LogInIntroduction
My name is Ramone Russell and I’m the Product Development, Communications and Brand Strategist at PlayStation San Diego Studios. I’ve been with the studio for 15 years and have worked on multiple releases of MLB The Show as a part of the studio.
Integrating the Negro Leagues was something that our team at San Diego Studios has wanted to implement into the game for years and years. It was never a difficult conversation because our studio and Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), the company as a whole, believe that representation matters in this industry.
When we talk about representation, it isn’t just about diversity in games and storytelling from the studios but the pipeline to hiring the right talent to make and tell those stories. Over the past couple of years, I have worked closely with internal teams at PlayStation and external partners to ensure we’re doing our part for sustainable change.
Implementing the Negro Leagues into MLB The Show 23 is part of this ongoing effort to use our platform to represent these underrepresented players in baseball history and help tell their story to a new, younger audience.
The Story Behind MLB The Show 23 Negro Leagues Storyline
As mentioned previously, we had always considered it and had wanted to work on it for quite some time but we weren’t ready in previous editions. It was critical for our team to integrate Negro Leagues in an impactful way that preserved the integrity of the story and hardships while not glossing over anything. It was incredibly important for us to do so in a way that educated our user base, told the inspiring life stories of the players and celebrated this monumental but often underappreciated time in history.
While we had the resources from a game development perspective to integrate this, what we lacked was a deep knowledge of the history of the Negro Leagues. That’s why we partnered with the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and with Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, on board to ensure we utilized his deep knowledge to tell these stories properly.
Since video games are a participatory medium using a controller, we wanted to ensure this implementation was done in a way that a player could participate and interact like they usually do with a game. Meaning we didn’t want to just tell the story of these players, but design it in a way that our users can understand their life story and actually play/relive their best moments on the field.
Collaboration With Negro Leagues Baseball Museum
We announced in February 2023 that MLB The Show and San Diego Studio will donate $1 to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum for every MLB The Show 23 Collector’s Edition sold in the US including the Digital Deluxe and The Captain Edition through December 31, 2023. Through this commitment, we hope to make a financial contribution from our game revenue to ensure the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum and its stories and legacies can continue to be preserved.
Ultimately, we want to help shine a light on Negro Leagues Baseball and push for others to learn more about these stories of triumph over adversity. It's important that these historical institutions have the resources they need to continue to be able to tell these stories and we, as individuals and communities, can learn from factual historical stories and inspire us to do better today.
Diversity in Game Development
The truth is the video game industry is still underrepresented despite the incredibly high affinity for gaming within the black community. I personally became interested in video game development because of inspirational Black developers like Mark Grigsby from Infinity Ward. I pursued this passion and was inspired because I saw someone who looked like me do it. So I strongly believe that with better representation, we can start to see a more diverse pipeline and from that have more diverse people hold the pen to tell the amazing diverse stories out there.
One of the goals at SIE is to make the gaming industry more diverse, equitable and inclusive and I’m proud to work closely with leadership and partners within the company on these DEI initiatives. I’ve been empowered to work on projects that include the Social Justice Fund and PlayStation Careers Pathway Program. The Social Justice Fund is an $11 million+ commitment by SIE to help support organizations and efforts focused on strengthening educational and career opportunities for historically disadvantaged communities. The Career Pathways Program, started in 2020, is a multi-year program where Black students from our partner universities can access scholarships, mentorships, and early career support as they enter the gaming industry. While it’s still early to share any results of these programs and funds, I have high hopes that we are heading in the right direction.