Pick a child - Which of my products am I most proud of... and why that's a non-question

Image by [[ Philip Rood ]] via Flickr

Recently in an interview I was asked to pick the game I love the most and the one I love the least.  There are so many factors that play into this, its almost impossible to actually pick one.  Its very much like a parent picking one child over another.

They all have their strengths, their great memories, but also their down side.  How tough the development was, or long development took... or how hard I had to fight with management.  To say it simply, there are highs and lows to every development so picking one over the other is akint o picking apples over oranges.

Which leads me to the second point, this is really an awful interview question.  Producers generally aren't given the privilege to pick the products they work on.  I was once given a claymation fighting volleyball game as my first product.  This was, of course, a castoff from another producer who wanted to get it off of their plate and saw a "new guy" as a chance to do that.

Given that products are assigned, its hard to claim any great acclaim to having a AA title on my resume, or a slew of also rans.  As a producer you pout the same amount of effort into the bad games as the good games, the same about of work and passion.  If you don't then I don't want to work with you.

Which leads to my answer to this interview question:

I put the same amount of effort into all of the games that I'm assigned, and I don't play favorites. I can't pick between all of them because they all got the exact same treatment, 100% of my producer ability.

Which some take as their answer, but other insist that I must pick one. I always then name GunStar Heroes because it received the most press.  I've found that if I name a game no one has heard of, they wonder why I picked it.

Your thoughts?

Mac