Victoria Moran Featured at Killer Betties!

Victoria Moran, Associate Systems Designer at Carbine Studios, was recently interviewed at Killerbetties.com, a site devoted to discussing gaming news and related issues for the female gamer. Here's an excerpt from that discussion:

Killer Betties: "What's your earliest memory of video games? Did you grow up on games or did you find them later in your life?"

Victoria: "My first memory of video games would probably be unwrapping my Nintendo Entertainment System, which was the first system I personally owned. I remember games like the original Super Mario and Zelda and being excited to receive new cartridges on my birthday. My parents were very hesitant to buy me any video games, which is humorous considering they met each other while working at Atari in the early 80's.

We were definitely no strangers to video games during my younger years, especially with arcade games that I played with my cousins. We also had an Atari pinball machine in the house up until I was around 14, which was always a hit at birthday parties. During my free time, I played computer games like King's Quest and the Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes, which were sometimes quite challenging for a 9 year old. After my NES, I had a SEGA Genesis, which I absolutely loved because of games like Sonic the Hedgehog.

From the time I was about 10 until age 15, I didn't play many video games because I was so focused on sports. Around age 15 I got really excited about ice hockey, which is when I got reintroduced to console gaming with the PlayStation, playing EA's NHL games with my dad and cousins. From there by chance I happened upon the Final Fantasy series, and I was permanently hooked on stories and narrative in gaming.

From there I branched out and played all types of games through high school and college, from Pokemon to Dance Dance Revolution to Phantasy Star Online to Final Fantasy and Warcraft. I loved all different types of games equally until I got sucked into the gigantic machine that is the MMORPG, when I started playing Final Fantasy XI seriously. I was skeptical at first about a traditionally single player RPG series being converted into an MMORPG, but as I gave the game a chance, I started to find not only the game growing on me, but the other players as well. I found that in MMOs, I wasn't just consuming a story that a writer had written to be spoonfed to me through cutscenes, but that stories occurred between real players as well. Joy, achievement, drama, and strife were part of the story that was my character's life in that game, created not by the game but by my interactions with friends and enemies.

I started my linkshell (guild) in Final Fantasy XI roughly 6 years ago; many of the players I played with in Final Fantasy XI have and still play a variety of online games and MMORPGs with me now, including Guild Wars, City of Heroes, and World of Warcraft."

You can read more about Victoria in her Killer Women feature, which can be found by visiting this link!

Congratulations Victoria!