trina

This month we are ecstatic to celebrate with you four years of GamingAngels.com. It’s hard to believe that it’s been that long already, but looking back the site has come a long way. All this month we’ll be celebrating in various ways. Every couple days we’ll be spotlighting a staff member at GA. You’ll get an insight to who they are, how they ended up here and a look at where they’d like to go. We’ll also be celebrating with weekly gaming nights starting this Sunday with Rock Band. I’ll post about that later. Happy Birthday GamingAngels and here’s to many more!

A little about me:
I’ve always felt younger that what I actually am. Not sure why that is, but it tends to make me feel like I have all the time in the world. Maybe that’s why it took me 10 years to get off my butt and actually create GA. I thought of a place like GA in college where I studied Management Information Systems. Yep, I was a geek, but not hardcore enough to want to sit in a room programming all weekend. I love working on systems, databases, and some programming which is why I thought a career in IT was for me. When I graduated, I didn’t realize how few women are in IT and that in most every job, I’d be the sole female on the team. I think that’s when I started wanting to get involved in encouraging more women to go into tech.

I started gaming at a very early age and it was always in a type of co-op mode with my brother. We had to share. I actually remember ditching elementary school to go to my friend’s to play a game on her Apple IIE. That didn’t go over well with my parents. I always say I stopped gaming in college but that’s not true. That’s when I started playing MUDS (got stalked because of that), and found a love for casual games. After college I became addicted to Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast. There I started my first all-female character guild. I then moved on to Final Fantasy XI to take up all my time. Fast forward through life changes and then you get to how I started GamingAngels.com.

How I started GA:
I sat on GamingAngels.com idea for 10 years, as most people will tell you..it’s all about timing. I had been to a few E3s through bartering or people I knew, but four years ago, I couldn’t find my way in. I applied to a contest that Sony was having to win a trip to E3. They probably have my audition tape, but I basically stood up and showed them wireframes of GamingAngels.com, what the site was about, and how E3 would provide me with networking capabilities for GA. Winning gave me the courage that maybe I was ready to create GA and so I started it as a little blog where I was the sole writer. Around the same time was an event where editors were talking about game journalism. Most of you know this story, but they basically said on the panel that they were not interested in hiring women to write about games. I don’t know where I got this in me, but after their answer, I said in the mic that I was starting GamingAngels.com and any interested women come meet with me after. That’s where I met KagoMegan! She wanted to be involved right away. lol

Where we are going:
GA has come quite a long way in four years. We’ve grown in numbers and have an amazing group of women as staff. I’m proud when I look back to know we did this and we did this all ourselves. GA has gone from a single blog, to a Powerpuff girls designed video game cosplay site, to an Xoops Community site and now at our current home at WordPress. We have grown the site to over 1400 registered users, had many successful community nights, sponsored many events, and even held a rocking party with GamerVixens. We have a great relationship with GamerBeauties that we’re going to expand on. I’m proud of everything we’ve accomplished together, but of course…I want more.

I watch our rankings, our site information and we have momentum but we aren’t going to get lazy. There are new additions we are adding to GA. Some will come over the next few months, others might take a year. All the changes are to make GA more interactive and more fun! While there may be a ton of information on the front page, there’s alot more going on behind the scenes in email! I strongly believe in GamingAngels.com is the BEST SITE for women that covers a variety of topics that make up who we are. We have all these interests. We enjoy things other than makeup, fashion, celeb gossip, tv, and while we’ll cover those, we’re going to cover comics, anime, gadgets, books and games in a way that no one else does.

While I can’t go into details about all the things in my head about where GA is going, know that you are in for a fun ride! How can you help? Bring a friend and help us grow, so we can accomplish our dreams. Thank you for making GA special. Sometimes it can be difficult, running an indie site, working hard to get sponsors so we can pay for trips and marketing, but every day, I love working on GA. It is my passion and my dream, so thank you for the last four years. Here’s to many more years with more surprises for you!

xoxo,
Trina

PS: If you have anything you’d love to know about me or GA, just ask below!