Tag Archives: Kickstarter

Polygamer #81: Cynthia Lowen, director of NETIZENS

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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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Polygamer #75: Matt Baume of Queens of Adventure

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Queens of Adventure is a comedy-adventure podcast in which four drag queens slay their way through pencil-and-paper role-playing games. Adapted from the live stage show Dungeons & Drag Queens, Queens of Adventure has as its dungeon master Matt Baume, host of the podcast Sewers of Paris, director of documentary Playing with Pride, and returning guest of Polygamer.

On this episode, Matt provides an introductory lesson to drag and how it’s similar to D&D; how he’ll adapt an over-the-top live show of one-off adventures to an audio-only ongoing campaign; how designer James Morris is creating a role-playing campaign for drag queens that’s different from off-the-shelf modules, including using the language of polari; and the exciting stretch goals for the podcast’s Kickstarter campaign.

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 #74: Joseph Bein of Out of Sight Games

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Joseph Bein is the president & creative lead of Out of Sight Games, developer of the audio game A Hero’s Call. The studio’s first game, A Hero’s Call was designed to be accessible by visually impaired gamers, including half of Out of Sight Games, who built their own game engine to ensure the game’s accessibility.

In this interview, Bein talks about what kinds of games tend to be more accessible to blind gamers; what developers can do to improve their games’ accessibility; whether or not the development tools themselves are accessible; talks he’s attended at the Game Accessibility Conference and GDC; why a future version of A Hero’s Call will have a visual component; and why he turned to Kickstarter for the game’s final push.

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 #32: Matt Conn of Read Only Memories

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Matt Conn is the CEO of MidBoss, the studio behind Read Only Memories, a point-and-click adventure game featuring a diverse cast of characters. It is the first game from the same studio that produces the annual GaymerX (GX3) convention and the documentary Gaming in Color.

In this interview (originally recorded for the IndieSider podcast), Matt and Ken discuss why MidBoss chose the first-person adventure genre as a vehicle for social justice; who the game’s target audience is and what the reception has been from those quarters; what challenges are inherent to writing a script featuring diverse characters; and whether it is the responsibility of indie or AAA studios to include marginalized voices in their games’ casts.

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 #31: Holly Green on Gameranx, Fry Scores & OCD

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Holly Green is the managing editor of Gameranx, a video game news, reviews, and feature site. Not one to limit her outlets, Holly is also an accomplished freelance writer for outlets such as Polygon, where she detailed her challenges with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Most recently, Holly published her first cookbook, Fry Scores: An Unofficial Guide To Video Game Grub, listing real-world recipes for fictional foods. After an initial launch as an Apple iBook, a successful Kickstarter allowed the book to be recently ported to the Amazon Kindle format.

In this episode, Holly and I discuss freelancing for one publication when employed by another; the ethics of being a game reviewer and Kickstarter backer; her photography setup for shooting food; the difficulty in translating among the various e-book formats; how gaming achievements prey on OCD; and how game developers can be more conscious of neuroatypical gamers.

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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Stage of Development: The human side of gaming

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When the Polygamer podcast was still in the conceptual stage, I thought it was going to be called Polygame. As I better defined the show, I realized the focus wouldn’t be on games, but on gamers: telling the stories of the people who make up this industry and community. Only a single letter in the show’s title made a big difference in what it’d be about. Sure enough, in the year since Polygamer launched, I’ve been honored by dozens of gamers sharing their stories with me and with listeners. It’s been wonderful to get out from behind the screen and connect with the people and passions that make this pastime so powerful.

One of the first guests was Russ Pitts, co-founder of Take This, a non-profit that helps members of the gaming community address mental health issues. For longer than Polygamer has been around, Russ has been helping other gamers tell their own stories, as in the “Human Angle” series of features on Polygon, a website he co-founded; or in the e-book How Video Games Are Made, which details the development of Defense Grid 2.

Now Russ has taken to Kickstarter to crowdfund a video series that tells the human side of gaming. Stage of Development “is a documentary series featuring human stories about real people. Some of them make games. Some of them play games. Some of them just happen to be caught in the crossfire. All of them are helping make the video game community one of the most vibrant and exciting collections of humans on Earth.”

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/russpitts/stage-of-development-indie-city-edition

The campaign is seeking $192,105 by September 16, on which day the first episode of the show will debut, funded by Russ’s own company, Flying Saucer Media. Early episodes will feature big names like John and Brenda Romero, or the team at Spry Fox. I’m hopeful future episodes will tell us stories of people we’ve not heard of before, companies and studios less well-funded, and those representing marginalized voices.

I’ve backed this project at the $45 level because Stage of Development is an important way to remind us that there are people behind the products and screens we spend so much time engaged with. When developers get harassed, they leave the industry; when gamers get harassed, they leave the community. Each departure leaves us with fewer games and gamers to enjoy our favorite pastime with. Acknowledging our shared humanity is a defense against that attrition.

Stage of Development isn’t about publicity; it’s about empathy. Anything that helps gamers recognize and appreciate the human element of gaming has my vote.

UPDATE (Aug 4, 2016): The original Kickstarter for this project was canceled in August 2015 and relaunched August 2016.