Photo by Christopher Anderson/The Gazette

As you may or may not remember, last Friday we began a series of interviews titled “Text Tree” where we asked WhatTheyPlay’s John Davison and MTV Multiplayer blog’s Stephen Totilo a few questions regarding the role that new forms of content delivery are playing and how changing business models are affecting the way we cover the game industry. We’re kicking off this week with Crispy Gamer’s own Kyle Orland. Hey, didn’t that dude also write a book? Yeah, he totally did (“Wii for Dummies“)! Anyway, he was kind enough to take some time out of his schedule for us and what he said (specifically about changing business models) might surprise you.

(GEEK): As a freelance journalist and having hosted/been a part of a variety of gaming podcasts, could you explain why you think podcasting is an important approach for games coverage, and more specifically, games journalism?

Personally, I find gaming podcasts compelling because they’re the only type of game journalism you can consume WHILE playing a game. In a world where every second spent reading about a game is a second you could be PLAYING a game, this is just efficient time usage. In fact, why are you reading this? Go play a game or something!

On the downside, listening to podcasts while gaming means you can’t listen to the in-game music/sound effects. On the plus side, most game music and sound effects are pretty bad!

(GEEK): In your time as a games journalist/games enthusiast, you’ve seen games writers laid off or resign for other ventures (be they game-related or otherwise). It could be said that the cutbacks we’ve seen budget-wise in games journalism are symptomatic of changing business models that are effecting journalism on the whole. In that regard, do you believe Crispy Gamer or, maybe more importantly, all publishing entities in the games writing are adequately adapting to changing business models?

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To finish out today’s installment of our seven part interview series “Text Tree” we’ve got an interview with MTV Multiplayer blog Editor Stephen Totilo (seen above pulverizing/being pulverized by Soulja Boy Tell ‘Em). The interview touches on a few specifically pertinent aspects of games coverage and Stephen sums up why podcasts are king (even though they have yet to become truly monetized) in an era of “But I want my information noooooow, Daddy!”

(GEEK): As MTV Multiplayer’s head writer and a guest on a variety of well known gaming podcasts, could you explain why you think podcasting is an important approach for games coverage, and more specifically, games journalism?

You picked a good week to ask this question, as the purchase by UGO of 1UP has put fans of some of the most popular gaming media podcasts in deep distress. What I think podcasts do so well is provide voice and allow nuance. The voice point is obvious, but the nuance one might be a little less so. Gaming media, like a lot of media, thrives on the short and the quick. Any reporter who strives to present an article that has some depth and length to it faces the challenge of getting their readers to engage in those pieces in full. That’s hard online, which is where most gaming media exists these days. People have a tendency to skim or to be satisfied with a snappy headline and intro paragraph. I’ve found that those same readerrs have a greater tolerance for long podcasts. They’ll listen to someone talk about a game or interview for 10 minutes via a podcast but may not have the patience or time to consume the 1,000-word or 4,000-word story that would have been needed to present the same volume of information. Get people listening to your podcast and you’ll get them listening to a lot more of the details in a way that more easily fits into their lives.

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It’s no surprise to longtime readers of Geekadelphia that we’re big fans of podcasting, and more specifically, the various multimedia that have emerged online over the past decade or so. Over the last two months, I’ve been speaking with a number of different game writers from all forms of media, asking a variety of questions regarding the role that new forms of content delivery are affecting the way we cover games and — maybe more importantly in the light of the recent UGO/EGM/1up debacle — the changing business models employed by game writing publications going forward.

In mid-December, John Davison (Co-Founder/President of WhatTheyPlay.com, ex-EGM EIC/Ed. Dir.) was the first to answer a few questions on subjects ranging from the creation of the now defunct stable of podcasts at 1up to how publications should be adapting from an economic standpoint now and in the future. This will be the inaugural post of seven separate interviews, but in true Geekadelphia slipshod fashion, I’ll post the first two today (the other featuring
MTV Multiplayer blog Editor Stephen Totilo) so that we can finish in a timely fashion next Friday. I hope you enjoy and by all means, get involved in the comments.

(As an aside: I’d like to thank all the writers who took time out of their schedules to answer my questions thoughtfully and thoroughly — Thank You! )

(GEEK): I think it’s safe to say that you oversaw the creation of a lot of the multimedia that 1UP has been producing (i.e. podcasting, a weekly show, video features)? Could you explain why you think that’s an important approach for journalistic coverage?

At the time, the goal in establishing the video and audio shows on 1UP was all about establishing the personalities that we had on the staff. This was true of the individual blogs, too. There was a lot of competition in the gaming media space, and given that we were building the 1UP Network a few years behind some of our competitors, we wanted to really differentiate ourselves. Rather than simply be “just another” reviews/previews/news site, we wanted the audience and the staff to come together as one community, and for people to feel like they really knew the staff. The 1UP Show, and 1UP Yours in particular were a big part of establishing a “voice” for 1UP, and they were very effective ways of introducing people to the Network and drawing them into our other content. In a lot of ways, you can think of them as part of a broader editorial marketing initiative.

(GEEK): When you worked at Ziff-Davis, you witnessed not only several key editorial members leave but also the dissolution of a few print publications. It could be said that the cutbacks we’ve seen budget-wise in games journalism are symptomatic of changing business models, due to the internet, that are effecting journalism on the whole. In that regard, do you believe Ziff-Davis or, maybe more importantly, all publishing houses in the games journalism industry are adequately adapting to changing business models?

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“EGM folding feels vaguely like my childhood home being sold.”, read one Twitter post this morning. “My first exposure to games journalism — shit, journalism altogether — was EGM. I can’t believe its gone.”, read another. These statements echo those held by me, blogger/writer/freelance journalist Ben Gilbert, implicitly. Yesterday afternoon, after the majority of the blogosphere had signed off for the day and some of us (ahem) were eating dinner, 1UP.com announced via their website that, “UGO Entertainment and parent Hearst Corporation have acquired 1UP and its associated sites GameVideos.com, MyCheats.com, and GameTab.com.” While the piece posted on their site outlines the aquisition as if it were a blessing, they fail to mention the massive fallout surrounding it: nearly 20-year-old Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine is no more and over 30 employees were fired (including a gaggle of game writing veterans, like Shane Bettenhausen and James “Milkman” Mielke).

1UP.com Site Director Sam Kennedy spoke to MTV Multiplayer, regarding the stable of audio and video podcasts that have become 1UP’s raison d’etre over the past few years, last night, ““We’re going to try and maintain a lot of the audio and video going forward. Will we have as many shows as we have in the past? Probably not, but we have – we’ve had – a lot of ideas for future shows and we’re pretty excited about what we’ll do in the future.” And so while I’ll miss listening to the assorted personalities I’ve come to know as well as (and sometimes better than) my own friends and I’ll miss receiving my EGM in the mail each month, it’s with a heavy heart that Geekadelphia.com and myself wish those affected by the recent “acquisition” (death sentence) the best of luck in all their future endeavors. You will be missed.

(Image courtesy of Shawn Elliott)

We’re sorry to start your morning off with such an, erm, interesting movie trailer but we couldn’t help ourselves; Street Fighter is something we grew up with, thusly we are required to post the silliness you see above (though we’ll be damned if we let another silly film ruin a great game series for us). Though Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li stars equally lauded celebrities as the original (stars such as Kristin “we barely know who this is too” Kreuk), it’ll be hard to top the misguided attempt at entertainment that it so gladly trumpeted.

Rather than bore you with our summation of the trailer, we’re giving you a breakdown of things the trailer most certainly doesn’t have:

-Signature moves from the game? CHECK. (absolutely none!)
-Actors that bare nearly any resemblance to the characters in the game? CHECK CHECK.
-A cool looking fireball? SUPER CHECK. (this fireball looks as silly as they possibly could have made it)
-Raul Julia? ULTRA CHECK. (there is most certainly no Raul Julia — and that’s a damn shame)

(From GameTrailers via Joystiq)

Is it nearly Christmas Chanukah Kwanzaa the Holidays already?! We’ve been so busy rushing from convention to convention and playing game after game over the past few months that these pesky folks called “loved ones” keep bugging us for attention. Can you believe it?! Luckily, we snapped out of our haze and recognized the urgency for a detailed and comprehensive guide of the best gifts for the geekier “loved ones” in your life. So we’ve teamed up with PhiladelphiaWeekly.com and the fruits of our labor are here for all to see.

The video above documents a trip to Brave New Worlds Comics in Old City where we found out why some of the items you’ll find suggested after the break made it onto our list. Geekadelphia’s Ben Gilbert spoke with BNW’s Brian Johnson and Geekadelphia’s Editor-in-Chief Eric Smith about everything from The Dark Knight’s many “Limited” Editions to why zombies are awesome (as if you didn’t already know). To explore our full gift guide, with personal suggestions from each member of the Geekadelphia crew, hit that bump! (But do not, DO NOT, shake that bear.)

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No, seriously. We’re not joking here. While we here at Geekadelphia haven’t the slightest idea how exactly this keeps happening, Nintendo managed to completely dominate the American console sales charts to the tune of two million Wii consoles flying off store shelves over the course of November. Two Million. In case that wasn’t enough $6 denominations for ‘em (Awww, that’s only $12 million! Shucks!), they also sold a whopping 1.57 million Nintendo DS handhelds… and we’re going to safely assume they make more than $6 on each one of those puppies. The next closest competitor was the Xbox 360, with nearly 850k sold, while the Playstation 3 took the number five spot on the charts (right behind little brother, PSP) with nearly 400k units sold.

If we wanted to be real nice, and we do, we’d let you know that Sony’s combined sales across their three systems totaled 1,005,000, roughly 150k systems (again, across their three platforms — PS2, PSP and PS3) more than the Xbox 360. When you factor in the attach rate of various consoles, things start to look strikingly similar for the 360 and PS3 — they’re both totally screwed in the light of Nintendo’s enormous lead! Hit the jump for the full report on November’s sales from the NPD Group.

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“We are going, it’s a go. I just actually this week talked to Mitch Hurwitz, so, we’re doing it.”, Jeffrey Tambor proudly beamed at Steve ‘Frosty’ Weintraub of Collider.com, after the trepidacious interviewer politely prodded, “Everyone’s always asking you about Arrested Development movies. Are you kind of sick of people asking you about it?” Tambor, known for his role as George Bluth on the iconic series that captured/unified our love and focused it into a concentrated beam of loyalty, excitedly continued, commenting that even though a script has yet-to-be written and a date hasn’t been set for shooting, “When the writer calls you and the director and the executive producer call you, it’s a pretty good sign.” Let’s hope that it’s more than just “a pretty good sign”, Mr. Tambor. We’ve been hurt before.

Via Arrested Development Blog/Collider

Unbeknownst to us here at Geekadelphia, Time Magazine chooses its Top 10 of everything once-a-year, reverting for a moment to the lowly blogger’s position of writing up list after list until everyone who uses Digg can see the words even when they close their eyes. Okay, so in fairness, we stick to a strict regimen of geek-themed edible treats and over covering certain Philadelphia-based videogame-related events but we can’t help but poke fun at a publishing institution whose writers routinely misrepresent our main steez. Regardless, as part of their giant list, they’ve thrown together a list of 10 particularly enthralling videogames that came out in 2008. The list is certainly less “hardcore gamer” than it is “Halo gamer” (hey, we love teh Hayloes, relax) but it also covers the arty bases (Braid drops in at number two) for those concerned.

Don’t worry though, the Geekadelphia Holiday Gift Guide will be coming to you sooner than you think. Are we more comprehensive than Time Magazine? Maybe, maybe not, but we’re certainly a lot more fun.

Via Joystiq

In all of the footage we shot during America’s Video Game Expo, the first evenings events stood out as among the toughest to replay and edit. We here at Geekadelphia would like to harshly warn you before watching the video above. It’s safe for work and safe for play around children, though we’d just as likely suggest against either one. The only promise I can make you that may offer some respite for your trouble is that, at the end of the video, you will be treated to an unimaginable site your eyes will hardly believe. Brace yourself — this is where s*%t gets real.

(Special thanks go out to the PMS Clan for existing.)

At this point it’s quite possible you’re done with seeing coverage of the little convention that could, but we couldn’t stop ourselves from showing you around one of it’s more lurid corners. While walking around the convention center, we accidentally found signs for an area specializing in retro gaming wares. And though at its gates a sentry team of cosplayers guarded entry, we carried on! And so we headed off towards what you can see above in vivid detail. Believe it or not, we restrained ourselves from any purchases — it’s always hard not to buy an Atari Lynx, ya know?

(original gangstas)

Yes, we’re still covering the America’s Video Game Expo (“videogame”, folks). And yes, we’re just as shocked as you by an announcement today that its attendance numbers more than tripled this year. According to VGXPO affiliates NBC10, “the 2008 America’s Video Game Expo more then tripled its attendance versus 2007, with 24,674 people attending over a three day period.” When Ed Fleming, VGXPO Executive Director, told us way back when that he expected to triple this years attendance numbers, we scoffed — no doubt about it. When we were putting together the montage for y’all to peruse, it was obvious that the show garnered better numbers than last year, but there’s no way we could have guessed it had tripled in attendance! Also, according to this press release, “VGXPO 2009 is currently scheduled to take place October 9-11, 2009 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center.” — major publishers will (hopefully) be hard pressed to miss next year.

We’ll be posting a few more videos over the next few days from the VGXPO that fell by the wayside while editing. Hit the break to read more from the exciting press release and our vitriol filled comments.

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