Marie will join and speak at Microsoft’s Xbox Game Camp Ukraine next week, a virtual event serving Ukrainian gamedevs to help them rebuild their scene. Marie’s statement:

I’m deeply honored and excited to join Microsoft’s 𝗫𝗯𝗼𝘅 𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽 next week to speak in front of hundreds of Ukranian gamedevs.

A little known fact about me is that 𝗜 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗮 𝗨𝗸𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗻-𝗥𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗻 in MMORPG Lineage 2 in 2005. We ‘found each other’ on the server as we were all very hard-core players. This is the time when I played with 13 game clients open at the same time, tabbing skillfully between windows, macros and skill bars.

This was way before the war when we were all one big happy family. The Russians didn’t know English, and I didn’t know Russian, but the Ukranians stepped in to translate and teach me and many of them have remained my good friends to this day.

Since the war broke out in 2022, 𝗜’𝘃𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗲𝗱 in every way I’ve could – demonstrated, volunteered, sent supplies, donated and even had a refugee living with me for many months. It’s a privilege to now be able to 𝗱𝗼 𝘀𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗺𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗳𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 and in extension, hopefully 𝗵𝗲𝗹𝗽 these devs to 𝗳𝗶𝗻𝗱 𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗮𝗯𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 and stability in their lives.

Marie will be running her most famous talk ‘𝘛𝘰𝘰 𝘔𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘍𝘦𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦𝘴, 𝘛𝘰𝘰 𝘓𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘭𝘦 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦? 𝘒𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘋𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘚𝘢𝘷𝘦 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘎𝘢𝘮𝘦” on a closed livestream on Dec 12. The event is 𝗳𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗱𝗲𝘃𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗨𝗸𝗿𝗮𝗶𝗻𝗶𝗮𝗻 𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 who can find more information here.