Girls And Game Development - Couragion Bucking The Trends
Couragion is happy to report that we are bucking the trend when it comes to girls and game development!
I just read research from Google Play which found that women are severely under-represented in the mobile game space - representing less than ¼ of employees in the industry. According to Google’s report, the discrepancies between genders and game development start early and only get worse:
54% of male teens report that they play games and 68% are interested in making games as a career. For girl teens, 46% say they play games but only 32% report that they are interested in making games as a career.
By 12th grade, boys are three times as likely as girls to be interested in making a living as a game developer.
Girls’ view of gaming as a male-dominated industry increases with age. When asked to draw a game developer, 8th grade girls mostly draw females but by high school, most girls draw male developers.
The research from Google seeks to increase the participation of females in the gaming industry by better inspiring and educating girls early on. Google Play found that teens lack an understanding of gaming as a career. Few teens pursue gaming as a hobby which is a natural precursor to considering gaming as a career. Only 15% of boys and 9% of girls said that they have tried making a game. Google encourages educators to expose teens to game making in order to boost interest in gaming careers. Google also recommends that teaching students about other aspects of game development (such as writing the storyline or creating the art and graphics) could expand the interest among teens, especially girls. Finally, Google suggests that teens need to know about the earning potential and hiring opportunities in gaming. The industry provides high incomes with employees earning average salaries of $97,000 per year. In addition, the industry has many hiring opportunities with job openings projected to grow at a rate of 8.2% between 2016 and 2022.
At Couragion, we have been inspiring and educating students about game and STEM careers for over six years. Our approach includes Google’s suggestions plus more - in order to especially inspire girls and under-represented students. Here’s a few examples:
Our game developer role model is an Asian female. In order for girls and under-represented students to consider careers, they need to see people in the career who share their gender and ethnic identities. We make this a priority in the Couragion app with over 83% of our role models being females and/or people of color.
We cover a broad range of tech careers beyond coding - including graphic design, user experience, and quality assurance.
For each of the careers we highlight in the app, we include statistics about annual starting salaries and the number of job openings anticipated.
We also educate students about how they can try out career aspects early on in their lives. We do this by providing customized recommendations of things they can do to build work-based learning skills. For example, in our Game Developer Career Quest, we share resources for kids to try free game development platforms.
Couragion’s data shows that our approach is moving the needle in changing perceptions among students about STEM careers such as game development. We see high interest in game development from both males and females with our Game Developer Career Quest being the most frequently selected Quest among both genders. We don’t see female interest dropping off as they age - as a percent of Quests completed, a higher percentage of high school females opt to complete the Game Developer Career Quest compared to elementary and middle school females.
Our student comments echo the impact. Here are a few examples of comments written by our students after completing Couragion’s Game Developer Career Quest:
“I love games and the career seems like a win win for me and others.” - Black Female
“I feel like I would like this career because I love video games and I always wanted to create my own video game. Also it seems very cool how you earn a lot of money doing this.” - Hispanic Female
“I watched all the information you put on this website carefully and repeatedly. Although I'm just a high school junior who just got into the Intro Programming class, I feel like the things like game developer will help me a lot with my future plan, it encouraged me that I should keep doing what I do in Intro Programming.” - Asian Male
“It is an interesting career, with lots of creative outlets.” - White Female
“It is amazing thinking that I can do it.” - Hispanic Male
“I feel like this would be a good job for me since this Quest shows stuff I like.” - White Female
“I enjoyed learning and getting a better understanding of what a Game Designer does, thanks to the woman in the videos. I would enjoy pursuing computing even further. I would also enjoy creating a game and once you are finished just knowing that you created a game sounds awesome.” - Hispanic Male
“Ever since 5th grade I always wanted to be a game dev since I was really into video games and I wanted to know what was behind the scenes and how to create them.” - Black Female
“I would love to be a game designer because I could make the art and give ideas to the Manager.” - Hispanic Male
“I really like this a lot, and this has helped me figure out the next steps to finding a good career.” - White Male
To better educate your students about the opportunities provided by gaming and STEM careers, schedule a Couragoin demo - info@couragion.com. To review Google’s research, check out the full report - ‘From Players To Makers - Teen Girls’ Relationship With Game Creation’.
