:: WomenGamers.Com in the News

GDC 08: Interview With Phaedra Boinodiris
GayGamer.net - February 2008
Boy of Tomorrow from GayGamer.net meets up with WomenGamers.Com's very own Phaedra "Circe" Boinodiris to discuss life, gaming, and Ladies Night Out in Seoul.

The Year's Most Offensive Video Games: The First Five
PC World Canada - December 2007
"We're hunting for a dangerously sexy vixen with the goods to make us moan," reads an ad for a contest sponsored by IGN, MySpace, and Playboy. The ad was illustrated with a topless model coquettishly clutching her naughty bits. Unfortunately, the quest for a pinup girl had nothing whatsoever to do with the game. Said respected game site WomenGamers.com: "The next time people say, 'The industry does not objectify women,' we will point to that picture and this contest."

A Woman's Touch
Minneapolis Star Tribune - May 2007
Boinodiris, who grew up playing "Pac-Man" and "Donkey Kong," is the co-founder of WomenGamers.com. She consults with game companies on how to tweak ...

Video Games Now Starring Strong Female Characters
PopMatters - May 2007

Boinodiris, who grew up playing Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, is the co-founder of WomenGamers.com. She consults with game companies, offering advice on how to tweak characters, how to fashion invented worlds, how to create games that are more palatable to feminine tastes. “Companies are waking up and paying more attention,” Boinodiris said.

Strong Female Characters Find Roles in Video Games
The Macon Telegraph, GA - May 2007

Focus on Development Diversity
Next Generation - May 2007
Their candid discussion focused on the necessary skills for an entry level job in the game industry, and different approaches to getting hired by a game studio.  Susan Gold reminded the audience, "When it comes to a demo, you only have 30 seconds to get their attention…make it count!"  Ismini Boinodiris Roby cautioned, "There’s a big difference between making games and being passionate about games.  A lot of students drop out of the games industry because it' not as fun as they expect...be sure you understand the challenges and expectations of each job."

Video Games Take a Turn to the Female
The Wichita Eagle, KS - April 2007
Nobody told her. And Phaedra Boinodiris never noticed. Insulated by a family of controller-wielding women, encouraged by female cousins who were weaned on Atari and ColecoVision, Boinodiris plunged into the world of gaming without learning Rule No. 1: Video games are for little boys, not little girls.

Women Growing in Video Games as Consumers, Designers
WTOC11, GA - April 2007
According to WomenGamers.com, 76 percent of women who participated in a study said they play casual games during their leisure time (Information Solutions Group, 2006). WomenGamers.com also cited that middle-aged women are more likely to be heavy gamers over teenage boys (Ziff Davis Game Group, 2006).

Women In Games Mixer in LA
Myth Games Portal - April 2007

Game Recruiting Guru Joins Speaker Line-up at WIGI-Savannah Conference
MPOGD.com - April 2007
With the panel moderated by Sam Lewis, Lead Game Designer at Cartoon Network, Mencher will be joined by fellow panelists Ismini Boinodiris Roby, co-founder of WomenGamers.com; Bryant Freitag,, Architecture and Licensing Lead at Big Huge Games; Darius Kazemi of Orbus Gameworks and Tess Snider, Senior Game Systems Programmer at Trion World Network.

NorthJersey.com - March 2007

Gaming Gets a Female Touch
The Wichita Eagle, KS - March 2007
The popularity of video games is reaching new heights, carried aloft not just by boys with too much time on their hands but by cell phone-toting women with just enough time for a quick play. These gamers aren't killing cops or scoring touchdowns. More often they're solving puzzles, playing with puppies or helping comrades slay dragons - and during the battle, healing their fallen friends.

WomenGamers.Com and National Computer Camp Offer New Scholarship for Gaming Girls
Carolina Newswire - February 2007

Girl Gamer Scholarship Hopes to Interest Females in Games Industry
ars technica - February 2007
The entire opportunity being offered by WomenGamers.com and the National Computer Camp is a very positive one for the game industry as a whole. Too often the mass media represents the gaming community as being the breeding ground for issues like violence, obesity and various other negative things without mentioning the many positive aspects of the community. The objective behind this scholarship demonstrates quite readily that the community is eager to help develop and influence people towards a productive career in an expanding market, and such an initiative deserves kudos.

CES 2007: Ismini Roby Moderates a Panel on Understanding the Female Gamer
GamesIndustry.biz - January 2007
Moderated by Ismini Boinodiris Roby, Co-Founder and Chief Editor of WomenGamers.com , the panel is made up of notable gaming experts in addition to Ms. Walker [CEO and Co-Founder of MaryMargaret.com], including Sheri Graner Ray, Game Design Consultant and author of "Gender Inclusive GameDesign"; Robert Riedl, Executive Producer, Her Interactive, Inc.; and Jason Rubinstein, Senior Director of Global Product Marketing, Mobile Devices Business, Motorola, Inc. This in-depth session will focus on a Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) survey which found that women gamers outnumber men gamers in the 25-34 age group. The panelists will explain the findings of this survey and explore strategies for targeting female gamers and other non-traditional players.

Passing the Joystick to a New Generation
Philadelphia Inquirer - January 2007

Will Women Playing Games Work for Her?
Business North Carolina - January 2007

Video Game Industry Ignoring Women Gamers
Chicago Tribune - January 2007

Phaedra Boinodiris Honored as One of the Game Industry's 100 Most Influential Women
Next Generation - September 2006
Boinodiris examined present and future market needs of the game industry to develop and launch the largest women’s gaming portal on the Internet, WomenGamers.Com. Her efforts have won her accolades throughout the international press, as well as key roles on the boards of several institutes of higher education. She points out, "WomenGamers.Com has helped to put women who play games on the emerging markets radar. This step is critical in the process of ensuring that women continue to be integrated into the gaming industry both as consumers and more importantly as movers and shakers."

Gender-Bending Popular in Video Games
Fox News - August 2006
For a variety of reasons, Williams isn't the only guy with a preference for female characters, according to Kathryn Wright, a psychologist in Raleigh, N.C., who consults for the Web site WomenGamers.com. In an informal survey she conducted with 64 males, more than half said choosing a female character gave them a distinct gameplay advantage. And while a quarter said they played women characters because it added to the role-playing experience, Wright said others had a simpler explanation: visual stimulation. "They'd rather look at a character that looks like Lara Croft than a character that looks like Rambo,"she said.

E3 2006: Who's Game?
National Public Radio - May 2006

Not Just a Guy's Game Anymore
Technician Online - February 2006
Ismini Boinodiris Roby and Phaedra Boinodiris are not who most people might peg as "gamers." For starters, they're women. But the two sisters, founders of WomenGamers.com, mean to change all that.

Gaming's Next Frontier: Women
The News & Observer - February 2006
Boinodiris e-mailed me a video game ad that sums up the struggle. It's a 2003 advertisement for Namco's MotoGp3, a motorcycle game. The ad features a woman in a green dress whose skirt is blown up by a passing motorcycle to reveal checkerboard underpants. The ad's tag line is, "Race for the flag. Win for the Glory." "I think this accurately represents what we are up against," she said.

The Game Is On
Winston-Salem Journal, NC - December 2005

Designer Suits: Incorporating Marketing into Game Development
Gamasutra - December 2005
Barbie Fashion Designer (arguably a role-playing hame aimed at young women) sold 500,000 copies in its first two months (womengamers.com). Those numbers describe a pretty big market of young, female PC gamers who enjoy role-playing and community, justifying a significant budget. Is that budget large enough to create a game that better fits this market than Barbie Fashion Designer or World of Warcraft? Good question.

Changing Gaming's Masculine Image
BBC News - August 2005
Marketing managers in the industry, seem to aim their message at the male audience most of the time. So it is no wonder that websites like Womengamers.com have sprung up over the years, offering reviews and articles for females. The co-founder of Womengamers.com, Phaedra Boinodiris, says: "Back in the 1990s we opened most gaming magazines and looked at most gaming websites and they were catering to the young male. We felt women who liked to play computer and console games, were completely ignored and an untapped market segment."

BBC World Coverage of WG
BBC World - August 2005

Women in Games International Conference in San Francisco Game Industry Leaders Discuss Hot Career Topics
GamesIndustry.Biz - July 2005
Conference sponsors include Microsoft Game Studios, Game Developers Conference (GDC), International Games Developers Association (IGDA), Mary-Margaret.com, Girls in Games, ThemePark Studios, WomenGamers.com and BusinessWire. This event is presented in cooperation with the Women in Games Conference in the U.K.

Electronic Entertainment Expo: A Big, Big Show
USA Today - May 2005
BBC technology editor Alfred Hermida was struck by the 20something and 30something men playing fighting games in the presence of "booth babes," even as ESA president Douglas Lowenstein urges a cultural shift to remind women that games are for them, too. WomenGamers.com seems intent on proving that there is an audience for such a shift, and one parent on the site urges the gaming industry to give everyone a few options for "wusses" like her."

Video-Game Industry Seeks a Woman's Touch
Seattle Times - October 2004
Ismini Roby, co-founder of WomenGamers.com, said there's a stereotype that women are interested only in simple puzzles or card games. "We don't all like pink, and we don't all like the same types of games," she said. "The reality is that women like a variety of genres."

Women Make Small Inroads in Game Industry
USA Today - September 2004
At SMU, Guildhall has partnered with the online female job recruiting Web site Mary-Margaret.com and the game review Web site WomenGamers.com to create what's believed to be the first video game scholarship for women in the nation. The scholarship will provide about $18,500, or half the cost of an 18-month certification program.

A New Player at The Video Screen
Washington Post - July 2004
"When it comes to girls, gaming interests run the gamut," says Phaedra Boinodiris. "Asking what women want to play is like asking what kind of movies women want to watch. It's very divergent. That's what the industry is so slow to realize." Boinodiris took action in 1999. With her sister, husband and cousin -- all of them "passionate" gamers -- she started Womengamers.com, one of the few women's gaming portals on the Internet. "It comes down to choices," Boinodiris says. "Women would like better female characters and more of them, and more gender-neutral games where, as a player, you don't have to play a man. It's simple, really. Women want marketing that acknowledges that women gamers do exist."

Gamepro & PS2 Magazine GR - July 2004
Gamepro & PS2 Magazine GR interview the staff of WomenGamers.Com for their July 2004 issue.

Brownsville Herald - April 2004
Brownsville Herald quotes WomenGamers.Com in an article about women who play computer and console games.

Chicago Tribune - September 2003
Chicago Tribune features WG while discussing latest ESA statistics.

New York Post - September 2003
New York Post features WG while discussing latest ESA statistics.

Houston Chronicle - August 2003
Houston Chronicle discusses impact of women's sites on the Internet.

Shift Magazine - October 2002
Newspapers do a horrible job of covering videogames, now a mainstream phenomenon. On the internet, there are plenty of webzines like GameCritics.com, Joystick101.org, RobotStreetGang.com and Womengamers.com that are covering their cultural impact.

SciFi Site of the Week
SciFi.com - September 2002
WomenGamers.com shatters stereotypes about gamers, proving that yes, women game and yes, they can kick butt.

Pokey Man Big in Japan
Wired News - November 2001
"If enough games and media sources show a behavior as being funny or acceptable, then it can encourage that behavior," said Kathryn Wright, a psychologist in Raleigh, North Carolina, who consults at WomenGamers.com. "On the other hand, it depends on the individual. I think there are a lot of young boys who can play a game like (Boong-ga, Boong-ga), and know that it's not appropriate to go out into public and start pinching and poking people."

Metro Magazine - August 2001
WomenGamers.Com voted one of SEVEN top online publishing, media companies to watch in the Triangle area by metroNC for second year in a row!

ON Magazine & Tech TV - May 2001
Co-Founder Circe of WomenGamers.Com is quoted in both ON Magazine (TIME spinoff) and Tech TV on how women are being depicted in games and what the future holds.

Barrons Magazine - May 2001
Prestigious business journal Barrons magazine turns to WomenGamers.Com for their view of how the X-Box will hold up.

NewsFactor Network - March 2001
NewsFactor Network quotes WomenGamers.Com in an article that discusses websites that cater to women.

Houston Chronicle - March 2001

Female Game Players Demand, And Get, Developers' Attention
The Wall Street Journal - February 2001
Despite the belt-tightening, WomenGamers still attracts fans like Kacie Miner, an eighth-grader from Raleigh, N.C., who asked her parents to buy Baldur's Gate for her 14th birthday after researching it on the web site. 'It makes games more available to women and make it feel more like it's all right and it's perfectly normal' to play, Ms. Miner says.

PSi-2 Magazine - February 2001
British magazine PSi-2 spotlights WomenGamers.Com in their article "Sisters are Playin it for Themselves"(February issue).

Women on the Gaming Front
Guardian Unlimited - February 2001
That's why Phaedra Boinodiris and her sister Ismini set up the gaming portal Womengamers.com. "Most gaming magazines, game box covers, gaming banner ads, and gaming websites cater to the young male," she says. "Our aim is an environment where women gamers can be integrated with the rest of the community. It's time female preferences were taken into account." Women gamers can feel isolated, she says. "We feel like pioneers in one of the last frontiers. Ismini and I have developed a clearer understanding of what we imagine our mother went through as one of the first women graduating in computer engineering back in the 60s."

The Guardian - February 2001
The Guardian posted an article showcasing WomenGamers.Com and discussing the process of integrating female gamers into the gaming scene, and the different needs of the market.

All Things Considered - The Sims
National Public Radio - September 2000
WomenGamers.Com co-founder and consulting psychologist, Dr. Kathryn Wright, talks to the National Public Radio show, Weekend All Things Considered, about The Sims.

Clicking with Girl Power
News and Observer - July 2000
News and Observer puts WomenGamers.Com on the front page of the Connect section in their article, "Clicking with Girl Power".

Virtual Sexpots: No End in Sight
Wired News - July 2000
Kathryn Wright, consulting psychologist of WomenGamers.com, says some publishers and game makers are falling short. In May, the site created an activism forum that encourages visitors to contact game publishers with their concerns.

WG Listed in High Tech 100 Online Publishers to Watch
Metro Magazine - July 2000
MetroMagazine's "High-tech 100" is a presentation, in actuality, of some 110 companies in nine different sectors of the high-tech economy that represent the driving dollars-and-sense forces in the southeast US region. As textile plants close, tobacco sales slow and many other traditional manufacturing jobs disappear, the high-tech industry's importance to Tar Heels--especially from Research Triangle Park to Down East--increases.

WomenGamers.Com Speaks to Girls on Track
Girls on Track - July 2000
The staff of WomenGamers.Com spoke to 80 middle-school girls from the Triangle who have spent two weeks of their summer at "Girls on Track," a math and computer camp running from July 3 through today at Meredith College. The topic? Women and Gaming of course!

WomenGamers.Com Speaks to SWAT Camp 2000
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Distance Learning Network - June 2000
WomenGamers.Com and game designer Christopher Roby of Sinister Games speak to seven rural CyberCampuses across North Carolina through the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics Distance Learning Network. The network strives to educate students from all over North Carolina via interactive broadcast over the North Carolina Information Highway (NCIH).

Kiwibox.com Coverage of WG
Kiwibox.com - May 2000
These enlightening articles present a new view of some of the things that many do not even stop to think about, and the discussion forums ajoined to these articles allow the various members to discuss their own personal views of the articles. This truely revolutionary gaming site is one of the few sites on the Internet that should be present on everyone’s Bookmarks list.

Entertainment Weekly - March 2000
Gynocentric gaming sites are common nowadays, but how many have their own psychologist? Dr. Kathryn Wright of Raleigh, N.C., deconstructs the likes of Lara Croft alongside the staff's reviews of games featuring "digital women" (Space Bunnies Must Die rates among the worst). Relax, guys: Three thousand titles of varying genres reside in the Game Quest recommendation system, which lets newbies browse (and purchase) titles using such criteria as violence and, yes, character gender. Sharp, slick, and XX-rated. A-

WRALTV5 local news - January 2000
When they hit the classroom, boys already have a jump on young girls because they're already more comfortable," Wright says. "They're spending a lot more time having fun on the computer, and that's part of the problem." Wright is part of WomenGamers.com, a Web site that publishes gaming reviews, game recommendations, and articles about women's technology issues. Members also speak to the Webgirls at Cary Academy.

News and Observer - October 1999

Local Family Prepares to Launch WomenGamers.com
Local Tech Wire - August 1999
Boinodiris describes WomenGamers.com as "female friendly," but not just for women. As more women play computer games, the male-dominated industry may change. "Its games are mainly marketed toward men," Boinodiris said. "The women that are portrayed in the games, if at all, are often portrayed misogynistically."

Women With Weapons - Female gamers mixing it up with the guys in Web shoot-'em-ups
San Francisco Chronicle - August 1999
But Women Gamers site editor Ismini Boinodiris points out that there's still a lot out there to discourage female action players. ``Sometimes women get harassed pretty badly if they go online with a female name,'' says Boinodiris, 22. ``They especially harass you in a strongly sexual way if you're winning. Some men can't handle it. They think women can't play games, that it's not their territory. And those few guys are the loudest and create chaos in the rest of the community.

WRALTV 5 local news and Europe's SKY News - July 1999
Computer games are a billion dollar industry, but it could be a lot bigger with the help of a new Web site developed by a Triangle family. The Boinodiris women are serious about gaming, and their new Web site, WomenGamers.com, will be launched Wednesday.

A Woman Who's Up for a Game
Triangle Business Journal - July 1999
Her current project has received e-mails of encouragement from women gamers around the world. These vocal consumers will have the opportunity to express their opinions on WomenGamers.com as well, by rating games.