UK not-for-profit organisation IntoGames has released ‘Difficulty Level’, the first piece of games industry-specific research aimed at understanding on social mobility in the UK video game industry.
It uses the stories of over 300 people who work in games and have overcome barriers and challenges to get hired in the sector.
The report mixes personal stories, up-to-date data and case studies to come up with key recommendations for how we can create a fairer and more reflective sector in UK society. We think this will lead to stronger teams and, ultimately, better games.
Key findings include:
- Games development has one of the worst records of socioeconomic access of any creative or technical sector.
- Socioeconomic diversity would require greater numbers for parity than race or gender.
- Up to 60% of people studying games at Further Education and Higher Education could be coming from working-class backgrounds, but only 13% are employed in the sector.
- It could be up to five times harder for someone to get hired in the sector if they come from these backgrounds.
- Graduate hiring figures from universities directly into the games sector could be as low as 5.5%. They may even be far lower when factoring in alumni competition for roles, with this extreme competition for entry-level graduate roles magnifying socioeconomic disadvantage.
- 59% of people from under-resourced backgrounds who currently work in games have been made to feel ‘othered’ at some point in their career.
- Only 4% of the games sector feels like enough is being done to address the balance in the sector.
This is an important piece of research into the UK video games industry. To download the report and learn about the additional findings, click here.
