Non-male Career Development in the Video Game Industry

Abstract: This paper explores the career development of non-male workers in the video game industry in a male-dominated context. It examines their motivation, perception of success, goals, and values. The aim was to contribute to the discourse on the experience of minorities in a majority-dominated work context and how this affects their career development. This study followed two research strategies, grounded theory, and the Gioia method. The sample included 17 participants who hold managerial occupations and identify as female or non-binary. The participants were interviewed with semi-structured interviews and filled out the career anchor survey designed by Edgar Schein (1990). The demographics of the interviewees included people identifying as transgender, people of color, people with disabilities, and various other backgrounds. The findings include the participants’ subjective career narratives in relation to the creative, volatile, male-dominated, and high-pressure industry landscape, as well as discuss their employed strategies in coping with the challenges and barriers presented to them throughout their careers. The most common career anchors were autonomy and independence, and the least common anchors were security and stability, and general management. Non-male game workers’ strategies to cope with their experience as minorities in a male-dominated context are often related to how they make sense of their behaviors and experience. Findings suggest that non-male workers tend to pursue careers in indie development in order to express themselves creatively, avoid hostile environments often present in AAA production, and live in accordance with their preference for autonomy and independence. However, this presents them with another set of challenges related to entrepreneurship which results in an unfavorable position for non-male game workers.