Cxmmunity is a nonprofit organization that strives to increase minority participation in esports and gaming. They’ve partnered with Twitch for one of their biggest initiatives; creating an esports league for historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). The streaming platform will fund scholarships and educational support for students at HBCUs.
Cxmmunity co-founder, Chris Peay, shared his experience as a minority in the gaming world, saying “Growing up we’re often taught you get good grades so that you can get into a good college, graduate from that college, and find a good job. Very seldom do we talk about entrepreneurship, let alone entrepreneurship within the esports and video game industry.” In a lot of minority cultures, it is almost frowned upon to emphasize gaming, which Peay also highlights in his statement. As a graduate of an HBCU, he has witnessed the lack of representation in the industry, and these factors inspired him to co-found Cxmmunity to help change that. There is obviously a passion there amongst minority youth, with the International Game Developers Association reporting that 83 percent of black teenagers play videogames. Meanwhile, 68 percent of videogame creators are of Caucasian or European descent.
There is clearly a gap in the demographics as well as the opportunities when it comes to collegiate esports. Currently, Morehouse University is the only HBCU with an esports league. That’s one of more than 200 schools with varsity esports teams across the three major collegiate esports leagues. The lack of inclusion in the industry as a whole is probably aided by the lack of opportunity at the collegiate and amateur level in general. This partnership between Cxmmunity and Twitch will definitely prove to be conducive to diversity in the gaming world.
Follow Cxmmunity’s official Twitch page to stream the first games of the HBCU esports league, beginning on August 2nd.