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#GirlsBehindTheGames is inspiring more women to break into the gaming industry

The past couple of days, Twitter has been blowing up with #GirlsBehindTheGames, a community inspired hashtag for women occupying seats in the gaming industry.

The hashtag has reached a seemingly elusive audience across the globe.

Rarely credited for their influence, women in the gaming world are finally speaking up about their accomplishments in a much more confident fashion, sharing their occupations in OG companies like Bungie and TellTale Games with the world.

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With so few women in tech compared to men, it’s inspiring to recognize the names of women directors, developers, designers, writers, and so much more behind the scenes of our favorite storylines and cutscenes.

The brains behind the movement is New Zealand based company Runaway. The establishment prides itself on its female hires, with women taking lead of the head leadership positions of Managing Director and Creative Director.

“Staff diversity enables our team to produce games that appeal to a wider audience, inclusive of women, and other marginalized groups. But this kind of recruitment diversity requires a pool of talented girls to join – and be supported to remain in – the games industry.”

The company recently released Flutter VR, an exploring game “unapologetically released for women,” which targets a female audience thorough its soothing explore and discover simulation.

The independent gaming developer said it took the initiative “to inspire more young women to pursue careers in their industry.”

The goal, writes Syfy, is to “collect as many stories as possible between now and International Women’s Day on March 8.”

Their website and Twitter are actively used to share the campaign goals, and they hope to bring as much inspiration and light to the table as possible.

Did you know that 47% of gamers are women and yet women only make up 22% of the game industry workforce? Runaway wants to help improve those numbers by increasing awareness of women in the industry and highlighting the incredible work they do.

The studio was even visited and complimented by New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, who called the project “a brilliant thing to do.”

It’s great that women have a platform to discuss and empower one another in a heavily male-dominated industry like gaming. Runaway has brought a wave of change to the internet that has been long overdue.

With such a positive response from the community, women are awakened to the possibilities of their capabilities, and they prove to be endless.