One Question Interviews: John Carmack, Steve Gaynor, Zoe Quinn, Harvey Smith, Jason Schreier

Several of the video game industry's most notable figures. Only one question for each person. That's the idea behind One Question Interviews. Since most of my articles are made-up nonsense, I should point out that these interviews are real. I actually asked these questions to these people. Their responses are unedited.

John Carmack's programming innovations made Wolfenstein, Doom, and Quake possible and changed the course of video games in numerous ways. Now he's the CTO of Oculus VR, turning the promise of virtual reality into a tangible experience people will actually want to use. With the Oculus Rift and its competitor the HTV Vive finally hitting the market in a few short weeks, Mr. Carmack set aside a few moments to talk about this tremendously exciting time.

Something Awful: Are there plans to release a much larger Oculus headset that can be mounted on a tv stand and played from the comfort of a living room couch several yards away?

John Carmack: No.

Steve Gaynor was the lead designer of Minerva's Den, which you might remember as the best BioShock campaign. He then co-founded The Fullbright Company. Not content to merely enjoy the success of having a company, he persuaded his team to create a video game, so they made Gone Home. Now they're working on a new game called Tacoma. If you've listened to Steve as a guest on the Idle Thumbs podcast or the host of his own show about design, you'll know he's a smart and eloquent Steve with a lot to say about the medium.

Something Awful: What is the title of your upcoming video game, Tacoma?

Steve Gaynor: wow

Zoe Quinn makes video games, and in her spare time she makes the best of finding herself in a situation that cannot be comprehended by any sensible human mind. Zoe wrote a book about her experiences called Crash Override, which is being turned into a motion picture. She also co-founded a network to support victims of online abuse.

Something Awful: The Crash Override film is early in development. Obviously a lot can change in the coming months, but is the team targeting a steady 24 frames per second?

Zoe Quinn: We hope to create one exquisite frame, expertly crafted and locally sourced, which will then be passed around the audience, who will be provided with jewelers lenses ahead of time, and will ideally grunt their approval before handing it off to the next viewer in a delicately stitched velveteen glove before leaving their feedback in single, misspelled cusses like "pissssd" in the nearest internet comments section.

Harvey Smith had a hand in some of the best crawling-in-vents games of all time. He was the QA lead on System Shock, the lead designer of Deus Ex, and a creative director/writer for Dishonored. He's currently working on Dishonored 2, presumably adjusting the AI of rat swarms to immediately eat anyone I knock out in my non-lethal playthrough.

Something Awful: How many Dishonored 2 design meetings were sidetracked by heated arguments over making every noise (including footsteps, combat effects, menu sounds, music, and dialog) the "picking up and eating a tin of potted whale meat" sound effect?

Harvey Smith: Not one.

Jason Schreier is the news editor at Kotaku. As far as I'm aware, it's the only other website that covers video games. Schreier's hard work has played a huge part in the site's success. In fact, as of last month they had several dozen more visitors per day than Something Awful. Wow!

Something Awful: Over the years you've broken a number of big stories for Kotaku, often including details about unreleased games. I'm hoping your expertise can help me solve a lingering mystery: What is the name of The Fullbright Company's next game, Tacoma?

Jason Schreier: It's Tacoma.

– Dennis "Corin Tucker's Stalker" Farrell (@DennisFarrell)