We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kelsey Coffman a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kelsey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

The core pillar to our mission in GG Women Professionals is “storytelling”. It’s what drives our mission to help women in the game industry raise their voices. I’ve always loved a great game with a well-developed story, enjoyed to moderate a panel to hear others’ stories, and just meet someone for the first time to hear their experiences in life, etc. I loved storytelling and hearing stories in games and in game development that it made sense for us to make it our core pillar.

In the past when I worked in a previous group to help women in game dev, I always wanted to find the voices that were never or rarely heard. With GG Women Professionals, the others and I have the chance to do this for others, especially in a time with layoffs and voices being ignored. We want to hear their stories and we want to share their stories by providing a platform for them.

Kelsey, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

On my eighth birthday, my dad gifted me the game “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” on the N64. It was a pivotal moment in my life that had me falling in love with video games. I must have easily played that game 10-12 times in my life – and I still want to go back and play it! The immersive world and enriching story of the protagonist and mission in the game had my eight-year-old self start asking critical questions such as “How do I get on that ledge? Would my hookshot work or do I need to solve a puzzle?”, “Oh no! How do I get out of this ranch with Epona? Hmmm if this was real life, I bet the horse can jump over the fence!” to philosophical questions like “How can someone be so courageous all the the time? Aren’t they scared?”, “Can I be a hero in life?”.

Because of my dad buying me that game, it also launched my career into games.

I’m not sure if it was playing Zelda as a kid, watching the movie The Fifth Element, a book I read, or someone I knew in life, but I always asked myself the question, “If he or she can do it, why can’t I?” This question has been with me all my life from education, career, and personal life choices.

When I was 12 years old, I remember reading GameInformer at one point and reading an article about USC and their game major. The professor, Tracy Fullerton, had an article talking about the video game major. She mentions how she has all her students try to make a game on their own, only for each of them to find out it’s not so simple and they most likely experienced failure. The assignment was to give an example on how games are difficult for one person to handle but can succeed better on a team. It was great advice I made sure to remember. The article also inspired me to go apply to college at USC.

USC was my dream school. I studied hard to pass my classes in school (even if math and science were difficult at times) but then I didn’t do so well in Calculus in my senior year in high school. I didn’t think I was worthy enough to go to USC with my failing math grade and no one at home could help me with the subject since at the time, no one in my family understood calculus. I sadly never applied and I didn’t hear my name on the school’s intercom like the other successful students going to their dream school.

I still wanted a career in games so I decided to go to my community college in town, Bakersfield College. I went to BC’s counselor, he pulled up my grades and documents, looked between USC’s requirements, my grades, and then at me a few times quietly before sighing and telling me, “You know, there’s a lot of math and science here.” I knew he looked at my science and math grades from high school and his answer and tone already told me he didn’t believe I could do it. So I responded, “I know. Put me in the classes anyway.” After that meeting, I never returned to that counselor and instead focused on figuring it out. I went through MESA, studied math and science classes with the teachers and other students, checked off the boxes of requirements on my own for USC, toured USC and their engineering program, but I did do a back-up plan to TAG (transfer admission guarantee) a University of California (UC) school in case I didn’t make it to USC. I chose UC Santa Cruz, took a tour on their beautiful campus, and applied to my back up while I applied for USC.

I received two admission result letters: USC and UCSC. Unfortunately, I didn’t get in my dream school, but I did get into a school that was meant for me, UCSC.

UCSC was beautiful, open-minded, yet a challenging school. Regardless, I loved it. Sometimes dealing with Imposter syndrome and needing to overcome it, I passed my courses, better than I thought I would sometimes. I did QA for a game project that was funded by DARPA to gain any hands on experience in games (and I even got paid for it!) The capstone project in my last year in undergrad, Séance, won numerous awards at school. The best part? I did get to go to my dream school, USC, after all, when Séance was showcased as a nominee for Indiecade there (less than 1% of those who apply becomes a nominee).

Needing more experience still, I applied to one master’s program, the M.S. Games and Playable Media Major at UCSC – the only grad program I applied to at all. It was a huge risk to not apply to others but following my gut instinct, I went for it. I was selected in the limited 21 spaces and given a full-ride to attend grad school. I joined a talented team on a VR game called Tornado Tower, learned to communicate and organize with internal/external groups on accomplishing milestones and tasks, developed skillsets in level design and puzzle design more, more QA experience on running A/B testing groups, started Twitch streaming game development on Tornado Tower on Twitch, find events to showcase the game, and attended E3’s The Mix with the team and game. It was a great experience to learn and finding great friends in life.

I entered the game industry shortly after graduating. I worked a few positions as a contractor, escape room employee, an office admin and recruiter, associate producer, and game producer while continuing to develop my design skill sets. I had great experiences in the game industry with to learn more about a game project’s cycle, work with great teammates, and more but I also experienced the bad outcomes such as multiple layoffs and burnout. I was laid off in April 2022 in the game industry so I left it – even when I didn’t want to leave. I was scared but it took courage to walk away when I needed to go for my own benefit.

The only connection I had left in games was running a community group in the SF Bay Area about women in games. I eventually left it and decided to create the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, GG Women Professionals, with two other CoFounders: Siciliana Trevino (currently stepped down) and Sasha Menscikova. Our board from the last group decided to join us as well to help us succeed in our mission: to tell the stories of women in games/tech and raise their voices.

GG Women Professionals (GGWP) has provided free workshops from how to use ChatGPT and how to handle burnout, Twitch stream on playing women-led game studio games, female protagonists games, and indie games while discussing game development knowledge and news. We offer our social media platforms as a stepping stone for the voices that need to be heard. For instance, we published a DEI panel from three women with different backgrounds on their take of what is DEI and more. It was truly eye-opening and informative to hear their stories.

I think GG Women Professionals stands out by demonstrating we’re just like everyone else while welcoming those to meet us and are interested in our cause. For example, when we Twitch stream as username ggwomenpro, it is both the VP and myself as CoFounders who chat with the audience, talk to them about game development and news, answer their questions, etc. to create a welcoming and open-invitation to meet us. We want to make sure anyone can meet us equally on Twitch and they can see who we are as women in games and tech. You don’t see too many nonprofit groups in games leaders consistently on a weekly basis Twitch stream to chat with their audience, members, or possibly new people to join their cause. In fact, it can be hard to meet their founders due to being too busy or unable to reach them. With GGWP, we provide a platform for them to meet us and to let them know we’re listening and ready to chat with them.

I’m most proud about GG Women Professionals’ CoFounders and board members. They are part of the reason that helps me keep going on this mission with their trust and faith, advice and ideas, and more as we provide a platform to help share the stories of women in game development and tech. I really want to make them proud of the work we do here as we continue to strive to help women in games raise their voices.

Currently, GG Women Professionals will be holding a free online summit in June 2024. It’ll be our first summit for the nonprofit. We have a list of women in games/tech we’ll be reaching out soon but we will also have a form to apply for those who wish to have their voices heard. We’re also looking for sponsors/donors for the summit so if interested, please reach out so we can discuss how your help will impact GG Women Professionals’ goals and mission.

As of now, my day job is not in games but I do enhance my project management/production skills in the role. I volunteer my time to run GG Women Professionals to help those in need and to stay connected in my career’s journey. However, I no longer feel burnt out and my love for games has not faltered. I miss working on games dearly. I’m ready to go back into games and tech as my main day job again. With the recent layoffs, unheard voices, and scandals that have come out of the game industry the past few years and recent news, it can be disheartening to stay in the industry or break into the industry – or in my case, return to the games industry. If there is anyone reading this and would like some advice on this time, I offer mine through experience.

When I still had burnout side effects, got laid off at my last job in games, and felt like a failure (especially after all the hard work I did to get into my career with so many challenges I faced), I had to ask myself these questions: (1) Why did I choose to go into the game industry as my career? (2) With #1 question’s answer, do you still feel strongly with that answer today for you to stay in the game industry? Yes or No? Why?, and (3) Do you still feel passionate about games (playing them, developing them, or both? Why?)?

These questions are important because it tells you if you should stay or leave the game industry. It’s ok to walk away from the industry. You have bills to pay, maybe your family depends on you, your mental health needs a break, etc. Does that mean you can never return? No. You can always return when you’re ready. What if you don’t want to return? That is ok too. It’s your life. You get to decide how you want to live it, not the game industry. Your courageous choice, no matter how scary it might seem like right now, may turn out better than you think. It did for me. You just need to believe in yourself and the choices you make in life.

Whatever you decide, ask what I always ask when I’m going after my dreams and goals: “If he or she can do it, why can’t I?”

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

There are originally three CoFounders of GG Women Professionals: Siciliana Trevino, Sasha Menscikova, and myself. I met them both around the same time but in different groups.

I met Siciliana in a group called AR/VR Women inc.. Very charismatic, business savvy, and just a delight to be around, meeting Siciliana in that AR/VR Women meetup in SF at a coffee shop was a great moment in life (and I also won the pretty bar of soap from the meetup haha!). She joined the community group I ran as president at the time and would sometimes attend our meetups, share her social media post on our platforms, and we’d chat here and there.

The one thing I truly appreciate about Siciliana is her wisdom. There was a time when I didn’t know if I should continue GGWP. I had talked to two people about this when I needed advice and she was one of them. At this time, Siciliana had stepped down as an active member on the board and CoFounder and wished to focus her time on her future projects and job. The advice she gave me and her wisdom had me feel excited again for the nonprofit like a phoenix being reborn. Her words alone helped me stay on path.

I met Sasha later in the same community group for women in games that I helped ran (the one Siciliana joined). She wanted to be more involved in the community so her and I would chat and help each other. Very intelligent, visually creative, and tells it how it is, Sasha at the time worked on a VR game called “Kitten Canon” where – you guessed it – you shoot out adorable kittens from a cannon (no cats were harmed, I promise). She always worked on AR, VR, and MR projects for jobs and personal projects.

I wouldn’t be where I am with GGWP without Sasha’s help. Sasha is not only a CoFounder, she is also the VP of the nonprofit. She is my right-hand person and I trust her when I go to her about ideas and decisions. She visually creates amazing images and promotions of the group for social media posts, finds great games to Twitch stream for the nonprofit, and lets me know if there is something I need to address or look into more, etc. Her dedication and commitment to GGWP keeps pushing me to do better and wanting to do better.

There is more I can say about these two, wonderful women in my life but best I don’t make this question into a novel haha.

However, I would like to tell both Siciliana and Sasha thank you. Just thank you in believing the mission for GG Women Professionals and standing by me. Both of your help means so much and has positively impacted others already with your ripple affects in life.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

I have a few of them but the one that I think others might need to hear now is how to keep going after being laid off and burned out.

Truth be told, it will feel hopeless at times. I remember the desire to want to just hide away from the world forever because I felt like a failure, embarrassed at the thought I “didn’t make it” in games. My burnout from games led me to personally stop Twitch streaming – I just stopped talking; disappeared publicly for a bit. It hurt to walk away from an industry that I loved, but it hurt more to feel like no matter what I did to stay, others’ actions (and even my naivety at times) pushed me out of it (whether it was intentional or not. I’ll never know the answer to that one). It’s never a nice feeling when you no longer feel welcomed.

Every salary-based game job I had, no matter how hard I worked and how many hours I put into my role at the company, I got laid off. It’s a reminder that no job is truly secure.

So what did I do? Why did I still want to go back into games as a career?

The three questions I mentioned earlier in the article, I had to ask those questions to myself. My answers led me that I still love games and I am passionate about it. I was fortunate enough to get a severance pay in my layoffs to help me get by. After my last game job, it helped a bit while I tried to look for new roles in games. However, still suffering from burnout effects, I kept doubting myself in the game roles, and barely applied.

I did make sure to really do some self-care like get back into exercising, go outside, do some personal tasks that would help, eat better, get therapy (but they never had time). I even found a great YouTube channel called “Cinema Therapy” where by watching it, it helped me reflect my life in perspective better.

All during this time, I’m running a community group and then eventually create my own non-profit, which didn’t help with burnout.

I took a temp role to cleaning tables and catering food at TikTok by Wolfgang Puck. The work environment was night and day. I was thanked for my tasks, appreciated for my hard work, and more. It was refreshing to be in this work environment. Eventually, I was promoted to lead a group at one TikTok location (where in our service and my lead, we received 2nd place globally). From there, I was asked to join Wolfgang Puck as a hired work, no longer a temp, as an office admin at Apple where I am currently.

The new work environment, exercising, eating better, talk to friends and family, work on the nonprofit, and focus on getting mentally out of burnout helped me reach a point where I still am passionate of games and I love them but I am both mentally and physically prepared to join the game industry.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.kelseycoffman.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ggwomenpro/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/ggwomenpro
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelseycoffman/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ggwomenpro
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@GGWomenPro
• Other: https://www.twitch.tv/ggwomenpro https://www.linkedin.com/company/gg-women-professionals-ggwp/ https://news.ucsc.edu/2016/09/indiecade-games.html