Square Enix, Hi-Rez Studios, PlayStation London Studio, and more pledge support of Ukie’s diversity census

A number of development studios have pledged support of Ukie’s UK Games Industry Diversity Census.

The ten-minute UK Games Industry Diversity Census – which launched earlier this month – aims to produce the “most detailed analysis on the diversity of the industry’s workforce ever conducted” by asking people about their current roles, diversity profile, and backgrounds through an online survey which will be independently administered and analysed by University of Sheffield experts.

Now, Square Enix, Hi-Rez Studios, PlayStation London Studio, Futurlab, Fusebox Games, Payload Studios, and Roll 7 have all agreed to become partners, “ensuring they will distribute the census to their entire UK employee base to help it reach as widely as possible and therefore deliver the most representative set of results possible”. 

There are two ways industry staff can contribute to the census; larger games businesses will be able to procure a pack from Ukie, which includes additional legal and process documentation to fill in the survey, whilst smaller games businesses or individuals working in the sector can fill it in directly. The anonymised data will then be aggregated and used to form a high-level analysis of the make-up of the UK games industry.

These new partners join companies such as Sega, Jagex Creative Assembly, Hutch Games, Ustwo Games, Dovetail Games, Mediatonic, Coatsink, NaturalMotion, and nDreams who have already committed to supporting the initiative, as well as industry organisations Autistica, BAME in Games, Gayming Magazine, G into Gaming, POC in Play and Women in Games. 

“We’re delighted to see even more companies publicly back the diversity census,” said Dr Jo Twist OBE, CEO of Ukie. “By supporting the census and helping it get as far and wide as possible, we’re better placed to produce the biggest, most detailed picture of our industry’s diversity characteristics than ever before. 

“We continue to encourage businesses and individuals to provide their responses to the census in the coming weeks to help us get the data we need to drive positive change across the sector.”

If you’ve yet to be involved, there’s still time to participate – the survey closes on October 16th, 2019.

Update 26/9: The range of diversity groups supporting the census has been updated.