Boy of Tomorrow: Thanks for sitting down with me today! Would you mind introducing yourself and giving a quick summary of WG for those of our readers who aren’t familiar with your site?

Phaedra Boinodiris: WomenGamers.com is a site for all kinds of different people, but basically for women who play all kinds of games, work in the industry, men who are interested in reading reviews or articles in regards to all things gaming. We’ve been around for the past eight years now; we launched the first scholarships in the U.S. for women to get degrees in game design and development and we’re still going strong.

BOT: You guys used to be pretty involved with the Guild Hall down at SMU, are you still going strong with them?

PB: Yeah, yeah, we’re still working with them and pulling together scholarships for girls with them, Full Sail, and the National Computer Camp.

BOT: So, one of the biggest complaints about the gaming industry is that games haven’t been marketed towards women and have instead pandered to an intended audience of male teenagers. Well, actually, that’s been a complaint of just about every group that doesn’t fit into that stereotypical gamer image… would you say this is still the case? Has anything changed? Has there been any progress?

PB: Most definitely! I’ve seen a lot of change. If you look at the way E3 has changed, or even GDC here… there’s actually a line for the women’s restroom. [laughs] If there were ever a sign of change in this industry, that’s a big one.

BOT: One of the more memorable articles I remember reading on your site was “concerns of a gamer mom”, where your sister, Atari, wrote about how her perceptions as a gamer have changed with motherhood. Have you found the same to be true now that you’ve got a munchkin running around?

PB: Yes… I get asked this question quite often. I want to ensure that there’s not just balance in my life, but in her life as well. That means getting adequate exercise, getting reading time, as well as getting game time. We’ve got a bunch of educational titles, featuring things like Dora and Elmo, teaching her things like the alphabet and she really likes it. I think that as long as you have balance in mind with any endeavor, that’s the way to go as a parent.

BOT: Ok, so going off of that point, a lot of people who’ve been responding to the “nannying” administration that’s been introduced over the past few years is that families need to either game together or parents need to have some involvement with what their kids are playing. Do you think that’s happening more now that this generation is starting to have kids?

PB: Definitely, especially since the Wii came out. That’s been a major emphasis… it’s funny, because this has gone completely full-circle. I don’t know if you remember the original Atari commercials which featured families playing games together but a few years later they were only showing young boys playing. But now we’re back to showing families playing together. But, yeah, I think it’s coming back, and which is really good.

BOT: Do you think that it’s going to stay like that? Where anyone can be considered a gamer?

PB: I hope so. You know, this past spring, I was in Korea and Japan. I went into the PC Buns in Seoul, Korea, and it was full of women playing Starcraft. And, you know, they’re sitting there smoking and drinking, and I started interviewing them. They said, “we get together twice a week and this is our Ladies Night Out.”

BOT: So it’s like Bingo Night, only, you know…

PB: Except with video games, Starcraft, and smoking! But there was no stigma there, and I think that stigma here is slowly eroding over time.

BOT: OK, so, shifting directions a little: what are you here at GDC to see?

PB: I’m here to get a feel for what’s changing in the world of gaming. I’m here with Emergent Game Technologies as their community manager. I’m also here to see the Serious Games Summit, and I’ve seen some amazing things the past couple of days.

BOT: What were your favorites so far?

PB: OK, well, what I’ve seen at the Serious Games Summit is a marked push towards bringing games into the corporate environment. Now that the Nintendo and Coleco Vision generation is, I don’t know, mid-level managers in these big corporations, they’re much more accepting of these kinds of media for corporate training and pushing brand reach. I saw some really amazing virtual tools for collaboration that’re hooked into real time data on the back end, which would be used to share information and work in teams. That was really interesting.

BOT: So, basically, using games as an educational tool, but in a slightly different direction than what we’re used to?

PB: Yeah… more for collaboration. They were making the point that in some of these big corporations, there are these huge teams spread all over the world and wouldn’t it be cool if there was a tool where you could facilitate the interaction of these teams. They showed this virtual world where things like their profiles, IM messages, status updates on code could all be accessible in this virtual world.

BOT: Is this something that’s just possible, or do you think something could come out of it.

PB: Oh, I saw it. It’s in production over at IBM, actually.

BOT: Did you see anything else which stood out?

PB: Oh! Yes! There was a really cool DS game by the CEO of Human Nature. It’s linking in DS games with Facebook… it’s this minigame which is targeting women. It’s basically one of those “test your personality” games with these amazingly cute animations. Once you’ve finished the test, it will tell you your personality and you can push it up to Facebook. It’s really, really cool, and I think it’s going to be totally viral.

BOT: That’s really funny… is there anything our readers should know about stuff coming up on WomenGamers?

PB: We just relaunched the site, so it’s a lot more interactive than it’s ever been before. We’re announcing a new scholarship today for the National Computer Camps for girls. Last night there was an announcement by SCEA that they’re launching a scholarship for women: $10,000 to attend the Art Institute here in SF.

BOT: OK, well that’s all I’ve got, so thanks for taking the time.

PB: Thank you!