An Interview with Jeffrey Kalles

Jonathan writes "Former associate producer for Nintendo of America Jeffrey Kalles granted an interview with n37radio. The interview covers a wide range of topics from his time spent at Nintendo to the upcoming Nintendo Revolution release. The interview is available in both text and audio format for those who are interested."

For those who are unaware....

[Cherita Chen]

For those who don't know, but are curious - Here's a link to a little more info on Jeff, and his contributions to the industry.

http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/deve loperId,67266/ [mobygames.com]

Re:For those who are unaware....

[aitikin]

Wow, thanks. Just learned he had a hand in some of my favorite games of all time.

Beware of jobs in the games industry

[Kazzahdrane]

"His/Her career probably spans more years than those displayed since these dates are based on the credits documented in MobyGames" It seems to make people lose their gender.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

No Revolution Info

[Yahweh Doesn't Exist]

he doesn't seem to have any info about the Revolution, and wouldn't say it if he did anyway.

The Revolution will not be televised...

[Vapebait]

That is all.

He's almost poor

[slashedmydot]

He only makes something like $18.75 per hour... that's not the kind of money I expected.

He earned 7 something (I'll translate that into 7.5) per hour when he started and at the end he earned 150% more. So 7.5 * 2.5 = 18.75. Let's say he works 160 hours per month: 160 * 18.75 = 3000. Let's be kind and give him 13 payschecks per year: 3000 * 13 = 39 000.

Re:He's almost poor

[thedogcow]

39K/yr is not poor. Check yourself. Thats well above the average American salary.

Re:He's almost poor

[slashedmydot]

I didn't say he was poor, I said "he's almost poor";

My point was that the article pitched him as a bigshot at NOA, but with that kind of salery in the US, he can't be.

I live in the Netherlands, and I earned 25 euro per hour 5 years ago with a simple part-time PHP/MySQL QA job. And now that I have my own company, I earn his annual salary per month.

And the average income in the US doesn't say anything, all those McDonalds and WallMart jobs pay less than hobo's get with begging on the street.

Re:He's almost poor

[ClamIAm]

And the average income in the US doesn't say anything,

What convoluted train of logic derailed for you to say this? OF COURSE the average income in a country/region/job has a bearing on whether or not someone could be considered "poor". If he was making 39k and lived in China, he would definitely not be poor.

Re:He's almost poor

[slashedmydot]

The average income doesn't matter to the discussion because comparing the income of someone who flips burgers at McDonalds an a associate producer for Nintendo of America is pointless. Comparing his salary with his peers makes more sense to me, and compared to his peers he doesn't earn allot.

I think it was clear that I was not actually calling him poor. I was saying that he didn't make allot of money for the kind of job that he had.

Re:He's almost poor

[Jace of Fuse!]

and compared to his peers he doesn't earn allot.

And while I agree that he was not being paid enough, I would certainly argue that his peers are being paid WAY too much.

He isn't poor. And depending on where he is, he may very well be living pretty well. These people who have it in their heads to believe all executives deserve millions of dollars are the reason that US companies are run so poorly. Very few people in an organization deserve more than a certain amount, and while that amount is subjective, I'

Re:He's almost poor

[ClamIAm]

and compared to his peers he doesn't earn allot.

Thanks for the numbers to back up your assertion. Oh wait.

Re:He's almost poor

[DNS-and-BIND]

I'm sure that you employ women, minorities, and Muslims at your company.

Re:He's almost poor

[slashedmydot]

I don't get it...

What does that have to do with the discussion?

But to answer your 'question':

I have a very diversified staff, and I think it works better than a very homogeneous collection of white middle-aged men. Women and people from other cultures have a different paradigm, and that helps my company to be creative and effective. Not only gender- and culture-diversification is important to me, but also people with very distinct ways of thinking. I select one half of my higher management to be PHD's and t

Re:He's almost poor

[slashedmydot]

"This strategy has worked out very good for my company."

Ouch! I whish slashdot would let me edit my comments...

But let the record show: This strategy has worked out very well for my company.

Re:He's almost poor

[buffer-overflowed]

The only way you can use autodidactic properly, and spell it properly, and yet follow that up by screwing up well/good is if you've gotten into a habit I used to have of taunting english majors with that very thing.

I speak english good is like nails on a chalkboard for grammer nazis.

Re:He's almost poor

[Inoshiro]

Not quite. Almost every place I've run across for things like per capita income (such as this page [wikipedia.org]) show the US to be at 40,000$. This is a raw mean.

The median is supposed to be around there, also.

Of course, when you factor in things like the price of health care, the US doesn't look so good. Most of the other countries listed next to it have a much higher general standard of living and lesser poverty than in the US due to socal programs (Norway is a great example of this).

Re:He's almost poor

[juletre]

As a norwegian, i can comment on this. Yes, we have a high income in general. But everything here costs a lot too. Taxes, you know. 1 litre of gas = 1.7 $. Full size meal at mcdonalds, 10$. A new car? 30 000$, and that is a cheap one. You are complaining about $50 games? That would be cheap.

But the good thing is hospitals are free. I got sick in the states once. When the girl in the reception at some hospital found out i wasnt a member (of this hospital/clinic or wherever I was supposed to be a member to ge

Re:He's almost poor

[damsa]

Although 39k a year is not exactly poor. In Redmond, where median income for males is 58k. You be considered, lower middle class.

My Idol :)

[Chaffar]

Jonathan: Do you have any comments about the recent X-Box 360 release, more specifically, the problems they've been having?

Jeff: [...] its funny to make fun of and ill laugh with the best of them and say 'haha, Microsoft blue screen of death, no matter what product you release!' It's not going to hurt them in the long run...

Jonathan: Isn't that fun though?

Jeff: It is fun, well, it's always fun...

My kind of guy :')

Big Corps

[oman_]

Isn't it scary how skittish most people have become about big corporations? So careful not to do anything that might anger them for fear of a lawsuit. Was it always this way?

Re:Big Corps

[ScottCooperDotNet]

Jeff says in TFA that the industry is so small that he's bound to work with some of the people at Nintendo again. That, and pissing off your longest reference isn't a good idea.

Re:I had to stop reading the transcript

[Spaceman Spiff II]

To be fair, I think this is just a barebones transcript of their spoken interview available for download. I'm sure it would sound natural and fine if you hear it. It's just it loses a little something when taken down on paper.

Salmon Max?

[tequesta]

Jonathan What are some of the other game genres you enjoy and the games in them?
Jeff [...]The Lucas Arts and the Sierra Online stuff; that's probably where I really fell in love with the adventure games. [...]I'm crossing my fingers that the new Salmon Max is gonna be good.

Myself, I found Salmon Max vastly inferior to Polish Quest, Funky Island or Day of the Testicle. Seriously, can somebody shoot the guy who transcribed this?

Re:Salmon Max?

[interlingua.ro]

You owe me a new keyboard...

Re:Salmon Max?

[indiechild]

Jesus christ, this is the funniest thing I've read all week!

Recommend this interview

[gad_zuki!]

This was actually a really good interview. At first I was a bit put off by the fact that jeff wasn't some mover or shaker in the industry, but as I kept reading, the more I appreciated he wasn't. Lots of good ground level stories, advice, etc here. He spoke freely as possible, which is quite a change from the content-free PR focuesed interviews you see here sometimes I'm not even that interested in the industry and I found it enthralling. The early days of anything are usually interesting and the somet

Umm..

[thenoog]

Hey, aren't "Associate Producers" a pretty lowly position in the games industry? Don't they like, get coffee for the producer? /. is using Jeff's name as if it meant something, which seems a little odd to me.