List of women in the video game industry

This is a list of notable women in the video game industry.

Notable women in the video game industry

Tracy Fullerton

Yoko Kanno

Heather Kelley

Siobhan Reddy

Brenda Romero

Kellee Santiago

Kim Swift

• Dona Bailey is an American game programmer who, along with Ed Logg in 1981, created the arcade video game Centipede.^[1][2]
• Ellen Beeman, American fantasy and science fiction author, cofounder the industry group Women in Games International, and computer game designer/producer since the 1990s^[3] Since 2014, she has been a faculty member at DigiPen Institute of Technology.^[4] She is credited for development of over 40 video games, for publishers including Disney, Electronic Arts, Microprose, Microsoft, Monolith, Origin, and Sega.^[5]
• 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. She was the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Computer Game Developers Association.^[6]
• Tracy Fullerton, American game designer, educator and writer.^[7][8] Fullerton’s work has received numerous industry honors.^[9]
• Emily Greer, cofounder and CEO of Kongregate.
• Jennifer Hale, voice actress best known for her work in video game franchises including Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, Metroid Prime, Metal Gear Solid, Soulcalibur, Spider-Man, BioShock Infinite, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. In 2013, she was recognized by Guinness World Records for "the most prolific videogame voice actor (female)"
• Amy Hennig, is a video game director and script writer, formerly for the video game company Naughty Dog. She began her work in the industry on the Nintendo Entertainment System, with her design debut on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City. She later went to work for Crystal Dynamics, working primarily on the Legacy of Kain series as the Writer and Director. With Naughty Dog, her work has been on two primary series: Jak and Daxter and Uncharted.
• Robin Hunicke, producer of Journey and cofounder of Funomena.
• Jane Jensen, video game designer most known of the popular and critically acclaimed Gabriel Knight series of adventure games
• Yoko Kanno, Japanese composer, arranger and musician^[10]
• Rieko Kodama, artist and director known her work on the Phantasy Star series and other Sega titles including Skies of Arcadia and the 7th Dragon series.^[11]
• Heather Kelley is a media artist and video game designer, most famous as the founder of Perfect Plum, a start-up specializing for software for women. She is also a co-founder of the Kokoromi experimental game collective.^[12]
• Manami Matsumae, Japanese video game composer
• Carla Meninsky, video game designer during the early years of the Atari 2600
• Jade Raymond, Canadian video game executive, founder of Electronic Arts' Motive Studios, head of Visceral Games, and former Managing Director of Ubisoft Toronto
• Siobhan Reddy, co-founder and studio director of Media Molecule, a video game development studio based in the United Kingdom, most famous for their debut title LittleBigPlanet. In 2009 she won the Production Award at the first ever Microsoft Women in Gaming Awards,^[13] and at the same awards in 2014 she won the Innovator Award.^[14][15]
• Brenda Romero, American game designer and developer.^[16] She has won several awards in her long career.^{[17][18][19][20][21]}
• Bonnie Ross, American video game developer and head of 343 Industries, the studio that manages the Halo video game franchise.
• Kellee Santiago is a video game designer and producer. While studying at the USC Interactive Media Division at the University of Southern California, Santiago produced the game Cloud which was developed by Jenova Chen and a team of students. After graduating, Santiago and Chen founded Thatgamecompany, and Santiago took on the role of president. Santiago left Thatgamecompany in 2012. She is a backer for the Indie Fund, a TED fellow, and the head of developer relations for OUYA.^[22]
• Carol Shaw was the first woman who was a full-time video game designer. She began as an Atari employee, designing and programing 3-D Tic-Tac-Toe (1979) for the Atari 2600.^[23] Shaw later joined Activision where she designed Happy Trails for the Intellivision and River Raid for the Atari 800 and Atari 5200 for which she is most widely known. Additionally, she designed an unreleased Polo game in 1978 and worked on the game Super Breakout.^[24]
• Yoko Shimomura is a Japanese video game composer and pianist who has composed or contributed to nearly one hundred video game soundtracks.
• Kim Swift, American video game designer best known for her work at Valve with games such as Portal and Left 4 Dead.^[25] Swift was featured by Fortune as one of "30 Under 30" influential figures in the video game industry.^[26] She was described in Mental Floss as one of the most recognized women in the industry^[25] and by WIRED as "an artist that will push the medium forward".^[26]
• Laura Teclemariam, known for leading player engagement strategy^[27] at EA and for Mirror's Edge and FIFA 17^[28][29]
• Joyce Weisbecker was the first woman to design commercial video games, creating several games for the RCA Studio II console in 1976.^[30]
• Roberta Williams is an American video game designer, writer and a co-founder of Sierra On-Line (later known as Sierra Entertainment). She is known for her pioneering work in the field of graphic adventure games, with titles such as Mystery House, the King's Quest series, and Phantasmagoria, and is viewed as one of the most influential PC game designers of the eighties and nineties.^[31] She has been credited with creating the graphic adventure genre.^[32]
• Joelle Silverio is an American video game designer, software engineer, animator, and visual effects artist. She is best known for her work as game designer on Killing Floor 2 for Tripwire Interactive. Silverio began her career with Hi-Rez Studios and CCP Games, working on Global Agenda, Tribes: Ascend, SMITE, EVE Online, and World of Darkness.
• Michiru Yamane is a Japanese video game composer.
• Corrinne Yu, American game programmer who started her career with the King's Quest series for the Apple II. Yu wrote the original engine for the Spec Ops series, and was a founding member of Microsoft's Direct 3D Advisory Board.
• Keiko Erikawa is a Japanese video game designer and co-founder of Koei. She formed Ruby Party team by only women and then the team developed and released Angelique, the first Otome game, in 1994.^[33][34]
• Christine Love is a Canadian video game developer.

References