BIPOC Voices in the Tabletop Game Industry – Stonemaier Games

BIPOC Voices in the Tabletop Game Industry

At Stonemaier Games, we believe in uplifting people, especially those who have been marginalized and underrepresented in the gaming industry.

Over the last 18 months I’ve tried to be much more intentional about how we actively seek to include Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), including outreach to over 150 creators and organizations. Sometimes I’ve just made a brief connection; other times I’ve forged genuine friendships or lasting business partnerships.

Interlude 1: I’d like to be transparent by saying that not every interaction has gone smoothly, and that is entirely my fault. No one owes me or Stonemaier Games anything—not kindness, not an open door, not even a response. I’ve made mistakes past and present, and while I can try to be a better, more welcoming, more inclusive person, I can’t take away any harm I’ve already caused.

Interlude 2: You may view the practice of uplifting someone based on the color of their skin to be an act of discrimination. I’d invite you to consider the possibility that seeking to welcome someone—especially someone who has been passively or actively excluded in the past—is actually an act of inclusion. It does not diminish your love for anyone else.

The point of today’s article is to share the BIPOC media, designers, and artists I’ve connected with over the last 18 months and beyond. My hope is that readers, gamers, and publishers will also seek to connect with, subscribe to, and hire these amazing creators.

Speaking of hiring, we recently hired Lydia Wehmeyer as our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) consultant. Lydia is a friend here in St. Louis who is passionate about DEI in gaming and games in education. I shared this article with Lydia before posting it, and I asked her if she had some perspectives to add. Here’s Lydia:

I believe in highlighting individuals of colors. Not to be seen as a shade different than you, but to to be at the table and have opportunities as a person who is there to learn and create with like-minded individuals. Being inclusive, open, and attempting change is a choice. Being willing to do the work is just the beginning.

“Work” means actively researching BIPOC creators and talking to them about their work. Play their games and offer feedback and support. Donate to trusted organizations that support the cause of building diversity in the board gaming community.

All of the links below are public information (links to BGG pages, Instagram accounts, YouTube channels, etc) provided for those who want to support BIPOC voices in the tabletop industry. If any creator listed below would like me to remove them from the list, I will do so promptly and respectively.

This is a living list, and I would love to expand it. If you have any suggestions, please mention them in the comments. I will continue to seek out, hire, play games from, and subscribe to BIPOC creators in the future.

Artists

Game Designers/Publishers

Content Creators

These lists are far from comprehensive, and I’d love to hear in the comments your favorite content BIPOC creators, designers, and artists who I should add to the lists (or if there’s additional content I should mention about anyone already on this list).

Last, I’d like to add that a major aspect–perhaps the major aspect–of improving diversity in the tabletop gaming community involves money. Lists like this don’t mean much if publishers aren’t hiring BIPOC artists, playtesters, & proofreaders, pursuing games by BIPOC designers, and sending products to BIPOC content creators. As I talked about in the Show Me the Money post and as shown on our staff page, this is something very much engrained in what we’re trying to do at Stonemaier Games (but there is much more work to be done).

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50 Comments on “BIPOC Voices in the Tabletop Game Industry

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  1. […] Jamey’s Lists: A while ago, Jamey posted a list of over 200 artists and graphic designers whose work he loves. The list has grown over time, and the post includes comments from many other talented artists as well. He also recently share a list of amazing BIPOC artists. […]

  2. Hey Jamey. This is a great list. I’m a Latino game designer and content creator having designed Fossilis and creating KS videos as Mesa Game Lab. Would love to be added to this list as well. Thank you!

  3. Hello Jamey,

    Thanks for compiling this list. It’s something that’s needed and greatly appreciated. Could you please add me to it?

    My name is Kevin Williams and I have recently self published a game I’ve been working on for the past 2 years – Songnario.We also have a page on Board Game Geek, FB and IG

    Thanks 👍🏾👍🏾

  4. […] consultant: As revealed in a recent blog post, we hired Lydia Wehmeyer as our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant. While I’ve known […]

  5. Hey there Jamey! I love everything you do to keep comms channels so open for all of us in this space. Could you please add me to this list? Thanks so much and keep up the great work building community!

  6. Jamey, great lists, my friend. I would add Michael and Christina Pittre from near my home town of Philadelphia the designer/artist duo behind PenTree Games’ On the Rocks which came out this year (I previewed and played it back at PAX Unplugged in Philly, 2019).

  7. An Open Letter to Journalists Who Recently Learned of the Existence (and Popularity) of Modern Tabletop Games – Stonemaier Games says:

    […] Reviewers & Media: Since you’re probably reading this as a non-tabletop journalist, I wanted to share that the board game media is incredibly important to the gaming industry and community. There are thousands of gaming blogs, podcasts, and channels, including several YouTube channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers (e.g., Watch It Played, The Dice Tower, and Shut Up & Sit Down). If you’re working on a piece about games to buy for the holidays, I highly recommend checking out at least a few of the reviewers on this list and this list. […]

    1. Sarah: I’m sorry for the misunderstanding, as your omission from this list has nothing to do with your gender or your religion. Rather, the last time I heard from you (summer of last year), you asked me to disassociate with you because you were worried about how a connection to me might reflect negatively on your growing channel. I remind you of this with no disrespect–I recall the email conversation as respectful from both sides–but rather to point out that it is actually at your request that I didn’t mention you here (definitely not because of your gender or religion).

      I hope you’re familiar with the amazing body of work of my friend Nersi Nikahktar (3 Things in 3 Minutes). He’s run his excellent channel for several years now, and he’s a part of my bi-weekly virtual game group. He is Muslim too, and he is included on the above list.

      1. I just read the email I sent to you in August 2020. I had said that I would be willing to play and review your games in a couple months from when I sent that message after the negative attention around you died down, so there was no intention to dissociate permanently from Stonemaier Games. Thanks for pointing out the other creator, but my point still stands, I’m the only female Muslim content creator. Besides the one you pointed out, I know of two other male Muslim content creators, but I’ve not come across another female Muslim content creator.

      2. I appreciate you adding me to the list, but the link to my YouTube channel is incorrect. Could you please fix it? Thank you!

        1. Oh, I’m sorry! It’s working for me, but I’ll take a look and make sure I’m using the right link.

          1. I found a better link with your channel name in the URL, and it’s also working for me! :)

  8. Hi there, no one named “Amanda” makes content for Board Game Blitz. I assume you meant to mention my amazing cohost Ambie. It feels especially insensitive to not even be able to get a person’s first name correct within the context of this blog post. If anyone reads this blog, please know that Ambie is one of the most talented creators in board games. Her song parodies on her personal YouTube (ambierona) are top notch, and she and I have been making podcast, video, and blog content together for nearly 6 years and have partnered with publishers big and small throughout that time. I know how spectacular she is and I believe she deserves better than this.

    1. Crystal: Thank you so much for clarifying that, and I’m sorry for the mistake. I will correct it in my post right now. Just to clarify, though, my post wasn’t referring to Ambie–it was referring to Amanda Panda, who is mentioned in the description of the video I linked to (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ztBgw2DBQo). In fact, while looking at the video now, there is a person named Amanda shown throughout the video…ah, I understand my mistake now. I was referring specifically to Amanda Panda, who has a Twitch stream, but I couldn’t find her Twitch channel, so I linked to a YouTube video I found with Amanda Panda in it. That’s your video–she must have been a guest at some point. I’ve now corrected the Board Game Blitz listing on this post, and thanks to your video, I’ve found Amanda’s Twitch channel, and I’ll add it to the list now too. Thanks!

      Addendum: I would love to support your channel if you would grant me the opportunity to do so. There’s information and a form about that here: https://stonemaiergames.com/our-current-approach-to-board-game-reviewers-and-content-creators-2021/

      1. Hi, thanks for adding me to the list! But it’d probably be more helpful if the link was to our YouTube channel or our website (https://www.boardgameblitz.com/) instead of one of our Twitch VOD videos (I’m actually baffled as to how you found that video since it doesn’t have that many views).

  9. I really hope that you have explicit written permission from each of these people to list them on your very public blog post especially when you have a fanatic audience whom you cannot control.

    1. Bebo: The audience I try to cultivate are people who believe in inclusivity, diversity, and kindness. I know that I’m not always the best representative of those beliefs, but if you look at our ambassador program, you can see that it’s those types of people I try to engage with and whom I want to be representative of the Stonemaier brand. https://stonemaiergames.com/about/ambassador-program/

      With that in mind, the point of this blog post is to spread the word about the amazing BIPOC voices in the game industry–I feel like we can do more good by sharing the love for people like this publicly. I have absolutely no tolerance for anyone who uses this list to do harm or spread hate.

      All of the information I provided in this article is already public information (I purposely did not include email addresses).

      1. You’re very good at deflection, Jamey, but you still did not answer my question. Did you get these users permission to feature them in this post?

        1. Sorry, I didn’t see the question in your first comment, but it’s clear now: No, I did not get the permission of anyone in the above list to feature them in the post.

          This post is meant to uplift these creators and share them with others who want to support them, but I’ve added a disclaimer at the top of the list that if anyone wants to be removed from the list, I will do so promptly and respectfully.

  10. Listing Mandi and Suz under just the Dice Tower is incredibly reductive of the important presence they’ve had in the hobby for years before being co-hosts of that podcast.

    They have a Twitch channel here: https://www.twitch.tv/saltandsassgames
    Mandi also runs To Die For Games, here: https://www.youtube.com/c/ToDieForGames/about

    Hopefully you’ll add those to your list too. And hopefully you’ll apologize to the people that you’ve spoken ill of/to when they’ve tried to call you out.

    1. Thank you for bringing Mandi and Suzanne’s Twitch channel and YouTube channels to my attention, and I will gladly add them to this list today. My true intention is not to reduce anyone on this list to one type of content or channel, and I’m happy to add to the list in any way that can better represent the people on it for the benefit of them and the tabletop industry as a whole.

      Nicole, I spoke poorly of you to someone last summer after you were critical of a blog post I wrote, and I’m truly sorry for that. It was unfair of me to even be aware of that criticism (criticism I very much deserved), as your words posted privately and shared with me by one of your friends. I reacted poorly, immaturely, and defensively, especially when I would much prefer to be an ally for you than an antagonist against you. I’m sorry.

      1. I’m glad you will amend your list to include Mandi and Suz’s other work, and I hope you’ll actually consume the content you’re sharing here. It’s empty unless you are going to follow through.

        Another important BIPOC voice is Meeple Lady – her website is here http://www.boardgamemeeplelady.com/ and she is a regular contributor to the great podcast the Five By. https://thefiveby.fireside.fm/

        I would rather not discuss the way in which you treated myself and the friend of mine you spoke to here. I am glad you are recognizing the issues but you have a long way to go to gain the trust back of many.

        1. Absolutely, I subscribe to the vast majority of these channels, and the vast majority of them are on the list of reviewers that we actively support at Stonemaier Games (we also actively pay a number of the people on the artist list). I’ll add and subscribe to Meeple Lady too.

          I understand, and I agree. Thank you, Nicole.

  11. Glad to see these actions you are taking to make a positive impact including hiring Lydia to advise you and Stonemaier. One designer to add to your list is Christopher Chung, who designed Lanterns: The Harvest Festival, which my wife and I enjoy. Also, this week there was an interesting KS game funded from India called Karigar-e-Taj published by Dice Toy Games. You may want to keep them on your radar too.

    Both of those games are not only by BIPOC designers but also based on themes that show their heritage in a positive, authentic way and so I think make the table gaming experience more inclusive for more people. Cheers.

  12. Level up with the Lees is a great, very positive channel featuring father and five year old son playing heavy strategy games. I challenge anyone not to be seriously uplifted and just entertained by their videos.

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