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My Perfect Console with Simon Parkin
Yoshinori Kitase, director & producer (Final Fantasy series, Chrono Trigger).
Ep. 60
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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.”
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96. Matt Firor, founder of ZeniMax Online Studios (The Elder Scrolls Online).
01:10:34||Ep. 96My guest today is the founder and director of ZeniMax Online Studio, Matt Firor. After studying history at George Washington University, he co-founded the developer Interesting Systems Inc., where he created a MUD-style text adventure titled Darkness Falls. In 1995 he co-founded Mythic Entertainment, where he produced pioneering online games such as Godzilla Online, Aliens Online, Starship Troopers: Battlespace, and, in 2001, the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Dark Age of Camelot and its first two expansions. This experience then led my guest to found ZeniMax Online Studio in 2007 and start building the MMO, The Elder Scrolls Online. It launched in 2014, and, ten years later, my guest continues to lead development. According to the company’s latest figures, since its launch The Elder Scrolls Online has generated more than $2 billion in revenue.
95. Pitof Comar, film director (Catwoman, Alien: Resurrection).
01:11:51||Ep. 95My guest today is a French film director and pioneer in the world of digital imaging. Born in Paris, he studied architecture and medicine at university before joining the film industry. He co-founded Duran Duboi, a postproduction house that created visual effects for music videos by artists including Prince, Madonna, Lenny Kravitz, and Boy George.As a VFX pioneer, he formed a close collaboration with the director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with whom he worked on the feature films “Delicatessen”, “City of Lost Children”, and “Alien: Resurrection”. In 2001 my guest made his directorial debut with “Vidocq”, which holds the Guinness World Record as the world’s first all-HD movie, released ahead of 'Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones’.Two years later, he directed “Catwoman” starring Halle Berry in the lead role. Since then, my guest has produced more than a dozen films and, in 2019, co-founded the VR company 6th Sense VR, which specialises in culture and well-being.
94. Hannah Nicklin, playwright, narrative designer (Mutazione, Saltsea Chronicles).
01:16:10||Ep. 94My guest today is Hannah Nicklin, a British writer and narrative designer for video games. After studying Drama at Loughborough University, and Playwriting at the University of Birmingham, she returned to Loughborough for a doctorate in interactive design as anti-capitalist practice.After several years working as a poet, theatre-maker, and academic, in 2019 she moved into games full time: writing, narrative designing and co-producing Mutazione, the most nominated game in the 2020 IGF awards. That same year she became studio lead of Die Gute Fabrik, an independent game studio based in Copenhagen, Denmark.There she led and creative directed Saltsea Chronicles, one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2023. After the studio was forced to close down, my guest joined the team at the Netflix-owned studio Night School, where she currently works as a narrative designer and writer on a yet-to-be-announced title. LINKSCasual Games for ProtestersHannah on Bluesky
93. Danny Wallace, writer & broadcaster (Yes Man, Assassin's Creed series).
01:06:48||Ep. 93My guest today is the award-winning humourist, writer, and presenter Danny Wallace. Born in Dundee, Scotland, he published his first professional video game review at the age of thirteen while conducting work experience for Sega Power, a magazine that subsequently offered him a job. At 22, after graduating from The University of Westminster, he became a BBC comedy producer at, working on hit series such as Dead Ringers and The Mighty Boosh. In 2003 he published Join Me, a book about how he accidentally started a cult. His next book, Yes Man charted a six-month-long experiment in which he said “yes” to everything. It later became a blockbuster film starring Jim Carrey in the lead role. A regular guest on radio and television panel shows, he has remained deeply involved in video games too, providing the narration for the hit indie game Thomas Was Alone, and writing and starring in several Assassin’s Creed game, work for which received an outstanding achievement award from the Writer’s Guild of America.
92. Nainita Desai, composer (Immortality, Call of Duty, Tales of Kenzera: Zau).
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91. Eugene Jarvis, gamemaker (Defender, Robotron: 2084, Smash TV).
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90. Uwe Boll, film director (House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, Postal).
01:13:24||Ep. 90My guest today is the German filmmaker Uwe Boll. Born in Wermelskirchen he decided he wanted to direct films at the age of ten, after seeing Marlon Brando star in Mutiny on the Bounty. It wasn’t until he was in his mid-thirties, however, that he directed his first major motion picture, Blackwoods, a psychological thriller that a critic for the New York Times described as ‘smart and diabolical’.It was, however, his adaptations of video games for which he made his name. House of the Dead, Alone in the Dark, BloodRayne, Far Cry and Postal were just some of the games he adapted to film. Not all of them lost money, but most were derided by reviewers.My guest did not shy away from engaging his harshest critics, however. In 2006 he challenged five of them to a boxing match. Ten years later he announced his retirement from filmmaking. Nevertheless, since then he has announced several new projects, including First Shift, a police drama set in the New York, that released in the summer.Links:Boll Films Official WebsiteGame Over, Uwe Boll -- Vanity Fair.
89. Derek Yu, gamemaker (Spelunky, UFO 50).
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Correspondence Special #4: Clickbait?
35:20|In this special correspondence edition, host Simon Parkin reads out listeners' correspondence and answers your questions.Hear Simon discuss the recent, headline-making episode with former PlayStation President Chris Deering, listener responses to the controversy, as well as discussion of what term we should use to describe the genre formerly known as 'Metroidvania', Maddy Thorson's grey label platforms, and much, much more.