You know her from her work at IGN, GameSpot, and Paste, plus her fan club over at Kinda Funny - and now she's a big fancy grad student at Berkeley, California! Aiden Strawhun joins me to talk about going to her very first GDC (Game Developers Conference) after sleeping until 2pm the weekend after. Aiden was lucky enough to go via the Xbox Game Changers Scholarship, which gives promising (and often marginalized) voices a chance to network and establish relationships with fellow creators and big industry names. We also talk about how vastly our experiences differed when it came to certain interactions with gatekeepers in the industry, plus we gush over some of our favorite games we got to play. Short version: Play some damn Cat Quest 2, y'all.

Follow Aiden on Twitter: @Astraww

Anthem voice actress and GameDev.world co-founder Sarah Elmaleh joins Joe this week to talk about how she's working to make game developer events more inclusive by hosting a "global game developers conference" called GameDev.world, which will be translated into dozens of different languages all over the world. Sarah also opens up about her experiences voicing the freelancer in Anthem, Katie Greenbriar in Gone Home, and her significant history of being an industry worker advocate!

Follow Sarah on Twitter: https://twitter.com/selmaleh

Follow Joe on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JosephKnoop

Harmonix producer Matt Kelly joins Joe to talk about Audica, the company's new VR music action game! The guys chat about what goes into making a kickass music game in VR, Harmonix's journey into different genres and formats.

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On this week's episode, IGN social editor and dear friend of the pod CASSIDEE MOSER joins Joe to gush about Captain Marvel and what it means for the Marvel Cinematic Universe and fans. PLUS, being huge nerds who have a questionable affinity for Disney products, we list out the five best Star Wars video games ever!

Cassidee: https://twitter.com/CassideeMoser

Joseph: https://twitter.com/JosephKnoop

1099: https://twitter.com/The1099Podcast

On this week's episode, the one and only Tina Amini -- Editor-in-Chief of Games at IGN -- joins Joe to talk about how she runs one of the biggest names in games journalism. We dive into Tina's one year anniversary with IGN, what she's learned about leading such a huge team, the evolution of games media over the past decade, and the perspective of the industry she's been afforded as IGN's Big Boss.

Support the show by following us @The1099Podcast and @JosephKnoop on Twitter, and support our resident musician at ZWBuckley.com.

On this week's episode of The 1099, Game Workers Unite co-founder Emma Kinema joins Joseph to talk all about the struggle to unionize the video game industry. Why are so many studios laying off hundreds of workers without any severance packages? Why are so many studios overworking their employees? How could collective bargaining (AKA a union) help those employees stave off the financial, physical, or mental toll of working for exploitative studios? Games media is rife with accounts of the blood, sweat, and tears that go into our favorite games, but maybe it's time to cut back a little on all of those and give developers the security and freedom any modern American deserves from their full-time job. Question is: How do we get there?

Game Workers Unite: https://www.gameworkersunite.org/

Emma Kinema: https://twitter.com/EmmaKinema

Game Developers Conference: https://www.gdconf.com/

Joseph on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JosephKnoop

1099 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/the1099Podcast

ZWBuckley: https://www.zwbuckley.com/

Metro series creator and author Dmitry Glukhovsky joins me to talk about the tense political and personal history behind his version of the Russian post-apocalypse, how he helped 4A Games bring it to video game life, and a hell of a lot more. You don't want to miss this one. As always, support our resident musician at zwbuckley.com and let us know your thoughts on Twitter @The1099Podcast

This week, Joe is joined by Netflix's The Dragon Prince creators Aaron Ehasz and Justin Richmond to discuss how they've built their new fantasy world, how they strive to make its characters meaningful and diverse, how they work with fans to find ways they can do better, and what went into making them the writers they are today.

Joe also happened to write the first article on Wonderstorm, Aaron and Justin's company. https://www.polygon.com/features/2017/11/30/16716400/last-airbender-uncharted-wonderstorm

Make sure to support our resident musician at ZWBuckley.com.

On this week’s episode of The 1099, GameDaily.biz managing editor Amanda Farough joins Joe to talk about the art of business reporting in an industry that’s dominated by enthusiast press. Joe and Amanda discuss the kinds of standards business reporters hold themselves to, how to make boring old financial reports interesting to someone who doesn’t know what a euro is, and how to build up a new brand like GameDaily! We also dive into the ongoing war between the Epic Games Store and Valve’s Steam and more. Gird your loins, y’all.

As always, music is provided by ZW Buckley, who you can find at ZWBuckley.com.

Episode edited by Aiden Strawhun.

Matt Silverman, creator of the Free Dad Videos YouTube channel, went and made a No Man's Sky short film starring his 5-year-old daughter Amelia, Greg Miller, and WWE star Austin Creed. Joe and Matt talk about how the channel has become a living picture album of Amelia's life, how he used No Man's Sky to create the short film, and how fatherhood has changed him as a creator.

Music provided by ZW Buckley, which you can find at zwbuckley.com