Developing video games is increasingly being seen an exciting and rewarding career for women. Whether you come from an artistic, technical, creative, marketing or managerial background there are jobs in the games industry to suit you, offering interesting career progression and a stimulating and passionate work environment.
Traditionally a male dominated industry, game development is increasingly diverse with many companies now actively seeking to balance the gender ratio on development teams. In fact a panel at GDC 2009 concluded that it is more critical than ever for women to get into games. Consoles such as the Wii and DS have massively increased the numbers of women playing games and many games are now targeted specifically at women, with the developers looking to include more women on the teams making the games to help introduce a female perspective to the development process and increase the appeal of these games to women.
In addition to opportunities to work on more female friendly games there are now far fewer barriers to women wanting to work on the more traditional FPS's, RTS's and RPGs and less stigma attached to those that do. A shining example came recently with 'Portal', Valve's innovative puzzler that won Game of the Year at GDC 2008 which was conceived and designed by Kim Swift, a woman, but was far from being a 'girl's game'.
Most employers will look for a passion for games when recruiting and obviously the skills to do the job but are gender neutral and the traditional view of dev teams as sexist enclaves of pepsi swilling and pizza obsessed men is usually very out of date. Many companies are actively seeking to move away from the unhealthy bedroom coder image by offering free gym membership, regularly restocked fruit bowls and even paid overtime.
Interactive Selection is actively seeking to promote the role of women in the games industry. We work with the top studios worldwide and have recently placed women in senior Art, Animation, PR, Marketing, Sales and Production jobs in countries such as UK, Canada, Iceland and Germany. We will help you manage your career, whether you are looking to start out in the games industry or find your next job. While previous games industry experience will always be beneficial, if you have equivalent experience from outside the industry but have a passion for games then Interactive Selection can help you take the next step in your career.
"We know that the numbers of women in the games industry are frustratingly low," comments David Smith, MD of Interactive Selection "It's a failing of the games industry as a whole - not just on a social level but on a business level. But whatever the cause, I want to do more to help women work and progress their careers in the games sector. The industry welcomes - and would like to see more - women recruits to both help develop games and take on business-focused roles. While it's not possible to overtly advertise for guys or girls, the message I get is, if they have two candidates of equal ability, they'd probably hire the women."
Over the coming weeks and months we will be talking to some of the games industry's top women and men from HR, Production, Design and other disciplines about the role of women in the games industry and what they look for in an employee so keep checking back here for updates.
Women in Games Jobs Blog
Over 1400 join our own WIG Jobs LinkedIn networking group. You can too!
Tue, 31 Aug 2010
If you are a women in games and member of LinkedIn, you can now get together with over 1400 others who share the same interests.
Please link through to http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2739553 . Start a discussion, share news! Just join the group and start networking. Good luck.
UK games trade body TIGA highlights male /female imbalance in school Computing exam results.
Sun, 29 Aug 2010
I apologize for ending this week’s series of postings on a rather sombre note, but having seen the latest results from TIGA regarding 2010 A’Level results and the ratio of male to female pass rates, I felt it was something that needed posting up.
TIGA reports that there is a continuing decline in A Level computing entries and that low proportion of females taking A-Level Computing (where less than 10% of entrants were female) ‘restricts the potential supply of people being available to work in the games industry’. Backing this statement up were the statistics: 3,704 males took A-Level computing, in comparison to the significantly smaller rate of 361 females.
TIGA CEO, Richard Wilson has been quoted saying: ‘Computer game developers need gifted people with a mastery of subjects….Males are more than ten times likely than females to take A-Level computing. In the long term, this gender imbalance contributes to the skills shortage problem.’
It’s reassured me that such figures, and such emphasis on the imbalance is at least being highlighted by organisations like TIGA. I think from our perspective, we all really need to get the message that the computer games industry is viable, accessible and achievable out there to these young, aspiring females who could potentially shape our gaming futures.
So, without wanting to game-bash you all prior to a weekend break, I’m urging all who read this to start spreading that good news!
Critical Distance’s Weekly continue to blog on Activision’s Decisions.
Thu, 26 Aug 2010
Still riding the Acitivision Wave of anti-female-characters scandal, a number of blog articles have popped up, debating this slow-burning topic that is, very clearly, still an issue. Critical Distance, has highlighted these blogs during the week of August the 15th, under the blogs Activision’s all-male games are quite okay, really and Evil game makers and women’s rights.
Both the blogs and their (counter) arguments, are well worth a read, giving you the other side of the coin, but how convincing are they? What is the consensual agreement on this? It’s clearly a matter that hasn’t slipped off the fringes of the net because it’s got a sting in its tail and that sting leaves a residual bite.
I also just wanted to point this link out because it’s an excellent weekly review of what has been blogging out there over the past week or so; definitely something I’m going to be keeping my beady eye. My current article of interest is, however:
Mountains of Men: The Mythology of the Male Body in Video Games
My dissertation wasn’t something dissimilar and turning the tables on this look on gender representation to focus on the male, rather than the female, is something I endorse and encourage. So this will be my night-light read and I’m looking forward to seeing what crops up out of it!
Blog Alert – Angela Webb for mmorpg.com talks to women in the industry
Wed, 25 Aug 2010
Taken from mmorpg.com
I’ve been reading an interesting blog: Angela Webb: In her Opinion: Women in the Industry:
This is definitely a blog to keep an eye on. Angie’s Webb columns for MMORPG have recently inspired movements to be made within the gaming industry and as the interest on her blogging increases, so should our coverage on it be.
Angie’s blog offers decent interviews with top women in the games industry and discusses the fair few decent points that we are wanting to raise at the moment. In this blog issue, Angie talks to Rebecca Orozco, a Producer, Camille Chu, and Animator and Georgia Nelson, an Engineer, looking into their perspective on how things stand on the ground at the moment and what steps they think MMO developers should be taking next. What’s great is that they also offer advice for aspiring females, on how to follow their examples and head into the industry.
Well worth a read and a follow, so get on to it!
All Aboard – The Guardian talks Gender and Choice of Broadsides
Mon, 23 Aug 2010
In light of the recent discussions boarding the waves on the ‘net about the creation of Female lead game characters, and the choices for women in the characters that they play, I found Naomi Alderman’s article about The player: games and gender an interesting read; because, after all, it’s always good to see the different points of views women have on this. And also because she mentions Choice of Broadsides, a game that I’ve never heard of before, but would like to take a trial on.
The game is a part of the ChoiceofGames brand and what is cool about it, as Alderman explains, allows the player the choice of being a Female, Jack-Aubrey-esq character and enables you to have the decision whether to captain a ship of an all-female crew or not. She says that the game is a ‘hilarious, but an innovative and fascinating way of tackling gender.’
I wondered whether any of our readers have had a chance to test this out yet or not, and if so, what is your feedback on it? Does it live up to the expectations that Alderman discusses? Please let me know!
BBC News Technology report on the Women in Games Conference Brighton 2010
Sun, 22 Aug 2010
A few days ago, I had a sudden flashback to the Develop Conference where a number of us were interviewed by BBC World Radio’s Colin Grant, and wondered whether those interviews had been written up or available to view yet. So I donned on my net gear and took a deep dive into the net. And found it in the BBC Technology pages:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10883404
I was pleased to have found it, because I thought it summed up some of the topics we discussed on the day, quite nicely. It was also nice to see the report of the day end up on the Technology pages, where it obviously rightly belongs and that the messages we wanted to put across were being raised in a manner that didn’t hint at bra-burning and that our points were backed up by additional research done of Blizzard and WOW.
What I liked most about the end of the report, was the positive and encouraging comment that it finished with, which is nothing but suggestive and hopeful of the change we want to be seeing taking place. And that’s of course, what it’s all about.
Games Human Resources Manager Laura Weir leads the HR team at Jagex
Mon, 16 Aug 2010Laura Weir is the Head of HR at Jagex and with a working day that involves going through more than 100 applications a day, as well as looking after the Jagex employees, her routine is a little more than staid and quiet.
Laura describes her job as looking to ‘open doors’ and ‘removing barriers’ for people wanting to get into the games industry, wishing to find the right role for their right skills. She describes Jagex as Fun, Unique and Professional – the three key words that she puts into her own ethos of work:
Abby Millward discusses Web Systems Q&A and life at Jagex
Fri, 13 Aug 2010Next in line to be introduced as a part of our Videos Week, is Abby Millward who works in the Web Systems QA department of Jagex. Abby previously did a years placement at Jagex during her university years and upon completing her education, was invited back to a permanent position at the company.
What’s great to hear from Abby as she describes briefly her daily work life, is the realism as well as positivity that she speaks with. ‘The world is your oyster at Jagex’, she says, emphasising how flexible and adaptable Jagex is to employee needs and skills, but stresses that to get there, people have to work hard and push themselves:
Hannah Crosby, Game Character Artist, speaks to Women in Games Jobs
Fri, 13 Aug 2010Hannah Crosby, Character Artist with Rare, met with Antonia Cullum of Women in Games Jobs at the Develop Conference in Brighton. Her advice on the qualities needed seeking a job in the games industry. “I think persistence; there are sometimes a limited number of roles, especially in character art out there so you might need to be prepared to go into a slightly different role. I started out in environment art even though character art is what I wanted to get into. There are a lot more roles in environment art, so sometimes you need to get into a parallel role or into a similar industry. Basically doing your own work. If you go as an artist and having a portfolio of art you can present that shows you know how to do this stuff and that you’re passionate about it and do it on your own time.”
Laura Watton – 2D Graphics Artist Designer at Jagex talks work.
Thu, 12 Aug 2010I wanted a nice and positive focus for the remainder of the week, moving away from the first article on the claims Activision has been denying about it’s ‘sale-ism’ against female game characters. My last thought when I had read that article was, we need more women in that industry, dammit, balacing out those scales of say and input!
So this led me on to what will be the next few articles; well, videos, really, on women who have and are making it into this said industry. So let me introduce Laura Watton, a 2-D Graphics Artist, working for Jagex Software on mainly website-based games. In this interview, Laura candidly talks about her education, experience and path to her current job and talks about the correct attitude in the games industry – adaptability and flexibility. Laura has always been an artistic enthusiast; scribbling and drawing from when she has small and holding that passion to incorporate that into her current day job and encourages people to take bold steps to aim for where they want to be:
