dale-henry-avatarIn March 2016, Oculus announced their Oculus Launchpad program with the idea that in order for VR to be successful, then there needs to be a diverse range of content created from diverse set of creators who are informed by different ethnicities, cultural backgrounds, and gender identities. Oculus brought together over 100 diverse content creators for a one-day training, and awarded scholarships to 11 projects from the dozens of prototypes submitted at the end of the program. Oculus Launchpad participant Dale Henry wrote up a detailed critique of the Launchpad program that provided a lot of constructive criticism for improvements that he’d like to see.

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I reached out to Henry to unpack his feedback on the lessons learned from the Oculus Launchpad program, but we also talk what the larger VR community can do to support diverse initiatives such as different community-driven mentorship models. We also talk about his personal journey in using VR to help children on the autism spectrum deal with bullying, and some of his struggles as an aspiring VR developer. We also dive into some deeper systemic issues, and have some difficult conversations about how only 1% of funded start-ups have black founders, larger diversity in tech issues, some of the unconscious biases that women and people of color face in raising funds, and whether or not VCs even know how to evaluate people of color.

I reached out to Oculus for a comment on the improvements that they’re making for the second iteration of the Oculus Launchpad program, and it looks like they’ve integrated a lot of the specific critiques from Dale and expanded their mentorship program. Here’s the kickoff message from Oculus VR’s program manager for diversity and inclusion, Ebony Peay Ramirez.
launchpad-improvements

Henry would also like to see more transparency in how the money is being allocated, some of the metrics for success, a more detailed roadmap that shows how to grow and sustain these diversity initiatives, whether there are other external diversity initiatives that Oculus/Facebook is supporting, and some candid feedback of their own internal lessons learned so that other VR companies can learn from these programs.

Henry argues that everyone benefits from diversity in VR initiatives, and that he’d like to see more openness and transparency in these efforts to provide more opportunities for feedback, but also the possibility for more collaboration amongst competing VR companies to share insights and combine resources to support larger diversity efforts in the VR and tech ecosystem.

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Kent Bye
  • paul

    I am sorry, but why do we need to make VR about race? Maybe no one noticed, but men and women make different career decisions and end up doing different things. Is it possible that fewer people of colour are raising their kids to aim for high end tech jobs?
    My bro in law is raising his super smart girls to be professional gamers. My bro is raising his to be engineers. And mine is 11 months old, I would love to see her be a professional athlete (It’s hard to get a read on personality and traits at that age).
    Why do we have to go all progressive?

    • Get Schwifty!

      There is a dogmatic belief out there that all peoples of all races and cultures should perform identically in every context, and if they don’t it’s always somehow a problem of exclusion by some dominant group. Likewise, what’s never an issue is that in some areas over representation is never a problem unless it’s specifically a particular color, suddenly the concerns go out the window. However, what’s ignored in all this is that what drives interest and therefore opens the door to opportunity over time is primarily a factor of cultural background and expectations more than anything else including race relations.

      Are their problems of racism in society? Yes, and they exist in every quarter and country and in every group where more than one race exists and will always be there to some degree but only viewing differences in representation as discrimination is faulty logic (but its oh so easy and feels so good for some folks). That being said, if someone is truly intent upon entering a field of area of endeavor and are committed to it nowhere is it easier than in a relatively free market economy like the United States. Low representation is due to more factors than just some form of systemic prejudice, but also includes cultures which produce individuals which are less technology focused than others (if you doubt this try doing some reading on how different cultures regard timeliness for instance).

      But, people are generally lazy, thinking (and currently heavily manipulated) with the reactionary lizard brain of emotion and not their higher brains and therefore all lower representation questions just must be due to some form of discrimination between groups because that’s the politically easy narrative today force fed through the school system and media outlets like CNN, etc. and reinforced in articles like this which make promote the apriori concept that all issues, real or imagined, are the result of discrimination without looking at all factors involved in the question.

    • Actually the problem is not only VR, the problem is business. When I interviewed some women in VR, they told me exactly that. Stats show that VCs tend to fund startups of male white founders, so a project proposed by someone “different” tend to have less probability to get money, hence to go on.

      Then there is the question of the point of view: most VR developers now are men and what are we creating? Tons of action games, because this is what we like. Cool, eh, but at the 378th zombie shooter game that I’ve seen I’m quite bored. People with different points of view create different content and the VR ecosystem becomes richer.

      I agree with you in the sense that I don’t care if someone is a man or a woman, it is white, black, blue or whatever… but sometimes things have to be pushed a bit.

      • Get Schwifty!

        Do you think the VC’s are biased or possibly VC’s see more viable projects by white males in general? Again, just because there is a disparity doesn’t mean there is prejudice factor per se, I’d like to see projects compared before assuming race just must be a factor. It’s really easy to look across the table at a group of VC’s who don’t like your project and assume its something beyond what you are presenting (or how you present yourself). Stats do not tell the full story.

        OTOH, VC’s are putting their private money up… basically they are entitled to use whatever criteria they like, but make no mistake – they want to make money and they don’t really care what color you are as the only color they care about is green ;)

  • paul

    If people of colour want to start tech companies they will. If they don’t want to, they won’t. They don’t need our help. Let them be.

  • sfmike

    All well and good but please give me the option to play a male character in the games you develop. Just makes me happy that’s all. Don’t feel right playing a woman.

  • Jerry

    I don’t care about your skin or what’s between your legs. If someone who applied is better than the other, I’m gonna hire him/her. I won’t jeopardize my company with race and gender quotas.

  • Tomas Sandven

    Why must “diverse” always refer to races and sexuality these days. The thing VR needs isn’t for its creators to be an artificial equal spread of all races and sexual orientations. Please go corrupt something else. If the market desperately needs a different kind of game, then somebody will fill the void without your meddling.

  • You know I wouldn’t mind this diversity stuff if these people came at it with a completely different attitude. Whites and Asians make up the vast majority of those working in technical fields; particularly in gaming. They also make up the bulk of consumers. It wouldn’t be so irritating if PoC came at the industry honestly, resolved in the fact that there just aren’t many other races in the industry and simply ask to please be included where possible so they can have a more personalized experience. Instead it’s becoming a constant barrage of propaganda about diversity (which is NOT a strength btw) and if you don’t agree you are a racist, sexist, homophobe, bla bla bla. It’s fucking rude and exhausting. Nobody is preventing anyone from learning whatever skill they want online for free and creating their own games.

    • CazCore

      do you really think you’re gonna have any influence (in the direction you WANT) on discussions of race when you named yourself “hatecrime”? lol

      • Do you really think I’m aiming for influence in the comment section of a website dedicated to a niche hobby that is ordinarily entirely unrelated to issues of race and politics?

        • CazCore

          you know the purpose of speech, right?
          you had a reason to say something, right?

          also, you just indirectly said your post was pointless.