Quinn Dunki says the problem begins at school
Gender imbalance in the games industry is a problem too big to be solved within the sector itself, an independent female developer has said.
Quinn Dunki, who has helped create numerous iPhone titles, said “the only difference between me and my maths-inclined, game-loving friend – who does advanced needlepoint instead of engineering – is that she succumbed to the peer pressure”.
She said gender indifference “is bigger" than a problem the industry can solve itself.
“The outreach needs to go down to the [early] school levels. That's where the research shows girls stop studying maths and science due to pressures from peers and other sources.”
Forty-two per cent of all game players are women, according to recent ESA data. However, it is believed that only one tenth of game developers are female.
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Of all respondents to Develop’s salary survey, only 12 per cent were women.
Dunki said if the issue of gender imbalance is attacked now, results will come “in a generation or two”.
“In the meantime, the best thing we can do is provide role models. If you're a female engineer or scientist, put yourself out there,” she added.
Earlier in the week, LucasArts creative director Clint Hocking suggested that the industry’s gender imbalance could be remedied today.
The industry should “begin active and aggressive recruitment of female developers” he said in an Edge article.
Hocking wanted to make it clear that the goal of a better gender balance in games is a craftsmanship issue, not a commercial one.
“This isn’t something we should do because it’s the right thing to do morally – try selling that idea to the board – it’s something we should do because it moves us closer to the goal of speaking to a broader audience. It increases our reach and profitability – and, subsequently, our sustainability.”
My whole life, the concept of becoming a game dev has seemed like it meant 1 thing would be certain. I would be alone. Well, plenty of dudes around for gametime but when that sausagefest is over, what then? Cmon ladies, its not just mario and tetrix anymore. Play with us!
This is a sad reality. And as the post says, it has to start from outside. I personally haven't seen any rejection towards woman (I'm just starting though).
Still, I personally would love to see more women taking game development as a career. Where I studied game programming, there were only 3 girls out of 100 people... Makes me think I should have chosen medicine or something.
I studied programming about 10 years ago in uni. There were just two girls in our class and we did used to get comments about women being crap at programming etc (one guy even said we shouldn't be on the course full stop!). This just made us more determined. I got a first and my friend ended up lecturing some of those boys doing re-takes a couple of years later!
Nowadays I work in a digital agency and I wouldn't say there is that same attitude towards the female developers who are working in our organisation, so perhaps things are changing?
I'd suggest the problem starts at birth. Parents buy us boys all those cool toys that we can rearrange, rebuild and destroy at will, and make do all these cool things.
What do the most complex girl toys do? Cry and wet themselves. And you wonder why more males want to enter more engineering-orientated careers?
There are a lot of prejudices at the heart of games development. A couple of years ago I was socialising with a well known industry figure who has owned several development companies over many years. He straight-faced told me he would not hire women in his company as it was no compatible to the male world his staff created. He went on to paint his team as a bunch of pornography downloading, unwashed and uncivilised nerds who would have no idea how to relate to women in the workplace. He said let big corporations with money behind them address inequality but he was not in a position to be idealistic!
