*Major Episode Alert* This week features two incredible leaders in the gaming industry: Dr. Mitu Khandaker (CEO) and Latoya Peterson (CXO) join me from Glow Up Games. In its own words, “Glow Up Games is a game studio centering innovative storytelling about black and brown joy.” Mitu and Latoya walk me through what it was like developing a mobile game based on the hit HBO series Insecure (by amazing creator Issa Rae). Join us for a conversation on race, fundraising, company building, and what it's like to meet your heroes.

Episode Resources:

http://glowup.games/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kemberliespivey/2021/11/29/hbo-and-glow-up-games-launches-a-insecure-mobile-game-called-the-come-up/?sh=659eee11515c 

https://igda-website.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/18113901/IGDA-DSS-2021_SummaryReport_2021.pdf 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kemberliespivey/2021/11/29/hbo-and-glow-up-games-launches-a-insecure-mobile-game-called-the-come-up/?sh=659eee11515c 

https://www.dbltap.com/posts/latoya-peterson-diversity-in-games-01f4wcm7jexg 

https://www.publicbooks.org/ai-rap-synthesis-tools-black-hip-hop/

Welcome to the meadow woman podcast. We address the

issues, opportunities and challenges facing women in the

development of the metaverse the biggest revolution since the

internet itself. Every week we bring you conversations with top

female talent and business executives operating in the

gaming and crypto industries. Here's your host Lindsey the

boss POS, the meta woman podcast starts now.

Hello, and welcome to the men and women podcast or

the holodeck media Podcast Network. I'm your host Lindsay

The Boss Boss and I'm Charlotte success recovering it all. Hello

returning listeners. Thank you so much for supporting the show.

It means the world to me. For all our new listeners. I hope

you enjoy and come back next week. Today we have a multiple

guests episode, which is always so fun to get to have a good

conversation good banter. I am beyond excited to introduce Dr.

metoo khandaker CEO and Latoya Peterson CXO in both co founders

of blow up games. I'm taking a line directly from their website

here but love games is a studio games are sorry. Restart, quote.

Love Games is a studio game studio, centering innovative

storytelling about black and brown. Join me to and Latoya I

would love for you both to further introduce yourself and

glow games to the audience. All right. Well, hi. And

thanks for having us. So yeah, I'm documenting and

daycare. And yeah, the tour and I founded golf games about three

years ago. And like you said, you know, we really are all

about telling stories and centering stories, which

celebrate people of color, celebrate Black and Brown joy,

which is stories, which just don't get seen told in video

games historically.

Yeah, absolutely. So a few years ago, we started on this journey,

I think, you know, Matteo, and I had both been, you know, first

friends, you know, other two brown girls in the games

industry, I was writing about games to was creating games, but

we kind of gravitated on Twitter, and then in real life.

And then secondly, just understanding that like, you

know, we both grew up in very similar fashions, we've been

playing games since we were tiny. I think once you started

four, and I started at six, and we just never saw protagonists

that look like us, or stories like ours on screen. And you

know, as the years went on, like more and more titles, it just

didn't seem to change. And so we realized that, you know, for the

change that we wanted to see to happen, get directly involved.

Yeah. And, you know, I'm someone that's, like, I've been in the

games industry for like, 14 or 15 years, or has been in the

media industry for that long. And, you know, we've just done a

lot of stuff throughout our careers in our respective

spaces. And, you know, we, one of the things that pretty much

led to the formation of our aims is seeing how in a lot of

adjacent spaces like Hollywood TV, other spaces were really

creators of color, and other underrepresented creators are

being empowered to tell their own stories, and finding a lot

of success and a huge audience doing it. And knowing that, that

is something that could totally happen in video games. If only

you know, folks, like myself in the toilet could step up. And

and, you know, and make that happen. So here we are. Yes, I

love that whole origin story. Can you tell me

where the name glow up came from? That's not a question I

had written. But I really liked that name.

Yeah, I mean, so we went through, like, 1000 What

should we call? Yeah, I mean, we went through all kinds of

different kind of beta test. I think we all have different

domain names registered in 15 different other alternate

company names this could have been but I think for us below

up, and that whole idea of having a glow up of making

yourself better of beautifying of changing something that, you

know, needed an improvement of leveling up, it just felt like

that was the right term for what we were trying to do as a

company and as a game studio. We're also just fans of having a

big blowup of watching something look much better. So, you know,

fun and fam and you know, I think what was the other word

that we use all time space BIM energy and what what the

aesthetic of the studio is and so what better ways having a

woman of color found a game studio?

Oh, great. I love that. Yeah, I Yeah, totally

agree. Let's start by talking about your your game development

projects, and chiefly the partnership you've developed

with HBO and its hit series, insecure, which I hope that

everyone has seen or knows about insecure. I will confess I am

not a watcher. I am an avid BuzzFeed article reader about

isa ray in the show. Yeah, I mean TV shows struggle me and

reality TV get along great but real TV shows I struggle with

but I will read any article or read any plot summary of any TV

show. But I know that you all formed a partnership and slash

collaboration. Happy to use your language on that whatever it may

be to create a companion mobile game called insecure the come

up. And this is obviously such a huge partnership and

accomplishment for a studio and a three year old studio. are

just incredible. I don't think it's surprising shows me that

there's a huge appetite for telling these stories, not only

in traditional media, but in newer media, and that there's

more than enough room to tell these stories to several

different audiences and in a variety of ways. So how did this

happen? Tell me the whole story of of working with insecure and

creating the game and where you are with the come up and what

it's like.

Yeah, I mean, did you want to start this morning

already started?

Yeah, sure. I mean, yeah, so I guess it's called insecure, the

come up game, because it's very much about like, building your

best life in LA, like, you know, being on the come up late, you

know, all of all of that stuff. So we, funnily enough, you know,

in that period, where we were going through a million

different names for the company, and we had actually decided on

one yet, even in those days, you know, we, we actually got

talking to HBO, who have been just this incredible, incredible

licensing partner, so we have this, you know, licensing deal

with them for this IP. And to their credit, and especially the

Director of Digital licensing, there will Wilson price, he very

much cared about seeing a show like insecure, which, you know,

for HBO represents, like, you know, a huge audience huge

following it had an incredible six seasons. And, you know, I

think really just representative of the people who didn't watch

the show, you know, perhaps like yourself, Lindsay, like,

everyone's kind of aware of it, and what it represents. And that

for us was like, so important. I'm with huge fans of the show

and of ESA going back before that. But yeah, you know, I

think for for us an alternative to those were in the second

insecure, very much represented, you know, that audience that

we're trying to reach, it also represents the kind of story of

like, Oh, if you create media, if you tell stories, which

center, black and brown women like that can bring in

everybody, I can bring in like a huge, diverse audience, because

it's not just audiences of fella that enjoyed that show there,

like a lot of the evangelists, but it brought in everybody. And

that's what we're trying to replicate in the games industry.

But yeah,

my Twitter timeline was always a mess. And

I mean, that in a good way, like every, like, there was not a

everyone was talking about it, you know?

Yeah. And it was such a, it's a huge cultural moment,

in a lot of ways. And so I think when we started this whole

thing, we were kind of like, oh, like, what kind of do we make we

kind of it yet, but we were definitely looking at more

original stuff. And then it was kind of like the opportunity of

a lifetime, we had shot in transit visa, from the awkward

electoral days from her YouTube days till now, insecure was must

see TV, obviously, we all had to stop and watch watch party on

our own. And so the idea of being able to bring that to

life, and to be able to bring it to life in our way, not just to

make like, there's a lot of, you know, kind of like stories, spin

offs, or like mobile games, or based on the show that are kind

of like it was just caching on the show, and then kind of move

on. And what we want to do is really create a mechanic that

was reflecting on the show, and reflective of again, Asus

relationship with herself as a mirror, we had this whole

foundational idea of it being a currency, and feeling like you

have to hype yourself up, hype up your friends in the mirror.

And so a lot of those things went to die. But I think the

moment that I think about the most is when we had to go meet

Isa, and it's this. And so again, it's like this was a kind

of a license, you don't do all of this stuff. Again, as he

mentioned, like HBO is phenomenal partners. And they

will act as a special thing. And like the first time we're really

stepping out of like, your usual games category to try to make

this work. He's like, we think you should meet Lisa, who ended

up meeting ISA and Prentice Penny, who's the showrunner,

flying out to LA rehearsing the pitch, you know, freaking out

about it. And then, you know, somebody walked into the room

with her team and was like, I gotta get we have to, we got a

seller on this vision. And we started out this whole question

that became kind of like the, you know, resigned to throw the

company and a lot of ways, it's okay, what do you play games?

And he says, like, No, I'm not really a gamer. I don't really

play. And as we're talking, and as we're pitching the idea of

storage, I actually, I do play this game with my friends. And

we have this mobile game thing and whatever. And you find out

like, yes, everybody's playing. Women in particular are playing,

we don't see ourselves as players. So we got to, you know,

luckily, we crushed the pitch. She was into it. Everyone was

into it. We got the green light. And we started developmental

projects. Yeah.

And fast boy, and so is actually ended up as an angel investor in

the company, which is awesome. Yeah, yeah. And so yeah, and

now, you know, a couple years into that journey. It's still to

come up game is available on both app stores right now in

Early Access, iOS and Android. So yeah, it's been a real

journey. Yes.

That when we didn't see we didn't see global pandemic after

we launched a new startup. That was

no yeah, that I think we could do a whole

episode on the challenges of that. And yeah, what that was

like? Um, can I, I want to ask a foundational question really

quick about why you chose mobile as opposed to hardware PC, I

think the accessibility is really obvious in that way. But

is there other reasons? Or? I don't know, I don't know exactly

what to say. Because Latoya, I think you did a great job of

saying, you know, part of it is that it reaches a lot of women

who don't already consider themselves gamers in the exact

same category. I'm not a PC or a console gamer. Totally mobile

gamer who, but is there? Is there things about mobile that

you just think, kind of you can't get an A PC or hardware

experience? Or? Like, what what is what is different about

developing a mobile game to you all, from your perspective as

developers? Yeah, I

mean, firstly, it's a device that goes with you

everywhere, right? It's pervasive, you can pull out your

phone anywhere. So that's definitely a huge advantage,

especially with the kind of game that we are developing where

it's like, you know, you can play, you know, and to tell you

a bit about the game. So it's both sort of part story driven.

And, you know, similarly, it's in part simulation A, but then

there's a part sort of, that's a rap rhyme. mini games, like a

freestyle rap simulator. So another way in which Glock games

is very different. We have a professional MC Samus, who is a

core part of the team. But yeah, so it's one of these things

where Oh, you're like, on this on the on the bus or whatever,

you're like walking down the street, you could just pull out

your phone and just start playing. So you know, I think

that pervasiveness is a part of it. But in addition to that, it

is kind of what we were saying about that accessibility, like

everybody has a phone. And it's not this thing where it's like,

oh, cool, I'm going to like, sit down and play a game on my

console, or my, or my computer or whatever. So yeah, it's just

that immediacy.

Yeah, and also, on that note, on the media see, like, the other

thing, too, I think, for developing for mobile, this is

interesting. It's just how much our phones are, like a part of

our integrative life in a way that your PC console. Yeah. And

a lot of like, you might do other things with your PC, your

console is dedicated to gaming. But like when we were doing play

test, and like, you know, hold on hold on my mom's calling,

like, just like this, the fact of like, Okay, how are we

designing around these very real world, like, everything on your

phone is trying to get your attention at all times, we're

trying to call you things like that. So it's a very different

way with restructuring the player experience in terms of

how someone comes in comes out, considering all the different

parts of your life that are.

Ah, that's definitely not something I

thought about. And, you know, I think in particular, in the

gaming industry, we talk a lot about screens competing with

each other. But you're totally, that's, that's really a

fascinating way of saying the screens are even competing with

itself. Quite a bit, particularly when it comes to

phone. And especially so now that we've kind of talked about

the mobile and the game side of it. What do you think adding a

mobile game to a show? And as you put it out with it, and not

in the kind of quick buck kind of way? What do you think adding

that companion experience to the show does? Does for fan

engagement, both from the side of the HBO, who's the production

company who wants to see their show get engagement? And from

the side of the audience who's watching the show, and enjoys

it? Like, what does adding that portion do for the overall hype

surrounding the show? I

guess? Yeah, it was, but I do want to take that from

so yeah, a lot of, you know, the benefit for having a tie in game

is the expansion of the world. And one of the things that we

saw early on, even like, I think we weren't thinking about these

kinds of things. When we first started the company, we just

wanted to get, we weren't thinking about, like, what the

overall huge landscape was outside of, you know, we already

talked about terms of the you know, young girls color, being

able to see themselves as protected. That was the goal.

But over time, we started realizing there's a much bigger

story so even like, why don't create as color, see their

worlds adapted in games more. It's not like we don't have the

franchises at this point, like Apple TV, this is our like, he's

compelling stories about people of color, and you just don't see

me coming out of that. And a lot of that, I think, is a lack of

familiarity, both with the subject matter with these

creators, and with understanding like how do you interpret like I

said, insecure is a you know, kind of like a dramatic comedy

at its core, where, you know, it's very funny and it's very

like slice of life, but there's also like, really serious

things. And people don't necessarily think oh, a game

should adapt to this in the same way which is why it's a kind of

our skills on a piece to say like, Okay, this is how we see a

vision for what this could be. It's not just you trying to run

up a score by clicking something about the good times we really

wanted to put a lot of the world and insecure into the game ended

up creating. So it's, you know, it was interesting from a from

an HBO perspective, one of the things that our partner or

fantastic partner will praise and talked about when he was

thinking about this was just this game was such an important

thing to this community. At the time that we were signing the

contract But HBO insecure, was the second highest socially

engaged show on HBO after Game of Thrones. And if you think

about how Big Game of Thrones wasn't, like 21 Different

countries simulcast to like this other show, which is dominated

Sunday nights, like it's a super huge differential. And so like

this idea that it tapped into something that was important in

the culture, and that should be reflected in the game shouldn't

be as radical of an idea as it is. And you know, and like I

said, props to will for seeing and understand like, Oh, this is

our next opportunity here. Like we have other franchises that

might make more sense in a traditional game sense. But this

is the one that means let's go with that. So I think that's

those are the things that we were weighing like it's it's a

non traditional kind of normally third party stuff, you don't

actually go meet the creators since you always everything.

This is definitely I think, on all sides elite club.

So cool. When you're thinking about the

audience that you're building for, and, and what that looks

like, Are you considering? Because there's, there's like

three different buckets, right? There's the people that will

watch the show and play the game. And then there's the

people that will watch the show, and then are you thinking about

the people that will just play the game without watching the

show? Totally, totally. And that's kind of one of the

things about this, this IP and working within this IP, that's

cool. It's not like this, super, like low fills like world, like

fantasy world filled with like things you need to know, it's

just about living your best life and South LA and, you know,

adulting in all of these, like themes that are very relatable

to like anybody, and even if you haven't watched the show, so we

definitely have a positive player base that you know,

hasn't seen the show, that is still enjoying it, because

ultimately, it's about building a world in which you can see

yourself represented. And so yeah, and you're building you

know, you're very much like, you're not playing as one of the

characters. You're like creating yourself and your avatar and

defining your story. So it is definitely also for people who,

you know, haven't necessarily experienced the show.

So cool. Yeah, I've been I haven't downloaded

it yet I full transparency. But I have done a lot of like,

looking around. I read articles with your MC like some

interviews. Is MCD appropriate. Do you guys want any different

but I mean, my controllers absolutely not go at

all times. Her title at Brown or government aims a non boom

because her government Brown I think is Professor in Practice.

She's pretty much.

Yeah, she's pretty much what I call her our director of rap.

Like

she just does. Yeah, like, that's what we think

about the work she was able to do in creating the music album.

And I was fascinated. Cool.

Yeah. I mean, Micha, you want to? I mean, that was

uncharted territory, I think even for games in terms of just

like,

Yeah, it really seems like it. So yeah, please tell me more.

So here's the other thing, you know, what I think for

establishing glow up, like one of the things we knew we wanted

to do was, like, there was just so much space out there to

invent new forms of gameplay and game mechanics that just haven't

been explored. Because a lot of game mechanics have come, you

know, we can get into this whole thing. But a lot of them have

come from the same contact. So the same sort of cultural

touchstones of touch. Yeah, and so we wanted to very much like

explore this very kind of fertile ground for what do new

game mechanics look like when informed by our cultural

backgrounds. So you know, a natural place to start because

it insecure one of the very relatable things that he says

character does, and you know, from season one, from the first

episode, it she will like wrap in the mirror to hype yourself

up. So we were like, Hey, let's turn that into a mechanic like

that would be really cool. Because the other thing you

often see in, you know, in free to play games as kind of a space

is, unfortunately, there's not as much kind of appetite for

innovation in that space as you would like, right. And so

there's often a sort of, you know, risk adverse nurse,

there's a kind of lack of real experimentation. So one of the

things we've also done with this is subvert the way that a lot of

free to play mobile games kind of look and feel and play, like

we've invented this new game mechanic was a lot of work. And

I mean, all credit to an ongoing other members of our team as

well, because one of the things that she has done is taken, like

the wealth of knowledge she has as an actual rapper, and be

like, you know, she went through this whole process, which, you

know, she can give probably a 90 minute talk about one day where

she had to, like, take that out of her brain and convert it to a

mechanic like, how does she do that? How does she like, come up

with words and how do you then make the player feel like

someone who can freestyle rap? Yeah, so it's like, you know,

how do you you know, I my favorite bit of feedback, we

hear this a lot, right? So is people are like, Oh yeah, I

can't wrap but this game is really making me feel like a

rock.

It's amazing when the How much do you put into this idea of

like how the other words fit together? Because it's, it seems

simple like as we all talk every day, we all like, Okay, this is

going but then trying to translate that into zeros and

one into like, a spreadsheet where values, and this happens.

And that happens, and this happens. And then out of the

side, you get this rhyme that makes sense. I didn't realize

how much of a fumble that was going to be until we started

doing it. But like, Yeah, but this whole idea of just, and

then also, like, regional context, where we had so many

conversations around, like, you know, sounds like if, if I wrote

cat KNG the way the text is pronounced King, our player is

gonna get that and the remarkable players from other

countries are going to be Googling, like, does this come

up with Urban Dictionary? How do we how do we spell gwap? Like,

we just had so many of these, like, random conversations

around? Like, how are we standardizing this in terms of

the ways that we first would have different parts of the

game, like there was just so much that we hadn't even

touched? The whole concept of slant line? And understanding

how do you actually train a player to understand these

things, and to present it in a way where it's fun and playable,

and that they don't have to feel like they're an expert on that,

that,

I mean, that whole process gives so much agency to

an entire art form that has been long under appreciated as well.

So breaking it down. That's so

great piece on a book, or something for papers, let's

call the AI a rapper, and it's all about kind of like the

erasure of researching, again, like, you know, working with the

folks that I get to work with people as brilliant as Mitu and

Sanaz. And click that, like, it's barbed all the time. But I

go back and read. So I'm looking, I was like, wow, we did

that, like, we work together on this. Because I was like,

impressed. I was just reading it like, you're right. Wow, it was

happening. I was like, Oh, wait, that's our part. That's our

part, we are changing this. But in some ways is that weird, like

unreality? That we are actually making all of these changes in

the industry that, you know, again, until you like, step

back, I think we're very weak, day to day just trying to make

things work. When you step back and realize like, Oh, hey, yeah,

the predominant way that rap has been treated in the last, you

know, 20 years or so is as a commodity. And as an algorithmic

commodity, and Sam is, is reclaiming space, the rules of

the game mechanics through what we're doing. It's like, yeah,

there's we're always part of a bigger conversation that it's,

you know, easy to lose sight of that. And we're like, just

trying to focus on like, okay, is this is this thing going the

way we want it to be this thing? Like, yeah, like, I read that

piece, and was like, that was us that was

doing things. Yeah, exactly. I just had

someone on recently, who said to celebrate your accomplishments

along the way. I liked hearing that real time story about doing

that. Because I think it's really easy to get to get caught

up in keeping the lights on and fundraising and all of that. So

totally understand. But that was a really little nice little

moment to hear that you all also have been able to celebrate your

wins along the way a little bit. And let's talk about kind of the

we've skirted around this, but I want to give actual content that

skirted. But we talked about this, but I want to give context

in numbers. So about the statistics for developers in the

game industry. Um, so the IGDA does an annual report, the game

developer satisfaction report, surveys, over 800 people who

work as game developers, the 2021 report found that 61% of

respondents identified as male, which is down from 71%, and

2018, just a little bit of movement there. But 35%

identified as white and there's not a lot of movement there. And

there's obvious implications about some of the barriers that

you all might face, or people who look like you have faced to

actually enter the space. I found an article from Latoya,

which sums up diversity in games very succinctly. It's trash. I

thought that was a very good quote, to talk about the

situation. On the bus either, um, but let's I just want to

hear from you all, how you were able to cultivate, you know,

your your sense of willpower to keep going to keep pushing, how

you were able to balance that with all of the things that

you've faced along the way. very candidly, I was telling me too

earlier that I'm having a very difficult week. So a lot of my

questions have centered on mental health in this in this

episode, but what have you been able to do to continue To keep

pushing forward to continue to work or hope, or what is your

support system been? Like? Like, just? What has that journey been

like for you? Both?

I mean, it's certainly been a journey. I mean, here's

the thing we came to this already having survived in our

spaces, like, that's the thing you would like, even before blow

up, if you look at the number of folks who, you know, have sort

of more senior roles in like games or media, or if you look

at, like, how many women and yeah, women of color, especially

people of color, you know, in these prominent sort of decision

making roles and spaces, like, we got to that even before law,

right, so we've like, you know, I think if there's one thing

that we can talk a lot about and know a lot about, as women of

color is survival, because it's something we've been doing our

whole lives as a whole are is. And I think that informs us, you

know, that kind of keeps us as part of what keeps us going, um,

you know, and to come to that, and then, you know, really with

glow up games, we knew it was going to be tough, but it was

tougher, you know, for many reasons, it's been even tougher

than we could ever have anticipated. You know, we

mentioned the global pandemic, which of course, didn't help and

exacerbated things. But you know, it's been, it's been a

journey, ambulatory. And I always have a saying that we're

like, oh, yeah, you know, write a book one day, about, like, the

journey, we've had building ballgames, because there have

been some wild stories and, you know, potential investors and

fundraising meetings, people who've said some things to us

slash

write a book out 1,000%. Yeah.

But I think just to, you know, and I'll alternative

tutoria in a second. But like, I think in terms of what keeps us

going amidst all of that difficulty, it's because this

matters to us. Like, it's something that we built this

company, so that folks can not only see themselves, in stories

and on the screen, but also so there is a place for people who

look like us, in the industry in the space, and we can nurture

that talent, and we can kind of continue to build speaks, we're

all about that representation, both behind the scenes and on

the screen. And that's something that's important. And you know,

is kind of someone, certainly for me, as someone who's like,

been in the game space a long time, is something that's kind

of just really what keeps me going, you know, and as kind of

bought, the reason I do anything, it's all about, like,

how do we make things better for those coming after us? And how

do we make sure we get the space to tell, you know, to have our

stories told as well, because we do deserve that, you know, so?

Yeah, that's, that's all leave it at that. Tell him to Latoya?

I mean, yeah, everything that you said, times 100. And then,

you know, there's just, there's just layers and layers and

layers to why those motivation, why we want to do this. I mean,

there's, the obvious thing was like, Oh, you're both women,

like, yes, women, but also, you know, there's this other way of

women of color, it's that way for us as being brown skinned

girls, which is a whole other kind of conversation to get

seen, and who is normally represented. And then from

there, right, you know, like, Miss You, the South Asian, and

I'm African American, like, those are very, you don't see

anyone in leadership roles in that way to the point where, you

know, even like a lot of the heroes like just trying to find

like, people of color to be on our board, who can be on the

board of locations, that is a prominent person in the

industry, that is a person of color. And number is small. In

terms of black professionals, that number is small, small, to

the point where, you know, it becomes, in some ways, I think,

for us easy to meet our heroes, just because it's so unusual, to

see this thing to see someone like us making a run for it. And

trying. And at this point, I realized I was like, man, we've

been in business three years, like, you know, first woman of

color to run again, she did I know it was Jacqueline Beauchamp

did SUTA called Energize. I think her studio was an

operation by me for. So we might exceed that. And like, you see

that that's enough. This is new again, every day, we're breaking

ground, and we're looking at a new frontier. And that's tough,

right? Like we talk a lot, I think is one of the color about

being first in a space, and what it means to be the first to be a

pioneer. And the first means like you're alone, like you

don't have support, and that people don't really know how to

teach you or what to do or how to support you in the way that,

you know, later on down the line. They'll be able to learn

like, oh, well this happened with blow up. But if we don't

want this to happen to other studios, we got to invest more,

we got to do this more, but we're the ones that are like

pushing that out of the way. So that's, and that's tight. I

think the other piece of it. That speaks to what Matthew

saying about being going when things are brutally hard

startups in general, or blue Park, right, startups in

general, any kind of new venture is hard, right? And then gaming

is super hard. And on top of that, we decided we people of

color, very people of color. any games, which is also really

hard, and we made a new mechanic, which is also really

hard, so it's everything was just like Dark Souls games. Like

that's what we've been doing. And so, you know, there's a lot

of days where it's like, I don't know if we got like it's

something or like, I don't know if I have like, I don't know if

I keep going. And then something random will always happen. And

I'm like, Okay, try. Let's try again. Try again tomorrow. Like

I was at the nail salon. Super randomly. No real plans. I was

like, let me just get my nails off my nails. Removing these

nails off and stop in place I normally go. And this guy number

one, it's a man which is a black man doing manicures. And I

noticed he's covered Mario's tattoos. Cover and he's got

Nintendo here to tendo here he's got a neck tattoo but Windows

not five logo have like five decked Dr.

Michio I'm going to show you his IG after this. I looked when I

saw the windows 95. We were in new territory, because I was

like, yeah.

I'm like, I'm sitting here.

AOL screen name was because

yeah, what's your engineer? His name? Is Nintendo. Like his

online handle? Is any n 10? Do E. Nintendo? Like he is not?

They called him Nintendo at the nail salon. So I'm sitting here

and I'm like, should I ask? Let me ask, Are you a gamer?

Absolutely. Oh, no, I love video games. And it was my wife. And

he was like, Yeah, I'm a sysadmin. You know, but he was

like talking to this whole winding story about like, how he

ended up not going into the industry, because he was like,

Oh, I smoke too much weed and I can't be an industry anymore.

But he was like, but when I was doing interviews, I got like, he

was completely covered in tears. And he was like, I got a Windows

95 tattoo, because I knew of in the interview, they could see

that they would ask me if I did windows, and that was my

specialty. And that's how I would do it. And he's like, I

always wanted to get into games. And I didn't know how and I was

like

okay, yeah, I need to I needed to be here to share this

knowledge that we have learned. So I was like, if you got a

Windows 95 neck tattoo, my dude like, obviously, this is gonna

work out for you. This is going, you are dedicated. I don't. It's

on all your arms. We're about to bring him a copy, read his book

and be like, go ahead and pose with this. This this, this whole

situation going on right now. Yeah, but Yeah, and like, you

know, I was just telling him was like, oh, yeah, like Gamess QA,

and he said, two jobs or whatever. And there's so many

folks who are hungry to get in. I mean, after all players of

color over represent in terms of people who play and are loyal to

franchises, and all these different things, we just don't

see ourselves behind the scenes in that same way. And so what

ends up happening, I think, you know, it's you feel free to

speak to this as well, like we show up. And it's a different

conversation. It's a different conversation I showed up at

something is like the indicate horizon for students. And, you

know, I showed up and I was like, Oh, I'm in the wrong spot.

Like, everybody's like, you know, this is how I became good

filter on the side, like, when I was around the thing, and I was

like, I'm over here, like, these are students. I'm over here

talking about how to get capital, this is broad audience

blocking. Oops, and then in the chat in the discord. Somebody

was like, Hey, I've never seen a black owner of a game studio

before I feel really inspired by this. Like, I'm good. It's good

to see someone else like me that can do this. And I'm like, All

right. Well, I guess this is this is, in some ways, being

here is the fact. Like, it's bad. Suppose that I always think

I have to do more. But sometimes it's just the fact that we're

here. And somebody feels that they can talk to us in a

different way. It's the work that helps, it helps. And also,

I think, to shipping the game, right meant to like in terms of,

there was so many years of us like fighting through the

pandemic, fighting through funding, fighting all this other

stuff. It was kind of like, what are we doing, and then to see

the responses. That was, I think, the most gratifying,

because we got the hard part, right, which is building like,

everything else can be a mess. But at the end of the day,

people want to play more of this thing. And like that, that's the

validation.

I like that you said that or not like, but it's

so interesting that you say it's so easy to meet your heroes and

then how you all have been at this for three years, and I'm

sure you are both heroes to so many people, for what you do and

the feedback that you've gotten. Part of the reason why our

centers interview today, by the way, oh my god, they're amazing.

But that's the it's I certainly hope that that pool gets much

bigger, but it's also really neat, how much you're able to

inspire people just by being yourself. That's a very

I mean, that's not

like a win for not having a lot of people that look

like you. It is just amazing. Like, how much territory you're

able to cover just by being you though, that kind of. Yeah, I

don't know, I don't know how to phrase that any better. But

that's, that's quite an amazing. Yeah, I

mean, literally, I said it really well as well, like,

it's, you know, some days, all you have is the energy to show

up. And that's enough, right? Like, that really is just

existing in this space as who we are, is that act is an act of

resistance, an act of like, fighting, kind of, you know,

dominant ways that things happen. So, yeah, that's why we

do what

we do was it was one Bureau we say existence in spite.

And shadow, yeah, so Monday hair is the president of brass line

Entertainment, who are kind of our SR studio in some ways. They

are. They're a diverse, triple A games company. So they basically

make games for like, console, etc. So, yeah, we're doing

similar similar work and like very different spaces.

So I wanted to kind of end with a discussion on

what it's like to be a startup, and what that process has been,

like, we spoke a long time ago in a previous conversation about

building the company and the venture process. And me too, I

know that you've had experiences building several companies. Now

I read that this is your third, and you face specific

challenges, being who you are in the venture space and trying to

fundraise. I, it's wonderful to hear that you had such a good

partnership with HBO. But I would imagine that other parts

of startup being a startup and of getting funding have not been

as easy. Because you just walk me through what that was like

any advice both of you have for people who are either working at

startups or thinking about starting something. Yeah. Any

any tips? Yeah, I

mean, that's a big question. So, you know, so so

that folks know, Gallup games are has previously raised so to

date, we've raised 1.2 million at precede. So basically, what

that means is, in order to build the game, that's the money that

we raise in order to, in order to sort of, you know, get block

games started, start hiring people, because a lot of that is

not just about building the game, it's about building the

infrastructure of the studio building, like, the means to

then also be able to make other games going forward. So yeah,

it's, it's been tough, you know, fundraising, um, and, you know,

for for transparency as well, we're currently fundraising

again, for our seed round. So basically, moving on, now that

we're three years into the journey, we've launched one

game, this is kind of raising, again, the next stage to kind of

go bigger and keep doing what we're doing. But it's been,

yeah, it's been difficult. And the first time we were raising,

and every time we got out to fundraise, like, it takes a

while. It's you know, and I think the thing I'll, the way

I'll summarize that is that often the, you know, the bar is

just higher, like, that's the thing, the bar is, is often not

higher for us than it would be for our white male counterparts.

You know, that's what I will say.

Because, you know, it's first

it's like, you know, often when we first went out, try and

fundraise, like, we had this great IP partnership, we had,

like, all of this, you know, we have a team that's kind of got

experience, etc. You know, granted, we hadn't like work

together to ship a game at that point. So a lot of what we would

hear is like, Oh, well, you haven't shipped a game yet. You

haven't sort of done all this and done all that. So really,

you know, it took us a lot longer. And we actually ended up

fundraising from a lot of just amazing angels, for the most

part. So a lot of individuals, a lot of sort of smaller funds,

who really believed in us and the vision and what we're

building. And basically, we're on the same page as us. And I

think what that taught us is that it doesn't, you know,

sometimes it can take longer, but if you've got the right

people, that's what's most important, right, because you're

building something that they believe in that you will believe

in, you're on the same page. So yeah, it's it's, you know, it is

tough, and now we're fundraising again, and, you know, we're

definitely seeing a lot of this kind of similar tensions, etc.

It does help to have like, shipped something now as a team.

But I will say yeah, the bar does continue to be very high

for for underrepresented for marginalized folks in general,

but in the fundraising space, and you know, the stats,

definitely bear that out.

Yeah, and definitely in terms of, you know, just ordering from

a razor effectively been asked to you had two other companies

before this. And I remember, like, we had this moment where

we get our data room together. And I'm like, how do you you're

like, I was never asked for the stuff I had to produce this

level of documentation. Like, it was a lot more like what we

said, what? And it's these subtle little things, this

subtle denial of the benefit of doubt, that really characterizes

what when the color are facing like women, probably the women

are especially where we have to prove and other folks can kind

of just work. And I think, you know, even like a little list on

my counters on petty of like people who got funded before us

who are now out of business, right? Who got a more generous

package and things like that, I just read about a another

company where the founders take another job, and I'm part of me

is like,

can we just talk about this? Because, yes,

I want it, I just want to know what the thinking was here.

Because obviously, this didn't work. But we're still here,

what's going on? But it's this idea that there's this higher

threshold that we all have to hold ourselves to. And even with

results, even with the ship game, even with contracts at

hand, for some reason, we're still not as compelling as a

group of younger white guys. Yeah. And that's,

I think the thing I'll say is, you know, it hasn't really this

interesting point, and whoever brings up because we are, like,

resilient, like, Y'all, you know, we like, know how to keep

going. And it's always wild to me, like, this is what I'll say

to the venture funding world, which is that, that on people of

color, that on women of color, because we know how to survive,

we know how to be resilient AF, right. Like that is kind of one

of the things we have to do in the world. And, you know, it's

that's ultimately, you know, you look at all these traits of

successful entrepreneurs, you look at, like all of these

things, resilience is the thing, at the end of the day, it really

has that ability to sort of take those knots and keep going. So

yeah, you know, it's, we need to see more marginalized folks get

funded, like, that's what I'll

say. Yeah. And then also to like this, to add on to this, because

I think money is a big issue for women in general, broadly, but

also, especially for women of color. Because we are expected

to do so much more with less all the time, we're always gonna

make it work, regardless of like the level of funding that she

would get. And like all of these things have knock on effects.

And I think that wasn't as clear as it was when we're, you know,

in this day, even what we're raising from angels, who are

people who've done wonderful work in all kinds of sectors,

all kinds of things and check sizes smaller, because they are

also getting paid less than their counterparts, they have

less to invest in terms of like, even suffering like celebrities,

right, you can see with like celebrities of color, and how

their deals don't result in the same amount of money that it

would for an equivalent, like me, Viola Davis is always like,

I'm the black male St. Amy like her. Right. But it's like,

there's these things would be multitudes of different things

like a list black actors, which means they have less to invest,

and they have less to start studios with, and they have less

to pay with as a downstream thing. And so like, you know,

income inequality, investment, inequality, all of those

different things have to be addressed. For us to start

actually seeing strides being made. And we didn't realize how

much this is a higher system. ecosystem. One thing to say,

Okay, there's a management gap. There's one thing to say there's

a pipeline gap. But there's another thing completely to say

that there's an opportunity gap, there's an equity gap, there's a

gap. And all of those factors contribute to why you don't see

more studios like us.

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And yeah, that's

the real pipeline problem to me. Paying everyone who should be

Yeah, the whole other thing. But yes, that is in a very observant

and relevant point. I want to move into our last section

because I'm very cognizant that we're almost running up against

time. Before we get into that, I'm going to do a quick summary

of what we talked about. We began with a discussion on

insecure and the audience represented and helpless themes

wanted to reflect the mechanics and nations of the show. It's

not a quick buck collaboration, it's an intentional partnership

to create something for an audience that should be

interested in and engaged with the kind of content that

insecure without as well as people who don't. But we won't

talk about that. The game is part story driven part

simulator. It has many great games that incorporate a very

original mechanic of rap and created music, kind of stylings

and creations on the part of the audience. The reason why you

will let with a mobile game among accessibility and many

other reasons, it was with the phone being an integrated part

of life. The player experience is actually competing with

itself for screen time. But mobile games allow for the

expansion of the world of the show, especially for creators of

color. And there's lack of experimentation in free to play

games, so it's important to invent new You begin new game

mechanics, particularly since the same person, people have

been building games for a long time. So mobile games represent

a lot of room renovation, a lot of room for accessibility, and

an integrated part of our lives. What keeps you all going despite

the numerous and very unfortunate and sad barriers

slash situations you're up against, is people seeing

themselves in stories and on screen matters representation

behind the scenes and on the screen matters. That becomes

easy to meet your heroes as well as limited, which is very

unfortunate. So it becomes easy for you to become the heroes and

inspire the kind of the next generation which hopefully has a

much wider pool of folks being first has its own challenges,

you're learning, you don't necessarily have the same

support that an established industry would have. But some

days, it's okay to just have the energy to show up. Because

that's more than enough. being who you are, is an act of

fighting and an act of resistance in the space. That is

helpful to inspire other folks who look like you. The bar when

it comes to fundraising, we ended with a little discussion

on startups and how the bar is higher for women and people of

color to raise money. You all wound up fundraising for people

who believed in the vision which did take longer, but wound up

being worth it just because they really understand what you're

going for. So it takes resilience, it takes time. But

try to stick with it. And women and people of color have

resilience in spades. So more of those folks should get funded

because they have the fight that this survival instincts to keep

going to go for it to build. Women are expected to do so much

more with less. And people of color have the same expectation.

And this has knock on effects from downstream upstream all the

way through. So I know that you, Latoya give this specific

example of black and brown angel investors who have less to

invest, which means that there's less to move downstream, which

means that you are having to do less with less resources and

then employ that it just winds up being like a whole pattern.

So addressing that, that stream problem and the income

inequality found at the different levels is something

that's really going to allow for bigger strides to be made. And

that comes from not just going to the end product that comes

this starts all the way back in the venture and funding space.

And in a lot of other spaces. For sure. So with that being

said, I like to end each podcast with the same segment. And it's

called a moment of reflection, just a chance for you to give

any advice to people who may just be starting their career or

looking to switch their career or whatever it may be. But what

is one thing you would like to tell your younger self about

getting into the game industry and being successful? I think it

really is about, you know, it's okay to be yourself

and to show up. Because that your community is out there. And

it's important to find them.

So that's what I would say.

It really is about like, the networks you build of folks who

can support you and who, you know, have this kind of shared

mission and vision and you know, that we're creating a sort of,

you know, a studio that reflects that. That is kind of trying to

push that forward and make it easier.

Yeah, so I think for me, I was talking to a friend recently

who's thinking about returning to the games industry after

leaving a decade ago, and like going back and forth about like,

all the issues, and you know, all the stress and all the

problems and like, why, why? Why did you do this? Why did you

want to do this? You know, well, here's the deal. It's been hard.

It's been brutal. It's definitely taken a lot more than

I thought I had, in terms of making this work. But I don't

regret taking the shot. Like, regardless of what happened,

this wasn't just a dream kept talking about at brunch. The

thing that we actually did guard was at this point of how it

works out. We took the shot, we did a whole bunch of things that

I think we never thought possible, just by participating

by saying, Okay, we're gonna step up and do this. It was just

not Firstly, it didn't come together we wanted it to and so

that I think that was the biggest thing that I think

surprised me about the conversation. Because we're, you

know, we're talking about it and he was like, you know, go back I

was gonna go back could go back and you know, have a nice cushy

job and not be broke anymore and be really great. But, you know,

at the end of the day, we're doing the thing, and there

aren't that many opportunities in your life. Just go do the

thing. And what however it pans out, there's no regrets. Tried

to get it. There's nothing at the end of this. I think we have

left everything on the floor. So this isn't the best. Whatever it

was, this was the best we could do. That's so great,

though. Thank you both so much for coming on. This

has been just really really wonderful conversation. Everyone

should go on their phones right now and download insecure the

come up game. Where else can people find you follow you

Follow games find your work to keep up with what low games is

doing.

Well, so we're at what games on most social platforms

go up that games on Instagram blog games on Twitter. You know,

Mateos at machi gay. I'm at Latoya Peterson if you want to

talk to us individually, and you know, we're easy to find. We're

always around.

Hey, thank you so, so much. For all of our

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