GamingAngels is extremely honored to present an interview with Brenda Bailey Gershkovitch and Kristen Forbes, two female veterans of the video game industry who have recently formed their own company, Silicon Sisters based in Vancouver, B.C. We were super excited to land this interview with them, about the hopes and goals of their company and projects!

GA: How did you guys get started as video game developers?

This is Kirsten speaking. I started making console games in ’97 with Radical Entertainment in Vancouver, BC. I was lucky in that I was recruited into the industry at a time when it was still tough for game developers to find production professionals who had the right technical and team skills to run a project of the size and complexity they needed. And I say lucky because I know many young professionals and graduates for whom it is now much harder to break into the industry. Whereas I had the chance to come in green and to learn and grow as the industry grew. The good news of course is that the industry has now proliferated to a much broader range of devices and platforms than we had in ’97, so myself and many others have the chance to apply our talents across more opportunities.

Brenda on the other hand was more targeted in her approach to entering the industry. She’s one of those people who books are written about where they tell you to figure out what your passion is, then make it your career. From social work to Business Studies to many years of not-for-profie leadership heading up the Canadian Cancer Society in Vancouver, she amassed a wealth of skills and talents to bring to gaming. With that in hand she boldly and successfully built Deep Fried Entertainment and turned her love of games into her business.

GA: What inspired you to make your own company?

The time is right. So many factors have come into play over the last five years that have brought more and more women into gaming – from Nintendo introducing the intuitive Wii-mote to the proliferation of gaming on smart phones to web based gaming – the barriers to entry for mainstream women to play games are being removed one after the other. And since Brenda and I have the development experience required for this business, we knew it was the right time to join forces and start making games for ourselves and our sisters.

GA: How do you hope to reach out to female gamers (who have extremely diverse tastes) as a whole?

You’ve hit the nail on the head – there is no stereotypical female gamer. But likewise, there is no stereotypical male gamer yet we have successfully delivered compelling gameplay experiences to vertical slices of that audience for many years. The ticket is careful targeting of the audience preferences, followed by superb execution.

GA: Most companies are known for one genre of gaming; Square Enix or BioWare for it’s RPGs, EA for it’s Sports Games; What genre are you looking to work with first?

Interestingly, I’ve been thinking less in terms of the classic genres that we’re all used to, and I find myself thinking more in terms of game mechanics and the themes to wrap them in. Silicon Sisters is concentrating on finding those kernels of gameplay that we instinctively like, then coupling them with a tone and look and sensibility that is relevant and modern.

GA: When most people hear about games made by women and girls, or designed for women and girls they immediately assume the games will be something silly like the Imagine series. How do you hope to market games to get around this stigma?

The first step is to make a good game, period. It’s impossible to make a game for “all women” and marketing a game as if that were possible is how stereotypes arise and ‘silliness’ creeps in. We intend to sidestep that by making fun games and standing behind them. Brenda and I have the benefit of not only being gamers / game designers, but also being women. We’re doing the work of creating games that we think will be fun – and that we think other women will find fun – by understanding gaming preferences, translating those into mechanics, then prototyping, iterating and polishing until we get it right. Women are smart enough to make their own choices without having to be guided by marketing telling them ‘this game is for you’. Women played Myst and Sims and CSI and NOLF because of the content of the games, because those games had mechanics that intrinsically appealed to us.

GA: Are there any women in the industry who have inspired you?

Many, many women inspire us every day – Brenda Brathwaite, Lucy Bradshaw, Sheri Graner Ray, and Jade Raymond to name a select few. Also Brenda Laurel whose book The Utopian Entrepreneur is one of Brenda’s favorites. And a shout out to the inspiration we get from all the talented young women graduating from game design schools right now. They are an impressive lot.

GA: What platforms are you aiming to develop for first? Are there any you don’t plan to work with?

We’re not excluding any platforms at this point as long as the right opportunity exists to develop on them. But it’s safe to say that we’ll start with those for which we already have existing tech.

GA: What are some of your favorite games?

I play a wide range of games from God of War to Puzzle Quest to Fable to Princess Isabella. And ok, Frontierville. But without question my gameplaying for some time now has been more about researching and deconstructing them, than it has been about indulging a love of play. Brenda is an aspiring pilot so her current addiction is Xplane.

GA: Have you begun working on any projects currently?
We have two IP’s which we’re currently prototyping. Stay tuned for more!

Thank you to Kristen and Brenda for sharing their time with us! We can’t wait to see what the future holds for this up and coming company. For more information, check out http://www.siliconsisters.ca/