List of women in the video game industry
This is a list of notable women in the video game industry.
Notable women in the video game industry
- Mabel Addis wrote the mainframe game The Sumerian Game (1964), becoming the first female video game designer.[1]
- DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media.
- Laura Bailey, American voice actress
- Ellen Beeman, American fantasy and science fiction author, cofounder the industry group Women in Games International, and computer game designer/producer since the 1990s[4] Since 2014, she has been a faculty member at DigiPen Institute of Technology.[5] She is credited for development of over 40 video games, for publishers including Disney, Electronic Arts, Microprose, Microsoft, Monolith, Origin, and Sega.[6]
- entrepreneur, founder of Team17.
- computer game published by Infocomin 1987.
- Lifetime Achievement Award from the Computer Game Developers Association.[7]
- Connie Booth (business executive), American business executive as vice-president of Product Development at Sony Interactive Entertainment and advocate of many of SIE's first-party franchises since Crash Bandicoot.[8]
- Mattie Brice, American video game designer, critic, and industry activist.
- Ashly Burch, American voice actress
- Vicky Carne, founder of Mosaic Publishing. She previously worked for Haymarket and Sinclar Brown.[9]
- Jenna Chalmers, Designer known for working with Will Wight. Recipient of WIG Achievement in Game Design. Currently, Lead Designer at Gallium Studios.
- Brie Code, former Ubisoft AI programming lead working on titles such as Child of Light, founder of TRU LUV, co-creator of #SelfCare, an Apple Best Of 2018.[10]
- Sierra Online. Other games she's worked on include Mixed-Up Fairy Tales (1991), Shannara (1995), the School for Heroes web game, and the Kickstarter-funded Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption (2018).[11]
- Christina "Phazero" Curlee, African-American game designer and researcher, featured at IndieCade, SAAM, and Eyeo festival Author of Meaningful Level Design. Currently a game designer at Insomniac Games.[12][13]
- Sarah Elmaleh, American voice actor and cofounder of the games conference gamedev.world[14][15]
- Mary Flanagan, researcher
- Rebecca Ford, Canadian game developer and voice actress, serving as director for Digital Extremes' Warframe and colloquially known as "Space Mom".[18]
- Marie Foulston, independent video games curator, cofounder of UK indie game collective The Wild Rumpus, and curator of video games at the Victoria and Albert Museum from 2015 to 2019
- Tracy Fullerton, American game designer, educator and writer.[19][20] Fullerton's work has received numerous industry honors.[21]
- Emily Greer, cofounder and CEO of Kongregate.
- Metal Gear Solid, Soulcalibur, Spider-Man, BioShock Infinite, Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. In 2013, she was recognized by Guinness World Records for "the most prolific videogame voice actor (female)"
- Rebecca Heineman, American video game designer and programmer known for her work on The Bard's Tale, The Bard's Tale III: Thief of Fate and Myth III: The Wolf Age. Heineman is also considered the first national video game champion.[22]
- Amy Hennig, American video game director and script writer. Her writing creates include the Legacy of Kain series for Crystal Dynamics, and Jak and Daxter and Uncharted series for Naughty Dog.
- Jennifer Hepler, video game script writer best known for her work on BioWare's Dragon Age series.
- Miki Higashino, Japanese video game composer known for the Suikoden series.
- Robin Hunicke, producer of Journey and cofounder of Funomena.
- Marija Ilic, co-founder of Two Desperados - a Serbian game developer and President of the Board at Serbian Games Association. Featured as one of the "100 Game Changers" selected by gamesindusty.biz. [23]
- Guilty Gear series, and Girls2Pioneersambassador.
- Jane Jensen, video game designer most known of the popular and critically acclaimed Gabriel Knight series of adventure games
- Yoko Kanno, Japanese composer, arranger and musician[24]
- Junko Kawano, Japanese game designer, director, illustrator and writer best known as the co-creator of the Suikoden series and director of Shadow of Memories.
- Heather Kelley, media artist and video game designer, most famous as the founder of Perfect Plum, a start-up specializing for software for women. She is also a co-founder of the Kokoromi experimental game collective.[25]
- Rieko Kodama, artist, director, and producer known for her work on the Phantasy Star series and other Sega titles including Skies of Arcadia and the 7th Dragon series.[26]
- Mie Kumagai, producer at Sega, and former president of Sega AM3. Lead development of the Virtua Tennis series.
- Aya Kyogoku, manager at Nintendo EPD with leading roles in Animal Crossing series production since 2008[27]
- Christine Love, Canadian video game developer.
- Van Mai (nee Tran), developer of Wabbit (1982), the first console video game to feature a female protagonist.[28]
- Jessica Mak, game developer and musician, developed the games Everyday Shooter and Sound Shapes.[29]
- Cathryn Mataga, designed Atari 800 games for Synapse Software and worked on the original Neverwinter Nights MMO.
- Manami Matsumae, Japanese video game composer
- Laralyn McWilliams, video game developer.
- Carla Meninsky, video game designer during the early years of the Atari 2600
- Ikumi Nakamura, Japanese artist and director, formerly of Clover Studio, PlatinumGames, and Tango Gameworks, with credits including Ōkami, Bayonetta, and The Evil Within.[30]
- Gamergate controversy.[31]
- Jade Raymond, Canadian video game executive, founder of Electronic Arts' Motive Studios, head of Visceral Games, and former managing director of Ubisoft Toronto
- Siobhan Reddy, studio director of Media Molecule, a video game development studio based in the United Kingdom, most famous for their debut title LittleBigPlanet. She was named a BAFTA Fellowship in 2021.[32]
- Halovideo game franchise.
- Jehanne Rousseau, French video game creative director, co-founder and former CEO of Spiders.
- OUYA.[39]
- Anita Sarkeesian, founder of Feminist Frequency and Tropes vs. Women in Video Games
- Cher Scarlett, American software engineer who worked at Blizzard Entertainment and known for her role in California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard
- Emilia Schatz, American game designer best known for her work at Naughty Dog[40]
- esport professional and first female player signed into the Overwatch League.
- Suzanne Seggerman, co-founder of Games for Change
- Atari 800 and Atari 5200 for which she is most widely known. Additionally, she designed an unreleased Polo game in 1978 and worked on the game Super Breakout.[42]
- Kazuko Shibuya, Japanese video game artist known for her work with Square and Square Enix
- Yoko Shimomura, Japanese video game composer and pianist who has composed or contributed to nearly one hundred video game soundtracks.
- Tanya X. Short, American video game designer and founder of Kitfox Games, where she has worked on games such as Shattered Planet (2014) and Moon Hunters (2016). She co-founded Pixelles, an organisation that aims to address gender diversity in video game development.
- EVE Online, and World of Darkness for CCP Games[49][50][51] before moving on to Killing Floor 2. As a Gameplay/Combat Designer, Silverio worked on Battlefield 2042:Portal for Electronic Arts. She is currently a Principal Game Designer with TEAM KAIJU, working on an unannounced FPS game for PC and console.[52]
- Kim Swift, American video game designer best known for her work at Valve with games such as Portal and Left 4 Dead.[53] Swift was featured by Fortune as one of "30 Under 30" influential figures in the video game industry.[54] She was described in Mental Floss as one of the most recognized women in the industry[53] and by WIRED as "an artist that will push the medium forward".[54]
- Risa Tabata, assistant producer, designer, and director of various Nintendo video games, such as Paper Mario: Color Splash and Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze.[55][56]
- Nintendo of America, who helped with the marketing of the Nintendo Entertainment System in the United States and the creation of Nintendo Power.[57]
- Pauliina Tornqvist, Finnish video game producer known for her work at Activision, Ubisoft and other publishers, on gaming franchises such as Call of Duty, Watchdogs, Trials, Angry Birds, and Travian. Tornqvist started her career by founding her own mobile game studio only at the age of 20, before continuing to work across Europe and US on multiple AAA productions - while advocating in podcasts, industry panels, and schools for diversity and equity in the video game industry.[58]
- Muriel Tramis, director of adventure games at Coktel Vision and recipient of France's Legion of Honour.[59]
- Joyce Weisbecker, first woman to design commercial video games, creating several games for the RCA Studio II console in 1976.[60]
- Atari 8-bit family and one of the earliest titles published by Electronic Arts
- graphic adventure genre.[62]
- Gamergate controversy, entered into politics to try to address issues raised during Gamergate.[31]
- Michiru Yamane, Japanese video game composer known for her work with Konami and the Castlevania series.[63]
- Direct 3DAdvisory Board.
- Jen Zee, art director for Supergiant Games.[64]
Others
- IGN editor-in-chief[65]
- Amber Dalton, professional gamer[65]
- Tanya DePass, founder of I Need Diverse Games[65]
- Kate Edwards, geography game content and ex-executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA)[65]
- Megan Fox, founder of Glass Bottom Games[65]
- Keisha Howard, founder of Sugar Gamers[65]
- Nicole Lazzaro, founder of XEOPlay and XEODesign[65]
- Holly Liu, lead designer of Kingdoms of Camelot and founder of Kabam[65]
- Nika Nour, executive director of IGDA[65]
- Veronica Ripley, founder of Transmission Gaming[65]
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The longest-serving female game developer in the business will also be attending the WIGI Conference. Brenda Brathwaite...
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