Diversity in the game industry: is outreach the solution?

Over the last decade, the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) has considered the lack of diversity in the game industry workforce a quality of life issue. Using the results of our recent study on demographics of undergraduate students in game degree programs, we compare our data against data reported in the 2005 IGDA Quality of Life survey. The most significant result of this study is that gender diversity in the current group of undergraduate students studying games is statistically the same as that reported within the industry seven years ago, with an approximate 8 to 1 ratio of males to females. The number of black and Asian students was higher than in the industry survey, and the number of Hispanic and other ethnic and racial groups was only slightly lower. Our data shows that there is a greater diversity in sexual orientation and of reported disabilities than in the industry survey results. We describe effective initiatives for recruiting and retaining women in related fields and suggest that similar efforts might address the imbalance in the game industry.