General Discussion

SOE has announced Julia Brasil of San Francisco as the first winner of the G.I.R.L. Game Design Competition.  Julia was awarded a $10k scholarship and a paid internship with SOE by this competition which was designed to resolve the gender imbalance in the gaming industry.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. - July 8, 2008 – Sony Online Entertainment LLC today announced that Julia Brasil of San Francisco has won the 2008 G.I.R.L. Game Design Competition. The competition was the first of its kind and was promoted in conjunction with The Art Institutes system of schools, to encourage students toward career paths in the creative and applied arts, ultimately resulting in the development of games that are more interesting for women to play.

Brasil, a student in the Game Art & Design program, was awarded a $10,000 tuition scholarship toward her education at The Art Institute of California – San Francisco and a paid internship of up to 10 weeks at the Sony Online Entertainment studios of her choice in Austin, Denver, San Diego or Seattle.

“I am shocked and overjoyed to be the first G.I.R.L. Scholarship recipient,” said Brasil. “I’m really looking forward to my internship with SOE, and getting some hands-on experience at such a well-known company. It’s such a great opportunity.”

Read more here.

This whole project stinks, and screams of sexism if you ask me.

I mean seriously, what is this project really about?

The purpose of G.I.R.L. is to positively impact the way females are depicted in video games and create and influence content to be appealing to women. Another purpose is to help raise awareness of the serious female gaming audience to the media in an effort to encourage the gaming industry to positively promote women throughout all facets of games, game production and into game management.

Positive impact the way females are depicted is fine and all, but I don't see how getting more women into the industry has anything to do with that.

" Create and influence content to be appealing to women"

Oh I'm sorry, I was unaware you had to be a woman to create content that is appealing to women. I seriously wonder where they got this ridiculous idea that you have to be female in order to understand what games females like. I think SOE should pay a visit to Nintendo, who has great success in creating games that apeal to women, and see how many women were on the development team, I doubt it's many.

"Raise awareness of the "serious" female gaming audience in the media"

Sorry, but erm...why? I see plenty of attention given to females in gaming magazines and websites, and to be honnest games media should be about the games,not the gamers. 

"positively promote women through out games, game production and game management"

This pisses me off right there, this tiresome obsession with political correctness. Why does it matter if an entire development team is made out of men? It shouldn't matter one bit, what should matter is the skills and the abilities of the developer, not their gender.

Perhaps SOE should be more concerned with the quality of their games instead of the gender of their employees.

I agree with GameLoading but I must say I am quite jelous my job doesn't give me giant checks like she got:

A photogenic girl won this award?  I am shocked!  Shocked!

Wow, I wish I could have gotten a scholarship for being male. That certainly would have put a dent in my $250K worth of higher education (and currently rising). Ridiculous.

The next contest will be T.O.T.S.

It will be aimed at those under the age of 10 who wish to be in gaming. SOE will be giving out allowance scholarships of 1 year supplies of Baskin Robbins ice cream. In turn, as G.I.R.L. allowed SOE a glimpse  of the female gamer perspective, T.O.T.S. will give SOE a glimpse of the core WoW player, allowing SOE to be that much closer to finally making a WoW clone from scratch, instead of trying to manipulate existing games into such.

Stay tuned for more details at your next PTA meeting.

Note: This is a satirical post. No WoW players, young or old, were harmed during the typing and posting process.

I kind of agree that this is sexist. Women blew their tops when that particular golf course wouldnt allow women. But this is okay? Double Standard ftw.

P.S. I did think it was odd that off all the deserving applicants they select a nice looking one. This reeks of PR.

I think the important answer that we all really wanna know is: Does she look good in a bikini?

You guys are idiots! Everyone knows girls don't like or play games...duh!

Many industries have been primarily 'boys clubs' so good for her. That said, the actual contest was just a way for SOE to get advertisement and maybe churn up a few femme popularity votes.