S2 E1: Powering Up Game Dev by Making Space for All with Joanie Kraut

Welcome to Season 2 of Enduring Play: A Game Development Podcast. Where Season 1 expanded on the interviews from host Cheryl Platz's critically acclaimed book The Game Development Strategy Guide, Season 2 covers new ground. The overarching themes: community and curiosity in a time of chaos. We'll talk to educators, community leaders, researchers, event organizers, studio leaders, and many others who can help us understand how to sustainably scale our game development work even when the future seems uncertain.

Season 2's bonus-length debut episode features a candid, constructive, and hopeful conversation with Women in Games International CEO Joanie Kraut. Recent reports indicate that 46-48% of gamers globally are women - but only one third of game developers identify as women or nonbinary, and that's still far larger than the representation numbers seen in esports. How do we break these cycles, and how can we lift up marginalized groups in gaming in a way that benefits everyone - all genders, all ethnicities, all races, all sexual orientations - with an eye towards equity? Joanie Kraut has been exploring these questions in her work as CEO of WIGI, bringing diverse cohorts of allies to the table across the industry for years. We cover everything from Joanie's incredibly relatable origin story in gaming to WIGI's history of partnership with the Game Developers Conference and what all listeners can learn from the preparations WIGI's GDC scholars engage in each year. It doesn't matter what your gender is or what your career stage is - there's something here for you, and there's a seat at WIGI's table for you, too. Game development is complex and challenging and we all know it's dangerous to go alone - learn about the programs WIGI offers to anyone who needs guidance on navigating complex workplace scenarios to help you build inclusive teams and games that speak to wider audiences.

For readers of host Cheryl Platz's new critically acclaimed book The Game Development Strategy Guide, this episode hits the Motivators of Play from Chapter 1 particularly frequently as well as themes from Chapter 9's focus on prosocial gaming and Chapter 11's gaming economies - and it also hits the theme of the epilogue: in the end, your biggest challenge is not actually any individual game but building a sustainable studio that can survive each individual game launch. #gamedev #videogames #wigi #igda #gdc

Show Notes: https://www.gamedevelopmentstrategyguide.com/enduring-play/enduring-play-season-2/enduring-play-a-game-dev-podcast-season-2-episode-1-joanie-kraut-show-notes/