The gaming industry has a well-known diversity problem.

However, amid the bustle at PAX Australia, the largest gaming convention in the southern hemisphere, a new exhibit put underrepresented games and developers at the forefront.

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Led by Australian curator and Rumu gamerunner Ally McLean, the NEXT exhibit featured six games that shake things up, including one by an all-woman developer team, a creator with autism, and a game that examines life as a transgender teenager.

“I know that diverse teams make awesome games, and I know that there are barriers to diverse teams getting to do things like show their games at PAX. It’s expensive, it can be prohibitive, especially coming all the way to Australia,” McLean told Mashable.

“It’s equally as important that consumers and the largest fan base of gaming enthusiasts … are exposed to diverse developers, so that they can broaden their minds to not just what games can be, but who game developers can be.”

McLean dreamt up the idea at PAX East in Boston in April, when she was showing Rumu as part of the Australian showcase. 

With an aim to launch NEXT at PAX’s Melbourne instalment in October, McLean accepted applications until the end of July, by which she received over 100 submissions for six exhibitor spaces. The final selection of games to make up the very first NEXT was decided by a panel of diversity advocates and developers looking for unheard stories in gaming.

“The driving question was really, what does this game offer that we haven’t seen anywhere else?” McLean said.

“What does this game offer that we haven’t seen anywhere else?” 

The six chosen games came from teams like Montreal-based Artifact 5, who’ve developed a surrealist game exploring mental illness in Anamorphine, and fellow Montreal crew Kitfox Games with its dating sim and adventure crossover Boyfriend Dungeon. 

She and the Light Bearer is a point-and-click adventure based on Indonesian folklore, developed by Mojiken Studio.

There’s also the all-woman team of 3 Fold Games, who’ve created Before I Forget, which explores life with dementia. While a Brazilian team of students called Pugcorn were behind Florescer, which examines the hardships and prejudices of a transgender girl. 

An Aspie Life

One particular game that was featured at NEXT is Bradley Hennessey’s An Aspie Life, which reflects on his own experience of living with Asperger’s Syndrome.

Released in March on Steam, Hennessey taught himself how to make the game while he was in the last year of high school. PAX is the first gaming convention he’s ever attended.

“I think NEXT is really important because PAX is mainly about AAA gaming, with lots of brand new shiny things,” he explained. “But in the indie space there’s so many games that try and push the boundaries, which get left behind because they’re different.”

In An Aspie Life, you play as a character living with Asperger’s Syndrome, who has to face the outside world after your roommate mysteriously leaves. 

While developing the game, Hennessey paid more attention to his own traits, which includes noise sensitivity and body language perception. 

“The difficult part was trying to turn my traits into game mechanics that can be playable, and that was very difficult because it hasn’t really been done before,” he said. 

In the game, you’ll take on a task as mundane as grocery shopping. But that becomes a mission, with loud police sirens and interactions with strangers posing a severe challenge in the game, punishing your happiness levels.

For Hennessey, not only does showing his game at PAX expose his story to a new audience, but it allows him to further grow as a developer.

“Online you can get your comments and stuff, but there’s no human interaction, so as a developer you can’t see how people find bugs, or how they got to that position,” he added.

“But being at PAX and seeing people play it, and seeing how they interact with it helps with me as a developer on future projects.”

What’s next for NEXT

While the gaming industry has a long way to go when it comes to diversity, NEXT is one of several groups that are fighting to do better. But will the rest of the industry notice?

“I’m definitely of the belief from my experience in the games industry that people are willing to help if you give them a way. So when we put out the call out for sponsors for NEXT, we were really blown away that people responded,” McLean said.

While the first NEXT proved an exciting, impactful start, the ultimate goal is for the exhibit to have a larger presence in future.

“Six games is not enough,” McLean added. “We’d love to see this become a bigger part of PAX, we’d love for this to part of shows all around the world, and giving a platform for developers that would otherwise not get to be here.”

The thought of Netflix putting out more content about a curvy girl entering the pageant world may make some people cringe, but here we are. The first trailer for Dumplin’ has landed, and it actually seems promising that this will finally be the body-positive story young women deserve.

Based on the YA novel by Julie Murphy, Dumplin’ is about a curvy teen named Willowdean Dickson (Danielle Macdonald) whose former beauty queen mother (Jennifer Aniston) runs their local beauty pageant. When Will decides to join said pageant as a “protest,” a group of her similarly marginalized peers follow her lead.

Refusing to conform to the standards of beauty traditionally touted in pageants, the young ladies seek inspiration from Will’s fave, Dolly Parton, and head to a local Dolly-themed drag bar for the aesthetic and confidence boost they need.

Oh yeah, and there’s a love story tucked in there somewhere, which we get a small hint of with this heart-melting monologue: “Willowdean Dickson, I think you’re beautiful. To hell with anyone else who’s ever made you feel less than that.”

Dumplin’ also comes with a strong female footprint. It’s directed by Anne Fletcher with a screenplay by Kristin Hahn and executive produced by Aniston.

All in all, this movie looks like a fun ride with all the self-love affirmations you could want. We’ll find out for sure when Dumplin’ hits Netflix on December 7.

These days, even your teddy bear might be out to get you. 

As the inevitable creep of “smart” features and products continues to turn everything from your refrigerator to your thermostat into a connected device, it’s worth taking a moment to consider just what you’re giving up in exchange for this wannabe Jetsons future. Thankfully, Mozilla has done a lot of that work for you with a new guide dedicated to just how insecure many smart devices are. 

It’s right in time for the end-of-year shopping season, meaning you have no excuse to buy your parents one of these potentially compromised electronic gadgets as a holiday gift. And, if you send them the guide, they won’t have an excuse for buying you one, either. 

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The Privacy Not Included guide, released Nov. 14, takes a look at a range of products and evaluates them on a host of basic security standards. After all, you should know if a company is publicizing your fitness tracker data, or if your internet-connected sex toy can be easily hacked. 

According to Mozilla, there are five minimum things that a product or company must do in order to avoid being a complete privacy disaster for its customers. 

“The product must use encryption,” explains the guide, “the company must provide automatic security updates, if a product uses a password, it must require a strong password, the company must have a way to manage security vulnerabilities found in their products, and the company must have an accessible privacy policy.”

The categories of products rated — toys and games, smart home, entertainment, wearables, health and exercise, and pets — cover much of the connected-gadget space, and make it clear that Mozilla isn’t playing nice. 

Take, for example, its description of the Amazon Echo Show and Dot. “Now you don’t just get to wonder if Alexa is listening to you, you get to wonder if she’s watching as well.” 

A nifty infographic breaks it down even further. 

Mozilla also took the unique approach of asking people to vote on a product’s creepiness factor. For example, 61 percent of people who voted on the Amazon Echo Show and Dot said it was “super creepy,” and 80 percent said they were “not likely to buy it.”

Importantly, Mozilla didn’t just do this to dunk on smart device manufacturers. Rather, the non-profit was actually trying to put some power back in the hands of consumers. 

“We hope this guide helps consumers make smart and more informed holiday shopping decisions,” explained Mozilla’s vice president of advocacy Ashley Boyd in a press release, “while also inspiring them to demand that companies make it a priority to offer products that protect their privacy and security.” 

Here’s to hoping that consumer demand, armed with Mozilla’s guide, doesn’t fall on deaf corporate ears. 

Community first, eh?

A New York Times report published Wednesday is full of bombshells about how Facebook has handled (and mishandled) its last two years of turmoil. Amidst allegations of pettiness and tales of public relations coups, the report reveals how hard Facebook tried to remain in the good graces of politicians, even at the expense of the “transparency” and “community” it champions.

Notably, on more than one occasion, Facebook chose to appease and avoid confrontation with Republican politicians, rather than take aggressive action to combat Russian and Trumpian propaganda. 

SEE ALSO: Mark Zuckerberg ordered staff to use Android phones after Apple CEO criticized company, report claims

When Facebook grappled with what to do with the first of many egregiously racist Trump posts, it chose to prioritize appearing to support non-partisan “free speech,” instead of enforcing a strong policy against hate speech. 

Then-candidate Trump’s racist 2015 post calling for the barring of all Muslims from America reportedly shocked Mark Zuckerberg. The CEO asked his team to review Trump’s post to determine whether it violated any terms of service. Rather than seizing on what some viewed as an opportunity for Facebook to take a stand against hate speech, the senior team decided to keep Trump’s post up. The reason: so that Facebook wouldn’t “be seen as obstructing free speech” and to avoid “stok[ing] a conservative backlash.”

“Don’t poke the bear.”

Or, as Joel Kaplan, Facebook’s vice president for corporate public policy, reportedly put it: “Don’t poke the bear.”

In another instance, Facebook toned down its report about information manipulation on the platform — entirely avoiding the subject of Russia — after Kaplan again warned against angering conservatives. 

Alex Stamos, Facebook’s former chief security officer, directed a team to begin probing Russian manipulation on the platform in the spring of 2016. 

The team investigating propaganda wanted to publish a public paper on its findings in January 2017. But Kaplan objected to publishing the findings because it could damage relationships with Republicans. 

“If Facebook implicated Russia further, Mr. Kaplan said, Republicans would accuse the company of siding with Democrats,” the Times writes.

Stamos and his team ended up publishing a paper in April entitled “Information Operations and Facebook” — which contained no mention of Russia’s efforts.

Mashable reached out Facebook to ask whether the Times‘ report is accurate, and how Facebook balances political concerns with interests of national security, transparency, and community. But the Times story demonstrates a few things. 

First, it shows the lengths to which Facebook went to assuage bad faith Republican complaints — as Facebook and others have done in the past.

Second, it shows the stunning amount of sway that political optics had over Facebook’s decision making with regard to a national security issue. 

With the Trump post, it allowed speech on the platform not because of an actual dedication to free speech, but to avoid angering conservatives. And with the Russian report that never was, it chose to obfuscate the actions of a malicious foreign entity for the sake of not appearing partisan. 

Of course, the idea that Russian social media manipulation is a partisan issue is a problem in its own right. But so was Facebook’s decision to cater to that political fray, rather than make the decisions that would best allow the company and government to combat international cyber-warfare. 

Facebook has repeatedly said that the company’s priority is its users. But clearly, decisions aren’t always made with simply the best interests of that “community” in mind.