Womenize! Inspiring Stories: Charmaine Duff

Womenize! - Inspiring Stories is our weekly series featuring inspirational individuals from games and tech. For this edition, we talked to Charmaine Duff, Founder & Director of Women-led Games. She speaks about her journey founding Women-Led Games to uplift and give visibility to women in the gaming industry after facing gender inequality and setbacks, sharing how perseverance, community support, and balance have shaped her career and outlook on game development. Read more about Char here:
https://www.womenize.net/2025/11/19/charmaine-duff-womenize-inspiring-stories/

Hi Char! Founding Women-Led Games was a significant step in advocating for women in the gaming industry. Could you share the personal experiences or moments that inspired you to create this platform, and how has this journey shaped your perspective on the industry?

Yeah! So Women-Led Games started as a response to a women's day steam sale event being canceled in 2023. That wasn't the main reason for me starting the showcase, but it was sort of my "last straw" so to speak. Since entering the industry in 2020 in an unpaid position to help out a friend, I had experienced and learned so much about the industry. Including a lot of unfortunate truths about how women are seen, treated, or misrepresented. So when that event got canceled in 2023 I decided I wanted to showcase what women do in the industry and help studios ran by women get more visibility and support for their projects. Wholesome Games was a showcase that I drew a lot of inspiration from and I hadn't seen anything like that done for women-led game projects before, so I created the Women-Led Games showcase!

My friend David Lucio from Latin American Games Showcase (LAGS) saw what I was trying to build and offered to help me put it together and that's how the first showcase was born. David and I work together on both WLG and LAGS throughout the years and it's honestly amazing how much we've grown. I'm very grateful for our friendship and the partnerships we've been able to grow together. We have been partnering with Summer Game Fest and The Game Awards to promote the showcases since 2024!

You’ve successfully run Kickstarter campaigns, managed studios, and built initiatives from the ground up. Was there a moment when you faced doubt or a major challenge, and what helped you push through to continue building your career and your projects?

I face doubt weekly, sometimes daily, hahaha! I think when it comes to projects like WLG where you're fighting against the grain for something you believe in, you tend to feel a lot more pressure and responsibility for the people you're supporting while at the same time facing a lot of backlash from those that are against what you believe in. It's a lot of pressure from many sides, but at the end of the day I hear about how WLG has helped a studio or inspired a new woman in dev to pursue her dreams etc. Things like that keep me going when I start questioning whether any of it is worth doing.

As for my personal work in the industry, I started out helping a friend as a way to get my foot in the door. I worked for a few years unpaid and touched anything I could on the marketing side to gain experience. From there I picked up a couple of small paid contracts for other indie titles, then worked my way into a producer role at Pancake Games. Unfortunately our studio ran out of funding and I thought my own professional time in the industry was coming to a close earlier this year. However, I was referred to a social media role for Digital Eclipse at Atari and I've been working there since June this year. I absolutely adore the team and the job. I'm hoping to have it be my forever studio.

If you could speak to the version of yourself when you first started in the industry, what would you say? What lessons or encouragement would you pass on from everything you’ve learned along the way?

"Don't take that publishing deal!!" Haha, just kidding... sort of.

I think I'd say what I tell most devs just starting out and that's, "don't make your first game your baby and dont quit your day job." What I mean is that, as devs, we are extremely passionate about what we do. Which is great! However, I've seen so many devs reach burn out and have their dreams crushed and never wanting to return to the industry because of how much of themselves and their time they put into their first project. If you're just entering the industry or if you're a developer that's considering leaving their current position to start a studio, please start smart and start small. Make your first game a 9 to 12 month project tops. Get used to what it's like to run a full development pipeline including marketing and running
a business. These are huge things that can easily overwhelm a developer on their own. Add making a game on top of it and you're begging for a major burnout that might dampen that passion you had in the first place.

As far as general advice... I'd tell myself to touch grass more. Really connect with your community both in development, but outside of development as well. The world feels so divided (this feels amplified when you work on the social media side like I do) and to counteract that feeling of isolation we really need to get back to our roots. Reach out to a dev in need or go to those in the industry you trust for advice. Also, find people and hobbies outside of the industry to engage with. Dont make game development and the internet your whole identity. And my biggest piece of advice? Especially in times like these... Go out and love your neighbor, even the ones that don't agree with you. You might find we're not as divided as you think.