Women at Overwolf — The Games that Made Us.
Gaming isn’t ‘also’ for women, we’ve been here since the beginning and we’re not asking permission to share this space. When gaming was in the arcades, we were there. When gaming came into our homes on consoles and computers, we were there. We’ve been playing, modding, and creating from the very start.
This International Women’s Day we wanted to share stories from the women at Overwolf. Because for so long, the space surrounding games has been a dialog dominated by men. So today we’re speaking up. Sharing our history and why we’re passionate about games.
Bar Wrobel — Creative Marketing Designer
Some of the fondest memories I have from my childhood involve gaming, way before I knew gaming would become a part of my identity. From Neverhood to Diablo, From The Sims to the GTA series. Growing up, I never thought of a game as a “boys’/girls’ game”. It was either fun or not and that could either involve designing an outfit for Barbie or slaying a hoard of undead skeletons.
My current favorite game is The Witcher 3 as it has everything a great game should include: an interesting plot, charming characters, a vast enchanting world to explore, and some great game mechanics. Last but definitely not least, it has some of the coolest female characters I encountered in gaming. They’re pretty, they’re smart, sometimes cunning but always kicking ass. They are no longer the damsels in distress and the male protagonist constantly needs to get on their level.
I love seeing this change in the depiction of female protagonists in gaming over the years (i.e: the Lara Croft series). It hasn’t only given women and girls admirable characters to sympathize with but also made us feel more seen by gaming companies. We’ve been here since day one. Think of what WE would like to see too.
Gali Sabo— Junior PM
I started playing around age 4ish with arcade-like games, space invader style, and the like and my taste grew from there. It’s hard for me to choose a favorite game but at the moment it’s between League of Legends and Hearthstone Battlegrounds. Personally, the gaming world inspires me to constantly be better, to face challenges head-on, to be competitive while learning how to work with a team.
Jasmin Weizman — Product Designer TL
Where do I start? The first game I played was Brick when I was just 5 years old and my favorite console game is Pokemon. But when I was around 9, I really got into PC gaming with Megaman.
Growing up, there were great games that inspired me, but as a kid who was obsessed with the X-men, especially with Storm — I was captivated by the X-men game for Nintendo. As a 12-year-old girl, being able to play as my favorite X-men character was absolutely amazing. She’s always been a fantastic role model for me. Storm is such a wise, chill, confident and emphatic character… not to mention she had OP powers!!! I loved the fact that she wasn’t sexualized and wasn’t just an empty “beauty” character. She was fragile but strong.
Nowadays, I feel like I became her, working on my amazing white hair and the whole thunder thing — but it’s a work in progress :p
Anonymous Aerith
My oldest memories are of waiting for my siblings to finish playing on the SNES/Genesis so that I could get in a few hours of playtime. From there, gaming was my default with almost every moment of my spare time. Early on, story-driven games like Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid other JRPGs helped in forming my moral compass. The desire to do right by people and fight for a better world.
When I struggled through tumultuous adolescence I’d retreat into these games and pull the strength of will and character to make it another day. If a handful of people could go it alone against the world, if they could have everyone tell them that they were in the wrong and still manage to be true to themselves, then so could I.
Without gaming, I wouldn’t be here today. In the present, the challenges I face in-game and my ability to overcome them gives me the strength to work through the challenges that seem so insurmountable in real life.
Sahar Lewenstein — Creative Marketing Director
As far back as I can remember, I’ve always been somewhat of a ‘Gamer’s Anonymous’ player, that is to say that I can totally stop whenever I want (but that want never came). In my childhood I was really into click and play adventure games, like ‘Quest for Glory’ or ‘Day of the Tentacle’ (what a game!). As I grew older, in my teenage years, a game called ‘The Longest Journey’ came out, it was the most amazing story I had experienced up until that point.
The heroine, April Ryan, had the ability to travel between ‘Stark’ (a sci-fi world) and Arcadia (a world of magic) — a magical duality I could easily identify with. Her story of self-discovery and revelation was so inspiring for a teenage geek who has always craved for superpowers but tragically never had any (thanks for nothing, mom).
Years later, a sequel named ‘Dreamfall’ was published which had a cliffhanger ending, that is, until a Kickstarter campaign was launched for the third and final game. The Kickstarter was successful and they released the third game in chapters (hence its name, ‘Dreamfall Chapters’). With each chapter’s release, I became teenage me for a weekend and locked myself away playing non-stop.
That game, and countless others, have inspired me to become more inquisitive, adventurous and assertive and, perhaps most importantly, to make mistakes. Games train you to try again and again until you succeed — so experiencing all those in-game defeats growing up prepared me to deal with the challenges of life.
