Snap. There sure were some intense panels at Super 2019. Rumor has it we’re gonna have even better panels in 2020. But until we get that information up, peruse our archive.
“The Retronauts podcast, cohosted by Jeremy Parish and Bob Mackey, has been running in various incarnations since 2006 and focuses on classic video games and related media. You can find it at retronauts.com.”
“Michael Hughes is an instruction librarian and associate professor at Trinity University. His research interests include game cultures, player-generated content, and media fandom generally. Michael’s writing can be found in scholarly journals, including First Monday and portal: Libraries and the Academy, and at VGMO: Video Game Music Online. This is either his first time at MAGFest or he’s having a wonderful dream at home in San Antonio. If the latter, don’t wake him.”
“As digital games curator at The Strong, Andrew coordinates the museum’s efforts related to digital preservation of electronic games. He holds both an undergraduate and master’s degree in Information Science, with a concentration in school media, and he has taught library classes for students in Kindergarten through 12th grade. He has long taken an active role in game preservation, focusing on the preservation of unreleased game prototypes and development material.”
“As the Director of Libraries at The Strong, Beth Lathrop oversees the Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play and the Grada Hopeman Gelser Library. The Brian Sutton-Smith Library and Archives of Play is a multidisciplinary research repository devoted to the intellectual, social, and cultural history of play, which holds scholarly works, professional journals, trade catalogs, press kits, children’s books, comic books, manuscripts, personal papers, business records, design documents, schematics, source code, and more. Beth is a graduate of James Madison University and holds a Master’s of Library Science degree from the University at Buffalo. She also holds a certificate in non-profit management from St. John Fisher College.”
“Carly A. Kocurek is the author of two books about the history of video games: Coin-Operated Americans: Rebooting Boyhood at the Video Game Arcade (University of Minnesota Press, 2015) and Brenda Laurel: Pioneering Games for Girls (Bloomsbury, 2017). With Jennifer deWinter, she cofounded and co-edits the Influential Video Game Designers book series for Bloomsbury. She is an associate professor of digital humanities and media studies at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, and she is currently co-authoring a book on the Ultima game franchise.”
“Anne Ladyem McDivitt is the Digital Humanities Librarian at the University of Alabama, and her research is on video games in the 1970s and 1980s, gender, and culture. She received her PhD in history from George Mason University with her dissertation is “We Take Fun Seriously: The Creation of the Video Game Industry in the United States,” which focuses on the history of the early video game industry and the people who created them. She also co-hosts a podcast about video games, anime, and manga called “Seasonal Anime Checkup OVA.””
“Rachel Simone Weil is an artist and video game historian whose work centers on preserving and reimagining femme aesthetics in 8- and 16-bit console gaming. She brings girly and glitchy visuals to obsolete hardware and game consoles, creating interactive electronic art that has been shown internationally in venues ranging from chipmusic festivals to fine art galleries. In 2012, Weil founded FEMICOM Museum, a physical and online collection of twentieth-century games and electronic toys for girls.”
“Kevin Bunch is a science writer and video game historian focused on the early days of the medium. He is the creator of the Atari Archive video series on YouTube, which looks at each game for the Atari 2600 in release order with occasional tangents into related topics, such as the history of the RCA Studio II.”
“Florencia Pierri is a historian of technology and the curator at the Sarnoff Collection at The College of New Jersey.”
“Phil Salvador is a librarian, digital archivist, and video game historian who runs The Obscuritory, a blog about unusual and unknown old video games. He is a friend to all birds.”
“Campbell Parker (StrangetownFunk) is a dev and blogger from the DC area. She has been participating in the Sims’s online communities for over a decade and thinks of the series as an important part of video game history.”
“Bruce H. Voge III is the moderator of The Party Gamecast featuring the Party Game Cast, a podcast about party games, and games to take to parties. Bruce is also the Social Media Wizard for North Star Games, makers of Wits & Wagers, Evolution, Dude and Happy Salmon (among others). Bruce also LOVES pinball, and TV Game Shows.”
“Noah Downs (@MyLawyerFriend) is a video game lawyer passionate about helping his clients develop, evolve, and grow within this increasingly competitive industry. Noah’s background in business law and intellectual property law allows him to help content creators, game studios, and others in unique and innovative ways. He has contributed regularly to panels, articles, and podcasts, and was recently quoted in Forbes for his work in the video game and entertainment industry.”
““Shane Luis has worked within the video game industry in public relations, social media management, and product development. He is the creator and host of the YouTube series Rerez and Co-Host of Hot Take which features his encyclopedic knowledge of the gaming industry.
Social Accounts: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/RerezTV
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RerezTV
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rereztv/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rereztv/“”
“Hi, I’m Heidi. I go by a few different names online, but you’ll most likely see me as “Zerochan” or some close variant thereof. I’m a lady who likes a whole lotta videogaming stuff, and I’ve been writing about them professionally for over a decade. I’m particularly interested in Japanese games and game history, but I love a lot of various gaming subcultures: arcade gaming, the fighting game community, indie and doujin games, kusoge “appreciation”, and a whole lot more. Non-gaming (but really still tangentially related to gaming) hobbies of mine include doujinshi/doujin culture and Japanese figures.”
“+2 Comedy is made up of the nerd comedy trio Noah Houlihan, Laura Prince and Will Liam, who focus their comedy on video games, comic books, D&D, and all things nerd. +2 Comedy has been seen at New York Comic Con, Otakon, C2E2, Too Many Games, and in the ring for some cosplay pro wrestling. So funny, you will need a saving throw.”
“Charles Dunbar is graduate of Hunter College, CUNY, where he received a BA in Religion and Anthropology and an MA in Cultural Anthropology. His thesis, Pilgrimage, Pageantry and Fan Communities was published in 2011 and focused on anime convention participation, including spending habits, cosplay, demographics, communal behaviour and convention culture.
Charles has previously given talks before the Joseph Campbell Foundation, has worked in the music industry as an A&R talent scout and promoter, excavated a Roman Villa in the United Kingdom, studied Irish Literature at Trinity College in Dublin, acted as a teacher and mentor for at-risk students in a charter school, shipped books for a comic shop and had his own weekly radio show for 5 years.
These days you can usually find him at a Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts, working diligently on whatever project is currently occupying his time, or traveling the roads of the East Coast to various anime conventions. In addition to his own site, he also has written for the websites Insert Disc and Real Otaku Gamer.”
“Divisionten, or Sara Winters, is a legally blind cosplayer, consulting writer for Extra Credits, and frequent cosplay competitor. Sara has been building cosplay for over 15 years, focusing on large impressive builds, especially incorporating puppetry and animatronics. Sara’s also programmed video games for the US Department of State, and continues to advocate for disability accessibility in gaming. She’s presented at both Pax East and West, as well as other anime cons on the East Coast for the past 12 years, near her home in Philadelphia.”
“Grayson Davis and Kirk Boerman are long-time MAGFest attendees, tournament gamers, streamers, and content creators whose work has appeared on sites such as Kotaku. When not running MAGFest panels, you can find them streaming a variety of games at twitch.tv/kirrrk and twitch.tv/turtletomorrow.”