Gamesindustry.biz revealed yesterday, that according to the research of a University of Liverpool Phd Student, between 2006 and 2009 the percentage of female staff in the videogame industry fell from 12% to 4%. The reasons forwarded by the British Sociological Association lean towards the long hours of working and inflexible working practices (with 10% working more than 56 hours a week) rather than mass female-to-male gender realignment operations. You can question the sample-size if you want (450), but this is an interesting spin on the standard debates, which have always focused around the industry’s inability to attract female staff. This paints it in even blacker shades, with the industry proving incapable of actually keeping the staff it has.