Ian Bogost on the Colbert Report (which perhaps sounds a bit cleaner than “Bogost on Colbert”. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Men know what men like after all, as Colbert likes to say).
It’ll be good to see him fight the good fight with respect to persuasive, meaningful games (as opposed to say, seeing Will Wright on the show).
Some random tips on a Colbert interview:
- Compliment him when he least expects it or whenever you need to regroup. The more backhanded, the better.
- Be prepared to twist his own arguments – he’ll say games are the downfall of society, hollywood leftist, etc. Point out games have guns and there should therefore be supported by Republicans and the NRA. Not to mention we’re not in Hollywood (well, not some of us, anyway).
- Ask him why games aren’t included in his “Four Horsemen of the A-Pop-calypse” segment (Movies, TV, books, music) – they can’t be the downfall of society if Colbert doesn’t cover them.
- Tap into his inner nerd (noted interest in D&D, and he’s mentioned other games here and there, I just can’t recall which, maybe Civ).
- The more you can play his game of double-meaning the more he’ll play along with what you have to say – most guests sadly don’t really seem to get him. His most succesfuly interviews are with the people who get it (Al Franken was fucking hilarious).
- Similar to the first point, boost his ego when necessary – suggest a Tek Jansen game that featured a “conservative” persuasive agenda. He supposedly can’t get a Tek Jansen book published, but games have lower standards. They’re not art after all.
- Just please don’t sit in his lap like Jane Fonda (but hey, it would disarm him).
A long while back I made the determination that should I ever get on The Daily Show (and later, by extension, The Colbert Report once it came out) to pimp my own game, then and only then I would know I had truly suceeded in what I wanted to do.
Sad though, that it’s still easier to get on to sell a book than to sell a game.