Killing time with Killcreek: An interview with Stevie Case
Stevana Case, aka Killcreek
If you were anywhere near a computer monitor and a live internet connection in the late nineties, you may have heard of Stevie Case, aka Killcreek. She first came to the public eye when she beat John Romero, quite literally, at his own game. Stevie (or Stevana if you prefer to be more formal) became the first professional female gamer to join the Cyberathlete Professional League and quickly gained a reputation as a woman who knew how to game. Keep in mind, kiddies, we’ve been spoiling you here at busygamer.com. Back in the day, hot gaming girls were few and far between.
Known initially for her good looks and being an avid gamer, Stevie quickly proved that she had the brains to complete the overall package. Arguably one of the most famous women in gaming today, Stevie Case has gone from gamer to game developer to Vice President of Business Development and Sales for Fatfoogoo. Wondering what the hell a Fatfoogoo is? You’ll just have to read to find out…
BG Gritskrieg: Would you consider yourself a Busy Gamer?
Stevie Case: Yeah, definitely. I think I’m probably the definition of the Busy Gamer at this point in my life for a lot of reasons. I work in the industry and I think anyone who works anywhere in the industry would probably call themselves a Busy Gamer. And to add to that I am also a mom. I have an almost five year old little girl. She’s finally getting to the age where we can game a bit together but she’s still fairly demanding of my time. That doesn’t leave a lot for gaming on my own.
BG Gritskrieg: So what type of games do you play with your daughter?
Stevie Case: She’s just getting into some of the really fun stuff like Mario Party. That’s probably her favorite at the moment, she just loves it. She can actually play the really simple games. And shockingly in our family, she often wins which is kind of frightening when you think about it. We’ve also got Guitar Hero and Rock Band and she can do some of the basic stuff in those as well so we’re trying those out. She’ll also go online on some of the websites and play some of the cute, casual games as well. It’s pretty shocking, being in my thirties, thinking that when I was growing up, this was not the norm and now I sit here and watch my daughter go on my computer and at four years old, she’s sitting there using a mouse and playing games. It’s pretty cool, I love it.
BG Gritskrieg: In regards to when you beat John Romero in a Quake Deathmatch, do you see that as being where you really got started in the industry or was there another point that you feel was the turning point?
Stevie Case: Well, at that time, I didn’t really plan on being a part of the industry. I was just a gamer, playing with friends and playing in a clan. I think that my path towards towards coming into the industry started a little bit before that in that I was just meeting so many other cool people. I joined this community and as a woman, people were taking note of that and it gave me a great opportunity to meet some really interesting and cool people. I was already meeting a lot of the guys down in the Dallas scene and all the companies that were around then and that certainly opened my eyes to it. Certainly beating John Romero was another door opener and allowed me to meet more great people. From there, it just snowballed. It felt like joining the industry was the next natural step for me but it definitely took work. I spent a few years learning level design and moving on from there. So, it helped but I can’t say it was the defnining moment that led me to where I am today.
BG Gritskrieg: So is there any one particular event that you would classify as the defining moment or was it just a series of events that led from where you began?
Stevie Case: I got into Quake with the people I was living with when I was living in the dorm at the University of Kansas and this whole floor of people were really into Doom and then into Quake. We ended up forming a clan and the clan got really good and there came a time when somebody organized the very first Clan Tournament and we ended up winning. If I could point to one moment, I think that was the moment where I started to take it a little more seriously. I wouldn’t have told you then that this was going to be a career or this was what I want to do but I think that’s really the moment where things turned from a little less serious to a little more serious.
BG Gritskrieg: You were the first female gamer to join the Cyberathlete Professional League. Going in, what was the general response to this girl who could kick the guys’ butts?
Stevie Case: Generally people were very positive. The response was funny. People either totally embraced me and thought it was really cool and wanted to play me or they just hated it, were angry, and wanted to crush me. That percentage was low, sub five percent. Most people just thought it was awesome and really wanted to play, whether they won or lost.
BG Gritskrieg: I imagine that was still pretty intimidating, going into something that was typically male dominated up until that point. Was there ever a time that you wanted to give up because of someone’s reaction to you or because of something that happened?
Stevie Case: Well, there really wasn’t. There were certainly times in that era that I got negative reactions or hateful emails, I mean it was crazy the negative response of a very few people. But it never made me think, “Oh, this isn’t for me”. I think you can look through my entire life and there’s been this pattern of me being involved in things that are traditionally male. Even today, working in an industry that is traditionally male dominated, it just comes with the territory. It was frustrating but it never think it wasn’t for me. For me, it was more about that particular individual.
BG Gritskrieg: Over the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in avid girl gamers. Do you think there’s a difference in how female gamers approach a specific type of game, or did you ever approach a type of game, that made the strategy different from the men’s strategy?
Stevie Case: I really don’t think there’s a difference in the way we approach games. I think you could generalize about women as a whole but when it comes down to it, it’s just about individuals. And on an individual basis, I don’t see anything different about how I approach games versus how a man would approach games. I think that’s one of the cool things, especially when you’re playing on line… It’s an even playing field and that’s one of the things I love about gaming.
BG Gritskrieg: Obviously, gaming has become more mainstream since you first joined a Quake Clan. What do you feel was the turning point? Do you think there was a game that defined the media’s transition?
Stevie Case: Yes, at least in my experience, I look at Halo as the game that changed things towards the mainstream. I remember going out to lunch with non-gaming friends at one point and Halo was in development but it was starting to get a lot of coverage, I believe it was close to release, and it was just the game of the moment. And when it came out, those same guys who hadn’t been gamers got into it and this friend of mine who wasn’t a gamer had seen some of the coverage for Doom 3 which was coming out. He said, “That looks like it could be the next Halo” and to me as a gamer, I had to laugh. He had no idea of the lineage of Doom and Quake and the history behind them and he was equating it to being the next great game with the original great game being Halo. And I thought that was definitely a different perspective on gaming than I think a hardcore gamer would give you. So I really look at Halo as being the big turning point when games became much more mainstream because it is much, much different now.
BG Gritskrieg: What games are you currently playing when you have the time to play?
Stevie Case: What I play now is much more along the lines of the your typical casual gamer. I go online and play all your traditional casual games. Console-wise, I play stuff I can play with my daughter typically. Lots of Mario Party, Rock Band, Guitar Hero, and then I really also love the games that are on Xbox Live Arcade. There’s some really fun and addictive stuff on there. Even when I was a hardcore gamer, I always appreciated casual games. I think now that I am so busy, this is the stuff I have time for, you can jump in and jump out and play a game at a time and that’s what I’m doing these days.
BG Gritskrieg: In regards to the casual versus hardcore gaming, do you feel the industry is catering more towards the casual gamer now or do you think it’s more the hardcore gamer that gets the attention?
Stevie Case: I think the industry is much more open to casual games now and it’s definitely starting to caters towards the casual, mainstream gamers. I think that’s a huge positive. In 2001, when I decided to work on games for cell phones, mobile games… The scorn of the hardcore gamers! It was unreal, they felt those weren’t real games. There was this disgust at this idea that you could go and make games for phones because those aren’t hardcore. But I think that attitude is really different now and I think that’s great because it opens up the industry and it opens up the kind of games that are going to be on offer for everyone. I think that benefits the hardcore as well because the better we do as an industry, the wider we are, the better the offerings are going to be for everybody.
BG Gritskrieg: You worked on Red Faction 2 for the N-Gage when you were working on mobile games?
Stevie Case: That’s correct, that was one but I ended up working on dozens of games for cell phones both down in Texas at Monkeystone and then out in L.A. I was the Manager of Product Development for mobile games at Warner Brothers. Games for lots of big brands on cell phones, everything you could imagine. Scooby Doo and all of their big movies and all the great characters that they have other there.
BG Gritskrieg: Moving on to fatfoogoo, strange name with a strange approach to gaming commerce. What is your role as Vice President of Business Development and Sales?
Stevie Case: My role at fatfoogoo is to reach out to developers and publishers of games and introduce them to our technology and ultimately to get them to use our technology within their game. The technology we have is intended to support virtual economies basically, to allow them to sell virtual goods to their users or to allow them to support users selling to each other within a game. That could apply to MMOs or virtual worlds. But it can also be applied to small casual games. You could sell items in casual browser games or in social games on Facebook or really any type of online community. That’s the focus and it’s my job to go out there and get people to use that technology.
BG Gritskrieg: With the popularity of games like Second Life, World of Warcraft, and of course, Everquest, do you ever see a time when there will be a pseudo Stock Market for in-game economies?
Stevie Case: Interesting. Yes, I think it’s conceivable. I think that what developers are realizing now is that these in-game economies that you create can be just as complex as a real world economy and that you have to consider all the same issues. Inflation, scarcity of items and resources, and then you have to also consider the behavior of users. I can definitely see a day when there’s some kind of high level regulation as well some sort of a stock market. I think that the potential there is tremendous and the economies being run in these big virtual worlds and games are huge, they’re overwhelming. I think that might be the road it’s heading down.
BG Gritskrieg: What, in your opinion, would be the first step in standardizing “exchange rates”?
Stevie Case: That’s tough. I think we’re a really, really long way from standardizing in that way or having standardized exchange rates across lots of games. Part of the challenge is that virtual economies are a pretty new model, at least in North America and Europe. They’ve done very well in Asia but we’re just starting to see them come here in the biggest games. I think that what we’re going to see is that virtual economies are going to be a great model for smaller games as well. One of the cool things, for Busy Gamers in particular, is that it lowers the bar for entry. You’ll get these free to play games where you can jump on, play for free, you don’t have to go buy a sixty dollar that’s going to take you a hundred hours, you’re not going to have this high bar for entry. You can jump on and try it and if you like it, you don’t have to pay a huge dollar figure to keep going. Maybe you need to buy one 1 dollar item and then you can grow from there. And then you only end up spending your money on games that you’re enjoying and playing a lot of. I think we have so far to go on that, that I think we’ve got to fully realize that model here in America before we can even look at standardizing.
BG Gritskrieg: We’ve all heard of the scam artists who would purchase in-game items and then contest the payment essentially cheating the seller out of their property. What kind of steps does fatfoogoo take to prevent this type of fraud?
Stevie Case: Prevention of fraud is actually one of the very reasons that it’s such a good idea to use fatfoogoo’s technology. Essentially what we’ve discovered is, and what you can see out there on the market is, people want to trade and sell their items. They’re excited about the game, they want to take it to the next level and sell their things. So they take to these secondary markets, E-Bay and others, and it’s uncontrolled and you get these negative experiences that tarnish the image of the game. What we do different is, when a publisher is using our technology, it’s actually integrated within their game so rather than having to go out to E-Bay, the players are trading within a marketplace that exists in the game world and it’s under the control of the publisher. Because it’s integrated there, they can control the delivery of currency and the delivery of the item. That’s the number one way we’re minimizing fraud. Then we have an entire fraud management suite that helps us detect payment fraud and other things that people try to do and then the transaction can happen. If there’s a dispute, it can be managed by the guys who actually own the game and understand the transaction itself. It leads to a much cleaner, more organized, and positive experience for everybody and people can feel safe trading their items. I think it’s ultimately good for the gamers and really good for the publishers and developers of the game. Everybody gets what they want, you’ve got these safe transactions, and then you’ve got incentive for people to keep playing as well.
BG Gritskrieg: Publishers such as Blizzard have been very resistant to the idea of real cash for virtual properties. Do you find this attitude to be prevalent or are publishers becoming more accepting of the idea?
Stevie Case: I think evryone out there is not only less resistant but I can tell you with certainty that every one of these big companies has a strategy for supporting microtransactions in virtual item sales. Some of them are on a much longer timeline but I think that everyone sees now that this model is very successful in Asia. It can be an extremely successful and controlled model so everybody is going to do it in some form is my impression. So I think that lots of people will enter this in the safest way possible which is the model we suggest and the model we’re seeing most commonly taken on as a first step; selling a virtual currency for real money and having a second virtual currency that’s earned. And then your entire virtual economy runs not necessarily on real money but on virtual currency. That way you only have one point of entry where there could be any kind of risk involved and then the virtual currency is what is traded the rest of time. If you go to buy an item, you’re going to buy in virtual currency and the same holds true for trading with another player. I think that’s a safer model but I think absolutely everybody has some strategy to get to microtransactions, it’s really just a matter of time at this point.
BG Gritskrieg: How long does it generally take to transition an existing game to a process like what fatfoogoo has in place?
Stevie Case: It depends on the design of the game. What we’re finding is that most of the games that were designed without this type of virtual economy, they’re just going to let it live out its lifespan and it is what it is. However, it is something that you would add on to a new game or new title because it really has to be incorporated in the initial design if you want to control your economy and have it done in a way that’s enjoyable. I think three to four years from now is really when we’ll see this model in full bloom. We’re just seeing some of the first titles launch now that have really cool, tricked out virtual economies and I think the biggest games are two, three years out.
BG Gritskrieg: You’re familiar with the term “gold farmer”? Do you believe that once a game is set up for microtransactions that gold farming can artificially inflate a virtual economy?
Stevie Case: It all comes down to the design. Gold farming and similar behaviors are just one of the things you have to take into account when you design your economy. It’s one of the reasons you have to control your economy tightly. This is where our technology comes in because we do control various aspects of the economy within our platform. It’s designed to prevent this kind of behavior. We have reporting built into the back end so you can track user behavior and keep an eye out for anything that is questionable. You’ve really got to limit your items, your currencies, and get it to a point where it stabilizes so that you don’t get that kind of behavior. It’s really about control and that’s one of the big reasons our technology exists.
BG Gritskrieg: What have you found to be the reaction of the gamer community at large to be in response to your company’s involvement in virtual economies?
Stevie Case: Well, it’s interesting. I think that this model, the virtual economies within games, is still quite new. There are games out there doing this but it’s still a fairly new model so I think reaction is still to come. I think the community is just starting to absorb this new model and I don’t feel they have a sense of what it fully means to them yet. Reaction on the developer/publisher side of the community has been very positive. I think they feel this gives them more control. One of the cool things about this is it really gives more people the opportunity to make games that have the potential to make tremendous revenue. I believe that gaming went through a stage where it felt very stagnant and unless you had fifty million dollars to make a game, you were stuck and you weren’t going to make anything. However, when you can make a tiny game that’s free to play but very, very fun and you can grow a community, this is a great way to monetize a community. I think that’s going to lead to a lot more independent developers making small, great games. I feel like the reaction in the community isn’t there yet. I think they’re still figuring out what they think about microtransactions and virtual economies.
BG Gritskrieg: Do you believe independent developers and production companies have the opportunity to create games that can be as profitable as something like World of Warcraft when using free to play/microtransaction models?
Stevie Case: Oh, absolutely. There are already some major success stories coming out of Asia with what they’ve done there and I think the same will apply here. We’ve already seen some tremendous successes here with virtual item sales. You look at something, it’s not strictly a game, but it’s a good example, Habbo Hotel. They’ve made a tremendous amount of money selling virtual items. I think I heard the other day that Habbo Hotel has sold more furniture than Ikea. It’s just staggering how successful they’ve been and I think that bodes well because I think we will see games that do just as well as packaged goods but driving revenue just off of virtual items. I think we have to grow the comfort level of the community in the market place here in North America and also in Europe but I think it’s just a matter of time and this is going to be be a really, really successful model.
BG Gritskrieg: Do you have any tips for women who are trying to get into the gaming industry?
Stevie Case: I think that the key is really just to stick with it. Gaming is a really cool industry to break into. It’s not about having the right degree, going to the right college, or checking all of the boxes. It’s about ability, drive, and passion. So the key to getting in is to have those within you, to have the drive and passion to care about games and love games. It can be discouraging, particularly as a woman at times, but if you stick with it and show that you have that true love for games, you will get in.
To learn more about Fatfoogoo, you can visit them here.
Gritskrieg – End of Line
