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Most people love to play card or board games with their family or friends, right? It is nothing like getting the excitement going at a holiday event, birthday party or special occasion playing Uno, Monopoly, Spades, Cards Against Humanity, etc. However, when it comes to these particular games, the creators behind all of them are white men.

The underrepresentation within the gaming industry has been going on for years and continues to grace the shelves of big box retailers. When people go into Walmart or Target looking for a game to play with family and friends, they are not automatically thinking, "let me pick up this game because it is created by a Black game maker." Many people just pick up games of familiarity which have been played from generation to generation in their household, something they just recently played with their friends and family, or something they might've heard about on TV or in a social media post. People may not realize that a very small percentage of all games which currently sit on big box retailers shelves are Black-owned. In fact, the only Black-owned card and board games that sit inside a select number of Targets and Walmarts are Phase 10 (Mattel), Black Card Revoked and Rhyme Antics, leaving the rest of the shelves to be overloaded with games mass produced by white men.

In a 2018 study, Tanya Pobuda examined the top 200 and 100 games placed on Board Game Geek's website, assessing the inequality of race and gender in the gaming industry.

Until more representation is created in the industry, check out these awesome and fun Black-owned games that you can support outside of big box retailers:

Davon Clark

Writing since November 2019 · 1 story contributed