Percentage of Female Devs has Doubled, Unpaid OT Still Too Prevalent According to Survey

A recent survey indicates that the number of female developers in the gaming industry are on the rise, but unpaid overtime is still too frequent.

The results from a recent survey by the International Game Developers Association (with help from its research partners, M2 Research and the University of Western Ontario) indicate that the number of women working in the game development industry has more than doubled since 2009. Women now make up 22 percent of the entire game industry's workforce, compared to 76 percent of developers surveyed being male, and two percent identifying as transgendered (or other).

The survey suggests that most of the developers generally love working on their games, but, like most jobs, there are still plenty of drawbacks. A whopping 38 percent of the 2,200 surveyed developers indicate that they did not receive any sort of compensation for any of their additional time worked. These are alarming numbers indeed. The survey also found that many workers change jobs frequently, which coincides with the increasing number of layoffs in many gaming studios throughout the world.

The last time the IGDA did this survey was in 2009, where they found that women only made up 11.5 percent of the entire industry. In terms of salary, nearly 50 percent of all surveyed developers earned less than $50,000 a year, 33 percent earned between $50,000 and $100,000 and less than 20 percent earned $100,000 or more. In terms of experience, the average survey-taker has had over nine years experience in the industry. Most surveyed developers have worked on at least 16 different projects and have been employed at an average of four different studios over the past five years.

Perhaps the least shocking revelation of all though was the number one answer for leaving the industry. Thirty-nine percent of developers noted they left because of a desire for an improvement in their quality of life. However, 61 percent of the developers said they planned to work in the industry indefinitely.

The IGDA is the largest non-profit organization that works on furthering the careers and bettering the lives of game creators, developers and designers regardless of what studio they work under. The organization also tries to promote the professional development of the gaming industry and seeks to benefit the developer community. Next month, the IGDA plans on releasing the Summary Report of its Developer Satisfaction Survey for a more detailed look at the quality of life, diversity and employment practices that go on at various game studios.