Update: The full 43-minute interview is now live! You can view it on our YouTube channel here. In this full-length video, Matt Conn responds to the exclusionary aspect of the convention and why it's still worth creating.
You may not know this, but Game Revolution is one of safest places for the LGBT community. I'm gay, Jessica Vazquez is gay, Kevin Schaller is gay, weeeeeeeee!!! But don't worry, guys and gals, we love our straight comrades too… not in that way… maybe…
Anyway, we believe that everyone deserves to game and we wholeheartedly support GaymerX, the newest gaming convention debuting this year after raising over $90,000 on Kickstarter despite only having a goal of $25,000 and despite facing opposition from the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church.
Now supported by Xbox Live, Electronic Arts, and Ellen McLain (the voice actor for GLaDOS in the Portal series), GaymerX is the first LGBT gaming convention of its kind. Previously known as GaymerCon but changed due to legal reasons, it will take place this year on August 3 and 4 in Japantown, San Francisco. If you're interested in attending, please register on GaymerConnect. (I'm a Lvl 8 Turian.)
For more detail, I interviewed Matt Conn (with Jessica Vazquez interviewing Kayce Brown), one of the co-founders of GaymerX, on how and why the convention was created, how to score a GaymerX badge, and some of his thoughts on homophobia and the portrayal of LGBT characters in the video game industry and community. The video embedded above is a shorter 15-minute reel of highlights, with the full 60-minute interview coming soon in an update to this article.
Thanks to our cameraman Thiago Dsouza as well as Hi Tops, the first gay sports bar in The Castro, for letting Game Revolution hold the interview in their space. Try their grilled cheese with figs and ahi tuna burger! And of course, their beer! Without it, there would no way we would get these outtakes…
