Between Diverse Industry and Game Characters - An Analysis of Tool-based Representation Design

Abstract

As products of both creative endeavors and corporate planning, game characters are created for player engagement. Questions around representation, of both videogame characters and player identities, as well as marginalized game industry workers, has been at the forefront of gender- and feminist writings in interdisciplinary game studies. This study is located in the intersection of these perspectives, focusing on the King's Diversity Space, a game design and research collaboration between King, Activision: Blizzard, and the MIT Game Lab (Massachusetts Institute of Technology Game Lab). The results show how different goals, limited transparency, misinformation in the promotional material and eventual loss of equal ownership cumulated into an eventually non-successful collaboration.