There are plenty of women on Train2Game courses aspiring to work in the game industry, they may therefore be interested to hear that LucasArts creative Director Clint Hocking says the games industry needs more female employees.

In a column in Edge magazine – a useful publication for Train2Game students – Hocking criticised what he called the ‘Viking Culture’ of the game industry, and says that it needs to change.

“Game development studios and their teams are largely staffed in the same way that Viking longships were crewed. Consequently, the culture is overflowing with beer and pent-up aggression, and a very significant portion of our overall cultural output is fart jokes. I think we can do better.”

He adds that establishing a more balanced culture in the games industry would go a long way to games reaching a “truly mass market audience.”

Hocking believes the best way to do this is to encourage more women into the industry.

“This means that we need to better position the industry as a desirable workplace, one in which female artists, designers, programmers and project managers would want to be employed. It involves reaching out to universities and colleges to help them attract more female applicants to their programmes, enabling us to benefit from a greater number of female graduates.”

“Like the Viking expansion itself, this transformation probably needs to be driven from the bottom up. Like it or not, the culture onboard your ships is the culture you’re exporting. Fart jokes have their place in culture, but when fart jokes become your culture you have a problem.” he added.

There are plenty of women on Train2Game courses who definitely want to become part of the games industry, and there are certain organisations that could help them.

As reported by the Train2Game blog last month, the Women In Games Jobs event that takes place in September could be of great benefit to female Train2Game students.

And as posted by Train2Game Course Director Tony Bickley on the Train2Game forum, WIG will be holding networking event for women working, or planning to work in the games industry, during the Develop Conference later this month.

So Train2Game, what are your thoughts on Hocking’s comments? Is there too big a male culture in the games industry? Do you think it needs to change?

Leave your comments here on the Train2Game blog, or on the Train2Game forum.

[Source: GamesIndustry.biz]