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In a challenging market, performance matters. Research links greater profitability to more women in leadership roles – yet progress in the male-dominated interactive entertainment industry remains slow. At a panel hosted by Gemma Woodhead, Managing Associate, and Breesha Loughran, Senior Associate, at Lewis Silkin, we invited Louise Andrews, Head of Studio at D3T, Sam Chawla, COO at Spliced, Dr Marie‑Claire Isaaman, CEO of Women in Games, and Tamsin O'Luanaigh, Founder of Wisecat Strategy, to discuss how gender persity drives results and explore practical strategies for increasing female representation in games studios.
Gender persity benefits
The panel first explored how increasing gender persity in the interactive entertainment industry shouldn't be seen as a side quest; it can give studios a real competitive edge. Teams build games from their own perspectives and, if studios want their games to appeal to as wider a market as possible, they need to make sure their workforce reflects that too. Louise spoke about a game where women characters only had a single "slap" attack while male characters had a whole host of combos to use, a built-in stereotype that a more perse team might have noticed. Tamsin spoke about how, after an all‑male studio hired its first woman, she heard immediate feedback from the male employees that this had caused conduct in the workplace to improve and brought about richer creative discussions, demonstrating that persity can create a better work environment as well as better end-products. Dr Marie‑Claire Isaaman also put it plainly: with about half of players being women but only a quarter of creators, we are missing ideas, IP, and markets—especially where ownership and senior decision‑making sit.
Where progress plateaus
As with most industries, female representation in the interactive entertainment sector often bottlenecks at the more senior levels. Sam pointed to issues that she had personally observed with women requesting promotions or pay reviews less often than male counterparts and being less audible in meetings – effectively making them less visible and potentially hindering their career progression. To help overcome this, the panel discussed how organisations can work closely with their staff to empower women with leadership potential and "back them" in public settings such as meetings. The panel also encouraged regular structured conversations about ambition and progression to help push those women forward who might not have otherwise felt able to ask about progression.
Tamsin specifically called out data as being imperative to help promote change and, to help ensure women aren't overlooked with promotions, recommended studios regularly carry out a practical test whereby they review at least two years of promotion outcomes by gender and respond to the patterns they see.
Key steps studios can implement
The panel went on to discuss how increasing gender persity is not about hitting an arbitrary number. Rather, it is about studios taking action to lift women up and empower them to lead when they see potential in them, for example through coaching or focused support. The panel then recommended a number of practical steps that studios can take to increase their female representation, including:
- Designing meetings to equalise airtime, for example by rotating chairs and using hand‑raise tools.
- Training managers specifically on how to coach and mentor women and setting the development of female employees as a KPI.
- Publishing quarterly gender promotion metrics and addressing any gaps uncovered.
- Auditing promotion processes annually to reduce bias.
- Assigning named sponsors/coaches to women with high‑potential.
- Designing job adverts in gender neutral ways.
- Building early‑talent pipelines that are perse through initiatives such as school outreach programs and internships.
Unfortunately, persity and inclusion initiatives often drop to the bottom of the priority pile for studios in challenging times. However, it is important that studios remember that getting this right can lead to real business benefits, including making better games, improving workplace cultures, and unlocking a whole new market share that their current structures might overlook.
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