Jeff Gerstmann Heads to New York, Takes Questions

God damn i love Jeff.

I love the rating argument he had with an old Gamespot boss: Well, he wanted 4-stars and I wanted 5-stars so we just went with the 19-point system... haha

Yeah, this was awesome. Jeff in Jar-Time mode is always interesting to listen too.

I love it. Jeff seems like such a knowledge grown up in this. It's not that you forget that with the GB content, it's just different

Jeff's reasoning behind the rating system was interesting. I've always wonder the logic behind certain sites and their choice of review ratings.

You have a lot of that in larger cities/university towns. I live in Bloomington, IN, home to Indiana University, and I find myself going to all kinds of events that are out of my scope or knowledge or interest because I have the access to them. I may not always live here so I want to take advantage of the opportunities it provides.

Really enjoyed this.

A lot of interesting discussion came out of this. One of the many reasons I love this site.

Looking forward to the future of Giant Bomb

=]

Vinny packed an audio recorder for PAX, but he is on vacation and also may not have used it for his panel.

This was way more interesting than I expected. Hope you do more if this stuff, Jeff.

That was a great interview. It's nice to hear Jeff commenting out loud on the things he does in a more formal environment.

URN BREW? What the fuck?

Seriously though, speaking as a Scotchman, the secret of Irn Bru is not only is it not made from girders, it's also not that good of a drink.

It's always really interesting to hear Jeff talk about this stuff. He has a lot of wisdom about the industry.

Patrick said something about an audio archive? Don't know if it'll go up on the site.

Is that Produced panel archived anywhere?

Nice! I missed the first 10 minutes when I got there.

I was pretty surprised at the general not-terribleness of the questions in the Q&A part, haha

Great talk. Jeff never ceases to be fun to listen to. Thanks for making it available on the site.

I feel like I've heard Jeff discuss the dissolution of the 'B-tier developers like Midway' 100 times at this point. Still made for some good viewing all the same, though. Srs bsn Jeff I always find to be fascinating to listen to; he's very good at drawing you in and keeping your attention.

This was awesome. Love hearing Jeff talk about games and gaming like this, always entertaining and informative in a good balance.

Cool talk, bro.

Although pretty much 95% of the questions asked have been covered by Jeff in the Jar Time series.

Hey I was there too! A 1 hour drive took me 3 with traffic but I enjoyed it so it was all worth it. And here's my proof!

I have unfortunately not been to PAX myself, that stupid Atlantic Ocean in the way, but when you mention it i've seen a lot of other panels (specifically this year with the direct streaming) and you're probably correct. I mean the thing Jeff did at NYU didn't seem to be lacking of Giant Bomb fans when it came to the questioners, and it was some really interesting stuff there, but the talk or answering of questions from the moderator seemed a lot more focused then the usual PAX panel they've done.

I regress. I completely forgot the kind of revolutionary question that got me to personally question my way of living and... DEAR GOD I had forgotten the Kasavin-question (the other ones I can't forget for different reasons). WTF?

The irony in no one asking the question the year they actually was announcing a new one.

Very great discussion, and I don't what some of you are talking about, I think the interviewer was pretty good, and added to the discussion / got Jeff to talk about some things we haven't heard of, or things we have heard of in a new light. Also, fantastic Q&A. A lot of serious and insight questions with some fun questions. I guess that's what happens at university run events; you generally get a higher calibre of discussion involved.

Great talk and Q&A. Very interesting to listen to.

@tirion said:

Actually that goes for other panels at PAX actually. Most of the panels I've gone to at PAX are generally content specific and it's rare people ask dumb questions when it's not a general fan audience for a thing. For instance, even though it was Rich and Vinny at the Produced panel, everyone pretty much had a great question and it was on point to the topic. Since social issues are hard and inherently controversial, they're the only other type of panel where things can go a bit weird but overall it's mostly just been the Giant Bomb panel over the years that makes me dread Q&A.

I guess the positive spin is that in most other situations, Q&A is pretty decent if there's a topic focus or direction to the panel. If it's just a convening of fans, eh...

Excellent stuff. I could listen to Jeff talk about games for days.

How did I miss this?! Damnit!

@tdot: C'mon man, ERs are meant for quirky relatively obscure or old games. Who hasn't played FF7.2: GBG? (though the 'Ultra Edition on the PSP2 was really where it's at.)

In all honesty, when I first started visiting this site I thought that Jeff was the least interesting person. Some four years later, he's the game journalist that I have the most respect for. Always informative and entertaining to listen to (even though he still haven't played through Dark Souls...)

@d_w: I was hoping for the finals fantases 7-2: Goku battle Gaiden

Very good talk, almost like a live Jar Time

Yeah. It's going to be Jeff and Alex playing through both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.

Great talk, great Q&A. I forgot I was listening to a talk at a university and was surprised at the quality of the questions, especially considering convention Q&A questions.

But WILL there be a new endurance run?! That's what I want to know.

lol did the dude in the beginning just say queer people?

I'd care about giantbomb a lot less if a bunch of freelancers I didn't care about started writing reviews I didn't want to read.

This is like Jar Time in front of a live studio audience but no jar. Never not interesting.

@tdot: Hey, at least no one made an endurance run joke this year!

What, you don't like it when someone talks about working at gamestop for 10 minutes, asks when there'll be more TANG, asks what greg kasavin has been up to, or tries to do a 'hilarious' live rick roll?

I realize that the scenario is a bit different, but comparing this Q&A with the PAX panels makes a lot of the PAX panel questions so much more cringeworthy. The Q&As at PAX is still entertaining in a different way, but this was just really interesting all the way through.

Good stuff all around, Jeff, James and the folks asking questions, nice job!

I go in to some kind of trance when Jeff speaks for long periods of time. Can't stop listening...

This.

I love when Jeff rages. Jeff's rage voice speaks to me.

Hey, wait a second!

If you take a look at some of their past events, they cover a pretty broad spectrum - it's sometimes easy to forget that even though we're in the know about Jeff and Giant Bomb, there's still a ton of people out there that haven't (even if they are into video games).

I mean, it was advertised as one talk in an ongoing series of discussions with important game biz people. But it was only ever promoted as An Evening with Jeff Gerstmann, and not like a roundtable discussion with other gaming minds. What I'm confused about is the...older people in the audience, some of which didn't seem particularly familiar with Jeff or his work. Maybe they just really dig community events.

This was a super fun talk, and I was real glad to chat with Jeff and Alex and some of the guys from Kotaku afterwards, asking them all sorts of obtrusive questions about their eating habits. Of course, my camera is real shitty and my photos with the GB crew are all blurry, but eh: you take what you can get.