Today, female game developers are taking the lead as some of the industry’s top executives, but it wasn’t always this way. In the 1970s and ’80s, when the video game market was just starting to take off, women had to fight hard to make their voices heard in a male-dominated industry. We’ve compiled a list of the most influential women in video game history since the first game designed by a woman came out in 1978.

Computer programmer Carol Shaw is best known for her work at Activision on the retro hit River Raid, but years before that Shaw had already made a name for herself in video game history. In 1978 she was the first woman to programme and design a video game, 3D Tic-Tac-Toe for the Atari 2600.

In 1983, the last game Shaw programmed and designed entirely by herself, Happy Trails, was released, just as the video game market was collapsing. With the industry in shambles, Shaw took a break from making games, but returned in 1988 to oversee the production of River Raid II, her final swan song in the world of console gaming.

Roberta Williams is one of the most important figures in the history of video games. In 1979, Williams was inspired after playing the text-only computer game Adventure to put together a design document outlining an interactive game that combined text with graphics. Her husband Ken, a programmer at IBM, developed the software engine and technology using their Apple II home computer. Their game, Mystery House, was an instant hit, and the genre of graphic adventure was born.