GAMING SPECIAL
By the end of the event, all the girls created a playable level of a game. It was hard getting the fledgling game gurus to vacate their desks – but soon everyone gathered for a presentation ceremony”
Obviously chat channels for women and LGBTQ+ groups alone didn’t magically create a big shift in the company, but it helped us feel validated – and this was important. As the group grew in size and confidence, a change in internal attitudes followed; International Women’s Day is a good example. For IWD2019, we organised a Reddit AMA (that made it to the front page!), which featured women from all kinds of positions within the company, answering questions about their jobs. We also published a video featuring some of the awesome ladies working at Jagex. And to celebrate with our RuneScape community, we published some new lore about one of the game’s popular female characters. Female staff also received a copy of Women in Gaming by Meagan Marie, along with jackets and shirts designed for women. Receiving some suitably- tailored swag really meant something: after half a lifetime in male-dominated spaces, seeing corporate-branded
clothes that weren’t unisex or sized for men was quite special. Other initiatives have followed. We attended the European Women in Games Conference in London, which was co-sponsored by Jagex. We also sponsored the first Cambridge Pride 2019 (we produced a rainbow- coloured company logo shirt that our group wore on the day). We will be sponsoring Cambridge Pride 2020 as Gold Sponsors, to help this new, local initiative grow. Jagex also hosted a workshop for girls aged eight to 12 in collaboration with Girls’ Games Lab, where we spent the afternoon teaching them how to make their first game. Step by step, our would-be developers added animations, physics, ‘behaviours’ and sounds. Every change was instantly tested and lessons were learned, including the value of the magical ‘Save’ button! By the end of the event, all the girls created a playable level of a game. It was hard getting the fledgling game
gurus to vacate their desks – but soon everyone gathered in the canteen for a presentation ceremony, and every participant received her certificate. One of the most gratifying achievements has been the noticeable shift in the company culture. The freedom to talk openly about D&I issues has led to many positive developments, such as a code of conduct for internal chatrooms, improved use of inclusive language in internal documentation and within our game itself. We’re also working with RuneScape players on LGBTQ+ representation, and we are looking forward to welcoming a group of players to our office to openly talk about diversity. When asked how all of this has had a positive impact for them, one colleague said that Jagex is “the first workplace where I've felt welcome for who I am”, and another that forums such as the LGBTQ+ group “have been one of the places I've felt able to open up a little”. Most recently, Jagex signed up as a founding partner of the #RaiseTheGame pledge. This is a new games industry-wide diversity pledge that seeks to improve equality, diversity and inclusivity across the sector. Through signing up we have dedicated ourselves to three pledge pillars, which consist of: creating a diverse workforce; shaping inclusive and welcoming places to work; reflecting greater diversity in our work. Looking to the future, we aim to raise awareness even further, gain more allies, introduce internal and external mentorship programmes, and to increase the amount of work we do for BAME groups. I hope our success can serve as a template for others who feel like their workplace environments are very homogenous, and who yearn for change. All it takes is some will and some togetherness. From there, who knows how far you might go?
IMAGES Exploring outside of the games industry's staffing comfort zone is already reaping rewards
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ISSUE 06
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