Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Poornima Seetharaman, Lead Game Designer at Zynga Bangalore. Read more about Poornima in this interview:

Hi Poornima! You had initially studied Information Technology and went into the programming direction early on. How did you then decide that Game Design is what you’d like to do?

While I was in college, I used to experiment with creating my own campaigns for games like “Age of Empires II” and “Warcraft III”, then share it with a few friends who would play it and give me feedback. I also used to discuss some of my game ideas with them, too. I honestly didn’t know that was a part of Game Design back then.

When I took up my first job as a programmer, it was purely coincidental that it happened to be a gaming firm. After a month in, they had a position for Game Designer open up. My college mate, who was also my colleague at that firm, suggested to the manager that they should give me a shot at Game Design, as he had seen some of my design skills back in college.

And they did! I had one month to deliver my Game Design. Back then, there were barely any resources available. I managed to get Chris Crawford’s Game Design Template, read up some posts by Ernest Adams for any sort of understanding about Game Design.

The company also gave me the “Dungeons & Dragons” manuals as a reference, as we were making a mobile 2D RPG similar to “Neverwinter Nights”. I opened the books and remember falling in love with them. I made a GDD (Game Design Document) in a month including levels, dialogues, quests etc. It was pure new found love and adrenaline! After that, no matter what I did, I couldn’t keep myself away from Game Design. 🙂

How would you describe the start up and indie games culture in India? Which cities, platforms and events do you personally consider worth highlighting?

Still very niche, but picking up. We have some studios that are trying their best to put out some lovely games and then we have some startups that are focussing on the free to play and real money gaming sectors as well. Getting funding to make traditional video games is harder in India. As the ROI (return on investment) on that is tricky. But game developers are always trying to find a way to do that and make ends meet. More investors betting on innovation, infrastructure and possible government grants could help us a long way.

In terms of cities, I would say, currently Bangalore and Hyderabad are doing well! Lots of new game dev startups keep sprouting!

We have one main long standing annual conference that happens here called the India Game Developer Conference where we get to catch up and connect with everyone and also find an opportunity to meet some great global game developers. We also run a Facebook group on it.

On smaller events, we have a Bangalore Video Games Meet-up regularly hosted by some lovely indie folks as well as gamedev.in, a site and discord group run by a small bunch of game developers for community building and supporting game devs, some of whom are part of the local IGDA chapter as well.

Seeing you’ve founded/co-founded two companies, what were your main values and learnings while taking the step to become an entrepreneur?

• To me, people are important. Taking time to hire the right employees who will form your founding team and define the culture of the company is crucial.
• I do not believe in a hire and fire policy. I believe in hiring right, wherever it is in our control.
• My team is my family. I want them to feel ownership.
• Even though we were a startup, I’ve never asked my team to stretch overtime and tried our best to compensate them as well as we could.
• Be open to feedback. Always.
• One of the main things I learnt was that when we partner with someone, it is best to work with them for a while to understand them well and not base it on outside conversations. Everyone’s work style and approach towards people is different and you need to figure out if that works out for you.
• Speak up more if you sense something amiss.
• Keep conversations very transparent.

Thank you for your time, Poornima!

Poornima’s Links: Poornima’s Website | Poornima’s Twitter | Poornima’s LinkedIn | Poornima’s Instagram

WWW Feature by Sophie Brügmann

Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Sarah Miller-Crews, who has done voice acting for several video games. Read more about Sarah in this interview:

Hi Sarah! You’ve done voice acting for renowned video games, such as “Avengers Academy”, “White Noise” and the recently remade “Trials of Mana”. Could you tell us a bit more about your journey into voice acting, especially for games?

Thank you so much for having me! I‘ve always loved animation, ever since I was little. I was obsessed with Disney movies and “Avatar the Last Airbender”, but it never occurred to me that someone’s full time job was voicing those characters. Because I knew I loved acting and singing, I went to a Fine Arts High School in Texas and double majored in Theater and Choir and I also graduated with a BA from UCLA’s department of Theatre, Film, and Television. But right out of college I was having a tough time, because I felt like I was being trapped in these tiny boxes of what parts I could play based on how I look. I was about ready to move back home to Texas when I stumbled upon a voiceover workshop and I completely fell in love with it! That was when I realized that I want to do voiceover for the rest of my life.

The first jobs I got were for small independent games and eLearning projects. Since I didn’t have an agent at that time, those were the sorts of projects that I was able to find auditions for and sometimes I even sent my demo directly to the companies themselves. Eventually I started working on bigger projects,  which ultimately led me to auditioning for “Trials of Mana”. My career definitely hasn’t been a linear journey but I like to believe that every project I work on is a stepping stone to the next amazing opportunity that’s right around the corner.

What makes voice acting for games different from doing voiceover for other media? Is it more challenging?

Doing voiceover work for video games is unique because there are so many different aspects to it. Sometimes you are saying lines that have to stand on their own, sometimes you’re in a scene, and a lot of times you are voicing efforts, which are nonverbal sounds that correspond with certain actions that the player is doing. Voiceover itself is a unique form of acting because there is no set or costumes or other actors in the room with you to ramp you up into the emotional space you need to be in. You have to supply that energy by using your imagination. You have to envision what your character is looking at, where they are, who they’re talking to, and why they’re saying what they are saying. 

I’ve been really lucky to work with some amazing directors, like Kal-El Bogdanove for “Trials of Mana”, who bring a sense of play into the booth, which creates a magical space for creativity. You get to really use your imaginative skills and that’s what makes it so fun!

Any advice on how to overcome insecurities and build confidence for people aspiring a career in (video game) acting?

I think that when it comes to overcoming insecurities and building confidence, all you can do is try your best and be yourself. Definitely make sure that you’re taking classes in voice acting or working with a coach to hone your skills, but also remember that there’s no one else in the world who is exactly like you. Your voice may sound similar to other people, but no one else carries your life experience and story. No one else can bring your energy to the room. Who you are is enough and the world needs the special spark that only you carry!

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences with us, Sarah!

Links: Sarah’s Website | Sarah’s Instagram

WWW Feature by Jessica Hackenbroch

Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Jodie Donovan, Freelance Game Designer and Women in Games Ambassador. Read more about Jodie in this interview:

Hi Jodie! Last year, you have successfully completed your Bachelor of Science in Applied Computing (Games & Digital Media) and you are now pursuing a master’s degree in Game Design. Which topics will you be focusing on in your thesis and what’s next after your studies?

I broke ground with my preliminary study into game accessibility during my BSc and I feel it’s time to take it to the next level. My study involved getting people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to play a game demo I created using Unreal Engine 4. I used player feedback to further understand how users with ASD interpret the signs and signaling used by developers to drive game flow and narrative, and if these users experience sensory distress. This enabled me to develop a proposed accessibility framework for users with cognitive disabilities. My master’s thesis will expand upon this research with the aim to improve user experience.

As a freelancer and consultant for Game Design matters, you got the opportunity to look into various different projects and workflows. Was there any outstanding project you’ve worked on, that you’d like to share with us?

I’m currently consulting on a mobile title and a PC game which is in early Alpha on Steam. My role in these projects is to assess features such as level design techniques and implementation, UI/UX elements, and give feedback to the developers on how accessible these games are to a neurodiverse audience.

Diversity and inclusivity in the industry, as well as the STEM sector specifically, are very important to you personally. Are there any books, articles, workshops or conferences that you’d recommend to anyone interested in becoming an active ambassador in these areas themselves?

I recommend the book “An Architectural Approach to Level Design” but more importantly, do some research into your local area/region and find out what it offers in terms of game developer communities and support networks. For me personally, I was able to join a local network specifically for female and gender diverse developers. It was founded by mutual friends and in becoming an active member here, I have met some of the most inspirational local women in tech, made new friends, and discovered subsequent programs that piqued my interest (e.g. Women In Games – of which I am now an active Ambassador).

Thank you for your time, Jodie!

Jodie’s Links: Jodie’s Twitter | Jodie’s LinkedIn

WWW Feature by Sophie Brügmann

Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Miriam Khalaf, Junior Game Economy Designer at Gameloft Barcelona. Read more about Miriam in this interview:

Hi Miriam, thanks for taking the time! First off, let us start with your career – can you tell us a bit more about your journey towards your current job position?

To be honest, mine was just a combination of both luck and stubbornness. Once I finished college, I got an unrelated and absolutely exhausting job that allowed me to get by, and I guess that’s partially what fuelled me to just keep sending CVs to any position related to videogames I could find, day after day, no matter what. It was frustrating, and after a few months I just didn’t know what to reply to the question “what can YOU offer to this position?” anymore. Because I just really, really wanted to be there… just like everybody else. “I don’t know, I can make really good coffee…I guess”. And as in a world where companies have coffee machines that’s definitely not enough, I spent my free time doing online courses, watching conferences, sending emails… and one time, after about a year of getting rejected, I got a reply from Gameloft asking if I’d be interested in taking an Excel exam to test if I was suited for the position.

So I said “of course” and then spent almost every night that week doing Excel courses because, to be honest, I had literally no idea about Excel formulas. I got to that test insecure, sleepy, and absolutely terrified, and, somehow, it worked.

After that I started working as a playtester, where I started analysing difficulty balancing and progression. Soon the department evolved to Economy Testing, and after some time I became its manager. We were also benchmarking and deconstructing other projects, and acting as support for GEDs. And even though playing games for a living is one of the best things in the world, I knew that this job position wasn’t going to make me happy forever. Luckily, I had the means to continue my training, incredible professionals to teach me, and eventually switched departments to start working as a GED. And that’s what I’m doing now.

What does your typical work day at Gameloft look like? What are the tasks of a Game Economy Designer?

Well, as you can imagine, we do Excel (…sorry, I really couldn’t help it).
It depends a lot on the game you are working on, but mainly our day to day consists in designing and balancing systems. There’s a lot of behavioral economics involved with that, as creating gatings in progression, currency sinks, difficulty walls and, overall, managing victories and frustration, requires a delicate balance, especially in freemium.

The main goal is simple: your economy design needs to “keep it together” in the long run (we aim it to last above 3 years, and some top games have been there for 7 or 8 years and counting). In a premium game that’s meant to last 40 or 80 hours, players getting too much currency or XP is bad, because they won’t experience the game as you planned. But in freemium it’s catastrophic.
It’s necessary to mention that the gap between players does nothing but grow, as progressing won’t mean the same for people who’ve been playing for three years and people who just arrived yesterday. A GED needs to understand their needs, and to provide time limited content, challenges and successes for all of them.
So with that in mind, we decide gacha droprates, prices and rewards, establish difficulty and currency gatings, how much experience players are going to earn based on their progression, content exhaustion speed, and so on. We also make time-limited events considering the content we are going to be able to release in a given period of time.
Once all of that is over, we analyze how everything performed, try to determine how we can increase the games’ KPIs, and continue iterating based on that.

A lot of people dream of working in the games industry, but might be unsure which kind of job would be the best one for them, or they feel discouraged after being rejected from companies they applied to. Which advice would you give to someone who wants to overcome those insecurities?

We grow up internalising we are not good enough in so many small day to day interactions, we barely notice it’s pulling us down anymore by the time we have to decide we are worth to step up. There are so many times I’ve been about to give up on my dreams and try to convince myself that it doesn’t matter anyway. But that’s just not true.

And if I had to pick one thing to tell them, then it would be this: “You have value. Your dreams and professional goals have value. So stop finding excuses and send all those resumes you are holding. It doesn’t matter if someone thinks you might not be good enough. Because you are. Because you are going to prove them wrong. And, above all, because there are so many chances out there for you the only way not to get them is not believing you deserve to be there.”
And it’s true, it’s easy to feel discouraged by the lack of knowledge about certain positions, or even our own capabilities if we accomplish it. But that’s the thing: we never know which kind of job is going to make us feel challenged and motivated until we try it. But trying is always worth it, and companies are always hiring!

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences and advice with us, Miriam!

Links: Job opportunities at Gameloft Barcelona | All job opportunities at Gameloft

WWW Feature by Jessica Hackenbroch

Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Charlene Lebrun, Director & Publicist at Player Two PR Ltd. in London. Read more about Charlene in this interview:

Hi Charlene! As Director & Publicist at Player Two PR Ltd., what are your main responsibilities and challenges from day to day?

Every day is different! Some of it revolves around running the company itself, guiding my team and handling business development, but also mucking in and running campaigns: from writing press releases, discussing certain games with journalists and content creators, to coming up with strategies for each title we look after, not to mention managing booths at events (although not this year!) and running Kickstarter campaigns. I also spend some time every day liaising with our clients and making sure their release has the best chance of success, which sometimes means helping with QA, finding contractors for them or giving feedback on the game itself. There’s never a dull day, and indie games can be a hard sell no matter how good they are, but that challenge is part of why I enjoy it.

Having worked in both, the triple A world and indie games industry, are there any major differences or similarities that you’ve identified?

There are a few! A bit like in every field, working with smaller companies you tend to wear many different hats and work closely with everyone, while in AAA you have much larger teams working on each project as well as a stronger hierarchy of people to work with, so things tend to be a bit slower and safer. That said, in AAA the budgets are much larger and that allows both the devs and the marketing to execute bigger ideas, which is also really exciting! There are also similarities of course, in the general life cycle of development and the different elements needed around it to make a release work. 

You are also an active Women in Games Ambassador. Which values are important to you and where do you wish to raise more awareness?

I’d like to see the games industry become more diverse. Things are better than they were a few years ago and communications is an area of the industry where women are more represented, but I hope that someday soon, we can see true diversity (on all accounts, not just for women but for everyone) in the industry and for it to be considered normal. If the recent accounts of sexual harassment (and how those situations were handled by management) proved anything, it’s that we still have a long way to go in creating welcoming spaces to work in. The way I see it, it starts with bringing in a more diverse workforce and making employers accountable for treating them well.

Thank you for your time, Charlene!

Charlene’s Links: Charlene’s Twitter | Player Two’s website

WWW Feature by Sophie Brügmann

Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Éloïse Laroche, 3D Artist and Indie Game Developer. Read more about Éloïse in this interview:

Hi Éloïse! Your new game, Lemon Cake, is coming soon. Could you tell us a little bit more on why and how you became a game dev and 3D artist?

I’ve always been interested in different spheres of art, such as writing, performing and visual arts. I fell in love with video game development because it blends multiple disciplines together into a single product. It made me realise that I wanted to create more than art, I wanted to design an experience that players could interact with, change and customize to their own taste. I studied digital art in college, which was a good introduction to 3D art and the most popular industry softwares. However, there’s so much more than art that goes into making games, and so I’ve had to teach myself through online documentation and tutorials how to program, design and market games. Fortunately, I don’t think there’s ever been a better time to be a self taught game developer; there’s a ton of resources online to learn everything that’s needed to get started. There are also excellent free development softwares, such as Blender for digital art and Unreal Engine for game development, which makes it accessible for everyone.

You’re not working with a studio, but as a one-woman game dev. What are the challenges you found yourself facing in the process of developing games on your own? And how did you find the right people to work with when you’ve reached your limits, regarding the game’s music, for example?

The main challenge I face as a solo developer is that I have to learn a wide range of skills, which makes it difficult to become an expert in a specific discipline. It’s a lot harder to excel in a particular field such as art, programming or marketing when I have to divide my time between all of them instead of focusing on a single one. Because of that, it’s been crucial to figure out my strengths and weaknesses and decide which skills I won’t practice at all, and instead hire other artists who can complement my work. On the other hand, being able to develop almost everything by myself gives me a ton of creative freedom and flexibility. I can iterate and test my designs quickly without having to explain my ideas to someone else, and it allows me to create exactly the vision I have of a game. It’s still a good idea to hire freelancers to fill in specific skill gaps, which saves me a ton of time learning and practicing a new skill. For example, I’ve worked with Matthew Harnage who composed the game soundtrack and Karen Teixeira who drew the cover art for Lemon Cake. The first thing I look for when hiring a freelancer is to find someone whose work I love; once I find that, everything else falls into place.

There are lot of great games out there, and as an indie dev, it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd and get your game noticed. Do you have any tips for fellow devs on how to promote their game?

Find a niche! I think too many indie developers fail to gather attention not because their game is bad, but because it appeals to a mass audience. AAA studios are already doing that, and I don’t really want to compete with them. Instead, I think it’s much more viable for indies to cater to smaller audiences that are mostly ignored by larger studios. I recently participated in Wholesome Snack, an event specifically created to showcase wholesome indie games. The community behind it is really supportive and appreciative of the devs catering to a friendly & casual genre of games. In the future, I plan on exploring further themes that haven’t been showcased much in video games. It’s a bit risky to make games for a market that hasn’t been proven yet; but to me being indie means pushing new boundaries, and I think that’s why players fell in love with indie games in the first place!

Thanks so much for sharing your experiences and advice with us, Éloïse!

Links: Éloïse’s Twitter | Lemon Cake on Steam

WWW Feature by Jessica Hackenbroch

Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Olga Alavatcaia, Senior Game Artist based in Berlin. Read more about Olga in this interview:

Hi Olga! Apart from being a passionate Senior Artist at your job, you are also working on some personal projects every now and then. Is there any creative idea you’ve recently developed or experimented with, that you’d love to share with us?

Thank you for having me here 🙂 Making games in my free time was always something I was thriving for – starting with good old FRPGs (forum rpgs) back in 2005 and carrying on with mobile games nowadays. Game development allows one to explore different tools and techniques in the most possible fun way. Check out our game Pots.io!

I am lucky enough to be married to an awesome developer, Vladimir Grati, and to be acquainted with an excellent artist like Anna Akrabova, so we teamed up together for a little side project. The idea for this hyper casual game came to me based on a fun itsy-bitsy activity in Dark Souls, where the player rolls around the ground, destroying clay pots. The whole development took several weeks, with all three of us acting also as game designers and QA. We take special pride in all the silly puns that accompany the user’s wins and fails.

Do you think it’s beneficial for artists to learn how to code?

I do believe that constant learning is always beneficial, especially in the gaming industry which is advancing every year. 

Considering that we are talking about generalists, I see two main perks of knowing how to code: first is the possibility to be a “one-man-army”, and the second one – to better understand how the project is built, and as a result – to be able to optimize it in the best way. Besides, if the game artist career loses its appeal, you’ll always have great alternatives to continue as an engineer or a technical artist. 

The first perk opens up a lovely opportunity of being able to make a game of your dreams without depending on anyone else’s abilities and availability – it’s like being a builder and an architect at the same time. There are several examples of this approach resulting in worldwide critically acclaimed titles such as Stardew Valley or Undertale. Of course, there is the other side of the coin such as time consumption and lack of your teammates’ reflection, but isn’t it wonderful – to be able to shape your idea and all the aspects exactly as you envisioned it?

Regarding the second perk – very often, a lot of time is wasted on optimizations and back and forth between engineering and the art department. In a team environment, it can be crucial for an artist to know how exactly to deliver the results or event to implement them. A team member with an insight into the work process of their coworkers is a valuable asset in building a lean organization.

You travelled the world quite a lot, were there any places that you found particularly inspiring from an artistic perspective?

I do firmly believe that artistic inspiration comes in many forms, from standing in the clouds of Fansipan Mountain to walking through a dystopian high-rise building district in Eastern Europe. In both cases, the artistic reflection, the ability to apply your impressions and the sharpness of perception play a critical role in making some internal conclusion that later on can bring new fringes to the art you create. It is probably something very personal to me. Travelling and being in new places satisfy my curiosity and allow me to update my visual library, but the very core of being driven to create is activated by the quiet of being alone with myself. I would say for me it’s not the place that matters, but my ability to perceive. And I am pretty omnivorous in that sense.

Thank you for your time, Olga!

Olga’s Links: Olga’s LinkedIn | Olga’s Personal Project Pots.io

WWW Feature by Sophie Brügmann

Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Anna Hollinrake, Principal Artist at Mediatonic. Read more about Anna in this interview:

Hi Anna! You work as a Principal Artist at Mediatonic and have gathered years of experience as an artist in game development and television even before that. Could you tell us a bit more about why you chose to work in games, and your journey towards your current job?

It has long been impossible to separate me from three things: art, making things and tech. Once I discovered digital art I knew I was a goner; as a teenager I had to be pried off the computer with a crowbar. I first pursued games because they were the medium in which I could make digital art most easily (as well as having enjoyed them very much as a kid). However, over time I realised a little more about myself – I love the broad brushstrokes of worldbuilding and mood-setting in games, and I also wanted to be on the forefront of new technologies. Games is still a very young medium that is figuring out the rules as the industry grows, and that’s an incredibly exciting place to be in.

In terms of my journey toward my current job, I pushed for the things I really cared about and said yes to things that scared me. I studied Game Art at De Montfort University and began my career as a generalist artist, before getting my teeth into a much-loved project in which I was able to concept for large swathes of the game. A lot of opportunities for things I was interested but intimidated by popped up in a distinctly butterfly-effect way – taking part in social media events led to meeting people that would invite me to sell at comic cons, and my presence in those locations led to invites to speak at events. One thing snowballed into another especially after being named a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit, as I repeatedly found opportunities to jump in with both feet; art directing games, moving into TV animation and art directing a TV show, leading international teams, and now leading the art side of pitches at Mediatonic.

What does a typical work day in your life look like (if there is such thing as a “typical” day)? Can it sometimes be difficult to be creative on an everyday basis?

A typical day really varies for me depending on projects and upcoming events. If we’re making a pitch deck then it’ll often feature a lot of time spent concepting and giving feedback to other artists, and being in meetings to review how the slides are taking shape. I also do a lot of work in outreach – planning talks and breakdowns of pitch processes. It’s a lot of fun having to make very rapid fire decisions across hugely different art styles, all the while making sure the choices are consistent with the game mood, themes, and technical limitations. As I’m more on the business side and not in a traditional dev team, it’s a much more reactive role that requires a steady eye on what the rest of the industry is up to!

As it absolutely can be difficult to be consistently creative, I (thankfully) really enjoy management and organisation almost as much as art, and that gives me the mental breathing room to focus on spreadsheets whilst I let the creative side of me recover. I work directly with design, which often involves talking out issues rather than purely drawing them to solve them, so that gives me a lot of variety as I get to problem solve in a whole host of ways. I’ve learned my patterns of productivity, too. Never schedule anything that involves a lot of thinking after 4.30pm!

What advice would you give to artists aspiring a career in games who might not feel as confident in their art, or who might not know how to take the first step towards their dream job?

Put your work out there and connect with fellow artists and developers looking to get into games – in your community or online. Your peers are your best ally for helping you toward your first job – a rising tide lifts all boats and my biggest help has always been the groups of friends I’ve had around me to give me guidance or put my name forward. Be diligent and hard working on the things that bring you joy, learn and study with intention, keep on pushing. It’s a persistence game – it just takes smartly applied time and effort.

Thanks for letting us gain an insight into your experiences, Anna!

Links: Anna’s Website | Mediatonic’s Website | Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout on Steam 

WWW Feature by Jessica Hackenbroch

Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Katriina Penttilä, Social Media & Community Manager at Dirtybit. Read more about Katriina in this interview:

Hi Katriina! You have quite a lot of experience working in fields such as Social Media, PR, Marketing and Event Management. How did you get started in the gaming industry originally?

Hei! Such a pleasure to be invited to this interview, thank you for having me! I’m excited to share some of my experiences and hopefully help others who might be contemplating on pursuing a career in the games industry.

In high school, I was wondering what I want to do for a living and kept going back into wanting to work with arts and culture in one way or another. Multiple sources kept telling me “no” and that there would not be a stable financial future working with anything like those things I loved so much. I didn’t care about the warnings and kept on pushing to do my own thing regardless. I graduated with a Master of Arts degree majoring in digital culture with minors in cultural management, marketing, leadership, and entrepreneurship six years later.

I have been a gamer for as long as I can remember and working with games and gaming cultures had appealed me already during my studies as a viable career path. I moved from Finland to Norway in my last year of studies, despite never having visited the country and not having any connections or speaking the language here. It was super scary to move alone, especially as I had a fairly comfortable life already built in Finland with an OK (nowhere near a dream) job, friends, family, and home, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling there was more life and opportunities somewhere out there. Being unable to stop wondering “what if…” and to avoid becoming bitter when looking back later and wondering why I didn’t make the move when I had the chance, I left it all to give space for personal growth and seeking those opportunities. I wrote my master’s thesis about the history of escape games long distance from Norway.

Since then in four years and counting, I have put roots down here and made my way into my dream jobs as the social media and community manager of a local mobile game company Dirtybit, marketing manager of Norway’s biggest game developers conference Konsoll, and part-owner of a digital comics subscription start-up InkyPen.

I originally started working in the fields of cultural production and marketing over eight years ago through theater and event productions. As part of this, we were creating pervasive (IRL) games for children and youth, though we never really called them games but “drama adventures”. These games immersed participants inside the magic circle we created, like escape rooms or murder mystery dinners do while encouraging playful solving of puzzles and riddles.

I also worked for several years in producing, marketing, and managing escape rooms, which were the first genre of games I had the pleasure to work with professionally. Despite my focus and specialization in my studies having always been in digital culture and producing and understanding digital games, I found pervasive IRL games a great starting point to break into the gaming industry, be creative and gain experience.

Could you tell us a bit about your day to day life and responsibilities at Dirtybit?

I create my own schedules and manage my work independently (while always in collaboration with game teams), prioritizing whichever project goals we have and which game features are in production at any given time. Due to this, my workdays vary a lot; some days I might need to prioritize leading our customer support team and making sure they are equipped to answer the community’s questions in a coherent voice. Other days, I might spend half a day working on social media and marketing strategy and/or content execution and half a day writing in-game communications and programming in-game newsfeed posts to function as intended. Normally, at least part of my day is also spent researching and passing what I see forward to the game teams regarding what things the player community is currently wondering and talking about.

My responsibilities include leading our social media strategy, initiating and executing campaigns and events in-game and outside to engage the player community, creating a healthy community, ensuring communications between the game teams and players flow smoothly, and coordinating our customer support. I also work with broader marketing matters, such as push notifications and user acquisition. 

In my job as the social media and community manager of players from all around the globe, humanities background has helped me to understand and help people from different cultures coexist. Most of my coworkers in the tech field are from backgrounds such as programming. It is my responsibility to help them take the human factor better to account, and bring humanities perspective into decision-making. As a person from humanities working in tech, I am the bridge between the people using the technology and the programmers.

I wouldn’t change this career for the world.

What was your favorite, most beloved or creative marketing and social media campaign?

I have to say the one with our custom “Which Fun Run 3 animal are you?” Instagram AR filter stands out as my most beloved and creative campaign.

I had never created a custom AR filter before and used a couple of less busy workdays to teach myself how to make one online by watching mainly Spanish speaking tutorials, as I couldn’t find others with thorough screenshots of the process at the time about the specific kind of filter I wanted to create. Full disclosure, I don’t speak Spanish, but just had to make it work since I wanted to learn so badly.

Nobody at Dirtybit asked me to do it, but as part of my job is to seek out and identify new marketing opportunities, filters like “Which Disney princess are you?” were trending heavily on Instagram at the time and it appeared as an interesting opportunity to learn a new skill and gain loads of organic visibility to the Fun Run brand.

With the end result, it was very cool to see players sharing their videos with the filter on Instagram, as far too often players become just numbers and statistics especially for developers, who don’t work actively with the community. I created highlights with some of the videos to our Instagram stories and showed them in our weekly meeting internally. The response was overwhelmingly positive with how nice it was for the other developers at Dirtybit to actually see some of our players, as it makes the community more tangible and humanizes the players in a way, making them something more than just statistics.

Try out the final AR filter which has so far gained over 200 000 organic impressions with over 30 000 individual people having taken a picture or a video with the filter here: https://www.instagram.com/ar/764245844052956/.

Thank you for your time, Katriina!

Katriina’s Links: Katriina’s LinkedIn | Katriina’s Twitter | Dirtybit website

WWW Feature by Sophie Brügmann

Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Miryam Houali and Diane Landais, Co-Founders of Accidental Queens. Read more about Miryam and Diane in this interview:

Hi Diane and Miryam, thanks for taking the time to answer our questions! Your game dev studio “Accidental Queens” was founded over three years ago and is well-known for the “Lost Phone” games, as well as for the game “Alt-Frequencies”. Can you tell us a bit more about your journeys into the games industry as programmer and artist, and how you then became queens “by accident”?

The prototype that would become “A Normal Lost Phone” was developed in 48h at the 2016 Global Game Jam, by Diane Landais (programmer), Elizabeth Maler (writer & game designer), Estelle Charrié (2D artist) and Rafael Martínez Jausoro (writer & game designer). At the time, Diane was a programmer for web and mobile games at a small video game studio, where she had been working for 4 years.

The game was then uploaded to Gamejolt and made available for free: it was so warmly received by players and press alike that the team decided to push the game development forward, and quickly grew with the addition of Simon Bachelier (producer), Miryam Houali (2D artist) and Victoria Guillon (sound designer). Miryam was working as a freelance 2D artist and graphic designer at the time, and seized the opportunity because of the perspective of founding a game development studio if the first title was successful. Elizabeth & Miryam had previously met at ENJMIN (French National School of Games and Interactive Media) where they were both students.

We picked “Accidental Queens” as a team name: “accidental” because the success of our game was unexpected, and “queens” to celebrate the majority of women working on it. A few months later, a crowdfunding campaign was launched on Ulule with an objective of 10,000 € needed to turn “A Normal Lost Phone” prototype into a fully complete commercial game. The campaign was successful: 11,200 € are raised from more than 400 backers around the world. “A Normal Lost Phone” was then signed with publishing partner Plug in Digital, allowing us to receive valuable help on the marketing and distribution, and leaving the team more time to focus on the game’s development. We both relocated to Lille, a city in the north of France where Elizabeth was already living. We started working full time on “A Normal Lost Phone” in our brand new office in Tourcoing, while the other team members continued to work on the game remotely.

“A Normal Lost Phone” was finally released on January 26, 2017 on iOS, Android and PC (Win, Mac, Linux). It was critically acclaimed by press and players alike, and sold more than 100 000 copies in less than 3 months. While the others went back to their respective day jobs and studies, Elizabeth and us officially co-founded Accidental Queens as a company to build on this first success, and started working on a new project: “Another Lost Phone: Laura’s Story”, a spiritual sequel to the first game, which followed suit in September 2017 after four months of development with a team of five people. The game was released on September 21, 2017 on iOS, Android and PC (Win, Mac, Linux) and Elizabeth left Accidental Queens shortly after.

We have since then developed and released a third game, “Alt-Frequencies”, and console ports of the Lost Phone games. We are now working on a new, unannounced project nicknamed “Diamonds”.

Your studio is all about creating games that tell stories through unconventional narrative design and mechanics, and deal with topics that most game dev studios or publishers still seem to be reluctant to tackle, especially in “mainstream” games. Which advice would you give to game devs who might be hesitant to tell their story because it doesn’t fit the norm, maybe because they’re afraid of getting exposed to harsh criticism or hate?

Our goal with Accidental Queens isn’t necessarily to “deal with topics that others won’t tackle”. It’s been the case, especially with the Lost Phone series, but we’re less about “swimming against the current”, and more about “being bold and unapologetic” regardless of the exact topics we tackle.

As an indie studio, we have a lot of artistic freedom in how we explore game design and storytelling. We can take risks, experiment, and try new things more easily. We can explore short and simple ideas like “a game entirely taking place inside a radio receiver”. We work with much smaller budgets than AAA productions, so the risks are also lower and we don’t need to appeal to millions of players to stay afloat. We can’t afford everything we need so we occasionally have to compromise on some parts of a game’s development, but never on the resolve and honesty we put in our works. If you need to drop anything, drop the framerate first – heck, drop the gameplay first! – and your identity last. Keep that, front and center, in the way you work and in the final product as well.

There will always be hateful and ignorant people looking to tear down others, but we quickly realized they are a minority, and the positive comments and feedback we have received about our games from people of all walks of life have more than made up for it. We need more diverse and interesting stories told by the very people who experience them so the goalposts for what “fits the norms” can keep being pushed further, until it’s not even a consideration anymore.

Not only do most video games lack diverse stories, but the games industry as a whole still lacks diversity in almost every aspect, too. Do you have any tips for diverse folks where they can find support in pursuing their career in games?

While our industry is still plagued in places by a deeply ingrained toxic culture that can prevent diverse folks from entering it or to feel supported in their career, it’s important to note that we live in a time of cultural shift. A lot of those issues are now discussed publicly, and many professionals and organizations are trying their best to promote diversity in our industry.

Those initiatives are of course always perfectible, it’s a long process, and marginalized folks’ experiences in the video games industry can be wildly different depending on where they live and which big or small studio they worked for.

Though one thing is always true: we are not alone. There are already diverse people working in the industry or aspiring to and it’s crucial to network and support each other. Many communities exist online, from support groups to spaces dedicated to a field of expertise (code, art, etc.) and a lot are welcoming to newcomers and diverse profiles. Networking is important for anyone aspiring to make it in this industry, but even more so for people from diverse backgrounds who might encounter more difficulties on account of who they are.

And while advocacy and community support are important, try not to put more energy into them than into honing your skills (that part is easier said than done, we know!). Hard work is mandatory to make it into any creative industry, and whether you aim at making your own game, joining an indie team, or entering a big AAA studio, you’ll need to be good at what you do! 2020 may have a lasting impact on how to land a job in the games industry, and luck has and will continue to play its role in all of that anyway, but if that’s really what you want to do, please keep trying.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us!

Links: Accidental Queens at Twitter | Accidental Queens’ Website 

Photo Credit: (c) La Fille d’à Côté

WWW Feature by Jessica Hackenbroch