44% gamers in India are women, but male employees continue to dominate the industry

Round 44% of avid gamers in India’s $4-billion-plus gaming market are girls, however the trade continues to be overwhelmingly male, with girls constituting solely 12-14% of its workforce.Ladies’s illustration in tech roles in India is even decrease, at 6-9%, in line with the Women in Games report by All India Video games Builders Discussion board (AIGDF), staffing and recruitment agency Coral Recruit and M-League, the dad or mum firm of Cell Premier League. The examine of 900-plus organisations in India, shared completely with ET, highlighted the necessity to enhance gender range within the sector.

It’s a worldwide problem, although the hole in India is extra pronounced. Ladies symbolize solely 22-24% of the worldwide gaming workforce, in comparison with 46% of world avid gamers.

“The gaming trade holds large potential for development and girls have a essential function to play in its evolution. By bringing girls in, we don’t simply profit girls—we enrich the trade as an entire,” stated Namratha Swamy, chief working officer (COO) of Bengaluru-based on-line gaming platform Cell Premier League (MPL). “The way forward for gaming wants girls not simply as gamers, however as decision-makers, designers, and disruptors,” she instructed ET.

February 2025 is being celebrated as the primary ‘Ladies in gaming month’ to recognise and amplify the voices of girls within the trade. The initiative known as Mabel Addis Ladies in Video games Month, after Mabel Addis, the primary feminine sport designer who created The Sumerian Recreation in 1964.

The Ladies in Video games report highlighted the varied challenges girls face within the gaming trade. They embody gender bias in hiring and promotions, lack of mentorship, office discrimination, pay disparities, restricted networking alternatives, and a perceived male dominance within the gaming tradition.

The report discovered that girls are current in restricted numbers in technical roles, primarily in positions that mix technical and inventive abilities akin to high quality assurance (QA) testers, UI/UX designers and information analysts/sport analysts. In coding-intensive roles like sport builders/programmers, girls are uncommon.Ladies have a stronger presence in non-technical roles, significantly in inventive, design, and community-facing positions like sport designers, sport artists/animators, writers/narrative designers, neighborhood managers, advertising and PR specialists, and undertaking managers/producers, it discovered.

The low illustration of girls spans ranges, with girls in Indian gaming firms holding solely 12-14% of senior positions like CEOs, administrators, managers, and senior executives. This, in flip, means fewer feminine views in sport narratives, character improvement, and general trade decision-making.

Salone Sehgal, founding common accomplice at interactive media and gaming enterprise capital fund Lumikai, stated enhancing gender range is crucial not only for higher office tradition but in addition for constructing higher merchandise that symbolize the general gaming viewers.

In accordance with her, the male domination of the gaming trade is a operate of decrease illustration of girls in STEM – and consequently in tech. “The largest drawback is that if you happen to can’t see it, you possibly can’t be it. You’ll want to see function fashions you possibly can mannequin your profession on,” Sehgal stated.

It begins with dialogue after which a push to rent and retain, she stated. “There are aware conversations we’ve with founders of our portfolio firms; and once we rent, the pipeline of candidates stays numerous. That begins proper from the stage of job posts, the place we’ve discovered that range purposes are increased once we omit phrases like ninjas and samurais as a result of that tends to rebuff girls,” Sehgal stated.

Lumikai provides versatile working and nannycare allowance amongst others for girls workers. Its Lumikai Pathbreakers marketing campaign featured 100 girls trailblazers in India’s interactive media.