Improving our Dev Interview Format

#1 Sorry Deborah, I rarely read the dev interviews. They all seem to say the same exact things.

What do I like about them? Knowing who made the game and the screenshots.

What I don't like? Boring reading. (see my first sentance in this reply for the reason)

What would I like to see? What would make them better? More in debth questions about their game. How did they come up with the story/game type? What just worked out of the box? What kind of engine changes did they have to make and what were the challenges?
Get technicle. (I know...spelt wrong) I want to know what the game play is. How is it played? What kind of challenges are there?
Those are the type of things I want to read about. Make it interesting and exciting reading. (you have it in you. I know you do) :-)

Disclaimer: I hope you don't take this critique as a personal dis. I know you do your best. This being the first year means you've had a year to learn. You'll be learning for years to come. :-)

#2 I'll be class honour student and say I always read the dev interviews (actually I read pretty much every blog). They dev interviews are good because it's good to see games getting released into the big wide world.

I do find that the interviews/answers are a little "vague" and really only scratch the surface. I understand that you don't want to scare viewers off with a "wall_of_text_field_manual_to_game_post-mortem", but actually that would be really interesting.

example from today's "sushi to go" blog:

Quote:What was it like publishing a game on the iTunes App Store?
I thought it would be as simple as uploading the app. Unfortunately, it’s a bit more complex and took about a day to get it out there

Really? A day doesn't sound to bad to me ... but obviously it was - What happened? Why? Was it avoidable?

So yeah, I kinda agree with Mike. Technical stuff about development would be good. How many people worked on it, doing what? How much engine code to script work was there? How they came up with the concept, what they tried to achieve, what went to hell_in_a_handbasket. Problems that happened in code/script/art/gameplay, were overcome or worked-around or kicked into touch.

More geek developer stuff about thexy code and what-not. Y'know, stuff that bores normal folks to tears.

#3 Thanks for the feedback, Mike and Steve. Keep 'em coming, everyone. I'd like to hear as many diverse viewpoints as possible so I can improve this over time.

Just given these first two sets of feedback, I'm wondering if I should flat out ask them to describe three technical challenges and how they were overcome. And I can also just do more follow-up questions (since most of the time I ask these over e-mails) to round out a vague response.

Interesting sidenote...I don't know if it's post-GDC buzz or not, but in the past four weeks, I've gotten more leads on interviews than in the previous 3 months combined! People are really busy finishing up their games. :)

#4 I'd mostly echo what Mike and Steve said, I scan through most dev interviews but generally don't read them properly because they're mostly superficial. Obviously they need promote the game, developer and Torque brand but too much of that and not enough technical depth make them feel a bit more infomercial than dev interview.

Follow-up questions would go a long way I think, get the first round of questions done and pick a few points of key interest to develop further.

I like Steve's hell_in_a_handbasket thought, if they could go back and change one thing about their dev process what would it be, why and how? And on the flip side, what did they take a chance on that paid off or what tool/resource would they consider invaluable (apart from Torque ;)).

Hopefully that's not too negative, as it stands they serve their purpose and let the community know about Torque powered releases, it'd just be nice to learn something from the guys at the front.

EDIT: To be fair, I just re-read the Sushi to go interview properly and there's a little more there than I thought. I guess that's what happens when I just skim through blogs.

#5 I read trough the first ones, most of those that Joshua was in charge of, but always found them too marketing focused, or maybe superficial as the others put it. I don't know the correct word here. Anyway, now I usually just skim trough to see if any of the tech questions are interesting.

I would appreciate a more post-mortem style (I read trough Gamasutra's with great interest!) with do's and dont's that maybe apply to Torque, or just in general. That would wrap up the rest of the "Why did you chose Torque" style of questions. I would find that an excellent read and it would make the site more interesting.

#6 I would like the interviews to be more of a post-mortem style. Similar to: www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3124/postmortem_blizzards_diablo_ii.php?print=1 The "Game Data" alone, is very informative. My 2 cents.