There's a lot that could be said here so we'll have to break this down quite a bit. It depends if we're talking about the game development industry or the competitive gaming industry, in which the answer will largely vary. For simplicity sake, let's take the game development industry. There are a lot of things that encompass game development. I would say the two main categories are the programming side and the artistic side. It takes everything to make a game.
What is the percentage difference of game developers by gender?
There is a decent gap between the guys in girls, but I don't think that'll surprise anyone... According to statista.com, only 30% game developers are women while the other 60%, well are obviously men. Honestly, looking at this stat, it surprised me a little bit because I was actually expecting it to be more one sided but apparently in the recent years, there has been an emergence of female in the gaming industry and that's a breath of fresh air as it usually produces different types of games. We covered that on a previous post last year but we've shown that a lot of woman-made games are more story based and has more emphasis on the emotions that it makes you feel.
What about the percentage difference in the 3D art world?
What I'm about to say probably shocked me even more than it will shock you. But according to Zippia.com, only 16.1% of 3D artists are women. Although, 54.8% of artists in general are women, it's surprising to see that there are less than 20% of them on the gaming side. I believe it's simply because even though, women tend to be more artistic, they're not always interested in having their product in something that they're not going to be using. So if they're not interested in playing games, most likely they won't make art for that.
There are a lot more underserved communities
Even though these numbers sound pretty bad, and it might sound like there's a big gap between the two, wait before you hear the numbers of other underserved communities like the black game developer community for example. Only 5% of the community is Black. That's even smaller and last year, it was about 2%, so at least the silver lining is that the numbers are growing.
What's the solution?
Well, incentivizing game development to people that have no care for it won't bring us anywhere but I believe that giving them an opportunity to have a community and to not feel alone is something that could help them in the process.
We want to eventually have a space dedicated for underserved community to post their games so that other people from that community can see that they're not alone. What are your thoughts on this? Let us know!
What is the percentage difference of game developers by gender?
There is a decent gap between the guys in girls, but I don't think that'll surprise anyone... According to statista.com, only 30% game developers are women while the other 60%, well are obviously men. Honestly, looking at this stat, it surprised me a little bit because I was actually expecting it to be more one sided but apparently in the recent years, there has been an emergence of female in the gaming industry and that's a breath of fresh air as it usually produces different types of games. We covered that on a previous post last year but we've shown that a lot of woman-made games are more story based and has more emphasis on the emotions that it makes you feel.
What about the percentage difference in the 3D art world?
What I'm about to say probably shocked me even more than it will shock you. But according to Zippia.com, only 16.1% of 3D artists are women. Although, 54.8% of artists in general are women, it's surprising to see that there are less than 20% of them on the gaming side. I believe it's simply because even though, women tend to be more artistic, they're not always interested in having their product in something that they're not going to be using. So if they're not interested in playing games, most likely they won't make art for that.
There are a lot more underserved communities
Even though these numbers sound pretty bad, and it might sound like there's a big gap between the two, wait before you hear the numbers of other underserved communities like the black game developer community for example. Only 5% of the community is Black. That's even smaller and last year, it was about 2%, so at least the silver lining is that the numbers are growing.
What's the solution?
Well, incentivizing game development to people that have no care for it won't bring us anywhere but I believe that giving them an opportunity to have a community and to not feel alone is something that could help them in the process.
We want to eventually have a space dedicated for underserved community to post their games so that other people from that community can see that they're not alone. What are your thoughts on this? Let us know!