Inside Xbox Exclusive Interview

Xbox Live has become the new stomping ground of Dan Maher – you may know him as MrPointyHead of Inside Xbox fame. We managed to get an interview with him and, for your reading pleasure, is the transcript below…

X360: How do you see your role in the Xbox Live community?

Increasingly consequential. I think I now have a team in place that allows me to produce the content I’d dreamed of creating when I first got the job. Back then, it was just me on my lonesome, which made it very difficult to get a great deal done beyond the fundamentals, and I think Inside Xbox was regarded as a bit of a weak offering by the community.

Now we produce a video a day, we feature prominently on the NXE Dashboard, we have credible content partners and we aim to get the community involved in our content wherever possible – and it’s still all absolutely free. The other consoles may have had their own stabs at editorially driven video channels, but I genuinely believe that Inside Xbox not only trumps their offerings, but also sets the benchmark for in-dash community integration. There’s always plenty of room for improvement, though!

X360: How did you get to such an esteemed position?

In disappointingly mundane fashion. I was working as a producer in the International Software Development team at the time and received a call from a recruitment consultant who’d said a friend had recommended me for a position at Xbox. Inside Xbox hadn’t actually launched at the time, so it was all incredibly vague, but sufficiently intriguing for me to give it a shot. Eight (!) interviews later and I was officially deemed worthy enough to join Team Xbox.

X360: How do feel about being a ‘presenter’ on what is pretty much a TV show?

It’s very, very strange. The first event I went to for IX was a community promotion for the COD4 map pack, and the intention was for AceyBongos and I to present together. I completely bottled it at the last minute and left him to do it alone because I’d never done anything like it before, and it certainly wasn’t part of my job description.

However, I quickly realised that if we wanted the community to engage with Inside Xbox I had to prove that I was a real person and not just an abstract corporate identity referring to myself in the collective voice, so when we travelled up to Twycross to visit Rare I held my nerve and co-hosted/acted terribly with Acey. Since then, it’s been a struggle to keep me off camera!

Presenting has since become a highlight of my working week – I probably only dedicate a couple of hours at most to video content, but it’s a welcome break from some of the slightly more mundane and time-consuming aspects of my role. Between myself, Graeme and Andy though, I still think I’m the weak link. If only you could see some of the outtakes. ☺

X360: Did you have to do any presenter training like speech and body language or how to look good on camera? Do have someone to do your hair and make-up?

I think it’s obvious that the answer is ‘no’ on all counts. I am lobbying for a make-up artist, though.

X360: Where did the original idea come from for Inside Xbox?

I believe it originated back in Redmond, as most Xbox-related innovations tend to. From what I understand, the Live team actually envisaged it as an area for community-generated editorial, but when they thought about the headaches that would ensue from a moderation perspective, it evolved into an internally produced newsfeed.

One aspect that has stuck since the original concept is the idea of community engagement – it was intended as a place where the marketing-led activities that were so prevalent throughout the rest of the Dashboard were put to one side to allow a voice that was more personal, more direct and, in some ways, more credible, to be heard.

X360: You guys are the British Inside Xbox, but is there an equivalent in the States and Europe? Have you ever met them?

Yes – the US, Canada and Japan all have their own versions of Inside Xbox. My team and I actually look after Inside Xbox in France, Germany, Italy and Spain too, and we work with our colleagues in these regions to generate content that’s culturally relevant. I don’t think we’re quite where we are with the UK and Ireland at the moment, but we’re getting there.

You’ll probably notice that we’ve started co-opting some US content – with Pick Up & Play, we leave it as is, but Insider Moves is actually a re-scripted and re-voiced version of the US original.

Each region has turned Inside Xbox into something that works for their audience; the US version plays it quite slick and straight, the Japanese version is suitably baffling – and loaded with cute girls, something I know we’re lacking… sorry – and I like to think that we tap into the same vein of off-kilter humour that the likes of Your Sinclair and Digitiser drew from, albeit with a slightly broader tone to ensure that we don’t alienate too many readers/viewers.

And yes, I’ve met Major Nelson, Trixie 360 and Nelson Rodriguez from the US arm of IX – all very lovely – and I had a very deep, drunken chat about Akira with one of the Japanese team in a Seattle hotel bar at 4am.

X360: So far we’ve seen a lot of video features to do with the industry and community questions. What can we expect in the future?

We’re currently working on a feature called ‘Bring it Back’, where we’ll be encouraging users to send in suggestions for games that deserve a respectful resurrection – the likes of Day Of The Tentacle, Power Stone, Streets Of Rage et al. We’ll then produce a short retrospective of the winning selection each week, so it’ll hopefully double up as a something of an educational tool for our younger viewers.

We’ve also recently opened up our ‘Monday Musings’ feature to the community, and will publish one user’s musing each month. It basically means they do our job for us, which is obviously great.

Aside from that, we’re working on a few other concepts that will hopefully see the light of day relatively soon, plus we’ll continue to bring interviews – both straight and surreal – with game developers and celebrities.

X360: Why are some of the questions in SentUAMessage quite so silly?

Because they make us laugh – we receive literally hundreds of, “Wen r da Gears 2 servas gonna b fxed?” and “R COD4 mapz cummin?” questions, so anything that stands out, even if it’s clearly ridiculous or, in the case of the guy who asked us when Gears Of War was coming out, a typo, is more likely to be picked. So there’s a tip for your readers: send us something dumb and you’re more likely to have your name read out.

One thing that amuses me is the number of people who ask if downloadable content is coming for games that aren’t even out yet; we’ve had people asking if Modern Warfare 2 will have downloadable maps and guns, despite them knowing zero about the game itself. So impatient, these young ’uns…

X360: Who have you been most excited to meet/interview?

For Inside Xbox, I’ve not really spoken to too many big names – SuperKaylo seems to get them, for some reason – but interviewing Maximo Park in Ibiza was a definite highlight. Genuinely nice guys, and they even dedicated a song to me during their DJ set, which is always going to earn you Brownie points.

If you count my previous journalistic guises, it’s probably a toss-up between Jet Li and Christian Bale. Insane ranting aside, he seemed like a perfectly nice chap to me.

From a purely gaming perspective, Cliff Bleszinski definitely lived up to expectations. He’s the ideal interviewee owing to his genuine enthusiasm and willingness to have a laugh at himself.

X360: How has the Live community responded?

I’m not used to being in the public eye, and what you soon learn is that you stop being a human being and start becoming a fleshy punchbag to a vocal minority of users. There’s an indefatigable sense of self-righteousness and entitlement behind their comments that used to really upset me, but you have to accept that the old maxim ‘You can’t please everyone all of the time’ is truth and just get on with what you do.

Like a lot of people, I’m inclined to take the one negative comment to heart and dismiss the dozens of lovely messages I get every day, but I’ve learned that it’s completely the wrong way to go about things. I’m not saying I want everyone to shower me with praise – constructive criticism is always appreciated and in some cases it actually helps us to shape Inside Xbox into a better service.

X360: What’s your Gamerscore and what are you currently playing?

At the time of writing I’ve reached 30,581, and I’m currently clearing up the last cluster of Achievements on the outstanding Fallout 3.