I have just finished my first interview with GameZone www.gamezone.com

They contacted me via email and mentioned that they could send the questions via email. I anticipated several relatively standard questions that I could think about and answer within 20 minutes...how wrong was I?

12 questions arrived, 6 of which I did not anticipate and some that I did not understand fully. So, after about six hours of thinking/writing and re-writing my answers it's been sent off.

What have I learnt from this? Do phone interviews, even if it is to the other side of the world.

Alfie

Glad to see my press release got you some big name interviews :-). Gamezone is a good supporter of indie games.

-Joe

Did I go over the top by mentioning, nipple dipping, yetti's and the Royal family in my responses?

Let's hope they have a sense of humour and publish it :) After all games are about fun, right?

Alfie

I prefer to do interviews (with me or by me) by email. There are several reasons: no long distance fees, no need to record the conversation, each side of the interview gets to choose when to respond, more control over the questions asked, more control over the answers I give, and so on.

To each his own.

-David

They contacted me via email and mentioned that they could send the questions via email. I anticipated several relatively standard questions that I could think about and answer within 20 minutes...how wrong was I?

What have I learnt from this? Do phone interviews, even if it is to the other side of the world.

Usually that's how most email interviews are, very dull and straight forward. Personally I prefer interviews in person, over the phone, or (if I'm desperate) IRC/chat (in fact, I refuse to do them via email). The problem with email interviews is that you almost never see appropriate followup questions asked, and the questions are so obviously canned that it's not even worth reading the responses most the time.

Interviews over the phone or in person have the advantage of your personality. Meaning that if the two of you connect you'll be happier with the result. As the person doing the interview it's nice doing them in person because you can ask questions that you know they would never answer via email. :)

I did an interview for Gamezone last year. They didn't really ask any off the wall questions but I was impressed by the ones they did ask. Food for fact freaks and nerds everywhere.

Cas :)

...The problem with email interviews is that you almost never see appropriate followup questions asked, and the questions are so obviously canned that it's not even worth reading the responses most the time.

That's not an inherent problem with email interviews. It's a problem with the interviewer. A phone or face-to-face interview can go much the same way: question 1, answer 1, question 2, answer 2, etc.

Same goes for the questions asked. If the questions aren't interesting, the responses aren't likely to be either. Doesn't matter whether the interviewee responds via email, cellphone, or semaphore.

On the flipside, though, if the questions have been prepared well, and evolved through use, you could ask 100 people the exact same questions and their responses will be entertaining/educational/exciting/etc to read because both questions and answers will be relevant to the target audience.

-David

Another possibility: do a phone/chat interview but ask to edit the transcript afterward. This way you get the best of both worlds--true interaction that shows some personality, and a way to correct the dumb little mistakes that come up when you're talking off-the-cuff. Many magazine interviews are done this way.

-Erik

My favourite 'interview' was with Greg from diygames for his gamepads article. He just sent over a disposable camera and asked us to take some pictures. It was great fun, although unfortunately we got carried a little and there were a couple of 'compromising' shots of the only single member of our team and various ladies which we had to remove.

I hope Greg finds time to get a few more developers to do a gamepads article, the one with digital eel is a great laugh too!

Gamezone as published the interview, for anyone who wants to read it.

Unfortunately they pulled the section where I talk about the Nipple Dipping technique for a posible future game :).

It's in the news section on the front page www.gamezone.com and heres the direct link http://www.gamezone.com/news/07_22_04_11_57AM.htm


Alfie