100 most influential women in gaming

I don't like the format of that article. All those photos and bios makes it look like I'm going through a dating site or something.

How the hell were they influential? All they do is play games at a lower difficulty level. I sound like a im sexist because I am. Name a woman that has made the same impact on gaming as Myamoto. No anwsers....thats what I thought. See, women want equality, but refuse to play against men in b-ball, baseball and other things. I know people will call me a dog for making these factual comments but thats ok.

No Violet Berlin?

Shame!

There are a hundred women in gaming?

When did that happen?

Intanglibe, please tell us you're not that stupid. If you can actually read, you'll notice that these women don't just play games.

Stop trollin' and wise up.

Jason Della Rocca has made some much-needed addendums to the list:
http://www.igda.org/blogs/realitypanic/archives/001902.html

I recognized more names on his list, anyway. ^_^

I read through the list and I find it influential. I am familiar with the "Elite 8" of the FD's and I find it important to show other women in the industry that make the rest of us feel that it is alright to be in this industry after seeing what the FD's go through with negative feedback. Honestly, if I had my way, the term "girl gamer" wouldn't exist.
While the Womens Game Conference has its flaws, just like any other womens panel, they still make some valid points. They talk a lot of talk and this list of women shows that they can back up what they say. Well done ladies!

I have really always thought Nintendo should really hit the Female market hard. Me and my 3 closest friends all bought DS's but we almost never get a chance to play them due to our significant others. I think women really like the multitasking prospect while they might see sitting down playing a console as a waste of time. My girlfriend (who will fairly occasionally play console games with me) will do the laundry, make dinner, watch TV, and clean all with stylus and stylin DS lite in hand. I've heard the same is true for my friends.

Just a thought Nintendo... and Sony (maybe it'd revitalize your PSP sales if you targetted the female gender)

Truth to be told, I don't think it is interesting to read, as they are way too many and way too short. If it would be about the Top 10, and if all of them got ten times as much space, I might have read it.

But what it does do is to prove that there are actually females in the industry, and more than just a dozen.

Mind you, I doubt that any of them would make it into the Top 20, or even Top 30 of influential people in gaming, but you cannot say they don't matter at all either.

What?

No Lora Croft? Alex Roivas? Rynn? Zelda? Alisa Dragoon? Annet Maya? Athena? Samus Aran? Jill of the Jungle? Princess Peach? Valis? Agent BloodRayne? Ms. Pac Man?

Oh wait, you're talking about REAL women...nevermind...

Sorry to laugh, but what? All the women on the list are involved in the game industry, but never made a big impact on gaming in gerneral.

When I hear big impact on gaming I think of:

Creator of the Sims.
Creator of Mario/Zelda.
Creator of MG.
Creator of Sonic.
Creator of FF.

All the women on the list are influencial TO ONLY WOMEN.

no laura croft? wheres bloodrayne? fear effect ladies? doa?

WOW a big list of women who went to college and either got an art, communications, or journalism degree, then happen to get a job in a game company. WOOP DEE DOO. The title should be renamed "Top 100 money making women in gaming"

No Morgan Webb?

Every day I come to joystiq and read the posts. They are reasonably well written and informing.

Then I read the comments, and I am ashamed to ever call myself a gamer. Joystiq, just letting you know, I'm not becoming disillusioned with gaming because of the quality of your posts, but rather, the quality of your audience.

Yeah, no Morgan.

If IGN would have made this article about the most influential woman in gaming, you bet they would put in Lara Croft in it. Wonder why all the stuff they put in their site are all sleazy...

"No Morgan Webb?"

And what exactly has Morgan Webb influenced, other than the size of the bulge in your pants?

Strictly speaking, Morgan Webb is not even in the game industry. She's in the television industry. She has a limited amount of power to influence buying decisions among consumers using her looks and personality, but she has absolutely no influence over what games actually get designed and made and no experience whatsoever in actually being in such a situation.

Some of you clearly have no idea how the game industry actually works. Between Joystiq and Slashdot, you'd think the entire game industry was comprised of coders and critics and that between them, all the ideas are formed, all the decisions made and all the production done.

I'm not sure how anyone with a brain thinks Morgan Webb is more influential in what games actually get made than the Head of Production and Development at Maxis, the Chief Executive at Eidos, the Executive Producer at Microsoft Game Studios or a Game Director at Naughty Dog (to name just a few random people I just picked off that list). These are the people that come up with the game ideas and direct their teams in making actual games.

So, no. No Morgan Webb.

So, where's the list of 100 most influential men? I love the 2 way street that is sexism. If there was a list of 100 most influential men there'd be tons of people complaining that there is a list focused purely on men, but when there's a list of women, well then this is a fantastic step in the right direction!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there isn't influential women in gaming, there certainly are, all I'm saying is it's ridiculous to split the influence that people have by gender.

Patricia Vance has arguably the hardest job in the video game industry.

This list really isn't very good. There are a ton of influential women both now, and in the past, who have been in the gaming industry.

But the COO of a company isn't one of them, for example. The COO has no real effect on a games production, just on the running of a company.

The list is missing one of the most influential women from that list: Roberta Williams.

Yes, she's retired, but she also is one of the biggest influencers of the adventure genre of all time, regardless of gender.

Morgan Webb? no. Jade Raymond? Ding! We got a winner!

Reading over the list, I get the distinct impression that they just searched through credits and lists of game company execs, found the name of any female who looked like she might be in a position of moderate power, and listed her as influential. As such, it is a list that mentions mere art directors of forgettable games without even considering the few women who have had a REAL impact on gaming as a whole.

Roberta Williams, for example, pretty much defined the adventure game genre with her King's Quest series. Sure, the genre has faded over the years, but the fact remains that she was pivotal in its initial popularization.

That's what makes a person influential, not having a fancy job title.

Shame on Next-Gen for leaving Libe Goad, easily the most important mainstream female games journalist on the country, off your list. Libe runs the editorial side of AOL Games, and also writes the games section for Blender, one of the biggest mainstream entertainment mags on newsstands.

She is a regular TV talking head as well, most recently appearing on G4's "Attack of the Show" this week.

Before joining AOL, Libe ran the games section of Sync magazine, was an editor at HappyPuppy.com, ran the games section of Kozmo.com and co-founded the influential girls gaming site GameGal.com (one of PC Magazine's Top 100 sites of 2002).

To those who say these women aren't influential -- believe me, it takes a lot more than a Miyamoto to get a game into your living room. When you're at a restaurant, do you assume the waiter cooked your meal? Mixed your cocktail? Hauled the stones to construct the building?

It takes a LOT of people to run the gaming industry, and that's without even considering the press, the PR people, and everyone else sucked into the satellite of the industry. Apparently, instead of celebrating women, Next-Gen needs to educate the populace about what goes into the building of a game.

Alisha Karabinus: Dude, we're not denying that some of them do good work, but that doesn't mean that their influence extends beyond their own particular projects. You don't make a list of the most influential female cooks, architects, or anything else by grabbing the names of every gal who's ever got a promotion or showed up once or twice in a related news article. You actually have to consider the impact they've had on their field as a whole.

Alisha, you make a good point, but most of those women are in BUSINESS positions. They aren't influences the direction of games, they're just making it possible for those games to exist. So yes, they're IMPORTANT, but they aren't INFLUENTIAL. There's a big difference there.

They do have quite a few influential women on that list also, but a lot of the women on that list have no effect on the direction of the games industry and culture. Women like ea_spouse and the founder of Frag Dolls are examples of women with a lot of influence. Women journalists and business people are important, but not really influential.

Considering the appearance of journalists and consultants on that list, I'm surprised that Perrin Kaplan didn't make an appearance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perrin_Kaplan

Quite an important, if not influential job, no?

@ Alisha

It always comes back to the designers on if the game was good or bad. When you are at a restaurant and the food taste bad you bitch at the chef, not the constuction company that built the restaurant.

This is kind of like at the job when you work your ass off to get something done and someone else takes credit for it. Forget the CEO's and PR people, I give respect to the designers. (male or female)

Chris Taran: I'm not personally bothered by it either way, but the argument I see for this kind of behavior is that women are as capable as men, but historical influences continue to negatively affect women's place in the working world. If society merely stopped being prejudiced, the difference would still remain quite large for a long period of time on inertia alone. Thus it may be a good idea to try to counterbalance the effects of history, at least until everything's on a more even keel.

Good evidence is the mysoginists we have here, who take the result of historical bias as a reason to justify and continue those biases.

More competition in any field can only help the industry as a whole. If gaming continues to miss out on half of the population as a potential source of work and ideas then gaming as a whole will suffer compared to its potential.

Jane Pinkard? Where is she. I would say she has been very influential.

Wait, how is Roberta Williams NOT on this list. Co-Founder of Sierra games, creator of the Kings Quest and Phantasmagoria series? She should be #1 on the list.

@ Moogle

No I don't think so dude. Women and men are very inequal. Women cannot compare physically to men. Now mentally, it depends.

These days women are more prejudiced than men. Heres an example: If there is a guy on stage in front of an audience and says that men are smarter than women he is booed of stage, but if he says women are smarter than men there is applause. Its BS!

@26

"Considering the appearance of journalists and consultants on that list, I'm surprised that Perrin Kaplan didn't make an appearance."

Read the article again. Perrin Kaplan appears on page 6:

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3783&Itemid=2&limit=1&limitstart=5

Anyway, I agree with the general comments being made that these women are not really that influential on gaming. I had never even heard of the vast majority of them, so how influential could they possibly be? And the ones I had heard of, like Perrin Kaplan and those Frag Dolls/PMS girls, have nothing to do with actually making games.

Make no mistake; this is no form of anti-female industry bias, as I am female myself. I just think this article doesn't prove anything other than "Here's a bunch of people with two X chromosomes working in game-related companies."

@ Gnac: Perin Kaplan is there. Page 6.

And the moral of the story: don't read articles in a hurry before you have to go somewhere.

(shame)

Wow jeff the Morgan Webb comment was more of a joke on the "No random game chick" bandwagon. I'm glad you got all your anger out in your little dissertation though. Next time flex your web brains on something other than forum banter.

@ Dan (#22)

A BF pimps his GF on a blog! Funny.

What's her claim to fame/importance? Going to E3 and taking pix of the booth babes so she can make fun of them on her site?

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only person who doesn't care about this. I care about games, not who makes/ plays them. Also, I find it interesting how gaming is called a sexist industry, so people do features like this which focus solely on women. Sexism? You be the judge.

I have to say I am mildly underwhelmed by the obvious lack if intelligent responses on some of the comments... I am sorry, but how does that express your dominance in this field again? Simply reading the article in it's entirety and then finding relevant information really is not so challenging. Or perhaps it is.
For the naysayer’s and immature responders: Let me tell you, from someone who IS working darn hard in the Games world, and making a comfortable living at it thank-you-very-much, the influence of the female gender surpasses the yesteryears of the Industry. Are roles are cross-industry key ones. We interview and hire the gamer, make the business decisions, publish the games, decide what your game production budget is, decide where your exposure will be, promote the games, demo them and participate in a myriad of other very real, very impactful business decisions on top of designing, programming, animating and creating the overall game. To name a few jobs.
I hate to point this out, but those pimply faced, X chromo, huddled masses that hid in your mothers basement 17 years ago and played video games need to come out of the dank corners and see the light... not only are we, the gentle gender, here to PLAY, we are here to STAY. Its An INDUSRTY folks, not a hobby. A business. A career. A Lifestyle. And it is open to everyone. EVERYONE. Deal with it and get with the program. Your antiquated notions are embarrassing you.
Plus, it would not have hurt for some of you to actually review the content of what this weekends conference is about... maybe it would have thrown a little light on the subject for those of you who rushed to judgment and did not take the time to do the research before you answered Tisk. Tisk.
Maybe I will remember that the next time I am looking at resumes and deciding who I am going to hire for these jobs you covet so much. That's right friends... I get to decide. So before you spout off too much, remember your fate may *gasp* rest in the hands of one of those "lesser women"...

Wow.. I think NWGamer hit it on the head. Uhm, BURN!

NWGamer, feeling a little insecure?

Very few people downgraded the work of women in the industry. The prevailing attitude is the women chosen for this article, while important, were generally not very influential on the direction the industry has taken.

Also, as others have pointed out, there are plenty of influential women they COULD have chosen. They just didn't seem to put much effort into actually doing the research required to find them.

You know why women are always singled out in the game industry?

Neither do I.

Perhaps if we treated them like anybody else, instead of losing control, drooling, panting, begging forgiveness, and then giving them gender-specific honors instead of just letting them compete on the same playing field, there would be MORE women in the gaming industry.

What's next? Is Next Generation going to make a list of the 100 most influential black men in gaming, or the 100 most influential homosexuals in gaming, or the 100 most influential people who used to own dogs in gaming?

Why the class-specific list? Why not just "The 100 most influential PEOPLE in gaming?"

NWGamer shut up...seriously. This is exactly what we are talking about. If you are in the Industry fine...who the fuck cares about your gender. I certainly don't and I am sick of sexism, rather I am sick of the double standard of it. Just shut the hell up!

That was crap.

The article was flawed in several ways:

1) Why point out females in the industry? Seriously, it's sexist.

2) The females they listed were... lacking. There were many PR-type people on there, a bunch of reviewers and journalists, very few people that really matter. (Sorry, it's true.)

3) Roberta Williams, pretty much created the adventure game genre, co-founder of Sierra Online, one of the biggest game companies in the 80's and 90's. Heck Jane Jensen and Lori Cole were more influential than most of these.

DORKETTE

Jesus, my ex-wife's in there. And I see she's still completely full of shit.