To get these people to understand that there’s a place for them in the sector".
“Working class is really what your parents did,” says Cassidy.
“It’s not necessarily anything to do with income.
It infers low income just by what those kind of working positions are.
But it can, in essence, be a little bit clumsy in its more broad use”.
“Working class doesn’t necessarily mean low income.”
“It’s small for the entire creative sectors.
“Whereas the pipeline for games roles, it kind of is.
We haven’t got an issue with attracting people into games roles at all.”
The issue, says Cassidy, is the challenges under-resourced people face in the last mile.
The place between graduation and actually landing work.
It’s not through lack of talent or willingness, either, says Cassidy.
“It’s just that, ultimately, it’s also about finding the best talent for a role.
Which it kind of should be, right?
But I think hand in hand with that comes the importance of creating equity to find those best people.
And it’s also not that the industry doesn’t want to create these opportunities in the first place.
But beyond this, there’s still the 25,000 layoff-sized elephant in the room.
Does Cassidy ever feel like answering “how do I get into games” with “don’t”?
“Don’t get me wrong.
I’m not saying this in a bad way.
But you guys are called Into Games.
You do all this work.
Have you ever considered doing something called Out Of Games.
Tell people about other places they can go?”.
“It struck a chord with me,” Cassidy says.
“We’ve talked about it internally.
You go: okay.
Should we be encouraging people?”
We know that going to university is the biggest factor in creating a more socially mobile society.
We can say, okay right, not all these people are getting jobs.
But they’re going to university.
They’re developing a whole range of skills which will give them jobs elsewhere”.
Game skills, Cassidy says, are also being utilised more in other sectors.
“That’s not going away, that’s just ramping up.
Cassidy admits that their 2024 report was, in some ways, “quite cold hearted.
It kind of says that we can’t help everyone.
The games sector can’t help everyone.
There isn’t a role for everyone in games.
There’s still a gap there, but that’s quite an easy gap to solve.
A bit of cash, a bit of equipment, and more opportunity on the other side”.
The actual thing was run by volunteer young people on the ground”.
But as Cassidy has said: at the end of day, talent still matters.
There’s that underutilised talent pool, of course.
But it also just means better stories.
“There’s a large number of people in society from working class and low income backgrounds, right?
Because it’s going to make for more powerful player experiences.
He mentionsThank Goodness You’re Here!.
He mentions an anecdote from their 2024 report.
“They sent them a little bit about careers in the sector, a little brochure about Rare.
And just said ‘keep going’.
That person was like, that was just what I needed at that time.
They’re currently running a Noir & Mystery theme.
