How to Subversively Queer Your Work
So your eyes have been opened. Your consciousness raised. "I want to do better! I want to get queer ideas in my games!" The question is, how? If you're a designer, artist, writer or developer haunted by that question, this session is for you. Drawing on the expertise of game designers, writers, critics and scholars, we'll give you suggestions on how you can, in a number of small and easy ways, work LGBTQ characters and themes into your work. These simple steps may seem small now, but as players - queer or not - encounter them in your games, over time they will add up to gradual but important change.

Crush the Norm: Diversity Rules
This positive and impactful presentation and workshop will empower you to create diverse characters while avoiding stereotypes in games. At King we have developed a simple process that helps us to test our games' diversity & inclusion level. You will get hands-on experience to help you consider how diverse various games are.

World Building: The Power of Developers in Representing Diversity (Presented by Ubisoft)
Video games provide immersive interactive experiences that shape players' understanding of the world. These fictional worlds touch the lives of millions of players and engage them with unique environments, exotic locations, vibrant characters, cultures, political regimes and religions etc. These virtual worlds and characters can perpetuate stereotypes, just as they can offer a more nuanced vision of society.
- What is the role of developers in constructing stereotypes and forming identities?
- What actions can be taken to better represent diversity in a consistent way?
- How will tech innovation impact the construction of in-game stereotypes in the future?

Making Diversity and Inclusion Work
There are several programs, courses, and initiatives that can be created to implement diversity and inclusion in the industry today. Researchers and vendors have put in a wealth of resources to discover the best ways to hire and develop underrepresented groups. So why is the industry still struggling?

Misogyny, Racism and Homophobia: Where Do Video Games Stand?

This session will take a close look at the games we create and examine them with a different perspective than normal: how do video games hold up when we examine their contents for potential racism, misogyny and homophobia? This session will look at a number of recent games from this perspective, and talk about the positives and negatives that are found within our games. The talk will examine narrative representation, narrative depiction and the game dynamics to see how race, gender and sexuality are treated. Finally, the session will give some tips for how to avoid falling into easy traps when dealing with these issues, and discuss how this can improve the quality of the game.

Speaker(s)     Manveer Heir