Game Developer Demographics
As you might have been aware the world of gaming is far from diverse. If you ever went to a gaming convention or logged on to your favorite game online and expected to see anyone that wasn’t a younger to middle aged white male, you were fooling yourself. Generally that group is the major demographic in gaming and this fact is reaffirmed by all the game marketing and ads that “tend” to that group. (No real surprise there.)
The International Game Developers Association has released its first ever internal survey determining the makeup of its members, in a report titled Game Developer Demographics: An Exploration of Workforce Diversity. The goal of the report and survey is to answer the basic question, “who makes games?â€
It is an interesting study, but has several “Survey Caveats” such as Self Selection, a definite North American biasness and the risk of duplication since the surveys were open and readily available over the Internet. To me that makes me wonder about the total validity of the survey, no matter how much interest I have in the subject. But at least did some data filtering and took data from a sample population.
The report discusses workforce burnout and the retention challenges that plague the game industry. It’s the extreme working conditions have also been linked, in part, to the industry’s inability to attract female workers. I believe that this lack of females in the workplace in turn increases burnout for the love lorn males, who are left to only swoon when the walk by a female in public.
Games are a dominant form of art, expression and culture of the 21st century. The gaming industry, as with any industry, will benefit from increased diversity of skilled workers. The report is at least an interesting read, even if you could have guessed most of the results already. I’d like to see the IGDA continue to do this this survey.
