By IGN Staff
In an interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes, Microsoft’s head of 343 Industries, Halo’s Bonnie Ross, talked about the challenges of gender equality in the games industry and solutions to bring more women on board in development.
“Boys and men, the numbers are moving up. We are getting a lot more into computer science. But with women and girls, it’s going down,” Ross said. “In many times there’s not even a way where I could bring a woman into a specific job because the candidates are just not there.”
Ross went on to explain that for any female interns they have, when offered a full time job at Microsoft, the women already have offers from five to seven top tech companies.
“These women, basically they open every door because we all want them, and there’s so few of them, and they’re amazingly talented. There’s just not that many of them.”
In ways the tech industry can help the gender gap, Ross explained that more women need to find interest in computer science at an earlier age, and therefore the descriptions of the profession need to change to explain the creativity involved as well.
“Research that we’ve done at Microsoft of the girls we’ve talked to, 91% of them feel that they are creative, they identify with being creative,” Ross said. “But when asked about computer science, they don’t see computer science as creative. And so I think that we do need to connect the dots. Because it is incredibly creative, it’s just that we’re not doing a good job of showing them what they can do with it.”
For more on Ross and all the details of the iconic Halo franchise, watch IGN’s Unfiltered where we recently sat down with the boss herself for a 70-minute interview, talking about everything from Ross taking over Halo from Bungie to what they learned from Halo 5, and their approach for the upcoming Halo Infinite.
Also read about how the team at Microsoft is calling Halo Infinite a “spiritual reboot,” and the reason behind Halo Infinite’s new Slipspace engine.
Jessie Wade is a news writer at IGN and Halo is the main game that got her to be an Xbox gamer for years. Chat with her on Twitter @jessieannwade.