Wrath of the Linn King: An Interview with Bitmob’s Own Demian Linn

Editor’s note: Well this is awkward. Here I am, promoting a post to the front page that’s actually an interview with me. Oh well. For more late-breaking news about me, subscribe to my newsletter. -Demian

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Demian Linn needs no introduction, mostly because he runs the goddamn joint here at Bitmob. But, there were sites and video games before Bitmob, and in his previous life, Demian was an editor at EGM and the head honcho over at gamevideos.com. Under the employ of Ziff-Davis, Demian ran a podcast that was about what is arguably the world’s most popular game, World of WarCraft.

WoW podcasts are a breed unto themselves, if only by sheer numbers. But why this game, and why does it incite so much discussion? I interviewed Demian Linn about his former role as reluctant host of Legendary Thread.

Andrew Hiscock: Legendary Thread began during the lead up to Burning Crusade. Why was the podcast started at this particular time, and for the uninitiated, why does World of WarCraft provide enough fodder to warrant a full show from a major outlet?

Demian Linn: I wanted to start up Legendary Thread for a pretty simple reason — I was playing a lot of WoW, and my job in the most abstract sense was to cover games. Playing an MMO such as WoW can be a big disadvantage for someone in the gaming press, because if you’re WoW-ing all the time you don’t have much to say about games that aren’t WoW. Realizing that, I still didn’t want to quit playing WoW. So something had to give.

Around that time we were doing some long-range planning for 1UP, and Burning Crusade was one of the games we knew we had to cover thoroughly. The problem was, even though WoW was already huge, we only had a small group of players in the office, mainly because of the it-makes-you-worse-at-your-day-job reason I already mentioned. And the few WoW players we did have were already pretty booked up — trying to compete with sites like MMO Champion or WoW.com for Burning Crusade news coverage would be a big fat waste of time.

So I figured, we’ll do a podcast. Being a soft-spoken, chronic mumbler who prefers to drop a quick joke into a conversation and then jump out, I was a terrible host and podcaster, but luckily we had other big personalities or otherwise knowledgeable folks like Jeff Green, Luke Smith, Sean Molloy, and Karen Chu to pick up the slack (and a number of others who joined the cast or guested in the subsequent months).

We actually had big plans at the beginning to get a developer or game industry person on as a guest for every show, because there are so many WoW players out there making games. But that turned out to be much harder to do than we thought, partly because we didn’t have the tech for call-in guests. We did have Dave Karraker on, who at the time was senior director of corporate communications for Sony by day and a raiding Warlock by night.

Oh, and this is starting to have nothing to do with your original question but it’s one of my favorite Legendary Thread stories — during a 1UP Yours taping at the hotel Figueroa at a past E3, (MLB pitcher) Curt Schilling walked up to the group because he recognized Thierry Nguyen’s voice and thought it was a taping of LT, and I think wanted to join in. But when he found out it was 1UP Yours he suddenly had other stuff he needed to do. We did eventually get him on the show at a Blizzcon. He was a great guest, but was also chewing tobacco and spitting into a cup the whole time, which was a little…spitty.

 

AH: As a baseball (and Red Sox) fan, I find it astonishing that a World Series hero like Curt Schilling is such an active WoW player and is working on his own video game company (38 Studios). And you mention that many developers are WoW players — from speaking to these people, what kind of influence is the game having on the development community and the games they are producing (either MMOs or more traditional games)?

DL: I don’t really know how much of a direct influence WoW has on the general development community, but I think other developers really appreciate the craft and polish evident in WoW, and Blizzard games in general.

 

AH: MMO podcasts are probably the largest sub-segment of video game podcasts. Is there anything particular about the genre that inspires so many to produce talk shows?

DL: Sure…it’s the one genre that, if you let it, can take over your life. “I’m playing this game 8+ hours a day. Shit. How do I turn this into a job?” — anyone playing the game that much, or wishing they could, thinks that.

Also, WarCraft is almost constantly updated with tiny tweaks, if not major content additions. There’s a constant flood of news, strategies, tournament results, guild drama, in-game anecdotes, machinima, comics, etc. Lots to cover.

AH: It has been stated amongst the games press that World of WarCraft players are often not gamers, sinking all of their video game time into one game. Did much of this audience tune into the Legendary Thread, or was it a more of the general “gamer” audience provided by 1UP? How was the audience for the podcast different from what you saw in the run of the day through your position at GameVideos?

DL: I’m not sure if you’re paraphrasing that ‘WoW players aren’t gamers’ thing from somewhere in particular, but that kind of parsing of the definition of gamer sounds like a big waste of time to me. Anyone who plays arguably the best game ever made a few hours a day or week, for years, is a gamer in my book.

As for the audience, it’s tough to say, I didn’t have any hard numbers. We’d get the occasional comment or email from someone who didn’t even play WoW but listened to the show, which I could never quite understand, because WoW lingo is practically a different language.

AH: Legendary Thread was billed mostly as a World of WarCraft podcast, but it often branched out into other MMOs. How did your audience react to discussion of non-WoW MMOs?

DL: At the start we only covered WoW, but upon reflection it made sense to occasionally work in some info about other games, so we did when we had something to talk about. We got a few complaints, hey, it’s the Internet. People complained more during the sometimes-long stretches when some show members weren’t actually playing the game much, which is pretty understandable. It can be a bit grueling to talk about one game every week (or two weeks, depending on our schedule at the time).

AH: Did hosting the podcast affect your play in WoW in anyway, either indirectly through podcast discussion or audience response, or directly through interaction with listeners in the game?

DL: It didn’t really affect me very much; I played the game like I would have anyway. I’m not that interested in the holiday events, for example, and I didn’t go too far out of my way to do them because I knew Ryan Scott probably had a spreadsheet for all the quests all ready to go, so we’d still have it covered.

Some of my fellow podcasters formed a guild, I Can’t Quit You, and played with our listeners and other people…I think the guild may still be going today. I would’ve liked to join up, but I’ve been in a guild with some friends since the game started and my playtime is limited, so I just stuck with my usual group. I know Ryan Scott would like to air his grievances with particular players on the show; I think he called out a hit on a player that he got into a flame war with. Actually, he kept bringing this one particular guy up on the show, over and over. Do not cross Ryan Scott is the moral there, I think. In game or in life.

AH: How familiar are you with other WoW/MMO podcasts and in what ways are they providing coverage that more conventional methods (websites/blogs) are not?

DL: To be honest, I think I listened to a couple episodes of the Instance and bits and pieces of a few others, but yeah, not that familiar. They aren’t providing any kind of news coverage that you couldn’t find more quickly online, but they do reflect the social aspect of the game that’s missing from a breakdown of the latest patch notes on MMO Champion.

Podcasts also help feed the addiction — maybe you’re stuck at work and can’t play WoW, so the next best thing is listening to people talk about playing WoW.

AH: Now that you’ve stepped away from hosting the podcast and working in a large video games website, do you still feel as connected to the WoW community? Has this affected how you view the game?

DL: Nothing’s really changed — I still play about the same amount, with the same people I played with before. I still visit the same WoW-related websites. I still get apoplectic about class imbalance in 2v2 arenas. I’m still quiet on vent. I think I need a new mic.

Thanks to Demian Linn for the interview and best wishes to him on his vacation. Hopefully this will tide over the raving lunatic Linn fans we’ve all come to know, love, and hope to eventually find.

For more interviews with notable podcasters:
Phil Kollar formerly of Evil Avatar Radio, 1UP FM, and Rebel FM
Shawn Andrich of Gamers With Jobs Conference Call
Aaron Simmer, organizer of GFW Radio Reunion
Todd Zuniga, host of the Sports Anomaly
Matt Chandronait, producer of CO-OP