Xbox Launches Video Series Aimed At Supporting Black Youth Interested In Gaming Industry Careers

Xbox has launched a new project aimed at supporting Black youth who are interested in getting into the gaming industry.

Late last week Xbox shared an Xbox Wire blog post announcing "Project Amplify," a new video series from the gaming company that features Black members of the company in a variety of roles, sharing their experiences in the games industry, and offering advice on how young Black voices can work towards a career in the industry.

The series features 14 Black team members, including head of ecosystem Sarah Bond, who you may have seen at previous press conferences. The creation of the series follows a recent study from Historically Black Colleges and Universities Connect that was commissioned by Microsoft which found that out of 200 respondents, about "95% of college students and alumni from HBCUs across the country shared that they have interest in a career in the gaming industry."

Xbox's blog post notes that only 2% of professionals in the games industry are Black, while 13% of the US population is Black. So it created the series in order to "magnify Black voices within Xbox to inspire, educate and motivate youth across the U.S. to aspire towards careers in the gaming industry through real-life storytelling from Black leaders and employees across the Xbox ecosystem."

The blog post also shared various resources to help those interested in a career in games to learn things like Unity, game design, and programming.

In recent years, more organisations have been putting effort into highlighting Black voices in the games industry, such as the Black Voices in Gaming stream held yearly by the Guerilla Collective.