Girl Gamer Galaxy is inspired by all the women who work in the game industry around the world. Recently we had the pleasure of speaking to the Communication Manager of Hurrah Games Company, the beautiful Samira.
Introducing Samira…
Hi! My name is Samira and I live in Iran. My hobbies are music, movies, series, video games, mobile games, animations and astronomy. I first started gaming back when I was around 8 years old. Back then I used to play Return to Castle Wolfenstein. And I’ve basically been playing games ever since! I’m a gamer at heart and have played many PC and mobile games. It’s really hard to name all of them, but my absolute favorite game series of all time has to be the Dead Space serie. When it comes to mobile games, I’m an absolute Road Riot addict!
How did you end up at Hurrah Games?
After I got my BA in English Translation I started working as a private English teacher and doing some translation work. And then last year, out of the blue, I ended up working at a game company. I have to say that I got lucky, because one of my friends introduced me to Hurrah Games Company. It was so exciting! I work as a Communication Manager for Hurrah Games and Anu Games. I am in charge of the communication between our company and other game companies from all around the world. My goal is to set up international collaboration with these companies about publishing and/or game developement. In our free time me and my colleagues at Hurrah Games even get together to play on the Xbox or PlayStation.
I seriously can’t get enough of games. And lucky for me I get to test the games that my company has developed and published. All casual games in 2D and 3D for PC and mobile. Games like ‘Egg Oh!‘, ‘We Need a Hero as well’ and ‘Grandam Overdrive’. That last one, for example, is a 2D platformer where you play as an old lady called Grandam who lives in ‘Nowhere’, in a small village called ‘Happy Land’. Your goal is to save the children from your village who were kidnapped by wolves. This is a very funny game with beautiful graphics. These games are all tested and published in Iran, but are also ready to be published anywhere else in the world.
What are your future goals?
Working in the gaming industry has been pretty awesome so far. And my goals for the future are quite simple. I want to gain more experience in my career as a Communication Manager, I want to play more games and I’d love to meet new people and to get in touch with other gamers. When I think about it…I have maybe 3 or 4 gamer friends, one of them is even a professional gamer. I must admit that I don’t know a lot of girl gamers here in Iran.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Here in Iran women work just as much as men do. But when it comes to gaming, guys seem much more interested in the industry. Maybe Iranian women in general are just less interested in games or animations, maybe they aren’t really into fantasy and sci-fi. Sometimes this makes me feel like I’m completely different from most girls, even though I know this isn’t true. So it’s good to know that there are girl gamers like me all over the world. To them I say: If you love gaming and jobs related to gaming, just go for it! Do not pay attention to what your family or anyone else says! Haha!
What can you tell us about the gaming industry in Iran?
Well, according to Worldometers the population in Iran is now over 80 milion people and is therefor the 17th largest country ranked by population. In 2015 the gaming population in Iran was 37% female. This might not be as high as in some countries. But 39% of the gaming community, which was estimated at 23 million people two years ago, play online. So I know that they are out there. The girls I meet, however, play mostly casual games. Like anywhere else in the world they enjoy playing mobile games like Clash of Clans or Candy Crush. If you want to know about Iran’s game industry, watch the video below:
Get in contact with Samira from Hurrah Games
We had a lot of fun interviewing Samira and we hope you enjoyed her story as much as we did. If you have questions about working as a Communication Manager you can contact Samira on LinkedIn. If you want to see what awesome games Hurrah Games makes, go to their website or follow them on Twitter or Instagram.
