Giant Bombcast 08-09-2011

[0] It's Tuesday, August the 9th, 2011, and you're listening to The Giant Bobcast.

[1] I'm Ryan Davis.

[2] Ryan D. Copperbottom.

[3] How you doing, buddy?

[4] I'm doing good.

[5] Vidi Caravella, how you doing?

[6] All right.

[7] Yeah.

[8] Yeah.

[9] Yeah.

[10] Okay.

[11] Yeah.

[12] Got some new toys.

[13] Yes, we did.

[14] I saw the glimmer in your eye at that.

[15] Some new old toys.

[16] New old toys.

[17] Brought the best back.

[18] That's right.

[19] We got some stuff which has been posted up, pinned to the wall because it was like, do we buy this or do we not buy this?

[20] And pinned kind of like high up to the wall as though to like suggest like it's kind of a stretch for us to get this thing.

[21] It was a stretch literally and figuratively to get that thing.

[22] It was high up on the wall and also we had to figure out are we going to use this thing?

[23] Is this expensive?

[24] It's expensive.

[25] Can we justify this?

[26] So basically what it is is a scan converter.

[27] Scan converter?

[28] I don't know what that means.

[29] It hopefully converts your scans into anything you want.

[30] So you put something in slot A. I mean, my printer's got a scanner on it.

[31] Can we just use that?

[32] You could.

[33] If you do it fast enough, probably.

[34] It could probably convert some scans.

[35] And then flip book style?

[36] Well, you know, it converts a scan into a piece of paper to be printed out.

[37] That's the same thing.

[38] This converts scans into other scans, right?

[39] It converts what you put in slot A into output B, let's say, and into what you want.

[40] So what are you giving me?

[41] Give me something.

[42] It's a piece of paper.

[43] All right.

[44] I've got a 480i image of this piece of pizza paper.

[45] This pizza paper.

[46] This pizza paper.

[47] This name can make pizza?

[48] Stained and oily.

[49] It's pizza paper, yeah.

[50] It's pizza paper.

[51] It's a new kind of paper that you can eat that tastes like pizza.

[52] Is that scan converter properly seasoned yet?

[53] Not yet.

[54] We have to run through the oven a couple of times.

[55] They're waiting for somebody else to do it so I can yell at them.

[56] Remember, only clean it with salt.

[57] And basically what comes out the other side is you dial it in and you say, hey, I want 720p.

[58] And a problem we were running into was not a lot of things were able to take things like a SNES, which puts out crazy signals, like 240p essentially.

[59] So it's half of the 480i field.

[60] What it comes down to is that the downside of us getting lots of really kick -ass pro -grade equipment is that it is expecting pro -grade signals to come in.

[61] It's not like all commerce.

[62] man i'll take whatever you got like but the hardest thing is that stuff the old stuff like the snes and the nes which is like well we couldn't really figure out how to get you all 480 lines alternating so we're just going to give you half of that and your tv will be fine don't worry about it it's analog now we don't live in an analog world now we're all digital and it's like when you give something digitally to something else it expects a handshake that is like you're telling me this is 480 no yeah well that's what it says on the box and it's like no this is this i can hell, this is $200.

[63] I can smell it.

[64] And so I'm just going to show you what you're giving me. So yeah, we spent a lot of money to be able to...

[65] So that Vinny could play Super Mario All -Stars in 720p.

[66] And they were.

[67] I saw them.

[68] And it does other things too, like the way we play.

[69] Uniracers in 720p.

[70] Michael Jackson's Moonwalker.

[71] These were all on the list when I submitted the expense report.

[72] This is what we'll be able to do.

[73] Yes, hopefully.

[74] Fingers crossed.

[75] Crystallists and FX racers and everything.

[76] But also things like capturing computer BIOS, BIOS, all that stuff seems to work.

[77] All those crazy resolutions that computers kick out that's not 720p.

[78] we should be able to convert into something we can record now.

[79] Will can record his bio setups.

[80] Expect a broader range of video stupidity from us in the future.

[81] That's right.

[82] Subscribers.

[83] That's what all this does for us.

[84] Members, expect all that stuff.

[85] A lot of sepia -toned content forthcoming.

[86] That's right.

[87] Old school.

[88] Patrick Klepik.

[89] I really want some pizza paper now.

[90] Delicious pizza.

[91] It's like the thinnest thin crust pizza you've ever had.

[92] See, when I think of pizza paper now.

[93] New York pizza taken to some crazy extreme.

[94] It's like nano pizza.

[95] I think of that piece of wax paper that's on the bottom of the pie.

[96] Yeah.

[97] That all the cheese sticks to.

[98] You kind of want to lick it.

[99] You kind of want to pull the cheese off.

[100] Oh, I definitely pull the cheese off.

[101] But then you pull the cheese off until you get a piece of wax paper on it.

[102] And you're not sure if you should stop or not.

[103] And be like, ah, it's just a little bit.

[104] Do I just eat it off the paper?

[105] It's just so much.

[106] That's pizza paper.

[107] Yeah.

[108] Do you take the cheese that's on the wax paper and put it back on the slice of cheese or do you eat the cheese separately?

[109] I used to eat the cheese separately.

[110] Like after you've eaten the slice.

[111] It's like you're not hungry enough for a whole other slice or you know rationally I shouldn't get another slice, but I really want some more cheese.

[112] Or just like you take a slice and there's that weird like ragged -edged corner at the tip of the slice that – tore off and is now attached to another slice of pizza.

[113] You ever just go and just peel that off?

[114] You don't want to do a full slice, but I'm just going to take, instead of letting it be attached to this piece of pizza that's still in the box.

[115] Surgically remove it from the other.

[116] I'm peeling it off of this one where you can tell there was supposed to be a cut, but it wasn't quite right.

[117] I always feel bad when I'm pulling out the slice and it steals the other slice's cheese.

[118] That's what I'm talking about.

[119] Yeah.

[120] But this is the reverse.

[121] And you've murdered half of that other slice.

[122] And then you're just like, well, fuck that slice.

[123] But you're not going to give the cheese back.

[124] No. You're going to cut it off.

[125] It's like, that's your cheese.

[126] But what if the cheese was taken from you?

[127] That's unfortunate.

[128] You should just work around the other side of the pie.

[129] Yeah, forget that one.

[130] Go this way.

[131] Well, the worst is when two people are pulling at those slices.

[132] It's one thing when you just go to grab a slice and no one's going for the other slice yet and they can avoid it, go to another one.

[133] But when two people are pulling away at the slices and someone just doesn't get the cheese.

[134] That's like some wishbone shit.

[135] That's good luck for the guy who has way more cheese on his pizza.

[136] It's got to be faster or something.

[137] I'm sure there's an art. If you bring home a bag of fast food and the person who's divvying up the fast food gets the fries at the bottom of the bag.

[138] They get the bagels.

[139] Absolutely.

[140] The person who brought home the bag gets the bottom of the bag.

[141] Bagels?

[142] Bagels.

[143] I've never heard of that.

[144] I've never heard of that term.

[145] Yeah.

[146] It's like a fraggle.

[147] You ever get that really rare situation with the pizza where you're pulling them apart and the entire top layer of one of the slices, like the whole upper stratum of that one piece of pizza just like right off, and then it's nothing but crust with a little bit of tomato sauce.

[148] Just wet, mushy crust.

[149] What did you even do?

[150] You fold it up onto yours, and it's like, I have double pizza for now.

[151] Yeah, but then later you get it.

[152] No, you're mortgaging your future, man. You know when you're doing it.

[153] Pizza's fantastic.

[154] Pizza's pretty good.

[155] Sicilian pie.

[156] It never happens with a Sicilian pie.

[157] They're made better.

[158] Says you.

[159] Brad Shoemaker.

[160] Hi.

[161] My leg itches.

[162] What's going on with that?

[163] I don't know.

[164] It's hot in here.

[165] Do you get bit?

[166] I don't know.

[167] Maybe.

[168] In here?

[169] Spider bites?

[170] Maybe.

[171] Spider bites.

[172] Hey, guys.

[173] Before we get into the show, I wanted to throw something out here.

[174] I got this email from Stephen Marks.

[175] Bagels.

[176] Bagels.

[177] That's where that term came from.

[178] I think it was – you know what?

[179] I'm probably co -opting some like bad marketing where they like were Burger King defined terms like baggles, like making up stupid words for – hey, also sidebar here.

[180] This goes back to last week's TNT.

[181] I can't find a Fifth Avenue bar fucking anywhere.

[182] Oh, did you go looking?

[183] Yeah.

[184] We were – did you guys ever watch Stargate?

[185] Sure.

[186] The movie?

[187] The movie?

[188] I think Brad was the only one not here when that conversation happened.

[189] Okay.

[190] I did see James Spader on 2nd Street.

[191] Oh, that's right.

[192] You were playing.

[193] I saw him, too.

[194] You were there, weren't you?

[195] Yeah, we were sitting outside having lunch.

[196] We were trying to...

[197] We were across the street and was like, oh, shit, that's James Spader.

[198] Patrick Ryan and I were trying to figure out the bar James Spader feeds to the...

[199] The elephant.

[200] Yeah, the Harry Elephant thing.

[201] It's been so long.

[202] It's a 5th Avenue bar is what we discovered.

[203] I'll believe that.

[204] Over the weekend, I was in several...

[205] establishments where one might buy a candy bar.

[206] And I looked around.

[207] I couldn't find a 5th Avenue.

[208] Did you even look under, like, the Mars bars and everything?

[209] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[210] I tried to, like, go to, like, oh, so where do they keep the 100 Grands and where do they keep the Rolos?

[211] Well, I was in, like, a Walgreens, and usually they have, like, that crazy candy section.

[212] Did you ask?

[213] Did you, like, hey, I can't find the 5th Avenue?

[214] You don't want to ask.

[215] Who are you?

[216] Who are you?

[217] If you can't find the 5th Avenue bar out there, no Walgreens employee is going to help you.

[218] Like, they don't know any better than you.

[219] They're going to just come over and look at it and go, yeah, I don't see it either.

[220] Or it's, like, just to watch them look, too.

[221] Or it's, code and they're going to wink at you and then take you back and give you a bag of weed.

[222] Can I get a Fifth Avenue bar?

[223] I was in Marin.

[224] That probably would have been the place where...

[225] Okay, come with me. Gone in the back and sold me a sack of bagels.

[226] They had a whole sack of Fifth Avenue bagels.

[227] Oh, man. My weekend is done.

[228] So what do you got there, Ryan?

[229] Like I said, this email is from Stephen Marks.

[230] It says, Hi, Bombcast.

[231] I was really excited to hear you mixing up the sequence of segments on the Bobcast this week.

[232] This is a couple weeks old.

[233] Also, it's on paper.

[234] It is.

[235] I printed it out.

[236] We need it.

[237] All right.

[238] Got that scan converter now.

[239] It seemed to have an invigorating effect, and I think the community was well served by it.

[240] However, it struck me as fundamentally unfair that Ryan still had to know the sequence of the podcast, thereby missing out on the seat of your pants excitement that the rest of the crew got to enjoy.

[241] To this end, I have formulated a series of tables you may use to randomize the show's order using nothing more than one six -sided die, as I have in hand.

[242] All right.

[243] Something balanced.

[244] I have released this system under the Creative Commons license in the hope that it will allow each and every one of you to enjoy the unpredictable freshness brought by doing emails first.

[245] All right.

[246] What's his name?

[247] This is Steven Marks.

[248] All right.

[249] This is the Marks system.

[250] Yeah, you know, there's no name for it.

[251] There's no given name for it other than...

[252] This is now Marks, two males with really complicated systems.

[253] The guy who sent along the Fallout 3 save hierarchy.

[254] Oh, God, yeah.

[255] I need to publish that so people can look at it.

[256] Some guy not only made a flowchart, but he constructed it in ASCII.

[257] Like, right in the email.

[258] I'll tell you this.

[259] I got that email originally on my iPhone.

[260] That email does not format particularly well outside of a regular.

[261] So I start scrolling down.

[262] I'm like, oh, this is just crazy.

[263] I need to delete this right now.

[264] Yeah, you had a bad reaction.

[265] I was like, why is he upset about that email?

[266] This is amazing.

[267] Because when I saw it, I'm like, they actually tried to take our stupid IDs and turn them into a usable save structure.

[268] Well, no, he came up with his own system.

[269] To be fair, most other people just shit on our discussion and said we were idiots.

[270] It was just a discussion.

[271] It was simply a matter of discussion posed on a podcast.

[272] So what do we do?

[273] What's Mark 1?

[274] At the beginning of each podcast segment, roll the die.

[275] Depending on the results, proceed with the following segment.

[276] Alright, let's try it.

[277] Alright, who wants to roll first?

[278] Brad, you roll first.

[279] Alright.

[280] Five.

[281] He rolls a five.

[282] Roll again if the die indicates five a second time and the podcast immediately.

[283] Oh, my God.

[284] Oh, my God.

[285] I hold all of our feet in the palm of my hand.

[286] Here we go.

[287] Oh, my God.

[288] Wow.

[289] Well, this is...

[290] All right.

[291] Stop it.

[292] We've got to start again, right?

[293] Second podcast for today.

[294] All right.

[295] Thanks for listening to the Giant Bombcast.

[296] Be sure to tune back in next week with another edition of the Giant Bombcast.

[297] You loaded this thing, didn't you?

[298] When it's Tuesday, August the 9th, 2011, and you are listening to The Giant Bobcast.

[299] I'm your host, Ryan Davis.

[300] Ryan P. Copperpot.

[301] Vinny Caravella.

[302] How you doing, man?

[303] I'm excellent.

[304] Patrick Klepik.

[305] I feel like I've been here before.

[306] Brad Shoemaker.

[307] Why do I feel like I've had this discussion before?

[308] We tried.

[309] Piece of paper.

[310] Steve, we tried your method here.

[311] You might remember from the last podcast.

[312] Stephen Marks, hey, you might remember from the earlier podcast that happened.

[313] I crunched up that piece of paper.

[314] I feel like he put that in there as like, this would be a funny aside.

[315] That won't happen on the first roll.

[316] What are the chances of that happening?

[317] And sure enough, it happened on the very first roll.

[318] I was going to use this for the rest of the show, but now I know that I can't trust it.

[319] I didn't see anything in that guide that said we had to do another podcast.

[320] No, it didn't.

[321] But I would feel really bad if we didn't do...

[322] Brad, roll that die.

[323] That would have been really funny.

[324] Do an actual podcast.

[325] No, no, no. Come on.

[326] I'm not going to use it now.

[327] I'm not going to use it now.

[328] Eliminate the five rule.

[329] It's a four.

[330] We'll just eliminate the five rule.

[331] New releases.

[332] All right.

[333] All right.

[334] Let's talk about some new releases.

[335] There aren't any.

[336] Fruit Ninja Connect.

[337] Yeah.

[338] It's like...

[339] fucking literally the only thing coming out this week.

[340] Nothing is coming out on discs.

[341] PlayStation...

[342] PlayStation Network doesn't have anything new coming out this week.

[343] Like, it's just...

[344] It's nothing.

[345] So...

[346] No video games.

[347] Play some Fruit Ninja Connect.

[348] We'll keep an eye on Steam and see if stuff pops up on there.

[349] No, nothing!

[350] Eh, you never know.

[351] Ata!

[352] Something.

[353] Nothing.

[354] Roll again.

[355] Alright, Patrick's gonna roll.

[356] We're gonna pass it around now.

[357] A three.

[358] A three.

[359] What have you been playing?

[360] Hey, Vinny!

[361] Nice.

[362] What have you been playing, my friend?

[363] I made some fantastic, fantastic Headway in the Witcher.

[364] Oh, great.

[365] I'm in chapter three.

[366] Fantastic.

[367] Yeah, it was fantastic.

[368] Out of four, right?

[369] I know out of like five or six in an epilogue.

[370] Oh.

[371] But man, I'm liking it more and more as I go through.

[372] Did that quickly go up?

[373] Yeah.

[374] Okay.

[375] Yeah.

[376] That was Chapter 2.

[377] Now I'm past there.

[378] That's old news.

[379] I didn't look at any of the responses to that.

[380] I think people like that game, and I like that game too.

[381] Oh, no, no. Not responses to the game.

[382] Responses to our dumb video of the game.

[383] By all accounts, anyone who has played The Witcher through really likes The Witcher, so I can't.

[384] It's making me more and more excited to get into The Witcher 2 at some point.

[385] I was bummed that game never came to 360.

[386] The original Witcher?

[387] Yeah, I just don't have a PC that can be capable of running it.

[388] And it was going to come, and then they just canned the original one.

[389] There are rough spots in it, but it's a nice, deep, I feel like a nice, deep RPG.

[390] And as I get further along in it...

[391] the variety and skill seems to be paying off.

[392] So I'm really happy.

[393] It's one of those things that just – How do you feel about the nature of the combat?

[394] It's one of the things that always struck me as a little weird.

[395] It is a little weird, but – It's not that it's like it's too deep or too complex or anything.

[396] It's – I don't know.

[397] Like the kind of the rhythmic – Yeah.

[398] It's action -y in an odd way.

[399] But like clearly there's like a lot of the kind of hardcore stance stuff is still in there.

[400] But it's one of those things that you – on the outside seems kind of complex and just kind of – I'm never going to wrap my head around this.

[401] It's too complicated.

[402] But then you just realize what you need to do and it's really easy.

[403] Like you're just like, oh, there's three guys.

[404] There's more than one guy group stance.

[405] This guy, I'm not hitting him with this.

[406] I guess it's – yeah, it's not that I ever found it or – perceived it as being too complicated.

[407] You have these six stances to choose from because you have three for each sword.

[408] Well, I mean, that only seems complicated until someone tells you like fucking silver swords are for like crazy monsters.

[409] Steel swords are for regular dudes.

[410] And then you've got three stances.

[411] But then the other thing is you have these two other weapons you can keep on your belt, which I just never use.

[412] You saw me in the quick line.

[413] I have two other axes.

[414] Yeah, you're like, I've got these sick axes and they look awesome on me, but I'm never going to use these frigging axes.

[415] But there's something about it that I really enjoy.

[416] I mean, I think it's one of those, like, just for the sake of being an RPG of, we will let you play this game however the hell you want.

[417] If you want to just be the axe -wielding maniac witcher, you can just double axes the entire time.

[418] I don't know if you can pick them both out at the same time.

[419] So I'm invested in...

[420] This game sounds like crap.

[421] If I can't have two axes out at once...

[422] At the same time?

[423] I really like...

[424] I'm getting more and more into the fiction as well.

[425] I'm on the second book right now.

[426] Is that the hook?

[427] The fiction?

[428] Yeah.

[429] The fiction I think is great.

[430] That was always the thing that I was – that's why I wanted to play.

[431] It sounded like less the game.

[432] I mean there's interesting stuff going on there, but it always seemed like it was just a really damn good story.

[433] So the story is interesting.

[434] I don't know without like kind of reading all the books and stuff like that if I'd be as invested because the voice acting isn't that great sometimes.

[435] Right.

[436] And like some of the dialogue can be hit or miss. But it's dark.

[437] But it's kind of dark, yeah.

[438] And some of the missions I played through were just kind of grindy.

[439] But I do, having read the book and kind of now into the second book, they are very good at keeping with that fiction and making sure that world and The Witcher kind of play out as if they're really big fans.

[440] You know how everybody says, we're big fans of the fiction.

[441] We want to make a game that represents that.

[442] Like this feels like that.

[443] The only thing of my experience with The Witcher has been that I never felt – and watching you play it some and what I played of The Witcher 2.

[444] I never felt like there was like a grand – like the world is huge and the world is very well detailed.

[445] And it's not like – What's the big conflict?

[446] It's not like there's a lack of scope.

[447] But like the trials of The Witcher himself always seem kind of subdued and kind of low -key.

[448] There's a weird, like, yeah, it's this dark fantasy setting, and it's this very detailed world, but he's kind of like a private dick in this weird way.

[449] There's almost like this film noir, like, okay, he gets this job, now he has to go and do fucking research to figure out how he's actually going to finish this job.

[450] He's a little Batman -y.

[451] It's procedural, in a way.

[452] Yeah, well, the thing that's kind of, the main...

[453] tone i get from the books is like this is the moving away from the age of magic and and monsters and what do you do when you are basically a construct to fight magic and monsters right and as the world moves on are you still a part of that world are you part of like the dying past so the witcher is basically a guy who has to go out and fight monsters and like everybody was like yeah bring the witchers and now the monsters are kind of like fading away like there aren't as many monsters anymore Maybe he's got an identity crisis.

[454] To be clear, there are still a fucking lot of monsters.

[455] There are kind of a lot of monsters.

[456] But, like, the world doesn't require legions of these people in order to...

[457] Well, everybody kind of looks at The Witcher and is like, you're a monster.

[458] Like, freak, get out of here.

[459] And he's kind of like, well, I'm just trying to help you out.

[460] Like, whatever, dude.

[461] Like, you suck.

[462] So, it's a weird, like...

[463] It's almost like a darker...

[464] It's like the Jedi were kind of, like, not looked upon as, like...

[465] Kind of like in Episode 4, 5, and 6 where it was, what the fuck is a Jedi?

[466] Like go back to hokey mysticism kind of stuff.

[467] You know, like Han Solo is like whatever Jedi.

[468] So it's kind of like that where you imagine there was this once an age of, you know, Episode 1, 2, and 3 where these guys were kind of like heralded and, you know.

[469] People went out and slaughtered all the witchers and there were like five left in the world.

[470] So you're telling me that The Witcher is really about Joseph Stalin, right?

[471] Kind of.

[472] I didn't say that.

[473] But anyway, I don't know.

[474] I like the books.

[475] I'm on the second one now.

[476] I really like what's going on in the fiction of the game.

[477] Speaking of fiction, how goes the Warhammer 40K reading?

[478] Thanks to the dude or people that sent me books.

[479] I got two books in the mail.

[480] I don't know.

[481] Two novels that are on my bookshelf right now.

[482] I'll get to read them and then we'll do a raffle or something and pass them on to anybody who wants them.

[483] You know, I can't remember the names of them because they're all crazy names.

[484] But it's not the ones.

[485] It's not the...

[486] It's not the Horus Heresy.

[487] It's not the Horus Heresy.

[488] That was definitely...

[489] I wouldn't say a consensus was reached, but that one had the most recommendations that I saw.

[490] So I bought that digitally from the Black Library, which is where you get all your Warhammer fiction digitally from.

[491] That's the game's workshop store.

[492] No Kindle.

[493] So you can buy Kindle -compatible stuff, but they don't seem to sell through the Kindle store.

[494] How does that work?

[495] Like the Harry Potter stuff came out, and that also is like DRM -free, but I mean...

[496] Is it in, like, a universal form?

[497] Like, how is an e -book distributed, and how do you, like, put it on a Kindle?

[498] I think this is MOBI format.

[499] It is.

[500] It's MOBI format.

[501] So it is, like, a standard format.

[502] And then, yeah, and then basically you can plug your Kindle into your computer and drag it into the file structure.

[503] Weird.

[504] Keep in mind that they can read it, like, a Kindle can read it a few different weird...

[505] Like a PDF.

[506] Yeah, I mean, I know it's just, like, text when you get down to it.

[507] But, yeah, it has, like, chapter selection.

[508] It looks just like a Kindle book.

[509] And I think you can also email yourself stuff from your Kindle account.

[510] Anyway, I got that.

[511] So now I have the Horus Heresy, which is where I think I'm going to start.

[512] So that, oddly enough, doing some research into this, I guess that starts in like 31K.

[513] What?

[514] Oh, yeah.

[515] This is like 10 ,000 years before Warhammer 40K.

[516] Whoa.

[517] And this is like – Horus is like one of the Emperor's sons who chooses chaos and – And, like, gets, like, half of the sons of the Emperor.

[518] This is crazy because there are people out there who are going to correct us to hell.

[519] And this is, like, the survey.

[520] This is our understanding of it.

[521] This is my understanding for, like, third, fourth -hand knowledge.

[522] But, yeah, it takes place way before any of the Warhammer 40K stuff.

[523] So I looked up some stuff about the Emperor, and apparently he's, like...

[524] He's ageless.

[525] He's immortal, right?

[526] He's been around forever.

[527] He's like Jesus.

[528] So it's always the same emperor?

[529] Yes.

[530] Whoa.

[531] So really he is the emperor.

[532] He is the emperor.

[533] And when I say he's like Jesus, I mean like he was Jesus.

[534] Like he has been around through humanity kind of in the background.

[535] And like kind of like he's got these special gifts.

[536] He was contrived from these druids.

[537] I don't know.

[538] Something.

[539] And then at some point he was like, fuck, we're headed nowhere.

[540] I'm going to come out and be like, hey.

[541] This is what we need to do.

[542] I've got psychic powers.

[543] Let's go crazy.

[544] And so I guess in the Horus Heresy, he's still kind of a man. And like in 40K, he's just hooked up to a machine and eats psychic people and spreads his goodwill throughout the universe.

[545] He eats them?

[546] I think he has to eat like 100 psychers or psychic people a day or something to keep the – But he's good.

[547] Physically eat their bodies?

[548] I don't know.

[549] Like suck the psychic juice out of them.

[550] Well, he's in a machine.

[551] Like nobody ever sees him.

[552] They just force feed it through an IV.

[553] So it's kind of crazy.

[554] So I want to start there and get it through at least one of those books before I hit the other books that take place in 10 ,000 years later.

[555] There's something that put me off actually when I was like 10 ,000 years, how much is it going to change?

[556] Nothing really.

[557] Not that much.

[558] Really 10 ,000 years.

[559] And you're telling me that you're still going to have chain swords in 31 and 40.

[560] That put me off a little bit being like any continuum that long, hopefully you have something that's changed in 10 ,000 years.

[561] That was the thing that you couldn't stomach.

[562] A little bit.

[563] It wasn't the immortal emperor godhead guy.

[564] Psychic Jesus.

[565] That's eating 100 people a day.

[566] I'll tell you this.

[567] After going deep into the world of Dune, which after that first book starts taking place over the course of thousands of years when characters are essentially immortal like that.

[568] Maybe things stagnate.

[569] Shit like God Emperor where it's like...

[570] Yeah, you're not having – I think it's just this perception when you're thinking of like sci -fi that like, OK, this takes place on some sort of timeline, like a technologically advancing timeline that we are familiar with where like, OK.

[571] Like five years later, we get a new iPhone.

[572] Yeah, we don't have space travel now, but I assume in fucking years from now we'll have – interstellar travel, and we'll have all that stuff, but that will take some amount of time to iterate, too.

[573] I think, and this is what I've come to terms with, or I've been thinking, because it really did bug me a little bit, like, where are they, like, 10 ,000 years?

[574] Maybe at some point when you've spread out amongst the stars, right?

[575] Hard for technological process to spread everywhere.

[576] Some places just stagnate because they're happy the way they are.

[577] Exactly.

[578] And they just like – it's tougher to kind of disseminate that.

[579] Well, also I think it's hard for us to process because we – like what's the best we can think of like on a few thousand years?

[580] Like the sort of human progress timeline.

[581] It's very hard.

[582] But it kind of even – I don't know.

[583] Sometimes you see it start stagnating now or it's like, ah, you know, why do we need to make such advances?

[584] Let's not go to the moon.

[585] Why do we need to go to the moon?

[586] That sucks.

[587] We're happy here.

[588] We fucking need to go to the moon.

[589] But I kind of like the idea that chainsaw stuff is still kind of badass years later.

[590] I take comfort in that chainsaw is still...

[591] You can't out -engineer a fucking chainsaw.

[592] Some things are just perfect.

[593] I don't know enough about it.

[594] I have not read the book, so maybe it's like gas -powered chainsaws or something.

[595] Do they still eat pizza?

[596] Pizza paper.

[597] It's the future, man. Well, they are Romans, right?

[598] Pizza's perfect, basically.

[599] We've got to stop talking about pizza.

[600] So, yeah, I'm really excited.

[601] So my wife kind of yelled at me. She was like, you're going to finish the Witcher book and then you're going to move on to the Warhammer books?

[602] She's like, why don't you take a break?

[603] I was like, no, I've got someone who's excited to do.

[604] Cleanse the palate with actual literature.

[605] Well, the Witcher books are books.

[606] Those are not based on a video game.

[607] The video game is based on the books.

[608] Nor is Warhammer, for that matter.

[609] Warhammer at this point is, I mean, the universe is a construct, is a game.

[610] And the books are based off of that.

[611] But I feel like it has spiraled into pretty much its own thing.

[612] So I'm excited for those.

[613] And I've heard they're really good books.

[614] But, yeah, I think she just wants – she's like, why don't you take a fantasy break?

[615] Why don't you read something else?

[616] Maybe it's doing bad things to you that you're not cognizant of.

[617] Maybe it's – Yeah, maybe.

[618] Affecting your behavior.

[619] Well, when I'm spending time on my computer looking up the Emperor stuff and be like, sweetie, check this out.

[620] He eats people.

[621] Wives don't want to hear about psychic eating robo -Jesus emperors from space.

[622] She does.

[623] I don't know.

[624] Year 10K.

[625] So I spent a lot of time digging into that stuff.

[626] And I would read the first couple of pages of each other's books.

[627] I'm actually excited to get into them.

[628] And then I have to finish reading that Second Witcher book.

[629] So that was cool.

[630] I went to a tasting thing this weekend.

[631] Like what kind of tasting?

[632] A wine tasting?

[633] In Union Square, it was like a food tasting of all these restaurants that would come.

[634] And give you a bunch of food in, like, little kind of, like, what do they always say?

[635] Amuse -bouche.

[636] Yeah, Top Chef.

[637] Amuse -bouche.

[638] And they had wine there.

[639] Mouth entertainment.

[640] Entertain your mouth.

[641] So here was the big problem I ran into.

[642] Go there, get a bunch of food, but you also have a bunch of guys serving alcohol and wine and stuff like that.

[643] So you get a little bit of wine.

[644] Yeah.

[645] And then you can try, like, a local brewery and get some beer.

[646] And then you can get, like, a mixed drink.

[647] And it's like, hey, check this out.

[648] This is where you mix this drink.

[649] Then I'll get a little more wine.

[650] Maybe another beer.

[651] She just ended up hammered.

[652] Hammered in kind of the worst mixed alcohol kind of way.

[653] Like if somebody were handing you a glass of wine, then drink this beer.

[654] How about a shot?

[655] Drink this beer.

[656] How about a glass of wine?

[657] Drink this beer.

[658] How about a shot?

[659] It's kind of like going to a wedding, which is what I did this weekend, where you have to mix champagne and wine and beers and scotch.

[660] I hope I'm all right tomorrow.

[661] Beer and whiskey.

[662] Almost belong together, in my opinion.

[663] But you start throwing wine in there, and then it's just like hard left turn.

[664] Never being able to find your drinking equilibrium, I think, is the problem here.

[665] Well, and so I hadn't eaten anything because I was excited to go eat at this place, and it was just kind of this little finger food stuff.

[666] So kind of on an empty stomach, just kind of like, oh, this vodka thing, and now I'm having this gin thing, and now I'm having this whiskey tequila thing, and this wine, this white wine, red wine beer.

[667] And then we wound up at the upper floor of the Marriott that's near there.

[668] You know, that cool one with the view.

[669] It looks like you're looking out through, like, the Millennium Falcon with the rings on the window.

[670] And I had a couple more bourbons there.

[671] And I felt fine until I got home.

[672] I was so sick.

[673] Wow.

[674] I had not been that – I wasn't drunk necessarily.

[675] My wife said I kind of turned it on in a cab.

[676] Yeah.

[677] But, man, bed spins and just the sick.

[678] Oh, no. Just like, oh.

[679] So, yeah, that was pretty darn.

[680] No hangover the next day.

[681] Sick as a dog, though.

[682] Well, you managed to do it early enough in the day that you...

[683] Kind of sweated it out a bit.

[684] Yeah.

[685] It didn't happen in the middle of the night.

[686] Definitely had to go sleep on the couch for a bit and be like, honey, I'm going to keep you up all night.

[687] Toss and turn in, trying to hang a limb off the bed, find the ground, and yeah, it was nasty.

[688] Man, bed spins.

[689] I haven't had bad bed spins in a while.

[690] Not at all.

[691] They suck.

[692] They're really bad.

[693] It's really the worst sensation.

[694] It just seems like a stabilizer or something.

[695] You think you're feeling fine.

[696] Okay, that's it.

[697] Then you close your eyes.

[698] Oh, God.

[699] Oh, the gravity is gone.

[700] I don't know if you get bedspins in zero G. I think it's nothing but bedspins when you're in zero G. What if you spin the other way?

[701] We already know that doesn't work.

[702] On Earth, so you can't counteract a bedspin.

[703] Anyway, so that kind of tore me apart on Saturday night, and then Sunday was all The Witcher.

[704] And then I finished Insanely Twisted Shadow.

[705] Like, started and finished.

[706] Started and finished.

[707] In one day.

[708] Right.

[709] It's a pretty short game.

[710] Yes.

[711] And I liked it a lot.

[712] It's a good game.

[713] That'll make my I -liked -it -a -lot face.

[714] I liked it a lot.

[715] It's not Shadow Complex.

[716] No. It's not the best Metroid.

[717] It's not quite up to that caliber.

[718] Yeah.

[719] It's a good one of those kinds of games.

[720] But, I mean, other than, like, certain structural things, that kind of seems like a crazy comparison to make.

[721] Oh, I mean, it is exactly that kind of game.

[722] Well, I mean, it's that kind of game as far as the, like, structure goes, but the specifics of the mechanics are so different.

[723] It's like, yeah, okay, you go through this map and you come back and whatever, but it's not a shooter.

[724] Like, it's not...

[725] Oh, it is.

[726] You shoot at stuff.

[727] But I mean that tactical walk into the room and have to figure out how to approach the enemies.

[728] I don't think those games are really ever about that either.

[729] It's about just shooting whatever is in your way between you and the next missile container or whatever.

[730] Yeah, and there's a little puzzly kind of stuff in it.

[731] It is a little more puzzle heavy.

[732] But the thing I didn't like about it was the backtracking, which is kind of all about those games.

[733] It gets a little tedious.

[734] I don't know what it is in that one because I don't mind doing it in Shadow Complex.

[735] Well, the thing is that I feel like they didn't give you enough shortcuts.

[736] I feel like in a lot of those games you suddenly open up this door that will get you from point A to point F really quickly later on in the game instead of having to travel back through the entire map.

[737] And your ship kind of moves slowly.

[738] And the enemies all respawn as you're kind of going through.

[739] A lot of the combat gets a little old.

[740] And the combat's completely optional because you don't get anything from killing them.

[741] So you find yourself just buzzing through.

[742] I ended up just like blasting through everything, just like weaving around.

[743] But it looks fantastic while you're playing it.

[744] And that was really fun.

[745] The last...

[746] Last boss or whatever you want to call it.

[747] All the boss fights were fairly easy.

[748] For the most part.

[749] The last one was maybe a little more challenging.

[750] It just felt cheap.

[751] Well, I won't say too much about it.

[752] One of the forms, you can't tell if you're damaging it or not.

[753] Yeah, there was a part with lasers I wasn't sure about.

[754] That part, yeah.

[755] I haven't played it yet, but it recommends the wrong weapon to use against the end boss.

[756] Really?

[757] If you scan it?

[758] If you scan it and it says you use weapon like...

[759] no, don't use that weapon.

[760] They're much more effective weapons.

[761] Yeah, I did find that.

[762] By the time you've upgraded your pea shooter, that's a pretty strong weapon to use, and they wanted me to use something else.

[763] But anyway, that game looks great.

[764] Is it $15?

[765] Yeah, it is.

[766] I'd say maybe it's a little much at $15.

[767] We haven't played the multiplayer yet.

[768] No. I kind of want to.

[769] Let's play that.

[770] Yeah.

[771] Man, you were so deep into The Witcher.

[772] Vinny rebuffed me yesterday.

[773] That's right.

[774] I was in Steam in The Witcher.

[775] I can't.

[776] I was trying to get a posse together yesterday to get those multiplayer teams.

[777] I just had a huge twist when you emailed me, too.

[778] Like, oh, man, we're about to uncover.

[779] I apologize.

[780] I had, like, five investigations going, and they were all tying up.

[781] Oh, shit.

[782] A big fat Steam message just pops up in front of your screen.

[783] Yeah.

[784] It's like, oh, man, no, I'm about to figure out who this guy is.

[785] That multiplayer is grueling.

[786] It is fucking hard.

[787] You tried it?

[788] Me and Will.

[789] Just did a two -man.

[790] The lantern run.

[791] Yeah.

[792] Which is kind of in the game in a small little section.

[793] Yeah, the lantern shows up toward the end of the single player.

[794] But I read online that it's almost not doable with less than three people.

[795] And four is best.

[796] Because it doesn't seem to balance the difficulty at all for the number of players.

[797] There's an actual end?

[798] Like you can beat the co -op?

[799] I don't know if it ever ends or not, actually.

[800] But you just won't get very far if you're trying to get it.

[801] Yeah, well, I mean getting the achievements.

[802] The achievements are for a million points and for getting to the ninth wave.

[803] I got you.

[804] Not even close.

[805] It seems not even close.

[806] It is really hard.

[807] I do.

[808] I like the game is kind of adorable in a way.

[809] Like, you know, a little hook and everything like that.

[810] You get the grappler arm.

[811] There's some charm there, yeah.

[812] It's fun.

[813] It's cool.

[814] It's quick.

[815] And it's a little repetitive.

[816] It's a trifle.

[817] Yeah.

[818] I would like to see more.

[819] My wife called it right away when she walked in.

[820] She's like, oh, this is Michel Ancel or whatever.

[821] She knew that guy.

[822] Because we had a book of his.

[823] That was like a kid's book of monsters we had bought in New York.

[824] And I was like, yeah, how did you know?

[825] There's a certain character to those designs.

[826] Yeah.

[827] And I guess it looked exactly like that.

[828] I hadn't even put it together.

[829] So if you like his stuff, you will want to check it out.

[830] And then I was going to finish From Dust.

[831] got ready to put it in, and then said, I don't think I want to do this right now.

[832] I'm at the last two levels and was just like...

[833] You're still in the volcano.

[834] Inside that volcano.

[835] Yeah.

[836] I mean, that basically is the end.

[837] I know.

[838] I just need to power through it and get through.

[839] But yeah, that's what I'm doing with my semi -drought.

[840] Witching it up.

[841] And I couldn't be more happy.

[842] I could not be more thrilled.

[843] It sounds like the witcher's treating you well.

[844] Yeah.

[845] It's just a...

[846] It's a feedback loop of, like, the game, the book, the game, the book.

[847] I'm just absorbed right now.

[848] I would go home.

[849] I can't decide if I want to read the book and play the game.

[850] Give me more.

[851] I think one of the other books is getting translated as well.

[852] It's only the first two, right?

[853] Yeah, that are translated now, but I think the third one is.

[854] Are there, like, six?

[855] Four.

[856] Four or five.

[857] You could just learn Polish.

[858] I could, yeah.

[859] That's when we have to have a Witchervention sit him down in a room with Vinny and say, look, man. There's no other reason for you to learn Polish.

[860] Like this is too far.

[861] I'm really – I'm curious.

[862] Maybe somebody knows out there.

[863] If he moves to Warsaw, throws a pot of borscht at us and runs out the room.

[864] Where the game is going to – where the game and the books kind of like mix, like where the lines cross of like, oh, is this – what's canon?

[865] Is this canon in the games?

[866] Because if not, I'll stop playing.

[867] And like when they cross over the books, are they going to start referencing the game?

[868] Like I don't know.

[869] That part is still a mystery because I feel like the books right now are still before the game when the game takes place.

[870] Anyway.

[871] Deep.

[872] Cool.

[873] Hey, Patrick.

[874] Hey.

[875] What's new on your arcade machine, man?

[876] What's new in Neo Geotown?

[877] I fixed it.

[878] So I fixed it.

[879] Yay!

[880] And you did not have to use the degausing gun.

[881] I did not have to use the degausing.

[882] I didn't.

[883] It does need still to be degaused.

[884] Degaused.

[885] Degaused.

[886] Degaused.

[887] But it sounded like the thing.

[888] I don't know what the proper terminology is.

[889] It sounded like the thing that you actually had to do was more terrifying than even using a degausing gun.

[890] Oh, much more terrifying.

[891] Because I thought degausing was going to be terrifying until I looked up like a. tutorial and it was just it's just this wand this circle waving around it not a big deal well there's there is there's an art to it there's an art to like how you how close you get with the wand and the pattern to make them spread out well so you're trying to basically like massage the picture back into a reasonable fucking shape and alignment slowly back up as you're doing it like there are yeah so I started watching arcade tutorial videos like trying to, like, diagnose this before.

[892] Like, I actually had, like, someone come over with a degaussing coil that they already own and, like, trying to use this.

[893] And then I looked, someone had an exact Neo Geo machine that he had opened up and was tweaking the focus.

[894] And I was like, I think that's actually what it is.

[895] I didn't actually probably know what degaussing was.

[896] Someone just had said that's probably what's wrong with it.

[897] But degaussing is like decolorization.

[898] Like, it should look weird.

[899] Kind of like when you have, yeah, those old...

[900] monitors that, you know, if someone weighs a magnet in front of it or something, it screws up the colors.

[901] So did you get in there with a little screwdriver?

[902] So the first thing I had to do was try and figure out how to open up the back, because there's three locks on my machine, but only one key, and the key only opens up the coin slot.

[903] So I looked at this thing, and then I'm thinking I have to bust open this lock, but I don't have a drill bit.

[904] So I'm trying to, well, what are my other options?

[905] My other options were like...

[906] shoving like screwdrivers in there and hitting it with a rock.

[907] Like just trying to knock the pins out or whatever.

[908] So I tried the simplest method first, which was just to put a screwdriver, a flathead in there and turn it to see it was already broken.

[909] Turns out it was already broken.

[910] Whoever had owned it had already broken it for me. So I opened it up and then just...

[911] fucking terrified because I've I don't mess with board like I haven't built a computer in probably 10 years so like I haven't really looked at a piece of electronics to try to figure out yeah it's completely clean like it's all in very excellent condition but Like I don't know what I'm supposed to do next.

[912] But you go back there and you see like here is the exposed back of the CRT with the fat magnet at the base.

[913] And then on the floor of this machine, there's all of the motherboards and the logic board just spread out over here in the corner.

[914] You can see the fucking – the copper coil around the power supply.

[915] It's probably new enough where like it's got a decent power supply, right?

[916] It doesn't look like it's something that came from the 1920s.

[917] No, it looks very new.

[918] But the thing is in order to do what I needed to do, I needed to keep it on.

[919] So you can't just go in there and start messing with the focus and know if you're doing anything.

[920] So you have to have this thing on.

[921] So you're seeing the flickering of the two, and I'm just going.

[922] The thing that if it's not clear here is that there are things inside of an arcade machine that if it's on and you touch them, you will die.

[923] There are things inside an arcade machine if it's off and you touch them, you will die.

[924] That is also true.

[925] As I'm looking up.

[926] I'm looking for model numbers on it to look up schematics to try and figure out what I need to do.

[927] Videos of people getting thrown across a room.

[928] So I found the actual PDF instructions of this board on here that I need to start messing with.

[929] But it's not annotated.

[930] This is like the arcade instructor's manual.

[931] This isn't...

[932] for the layman like me. So I managed to like to start searching for that model number on different message boards, found a message board that had an annotated guide, which was basically, this is what you shouldn't touch.

[933] This is what you should touch.

[934] And this is how you should touch those things.

[935] So you don't hurt yourself.

[936] Thankfully, all the thing, you know, now I'm blindly believing a message board, but after I put this much faith in the arcade community to get me my arcade cabinet, I'm like, you know what?

[937] I'm going to put my life in their hands too.

[938] Well, again, you're lucky and it's good that you have the Neo Geo, the MVS system because it's such a standard.

[939] There's a good number of those out there.

[940] So there's like coverage and support for that.

[941] Got a lot of responses.

[942] But the problem is even after I knew what I had to do, it's not properly labeled on the board itself.

[943] And you also – Even when you're looking at the board, you can't just go on on top and turn something.

[944] It's this little knob, these two knobs, the focus and some other setting.

[945] They're just slotted on the right -hand side.

[946] Basically, it's blind in faith.

[947] It's not even a big enough spot to put a whole screwdriver.

[948] I had to just take off the top of one of my— Like the bit?

[949] Yeah, just take the bit and just stick it in there and be like, Hey, Katie, I'm being mostly serious here.

[950] If I look like I'm being – if I stop responding, like, you need to push me off of this machine because I have touched something.

[951] Maybe you shouldn't be doing this.

[952] Like, I'm pretty sure I'm good.

[953] I think I got this.

[954] But just in case.

[955] If it goes, it's probably not going to go bad.

[956] But if it goes bad, it's going to go really bad.

[957] And you need to kick me off this, too, so I'm not dying.

[958] With your rubber -soled shoes.

[959] Yeah, with that guy with a rubber pole so she doesn't get killed either.

[960] Well, we didn't get that far.

[961] I don't want to scare her too much.

[962] So if I was going to die, take her down with me. Jump in here and just get me off.

[963] Throw some water on me. So I go in there and I'm like, tell me if the screen gets better.

[964] And I go in there.

[965] I literally feel it click into the thing that I think it is.

[966] I close my eyes and I just turn it.

[967] I'm like, is it better?

[968] And she said yes.

[969] And that was it?

[970] So I adjusted those a little bit.

[971] Did you go better until it got worse again?

[972] Yes, it went better until it got worse.

[973] And then you pulled it back.

[974] And then I pulled back, and then I found the other slot that I had to adjust, and that fixed it.

[975] Fantastic.

[976] Nicely done.

[977] I felt very proud of myself afterwards.

[978] Now I've gone and done it a couple of times.

[979] Now you just know enough that it makes you dangerous.

[980] I know, right?

[981] Yeah, because now I started looking at other things.

[982] I was like, oh, I could probably tweak this.

[983] And I'm like, maybe I should just take it for what it is.

[984] But just to be able to play clear street hoop, to get some magic on the blacktop, and not be blurry.

[985] It's been pretty great.

[986] But you've moved past the street hoop.

[987] You're playing other obscure -ass Neo Geo games now.

[988] Prehistoric Isle 2, which is a side -scrolling shooter game, of which there are like 9 ,000 of those on the Neo Geo.

[989] But this one has one of the earliest renditions of the Donkey Kong Country computer -rendered enemies, but they're really poorly done.

[990] much worse than Donkey Kong Country, but you're fighting just these weird computer -animated dinosaurs.

[991] I beat that because I didn't have to pay for it.

[992] It was terrible.

[993] Definitely wouldn't have done that.

[994] It got to the point where Katie walked away from playing with it.

[995] She's like, this isn't fun, even though it's free.

[996] You're just hammering on the A button because there's no way to avoid any of these bullets.

[997] It was that, and what was the Neoturf?

[998] Neoturf Masters.

[999] Yes.

[1000] One of the best golf games ever.

[1001] Like, fuck Golden Tee.

[1002] Yeah, no, it's...

[1003] So the thing is, like, I've actually never played that on an arcade machine.

[1004] You just have the standard, like, joystick and four buttons, right?

[1005] Just, like, double set up for, like, standard Neo Geo.

[1006] I believe, I could be wrong, but it was my understanding that that was a game designed to be played with a...

[1007] Like with a trackball style controller.

[1008] It feels weird to not do that because I've only played Golden Tee before that on like an arcade machine.

[1009] So not having the trackball to sort of – But this uses like the three -click swing like pretty standard.

[1010] It's really – it's not a big deal.

[1011] It's just like playing Tiger Woods or something.

[1012] Like you're just clicking along and it doesn't have the same feel.

[1013] But, man, it's fun.

[1014] And it's the same way that Street Hoop does.

[1015] Like crazy -ass music.

[1016] Dumbass sound effects announcers screaming at you all the time.

[1017] In weird, like, it's where I, yeah, it's where I got my taste for weird Japanese shit.

[1018] And, like, all the characters have different nationalities which figure out, which somehow figure into their stats.

[1019] And I'm trying to figure out, like, how they figured out, like, why, like, the Japanese guy, you know, is way better at putting.

[1020] Like, why?

[1021] I don't know.

[1022] You need to try to figure out in what ways is Neo Turf Masters racist?

[1023] Yes.

[1024] That's my new subtext of analyzing the OJ games.

[1025] It's not for the gameplay, but the cultural xenophobia.

[1026] It's Young Hero is the American one, right?

[1027] I think so, yes.

[1028] I think so.

[1029] I played about 12.

[1030] That's the guy's name is Young Hero.

[1031] And just like the chirpiest Japanese English voice screaming at you at every turn.

[1032] So weird.

[1033] That's awesome.

[1034] It's a delight.

[1035] Yeah.

[1036] So I'm very excited about that.

[1037] So I'm enjoying that and we're slowly turning the kitchen into a bar.

[1038] We've got like our bar tables.

[1039] We have to get some stools.

[1040] Going home to Chicago this weekend, I'm going to get some Chicago art. It's like some hand -painted Michael Jordan.

[1041] Hang that up.

[1042] Get some neon signs.

[1043] Turn that into a real dingy place.

[1044] And I also need to buy tokens.

[1045] My thing doesn't accept quarters.

[1046] Like it won't fit in the slot.

[1047] Oh, so it has to be some sort of token?

[1048] Yeah.

[1049] Just see if you can get your own minted.

[1050] Is that possible?

[1051] That would be awesome.

[1052] Totally.

[1053] Oh, yeah.

[1054] They'll make anything on the internet.

[1055] Look what we do.

[1056] You can get tokens printed.

[1057] You could probably get coins printed.

[1058] You could probably get coins.

[1059] Like some Dharma logo on my...

[1060] You know, I might have...

[1061] You can buy like 500 for a dollar.

[1062] Okay.

[1063] I was going to say, I've got a jar full of tokens.

[1064] The only...

[1065] Because, yeah, I have such a free player right now, but I'd much rather have just like a bowl of tokens.

[1066] It's just more fun.

[1067] I got the arcade machine.

[1068] Like, eh.

[1069] Yeah.

[1070] Then you can get one of those little coin dispensers that you keep around your belt.

[1071] That's right.

[1072] The tokens are really cheap.

[1073] The only way it gets expensive is if you want specific kinds.

[1074] If there was some hometown arcade or some smaller chain, if you want those, the tokens get expensive real fast, and you're only going to get a couple of them.

[1075] But if you just want, people are just giving away, like, you just want 300 tokens, and it's going to cost 30 bucks a ship because tokens are heavy.

[1076] Here you go.

[1077] So are there standard size for all tokens then?

[1078] I don't know.

[1079] I assume so.

[1080] I think it's a weight issue.

[1081] I don't know the actual...

[1082] To trigger the lever?

[1083] Yeah, because I tried to put some dimes and nickels.

[1084] I mean, it goes through, but it just doesn't do anything.

[1085] I assume it must be a weight.

[1086] Do you watch it when it goes through and see what the hell happens in the coin return?

[1087] No, I haven't thought about that.

[1088] I should do that.

[1089] I should figure out just how to scam those machines, put a little one on a string.

[1090] Yeah.

[1091] Well, my one actually comes with this giant -ass locking mechanism around where you collect the coins because I guess whoever owned this at, like, the Landmark Theater, which is with the only token that was inside the machine when I opened it.

[1092] Does that work?

[1093] Yeah, that works.

[1094] So I was trying to find Landmark Cinema ones, but those cost a lot of money.

[1095] And I guess that's there because, you know, the old, like, when machines like this would be in a laundromat, it was so easy to pop the lock and just take out the coins.

[1096] So I have, like, this really...

[1097] expensive lock that I could use.

[1098] That's funny.

[1099] When do you get a kegerator in there?

[1100] That's a great idea.

[1101] I have to work on that.

[1102] It's not just a great idea, it's a necessity.

[1103] If it's going to be a bar, you need some kind of beer dispensing mechanism.

[1104] Alright, I'll put it into consideration.

[1105] Think about this.

[1106] Things are getting out of hand.

[1107] Yeah.

[1108] Again, that's how the arcade machine thing goes.

[1109] Then it just turns into you having a couple of beers and the screen is a little – you think the screen is a little out of focus and you're just like, I don't know how to fix this.

[1110] I've done it before.

[1111] Okay, give me a screwdriver.

[1112] I'll just do it with my nails.

[1113] I haven't cut them anyway.

[1114] And then that's the end.

[1115] All right, Patrick.

[1116] Let's talk about The Witness.

[1117] Yeah.

[1118] Oh, that's right.

[1119] We can talk about that now.

[1120] We can talk about that now.

[1121] It's a game.

[1122] It is.

[1123] You and I went to Jonathan Blow's house.

[1124] We went to Jonathan Blow's house!

[1125] I think we talked about you going to Jonathan Blow's house.

[1126] We did.

[1127] We talked about going to Jonathan Blow's house, but we went to Jonathan Blow's house.

[1128] We went to Jonathan Blow's house to go play a extreme...

[1129] Oh, you mean John?

[1130] Yeah.

[1131] I can't do that, man. J -Bo?

[1132] I can't talk to John Blow.

[1133] With two W's, right?

[1134] All the emails from PR are saying, like, yeah, you'll be at John's house at this.

[1135] I'm like, I can't.

[1136] No, Jonathan, I don't.

[1137] Did he introduce himself as Jonathan?

[1138] I didn't introduce himself.

[1139] He knows.

[1140] We know each other at this point.

[1141] He hasn't talked in a third person.

[1142] No. No, he does not.

[1143] Thank God.

[1144] Jonathan Blow's game.

[1145] Doesn't really have the Jonathan Blow feel to it.

[1146] No, he definitely doesn't do that.

[1147] And I think as we had mentioned some last week, we went there and he had a very early version of his game.

[1148] He says he's still like a year off from putting that thing out.

[1149] It's basically design complete and then they're spending the next year making it look like a real...

[1150] Kick ass.

[1151] It's production time now.

[1152] So I think this is going to be hard because both of you guys have tried to describe this to me independently, and it sounded tough to describe.

[1153] So now that you're both in the same room.

[1154] The way he kind of started was like, I love games like Myst, but they're stupid.

[1155] So this kind of seemed like he wanted to tackle the problem of those games.

[1156] Those games' puzzles shouldn't...

[1157] Be as dumb as they are.

[1158] This idea of exploring a world and exploring these organic puzzles, that should be fun.

[1159] So a lot of this kind of seems like, fuck you, Mist.

[1160] Here's how you do a game like that.

[1161] And his specific points are a lot of adventure game puzzle solving comes down to trying to read the intent of the designer's mind.

[1162] Sure.

[1163] Where it's like...

[1164] And it gets obscure and weird, and it's like you are completely detached from any sort of fiction.

[1165] No, dude, it makes total sense to use the peanut butter on the dandelion.

[1166] Well, exactly, exactly.

[1167] It's the idea that there are no rule sets.

[1168] And The Witness is very much about established rule sets that get more complicated, have more nuanced them, but you always have a base set of rules that you can go back to to sort of use that to project as the puzzles get more complicated.

[1169] And it feels very much like Braid in the way that, okay, We will introduce to you this basic mechanic of this is how time works in this area.

[1170] And as you go, you will build up understanding of what you can do with that knowledge.

[1171] But there will be specific points throughout where a puzzle will trade on your assumptions about how these mechanics work, but not the reality of how these mechanics work.

[1172] Like there will be a slight tweak or a twist on that stuff.

[1173] The thing that's interesting about The Witness though is that it's like the – a lot of times like Myst is like you come up to this crazy door and there's like 18 locks and levers and gears and shit for you to deal with.

[1174] It's like, oh, I turn this this way and then twist it here.

[1175] Oh, yeah, put the small gear up here.

[1176] There's never any consistent logic from like one puzzle to the next in a Myst game.

[1177] It's like every single – or anything that's impeding your path was handcrafted by a different insane locksmith.

[1178] You're not going to go play another puzzle and you're suddenly going to realize, oh, I can go back and figure out that one now.

[1179] There's no internal logic to them except for the internal logic of that particular puzzle.

[1180] So what are the core fundamentals here?

[1181] So it's almost – this is the part like – Describing the specifics of how these puzzles work is maybe hard because it's – there's kind of only one puzzle in The Witness.

[1182] Let's back up for a second.

[1183] This is a first -person game.

[1184] First -person, polygonal, three -dimensional.

[1185] You're walking around.

[1186] It's not a fixed – it's not actually missed.

[1187] No, no, no. It is fully – you can look around.

[1188] You have three view.

[1189] So it's real missed.

[1190] And the island is divided up, and it's not as clear in the build that we were playing, but that's sort of the part they're working on.

[1191] It's like the island is divided up into very individual sections, and each of those sections has its own rule set for those puzzles.

[1192] So if you get frustrated, you can leave and go.

[1193] It's like, you know what?

[1194] I want to go try this other set of puzzles.

[1195] This really is missed.

[1196] Yeah.

[1197] I mean, even like the, like, you are on this.

[1198] island where there have clearly been, like, multiple ages have passed, and you see kind of the remnants of that stuff.

[1199] Like, they've built out a whole fiction for this that won't be very apparent, but it's for their own edification of how they build out the art. The Mistness.

[1200] Are the Miller brothers, like, the last bosses or something?

[1201] It's, uh...

[1202] So it's basically...

[1203] So what's interesting to me is, for all the stuff that does seem very Mist -like, like, that was an easy early comparison when looking at this game, is that when you approach a puzzle, it is like...

[1204] It is – there's nothing like subtle about it.

[1205] You're not pixel hunting anything.

[1206] It's a computer screen.

[1207] Like you walk up and there is like a screen in front of you.

[1208] So it's basically a terminal.

[1209] Yes.

[1210] Yeah, yeah.

[1211] And what will often happen, like you will find individual screens and it will be like, all right, solve this puzzle.

[1212] Like here is this grid of some kind and, again, articulating – I think one of the better ones that might articulate it is the mazes that he showed up.

[1213] We didn't get to there playing it ourselves.

[1214] There's one section where there's, like, four different mazes or four or five different mazes that you're going through.

[1215] And, like, each of these terminals, you're essentially doing, like, line puzzles and dot puzzles.

[1216] And, like, again, it's very hard to explain the puzzles themselves, but here's an example of, like, kind of one of the solutions that it uses.

[1217] So you're doing this line puzzle, and you can't figure out.

[1218] The game doesn't seem to communicate on the screen how you would possibly figure out.

[1219] how you're supposed to figure out the way through.

[1220] It's just a bunch of dots.

[1221] So it's like you see beginning and you see end and then there's some sort of pattern of...

[1222] But nothing in the game is communicated to you, at least on its face, what you're supposed to do.

[1223] And what you come to realize in this particular puzzle, and this is going to spoil one of the solutions, but some of this stuff could change in the final game, is that you were actually physically walking through part of a maze to get to that terminal.

[1224] Yeah.

[1225] And your path to get to that screen...

[1226] was the solution.

[1227] So the gameplay in the puzzles, if I understand it correctly, is there's a grid or there's a bunch of dots or something and basically you are drawing lines.

[1228] You're connecting dots.

[1229] Very exactly.

[1230] And all of the puzzles conform to this format of a grid and there is like an entry and an exit point and you have to draw a line in some specific fashion to complete this puzzle.

[1231] So all the puzzles you saw are all the puzzles in the game.

[1232] All the puzzles we saw, and we saw maybe a third of the puzzles, it seemed like.

[1233] Are the puzzles all on in -game computers?

[1234] Yes.

[1235] So there are no environmental...

[1236] No. No. No?

[1237] Kind of.

[1238] Well, like Patrick was saying, I think he used something.

[1239] Yeah, I got that.

[1240] The environment will play into it, but the actual implementation of the puzzle solution happens.

[1241] There are no clockwork puzzles is what I'm saying.

[1242] No, there'll be times where you'll have to look at the environment from, say, a skewed perspective to realize that the game is messing with your mind, but ultimately every puzzle is solved.

[1243] But your operations all take place on screens on a screen.

[1244] Exactly.

[1245] And what you'll often find is you'll find these sets of five or six.

[1246] Sets of five.

[1247] Was it sets of five?

[1248] Yeah.

[1249] And these sets of five are very much about like incrementally teaching you the rules in this new area that you're going into, right?

[1250] Of like this is the way these puzzles work here, right?

[1251] And it gets more complex.

[1252] Okay, now I understand.

[1253] Because I did these five puzzles, I now understand more.

[1254] Once I get into – once I progress.

[1255] Beyond this, I will now know how the rest of these puzzles are supposed to behave because of this.

[1256] Now, the thing is that, again, like with Braid, there are kind of these multiple rule sets and these multiple objectives.

[1257] They start blending and they start kind of commingling.

[1258] So you start having to abide by multiple rule sets at once.

[1259] And then there are kind of other twists to how the puzzles are set out.

[1260] And I want to stress that it's really ingenious in the...

[1261] These are good fucking puzzles.

[1262] You want to talk about good puzzle design?

[1263] These are good, like...

[1264] Difficult but like firmly very logical puzzles that you will sit there and you'll stump yourself on and then when you do figure out the solution is extremely rewarding.

[1265] Because it's kind of weird how abstract and disconnected the puzzles are from the game world.

[1266] Now that said, we only scratch the surface on kind of the fiction.

[1267] Similarly as with Braid, there is a very kind of obtuse.

[1268] And it was just being highly cryptic kind of storytelling and storytelling style.

[1269] And also Jonathan was very straight up like, I just started writing the fiction.

[1270] All that stuff is sort of getting layered in now.

[1271] He was pretty clear that the puzzles we saw, those solutions will probably be there a year from now.

[1272] I'm sort of done with that part.

[1273] He's sort of now getting into layering the fiction.

[1274] The little bit of fiction that was in there was, you know.

[1275] The game felt like The Prisoner, sort of.

[1276] It was kind of set in that world.

[1277] I think that was the first thing that...

[1278] that I said when we started playing.

[1279] Prisoner of Twilight Zone, like just this really weird, you're on an island, you're finding radios that have messages on them.

[1280] You don't understand the context of the messages or the content of the messages.

[1281] And really the ultimate problem that's so difficult to talk about in this game is that all the best moments are when you solve these puzzles and we don't want to spoil those.

[1282] Like those aha moments when like, and this is a great co -op game as it turns out, because Ryan was piloting.

[1283] And because they're line puzzles, you can basically sit there and I was able to kind of like run my hand in front of me and work to try and figure out solutions while Ryan is doing it physically with the controller.

[1284] And so all the solutions to these puzzles is some kind of line drawing you've made on that terminal?

[1285] Yes.

[1286] In the end?

[1287] Yes.

[1288] Okay.

[1289] And you would think, like, how could those be that different?

[1290] I know that sounds very limited.

[1291] You know, it sounds really difficult if you have to be exact to the lines.

[1292] Well, no, but it's all gridded.

[1293] It's not like there's any freehand to it.

[1294] No, no, I just mean in terms of, like, well, this was two units high instead of one unit high.

[1295] And that's the braidedness of it, of, like, how could you manipulate time that much to create such unique rule sets over and over again?

[1296] And Jonathan Lowe finds a way to completely...

[1297] And those moments when you figure out like we became obsessed with just – So one of the things is there's an – like one of the – I would say maybe the second or third screen that you see in this game is one that contains multiple – like they're kind of these boss puzzles that are going to be in this game, right?

[1298] And this is one – I think that's actually the term that he used was boss puzzles.

[1299] Yeah, he said boss puzzles.

[1300] They're optional.

[1301] You don't need to do them because they're meant to just be.

[1302] You look at them and you're like, God, God damn it.

[1303] And so this was like one of like the first three that I saw.

[1304] And I'm like, okay, like we like draw a line, like, well, maybe this, this, like trying to guess, like maybe that's what this means.

[1305] And then, you know, it.

[1306] It errors out on you or whatever.

[1307] I'm like, OK, we clearly don't have the knowledge that we need to solve this yet.

[1308] So it was this thing where we would then go forward and we would do a new set of puzzles like, OK, now we know what these symbols or what this logic means.

[1309] Let's go back and see now if we can actually solve this one.

[1310] And I don't feel like it's telling too much to say that we eventually went back and solved this and then didn't know how we had solved it.

[1311] Like I'm like, OK, I know I just solved it and I have.

[1312] There were two lines of logic that I was using to try and come to this solution.

[1313] But don't know which one actually won out.

[1314] And it turned out it was neither.

[1315] We'd actually managed to miss an entire set of logic to this rule set that we just pieced together through brute force guessery.

[1316] We'd gotten close enough.

[1317] We were able to kind of make our way to the end there.

[1318] So that's something that he said that he would address.

[1319] That's a good one.

[1320] We'll catch that.

[1321] Do you ever see – does your character ever interact with you in the world at all?

[1322] No. It's just – It's Desolate Island and you.

[1323] He's not talking or doing anything.

[1324] You don't look at his feet?

[1325] No. Okay.

[1326] I mean right – The shadow kind of looked like a robot.

[1327] Yeah.

[1328] Like again, the thing to keep in mind is that we are there to see – or we were there to see kind of concept and what the design idea is behind it, the production.

[1329] The look of that game, it sounds like, is going to change really radically between now and...

[1330] I mean, even to the point where these boss puzzles are right now just sort of in these weird silver structures.

[1331] But he was showing us concepts.

[1332] Eventually those will be embedded in a mountain, kind of hidden away.

[1333] Right now they're very obvious where they are, but eventually that will be part of the...

[1334] There's a lot of hidden stuff.

[1335] He really wanted to show us all this hidden stuff, and we kept going...

[1336] No. I already just played like three hours of your game.

[1337] I will see this.

[1338] And I will say one of the funnier moments is when he first booted up and was like, well, guys, just go ahead and play.

[1339] And, you know, do you mind if I watch?

[1340] He was like, yes.

[1341] Don't watch me. John the bro, I'm not going to see you and try and solve your puzzles as you're watching over my shoulder.

[1342] Most stressful feeling in the world.

[1343] Well, he agreed.

[1344] He said, like, it's stressful to watch.

[1345] Like, I would rather not watch.

[1346] I would rather let you play and then come and talk to you about the experience afterwards.

[1347] So that's a ways off, though, right?

[1348] Yeah, yeah.

[1349] Like he said, like, about a year.

[1350] Next fall, maybe.

[1351] Something like that.

[1352] They're going to do a lot of work on the production side of it.

[1353] But, I mean, it's ballsy.

[1354] And also, you know, he's going all in like he did last time.

[1355] You know, he made a pretty penny off of Braid.

[1356] And he made it pretty clear that, you know, this.

[1357] This is not something where it can just be a mild success and he'll be fine for the next game.

[1358] He needs this to be good and to do well for him to continue kind of doing what he does.

[1359] But he seems to be the kind of guy that relishes in going all in and just seeing where it goes.

[1360] It looks good.

[1361] That game was a lot of fun.

[1362] Yeah, I really enjoyed the hell out of it.

[1363] Very cool.

[1364] Out of my time with it.

[1365] Also just to spend three hours just playing a game.

[1366] That's just so odd for a press demo, and it was so refreshing, and just sit and enjoy it.

[1367] Yeah.

[1368] The game.

[1369] Sounds like it could be flat -out amazing.

[1370] I think so.

[1371] I hope that the story is a little less navel -gazing than the last one.

[1372] Hard to say.

[1373] Yeah, you guys obviously didn't say that.

[1374] But I mean, the early stuff we did see was definitely in line with what Jonathan Blow attempted to do with Braid.

[1375] the nuclear stuff, and you go down that fictional rabbit hole, it's in line with that.

[1376] We'll see where it goes, but he's not fundamentally changing.

[1377] Don't expect Jonathan Blow to make a non -Jonathan Blow game.

[1378] No, I don't.

[1379] Johnny Blade.

[1380] As long as the puzzles are clever.

[1381] I mean, that was the thing.

[1382] It's all optional.

[1383] If you don't want that, you don't even have to actually have to finish all the puzzles to complete the game, just like Braid.

[1384] You have to do X amount in order to get to sort of the end game.

[1385] I appreciate the narrative stuff in Braid.

[1386] Yeah.

[1387] I'm glad it was there, but it was a little.

[1388] open to interpretation.

[1389] Yeah, I mean, it's going to be deliberately cryptic and have some very personal and specific meaning to it to him because that's the way that dude makes games.

[1390] So you're saying when I get to a puzzle where there's two dudes sitting on a couch and I have to draw the outline of them and one of them is Ryan and one of them is Patrick and then there was this part where these guys sat on my couch and played the game.

[1391] I mean, you will never see anything that complicated.

[1392] You will never see anything that detailed.

[1393] Like, these grids are...

[1394] It's a fucking shame that this was two weeks ago.

[1395] I know.

[1396] Well, I haven't looked at the assets we got for the game.

[1397] I don't know if there are any puzzles shown in those screens.

[1398] Yeah, but there's a pretty limited grid space.

[1399] Feeling that he is, after you left, he is locking down the doors and we will see this game in a year.

[1400] That's what he said.

[1401] He's like, this is what I'm showing and then I'm not showing this until it looks really pretty.

[1402] Okay.

[1403] So use the phrase, hit it with the production stick.

[1404] multiple times.

[1405] So they're hiring some new people.

[1406] He's got, I think, three people dedicated out in Berkeley working on it.

[1407] Because he's not much of a 3D programmer or modeler himself, so he kind of has done what he can and is bringing other people in to augment the game.

[1408] So it's very much John Blow's game.

[1409] He's just bringing in other people to sort of fill the gaps where he cannot do it himself.

[1410] John Blow's baby?

[1411] Yeah.

[1412] I mean, we didn't even get into it, but it sounds like even stuff as simple as platform or not.

[1413] really decided a lot of that stuff is fluid and they'll figure it out.

[1414] There's no reason this couldn't be an iPad game.

[1415] There's no reason it couldn't be an iPad game.

[1416] The release that we got said PC and one platform to be determined.

[1417] That's their launch plans.

[1418] Bidding war between Microsoft and Sony.

[1419] Who wants the follow -up to Braid?

[1420] Is it you or is it you?

[1421] Apple does.

[1422] You win.

[1423] Apple doesn't give a shit.

[1424] Yeah, Apple doesn't care.

[1425] This could, but yeah, like the way that these puzzles are structured of like, you know, draw this line through this space, it would be a fine, fine fit on an iPad.

[1426] Other than like the moving around the environment, but that would be.

[1427] But yeah, there's no like finesse to it.

[1428] Exactly.

[1429] It's not a first person shooter, so it's not like I got to run over here super quick and I need this sort of responsiveness in that control.

[1430] It's just as long as I can swipe in, you know, the right.

[1431] But what I appreciated was that in Braid, when he decided, I'm going to skip this puzzle, I can't figure it out, I've got to come back, it was really frustrating because you had to leave a screen.

[1432] There's something about leaving a screen and going on to the next one that feels like you're really giving up.

[1433] You know what I mean?

[1434] You keep butting your head against the wall.

[1435] And then you just back away from the puzzle?

[1436] And then you just back away from the monitor, go to another part of the island, it's very easy to come right back.

[1437] And he said that was one of the things that he noticed when Braid was people would skip puzzles and not come back because you...

[1438] had to go back to a previous stage where this is just a self -contained world.

[1439] It was much more linear.

[1440] Yes.

[1441] And this is sort of taking that, having those separate areas and separate puzzles, but trying to give people options to go experiment somewhere else.

[1442] And, you know, to say this is not entirely nonlinear either.

[1443] There's definitely some like, okay, I need to solve this puzzle before I can even open this door, which is going to allow me access to this other area that has more puzzles in it.

[1444] And then I have to complete all of these puzzles around here to, you know, get access to this third kind of, you know, penultimate area.

[1445] And then you fight the dragon.

[1446] And then it gets weird.

[1447] Cool.

[1448] So, yes, the witness.

[1449] I don't know what the fuck that means.

[1450] No. He might not either.

[1451] Yeah.

[1452] It sounded vague.

[1453] The significance of the name is still lost to me. But definitely left and was sad I was not going to play this for another year.

[1454] Yeah.

[1455] I really – Because even him saying all the art doesn't look that great.

[1456] I don't know.

[1457] It looks good enough.

[1458] The puzzles were so great.

[1459] Right.

[1460] You know what I mean?

[1461] That's what you play it for.

[1462] That's true.

[1463] I mean that was definitely the feeling I got.

[1464] It looked good enough.

[1465] Yeah.

[1466] I'm happy to see what you end up doing with the look of this game.

[1467] Yeah, it's this simple, crude 3D world that you have.

[1468] The puzzles are so fucking outstanding that...

[1469] Well, sadly, a lot of people would not take that perspective.

[1470] No, I know.

[1471] There's really weird, specific wording about the release.

[1472] He literally said, PC and one platform.

[1473] Yeah.

[1474] Did you get the sense that he is actively talking to both of those guys about who was it?

[1475] We didn't talk to him at all about publishing deals or anything.

[1476] All of our conversation with Jonathan that day was...

[1477] about the game.

[1478] I mean, he's said in the past, like, maybe this will be on iOS.

[1479] I don't know.

[1480] I think he's keeping his options open, kind of where he thinks he can make the most money.

[1481] And definitely, you know, if he goes for iOS, you have more flexibility over what you charge.

[1482] You can, you know, Apple's take is not as much as, you know, Microsoft's take, but maybe he's in a position to negotiate, you know, Jonathan Blow's own contract as opposed to a generic...

[1483] publishing contract.

[1484] So I think they can kind of pick and choose whatever path he wants to go down to.

[1485] Patrick, anything else that you would care to talk about?

[1486] I'd be Catherine, but no one else here has played Catherine.

[1487] Yeah.

[1488] Ending was not very good.

[1489] Yeah.

[1490] Gets real.

[1491] I talked to Jeff about it.

[1492] Gets real JRPG.

[1493] Yeah, it sounds like.

[1494] He said, and he said this without talking about any specifics, that there's There's a moment.

[1495] There's a point where that game could end, and it would have been a great ending, but then they decide to not, and they JRPG it to death, and then you're like, fuck.

[1496] Like, literally, the beginning of that game, and if I just described to you the ending I got, how would you get there?

[1497] You don't know.

[1498] Like, it shouldn't...

[1499] I still really enjoyed it.

[1500] I still want to pick it up and get through it.

[1501] I think it's worth playing.

[1502] Joey just finished it.

[1503] He really enjoyed it.

[1504] Joey?

[1505] Yeah.

[1506] Wow.

[1507] Yeah.

[1508] He made it through in two sittings.

[1509] Crazy.

[1510] He said the same thing.

[1511] There was a point in the story where it just turned.

[1512] And you're just like, whoa, stop.

[1513] Go back.

[1514] But, yeah, it's definitely such a weird and interesting game.

[1515] There's nothing else like it.

[1516] I had not nearly as much problems with the block puzzles as Jeff did.

[1517] I know he really struggled with some of the later ones.

[1518] And they are stupid.

[1519] Like, there were moments where I was like, I really should just fucking cheat this block puzzle.

[1520] This is not fun at all.

[1521] It's 2 in the morning.

[1522] Just put on god mode and float up all the way through the time.

[1523] But if I don't get to the end of this puzzle, then I can't save my game.

[1524] Yeah.

[1525] And I'm playing Misplosion Man, but same feelings as last time.

[1526] Brad, to answer your earlier question, at least PC and one platform.

[1527] That's totally different.

[1528] Yeah.

[1529] a good distinction to make.

[1530] Because I could see everybody jockeying to get that game.

[1531] Certainly.

[1532] But it's not like he'll get it where the fuck Jonathan Blow wants it.

[1533] John Blow wants.

[1534] John Blow gets.

[1535] No doubt.

[1536] He's pulled out that sword from the top of his fireplace.

[1537] What's going on?

[1538] Not much.

[1539] Chilling.

[1540] I saw you playing some StarCraft.

[1541] Or at least booting it up when I was playing The Witcher.

[1542] I tend to do that.

[1543] Every day.

[1544] Do you just turn it on and then not play it?

[1545] No. Just turn it on so you're going to have the idle music?

[1546] I really wish Steam Tracks time played on non -Steam games because, well...

[1547] Well, doesn't...

[1548] StarCraft doesn't do it?

[1549] No. There's no, like...

[1550] Not that I know of.

[1551] I mean, there's been plenty of times that I don't watch that game through Steam.

[1552] They may not publicly show it.

[1553] Maybe I can find out.

[1554] Maybe I'll pull some strings.

[1555] I would love to know how many hours I have spent in that game.

[1556] A lot.

[1557] I can't even...

[1558] I have no idea.

[1559] I would just like to know how many hours people add.

[1560] It just maxes out and says a lot.

[1561] That's an astronomical number, dude.

[1562] No doubt.

[1563] Yeah.

[1564] Because I've spent a lot of time on Steam.

[1565] Myself, personally.

[1566] And you come up on the StarCrab blip.

[1567] There's Brad, StarCraft.

[1568] I don't spend that much time on Steam, and I see Brad pop up with the StarCraft blip pretty often.

[1569] I would go play it right now.

[1570] If you released me from this podcast, I would go play it.

[1571] Is there one of the rules where we can get Brad to play StarCraft?

[1572] Man, is it on the list?

[1573] No. So did you actually get into some multiplayer?

[1574] No. Like when you were playing StarCraft, what do you do when you get on there?

[1575] Oh, yeah, that's all I'd do.

[1576] Oh, I haven't touched campaigns since I...

[1577] What are you doing, 1v1?

[1578] Are you doing...

[1579] No, I haven't played 1v1 in...

[1580] God.

[1581] So they started another new season.

[1582] It's weird.

[1583] The first season went six, seven months, and then season two lasted...

[1584] God.

[1585] Season two was a lot shorter than season one, I can tell you that.

[1586] I'm not sure what the number of months was, but season three just started, so records wiped again for the second time since the game came out.

[1587] And you've got people that you play with on...

[1588] Sort of.

[1589] But they're not on that much, so I mostly just play random team games.

[1590] Like pickup games?

[1591] And it's terrible.

[1592] It's so terrible.

[1593] Oh, God.

[1594] Like probably at least one game out of five random team that I play, I end going, why do I play random team?

[1595] Like it's so worthless.

[1596] If you draw a bad teammate, you can't win.

[1597] You literally cannot win if you have a bad team.

[1598] So it's just a complete waste of your time.

[1599] But you're still ranked, though, right?

[1600] So hopefully they're matching you up with somebody else.

[1601] Yeah, it ranks you separately.

[1602] There are separate rankings for every type of 1v1, 2v2.

[1603] And then even within every different team of 3v3 that you play starts its own ladder ranking.

[1604] So I've got a team of a couple guys that I've been playing with.

[1605] That's a lot of fun.

[1606] Played with that pro guy again, a 4v4.

[1607] And do you feel like you're holding your own?

[1608] With those guys?

[1609] No, hell no. So do you feel like he's got the bad team?

[1610] The one guy, well, not.

[1611] No, I'm talking about the guys that I pull will make eight barracks and not make any units out of them.

[1612] Like that kind of stuff.

[1613] That means nothing to you.

[1614] I'm going to start going out and start trolling.

[1615] Think about that.

[1616] You get one barracks out, you should start pumping out some offensive units because in team games everybody likes to rush all the time.

[1617] So this guy makes eight of the building that can make the most basic offensive unit without producing anything.

[1618] No, zero.

[1619] Never, ever would do that, ever.

[1620] I want to know.

[1621] Why?

[1622] Why?

[1623] Griefing you?

[1624] Trust me, never.

[1625] Is he just doing it to grieve?

[1626] Or do you think he's just an idiot?

[1627] No, no, no. Depending on time of day and who's available to get matched with you on a team, you might just pull some 12 -year -old who has no idea what they're doing.

[1628] In a competitive environment.

[1629] Let me track down this guy.

[1630] Let me know the next time.

[1631] Give me his username.

[1632] All right.

[1633] Hey, Berks guy.

[1634] Oh, man. People are so rude on there.

[1635] Holy crap.

[1636] Like, just the vile.

[1637] How are you?

[1638] Just the filth that comes out of it.

[1639] He's talking about himself.

[1640] For the most part, yeah.

[1641] Have you ever had a just fucking lost it?

[1642] Yeah.

[1643] Just tore onto someone and felt really bad afterwards?

[1644] Not to the point where it's just like racial slurs and homophobia.

[1645] It's typical Xbox Live stuff.

[1646] That's what's on there?

[1647] Yeah, there's a lot of that for sure.

[1648] The PC crowd would be a little better.

[1649] No. So I failed to read the second.

[1650] Clause.

[1651] Step in our Stephen Marks provided.

[1652] Somebody can roll the die at any time.

[1653] Choose your own podcast.

[1654] Well, after the segment is chosen, the person that's going to start off the segment then needs to be rolled for.

[1655] Oh, like one out of four?

[1656] But we're playing with modified rules here, so that's fine.

[1657] Are we ready to roll again?

[1658] Is that what you're saying?

[1659] This is second edition.

[1660] This is not.

[1661] Yeah, exactly.

[1662] Well, I mean.

[1663] It's kind of like when you play Monopoly at home.

[1664] It's like, well, there's the official rules of Monopoly, but then everyone has fucking house rules.

[1665] Then you're like, why am I playing Monopoly?

[1666] Because Monopoly's a shitty game.

[1667] Wait, are we officially moving on?

[1668] Why, did you have something else?

[1669] I played some Fruit Ninja Connect.

[1670] I played some Fruit Ninja Connect.

[1671] Yeah.

[1672] Yeah.

[1673] Great.

[1674] I think it works well.

[1675] I think it's what it is.

[1676] So did it work well for you?

[1677] Yeah.

[1678] I know you guys played it on the show.

[1679] I didn't see that.

[1680] Where did you play it?

[1681] At my house.

[1682] Do you have a Kinect?

[1683] Yeah, I hooked one up.

[1684] Okay.

[1685] For the first time.

[1686] Alex had one before he took off.

[1687] Okay.

[1688] Pass it to me. Did you have room in your place?

[1689] So that's the thing.

[1690] I don't know if the game is really bad or if the Kinect is really bad.

[1691] My experience with the game was specifically that it worked well in -game.

[1692] The problem was that it was so sensitive in menus that it's very easy to accidentally select menu stuff.

[1693] So that's bad interface.

[1694] That's bad interface.

[1695] Because the game, you swipe to do the menu stuff as opposed to hovering over.

[1696] Right, which is funny because...

[1697] When I saw that game at E3, I asked, well, that's not the standard interface.

[1698] They're like, yeah, we were able to work with Microsoft to get around it so that they didn't have to do the hover hand.

[1699] You didn't.

[1700] So it sounds like they kind of just made it worse.

[1701] So that was what I was not clear on is if I just have a bad Kinect set up or if it's the game.

[1702] No, no. It seems like that's how that works.

[1703] So I was wearing some kind of baggy shorts when I was playing it.

[1704] It was reading the bottom of my shorts as like an input.

[1705] Oh, weird.

[1706] So standing...

[1707] fucking stone still, not moving a muscle, it was getting a slash from the bottom of my shorts and hitting a menu option.

[1708] Oh, okay.

[1709] Or hitting bombs, I imagine.

[1710] It wasn't as much of a problem.

[1711] It's almost like there was a dead zone in the actual game when I was playing because I was never coming into play, but being in the menus, it kept hitting the bottom options.

[1712] During our happy hour demo last week, there was definitely a lot of like, oh, I guess we're in this mode now because I moved my hand and accidentally selected this thing.

[1713] 100 % with you on that part of it.

[1714] But I felt like once you're actually in the game, like...

[1715] It's pretty good.

[1716] It's comparable.

[1717] It's interesting just to think this was an iOS game.

[1718] This was just swipe, simple motion there.

[1719] And I think it's smart for your first XBLA downloadable Kinect game to tap into that same sort of simplicity.

[1720] It's a smart move on Microsoft's behalf to get in line with Halfbrick on this stuff, I felt.

[1721] You know, a fruit engine costs a dollar on my phone.

[1722] I know.

[1723] And this is $10.

[1724] And I don't know that it's...

[1725] I mean, whatever.

[1726] Different standards for a different platform.

[1727] If you have a Kinect, you need a game if you need games.

[1728] No, I'm with you there.

[1729] Bad.

[1730] Also, it has, like, sweet kung fu gear for your avatar.

[1731] And it has, like, some weird two -player stuff that, you know, it's kind of hard to do two -player on an iPhone.

[1732] Not on an iPad, though.

[1733] Does the iPad have two -player modes?

[1734] I don't know, but it wouldn't be.

[1735] I just like the part where you get to the end of one of the levels and it zooms in on a piece of fruit and you have to slash it.

[1736] Oh, that part's great.

[1737] What's your top?

[1738] I think I got like 43 or something.

[1739] Oh, man, I hit 65.

[1740] Oh, damn it.

[1741] I was sweating.

[1742] Yeah, and you're like, fuck it.

[1743] I'm going to karate chop the shit out of this.

[1744] Fuck you, pomegranates.

[1745] The whole thing feels like a little bit of a workout.

[1746] It's not bad.

[1747] That's good, man. Yeah.

[1748] I just thought, do you guys have coffee tables?

[1749] Like, yeah.

[1750] I've got a living room.

[1751] Like, how does that...

[1752] I move it.

[1753] You have to move it.

[1754] Really?

[1755] I move it.

[1756] Furniture has to be moved.

[1757] The only place it could go is in my kitchen.

[1758] See, I have a big living room.

[1759] He's got a house.

[1760] Yeah, but still, I mean, just...

[1761] All right.

[1762] I just wanted to make sure that, like, everybody else didn't have a coffee table and it worked fine.

[1763] No, there's almost like moving the couch involved with me playing Kinect.

[1764] I know it says make sure there's nothing in front of the TV.

[1765] For me, it's being serious.

[1766] For me, it used to be that I had to fully move the coffee table and the couch.

[1767] Now I've got enough distance from where the couch is and the TV that now I just have to move the coffee table.

[1768] I don't have enough distance.

[1769] I'm waiting for that Nyko thing to come out.

[1770] That will be the distance.

[1771] I can play...

[1772] I could play Fruit Ninja because it's just your upper body, but anything involving your legs is basically unplayable.

[1773] Maybe that's why it was reading around my knees.

[1774] Because it thought those were your feet.

[1775] Because the coffee table basically makes it look like that's where the floor is.

[1776] Oh, yeah.

[1777] That was the cutoff of my silhouette.

[1778] Probably thinks you're trying to cut with your feet.

[1779] Or just thinks that my legs are a foot long.

[1780] I don't know.

[1781] All right.

[1782] I guess I'll move that thing and see how it goes, but that sucks.

[1783] Yep.

[1784] I mean, that's the tech.

[1785] That's what Fruit Ninja can attest to work with.

[1786] Yeah, all right.

[1787] The game, they actually got kind of entertaining trying to minimize, create an economy of movement because it's got a combo system where the more you slash in one movement, the more points you get and stuff like that.

[1788] And then you start getting to where...

[1789] Well, I mean, it's simple.

[1790] It's early.

[1791] But, like, the bomb stuff where it's like, I can't – there is a reason for me to not just be moving everywhere all the time.

[1792] Right.

[1793] Because you will screw yourself out of a better score.

[1794] So they've balanced it for it to actually be a fucking game.

[1795] And there's, like, a ton of unlockables.

[1796] Yeah.

[1797] It seems okay other than, you know, connect.

[1798] I feel like other than it being five bucks instead of ten that they did about what they could to make Fruit Ninja a – a good, fun kind of game.

[1799] Yeah, you can only take the concept so far before it stops being simple.

[1800] I bet they're not willing to price anything at $5.

[1801] No, I put none of that on, you know, Half Break is the studio that makes those games.

[1802] It's not them.

[1803] Like, that's Microsoft.

[1804] Yeah, Microsoft sets the price.

[1805] But, I mean, it's just, you know, when was the last time anything came out at $5 that was not Case Zero, which was a promotional game?

[1806] Yeah.

[1807] Like, three years ago?

[1808] I don't know.

[1809] Probably.

[1810] Bionic Commando?

[1811] No, Battle Command, it was $10.

[1812] That was $10.

[1813] That was $10.

[1814] Like, they don't want to devalue their own service at this point.

[1815] Yep.

[1816] Yep, yep, yep.

[1817] And they're charging for the lab stuff now.

[1818] Yeah.

[1819] Yeah, I was going to go download the...

[1820] The Sparkler.

[1821] The Sparkler.

[1822] Oh, check this out.

[1823] That seems unfair.

[1824] And it's like, here, it's money now.

[1825] And I'm like...

[1826] Yeah, that's a tech demo.

[1827] It's not even a game.

[1828] Yeah, but they started hooking you because they were putting fucking points in all the Fun Lab stuff when it was free.

[1829] Points are not.

[1830] It just...

[1831] Yeah, it seems...

[1832] It took, what, $5?

[1833] It was like 240 points, so I don't know what the...

[1834] Either way, just the fact that there's points.

[1835] When they announced Fun Labs at E3, it was like, all right, cool.

[1836] It's free.

[1837] You're making some concessions.

[1838] You're admitting that there's not a lot of software, but at least you're putting some toys out for people to play with in the meantime.

[1839] And now they're even monetizing that.

[1840] That's...

[1841] Yeah, it didn't seem...

[1842] That's suspect.

[1843] Seems weird.

[1844] Vinny, it looks like you have the die.

[1845] I do.

[1846] Should I roll it?

[1847] Do you want to roll it?

[1848] Yeah.

[1849] Okay.

[1850] I added other stuff in my hand, so it sounds like I'm shaking.

[1851] What do we do about repeats?

[1852] We just have to get that out there.

[1853] We skip repeats.

[1854] Okay.

[1855] What else is in there?

[1856] It sounds weird.

[1857] It's like a dime.

[1858] I don't like the way it's rattling.

[1859] It's an unhealthy rattle.

[1860] The four is back into...

[1861] What are you playing, right?

[1862] Yeah, roll again.

[1863] No, no. Four is new releases, but we already did that.

[1864] Sorry.

[1865] You got a one.

[1866] You got a one?

[1867] News of the world.

[1868] Well, that works out.

[1869] I guess so.

[1870] Splendidly.

[1871] So, thank you.

[1872] Patrick Klapik.

[1873] You know what?

[1874] I had a friend of mine in Japan translate that letter from Satoru Wada.

[1875] Whatever, man. You just put that into Google Translate.

[1876] You know it.

[1877] Fuck you.

[1878] Load it up into Google Translate and look at that.

[1879] It says hard on like three times in his letter.

[1880] Yeah, where he essentially put this letter to consumers basically.

[1881] bending over backwards saying, I'm so sorry that we screwed up and this is how we're trying to make good because this platform that we want to be successful, it's not going to be successful unless we take these drastic measures.

[1882] You don't hear that from a CEO.

[1883] I think it was really weird that Nintendo America didn't translate that themselves because I think people would have appreciated that because that's kind of the response that everyone had was reading.

[1884] It was like, oh, I feel kind of bad for the guy.

[1885] Well, yeah, my favorite part, like you said, was the...

[1886] Just the kind of coming out and being like, hey, listen, this is how the market works.

[1887] If we don't get these systems into people's hands, we're not going to get people to make games for it.

[1888] Then everybody's going to lose out.

[1889] So we need to cut the price, sell these things because they're not selling enough, and then basically get a user base up there.

[1890] And then we'll all see third parties and stuff like that.

[1891] Deal?

[1892] Cool?

[1893] Are we cool now?

[1894] Now here's some free games.

[1895] Here's some free games.

[1896] Sorry.

[1897] Also a lot of I'm sorry.

[1898] Yeah.

[1899] I'm sorry.

[1900] It turns out Nintendo of Europe put up a letter that was similar.

[1901] It was not, like, attributed to any sort of executive or anything.

[1902] But it's just – I don't know.

[1903] It's just – again, like, you read it and I'm like, I felt kind of bad.

[1904] I was like, oh, man, this guy really – he sounds like he just really genuinely wants to make people happy.

[1905] And I feel bad that his product is not doing that well even though, like, you know, he's a corporate exec and it's pulled to shareholders.

[1906] But he comes across as a guy that genuinely cares.

[1907] But it is a tone, like, arguably like a tone of weakness that you would not – That's why you wouldn't do it.

[1908] Don't admit that your product has been a failure in any way.

[1909] And this is saying, hey, we kind of stumbled out of the gate.

[1910] This is how we're trying to fix it.

[1911] We got greedy.

[1912] Want a little too much, maybe.

[1913] That's the subtext of all that.

[1914] He won't say that part.

[1915] I don't know if failure is appropriate.

[1916] There's over 4 million 3DSs out there.

[1917] Underperformer.

[1918] The term failure that has been tossed around is definitely hyperbolic considering that it has not had a holiday season.

[1919] Whether the 3DS is a failure happens after this first holiday season, and then you get a real sense of where the market depreciation is for something like that.

[1920] And whatever, we covered this last week.

[1921] But if you haven't read that letter, go look at it.

[1922] It's cool.

[1923] Well, the not -so -shocking development since then is that some retailers are already selling it at $170 ,000.

[1924] So you can get the best of both worlds.

[1925] Was it Walmart that did that?

[1926] I was in a Target on Saturday.

[1927] I should have walked up to the damn shelf and looked, but out of the corner of my eye, just kind of glancing across the 3DS display, I would swear that I saw 160.

[1928] Damn it, I was in the Target on Sunday.

[1929] No, wait, I was also in the Target on Saturday.

[1930] Son of a bitch.

[1931] Where were you in the Target on Saturday?

[1932] I was in, we went to the one in Albany.

[1933] Okay.

[1934] In the East Bay.

[1935] I was in Nevada.

[1936] I need to get myself to a Target.

[1937] Well, there's just none in the city.

[1938] Oh, no, no, we drove.

[1939] I gotta get myself to a Target and get one of those 170D 3DSs and then get my free games as well.

[1940] Yeah, so that's the thing.

[1941] You go, yeah, go buy it.

[1942] at the reduced price and get all those games.

[1943] Crazy.

[1944] And then Nintendo sold another 3DS.

[1945] Yeah.

[1946] Maybe I'll get a little...

[1947] You make...

[1948] And they've already sold it.

[1949] Just a little bit happier.

[1950] Shit, I didn't even think about it.

[1951] I should have called you.

[1952] I didn't...

[1953] Well, like I said, I didn't check for sure.

[1954] I don't know for sure that they had that, but I thought I saw it, but Walmart definitely.

[1955] There's no Walmart around here.

[1956] I have no idea where there's a Walmart around here.

[1957] Far.

[1958] Does Walmart have an online store?

[1959] Yes.

[1960] Yeah, but I don't know...

[1961] And you know what?

[1962] It's not bad.

[1963] Yeah, yeah, but Walmart .com is a separate entity from Walmart, so they don't always have price parity and stuff.

[1964] I don't want to get a letter from Iwata being like, you motherfucker.

[1965] He would never say that.

[1966] Just a personal one, just from him.

[1967] As soon as you fuck double dipper.

[1968] I go out of my way to make this shit nice for everybody.

[1969] You scumbag.

[1970] You scumbag.

[1971] You hard on.

[1972] You hard on.

[1973] You diseased piece of shit.

[1974] Fuck you.

[1975] Never buy another one of my products.

[1976] You're banned.

[1977] You're banned.

[1978] You're Nintendo banned.

[1979] You can't go on the eShop.

[1980] Can't log in.

[1981] Can't buy Cave Story 3D.

[1982] It's blacklisted by Iwata.

[1983] Oh, that's a cart game, isn't it?

[1984] That's a retail.

[1985] Nintendo hates Vinny.

[1986] Aww.

[1987] All right, moving on.

[1988] Sony buying Sucker Punch.

[1989] I guess they had to have been fairly happy with the performance of Infamous 2.

[1990] It did all right.

[1991] I guess it did all right enough between that and...

[1992] It was the best...

[1993] So Sony touted it as the best -selling game of June.

[1994] It wasn't like the best -selling SKU.

[1995] It was the best -selling SKU, excluding every other game that had combined SKUs.

[1996] Like it did better than any single platform release of any other game.

[1997] Like L .A. Noire and Duke were the top sellers.

[1998] But Infamous 2, just on PS3, did better than L .A. Noire on 360 or L .A. Noire on PS3 or vice versa.

[1999] So more than Duke or L .A. Noire on PS3, but not more than Duke or L .A. Noire on PS3 and 360.

[2000] Combined, right.

[2001] What was great was that Sony had the forethought to issue a press release with that really vague wording that if you didn't look at it, you didn't realize that's – They weren't saying it was the best -selling game, but so they got all these headlines that were, Infamous 2, best -selling game of the month.

[2002] Not true.

[2003] That's good.

[2004] But it did it right, yeah.

[2005] It did, like, 370?

[2006] Yeah.

[2007] 1 ,000?

[2008] I think it was about in line with the first one.

[2009] Really?

[2010] Huh.

[2011] I mean, I think it's better, but it's not, you know, a significant...

[2012] I mean, obviously success is all weighed against, like, the expenditure.

[2013] Yeah.

[2014] Like, what the budget was and stuff, but I mean, I don't know.

[2015] I thought...

[2016] I thought people targeted, like, a million these days.

[2017] Like, it's a pretty high threshold.

[2018] The first one didn't.

[2019] Did it not?

[2020] Remember, that also came out with Prototype at the same time, so they were kind of eating at each other's market value.

[2021] And then, you know, that was coming off of Sony's, you know, all the PSN stuff, and that game's multiplayer wasn't, you know.

[2022] Remember the crazy patching that had to happen?

[2023] Like, just the features that were straight up missing from that disc because of PSN issues.

[2024] User content stuff, like, didn't work until they passed it.

[2025] So that's Sony's apology?

[2026] Hey, we'll just buy you.

[2027] All right.

[2028] Sorry, bro.

[2029] I mean, honestly, I thought Sucker Punch was already, like, wholly owned.

[2030] Now we're just going to have Infamous on the PS3.

[2031] Fantastic.

[2032] It sounds like nothing probably really changes.

[2033] I mean it stops them from eventually pulling an Insomniac basically is where you get to – you get the comfortable second -party position of your games always getting funded, always getting some nice first -party push.

[2034] But you have this backdoor option of like, well, once we use Sony to get us popular enough and influential enough, then we'll just go and broker a deal with someone else and go multi -platform and go where like – The big money is if you're an independent studio.

[2035] That's what Insomniac did, and this kind of stops it from doing that.

[2036] And Sony is also the opposite approach of Microsoft.

[2037] Microsoft is contracting with its first -party staple, and Sony continues to acquire studios.

[2038] So where does that leave Naughty Dog?

[2039] Where are they?

[2040] They got bought a long time ago.

[2041] And so there's Sony, in -house Sony?

[2042] Yep.

[2043] And how about...

[2044] The PixelJunk guys.

[2045] No, they're independent.

[2046] So they're still, but they're like second party.

[2047] They're the same situation.

[2048] I mean, they make like 3DS where they do a lot of games.

[2049] They do a lot of work for Nintendo.

[2050] They're doing the new Star Fox.

[2051] Oh, okay.

[2052] I didn't realize that was the same studio.

[2053] But in terms of their original games, a lot of that stuff pretty much goes through Sony.

[2054] I get confused a lot.

[2055] That's just the end of that statement.

[2056] Sony might own the PixelJunk name.

[2057] I'm not sure.

[2058] I wouldn't be surprised about that.

[2059] I think that might be the case.

[2060] I might be wrong.

[2061] They're making pixels like monsters into a web game.

[2062] Oh, yeah.

[2063] It's like a browser -based thing.

[2064] Facebook and stuff, right?

[2065] I think so, yeah.

[2066] Great idea.

[2067] Seems like a good idea to me. Do you guys want to talk about this Borderlands 2 stuff?

[2068] Sure.

[2069] Which part of it?

[2070] I haven't read the cover story.

[2071] Neither have I. We're not even talking about the game here, are we?

[2072] Yeah.

[2073] I guess that's the question that I'm asking is if we want to, like, okay, Borderlands 2 got announced.

[2074] Ta -da.

[2075] Right.

[2076] Like, we...

[2077] Jeff said on Twitter, he was trying to think back to the first time that he had heard someone at Gearbox say Borderlands 2, right?

[2078] And just like, you know, that's...

[2079] We've kind of known in some unofficial capacity or another that that's been coming for a really long time.

[2080] It's like one of those worst kept secrets kind of things.

[2081] Help me...

[2082] You guys helped me figure out the chain of events here.

[2083] It was Eurogamer.

[2084] Eurogamer published a story 24 hours before the announcement saying that it's – the reason is that the headline was like report Borderlands 2 confirmed.

[2085] And then the story itself was a source close to the development.

[2086] Close to Gearbox or within Gearbox.

[2087] Says an announcement for Borderlands 2 is imminent and the game is coming sometime in 2012.

[2088] And at that point, Randy Pitchford went on Twitter and I don't have a specific comment.

[2089] I don't want to mischaracterize them.

[2090] But basically, in paraphrasing, this was sloppy journalism.

[2091] Shoddy.

[2092] I will quote that directly.

[2093] Shoddy journalism.

[2094] Shoddy journalism.

[2095] Was the phrase he used.

[2096] Shoddy, not shady.

[2097] No, shoddy.

[2098] Like poor.

[2099] But they were right, right?

[2100] Yes.

[2101] Correct.

[2102] And I think his misgiving was in the headline saying that, yes, it's a report.

[2103] Yes, you're saying it's confirmed.

[2104] But it was really weird.

[2105] It was a case of Randy Pitchford, I think, mouthing off in a case where maybe he should have just let his game get announced and not worry about it.

[2106] So is that the story at this point?

[2107] Well, then he got on Twitter and kept going.

[2108] It got worse.

[2109] Oh, really?

[2110] We started getting into it with Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica.

[2111] Well, that happened after the subsequent comments he made, which were reproachful.

[2112] Yeah.

[2113] That Randy made?

[2114] Yeah.

[2115] What did he say?

[2116] Well, he ended up comparing the whole thing to the phone hacking scandal in Britain.

[2117] Did somebody do something?

[2118] Like literally mentioned the two in the same, like created an equivalence between those two events in the same sentence.

[2119] It was fucking crazy.

[2120] Did something similar happen?

[2121] No. Did somebody's email get broken into?

[2122] There's no clear indication how the information got passed to Eurogamer.

[2123] But they cited a source.

[2124] They cited a source.

[2125] One of Randy's Twitter updates insinuated that it was a journalist under NDA that must have told them, but there's no way to know that for sure.

[2126] And there's all sorts of ways that someone, I mean, could have told Eurogamer.

[2127] But nothing that makes it kind of lean towards like somebody faked something, got into somebody's, like the phone hacking stuff.

[2128] There was zero appearance of impropriety on the part of Eurogamer.

[2129] Like maybe somebody did break an NBA or something.

[2130] I would have done the exact same thing they did.

[2131] I would not have written the headline the same way.

[2132] I wouldn't have said Borderlands 2 confirmed.

[2133] I never got the sense from what he was saying that he was upset about the phrasing.

[2134] He was just mad that their announcement got blown.

[2135] Maybe he looked at confirmed as being an actual confirmation from Gearbox or something, and that's the shoddy journalism part.

[2136] Nobody here would have ever confirmed that.

[2137] No, because his subsequent rationale for all that stuff made it pretty clear.

[2138] If it was that and he went back and met Copeland like, oh, I didn't like the headline got passed around because that wasn't totally accurate.

[2139] We never confirmed it.

[2140] He just didn't like that it happened.

[2141] He just kept digging his hole.

[2142] He could have stopped it.

[2143] And then he chose to keep going.

[2144] And then you had people like Three Realms, like George Broussard, chiming in with the same sort of thing.

[2145] I don't know.

[2146] These people act like they want people to act like journalists except when it affects their games.

[2147] And then when it gets too close and it sort of rustles with their plans, then all of a sudden you're not performing your role as a reporter.

[2148] As someone who tries to take that a little bit seriously, that really bothers me. So his commentary is going – And this makes the whole – the whole business look really awful from the outside.

[2149] Absolutely.

[2150] This makes it look like, no, if games press does not just stick to their NDAs.

[2151] I don't know if Eurogamer had an NDA.

[2152] I don't know if they have broken something contractually.

[2153] No, no. There seems to be no indication of that.

[2154] We don't know that for sure, but it seems like nobody had seen it, but I guess Game Informer, right?

[2155] Because they had the exclusive cover.

[2156] If Game Informer has seen it, then most likely there are other foreign magazines that have seen the game.

[2157] But Eurogamer probably had not.

[2158] Yeah, Eurogamer.

[2159] There's no indication that Eurogamer was under NDA.

[2160] It's not like Europe hasn't leaked something before.

[2161] So it's certainly possible that someone in Europe, a journalist, or someone in a magazine, or who knows.

[2162] But that's...

[2163] Not Eurogamer's fault.

[2164] That is down to the journalist or whoever signed that NDA that chose to pass on the information.

[2165] And I would do the exact same thing with that information.

[2166] I would have no problem with that.

[2167] Well, not that video games are a life and death matter, but it's kind of their responsibility to do that.

[2168] Well, I don't think that's true.

[2169] If you're talking about if you got an interview with an NDA or something like that that you signed, you wouldn't then go turn around.

[2170] But he's talking about if someone came to me and they're breaking.

[2171] He's talking about secondhand NDA.

[2172] He doesn't fucking inherit that NDA.

[2173] No, no, no. But I feel like that's kind of something to call shoddy.

[2174] If a journalist did come to somebody and was like, I'll sign this thing.

[2175] I won't talk about it.

[2176] Oh, absolutely.

[2177] Absolutely.

[2178] Agreed.

[2179] Agreed.

[2180] But the story is not.

[2181] No, no, no. The story's completely on the up and up, and they may have gotten that from somebody at Gearbox.

[2182] But you can understand, I'm just playing devil's advocate here, because I think Randy Pitcher is actually a pretty reasonable guy, and I can't really see.

[2183] I've talked to him dozens of times, and he is actually, you know, he's a guy that actually appreciates people that go out of the way, because he's very approachable.

[2184] But he doesn't seem like somebody else.

[2185] He's a really nice guy.

[2186] He will answer my emails personally if I'm trying, like, I don't have to go to PR to talk to him about something.

[2187] This is, it's, the whole thing has been.

[2188] This is a little out of character.

[2189] It's been, to me, but wildly out of character for what.

[2190] But I know – whatever, I've never gone and played fucking softball with Randy Pitchford.

[2191] We've had him in the office a bunch of times.

[2192] From my interactions that I've had with him, he doesn't – It's kind of jovial and just like – So for this to light something up is – yeah, that part is more confusing to me than anything.

[2193] So it makes me think that maybe something is missing.

[2194] Maybe he like actually knows where the leak came from and like maybe it was something that like, hey, we're going to sign this thing.

[2195] We're going to show you this thing and he knows who broke the NDA.

[2196] Like that would make me super pissed if somebody were like, we invite you in here and like you do this and then you turn around.

[2197] The thing is even if that's true, that – Twitter is not the medium to express that in.

[2198] And then if you're going to make those accusations, you need to back them up.

[2199] And if you're going to bring it into a public forum, and if you want to handle it, you're a gamer yourself, and like, hey, you guys did this wrong, blah, blah, blah, let's work this out, fine.

[2200] But you chose to bring it into a public forum, and at that point you need to show evidence of why this is or isn't shoddy, and he didn't do that.

[2201] Also, I don't think that is true, because after there was a fairly significant backlash against what he said, he did sort of backpedal a little bit and try to explain it away.

[2202] Without giving any indication that he knew something.

[2203] He knew what was that.

[2204] wrote a foul of their process.

[2205] But the real bummer here is this should be a moment of celebration.

[2206] Borderlands 2 has been announced.

[2207] Huzzah!

[2208] Let all be excited about the follow -up to what was a pretty kick -ass game.

[2209] This is what happens when you let Jim Rettner go and you don't have anybody.

[2210] Jim, what would you do?

[2211] Just get on Twitter and blast them.

[2212] Just get out there.

[2213] Trust me, it all works out.

[2214] See you later.

[2215] Maybe Randy Pitchford has just painted his left hand to love.

[2216] like Jim Redner.

[2217] Jim, what should I do?

[2218] Twitter talks to shit.

[2219] Oh, that was the hand that typed the message.

[2220] You got it, Jim.

[2221] You're my PR guy.

[2222] Clack, clack, clack, clack.

[2223] Zing.

[2224] I saw my deepest personal apologies to both Randy Pitchford and Jim Redner for that last bit.

[2225] Because I'll just say, Jim Redner, also totally awesome guy.

[2226] Twitter is destroying.

[2227] What all this brings up is kind of questions for the general public about the relationships between game publishers and the gaming press, which I think.

[2228] It makes everybody look bad.

[2229] It makes Randy look bad because he comes across as a controlling asshole.

[2230] And it makes the press look bad because, you know, like from my perspective, it's like, look, these people are trying to do their jobs.

[2231] Look at the problems that they run into and they're just trying to do their jobs.

[2232] But it also just exposes sort of how intertwined the relationships are that makes sense to all of us because we're in it and we know how to work within it.

[2233] But to an outside perspective, I totally understand why it's like, guys, this seems a little weird.

[2234] It looks fucking shady as shit from the outside.

[2235] It makes the press look like they live hand -to -mouth on table scraps.

[2236] But it is a deeply symbiotic relationship.

[2237] It's the thing that needs to be clear is for us to do the job the way that we do it, we need to get that access and they have control of that access and for them to properly market their game, they need to figure out how to give us that access and it's kind of this...

[2238] Push and pull back and forth between the two groups.

[2239] I don't believe we are the only ones – it's not like video games are the only entertainment industry where this is the case, where this happens.

[2240] Or that NDAs – I mean like – I mean NDAs are – I mean the New York Times signed an NDA to use the WikiLeaks information.

[2241] So it's like NDAs extend to all sorts of other parts of journalism.

[2242] Yes, games and entertainment in general, it's a little weirder.

[2243] It's a lot more controlled.

[2244] But that's just the nature of – Of the way the system is.

[2245] Well, also, I mean, you got to kind of take a step even further back.

[2246] And like when you're talking about reporting on an entertainment industry, you're not talking about our people's lives at stake.

[2247] Do we need to go into this kind of.

[2248] Who do I need to burn to save the greater good kind of thing of investigative journalism?

[2249] It's not exactly Woodward and Bernstein here.

[2250] Yeah, like I need to take down this congressman so that we can expose the kind of oil drilling that's going on here.

[2251] It's like I want to find out the release date for Gears of War 3.

[2252] What's the best way to do that?

[2253] Well, we're going to have our launch party.

[2254] I saw a great forum comment that I'll probably paraphrase poorly, but it was something to the effect of video games are the only product on the planet where the people...

[2255] People are actively trying to make sure you don't know exists a product that they are actively trying to sell you.

[2256] If you look at movies, they've already dated Amazing Superman, Spider -Man 2.

[2257] Borderlands 2, don't talk about it, it gets announced tomorrow.

[2258] They've already dated the sequel to that film in 2014.

[2259] The way games get announced seems kind of immature in a way.

[2260] It's not worth the amount of pomp that goes along with it.

[2261] But there are the weird secrecy like we've all seen fucking on the set photos of the next Batman movie being made.

[2262] Like we know what all of this stuff looks like out in bad context in ways that are super unflattering.

[2263] And I will.

[2264] Wager that if Warner Brothers could, they would control it and keep you from being able to see that until you fucking buy that movie ticket.

[2265] It's the reason they all wear the fake production hats, right?

[2266] That say Blue Milk Productions or whatever.

[2267] What are you filming?

[2268] I don't know.

[2269] They want to try to stop you from finding out too much about it.

[2270] But it's impossible.

[2271] They won't and can't stop you from finding out that it exists.

[2272] Right.

[2273] Well, it's impossible for that stuff because you're doing location shoots and this giant Batmobile running through Montreal.

[2274] What are you going to do?

[2275] The weird story that, like in Kachera's Ars Technica story, we talked about this, was like he ran into something really weird a couple years ago with Rock Band 3 where, if you remember, like there was during Judges Week, that's where they showed Rock Band 3 for the first time and they showed the keytar and they showed all that stuff.

[2276] And everyone was under NDA for like, I don't know, like a week, week and a half.

[2277] He found out he didn't go to that event.

[2278] So he had no knowledge of that, but he found out independently about the keytar.

[2279] I don't know how he found out.

[2280] He claims it wasn't, I believe, not from a journalist who attended the event.

[2281] It was something completely separate.

[2282] So he ran a story with pretty much most of the details that people got out of this event.

[2283] I remember this.

[2284] I remember this turn of events.

[2285] Then there was two things that happened, like harmonics, but I think it was more, by extension, Reverb, who was their PR company, freaking out over them given that.

[2286] To them, it seemed like probably a journalist handed this guy's information and published it early.

[2287] Then you had all these other journalists pissed off because they are beholden to an embargo.

[2288] And in any other news reporting, you would just assume that because the details are out, your embargo is null and void and you will just write it.

[2289] But people are trained to know that if you break it, even though you could – legally kind of just write about it now, you're not going to get access the next time around.

[2290] And so you have these people that are like us in the system like, well, what do I do?

[2291] Do I break it now?

[2292] To be fair, sometimes you can't ask the publisher like, hey, look, this happened.

[2293] Sometimes they'll just say, fine, the embargo's up.

[2294] The Wall Street Journal broke it early, blah, blah, blah.

[2295] But yeah, it's tough because you're already in the system.

[2296] How much do you buck the system?

[2297] How much do you just play to it and try to do the best work you can within that system?

[2298] But again, I always look at it as taking a step back.

[2299] It's like it is entertaining.

[2300] You are reporting on entertainment.

[2301] And the parts where I do appreciate the stuff where it does get – where the kind of rubber meets the road are in the kind of like – The dirt on like are people being treated fairly?

[2302] Hey, like this person – the work conditions here are terrible and like – The important stories have no NDA.

[2303] Right.

[2304] The stuff that's like – I had the source that's telling me like, hey, they're bleeding you dry on this thing.

[2305] This is bad business practice here or like stuff that's going on.

[2306] This isn't fun and game stuff.

[2307] Well, no. And I think if you're a journalist who entirely relies on your reporting being under NDA, then you're doing it wrong to begin with.

[2308] I think there are issues within that that are legitimate.

[2309] But yeah, like the Infinity Ward story I did, that was an indie thing.

[2310] That stuff is – I'm not even really – even if I knew about Borderlands 2 and someone said I could run it, I'm not sure I would just because I really don't care about product announcements.

[2311] I think that's fucking boring.

[2312] That's not what I'm interested in.

[2313] It's like stories about people and studios and stuff like that.

[2314] Also, it's one of those things that, like, I'm just breaking it early.

[2315] Like, I'm just saying something early.

[2316] Like, yeah.

[2317] I don't know.

[2318] But yeah, it's a weird, the relationship on that entertainment level is weird.

[2319] But I don't know if it is actually that weird when you think about it.

[2320] When it's just like, again, it's entertainment stuff.

[2321] There's not really, they're putting stuff out so that you can play it and be entertained by it.

[2322] It's not like they're poisoning your water and we need to get to the bottom of this.

[2323] Uh, and we're here playing those games and, you know, there's one side that's news and there's another angle on it that is critiquing it.

[2324] And there's like, there's a bunch of different stuff going on.

[2325] Uh, and you need to maintain those relationships.

[2326] But then there's also like another part where it's like, you know, reporting on the business end of it and all that stuff, which then goes into like, Hey sources.

[2327] And like, this is happening over here.

[2328] And like, this is a story that has nothing to do with them trying to entertain you.

[2329] This is a story that has to do with like, this is some shady shit or this is some really good shit.

[2330] I think it's important that you know that on a Friday, S &P downgraded Borderlands 2 from a AAA game to a AA+.

[2331] Yeah.

[2332] Way to bring me down, Bradley.

[2333] Nicely done, Bradley.

[2334] Well, let's turn that frown upside down with the news that Blizzard has registered a trademark on a name for Mists of Pandaria, which means that my fucking Pandaren Brewmaster is finally becoming a class in World of Warcraft.

[2335] Please explain to me your investment in this idea, because you have seemed way into it for the last seven years.

[2336] Since the beginning, because I think the Pandaren Brewmaster is...

[2337] Okay.

[2338] In a way that you actually want to play a panda bear in WoW or you just think it's stupid?

[2339] Both.

[2340] Okay.

[2341] I don't think those have to be mutually exclusive.

[2342] So the pandered brewmaster got introduced in like the second?

[2343] He's a mercenary hero in Warcraft 3.

[2344] But in the expansion.

[2345] Yeah, you're right.

[2346] He was in the expansion.

[2347] So he's a hero character that you can hire in those games.

[2348] And he was a character that existed because of, or had originally existed as an April Fool's joke on Blizzard's behalf, right?

[2349] Yeah, Blizzard...

[2350] What was the context of that joke?

[2351] They introduced the Pandaren as, like, the new race in something.

[2352] But what was it?

[2353] I forget.

[2354] Was it...

[2355] It must have been Warcraft, really.

[2356] It had to have been.

[2357] I mean, because that's all there was.

[2358] When did they start doing April Fool's jokes?

[2359] Anyway...

[2360] It must have been Warcraft...

[2361] I don't know.

[2362] So it's one of those things, and I love...

[2363] It's Dan.

[2364] You know what it was?

[2365] I'm sorry.

[2366] I think it was...

[2367] When they first were talking about Warcraft 3 for the first year, they kept saying there were going to be six playable factions.

[2368] That ended up becoming four.

[2369] Right.

[2370] But I think that's what they rolled.

[2371] the pandaren out as like the final faction in warcraft 3 if i remember um so it was a thing that started off as a gag and it's something that i have every time they've said we're doing an expanse for world of warcraft i'm like fucking pandaren should be the new race because a whole race of goddamn panda bears in your Also like mystical eastern panda bears.

[2372] Yeah, yeah.

[2373] But then again, I mean, you know, Kung Fu Panda came to pass.

[2374] Well, I think it's one of those things that as Warcraft has progressed, because there was a time, there was a time when Warcraft...

[2375] wasn't as silly and referential as it is now.

[2376] There was a time when that shit was pretty heavy.

[2377] The first two games took itself pretty seriously.

[2378] And I would say even Warcraft 3 has a fair amount of...

[2379] They try and bring some weight and some heft to this stuff.

[2380] There were no motorcycles in Warcraft 3.

[2381] Once you get to World of Warcraft, there's some referential humor in there.

[2382] The art style takes on a more playful kind of feel to it.

[2383] To the point where now you say, hey, you can play as a fucking panda bear.

[2384] Yeah, I'm surprised you can.

[2385] You're like, yeah, okay, whatever.

[2386] At the time, like at the beginning of this, before this metamorphosis had happened for the Warcraft aesthetic, it sounded like just a complete weird left turn.

[2387] So that's my investment.

[2388] It doesn't seem so weird now.

[2389] Yeah, now when they say, yeah, we've trademarked Mists of Pandaria, however you want to say it.

[2390] I start suggesting that that's a World of Warcraft expansion where you go to a new continent full of panda bears and you can play as a panda bear.

[2391] I mean, now it's almost like you go, what else can they do?

[2392] Yeah.

[2393] Because seriously, I mean, the first two expansions explored the only other, like, land masses known in the Warcraft lore.

[2394] Which is interesting given that it also public said, like, we have to put out expansions faster.

[2395] Yeah.

[2396] So how do you do that without going to Silly Town?

[2397] Right.

[2398] Like, they added all the extra areas that existed.

[2399] And then they went and redid all the original areas that were there in the first place.

[2400] So, like, what else is there?

[2401] I mean, whatever.

[2402] I'm no World of Warcraft expert.

[2403] But they already have all those crazy, like, the Christmas events, the Halloween events.

[2404] Yeah.

[2405] All the pet stuff.

[2406] All that stuff.

[2407] It just doesn't seem that crazy.

[2408] Yeah.

[2409] I don't know.

[2410] I mean, did they say?

[2411] Well, I'm sure they didn't really give a reasoning for putting out expansions faster.

[2412] Was that part of, like, financials or something?

[2413] Yeah.

[2414] They said that for the last couple calls, like, based on the...

[2415] Like the subscriber numbers aren't going up.

[2416] They're not really going down.

[2417] So they're like, well, but everyone's buying these expansions.

[2418] So it's not moving the knee on the play race.

[2419] It's like, why don't we put up the expansions faster so that we give people more content?

[2420] What I read anecdotally and then also saw on my, because the Blizzard game friends list are across game now.

[2421] So what I read anecdotally was that like, yeah, everybody ran out and bought Cataclysm, but the staying power was not there.

[2422] Right, they burned through the content.

[2423] People re -up, played through that content.

[2424] A month, two months maybe, and then like you just hit a cliff on the graph.

[2425] It kind of sounded like it was going to be like rather than like these giant expansions every 18 months, it's like these medium, smaller expansions maybe every six to eight months and try and keep people in.

[2426] Because if people know there's another expansion coming out for six months, it's like, I'll just keep my account.

[2427] It's bananas.

[2428] No, it's pandas.

[2429] It's pandanas.

[2430] Pandanas.

[2431] Those are actually raccoons.

[2432] Yeah, I look forward to playing as a raccoon lady and a sexy raccoon lady.

[2433] Who does the Horde get then?

[2434] Also, maybe it's a faction -neutral race.

[2435] Emo Phillips.

[2436] Last but not least, Peter Moore has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer at Electronic Arts.

[2437] What was he?

[2438] He was the head of EA Sports previously, so that's why he only came out there whenever it was time to talk about sports games.

[2439] So you were always bummed, like, man, I want to hear Peter Moore talk about stuff that I really care about.

[2440] I get it.

[2441] People are super excited about Madden and FIFA and Tiger Woods and all this other stuff.

[2442] I just don't want to hear people call Peter Moore coach.

[2443] Yeah, coach.

[2444] But he does it with such respect and class.

[2445] Yeah.

[2446] I want Peter Moore to be my coach.

[2447] Life coach.

[2448] Yeah.

[2449] Teach me, Peter Moore.

[2450] Teach me. I bet he's a pretty tough coach when he wants to be.

[2451] I want him to be tough.

[2452] So what does this mean for Peter Moore?

[2453] Coach Moore or Coach Taylor?

[2454] More money, more power.

[2455] Coach Taylor.

[2456] More Peter Moore.

[2457] More, more.

[2458] More, more.

[2459] You made that joke in the story, didn't you?

[2460] Yes.

[2461] More money?

[2462] More which joke?

[2463] More more.

[2464] Oh, more more.

[2465] But I like more money, M -O -O -R -E, more money.

[2466] Yes.

[2467] More problems.

[2468] Oh, my God, I couldn't even get that out.

[2469] Oh, that was really hard.

[2470] That's right.

[2471] It's your body new.

[2472] It's like, no, don't put that out there, you idiot.

[2473] We're all avoiding it.

[2474] I mean, this just all seems like fucking Peter Moore's inevitable ascension to the top of electronic arts, right?

[2475] I want him to run the whole game industry.

[2476] Let him MC every game event that ever happens ever.

[2477] It seems like they let Rick Hotel handle the business side, and Peter Moore ascends to basically handling the software.

[2478] He's a smart dude.

[2479] Shrewd is how I would characterize Peter Moore.

[2480] He has been around.

[2481] He always seems to fit.

[2482] He never seems to be a bad fit for where they put him.

[2483] He always seems to be like, oh, I'll do the ESports.

[2484] He's a chameleon.

[2485] He can just blend in.

[2486] He's like, I've been doing this forever, right?

[2487] You guys trust me about sports games now.

[2488] I don't know why, but here we go.

[2489] Yeah, sure.

[2490] Stand with these football players.

[2491] Do you even know what football is?

[2492] It's soccer.

[2493] Yeah, and then come out with golf and hand soccer.

[2494] Football is just hand soccer.

[2495] How about he watches football?

[2496] You do?

[2497] Yeah.

[2498] He seems like a guy if he gets engrossed in his work.

[2499] Yeah, I bet if he is tasked with running the sports label, he won't learn it.

[2500] He's a businessman.

[2501] Yeah, smart.

[2502] He does whatever it requires.

[2503] So you think this is good for Peter Moore?

[2504] Absolutely.

[2505] And it's good for EA.

[2506] Yeah, I think it's both.

[2507] So the other interesting kind of sidebar here is that this represents a big reorg at EA with one of the divisions of EA now being called straight up BioWare.

[2508] It's not EA BioWare.

[2509] No, no. Now there's EA Games, there's EA Play, there's EA Sports, and BioWare.

[2510] And what's this again?

[2511] COO of what?

[2512] The Electronics.

[2513] The whole company.

[2514] Yeah, Riccitello's CEO.

[2515] He's CEO.

[2516] Who vacated?

[2517] Was it Sean Shappard left?

[2518] Yeah, he was at EA, then went to Microsoft, then came back to EA, and now he's at Zynga.

[2519] Wow.

[2520] So is this either Peter Moore's first move?

[2521] Get rid of this Star Wars shit.

[2522] Shut it down.

[2523] Yeah, what are you doing?

[2524] We're done.

[2525] I don't know.

[2526] They banked a lot on that game.

[2527] We're done.

[2528] I'm not taking responsibility.

[2529] You don't put me into this position and then I'm taking responsibility for this.

[2530] Maybe that's how I have been Riccitello, but it all is money.

[2531] Hey, Peter, you want to be COO?

[2532] No, Peter's the man to talk to.

[2533] He's the guy.

[2534] I'll see you, man. I'll see you in like six months.

[2535] Just talk to PeeWee over here.

[2536] I'll be out on the links.

[2537] Peace.

[2538] Hey, Peter, how's that Bioware thing going?

[2539] Yeah, but then if Peter Moore can fucking turn it around, it's not Bioware, it's Peterware.

[2540] That's right.

[2541] Well, they renamed their San Francisco studio to BioWare San Francisco.

[2542] Really?

[2543] The one that made Dragon Age, the Facebook games.

[2544] The Dragon Age Facebook game.

[2545] I didn't know they had a studio here.

[2546] Yeah.

[2547] They made that Mirror's Edge game to the 2D one, like the web game.

[2548] So they're like a BioWare studio now.

[2549] So we got to see Peter Moore with a lightsaber.

[2550] anytime soon.

[2551] But you think about it, if Peter Moore turns it around...

[2552] I know, it'd be fantastic.

[2553] Like, he just gets in there and starts coding?

[2554] He's just fucking...

[2555] Have you ever seen Peter Moore, like, with his sleeves not rolled up?

[2556] Isn't it always great when you see Peter Moore with just the, you know, it's like a...

[2557] like some sort of pastel dress shirt, nice and crisp, but he's got those fucking sleeves up.

[2558] It's like he just came in from the trenches.

[2559] Exactly.

[2560] He's been elbow deep and making games.

[2561] I was just out there making games in the field.

[2562] I wanted to come in and tell you a little bit about it with these football men.

[2563] He gives the best interviews, too.

[2564] And what he does, and it's a very clever and sly trick, is that he incorporates, he always makes sure to incorporate your name into your response.

[2565] It's like, well, look.

[2566] Let me point this out, Patrick.

[2567] But he personalizes it.

[2568] He's read the book.

[2569] I did one interview with him, and it was great.

[2570] He's good.

[2571] I think it was one of Drew's early first event things.

[2572] Was that at the bar?

[2573] Yeah.

[2574] That kind of freaked him out.

[2575] He was like, we're going to go interview Peter Moore.

[2576] Holy shit.

[2577] Yeah, he's this cool character.

[2578] Yeah.

[2579] What falls under the Bioware umbrella at this point?

[2580] Edmonton?

[2581] Austin?

[2582] They've got a new Montreal studio.

[2583] Mythic.

[2584] New -ish.

[2585] Is Mythic under that?

[2586] Yeah, I think so.

[2587] BioWare Mythic.

[2588] And the San Francisco thing.

[2589] It's just Mythic now.

[2590] I think they went back to just Mythic.

[2591] Well, they were EA Mythic, and then I'm pretty sure they report to BioWare, though.

[2592] I mean, they report to it.

[2593] Name or not.

[2594] I think Dustchuk is in charge of that.

[2595] Name or no, yeah.

[2596] That's essentially a BioWare studio.

[2597] I guess either Ray or Greg, I can't remember.

[2598] One of them runs the RPG unit at EA, and that includes Mythic and BioWare.

[2599] And then the San Francisco studio.

[2600] Yes.

[2601] Well, I think that's just the thing is that they've formalized it to the point where, like, okay, it is now the Bioware division that is all of those studios rolled into one.

[2602] So, yeah.

[2603] I wonder how many products you're going to see coming out of that label.

[2604] Well, I think once they finish up Old Republic, probably a fuckload more.

[2605] Or at least they'll put, like, you know, expansions and stuff into it.

[2606] Yeah.

[2607] I mean, there's Old Republic support and there's...

[2608] Mass Effect and Dragon Age.

[2609] Is that the output?

[2610] It's ripe for a new Bioware IP at this point.

[2611] J .D. Empire.

[2612] Yeah, bring back J .D. Empire.

[2613] Actually, Microsoft might own J .D. Empire.

[2614] I want to hear Peter Moore talk to me about Star Wars stuff.

[2615] Do you feel like he could convince you?

[2616] This is why it's cool.

[2617] No, not that.

[2618] I want him to go in there.

[2619] What's going on, guys?

[2620] Like, seriously, what's going on?

[2621] We have a roundtable meeting.

[2622] So you feel like Peter Moore can go in there and fix whatever it is that's going on that's making this all weird?

[2623] In this last six -month stretch?

[2624] I want, like, the next time Peter Moore gets on.

[2625] The game is coming out Wednesday.

[2626] Actually, it's Thursday.

[2627] It was out for a day already.

[2628] You guys don't even know it.

[2629] You can get it on Steam if you want it.

[2630] No, you can get it on Origin .com.

[2631] You can get it on Steam.

[2632] We talked about this in the meeting.

[2633] If you want it.

[2634] It's going to be on Origin .com.

[2635] There are two SKUs.

[2636] There's a box set.

[2637] We're done.

[2638] Get it.

[2639] It's fantastic.

[2640] I played it.

[2641] There's a class you can play that's just Peter Moore.

[2642] I've inserted myself into all future EA products to make them more awesome.

[2643] Yeah.

[2644] Cheap operating officer.

[2645] You've got to get in there and make sure shit's operating.

[2646] All right.

[2647] Patrick, you've got the head for business around here.

[2648] If anybody does.

[2649] Sure.

[2650] What is traditionally the role of the COO?

[2651] Yeah, I couldn't speak to the color of that.

[2652] I've never been clear on that.

[2653] I don't know if it's a company -by -company thing.

[2654] Yeah, I can give you an answer.

[2655] What operations specifically?

[2656] I don't know if we're talking about back -end business stuff.

[2657] The impression for me is that Riccitello is handling more of the business stuff while Peter gets into a better situation to handle just overview of software development as a whole.

[2658] Leave that shit for the CFO.

[2659] You know?

[2660] See, financials, that's self -explanatory.

[2661] You know what that is.

[2662] But, you know, operations, that's pretty broad -ranging.

[2663] Yeah, yeah.

[2664] I think it could vary from company to company wildly.

[2665] All right, we're getting a territory where we have no business speaking.

[2666] No, this is knock on the wall there.

[2667] But again, congratulations, Peter Moore, for his new title.

[2668] I hope.

[2669] Hopefully that serves him well.

[2670] I hope.

[2671] I do, too.

[2672] No, I...

[2673] I like the way Peter Moore spits game.

[2674] Give Peter Moore more opportunities to spit that game, and I will be happy.

[2675] Who takes over sports?

[2676] The guy I've been working under him.

[2677] His name escapes me, but it's essentially his protege.

[2678] All right, guys.

[2679] We're out of segments.

[2680] Roll that die.

[2681] All right.

[2682] Can't cancel this podcast.

[2683] Three.

[2684] We didn't get that yet.

[2685] No, we did.

[2686] It's what you've been playing.

[2687] Oh.

[2688] Four.

[2689] That's new releases.

[2690] Five.

[2691] Oh, no. Dangerous five.

[2692] Oh, six.

[2693] All right.

[2694] God damn it.

[2695] Is that email?

[2696] I should have just moved on to emails.

[2697] I shouldn't have let you make me roll.

[2698] Because six require us to create a new segment.

[2699] Oh, really?

[2700] Oh, God.

[2701] We're going to be here all night.

[2702] Wait, what number is emails?

[2703] Somebody order Chinese food.

[2704] Two?

[2705] Yeah.

[2706] Oh.

[2707] Six is a new segment?

[2708] All right, you know, I'm only going to do this in theory because after this I'm going to read some fucking emails because, yeah, people need to do stuff.

[2709] Wait, are there lists of segments?

[2710] Yes.

[2711] Now section three.

[2712] Supplementary table one, new segments.

[2713] Roll the die twice.

[2714] That's right.

[2715] Roll the die twice for table 1A.

[2716] Roll once for table 1B.

[2717] 1A represents the first word in the new segment's title.

[2718] 1B the second.

[2719] I guess I'll keep rolling here.

[2720] Five.

[2721] Remember that number?

[2722] Five.

[2723] And six.

[2724] So it is a round table non sequitur.

[2725] That's it?

[2726] Wait, what about table two?

[2727] No, it's the first.

[2728] Table one is round table.

[2729] Table two is non sequitur.

[2730] I'm not sure what that means.

[2731] Does that mean, like, you say something?

[2732] I saw some Canadian geese in the field yesterday hanging out with a bunch of cows, and as we were driving by, I was all, hawk, hawk, hawk, hawk.

[2733] Vots?

[2734] I'm wearing gray socks today.

[2735] Patrick?

[2736] I have an arcade machine.

[2737] My favorite thing to put in a peanut butter sandwich is honey.

[2738] Really?

[2739] Yeah.

[2740] Truly?

[2741] Yeah.

[2742] Wait, you ruined it.

[2743] You just like peanut butter and jelly?

[2744] You picked up the conversation.

[2745] No, it's great, but...

[2746] Peanut butter and honey.

[2747] What about peanut butter and honey and banana?

[2748] Even better.

[2749] Never tried that.

[2750] Try it.

[2751] Peanut butter and banana is good.

[2752] Yeah.

[2753] For sure.

[2754] I've said it on here before, but you get a nice, big, fat, sweet red onion.

[2755] What?

[2756] Peanut butter and onion.

[2757] What?

[2758] Peanut butter and onion.

[2759] Do you like Thai food?

[2760] Yeah.

[2761] Okay, I can see that.

[2762] It's a spicy, sweet.

[2763] Straight up pad thai sandwich.

[2764] Yeah.

[2765] But I was doing that when I was a little kid.

[2766] I guess a pad thai sandwich does sound pretty great.

[2767] But I just have to describe it like that as opposed to who gets a peanut butter and a red onion.

[2768] Yeah.

[2769] And then I get scared.

[2770] No, no, no. If you were thinking in the little kid peanut butter and jelly kind of mindset, it's weird.

[2771] That's what I was thinking of.

[2772] But if you think in other cuisine archetypes.

[2773] Peanut butter and onion, it's tasty.

[2774] I can believe that.

[2775] I don't know that I'm going to go try it.

[2776] Are you chunky, smooth?

[2777] What's your deal?

[2778] Preference at all?

[2779] Probably smooth.

[2780] Yeah.

[2781] I've been going for the all peanut butter.

[2782] Yeah.

[2783] I try to get the natural stuff also, but I can't deal with the Adams, the fucking oil on top.

[2784] Oh, really?

[2785] Oh, just stir it up.

[2786] It's fine.

[2787] I get the...

[2788] Oh, Adams is the one that most supermarkets have, right?

[2789] Yeah.

[2790] Yeah, I didn't like that one either, but the Trader Joe's all natural is a lot easier to stir up.

[2791] Okay.

[2792] I like looking and seeing the ingredients peanuts.

[2793] That is nice.

[2794] You don't need all that extra sugar in there.

[2795] But if you're going to put honey on the sandwich, you need a light coating of peanut butter on both pieces of bread.

[2796] Honey combining directly with the bread, no good.

[2797] It's got this weird crystallizing action where it makes the bread kind of hard.

[2798] It's just not pleasant.

[2799] You know what's kind of lame?

[2800] Farscape.

[2801] I can't get into it.

[2802] Yeah, no. Absolutely.

[2803] Why did you decide to try and get into it?

[2804] I'm trying to.

[2805] Somebody had recommended it.

[2806] It was like, if you can get past the Muppet stuff, then Farscape can get pretty good.

[2807] Isn't there a lot of Muppet stuff?

[2808] Oh, yeah.

[2809] There's a lot of Muppets in it.

[2810] There's a lot to get past.

[2811] It's all Muppet.

[2812] And my nails are all shiny because I got this manicure.

[2813] I haven't gotten a manicure done in fucking years.

[2814] Ever got a manicure, Vinny?

[2815] No. I don't think my nails can deal with it.

[2816] No, it's nice.

[2817] I think I ruined my nails at like 15 or something.

[2818] It's nice.

[2819] Your nails do look pretty nice.

[2820] Yeah, right?

[2821] Like when you first get them done, though, it's crazy how shiny they are.

[2822] Do you get a pedicure?

[2823] No, I'm not going to let those poor Vietnamese ladies near my fucking feet.

[2824] Just kick them.

[2825] No, no, it's...

[2826] I need to take care of some – I have personal issues that need to be taken care of before another person has to touch my feet.

[2827] Just chop your toes like a prosthetic toes.

[2828] It's like toe dentures.

[2829] It's about where I'm at.

[2830] Just have fake feet strapped on your normal feet so they don't have to see the actual feet.

[2831] What was that Saturday Night Live fake commercial for the handy off?

[2832] I don't know what you're talking about.

[2833] It was like – Late 80s era.

[2834] Okay, I know the era.

[2835] I don't remember the specifics of the commercial.

[2836] I think I remember Victoria Jackson is in it.

[2837] It's like a solvent that you paint onto your sixth finger.

[2838] Oh, yes.

[2839] The finger slowly dissolves and falls off over a period of days.

[2840] Indeed.

[2841] That's how you get rid of your toes.

[2842] Yeah, I definitely need something like that.

[2843] All right, emails.

[2844] Man, I had the non -sequitur to end that conversation.

[2845] But now you're segwaying into it.

[2846] With a bullet.

[2847] All right, go ahead.

[2848] I don't want to.

[2849] You didn't roll the dice yet.

[2850] I can't.

[2851] Yeah, I don't even know what this next segment is.

[2852] I might have to make up another one.

[2853] Oh, I can't.

[2854] Six.

[2855] Three.

[2856] It was pretty bad.

[2857] Three is what you've been playing.

[2858] Done it already.

[2859] Three again.

[2860] Uh -oh.

[2861] Two.

[2862] Emails.

[2863] All right.

[2864] Emails.

[2865] First email comes in from Larkin in Los Angeles.

[2866] Currently I'm playing Bioshock.

[2867] I noticed that I'm using the select button on the PS3 controller a lot to bring up the map screen.

[2868] It got me wondering what other functions do games give the select button?

[2869] Has its select functionality been lost in time?

[2870] And is it simply just another button to map a command to that might not be as relevant as others over time?

[2871] The start button could be renamed pause while it's seldom used just to...

[2872] It's seldom used.

[2873] Kin just sits idle, not selecting anything.

[2874] your thoughts.

[2875] Well, it's not even select on the 360.

[2876] It's bad.

[2877] And Nintendo has abandoned start and select entirely.

[2878] Yeah, they have plus minus.

[2879] I won't even hit the start button.

[2880] I'll just hit the guide button.

[2881] To pause it.

[2882] To pause it.

[2883] Because the start is usually for the menu.

[2884] Yeah, or you'll accidentally skip a cutscene hitting the start button.

[2885] Still start and select on the PS3.

[2886] I always figure the guide button will pause the cutscene as opposed to outright skipping it.

[2887] That should be standard.

[2888] But you don't know for sure.

[2889] But it should be standard.

[2890] The guide will often pause it.

[2891] Even though the start button will skip it.

[2892] I still think you should be able to hold down the left bumper, right bumper, or left trigger, right trigger, start and select, and reboot the system.

[2893] Just from the cold boot.

[2894] That's why they should have a select and start button.

[2895] Somebody wrote and asked if the back button behavior in Shadow Planet bugged me. Yes.

[2896] What does it do?

[2897] If you hit back in that game, it brings up the map.

[2898] But if you hit back again, it does not bring you back to the game.

[2899] It brings you to the pause screen.

[2900] If hit B to get back to...

[2901] Yes, you hit back to get into the map, but B to get out of it.

[2902] If you keep hitting back, you just get into an infinite loop of going between the map and the pause screen.

[2903] Is that just a weird Microsoft quirk?

[2904] I've never seen that in any other game.

[2905] I refuse to have an opinion about that.

[2906] It wasn't a big deal.

[2907] I noticed it, let's say that.

[2908] What's your opinion about hitting the guide button during a cutscene and it doesn't pause it?

[2909] That sucks.

[2910] That's terrible.

[2911] Bad news?

[2912] Because then your other option is, well, I wonder if we'll start to pause it?

[2913] Or we'll start to skip it outright and then I don't know what the fuck happened in that cutscene.

[2914] Pausable cutscenes.

[2915] This is not hard.

[2916] Come on.

[2917] It's scary.

[2918] Do it.

[2919] I can't think of the last game that didn't have...

[2920] I feel like L .A. Noire...

[2921] I can't remember if L .A. Noire was a guideable pause.

[2922] I played that on PS3, and I want to say I paused it.

[2923] But I can't say for sure.

[2924] I think I played that on PS3, too.

[2925] You did.

[2926] I mean, I think bottom line here for this email, like, button naming conventions are arbitrary and just kind of...

[2927] My XY button and my BA button.

[2928] Or your AB button if you're on a Nintendo system.

[2929] Yeah, that's the worst.

[2930] That is absolutely the worst.

[2931] I really wish that, I mean, good on Sony for at least coming up with a different scheme.

[2932] Yeah.

[2933] Completely.

[2934] Instead of AB, XY.

[2935] Going between like 3DS and an Xbox.

[2936] That sucks.

[2937] Like, if there's any time you need to recall like button position from memory and you're thinking in one context and not the other.

[2938] But the problem is that like, okay, Nintendo did it first, but I feel like they're the ones who should...

[2939] Conform?

[2940] Conform.

[2941] I really feel like...

[2942] I don't know.

[2943] Well, like...

[2944] I don't know.

[2945] Like, having the B button basically in front of the A button is bananas to me. Why is that?

[2946] Like, there's kind of a logic.

[2947] On the NES controller?

[2948] Yeah.

[2949] Or on the SNES controller.

[2950] Or on the 3DS.

[2951] Is there some, like, reading right -to -left thing I'm not aware of?

[2952] Well, I mean, Japanese traditionally is, like, top -to -bottom.

[2953] Right.

[2954] Oh, wait.

[2955] Actually, I think it's top -to -bottom.

[2956] Oh, yeah, no, it's totally top -to -bottom and right -to -left.

[2957] Because all the books are fine.

[2958] Maybe that's why.

[2959] Maybe that's why.

[2960] I don't know.

[2961] So, yeah, Nintendo did it first with the lettering, and then Microsoft said, we have letters too.

[2962] But I feel like Microsoft did it right.

[2963] You could probably argue that Nintendo has conceded the battle because the Wii didn't use that scheme.

[2964] I guess, yeah.

[2965] That's why I think Microsoft kind of should own it or whatever because, well, I mean.

[2966] Before the Wii, you had the GameCube and remember what a weirdo ass fuck controller that thing was.

[2967] It was a giant A button, little B button, X and Y bean buttons.

[2968] It was alright.

[2969] And then the Z on the back.

[2970] For Nintendo's games, it was pretty great.

[2971] Z was for 3D, man. That was when things went 3D and it was on the back of the stick.

[2972] And the Y button is on the Y axis and the X button is on the X axis.

[2973] I don't know.

[2974] That all made sense to me. But I mean like they abandoned the usual like format of the – I still want C, left, right, up, down.

[2975] That C stick?

[2976] Yeah.

[2977] C buttons.

[2978] C buttons.

[2979] At least it's not like – at least there's now standard convention over what like A and B do as opposed to when it used to be different between Japan and America.

[2980] Oh, yeah.

[2981] Oh, like the PlayStation?

[2982] The PlayStation.

[2983] Because I guess in Japan like the – like the actual X or circle, like they just actually mean different things, which is why it is that way.

[2984] And it's just not the case over here.

[2985] But then Sony of America started making publishers change it.

[2986] But then Kojima said, no, I'm not going to change it.

[2987] They were like, fine, I guess, Kojima, I guess you don't have to change it.

[2988] So that game actually had the original Japanese convention that didn't change it over.

[2989] Press circle for everything.

[2990] Is Sony called the squishy trigger?

[2991] Is that a shoulder button?

[2992] I believe those are triggers.

[2993] Do we all agree that Microsoft and Sony agreed to call them left and right triggers?

[2994] No, they call it R2.

[2995] So they, in their documentation, always call it R2, never a right trigger?

[2996] They never call it right trigger.

[2997] Absolutely not.

[2998] Nobody can agree on anything.

[2999] And it's not shaped like a trigger.

[3000] It's shaped like a mush.

[3001] It's more like a car accelerator than it is a firearm trigger.

[3002] But it's less has to do with like the shape and more to do with the mechanic of it.

[3003] Well, yeah.

[3004] It provides you with this analog style control.

[3005] In practice, yeah.

[3006] Which really trigger is a fucking shit descriptor for something that gives you analog control.

[3007] You are either shooting a gun or you're not.

[3008] You're not like sort of halfway shooting.

[3009] I'm not going to feather the gun.

[3010] Well, I guess I could to, you know.

[3011] But I'm going to feather the gun to.

[3012] All right.

[3013] Thumb stick.

[3014] They both agree this is the left.

[3015] Analog stick or left thumb stick?

[3016] I don't know.

[3017] I think we see left and right analog.

[3018] I don't think we acknowledge the stickiness or non -stickiness of them.

[3019] Have you ever seen the lengths to which these guys go to try, like the marketing departments of those companies go to try to standardize all of the terminology?

[3020] I'm trying to figure out if there's just one thing that is similar.

[3021] Read a few press releases sometime and see what the standard language is for the names of those consoles.

[3022] It's like a computer entertainment system.

[3023] The Xbox is like the Xbox video game and entertainment system from Microsoft.

[3024] That's the official name of that console.

[3025] The PlayStation is always capital.

[3026] Specialized.

[3027] Yeah.

[3028] Also, the PlayStation is always a computer.

[3029] It's a computer entertainment system, I think, if I remember.

[3030] Well, yeah, you have a Sony computer in the same America.

[3031] And then that tumbles down the, like, you know, people don't work for Sony or Microsoft, they work for PlayStation and Xbox.

[3032] Like, branding is fucking weird.

[3033] Vinny Wright Trigger is the least of our worries.

[3034] Next email comes in from Alan Vliek in the Netherlands.

[3035] What did I say, Alan?

[3036] Allen.

[3037] Allard.

[3038] Allard.

[3039] What?

[3040] V -U -I -K.

[3041] I didn't know you could name somebody that.

[3042] Apparently your first name could be Allard.

[3043] You name your babies Allard.

[3044] Get to cracking there, Brad.

[3045] I'll be right back.

[3046] So Allard writes in to say, so I've just completed Duke Nukem Forever.

[3047] Maybe you guys don't want to talk about Duke anymore.

[3048] But I had this question on my mind while playing it.

[3049] What was it that took the various developers so long?

[3050] What was the thing that they got stuck on for 13 years?

[3051] Because regardless of what you think of the game, there doesn't seem to be anything special about it, not technically, not artistically, for as far as I can tell.

[3052] I've heard no one address this yet.

[3053] Surely there must be an interesting or sad story behind this.

[3054] And that's pretty much it.

[3055] I don't know.

[3056] I mean, we've talked about this, right?

[3057] They kept remaking it.

[3058] Yeah, like the Duke Nukem Forever that came out is like, what, maybe five, six years old at most?

[3059] Yeah, they kept remaking the game.

[3060] They kept making a game for two years realizing, oh, God, there's new technology.

[3061] Let's start over.

[3062] This isn't perfect.

[3063] We want to be top of the line when it comes out.

[3064] And they're just doing that ad nauseum three or four times in a row.

[3065] If you go watch those videos on the disc, there's completely different versions of that game like four or five different times.

[3066] It's just insane.

[3067] Where's that coal miner?

[3068] I don't worry to go.

[3069] He didn't make it in.

[3070] I just wonder.

[3071] There's a coal mining level and they still didn't shoehorn that guy in.

[3072] Like you hear so much about just like these like design processes and workflows within a game development studio and you have to wonder like what was the structure like at 3D Realms to allow like.

[3073] just full teardowns of the product for them to get far enough with something.

[3074] George Broussard had enough money where he was able to do that.

[3075] I mean, that's how they structured 3D Realms.

[3076] They could be independent within a publisher structure and give incomplete independence to have George Broussard just say, hey, we're starting over.

[3077] I mean, it's kind of not shocking that as soon as they got out of that system at 3D Realms, they were able to piece together a game in a year, year and a half or whatever, how long it took for, what's that studio that they spun off?

[3078] Tryptic.

[3079] Tryptic.

[3080] Tryptic, yeah.

[3081] They took what they had and they put it together.

[3082] You say independent.

[3083] I say use every part of the buffalo.

[3084] That's the part that's weird to me, I guess.

[3085] I don't know.

[3086] Valve operates under the same sort of rule set, but Valve seems to be a significantly different studio.

[3087] I guess I wonder if there was any structure at 3D Realms.

[3088] I wonder if there was any sort of form or format.

[3089] I mean, they churned through employees.

[3090] They would burn people out.

[3091] They'd be there for two years and they would just leave because they knew this project just wasn't going anywhere.

[3092] I think knowing nothing about what actually happened in there, it just sounds like vision and scope and stuff just kept changing.

[3093] It sounds like it would be impossible to make a game with that many moving parts if that's a moving target.

[3094] where you're just like, I just made this level.

[3095] That's not in the game anymore.

[3096] It's finished.

[3097] That's not in the game anymore.

[3098] We're actually going to set this over here in Vegas now.

[3099] Actually, it sounds counterintuitive to what the end result was, but I've mentioned it before, that podcast on the Leo Laporte network that the former employee called into said specifically there were a lot of cases where George would not let them throw stuff out.

[3100] If they had a level that was mostly done, it was like, all right, work is already done, we're going to find a way to fit this into the current framework.

[3101] Even though something else has changed?

[3102] Even if somebody else on the team was advocating for just scrapping it and starting over, because it would be faster and more efficient.

[3103] But that's totally based on that one guy's anecdote.

[3104] He knows more than I do.

[3105] Yeah, he was there.

[3106] Looking at that jumbled mess of a game in terms of development structure, whether that exact story is true, that sounds about right.

[3107] I mean it sounds like it's pretty hard from what I understand from the outside is that you need to basically lock your technology and then once you do that, you need to have a date with your milestones to get you to that date so that when your game comes out, it's not dated.

[3108] You can't just meander.

[3109] And just think you can just start over and keep starting over and somehow it'll just all come together into this magical game that will make sense.

[3110] Right.

[3111] And then we'll release that.

[3112] And that's just a freeform kind of poetry spitting session.

[3113] You actually need to hit those dates so that you don't start.

[3114] On one engine, and then five years later, you release, and you're like, wow.

[3115] Because that game looked pretty...

[3116] When they did that second unveiling in PC Gamer when it was on the Unreal Engine, the game looked good.

[3117] For the time, yeah.

[3118] For the time, it looked like a great game.

[3119] Totally, it looked like, yeah.

[3120] Oh, I will say that I was listening to the Take -Two's financials for this quarter, and the game will be profitable.

[3121] Wow.

[3122] They even acknowledged, like, despite the extremely poor reviews, Duke Nukem Forever will end up being a profitable venture.

[3123] Now, what exactly that means...

[3124] Yeah, what does that mean?

[3125] I don't know, but...

[3126] In terms of just the...

[3127] For take two.

[3128] In terms of just the...

[3129] For whatever they invested in 3D Realms.

[3130] That game will be profitable for them.

[3131] Because at some point they stopped.

[3132] They stopped funding it.

[3133] They stopped funding it.

[3134] And that's at the point where 3D Realms went bankrupt.

[3135] And 3D Realms is sort of like saying, you need to give us more money so we can keep developing this game.

[3136] We're not going to give up the license.

[3137] Whereas take two is like, well, you need to give us the license so that basically we can take it away from you and go give to someone to finish this shit.

[3138] Curebox came in, swooped it up.

[3139] But yeah, I mean I expect sometime in the next year and a half.

[3140] Can you imagine being the publisher dude who had to go and fucking check in with George Broussard year after year?

[3141] I don't think they did.

[3142] I really don't think they did.

[3143] It's like, George, you're going to be ready.

[3144] No. All right.

[3145] We'll see.

[3146] Just keep going.

[3147] I mean that's the structure that George and was it Scott Miller was the other 3D Realms co -founder.

[3148] Like that's what they set up was like this.

[3149] It is the epitome of the when -it's -done philosophy of the Texas first -person shooter scene from the 90s, and they just continued it into the aughts, and they just didn't have any supervision.

[3150] They were independent, and I think Take -Two just figured, well, they'll have a game eventually, and we'll put it out, and we didn't put that much money into it.

[3151] The unspoken second half of that statement is, like, when it's done, as long as it's done.

[3152] Yes.

[3153] At some point.

[3154] And there is a...

[3155] It's not my story to tell, but there is a book to be written about that goddamn game, and I hope someone writes it someday.

[3156] All right.

[3157] Next email comes in from Nick Horowitz in Alexandria, Virginia.

[3158] Dearest Bombcasters, what's your stance on animal crackers?

[3159] Do you eat them head first so they can't scream or feet first so they can't get away?

[3160] Vinny Caravella.

[3161] Gosh, I haven't had an animal cracker in a while head first.

[3162] Head first.

[3163] Brad Shoemaker.

[3164] Would you put peanut butter on an animal cracker?

[3165] I've never done that.

[3166] I've eaten animal crackers as cereal, though.

[3167] What?

[3168] Oh, man. That's basically cereal.

[3169] And a bowl full of milk.

[3170] How much do you crunch it up?

[3171] You've got to crunch them up a little bit because they're kind of...

[3172] You also have to eat it fucking fast because those things turn into mush pretty quickly.

[3173] So you drown yours and you smother them to death.

[3174] I can't remember the last time I had an animal cracker.

[3175] But head first.

[3176] They still come in a little circus car?

[3177] Yeah.

[3178] Or you can get them in big bags.

[3179] They have strings still on it?

[3180] Yep.

[3181] So you can carry it.

[3182] I didn't make it up.

[3183] That's what it's there for.

[3184] I like iced animals.

[3185] Anybody ever have that?

[3186] Hell yeah.

[3187] Yeah.

[3188] Like Mother's Cookies iced animals?

[3189] Sure.

[3190] I don't know what brand.

[3191] Wait, are those the ones that are pink and white?

[3192] Yeah.

[3193] Pink and white with the sprinkles on them?

[3194] I can't remember if they were...

[3195] I need a whole bag of those.

[3196] I don't think there were sprinkles on the one that I got, but...

[3197] Oh, man. You need the sprinkles.

[3198] I know whatever the brand is that I would eat, it would definitely have sprinkles on it, so...

[3199] Hell yeah.

[3200] I want to get a bag of those.

[3201] I am.

[3202] Big Costco bag.

[3203] Sprinkles cookies.

[3204] Why don't we do this podcast at dinner time and then talk about food constantly?

[3205] And with that, we're going to end this podcast.

[3206] And on a real positive note.

[3207] I'm happy with it.

[3208] All right, guys.

[3209] Thanks for hanging.

[3210] Thanks, everyone, for listening.

[3211] And yeah, Left 4 Dead 2 on TNT this week.

[3212] Come and join us at 4 p .m. Pacific time.

[3213] And then next Tuesday, more Bobcats.

[3214] See you then.