‘Cornerstones for Creativity and Success’: Finnish Game Cultural Organisations’ Public DEI Definitions and Practices

Abstract

Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are value-based principles that are widely utilised in building more socially and culturally sustainable environments that are experienced as welcoming and fair for all – also in diverse game cultural contexts. In this study, we investigate how different types of game cultural organisations in Finland understand DEI in the context of their own activities, and what kind of guidelines and practices they have for promoting DEI. The results are based on a reflexive content analysis on 18 public DEI documents from 11 Finnish game cultural organisations focusing on digital games and gaming. Based on our analysis, it seems that Finnish game cultural organisations view DEI as a pathway for their continuous success as well as for building better game culture for everyone. The examined organisations were actively expressing their commitment to promoting DEI both by working to prevent discrimination and harassment and by utilising practices to build safer and more inclusive environments. However, it was not always clear if these organisations had set specific goals for their DEI work and if they were following their progress in this area. Importantly, our investigation illustrates that a wide range of different types of organisations can contribute to the cultural ecosystem in which digital games are created, consumed, and utilised in various ways, and that inspecting this variety of organisations operating on different sectors of game culture may reveal more widely shared cultural values and practices within this environment.