Loopbreak.gg shines a light on Black stories in gaming | Donovan Erskine interview

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Donovan Erskine is a lifelong gamer, but he hasn’t seen that many characters that look like him in video games.

So he decided to create a new game journalism publication, Loopbreak.gg, to highlight the Black stories of the gaming industry and video game content. The extraordinary thing about this is that game journalism has been thinning out, with many publications laying off people or shutting down during the struggles of the pandemic and the economic downturn.

The website got off the ground in early February, and it has financial backing from Google Play and help from the Off School Grounds Coalition. To Erskine, this is like a dream come true, as he thought about his own challenges breaking into gaming. And wanted to provide a platform for Black writers to get a start in game journalism, either as reviewers or reporters. He has some freelancers helping with the writing and he hopes to expand over time.

Erskine graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism in 2020 from Bowie State University, the oldest historically Black college and university (HBCU) in Maryland. He joined ShackNews as an intern when he was 18 and he joined them as a news editor after he graduated. He still does that work and also found time to get Loopbreak.gg off the ground. I talked to him about what he hopes to achieve.

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Here’s an edited transcript of our interview.

GamesBeat: I feel like there’s a massive weakness in game journalism right now, where all