Lionhead Dev: Half of Developers Will Be Women in 10 Years

[LiberalSquirrel]

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I've said this before: On my college's computing course, how many people are girls? Not a single one! And that's out of about 60 people.

On the I.T. course the representation seems a bit fairer. It's probably about 5-10%.

I'm afraid that there are some subjects which just interest one gender more than the other, and things like programming are one of them.

Also, I'm sure that the players of games like Fable are not 45% women, so that statistic is completely useless in this situation.

Having been in a major where I was required to take several coding classes (I'm a C++ gal, but I dabble in Java) I can tell you that "lack of interest" isn't the only thing keeping the ladies out of tech-based fields. I was met with passive-aggressive snubbing, open hostility, and a ton of "she doesn't know what she's talking about, ignore her... oh, male classmate that comes up with the same idea half an hour later, you're brilliant! This is how it should be done!" in my coding and engineering classes. That kind of culture needs to be fixed. It's not everyone, of course. I met some great people in my time in my engineering major (3 years, so no, it wasn't that I just took a few courses and dropped it), but by and large, my classmates - and even some of my professors and one of my advisers - treated me like I shouldn't be there.

Swinging back to the main topic - I'd love to see half of game developers be women. But what I'm really hoping for is for half of the creative team behind games - the character artists, the people who write the narrative, all that jazz - becoming women. (NO, I'm not advocating for a "choose women over better-qualified men" thing. That's silly.) Because with ladies on the creative teams, that's how we'll get a little less... well... "Dragon's Crown sorceress"-esque controversy, and a little more well-rounded and/or badass leading ladies to play the field with the well-rounded and/or badass leading men.

Can't say I think that - or 50/50 development gender ratio - will happen within 10 years. But who knows. I'm admittedly a bit of a pessimist.

 

[Brian Tams]

There's a grand total of three females in the level design course I'm taking this semester.

The 45% stat is also extremely vague (probably intentionally).

I also question forced 50-50 splits. So, what Lionhead Dev. wants is to hire to meet a gender quota, rather than hiring based on skill? Can't see how THAT could go wrong.

 

[ellieallegro]

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you can never be at the top without taking the first steps on the ladder.

the business side is built on merit aka success but you have to start early and you only do that with dreams.

this industry is not led (at least on the creative side) by people who are in it for the money. Snip

Business success based on merit and dreams? The last time I checked you can't pay rent or make payroll with unicorn horns and bigfoot pelts. I kid, I kid. Seriously, though I can't tell if you are trolling or not but if you aren't I hope you have the one thing that all of the other creative types you mentioned have: Money and access.

This is a little off topic but here it is nonetheless, the mailroom to the ceo's office is part of what organizational psychologists like to call a dangling carrot myth. It always has been, it always will be. The guys from Bungie: right place, right time and the good fortune to be picked up by MS. They also went to University of Chicago which is a very expensive private university. (hint hint money and access). Dan Houser of Rockstar is a great example, thanks for bringing him up: the child of a barrister and an actress who went to a top boys school in London and then on to Oxford (hmmmm, I'm sensing a pattern). Gates, Jobs, Ellison and company, again all from upper-middle to upper class families.

You are right in that the creative side of pretty much all entertainment (including game development) is run by people who are "not in it for the money" as you say. Here is why: They can be. People with money and access have advantages over those that don't and they are allowed to be creative because they can afford it. I'm not saying that it's right or wrong... it is what it is.

Following your passion to a fault is great, if you (or your family) can afford it. For the rest the 90% who can't, including myself, I will take better benefits, flex-time and more pay any day of the week.

 

[BlazeRaider]

I first read that as "Half of Half Life 3's Developers will be women in 10 years", and thought Valve was trolling people about that next game of theirs.

 

[Grabehn]

I've always found these things kinda funny, I don't really care about the "hey look women can do this TOO" since I've... well, never cared, but news like this one always feel to me more like a "we need more gurls!" rather than something actually important. "Gender needs to be represented equally in game development." If there's going to be more of those "woman gets harrassed for X" I doubt it, and factually, there's not that many girls in technical/computer courses at all.

 

[ellieallegro]

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No offense given or taken.

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Look, I'm not saying you shouldn't try to make it in the "industry" nor does it invalidate your experience. I'm sure you understand that your experience is an outlier, a happy outlier and I'm glad you and your family succeeded where a lot of people have failed but that doesn't make you a great statistical example. Besides, the UK and Scotland have quite a different culture, than say Los Angeles where I grew up close the entertainment capital of the world.

I'm saying, one has a huge advantage if they know someone (access) or they have money so they can afford to come in near the top. I know a metric ton of "famous" people as well since I used to work for Sony pictures and I can name drop with the best of them but I won't. Sure, I could probably make more money going make to my old job but it isn't worth the headache. It's been my experience that this town will chew you up and spit you out as people in power or "the machine" will actively try to screw you over at every turn because they can. If, like yourself, one can be the one in 100,000 that makes it and gets to live the dream then great... that's awesome... but selling someone on rainbows and unicorns always comes off as disingenuous to naive to me. Apologies for my jaded soul etc etc blah blah blah.