Before the year 2020, professional gaming was already gaining traction. Making money by playing video games has sounded enticing for a time, pandemic or no pandemic.
However, the COVID-19 pandemic's stay-at-home directives thrust the usually obscure profession of live gaming into the forefront as people scrambled for new sources of revenue during layoffs and furloughs—especially sources of income that allowed them to work from home. According to Cyber Athletiks, gamers can earn anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 per month in some situations. However, like with many businesses, that chance does not appear to be open to everyone.
The top earning esports players are shown in the E Sports Earnings chart first woman to even appear on the list doesn’t show up until all the way down at #367, earning a mere fraction of what some of the top earning men make. So while some reports might say there are more pro female gamers, they still aren’t coming close to earning what their male counterparts are. Women and especially women of color are nearly nowhere to be found in many sectors of the gaming world, including game development. Data reported by the International Game Developers Association on CNBC shows that only 24 percent of developers are women and only two percent are Black. For Black women, gaming is not an easy world to make a name for yourself in, but some women have managed to do it. Here are five Black women you should know in gaming.
THE OG: JAY-ANN LOPEZ
On this list you’ll find several women who are a member of a group called Black Girl Gamers. Jay-Ann Lopez is the founder of this revolutionary group. Lopez has been gaming since childhood, and was always struck by both the lack of representation she saw in the actual games she played, as well as the lack of Black female gamers – most of her gaming buddies were white males. So she created the platform Black Girl Gamers. She wanted to make it easy for Black female gamers all around the world to find, and that’s just what happened. The Facebook group now has over 7,000 members worldwide, and has a YouTube channel, Discord page and Twitch channel and partnered up with Twitch to host the first ever Black Girl Gamers Online Summit.
DARK SHICHI, THE NEXT BIG THING
AfroLatinx streamer/content creator, Dark Shichi calls herself. She is a member of the Black Girl Gamers and Black Gamer League teams, as well as the founder of the gaming network Hoodlum Nation. Shichi uses her streaming platform to raise money for various causes by livestreaming her games six days a week. Transgender Lifeline and the Transgender Law Center are two of the causes for whom she has raised funds while live gaming. Shichi was recently awarded a grant from the 2021 BroadcastHER her program, an initiative and grant program aimed at assisting women interested in pursuing professions in a variety of creative fields, including gaming.
KEISHA HOWARD KEISHA HOW
Sugar Games is a marketing agency founded by Keisha Howard. Sugar Games "Began as a child," according to her bio women’s advocacy and networking group for consumers and professionals, but eventually blossomed into an organization that advocated for all demographics who were underserved. And it has then gone on to become a marketing agency that boosts brands in the tech, fashion and gaming arena. Some of their projects have included Live CGI, a virtual production platform and Project Violacea, an open source multi-media experience. Sugar Gamers also produces regularly blogs about news and current events in the world of gaming and offers internships for those looking to learn about marketing in the game, tech and fashion space.
THE REVOLUTIONARY: TANYA DEPASS
Tanya DePass is the founder of the non-profit I Need Diverse Games, a journalist in the gaming sphere and a gamer herself. According to I Need Diverse Game’s mission statement, the organization Seeks to bring projects, works and research by marginalized folks to light. We also seek to discuss, analyze and critique identity and culture in video games through a multi-faceted lens rooted in intersectionality. The organization collects donations that are directed to several efforts of supporting minority groups in the gaming and tech space, including participating in the Game Developers Conference Scholarship, which helps offset the cost of admission to this professional development conference for those who could not otherwise afford to attend. DePass’ articles on gaming, feminism and diversity have been published in several outlets.
THE RISING STAR: BRIANA WILLIAMS
Briana Williams, better known by the gaming community as Storymodebae, was still in college back in 2018 when she started her Twitch channel. She first started streaming her gaming on YouTube but eventually found her real audience was waiting for her on Twitch, where she now has a following of 33.5 thousand. She’s a Twitch ambassador, regularly asked to host Twitch shows, many of which make it to the front page of the platform. Storymodebae focuses on story based games, hence her handle. Like Dark Shichi, Williams is a member of the Black Girl Gamers team that is working to increase Black female representation in gaming.
