My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

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Ellie Gibson, comedian (Scummy Mummies). Apr 28, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is Ellie Gibson, an award--winning journalist, presenter, and one half of the comedy double act Scummy Mummies. Born in South London, my guest joined Sony in 2001 and there wrote the manuals for first-party PlayStation games.

She moved into journalism, covering games for a variety of publications, including Eurogamer, The Guardian, Metro, and Vice. In 2013 she met aspiring comic Helen Thorn and together the pair decided to form a double-act to celebrate the scummier side of parenting.

Since then, they have toured the UK to packed-out venues and launched of the world’s most popular parenting podcasts examining everything from mental health, to politics, wine to sex. My guest has continued to play games, however, appeared as a co-presenter on Dara O’ Briain’s Go 8-bit TV series and via streaming marathons on Twitch.

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Ronan Farrow, investigative journalist, New Yorker. Apr 24, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is the Pulitzer Prize-winning American investigative journalist Ronan Farrow. Born in New York City he earned his degree in philosophy at just fifteen. While a teenager he served as a UNICEF Spokesperson for Youth, advocating for children and women caught up in the Darfur crisis in Sudan. In 2009, at 22 years old, he became a special advisor to the Obama administration, then a Rhodes Scholar, earning his PhD in political science at Magdalen College, Oxford.

It was his work detailing allegations of sexual misconduct against the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, published in the New Yorker, that situated my guest in the centre of the global spotlight, however. His reporting has had profound effects, both within the film industry, and further afield.

Through all of this, video games have been a constant. “I love video games,” he told the New York Times in 2021. “Big nerd here."

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Dan Vecchitto, gamemaker (Trombone Champ). Apr 20, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is Dan Vecchitto, the American creator of one of 2022’s funniest games. In Trombone Champ, you play as a trombonist and must blast your way through a setlist of classical pieces, national anthems, and traditional songs in a brilliant and riotously silly reinterpretation of Guitar Hero.

After a journalist for PC Gamer posted a video of himself ruining Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in the game last year, Trombone Champ became a viral sensation, propelling my guest and his wife collaborator into the spotlight. Colleen Wheeler of the International Trombone Association told the Guardian: “It is abundantly clear that this is the finest video game ever created.”

Riding high on that success, my guest and his wife recently made a webgame to promote Gabrielle Zevin's smash hit novel ‘Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow’. “I don’t know why there’s not more comedy in games,” he once said. “Because games can be so funny.”

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Charles Cecil MBE, gamemaker (Broken Sword, Beneath a Steel Sky). Apr 17, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is the legendary British video game designer, Charles Cecil. While a student at Manchester University, a friend invited him to write a text adventure which led him to work for the video game publishers US Gold and, later, Activision. In 1990 he co-founded Revolution Software in the North of England.

After releasing Lure of the Temptress and Beneath a Steel Sky, he began work on Broken Sword, a world-spanning adventure game starring the American patent lawyer, George Stobbart and his French girlfriend, Nicole Collard, a freelance journalist. The game had a witty script, was beautifully illustrated, and featured a soundtrack by Barrington Pheloung, the composer of the Inspector Morse TV series, who my guest first met over a game of cricket.

After Sony reluctantly brought the game to PlayStation, it became a smash hit, leading to a string of successful sequels. But the course has not always been easy. “The audience for adventure games is limited,” he once told me. “But that audience is incredibly loyal.”

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Grace Curtis, science fiction author (Frontier, Floating Hotel). Apr 13, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is Grace Curtis, a video game critic and one of the most exciting new voices in science fiction writing. Born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, she graduated from the UEA with a degree in English Literature with Creative Writing in 2019. Since then, she has worked as a freelance critic, contributing to Edge magazine and Eurogamer, and with the game publisher Future Friends, part of the team that helped bring you indie hits such as Vampire Survivors, Cloud Gardens and Heaven’s Vault.

In 2023 she published her debut novel Frontier, a sci fi western set in the distant future when climate change has returned the Earth to a desert wasteland ruled over by gunslingers and horse thieves. Frontier is a tale of love, loss and laser guns. She is currently working on a second book for Hodder & Stoughton, Floating Hotel, described as ‘The Grand Budapest Hotel in Space’.

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Erik Wolpaw, writer Portal 1 & 2. Apr 10, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is Erik Wolpaw, the American writer for some of the funniest video games yet made. In the nineties he and a friend founded the website Old Man Murray, a satirical online publication that poked fun at video gaming’s sacred cows, and established a tone still prevalent across the internet today. The site was read by Gabe Newell, creator of Half-Life, who later hired both writers.

At Valve my guest collaborated on a new game in which a vindictive artificial intelligence chastises players as they solve a series of puzzle rooms using a gun that fires warp points. Portal became a smash hit; Stephen Merchant, co-creator of The Office, voiced a character in the sequel. Today my guest continues to work as a semi-retired contractor for Valve. “In defense of games, I want to point out that the writing in plays, including everything by August Strindberg and The Lion King, is 100% pure crap,” he once joked. “So, we’re doing better than they are, even though they have the benefit of mostly not being about space marines.”

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Sir Ian Livingstone, co-founder Games Workshop. Apr 06, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is the English fantasy author and champion of the video game industry, Sir Ian Livingstone. In 1975, while in his mid-twenties, he founded a boardgame company, Games Workshop, which soon caught the attention of the American creators of a new tabletop game, Dungeons and Dragons.

My guest brokered a deal to sell D&D in the UK as a mail order company, and in 1977 opened the company’s first retail shop in South London. In 1982 he published the first of the Fighting Fantasy books, which have now sold more than 20 million copies.

He joined the video game industry and, at the publisher Eidos, helped bring the Tomb Raider and Hitman series to the world. In 2022 he was honoured with a knighthood for services to the games industry. “Play has always been seen as trivial,” he once said. “Yet when we arrive in this world, we all learn through play.”

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Susan Calman, comic, writer, presenter. Apr 03, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is the Scottish comedian, television presenter and writer, Susan Calman. While studying law at the University of Glasgow, she spent three months in North Carolina working with criminals on death row. After she graduated, she became a corporate lawyer, and soon started performing as a stand-up in the evenings. After seven years, she left the legal profession behind to become a full time comic, winning the Best New Scottish Comedian at the Real Radio Variety Awards in 2009.

Since then she has become a fixture on British television and radio, a regular guest on Radio 4 panel shows The News Quiz and I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. In 2018 she was honoured by the University of Glasgow for her work in broadcasting as well as her campaigning on issues related to LGBT rights and mental health.

“A lot of comics of my generation play games,” she once said. “To me it’s a bigger issue than gaming: it’s the art direction, it’s the music, it’s the expression. It’s more than just some guys in their pants shooting things.”

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Henk Rogers, the man who sold Tetris. Mar 27, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is the Dutch video game designer and entrepreneur, Henk Rogers. While a student at the University of Hawaii, he’d while away the hours playing Dungeons and Dragons with his friends. After he moved to Japan, he bought a computer and used it to develop a role-playing game of his own, called Black Onyx, tailored to the Japanese market. When the game’s backer pulled out of the deal, he decided to self-publish the game, and borrowed $50,000 from a friend to set up Bullet-Proof Software.

Black Onyx sold 150,000 copies and influenced the creation of the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series. But it was a Russian game that made my guest truly famous when he helped broker the deal between the Soviet Union and Nintendo that brought Tetris to the world. That story has now been made into a film, set to debut on Apple TV this month.

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Jake Solomon, game designer (Marvel’s Midnight Suns; XCOM: Enemy Unknown.) Mar 21, 2023

Show notes

My guest today is the American designer of some of the finest strategy video games yet made. After graduating from the University of Oklahoma with a degree in Computer Science in 2000, he accepted a job to become a business consultant. Before he arrived for work, however, he saw an advertisement for position at Fireaxis, the development studio founded by the legendary designer, Sid Meier, which he successfully applied to.

Having worked as a programmer on Civilization III and IV, in 2012 he relaunched the cult classic strategy series X-COM, a chess-like game in which players direct a squad of troops in skirmishes against alien invaders. More recently he steered the creation of Marvel’s Midnight Suns, one of the best games of 2022, that carried the lessons learned in X-Com into Marvel universe.

Earlier in 2023 he announced his departure from Fireaxis, the company where he worked for more than 20 years. “My brain is on fire with a new dream,” he said. “Time to go chase it.”

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Become a My Perfect Console supporter and receive a range of benefits at www.patreon.com/myperfectconsole

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