GamePro is listing its 20 most influential people in gaming from 1989 to 2009. Ranked at number 20 is Kotaku Managing Editor Brian Crecente — or as GamePro calls him “The Provocateur”. How provocative. More »
San Francisco. That game would have been a whole lot shorter if they had just been upfront about things. I didn’t even ask you guys a geography question! Crecente is out for the better part of this week, hopping between San Francisco and LA for various events with companies such as Electronic Arts, Sony, Ubisoft, Microsoft, Eidos, and Sega. While he is out of the tower he’ll still be posting, in fact he should be posting some rather interesting information, starting this evening. Keep your eyes peeled, while the rest of us concentrate on juggling keeping the site from exploding while randomly uploading videos of our pets onto YouTube.
Take us out, Rockapella!
1Up Networks today unveiled the super-secret list of speakers for their upcoming 11th Annual Electronic Gaming Summit which includes headline Dr. Oren Harai. Yeah, I’ve never heard of him either.
Harai, author of ‘Break from the Pack: How to Compete in a Copycat Economy, will be joined by a slew of other industry folks and journalists. Yes, game journalists:
Cammie Dunaway, executive vice president of sales and marketing, Nintendo of America, Inc Jeff Bell, corporate vice president of global marketing, Interactive Entertainment Business, Microsoft Peter Moore, president of EA Sport Michael Pachter, managing director, research, Wedbush Morgan Securities Jason Holtman, director of business development, Valve Software N’Gai Croal, Newsweek Daniel Sieberg, CBS News Geoff Keighley, Spike TV Brian Crecente, Kotaku.com.
Hey! I know that last guy! I sure hope everyone knows to not say anything around him, I hear he’s a blogger.
One of the numerous panel discussions at GDC last month did things a little bit differently, setting up a panel of video game journalists, lead by Newsweek’s N’Gai Croal, to answer some of the questions game industry professionals have for those that write about them and their work. The panel consisted of 1UP’s Garnett Lee, MTV’s Stephen Totilo, Game Informer’s Andy McNamara, Geoff Keighly of GameTrailers.tv, and our very own Brian Crecente.
The group covers a variety of topics, including the responsibility of a game journalist, the role of the reporter versus that of a critic, the impact that the emerging casual game market is having on game journalism, and one question from an anonymous contributor about the pay structure of gaming sites. One of the most interesting discussions, though, surrounded the influence giving a score to a game has on not only the game, but whether people will read the article:
For the record, I would never go to a talk about me… unless I was invited. Nora Paul, with the University of Minnesota school of journalism’s Institute of New Media Studies, emailed me over the weekend to clue me in to the talk she was doing entitled: “Being Brian Crecente: Using an Off-The-Shelf Role-Playing Game to Teach Journalism.”
Actually, the whole name thing really was a last minute add-on. It sounds like Paul had been working on the idea, introducing college-level would-be journalists to the profession through a video game, for a number of years.
I never thought that our own commander and chief Brian Crecente resembled Kenji Harima from the anime series School Rumble (granted, I’d never seen the show before this post), but at least one patch-maker feels differently. Because this “School Rumble Harima Patch” from Great Eastern Entertainment might as well be renamed “Offical Badge of the Crecenteteers” and come along with quarterly newsletters with updates on the big BC himself (what are his dreams, tastes in music and biggest pet peeves on a first date?)
If only the little sewn man were wearing a bird on his shirt, Crecente could have some sort of a case during litigation. As for now he’ll have to settle for something like unlimited anime patches that look like him, which while not a bad prize (hell, sounds great to me), won’t put little Tristen through four years at Harvard. SCHOOL RUMBLE HARIMA PATCH [gee]Thanks Mooseferatu!
Wow, just wow. Yesterday’s local Child’s Play fund raiser was truly a humbling experience. I drove down to Denver about 2ish to unload all of the schwag (including donations from Mark and Joel) and then figure out how exactly to split the signal from an Xbox 360 so it could go into a house sound system, a ceiling mounted video projector and an off-stage television.
We finally got the whole thing figured out and tested about ten minutes before doors were set to open at 6 p.m. Five minutes after six I was still standing in an open room, starting to think that perhaps I had over estimated the interest in a local Child’s Play fund raiser… but then the booking manager came up and asked if she should start letting people in.
OK, I’m outta here. I have to run down to Denver to pick up some bits and pieces for the big event tonight at the Walnut Room, then hop by the Rocky Mountain News, where they’ve been “holding” one of my Rock Band guitars, and then finally get over to the bar to set stuff up and test out the game.
Hope to see some of you there. For those of you planning on attending in Denver, it runs from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and you’ll need to be 21 or older to get in. The cover is a $US 10 minimum donation.
The ticket gets you, besides a warm fuzzy feeling inside, a door prize ticket. I’m bringing a mountain of swag with me to the fund raiser to give away including the Manhunt 2 straitjacket, one of those Wii bags from E3 06, a Metal Gear Solid multi-tool knife, a Lair lighter, a Valut Boy Fallout 3 bobble head, Zelda hourglass and more shirts than I want to even think about. We will also have a Limited Edition copy of Rock Band for the 360 on hand to giveaway and, of course, that life-sized companion cube.
If you’re planning to attend the Brooklyn Funde Razor hit up the official site for the details. More »
It may be 20 degrees out right now, it may be snowing, it may be icy, but tomorrow I expect sunshine, if not in Denver then at least in The Walnut Room.
Why? Well because that’s when we’re doing the first ever local Funde Razor here in Denver. For those of you planning on attending in Denver, it runs from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. and you’ll need to be 21 or older to get in. The cover is a $US 10 minimum donation.
The ticket gets you, besides a warm fuzzy feeling inside, a door prize ticket. I’m bringing a mountain of swag with me to the fund raiser to give away including the Manhunt 2 straitjacket, one of those Wii bags from E3 06, a Metal Gear Solid multi-tool knife, a Lair lighter, a Vault Boy Fallout 3 bobble head, Zelda hourglass and more shirts than I want to even think about. We will also have a Limited Edition copy of Rock Band for the 360 on hand to giveaway and, of course, that life-sized companion cube.
If you’re planning to attend the Brooklyn Funde Razor hit up the official site for the details. More »
When you’re Kotaku Editor Brian Crecente, everyone wants to be you. Men. Women. Vidal Sassoon models. Everyone.
Now, attendees of the upcoming GDC Serious Games Summit will have the chance to learn just how he does it. In the presentation “Being Brian Crecente: Using an Off-The-Shelf Role Playing Game to Teach Journalism”, by University of Minnesota’s Nora Paul, you too can learn the secrets of Brian’s bird shirt, his blinding smile and most importantly, his hidden obsession with writing talent Mark Wilson.
So what’s weird about this presentation? Brian didn’t even know it was happening. As in, Brian was checking out the GDC presentation website and spotted it. And then he ran to tell us all but was stopped short, his head too big to fit through the door of his office.
Serious Games Summit [gdc] More »
