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Short diary update today. Basically I just want to know who you’d like me to interview on Kotaku.
Just leave the name of an industry figure in the comments below along with a few words about why you’ve picked them.
I’ll try my best to get them talking in the next few weeks.
Told you it was short.
[Pic]
Gabe Newell – Head of arguably the BIGGEST innovators in video gaming. And when you try to speak to him he wont act like a douche`bag PR person promoting themselves.
Second this. And ask about things like game design and how to keep the player interested without being frustrated etc. I found the commentary for HL2ep2 on this subject fantastic listening.
Robin Walker, from Valve.
Not only will it be hi-larious but he could talk seriously about TF2, hats, idling debacle, the drop system, class updates, and any future plans.
Second on Robin Walker, ask him when they are canning the stupid random drop system.
Randy Pitchford. Gearbox. Borderlands.
Ask them how co-op story telling works (“what if I’ve already finished that quest?”), and the splitscreen capabilities (can you mix splitscreen and internet co-op at the same time?).
God no, please no more Randy Pitchford! Borderlands is my one anticipated product in the next 3 months or so, but i cant stand that in every interview that guy repeats himself and self-promoted the CRAP out of borderlands while generally acting like he has taken ecstacy.
Get us a new interviewer from Gerabox! A gameplay designer, an art designer, i dont care.. i want to hear more about Borderlands, but i cant stand anymore of Randy “Guess how i got that first name” Pitchford
Head of the ESRB or America; you could ask them questions like “what was the most violent game ever presented to you for evaluation?” or “do you ever get a game which digusts you so much that…”
ie; itd be quite funny =]
Sam Lake, because most of his games are really deep, I mean honestly, Max Payne 1 is a depression bullet to the face.
Jonothan Blow or Ian Bogost.
Discuss where the future of games is heading and if a truly resonant narrative experience can be created with the interactive medium.
David Braben, Anyone who took on the mammoth task of mapping the entire Milky Way Galaxy in 3D, roughly to scale, complete with theoretically accurate star systems and planetary arrangements; All made accessible with hyper jumps, rocket physics and sling shot orbits. All this and much more way back in the 1992 Amiga 500 masterpiece Frontier.
Actually, he didn’t exactly map the whole galaxy. The whole thing, map, stars, planets, moons, etc are all procedurally generated. In very basic terms they kept try different random number seeds until they found one that generated something vaguely realistic and playable. The very inner core is preset data, but that’s it, the rest is generated on the fly. By using the same seed, the results are the same every time. If they’d really mapped everything out, it certainly wouldn’t fit on a floppy or two (or a cassette as was the case with the original BBC version of Elite).
However, I still second your call for David Braben. I’d like to know how he came up with (what was then) such a ground-breaking idea. And where is he up to with a new version? What can we look forward to? Does he think any other game has come close to replicating Elite, Frontier, etc?
Eric Lempel,
Considering there were over 1500 comments and only 1 reply on the playstation.blog, and that was to close the topic, I’m sure there’s quite a few questions the PS3 masses would like answered at the moment.
How about a PR rep from Red Ant Studio’s about the upcoming AFL game for PS3/360.
Jade Raymond.
She now has the top job at the new Ubisoft Toronto. She is the brains behind Assassins Creed (*cough* … and she is hot *cough*).
🙂
There needs to be more women in the industry.
Jade…Oh my.
It’d be pretty cool to hear from John Carmack. Oo..legend.
Glen Schofield from Redwood Shores.
As a laugh it would be funny to find out what Leeroy Jenkins is up to. lol…”At least I have chicken.”
Someone from the Australian Classification Board (or whatever its called now) – don’t go for their throats, just ask them stuff about their criteria and how they justify banning certain games
Another good suggestion. It’d be good to hear their side of the story, separate from Mr Atkinson’s. I too would be very interested in their reasoning behind the disparity in their assignment of ratings.
I’d like you to interview iiNet or Internode asking why Australian ISP’s still insist on charging us with insane prices with low bandwidth, when overseas price’s are insanely reasonable
Frank Gibeau, the president of the EA Games label (or an influential underling, mostly because I like using the word ‘underling’).
I’d like to know why they’re not monetising their back catalogue through somewhere like GOG who do all the work to make them run, host them and handle the e-commerce aspect and then would just give EA money by the bucket as the sales of some of the finest games ever made shoot through the roof. Great for the customers, great for the business, great for the shareholders (Possibly bad for the rep of their AAA games when a game like Syndicate sells 3 times the amount if they launch at the same time though, don’t mention that part).
The lack of DRM is likely to be the sticking point but lets face reality, people have had DECADES to pirate this stuff, they’ll have done it already. The kind of person who pirates isn’t interested in old stuff anyway, they want shiny instant gratification that they can throw away the second they see something shinier. The majority of the interest they’ll get is nostalgic and honest consumers who want to play again the games they loved, forgot or never managed to find.
Its not like they have anything to lose, they’re not making money on these games anyway. I conducted a short informal and thoroughly unscientific poll on GOG, this list was assembled with no guarantee EA actually own all the IPs, ownership is being assumed because they were made by companies taken over by EA. The people who replied listed the following games as “Buy immediately” should they show up:
Syndicate plus
Syndicate Wars
Crusader No Remorse
Crusader No Regret
Wing Commander Series
Bioforge
Ultima Series
Dungeon Keeper 1 and 2
Dune 2
Privateer
Populous 1 and 2
Powermonger
Sim City 2000
System Shock 1 and 2
Desert Strike
American MCGee’s Alice
Theme Hospital
Theme Park
The Neverhood
Medal of Honor: Allied Assault
Blade Runner
NFS Porsche
The Bard’s Tale trilogy
Magic Carpet 1 and 2
Relentless 1 and 2
Fade to Black
Flashback
Space Hulk
Magic Carpet 1 and 2
Strike Commander
Starflight 1 and 2
M.U.L.E.
Sim City 4 Deluxe Edition
Road Rash
Future Cop L.A.P.D.
KKND
KKND extreme
NOX
Desert Strike, Jungle Strike, Nuclear Strike
Shogun Total War (Warlord Edition)
Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri and Expansion
688 Attack Sub
Abrahms Battle Tank
Adventure Construction Set
Centurion: Defender of Rome
Noctropolis
Shadowcaster
Undying
Battlezone II: Combat Commander
Space Rogue
Jade Empire
Lord of the Rings Battle for Middle Earth
EA and innovation do not go hand in hand. Their idea of “pushing the envelope” is updating the Madden rosters every year, slapping a slightly new coat of paint on and pushing it out as a full priced release…
You didn’t grow up with EA then? They used to be the rebellious darlings of the industry, greenlighting antything that looked like it had potential and developing real talent. Then at some point businessmen took over and they slowly became the EA we know today
Yahtzee, there are not that many australian internet celebrities and between ZP and his own website its clear he does not mind offering his opinion on just about any topic.
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