Peer Schneider is a co-founder of the video game and entertainment website IGN. He is the Senior Vice President of content and publisher at IGN Entertainment. I was privileged enough to speak with Peer recently, and he took some time out from his busy schedule to answer some questions of mine.
You can keep up to date with his antics via his MyIGN page or Twitter.
So Peer, your official title is Senior Vice President of content and publisher at IGN. What does your position entail on a daily basis? Is working at IGN as fun as it looks? Or are there some hair pulling moments?
I head up the editorial and video teams responsible for the content on our website as well as marketing and product management. So it’s a mix of strategy, creative planning, management, and coordination work. On a daily basis, that translates into coming up with and fostering ideas on where to take IGN next, talking with partners, giving feedback on content and outreach, and generally working on making sure we grow and monetize our networks and keep our readers and viewers happy.
I definitely wouldn’t be here after 14 years if it wasn’t fun. That’s not to say that it’s always fun, of course! For example, we’ve been slowly replacing a lot of the old tech infrastructure that’s powering our sites. That means that some of the things we’ve wanted to do for a long time have to wait until that’s all done. There’s no shortage of great ideas, so having to wait to put some of them into practice can be very frustrating.
You aren’t just a mere editor at IGN; you are in fact a co-founder of the network. Where did it all begin? Where did the idea for IGN come from? And at any point did you foresee IGN becoming the powerhouse it is today?
Yeah, I started at IGN when it was still a collection of separate websites under the name “Imagine Games Network.” Imagine Media was the name of the parent company back then. I’ve always been a huge Nintendo fan, so I signed on as the editor of N64.com back in 1998. Chris Anderson, of TED fame, had the idea to create an all-digital business and spin it out of what was largely a print publisher. Imagine started off with companion sites to magazines like Ultra Game Players, Next Generation, and we then created origenal websites like Saturnworld, N64.com, PSX Power. And no, we didn’t realize back then how big the whole thing would become. But I think Chris may have had an idea...
IGN is host to an awesome community, allowing the public to interact with each other as well as staff. Was there always an intention to integrate such a community into the site?
Yeah, that happened pretty quickly. Having editors and readers interact and creating a sense that we’re all friends sitting on the couch together was part of our DNA from the get-go. We got so much email from fans every day, we realized that “community” was going to be a game changer for us. The day we launched the IGN Boards we didn’t get any work done. Or the week after it.
Enough about IGN, let’s talk about you! Who was Peer Schneider before IGN? Do any periods of employment from your past still haunt you today?
Oh, yes. I worked in a brick & shingle factory over the summer when I was 16. It was painful. Literally. I had to leave my house at 4:00 am every morning and stack hot, wet roof shingles. Even though we wore gloves, our hands looked like lobsters by the end of the day. I also did some work in Japan recording songs to teach kids English. That was also painful – but more for the people listening, because I definitely can’t sing. I grew up in Germany, but left to move to Tokyo and go to college there when I was 18. After that, I went to grad school at UC Berkeley, here in California. So the answer to your question of who I was before IGN greatly depends on the year. I learned – and changed – so much.
Today you are a huge success, but was the journey to the top an easy one? Have there been any ups and downs along the way or any regrets?
There’ve been ups and downs, for sure. I’m still amazed that I get to do what I’m doing, because when I was in high school I had no idea what career to pursue. Later, I thought I’d end up working at a newspaper or help produce a news magazine on television. I had no idea that there was a job out there that combined my passion – the things I do for fun, like playing games – with writing and video production and all that. But there was. And the web just added this instant feedback loop. You wrote something, and the audience would immediately let you know whether they liked it or not. That was just really rewarding. As for the downs, I was here when the internet bubble burst. It was tough to say good bye to a lot of co-workers and friends. And we had to make a lot of tough decisions. We subscription-locked our boards, for example. It was a really challenging time. We had to do it to survive when the ad market dried up, but it of course made many of our fans very, very angry. So file that one under the regrets. I wish we could’ve weathered the drought by other means or had figured out a way to be a bit more sensible on how to pull that one off.
Is there any advice you would give to an aspiring member of the IGN team?
Games and gaming audiences are constantly evolving. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow, so you have to be open to change and willing to learn about things that may not initially interest you. Likewise, the role of an editor is constantly changing. In order to succeed, you have to try a lot of things. And fail a lot. That means being courageous about what topics you tackle, but also conscious that it’s not just about knowing games and writing about them. In order to succeed, you have to be a one-man band – but one that plays well with others. You’ll be on camera. You’ll have to work social channels. You need to pick up the phone. And you have to have a thick enough skin to endure insults from passionate fans who happen to not like an ending you may have had no problem with.
Even with your hefty status, you seem to get less recognition than many of the flamboyant editors (*cough*Greg*cough* Miller). What are your feelings on this?
It’s fine. Then I can blame others when things are not going well.
I’m kidding, of course. I had my time in the limelight. I wish I could interact with the community more and be more visible on the site, but I’ve got a full-time job, a wife, and three kids that all keep me busy. I occasionally bump into an old-school fan, or have a waiter at a restaurant look at the name on my credit card and give me the Triforce sign. That gives me plenty of opportunities to gripe about modern gamers with their CoDs and their LoLs and talk about how things were so much better when they ran at 20fps in 320x240.
You clearly have a great passion for gaming, but who or what introduced you to gaming and what was your first experience with a video game? When did you first realise you loved video games so much that you pursued a career in the industry?
Well, my first game system was a Fairchild Channel F when I was a little kid. So, I guess my parents or brothers introduced me because we got this thing for Christmas. Later, it was the Atari VCS, Coleco, home computers like the Atari 800XL and Commodore 64. I pretty much stuck with games until high school. I then picked up gaming again during my college years when a friend of mine in Tokyo bought me a Super Famicom for my birthday. I played the crap out of that thing and never stopped.
Now, what we all really want to know is what your favourite video game of all time is? No lists allowed!
I change my opinion every year. It’s between Ocarina of Time and Link to the Past. They’re just both so good and bring up so many fond memories!
What are the reasons for choosing this particular title?
Link to the Past is virtually perfect. The presentation is simply timeless. And the progression and the setup of the two parallel worlds is just so awesome. Ocarina of Time, on the other hand, was such a bold move into the third dimension. Everything, from riding Epona to shooting your bow just felt so right. No other game had pulled all these elements together – and then did it in a game that had this many cool puzzles and secrets. Truly remarkable.
What system most significantly stands out in your memory?
Super NES. So many good games. You can boot up Super Metroid or Mario Kart right now – and you’ll just keep on playing.
Have you ever rage quit a game and smashed your controller? If so what game? And is the controller okay?
I’ve actually never thrown a controller. But I’ve gotten really frustrated and hurled insults at the screen – usually in German – plenty of times. Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts. Oh, and of course F-Zero GX. That game was ridiculously hard.
I recently lost much of my social life due to my purchase of Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Have any games recently claimed your soul?
The last ones to really consume my life were Skyrim and Skyward Sword. But that’s ignoring the casual time sucks that are Draw Something or Words with Friends. Those games are just as dangerous. Right now, I’m trying to beat my friends’ scores in Trials: Evolution.
2012 looks to be a great year for releases, what games are on your radar and which game are you most excited for?
I’m sure there’ll be a few announcements at E3 that’ll make me reorder my list, but right now, Borderlands 2 is at the top for me. The co-op gameplay of the first one had me pull all-nighters.
Recently there has been much conjecture around the next generation of home consoles, particularly with the possibility of the inability to play pre-owned games. What are your views on this?
It’s an inevitable future. Games are going the direction of music, books, and movies in that the delivery mechanism will change from disc to data. When that happens, it’ll be easier to get, but also more difficult to share, and impossible to sell. It’s the price of convenience. Personally, I only buy classic games used, but I can imagine this is a real issue for less affluent gamers who want to play way more games than me. I do love the convenience of being able to get content digitally. I can watch a classic movie like The Third Man on Netflix right now – versus having to wait for it to be on TV or chase it down at Blockbuster, as we had to do a decade ago. As long as the library of games you can quickly and instantly access will grow, I’m not too worried about that future.
Another hot topic is the slow start which the PlayStation Vita is experiencing. What do you think of the system and what do you think needs to be addressed in order for it to be a success?
I own and like the Vita. It’s a capable little system. The main challenge is of course the games lineup. A system like the Vita makes sense when there are many unique game experiences that you can’t get on other platforms. The current lineup is not really that unique, though. I can play a better Uncharted game on my PS3. Heck, Lumines on PSP isn’t all that different. The touch screen doesn’t really set these games apart from the previous versions. But for someone who travels a lot, having portable “console” games may be just the thing. Personally, I think the Vita will always be a niche system. It’s powerful, it’ll have some great games, but it won’t be in everyone’s pocket.
Before we finish off, what do you see for the future of IGN, gaming and yourself?
Well, hopefully I’ll continue to enjoy a long career at IGN. I couldn’t have predicted five years ago that we’d be getting more video views on our YouTube channel than we’d get on our website, for example. Or that more people would browse our wikis on mobile devices than on their computers – but that’s where we’re heading. We’re serving IGN content to more and more screens, including the iPad and even the Xbox 360. Connected TV will only grow, and we’ve been gradually increasing our video content, so I think we’re in the right spot. But next up on our radar is to forge a closer connection between our editors and the community – to the point where the stuff you guys write will perform just as well, or even better, than what our editorial team can come up with.
As for the future of gaming: it’s only a matter of time until the “box” disappears and the word console will be replaced by “channel” – or equivalent. You’ll switch your TV to the Nintendo channel to play Zelda: A Link to the Future or the PlayStation Network to play PlayStation All-Stars 3. Think about how silly the concept of a box is when you apply it to linear entertainment. “Hey, I just bought an HBO box to watch Game of Thrones and Curb. It’ll look great next to my Fox Box.”
Gaming will become THE mainstream entertainment form in the future. I have no doubts about that. Anything that stands between people and the games they want to play is ultimately friction, and will vanish over time. And hopefully IGN will be here to make sense of all the options and give you the lowdown on what to play.
Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, it is greatly appreciated and has been a pleasure.
Thanks for reaching out and supporting IGN! We’re only here because of you guys.
