Woot! My first interview! XD Thanks again, Wizky, for letting me post here! Our interview for today is with Kongregate's very own smigbob!
smigbob: You're running the show, start interviewing!
kirbyviper93: Alright, first question: When did you first sign up on Kongregate?
smigbob: In July, Yahoo had a feature about free indie games. DTD was featured, along with Dark Cut, Dwarven Fortress, and a few others, but DTD got me hooked. I accidentally clicked the "Play More Games!" link. The rest, as they say, is history.
kirbyviper93: you pretty much answered my next question, which was gonna be, "What brought you to Kongregate?" What chat room do you originally hail from?
smigbob: Digg Mark 1, born and raised. However, during my "teenage" years, I joined the high and mighty in teh Van, and was immediately made into one of the Kong 31337.
kirbyviper93: do you remember some of your first friends?
smigbob: Renny141 was my very first friend. Many of the other DM1 residents soon followed, such as Dragoness188, spartakips, and ItBeNickYo.
kirbyviper93: sorry if I take so long to respond, I'm trying to juggle an interview and a conversation with my girlfriend at the same time
smigbob: OMFG! A KONGREGANT HAS A GIRLFRIEND!?!?!?!
kirbyviper93: I know, it's unheard of, right? >.<
smigbob: lol, jk. I've got one too.
kirbyviper93: haha anyways... What are some of your favorite games?
smigbob: Well, not DTD! After using it to find Kong, I started to hate it. But I love Streamline, and a lot of the adventure and RPG's.
kirbyviper93: how many impossible badges do you have?
smigbob: Right now, 5 or 6. Line Game, Streamline, SCGMD2, Orbular, Gravitee, and Fold.
kirbyviper93: wow, you've got me beat, I only have the Streamline and SCGMD2 impossibles...
smigbob: Next up: Hexiom
kirbyviper93: Next question: You frequent the forums, yes?
smigbob: I used to a lot more than I do now, but I'm starting to come back.
kirbyviper93: what annoys you most on the forums, other than the obvious? (trolls, flamers, spammers, etc.)
smigbob: Bad spelling and grammar. 1337speak is one thing, but just typing everything like you only have three seconds to write it is frickadickulous.
kirbyviper93: agreed. now then, next topic: real life
smigbob: Arrg. IRL, I R Cookie! Not really.
kirbyviper93: I want a cookie now... ANYWAYS When you're not on Kong, what can you most often be found doing?
smigbob: Sleeping. I have a real exciting life outside school and Kong.
kirbyviper93: as indicated by your answer >.<
smigbob: But at school, I'm in the musical, so that takes up a lot of my time.
kirbyviper93: awesome, what's the musical?
smigbob: The Music Man. Takes place in Iowa in 1912. That's right, I'm a song-and-dance guy. Call me gay for it, I'll Web-kick your ass.
kirbyviper93: dude, the guys that get into theater are the smart ones. great place to meet girls
smigbob: I know! There's 42 girls to 12 guys.
kirbyviper93: exactly!
smigbob: Including more than half the cheerleading squad.
kirbyviper93: of course. we should get back on topic
smigbob: Right.
kirbyviper93: What's the most exciting thing that's happened to you?
smigbob: Ever? I dunno. I shook the President's hand at a campaign rally in '04...
kirbyviper93: that's pretty cool
smigbob: I really haven't had anything special happen to me, I have a fairly ordinary life. But not necessarily boring...
kirbyviper93: yeah, that's always the case, I think. What else do you do, outside of school and Kong?
smigbob: I have lots of animals to take care of, I enjoy a good book, movie, and most importantly, METAL!
kirbyviper93: \\m//
smigbob: lol
kirbyviper93: Alright, last section is just whatever I feel like asking
smigbob: Mkay, shoot.
kirbyviper93: True or false: there are no wimmenz on teh intarwebz.
smigbob: False. I know of a few...
kirbyviper93: good answer. What other games do you play, other than things on Kong?
smigbob: Ancient Domains of Mystery. It's a rougelike RPG, meaning no graphics, but the gameplay is as good as it gets. And a few others, but that's by far my favorite.
kirbyviper93: what can you not stand to see happen?
smigbob: A girl get put down by her "boyfriend". It just sickens me watching "lovers" hurt eachother.
kirbyviper93: agreed. to everyone reading: if you really love your bf/gf, don't put them down
smigbob: But that doesn't mean be creepily complimentary. Just treat others how you would like to be treated. It's amazing how that first grade golden rule comes to bite us in the ass later on in life.
kirbyviper93: This has been a public service announcement from kirbyviper93 and smigbob. What's the longest you've ever gone without sleep, and why were you up?
smigbob: I'm going on it right now. I haven't slept since Friday night, and won't until Wednesday.
kirbyviper93: just trying to set a personal record, huh?
smigbob: No, that's just the way things go. In AAA-AAA-AAA-AAAL-BUQUERQUE!
kirbyviper93: haha
smigbob: Weird Al FTW! They see me rollin', they laughin', and rollin' their eyes 'cuz I'm so White and Nerdy...
kirbyviper93: haha I used to know all the words to that
smigbob: My ergonomic keyboard never leaves me bored...
kirbyviper93: I memorized Holy Grail really well, I can recite it right now, and have you ROTFLOL
smigbob: I got a business doin' yadda-yadda, can we get back on topic?
kirbyviper93: yeah, that's probably a good idea. speaking of music, name a couple of your favorite bands (like how I tied that in there? ;-D)
smigbob: Iron Maiden (hence the avatar), Iron Maiden, Iron Maiden, and did I mention Iron Maiden?
kirbyviper93: uhh, you might have =P
smigbob: And Metallica, Black Tide, Avenged Sevenfold, Anthrax, etc.
kirbyviper93: A7X FTW
smigbob: Beast and the Harlot the the best metal song so far this millenium. By far.
kirbyviper93: for sure. now then, to wrap this interview up, is there anything you'd like to say to people reading this?
smigbob: I am a paranoid schizophrenic, and you're fly's down.
kirbyviper93: nice way to wrap that up there
smigbob: I know. Actually, I want to say one thing to all Kong users: QUIT THE STUPID CHATROOM ROLEPLAYING! IT'S ANNOYING AS HELL SOMETIMES, AND NOBODY CAN GET HALF AN INTELLIGENT REMARK IN! Sorry. /rant
kirbyviper93: and with that... [/interview]
smigbob: Thanks kirby! Bye now!
kirbyviper93: thanks for putting up with me =D
smigbob: Barely...I mean, it was a pleasure!
Tuesday, 1 April 2008
April Fools!
Monday, 31 March 2008
News!
Ok, 2 lots of news ready to be posted.
News #1: Kongai-Final is being played by admins Damijin and BenV - I've also been told by damijin himself Kongai is not far around the corner!
News #2: I gave permission to Kirbyviper93 to post here; He'll be our new interviewer! He also has his own blog, Kirby Speaks Out -- I recommend you to view that also!
News #1: Kongai-Final is being played by admins Damijin and BenV - I've also been told by damijin himself Kongai is not far around the corner!
News #2: I gave permission to Kirbyviper93 to post here; He'll be our new interviewer! He also has his own blog, Kirby Speaks Out -- I recommend you to view that also!
Sunday, 30 March 2008
AlisonClaire Interview
Ok, well, I got access to my interwebz again and interviewed AlisonClaire. Interview took FREAKING AGES so it took about half an hour to edit. Anyway, here ya go.
The1Wizkid
Ready for super-duper-awesome interview now? :3
The1Wizkid
(btw don't use MSN smileys, takes ages to edit out)
AlisonClaire
if by 'super-duper-awesome' you mean 'totally boring and lame' then sure.
AlisonClaire
WHY MUST YOU STRANGLE MY CREATIVITY!
AlisonClaire
*insert MSN angry face here*
The1Wizkid
I'm sure I can make it interesting for ya ; )
The1Wizkid
Sooo. When did you sign up to Kong, how, and why?
AlisonClaire
April of last year, found the site through StumbleUpon and Fancy Pants. Signed up because I then started playing bloons and had a question about something. Started chatting because damijin was in chat and I wanted to tell him what a great site is was/is.
The1Wizkid
And do you remember your first few Kongfriends?
AlisonClaire
Yup. Most of them have vanished actually but it was the majority of the old school vannites. Mastry, d ijin, valkyrie, Kitten20, LoneRonin, Darwin
AlisonClaire
etc.etc.
The1Wizkid
Whoa.. And how long do you spend on Kongregate every day?
AlisonClaire
Oh lord. I have no idea. It really depends on the day. Much less now that I'm in school but I'll go with 2 hoursish. That's probably too low of an estimate but I will make myself too sad if I admit the actual ount of time I spend with you fake cyber people.
AlisonClaire
No more than 2 in chat but I tend to check the forums throughout the day.
The1Wizkid
Cool, hum..
The1Wizkid
What's your favourite chatroom?
AlisonClaire
Duh. Clearly Mostly Harmless. There is no competition!
The1Wizkid
(except The Van)
AlisonClaire
But up until the creation of my room I was a Vannite.
AlisonClaire
I dunno man, The Van is too schizophrenic for me now. I can't keep up with you young folk anymore.
The1Wizkid
=p
The1Wizkid
^o^ And what's your favourite feature on Kongregate?
AlisonClaire
Chat. It's allowed me to meet all sorts of wonderful people!
AlisonClaire
....and you.
The1Wizkid
I'm not wonderful? :' (
AlisonClaire
Nah you're ULTRASUPERFANTASTIC
The1Wizkid
^o^ Wewt
The1Wizkid
Ok, so. Before we continue, one last rumour to find the answer to:
AlisonClaire
No I am not pregnant.
The1Wizkid
Are you REALLY a 40 year old man called Ralph who lives in his mom's basement wearing a trenchcoat?
AlisonClaire
Oh, that one. Well yes, clearly.
AlisonClaire
And I live in Wisconsin and spend a great deal of time eating deep fried cheese curds. And playing Kingdom Hearts.
AlisonClaire
And Runescape
The1Wizkid
OMG! Runescape! best game evar.
AlisonClaire
I totally agree. You wanna come over to my house and play it sometime?
AlisonClaire
I'm a level eleventyseven mage OMG PHEER ME
The1Wizkid
OMG! Of course.
AlisonClaire
I'll get my mom to bake us cookies.
AlisonClaire
Man, I hope Chris Hanson doesn't show up to ruin the fun this time!
The1Wizkid
Hehe ^o^
The1Wizkid
Ok, so... Mod questions <3
The1Wizkid
How long have you been a moderator? =)
AlisonClaire
This is a matter of some debate. I thought since early July but someone said it was earlier. So sometime between June or July.
The1Wizkid
How did you feel on being appointed?
AlisonClaire
I was pretty stoked. That was back before The Van was the land of the mods so I frequently had to go find someone to ban trolls which, as I'm sure you know, is quite annoying. Plus I'm a huge kong fangirl so I was glad there was a way for me to help make the community stronger
The1Wizkid
^o^
The1Wizkid
Hum.. Any people you've seen who you think should be mod? *wink wink nudge nudge hint hint*
AlisonClaire
I have seen huge numbers of people that would be fantastic mods. I seriously think 90% of the regulars in my room would be azing mods.
AlisonClaire
It's just a question of need and oversaturation in certain rooms.
AlisonClaire
Plus greg has this rad new system he wants to implement that would put much more power in the users hands so we will become obsolete
The1Wizkid
: (
AlisonClaire
Oh what are you : ( ing at
The1Wizkid
Nothin'
AlisonClaire
OMG YES WIZKY I THINK YOU WOULD BE A FABOO MOD!
The1Wizkid
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
AlisonClaire
(is that what I was supposed to say? : P It is true though)
The1Wizkid
^o^
AlisonClaire
Except that you might ban your brother for no reason
The1Wizkid
Now gogogogo do your studying or w/e
The1Wizkid
Guess I must say thanks.. *rolls eyes*
The1Wizkid
Thanks for participating in the first interview for Kongiophobia V2, yada yada
AlisonClaire
yup no problem. If you have any other questions feel free to ask me whenever
The1Wizkid
Ok.
AlisonClaire
kthxbai
Ready for super-duper-awesome interview now? :3
The1Wizkid
(btw don't use MSN smileys, takes ages to edit out)
AlisonClaire
if by 'super-duper-awesome' you mean 'totally boring and lame' then sure.
AlisonClaire
WHY MUST YOU STRANGLE MY CREATIVITY!
AlisonClaire
*insert MSN angry face here*
The1Wizkid
I'm sure I can make it interesting for ya ; )
The1Wizkid
Sooo. When did you sign up to Kong, how, and why?
AlisonClaire
April of last year, found the site through StumbleUpon and Fancy Pants. Signed up because I then started playing bloons and had a question about something. Started chatting because damijin was in chat and I wanted to tell him what a great site is was/is.
The1Wizkid
And do you remember your first few Kongfriends?
AlisonClaire
Yup. Most of them have vanished actually but it was the majority of the old school vannites. Mastry, d ijin, valkyrie, Kitten20, LoneRonin, Darwin
AlisonClaire
etc.etc.
The1Wizkid
Whoa.. And how long do you spend on Kongregate every day?
AlisonClaire
Oh lord. I have no idea. It really depends on the day. Much less now that I'm in school but I'll go with 2 hoursish. That's probably too low of an estimate but I will make myself too sad if I admit the actual ount of time I spend with you fake cyber people.
AlisonClaire
No more than 2 in chat but I tend to check the forums throughout the day.
The1Wizkid
Cool, hum..
The1Wizkid
What's your favourite chatroom?
AlisonClaire
Duh. Clearly Mostly Harmless. There is no competition!
The1Wizkid
(except The Van)
AlisonClaire
But up until the creation of my room I was a Vannite.
AlisonClaire
I dunno man, The Van is too schizophrenic for me now. I can't keep up with you young folk anymore.
The1Wizkid
=p
The1Wizkid
^o^ And what's your favourite feature on Kongregate?
AlisonClaire
Chat. It's allowed me to meet all sorts of wonderful people!
AlisonClaire
....and you.
The1Wizkid
I'm not wonderful? :' (
AlisonClaire
Nah you're ULTRASUPERFANTASTIC
The1Wizkid
^o^ Wewt
The1Wizkid
Ok, so. Before we continue, one last rumour to find the answer to:
AlisonClaire
No I am not pregnant.
The1Wizkid
Are you REALLY a 40 year old man called Ralph who lives in his mom's basement wearing a trenchcoat?
AlisonClaire
Oh, that one. Well yes, clearly.
AlisonClaire
And I live in Wisconsin and spend a great deal of time eating deep fried cheese curds. And playing Kingdom Hearts.
AlisonClaire
And Runescape
The1Wizkid
OMG! Runescape! best game evar.
AlisonClaire
I totally agree. You wanna come over to my house and play it sometime?
AlisonClaire
I'm a level eleventyseven mage OMG PHEER ME
The1Wizkid
OMG! Of course.
AlisonClaire
I'll get my mom to bake us cookies.
AlisonClaire
Man, I hope Chris Hanson doesn't show up to ruin the fun this time!
The1Wizkid
Hehe ^o^
The1Wizkid
Ok, so... Mod questions <3
The1Wizkid
How long have you been a moderator? =)
AlisonClaire
This is a matter of some debate. I thought since early July but someone said it was earlier. So sometime between June or July.
The1Wizkid
How did you feel on being appointed?
AlisonClaire
I was pretty stoked. That was back before The Van was the land of the mods so I frequently had to go find someone to ban trolls which, as I'm sure you know, is quite annoying. Plus I'm a huge kong fangirl so I was glad there was a way for me to help make the community stronger
The1Wizkid
^o^
The1Wizkid
Hum.. Any people you've seen who you think should be mod? *wink wink nudge nudge hint hint*
AlisonClaire
I have seen huge numbers of people that would be fantastic mods. I seriously think 90% of the regulars in my room would be azing mods.
AlisonClaire
It's just a question of need and oversaturation in certain rooms.
AlisonClaire
Plus greg has this rad new system he wants to implement that would put much more power in the users hands so we will become obsolete
The1Wizkid
: (
AlisonClaire
Oh what are you : ( ing at
The1Wizkid
Nothin'
AlisonClaire
OMG YES WIZKY I THINK YOU WOULD BE A FABOO MOD!
The1Wizkid
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
AlisonClaire
(is that what I was supposed to say? : P It is true though)
The1Wizkid
^o^
AlisonClaire
Except that you might ban your brother for no reason
The1Wizkid
Now gogogogo do your studying or w/e
The1Wizkid
Guess I must say thanks.. *rolls eyes*
The1Wizkid
Thanks for participating in the first interview for Kongiophobia V2, yada yada
AlisonClaire
yup no problem. If you have any other questions feel free to ask me whenever
The1Wizkid
Ok.
AlisonClaire
kthxbai
Wednesday, 26 March 2008
See y'all
Well, I gone and got myself banned for a week from the interwebz because I've been on Kongregate too much, so.. See y'all then. Wizblog will probably die by the time I get back, though, so current posters.. PLZ PLZ PLZ POST DECENT STUFF.
Oh yeah, if you need me for anything, comment here or shout me on my profile on Kongregate.
Oh yeah, if you need me for anything, comment here or shout me on my profile on Kongregate.
Tuesday, 25 March 2008
Survey!
Yay! On Kongregate Homepage, there's a new Quick Survey to fill in.
arcaneCoder said this about it: "In my opinion, by better knowing the interests of their demographic they can better tailor both the content of the site and the advertisements to fit the interests of those playing. They also learn which features of the site everyone enjoys best. Knowing what we like allows them to give us what we like."
So, go fill that in for better Kong stuff. :)
Also, posted in forum about The1Wizblog. Hopefully more viewers, yay!
arcaneCoder said this about it: "In my opinion, by better knowing the interests of their demographic they can better tailor both the content of the site and the advertisements to fit the interests of those playing. They also learn which features of the site everyone enjoys best. Knowing what we like allows them to give us what we like."
So, go fill that in for better Kong stuff. :)
Also, posted in forum about The1Wizblog. Hopefully more viewers, yay!
Friday, 21 March 2008
GREG INTERVIEW! WOOT!
Hey guys! I'll post now my interview with Greg, that happened lots of days ago. It's originally posted (portuguese translated) at KongBR blog (http://kongbr.com.br). It's a Brazilian blog about Kong. You guys should take a look someday, even if you don't understand a thing! Cause we are really really cool. Comment there please. B)
Ok, no more chit-chat. Here we go! Greg interview! Woot!
1) How long have you worked at Kongregate?
Kongregate is a full-time job for me, so I work at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I started working at Kongregate back in August 2006 as the first full-time employee.
2) What is your job at Kongregate, exactly?
I do lots of stuff at Kongregate, and sometimes it fluctuates a bit from month to month. I probably spend the largest chunk of my time reviewing potential game sponsorships, then working out the arrangements for the ones I like. I also spend a pretty significant amount of time working on new achievements (and the weekly challenge). Whatever time I have left over goes to keeping up with community issues and appointing new moderators.
3) Did you expect that Kongregate would be so big and popular?
Modestly aside, well, yes. I spent a couple of months working for NHN USA ( www.ijji.com ) straight out of college, and I left to join the Kongregate team. Working for NHN was pretty great, and I would not have left if I didn't believe that Kongregate would grow to be incredibly popular. I certainly have no regrets about my decision and it's tremendously exciting to see how much the site has grown, but we still have a long road ahead of us if the site is to be truly successful.
4) What is the criteria for choosing a game to recieve a badge/card?
User ratings! I can't emphasize this enough. Developers contact me all the time asking for badges in their games, and they usually have less than 3 stars. When I go to add new badges, I sort all the games on the site by rating, and pick the top ones first. Games that are quick and easy may get badges sooner than incredibly long RPGs, though, just because I play games as much as I think is necessary before deciding what the badge should be. Putting badges in Anika's Odyssey and Balance Balls 2 took about 10 minutes, while designing/implementing the badges in Monsters' Den and Protector took about 2 days. Even for the Monsters' Den badges, I wish I would've spent a third day on it, just because the impossible badge turned out to be a little easier than I intended. In retrospect, I probably should've made it a hard badge at 20 levels. Oh well.
5) What is your opinion about "Corporative games"?
I think they're all right. Flash developers can earn a lot of money from them, and I know for a fact that some developers on Kongregate have developed games for corporations in the past as a way to pay the bills. What's a little sad, though, is that most Flash developers are essentially forced to either "sell out" and create advertisement games or start doing "real" programming if they want to make a living in the game development industry. There are a few exceptions to this (Hero Interactive, for example, is making a living primarily off of sponsorships with his consistently terrific creations), but for the most part, it's really hard to make a living developing games in Flash unless you're doing it to sell a product. Sponsorships have become more lucrative lately, though, and Kongregate's premium games program is offering a lot of money to independent Flash game developers, so hopefully this won't always be the case!
6) What do you think about the Kongregate/Newgrounds comparisons?
I think they're a little silly, honestly. Newgrounds deserves a ton of respect for paving the way for Flash portals in general, and I visit the site pretty frequently myself. I can understand that some Newgrounds fans are a little annoyed with Kongregate being called the "YouTube of games," since Newgrounds has essentially been the same thing for the past decade. "YouTube of games" is used to describe Kongregate for people who know nothing about the Flash world. For people who DO know about Kongregate and Newgrounds, though, they understand that Kongregate offers a lot more than a standard YouTube model -- we have chat, achievements, challenges, etc. Most of the content on Newgrounds is in the form of movies anyway, and their standards for acceptable content are a bit more extreme than Kongregate's. Just the fact that both sites host user-uploaded Flash games is pretty much the only similarity. I certainly don't think Newgrounds needs to worry about Kongregate, also -- Newgrounds will always be around regardless of Kongregate's success.
7) How hard is it to manage this great Kongregate community?
Incredibly hard. Impossible, even. I wouldn't be able to do it without the help of both Damijin and the entire team of terrific volunteer moderators across the site. But unfortunately, the whole system of "Greg appoints every moderator on the site" is horribly outdated for the amount of traffic that Kongregate has worked its way up to, and it's no secret that the community is a bit of a mess right now. Lately I've been working on the plans for a system of moderation on the site that involves normal users voting out trolls and spammers, and this should see some development once our programmers aren't so busy finishing up the card game.
8) What is your impression about the Brazilian community?
I unfortunately don't have a strong impression of the Brazilian community on Kongregate, since I can't speak Portuguese. This language barrier makes it incredibly difficult to moderate Brazilian rooms and to appoint Brazilian moderators. I know that the Brazilian room has had a lot of problems with trolling/spamming in the past, but I don't think this is representative of the Brazilian community on Kongregate -- the English rooms would probably be the exact same way if they didn't have any attention from moderators.
9) Have you already visited Brazil? If not, do you plan to visit someday?
I haven't visited Brazil. I would definitely like to, but the thought of traveling in a foreign country without being able to speak the native language is a bit intimidating. It's stressful enough just traveling within the United States! I went to Europe once with my dad when I was 15, and it was pretty stressful just watching him trying to communicate with everyone around us. If I ever did go to Brazil, it would probably be with a group or something.
10) How do you feel about being the "Kong sex symbol"?
Haha, I don't think this is true at all. You sure you're not thinking of arcaneCoder?
11) And what does Alison think about it?
Thankfully, I don't think Alison believes this is true either -- she probably wouldn't be too happy about it.
12) Well, can you give us a short description about yourself?
Let's see... I worked at GameStop for 3 years in high school, and I graduated from college about 2 years ago. I majored in psychology and human development, though I spent most of my time working at the student newspaper doing copy editing and reviewing video games. After I graduated, I worked for NHN a bit, then moved on to Kongregate. So video games have been a huge part of my life, both for entertainment purposes and regarding my employment. Other than having a lucky streak of cool jobs, I can't say there's anything about me that's too exciting. I will say that I'm a huge nerd when it comes to grammar, though, and I spent a ton of time playing World of Warcraft. What were you saying about "Kong sex symbol" again?
13) How long have you been together?
Alison and I have been together for about 5 years now. We met while we were both working at GameStop -- she was actually my boss at the time.
14) How is your relationship with the other people from the Staff? And the mods?
Everyone in the Kongregate staff gets along really well, at least as far as I know. I've never really worked in a "normal" office environment, but Alison has commented about how refreshing it is to work at a place that doesn't have any office drama being gossiped about behind people's backs. Jim even loaned me his Audi when I wrecked my car on the freeway (a truck in front of me decided to drop a ladder), and Alison and I have looked after his dog, Nikki, a few times. I get along great with most of the mods, or at least they act nice when I'm around! I really wish I had more time to get to know a lot of them better, though. Most new moderators are appointed more by recommendation than by my personal experience with them.
15) Is it true that Kongregate pays a trip to a resort for you every year?
No, I'm not sure how this rumor started! Alison and I recently came back from a trip to Hawaii, but that wiped out my savings account pretty thoroughly. The Kongregate staff had an off-site trip to Ashland a few months ago, but we spent the whole time working.
16) What is your: Favorite food? Favorite movie? Favorite music style? Favorite book? Favorite site?
My favorite food is sushi. I mean real sushi, not California rolls. Most Americans who say they like sushi really mean that they like fake crab with avocado and mayonnaise wrapped with rice, and I'm sure the Japanese are laughing about it behind our backs. I'm not sure what my favorite movie is. Probably Jurassic Park, Heat, or Sideways. For music, I'm really not sure. I'm part of the .00001% of the human population that's just not really into music that much. There are a few songs I like, but I can't say I've ever been really excited by a particular group or style. My favorite book is probably "The Color of Magic" by Terry Pratchett, or Jurassic Park (seeing the movie when I was 10, then reading the book really got me into literature at a young age). My favorite website (besides Kongregate of course!) is probably YTMND.com.
17) Do you have any message to the Brazilian community?
Yes, I do! Tremendous thanks to Willian for helping out with moderating Orgulho, but I know that the room can still be a bit messy at times. Hopefully user moderation will especially help out the foreign-language rooms, where it's more difficult for the Kongregate staff to have a direct influence.
Wizzy edit: OMG! WIN! 2 KONG STAFF INTERVIEWED! NOW FOR DAMIJIN >:)
Ok, no more chit-chat. Here we go! Greg interview! Woot!
1) How long have you worked at Kongregate?
Kongregate is a full-time job for me, so I work at least 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I started working at Kongregate back in August 2006 as the first full-time employee.
2) What is your job at Kongregate, exactly?
I do lots of stuff at Kongregate, and sometimes it fluctuates a bit from month to month. I probably spend the largest chunk of my time reviewing potential game sponsorships, then working out the arrangements for the ones I like. I also spend a pretty significant amount of time working on new achievements (and the weekly challenge). Whatever time I have left over goes to keeping up with community issues and appointing new moderators.
3) Did you expect that Kongregate would be so big and popular?
Modestly aside, well, yes. I spent a couple of months working for NHN USA ( www.ijji.com ) straight out of college, and I left to join the Kongregate team. Working for NHN was pretty great, and I would not have left if I didn't believe that Kongregate would grow to be incredibly popular. I certainly have no regrets about my decision and it's tremendously exciting to see how much the site has grown, but we still have a long road ahead of us if the site is to be truly successful.
4) What is the criteria for choosing a game to recieve a badge/card?
User ratings! I can't emphasize this enough. Developers contact me all the time asking for badges in their games, and they usually have less than 3 stars. When I go to add new badges, I sort all the games on the site by rating, and pick the top ones first. Games that are quick and easy may get badges sooner than incredibly long RPGs, though, just because I play games as much as I think is necessary before deciding what the badge should be. Putting badges in Anika's Odyssey and Balance Balls 2 took about 10 minutes, while designing/implementing the badges in Monsters' Den and Protector took about 2 days. Even for the Monsters' Den badges, I wish I would've spent a third day on it, just because the impossible badge turned out to be a little easier than I intended. In retrospect, I probably should've made it a hard badge at 20 levels. Oh well.
5) What is your opinion about "Corporative games"?
I think they're all right. Flash developers can earn a lot of money from them, and I know for a fact that some developers on Kongregate have developed games for corporations in the past as a way to pay the bills. What's a little sad, though, is that most Flash developers are essentially forced to either "sell out" and create advertisement games or start doing "real" programming if they want to make a living in the game development industry. There are a few exceptions to this (Hero Interactive, for example, is making a living primarily off of sponsorships with his consistently terrific creations), but for the most part, it's really hard to make a living developing games in Flash unless you're doing it to sell a product. Sponsorships have become more lucrative lately, though, and Kongregate's premium games program is offering a lot of money to independent Flash game developers, so hopefully this won't always be the case!
6) What do you think about the Kongregate/Newgrounds comparisons?
I think they're a little silly, honestly. Newgrounds deserves a ton of respect for paving the way for Flash portals in general, and I visit the site pretty frequently myself. I can understand that some Newgrounds fans are a little annoyed with Kongregate being called the "YouTube of games," since Newgrounds has essentially been the same thing for the past decade. "YouTube of games" is used to describe Kongregate for people who know nothing about the Flash world. For people who DO know about Kongregate and Newgrounds, though, they understand that Kongregate offers a lot more than a standard YouTube model -- we have chat, achievements, challenges, etc. Most of the content on Newgrounds is in the form of movies anyway, and their standards for acceptable content are a bit more extreme than Kongregate's. Just the fact that both sites host user-uploaded Flash games is pretty much the only similarity. I certainly don't think Newgrounds needs to worry about Kongregate, also -- Newgrounds will always be around regardless of Kongregate's success.
7) How hard is it to manage this great Kongregate community?
Incredibly hard. Impossible, even. I wouldn't be able to do it without the help of both Damijin and the entire team of terrific volunteer moderators across the site. But unfortunately, the whole system of "Greg appoints every moderator on the site" is horribly outdated for the amount of traffic that Kongregate has worked its way up to, and it's no secret that the community is a bit of a mess right now. Lately I've been working on the plans for a system of moderation on the site that involves normal users voting out trolls and spammers, and this should see some development once our programmers aren't so busy finishing up the card game.
8) What is your impression about the Brazilian community?
I unfortunately don't have a strong impression of the Brazilian community on Kongregate, since I can't speak Portuguese. This language barrier makes it incredibly difficult to moderate Brazilian rooms and to appoint Brazilian moderators. I know that the Brazilian room has had a lot of problems with trolling/spamming in the past, but I don't think this is representative of the Brazilian community on Kongregate -- the English rooms would probably be the exact same way if they didn't have any attention from moderators.
9) Have you already visited Brazil? If not, do you plan to visit someday?
I haven't visited Brazil. I would definitely like to, but the thought of traveling in a foreign country without being able to speak the native language is a bit intimidating. It's stressful enough just traveling within the United States! I went to Europe once with my dad when I was 15, and it was pretty stressful just watching him trying to communicate with everyone around us. If I ever did go to Brazil, it would probably be with a group or something.
10) How do you feel about being the "Kong sex symbol"?
Haha, I don't think this is true at all. You sure you're not thinking of arcaneCoder?
11) And what does Alison think about it?
Thankfully, I don't think Alison believes this is true either -- she probably wouldn't be too happy about it.
12) Well, can you give us a short description about yourself?
Let's see... I worked at GameStop for 3 years in high school, and I graduated from college about 2 years ago. I majored in psychology and human development, though I spent most of my time working at the student newspaper doing copy editing and reviewing video games. After I graduated, I worked for NHN a bit, then moved on to Kongregate. So video games have been a huge part of my life, both for entertainment purposes and regarding my employment. Other than having a lucky streak of cool jobs, I can't say there's anything about me that's too exciting. I will say that I'm a huge nerd when it comes to grammar, though, and I spent a ton of time playing World of Warcraft. What were you saying about "Kong sex symbol" again?
13) How long have you been together?
Alison and I have been together for about 5 years now. We met while we were both working at GameStop -- she was actually my boss at the time.
14) How is your relationship with the other people from the Staff? And the mods?
Everyone in the Kongregate staff gets along really well, at least as far as I know. I've never really worked in a "normal" office environment, but Alison has commented about how refreshing it is to work at a place that doesn't have any office drama being gossiped about behind people's backs. Jim even loaned me his Audi when I wrecked my car on the freeway (a truck in front of me decided to drop a ladder), and Alison and I have looked after his dog, Nikki, a few times. I get along great with most of the mods, or at least they act nice when I'm around! I really wish I had more time to get to know a lot of them better, though. Most new moderators are appointed more by recommendation than by my personal experience with them.
15) Is it true that Kongregate pays a trip to a resort for you every year?
No, I'm not sure how this rumor started! Alison and I recently came back from a trip to Hawaii, but that wiped out my savings account pretty thoroughly. The Kongregate staff had an off-site trip to Ashland a few months ago, but we spent the whole time working.
16) What is your: Favorite food? Favorite movie? Favorite music style? Favorite book? Favorite site?
My favorite food is sushi. I mean real sushi, not California rolls. Most Americans who say they like sushi really mean that they like fake crab with avocado and mayonnaise wrapped with rice, and I'm sure the Japanese are laughing about it behind our backs. I'm not sure what my favorite movie is. Probably Jurassic Park, Heat, or Sideways. For music, I'm really not sure. I'm part of the .00001% of the human population that's just not really into music that much. There are a few songs I like, but I can't say I've ever been really excited by a particular group or style. My favorite book is probably "The Color of Magic" by Terry Pratchett, or Jurassic Park (seeing the movie when I was 10, then reading the book really got me into literature at a young age). My favorite website (besides Kongregate of course!) is probably YTMND.com.
17) Do you have any message to the Brazilian community?
Yes, I do! Tremendous thanks to Willian for helping out with moderating Orgulho, but I know that the room can still be a bit messy at times. Hopefully user moderation will especially help out the foreign-language rooms, where it's more difficult for the Kongregate staff to have a direct influence.
Wizzy edit: OMG! WIN! 2 KONG STAFF INTERVIEWED! NOW FOR DAMIJIN >:)
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