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A woman's KA-POW!

The booming video game industry is being influenced by Nintendo-savvy girls and women attracted by better technology and dynamic visuals and storylines.

By JAY CRIDLIN
Published July 9, 2005

[Times photos: Melissa Lyttle]

Ana Bruno-Stepp, 23, a former animation student and recent graduate of the International Academy of Design and Technology in Tampa, has been drawing since the age of 5 and recently started making her drawings come to life via animation. She still draws everything out by hand in sketch books, and has six that she's constantly bouncing between.

	"I'm from the generation of Nintendo," is how Ana Bruno-Stepp explains her interest in video games, animation and sketching. Featured is some new artwork from her sketch book.

A young girl races down a darkened city street, sirens howling in her rearview mirror, until she reaches a packed nightclub, where she slays a bouncer guarding a mosh pit of evil, rave-dancing zombies.

Suddenly, the throbbing techno beat scratches to a halt and the eyes of all the zombies turn to the girl in the middle of the floor. It seems she's not welcome.

"And she's fighting all these zombies to get to the DJ," explains Ana Bruno-Stepp, watching the action unfold on a television in a near-empty art studio. "Right now he's shooting little laser guns - pshiew-pshiew-pshiew! - at her, and she's killing zombies."

It's not hard to guess where Bruno-Stepp, the 23-year-old creator of this animated alter-universe, finds her inspiration.

"I'm from the generation of Nintendo," says Bruno-Stepp, a former animation student and recent graduate of the International Academy of Design and Technology in Tampa.

She and 57-million other women. According to the Entertainment Software Association, 39 percent of the nation's 158-million video gamers are female. That's up from 26 percent just two years ago. Software giant Electronic Arts says 65 percent of girls ages 12 to 17 play video games on a weekly basis. And a study by Digital Media Services says women over 40 spend more time than men playing games online.

Those numbers are starting to change the way video game companies - which made $9.9-billion in 2004, more than the movie industry - do business.

"It's becoming a part of mainstream entertainment culture," said Libe Goad, 31-year-old founder of the video game news and review site GameGal.com. "The more women that are around it, the more likely they're going to be to pick it up and check it out."

More women - and many men - are drawn in by improved technology and dynamic visuals, which allow gamers to create distinct characters and explore alternate realities, instead of simply racking up kills and touchdowns.

Games that encourage creativity (think The Sims) or that have a strong role-playing storyline (the Final Fantasy series) are among the most popular titles for women.

"The No. 1 thing that I've noticed in almost all games is the customization aspect," said Virginia McArthur, a producer for Maxis, the company behind the Sims franchise. "People, especially women, like to design their own game experience; they like to design their own characters."

Tuesday is "Fighting Game Night" at the D-Pad, a music and video game lounge in Palm Harbor. And Misty Robinson is a regular.

Robinson experimented with computer games like the Sims - "the gateway game," as her husband, William, calls it - before recently delving into the world of console games like Tekken 5 and Jade Empire.

"I didn't grow up with any video game systems, no computers," said Robinson, a 26-year-old anthropology student from Tampa. "It just seemed like a waste of time - until I started having fun with it."

Katie Quilitz co-founded the D-Pad 10 months ago after years of hosting group game nights at her home. Her children, Kaya, 8, and son Miles, 3, who often hang out at the D-Pad, are already both video game prodigies.

"Now, with the graphics the way they are, the storylines as good as they are - it's like watching a movie, except you're a part of it, instead of watching on the sidelines," said Quilitz, 28.

Video game interest among women has increased enough to entice more women to make a career out it.

Ray Eales, Bruno-Stepp's animation instructor, can remember his first day on the job in 1999, when his animation classes were almost entirely male. Now, he says, a solid 30 percent of the animation department's 310 students are women.

"The thing that I think has changed it a lot has been the special features on DVDs," he said. "You'll go in, and you'll see the artists, and you'll find that there are a lot of females working in the film industry. You never knew it."

Electronic Arts, which distributes the Sims games, has a reputation for hiring women. This fact was not lost on the 34-year-old McArthur, who was the first kid on her block to own an Atari and whose resume includes a stint producing Mattel's Barbie Magic Hairstyler game. Now she produces a franchise, the Sims, whose audience is 50 percent female.

Bruno-Stepp realizes that as the marketplace grows, video game companies will try to diversify their design and animation teams by adding women.

Bruno-Stepp grew up in a strict Puerto Rican home, a fan of G-rated Disney fare and inoffensive video games like Super Mario Bros. and Tetris. She always wanted to be an animator.

As she grew older, she discovered female artists like Julie Bell and Rumiko Takahashi, whose work was intense, graphic and occasionally dark. She took a job as a boardwalk caricaturist at Sea World, one of only three women in such a role - and, later, Busch Gardens.

She worked the graveyard shift at 7-Eleven doodling intricate demons and warriors on brown paper bags. Her boss asked her not to waste supplies.

No one is more aware than Bruno-Stepp that it's not always easy for women to break into animation, including character design for film and video games.

"Most of the women that I know that are going into the graphics industry tend to be what most women would consider tomboys," she said.

"Like, they'd consider me a tomboy because I don't wear high heels. But a lot of us are into D&D, Magic: The Gathering and video games."

Her elaborate, gothic character sketches suggest Bruno-Stepp might gravitate toward role-playing games like Xenosaga and Final Fantasy, two of her favorites. Those story-driven games, she said, have the best chance of attracting a wider female audience.

"Final Fantasy X is a good example," she said. "You have a female character, Yuna, someone who's going through personal issues, and turns out to be a heroine.

"And then you've got monsters," she adds with a nod to her demo reel. "Kill the monsters."

Jay Cridlin can be reached at 727 893-8336 or cridlin@sptimes.com

[Last modified July 9, 2005, 01:21:24]