Amy and Amber Dalton aka AthenaPMS and AthenaTwinPMS
Who are they?
Founders of the worlds largest “female” competitive gaming clan in existence (and yes they do have a male counterpart). The PMS Clan boasts over 5k members..world wide. Impressive to say the least.
Why they are famous:
Before these doubly blonde bombshells stepped onto the gaming scene, no other force on earth, not even the mighty Bill Gates, had been able to mobilize and unify such a large and diverse group of women and get them all not only gaming, but kicking ass at it.
Now one might argue that we’re a little biased here as we’ve had several of our PMS sisters on staff at one time or another. However, they’d be the first to tell you that we support them but play no favorites when it comes to them or anyone else in the industry. Though the girls equally are famous for the drama that surrounds them and PMS (and a good portion of drama always comes with fame) they still hold the record for being some of the most recognizably and originally bad assed women gamers on the planet.
Morgan Romine
Who is she?
Creator/Founding member of Ubisofts Frag Dolls
Why she (and THEY) is famous:
As the legend goes, Morgan, already an employee at Ubisoft, came up with the idea to put together a group of women gamers that would achieve world domination…no wait that’s our goal here. In any case Ubisoft put out a national call for women gamers of all types (PC and otherwise) to send in their gaming resumes. We’d like to add that before the advent of The Fragdolls, the only women who had gamer specific resumes were ones getting into game development. Women from all over the country sent in resumes, video and photos of themselves playing games, talking about games and so on. When the dust settled the Ubisoft had selected their lucky 7; Brookelyn, Eeker, Jinx, Katscratch, Rhoulette (aka Morgan Romine), Seppuku and Valkyrie (aka AthenaPMS). If a flurry of drama surrounded PMS, The Frag Dolls had to endure a veritable maelstrom of drama. Though the group spoke at several conferences, the first of which being the Women’s Gaming Conference in 2005, saying their goal was to raise industry awareness of female gaming, they found it rather hard to garner the support of their non-famous counterparts. Many other women gamers said the girls were “too pretty” to be taken seriously, or that they were only chosen because they were pretty, not because they had any real ability. The ladies of frag soon proved them wrong by taking first place at the Rainbow Six: Vegas tournament at CPL, making them first all female group in history to win a pro circuit tournament. Even our beloved GXCori often shares tales of gaming Urban Legend where the lovely Brookelyn took on and took down an entire room of male only gamers in Ghost Recon, all headshots...with only a pistol.
Romine and the ladies of Frag were even instrumental in pulling together the largest showing of women gaming power in history at E3 2005 (and we might add that these women were NOT Booth Babes) giving birth to Girls FTW. Morgan and the rest of the ladies of Frag have more than solidified their places as Icons in the world gaming and have even spawned more Frag incarnations across the big pond in France and the UK (sadly both groups have since disbanded). Though a few Frags have left the fold, they have gone on to do bigger and better things. Eekers at last check worked on the highly controversial but FUN Pirates of the Burning Sea AND does game voice overs, recently departed frag Mischief, now works with some game developers that created a little game called DJ Hero. And you can catch syndicated shows of WCG Ultimate Gamer, that boasts having no less than TWO Frag Dolls as stars (Alyson Bridge and Amy Brady). Though still the center of a lot of gaming controversy, The Frag Dolls have forever changed the face of gaming and showed that yes women can indeed play together and do it well.
Christa Philips aka TriXie
Who is she?
The powerhouse that fuels the Xbox Live Community at large. Creator/founding member of the Xbox Ambassadors program for Xbox Live, and one of the founding members of new gaming/pop culture site Popchix.com and our very favorite curly haired gaming maven. Creator of the highly successful exclusively ALL female forums on Xbox.com, Xbox GamerChiX.
Why she’s famous:
Whether Microsoft/Xbox knew they had a secret weapon when they brought aboard Miss (er Mrs. Philips Carter) they soon found out once unleashing her onto the fledgling Xbox Live Community. TriXie is one of the more well known community managers over at Xbox and one of the minds behind the highly successful Xbox Live Ambassadors, which pairs new Live users with veteran ones; in short fostering an ever closer, tighter knit gaming community. If any gamer made the mistake of thinking those pretty blue eyes and doll like curly hair was a sign of feminine weakness, they learned the hard way that she’s just as tough as she is cute. Stepping out of line on Live or in the forums, results in a tongue lashing worse than any your mother ever doled out and if you’re really unlucky, your XBL account disappearing in virtual space forever (insert echo here). Her creation of Xboxs GamerChiX brought women of all gaming platforms and genres together in one place, offering them a safe place to share their love of all things gaming, without being constantly asked ‘So..hey...what size are your boobs?’ True to the Wonder Woman emblem she wears so often, TriXie and several other badassed gamer chix, have since formed the website PopChiX.com bringing gaming pop-culture to the masses in a whole new way. We say she’s definitely worth her weight in MS points.
Brenda Brathwaite
Who is she?
Brenda Brathwaite began her career in 1981 at game maker Sir-tech Software, Inc., on the Wizardry role-playing team. She worked first as a tester, and moved up through the design and content creation ranks to lead designer for the award-winning series. While at Sir-tech, Brathwaite also worked on the Jagged Alliance, Realms of Arkania series.
Why she is famous:
She was employed with Sir-tech for 18 years before moving on to game maker Atari where she worked on the Dungeons & Dragons series for consoles before joining Cyberlore Studios in 2003 to work on the Playboy: The Mansion game, where she was..wait for it...LEAD Designer. Brenda's research for the game was ultimately published in a book, Sex in Video Games, and was one of the minds behind the creation of the ESRB, which helps raise parental rating awareness. [Courtesy of Wikipedia.org-support Wikipedia]
In 2008 Brenda was elected to an esteemed position on the IGDA Board of Directors and if all of that isn’t enough for you, Brenda holds the unparalled title of being the longest surviving female in the gaming industry. Beat THAT!
Did we miss someone? Wanna bitch about who is or isn't on the list? Feel free to shoot us an email or leave your comment below..we don't really care but we're all about making YOU feel better.
