Invisibility Blues

As longtime games scholars and critics, we want to open up the conversation about race and representation in video games. Writers, critics, academics, and journalists have been talking about race in video games for years, and yet the representation of people of color in gaming hardly seems to improve. Sometimes, people of color are completely missing from game worlds, or are relegated to background roles; when PoC are present, they often lack nuance. With the Invisibility Blues video series, we are working to explore the spectrum of racial representation in gaming: the worst, the best, and everything between. Each video is slated to be between 15 and 25 minutes long, with game footage, images, and interview clips.

Here at NYMG, we have regularly produced text and videos that look at games through the lenses of critical race theory and feminist theory, and we have always attempted to do this in a way that makes our critique accessible and interesting to a variety of audiences, and increased video content seemed the logical next step. With Invisibility Blues, we are working to create a series of videos that are not only interesting to the broader games community, but that might be used by educators who teach cultural or game studies classes.

We are pleased to reveal that the backer-chosen videos from the Kickstarter campaign will focus on The Myth of the White Messiah and Men of Color and Intersectionality, so the full list of themes and topics for the series looks like this (titles in color are available on YouTube, in our Invisibility Blues playlist):

• Character Generation Engines and Representation 
  • Episode 1.1: When Race is on the Menu: Choice, Change, and Character Creation (transcript)
  • Episode 1.2: I Am (Not) My Avatar: Race and Identification in Video Games (transcript)
• Reactions to Games Critics on Representation
  • Episode 2: And the Band Played On: The Case for Critical Dissonance in Video Games (transcript)
• Women of Color and Intersectionality (in development)
• Indigenous Populations in North America
• Race and Fantasy Games
• The Myth of the White Messiah
• Men of Color and Intersectionality
• Games and History
• Queer Issues, Intersectionality, and Representation

This project was made possible by our 480 backers who helped fund the series via Kickstarter, and the continuing contributions of our community via Patreon. If you are interested in making a donation to the ongoing project, you are welcome to pledge to us on Patreon for additional rewards, or make a donation via Paypal. Without support, projects like NYMG and Invisibility Blues are difficult to maintain.

Backer Wall of Fame*

(some backers chose not to be listed)

Forthcoming.