ESA criticises lack of female devs, praises growing in-game diversity

The number of women working in games is still ‘not good enough’ – but things are looking up for the future.

That’s the outlook from ESA CEO Michael Gallagher, who spoke on the repercussions of the GameGate movement at DICE (via GameSpot).

"I’m so encouraged about the growth trajectory and the positive trajectory of this industry when it comes to diversity," he observed.

"If you look at what our industry currently represents, we have 22 per cent of the jobs in our industry held by women. Now, in other parts of the tech sector, it’s dramatically lower. It’s in the mid-teens. Now that’s not good enough and we know it’s not good enough."

However, Gallagher continued, that statistic looked set to rise in the future, with women comprising almost a third of the students attending the games-related courses across the Higher Education Video Game Alliance’s 180 educational institutions.

"We have 31 per cent more that are coming," he explained. "When you look at most other major universities, they’re operating around 15 per cent, 16 per cent. So the pipeline looks much brighter when it comes to the diversity issues of today."

Gallagher also took time to praise the growing diversity of in-game characters, stating that every single triple-A title launched in the last quarter of 2015 (such as Rise of the Tomb Raider, pictured) featured a playable female character.

"These are all coming from very competitive companies, but they’re all seeing the same direction, the same need to address the entire marketplace," he enthused. "We can be very encouraged by that.

“This is a cultural medium. Those elements of entertainment and culture will pull us in that direction faster than other forms of technology or the tech sector.”