Hi, everyone.
Today, I'll share a topic
of things you need to know to bring diversity, inclusion
to your game design and publishing strategies.
A quick intro of myself. I'm Tiff Tang, based in Hong Kong
I'm a Strategic Partnership Development Manager from Google Play.
And my job is to work with game developers to grow their business on Play globally.
To start with, I would like to share why we want to talk about the topic today.
When we talk about diversity and inclusion,
we're thinking about opportunities in the workplace
and sensitivities around certain cultural or geopolitical topics.
However, we actually could consider this as an important mindset change
and growth opportunity to make your game more accessible,
more inclusive, and more global.
From what we have learned and seen for the past few years,
more and more users became gamers globally.
These new users are making the whole gamer group more and more diverse.
This brings both opportunities and challenges to game developers
who are not very familiar with the topic.
Here, I want to share some stats.
On a gender perspective
based on two research reports from Newzoo and Niko,
we're seeing that regardless if it's in the U.S., UK or Asia,
the ratio of female gamers is getting closer to 50%.
If you look at the stats of 2020,
the growth rate of female gamers has far surpassed that of the male gamers.
More importantly,
the primary gaming device of females is mobile,
so they're a truly mobile-first group.
Another thing I'll call out is that some of the female gamers
have their own unique way of playing games.
So if you conduct deeper user research,
you will find more business opportunities on how to unlock them better.
Then let's talk about data from the other dimensions.
Firstly, from the racial point of view,
based on the research of Quartz in the upcoming 10 years,
57% of US gamers between 6 and 29 will be coming from these minority groups.
Then, from the research of Nielsen, we're seeing 12% of adult gamers are LGBTQ+,
and they're having bigger spending power than the rest of the users.
The last data is from the AbleGamers Charity.
In the U.S., about 26% of users have a disability.
Most of them do play games despite all the difficulties.
Now we have seen demographic-related data,
I will remind you that diversity, inclusion is related to cultural differences, too.
I will share one example we reference.
When we talk about role-playing games,
we usually consider a major user to be 35+ males.
The fact is the impression is true only for Japan and Korea,
and Greater China users.
In North America and Europe,
users below 35 usually contribute to 70% of the total local revenue,
while female users from LATAM could contribute to 30%
of the total local revenue.
The third reason is related to conflicts and risks.
For the past two years, we're seeing conflicts
related to politics, geopolitics, gender, sexuality, and ethnicities.
These are getting more and more intense.
This type of real-life conflict will largely impact
what gamers think and feel in gaming worlds.
And as you can see,
gender conflicts remain one of the most significant topics in the gaming industry.
On the other hand, we are seeing more and more regulatory guidance and policies
from the government and gaming platforms,
who encourage game developers to be extra careful with such topics.
For example, try to avoid using eye-catching but non-compliant marketing materials
and make sure your promotional materials are always family friendly.
Lastly, we want to call out diversity, inclusion as a company value
is a very important and great element for branding, too.
Gamers actually really care about the brand value of games they play.
Google also provides a lot of support and courses to help more partners
to learn about the importance of DEI and to be a part of this important topic.
Now that we have to talk about the importance of DEI,
I want to share some practical tips to help you to get started.
I will really cover three topics:
Bringing DEI into your character design, gameplay design, and community building.
Firstly, let's talk about character design.
In a report of Newzoo, we could see half of gamers think
about diversity as important in the characters.
About 44% of users avoided playing games that are not meant for them.
Choosing and playing characters in games is a way of self-expression for gamers,
and we need to be extra careful in the design.
Some key elements I want to call out here.
One, female body image.
Try to avoid unrealistic, overly sexual design.
Two, do not let your unconscious bias ruin your character design.
Do research and run focus groups to make sure your design
is inclusive for diverse user groups.
Three, if you have DIY character elements,
please make sure you are including elements for minority groups as well.
Lastly, imperfection is an important factor for identities.
Your story and characters
will be much more compelling and profound in this way.
Then let's talk about game design.
Firstly, we want to talk about inclusive game design.
We usually divide users into core gamers and casual gamers.
Both groups are seeking different things while playing games,
as you can see from the chart on the left.
Core gamers enjoy game loop flight or fight mode
and follow the progression from easy to hard,
while casual gamers play games to relax or get rid of boredom.
They're looking for creation and connection in the core game loop.
We would like to encourage game designers who want to appeal to a much broader audience
to incorporate game elements that can satisfy both groups of users.
The second point is related to the first one,
providing a more friendly learning curve for all users.
I think this is a very important and frequently discussed topic
for most game designers.
So I'll be brief here and call out some of the key learning points.
One, let your user learn by playing,
provide them with helpful and clear guidance to learn progressively.
Two, run qualitative and quantitative research
to improve your onboarding experience continuously,
A/B testing can always help a lot for your early-day retentions.
Lastly, please be encouraging during the whole onboarding journey
so users feel confident about themselves and think they're good
or getting better in the game.
Accessibility is another big topic.
As I have mentioned,
a large portion of gamers have some type of impairment or disability.
You can always serve them better
if you design with accessibility solutions or elements.
On the other hand, improving your game versatility
could always provide a better user experience for all types of users,
not just with those with disabilities.
And please remember, when everybody plays, we all win.
I recommend to visit g.co/accessibility to learn more about Google solutions as well.
The next is about DEI and localization.
This is another important topic for game developers
who want to be successful globally.
From translation, localization, to culturalization,
you want to impress a potential international audience
that you indeed want to create a game for them.
I also want to call out reports here.
First, please be aware there are feminine, masculine,
and neutral pronouns in a lot of languages.
Either you can consider using gender-neutral forms
or use adaptive UI to provide genders for formatting,
if your users have claimed their genders.
Two, please avoid using ableist and violent language.
You will offend users unintentionally.
In addition, please avoid using unnecessarily graphically violent and harmful terms.
Lastly, please bear in mind there are a lot of cultural,
religious nuances you might not be aware of,
especially geopolitical issues that are ever-changing.
Always remember to run your reference checks and do the research for localization results.
The final topic is about community building.
It is not new at all that there are still a lot of toxicities
in the gaming communities these days.
As you can see from the data here,
gamers are experiencing different kinds of harassment
and threats in the virtual world.
It is important for you to facilitate an inclusive and friendly game community.
Again, another big topic here.
In the interest of time, I want to call out some best practices.
The core job for you in running a game community is to be present
and be proactive to foster trust and safety in your community.
You need balance, allowing the community autonomy to self-regulate
and being present to intervene when necessary.
We want to share more tips about this in an upcoming Google Play blog post as well.
Diversity and inclusion is indeed a big topic.
I could spend hours sharing with you tips and learnings
from the developers we have worked with,
so I want to summarize today's session with three action items for you.
One, build DEI in games.
Remember, Google also provides a variety of great workshops that can help you
to understand the topic.
We have solutions and tools that can help you build diversity
and inclusion into your games.
Two, build DEI for gamers. Community matters.
The majority of gamers want to have a good time while playing,
and you have a big role to play to make sure a community is inclusive and friendly.
Three, build DEI in gaming.
Ensure that the right talents are present at the table.
Hire people with a wide spectrum of backgrounds, experiences, points of view
to bring more perspectives to your games.
We also run various programs to help game companies build DEI into work culture.
That's all for my session.
Hopefully, the tips are helpful and thanks for watching.