Brenda Romero

Brenda Louise Romero (née Garno; born October 12, 1966), previously known as Brenda Brathwaite, is an American game designer and developer in the video game industry.

She was born in Ogdensburg, New York and is a graduate of Clarkson University.

Romero is best known for her work on the Wizardry series of role-playing video games and, more recently, the non-digital series The Mechanic is the Message.

She has worked in game development since 1981 and has credits on 49 game titles.

For Wizardry, Romero provided game design, level design, system design, writing and scripting.

She also wrote the manuals and documentation for some products in the series.

Romero provided writing and documentation for the award-winning Jagged Alliance series.

She was the lead designer for Playboy: The Mansion and Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes.

Romero began her career in 1981 at video game developer and publisher Sir-tech Software, Inc., on the Wizardry role-playing team.

She worked first as a tester, and moved up through the ranks to designer for Wizardry 8.

While at Sir-tech, Romero also worked on the Jagged Alliance and Realms of Arkania series.

She was employed with Sir-tech for 18 years before moving on to Atari where she worked on the Dungeons & Dragons series for consoles before joining Cyberlore Studios in 2003 to work on the Playboy: The Mansion game.

Romero's research for the game was ultimately published in a book, Sex in Video Games.

Nerve magazine cited her as a "New Radical" — one of "the 50 artists, actors, authors, activists and icons who are making the world a more stimulating place".

She had founded the International Game Developers Sex Special Interest Group (Sex SIG) in 2005.

Since working on Playboy, she has studied adult and sexual content in video games and is regularly interviewed about the subject in the media.

She has written a book on the subject, Sex in Video Games.

She is an anti-censorship activist and a proponent of parental rating awareness.

She is a regular speaker at universities and conferences, including the Game Developers Conference, Austin Game Developers Conference, and Montreal International Games Summit.

Some of her lectures have been held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The Guildhall at Southern Methodist University, and Clarkson University.

In the spring of 2007, she was awarded the Presidential Fellowship at Savannah College of Art and Design to develop an exhibit and presentation titled, "What You Don't Know About Video Games...".

In 2008, she was elected to the IGDA's Board of Directors.

In April 2008, Romero became Chair of the Interactive Design and Game Development department at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

In 2009, Next Generation magazine identified her as the woman with the longest continuous service in video game development.

Romero served as Chair of the Savannah College of Art and Design's Interactive Design and Game Development department until November 2009.

Brathwaite left SCAD in November 2009 to return to full-time commercial game development.

She moved to San Francisco to consult as Creative Director for social media company Slide, Inc., and then became Creative Director of social gaming company Lolapps in May 2010.

She co-founded the social game company Loot Drop with John Romero in November 2010, then left Lolapps and joined Loot Drop in February 2011.

Brenda Garno married game developer John Romero on October 27, 2012.

She has three children from her first marriage, to Ian Brathwaite.

John and Brenda worked on Ravenwood Fair together.

He was lead designer and she was creative director and game designer.

Brenda Romero was an active member of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA).

In December 2012, she was appointed "Game Designer in Residence" at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

In 2013, Romero became the first game designer in residence at the Games and Playable Media Program of the University of California at Santa Cruz.

She also served as the program's director.

On March 28, 2013, she resigned as co-chair of the IGDA Women in Games SIG.

Some highlights include RPG of the Year for Wizardry 8, a Fulbright Scholar award in 2014, the Game Developer's Choice Ambassador Award in 2015, the Development Legend award at the Develop:Brighton awards.

Romero was the Program Director of the MSc program in Game Design and Development at the University of Limerick in Limerick, Ireland until December 2018.

Romero has won several awards in her long career.