Current Status
LadyGamers.com
In December 2002, I founded a brand new
site called LadyGamers.com. I worked on some features for it, along with
other content and search for a good artist from July until December to
fine tune as much as needed. The site was launched with a huge spotlight
on old Quake
Female Gamers. It definitely has been a success, even though the
focus is entirely on action, strategy games and other related female
community topics that unfold.
CaliGirl.net
This is my first
site I created back in October 1997. It's mainly known for gamer
photos more than anything else.
Newsie History
To not
confuse any one, here are the sites I used to work with.
Gamespy site:
Xtreme Network sites:
- Xtremenetwork™
-
Quake3world.com
-
MetalFatigue.net
-
Army-Men
-
Forsaken Path
- Firaxisnews
-
Gang Related
- MechCommand
- Starsiege.org
- StrategyXtreme
-
VampireTales
- WestwoodNews
GX Network
LG Network
Gamesmania
During my time
getting to know Command and Conquer friends on Mplayer's Multiplayer
Gaming service in 1997, I started writing a list down on the nick names and
where these people were from. This way I would know whom I have played
and where they were from. Sometimes when you play so many people, you
forget who you had played, and I would sometimes write down if they were
good or not so I'd know their strategies.
After
compiling this huge list, I decided to make myself a homepage called
California Girl's Corner of the Net, where I
could list these friends I had played. I asked all of them for
permission to add them to my site, then asked them what state or country
they lived in again to make sure my notes were correct. Most of them were delighted that their name would
actually be listed. A few months later I created CGN Cali Girl News with
C&C files and other related news concerning the game. Then once
Quake came along in my life, I posted news about it as well. The
site was actually booming by then, I was making profiles of well known
professional gamers of Quake 1, like Thresh, Kornelia, Killcreek, Unholy and so the list goes on. Although, I did happen to
lose the old files when I moved from having Gamesmania host my site. That
was devastating back then from all of the hard manual work I put into
them.
By the time
CGN started getting pretty well known already, I received an email from
a guy that owned Jediknight.net.
He wanted to know if I was interested in joining his site. I was a tad
timid about doing this since I had only seen my brother play the game. I
wasn't too familiar with it other than the fact that it was an action
game. My first two weeks at that site was pretty devastating. Most of the
gamers either didn't want me to post news because I was a girl, or they
weren't used to having a new publisher posting the news. Either way, the
owner of the site got on all of their cases and said for them to deal
with it or not to visit the site any more. I thought that was very courageous
of him to do this. I ran that site for over 2 and half years and have
been close friends with him since that day he stood up for me. During
the time I worked on Jediknight.net, a new site called LucasGames
was in development. This was to be a Star Wars gamer's dream, and it
definitely worked. We later on released even more fan sites for
different LucasArts games so I ran many sites by then.
Only about a
few months later after I was helping Jediknight.net,
my buddy B2 (from Deathrow clan at the time) asked me if I wanted to help run
Gamers Extreme. At first he wanted to just host CGN, then he thought
I'd be better off just helping them with news. It was great to get to
know them the years I worked with Wemmick, Cross, Spear, Nemisis and
Thresh.
Yet again,
another company wanted to have me help them out, this time it was
Mplayer. I had beta tested their games for
almost a year by then so I knew some of the people who worked there
already. They originally wanted me for their Strategy games channel but
they hired a guy by then. So instead, they had me work on their Classics
and Card news. After six months flew by, they wanted me to work on Clubssi.com, so a HUGE list of games went into this. I spent about 2
weeks and was able to get information on every single SSI game ever
created. After that site was launched, I worked on RPG, Sims and then
Strategy sites for Mplayer. Later on they released ActionXtreme.com. With
the success of that site we converted the other genre sites over to the
Xtremes, which later on the XtremeNetwork blossomed. This network was
one of the most successful genre channeled type of sites I have seen out
there. I noticed months later we all noticed others who genre focused
their network in these categories.
It didn't stop
there with Mplayer though. id Software got in a partnership to have my
brother create Quake3world.com.
This was to be id Software's official community site for when Quake III
Arena was released. The demo released and it was like the site was a
growing flame, it was hard to put it out. The Quake III Arena community
had grown so huge so once the forums opened, they came in like a flood.
This was just one of those awesome things to see. My brother ran the
site for a few months then passed it on to me in February 2000.
Sadly enough
them offering me to work on Quake3world.com had a catch to it. I was
working for GamersExtreme (now known as Gamers.com), LucasGames Network
(Jediknight.net and handful of LG other sites), Gamesmania (on their
pingthis.com site) and on Mplayer's RPG, SSI, Sims and Strategy sites.
They wanted to have me full time, to focus on them and them only. This
was hard for me to break away from friends I was so close to on the
other game networks. It wasn't easy but I had to treat it like I was
getting a real offer for a job and I took it whole heartedly. My roots
were with Quake and C&C so if I ran Quake3world.com and
StrategyXtreme, it seemed like it was where I belonged.
In November
2000, Mplayer gets hit with the idea of Hearme (previously known
as Mpath Interactive) talking about the idea of selling Mplayer's part
of the company so they could focus on their voice technology. Among
several companies, Gamespy seemed to be in favor because they were
already a gaming service themselves, this would only expand their
community for their new gaming service called Gamespy Arcade. There were
a lot of people who were laid off at Hearme and not brought on by
Gamespy but somehow among a handful of people I was brought on. I moved
down to work in-house at the main headquarters in Irvine, California. So
I worked with them until they re-organized their company last June
2001.
I can at least
say once upon a time I worked full time with the gaming community's
industry for about 4 years but stopped when I left Gamespy. In December
2001 I did go back to work with them on the side (mainly evenings and
weekends) to help out with their game database but that to me isn't like
old days. To be honest, working for four different gaming networks had
me working 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. Even when I went to work exclusively
for Mplayer I worked hard on the sites, creating contests and features,
being a manager of different volunteer staff and so forth. However, it
stopped when I went to work for Gamespy in January 2001. I think it
could have been because they had genre producers who ran sites I used to
run by myself. So I felt like I wasn't given enough projects to work
with because someone else was doing it already. That was fine though,
working that many years like that was like made me a workaholic so I
appreciated the break.
March 2003
marks the day I started with GameShark, a gaming site that was always
known as Code Heaven. The site was bought by Madcatz this year, and I
now work on features and gaming news at the site. A very exciting
journey to actually get back into the gaming industry, even if it is a
secondary part time job for a while.
Being a newsie
of many sites is a journalists dream. I was everywhere through out the
net. I learned a lot, received lots of emails, had lots of feedback and
met a tremendous amount of friends in the gaming community and
industry.
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Me
