Games industry veterans Brenda Bailey Gershkovitch and Kirsten Forbes have founded Silicon Sisters Interactive, a Vancouver-based development studio focused on creating games for a female audience.
The founders of the studio previously worked at other Vancouver-based developers, and have a combined 18 years of experience in the industry,
Silicon Sisters CEO Brenda Bailey Gershkovitch is the former COO of Deep Fried Entertainment (MLB Superstars, Wii) and serves as chair of the Vancouver chapter of Women in Games International and sits on GDC Canada's Advisory Board.
Kirsten Forbes was previously executive producer at Radical Entertainment (Prototype, Xbox 360/PS3), and currently serves as COO of Silicon Sisters.
Silicon Sisters is the first female-owned studio in Canada, and has an all-female design staff. The studio is currently working on projects that appeal to women, for PC and mobile devices.
"We're not interested in 'pinkifying' games, which is how girl games are typically designed," says Gershkovitch, "Girls and women game differently than boys and men. Silicon Sisters has studied these differences so we can make games that truly appeal to and resonate with the female audience."
"The video game industry is experiencing a rebirth of sorts," says Forbes, "PC online gaming is up, social networking has become pervasive, and mobile platforms are ubiquitous. Women are adopting games on these platforms in droves. It's time to get serious about delivering quality games into this burgeoning market."
While the idea is commendable and the female audience needs to be catered more than with Facebook games and the occasional Bejewelled, David Brady has a point. I find it a bit strange that in this world where sexism and racism are rampant buzzwords, something like this gets to be news, along with other female-only associations and initiatives in the game development industry.
That being said, I can hardly wait to see what they come up with.
It's news because it's unique in this industry. Hopefully one day it won't be newsworthy because its so common. I also can't wait to see what comes out of this studio. Best of luck to all involved!
Well, to be fair, they have an all female design staff at the moment but the article doesn't say anything about the company being explicitly female forever. If they refuse to hire males, period, then I think they're just as wrong-headed as any other discriminatory organization, but until they start actively turning away male employees just for being male then I think we should give them the benefit of the doubt.
Regardless, best of luck with the new studio and looking forward to what you come up with!
Either they'll be distinctively different from the kinds of games that mostly male designers come up with, or they won't.
Fascinating either way.
(And I'm surprised no one has mentioned the "silicon sister" reference from Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded By The Light" yet....)
That being said, I can hardly wait to see what they come up with.
Regardless, best of luck with the new studio and looking forward to what you come up with!