Straight out of college, I was able to work for Xbox, helping game studios produce inclusive games and practices, and then I moved on to spend two dynamic years of my career building games at “Minecraft”! Yes—you heard it correctly, THE “Minecraft.” After several years of working within the Microsoft Gaming ecosystem, I chose to leave for a bigger opportunity—becoming a Games Producer at Decoy Games!
While many in the Black community play video games, we represent a small majority when it comes to the gaming industry. In fact, Black people comprise 3% of the gaming industry, and there’s even a smaller portion of game studio owners. I’d like to tell you about one—Decoy Games and the game-changing things they’re doing.
Decoy Games is an indie game development company founded by Khalil and Ahmed Abdullah. These brothers are known for their hit self-published game “Swimsanity,” which can be played on multiple platforms such as PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and Steam—which is iconic in itself!
Khalil and Ahmed Abdullah have been playing games since the age of 3!
They were huge fans of “Perfect Dark,” “Left 4 Dead,” and many other multiplayer games.
Not only were they avid gamers, their drive to succeed and dream big runs in their blood. They came from a family of entrepreneurs, which is no surprise that they ended up building their own major indie game studio!
Decoy Games started over ten years ago. Khalil started teaching himself to build a game in his classes during his pursuit of a Computer Science Degree at the University of Massacusetts! Since the two brothers always stuck together, when Ahmed, Khalil’s younger brother, joined him in class, they were able to work together to build the basis of what we know today as “Swimsanity”!
After college, the brothers were balancing full-time careers in sales while working toward their dreams of Decoy Games. Khalil jokes about game development being equivalent to YouTube University because, just like many-early stage founders and indie game developers, the brothers had to learn a ton along the way. While the journey was not easy, the brothers managed w to self-produce, fund, and publish “Swimsanity” on multiple platforms: This iconic milestone launched Decoy Games into an even higher level in the games industry.