Women paid less yet are more experienced, survey results show
Just one-in-seventeen UK games developers are women, who on average earn about £3,000 less than their male colleagues each year, according to a new Develop study.
Data published in the 2012 Develop Salary Survey – the most comprehensive in the publication’s history – shows that just 35 of 582 survey respondents were female. The revelation suggests there is a significant female skills shortage across games development sector.
Incorporating about 400 other industry respondents into the mix (publishing, marketing, retail) would bring female representation up to about 11 per cent.
Pay proportionality is another key issue for the sector, with British female game dev execs earning almost £3,000 less than their male counterparts. The difference is about £2,000 on a global basis.
Of all female developers surveyed, not one said they earned more than £90,000 per year – 18 men surveyed said they did. Despite this, the female respondents’ average industry experience was at three-to-five years, as opposed to two-to-three years for the males.
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Forty-two per cent of games customers are women, according to recent ESA data.
According to independent developer Quinn Dunki, gender imbalance in the games industry is a problem too big to be solved within the sector itself.
“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,” Dunki said last year.
“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.”
In 2010, training body Skillset signed up to the UKRC – a government-led organisation for challenging the under-representation of women in science, engineering, technology (SET).
REVELATION? How is this a revelation?
Just look across the office floor and see the divide between the genders.
I have to say that at least in the teams that I've managed, there's been a steady increase in female staff. About 1:30 in 2000 to about 1:20 nowadays.
That does seem to correlate to the improvement in the personal hygene of developers over the last 20 years, when the female form was nowhere to be seen! :)
From what I've seen most people in the UK who take Computing related degrees are male. Which means most people who enter the relevant computing fields will be male.
I am currently attending a university to study Computer Science, and the one subject in the Computing school at this university that seems to have close to an even male:female ratio is "Digital Media" which is more focused on making websites. Everything else has a lot more men than women.
So really you need to get more women to actually learn the relevant subject. Actually, you need to get more people since the UK software industry in general is kinda pitiful...
I've sat in a pub with a very prominent person in games development who said he would not hire women because a) they distract the men b) it's an uncomfortable environment for them because his "men are men" lacking in personal hygiene and downloading porn. At the time he was at one of several small companies he has owned over his long career and he said it was the place of large games developers to address the balance, not small companies like his. I have witnesses. I think 30 years on (from my first games development job) this appalling attitude is entrenched much more deeply than anyone cares to admit.
i agree with patricia...it's an issue in terms of education etc. but having taught in a computer science and engineering department, i know that women are doing computer science more and more. it is, overwhelmingly, to do with attitudes within the industry itself. attending conferences is like walking into a boy's dorm. women are not welcome, unless of course they are in bikinis ;) or happy to join in with the male banter; at the last conference i was at i was invited to go to watch some pole dancing with 'all' of the other guys at the bar who were heading out...you know who you are ;)
as far as a lot of men in games are concerned, they are making games for themselves and their mates...not girls. maybe once this was true - but it certainly isn't now.
it will take some of the 'big guys' in the industry to change this; start employing women as coders, designers and artists and not just in marketing.
its good for us though, for every games dev that doesn't understand their market leaves room for forward thinking companies like FluffyLogic to fill the gap! :D
