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BBC<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n“I’m scared for the future of games,” says Chris Goodyear. “It could end up going the way that theatre has, and become a very privileged thing.”<\/p>\n At one of the UK’s largest conferences for video game developers, social class was on the agenda.<\/p>\n The concern raised by Chris, a producer working to highlight accessibility barriers in the industry, is one that some in the sector feel has gone unappreciated for too long.<\/p>\n This year, Develop:Brighton featured its first meet-up dedicated to working-class and low-income people in the UK games industry.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The event was put on by the non-profit organisation Into Games.<\/p>\n Its boss Declan Cassidy set the body up six years ago to try to help “underrepresented people more broadly” in the industry.<\/p>\n This narrowed to focus solely on social mobility, as he said they realised “there weren’t really any other champions” in that area. <\/p>\n In 2024 Into Games released a report<\/a> which found there was a “really high number of people in working-class and low-income backgrounds coming through existing game educational pathways,” Declan said.<\/p>\n But not many of them actually completed that journey and got jobs.<\/p>\n “They’re being failed at the last hurdle,” he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Into Games report highlighted barriers such as location, access to finance, reduced cultural capital and lack of networks which prevented people from lower socio-economic backgrounds from breaking into the industry.<\/p>\n It found that 59% of participants said they had been made to feel “othered” at some point in their career.<\/p>\n Will Luton, the founder of Village Studio Games, attended the event in Brighton and said he had “felt overt discrimination” due to his class.<\/p>\n He added he often found himself having to “mask” or “rework” the way he talked so he didn’t “give away” where he was from.<\/p>\n Will argued that those like himself who had made it into the industry had a part to play in highlighting the problem, rather than suggesting that just because “they were in” the industry, it suddenly “wasn’t an issue”. <\/p>\n The report also suggested the gaming sector had a smaller proportion of people coming from lower socio-economic backgrounds (13%) compared to film and TV (29%) or music and visual arts (22%).<\/p>\n Nick Poole, head of games industry body Ukie, believed that while the talent was available, the “opportunity wasn’t”.<\/p>\n “If you’re going to tell real stories, people who are young, gifted and broke need to be able to find their way into the industry,” Nick said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Declan Cassidy hopes Into Games’ approach can help those from working class backgrounds across the UK find their place within a precarious sector, which in recent years has seen thousands of jobs lost<\/a> across the globe.<\/p>\n The organisation plans to focus support on six areas – Birmingham, Brighton, Dundee, London, Manchester and Tees Valley – in the next five years.<\/p>\n The support will include targeting outreach in schools, paid internships and government-funded training, with the group stating that over 100 game studios have confirmed they will take on working-class talent through their programmes in 2025 and 2026.<\/p>\n “By 2030, our aim is to be increasing the number of people from working-class backgrounds in the UK games industry by a factor of 50%,” Declan said.<\/p>\n The benefit could be “huge for studios,” he added. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n![](\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/bbcdotcom\/web\/20250711-084946-a521911844-web-2.25.0-9\/grey-placeholder.png\")
![\"Other](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/1bc8\/live\/d1a3e240-5da9-11f0-a40e-a1af2950b220.jpg.webp\")
Other<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n‘Huge’ benefits for studios<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/480\/cpsprodpb\/41d3\/live\/348b21e0-26a8-11f0-8f57-b7237f6a66e6.png.webp\")
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