Damage School: online cohort learning

The games industry is estimated at a $180-billion market value, and that number is growing. However, this market is not equally accessible to everyone. The games industry has systemically discriminatory hiring practices. The staggering lack of diversity in the games industry workplace produces culture and content that is demonstrably toxic and inequitable for 2SLGBTQIA+ and other marginalized individuals. 

Our solution is to empower creators with diverse-lived experiences to create their own studios. 

Damage School (DS) is an equitable and free online learning platform that scales our successful Damage Labs studio startup program to empower and equip racialized and gender-marginalized people to enter the games industry through an innovative cohort approach to online learning. By providing a viable alternative to traditional modes of higher education, DMG will challenge existing power structures in this sector through reimagining and activating funding models and ethical labour structures that centre cooperation and information-sharing.

The games industry is a major contributor to the Canadian and global economies. Buoyed in part by digital sales, the games industry’s performance increased during COVID-19. The games industry is thriving, with major games studios regularly hiring.

The problem is who is being hired for these jobs. Sexism and a lack of diversity in the games industry is a longstanding issue creating both a toxic culture and insurmountable barriers for historically underrepresented and marginalized individuals.

While the content of games has begun to change to reflect more diverse perspectives, the power structures within the industry lag behind. In 2019, 47% of people playing games identified as women, while only 24% of individuals working in the industry did so. These numbers skew further towards a disproportionate industry representation of heterosexual, cisgender individuals. Last year, multiple allegations of sexual misconduct by male team leaders were reported at many of the industry’s largest companies, including at Ubisoft’s Toronto offices. We understand disproportionate representation within the industry and sexual misconduct from those in positions of power to be intrinsically linked. 

Without diversity at the hiring level, misogynistic, heteronormative business practices flourish, creating toxic workplace cultures that further entrench those practices.

DMG is committed to supporting the socio-cultural changes that are necessary to make game-design and opportunities in the games industry accessible to all; those who have experienced marginalization require additional social support to enter this sector. Our solution, the Damage School will effect systemic change in the games industry through a hybridized approach to mentor-matching and cohort-based peer grouping in a subsidized learning and sector-networking opportunity for racialized, and gender-marginalized creators. Rather than simply presenting online resources for independent study, we are replicating the vital peer-support model DMG has developed in our Toronto community in an online space to foster deeper engagement and learning. 

Existing online learning platforms reinforce non-participatory models of skills-development, and do not adapt to the governing values of the groups that use them. DS’s facilitation methods – variable engagement, equitable contribution, distribution of control and power, community accountability, and care – are critical to empowering marginalized  individuals to create games and businesses within a social justice context; in other words, we are updating existing technology with social design to promote inclusion. No existing platform meets these requirements, and so we see an opportunity to solve the problem by creating and sharing this resource.

DMG’s target population is racialized, 2SLGBTQIA+, and other gender-marginalized games creators. DMG grew out of grassroots community support in response to a demonstrated need for more inclusive access to independent game arts and culture.

Games are an artistic medium with profound expressive and financial potential; an independent game maker can create a game that demonstrates their perspective and deliver it to a wide audience through a variety of channels. However, the “games industry” at large reflects the same repressive structures that are typical in the tech industry, rewarding mediocre men through “boy’s club” hierarchies and promoting messages that reinforce the status quo and pushing women and other gender-oppressed creators to the margins of the industry, both in terms of development and games-related media and reporting. Even if there are anomalous games studios looking to hire diversely, getting into the games industry poses significant barriers to historically underrepresented and marginalized persons, including barriers around accessibility, modes of higher education, lack of representation in mentors and community, and sector-wide gatekeeping of resources.

In order to change the existing games industry, it is necessary to create an alternative economy and culture that can compete with it while retaining values such as intersectionality, equality, and wealth equity; by creating an alternative model, we create a shelter for those who need it while demonstrating the viability of these values to the mainstream. We believe that creating space to make and talk about games in an explicitly feminist context elevates the craft, amplifies alternative and diverse narratives, and supports the socio-cultural changes that are necessary to make game-design accessible to all. Every success our members achieve creates positive examples that DMG is able to amplify to illustrate the possibility of alternative structures of game development and values-based economic stability. 

Our online repository will be centre on three tenets: ethical labor frameworks, alternative financing opportunities, and structures that centre collaboration and cooperation. Each tenet empowers creators to create businesses in a network of support that fundamentally alters the expectations of the modern games industry and also integrates mechanisms of social support into business development. We centre empowerment of users in technology and the learning process; too often, people learn basic skills for developing games but are uncertain of the next steps for starting a studio or business. This is why the support of an engaged community of collaborators through peers and mentors is central to DMG’s education model—-we know that change in the game industry isn’t as simple as training marginalized individuals in skills so that they can be hired into an existing toxic and exploitative workplace. Damage School is a network that creates and enables users to access resources to create workplaces on their terms to change the industry. 

DMG listens to our members on how best to serve their needs. We actively promote the work of racialized creators, and are in constant discussion about how to make sure that we’re actively supporting them. Similarly, our membership is neuro-diverse and we develop and change how we offer our programs to make sure that our most marginalized members feel welcome and supported. We practice equity, providing the most support to those who need it the most in order to participate in our programs. 

In the past we have offered childcare services to allow members with children to participate, and provided equipment and food to members who needed them to create their works. In the wake of Covid-19, we have been taking steps to insure the safety of our immuno-compromised or other vulnerable members by delivering grocery orders to their homes and remaining in contact during social isolation. 

Damage Labs was developed to provide an alternative to post-secondary education and skills-development to marginalized creators who could not otherwise afford costly training programs in this sector. Damage School will scale and grow the impact of this program, using a peer-support social engagement model to supplement online learning. This intensive level of support bypasses several major obstacles for participation in the games industry as a thriving digital economy, deepening and strengthening learning outcomes for marginalized creators so that they can start businesses and make important works that share their visions, inspiring further creativity in audiences with shared experiences.

Damage School (DS) will scale and grow the impact of our previously successful Damage Labs program: a yearlong, free program for games creators from historically marginalized and underrepresented backgrounds ready to start a game studio, while learning about ethical labour frameworks, alternative financing, and games studio structures that centre cooperation. Not only was this program successful, it was integral to our development of DS, which will expand on the Damage Labs concept to implement a peer-support social engagement model to supplement online learning to deepen and strengthen learning outcomes for marginalized creators so that they can participate in the games industry as a thriving digital economy. The ready scalability of our solution does not end with DS, it is a model designed for further growth, with applications across communities around the world; we will create a resource for starting similar initiatives to share with other organizations.

Our approach is innovative in several ways: for one, we are committed to our values and have expertise in designing programs that structurally reinforce practices that lead to equity and diversity. Also, by teaching business skills alongside development skills using a decentralized and ethical infrastructure, we solve a key problem; there are many game design programs in Canada, but few junior production jobs available. These programs lead to more job seekers than jobs, exploitation through unpaid internships and the idea that the only positions available are in major companies. DMG will cultivate future skills by empowering artists and disrupting the current education model.

As well, our focus on incorporating strategies for securing funding as part of the resources is novel to the games industry. There are many available guides on how to create a game; none combine those resources with industry-specific strategies for securing social financing, approaching publishers, or implementing equitable hiring policies. In short, we are creating tools for independent and marginalized creators to create their own positions and providing points of contact for creating a network of mutual support, resulting in an alternative economic ecosystem for games development. 

Marginalized voices need to be a part of the growth of the games industry, but experience numerous barriers to participation in the existing system. By ensuring that marginalized creators can make their own space in the industry, we are contributing to equality, representation, and clearing the path to viable careers that combine creative and financial independence.

Damage Labs is built on intensive support for a small number based on the expectation that their success will create job opportunities for others in the short term, clear funding models for other studios in the middle term, and increased representation in both the games industry and game media with positive results for marginalized individuals and communities in the long term.

Our first intake for Damage Labs received overwhelming interest from across Canada, receiving 56 deserving and qualified applications in total. As a result, we expanded our initial cohort from six to ten studios with 17 employees in total. Our planned second intake for Damage Labs will likely increase these numbers to 12 and 20, respectively. 

Damage Labs generated a number of learning resources that we plan to share with our existing community of over 400 members, and as a bedrock for the establishment of DS. Using a cohort model of online learning, we will offer a similar level of intensive support as Damage Labs to 50 independent marginalized artists across Canada and the US next year, and 200 per year in a five year span. 

Organizations in Canada, the US and the UK have reached out to DMG expressing interest in collaborating on programming, but we have not had the capacity. By developing tools for starting cohorts, we will be able to effectively reach communities across the world to help creators tap into digital markets while creating a vast network of economic empowerment for women, 2SLGBTQIA+ and racialized artists.

Damage Labs works extremely closely with participants in its cohort, resulting in constant informal feedback with intermittent formal surveys where we solicit satisfaction with and suggestions for the course. 

The difficulty in measuring the effectiveness of DMG programming towards overall goals is that we are intervening in a complex cultural ecosystem. However, we believe that every position of leadership that is filled by a skilled person with diverse lived experience of marginalization, the closer we come to the sea change that is necessary to fundamentally alter the patriarchal, Eurocentric power structures that still inform the games industry. We have seen company cultures change in real time as DMG members rise to positions of influence. 

For DS, our KPIs will be number of participants, completion rate, number of studios started and number of people employed as a result of this training, and the gross earnings of these studios. DMG is dedicated to maintaining the privacy of its participants, so we will ask for voluntary participation in ongoing measurement of these metrics. We will also ask for volunteers to provide mentorship to new participants in DS and keep metrics on that. Each of these metrics will help us to tailor DS course design towards further effectiveness while also providing insights into the overall impacts of this scaled version of Damage Labs. 

Since DMG began in 2012, we have seen major shifts in the culture of gaming; with DS, we intend to help steer towards greater change in the coming decade and beyond.

Full time staff: 2

Part time staff: 1

Board of directors: 8

DMG is a queer-led not-for-profit arts organization that empowers racialized and gender-marginalized people to make, play and critique video games in an industry where they have historically faced multiple barriers to entry. Games are both a compelling art-form for expression and a site of employment; we help our members find opportunities for both. Founded in 2012, we teach computing skills for artistic expression, offer facilities for production and exhibition, and provide community support for the creation of new work. DMG provides year-round programming and exhibitions, supporting its 650+ Toronto members and the broader game, arts, tech and culture communities.

Since 2012, DMG has presented more than 320 talks, 500 professional and artistic development workshops, 12 intensive programs, 22 jams and 4 residencies; sent 240 members to GDC (Game Developers Conference), participated in scholarly collaborations (OCADU, York University), exhibited member work locally and internationally (Different Games, Indiecade), developed open-source technical tools, and coordinated youth mentorship programs  in collaboration with Indigenous Routes, Interactive Ontario, Black Women Film! and more.

Damage Labs was a radical solution for providing equity in Toronto’s game industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, providing marginalized creators with deep support and education in game-making, marketing, and financing; Damage School is our attempt to integrate our vast experience with community-building into a scaled online version of this program in a full expression of DMG’s expertise.

DMG is a queer-led not-for-profit arts organization that is led by our board of directors, but we are organized non-hierarchically. We hold transparency and open conversation as essential tenets to equity, and so we are always accountable and available to our membership, and we regularly seek feedback from our community. DMG’s board of directors and community is intentionally composed of women, 2SLGBTQIA+, and BIPOC artists and creators, and we are always looking to continue to deepen diversity, representation, and inclusion at every level of operation at DMG. 

Our bylaws require that all new board members and committee volunteers complete anti-racism, anti-oppression, and mediation training through our partner, Toronto Hostels Training Centre. We ask our members for feedback through regular surveys, and continuously incorporate this feedback into our programming and operation. Our code of conduct, which has been adapted and used by organizations around the world, is the basis of our framework for providing equitable and inclusive spaces. Our formal conflict resolution policy and procedures provide actionable context for the code of conduct, and all policies are maintained collaboratively and transparently through version control, are posted in our physical space, and discussed openly and regularly with our community online and in person. 

In addition to listening to and acting on feedback from our community, we actively engage and collaborate with our sector associations MANO (Media Arts Network of Ontario) and IMAA (Independent Media Arts Alliance) to produce equity, accessibility and inclusion policy best practices.

DMG is applying to Solve because we are ready to become a global presence. For the past 9 years, we have built a vital and energetic community of creators in Toronto; despite many expressions of interest from creators and community partners in other regions, we did not expand because we believed in the worth of in-person programming and community building  

Of course, then COVID-19 hit; DMG immediately halted all in-person programming to safeguard the health of our community and began to pivot to online program delivery. What we found was that the skills and insights that helped our community thrive transitioned to online spaces with thoughtful design and planning. As a result, we have realized that we are ready, willing, and able to begin scaling DMG’s impact nationally and internationally.

MIT Solve can connect DMG to partners and other teams who can help us create the tools that will bring the Damage Labs concept to the widest audience; although our team has talented developers and community managers, we will need help connecting these resources to new regions and countries to maximize our impact. We are also interested in further developing new financing options to help us monetize our tools for licensing to for-profit businesses so that we can continue to offer resources to those who need them for free. 

The key tasks that DMG needs support with have to do with development, outreach and sustainability. DMG has the tools to create DS and market it, but the network of skills, technology and insight in the MIT Solve ecosystem would allow us to more effectively reach our goals in a shorter time frame. We anticipate being able to contact other education providers for their insights and design challenges, connecting with communities who are looking for the kind of education that DS provides, and also help for developing cohort-based course licensing so that the tools that we develop can become an additional revenue source for DMG and DS. 

We also note that a number of MIT Solve’s teams are working on tools for making education tools more effective, including Century Tech’s work towards analyzing learning effectiveness; since our goals are broad and systemic, DMG could use help with developing KPIs that leverage these technologies. 

DMG would be thrilled to receive mentorship with the MIT Digital Economy and Good Companies, Good Jobs initiatives to help us design even more effective tools for game entrepreneurs entering the digital economy. We would also seek guidance from the Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship.

We are intrigued by a number of previous Solve Teams, including Eneza’s approach to equipping learners with resources, Century Tech’s approach to analyzing learning approaches, and Tamo Junto’s tools for helping aspiring entrepreneurs. We would be excited to meet with the leaders of these teams to find ways to meaningfully integrate their approaches into our own. In particular, we believe that Century Tech would help us to develop more effective KPI measurements for DS.

However, DMG would also be excited to contribute to partnerships through MIT Solve. Our community and participants have a wealth of knowledge about developing interactive approaches and systems to inclusion and would be delighted to provide insights to other Solve teams.

Damage School brings DMG's proven approach to empowering creators and establishing equity practices to a wider scope that will help us to advance inclusion in the digital economy for racialized and gender-marginalized people. Our solution meaningfully integrates equity design and peer-support into an online education model that is designed to meet the need of a wide array of individuals who would not be able enter the games industry, and actively removes barriers to participation. 

DMG stands for “Dames Making Games,” and our initial mandate was to help women achieve inclusion in the digital economy through game-making. Since then we have expanded our focus to include and prioritize 2SLGBTQIA+ and racialized identities, but empowering women remains at the core of what we do. Damage School redefines online learning for development and entrepreneurship from the ground up to be essentially collaborative and cooperative, building peer support and mentorship into the program at all levels; we believe that this approach is essential for empowering women because it will create conditions of cooperation that are in many ways antithetical to traditionally patriarchal structures of business development. This approach will radically increase access to the digital economy represented by the games industry by creating alternative structures of education, employment, and entrepreneurship.