By Kenny Chee

Competitive male-oriented conversations in an industry dominated by men can at times tire Ms Doanna Neville, 26.

“But otherwise there are no problems and I do not think I am treated differently,” said Ms Neville, a Singaporean environment artist working in a local video game-development company.

She is the first game developer to receive a Media Development Authority overseas award to further her studies in art in the United States.

Going by sentiments from the industry, there could be a significant number of women developers not unlike Ms Neville in a growing game workforce.

Game company Electronic Arts Asia Studios’ senior producer here, Mr Hugues Ricour, said: “We see a slow and steady increase in the number of female applicants here.”

What’s more, according to Mr Allan Simonsen, coordinator of the International Game Developers Association’s (IGDA) Singapore chapter, there are also more job opportunities in the video-game sector these days as well.

He said that there are about 700 developers here, compared to 550 last year and 70 in 2004.

“With game companies wanting to grow their local development studios, the available manpower is a bigger obstacle than the available jobs,” said Mr Simonsen, who is also a veteran game developer based here.

He will be speaking on games in Asia at the Games Convention Asia that runs from today till Saturday at the Suntec Convention Centre.

Mr Simonsen attributes this growth to initiatives by the Government, greater public awareness and education opportunities.

In Singapore, compared to other countries, women seem to be grabbing these opportunities.

Based on a 2005 IGDA industry survey with a United States bias, just under 12 per cent of game developers are women.

However, my paper understands from several game companies here that the proportion of female developers in Singapore could be higher, ranging from 15 to 35 per cent.

Mr Siddharth Jain, chief creative director of local game company Playware Studios, said that this is seen in his company as it tends to develop casual and educational games that female developers are usually good at.

Mr Simonsen added: “Women also bring more focus on community, interaction and user control systems in game development.”

For Ms Amy Chang, executive vice-president of corporate development of local game company Mikoishi, gender is not an issue for hiring developers.

“We recruit on the basis of skills and calibre and we have no specific cultural issues and gender definitely does not have any bearing on who and how we select candidates,” said Ms Chang.

Source: My Paper