Tag Archives: G.I.R.L.

Noby Noby Boy players helped his counterpart, GIRL, reach the planet Uranus last week. Juvenile jokes on the achievement aside, it is quite a feat, as GIRL reached Jupiter back in November 2009 before moving on to Saturn. Next up, is Neptune, which depending on how the planets are aligned at the time is another 911,453,788 miles at best, and 4,679,048,095 miles at its farthest. Thanks, Kotaku.

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This will never be boring. Square Enix has now added a girl to the back of the dragon on its “new game” teaser site, to sit right behind the boy it stuck on yesterday.

See that big blank space on the right? That’s where Bingo the clown goes. Only 114 hours to go.

Thanks, Kotaku.

Player levels for Noby Noby Boy have dropped from an initial 60,000 to 1,000, meaning GIRL’s trip to Mars will take over 2,000 days current levels, says a website designed to track her progress.

Daily activity for the game sits around 1,500, rarely reaching 2,000 and almost falling below 1,000 occasionally, and while 300-500 new players are trying Noby out on a daily basis, people are also leaving the game.

Keita Takahashi has said that it would take 820 years for GIRL to connect the entire solar system.

Lofty goal there.

Via DarkZero.

SOE’s asked other companies to fork out scholarships of $10,000 to give to women looking to get training in games development.

“Today, I am challenging everyone to take action to help level the playing field for women pursuing a career in video games. By donating to the G.I.R.L. scholarship, we can encourage diversity in development and make a difference, hopefully creating more opportunities for women and ultimately making more video games women will want to play,” said SOE’s Torrie Dorrell.

The firm currently runs the G.I.R.L. program, which gives money to women to go to college and learn how to fit triangles together.

Press release after the link.

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The first G.I.R.L. scholarship is to be given to Julia Brasil of San Francisco, SOE has announced.

Brasil will receive $10,000 towards her education at the Art Institute of California and a paid internship of up to 10 weeks at the SOE studios of her choice in Austin, Denver, San Diego or Seattle.

“I am shocked and overjoyed to be the first G.I.R.L. Scholarship recipient,” said Brasil. “I’m really looking forward to my internship with SOE, and getting some hands-on experience at such a well-known company. It’s such a great opportunity.”

Good work, Julia. Don’t blow it all on weed and lager.

Torrie Dorrell, head of the SOE G.I.R.L. (Gamers in Real Life) program to provide scholarships to women to get into games development has said that the initiative is designed to address the balance the man-woman ratio in the average studio.

“Women are out there in significant numbers playing MMOs, action games, first-person shooters,” she said. “What is lacking in the equation are women behind these games.”

Dorell’s colleague, SOE’s Courtney Simmons, added: “Go to any video game convention and it appears quite obviously that there are more men than women in the industry.”

Simmons, who enjoys playing video games with her three children, believes that women are being “gamed down to,” because, she says, “there is a lack of understanding about how women play.”

G.I.R.L.’s initial aim is to give a give a winning female student currently enrolled at an Art Institute school $10,000 toward her tuition and a paid internship at one of SOE’s development studios.