Introductions & icebreakers

Figure 1: Introductory icebreaker Miro board frame including participants’ answers to the question “What does ‘inclusivity in games’ mean to you?”

Objective: This step helps participants get to know one another and establish a shared understanding of the topic. Through a simple icebreaker, participants will reflect on what the proposed technology or scenario means to them. Their responses will set the stage for deeper discussions in later steps.

Icebreaker Prompt: What is your name? In 2-3 words, can you tell us what inclusivity in games means to you?

Additional Prompt (if needed): What word(s) come to mind when you think of inclusivity in games?

Online

Participants introduce themselves in the chat or via breakout rooms, responding to the prompt. Record responses on the Miro board. Encourage everyone to keep their cameras on if possible to foster a more personal connection. connection. For this workshop, we broke people into three sub-groups each focused on a different aspect of inclusivity in the games industry: accessibility (both for players and for game designers in their work making games,) inclusivity in the games workforce, and in-game representation of diverse groups of people.

Note: If you are using breakout rooms, the prompt can be narrowed to focus specifically on that aspect of inclusivity in games; e.g. accessibility, diversity in the workforce, or diverse representation within games themselves.)

In-Person

Facilitate an introduction circle where each participant shares their name and responds to the icebreaker prompt. Record these responses on ‘Icebreaker’ cards, then read and share them aloud with the group, collecting them for later analysis.

FOLLOW-ALONG EXAMPLE

For our Inclusivity in Games event, some of the keywords and introductory thoughts
we collected were:

• “Accessibility for all. Mutual respect. Equity in design.”
• “Gamers is a very wide range of people – everyone is a gamer so who makes games needs to
  reflect the breadth of that audience.”
• “There is no ‘one size fits all’; people may want to see things represented in different ways.”
• “The worst thing is when people try to make something that’s got nothing to do with them.”

Challenges & barriers

Figure 2: Challenges & barriers Miro board frame including participants’ answers to the question “What are the top challenges and barriers for inclusivity in gaming?”(In this breakout group, participants focused on challenges and barriers to inclusive representation of characters within games.)

Objective: In this step, participants explore participants discuss what challenges and barriers exist for the current state of play in the industry. This exercise builds towards identifying how open innovation can be used to overcome or exacerbate those barriers in the next exercise.

Main Question: What are the top challenges and barriers for inclusivity in games?

Additional Prompts (if needed):

• Consider one specific aspect of inclusion (eg. accessibility; diversity in the workforce; representation of diverse characters within games.) What challenges currently exist for creating a diverse games industry relating to this?
• Think about factors where inclusivity or exclusion might have a bearing on specific outcomes: HR policy in games companies, for example; routes to funding that may be difficult to access for some groups; lack of suitable role models in the industry; human rights legislation, etc. How do these help or hinder inclusivity in games?

Online

The group facilitator acts as a scribe to capture discussion points as they emerge from the group, putting these on the Miro board. Some of these challenges and barriers may have already emerged during the introductory icebreaker exercise.

In-Person

As above, but breaking into smaller groups around different tables or in different rooms.

FOLLOW-ALONG EXAMPLE

This is a selection of the issues highlighted as barriers to inclusivity in games from
the event used in the example:

• “The need for making a business case – all about the money (some markets more than others)”
• “Perception of who works in games – game media showcases homogenous figures – people don’t see themselves reflected there.”
• “Hiring processes and job interviews – favour confidence over competence – end up with homogenous hiring profile.”
• “Game engine is basic software to create the game, and it gives different options but unless you decide as a developer to create your own engine with accessibility features, current game engines have limitations, this entails time and resources to address.”
• “People who build an identity as a gamer and may not want to include other types in this space,
  for instance, discourse against wokeness – this is a barrier.”

Open innovation impacts

Figure 3: Open Innovation prompt cards  Miro board frame including participants’ answers to the question “What current best practices exist to help overcome these barriers?” and discussions of how particular aspects of open innovation are effective or could be made more effective for overcoming these barriers.

Objective: Using the challenges and barriers identified in the previous step, participants will consider ekip Open Innovation Prompt Cards to discuss how these factors may help or hinder inclusivity in the games industry.

Online

The ekip Open Innovation Prompt Cards are organised under six themes: Policy Interventions, Spaces, Education & Training, Funding & Support, Measuring Impact, and Advocacy. Working in relation to the primary question, participants will select 3–5 cards that they believe represent current best practices. They may also create additional “cards” with their own ideas for factors that could improve or hinder progress. The group will then discusses why they chose each factor and how it could have an impact, while the facilitator records the selected factors, the main discussion points, and the specific ways in which each factor might influence the primary question.

In-Person

The ekip Open Innovation Prompt Cards can be printed for us in an in-person setting. The instructions remain the same as above.

FOLLOW-ALONG EXAMPLE

In our online workshop on inclusivity in games, participants identified all aspects of funding and support, particularly private investment, investment incentives, and grants as being particularly important. They highlighted that “People have ideas but don’t know how to access money! They need routes into the industry to help them feel safe to take risks.” Innovation hubs, networking platforms and ecosystems (including conferences like GAConf, an event focused specifically on accessibility for games) as being important for awareness-raising, coalition-building, mentoring and peer support throughout the industry.

Key impacts: learning wrap-up

Figure 4: Concluding Miro frame focusing on participants’ key questions emerging from the activity and actions they are intending to take as a result of having joined the workshop.

Objective: In this final step, participants will review and consolidate the key insights gained throughout the workshop. They will reflect on any remaining or new questions that need further exploration and commit to actionable next steps, ensuring that the learning outcomes are effectively carried forward.

Main question: What have we uncovered through this process? How will we apply this knowledge, or seek to answer these new questions, after we leave this workshop?

Additional Prompts (if needed):

• Reflecting on today’s activities, what’s one key question you’re taking away with
  you?
• What’s one action you’ll be doing in the future?

In-Person

Participants will reflect on their key learnings from the workshop, identifying one key question they will leave the session with as well as one action they would like to commit to taking in the future. They will write these reflections on Post-its and share them aloud with the group.

Online

Facilitator’s online will follow the same procedure outlined above, but utilising a Miro board.

FOLLOW-ALONG EXAMPLE

In our online workshop on inclusivity in the games industry, participants asked key questions like “How do we get policymakers to treat gaming with the seriousness of other industries?” and “We don’t have the luxury of starting everything with inclusivity at the start – the gaming industry is new – how do we give people ways to bring this into the core?” They raised key takeaways like bringing their inclusivity initiatives to a wider audience through networking capabilities provided by ekip, and figuring out ways to take their impact from an individual level as an advocate to making a broader organisational impact.