You Shoot Like A Girl: Interview with a Frag Doll

Can you imagine getting paid to play video games? I’m not talking about a job where gaming is considered “research” for the work you eventually produce, like play-testing, games journalism, or (potentially NSFW) working for the ESRB. I’m talking about a job where your main responsibility is to be awesome at video games. That’s what the women of Ubisoft’s Frag Dolls do, and I was able to talk to three of the Dolls via e-mail to learn a little bit more about how they became professional gamers and why it’s the perfect job for them.

According to the official Frag Dolls web site, “The Frag Dolls are a team of professional female gamers recruited by Ubisoft to promote their video games and represent the presence of women in the game industry.” This means that they compete in tournaments, attend gaming conventions and industry events, and advocate for women in the gaming industry through public appearances, blogs, and social networking. In other words, they live and breathe video games. Can you imagine anything better?

There are currently nine Dolls on the team, and since their debut in 2004 (in which they won by shut-out at the Rainbow Six: Black Arrow tournament), competition for any vacancies that arise has been fierce. I received replies from Ann-Marie Wilson, Krystal Herring, and Lanai Gara, also known as Spectra, Siren, and Fidget, respectively. Of course, nobody is born a Frag Doll – and Siren noted that “As a team of 8, every girl has different backgrounds and education.” Spectra has a communications degree and worked in the film industry and as a flight attendant before she answered a casting call to be a Frag Doll in 2009. Siren worked as a professional makeup artist, doing makeup for runway shows, weddings, photo shoots, and retail. Others have backgrounds in fields as divers as art, computing, psychology, and human resources.

So what does a Frag Doll do in a day? Spectra replied, “currently I spend most of my days working from home on my computer. I have a number of projects to work on for our website and social media outlets. On certain days of the week I have gaming events I need to be online for, I have conference calls and other administrative jobs to do for our team.” Fidget’s schedule is similar. “Normally I wake up, get onto the laptop, do emails, update our social networks, play video games whenever we have community game nights or Frag Doll Fridays and work on videos that are coming up.” All the Dolls write blogs and participate in community events, and they travel all over the country to compete and participate in conventions as needed.

Being a Frag Doll sounds like a full-time job, but many of the Dolls have other responsibilities on top of their team duties. Fidget balances her work with being a mom; Morgan Romine, the team captain, is a full-time graduate student. Faith Harrison’s official profile reveals that she juggles a job as a computer technician, working for the Dolls, studying for her bachelor’s in Computer Science, and being a mom to her four-year-old son.

The Dolls all have two things in common: they all started gaming at a young age, and they all love their work. But it’s not without drawbacks. I asked everyone what the worst part of their jobs were, and Spectra gave this surprising response: “Not having enough time to play video games. I would love to spend all day playing one game. Being able to spend my time to master it and be the best. Before I got this job I would have long stretches of time off devoted to gaming. Now I have to schedule my game time. It’s hard to be really good at any one game. I have to play a lot of different games and I never have the time needed to reach the level of skill I feel like others expect from me. It can be frustrating.”

How do you become a Frag Doll? When the group began, Ubisoft issued a casting call and women gamers from all over the country competed for eight slots. Now, however, there is a Cadettes program, sort of a professional gaming internship for women. As current Dolls “retire,” their replacements will be drawn from the available pool of Cadettes. This is how Siren was hired; she played with Pandora’s Mighty Soldiers, an all-female group of non-professional competitive gamers, then was accepted into the Cadettes for a while before being hired as a full-on Frag Doll. Her advice? “Learn as much as you can from anyone willing to teach you, be persistent and

make great contacts.” And Spectra noted that while “being a Frag Doll is a great position for any dedicated female gamer looking to get into professional gaming or wanting a career in the game industry. But it isn’t the only way. There are lots of opportunities out there…the really talented and motivated will create their own opportunities.”

Fidget offers similar advice to anyone pursuing a new career: “- Be determined and never give up, no matter what people tell you.” Additionally, she believes in going for a career you want to be in for the long haul. “Do something you enjoy and can see yourself doing 20 years later in. Don't do something just for the money.” And Spectra offered this encouragement: “think about what you are good at, what you enjoy doing, and find a job that lets you do that. You would be surprised what you can make a living doing.”

This article would have been impossible without the help of Morgan Romine (AKA Rhoulette), who distributed the questionnaire among the team and endured my ceaseless nagging. For more information on the Frag Dolls and to see when they may be coming to a city near you, check out their web site at www.fragdolls.com. Image courtesy of Ubisoft.