The name LadiesGamers isn’t chosen randomly, our name sort of gives it away: even when our writers and readers are of different genders, we especially welcome female gamers. After all, that’s how the site started: with the views of an older woman on the world of gaming. And for a couple of years now there are two older ladies at the helm!
We feel it’s time to give women that work in the gaming industry a podium. A lot of avid gamers would probably love to have a job in the industry themselves and we think it’s especially important to encourage girls in particular to go for their dream job.
So time for a new series of articles, featuring ladies who are working in the gaming business!
Meet Kate at Michael Meyers Public Relations
Who is Kate in everyday life?
I’m a native Californian but spent most of my young childhood in Jakarta and Singapore where my dad worked as a construction engineer. We moved back to the US in the early 80s and settled in the Silicon Valley just as personal computing was taking off. I went to the East Coast of the US for college but came back to California after graduation because that’s where the jobs were, and have been battling Bay Area traffic ever since. My favorite hobbies are reading, knitting, and watching baseball (lifelong Oakland A’s fan), and I love cooking plant-based meals or baking for friends. I’m also the proud mom of an insane cat named Geordie and a sweet little betta fish named Piper.
Can you tell us a bit about the company you work at
Currently I work at Michael Meyers Public Relations, a small, interactive entertainment-focused agency that was founded in 2002 after both Michael and I were laid off from The 3DO Company where we had headed up the PR team. We’ve worked with lots of different companies over the years, mostly small- to mid-sized game publishers, but also many indies and hardware companies, and have had a few game-adjacent and non-gaming projects as well.
How long have you been with the company, and how did you land this job?
Kate has gone over to the Dark Side….
Before coming over to “the dark side” (as we jokingly call it) of games PR, I was an editor at Computer Gaming World magazine, the first female member of their editorial staff. I started as an editorial assistant but moved up to assistant editor and then associate editor. That was right before online media exploded and we worked incredibly hard as a small staff putting out a big monthly magazine, but it was a lot of fun and I loved my co-workers. The number of late nights we put in would probably kill me now! It also wasn’t a terribly well-paying job, unfortunately, so when Brøderbund Software offered me a job with their games division in 1998, I made the jump. Broderbund was acquired by The Learning Company soon after, and I went to work at 3DO.
Was the fact that it had to do with video games an added incentive?
I had a friend who worked at Ziff Davis Publishing and they had recently acquired Computer Gaming World. They were looking for an editorial assistant so she called me and encouraged me to apply. I had played computer and video games on and off over the years in addition to having a strong writing background and office management experience, so it turned out to be an excellent fit. I even owned a book by my new boss, Johnny Wilson, “The SimCity Planning Commission Handbook”! It had never occurred to me to look for a job in the games industry, but had instead been looking into opportunities in what was being called “multimedia” at the time, producing content for CD-ROMs and online services such as CompuServe and AOL.
Does your educational background match your position in the gaming industry?
I have always been a huge reader and interested in far too many things, so in college I majored in History, which is a good excuse for studying whatever you want. It turned out to be good training for my career because it taught me how to write under pressure and how to research things very quickly. Because games are based on so many topics and set in so many worlds, I often need to become an instant mini expert in random topics, anything from Japanese mythology to Russian combat planes, in order to create a publicity campaign for a product. People in the gaming industry tend to come from a wide variety of backgrounds.
Gaming Habits
Do you play video games yourself, or have you played them in the past growing up?
My family always played a lot of games, both board games and electronic. We had Pong in Jakarta, and we got an Atari 2600 and Apple II+ when we moved back to the US. My mom even bought a Dungeons & Dragons basic set because she thought it sounded like a fun concept. I stopped playing video games in high school and college, but my two younger brothers had Nintendo consoles, the NES, SNES and Game Boys, so I was very familiar with Mario and Zelda. As soon as I was able to afford my own PC, I got a few games for it, like SimCity. I enjoy video games, but because they are my job, I prefer non-electronic entertainment in my free time now, like playing board games with friends.
What is your preferred video game console or handheld device to play games on?
I have always leaned more toward the PC than consoles, though the Switch is a fantastic device. I had an Atari Lynx back in the day and loved it, but there weren’t many games available.
What is your favorite gaming genre and why, and what is the game you are currently playing?
Story-driven games have always caught my attention more than anything, so I played adventure games and RPGs from early on. I also like the puzzle-solving nature of strategy games. Right now I am obsessed with Subnautica, a PC survival game that combines elements of all three genres. I’m really bad at it though! I’d rather swim around and explore than stay on task.
Women in the Gaming Industry
Do you feel the gaming industry is still very much male dominated, or do you think that has changed or is changing?
It has changed a lot over the years, but there is still a long way to go. When I first started, most women were relegated to marketing and business positions, or if they were part of development, it was mainly in art. You didn’t hear about women in game design, other than Robert Williams and Jane Jensen at Sierra On-Line. Even women playing “boys’ games” like Quake was considered exotic and newsworthy. Now women are involved in every aspect of the industry, but it’s still very male-dominated and not as diverse as it needs to be. There is still a lot of gatekeeping, unfortunately, so I hear horror stories all the time of women who have been in the industry for years still being asked to prove that they are “real” gamers in interviews.
Do you think a woman has a different approach when it comes to making a video game?
I think women bring new perspectives to creating games, exploring new themes and approaches to old ones. It’s similar to what is happening in the speculative fiction genre of books, where fantasy and sci fi was mostly epic quest fantasy and space opera for such a long time when male writers dominated, but now so many women and BIPOC writers are coming along who bring a new spin to things. The explosion of indie development has provided a lot of opportunities for women to create new gaming experiences without first having to get their foot in the door at a big game publisher and then having to work in the trenches on the 50th iteration of some big AAA property before getting a chance to do their own thing.
What advice would you give girls who have a dream to one day have a job in the gaming industry?
Be prepared for the unexpected! The game industry can be a lot of fun, but it is also very volatile and can be quite unpredictable. Even if you are interested in the development side of games, try to learn as much as you can about the business end too, how publishers and first parties (Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft) work together, how games are marketed, a bit about the retail channel.
Don’t be afraid to ask other women for advice and mentorship–we’re happy to help!
Last question: If you could be a character in a game, which one would it be and why?
Definitely my main character in Wizard101, Katie Spellcrafter. She worked damn hard to craft a beautiful house!
