May Q&A - Call for Questions!

Glad to be a supporter of the Danny O'Dwyer sandwich grief counseling group.

Jesse James

What are your 2 or 3 biggest lessons learned since starting Noclip? perhaps regarding strategies on finding an audience, finding interested devs that will work with you, honing documentary formats that would best fit each project? just curious to know more about what you've gone through. One other small question is have you considered reaching out to Joe Staten about his time at Bungie and the story behind him leaving (if he can talk about it)? There is a large Halo audience that I'm sure would be curious to hear from him again and learn what he's up to these days. Thanks Danny, really appreciate all your hard work! Can't wait to see what's next!

Elliott Bynum

Since everyone and their grand mother are making comment pieces on the final episode of the Game of Thrones - if you watched the show - what’s your take on the final season? I ask in part because you’ve been exposed to a lot of great storytellers in your career, so I’m curious if you have a take both as someone who watches the show and someone who knows how hard a storyteller’s job is.

Tohir Tillyaev

I know it isn't exactly in the normal purview of noclip but have you considered doing a doc on Discord? They're a part of many PC gamers' lives and I'd love to know more about them

Kon-Tiki

When did you first realise that there are Too Damn Many games being released and there's not enough hours on Earth to try them all?

YesButSeriouslyTho

It was SUCH an interesting doc to watch! I don't think it had a very strong through line, but you're so right that it didn't sugarcoat anything and that caught me off guard. It showed Cory Balrog and co as totally human, more of what the industry needs

Ethan Thibault

Hey Danny! Don't know if you've covered this already but do you have a rough plan for the next set of Hades videos or do you work with what you have?

Shell Comics

Loved all the content you have produced over the past few years Danny! I wondered if you are planning on doing anything with platform holders/1st party studios? Maybe talking about the transition between generations or the new game streaming platforms. Could be an interesting look into a side of the industry that isn't really shown anywhere.

Eddie

Hey, first of, how are you doing? You've done your two hardest docs in the past months with first Astroneer and now Telltale. Does making docs like that influence you personally and how do you handle that? I'd also love to hear how the E3 prep is going and what ideas from Patrons your going to use and your personal favourites! I'm really hyped for this one!

Bavo Debraekeleer

With Mario Maker coming, have you ever thought about doing a documentary about the people who do this crazy levels for this game? I think it would be pretty interesting to learn how they go into it, learned level design and how their skills evolved with time as well as how the community is always looking for new ways to make the game give you more than what was initially intended. Anyway thanks for your amazing work on all your documentaries, big fan since day one.

Hey Danny, please feel free to discard this one if you have answered it in a previous Q&A, but I was wondering what the motivation was behind delaying the Blades doc for so long? I know there was a little heat following the 76 doc (though I thought it was well weighted towards the development of the game as opposed to the success of the content) and am interested if the reason was to distance the two or to wait until the game itself was closer to release. The delay seemed to have the effect of shoe-horning some of the dev-diary content into a production that seemed like it was supposed to have a more of a "final hours" type feel. Thanks for all you do! Ben.

Benjamin Lawlor

Knowing what you know now is there anything you would have done differently year one of NoClip? Since you've overall gotten bigger have you been getting more requests from developers and have any that turned you down before changed their mind after seeing your work? Loving all the content you guys are bringing us and be wishing you all the best.

Gabriel Costa (Hired Sword)

Hey Danny, you're probably very busy filming and editing but did you have an opportunity to play some games in the meantime ? What were those games ? What did you like about them ? Hope you and your family are doing good, have a great month <3.

Vova SparksV

Hey Danny! While I know you said in the last update and Q&A NoClip will be practically non-stop filming from the time you arrive until the time you leave, I was curious if there's at least anything you want to see at the show for yourself, not just for NoClip purposes, to carve out a little time away from all the running around and meetings you have to do? Any game you want to try a demo for, or maybe just get an update on? Thanks again for taking my question and fantastic work on the Telltale doc! Have a wonderful rest of your day!

Brandon K Gann

After the release of 'Raising Kratos' I was wondering what you thought of the doc as a fellow video game documentary creative. Were there any specific things you took inspiration from or any aspects you could tell that they might have had to compromise from their original vision? I feel like they did an amazing job and I was genuinely surprised that they didn't sugar coat the story too much given its a Sony funded project.

Amir Rangnekar

I didn't realize Gamespot UK was in London, I'm there on vacation with my family now. It's lovely but definitely expensive just looking at real estate. Where is your favorite and least favorite place you've lived? Also, You mentioned in a previous video you might consider going back west or at least leaving Maryland. Anywhere in particular interest you as a new NoClip HQ?

Landon Robinson

Hi Danny, I remember back when you started doing noclip you mentioned that the games journalism industry was suffering from a degradation in quality due to the advertising model for generating revenue. If I remember correctly, you thought that the model encouraged journalists to produce a lot of low quality short articles, rather than larger pieces. Would you agree that something similar is happening with microtransactions in video games? I bring this up because recently while watching some of your Bethesda documentaries (FO:76 and Blades, specifically) I don't recall any of the developers talking about monetisation strategies, and just seem to talk about features in the game. They genuinely seem excited about this product they're making. Yet when these games released, most of the press generated about them (and a lot of the negative press) was directed at the microtransactions and pricing. So to me it seems that Bethesda were willing to make an inferior product in order to fit with a model that guaranteed them more money. To me it stands out that these devs were excited about making a game, and they want people to experience it. Yet these negative reviews will put a huge amount of people off. It seems unfair, and I couldn't help but think back and draw comparisons to your first videos explaining why you started noclip in the first place. Sorry for rambling, I was just hoping to get your thoughts on this. Thanks, Eoghan

Eoghan Brady

I'd love to hear more about cancelled games! You hear so many hushed rumors about Blizzard's "Titan" or others it'd be great to hear real stories, but I bet that stuff is all NDA'ed to hell

Ethan Thibault

After the fantastic Telltale doc are you planning on doing other documentaries on 'games that failed' ? There are so many games or franchises that disappeared when the companies went under and the stories behind them are always intriguing (however heartbreaking it was to see the impact on the people underneath).

Hey Danny! In regards to the Telltale doc and other work you've done speaking about crunch and unionization, how do you feel when you see people post about how this information has changed their view of the industry, or even dissuaded them from joining it? On a personal note I ditched trying to get into the industry after a shitty experience at GDC 2018 and the Telltale closure, so it's interesting to see others come to the same conclusion.

Ethan Thibault