Good Game screens on ABC2 on Monday nights at 9pm and is repeated on ABC1 late Friday nights. You can also view episodes on their website. In case you're unable to get the entire Episode 47 of the PALGN Podcast, here is a transcript of our interview with the duo.
PALGN: Joining us this week is Janet, alias 'Syd', the Series Producer of Good Game on ABC2 and Jeremy, AKA 'Junglist', the Presenter of Good Game. Now, Good Game is really, really fascinating I think - there's an absolute dearth of mainstream videogame coverage that's actually kind of credible and not completely condescending. Where did you get the idea from? On top of that, how did you actually get into the industry, because I imagine the pitch would have been very interesting, Janet?
Janet: Yeah, I was actually ... I have worked for the ABC for quite a long time and was in a department of the ABC that was, at the time, looking after ABC2 and I was there actually series-producing a news and current affairs show for them and the Head of Production just came past my desk and said 'Janet have you got any ideas for any new programs, we're looking for content just for ABC2?' And having been a hardcore gamer for many, many, many, many years and I had always thought there was definitely a space on mainstream television for a show about gaming.
I wrote up a quick proposal, took it to my very good friend Junglist, who was my gaming buddy, and said 'Hey what about this?' and put it in, and they said 'Great, make us a pilot,' and they gave me a thousand dollars to make a pilot. So it was a good job that I had worked at the ABC for a number of years so I could call on lots of favours. My original intention for Junglist was that he'd be one of the researchers on the program, but of course we didn't have any money so I said 'Why don't you have a go at presenting?' and he said 'Yeah sure,' and so there he is, and what a good job he does. So that's how it all began and then after the pilot they said 'Sure go and make us thirteen episodes'.
PALGN: So what was your reaction to this Junglist? [laughs] I know what mine would have been, but what did you do?
Junglist: Well, yeah, that was my original plan as well, to sort of be a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. But I had a crack at the presenting thing, especially thinking with my obvious American accent that after the pilot they'd be like 'Yeah that was great but go find two Australians and then make the show,' but no, they didn't say that at all so [laughs] I was jumping for joy. It's a lot of fun, and we made the pilot ... I think it was a matter of showing that we could make that sort of quality show for very little money and I think we made the pilot for 800 bucks which is kind of unheard of. I'm still not even sure to this day why Janet consulted me because ...
Janet: Oh come on!
Junglist: At the time my only sort of gaming credibility was being in a good Counter-Strike team and playing competitively, but that's it.
PALGN: From my perspective I think that actually adds a lot of credibility because the thing that drives me utterly batty, is the level of condescension that most mainstream pays to gaming. They think it's all eight year olds running around murder simulators and all the usual stuff. I think Good Game's unique in that you guys actually try and take a bit of a higher road, which is good.
Janet: I think we'd come from, well I had come from, working on shows like Lateline and the 7.30 Report and so my background was very serious news and current affairs. Being such a passionate gamer I had found that I was spending more and more time in this environment, in the online world, and thinking that this, that the games themselves are worthy of serious analysis, they should be taken seriously. I think you're absolutely right, the mainstream media, there's still that perception - even though the average gamer is over thirty now in Australia - the perception still is that it's for children.
That is slowly changing, I argue - and this was part of the proposal - look at the number of shows that there are about music, look at the number of shows there are about TV, about movies, yet there's none about gaming, and yet it's a bigger entertainment sector than either of them. So I think that's what got the show over the line on ABC2 and now you know it's been relatively successful, so I think it's going to stay anyway, and I think the ABC actually, to their credit, is very proud of the fact that they have kind of been a bit of a trailblazer in this kind of area in mainstream television, and certainly they've been touting it overseas and such, so it's good.
Junglist: I think it helps definitely as well that Janet, I think you're very unique, in that you have a foot in both camps. I think that definitely, definitely mainstream media can be extremely condescending but even the gaming press is, from time to time, but Janet having that foot in both camps, where she's worked for Lateline for I don't know how many years and Radio National Breakfast and having that journalism background, as well being a pretty hardcore gamer, and me coming on with my kind of competitive stuff, and then Bajo coming on with ... just craziness [laughs].
Janet: Well he's passionate isn't he? He's passionate about games.
PALGN: He's a New Zealander isn't he?
Janet: He was born in New Zealand but spent most of his life in Australia.
PALGN: Yeah I don't know ... my wife is a New Zealander and once a New Zealander always a New Zealander, I think that just explains everything, personally [laughs].
Janet: [laughs] We're a very international crew.
PALGN: I'm glad you mentioned the whole media coverage and journalism thing, do you think it's going to stay that way? What do you think is going to change it, because I actually think it's a generally global issue; that's my take anyway. Part of it is that mainstream press takes a very poor approach to gaming journalism generally - the online press has its own challenges and issues, especially in the enthusiast space, I know Jason Hill at The Age recently won an award for broadening the audience of gaming. But, first of all, what do you think should change, and what do you think is needed for it to change?
Janet: Do you want to go Jeremy?
Junglist: Sure, I think Janet can probably give you a better answer, having been in TV for so many years but I think guys like Jason Hill are key, I really like his blog, I think it appeals to a lot of people, it raises the issues, and that guy just doesn't back down. I think he does some proper journalism stuff where he stands up to issues like the price fixing in Australia of games and that sort of stuff. Shows like X-Play and Attack of the Show!, and that sort of stuff - I don't know man, it seems like within the press there's kind of those who get it and those who don't and a lot of the decision makers don't, at the moment.
I think as we all get older that will change over time naturally but we obviously want it to happen faster than that, so it's a matter of fighting those battles and educating them and showing them those statistics and saying that Good Game did kind of start out from a grassroots, kind of garagey look, where you know we didn't have the big expensive set, but the audience doesn't actually care about that, and they've given that feedback as well, they just want the content.
Janet: And I think that when we were pitching the show, and certainly in the back of my mind when we were in there when we were actually creating it, is it's kind of, I call it the Top Gear feeling. Top Gear is one of my favourite shows on the television, yet I can't even tell you what model car I drive, that's how much I hate cars and yet I love that show. Now why? Is it because it's the warmth in the presenters and the information is presented so beautifully?
You see I think we try, on a much smaller budget, to make Good Game so that if you are a gamer, but one of your family members isn't, they can still sit through it without feeling like they'd rather go and shove pins in their eyes. It's going to be entertaining, informative, welcoming and friendly, and that's a pretty tough ask, and then also to try and keep the gamers happy because you know they're very...
Junglist: Yeah that's right, well in the gaming sphere you've got the hardcore and the sort of casual gamers and how do you walk the line between the two of those let alone people who aren't into gaming at all?
Janet: And we get criticised right, the hardcore gamers say 'there isn't much in the show for me,' and I would agree with them and I feel sorry for that and I would really like, one of the things I think - and I know Jeremy has been working hard towards this too - is actually boosting up our coverage of the local competitive gaming Australian scene.
PALGN: I'll be honest, I think you guys do a great job. From my perspective, actually it was when N'Gai Croal said it relatively recently - and it really resonated - interesting is interesting, irrespective of anything else. It doesn't matter what it's about, as long as it's interesting, that's good.
Janet: I agree and we always try. I mean our field stories - they're the stories where we go outside of the studio and actually go and investigate, well not really investigate, but explore, an area. To me those are really an essential part of the show, you know why did the arcades die, trying to understand why people can become addicted to gaming, why prices are fixed, why no R rating, those kinds of issues, exploring those. To try and broaden the understanding of the gaming phenomena in this country. 99 per cent of American boys under eighteen are videogamers, now it has to be a similar number in Australia, and it's 94 per cent of girls. There's a whole generation out there who just speak this language, who don't need it explained to them, but maybe their parents do a little bit.
PALGN: I know when we spoke to you about two years ago, one of the things you were keen on pushing was sort of cross-platform opportunities. I honestly question whether something like Good Game could get up and running on any other network, because I think you've got a little bit more, on one side more creative freedom, but on the other side the potential to do that kind of cross-platform comprehensive thing without turning it into just a massive marketing machine if you know what I mean ...
Janet: I agree.
PALGN: How much do you think has been at the ABC freed you up to be able to do this kind of stuff?
Janet: Immeasurably. To not have to worry about how we're going to get the dollar in through the door. I mean imagine the freedom of that. I feel for our colleagues in gaming journalism who don't have that freedom. I know there is a separation between editorial and the commercial side of the majority of the outlets, but nevertheless to know that your magazine may close down if they don't sell advertising space, to know that your website is completely reliant on banners and stuff, you know we are so free of that and it is...it is great. Sorry Jeremy, I probably cut you off there.
Junglist: I almost couldn't imagine what it would be like. You wouldn't give it up really [laughs].
Janet: There's responsibility with it though. The responsibility is with your editorial independence, your accuracy and your...to me it's about treating the subject with the due respect it deserves. When we do our reviews, the guys...the amount of effort they go into finishing these games, hours and hours and hours, the thought...
Junglist: JRPGS ...
PALGN: Oh god.
Junglist: MMOs ... argh!
Janet: You loved it!
PALGN: Tou must dread for when the expansion pack on WoW is getting released.
Janet: Argh ... argh.
Junglist: I've heard that you can create a level eighty in the BETA, so that'll help. MMOs and JRPGs are the bane of my reviewing life.
Janet: You see we're having a bit of a fight about that at the moment Evan. My attitude is look, if you're a WoW player, you're not going to be watching Good Game, you're going to be going and playing WoW, and if you're not a WoW player you're not going to give a stuff [laughs], so why don't we just ignore it? The boys don't agree.
Junglist: I will disagree, because there's a lot of other MMOs coming out at the moment. Warhammer is good, Conan could have been good, Lord of the Rings online is good and if you've got Warhammer and you're liking the PVP maybe you're thinking 'well maybe I just won't go play Wrath of the Lich King and maybe you want someone to have played it for you and tell you whether it's good, whether it's the same old reputation grinding crap or whether it's actually brought in a few good things.
Janet: You tell me now what you think ...
PALGN: That actually brings up something else I wanted to ask you. I have noticed that you tend to give much lower scores Jeremy, pretty consistently. Now there's been a debate that's been kicking around, I reckon it's brewing, it's going to come to a head I reckon in the next year or so about the role of reviews and scores in gaming and whether people should be taking an analytical perspective and breaking it down by component, whether it should be totally subjective, whether you should only really be reviewing the game if you enjoy the genre in the first place. What's your take? How do you review?
Junglist: Yeah we've been talking a lot about this lately as well, I personally have a very strict kind of thing that I do when I review now, but we've been talking about whether it's necessary to know the sort of canon of the genre in order to be doing one of those games, what sort of scores, what kind of ratings system is the best for games. In terms of score I just usually think about it in terms of stars, because one thing I've noticed lately, if you look at the movie show, At the Movies with David and Margaret, maybe look at some of the movies that they liked, look at some of the movies they didn't like, and they'll be getting like one stars and stuff, which is really a two out of ten, but you don't ever see a two out of ten.
You see eights out of ten very, very commonly in games, which would be the equivalent of a four out of five stars, which any kind of movie reviewing publication doesn't normally give. But the other side of that argument is that games companies invest millions and millions of dollars into these things, of course they want to make sure it's good, they're going to do whatever they can to make sure it's good across all aspects, so it's kind of logical that a lot of games would score high. I'm of the opinion that we should use the full spectrum, and yeah a four out of ten...I think that should be a lot more common.
PALGN: I think from my perspective, I think we've been conditioned by the enthusiast press pretty much since the launch of the Internet, when games sites started cropping up. No one wants to give a bad review because then they get denied access to future games, it's a broader issue.
Junglist: It is the whole exclusive thing as well ...
Janet: That's the terrible thing ... I don't know Evan with PALGN, but do you like have a budget to go and purchase games? You know, so if a developer, or a publisher was not to send you one because they didn't like something you'd written about a previous game, can you just go buy it?
PALGN: Yeah, we have a number of approaches we use. We've got relationships with all of the publishers who give us games, and if we can't get a game we'll either source it internally or through one of our own pockets, or rental, basically whatever. We do, we try as much as possible, well we do give a fair score, if you know what I mean, but again we have had from our perspective situations where people have been very shocked sometimes that we've given big name releases quite low scores ...
Janet: And to the point where the publisher has actually rung you and said something have they?
PALGN: Not sure, that's not my area, so I can't comment [laughs].
Janet: Sorry! Here I go, journalist mode ...[laughs].
PALGN: Who's doing the interview Janet? [laughs]
Janet: Sorry, sorry I can't help myself! I'm interested because I've only ever had that once. Once has someone has actually rung and said 'Oh that was interesting what you said about and what you did to our game,' and it was a perfectly nice conversation, but we do have a budget where we can actually just go and buy a game, the problem for us is then we have to of course wait for them to arrive on the shelf and that tips out the timing a bit because we make the show the week ahead of the game coming out ...
PALGN: There's content relevancy, which is always tricky.
Janet: There you go, you said it properly [laughs].
Junglist: We've even had a publisher say to us 'I know it's really bad so I'm not going to send it to you'.
Janet: Well they said it's not appropriate for our audience, to be fair to them.
Junglist: Well what's our audience? It's everyone right, it's everyone who likes games, young and old.
Janet: Yeah that's what I argue back, but you know that was their argument why we didn't get sent it.
PALGN: I know where you're coming from [laughs].
Junglist: It's an odd thing, one of the gaming journalists locally said to us once, 'That was ballsy giving Halo 3 an eight' and so I can sort of see what you're saying there. You get your fanboys on the forums as well saying 'Ah you just didn't understand it,' and that sort of stuff, but I think it's good when reviewers disagree. I mean games are more sort of black and white...they're more black and white, good or bad than movies or music, which are more down to taste, but still they are subjective and you should have a broad range ... you don't need to go to Metacritic and have every single site give it the same score you know, it's good to see both the good and bad things of what people have to say.
PALGN: Well that leads to another question - do you think anyone should actually base their buying decisions on the scores at the end of the day?
Junglist: Well there's been research into that hasn't there, saying that high scores do correlate with high sales, but they're not sure whether the reviewers just aren't necessary ... like if the public actually knows what's going to be good anyway, or if the scores actually affect the sales. Me personally? I look at the score. If I'm going to spend, especially in this country, pop a hundred bucks on a game, I'm going to want to know what I'm buying. Luckily with my job, I kind of know anyway now ... but I say it's pretty necessary, far more necessary than a movie where you pop twelve bucks down or whatever.
PALGN: Yeah that's true.
Janet: I do, but there would be some games that hit my buy-list regardless of what anyone said about them I think, and I think that's more to do with the fact that I love that particular genre, or I just want to continue that storyline ... and so I don't bother looking at reviews for that.
Junglist: That's the question isn't it, would you say for example Guitar Hero World Tour comes out, where you've bought every Guitar Hero previously but if you saw a couple of reviews online that gave it four out of ten, would you still buy it?
Janet: Well that did happen to me, because I didn't buy the eighties one and I was hanging out for that because I loved SingStar eighties, but I was like no I saw ... actually no I think I looked at the song list and thought 'ergh'.
Junglist: Yeah true, but that's a good point, you have that kind of trust with a franchise and then how do you know if they're going to do the old switcheroo on you and do another Aerosmith or something like that [laughs], it's got the Guitar Hero name on it, but it's not that same quality.
Janet: I think we are in a very interesting time as far as game reviewing is going as well. The difference between criticism and review, being able to put things now that videogaming is forty, nearly fifty years, fifty plus years old actually, you know we now have a context to actually talk about these games with a common language that people understand and that helps the reviewing situation.
PALGN: It's interesting too, because ... with the audience that killed me. Last year I reviewed Jam Sessions - it was similar to the latest Korg synthesiser that's been released. Technically it's a game, but realistically, it's not a game, and if you're forced into a certain review model which people expect, then you can't give it credit for what it is and you're forced to downgrade it, you know what I mean?
Janet: Did you find that it was, 'Ah I don't want to be forced into' ...
PALGN: Yeah. It's difficult, but on the same note it forces you to again ask who your audience is, why you're reviewing it, all that kind of stuff.
Janet: We have a slight ... there is different outlets as well with television. We have the ability to show the games moving in their full glory with their sound and vision and that is a very powerful thing I think that this thing has delivered, there it is and the viewers can actually see for themselves if they're going to like the look of the game, whether it looks like they're going to enjoy it, it's been a real advantage I think.
Junglist: You have to ask yourself that question towards the end of the review as well, the golden question, which is 'how much fun did I have?' And with something like that Jam Sessions or I don't know, My Life Coach or something like that [laughs], you've got to think...I suppose not much really, but that's not the purpose of the game. I think people will find their little places within reviewing and criticism and that sort of stuff and even if there's a lot of sites that kind of do the same thing...even right now you can go to a site where you know you're going to get the guy who gives a little bit of history on the development studio and he likes to put in little anecdotes about the developers and that sort of stuff and then you've got your guy who can say everything in six paragraphs and that's his talent and it's good to be able to sort of pick out your reviewers, that's a step forward I think.
PALGN: The choice is good. I've got to ask, we should probably move on a bit, as much as I'm enjoying this [laughs].
Janet: [laughs] You can't shut us up can you, that's the trouble!
PALGN: You guys are working with Infinite Interactive on the Good Game game, Office Wars. Where did that idea come from because it is a world-first, this idea of basically a community created game through a major publisher, how'd it happen?
Janet: [laughs] It was actually...it kind of came out of a workshop that we went to up at Singapore where there was a lot of games people talking about exciting things to do. One of the guys who was responsible for getting Good Game commissioned in the first place, a guy called Dan Fill, came back with that, from that, and we'd be talking about the idea of working together with our viewers to make our own game, then the AFC, who are now called Screen Australia got involved, and thank goodness they did, because basically they put up quite a lot of money.
In game development terms, was not a lot of money, it was thousands, I think about eighty-thousand dollars and that funded the mentorships for two Good Game viewers to go and actually go and be able to work on this project. So then we began this whole process of...and also to pay Infinite, or a professional developer, to help us build the game. That's when Infinite Interactive came onboard, they tended for the job, and you would have interviewed Steve and know that he's an incredible man and let's be realistic, he's not making a cent out of this, he's doing this because he really wants to give something back to the community and I think he felt it would be a fun project and would be an interesting way of working. So then we launched it via the program, the very initial idea, the viewers started joining in and Jeremy, you should take over...
Junglist: Yeah well I think it was ... it was after the first series of Good Game right, that workshop in Singapore?
Janet: Yeah we did that at the very end, but we didn't get the whole project up and running until the beginning of this year, so it took a year in planning.
Junglist: I'm always sceptical about going to those workshops where everyone's batting around ideas, like user-generated content was the buzzword of the month, especially around the ABC and all the cross-platform and 'Yeah! Let's use all these words and meetings,' but I think that just being there around all this creative energy made for some great conversations and the whole thing...we were thinking just about how to make the poll and we were still on a bit of a high from kicking the yellow monkey off the show [laughs] ...
PALGN: I was actually going to say earlier, I hope that he wasn't your equivalent of the Stig, seen as you enjoy Top Gear.
Junglist: No, he was going to be the cheats guy, because someone said from high up you have to have a cheats segment and I said 'I don't want to do a cheats segment and I certainly don't want to have my name attached to it' ...
Janet: Nothing to do with gaming yeah!
Junglist: Well yeah the other guy was like 'Yeah well I'm with Jungy,' so yeah we gave it to a puppet. We kicked the puppet off because of the results of one of the polls on the website, and we were like, 'That's so cool' and the audience loved it as well so let's do more of that. So this was kind of born of that, and every step of the way it's been like we've been having votes on our forum, polls, and give us ideas, send us in JPEGS of something you made in Photoshop, perhaps the company logo...
Janet: And we've actually got a playable demo now, which isn't quite ready to be released to the public, but Steven was down, Bajo was playing it yesterday and I've actually got a little - I'm not sure if I can send it over to you Evan - but I've got a little Quicktime thing of it...
PALGN: Yeah that would be cool.
Janet: Yeah and Zack and Tim, the two guys who got the mentorships, Zack is pretty much responsible for the whole look of the thing which is amazing really, he's 22, a student up in Brisbane, and wow there he is, got his big break in the industry.
Junglist: I think the deadline got bumped up and as soon as they got there they were promoted or something? I think because the deadline got bumped up they had to seek outside help and they had these external development teams that the guys on the mentorship program were put in charge of, it was like 'Wow, awesome for them'. A great story as well.
PALGN: That's brilliant. It's going to be interesting to see what comes out, because I'm pretty sure 80k may not sound like much people, but I'm pretty that sure Jonathan Blow was talking a budget of around about 180k to develop Braid ...
Junglist: See I'm skeptical of that. I know for a fact Jonathan Blow is the type of guy who ... he's a bit weird like that, he talks himself down, rather than talking himself up, so I'm sceptical, he was saying ...
Janet: But why Jeremy, I mean he coded it himself, in his house, he had a day job...
Junglist: If you look at what he did, you'd be thinking man I'd be talking myself up every single day ...
Janet: Yeah but for that money is what I meant, the money. I mean presumably he's not including paying himself in that, so for his 180 thousand dollars that was his, the artwork and we know that he sourced the music from ...
Junglist: I don't know if he's like including living costs in that or something, I know the whole project from start to finish, the initial idea to getting the game out the door was like five years. Obviously he was working on other stuff within those five years as well, he does the lectures, he helps other people with their games and ideas and that sort of stuff. Over that five year period, what went into that? 180k, I don't know ...
PALGN: I know from experience it's also hard to quantify the opportunity cost, because you'd be thinking about it overnight, as an example, and you tend to forget about those hours you were actually working you don't think you were working, you know what I mean?
Janet: Yeah, I doubt if that includes his time, I doubt that figure could possibly include his time, I mean how much would he charge his time for anyway? But it's a great little game isn't it?
PALGN: It's good fun. I was just going to say I have issues with the narrative in it, but that's probably a separate discussion.
Janet: Ah well you'd want to have a chat with him about that!
Junglist: Is this the non-linear story is it?
PALGN: No, no, we actually had a chat about it a few weeks ago on the podcast, I have...I think that interpretative story-telling is great, but I think that he's gone way too far over the line, leaving everything vague and deliberately trying to confuse the viewer, reader, whatever. I don't think that's good story-telling, I think it's more pseudo-intellectualism, and 'I'm smarter than thou' sort of stuff. But the game itself, the mechanics are phenomenal. I actually reviewed it, and I was saying that basically - oh no I didn't review it sorry, Jeremy reviewed it - but I was talking about it and I was saying that it is arguably the game of the year just for sheer delivery and mechanics and everything else, as a game, phenomenal.
Janet: Which will be ... if we end up giving it game of the year - we gave Portal game of the year last year - it will be 'here we go again' another five hours or less ...
Junglist: Well it thoroughly deserves it you know ...
Janet: Yeah, yeah I know, but don't you think that's interesting, that it is actually these smaller games, that have a really interesting mechanic in them that are actually making us think 'Wow, yeah that's game of the year.' I actually think you might have a bit of a contender with LittleBigPlanet.
PALGN: Yeah, it's going to be interesting. We're busy setting up the schedule for the next few weeks, and one of the things we're going to have a chat about internally is whether or not we're going into another golden age of gaming, because the stuff that's coming out over the last few years is just getting more and more impressive on so many levels you know?
Janet: Isn't it. Isn't it, and you think about when we first started Good Game it looked like platforming was dead in the water, and yet how many great platform games have we had this year?
Junglist: Mario Galaxy ... last year.
Janet: [laughs] Yeah Braid and now LittleBigPlanet.
PALGN: Yeah, it's phenomenal. Anyway I better call time on this one, otherwise we're going to be chatting for another hour.
Janet: [laughs] Didn't Jeremy warn you?
Junglist: Oh yeah, get me and Janet together ...
PALGN: Well yeah I reckon that, or otherwise you're going to flip it around and start interviewing me, from your questions, which I've got to stop [laughs].
Junglist: I tell you what, why don't we interview you for a little bit and you just send over the tape and we'll split it.
Janet: For our podcast [laughs].
PALGN: Excellent, well thanks so much for your time, it's been really great talking to you.
Janet: Thank you Evan, that has been awesome.
Junglist: No worries Evan, thank you yeah.
PALGN would like to again thank Janet and Jeremy for giving up so much of their time for this fascinating interview.
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