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Author
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Topic: GameFan Memories (WAS: Back at home!)
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kdeselms
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Member # 14
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posted December 26, 2004 04:33 PM
Just got home about an hour and a half ago...going to rack out and
recover. I'll be writing a long bit o' business about my travels in
China and Tokyo, tomorrow. Hope everyone had a happy holiday!
[ January 04, 2005, 03:06 PM: Message edited by: kdeselms ]
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Kevin Deselms
(kdeselms@gmail.com)
"It's
like I told my ex-wife, I says, 'Honey, I never drive faster'n I can
see and besides that...it's all in the reflexes.'" - Jack Burton, the
Pork Chop Express.
My DVD Collection
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Nick
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posted December 26, 2004 05:28 PM
You're back already? I though you were going to be gone for like 3 weeks.
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"You know, I was God once.
Yeah, I noticed. You were doing well until everyone died."
Posts: 842 | From: Jersey | Registered: Oct 2002
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kdeselms
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Member # 14
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posted December 27, 2004 06:09 AM
Nope, just two...I was in China for nine days and Japan for three. It
was a really interesting trip - if Jessica hadn't been there with me,
China would have made my head swim. People who go alone to these places
either know the language really well, or are EXTREMELY brave. Shanghai
was a lot more english-friendly than Beijing or Nanjing, both of which I
think it'd be tough to navigate without a decent command of Mandarin.
After studying for about a year, I wouldn't say I know enough to get
around yet...still way too many gaps in my vocabulary.
Tokyo
really surprised me by how NOT english-friendly it is. I kinda expected
more in the way of English menus and English speaking people...it was a
surprise to find out how few people outside the airport speak English.
Ordering at the restaurants we went to was, therefore, QUITE an
adventure. Jessica would never allow me to just eat McDonalds or KFC
(although after one particularly unsatisfying and EXPENSIVE meal, which
I'll write about, I did eat a double cheeseburger).
Anyway, I'll
write it all down as best as I can remember it. Wish I'd have brought my
laptop so I could have written while I was there, but we set a pretty
fast pace and there was family stuff to do, as well.
Also have to
get up to speed on what's happened while I was gone. I saw Thomas got
his PSP - they were NOWHERE to be found, while I was in Tokyo. Sold out
everywhere I checked (about five of the major shops, both in Akihabara
and Shibuya). They had plenty of games/perhiperals, and lots of empty
PSP boxes for display. I did get to play Ridge Racer on a demo system
though...really cool. I like the little disc analog controller, neat
innovation for a portable system. The screen on this thing is definitely
the right size and crystal-clear...and I like the wider aspect ratio.
The styling of the system is nice and it fits in my hands pretty well.
I'll get one when it comes out over here. Wish I could have cashed in on
the PSP craze on eBay though!
I'll also mention that I played
the first "rhythm" game in a LONG time (since Guitar Freaks, maybe) that
I liked - it was a traditional Japanese drum game made by Namco. I was
pretty good at it, but it was just fun to pound the drums with those
heavy sticks. I only wish the music would have been more traditional,
too...they cutsied the graphics and music up too much. I wanted that
"boom boom boom boom" style music ![[Smile]](ultimatebb1.php_files/smile.gif) We also tried Pachinko, which I am completely and utterly baffled by. I just don't get the appeal at all.
[ December 27, 2004, 06:12 AM: Message edited by: kdeselms ]
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Kevin Deselms
(kdeselms@gmail.com)
"It's
like I told my ex-wife, I says, 'Honey, I never drive faster'n I can
see and besides that...it's all in the reflexes.'" - Jack Burton, the
Pork Chop Express.
My DVD Collection
Posts: 1457 | From: North Hollywood | Registered: Oct 2002
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Super Wes
General
Member # 18
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posted December 27, 2004 09:53 AM
Hey Kev, nice to hear that you had a good time! I figured as much on
the PSPs. When I lived there I had enough trouble finding stuff that
WASN'T short-shipped. What did you end up buying? Any cool electronics
to fill your extra suitcase?
That Drum game that you liked is
actually available now on the PS2 in America. The Japanese name is
Taiko no Tetsujin and they're up to iteration 7 or 8 in arcades. The US
version is called Taiko Drum Master, and although it's not quite the same experience it's technically the same game.
The
US song list is kinda bunk. I don't think there are any traditional
Japanese songs on it, but it does have a Katamari Damacy song...
-Wes
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Hit the home page
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Riot
Lieutenant
Member # 19
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posted December 28, 2004 05:48 AM
Ah, glad to have you back Kevin. I love how you were surprised that
almost no one speaks english in Tokyo, that's so American of you ![[Wink]](ultimatebb1.php_files/wink.gif) Glad to hear you had a great time, drop some more photos on us! So Finland is next stop right?
To
be real, I think getting around in Tokyo is easy, guides and such are
in English, so it's easy to get around, but sometimes you do have to
look for those signs and especially exits in the stations. Certainly
outside Tokyo it's completely different, there really nothing is in
English.
Now eating is a whole different thing, it's a pain if
you want to go "local", because you really need a japanese-speaking
person with you.
I think me and Kevin share the same taste in
food, so I know how you feel. At last TGS I ate five nights out of seven
at an irish pub because they had great fish and cheaps which was
relatively cheap. I'm cool with that. I like my food basic and I like
food that I know, thats all I need. So one night we went out to eat at a
local place and of course, by the end of the night we had to pay triple
of what we thought we would have to and I was still hungry after that.
I like to pay for food I know I will like and be content with.
Sorry to be so uncultured, but I just like a good steak and fries or a burger. Or Italian food. Especially Tiramisu for desert.
So
yeah, I tend to eat at the western places in Tokyo, cuz I know what I'm
getting and I know I wont be left hungry after eating.
I'm very
happy that you are down with the PSP, I know me and Levi are digging
ours. I really recommend the puzzler Lumines, which has kept me from
playing Ridge Racers.
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kdeselms
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posted December 29, 2004 03:01 AM
Yeah, I'm not sure why I thought more people would speak English in Japan - maybe that IS kind of American of me
Yes,
you and I are alike when it comes to eating. I definitely don't love
the idea of spending money on food I won't like...Jessica loves trying
new things, she's much more adventurous than I am and doesn't seem to
mind spending money on stuff she didn't end up liking. For me, I like to
eat things I enjoy. If I eat something new and I enjoy it, that's
great...but I'm reluctant to try new things, just because I feel like
the odds are pretty good I won't like it.
Of the new stuff I
tasted in China, I think I probably liked about 40% of it. The rest I
either was lukewarm about, or strongly disliked. The Yam place was
almost comical...of the seven courses they brought out, I liked two
items. It was remarkable to me, how a cheap cheeseburger went down so
much better and more satisfying than all those exotic and
super-expensive Yam and raw fish dishes!
Like you say...call me uncultured - I can't help what I like.
It
looks like profits have scaled way back on the PSP recently, so I guess
it's not a huge loss that I wasn't able to pick one or two up for eBay
fodder. I like the system, so I'll get one when it comes out over here.
Unless they do a Ridge Racer bundle or something.
[ December 29, 2004, 03:05 AM: Message edited by: kdeselms ]
--------------------
Kevin Deselms
(kdeselms@gmail.com)
"It's
like I told my ex-wife, I says, 'Honey, I never drive faster'n I can
see and besides that...it's all in the reflexes.'" - Jack Burton, the
Pork Chop Express.
My DVD Collection
Posts: 1457 | From: North Hollywood | Registered: Oct 2002
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Nick
General
Member # 20
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posted December 29, 2004 11:38 PM
In typical Videowrestleing thread derailment, check out this thread over
at TNL. Shidoshi started a thread about GameFan and it's snowballed
into a "Remember when..." thread.
http://www.the-nextlevel.com/board/showthread.php?t=33808&page=1&pp=40
You were at GF for more than a year weren't you Kev?
--------------------
"You know, I was God once.
Yeah, I noticed. You were doing well until everyone died."
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kdeselms
Administrator
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posted December 30, 2004 10:40 PM
Okay, be prepared...this is a long one.
It’s so funny to me
that years and years after the magazine’s demise, people are still
talking about GameFan. I think that magazine probably had the most loyal
following in the industry. I came in after the departure of Halverson,
when Jay Puryear was acting as publisher. Jody Seltzer, who was part of
GameFan from very early and was basically responsible for GameFan Books,
was a good friend of mine from back in the day. He hired me to be his
assistant manager at a game shop in Colorado called “Power Play
Games.� This was circa 1991, during the height of the 16-bit era. I
used to hang out at the store and B.S. with him, we got to be chummy and
when the owner came in and I was there, chatting with customers and
recommending stuff (actually waiting for him to deliver Final Fantasy
2), he told Jody to get an application from me, so they could unload
their current assistant manager and hire me in his place. I worked there
for around a year or so, I guess. Jody and Lew (the owner) ended up
moving to California to hook up with Diehard Gameclub when Lew’s Power
Play business started going south. They were hoping to start up a
Gameclub franchise, I believe. Anyway, Jody and Halverson hit it off,
while Lew apparently clashed with him. So Jody worked for GameFan until
Imagine offered him a job (presumably to head up a books department,
since he'd run GameFan books with a great deal of success). Things
didn’t happen for him there, so he ended up coming back to GameFan
again when Jay took over.
The details of how I wound up at
GameFan have been covered early in my columns on the VideoWrestling
site…but while I was there, things were fairly fun. I was one of two
people (Sam Kennedy being the other) hired to beef up the website. Since
my focus had become television and video editing, I felt I had
knowledge and ability beyond that which was being shown by other game
sites in their video offerings. So I decided to give our site a
different draw, by cutting promos for every major game we previewed and
reviewed. Sam Kennedy was brought in at the same time, because he had
earned a reputation as a news hound and also had a very solid and
communicative Japanese contact who provided quite a few good scoops. We
thought that since he was getting news all day, and we were basically
writing all day, we’d buck the trend of all the sites updating at 6pm
and go all day long, whenever something was ready. This ended up working
against us a lot of times, because we’d scoop something and then the
competition would snap it up and use it as their own. But between
Sam’s news and my video contributions and of course, review and
preview writing by all three of us (Brandon Justice was the existing
online writer), our traffic increased fairly rapidly. I don’t know
whether it’s Sam taking credit for quadrupling traffic in his first
few months or whether someone else wrote that, but it certainly wasn’t
his news alone that accomplished this. We easily quadrupled the amount
of worthwhile content that was being published exclusively on
GameFan.Com and that was entirely a team effort, among the three of us. I
had Thomas feeding me European exclusives that angered the Euro sites,
because of his huge array of Euro contacts, so we weren't just limited
to Japanese import news. This is not to belittle Sam's contributions in
any way at all, he scooped a lot of people with news...but our videos
were also gaining a ton of notoriety among fans as well as PR people. In
fact, we were allowed to publish videos of games other sites weren’t,
simply by virtue of the fact that I was making crappy games look good. I
remember Eidos actually REQUESTING that I take an alpha of one of their
games, which had almost no enemies in it, and do a video making it look
like a winner. I forget what it was – some third person action game
– but after I did it, we got the video exclusive on quite a few games
after that, from them.
Anyway, Sam was with GameFan.Com for a
very short while - maybe a couple-three months. I was named the managing
editor of the site and I think both he and Brandon resented that
fact…even though I was the one doing the copy-editing, writing a ton
of the content, the Postmeister, and spending 4-5 hours digitizing
gameplay and cutting videos for the site. It wasn't without merit that I
was placed in that position. So Sam took his opportunity at Ziff (I
don’t blame him one bit and he's done spectacularly well there for
himself) and shortly thereafter (actually, right before E3), Brandon
bailed for IGN. I was the sole GameFan.Com staff member for that
year’s E3…we were in a little 10’ by 10’ cubicle in Kentia Hall
and I sat there all three days, never leaving but for the last two hours
of the third day. I organized all of the magazine writers into shifts,
assigned them companies to cover, and throughout the show they’d come
in and file reports and give us CD’s with shots and movies. The IT guy
would process the shots with our watermark, I’d copy edit every
article and post it, along with the shots. We had record traffic during
that show and afterward, we started hiring new people for the site.
Anthony (Dangohead) was moved over first, as my main help…God bless
him. I also got some help from Jason (Fury). Eric was ecstatic to land
Levi from Nintendo Power (actually, he was always thrilled at the
opportunity to hire people away from other pubs)…and Levi proved to be
my right hand from the beginning. The guy’s a great, witty writer and
a fairly fun presence in the workplace…if you’re not easily
embarrassed. We put out a call for writers on the site, and Rick came in
for an interview. I talked to him for a while and liked him, he seemed
like an easygoing guy and would be a good fit, even though he hadn’t
had a ton of writing experience yet. He definitely loved games and he
had a unique taste…which of course I ribbed him about constantly. But
it’s important to have diversity on your review staff. Matt Van Stone
came in and interviewed, at this point we were looking for someone who
knew Japanese and loved games, but the Japanese knowledge was really
important with the gap that Sam left. We at least needed someone who
could read the Japanese magazines and sites, as well as import games.
Matt had a good grasp of the language and a decent background in games,
so we hired him, too. We were pursuing a redesign of the site that
compartmentalized each platform; the concept was to put one guy in
charge of each section, and have one person to help them. Levi would
head up the Nintendo section (naturally) and Rick would help him, since
he loved Nintendo too. We needed people to run the PlayStation and
Dreamcast sections, though. Again, relishing the chance to steal talent,
ECM grabbed Fernando Mosquera (then at Gamer’s Republic after folding
his SegaNet site into their property) to run the Dreamcast site, and
Jay Boor (then at IGN PSX) to head up the PlayStation section. At this
point, we had what I felt was a really, really good staff and our
traffic really started to take off. I was able to focus less on writing
and more on videos (still doing the copy editing and Postmeister, as
well as trying to direct traffic among all the different writers), and
traffic started to climb pretty steadily.
You have to understand
that when I started at GameFan, the website was only getting around
6-7,000 unique visitors a day (around the time when Shidoshi and then
Brandon were running it, more or less alone). When Sam and Brandon left,
we were getting around 20-25,000 uniques. With the crew I described
above, we got up to about 40,000 unique visitors per day…and that’s
when we decided to branch out into the PC games world. We approached
Robert (Apache) who had been running the most popular Unreal website on
the net, about starting his own PC site as a subsection of GameFan.Com
(under the final redesign) and he liked the idea of competing with the
likes of Voodoo Extreme and Blues News. So he came on board, and we
hired one person to help him out – a well-known PC hardware reviewer
whose name I can’t remember - I think it was another Matt. Those two
worked fairly independently of the rest of us – it was a little weird,
actually. They were in a separate room (with Fernando) and sort of
pursued it like they were running an entirely different site…although
most of the content still filtered through me as the copy editor. With
their help, we boosted traffic to over 55,000 unique visitors per day.
Things were looking bright…until Bergstein got greedy. He then did
that deal, essentially conning Eidos - our closest ally in the
advertising sense - out of around 55 million dollars and using that as
incentive for DVD Express to buy us. (Word has it he made out with a
giant chunk of that money in some contractual wrangling and actually
bought Express after bankruptcy, briefly turning it into DVD.Com before
it also tanked.) DVD Express was looking to IPO this giant “all in
one� retail and content supersite…cashing in on the big Internet
boom. They'd already hired a ton of talent for the entertainment and
music areas, being led by the most annoying woman on the face of the
planet, Allison - who hailed from Variety magazine and who insisted on
using that vernacular in her e-mails...much to my great irritation.
Anyway, unfortunately for Express, they were doing this right on top of
the online advertising bubble – and it burst shortly after we moved
into their offices in Hollywood. They sold me on the idea of doing a
video production department that I would head up, providing video
content not only for video games but also “behind the scenes�
packages for films and music on their other entertainment sites. So I
turned the reigns of GameFan.Com over to Levi in anticipation of this
video thing…which never materialized.
They had also started the
GameFan network with Apache’s help, since that seemed like “the
thing to do� at the time – boosting ad revenue through sheer traffic
numbers. They overextended themselves financially by making the most
attractive offers to the biggest fansites, to lure them away from
competing networks…but then the bubble burst and there was no money to
be had. So they couldn’t pay off the fansites for the ads they ran,
and the thing collapsed under its own weight. This was the beginning of
the end of GameFan.Com – and shortly thereafter, the magazine. This
giant behemoth of Express.Com just crushed itself while madly scrambling
toward an IPO that kept slipping further and further away…while the
pressures on us to deliver unreasonable results mounted. Plus we were
now being supervised by an ex-Variety writer who knew a sum total of
jack and shit about running a gaming website. Our staff was slowly
decimated and workloads increased, eventually only Levi and Rick were
left for the final few weeks, writing product descriptions for
Express.Com and keeping the shell of GameFan.Com alive. But it was over.
Before
Express.Com came along, GameFan was actually a pretty fun job...even if
I was constantly annoyed by ECM’s interference with the site, as I
was proud of the fact that we maintained a different tone than the
magazine...at one point, even "unmasking" ourselves, KISS-style and
abandoning the nicknames. If we were ever combative or caustic, it was
his influence on editorial – particularly in picking fights with other
sites. However, I did have numerous unfriendly e-mail encounters with
IGN’s Doug Perry, who always came across as if he were the “Big
Brother� looking down his nose at us. At the time, I’m sure it
really rubbed him the wrong way that Jay had jumped ship for GameFan.Com
but Jay did it out of practical reasons, not disloyalty…he wanted to
live in Los Angeles and continue writing about games. However, I also
feel that many of the “supersites� were starting to feel a little
threatened by the steam we were gaining at the time. If things had
continued the way they were before Express took us over, I think the
chances are good GameFan.Com would have been near the top of the heap.
But I am thankful things went the way they did, because it put me on my
current path…and this is really the direction I intended to head, when
I took the job and moved out here. It’s just that you sometimes get
comfortable and it’s easy to get complacent when the money is as good
as it was, back then.
As for stories about GameFan, I’m sure
Levi, Rick and I could tell quite a few, both good and bad. I had a good
time, for the most part…it was fun taking Posty into a direction that
was one of the most popular and recognizable in GF history, with
readers copying his catchphrases in their letters and using them on
message boards. I also think I was one of the longest-running Posty
writers in the magazine’s history. I also took a lot of pride in the
video aspect of the site. It’s disappointing to note that no websites
have picked up that torch and carried it…because I still feel that a
1-2 minute promo-style video with choice gameplay moments is far better
than a minute or two of random gameplay by unskilled players. But this
is coming from the guy who cut in two frames of a dog crapping on the
game box in his Hresvelgr video.
UPDATE - GameFan/GFO Alumni "Where Are They Now," to the best of my knowledge:
Me
(Hi-Fi / Postmeister / Occasional magazine ghost writer) - Editing and
Assistant Editing on various television, DVD and feature projects. Check
my resume for show names.
Levi
Buchanan (Angus / occasional magazine ghost writer) - Prolific
freelance writer, still in the game industry. Semi-regular poster here.
Rick Mears (The Wanderer) - Full-time Nintendo shill - West Coast sales rep. Irregular poster here.
Jason Weitzner (Fury) - Currently a P.A. for Big Bug Man,
an upcoming animated film starring the voice talents of Brendan Fraser
and the recently deceased Marlon Brando. Frequent lurker here and one of
my buddies, even though ever since I moved away from Woodland Hills
(and got married), we don't see each other as much.
Thomas Puha
(Riot) - Probably the most successful of GFO alumni in the game
industry, certainly the most prolific - publishing his own magazine,
producing television shows and generally dominating Finland's game
scene...next step, European conquest. His magazine's website. Semi-regular poster here, one of my oldest friends from back in the day.
Mike
Wakamatsu (Waka) - PC game player and full-time layabout. I think he's
been unemployed longer than anyone I've ever known and it's probably the
biggest travesty there is, because he's a talented graphic designer and
some of the most memorable page layouts in GameFan were his work. Posts
here once in a great while, but we stay in touch and hang out now and
then.
Anthony Chau (Dangohead) - PR honcho at Visual Concepts / Sega Sports. Pops his head out once in a great while to say hello.
Robert
Howarth (Apache) - Longstanding site runner of VE3D.com, aka "Voodoo
Extreme." Stays busy with his site, but also pops his head out to say
hello, now and then.
I've lost touch with:
Eric Mylonas
(ECM) - Had a falling out with him, our personalities always clashed
somewhat and so I don't know what he's up to, now.
Jay Boor
(Doctor J) - Last time I saw him, he'd moved to England to be with his
new wife, and was working at Codemasters in PR. Now he's back in the
States doing PR for a mobile phone company - thanks to Rick for the
update.
Fernando Mosquera (Lagi) - I think he may have gone back
to Argentina to pursue more school, he hasn't been seen in the game
industry since the collapse of GameFan.
Eric Patterson (Shidoshi)
- Not sure what he's up to, others will know better than I. Likely
still a significant presence in the online games and anime community.
Brandon
Justice (Big Bubba) - When last I spoke to him, he was also working for
Visual Concepts / Sega Sports, in product development (in some
capacity). His dream job, to be sure. Now at Tiburon working on the
future of Madden football - thanks for the update, Thomas.
Sam
Kennedy (Captain Smak) - Now heading up 1up.com - heard from him a while
back and things seem to be going pretty well for the site, so far.
Geoff
Higgins (The Judge, El Nino) - He was doing QA/support for an online
MMORPG, the last I heard - but I don't know if that's still the case.
George
Ngo (Eggo) - He went from being PR at Tecmo to doing testing for
Activision, I believe it is...from what I've heard, he's still there,
heading up a test group.
Jeremy Corby (Core) - I haven't heard
from him in ages, though Jason said he'd run into him a while back...the
guy's probably doing porno or something right now. Funny guy, very
extreme personality.
Kim Tran - Another talented layout designer,
but I haven't heard anything about his whereabouts or projects at all. I
know he'd been thinking about graphic design school, don't know if he
pursued it though.
Tyrone Rodriguez (Cerberus) - There for a
while I was seeing his stuff on an IGN website, related to the import
auto scene...I know he'd been writing for an import cars mag for a
while. But now I don't know what he's doing or where he's at.
Bruce (Reubus) - No idea what he's up to now, I haven't heard anything since GameFan went down.
[ January 05, 2005, 09:52 PM: Message edited by: kdeselms ]
--------------------
Kevin Deselms
(kdeselms@gmail.com)
"It's
like I told my ex-wife, I says, 'Honey, I never drive faster'n I can
see and besides that...it's all in the reflexes.'" - Jack Burton, the
Pork Chop Express.
My DVD Collection
Posts: 1457 | From: North Hollywood | Registered: Oct 2002
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Riot
Lieutenant
Member # 19
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posted December 31, 2004 08:48 AM
"Dominating Finland..." Thanks for the kind words Kevin!
I've
stayed in touch with Brandon quite frequently. He's working at Tiburon
in Orlando on future Madden games. Pretty good move considering EA
snapped up the NFL license. I think Eric's working on comics and guides.
I
dont even rememeber when exactly I visited the Gamefan's offices first
(1999? 98?), but it was an amazing experience. I hadnt seen a "real
games mag" enviroment before that so seeing loads of games everywhere,
posters and that dungeon like feel, I loved it.
One of the best
days in my life so far has been when Eric and Kevin invited me for a
"chat" when I was over there. We went into the empty room at the
Woodland Hills office where they proceeded to offer me a job. That was
absolutely amazing and a great feeling, but after about two years of
legal wrangling (Jay not paying the legal fees) I realized i'd never get
a work permit and by then that was better since Express.com was
folding.
What exactly is Jason doing? working on some movie or something?
I'd really like to get in touch with Boor, he was a cool cat. Flaky as hell though, never replying emails and stuff.
Posts: 288 | From: Finland | Registered: Oct 2002
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Nick
General
Member # 20
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posted December 31, 2004 12:46 PM
Great write up Kev. Do you mind if I post that in the thread at TNL?
It's got a lot of great info that the folks over there would love to
know (that thread actually doesn't have anything about GF.com). EDIT:
Nevermind I see you posted there.
And Shidoshi is still doing web
stuff. He started Morning Mayo, and anime site, which I'm not sure is
still going on. He seems to be busy though and doing well (he went to
live in Japan for a year or so awhile back), he posts on TNL pretty
frequently.
[ December 31, 2004, 01:12 PM: Message edited by: Nick ]
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"You know, I was God once.
Yeah, I noticed. You were doing well until everyone died."
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RickMears
Staff Sergeant
Member # 34
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posted December 31, 2004 05:51 PM
Memories...
As mentioned above I came in during the tail end of
the GameFan legacy, but the time I did spend with Kevin, Levi, Anthony
and crew was, by far, the best work experience I have ever had. Sure,
some days were better than others - but the fun and friendship we all
shared can never be replaced.
Except for the time you guys sent
me to that English class with all those immigrants... F you and your
families too Ok, so my writing skills weren't always up to par but
jebus was I humiliated! I remember almost packing up the family that
weekend and moving back up north. Crazy times.
My favorite GF.com
moment - Completely fing up Express.com's product info pages. Who knew
that typing "yeah, safety glasses" into a transformer toys product
description could be so much fun. I felt really guilty at the time, but I
would also put in acronyms into many of my previews & reviews for
the GF.com site. It was more of a personal amusement thing, but damn
hard sometimes... my favorite was a Hot Wheels PSX game review that, if
you took the first letter of each paragraph, spelled out C U N... you
get the picture. Man, that was deep dark secret that up until now only
my wife knew about.
I'm with Nintendo now, and will probably stay
that way for a nice long time. I'm looking to get out of my current
position though and will probably be making the trek up north to WA in
the near future. And to add a little self promotion in this post, in the
very near future I'll be doing the blog thing too at http://www.squidtv.com
Oh
and BTW, Jay Boor is back in the states now - doing PR for a mobile
phone publisher. Next time I'm in the Bay doing my rep thing I'll
probably do lunch with him... we'll see.
[ January 01, 2005, 01:32 PM: Message edited by: RickMears ]
Posts: 158 | From: ORangevale | Registered: Nov 2002
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kdeselms
Administrator
Member # 14
Member Rated:
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posted December 31, 2004 11:46 PM
To be honest, as the site's copy-editor for the longest time, I was in a
constant battle with grammar...Rick was not the sole offender, by any
stretch of the imagination. Anthony wrote some of the most
head-scratchingly confusing phrases I've ever read...and Boor's stuff
was usually a challenge, too. I was thankful when we actually hired a
real copy-editor, but then Eric liked the idea of having a copy-edited
magazine so much that our help got co-opted and his workload went
through the roof. Naturally, we got short-shrift.
Which was
actually fairly common, since Eric would occasionally refuse to let us
use something WE got, if he could appropriate it for the magazine as an
exclusive. So we were often being crippled by our association with the
magazine...which only served to make Levi and I both strive to separate
ourselves from the magazine even more. We eventually became our own
machine, arranging our own visits from PR people, our own interviews,
our own...everything, basically. I think, with several PR people, we had
a better reputation in the way we handled ourselves with them. I'd
already become friendly with many of the PR people through my work in
television, so those relationships carried over...but everyone else we
brought in from other publications had their own built-in relationships
too. So that really helped us a lot, I think. There was still sharing
going on between the site and the mag, there wasn't "bad blood" or
anything like that - but we were in a separate part of the office and
had our own infrastructure in place. To be perfectly honest, too...the
magazine staff often came back to visit our area, because we always had a
good energy and a lot of cool stuff happening there. The most frequent
visitors were Jason and Waka, I imagine...but George and Geoff came back
quite a bit too. I think the only person that I never really saw leave
his desk was Kim.
[ December 31, 2004, 11:50 PM: Message edited by: kdeselms ]
--------------------
Kevin Deselms
(kdeselms@gmail.com)
"It's
like I told my ex-wife, I says, 'Honey, I never drive faster'n I can
see and besides that...it's all in the reflexes.'" - Jack Burton, the
Pork Chop Express.
My DVD Collection
Posts: 1457 | From: North Hollywood | Registered: Oct 2002
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Waka ver. 2.0
Corporal
Member # 50
Rate Member
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posted January 04, 2005 07:11 AM
Heh. Layabout? I walk around the house every now and then. That counts as something, right? RIGHT?
Good
to see you back though. From the sound of stuff, looks like you had a
cool time. Hope everyone had a cool vacation as well.
Well
damn. I was hoping people would get over this GameFan shit already, but
it seems that no matter how much time goes by, it always comes back to
haunt me. If there's anyone that knows the stories, I have tons of
skeletons to let out of the closet. Not like I'd care. Although I have
to admit that I have had some very fond memories of GF, and I've had my
share of pretty messed up times.
This is what I know.
-----------------------
Bruce
Stockert went back to North Dakota. For what? I have no clue. I guess I
would since there was practically nothing left after GF imploded.
Eric
Mylonas was doing strategy guides for Brady or whatever. If I remember
correctly, he was working with Matt for a while after GameFan went
kaput, no?
Tyrone worked at Activision last time I heard. This was when I was working at Hyper Game Action before they also closed down.
George (former GF designer that started the mag with Tim back in the day) was working at Atari last I heard.
Terry Wolfinger went to work for Stan Winston on various stuff. Including a Michael Jackson video.
Fernando
went back to Maryland (or was it Maine?) to live with his mother and
actually appeared on several news stories there. If you remember, he was
taking steroids for his medical condition. Since he was legally on
medicated marijuana, he joined a group to 'reach out' about legalizing
it. With court hearings to boot. He was a good guy.
Jay Puryear is still messing around in the gaming industry last time I heard. As for what company or position, I have no idea.
Jacob
(one of the designers as well back in the day) went to work for a game
company. I think it was either Eidos or Activision. I remember him
coming to GF to plug a game he was working on, and Puryear and I nearly
had a heart attack when he came in. Small world.
Matt Taylor
(yes he worked at GF at one time and did the Mortal Kombat guide.) He
went on and started Versus Books. Pretty successfully I might add.
Casey
Lowe and Ryan Iforgothislastname worked with Matt Taylor at Versus with
Nick for some time. I was actually going to work with Matt as well, but
the ass flaked on me. He just wanted the dirt on GameFan.
Nick
Des Barres (Nick Rox) went on and did various stuff. Including winning
the design contest for the Resident Evil movie poster. I even got an
e-mail from him asking to put an entry in. I have to add that all of the
other submissions were really shit. It's no wonder Nick won. He was a
talented designer as well.
Kelly (K. Lee). Oh man. He went on to work at EGM way back in the day. Read on to find out what happened.
That's all I can remember for now. I'll add more when I can remember.
Funny
thing is that I see Tim is posting at TNL. Funny shit. I vaguely
remember meeting him up in Frisco at Dave Weising's house (could have
swore I shook his hand) to talk about Kei's endeavor with them. I had to
take a nap because I only got about 4 hours of sleep the night before
and we drove over 7 hours up there to see them. And I drove back roughly
two hours after the meeting with them after we went to Wendy's. I got a
fucking ticket on the way home as well, LOL. ![[Big Grin]](ultimatebb1.php_files/biggrin.gif)
I think I just fell asleep while I was driving and my foot stayed on
the gas. Cop said he was following me for about 6 miles. D'oh!
Now for the old school stories. Woot!
----------------------------------------
Jay Boor: Masshole.
I
remember back when GF Online was one of those places where you can hang
out and see what 'new' thing Levi got in his e-mail or new 'name'
someone got plastered with. I remember walking up front where Melissa
was one day and seeing if I got any mail. I was talking to Elaine when I
noticed she was kinda spacing out towards the window as if she was
trying to see something in the parking lot.
Fast forward about 7 hours.
Jay
and I are talking about some crap when he tells me he'll be back in
about 10 minutes. Thinking nothing of it, I went to get a soda from the
fridge in the kitchen cause it was fucking hot. I hear Melissa and
Elaine with their "OMG!" and "WTF!" voices. Jay is laughing his ass off
(well trying not to - you know Jay), and trying to cover his ass about
something he obviously did. I ask Melissa what happened, and she gives
me this stern face. Uh oh. Jay already hit a nerve and was in trouble.
I
found out that he left his girlfriend in the car (yes, that long!) in
the heat, and acted like he did nothing wrong. WTF! I asked him WHY he
left his girlfriend in the car for over seven hours, and he just said...
"It's embarassing enough that I walk around in public with her. Why the
fuck would I want to bring her inside?" I busted out in laughter and I
knew that was so wrong. But I later found out that she was just a really
shy person and was comfortably sleeping in the car the whole time
becuase she was tired. Still. Funny shit though.
-----------------------------------
Kelly (K. Lee) Tyrone Biggums?
Where
should I start? I know it's messed up to make fun of someone who's life
got completely messed up, but you can't help to bring this one up
during the old GF reminiscence sessions. Now this guy was an oreo
cookie. Black on the outside but whiter than most white people I know,
inside. This actually strings on to Nick's antics.
He
appearantly got addicted to meth sometime during the first time I quit
(or what people called a Wakabout). One of the first things he asked me
when I came back was "Hey dude, good to see you back! Umm, can I ask you
something later?"
WTF?
Anyways, later I'm alone and he
asks me "Hey. Umm.... Can... You get some crystal meth? You know... for
a friend of mine..." Who the fuck is he kidding? I told him I can, but
I'm not gonna bring it to work. That was the last time he ever brought
it up with me. Yeah. Like those pawn shop reciepts on your desk for over
400 dollars in jewelry was because you had no money for food right?
Well,
I recall him getting fired at GF for something (the reson eludes me).
Time goes on and a few years later we all hear he's doing awesome at
EGM. They paid for his moving expenses, got him a company credit card,
and was actually making a decent amount of money (he had a baby to raise
as well). It's quiet for a while, and then we hear this shit.
Appearently,
his addiction followed him all the way up north. He ran up the company
credit card on crazy shit (probably pawned it on stuff for you know
what), lost his house and his wife ran off with his crack dealer. With
the baby. Talk about messed up. >_<
--------------------------
Nick Des Barres (Nick Rox): Shup foo! Recognize!
OK.
I think Nick was actually a really cool person. Once you really get to
know him, he's a really nice guy. I just can't believe all of the shit
people gave him. Anyway.
Nick was notoriously known for speaking
like a black person (full ebonics!). He told me it was because his
school was 98% black people, and it rubbed off on him. I knew where he
was going to school as well, and I can totally agree. So sometimes
during the delirium from crunch time, we would do stupid shit to give us
that extra steam we needed to go on. This was one of those things. This
was actually the birth of the famous "2 skoops!" line (StreetFighter
double fireball reference in ebonics. Yes, it's rasin bran pun.)
Now
Kelly heard around the office that Nick did an impressive 'black
person' imitation, and he wanted so bad, to hear it. But of couse Nick
wasn't about to bust out with it in front of Kelly. Umm. Yes, he's
black. That would be a bit awkward, no? Everytime Nick would go into
this mode, Kelly would always miss it. Unless we triggered it, of
course, Hehe.
One day, I was talking to Nick and I see Kelly in
the corner of my eye. We were standing there (I think Casey and Ryan we
there as well) and I busted out with "Wassupwiddat?!" then Nick just
went awol. He was going off on ebonics and waving his hands like the
gangsta he is for about 10 minutes. The whole time he was doing this,
Kelly was standing behind him. Listening. I couldn't take it anymore and
started laughing. Nick turned around and turned white as a ghost, then
turned red from embarassment. He stood there shocked for about a few
seconds and said "Uhhh. Hey Kelly..." and ran off into his office and
slammed his door behind him.
Needless to say Kelly was very impressed with his impression. After all, he was much 'blacker' than Kelly ever will be, ROFL!
--------------------------------
Damn should I go on? I got fucking tons of this shit. ![[Razz]](ultimatebb1.php_files/tongue.gif)
--------------------
Aoccdrnig
to a rschceearh at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht
oedrr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the
fsrit and lsat lteter be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a ttaol
mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the
huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a
wlohe. - WTF!
Posts: 114 | Registered: Mar 2003
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Nick
General
Member # 20
Member Rated:
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posted January 04, 2005 12:02 PM
The thread at TNL just keeps getting better and better. GF still means a
lot to people. I don't think you'd see this kind of talking and
excitement about something like PLAY when it eats it.
Now there is talk from tjpubba about making a digital/mag in the spirit of GF. That shit would be incredible.
--------------------
"You know, I was God once.
Yeah, I noticed. You were doing well until everyone died."
Posts: 842 | From: Jersey | Registered: Oct 2002
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kdeselms
Administrator
Member # 14
Member Rated:
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posted January 04, 2005 02:57 PM
I remember that day Jay brought his woman and left her in the
car...there was also the time that we found her, curled up under his
desk crying...everybody was like, "WTF?" That was a troubled
relationship, for sure.
The people on that TNL forum have been
eating up all those old GameFan stories, and Tim hasn't even scratched
the surface. We could talk about Higgins and Levi, upping the ante on
each other with their streaking habits...
I thought the photos
were funny though, the one with Jody at CES cracked me up. He was
looking quite wankerish there. That was actually pretty shortly after he
and Melissa moved out here, I think.
I told Tim that Waka's not doing anything, so if they need a layout guy they should talk to him
Hehe...don't know if you'd want to do that dude, but it's not like
you have a lot going on! I said if he wanted some videos or something, I
might be willing to help out. Thomas talked to me about that too,
recently. I like doing game promos, they're pretty fun and easy to be
creative with. Don't know how much I'd be able to do, I'm going to start
cutting a documentary pretty soon - it's called "Gamers" but it's about
the "gaming" community, not video games. It's about stuff like
Warhammer, pen & paper type role-playing, live-action role-playing,
and nerdy stuff like that...but showing the social aspect of it as well.
I thought it sounded interesting.
You
know what would be awesome Waka? If you could get all the "busted" E3
photos you did for the mag together and post them...the one you did of
Jason the monkey boy cracked me up, big time. Or the high-forehead
mutants at the entrance...
[ January 04, 2005, 03:02 PM: Message edited by: kdeselms ]
--------------------
Kevin Deselms
(kdeselms@gmail.com)
"It's
like I told my ex-wife, I says, 'Honey, I never drive faster'n I can
see and besides that...it's all in the reflexes.'" - Jack Burton, the
Pork Chop Express.
My DVD Collection
Posts: 1457 | From: North Hollywood | Registered: Oct 2002
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