DIVERSITY REPORT 2021
The games industry sits at the intersection of a variety of talents and skill sets – from artists and designers to engineers and producers, yet it has historically lacked diversity. Pipeworks realizes that as a game development studio, we should strive for our workforce to represent the diverse player community we serve.
As one of our initiatives towards improving diversity, equity, and inclusion, Pipeworks Studios will share its company demographic statistics annually in hopes of raising awareness about the limited diversity within the tech and gaming industries. With time, we hope this will also show our year over year successes toward becoming a more diverse and inclusive company. We are not the first to take this step and hope this will encourage other gaming companies to examine their position in an industry in which women, people of color, and other identities historically have been underrepresented.
SUMMARY OF RESULTS
Gains in Representation
- Gender – 55% more women within the studio, and increase from 9% of the studio to 16%
- In 2020, respondents who chose the categories American Indian or Alaska Native, Black or African American, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander were less than 2% combined. This year, we have seen enough increase in a large number of those categories to represent them as their own.
- Last year, non-straight sexualities represented such a low percent of the population that we combined them to protect anonymity. This year, we were able to separate out categories for Asexual, Bisexual, Queer, and Questioning due to increased participation and diversity in our studio.
Participation
- Survey participation increased in 2021. Last year, around 23% of employees chose the “Prefer not to disclose” answer or to not participate in the survey at all. This year, we only had 10% of the studio not participate, and only an average of 5% of participants selected “Prefer not to disclose” across all questions.
- The increase in participation can be indicative of an increase in trust around Pipeworks collecting this information, in-part due to the changes we made to protect anonymity, as well as a deeper understanding of how this data is valuable in continuing our DEI efforts.
For more information on each category, please see our full 2021 Demographic Report below.
You can find our 2020 Demographic Report here.
BACKGROUND
Pipeworks’ first demographic survey was sent out in 2020 and employees were provided an option for if they did to participate or feel comfortable disclosing their identities, which was recorded as “Prefer Not to Answer.” We had about 23% of our studio that did not wish to participate in the survey in 2020.
For our second year of the survey, we decided to increase anonymity of the survey responses, as well as offer more training and education around the purpose of collecting this information and increasing diversity and inclusion within the studio. This has resulted in a 10% drop in employees who did not want to participate or disclose their identities and has given us a more accurate picture of our studio’s demographic makeup.
Below, you can find the results from our second annual demographic survey, as well as some comparisons to the year prior. To protect anonymity, any answer choice with less than 1.7% has been combined with other answer choices and noted.
GENDER
Men outnumber women at Pipeworks, while non-binary employees make up a small percentage of our team. In 2020, our studio ended with less than 10% of the employee population identifying as female. This year, we saw women representation studio-wide increase to 16%, which is an approximate 55% increase. Recruitment in 2021 was also more gender-diverse, with 26% of hires identifying as women, compared to 17% in both 2019 and 2020.
Globally, the gaming industry continues to be male led, with 61% of game developers identifying as male according to data from the International Game Developers Association1. National demographics of game developers is more difficult to locate, but data collected by Zippia reports U.S. game developers identifying as 78% male and 14% female.
References
“Developer Satisfaction Survey (DSS).” IGDA, 2021, https://igda.org/dss/
Game Developer Demographics and Statistics in the US – Zippia. https://www.zippia.com/game-developer-jobs/demographics/
RACE & ETHNICITY
The majority of our team identifies as White, with Asian and SE Asian employees as the next largest group. Pipeworks in headquartered in Eugene, OR, where 83% of the population is white. Recently expanding our recruitment to areas further outside of Oregon and offering more remote opportunities has helped to increase our representation of minority ethnicities in the industry. In 2020, respondents who chose the categories American Indian or Alaska Native, Black or African American, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander were less than 2% combined. This year, we have seen enough increase in those categories to represent them as their own.
AGE
2021 was our first year asking about the age of our employees. We found that our studio skews younger than most other industries, with 34% of employees falling between 25 and 34 years old. This data has led us to implement policy changes, including increasing our Paid Parental Leave from 2 weeks to a full month, as the average age for first time mothers and fathers falls within this category.
SEXUAL ORIENTATION
Those who answered largely identify as straight. Last year, non-straight sexualities represented such a low percent of the population that we combined them to protect anonymity. This year, we were able to separate out categories for Asexual, Bisexual, Queer, and Questioning. We have combined responses for Gay and Pansexual, as they each received less than 1.7% of responses.
RELIGION
Non-religious employees, including those who identify as both Agnostic and Atheist, make up over 60% of our respondents. Catholic, Mormon, and Christian denominations make up the next largest category at 12.6%. We have seen an increase in respondents for answers of Buddhist, Jewish, Multiple Religious Belongings, and additional belongings that were not included as answer choices.
DISABILITY STATUS
A majority of respondents indicated they have no disability or difficulty. Due to increased participation, we were able to separate out more categories this year than in 2020.
PRIMARY CARETAKER
A little over a quarter of Pipeworks employees are primary caretakers of children, family, or partners.
VETERAN STATUS
Lastly, we have a small veteran population on our team.
WHAT’S NEXT?
Based on the results we received from the survey, we know that we have a long way to go toward creating a truly diverse and inclusive company. As we did last year, we will use this data to help identify areas where we can provide additional assistance or supportive benefits to key employee populations that can improve their experiences at work, make improvements within our studio, and measure shifts in the areas of engagement and belonging at Pipeworks. Thank you to all who participated!
WE VALUE FEEDBACK
We are always looking for more ways to increase diversity, equity, and inclusion within our studio. Have recommendations or questions about this report? Please direct them to: dgalli@pipeworks.com.