Podcast Review – Why We Play
Episodes Reviewed: 1-10
Release Schedule: Weekly
Average Episode Length: 50 Minutes
Formats: Audio Only
Brendan Benton has started an Interview podcast where he interviews regular people with only one real objective, to shine a light on a very important question; Why We Play Video Games. Each week he is joined by a new interviewee and we usually learn a little bit more about our host as well. It’s an easy premise to get into, a regular guy interviewing regular people about their love of Video Games. What’s not to like?
Anyone who identifies as a Gamer will undoubtedly have strong feelings about their hobby of choice. Most importantly, everyone has their own reasons, experiences, and thoughts on it. The free-form interview style of the show works due to this. Asking every guest, the same questions might work in an academic study but here, changing it up to suit each guest makes far more sense.
Each guest is different, they grew up at different times, played different games, like different games and formed their own opinions. There are so many games out there encompassing many genres including, Action, Adventure, Sports, First Person Shooters, Puzzle, Platformers & Side-Scrollers. Each appeal to different people, at different times, for different reasons. Drilling down into those reasons is interesting.
Being an interview podcast, it lives and dies on the quality of its guests. If you find a guest unappealing to listen to, then you are going to struggle with that episode. Don’t let that stop you though, just move on to the next episode and try another guest. The audio quality fluctuates a lot, from episode to episode, unfortunately for the same reason. Not everyone has a good quality microphone lying around to be interviewed with after all.
Is this a professional effort? No, but Brendan’s passion for this topic is clear, he does his best putting this podcast together and overall, I’m fascinated by the central question of the podcast. Honestly, if the guests continue to be varied, I will never tire of hearing about why people play video games. Thank goodness there is a podcast about it.
Link
Twitter: @whyweplayshow
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/why-we-play/id120462357
