Kinda Funny Gamescast: Video Game Podcast - Far Cry 5, Adam Sessler, and Polygon's Nick Robinson - Kinda Funny Gamescast Ep. 122

Episode Date: June 2, 2017

Games Industry Legend Adam Sessler joins Greg and Polygon's Nick Robinson to talk Far Cry 5, fake games, Friday the 13th, and more! (Released first to Patreon Supporters on 05.26.17) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to the Kind of Funny Gamescast, episode 1222. I'm one of your hosts, Greg Miller, as Tim Gettys prepares for Kind of Funny Live 3, kind of funny.com slash KVL3. I'm joined by Polygons, Nick Robinson. Hello. Hello, how are you? Yes, round of applause.

That's so nice. I'm getting clapped for by Adam Sessler. I know. And not to ruin your intro, but this guy's here too. Games industry legend. Adam. Just Sessler. Yeah, yeah.

It's more like a mini tale. Oh, mini tale? Yeah. Your epic that goes on and on and on. I remember the day I found out that, so me and Adam have a shared history. Sure. We'll talk about a little bit.

Of course, topic too, I do believe. And the way I found out Adam was working at Rev 3 when we were working there together was we had our EP, Zach, who's amazing, was also like, he was a little secretive sometimes. And so I found out. He had to dry. Yeah. Right. So I saw him floating around once at twice. I'm like, maybe he just like hanging out here.

Sure. And then one day I came into the office and the desk next to mine had a post note on it that said Adam Sessler. And I'm like, there's no way it's like the same guy from who I watched like my entire childhood on TV, right? And then it was him. Not that you're old. There is this other guy named Adam Sessler. Because back when I started out in TV, I would Google myself. Sure.

I guess it wasn't even Google then. I would search myself in some... You would ask James yourself. AOL keyword. So I didn't... I wouldn't come up first. There were some Israeli artist. Interesting.

Who for like years would be the first hit. And there was that real big moment, probably about five years in. We're like, it was me. I'm currently engaged in a similar SEO battle with an actor named Nick Robinson who was in Jurassic World. I saw him pop up when I searched your name. That kid, I'm like, we're currently at this, like, we're at about a 50-50 split on Tumblr right now in terms of the tags. It's like half people photoshopping him naked and then half people making video game jokes.

It's like a perfect 50-50 split right now. For me, it happens so quietly. I didn't even pay attention. But for years, when I, you do it, it was Greg Miller, Elvis impersonator in Vegas. Greg Miller lockpicking for beginners. And then slowly crap my way up to like, no, I just dominate all these other Greg Miller's. Was part of that. Did you incorporate those skill sets into your brand?

No, I wish. I always thought about buying the lockpicker for beginners. The idea of like an Elvis impersonator who's also like a cat burglar. Yeah. That's, Nobody saw it coming. Yeah, he's there to steal hearts. He's there to do all that stuff.

Yeah, maybe I'll be like Monaco, too. Yes. We're ready for Monaco too. He'd steal that. Go ahead, feel free. If you didn't know, ladies and gentlemen, this is the Kind of Funny Games cast.

We're each and every week, we get together and talk about all the games and things we love. If you want to get it on time, I say. You can go to patreon.com slash kind of funny games. If you want to get it late, no big deal. You can head over to YouTube.com slash kind of funny games. We're breaking out topic by topic day by day until it goes up is one big video in MP3.

Nick, you are a much requested kind of funny games person. Yeah? Yeah. Yeah. Our interactions on the Twitter. That happens. That makes it happen. That's really nice to hear.

Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. I watch the stuff that you produce. I remember, I mean, the way this happened is kind of a direct result of you believing that no one was watching during the work. Right. We were doing the kind of funny morning show, me and Andy Cortez. And what happened is Nick Scarpino, as of course, fucked everything up.

and he got sick and went home. So Andy stepped in, but that meant I needed a co-host for Gogg as well because we had Jared Petty coming in. And I was like, chat let me know realistic suggestions. Because chat, I love the tweets that are always like, hey, have you ever thought about having Tom Hanks on? I'm like, oh, no, it's never occurred to me that he'd be great on a podcast. And I was like, real estate dead beats that are home right now during San Francisco

and during San Francisco work day. And I was like, but I guess if any of them were watching, I'm like, none of them are watching. And you and Danny O'Dwire are immediately pinged. You're like, we're dead beats, we're watching. Because me and Danny are both on that work from home lifestyle here. the Bay Area and so we are we have nothing better to do than watch everyone else's content and just to kind of giggle I was watching in bed I was watching in bed that episode and I just kind

of like was leaned over watching on my laptop and then I was like hey I can DM him intimate oh yeah but very very very I join him in bed you surprised how much content of the three of us is consumed by people in various states of undress in their bed on their phone yeah it's just in their boxers in the computer chair it's like I it's funny like working from home I've able I've been able to kind of flip it so that I'm actually producing a lot of my content also in my underwear. Because most of what I do is voiceover stuff. So I can be in any state of undress and nobody nobody has to know until now. You've completely ruined your videos for me. Yeah, every car boy, if you averaged it together every episode of Carboys, I probably made that show with

one and a half pieces of clothing on just all together. If you average it all together. How does that make you feel, Adam? It's something I learned from him. Adam's entire brand for over a A while was no pants. Yeah, yeah. Now the next generation is coming in, no pants, no shirt, maybe a bathrobe if I'm feeling like cold. No pants, no shirt. Service.

That's our slogan. Now, Adam, we did a survey recently as well through the kind of funny fans that will announce all much of the results for a kind of funny lap three. But you also popped up that people wanted you back. That's nice. You've been on a bunch of our shows throughout the years. We thank you for your support. I like stopping by.

Yeah. Everything got so easy once I like moved back to San Francisco. Yeah. That's usually helpful. Because even though there are podcasts to be done in Los Angeles, that means getting in a car to go to them. Okay. It's a nice thing. Podcasts are easier in San Francisco.

Exactly. Yeah. We're all hipper and a cooler. It's true. We're all, most of the time we're doing a podcast just. There's already a podcast going on. It's a podcast without a mic time. It's really, it would be easier to just block out the time in a day that we're not recording our voices.

Sure. Collisify that as non-cast. Well, that's always the hard thing of trying to get on a phone call with somebody. And like, well, I'm like, I'm recording all day long. There's no time. There's, I'm, and the ones that really pissed me off are the ones who text you or call you when you're live. Like, this is a live show. I've tweeted I'm live.

Why would you then 15 minutes later hit me out, asking if I can talk about fucking thought? Right, right. You know, I call those calls, mom. Yeah, exactly. Almost, I can, you know, it's going to happen probably during the course of this. I'll feel the buzz in my pocket. Yeah. And it's my mom trying to reach out.

That's sweet. That's adorable, though, yeah. My mom watches, which then gets very creepy because we talk about creepy things. On the other shows, not this show. Here we're talking about Far Cry 5. Do do, do, do. I know. I love it.

I love the transitions. I love the jingles. Usually it's just me. I'm excited to have another jingler here. No, so Far Cry 5, as the posting of this on Patreon, will officially the embargo will be up. It's the first game I'm able to break open my little E3 Judges Week book, show my notes that I was taking.

It's an uncharted 4. Uncharted 4. Uncharted 4. Hey, everybody. I'm looking at your E3. Uncharter 4. Well, that's just Far Cry 5, which are about talks. There are no more secrets.

True and interesting. Except 4. Do you see? Some people take the doodle of a Superman logo, as you might see there. Some people might take the doodle of a Superman logo to say, oh, he's not paying attention. That's me listening intently. My immediate reaction, actually, the reason I didn't talk about is because I was like, you know

how there was the rumor that Rocksteady was going to do a Supermind game. Oh, my God. Can you imagine my E3 secrets? I know. I would have died of a heart attack. If they were doing the Justice League of a Superman game or whatever, yeah. But it said, Far Cry 5. Far Cry 5.

UBisoft. Which looks so interesting. Exactly. You've seen, you and I have seen the same presentation. Yes. Nick, you know enough. No, I'm a commenter. I've seen the piece of key art and I saw those cute little teasers that they posted.

Because we're recording this before the embargo list, so the trailer that drops on the Friday that this would drop on Patreon isn't alive for us to see yet. We've seen it all. I actually don't believe I've seen the trailer. Okay. So, yes. Yeah, I guess that's true.

You're a judge. So you get to wear the fancy hat. How you doing? I was just, I was a friend. I judge you attractive. Friends and family made that. It was so often, you know, I get a call. It's like, hey, we're doing this.

You want to come out and see it. And I'm like, yeah, because I still like doing that. I love seeing news stuff. Well, you only get to be a judge for like two out of every 365 days. Adam Sessler is Adam Sessler every day and so he gets those friend calls all year long. The legend, the video game legend, Adam Sessler. Maybe I'll go for like epic

because, you know, just because that's like Beowulf. And I like to think that I also elicit groans for freshmen in college. Oh, Sessler. Oh my God. So Far Cry 5, what questions do you have? What do you want me to start with you? Okay.

So the big thing and the thing that we've kind of known for a minute is that it takes place in the United States of America. That's a really big difference. Exactly. All the past Far Cry games. I guess my number one thing and the thing that's like most exciting and interesting to me from the key art and everything else is like the vibe that this game seems to be putting out is some like adult quasi-Christian religious cult, maybe weird racist undertones thing going on. And I'm like, that to me is really exciting because it's so, so, so, so, so risky for a series and maybe a company that's not always the riskiest. Yeah.

Is it what I think it is? You are on the money in terms of what's happening is we're in Montana present day and yes we have a cult slash militia that is this family that has taken over at town pretty much basically and they've done it throughout years and years and years and years of things so the point that like you go in there and now

you're on that side and you can't get help from getting out you have to find people inside and like similar far cry games to take these people down and do all this different stuff and so it's the idea you're on the money of yeah there's the cult leader Joseph he's the father then he's got his father being the priest then his brother's uh Jacob and

John and then the half sister faith. I mean, like, right off the bat, like, book of the Bible, book of the Bible, faith. I mean, like, that, that's the, my thing about it, after going in and watching the presentation, leaving, getting back on the bus and talking like Austin Walker and stuff about it, was the fact of, this sounds so fascinating. This is such an awesome idea for a game. Yeah. But can they stick the landing?

The gentleman, I'm blank out his name. He might be in your magic book. Dan Hay? Yeah, Dan. My magic book. Wow. This man gives presentation. Oh, my God.

He's got the most imposing build and this deep baritone that, like, as he's describing his thinking about how he got to this game, it was just kind of... Cessler, get better on there. I'm getting better on there. Kevin's coming over here. Like how he's got to hop around the giant TV he bought to find out and tell him. But, you know, it really was... I mean, like, and he said it's this idea of America feeling like it's on a precipice. Yeah.

You know, and that it's a feeling. And I remember this, because I think he and I are of similar ages, he was thinking, back to the 80s when, you know, once again, with this kind of threat of nuclear war that was out there, you always felt that there was this sense of precipice. And he thinks that America's kind of come back to that sensation. So that's why I think that whether or not it will stick the landing, the intention is for it to stick the landing. I'm kind of excited because just the idea that someone's making a game about a, that is not afraid to like brush up against the current political environment, how weird and scary everything is. Like,

That makes me excited, just that anyone's even willing to try. Because it's inevitable that this game is going to, no matter what it does, no matter how it handles it, infuriate a bunch of people. And I hope they handle it smartly. But the fact that they're willing to take this risk and make something that's like this bold is, that's the exciting thing. Well, they talked about it, right? In the same presentation, I'm sure you saw.

I'm just like, the idea came up years ago. They were like, not the right time. And then they started in on it. And then everything kind of has happened around it. What's interesting about it to me is the fact that I think the flack they've caught from already, just the key art that's up in our current timeline is people like, oh man, poking the bear and this. And it's like the people involved in this, like, you know, because I think you look at it like,

oh man, Trump supporters like taking over. And it's like these people in the game are, fuck the government. We don't believe in the government. We're on the precipice of a collapse of the U.S. government. We're going to start it right now. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's interesting that everyone kind of went in this defensive way, to Trump supporters.

And like, yes, you can see some corollaries of some of the most noxious, you know, the people who are overtly racist, you know, and definitely have those sentiments. But I don't think it's like it's a one-on-one. Exactly. It's more kind of a personification of a very strange and unsettling mentality that we are hurtling towards something that we can't control. Yeah. I mean, the thing about, like this is like, I think, an end of the world type cult.

Because game, game development pipelines are also such that like you don't make a game like Far Cry 5 and you, that you started slugly. It's not like they started this game two months ago or three months ago, right? Like this has been in the works for forever. Likewise, I think it probably has more in common with like militias taking over, like, government buildings and stuff. Like, stuff like that. The Oregon, which also happened. Yeah, exactly.

But if you remember, like, back, I think it was in the 90s, maybe the early 2000s. There was also, I think it was in Wisconsin. They were like, you know, this group that doesn't believe in taxes. And there was, and there was yet another one of those standoffs that was happening. It's the free somethings. Yeah. The free people. I'm blanking right now in the name, of course, because we're on camera.

But it's the one of David, somebody or the other remember. Oh, David Koresh. Koresh. That was when I saw it and they started pitching, that's what I jumped to. So there are these corollaries to it that aren't, it's not set in the political unrest of right now. It's set in the disenfranchisement of the government, let alone the fact that this has been, and this is where I think one of the interesting things are going to face, right, is the, let alone it's set in Montana, right?

And we always joke around on the old shows of, like, Collins' whole thing was, he just wanted up and retire and have 40 acres and be up there living off the grid. Like that's people's interpretation of Montana and now this game is that in a video. I don't think it's unfair. This is not a negative stereotype as I see it in my head. You know, Montana is a place to get away. Yeah. You know, it's a, it's beautiful.

Yeah. And, you know, but yeah, it's a place to sort of be off the grid. And there's always been a kind of sentiment that comes from that part of the country of, hey, I just want to do my thing back off. It's kind of a more pure form of libertarianism. Well, they kept to say, like one of the things they talk about in the presentation right is freedom, faith, and firearms. Yeah. Like those being the three big things of Hope County. They're really going for it.

How? Yeah. Wowy. It's funny too, because like, I think there's a temptation to, and I've done this personally, to think that this is some enormous pivot for Far Cry and a lot of ways it is. But I'm thinking back in like, Far Cry 2 was like an art game about surviving in Africa. Far Cry 3 was written by a dude who like his intent was to write all these incredibly weird metaphors in it and to like deal with like these like these like, like, just a troop of like American kids parachuting in and fucking around with no responsibilities. Far Cry 4 also had some really smart stuff going on with how they were handling like this fictional

country. How a dictator would take over. Yeah. And the fact that in Far Cry 4 the protagonist is like from that place, which I think they thought alleviated some of the weird like racial pressure. So they're- Except for when they put out the cover art. Right.

You son of a bitch. Oh my god. So I guess what's interesting to me here is that like they are once again not really, I just think that the Far Cry series is like really weirdly thoughtful for a AAA first person action adventure. adventure like Ubisoft franchise. I think what I wonder about, there's two key things I'm wondering about is, you know, three and four started to go into a dark humor

area, like especially in four you have the two guys who are just tripping out on drugs all the time. That, I don't know if that would necessarily work in the game as least as how it's initially been presented, that this might have to be a much more kind of serious game. That's my thing, before you get your second point, is you were talking before about like, oh man, it kind of gives off

a true detective vibe, right? and it does, but then when they show gameplay, it's Far Cry. And they show these character vignettes that'll be up tomorrow at the embargo. And it's like they all start off very interesting. There's this woman, a bar made, like cleaning her glass. And it looks like, you know, they're all set to act like you're in the right place. But then it kind of pivots and the bars all screwed up. And she's like, they kill my father.

We're going to kill them. And they're like, all right? Then it's this priest, right? And he's reading the Bible and he's talking about how he's the shepherd, da-da-da. But when somebody else have you go protect your flock. And they pin around and like, the priest's got a gun in his Bible, like, hollowed out. And he pulls it out. and then like his church has been blown apart

and he turns around and he gets the shotgun and throws it over his shoulder and walks out and you're like, that is an interesting, okay and then the next one was like, I just want to raise this guy, it was cropped duster and he's like, I just want to raise my son right, blah, and then he goes and the rudder's been shot out

and he gets a gatling gun and puts it on his thing. And you're like, well, what? And then they showed the gameplay and the gameplay was the, all right, cool, it's the normal far cry we're running on shooting everything and then it was the crop duster coming in

and it looked like call of dude just blowing shit up and all this thing. And it's like, add that into the fact then I know I'm going to be like, I wake up and I'm like, okay, I've got to get my resistance going. I'm going to punch 14 cows to death and get them to make a wallet. It's like, wait, like, how is this going to match up with this very serious story? I really am curious. My other thought is, what happens with the animals?

You know, bears, I can imagine, okay, that's a dangerous animal that I know that's in Montana, maybe a wolf. Yeah. But, you know, because it's less exotic in the most kind of inappropriate way, like it doesn't, I don't see the same kind of fauna. Yeah. how that's going to play. And maybe it's going to be removed. Who is going to be the honey badger? What's Montana's a creature?

The turkey. I didn't even think about the whole animal skinning and hunting component. It's going to be a little weird to be like the people's champion who's also sneaking into the people's farms and killing the people's animals and making like an ammo case. And I'm sure they'll have some narrative reason for it. Right. Like they will the, you know, they've shut off this region. This is their town.

So they're only doing this or they have brought in exotic animals. That's one of their schicks for. like when they take over and expand. Or it could be seen as like they really are, I don't want to say rebooting, but they're kind of resetting that maybe, you know, they are sort of asking questions like, you know, are there things that we associate with Far Cry that are so important to Far Cry? Are there something that maybe can be removed or altered? I mean, I feel like.

After Far Cry Primal, I'm kind of animaled out a little bit. So if they wanted to buy that stuff back a little, like that's not, I could totally enjoy a far cry game that doesn't have the huge skinning thing in it. We've been doing that for like three or four games now. I could chill without that if they replace it with something substantial. I guess that's my big question for y'all is like the game is clearly Far Cry but like are there, what are the gameplay

differences that they spoke to you all about if anything? That's the thing. Gameplay wasn't on the menu. It was very much like here's the setting, here's where we came from. They told the stories are like, you can't tell these stories anywhere else because it might endanger lives. We're like, no, no, that's interesting for a video game presentation. And then it was like here's a quick succession of gameplay. We're like, all right, that looked like Far Cry

far cry, but would call it. I think it's also, it's, I think they're kind of getting awareness out there for Far Cry 5, which I would assume more will be learned. Of course. At E3. They're not at the gameplay step yet, but... Well, I think the gameplay step is just, you know... Right, right.

Yeah. I would be very, very surprised we don't see more gameplay once we're at E3. I suspect we will. The other interesting thing, I think it'll just be... And this sounds so hokey, but the reaction to killing Americans. Killing American civilians, like, right? Like this...

They're a cult and they're a militia, and they're bad. They're clearly bad, right? I mean, but, like, we're going to get in there and just, like, these farmers who have been dup by this guy who are trying to kill me that I'm now killing in mass numbers. Yeah, it's weird because, like,

killing Americans is what you do in every other open world game. Watchdogs, I killed a 300. No. See, that was my thing. Watch dogs, I was no kill.

Yeah. Watch dogs, I was stunned at people. Marcus. I just felt like that was just felt so inappropriate to the tone of the world. Yeah, I agree with that. Marcus would not have done those things.

But I guess what I'm saying is that it is new for Far Cry and there's also. This was just me celebrating, by the way. This is just how I do in solidarity. You do that for everyone. Way hot. Marcus. We got 30 seconds left in this bed.

I guess, and tell me if I'm overthinking this. There is a difference between like running around, like, Los Santos or like doing, like being GTI and killing Americans versus like the killing you do in Far Cry is this intimate. You jumped off of a roof onto a dude and then you're knifing him in the chest with his face taking up half the screen. It's born of desperation. That's what I think has always made some of the violence of Far Cry so interesting. Yeah. And conversely, it's maybe a little fucked up that I am squeamish about killing Americans in the first person with their face up here, but not other people.

And that's the thing that I really think is going to be a question to be asked. Because when we were talking about afterwards, it's like, oh, yeah, I guess what does that say that I can go to an island place and everyone in the island is evil? But I'm in Montana. I'm like, oh, sorry, this guy dupes you. You know what I mean? Like, oh, this doesn't feel weird. I think, and also knowing Far Cry and knowing how totally, they have a great track record up until and then maybe stopping at Primal of the villains being these villains being these, incredibly evocative, horrifying people. I don't, I suspect that they won't have trouble making me hate these people.

I'll do it. No, no, no. I mean, actually, when they showed, you know, they went through the four members of the family. Yeah. Like, kind of the role that they would play in solidifying the power of a cult. You know, because you need someone who's charismatic. You need someone who's kind of got the profit.

Yeah. You know, you need. And they thought it through to the point of like, oh, and this one's a great lawyer. And that's how he got all the land. You're like, oh, that makes, okay. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah, I think that, you know, once again, they may be all the more unsettling because

they're not, I don't say cartoons, but they're not, they're extreme in a familiar way. Right. There's a, there's a, there's a, there's a, two steps removed from, like, people you may know or people that you've been familiar with, say, just watching television or something. I will say, off, from the news. From the jump, though, this new bearded main antagonist, he's missing, there was a real undeniable, at least for me personally, sexiness factor with the Far Cry 4 antagonist. Oh, pagan men?

Pagan men was so hot. Who, purple joker suit. The look and the outfit and the sort of just the way he talked. to you and got right in your face and just I was like, I had this very pseudo romantic attachment with pagan men that I don't expect to have with this year. Well, there's one

the younger son who was kind of wearing this like flared out, you know, suit jacket. Yeah, I think that was his name. Yeah, yeah, John's the younger brother. I think that's the one. It's interesting. They seem to, there's the prophet who, you know, maybe kind of pulling back a little bit. Like he's

one who kind of talks to God or something. Yeah. But then that son is more the charismatic one. That's why he's wearing the flashy clothes. So I think he may be... It's almost like they take various aspects of like

the pagan min type and put it into four different characters. Interesting. Yeah, that's great. I'm overall pumped for this game. I love the... Just the physical act of playing Far Cry games is so fun for me.

Like Far Cry 4 I just fully 100%ed even after the story stuff was done because I just, the process of clearing out an outpost is just one of my favorite video game things to do, period. So I'm like, I'm already in on the gameplay. The fact that they're doing

weird, risky story stuff has me really excited. I'm like, I'm here for Far Cry 5. That's the thing is, I'm super interested to see where it goes. This is currently,

now that Red Dev Redemption 2 is moved into 2018. I mean, Far Cry 5 is now at the top of my list of what I'm excited to play this year. Yeah, can't wait. Hopefully you see more 83. Topic number two,

I titled Life After the Job. All right. Now, I say that because I, of course, asked for reader mail questions for topic four, which we'll get to. But at Steinlidge T said he'd like to see you guys talk about Rev 3 games.

Rev.3 games talk would be interesting. and funny stories, stuff like that. But then it brought up the fact that we just were all, we all left other things to do our own, to do the next thing, and they're all interesting things we're doing. You're at Polygon now, Nick. Adam, you just helped get Friday the 13th launched the game,

which has got to be totally crazy for you, right? And I appreciate you saying helped, because I only helped. I heard you made it all by yourself. This is not my game. Starting programming. Incredibly dedicated. How has it been working in Unreal Engine 4, Adam? Unreal?

Good answer. Don't applaud that, Kevin. Don't laugh at that joke. So yeah, let's start. That's Mark Rain sending me money right now. So you guys have a whole history. It's happenstance you came together for this show, but you guys have a whole history together.

We do. What's that all about? So when I graduated from college in 2012, I took a job at Revision 3, is what it was called at the time. And they launched a sub-channel called Rev 3 Games. A guy that I know, you know, Anthony Carbone, that's son of a gun. That son of a bitch. He sort of helped get me in the door there as like a YouTube optimization coordinator slash social media guy.

And then like I kind of snuck into the background of videos and eventually they started letting me host videos from time to time. And then they hired Adam at one point who I credit as taking like me under his wing and giving me opportunities and being like, here, we review this game. Like let's see. Yeah. I mean, you know, we wanted to grow what Red Three games was. We only had so many resources. So anybody who I could get hold of that can help expand it. It was a beautiful confluence of Red Three games having what I, from.

the outside looking in thought of as no money. And me wanting to get out of the department I was in. And so he was more than happy to steal me and be like, hey, review the South Park Stick of Truth, review watchdogs. And the other thing is, I mean, Nick, it was great because I knew, like, ideas

about programming, but I really didn't understand anything about the internet. You know, I had been working in this older medium called television where there was a large staff and ever so often I could get someone to get me a cup of coffee. So, I mean, there was this kind of terror when I first started doing it where like I know how to do this from a top

level but in terms of like they kind of get my hands dirty and how this all works and Nick was kind of essential like something like Address the Sess I didn't know how to set up a Google Hangout. For people who maybe don't know, me and Adam did a recurring weekly show called

Address the Sess which was an hour long Google hangout with Rev3 Games fans and we just put the link out there publicly and let whoever wanted to join, which is from a production standpoint terrifying because there's no real thing from a Google standpoint because they were quite impressed with the show so we could get some really good numbers on it. They came by and were like,

how are you doing this? So we just put the link out. You just post the link to Twitter. That's not best practices. No, definitely not. And what's funny is in the beginning, it was to see if we could get a couple of my trolls, of which, you know, I had collected enough that I could probably fill every bridge in the world. Sure. Never showed up. Of course not.

I mean, the door was open for them. Yeah. And we never had anyone who was contentious. I think only one person who didn't agree with my five point reviewing. system. And I think I did go off on him a little bit because that one is just so sacrosanning. Just like, don't, that's my soft underbelly. Don't go for that week spot. You will set me off on that one. Doing a Google hangout every week for years, if the worst thing that ever happened was somebody came in and disagreed with our review

policy, it's like, that's unreal. Well, did they have to show their face? Like, was it face? What did you have to use a work? The way it worked is, you know, the first time first serve were people who got the other windows. And so, yeah, they were showing their face. And then there was a chat where we could, you know, other people in the audience and that we were able to kind of bounce back and forth from everyone. Internet tough guys are rarely tough when you have to show their face. Yeah. Actually, that's how we met Gita.

Right over at Kitako. Is that she, you, was like our, like, whatever. No, I would say our most favorite person. Like, every time she was available, it's like, sneak her in there, sneak her in there. I like her a lot. Yeah. And so we started doing a little bit of like loading it with guests or having other people on. I remember a, there was a one of the biggest episodes ever, I think, was we had

total biscuit on. It was right around the time there was that machinima problem. Yeah, the controversy. You know, telling people, you know, we had tried to get machinem on, but they wouldn't come until we had John Bain. And it was the not disclosing. Eric Reynolds, yeah. My friend Eric Randall, you know him to get it from the PR perspective. I think even Steph Shop was there as well.

Yeah, just giving like the sort of the PR perspective. Like how you would handle this. Yeah, it was really, it was a lot of fun. And we were like, of the moment. It felt very timely. Like that was sort of my first experience, I think, with producing a show myself, even though all the Google skeleton was there. We just put stuff into it. And it was also, like, interesting because I hadn't hosted or done live stuff before, really, ever.

And it was a lot of- shocking because you take to it like, what's one of those metaphors that the old people use? Duck to water. That's a good metaphor. He's one of these young kids. They were born with the Internet. They don't know the world without it. Yeah.

It's true. I have definitely grown up on the Internet. And then I also had really good role models in Anthony Carbone. And you just, like, watching and imitating what y'all were doing, like, literally copying you guys. because that made it a lot easier, I think. No, it was definitely, I mean, an experimental, not like in a college way, but it was interesting where, because I wasn't having to fill a half hour,

which is what I was used to before, where it's like there was no more, and there's no additional content, and there's going to be no less than that, where it's like, well, we can do as much or as little as we want. Exactly, yeah. And then you start to say, like,

okay, what else could we do? How could we do something differently? I mean, it was really, really exciting. Rift 3 games did exist a little bit before Adam came on, but when Adam came on, he brought a really interesting sensibility to it, including one of my favorite things we did was skits, like bringing back skits and stuff, which was like a very X-play thing to do. And something that we probably would never have touched if it weren't for you, but we have all these weird old scripted, like how many videos they're still out there on YouTube for now. For now. And to your point, Greg, like everyone from Rive 3 games has moved on to do something pretty cool. Tara Long from Rive 3 games is now my executive producer for Pollyon Video.

Max Scoville is at IGN. I've just heard of him yesterday. Zach Miner is at PlayStation. Yeah, he's a PlayStation. Like everybody, everybody wound up somewhere kind of interesting from that, from that. No,

is, is, and I just, I went into the sunset and tried to work on a game that's like, is like my dream come true, which was really,

you're a huge horror fan, right? I'm a huge horror fan, and I mean, the cool part about Friday 13th was a, you know, I have a lot of affection for the franchise, but that it's people who,

care so much about the franchise and they're going to do it as multiplayer. Yeah. I mean, I can't, off the top of my head, I can't point to other multiplayer games that were designed to create horror. They might be in a horror setting. Yeah. But the whole idea that you have this iconic figure that really, if you think about it, like, the Jason, the hockey mask, it's kind of up there with like Mickey Mouse ears and like

a Superman emblem. It's like something that you just immediately recognize. And you have that. and you have a game that's violating every rule of game design. It is a deliberately imbalanced game. Very symmetrical. That is balanced to be imbalance. You have, you know, the person playing Jason, you know, has ridiculous amount of power

that only gets, you know, more so in the course of the game. About the more you hurt Jason, because you can balk him with a baseball bat and, you know, and it gives you a chance to run away, that starts to activate what's called rage mode. And once he hits rage, every other power he has, like, you know, it refreshes much faster. and you can just walk through doors, even if you barricade them. So it's like the point is you're probably going to die, which creates this wonderful tension and the way that if you're playing with your friends, Jason shows up, watching people freak out.

Like you remember like when you're screaming at all the bad decisions that these teens are making in these movies? You make those decisions. You're the bad teens. And it really was that like I've never really thought that you could take something that is such a part of like my growing up. and actually turn it into a process that's, I guess, procedurally generated because other, you know, it's other players playing it. And it really, really reflects, you know, kind of the memories of watching the movies. So what's it like to be on the inside now? You've reviewed games for so long.

And now here you're the game you helped make us out. It's getting feedback. It'll be very interesting, you know, obviously when, you know, oh, I guess as of people watching this is out in the wild, not as of the taping of it. It'll be interesting to see people offer up their opinions as I once would. Yeah, yeah. For something that obviously I have a great deal of emotional attachment to. Right. You're in the kitchen a little bit.

This is going to be a very interesting experience. And I also know to keep my mouth shut. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Well, I think the thing like, you know, I jumped into GameSpots, a review in progress they had up yesterday, right? Which is basically like, it's fun. it's got issues, but it's like facial animation or whatever. But like the gameplay is fun.

The nut of gameplay is actually interesting here. And so like what I find good about that, because I'm waiting for PlayStation 4, I want my trophies. But what I like about that is the fact that I've talked to the development team you guys are working with, and they are real fans. And they do want to, if there's something wrong with the game, they're going to want to fix it. They see this as a live service.

And I think one of the biggest challenges we had to really, because I came on board to help with the Kickstarter, is given the significance of the license, understandably people might make the assumption that this is a team that would, you know, in terms of size and financing, 300 people, triple A. Yeah.

This is an indie team that was not making Friday the 13th. They were making an homage game and then suddenly we're given the Friday the 13th license. So I think they're having to kind of struggle with like, you know, we're not EA. You know, we are, it really is kind of an indie shop and one that's very, very attentive. And it's been very, very transparent with the community because they do want to make this thing for the people that are playing it.

I'm just so fascinated by the relationship of like making a thing that's clearly a tribute to something and then getting to make the real thing. That weird fan dream. Another thing is like, I was going to say it would be like if Freedom Planet, like the people who made that got to make a Sonic game. And then I remember that Christian Whitehead, who's the guy making Sonic Mania, worked on Freedom Planet 2 before making Sonic Mania. And it's just like just I love getting to talk to game developers who have clearly. loved like one thing their whole lives forever and think about it all the time and then are now in this weird new modern era being given the reins to like make the best sonic game ever or the best Friday the 13th game ever. Well you go through the looking glass like that too of then

having to think when you get community criticism or feedback the way they would be right like that's the thing of like this is an anime well where's my code I was a Kickstarter person like well we got to do this we got to get the press going and it's like you know there's so many moving pieces that you don't know about that I would never know about if I was if I hadn't done years and years of this. Well, and also just, you know, watching the game evolve. You know, I would always be joining in in play sessions, you know, because I would get, you know, a look at it because they're playing it all the time and I would come in, you know, once a week, look at it, see how it's changed, and I would have sort of my fresh eyes on it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I think that's interesting.

Okay, I don't even understand how this aspect works. It really highlighted something that I always kind of suspected, but it made sense. You know, as press, they would only tell us a little bit of information ever so often. And part of that is when you're designing a game, you're also experimenting. You know what you want in the end, but you have to first implement it to see if it actually works. And the difference between on paper, something might seem really, really cool. But then in the game, it's like, hold on, that really doesn't work.

Or that's why they don't reveal a ton at the outset, because they want to make sure that they are committed to a certain aspect of the game before they're at, you know, because the worst thing they could do is say, we're going to do this. And four months later, it's like, yeah, we're not going to do that out. JK, no, what's happening? You almost never see that happen. And I'm sure that's a very calculated thing. It's funny because, like, from our perspective, I think, like, that slow trickle of things

is just a calculated marketing thing to make us keep talking about the game forever. And to some degree, I'm sure it is that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's interesting to note that there's a component of, like, what seems like it would be a cool idea on paper and in your design doc doesn't always end up being, like, good game. Yeah, it really. It's like ideas in the head. and practical coding and the sense of balance and fun in the game.

You know, a lot of times they're absolutely sympathetico, and a lot of times, like, you know, they really don't work together. That's interesting. I've never thought about it in that perspective. And you went to your point there, there's a lot of cynicism, obviously, about, like, you know, what, you know, say a developer is saying when they're made available to the press. Obviously, sometimes they're given talking points or also they may not be that comfortable

sometimes just sort of talking to the press. And so they, you know, get coached or they get ideas. but these people work on these games for a long time in absolute secrecy and silence and like when they are talking to people who get to see something for the first time there's a genuine enthusiasm and excitement to like kind of share

what you've been doing and I think sometimes that you know and even I probably got cynical and I would forget about it that you know you're crazy to work in games if you don't love working in games it's not that kind of an industry where there's like

this is this is bounty of benefits that happening to you, that it really is passionate. And they do want to share what they're doing. And when these press events happen, you know, the next day, that that team really is paying attention and seeing what, you know, what people's thoughts are and stuff like that. It's not as, yes, there is marketing involved, but it's not like marketing means there's no sincerity whatsoever. I have like this, like, latent guilt about that, about how I feel like the thing that we do,

which is play video games when they're done and say if they're good or not is like, by far the easiest slice of the pie. Are you kidding? Yeah. It's like by making a video game, what you're essentially agreeing to is like to gestate a child but for like three years and also when the child comes out, there's like a 60% chance of people going to be like,

your son sucks. I hate you with back. She of a shitty kid. And I've actually used a similar analogy to explain why the existence of a game leaking is so devastating to a team. Imagine if someone else announce your pregnancy. Yeah, right. They announce your baby's name before.

Yeah. No, I mean, it's all. an interesting thing. I never thought about it from the development perspective, but it's the same thing like with us. Like we're getting ready for kind of funny life three and we've all these new ideas and show announcement and all the stuff. And there's the, I hope it doesn't leak like half heartily because what our audience knows about something really. But it is the thing of like Tim always stops me because I always want to say way too much

information. Like well, we're not 100% sure on that. We're not getting from that. Because it is that thing. Ken Levine comes on. He's like yeah. And we're also excited about this thing, the PlayStation Vita, right? And everybody's like where the rest of his career until that was all blown up? Where is Bioshock Vita? Where is Bioshock Vita? Where is Biosh that wears me. So you can't say anything unless you want to be asked about the rest of your life. I completely forgot about that. Also, I mean, I guess it's a cool idea, but it's like, I love Bioshock so much.

Like, the idea of the, like, small Bioshock, just doesn't sound as exciting as the Bioshock. It could have been awesome. But how sick would it be if 83, 2017, we do finally see Bioshock. He comes back out. He's like, I wasn't lying, motherfuckers. But there's just one copy, and I have it. It's like that Wu-Tang album. Bill Murray can steal it. No one else. Yeah, but no, to your point, I mean, that's always the thing. I apologize to developers for,

because it happens to me all the time where, okay, so went down to see, I want to say Killzone, Horizon, right, at that Horizon press event down in LA and went to a coffee shop across the street beforehand and eventually all the gorilla walked in. And so me and Herman went off to a corner were just cashing up about his family

and what's going on my life and all this different stuff because we're friends. And I was sitting there talking and eventually this guy turned around at the bar and he's like, I'm sorry, you're Greg Miller, aren't you? And I'm like, oh yeah, man, pleasure to meet you, you, Donna, Ryan? I'm like, so are you here for this event?

Are you oppressed? and he's like, oh, no, I'm a lawyer. I'm from up the street. And I'm like, whoa, he kept talking about PSI love you. And I was like, cool. What do you think of Horizon? And he's like, oh, me, you guys talk about it.

That's cool. And Herman's like, maybe you should pre-order it. And that guy's like, that's weird. And finally, I was like, this is the guy in charge of the fucking studio of this game. And he's like, oh, cool, good to meet you. Bye. And I was like, I'm sorry.

That happens to you. That you go out and make the product. And I sit here and I'm like, I've had so many situations identical to that. I mean, I think one time I was with Nolan Bushnell And someone came over you, Adam Sessor, I'm like, yes, but we owe everything to this man right next to me Yeah, that imbalance and there's no way to fix it, you know what I mean? Yeah.

Like so many people work on a game and do the stuff, not to mention that they get to surface once every three years, do a few little things, and then go back underground to work on it. It's interesting. Like I wonder how much of that is by choice and how much of it isn't. Like how many of those, I think there are probably certainly people in game development who don't want to to be the face of something. Conversely, though, like, I, I really love the relatively recent trend, like, by recent, I mean, like, the past 10, 15 years of, like, autores in video games, who you can name

and who are household names, like, the Hideo Cajima's and stuff with the world. Of just, like, that, to me, feels, like, a good thing for, for this industry a little bit, because it's, like, I just, and there's also, you can make the argument that pinning a whole game on one person is, like, ridiculous. It's obviously a huge team effort, but I just exposing the people. Spectre quote in the famous IGN article. I just want to see those people expose a little more if they're comfortable with it because they're real people.

For me, it was the big thing with Last of Us, where when Last of Us came, I was like, this is a huge test of where we're at in video games because everyone knows they love uncharted, but do they understand Nottie Dog made Uncharted? And so now if we go, a naughty dog game,

and obviously we get it, you watching the show get it, but does my friend Poe get it? And he did. And I was like, oh, that's fucking huge. Awesome. No, it really is an interesting thing

Because I think sometimes we assume That household names truly are household names And I think it's far less I'll never forget when Bioshock Infinite was being shown You're like that really cool first video they showed Yeah At E3 Some young person came up to me

And he was hey Adam Sessor Which What's your favorite game of the show What I just said quite emphatically? Bioshock Infinite And he was just like Really? I mean I didn't really like at Bioshock too. And it's like, yeah, but Ken Levine is doing. And it's, you know, to be fair, I was a little stunned. This happened at E3. I mean, this happened on the street. I'd be very,

very forgiving. But it is that like, I know that, you know, they changed teams, you know, between games. That's inside baseball, right? Very, very inside baseball. And I was also more interested if, you know, if the last of us, I mean, I still found that to be one of the most deliberately, like the violence was so unpleasant. Sure. And I'm like, wow, is this game even going to find that kind of an audience like Unchartered and it did. I think that should be yet another reason why a company like Ubisoft should be confident with the game like Far Cry 5. People are ready to take on subject matter that is more than just pure entertainment.

My only concern with Far Cry 5 again though is will that weight be there? Because there was the weight of the last one, assuming the weight is there. And you wanted to feel bad. Yeah. Whereas if it is just like, bam, into my chopper up, I'm skydiving. And then it's like, oh, this is... Those two things have to coexist. and I think it's never going to coexist perfectly.

There's always going to be some dissonance there. But what I hope for is let there be dissonance there, but still tell the really weird, brave story that it feels like they're trying to tell. Well, that was back to the Watchdogs example. I jumped into a, I was playing, we were all playing a watchtog single player, but jumped into a room with Mitch Dyer and James Faulkner now of Twitch. And we were talking about it, and they made a comment about the rubber bullets they were firing. I'm like, what are you talking about?

Like, oh, well, the way we justify playing this game and the narrative is that anybody we're killing, knocking them down with rubber bullets. And I was like, you guys fire your guns? And they're like, you don't? I'm like, no, I use the RC robot for everything. Maybe I stun gun a guy and run away. Maybe, but you feel bad about it. Exactly.

I think it was mainly gang members I used my gun with because they were really trying to kill me. But everyone else seemed like they were just trying to stop me. Yeah. And it just didn't seem right. No, a fun thing also, it's finally happening now is the way I'm playing games. You know, back when I reviewed games, and I felt like I needed to be up to date on everything. I would just consume them.

You stop this argument right here. Remember, we're doing the Patreon exclusive about this. This is the bonus episode. You get the bonus episode of the games cast. We're doing that after this about how we play games differently now. And more rambling. How dare you have a good conversation on a podcast, sir? We put that behind a paywall until it goes live for free a month later.

That's how the bonus episodes of the gamescast. Go over to patreon.com slash Kind of Funny. Give a dollar. You'll get that episode on what. Kevin, last Saturday the month for, last Saturday the month. This Saturday. It was right there. You're right after this.

You like this on Friday? You get it on Saturday. There you go. Yeah. Now, Nikki, Nicky Ron. Yes.

What about the jump to Polygon? Was that straight from Rev3? More or less. It's funny. There were a few months in between where I had this idea that I could go from Rev3 games to, like I actually very,

very early, early days of Patreon. I built out a Patreon campaign and had gone to their offices and was like a few days away from launching it when the Polygon offer became a real thing. I was actually literally walking out the door

of Rev. games when I got a message from Phil Kohler who was like hey we're hiring a YouTube person do you want to do YouTube videos for us and I was like yeah that's I like YouTube videos sure and it wound up eventually coming to fruition and it was interesting because I was the first video hire for yeah so there was really it was a very very clean slate like like Griffin Macquarie had started sort of doing video stuff and everyone on at Polygon had kind of been dipping their toes on the water here and there but I was the first person who had like video in my job title and as a result we had this like

very like open-ended do whatever we want mentality. And we still kind of are that way. Like all of us still have the keys to the YouTube channel. We could still theoretically upload anything and no one would get in trouble. Like there's not a ton of oversight. Adam took a deep breath. He's like, I don't know. It's just right.

As of someone who once managed people in the video realm that just makes the little heart go. I just, I hope we never lose that because I think what's rad about our channel is like, like one of our one of my coworkers, Pat, who's like our most recent. higher. He made this video as a joke and distributed in our Slack channel of him with a photo of Toad from Super Mario with an adult diaper and adult hairy legs photoshopped onto it. And he was like, today I'm going to tweet this at Nintendo and try to get them to retweet.

And immediately as soon as I was like, Pat, please, I'm begging you post this on our YouTube channel. This is the funniest thing I've ever seen. And it is so in line with this weird direction we've taken. And he did. And it's like I literally every, I guess it's coming out on Tuesdays now. But I wake up every week, like excited that I get to watch a new episode of please retweet. show where he kind of gently harasses the Nintendo America Twitter account.

Last week, when that happened, I lost 90 minutes trying to figure out what on earth it was. I was so close to texting you going, Nick, your old friend by your aged friend cannot understand what you Uts are doing out there on the internet, but I've been losing all this valuable time trying to figure out what this toad thing is. Yeah, and so we just have gotten Like the first year of me at Polygon was me And I still will do some of this Like going to events getting a lot of gameplay videos

Doing like impressions things and like Sort of videos of us playing a game And talking about how we we feel about the game part of the game And over time And I think that the thing that kind of like broke the camel's back Was we had our first big video meeting in 2015 And it was all of us together in person for the first time Including Justin and Griffin-Malkeroy

And they pitched up a lot of shows They've never been together before No they've never yeah They've separated at birth It's funny But we were all together Chipsies took them in different directions. They were, we all got together and we were pitching it,

and Justin and Griffin were both like, I think we should try doing comedy videos. And one of the shows they pitched was Monster Factory, and they had the name at the time. And Monster Factory is now, like, with a bread and butter of our channel. It's like the most popular thing we do by Atlanta. If you don't know what Monster Factory is, it's a show where Justin and Griffin, two brothers

and noted comedian podcast personalities, who I've been a fan of since, like, literally all throughout, like college, I just listened to my brother, my brother, and me. And people are starting to notice that. like people are listening to the back catalog of their old show and being like in episode 51 in like 2013 they thank nick robinson and he didn't work with them until like three anyways um they they do a show called monster factory where they play the character creator of a video game and try to make the ugliest most horrifying creature possible but they do it in this like weirdly loving affectionate way they really take this character like into their arms and they play the game as this horrible monster and it's like it's the funniest thing in the world just because their comedic chemistry is so good and and i think that show primed our audience and helped us gain a subscriber base who is down to clown with like this weird bullshit like carboys and and and please retweet and Simone's show SEO play which is her looking at the Google autocomplete stuff for things and answering them in these horribly not helpful very inaccurate ways like we we now have an audience who's like down for us to be weird and doesn't just want like pure raw games coverage and that rules it's so gratifying. It turns out. Yeah. I think also look the world feels like a serious place. I would just let you know. I can feel it in my pocket. I bet you that's my mom calling.

That's right. Mama, and I think, you know, obviously, you know, there's so much value in stuff that's serious about games, but, you know, we know how cost it sometimes can get. And I think there's a lot of people out there that, you know, really just want to just kind of just have fun and enjoy games. And I think the comedy, that levity, you know, and I use that word very deliberately, you know, I think it really helps and it helps people kind of make people feel like they are welcome in the fold, that it isn't just, you know, people throwing mud at one another because they have differing opinions. Yeah. Are you finding a different audience between Polygon.com and the Polygon YouTube channel?

It definitely feels like it because like every once in a while I'll try to do a video on Polygon that's like actual games coverage. Like I did an amoebo unboxing for Fire Emblem Echoes the other week and literally every comment on it was a joke referring to another show we have called Griffin's Amoebo Corner where he puts amibos in his mouth and rates them on their mouthfeel. So it's like these two things like great. British baking show? It's got a good crunch. It's got a good price. Yeah. The layering on the Yoshi really works.

So it is, I mean, it's a good point. Like the vibe of Polygon.com and the Vibe our YouTube channel is like there's a interesting incongruousness there. Well, because I remember when Polygon launched, it was in, it was meant to, or not meant, I shouldn't put words in the mouth. The way it was interpreted is like, we're a refined site for refined video game fans, right? We're not going to click bait. We're not going to do the journalism.

We're going to be up here doing the feature. just doing this. And I remember what was a big deal? You added video. I remember when that did, that announcement did come down. And I remember the first time I went there and saw a supergirl review by Colin Campbell. And I was like, this is a, I mean, it's cool, but I know Colin and I don't, we never talked about supergirl. And it's like, he's giving this very detailed. I'm like, all right, right, yeah, what did you think of this episode? And there is still some of that, like, like, Colin's an interesting one because his job title is not video related, but he just like loves making videos and we love encouraging him to do it and like walking him through it and stuff.

But it's, you're right. Like, it's, it's, it's, the polygon that I joined in 20, for 2015 is like a pretty different polygon from the polygon that existed when they launched in what 2012 I think and is even more different from the polygon that exists today in 2017 where we make jokes about like metaphysical universes being rendered apart by crash test dummy gods like sure that's a knee slapper yeah it's that's comedy one-o-one that's what they teach you in improv classes is to get into a vehicular horror series and just ride that all the way to the all the way to the top which you have nope Congratulations.

Yeah, I don't know what we're... I mean, I have some ideas about what we're going to do next, but it's a weird act. We just, basically, for people who don't know, we wrapped up this show called Carboys, which was us playing... A lot of people love Carboys in the comments when they said you were coming on.

Explain Carboys. So, God, how to... I don't know. It started out as... There's a game called BeamNG. Drive on Steam. And it's a... It's this German car crash simulator game.

It's basically a vehicle game with really, really robust physics. So you drive a car into a wall, put it in slow motion, you just watch it crumple beautifully. And it was going to be, just a one-off video of me and Griffin playing that, but I cut it up into three separate videos. People are like, y'all should make this a series. We went back, edited the video

titles, rebranded it as Carboys. And over time, this accidental narrative emerged of, like, the game was glitching out in some specific and horrifying ways. And Griffin's just like an inherently creative guy. And I just followed his lead. We started putting music in the show. We started doing weird editing tricks. There's one episode where the window freaked out and resized itself. And the way it resized itself turned it into like anamorphic widescreen. I put black and white, like two black bars on top of it and had it slowly fade in. So it looks like a like a Christopher Nolan trailer. And it's like it just, it got away from us and nothing about it was intentional and nothing about it was planned.

And it's a weird position of being to be like, what do we do? How do we follow an accident, you know? From the from the upcoming reader mail segment, which will be topic number four. Umar Tungura. So does making a show like Carboys inspire you, Nick, to pursue more narrative based storytelling on YouTube? Who? It's so weird because like when I was a kid, I was like when I grew up, I want to write for EGM or whatever. And then over time, that became I want to work on a YouTube channel and do reviews of video games.

At no point ever in any of the years I've been alive was the goal make like a sci-fi horror car show that makes people cry. Like that was not on the menu at any point. And so it's been fun. And it's something that I don't want to force again. and I don't want to put us in that, you know, how many YouTubers do you know who have fallen victim to pigeonholing themselves into vehicular horror?

Like, it's just a classic. That's how everybody falls. Everyone just ends up making vehicular horror cinema. It's one of those things. I know exactly how you feel like, okay, we want to do it again, but like how you recreate something that was never intended in the first place?

And kind of, you know, with X-Play when we had the special episodes, I mean, the first time we did it, which, you know, was when I was playing Hunter S. Thompson and Morgan was playing Amelia Earhart, we go out into the desert and we meet,

um, Alster Crowley. And, you know, then we die at the end. Um, that was just like, we just felt like doing something different. Yeah. And we like this, oh, that's right. No, we just wanted to blow something up. Sure. And we knew that we finally had the budget because we become G4 and we were no longer tech TV,

which like, it was like, hey, you're going to pay for those shorts that you're going to wear on air. Right. Like there was a award or anything like that back in the tech TV days. Um, and it's like, okay, let's, let's blow something up. And then we just kind of constructed this bullshit story to go around it. Just we go out in the desert and explode. things. And it was so resonated with the audience that there was like this, okay, we're going to do

more of these special episodes. And some of them like the zombie episode, I think was, was great. But there was that point where once it becomes something that you have to do, it, it changes the creative process. Yeah. It works against how it started. Where it started. Let's do something stupid and fun. And then now it is a job. Now it is a thing. Yeah. Actually, that was one of those things that, and this happens, I think, in a lot of places when you kind of go into pitch meetings. be very careful sometimes about what you pitch. Like, don't riff necessarily. Because if you haven't thought it through,

you still might be forced to make it. Yes. And that's also, I mean, like, that speaks to why we kind of decided to end Carboys is because me and Griffin both felt really strongly from the jump. We were like, we would rather make too little of this show than too much of it.

Let's end it if we find a natural point to end it and let's like not overstay our welcome. I want people to wish there was more of it rather than be like, this show is tired. That's a very good philosophy. never be told to go away. Yeah, exactly. That was my fear is that people would get tired of it.

And I'm really grateful that our audience stuck around until the end. And to actually answer this person's question, we have ideas for what we're going to do to follow up Carboys. We're still doing our series, Touch the Skyrim, which is we modify Skyrim until it's unrecognizable. We have an episode going up. They'll be up by the time people see this,

where we re-skinned the game to make every single MPC sort of like a, have a furry vibe, like with ears and a tape. because we're playing as the Animal Crossing Villager, but then we discover a spell that lets us suck everyone into a gravitational field, including cows, which the game considers people, and then they've formed this horrible...

It looks like, you know the game inside? Yeah. It looks like the end of inside, kind of. It's like... And so, like, this is, whether I like it or not, our wheelhouse is now just doing video game hell stuff. We have the market cornered on video game hell.

So, to stop, I'll stop talking about this now, but I think I know where we're going next to fill the Carboys gap. it's not something that we've talked about publicly yet. I want to shoot an episode and make sure, yeah, boat boys. Well, we've been playing Player Nones Battlegrounds, which is effectively Boat Boys, because we always end up landing near a boat

and then driving around until somebody murders us. Thanks, okay. Green fog gets you. Yeah. Can I comments on Carboys? Yeah, you can, Andy Cortez, from Kind of Funny. Come on over here. Give me a Carboys comment.

He's going to get up on his mic, though. He's going to get up on. On the lap. Big fan of the show. Thank you so much, by the way. I was trying to draw comparisons to how I felt. Are you trying to do weird stuff?

behind me. I was trying to come up with comparisons with how I felt at the end of Carboys, the finale. I was watching it live. I was here. And the best comparison I had was that when I beat Bioshock Infinite, I was dating a girl at the time. I was at her apartment. And she had maybe watched the first five hours with me of me playing that game. And then she tuned out or whatever. And at the end, I just needed someone to talk to about it. And Kevin was in his office behind me. I'm standing there and I'm just like, oh my God, like this is fucking incredible. And I've seen every episode, right?

And I'm like, I'm looking at Kevin. Do I start trying to explain to Kevin what this series is about so that he can maybe vibe with me a little bit, just a little bit? And so I didn't or whatever. But I was just like on Twitter like, holy shit fucking Carboys. What a great fucking finale. And the next day, I try to explain to Nick. And for like, after 30 seconds, Nick, a Scarpino was just like, okay, that's,

That's pretty cool. He just doesn't get it. Nick sucks. We hate him. Nick doesn't fucking get it. But I just wanted to put my two cents in. I thought it was fucking great. Thank you.

That means a lot. It's the we have been, I've never, this is something that I think you, like both of y'all have probably dealt with your entire lives, but I had never had happened before, which is having an overwhelming amount of people celebrate you stopping doing something in a really nice way.

In a really heartfelt, like people being, like just people saying they did. Not dancing on the grave? Hopefully not. I don't think I. I didn't see any of that, but I did see a lot of people being like, this series legitimately was emotionally touching to me. And like, that was so never the plan.

And every time someone says something nice about it on the internet, it's, it's so unexpected and so flattering. Like, it's weird. For you, is there a juxtaposition of that between, okay, there's the fans of the goofy shit you're doing. There's the Polygon fans who I assume the hardcore ones are like, well, this isn't what the site, it's supposed to be this. And then there's the general, I don't know,

but I have an opinion about how Polygon writes. Because Polygon writing is often controversial. There's like, I have a very bold opinion I'm going to put out there and talk about and defend. It's, I mean, it's, I think we have, we're lucky in that we have this delineation between our YouTube channel and our website that makes it really clear. Like, YouTube, Polygons YouTube was really small when I came on. And so the vast majority of the subscriber base are people who know what they're getting into with Monster Factory and Carboys and like the jokey stuff. So like there is not really a contingent of like hardcore Polygon lifetimers in our YouTube channel on the cover. being like, this is not, this, why is this not serious?

Yeah. And conversely, like, the website kind of exists in its own sort of bubble, too. And so I think there is, there is an element of, I guess, brand confusion of like, when someone says they love Polygon, that could mean any of a million different things right now. And so that's also like a conversation we're having of like, what is Polygon in 2017? It's so many different things at once. And I actually think that's kind of cool. That's awesome.

The thing is, when it was first named Polyon, it was the idea of something with many sides. So, I mean, it's almost like it's kind of coming into. Yeah. It's growing. It's going to be. And if you could go back and tell Chris Grant in 2012 that one of those sides was going to be a show about making a banana man running around like Tamriel and just spawning hundreds and hundreds of ghost boys everywhere.

Like, I don't think that was one of the planned sides, but I think it works. I think it like, I think it hopefully works today. No, it reminds me a lot, honestly, of when I was working at IGN. And it was the thing of like, well, you guys gave this game this score. I'm like, or you did this. I'm like, I didn't do that. I didn't agree with that person. I don't agree with that person.

There's a million people working in. And that's still, I think, a fascinating problem. And, you know, obviously we dealt with this. Sure. Over at G4. I mean, there was, you know, there's G4TV.com, which was a fundamentally independent entity from that of Xplay. And there, you know, so if someone says something over there, does it reflect, you know,

on Xplay? And then there's the entirety of G4. I begged and begged and begged, like, game companies. Like if they wanted to get like use our score in an ad or pull a quote. I'm like, could you use the person's name alongside the outlet and not just the outlet itself? I know where they're coming from because like if it's a movie, it's like marvelously entertaining New York Times. Yeah. That means a lot.

I know where they're coming from. But it does foster this misconception that everyone is sort of monolithic. Yeah. If I could just if I had the magic ability to tell every single person in the like great video games audience one thing. If I could dispel one myth, it's, I would want to dispel. the idea that a website is a single entity that holds one opinion. Like it or like to use IGN as an example when people are like they gave imagine babies a 7.5 and it's like there is no they though one human being gave one game one score another

human being gave another game another score like the same thing can be said of game publishers and game developers. It's like all of us are kind of I always liking it that we're like the Chinese Communist Party like like on the national level. It's that there's a lot of tension in fighting that goes on but when they speak they speak with one big voice. But don't think that that necessarily means everyone is in lockstep coming to whatever that voice is.

I mean, my God, there were knock down, drag out fights for over certain game reviews. Oh, yeah. You know, because it was not necessarily reflective of the opinions of everybody else. I mean, I know that happened at IGN. Anytime there was a top 25, a top 100, it's like, fuck off, I hate you.

I hate this and I hate you. I mean, why is it that the thing that gets the most clicks is easily like a recipe for just disaster and the loss of friendships. It's the way it is. Yeah. And so I guess like it does occasionally happen where every once in a while someone will show up in my Twitter mentions yelling at me about an article that someone on the other side of the country wrote that's marked as an opinion piece.

And I'm just like I'm so I woke up today and like put on a bathrobe and made a YouTube video about having sex with Crash Bandicoot. Like I didn't. I'm not the person you want. You got the wrong guy. Your monocle fell out. Wait a second. It's just so, it's just funny to me that like people expect a, an outlet to be one.

Like, it's just not realistic to expect everyone to agree with everything that goes up on every, like on the website that they work for. It's just not real life. Or for it to all even have the same shared voice, I think. And when you get to be these big outlets, right? That's the power that, like, I think the small things have of like kind of funny breaking away, right? And we have this voice and this is who we are and we're able to do that. And I think to some degree, our YouTube channel, is that too of like as we've pivoted from making game-centric stuff to personality-centric stuff,

like people know what to expect from the people on our YouTube channel and they know that we're different people and they know what I like and what Griffin likes and what Simone likes. And it's, I think that that delineation has actually made it not as weird as maybe it seems from the outside. Well, it's also one of the things when you have, when you're on camera, when you have all this content and people connect it with your person more than when I used to read IGN or GameSpot or whoever, well, EGM doesn't count. I actually did know.

But like GameSpot and IGN, you go read the review and like, well, IGN is, said this game was whatever. Whereas EGM was, well, Shue said this and Crispin said this and, you know, guest reviewer here. That was, you know, in retrospect, there was a lot of wisdom in that situation. Yeah, the sort of like this, and even just anything that, like, the second opinion format in magazines helped really bring to the forefront. These are individual human beings who have, like, opinions on things. This is not the end all be all. And it's been

fun to get away from this, like, clinical idea that reviews are or even can be objective. Like, I'm glad that that's fading into the background. And we're, yeah, I mean, Once again, I know I'm at odds with many of my former colleagues on this. And I've always felt that, you know, part of the issue was, you know, you are still reviewing it as a product and as a cultural product. And that product part becomes the trap where the review is then, it kind of signals like what someone's purchase intent should be for the game. And, well, you know this. I wanted to get as far away from that as possible.

I'm like, I'm just giving you my opinion. What you do with this opinion, you know, like, if I like the game and you, you, it's, you know, if I like the game and you, and your copy of the game turns out to be buggy, like, don't come to me. Like, because that's not what I'm, I want to talk about that

as little as possible. You know, that argument was always like, there's no scientific method. This is one, when IGN, I lived through the 100 point scale, then we switched to the 20 points scale

and then we came back to 100 points. And my arguments, again, 100 points like, why are we going to 8.3, 8.2, 8. 8. There's, it's not like I'm sitting there going, well,

the fun factor. And like, I have these vials and like, wild, like, yeah, exactly, fun factor. Well, And some of that is because game reviews started in tech publications.

Where that's entirely, like, you can benchmark a graphics card. You can benchmark a PC. And that, you know, obviously one of the original websites, GameSpot, was part of Zip Davis. And so it was kind of this inheriting of a very sensible review format that, you know, really, maybe in the beginning when games were far more simplistic, you know, it worked. But as that medium expanded, we've kind of maintained this baggage of a way of thinking that really doesn't work well now. Yeah. Okay. Topic number three, Cool Games Incorporated.

Yes. I was unaware of this show. So Cool Games Inc. is a podcast that I do with my good friend Griffle Macquarie every week where the premises is this. This is Griffin's idea, and I adore it to death. Every week, people submit ideas for video games to us. and the idea might be something like to pull something from this week's episode

Available now on PolygonDoc on iTunes and wherever podcasts are sold. Sold? People will submit an idea like The Amazon for free. One of the ideas this week was Mario and Sonic at the Eurovision song contest and so me and Griffin sit there

and we just go through these ideas and we explore like okay what would Wal Luigi bring to the table versus what Big the cat would bring to the table at a Eurovision like competition and so it's really great because it's offloaded virtually all the creativity to our fans and our listeners. They submit the ideas to us. We pick the ones that we find funniest and we sort of spitball

until we pick the Nug, the one that we think is like the kernel. And that becomes the title of the episode and that becomes like the being thing. And so we just, it's just kind of a fun, like me and Griffin's spitball stupid ideas all like for an hour once a week and then pick our favorite and that becomes our release. So One Games Inc releases a game.

When is the show? When is the game released every week? The game is released every Friday. Okay. Usually at night because I'm a procrastinator. Well, I want to talk. turn our show, the games cast, over to you for one topic. The audience wrote in with all sorts of suggestions for elevator pitch ones.

So, not, we can, it's your decision. It's your show now. We can do one and spend 15 minutes with it, or we can pop around. Bob Boo's up. At least one of these people is like, is definitely a person after my own heart, specifically making a Phantom Dust reference just to make me happy, which I really like to. Let's, let's, so we do a thing. Yeah, I saw that.

And they're grouping me in with that. Oh, yeah. You're part of it now, but I know he's into the Phantom Dust. I am. I, on the other hand, I kind of remember when that game came out. Understandable. And I think I'm like, you're going to review this to somebody else? So like that, this is.

I remember the G4 TV Fan of Best Review. I think the G4 TV Fan of Best Review complained about the camera. And I remember like 16 year old me being very angry about that fact. You were that guy. I was, I probably left a shitty comment. I was about to say, yeah. It's just called G4. So we do a thing, sometimes on Cool Games Inc.

called the kind of rapid fire thing where we just run through ideas real quick. If anything catches our eye, then we can kind of elaborate on it. But I'll just start reading. Forrest Suarez suggests nap simulator VR. I mean, I like that one. Here's what I like about that one. Yeah. So it's a VR game.

VR experience you should be short and punchy, right? You have, you're in VR and you have, the setup beforehand is that you've been up all night working. You've been up for 40 hours. You are crashing. So your vision's fading. You're doing this. You have to build the best nap in 60 seconds.

Oh, God. And so there's like pillows around and blankets and hammocks and beds and like there's, but there's like proximity to the road. There's a drippy faucets, shit like that you have to worry about to find the optimal space. There are like, for example, as someone who takes an occasional nap, I think there are pros and cons to taking a couch nap versus a bed nap. And that's something you got to factor in. Ooh, I don't even think about doing a bed nap. It's all couch. I dabble in naps myself.

Yeah, yeah. I am all couch. All couch all the time. Actually, you what I found, you usually need like sounds like the radio or something. I found exactly what works for me. I go on Netflix, and they have like all 27 seasons of forensic files. Oh, no.

That's kind of a spooky thing. The way it flows is just rudimentary and it's like and and and and and with its voiceover. And boom, I go to sleep in like two minutes. When we were in New York for Polygons like big video team meeting, I shared a hotel room with my co-host Griffin McElroy who is. How many times can you say Griffin's name on this podcast? love to say Griffin Macquarie's name. It's fun to say. There's a rhythm of the, it's like a punchy. Do you say Justin's name as much as Griffin's name? That's just Justin. But Griffin McElroy, I say the

full name at the time. This requires deeper investigation. Justin McElroy is mine. That's a fun. The McElroy moment. Literally went on for 30 episodes of Orioration before somebody's like, you're saying his name wrong. It's like, God damn it. He never corrected me. You just do J-Mack and G-Mack? That's really good. Man, how has that not come up before? Anyway, what I was going to say is, we shared a hotel room and he's way into the white noise. The I The white noise for sleeping. And I was blown away at how much it affected me. I really, the white noise just conked me right out.

That could be a power, that could be something, a direction you spec in for your nap VR game. Now, I will say this. It says nap simulator VR, and the idea of simulating a nap in VR is essentially just putting on a headset that's not plugged in. That's what a nap is like. So that's a free game that everyone has. If you have a VR headset, you have a VR headset. Close your eyes at home right now. You're playing.

So many of my naps are also like anxiety dreams. Oh, interesting. So that's another way that you can look at it. You know, where it's like, hold on, I can't mail the letter, but they need to get the check. What do you mean there's a final today? I haven't been to this class all semester. I started having those again. It's really weird.

Back in school and I've had actors' nightmares repeatedly in the past few months. Were they pushing you on stage? You know, I'm suddenly in a play and I don't, you know, I have not learned the lines. One of them was like Shakespeare. I'm like, I can't dick my way through this one. And yeah, the other one is like, like, I'm sorry. I'm suddenly taking a task that I haven't studied for. The anxiety dream that I share with my siblings

and a lot of my friends who are also big Dance Dance Revolution players, I found from talking to people, I thought this was just me, and then I realized over talking to DDR players, it is not just me. There's a recurring performance anxiety nightmare that people who play a lot of Dance Revolution have where you go to an arcade and you go to play DDR

and the machine is somehow fucked up. For me, it's frequently the front of the machine is covering up the top era, so I can't quite hit it right. Or as people have told me they've had ones where the DDR machine is extremely tiny, or the pads are just broken or arrows are missing. And so it's like,

it's, I think for DDR players who go to play it in an arcade and you're performing in a public place, this is our version of like a, like the stuff you're talking about with being in a play or something and not knowing the script. Like you go and to perform and you can't and it's not your fault.

I guess what's interesting is the dedication that's on display. It's like, you know, most reasonable people is like, I'm not doing that tiny DDR machine. No way, it's like, no, I have to play. I have to. My credibility has been challenged as a DDR master. It's, I don't, I can't,

I can't remember the last time I walked into like an arcade or a mall and saw a DDR machine and didn't play it. When you play the game, you have a physical compulsion to do it any chance you get, even if the pad is a nightmare. I've played at beaches before with sand in the pad and it's not ideal. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, explain DDR at the beach. So you don't get to walk away from that way. Man, we built an arcade in the sand. Surprised on a bigger hit. Ocean Is it a Belinda Carlisle, DDR smash up.

Yeah, there was a, at the pier at Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina. They had like a DDR Max 2 cabinet there right on the beach, which is like, seems like a very obvious idea that that's going to be a problem. But my fond memory there was actually having a friend stand behind the DDR machine holding a cup while I played and he requested tips. And we got like $3 and that was enough to play another year of DDR. And I was like, man, that's a beautiful, that's a beautiful thing. Look at that. Just just the cycle of life. The video game hustle never.

You can't start too early. I get another game. Yeah, all right. Here's another one. Chris Berg says hitman but set in a high school drama department you're a vengeful understudy willing to do anything for a top billing or top killing they didn't say that I said yeah see I when I read it

off of Twitter when I was copying it I hitman but in high schools and then even here it's like I think where you have to comically take people out right away totally no killing nobody's no murder but you're like you you may be oh god what would be some things like you got the sandbags then knock them out right yeah this game is rated teen yeah it's about teen yeah T-14s. Yeah, exactly.

So you have sandbags, you swap out the lines. And so, like, he ends up doing another play at rehearsal, and so he gets thrown out. Sure. You could, like, as the other study, you could be getting, getting him his, his Dr. Pepper, and maybe you put a little bit of some sort of diuretic in the beverage. Right, exactly. Yeah, I'm thinking, like, high school things. How do we make his acne breakout?

Like, where they can't perform. Oh, you replace the makeup with, like, bacon grease or something. Yes. Ooh, that's. This is good. That's horrible. Hey, man. We're helping out getting the part.

You know what I mean? I know, but I was just like, yeah, I just put it as different. Bring some 2017 into it. We hack their Facebook. He leaves his Facebook, his phone unattended. We post something bad on Facebook, not about killing. Yeah. Someone about, I don't know, drugs.

Dick picks, maybe, something like that. Our dick. Y'all are really good at this, by the way. I would love to have both y'all on cooking. We haven't done a guest in like seven months, but we should get back to that last guest. I don't want to talk about it. They're gone. Bacon grease makeup.

Colin Ray Parker suggests. Master, Pastor Blaster, your congregation all fell into a hole in the church and becomes radiated mutants. You must now fight and contain them, which feels like maybe this could be like a Far Cry 5 DLC situation. This is like a Blood Dragon.

Yeah, exactly, the Blood Dragon. Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's keep doing rapid art. Gavin, Gab games on Twitter suggests a game where you are only armed with a car battery and jumper cables. I'm trying, what would that control like? I think it's just that's,

those are the only thing. You're swinging the jumper cables that hit people. Oh, see, I was thinking, not armed. You're just like the best Samaritan. You just know someone out there needs a jump. It's what we're talking about earlier. It's the GTA guy but only playing as a cop.

You're just wandering this game looking to jump star cars. Someone's going to really be happy that I'm here. My head definitely went to combat for some reason. Everyone has, and I'm almost imagining... Have you played arms on the Nintendo Switch? No, I haven't yet. I'm imagining like an arms-like character where you've got the left and right jumper cables.

You need to attach both of them in Zappo. Here's what I'm thinking. I like your idea that it's It's, everybody, it's multi-player. Yeah. So it's kind of, let's do like Battlegrounds. That's exactly what I'm picturing. Everybody has it right. And then you have rooms that have weapons in them, but you have to power, or something

in them. You power up the door with the battery, but you have to leave it unattended. So other people swoop in and take your battery and your cable, shut you in the door, you're trapped in there or something like that. I mean, one thing that Battlegrounds is missing, I think right now, and I love that game. And it's like getting, it's seeping into Cool Games Inc. Like the game we made this week is basically just player unknown battles grounds,

except one person is your guardian angel watching over you and can tell you that enemies are in the next room. So it's teams of two, one Guardian Angel and one. But one thing about that game is I always, I have this constant feeling of like, man, I wish I could booby trap this house. Like, man, I wish I could attach jumper cables and a car battery to the doorknob. And then when someone walks in, they get zapped. Yeah, yeah. So maybe there's room for that in here somewhere.

Okay, okay. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Set traps with you. Or like, yeah, it's like a really malevolent Scooby-Doo. You know, like at the end of the Scooby-Doo episodes, like they have the elaborate plan, the shagging and Scooby, you know, always screw up to get the bad guy. But it's like that, but it's got like a nastier edge. because there's electricity.

There is electricity and death involved. And death. Phantom crust. Two player PVP battle about removing crust from bread slices. Where's the phantom in this? That's a dust. I'm looking to you because, you know. Well, I mean, we can get the phantom in there.

So the idea is that whoever doesn't get it done fat, whoever takes the longest to get the bread. So you got to, the bread is in the center. You got to run out. You got to fight each other's like gang beast or grab it and run to do it. You got to cut it. Then you got to. deliver it, and whoever doesn't get it delivered, a phantom swoops in like Nidhog takes the

crust. I love that. What I'm liking is just to give it a little bit more edge is that it's supposed to be for a cucumber sandwich. And if you've ever had a delicious cucumber sandwich, that ratio of cucumber to butter is essential. I mean, you're really, I mean, it's, it's tenuous, and you can screw up at any minute. Right.

To say nothing of you, the perfectly removed crusts. And then a phantom, no, it's kind of like at Passover when you leave the wine out for Elijah. You leave the cucumber sandwich out. You leave it, and then the phantom comes, and he relives, maybe he's an old British phantom. And he's just like trying to, like, you know, re-engage with the living and the corporeal, and he does it through cucumber sandwiches. That's not a bad way to do it. It's kind of a tragic tale of loss.

Until the end there, we had over-cooked DLC. Yang beast idea is also really exciting for video, too. Match them up. Match them up. Yeah, mash them up. All right, cool. Let's see. You want to do one more?

Yeah, I will, for whatever, you pick one more from the fans, and the final one has to be this one. But it's my chicken scratch handwriting if you need it. Here's a fan one. Spencer Caccini suggests alien isolation, but all the aliens are replaced with corgis. But there's only one alien in alien isolation. And all of them are replaced with corgis. Is it still a level of corgi?

Yeah, why are we hiding from the corgi? I want to pet him. Maybe that's the, maybe that's like, maybe it's like a gone home situation where you're scared for the first half of it and then you realize it was all for not. Why don't I just embrace this corgi? He seems like a nice guy. Good corgi. Or maybe it's kind of like that famous Twilight Zone episode with like the town that's terrified to the little girl. Sure, sure, sure, sure.

Except now it's a corgi and you're on the spaceship and you're like, why is there a corgi here? It must be evil. Right. But you're trying to figure out what the evil is of the corgi. It'd be perfect. I would want this game to exist just for the fact of sitting there watching you hear it in the vent and then it just like awkwardly falls. It shakes its head, comes over.

He's a sausagey dog comes out, smiling at you. Maybe it's because it's the corgi on a space station vibe, but I'm definitely a picture, picturing Eyn from Cowboy Bebop, if you've seen that. Like, that's just a fat, thick, sort of twinkie-like corgi that is sort of walk, like, they're in the low, no gravity rooms, it's kind of woggling its little legs in the air. It's some fun imagery.

Drift in, right? That's one of those cartoony things you like, right? It's one of those cartooning things I like, yeah. And now our final Cool Games Inc. comes from Tim Getty's. We can't be here because he's preparing for Kind of Funny Live and we're preparing for E33. Well, he clearly not preparing that hard to be sending you ideas. Tim's suggestion for his game is Press Conference Simulator

2014 HD Remaster. What have they updated? What have they added for the 2017 version? So think of 2014 video game conferences. What kind of thing would we have to add? The first thing they've updated is they're not calling them press conferences. They're calling them spotlight. Showcases.

Yeah, yeah. Jamberries. And. Direx. Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. You have the option if you want instead of actually having a press conference to have a pre-recorded thing.

Pre-recorded YouTube video. That was pioneered by Konami. And I remember G4. And everybody was like, let's not do it like that. Let's do it good. Yeah, let's do it good. They were alternately horrifying and ingenious. Yeah.

Look away from those early Konami press conferences. There's just something so special about like, God, one million troops. There's just so many things. I still think about that all the time. Naoki Maeda, who's basically the figurehead of Dance Revolution for the first decade of its existence was there showing off dance, God, what was it called? Dance Masters? It was like a connect dancing game where he said you can move your body freely.

And it's, I, there is one specific Konami press conference that I have fully memorized and we'll never get out of my head. I just like that you have to use the connect to actually move your body freely. Yeah, exactly. We are too constrained in our actual lives. In the real world. You need to connect to free us.

But somebody needs to read my body so I can free the body. It's the second time I've talked about connect today. Really? The fuck is going on. Was the first one here? No, the first one was on cool game thing. Oh, thank God. I was going to say, I mean, I black out most connects.

We talked about Connect Star Wars a little bit. That was like such a freeing moment of packing to move and picking up the connect. I'm like, fuck you. Trash. Sometimes there will be like a tiny, shitty thing about your life that you could fix really easily, but you don't. I've had my Xbox One Connect in front of my TV for two years now,

just sitting there, and it's like kind of blocking the IR thing on my TV. You do this. It's like the ceiling and stuff, so the brains will bounce off. And it's not even plugged in. Why am I doing that? I got a new TV, and it was like a shape was different, so I had to get rid of the Connect for that very same reason. What was funny were like, you know, for the next three days,

yelling at a television that stopped listening to me. Oh, God, yeah. And it was kind of like, oh. Don't give me the silent treatment. She's really gone. She's really gone. X-Box. Oh, there.

Final topic comes from you, the community. And I'm kind of in line because most of the shows come from you. You do a great job this week. Reader mail for all you guys. We're to start with Brian Pote. He says, Adam, what's your favorite memory of doing games media?

Do you miss doing it? I don't know if I miss it. There's little moments that I miss. You know what? I think what I do miss the most, and maybe you guys can tell me if it still exists, I kind of like the collegiality of like, you know, seeing, like, go to events and seeing you and like,

ever so often like seeing like old school friends of mine, like Ben Silverman and Andy Mac. You know, there was definitely a brothers in arms thing, you know, ever so often, especially for something like Judges Week or E3 where it's like, hey, how you're doing these things. How are you doing? That part I miss. And ever so often I get to go to these events like I did to see Far Cry 5.

I see, you know, friends there. I'm like, yeah, that part I like. That part I like. Just about everything else. I haven't had like that, oh boy, I got to, I have one day to review Crisis 3. Or, wow, that kid hates me. Yeah, I understand not missing that. One thing, and I'd love to know if you miss this, but working from home now with most of Polygon

headquartered in New York and the rest of us scattered around everywhere, I do a little bit miss the vibe of like coming into an office with you and Tara and Max and like sitting around, Like the office workplace stuff is the stuff I miss. You know, and it was so funny because one thing I never adjusted to at Rev 3 was the way that all you guys worked in the office. Yeah. Was that not how it worked at G4? You put on headphones. And I found it so confusing.

No, the way stuff would happen at G4, and really how so many of the sketches occurred on Xplay is somebody would yell something. Maybe they saw something on the internet. And then, invariably, my friend Mark Fahy, would grab his guitar and make a song out of what the person had yelled. And then two other people like, hold on, this. And then like a sketch would be born. Yeah. And I was always so accustomed to a raucous, loud, like people would just always be yelling at us. When we moved from the old G4 offices into the E building, that really caused, like, trouble

for us because we were surrounded by people that. Normies, we called them. Yeah, Normies. They didn't like us. And we were so used to kind of talking to one another and just kind of spitballing stuff like that. Yeah. Not that you guys were wrong to put on the headphones, but I would always turn around to like, I'm like, Max, I have an idea.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I really shouldn't feel like the old awkward guy. It was also, I think that was probably a symptom of the fact that Rev3 games was part of Vision 3, which was part of Discovery Digital Networks,

which was in one big giant open office place for a plan. And so like, we were just a few feet away from like editors and producers and like finance people. And it was like, there was. Normies. Yeah.

No, I guess so. Yeah. Like if we, if we, if we, I think the closest y'all ever got to solving that problem was when you moved into that tiny corner of the office and it was just packed it

crammed into this tiny spot where you had no choice but to like, interact with each other. Yeah, because if you spun around too much, I could actually, like, take off Tara's head. Do you remember when I watched you electrocute yourself? That was probably the scariest part of the, that's the scariest thing that's ever happened in my life is watching one of my idols. What, what was it doing? You were getting under your desk, I think, plugging in your MacBook charger. And it just absolutely just, I mean, I thought that was it. Like, I was going to die to a MacBook. Did it shoot up? Did it shoot up your arm? I think his, it went, like, there was enough and it was so strong. I jumped back. You jumped back. You were like clearly visibly

electrocuted and I looked at you and you looked at me and I was like do I need to like call 911 are you okay? I was like I don't know what to do but something just happened I mean I just that's the thing it's like I'm a PC gamer that was gonna get killed by a MacBook there you go that's how that it knew it knew it read between the house no that was one of the things about I didn't expect because you know we worked in the spare bedroom in my and colonized house for a year and a half and moving in here for a while I felt like we were playing house and

then when we hired Andy and then when like Joey's around and like there's like it's weird to be, we're in separate rooms now, and like, Nick will walk through and come back, and there was like the first week where people were working out of the office and we were just like, the new people working out of the office, and we were just like, they have a culture and they're having conversations that don't revolve around us, and they have no idea what it was like to be in that shitty fucking place and like on top of each other and me mad because Kevin was working at the kitchen table and I wanted to make sure I had dinner on the table for my girlfriend.

You know what I mean? It's like, man, that's weird. Now it's like a real thing again, whereas for so long it was fucking around. But you all feel comfortable here now, though, right? Yeah, now it's a thing. Yeah, you know, it's really cool. Yeah, this is your first time. I forgot you were spare bedroom.

You were, you were. I know it's fair better. Yeah, I went over the first time. I was like, interesting set up you. Yeah, yeah, that was the thing. I was trying to apologize to everyone as I took him up the stairs. I'm like, don't look at my dog.

You live and work here in the most deliberate, literal way. And I was like, I don't know if I could do that. That's the opposite of work-life balance thing. When you work from home, it's like a... You can't get away. It's always right there. Yeah. The work day does not have a concrete end anymore.

Yeah, it's, it's, It's a rough one. Gabe Gerwin wrote in and says, Nick, how can I become the Cheeto champ? You can't. There's only one. There's only room for one of us. Did you expect that video to blow up the way it blew up?

Did you tell me about this? I don't know. I don't think you did. I was almost heartbroken. So it's kind of like... How do we not know? I worked with you for that long and you never told me you climbed Everest or like killed someone and hid the body.

It's... I may have done one of those two things and haven't told you. But... Out of the blue one day on Twitter. you just dropped this video. That's how you at what age? I was, oh God. He was like 15.

15 years earlier. He still looks like that. What state are we in again? This is North Carolina. And you bought the biggest Cheeto off eBay? Yeah. And it's indirectly Adam Sessler's fault if you think about it. Because I found that Cheeto on the G4 forums,

which is where I used to hang out every day when I was like 14 or 15. Yeah, it was kind of like the silk road of idiots. Exactly what it was. I was on the deep web. And there was a segment on attack of the show called it came from eBay and someone had posted like hey check it out they should do an idiot came from eBay on this

enormous Cheeto turns out the guy who posted that in the G4 Forms was also the guy selling the Cheeto no one else bid on the Cheeto except for me so it was like $3 for this enormous Cheeto somehow the local news got word that I had the largest Cheeto and my came in on a flatbed truck right every in the town saw it coming through everyone in the town poking their head out the windows

and so this video emerged and I all credit to Max Covell for resurfacing this because I went to do the comedy button with him and he brought up that video and I was like oh fuck I forgot that even ever happened and I went and looked and I had like uploaded to Facebook in 2005 because I was so proud of it. So I just downloaded that threw it back up on on Twitter and YouTube and I literally thought like three people were gonna find it funny.

It's your sincerity in that video. Yeah. That like I had to watch it, I don't know how many times where I'm like trying to see what's behind your eyes where like he's grinning maniacally right because he's like he knows he's pulling one with a big snack food. So I'll clear up one. exception to that video, which is people watch that video and they're like, you were just a greasy little fuck, weren't you? You look like shit. And the reality was I had actually, at 15 year old Nick had gotten cold feet about having the news crew come over and I decided I didn't want to do it. And at the last minute, I was like, you know what? I should just do this. It's the once in a lifetime thing. So I took a shower three minutes before the news van showed up. So my hair was still wet. It was not grease. It was water. Okay. Explain the anxiety. Once in a lifetime opportunity. I know. It was like, yeah. It was like 15 year old me being on the local news. and like being interviewed in front of a camera,

it was just, it was terrifying. And so I was like, I don't know if I can like, just like general teen on a camera nervousness, you know? Yeah. But if you look closely,

I'm also wearing a Harvest Moon shirt with a giant chicken on the back of it and a Natsume logo on the front. So clearly I wasn't that worried about appearances. You want to look cool for your friends. Yeah. All my Harvest Moon friends. Exactly.

All your Harvest Moon friends. Gamer Up says, what do you guys think about a possible announcement of the Evil Within 2 at E3, 2017 Bethesda Press conference. I mean, it's locked, I think it's possible.

I think it's got to happen. Really? Yeah, don't you? It's time. It's been how many years since Evil Within? I really liked Evil Within.

How did that game do? How did that game do? Better than they thought it was going to do. Yeah, really? Yeah. You know, they found critical success and I'm definitely an audience for sure. Yeah.

Yeah. Huh. I'm stealing that as one of our predictions for the. That's a cool prediction. I was about to say I forgot the Evil Within existed except for the theme song of Carboys is Claire to Loon. And I used the Evil Within Compos version of that song. it's fucking horrifying.

I use that version in one episode for like one minute because I love the way they did it in that game. Like that game's whole soundtrack was so cool. I would totally be down. I mean, what has Macami been doing since Evil Within?

Like I have no idea. That's the thing you figure I remember preview it at IGN. It's got to be, it's not even within without you. It's like a Beatles. With a Horror. Yeah.

Oh, they go from using classical music to using like licensed Beatles music but like horrifying covers of them. I play this game. Are we back in the cool game segment? Cool Game Inc. Do we just come up with other one? Shinji Makami on Cool Games.

Get him on it right there. Chris Moore, or as most people who listen to the show know him as, Moore Sion, says, does Adam and Nick think Armored Corps should change its mission play for the next installment? Okay, this is the funniest question I've ever been asked. Every week, he asks Armored Corps questions. Oh, really? He doesn't care who the guest is.

He just asked Armored Core questions. Lucky for y'all. Which one was Armored Corps? Adam is a huge Armored Core expert. But not the cool one. Don't be humble. Adam is the biggest Armored Core fan on Earth. He loves it.

He can name all of them. His name is actually in the credits of armored core So just tell us a little bit about your mech load out In the most recent armored core And like how you can How many flares did you use? Yeah, how many flares? Four?

Okay. It's interesting. And I call my armored friend Giuseppe. Justi. Interesting. Yeah. I wanted to have kind of a Pinocchio vibe

to my armored core experience. What do you think? What's the most overrated weapon in armored core would you say? Love. Great answer. Love can bloom on the armor core Battle

Battlefield. Thank you. Thank you. Over there. At In Azuma Jaga, what's Babylonian's favorite game of all time? For the longest time,

I've been automatically saying Phantom Dust. Yeah, you have to. And so now that Phantom Dust is freely available to everyone on Earth, I think I should definitely keep saying it because anyone who has Windows 10 or an Xbox one

can go download the entire game in HD for free right now for $0.0.0.0. And that's bananas. I feel like I live in this weird Splinter universe where like all like the same I'm getting a Phantom Dust HD remaster I'm getting a good Sonic the Hedgehog game

like this year feels like someone you died somewhere you're in a coma I saw the announcement of the Phantom Dust Remaster I had this image of like Phil Spencer waking up in the morning and you're like out on his lawn say anything style

yep boombox yeah just just holding up an Xbox Harvest Moon T-shirt yeah and I assume that's how it all happened last spring I interviewed Phil Spencer for the first and only time and I out of What did you do?

I hammered him with fandom dust questions. And to his credit, he, he actually, the fun thing about the fan dust remaster, Phil Spencer literally did not know it was coming. Shannon, he gave basically, Shannon Loftus at Microsoft Studios, went off in a corner and secretly had the remaster begin. And then like right before he three, she surprised him with it, which is like, I think a really awesome idea of just like, she took this little, she feels like, what are you doing in that corner?

Nothing. Go away. Squirrel the way budget and surprised Phil Spencer with a Phantom Dust remaster. and that's like a weird game industry story that I enjoy a lot. He didn't even know it was coming, so. Oh, Adam, I forget, when you were on, but did you ever tell us your favorite game all time

on one of the previous shows? I either say Ghost and Goblins or something else. I always, I always pivot on this one and just go to Ghost and Goblins just because it's like, it's out there. Yeah. So. Final question.

Harrison Milfield. He says, what's the best advice to a Gerno graduate who has freelanced and podcast for years for free for years and it's trying to break through professionally. Stop doing it for free. Yeah. I mean, look, it's, I get asked this question a lot and I get a little uncomfortable because it is a tough racket.

Like this is, it is a much different world than the one I started in in 1998 where I would probably give far more concrete advice. Like, really think through if you want to do this because it's not the most loving and caring world. and there's a lot of, like, challenges that come with it. But the big one is, I just mean this to everyone, stop doing work for free because you are now creating the expectation that you would do that.

And you really be taken advantage of, and you'll be doing it for exposure. And like, I was even offered exposure in 2014 or 13. Remember that? Well, nobody knew who you were. No, no, it was South by Southwest. They wanted me to host something, and they wouldn't even pay for my flight or my hotel.

And they're like, yeah, well, we thought you'd get great exposure. Yeah, get that like, I'm like, I'm fucking exposed. That's why you came to me. Yeah, I think that's great advice. It's like, and it's easier said than done, I think, to stop working for free. But when you work for free, you, it's not experienced the way that you want experience. And it's also, like, weirdly harmful for everyone else out there because if anyone's working for free, then no one's getting paid. No, I mean, you know, I don't want to sound selfish.

But yeah, I mean, that that's kind of. of what has happened. And they're doing that from a genuine and honest place. I'm not going to, I'm not faulting them for that. But I, you know, the pay is really,

really low when you start in these things. And that's kind of what Games Press is kind of based on them. I think every outlet, I'm not going to be naming names, but what I have always felt is one of the biggest challenges is, at most places you have people have been around for a long time and there's new people coming in. And those people who have been around for a long time

kind of guide and kind of teach, Because I believe a lot of reviewers when they're young, you tend to be a lot more critical because you think that's the way that you can kind of prove your chops. And I remember I, you know, sometimes you're like, hey, are you really sure that, you know, that you want to take this tax? This is how you really feel about the game. And just, you know, you can just kind of meldle them out so that, you know, they can find their own voice. We don't see that as much anymore because you can't, it's very hard to grow old in the gaming press. I mean, that's one of the key reasons I'm not there anymore. I mean, you talk to anybody.

That's why it's like that. And so a lot of these young people that are coming in are also coming in without experienced people in that kind of guidance. And I think that's creating one of the biggest challenges. I'm not going to say in the quality of the writing, but kind of, I think, in tone and temperament. A lot of stuff that's happening out there. This is an obvious thing. But if you can hustle really hard and get yourself an internship, that's huge. I had an internship at Giant Bomb when I was 20 or 21.

And I credit that to a lot of like the chances I got later on. People are like, you have actually worked at a video game place. You know what? And the other one is, learn to play the games most people don't like. Because that's where you're starting out. You're not going to get the new Ken Levine game when you start out. That's interesting point.

What you are going to be given is, you know, stuff that's very genre specific. Maybe sports. I mean, it's very useful if you know sports games. You know, certain types of strategy games. I mean, those, if you can be proficient at those. You're willing to take on, like, you are going to become far, far more valuable. What I always tell people is, like, when you start off and you're doing, doing this, obviously do it every day, do all this. And he sounds like he's already doing that.

But have a niche, right? If you're the guy who, and you're going to go write the umpteve Bioshock infinite review, that doesn't speak as loudly as, hey, I'm the guy who only reviews this thing of this subset of just NIS games or whatever. Yeah, like I look at what's, what, like, the last few times I've seen big websites hiring, I feel like the things that I see people, and anecdotally, like, what I feel like I see people hiring for right now is people who make video and people who do esports coverage. I think those are the two, like, oh, job openings right now. And if you have any interest in either those things, it seems like a pretty smart. If you could be

what's called a predator, which is a producer editor, you are kind of gold. And to be perfectly honest, I am almost worried, like, even recommending being a predator because I'm so old school that I still think editors and producers should be separate human beings. Keep them in different buildings. Don't let them talk to each other.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the kind of funny games cast episode 122. Thank you for watching. Remember, you can get it on a patreon.com slash kind of funny games early. You get our bonus episode we're going to do over there if we still have time. We still have time early. You can watch Andy Cortez do stuff over there. Isn't that right, Andy? Yeah, that's Andy. Guys, this is great. You're both

great. I think you're going to have a long career in this industry, both of you. You know what I mean? Really? Yeah. Oh, thanks, Greg. Things might work out for this Adam Susser guy. Oh, maybe my hair will come back. No, that's not going to happen. And that Dewee Hope I used to have in my eyes. Until next time, it's been our pleasure to serve you.