Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Somethin' smells Korporate!

Thanks to Alice for the pointer to "girl gamer" site Watch Us Game.

I agree. Something sounds very fragdolls-esque about this. C'mon, not even ONE above 21 years old? above a 21" waist?

The girls look to be legit gamers (links to real clans for Halo, etc) but the site's motives are someone suspect.

Anyhow, cheers to those ladies that are legit!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

aww thanks Kim =)

/Alana (Ms.X)

Anonymous said...

I can assure you that many of us are over 21 and have waists larger than 21". ;)

It's really unfortunate that the Watch Us Game site has given many people a negative impression. I'll admit that I felt a bit of the way you feel about the site upon my first visit, but after I joined the forums and actually talked with some of the women there, I was really impressed. Despite what people think about them from judging them by their pictures, they're actually quite articulate, friendly, down-to-earth people. I recently sent in my profile information to join them, and I am certainly no model!

I really hope people start to actually talk to the girls on the forums and lighten up about WUG. We're truly a group of real girls that like to just have fun and game. ^_~

KimPallister said...

That's great to hear Lauren.

Even if their intentions are less than noble (and I don't know that's teh case); if the site is resulting in positive impact, thats what matters.

I'm still very suspicious of their motives. Submit your profile with several photos? Sometimes the photos are of poor quality or we lose them?

I want to know why they don't have *any* unattractive girls up there.

To be clear, I am sure that all teh girls on the site are legit and are gamers and all that. I have a problem with the fact that, I suspect, some girls are NOT getting on the site because of the goals of those running the site. Again, just a hunch.

Anonymous said...

kim -

I wasn't around for the site's inception, of course, so I'm not sure what the original intentions of the admins were. They could've very well started that site just to generate "eye candy" for the boys. If I thought it was ran that way today, I definitely wouldn't show my face around there. I'm not for that kind of publicity at all.

Luckily, a young woman named Becky Young, a marketing director for some video game projects, joined up only three weeks ago. I think it was her that started to turn the site around and is trying to focus on getting female gamers of all ages to join. Less of a site for the boys. The site still has the original design (which most of us don't like), and I think Becky has some big plans to change it. She's really made us feel welcomed there.

But I understand why there has been a lot of negative commentary on it, and yes, a lot of the girls have a similar 'look' to them. But I think it's something we need to do to try to attract more of a variety of women to the site.

(BTW, it's a small world! I live in Redmond, too. :D )

KimPallister said...

Cool! Do you work in the industry? Attend the Seattle IGDA meetings?

Anonymous said...

Oh man, I wish! :D I'm going to Bellevue Community College (starting at UW Bothell soon) and studying business administration w/ emphasis in marketing while working part-time at a bank. I'd rather be working in the industry. *lol* Oh well, one step at a time, right?

What do you do at Microsoft, if you don't mind me asking?

KimPallister said...

Business development in the Windows group, working on stuff for PC games on the next generation of Windows.

Anonymous said...

That sounds like a really fun job, actually! Were you a business student at one point, too, or more on the IT side of things?

KimPallister said...

Oh jeez. That's a long sordid story.

Short version: Grew up in Montreal, did what the US would call an engineering associates degree, worked at Matrox Graphics during the start of the 3D-on-the-PC arms race; moved to US to work for Intel, managed a developer relations team there, moved up here a couple months ago to take the job with Microsoft for a variety of reasons.

And yes, it's a fun job, an awesome company, and a great industry to work in.