Bossa Studios

Our Company. Our Values.

Our core values include originality, openness, passion, appreciation, improvement and nimbleness. In terms of openness, we mean that we share with one another (with everyone in the team) and with our players. We are open about what we do, why we do it, how we do it and we are unafraid of asking others for help. We recruit others into our work as equals and we work candidly with our partners. We also communicate clearly with our players, making them feel part of Bossa.

Combined, our core values promote inclusion and value diversity. Bossa always seeks to ensure that the work environment for its employees is supportive, and respect is shown to each individual. All Bossians, regardless of their gender, race, ethnic background, culture, (dis)ability, sexual orientation, age, religion, socio- economic status or any other factor will be supported and encouraged to perform to their best potential.

Inclusive by design

A great way to reflect our views on D&I is to build inclusive games. We made a big statement with one of our newest games, World’s Adrift: the first character you meet is female. Normally, you (the gamer) meets a female character very late in a game. This decision of ours led to an interesting question: how do we portray the female character in the game’s environment? It was enormously rewarding to develop this character in depth.

What is the message we send with our choice? We should all be equal. Games need to reflect the growing body of global gamers.

Speaking up for D&I in gaming

We are both active in external education projects, to promote D&I in gaming.

RL: These activities are very high up on my agenda. I make sure that I speak at numerous conferences and university STEM panels to reach out to women, to encourage them to get into games and technology. I have also started a YouTube channel: Beta Lucca – How to Start a Business (YouTube). My mission is to help young women shape their future, to empower them with practical knowledge and to motivate them so that they can become incredible entrepreneurs.

HO: I recently completed a weekly education initiative (for 6 months), Aspirations Academies’, at Tech City College (ages?) in which young students were taught how to build games. Although there were many nationalities represented by the kids, only 2 (of 36) were female. I hope to encourage a more balanced gender representation with my education efforts!