The boss of Gears of War developer The Coalition Rod Fergusson has said that inclusivity and diversity is vital to games development.

Speaking at PAX South - as reported by GameSpot - the development vet said that him being a straight, white male of a certain generation meant that his scope and experiences were rather limited. As a result, he said it's vital to make an effort to bring a diverse range of people into the development process. He also said that he was inspired by the Stephen Frost quote: "Unless you consciously include, you will unconsciously exclude."

"We had to find a way to welcome new players and create an on-board for them. The way we really focused on doing that was through inclusive design," Fergusson said.

He continued: "If you live within your own tower, and your own insular base – I'm a straight white old male – my social circles and my demographics and all the people I reach could potentially be limited, or if not limited, biased in some ways. If I don't consciously make the decision to break out of that idea and go and talk to other people and hire people who are diverse to bring new opinions and new ideas and grow – if you don't do that intentionally, then you are going to accidentally leave people out."