The realm of game development is one that is very diverse. As you have the potential to either join a very established company, or, join an indie studio, or, try and make your own team to make video games. So no matter what race or gender you are, you can make games. That being said, there is a clear imbalance in regards to how many men are making games and how many women are making them. And the boss of Halo Infinite, Bonnie Ross, has noticed this.
In a chat with 60 Minutes, she talked about how men are more encouraged to make games than women:
“Boys and men, the numbers are moving up. We are getting a lot more into computer science. But with women and girls, it’s going down,” Ross said. “In many times there’s not even a way where I could bring a woman into a specific job because the candidates are just not there.”
She went on:
“Research that we’ve done at Microsoft of the girls we’ve talked to, 91% of them feel that they are creative, they identify with being creative,” Ross said. “But when asked about computer science, they don’t see computer science as creative. And so I think that we do need to connect the dots. Because it is incredibly creative, it’s just that we’re not doing a good job of showing them what they can do with it.”
Boss notes that she feels that more women should be in the industry, and not because of balance or anything like that, but rather, the women who have come to the industry have proven that they are just as good as anyone else:
“These women, basically they open every door because we all want them, and there’s so few of them, and they’re amazingly talented. There’s just not that many of them.”
As the head of Halo Infinite, Bonnie Ross does have the means to show that women can make it to the top and make epic games. Hopefully that’ll be enough to inspire others.
