America is at war with itself. A war against its own people.
The death of George Floyd in police custody on May 25th was the spark of nationwide protests and civil unrest in virtually every major city in America.
The protests were the impetus of a national debate on the state of race relations in America. I would also argue that the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests are the culmination of a legacy of injustice and oppression against Black people going back to the founding of this country’s history.
These are problems that have only gotten worse over time and they’ve only gotten worse since the 2016 election. The death of George Floyd was just the tipping point.
I haven’t seen a social movement on this grand a scale since the Occupy Wall Street protests in my college years.
I started thinking about how I could contribute meaningfully to the movement. Then, I realized:
“I know literally nothing about Black game developers and know maybe one or two personally. Now would probably be the time to help give them the spotlight.”
So I reached out to various gamedev networking groups, asking to speak with Black game devs so I could share their stories and showcase their work.
A few responded with interest, and we arranged to sit down and have a conversation. About their lives. About their projects. About the protests. And about how they’ve had to navigate racism in the games industry.
It was pretty eye-opening. These are people who have had daily life experiences that would make my pasty white ass curl up into a little ball and have a weeping existential breakdown.
Here’s what they have to say.
Keenan – SideBGaming
Keenan is a solodev hailing from Far Rockaway, Queens, New York, and the mind behind SideB Gaming.
He has a fascinating life story, and has worked in game development for years. He came to the San Francisco Bay Area in the early 2000’s to study game development and attend his first GDC. His released games include mobile games such as Save My Cereal and 211:CK, and the horror game Die in the Dark available on Steam.
His current project, FarRock Dodgeball, is slated for release in 2021.
Me: Tell me more about yourself and your background.
Keenan: I’m from Queens, NYC. FarRockaway to be exact. Very low-income area, single mother household so video games and sports were the only free things to do without getting in trouble. I’m 36, my first system was the NES. When I was a kid my relative who was battling drug addiction (NYC in the 80s) stole & sold my NES to get high. That’s just one of many stories growing up how I grew up.
Me: How did you get into gamedev? Do you make games full time or part-time? If the former, what did you do before you became a fulltime game developer?
I got into game dev in the 7th grade. A friend of mine, James, somehow knew how video games worked. So we would play Sega Saturn games together and I would ask him questions like, “when the enemy dies in Virtual Cop, why does he disappear?”
He then began to explain to me what polygon counts were. Every game that came out I would bug him about the tech until he introduced me to Next Generation magazine. Then I started to learn on my own.
In the magazine, they would have a mail-in slip to attend GDC every year, and that was my dream. So after I graduated high school I moved to San Francisco with $150. I didn’t even have enough money for a plane so I took Amtrak for a week lol.”
“I attend the art institute of SF to learn the art of design. After years of begging all of these companies to hire me, no one would. I decided to stop begging and make my own games. That’s how I became a self taught indie dev. Well I learn from Udemy.
(Keenan would eventually achieve his dream of attending his first GDC in 2004 where he met Hideo Kojima, one of his life’s standout experiences. We’ll get more into that later.)
Me: Tell me about some of the games you’re working on? I played Save My Cereal for a bit. I bought Die in the Dark but haven’t had a chance to play it yet.
Right now my main focus is FarRock Dodgeball. It’s a dodgeball game about kids in my hometown FarRockaway. It’s inspired by the crazy stuff that I experienced as a child.
You play as a team of 4, all the characters are inspired by my friends.
(One of the characters is inspired by Keenan’s childhood friend James, who introduced him to game development topics.)
He died in high school so I wanted to make this game a tribute to him. It’s a shame because if he were alive we would have made a few games together.
Me: What were some of the games you grew up on? How do they influence your work now?
Keenan: My first experience with gaming was before the NES. One day my cousin brought over his Atari and my grandmother screamed at me not to touch it because she thought I would break it lol. My biggest influences are from Yuji Naka and Yu Suzuki. I was a huge Sega kid and I loved how they broke the company up into groups. AM2 (a branch of Sega’s R&D team) specifically was most influential.
(The 3DO library and other games from the 32-bit era inspired Keenan and showed him how to approach game development from a design perspective, in terms of how to work around hardware limitations, how to work efficiently with limited resources etc.)
I would notice all the tricks the devs would use back then and even now I have to use tricks to cover up my personal shortcomings.
Me: We talked about how your formative experiences growing up in New York City in the 80’s informed your work. What else inspires you creatively?
Keenan: About 10 years ago I saw Kojima at GDC and he said if you ever are having creative issues stop developing and live life. I swear it’s so true. I find most of my ideas from just living life.
So Die in the Dark was created because one day I was on the train in New York City at 2am and I said, ‘what if the train stopped at a strange station and monsters attacked me?’
I then remembered the story of the montauk monster and tied it all together.
211:CK was created from a real life police shoot out I witnessed in queens. This guy shot a police chief and they sent the entire force after him.
They didn’t find him until much later.
I only want to make and play original stuff so real life is my source. These devs making flappy bird clones and endless runners kill me. But that’s another rant.
Me: I’d like to pivot to current events, specifically about the George Floyd/Black Lives Matter protests.
Over the last two weeks we’ve seen an eruption of the protests against police brutality and the systemic oppression of People of Color across the country and virtually every major city in America. The movement has since gone global to South Korea, London, New Zealand etc.
I observe the protests as being the culmination of injustice and systemic oppression with historical roots going back hundreds of years down to the founding of this country.
Throughout our childhoods, we’re told by our community leaders, our teachers, our politicians and the media that America is the greatest country on Earth. We are the keepers of peace, democracy, and international order. We are the freest/most just society in the history of civilization. We’re the wealthiest nation on the planet etc.
I see this as a narrative that erases the truth: that America is a country founded on slavery, genocide, and oppression.
As a nation, we have enslaved an entire race of people, driven another race of people to the brink of extinction, and put at least two more races of people into concentration camps. Our wars in the Middle East perpetuate and further radicalize the terrorist groups they are meant to stop, making us the biggest threat to world peace and international security. We evangelize an economic system that exacerbates global poverty and is destroying the planet.
These are problems that have only intensified since the 2016 election. The death of George Floyd in police custody was just the tipping point.
That’s the way I see it. I’d like to hear your take on it.
What’s your perspective on the protests, and everything else happening around the country right now?
Keenan: You took the words out of my mouth, this is a culmination of America’s dirt in the past. I have been screaming black lives matter forever, and have been complaining about the way we have been treated for years. I could type until my fingers bleed telling you my cop stories, my family, friends etc.
It bothers me to see so many companies scream black lives matter when they barely hire blacks. It kills me to see people ride this wave when I know they used to argue with me about black issues previously.
Me: Let me guess. You’re thinking of #AllLivesMatter and #BlueLivesMatter huh?
Keenan: lmao no I have always been in this fight. I had the police stick a gun to my back for Jaywalking.
What I’m saying is I fear that most people are in this because it’s trending. When this ends, how will we be treated?
Will we get hired? Will we get a spotlight on IGN and GameStop like we do now? Will we get ignored again?
I have worked and corporate america for years and I doubt much will change. I think we are just the latest hashtag. Once this trend is over, people don’t care and I will still be mistreated.
But none of this surprises me.
The movement should never end. You can’t erase 400 years with a couple of protest
When the smoke clears the work that is done then will mean the most. Police reform is needed, reparations, economic power amongst blacks/black ownership, voting, etc. I could go on forever.
Me: How do I put this…
Whenever I go to gamedev meetups, I tend to see a lot of this:
Keenan: Lol yup!
Me: Lol I figured as much. Let’s talk more about that.
What resistance have you encountered in your journey as a game developer that you perceive as being based solely on your skin color? How did you navigate those situations?
You mentioned what a struggle it was to get hired by game development companies for example.
Keenan: Believe it or not I don’t have any crazy stories. Even to this day with 3 games out companies won’t hire me. I went to one job interview last year. I built a game for them in unity and let them play it on my iphone (for my interview)….I didn’t get the job.
The Game Devs of Color Expo in NYC denied me lol. They didn’t want me to present idk why, but everyone else has shown me a ton of love.
I do alot of playcrafting events and never felt awkward. I have had black come up to me and tell me I’m inspiring them so that’s nice.
People have been very welcoming. I feel like they only judge me based on my game.
Me: What can we do to support black game developers, as well as devs from other historically marginalized groups and communities?
What can we do to bring their work into the mainstream and make diversity the “norm” in our field?
Keenan: Well let me say they have a FB group called Black in Gaming. We have meet ups and classes at GDC. I love to see non blacks in there helping and taking the info back to the big corps.
But I think sharing their work, downloading their products, etc.
Me: It’s great that spaces like that exist, but allies need to step up and show their work to AAA studios. Kinda like that?
Keenan: Well that would be great, sometimes in life we all need a little help.
It’s a rather complex issue but I’m here for the fight. I love this industry too much.
Because even on the other end we have to show the kids in the ghetto they can be more than a ball player or rapper etc.
You can check out Keenan’s projects on the SideBGaming Website:
You can Follow Keenan and SideBGaming on Instagram and Twitter:
Anyone wishing to support the movement can buy the Itch.Io Black Lives Matter Support Bundle.
Find ways to further your impact for Black Lives Matter here
