Gaming is competitive but the spirit of fair play hasn’t infiltrated its world in a noticeable way. It’s often viciously nasty. The vast majority of gamers have witnessed emotional abuse, bullying, and hate speech.
Melanin Gamers, a digital community protecting and promoting diversity and inclusion in the video game industry, and Leo Burnett have launched an initiative to try to temper the toxicity in gaming.
The Toxicity Rating works in the same ways as TV show and movie ratings that help audience to understand what they’re getting themselves into. At the moment, video games are rated by ages for Everyone, Teen and Mature. Leo Burnett and Malanin Gamers’ Toxicity rating adds another guide. It rates games for their online toxicity, based on ach game’s individual prevalence of abuse, discrimination and violence?
To contribute, gamers are invited to visit ToxicityRating.com to survey games identifying the level of toxicity within it, to view stats specific to racism, gender discrimination, direct violent threats, sexual content, crude humour, and conversations around controlled substances. All gamers are welcome to contribute to it. So far, the Toxicity Rating has had over 2,500+ submissions since launch from over 115 countries worldwide.
The initiative launched with five games initially, and thanks to the community, has been able to publish nine titles total to date. The nine games now reviewed include notable titles like Call of Duty, Fortnite, Minecraft, Apex Legends, Valorant, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Rocket League, Destiny 2, and GTA Online. Melanin Gamers has identified an additional twelve games that are among this year’s hottest new releases that need to be reviewed.
The campaign is entirely organic and running on social.
Credits:
Client: Melanin Gamers
Creative Agency: Leo Burnett Canada
President: Ben Tarr
Vice President: Richard Newman
Chief Creative Officers: Steve Persico & Lisa Greenberg
Executive Creative Directors: Kohl Forsberg & Tyler McKissick
Copywriters: Ryan Kukec & Coleman Mallery
Vice President: Man Wai Wong
Designer: Donna Liu
Producer: Mike Spilchuk
Strategy Director: Ryan Roberts
Tech Lead: Felix Wardene
Project Director: Tom Degez
Developer: David Freedman
Production: Leo Burnett Canada
Animation: Yar Kukhtin
Production Designer: Gord Cathmoir
Post Production & VFX: Leo Burnett Canada
Editor: Ryan Tomk
