We've seen many beautiful faces representing themselves as gamers, of course; booth babes, models and even amateur cam girls using photos of themselves posed suggestively with game paraphernalia to sell products or drive web hits. Because of this phenomenon, every time you see a so-called "hot gamer chick," the temptation is to assume she can't possibly be an actual gamer.

So is Jo Garcia the real deal? Full interview - and slightly NSFW pics - follow the jump.

"People don't understand that that the whole gaming world is not just for geeks, and assume that every person who plays video games is a geek that wears glasses," Garcia said. "It's a misnomer that needs to be put to rest."

Garcia told us she plays PC games and console titles, and owns both a Nintendo DS and a PSP. "It's something that I carry with me everywhere, like some people carry their iPods. It's the norm to me. I've had people send me messages like, 'oh you play video games?' And I'm like, 'why are you so surprised?"

"If I could get a job... being a game tester, I would do that all day long."

Wouldn't she get sick of it? "I don't think I would! I think that's one of those things... like you can eat chocolate all day long, and I can play video games all day and I'll get lost in them."

Her favorite games? "I love RPGs that tell stories," she said, listing the Final Fantasy series, Radiata Stories and the Xenosaga trilogy among her favorites.

"I like those games because they have a lot of sidequests," Garcia said. "You can build up your character doing small things. I'm 100 hours into FFXII and I'm not even done with the game yet. I'm doing all the hunts and the sidequests - I'm probably a third into the game and my guys are at level 60. I hold my characters high so when I go through the game it's a lot easier."

Yeah. But did she get the Zodiac Spear?

"I actually got the Zodiac Spear the first time I played it... you have to go through hell to get that spear, but I happened to get it the first time because someone told me about it. You can't open certain boxes, but then you have to go through and fight that nasty esper at the end... I died three times before I actually beat it."

Garcia talked quite a bit about RPGs, with an enthusiasm for detail familiar to fans of the genre. She's aware, though, that both gamers and non-gamers might have a hard time believing that a winning Playboy model defers social time with pals to focus on her game console - perhaps because of the manipulative way in which the game industry uses pretty girls, or pretty girls use the game industry, to earn appeal.

Garcia has seen plenty of models paid to act like game fans when they're not, but said it's not the models' fault. "Sex sells," she said. "The thing that most of the guys see... the women taking pictures with an Xbox to make it look more glamorous... you can't blame so much the models, but the companies. [The models] are being paid to be there, like at the game conventions. I know a lot of girls that shoot that kind of stuff, but it's not done on purpose."

"They're trying to make it appeal to men. And I think men need more... finessing than women do. You can do woman-based advertising on a product, but I think if a woman wants to play video games, she's going to buy it regardless of the ads," Garcia said.

"[A woman] thinks more when she makes a purchase, versus guys have to be lured in. So if you just give them something cheezy, that's going to be implanted in their head and they're going to be like, 'I have to buy Call of Duty 4.' Women don't need that finessing. You can give her a million-dollar advertisement, and if she doesn't want to buy it she's not going to buy it."

How, then, does Garcia think that women might dissolve some of the misconceptions around females and games? "I think just playing them," she said. "Even something as small as just doing this. I've shot Playboy stuff with my PSP, and people have asked if I really play video games, and I respond back. I think, just getting more involved in it, and doing more with it, and seeing where it goes."

By the way, according to Garcia, one of Hugh Hefner's favorite rooms at the Playboy Mansion has a broad museum of old arcade cabinets. After seeing it on her first tour, Garcia decided to spend her visit hanging out in there.

"I was in there probably the whole time I was at the house, because I wanted something to do," she said. "I almost finished the whole Donkey Kong while I was there."

They ran a trailer for the game and while it looked good, it was a little difficult to tell exactly what we were seeing. It seemed like a very stylish, fashionable spy movie with lots of kick ass foxy spy chicks. The evening turned to the panel discussion. It was a little difficult to hear some of the speakers given the bar/party atmosphere, but the typical subjects were discussed such as the difficulty of being a woman in a male dominated industry and how to go about bringing more women into the industry fold.

This latter subject was addressed by the real announcement of the evening, the SOE G.I.R.L. scholarship. Put together by SOE and G.I.R.L., the scholarship will provide a $10,000 tuition to put towards an Art Institute education, plus a paid internship at one of SOE's many studios around the country. Interested parties can apply starting April 1 until May 31, 2008. To be considered, applicants must be a registered student at one of the Art Institute schools. The winner will be announced at the beginning of June.

If you are interested in more information on the scholarship, you can check it out here on the G.I.R.L. website.

Alice, once-a-month Kotaku poster and Wonderland blog queen sat in on her talk, showing off her incredible transcribing skills. Knight talks about the fiscal importance of pursuing the other half.

It is business bad practice to overlook an audience this big and this compelling. Star Wars was the biggest movie of all time... until Titanic came along. The reason? Women saw Titanic in droves - and they saw it more than once. We need to be sure that we're making content that is appealing to women. EA is the most successful developer of games for women, but we have a long way to go.

She points to games like the upcoming Rock Band and Boogie, as well as Bizarre's Boom Boom Rocket as examples of the company reaching out to the still largely untapped market. Read on to see how the world's biggest publisher is going to get your girlfriend, wife and mom hooked on gaming. Michael McWhertor

Women In Games 2007: Opening keynote, Sharon Knight, EA [Wonderland]

EA's Lcy Bradshow, Veep and head of production and dev for Maxis, is delivering the keynote entitled The Secrets of The Sims Success.

While I think that events like this are a wonderful idea, I can't help but wonder if by creating events to highlight and detail the perceived differences between male and female gamers they're sort of missing the point. Sure there is a difference, but lets not forget we're all still gamers.

We've come a long way since Barbie's adventures and other craptacular games, lets not return to that offal. Hit the jump for the full dealymabob.Brian Crecente

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. - January 30, 2007 - Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) today announced that it is a platinum sponsor of the 2007 Women In Games International (WIGI) conference and will host the March 6th event at its company headquarters in Redwood Shores, California. The conference theme is "From Production to Profit: Creating and Marketing Games for Women". EA's Lucy Bradshaw, VP and Head of Production and Development for Maxis/Electronic Arts will deliver the opening keynote entitled, "The Secrets of The Sims Success". EA and WIGI are committed to promoting the inclusion and advancement of women in the growing interactive entertainment industry.

Representing 38% of the game playing population, according to the Entertainment Software Association, women players are a growing force within the gaming community. EA is responding to this demand by encouraging and empowering female students and young professionals to take the industry seriously and consider it for a future career.

With over 20% of its population comprised of females, EA is committed to driving that number higher through outreach and education programs such as this. Sponsorship of the conference is part of EA's diversity outreach program which also includes an annual scholarship at the USC Summer Camp which assures an aspiring female game designer a coveted spot in the school's unique computer science summer program. These initiatives are meant to encourage women to pursue their passion for gaming and enter the industry as professionals.

Gabrielle Toledano, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at EA commented that, "At EA, we are fortunate to have some of the industry's most talented women contributing to our teams. We are proud that women represent such a significant and important portion of our population but the ratio of women to men is still too low. We hope that this program and others like it help to inspire young women to consider interactive entertainment for their careers. And for the women already in the industry, the WIGI is a wonderful forum to raise issues and questions that relate to creative expertise, career opportunity and professional growth. We are thrilled to be a WIGI sponsor and to have so many empowered, insightful women contributing to the panels."

"This is an outstanding partnership," said Sheri Graner Ray, Executive Chair of Women in Games International. "WIGI is focused on getting the word out about the importance of women in this industry and we are so pleased that EA is helping lead the way. With our topical focus at this conference on women as players and consumers, this is also the chance for the industry to learn how EA and other publishers are re-considering the needs and interests of the female customer in their game production and marketing processes."

The Women In Games International Conference-San Francisco will be held at Electronic Arts' headquarters, located at 250 Shoreline Drive in Redwood Shores, California. Attendance is $45 for general attendees, $35 for WIGI members and $30 for students with I.D. Space is limited, so interested attendees are encouraged to secure their spot by registering at: www.womeningamesinternational.org.

Perhaps the most obnoxious element about the occasional Escapist article concerning the misogynistic subjugation of females by game devs is the nagging suspicion the reader gets that the author is only writing it in a misguided attempt to get laid. As if a few hundred words of simpering apologetics about the fact that men actually find busty polygonal women in spandex attractive is going to make female gamers the world over see the author's sensitive soul through his pale, flabby shell.

If you've ever been similarly irked by these rather dry, pompous analyses of the immorality of sex appeal in games, you'll probably like this brutal skewering on the subject by Richard Cobbett. Here's a small taste:

[Lara Croft's chest] is your introduction; your jumping off point. How you tackle this thorny issue will affect the whole tone of your cutting article. Refer to "Lara's chest", and you sound debonaire and suave, aware of the connotations, yet subtly removed from them.

FLORIAN ECKHARDT

Writing A 'Girls In Games' Article [Richard Cobbett]