industry for decades like Kojima, Miyamoto, Molyneux, or Schafer. Hell, without John Carmack and Satoru Iwata (RIP) doing earlier in career code-work, I'm pretty sure we'd have no widely known game programmers at all.
The people that do voices or cover games are most of what we get when it comes to celebrities, and without the indie industry using small teams/1-man teams we'd barely have any new blood that is really known by a lot of people within the enthusiast/core gamer subset, much less more casual consumers.
Not sure if anyone mentioned Mike Pondsmith yet. He's got a few past video game credits but he's heavily involved in CDProjekt's upcoming Cyberpunk 2077, which is set in a world he created.
https://www.youtube.com/shared?ci=zgmvrKexx6M
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pondsmith
Worked on games like MechCommander 2, Crimson Skies, Matrix Online. But he's mostly known for Pen and paper RPGs.
https://www.youtube.com/shared?ci=zgmvrKexx6M
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Pondsmith
Worked on games like MechCommander 2, Crimson Skies, Matrix Online. But he's mostly known for Pen and paper RPGs.
kqedequalsvolvo
Member
Yeah, wanted to comment similarly. It's a Cameroonian game, Africa is not a country. I know people aren't often treating it as such in a deliberately bad way but it's important to challenge.
boy I'm crying
shiftplusone
Member
I don't follow kotaku, but Gita Jackson is great in the times I've heard her in a podcast or something.
EdwardTeach
Member
Very true. I know lots of black people working in the industry in the uk, from coding, production etc to marketing and publishing. None of them are gaming "celebrities" though, which is how you get mentioned in this thread. In general you can name very few people from industry, usually they are studio heads/senior producers or voice actors.
sixteen-bit
Member
Shoutouts to Jerry Lawson
thepenguin55
Member
Her and Austin Walker are probably my two favorite people who cover games.
Messofanego
Banned
Austin Walker (Editor-In-Chief at Waypoint, formerly at Giant Bomb)
Charles Webb (Mafia 3 senior writer, former Paste magazine writer)
Mafia 3 is one of the most politically relevant games of our time, so felt worthy to include him. Really touches on a lot of the realities living in the 60s and what is still happening today to fight social injustice. Goes into stuff about MLK Jr, police, race relations, backlash against protesting, that is still happening today like with Black Lives Matter (and the pushback to it). Some of the best storytelling in an open world crime game.
Charles Webb (Mafia 3 senior writer, former Paste magazine writer)
Mafia 3 is one of the most politically relevant games of our time, so felt worthy to include him. Really touches on a lot of the realities living in the 60s and what is still happening today to fight social injustice. Goes into stuff about MLK Jr, police, race relations, backlash against protesting, that is still happening today like with Black Lives Matter (and the pushback to it). Some of the best storytelling in an open world crime game.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Well the W in WRPG refers to the West... The W and the J refer to broad stylistic divisions. The Japanese style just happens to broadly correspond to a single country (whereas RPGs made in, say, Canada and RPGs made in the US tend to be more similar to one another hence the "W" moniker).
Kiro'o Games themselves are saying Aurion is an "African fantasy" game.
Fighting Game Communities own...Low Tier God. Hahahahha
Well known for being trash
I wouldn't call him well know but the first black developer that i was aware of was omar kendall. He was the Lead Game Designer of Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale. After the game was released Sony cut ties with superbot entertainment and i cant seem to find where he went next .
Vigilant Gambit
Member
I know you all mean well, but holy shit, guys. LowTierGod? And all these randos that work in the industry... I wouldn't rank much higher than myself in terms of influence, honestly.
When I said earlier "remove the word black from the title and suddenly you instantly can easily name dozens of people," I'd start that list with like... Miyamoto, Carmack, Iwata, Naka, Kamiya, Kojima, Inafune, Igarashi, Bleszinkski, Zampella, Bushnell, Umehara, Ishiwatari, Mikami, Ikeda... The list starts out packed and just goes on and on and on. If any of those names are unfamiliar to you, google them and you can instantly understand the massive impact they've had on the industry. Either they're behind something industry/genre-defining, or an extremely high quality product (or series).
To see like... random people with jobs in games, or thin ties to the industry (voice actors???) on this list is completely disheartening.
Thanks for this. This is the one good thing I've seen come of this thread. I will buy it full price.
When I said earlier "remove the word black from the title and suddenly you instantly can easily name dozens of people," I'd start that list with like... Miyamoto, Carmack, Iwata, Naka, Kamiya, Kojima, Inafune, Igarashi, Bleszinkski, Zampella, Bushnell, Umehara, Ishiwatari, Mikami, Ikeda... The list starts out packed and just goes on and on and on. If any of those names are unfamiliar to you, google them and you can instantly understand the massive impact they've had on the industry. Either they're behind something industry/genre-defining, or an extremely high quality product (or series).
To see like... random people with jobs in games, or thin ties to the industry (voice actors???) on this list is completely disheartening.
Neither well known nor influential but I think Kiro'o Games deserve a mention as the developers of the first ARPG (African RPG) ever:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1207944
Thanks for this. This is the one good thing I've seen come of this thread. I will buy it full price.
theechrisfox
Member
Ninja Scooter
Member
There are people who still don't realize that The Rock is black despite the fact that he was in the Nation of Domination.
So that's what Bish looks like. Hope he's doing okay.
DarkConfidant
Member
Well this thread was a short rollercoaster of emotions.
From "oh no, there's going to be nobody" to "hell yeah, Reggie and Ngai" to "fuck, we're really scrounging for people to call 'industry' members" and then me being sad again.
Thread title was "well known and influential", but now it seems more like merely "who are the black people in the gaming industry?".
A lot of the folks aren't influential, or don't even make games.
From "oh no, there's going to be nobody" to "hell yeah, Reggie and Ngai" to "fuck, we're really scrounging for people to call 'industry' members" and then me being sad again.
Thread title was "well known and influential", but now it seems more like merely "who are the black people in the gaming industry?".
A lot of the folks aren't influential, or don't even make games.
Lol triforce
It's kinda depressing that this guy can be counted as a black person of note in the gaming community. We need more diverse public facing people in gaming (especially if they are in technical roles).
I don't doubt that developers have a diverse team, it's just that they are all behind the scenes.
It's kinda depressing that this guy can be counted as a black person of note in the gaming community. We need more diverse public facing people in gaming (especially if they are in technical roles).
I don't doubt that developers have a diverse team, it's just that they are all behind the scenes.