A Small List Of Women In The Videogames Industry
Today is International Women’s Day 2019. This is a small list of women who made contributions to the videogame industry. #InternationalWomensDay2019 #InternationalWomensDay
Last year, I gave a talk about female inventors from the Philippines, at Noisebridge’s “5 Minutes Of Fame — International Women’s Day Edition”.
This year, I will make a small list of women who contributed to the videogame industry. This is by no means a comprehensive list, so if I’m missing your favorite, let us know who they are in the comments below! ^_^
Kim Swift
Videogame designer. One of the creators of “Portal”, “Left 4 Dead”, and “Half Life 2: Episode 1”.(@K2theSwift)
Corrinne Yu
Was originally an Electrical Engineer, before becoming a programmer. Worked on “King’s Quest”, and created 3D game engines, one of which was used for “Spec Ops”. Also worked on “Brothers In Arms” and “Borderlands.” participated in CUDA and GPU simulation at NVidia. researched new lighting techniques, and invented new dynamic radiosity algorithms. Microsoft applied a software patent for Yu’s Halo lighting work.
Mary DeMarle
Lead writer and narrative designer of “Deus Ex: Human Revolution”. These are Youtube interviews of her:
Nuria Pelechano
http://www.lsi.upc.edu/~npelechano/
Currently an Associate Professor (Professor Agregat) at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC) in Barcelona, her research and algorithms for computer graphics modeling and simulating crowds in virtual environments is widely used in contemporary videogames and simulations.
Carol Shaw
Notable for being one of the first female designers in the video game industry. Worked on a lot of Activision games like “River Raid” and “Happy Trails”. Also worked on a lot of Atari games.
Brenda Laurel
A “pioneer in developing virtual reality”, and one of the earliest female game designers. Worked on a lot of Atari games.
(I actually have this book: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/brenda-laurel-9781501319792/)
Amy Hennig
Game director and script writer for Crystal Dynamics and for Naughty Dog. Among others, she worked on the “Legacy Of Kain” series, and the “Jak & Daxter” and the “Uncharted” series.
Kellee Santiago
Worked on many games in thatgamecompany with Jenovah Chen as a game designer.
Danielle Bunten Berry
American game designer and programmer, known for the 1983 game M.U.L.E. (one of the first influential multiplayer games), and 1984’s The Seven Cities of Gold. In 1998 she was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Computer Game Developers Association. And in 2007, the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences chose Bunten to be inducted into their Hall of Fame.
The Google Doodle today is really cute, by the way!
I know that this is not a comprehensive list, and I’m missing a lot of women in videogames. I think that’s great, since this list is ever-growing!
What do you think? Who would you like to see added to this list? Did I miss any of your favorites? Let us know in the comments below! Let us know in the comments below. Thanks in advance! ^_^
