Disclaimer: I am lucky enough to call some of these fine streaming folks friends, but that doesn’t detract from them being awesome POC Twitch streamers you should be watching! You can find other POC streamers in this directory, put together by the Spawn On Me podcast in collaboration with #IneedDiverseGames. If you are a streamer and want to get listed, you can add your info via this handy form! If you enjoyed this list, and want more information on diversity, streaming and how that can be impr

Here’s a challenge: name any prominent Twitch streamers of color off the top of your head. (No peeking at the list I wrote last week.) So, was that way more difficult than you expected? Could you only come up with one name, maybe two if you took a while? Sadly, the fact that many folks can’t come up with any, and have to search for a single name, let alone five, ten or fifteen well known streamers of color, isn’t a surprise. Why do you think that is, hmm? Let’s look at the numbers, and ponder w

Firaxis’ XCOM: Enemy Unknown is notable for many reasons, including the realistic diversity of your squad members. Your squaddies can be from any country, have any background and, most importantly, are respectful and well crafted representations of the countries and cultures they hail from. With XCOM 2 on the horizon in 2016, we chatted with Firaxis Senior Producer Garth DeAngelis about the developer’s continued commitment to accurate diversity in the series, as well as the larger industry conve

Gaming seems to be getting better about diversity one title at a time. We’re getting more non-white, non-male leads in games instead of the usual gruff and buff, grizzled white dude who saves the day. We’re getting more black men as protagonists, and more women as leads. Some of the most exciting of these games are still coming soon, though; what will we play in the meantime? You’re in luck: I come bearing a handy list of nine games that are doing diversity right, and can fill the time as we wa

Disclosure: I have had the chance to collaborate with many of the women who contributed to this book. Either by writing for them, collaborating with them on projects, having them as a guest on my podcast, or paneling with them at conventions. Prior knowledge of their work has not influenced my opinion of the book. ~ TCD This book is required reading, not just for young women who might be entertaining the idea of entering the games industry. So often the narrative of women in games is framed aro

There’s a lot to love about Dream Daddy (the popular new dating sim that lets you date hot dads) including nuanced storytelling and a robust character creator with trans-inclusive body options. But as I replay the game and spend time going after different dads, I’m finding more and more problems that irk me to no end — most notably, how the game handles bisexuality. I’m a gamer who rarely sees myself represented in games. Finding well-rounded characters of color, women who aren’t window dressin

Ubisoft’s newest addition to the Far Cry series has a lot of people talking — some shouting and others in a full-on fit over the choice of enemies in Far Cry 5. For the first time in the franchise, you won't be shooting at ambiguously brown enemies as they yell at you in some foreign language. This time, the enemy is a fanatic Christian cult led by a white man bent on bringing about the apocalypse. The setting is rural America. And for a lot of white male gamers, this is personal. Unsurprising

Twintelle, a newly announced character in Nintendo's boxing title Arms, may be the latest video game "It girl." But there's always someone who isn't feeling the latest thing causing a stir on the internet — and sometimes that's me. When I first saw Twintelle, I couldn't get excited like everyone else. All I could think about was her hair. Specifically, the fact she's a brown, female character with weaponized hair. The thing is, hair like mine is often weaponized in real life, too. It's been ma

There’s been a long running conversation in the games industry, along with their audience, on the need for better diversity and inclusion. The problem seems to be getting beyond doing the most basic things to improve the diversity of characters and the level of inclusion in games. This is true for both video games and tabletop, the latter seeming to lag behind video games in their work to diversify. It’s not that the industry doesn’t want to do this, or that consumers don’t want it; despite wha

Mafia III is a depar­ture from the prior games in the series by fea­tur­ing a black lead rather than the same stereo­typ­i­cal, white mafioso. The game had gen­er­at­ed a lot of buzz well before release, par­tial­ly because your pro­tag­o­nist Lincoln Clay is a black sol­dier, returned from the Vietnam war to New Bordeaux—or Faux Orleans as I’ve taken to call­ing it. The mechan­ics of the game are solid in terms of run­ning, shoot­ing, dri­ving. You even get a rear-view mir­ror to check before