This year all the panels at GX Australia were recorded! Now they’re all up on YouTube for your viewing pleasure. Footage is uploaded into six playlists; one for each panel room on each day. The schedule from the weekend is here in case you’re trying to look up a specific panel.
As part of an underrepresented group in the games industry, our careers are harder than the norm. Our actions and words may be used as a blanket representation of our whole group. The knowledge of biases against us can lead to increased self-doubt and distrust of our coworkers. All these experiences take their toll on our well-being. How can we get better at recognizing these side-effects and alleviating them faster? The panelists discuss experiences and tips that have helped them get stronger to broaden your own set of tools for similar situations.
BUILDING BETTER GAMERS Ashton McAllan, Tanya DePass, Dr. Jennifer Hazel, Alayna Cole, Adam Koebel & Mavis Chan
Can games be used to build better gamers? Can game design improve the outlooks and behaviours of the people that play them? Can we utilise this power to make our gaming spaces and communities safer and more inclusive? Come along and see our panelists discuss who is already doing this in their games, what they are actually doing, and how we can work this kind of magic in our own games.
Diversity and inclusion is at a crossroads, with lots of performative diversity and well-intentioned-yet-ineffective strategies being touted as the Big Thing. But where are we, really? And what’s next?
My Boss of Honor talk! <3 WHY A CUSTOMISABLE CHARACTER ISN’T DIVERSITY (PRESENTED BY THE IGDA FOUNDATION) Tanya DePass
One of the responses that calls for better representation is often, you can customize your character in GAME! Well that’s not actually diversity, nor inclusion or an acceptable response to not thinking about inclusion in the first place. Through examples, and discussion let’s dispel this notion that customization characters = diversity.
A look at the harm that using stereotypes and tropes does to games narratives, and why they need to be stopped.
WRITING THE “OTHER” Anna Irwin-Schutze, Jody Toomey, Katherine Cross, Tanya DePass
At first glance, it seems obvious; Writers need to write about people and places they haven’t experienced directly for themselves. Most crime writers have not personally killed their victims. This panel is all about discovering how can write diverse and interesting characters while at the same time respecting where they come from. How do we be inclusive without having to save the whole world with every game narrative we design? What can we do to write the other to actually make a positive impact on the world and keep our stories awesome and engaging and inclusive at the same time?
Streaming on Twitch can be fun, but it can also be perilous for some of us. This panel will bring you some tips and tricks such as using bots, human mods and other methods to make your experience as stress free as possible.
Tanya DePass is the founder and Director of I Need Diverse Games, a not-for-profit organization based in Chicago, which is dedicated to better diversification of all aspects of gaming. I Need Diverse Games serves the community by supporting marginalized developers, attendance at the Game Developer Conference by participating in the GDC Scholarship program, helps assist attendance at other industry events, and is seeking partnership with organizations and initiatives. Tanya is a lifelong Chicagoan who loves everything about gaming, #INeedDiverseGames spawn point, and wants to make the industry better and more inclusive for everyone. She’s part of the Rivals of Waterdeep actual play stream on twitch.tv/rivalsofwaterdeep, a partnered Twitch variety broadcaster; and often speaks on issues of diversity, feminism, race, intersectionality & other topics online, at conventions and as a public speaker..
She’s also contributed to publications at Green Ronin, Paizo and Monte Cook Games and is the co-developer for the Fifth Season RPG based on N.K. Jemisin’s three time Hugo award winning Broken Earth trilogy. She’s the creator and Creative Director of Into the Mother Lands, a Twitch supported RPG and Actual Play stream, airing weekly on her channel, twitch.tv/cypheroftyr. Additionally, she is a Senior Annenberg labs Civic Media Fellow at USC. She’s also the creator and Creative Director of Into the Mother Lands, a new sci fi afro-futurist RPG developed with a team of all POC and Black creators; live streamed on her twitch channel, /cypheroftyr.
She’s named as one of The Game Awards Future Class 2020, a diverse group of builders, thinkers and dreamers whose voices elevate and diversify our artform. It recognizes individuals around the world who represent the bright, bold and inclusive future for video games. She was also named as one of Gamers of the Year 2020 by Kotaku along with three of her contemporaries. She was also invited to the Xbox MVP program in February 2021.
Her work to make the industry more inclusive has been highlighted in Game Changer, Directed by Tina Charles, WNBA star & olympian as well as filmmaker. The short documentary premiered at Tribeca 2021, as part of the Queen Collective; an initiative started by Queen Latifah, supported by Proctor & Gamble in an effort to get more Black women into film making. Game Changer was also featured as part of BETHer’s 2021 Juneteenth Programming on 19 June 2021.
Tanya is the programming & diversity coordinator for OrcaCon and GaymerX. She also serves on the Board of Directors for OrcaCon and was named the Chair for Take This in January 2023. She often speaks on issues of diversity, feminism, race, intersectionality & other topics at conventions. Her writing about games and games critique appears in Uncanny Magazine, Polygon, Wiscon Chronicles, Vice Gaming, Paste Games, Mic, and other publications. She’s the editor of Game Devs and Others: Tales from the Margins (2018, CRC Press) and contributed to The Advanced Game Narrative Toolbox. (2019, CRC Press)
Writer Bio for pubs: Tanya is the Founder and Director of I Need Diverse Games, a not-for-profit organization based in Chicago. She’s part of Rivals of Waterdeep, an actual play D&D show on twitch.tv/rivalsofwaterdeep; the programming coordinator for OrcaCon & GaymerX; and often speaks on issues of diversity, feminism, race, intersectionality & other topics at conventions. She’s on the Board of Take This as well as a Stream Ambassador, and was part of the inaugural cohort of The Game Awards Future Class. Her work to make the industry more inclusive has been highlighted in Game Changer, Directed by Tina Charles, WNBA star & olympian as well as filmmaker. The short documentary premiered at Tribeca 2021, as part of the Queen Collective; an initiative started by Queen Latifah, supported by Proctor & Gamble in an effort to get more Black women into film making. Game Changer was also featured as part of BETHer’s 2021 Juneteenth Programming on 19 June 2021.
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