This writer hails from the era of Duck Hunt, the Game Gear, Dominik Diamond and Patrick Moore as the GamesMaster on Channel 4. Playing a bit of Actua Soccer on the PC or heading downstairs (and a few years earlier) for a bit of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on my NES was one of the many things I could do to while away the hours until my mother, every bit the classic South Asian matriarch, would vehemently order me to bed. If, as a teenager approaching those first big life decisions, I had said to my parents that I wanted to go to Uni to study gaming – as in the design and creation of video games – this wouldn’t have met with much satisfaction from neither them, nor from most other parents back in those days. Fast forward 25 years and we live in a world full of possibilities for young people who want to take their passion for gaming and forge a career in the world they love.

If you are reading this and are wondering where on earth you could study gaming, then the UK is a pretty good place to be looking. With over 200 institutions offering undergraduate courses and qualification on this island alone, finding the right fit for you and the subject specialty you want to pursue with top-class teaching isn’t as daunting as you might think. See one of these courses through to the end and you’ll have an internationally recognised qualification along together with a suite of transferable skills that’ll have you ready for career lift-off, no matter which road you go down.

As is relatively standard here in Britain, undergraduate courses usually take around three years to complete and many of these degrees have partnerships with organisations and companies within the video gaming ecosystem, so in some cases, job progression happens straight out of graduation – or your degree is a four-year course with the third or fourth year spent working within the industry at a specified placement. Not only does this give you the best type of on-the-job work experience, it is also a great way to network and who knows where that might lead…

Different colleges and institutions will structure their courses in different ways, but the common denominator here, as with most courses, is that the modular study blueprint used in most universities means the course you choose will be flexible enough for you to select from a wide range of modules/subjects to study, so fear not – modules on eSports or mobile gaming will be just as possible to study next to the more business-oriented end of things. On top of all this, you will be making your bones in some of the best gaming laboratories going – this country is well-known for its tech learning spaces and the depth, variety and detail to which you can go studying in this area.

All courses offered across the country place huge importance on career skills – so alongside coding, design, theory and programming, you’ll also be bestowed with the knowledge and tools to establish your own game design studio, which means a strong focus on sales and marketing. Look out also when you are searching for courses that are TIGA accredited. TIGA is the leading authority on video games in the UK. For TIGA accreditation, universities will have to be able to prove how many of their graduates have then gone on to work in the video games industry. What does this all mean? Well, if you graduate with a TIGA-accredited qualification, your chances of employment in the sector do increase.

At £75bn, the global video games industry despite its constant changes and shifts IS a huge, worldwide and lucrative business. A qualification from a UK establishment, many of which have ties to the 2000 plus gaming companies, is a positive career move. The average salary per year for a UK-based game developer is around £42k. The industry itself is going through huge changes whether due to the pandemic or just due to those shifts that occur over time. One thing that hasn’t shifted is its growing and obvious importance as an industry worth working in. As a keen gamer, a career move like this may or may not be the one for you. Some will jump into this arena and love it just the same whilst others can sometimes find their love and time for gaming diminished somewhat by moving into studying what they love doing in their spare time. This is just human nature and nothing to be worried about. However, if you feel that studying gaming and moving up through those levels is the next move to make, go grab it with both hands as it might be just about the best decision you are likely to make for a very long time.

The post Studying gaming in the UK – a breakdown first appeared on Get2Gaming.

It has been a week and a half now since the dream died and England were beaten by Italy in the European Cup final at Wembley. Our best chance of winning some silverware in 55 long and often painful years. To be honest, I think I’m just about over it – but to be honest, this writer is still not over Euro 96 – or World Cup 90 (yup I am ancient). However, it was what started happening immediately after 19-year-old Bukayo Saka missed the deciding penalty that dominated the headlines, social media and perhaps the private thoughts of every non-white English football fan for days. As I left my friend’s house that night, my dejection soon turned to thoughts of self-preservation. I swapped my shorts for a pair of trousers I had used on the cricket pitch earlier that day, zipped up my tracksuit top so the collar went right up my neck to my chin, donned a big black mask and a cap – and even wore some batting inner gloves. This way, you couldn’t see too much of me on that 25 min journey back from Brockley to Croydon – a Croydon that was demonstrably still reeling from the defeat as the drunken revelry had turned to detruitus and despair on the streets down from Boxpark, a sense of anger and fury palpable in the air. On the way home, social media quickly started revealing a face that had been hiding just beneath the surface of the water all tournament – the true face perhaps of England, the face of racism, volleyed at the three, young black and proud Englishmen who had missed the penalties in the game earlier. From monkey emojis to vile rants posted online, a trickle became a deluge and now we are talking about ID checks on social media accounts, lifetime bans, sackings – but perhaps avoiding discussing the root causes focusing instead on serving up heads on plates and moving things on until the circus comes back to town again for the next big flare up.

Gamers of colour (GOCs), for want of a better expression know all too well what our young kings have had to endure since Euro 2020 ended. The very same racist abuse finds its way all too often into the living rooms and bedrooms of eager gamers across the land, by people who have the privilege of hiding behind an avatar, a screen and a general cloak of invisibility. It comes in the form of text chat but more viciously, through voice chat and through video camera – to the point where many GOCs are just too traumatised to game or stream online due to the abuse they know they will get. In a 2019 study carried out by the Anti-Defamation League in the US, 53% of the gamers surveyed reported being targeted based on their race, religion, ability, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, or ethnicity.

This kind of abuse is followed up by racism rearing its head in other ways in the gaming world. Take for instance the Ugandan Knuckles meme – a Sonic meme which is now used to troll people, make fun of African accents and make racist jokes, especially around the topic of Ebola. Although it hasn’t quite followed in the footsteps of Pepe the Frog, a cartoon frog which has long since been weaponised by the Alt-Right and is now a symbol of identity and solidarity amongst fascists, it would not require a giant leap for Knuckles to follow in the same way, as racist users feel that they are having their ability to practise free expression prohibited, thus dragging Knuckles further into the culture wars.

When you also consider the poor efforts by the authorities to do what is admittedly a difficult thing to police, GOCs are left with very little space in which to feel safe enough to game freely and without fear. Groups like Black Girl Gamers have been set up in the wake of this, in order to give in this case young, black female gamers (probably the worst affected demographic) a safe space in which to do what they love doing. Since its inception, BGG has grown at pace, to 5,700 across the world – and has recently staged the UK’s first all-female gamers’ event. Groups like these are key in the fight against racism and other forms of discrimination in the gaming world. Why? Because ultimately, the buck stops with the gaming companies and game developers.

A study in 2013 claimed that Xbox Live had become a hub for “the overt racism that used to permeate our society”. Now, any person from a black or ethnic minority background will tell you that this is not a case of “used to permeate” but rather a case of “has always permeated” – it is just that with the rise of the internet and online gaming platforms, that racism can be practised often without fear of recrimination and without abandon. However, this same study did go on to identify the issue that lies at the heart of the fight against racism – the issue of structural racism. Whether it be in football management, our national institutions, the boardrooms or in this case the gaming industry, white male hegemony is the barrier separating us from progress. Black gamers, female gamers, older gamers, LGBTQI+ gamers are seen as “deviant”, as contrary to what “should be” in gaming, as the white, male-dominated industry and largely speaking, the games they make act as a perpetuation of this same white male hegemony.

Of course, this is not entirely true as today many games have characters of colour, LGBTQI+ characters, all of which are positive in their representations. However, it goes without saying that representation of non-white people in the gaming industry whilst slowly improving, is still an issue. In 2015, a Creative Skillset survey reported that around 4% of workers in the UK gaming industry were of a BAME background, well under the 10% across all sectors. With very little research done on race and representation in gaming, this does paint an underwhelming picture of the reality felt by BAME communities in gaming and also does very little to counter further truths in society at large.

This is then mirrored in the portrayal and misrepresentation of black people and other minority groups by stereotyping and by assumptions based upon racial identity or gender (or both) which then informs the creation of characters and storylines in the games themselves. Too often have we seen black characters in games portrayed as angry, dangerous and menacing which feeds back into false stereotyping based on the colour of one’s skin – and this has unfortunately been the case for many different communities of colour for as long as video gaming has been a thing:

So, where do we go from here? It is not enough for companies to just shoehorn in a black or ethnic minority worker round the table. This is simply diversity – not representation – and even if this happens, how can a BAME worker in the gaming industry fully commit to the task when there is a lack of visible representation around them? There are many great initiatives like blind recruitment, unconscious bias and antiracism training – but in this writer’s opinion, this has to be baked into the process well before companies start diversifying their boardrooms and workforces.  This is key to reaching and involving fully the diverse global audience found in the world of gaming and its marketplaces. Perhaps these firms are too spooked to “do the work” for fear of alienating who they mistakenly believe is their dominant, target audience.

In the US, black gamers are the dominant rising demographic, which should represent a shift in thinking from developers and marketeers within the industry. Here in the UK, BAME gamers are a large part of the demographic in the gaming universe. Will the industry follow suit and deep dive into what is surely, in financial terms at least, an ever-growing source of potential capital? Time will tell. And much like we are seeing in the world of football, saying that companies will not tolerate racism, sexism or homophobia is not enough unless those words are turned into concrete deeds. The Black, the Asian, the Latin, the LGBTQI+ experience is an important well from which to draw knowledge from and until the industry represents fully these strands, we may well be having these same conversations in the coming decades.

At Go2Games, we are proud to employ a workforce that is diverse through lines of race, gender, sexuality and ability – although we know that there is always more work to be done and this is what we strive to achieve. We see education, training and skills as a key pillar in ensuring that opportunity leads to experience which in turn, leads to representation for the many young people who spend time with us, often in their formative years in the world of work. It is through education, training and skills that we wish to develop our own mission, which is one of opportunity for all in the diverse, local community that we are all proud to be a part of. Working together with other community organisations who share our values and stand up for the different parts of our community is also an important part of our social DNA

Finally, circling back to the football, while a veil was lifted to expose something darker about English society, maybe England won something far greater than a big chunk of metal. In the wake of the sickening abuse, communities up and down the land came together in support of those three footballers. Communities with people of different colours, creeds and class – just like the team that brought everyone together, a team picked from every corner of this island. A team which played for us and perhaps spoke for us, on and off the pitch. For the gaming community and the gaming industry, this should represent a teaching moment. Because this is what representation really looks like.

Football may not have come home, but this side made England a home… 👏 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

England Didn't Really Lose

Written by @SebSB Illustrated by @Alice_Devine_

🎥 Watch: https://t.co/feA311HWMe pic.twitter.com/5Qq3TnzRm6

— Tifo Football (@TifoFootball_) July 12, 2021

The post Racism in Gaming first appeared on Get2Gaming.

Imagine a game that’s as engaging as Minecraft and Fortnite, but its purpose is to educate children…

Sounds absurd, doesn’t it? Well, French startup PowerZ, founded by Emmanuel Freund, and the founder of the popular cloud gaming service Shadow is in the process of developing this game and has raised $8.3 million from investors.

PowerZ’s Educational Game

PowerZ is both an ed-tech startup and a video game studio that has the ambition to change how the world sees education. The company wants to build “a sort of Ready Player One education” in which a child could learn things within a fantasy open-world setting that features cute dragons and magic spells that will make children want to come back regularly.

Most education apps are focused on one knowledge area in particular and are somewhat basic. Education hasn’t changed that much in the past 100 years. When you walk into a classroom, it still looks like a classroom. – Emmanuel Freund.

The company launched its first version of the game in February with very little content, but it wanted to start integrating as quickly as possible. It has had 15,000 children try out its first chapter spending 4 hours in the game on average. Freund has said that the company’s vision is “completely validated” by those numbers.

PowerZ has now raised over $11.8 million (£8,522,609) since it first started, with $8.3 million (£5,994,717) being raised since the last lot of investments for its ambitious goal. Bpifrance Digital Venture, RAISE Ventures and Bayard are the latest investors to join Educapital, Hachette Livres, Pierre Kosciusko-Morizet and Michaël Benabou, who invested in the idea once more.

What PowerZ’s Educational Game Contains

Now the company has enough investors, it will continue to add new content. Once the game is up and running, kids will be able to practice mental calculation, geometry, vocabulary, foreign languages, sign language, astronomy, photography, architecture, sculpture, cooking, wildlife, yoga, and so much more.

As this continues, PowerZ wants to continue to partner with other studios. Zero Games, Opal Games and ArkRep are the first third-party studios to contribute to the game, and more will definitely want to follow.

PowerZ also wants to expand to new platforms and it is doing so, with its launch on iPad last week and iPhone will be soon to follow. It is hoping to launch on Nintendo Switch and other game consoles by 2022.  Freund believes educational games will become mainstream very quickly and is hoping to set an example.

The game is completely free for now, but they are hoping to monetise it through in-app game purchases. It is also only available in French for the time being, but the English version is expected to drop at the end of Summer 2021.

Would you want to explore this educational world? Let us know in the comments below!

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The post PowerZ Raises $8.3 million for its Educational Game first appeared on Get2Gaming.