Brenda Romero

Brenda Romero (formerly Brenda Brathwaite) is a game designer, artist, writer and creative director who entered the video game industry in 1981 at the age of 15. Brenda has worked with a variety of digital game companies as a game designer or creative director, including Atari, Sir-tech Software, Electronic Arts, Firaxis and numerous companies in the social media space.

Brenda served on the board of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) and presently chairs the IGDA’s Women in Games Special Interest group. She also serves on the advisory board of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games at the Strong Museum of Play. She also works with John Romero and The Romero Archives to record game designers discussing their game design process for historical archiving.

She was named Woman of the Year by Charisma+2 Magazine in 2010 and also was a nominee in Microsoft’s 2010 Women in Games game design awards. In 2009, her game Train won the coveted Vanguard Award at IndieCade for “pushing the boundaries of game design and showing us what games can do.” She was named one of the top 20 most influential women in the game industry by Gamasutra.com in 2008 and of the 100 most influential women in the game industry by Next Generation magazine in 2007. Nerve magazine also called her one of the 50 artists, actors, authors, activists and icons who are making the world a more stimulating place.

She also works on a series of non-digital games titled The Mechanic is the Message. So far, Train, Siochan Leat, the New World and Pre-Conception have been released.