StaceyPowers

What video game world do you most expect our RL future to be like? At this point, I’d say The Last of Us.

What are the best strategies for preventing video game rage from happening? I think being realistic about expectations goes a long ways (i.e. video games are collaborative efforts of huge teams, and there are bound to be bugs and design flaws – if one goes in mentally prepared for that, they are less infuriating when they happen).

Have you ever bought any video game fan art? I just bought this poster of Elizabeth from BioShock Infinite: https://www.etsy.com/listing/177584472/elizabeth-from-bioshock-infinite

Did you ever go through a period of being totally burned out on a game you love? Did you get back into enjoying it again? If so, how? Did you take a break? Or just approach it differently?

If you had to work for a video game developer, what do you think would be the best one to work for? Which do you think would be the worst? Why?

Obviously items can be overpowered in multiplayer games, upsetting the balance between players. But what about in single player games? Can an item be too powerful to the point where instead of just giving you a fun advantage, it actually makes the game too easy and less fun?

Are there some features or aspects of gaming that you preferred greatly from previous generations that are gone now? What are they?

Sometimes, I see folks say that they do not consider a particular video game or even a whole format for games a “real game.” For you personally, what elements does something require for you to define it as a “game?”

How do you charge your controllers? Do you plug them directly into your console? Do you use a USB adaptor for a regular wall socket? Do you have a charging station?

What is the oldest game you still play regularly?

Have you ever done a really bad job building your character with skill/point distributions, and then struggled afterwards? What did you do to make your character more functional and playable?

Do you ever have a hard time saying whether a game is objectively poorly designed versus whether you simply subjectively find it unintuitive?

Zevia

What's the most challenging job you ever worked on?

What's a game that got off to an amazing start, and then just fizzled out or tanked?

What animal would be most interesting to play in a video game?

What video game on average crosses your mind the most over a long period of time, adjusting for games you might think of more just because you are playing them at the moment? For me, it is still BioShock Infinite.

What is your most recent existential thought?

What’s the most you’ve spent on gaming all at once (not including console purchases)? For me, I think it was around $150 one day.

What are all the ways in which your life is better with gaming in it (aside from just being able to enjoy the games themselves)? For example, I sleep better and have more of a social outlet.

For those that work, if you didn’t have to, would you game more each day or the same amount of time?

What is something you enjoy in video games more than IRL, other than the obvious thing of brutal combat? Like, gardening is satisfying to me in Skyrim, and makes me think I could get into it IRL, and then I think about trying, and I’m just like “nope, too much work/too intimidating.”

What quality or characteristic do you tend to appreciate in a game that a lot of people despise? Like, I like games with low player agency, and a lot of people do not. I also often appreciate ludonarrative dissonance, and some folks hate it. Lots of side quests are another positive for me that are a negative for many other gamers.

What is most motivating to you in a video game? Completing quests? Gaining XP? Getting items? Discovering lore? Getting trophies? Progressing a storyline? Delight at solving a puzzle? Helping a character? Exploration? What drives you forward the most?

I think games can hypothetically make awesome holiday gifts. But since they are sometimes a huge time investment, I think they only make sense if one knows exactly what is on someone’s wishlist, and/or it is something small and cheap. Gift certificates are better. Thoughts?