She’s Winning a Place in the Cyber History Books
She came out of nowhere and blew them all away. That’s the word on Stevie Case, 22, a.k.a. KillCreek--the cyber world’s first chick game champ.
Yes, Stevie is a girl. This won’t mean much to lovers of sunny, outdoor sports. But in the vast, dark netherworld of those obsessed with electronic “shooters” and “kills,” less than 10% of all serious gamers are girls, according to Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine.
KillCreek broke the mold, says editor John Davison, when she got so good at Quake (the world’s most popular e-game) that she actually won a death match over John Romero, the fellow who designed and invented the game.
Now, as the first female ever to win the electronic equivalent of Olympic gold, she’s cyber famous around the globe. We caught up with her in Dallas, where she’s also the only woman e-game designer at Ionstorm, which is owned by Romero, the guy she beat at his own game.
We wondered where this top cyber athlete came from, how she intends to elevate women in the world of games, and why she left college in her third year for a life of mortal combat via mouse.
Question: How did you get your start?
Answer: I’ve been addicted to computer games since I was a little kid in Kansas City. My dad was a science teacher, my mom is a social worker. They always had computers around. I always played just for fun. The big turning point came when I got to college, in my freshman year, when I met friends who got me totally hooked on Doom and Doom II. I played over and over. Then Quake came out in ‘97, and we all started playing constantly. I was a political science major at the time, but I didn’t have time for classes; that wasn’t where I wanted to be. There were eight of us in the group--we became the Impulse 9 clan [a clan is a competitive Quake team that plays other clans in cyberspace]. We played every day for months. It was all that mattered to me.
Q: What motivated you to get out there as a female and make a big name for yourself?
A: First, I realized there were not many women in the online community forming around the game. Only one or two playing seriously. I also started to get a reputation as a female who was actually a good player. After several months of devoting myself to this, I decided to go to Dallas, because most of the major gaming companies that make shooters [war games] are there. I met up with a bunch of friends--all guys--and we took a tour of the companies. I mentioned I’d like to play John Romero, the legendary game designer. . . . They said no way. They played me first, thinking they’d blow me away. But I won. They told Romero about me. He asked me to come back and play. It was a close match. He barely won. Then he put up a Web page about how he had beaten me. I had to do something to get back at him. So I posted my own challenge on the Quake news sites on the Net. It would be a death match--the best of three games. The loser had to create an online shrine to the winner. I won two out of three games.
Q: Why don’t many women design or play games?
A: I’m not sure. There’s a feeling these games are for boys. It’s still a male-dominated field. People assume women wouldn’t enjoy it. There aren’t even many female figures in the games themselves. I’m hoping to help change that. One of the three main characters in Daikatana [the game I’m working on] is female. She’s a tall, Asian woman, very intelligent, wears plated armor and looks really tough. I think it is changing already. I get a lot of e-mail from women addicted to games. They are not violent, as many people think. It takes a great deal of strategy and sophisticated thought processes to win. You need to understand patterns, the flow of each level, you need to be able to read the other players’ minds.
Q: What’s your professional goal?
A: Right now, to continue making first-person shooters. The key is in finding ways to focus on the fun, instead of just the technology . . . to make the games as immersive as possible. I sometimes think about money. People who start their own gaming companies can make millions. But that would be way in the future.”
