"It takes women working on games for games to change."- Media Molecule studio director Siobhan Reddy, in an interview with BBC Radio 4. Siobhan Reddy believes women are underestimated as a productive force in the games industry. "There are all sorts of discussions about where it is now and where it has been," she tells BBC Radio 4. "[The scarcity of women in the field] is one that I'd really like to see us solve." "There are some sad statistics which are that by the time girls are in Year 8 they've been put off working in tech or in games, whether in the home or by a teacher or by friends," she continues. "We really need to be looking at how we can encourage women to see games as an exciting industry... We have very few creative directors who are women. We have a lot of women within the industry who run studios and pack a mean punch, you know -- the influence of women within the industry is pretty great -- but we need to see that on the game design and programming side as well." Reddy acknowledges that one issue which needs to be addressed in order to start closing the industry's gender gap is the present lack of female role models for tech. "That actually did give me a bit of a kick, to [help] make sure we were visible to young women out there contemplating a career in video games," she offers. "We get here via various different ways, and the way that things change is from within. I feel like the change for the industry is in representing our female audience. I will never make a game that does not take that into consideration."
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'It takes women working on games for games to change.'
Media Molecule studio director Siobhan Reddy sees plenty of women running studios but not nearly enough in the creative side of things. What needs to change, she says, is visibility of women devs.