Kenney, who started her career as a journalist, has written for some of the industry's most popular video games. From Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Batman: The Enemy Within to The Walking Dead: The Final Season and the upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine. Kenney has helped construct some of gaming's most diverse characters, like Clementine and Violet from Telltale's The Walking Dead, but freely admits that more needs to be done in game development to make LGBTQ people feel like they are an important part of video game structure now and also its future.
In a moment of reflection, Kenney credits the late great Danielle Bunten Berry, a trans woman and pioneer game developer who created one of the first successful multiplayer games on the Atari platform, M.U.L.E., Kenney says that Berry's influence on the game industry was a powerful presence as she often "spoke about video games as a means to create connection" due to her unwavering advocacy for online community spirit. "In the decades since, this has proven true in fan communities, conventions, and multiplayer games," says Kenney.
Delving into GLAAD's latest report, Kenney offers up two important insights. While one is a positive and welcoming outlook as often the LGBTQ community wants to seek out safe spaces so they can feel accepted, the other is extremely worrying and disheartening. "The GLAAD report tells us something key - games are a way for LGBTQ people to socialize. But it also tells us something heartbreaking: that LGBTQ gamers don't feel that developers are thinking of them when they design games."