It was recently revealed that more women actually play games than men here in the UK, and with that. MobileSlots.com have chosen their top 5 influential female gamers.
Below you will find a little extract of information about each, and where you can find them contributing to the gaming industry on a day-to-day basis. Here goes!
5. The Ambassador – Kulpreet Virdi
As official UPlay brand ambassador for Assassin’s Creed, Kulpreet is living the gamer dream.Kulpreet regularly tweets live streaming and clips of her playing the famous Xbox game. She also loves anything clothing and merchandise to go with gaming, from intricate Assassin’s Creed costumes to Pacman print leggings. Follow her on Twitter here.
4. The Mummy Gamer – Helen Grounds
This 28-year-old mother of two defies the stereotypical opinion that gaming is just a dad territory. Helen, from Walsall, has been gaming since the early 90s and still plays many games with her son and partner as well as blogging about their antics.
“I met my fiancé via World of Warcraft, the fantasy game, he told me he had feelings for me through an online message and we’ve been together nearly 10 years. I love old school games as they remind me of my childhood. I loved playing Sonic and Street Fighter so I was seen as quite a tomboy. But I had a Barbie doll as well, I didn’t see why toys had to be different for boys and girls, I wanted to play both. My blog Petit Mew came about to be a place to talk about parenting, and gaming and it’s been so rewarding for me and my family. I’ve had a terrific response to it so far. I would really love it if more gamer mums made themselves known online.”
You can follow Helen on Twitter and check out her blog here.
3. The Editor – Keza McDonald
A mixture of news, opinion, humour and game culture, Kotaku UK is overseen by editor Keza MacDonald from Edinburgh. The website is the UK version of Gawker Media’s Kotaku, which has been going for ten years and is one of the biggest games websites on the Internet with 16 million readers worldwide. Keza’s career in gaming journalism has been hugely successful, and she hopes Kotaku UK will grow even bigger.
“I’ve been writing about gaming since I was seven when I begged my parents for a Super Nintendo Entertainment System for Christmas. Since I was 16, writing about games has been my full time job which is a dream come true. The challenges that women face in the gaming industry are largely the same as in any traditionally male-dominated industry in that there can be a lot of pressure to be ‘one of the boys. However, there has been a dramatic improvement in the last ten years. There are more women both creating and playing video games, more women getting involved in these conversations and more interesting female characters in games.”
Follow Keza on Twitter.
2. The designer – Kate Killick
As an award-winning game designer, Kate Killick from London has definitely earned her spot on the top five gamers to watch. Kate is highly renowned in the gaming industry, having created stunningly artistic games for Xbox LIVE, Blender and mobile games. Her blog features prototype designs, concept work and even random doodles from her drawing board. In her free time, she is constantly checking out new games and meeting fellow indie developers.
“I’ve been a gamer for as long as I can remember – I remember playing DOS games with my sister on my Dad’s work PC, and getting Gameboys from the souk when we lived in Bahrain for about 10 Dinars each. I’ve been hooked every since. When I was at school, the games industry wasn’t seen as a viable career option and there was very little encouragement for girls to do computing. So when I saw a presentation from the Games Design lecturers at Newport about their course, it was like a lightbulb went off in my head. Now I am designer for an app startup in London. It’s an exciting time to be working in the industry as so many people are extremely passionate about games as a creative medium.”
1. The Relatable One – Charleyy Hudson
Charleyy Hudson, a 23-year-old student from Dorset, has a down-to-earth blog that posts about all things in gaming industry. From funny GIFs to dealing with more weighty issues of elitism and sexism in the gaming industry, this gamer definitely has her finger on the button. In her fifth year of running the blog, she’s hit 20,000 followers. The label ‘gamer girl’ has had some bad press, but Charleyy decided to spin this to her advantage when naming her blog.
“I called my blog ‘Confessions of a Gamer Girl’ because there seemed to be a very limited female approach to gaming online. I thought it would be refreshing to demonstrate that females take a professional approach to gaming but we can also have a laugh too! Hopefully it will get to the point that we aren’t labeled as ‘women in the industry’ but instead are called by our names and acknowledged for our opinions and skills.”
Check out Charleyy’s blog Confessions of a Gamer Girl and follow her on Twitter.
Speaking on the top 5, a spokesperson for MobileSlots stated:
It has been great to find out about these inspiring women and how they are making a difference to the view of what a ‘girl gamer’ actually is. In light of the recent news about more females playing games than men we wanted to acknowledge the increasingly important and influential role of young women in the industry.
Be sure to let us know your thoughts on other influential women in gaming today via the comment section below.
