The Mobile Gaming Industry Is Shockingly Not Diverse, But An Initiative Is Trying To Change That

Google Play's Change The Game is helping female mobile gamers level up.

There are 2.5 billion people gaming worldwide.

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Gaming is definitely mainstream.

And a lot of mobile gamers are women — 49% in fact.

Google

Additionally, 65% of females aged 10–65 play mobile games.

Women even play mobile games more often than men:

Google / Via play.google.com

But when asked, only 26% of US women self-identify as gamers.

It's not just the US, in the UK only 30% identify as gamers, and in Japan 32%.

This might be due to systematic gender bias in gaming.

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According to Google's own research, "of the top 100 grossing games on Google Play, 44% more of the app icons feature male characters than female characters." This leads to the majority of women who play mobile games (60% of those surveyed) feeling like games aren't made for them.

To deal with this, half of all women report to actively hide their gender when gaming.

Google

According to this study, "half of female players have actively concealed their gender to the gaming community and their fellow players."

This is not shocking — because there is a wide gender imbalance in most aspects of the gaming industry.

Google / Via play.google.com

Seventy-six percent of adults in the gaming industry are men.

These are actual drawings by teen girls of how they think professional video-game makers look. Eighth-graders think they look like women, but tenth- and eleventh-graders draw men.

Via play.google.com

This suggests that, as girls get older, they begin to think of game-making as a predominantly male role — which, unfortunately, it is.

But Google Play's Change the Game is trying to change that.

Google

Founded in 2017, the initiative is focused on "promoting diversity in and of games, empowering the next generation of game makers, and celebrating women who are changing the game."

They're doing a ton for promoting diversity in gaming.

Google

In addition to Design Initiatives, Developer Spotlights, and in-depth research, Google Play's Change the Game is also operating a Design Challenge aimed at getting teens involved in game development.

Last year, five lucky teens were selected to have their mobile games actually made!

Via play.google.com

They went through the whole process of designing, developing, and eventually seeing their game available on the Google Play Store.

And this year, they've selected five more lucky game creators.

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The grand prize winner will score a $15K scholarship and a $15K tech donation to their school or community center. Learn more about this year's game makers here!

The winning games this year range from single-player puzzle games to action-adventure games.

Brightlove

The mobile game featured here is called Brightlove, which is a coming-of-age narrative that encourages players to be kind and to take action, rather than being mere bystanders.

One of those action-adventure games is called Spectrum, and it looks super rad.

Spectrum

Spectrum is a 2D-platformer fantasy game where users enter a modified Earth setting where "sprites," small pixie-like creatures, are taking over the bodies of other creatures. The challenge for the player is to navigate the different worlds to complete various quests and ultimately save their sprite-invaded friends.

BuzzFeed's own Kelsey Impicciche even participated as a judge!

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So stay tuned to hear more about our winners and their game development process!

And don't forget to play last year's games, available now on the Google Play Store.