Daily Trojan USC.edu

Issue date: 11/6/07 Section: Lifestyle

Media Credit: Gary Fung | Daily Trojan Play it again | Junior Celeste McWhorter says she can identify game enthusiasts with her "gamedar."

Ashley Soriano sets the record straight - girls can game. She should know. The USC freshman is a competitive video gamer.

I've been recruited to explore the prevailing stereotype that gaming is a guy thing, even though my knowledge of video games doesn't stretch far beyond, well, the Tamagotchi I once had.

Recently, I watched Soriano while she played a first-person shooter game. Blood splatters against concrete walls, gun-toting men bob and weave around an urban jungle. I'm getting motion sickness just watching her play. Her long black hair is draped on top of her hoodie. Soriano spewed advice to her online teammates into the small mic attached to her headset.

"There's one outside," she said. "He's almost dead. Right ... here! Got 'em! Shoot! He shot me!"

She's died a few times in the past 30 minutes, thanks mostly to my questioning. Though distracting her isn't easy - three of her suitemates fly past her dorm room giggling and screaming, and she didn't bat an eyelash.

Soriano, an interactive entertainment major, started gaming as a 5-year-old.

"My dad would hold me on his lap while he played the old Nintendo, then one day I just picked it up and started playing," she said, her hands gripping the console, her dark brown eyes fixed on the TV screen.

A year and a half ago, Soriano started competing locally back in her hometown of Pittsburg, Pa. Early this year, she and a friend co-founded a gaming clan - groups of players with similar gaming styles - called A.I.

"Angelic Inferno," she clarified quickly.

Her friend introduced her to Major League Gaming, the professional console-gaming league. Now Soriano's reached pro status and competes across the country. She won 3rd place and $3,000 playing Shadowrun, an urban fantasy cross-genre game, at a competition last month.

Before she came to USC, Soriano practiced five to seven hours a day; she's cut it down to two hours now, more on weekends. She admitted she's skipped class and stayed up all night because of playing. She's also missed USC football games for competitions and wants to become a game designer. And yes, her boyfriend is also a gamer.

"But in person, people are cool," she said when asked if she receives negative feedback when people discover her passion. "I get a lot of crap online like, 'Go make me a sandwich. Girls can't play.' But some people are like, 'You're so good; have my babies.'"

Celeste McWhorter could probably identify Soriano in the middle of Trousdale. She said she has gamedar, like gaydar for gamers, she informed me with authority.

"Hey, it takes one to know one," she said.

McWhorter, a junior majoring in East Asian studies and interactive media, started playing Mortal Kombat when she was 6 years old and has been a devoted fan ever since. She even dresses up as Princess Kitana just for fun. Aside from Mortal Kombat, she immersed herself in World of Warcraft (W.O.W.).

"I weaned myself before college; my whole summer vacation before USC was W.O.W.," she said, swinging her dark hair, which scales the length of her back, behind her shoulders.

The Ohio native plays one hour of video games every morning to "pump up for the day, like a happy pill." Every Friday night after work, she plays for four hours or so.

McWhorter wants to become a game designer and eventually start her own gaming company. She hopes to create more relationship-based and puzzle-based shooting games and of course, more Mortal Kombat sequels.

McWhorter admits it's hard to deny that video gaming is dominated by men, although she appreciates that certain games are targeted to women. But Soriano sees marketing certain games just for girls as limiting and somewhat offensive.

"By putting out 'girl games,' it's too much of a generalization," she said. "There's no difference between genders, so just target everyone."

Sitting comfortably in the middle of Soriano and McWhorter is Maria Gao, a junior majoring in business administration.

"It sucks to be stereotyped and put everything into one strict view, but I think the fact that girls are getting more attention in the gaming industry is good," Gao said of the increased release of games for women.

A longtime gamer who interned this summer for Blizzard Entertainment, the creator of W.O.W., Gao plans to become a video game producer after graduation and eventually do marketing back in Asia.

Gao said when she reveals her minor - video game design - to her peers, she sees their eyes widen and images flash into people's minds.

"They're like, 'I didn't expect you to look like that,' like they have some image of a kinky girl playing," she said, dressed in a long-sleeved black top, her shiny black hair pulled up neatly, accented by the light reflecting off of her silver drop earrings.

Gao is a fan of role-playing games like W.O.W. and Trauma Center on Nintendo DSL, though her passion for gaming started in the first grade, on the classic Super Nintendo and other console games.

"I like W.O.W. because you play a character with a background and a story line, and the stories are amazing, which is why there is such a huge fan base," she said.

As such an avid fan, Gao is somewhat blasé about video gaming.

"I know many friends whose careers and relationships have been ruined by W.O.W. and people who dropped out of college because of it," she said. "I don't make time just for video games anymore. If I have something better to do, I'll do it. Hello, when your girlfriend is over and you'd rather play video games, that's just wrong," she emphasized.

All three girls immediately shout out a resonant "No" when asked if they plan to move back to their hometowns after graduation. They say the mecca of video games is Los Angeles and are also in unison concerning the controversial argument that violence and murder is provoked by gaming.

"I've been playing video games my whole life, and I'm not going on rampages," Soriano said.

"A lot of simulation games are for people training for, like, the Air Force, but with shooting games there is no context. It's not training you to shoot people," Gao argued.

With these girls, it's certain gaming won't leave their blood anytime soon. As I exit Soriano's dorm room an hour and a half later, her eyes remain fixed on the screen, her thumbs jerking up and down as she blurts out a quick goodbye. I can't blame her - as McWhorter said, "With gaming, it's not just the game, it's a culture."

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