This FTW Philly segment started out as a story piece on Latoya Peterson and Dr. Mitu Khandaker, who are the co-founders of Glow-up Games, a game studio fixed on innovative storytelling about black and brown joy. However, as they sat down for their interviews, it slowly became clear that there was a bigger story to tell — the space that women create for themselves in the video game industry, both on screen and behind the scenes.
Our producer/director, Jo Shen, dove into a research period spanning over three months. There was a lot of noise out there on this topic and she wanted to ensure that our piece added to the conversation and further encouraged dialogue. She began with basic questions like “how were female characters portrayed in video game history?” But as the research continued, the topic of representation expanded beyond characters and led into areas surrounding gender expectations, workforce equality, educational barriers and much more.