esports | Polygamer

Polygamer #105: T.L. Taylor on Twitch streaming

Posted on September 23, 2020 by Ken Gagne

Dr. T.L. Taylor is a professor at M.I.T. and the author of several books, including Watch Me Play – Twitch and the Rise of Game Live Streaming. Her ethnographic research into esports and online game streaming have led her to co-found AnyKey, an advocacy organization that supports diversity, inclusion, and equity in competitive gaming; and to be one of the founding members of Twitch’s Safety Advisory Council.

In this episode, I ask T.L. how esports led to Twitch and vice versa; how an external advisory council can sway an organization as large as Twitch; how one can write a book about a medium that is so quickly evolving; the AnyKey pledge that over 750,000 million streamers have taken; whether esports could survive without Twitch, or vice versa; what gaming can tell us about the future of our country’s culture and politics; and about her current research into amusement parks as commercialized play spaces.

Stream the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, 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.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 57:07 — 27.1MB) | Embed

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Polygamer #62: Sabriel Mastin of Overwatch & Overbuff

Posted on March 15, 2017 by Ken Gagne

Sabriel Mastin is the head of social media and support for Overbuff, a stats-tracking website for Overwatch, the popular first-person shooter from Warcraft developer Blizzard. When not competing in competitive multiplayer matches as Tracer or Ana, Sabriel is engaging with fans on Facebook and Twitter, congratulating them on their gameplay and helping them track their improvement using Overbuff. Sabriel is also a frequent panelist at PAX East, where she advocates for diversity and LGBT representation.

In this episode, Sabriel gives me a primer on Overwatch: what makes it different from other first-person shooters, the diversity of its cast of characters, how the community handles harassment, and how Overbuff fits into the equation. Overbuff is Sabriel’s first paid job in the gaming industry, and we discuss her dream to eventually find herself on-camera in the e-sports community. We then talk about Playing with Pride, the documentary by recent Polygamer alumnus Matt Baume for which Sabriel was interviewed, and the experience Matt related in which Sabriel shared something personal with on her PAX East 2016 panel.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 55:55 — 26.5MB) | Embed

Polygamer #25: Lilian Chen (Milktea) on Smash Bros. & sexism

Posted on July 8, 2015 by Ken Gagne

Lilian Chen, aka Milktea, joined the competitive gaming scene in high school, when her younger brother introduced her to Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Nintendo GameCube. As she toured the country participating in e-sports events, she discovered that she was one of the few women in a male-dominated scene. She set out to raise awareness of this gender imbalance by empathizing with, not shaming, the men in the community. After penning a series of Tumblr posts that attracted mainstream attention, Chen hosted "The New Meta" panel at the NYU Game Center and more recently delivered a TED-Ed talk, "How I responded to sexism in gaming with empathy".

In this interview, Chen shares her enthusiasm for competitive gaming and how it’s helped build a community; why some gamers may respond to the threat of increased diversity with gatekeeping; how benevolent sexism works, and how women can internalize and propagate misogyny; why we need women-only but not men-only gaming leagues, as the Hearthstone community discovered last summer; and why, despite being semi-retired, she’ll always be a part of the Smash Bros. international scene.

Download the audio edition of this interview below or from iTunes, 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.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:00:19 — 28.5MB) | Embed