作者：Monica McGill

不管你是否认同，游戏产业的多样性的确是现在最炙手可热的话题。无论是关于种族，性别，或者一些较不热门的政治或宗教倾向话题，每一方都持有自己所坚持的看法。作为一种社交问题，我们在利润和回报占首位的游戏产业中似乎很少听到对于多样性的呼唤。但是许多产业都发现，扩展市场并提高市场份额的关键便是在过程中包含各种各样的设计师和开发者，这仍是不可辩驳的事实。

关于这一看法的证据仍在不断堆积着。根据2008年的福布斯观察报告，“重视多样性的公司相比同一产业中的其它公司总是拥有更高的利润率以及净资产收益率。”2009年关于多样性效率对于公司性能的研究表明，“带有种族和性别多样性的公司在销量，收益，用户数以及市场份额上都能取得较好的成绩。”2010年McKinsey的报告发现，“女性员工占据较大比例的公司团队总是会胜过没有女性员工的团队，即占据着41%的净资产收益率以及56%的经营结果。”

也许这也是某些领域的市场份额不断提升，探索全新收益增长变得更加重要的一大原因，所以这一话题在游戏产业中变得更加热门。2005年，IGDA有关多样性调查的报告指出，典型游戏开发专业是关于“白种人，男性，异性恋，身体健全，而认同劳动力多元化才是未来游戏产业成功的关键。”该报告还陈述了“相信多样性将对游戏产业以及我们所创造的产品带来重要影响—-即通过更广阔的市场或吸引未来人才的方式。”

Design-Students(from beckerjournalonline)

吸引未来的人才。对此我们产生了一些疑问，即我们将吸引怎样的未来人才？未来的人才库是否不同于当前游戏产业中的雇员？或者我们还会吸引更多一样的人才，并陷入Anna Anthropy所谓的“白人开发者创造的游戏将获得白人评论者的评价并传递给白人玩家，而最终这个白人玩家将成为新的白人开发者以及评论者”循环中。

美国大学中的游戏学位课程一直在发展与壮大着。随着竞争的提高以及质量的完善，这些课程将变成培养未来游戏产业人才的可行渠道。如果整个游戏产业都相信（就像世界上许多公司所意识到的那样）多样性的重要性以及对于市场份额的影响，那么他们便会注意到大学中那些充满抱负的游戏开发者们。

为此我们在2012年开展了一项研究，并发现了一些正在学习游戏创造的大学生们所具有的特征。我们主要着眼于性别，种族，身心障碍，性取向，政治倾向，宗教信仰，并发现有些领域出现了显著改善，但是有些领域却仍止步不前。

游戏产业雇员渠道调查

我们开展了游戏产业雇员渠道调查，并且许多问题都是源自2005年IGDA调查“游戏开发者人口统计统计：探索劳动力多元化”以及2011年关于产业许可的调查。这些调查都包含了人口统计问题，宗教倾向，性别倾向，政治倾向以及身心障碍。调查还引出了有关学生对于游戏产业多样性认知的信息。

我们在最近的期刊文章《United States: A comparison of Computer Science students and the General Population》（游戏邦注：发表于《Computer Science Education》）中详细解释了研究中所使用的方法。我们的研究数据是源自对美国四所知名大学的261名学生的调查。我们将该数据与美国2011年人口普查数据进行比较。而当人口统计局所提供的美国人口数据并不可行时，我们将参考同行的数据报告。

年级，学习范围以及职业理想

在美国，主要的参与者（95.8%）是18至24岁的传统学生，并且有97.7%属于全日制学生。一年级学生占33.3%，二年级占26.8%，三年级占19.5%，而四年级则占20.3%。

受访者可以从一个广泛的学习范围中做出选择：游戏设计，游戏软件开发，游戏制作，游戏图像，游戏声音，或者还未做决定。最受欢迎的前三种学习范围分别是游戏设计（41.0%），游戏软件开发（31.8%）以及游戏制作（16.2%）。7%的学生选择了游戏图像，而不足3%的学生选择了游戏声音。还有一些参与者（12.3%）表示还未作出决定。

性别，种族和民族

研究结果显示，87.4%的受访者是男性，12.6%为女性。根据美国2011年的人口普查，美国男女比例已经接近1：1，即男性占49.1%，女性占51.9%，如此便明显看出了该研究中女性代表的缺失。

图1：美国游戏学生以及美国人口的性别图

sex（from gamasutra）

95.8%的受访者是以英语为母语的人。有259人回应了种族问题，而71.6%的参与者属于白种人，10.2%来自亚洲，6.5%属于黑种人，还有2.7%是西班牙裔/拉丁美洲人。

关于种族划分，数据表明，比起性别比例，与美国人口做比较的种族划分较为公平。在与美国人口进行比较时，黑人和西班牙裔/拉丁美洲人的数量明显较少，而亚洲人却超出了总人口中的比例。

图2：游戏学生，计算机学生以及美国人口的种族划分。

ethnicity（from gamasutra）

宗教信仰

255名受访者回应了宗教信仰问题，而31人拒绝回答。41.6%受访者未具有宗教倾向。13.0%的人认为自己信仰天主教，39.6%的人认为自己是基督教徒，1.5%的人是伊斯兰教，还有2.3%的人属于犹太教。

比较Pew Forum关于宗教和公共生活的研究数据，美国人口中的宗教背景具有很大的差异性。比起只有16.1%没有宗教信仰的美国人口，表示自己没有宗教信仰的游戏学生超过40%。

图3：游戏学生和美国人口的宗教背景

religious（from gamasutra）

政治倾向

27.4%的受访者表示自己是自由派（游戏邦注：是个美国名词，和保守派对应），26.4%的人则表示自己没有政治倾向。还有24.1%的人是带着中庸思想。只有4.5%的人认为自己带有保守意识形态。7名受访者发表了其它陈述，其中四名（4.5%）表示自己是自由主义者（比如芝加哥学派、奥地利学派，比如哈耶克和弗里德曼，主张小政府，少管制，自由市场），而剩下的3人则是基于不同问题发表不同看法。

图4：游戏学生的政治倾向。

political（from gamasutra）

比起2012年1月的Gallup Politics民意调查，游戏学生与美国人口在政治观点上具有很大的差异。

图5.政治倾向比较

political comparison（from gamasutra）

女同性恋，男同性恋，双性恋以及变性人（LGBT）

255名参与者回应了LGBT的问题，其中有15人（5.9%）拒绝回答（表6）。而在做出回应的人中，87.1%的人表示自己是异性恋。5.5%的人承认自己是双性恋，只有4人（1.6%）表示自己是同性恋。尽管未在表格中呈现出来，但是我们可以很明显地看到2名参与者（0.8）是变性人。

根据Williams Institute，96.2%的美国人口是异性恋，1.7%是同性恋，1.8%的是双性恋。与游戏学生人口相比较时会发现，同性恋人口非常接近，但是比起同性恋，有更多学生承认自己是双性恋，从而拉低了异性恋比例。

图6：游戏学生和美国人口的性取向

sexual（from gamasutra）

身心障碍

参与者需要回答是否患身心障碍。这是一个必要领域，261名受访者至少需要选择一个答案。74.3%的参与者表示并未患有任何疾病。而在剩下的参与者中，8.4%的人表示患有心理疾病（游戏邦注：如忧虑，爱分神，强迫症，创伤后紧张中，两极化，抑郁，精神分裂症等等），7.3%的人表示患有认知障碍（如难语症，ADD/HD，特殊学习障碍，孤独症，阿斯伯格综合症等）。还有1.1%的人表示具有听觉障碍以及0.4%的人具有行动障碍。

承认具有认知障碍的参与者需要回答的第二个问题是，说出他们所具有的认知问题。5.7%的人表示具有注意力缺陷/多动症，1.1%则表示具有学习障碍。

根据美国人口普查局，78.7%的美国人口未患有任何身心障碍，与之相比游戏学生的比例为74.3%，而6.3%的美国人患有心理疾病，参与者的比例则为8.4%。

失明以及视力障碍之人在游戏学生中的比例是3.1%，在美国人口中为3.3%。聋人/重听症在美国人口中有3.1%，而在游戏学生中只有1.1%。不幸的是，在美国人口普查局所提供的数据中，类别并不符合调查中的类别，所以这些数据并不能作为真正的比较。

总结

这些研究结果能够帮助我们从一些新角度去看待游戏产业的人才获取渠道。从许多方面看来，我们的研究结果与2005年IGDA关于游戏产业雇员的调查结果（即包含理工科职员以及计算机职员的相关信息）相类似。在理工科，计算机以及游戏职员中，女性，黑人，西班牙裔/拉丁美洲人所占的比例过低，而亚洲人在总人口中的比例则相对更高。

这对于游戏产业来说意味着什么？这意味着在短时期内人才获取渠道中将充满与当前产业中的职员一样的人才。如果我们想要改变产业中的人口构成，我们就需要立马开始寻求改变。如果不齐心协力，游戏产业中便不可能出现包含技能型毕业生的多样群组，并且产业现状也将不可能发生改变。只有真正做出改变才有可能在前进道路上前进。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Examining the Pipeline: Demographics of Undergraduate Students Studying Games

by Monica McGill

Like it or not, diversity in the game industry is undeniably a current hot topic for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s about race, gender, or something less frequently discussed like political or religious leanings, strong opinions exist on all sides. As a social issue, calls for diversity may not be as well heard in the games industry where larger profits and higher returns on investments often take priority over larger social ideals.  But multiple industries have found that a key to broadening markets and market share is to include a variety of designers and developers in the process, a fact that remains irrefutable.

The evidence for this keeps mounting. According to a 2008 Forbes Insights report, “companies with a strong commitment to diversity on average outperformed their peers with higher profit margins, and greater return on equity and assets.” A 2009 study on the effects of diversity on company performance showed that “companies with greater racial and gender diversity performed better in terms of sales, revenue, number of customers, and market share.” And a 2010 McKinsey report found that “companies with the highest share of women in their senior management teams outperformed those with no women by 41% in return on equity and by a 56% in operating results.”

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that, in a field where market share is becoming more and more competitive and exploring new avenues of growth is becoming increasingly important, this topic has become hot within the game industry. Even in 2005, the IGDA report on its diversity survey found that the typical game development professional is “white, male, heterosexual, not disabled, […] and agrees that workforce diversity is important to the future success of the game industry” (pp. 9-10). The report goes on to state that “… it is reasonable to believe that diversity does have an impact on the game industry and the products we create – either via broader markets and/or a means to attract future talent” (p. 22).

Ah, attracting future talent. That phrase certainly begs the question: what future talent are we attracting? And does the prospective talent pool differ in its composition than current game industry employees? Or are we attracting more of the same, trapped in a cycle like the one Anna Anthropy describes as “straight white developers [who] make games that straight white reviewers market to straight white players, who may eventually be recruited to become the new straight white developers and reviewers” (Anthropy 2012)?

Game degree programs at colleges and universities in the United States continue to grow and evolve. As competition and quality improves, these programs have started to become a viable pipeline for recruiting future industry talent. If the game industry as a whole becomes convinced that, like other companies across the world have recognized, that diversity matters and has an impact on market share, it’s important, then, to look at the composition of aspiring game developers at universities and colleges.

In 2012, we conducted a study to do just that—to find the characteristics of undergraduate students currently studying games. We looked at gender, race, disabilities, sexual orientation, and political and religious leanings and learned that, while some areas show marked improvement, other areas remain woefully lacking.

The Game Industry Employee Pipeline Survey

We created the Game Industry Employee Pipeline Survey in which many of the questions were taken directly from the 2005 IGDA survey “Game Developer Demographics: An Exploration of Workforce Diversity” and the 2011 IGDA Industry Survey with permission. The survey consisted of demographic questions, religious preferences, sexual preferences, political views, and disabilities. The survey also elicited information about student perceptions of diversity in the game industry.

Complete details about the methods used in this study are provided in our journal article, Demographics of undergraduates studying games in the United States: A comparison of Computer Science students and the General Population, recently published in the Computer Science Education journal. Data was collected from 261 students at four nationally-recognized universities in the U.S. The data was compared against the U.S. population as reported by the US Census Bureau in 2011 (United States Census Bureau, 2011a, 2011b, 2011c). When data from the U.S. population was not available from the Census Bureau, we reference data reported in peer-reviewed, published research.

Year of study, areas of study, and career aspirations

In the U.S., the majority of the participants (95.8%) are traditional students in the age range of 18-24, with the vast majority being full-time students (97.7%). Participants in their first year of studies made up 33.3% of the respondents, second year 26.8%, third year 19.5%, and fourth year 20.3%.

Respondents could choose from a broad selection of areas of study: Game Design, Game Software Development, Game Production, Game Art, Game Sound, Other, or Undecided. The top three areas of study were Game Design (41.0%), Game Software Development (31.8%), and Game Production (16.2%). Seven percent chose Game Art and fewer than 3% chose Game Sound. Several participants (12.3%) stated that they were undecided.

Sex, Race, and Ethnicity

The results of the study showed that 87.4% of respondents were male and 12.6% were female. According to the 2010 United States Census (United States Census Bureau, 2011a), the ratio of males to females in the general population is nearly 1 to 1, with males being 49.1% of the population and females 51.9%, clearly showing a gap in the representation of women.

Figure 1. Sex of game students in the US and the US population

95.8% of respondents were native English speakers. 259 respondents responded to the ethnicity question and 71.6% of participants identified as white, 10.2% as Asian, 6.5% as black, and 2.7% as Hispanic/Latino.

With respect to ethnicity, the data indicates that ethnicity is more equitably represented compared to the U.S. Population than the ratio is for gender (United States Census Bureau, 2011b). Blacks and Hispanic/Latinos are underrepresented, while Asians are overrepresented when compared with the US Population.

Figure 2. Ethnicity of game students, computing students, and US population

Religious Leanings

255 participants responded to the religious preferences question, with 31 declining to specify. The majority (41.6%) of participants did not have a religious preference. 13.0% identified themselves as Roman Catholic, while 39.6% identified themselves as Christian (Other Christian, Church of Christ, Methodist, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, Eastern Orthodox, or Lutheran). 1.5% identified themselves as Muslim, while 2.3% identified themselves as Jewish.

Compared to data reported by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the religious affiliations of the U.S. population differs significantly. Of significance, over 40% of game students claim no religious affiliation compared to only 16.1% of the population.

Figure 3. Religious affiliation of game students and U.S. population

Political Leanings

Questions about political preferences were also given. Participants mostly identified themselves as either liberal (27.4%) or did not care about political preferences (26.4%). Another large percentage (24.1%) identified with middle of the road ideologies. Only 4.5% identified with conservative ideologies. Seven participants stated other, with four (4.5%) self-identifying as Libertarian. The remaining three stated that their view depends on the issue.

Figure 4. Political preferences of game students.

Compared to the Gallup Politics poll reported in January 2012 (Gallup Politics, 2012), there are a number of extremely statistically significant differences between the political views of game students versus the U.S. population.

Figure 5. Political preference comparison.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT)

255 participants responded to the LGBT questions, with 15 (5.9%) declining to specify (Table 6). Of those that did, 87.1% identified themselves as heterosexual. 5.5% identified themselves as bisexual with only four participants (1.6%) self-identifying as lesbian/gay. Though not shown in the table, two participants (0.8%) self-identified as transgendered.

According to the Williams Institute (Gates, 2011), 96.2% of the U.S. population identify as heterosexual, 1.7% as lesbian/gay, and 1.8% as bisexual. Compared to the population of game students, the lesbian/gay population is nearly identical; however, there appears to be a higher percentage of students who identify as bisexual rather than lesbian/gay, thereby decreasing the heterosexual percentage.

Figure 6. Sexual orientation of game students and US population

Disabilities

Participants were asked to identify one or more medically diagnosed disabilities. This was a required field and 261 respondents selected at least one answer. The majority, 74.3%, of participants stated that they did not have a disability. Of the remaining responses, mental illness ranked highest with 8.4% (e.g. anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, bipolar, depressions, schizophrenia, etc.), with 7.3% of participants stating that they have a cognitive disorder (e.g. dyslexia, ADD/HD, specific learning disability, autism, Asperger’s, etc.). 1.1% reported they had a hearing disability and 0.4% reported being mobility impaired.

A second question was posed to those respondents who indicated that they had a cognitive disability to identify the one or more cognitive orders that they have. Of these, 5.7% stated that they had Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) and 1.1% stated that they had a learning disability.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2011c), 78.7% of the US population do not have a disability, compared to 74.3% of game students, and 6.3% of the US has a mental illness, while 8.4% of participants do.

Blind and partially sighted constitute 3.1% of the participants and 3.3% of the population. Deaf/hard of hearing constitute 3.1% of the general population, but only 1.1% of the game students self-identified with being deaf or hard of hearing. Unfortunately, due to how the data is reported by the U.S. Census Bureau, categories do not match the categories in the survey, and thus data cannot be compared.

Summary

The results from this work provide new insights about the game industry pipeline. In many respects the results of our study align with the results from the 2005 IGDA survey of game industry employees and with information available on demographics in the science and engineering (S&E) workforce, and in the computing workforce in particular (S&E Indicators, IGDA 2005). In the S&E, computing, and game workforces, women, blacks, and Hispanics/Latinos are underrepresented and Asians have a higher presence than the general population.

What does this mean for the game industry? At this point, it means that in the short term, we are filling the pipeline with essentially the same types of people that are currently in the industry.  If we want to change the demographic makeup of the industry, it is incumbent on the industry (and the burgeoning academic institutions directly supporting them) to start the quest for change.  Without a concerted effort, the industry may not have a diverse group of skilled graduates from which to choose and the face of the game industry may not change. The path, after all, of least resistance is typically the path taken.

We leave our data for your consideration, and we invite the industry to decide whether a diverse workforce is important to increased market share and profits. For those industry leaders who believe it is, the next logical step is determine how to expand diversity in the pipeline.

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge and extend our appreciation to the following for their time and resources in shepherding the IRB process at their respective institutions and recruiting students for participation: Briana Morrison, Southern Polytechnic State University; Jacques Carette, McMaster University; Mark Eyles, University of Portsmouth, United Kingdom; and Siobhan Thomas, London South Bank University.(source:gamasutra)