How Tribeca Made Space For Games

About this episode

Casey Baltes discusses the challenges of building the Tribeca Games Festival and the importance of internal credibility in cultural institutions.

Casey Baltes led the effort to build the Tribeca Games Festival from the ground up—and she'll tell you the hardest part wasn't the games. It was building internal credibility. In this episode, we talk about curation, community, and why institutions that try to do everything in games end up doing nothing well. For more insights, signup for my newsletter . Jamin Warren founded Gameplayarts, an advisory that helps museums and cultural organizations engage with the world of gaming. He provides them with the research, strategy, and execution they need to reach gamers for the first–or millionth–time. Gameplayarts’ past and present clients organizations like MoMA, the Getty Research Institute, Tribeca Enterprises, and PBS.

People in this episode

Host: Jamin Warren

Guest: Casey Baltes

Topics covered

• game festivals
• cultural institutions
• curation
• community building
• gaming industry

Keywords

• Tribeca Games Festival
• Casey Baltes
• Jamin Warren
• cultural institutions
• gaming
• curation
• community

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Tribeca Games Festival, Gameplayarts, MoMA, Getty Research Institute, Tribeca Enterprises, PBS

More episodes of Gameplayarts: Helping Cultural Institutions Break Into Games

• How SFMOMA Built a 15-Year Game-Based Arts Program From the Inside Out · May 13, 2026 · 48 min
• What Tribeca Games Built—And What Most Institutions Still Miss · April 22, 2026 · 33 min
• How the V&A Built a Games Program From the Inside Out · February 28, 2026 · 46 min
• Theo Triantafyllidis on the Technical Realities of Exhibiting Game-Based Art · February 10, 2026 · 36 min
• Fandom as Ocean: Building Authentic Communities for Art-Forward Games (w/ Bria Davis) · July 9, 2025 · 32 min
• Creating Positive Gaming Spaces · August 23, 2023 · 26 min