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Kotaku Splitscreen

GDC 2018: Fighting Game Dev Crunch, with Tanya X. Short

Kotaku Splitscreen

Kotaku

Leisure, News, Tech News, Video Games

4.6849 Ratings

🗓️ 21 March 2018

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

At GDC in San Francisco, Kirk and Jason chat with Tanya X. Short, captain of indie game studio Kitfox Games, about her unusual approach to structuring her game studio and how she helps her staff combat crunch and burnout. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Okay, we are here with Tanya X Short, who just told us that she prefers to be introduced as the captain of Kit Fox.

0:10.9

Kit Fox is an independent game studio that was most recently responsible for the shrouded aisle and Moon Hunter, and their most recent game is Boyfriend Dungeon, which is exactly what it sounds like.

0:22.1

Hello, Tanya. Thank you for being here. Hello. Thank you very much.

0:25.0

What's it like to be the captain of Kit Fox? Do you have to wear a special hat?

0:27.9

I have to always stand at the front of the boat and look out very meaningfully and squint at the horizon

0:33.3

and they pay me to do it, so it's fine you go down with the ship i do i do all the time

0:38.2

constantly yeah well that's that's a good segue into our conversation

0:42.7

which is labor rights and video games yeah i just am i'm holding in my hand right now a zine

0:49.1

called game workers unite there is a big push for uh industry organization at this GDC. It feels like there's more

0:56.3

momentum than there has been in the past. There's been a lot of talk about exploitation of video game

1:00.5

workers. You and I have talked quite a bit about crunch over the years. Does it feel like there

1:06.5

actually is more momentum now for unionization than there has been in the past? Yes.

1:11.2

And I'm not sure if that's because we have this new generation of developers that are coming up and

1:17.7

talking to each other more.

1:19.3

They're more transparent.

1:20.2

They're more intimate with each other across distances than maybe they used to be.

1:23.9

Thank God for millennials, really.

1:24.4

Right, right?

1:25.0

And Twitter.

1:25.6

Yeah.

1:26.2

Yeah.

1:26.5

And I hope that this isn't a false start,

...

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