Clique Needs Your Support

Video games have always been dominated by white people. Whether it’s the characters in the games or those making them, the racial difference has always been way more white than any other. But that’s starting to change, slowly but surely, as game development becomes more accessible and games that challenge the status quo are able to be made. Clique is one such game. Clique is an action adventure game whose developers have started a Kickstarter campaign to raise enough money for development. What makes Clique unique is that it’s being designed by an all African-American team. This is truly rare in an industry where 85% of developers are white and a mere 2% of developers are African-American (according to a study by the IGDA). The team have called themselves Dead Art Games and is composed of Neil Jones (@aerial_knight), Daniel Wilkins (@DanielWilkins90) and  DeAndre Hall. These men are channelling their passion for games into an experience that reflects the harsh reality of growing up as an African-American.

The “Whitey McStubbly” Concept

I realized that I had been using a phrase in my posts that a lot of people are unfamiliar with, so I decided you all deserve an explanation. It’s one of my favourite phrases when discussing characters in video games:”Whitey McStubbly”. I first heard the phrase in an interview with Tomb Raider writer Rhianna Pratchett and started using it immediately. You’ve seen countless of them, but when you really stop to think about the protagonists in popular video games it’s quite startling how many of them are white, middle-aged men with that five-o-clock shadow and a slight scowl.

Diversifying Your Platforms

In October 2012 after having a job for a couple months I finally had enough money to buy things. It was the first time in my life where I could go, “I want that” and then buy it. My naive, little 14-year-old brain almost overloaded. The first thing I did was go out and buy an Xbox 360 with Halo 4. Up until then, I had only had a PS3 and a Wii. I had my Wii for Zelda, Mario Kart and Smash. I had my PS3 for everything else. But I bought an Xbox 360 anyways. That was the moment in my gaming life when I took myself out of the PlayStation ecosystem I had devoted myself to for so many years before. I stepped away from my PSN friends and more importantly, my trophies. I started anew on Xbox with zero friends and zero gamerscore. At the time I thought to myself “I’ll just become a big part of both!” But there are certain things about diversifying your platforms that I hadn’t considered that I wish I had.