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Reggie Fils-Aimé spoke on many topics during his time at Nintendo of America, but you never really heard him speak about his race. Now that Reggie has retired from the Big N, he’s ready to celebrate his success at the company, as well as his ethnicity.

As part of his book, ‘Disrupting the Game,’ Reggie opened up about his achievements in the game industry, and as a black man.

I celebrate that I am a Black man that had success not only in the video game industry, which is not dominated by Black men, but that I succeeded at Nintendo as a Black American. The reason I was able to be successful is that I brought my whole self to the role. I advocated strongly for what I believed in, and I leveraged my personal experiences in life and in business to push points of view. And, fortunately for me, those points of view not only were more often adopted than not, but more often than not they worked in the marketplace.

[Reggie Fils-Aimé]

Reggie wasn’t the only one pushing for advocacy, either. Reggie worked with numerous members of Nintendo of America to bring up issues of in-game representation with Nintendo’s team in Japan, all in an effort to see greater diversity. In particular, Reggie and his co-workers fought for a greater variety of hairstyles for people of color, and for same-sex relationships in franchises like Fire Emblem.

We pushed for all levels of diversity. It was a constant push to drive, an acknowledgment that in games where you had human representation, we needed to have much more diversity and enable the player to make choices that they felt they should be able to make.”

[Reggie Fils-Aimé]
[Axios]

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Comments (17)

Most Upvoted

noxide

Ughhh, This is gonna turn ugly.
Why bring up race? Why categorize yourself like that? NOBODY CARED!
This is gonna invite an unwanted discussion into gaming culture.

vinlauria

2y ago

Y'know, I know he's Haitian, but I never really considered Reggie black...


the_king_up_north

2y ago

I'm black myself and I've never considered him black. But he's Haitian, so I guess...he technically is. 😅 Interesting. I'll say he definitely holds greater claim to being black than Elon Musk.

Edited 1 time

noxide

2y ago

Ughhh, This is gonna turn ugly.
Why bring up race? Why categorize yourself like that? NOBODY CARED!
This is gonna invite an unwanted discussion into gaming culture.


pc2

2y ago

I too had no idea Reggie was black. Neat.


camhalen

2y ago

@noxide

Seeming as this info is coming from his book about himself, I completely disagree. It is a part of who he is, and if you are reading his book, you probably do care


hypnomancy

2y ago

@noxide

Because it's an important topic? Why does this bother you so much that he's bringing it up? Or are you not American and don't understand how significant this is for someone like him?


@the_king_up_north

People don't consider Elon Musk black. They only think he's black because they think everyone from Africa is black but people seem to forget that South Africa was colonized by a ton of European countries so there's a huge white population there which is where he comes from


I don’t think people think Musk is Black. He’s technical African-American by nationality as he’s from South Africa, but ethnically he is White. It’s just a dumb “joke” that people may call him Black because of his (South)African nationality.


kuribo

2y ago

@noxide

“gaming culture”? WTF are you even on about.

Reggie is commenting on his life, his career and his experiences, and his race and heritage are a part of that and important to him.


red knight

2y ago

Did this comment section just learn Haitians are black or that black people come in different shades?

Reggie being black is why I thought he was great to have as a higher up at a company like Nintendo.


socar

2y ago

Huh...odd to say that. I never considered him black.


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conangiga

2y ago

As someone living in europe I couldn't care less about ones race.
Reggie claiming to be black raises even more questions about differentiating skin color and race in the first place. I mean...why bother? We're all the same.


nekotaku

2y ago

I never understand bringing up race and diversity like this if your point is to say that it shouldn't matter...

Edited 1 time

noxide

2y ago

@kuribo

Take a chill pill. You seem aggravated that most people don't care about race.


kuribo

2y ago

@noxide

Says the person triggered and had to shout “NOBODY CARED”.