Speaker 1: Ephemeral is a production of My Heart three D audio
Speaker 1: for fell exposure. Listen What's that phones. On the last
Speaker 1: episode of Ephemeral, we traced the dynamic history of video games,
Speaker 1: starting with arcades. We looked at how games like Pong
Speaker 1: and Donkey Kong changed the entertainment industry forever and eventually
Speaker 1: how those games left the arcades and landed in the
Speaker 1: homes of consumers across the globe. Here, our producer Max
Speaker 1: Williams picks up the story. In the nineteen eighties, home
Speaker 1: consoles like the Supernintendo and the Atari revolutionize the gaming market,
Speaker 1: and in the late eighties and early nineties the competition
Speaker 1: between these companies starting to heat up. In nineteen Sega
Speaker 1: released their mega hit console, the Sega Genesis. The Genesis
Speaker 1: has blast processing. Super Nintendo doesn't. So what's blast processing do?
Speaker 1: And here's where it gets narrowed, because now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden to we have a really competitive console. You
Speaker 1: still had a Tori bumbling along. They had a thing
Speaker 1: called the Jaguar, which they maintained was the first sixty
Speaker 1: four bit system and it never got off the ground.
Speaker 1: And then there was the three D O which was
Speaker 1: too expensive. This is video games writer Steven L. Kent,
Speaker 1: who we talked to in the last episode. Neo Geo
Speaker 1: had a home console that wasn't really competitive. Stephen says
Speaker 1: that Nintendo, the biggest player in the game's market, responded
Speaker 1: to the Second Genesis by releasing the Nintendo sixty. So
Speaker 1: by the time that the n s D four comes out, now,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, people think it's gonna be Sega
Speaker 1: versus Nintendo, especially because Sega has this arcade game out
Speaker 1: right now called Virtual Fighter, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: they're gonna be a lot more competitive in Japan with
Speaker 1: Virtual Fighter than they had been the past. But no
Speaker 1: one predicted that the next giant to enter the arena
Speaker 1: would be Sony and their consul, the Sony PlayStation. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that people realized how serious Sony was.
Speaker 1: Sony had this Midas touch. They ruled the TV market.
Speaker 1: Tony Trinitron has Sony is exclusive one Gun Picture two
Speaker 1: for the ultimate in brightness, sharpness, contrast, and color. He's
Speaker 1: a very red the dazzling array of colors Sony Trinitron
Speaker 1: Picture Perfect. They rule the stereo market. I don't know
Speaker 1: a tweeter from a Wolfer from a Twitter. So I
Speaker 1: bought the Sony Compact Stereo. So on the one hand,
Speaker 1: that makes them formidable. But on the other hand, maybe
Speaker 1: they're not gonna be so committed. If things don't work out,
Speaker 1: they'll just go their merry way and make a new
Speaker 1: Walkman instead. The Sony Walkman is that tiny stereocassette player
Speaker 1: with truly incredible sound. Put on a Walkman and see
Speaker 1: the world in a whole new light, the Walkman from Sony.
Speaker 1: The one and only executives of thing I could see
Speaker 1: that the writing on the wall, they'd seen enough from
Speaker 1: Sony to realize Sony had quite an offering after all.
Speaker 1: So in the United States they compounded the problem by
Speaker 1: rushing to market. It was supposed to come out on
Speaker 1: September two, Sega Saturday and Saturday September two, then instead
Speaker 1: they released it as a surprise and E three in May,
Speaker 1: making every possible mistake you could make. First of all,
Speaker 1: they released it a few selected retailers, which meant that
Speaker 1: if your toys r US you got something to sell.
Speaker 1: But if you're kV Toys, which actually had more stores,
Speaker 1: you didn't get in and you were passed. Some retailers
Speaker 1: responded by throwing Sega out of their stores. The next
Speaker 1: thing is only in five games, but the packings were wonderful.
Speaker 1: Virtual Fighter Too was fabulous when it came out in Japan,
Speaker 1: it was a huge seller. Then Sony came out with PlayStation.
Speaker 1: It did much better than people thought, but didn't so
Speaker 1: as well as the Saturn. But then it came to
Speaker 1: the United States and people were wild about it, and
Speaker 1: sixty four wouldn't come out for another year. And by
Speaker 1: the time end sixty four did, PlayStation was on such
Speaker 1: a trajectory that no one else would kept up to it.
Speaker 1: So what made the Sony PlayStation so special? The first
Speaker 1: PlayStation was brilliantly designed. Sony gave you a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: colleagons per second. Nintendo trying to compete by giving you
Speaker 1: more textures. But if you looked at games on the PlayStation,
Speaker 1: they looked better. Games on and sixty four looked like
Speaker 1: they were inflated toys. They had that rounded, sort of
Speaker 1: puffy look. The PlayStation also made a smart business move
Speaker 1: in terms of its format. It was the first major
Speaker 1: console to use disks rather than cartridges. That was a
Speaker 1: really good thing for the consumer. Because cartridges are very
Speaker 1: expensive to make. You have to actually build wrong memory
Speaker 1: into them. Instead of a disc. You had chips inside
Speaker 1: those cartridges. That's expensive, but it wasn't just a question cheaper.
Speaker 1: You could fit so much on a single CD, and
Speaker 1: if one c D for any reason wasn't big enough,
Speaker 1: you can put a second CD in the package for
Speaker 1: next to nothing. So all of a sudden games are huge.
Speaker 1: You get this huge breakup where Nintendo's constant partner in
Speaker 1: RPG games, Squaresft, looks at what Sony is offering and says, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: it's been nice, but Final Fantasy seven is going to
Speaker 1: come out on the PlayStation. An evil empire is sucking
Speaker 1: the light source from the planet, destroying all that's gettings packed.
Speaker 1: It's the one soul sort of fortune to save the world.
Speaker 1: If he succeeds, you survive. If he fails, you can
Speaker 1: always hit the reset buttons. Final Fantasy seven. So Nintendo
Speaker 1: found themselves in an interesting situation. They had over nine
Speaker 1: of the market with ANYS and then they were down
Speaker 1: to about on the market with this Nest. Then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, PlayStation comes out and there are thirty
Speaker 1: percent of the market But Sony's path to domination didn't
Speaker 1: stop there. In two thousand, Sony released their follow up console,
Speaker 1: the PlayStation two, which to this day is the top
Speaker 1: selling console of all time. PlayStation two came out, and
Speaker 1: on the one hand, Sony had become very arrogent. The
Speaker 1: line I always get to kick out of was that
Speaker 1: they called the graphics processor the emotion engine on and
Speaker 1: somebody once quipped that the only emotion I ever got
Speaker 1: out of it was despair. It was hard to program.
Speaker 1: But Sony took the entire PlayStation one architecture, transferred it
Speaker 1: to a single chip and threw it into the PlayStation
Speaker 1: two for good measure, and it played DVDs. That one
Speaker 1: little box, That two box was a PlayStation DVD player
Speaker 1: and a PlayStation two all in one. You can argue
Speaker 1: that they were harsh on their development partners, but they
Speaker 1: were generous to the consumer. As it turns out, Sony
Speaker 1: would desperately need the profits from their PlayStation consoles. That's
Speaker 1: because there are other products weren't doing so well. All
Speaker 1: of a sudden, Samsung and LG come out with great
Speaker 1: TVs for half the price of Sony's, and Sony no
Speaker 1: longer owns the TV market, Sony Ericsson telephones disappeared, Nicon
Speaker 1: and Cannon started coming up with cameras, and Sony lost
Speaker 1: the digital camera market, and all of a sudden, PlayStation
Speaker 1: two as a guts and because it's the only thing
Speaker 1: that's keeping Sony alive, PlayStation's iron grip over the video
Speaker 1: games industry changed everything. Many console developers like Sega and Atari,
Speaker 1: face layoffs, reduced output, or quit the console market altogether,
Speaker 1: until eventually Nintendo was Sony's only real competitor. That is,
Speaker 1: until one more tech company decided to try their hand
Speaker 1: at video games. Microsoft. They released their first console, the Xbox,
Speaker 1: in two thousand and one, but it didn't go over
Speaker 1: so well in countries outside the US. The original Xbox
Speaker 1: was a dreadful idea for Japan. A lot of people
Speaker 1: attacked Japan and say, well, Xbox never had a chance
Speaker 1: because it was American and Japan would let it catch on.
Speaker 1: There's some reasons to feel that way, but looking at
Speaker 1: everything from the other perspective, it was way too big.
Speaker 1: There were Japanese washer dryer towers where the footprint on
Speaker 1: the ground is about maybe a third bigger, maybe a
Speaker 1: half bigger than that Xbox, but Drink on the ground
Speaker 1: didn't have a lot of Japanese game scored, whereas Sony
Speaker 1: had a huge library of Japanese exclusives, and Nintendo, of
Speaker 1: course was Nintendo. And then there was the name too.
Speaker 1: I never realized. It's been a friend of mine. Ryan
Speaker 1: Payton pointed out to me that here in the United
Speaker 1: States we say X marks the spot, and that's a
Speaker 1: good thing, but in Japan, X is actually kind of
Speaker 1: a negative. So the Xbox was sort of this negative box.
Speaker 1: It's the box not to have. They came nowhere near
Speaker 1: a million units, but Microsoft was self aware about the
Speaker 1: shortcomings of the Xbox, so when they released the Xbox
Speaker 1: three sixty in two thousand and five, they overhauled their
Speaker 1: marketing strategy. The next x Box up would sell over
Speaker 1: a million, which is still paltry compared to the other Xboxes,
Speaker 1: but boy the effort and the elligence of Microsoft put
Speaker 1: into doubling their sales. They went into Japanese homes and
Speaker 1: talk to people. They worked wildly to attract good game designers,
Speaker 1: and they made a big budget in the Japanese market. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Nintendo struggled to stay relevant during the early two thousand's.
Speaker 1: They released the Nintendo GameCube in two thousand and one,
Speaker 1: which sold less units in the Xbox. The GameCube never
Speaker 1: grew to account more than of the total games market.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, you look at GameCube and you say, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, so sorry to seem Intend to go away down.
Speaker 1: But then they turned around and come out with the
Speaker 1: Wi Next, which isn't a game system for gamers. It's
Speaker 1: a game system for gamers grandmothers. But I'll be the
Speaker 1: arnest they didn't recapture the market with the Wei. Nintendo
Speaker 1: successfully diversified the world of video gaming. They created an
Speaker 1: interactive experience unlike anything before it, and it was the
Speaker 1: first console to be fully accessible to a wider, more
Speaker 1: family oriented audience, and it was a huge success, selling
Speaker 1: over a hundred million units and putting Nintendo back on
Speaker 1: the map. Stephen says that the game's industry learned a
Speaker 1: lot from Nintendo success. The more accessible games were, the
Speaker 1: more they would sell, and this sparked a new revolution
Speaker 1: the cross gaming. So the accessibility of video games is
Speaker 1: they've become ubiquitous. It used to be that you went
Speaker 1: to the arcades or if you had two hundred dollars
Speaker 1: a time when two hundred dollars was really five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: You bought an Atari and it wasn't as good, but
Speaker 1: you bought it. Now you can play the best arcade
Speaker 1: games from the eighties on your cell phone. Everyone's dat
Speaker 1: a cellphone because of go pay your coin as philosophy
Speaker 1: of using old technologies. Nintendo keeps the price on their
Speaker 1: console is pretty achieved. But on top of that, if
Speaker 1: you can't afford an Xbox Series X, guess what you
Speaker 1: can probably affordy used three sixty. There was a time
Speaker 1: when the game companies were saying, yeah, you know, we're
Speaker 1: gonna get twenty billion dollars this year in sales, more
Speaker 1: bigger than Hollywood. Now they're getting closer to a hundred
Speaker 1: billion dollars in sales, and they're bigger than Hollywood plus
Speaker 1: professional sports plus the music industry combined. So what's next
Speaker 1: for gaming? One of the big trends right now is
Speaker 1: virtual reality. But I will tell you that virtual reality
Speaker 1: really scares me. I was talking with someone recently who
Speaker 1: was telling me that he used to get so motion
Speaker 1: sick playing virtual reality games, but now he doesn't anymore.
Speaker 1: And he was happy about that until I pointed out
Speaker 1: that your brain physically remaps itself based on the stimulus
Speaker 1: you get it, which meant that his brain had remapped
Speaker 1: itself to accommodate v R. There's been a lot of
Speaker 1: research don on v ART and the effects it has
Speaker 1: on our brains, but not all of it has been released,
Speaker 1: and I wonder about that. I'm nervous about what VR
Speaker 1: will do in the long run. But one of the
Speaker 1: more exciting advancements to think about is how visuals continue
Speaker 1: to improve. As Stephen points out, graphics have come a
Speaker 1: long way from early video games. I remember looking at
Speaker 1: ghosts and goblins on the NYES and training to my
Speaker 1: mom and saying, you know, that's good artwork. My mom
Speaker 1: is looking at and going, really, you think so? Sony
Speaker 1: was so good, uh presentation. Nintendo was so good at presentation. Frankly,
Speaker 1: if you saw the first FIFA soccer on the three
Speaker 1: do that was the game that turned sports games from
Speaker 1: being flat guys on a flat field taking a flat
Speaker 1: ball into having ambiance. The stadiums are there, and the
Speaker 1: stadium is part of the game. One of the things
Speaker 1: I love about video games. I've always loved about video games,
Speaker 1: and I don't think I'm alone in this is that
Speaker 1: video games can take you someplace you wouldn't want to
Speaker 1: be in real life. You can be a guy challenging
Speaker 1: the Greek and now I believe, the Nordica. You can
Speaker 1: be in a haunted house being chased by machine gun
Speaker 1: toning zombies. Whatever you want. They'll take you into these
Speaker 1: places that you wouldn't want to be in in real life,
Speaker 1: or places that you couldn't qualify for for real life.
Speaker 1: You can beat the Williams sisters in tennis. If you're
Speaker 1: good enough on the tennis games, you can fight brock Lester.
Speaker 1: These are things that in real life are not possible,
Speaker 1: and video games have gotten so good at presenting them
Speaker 1: in a way that you look at it and you
Speaker 1: think it's got to be real, or it's almost real.
Speaker 1: But here's the caveat. In literature, there's a term called
Speaker 1: the suspension of disbelief. I would argue that they achieved
Speaker 1: the suspension of disbelief in video games. Even back in
Speaker 1: the eighth bit era, where you were running Mario across
Speaker 1: polka dotted mushrooms, I gotta tell you I got acrophobic
Speaker 1: playing that game when Mario fell off a mushroom or
Speaker 1: a platform, I felt like I was dropping off the
Speaker 1: face of the world. They've been good at gain people
Speaker 1: to suspend their disbelief with lesser graphics. It gets harder
Speaker 1: now because once you're spoiled with what exists today, if
Speaker 1: you've got a PS five or an Xbox Series X,
Speaker 1: it's hard to go back. You can pick up a
Speaker 1: game boy and still get lost in Tetris easily, but
Speaker 1: some of the other things aren't so easy. With the
Speaker 1: latest consoles, the PlayStation five and the Xbox Series X
Speaker 1: games are now closer than ever to looking lifelike. After
Speaker 1: a quick break, we're going to sit down with familiar
Speaker 1: I Heart Podcast voices who also happened to be avid gamers,
Speaker 1: and we'll discuss what we are most excited about for
Speaker 1: the future of gaming. It's no secret that we have
Speaker 1: a big group of gamer nerds on the I Heart
Speaker 1: podcast team. A few weeks ago, we decided to chat
Speaker 1: with a few of them about our best gaming memories. Hi.
Speaker 1: I'm Trevor Young. I am a producer on Ephemeral, and
Speaker 1: I'm very excited to talk about video games. Hi. I'm
Speaker 1: Annie Reese Um. I'm a podcast host for the show's
Speaker 1: stuff I've never told you and savor and I am
Speaker 1: also very very excited to talk about video games. This
Speaker 1: is Matt Frederick. I'm an executive producer on Ephemeral. Officially,
Speaker 1: I'm also a host of stuff they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know. And Hi, I am Max Williams. I am
Speaker 1: a producer here on Ephemeral, And yeah, I love video games.
Speaker 1: So one of my first questions I had for the
Speaker 1: group to kick it off is a pretty obvious one,
Speaker 1: but it's just kind of what your first video game
Speaker 1: memory was, like, what your first system and game was.
Speaker 1: I'll start by saying, I'm pretty sure mine was getting
Speaker 1: like the bray Chunky game Boy, like the original Game
Speaker 1: Boy was I think the very first video game system
Speaker 1: I played. And I either played Tetris on it for
Speaker 1: the first time, or I played Pokemon like blue or
Speaker 1: Red version, which would have been around like nine. I
Speaker 1: guess wow. Yeah, Indeed, one of my first video game
Speaker 1: memories is I have an older brother and it was
Speaker 1: kind of through him that I got introduced to video
Speaker 1: game So I was probably four years old, and I
Speaker 1: remember him playing. Like, my early memories get all mixed up,
Speaker 1: but I remember pretty clearly Turtles in Time Supernintendo version,
Speaker 1: and then he had like an X Men game that
Speaker 1: I really liked because the animation was storm. I thought
Speaker 1: that was so cool. I think that's also Supernintendo. But
Speaker 1: we did have like a original Nintendo and I remember
Speaker 1: him playing I believe it was a Zelda game and
Speaker 1: also Mario in there. But by like early memories are
Speaker 1: of watching him play it, and it was kind of
Speaker 1: his domain at first, But then I I moved up
Speaker 1: in the world and started to play myself, so I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a little bit older. Uh Now I only know
Speaker 1: this first one because I have video footage of myself
Speaker 1: and my father playing it. But it was a Mattel
Speaker 1: in television and it's had this controller that had a
Speaker 1: little circular metal thing that you used. It was very strange.
Speaker 1: It was a horse racing game where you don't really
Speaker 1: play the game, you just bet on which horse is
Speaker 1: gonna win. Less is a video game more like an
Speaker 1: interactive movie, very similar. Really, my first real memories are
Speaker 1: of an original Nintendo entertainment system playing weird games like
Speaker 1: Kung Fu and Solstice. Yeah. I think my first video
Speaker 1: game memory was actually on the computer. I remember being
Speaker 1: a kid, and my parents were like, you guys can
Speaker 1: play video games, but they have to be educational. So
Speaker 1: it was a lot of like h G Games I
Speaker 1: believe was the company. It was like pot Putt Goes
Speaker 1: to the Moon and stuff. I think my first gaming
Speaker 1: system was similar to yours, Trevor. I remember having like
Speaker 1: the blocky gray game Boy, and Heven. I think I
Speaker 1: had Pokemon Blue and Ox had Pokemon Red because I
Speaker 1: was always like red schooler, I want Red being the
Speaker 1: annoying little brother that I am. Yeah, what Matt was
Speaker 1: saying reminded me that like there was a whole era
Speaker 1: of like at home video game playing that like wasn't
Speaker 1: like proper consoles. It was like these like little boxes
Speaker 1: that would have like one or two random like kind
Speaker 1: of things on them that you could plug into your
Speaker 1: TV and like go. But it was really just like
Speaker 1: one or two things. It wasn't like a proper game console,
Speaker 1: a cartridges or anything like that. Um, it was that
Speaker 1: kind of what that was, Matt uh the in television,
Speaker 1: I believe it had console, It had cartridges, very similar
Speaker 1: to like a cole Eco Vision that was like the
Speaker 1: other one that came out very early that I remember
Speaker 1: I never had an Atari, which was like the first
Speaker 1: system that had the cartridges you're speaking of. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I I don't know, man, there's something so amazing about
Speaker 1: a physical thing that you just plug in, especially with
Speaker 1: the sound of it plugging in. I don't know when
Speaker 1: you're thinking about ephemeral things. You know, we don't even
Speaker 1: have discs anymore. You just download your games. But like
Speaker 1: getting ahold of that sucker uh and just that feeling,
Speaker 1: especially in the old nintendos. Man, Oh, it's great, which
Speaker 1: made the the experience of like a blockbuster or video
Speaker 1: game rental place all that more important and exciting. Yes,
Speaker 1: I mean, on that note, like where where did you
Speaker 1: all like get your games from? Do you remember Christmas?
Speaker 1: If I got a game, it was Christmas. If I
Speaker 1: picked one up, it was a local video game store probably,
Speaker 1: which was probably a blockbuster. Yeah. Um, I, like I
Speaker 1: said about, my brothers were the ones that usually got
Speaker 1: the video games. And it actually caused some tension later
Speaker 1: because I bought like the console, but they had all
Speaker 1: the games. So when we went our separate ways, you
Speaker 1: know who gets what? I claimed the PlayStation two because
Speaker 1: I fixed it with my own my own hands and screwdrivers.
Speaker 1: So that's fine. I still have it. So I don't
Speaker 1: think I started. We did get a lot of games
Speaker 1: um from Blockbuster. We rented a lot, especially for Sega.
Speaker 1: But I started buying once I got older. It's around
Speaker 1: PlayStation two era. I started buying my own games. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I once did a really annoying thing where I
Speaker 1: showed up with like just my allowance money, so it
Speaker 1: was like quarters and stuff paid for this game. The
Speaker 1: guy was so mad at me, but that's how. That's
Speaker 1: how I had my money. I didn't know what to do,
Speaker 1: you know. I was actually just digging through some like
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of video stuff, like old stuff,
Speaker 1: and I found this copy of a paper Mario for
Speaker 1: the N sixty four nice and right here on the
Speaker 1: top it says property a block button. Because it was like,
Speaker 1: you know, you you can rent the games, but you
Speaker 1: can also pay. I don't know, like what was that
Speaker 1: twenty bucks to buy the use game. I feel like
Speaker 1: there had to have been another place, but I don't
Speaker 1: remember going to a game stop or anything like that
Speaker 1: back then, or even if game stop was a thing yet.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think just like blockbust, starties rented games
Speaker 1: and after a certain amount of times if I rented it,
Speaker 1: my parents were like, Okay, we're just gonna buy this
Speaker 1: because we're still of paying you know, the nine dollars
Speaker 1: or whatever it is to rent it for the weekend.
Speaker 1: So my recollection is going to It was first called
Speaker 1: Electronics Boutique and then it became e B Games, and
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that got merged into game Stop. I
Speaker 1: could be wrong about that, but yeah, the first I remember,
Speaker 1: the first game store I went to was like E
Speaker 1: B Games and that's where I would get like my
Speaker 1: N sixty four games and sn E S games and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Uh. And I'm pretty sure that was
Speaker 1: like before games off existed. But the mall would have them,
Speaker 1: y'all just stores at the mall, just have them, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was the whole thing. There was a I lived
Speaker 1: in a small town and there was a a mall,
Speaker 1: like a thirty minute drive away. It's a big deal.
Speaker 1: You go to E V Games and you're like, ah,
Speaker 1: this is heaven and it was big exciting dude. Well,
Speaker 1: and you had the arcade there too. Generally not at
Speaker 1: all malls, but if it was a good mall, it
Speaker 1: had an arcade and you know, if you're a kid.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys had this experience, but
Speaker 1: you get you get some quarters and your family just
Speaker 1: let you go to the arcade for a little while.
Speaker 1: I can't remember if my parents would leave me there,
Speaker 1: but I know that once I entered the arcade, nobody
Speaker 1: was there but me and the consoles, and uh, it's
Speaker 1: just amazing. Yeah, let's tuck our kades for a second.
Speaker 1: So two questions, Matt, maybe you can answer. Do you
Speaker 1: remember the name of the arcade you went to and
Speaker 1: you remember what games you played on it? Oh? Man,
Speaker 1: it was in Clearwater, Florida, when I would go visit
Speaker 1: my grand parents. I remember that one, just really specifically
Speaker 1: in my head. It was just a small mall that
Speaker 1: was a short drive from their house, and I remember
Speaker 1: that one. And I remember the arcade at the roller rink,
Speaker 1: which was just a couple of games set up kind
Speaker 1: of on the periphery of the rink. But I remember playing, uh,
Speaker 1: like a couple of ninja based games there for the
Speaker 1: first time ever. Let ninja gating, Like man, I just
Speaker 1: I have very clear memory of it happening, but I
Speaker 1: can't I can't tell you the details I went to
Speaker 1: a time out. It was called time Out and it
Speaker 1: was an arcade in Gainesville, Georgia, which again I grew
Speaker 1: up in a small town that was just like outing.
Speaker 1: If you're gonna go that way, it's a whole day.
Speaker 1: But my parents would drop us off and just leave
Speaker 1: us there. And I loved there's a zombie game. I
Speaker 1: really loved a Star Wars game. I really loved a
Speaker 1: dinosaur one and a Hotted House one. Oh I love
Speaker 1: those are like the kind of point and shoot ones.
Speaker 1: But I was also really good at commachine. I was
Speaker 1: like so good they banned me from like no more
Speaker 1: no where you're cheating. Yeah, I mean I don't really
Speaker 1: have them any like distinct memories of like I guess
Speaker 1: arcades when I was younger. Oddly enough, when I was
Speaker 1: like nineteen, I actually end up working at it like
Speaker 1: an arcade like place for about six months. But there
Speaker 1: was like this one place called like Startime or something
Speaker 1: with that. It's like like the suburbs nor like north
Speaker 1: of Atlanta and Olex and I would go to that
Speaker 1: and we just play House to the Dead like the
Speaker 1: entire day, just like keep hitting, like you know, continue
Speaker 1: putting the more money and stuff, and by that point
Speaker 1: it wasn't like tokens or chips. It was like the card.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I would say most of my memories are
Speaker 1: like when I was like nineteen, I actually worked at
Speaker 1: like it was kind of like a Chucky Cheese, independently
Speaker 1: owned type place, and I was a technician, which meant
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, if a bunch of kids just
Speaker 1: shove coins into the wrong machine, um, I would take
Speaker 1: it offline on jam the coins. But I remember they
Speaker 1: had like a misspac Man there, and they had like
Speaker 1: I think a Space Invaders there, And unfortunately I was
Speaker 1: still like too young to appreciate how awesome it was
Speaker 1: having those like really retro awesome machines. But I don't know,
Speaker 1: I feel like by the time I got really into gaming,
Speaker 1: like arcades were already you know, pretty phased out. Bless
Speaker 1: you for doing that work, sir. Pinball. Does everybody have
Speaker 1: pinball memories? Does anyone have pinball memories? Yeah? Little, I
Speaker 1: feel like pinball was at the arcades I would go to,
Speaker 1: but like that was the only context that I would
Speaker 1: find it. Early was like in arcades, um, there just
Speaker 1: be usually like a corner or a wall of the
Speaker 1: arcade where they were pinballs, and my favorite ones are
Speaker 1: always the ones connected to movies. You know that I knew,
Speaker 1: like the Star Wars one or the Indiana Jones one
Speaker 1: or something like that. Well, just as a personal connection
Speaker 1: for me, and I wonder how this connects with you guys,
Speaker 1: like the experience of playing a video game of any kind,
Speaker 1: including a pinball game, which isn't really a video game,
Speaker 1: you know, it's more integrated with video graphics and stuff
Speaker 1: later on, but it's associated for me with it because
Speaker 1: of the location, as you're saying to over the arcade,
Speaker 1: I have clear memories of my father and I playing
Speaker 1: and the joy that I would get when my dad
Speaker 1: and I would like compete on a pinball machine, and
Speaker 1: then that translated later on to us competing in other
Speaker 1: like console games at the house, which is just this
Speaker 1: clear through line that I've got with my connection to
Speaker 1: my son now with video games. So I'll just I'll
Speaker 1: bring that back up later. No, that's great, Um, that
Speaker 1: reminds me. You know, I think I have a somewhat
Speaker 1: similar story where most of my arcade time was spent
Speaker 1: at a place in Dallas, Texas called Nickel Rama. Because
Speaker 1: everything was in Nickel and Dallas is where my dad
Speaker 1: and step mom lived, and so I would go visit
Speaker 1: them there. I didn't live in Dallas, and my dad
Speaker 1: was always working, so I never really got to hang
Speaker 1: out with him when I visited, weirdly, so I would
Speaker 1: like spend most of that time with my step mom,
Speaker 1: And that was just kind of our thing we did
Speaker 1: when I would visit, like pretty much like every day
Speaker 1: when I would visit, or like whatever weekends I would go,
Speaker 1: we'd go to the Nicole Rama And that's like really
Speaker 1: how my stepmom and I like got to bond and
Speaker 1: know each other growing up when I was a kid.
Speaker 1: So we'd um, you know, go to the like two
Speaker 1: player you know, like fighting games like Moral Kombat or
Speaker 1: whatever it was, or like the Simpsons game where you
Speaker 1: work together and like kind of go across the map
Speaker 1: shooting weird guys popping out of trash cans. Like like
Speaker 1: that was just our thing. Like that was me and
Speaker 1: my stepmom saying so, uh, you know, she's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite people in the world, and I don't think
Speaker 1: we would be as close without that arcade. Without Nicole Rama,
Speaker 1: I had a friend who had a pinball she had
Speaker 1: some pinball machines at her house because her dad really
Speaker 1: loved pinball machines, and it was the coolest. It was
Speaker 1: so cool. I was always very very excited to go
Speaker 1: and visit her. And I think that's another when I
Speaker 1: think of video games, there's that kind of element when
Speaker 1: you're a kid where you get jealous of who has
Speaker 1: what game and what console and you're gonna go. I
Speaker 1: was gonna go to her house and play pinball, you know,
Speaker 1: like having these associations that she also had an Atari
Speaker 1: and I didn't have an Atari. I had a Sega,
Speaker 1: so we got to mix it up. Sometimes. I was
Speaker 1: always really jealous when my friends were like better very
Speaker 1: like certain games than me, you know, like I was
Speaker 1: always really bad at Super Smash on the N sixty
Speaker 1: four growing up, Like I just couldn't figure it out.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was a controller. I'm much
Speaker 1: better at it now, but yeah, just like drive Me
Speaker 1: drove me nuts that I was like always like last
Speaker 1: place on Smash, and I feel like since then, I've
Speaker 1: devoted my life to like getting better at that game
Speaker 1: so I can like not be in last place on
Speaker 1: Brawl or whatever the newest one is now Brawl was on.
Speaker 1: We the newest one is like Ultimate. I guess that's
Speaker 1: a really interesting, just larger topic to bring up the
Speaker 1: competitiveness angle. You know, video games is really a bonding
Speaker 1: thing for friends in many ways, especially in the console era.
Speaker 1: You know, my my friends and I would always get
Speaker 1: together and play various games like that. For us, it
Speaker 1: was more like Halo on the original Xbox. My friends
Speaker 1: and would get together all the time and just play Halo,
Speaker 1: and that's all we would do all night, and we
Speaker 1: couldn't wait till the next time we got to do
Speaker 1: it again, which translated later to M m O RPGs
Speaker 1: or you know, the online thing where we could be
Speaker 1: in our separate places. Once we went off to college
Speaker 1: and everything, we're still playing together. We were just separated.
Speaker 1: That's what I find really funny about my gaming now
Speaker 1: at this point in my life. So, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of friends who were really into gaming,
Speaker 1: really competitive. I would play with them. I was usually
Speaker 1: like one of the worst out of them. But I
Speaker 1: say about like nineteen twenty, that's when I realized I
Speaker 1: hate playing videogas to other people. I'm a solo gamer
Speaker 1: and I've embraced it in my like you know now
Speaker 1: going to my thirties. It's like that's why I got
Speaker 1: really into the Assassin's Creed and then Skyram fall Out
Speaker 1: all this stuff. I'm like nothing about just like getting
Speaker 1: online and playing with people, even if I know them,
Speaker 1: like really Like it's kind of like my period of
Speaker 1: rest bit away from I mean a lot of this
Speaker 1: might tie into the fact that I was a bartender
Speaker 1: for many years. I was with people all the time,
Speaker 1: and I'll play with people on a cage, but I
Speaker 1: don't really enjoy it. Yeah, I'd second that in a way. Now,
Speaker 1: I think I'm like kind of in between where there
Speaker 1: was like a time where I got a lot of
Speaker 1: like communal value out of video games, especially like Matt
Speaker 1: was saying in the m m O RPG Hey Day,
Speaker 1: Like when World of Warcraft hit, me and my friends
Speaker 1: were all up on World of Warcraft, like that was
Speaker 1: like our thing. We didn't even like hang out. There
Speaker 1: was like a whole year where we didn't even hang
Speaker 1: out in person because it was so much cooler to
Speaker 1: be like in our like respective homes, on our computers,
Speaker 1: talking on our like horrible little like USB Mike. That
Speaker 1: was like what we wanted to do. That's how we
Speaker 1: wanted to hang out. But at some point over the years,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, like online gaming just started to
Speaker 1: feel more and more like toxic to me. Like I'd
Speaker 1: be on it and people were like really bad. Like
Speaker 1: by bad, I mean like I would say horrible things
Speaker 1: and we're like just like really rude and mean, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, a couple of years ago, I got really
Speaker 1: into Overwatch, and so as playing like Overwatch like online
Speaker 1: a lot, and like man like just like the amount
Speaker 1: of like racism and sexism and all horrible things that
Speaker 1: I just like and just like abuse, you know, like
Speaker 1: people like berating you over like messing up a game
Speaker 1: or something like that. It's just like not not worth
Speaker 1: it anymore, totally here you, Trevor. I tried recently to
Speaker 1: use the Oculus to do some online multiplayer gaming, and
Speaker 1: it was a horrible experience for that reason you just
Speaker 1: pointed out. And this is my opinion, but this is
Speaker 1: what I think. These are probably a lot of younger
Speaker 1: people who are playing these games, including Overwatch, all these
Speaker 1: games they are developing, They are like testing out some
Speaker 1: of these more the things that they're not supposed to
Speaker 1: say the things that the way they interact with others,
Speaker 1: and you know, testing out that mean streak because maybe
Speaker 1: it's been done to them. And I don't that's not
Speaker 1: the case for every kid, but I think you're you're
Speaker 1: encountering that a ton when you go into an online
Speaker 1: space now with video games with younger people. Again, I
Speaker 1: think they're just they're testing in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: because they're not going to get necessarily in trouble for
Speaker 1: saying those things that are kind of naughty and exciting
Speaker 1: for a kid's mind. Um, and they probably don't even
Speaker 1: understand what they're saying or what it really means. Just
Speaker 1: to defend the griefers in the a holes that you'll encounter. Sorry,
Speaker 1: that's not that they need defending. No, I get that.
Speaker 1: I hope it is really that innocent, um, and it
Speaker 1: comes from a place of naivete. But sometimes it feels
Speaker 1: like I'm talking to adults who were those kids and
Speaker 1: just like never really grew up. You know, now they're
Speaker 1: like in their thirties or something and are still like
Speaker 1: saying horrible things. You know, I don't know, I mean
Speaker 1: that would track right, Yeah, I mean, you've got the
Speaker 1: whole game or gate thing. I'm it's like literally a
Speaker 1: woman getting death threats from adult men because she dared
Speaker 1: to critique a game that they liked. So it's definitely,
Speaker 1: it's extremely it can be very very toxic and very dangerous,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately a lot of like, um, it's getting worse,
Speaker 1: Like there's actually been some surveys, some studies recently that
Speaker 1: we're going backwards, like there have been some progress made.
Speaker 1: So I'm very competitive, but I stopped playing online games
Speaker 1: at twelve because I was getting like harassed, and I've
Speaker 1: just never gone back and it didn't feel like a
Speaker 1: a safe space. It is a weird thing for a
Speaker 1: twelve year old to be like, oh god, O can't
Speaker 1: I can't be involved in this anymore. It's interesting because I,
Speaker 1: like I said, I got introduced to video games to
Speaker 1: my brothers, and I was very competitive. However, it was
Speaker 1: always always in my mind viewed as this is a
Speaker 1: more masculine space. So I would play, but only if
Speaker 1: they would let me play. And like I, you all
Speaker 1: probably remember this, but I bet some listeners don't. Games
Speaker 1: used to only have like one safe space or like
Speaker 1: two maybe, and they so they would go through and
Speaker 1: erase all my games, and it was just like a
Speaker 1: huge point of contention. Um so I always felt like
Speaker 1: I wasn't good enough for them, like they were way
Speaker 1: better than I ever could be. But then at the
Speaker 1: same time, like my other friends who were girls who
Speaker 1: didn't really play video games, thought that like I was
Speaker 1: kind of strange because I was a girl playing video games. Uh.
Speaker 1: But I did go on to I Want a Super
Speaker 1: Smash Brothers competition in college. I went to a very
Speaker 1: technical school and it was se men and they all
Speaker 1: accused me of cheating and said there's no way she
Speaker 1: could have won. It's impossible, like we're shouting in my face.
Speaker 1: So I've never competed ever again. But I did win,
Speaker 1: and I want some money. Whoa congratulations first of all,
Speaker 1: But wow, that sucks. Character? What character ours, marr I mean,
Speaker 1: Martha's pretty jacks make. It's wild to me though, you
Speaker 1: have the kind of self awareness as early as twelve
Speaker 1: to be like, you know what this is like toxic?
Speaker 1: I don't need this. Yeah, yeah, and it was really toxic. Also,
Speaker 1: I just I prefer storyline based games. I do, like
Speaker 1: I like party games like Mario cart and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. But like I really love a good storyline,
Speaker 1: and so this was it was common for me growing
Speaker 1: up to like I would watch my brothers play and
Speaker 1: my friends would watch me play like it like it's
Speaker 1: a movie or something, and I feel like that not
Speaker 1: a lot of online games are like that. So it
Speaker 1: was a couple of reasons, but it's definitely like it
Speaker 1: scared me to play online. What you were saying about
Speaker 1: liking games, I have a story anyways, I'm like totally
Speaker 1: the same way. I think my my favorite game series
Speaker 1: are probably like the Final Fantasy series, the Metal Gear
Speaker 1: Solids areas things that I like have really like compelling,
Speaker 1: deep storylines to them. Certain Final Fantasy games. That's um
Speaker 1: for debate, but overall, I think like they're all written
Speaker 1: pretty well. And um yeah, it's it's been hard for
Speaker 1: me to get into games like Fallout or like a
Speaker 1: BioShock or something where you're just kind of like in
Speaker 1: first person the whole time, like kind of exploring these worlds.
Speaker 1: That's just like it's fun, it's cool, but like there's
Speaker 1: no like characters to latch onto as much. There's no
Speaker 1: real like plot development. Fallout four, you're kidding me, Yes,
Speaker 1: there is. Get Out of Town. I'm gonna get canceled
Speaker 1: for this opinion. My favorite game for PlayStation four is
Speaker 1: The Witcher, which is like that you go wherever you want,
Speaker 1: to do whatever you want. But then the overall story
Speaker 1: is in my mind so perfect and developed for a
Speaker 1: more mature audience. It's it's made for a gamer that's
Speaker 1: been playing since you know any Yes, there is that
Speaker 1: you guys are talking about, like you know, there's that spectrum.
Speaker 1: So it's like I'm thinking about like Elder s Girls
Speaker 1: five Skyrim, which is like one of my favorites of
Speaker 1: all time, but there's really isn't another character you'd really
Speaker 1: ever latch onto and like that. That's what I've always
Speaker 1: felt like one of the big improvements and fall At
Speaker 1: four was it's like, Okay, here are these companions, some
Speaker 1: of which when you finished the game, you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to turn on, you're gonna have to kill. It's not perfect,
Speaker 1: but it is a lot better. But I'm really thinking
Speaker 1: about my favorite play through. I'm thinking like Assassin's Creed too,
Speaker 1: and then I'm gonna include Brotherhood because that's that's the
Speaker 1: conclusion to that. And that was you know, you had
Speaker 1: a lot of like you know, on the tertiary stuff
Speaker 1: you could control, but it was a straight line storyline.
Speaker 1: You were going to start the game at seventeen years
Speaker 1: old and at the end you're killing the Pope's son. Spoiler.
Speaker 1: Anyone has played it yet, and I hadn't dead there yet.
Speaker 1: I was waiting for those switch free Masters. Well, we'll
Speaker 1: think about games like the Legend of Zelda Linked to
Speaker 1: the Past. It came out on Supernintendo, and just how
Speaker 1: story forward that game was, even though it was in
Speaker 1: action game that you got to fight through tons of
Speaker 1: enemies and you never stopped to have a battle, You're
Speaker 1: just fighting. I don't know that that kind of game
Speaker 1: really changed the way I thought about video games in general.
Speaker 1: And Super Metroid Oh god, yeah, I guess up to
Speaker 1: that point, like there was nothing really like that, right,
Speaker 1: There was no concept of like a a story or
Speaker 1: a motivation behind a lot of these games. It was
Speaker 1: just like character does thing. It is fun, you will
Speaker 1: have fun. That is the game. Did y'all ever go
Speaker 1: on a plane flight when you were a kid and
Speaker 1: like get a video game magazine? Oh my god? That
Speaker 1: was again. This is me visiting my grandparents in clear
Speaker 1: Water every once in a while, we would fly instead
Speaker 1: of drive, and if we ever did, it was all
Speaker 1: about getting that video game magazine for the plane flight,
Speaker 1: and you just stare at all the amazing things that
Speaker 1: could be in your life one day. I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I maybe got like Game Informer at the
Speaker 1: like at the Hudson news stand or whatever, uh, and
Speaker 1: would like sift through that, like being really stoked about
Speaker 1: like the still images for Kingdom Hearts too or something.
Speaker 1: Can we talk for a second about just how hard
Speaker 1: games back then were, like the games on like Second
Speaker 1: Genesis for example, like some of those Sonic games, and
Speaker 1: if you all ever played those, but like it felt
Speaker 1: like certain games were just impossible to be Like, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think I ever beat some of those Sonic
Speaker 1: games that were just like ridiculously hard. But I've heard
Speaker 1: like that was the point. I think that the technology
Speaker 1: has just come so far. There are some games I
Speaker 1: was really good at when I was a kid, and
Speaker 1: now I'm convinced like you compensate for like lag or Glitch,
Speaker 1: So now when I try to play them, I'm like trying,
Speaker 1: why isn't it turning? Like I think you get used
Speaker 1: to those things when you're a kid and you kind
Speaker 1: of have it in the back of your mind. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'd start turning two seconds before I actually looks like
Speaker 1: I need to turn. So I'm terrible at a lot
Speaker 1: of games that used to be really really good at,
Speaker 1: and they were. They were very, very hard. I have
Speaker 1: many memories of just even just the physicality that. Like
Speaker 1: there was another game where the buttons you had to
Speaker 1: press to just jump, like double jump impossible, impossible, And
Speaker 1: it's not like it laid it out anywhere, like now
Speaker 1: games are really good at being like to jump, press
Speaker 1: a back then it should just go for it. I
Speaker 1: don't know, you figure it out your own figure. There
Speaker 1: was a game on any S that I've played called
Speaker 1: Iron Sword Wizards and Warriors Too. That's what it was called,
Speaker 1: and it was my favorite game. I loved it. I
Speaker 1: loved being this warrior in uh like a Google remember
Speaker 1: guls and Ghosts, a little iron clad warrior with all
Speaker 1: his armor and his sword. It was like that, but
Speaker 1: it was way more simple and way more difficult, and
Speaker 1: I never beat it. I have no idea how that
Speaker 1: game ends. I still think about that game, but I
Speaker 1: don't know. I just need to watch a walk through
Speaker 1: on YouTube. I guess with somebody who's better than me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I've got that with a bunch of Mega Man games
Speaker 1: that I would play on like PlayStation one and a
Speaker 1: couple of other consoles. Does Mega Man games were I
Speaker 1: think probably the hardest games I've ever played. Yeah, except
Speaker 1: for Dark Souls. Christ No, we don't talk about Dark
Speaker 1: Souls in this house. I never played Dark Souls, but
Speaker 1: I live with guys who played Dark Souls, and that
Speaker 1: was painful for me. Yeah, just like f bombs and
Speaker 1: like hearing controllers like Smash against the Law on the
Speaker 1: other room. I went on vacation with my roommates when
Speaker 1: I was twenty three, and one of the dudes brought
Speaker 1: us PS three and Dark Souls and just sat in
Speaker 1: the condo on the beach the entire trip. What a
Speaker 1: horrible vacation playing Dark Souls because he was hooked and
Speaker 1: it was just pain and misery that we all have
Speaker 1: to listen to in this small little condo and Myrtle Beach.
Speaker 1: You guys know Tyler and Chandler, right, Yeah, I know
Speaker 1: of them. These are two other producers who worked with us.
Speaker 1: We used to go in the basement and put on
Speaker 1: Dark Souls on the projector and take turns playing and
Speaker 1: dying horribly and getting so angry and throwing controllers, and
Speaker 1: Chandler would watch and go, you guys are dorks, but
Speaker 1: we couldn't get enough. Do y'all deal with any like
Speaker 1: conservative parents or people who kind of like borrored you
Speaker 1: from playing like emiraated games and stuff like that, Like
Speaker 1: did your parents not let you play Grand Theft Auto
Speaker 1: or whatever? Yep. Yeah. I remember when Alex and I
Speaker 1: got our End sixty four, we were still pretty young.
Speaker 1: There was one rule we couldn't get Zelda because I
Speaker 1: had swords and fighting. We were a lot of play
Speaker 1: super Specs brothers. We weren't a lot of play Zelda.
Speaker 1: We literally had brothers, had link plenty of swords in
Speaker 1: that game. Yeah, and it was all about fighting. Everything
Speaker 1: ange for me when I got a PlayStation and I
Speaker 1: got a game called Resident Evil, and I would play
Speaker 1: it quietly in my room at night, alone in the
Speaker 1: dark and scaring the crap out of myself. I remember
Speaker 1: my friend had to leave one night when he was
Speaker 1: staying over and we were playing Resident Evil and he's like,
Speaker 1: I gotta go home. I can't handle this. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: I was hiding it from my parents necessarily. They just
Speaker 1: didn't understand what the game was or how scary it
Speaker 1: was to play, but they let you play it like
Speaker 1: they didn't sense there it from you. That was when
Speaker 1: I was quite a bit older, you know, old enough
Speaker 1: to play Resident Evil. I guess was I. I don't know, God,
Speaker 1: are we ever old enough to play Resident Even My
Speaker 1: parents were very much kind of what you mentioned earlier, Max,
Speaker 1: where they were like all about the educational. I had
Speaker 1: a lot of like computer games I played that were
Speaker 1: very educational in nature, and I loved them. I actually
Speaker 1: still think about how fun those were. Um, so they
Speaker 1: that was kind of there. I like to like jump
Speaker 1: Start fifth grade. That was so yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: would play that now still. Uh. And they knew, like
Speaker 1: we had the Sega games, so they would see like
Speaker 1: we had a racing game, we had a like dinosaur game.
Speaker 1: But I think, like you said, Man, I think they
Speaker 1: just didn't really under stand that much. So I too
Speaker 1: played Residon Evil and I definitely was too young to
Speaker 1: play it. That's also a game. One of the last
Speaker 1: games that I mentioned that I bought with all my allowance.
Speaker 1: I bought a Resident Evil game, and I was definitely
Speaker 1: too young to buy it, but the guy didn't say anything.
Speaker 1: I think if they had known, I don't know, they
Speaker 1: might have still been like whatever. Because President Evil is
Speaker 1: kind of a strange one because it's zombies. I don't
Speaker 1: know why that makes it different, but I kind of
Speaker 1: feels like it does. Yeah, I guess they just didn't
Speaker 1: really understand. But I had a friend who was super
Speaker 1: conservative and she did not Her parents were super conservative,
Speaker 1: and she did not approve of me playing video games
Speaker 1: and she didn't like she didn't want me to play
Speaker 1: them around her. So I didn't counter that just on
Speaker 1: the educational games tip. I feel like all my parents
Speaker 1: money went into my video game addiction. Now that I've
Speaker 1: made this, I made a list of all the games
Speaker 1: I played, and I'm just thinking about these things. Super
Speaker 1: Nintendo and Nintendo made a piano game. Are you guys
Speaker 1: aware of this? Like an early Guitar Hero type thing.
Speaker 1: It's kind of like Guitar Hero, but it was specifically
Speaker 1: to teach somebody how to play piano, and it was
Speaker 1: called Miracle. I believe because I think we had one.
Speaker 1: It's weird. I remember specifically having a Miracle Keyboard. I
Speaker 1: can't remember if we had the game for it or not,
Speaker 1: but it was a just a cheap little keyboard and
Speaker 1: you could plug your Nintendo or your Supernintendo into it.
Speaker 1: But that's just really cool. Game systems did things like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know Guitar Hero is not actually teaching
Speaker 1: anybody how to play guitar, but I feel like it
Speaker 1: definitely inspired a lot of people I know to actually
Speaker 1: pick up a guitar and try and figure that out.
Speaker 1: And I think I introduce a lot of people to
Speaker 1: like a lot of music that maybe people wouldn't have
Speaker 1: known about otherwise. Hell yeah, dude, look at that. Matt
Speaker 1: just pulled out a guitar. Guitar. It's my PlayStation two. Nice.
Speaker 1: How out did those buttons work? Are? Are they like
Speaker 1: super sticky and barely work? Both are in perfectly working order.
Speaker 1: I loved d d R. I had the Matt Dance
Speaker 1: Dance Revolution. I still have them, and we, me and
Speaker 1: my little brother would just play after school. We would
Speaker 1: play DDR, and to this day, there are certain songs
Speaker 1: I can't hear without being like step step step jump step,
Speaker 1: and we would just try so hard to like perfect
Speaker 1: all the songs, and we we had to like do
Speaker 1: some surgery on one of the mats because the sensors
Speaker 1: got all messed up. But that was that was fun.
Speaker 1: I had such a good time with D d R.
Speaker 1: This is what I wanted to bring up. Um more
Speaker 1: things that consoles introduced that were perifer periphery peripherals, so
Speaker 1: how you say it's peripherals. Other pieces of hardware that
Speaker 1: you would attach to your game system to play specific games.
Speaker 1: The one I think many of us probably think about
Speaker 1: is the Nintendo Light Gun, the orange one. Did you
Speaker 1: guys play duck Hunt and all those? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Does anybody remember the Super Nintendo light Gun? Was it different? Yes,
Speaker 1: it was a full blown bazooka called the super Scope six,
Speaker 1: and it was a bazooka and you held it and
Speaker 1: you played games the way you would with a light gun.
Speaker 1: But so were you like bzooking like ducks and duck Hunters? Still? No,
Speaker 1: I remember you're shooting like missiles that are flying through
Speaker 1: the air. You've got your buzuka and you're trying to
Speaker 1: shoot them down. Because I'm just imagining you're playing duck
Speaker 1: Hunt and you're trying to hunt them and you should
Speaker 1: have missed, lad and he just blows them. Dog goes
Speaker 1: to sorry dog splash damage. My friend had a she
Speaker 1: had like an early VR system, um like early early days,
Speaker 1: and that God. I hated it because it was like
Speaker 1: the graphics weren't good. It was really disorienting, and it
Speaker 1: just never did what you were doing. It didn't work
Speaker 1: very well. I guess the technology wasn't there. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know. VR never really appealed to me. However, I
Speaker 1: feel like the Wii is probably was like the closest
Speaker 1: thing to uh, making it sort of accessible or a
Speaker 1: version of it accessible, because it's all like very interactive, right,
Speaker 1: Like the whole point of the week console was like
Speaker 1: to sort of simulate VR and or like at least
Speaker 1: have movement correlate to things happening in the game. I
Speaker 1: just really quickly want to talk about the experience of
Speaker 1: playing video games with your child. It's given me a
Speaker 1: ton of perspective just on what it was, what it
Speaker 1: must have been like from my parents to like release
Speaker 1: me into these video game worlds and trust that I would.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's about decision making in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases, especially in newer games. Like what decision
Speaker 1: will my son make when he encounters a bunch of
Speaker 1: farm animals and Minecraft? How will he react when villagers
Speaker 1: are around in Minecraft? And you know, having those conversations
Speaker 1: with him about well, you know, why would we just
Speaker 1: kill all of these guys or what what's the difference
Speaker 1: between if you'd kill the villager or if you trade
Speaker 1: with the villager. I know that's kind of weird thing
Speaker 1: to think about, but I'm just imagining the learning opportunities
Speaker 1: that aren't just sitting down and you know, learning the
Speaker 1: way with the with the educational games that we used
Speaker 1: to play, but learning about interaction with other things in
Speaker 1: an environment. I both leave. There was a big study
Speaker 1: done about that and specifically like actions have consequences and
Speaker 1: learning that through video games and what that can look like.
Speaker 1: And this is sort of outside the scope of what
Speaker 1: we're talking about today, but video games have been used
Speaker 1: to train people to do things, and one thing I
Speaker 1: find really interesting about them is that sort of aspect
Speaker 1: of when you're designing a game, you do have to
Speaker 1: kind of get into like how the human brain works,
Speaker 1: and like are they going to get that they need
Speaker 1: to go over here? All these really interesting design elements,
Speaker 1: but essentially trying to codify humans and what are they
Speaker 1: going to do in the space, which I find like
Speaker 1: really really really fascinating, and and the ways that they
Speaker 1: can they can be used as kind of a teaching
Speaker 1: way but also like a reflection of of yourself. It
Speaker 1: is weird how video games for me, at this point
Speaker 1: in my late thirties are are in a it's an escape.
Speaker 1: It's an avoidance almost of real responsibility, things that I
Speaker 1: know I need to get done that I just need
Speaker 1: a break after working or after doing something stressful, um,
Speaker 1: go into a different place, disassociate a bit weirdly, um
Speaker 1: m m. And I've been doing that since I was
Speaker 1: a kid. When I was stressed out with school or something,
Speaker 1: I would want to play my video game. Uh. That's
Speaker 1: why Ultimate Online was a real addiction a problem. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm with you. It's weird. How to me that like
Speaker 1: feeling of escapism and addiction and all that kind of
Speaker 1: stuff like like carries with you your whole life in
Speaker 1: a weird way, like games provide that I think that'll
Speaker 1: probably carry with us. I don't know what do you
Speaker 1: guys think, Like how do you see gaming, um like
Speaker 1: being a part of your life over the next like
Speaker 1: say ten to twenty year is what do you think
Speaker 1: it will be for you? It's a good question, So yeah,
Speaker 1: currently I use them. They're definitely kind of an escapism
Speaker 1: and kind of like babysit your brain sometimes just when
Speaker 1: do this. I really really enjoy story games, as I said,
Speaker 1: and I think there are some video games that the
Speaker 1: story is so good. I guess what I'm saying is
Speaker 1: to me, I feel like in the future, I'm going
Speaker 1: to still be playing these same games because it's almost
Speaker 1: like an interactive movie, which I do like. I know
Speaker 1: some people don't, but I really like getting caught up
Speaker 1: in the story and getting to control it. And there's
Speaker 1: so many instances in my life where I'll look back
Speaker 1: and I'm a grown woman and I'll stay up all
Speaker 1: night because I want to know how the story ends,
Speaker 1: like I'll be up, I can't stop, I can't stop,
Speaker 1: I kiss out, like I know how it ends. Um.
Speaker 1: So I think that for me it's going to be
Speaker 1: it's gonna be like that. I would be very it
Speaker 1: would be funny to me if I like suddenly love
Speaker 1: something like animal crossing and like switches. But I think
Speaker 1: it's I'm going to stay the course. I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep like ten twenty years from now,
Speaker 1: I'm still gonna be playing video games. Yeah, same, And
Speaker 1: I think my answer is probably similar, but I'd add
Speaker 1: that I feel like video games as a storytelling vehicle
Speaker 1: is like improving so vastly with every new generation of games.
Speaker 1: Like God of War, for example, just like blew my
Speaker 1: mind with like, um, like how well it was written,
Speaker 1: like the kind of like emotional density of it, like
Speaker 1: the how real the characters like felt both in their
Speaker 1: like dialogue and the way they look and a moat.
Speaker 1: You know, It's like games are becoming so advanced now
Speaker 1: that like it's it's no longer just like the kind
Speaker 1: of clunky, you know, dialogue box sort of storytelling from
Speaker 1: you know, not even that long ago. I feel like
Speaker 1: even in the early is like go back and listen
Speaker 1: to some of that dialogue on a lot of popular games,
Speaker 1: and it's just like really kind of cringe e and
Speaker 1: like not great, but like, man, they're getting so much
Speaker 1: better at that, Like they're getting real voice actors and
Speaker 1: like them, the c g I is getting to the
Speaker 1: point where like it really looks like they're saying, you know,
Speaker 1: almost like a like high budget, multimillion dollar like animated
Speaker 1: film or something like that. So I'm really excited to
Speaker 1: see like how the storytelling and like both in terms
Speaker 1: of visual effects and in writing like gets better over
Speaker 1: the next ten to twenty years. You know, I feel
Speaker 1: like we're gonna get like a Citizen Kane of video
Speaker 1: gaming here in the next few years. I feel like
Speaker 1: it's inevitable. When I think about gaming in the future,
Speaker 1: I think it's going to probably stay the same. I mean,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's just like part of it's a thread,
Speaker 1: the tapestory of like me as a person. It's like
Speaker 1: it's such an important thing, like working on this. This
Speaker 1: is like, you know, these last few weeks, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh man, I'm being so nostalgic. I'm thinking about things
Speaker 1: like I'm thinking about how bad my brother always tried
Speaker 1: to cheat every video game and still lost. He was
Speaker 1: still lose to me, but he would tried really hard
Speaker 1: to cheat every some time. It's like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I like, I don't see myself, you know, being my
Speaker 1: fifties and not having video games around. I just think
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, if I do have a family.
Speaker 1: One day I do have kids, I think I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be like, hey, here are video games, because they don't
Speaker 1: give me excuse to play video games with you and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I love what you said, Max about
Speaker 1: video games being a part of the tapestry. That is
Speaker 1: you like, I'm looking at a list right now. I
Speaker 1: can just see it. This is my life right here
Speaker 1: in a list of titles. Um. And at the top
Speaker 1: of the list is that in television video game system
Speaker 1: that I had when I was a little kid. I
Speaker 1: don't have clear memories of it, but I remember um
Speaker 1: sitting in front of this old CRT television with my dad,
Speaker 1: specifically my dad, and we were playing, Uh, do you
Speaker 1: remember the old game Centipede? We were playing Centipede together.
Speaker 1: Recently took my son to david Busters and there was
Speaker 1: a Centipede game, like an arcade game with Centipede, and
Speaker 1: it was cool and new and looked neater and had
Speaker 1: flashing lights and everything. And he looked at it and
Speaker 1: he just wanted to play. He said, Dad, play with me.
Speaker 1: So I sat down with him and we played a
Speaker 1: bunch of rounds. And I think just using video games
Speaker 1: in the future for me as an excuse to spend
Speaker 1: some quiet time with my son where we get to
Speaker 1: bond and learn about things and have those moral choices
Speaker 1: that I was talking about, and just, I don't know,
Speaker 1: using them as a weirdly a tool to kind of
Speaker 1: shape his outlook on the world and the way he
Speaker 1: views other people and things within it and himself. As
Speaker 1: you were speaking to Annie, like through this character, how
Speaker 1: do I see myself? That's what I'm gonna do. This
Speaker 1: episode of a Thema was co written by Max Billiams
Speaker 1: and Every Yung, with production by Max Williams and additional
Speaker 1: editing from Jesse Fonk. Stephen L. Kent is the author
Speaker 1: of the Ultimate History of Video Games Volumes one and two.
Speaker 1: Some of the great music this episode, like the piece
Speaker 1: you're hearing now comes Curtis to the artist mon plays you.
Speaker 1: If you've listened to Ephemeral for a while, you've heard
Speaker 1: a lot of their work, and we're happy to announce
Speaker 1: we'll have an upcoming episode interviewing the artist for now
Speaker 1: here more at Loyalty Freak music dot com and big
Speaker 1: thanks to our return guests Matt Frederick and Annie Reese.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you about your favorite games,
Speaker 1: What are your best gaming memories. What do you think
Speaker 1: the future holds for video games? Let us know on
Speaker 1: social media. We're at ephemeral show and for more podcasts
Speaker 1: from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.