â??Game dev should be promoted to girls in schoolâ??

The apparent decline of females in the UK games industry needs to be remedied by promoting the industry in schools, a game lecturer has said.

Kaye Elling, a former art manager at Warwickshire studio Blitz, told BBC Newsbeat that the industry “needed to get out there when [women] were in their educational years and promote [game development].

"By the time we were trying to recruit them in the office it was too late," she said.

Elling, now a computer games lecturer at the University of Bradford, only sees a couple of women taking on the courses each year.

“It’s perhaps not considered something that’s cool for girls to do,” she said.

“Girls think that games are all about spotty boys in the bedroom. They may not know that it is a viable career, something where you can get a steady pay cheque, where you can get promoted and become really successful and make a lot of money."

Independent data recently showed that the number of women working in UK games industry fell from 12 per cent in 2006 to four per cent last year.

The BBC spoke to a number of game industry professionals on the matter, including NaturalMotion’s Torsteim Reil, who said “it bothers me, the number of applications from women we receive is very low.

“We’re trying pretty hard right now to attract more into the company."

In July this year, two game industry entrepreneurs opened what was said to be Canada’s first female-owned and operated dev studio

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