31-year-old Rebecca Ford started in Canada in 2011 as an intern at the rather hapless MMO studio Digital Extremes. At that time, the studio was in such great financial distress that it had to voice the AI ”Lotus” in the MMO Warframe itself. Now Ford is taking on the role of “Creative Director” at the SF MMO.
What’s so exciting about Rebbeca Ford? Ford joined Digital Extremes studio in January 2011 as an intern. Before that, she had completed a 4-month summer internship at the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca. In her new job she should take care of Facebook and Twitter, deliver a few internal presentations and help where she is needed. Just an intern job.
The Digital Extremes studio was not in a good state at the time: Essentially they were making ports or multiplayer parts of games and had to somehow get by with commissioned work.
A low point was reached when the action-adventure “Stark Trek” was released in 2013: It received lousy ratings of around 45% from the trade press.
The “own” baby, a Free2Play SF-MMO called Warframe, had been in development since 2000, but when it came to Steam in 2013, things were just mediocre for a Free2Play title: Warframe reached around 10,000 players on average. That’s too little to live and too much to die.
The studio was doing so badly at the time that intern Rebecca Ford was hired to voice the in-game AI, “Lotus.” As Ford explained in an interview years later (via gamesindustry-biz):
“When we started the game we had to improvise and tape so much that they actually asked me if I could do voice acting in the game – and the character is now called Space Mom. She’s kind of a Cortana character who turns out to have saved you […]
Warframe announces new expansion, bringing back ghastly monsters that just got nastier
Intern becomes community manager and space mom
How did it go? In April 2012, however, it was enough for Ford to get a permanent position at Digital Extreme.
Over the next few years, the Canadian earned the nickname “Space Mama”, because just as she looked after the players as the voice of the AI in Warframe, she worked as a community manager and PR assistant from April 2012, spoke a lot with the players, the press and became the voice of the game.
Ford also couldn’t rave enough about how much fun her Warframe itself was and how she enjoyed talking to the players, to whom she only calls “Tennos” to this day.
Warframe: Recipe for Success – Lotus is “Voice of the Game” in every sense
Suddenly the players were there – boom in 2016
When did the upswing come? Rebecca Ford’s rise in the company coincides with the rise of Warframe.
Because in November 2016, three years after its release, Warframe finally made its breakthrough on Steam: suddenly the players were there. In 2014 and 2015, the number of players on Steam had risen steadily: Warframe always had 40,000 or 50,000 players at the same time.
In November 2016, Warframe’s The War Within expansion made it into the top 3 on Steam with almost 70,000 concurrent players. The game has always been a talking point on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, especially as an alternative to Destiny, which was already under criticism – and which PC gamers couldn’t play anyway.
Suddenly Warframe was considered a “flagship MMO”. They realized that good things happen when you develop a game and listen to player feedback.
Ford was promoted from community manager and PR assistant to head of “Live Operations and Community Producer” in 2016. In December 2017, she was made Head of Live Operations and Communications.
Ford’s pivotal role in the development of Warframe was evident from the fact that Forbes magazine crowned her as one of the “30 under 30” in video games in 2020: Here she was credited for launching TennCon, the fair for the game. It was also noted that the 50 million members of the Warframe community had affectionately dubbed her “Space Mom”.
The new fantasy MMO Soulframe brought a career leap for Ford:
Soulframe Cinematic Reveal Trailer
Now this is the next step: Not only Warframe has continued to grow, but also Digital Extremes. When the company announced a new fantasy MMO and the previous Creative Director, Steve Sinclair, switched from Warframe to the new game, Rebecca Ford was chosen to continue Warframe as “Creative Director”.
A significant leap from intern and temporary voice over to “voice of the game” to boss that Ford has made in 10 years.
She says:
In an interview with Venture Beat, Ford says she has respect for the new role, which comes with so much more pressure. But she believes she can now translate the community’s ideas into updates and changes that will have a huge impact on the future of Warframe.
Ford hopes fans will show her a lot of understanding and respect as she adjusts to her new role.
Ford has already announced that Digital Extremes plans to take on the additional burden of overseeing two large MMOs by hiring new people. Now you have a science fiction and a fantasy industry.
Maybe there will be another talented intern among the new people Ford is hiring.
Warframe is known for its quests:
Second Dream – This quest changed the way I view Warframe