We have another edition of our Meet The Gamer series to bring you today. Josh Stein is the Xbox Community Manager for Microsoft Studios. In our interview, Josh talks about his love of shooter games, his late night gaming binges and his favourite gaming memories.
What is your Gamertag and the reason for choosing it?
My gamertag is Steinekin. My first name is pretty generic and there were always tons of people called Josh that I knew growing up. My friends started to just call me by Stein and that evolved into many variations! Steiny, Steiner, Steinman, etc… Of them all I always liked Steinekin and it was unique enough that I never had to worry about having the same name as anyone else.
What is your favourite genre/s of game and why?
FPS is the genre I enjoy the most, anything like Halo, Titanfall, and Half Life 2. I also love playing 3rd person shooters like Gears of War and The Last of Us. It’s probably safe to just say I just like shooter based games.
What is your favourite game so far? (Doesn’t need to be an Xbox title!)
Hands down a dead tie between Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption from the Xbox 360 generation. I’ve never been so immersed in a game that I couldn’t stop playing forever like those 2 games.
What is your most memorable gaming moment?
3 stand out the most… 1. Climbing the 7000 steps to High Hrothgar 2. Crossing the border into Mexico in RDR 3. The experience of booting up Halo: CE for the first time when it launched and hearing the music.
Which achievement has been the most frustrating to obtain? How long did it take you?
Anything that requires me not to die at all or barely… I’m looking at you Limbo!
What is your gamerscore and how long has it taken you to get it?
102,480! I just hit 100k this year and I’ve been racking up the GS for 12+ years!
What is your gaming guilty pleasure?
Ordering a large pepperoni pizza and large chicken teriyaki on a Saturday morning and not emerging from the couch till Sunday night. No shame in those gaming binges!
If you could pick a video game character, who would you be and why?
Batman from the Arkham series, who the hell doesn’t want to be Batman! (says the guy with a Batman tattoo).
If you could pick a location, from any game, to visit, where would it be and why?
I think Columbia from Bioshock Infinite back in it’s prime would be pretty cool to go see but Rapture before its fall would be legit.
Finally, where do you see gaming heading in the next decade?
Read the book Ready Player One… that’s a gaming future I want.
Special thanks to Steinekin for taking the time to answer our questions. Keep an eye on the website and Twitter for information on how you can feature in the next Meet The Gamer.
Mike is a games journalist, host of 1080Players Gaming Radio. They contributed 62 articles to ICXM between 2015–2016, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: operates 1080Players Gaming Radio on the Boost Radio Network; ICXM published cross-content from his outlet.