NEWPORT, Wales--Game companies need to create more diverse workforces to reflect their consumers, Karen Wilkins-Mickey told this year's Women in Games conference. And she, of all people, should know. For the past two-plus years, Wilkins-Mickey has worked at Microsoft as a diversity staffing program manager.

　　"Having representation of the market you're selling to is smart," she told the audience at her session. "That's not rocket science."

　　Talking to GameSpot, Wilkins-Mickey used Microsoft's Zune music player as an example. "Hispanics and Latinos are the biggest buyers [of the Zune], followed by African Americans," she said. "Women are also huge purchasers, so why would you not diversify your workforce to represent the communities that you're trying to appeal to?"

　　She revealed that many major game companies are now wising up to the advantages a diverse workforce will bring. Still, she claims 60 percent of development studios are saying it is "challenging" to recruit minorities and women.

　　Wilkins-Mickey also admits that there is a problem with backlash against women and minority hires from others who believe they've been given jobs just to fill quotas. "I know that there are people who have those concepts--'Oh, she just got the promotion because she's a woman, or he just got on that mentorship program because he's a minority,'" she said. "First of all, we give everybody opportunities. But we also have to talk about how few [minorities] there are and show the data. The percentage of women to men is so small that we have to do something about it."

　　Wilkins-Mickey also believes that some aspects of diversity should not be overlooked alongside the more obvious ones. "Diversity isn't just about gender or colour, it's also about ways of thinking," she commented. As an example of homogeneous groupthink, the Microsoft manager mentioned how some game studios only recruit from top-tier US technology universities. Those hires, in turn, recruit their friends, resulting in a development team of "people who all think exactly the same."

　　Wilkins-Mickey also professed her belief that honesty about the long hours demanded by game developers is crucial. "Women are willing to do whatever it takes, they're fine with [the overtime], they're down for the cause," she asserted. "But as they get older and they start to have families, which can be many years down the road, they're like, 'How do I keep doing this?'"

　　But the main thing, in her opinion, is mentoring of women interested in the game industry to "get them interested in technology early on." That way, young women will become aware that making games is a viable--even desirable--career option. "Right now, they just have no idea," Wilkins-Mickey concluded.