Empowering Others: An Interview with the*gameHERs
Talking to Rebecca Dixon about how to make the gaming and esports space more inclusive.
When I first started out with my professional esports career, I was more often than not the only woman in the room. I have been asked whether I’m someone’s girlfriend or why I am really there. Some people told me directly that I do not belong. The hardships women and people of marginalized groups face in the esports and gaming industry are endless and this is why it is so important to find a mentor or another person that believes in you when you stopped believing in yourself. Someone that empowers you and helps you grow. So welcome to Bunt and Bold volume 7 that is all about empowerment.
- Kristin Banse
What is Empowerment?
Empowerment is a process that encourages people to take matters into their own hands, to discover their own power and competencies, and as a result, take them seriously. Empowerment takes place when people, affected by the same or similar problems, cooperate to find support and solutions. According to the European Commission there are two mains ways to empower others:
By providing material assets such as housing
By providing capabilities
An example for the second one could be to teach someone specific skills. This can be about how to succeed in a job interview or how to position oneself for a promotion.
Empowerment Initiatives in Esports and Gaming
There are already several initiatives in esports and gaming to help empower others and make the industry a more inclusive place. There is the mentorship program by Queer Women of Esports and another one by Xbox.
One of the most prominent initiatives is the*gameHERs, a community offering a safe space for women. the*gameHERs also hosts the annual game*HERs awards and offers bootcamps for professional career development. For this volume of Bunt and Bold, we talked to their CEO Rebecca Dixon for further insights into the initiative.
Interview with Rebecca Dixon of the*gameHERs
Can you please introduce yourself to our readers that might not know you?
My name is Rebecca Dixon, I'm the CEO, and one of the co-founders of the*gameHERs. We are a media platform, social network, and lifestyle brand for women and femme-identifying gamers.
You already mentioned the*gameHERs, but can you share a bit more about the vision and mission?
We are creating a space for a community to form, for women in gaming, and women who work in the video game industry. [...] Women in gaming have been creating communities together to the extent that they could, for many years. When we started the*gameHERs, we felt that there was a place or an opportunity to create an environment that would really celebrate, and amplify, and elevate the initiatives and the women and the communities that already existed. [...] We created the professional career boot camp, and we have a job listing section on our website and we have a job platform group, or we have a job group in our app. We are working to make connections between gamers in our community and companies in the industry. We believe that in order for the challenges that women in gaming face to be fixed, all the different aspects of the industry need to come together.
What do you consider your biggest success so far and how do you define success for the organization overall?
I think that success for us ultimately looks like when we've reached a point that the*gameHERs is the go-to place for women in gaming. In terms of our biggest success, we're responding to what we see as a need in our community. We have launched an app and it's really successful. It has over 500,000 users, and the user experience in the app is extremely positive, the engagement is high and we are just looking forward to growing that. I also think the*gameHERs awards as this will be the third annual awards.
Another current initiative that we have going on that we're really excited about is that we have just launched an opportunity to diversify our ownership of the*gameHERs. In order for the challenges for women in gaming to move to a positive place we felt like a media company such as us was needed. And so to run that, to develop an app, to have the resources, to hire a team, and to be at all the places that we need to be, we have raised a significant amount of capital through traditional investors up to this point. But we really thought it would be fun and meaningful to give our own community the opportunity to invest in us. And so that we could actually have accountability and ties from an ownership perspective to our community. We have a crowdfunding campaign happening right now and we are excited to share that message. There are situations where women in the industry are working hard to have salaries that then allow them to invest in the industry and support younger women. This is an opportunity to be able to do that.
Let's start before your crowdfunding campaign. You have raised $2M USD before to build an app. When looking at your next funding, did you try to raise a new round from institutional investors before starting a crowdfunding campaign?
Well, we've raised $2M USD from institutional investors. This crowdfunding campaign is now an opportunity for the industry to invest for women, or for anybody who supports us, to invest in the industry and us. We have lots of people in our community who are participating. When we look who is investing in it, it's women who are very active in our community. It's people who are in the industry and believe in what we're doing. And it's also some traditional investors who want to participate in this round and are doing it through the wefunders.
You already mentioned that you have 500k users on your app. Can you share a bit more information around your business model and your plans to monetize your business in the future?
Our business model is right now that we monetize through partnerships with companies who are looking to reach our community. And we feel like that's a strong model for us because as time goes on, and GenZ and Gen alpha get older, everybody's gaming and half of gamers are women. So for brands who are looking to reach those women, we are a pretty great option. Not to mention that the engagement level of our community is really high. We have a lot of different potential revenue streams. One thing is this current funding from our wefunder is meant to allow us to do some of those. That includes everything from publisher integrations to metaverse collaborations, to traditional advertising in stream, and live events on college campuses is a big one that we have a lot of requests for. The job connection opportunities are really strong, too. The overlap between women who game and women who would like to work in the gaming industry is strong. There are a lot of examples of women who wanna work in the game industry but cannot get a job. On the flip side of it, we get outreach from companies trying to hire women but they cannot find any. So we've been able to make a number of connections through our landing page.
Did we get it right, that the things you mentioned, are how you plan to use the new funds of the crowdfunding campaign?
Yes, we will use crowdfunding as resources to explore the road to those revenue streams. All of those are very current for us in terms of outreach. It is just as a startup, we are a small team. And as a startup we are also really focused on making sure we're in the current market to stay in business and grow. Be able to scale for the purpose of the company that we have started. So it is a balance between making sure that we stick with a revenue stream that we know is working for us right now, and then also staying current through the evolution of our company.
We’ve talked a lot about your new campaign, but I just wanted to ask what you think are the biggest obstacles you need to overcome?
I think that for women in gaming, it is challenging. [..] Not as many esports players are women because not as many high school esports players are prepared to be college esports players. And so we are providing a space for a community for collegiate gamers to come together, but in order to be able to get beyond the casual gaming enthusiast and really get more esports players in college then we need to work in the high school. We are actively looking at how we can provide value in the high school space. Then once we are there, it's gonna be right on down to middle school. And so if you go in the other direction after college, it is about getting jobs and then after getting the jobs it's the retention of jobs and culture at companies. And so there are so many different pieces to the puzzle that I think the obstacles are figuring out. We often get asked the question: what's the biggest problem for women in gaming? The biggest problem is there's not just one problem. We as a business are trying to scale quickly so that we address a lot of the different age groups, games, communities and geographic locations. Gaming and esports even after all this time is still a relatively young industry. It is a big industry but it is relatively young.
How can people support you and the*gameHERs and what kind of support do you need from people out there?
Thank you for that question. The most tangible ways I think to support the*gameHERs is to join our community first down, download our app, follow us on socials. We are @the*gameHERs within H everywhere, and we are always looking to just find more women and femme-identifying gamers. And of course, all of our allies who would like to be a part of our community. The second very tangible way that somebody could support us right now would also be an opportunity for them, which is to look at wefunder and consider investing in us or if that is not feasible, consider sharing it with somebody who might. On August 1st, we're gonna be launching our awards. So at that point, a great way to support us would be to nominate somebody who deserves one of the*gameHERs awards.
If there is one thing you personally could change about the video game industry with immediate effect, what would it be?
I would love to see more professional opportunities for women and femme-identifying gamers at an equal pay scale.
Is there anything you want to share that we did not capture yet at all?
We really are at a pivotal moment for our company. We have been around for two and a half years. In order for us to scale in a meaningful way we want to look for companies that we can strategically partner with, to help us reach more women gamers who have not met us yet. We are thinking about making our Twitch always on and always featuring women gamers. And so anytime that there is a game, an initiative, an esports tournament, a college event we are really, excited to know about it, and we want to share as much as we can and sort of being the the go-to place for women in gaming, for women gamers to get the exposure they deserve, but for also women gaming enthusiast to find out what's going on.