Kel Bachus and Tracy Seamster

A People’s History of Video Game Development

Leisure EN ↓ 9 episodes

The history of video games through the lens of everyday developers. We cover the obscure, unpublished, forgotten, and even a few well-known games, but always through the perspective of people who were working hard to make them happen. If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be a developer, or about what happened behind the scenes of your favorite games, this podcast is for you.

Author

Kel Bachus and Tracy Seamster

Episodes

Episode 9: Guest! Wendy Despain 08.03.2026 53:58

Tracy and Kel chat with Wendy Despain about her video game origin story, and hear all about an encounter with Majel Roddenberry...

Episode 8: Guest! Emily Taylor 02.02.2026 57:29

Tracy and Kel chat with the amazing Emily Taylor, who's worked on everything from EverQuest II, to Dragon Age to Spry Fox' Spirit Crossing (forthcoming; check it out at https://playspiritcrossing.com/) . Our 11.5 listeners are in for a real treat!

Episode 7: Life of a Developer, Installment 1 05.01.2026 48:20

Tracy and Kel talk about game developer career life, from layoffs to contract work to the changing shape of development teams over time.

Episode Six: The Graeme Davis Fan Club 16.11.2025 46:38

Tracy and Kel talk about industry veteran Graeme Davis, networking and how to not be remembered as “that guy who smelled like pizza.”

Episode 5: Kill Ten Cultists 19.10.2025 48:43

Tracy and Kel talk about the problem with faceless enemies, and reminisce about creating quests for EverQuest and Elder Scrolls Online.

Episode 4: Let's Pretend... but for Grown-Ups! 22.09.2025 45:29

Tracy and Kel talk about the ways people role play beyond the screen and text-based games, including costume events, Renaissance Faires and the SCA, D&D, and LARPs. They also discuss some of the history of that tradition, and how far into the past role play nerds can be traced.

Episode 3: The Internet is for P*rn 31.08.2025 53:29

In their third episode, Tracy and Kel talk about getting into the game development industry from a slightly different angle: spicy chat rooms on the earliest incarnations of the World Wide Web. Kel talks about their break into the industry from a different kind of text-based role playing, and why no one would let them touch the live build ever again.

Episode 2: A Role to Play 07.08.2025 40:46

In this episode of "A People's History of Video Game Development," hosts Kel Bachus and Tracy Seamster talk about the very early origins of text-based role play, and what players were looking for in immersive experiences. They talk about community building across the fourth wall, and how a surprising number of successful designers in those contexts were femmes or women -- and why.

90s Text-Based Online Games: The Pioneers 25.07.2025 1:11:31

Join Tracy Seamster and Kel Bachus as they delve into the fascinating world of early online gaming, specifically the text-based adventures that shaped the industry. From the start of Tracy’s developer journey designing content for Gemstone 3 in 1996 to managing the intricacies of player experience in classic text-based multiplayer environments, they share their unique experiences. Discover what it...