TITLE
Black Professionals In Games: N’Gai Croal Talks Stereotypes, Finding Video Games’ Spike Lee
AUTHOR
Tracey John
PUBLICATION
MTV
YEAR
2008
ARTICLE TYPE
Interview
FROM THE ARTICLE
Last year, I interviewed five different women working in and around the video games industry.Throughout my conversations in the special week-long series, we also spoke about diversity in general; all kinds of people play games, but it doesn’t seem that all kinds of people make them. This idea led me to my latest series where I talked with several black professionals working in the industry. They reflected on their personal experiences, talked about diversity and shared their hopes for the future of the industry.
First, I sat down with prominent games journalist N’Gai Croal, General Technology Editor at Newsweek (and friend to Multiplayer). In his tiny, video game-filled office, the Canadian-born, 35 year-old told me his career in journalism began in part because of race. A writer for the Stanford University newspaper during his undergraduate years, Croal once wrote a column criticizing Newsweek’s cover story about gangster rap. Soon afterwards, the then editor-in-chief of the weekly news magazine contacted Croal about his column and offered him an internship. Croal didn’t accept at the time, but after a brief stint at The Washington Post, he’s worked at Newsweek ever since.
We spoke about everything from his career to his thoughts on specific video games (”Gears of War,” “GTA: San Andreas“) to how diversity could benefit the industry…
GAMES MENTIONED
Dance Dance Revolution
Gears of War
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas
PEOPLE MENTIONED
N’Gai Croal
TOPICS MENTIONED
Race