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Boys and their video games, right?
Some would say that video gaming is just a thing guys do more than girls, but the numbers are different. According to Electronic Arts Inc., 51 percent of their clientele are female, and EA sees this as a reason to have its workforce mirror the population.
“We believe that games should be a reflection of a diverse world, because that’s what it is,” EA Sports Vice President Daryl Holt said. “If we can reflect that within our workforce and be more diverse, it’ll allow us to think about the ways our players want to self-express and connect and collaborate and inspire because those are the people that are making the games.”
One step they’re taking to ensure this is by holding their “Get in the Game” camp. The inaugural camp held this summer brought 10 Orlando high school girls, nominated by Orange and Seminole county teachers, to the EA Tiburon studios in Maitland, FL, for a week-long camp. The program aimed to demonstrate the applications that STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) subjects have in video game development.
The Get in the Game program allowed these high school girls to experience a behind-the-scenes look at video game development. They were able to see presentations from many different branches of the EA workforce as well as use EA technology and get hands-on experience.
The program was free to the students, and each camper was even given a laptop after the camp.
Three of the 10 students were from Edgewater High School. Zoe Fang, Bryanna Pajotte, and Abigail Marks worked together in a small group to create their own video game through the week, becoming friends as they did so.
“I had both of them in my computer science class, but I wasn’t amazing friends with them before,” Marks said. “But after the camp, I would consider us really good friends.”
Edgewater is an engineering, science and technology magnet, allowing students to take unique classes that aren’t offered at other schools. Marks said she originally found her excitement for coding when she took a robotics class in her freshman year.
Seeing firsthand the importance that subjects like math and science have in video game development gave Marks, who is entering her junior year, an added incentive to do well in future classes.
“It sort of was a motivation for me this year too,” Marks said. “I saw all the math I’ve ever learned used in these video games, and I’m about to take physics this year, and I can see how that can be applied to different things.”
Throughout the week of camp, EA employees would give presentations showing a behind-the-scenes look at their day-to-day jobs. A presentation by the software engineers gave Marks inspiration for a career.
“Before I went into the camp, I was unsure of what I wanted to do,” Marks said. “And after that, I sort of saw the way that these people work and what they do, and that interests me a lot. I think after this, I would most definitely consider a career in computer science or software engineering.”
Thanks to this camp, these young women could have an advantage over other applicants looking to work at EA. Completion of this summer program followed by a high school diploma and completion of relevant college courses comes with a guarantee from EA: Marks and her fellow campers will be given an internship interview at EA once they meet these prerequisites.
“The whole impetus behind this program wasn’t to just do a summer camp and say, ‘All right, it’s done now. Bring in the next group,’” Holt said. “It’s how do we continue to interact, listen to, and empower and talk to this first group of girls that went through the program?”
Holt said that while an internship isn’t a guaranteed job, it’s a useful way to get one’s foot in the door.
“It’s our best avenue for talent as they come through — they learn about the company more, we learn about them more — to have a job hopefully waiting for them when they graduate college,” Holt said. “So, internships are an important part of our talent recruitment pipeline, and we wanted to make sure these girls felt like they’re an inner club and kind of have a VIP status.”
Software development is a male-dominated field. Just 20 percent of employees are women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Computer programmer demographics aren’t much different with just 23 percent women. EA Sports, with 9,300 employees, is hoping that by implementing programs like this, their workforce could start to mirror the people who play the games.
“We’re not where we want to be,” Holt said. “We have great female engineers and females in different positions throughout the company, but we need more.”
Typing Tommy 