The first annual report for #RaiseTheGame, the UK games industry diversity pledge, has released today.
The report, which was written by games writer Vikki Blake, outlines the progress that the sector has made since the launch of the pledge in Spring 2020.
In 12 months, over 100 organisations have become pledge partners by committing their business to long term improvements in equality, diversity and inclusivity against three key pledge pillars:
1) Creating a diverse workforce by recruiting as fairly and widely as possible.
2) Shaping inclusive and welcoming places to work by educating and inspiring people to take more personal responsibility for fostering and promoting diversity and inclusion.
3) Reflecting greater diversity in our work by striving for this in everything we do, from game design and development, through to marketing and other support services.
The first #RaiseTheGame annual report, which draws upon 30 detailed case studies from partners such as Xbox, King, EA, Jagex, Facebook, Roll7, Codemasters, Mediatonic and Sumo Group shows how different businesses:
- Have improved recruitment practices by reviewing language on their job advertisements, ensuring interviewers are drawn from increasingly diverse backgrounds and incentivising recruiters to hire diversely.
- Creating a more inclusive working culture by running internal surveys to understand the demographic make up of teams, running unconscious bias training programmes and providing additional support to new hires to make entering companies welcoming.
- Featured increasingly diverse characters within games themselves, making games more inclusive through pro-active community moderation and building partnerships with advocacy groups to lay long term foundations for inclusive games.
The report, which will be compiled again in 2022, concludes with five recommendations for industry that include.
- Continue to celebrate and expand its commitment to equality, diversity, and inclusion with real-life testimonies, case studies, and examples of progress;
- Improve inclusive working and recruitment practices for disabled people, including hidden health conditions;
- Continue to support remote working for those who'd like to keep working that way with realistic work/life balance expectations.
- Implement clear mechanisms to encourage staff voice and feedback.
- Explore and tackle the challenges of increasing representation in games through Pillar 3, diversifying our work and services.