Team brings cultural awareness of Indigenous people while serving the gaming community.
Updated February 23, 2024
Grassroots gaming has been the foundation of esports events around the country. Larger events that we know today like DreamHack and EVO started as a group of people getting together to play video games and evolved into some of the biggest esports and gaming collectives in the world.
In the days of online gaming, the thrill of gaming in person with your friends (and enemies) surrounding you to watch you win, but secretly hope you lose, has been lost. While local events and amateur tournaments are on the rise again, sometimes it’s fun to just walk in to an area to find gamers hanging out and playing games.
Native Gaming, a professional esports organization founded in 2022, wants to bring grassroots gaming back to the forefront, showing that gaming is about community as much as it is about winning. On Saturday, February 3rd in Dallas, they partnered with Best Buy to hold a Halo $2,000 Free For All Showdown. Players gathered to play for prizes, to meet new Halo roster member aPG, and celebrate the new season of the Halo Championship Series.
Native Gaming Halo star aPG (Top L-R) talks with gamers who gathered at Best Buy in Dallas to participate in Native Gaming’s Halo pop-up event on 02/03/2024. Photo Credit Rachel Olsen-Cooper
Angee Noel, the director of community partnership development for Native Gaming, says that the collaboration was formed to bring in people from the community into a different space to game. “It’s a way to show how different types of events can get the community involved (in gaming).”
Native Gaming hopes to also bring awareness to the Indigenous culture that surrounds the organization’s history. Dean “DerangedNative” Duro founded the organization to showcase his Native heritage and bring gaming to the Indigenous community. Their goal is to bring traditional family values, such as dedication and unity, together into a competitive setting, all while championing Native American Culture.
Gamers participating in Native Gaming’s Halo pop-up event at Best Buy in Dallas on 02/03/2024. Photo credit Rachel Olsen-Cooper
According to a survey conducted by the International Gaming Developers Association in 2021, it was found that ¾ of their respondents identified as Caucasian, with only 4% identifying as Aboriginal or Indigenous. Native representation in video games also has a harmful history, according to The Daily Aztec, with many of its people being portrayed as “savages” or mystic type characters.
Noel hopes that Native Gaming’s mission of empowering Indigenous communities through esports, as well as providing a platform to underserved individuals to discover and thrive in esports, can bring a positive reputation of Indigenous culture to gamers through community involvement like the event at Best Buy. “We already have some projects in the works,” Noel states, “one of them is IndigiPopX, where there’s Indigenous pop culture at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City.”
Gamers participating in Native Gaming’s Halo pop-up event at Best Buy in Dallas on 02/03/2024. Photo credit Rachel Olsen-Cooper
They also want to have more casual events, not just in competitive, but in games like Super Smash Bros. or Mario Kart. “We also want to make casual gamers feel comfortable in this environment as well.” Noel says that they also want to bring more women and fem-presenting players into the space, helping to expand women in gaming into their community.
Gamers participating in Native Gaming’s Halo pop-up event at Best Buy in Dallas on 02/03/2024. Photo credit Rachel Olsen-Cooper
To learn more about Native Gaming, find them on X, Instagram, and their website
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