Boy’s Club Backlash

by Racheal Caswell

In the face of an increasing number of social-oriented games, I find myself preferring an insular experience and – unfortunately – increasingly shying away from playing certain games altogether. Something that used to be enjoyable now looms as a potentially stressful and threatening part of the culture because, despite the fact that women over the age of 25 are now the largest group of gamers in the U.S., we’re still subjected to an alarming amount of harassment and sexism by our male counterparts.

Sexism in the videogame industry is by no means a new topic. It’s been the subject of numerous articles, blog posts and even websites devoted to posting the lewd, mean and even downright disturbing messages female gamers are subject to get when playing online. This week, the conversation has flared up again, fueled by an incident on “Cross Assault,” a Capcom-sponsored reality show in which teams of Street Fighter X Tekken players compete for prizes.

Death Lives in San Francisco

by Wonacott Communications

Last week, Wonacott went up to San Francisco to staff an event for the upcoming Darksiders II. We’ve worked with THQ before – we drove the campaign for the Homefront North Korean BBQ food truck (pun intended) that caused a lot of commotion at E3 2010 and again just before the game’s launch in 2011 – and we were excited to have the chance to once again show them what we can do.

Media Monitoring and Managing Deadlines: The Great Balancing Act

by Racheal Caswell

Monitoring the news is a large part of being a Public Relations professional. Some might even call it a “necessary evil.” So much of what we do relies on being up-to-date on industry trends and news around the world. But between writing press releases, pitching stories, making calls, editing documents, creating proposals, brainstorming, putting together mailings, staffing events and the myriad of other tasks you find yourself taking on, staying up on the news sometimes seems like the most harmless thing to let fall by the wayside.