A new survey conducted by the International Game Developers Association is helping to answer the question: "Who makes games?", by examining the demographic makeup of the development community. Nearly 6500 people participated in the survey, answering a series of questions pertaining to age, race, sexual orientation and education among other variables.
Key results of the demographic survey of the game development community include:
- Male = 88.5%, Female = 11.5%
- White = 83.3%, Black = 2.0%, Hispanic/Latino = 2.5%, Asian = 7.5%, Other = 4.7%
- Heterosexual = 92%, Lesbian/Gay = 2.7%, Bisexual = 2.7%
- Average age = 31 years
- Average years in the industry = 5.4 years
- Percentage of people with disabilities = 13% (e.g., cognitive, mobility, sight, etc)
- More than 80% of game developers have a university level education or greater
- More than 60% of studios claim that obtaining diverse applicants is challenging.
Jason Della Rocca, executive director for the IGDA, commented of the survey: "As an industry, we need to wake up to the fact that games exist in a broader societal context that is constantly changing."
More information on the survey, including raw data and comments, is available at the
IGDA's Diversity Report page.
