Meet Kelsey – Marketing Associate

Kelsey been obsessed with games since the days of Ski Free and Chip’s Challenge on her family PC, and some of her earliest memories are of sitting next to her older brother and playing Super Mario Brothers on the NES. When the Playstation came out and Kelsey first experienced the worlds of Resident Evil and Tomb Raider, it became clear to her that games could be more than just a fun, idle activity–the depth of the stories and intricacy of gameplay in increasingly lifelike worlds piqued her imagination and a lifelong love was cemented.

After getting her BA in English literature with a minor in writing, Kelsey earned her MA in TESOL from New York University and taught reading and writing to non-native speakers of English at the college level for nearly a decade. During the onset of the pandemic, she stepped away from teaching and decided to see instead what would happen if she combined her two greatest loves: writing and videos games. Through that journey, she has uncovered many opportunities to marry her passions and create exciting concepts, whether it be her own small projects, game jam creations with friends, or promoting and supporting other devs’ concepts and worlds through marketing and publishing at TIC.

How do you feel about writing in video games versus other media?

Gaming is unlike any other form of media, and there is so much potential in the industry. Between the constantly developing utilizations of technology, narrative, sound design, animation, and art, games evoke and engage in exciting and avant-garde ways every day.  This makes writing for games a unique and often difficult undertaking. Additionally, there’s no other media where the player (i.e. the reader) has so much control over the way the story is delivered to them, and it creates some really interesting and exciting challenges for the writers who want to tell those stories.

Games also afford players opportunities that aren’t quite the same as other media, as we can fully and completely immerse ourselves in the world and “plug in” to the characters in a way that can often be deeper and more impactful than the way we are more passive observers when it comes to television and books–especially considering that our own choices often determine the outcome of the story we’re engaging with. Of course, there is great value and emotional attachment to books, movies, TV, and the stage as well, but games can act as an escape, a lifeline, and a comfort in unique ways that we’re still in the process of understanding. For this reason, gaming is an exciting and often experimental to way engage and inspire; it’s an avenue through which you can help players realize their most fantastic goals and find a community with which to share them. You can give players a feeling of power, an opportunity to conquer, a sense of accomplishment, and the possibility to connect to the story in a way that is unlike any other experience out there. It’s really cool, and I love the opportunities and challenges that come along with it.

What do you love about working for The Iterative Collective?

One of my favorite things about great games is the communities that come with them. I want to be someone who helps builds those communities, who is part of that forever-changing, ongoing conversation, and who helps give other people access to the magic, the wonder, and that unmatched experience of gaming that I’ve been lucky enough to have had in my life all these years. I want to create together with other developers and players alike, to have artistic and collaborative conversations with them that build unforgettable experiences and stretch the limits of what media can do.

To put it simply, gaming has been a big part of my past and present, and with my love for the media and my skills as a writer, I want be a big part of gaming’s future. That’s why I really appreciate having the opportunity to help indie games succeed through my work at TIC!