Someone To Look Up To

While we were at PAX this year, one of the panels I was super excited to attend was Memoirs of a Triple Agent by Greg Kasavin. It was the story about the former GameSpot Editor in Chief's experiences working in all three facets of the Video Games Industry. First as a member of the Press, he began his career at GameSpot up until his resignation 10 years later. Next he went on to work as a developer at Electronic Arts working on Command & Conquer and Red Alert. Finally Kasavin went to work at 2K Games as a publisher and through these experience the title of his Panel was born.

Here is that Panel - Memoirs of a Triple Agent [Right Click to Save]

So here's a story. For those of you familiar with our site, you've probably heard the story about how Brad and I, who had gone to middle school and high school together but never really became friends until college. We met at the local arcades, him playing Tekken and me playing Dance Dance Revolution. From there we became friends due to mutual interest in video games. We would hang out, talk about games, opinions, or things that had happened in the industry. This lead us to eventually starting our own show in hopes of reaching an audience and the possibility of working in the video game industry.

Something I don't think I've ever mentioned before is that a lot of our initial friendship was spent talking about other people's shows. Podcasting wasn't exactly OUR idea and long before we even dreamed about recording a live show, we used to listen to others. Well Brad did at least. He would recommend me tons of shows but only one of them caught on. The HotSpot. Back when GameSpot was still the site to go to, HotSpot was a great show that contained some of journalism's best minds and personalities, which along with Greg Kasavin included the founding members of Giant Bomb. We both listened the show weekly and there's no doubt it contributed to some of our first intelligent video game conversations. It sparked an interest between the both of us and I think we'd agree it's what influenced us most early on.

After the panel I had an opportunity to speak with Mr. Kasavin and I can say that we made the right decision on who we chose looked up to. Of all the people I've met in the last five years, I found Kasavin to be the most humble, honest, and down right good human being. I got the feeling that he cared how people took his words and made the extra effort that they weren't skewed in the wrong direction. I felt a tremendous sense of identity from him and quite simply he's someone I'd like to strive to be like. It's a little hard to explain in words without being there but I've always been an excellent judge of character, so I don't think I'm wrong here.

I'm not sure how many of you recognize him or used to listen to the HotSpot but this is a name, I think, every game player should know.

David