WEBVTT - How Growth Is Killing Video Games 0:00:02.400 --> 0:00:03.560 Alsome Media. 0:00:05.840 --> 0:00:07.560 All right, I think it's the time we blow this scene. 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:10.000 Get everybody in that stuff together. Okay, three two one, 0:00:10.039 --> 0:00:10.760 that's podcast. 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:13.200 Welcome to Better Offline. I'm your host ed Zitchrun. 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:24.680 Today. 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:27.760 I'm joined by the esteem Geeta Jackson and Nathan Grayson 0:00:27.840 --> 0:00:30.440 of independent gaming site After Marth and Nathan, of course 0:00:30.600 --> 0:00:32.760 has a new book out called Stream Big, The Triumphs 0:00:32.760 --> 0:00:35.160 and Turmoils for Twitch and the Stars behind the Screen. 0:00:35.400 --> 0:00:36.839 Both of you, thank you for being here. 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:39.560 Thank you for having us, No problem, super fun. 0:00:39.760 --> 0:00:40.240 Hell yeah. 0:00:40.280 --> 0:00:42.320 So today we're talking about the games industry, which I 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:44.240 think we can all agree is going well. 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:46.800 Yeah, it's going super good, bigger than Hollywood as we 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:47.239 all know. 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:51.159 So to that point, Nathan, what is actually going on 0:00:51.320 --> 0:00:51.640 right now? 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:53.479 Because it feels like over the last few years I 0:00:53.560 --> 0:00:54.880 used to be a games journalist, but I've kind of 0:00:54.920 --> 0:00:57.720 dropped out of the industry stuff. What's going on? 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:02.680 Well, right now, bunch of games companies are realizing that 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:05.920 they well at least they've decided that what they need 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:09.280 to do is make fewer, bigger games, and so they're 0:01:09.319 --> 0:01:10.959 laying a lot of people off in pursuit of that. 0:01:11.160 --> 0:01:14.399 Because games are in their minds a hits driven business, right, 0:01:14.480 --> 0:01:16.440 and so in order to achieve that, they're just like, okay, 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:18.240 let's put all of our all of our eggs in 0:01:18.280 --> 0:01:22.480 these increasingly smaller baskets and if one of these lands, 0:01:22.959 --> 0:01:25.320 then great, we have the next like League Legends, so 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:27.960 the next like Fortnite or whatever. And if they fail, 0:01:28.120 --> 0:01:30.320 then it's a catastrophe and we're going to lay a 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:32.440 bunch of people off. And the only people who will 0:01:32.440 --> 0:01:34.400 not suffer from this are the executives who are making 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:35.280 these bad decisions. 0:01:35.440 --> 0:01:37.399 And that keeps happening over and over and over. So 0:01:37.440 --> 0:01:39.119 what is a hit though, Like, well, how do they 0:01:39.120 --> 0:01:39.840 define a hit? 0:01:41.040 --> 0:01:43.680 They've defined it by a Hollywood terms, right, like which 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:48.120 which are you you want to be have a level 0:01:48.120 --> 0:01:53.520 of cultural impact one that is inescapable. Fortnite is a 0:01:53.640 --> 0:01:57.920 very good example because literally every child plays Fortnite, right, 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:01.880 and you can play it on every device. Everyone suddenly 0:02:01.960 --> 0:02:06.680 understands the terms through which that game is sort of created, 0:02:07.080 --> 0:02:08.280 is made and played. 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:10.799 At birth, every child it's given an iPad with Fortnite on. 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.720 It's that minecroft, yeah, one of those two. And then 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:18.079 also there is a saying that a lot of executives 0:02:18.120 --> 0:02:20.560 love to tout when they talk about the financial success 0:02:20.560 --> 0:02:22.520 of their industry, which is that video games are a 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.480 bigger industry, more by more. There's more money in video 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:27.600 games than Hollywood. 0:02:27.600 --> 0:02:29.720 And I don't really think that that's true. 0:02:29.919 --> 0:02:32.120 Is there any proof behind the well, I mean they. 0:02:32.080 --> 0:02:36.320 Might games that are very, very, very successful, like Elderming 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:38.320 is another great example of it, just a smash hit 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:42.680 where millions of millions of games were sold. But the 0:02:42.760 --> 0:02:46.880 thing is that money that you make often goes immediately 0:02:46.880 --> 0:02:49.280 back into recouping all the cost of development, because games 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:52.080 take a lot longer to make than a movie and 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:54.639 require a lot more people to make them. 0:02:56.320 --> 0:02:58.800 Yeah, a lot of projects, a lot of projects in 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.160 this day and age, are rebooted repeatedly over the course 0:03:01.200 --> 0:03:03.600 of their development, like that happened recently with a Dragon 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:06.280 Age The Veilguard, a game that was originally meant to 0:03:06.320 --> 0:03:08.760 be like a live service multiplayer game, which is. 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:10.919 A weird for that series to take. 0:03:11.080 --> 0:03:13.520 I'm for the for the listeners, you like, avid guy, 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.040 But so a life service game is it's a game. 0:03:16.040 --> 0:03:18.480 It must sort of exist in perpetuity, right. The idea 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:24.000 is that it has seasons of narrative and and gameplay even. 0:03:23.840 --> 0:03:26.080 Necessarily narrative, just like new stuff coming out. 0:03:26.080 --> 0:03:28.160 Like can you play a monthly fee again? 0:03:28.280 --> 0:03:31.960 Fortnite is a very good example of this. Fortnite refreshes 0:03:32.000 --> 0:03:34.440 the maps that you used to play the game on. 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.600 They refresh that every occasionally. They call it seasons, like 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:43.920 seasons of television, and they there's always just new skins, 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:46.400 new items, new things, suspend your money. 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:47.840 Collaborations with major brands. 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.080 I the way over here there was an ad for 0:03:50.160 --> 0:03:53.040 like Cowboy Bebop skins in the game now, which. 0:03:52.840 --> 0:03:56.400 Is sick, but so Destiny Too is the one I 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:58.960 remember with that right, is a lab service game and 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:03.480 that's owned Vice Sony PlayStation now Sony Interactive Entertainment technically, 0:04:03.520 --> 0:04:06.280 but it's And so this is kind of from my 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.480 experience at least gaming a shit tone when I was younger, 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.920 by which I mean like two years ago. But the 0:04:12.960 --> 0:04:15.280 fact is that games now aren't just allowed to be 0:04:15.320 --> 0:04:15.840 good once. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:17.000 They have to be good forever. 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:21.480 Yes, yes, you have to be the biggest game ever 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:26.040 in order to be considered a success forever forever, like 0:04:26.160 --> 0:04:29.760 not just when the game comes out, but also every 0:04:29.839 --> 0:04:33.159 single month after that for the next year well. 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.400 Which also, like I think works very much in conjunction 0:04:35.520 --> 0:04:38.279 with kind of like the line go up mentality of 0:04:38.360 --> 0:04:40.640 business in general, Like your game also has to be 0:04:40.680 --> 0:04:41.800 a line that's always going. 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:44.960 On, yes, And it can't simply be successful in a 0:04:45.000 --> 0:04:47.400 linear sense. It can't just be like a game you sell. 0:04:47.480 --> 0:04:50.040 It is a game you are constantly rebooting. Like even 0:04:50.040 --> 0:04:53.000 with Marvel Rivals, they had and very successful game boned 0:04:53.040 --> 0:04:56.920 by Netsy Easy, and they just laid off a bunch 0:04:56.920 --> 0:04:57.320 of people. 0:04:57.400 --> 0:04:59.880 They laid off all of their their America. 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:03.120 It was like unctually happened. Oh so it wasn't a 0:05:03.200 --> 0:05:03.920 huge layoff. 0:05:04.040 --> 0:05:06.240 Yeah, so this was also like it was part of 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:08.560 a larger Net East plan to kind of divest from 0:05:08.640 --> 0:05:11.120 outside of China. Oh okay, yeah, And so like I 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:12.919 think they were planning to do this even before Marvel 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:13.720 Arrivals took off. 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:15.840 Were getting at folks. 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:19.080 My favorite example of this phenomenon is BioShock Infinite, a 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:24.279 game that was incredibly successful, hugely critically acclaimed. After the 0:05:24.320 --> 0:05:27.000 game came out, the studio shuttered like it was over 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:30.640 immediately immediately, couldn't recoup the costs, essentially like there was 0:05:30.800 --> 0:05:33.800 no amount of money they could make on that game 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:38.800 that was financially successful and was critically acclaimed, to give 0:05:39.080 --> 0:05:40.839 back to the studio in order for make it like 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:45.160 financially prop like a financially stable institution, and then all 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:47.200 those developers scattered to the winds. That was kind of 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:49.839 the end of major game development in Boston for. 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:54.880 Until like literally now with CD project, they hadn't root 0:05:54.880 --> 0:05:57.680 over there at least thoughting up a Boston where they're 0:05:57.720 --> 0:06:00.479 making the next cyberpunk and what's where the CD brot is, 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.800 like they've they were very cyberpunk. 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:07.240 I did play it. 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:09.120 I don't know why I'm acting like, I like don't 0:06:09.160 --> 0:06:11.960 have a gaming PC. I have like a gaming PC 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:14.000 with like two motherboards inside. 0:06:14.080 --> 0:06:15.279 Is beautiful anyway, Yeah. 0:06:15.080 --> 0:06:17.159 You also sitting right behind us as one of the 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:18.760 widest monitors I've seen in my. 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:20.839 Hole, Like it's a beautiful. 0:06:22.000 --> 0:06:22.760 It's amazing. 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.280 But that one was really tortured because the game was 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:28.279 rushed out, and I don't think I've seen in a 0:06:28.320 --> 0:06:30.240 while like a game that rush and it ended up 0:06:30.240 --> 0:06:31.320 being dog shit. 0:06:31.800 --> 0:06:34.680 And they like if we're talking about the broader state 0:06:34.680 --> 0:06:38.239 of video games, Another characteristic I think is that most 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:40.599 big games these days get rushed out in some capacity, 0:06:41.080 --> 0:06:44.760 it's just less glaring than it was for Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:47.000 was a lot of functional issues. Right now he gets 0:06:47.000 --> 0:06:48.880 a lot of games that are rushed out but polished, 0:06:49.279 --> 0:06:52.240 so they have all of these like mechanical problems and 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:54.720 like other more deep seated issues where they could have 0:06:54.800 --> 0:06:58.040 solved it just by like you know, giving the developers 0:06:58.040 --> 0:06:58.760 more time to cook. 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.160 But they know that people will be off. 0:07:01.960 --> 0:07:05.400 Put by a game that doesn't work, so they make 0:07:05.440 --> 0:07:06.120 sure it works. 0:07:06.400 --> 0:07:08.839 But it's not good exactly. What can you give me 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:09.440 an example? 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.320 Dragon Age Dragonage of the Vilguard is facing. Was it bad? 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:16.360 So I'm like huge, I'm a huge dragon Age fan, 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:18.240 and I was really looking forward to this game because 0:07:18.240 --> 0:07:21.160 I'm like invested in the narrative and the characters and 0:07:21.320 --> 0:07:23.680 dragon Age in Quisition. I think like a lot of 0:07:23.720 --> 0:07:25.480 people who if you've played are listening to this and 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:29.080 played dragon Age Inquisition, you know the experience of you're 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:30.480 incredibly fucking depressed. 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.720 You yeah, completely just mainline. 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.160 A game and the writing and the characters are so 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:37.640 good it becomes your entire world and you can just 0:07:37.680 --> 0:07:40.120 live inside that fandom. And that was me for a 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.160 little bit so I waited like ten years for this 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.040 game to come out, and the longer a game stays 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:49.720 in development, though, generally speaking, the worse it will be 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:51.360 when you actually get your hands on it. 0:07:51.400 --> 0:07:51.840 And when the. 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.600 Game came out, it worked and it functioned, but it 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:58.120 was not finally tuned there when you could tell and 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:00.559 feel when you played it there were things that should 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:03.640 have been there that were not there, and it felt 0:08:04.120 --> 0:08:06.000 empty and like it was missing things. 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.960 With role playing games, it's extremely important to get the 0:08:09.000 --> 0:08:09.800 mechanics right. 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.640 Right, yeah, And like this was a byproduct of just 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.000 like how the game was made. So again, it started 0:08:16.040 --> 0:08:18.720 many years ago. It's like it began development like all 0:08:18.800 --> 0:08:21.240 nearly a decade ago as one kind of game, as 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.720 a multiplayer live service game, and then over time EA 0:08:24.760 --> 0:08:27.120 and bio where were like, this isn't working. Let's reboot 0:08:27.120 --> 0:08:30.000 it mid development and try something else that didn't work. 0:08:30.200 --> 0:08:32.520 They had key personal leave. They're like, let's reboot it 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.719 again into something else, and that's what became the game 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:38.120 that came out, which is like this mishmash of all 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:40.480 these mechanics and assets they came up with over time, 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:43.200 and so internally the way this played out, is. They 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:46.680 were like, well, again, it needs to reach a certain 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.360 like quality and review bar from the cell. So let's 0:08:49.440 --> 0:08:51.840 just make sure that it feels polished, Like let's pop 0:08:51.920 --> 0:08:54.000 all this stuff together, but make sure it looks nice. 0:08:54.120 --> 0:08:56.400 It has the smell and the taste of a triple 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.480 A game without actually being fun. So what is it 0:08:59.520 --> 0:09:03.000 that makes so expensive though? Like, what is the cost center? 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:03.959 Is it people? 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.079 Is it comput is something we don't know? 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:09.560 So this is the thing I there There's been a 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.920 lot of discourse around like the increasing, you know, level 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:15.000 of fidelity that you need for a triple A game, 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:18.240 and like all of these various concerns about the number 0:09:18.280 --> 0:09:20.280 of people that you need to create all these assets 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:22.760 and maintain that. But I think that Jason Schreier in 0:09:22.800 --> 0:09:26.480 particular has done really good reporting on the real problem, 0:09:26.640 --> 0:09:30.319 which is mismanagement at every level. Executive is making poor 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.079 decisions while siphoning away millions and millions of dollars from 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:34.439 a project. 0:09:34.360 --> 0:09:38.160 Siphoning it from to when themselves. 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:39.920 Themselves, Yeah, often themselves. 0:09:39.920 --> 0:09:41.600 How does that mean, you know, check out like the 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:43.360 kind of money that throws sell nick. 0:09:43.360 --> 0:09:46.080 Oh okay, So it's like the CEOs of making obscene 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:47.880 amounts of mind in a lot of cases. 0:09:47.920 --> 0:09:48.800 Yeah, fucking hell. 0:09:49.920 --> 0:09:53.360 So often in uh AT E three, Rest and Peace 0:09:53.559 --> 0:09:56.840 and other video game sort of industry conferences that will 0:09:56.840 --> 0:10:00.680 make comparisons to Hollywood between themselves. In Hollywood, they want 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.560 to be a part of the entertainment into say, they want. 0:10:03.400 --> 0:10:06.080 To be paid like David Zaslaw exactly exactly. 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.600 But there's the huge differences between what how Hollywood operates 0:10:09.880 --> 0:10:12.320 and how the video game industry operates. And the main 0:10:12.400 --> 0:10:15.559 difference is there, these are not the people who work 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:19.520 on games are not unionized craft people right, with a 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:24.400 culture of unionization in their workplaces, so they really can 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:28.680 like you are a contract worker. You sign on for 0:10:28.760 --> 0:10:31.199 a gig and if you aren't there when the game 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:33.120 is completed, you don't get your name in the credits, 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:35.680 and you just have to move in a herd from 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:37.559 studio to studio to studio. 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:39.640 And all those credits important. I'm guessing they're. 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:42.040 Very important in order to get better paying jobs. 0:10:42.360 --> 0:10:43.760 Yeah, I'll just put it on your LinkedIn. 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:44.160 No. 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:46.560 I mean, especially if you're working on a project like 0:10:46.800 --> 0:10:50.480 at Monolith, the studio that's shattered this week. They were 0:10:50.480 --> 0:10:53.280 they're two years into development on a wonder Woman game 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:57.000 and wonder Woman and I think you're a DC comics person. 0:10:57.320 --> 0:10:59.160 I'm more of a Marvel person, but I'm familiar with 0:10:59.200 --> 0:10:59.720 wonder Woman. 0:10:59.800 --> 0:11:00.720 Yeah, I hope so. 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.400 Well, it's like, it's interesting that you say that because, 0:11:04.440 --> 0:11:06.680 like wonder Woman in comparison to the other two big 0:11:06.720 --> 0:11:08.960 heroes at DC, I'm a big DC comics person. 0:11:09.160 --> 0:11:10.800 Uh, Superman and Batman. 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:15.040 They've both had cartoons, movies the gamut, like video games, everything. 0:11:15.840 --> 0:11:20.200 Even Superman had an extremely bad series. Oh yes, a 0:11:20.280 --> 0:11:25.480 classic god. But there's with wonder Woman. There's been no cartoons. Uh, 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.400 there are a couple of flagshit comics, but they've had 0:11:28.400 --> 0:11:31.640 a lot of a harder time finding really good writers 0:11:31.679 --> 0:11:33.920 to write really good Wonder Woman books. And there have 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:35.960 been zero games. This would have been like the first 0:11:36.000 --> 0:11:37.880 game there. They worked on it for two years and 0:11:37.960 --> 0:11:40.840 there's a lot of people now who cannot even talk 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:43.280 about what they did on these games. It can't show 0:11:43.320 --> 0:11:43.720 the art. 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.360 That they they don't have the assets they come. 0:11:46.559 --> 0:11:49.959 Yeah, the assets don't belong to them. They haven't been publicized. 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:52.079 And these are also contract workers, so they don't have 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:53.760 the rights to anything that they have worked on. 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:55.360 And I just want to say none of these are 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.000 actionable legal threats. But mono If Studios made one of 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:01.320 my two of my most favorite Gameskeeter. We were talking 0:12:01.320 --> 0:12:04.280 about this when we came in Lord of the Rings, 0:12:04.280 --> 0:12:06.240 Shadow of Mortal and the Shadow of War, two of 0:12:06.280 --> 0:12:07.600 the best games ever made. 0:12:07.720 --> 0:12:08.000 I have. 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:11.559 Not only Hades is a game. Hades is a game 0:12:11.600 --> 0:12:15.439 I think I will be playing until I'm an old man. Yes, absolutely, 0:12:15.559 --> 0:12:19.800 but Shadow of War especially, like these are amazing games. 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.960 And these are games the systems are perfect, and they're beautiful, 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:23.199 and they. 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:26.079 They give you that feeling that I think these major 0:12:26.080 --> 0:12:28.719 studios are trying to chase in these enormous games like 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:31.880 Cyberpunk twenty seventy seven and this game. This world is 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:36.040 a living world. This world things are happening inside of it, 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:38.679 even when you are not there is the feeling you 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:39.520 get I'm playing that and. 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:41.240 The orcs are talking shit about you. 0:12:41.480 --> 0:12:42.040 And that's the thing. 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:44.120 So to explain this game to people who have not 0:12:44.440 --> 0:12:46.440 even don't play games, I really recommend it. So what 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:48.480 it is is it's kind of an open world game 0:12:48.520 --> 0:12:50.680 where you run around. You're some Lord of the Rings fellow. 0:12:50.720 --> 0:12:52.600 I do not remember the story not going to try 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.240 and remember. But the big thing about it is something 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.640 called the Nemesis system. And there are these orcs and 0:12:57.760 --> 0:13:02.319 various troll creatures that will and they're all generated procedurally, 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:05.600 even flawlessly said that word, and where they come up 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:08.360 and they're like someone of Biles and they'll come up 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:10.040 and they'll be covered in postures and be like, oh, 0:13:10.120 --> 0:13:14.079 man field off and then you're able to It kind 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:16.720 of mirrors my real life and that some horrible creature 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:20.280 comes up to me and goes off, and then I 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:22.360 convert them to my side. So you can convert these 0:13:22.440 --> 0:13:24.760 orcs and they follow you around and they have these 0:13:25.040 --> 0:13:26.160 or charts. 0:13:26.040 --> 0:13:29.120 Yes of like, and if you die to an orc 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.880 in a combat encounter, that orc will then go back 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:34.720 to his little Orc friends and be like, I fucking 0:13:34.720 --> 0:13:36.680 fucked up, and they'll talk about. 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:38.480 Talk about it, and they'll talk to you later and 0:13:38.480 --> 0:13:41.559 they'll recount specifically, like how they killed you and stuff. 0:13:41.600 --> 0:13:42.680 It's like they keep that in mind. 0:13:42.720 --> 0:13:45.320 And it's quite literally what I love about video games 0:13:45.640 --> 0:13:48.120 large It's just like a weird freak system full of 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.080 weird goblin creatures. You can see each other. 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:52.680 Have you played Dwarf Fortress. 0:13:52.720 --> 0:13:54.680 Ever I've tried it never really stuck. 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:56.400 I'm gonna I'm gonna teach you how you're tea. 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.560 It's because it's this thing, right do you? There are 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.959 character with memory, right, and they learn things and they 0:14:03.960 --> 0:14:06.800 have personalities, right, and that change. Like this is a 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.920 game that's made by two guys of two brothers. Until 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:13.920 very recently it was literally just the two of them, right, 0:14:14.000 --> 0:14:16.520 And like it is so fascinating how you can have 0:14:16.559 --> 0:14:20.760 that same sort of magical black box experience of there's 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:23.600 magic inside of this, there's a personality inside of this. 0:14:24.000 --> 0:14:25.960 One of them comes from two brothers that have worked 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:28.440 on this thing on and off for like twenty fucking 0:14:28.520 --> 0:14:29.280 years of their life. 0:14:29.600 --> 0:14:32.640 And the other is an enormous studio using the IP 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:33.840 Lord of the Rings. 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.600 And I just want to be clear about a few things. One, 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:38.680 this is one of the few games I've heard like 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:41.680 unilaterally loved by games journalists. Like, sure, there are people 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:43.440 who don't like the genre, but anyone who has even 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:45.080 the smell of RPGs loves this shit. 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:45.440 Yeah. 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.080 I also want to add the WB Games CEO JB. 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:52.120 Perett and WB Games former CEO David hadda do you 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:56.840 want enemies of better offline? You want enemies of this show? 0:14:56.920 --> 0:14:59.720 Your growth all costs for economy bullshit? Will you will 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:01.800 be by all the people who listened to the show. 0:15:02.000 --> 0:15:04.560 So the reason that this, I'm literally looking at Nathan's 0:15:04.600 --> 0:15:07.480 story about this, the reason that Monoliths got shut down 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:10.840 is just that Warner Brothers cannot run a fucking studio. 0:15:10.880 --> 0:15:12.960 They're stupid and bad in the industry. 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:15.240 Yes, yeah, like I mean you know they've also been 0:15:15.560 --> 0:15:18.240 tanking tons of like television and movie properties too. 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:18.600 Yeah. 0:15:18.680 --> 0:15:22.240 No, the Warner ever since Warner Brothers Discoveries on my 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:23.840 shit list and has been for a long time. It's 0:15:23.880 --> 0:15:27.240 an incredible It's an incredible Hollywood studio. It's so much 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:32.080 incredible history. The whole story of Coyote Versus Acme has 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:35.200 been I just want to jump off for three. Okay, 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:40.400 there is there was a movie in production, Coyote Versus Acme, 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.320 an adaptation of the Looney Tunes cartoon, you know, the 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:47.760 Coyote Roadrunner in the Coyote, And it had John Cena 0:15:47.840 --> 0:15:50.760 in it, and it by all accounts, everyone who worked 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:52.000 on it said it was incredible. 0:15:52.280 --> 0:15:55.160 It used the James Gunn movie. 0:15:55.320 --> 0:16:00.760 Yeah, James gun movie. He it was also what's the movie. 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:02.880 James Gunn By the way, for the listeners got into 0:16:02.920 --> 0:16:04.600 the Galaxy Suicide Squad. 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:08.160 Having Superman movie upcoming Superman I'm freaking psyched about I 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.720 love it. Yeah, but you know it was going to 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:14.600 be a Roger Rabbit type thing, a mixed media animation 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.560 and real life stuff like a lot of the stuff 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:21.000 that moviegoers actually really really love seeing, real stunts and 0:16:21.080 --> 0:16:23.880 real effects, not CGI, not VFX, that kind of thing. 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.480 I'm chipping that the chip Dales movie did really well 0:16:26.480 --> 0:16:27.120 as well on Disney. 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:29.160 Plus that's a very similar thing anyway, can Yeah. 0:16:29.000 --> 0:16:32.880 Yeah, and they the movies wrapped. It's totally fully completed. 0:16:33.080 --> 0:16:35.720 Sheld it, sheldy literally for tax reasons. 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.560 Literally for tax reasons. No one will ever see it. 0:16:38.600 --> 0:16:40.960 And David Zaslav, if you go back to the Shareholders 0:16:40.960 --> 0:16:44.680 Supremacy to Parter, you will learn all about him. Jack Welch, 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.920 the CEO of G who created the modern culture of layoffs, 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:51.160 literally the guy who didn't invent layoffs. But if you 0:16:51.200 --> 0:16:53.400 go back to those episodes, there's the story of Jack Welch, 0:16:53.480 --> 0:16:57.680 c of G. Well, upcoming CEO one of the candidates 0:16:57.680 --> 0:16:59.960 for it was running several divisions and came up with 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.560 this idea, what if we just laid people off to 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:06.000 increase profits and not the time layoffs were considered something 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:08.439 you only did as a last resort. But Jack Welch. 0:17:08.720 --> 0:17:10.520 Jack Welch thought what if we did this? He did it, 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:13.200 and everyone else went, that's a great fucking idea. Number 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:15.120 go up. The reason I'm bringing this up is that 0:17:15.600 --> 0:17:18.359 David Zaslav's CEO of Warner Brothers Discovery, once referred to 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.720 Jack Welch as like a big brother to him. Okay, 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:24.760 I think I just want you to know everything I've 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:28.720 been doing for the last few years has driven me insane. 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:30.040 Because truning into the Joker in real. 0:17:29.880 --> 0:17:33.320 Time, the makeup is appearing on our faces. But Coyote 0:17:33.400 --> 0:17:35.040 versus actme was like will Forte was going to be 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:36.439 and it was like going to be a very like 0:17:36.520 --> 0:17:39.920 it very clearly would have done really well, really really well, 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:41.960 and they just shelled it for tax reasons. This is 0:17:42.000 --> 0:17:47.720 the same company that owns WAWB Games, which owns Monolith 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:48.919 This is the likes. 0:17:49.920 --> 0:17:54.399 It is like the tech industry ification of the entire 0:17:54.560 --> 0:18:00.040 entertainment industry. Everything just disastrous for art in general. You 0:18:00.040 --> 0:18:03.280 can see it very visually in film, in cinema just 0:18:03.320 --> 0:18:05.199 sort of. I used to be a person that just 0:18:05.280 --> 0:18:07.560 fucking loved blockbuster action movies. 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:08.080 I love them. 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:08.960 That's losings wrong with that. 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:11.560 In the summer, when it's hot out, nothing better you 0:18:11.560 --> 0:18:13.520 can do than go to a theater for two hours 0:18:13.520 --> 0:18:17.159 with air conditioning and just enjoy mindless action. Except they 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:20.440 all started to suck when Disney realized that you can 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.720 feed people like not like the suggestion of a plot, 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.359 but not actually a story. Essentially, you just sort of 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:31.160 allude to things that will happen in the future, and 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:33.879 you can make billions of dollars off of that. And 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:35.800 you don't actually have to shoot on sets. You can 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:37.480 just put people in front of a green screen and 0:18:37.480 --> 0:18:41.600 then ununionized VFX workers can fill in everything else for you. 0:18:41.800 --> 0:18:44.280 Right, And this is also something that fed into the 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:46.600 creation of one of the worst things fandoms. 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.160 Yeah, I mean, I love the experience of being in 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.879 a fandom, but there is this tribalistic thing that is 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:55.320 disturbing to me. 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:57.520 Let me be a little more specific, because I'm a 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.000 huge fan of many things. Yeah, like I've seen Queen 0:19:00.040 --> 0:19:03.439 to the Stone Age sixteen times. I'm like, I'm a 0:19:03.520 --> 0:19:05.439 nasty freak when it comes to a person of interest, 0:19:05.520 --> 0:19:08.000 Like I really love my ship. I consider fendom, or 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:09.960 at least perhaps I'm just describing the worst elements of 0:19:09.960 --> 0:19:13.120 it as something separate where it's not really about liking something, 0:19:13.160 --> 0:19:15.000 it's about memorizing facts. 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:18.600 It is about being a defender of the thing I. 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:20.800 Say, it's about being in a tribe. And like, this 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:23.040 comes up a lot in my book, is like, you know, 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:25.840 the ways that fandoms can behave. One of the things 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:28.200 that I found especially interesting in the course of reporting 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:31.159 it is that there are also fandoms around, just like 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:35.040 pure hatred. One of my chapters tell Me is about Keffel's, 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:35.920 who is a streamer. 0:19:35.960 --> 0:19:37.440 Oh yeah, it's pretty controversial. 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:41.399 You know, did some dumb bullshit, but also like managed 0:19:41.400 --> 0:19:44.160 to attract this hate mob from Kiwi farms right, and 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:46.560 when I interviewed her while she was still like on 0:19:46.600 --> 0:19:48.000 the run was ky FHMs. 0:19:48.040 --> 0:19:48.359 Sorry. 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:51.920 They are an online forum dedicated to like dosing people, 0:19:51.960 --> 0:19:55.200 so finding their personal information and you know, outing it 0:19:55.280 --> 0:19:55.760 and then. 0:19:55.800 --> 0:19:58.800 Coming in and like of course they particularly target marginalized 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:02.040 people because they the goal and the goal of most 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.720 hate fandoms is to get a reaction out of the 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:07.240 person that you want. It is like to cause them 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:09.840 pain and then to use that pain as your personal 0:20:09.920 --> 0:20:10.679 source of entertainment. 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.440 What I was gonna say, yes, yeah, is that in 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:16.600 her particular case, you know, she was like showing me 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:18.879 some of the things that these people were doing in 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:22.680 their free time in addition to directly harassing her, and 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:26.440 these involved like making what were effectively like fan art 0:20:26.480 --> 0:20:29.880 and even fan songs about her, just from the perspective 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:33.040 of someone who despises her, who likes her. But the 0:20:33.119 --> 0:20:36.880 mechanics were all really similar, and so like fandom can 0:20:36.920 --> 0:20:42.160 be this thing that coalesces using the exact same again, 0:20:42.200 --> 0:20:45.720 like sets of tools and behaviors, but around despising someone 0:20:45.720 --> 0:20:46.840 as opposed to liking them. 0:20:46.920 --> 0:20:48.919 So this is the thing that really gets me because 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:51.480 I have to wonder if the reason that brought up fandoms, 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:55.280 other than just despising them is I have to wonder 0:20:55.320 --> 0:20:58.760 if they're not part of not saying that it's the fold, 0:20:59.080 --> 0:21:01.600 but I feel like the entertainment industry, and by extension, 0:21:01.600 --> 0:21:04.120 the game's industry, is really trying to sell to them 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.639 when Marv I love the first run of Marvel movies. 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:09.200 I'm a little pig. Show me if it's the charming people. 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:11.200 Ironman movie is fucking amazing. 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:14.000 It is a really great film, and it's because they 0:21:14.080 --> 0:21:15.200 let Favro be Farro. 0:21:16.119 --> 0:21:17.760 You had the charming people doing the things and they 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:20.240 were talking and it was enjoying, enjoyable to watch them. 0:21:20.400 --> 0:21:22.160 But it feels like it really got into the hog 0:21:22.200 --> 0:21:24.600 slop era where it's just you, like this guy, look 0:21:24.600 --> 0:21:26.479 at this guy. Look, we've got Jack Black and we've 0:21:26.520 --> 0:21:29.880 got Lizzo in the Mandalorian. Look you remember that thing 0:21:29.920 --> 0:21:32.120 from that thing? Look it's it's the Dark Troopers from 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:34.000 the Star Wars game. You remember Dark Forces. 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.640 So it's a frend. They fly now, blah blah blah. 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.320 You know it's like yes, But it's the reason I 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:44.040 bring that up is that's a commodity at this point. 0:21:44.080 --> 0:21:46.720 It's if it stops being about telling a story when 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.640 it's more symbolic, when it's more about just people being 0:21:49.760 --> 0:21:53.000 factions against or for something, it's just can I sell 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:54.639 you a fucking product? And when it comes to I 0:21:54.640 --> 0:21:58.600 actually wanted to ask with Twitch the cultures around streamers. 0:21:59.000 --> 0:22:04.680 Are those different to like forums culture or social media culture, 0:22:05.080 --> 0:22:07.920 like the more I synchronous culture. Is there something about 0:22:07.960 --> 0:22:09.600 the live experience that changes things? 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:09.760 Oh? 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.040 Yeah, completely, because I mean, for one, there's just the 0:22:12.040 --> 0:22:14.840 basic fact that if you are in a twitch chat, 0:22:15.040 --> 0:22:17.080 you can say something that the person who's on screen 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:19.280 might immediately react to, right, and that people in that 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.760 chat might immediately react to, And that immediacy changes everything 0:22:22.760 --> 0:22:25.520 about it, because I mean just think about like how 0:22:25.520 --> 0:22:29.159 we have conversations. If somebody is able to immediately react, 0:22:29.240 --> 0:22:31.680 they are not going to consider what they're saying very right, 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:33.479 They're just going to go for it. Especially if it's 0:22:33.480 --> 0:22:35.560 like a fast moving Twitch chat. Everyone's just trying to 0:22:35.560 --> 0:22:37.800 say the most incendiary thing possible because that's all that 0:22:37.800 --> 0:22:40.960 gets noticed. Yeah, something measured or interesting. 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:46.320 Perfect example of this is hasan piker saying off the 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:48.879 cuff America to serve Tin eleven. 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:51.560 Yeah, which I know is not what he meant to say. 0:22:51.720 --> 0:22:55.280 Well, but he meant to say, America created the conditions 0:22:55.560 --> 0:22:59.520 that created the people that right to us. 0:22:59.560 --> 0:23:02.119 Yeah, in that right, like he explained that during that 0:23:02.160 --> 0:23:05.520 same stream happens well, and also what happens is that 0:23:05.520 --> 0:23:08.040 people then clipped that out of context. Yes, and then 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:09.720 you know, surfaced it on all. 0:23:09.600 --> 0:23:12.240 These other and now this clip will haunt him forever 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:14.760 every time someone is mad at him. He has a 0:23:14.760 --> 0:23:19.800 similarly sized, like hate fandom that is constantly, constantly trying 0:23:19.800 --> 0:23:25.119 to get a rise out of him, and it really Yeah. 0:23:24.520 --> 0:23:29.640 Find destiny, different kind of destiny to the game. 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:34.840 Yeah, destiny that sucks. 0:23:34.880 --> 0:23:37.639 I'm going to get him. And Norman Finkelstein. 0:23:41.840 --> 0:23:45.119 When you you when you speak, it's like Wikipedia. 0:23:45.200 --> 0:23:53.760 It to be by satandibly. 0:23:49.960 --> 0:23:51.520 I've been thinking about that too much. 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:07.040 It's funny as well because as a just a gentleman 0:24:07.119 --> 0:24:10.040 podcaster with a decent sized fandom, I don't get as 0:24:10.080 --> 0:24:13.080 many insane people. I don't get people threatening or hating 0:24:13.119 --> 0:24:15.040 me other than everyone because. 0:24:14.760 --> 0:24:15.800 They wish I was dead. 0:24:16.320 --> 0:24:21.080 But it feels like there's something altogether different, specifically about 0:24:21.119 --> 0:24:23.919 games because I left games journalism in like two thousand 0:24:23.960 --> 0:24:27.600 and eight. Oh no, no, I like and even then 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:30.399 someone fucking doxed me. I got dogs because there was 0:24:30.400 --> 0:24:33.000 someone I reviewed a game I'm not even gonna name, 0:24:33.040 --> 0:24:35.560 just because it also leads to the funniest YouTube in 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:35.800 the world. 0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:37.040 But there was an MMRP. 0:24:37.359 --> 0:24:40.359 I reviewed that fucking sucked, and they claimed I didn't 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:43.639 play it, of course, And then someone posted my parents' 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:45.879 address and I'd moved to New York, and I really 0:24:45.920 --> 0:24:47.960 had to stop myself being like, missed me, bitch. But 0:24:50.000 --> 0:24:52.320 then I emailed the developers and I was like, fucking 0:24:52.400 --> 0:24:54.960 take this shit down now, but now it's constant. 0:24:55.320 --> 0:24:59.000 I reviewed the most recent Final Fantasy game, Final Fantasy sixteen, 0:24:59.000 --> 0:25:01.480 which is a game I said has some of the 0:25:01.960 --> 0:25:04.199 In the review, this is what I said. That the 0:25:04.359 --> 0:25:09.200 combat was thrilling and incredible. You fucking go to space 0:25:09.480 --> 0:25:11.639 and punch a dragon in the head, like, it is 0:25:11.800 --> 0:25:15.199 so fucking cool. But the story is dogshit and I 0:25:15.240 --> 0:25:17.159 hated it. I hated it every second. 0:25:17.480 --> 0:25:19.560 I'm going to say that most stories that involve going 0:25:19.600 --> 0:25:23.360 to space and punching and dragon like don't really cohere. Otherwise, Yeah, 0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:25.800 it's hard to make that into a compelling narrative. 0:25:25.880 --> 0:25:28.879 Yeah, and I especially like it was a game where 0:25:28.920 --> 0:25:32.560 there was a subplot with slavery and it was handled really, really, 0:25:32.640 --> 0:25:33.320 really poorly. 0:25:33.520 --> 0:25:35.520 I personally thought the whole game was bad. But that's 0:25:35.520 --> 0:25:36.639 why I don't review games. 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:40.160 No, I just like, when you give me a combo meter. 0:25:40.240 --> 0:25:42.560 I just go into stickomad. It's something that just happens 0:25:42.560 --> 0:25:45.439 to me. But no I said those things, and I 0:25:45.520 --> 0:25:47.560 tried to be fair and complimentary to it. The first 0:25:47.560 --> 0:25:49.560 thing that happened was someone found my email address and 0:25:49.600 --> 0:25:50.879 told me to kill myself Jesus. 0:25:51.200 --> 0:25:51.440 Yeah. 0:25:51.520 --> 0:25:54.960 Well, it's like I similarly gave the Harry Potter game 0:25:55.000 --> 0:25:58.240 a pretty dismal review, and there is a reaction. There 0:25:58.280 --> 0:26:06.040 is an entire culture devoted to trying to seed reactionary 0:26:06.119 --> 0:26:10.320 politics into young minds through the fandom. 0:26:09.920 --> 0:26:10.880 Of video games. 0:26:10.720 --> 0:26:13.080 It's like games are like the easiest mark for that 0:26:13.200 --> 0:26:15.760 because I think that. I mean, for one, a lot 0:26:15.800 --> 0:26:18.000 of people have based their identity on games. That's the 0:26:18.040 --> 0:26:20.280 starting point, right, And then the other element of that 0:26:20.440 --> 0:26:22.800 is that a lot of that identity comes out of 0:26:22.840 --> 0:26:27.439 this perceived persecution complex. Right, games were once for nerds 0:26:27.440 --> 0:26:28.440 who are bullied. 0:26:28.080 --> 0:26:32.119 Content only that though there was a real reactionary movement 0:26:32.200 --> 0:26:36.240 against video games post Columbine right with Jack Thompson, their 0:26:36.359 --> 0:26:40.160 congressional hearings about whether or no or not games were 0:26:40.400 --> 0:26:43.280 evil and we're destroying the minds of youth, which is 0:26:43.359 --> 0:26:46.359 obviously not true. When I recently went to the UN. 0:26:46.480 --> 0:26:47.320 Look at us. 0:26:47.440 --> 0:26:49.080 Yeah, you know, we're normal people. 0:26:49.600 --> 0:26:51.080 I mean, my mind has been destroyed. 0:26:51.160 --> 0:26:53.800 My mind was my mind's perfect. 0:26:53.960 --> 0:26:54.160 Yeah. 0:26:54.359 --> 0:26:55.760 Anyway, so you went to the UN. 0:26:56.000 --> 0:26:57.359 I went to the UN and I was on this 0:26:57.440 --> 0:27:01.880 panel to talk about terrorism and and extremism and gaming spaces. 0:27:01.920 --> 0:27:04.560 And the one thing that many of the panelists made 0:27:04.600 --> 0:27:08.679 sure to say was that this idea that it's violent 0:27:08.760 --> 0:27:11.800 video games that cause violence is not true, and in fact, 0:27:11.960 --> 0:27:16.320 often games are pro social spaces. They encourage isolated people 0:27:16.400 --> 0:27:20.359 to interact with other people and form friendships. It's just 0:27:20.520 --> 0:27:24.800 that those people are so vulnerable, and people extremists know 0:27:24.960 --> 0:27:26.040 how vulnerable. 0:27:25.640 --> 0:27:26.280 These people are. 0:27:27.160 --> 0:27:30.600 It's very easy to say, join a discord server and 0:27:30.640 --> 0:27:35.200 then start spreading dog whistles about like extremist like white 0:27:35.200 --> 0:27:40.440 supremacists thought, and then you normalize these things, these expressions 0:27:40.440 --> 0:27:43.200 and these phrases and these images, and then you can 0:27:43.240 --> 0:27:46.240 take those people out of that bigger discord server and 0:27:46.280 --> 0:27:48.520 funnel them into more and more extremist space. 0:27:48.560 --> 0:27:51.000 And what's insane is it seems to get back to 0:27:51.240 --> 0:27:53.359 a point I was getting as well, is that they're 0:27:53.359 --> 0:27:55.600 trying to monetize this. They're trying to monetize it by 0:27:55.640 --> 0:27:58.520 making the games less about being good games but symbolic 0:27:58.560 --> 0:28:01.480 of stuff. And then the right wing types seem to 0:28:01.520 --> 0:28:03.560 see games that are not doing that, like Dragon Age 0:28:03.600 --> 0:28:06.800 the Veil God and being like, ah has begun it's 0:28:09.560 --> 0:28:12.040 which means black I guess, like like just. 0:28:12.040 --> 0:28:13.919 Well, no, there's a there's a new one every week too, 0:28:14.040 --> 0:28:16.840 Like there's a new DEI in video games controversy every week, 0:28:17.160 --> 0:28:19.959 and like it wasn't always this way, but after like 0:28:20.359 --> 0:28:23.399 there there was a conspiracy movement last year around a 0:28:23.400 --> 0:28:26.560 consulting firm called Sweet Baby In and that is when 0:28:26.560 --> 0:28:29.320 this sort of became a well oiled machine. That's when 0:28:29.359 --> 0:28:30.800 all of these content creators. 0:28:30.480 --> 0:28:32.200 Started trying it was constantly. 0:28:32.640 --> 0:28:35.800 Their biggest crime essentially was that the head of the company, 0:28:35.880 --> 0:28:38.200 Kim Bellair, is a black woman, and like that's it. 0:28:38.320 --> 0:28:40.560 That's literally just it something she controlled. 0:28:40.680 --> 0:28:45.240 Yes, absolutely to be a black woman creator. 0:28:45.480 --> 0:28:47.400 So what we're saying about as well, but. 0:28:47.360 --> 0:28:50.120 Yeah, and so like now you just have these people, 0:28:51.040 --> 0:28:53.400 you have content creators who've made this their entire identity 0:28:53.600 --> 0:28:56.680 and like their entire brand, and so like Geta was saying, 0:28:57.000 --> 0:28:58.960 you know, games can be really pro social, but you'll 0:28:58.960 --> 0:29:02.120 have these people come in and sort of say, okay, well, 0:29:02.160 --> 0:29:04.320 these games that you like are being taken away by 0:29:04.360 --> 0:29:07.680 this evil dee I woke mob. And so your purpose, 0:29:08.080 --> 0:29:10.000 the underlying purpose that maybe you as a person have 0:29:10.080 --> 0:29:12.680 been looking for, is now to fight a battle against 0:29:12.720 --> 0:29:15.200 these people who are taking your toys away. And like, 0:29:15.280 --> 0:29:17.160 that works really well on a lot of people who 0:29:17.240 --> 0:29:20.400 you know, feel purposeless, directionless, always that we all commonly 0:29:20.400 --> 0:29:21.040 feel under. 0:29:20.880 --> 0:29:23.280 Capitalists, and I feel like and I feel like as well. 0:29:23.320 --> 0:29:25.520 Games are an incredible vector for that, not just because 0:29:25.520 --> 0:29:27.480 there's things to a lie around, but also there's a 0:29:27.480 --> 0:29:28.480 satisfaction to them. 0:29:28.520 --> 0:29:28.720 Yeah. 0:29:28.720 --> 0:29:31.080 The reason I play Haides all the time, I have 0:29:31.160 --> 0:29:34.760 Haides on my I'm not playing it right now, I would. 0:29:36.000 --> 0:29:37.680 The reason I play Hades is it feels good. It 0:29:37.720 --> 0:29:40.120 feels like you have industry over something you have you 0:29:40.160 --> 0:29:41.120 can get good at something. 0:29:41.600 --> 0:29:43.040 I'll take this a step further, please. 0:29:43.240 --> 0:29:44.880 I think that the core fantasy of a lot of 0:29:44.920 --> 0:29:47.480 video games, no matter what they're setting is, whether they're 0:29:47.520 --> 0:29:49.360 sci fi or fantasy, are set in the present day, 0:29:49.760 --> 0:29:53.800 is what if capitalism was fair, if every input gave 0:29:53.840 --> 0:29:56.360 you a fair output, a consistent one. 0:29:56.480 --> 0:29:58.000 Yeah, yeah, oh I like that. 0:29:58.200 --> 0:30:00.320 Thing you get better and better over time. 0:30:00.680 --> 0:30:03.240 Look at like a sim city, right, Yes, you in 0:30:03.280 --> 0:30:05.840 sim city, you are essentially the mayor of a city. 0:30:06.000 --> 0:30:08.080 You are the developer of the city. You're the engineer 0:30:08.080 --> 0:30:10.120 of the city. You design the entire city, and you 0:30:10.160 --> 0:30:13.959 also have control over its taxes. And it is is 0:30:14.360 --> 0:30:16.640 like just a equals ash. It Basically, when you look 0:30:16.640 --> 0:30:18.800 at how the tax system works in some city, it 0:30:18.880 --> 0:30:21.560 assumes that taxes are always fair. 0:30:21.840 --> 0:30:24.800 Right and consistent and consistent, and they don't. 0:30:25.600 --> 0:30:28.440 You won't get a huge lobby from the people in 0:30:28.480 --> 0:30:31.520 the highest tax bracket asking for their taxes to be lowered. 0:30:31.600 --> 0:30:33.520 I wonder if they would add that they should there 0:30:33.520 --> 0:30:35.560 should be just the same city, which is real. 0:30:36.000 --> 0:30:38.880 I mean, I'm sure the matters in the taxes. City's 0:30:38.920 --> 0:30:39.959 like torn out of the wires. 0:30:39.960 --> 0:30:42.760 The city skylines, the city skylines. 0:30:43.720 --> 0:30:46.320 I love watching the Cities by Cities by Diana, one 0:30:46.360 --> 0:30:49.000 of the endorsed Flying Best Instagram accounts. 0:30:49.120 --> 0:30:51.240 I do love Cities by Diana so much. I wanted 0:30:51.280 --> 0:30:52.760 to interview her for a long time. 0:30:52.800 --> 0:30:56.960 But she's amazing, Diana, You're always welcome on the show. 0:30:57.040 --> 0:30:59.000 A beautiful and unique mind. I love her. 0:30:59.200 --> 0:31:01.920 So let's change change topics to something I actually really 0:31:02.560 --> 0:31:06.120 opposed a thing often off, So how long have you been. 0:31:06.000 --> 0:31:07.959 Going a little bit more than a hear? So? 0:31:08.080 --> 0:31:11.760 How is the company structured? Exactly? 0:31:11.960 --> 0:31:12.120 Well? 0:31:12.360 --> 0:31:15.040 Okay, so it's called aftermath because we all used to 0:31:15.040 --> 0:31:17.600 work at Kataku, right right, and none of us really 0:31:17.640 --> 0:31:21.560 had much editorial control at Kataku, even Riley, who was 0:31:22.160 --> 0:31:25.800 managing editor there, like he his like the story of 0:31:25.840 --> 0:31:28.800 his life is having strong opinions and wanting to enact 0:31:28.880 --> 0:31:30.600 the plans based on his opinions and then. 0:31:30.520 --> 0:31:32.440 Being told no that he can't do it. 0:31:32.840 --> 0:31:35.160 Essentially, so we are the aftermath of all of that, 0:31:36.080 --> 0:31:39.960 the slow dissolution of Geomedia and our own just losing 0:31:39.960 --> 0:31:43.040 our brains working there with the conditions there. 0:31:43.240 --> 0:31:47.480 Geomedia was the formal holding company of Gizmoto dot I 0:31:47.760 --> 0:31:48.080 nine and. 0:31:48.680 --> 0:31:51.400 Came out of Dowker being sued into oblivion, right, yes. 0:31:51.320 --> 0:31:55.720 Yeah, And we we own the company and we try 0:31:55.800 --> 0:31:58.800 to structure it in such a way where we all 0:31:58.840 --> 0:32:02.040 have a relative amount of control over the work we 0:32:02.080 --> 0:32:03.880 do and what we want to do. We are not 0:32:04.000 --> 0:32:06.360 technically a co op, but we try to behave as 0:32:06.360 --> 0:32:08.440 if we're contact. 0:32:08.480 --> 0:32:09.960 Is that a lot of a lot of like co 0:32:10.040 --> 0:32:12.280 ops are not co ops because it's a it's weird 0:32:12.320 --> 0:32:15.000 on taxes and everyone's just like, yeah, dwarfing into one 0:32:15.080 --> 0:32:17.120 whenever it's got to work and it's better to just 0:32:17.240 --> 0:32:19.800 be an LLC or something else. Yeah, but it's worker 0:32:19.840 --> 0:32:26.080 own outside investment, no outside capital. We literally just rely 0:32:26.160 --> 0:32:29.440 on subscriptions and nothing else for now. We might incorporate 0:32:29.600 --> 0:32:31.720 a small amount of ad based stuff in the future, 0:32:31.720 --> 0:32:33.400 but that'll just be on like a podcast. 0:32:33.200 --> 0:32:35.360 And there's nothing and there's nothing wrong with ads. 0:32:35.600 --> 0:32:38.560 I mean, I definitely can't because someone listening to this 0:32:38.640 --> 0:32:40.520 is probably going to email me and be like, did 0:32:40.560 --> 0:32:42.880 you hear there's an ai AD as an ai AD 0:32:42.920 --> 0:32:44.760 that ran Did you hear the ai AD? It ran 0:32:44.800 --> 0:32:47.200 off the ai AD? If you want emailing me or 0:32:47.240 --> 0:32:50.280 messaging me about the ai AD, I have heard you 0:32:50.480 --> 0:32:53.800 over one hundred and fifty times, and every single person. 0:32:53.840 --> 0:32:56.320 I'm not bitter. I'm just like, at this point, if 0:32:56.360 --> 0:32:58.760 you think it's novel to mention this to me, it isn't. 0:32:58.760 --> 0:33:00.840 And every time I kind of roll my eyes. And 0:33:00.880 --> 0:33:03.120 if you're trying to hurt me, which you would love, 0:33:04.560 --> 0:33:08.200 then keep going, but please don't. But nevertheless, it's good 0:33:08.280 --> 0:33:11.000 that it's good that this exists, though, because my experience 0:33:11.040 --> 0:33:15.440 of games journalism was Future Publishing and Dennis so I 0:33:15.480 --> 0:33:18.080 won a little bit of Zitron law for all of you. 0:33:18.280 --> 0:33:21.120 So I was a games journalist from the age of sixteen. 0:33:21.160 --> 0:33:23.720 I interned at Computer and Video Games Magazine is steamed 0:33:23.720 --> 0:33:27.440 out there, owned by Dennis Publishing, sold to Future Publishing. 0:33:27.480 --> 0:33:30.400 Really like out of the toilet, into the toilet. 0:33:30.400 --> 0:33:32.160 Situation worst or toilet. 0:33:32.240 --> 0:33:32.400 Yeah. 0:33:32.440 --> 0:33:35.240 And I worked at PC Zone as well, and it 0:33:35.280 --> 0:33:37.560 was definitely and there's British libel laws which will stop 0:33:37.600 --> 0:33:41.080 me being fully honest here. It was a challenging corporate 0:33:41.200 --> 0:33:45.000 environment with many incentive structures that affected the output and 0:33:45.080 --> 0:33:48.960 structure of the work regularly. And it's funny because games 0:33:49.040 --> 0:33:52.560 journalism feels like something that could be bigger and better 0:33:52.640 --> 0:33:54.440 than it is, but it't. 0:33:54.480 --> 0:33:55.280 It just won't be. 0:33:56.320 --> 0:33:58.840 So like the example that I think is really useful 0:33:58.960 --> 0:34:02.000 is the Kataka. Essentially, we all worked there in a 0:34:02.000 --> 0:34:03.960 certain era where we had an editor in chief who 0:34:03.960 --> 0:34:05.680 was like an old school magazine guy like went to 0:34:05.680 --> 0:34:08.600 the Columbia School of Journalism, really wanted us to get 0:34:08.600 --> 0:34:11.960 scoops and we had for at least a short while 0:34:13.080 --> 0:34:18.120 management that understood the value of actually reporting news and 0:34:18.200 --> 0:34:24.200 not caring about the reaction from quote unquote gamers. However, 0:34:24.640 --> 0:34:28.280 that did not make us very advertiser friendly. So now 0:34:28.440 --> 0:34:31.040 where we are at with Kataku after everyone that we 0:34:31.120 --> 0:34:35.080 worked with has left, essentially they're in an environment where 0:34:35.080 --> 0:34:38.839 they're like, what advertisers want is not news on how 0:34:38.880 --> 0:34:42.560 badly the industry is doing. What they would prefer is 0:34:43.080 --> 0:34:48.120 guides and hype, and what are gamers want? What are 0:34:48.120 --> 0:34:51.920 gamers talking about? You know, I like reporting on fandom 0:34:51.920 --> 0:34:55.120 because I do think that the cultural impact of gaming 0:34:55.360 --> 0:35:00.839 is really fascinating. And frankly, I did not realize when 0:35:00.880 --> 0:35:03.799 we started Aftermath that we'd be doing journalism that is 0:35:03.840 --> 0:35:08.239 actually quite important in understanding the slow dissolution of democracy 0:35:08.239 --> 0:35:11.960 in America. But it certainly seems like it has been. 0:35:13.520 --> 0:35:16.560 You know, I think that it's worth contextualizing that gaming 0:35:16.600 --> 0:35:18.480 has often been a canary in the coal mine for 0:35:18.520 --> 0:35:22.200 the slow dissolution of democracy and of you know, these 0:35:22.200 --> 0:35:24.160 cultural movements that can. 0:35:24.040 --> 0:35:25.120 You elaborate. 0:35:26.200 --> 0:35:31.720 Gamer Gate literally, gamer Nason and both of you split 0:35:31.800 --> 0:35:34.600 this question, I think would be good. Can you describe 0:35:34.640 --> 0:35:37.520 game and Gate for people to outside of it. 0:35:38.200 --> 0:35:41.960 Gamer Gate was kind of the first like real reactionary 0:35:41.960 --> 0:35:44.680 movement video games. Basically, I mean I had a lot 0:35:44.719 --> 0:35:45.560 of personal experience. 0:35:45.600 --> 0:35:47.160 You you had a little bit of a pot. 0:35:50.239 --> 0:35:53.640 There was a you know, prominent indie game developer named 0:35:53.719 --> 0:35:57.480 Zoe Quinn and she and I ended up dating for 0:35:57.560 --> 0:36:00.880 a minute, and gamers to this to me and will 0:36:00.920 --> 0:36:04.080 not gamers. Basically, she had a jilted X who published 0:36:04.120 --> 0:36:07.440 a manifesto about her in which he claimed, among other things, 0:36:07.960 --> 0:36:11.799 that she had, you know, effectively slept with me for 0:36:11.840 --> 0:36:15.520 positive coverage of her game, when that never actually happened. 0:36:15.560 --> 0:36:18.799 There was no such coverage. It was all bullshit. But 0:36:19.560 --> 0:36:20.960 a lot of people, a lot of gamers who are 0:36:20.960 --> 0:36:24.319 already after her. There had been this whole like movement 0:36:24.320 --> 0:36:27.120 against her even before this, but they lashed onto this 0:36:27.480 --> 0:36:30.120 and it became their plausible deniability, and so they started saying, oh, 0:36:30.160 --> 0:36:32.839 it's about ethics and games journalism, we got to fix this, 0:36:33.560 --> 0:36:35.279 and then all of these other people from outside of 0:36:35.320 --> 0:36:37.520 video games lashed onto that. That's where you've got people 0:36:37.560 --> 0:36:40.319 like Miley Ianopolis. That's where you've got a lot of 0:36:40.360 --> 0:36:43.719 like Breitbart's notability in that era. And I think That's 0:36:43.760 --> 0:36:47.240 when a lot of these people in the conservative movement realized, oh, 0:36:47.520 --> 0:36:50.080 like this is a perfect seed bed for the future 0:36:50.400 --> 0:36:53.200 of conservatism, and the future can grab people. 0:36:53.000 --> 0:36:53.920 Right here now. 0:36:53.960 --> 0:36:58.160 You can literally brute force a reality. Is what they learned, 0:36:59.040 --> 0:37:01.479 the things that they claim, and you will still see 0:37:01.520 --> 0:37:04.640 people claim these things on the internet. None of these 0:37:04.680 --> 0:37:07.400 things are true, none of them are improvable, none of 0:37:07.440 --> 0:37:10.880 them are anywhere near provable. There is no review of 0:37:11.040 --> 0:37:14.440 Zoe's game that Nathan wrote. Yep, it does not exist, 0:37:14.719 --> 0:37:16.480 and they will never show it to you. 0:37:16.719 --> 0:37:19.680 What's insane as well, is there are actual issues in 0:37:20.040 --> 0:37:23.640 games like I mean, like I'm not saying what magazine 0:37:23.640 --> 0:37:25.239 I'm talking about or indeed who this was said to, 0:37:25.320 --> 0:37:28.600 but I know multiple different games covers of games magazines 0:37:28.600 --> 0:37:32.160 for certain PC games magazines that were bartered with drugs 0:37:32.880 --> 0:37:36.680 and that where scores were raised to please publishers and 0:37:37.000 --> 0:37:38.760 raise to police advertisers. 0:37:38.920 --> 0:37:40.600 The actual fucking issue. 0:37:40.440 --> 0:37:44.719 Even just sort of the like parasitic relationship game devs, 0:37:44.800 --> 0:37:47.600 especially the higher up in management you go, they consider 0:37:48.040 --> 0:37:51.480 the games press to just be a pr wing their 0:37:51.520 --> 0:37:54.480 same industry. So the idea that we are journalists and 0:37:54.520 --> 0:37:56.920 we do not have the same goals as they do, 0:37:57.000 --> 0:38:00.239 which is to please developers and help make sure their 0:38:00.280 --> 0:38:04.759 game sell. That is considered like really really hostile and 0:38:04.840 --> 0:38:06.879 it is something that you have to explain and re 0:38:06.960 --> 0:38:10.000 explain over and over again. I don't care if your 0:38:10.040 --> 0:38:12.200 game sell as well. Like I'm sorry, I want games 0:38:12.200 --> 0:38:14.359 to do well, but I'm not doing pr for you. 0:38:14.880 --> 0:38:16.239 That is not what I want to do. 0:38:16.560 --> 0:38:19.040 Also, there's already like a lot of these games already 0:38:19.080 --> 0:38:22.440 have these massive marketing budgets. Anyway, Yeah, like the press 0:38:22.480 --> 0:38:25.440 is not a big needle mover there. But what a 0:38:25.440 --> 0:38:27.719 lot of people want the press to be, whether they 0:38:27.760 --> 0:38:31.000 are executives or whether they're gamers, is this like mouthpiece 0:38:31.040 --> 0:38:32.920 for the industry. It's like going back to you know, 0:38:33.440 --> 0:38:36.440 those like law or those court cases against games as 0:38:36.440 --> 0:38:39.200 a whole and things like that. They want industry advocates. 0:38:39.200 --> 0:38:41.879 They're still stuck in this mindset from like thirty years 0:38:41.920 --> 0:38:43.760 ago of like the industry needs defending. 0:38:43.800 --> 0:38:44.799 It's just a little guy. 0:38:45.160 --> 0:38:47.879 And it's like no, no, you can't simultaneously be quote 0:38:47.880 --> 0:38:50.200 bigger than Hollywood and to just be a little guy. 0:38:50.280 --> 0:38:53.719 That makes Yeah, you know, I love video games. I 0:38:53.719 --> 0:38:55.720 love the culture of video games. In a lot of ways. 0:38:55.800 --> 0:38:56.359 I love. 0:38:56.560 --> 0:38:59.359 I think play is a fundamental part of human life 0:38:59.360 --> 0:39:03.600 that we all need more of, especially the more bleak it. 0:39:03.840 --> 0:39:06.840 If you have imagination, then you can imagine a better world. 0:39:07.000 --> 0:39:09.480 It also feels like we fundamentally got away from the 0:39:09.520 --> 0:39:11.200 thing that games is, which is escape. 0:39:11.440 --> 0:39:11.720 Yeah. 0:39:11.760 --> 0:39:14.080 Like, I know, it's not that I'm ashamed of being 0:39:14.080 --> 0:39:16.080 a gamer. I have plenty of other things am ashamed of. 0:39:16.200 --> 0:39:18.600 But it's this sense that like I do this to 0:39:18.640 --> 0:39:21.440 try and not like not think about it. I will say, however, 0:39:21.520 --> 0:39:25.440 like Balatro, if anyone knows the Balatro developer, Bilatro developer, 0:39:25.480 --> 0:39:30.160 welcome on Better Offline official endorsement is incredible fucking Blatro. 0:39:30.280 --> 0:39:33.200 I also like got me through like mental health things 0:39:33.239 --> 0:39:35.640 just I was able to. There's an emdr effect, I think. 0:39:35.719 --> 0:39:38.279 But nevertheless, these games are meant to be, if not 0:39:38.320 --> 0:39:41.040 a distraction, something you escape into. If it's even if 0:39:41.080 --> 0:39:44.399 you're not escaping life. But it's like people people want 0:39:44.440 --> 0:39:44.799 them to. 0:39:44.800 --> 0:39:47.520 Mean something else. Almost fiction is. 0:39:47.880 --> 0:39:49.040 Fiction is transformative. 0:39:49.120 --> 0:39:51.839 Like I was thinking, there's a big indie game hit 0:39:52.000 --> 0:39:55.920 that is really depressing and a sort of about the 0:39:56.000 --> 0:40:00.600 experience of living under La capitalism, mouthwashing it's an indie game, 0:40:00.640 --> 0:40:01.560 it's a visual novel. 0:40:01.600 --> 0:40:03.759 It's not mechanics heavy, it's very story heavy. But it 0:40:03.800 --> 0:40:04.800 became an. 0:40:04.800 --> 0:40:08.880 Enormous indie hit with a very big, sort of unexpected 0:40:09.160 --> 0:40:12.839 fandom because it describes an experience that people have and 0:40:12.880 --> 0:40:18.000 they love feeling like the misery and stress and pain 0:40:18.200 --> 0:40:20.759 that they are trying are being told by so many 0:40:20.800 --> 0:40:24.879 different forces doesn't exist and doesn't matter. They love being told, Yes, 0:40:24.960 --> 0:40:27.719 it does matter. Your personhood does matter. The things you 0:40:27.800 --> 0:40:32.000 experience in the world do matter and have significance. Being 0:40:32.040 --> 0:40:38.040 able to experience that is something that brings us closer 0:40:38.080 --> 0:40:41.520 together as a society and allows us to again just 0:40:41.560 --> 0:40:44.680 start to imagine what if the world didn't have to 0:40:44.760 --> 0:40:45.480 be like this? 0:40:46.280 --> 0:40:46.520 You know. 0:40:46.800 --> 0:40:50.560 That's what all media, all enter forms of entertainment can 0:40:50.719 --> 0:40:56.120 give you. And I do feel like by becoming an 0:40:56.120 --> 0:40:59.600 industry that is chasing a bigger and bigger number more 0:40:59.600 --> 0:41:02.319 than anything else, you do lose sight of that that, 0:41:02.560 --> 0:41:05.600 like art can't just be measured in dollars or it 0:41:05.719 --> 0:41:07.440 is something that touches you and changes you. 0:41:07.680 --> 0:41:09.640 Yeah, I mean I think that the Yeah, the big 0:41:09.680 --> 0:41:13.360 issue is that games aren't supposed to be anything, especially 0:41:13.400 --> 0:41:16.359 not at this point, like and I'll give you, and 0:41:16.400 --> 0:41:19.000 also like there are so many of them. So yes, 0:41:19.160 --> 0:41:22.000 last year, almost twenty thousand games came out on Steam 0:41:22.160 --> 0:41:26.880 Jesus twenty thousand. And with that in mind, like the 0:41:26.920 --> 0:41:29.759 fact that there's this reactionary movement going around saying, oh, 0:41:29.840 --> 0:41:32.160 you know, this game can't be this, it can't have 0:41:32.239 --> 0:41:36.319 like a black person, it can't portray trans issues, It's like, well, 0:41:36.760 --> 0:41:37.799 why does that matter to you? 0:41:38.280 --> 0:41:43.719 Why there are there are nineteen more games over there 0:41:43.800 --> 0:41:47.400 that aren't doing that, thirty years of games which would. 0:41:47.280 --> 0:41:49.440 Not Then Yeah, on top of that, you were talking 0:41:49.480 --> 0:41:51.799 about this idea of games is escapism. And it's so 0:41:51.880 --> 0:41:55.120 funny because this reactionary movement essentially posits that, yes, games 0:41:55.120 --> 0:41:57.560 should only be escapism and nothing else. They shouldn't have 0:41:57.719 --> 0:42:01.239 quote unquote political topics in them. Trans people or black people. 0:42:02.640 --> 0:42:06.560 People have dedicated their lives to fighting a political battle 0:42:06.600 --> 0:42:09.839 about games, in effect, shoving their politics into games. That's 0:42:09.880 --> 0:42:11.799 all they do anymore. And so they're like, games should 0:42:11.800 --> 0:42:14.080 be escapism, no politics, except for all the time. 0:42:14.360 --> 0:42:15.120 On my terms. 0:42:15.360 --> 0:42:17.959 You know, for me, a great level of escapism would 0:42:17.960 --> 0:42:20.240 be imagining a world where I don't have an annoying 0:42:20.280 --> 0:42:22.799 conversation with a white person, like you know, like. 0:42:22.760 --> 0:42:26.120 That would be that is completely imaginary. 0:42:26.360 --> 0:42:28.400 You know, that would be a wonderful escape for me. 0:42:28.560 --> 0:42:31.320 But you do when you get down to when you 0:42:31.360 --> 0:42:33.200 see one of these viral posts that comes across your 0:42:33.239 --> 0:42:36.840 dash about or you know, whatever social media figure you're on, 0:42:37.200 --> 0:42:40.440 and they are so upset about a promo image for 0:42:40.480 --> 0:42:44.319 a game because the example character they've shown is a 0:42:44.320 --> 0:42:47.120 black person, you realize that the escapism that these people 0:42:47.120 --> 0:42:50.160 want to experience is an escape from black people, and 0:42:50.200 --> 0:42:51.880 it's just they don't want to have to see a 0:42:51.880 --> 0:42:56.160 black person. And that is like an inherently political things 0:42:56.200 --> 0:42:56.640 to say. 0:42:56.840 --> 0:42:58.520 That is an endorsement of white supremacy. 0:42:58.680 --> 0:43:02.640 Yeah, it's an endorsement of an no state. Yeah, it's it's. 0:43:02.560 --> 0:43:05.520 Very fucking frustrating as well, because I don't know, maybe 0:43:05.520 --> 0:43:08.560 they could learn to be in a situation with a 0:43:08.560 --> 0:43:10.600 black person, but they're like, no, no, I couldn't post it. 0:43:10.719 --> 0:43:13.120 Wait wait, wait, there's an option buried in these menus 0:43:13.160 --> 0:43:16.279 that allows me to have trends like features and fuck no, yeah, 0:43:16.320 --> 0:43:18.719 I can't even consider a world where that's an option. 0:43:19.120 --> 0:43:22.799 Being given the choice of a They them pronoun is 0:43:22.960 --> 0:43:25.839 something that just terrifies them, just like. 0:43:25.800 --> 0:43:28.239 They're YouTube videos. Are these people? Yeah, are reduced to 0:43:28.320 --> 0:43:33.759 like actual tears. How upset they are? Love Yeah? Oh 0:43:33.800 --> 0:43:36.680 it's crazy, I mean I could so. 0:43:36.680 --> 0:43:40.200 So back to aftermath though, on a more positive note, 0:43:40.200 --> 0:43:41.719 what are you trying to create with it? I don't 0:43:41.719 --> 0:43:43.080 you don't need to have like a big vision, But 0:43:43.239 --> 0:43:45.960 what are you trying to do differently to like Kataku 0:43:46.040 --> 0:43:47.080 for example. 0:43:47.440 --> 0:43:49.040 Not destroy our brains and bodies? 0:43:49.160 --> 0:43:49.640 Number one? 0:43:49.840 --> 0:43:50.160 Sure? 0:43:50.400 --> 0:43:56.879 Yeah, I also think we want to acknowledge, like and 0:43:57.160 --> 0:44:04.400 embrace the both editorial and hard scoops and reporting. That 0:44:04.520 --> 0:44:06.680 was not something I think we did very well, like 0:44:07.000 --> 0:44:09.799 embracing the duality of that you need news and then 0:44:09.840 --> 0:44:12.640 also you need to help people interpret and understand the 0:44:12.680 --> 0:44:16.680 cultural impact of this news. Nathan has been doing an 0:44:16.719 --> 0:44:21.000 incredible job reporting, like just really fucking killing it. I 0:44:21.120 --> 0:44:23.480 currently have two full time jobs, so I've been writing 0:44:23.520 --> 0:44:26.920 less than I'd love to. But really my interest is 0:44:27.280 --> 0:44:30.160 understanding industry trends and looking at them as sort of 0:44:30.200 --> 0:44:32.920 long term research projects, and understanding the way that the 0:44:32.960 --> 0:44:35.720 world moves as we understand how money flows and moves. 0:44:36.320 --> 0:44:39.279 And I think that those both of these things are 0:44:39.360 --> 0:44:44.440 equally important. Essentially, just even though video games tell like 0:44:44.480 --> 0:44:47.719 as an industry, people just lie about how how much 0:44:47.760 --> 0:44:50.279 money they make and how culturally important they are. They 0:44:50.400 --> 0:44:54.240 are now a massive and indelible part of the American 0:44:54.400 --> 0:44:56.520 entertainment industry and our economy. 0:44:56.600 --> 0:44:59.799 They are mainstream, especially for like you know, gen Z millennials, 0:44:59.840 --> 0:45:02.000 like we all grew up playing them. They are as 0:45:02.040 --> 0:45:04.320 much a part of the cultural fabric as any film, 0:45:04.440 --> 0:45:06.000 as any TV show, as anything else. 0:45:06.160 --> 0:45:07.880 Yeah, and that they need to. 0:45:07.880 --> 0:45:08.600 Be covered that way. 0:45:08.600 --> 0:45:11.600 And it's so weird to look at like major publications, 0:45:11.640 --> 0:45:14.920 major papers having almost nobody dedicated to them, like Washington 0:45:14.920 --> 0:45:15.480 Post has. 0:45:15.400 --> 0:45:19.200 One person game Park. And even then Gene doesn't really 0:45:19.239 --> 0:45:19.920 do hard report. 0:45:19.920 --> 0:45:22.640 He just does like criticism, which is important, but it's 0:45:22.680 --> 0:45:23.440 not the whole thing, Like. 0:45:23.480 --> 0:45:24.319 I had a team for that. 0:45:38.160 --> 0:45:40.560 Well something I like about, like you did this one 0:45:40.600 --> 0:45:43.680 about Steve the Steam uses n ai Yeah, and it 0:45:43.760 --> 0:45:46.880 was specifically the story is about how actually you know, 0:45:47.000 --> 0:45:48.879 won't get through the next Fest Games pod. 0:45:48.960 --> 0:45:50.600 Why why would I read your story to you? 0:45:50.920 --> 0:45:51.240 Yeah? 0:45:51.280 --> 0:45:55.200 So basically, right now, Steam is running this promotional event 0:45:55.280 --> 0:45:57.120 called next Vest where there are a ton of demos 0:45:57.160 --> 0:46:00.520 everybody like play is getting prominent placement for the demos, 0:46:00.760 --> 0:46:03.279 which will in turn people cause people to go check 0:46:03.280 --> 0:46:05.440 out their games and maybe buy them. That's really important. 0:46:06.360 --> 0:46:08.279 And so this time around, people have been scrolling through 0:46:08.320 --> 0:46:10.319 and seeing a lot of AI art and they're like, oh, 0:46:10.320 --> 0:46:12.360 that's not good, because that means that a bunch of 0:46:12.360 --> 0:46:15.759 like AI slop is potentially crowding out deserving good games 0:46:15.800 --> 0:46:17.840 that have been development for a long time, and that 0:46:17.960 --> 0:46:20.200 you have a chance of it attaining real success. 0:46:21.600 --> 0:46:22.000 And so. 0:46:23.560 --> 0:46:26.760 The thing about that is that, yes, it looks bad. 0:46:27.160 --> 0:46:28.959 But then at the same time, Steam has this hyper 0:46:29.000 --> 0:46:32.279 complicated algorithm that they've been tuning over the years, and 0:46:32.360 --> 0:46:36.000 so they basically tuned it to change the way that 0:46:36.040 --> 0:46:37.839 games are seen in the first few days of something 0:46:37.880 --> 0:46:40.520 like Nextfest, right, so that you end up seeing like 0:46:40.760 --> 0:46:43.440 a random kind of scattering of them in the first 0:46:43.520 --> 0:46:46.320 few days. Then it becomes personalized, and so basically that 0:46:46.400 --> 0:46:49.439 sorts out the AI garbage because those games people don't 0:46:49.440 --> 0:46:51.360 really interact with much. They see them, they move on, 0:46:52.440 --> 0:46:55.160 and so like they've built a system that sort of 0:46:55.160 --> 0:46:58.680 anticipates AI slop, which is good, but they still have 0:46:58.800 --> 0:47:01.279 this larger problem that I think that you see in 0:47:01.320 --> 0:47:04.520 a lot of industries now in this era of peak content, 0:47:04.880 --> 0:47:07.960 which is that there's tons of good stuff coming out 0:47:07.960 --> 0:47:09.840 on Steam all the time, too much of that for 0:47:09.960 --> 0:47:12.279 most people to like find what they're really looking for. 0:47:12.680 --> 0:47:15.440 And then on top of that, you're also competing with 0:47:15.480 --> 0:47:17.759 all of the old goods stuff which is still on 0:47:17.800 --> 0:47:21.080 Steam correctly goes on sale, has bigger name recognition than 0:47:21.120 --> 0:47:24.480 you do, and so like that's the real battle that 0:47:24.520 --> 0:47:26.839 people need to be fighting, whereas I think looking at 0:47:26.880 --> 0:47:30.000 AI on Steam is like this major issue is tempting, 0:47:30.239 --> 0:47:33.759 and it is to an extent, but it's not kind 0:47:33.800 --> 0:47:34.840 of the core problem. 0:47:34.560 --> 0:47:35.879 That a lot of developers face. 0:47:35.960 --> 0:47:37.680 So the reason I brought up this story was to 0:47:37.680 --> 0:47:42.239 compliment you, because this is exactly why After Moth rocks 0:47:42.280 --> 0:47:44.839 and why I actually think the future of journalism is more. Yeah, 0:47:44.840 --> 0:47:46.480 it's like Batter off line, of course it is, but 0:47:46.480 --> 0:47:48.439 it's things like after Moth as well, Because this isn't 0:47:48.480 --> 0:47:51.840 just a story about games culture, which is the anxiety 0:47:51.840 --> 0:47:54.719 of rai slop, also the anxiety of a indie games 0:47:54.760 --> 0:47:57.600 not getting the attention they need. It's also an industrial 0:47:57.640 --> 0:48:00.000 analysis because you've got fucking numbers here. In actual view, 0:48:00.000 --> 0:48:02.800 he counts, and actually because to cover the games industry, 0:48:02.800 --> 0:48:06.319 it seems like, much like tech, you need true domain expertise, 0:48:06.600 --> 0:48:10.799 but you also need industrial Jason Shryer style and Jason 0:48:10.840 --> 0:48:12.759 Shryap by the way over at Bloomberg Legend got to 0:48:12.760 --> 0:48:15.000 get him on the show. It's my fault, Jason. 0:48:15.960 --> 0:48:17.960 So you want I know something amazing about Jason. Yes, 0:48:18.120 --> 0:48:20.160 just one great Jason story that he told me right 0:48:20.160 --> 0:48:21.800 before we left Kataku. I used to sit next to 0:48:21.840 --> 0:48:24.279 him every day, and he told me when he first 0:48:24.320 --> 0:48:26.120 started there, he asked if there was a dress code, 0:48:26.200 --> 0:48:28.879 he said, and his boss told him no, right So, 0:48:29.160 --> 0:48:33.279 to that effect, he wore basketball shorts literally every single day, 0:48:33.760 --> 0:48:36.160 and at his yearly review, his boss came up to 0:48:36.200 --> 0:48:38.440 him and said, Jason, I did not know that I 0:48:38.480 --> 0:48:41.799 had a line for dress code, but I realized that 0:48:41.840 --> 0:48:45.160 my line is, please don't wear basketball shorts literally every day. 0:48:45.320 --> 0:48:48.200 If anyone didn't he encounter this one online at some point, 0:48:48.239 --> 0:48:51.080 I feel like he added some particulars that muddy the 0:48:51.160 --> 0:48:52.560 waters of that story a tiny bit. 0:48:52.760 --> 0:48:53.840 Oh, I see, I see it. 0:48:53.920 --> 0:48:56.480 I just love every time you see Jason tweet something 0:48:56.480 --> 0:48:58.239 that pisses you off. I just love imagining him in 0:48:58.280 --> 0:48:59.040 basketball shorts. 0:48:59.080 --> 0:48:59.440 That's all. 0:49:00.280 --> 0:49:00.480 Yeah. 0:49:00.880 --> 0:49:03.480 But also I'm remembering if any of the British games 0:49:03.520 --> 0:49:07.439 press are listening to this, we don't. We never dressed that. 0:49:07.480 --> 0:49:10.320 I dressed like I was in like a dirty jeens. 0:49:10.120 --> 0:49:11.000 And actually dirty genes. 0:49:11.040 --> 0:49:11.560 Now I resist. 0:49:12.640 --> 0:49:14.520 We just like people dressed like I guess we didn't 0:49:14.560 --> 0:49:16.800 see their legs because it's England as it was cold, 0:49:16.920 --> 0:49:19.920 but I feel like that that's the difference of the 0:49:19.920 --> 0:49:20.920 British gaming press. 0:49:21.120 --> 0:49:22.759 I guess they would just look like. 0:49:23.360 --> 0:49:26.839 What Kieran Gillan said is about I love Gillan, He's 0:49:26.840 --> 0:49:31.759 such a sweety pie. He said in what When his 0:49:31.840 --> 0:49:33.759 little manifesto, he wrote like, I don't know, it's like 0:49:33.800 --> 0:49:34.640 twenty years ago. 0:49:34.800 --> 0:49:36.120 Journalism, he said. 0:49:36.200 --> 0:49:37.600 I love Karen, but I fucking hate it. 0:49:39.680 --> 0:49:43.160 He said something about there were two models of games 0:49:43.239 --> 0:49:46.280 journalism when he was working there, and it was the 0:49:47.400 --> 0:49:49.919 US model, which was a lot like car journalism, which 0:49:49.960 --> 0:49:53.719 is also pretty fraught. And there was the UK model, 0:49:53.719 --> 0:49:56.160 which is a lot more like music journalism, which now 0:49:56.239 --> 0:50:00.000 does not really exist in America anymore. And the US model, 0:50:00.040 --> 0:50:03.680 which was all about stats and statistics, statistics and numbers 0:50:03.760 --> 0:50:08.319 and products and products. That model won out eventually, and 0:50:08.360 --> 0:50:10.920 you can see how much it has went out because 0:50:10.960 --> 0:50:14.359 now it's it's only about toys, like we talk about 0:50:14.400 --> 0:50:18.440 games as if they are toys and. 0:50:17.080 --> 0:50:19.160 You guys, and that's pretty much it. 0:50:19.200 --> 0:50:22.120 I remember why it pissed me off because he fucking 0:50:22.200 --> 0:50:25.000 wroked a PC game which was exactly what you just described. 0:50:25.360 --> 0:50:28.120 That's what he left and made rockets and now and 0:50:28.160 --> 0:50:30.120 now he fucking writes amazing comedy. 0:50:30.400 --> 0:50:33.759 God, the power Fantasy is so fasy and it really good. 0:50:34.120 --> 0:50:34.560 It's great. 0:50:35.000 --> 0:50:37.560 I'm sorry, but no, I was going to say, in 0:50:37.600 --> 0:50:39.120 line with a lot of that and the way that 0:50:39.160 --> 0:50:42.200 I think games journalism kind of you know, continued to 0:50:42.239 --> 0:50:44.400 mature along those lines and mostly considering games to be 0:50:44.440 --> 0:50:47.239 these disposable products, and like you know, a lot of 0:50:47.440 --> 0:50:50.040 sites consider like posting about a trailer to be news. 0:50:51.280 --> 0:50:53.680 The thing that I think Aftermath does that we really 0:50:53.680 --> 0:50:57.000 focus on doing is contextualizing a lot of the news, 0:50:57.080 --> 0:50:59.640 especially the harder news, something that you be layoffs and 0:51:00.040 --> 0:51:03.520 xtualizing it I think with the kind of feeling it deserves, 0:51:04.120 --> 0:51:06.560 something that I think you also do really well with 0:51:06.600 --> 0:51:08.280 all of your different projects. 0:51:08.640 --> 0:51:11.799 You know, well people people find it very cathartic to 0:51:11.800 --> 0:51:14.359 have people confirm what they feel about the world, which 0:51:14.400 --> 0:51:15.200 is things are. 0:51:15.400 --> 0:51:19.120 Also sometimes don't yeah with facts, but also sometimes they 0:51:19.120 --> 0:51:20.799 don't recognize how bad things are. 0:51:20.840 --> 0:51:21.960 They need to be told. 0:51:22.560 --> 0:51:24.680 That was my point in that wbpiece, which I then 0:51:24.760 --> 0:51:27.440 the headline for those who don't know, is just fucked WB. 0:51:27.360 --> 0:51:28.640 And fucked w Babe on the way. 0:51:28.840 --> 0:51:30.320 Yeah, literally just fucked WB. 0:51:30.280 --> 0:51:32.200 Like and it goes into all the reasons why they 0:51:32.239 --> 0:51:35.800 deserve to be fucked, because they've been mismanaging their business 0:51:35.800 --> 0:51:39.520 horribly and treating people and their various properties is disposable, 0:51:39.640 --> 0:51:41.040 and like doing it in these ways that are. 0:51:41.000 --> 0:51:44.200 Very avoidable are an expression of the way that the 0:51:44.239 --> 0:51:47.520 tech industry as a whole has changed how employment works 0:51:47.800 --> 0:51:52.920 and changed how companies understand value. And it is disgusting 0:51:52.960 --> 0:51:55.960 to watch it happen in something that's very important to me, 0:51:56.040 --> 0:51:58.680 which is the world of art. Like I was a 0:51:58.719 --> 0:52:01.279 cinema studies major in college. I had these old, hyphalutant 0:52:01.320 --> 0:52:05.080 dreams of being a gallery curator, et cetera, et cetera. 0:52:05.640 --> 0:52:08.280 These things really matter to me, like human expression really 0:52:08.320 --> 0:52:13.480 really matters to me, and they're the wonderful history of 0:52:13.520 --> 0:52:16.320 American cinema is just being flushed on the fucking toilet. 0:52:16.840 --> 0:52:18.840 And it feels like they're doing the same thing in 0:52:18.880 --> 0:52:21.040 games and in tech and everything. Because not to tie 0:52:21.040 --> 0:52:24.160 it back to my own bullshit, but it's it's the 0:52:24.160 --> 0:52:26.160 Google search thing, it's the Facebook thing, it's the thing 0:52:26.200 --> 0:52:28.120 that we fell in love with the idea of games. 0:52:28.160 --> 0:52:30.759 I guess it's more what it's more death by a 0:52:30.760 --> 0:52:33.600 thousand cuts with games. Yet sometimes the cuts are larger. 0:52:33.640 --> 0:52:39.040 But it's like watching like Monolith for example. Monolith also, 0:52:38.719 --> 0:52:41.279 I like, I swear Modelf had something to do with 0:52:41.320 --> 0:52:44.080 like free space as well. It was a volition entertainment, 0:52:44.320 --> 0:52:46.359 like we've watched it. It's been this slow burm where 0:52:46.360 --> 0:52:48.520 you'd see these amazing games come out and then the 0:52:48.560 --> 0:52:51.880 studio would just disappear or they dog shit, and it 0:52:51.960 --> 0:52:54.480 seems like it's just this problem of CEOs. It's these 0:52:54.480 --> 0:52:56.480 executives who have nothing to do with games. They don't 0:52:56.520 --> 0:52:59.640 play games, they wouldn't dare touch these games. They've got 0:52:59.640 --> 0:53:01.560 imported things to do, like go to lunch and write 0:53:01.560 --> 0:53:02.680 emails or. 0:53:02.600 --> 0:53:04.640 I mean, okay, so actually this is a good example. 0:53:05.360 --> 0:53:07.960 They're CEOs who at least like pretend to or do, 0:53:08.440 --> 0:53:10.399 but they still make the same decisions. Somebody like Phil 0:53:10.440 --> 0:53:12.319 Spencer is a great example of this. He's like the 0:53:12.320 --> 0:53:14.279 gamer CEO's at Microsoft, but he's. 0:53:14.360 --> 0:53:15.400 Actually like a game. 0:53:15.880 --> 0:53:19.160 Yes, I mean he like his Xbox Live stats were 0:53:19.200 --> 0:53:20.600 like public for a long time. You can see how 0:53:20.600 --> 0:53:22.319 many hundreds of hours he's putting into games. 0:53:22.400 --> 0:53:23.040 That makes it worse. 0:53:23.080 --> 0:53:26.640 But yeah, exactly it makes is What that suggests is 0:53:26.680 --> 0:53:28.759 that like the problem is that these is not that 0:53:28.800 --> 0:53:31.360 these people are not gamers, right, The problem is the 0:53:31.400 --> 0:53:34.160 structural incentives at a company, being an executive that you 0:53:34.200 --> 0:53:38.520 will still even appreciating the art form cut thousands of 0:53:38.520 --> 0:53:41.640 people loose from their jobs, right, and like make decisions 0:53:41.680 --> 0:53:43.880 that actively harm games and their quality. 0:53:43.960 --> 0:53:46.440 Isn't the problem more so that games are just insanely 0:53:46.520 --> 0:53:49.839 expensive to build? Though the triple A gaming is are 0:53:49.880 --> 0:53:53.200 we not running towards this unsustainable point? 0:53:53.880 --> 0:53:55.000 It's already unsustainable. 0:53:55.040 --> 0:53:57.560 Well, there was that New York Times article about graphics 0:53:57.560 --> 0:54:00.160 and games that I read a few weeks ago, maybe 0:54:00.239 --> 0:54:02.919 last month, that was about, like, there is so much 0:54:02.960 --> 0:54:05.799 money being pumped into these the Spider Man games, for 0:54:05.880 --> 0:54:10.000 asn example, realistic one to one fidelity of the world 0:54:10.080 --> 0:54:13.120 we see outside of our window, including physics systems that 0:54:13.200 --> 0:54:16.960 replicate real life physics, right, and there we are at 0:54:16.960 --> 0:54:20.440 a point where that last ten it's like self driven 0:54:20.480 --> 0:54:24.320 cars that last ten percent may never be solved because 0:54:24.360 --> 0:54:28.120 our human brain interprets and processes things so much faster 0:54:28.239 --> 0:54:31.160 than a computer program, and a computer can just in general, 0:54:32.400 --> 0:54:36.719 and we these studios put so much money into creating 0:54:36.760 --> 0:54:39.279 that thing, and players don't notice or care. 0:54:39.680 --> 0:54:41.440 Players literally don't care. 0:54:43.200 --> 0:54:47.160 For Spider Man too in particular, really insane. Yeah, it's 0:54:47.160 --> 0:54:50.200 a good game, but Insomniac, the developer of that game, 0:54:50.640 --> 0:54:53.080 suffered a week a little while ago, and in some 0:54:53.160 --> 0:54:55.839 of their own conversations about the game, they're like, yeah, 0:54:55.920 --> 0:54:58.879 our budget for this this sequel was three hundred million 0:54:58.920 --> 0:55:02.280 dollars or somewhere there, almost double what the original game costs. 0:55:02.680 --> 0:55:05.360 But we don't think that players actually notice just how 0:55:05.440 --> 0:55:07.879 much better the graphics are. We actually think that they 0:55:08.000 --> 0:55:10.600 like they take either version and be fine with it. 0:55:10.880 --> 0:55:13.319 And so at that point, why are we spending all 0:55:13.360 --> 0:55:15.920 of this money on increasing the fidelity? What what is 0:55:15.960 --> 0:55:19.640 the end that we're trying to achieve here? And meanwhile, 0:55:19.719 --> 0:55:22.640 look at the other wild part of all of us 0:55:22.680 --> 0:55:25.719 to me is that the current like video game Juggernauts 0:55:25.760 --> 0:55:29.880 for gen Z are like Minecraft and Roadblocks. These games 0:55:29.920 --> 0:55:32.120 do not have high fidelity graphics. 0:55:31.640 --> 0:55:33.320 At all ye Roadblocks. 0:55:33.320 --> 0:55:37.880 In fact, it is a kind of disgusting exploitative model 0:55:37.920 --> 0:55:40.640 where they rely on community developers who make games for them. 0:55:40.719 --> 0:55:44.319 Yeah, they got child labors and children and children children, and. 0:55:44.280 --> 0:55:46.560 The split is one of the most predatory in the 0:55:46.640 --> 0:55:49.040 industry in terms of how much money Roadblox will make 0:55:49.040 --> 0:55:50.560 off of your game versus how much money you make. 0:55:50.680 --> 0:55:52.880 What you're saying is Roadbox only loses money as well. 0:55:52.880 --> 0:55:53.960 They're horribly unpossible. 0:55:54.040 --> 0:55:54.880 It's just ridiculous. 0:55:54.920 --> 0:55:57.799 I feel like we need to like have a referendum 0:55:57.840 --> 0:56:00.359 on the CEOs on a very basic level. Have put 0:56:00.400 --> 0:56:03.040 aside all the moral stuff that's very obvious. Let's just 0:56:03.080 --> 0:56:05.879 be like, you fucking suck at this right. 0:56:06.120 --> 0:56:09.280 No, When we started our own company, what we marveled 0:56:09.280 --> 0:56:11.399 at for a long time was like, no, we don't 0:56:11.400 --> 0:56:14.520 have MBAs, and yes, the money stuff is kind of difficult, 0:56:14.560 --> 0:56:17.520 but actually getting people to visit our website and trust 0:56:17.560 --> 0:56:18.480 our reporting. 0:56:18.160 --> 0:56:19.400 Was extremely easy. 0:56:19.760 --> 0:56:22.680 Like the actual like day to day put blocks on 0:56:22.719 --> 0:56:25.840 the site. Run a business promote ourselves. That's so, so, 0:56:25.840 --> 0:56:28.319 so easy. And there were so many people at TiO 0:56:28.400 --> 0:56:31.680 Media that made so much money that couldn't do things 0:56:31.760 --> 0:56:34.880 like there was an HR lead that couldn't attach. She 0:56:34.880 --> 0:56:37.239 couldn't put an attachment on an email, and she made 0:56:37.239 --> 0:56:39.680 a quarter million of a dollar cordon million of dollars 0:56:39.800 --> 0:56:40.120 a year. 0:56:41.680 --> 0:56:42.480 I hated herself. 0:56:42.680 --> 0:56:43.480 That is insane. 0:56:43.800 --> 0:56:46.200 Yeah, it seems like this is being a published author 0:56:46.200 --> 0:56:47.960 and not even making close to that. 0:56:48.080 --> 0:56:48.719 It's so cool. 0:56:48.920 --> 0:56:51.360 What's insane as well, is it's like this is the 0:56:51.480 --> 0:56:53.920 larger problem. This is I know that someone's going to 0:56:53.960 --> 0:56:57.719 email and me like the problems capitalism. Wow, by the way, 0:56:57.760 --> 0:56:59.160 if you're one of the PI, I don't know. I'm 0:56:59.200 --> 0:57:01.440 acting like I have derision, but I love my listeners. 0:57:01.480 --> 0:57:03.120 Like for the most part, it's just I get one 0:57:03.160 --> 0:57:03.680 person and. 0:57:03.600 --> 0:57:05.839 I'm gonna start emailing you like this all the time. Yeah, 0:57:05.960 --> 0:57:09.200 like actually killy capital I fucking know. 0:57:09.640 --> 0:57:12.520 But it's just this is actually something that really frustrated 0:57:12.560 --> 0:57:15.080 me at a former games publication. I may have been 0:57:15.760 --> 0:57:19.000 where it was just like the people writing were fucking amazing. 0:57:19.040 --> 0:57:21.880 They loved games. I mean I can talk about log 0:57:21.960 --> 0:57:25.480 for example, disappointment on Blue Sky or Steve Hogarty at 0:57:25.480 --> 0:57:28.600 Pieces on Yeah, Will Porter as well, Like Love Games 0:57:28.680 --> 0:57:30.920 was so like it was a real joyous energy to it, 0:57:31.160 --> 0:57:33.520 and then there was just this mandate from above where 0:57:33.520 --> 0:57:36.280 it was just yeah, well we got to make sure 0:57:36.320 --> 0:57:37.960 we sell more issues, so you got to put this 0:57:38.040 --> 0:57:38.439 on the cover. 0:57:38.480 --> 0:57:39.920 It's never something fucking interesting. 0:57:39.960 --> 0:57:42.040 You get an occasional one, like I did my one 0:57:42.080 --> 0:57:45.240 cover about the third World of Warcraft expansion. 0:57:45.280 --> 0:57:46.360 That was fun, But. 0:57:46.360 --> 0:57:49.160 It's like the thing the incentives, the people driving the 0:57:49.160 --> 0:57:52.080 incentives are not people that I even understand the customers 0:57:52.080 --> 0:57:54.600 so much. They're just like I need to resemble the 0:57:54.640 --> 0:57:57.600 thing that my boss wants me to and then I 0:57:57.640 --> 0:58:00.240 will be the best at my job, even if fun 0:58:00.360 --> 0:58:03.200 not good at it at all. Like David Zaslav, I 0:58:03.240 --> 0:58:05.400 have a lot of thoughts about what could happen to 0:58:05.480 --> 0:58:06.600 him that I won't be sharing. 0:58:07.560 --> 0:58:09.520 How do I introduce you to my concept of the 0:58:09.560 --> 0:58:12.520 well based system of justice? You got it a deep, 0:58:12.560 --> 0:58:15.200 deep well, okay, and like you just throw them down there. 0:58:15.240 --> 0:58:17.760 I mean, like Samorrow from the Ring, like she lived 0:58:17.760 --> 0:58:19.760 down there. She didn't die right away, right. 0:58:19.640 --> 0:58:22.120 She had a nice time that you know, we'll feed them. 0:58:21.960 --> 0:58:24.480 Sandwiches a little picky basket every once in a while, 0:58:24.560 --> 0:58:26.960 and you can try to get out maybe he'll succeed. 0:58:27.040 --> 0:58:28.520 But disclaimer, this. 0:58:28.520 --> 0:58:30.880 Is this is all happening in Minecraft and or Ro. 0:58:31.240 --> 0:58:34.120 Yeah, this is all parrot. This is parody. Yes, this 0:58:34.160 --> 0:58:36.480 is parody. But it's just fucking frustrating as well, because 0:58:37.560 --> 0:58:41.760 despite all this frustration and annoyance, we've had some incredible 0:58:41.800 --> 0:58:44.840 fucking games the way she is, like Hades and Hades Too. 0:58:44.920 --> 0:58:48.000 And super Giant, it is an incredible, incredible. 0:58:47.920 --> 0:58:52.000 They're having like a weird dust up about acting and 0:58:52.200 --> 0:58:54.520 not working with like SAG for reasons that they want, 0:58:54.680 --> 0:58:57.760 and I actually super Giant a bit of quick insight, 0:58:57.840 --> 0:59:00.200 I like, because they put up this statement. Basically voice 0:59:00.240 --> 0:59:03.040 actor came out and said that Super Giant was considering 0:59:03.080 --> 0:59:06.960 not renewing with them over like their insistence on having 0:59:07.000 --> 0:59:09.880 a SAG contract. And so then super Giant put out 0:59:09.880 --> 0:59:11.440 a statement saying like, actually, we have some of the 0:59:11.480 --> 0:59:14.080 best protections against AI and things like that in the industry, 0:59:14.480 --> 0:59:17.360 and like we're just not working with SAG for reasons, 0:59:17.680 --> 0:59:20.320 and they did not state those reasons, and SAG. 0:59:20.120 --> 0:59:23.680 Currently is on strike specifically in the video game industry 0:59:23.880 --> 0:59:25.560 over AI protections and voice acting. 0:59:25.640 --> 0:59:27.080 I'm just reading this statement. 0:59:27.400 --> 0:59:29.960 Yeah, we have respected and will continue to respect any 0:59:29.960 --> 0:59:31.920 act in needing to poost work during the ongoing sag 0:59:31.960 --> 0:59:35.160 aff Aftra video game strike. Well, none of all games 0:59:35.160 --> 0:59:37.720 have ever been subject to the sag Aftra contracts. For 0:59:37.720 --> 0:59:40.680 a variety of reasons. There we go, which means we 0:59:40.720 --> 0:59:42.040 wish the best. 0:59:42.320 --> 0:59:45.800 And so I reached out to Greg Kasavin, who's the 0:59:45.920 --> 0:59:48.240 like creative director over at Super Giant, who I've known 0:59:48.280 --> 0:59:50.480 for a lot of years, and asked that. I was like, 0:59:50.560 --> 0:59:53.240 can you provide any of the reasons, and he was 0:59:53.400 --> 0:59:54.360 basically like no. 0:59:55.160 --> 0:59:59.040 I was like, oh, thank you, man, I appreciate the comment. 0:59:59.400 --> 1:00:03.240 And it's just it's frustrating because Super Giant, I assume 1:00:03.280 --> 1:00:04.360 makes a ship a ton of money. 1:00:04.640 --> 1:00:07.800 Oh I mean haities was a massive a. 1:00:07.840 --> 1:00:09.440 Small studio relative to I mean. 1:00:09.360 --> 1:00:11.800 They's not a lot of overhead essentially. 1:00:11.520 --> 1:00:13.840 Saving the money there, where's that going. It's not even 1:00:13.920 --> 1:00:17.240 what the CEO makes more money if they if they 1:00:17.280 --> 1:00:20.360 do that, it's it's well. 1:00:20.400 --> 1:00:22.600 And also it's like it's a real bummer because otherwise 1:00:22.640 --> 1:00:25.400 they've been amazing in terms of like making games the 1:00:25.440 --> 1:00:28.000 right way, like they are very people focused studio I 1:00:28.040 --> 1:00:30.640 interviewed them years ago about like all the ways that 1:00:30.680 --> 1:00:33.200 they like. For example, they have mandatory vacation, so if 1:00:33.240 --> 1:00:35.080 you reach the end of the year and you haven't 1:00:35.160 --> 1:00:37.440 taken your vacation time, you have to just like take 1:00:37.440 --> 1:00:37.960 a month. 1:00:37.800 --> 1:00:39.640 Off and do that kind of a thing. 1:00:39.640 --> 1:00:41.640 And just to describe for the listeners, you haven't played 1:00:41.640 --> 1:00:44.600 Haydas or Haidi's two, which is coming out next year, probably. 1:00:44.360 --> 1:00:47.320 Isn't early access right now, and you can't. 1:00:47.120 --> 1:00:50.560 Play this game is both mechanically perfect. Haities two, I 1:00:50.560 --> 1:00:52.040 would argue, isn't I think Hades to. 1:00:52.800 --> 1:00:53.320 Really like Haites? 1:00:53.560 --> 1:00:53.880 I love it? 1:00:53.960 --> 1:00:56.000 No, I love it, I love you. I love it 1:00:56.040 --> 1:00:59.320 in that there are some bits that also isn't finished yet. Yeah. 1:00:59.440 --> 1:01:02.600 Nonetheless, the point is these games are mechanically perfect. They 1:01:02.640 --> 1:01:05.880 sound incredible, voice acting is amazing, they look, they feel amazing. 1:01:05.880 --> 1:01:07.840 There are tiny little systems, and on top of that, 1:01:07.840 --> 1:01:11.760 they're incredibly diverse. They prove that you can do diversity 1:01:12.000 --> 1:01:15.920 in this way that's very like a sincere and it 1:01:15.960 --> 1:01:16.880 doesn't feel it. 1:01:16.840 --> 1:01:18.920 Fits the setting, and the setting is like Greek mythology, 1:01:18.960 --> 1:01:19.960 and it's really cool. 1:01:20.200 --> 1:01:20.439 Yeah. 1:01:20.520 --> 1:01:25.480 Yeah, the whole plot of Achilles and Patroclus in Hades 1:01:25.960 --> 1:01:29.680 just melts my heart. It really is affecting. Nathan and 1:01:29.680 --> 1:01:31.600 I are both big fans of the game Pire, which 1:01:31.640 --> 1:01:33.440 is the game that came out right before, which. 1:01:33.320 --> 1:01:35.560 Is like still the best Super Giant game NBA. 1:01:35.440 --> 1:01:39.680 Jam essentially with Wizards, and then also it's a story 1:01:39.800 --> 1:01:44.360 of sincere revolution that asks you, the player, what it 1:01:44.400 --> 1:01:49.080 would mean to overcome oppression and why you would fight 1:01:49.160 --> 1:01:52.880 for it, and it is really affecting and meaningful storyline. 1:01:52.920 --> 1:01:55.040 One of the most amazing things about Super Giant is 1:01:55.080 --> 1:01:58.680 they have this like bespoke relationship with Darren corr a 1:01:58.720 --> 1:02:02.200 singer songwriter, Oh my music he makes where these games 1:02:02.440 --> 1:02:03.520 drive me to tears. 1:02:03.320 --> 1:02:04.080 And I love them. 1:02:04.160 --> 1:02:07.080 I actually really want to talk about Daryn Corb real quick. 1:02:07.200 --> 1:02:10.960 So Hades two has a boss against this band of 1:02:11.120 --> 1:02:16.880 Siren and they're all two different metals, like like metal 1:02:16.920 --> 1:02:17.840 adjacent songs. 1:02:17.640 --> 1:02:20.160 And that's about how much they hate you for killing. 1:02:19.960 --> 1:02:22.240 And how Badjo looks and what they're going to do 1:02:22.320 --> 1:02:26.400 to you, like and these songs are fucking bangas they're great. 1:02:26.520 --> 1:02:27.880 They want they have bloss bets. 1:02:27.880 --> 1:02:30.440 And one also bear in mind too that they had 1:02:30.480 --> 1:02:32.920 to write these songs with the expectation that, because of 1:02:32.960 --> 1:02:35.000 the game's run based structure, that you like do the 1:02:35.000 --> 1:02:36.760 same thing over and over and over. Yeah, but you 1:02:36.760 --> 1:02:38.800 will hear these songs like a hundred times, So they 1:02:38.800 --> 1:02:40.840 got to write something that they know you're not going 1:02:40.840 --> 1:02:44.160 to be irritated by hearing this many times, which to 1:02:44.240 --> 1:02:47.000 itself is this like level of craft is so different 1:02:47.000 --> 1:02:48.040 than just writing a song. 1:02:48.200 --> 1:02:50.240 There's like a little bit of a crossover with like 1:02:50.400 --> 1:02:55.440 musical theater with Durincorb, where the songs are people sing 1:02:55.440 --> 1:02:57.640 in these games when they are called to such a 1:02:57.720 --> 1:03:00.680 high level of emotion, and then they paint that a 1:03:00.760 --> 1:03:03.440 level of emotion also from you, the player, so that 1:03:03.480 --> 1:03:05.880 by the time you get to Sylla and the Sirens 1:03:05.880 --> 1:03:08.080 and your run again, you will be your blood will 1:03:08.120 --> 1:03:10.320 be pumping so hot that you just want to hear 1:03:10.360 --> 1:03:12.120 them burst into some minds And it's fucking great. 1:03:12.120 --> 1:03:14.280 And also that I'm ranting about this, I don't care. 1:03:14.920 --> 1:03:18.080 Your little pigs will slop this up. What's also great 1:03:18.080 --> 1:03:20.280 about this boss fight is it's three different things you're 1:03:20.280 --> 1:03:22.560 fighting and as you one is the drama, one is 1:03:22.560 --> 1:03:24.640 the guitarist, one as the singer, and if you kill 1:03:24.640 --> 1:03:26.680 off the drama, you no longer hear the drum baby 1:03:26.720 --> 1:03:28.000 or when they do, And it's. 1:03:27.800 --> 1:03:28.840 Like, it's beautiful. 1:03:28.920 --> 1:03:30.600 And the reason I bring this up as well is 1:03:31.040 --> 1:03:33.320 it's proof of what you can do in games and 1:03:33.360 --> 1:03:36.240 with technology when you just fucking think about what the 1:03:36.320 --> 1:03:39.240 medium is. Yeah, and it's so expertly done and it 1:03:39.280 --> 1:03:42.760 shows so much love, and it frustrates me because I 1:03:42.800 --> 1:03:45.280 know we've been quite negative today, but there are so 1:03:45.440 --> 1:03:48.040 many signs that games can be so much better and 1:03:48.040 --> 1:03:51.640 that there are these incredible like Hades two is even 1:03:51.720 --> 1:03:54.400 in early access, has so many bits to it. You're 1:03:54.440 --> 1:03:57.240 just like, wow, not only do you love games, but 1:03:57.320 --> 1:04:00.440 you want this to be cool. You have genuine creative 1:04:00.440 --> 1:04:02.600 expression that cannot be done anywhere else. 1:04:02.480 --> 1:04:04.280 Yes, in no other form, Like I mean that, this 1:04:04.320 --> 1:04:05.960 is why I talk about Dwarf Fortress like and you're 1:04:06.000 --> 1:04:09.080 constantly it's like, this is a game made by people 1:04:09.160 --> 1:04:11.240 that are clearly just obsessed with Lord of the Rings, 1:04:11.280 --> 1:04:15.360 but they also are obsessed with fantasy and building a 1:04:15.440 --> 1:04:22.120 world and uh, just native narrative experiences, the way that you, 1:04:22.160 --> 1:04:25.320 as a human being create a story inside of your mind. 1:04:25.440 --> 1:04:27.360 Yeah, Like you you. 1:04:27.000 --> 1:04:28.760 Have this little group of dwarves, and they all have 1:04:28.840 --> 1:04:32.800 distinct personalities that are all procedurally generated. They all have memories. 1:04:32.840 --> 1:04:35.120 They have all lived in a world that has built 1:04:35.120 --> 1:04:37.880 itself up over you know, in game like two hundred 1:04:37.880 --> 1:04:40.160 fifty in game years, So there is history. When you 1:04:40.200 --> 1:04:43.520 ask your dwarves to engrave carvings into the fortress you 1:04:43.560 --> 1:04:46.440 build inside of a mountain, they will build carvings of 1:04:46.560 --> 1:04:49.560 things that they remember from life, like when your mayor 1:04:49.600 --> 1:04:51.040 got elected, et cetera, et cetera. 1:04:51.920 --> 1:04:54.320 So as what I'm gonna do before I die, I'm 1:04:54.320 --> 1:04:55.240 gonna carve Eric. 1:04:55.120 --> 1:04:57.480 Adams in this Why oh God, yes, this carve is 1:04:57.520 --> 1:05:00.160 a my main memory memory. 1:05:00.280 --> 1:05:00.960 Eric Adams. 1:05:00.960 --> 1:05:03.080 But no, I remember I played a game once and 1:05:03.120 --> 1:05:06.680 there was a dwarf child that was just mad all 1:05:06.720 --> 1:05:09.440 the time, and I was like, dwarf child, you can't. 1:05:09.600 --> 1:05:12.520 You can't keep hitting people with an axe like you have. 1:05:12.560 --> 1:05:14.960 What's going on, God, Woke has gone wild? 1:05:15.040 --> 1:05:20.080 Well, it's because after a big orc attack at my fortress, 1:05:20.120 --> 1:05:23.440 a Goblin attack. His father had been in the military 1:05:23.760 --> 1:05:27.000 and his father died, and there weren't enough dwarfs after 1:05:27.040 --> 1:05:29.880 this attack to clean up all the corpses. So this 1:05:29.960 --> 1:05:32.760 dwarf child had to watch his father rode away at 1:05:32.760 --> 1:05:36.000 the floor and that permanently changed his personality. So now 1:05:36.080 --> 1:05:37.560 he's angry almost shiite. 1:05:37.720 --> 1:05:39.200 Within this game Dwarf Fortress. 1:05:39.280 --> 1:05:41.200 Yes, and I think that this is the thing. 1:05:41.360 --> 1:05:45.160 I refuse to be fully nihilistic about this stuff, because 1:05:45.520 --> 1:05:48.480 even with the slop Kings in power, it seems like 1:05:48.520 --> 1:05:51.520 cool shit is still being built. And as we wrap 1:05:51.640 --> 1:05:54.480 updata first, is there anything you're really looking forward to? 1:05:54.560 --> 1:05:56.280 Is there like a game coming out with something very 1:05:56.360 --> 1:05:59.280 recent you've played, You've kind of and it's Avowed. 1:05:59.320 --> 1:06:00.760 I'm playing at to stop. 1:06:01.240 --> 1:06:04.720 Avowed is the new game from Obsidian, the most recent 1:06:04.800 --> 1:06:05.680 game that people. 1:06:05.400 --> 1:06:06.320 Have died for them. 1:06:06.360 --> 1:06:08.800 I mean, they've made tons of incredible. 1:06:09.760 --> 1:06:10.640 Vegas is. 1:06:10.760 --> 1:06:13.920 I mean, Following New Vegas is just a precious jewel. 1:06:14.120 --> 1:06:16.640 I love that game. It is. It is worth. 1:06:16.760 --> 1:06:19.640 Following New Vegas is worth the three hours I spent 1:06:20.040 --> 1:06:21.960 modding the game so it would not crash when I 1:06:21.960 --> 1:06:22.959 tried to play it on my PC. 1:06:23.360 --> 1:06:25.720 I so it wasn't an Obsidian game anymore. 1:06:26.280 --> 1:06:31.120 Sorry, but it Avowed is It takes a lot of 1:06:31.160 --> 1:06:33.919 the systems that they developed for the Outer the Outer 1:06:34.000 --> 1:06:37.600 worlds and refines them, and then also you get really 1:06:37.920 --> 1:06:41.200 really excellent character writing all of the time. There's a 1:06:41.280 --> 1:06:43.320 character you meet right away in a vowed named Kai 1:06:43.400 --> 1:06:45.960 who is like a fish person and he's always got 1:06:45.960 --> 1:06:48.400 a little sarcastic quip to say about something, but he's 1:06:48.440 --> 1:06:50.720 also like a deeply empathetic like he has like a 1:06:50.760 --> 1:06:54.360 real tangible personality traits that make me excited to talk 1:06:54.400 --> 1:06:56.240 to him and hear him react to the things that 1:06:56.280 --> 1:06:59.400 I do. And another wonderful thing about this is the 1:06:59.480 --> 1:07:02.720 combat stuff is really really fun. But the choices in 1:07:02.760 --> 1:07:05.400 the quests that you're forced to make, they do not 1:07:05.640 --> 1:07:08.720 present a path to you that will not piss someone off. 1:07:09.040 --> 1:07:10.280 So you have to sit there. 1:07:11.160 --> 1:07:11.400 Yeah. 1:07:11.520 --> 1:07:14.800 Sorry, that's the fate of the smiling man. You just 1:07:14.920 --> 1:07:18.000 have to think to yourself, what are my convictions? And 1:07:18.040 --> 1:07:20.880 that is something that games can really make you confront 1:07:20.960 --> 1:07:21.760 within yourself. 1:07:21.960 --> 1:07:24.040 What do I believe about something? 1:07:24.120 --> 1:07:27.280 And you play as an envoy of an empire, and 1:07:27.360 --> 1:07:29.520 I found that what I have been doing in this 1:07:29.600 --> 1:07:32.200 game is just you know, I met up with the rebels, 1:07:32.240 --> 1:07:34.400 I had the option to kill someone who attempted to 1:07:34.400 --> 1:07:37.040 assassinate me or not. And when I heard that he 1:07:37.440 --> 1:07:40.760 realized that assassinating me wasn't the right choice to and 1:07:40.800 --> 1:07:43.160 then write the right way to defeat the Empire that 1:07:43.240 --> 1:07:47.160 is trying to take over the living lands. I decided 1:07:47.200 --> 1:07:49.760 to forgive him because I don't actually have any beef 1:07:49.800 --> 1:07:51.880 with them, and I don't think the things that the 1:07:51.880 --> 1:07:54.520 Empire are doing in this land me the person me Gita, 1:07:55.040 --> 1:07:57.080 I don't think the things that they are doing their 1:07:57.120 --> 1:08:00.640 attempt at colonizing this beautiful, lush lance gap that is 1:08:00.680 --> 1:08:02.800 fighting against them. I don't think that that is right, 1:08:03.200 --> 1:08:06.080 and so other characters have judged me for this, but 1:08:06.200 --> 1:08:08.560 I decided, you know what, I side with the rebels. 1:08:08.720 --> 1:08:11.440 I want the Umpire to dissolve, and that is how 1:08:11.440 --> 1:08:12.920 I'm going to play this game. That's the way this 1:08:13.040 --> 1:08:14.080 character is going to play this game. 1:08:14.160 --> 1:08:15.440 This is on PC and Xbox. 1:08:15.600 --> 1:08:17.320 Yes, it's fan tactic. 1:08:17.400 --> 1:08:17.920 That's really good. 1:08:17.920 --> 1:08:20.680 So it's nice. What about you? What game? So? 1:08:20.760 --> 1:08:23.320 I recently played a demo for a game called skin Deep, 1:08:23.560 --> 1:08:26.400 and so skin Deep is I would describe it as 1:08:26.520 --> 1:08:32.040 a like slapstick stealth immersive sim game. The idea being that, 1:08:32.120 --> 1:08:35.400 like you are somebody who works in a very wacky 1:08:35.439 --> 1:08:39.080 form of insurance where basically you get frozen and stored 1:08:39.120 --> 1:08:41.280 to board ships that have important cargo on them, and 1:08:41.280 --> 1:08:44.000 if somebody breaks into that ship, then they unfreeze you 1:08:44.080 --> 1:08:46.839 and you run around and take care of whoever's on there, okay, 1:08:46.960 --> 1:08:50.040 And it's really it's just really clever. It's one of 1:08:50.080 --> 1:08:51.679 those games that, again it could only be a game, 1:08:51.760 --> 1:08:53.439 so like it thinks about all these things that other 1:08:53.479 --> 1:08:56.840 games of this sort don't. So like your character is 1:08:56.880 --> 1:08:59.719 barefoot for whatever reason, and so like if there's glass around, 1:08:59.760 --> 1:09:01.639 you can step on the glass and then you can 1:09:01.680 --> 1:09:03.040 like pry it out of your foot and use it 1:09:03.040 --> 1:09:05.800 as a weapon if you want to. But also like 1:09:05.840 --> 1:09:07.920 the combat is so different from what you expect in 1:09:07.960 --> 1:09:10.880 these games, and that like instead of you being this 1:09:11.040 --> 1:09:15.599 master of like martial arts, you have to like briefly 1:09:15.600 --> 1:09:18.479 incapacitate somebody with any number of comedy items, Like you 1:09:18.520 --> 1:09:20.720 can throw a banana peel and they'll slip them all on, 1:09:21.200 --> 1:09:23.160 and then you like go jump on their back, and 1:09:23.200 --> 1:09:25.360 like you're trying to wrestle them into something and they're 1:09:25.360 --> 1:09:27.759 like trying to push you off. You're not like physically 1:09:27.760 --> 1:09:30.240 stronger than them, and so it descends into just like 1:09:30.760 --> 1:09:33.360 lunacy and madness almost every time that you are trying 1:09:33.400 --> 1:09:34.280 to bring somebody down. 1:09:34.479 --> 1:09:36.559 And just to be clear, what platform is this on. 1:09:36.680 --> 1:09:38.840 That's PC, So it's not VR or anything you're not 1:09:38.880 --> 1:09:39.360 doing this with. 1:09:39.680 --> 1:09:42.759 Yeah, that's and it's from this one studio that actually 1:09:42.760 --> 1:09:46.080 they're called Blendo. They've been around for a while. Yeah, 1:09:46.080 --> 1:09:49.679 they're amazing, and they they've always been really smart about 1:09:49.680 --> 1:09:53.120 like integrating cinematic techniques that other video games don't. They 1:09:53.120 --> 1:09:55.000 made this one game forever ago called Thirty Flights of 1:09:55.040 --> 1:09:57.920 Level that relies a lot on like jump cuts, yeah, 1:09:58.040 --> 1:10:00.400 in a first person setting, which feels I think unnatural 1:10:00.479 --> 1:10:02.680 to gamers who are used to continuity in a first 1:10:02.680 --> 1:10:03.160 person game. 1:10:03.160 --> 1:10:05.960 The Thirty Flights of Loving is an experience worth having. 1:10:06.040 --> 1:10:09.880 It's a very short, narrative game, and I if you 1:10:09.920 --> 1:10:13.760 want to understand just like how games work, how the 1:10:13.800 --> 1:10:18.240 moving image creates narrative, creates associations. It is very instructive 1:10:18.320 --> 1:10:19.559 and it's also really affecting. 1:10:19.760 --> 1:10:20.360 Yeah cool. 1:10:20.479 --> 1:10:23.920 And so these developers are also really good, surprisingly good 1:10:23.960 --> 1:10:26.960 at not making just like on rail cinematic experiences, but 1:10:27.000 --> 1:10:29.960 also like these really intricate systems. And that's what skin 1:10:30.080 --> 1:10:33.559 Deep is it's this game where so many funny, weird 1:10:33.600 --> 1:10:37.240 things can happen, like you know, and you can you 1:10:37.240 --> 1:10:39.240 can replay levels and figure out all this stuff. Like 1:10:39.280 --> 1:10:42.280 the first time that I played the demo level, I 1:10:42.360 --> 1:10:44.519 nearly like lost, and you know, I sucked at it. 1:10:44.760 --> 1:10:47.080 And the second time I realized, Oh, man, I can 1:10:47.120 --> 1:10:49.760 break the glass on this spaceship and open it to 1:10:49.800 --> 1:10:52.160 the vacuum of space, and so I can go around 1:10:52.160 --> 1:10:54.480 like wreaking havoc on these guards by just like subjecting 1:10:54.520 --> 1:10:54.920 them to. 1:10:55.000 --> 1:10:58.400 Like a James Bone, like a moonrak Is situation. Yeah, yeah, 1:10:58.439 --> 1:10:59.280 that's so beautiful. 1:10:59.400 --> 1:11:00.760 So and that's the thing. 1:11:00.800 --> 1:11:02.960 I really want to leave the listeners here with the censor, 1:11:03.280 --> 1:11:07.439 there's still cool shit happening. Oh yeah, everywhere, and there 1:11:07.560 --> 1:11:10.479 is hope to be had. Geeta, where can people find you? 1:11:10.600 --> 1:11:12.960 Oh, you can find me on Aftermath that site totally. 1:11:14.000 --> 1:11:17.120 I'm exo Exo gossip gita on social media Instagram and 1:11:17.120 --> 1:11:19.639 Blue Sky basically is where I post at this point. 1:11:20.800 --> 1:11:23.519 But yeah, everything I write will be on Aftermath, So 1:11:23.760 --> 1:11:26.080 look after me there, Nathan. 1:11:26.120 --> 1:11:29.240 Aftermath, do's say as well? And then I'm at Nathan 1:11:29.240 --> 1:11:33.240 Grayson on Blue Sky. I'm glorious curly map on Instagram. 1:11:33.640 --> 1:11:35.760 And then I also for a book called Stream Big 1:11:35.840 --> 1:11:38.160 the Triumphs and Turmoils of Twitch and the starts behind 1:11:38.160 --> 1:11:40.519 the Screen, and you can get that wherever books are sold. 1:11:40.840 --> 1:11:43.519 Now I'm going to kind of force you all to 1:11:43.560 --> 1:11:45.240 do this. I need you to go to aftermath dot 1:11:45.280 --> 1:11:47.040 site and need you to pay them. I need you 1:11:47.080 --> 1:11:50.280 to buy Nathan's book. Ideally, I need you to go 1:11:50.320 --> 1:11:52.080 and make your friends by it as well, and you 1:11:52.280 --> 1:11:55.360 also subscribe to Aftermath. I say this from the bottom 1:11:55.360 --> 1:11:57.600 of my heart to leave this episode games show them, 1:11:58.439 --> 1:12:00.360 Jesus Christ. 1:12:00.479 --> 1:12:02.519 I'm not I'm not cutting it. 1:12:03.200 --> 1:12:05.840 Games journalism genuinely made me who I am and like 1:12:05.840 --> 1:12:08.920 people like Will Porter, Steve Hogarty and log of course 1:12:09.000 --> 1:12:12.240 John byThe really changed and even Kieran Gillen, who's become 1:12:12.280 --> 1:12:14.599 more of a friends since I left anyway, And it's 1:12:14.680 --> 1:12:17.280 lovely to have you two here because games journalism is 1:12:17.479 --> 1:12:19.519 very meaningful and I still don't think it's where it 1:12:19.560 --> 1:12:22.040 needs to be, but I think the aftermaths bringing it there. 1:12:22.400 --> 1:12:24.200 You will love me, though, so you know where to 1:12:24.200 --> 1:12:27.559 find my shit. Please keep downloading this show. Please tell 1:12:27.600 --> 1:12:30.120 people to download it to I need the downloads if 1:12:30.120 --> 1:12:33.400 I don't get them all died, I love. 1:12:33.240 --> 1:12:35.240 You all away in front of my eyes. 1:12:35.280 --> 1:12:37.080 I'm literally dying, but I do love you. 1:12:46.240 --> 1:12:47.920 Thank you for listening to Better Offline. 1:12:48.040 --> 1:12:50.439 The editor and composer of the Better Offline theme song 1:12:50.560 --> 1:12:53.200 is Mattasowski. You can check out more of his music 1:12:53.200 --> 1:12:56.720 and audio projects at Mattasowski dot com m A. T. 1:12:56.840 --> 1:12:59.599 T OsO w s Ki. 1:13:01.240 --> 1:13:03.559 You can email me at easy at Better offline dot 1:13:03.560 --> 1:13:05.800 com or visit better Offline dot com to find more 1:13:05.840 --> 1:13:09.200 podcast links and of course, my newsletter. I also really 1:13:09.240 --> 1:13:11.479 recommend you go to chat dot Where's youreaed dot at 1:13:11.560 --> 1:13:14.000 to visit the discord, and go to our slash Better 1:13:14.040 --> 1:13:15.599 Offline to check out our reddit. 1:13:16.400 --> 1:13:19.640 Thank you so much for listening. Better Offline is a 1:13:19.680 --> 1:13:21.040 production of cool Zone Media. 1:13:21.200 --> 1:13:24.040 For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool 1:13:24.080 --> 1:13:27.479 Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 1:13:27.520 --> 1:13:30.160 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.