More on women and games

I went to Cambridge Uni today, to be on a lunchtime panel at the Computer Lab, from where they run their compsci and programming courses (I think). It's right next to the Microsoft Research Lab, and I forgot to go sniff about. Anyway - subject of the day was why aren't there more women in the games industry?

Cripes we had a good chat. There was me, the fabulous Aleks Krotoski (doing a talk), David Braben (he made Elite! omg!) and Martin Hollis (he made Goldeneye! omg!).  We covered a ton of ground in the hour and a bit, unfortunately a bit too much to cover here. Briefly though, one slant on the whole shebang was that there is just no excuse for the lack of women in games. Programming, we accept, has a dearth of gals in the business, and programming courses countrywide usually have maybe 5-10% female students. Not good, not good. Much work to do there. But let's park that one a moment - the really weird one is why there is such a high number of games companies who don't have women on their books at all, in any roles. 

(While we're at it, there were lots of girls in the audience at the computer lab. Programmers, comp sci or HCI or.. I dunno. But there were  a lot. This is good.)

I have visited a few programming houses that have zero women present. Not in programming, not in project management, HR, senior management, PR, admin, producing or design. Not *one*. In most other cases, large companies have just a tiny handful of gals present. I personally know (and I can't be an exception here) a goodly number of experienced, talented women with years of experience in software design and software development, team management, etc, who would happily fit and thrive in videogame development houses. So how come games - which are software! - attract no women?

Recruitment policy? The industry's 'face'? David made the point that some companies are really, really trying, and just not succeeding as much as they'd like to yet; equally, it's pretty clear that some companies aren't so bothered.

Maxis had a preponderance of ladies when it was making The Sims, and look what happened - big bucks for Maxis. Doesn't take a genius to see that having a female perspective on the books means a healthier company. Aleks had some jawdropping figures from some UK recruitment agencies - 3% of senior management in the UK games industry is female. 2% of the programmers are female. It's just nuts.

Anyway. Enough of this for tonight, have a look at some photos instead:

David & Aleks. Happy happy!

The lab. It's fancier than our offices.

Aleks' car mats. Er, how cool is she?

(Thanks to Jez for inviting me - it was a very good day indeed.)

Comments

[SharD]

Not sure about Aleks' pac-skillz though, she'll struggle to keep pac alive in that situation!

[Rob]

"Maxis had a preponderance of ladies when it was making The Sims, and look what happened - big bucks for Maxis."

Wow...that's a pretty facile analysis.

[SharD]

But none-the-less relevant.

I've certainly found that the idea space for game design becomes broader when there are both sexes involved in the project.

[Alice]

It's not just my analysis either:

"Finally, we see a value in constructing groups that include both male and female participants. At the present time, games are played by 90 percent of American boys and about 40 percent of American girls. There are real gender gaps amongst game players and even greater ones in terms of the number of women employed within the games industries. Those companies – (Maxis - the Sims) stands out - which have hired a significant number of women have been more successful in creating games with a crossover appeal - that is, games which interest both men and women. At the present time, game design remains a largely intuitive process with most people designing games they think will be fun and with what they think is fun being defined by their own childhood play experiences. Including women in the workforce creates a counterforce, which allows other kinds of innovations to occur as these women add their own play experience to the discussion."

http://www.educationarcade.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=printpage&artid=54

[Seb Potter]

I can only comment from experience, so rather than generalise, I'll stick with specifics.

I've met quite a number of development teams and have known a number of development studios over the years. Teams such as the male dominated studios in Sierra Europe (where the only female employees were in marketing and admin) through to less male-dominated teams such as SCI and Climax.

I've only met one professional games developer who was female.

From experience working with dev teams in France, the male domination of the field basically came from men hiring more men, on the sole basis that their selection criteria were:

1. Must be a hardcore gamer.
2. Must have been a harcore gamer for many years.
3. Must be a hardcore programming geek.
4. Interest in the same games as the interviewer.

(Again, I'm not generalising here, this is my specific experience of how a few particular teams went about the hiring process.)

Female gamers and developers most often don't fit this profile. The hardcore female gamers that I know maintain a far more balanced life than in comparison to the male hardcore gamers.

The problem is, a lot of people that I know in game development still think that to develop a game, you have to fit that description.

[Elf]

I agree to what was written in the last comment. And even more think about how many women (%) are involved in IT industry? And how many you can see playing in computer clubs! That is the answer.