If you’ve ever wanted to have a chat with a games developer (hey, sure) for somewhere in the region of $3.00 per minute (err), then Callvention has you covered. For that sort of price there’d better be some really filthy talk about voxels.
People as ancient as most of us at PC Invasion will probably remember the era of premium priced videogame ‘tips’ hotlines that would regularly be advertised at the back of games magazines. If you ever phoned one of those up, you’d get a recorded message relaying advice as slowly as humanly possible for about two quid per minute.
Far be it for me to suggest that Callvention will try to bilk you in the same kind of way. The site suggests that in your chat with a game dev you might “hear a story”, “get advice”, or just “have fun.” Flirty fun? Perhaps. It’s not clear.
You may wish to temper your expectations about which developers you’ll be chatting to, though. A lot of people are involved in games development, so when you go to the Red Dead Redemption page you won’t see Leslie “The Benz” Benzies or the Houser brothers. Nor are the top names from Looking Glass Studios present on the Thief 2 page.
Still, Mobygames seems to confirm that the people listed (at least the ones I checked) were involved in games development on some level, so that much is accurate.
Prices seem to vary depending on the relative ‘prestige’ of the game involved, but they’re all extremely pricey. Don’t worry though, Callvention says that the cost “may help fund the speaker’s next game”. It may also fund their rent, or a delicious sandwich, or a gym membership. Who knows, it may be funding a lot of things; but there’s a chance higher than zero percent that one of those things is a videogame.
Callvention doesn’t have a specific announcement trailer (sadly), but we’ve found the next best thing.
