Before PAX East consumed us all last weekend, I took a quick trip to Brooklyn to make an appearance at the NYU Game Center. They've got a very cool thing going out there, providing students with high-tech setups like 3D printers, motion capture gear, and so on. If there were more game-dedicated curriculums out there when I was getting out of high school, perhaps I would have found my way into one of them, rather than rushing straight into the job market. But, of course, there's no one way into the video game industry. There's no one way into the "covering the video game industry" industry, either. Anyway, enough preamble. Here are a couple of hours of video with me speaking with James Marion, who was kind enough to invite me out in the first place, and taking questions from the audience. I had a good time, and unlike the events that followed that weekend at PAX, no bottles were broken over any heads during the course of this discussion. Oh well, there's always next time...

For more on the NYU Game Center and its ongoing series of talks, check out this website on the internet.

(Also, if you're on mobile and the Vimeo embed doesn't show, perhaps you'll have better luck by going directly to the video.)

It's a great video! My favorite part is when Alex agrees that his legacy is that Big Rigs review.

Neat! I've been looking forward to this.

It was a good talk. Good job everyone involved

I live in Brooklyn!

Thanks for putting this up, I was hoping I would get a chance to watch it.

I was there! I had no idea Jeff was even going to be there until like an hour before it started. It was kind of surreal considering I have class there every week so it was awesome having Jeff come to speak. I even managed to get a picture with him and Alex.

That Q&A was actually really good. Fun to contrast with the PAX Q&As, which are 99% horrible, though that Crash Bandicoot jacket guy was pretty alright.

@dylanfill: Great shot!

Great talk, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Good Q&A too, which is rare.

Man, that moderator is REALLY handsome.

The Vimeo embed isn't serving html5 to browsers without flash.

Should have uploaded it to dailymotion, as that way the segment where Jeff strips off his clothes and finally cracks, after one too many ''how does i become games journalist?!?'' questions, wouldn't have been censored.

@dylanfill: Can I ask what everyone was there for if not for Jeff? I'm just curious because I thought the event was a talk with a few people, with Jeff being one of the headliners, but I suppose I have very little knowledge of the actual event surrounding the Q&A. Was it open to the public? What else was going on besides the interview and questions?

wish the interviewer would just let Jeff speak, he keeps changing the subject

Get rid of EVERYTHING on the site and just make quicklooks. QuickBomb.com

interesting talk from jeans shortsman as always

:/ this sounds great, why is there nothing like this in the UK

Good stuff! Jeff's point about making this site a place for games you might not typically hear about is one of the reasons I've stuck around since the beginning. I can't even begin to list the games I've loved, and was only exposed to, because of quick looks and the guys' individual tastes.

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.

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.

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).

Hey, wait a second!

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

This.

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

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

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.

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?

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

Very good talk, almost like a live Jar Time

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

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...)

@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.)

How did I miss this?! Damnit!

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

@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...

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

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.

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.

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.

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!

Cool talk, bro.

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