"The old stereotype of games being for boys just doesn't exist anymore" | GI Live Online

gamesindustry.biz:

Alan Wen

Wednesday 22nd June 2022

Newzoo

Diversity, equity and inclusion has grown ever more important in video games both in the industry and for its audience. Fortunately, recent years have seen the topic move beyond mere talking points, opinion pieces and panels to studios putting things into practice in their games.

At GI Live Online, game development and publishing consultant Jay Uppal from games market intelligence and analytics company Newzoo explored some of the trends and best practices of DEI implementation in games in recent years, while also underlining why this is important for both the industry and the growing global audience based on the company's recent gamer sentiment study. Here's what we learned.

Taken from Newzoo's April 2022 global games market report, the global gaming audience from the past six months alone has over three billion active players, with 54% of these players coming Asia-Pacific countries (albeit mostly from China), whereas Europe and North America only account for 14% and 7% respectively. Regions like the Middle-East and Africa, and Latin America are also not just similar in terms of player numbers; they are also the markets showing the largest year-on-year growth.

Jay Uppal, Newzoo

Uppal said all of this goes to show "how important it is to recognise how diverse games have become and how global it's become in terms of the reach that any game has the potential to have these days."

In terms of a diverse global gaming audience, it may be easy to just think of in terms of different ethnicities and cultures, but diversity is, well, diverse, so there are multiple identifying groups that shouldn't be overlooked.

One key metric from Newzoo's gamer sentiment study -- conducted in the US and UK with