Episode 200!!!

[00:00:10] Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of The Pre-Order Bonus Podcast. Episode number 200 of The Pre-Order Bonus Podcast. I'm one of your hosts Cameron Warren and I'm joined for the 200th time by Jacob, the Pixel Professor Price. Jake, how's it going? How you feeling 200 episodes into this podcast?

[00:00:35] 200 episodes in. It's wild. It's wild to believe that we've made it. I don't know. Episode 100 was exciting. But episode 200 to me is like, we doubled that. We really doubled doing 100 episodes for the show. It's kind of mind blowing. It makes me think. It makes me realize we've done a lot of work.

[00:01:03] We put a lot of hours into this. We put a lot of daytime. A lot of, I don't know. It's a cool moment of reflection, I think. I'm excited. But it's kind of hard to believe, Tim. I'm in disbelief over here.

[00:01:18] I'm taking the time to actually stop and think about it. It is pretty remarkable. I mean, this podcast is not some huge podcast, right? It's like we don't make a ton of money. We don't have thousands of followers. We don't have like, you know, we're not like some premier media podcast or anything.

[00:01:37] But we've been doing this for since 2019. Yeah. 2020. December 2019. December 2019. Oh, that's right. Started at the end of the year. Yeah. Did it all through COVID. And now just.

[00:01:54] It's 2020. It's freaking 2025. And we're still going and we have this huge, you know, array of episodes that we've done and tons of different. It's crazy. It's like the power of like compound interest in real life.

[00:02:11] It's like you start doing something and you just kind of do it for fun and then it kind of turns into a thing. And literally, even in just the past, I feel like in the past six months, we've actually had some significant strides in kind of our growth and the growth of our community and the way that we've like thought about how to do the show. And we've just gotten a lot better and things just continue to grow. And it's been a super cool journey. And I'm not going to lie to you guys.

[00:02:40] Because there's been times when I've personally been like, I mean, look, we just do this for fun and it's a hobby. And like, it is work, though. Like, I don't really want to do this work. Sometimes I don't want to do the work. You know, you don't want to like get on it at night. You want to just zone out. But I kept doing it and I'm super glad that I kept doing it. And I'm glad to kind of where we're at today. So, yeah, that's how I'm feeling.

[00:03:02] Yeah. And I would just kind of echo that sentiment is that honestly, feeling just a ton of gratitude. So much support from people, from all of you, people all over the world. I mean, are literally all over the world, literally all over the world. Our Discord is full of interesting and lively conversation and wonderful, beautiful people with interesting and funny things to say.

[00:03:28] It is so it is still such a compliment to have somebody say, hey, I've checked out this game because of something you guys said about it or like, hey, I really like your dynamic with Cameron or just when anybody pays like even the smallest of compliments about the show or the podcast or games that we talked about. Like, man, those words really mean a lot. And so I'm just really grateful. Those are the biggest motivations.

[00:03:51] I feel like when doing podcast work gets hard, which probably sounds a little whiny, maybe first world problems. But I don't know. It's been just super beneficial for me and I know it has been for Cameron. And it's really thanks to just the people who just pop in and listen, the people who pop in and say something, even if it's only been once.

[00:04:14] Like, man, that does just mean so much. So thanks to all of you for just kind of helping us grow, but also just supporting us and chatting with us. So, I mean, listeners, this is a victory for you guys as it is much for us. But yeah, just grateful. Grateful. I don't think a lot of people get to say that they've been doing a podcast that has been continually growing and successful year over year for five years for 200 episodes.

[00:04:40] And yeah, I was telling Jake before this, I was reading some stats as I do as like the business side of the show. Somebody I saw I read a review. I read a recent review that was like, the one guy is like a literature professor and the other guy is like in business and it just works. Thank you. That's not exactly right, but I'll take it. I'll take it.

[00:05:07] Yeah, no, I was reading some stats on podcasts. Apparently there's only 600. This sounds like a huge number, but when you think about like the landscape of how much stuff there is out there, there's only around, I guess, 600,000 podcast. There's millions of podcasts, but there's only 600,000, like 10% or like less that post content on a at least a weekly basis, like consistently, which is wild.

[00:05:32] Right. So that is wild. I'm also feeling super grateful and huge shout out to everybody who's in the discord and who's been listening to us forever and who supports us on Patreon, but especially to the folks who've been with us since the like very, very early beginning. And if you, if you're one of those, you know who you are. Yeah. Um, huge shout out to you guys like built a bedrock for this thing.

[00:05:56] And I think Jake, we did this because we're nerds and we just, we wanted a podcast for ourselves. Honestly. Yeah. That's what it came down to. Yeah. Some of the truth of, of this is, uh, before we started our podcast, I listened to podcasts maybe like once a year. And then Cameron's like, what if we had a space where we could just kind of talk about, and so the pre-order bonus is Cameron's brainchild.

[00:06:24] He, he approached me. We've been longtime friends. We've known each other since high school when we both lived in Washington state where we grew up. Cameron, uh, you know, sends me a text. He's like, Hey, you do like literary analysis and I do data analysis. What if we just like combine those and talk about video games? I was like, dude, sounds great. Let's do it. Because we were both playing and we still play even more now a ton of games.

[00:06:46] And that's kind of the idea that really got us going is like, what if we just used our professional approaches to talking about video games? And we just record the conversations and put them out there for fun and see what other people have to chime in and say about that. Um, so just started as a podcast that we wanted to make for us, a conversation that we want to have. And now we get to have that conversation with, with hundreds and also with thousands of people's, uh, with people.

[00:07:14] Um, sorry, I'm getting tongue tied cause I'm overwhelmed a little bit with, with emotion, but it's been great. No, it's, uh, it's interesting. Cause I think we were having these conversations like in person. Yeah. Pretty, pretty much. Right. Yeah. And then I kind of realized like, Oh, Jake's kind of like me in the sense that we both play a huge variety of video games.

[00:07:40] And I, and I'd like notice kind of between our friends, like he, he was the one who was just playing at just a ton of different stuff. And also was just crazy into the indie scene. And I was, I dabbled in like indie games, but Jake was kind of at a different level. And so I was like, well, we, we were already doing it. So let's just make a commitment to just do it and kind of make it official.

[00:08:00] And so that's, that's kind of what grew the show. And I think turned into discovering video games in a new and kind of more interesting way. And with like a more interesting perspective. And I think has expanded both of our, what's the word I'm looking for? Both of our, like the types of games that we're willing to try and play.

[00:08:25] Like I think we've experienced dozens, if not hundreds at this point of games that neither of us would probably have ever touched. Yeah. Because of the podcast and because of these conversations and because like being in that, which has been awesome. So. Yeah, it really has been. It's amazing. So for the, this is episode 200. You're going to have to put an asterisks in there listeners, because this is actually probably like episode 210 or 15.

[00:08:54] But yeah, there might even be more than that. It might even be more than that. But that's okay. That's okay. But the truth, the honest truth is that we lost count at some point. If you look at my number and you look at Cameron's number, just what we've been keeping, they're different numbers. And part of that, if you would even go through on Spotify and tally all of them up, you know, it probably, I don't even know if that number would be entirely accurate. Because sometimes indie impressions episodes get pushed through the main channel.

[00:09:25] And so it's a giant mess, but we know we're at about 200 right now. And so we wanted to kind of start off the year doing that. But as we go through this episode, this is kind of the layout of what's going to happen. Is we're going to start with one question, which is how has gaming changed for us since starting the podcast? And that will kind of be like just the initial foray into a bunch of questions that we have.

[00:09:50] And then we took the number 200 and Cameron and I brainstormed. I think we have eight or seven or eight, seven questions here about video games with the number 200 involved. And then a bunch of our Discord listeners gave us a ton of questions for a Q&A. And so we'll go through those and those are going to be really fun. And then we'll kind of just discuss the podcast future at the very end of the episode. And so that's how episode 200 will kind of go down.

[00:10:19] No typical categories, but we couldn't escape some type of categorization. And so that's what we've got for you in the show tonight. Yeah, this will be a fun one. Lots of awesome questions that we have for the show. But before we do that, I feel like sometimes we talk about the news, sometimes we skip it. I don't think we can skip it this week. We can't. We really can't. The news, there's too much spicy news.

[00:10:45] And as Jake mentioned, it's from kind of all three of the publishers. We'll start with least spicy to most spicy. Okay. I think most spicy could be debated, but least spicy is there's been some Microsoft stuff. Let's come out. Right, Jake? Yeah. So there have been some layoffs. It feels like, I don't know.

[00:11:11] I haven't dug too much into the reporting, but is it a little murky? Like, I feel like some of the information we're getting from Microsoft layoffs is a bit murky. I can't quite pinpoint exactly what's going on. I don't know the exact details of the layoffs. I do know that there was a report that came out from, like, The Insider. I can't remember the name of it. And they quoted an industry analyst saying that the Activision acquisition has been, like, quote-unquote, disappointing.

[00:11:40] And there were some, like, fears around gaming. And then they took a quote from Satya Nadella around 2021 where he was at a crossroads, like, with Xbox and had kind of the pathway to him of just shutting the business down. Right. But instead, he took option B, which was, of course, the Activision acquisition and, like, continue to try and grow it. And they're well down that path. They have a $70 billion investment. Like, Xbox isn't going anywhere. So we're glad they took that path.

[00:12:08] I like Xbox, and I'm glad they're around. And then when you look at kind of Xbox's revenue, it's basically entirely coming from Activision. Like, all of it, which I think is a good thing. It is a good thing, but it's complicated. It's a little murky. I think there's some fears around the sustainability of Game Pass.

[00:12:30] There's some murmurs out there that, like, publishers and some developers are not really wanting to play ball as much as Xbox wants them to. So there's, you know, I don't know. I'm a huge Game Pass fan, and I believe in it kind of as a vehicle. I think it does a lot of good in video games despite sort of maybe the monopolistic nature of that. But it's interesting, right?

[00:12:57] Game Pass, what I've sort of picked up from different snippets here and there, whether it be on social media or interviews, for the indie scene in particular, on the whole, I would say my sort of summary would be is that it has been a positive thing. Because it's an extra influx of cash for publishers who are willing to take a bit more. Or maybe they'll sign some deals with games that maybe they wouldn't have previously without Game Pass.

[00:13:27] It definitely gets some indies some really great exposure, marketing visibility, just because it's featured on Game Pass. And on the whole, for smaller publishers, it's a very good thing. For indie devs themselves, the studios, I feel like they have made their cut.

[00:13:48] But it kind of makes me wonder if it's like, you will profit, but it's a safe low ceiling profit, as opposed to like, just the general risk of marketing your game fully on every single platform, right? That's kind of the sense that I get. And so, sure, you can quote me on that, but know that it's a bit more anecdotal than it is kind of grounded in data.

[00:14:12] So, I think for the indie scene, I would venture to say that on the whole, it seems like it has been a good thing. But when it comes to, I think, anything bigger than that, third-party AA in particular, or third-party AAA, I don't know. I couldn't tell you. Yeah, Xbox's strategy is definitely shifting massively. And I think that people don't like change. And so, they're looking at this change, and they're like, really scared of it.

[00:14:40] And I think there's some identity going on, because people have developed these relationships with these brands over the course of many years. This is like the console war-isms. All that is over. Like, these companies don't care about that at all. They don't at all. Xbox, especially, you're going to see everything go multi-platform. You're going to see Xbox lean into Game Pass, try and put Game Pass on as many devices as they possibly can.

[00:15:06] That's evidenced by their, this is an Xbox campaign where they're showing all these different ways that you can play on Xbox. And they're going to continue to go hard on hardware, but it's going to be more stuff along the lines of, like, handhelds. And stuff that's kind of more versatile. It's not, they're still going to have, like, a set-top box thing. Yeah. But there's going to be, like, a more variety to that.

[00:15:29] And it's going to be kind of built around this ecosystem and trying to get people to sign up for Game Pass and play it wherever they have access to it. Whether that's on a Microsoft device, like a handheld, or a console, or a TV, or a smart device, or like whatever it is. So, anyway, we'll see if it becomes successful, or a PlayStation, for that matter. I mean, this is the thing.

[00:15:54] We remember when people were freaking out about the first rumors about Xbox first-party titles going to other systems. People were in a panic. They're like, oh my gosh, what is Xbox doing? And so, Xbox does this business podcast. And something that Phil Spencer in there has always sat with me, he was like, there are really two avenues forward to making more money. You either charge your existing fan base more, or you charge new fans money. Like, you get new fans, right? New people who are going to buy in.

[00:16:21] And it seems like they're just going route number two, which is how do we get more, how do we expand our user base of people who are like buying Microsoft or Xbox services or software or whatever. And so, Game Pass and Xbox Play Anywhere really are, I think, the perfect combination to try to expand your user base. You turn everybody's smart devices that they already own into something that they can play an Xbox game on to something that they could subscribe to.

[00:16:51] Whether or not you like subscriptions, you're used to it, you have five of them that you're paying, you know, every month as it is. And so, Xbox is just trying to make that the sixth one in some capacity. And I think they have pretty much everything set in place to make it happen. They just need people to actually to buy into it literally. And so, I don't think, I don't know.

[00:17:14] I mean, I think Cameron and I, like from a business perspective, we're like, yeah, Xbox realizes that you can't play the console world game. You can't play that game anymore, you know? Phil Spencer said it best, and I think we all need to start believing him, that the console war ended between the PS4 and the Xbox One. That was when people went to digital and they created their digital libraries and they will not shift because they do not want to leave their digital libraries behind.

[00:17:42] Backwards compatibility is just way too important of a feature now, right? And Xbox actually has really great backwards compatibility. So, the console wars have been decided. But, look, Xbox isn't playing that game anymore. So, if your identity is tied to Xbox, I'm sorry, you're living in the past. And Xbox has told us that. So, it's kind of like, whether or not you like it, that's what their new business strategy is. I mean, I also like Xbox.

[00:18:10] I rarely want people to fail. I want them to succeed and I want their games to do incredibly well. Because, I mean, we're going to talk about this in a future episode. Like, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, phenomenal game. And I'm really glad I got to play that on Xbox. But it's fun when you get to talk to other people who have played the game on PC or on PlayStation. Like, I kind of frankly don't care at this point. If the games are good, I don't really... Let's just talk about how good the games are, not where you can play them.

[00:18:41] Yeah, 100% agree. Okay. Next spiciest was the Switch 2. It's crazy that there's something more spicy than that. Which I personally think it is. But, yeah. Nintendo finally put out something on the Switch 2. It was their, what? Two-minute commercial of just the hardware. Yep. Just kind of showing the features of the hardware. We're not even explaining anything.

[00:19:11] There's no specs. There's no price. It's literally just a video of, you know... I don't know if their production team put this together, like, in a few hours. No, it's better than that. But it shows Mario Kart 9, seemingly. So that is, like, kind of the spicy tidbit that we got. It doesn't explain everything. But I don't know. It looks good. I don't like that they released this.

[00:19:38] And then it's like, hey, we'll get back to you in April on, like, actual information. That's a little bit annoying to me. But, I mean, I guess it is what it is. I love Cameron's opinion on this. Because Cameron's probably the least enthused person about this. How this announcement took place. Because, honestly, it tells us squat. But it was hilarious. Because within a few hours of it being posted, you have people with the most grainy, zoomed-in screenshot of DK's eyeballs. Being like, what'd they do to my boy?

[00:20:07] You know, it's like, shut up, man. We just... We know the Switch 2 is real and we know what it looks like. So can we just be okay, right? I get the annoyance, though. It's like, hey, the Switch 2 is real. Hang tight three months and then we'll talk about it a little more. It's like, I don't know. It would have been nice to get a little more information from the announcement. But I don't know. I mean, it looks cool. I mean, it just looks like a directly upgraded Switch, which I'm fine with, personally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

[00:20:37] If that's Mario Kart 9, sure. People are nitpicking that footage to pieces and we're finding some... There are cool nuggets in there. Like somebody who's like, oh, this looks like a 24-player racetrack. You know? Right. This looks like a new circuit that we haven't seen before. This looks like this. This is that. Somebody even wrote... They went through and they found... They identified every single Mario character that was showcased in there. I'm like, man, that took you three hours, which is how many times longer than the video

[00:21:07] that we got? Right. But whatever. Right. Switch 2 is coming. It's real. If you... Our Discord runs a fantasy critic league and it's kind of a frenzy now because all of these games are suddenly up to grab and more realistic. I don't know. It's fun. It's exciting. I'm excited to see the buzz in April. I'm really excited to see what the launch titles are. But in truth, it's kind of just like, hey, everything that has been rumored for the past two, three, four years. Yeah.

[00:21:36] We got it. You got us. Here it is. Now shut up. Yeah. I'm excited to see more. I want to know what the games are. I want to know what the specs of the hardware are. I'm glad. It's interesting that they let off with play Switch 1 and Switch 2 games. Yeah. Which is interesting. And then the fact that they put a giant 2 on the side, which looks super ugly, but I totally get why they did that.

[00:22:06] I was reading Gene Park tweeted this and I was like, oh yeah, this totally makes sense. Because with Wii U, they had so much consumer confusion because people didn't know the difference between a Wii and a Wii U. Oh, that's true. They didn't. Yeah. Yeah. So they made like a very, there's a, it's a very big 2 on the side of this. It's good. It's very prominently displayed. Um, but yeah, this is going to play Switch 2 games and Switch 1 cartridges. So interesting.

[00:22:34] It's going to be, I, I, I'm excited to learn more about how backwards compatibility works and if there's some sort of hardware upgrade. Yeah. Um, I obviously want to know what the, at least one, there's at least going to be three huge games this year, like huge first party titles for the launch year. Yeah. Right. Exciting to figure out what those are. Obviously one of those is Mario Kart 9. Um, but yeah, I, I guess we'll find out in April.

[00:23:04] We'll find out April 2nd. Some more stuff. Some more stuff. Well, the last one, this just came out today, literally in the last couple hours. Um, Jason Schreier uncovered a story that Sony, and I have to be careful here, but I'm going to talk about it anyways. If somebody listens to this and happens to work for our legal department, we'll just cut this out of the episode and repost it. Um, but yeah, we're going to talk about Sony canceling stuff.

[00:23:33] It doesn't have anything to do with Bungie, which is who I work for. It's complicated. I don't know. You know? So it's probably fine. It's probably fine. Yeah. So, so reporting Jason Schreier revealed that Sony has canceled two more live service games, a game from Ben studio, which is the developer behind the contested.

[00:24:02] What the heck is that motorcycle game called? Days gone. Days gone. The hotly contested days gone. Okay. And blue point. So Jake, do you get, wait, was that your prediction from last year that we learned what blue points working on? Did we make that? Nope. That was this year. I just lost the prediction. My prediction for this year was blue. We learned what blue point is working on.

[00:24:30] It's a, and it's a third person action RPG, like over the shoulder. And I guess what? It's, it wasn't. So I actually, I, well, I mean, it might've been, well, okay. Here's, here's what I got. I got the Jason Schreier tweets up right now. Okay. Okay. I don't have the report. Just, just the posts on blue sky. This, this is what he says about blue point. PlayStation fans have speculated for years about blue points, new projects since the

[00:24:58] well-received PS5 remake of demon souls, which came out in 2020. I can report from 2020 to 2022. They were helping on God of war Ragnarok since then. So since 2022, since they were assisting right on God of war Ragnarok, they've been working or they've been on the live service project that was canceled today. And get this, this is from another post that he made.

[00:25:27] Fans have been working on. He says, I can report that blue point was working on a live service God of war game. Why? I don't. Okay. So we, we do, we also know that they were supporting Sony Santa Monica on God of war Ragnarok. Yes.

[00:25:57] From 2020 to 2022. But who in the world, I can't even like put together in my head what this game even would have looked like. Like, is it a looter? I'm. Is it just multiplayer? They're like God of war Ragnarok and God of war are so much.

[00:26:24] These like third person linear action get like third person action games. Like they're so hardcore that I can't like horizon is one thing, right? Because you can imagine that you can think about the horizon MMO because you go, Oh, it's kind of, it makes sense, right? It's just like you get more people and you kill dinosaurs and you have gear and you have, it's an open world. God of war. It's like, I can't even like begin to put that idea together.

[00:26:53] So the fact that I can't do that, this has got to be like in such an insanely hard idea to execute even much less actually create into a viable video game. That's crazy. I mean, and the other thing that's crazy in my opinion is that they've been working on this in some capacity right since 2022. Now from their work from 2020 to 2022, working to support God of war Ragnarok to support Santa Monica studio.

[00:27:21] I imagine that Bluepoint kind of amassed a lot of really strong, like, you know, they've got access to the library of assets. They kind of understand how the engine works. They understand how the God of war game functions from a technical and artistic standpoint as developers. And so they've spent, let's round down two years, right? Cause we just crossed into 2025. So from 2022 to 2024, they're working on a live service version of this game.

[00:27:51] And my question is, are we all overreacting? Were they just asked from Sony to incubate a possible live service project from God of war because they had amassed all of this knowledge, you know, this asset library, this technical know-how of how the game functions. Is two years way too long? Is it way more than a typical like incubation period for like a project in pre-production? Or is it like, no, two years is actually a whole lot of time.

[00:28:20] And they tried a bunch of different iterations of this game and they all just seemingly failed. That's my question. And that's something that I would love the answer to. Like, is this a more normal incubation idea project time span? Or is this the failure that, that it's kind of being made out to be? Yeah. I mean, there's no way to know, but after Concord, I'm sure that they ruthlessly examined

[00:28:49] the projects that are, that were on the table at that time. And they took, they took an ax to anything that they felt like was remotely not going to be successful. Because you think about the investment in Concord. Yeah. And the amount of wasted money and resources. Now, like the biggest shame in this is that, I mean, hey, I can say this much. And I'm part of a, one of Sony's companies that's working on a game that's in this category.

[00:29:15] But Sony, they went hard on live service. Yeah. I mean, my goodness. They, they took every single studio they had and they put, well, aside from maybe Insomniac. But even then, I think there was a multiplayer Spider-Man thing. And that, we know that they, they talked about that, right? Yeah. So, they went so hard on this.

[00:29:42] And I think the big problem now is that they have five-ish plus years of all these studios working on stuff that's not ever going to come out. And so, now you hit the reset button. And so, now to catch back up on your cadence on kind of what Sony has been known for over the past decade is going to take four or five or six more years to kind of get back to that. Because they went so hard in this direction.

[00:30:12] It was like an eggs in one basket situation. Yeah. Now, that doesn't mean there's still games that are out there. And some of these may still come out and be super successful. So, we don't know. Right? So. Yeah. There's plenty that we don't know. What we do know is, and I'm going to lump Astro Bot into this. Like, Team Asobi had a massive hit that won many Game of the Year awards from different outlets. And so, we know that they're probably working on something that's along those lines.

[00:30:40] We know that Insomniac has their Wolverine game that's coming. And we know that Ghost of Yotai from Sucker Punch is also on its way. So. Yeah. Sucker Punch did not have to make a Ghost of Tsushima. Which is kind of insane to think about if you just think about it for two seconds. Of all the studios that had a, like, incredible idea for a live service game, Sucker Punch is

[00:31:08] the one that actually had the bones with Ghost of Tsushima Legends, which is really good, by the way. Okay. Like, I am shocked that that just didn't become their next. And maybe Yotai has that built in and that's, like, part of the project. I don't know. Maybe we find out later that there is, like, a full-blown thing. But that's kind of insane. Right? That's kind of crazy. Yeah. Now that you say it is wild.

[00:31:34] And I remember when the Ghost of Tsushima Legends first came out. And it has a raid. Right? And I remember, this is back when I was watching a lot of Destiny streams. A ton of Destiny streamers were like, yo, this is a very good raid that they made. Yeah. For a random multiplayer kind of spinoff in addition to Ghost of Tsushima. So, I think you're right. There was a lot of potential there. Right? To try to do something live service.

[00:32:03] But I also think you're right in that, well, we don't know what Ghost of Yotai has. Because maybe it has an expanded Ghost of Tsushima Legends mode. And maybe they're going to try to push that a little harder. Like, I don't know if they go full battle pass or whatever with it. But so, I don't know. I think the future is still bright in some corners of Sony's first-party studios. Like, Ghost of Yotai. I mean, Cameron and I, we just talked about this on our most anticipated games of 2025.

[00:32:31] We both picked that as our number one. And so, I don't know. I think people might be crying doom and gloom for Sony. But, I mean, the reality is, like, Xbox and Sony both have their problems. Xboxes are just much more public. And Sony is much more, you know, they're quieter about them. But I don't think they're going anywhere. But, yeah, I do think that they kind of have to spend some time on the rebound. On the mend, right?

[00:32:59] Hopefully, for Xbox, 2025 is their year. Their second half of 2024 is really strong. And we have a bunch of games that are potentially coming out. Nintendo with a new Switch. Obviously, they're going to have a bunch of games. And Ghost of Yotai will be the greatest thing to ever happen for Sony. So, they're all fine. Expectations. Expectations. We set them high here. We set them high. I might just replay it. It was a Sushima on PC.

[00:33:28] I have it now on PC. I might just... I should just... There's a few... So, a quick shout out to a Discord member. Lenka is playing through it right now. And Slugcat Stew, another Discord member, recently played through it. And when I see them post screenshots, I'm like, why am I doing anything else right now? Why am I doing whatever it is? Why do you even play any other games? Why? Like, it doesn't... Like, I'll be doing anything. I'll be eating dinner. And I'm like, you know what? Dinner sucks.

[00:33:58] Why am I eating dinner? I should be playing Ghost of Sushima right now. You could be playing Ghost of Sushima. Well, that was the news. Now we can actually get into episode 200. But we had to talk about that. If you've got comments on all this news, please come into our Discord. Sound off. Let us know your opinions on all the stuff that's happened. Let us know if you agree with us, disagree with us. Are you excited for the Switch 2?

[00:34:28] Are you disappointed in Sony? I'm obviously not disappointed in Sony. I love Sony. Love Sony. He means that sincerely. Let's get into it. Jake, it's episode 200. So we have 200 themed discussions slash questions. And then we have a listener Q&A. And then we have some kind of fun questions at the end. So let's start it off.

[00:34:53] First up, what games have you put 200 hours into? And which ones do you wish you had the time to put 200 hours into? Great question. Jake, you start us off. There are four games that come to mind. Easy answers for games I put 200 hours into. Destiny 1. Easy. Destiny 2. Very easy.

[00:35:22] And then outside of that, I actually looked at some hour counts. This next one might surprise some of you, but it's Stardew Valley. Yeah. Put a lot of hours into Stardew Valley in part because I did my... I have like my own farm that has a ton of hours in it. My wife and I have a farm that we put way more hours into. And then now we have a four player farm with our kids.

[00:35:50] And so many, many, many hours in there. And then this will surprise no one. Elden Ring. I don't know how many playthroughs of Elden Ring I have at this point. Yeah. Like four plus one extensive playthrough of the DLC. So I put a lot of hours in there, but I have more hours in Stardew Valley than I do in Elden Ring, actually. Wow. Which is kind of wild. Outside of that, like that's kind of from like recent games.

[00:36:19] If I were to like think over the course of my entire life, I would also add Pokemon Blue, Pokemon Crystal, because I played a lot of Game Boy. Like that's primarily what I played as a kid was that. And I think I could probably, let's see, with some confidence say that I have over 200 hours in Halo 2. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:36:49] Yeah. Let's see. What about... And what are the games, what games do you wish you could put 200 into? This one may surprise people. Besides Baldur's Gate 3. Baldur's Gate 3. Obviously. Actually, do I wish I had time to put 200 hours into it? I do. That would be fun. I mean, you're streaming now, so like no excuse. No excuse. Greatest game, you know, just the greatest game of all time. No biggie. No biggie. Sleeping on the greatest game of all time over here, folks.

[00:37:18] Red Dead Redemption 2. I wish I could put 200 hours into that one. Just like exploring it and living in it? Yeah, like doing all of the legendary hunts. Yeah, yeah. Fair enough. Like stuff like that. Doing all the side quests, fully exploring the map. I'm not super interested in getting like gold tier or whatever on certain missions. Like that kind of stuff wouldn't interest me.

[00:37:44] But just kind of like, you know, going around in that world. But I would love to have the time to go back and do all the side quests and all that. And then similarly, Ghost of Tsushima. I would love to do the same thing, man. I would love to get a platinum trophy on Ghost of Tsushima. Absolutely don't have the time for that. But something like that would be amazing to do. That's a great game for that specifically.

[00:38:12] So I would say, yeah, Red Dead Redemption 2, Ghost of Tsushima. And I would put Baldur's Gate 3 in there. I think it'd be interesting to do like two full exhaustive playthroughs of that one. Honor mode playthrough is incoming for me, Jake. Nice. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. I need to finish my current second playthrough, which is going to be my Dark Urge playthrough. Although I messed up all of my relationships. And so it's all messed up.

[00:38:42] Isn't that just how it goes with Dark Urge though? Yeah. I kind of let the dice roll more than my first playthrough. My first playthrough was like my perfect good run where I did everything right. And I saved scum a million times. Nice. But this one. Anyway, sorry. I won't get off. I'll just get right into it. Games I put 200 hours into. Baldur's Gate 3, no question. Yeah. That's probably my favorite game of all time. Probably. I say probably because it's so recent, right?

[00:39:11] I need to give it a few years before I let it cement into my conscious. But yeah, that one's up there. Hunt Showdown, believe it or not, has surpassed the 200 hour mark. Played a ton of that. Probably one of my favorite PVP games. Continue to actively play it. Not every week. It's kind of an on and off situation. Right. Destiny. Destiny 2, obviously, with Jake and friends. Skyrim.

[00:39:40] Ooh, nice. Skyrim. That was probably one of the first games. That was one of the first games that I legitimately, without trying, and without other people, put hundreds of hours into just organically. Nice. Like, I just, I was one of those people who just got dropped into that world and just never wanted to come out. And just kept playing and playing and playing.

[00:40:07] And I think still to this day, it has the best video game soundtrack of all time. Like, I think it's unbeatable. It's so freaking good. It is pretty dang good. I put that on occasionally. I can just sit there. I actually, so funny enough, I am playing Kingdom Come Deliverance. Similar-ish vibes to Skyrim, except kind of more grounded and medieval stuff, right? I have turned down the music all the way, and I just turned the Skyrim soundtrack on. Oh, really? And I play. Yeah.

[00:40:36] That is hilarious. The music's not bad in it, but I just want to feel that feeling again. Like, and it's so good. Yeah. Let's see. Other games, 200 hours. Yeah. Halo games, just endless multiplayer. And then Elden Ring after the expansion, I'm getting close. Oh, nice. I'm getting close. I don't think I'm quiet at 200 hours, but Elden Ring is definitely up there.

[00:41:07] And then games I wish that I had time to put 200 hours into, these are predominantly, I think, going to be, these are predominantly going to be grand strategy games. So, games like Factorio, Crusader Kings 3. Yeah. Warhammer Total War.

[00:41:28] These games are so deep and so complex that if I just had the time to sink my brain and like my conscience into them, I could see myself putting hundreds, maybe even like thousands of hours into it because they're so complex and they're so rich with tactics and strategy and like different ways you can do different things. And million different civilizations. Total War has like 30 different civilizations that all play completely differently.

[00:41:58] And this world map with like hundreds of turns and like there's so much. And Crusader Kings, it's the entire world, right? Right. So, it's, there's literally endless options. So, those are the games I would, but I actually don't play that much of those games for the reason that they're so complex and they're so deep that my brain like just can't handle it. I can't like go to work. Yeah. And like try and live a normal life and also play those games.

[00:42:25] I just don't have the brain power for it like when it comes down to it. You know, you talking about that makes me think there is actually, this will surprise Cameron, I think, but there is a game franchise that I would actually like to put 200 hours into and it's the Civilization series, man. Like Civ VI. Civ. Yeah. That's it. Yep. That would be one that I would love. I would love to sink a ton of time into one of those games. Civilization VII next month. Next month. Civ VII coming out. Yeah.

[00:42:55] I mean, it would be really fun to get super into some of those games, I think, but just don't got the time. Don't got the time. Let's move to the next question. Favorite episode. What are our favorite episodes from our 200 episode total? We have a lot of episodes. I know. Scrolling through them.

[00:43:19] I scrolled through them before and I'm scrolling through them again now and I'm like, oh my gosh, we've kind of talked about a lot of games. But I do have a... I kind of need to pull... I need to pull this up while you're looking at that. I do have a few that I think are kind of standout episodes or ones that I just really enjoyed. So, we kind of quietly discontinued, unfortunately, our Game Maker series interviews with game devs. Yes. Yeah.

[00:43:46] And so, just to address that, I guess, directly, it just became a time thing, right? Cameron and I are busy with... We got work. We got kids. It's tough. However, we did a few of those that really... One of my favorite episodes was our interview with the little gator game devs. That was a ton of fun. And coincidentally... Super fun. They just announced that they have this big DLC expansion coming to little gator game later this year.

[00:44:14] So, that one is a highlight for me. We've interviewed Sandy twice for Moonstone Island. I love Sandy. Great person. Great dev. Moonstone Island has been an awesome success. And so, it's been really fun to kind of see the success time after time talking with him. And let's see. Disco Elysium. Dude, that was a good, really good game. And Cameron and I had a... Such a good game.

[00:44:42] A really good conversation on that one. And then another one that I'm looking at right now, the Hitman 3 one. In part because Hitman 3 was a huge shock for me. It was one of those games I played well after launch. And I was like... It was one of the rare times. I was like, I wish I played this at launch. I wish I played this when I was brand new.

[00:45:05] So, I could have been in the heat of those conversations with everybody talking about what they were doing or how they got through a different level or how they accomplished a different objective. So, those are some of the ones that come to mind immediately. Yeah, man. We've done so many freaking episodes. And every once in a while, I love to just go back and listen to an old one and cringe at how... It's so hard. I can't get through 10 minutes. It's very hard to listen to. We've come a long way. We still have a long way to go. We still have a long way to go. Especially me.

[00:45:33] But yeah, we've definitely made strides. If you've listened from the beginning, hopefully you've known. Maybe you haven't. Maybe they all went away. Off the top, I love... I have so much fun in our predictions episodes, even though we get everything wrong. Yeah. Every time we do one of those, I just have a great time. Our Game Maker series, which we unfortunately had to discontinue, as Jake already mentioned.

[00:46:01] Such a fun time doing that and talking to those devs. Really loved our episode with the Song of Iron. Oh, with Joe. Yeah. With Joe Winter. He's working on the sequel. Yeah. That was such a fun one. I feel like our episode on Dishonored. Yes. And then Stardew Valley, which is, I think, still our most popular episode of all time.

[00:46:31] Dishonored Time also was a super fun episode. And so many thousands of people have listened to that one. It's crazy. Yeah. Fun fact about the Pre-Eater Bonus Podcast. That Stardew Valley episode just rakes in... Number one, by far. Like, week after week, just so many people find that. I think part of that was like, we struck gold with an algorithm for whatever reason. If you search Stardew Valley in certain podcasts, like popular podcasts, that one shows up. But, yeah. Yeah.

[00:46:59] And in our Elden Ring that we did in two parts, it was also like just so much to talk about with that game. And that's also one of our top performing episodes. But that's the only game I think we've done in two... No, we did Tears of the Kingdom in two parts. Yeah. But yeah, Elden Ring was a two-parter and there's just so much to talk about with that. And that was very fun to do.

[00:47:26] I would say one of our best really old episodes is Insomniac's Spider-Man. Oh, interesting. I'm going to have to go back and listen. So, that one, I do... If you want to listen to really old Cameron and Jake, that's the one I would recommend listening to over other ones. If you want to listen to something newer, I would say our Frostpunk 2 episode was a really good one. And also our Rise of the Tomb Raider.

[00:47:54] I really liked that conversation. I don't know. It's kind of wild. I like... My memories of a lot of these are like, man, these are really good. But I go back and I listen to them and I'm like, oh, Jacob, you idiot. You said that? Or I'm like, dude, how do people stand your voice, man? How have you done 200 episodes? I say that about myself all the time. Yeah. So, I don't know. I think that's a pretty good batch of episodes we've got there. You also start getting really super critical of editing and bad sound. Oh, yeah.

[00:48:24] I know one of mine, for some reason, I have a nice microphone. I get feedback, I think, because my mic volume is super loud. We still haven't optimized this, you guys. So, I apologize. We're not at top tier. I feel like we have pretty good audio quality. But we still have some things to work out. It's definitely on my end. Jake's super optimized. Although, I do have a nice microphone. I did invest in a nice microphone. We're not top 1% of gaming podcasts for sound.

[00:48:54] We're on our way. On our way. We'll get there. That's the goal. Yeah. I mean, guys, if you haven't listened, guys and gals, if you haven't listened to... We have pretty much any game you can think of. We probably have an episode on it. And if we don't, let us know on the Discord and we'll probably do it. So, it's like... We gotta be... Jake, we gotta be one of the only podcasts who has just this library.

[00:49:22] I think that's one of the beautiful things about our show that I really love. Is we literally just have this library of episodes on so many different games. And I don't think there's really... I can't think of another podcast that does it necessarily the same way that we do. Which I'm super proud of. So, yeah. It's awesome to have that library and just go back. Yeah. I mean, you'll find something. You'll find a game that you played and liked or a game that you played and hated. And we probably talked about it in some capacity.

[00:49:52] I need to find something that I've maybe changed my opinion on and see what I said about it at the time. Ooh, that could be a good one. Which one have we changed our opinions on? I don't know. I feel like we were pretty divisive on God of War Ragnarok. Yeah. Maybe I need to revisit that episode. Maybe I need to go back and finish the game. Ooh. Ooh. Next question. What games have you died at least 200 times in? Bonus points for non-from-software games. That's going to be pretty tough, to be honest with you.

[00:50:21] Every from-software game, I think I've died 200 times in. Oh, easily. Every from-soft game, that's like a guarantee. Okay. 200 plus deaths. I came up with at least one that I'm very confident in saying that I've died at least 200 times in. What's that? Celeste. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's a... Yeah. Good point. I have died a lot in Celeste. I know it does give you like a final death count at the end. And I'll be honest, I didn't go and check before this episode.

[00:50:50] But I am confident that I've died at least 200 times in Celeste. Um, I also think I may have died close to 200 times in Hyper Light Drifter. Um, Hyper Light Drifter, the first like, you have to do four main areas before you get to the final boss. And it doesn't matter too much what order you go in. But the first two are just tough as nails until you finally get some upgrades.

[00:51:18] And then the second two get a little easier. But I'm pretty sure I've died in that. And then here is my final silly answer. It's not silly. I think it's true. I've probably died 200 times in this game. And that would be Super Mario Bros. 3. That game and I do not see eye to eye. Um, I have tried playing Super Mario Bros. 3 many, many times.

[00:51:46] And I get so frustrated with that game because I am so bad at it. Yeah, I was I was explaining to this recently to somebody. But like, I have an older brother, right? And we are just we're not that far apart. We're like two years apart. But I think those two years we firmly sit on like, who is a SNES gamer kid and who is an N64 gamer kid.

[00:52:14] And he when it comes to like SNES games, when it comes to old school Mario, like it is intuitive for him. He has fun. He does well. But when I do, I'm like, this sucks. I hate this game. Why is Mario popular? The raccoon tail. You can't think in a 2D plane, Jay. It's all we're 3D. We're built for 3D. We're 3D. Like, I can't I cannot.

[00:52:39] But anyway, I'm confident in saying that I've died at least 200 times in Super Mario Bros. 3 and have never beat the game. Uh, yeah, I mean, Mario is actually a great pick. I probably right there, like, I mean, I've died 200 times in Mario Wonder, to be honest. Um, I can only really think of trying to think of one. What was the one that I just had in my head?

[00:53:08] Oh, I was gonna say Hunt Showdown. I probably died at least 200 times in my matches that I played. I probably died. I probably died 200 times in one match. And yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's... No, I mean, From Software is unique in that, like, you just die so much. Always dying, man. You just die so freaking much. Because when you think about 200 deaths, it is a lot of deaths. I probably died actually 200 times in Cuphead.

[00:53:36] My first playthrough of Cuphead, you can bet, I died 200 times. And the harder difficulties in Bulger's Gate 3, you can die a lot. There's a lot of quick save reloading. So... Yeah. That's up there, too. Yeah. Let's see. Next up, what video game would you pay $200? This is a great question. To play for the first time again. I mean, Elden Ring. That's like the immediate game that came to mind. Yeah.

[00:54:05] That's such a great one, man. That was... Dude, there is nothing like... There is... There is... You chase the feeling of the first, like, 10 hours with an incredible video game. You just... You chase that feeling. Yeah. I never stopped chasing that feeling. And when I find it, it's like the sweetest form of... It's like one of the sweetest forms of, like, life just satisfaction. Yeah.

[00:54:33] When you know that you're playing one of those games, right? One of the all times. And you're in that first few hours, Elden Ring being one of them. There's no greater feeling in video games. Like... It feels so good. There were, like, two times in recent gamer history where there was actual peace between gamers. And it was, like... When Elden Ring launched. Dude, that was... Yeah. Yeah. Social media was a joyous place. World peace. It was...

[00:55:03] World peace. Gamer world peace. Just for, like... And it was, like, a full month or two. People were still discovering secrets. Posting screenshots of the craziest things that you can't believe that somebody found, right? Um... The other one was probably Breath of the Wild. Which I know is a little taboo to say. Because our Discord community typically frowns upon... Yeah. You all hate Breath of the Wild. Yeah. We know. But, um... I would say... Uh... When... The first time I left the Great Plateau in Breath of the Wild.

[00:55:34] Oh. Dude. It's just like... It's also like when you first leave Limgrave in Elden Ring. And you realize... Oh. The game is starting now? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But, like, you feel that. But you feel so much excitement. You're just like... Oh. The game's starting now. Like, oh, I'm not even... I barely dip my toe in this game. I've got so much left to enjoy. Um... So, I... For me, I would pick those two. I think...

[00:56:03] I think that's commonly shared with a whole lot of people. Um... I was trying to get creative and think of, like, some of my favorite games ever. But, like, for example, Cuphead is a super important game to me and really my favorite. Would I pay $200 to go back to square one and get my butt whipped, like, every 15 seconds in Cuphead? No. I don't think I would. So... No, no, no. You know what I mean?

[00:56:32] So, for me, like, the answer has to be, like, I was totally awestruck in some moment. Right? And be like, yes, I want to feel that. That again. Red Dead Redemption 2 would probably be another one I'd add to this list. Red Dead. Yeah, man. I think we have very similar. I mean, and probably a lot of people have those... Elden Ring, like, just those first... That first, like, 10 hours was like, is this the greatest video game ever made? And it probably is. Yeah.

[00:57:02] Breath of the Wild, same thing. The Great Plateau and then leaving the Great Plateau for the first time. Like, does it get any better than that? Like, the sense of, like, wonder and discovery of this new... This brand new thing. This brand new Zelda thing that just totally, like, upended that formula was just wild. Yeah. It was just, like, brain melting. Probably Knights of the Old Republic.

[00:57:29] Like, I just love that story so much. And it's so good that I would love to just erase my brain and experience that for the first time. And it was just so satisfying. Ghost of Tsushima, like, those opening hours and then, like, kind of the opening sequence. Yeah, there's probably a lot, man. I mean, $200 is a lot. So, I think, you know, there's only a select list. But I think we set them. There's probably... There's definitely other ones.

[00:57:59] I just... I can't... Those are... Those are definitely the top ones. Yeah. I think, like, games that... I don't know if I'd spend $200. But games that I would, like, pay to... I would at least pay some amount to relive this for the first time. Maybe, like, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. Similar... I mean, it's perfected in Breath of the Wild. But when you leave, you know, Kokiri Forest and you go out into Hyrule Field and you're like, okay, there's a bunch of different paths here.

[00:58:28] Like, where am I... What am I going to do? Where am I going to go? So, maybe something like that as well. Yeah. I don't know. The safest ones for me are Breath of the Wild, Ghost of Tsushima. And then... Yeah. The next tier down would be Red Dead Redemption 2. Because that prologue is pretty dang long. I'm like, dude, how long am I going to be trekking in Snoddy? No. But the second you get out of the mountains and, like, into the green world of Red Dead

[00:58:57] Redemption 2, that's a really wonderful moment. That prologue took way too long. Too much trudging. Way too long. Yeah. E, what game is worth $200? What game would you pay at retail? $199.99 for. Okay. Okay. Let's just get this out of the way. Elden Ring. Okay. Moving on.

[00:59:27] Because we could just... Yeah. There's not very many, to be honest. But yeah. Elden Ring. Baldur's Gate 3. I would say Stardew Valley. It's a $15 game. But I think that that game has so much value. It's worth $200. Skyrim in 2012. Skyrim. If it was 2012 again. Not today, but if it was then.

[00:59:59] There's not very many. There's not very many. Yeah. It's... I mean, of course here, like, your opinion of what makes a game valuable and worth money is going to vary between a lot of people. So... But thinking about, like, the triad and maybe not true, but the well... The oft-spoke way of valuing a game is, like, hours played versus how much something costs. Yeah. I mean, Stardew Valley.

[01:00:27] I would almost even say Harvest Moon 64. That's a game that I played a ton as a kid. I don't think I actually even quite hit the 200-hour mark. But... Oh, Harvest Moon 64. Harvest Moon 64, man. That stuff still holds up. That stuff is still super... Although, I played it recently on Nintendo Switch Online. I just booted it up. Yeah. Just for kicks. And I was like, gameplay mechanics-wise, I don't think I could go back.

[01:00:57] I don't think I could do it. It's like, Stardew Valley is just, like, the enhanced version of what that was, right? So... Yeah. But Stardew Valley, as far as I know, doesn't have horse races. So, still, we need patch 1.7. Dude, don't even joke about that. Don't even joke. Yeah. All right. What video game protagonist could win a 1 versus 200 fight?

[01:01:26] Man, I had to... I mean, what game protagonist actually win 1 versus 200 fights? Like, in the game. Like, how many times do you get into 200 fights? And we're not counting here. We're not counting, like, infinite grind ability. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, who could win versus 200?

[01:01:52] We specify protagonist, but just to take that qualifier out for a second... Dio? Dio. Although, Dio gets beat up, remember? He... Because he... Spoilers for FF7 Rebirth. He hires you to fight for him to save the casino from... Dude, is he... Remember? Is he all talk? Can he not walk the walk? He's... He's... He's...

[01:02:20] He looks like Tarzan and plays like Jane. Dio! Man, what's the point of all the steroids if you can't even... Okay, let's just list off and just say yes or no. Okay, I'll just list some people. Okay? Solid Snake. No. I mean... No. I'm gonna say no. Oh my gosh.

[01:02:50] What's the... What's the guy from God of War? Oh, Kratos? Kratos. Yeah. Kratos. That's one. I think that's one. I think Kratos could. A 1v200? Yeah. Barring that none of them are Thor? Yeah. I think so. Zagreus. From Hades. What's his name? Yeah. Is that his name? Zag. Zagreus. A 1v200? No. No, he dies. He doesn't make it through the run.

[01:03:19] Reset. Back to the beginning, man. Let's see here. I got a few. Mario. Could he jump on 200 Goombas? Let's say we got a mix of 200 total Goombas and Koopa Troopas. Does Mario win? I think he could. Yeah. That's a lot of confidence. Imagine because he could get a star too. So he could have a bonus. Maybe. Maybe. I don't know if I'm convinced. Cat power? Cat power. You're unstoppable.

[01:03:52] Okay. Mewtwo. Yeah. Mewtwo. Yeah. Yeah. Mewtwo wins a 1v200. I'm actually struggling. I'm trying to think. You know who doesn't? That I wish could, but really can't? Cloud Strife, man. Nah. Cloud Strife. He's good. He mows through the first 12 and someone's like, Sephiroth. And then he just crumbles, man. And he just gets overwhelmed. Yeah. Yeah. He can't.

[01:04:23] He's got too many emotional issues. He couldn't come out. I love my boy Cloud, but I cannot pick him for a 1v200 win. That's hard. Let us know on the Discord. This is an interesting one. Honestly, I'm struggling to think. There's probably some weird Dynasty Warriors character. Speaking of Dynasty Warriors, you're going to pick up that Origins game? It's got pretty good reviews. It got really good reviews. I even picked it for Fantasy Critic League. I played the demo. You lucky dog. Oh my gosh.

[01:04:50] I played the demo and I walked away pretty lukewarm on it, honestly. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, because it is what it is. I'd pick it up in a year on sale and play through it on easy. Just when I needed a win for the day. You just like on your lowest day, boot up a Musu game and just knock. And here, knock 200 dudes to Kingdom Come. There's an obvious one that we're missing and I can't think of it. Kiryu. Could he beat a 1v200?

[01:05:17] What's someone that turns into like a Gundam and just blows up hundreds of people? Ooh. What about Raven from Armored Core 6? Okay. Yeah. Yeah? 200 mechs though or just people on the ground? I mean, people on the ground, dude, would triple, quadruple, 10 times that number, I think. Yeah. You could just mow over trees. That was probably one of the funniest things I think about Armored Core 6 is like when you're just cruising in the mech on the ground, you just topple trees. Okay.

[01:05:47] I've been watching Lord of the Rings. Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings games. Oh. Easy. You take out like 200 guys in like one level. Easy. Aragorn. Easy pick. Should have been the first one. Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli. Dude, you get three of them in there? Yeah. Another one. And the movies, they even count it out. Yeah. I don't know what final number they reach. Oh. They get at the two towers, they get 47 or 42. Okay.

[01:06:16] So two towers and then Battle of Penalty Fields even more. That says we're on Lord of the Rings real quick. This isn't a video game protagonist. But Army of the Dead, you take one of those dead guys. Dude, my kids, we recently watched through all the Lord of the Rings movies. One of their favorite parts is when the Army of the Dead comes out and then they just swarm the Holy Font and then just take it down. Yeah. It's pretty dope. One of those dudes could take out easily more than 200. That's pretty dope.

[01:06:46] Such a good movie, man. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I wish I could. Okay. That's like that Lord of the Rings game for a PlayStation 2. Apparently it runs really well. The emulator. Oh. That's like one of the, I would buy the Steam Deck like just to be able to play that. Because those emulators now are so good.

[01:07:13] Like you can play a lot of those games in like 4K or 2K at 60 frames with like advanced RTX lighting and like all this crap in there. It's crazy. People put a lot of work into that stuff. Hats off to you. A huge lot of work. Okay. Let's see. Last one in our 200 theme questions. What video game has the best 200 second loop? So that's three minutes and 20 seconds of play time.

[01:07:42] Think about what's the best game that has like a loop that lasts around that amount of time. What's the best? Bellatro. Bellatro. Okay. I mean that's kind of cheating. Yeah. Is it cheating? So I was about to say Hades but I don't think that counts because I think each little stage doesn't last. I don't think you make it. It's like a minute and a half.

[01:08:12] Right? It's probably half that. Yeah. I mean another answer that I came up with was Cuphead because most bosses at run and gun levels are going to be between two and four minutes. Are they that long? Dang. That feels like an eternity in Cuphead. Yeah. Now not to toot my own horn but if you want to get an A ranking on the bosses you have to beat the bosses under two minutes which I have done. So you know. Well keep it. Keep it down. Okay.

[01:08:43] Ghost of Tsushima is just a fantastic loop like going to take out a base or just going to do a mission does definitely take around. I don't know. Like taking out a base probably takes a few minutes. That's it. The combat is just so good. I feel like early game taking out a base you could do in three minutes. You could definitely do it in three minutes. Late game it gets a little bit more long winded. Yeah. Tougher enemies. Bigger bases. It gets tougher. That's for sure.

[01:09:10] The best 200 like the best 200 second loop. It's really hard for me to not think about games like deck builders or roguelites because like Shogun Showdown which I played. Yeah. From last year. Again like each stage is relatively short right. They're really designed for those shorter gameplay loops. It's really hard for me to come up with something that's longer. So I'm glad that you're thinking a little outside of the box there. Speaking of Bellator. When are we getting the Queen's Blood standalone?

[01:09:41] I don't know man. Dude I would play that every day. What is Square Enix man? What you doing man? That should have been on mobile yesterday. They don't know how to run a business. It should have been on mobile. They don't know what they got. They're working on Final Fantasy 7.3 instead of the Queen's Blood standalone. It's a joke. Oh come on. Yeah. That one seems like an easy one. So Queen's Blood. This is another one that you pick.

[01:10:12] Like it's not the full game but it's a mini game. It's a game. Yeah. I don't know. This one's tough. I can't think of games like in that concept of time. These are our own questions by the way and we can't answer them. I think Queen's Blood. It was an interesting idea. Let us know on the Discord. Best 200 second loop. You guys will have a better idea. Okay. Well those are our 200 theme questions. Let's move on to listener Q&A.

[01:10:39] So for the first time ever we had people write in on the Discord. We should do this more often. I think we're going to try. And we had people ask questions. First up Snaktaku asks, what is our favorite game since 2019? Oh. I mean. It's Elden Ring for Jake. Yeah. I think it's Elden Ring. And it's kind of I feel like it's kind of lame because I'm repeating a lot of answers.

[01:11:07] Like Elden Ring, Ghost of Tsushima, Red Dead Redemption 2. Like those are ones that immediately come to mind. But also I would pick my indie game of the year picks. Right. So Arco. Yeah. I loved On Guard. Man. That was my indie game of the year for 2023. I loved Alan Wake 2. That is another one that I would pick as a favorite since 2019. Let's see. What other indie games have I played? I've played.

[01:11:36] Guys, I've played a lot of indie games. I just would like you to know. Oh. Oh. You know. Okay. That I've played. Oh no. This is favorite games since 2019. I'm fudging this a little bit, Snaktaku. I first played Shadow of the Colossus. What was it? Remake, remaster that came out on PS4. And even I think. Did that come out after 2019? I don't know. Whatever the case.

[01:12:05] I love Shadow of the Colossus. That's a game that I think about actually quite often. As an immense risk in video game design and storytelling. But pulling it off. I would also throw on there. Pentiment. Loved the heck out of Pentiment, man. And then this one I think speaks for me and Cameron. But Grounded, man. Grounded is like. I was going to say Grounded. That's on my list. Yeah. That's top of class, I think. What other ones do you have on your list? I have Grounded.

[01:12:35] Baldur's Gate 3, obviously. Disco Elysium. Oh. Yes. Probably. It's weird to say this, but. Modern Warfare 1. Like the reboot. Oh, really? In 2019. Yeah, dude. Just playing like the first Warzone. I don't think anything multiplayer gaming has like come back to that. Hmm. For me.

[01:13:04] Like in terms of like a multiplayer shooter. Right. That was just so much fun to play. During COVID too. So it was like interesting time. Dude, there's so many games. It's hard. Dude, it's hard. I'm going to miss like five or six that I just can't think of like off the top of my head. Um, this one probably counts for both of us, but Final Fantasy 7 Remake. Remake. Yeah. That first one just. So satisfying. We had a little.

[01:13:32] We both loved Rebirth, but we both had, I think, a little more to complain about with Rebirth than we did Remake. Um, this did, this, the, did this come out in 2019? I think so. Or 2018. No, I'm thinking, sorry. Sekiro. Oh, Sekiro. That was, that was in 2019, was it? That came out before we started the podcast, but since then that's catapulted to one of my favorite games ever. Sekiro is another good one.

[01:14:01] I would also add, um, Lies of P since we're kind of thinking about Souls-likes. Oh yeah. Lies of P. So loved, loved Lies of P. Um, honestly, if you're interested in Souls-likes at all, I think you, you kind of have to play that one. Um, I have a other, a few other ones that are going to be surprises. I think, uh, I'm going to throw in here Resident Evil 4 Remake. I am like, this is the collective effort of a lot of people. Cameron at the forefront of this.

[01:14:30] I've really come around on Resident Evil after playing Resident Evil 2 Remake and then Resident Evil 4 Remake. And now Resident Evil Village recently. Resident Evil 4 Remake is by far the most fun I've ever had in a horror game. Like, I couldn't even explain why. It's a beautiful looking game, but like, yeah. That one is probably one of the biggest surprises to kind of modify this question a little bit.

[01:14:58] Um, I'm surprised that I would consider Resident Evil 4 Remake in my favorite games since 2019. Ghost of Tsushima obviously came out 2021. So, um... Uh, Citizen Sleeper. I'm going through a list of games that I've played right now. Citizen Sleeper is a phenomenal game. Um, and that sequel is right around the corner. We got just two weeks before Citizen Sleeper 2 comes out.

[01:15:29] Let's see. Believe it or not, even though I don't, like, love the world, I have to admit to myself, you know, that I have a lot of time in this game. And it does grab me in many different ways. Uh, but Cyberpunk. Cyberpunk's a good one to add on there. I say this in our Cyberpunk episode, and that would be another one I'd recommend, uh, listening to us talk about. Cyberpunk 2077 is a good game, and I enjoyed playing it.

[01:15:58] I think objectively it's a lot better than what I enjoyed subjectively from playing it. It, you know? Yeah. The world is very depressing. It is not a fun, interesting kind of... It's not like... You know when you play, like, Skyrim or, like, a Witcher, and you've got that medieval world, right?

[01:16:27] That's, like, kind of this... There's beautiful vistas, and there's some sort of lighthearted moments in there. Yeah. Ghost of Tsushima kind of similar. There's none of that in Cyberpunk. It's all bleak. All of it. Dude, none of it. Even the moment you think you're happy or not. Um, I'm also gonna put in here a Plague Tale Innocence. That came out in 2019. Dude, that's up there. Plague Tale and the sequel. Just excellent games. I can't believe I still...

[01:16:55] Those games are still massively, massively underrated. Massively underrated. Some of the best games of the lot. Yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that. So good. Very good. I think we got a fairly robust list here. I'm feeling like I'm not representing indies enough, but don't worry. There are a lot of indies that I've loved that I've played since then. Yes, you're... There's too many in it. Stardew Valley 1.2 through 1.6. No. Yes, Your Grace. That came out, I believe, in 2019. Oh, man.

[01:17:23] That is another amazing game. Dude, I don't know. Someone listen to the podcast and clip together the best audio highlights from all 200 episodes and do that for us and tell us what our favorite games are based on the intonation of our voices using AI. And we will give you a firm handshake for doing so. I hope that was a good list for you, SnackTaku. Yeah. Next question.

[01:17:53] How much time do you game on average each week? Do you track it? That's from Ruse from the Discord. For me, personally, I think I game on average one hour, five hours a week. One hour a week. Not one hour a week. It's more than that. I don't game every night unless I have a game that I'm really deep into.

[01:18:23] Probably one hour a day, so five to six hours a week would be my guess. Do I track how much I play per week? Absolutely not. I do not track either. I do not because I do not want to know. To be honest. I mean, that could jump up to 25 or 30 hours if there's a game that I'm deeply into

[01:18:50] and I'll stay up until the deepest, darkest times of night that you should never stay up to. But those are few and part between. Oh, man. How much do I game on average each week? I game way too much, probably. But I'm juggling a lot with games. I would say like, I don't know. I would probably say, let's see.

[01:19:18] At least two and a half hours a night is probably what I'm doing. And then... Jake, you're like committed to like... You don't watch a lot of TV. Like you're... Yeah. You're committed to game. Like you're playing a game. I'm... For sure. Yeah. Like every night. So what I've actually done since 2019 is actually read a lot less fiction and I read a lot more poetry because it's kind of less demanding to get through a book of poetry

[01:19:46] or collection of poems than it is like a novel. I do miss novel reading and I have been trying to figure out ways to kind of reincorporate that. I am definitely a binge TV show watcher. So like there'll be a show I'm really into or I'm traveling somewhere or I'm out of town and I'm like, yeah, let's slam through this TV show that I've had on my list. And then that's when I'll watch it. My wife and I usually have a show that we're watching every night too, right? But... Or not every night, excuse me. But like we'll make time to work through it.

[01:20:17] But yeah, gaming has really taken the priority when it comes to just like engagement with fiction for me. I do less reading now. Although, yeah, I do less reading and I do less TV watching. Absolutely for sure. So I would say a lot. I game a lot. And then now that I've started part-time streaming, even more. Yeah, Jake is more committed to the craft than I am.

[01:20:45] I find my brain's ability to consume the dopamine of video games is severely limited these days. I don't know why that is probably overstimulation or exhaustion. I don't know. But I'm also like Cameron. If Elden Ring is out, dude, I'm putting more hours in the Elden Ring than I am. Yeah. Anything else, it seems like. My sleep's taking a hit. Yeah. Like when Ghost of Yotei come out,

[01:21:13] I'll probably take a day or two off work and I'll probably play every night until like midnight. Yeah. Easily. Easy. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Favorite pizza toppings. This is from AV from the Discord. I'm a huge Buffalo chicken fan. So there's this place. We don't have amazing pizza in Utah. This isn't the East Coast,

[01:21:42] but there is a place up north from us that serves this Buffalo ranch chicken pizza. That's like my favorite pizza of all time, hands down. So I'm going to go with that. It's like Buffalo chicken with this like creamy garlic ranch sauce and it slaps so hard. In fact, I might have to go get some tomorrow. Ooh. Dude, pizza's great. Dude, that sounds so freaking good. That's all I'm getting tomorrow. I'm doing it. So I'm going to give a super unnecessarily

[01:22:12] long-winded answer to this question. Okay. We're going to take a little gander down Jacob's personal history with pizza. Jake's had real pizza, guys. Like legit. I haven't had this. I haven't had like a real pizza. Jake has. Yeah, go ahead. Let me explain the culinary regional takes of pizza in the United States of America. Volume one. Break it down region by region.

[01:22:39] So I've lived in most major regions of the United States. I have not lived in the South and it's fascinating everybody's different take on pizza. So Cameron and I are both from Washington State and what I've come to decide is that Washington State pizzerias typically go for some like artisan style pizza. So there was this place where we grew up called Brewery City Pizza, which was amazing. And one of the favorite pizzas that I got there was the chicken cordon bleu pizza,

[01:23:10] which isn't a real pizza. It's a made up pizza by people from the Pacific Northwest. But it's amazing. Yeah, it's not. It's not really pizza, right? That's not if we're getting right in the East Coast, New York sense of the word. No, it is a violation of pizza if we go back to the East Coast and ask their opinion. But it's good, right? But I feel like that's kind of the style that you get. Like I remember in my wife's hometown, their pizzeria of choice was really famous for having like these like potato,

[01:23:38] thin potato wedges on the pizza, you know, stuff like that. And so that like, I feel like that's very much Washington State's brand. I think my dog just burst through the door to come hang out. And then when I moved to Kansas, the idea is like, let's put as much cheese as possible on this thing. And no, we're not talking Chicago deep dish.

[01:24:03] It's like, let's put like an inch minimum layer of cheese on like a regular crust. And so if you like cheese and you like not pooping for weeks on end, like Midwest pizza is the pizza for you, right? And then we get to the East Coast, man, where my life changed radically. Brooklyn style thin crust pizza, man. It made me reevaluate what my favorite pizza toppings are. They have a buffalo chicken style, amazing. Chicken vodka, amazing.

[01:24:32] Just a margarita pizza, amazing. And then just, I don't know. I think my favorite toppings though, this is going to sound really boring. It's just like a plain old pepperoni pizza. A pepperoni pizza done right. With the right ratio of cheese sauce and toppings, the right amount of grease. And I've learned, I've been corrected. You have to fold your pizza when you eat it. Otherwise, literally I was made fun of in New Jersey for not folding my pizza.

[01:25:00] But dude, I'm just, I've come full circle. I've tried all these different pizzas. Dude, the pepperoni pizza is just my favorite. It is never bad quality, no matter how it's made. But thank you for that explanation. And then in Utah, they don't really know. Pepperoni is good. I'm also not very picky. I kind of like all stuff. I even like pineapple and Canadian bacon. Like, I know. Whatever. Whatever. He'll go for it all. Good. I mean, pizza's pizza, right?

[01:25:30] Pizza's pizza. Dude, it's bread with cheese on it. It's like, what's better than that? Pretty much nothing. Except maybe corn dogs. Okay. Next question from Dovetail. This is also from the Discord. If you woke up one day and you found yourself in the world of a video game, which world would you want it to be? Grand Theft Auto. Just kidding. Definitely not Grand Theft Auto. Oh, that's hilarious.

[01:25:57] You know, I actually really struggled with this question because I was trying to think of some really peaceful scenario where I wouldn't die within the first five minutes. You know? Because even like Breath of the Wild, Hyrule, dude, I'm not going to last. Scary, dude. Dude, I'm dead. You know? On the Great Placto, there's a, what do you call them? The rock golem thing. You're living in like the post-apocalypse. Yeah. It's over. You're not going anywhere.

[01:26:23] So I was trying to think of like some really fun, like laid back, chill, non-combat games. Quick side note on Breath. Quick Breath of the Wild side note. It's funny how in Breath of the Wild, it's the post-apocalypse and then in Tears of Kingdom, it's the post-post-apocalypse. Just sorry. Not too many apocalypse, man. I just, I just, that just dawned on me right now. Yeah. Yeah. So let's, so yeah, I was thinking about this, thinking way too hard about this.

[01:26:54] I don't know, man. I think I actually, this might be a weird answer. The world of Sable, like even though it's like this desert planet, it is pretty relaxed and it has really interesting and unique cultures. And you've got like this sweet hover motorcycle thing and you just kind of cruise around solving mysteries, finding who you are. It seems like a really nice, like laid back contemplative world. And that's the kind of world that I would like to be in. Sorry. Which, which game? Sable.

[01:27:24] Sable. Nice. Um, yeah, I think this is a tough one. Disco Elysium. Oh wait, where do you live in that world? That's becoming, it's becoming a bleak reality.

[01:27:47] Um, probably, um, man, I mean, Stardew Valley is kind of the obvious one. Yeah. Cause it's like, it's, it's literally like the millennial, we, this is, I use this phrase so often to describe Stardew Valley. It's like the millennial fever dream.

[01:28:11] It's like, it's everyone's secret fantasy to quit their corporate job. Yeah. Go take over an organic berry farm and like, yeah. Marry your sweetheart and like live your dreams on, in a simple small town life. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, that's probably it. Um, that's probably it.

[01:28:35] Skyrim is very dangerous, but I feel like if I was wealthy and had like guards and stuff, it would be a pretty dope world to live in. Yeah. Um, yeah, I don't know, man. That's a, that's a good question. I would. Redhead Redemption. Yeah. If I, is also dangerous. These are all just dangerous. There's combat in video games, right? So it's like, yeah, that's what you're trying to avoid.

[01:29:02] I would, let's see, this is a weird answer, but dude, maybe the world of Astro Bot. That, I don't, you know, when they're all on the little, in the little, I don't know, Astro Bot, Clone, Commune, they all seem pretty happy. Oh, I actually have a really good answer for this. Wind Waker. Oh, I haven't played Wind Waker. That's actually the one.

[01:29:29] I have this like fantasy of living sort of like a Moana life. Oh, nice. Just like you're living on like an island and you have like a wind sail boat and like. Yeah. Eating fresh fish and stuff. Take out all of like the obvious dark realities of that. And just imagine like the fantasy version of that. And that's kind of my. Yeah. I've got one more answer to this question.

[01:29:59] East Shade. So East Shade is a game that. Oh, yeah. I fell off of because it was janky as heck. But people love and I keep telling myself I'm going to go back to it and beat it. But that is a super chill, beautiful, lush island kind of laid back. Happy living. I'm going to give two answers to the inverse of this question, which is if I woke up one day and found myself in the world of video games, which is the last world I would want to be in. And a plague tale. Oh, my gosh, dude.

[01:30:28] Could you imagine? I can smell that game. I can smell it right now. The rats. The rats. The filth. The corpses. If I see one rat, I'm out. Yeah. Like thousands of rats? Nah. No way. So that's one I would definitely want. Definitely would not want to live in. Another one I definitely would not want to live in is The Witcher 3. The world of The Witcher seems grimy and sweaty and just bloody.

[01:30:56] And everybody's out there trying to sacrifice somebody else. So this is probably a testament to its successful interpretation of the world. But cyberpunk, that world. I mean, and that's like a world we're probably heading to. I hope not. Dude, cyberpunk is misery. Hey, doesn't that mean it's good sci-fi? Because it makes you think about that? Yeah. I would say, yeah. Oh, great sci-fi.

[01:31:25] But yeah, it is pure misery, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. Head to head segment. This is from Real Dave Jackson. Who would win in the following scenarios? Because number one, Super Smash Brothers, random characters, final destination on items. I am actually not sure on this one, but Jake, I don't think, I'm not very good. I'm bad. I think if people watched this, they would turn it off and tune out.

[01:31:56] This would not be fun to watch. This would definitely not be fun to watch. We'll call this a draw. Wow. I'm imagining Cameron and I are both on the stage. We both have three lives. We both somehow lose two of our lives just by falling off the stage. It's 1v1 life. Somebody hugs a Pokeball and it happens to be like the god tier Pokemon that just wipes everything out. And that's how that match is decided. Ineptitude at its finest. At its finest. Okay.

[01:32:25] Number two, Mario Kart Grand Prix. Jake, you play a lot of Mario Kart? I'm also, I'm not. I'm not great at this. I don't play a lot of Mario Kart. Now, if it were Crash Team Racing, which I have played a lot of recently, I think I'd win. Okay. We'll give this one to Jake. I'm pretty good at Crash Team Racing, but it's Mario Kart. I don't know, man. Real go-kart races. You know what? Let me tell a little story here.

[01:32:53] My sister was dating this guy that really wanted to impress my sister's siblings, myself included, obviously. Right? And my sister's a huge fan of just like carnivals, fairs, that kind of like amusement parks, like that kind of stuff. Right? And so, this is in St. George, Utah. We go to the Family Fun Center. Have you been there? Have you been to this place? I mean... You probably have. I've been to a million places like it. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, it's got an arcade.

[01:33:23] It's got a bowling alley. It's got bumper boats. And it's got go-kart racing. And this guy wants to impress us. And it's like, we're doubled up. I got one kid with me. And then my other kid is with him. And I smoked that guy, dude. He kept trying to butt out in front of me. I was like, dude, I understand drafting. I was raised on the slick track course of Ocean Shores Washington go-karts. I know my way around a go-kart, dude. You are not going to pass me.

[01:33:53] Jake's winning that one. There's no way. I haven't... I can't even remember the last time I raced a go-kart. Fun fact about me. I get way too competitive about go-kart racing. Especially if you're trying to impress me. It's hilarious. See you on the track, suckers. Okay. Number four. Overcooked 2v2 with our part. This is a nightmare. This is like divorce. Oh my gosh. Dave, I can't believe you asked this. So, I brought this one up to my wife specifically.

[01:34:21] And she said, we wouldn't finish the match. No. We... Like, my wife would get extremely serious. And there would be, like, violence and, like, yelling. I think we would take it out of just sheer intensity. And then we'd probably... Our friendship would be over. Maybe. I think... Or at least our wife's friendship. I... Actually, yeah.

[01:34:49] I think Maren, my wife, would be like, Virginia's going way too hard, dude. I gotta... Yeah, she... She'd put the controller down. She gets competitive. She gets very competitive. Like, two... I have to be like, babe. Come on. Cameron, within 45 seconds, the match would be over. Cameron and I are in tears. My wife has left the room. Does that sound accurate? If there was like... Let's make it... To make it very serious, let's say there was a million dollars on the line. We played in a global tournament.

[01:35:18] And the final... It just happens to be me and my wife and Jake and his wife in the final match. One million people watching. That would be like... That would be rough. I would age 10 years in an overcooked match. All right. Last one. A chili cook off. I'm taking this one. I'm taking this one. I think Cameron takes it. Honestly, my chili is pretty weak. I don't have a great chili. I do a lot of cooking. I actually quite enjoy cooking.

[01:35:48] I think if I took the time, I could really throw down some great chili. And I actually make chili quite a bit. Okay. So you know... All right. How hard can Cameron punch from Real Dave Jackson? Is this a plant? Absolutely is a plant. But hold on. I want to tally up really quick. In the head-to-head segment, we have five things here. Oh, yeah. Jake, I think you won. No. This is... I take the go-kart related ones. So I'm taking Mario Kart and I'm taking real go-karts. Cameron's taking Overcooked and the chili cook off.

[01:36:17] So you know what this comes down to? This comes down to RNG. Super Smash. Whoever grabs the OP Pokemon from the Pokeball. Oh, wait. It's no items. Sorry. I'm wrong. No, it's on items. No, no. I misspelled that. Oh, it was a mistype. Oh, no items. Oh, no. Okay. So the RNG. No items. Whoever doesn't fall off three times wins. I think I'm losing. So I think you win. I think you win the battle of... I don't know. Maybe we have to do it. We just have to do it.

[01:36:47] Maybe we need to stream some Super Smash Brothers matches. It's the only way to ever know. Okay. Sorry. I had to go back to that. All right. How hard can you punch? Okay. Well, this is just... You know... I don't... Any sort of number that maybe you can quantify the hardness of your punch. Let's just give the audience some context. So we have a group of friends, friends since high school, plus an additional person who shall not be named,

[01:37:16] who somehow inexplicably, inexplicably, has joined our friend group. If you never thought it was possible to add somebody to your high school friend group after high school, we've managed to do that. somehow we've invited... We kindly, kindly invited this person, this individual who shall not be named into our friend group who knew Jake from college and Kansas, started playing Destiny with us, somehow got integrated.

[01:37:46] Now he comes on our annual trip with us with our high school friends and we go and play video games and go to Topgolf and go to baseball games and have fun like once a year. So we happen to be at a bowling alley that had one of those punch machines where it's one of those punch-o-matic machines. You punch it and it gives you a number. So it comes out. We're all doing this for fun. It's macho, right? Masculine energy is through the roof. Everyone's throwing the punches.

[01:38:16] I finally get up there and I hit an 887. Which is crazy high. Which is pretty good. Here comes he who shall not be named. No offense, hasn't touched a weight in I don't know how many years, but just somehow is just insanely athletic. Goes up there and punches an 888.

[01:38:46] And to this day, that moment will never be lived down in the history of our friendship. So, if you're listening to this, you know who you are. I don't know. I feel like Dave asked this question in the Discord with slightly different wording and I maybe manicured it a little bit for this. That could lead to our personal story. Yeah. Hey, by the way, if you're listening to this and you want to know

[01:39:15] how hard 887 is or 888, go punch one of those things because you'll like break your hand. Report back also. We'd love... Yeah, report back on your number. If you're just wasting... If you're getting into the 900s, I want to know because you've got some serious punching power. Although you have post a pick or it doesn't count. We have to see that. Post a pick or it didn't happen. Yeah. All right. Next up from Slugcat Stew, why do you love video games? What is it about them that appeals to you? What do they give you that other cultural forms can't?

[01:39:45] How has your relationship with them changed as you've gotten older? What do I love about video games? I mean, I was a pretty imaginative kid, which you don't have to interpret that as like loner, weirdo, emo kid, but that also was me. And so, video games just kind of... The immersive feel, the interactivity that's sort of built into them. I think all artistic forms strive for interactivity in one way or another, but I think what makes

[01:40:14] video games unique, what do they give me that other cultural forms can't, is that they obligate like dexterous interactivity. You're using your hands or you're using your eyes in the case of something like before your eyes like in unique ways. And so, I think that really high floor, I think, of like manual and dexterous interactivity is something that they offer that they can't. And it is something

[01:40:43] that I love about them. I love being able to feel like not only did I witness like a really wonderful or touching or heartwarming story, but my contributions to that story made that outcome happen. So like, Yes, Your Grace, for example, which has like a billion different endings, being able to actually get to one of the final endings of the game based on how I interacted with it, that's something that I find really appealing about video games. I also think that they have,

[01:41:13] it's really interesting how a video game can like force you to work through different, not just mechanical struggles, but I would even venture to say like political struggles or moral issues, right? So I think Citizen Sleeper, Before the Green Moon, those are two games that come to mind. I feel like we recently did an episode on this where the, even something like Disco Elysium, right? Just these games that are like, okay, let's really put your metal to the test. We recently did an episode

[01:41:43] where we both talked about this and I'm trying to remember what it was. It was some game where we both felt like, okay, do our own morals actually hold up as we're trying to play them out here? So I love that kind of interactivity. I love, I mean, films, novels, obviously they make you question all of those things. It's much more of like a psychological or intellectual endeavor. I just like how that's kind of paired with something physical and dexterous as well. Yeah,

[01:42:13] I love video games because I just love the incredible breadth of experience and experience like being the keyword, right? You get to experience something and you experience and experience mean to me means that there's interaction, there's activity, there's either choice or mechanics that you are performing and you're doing that like with a piece of art that's meant to communicate a message or tell a story

[01:42:42] or install a feeling and films, I also love film but film doesn't have that interactivity level and so to me, I do love films but they're less satisfying than a game, than a really well done like video game that does the same thing, like a similar thing to what like a really good film does. So that's why I love video games. It's interesting, I talk to my wife about this all the time how like there's gamers

[01:43:12] and I love gamers, right? Gamers play, they pick a game that they love and they play it to death and they rip it apart and they become expert at it and they play it like till the cows come home and that's definitely a type of gamer, probably what most people think of when they think of somebody who plays video games. I'm very much the person who I'm playing dozens of different types of video games all the time and Jake's, you're similar, right? Yeah. Playing so many different types of games so I can experience the vast breadth

[01:43:42] of experiences that gaming offers that I don't think any other medium offers in nearly the same way. Yeah. And nor can they replicate the types of feelings or interactivity that a video game, no other art form can give you that and so that's that's why I love video games and I play a heck of a lot of them and I bounce off a lot of them and I only put like an hour or two into a lot of them and I buy them anyways

[01:44:11] and I think oh I'm not liking this right now but maybe I'll come back six months from now and I'll feel differently about this experience and sometimes I do. Kingdom Come Deliverance being a great example of that is something I started it a few years ago no interest in it, came back and I put 20 hours in it like in the past few weeks and I've like changed my thinking about it and it's like it's affected me in an emotional way so yeah that's why I love video games.

[01:44:41] The last question that Slugcats do here has in this sort of bundle of questions is how has your relationship with them changed as you've gotten older? I think the more, the older that I've gotten and this is definitely I would say increased exponentially after I had kids, it's just like the more emotionally I wear I am so I I feel like I actually I might not have the same emotional attachment to some of the characters that I grew up with and I loved when I was a kid but I

[01:45:10] do feel like I just get more invested in the stories that are being told in video games as I'm getting older I also let's see I despite playing a wide variety of games I do look at some games and I think I just know that I will not enjoy that I think I just have a greater sense of discernment of what types of games I want to play and which ones I think I will enjoy I think that despite

[01:45:40] the mediums and industries kind of rickety momentum and growth it is progressing forward at a good clip and I think that games have constantly just improved and gotten better but what I love about video games too is that there's like this big breadth of like you can have something that is as wacky as like this early 2000s era mascot platformers like Spyro or Crash and I've recently played like Clone Noah right like where it's just like

[01:46:10] these characters and these worlds are just like what on earth is even happening if you think about them critically but they can still be really engaging and so I actually think that what I'm getting at here is I think I've developed a much better sense of how to digest video games offer are so varied if that makes sense yeah 100% I agree I think I'm

[01:46:43] my relationship has changed I think it's gotten harder for me to get that feeling that we were describing earlier I feel like it happens a lot less often yeah I feel like I used to get a lot more like I still love most games that I play or really like but it's become much more rare for me to have that moment of like where you're just zoned into something so the last time I had that was

[01:47:13] boulders gate 3 like I just couldn't pull myself away from it and I was just so engrossed in the world and the story and like oh that was what's happening so that doesn't happen as often and I'm also willing to try I agree with you Jake I've gotten better at figuring out what I do like but I'm also more willing to like give something a shot yeah even if I think I maybe won't like it

[01:47:43] but that also comes with a little bit more disposable income to buy games if I'm worried and also steam's generous return policy yes but yeah yeah I would say that like I'm super willing if a game looks remotely interesting and it's five bucks or less yeah dude yeah I will absolutely give that a try in fact I saw this in one of the many many discords that I'm in

[01:48:13] somebody posted this game it came out this year it's called the rangers in the south it's I think it was like four bucks oh yeah yeah you see this one it's like this 2d hd kind of roguelike thing but it was like four or five bucks I was like yeah I'll pick this up and I'll give it a try and if I don't like in 30 minutes that's fine or maybe I like it and I play it for two and a half hours and I don't complete

[01:48:48] it we get a ton of weird stuff it's kind of interesting so the recording of this episode coincides with the passing of David Lynch who is this really renowned director for doing a lot of weird things and taking a lot of big risks but it's interesting I feel like in video games a lot of people take inspiration from people like David Lynch and they're like what if we made this weird experience like and we just put it out there could it find its audience could people

[01:49:17] resonate with this like I'm thinking about click holding which is a super disturbing horror game that takes you like 50 minutes to play from strange scaffold you have been playing like mouth washing right for example right there's just a super interesting fascinating compact experiences that you can get in video games and sometimes they immensely pay off like for me a short hike I will always sing the praises of a short hike a game that just absolutely blew me away that I think had zero expectations when it was

[01:49:47] made and when it was released yet gave it a try for seven bucks fell in love with it yeah I agree uh from ruse another question from ruse do you think steam has been a good or bad thing for indies so I've been thinking a lot about this question and while I've been thinking about it a few days ago let's see who it was zach uh swyzen

[01:50:17] from kotaku posted this fantastic article related to this the title of the article is 19,000 games came to steam in 2024 and 80% of them had almost no players right and so crazy insane right and so he says here though that so here we got the numbers according this is quoting from him according to steam db in 2024 18,950 games were released on steam

[01:50:46] but only 4,041 of those racked up enough sales and attracted enough players to escape limited status that means 14,951 games launched last year in valve's digital pc storefront were barely played or purchased and so he kind of explains that this limited feature is a way of trying to kind of safeguard from shovelware or like malware even like virus stuff scams whatever it is so

[01:51:17] has steam been a good thing I think in some ways it has been a really good thing for indies because it's been a storefront where you can put an indie game and you can get it on there relatively easily without having to pass all the different certification requirements to get on playstation or xbox or nintendo but at the same time I think steam and epic tried to make their sort of competitor in here it's become the magnet for games so if you're initially competing with 19,000 games but yours

[01:51:47] is a legit one and it gets out unlimited phase you're still competing with 4,000 games and steam and steam discovery is just simply unwieldy and so yes I think it has been a good thing because indies have a place to go but no it's a bad thing because it's the only major place I should say because itch.io exists right it's the only major place and it's at this point way overcrowded and it's going to be really difficult without a publisher or without

[01:52:17] some really fine tuned marketing or a stroke of luck word of mouth that your game gets seen out of the 4,000 right there yeah I mean unless somebody comes up with a better system for game discovery I think steam is just what we got and I don't think it's like necessarily I'm not gonna say it's bad

[01:52:46] but I don't know if it's great but there's just so many I just don't know how you would surface game and so the responsibility lies with the developer or the publisher to make people aware of games and that's just like the reality that we live in you cannot as we've had this conversation before you were I think you were reading a what was a Twitter thread somebody was telling was it around Arco where it was like you can't just make

[01:53:16] a good game anymore yeah this is uh it's funny so the Braid anniversary edition came out and Jonathan Blow was just like if you just make a really good video game it'll do really well and everybody's like when did Braid first come out though and how many games were you competing with it was like 200 250 or something yeah yeah so I I will spend during the steam sale I will scour through that thing yeah and I will go look for tiny

[01:53:46] indies like all over I will look for stuff and like try and get steam to service me stuff that I want to play or that are like diamonds in the rough but I think it's just it's just hard I think it's just a really hard thing and there's so many things that you have to factor into the algorithm and so yeah I think I don't think seems bad I don't know I think would it be I think it'd be worse if there was like multiple places that I had to go to find stuff and to buy stuff I do like having everything in one spot

[01:54:16] and I like how steam kind of lays it out and it gives you the opportunity to present it I would say I would love to see the three major publishers Xbox Sony and

[01:54:46] Nintendo do more to support indies because I think that they have the resources to absolutely and they have established storefronts because I think you bring up a good point here Cameron like this is the reality of digital libraries nobody wants to move that around right nobody wants to I don't want to move to epic store no because I have way too many games on steam right and that's my dedicated one for PC right now and I have games on epic I wish I could just put them all on steam

[01:55:15] but but yeah they sit there's there's no DRM organizers I guess you can like link stuff together but that's kind of annoying yeah um yeah I think great question okay final question the triple slam this is another one from snocktaku where do you see triple a gaming in the next five years what comes first which trends are you looking forward to in the coming years I can answer number two so they just had an

[01:55:45] interview kind of funny just did an interview with Shohei Yoshida okay yeah former PlayStation president CEO I can't remember he said on Bloodborne remake now I don't know about Bloodborne 2 that could be a different thing but he said on Bloodborne remake that the reason that that hasn't been done yet is that Miyazaki Miyazaki yeah

[01:56:15] Miyazaki loves Bloodborne and he doesn't want anyone else to touch it and they don't have time to make it and that's the reason that it hasn't happened oh it's a catch 22 yeah so that's more information than we've had ever up until now ever so what we know is that FromSoft wants to do it sorry not that they want to do it but that they love it and if they're gonna do it they're gonna be the ones to do it

[01:56:45] and so I think it just comes down to like if Miyazaki is willing is gonna make it so who knows do we get Bloodborne 2 who knows so does this mean that Elden Ring Night Reign and Armor Chord 7 whatever next games they come out they have to fail and then they'll be like fine we'll do the remaster well no I think honestly if you're somebody like Miyazaki you have a blank check to make whatever you want to make are you gonna be one to remake a game you already made no

[01:57:16] yeah would you make a sequel to a game that you I think maybe maybe so I think there's probably a chance if he loves it and he's a creative and he can do what he wants but does he have a vision for what the sequel to it would be that he really is captivated by that's the question if he doesn't have that he won't make it yeah and honestly maybe it comes down to that maybe there's an idea for sequel or maybe he just has not found the

[01:57:46] idea for the sequel that he's satisfied with and so he's like okay I'll just we won't just work on it and I imagine he's a busy guy so he blocks out let's pretend everybody he blocks out early or late Saturday night early Sunday morning from 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. that's his dedicated time to think about ideas for a Bloodborne sequel you know what I mean and he's been doing that for 10 years because we're about to hit 10 years on Bloodborne right and no just hasn't come to him

[01:58:16] that could that could very well easily be it or he's got some new new brand new thing he's got another Elden ring or another weird idea anyway so all that said yes Bloodborne 2 is coming out before Silk Song we want we want Concerned Ape to be more like Miyazaki oh my gosh

[01:58:47] Haunted Chocolatier is coming out we should let's throw Haunted Chocolatier into this question I think that may be the greatest that's the greatest like analysis that I've ever made about video games Concerned Ape should be like more like Miyazaki there you go sign it quote it clip it quote it put it up everywhere Cameron give me a quick ranking though one being comes out first three being comes out last

[01:59:18] Silk Song Bloodborne 2 Haunted Chocolatier Silk Song is number one comes out first Haunted Chocolatier Bloodborne 2 okay so on Silk Song if Silk Song doesn't come out in 2025 it doesn't exist sorry now that doesn't exist but they couldn't figure out how to like finish it

[01:59:48] and so they're just it's just not gonna come out they disbanded as a team and they just yeah they ran out of money like it's coming out there's it cannot not come out that's what I said last year but so like this year that's the same thing but it's like double like at some point you have to put the game out and you have to make money there's some very like what are they what are these guys living on they all they all make like 40k a year like making this game

[02:00:17] like I don't you gotta release the game at some time to make the money they're living off that sweet sweet game pass subsidy that they're getting for hollow night being on there does australia have some sweet universal basic income I don't know about like are the residuals from hollow night like that big the residuals might be that big honestly I mean they're pretty big probably yeah does it come out of AAA gaming in the next five years my take on this is I think

[02:00:47] I think we see a resurgence a swing of the pendulum back to uh the early 2000s development cycle oh and release cycle yeah so pretty quick cadence pretty short games relatively short games that can

[02:01:16] be made with tight budgets that companies feel like they can turn a profit with based on reliable IP hmm indie I think kind of stays status quo until something similar to stardew valley comes out that breaks the pricing model open yeah but that's but that's indie so I think that's a different thing AAA I think

[02:01:46] is you're gonna have game pass and then you're gonna have a whole bunch of these offerings and I think these companies stop trying to break into gas they stop trying to break into life service the failures have been too catastrophic now they won't do it anymore if they do it it's not gonna look the same as as it's looked it's gonna look it's gonna look more like a hell diver situation yeah right so I mean I think that's

[02:02:16] what I think I largely agree I think when GTA 6 comes out that is the final massive single-player AAA game for a long while if ever yes GTA 6 will be the most expensive game ever made period that's it there won't be anything else more expensive after that I think we're hitting a breaking point Rockstar is absolutely unique in that position

[02:02:46] they're probably the only studio can get away who can get away with what they get away with in terms of how much time and money they put into each of these massive massive releases I think we see Xbox now is turning they've already turned the corner I mean Indiana Jones is actually a really fantastic game and we're gonna be talking about that soon but I think Indiana Jones kind of marks us like now we're keeping the single-player mainline experience under 20 hours sure we're gonna put a lot of things to collect a lot of side quests in there

[02:03:15] and yeah I just kind of think that we're gonna see shorter or I let me rephrase that we're gonna see a lot of smaller but more dense games especially from Xbox and I think that we're gonna see that with like South of Midnight to me very much getting that sort of feel from that type of game shorter much more dense right avowed they've already stated that they're not trying to remake Skyrim right it's shorter 30 to 40 hour situation

[02:03:45] yep yeah it's it's more dense so Xbox in the next five years will I think finally deliver kind of their promise of a high cadence of games but expect those campaigns to be between 10 and 20 hours yeah 10 and 20 with 40 at the like top and 40 to 50 being the very top end like yeah and I think AI tools will actually make it easier to make bigger games ironically but I think what will

[02:04:14] happen is studio instead of making the games bigger studios will leverage those tools to make games quicker and have more frequent release cadences and to decrease budgets because I think that's the only way that the gaming revenue model can succeed I don't think there's any other way and don't mistake Cameron saying AI tools for everything is going to be gen AI prompt created those are very different things this whole Elon Musk like we're going to have an AI game studio that's never

[02:04:44] going to happen that will never work yeah ever ever that will never work I agree with you on indies I'll just kind of put in my two cents here really quickly the perhaps irony of being labeled as indie is that the second you have too much success you're really no longer indie right indie comes from the word independent and it comes from independent financial models for the creation and distribution of art so indie really comes from

[02:05:14] music when we talked about indie rock starting in the mid-aughts right this is what we were talking about we're talking about the internet being this new way of distributing music through a way that is non-traditional that doesn't require publishers it doesn't require you know you to work with specific music studios right and that's translated very nicely into video games where it's like hey we don't have to go through traditional publishing financial models in order to get our game to market so that's what

[02:05:44] indie means and I think with indies they will always exist indies and I mean this in a loving way the indie game is a indie game industry is a cockroach you cannot kill it because there will always be somebody who can create a successful game without using popular traditional financial plan scenarios or marketing or distribution or publishing that will always exist right and so I think as a baseline indie

[02:06:13] will be relatively similar in that way but yeah I mean I think my and this is kind of getting to the last question what trends in gaming are you looking forward to in the coming years I am hopeful that the double a space that kind of awkward space between indie and triple a grows because people are making smaller games that's like my hope and maybe I'm being too optimistic there I know a lot of

[02:06:42] people are pessimistic here they kind of think the double a space is a wash it's too expensive not profitable enough it might kind of die out I am hopeful that as bigger triple a studios are skewing down towards smaller game sizes that double a games will be able to grow because that will be closer to the triple a expectation of game size yep I don't know

[02:07:12] the other trend I'm looking forward to maybe is this is gonna sound this is gonna sound this is gonna make me super snooty sounding but I can't think of another way of phrasing this I'm kind of looking forward to the death of games as a service fortnight will never die right but it will reach popularity and it will trend downward and I I think yeah yeah I don't know I'm just looking forward to this because I want to see more success with studios

[02:07:41] instead of chasing somebody else's dream for money games as a service will never go away it just will not look like how it looks now it's gonna look different um there's gonna be a few players that rise to the top or never leave fortnight probably to your point probably never dies it probably just morphs because it it probably just morphs into what it needs to be for years to come but there'll be

[02:08:11] big there'll be some big player that comes and starts the new trend we don't know what that's gonna be yet but someone's gonna do it you know yeah think about like I don't know what year it was but what 2015 2016 nobody knew what the f fortnight was yeah and now it's you know the biggest biggest thing

[02:08:41] in games well ladies and gentlemen massive 200 number 200 episode coming in over two hours we're exhausted but we loved answering your questions and answering our 200 theme questions broke down a lot of podcast history gave a lot of opinions we really hope you enjoyed it jake any final thoughts and maybe some comments on the future of the

[02:09:10] podcast in our ending here our episode number 200 i mean we're not stopping um we're still going a part of me just kind of wants to say see you around episode 300 you know like uh cameron and i it's it's pretty wild i think after five years of doing this and doing 200 podcast episodes um cameron and i's friendship has actually only gotten stronger you know i feel like some people when you're kind of stuck in a

[02:09:40] work environment with a close friend like this for a long time you can develop resentment and and you know begin to uh just grind each other's gears um we don't really have that um i love the dynamic that we have um and i think that will keep going strong um honestly i don't have numbers to share and but the podcast keeps growing we keep meeting wonderful people who have share interest in gaming um we keep having great conversations about games and it's

[02:10:09] like we'll just i'll just continue that let's keep the good times rolling right and so i would say the future we don't have any big big plans or any big shake-ups necessarily um but we are getting more active we're getting more involved just in our discord just with the podcast gaming podcast community more broadly we've made a lot of really cool connections met a lot of people um and so we're going to continue expanding those um whatever is within the sort of limits

[02:10:39] that we have right in terms of resources and time um camera and i are always talking just to give you a little insight we're always talking about whether or not we want to branch into video-based content um you can give us your opinion on that um we haven't done that really we made one effort but it wasn't we made one effort once right but like way back at the beginning yeah way back at the beginning we're much smarter now so we would be much better at doing it if we were to do it

[02:11:08] again but at the same time we don't feel like there's a lot of demand for that um so tell us if we're wrong there um that would probably be the biggest maybe change or iteration to the podcast if we started producing like video-based content content um but simply i don't quite think that's in the cards for us at this point either so you can expect we'll see ya yeah see ya episode 300 you know yeah i think some milestones we're looking towards with no

[02:11:37] definitions or like exact dates or expectations around them but like we would love to get start getting a lot more keys we've started to get quite a few and some of like some high-profile indie games um got keys for arco and like some other things but would love to start seeing kind of some of those big games come in to get like major preview opportunities so we can start to have episodes come out before some of these big games actually release so we've been doing this a long time but we're

[02:12:07] still grinding i think that's something that we're hoping for and looking looking forward to and then after that it's you know can we get invited to like a preview event or can we get invited to something like that i think that's like way in the future but those are always kind of in the back of our minds and then we can bring you guys that content so yeah i think that's where we would love to put more energy for sure preview content um really kind of getting further entrenched into the industry is is what we would like to do

[02:12:36] but like cameron says we don't have concrete goals or data or numbers related to that that we to share but yeah we will get there and with that ladies and gentlemen this has been our 200 episode celebration of the period of when this podcast if you've been listening to us for a long time and you're one of our longtime fans thank you so much for supporting us through 200 episodes of the show if you're just joining us recently we welcome you in thank you so

[02:13:06] much for coming in and helping support our show uh if you want to help support the podcast even more you can leave a review on your podcast platform of choice that helps the that helps the show get bigger helps people find it that's one of the best things that you can do takes a few seconds you can do it right on your podcast platform on your phone or you can join us on patreon.com slash podcast where you can sign up for a premium edition of the show we're doing a ton of stuff on on patreon so you're gonna get

[02:13:35] extended editions once a month of one of our episodes you're gonna get special topics episodes once a month at one of those tiers Jake is doing indie impressions you can get early access to our regular episodes just a ton of options that you have on there and then you can piecemeal like whatever you want if you just want to pick one of those or you can get all of it uh so go to patreon.com slash podcast and do that you can also join in on the conversation we just you saw that we did a q a in this episode all those

[02:14:04] questions came through in the discord so if you want to be part of that link to the discord is in the description click that join in the conversation thank you so much for listening to us we appreciate you and have a great night you