This is the blog that I’ve been dreading for a while now. How could I sum up 5 years into one blog? I decided I would just have to spit it out – I am officially stepping down from the Frag Dolls. My decision to leave has been long overdue as my full-time position at Ubisoft has prevented me from being more active on the team. But don’t worry, I will still be around - blogging about other things like fashion, lurking in the FD forums as much as I did before (go ahead community members, laugh), and I will be wearing my FD shirt for the last time at PAX this weekend.  It’s really bittersweet to let go of something you’ve been part of since the beginning, but I realized that it was time.

For those of you who weren’t around for the original Frag Doll casting call, let me say that we had it easy. The remaining original members of the group - Brookelyn, Valkyrie, Rhoulette and myself can definitely testify to how relatively “easy” our casting was compared to what we put candidates through now. Five years ago, my friend sent me a craigslist posting specifically looking for female gamers. I thought I was perfect for the job and applied right away. I had played games since I was six – everything from Mario and Tetris Attack to Winning Eleven and Halo – I played it all. I met Rhoulette, our future team captain, and another community manager at Ubisoft for the interview and they sat me down in a empty white room. I was a bit shy and nervous (as I always am) and they asked me questions about games – How did I usually fair when playing Halo with friends? How comfortable was I speaking in front of people? They tried to get a feel for my personality by having me talk about my recent trip to Thailand. It must have worked because they both smiled, looked at each other, and a few days later I got a call back letting me know that I made the next round.

I was thrilled! I had made the final cut and was asked to come back in the office to meet with people who would be working with the team. As I walked to the office that day, I specifically remember seeing two girls across the street walk into the office ahead of me. One was wearing a more business like outfit, the other white pants and a white top. I decided that there was no way they were both there for the gaming gig – they were too pretty to be gamers and I automatically assumed they were just there for other business purposes. Of course I was totally wrong and I ended up meeting Brookelyn (in all white) and Valkyrie (in the business attire) later that morning. That day, I also met Katscratch who I thought looked way too chic and sophisticated to be a gamer, Eekers (on web cam), who charmed us with her cute giggles, and Jinx (also on web cam), who was highly intimidating as she had been voted “sexiest gamer of the year” by EGM!

The meeting went by in a flash. We introduced ourselves over pizza, met with the promotions manager, and talked about games with a few other Ubisoft employees. Someone decided for us to play a “casual” game of Halo. Everyone confessed that they hadn’t played in so long since Halo 2 was coming out next fall, but I didn’t say anything since I was actually still playing Halo all the time! I ended up placing 1st in 2 of 3 FFA rounds – Valkyrie took the last kill to break the tie in the 3rd round, but my excuse was that one of the brand people was distracting me with questions the whole time! Haha. Anyways, I knew right then and there that these girls were for serious gamers.

Over the next week, we were tested in Rainbow Six 3 on XBL. I had never even logged on to XBL before that and I knew with some of the girls like Brooke and Amy, they were not only seasoned XBL players, but experts at Tom Clancy games. I got by, communicated with my team, and was able to get kills here and there against Ubisoft’s resident experts and also the ones who would decide if we were good enough for the team. I guess my skills must have shown because I ended up getting hired! I was officially a Frag Doll.

I still can’t believe all of this happened 5 years ago. Looking through a bunch of our old pictures while writing this blog has brought back so many good memories. We’ve had so many good times and I’ve made some really great friends and learned so much. I have gained so much respect for pro-gamers out there. Most of all, I’ve made a lot of amazing memories. So as my very last Frag Doll blog, I will leave you with two things:

1) Pictures! We had a lot of good times starting out as a team so I wanted to share some of our first moments. Apologies to the girls about showing some of these old ones… hope you don’t mind!

This was the first day I met Brooke and Amy at the finalist casting at the Ubisoft offices. Gosh, we were so little.

This was one of our first “test” photoshoots. We used the Ubisoft parking lot as a backdrop. lol. And since we didn’t have team shirts yet, we wore these blue Rainbow Six shirts, which were so big that we had to tie them up in the back.

Another test team shot minus Rhoulette. We are so hardcore.

Getting ready for our first real shoot in Seattle before PAX. Man, those shirts were tiny! We did our own hair and makeup back then.

An actual pic from the shoot that day. This was taken in a hotel room made into a studio.

First place at the PAX Rainbow Six 3 Broken Arrow tournament! This was not only our team debut at PAX 2004, but also our first tournament. Not bad for playing together for the first time as a team.

We went to NY for a press tour a few months after our debut at PAX. On this day, we were doing some shopping and determined to get some fake designer purses. We found some lady on the street who took us through this random store into this random alley where they had these hidden purse shops set up. Kat is showing our counterfeit goods here.

Brooke in I in the NYC Virgin Megastore. We were soo excited when we saw the spread in EGM!

Another pic from our trip to NY. I’m not sure why I love this picture so much, but we had so much fun at the Lotus club that night.

This was our EGM rematch game. I actually ditched work and took a really early and super extended lunch at the time to attend this in SF CNET offices. I like how we’re so serious even though we’re just playing Mario Kart.

This is from our trip to Montreal to attend the Arcadia Game Festival. It was pretty awesome because we had such crazy and excited fans there. This picture was taken right after we appeared on this French Canadian morning TV show. They spoke French the whole time and we just nodded and smiled.

Another pic from Montreal. Rhoulette took us to this specialty hot chocolate place where the hot chocolate was super thick. Not sure how it all ended up on our faces though…

One of our last original team pics together at E3.

This was right after we hired Calyber and Psyche. We did this awesome shoot with Kate Turning. The set was designed to be like a video game level.

2) And finally, a shout outs to the girls who I spent so many trips, taxi rides, dinners, online practices, and nights dancing with! Thanks for letting me be part of the team.

Rhoulette: The team would have been lost without you. Thanks for working so hard for the team to make this happen. You’re always there to keep our spirits up!

Brookelyn: You are one of the most genuine people I know. You are so full of creativity, it amazes me. You and I will always know that Gwen Stefani waved at us!!

Valkyrie: You are one of the best all around gamers I know. I am so proud of you for doing so well in WCG’s ultimate gamer and keeping true to yourself. It was so fun watching you!

Psyche: You are hilarious and so much fun to hang out with. This isn’t really goodbye since I see you every day and can hear you from 30 feet away. Lol.

Pyra:  I still remember that awful hotel room in NY that we shared. That was so disgusting, but funny. Milo Ventimiglia forever! <3

Phoenix: I love your sassy attitude. You have such a fun personality and I give you a lot of props for being a mommy gamer.

Fidget and Spectra: I feel like you guys were destined to become Frag Dolls. You are both perfect for the job and will do great!

Thanks again Ubisoft for giving me an experience of a lifetime! And lastly, a big thank you to our community and to all our fans out there - from the lurkers to the trolls to that guy who followed me to the bathroom - if it weren’t for you guys, we wouldn’t be here. Thank you!

Signing off,
Seppuku

P.S. Thanks to my then boyfriend, but now husband Wilson (aka Chewbroccoli) for always supporting me in every decision I’ve had to make. You’ve been gaming with me before I was even a Frag Doll and have stuck by my side the entire time (even though sometimes you don’t rescue me in GOW). I know I can count on you for anything. Love you!

I don’t know how it is for some of you, but I’ve found that married life as a gamer has changed quite a bit. It was almost 30 days after I got married until I finally turned the Xbox on. Even worse is that up until 3 days ago, I hadn’t played with anyone on XBL for almost 4-5 months! Although I do have the ol’ “I was planning a wedding” excuse, I felt like part of me was missing the days when I would come home from work and just hop on Gears 2 and get a few games in with friends. The days of having a TV all to myself are gone and as expected, everything is now “we” instead of “I”. So how does this work?

Gamer marries gamer = more gaming?

-OR-

Gamer marries gamer = less gaming? How is this possible?

Maybe I’m just in a gaming slump, who knows? Although we’ve dabbled in some co-op Gears of War 2, co-op Rainbow Six Vegas 2, and co-op Little Big Planet, for me, once I start co-op, I want to finish co-op. There are days where I feel like finishing Gears and he just wants to battle it out in Street Fighter IV. We all know married life is tough, especially the first year. Agreeing on who does the dishes is just as difficult as agreeing on what game to play at the moment. “Why do we always have to play the game YOU want to play?” and “Eh, I don’t feel like playing THAT game” become common phrases in our house. I suppose sometimes its just easier to watch TV than agree on a game to play.

I guess I’m sort of at a standstill. For me, gaming with a significant other has always been a bonding experience. It is much more fulfilling to complete a difficult co-op mission together rather than demolishing each other in an FPS. And although I prefer to play games WITH my spouse most of the time, the hard part becomes actually finding the time where both parties want to play! We all know relationships are full of compromise, so I guess this is just something we have to figure out.

And for other gaming couples out there, I would love to hear your stories. I always find it really interesting to see how other couples game (or don’t game) together!

Ok, first of all, I am still alive. Second of all, I apologize for being so bad on updating blogs. Lately my life has consisted of wedding planning, work, house hunting, and just moving around a lot in general. Although I technically have a room that I rent, which is only 30 min from work, I am starting to become somewhat of a hobo - living out of my car, crashing at my fiance’s apartment and mooching off my parents in their house, which is over an hour away from work. I am pretty much living out of shopping bags of clothes (plus my Xbox) that I lug back and forth between houses. This is mainly because my current room that I rent has been very unpleasant… and by unpleasant, I mean ghetto. Anyhow, I digress. The reason that I had the urge to write this blog (besides Brookelyn getting on my case multiple times) is because I have been seeing these horrible commercials on TV for the Wii and DS. They annoy me so much that I just had to point it out.

So this is Japan’s Animal Crossing commercial on the DS. It’s not too bad.. maybe it’s less annoying because Japanese girls sound cute? I’m guessing the US marketing team was taking cues from this commercial?

Now here is Animal Crossing City Folk for the Wii. This commercial drives me nuts. Wow, can the girls sound any more clueless? Do they think we talk like that? This is insulting.

Another bad City Folk commercial. Why do they sound so spacey?

And even though I do like America Ferrera, she should really know what 6+6 is.

These commercials just leave me feeling… awkward. That’s the best way I can describe the feeling. I do feel a bit bad for bashing on Nintendo’s efforts to promote females in gaming. But honestly for a huge multi-billion dollar company, I think they could do better. On the plus side, it’s great seeing commercials where DS’ aren’t just being played by 11 year old girls though! Well, since this blog is so full of negativity, here’s one DS commercial from the UK that I thought was pretty decent.