Cooperative Gaming

by Alayna Cole, Jessica Zammit

Cooperative Gaming provides context and practical advice regarding diversity in the games industry. The book begins with a deep dive into research literature and the history of diversity in the games industry to provide context around what diversity is and why it is a topic worth considering. The book looks at the different facets of diversity and games, exploring the issues and solutions within game development, studio management, event planning, and more. It provides people with practical advice about being a marginalised person in the games industry and how to be heard, how studios can support inclusive practices, and events can actively become more accessible to a diverse audience.

96 pages, Paperback

Published July 14, 2020

About the author

Alayna Cole holds a doctorate in creative arts and likes to find imaginative ways to explore diverse experiences—including her short story collection, Queerly Ever After.

She is a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Manager in the videogame industry. Alayna currently runs diversity initiatives that support authentic game content in the Call of Duty franchise and improve the studio experience for Sledgehammer Games employees across four countries. She also has experience as the founding director of a not-for-profit, a university lecturer, a games journalist, and a researcher. Her work has a particular focus on LGBTQ+ identities, invisible disabilities, and neurodivergence. Alayna co-wrote the textbooks Cooperative Gaming: Diversity in the Games Industry and How to Cultivate Inclusion and Games as Texts: A Practical Application of Textual Analysis to Games, and she has spoken at conferences and events globally, including a United Nations summit on gender-based violence in 2021 and a keynote talk at Games Connect Asia Pacific in 2022.

After many years focused on her work and the games industry, Alayna decided to embark on a personal journey that involved activities such as walking through various forests while looking pensive, conducting a ridiculous amount of research in the early hours of the morning, and attending many therapy sessions. Becoming Wild: Essays on Self and Society was born from these stolen moments of self-discovery.

Reviews

[Em · Rating 4 out of 5]

An important book about an important topic. It clearly defines the issue (most people who work in the video game industry are white men, simply because games were marketed to them in the 1980s, and this means the content is not very diverse either), and it suggests ways forward.