My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin

My guest today is John Johanas, creative director at the Tokyo-based studio Tango Gameworks. Born on Long Island, New York, he played in a Radiohead covers band while in High School. After graduating with a degree in East Asia studies from Brandeis University, he moved to Japan to work as an English teacher.He started translating Japanese books into English in his spare time. A keen player of video games, in 2010 my guest applied to work at Tango Gameworks, the studio founded by the legendary horror director Shinji Mikami. He joined, and there worked first as a translator, then as a designer on The Evil Within, before assuming the role of director on the game’s two DLC episodes and full sequel.In 2023 he directed the studio’s innovative music-combat game Hi-Fi Rush, which has just launched for PlayStation 5. [Photograph Game Informer/ Alex Van Aken].

My guest today is Siobhan Reddy, a video game executive and the co-deputy chair of BAFTA. Born in South African to Irish and Australian parents, at the age of four she moved to Campbelltown, New South Wales in Australia. There as a student she became interested in filmmaking and technology. At eighteen she moved to the UK and began working for Perfect Entertainment, the independent game studio behind Terry Pratchett’s DiscWorld series of game adaptations.In 1999 she joined Criterion Games and there worked on a string of racing games, including Burnout 3 and 4, then left in 2006 to help set up production within the newly formed Media Molecule. In 2009 she was named studio director, helping to oversee the production of the LittleBigPlanet series, Tearaway, and, most recently, Dreams.In 2013 was named one of the 100 most powerful women in the UK by BBC's Woman's Hour and, in 2021, was given the BAFTA Fellowship award for her pioneering work in the games industry. She now serves as BAFTA’s deputy chair, helping to oversee the delivery of the academy’s mission to empower and spotlight the screen industries and the talented people within them.[Photograph: Sam Hendel/Media Molecule]

In this special correspondence edition, host Simon Parkin explores feedback from the recent episode with Jack Thompson, reads out listeners' correspondence, answers questions, and offers at least one reveal about a forthcoming special guest...

My guest today is Wes Fenlon, a San Francisco-based writer and senior editor at the video game publication PC Gamer. Having graduated from The University of Georgia with a degree in journalism and magazines, my guest freelanced for The Wirecutter –– the product review website now owned by the New York Times –– and Tested.com where he reviewed and recommended PC hardware.In January 2014 he joined PC Gamer Magazine as features and hardware editor. There he has written dozens of investigative pieces, highlighting specific video game communities, publishing stories of how video games affect our lives and culture, and revealing how games and the hardware they run on are made. He is also the author of Read Only Memo, a newsletter all about video game emulation.Twitter: https://twitter.com/wesleyfenlonRead Only Memo newsletter: https://www.readonlymemo.com/

My guest today is former lawyer who gained recognition in the late nineties and early 2000s as an "anti-video game activist", criticizing the content of violent video games and their alleged effects on children. Via a series of high-profile lawsuits, including several against Rockstar, the creator of the Grand Theft Auto series, he claimed that Mature-rated games are marketed and sold to children, and that their content has played a contributing role in deadly school shootings and other tragic events in the U.S. In a 2015 a BBC dramatization of the conflict between my guest and Rockstar, he was played by Bill Paxton. By then, however, he was no longer a practicing attorney. In 2008 the Supreme Court of Florida permanently disbarred him from practicing law. Now seventy-two years old and keen golfer, my guest retains the beliefs that animated his zealous pursuit of video game companies. Last year he told me, via email: “I was right and I would do it all over again.”

My guest today is a game developer and founder of Visai Games. At the age of twelve he moved to Canada from Southern India, then, hoping to enter the games industry, studied Computer Science at the University of Toronto. After graduating, my guest took a programming job at the mobile games studio, Uken Games. In his spare time he and an artist friend started working on a project of their own, a narrative cooking game about an Indian mother who comes to Canada with her family in the 1980s. In the game, players cook various dishes and restore lost recipes, exploring the role that food can play in enabling immigrant families connect to their heritage. Venba launched in 2023 to widespread acclaim. The L.A. Times described it as “alternately heart-breaking and heart-warming.” 

My guest today is a Scottish crime writer. Born into a working-class family in Fife, she studied English at St Hilda’s College Oxford, where she was the first student to be admitted from a Scottish state school. She first worked as a journalist, then a dramatist and, in 1987, published her first novel, Report for Murder. Since then, my guest has released dozens of books, many of which have been adapted for television. She has sold more than 19 million books, and won numerous awards too, including the L.A. Times Book of the Year, and the Diamond Dagger, awarded by the Crime Writers' Association for her lifetime contribution to crime writing in the English language. She has also performed at Glastonbury, in a band composed of authors called ‘The Fun Lovin' Crime Writers’. Welcome Val McDermid.

My guest today is an American neuroscientist and writer. Born in New York, he earned his Ph.D. in neuroscience from Stanford University in 2014, researching Toxoplasma gondii, the single-celled feline parasite that infects mouse brains and may––or may not––mess with their fear of cats. As well as studying ancient genetics – specifically conducting tests on Egyptian cat mummies –– my guest is an accomplished science writer. He regularly contributes to the New Yorker, Slate, and Nautil.us. His recent book “Nineteen Ways of Looking at Consciousness” explores a single moment in neuroscience translated through nineteen different modern theories of consciousness. A reviewer for the Wall Street Journal described it as “Stylish, witty, and insightful.” He is also a keen follower of video games. In a recent piece for the L.A. Review of Books he wrote: ‘I am convinced that, were Isaac Newton alive today, he would be a video game speedrunner.’ 

My guest today is a Japanese video-game director, producer, and executive officer of Square-Enix. Born in 1966 in Fussa City in the suburbs of Tokyo, he studied filmmaking at Nihon University. After graduating, he was working at an animation studio when he first played Final Fantasy on the Famicom, and immediately saw the dramatic potential of the video game medium. Despite having no technical skills, he joined Square in 1990, to work as an “event planner”, involved in level design for Seiken Densetsu (Final Fantasy Adventure) for the Game Boy. Four years later he directed Final Fantasy VI, a game widely considered a classic. A protégée of the company’s founder, Hironobu Sakaguchi, my guest subsequently worked on many of the company’s best-loved titles, and now serves as Brand Manager for the Final Fantasy series. “My father would complain that he had no idea what was going on when I played RPGs at home after school,” he once told me. “This made me want to make games that those watching the screen beside the player might also find interesting.”