Gamers in Real Life Profile
MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh headed back to the Sony Online Entertainment offices to speak with the last two years' winners of the G.I.R.L. scholarship, designed to promote women in the gaming workforce. In this article, she speaks with previous winners and encourages potential applicants to put their hats in the ring this year.
Interviews By Carolyn Koh on January 29, 2010
Sony Online Entertainment recently announced that applications were open for their third annual G.I.R.L. scholarship and MMORPG caught up with SOE and the last two winners to see how well the program has done and where it's gone since its inception in 2008.
G.I.R.L is an acronym for Gamers In Real Life and was created with the goal to positively impact the way females are depicted in video games, and to create and influence content to be appealing to women. The scholarship program is designed to educate and recruit more women into the field of video game production and design, although it is not strictly limited to women. The chosen scholar receives $10,000 that is paid to their school for their program expenses such as tuition, books, room and board, and a paid internship to an SOE studio of choice.
"Yes, there have been male applicants over the past two years who have been qualified and even a few made it to the semi-final round!" said Sara Kaplan, Manager of Corporate Communications at SOE. "We love how men show their support for the G.I.R.L. program just as much as women do!"
The first scholarship winner Julia Brasil had to submit a piece of concept art, a level design for Everquest 2 and two essays. Although the monetary award was very nice, she was more interested in the internship opportunity.
"It was a great experience," said Julia. "I knew that working in the game industry would be really cool, but I also didn't have any idea what it would really be like. The game industry is like this cool but nebulous thing. I also wasn't really sure whether I wanted to concentrate on game design or art and the internship helped me focus. I found that I really enjoyed building environments and characters and that's where my studies are concentrated in now, game art."
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Rebecca Gleason, the 2009 winner also submitted essays and created two characters and an environment for Free Realms. She is looking forward to the internship.
"The program I'm in is a general broad program and the game industry is like this big mystery. I know I want to do something in games, but I'm not sure of the direction I want to take."
Rebecca hopes that the internship will help her decide. "Winning the scholarship was the best day of my life! I'm really excited and can't wait to start the internship."
The scholarship was originally offered only to Art Institute students and SOE refers to the first offering as a learning process.
"We considered that a trial run," said Sara, "to see if it was something we could offer for years to come. After Julia Brasil was announced the first recipient, we got so many inquiries such as "when is SOE planning to announce the next one" and "where can we sign up?"! We were shocked, but at the same time extremely pleased that our goal of creating these opportunities for students was finally coming to fruition."
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That the scholarship is now administered by a scholarship management service, Scholarship America in its third year, shows how dramatically the number of applicants has grown. The scholarship is now open to all schools with video game programs. Based on feedback from the past two years, the submission portion of the competition has also grown easier. This year, applicants have to submit a piece of original art electronically in jpg format. Eligible semi-finalists who make the art cut will have to further submit:
- Two (2) pieces of concept art;
- A brief caption describing each piece of concept art; and
- A five hundred (500) word essay describing why the entrant wants to work in the video games industry, how the entrant could improve the image of women within video games and how the entrant's improvements could facilitate the creation of games that more women will play.
Why a piece of art, we wanted to know and asked if a piece of code had ever been submitted.
"It's more of a "creativity requirement"! By asking for an existing piece of artwork, it allows us to see if the applicant has an artistic, creative or unique side in the beginning of the process, rather than during the submission portion of the competition only. We've seen some interesting submissions over the past two years, so we tweaked it a bit this year and are having students send a piece of art in the beginning," said Sara. "Don't get me wrong, we definitely want students to have fun with this, but we're trying to be as fair as possible to every applicant."
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For interested readers, the eligibility rules and application process can be found here, at: https://www.scholarshipamerica.org/gamersinreallife/ Don't wait too long. Submission deadline is February 15, 2010 at 11:59pm PST and only the first 3,000 applications will be considered.
"It's great that SOE has already given two extremely talented female students a foot in the door and the chance to make contacts and connect with other members of the industry," said Sara. "The G.I.R.L. Scholarship is one of the most exciting times of the year for us and we look forward to meeting and mentoring the 2010 recipient!"
I read the statement "G.I.R.L is an acronym for Gamers In Real Life and was created with the goal to positively impact the way females are depicted in video games" and then look over to the ndoors game ad background and see the pre-pubescent female character with massive cleavage falling out of her tiny shirt....... Maybe we do need more programs like this.
The in article add for Age of Connan has a big animation that says, and i quote,
"Cleavage" with a busty chick in leather armor, followed later by a guy greeding a chalice of beer, then some war scene and "carnage"
everyone needs a cause
Kudos to Rebecca for what has to be a great thrill, albeit a well deserved one.
Best of luck to her in the future.
How bout male characters with really big bulges... :D
Interesting read. I do agree that females are taken well out of context in some games (hawt bulging bikini cla- Ahem!) and it'll be great to see some real, fresh gem's in the industry beginning to shine through this scholarship.
Is this available worldwide, just as an afterthought?
why dont they have something like this for guys? o.O
ROFLMAO, L2R.
"G.I.R.L is an acronym for Gamers In Real Life and was created with the goal to positively impact the way females are depicted in video games, and to create and influence content to be appealing to women. The scholarship program is designed to educate and recruit more women into the field of video game production and design, although it is not strictly limited to women. The chosen scholar receives $10,000 that is paid to their school for their program expenses such as tuition, books, room and board, and a paid internship to an SOE studio of choice."
++++++++++++++++++++
Soon as they come up with a " rooney rule " directed towards women, then I will start to take their efforts seriously. Although I think it is kind of sad that companies have to come up with these sort of gimicks to improve their image.
Yes SOE ruined SWG 7 or 10 years ago. Get over it already.
I hate positive discrimination.
“The scholarship program is designed to educate and recruit more women into the field of video game production and design, although it is not strictly limited to women.”
Is this an admission that the programme, by be limited to one gender breaks equality laws?
Oh and they are trying to move away from caling it PD now, I think using the word ‘discrimination’ in something that was supposed to be a force for good rather gave the game away.
Positive action is a term found in the UK, I am not sure about elsewhere, it has a feel good factor that appeals to those for whom being politically correct is a religious conviction.
I agree, just because girl gamers have some magical air about them to men. I don't care if the person I am killing has boobs or balls. I also acknowledge the fact that most games are demographically created for men, huge boobed women, lots of killing and explosions! Not saying women dont like that ofc.
Just to put this into retrospect, would a man play a female avatar and relate to that character? Do females relate to male characters such as Geralt in The Witcher, a man who sleeps with every woman he can see and the women he sleeps with fall madly in-love with him the second they see him. Its a male's wishfull day dream.
Once games become unisex in character development, then we will see an equal demographic in gaming. (But I dont see that happaning soon. Why Alienate 80% of the gaming community with games which are not aimed for them)
Nice to see the gaming job market finally targeting to hire the other half of the population. I wonder how long it will take them to start handing out Neuter, Hermaphrodite, and Transgendered scholarships?
As do I. But read it on its merits...
It's great to see a huge corporate-grade titan getting involved with more of the grassroots aspects of gaming: those looking for a way in the door of studios. Sure, I'm not naive enough to believe it's all sunshine and rainbows and that Sony doesn't have agendas unseen by the media, but it is a stroke of positive light for the gaming industry in general. Hopefully, we might even see more open-door policies with large-name producers and studios between fans, aspiring employees, current employees, and product that brings them all together.
Wait...wasn't G.I.R.L originally Guy in real life? xD
Take boobs out of games? Sure. No playable game should have to use sex to sell. I've never understood it anyway. What drives me to want to play games is a completely different chemistry than sex drive--it's all about comraderie and violence, man stuff. Think boxers being told not to screw before a fight... Sure having a girl in some rpg story can be relevant but it shouldn't be the point.
But exploitation? If it weren't for women's boobs and butts attracting men we wouldn't be here so that's just dumb. They all do the same thing in real life. So what? Now they feel insecure because some pixel slut looks hotter?
And the big one, having to raise some banner to get a group of people to feel welcome in a particular work arena just shows how lame our culture is. Why not let women just do what they feel is natural? Women at large would rather beat their men over the head for playing video games, not join them. It makes the world go 'round. I personally I enjoy listening to the scalding phone conversations at my lan parties and knowing I had something to do with it. :)
... so much W.R.O.N.G. stuffed in so few lines...
I think the problem is that women need to make up their mind about what role they want to take in modern society. Let's face it, the world would be a better place if they could make a decision between shutting up and doing the dishes, or learning to lap dance properly.
Sounds like a great program and seems very encouraging to those interested in the gaming field.
I've always thought Girl meant.... Guy In Real Life...
Just what I've always known... weird seeing this acronym now.
Guy In Real Life. LMAO.
+1
Girsl I recommaned to you hello kitty online!
Fucking apealing sht
Yes SOE ruined SWG 7 or 10 years ago. Get over it already.
I think you missed the point, name us one laudable thing SOE has done since then. 7 years is a long time in this industry without producing anything mentionable. No wonder that subject keeps popping up!
In response to G.I.R.L. I say G.A.R.L.I.C. Games Are Real Life Internet Computing. I'll be laughing all the way to the bank with that one. *grin*