• by Zach Oscar , Op-Ed Contributor, October 6, 2020

For those who don't know, some of the critical social issues we are dealing with today around race, sexism, and representation are present in the gaming and esports world too.

Women gamers face discrimination, racial slurs are used on online chat forums, and even the stories featured in games don't have representative and diverse casts.

Personally, I struggle to find ways to hold myself accountable for being a part of the change that I want to see in the world.

Recently, I realized that I couldn't think of a single video game story that I have played with a protagonist of color. That doesn't mean they are not out there, but picturing it is quite difficult.

Despite these challenges, I want to highlight some companies that are getting the ball rolling on these key issues in esports and gaming.

Back in August, Twitch announced its partnership with nonprofit organization Cxmmunity, which aims to increase POC participation in gaming and esports. Through their collaboration, historically black colleges/universities (HBCUs) will have their very own esports league on Twitch, and the Amazon company will help foster greater involvement of youth programs in esports.

In the beginning of September, Nerd Street Gamers, an amateur/semi-professional esports competition organizer, and Comcast Spectacor Gaming, Comcast's sports and entertainment division dedicated to gaming, teamed up with Riot Games for a big cap on their summer event “FTW (For the Women): Summer Showdown”, an all women's competition in Riot's new tactical first-person shooter, Valorant.

Through Riot's endorsement, the prize pool was expanded from $10,000 to $50,000, and it became an official Ignition Series event, a designation given by Riot for their initial creation of Valorant's esports competitions.

It represents the first and only all-women Valorant esports tournament.

In reality, esports teams can be coed, but gamers have often discriminated against women gamers --calling them bad players instead of supporting them, although women make up at least 40% of esports viewers and gamers.

Even the way player-controlled characters look in-game is important for representation. For the longest time, Activision Blizzard's World of Warcraft had relatively few customization options within their character creation tool.

While your avatar could have a darker complexion, the majority of characters did not, and the majority of non-playable characters (called NPCs) were not of color, either.

In its next major add-on expansion, releasing on October 26th, the entire game will get an overhauled customization system, allowing characters to make themselves into a larger variety of people of color and add all sorts of cosmetic touches in keeping with the game's vast and rich story.

In addition, the next expansion also features a prominent transgender character who, while a woman in a past life, takes on the form of a male in the afterlife and uses "he" and "him" pronouns.

On top of design elements, narrative is incredibly crucial as well. Barely any narrative driven blockbuster games have featured protagonists of color or of non-heterosexual orientation.

The latest example that entered the mainstream is game developer Naughty Dog's massive hit, The Last of Us 2, in which players switch perspectives throughout the story between two characters -- Abby and Ellie.

Although Abby is a physically powerful woman -- showing off muscularity and strength that is not typical of female characters -- she is still a white woman. Ellie, while also white, is also a lesbian woman who ends up in a loving relationship with a character of color.

For the industry, this kind of prominent onscreen/in-game representation is relatively rare (other examples include "Overwatch," "Dragon Age," and "Mass Effect," but in those games it's a side option, not part of the main story).

There is still a long way to go. All of these initiatives that have happened this year are great steps in the right direction -- the hope must be that we encourage each other to continue to do better, and for other companies to step forward with similar goals.

I am sure I missed something -- let me know. It's great for myself and others to know about the good work being done out there -- and to realize there is even more work to be done.