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This analysis about the intentional fallacy and meta-conversations as it relates to gaming perfectly encapsulates why I think there is often a major disconnect between people that play games vs. people that don't when trying to figure out what are good starting games.

 

http://www.edge-online.com/features/the-importance-of-meta-conversations-and-the-intentional-fallacy/

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While I understand the practical desire for mono, likely putting me in the minority here: I have to say the stereo in this was abnormally good.  It brought a real sense of warmth and space and being there very few podcasts offer, and genuinely enhanced the experience for me.  Perhaps narrowing the left-to-right balance would be a nice happy medium.  Food for thought.

 

May I ask what kind of mic you used for this?  It's exactly what I've been searching for in my own podcasting projects. 

 

Steve, I really dug your interviewing - perhaps "conversational" is a better word here - technique.  You have a good instinct for guiding the discussion along; more a social skill than a journalistic one.  It really works.  And Sean's talk of channelling anxieties into creative energy aligned perfectly with some personal thoughts I was trying to process at the time.  I cannot stress how important it was to hear those specific words at that specific time.  Thank you.

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Thanks so much for listening! Glad this stuff seems interesting. And, glad SOMEbody likes the stereo :P For future episodes I may try pulling it in as suggested, to find a better balance.

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I love the stereo effect when using both earplugs but i often only have one on when cycling for example to better hear traffic. As such, while I prefer stereo aesthetically I prefer mono in practice.

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I'll also say I am generally a fan of stereo for podcasts even if I understand where others are coming from wishing it was mono. I find it especially helpful for podcasts like Idle Thumbs - where there are lots of different voices - in helping to distinguish between people before you know who everyone is...

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Just wanted to say that I've really enjoyed both of the TC podcasts so far.  Keep it up!

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So I was just thinking, "Man, I'd like a Tone Control episode with Greg Kasavin." So I looked at the upcoming episode hits and whaddaya know, March 1 is "???? ??o & ???? ?????i?" which fits perfectly with "Amir Rao & Greg Kasavin". Sweet!

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So I was just thinking: p0wn control.

 

Out of my brain into the forums.

 

Sorry.

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I seem to remember hearing Scoops on an extremely similar game design interview podcast with the same kind of style and tone. It even had the interviewer/interviewee channel split thing (which may or may not just be a common thing in the world of audio interviews). I don't remember what it was, but it definitely had Steve on it as a guest and it was definitely similar.

 

EDIT: Found it: http://gamedesignadvance.com/?p=2330

 

It's like proto-tone control!

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Does anyone else feel a bit uncomfortable listening to these, not in terms of content but rather the actual recording? There's something weird about either the recording or mastering that makes it sound as if the voices are between your ears, or maybe slightly behind, when you're listening with headphones, but all the audio cues indicate that it shouldn't be.

 

It's really strange, I've never had this kind of feeling with any other Podcast.

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As of writing this there are now 11 episodes of Tone Control, and I gotta say it's a bit weird that there's been no ladies on yet.

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Will Tone Control continue to be a podcast in the future? I notice that there are no further scheduled episodes.

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As of writing this there are now 11 episodes of Tone Control, and I gotta say it's a bit weird that there's been no ladies on yet.

Kim Swift seems like a shoe-in. Amy Henning and Jane Jensen would also be very interesting I expect.

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As of writing this there are now 11 episodes of Tone Control, and I gotta say it's a bit weird that there's been no ladies on yet.

 

Being notable in the video game industry is largely about self-promotion. Most of the "notable" women in video games these days aren't creators but are twitterers, bloggers, etc.

 

It's actually really interesting, sad and regressive. Lists of notable female game developers are often highly skewed towards women working in the Atari / 286 era. They've actually become more invisible over time and now the vast majority of female gaming personalities have very little to do with the creation of games - the "notable" women in video games these days are mostly women dealing specifically with "women's issues."

 

It's interesting to compare someone like Kim Swift to someone like Jonathan Blow. Blow appears in all sorts of media - his talking head videos appear on Gamespot, he gives lectures at various events, he's the subject of numerous sycophantic bio pieces in major magazines. Kim Swift has a pretty low profile. But Portal is a much better game than Braid - so what gives? Hell, Erik Wolpaw gets more press than Kim Swift. Hell, Jonathan Coulton gets more press than Kim Swift.

 

I don't know if Kim Swift is shy about press and doesn't self-promote or if people are just incurious or what, but it is odd.

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Kim Swift seems like a shoe-in. Amy Henning and Jane Jensen would also be very interesting I expect.

 

Hennig.

 

The only reason I mention this is that I was just googling for lists of notable women in game development and a list I found spelled it wrong as well.

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Anna Anthropy and Porpentine would also be fascinating, although I think you'd have to avoid having them on the same podcast as I recall they don't get on.

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here's a list by Emily Short

another one by metafilter member subject_verb_remainder

 

IMO these types of lists do more harm than good.

 

I get the intent but the reality is that these sorts of lists basically ghettoize women in games and imply that the way for women to be notable in games, especially these days, is not to make good games but to specifically address "women's issues" or throw red meat to liberals. You see this sort of thing all the time in video game media as well - a website has 10 male writers and 1 female one and the woman is basically on the women's issues beat.

 

This sends the message that female game "journalists" can't succeed just by doing a good job, and similarly that female developers can't be notable just by doing good work or working on big franchises - instead they have to do women's work. This "women's work" is often gender / feminism / "social justice" related so maybe on some level that seems like a good thing, but I think in the end it's ultimately destructive and still implies that women are only valuable when doing womanly things. It's a little more subtle than "a woman's place is in the kitchen" but not by all that much - the woman's place is in creating visual novels about lesbian dating that draw zero revenue, while men get to create Call of Duty.

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IMO these types of lists do more harm than good.

 

I get the intent but the reality is that these sorts of lists basically ghettoize women in games and imply that the way for women to be notable in games, especially these days, is not to make good games but to specifically address "women's issues" or throw red meat to liberals. You see this sort of thing all the time in video game media as well - a website has 10 male writers and 1 female one and the woman is basically on the women's issues beat.

 

This sends the message that female game "journalists" can't succeed just by doing a good job, and similarly that female developers can't be notable just by doing good work or working on big franchises - instead they have to do women's work. This "women's work" is often gender / feminism / "social justice" related so maybe on some level that seems like a good thing, but I think in the end it's ultimately destructive and still implies that women are only valuable when doing womanly things.

 

I don't know, increasing visibility is always a good thing for the oppressed. You might as well argue that Black History Month perpetuates racism by implying that black history is not everyone else's history. And yeah, sure, in a very limited way, but the truth is that black history is really not everyone else's history. Millennia of bigotry and oppression have made sure of that. Similarly, women in the games industry are not everyone else in the games industry. They're underrepresented and disregarded, so should be celebrated, that's all.

 

More practically, we've heard how thirteen or fourteen dudes made it big in video games, it'd be cool to hear how a woman did the same, because we know it'd be a different road at least in some ways, so I'm curious.

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