Top 100 Women in Games: Bethany Aston

I started my career with both games and Team 17 when I applied for a QA Tester position back in 2011,” says Team 17 senior PR executive Bethany Aston.

From there I got my head down, worked hard and made sure Debbie Bestwick, Team 17’s Managing Director, knew my aspirations to move into a PR role should any become available.”

And it did. In 2012 Aston became PR and marketing executive before gaining promotion to senior PR executive. All of which was a dream come true for the young executive.

I’ve always been passionate about games,” she says.

It all started at an extremely early age as my family had a BBC Micro and then an Amiga. I started off on Fun School 4 (Under 5s) but it wasn’t long before that I was enjoying the delights of point-and-clicks such as The Secret of Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle and Sam and Max: Hit the Road along with a whole host of classic Amiga platformers such as Magic Pockets, Cool Spot, Chuck Rock, Titus the Fox, Alfred Chicken, Wiz ‘n’ Liz and The Addams Family.

I moved on from platformers to RPGs in a big way when my uncle bought my parents a copy of Final Fantasy VII as a Christmas present.

Being able to turn my passion into a career as an adult is a truly exciting and wonderful opportunity, which I’m thankful for each day. I adore being able to engage about games on a daily basis and be involved within the industry. It’s a fantastic job and I honestly get to work with both the best team internally and meet awesome people externally.”

Aston says one of her favourite industry achievements came in 2014, when Team 17-published The Escapists (developed by Chris Davis of Mouldy Toof) was demoed on stage at Gamescom during the Xbox Press Conference.

Being in the crowd as that unfolded and knowing what it meant for Chris was a ridiculously proud moment for me, I almost cried,” she says.

I’m always proud to represent not only Team 17 games but also our indie partners games. Last year we had some fantastic expos together, we really are like an extended family and it’s a true privilege to work alongside such talented individuals.”

So what does Aston have planned for the future?

Right now my goals are to keep delivering and ensuring everyone knows about Team 17 and our indie devs. Team 17 will be turning 25 this year and we’ve got some cracking forthcoming game releases. It’s going to be another fantastic year. Long term, I adore working in PR and alongside our partners, ultimately I’d like to move into a Head of PR role.”