I wouldn't have ever gotten into video games had it not been for the so-called "girl games" that got me into the hobby as a child – various kinds of Barbie Armageddon taught me I – as a girl, and now a woman with an interest in platform heels – could find creative refuge in games. But Blue Scarab CEO Colin Cragg knows the industry's current churn of fire-powered hero shooters haven't recognized 2000's girls as a serious gaming demographic in years.
With a dev team that includes live service vets from games like Helldivers 2 and World of Warcraft, Blue Scarab hopes to correct that oversight by creating something completely original – a mysterious true crime, horseriding MMORPG Equinox: Homecoming. Yes. While the rest of the industry focuses on pumping out more extraction shooters (like Marathon, Bungie's latest sci-fi project), Blue Scarab's hucking horseshoes.
"What would happen if we actually approached a title for [women] with the same seriousness and budget that we would give to a double A kind of production for any other demographic?" Cragg, who is also the former CEO of 2012's favorite, maraschino cherry-sweet online horse game Star Stable, tells me of his thought process in co-founding Blue Scarab. "Traditional, you know, teenage dudes in black T-shirts and jeans."
"It's been a really exciting opportunity to try and actually work within those guidelines and say, 'Okay, we're not making the next shooter. We're not making an extraction shooter. We're not making another survival PvP title,'" Cragg continues later in our Zoom conversation.
"The entire industry is totally and completely clogged with releases with $300 million budgets that all focus on the exact same gameplay," he says. "Like, you're ignoring 52% of the world population."
As a member of that 52%, I can't wait to wander through dandelions on horseback, armed with not a gun in my hand, but simply a Lovecraftian appetite for the occult.
Infinity Nikki and The Sims' return are only the start of a retro gaming renaissance for Y2K girlies.
