
Most women experience gender-specific discrimination when gaming.
More than three-quarters of women (77%) reported name-calling, receiving inappropriate sexual messages, gatekeeping, and dismissiveness, according to .
28% of online multiplayer gamers who experienced in-game harassment avoided certain games due to their reputations for hostile environments, . In the same survey, 22% stopped playing certain games altogether.
is not one of them.
Born in Togo, Lufauâs family moved to neighbouring Benin, where she spent her middle school years.
There, she stumbled upon a cyber cafe and learned of the world of video games and the gaming community beyond those on her Windows computer.
âThe first thing I saw was the icon for âPrince of Persiaâ â the very first instalment from 1989,â says Lufau. âI started playing it right there, and it clicked inside me because I had no idea there could be a storyline told within games.â
From that moment, Lufauâs world was changed â and it was about to get much bigger.
When her family relocated to France, Lufau discovered another side of gaming: online multiplayer. In particular, she had been introduced to League of Legends (LoL).
LoL is a multiplayer online battle arena comprising two teams of five. it as âat its most basic level, LoL is a game of capture the flag, though that is a bit like describing brain surgery as âa medical procedure.ââ
This game is one of the biggest titans in esports, with its championships racking up .
It’s also one of the gaming community’s most toxic, .
Still, after spending around 16 years playing the game, Lufau isn’t deterred from it. In fact, sheâs more determined to stay than ever.Ìę
The question is, why?Â

During her bachelorâs degree, Lufau spent three months abroad learning Chinese language and literature at the National Cheng Kung ÌÇĐÄvlogčÙÍű in Taiwan. Source: Jennifer Lufau
âI would get insults just because I’m playing a dark-skinned characterâ
Lufau realised a few stark problems in gaming when she first played âPrince of Persia.â
âI was in the position of a character that had to go through hell to save a princess,â she says. âAnd it was always a princess that I would barely see in the game. I remember thinking back in the day, âWho is this princess, and why canât I see her?ââ
The lack of female characters in the games, alongside the perception of female characters that heavily revolved around the damsel-in-distress trope, was just the beginning of it all.
In games where you could customise your avatar, it was always difficult for Lufau to create a character of her colour.Ìę
âI would very rarely see my colour, and sometimes, the maximum shade of dark I could get to was grey,â says Lufau. âLike, come on, these are games, and itâs just a question of colour, so why wasnât it possible?
Then, there was the .Ìę
Lufau recalls that her first experience of racism was through gaming â sometimes, just from playing a dark-skinned character. Even having a gaming alias like âBlackQueen17â prompted insults.Ìę
ââBlackQueenâ gives it away immediately that Iâm a girl and Iâm also Black, which would apparently be a reason for others to insult me,â says Lufau. âI could never have expected that to happen while playing games because I was just there to have a good time.â
As a teenager who only had positive experiences gaming so far, this negativity was shocking.Ìę
It was even harder on Lufau, who, at that time, could not share her troubles regarding her hobby with anyone else in real life since no one could understand where she was coming from.Ìę
The worst part came during a face reveal with her online friends, with whom Lufau has been on voice-only chat. They were âflabbergasted to see my face,â she says.Ìę
âThey were like, âWoah, I was not expecting this because your voice is so sweet and soft, I would never expect you to be Black,ââ shares Lufau. âI was like, what does that mean? Where did that come from?â
Those experiences opened the doors for Lufau to explore what diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in gaming could be like.Ìę

The first game that blew Lufauâs mind was âPrince of Persia,â developed by Ubisoft. Years later, Lufau would have the opportunity to work at the company. Source: Jennifer Lufau
In 2020, amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd protests, Lufau made her move. Specifically, it was the start of a blog where she would share her stories and encounters in games.Ìę
âMany people donât know about these experiences, and I couldnât find online testimonies about girls playing games or Black women playing games,â she says. âSo, I decided I was going to share it myself.â
One of Lufauâs first blog posts comprised four interviews with Black women from Madagascar, the US, the Netherlands, and Canada.
Writing the interviews was like looking into a mirror.Ìę
âTheir experience was so, so similar to mine that I realised that this was a thing,” she says. “Iâm not completely crazy and there is something ongoing in the gaming community, and I want people to know more about it.â
Through that, Lufau founded , a groundbreaking French community and non-profit with a mission to elevate Black women and queer individuals in gaming.
While Lufau did not identify as queer at the start of Afrogameuses, she knew it was a community she wanted to extend a helping hand to.Ìę
âI realised that there were so many people who didnât find their community in the gaming space who needed it, and I wanted them to feel seen, heard, and included,â she says. âThere was just no way I could let them wait on the side.â
Having queer people around her helped Lufau in her own journey too, as she now identifies as queer.Ìę Â
âThereâs so much learning you get to do when you start chatting and hanging out with people who are different or identify differently,â says Lufau. âItâs been a journey of learning and listening a lot, which helps understand others.â
This, she emphasises, has always been a huge part of growing and building a community like Afrogameuses.Ìę

What started as a simple blog post about her experiences gaming as a Black woman has shaped Lufauâs path as a diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant. Source: Jennifer Lufau
A message to gaming developers: âRepresentation matters.â
Lufau works as a DEI consultant for gaming studios, helping them create inclusive content, characters, and stories for their games.
âMany people who create games have good intentions,â says Lufau. âThey can be a team of 15 white dudes making a game about an African country, and Iâd say go ahead, but please do it well and do it with the right people who can help you because representation matters.â
âRemember that there are people who are part of this demographic who will be expecting to find this authentic side in your game.â
This isn’t too Herculean a task. After all, technology has advanced leaps and bounds in the last decade alone, so thereâs no excuse or reason not to create diverse characters and stories.
âWe have the people who have the competence and the skills to create these worlds,â says Lufau. âWe also know that having diverse characters and universes in these games will definitely help the younger generations.â
Nintendoâs iconic Mario franchise has done it after years of playing into the damsel-in-distress trope. Princess Peach, whom Mario heroically saves from Bowser, became her own protagonist in âSuper Princess Peachâ and âPrincess Peach: Showtime!â respectively â .
And if a giant like Nintendo can do it, whatâs stopping everyone else from doing it?
âI believe that gaming has the power to change the world because it’s one of the most interactive media ever that helps people understand what itâs like living in the skin of somebody completely different from you,â says Lufau. âThis is why we also need to have more stories so that people can experience them.â

Lufau seeks to empower the next generation of creators to infuse their work with inclusion and meaningful storytelling. Source: Jennifer Lufau
So far, Lufauâs clients include developer studio and their afro-fantasy multiplayer online role-playing game, âThe Wagadu Chronicles,â and Adam Kareemâs â,â a 3D platformer featuring a colourful cast of characters.
Still, Lufau knows that a minority of people within the gaming community will always be dissatisfied with the results of more diverse and inclusive games.
Take the upcoming release of âAssassin’s Creed Shadows,â for example.
This 2025 release will be the seriesâs 14th major instalment. The setting is in 16th-century Japan towards the end of the Sengoku period. It features two protagonists: Naoe, a female shinobi, and Yasuke, an African samurai inspired by the historical figure of the same name.
The dissent was immediate.
While the real-life inspired Yasuke was the main target behind the petition to cancel the game due to or , the fictional Naoe â or Ubisoft, really â had to fend off her share of strife for her gender alone.
âThere are people complaining about the lack of the ability to play a Japanese character in the game, but she’s literally there,â says Lufau. âAnyone can play as a female character. Women have been playing as male characters all this while.â
At the end of the day, itâs about not giving up this particular fight.
âThese are gamers who have always been able to play games where they could see themselves,â says Lufau. âThey want to silence marginalised people into not taking space, and we’re doing the exact opposite. So that’s why I think we’re gonna take a lot of wins in the future.â

When she couldnât find anyone who could relate to her experiences in gaming, Lufau decided to foster her own gaming community. Source: Jennifer Lufau
What winning looks like for a DEI gaming community
Beyond her work with gaming developers, Lufauâs most significant accomplishment as a champion of DEI gaming is seeing how her work with Afrogameuses has allowed people to feel seen, heard, and represented.
âKnowing that because we exist and because of the work we do, someone managed to get a job in game development or started streaming, all because they found a community that supported them,â says Lufau.
Itâs been a full-circle journey, and while the road ahead might be hard, Lufau knows that the work and effort are worth it.
âI started all this because I was lonely and felt like I was the only one playing games,â she says. âUltimately, it was a selfish motive that led me to create this community because it didnât exist before, and I wanted that for me. But now, itâs serving other people too.â
But Afrogameuses is just one part of the bigger picture that Lufau is championing for DEI gaming, and she wonât stop until sheâs carved out a space for everyone to feel seen.
This mission is reflected in Lufauâs choice of academic degrees too.
For her bachelorâs, her love for languages drove her to pursue a degree in applied foreign languages in foreign trade at the UniversitĂ© Paris-Est Marne-la-VallĂ©e in France.Ìę
âI realised that languages could change something because learning English while gaming helped me communicate with people from around the world,â she says.
To fully immerse herself in her studies, she went on exchange programmes to Spain and Taiwan to learn Spanish and Mandarin. Sometime after her undergraduate degree, she spent a sabbatical year in Shanghai, China, where she spoke in Mandarin daily as she sold French wine to customers.
Currently, Lufau has added Korean and German to her language repertoire too.
Itâs the belief that being willing to speak to people in their languages is a way to speak to their hearts. âIt shows your effort, that I really want to understand you, so Iâm going to learn your language for us to communicate in the best way possible,â she says.
All of this only scratches the surface of her academic accomplishments.
Lufau went on to earn a masterâs degree in international project management at Franceâs UniversitĂ© Sorbonne Nouvelle. Her masterâs thesis was on video games as a tool for innovation â an apt paper for her work thus far.
Next, she earned an MBA at Devinci Executive Education.Ìę
âPeople believe in this, and so I will never give up on the work we’re doing because I’m not doing it for myself,â says Lufau. âI’m doing it for these people who believe this should happen.â
Of course, you canât end a talk with a gamer without asking about their favourite games. For Lufau, these were the ones that shaped her life the most and provided an enjoyable time playing.
First place goes the game of her teenagehood, âLoL.â
As a place where she met many friends and incredible people and learned the most about herself despite how turbulent things got, it had to be on the list.
The classic fighting game âTekkenâ allows you to play with just about anyone â whether itâs a random person or those closest to you. It could be played anywhere too, from computers to consoles, like the Xbox that Lufau convinced her mum to get for her and her siblings.
âIn the end, the whole family was using it, and we spent a lot of time playing âTekkenâ,â she shares.
Third place goes to âPrince of Persia,â a love reignited after Lufauâs playthrough of the latest January 2024 release, âPrince of Persia: The Lost Crown.â
And last but not least, an honourable mention had to go to âAssasinâs Creed.â
âThe stories and the immersion are incredible,â says Lufau. âI think we all felt we were taking a history lesson while playing the game.