GMZ

GMZ #2-2 – Exclusive Interview with Daniel Lamplugh & Ubisoft’s Secret

Exclusive Interview with GMZ Co-Founder, Daniel Lamplugh

By Pierre Goguen

Once a generation, a world class interviewer gets to sit down with a person who has exerted their will and influence across the globe and gets to ask them the questions no one else dared. We’ve had Frost/Nixon, Yankovic/Madonna, Winfrey/Cruise, and now, sit back and bask in what shall surely be remembered for decades as Goguen/Lamplugh.
 
PG:  So for the very few people who might not know you, how about you tell us who you are?
Daniel:  I am the all-important, all-powerful, all-american Daniel Lamplugh. Co-Founder of GMZ, and soon to be owner of IGN. I’m also a goofy high school senior who writes about video games, makes goofy videos, reviews sodas on my Instagram, and doesn’t sleep enough.

 

Pure Sex

PG:  So, how did such a young guy come up with the genius idea of GMZ all by himself and absolutely without any kind of help or input from anyone else?

Daniel: I remember, I was talking about MicroCollective (a chiptune website) on Twitter. My and Pierre’s mutual friend Brent mentioned 8BitPeoples (another chiptune group). Pierre jumped in, and said “I’m more of a 8BitPeepholes kind of guy”. Another buddy, Francisco, talked about how that would be a funny website idea. That idea morphed several times, actually over the next year. It went from being an image series, to images with captions. Then we realized how funny the captions were, expanded them to full stories, and began to ask where we would get such compromising photos. We came up with the Tabloid persona, and from there, it just grew crazier and crazier.
 
So I was only 1/4 of the equation
PG:  Speaking of crazy, everyone keeps telling me that Pierre guy is crazy sexy. What do you do as a manager to prevent the staff from getting too distracted by his mere presence?
 
Daniel:  Joke: Staff? Distracted? Pierre? Sexy? Pierre works in in the Canadian branch. His workers would probably be too busy fucking a moose or something. Assuming they didn’t all die out in the last Winter.
PG:  What does journalism mean to you?
Daniel: This is actually something I have struggled with a lot, recently, especially since making GMZ. “Journalism” should be a practice, and institution, made to report events, but also to filter the information available. Journalism should provide a sense of clarity to the citizens it services: be it the electorate, the population, etc. It should resist bias, but not be robotic. It should not be obnoxious, but it should have personality. It should not scare, but it should caution.
But seriously, I don’t report the news, I fucking predict it, okay? This isn’t just “Journalism”, this is a fucking crystal ball connected to God. To me, journalism is just a chance for me to spread my divine knowledge to the masses.
PG: What does intern mean to you?
Daniel: Replaceable, cheap, scum labor.
PG: Speaking of @Bigjonathan91, GMZ has a couple of recent hires. What can you tell us about them?
Daniel: None of them are very good. Sharon, our correspondent supervisor, left a while ago, and the freelancers and writing staff who was on contract refused to deal directly with us, so they quit. Our permanent staff is still with us, but I think most of them probably have nowhere else to go. The new guys are different though. 
 
Jonathan is so funny, but he is also intelligent. He very weirdly straddles these two worlds of being goofily entertaining, but being able to analyze games and gamers well. Eric is an insomniac, I’m convinced because of how much he works on 1MoreCastle. So now, the idea that he wants to do more, blows my mind. Francis, I don’t know that well, but when I read his article, I couldn’t help but laugh. He seems like a really funny guy, and I can’t wait to see more from him.
PG: Is Eric Bailey as big of an asshole as I think he is?
 
Daniel:  Eric is an absolutely amazing editor who puts up with my crap way more than he should. Also, he is a genuinely a very amiable guy. Glad to call him my boss/employee.
PG: Yeah, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Bailey is not only expecting his first kid, but he’s also working on launching 1MoreCastle Films LTD. He’s working on turning Atari Poop into a sitcom, Raising a Gamer into a reality TV show, and It Came from Japan into a tokusatsu series of shows, films, and toys.
Daniel: Is it sad that I really want to make these a thing? Raising a Gamer would actually make a REALLY GOOD documentary. I should talk to Chris about that. He doesn’t live unreasonably far away from me, actually. Or it could be a Home Improvement style cheesy sitcom.Also, I imagine It Came From Japan as almost a Good Eats show, but with toys and games. And if you don’t know what Good Eats is, go watch it now. It’s the best show Food Network ever produced.I want to make these shows real.
PG:  Alright, now for the part of the interview where people get tired of reading long, boring answers to stupid, pretentious questions. Here’s a series of quick questions that require a yes, no, or 9 digit number answer. Ready?
Daniel:  Sure.
PG:  Trick question, since that was the first of the questions and I made you answer it. Lol, newb.
Have you ever killed a man?
Daniel:  Yes. Several.
PG:  What’s your fave prog rock band?
Daniel: Rush
PG:  Trick question again! The only acceptable answers are yes, no, or 9 numbers, so the only answer was Yes, even though it was also wrong. Can you touch your toes without bending your knees?
Daniel: No.
PG:  What’s your Social Security Number?
Daniel: No.
PG:  Wanna make out?
Daniel:  No.
PG:  That was even worse than those early questions. Oh well, back to the hard hitting questions. What can we expect from GMZ in the coming year?
Daniel: I should be going back out on the convention circuit, with a larger crew. Maybe finally getting down to that list of ideas that me and Pierre have been wanting to do since the early days. Hopefully, if more controversy comes up, we can make fun of it. But seeing as how the video game community on the internet is so tranquil and reasonable, and in no way inflammatory or argumentative, I believe those controversies will be few and far between.
PG: Speaking of controversies, GMZ has clearly never shied away from them. With all of the controversies in gaming recently, from no homosexual relationships in Tomodachi Life, Gamergate, and Kirbygate, to Ninja GAiTEn, Shadowgategate, and Sony’s Vita confirmed to run solely on the tears of children, I have to ask the question all our readers want you to answer the most. You obviously know what I’m talking about, so here it is: which Mega Man is the best, 2 or 3?
Daniel: I think Mega Man 2. Mega Man 3, while good, is simply a very good imitation of 2. Mega Man 2 was fresh an innovative, with a catchy soundtrack and brilliant art direction. Mega Man 3 was Mega Man 2 with some less cool bosses.
PG: Excellent answer. Also, correct answer.
 
When is the GMZ nude calendar you made me pose for coming out? You said it would come out last summer.
Daniel: That was a joke. Canadians don’t have summer.
PG: We’re almost ready to wrap up here. Any projects you’re working on you’d like to share. Shoutouts you’d like to give?
Daniel: I’d like to shoutout to Variant for producing my tracks, Jason Lamb for playing me in all of my public appearances, and Defy Media for ruining GameTrailers.Also, Chris Swartz. His series, “Raising a Gamer”, is phenomenal. Bailey for being a great editor. Pierre for staying up till 1AM to interview me. My girlfriend for not breaking up with the guy who writes about video game frogs adopting foreign children. Cole Porter for writing Anything Goes. Trailer Park Boys, for helping me learn to speak to and interact with Canadians. And lastly, to Defy Media for ruining GameTrailers.

Also, I have another series, where I interview people, titled Queries, on 1MoreCastle, which you should totally check out. And a show called Sub Pop that I post on my Instagram where I review soda.

PG:  Cool. Wanna make out?
Daniel: No.
PG:  Jerk. Interview over! *Flies off on jetpack.*

The Secret Origins of Ubisoft

By Noriko Kashiwagi

With Nintendo having recently celebrated its 125th anniversary, many were surprised to see that most gamers were completely unaware that the company was so old, or that they started off by creating the Seattle Mariners, a worldwide chain a love hotels for seamen.

Well it just so happens that another video game publisher/developer with a bizarre origin story is celebrating its 50th anniversary this very week. Ubisoft, mostly known for releasing a steady stream of flawless games and DRM software gamers absolutely love, has reached its golden anniversary, which you might not have known if you get your information from Wikipedia. There, you’d get some nonsense about it being founded by 5 brothers in 1986. The truth is something a little more weird.

In fact, the company was founded in 1964 by the father of the 5 Guillemot brothers, Organes Génitaux Guillemot and his brother-in-law, Charles Atan Breton, and those boys my have the product that served as the foundation of the company to thank for their very existence.

Ubisoft - Pierrot

The elder Organes and Charles were amateur apothecaries who both suffered for a particular disfunction which was erectile in nature. While working one a pill that would make facial hair only grown in a thin line directly above the upper lip, the two accidentally discovered that their pill, instead of making you look like a dick, gave them erections that lasted for hours.

Sales were poor when it was only sold in France and then French speaking areas of the world (for obvious reasons), but a name change (they called it Pénisilline) and selling their products in other markets helped the company survive until the 80s, when it branched into video games. The name Ubisoft can be chalked up to nothing more than a poor understanding of English and spelling. The founding duo wanted their advertisement to ask the readers if they were “soft,” thus “You be soft?” became “Ubisoft.” The rest is history.

Ubisoft - First American Ad