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Portraits Paula Bock

Megan Gaiser / She's at the top of her game, giving girls a shot at adventure

At 48, Megan Gaiser is the president and CEO of Her Interactive, a Bellevue-based company that makes video games aimed at women and girls, including the Nancy Drew series. The series won 13 Parents' Choice gold medals and for the past three years was the nation's top-selling PC adventure-game series (in units), ahead of Harry Potter, Myst and Lord of the Rings.

Q: Your life before Nancy Drew?

A: I went to college, changed majors two times, took this film class and said: That's what I want to do! My parents said, Oh God.

I waitressed, trying to get a job in film, and I didn't. I was dishwashing two jobs. Finally, I got a break on an editing job. I produced and edited films for 11 years.

I got interested in non-linear media. At the time, Seattle was the creative hub for multimedia. I moved here without a job in '94. Microsoft was looking for producers with exactly my background. I was there for 2 ½ years and learned a lot but creatively was bored. I started looking for another job . . . got really interested about Nancy Drew. She was every woman's idol. I came on board as creative director (of Her Interactive) in '97.

Q: Retailers initially refused to put the game on the shelves. Why?

A: They said females would not play computer games because they're computer-phobic.

It wasn't that they're computer phobic! It's that females were critical of the computer culture that was male-dominated and portrayed women in a negative light. (In Grand Theft Auto, the player gets to kill a prostitute.) Shoot 'em ups. There was nothing else out there except Barbie. But we knew we had a hit. We learned how to be the publishers and do the packaging. We sold on Amazon. The New York Times dubbed us the un-Barbie of computer games.

Q: Why Nancy Drew?

A: She's smart, gutsy, resourceful and she did stuff back then that a lot of women couldn't.

Q: Did you have to tweak her personality to make her more modern?

A: The girls said, 'She's too perfect. Like, can you give her acne or something?' So we made her more self-deprecating so everyone can feel like they can be this brilliant detective.

Q: What about Ned, her love interest?

A: He plays in and out. But y'know, she's kind of busy.

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