The UK and Irish Game Industries - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 106

functions to Ireland and some acquisition activity. A 2009 survey con-
ducted by the author found that the Irish games industry employed 1,469
people although the numbers employed in actual development work were
much smaller at 132 (in programming, art, design) plus another 130 in
management and marketing. The balance were employed in localization,
community support and translation (Kerr and Cawley 2009). 8 The report
also found that many of the “other jobs” were in areas that had not existed
in previous work conducted by the author in 2001, namely, online commu-
nity support. 9 Over the intervening eight years employment in the games
industry in Ireland had grown 400 per cent, but most of this growth in
employment was not in development, but rather in newly emerging sup-
port functions like online community support. Two high-profi le middle-
ware companies, Havok and Demonware, were both subject to acquisition
by multinational companies Intel and Activision, respectively, during this
period. Local policymakers and politicians have hailed the growth of this
new high-technology, high-skilled industry in Ireland, but there is little dis-
cussion of IP generation and the fact that the value/IP which most of these
workers are supporting is developed and owned elsewhere.
In terms of understanding who works in this industry in these countries
the data are largely in line with international studies. The workforce is
highly educated and 80 per cent of UK computer game developers have at
least a degree-level qualifi cations or above according to data from Skillset
(2010, 6). Representation of women in the UK computer game industry is
very low—6 per cent in 2009, which is low compared to other industries,
and had declined since 2002 (2010, 4). The industry is also relatively youth-
ful with 69 per cent aged below thirty-fi ve years, although the trend is up
(2010, 5). When one examines the fi gures for the interactive media industry
one fi nds greater numbers of women (32 per cent) and the numbers aged
less than thirty-fi ve years are lower (43 per cent). In the Irish context the
2009 survey found that 91 per cent of its workforce was aged below thirty-
fi ve years and that fewer than 20 per cent were women. Women were more
highly represented in the online community support and quality assurance
occupations and if one removed these occupations the percentage share
employed in the industry was 7 per cent, in line with the British workforce.
The answers to a question about education were incomplete in the Irish
survey, but of those who answered this question they indicated that 32 per
cent of their workforce had degree-level or above education and a further
10 per cent had certifi cates or diplomas.
What is clear from these surveys is that core development roles require
higher qualifi cations and tend to be more male dominated. Associated func-
tional roles tend to require lower qualifi cations, employ greater numbers, but
still relatively low numbers of women, and tend to be younger. Images from
the 2011 Game British Academy of Film and Television awards (BAFTA)
nicely visualize the workforce for us. There is a distinct lack of women in
the images and most of the winners are white, males in the twenty-fi ve- to