About Us

The GDI Playbook is created by the Geena Davis Institute and guided by a Global Gaming Advisory Council of industry leaders.

Geena Davis the actor sitting in a chair holding a microphone

Pixelated mushrooms and flowers on the ground

Pixelated landscape of red mushrooms an red and white flowers on green grass.

About The Geena Davis Institute

Since 2004, the Geena Davis Institute (GDI) has worked to mitigate unconscious bias while creating equality, fostering inclusion, and reducing negative stereotyping in entertainment and media. As a global research-based organization, the Institute provides research, direct guidance, and thought leadership aimed at increasing representation of marginalized groups within six identities: gender, race/ethnicity, LGBTQIA+, disability, age, and body type. Because of its unique history and position, the Institute can help achieve true equity in media in a way that few organizations can.

With support from the Oak Foundation, the Institute presents the GDI Playbook: a resource to help video game creators build characters and narratives that better reflect today’s diverse gaming audience.

Learn more about the Institute at geenadavisinstitute.org.

The GDI Gaming Advisory Council

The Playbook, published in 2024, was informed by the insights and experience of the GDI Global Gaming Advisory Council. Past and present Council members have included industry leaders affiliated with these esteemed global organizations:

Thank you to our Council members for your invaluable contributions to this pioneering effort toward inclusive on-screen representation in games!

“The GDI Playbook acknowledges that this is a journey and people start off at different points in that journey. And for folks interested in the gaming industry, seeing a resource like this ensures that they know that people in the industry take this seriously. (Inclusion) is not just a fringe part of the design, but something that so many people understand to be important, not just for themselves or gamers, but for future gamers as well.”

Adrian Ledda, Director of Inclusive Design, Activision

The GDI Junior Advisory Council

The New York Videogame Critics Circle’s student interns join us as paid members of the GDI Junior Advisory Council. We are honored to share their voices and perspectives with you through their writing, which is featured in Key 3 of the GDI Playbook.

Thank you Theresa Afful, Makeda Byfield, Jade Entien, Ronald Gordon, Kimari Rennis, and Khloe Wilkerson.

Credits & Acknowledgements

The content for this website was curated and created by the Geena Davis Institute's research and development team and originally published in 2024. Additionally, we would like to thank the following contributors who made this website possible.

NaJuana Lee, Ph.D., Web Designer, Excelled Learning Solutions, LLC.

Supported by Oak Foundation

Translations by Keyword Studios