Francesca Carletto-Leon is the founder of the Diversity in Games club at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts. Currently a senior majoring in Interactive Media & Game Design (IMGD) and Professional Writing (PW), Francesca has been an activist and advocate for awareness and understanding of gender and race in games and gaming community among undergraduates. She recently returned from Japan, where she and her team developed the game Chinmoku for academic credit.
In this episode, Francesca and Ken (also a graduate of WPI’s PW program) discuss founding a diversity group among a student population of mostly white men; how to make diversity fun; the outreach and networking opportunities available to undergraduates; cultural differences in box art; and gaming culture in Japan.
Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Overcast, Pandora, Pocket Casts, iHeartRadio, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for links to resources mentioned in this episode.
Links mentioned in this episode:
- Francesca Carletto-Leon on Twitter
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) of Worcester, Mass.
- Chris Chung of Catlateral Damage on IndieSider
- Sarah Como of Zephyr Workshop on Polygamer
- Why is Kirby always angry on US box art?
- Benny Peake
- Charles Battersby of Press XY on Polygamer
- Women in Games Boston
- ACLU & Sasheer Zamata on women’s rights
- Far Cry 4 box art guilty of racism?
- Worcester Polytechnic Institute’s Major Qualifying Project (WPI’s MQP)
- Lost in Translation
- Worcester Game Pile
- 100 Yen: The Japanese Arcade Experience documentary
- Pokkén Tournament (Pokémon Tekken)
- Valve’s Left 4 Dead arcade game
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:07:58 — 32.0MB) | Embed
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