Celebrating Pride Month
June is one of our favorite months. The sun is shining in Stockholm (the location of our studio), the weather is warmer and we finally get to spend more time outdoors. It’s also Pride Month, an important month for the LGBTQIA community and a month where we raise awareness and highlight the struggles one may experience. To highlight this important month, we spoke to our colleagues Bo, Anita, Jonathan and Natalie about why they think Pride Month is important.
Why is Pride Month important?
Bo: It is a month for each of us to celebrate and express how it’s completely valid to be proud of our own unique selves, whether that be gay, straight, trans or cis! A message of love and acceptance that can’t be said one too many times.
Anita: Every company should encourage diversity and inclusion! Feeling accepted and appreciated at a place where you spend 40 hours a week is pretty meaningful. Sometimes you see your team members more than your own family! So feeling like you can be yourself is paramount. Whether it’s about sharing your opinion in meetings or small things, like having uni-sex bathrooms, these factors can have a huge impact on people’s everyday lives.
It’s also vital for any company to encourage diversity and inclusion all year round. This can encompass how recruitment is handled, the employee culture, education and so much more! Now this is in no way the easiest task to accomplish, which is why it’s so important for us to work together and participate in every step of the process.
Natalie: Pride Month is an entire month dedicated to the uplifting of LGBTQIA voices, celebration of LGBTQIA culture and the support of LGBTQIA rights. Although I wish we would have come further by now, we haven’t and we still very much need to continue the fight for a better way. Every year I often spend extra time thinking about those before me and those who will come after me. What they all seem to have in common is that most are just regular everyday people, who have normal jobs. Not politicians, celebrities or in other ways powerful. All sticking their necks out, making themselves visible, all to make other peoples’ lives better. So I always think what can I do to do the same? Usually it ends up being a mix of small and big things. From following up on a colleague’s invitation to share my pronouns in my email signature to redesigning all policies to be gender neutral.
What’s your opinion on LGBTQIA representation in games?
Anita: Like lots of things these days, some parts are getting better, but we need to do so much more. Whether you’re a kid or an adult, seeing someone ‘’like you’’ on screen can mean so much. We like feeling like we can relate to the characters we are playing in-game. There are so many tropes we’ve all seen before, and there are so many stories to tell and share. I can’t wait to get to experience them all.
Jonathan: Regarding representation in games, I like when game devs add characters that are different in some way but don't focus the entire game around it. It makes it feel like they're real characters. I think Tell Me Why did a pretty good job with this.
What are some of your hopes for Pride Month 2022?
Natalie: A part of me in a way hopes that Pride Month won't be needed next year. That we have made so much progress that we can take a year off. A holiday if you may. But other parts, probably more realistic, hope that we will have gotten a lot better at allowing space, holding space, creating space for all types of people. And to say that regardless of where you are in the world the type of person you are does not hold you back in terms of work, love and friendships.
Anita: My hope next year is that everyone first and foremost is healthy! That we can learn more together, celebrate the accomplishments but also reflect over what work is still left to do.
As June comes to an end, please join us at Resolution Games in taking a stand. And remember that it’s never wrong to stand up for basic human rights.
