Hello gaymers!
We’re super excited to announce that we’ve today brought on Gina Grahame, super rockstar and amazing person as our VP of Corporate Partnerships.
What does this mean for you? More games, more developers and more companies who want to make the gaming world more awesome for queer and minority gamers!
Gina is joining us from UBM where she helped grow GDC into one of the largest and most influential gaming events in the world! Yay!
Everyone please say hi to Gina @GinaGrahame!
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – As part of their announcements for the month of May, GaymerX and MidBoss announced today three new “Bosses of Honor” for GX3: Will Shepherd, Ricki Ortiz, and Naomi Clark. Additionally, musical artists for the show were announced ranging from indie darlings The Doubleclicks and Super Soul Bros, to the more hip hop inspired sounds of SAMMUS and 2 Mello.
Will Shepherd is one of the leading LGBT game streamers and personalities currently on Twitch and YouTube, leading the charge for equality in the realm of game broadcasting. Ricki Ortiz is a prize fighting game competitor, one of the top ranked in the world. Naomi Clark is a veteran games academic who was notably featured in the documentary Gaming In Color and is the creator of Consentacle, the card game of trust, communication, and intimacy. The Doubleclicks have received wide renown for their many geek-culture themed songs and for their projects on YouTube and with folks like Will Wheaton. Super Souls Bros is a collective of San Jose musicians whose claim to fame is their collision of jazz, funk, and the tunes of classic video games. SAMMUS brings an intelligent, cultured style of rapping to the table that portrays her vast love of video games. 2 Mello is a composer of quick success–after a few albums with friends and some unfinished projects he sprung to fame after a deal with Scrub Club Records based on his solo album, Super Producer. These are the many faces and sounds that were announced today for GX3.
MidBoss CEO and GaymerX founder Matt Conn had this to say about the announcement. “Gaming celebrities come in all shapes and sizes, and having Bosses of Honor who represent the fighting games, Twitch, and DIY communities really helps showcase that ‘Everyone Games.’”
Throughout the month of May, GaymerX and MidBoss have been announcing new Bosses of Honor for their flagship show GX3: Everyone Games, each Wednesday during the month of May. There’s still one more Wednesday left, May 27th, and with it will come the announcement of the final three Bosses of Honor.
Past GaymerX special guests have included Dragon Age writer David Gaider, RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Pandora Boxx, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and WWE sports entertainment superstar Darren Young. Additional guests announced for this year’s GaymerX convention include Mass Effect voice actress Jennifer Hale, Rupaul’s Drag Race alum Trixie Mattel, and Bee and Puppycat creator Natasha Allegri. For more information, please visit gaymerx.org
Will Shepherd is from Crawfordville, Florida, and has always been a massive fan of video games,as they distracted him from the nearly unbearable amounts of bullying he had to endure from his classmates and his father while growing up gay in the Deep South. He sought solace on the other end of the joystick, to this day he’s convinced video games saved his life. Will is one of the most famous gay gamers on Twitch, has been a huge part of the rising gaymer culture, and is one of the most recognized faces in the community. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his fiancé and their adorable German Shepherd, Dobby.
Ricki Ortiz is from Northern California and first made a name for herself in the Tekken scene. A fierce fighter, Ricki Ortiz has proven herself as not only one of the best players in the NorCal region, but also one of the best in the world. A veteran of the fighting game community for years, Ricki has been a force to be reckoned with in countless tournaments dating back to Capcom vs. SNK 2, Street Fighter III: Third Strike and Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
Naomi Clark is an independent game designer based in New York City. Over the last two decades she’s worked on a wide variety of games including early text-based virtual worlds, educational games on many subjects, game development tools for kids, and digital brick-building systems for LEGO. She currently teaches game design at the NYU Game Center, and recently co-authored a textbook on game design entitled A Game Design Vocabulary. Her current projects include a game about language with the Brooklyn Game Ensemble; a web game about data privacy practices; and Consentacle, a two-player card game of trust, communication and intimacy.
The Doubleclicks are two sisters who sing sincerely about the things geeks love: dinosaurs, super-villains, Dungeons & Dragons, and more. The duo has gained renown for their YouTube videos including the geek girl song “Nothing to Prove,” for appearing on Wil Wheaton’s web show Tabletop, and for writing the theme song for Cards Against Humanity. The Doubleclicks have toured nationally, performed at w00tstock and on the Jonathan Coulton cruise and their 2013 album Lasers and Feelings hit the top 10 on Billboard’s comedy charts. Their 2014 album Dimetrodon features song about burritos, dinosaurs and cats and was funded by an $80,000 Kickstarter project. Doubleclicks’ concerts are perfect for fans of the cello, of the 1995 BBC mini-series Pride and Prejudice and for people who want to learn more about dinosaurs.
Super Soul Bros are a collective of San Jose-based musicians, whose fusion of jazz & funk meets the familiar melodies of classic video games. Formed in 2012 by keyboardist Robbie Benson, the Super Soul Bros have become known for their dynamic musicianship, improvisation, and nostalgic grooves comparable to jamming a 70’s Herbie Hancock record into a Nintendo Entertainment System. Whether they’re taking requests on the fly, or the crowd’s busting into a full-on soul train, it’s always a party with the Super Soul Bros—one that could only receive the ESRB rating: FOR KIDS AND ADULTS
Sammus is an upstate NY-based rap artist and producer with Congolese and Ivorian family roots. Since joining NuBlack Music Group in early 2012, she has released two albums; a collaborative EP with nerdcore MC Random aka Mega Ran, a beat tape, and a Kickstarter-funded Metroid EP. Her production is characterized by her use of uniquely chopped samples, and video game-like synths. She has been called the “rap Aisha Tyler” (MTV Iggy) because of her smart lyrics that often draw on her love of gaming. When she’s not rapping, she moonlights as a graduate student at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.
2 Mello is a music producer who creates remixes and original compositions with equal passion. He began producing hip-hop in 2005, after learning the basics of composition, sampling and synthesis. After producing three albums with local friends and polishing many unreleased projects over 11 years, Mello was finally able to prove his talent to a wider audience after being signed to the online, non-profit record label Scrub Club Records off the strength of his debut solo album, Super Producer. Mello’s first-ever mashup, Chrono Jigga saw Jay-Z’s lyrics mixed with handcrafted beats from the Chrono Trigger soundtrack, and gained Mello worldwide acclaim.
GaymerX is the first ever LGBTQ-focused gaming convention. For its third year, the event will take place under the name “GX3: Everyone Games”, celebrating a space where all can join in discussion, play, and community without fear of harassment or discomfort for being who and what they are. This year the event will take place in San Jose, California at the San Jose Marriott and Convention Center on December 11th-13th 2015.
MidBoss is a gaming, tech, and geek culture company based in San Francisco that focuses on alternative and LGBTQ lifestyles that encompass gaming culture. Under the MidBoss banner, projects like the GX convention (formerly GaymerX), Gaming In Color, Read Only Memories, and GXdev endeavor to create a better gaming community for queer geeks. The company’s goal is to create a safe space for everyone who loves games, where they can enjoy and express themselves through games however they choose. Everyone games.
Hey, Listen!
Every so often, when the wind through the trees calls out for another GX, we set out a golden trough filled with sugar water to attract the rare and precious Sprites. These Sprites (known as “volunteers” in the lands that do not practice magic) not only make the convention possible, they make it wonderful. Our Sprites run everything from set up to registration; they provide security in the halls and A/V support in the panels and events.
You may not know it yet, but you, reading this – you could be a Sprite! Does the sweet, delicate smell of sugar water entice you? How about free tickets and benefits like free breakfast and a crash space when you need it? Whether you’ve loaned us your magic before or whether you’re spreading your wings for the first time, we’d love to have you join us at GX3!
Here’s a quick rundown of what being a Sprite at GX3: Everyone Games will entail:
What We Need (Your Magic)
What We Offer (Sugar Water)
You can read up on more details about being a Sprite and apply to join us at GX3 here.
Have questions? Email them to Soraya Een Hajji and Brian Kunde at [email protected]!
We look forward to seeing you all at GX3: Everyone Games!
-Soraya Een Hajji and Brian Kunde, Volunteer Co-Directors
For Immediate Release: May 13, 2015
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – As part of their month of May announcements, GaymerX and MidBoss announced three new Bosses of Honor for GX3 today: Kill Screen founder and PBS’ Game/Show host Jamin Warren, game designer and academic Robert Yang, and RuPaul’s Drag Race’s Trixie Mattel, the latter of whom will be hosting the convention’s annual Cosplay Pageant.
MidBoss CEO and GaymerX founder Matt Conn had this to say about the announcement. “Being able to work with a wide variety of folks in the gaming world is what makes GaymerX different and awesome. Having game developers, games critics, and gaming celebrities all in one spot is really exciting!”
Throughout the month of May, GaymerX and MidBoss have been announcing new Bosses of Honor for their flagship show GX3: Everyone Games with another half-dozen to be revealed, to be announced each Wednesday during the month of May.
Past GaymerX special guests have included Dragon Age writer David Gaider, RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Pandora Boxx, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and WWE sports entertainment superstar Darren Young. Previously announced guests for this year’s GaymerX include Mass Effect voice actor Jennifer Hale and Bee and Puppycat creator Natasha Allegri. For more information, please visit gaymerx.org
Trixie Mattel is known for her life-in-plastic aesthetic, charming audiences for years with her unmatched performance style, razor-sharp reads, and off-color comedy as a dazzling host and emcee personality. Accessories sold separately. Batteries not included. Ages three and up.
Robert Yang is an indie game developer, academic, and writer, based in New York City. His work often focuses on first person level design, architecture as narrative, and game modding as a radical design practice. He regularly teaches game development and design within NYU Game Center at New York University, IDM at NYU Poly School of Engineering, and MFADT at Parsons the New School for Design.
Jamin Warren is the founder of the videogame arts and culture company Kill Screen, and a vocal advocate for inclusive gaming. He currently serves as host for the Game/Show for PBS Digital Studios, and an advisor to the Museum of Modern Art’s department of Architecture and Design. Ebony named him one of their top tech leaders to watch and the New York Observer called him a “burgeoning media baron.”
GaymerX is the first ever LGBTQ-focused gaming convention. For its third year, the event will take place under the name “GX3: Everyone Games”, celebrating a space where all can join in discussion, play, and community without fear of harassment or discomfort for being who and what they are. This year the event will take place in San Jose, California at the San Jose Marriott and Convention Center on December 11th-13th 2015.
MidBoss is a gaming, tech, and geek culture company based in San Francisco that focuses on alternative and LGBTQ lifestyles that encompass gaming culture. Under the MidBoss banner, projects like the GX convention (formerly GaymerX), Gaming In Color, Read Only Memories, and GXdev endeavor to create a better gaming community for queer geeks. The company’s goal is to create a safe space for everyone who loves games, where they can enjoy and express themselves through games however they choose. Everyone games.
Hey Gaymers!
A few small announcements:
1) We have less than 40% tickets left – if you have a badge code redeem it NOW or else you risk not being able to come to GX3! :O
2) Introducing our amazing Cosplay Pageant Host…from Rupaul’s Drag Race, Gaymer Queen Trixie Mattel!!
You better have your cosplay game on POINT or else she’s going to make sure you and everyone else knows it!
3) Gaming in Color is launching on ALL platforms – Xbox, Playstation, Vudu, Amazon and iTunes on May 19!! Please follow us on twitter at @gamingincolor and tell your friends!
Love from your friends at GaymerX!!
For Immediate Release: May 6, 2015
GaymerX Announces First Special Guests, Remainder Over Month Of May
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – GaymerX and MidBoss announced the first five of fourteen “Bosses of Honor” selected for their 2015 video game convention, GX3: Everyone Games. The remainder of the recently-finalized list is to be announced over the month of May, with two to three honorees being revealed each Wednesday.
The first five Bosses Of Honor (GaymerX’s title for special guests) announced today include Mass Effect’s Jennifer Hale, Adventure Time’s Natasha Allegri, Portal’s Ellen McLain, Cogs’ co-creator Dr. Rob Jagnow, and Team Fortress 2’s John Patrick Lowrie. While McLain and Lowrie were also special guests for the first GaymerX convention in 2013, Hale, Jagnow, and Allegri join as first-time Bosses of Honor. MidBoss, the producing company behind GaymerX, has expressed their excitement that these guests will be joining them for this year’s event.
MidBoss CEO Matt Conn had this to say about the announcement. “Our first five selections have all helped to bring us awesome mainstream characters that are held dear by the LGBT community. We’re fond of their creations and are extremely proud to have them joining us for GX3.”
GaymerX president and co-founder Toni Rocca also expressed her enthusiasm about this year’s honorees. “I’m definitely thrilled. When someone becomes a Boss of Honor it’s kind of like they become a part of our family, and each year our family just gets bigger and bigger. Our lineup this year is pretty amazing and I really hope we’re making some dreams come true.”
Past GaymerX special guests have included Dragon Age writer David Gaider, RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant Pandora Boxx, Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, and WWE sports entertainment superstar Darren Young. For more information, please visit gaymerx.org
Jennifer Hale is a gifted Voice Actress best known for her work in the Mass Effect franchise. There, she voiced the main character of the games, Commander Shepard, a performance that landed her nominations in 2010 and 2012 at the Spike Videogame Awards. Her work has been in many major titles including Baldur’s Gate, BioShock Infinite, Star Wars: KotOR, Metal Gear Solid, Mortal Kombat X, and many more, awarding her the Guinness World Record for “the most prolific voice actor (female)”. Most recently, she voiced the character Cremisius “Krem” Aclassi, a transgender man in the world of Dragon Age: Inquisition.
Natasha Allegri is a cartoonist most famous for her work as a storyboard revisionist and artist in Cartoon Network series Adventure Time. During this time she also created the gender-swapped protagonists Fiona and Cake who were featured in full episodes of the show, which led to comics of them being created by Natasha herself. Later, after a crowdfunding effort on Kickstarter reached over $850K ($200K+ above the goal) Natasha and Frederator Studios turned her short Bee and Puppycat into a miniseries on the Cartoon Hangover YouTube channel.
Rob Jagnow is the Founder and CEO of Lazy 8 Studios in San Francisco, California. After completing his Ph.D. at MIT, Rob got his start in the game industry at Demiurge Studios in Cambridge, MA. In 2007, he moved to San Francisco to start his own company. Cogs, the first indie title released by Lazy 8 Studios, has won several awards, including the Grand Prize in the professional category at the 2010 Indie Game Challenge.
Ellen McLain and John Patrick Lowrie will be returning as guests from 2013’s GaymerX. Ellen is an American opera singer and voice actress most known for providing the voices of GLaDOS in the popular Portal series as well as the Jaeger A.I. in the film Pacific Rim. John is an American voice actor, actor, musician, and author, best known for voicing the Sniper in Team Fortress 2. Together, they are a fun and brilliantly-talented couple who pulled off a beautiful surprise proposal for a man to his boyfriend at the first GaymerX. This year they will surely bring more surprises and fun as a part of the GaymerX family.
GaymerX is the first ever LGBTQ-focused gaming convention. For its third year, the event will take place under the name “GX3: Everyone Games”, celebrating a space where all can join in discussion, play, and community without fear of harassment or discomfort for being who and what they are. This year the event will take place in San Jose, California at the San Jose Marriott and Convention Center on December 11th-13th 2015.
MidBoss is a gaming, tech, and geek culture company based in San Francisco that focuses on alternative and LGBTQ lifestyles that encompass gaming culture. Under the MidBoss banner, projects like the GX convention (formerly GaymerX), Gaming In Color, Read Only Memories, and GXdev endeavor to create a better gaming community for queer geeks. The company’s goal is to create a safe space for everyone who loves games, where they can enjoy and express themselves through games however they choose. Everyone games.
Hey all!
We are VERY excited to announce today that we have begun the process to become a full 501c3 charity!
We’ve had TONS of people and corporations wanting to help out in bigger ways, but us not being a non-profit has stood in the way.
Us being a non-profit allows charitable donations to our mission to be recognized appropriately!
We simply did not have the legal help or resources to do so in the past, and we were afraid of making things more complicated, but this will allow us to be a more stable convention and better reward our partners.
Thank you!
Hey everyone!
Announcing our very first Boss of Honor, you may know her voice as Shepard, or from Halo, or God Of War, or Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic or Diablo IIIor Metal Gear Solid or..well..she works really hard to voice some of the most awesome characters in gaming today…
It’s Jennifer Hale!
Hooray! We’re excited to announce some other awesome Bosses of Honor as we get closer to the event next year, but we’re so excited to have our first new Boss of Honor be such an awesome and prominent female voice actor in the video games world. Thank you for joining us Jennifer!!
We also wanted to share some super sweet articles that have been written about the convention/interviews we did. Please read if you’d like more insight into our thinking w/ GX3 or want to share the good news!
THE ADVOCATE – http://www.advocate.com/arts-entertainment/geek/2014/09/11/queer-game-convention-close-funding-goal-third-year
VENTUREBEAT – http://venturebeat.com/2014/09/11/gaymerx-is-dead-long-live-gx3-interview/
DIEHARDGAMEFAN – http://diehardgamefan.com/2014/09/11/interview-with-matt-conn-and-philip-jones-of-gx3/
DOT 429 – http://dot429.com/articles/4965-gx3-because-everyone-games
Some other cool ones at launch:
IGN – http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/08/26/gaymerx-returns-as-gx3-everyone-games
JOYSTIQ – http://www.joystiq.com/2014/08/25/gaymerx-conference-to-return-as-gx3-everyone-games/
Also big thanks to Game Politics, Kotaku & Kotaku Australia, Polygon, Eurogamer, Nerd Reactor and everyone else for helping spread the word. It’s very likely now that GX3 is going to happen (6 1/2% left!) and we wouldn’t be in this spot without YOU helping spread the word and letting these publications that you like a little queer content now and then 🙂
THANK YOU 😀
Hey everyone!
This is Matt and boy howdy have things been busy over here at GaymerX/MidBoss HQ. Since we launched GaymerX last year, things have been a whirlwind, as we’ve been working hard to cover the costs of putting on the first event, launching new projects like Read Only Memories, and making plans for more awesome stuff for queer geeks in the near future.
I just wanted to take this time to thank everyone on GaymerConnect, r/Gaymers, and the local Gaymer groups for banding together and sending such a strong message last year to the game companies of the world – we, as queer gamers, deserve to be treated better than we have: We deserve to feel safe in the places that we go and we deserve games that are made with us in mind. Due to the support that you’ve given us over the past year, we’ve been able to go to game companies and show them just how big this audience is, and gaming companies are listening.
It has been a stressful year for us in that for nearly all of this, this is our part time job, and running a convention and a game are pretty intense stuff. That being said, we would not be able to keep doing this without all your support and love and desire to see more queer games, devs, and themes in the gaming world.
We hope that what we announce next will excite you, and we’re eager to continue working towards a better place for all queer geeks.
@MattConn
PS: I recently did an interview with Glenn Fleishman of NewDisruptors for BoingBoing where I talk about Read Only Memories, GaymerX1, GaymerX2, and some silly things like being America’s Worst Driver! :O
Hey everyone! If you couldn’t make it to GaymerX, starting this friday, and every friday until we run out of panels, we will be releasing two panels from GaymerX.
Please check out the video explaining GaymerXTalks and stay tuned – this week we’ll launch Pandora Boxx and EA’s panel, and have lots more in store. And the best part? All of them are free.
Also, we’re making a game: Read Only Memories. The success of this game is crucial – all the eyes of the gaming world are looking to this to see if LGBTQ themed games have an audience and can succeed, so if we can hit goal, then AAA publishers will be that less afraid to include queer characters because there is now a proven business case.
The game is only $6 – please consider backing it, or if you have, telling your friends!
Lastly, if you haven’t gotten a badge for GaymerX2 yet – there are still limited tickets available in the kickstarter, and for just $9 more than a regular badge, you can get two versions of R.O.M., a beanie, stickers and your name in the credits. Now is THE BEST TIME to get a badge for GX2 if you haven’t yet – and Ouya will double your money!!, so you’ll be helping us out even more.
THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING QUEERS IN GAMING!
