By James Batchelor

The full impact that multiple years of mass layoffs have had on the videogame industry won't be clear for some time, but what has come to light is that it is undoing much of the work companies have done to diversify the workforce.

This year's UKIE census, for example, shows there has actually been a drop in the number of people from ethnic minority groups working at UK game companies; low as this representation was before, it has actually retracted. And Annabel Ashalley-Anthony, founder of Melanin Gamers, warns that future generations of talent (of any ethnicity) are being deterred from filling this gap.

"It's destabilised a lot of the industry," she says. "There's so many layoffs, people are thinking, 'Why should I even gain the skills to go into this industry if it's not a viable path for me?' There are no entry-level jobs. There's a lot of mid-level and senior level, but who's training up for these? How did you get to mid-level if the entry levels have all dried up?"

Adam Campbell, co-founder of POC In Play, adds that game companies have decreased their outreach to grassroots talent sources that are essential to addressing the imbalance.

"We've got lots of people who are studying, and they could be from marginalised ethnicities, working class, and so on," says Campbell. "These people don't necessarily have direct routes into the industry. They don't have the networks or the nepotism to help them get ahead, and there aren't many initiatives where these people can find their feet in the industry."

We're speaking at a POC In Play meetup held at UKIE's London headquarters, a revival of the long-running networking event aimed primarily at people of colour. Campbell observes that game companies have "changed focus", not only ceasing their sponsorship of inclusion events such as this but even deprioritising their internal efforts.

"At one point we did find that companies were really pushing to do more diversity and inclusion initiatives, and a lot of studios would have specific inclusion officers or inclusion programme managers," he says. "But I have noticed, over the last three or four years, that those roles have been made redundant."

Campbell stresses that outreach doesn't even need to be carried out by employees in D&I-specific roles. Universities often have a hard time attracting professionals to inspire the next generation of talent. 

Meanwhile, Ashalley-Anthony points to the importance of internships in helping aspiring game professionals to understand the industry. 

"Companies have scrapped a lot of internships – paid internships as well, which were really important because people want to follow their passion but rent is still due," she says. "If they brought back more paid internships and worked with universities, this would solve a lot of those issues when trying to train the next generation of people. 

"We don't have to reinvent the wheel here. We knew it was working. This is the first year we've gone backwards. We were making progress because of those initiatives they scrapped. All those departments that were D&I focused, bring them back and start funding these groups that are promoting D&I like Raise The Game, POC In Play, Melanin Gamers. We know what the solution is to the problem already, so just start doing it."

Campbell adds that encouraging people of marginalised ethnicities to seek game careers doesn't even begin in education; it begins with the games themselves.

"Keep representation in games as a priority because it's easy to regress to having the same stories, the same characters being told," he says. "[Representation in games] is not only fantastic for consumers looking for something new, it's also a great way to inspire people."

Of course, efforts to diversify the type of characters shown in games (particularly at a triple-A level) are often met with backlash from pockets of players commenting on social media, and the failure of any game with a marginalised protagonist to match the sales of titles featuring stereotypical heroes has influenced how certain publishers approach the market. But Ashalley-Anthony urges both publishers and developers to look at the success stories, rather than reacting to social media mobs. 

"Unfortunately right now if you've put a woman or a person of colour on the game’s cover, that's something miraculous," she says. "But if you look at the data… They said Ghost Of Yotei wasn't going to sell, but it did better than Ghost Of Tsushima. And I'm hoping God Of War: Laufey does even better. 

"The people speaking against this, they're very loud but they're also very small. They are a minority online and they don't translate into actual real-world sales. Don't just ignore the trolls: maybe you should address it and double down. I think that would show a strength and a backbone, which some organisations are missing. They need to show a backbone and a trust in the community and the people who play your games."