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Gaming Influences Episode 3 - Jeff Green

GhaleonQ

Member
Paul, do you listen to other interview shows? The BBC has no shortage of excellent ones, and I adore The Sound Of Young America. Your digressive tales, descriptions of your taste in games, sense of the interview's rhythm, and sense of the interviewee's willingness and ability to go deeper on a matter are off, I think. Maybe time limits constrained you. Also, you need to ask more specific questions. Dan Hsu said, "We'll see a move to smaller, more tightly budgeted games." This already happened with the DS and PSP. Games writers ignore them for iPhone and downloadable games. There was an obvious followup there ("Why do you play these instead of those? Why does the audience play those instead of these? What do you think about your differences?"). That's not to say that you need to stray from your mission, but even Lipton goes 1 or 2 steps farther. Also, I'm really surprised that you didn't make them bring a top 10 or 20 of all-time list. Practice makes perfect, of course, but I think that you could start from a better position. The 1st 2 felt more like casual conversations you'd have upon meeting someone for the 1st time, not feature-style interviews.

Theywere still enjoyable, though. Obviously, no offense meant. Congratulations on your new podcasting project!
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
GhaleonQ said:
Paul, do you listen to other interview shows? The BBC has no shortage of excellent ones, and I adore The Sound Of Young America. Your digressive tales, descriptions of your taste in games, sense of the interview's rhythm, and sense of the interviewee's willingness and ability to go deeper on a matter are off, I think. Maybe time limits constrained you. Also, you need to ask more specific questions. Dan Hsu said, "We'll see a move to smaller, more tightly budgeted games." This already happened with the DS and PSP. Games writers ignore them for iPhone and downloadable games. There was an obvious followup there ("Why do you play these instead of those? Why does the audience play those instead of these? What do you think about your differences?"). That's not to say that you need to stray from your mission, but even Lipton goes 1 or 2 steps farther. Also, I'm really surprised that you didn't make them bring a top 10 or 20 of all-time list. Practice makes perfect, of course, but I think that you could start from a better position. The 1st 2 felt more like casual conversations you'd have upon meeting someone for the 1st time, not feature-style interviews.

Theywere still enjoyable, though. Obviously, no offense meant. Congratulations on your new podcasting project!

I did read your post this morning on the Episode 2 thread and I was going to private message you my answer, but since you posted it here, I reply here.

I do listen to some BBC ones and some on RTÉ (Irish radio) too

a top 10 or 5 list would be interesting, and I do get what you're saying. I do want to be a little more direct when I interview the dev side of things, and the intervews with John & Dan have been the only time I have ever spoken to them, so having the conversation come across meeting someone for the first time I guess was natural.

The podcast itself is still evolving and growing, and that's why I want as much feedback as possible, both positive and negative, and I do think that I am making progress, as a host, because of the feedback so far.
 

GhaleonQ

Member
pauljeremiah said:
The podcast itself is still evolving and growing, and that's why I want as much feedback as possible, both positive and negative, and I do think that I am making progress, as a host, because of the feedback so far.

I agree. Like I said, everyone needs to grind out results. Interviewing's really hard, but if you perfect your skills, you'll be a real asset in games writing (which is what you're doing now, right?). Keep it up! Landing Jeff Green doesn't mean you can coast!
 

JWong

Banned
Corto said:
Will you be able to maintain this cadence? Damn! Downloading now....
I also agree that the daily thing is going to be hard to keep up.

I have trouble getting guests on an every two weeks basis.

But keep it up.
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
GhaleonQ said:
I agree. Like I said, everyone needs to grind out results. Interviewing's really hard, but if you perfect your skills, you'll be a real asset in games writing (which is what you're doing now, right?). Keep it up! Landing Jeff Green doesn't mean you can coast!

no it doesn't, if anything it pretty much means I have to work harder, I want to interview more freelance journalist and independant developers.
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
JWong said:
I also agree that the daily thing is going to be hard to keep up.

I have trouble getting guests on an every two weeks basis.

But keep it up.

My brother just joked to me that I should see what the Guinnes world record is for most podcasts produced in a row is LOL

but I will be taking a short break after this group, then I will have an actual schedule, which will probably be bi-weekly, but if I get more then two interviews a month I will have more.

Alot of people have somewhat complained (jokingly of course) that they haven't gotten through the other two epiosdes yet, well the podcast itself is not time sensitive, I wanted to create something that could be listened too at any time and in any order, so that in 6 months time someone could stumble acorss the blog and download just the John Davison episode and it would be totally a fresh experience for them.
 
pauljeremiah said:
no it doesn't, if anything it pretty much means I have to work harder, I want to interview more freelance journalist and independant developers.
You should get the guy making Love for a interview. That'd be great
 

StuBurns

Banned
Really enjoying it so far.

I'm surprised about Jeff's retelling of developers being hurt by games, I can't imagine there is anyone who doesn't know exactly how good their game is when it ships, we can fairly accurately estimate scores of games months before release, Rage is a year out, it's metacritic will be in the 90s, Portal 2 is a few months off, it till will be in the 90s, Deus Ex will be slightly lower, probably in the mid 80s. I don't see why developers would be upset because it's probably out of their hands, they're not stupid people, they know if they have two years to make a UE3 movie tie-in, their game will be trash, no chance of anything good coming from it and the day that project is brought to the team, the team should be well aware it's going to get poorly received, before a single finger touches a computer.
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
I Push Fat Kids said:
Jeff is just a good dude.

totally agree, we spent about 90+ minutes chatting last night, pre-show, show & post-show, he is someone that anyone can just naturally chat too and have a pleasant conversation with. I think the only thing that stopped us talking was it was 4am on my end and he told me to go to bed :lol
 

Gowans

Member
Just listened to the last two today at work.

Really enjoyed them, some great and frank discussion.

I'm liking the focus that seems to be coming together with then with concentration on who is this person, what is their relationship with gaming and why.


Hopefully the next few will be Gaming Industry and not Game Press, as I think developers really will be what gives these shows some meat. Hopefully for a board range of areas too, Big Name Devs, Socail Game Makers, Indie Devs, Business, PR, Platform Holders etc.

Jeffs has been my favourite so far, some lovely and frank discussion.

Paul your hosting getting better too as they go along, letting the guest's talk, not interrupting and expressing your opinions as much but I have still caught you asking questions with a leading opinion a few times.
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
Gowans007 said:
Just listened to the last two today at work.

Really enjoyed them, some great and frank discussion.

I'm liking the focus that seems to be coming together with then with concentration on who is this person, what is their relationship with gaming and why.


Hopefully the next few will be Gaming Industry and not Game Press, as I think developers really will be what gives these shows some meat. Hopefully for a board range of areas too, Big Name Devs, Socail Game Makers, Indie Devs, Business, PR, Platform Holders etc.

Jeffs has been my favourite so far, some lovely and frank discussion.

Paul your hosting getting better too as they go along, letting the guest's talk, not interrupting and expressing your opinions as much but I have still caught you asking questions with a leading opinion a few times.

thanks, I have sent emails to some people in the dev side of things, and I know that it will be harder to get them, I may have to go through their whole PR crap, but it will be worth it, so while I may not have a dev on the next one I will have freelance journalists and freelance developers
 

Infinity

Member
Fantastic job with the podcast! Really enjoyed the content and as always, Jeff brings a lot to the table and is always awesome.

Looking forward to future episodes!
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
Infinity said:
Fantastic job with the podcast! Really enjoyed the content and as always, Jeff brings a lot to the table and is always awesome.

Looking forward to future episodes!

thanks so much dude:D
 

Corto

Member
Ok. I've just finished listening to this episode (haven't listened to the first two yet), and all I can say is... classy, real classy show. Loved your style of interviewing, sincerely sometimes I thought you could participate a little bit more on the conversation, but on the other side I loved your low key style letting your guest do the talk (reading other gaffers reviews it seems that you're improving on this aspect). Keep them coming... even if more sparse. ;)
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
Corto said:
Ok. I've just finished listening to this episode (haven't listened to the first two yet), and all I can say is... classy, real classy show. Loved your style of interviewing, sincerely sometimes I thought you could participate a little bit more on the conversation, but on the other side I loved your low key style letting your guest do the talk (reading other gaffers reviews it seems that you're improving on this aspect). Keep them coming... even if more sparse. ;)

thanks, i'm trying to find that perfect balance of talk/shutting up, I think with John Davison I talked too much and went on tangents, and with Dan Hsu I was a little too quite and should have been more stright forward with my questions, but with Jeff Green I felt the balance was pretty good, not perefct , but pretty good.
 
Gowans007 said:
Just listened to the last two today at work.

Really enjoyed them, some great and frank discussion.

I'm liking the focus that seems to be coming together with then with concentration on who is this person, what is their relationship with gaming and why.


Hopefully the next few will be Gaming Industry and not Game Press, as I think developers really will be what gives these shows some meat. Hopefully for a board range of areas too, Big Name Devs, Socail Game Makers, Indie Devs, Business, PR, Platform Holders etc.

Jeffs has been my favourite so far, some lovely and frank discussion.

Paul your hosting getting better too as they go along, letting the guest's talk, not interrupting and expressing your opinions as much but I have still caught you asking questions with a leading opinion a few times.

I would perhaps suggest going broadening further, game academics are a breed of people that rarely gets any spotlight in the mainstream game media, which is really sad actually.
 

clip

Member
Good stuff so far, but a suggestion...

Don't feel so bound by your scripted questions, listen to what the interviewee has to say and ask questions about their responses. It felt like their were some opportunities to go on some interesting tangents regarding Jeff's responses, but you didn't take them in favor of asking the next question on your list.
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
clip said:
Good stuff so far, but a suggestion...

Don't feel so bound by your scripted questions, listen to what the interviewee has to say and ask questions about their responses. It felt like their were some opportunities to go on some interesting tangents regarding Jeff's responses, but you didn't take them in favor of asking the next question on your list.

Agreed, yeah it was only when I listened back I realised that >.<
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
Vinterbird said:
I would perhaps suggest going broadening further, game academics are a breed of people that rarely gets any spotlight in the mainstream game media, which is really sad actually.


great suggestion, who would you have in mind?
 
pauljeremiah said:
great suggestion, who would you have in mind?

In your previous thread I posted a long list of people, most of them are academics. They range both sides of the academic pond (narratologist and ludologist) views on how to read gaming in the academic context.

Some are developers and to some degree academics, like Raph Koster and Warren Spector, but are primarily focused on being developers. There's also the guy who runs the NYU Game Center (he made Drop7), can't remember his name, but he is always a great talk as well.

(Another non-academic suggestion would be the Penny Arcade dudes)
 
Good podcast but I felt so bad for Jeff after the little joke about everyone asking about his novel. I for one am patiently waiting with money hand for Cudgel of Xanthor.
 

pauljeremiah

Gold Member
mikespit1200 said:
Good podcast but I felt so bad for Jeff after the little joke about everyone asking about his novel. I for one am patiently waiting with money hand for Cudgel of Xanthor.

So am I :D
 

Gowans

Member
Vinterbird said:
There's also the guy who runs the NYU Game Center (he made Drop7), can't remember his name, but he is always a great talk as well.
Frank Lantz would be fab, love drop7, such a well thought out & executed game.

Also add another to the Waiting list for TCoX.
 
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