IGN Entertainment and dentsu gaming have announced a Women in Gaming UK event to be held in central London on Friday, April 17, with Meta as partner, adding a new industry gathering at a time when the games sector is still wrestling with questions of access, hiring and representation. Event details released through company postings indicate the programme will run in the morning and feature panel discussions with industry figures, Meta hardware demonstrations, a pop-up headshot studio and networking opportunities.
The organisers have pitched the event as an inaugural UK edition, signalling that it is intended to be more than a one-off brand activation. Listings circulating through industry channels say the session is scheduled from 9:30am to 12:30pm at dentsu London, with registration already open and fuller programme details still to come. The framing matters because it places a media company, an advertising network and a major technology platform together around a subject that has become both a workforce issue and a commercial one for gaming.
That commercial logic is hard to miss. Dentsu has been sharpening its gaming practice in Britain and internationally, presenting gaming as a fast-growing attention economy that brands can no longer treat as peripheral. IGN, for its part, brings audience reach and industry visibility, while Meta has used gaming-related partnerships to tie its hardware and platform ambitions to community-building and creator ecosystems. Their alignment around a women-focused event suggests that diversity initiatives are now being woven into broader business strategies around audience growth, advertising and platform influence.
Women remain underrepresented across much of the games workforce in Britain, despite gradual improvement. Ukie’s latest published census of the UK games industry found that 30% of respondents identified as women, up from 28% in the previous census, while 67% identified as men and 3% as non-binary or other. Ukie said the data showed progress, but also underlined persistent gaps around representation, career progression and workplace support. That leaves events such as this one occupying a dual role: they are both networking platforms and public signals that employers and commercial partners want to be seen addressing long-standing imbalances.
The wider advocacy landscape also helps explain why such events continue to attract attention. Women in Games, the UK-based non-profit focused on gender equity in games and esports, says its mission is to build an industry and culture free of gender discrimination through partnerships, advocacy, research and community action. The group has continued to host career and community events in 2026, showing that demand for structured support networks remains strong even as the sector talks more openly about inclusion than it did a decade ago.
Yet the backdrop is not simply one of steady progress. The games business has spent the past two years dealing with layoffs, restructurings and pressure on studio budgets, making career security more fragile across the industry. Bloomberg reported last month that more than a quarter of the sector had been affected by layoffs over the previous two years, underscoring how precarious the environment remains even for experienced developers and managers. In that setting, networking events aimed at women in gaming can serve a practical purpose beyond symbolism, giving attendees access to visibility, peer support and possible hiring connections at a time when formal pathways may be narrowing.
There is also precedent for IGN and Meta using this format. In 2025 the two companies staged a Women in Gaming networking event tied to IGN Live in Los Angeles, with panels, demos and professional headshots, and IGN later described the turnout as numbering in the hundreds. The addition of dentsu gaming to the UK edition broadens the coalition and indicates that organisers see room to replicate and localise that model in another major games and advertising market.
The organisers have pitched the event as an inaugural UK edition, signalling that it is intended to be more than a one-off brand activation. Listings circulating through industry channels say the session is scheduled from 9:30am to 12:30pm at dentsu London, with registration already open and fuller programme details still to come. The framing matters because it places a media company, an advertising network and a major technology platform together around a subject that has become both a workforce issue and a commercial one for gaming.
That commercial logic is hard to miss. Dentsu has been sharpening its gaming practice in Britain and internationally, presenting gaming as a fast-growing attention economy that brands can no longer treat as peripheral. IGN, for its part, brings audience reach and industry visibility, while Meta has used gaming-related partnerships to tie its hardware and platform ambitions to community-building and creator ecosystems. Their alignment around a women-focused event suggests that diversity initiatives are now being woven into broader business strategies around audience growth, advertising and platform influence.
Women remain underrepresented across much of the games workforce in Britain, despite gradual improvement. Ukie’s latest published census of the UK games industry found that 30% of respondents identified as women, up from 28% in the previous census, while 67% identified as men and 3% as non-binary or other. Ukie said the data showed progress, but also underlined persistent gaps around representation, career progression and workplace support. That leaves events such as this one occupying a dual role: they are both networking platforms and public signals that employers and commercial partners want to be seen addressing long-standing imbalances.
The wider advocacy landscape also helps explain why such events continue to attract attention. Women in Games, the UK-based non-profit focused on gender equity in games and esports, says its mission is to build an industry and culture free of gender discrimination through partnerships, advocacy, research and community action. The group has continued to host career and community events in 2026, showing that demand for structured support networks remains strong even as the sector talks more openly about inclusion than it did a decade ago.
Yet the backdrop is not simply one of steady progress. The games business has spent the past two years dealing with layoffs, restructurings and pressure on studio budgets, making career security more fragile across the industry. Bloomberg reported last month that more than a quarter of the sector had been affected by layoffs over the previous two years, underscoring how precarious the environment remains even for experienced developers and managers. In that setting, networking events aimed at women in gaming can serve a practical purpose beyond symbolism, giving attendees access to visibility, peer support and possible hiring connections at a time when formal pathways may be narrowing.
There is also precedent for IGN and Meta using this format. In 2025 the two companies staged a Women in Gaming networking event tied to IGN Live in Los Angeles, with panels, demos and professional headshots, and IGN later described the turnout as numbering in the hundreds. The addition of dentsu gaming to the UK edition broadens the coalition and indicates that organisers see room to replicate and localise that model in another major games and advertising market.
Topics
Gaming