Girl gamers strike at the boys

Thanks OptiPlex. The women challenging the stereotype that professional online gaming is the realm of geeky men alone.

Anja Maller lives a double life. By day she is a 26-year-old single mother studying to be a journalist. But when she gets in front of her computer, she becomes Vildkatten, the scourge of the online world of Counter-Strike. Ms Maller is part of a growing breed of professional female gamers who are shaking up the traditional image of a gamer as a male geek who spends hours in a darkened bedroom, shooting anything in sight.

"I have played computer games since I was a kid," says Ms Maller, a member of the Danish clan, DoMe.

"It was inevitable that at some time I would run into Counter-Strike. I ran into it three-and-a-half years ago and I just got hooked straight away. It is just so much fun."

View: Complete article at BBC News