Cerise Magazine

Industry Interview: Stevana Case, fatfoogoo

I am honored and excited to bring you this interview with Stevana “Stevie” Case. Currently, she is the Vice President of Business and Sales at online game service provider fatfoogoo, but our readers may know her better as the first woman to game competitively. Enjoy!

Alex Raymond: How did you get into gaming?

Stevana Case: I first got hooked as a little kid on the NES. My brother and I played endlessly in this tiny hallway upstairs in our house in between our bedrooms. I wasn’t a “serious” gamer, though, until college. I was living on the honors floor in a dorm at the University of Kansas. A bunch of the guys were into Doom, and they got me hooked. When Quake, came out, that was it. I was permanently addicted! We formed one of the very first Quake clans called Impulse 9, and even won the first ever clan tournament.

AR: What was it like being the first female pro gamer? Did you encounter any surprising reactions from your competition?

SC: I never expected much of a reaction. To be honest, it didn’t even cross my mind that it was unusual to be a woman playing games. I only realized it was going to get some attention after I’d been playing for a while. I’d encounter guys on servers who would taunt me as they would anyone. We’d banter back and forth, and when they realized I was a woman they’d inevitably react with either complete horror or total glee. It was crazy how polarizing my gender was! Most other gamers were incredibly kind – almost fascinated that a woman was so into their game. But others took it as a threat of some kind. For them it went way beyond friendly rivalry. They had some primal urge to crush me.

Generally the whole community was very welcoming. I felt very lucky to have the opportunity to meet so many great people, and being one of the few women around definitely opened doors. I made some lifelong friends in that time period.

AR: How did you make the transition from pro gamer to game developer?

SC: It became clear to me after a while that though I was good at games, I was not going to be able to compete at the absolutely insane level that pro gamers play at now. Pro gaming was really becoming a sport, and that meant hours and hours of practice per day.

I loved gaming for the joy of it and didn’t really enjoy feeling like it was a job! I was lucky to have made some great contacts in the industry as a gamer. I started learning level design, and eventually worked with some guys in Dallas on a Quake II add-on pack. We even got a publishing deal with GT/Wizard Works. We were psyched. After that, I just continued to chase that dream. I took a QA job at Ion Storm, then eventually moved into level design and continued to grow from there.

AR: People seem to have a hard time believing women play and make games now, let alone a decade ago. What was it like being in the industry then? How has it changed?

SC: Well, gaming is just so much more mainstream now! Back then it was notable to be a gamer at all, let alone a female gamer. I feel like back then there were many more misconceptions and stereotypes about gamers than we see today. It just felt like more of a closed system, I suppose.

I am hopeful that the growing market for games will also help build out a more diverse base of developers and designers. It’s not happening as rapidly as I’d hoped, but I think there’s some solid progress being made. And certainly there is a wider range of games and gaming platforms out there, which I think only helps the cause.

AR: Can you describe for our readers what your role is now in the game industry?

SC: I’m currently the Vice President of Business Development and Sales for North America for fatfoogoo, a leading provider of in-game and online commerce ecosystems. Founded in 2006, fatfoogoo is headquartered in Austria and also has offices in the US and the UK.

Our team has developed technology to support virtual economies in games, social networks, or other sorts of online communities. It’s my job to introduce publishers and developers to our technology and convince them to license it and use it in their games.

Our technology is essentially the backend you’d need to collect subscriptions from gamers or to set up an in-game marketplace for virtual items. This can be done as a primary market where items are sold from within the gamer directly to users, or a secondary market in which users sell items to each other.

It’s a very fun space and it really crosses boundaries from MMOs to virtual worlds, social games, browser games, social networks and more. The business model is a great alternative or compliment to advertising or a packaged goods model; it really democratizes a game. A user won’t buy items to enhance play in a game that isn’t fun. In many ways, it lowers the bar to entry and allows developers to experiment, iterate, and really focus on what gamers want. So I am still in games, albeit a different angle!

AR: Can you give us an example of the type of system fatfoogoo provides? Are there any online games out there using fatfoogoo’s services that our readers might know?

SC: Every implementation we do is custom, and often we’re integrating with games and worlds that are still years to go in development! However, we have launched a couple of virtual economies that users can check out. Earlier this year, we launched the economic platform in the casual MMO, CampFu,, developed by Rebel Monkey. CampFu is a well executed, high production value browser-based community with a focus on co-op play in a camp setting. The game is free-to-play, and then users can buy FuCash which can be used to purchase virtual items, such as apparel. Soon, we’ll be announcing another online store – more details to come!

AR: Do you consider yourself a feminist? How does that inform your work, if at all?

SC: I am absolutely, unashamedly, and without question a hardcore feminist. It really bothers me that the “feminist” word has been assigned some sort of negative connotation in recent years. I had a daughter almost five years ago now, which only strengthened my beliefs around the rights and freedoms that I believe all people are entitled to have. I am particularly passionate about the rights of mothers in many forms, access to reasonable childcare, powerful education.

Being a feminist and a mother has always driven me in my work–it has driven me to work harder, to compete with vigor, and to prove myself. Now as a mother I use my work as one way to expose my daughter to a larger world, to expand her views, and encourage her to make whatever choices she’d like. Being a feminist mother drives me to succeed both at work and at home and to model that for my daughter. I want her to see that her options are limitless – as all girls and women should.

I will say, though, that being a feminist doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy the full range of games on offer. I like to experience everything that’s out there and judge for myself rather than filtering out those things that aren’t politically correct.

AR: What do you think about gender-inclusive game design? Is it something game developers should consider, or is it unnecessary?

SC: I think design is something you can really only address on a case by case basis. Absolutely I do believe there are games that could benefit from gender-inclusive design. However, I certainly don’t believe in neutering great design in pursuit of some concept of equality.

Design is often great in its uniqueness – and it can be tough to offer a truly unique design view from a gender-neutral perspective. I think the key is the diversity of the offering – lots and lots of games offering many different themes and perspectives rather than making everything gender-inclusive.

AR: What do you think about the online gaming community? Communities like Xbox Live have taken criticism for being racist, homophobic, misogynistic, and hostile to maturity in general. Do you think this can change? If so, how?

SC: I don’t believe that these behaviors are specific to the online gaming community. I think there are undesirable attitudes out there, and some folks find that the anonymity of online communities make it easier to express those thoughts. I think gaming has a bit of an unfair bad rap when the problem isn’t actually gaming-specific. I think the only real solutions to issues like these are raising our expectations as a larger group or society as a whole.

AR: High-profile women in the gaming industry typically have to deal with a lot of comments from gamers that are full of negative assumptions about their abilities, overly focused on their appearance, and sometimes even violent in a way that men in the industry just don’t get. I came across a couple forum threads like this in researching for this interview. How do you cope with these sorts of comments from a community of which you consider yourself a part?

SC: The perception of women in the games business is an evolving thing, really. As I got into games, I found it confusing, bizarre and at times offensive that some people wanted to attack my intelligence or post derogatory comments. At first, it was hard as I took the comments personal; I wanted to explain to each of these jerks that they had it wrong.

I won’t say I’ve completely grown out of that, but it certainly doesn’t bother me the way it used to. Now I can laugh about it, because these types of comments are sort of twisted sport and actually very impersonal. For the most part, it’s not really about me. I know my own truth, and I don’t feel a need to prove it (or myself) to anyone. I guess that’s the difference between me at 20 and me at 30!

AR: Can game developers use these communities to their advantage? How can they do so–if it is worthwhile?

SC: Communities are what give gaming so much of its passion and life! When I got hooked on Quake, it was only partly about the game itself. The larger hook was the community and all of the fascinating friends and other people I was meeting and connecting with through the game.

The key to taking advantage of these communities is to treat them with respect, to provide transparency, and to support gamersí desired behaviors. I think what we’re seeing with controlled secondary (user-to-user) virtual item markets in games is a great example of this. Rather than relegating item trading to shady gray markets, publishers are starting to pull the community into the game and allow them to trade in a safe environment. This gives gamers what they want, provides some structure to the community, and also gives the publisher/developer more control (and even revenue). It’s really a win-win setup.

AR: What games have you been playing recently? Could you see yourself getting back into competitive gaming at all?

SC: It’s a bit different for me these days! I play some Guitar Hero and Rock Band, of course. My favorite these days is playing Mario Party with my daughter, who just turned five-years-old. I don’t get in a lot of gaming outside of that. I won’t say I’ll never compete again, but it does take a level of time and dedication I’m not able to give at this stage.

AR: What are you most passionate about as a gamer, and a game developer?

SC: I’m passionate about the user – the gamer. It’s a very simple thing, but it often gets lost. There’s so much focus on the cool factor, on visuals, on hardware etc. But at the end of the day – is it fun? Do I want to play this? Do I enjoy it? Will others? Those are the real questions that need to be asked. I’d rather make a super fun game with low production values than a beautiful, but boring title any day.