Gender and games

For this weeks lesson we were presented with information regarding gender and its effects in the game design industry, a fair amount of this was demographical and thus factual (it was more about the way we perceived the statistics). To be successful as a games designer it is important to understand the needs, wants and desires of your target audience. For example; releasing a game in which you dress your barbie doll up in various clothing is unlikely to succeed if your marketing targets the over 30's audience. With insight into your target audience you can begin to understand what they really want in a game.

The first text we received was Segregation in a Male-Dominated industry: Women Working in the Computer Games Industry. This was based on how gender can effect the games design industry and the products from them. We are shown thought that a game which is developed with the audience of equal gender, both male and female, that the game will predominantly played by the male gender.

Segregation in a Male-Dominated industry: Women Working in the Computer Games Industry 
This first text focused mainly on the segregation of occupations in respect to gender internally to the Game industry. It was helpless to try to stay impartial on the reasoning for these segregation's as in our minds we knowingly realise the likely reasons for these segregation's in job roles

Now obviously it is well known that the games industry isn't the only sector that has clear bias and gender split workforces. But at the same time it could be one for concern. It could also be argued that due to the age of this industry and the way it began means it's simply to be expected for the industry to lie in this very uneven balance at its current age.

Women in the games industry (like many other industries) tend to suffer more taxing situations such as; less pay for the same load, fewer opportunities and less authority. Women also tend to encounter many more 'glass ceilings' than men do. Glass celings are basically the high point of reach for someone on the career ladder, and the reasons behind this can be many, but in most cases they come down to gender, class or ethnicity. More than most though it tends to be gender.

The games design industry is built up of a number of different specialties including development, production, design, level design, audio design, art and testing. Developmental roles with the industry are those roles that are involved in the creative and developmental aspect of game development. These roles create everything within the games from the content, the style of play, the reward systems and ultimately influence who the target audience of the game will be, and most of these roles are controlled by men (see the chart below)

Table Above: The percentage of men and women in each job description within the gaming industry.

As can clearly be seen from the table; women have little strength of numbers in the core elements of the games industry. Many theories can be suggested for the reasoning behind this. Personally I find the recent changes in trends and stigma to gaming to be a massively crucial factor; video games are a fairly recent aspect of gaming and play, and it wasn't so long ago that it was frowned upon by most and viewed as a geeky, anti-social aspect of deviants of society day to day life. In more recent times the market has become more glorified; popular kids and the general everyday person plays games. Another large factor could be tied into this; due to the short life of the video game industry, most veteran and experienced developers originate from the time of video games birth. Back in the early days of its creation most games were hard coded by the players themselves which in turn led to a thriving potential workforce in more recent days, a workforce that started off as the fan base which originally was comprised of primarily males.

The last things we looked at showed us different age groups and their genders and how they reflected upon each other. Most people wouldn't expect it but male and females were fairly similar in numbers in most areas. However this data is deceiving; it doesn't explain the type of playing that is done, (this explained why minors under the age of 10 made up such a high % of the population) once you get into the specifics and look a the different forms of media/games that are being engaged with, it becomes apparent where these figures differentiated.