PAX Prime | Polygamer

Polygamer #28: Benjamin Williams of the PAX Diversity Lounge

Posted on August 26, 2015 by Ken Gagne

Benjamin Williams is the co-founder of the PAX Diversity Lounge, a safe space at Penny Arcade Expo conventions that offers marginalized groups free tables and booths with which to represent their products and services. First launched at PAX East 2014, the room has been host to many groups and attendees and has been well-received by many, though concerns over segregation still exist. Benjamin comes to the Diversity Lounge having previously co-founded the Queer Geek community group and having spoken on PAX panels on creating diversity playgroups.

In this interview, Benjamin and I talk about what prompted the founding of the Diversity Lounge; how to tell if the Lounge is doing its job, and if it will ever not be needed; how the room has evolved in its short life; the problematic nature of PAX; what constitutes a diversity playgroup; and whether “white knighting” has an undeservedly bad reputation.

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: 1:14:23 — 34.9MB) | Embed

Polygamer #27: Cosplayer Emma Bell

Posted on August 12, 2015 by Ken Gagne

Emma Bell is an accomplished and talented cosplayer, appearing at anime and video game conventions as characters from Mass Effect, Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Age, and Agent Carter. Her upcoming appearances include West Coast conventions Anime Revolution and PAX Prime, where her husband and fellow cosplayer Koko will be her helper. The studio arts skills Emma learns from cosplaying feed back into her Etsy shop, where she sells costume pieces, patches, and other accessories.

I met Emma at PAX East 2014, where she graciously posed for some photos in her Aria T’Loak costume. Still impressed by her art and expertise more than a year later, I called Emma to chat about how to get into cosplay; budgeting the time and money for buying or crafting costume pieces; choosing which conventions to cosplay at; whether or not to be limited in cosplay options by one’s gender; how to interact with cosplayers; and why cosplay is not consent.

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Podcast: Download (Duration: 58:51 — 27.8MB) | Embed

Polygamer #06: The F-Word panel at PAX Prime 2014

Posted on September 24, 2014 by Ken Gagne

At PAX East 2014, I moderated a panel titled "Sex, Sexy & Sexism: Fixing Gender Inequality in Gaming" in which three women and two men discussed the problems and solutions facing the industry. Four months later at PAX Prime, those same three women reunited for another panel: "The F Word", that being "feminism". In this panel, they share their experiences in the industry, giving us some perspective on problems that may not be obvious to those who have not experienced them, before taking Q&A.

This panel features Alexa Ray Corriea (Reporter, Polygon); Brianna Wu (Head of Development, Giant Spacekat); Susan Arendt (Managing Editor, Joystiq); Andrea Rene (Senior Producer, GameTrailers); and Tifa Robles (Founder, Organizer, The Lady Planeswalkers Society).

The audio of this session is provided to Polygamer by Travis Stewart of BrokenCRT Productions and is used here with his permission, as well as that of the five individual panelists. Download the audio edition below or from iTunes or Stitcher; the video is available on YouTube.

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Polygamer explores issues of equality and diversity in the gaming industry. New episodes air every other Wednesday on iTunes and Stitcher.

Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:10:17 — 33.9MB) | Embed