Getting More Women Into The Game
Author: Laura Miele, Chief Studios Officer
Happy International Women’s Day, everyone. It’s such a great moment to take pride in all we have accomplished while also taking inventory on the many opportunities that remain.
It took a long time for our industry to realize the value of women in gaming - not just playing games, but working on and around games. Thankfully, gaming companies today spend a lot more time thinking about female players and investing in the potential of female employees then they did when I first started in the industry -- no doubt because there now are more of us in the industry, not to mention there are well over a billion (!) female gamers in the world.
Several years ago, we started our Women’s Ultimate Team ERG here at Electronic Arts because we wanted women to have a community they could turn to for support. We recognized each woman would have her individual challenges and opportunities but we wanted to create a place where women could support each other, while working with our male allies, to increase our presence in the industry- particularly in leadership roles.
Our Studios leadership team is now half female- and two of those leaders have leadership teams that are half female. Across EA women are building the technology blueprint that will power our future, creating experiences for a new generation of players and championing inclusive design to make sure our games unlock the full range of stories we can tell. I am incredibly proud of all the women at Electronic Arts who are building the future of our industry and throughout the month you will hear some of them tell their stories on EA’s LinkedIn page.
The International Women's Day theme for 2021 is #ChooseToChallenge, which highlights the importance of challenging biases and misconceptions in the interest of creating a more inclusive and gender-equal world. The only way things change is if we challenge the way they have always been done. So, we will increase the number of opportunities for women and introduce girls to this remarkable industry through internships and education. We will provide women just starting out in games with mentorship and the tools they need to launch their careers. And we will support senior women in their development to make sure we are positioning them to lead the industry in the years to come.
This will take education, examining our own unconscious biases and many hard conversations but we can choose every day to challenge and call out gender inequality. Despite all our work to date, our industry can still be very challenging for women and we still have work to do here at EA to promote an inclusive culture. What are you going to #ChooseToChallenge?
