All play and no good works makes Jackie a delinquent girl — so says Rhoulette, Community Manager for French video game developer Ubisoft and captain of the company's Frag Dolls corporate gaming team, who wishes to repay her good fortunes:
I am now happily employed in the game industry. On the surface this situation is ideal for me. I work with cool people, get to do fun things, and don't have to arrive at the office until 10am. I love it and I'm contributing to the world of entertainment which arguably has some inherent value for people (relaxation, less stress, activating the imagination, etc). But I encountered some internal turbulence when I started to listen to that nagging question: how are you helping those in need? In terms of really serving humanity, it would seem to some that I have been led astray. Gamers (and the industry that spawns them) are never classified as being particularly charitable. In fact, most modern media portray gamers and games as a detriment to the greater good. How could I, as a gamer, possibly make the world a better place?
She decided to apply for "Team in Training," a seventeen-year-old program run by the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society that matches athletes with a coach and a program for participating in their amateur competition of choice while delivering sponsorship monies to medical scientists who work to cure cancers of the blood. Rhoulette rightly disputes the caricature of video gamers as pallid, stunted, apathetic eremites devoted to strange button-pushing rituals for picture-tube idols: nerd emissaries Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of comic-strip-turned-institution Penny Arcade should be holding their third consecutive Christmas toy drive this December. As I wrote elsewhere, no man will prosper more than by charity; for those with a penchant for sharp gals who game and stand up for volunteerism, your only deliberation might be how over much to give.
