Handled it better than going hostile, but I think they would’ve likely done better to return a pat marketing line about ‘constantly improving the service’ and ‘appreciate feedback’ and moving on to some other topic.
Better for Microsoft’s interests, I mean.
Dear Giant Bomb People,
Please don’t put on Jenova Chen with a bunch of native English speakers. He sounds like he’s having a stroke. I mean, I’m not saying don’t interview him, or don’t have a panel discussion with him, but the man is death for any sort of loose discussion. I’ll admit, I’m not much for the guy’s games, but mostly I just feel bad for him, because he sounds like he should have somebody wipe drool off of him, and I suspect that he’s probably smarter than being stuck in a room with a bunch of people cracking jokes in a language he’s not a native speaker of makes him sound.
Don’t be an asshole, Brian. He sounds like a Chinese dude, not a stroke victim. I’m listening to the podcast now, and he’s contributing perfectly well.
He’s struggling to put his thoughts into words and the rest of the room is putting itself on pause while he tries to cobble together a sentence. It doesn’t do any favors for the podcast itself and it makes him sound dumb, not just because you can feel the effort he’s putting in, but also because he is to levity what Geri Jewell was to The Facts of Life. I’m not bagging on the guy for his accent - I’m just saying that every time he says more than five words in a row the entire discussion stops like it his a brick wall. That’s not so bad in a more organized and directed discussion, but for a bunch of people sitting on a couch, it really hurts. The segment where Ryan tried to involve him felt painfully awkward in general, and outside of that segment you don’t hear much from the guy, which leads me to suspect that he felt a little awkward himself. He’d be fine on Brainy Gamer, or Three Moves Ahead, or anything with a topic, speaking order, or over Skype (where people generally don’t talk over one another anyway) - he’s just a bad fit for the E3 after hours drinking and unwinding show.
Doubling-down on the assholery was probably not your best choice here. Again, I’m listening to it right now and I’m finding his contributions to be valid and interesting. Then again, I also don’t go around comparing native Chinese speakers to cerebral palsy victims, so I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree.
To be fair, I skipped passed him as well, but it wasn’t because of his accent, it was just because he wasn’t saying anything that clicked with me. Actually, the entirety of the giant bomb stuff has been really interesting, but long stretches go by where I just don’t care about what’s being talked about. I might need a different podcast to get actual info on the E3 show and what was being shown.
I am enjoying the Giant Bombcast E3 coverage, sure, but I don’t think it’s what I’m looking for. I really would have rather just had the usual crew talking about the things they had seen and done during the day. Maybe we’ll get more of that next week.
Bleed: Giantbomb has daily rundown videos where the guys talk about what they saw that day. I’ve only watched the Day 0 video, but it sounds like what you’re looking for.
Quaro
4108
The middle part of Day 1 is the best E3 podcast so far for me, and it didn’t touch on anything E3.
That’s perfect so far, thanks Steve, MUCH appreciated!
For some reason the biggest laugh for me of all the Giant Bombcast stuff I’ve heard was when they were discussing the qualifications of Wuhu Island and the Wii Balance Board as 1st party Nintendo Characters.
SOME GUY: Okay, Island versus Balance Board in a fighting game. Who wins?
JEFF: [Long Pause] …Well, you can stand on both of them, so I DON’T KNOW!
JZigish
4111
Watching the Giant Bomb livestreams now, these are great. I’m loving the Jaffe/Cowboy interactions, and I learned useful information about Uncharted 3’s physics simulation.
Quaro
4112
Listening to this now. If anyone is wondering Brian is full of shit. So far Chen has managed to be both funny and interesting.
Eh, he was kinda hard to listen to for me, his personality really didn’t click with everyone else, he was very serious about what he was talking about, it was like with Blow. Everyone is making balance board jokes and then he talks about how he is sick of physics in games. Just a small part of the cast though, as with the stuff with Blow, so it wasn’t that big of a deal, it just felt awkward.
_Poe
4115
That was absolutely fantastic.
Awesome. Who was it in the penguin suit?
Brian and Jon agree.
Take from that what you will.
Glad you liked it. The final E3 podcast doesn’t go up until Sunday night. We recorded it after Day 3 of the show but it won’t go up until tomorrow.
Really love talking with Tom and Jason. Brian Rowe was also on the show; Mitch big timed us and bailed. I have no idea why the first podcast was broken when Brandon uploaded it. It was funny (well, not really) but I woke up in the middle of the night and my twitter feed and inbox had a lot of “dude your podcast is broken” messages. I was both freaked out that it was screwed up and happy that people noticed.
Lake
4119
Will Smith from Tested.com
Tony_M
4120
You check your twitter in the middle of the night?
