Interview series celebrating the women of Firesprite this March.
For International Women’s Day 2021 we celebrated the amazing women of Firesprite! Working in Code, Art, Animation, Design, QA, Production, HR, People Engagement, Marketing, Recruitment and Finance, some of our talented women explored questions on the topic of women in games in our IWD 2021 video.
Inspired by this year’s #ChooseToChallenge theme, and the awareness and empowerment celebrated during Women’s History Month, we’re continuing to showcase the women of Firesprite, their work, and insights as women in the game and tech industry throughout the month of March. Our team will be discussing the importance of diversity, how to increase the number of women in games, offer their advice to others aspiring to work in the industry, and much more.
Today we’re exploring the representation of diversity within games and why it’s so integral in game development and throughout the wider industry.
Why is diversity important in the industry?
“Diversity of all kinds is super important to our industry. I’m a huge advocate of building diverse teams, being a female and also ethnic minority. This is something that’s super important to Firesprite as well and one of our goals as studio as we continue to grow. The way I perceive it is, by creating diverse teams, we’re bring together a bunch of people who have all had different life experiences and may have different creative ideas. This allows us a studio to create games in a more inclusive way, which in turn creates more positive experiences for all our gamers.”
- Sharan, Senior Talent Acquisition Manager
“Diversity brings culture, different life experiences and perspectives, it also brings representation. There are many communities that are, sadly, not as represented as they should be. If a person has big dreams to one day work in the industry but they feel discouraged from applying because of their race, gender, looks, sexual orientation, disability, condition, their opinion can change instantly if they see someone who is just like them already working in it. It’s never about “hiring people for the sake of being more diverse” it’s about hiring people to be representatives in the industry, bringing their experiences to the workplace and giving their input into the products we create.”
- Victoria T, QA
“It’s important to have voices from all backgrounds, experiences and gender identities to enable a wider range of subject matter, opinions and perspectives. Diverse workforces are more innovative; different backgrounds produce different ideas, approaches and solutions. Probabilistically too, more diverse teams will have a bigger pool of ideas.”
- Darshita, Senior Cinematic Animator
“I believe that diversity in the video game industry should be something more than a minimum task required or a box to be ticked, it should be a line of action of the highest priority. Diversity is important not only in work teams, but in the stories that materialize in a video game. In this way, video games make it possible to represent and include groups that have never been considered before, both at the level of the gaming community and in the creation of a title.”
- Ester, Senior Engine Programmer
“Diversity is one of the most important aspects in the games industry and there are so many things we could learn from each other. Especially as a woman from an Asian descent, it’s pretty cool seeing games representing different traditions with a female protagonist such as The Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey/Syndicate, Horizon Zero Dawn, Tomb Raider etc. These games show strong women who play a central role in the storyline.”
- Tiffany, Junior Animator
“A diverse industry means we can create more varied games for an increasingly diverse audience. By having a diverse team, you can get different perspectives on an idea and the result will be something more interesting. Diversity is also important in the products we create, being able to play as a character that you can relate to makes the game a bit more special to play!”
- Natalie, Junior Programmer
“How could it not be important, think about our audience, we make games for literally everyone, so everyone should have a chance to be a part of that industry.”
- Abby, Animator
“I think diversity in all forms is important in the games industry. It’s a creative industry, and when you have people from all sorts of backgrounds pitching in ideas I think you can get lots of different ideas for lots of different kinds of games, which could then become something unique that has never been seen before in the market.”
- Nagia, Character Artist
“Diversity is important, not just in terms of women, but as a whole. Everybody plays games, the whole point of games is escapism, it’s not just for one kind of person so I think the more diversity on a team the better because you’re going to able to appeal to a wider audience. Games is all about pushing boundaries and having new experiences.”
- Victoria G, Environment Artist
“Diversity is incredibly important in the video games industry, because games are a source of media entertainment with the accessibility to potentially touch every single type of person. So, from the players to the devs hired, it’s important to celebrate diversity because we need to shake off old outdated habits and we need to welcome in the new progressive ones.”
- Chloe, People Engagement Manager
