Podcast | Polygamer

Polygamer #86: Eve Leblanc of Clever Endeavour Games

Posted on February 13, 2019 by Ken Gagne

Geneviève “Eve” Leblanc is the community manager and QA tester for Clever Endeavour Games, developer of Ultimate Chicken Horse, a multiplayer, multiplatform game. UCH’s community has grown with the game’s original Windows release in 2016, PS4 and Xbox One debut in 2017, and Nintendo Switch port in 2018. Since last year, Eve has fostered this community, engaged with fans and influencers, and brainstormed promotions.

In this episode of Polygamer, Eve and I chat about how a community manager is more than just a moderator; what success looks like for a community manager; the differences in moderating a game’s community vs. a Twitch channel’s; how to get Twitch streamers to play your game; how to respond to negativity without taking a hit to one’s mental health; the tools and best practices for maintaining a work-life balance; and the academic field of sexology.

Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, Mixcloud, Spoke, Overcast, acast, Pocket Casts, Castbox, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for links to resources mentioned in this episode.

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Polygamer #85: Shannon Symonds of The Strong Museum of Play

Posted on January 9, 2019 by Ken Gagne

Shannon Symonds is a curator at The Museum of Play, home to the International Center for the History of Electronic Games (ICHEG). This institution in Rochester, New York, is home to 60,000+ artifacts of gaming history, from rare game consoles, coin-ops, and prototypes to design documents, periodicals, and transcripts. Shannon, who last month was profiled in the book Women in Gaming, recently curated the Women in Games exhibit, showcasing the contributions of generations of women to video games.

In this interview, Shannon and I discuss what gaming rarities ICHEG houses, where they come from, and where they go; the challenges in preserving a digital medium; what a visitor to the Women in Games exhibit will see if they look up; why Bahiyya Khan deserves a place in gaming history; what to study in college to become a museum curator; why Shannon was surprised to be in Meagan Marie’s Women in Gaming anthology; and what we both love about Star Trek: Discovery.

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Polygamer #84: Meagan Marie, author of “Women in Gaming”

Posted on December 5, 2018 by Ken Gagne

Meagan Marie is the author of Women in Gaming: 100 Professionals of Play, a new hardcover book and e-book featuring interviews with more than a hundred women in the games industry. The book profiles not only luminaries who have created, diversified, and preserved the industry, such as Jennifer Hale, Perrin Kaplan, Sheri Graner Ray, and Shannon Symonds, but also the next generation of leaders, including Bahiyya Khan, Regina Luki Kgatle, and Jenny Xu. Marie researched and wrote Women in Gaming outside her day job as community and social media manager at Crystal Dynamics, creators of Tomb Raider.

On the eve of her book being published on December 4, 2018, I asked Marie how she discovered so many people to interview; the importance of intersectionality and representation in her book’s roster; why this was the right time to publish this book; what it was like to work with Prima Games when they were shutting down, and how DK and Crystal Dynamics stepped up to help; the obstacles presented by imposter syndrome; and what she learned from interviewing so many accomplished and inspiring women.

Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, Mixcloud, Spoke, Overcast, acast, Pocket Casts, Castbox, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 40:41 — 19.5MB) | Embed

Polygamer #83: Bahiyya Khan of after HOURS

Posted on November 14, 2018 by Ken Gagne

Bahiyya Khan is the developer of after HOURS, a full-motion video (FMV) game about sexual assault and borderline personality disorder (BPD). Presented as an interactive film, after HOURS has received critical acclaim and awards at game conferences around the globe for its innovative storytelling and willingness to tackle difficult subjects. The game has also earned a publishing deal with Humble, which will be releasing the game for Windows in early December 2018.

I first saw Bahiyya when she traveled from her home in South Africa to the Different Games conference in Massachusetts, where she spoke about the challenges of developing a game whose subject matter could be triggering. In this podcast interview, I ask her whether after HOURS was a cathartic experience; why she chose FMV as her medium; whether her decision to star in the game increased her sense of vulnerability; how she recruited her team from local artists in Johannesburg; what it means to be earning a college degree in experimental storytelling; how her BPD manifests itself; and how she’ll feel when the game is finally released to the general public.

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Polygamer #82: Geek Remix’s Stacy & Mari

Posted on October 17, 2018 by Ken Gagne

Stacy and Mari collectively form Geek Remix, a popular YouTube channel in which the two women Let’s Play and analyze mainstream and indie video games. They don’t stray from terrible or problematic games, acknowledging the challenging aspects of gaming and using them as an opportunity to engage in dialogue about how to make them better. Their channel is designed as a safe space, offering both entertainment and social justice.

In this podcast, Ken chats with Mari and Stacy about how they approach playing problematic games such as Detroit: Become Human and Super Seducer; why Mari’s Firewatch theory video is the channel’s post popular video; the role of analytics in determining future content; Stacy’s Instagram cosplay; their collaboration with animator and thumbnail artist Tess Young; interacting with their Twitter and Patreon communities; imposter syndrome; and more!

Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, Mixcloud, Spoke, Overcast, acast, Pocket Casts, Castbox, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:40:46 — 47.0MB) | Embed

Polygamer #81: Cynthia Lowen, director of NETIZENS

Posted on September 26, 2018 by Ken Gagne

Cynthia Lowen is the director and producer of NETIZENS, a documentary that details the proliferation of online harassment faced by women. The film follows feminist critic Anita Sarkeesian, attorney Carrie Goldberg, and businesswoman Tina Reine as they fight back against the online harassment that has threatened their careers and livelihoods. Lowen ran a successful Kickstarter campaign for NETIZENS in late 2016 and is now showing the movie on the film festival circuit prior to its general release.

In this interview, I chat with Lowen about what inspired her to make this film; why she chose to focus on gendered online harassment broadly and not just in online gaming; whether the past few years have made the Internet safer or more dangerous for women; the role that men and video games can play in solving the problem of online harassment; how NETIZENS compares with her previous film, Bully; her experience with crowdfunding; and when we can look forward to NETIZENS‘s wide release.

This interview was recorded on Friday, September 21, 2018, while Lowen was in Switzerland as part of the film tour. Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play Music, Mixcloud, Spoke, Overcast, acast, Pocket Casts, Castbox, TuneIn, RadioPublic, or the Internet Archive. Click past the jump for links to resources mentioned in this episode.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 48:52 — 23.2MB) | Embed