[podcast] Jeff Green Questions!

The next podcast is going to feature the return of Jeff Green, Editor in Chief for Games For Windows Magazine. You may also remember them as Computer Gaming World. We thought it might be fun to solicit some questions/comments for Jeff ahead of time.

For those interested, the topic will be games journalism integrity, fans and Jewish rapping.

What do you find to be the superior form of Jewish rap? East coast or West coast?

IMAGE(http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y16/protoleo/schticks.jpg)

What does he think of the "Flat Buns" commercial? And who is that chick in it?

Also ask him why they sold out and renamed CGW->GFW. I'm sure that will go over well.

Stric9 wrote:

What does he think of the "Flat Buns" commercial? And who is that chick in it?

Also ask him why they sold out and renamed CGW->GFW. I'm sure that will go over well. ;)

He has already been on the GWJ podcast and made all sorts of jokes about this. They make fun of themselves for having "Windows" in their name all the time on their own podcast. I'm glad he'll be back on.

With the difficulties gamers have had with Vista, when do you think Vista will overtake XP as the gamer OS? Or will it take an entirely new OS to render XP obsolete?

I'll preface this by noting that I've been subscribing to and reading CGW / GFW since 1993ish. Also, I have a man crush on Jeff Green. (I'm only halfway kidding).

My question would be: How much does Microsoft work with GFW in promoting the Games for Windows initiative? Or rather, does Microsoft attempt to keep the GFW editors in the loop in regard to what they're currently doing with the initiative and what they might be planning in the future or did they only buy the magazine so that they could rebrand it and insert the [horribly written] special advertising section?

In light of recent significant and free advancements from both Xfire and Steam and rumours that Microsoft has put Games for Windows Live on the backburner for the time being, does Jeff think that it still has a place in the market and will be able to compete?

With many prime opportunities to get time with premier titles, does he ever find himself in the situation where it is impossible to be objective? I mean seriously, being in his position, he has had early access to pretty much all the genre busting and defining titles for the PC over the last... decade? How does he maintain focus? I can imagine its so overwhelming to be in that position as the companies are actually trying to give him a song and dance to convince him to write positive impressions for a game like WoW or Ultima 7.

Has he ever restrained himself from writing early blase' preview for a game that wasn't shaping up to expectations because of a company's reputation? Like say for instance he knew the company would pull it out at the end. Or there was another title the company was working on that had much more potential but couldn't be talked about because the company wanted to build hype for the other lackluster game.

Can he name some games that had dissapointing early impressions that managed to overcome them?

What does he consider the most overlooked game that he has previewed? In other words, name a game(s) that he and others gave critical acclaim but never achieved much commercial success.

Has he ever considered taking something back that he has written?

Has he ever felt he had inflated influence on a game's success or failure?

Is he proud of any influence he's had on the word of mouth of an overlooked game that has achieved late success?

Has he previewed any game(s) that he had difficulty in finding words? For instance is there a game(s) that left him speechless or defied explanation or lacked prior reference.

The topic of the week is journalistic integrity, so I'll be focussing more on that than the GFW branding.

I'd ask if there is some perceived lack of journalistic integrity or bias against GFW because it's an "Official" magazine. Do other journalists and the readers automatically discount the coverage because of the branding?

"Do you think gaming 'journalism' suffers from confirmation bias, be it in previews or in game reviews themselves? How do you balance or rate 'objectivity' when the subject matter is gradations of fun?"

It's two questions, I like to cheat.

What is his obsession with the Wii's "throbbing Slit" about?

:p

Elysium wrote:

The topic of the week is journalistic integrity, so I'll be focussing more on that than the GFW branding.

Do you think games journalists would be taken more seriously if they shaved and dressed like adults?

How easy is it to take seriously a man in a Packers hat?

Ask him why the push of GFW has been pretty lacklustre. Have developers been steering clear of the GFW brand because of the added pressure of certification? - something which Gabe Newell just used the lack of to justify his platform (i.e. saying it was an advantage of PC over console gaming)

Also, GWF Live! has been less well received on PC due to the fact that people don't want to be tied into a service to be able to receive updates and play online - not to mention having to pay for basic facilities such as match hosting etc. How can GFW justify the price when the PC gamer is paying for almost everything except verification servers (i.e. Paying for the game, paying for internet connection - paying for hosting servers).

Finally ask him why the official GFW site (especially the Live! section) is poorly maintained and lacking in basic information such as pricing etc.
Also why it is lacking in features á la Xbox Live Website where gamertags and other features are implemented. Do they have any resources or faith in the PC gaming side of LIVE! ? Do they want it to suceed? Really?

Number of people with an xbox: ~10 million
Number of people with PCs: ~1 million who took the steam survey.... i'm betting there are a fair few more people who would also be counted as PC gamers...

When is Duke Nuke`em Forever coming out?

Okay here are a few questions that might be more relevant to the topic this week.

How has the advent of internet based game journalism (where there is more pressure to get content out as quickly as possible) affected how print publications approach writing their reviews and previews? Do print game journalists spend more time evaluating a given game than their online compatriots? Has this led to degradation in quality of game coverage in general? (I know that there are magazines and sites that maintain their standards of quality but are these getting lost in the "˜sea of content'?)

Duoae wrote:

Ask him why the push of GFW has been pretty lacklustre. Have developers been steering clear of the GFW brand because of the added pressure of certification? - something which Gabe Newell just used the lack of to justify his platform (i.e. saying it was an advantage of PC over console gaming)

Also, GWF Live! has been less well received on PC due to the fact that people don't want to be tied into a service to be able to receive updates and play online - not to mention having to pay for basic facilities such as match hosting etc. How can GFW justify the price when the PC gamer is paying for almost everything except verification servers (i.e. Paying for the game, paying for internet connection - paying for hosting servers).

Finally ask him why the official GFW site (especially the Live! section) is poorly maintained and lacking in basic information such as pricing etc.
Also why it is lacking in features á la Xbox Live Website where gamertags and other features are implemented. Do they have any resources or faith in the PC gaming side of LIVE! ? Do they want it to suceed? Really?

Number of people with an xbox: ~10 million
Number of people with PCs: ~1 million who took the steam survey.... i'm betting there are a fair few more people who would also be counted as PC gamers...

Just as an FYI.. thats a pretty poor way to frame questions.

georob wrote:

Okay here are a few questions that might be more relevant to the topic this week.

How has the advent of internet based game journalism (where there is more pressure to get content out as quickly as possible)

I'm not sure what you're comparing this with, but there are plenty of other types of journalism that are very much "scoop" based. I think I've seen this in games journalism apologetics, though, so I'm not really blaming you for the idea.

TheGameguru wrote:

Just as an FYI.. thats a pretty poor way to frame questions.

Hence why i'm not a reporter or an interviewer... I presumed that anything we post here will be editied, cleaned up and generally improved upon by the interviewer.....

BTW, did you think my questions lacked any point or where inflammatory? I'm merely putting it in the context of how i see the situation at the moment.

[edit] Just to clarify i misread who it was initially and thought it was someone who was actually running GFW.... not just the magazine - so my questions don't really apply to this guy anyway.

Who's Jeff Green?

EDIT: Oh...

Why do you sound like an angry version of Ken Levine?

What do you feel is the current (and perhaps past) level or integrity among most of the Ziff-Davis gaming network?

Is it even important to have "journalistic integrity" or are video-game publications much more of a fan-service?

BTW, did you think my questions lacked any point or where inflammatory? I'm merely putting it in the context of how i see the situation at the moment.

heh well they read less like questions and more like statements.. it would put someone immediately on the defense.

Here's a very specific question:
Games for Windows recently hired Koroush Ghazi (sp?), host of the popular website www.tweakguides.com to write a monthly tech column for GFW magazine.
From Koroush's own posts detailing the matter, some of the material he will cover in his GFW magazine features will be similar to the material he already provides for free on his website.
When hiring a contributor to write for your magazine who already has similar content available, what kind of rules / instructions do you provide to him in terms of overlap of material? How strict is your editorial control of his material?
Essentially, how much control do you have over a freelancer's piece, especially when he's already a fairly big name in the web based tech guide world?

It's loosely related to integrity, but I think the question has a lot to do with the integrity of the contributor's piece as well as the integrity of the magazine in allowing the contributor to speak his mind.

How much did the "pulled" review of Neverwinter Nights 2 influence his follow up review? Does he feel that he approached the game with a completely open mind, or did he feel somewhat obligated to stay "in the realm" of the score that the previous reviewer gave (making the review fit the score)? What steps have been taken to avoid another situation that occurred with this review?

[edit] - Oh, and where did they get this Julian character they've had writing for them recently?

Good questions so far guys, keep them coming. We'll nail him to the wall! Woo!

Jeff, how does it feel to be nailed to the wall?

What would you say is the proper adjectival form of "integrity"?

Jeff, do you ever feel like donkey punching Shawn Elliot? For example, after one of his ridiculously long tirades in an obnoxious voice.

That's a lot of tongue-in-cheek. I think Shawn Elliot has some really good insights into gaming, but a lot of it gets lost in the frat boy podcast persona.

That's a lot of tongue-in-cheek. I think Shawn Elliot has some really good insights into gaming, but a lot of it gets lost in the frat boy podcast persona.

Oddly enough, I can't get enough of him, both in terms of insights and his "persona."

I guess one question I would have is how has the meteoric rise in popularity of their podcast affected their process of making the magazine? Do they find they people (both readers and folks in the industry) have started reacting to them differently? Has it had an effect on their ability to get interviews/stories/exclusives one way or the other? And are the rest of the guys ever jealous of the fact that Jeff Green and Shawn Elliot are so goddamn awesome on the podcast while they are just okay?

zeroKFE wrote:
That's a lot of tongue-in-cheek. I think Shawn Elliot has some really good insights into gaming, but a lot of it gets lost in the frat boy podcast persona.

Oddly enough, I can't get enough of him, both in terms of insights and his "persona."

I guess one question I would have is how has the meteoric rise in popularity of their podcast affected their process of making the magazine? Do they find they people (both readers and folks in the industry) have started reacting to them differently? Has it had an effect on their ability to get interviews/stories/exclusives one way or the other? And are the rest of the guys ever jealous of the fact that Jeff Green and Shawn Elliot are so goddamn awesome on the podcast while they are just okay? ;)

Does Ryan Scott actually sit in the room when they record that, or does he sneak out after introducing himself? Actually, he might have left the company 5 years ago and these are sound clips that they play because they miss him so much.