Get Played - Grand Theft Hamlet

Episode Date: May 19, 2025

Heather, Nick and Matt discuss the 2024 documentary Grand Theft Hamlet, the story of two out of work actors at the height of the pandemic attempting to stage a production of Hamlet within Grand Theft Auto Online. Grand Theft Hamlet is available to stream on Mubi. Our next We Play, You Play: Mother 3 Check out our brand new merch at kinshipgoods.com/getplayed Follow us on social media @getplayedpod Music by Ben Prunty benpruntymusic.com Art by Duck Brigade duckbrigade.com For ad-free main feed episodes, our complete back catalogue including How Did This Get Played? and our Premium DLC episodes and our exclusive show Get Anime'd where we're currently experiencing AniMAYhem go to patreon.com/getplayed Join us on our Discord server here: https://discord.gg/getplayed Wanna leave us a voicemail? Call 616-2-PLAYED (616-275-2933) or write us an email at [e-mail] Advertise on Get Played via Gumball.fm All of our links can be found at linktree.com/getplayedpodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. All right, thank you so much for coming in. We're really excited to see your audition. As you know, this is for a brand new car. It's called the GX7. And so if you just want to read the copy, we'll start from there. All right, here we go. Do you want me to slay it or anything? Yep. My name is Manopadaka and here I am auditioning for voiceover in GX7 commercial. Here we go. Thank you. What is a car? What does it mean to be behind the wheel? Shifting into first gear, second gear, third gear. Reverse. Neutral. Drive. What does it mean to drive? What is a car? What is this? Four seats, four wheels. Who even came up with this? GX7 pre-ordered today. That was a fantastic read really thanks. I was kind of in my

My John-ham bag, you know, it was excellent and that's that's sort of the energy that we're looking for Hey, what are you guys doing over here? Hey, what's going on over there? What is this? What is this? What are you doing over there? What are you guys up to? Who are you? We're just having an Audition we're just doing an audition for a car commercial. What do you think of this check this out? Look at this look at thing. I'm doing He's just giving a thumbs up over and over again. Look what I'm doing. He's like, okay now he's like spanking his own ass Look at this. Okay. This out. Thanks. Thank you, sir. Like this. Well, sir. I'm gonna fuck you. Okay, fuck you Fuck you I'm gonna have to ask you to leave.

I think he farted. I'm gonna have to ask you to leave. Thank you. Uh, okay. Well, uh, I'm so sorry about that. That's okay. Things have been a little, uh, wild out there, but, um- My life as an actor is very hard, so that was, like, kinda, you know, just part of the course. Of course. You know, you were really cool as a cucumber under pressure there. Uh, I would love to just do- do one more take.

Um, I really think you nailed it, and honestly, you know, it's not my- my thing to say here, cucumber under pressure there. I would love to just do one more take. I really think you nailed it. And honestly, you know, it's not my thing to say here, but I do think you're first in line for the part. Sold in the room, folks. Why don't you do one more take? Don't be as married to the script this time, so you can go a little off script if you want.

Have fun with it? Yeah, have fun with it. But keep that tone. And let's hear one more, one more, a little off script if you want. Have fun with it? Yeah, have fun with it. But keep that tone and Let's hear one more one more And slate up top take for the GX7. Okay, this is Matt Apodaca I'm auditioning for The GX7 Hey, I'm back again. Hey, fuck you. Hey, fuck you. Hey, fuck you. Hey, I got a katana check this shit out

Hey, fuck you! Hey, fuck you! Hey, fuck you! Hey, I got a katana, check this shit out! Oh, fuck! Oh, my god! Oh, fuck! You like that? You want a grenade? Check this shit out! Comfort, class, and speed. Hey, watch me do this! Fuck you! You like that? Fuck you! I got a rocket launcher, check this shit out!

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Watch this! Watch this! Watch this! Watch this! Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, with my fellow host, Nick Weiger. Oh, that's me, Nick Tiger Weiger, along with our third host, Madhapadaka. Oh, hello everyone.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where this week we are talking about a strange little documentary about some hopers, some dreamers, some theater nerds who also put on a show in a game. Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a, this is an interesting one to discuss because we'll get into it and I'll save the bulk of my thoughts, but I was not expecting to have

such an emotional reaction to this movie. I did not know what I was, what to expect going in. I'm watching this thing, like, man, this is really kind of hitting me pretty like hard. We'll talk about it. You seem absolutely baffled by this. I'm gobsmacked by this. Ruchelle Shender, Producer Ranch,

did you watch Grand Theft Hamlet? I did watch it. Oh, you did watch it, okay, okay. We'll get your thoughts when we get into it. But yeah, this episode is for a heads up for all our listeners. This is a banked episode. This one's going in the backlogs to recording this one

a little bit in advance, but we are still gonna go through the business of the show. Anything that is spoken about on this show that bears any resemblance to any current events Yes. and or persons in the news, it's completely coincidental, it's not intentional and we don't mean it. We recorded this before the thing, and's Completely coincidental. It's not not intentional and we don't we don't mean it

We recorded this before the thing and you know what that means But this was recorded before then now we could release this at any time and it just could be true Next week. So we thought since we are a little bit ahead in the calendar, we would take a look back in time and ask the question we sometimes do, which is, what were you playing? What were you playing? What were you playing? Ask me the resident evil merchant and I'm here. Ask my friends what they were playing back when they were playing Grand Theft Auto games.

So what got what what were you guys playing? Something just occurred to me actually. Because because we're not being shy about this being in the in the in the backlog. Yeah sure. Is there a world this comes out after Grand Theft Auto 6? I guess it's possible if we really think it's going to hit a 2025 release date, which hey, it could happen.

It could happen. But I don't know, it's totally possible. There's a possibility that this comes out and Grand Theft Auto 6 is huge. And we have nothing to say about it. Did we clear we're recording this in 2018 pre the announcement of the ps5 port gosh you know I you know Grand Theft Auto Was a is huge obviously Grand Theft Auto 5 is like the biggest

Video game probably right I wonder I feel like it's probably still Minecraft But I probably if you take if you take into the monetize monetization of Grand Theft Auto online it may very well be yeah you know GTA5 in terms of revenue. I don't know my very first grant of Tato which I think is probably the same story for a lot of people was grant of Tato 3 yep which was you know a totemic game for the PlayStation 2 lineup certainly and just for games I think going forward with what to do in the 3D with what to do with it within a 3D environment that you can do anything

it is really just opened up games I feel like yeah and that game was so exciting to me and I was thinking about this on the way over here today actually because I played that game not right when it came out but I ended up getting like a greatest hits copy of it at some point I played it a lot at my uncle's house, but never like with any actual seriousness in terms of completing the story. It was more just like me driving around, just kind of just wrecking havoc and just having a blast.

You could just do that in the game. That game took me years to beat because I like almost didn't really know that you could beat it. Like I didn't really know that like, at that time, a lot of the games that I was playing were more mission, like, you know, singular mission based. There wasn't really like an example of a game

that was like in completely open environment where you have to sort of go around the world to find the missions. It was more like, oh, you know, start screen. Here's a new mission. Here are a new level. Rather, it was all levels was kind of like the games that I was more used to or, you know, things locked behind cutscenes or whatever, and then kind of move on to the next area. So this was a completely new type of game for me to play where I had just no experience navigating a map where the objectives were just all over the map.

Yeah. And so it took me actual years to finish it. I remember getting to the conclusion after not playing it for a long time and having saved like before what I had realized was the final mission of the game. Uh-huh. And had a very unsatisfying time finishing the game. So I was like, wait, it's just done now?

I'm just done? And obviously you can just kind of pick it back up and keep playing or whatever. But I was like very surprised that I had only one thing left to do. And then finished it. Very, very, but I think a great game, but not even my favorite one.

We're so lucky on the PlayStation 2 to have three banger Grand Theft Auto's. And I think San Andreas is probably everybody's favorite. But Grand Theft Auto 3, I think like one of the most important games of the 21st century in terms of like what it, you know, first off, it's just breaking through fully into the mainstream and being one of the games that made that took game video gaming from

being like a pastime for kids analogous to a toy to something that adults could consume shamelessly and talk about. But also like it just just what you were talking about like the the the the the relative non linearity of it the the the freedom of movement the the the freedom tolinearity of it, the freedom of movement, the freedom to just sort of like make the game your own, the playground slash sandbox approach, which everyone, that was the buzzword everyone was using for the whole decade afterwards,

was sandbox, sandbox, sandbox. Not that it's the only, like there were other games that attempted that, but it was the most successful one. A lot of times that's what is more important. I still remember the weapon weapon the get all weapons code This games used to have cheat codes that you could do to like you know cheat yeah, you would enter in a sequence of gestures on the on the control pad or sometimes you would enter in like a

Like a password save would be like the word that you yes Or you type something into the console on PC. I'm trying to remember the doom one. So what was the it was like id? What the fuck was it key KFA or something like that? What the whore those call could be I mean, I don't know if that's like a full episode But a cheat codes is like an interesting topic in KFA. Yeah, it gives a player full health, ammo, weapons, armor, and keys. The all weapons code for Grand Theft Auto, which is a very important code to know if you were just going to be going around being bad

and not really playing the game was R2, R2, L1, R2, left down, right up, left down, right up. Wow, holy shit. Yes, I'll remember it for the rest of my life. Now that was the one that gave you all the weapons my Favorite in Grand Theft Auto 3 was the one that gave everybody weapons Oh, that's cool like it gave everybody rocket launchers and like almost immediately it would become like just constant explosions And my friend and I would would put in that code and just see how long like we would time how long we lived

Because that was the fun of it. I liked getting a tank. Like there was a code that you can get a tank and a tank would just fall out of the sky. And you just kind of just drive around in a really slow tank but it's doing massive damage to everything around you. And then your wanted level goes up so high because you're not supposed to be driving a tank at all. And it would just become fun to see

if they could stop you at all or not Yeah, I remember the that the the moments that like, you know is playing With the rubates at the time and the moments that we were like We're all gathered around the TV just seeing what would happen like, you know one person driving and then everyone else just reacting but just like the moment I Learned that you could do a drive-by shooting and pulled that off of the first time just gunned down a bunch of civilians and everyone Just like exploding and laughter. Yeah, I can't believe this is in a fucking game Yeah, take was another thing when you finally get you know when you can get your

You know your wanted rating up to like five stars or six stars or whatever the fuck and and the the National Guard is coming After you it's just like such Such an escalation of chaos that you just weren't expecting in games at that time. And I know that this game, in these games have always sort of been a bit controversial, right? They're like, they're poisoning the youth.

They're showing all these violent images to kids and stuff. And I hadn't really thought much about that until you just said what you said. And it frightened me. Yeah, 100%. Oh, drive-by shooting, that gives me an idea. This is one of those things.

I love video games. I'm obviously not someone who thinks any art should be censored, but yes, kids should not be consuming these things, because they just imitate what they see. A kid will watch a wrestling match and then try to do that wrestling match and their little brother and injure them horribly. I watched on the Disney Channel. Yeah. I mean this is the thing, it's like it's everyone says it's like violent video game stuff but

it's literally anything. Kids just want to imitate what they see. There was on the Disney Channel they used to do these things called like Disney in concert so it'd be like a popular boy band or a popular like singer or any kind of group on the Disney Channel performing a concert. This is 1997, 1998, sort of like the apex of in sync's popularity. Like they're brand new, they're huge.

They're the most popular thing. They're on the Disney Channel performing a concert. Two of the guys orchestrate this move where one of them grabs the other one's foot Yeah, and it helps them do a flip in the air Oh, and I'm watching that and I have two brothers and I was like we can fucking do And so I'll be like I was like I'll be the flip guy I'll be the guy that does the flip because I want to be the cool one. I'm gonna be the flip So I get about halfway in the air And fall face first on our carpet and get a rug burn

From like the tip of my nose to like the bottom of my mouth Oh, and the next day is picture day. Oh And I'm in like the third grade and so my third grade photo is like a Skeletal good oily scab because I have like neo sporn on my face Burning my face on our rug Wow Wow But I never did anything grant that thought oh Never any of that kind of stuff, but if you'd been exposed to an earlier age you might have tried to you know a Break into a cop car so you could get a shotgun

or whatever. That's where they are. That's where they are. We learned that. The two things I remember, they're both from the Daily Show, the John Stewart Daily Show, which at the time was so central to the zeitgeist. It was so like, such a pop cultural happening. The two moments I remember when the Grand Theft Auto 3 specifically broke through to

that show where I was like, oh, this is a show that never talks about video games. It's always just talking about whatever is going on in politics. And now this is so big that one was John Stewart had Seth Green on and Seth Green was just like breathlessly talking about how much he enjoyed this game and was describing how you could hire a prostitute, have sex with them in the car, and then kill them and get your money back. And John Stewart was like, what is this game? He's like totally like, and then the other thing was Lewis Black was doing a segment

on just like how games had gotten, I think what the point he was making was that games had gotten horribly violent, but they're just like a reflection of how frustrated we are. He talked about State of Emergency, which was another game that came out at the time. Did not have, was not nearly as good, not nearly as fun as Grand Theft Auto, but people were excited for it because it was just another game that embraced anarchy and chaos. It was more of a time attack game. It did not have the freedom that was... It was one of those things where people realized what they liked about Grand Theft Auto was not how violent it was

Because this other game that was similarly similarly violent similarly going into crowds and causing chaos But it was a different sort of gameplay structure what they like was the freedom that you're afforded by the the way That they'd grant that thought is presented But it was him talking about state of emergency and grad theft auto 3 and it was like this is kind of crazy that this is happening do y'all remember any other any other Sorry, you're gonna say something. Well, I was gonna say that I was not And it was like this is kind of crazy that this is that this is happening Do y'all remember any other any other? Sorry, you're gonna say something well I was gonna say that I was not I did not like Vice City or San Andreas as much as I liked three at the time and that was because

three has a silent protagonist and It's also strange to remember. This is just a side note that Grand Theft Auto 3 came out like a month after 9-eleven and They they had to take out the Twin Towers from the game, which is just a crazy thing to wrap your head around, is that the game had to be last minute, patched internally in order to take out the World Trade Centers. But anyway, my favorite part about Grand Theft Auto 3 was that the protagonist was silenced.

So when my buddy and I would play it, we, during all the cut scenes, would just talk what he was saying. And so they'd be, like the other guys would be like, yeah, I need you to go uptown and show these guys something, or what for? And then you'd cut to him and he'd just be silent and we'd be like, do you have anything to eat?

And like, we would just make him like, like a real psychopath in order to justify like what he was doing. It'd be like, like, do you have any pets? And then like, you'd hear the other guy, the other guy being like, yeah, you gotta, we're gonna give you a gun, we're gonna give you a crew, we need you to go up there and take care of business and cut back to the guy and he'd being like, yeah, you gotta, we're gonna give you a gun, we're gonna give you a crew, we need you to go up there and take care of business

and cut back to the guy and he'd be like, I wet my pants. Just like, whatever jokes we wanted to throw in his voice. That's so funny. And then there was something about the next games where the protagonist was angry and it made us less comfortable playing it. Because we weren't playing it as an angry guy.

We were playing it as a man without a mind. Like, that was our projection into the Grand Theft Auto world. So when, like, in the next games, when you'd shoot somebody and, like, you know, Niko would be like, yeah, that would be like, yeah, that's fucking right or whatever the fuck,

like it felt bad. Cause I was like, no, that's not, I wasn't angry at that guy. Nico Bellic. Yeah. It was definitely a choice starting with Tommy Vercetti and in Vice City, which I really like Vice City and so much of what I liked about the Vice City is,

it's, you know, it's a refinement of the, of Grand Theft Auto 3, but just also like just aesthetically, I think just like that Vice City is, it's a refinement of Grand Theft Auto 3, but just also, just aesthetically, I think just that Vice City, I just think the look of it is so cool, and I think the soundtrack is so great. We could get you some white linens, dawg. I could absolutely pull that off.

You would crush that. White linens and a Ferrari? Yeah, fuck yeah. Just a little bit of cocaine in the nostrils. Just a little bit. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. ["Sexy Girl's Lullaby"]

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played 50 off and use code get played 50 off to get 50% off plus free shipping on your first box that's code get played 50 off at factor meals comm slash get played 50 off for 50% off plus free shipping. You're right, Heather. And I never really thought about it. I mean, partly with Vice City, I think initially it was like, oh, here's a way we can cast a celebrity in the protagonist role that didn't necessarily become a running thing through all the games, I don't think. But like, you know, it was like, it more just was a way to beef up the voice cast initially,

but then there was also like, oh, what kind of person would be this character? Well, I guess a complete psychopath. It would be someone who's either insane or is just like, you know, has completely lacks empathy and is completely comfortable with violence. That's why the three protagonists in Grand Theft Auto V to me are so interesting because they're sort of all three parts of like what that type of person would be kind of where like Trevor is obviously the extreme end and is a full psycho and like has like a

rage power that makes him more that makes him invincible and able to shoot better and then Michael and the other fellow Franklin Franklin are like Franklin's the most mellow he's kind of just doing it to kind of like get by and Michael is like doing it to save his own ass and Trevor's just Like let's just fucking go. I'll just do anything and I I think I think San Andreas is probably my favorite

It's a lot of people's favorite because it's like I mean the soundtrack is so great too And that was that one really expanded the map like you you had like a whole region, not just a city. I liked having to take my guy to the gym or making him chubby, like kind of, that's fun. But then I really, but Five is so great for it being this, you know, this huge now online, like live service thing is so baffling to me because that's the part of it I just have not touched. I think the story of five is really fun. The gameplay is good and like I think it's great

So it's so funny to me that it has this second life Second third fourth fifth life as this online only Experience it's crazy to me. I think it is such a cash cow I think for a lot of people, they're complete opposite. They've never touched the base game. They've never touched a single-player experience and only play online. Whether they're doing some, whether they're like role-playing as a cop or whatever. Or you know, it's like, whatever they're doing. I feel like there's a lot of people who this is their one game that they play and this also, this is their social

experience with their group of friends, which is something that was clearly at the heart of Grand Theft Amlet which we'll get into. Yeah, Grand Theft Auto 3. That's again an extraordinarily impactful game and a game I certainly played the shit out of when I got it. I want to ask the room if there's any other cheat codes you have committed to memory. I mean for me it's obviously the Konami code of down, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, start.

I remember this is a short one but the I think it was a Kari Warriors to get another to get a free continue was A, B, B, A I think on death. I mean Super Mario Brothers was the Didn't you press start and a at the same time all day and start to get to continue? Yeah, that was a kind of a hidden thing Wow the the the elaborate lengthy Button combinations a lot of them have evaporated. Yeah, my brain. Yeah, I remember a lot of like type in ones though, too or like Like I would a lot of like type in ones though to or like Like I would a lot of my early internet Time was looking up cheat codes for video game sure right so I don't know what else is even on here had no idea

And would just like wait and I've told the story before where I had my mom I got like an action replay which is like a game shark or whatever It's kind of the same thing where you can put a game into this this longer device into your Gameboy advance and run the game and type like you could input numerical codes that then would you know impact the Gameplay and however, which way do you want so you could get like, you know? 99 master balls you can make it so that you can encounter a Charmander if you want or something or what you can select you know Pokemon based on the code like oh

my encounter is gonna be this now yeah I remember the first version of one of those things came out the game genie yes or the NES and like Nintendo was like filing lawsuits to take it like like yeah these companies have been vigorously pursuing anti-cheat since the the Stone Age of gaming So I like emailed my mom a link to this website and just asked her to print it out for me Because I was like, I know we can't be on the internet all the time, right? Because it was dial-up and you know, it costs money to do that at the time And so I sent her the link to it so she could print out at work and she got in so much trouble

She was like I didn't realize it's gonna be 200 pages But she did it for me and I love my mom Heather what were you playing in a GTA sense? Um, well, I did play the I think I played Grand Theft Auto 2 was my first Grand Theft Auto is the top-down Kind of like looks like an RC car game, where you were just like driving around in a city doing these little tiny missions. It didn't really stick with me. And then of course played Grand Theft Auto 3 and was like, this is incredible. Like again, I know I just said it, but him being a mute protagonist was so funny

because the difference between going up to somebody and punching them on the street, and then they turn around and they're like, what's your problem? And you say nothing. It's so much funnier to me than like every other protagonist immediately is like, yeah, get the fuck out of my way or I'm walking here or whatever.

immediately is like, yeah, get the fuck out of my way or I'm walking here or whatever. I have played all of them. Four was my favorite because I liked Niko. But the truth is, I haven't beaten any of them since three. Like I spent less and less time in the worlds as the games went on, in part because I didn't find them. I played Grand Theft Auto V and drove to my neighborhood and saw my coffee shop and I was like, what am I doing?

And I drove to the PCH and drove down by the ocean and I was like, I should just get in my car. This is so fucking stupid. And like I drove to the PCH and drove down by the ocean and I was like, I should just get in my car. This is so fucking stupid. And I think that if, you know, if like the reason I spent like infinity hours in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, which is essentially a grand theft auto game. Like it's just a big open world where you can do whatever the fuck you want is because I have no access to those spaces

or those like, I can't ride a horse here in the real world, but I can drive a car and in theory, if I wanted to, I could buy a gun, you know? It just, it wasn't like enough of a fantasy for me to enjoy it. And then I also found the jokes tedious. Like I was like, none of these jokes are making me laugh. They're more like taking my time.

So I don't know. I wish there was a toggle to play a mute protagonist cause I think it would be more fun for me if that was an option. I will buy six the day it comes out. I'll probably get some kind of fucking special edition where I pay like 20 extra dollars to get a jacket or whatever inside the game.

And I can almost assuredly think I'm gonna play it for like two weeks and then be like, I don't like the way this makes me feel. Which again, as a connoisseur of violence, you wouldn't expect me to have that experience of Grand Theft Auto, but I really don't enjoy them. I think part of my reaction to Grand Theft Autos is just me just getting older, my taste changing a little bit, because like, yeah my reaction to Grand Theft Auto is just me just getting older,

my taste changing a little bit because like, yeah, I thought Grand Theft Auto 3 was like the greatest, you know, funniest thing in the world. And then as the series progressed, yeah, I just got, I think I got progressively less interested with each entry. But when Grand Theft Auto 5 came out, I mean, I didn't, again, like you, buying all of them, playing all of them. But yeah, I didn't feel any sort of drive to finish the story of Grand Theft Auto five and I just kind of like found a lot of the Grand Theft Auto isms of it. Kind of tedious

like you were saying like I'm just like like, okay, at this point, I've seen how many versions of you know, it's big o tire, but instead it's big D tire, you know, and the logo looks like a dick, you know, whatever the fuck. It's like everything that it's, every joke is on that level, you know what I mean? So you can imagine me laughing my ass off. I'm busting up playing that.

It's also that tone that made it so that I stopped playing Red Dead Redemption, which was like, I was enjoying so much. But the tone that like, even the like timber of the way people speak to you in the game, where it's like, now you get out of here. Like that kind of like NPC fucking talking to you was grating as shit.

Yeah, everyone's a little annoying. Yeah. I also just, and this is just a general thing of just like, I don't necessarily love how Rockstar games this extends to Red Dead. I don't necessarily like how they control. I find them a little bit cumbersome and I find the UX a little bit cluttered.

That said, the staggering design's extraordinarily impressive, the scale and scope of them. a little bit cumbersome and I find like the UX a little bit cluttered. That said, I mean, the staggering designs, extraordinarily impressive, the scale and scope of them and, you know, what they're able to do is really something. But like, yeah, I don't necessarily love, I can appreciate these games, I don't necessarily love actually playing them all that much. I thought I'd talk about the original game you cited, Heather, the original Grand Theft Auto. I don't know if I've ever played Grand Theft Auto 2. I played Grand Theft Auto 1 on PC and also played one of the London expansions that was like a period

once, like set in 1960. So Grand Theft Auto came out in 19- Grant Theft Mobile. That's what they called it. Yeah, they, Grand Theft Mobile. Because that's what they call cars there? I think, no, that's what they called it, yeah, Grand Theft Mobile. Because that's what they call cars there? I think, no, that's what they call phones. What is he talking about? Sorry, I'm a bit knackered. Is he saying that British games are played on mobile phones?

Is that what he's saying? No, I just fucked up. You did great. This game at 97, I think for PC, DMA Design pre-Rockstar is the developer. Definitely kind of a, I'm not sure how much, like I was thinking back on this, Heather, and it's like,

it is kind of a Street Fighter I in terms of, not exactly, because Street Fighter II obviously fixes everything, and then a Street Fighter 1 in terms of, not exactly, cause Street Fighter 2 obviously fixes everything and then also Street Fighter 1, you can look at it and see where the series progresses all the way up to the modern. Whereas you look at Grand Theft Auto 1, you look at footage of this weird top down game

with a camera that's zooming in and out with fairly crude art direction. Depending on how fast you were going is why it would zoom in and out. Yeah, depending on how fast, and I always, which I have found it really unappealing and also sometimes just straight up nauseating. But you can kind of see it,

but it's really just the driving and the violence and then that some of the specifics exist like Liberty City and San Andreas and Vice City from the beginning. Really kind of, you know, talking about playing some of these modern Rockstar games, I don't necessarily love how they control, but I really did not like this, how this one controlled because it was like kind of that tank control movement where you're, you know,

you're right and left instead of moving you left and right rotates you, like it rotates you in place and then up always moves you forward. And that also ties in with this was the era where it was largely pre USB and a PC, a PC was largely pre USB. And then also like, you know, you certainly weren't at a point where you just plug a console controller into a PC and just have it work. So if you were playing this kind of game on PC, you were probably playing it with a keyboard. I remember playing this with a keyboard and that adds its own sort of inelegance to it. I did have a couple PC gamepads.

I had like a Microsoft Sidewinder, but like they were all like kind of janky. None of them felt as good as like a Sega Genesis controller or an N64 controller. And I had like a Gravis gamepad too. Or the other alternative was to have a joystick, but playing this kind of game with a joystick never felt right. All that is secondary to the actual experience of playing this, which there was a lot of fun to just the anarchy and chaos of it and that you could just be so brutally violent. And as opposed to there were some games that existed just for the sake of being violent.

The one I think it was Carmageddon and the Carmageddon you could like drive through and like get blood on your windshield and that was the whole thing. It was just like it was a game that was meant to be super duper gory. But this one actually was a little bit more playable than that. It just wasn't just pure violence. I remember things like you would get missions from a pager or you'd run to a payphone and the payphone, the mob would tell you to do something. It all was just basically about progressing through linear levels.

You had some freedom within this individual level, but there were discrete levels where you had an objective in each level to get a certain amount of money to advance to the next one. So it was very much kind of like a prototype kind of proof of concept sort of feel to it. And it was more of sort of a cult hit than an actual like, you know, than the mainstream breakthrough that the series would ultimately, you know, become. But it was kind of interesting artifact. Have you ever watched any of this footage Matt

You ever seen any Grand Theft Auto one? I've seen some only because I think there was a Grand Theft Auto for the Gameboy Advance that sort of went back to that style that one's really I'd like a Pretty impressive achievement because they basically got Grand Theft Auto just running on I might have been Game Boy color Yeah, they just got the whole game running on it because they were just so good at optimizing the system at that point.

Yeah, we're kind of seeing here, you sort of see the top down, this kind of shitty character model running around, getting into cars that, yeah, again, just kind of the bones are there when you get into a car. That zoom is rough though. The zoom is so, I just don't necessarily even understand it as a choice.

If there was a fixed camera angle, or you a camera height rather I guess yeah that just kind of scaled with the direction that you were going that would be preferable I think yeah it's just it's just kind of dizzying but I don't know like kind of seems like a cool game otherwise like yeah it's kind of interesting that it's so different than what it is now, obviously, working within a 3D space. I think I played it on PlayStation 1. There was a PlayStation 1 port, yeah.

And you see kind of things like the different neighbors coming up when you get into a car, the name of the car is on screen, which is a thing that obviously gets retained throughout the series. So, you know, it's certainly the DNA is present. I like getting a big, like I like getting a fast looking car, like a sports car in the Grand Theft Auto games. That's always kind of fun, driving around in a real crazy looking car.

Yeah, sure. You know, I know it's not gonna happen because we've seen the trailers, but it would be wild if there was a way to play Grand Theft Auto VI where you were just like walking around, like if it was a life sim, like if you could play a version of it that was more like Animal Crossing.

Because if they really wanted to give you the option to do anything, and so many of these games, like Pokemon has like plant growing, you know, like that there is the main game that you can play, but like if Grand Theft Auto VI allowed you to like, be like, you know what, I wanna, in a Yakuza style way, I wanna own a club and I wanna max out that club's stats, and that's how I'm gonna make my money in this world,

and that the story didn't actually have an ending, and it wasn't even built to have an ending. That would be kind of interesting. That would be interesting. And is this club perchance a hostess club? Yeah, sure, why not? And I can meet all the different hostesses, and they have different stats, and I can train them.

You're saying that like a mischief maker, but I'm bored, I'm you could you 100% that side quest like you did before yes Yeah, could I just like can I just focus on that part of the game? Yeah I take all the hostesses out on dates to improve their skills. Yeah, okay cool. That's cool. That's awesome Yeah, I'm in he's in he said yeah He's in, he said. Yeah. Hey buddy!

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So get talking with Babbel. I want you to learn another language, so I'm teaming up with Babbel to gift you 55% off subscriptions, but only for our listeners at babbel.com slash played. Get it to 55% off at babbel.com slash played. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L.com slash played. Get it to 55% off at Babbel.com slash played. Spelled B-A-B-B-E-L dot com slash played. Babbel.com slash played. Rules and restrictions may apply. Yeah, let's talk about Grand Theft Auto. This is a British production that had a 2025 release in the US, came out very, very early

in the new year. It was directed by Sam Crane and Penny Grylls, who also appear as themselves in the movie in a way, which we'll get it to. And Mark Oestervein is the other central character. So much of the movie is about Sam and Mark's relationship. They are both two actors who are out of work because of the ongoing pandemic. At the time they're making this movie,

and at the time they're embarking on this project. And then Penny is a documentary filmmaker who is also Sam's partner who ends up becoming a central part of this movie, this production and this film as well. It is entirely composed of footage captured in Grand Theft Auto Online and it is almost entirely audio that is just captured from their in-game mics. So much of this is just like kind you know, kind of watching people play Grand

Theft Auto and just talk to each other and kind of dick around. Going back to what I was saying earlier and why I feel like this movie kind of had some emotional resonance for me. COVID lockdown was such a crazy time of all of our lives, such a weird, like bizarre shared trauma we all experienced, where we were all just completely removed from life as we know it, where all of our connections were upended, where, you know, we could not go to the things that gave us, you know, any sort of purpose, that we cannot see the people who we cared about. And we were all like in isolation and, you know, I'm married, so my wife and I at least had each other,

but a lot of people, including Mark in this movie, are just all alone and they just have nobody. And I feel like this movie, I was like watching this, like this is really capturing what it was like for all of us just to have to lose our minds because we were told we couldn't do anything. And we were all just kind of captive to this ongoing epidemic. And that's why I just feel like there's been very little art exploring that in an interesting

way or in a way that actually reminds me of what that feeling was like. I completely agree with this because I had the same reaction to it the only other thing that I've reacted to in this same way, and it's it's half that experiencing it, but then also like the I guess for lack of a better more enlightened Phrase for it was like the actual, the jealousy of making it is, the only other thing I reacted to in this way was

Bo Burnham's inside actually. Oh sure, yeah. Because that to me came out at a time where we were all, that was still a very fresh wound, the trauma of COVID. And, you know, I know that that's like not everybody's favorite thing and maybe it's like cringe for somebody in comedy to be like jealous of somebody else's work in comedy maybe.

But I really, I've been a massive fan of his for a long time and like watching that was like, oh, like he took this horrible thing that happened to all of us and made something interesting and good out of it. And is dealing with it in the same way that we all are, but he made something. And then so these guys, these people in this documentary, also made something because they just almost had no choice. Kind of like they were like we want to we want to do this because it would be fun but we also know that like this is like the only thing that we can do kind of right now

so we have to do this and they have a hard time doing the documentaries about them having a hard time doing it they're specifically theater actors I think is part of it and so theater actors in London and so this is there's just like nothing more impacted by hey you can't gather in groups they can't get on stage, they can't rehearse, they can't have audiences. So they're just basically their entire sense of purpose is you know taken from them and so they're like how can we express ourselves the way we know how, given these restrictions, and they choose to do it through Grand Theft Auto Online.

My experience of pandemic was, except for the fear of catching the thing, was so positive. I was so happy, I was so relieved. I feel like being in public is such a stressful experience. Like even being here and recording with you guys, while one of the great pleasures of my life, when I go home after these records,

I immediately get in bed and like feel sick. And it's not because of your jokes, it's because like it is extremely taxing for me. And so like my experience, when I think back on pandemic, if I can divorce it from the experience of being scared of the virus and the waves of empathy and fear I felt for like people who had it, for the sort of dissolving political experience of being an American, for like the George

Floyd experience for all. If I can pull it away from like what felt like a catastrophic collapse and just experience it as my, like I don't have to leave the house. It was fucking paradise. And watching this, I was like, boy, you guys seem like you're really blue about this thing that like, you are like making friends online

and you are like making a kind of a cool thing and you're meeting people and you're forging these relationships, relationships that I would forge later on in the extended pandemic era through Fortnite. I was like, this is kind of not, I would not have had a negative experience doing and existing in this thing.

Does that make sense? Yes, it does. But I think that also some of this is unique to you because I did not share that feeling at all during the, I felt completely stir crazy. I felt like I was locked in one of three rooms in my shitty apartment. I fucking hated it.

I wanted to get out all the time. So I felt like I was losing my mind. I was definitely one of three rooms in my shitty apartment. I fucking hated it. I wanted to get out all the time. And so I felt like I was losing my mind. I was definitely one of those people who did not have a good response and got deeply depressed and way more anxious and developed a huge drinking problem all during the pandemic and none of it was going well. So like, I think there are people who just, it completely fucked them up. And I don't even think I took the worst of it. These guys, I will say to what you're saying, Heather, these people in this movie are making the best of it. And they're making the best of a bad situation.

And that's part of why I'm having an emotional response. It's like, oh, this is really cool that they were in such a shitty place. They were playing this game. Clearly there's a point where it seems like this one of these people is just basically living in this game and to the point where he's kind of neglecting his family. But they are like, hey, how can we come up with some sort of creative outlet that allows us to express ourselves?

And what they settle on is doing this production in a very roundabout way. What were you going to say, Matt? I was going to say that I think that's what I mean by the jealousy of it, is that I see what they did and I'm sort of like, oh, I could have experienced it this way. I could have done it this way instead of sinking, which ultimately was fun and good for me, 14, 15 hours into Animal Crossing the day it came out. Aaron Ross Powell So here's what I will say. We talked about the comedy of Grand Theft Auto.

I watched this with Ali who does not play these games. And again, I'm kind of numb to a lot of these jokes. But she's watching it and it'll be like a building that's a bank and it says like Goldman Ball Sachs and she's like, ha ha. Like she's like, that's stupid. She's laughing and I was like, you know what? That is kind of funny.

Like I'm not like, I haven't seen like a thousand of these jokes. I understand the novelty of it. But beyond that, what I will say is I was reminded throughout of just what a funny game it is, not because of the jokes that are necessarily seated in dialogue or in signage, but just the chaos that can happen. Because the funniest things that happen in this movie are things when someone is trying to conduct an audition for Grand Theft Auto, and then, or I'm sorry, someone is trying to,

they're trying to do an audition in game for someone to perform like Ophelia and Hamlet, and then like the cops show up and just start shooting. They get bolded. It's funny, it's funny in two ways, right? Cause like, there's like sort of like things that happen that like, you know, are triggered by your behavior in two ways, right? Because there's sort of things that happen that are triggered by your behavior in the game, right? So the game's gonna respond to it

if you, however you're playing within it, but then also you have the added chaos of other human beings interacting with it and not taking it within the spirit that you're trying to conduct it with to which was so funny to me. Yeah, like there's like I mean And we will explain exactly what it is, but there's like a guy at one point who comes in and he's like an alien Yeah, he's like The funniest guy in any movie I've seen in the last like three years

So it was so funny So a big part of this movie is like they it starts with these two characters or I'm sorry these two actors Sam and Mark and then and penny who's they're kind of documenting it all and interacting with them and They have the idea of staging something they go to the the the theater that's in Vinewood was essentially the Hollywood Bowl They're like what if we stage something here? That's their initial thought and so they decide to conduct auditions For people like like people who play the game who want to act in this production.

And they kind of have this call to action. It's not very successful at first, but then they start getting some responses. And some of them are like, like, hey, this is a person who's like either a hobbyist actor or they're a legit out of work actor. There's a one guy they discover who's originally going to be Hamlet and he books another role and so he has to drop out and do a separate role. But like you're watching some of these characters audition with emotes that they're doing with the Grand Theft Auto characters and their own voices and it's just like, man, this person's

like a really like a compelling performer. This is like a really talented actor, you know, and then, but then there also be people who just like walk up and are just like, hey, what is this? And then you start interacting with them. But some of those people like become their friends and stick around. And one of them is that guy,

and I can't remember the character's name, but he's like, yeah, he has like either an alien or like a fish man sort of like skin that he's using. And he shows up and he's like like I'm from Tunisia You know English my second language. He does do an audition for it, but he does like a Passage from the Quran is what he performs. It actually is like, oh, this is this is this is breaking building as well Yeah, it doesn't ultimately end up acting in it But he just wants to hang out with them and kind of like ostensibly does security

Yeah, so like he'll just hang out with them, but then he just all like he says on it, I have ADHD so you don't have a hard time focusing. So they'll just be like, you know, doing some rehearsing some scene and those be in the background, like just doing an air humping. He was so funny. Wonderful.

And then one point they're just like doing rehearsal and he just like shows up in a fighter jet. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like, we, you know, have pursued comedy and like have been in comedy for many years in our lives. That guy's funnier than all of us.

He was so funny. Yeah. Well, it's also, at one point they talk about how the budget of what they are doing is, if it were to happen in the real world, would be like, I mean, they reference Elon Musk, but it's like, unless you had nearly infinite money, you wouldn't be able to put on the kind of production of Hamlet that they're doing with blimps and like, so part of what's funny- Live ammunition.

Yeah, part of what's funny about the world of Grand Theft Auto is that a guy showed up in a fighter jet. Yeah. And if this world was balanced in a way where that could happen It definitely would happen like if we if any of us could have a fighter jet if I I Talked to my wife. You could have one

Do it you do it. I talked to my wife once about like how I didn't want to go to my like high school reunion Yeah, and I was like, but if I did I'd want to land in a helicopter I'd want to land in a helicopter. And like, I feel like that's the kind of joke that the Grand Theft Auto universe allows because it's, I don't know, not everybody can get a fighter jet because you have to make up the money in Grand Theft Auto Online to be able to get the fighter jet. But once you have it,

yeah, you could land at the Hollywood Bowl. Why not? Right. So yeah, it starts off and they're like, at first gonna do a stage production and then they're basically like, wait, why don't we, what you're saying, they're like, why don't we embrace the production value

that is afforded by being in this virtual world? And so they start figuring out how to stage things and you know, well, we're gonna stage this monologue on a yacht or whatever. They basically have each act of the play or maybe each scene within an act is a different set piece in a different part of the world. And so when they ultimately stage the production at the end, they're having the in-game audience that's following them, the player characters who are watching, who are participating as

an audience, like going from location to location. And then like a Twitch stream is also watching them as they're doing various things, like what you were saying, jumping onto a blimp for a certain sequence. And it's all really cool, and it's like they really thought about it from a staging standpoint,

and then also some of it goes wrong, which is also funny, and it's so nice. Yeah, super funny. But then also, while they're making it too, they have these like, it was just interesting because they had these sort of tough friendship moments though too, where the world is starting to open back up at a certain point and people are starting to drop off

and lose interest in the project a little bit because of other work opportunities and stuff and then the one guy who is Whose partner is the documentarian? Was like maybe we should just kind of you know Stop and maybe pursue actual work or whatever and the other guy who? Says himself that he has nobody is like this is all I have and like this is like it's fucking bullshit that you are Like give up and not do it. This is that was like sad. That was like that. I know I like really broke my heart Yeah, really?

This is that this is mark is the actor and he plays polonius in the play and he's also you know One of the guys just producing this production and then it's like Yeah, he says at a certain point. He's like During lockdown he goes to his his aunt's funeral in the Netherlands and he's like that was my last surviving relative. Like I have no one. Like it's just like a crazy thing to think about. And so that's the isolation is compounded by the fact that he feels like he doesn't

have any sort of familial bonds anymore. And yeah, this again, this creative work is giving him purpose. Yeah, there are those moments when they're like, they're gonna stop it or things are falling apart or whatever, which all feels very real. But they see it through to the end, this project that takes, it feels like two full years. It's like, is it from 2021 to, or does it start in 2020?

I feel like it's 2022 when they actually produce the thing. I think that's right, yeah. So it's a lot of rehearsals and it's a lot of recruitment of talent and then also just figuring out when to coordinate, or when to schedule everything, which is its own logistical nightmare. Yeah, is it Dippo is the actor

who's originally going to play Hamlet. He gets a job in some production, so he can't fully commit to it, but he still wants to be a part of it. He plays Lerites. And so Sam, Mark basically talks him in, is like, you have to play Hamlet because someone has to be here for every rehearsal.

You're the only person who's going to be available for it and I can't do it. And so he reluctantly ends up taking the lead of this. I like that he said that he couldn't do it because of the type of British guy that he is. Like he's like, I don't sound, you sound a little more regal than I do. Yeah. And I was like, that is, I would have liked to hear his version. It would have been kind of funny. That's a very British thing to be a super, like hyper aware of all the class signifiers

of your particular Accent that is the shit. I can't pick up on but yeah, yeah, they're there. I know they all sound so silly and stupid There's a portion where he's rehearsing to be Hamlet that I asked ranch to pull up as a clip so that we can all listen to it because it upset me and it upset me enough to take me out of the film as sort of like a viewer. And maybe you guys will watch it and you'll be like,

oh, get over yourself. But it bummed me out a little bit. And I'd like to share the moment with you guys from, from when he's rehearsing the, to be or not to be monologue and talking about life and death. It's a big question, isn't it? To be or not to be, to exist or not to exist. If your life's terrible and unhappy and there's no joy or love in it, is it better, braver,

to soldier on and to stick around like a schmuck while you just get kicked in the balls repeatedly over and over again and nothing ever goes right for you or actually Is the brave thing to do the smart thing to do even the sensible thing to do just to end it all because At least then you have a shred of your dignity intact This is more of a male thing than a female thing much more so okay, so that's the clip um Shakespeare is like a pretty massively universal deconstruction of like the experience of being human. And it bummed me out that the guy was like,

the questions that Hamlet ponders are questions that men ponder and not women. And I felt so like, you know, sometimes, look, I don't, I don't, God damn it, I don't wanna say these things because I don't, I don't like painting, like I don't like taking out the bucket of paint and painting a target on my fucking chest, but like sometimes being a woman in a game space

feels a little bit like I'm in a space that doesn't belong to me. And I long ago have given up on the feeling of trying to prove myself in a game space or like that I have to prove myself in a game space, or that I have to prove myself in a game space, especially now that, you know, there are so many women that I play with when I'm playing Fortnite.

It is culturally dominated by the voices of men, but in actual experience, it is a very, I think, evenly split playing place. So watching this and being like, oh, it's Grand Theft Auto, and already having that sort of Spider-sense constantly tingling when I'm watching a game space, especially one that is, in this case, the protagonists of this story

are effectively two dudes, right? And they're playing Grand Theft Auto, and they're playing it to play Hamlet, but to suddenly feel like asked through this point of view to exit the theater space as well, really took me out of the movie and bummed me out because it was like this very casual admission of like, I don't think women wrestle with big thoughts.

And it sucked. And I was like, until that point in the movie, I was like so on board with these dudes. And then I was like, we would never accept a casual othering of any particular race in a sentence like that. Like you would never accept the status of your protagonist of a film if he was like, I think this is more a problem that, you know,

Mexicans don't think about. You'd be like, what the fuck? Like what? And for him to slice out an entire gender when it comes to the puzzle of existence, it blew. And it really bummed me out. Yeah, I mean, I think that's totally fair to say. My reading of the point he was landing there was specifically directed at

suicide. Because he's talking about suicidal ideation, but the act of suicide itself is statistically overwhelmingly like a male thing. Like men are like, you know, way more likely, something four times more likely to commit suicide than women. You know, it's like 80% of suicides are men. So I thought my reading of that is that I thought that's what he was talking about, was specifically the act of killing yourself.

It's possible. But like, and sure, like, okay, you could be like, well, more men kill themselves than women. I don't necessarily mean that that that does not necessarily correlate or imply that women don't think about it. Right. Yeah. Like the difference between taking an action and the action of thought,

especially when you are deconstructing it through the lens of Shakespeare, feels like it is saying the thought of the thing is the exclusive purview of one gender and not the other. Like, fine, you know, like there are a lot of actions that dudes take in the world that are, that the actions themselves are more likely to be dudes. But I don't know, it was, for me me it was because it was couched in the wrestling, the existential

quality of whether or not to exist versus whether or not I, I don't know, I see your point Nick, but I think that that is a generous reading of the moment. I might be giving this guy a little bit too much credit because I have a lot of empathy for someone talking extemporaneously at length and tripping all over their own dick. But I do think that that is like a, I totally get what you're saying.

And I think that might be him trying to grapple with the psychology of it in a kind of an elegant way. And yeah, I don't know. Hopefully he was just talking about suicide and not trying to dismiss the existential concerns of the people of other genders. Yeah, that said, I do feel like when this ultimately gets to the third act and when you get to see the production played out, I do find that really, I do think it's dramatically really satisfying and I do think the way that that is rendered is very fun.

I do like also that it deals with the aftermath of just like they have this multi-year project and then they're like, hey, let's go to this club They go to a club that like one of the actors owns and they go and hang out there or one of their yeah One of their friends I think who's just like observing the play owns In the game and they go and hang out there and then afterwards the two leads just kind of like well what now? This was their whole sense of purpose for like, you know two years and they're just like oh it's over with I don't fucking know. But they end up winning like a They do a nor again. It's not like a BAFTA, I don't know what it is.

It's some kind of a theater award. They do win a theater award for staging the production in game. So the third act of it is sort of like what I thought the whole thing was gonna be. I thought so too, I thought we were just gonna see Hamlet in Grand Theft Auto, but no, it's largely an exploration of them deciding, should we do this,

why are we doing this so showing it's so much more difficult to do than they expected yeah and then finally they're able to land the plane to some degree because as a as somebody I mean you know as somebody who enjoys games and like watching watching YouTube and stuff I don't watch a lot of people playing games I don't watch playthroughs really a games yeah and I you know, I'm always very flattered whenever I stream Twitch that people want to watch. But I was like, it's not something that I do.

I've never really watched somebody on Twitch. Man, I love that shit. I get game for watching people who are like super good at a game. And I also just like speed runs in particular. I've talked about it just like I love watching. I'll watch a speed run. Like when you send like a speed run, I'm always I'm seated. I like I do like to see that, but I'm not gonna like sit down and like okay Let's what's who's on Twitch right now. Let's see what I'm gonna watch somebody play a chunk of this game that I'm interested in

or whatever, but I've always I've always been interested in partially because of our friend Sean distance interest in machinima Yeah, he's he's telling me all the time, he's like, you gotta see what people are doing with this stuff, it's so crazy. We were just making full ass movies in engine with the Grand Theft Auto assets and stuff.

And so I, when I heard about this, I was like, I can't believe a theatrically released version of what Sean's been telling me about for years is happening, not realizing that it was actually a documentary about the thought of even doing this, and the documentary about the execution of trying to do it. And ultimately, I'm happy that it's that, because I don't know if I could have watched the full, I don't know if I would have watched the full version of it.

Yeah. That's what I thought it was in for. And I was like, all right, this might be a chore. It might be a little bit char, like what a charming, but I think it's going to get a little bit old. But no, that, that, that's, I don't know. This is part of why, like I found it kind of a really connecting with me.

It's just like, this is a, it's so much more about just like the psychology of the pandemic, which again was so impactful to me personally. I had to think about when, while watching this, obviously much smaller scale, but I had a pretty solid D&D, weekly D&D hang on Zoom that just sort of like abruptly ended a pretty solid D&D, weekly D&D hang on Zoom

that just sort of like abruptly ended when things started opening back up. Didn't finish the campaign, everyone just kind of went back to work and started doing their stuff. We just never picked it back up. Good group of guys, great group of guys. Kept me really, you know, sane during that. But yeah, like, it's just when when everything started, went back, quote, unquote, went back to

normal, it was kind of like, oh, all that's done. All that all that stuff is over. We're not doing any of that stuff anymore. And somebody argue that we should have tried to do that for a little bit longer at least. Uh. Uh. Uh. We're never doing it again.

No, no, here's the thing, I'm never doing that again. Never. It'll be so funny what like if, if bird flu hits or whatever the fuck how. Or has hit. Or has hit, but if that's the thing, by the time this episode comes out, how little we're gonna lock down now

It's gonna be like a complete opposite of lock. They're gonna mail birds to our fucking house No, yeah, that was like a I don't know like so to see that sort of I Hadn't seen that depicted. Yeah the loss of Consistent nice Hang yeah,, nice hang taken away. Which was interesting to see. And I think that there's been movies that are being made about the pandemic that have been, I think, unsuccessful in depicting the psychology and the mental state

that people were in actually during that time. And this is like the thing that I think actually captures it the most of anything that I've seen. For sure. It's very impressive work to me. That's what I liked about it more than the hamlet of it, although I did find that stuff really interesting. Ranchi, watch this down, what did you think?

I also was pleasantly surprised it wasn't a whole production of Hamlet. But yeah, I think my favorite parts were the people that they met, and just like how funny all of them were, and like I died when that first lady who was like on her nephew's account ran in and clearly had never played a video game before and like accidentally punched that NPC and like everyone like had to like come protect her.

And then that conversation where Dipo was like breaking up with them and then he was like oh train and he just like dipped out of there completely just gets on the train in the game Thank you for that shot yeah The moment where they all got on the blimp for that like pivotal pivotal staging and like something happens in the pivotal staging and like something happens and the blimp falls out of the sky. Very funny. Very fucking, very Grand Theft Auto funny. It's also funny to think about, we talk about this all the time, like the story of the character of the game. Yeah, yeah.

You're at this weird, you know, presentation of Hamlet and then your blimp fucking popped and you fell and died. All laughing Any other thoughts? I really liked, there's a very small moment where they're trying to figure out where to stage something. I think it might be the to be or not to be monologue. And they try it on a stone in the ocean because it's like, oh maybe this will be cinematic.

But then the time starts rising. And was like that's that's a funny moment If that had been like in a movie, oh, yeah, that would have been just a very funny Environmental moment. Yes. Yeah, I liked I loved all that the stuff that they had to figure out like obviously like how to navigate within the game and like get People who aren't interested to not come near them and like just antagonize them and stuff was always really fun Yeah, they they clear as it progresses they clearly had figured out like kind of how to talk to me like don't shoot me Don't shoot me don't we should be here's what I'm doing. I'm doing a play

I just like I like that. This is like the only we'll never see something like this I just like, I like that this is like the only, we'll never see something like this again. Like there's a, because it's like a one time thing that it's like, oh, it's kind of interesting that this hadn't, this very thing hadn't been done yet because there was no reason for it to have occurred. And now this will likely never happen again because there's just no reason to tell a story

in this particular way. So I just was like really taken with it. Just like as an experiment, as a film, I thought it was really cool. Before the pandemic, there was a company, I think it was called JASH out here. Oh yeah, I know, I remember JASH. That was funding experimental theatrical experiences

in virtual environments. And they asked Miles Stroth and I to do an improv show in a full VR rig that had minimal hand and body tracking. And so Miles and I were in separate rooms in full VR rigs with cameras on us and stuff. And they set up a virtual space that had multiple instances. So like everybody was watching the same stage and we were projected into the stage environment

in all of these different instances of the comedy club. But because there were only like 15 seats in the comedy club, then if more than 15 people show up, they would duplicate the comedy club, then if more than 15 people show up, they would duplicate the comedy club and there'd be additional seats. And so I have these memories of doing a show inside of VR on a stage where also they had like just slightly not mapped things quite correctly.

So Miles was about a foot and a half to two feet taller than me. So like my experience of doing the show was looking up at like a giant. But even though there were no guns in the VR world, people loved coming up onto the stage. Oh my God. It was all they wanted to fucking do.

And they had like a security guard there who would be like, you get one warning, because there's a possibility somebody would like accidentally like click to the wrong place. And you'd be like, you get one warning to get off the stage. So like half of the time we're doing the show, there would also suddenly be another person on the stage with us going like,

hey guys, what do you wanna do? And then they'd like disappear. Oh my God. But that is, the trailer for that experience is that they gave us a virtual green room to sort of like try and figure out what it was like to like read each other's expressions in this virtual space.

And we did like half of a scene to be like, can you tell what I'm doing with my hands? Can you see the space work? Should I even bother with space work? But people were coming in the green room. So like random people are just like walk into the green room and like either start yelling or like. Oh my God.

So like, I felt a lot of like, when I was watching this, I was like, yeah, I'm having like flashbacks to my experience of like trying to do a virtual space performance. And I can't believe that they got such an enormous group of people to follow them from location to location. And not grief them. That was the real success of the production was convincing a group of people to be a part of a thing. Yeah, 100%.

to be a part of a thing. Yeah, 100%. Should we do a segment? Let's do a segment. Okay. I got a little segment. It's a pixel chart. Wow. All right.

Bet you didn't know I had this coming here. I certainly did not. And it's a Grand Theft Auto pixel chart. So I'm going to put a little slant on this, and I'm going to introduce everybody's favorite type of rules. Price is Right rules. Okay. So I wanna see if we can nail down the top five

highest grossing Grand Theft Auto games and closest without going over wins. Oh, so we're guessing the number. We're guessing how much money the game has grossed? Unit sales. Unit sales. Yeah, not money. number we're guessing how much money they've the game is as grossed unit sales Unit sale yeah, not money. Oh boy, okay, uh wait, so so

Not the number of units sold, but the amount of money for no the former the unit sold oh Cuz I have a I have a chart right, lifetime unit sales of selected games in the Grand Theft Auto franchise worldwide as of November 2024. Okay, so assume number one is Grand Theft Auto 5. That's right. I will get the ball rolling. I am going to say, I don't know if this is wildly low or high, but I'll say 61 million units.

Okay. I need to divide, and I don't know how to do the math. I wanna divide 1.5, no, I wanna divide $2.5 billion by $70. Because I think they made $2.5 billion in physical unit sales, but I don't know how to do that math and and and anybody listening when I come up with a number now will be like oh my god she's so dumb because I've already told you what I want the math to be so I'm gonna say what did you say I said 61 million. I'm going to guess, and there were 160 million PlayStation 2s. I'm going to guess.

We shouldn't factor in because it's about a grand theft out of five. I know. OK. But I'm thinking what is the maximum video game machines sold. I'm going to guess 110 million. Heather is the closest. Wow. But it's off by 95 million units.

So 205 million units as of November, 2024. That's a lot of copies. That's a lot. That is. On PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360 probably. Yeah. Yeah, I guess that's the thing. It's been on three generations now.

Yeah. So it's just that it's on everything. Just printing money. Now I wanna see what the math was. Hold on, let me. How many copies has Minecraft sold? That's what I wanna know. I don't know.

Five. Us all just like silently looking up numbers on our devices. Googling. That's good podcasting. You Google that number, I'll Google this number. Ha ha ha ha ha. Um. Wren, you ever played a Grand Theft Auto?

You ever got into any of them? Um, I played a little bit of GTA V with my college boyfriend. Yeah. Which I thought was fun because I kind of knew where I was going. Right. Ha ha ha ha. I didn't know my way around here. Ha ha ha.

I was, I would have, if I'd done the math correctly, I would have been so much more wrong. Minecraft 300 million. Wow. Okay, so that's pretty good. I'll just say what the next one is. Is it a mainline entry? It is. So it's got to be four.

Or is it San Andreas? It is San Andreas. San Andreas, okay. San Andreas is number two sales How many how many units Sold what was it? Wait? What was the what was the previous one? What was? 205 205 million for Grand Theft Auto 5, but that's also like the probably the second biggest after Minecraft right, so okay, so Grand Theft Auto San Andreas was a PS2 exclusive for a while.

I'm going to re-up 61 million units. Okay. 101 million units. Both over. Wow. 27.5 million units. Holy shit. So it increased its sales over the previous top selling entry, which was a massive success

by a factor of 10. Yes. That's how huge Grand Theft Auto V is. Wow, okay. Insane, right? All right, is the next one also a mainline series? It is. So is the next one four?

The next one is four. Okay, and what do we just, what was, give us the centrist, 26 million? It was 27..5 27.5 million. So it'd be less than that I guess I'll keep guessing first. I'll say 18 million 20 million Heather's the closest 25 million you Do you remember when that who was that that? Xbox exec at the time, but he showed, he got a Grand

Theft Auto 4 tattoo to reveal that Grand Theft Auto 4 was going to be multi-platform? Yeah, I do remember that. Was it Peter Moore? Who was that guy? Gosh. I don't know, but imagine him today. I think that's still kind of cool to have a Grand Theft Auto 4 tattoo. It's pretty funny.

I don't know if it's cool to have a Grand Theft Auto 4 tattoo. It's pretty funny. I don't know if it's cool, but it is funny. I don't know who's cool then. The next one, then I'll just gonna say. It was Peter Moore. Peter Moore. Man, look, I'm sorry, look at this guy with this tattoo. That rocks.

It is kind of good. Oh wait, the fucking Pabba Bad covered up the tattoo. That's so funny. Do you also just know he has no other one He has no no that's one tattoo his grand theft auto for in the font. Yeah in the font in white. Yeah, it's bold choice rocks somehow wider than his own skin Next up number four all right is this is this vice city it is okay vice city And what would give us the numbers again going going down from one?

205 million okay 27.5 million and 25 million 25 million I keep undershooting it I Don't know did this did Vice City crest 20 million units? I feel like San Andreas was so much more of a sensation. It came out later in the game's lifespan when there was a bigger install base. I'll go first. Go for it.

14 million. So more than 14 million units. 14 million. I'm not going to price his right. I will say, I will take a real guess and say 17 million. Next to closest. Wow. 17.5 million units sold.

Wow. Okay. A grand thought of Vice City. Wow. And finally, number five. Number five is three? Number five is three. So these are just mainline entries.

But I would guess also probably none of the DLC, none of the Chinatown Wars or the Ballad of Gay Tony would possibly be in the top five. Yeah, because those wouldn't be selling one to one. And then also the other ones on this list that are not in the top five are Grand Theft Auto, Liberty City Stories, and Vice City Stories, which were PSP games and then ported to PlayStation 2 and then so on. Give us the sales for those when we finish this off, okay, okay, so Grand Theft Auto 3 sales I will say

17.5 was the was vice city. That's right This game was still fucking huge I'll say 12 million Nick says 12 million 14 million Heather. Heather takes it. Wow. 14.5 million. Wow. Which I believe makes our game a tie. Did I get any other right?

I thought I just got the one. I think you got the one. Maybe Heather wins. I forget that when I'm reading the games, I'm supposed to also be keeping the score. But sometimes it's not about winning. It's about the information. Yeah, that's right.

What did Liberty City Stories and Vice City Stories sell? See, that's what I'm talking about. It's about the information. That's right. What what what a Liberty City stories and vice city stories. So this is what I'm talking about. Yeah, that's the information. That's right Liberty City stories sold 8 million copies, which is pretty good I feel like for a PSP. Yep game that it is eventually ported. Yeah, and then vice city stories 4.5 Which again not bad. Let's be exclusives. Yeah

Yeah, it did get the ps2 port like you're saying. yeah, but like I feel like I don't know anything above like 3,000,000 in this era of games is like pretty good and then to have a from 27 million to 205 million is just Unbelievable it's kind of crazy that they and they they've still probably Unbelievable. It's kind of crazy that they, and they've still probably made less

from selling retail units than they have from people just spending the game, spending money in game. Really, really crazy. Economics of this shit, so crazy. Hey, that's this week's Get Played. Our producers, Rachelle Chen, Ranch, Yard, underscore, underscore, Sard.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, benpruntymusic.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. And hey, you can find our merch, including apparel, hats, stickers, et cetera, at kinshipgoods.com. Link in the show description. Also, in the show description, you can find our Patreon, patreon.com slash get played where you can find our entire Prairie Head Gum back catalog plus ad free main feed episodes and also our Patreon exclusive show, Get Animated, where we're watching series, we're watching movies and we're talking about them

You can check that out patreon.com slash get played And you know what? The big incident got played because we didn't we didn't fuck with that. We don't like that. That's right Whatever it is. We didn't like that that thing get out of here We got played scram unless it's illegal to say anything bad about the thing Yeah, which case we like the thing. And then actually, unless, except if the thing is actually good, then we like it. Then we like it and we got played.

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