Pride and Avakin
Pride Month may be coming to an end, but there’s no reason why the conversation should. At Lockwood, we’re fully committed to a cause that goes way beyond one month of celebration. Pride is for life. To us, that’s not just a slogan, it’s the bedrock of how we choose to present ourselves as well as how we want our players to feel when entering our metaverse.
More than a concert
Pride 2021 has been our biggest in-game celebration to date — and that’s saying something after the virtual wonder our team and community put together last year. In order to top last year’s success, we drafted in a bit of help from the supremely talented Johnny Hooker. The Brazillian singer, songwriter, actor, and screenwriter isn’t just a jack-of-all-trades, he’s pretty much mastered them all too.
The 4-day event was packed with a spectacular Pride-themed stage show, not to mention a back catalogue of hits, hits, and more hits!
It was massively important to us to include an artist that was fully representative of the community but still had mainstream appeal. To put that mainstream appeal into context, Johnny Hooker’s official YouTube page alone has more than 21 million views alone.
An amazing achievement, for an amazing performer— one who is still very much at the peak of his powers. To say he was the perfect artist for us is a massive understatement and we can only hope we’ll work together again soon.
Fortunately, the fun doesn’t stop there, we’re back this weekend for yet another amazing live performance. We’re delighted to be hosting the wonderful Todrick Hall who we’re convinced is going what he does best and completely steal the show!
Todrick will be gracing us for the entire weekend (2–5 July) so there’s no excuse to miss out on the action. If you’re a fan already then you know what to expect, but if you’re not, trust us, it’s going to be special!
Raising our own game
We don’t just want to influence our own community though — our pledge is to use our status to have a wider impact. That’s why we jumped at the opportunity to be a part of the #RaiseTheGame initiative.
#RaiseTheGame is a collaborative project that aims to improve equality, diversion and inclusion in order to create a community where everyone belongs.
We’ve previously discussed the role of social gaming’s social responsibility — it’s clear to us that this programme is perfectly aligned with how we want to operate as a business. Gaming has gone far beyond a pastime that’s removed from wider society, it’s now a vehicle that can drive discussions and meaningful change — and that starts with how we respect the talented people who create Lockwood’s endless worlds.
It would’ve been easy for us to go through the motions this month: a few social posts, rainbow backgrounds on our website, and then forget about it all once 1st July comes around. However, if you know Lockwood — you know that we’re a company that’s dedicated to working with our community and our staff to inspire and deliver meaningful change.
Closer to home
We use that dedication to make our workplace as inclusive as our community. In order for us to champion expressionism and creativity in-game, it’s paramount that we champion these values internally too.
Our employees are everything to us — they’re walking, talking, breathing ambassadors for everything we stand for. While the photograph at the top of this piece is just a snapshot of what Lockwood represents, it’s an important snapshot nevertheless.
The Pride message we continue to celebrate to goes way beyond empty catchphrases, we pledge to help push genuine change for the better. So while Pride celebrations around the world are reaching the end of their cycle, it’s just the beginning for us.
