Why doesn't Gamespot have any non-white reviewers??

The Wii Fit video reviewer is not a white guy

@PSP107: your pic "oh no you ditten" after gaming-planets comment, funny as hell!!!!

oh yea.

I have always wondered this they seem to go on and on about equality and diversity, and yet don't have a single single non-white reviewer, not to mention like 99% of their shows are presented by white males (except jess).In addition there is only one prominent female reviewer.

And on top of that, she sucks.

How many reviewers does GS have?

I wouldnt even bother with gerg. He takes his pleasure out of dissecting other people's comments rather than contributing anything substantial for debate. I second your theory he is an AI conversation BOT although I am not sure about advanced. A tedious distraction from an otherwise interesting conversation. I agree the Gamespot staff do not appear to be representative or particularly diverse, equally this is the first time I have actually had it brought to my attention so perhaps I have simply not been paying attention lol.

I actually disagree about the best applicant getting the job. "The best" is actually pretty subjective. The landlord at my local pub only hires pretty young waitresses for example, I doubt academically, socially or even geographically these beautiful women are all "the best" applicant for the job. However they create a pleasant environment to eat and drink in and are therefore "the best" for the business.

I do think its possible to be perfect for the business without being perfect for the job/role.

I actually agree with the TC but for a reason no one mentioned. GS is always criticisizing publishers and developers for their lack of diversity in the game characters they make and in their work place. Well if you criticize for lack of diversity you open yourself up to the same critic. You know the cliche says, don't throw stones if you live in a glass house. Pot calling the kettle black. Over all hypocrisy.

Call me crazy, but I think it's safe to assume there are a lot more white videogame enthusiasts seeking to be reviewers than black videogames enthusiasts seeking to be reviewers. I can count the all the black gamers I know in real life on one hand. I wouldn't exactly call them enthusiasts either....

@KHAndAnime:

I don't know dude most of my gamer friends are black(like me), so maybe it just means you don't know alot of black gamers ,just like I don't know alot of white male gamers.

I went to public school for all my life. I met all the black people in all my classes. VERY few were gamers. I didn't say black gamers didn't exist, but just because you and your friends exist doesn't necessarily mean there are as many black gamers are as there white gamers. 12.6 % of the USA is black, 72.4 % is white. You're trying to tell me there are just as many black gamers here, despite the overall population of African Americans is only a fraction of the white population? Think about it. There are many reasons why there aren't as many black reviewers. But you can boil it down to that there are less black people playing videogames.

Specifically where Gamespot's offices are located, in San Franciso, 48.5% of the population is white and only 6.1% are black. Then take in the additional factor in which I'm assuming the ratio of black people playing video games in relation to entire black population is lot less than the white people ratio. Why am I allowed to make this assumption? Statistically, black people are more poverty stricken than white people, thus having less money for extra entertainment like videogames than white people on average. I think I have pretty sufficient evidence to believe that there are less black video game enthusiasts than white ones, particularly in San Franciso where Gamespot's offices are located.

What does it matter?

People like you is no better then some crazy nut racist. You still look at different skins.

Idk why you bringing up America...

and the whole staff seems to be British. I wonder if there is a connection . . .

b/c white people better at doing reviews.. deal with it.

This whole idea of including people from "all" backgrounds (really, if they did that, they would need thousands of staff) is asinine. People don't need to come from a particular ethnic background to have an opinion about racism/equality/sexism. We are all different shades of humanity, the idea of being proud of our country of birth or genetic purity (which to evolution is a bad thing) is dumb.

I took an English course on ethnic American literature recently. I'm a visible minority so I thought hey, what the hell. We read some pretty good authors and I'm glad I took it. Got perspectives from blacks, latinas, Japanese, and Indians, lots of female authors too. But I've gotta say, I still think America's best authors are the old white guys. Don DeLillo, Cormac McCarthy, Philip Roth. It's just the way it is sometimes.

They've had a fair few over the years. If there are currently no non-white game reviewers, is it so hard to believe that that's just how it happened?

That's a reasonable point to make, but the two situations aren't quite the same. It's very easy to change the demographic make-up of a game's cast, all you have to do is change some models and textures, and if a game is full of white people then that's a specific choice the developers have made. Gamespot's demographic make-up is a product of chance and the demographics of the real world. Getting a more racially diverse team of staff would involve putting some current staff out of work, and would be dependent on any non-white candidates being better than all of the white candidates, or gamespot choosing to prioritise their ethnicity over merit.

Why does it matter? Diversity shouldn't be forced. We're better than that. If you think someone's race, sexuality, gender or beliefs should have anything to do with them getting a job then you are just as bad as the bigots

@KHAndAnime:

Well I'm from south Africa and the situation is the exact opposite the percentage of white gamers is pretty small so I guess your explanation makes sense the population stats are reversed in your case . However if your argument is since they aren't that many African Americans interested in gaming that excuses game-spot from having black reviewers and presenters I have to disagree.

How is it they have a gay and transgender on staff, I'm pretty sure the number of gay/transgender gamers is equally small (if not smaller in the case of transgender gamers) but they appear to accommodate that demographic, not only that but they do a hellva job reminding us to be more open minded and diverse in welcoming gay/female/transgender gamers with every article or news item of late. More to the point they( Gaming media) would have us believe that 50% of gamers are female and yet the number of female presenters on game-spot is near non-existent as far as regular reviews and presenters. Its pretty much 90% plus white male.

It seems rather hypocritical to be as pro-diversity with regards to the whole homosexual/female situation and then be like but F*ck other minorities, when the number of gay gamers is just as insignificant as black gamers or Latina gamers. I suspect they have been many applicants who have applied who were non-white males but GS just didn't care for them.

For me its the double standards they can hire whoever they want for all I care but when you want to set yourselves up as the "Fighting for diversity in gaming website" thats pro gay and pro female to the point it becomes nauseating you better walk the walk and not ignore other equally disenfranchised groups.

You are telling me they couldn't find ONE...JUST ONE black review

Oh yay, another crusader making a fuss about a complete non-issue. Maybe only white people applied for the job, or were the most qualified? Not everything has to be about race. Honestly, I think it speaks to TC's frame of mind when the first thing he notices about the review crew is their race.

But do you think this is actually the case? I have a hard time believing it is, especially in a city like San Francisco where white people are actually a minority. When gamespot has a job opening it is logical to assume that the demographics of qualified applicants should be proportional to the demographics of the general population - if it actually isn't then there is an underlying systemic problem out of gamespot's control, if it is then the problem is on gamespot's end.

Diversity shouldn't be forced, but in a truly colorblind society diversity should arise naturally in all sectors of society.

@mrduckbears3: IGN has Alfredo and Bobbya if those count, also the Italian meat ball looks mixed in my opinion

I'm of Afro/native American decent and to be honest it's not a big deal to me! Even if there was more minorities on the staff, it still would not prove much. Just as someone else said....maybe nobody of color applied for a position.

I can't see how they would pass on ANYBODY who had an intelligent,creative and balanced perspective...no matter what their color is. I'm not in denial about racism in the world but at the same time, this shouldn't always be an issue.

/thread

They used to have Andrew Park, Ricardo Torres, and Bob Colayco back in the day. It's not like they're actively seeking white-only applicants. And they used to have Bethany Something, Carrie Gouskos, and they now have Caroline Petit. So they've had several women as well.