'If we stop talking about diversity, people might assume we've ticked that box'
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Throughout the past month, people from across London and the rest of the UK have been able to see examples of folks from underrepresented groups that are rising up through the games industry.
This has come in the form of the annual Ensemble exhibition, organised by the team behind the London Games Festival, which displays profiles of this year's cohort to attendees at WASD and then later passersby at Trafalgar Square.
During this year's Ensemble photoshoot, we sat down with No Code producer Romana Ramzan, who appears as one of the eight profiles, to talk about the need for such initiatives.
"Ensemble is great because diversity and inclusion are so important to our industry," she says. "And we are making progress, but nowhere near as much progress as we should be making, or at the pace that we should be making it."
"There's been a lot of discussion, and it does get repetitive, but the problem hasn't been solved"
Ramzan says the biggest impact of Ensemble is allowing people to see that the stereotypes they may think the games industry suffers from aren't necessarily true.
"There are people from different backgrounds working in the industry, and doing lots of different, exciting things in the industry," she says, adding that it's a great outlet for people – especially young and aspiring games professionals – to see a wider range of faces.
"They don't necessarily have to resemble you, but the fact that they're different from the mould shows you that there is a spot for you, and yes, that this is the path you should be considering."
As Ramzan says, the industry is making progress when it comes to addressing the gender and ethnic imbalances in
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