The Press Box - Ep. 206: 'Overwatch,' E-sports, and the NES Classic

Episode Date: November 12, 2016

The Ringer's Ben Lindbergh and Jason Concepcion talk to former pro gamer and coach and current 'Call of Duty' and 'Overwatch' caster Matt "Mr X" Morello about the appeal and future of 'Overwatch' and E-sports (1:31). Then, they bring on Kotaku news editor Jason Schreier to discuss Nintendo's NES Classic, the risks of going retro, and gaming nostalgia (32:12). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Today's episode of Channel 33 is brought to you by Seekek, the presenting sponsor for my podcast, as well as the only fan-friendly app for buying and selling tickets for sports and music. With just two taps on your phone, you can instantly buy Seekkeek tickets to an event, and you can enter that event just using your phone, no paper tickets. Drop your old ticket app. Use one that's built for 2016. Download the free Seatgeek app or go to Seekgeek.com.

Hello. and welcome to Achievement-oriented the Channel 33 Gaming Podcast. My name is Ben Lindberg, and I'm a staff writer for the ringer.com, joined as always by my fellow ringer writer, Jason Concepcion. Hello, Jason.

Woo! Is everyone okay? We all okay out there? Just ready to play video games for hours and hours a day. I think that's what we all need. I think that's what we need right now. Yeah, and we've made it to episode three.

Now that we're a trilogy, I guess we can just act like we've been there before. We don't have to keep acting as if we're not going to be back. We're going to be back. We've made it. We're established. So we're happy to be here. And we have a couple of guests to talk to today.

Later in the episode, we are going to talk to Jason Shrier, who's the news editor at Kotaku. And we're going to ask him about the NES classic, which just came out, some retro gaming talk. But before we get to Jason and old school gaming, we are going to talk about the present, talk about the future, talk about e-sports. So I'm teeing you up to introduce our first guest. Today we have with us Matthew Mr. X, Morello. He is a esportscaster, former esports athlete. You might know him from Call of Duty World Championships. You might know him from the recent Overwatch World Cup.

You might know him as a native of Plainview, Long Island. That's right. Very close to where I grew up in Levittown. Oh, hell's yeah. So, Matt, thanks for being with us here today. Oh, no, thanks for you guys bringing me on. It's always weird when someone says Mr. X. It's like I'm so used to hearing my actual name.

I'm like, who's that guy? But no, it's awesome. Do people get self-conscious about gamer tags? Like, are there contexts in which you want them to be used and others in which you don't actually want people to say that? Some people are like super particular. Like, it's got to be said exactly how it is. I'm like, you can call me Matt.

You can call me Morello. You can call me X. you can call me Mr. X. Like, I don't mind it. It's not something I'm super attached to. As someone who's, like, my Twitter handle is my Xbox Live Gamer tag, it was super weird when people started calling me that in real life? Was that weird for you?

Oh, yeah. Like, the first, like, events that I went to in, like, 2006, 2007, people started calling me Mr. X, and I was like, look, I was like, you met each other in person. Like, we don't have to use that anymore. Like, like, your name's Andrew, your name's Chris. like I'm not calling you like compact killer. Your name's like Bernardo. Like like we're getting lunch.

Like we don't have to go by that. So I always found it. Like for me, once the initial meetup went out of the way, I felt like you can kind of go with the first name basis. Yeah, that's how I feel is just so strange when that happens. Your career is really interesting because it's it's very traditional sports athlete arc. You know, you went from competing. in tournaments to broadcasting them.

Can you describe your background a little bit? Yeah, so in 2006, 2007, I was like a professional player on the MLG Pro Circuit. And then after that, I took like a few years off from e-sports. I was just working with my parents and whatnot. And then I ended up coming back. And when I came back, I got into coaching teams and then managing teams. And then from there, it kind of turned into like another type of job. Like, I still love the competition.

I want to be a part of it. So the managing teams is like great. And then with the broadcasting stuff, it just kind of came out of the blue, to be honest. They asked me to go on one of the broadcasts. They end up going well. And then I just have kind of spun it into a whole another career. So I've been pretty fortunate in e-sports to kind of see a little bit everything.

And what made you want to make that first career move where you burned out? Did you just see a longer future in other areas? because the aging curve can be so unforgiving for competitors? Or did you just need a break? I needed a break. And I think everybody who's a competitor, they kind of, when you see yourself,

like not being as good as what you was, like that kind of sucks. Like you're just like, like I was winning tournaments. And then like that first like seventh place, you just kind of sit around the hotel after. You're like, well, that was awful. Like I played bad.

And it was like, I don't think I want to do that. I think I want to try. and create something different for myself in the space. So I kind of, I wanted to walk away out on top. I didn't want to, you know, just be somebody straggling, holding on for a while. Yeah, I guess you can't call yourself Mr. X if you struggle for too long. No, no.

I mean, I watched Ewing play for the Sonics and the magic. So I know what it's like to watch somebody hang on for a little bit too long. When did it become kind of reality that you would actually be able to, like, be in tournaments and make money for me? I mean, like, you know, I think everybody who plays video games has that one spark of, oh, wow, I'm pretty good at this one. But when was it like, oh, I'm really, I'm good enough to like, you know, with a car? Well, actually, that's hilarious because I did win a car. That's how, that's how we figured this all out. So they ran a tournament.

I believe it was like GameStop and some other Dodge was the sponsor of it for a game, Rainbow Six Vegas. and at the time I'd only played online and like a small group of people and I was like I thought I was pretty good but you never like really kind of know and then I just remember like getting to the finals this tournament and like winning this car like with our team and like running in

and telling my mom and her being like that's BS they don't get away cars on the internet and then like we sold it was a Dodge Nitro I don't even know if they make Dodge Nitros right now but I just remember like bringing home the check from like selling the car to her and she was like oh my god like this is legitimate and then

you know MLG started doing tournaments all over the states and the first one I was a little bit skeptical I was like I don't know if I want to go do this I was like it's just an odd environment like for me like I was like I'm going to meet all these people I'm known for years like just kind of it was odd but once you get there it was a completely normal and then once I started doing it I started placing well so I kind of I knew I was pretty good you just never really know how good you are until you actually try. And obviously over even just the last several years, it's become more lucrative and better organized and standardized.

And so I wonder whether, you know, like in other sports, there's always this moment where suddenly there's just inflation and salaries and everyone's earnings skyrocket. And then the players who played before that point, some of them get kind of bitter. And they look and they say, you know, I made a fraction of this to do the same job. That's me. Come along a little later. Is that something that a lot of esports players from the early days are feeling right now? Oh, yeah.

Oh, for sure. I mean, I look at some of these guys, like, first class, travel. Everybody's got their own hotel rooms. Like, I think my first event, like, I shared a room with, like, five other people. I drove from New York to North Carolina. And I was like, now I'm seeing these guys. Like, they fly in all over the world. They're making, like, hundreds of thousands.

I'm like, this is great. I feel like it'll be how the NBA is in, like, a few years when, like, the salary cap just keeps going like out of control. Well, yeah. Now NBA teams are getting involved. The Sixers are the first North American sports team to actually buy an esports team. You're seeing all these figures from traditional sports, traditional media, seeing the energy that's in the esports scene and wanting to be part of it.

How has that affected esports in general the last year or so since this has been happening? I think it's been great for esports. I think it just gives even more just overall recognition of what. what's going on, like in our scene. Like, I mean, we have guys that are making like 100,000 plus a year, out of a million followers on social media, like huge YouTube fan bases and whatnot. And like, sometimes, like, you speak to people

and, like, they have no idea, like, this, like, little world even exists. So I think, like, bringing in those sports franchises and just, you know, some other business people to run some of these teams and market them. I think, like, it really helps legitimize what we're doing. And why is it so difficult for players to stay at a high little for a long time? Is it because of the conditions? Because teams are only just now starting to figure out that you have to give guys breaks and, you know, treat it like an actual sport where maybe you can't play all day every day. Is that part of it? Is it actual reaction time declining? And competition just being very cutthroat and you needing to be 19 to just be the quickest clicker. So I think there are like a few factors they go into, right? I mean, reaction time kind of goes down with age. I think those things are like. like correlated than like, you know, you're in school, then you're trying to work another job,

maybe girlfriend, family, there's like so many different things that can kind of go into like your desire to play. But then the actual games themselves, like what's interesting about esports compared to something like, you know, traditional like an NBA or football or whatnot, like you look at something like Overwatch. It's like you're really good at a few heroes. It's like an update comes out and that changes like the pool of heroes that people play. And then it's like, well, maybe you're not that good at that. and so you're not as good as like the game as you once were like a month ago or like Call of Duty like a new game comes out every year with like different guns and different mechanics and

stuff so it's like it's a really hard grind to stay at the top and only a few people like in e-sports in general i mean you know really kind of stay at that top for more than like a year and a half two years it's pretty difficult i'm glad you mentioned overwatch because i've been trying to get ben to play the game i think you got to play you got to play it ben i think he really i think he'd really like it There's just so many heroes that I feel like would fit Ben's flag style. You would be an excellent lucio. That's what I tell him. My playing style is just bullet sponge is what I'm gathering.

It's so hard to kill. You keep telling me to be a tank, which I'm taking as an insult. I think you'd be a tank. The tanks are great. Listen. Anyway, so I was watching the World Cup. And why are the South Koreans so good? Dude, they are sick.

The thing I love about Overwatch, you know, and I like, I'll watch Call Duty sometimes. I'll watch CSGO occasionally. But there's like a level of strategy that you can reach because of the mesh of heroes that I think is really special. Like South Korea did this thing where they knew that they were opposed. I think it was, it might have been Sweden. They knew that the opposing team had a had an ultimate, which is like when you charge up your hero, they have a special ability. And so they position themselves within the map to use the GI.

of the map to kind of like negate the power of that ultimately. They're just so smart. Talk about that like that game in the context of e-sports right now. It's just it's like at the pinnacle, I think of like it hits like kind of every box, right? I mean, it looks great as a game. Like it plays great. It's a lot of fun. I mean, the multiple different heroes like fit different play styles, you know, for different people.

Like some people aren't the best like amers, for instance. It's like you can play a hero like a rhine. or somebody like a lucio and make like a massive difference in the game but i think it's just like it's like you're watching chess at like super high speed like i mean these guys are going like a million miles an hour but to your point i mean you you kind of look at like what south korea did it's like they just work so well as a team like i think overwatch is like the first real like full team e-sport, I think we have. Like, Call of Duty, like, is a team game, like, in concept, but, like, you can have, like,

one or two guys, like, carry your team in kills, right? It's, like, six Kobe's, basically. Yeah. This is, like, you have to have, like, six top-notch players, and, like, you have to be on the same page at, like, a million miles an hour. I think it's just really impressive, especially the things the South Korea is doing. Yeah, they have one of their players, Miro, uh, Mains, tanks, and he was playing Winston, who is a, like, this guerrilla space scientist,

guerrilla character who puts out very little damage, but is very mobile. And it's kind of overlooked. Like if you play online, a lot of people don't pick him. I've been messaged not to pick him. And then you watch the way Miro plays Winston, and it's just, it's like really inspiring. Like, there's a creativity there that I just didn't realize was possible. They're a freaking amazing team. Oh, so sick.

They're so good. I mean, the things that he does, like, the thing that I found, crazy is like I'll play some Winston online. I'm pretty good. And I'll die, like, whatnot. And like, Mirro never dies. He never dies. And like, I was, I mean, even when I'm casting it, I'm like, all right.

Like, he's been in there for a while. And like, I take a look down at his HP and it's still at like 400. Like, I'm like, how? Like, how is he? Like, has anyone see him? Like, is he invisible? Like, he just, uh, they just play it like different. And I think what's great about Overwatch is the different abilities.

I mean, a lot of people. people like Winston, he has this like jump where you can just basically just do this massive jump. It does a little bit of damage, but get into different spots. And it's like a lot of people use that to like get into battles. It's like Miro just kind of like walks in there as Winston like does a little bit of damage. Then as soon as he feels like he's getting in the trouble, he uses that jump to get away. So it's like just a completely different concept. Yeah, it's something I noticed that he does is the cool down.

When you use your jump, you've got six seconds before you can use it again. And he'll jump and kind of jump into. like the geometry of the roofs and kind of slide down so it burns off like one or two seconds of his cool down. So he still gets the damage when he lands. But then he's ready to jump out

much quicker. And it's just like these really little smart things that you notice. And that's another thing I was watching it. First of all, the set was amazing. Like it's crazy how polished esports broadcasting has become. What do you see as the chain? But it's also obvious

that the evolution of the broadcasting language is changing. Like, it's, you know, you're not sure how to do picture and picture yet. These are things that are still being worked out. Where do you see that that broadcast language going over the next few years? Oh, I think the sky's to limit. I mean, we have like some really smart broadcast people in e-sports. And I think just like learning from traditional sports. Like, we did some stuff at the Overwatch World Cup where we did like instant replays like as the actions happening. Like we were doing some picture and picture stuff. Like we can go to different interviews, different sets. And I think the thing that changes the game for us is like when we do get like all the

broadcast tools like down and polished. Like we're almost there now, I think like overall in esports. But like we have so more so much more accessibility to the players and to different developers and whatnot than like traditional sports. It's like there's sometimes like a player will give an interview after a basketball game. You won't hear from everybody. It's like we have the ability to go to anybody we want. Like the players are more than willing to work with us. The players want to be the biggest thing ever. So like, I think that's really where we can separate ourselves. It's like that backstage access and that insider stuff that you usually don't get.

And I think once we get that production to match it, it'll be even better. Yeah, when Jason and I were at MSG a few weeks ago watching the League of Legends semifinals, we were sort of struck by how much of the language the casters were using could have come from any other sport. Like, obviously there's a lot of game-specific jargon that wouldn't make sense to anyone who hadn't played it or watched it before. But a lot of the focus on sort of the pressure of the moment and being able to perform in front of a big crowd or the narratives of the teams coming in or the rivalries between regions, all that sort of stuff just could have come, you know, almost word from any traditional batter ball sport. Well, I think to the point, like, I almost feel like you kind of need to do that, especially when you're trying to get to like different audiences and so many new people coming into e-sports. It's like if we try to like, sometimes I ran into that in Call of Duty. It's like I knew the game so well that I would talk so technical about it that like new people would be like, wow, I have no idea what that guy's talking about.

Like that guy that guy is talking about some crazy stuff. It's like I kind of learn like you can kind of get the same points across but just using a little bit of simpler terms and really just kind of like dumb it down. And I think that's what's really helped Eastwards viewership overall in the last year kind of grow is the fact that now I have. I think we're starting to involve everybody instead of just the hardcore. Is there a genre that is more fun for casters or more challenging for casters? Like if you could compare broadcasting a first-person shooter versus a moba or something, I mean, just in terms of what you can see and how much you have to keep in mind is one significantly different from the others? No, I've only casted first-person shooters.

Mobas, I feel like, would be extremely difficult, something like a League of Legends or Dota, just because there's a... so many things you have to manage. Like, you have to manage kills. You have to manage what level the people are, what items they're buying, like how much gold they have. And then like special things popping up on the map. Like I can just imagine like what kind of a headache that is. But with call duty, like it's pretty, it's pretty straightforward because it's like always a first person perspective. Like you kind of have like game modes that are pretty easy to understand, like abilities that are pretty easy to understand. So it's not like super difficult like in terms of like understanding

visually, like where things are. Overwatch is a little bit jarring. The first time I cast it Overwatch, I was like, oh man, I was like, I play like 300 hours of it online. I was like, I'm gonna go Cassis, it's gonna be like a breeze. And then like the game's just so fast when you're watching it. Like, you just want to talk about everything. Like that's the thing that really kind of hit me. It's like, oh my God, there's so many cool things happening. It's like, now you have 30 seconds to speak. It's like, what are you going to talk about? I'm like, I want to talk about all of it. Like all of it was awesome. So I think Overwatch was a big adjustment for me, But now after doing it like one or two times, I kind of find it pretty easy.

It's super easy to follow. But when Ben and I were at MSG, the teams were in the hero selection portion right before the match. And one of the players selected a hero, some redhead magic-y-looking character. And the arena erupted for some reason. And we were just like, I guess that's, I don't know. I think that's when they picked a misfortune to be support. Listen, it very well may be. It very well might be.

So I was watching the World Cup, and a lot of, I don't think there were any two-one games. It's pretty much all like two-Os, just like. And they seem like, in retrospect, you would look at those scorelines and think they were like steamrollers, but a lot of those matches were really back and forth. There was like exciting things that happened in every match. There were so many matches that turned on one. play of a player either mismanaging an ultimate or boosting the wrong player. How do you bring out those moments? Because like you said, the game is so fast. Is that something you guys think about, like how to

better bring out those moments after the fact to kind of like build up the in-game narrative of what happened? Oh yeah, absolutely. I think that's kind of why we added those in-game instant replays, because there's some stuff like even we miss, right? Like, you know, when a Genji is stuck in a Graviton surge and he reflects like a pulse bomb. It's like the game's moving so fast sometimes you can't actually see that. So I think the coolest part of those instant replays is, you know, play would happen. We talk about how important it is what happened. And then I know Blizzard just did a fantastic job.

Like they had like eight or nine different observers there and you were able to pretty much get like a first person POV of anybody. So like in the back they're recording all the first person POVs and then we're just showing you like an overall game feed. And we were able to do replays from the first person. person's perspective. And that's what really helped, like, kind of set the narrative. But that's something all the casters talk about.

Like, they're trying to figure out, like, what are the key ultimates going into a fight? What are the key players going into a match and just trying to really bump up those stories? Talk about that system a little bit. So you've got people watching backstage and they will pick out a play and say, oh, this, this McCree missed his flash bomb and that kind of changed this fight. Is that how it works? You've got, like, different people just at screens watching from different players' perspectives

and they'll call something out? Yeah, so I mean for Bliscon to give you like a just a little bit of like an idea. Like they had like six replay people. They had like, you know, the eight in game observers. I think it might have been even more. But they kind of can assess like what's that key moment. Like what was the cool thing? Like and then of course like we're in a third person POV and we see somebody get like, you know,

three kills with like a dead eye or a death blossom. It's like you want to see that from the first person POV. And I, you know, the observers, directors. I mean everybody like even the. play guys. They have basic knowledge of e-sports. They've played the game. So I think that helps as well because they're able to just kind of key stuff out and then throw it into the broadcast and we know as casters what's coming. And how big a role do stats play or how deep do they go? How deep do you think they'll go in the future? How much prep and scouting and sorting through leaderboards will you

have to do at some point just to be prepared to cast something? A lot. A lot. I mean, in Overwatch, for instance, I mean, we have to know, like, which are the main heroes for each player. And I mean, six players on a team, like 16 teams in a tournament. That's a lot of information already. And then, you know, in game, you're trying to look at, you know, the damage dealers, like how much damage are they actually outputting to, like, how many kills they're picking up? And, you know, how many final blows does McCree have? Like, how many times has McCree taken out, you know, Genji or Tracer?

There's a whole lot of numbers you're just trying to just kind of rattle in your brain. I think the most important thing, though, is to, like, not kind of just throw the numbers out at the fans. It's, like, just take the numbers that are, like, relevant to the match and then kind of present them. I think if you threw all the stats at them, they would just be overwhelmed, I feel like. So what do you think of the news about the new league that was announced last week, particularly the city-based teams, was something that Jason and I were pretty excited about, because that just seems like something that could really capture the attention of someone who is not necessarily in. on esports to this point and just hasn't been able to get behind all of these teams with, you know, hard to remember names and people constantly switching from one team to the next. And if suddenly

you actually have a team that is based in your city and maybe has some consistency to it, that seems like it could be a really big step, not just for Overwatch, but if it spreads to all of e-sports. Oh, yeah, I think I tweeted out the other day. Like, the Overwatch League has the potential to just change the entire landscape of e-sports. I think just, like with the way they're setting it up with the different cities. I think when I first heard it announced and I saw like they know the different cities and players playing there and whatnot. And it's like that's cool.

Like that's something that like I can explain to my friends like pretty easy. Like hey, we have a New York Overwatch team like and they're going up against Los Angeles. And my friends go, well, I hate the Lakers and the Clippers and I love New York. So I'll watch the New York Overwatch team and hopefully they bash LAA in. Like I feel like that's something that a lot of casual. fans can get behind, and it's something I think that can definitely, like, propel Eastports forward. I think, I think Overwatch League is going to be incredible. For someone who's, who has no idea about Overwatch kind of plays video games for fun, has that kind of experience

with it. Sell Overwatch as an e-sport to them. Like, who are the, who are the players that really excites you? What is it about the gameplay that is so entertaining to watch? Yeah, Overwatch is just an incredible game in an esport because of the whole team aspect. It's something that I think a lot of people can understand like that of, you know, played sports or watch sports. I mean, the NFL, like you have the importance of an offensive line. It's like your offensive linemen in Overwatch are basically your tanks, like the guys that are just leading the way for your superstars in the back.

I know maybe your McCree is like your wide receiver or something where, you know, those are the guys who need to make plays. And you have the guys kind of leading the way for the guys to make plays. Then you have your playmakers, your guys like, you know, somebody like Taimu on Envi who like just has like this crazy amount of skill, like, who can just, you know, just pick players off at range or somebody like Teveek who, like, where skill kind of like drastically changes, right? I mean, Tavik is like, like, consider one of the best players in the game because he can play so many different heroes at a high level.

It's like not many players can do that. So I think just watching these guys and how versatile they are and how smart they are as well, I, I think it's just a incredible viewing experience, especially once you watch it like once. When you watch it once, I feel like you kind of get addicted to it and then you start following players and you can go watch them stream individually and whatnot. And I think just the whole team aspect, how fun Overwatch is is just a game. I mean, you have a monkey with a laser cannon, like just taking people out. Like, you have like this large, like, fat-bellied man with a hook and a mask and like a nail gun. Like, it's just, it's so awesome. Like, the concept of all the heroes is just so cool. I think it's just a game that can just bring a lot of

people together. Yeah, when I was watching the final, I was struck by how the narrative of that of South Korea versus Russia was could be extrapolated into so many sports, especially basketball, because it was really, it really seemed like South Korea was a cohesive team while Russia just was very good, but they had, they have one standout guy, Shadowburn, who plays the ninja Genji. And Genji's role really is just to kind of get in behind the other team and cause chaos, get a lot of kills, wear down the enemy, have them never be able to look in a particular direction because they're, you know, you're always concerned that he's behind you. And they just absolutely shut him down. Yeah. I mean, it was really like,

it was like something you'd see in basketball where they're like, okay, stop this guy and let, let's see if the supporting cast can carry the game and they couldn't. Yeah. It was really amazing. Kind of reminds me of the NBA finals from 2007 Cab Spurs where like LeBron was good enough to get him to the finals, but like they didn't have a supporting cast. and the Spurs were just such like a good team overall that like you kind of looked at Russia and like Shadowburn is there LeBron like they wrote him all the way of the finals but like it just showed like that a good overall team effort can really just kind of trump any individual play and uh I do think though I mean shadow bronze just run at that event was just like insane like that was like he was like

one B-sixing teams for like yeah the entire week I was like how long can this go like it just was it was a really good just climax to like overall on Blisscon it's like because you kind of saw the stories develop like Russia was like a surprise team out of groups and then nobody really thought

that Russia could like make it there and then once you started watching Shadowburn play you're like all right they won that one but like can he do it against this team and it's like oh well he did it against them it's like can he do it against the next

and they found themselves in the finals but I think Korea just prove that if you have just an overall just fantastic team with good teamwork. You can take out one player. So when you started, I imagine most e-sports teams were very bare bones and sort of, you know, see their pants operations. And now things are getting much more professionalized. And, you know, there will be like benefits and minimum salaries and everything in the new Overwatch League,

which shouldn't be remarkable, but sort of is in comparison to where esports used to be. So what do you think the typical e-sports team will look like in, say, 10 years, you know, in terms of support staff and infrastructure and just everything that goes into the team apart from the players themselves. I think you'll see huge staffs kind of like how professional sports do. I think you'll see teams bring in like legitimate like coaches and like, you know, ex players and whatnot. I think you'll see teams also bring in like sports psychologists and, you know, maybe some chefs to like do some dietary needs. Like maybe like a trainer to come in and just keep these guys in like top physical shape. and I think it'll be cool.

Like, I mean, you kind of look at something that traditional sports can't do, that esports can do. It's like, well, what if New York was just one brand? Like, what if the Knicks, like, encompassed, like, football, hockey and basketball? It's like, that's something that e-sports could do. It's like, you could have, like, one brand that has, like, all these top teams in it and that you can follow the brand, you can follow the players. Like, you can make, like, a concert's decision for yourself. But I feel like, though, that staffing is going to be huge.

just general managers, managers. Like, it's going to become pretty big staffing, and I think it's going to actually come pretty quick. Jumping off that, what are the changes you see coming for ESports broadcasting the next couple years? Where do you go? How does the language change? What are the things that needs to improve?

Oh, I think for the ESports broadcast, I think we just have to kind of keep in mind that although we do have this hardcore audience, it's like there's a lot of new people that are coming in that are just hearing about ESports for the first time that play these games. that you can't kind of overwhelm them, like there needs to be a part of the broadcast that, like, you can dumb it down or you can make them understand.

Like, I think the easiest way, at least for me, to getting other people to understand, it's just relate everything back to sports. It's like everybody loves traditional sports, like just kind of relate those scenarios back. And I think that's the easiest way new people can kind of get involved.

And I think also just kind of keep pushing the boundaries. I mean, with instant replays in game, we had never done that. You know, MLG Vegas coming up for Call Duty, we have a lot of stuff playing in Overwatch as well. Just from like a staging perspective, I mean, some of the stuff we've done in the past with like, you know, big LED walls

that kind of changed by what's going on in game, like just kind of keep pushing those boundaries and some augmented reality stuff. I know Valve has done stuff in the past where they have like VR broadcasting. So I think really just kind of keep pushing the limits and seeing where we can take it and maybe even push it past what traditional sports is doing.

That sounds great. I mean Zaria, so we should play some overwerex. this weekend. You should play. I'll play Winston and you can play Zaria. We'll get Ben a copy. I'm telling you. Ben.

I see you as like a Lucio or maybe a May. A really trolley may. First, you can start out. You can start out on Torb. I feel like everybody starts out on Torb. I don't know whether these are compliments or insults, but I will take it. A Torbjorn is a, I believe he's a dwarf that can put down turrets. And he can just use his hammer, build the turrets up.

And then you would just watch the turret kill people. and you just was like kind of talk to us. Yeah. I can do that. I feel like that would be the best spot for you to begin. All right. Well, Matt, thanks for taking the time to be with us here today. Oh, no problem.

Thank you guys. Thank you. Okay, so stay tuned. We will be right back with Jason Schreier of Kotaku. All right, so we have covered the present and the future. And so now for our second segment, we're going to retreat to the comforting past. So we're going to talk about the NES classic, also known as the mini NES. also officially known as the Nintendo Entertainment System colon NES Classic Edition,

although I hope no one except Nintendo is actually calling it that. But that is the news. The system came out Friday, and so we are talking to the news editor of Kotaku, Jason Schreier. Hey, Jason. Hey, Ben. Thanks for having me. I'm glad that you call it the NES and not the Ness because... No, no.

Ness is a character. Ness is a character. We don't need that unnecessary. Who would do that? Exactly, exactly. Terrible. So before we get started, this weekend marks the five-month anniversary of the time that I tweeted a Game of Thrones spoiler and you got spoiled. So now that you're on our podcast, I need to ask for absolution for my terrible tweeting.

I'll think about it. I will think about it. We'll see how next season of Game of Thrones goes. But I'm actually glad to be on a podcast of the maister himself. I know. Me too. I get this privilege every week. So this seems like a good time to release a throwback console.

It's a time when people don't necessarily want to live in the present, given the events of the past week. It's also a time when people want to restore the past. Right. So going back to our collective childhoods seems well-timed. Nice job, Nintendo. And you've been playing this thing, and I don't want to sound too stalkerish here, but I went to your Facebook profile, and on your Facebook profile, you have a lot of have a picture of, I assume, yourself as a young child, seated in front of a TV on the ground,

holding what looks like an NES controller. And I can only imagine that given the limitations of the NES classic, you have been in a very similar pose for the past couple days. It's funny. Everyone was joking because I was talking a little shit about the way that the controller cable is only three feet long because you can't actually sit normally with it. But it's funny, the way I set it up actually was I put the NES, the mini NES next to me and just sat on my couch and ran the H.DMI cable across my living room into the splitter. Next to my TV and did it that way, which was probably bad news because my fiancé already tripped on it a couple times.

So it's not really a feasible way of using the system. You got to be careful with long cords and NES. That's how I lost my original NES, one of my most traumatic. childhood memories. My cousin ran across the room and tripped over the cable and it fell as I was playing the Teenage Ninja Turtle's arcade game. And that was it. That was the end for my NES. And I was, I was console-less for quite a while. It was a dark time. Rest in peace. That's a game that should have been on there, the Teenage Mutant Turtle's game. That was a fun game. A bummer than it's on this one. Yeah. So I got an NES for, I think it was maybe my sixth or seventh birthday, which I

realize now must have been a budget gift because I think the S&ES was already out by then. So my parents must have been cutting costs. And I got Mario and Duck Hunt and I also got The Legend of Zelda gold cartridge, which in retrospect was probably not the best first game ever to play. It's a classic, but when you're like six and you're just trying to figure out what to do in the original Legend of Zelda, that is a daunting task for a experience. gamer and adult without a strategy guide. So I remember being lost, but lost in a fun way.

Yeah, that was a fun way. Didn't it come with a map and an instruction? Yeah, it gave you a bunch of hands. Yeah, I think it did, but I don't think it was enough for me. I definitely never completed that game. So you've been playing this thing for a couple days and wanted to have you on to get your impressions of how it's held up and whether the nostalgia is, justified or whether it's leading us to places that we don't actually want to go in practice.

So this system comes with 30 games. You played them all. You gave them a quick review at Kotaku. So what is your verdict on how well the package as a whole holds up? Controversial review. I got a lot of interesting feedback to my ranking. A lot of people were mad because I trashed excite bike, which is a bad game. I take issue with it. But let's look. Continue. Yeah, well, I mean, I assume it was you guys who were, like, sending me emails and commenting on Kataku. I assume it's just the two.

We were just doing it on Reddit only. Just on Kotaku in Action. Yeah. It's funny. Yeah, there are a few games that hold up really well, a few that don't. I think the NES actually, incidentally is the one console that is not held up really well. And it's closer to the arcade days when all these games. would be frustratingly hard and they were built where it was like they wanted to take all your money so you had limited lives and they were really punishing and I actually think the super Nintendo which Nintendo is for sure gonna do an S NES classic next year I think that's gonna be a way better device especially for people who haven't played those games but the NAS classic still has some classic games that hold up really well like Super Mario Brothers all three of them really but three especially and Kirby's Adventure and Metroid and Cali's

I really enjoyed going back to all of those. Some of the games on there are not great today, but some of them are. Dr. Mario is another one that I think I could definitely keep playing. And Star Tropic is one that really surprised me because I had never played that growing up. It's kind of a Zelda clone set where you're this baseball pitcher who gets a yo-yo that he can hurl at enemies. And so you go around all these different dungeons throwing your yo-yo at monsters and solving puzzles and stuff like that. And that actually plays surprisingly well today. So yeah, there are a few gems on there.

If you can get past the whole three-foot controller cable thing, it's really not a bad purchase at all. I wanted to stand for Excite Bike just for a moment. Okay. Because if memory serves, that game had a level editor, which at the time was the most mind-blowing thing I'd ever seen as a child, that you could actually design levels in a game. And I think that alone should push it up, I don't know. it's like it makes it better than ghosts and goblins at least. Ice climber even? Yeah, no, I probably should have put ice climber on the bottom and ghosts and

goblins. Yeah, maybe ExciteBite could have been 28 or so. Still terrible, but the worse. The thing is the way I rank those games actually is based on how they hold up today and not how they held up 30 years ago. So 30 years ago when you're playing Excite bike with a friend and you're both just kind of mashing the controller and trying to beat each other.

That was a lot more fun than it is today, I think, when there's so many better options, unless you and your friend are really nostalgic for a Slekebike and used to play it 30 years ago, sitting on the floor, staring at the TV. But yeah, but the level editor thing also is one of those things that I tried to rank them and kind of judge them based on,

not based on how revolutionary they were at the time. And some of those, like Final Fantasy, I mean, the Final Fantasy series is one of my favorites of all time, but the first Final Fantasy does not hold up well at all. If I were ranking all these games based on the things they did historically, it might look a lot different. But yeah, a lot of these games have some bad practices. And I don't know, the excitement, man, the sound effects are so annoying.

And just everything about that game bothers me. So what was the common element when you went back in a game didn't hold up? What was the most common reason why? I think a lot of it is that those games were punishing, but not in a way that feels fair. So, like, if you play something like Bloodborn or Dark Souls or one of those really difficult games today, oftentimes you'll feel like, okay, this game is really hard. But if I play enough and if I develop my skills, I can get past it. This is a problem that's a problem on me and it's not a problem on the game,

as opposed to a lot of these games where you're dying because the controls don't work properly or because the pixels aren't recognizing each other. And so the collision detection is completely off. When it's problems like that, and it's clearly because this is a 30-year-old game and not because it's in any sort of referendum on you, then that is kind of annoying and feels antiquated and kind of obsolete. I think that there are definitely those out there who are massacus, and I used to be like this back in the NES days, who feel like,

oh, it's just a fun challenge, and I'll just keep doing it. And if a game is broken, then that's just, just another challenge to get past. But I think today when there's so many other great games to play, especially this year, which has been full of incredible games, it's just not worth the time to revisit a lot of these, in my opinion. Yeah, I remember the original Metroid, it probably took me six to eight months to finish that game, like with the combined brainpower of like myself and two friends and the Nintendo Power

magazine and we called like the hotline and it was like, it was beating a game was, like a job back in those days. And I just can't imagine anyone taking like, aside from games like Skyrim where you don't where you're not on a path, you're not stuck if you can't get past a certain thing. I can't imagine somebody taking on that challenge again. Yeah, I imagine a lot of, and as we know, I don't know if you guys saw all the headlines today, but it's impossible to get this thing. That's surprised me.

It sold out everywhere. Yeah. That's a Nintendo tradition, right? That's the full retro NES experience. You shouldn't be able to buy it. That's true. Actually, fun fact, a couple years ago or last year, Nintendo released a special edition 3DS that was themed on Majora's Mask. And it was like this really slick, cool 3DS that had the Majora's mask on it and it was gold.

And it was like a limited edition. And we did a post that was like, wow, this thing is selling out. Here's where to find it. And it wound up turning into like our biggest traffic post of the year because it was so crazy because everyone was just like searching for where to find this thing. And that's just Nintendo's MO. they just artificially like deflate the supply of these things and let demand rise. And you know they're going to make a killing on Black Friday when they're like, look, it's back. Everyone trample each other for this thing.

Yeah. But anyway, as I was saying before, the point I was trying to make is even though this thing is really hard to find, I imagine that a lot of people will buy it, maybe shuffle around in a few games for novelty purposes and then barely use it because they'll find that a lot of these games haven't aged well. I think some of the games people can definitely play it like Super Mario, but there's three. I would recommend playing through in its entirety because it's still fantastic. But most of these games, it'll be like, oh, I remember Double Dragon 30 seconds in. Okay, I remember why I stopped playing Double Dragon. I remember why I play games on PS4 instead of NES.

Yeah, and it seemed like the imprecision of the controls was a common theme in your reviews also. Yeah, and that's a thing that you really notice after playing modern games, because modern games, I mean, just designers have learned how to do all the these techniques and polish these games and that they feel like a mono designer could tell you, oh, that feels like it's a frame off and that will make all the difference. Like if there's an extra frame in the animation with Star Tropic, for example, when you're walking around, it takes an extra frame to kind of turn in the direction that you want to walk in. And it's the type of thing that you don't really notice until you notice it.

And then you're like, shit, like this feels unpolished. This feels clunky. And that's something that I think designers just learn to get past. to fix years and years ago. How is it using the controller after you used the modern controllers? Is that clunkiness? Is it a function of the controller, or is it a function of design, or is it some kind of combination of both?

Actually, I don't mind the controller. I actually think it feels pretty good, all things considered. I mean, it's not the best, but considering how old it is, I don't think it's that bad. I think it's the controls themselves. So, like, when you press the A button, if it doesn't recognize your command or it takes an extra second to recognize your command or like it doesn't recognize that you you were slightly one frame or it's like not forgiving enough to give you that extra frame because there's one frame down and the enemy is is just like an extra frame in the wrong direction and it doesn't pick it up that's the

type of stuff that feels imprecise and frustrating as as a player yeah it's not it's not on the controls it's on the games themselves and i'm kind of with you i think when it comes to retro games there there are so many great games being released weekly at this time of the year. I don't have time to keep up with them as it is without diving back into the dustbin of history. And between that and also, I think, just being disappointed in some ways when you do go back far enough and you see what these games are actually like now instead of remembering them in this sort of fog of childhood when they were state of the art and the best thing you'd ever played, it can be kind of a letdown. And I don't know, do you guys have any memories of games that you thought were just fantastic at the time when you were a kid? But now you were aware that you just had bad taste.

They were just never actually that good. And you were just hooked on them. I was trying to think of a few last night, just games that over the years I've been sort of obsessed with before, you know, review aggregators were out there. And we all made decisions based on what its metacritic score was. and you could often just sort of walk into a game store and buy a bad game by accident. Just, you know, like if you were a kid and you didn't have much of a game budget and you had lots of time, you would just play it anyway. And sometimes you would kind of like it. So I was thinking like Battle Tanks Global Assault for N64 was a big one for me.

Air Force Delta for Dreamcast was a big one for me. Reckless the Yakuza missions for Xbox was a big one for me. And I went back and looked at the old review. scores because they're archive done game rankings.com and all three of those games are like in the 60s or low 70s like they're they're just average mediocre games even at the time I guess but for whatever reason I remember thinking they were just the best yeah I've had a few I remember playing a lot of an ultimate game I think it was ultima three exodus or ultima four exodus on the nes and I remember there were a lot of ways in which you could gate yourself so you couldn't actually make any

progress and I would always, as a kid, I would be like, oh, damn, I got to start again and just keep trying over and over again to do all these obscure, like, obtuse things that I, in retrospect, should have been designed a lot better. But at the time, I was like, oh, this is my fault. I need to, I need to be better at this. When you're a kid, you just don't know better. I think I've made most of my choices or directed my parents to, to buy me certain games, just based purely on the box art. And that went on for a long time. I actually haven't gone back to play many games. The one I did go back to is Golden Eye, which I was addicted to for a long, long time.

Oh, man. I didn't even own the console. I had an acquaintance, a friend of a friend that did, and I would just make up reasons that we needed to go over there so we could play Golden Eye. And then I went back and played it recently, and it's just not, you know, the first-person shooter mechanics have advanced so far. And there's so many things that you're just used to being a core part of the experience that we're, you play Golden Eye, it's like it feels like you're swimming underwater and trying to do one of those Ninja Warrior races. It just feels like you're just stuck in muck. But, you know, you can appreciate the maps and things like that.

I was never good at Golden Eye is the other thing. That's the other thing. Jason, do you remember the box art for Mega Man? That was the dumbest and the best simultaneously. Metroid was one and Castlevania. Those two box arts just like absolutely fascinated me. 100% and Metal Gear, although Metal Gear was a game that I got as a kid and I was just like, I don't understand what this is. Even like, once I got to the box, even as an adult, you're like, I don't know.

I feel about Metal Gear. I was like, what is this? I don't think even Hideo-Kashima understands. Are there any genres you think hold up particularly well, either because maybe they've fallen out of fashion or the mechanics haven't advanced all that much or maybe the technology. just wasn't all that integral to enjoying them. I mean, I know you're a big K-R-PG guy. Does that hold up well typically when you go back? I think the Super Nintendo J-R-PGs hold up really well,

and that's why I mentioned the S-NES classic before, because I think there could be a ton of really, really good J-R-R-PGs that you could get on that, like Super Mario RPG and Earthbound, which feels kind of clunky, but still holds up really well. As far as the N-E-S goes, actually something that I noticed is, so there's a game called Gradius, and I don't know if you guys have played that, But it was a, I think it was Konami. It's kind of a shoot-em-up where you're controlling the spaceship and you move from left to right

and you just shoot enemy spaceships. Yeah, it's really cool. And it holds it pretty well. And it made me realize when was the last time we saw a shoot-em-up? Like I can't think of any spaceship, like left-to-right, side-scrolling shoot-em-ups that I've seen in a very long time. Maybe on Steam, there are some random little ones that are... GameCube had some. Yeah, yeah.

It was like 10, 15 years ago. I feel like that genre was really good. died. Also, I think as far as aging, I think the platformers are the ones that have held up the best Super Mario 3, like I mentioned before, Kirby's Adventure, which actually feels like a Super Nintendo game because it was made in 1993 on the latter end, probably one of the last games to ever come to NES. And that's on the NAS classic, and you can play that, and it holds up really well. So, yeah, those kind of side-scroller 2D platformers, not the brawlers. The brawlers are the ones that that feel too clunky, but the platformers tend to hold up. Man, I love the brawlers.

Double Dragon is another one I have to take issue with, but it's okay. You have to play it now. That's the thing. You have to see how it feels now. It's true. It's true. What do you make of the kind of the nouveau platformers, like Hyperlight Drifter, this kind of remake of these old style NES games today? What do you think is fueling that besides just nostalgia and kind of like an interest in the genre. Well, I think there was a hole in the market for a long time. I think people really wanted them. But the companies like Capcom, the company behind Mega Man, wasn't making new Mega Man

games for a long time and Konami wasn't making new Castlevania games. Actually, one of the best games I've played in the past few years is an old school platformer called Shovel Night. Have you guys played that? No. I didn't, but yeah. I'm aware of it. Okay.

So it's really cool. It's like a combination of all the NES games. That game, basically, if you play that, it's like your. playing an NES game you remember, so it's got all the good parts of NES games without any of the clunkiness, because it feels really precise and smooth to play. It's really well designed. It really feels like a modern-day Mega Man or Castlevania or any of those old school games. And it's just a platformer where you're just making all these precise jumps and doing really cool things. And those games in the indie world, I think, are really successful and really fun to play. There's this

game that just came out called Owboy that was made by a couple of guys over 10 years. which is another crazy platforming game. I think there's, yeah, there's a big hole for that that I think indie companies or indie developers realize that hole existed and that people wanted them, but big companies weren't giving them to anyone anymore. Nintendo occasionally will release like a 2D Mario game on handheld, and I guess they have that mobile game Super Mario run

that could fit the bill. But for the most part, the companies that used to make those games aren't doing it anymore, so there's definitely room for a lot of them. You're in New York, right? I am. But you say Mario. Jason and I had this debate on last week's podcast because I say Mario for some reason, even though I recognize that that's probably wrong.

And I say Wario, so it's inconsistent. But I thought it was a New York thing that I grew up hearing all the time. But you're a New Yorker and you say Mario. I actually, I used to say Mario, but it got kind of pummeled out of me by people. When I started working in games and talking to more people, they were like, it's Mario, not Mario. I was like, wait, what? Okay. So I have just stayed true to my roots. Yeah. It's definitely a New York thing, yeah.

I sold out our people. Good to know. All right. I am soothed. I am transported back to early childhood. There's nothing worrisome about the world. I wish there was a Konami code for these times that we are currently in. If only, if only. It's good to distract ourselves with video games. That's the best. Although there is a video game that just came out this week called Tyranny, and it's about a world where evil wins.

It's about like literally a fascist taking over. So fun times. Video games. Escapeism. All right. You can all read Jason at Kotaku. You can find him on Twitter at Jason Schreier. If you're looking for other video game podcast, you can hear him and Kirk Hamilton talk about

video games, including what he just talked about with us, probably, but also many other things on the split screen podcast. Jason, thanks for. coming on and don't up up, down, down, left, right, left, right be a stranger. That was how long, how long were you planning about it? I don't have to tell you because you just brought up the Konami Code so it'll seem organic as that gave me the idea. Very organic.

All right. Thanks for having me, guys. I really appreciate it. I was thinking about it for about two hours. Oh, man. All right. Thanks a lot, man. Thanks, guys.

That's fun. All right. So that will do it for today. Thanks to Matt and Jason And thanks to you, Jason as well Good talking to you as always Same here See you next week

Yeah, we have a lot of games coming out And I'm not sure what order we're going to get to them in But we have Alboy as Jason just mentioned I am interested in that We've got watchdogs too We've got dishonored too We've got more stuff coming down the pipe after that So next week we will probably do some sort of game talk

And if you want to advocate for a certain title Feel free to reach out to us But we will be back next week.