{"id":617003,"date":"2023-03-12T08:57:25","date_gmt":"2023-03-12T13:57:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.sellorbuyhomefast.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/12\/loopbreak-gg-shines-a-light-on-black-stories-in-gaming-donovan-erskine-interview\/"},"modified":"2023-03-12T08:57:25","modified_gmt":"2023-03-12T13:57:25","slug":"loopbreak-gg-shines-a-light-on-black-stories-in-gaming-donovan-erskine-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/12\/loopbreak-gg-shines-a-light-on-black-stories-in-gaming-donovan-erskine-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Loopbreak.gg shines a light on Black stories in gaming | Donovan Erskine interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Donovan Erskine<\/a> is a lifelong gamer, but he hasn\u2019t seen that many characters that look like him in video games. <\/p>\n

So he decided to create a new game journalism publication, Loopbreak.gg<\/a>, to highlight the Black stories of the gaming industry and video game content. The extraordinary thing about this is that game journalism has been thinning out, with many publications laying off people or shutting down during the struggles of the pandemic and the economic downturn. <\/p>\n

The website got off the ground in early February, and it has financial backing from Google Play and help from the Off School Grounds Coalition<\/a>. To Erskine, this is like a dream come true, as he thought about his own challenges breaking into gaming. And wanted to provide a platform for Black writers to get a start in game journalism, either as reviewers or reporters. He has some freelancers helping with the writing and he hopes to expand over time.<\/p>\n

Erskine graduated with a degree in broadcast journalism in 2020 from Bowie State University, the oldest historically Black college and university (HBCU) in Maryland. He joined ShackNews as an intern when he was 18 and he joined them as a news editor after he graduated. He still does that work and also found time to get Loopbreak.gg off the ground. <\/p>\n

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Moonrock Agency helped start LoopBreak, brought in Google Play as a sponsor and hired Erskine.\u00a0I talked to him about what he hopes to achieve.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s an edited transcript of our interview.<\/p>\n

Donovan Erskine is editor-in-chief of Loopbreak.gg.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GamesBeat: I feel like there\u2019s a massive weakness in game journalism right now, where all I see are people getting laid off everywhere. To see something new come along and have a reason to exist, in a good niche, I can\u2019t remember the last time I heard a story like LoopBreak. So how new is this? How long have you been doing it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Donovan Erskine: <\/strong>We launched the very beginning of February, so maybe about a month to the day. In the first days of February we launched. We have a couple of writers working on the website. It\u2019s been great to provide a platform for Black writers to get a start in the industry. I have a friend of mine I\u2019ve known for some years who contacted me years ago about getting into the industry as a Black writer, the trials and tribulations you face, the hurdles you jump over. I was able to bring in some freelancers to start LoopBreak, which has been awesome. People are able to put down \u201cI wrote for LoopBreak\u201d on their resume, have a byline they can point to. If that helps them get jobs down the road, that\u2019s awesome.<\/p>\n

GamesBeat: You\u2019ve been out of college for about three years, is that right?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erskine:<\/strong> Yeah, I graduated in 2020 from Bowie State University. I got out right as the pandemic was really kicking off, luckily for me. I have a degree in broadcast journalism. I studied news there. Bowie State is the oldest historically Black college and university (HBCU) in Maryland. It has an amazing journalism program. I learned a lot about not just being in front of the camera, but behind it, writing news. A lot of the things I\u2019ve applied to what I do now.<\/p>\n

GamesBeat: Was ShackNews your first job, then?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erskine:<\/strong> Yeah, I had been writing for ShackNews as an intern when I was 18, still in college. I was lucky enough that they brought me on very young. I got to cover events with them. I went to E3, PAX, New York Comic-Con. I did interviews. I really ran the gaming journalism gauntlet by the time I graduated college. Then they were gracious enough to bring me on as news editor there. I love the group over there. They\u2019re awesome. But yeah, that was my first gig in gaming journalism. It\u2019s been quite a blessing.<\/p>\n

GamesBeat: Did that come to an end? When did you start thinking about LoopBreak?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erskine: <\/strong>I\u2019m still there. I still do my role as news editor at ShackNews in conjunction with my work at LoopBreak, which I\u2019m fortunate to be doing. Last year, maybe early fall, or maybe even before the fall, that\u2019s when serious conversations had started about LoopBreak. It was something I had always thought would be very cool to do before that, but the wheels really started turning at that point. Of course, Google Play was brought on as one of our founding sponsors. They\u2019ve been very supportive, the team over there. We\u2019ve been working with the Off School Grounds coalition. They\u2019ve been awesome. It\u2019s a non-profit we work with. A lot of folks helped get this off the ground.<\/p>\n

Loopbreak.gg got started in February 2023.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

GamesBeat: That is pretty unique, that you could start with someone like Google Play behind you. What were the conversations like? What gave you the grist to go and try this and make it real?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erskine:<\/strong> Mainly just getting resources. Knowing folks that are able to design a site, folks that can get in touch with sponsors. Having connections to writers. There\u2019s no shortage of talented writers out there. We mentioned layoffs earlier. A lot of folks are getting let go from their jobs who are more than capable, excellent writers. Just being able to bring everything together.<\/p>\n

GamesBeat: With the support from Google Play, does that let you have a certain amount of staff on board and operate profitably? Or do you still need to find more companies to support you, advertisers and sponsors?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erskine: <\/strong>The great thing with Google is that they\u2019re also helping us with promotion, Google ads and whatnot. They\u2019re huge into diversity and inclusion. They\u2019ve been very gracious with their time with us. We\u2019ve had calls with them talking about how we can make LoopBreak better, how we can get the word out about the website. Just steering that ship together. Talks with other companies, that\u2019s more of a down the road feature.<\/p>\n

GamesBeat: What areas do you intend to cover? How far do you want to go in terms of platforms and types of coverage?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Erskine:<\/strong> I really want to do a little bit of everything. We have some reviews up. We reviewed the new Dead Space remake that came out. We reviewed Forspoken. We\u2019re planning on reviewing the bigger games as they come out. Covering news as it pertains to our readership. Some of the content I\u2019m most proud of that we\u2019ve done so far has been interviews. I believe at this point we have five interview articles live chatting with Black game developers and folks that own Black indie gaming studios releasing games for different platforms. We\u2019ve spoken with Neil Jones, better known as Aerial_Knight, who developed and published Aerial_Knight\u2019s Never Yield. A lot of smaller developers.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s another place that Google has helped us out, pointing us toward Black developers in their program. They have their own system over there where they highlight some underserved voices. I just recently did an interview with Craig Tinsley who runs Fresh Dope Games, and he was telling me about Rap Quest, which is a game that mixes classic RPG elements with hip-hop culture. I think the game has about 50,000 downloads now on official stores. It\u2019s a very unique experience. He kind of had this brainchild to serve folks that love hip-hop and RPGs. There\u2019s really no other game that does what it does. He talked to us about his aspirations, his full vision of making it an online game with 3D models and robust characters. Having actual artists come in and do voices. It was very cool to get to provide a platform for him to show that vision as he\u2019s still working on getting people to develop the game with him and try to secure funding himself. That\u2019s something I\u2019m most proud of with the website so far.<\/p>\n

GamesBeat: I saw Blessing [Adeoye Jr.] did a video that you guys wrote about as well.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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