A recent Occupational Outlook Handbook from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor projects thousands of jobs will be added to meet the demand for animation and visual effects in video games, movies, television, and on smartphones, as well as to help create visually appealing and effective layouts of websites and other media platforms.
There are many career options in video game development and a degree in game design, game development, computer science or computer engineering is helpful. According to Statista, women accounted for nearly 41% of the gaming population in the US, which is slightly lower than the 46% recorded in 2019.
"The gaming community and industry is heavily white and male-dominated and exclusionary to Black women and women of color," states Brown Girl Gamer Code on its website. BGGC aims to change the culture and gain access to resources and opportunities within the field of gaming and tech for marginalized identities.
Jay-Ann Lopez is the CEO and Founder of Black Girl Gamers (BGG). Since its foundation in 2015, BGG has grown from a small Facebook group into a thriving collective of 8,000+ black women around the globe.
Before founding Black Girls CODE, Kimberly Bryant worked in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. Black Girls CODE is set up to build pathways for young women of color to embrace the current tech marketplace as builders and creators by introducing them to skills in computer programming and technology.
According to Work for Play, an Occupational Outlook Quarterly, video game occupations include designers, programmers, and artists.
Designers imagine almost everything about and in a game.
Writers create the text and dialogue that immerse players in the game. Nearly all programmers are skilled in C or C++, computer languages that are commonly used to create video games.
Programmers build video games from the ground up writing code, line by line, in computer programs.
Other skills vary by specialty. For example, network programmers should have expertise in server security issues, and graphics and user-interface programmers usually have some training in art.
Artists design a game’s aesthetic, or visual style, and create all of its artwork, including environments, characters, and objects. Modelers build 3D characters and environments that are based on the concept art.
Writing for GG Good Game in December 2021, Jay-Ann Lopez had this encouraging view of Black women gamers and the future: "The space is democratizing. But rather than the companies that make millions, it’s creators-turned-entrepreneurs who are doing the necessary work to address the lack of transparency and seemingly unclosable gaps in gaming," she said.
