The Ringer-Verse - 'Dispatch' Deep Dive, and the PS5/Xbox Series Turn Five | Button Mash

Episode Date: November 14, 2025

Ben Lindbergh, Jomi Adeniran, and Daniel Chin discuss news surrounding a few coming attractions—another 'Grand Theft Auto VI' delay, trailers for 'The Super Mario Galaxy Movie' and 'Fallout' Season 2, and Valve's announcement of a new Steam Machine—before breaking down the highs and lows of hit episodic superhero adventure game 'Dispatch' (including one spoiler-ish interlude about Jomi's forlorn electronic love life). Then Ben talks to 'Dispatch' creative director Nick Herman and narrative director Pierre Shorette about how the game got made, all the ways it could have turned out differently, and fan horniness. Finally, Ben brings on Game File writer/reporter Stephen Totilo to discuss the fifth birthday of the current console generation, assess why it's widely perceived as disappointing despite a plethora of great games, and forecast the future of gaming. Intro (0:00)Video game news (3:16)'Dispatch' reactions (26:34)Jomi's spoiler interlude (37:58 - 42:20)Interview with Nick Herman and Pierre Shorette (55:09)Five Years of PS5 and Xbox With Stephen Totilo (1:39:25)Outro (2:32:00) Host: Ben LindberghGuests: Jomi Adeniran, Daniel Chin, Nick Herman, and Pierre ShoretteProducer: Devon RenaldoAdditional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up? It's Todd McShea, host of the McShay Show at The Ringer and Spotify. We're building this thing up and I couldn't be more excited to be back, talking college football and everything NFL draft with the most informed audience out there. That's you. My co-host, Steve mentioned I will be with you three times a week throughout the football season with all the latest news, analysis, and scouting intel from around the league. For even more insight, subscribe to my newsletter, the McShay report, to access my mickey. drafts, big boards, tape breakdowns, and other exclusive scouting content, you can't get anywhere else. It's going to be a great season. And I hope you'll be with us at the McShea Show every step of

the way. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Trimfaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Trimfaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a very vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required. Tramphia is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them, and liver

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They keep companies of all sizes connected with Internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support, millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit Spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas. And welcome into the ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor for the ringer and head dispatcher or button mesh. And boy, do I have a lot of dispatching to do today?

because we've got three segments, five guests, and a lot of topics to talk about. First up, two core members of my personal Z team, both of whom rate high in intellect and charisma. Midnight Boy and Junior Mint, Jomi Adoneron is here. Hello, Jomey. What's going on? Ring our staff writer Daniel Chin, also in the house.

Hello, Daniel. Hello, hello. You two are primarily joining me to talk about episodic superhero Workplace Comedy Dispatch, which launched in late October, wrapped up at least for now with its seventh and eighth installments this week, and has been a huge hit, selling about 2 million copies, peaking over 220,000 concurrent players on Steam alone. We were three of them.

Actually, we played on PS5, I guess. And honestly, this is core ringer-verse crossover content. If you like the things we tend to cover on this feed, but you're usually not a big gamer. This is your chance to dive in. And Jomi, I guess you're a living example of that. Oh, no, man. I was seeing the TikToks early on.

So I said, let me dive in. Let me see what this is all about. And blame blew my mind and then some. What an experience. Yes. We will attempt to steer clear of spoilers, at least of the finale out of respect for those who have not finished this journey yet. But there's been a lot of reaction online, as one might imagine.

After our chat, I'll be talking to two of the creators of the game, Nick Herman and Pierre Chorret, to get some insight into how Dispatch got made and became a sensation. And then I'll be bringing on Stephen Totillo, writer and reporter for Game File, to talk about the fifth anniversary of the launches of the PS5 and Xbox series. I cannot believe it's been five years. But Stephen and I will check in on why this console generation has sort of been seen as a disappointment, whether that might be. change what we even mean when we talk about console generation these days. But first, before all of that, we have some news to react to and coming attractions to talk about because gentlemen, the sequel to the last Grand Theft Auto Game still a long way away, but the sequel to the last Grand Theft Auto game delay has already arrived.

We've got GTA6 delay two. It has arrived when 2025 started. GTA6 was officially at least less than a year away. Now, somehow, almost a year has passed, and GTA6 is still a year away. The closer we get, the further away it gets. I don't know how that works exactly, but first slated for this fall. As in now, there was a time when we thought there was a chance that we would have GTA6 on our hands right now.

Didn't happen. GTA was delayed this past May until next May 26th. Now it's been delayed again to November 19th, 2026, a year from next Wednesday. Daniel, do you remember when we did a trailer reaction pod? I was just trying to figure out how long ago we had that reaction pod. It was almost two years ago that we did a trailer pod. So that's all we've been waiting. Even since we've got our first look at this game,

and we have a lot longer to wait. What was your reaction to this second delay? Were you surprised, dismayed, or were you sort of expecting it? I feel like probably the latter, probably sort of expecting it. At this point, it's like the game's in a couple. come when it comes out. Like, I wasn't dismayed at all. The first time, it was a little bit disappointing, but it's like, the game's

in a con when it when it's here, you know? And I've already waited this long to play it again. So it's like, what's one more year at this point? Exactly. Yeah, it's going to have, it will have been 13 years. So, yeah, what's another six months might as well get it perfect. Jomi, what did you think? The last time I was on this podcast, if I were, all correctly, we talked about GTA,

six, getting delayed. And I was like, I was one of the first. first people when they announced the date the first time, I was like, it's not coming out then. Let's let's be for real. It's coming out 2026. Yeah. And so not only did it get delayed, it got delayed again, and now it's fellas. 2027, it's not bad. It's right there. You're calling it right now?

I'm like, I can feel it. I can see it. You know, like I said on that podcast, and I'll say it again, they cannot mess this game up. I launch. Yeah. They cannot have a cyberpunk situation, okay, where they can not have a no man sky situation where the game comes out and it's bad and nobody likes

it. And then it could get great eventually. Like cyberpunk, it becomes like, yeah, man, if you play it six months later, it'd be good, but by that point, the impression's already been made. This is the most anticipated game release. I think, at least I know for a fact of my lifetime, probably ever,

they have to nail it. We're going to keep getting delays until it is perfect. fellas, we might be into like, we might, listen, I've never seen anything like this before in my life where we're like, we keep tricking ourselves, they're like, yeah, man, we go, G, G, G, G, G, it's coming out for show. It's a show coming out. Like Daniel said, when it come out, it comes out.

Once I get that disc by hand, once I see it start to download, then I'll believe it's coming out. Until then, it's up to God. Yeah. This is beyond me. I'm not, I'm not counting down the days. Yeah, I'm not counting down the days because the count keeps increasing. It's like when you're on Narcina 5 and Andor, you know, they just like tack on some extra days to your sentence.

And so it'll come when it comes. Hopefully we all live to see it. And the good news, I guess. I did a little rundown for the ringer.com. One of great website of the history of Grand Theft Auto delays for previous games. And the good news is that there has never been. a third public delay. I mean, behind the scenes, maybe.

But once they have announced a release date for a Grand Theft Auto game in the 3D era, they've delayed it twice, but they have not delayed it a third time. So it would be unprecedented if they were to delay it again. Wouldn't put it past them. Yeah, never say never. Yeah. Yeah. I believe in them.

They can do it. Yeah. Right. I mean, Rockstar is embroiled right now. They fired a bunch of developers. They say because they talked about things that they shouldn't have. the union claiming that it was union busting, that's going on. And meanwhile, there's yet another delay. And look, they have to get it right. And I believe that they will because even though there is a long history of

Rockstar games getting delayed, there's also a long history of those games coming out and being as good as we hoped they would be. So that's the hope here, really. And it does feel like we're just waiting, you know, the whole industry waiting with bated breath to see when this thing comes out, to get out of its way. multiple times. But really, there was some part of me that hoped, despite your warnings, Jomi, that because it had been so long since GTA 5 that they wouldn't delay it, because why even announce it if you weren't sure, you know, after you made us wait 11 years or whatever it was. Like maybe that was really a firm release date. But once they delayed it once, the seal was broken. And, you know, now we could get any number of delays. So they have a whole year to

polish this thing off and we will continue to track it when there's an additional trailer, when there are new delays, and someday when we finally get this game in our hands. The game is going to come out on PS6. Yes, it's possible, right? We might get PS6 before we get GTA6. It's not held the room. There will be another delay. Let's talk briefly about three things that are scheduled to be released before GTA6,

the Super Mario Galaxy movie, which is coming next April 3rd, Fallout. season two, which is coming in a little more than a month, and the steam machine announced this week coming sometime early next year. And we just got trailers for the Mario movie and for Fallout this week. This is hot off the presses. Jomi, give me your take on the Super Mario Galaxy. Ah, see, I just slipped. When you make me say Mario enough times, eventually the New Yorker and me will come out. And I will, it's just inevitable that I will say Mario at some point. I apologize to everyone. That's bad fucking limper.

Apologies to Chris Pratt. Yeah, you can really hear my New York accent. It's just so strong. NYC. Oh, you feel me? What do you make of this movie? We got a glimpse a first in-depth trailer. So the first Super Mario movie, I think, you know,

how to cast a Chris Pratt of Mario, man. Like, we're going to see what it looked like. I was pleasantly surprised by the first one. I thought it was very, like, simple and basic in terms of what it set out to a accomplished, but it did all those things well. And so I was super excited to see what it looked like, Super Mario Galaxy.

And I can't, I can't hold you guys, man. I'm enthralled. Thousand Jr. getting played by Benny Safi? What? Rosalina getting played by Breedarsen, who by the way, is such a huge, like it's a no-brainer casting, right? She's a huge Super Mario

Galaxy fan to the point where I think during the pandemic, she was playing Super Mario Galaxy, and her boyfriend was like, you're going too hard, you got to chill. And she kicked them out. Yeah, Bree is one of us. Bree's a big gamer. She's a huge gamer.

She was locked in. Like, she's a big fan of the Switch. And so ultimately, you're bringing Jack Black back. You're getting the whole team together. Let's run it back. I want to see it. I'm excited. Come on, Button Mash, Brewerson.

Daniel, what did you think? I mean, I'm excited for it. And, like, you know, Galaxy is obviously a classic. And they had some Easter eggs alluding to other games, too. Like, there was some oddest, like the inverted pyramid from I'd see. Yes. I'm really looking forward to see what they're doing with Yoshi.

And if Yoshi's going to be speaking, if not, I don't know. That's what I'm looking forward to. Daniel, who would you want to voice Yoshi? If you had to think, who would you want to voice Yoshi? That's a great question. I wouldn't love somebody with just, like, the deepest voice. Do you think we can get Desa? Can we afford Denzel?

I don't know if we can afford Denzel, but I would. It's what do you mean? It's the Nintendo money. We can afford Denzel. What you mean? That's true. Based off how much money they made the first time around, No, no, maybe they could.

Yeah, we got our first glimpse of Rosalina here at the end of the trailer, who we voiced by Brie Larson. No glimpse of Yoshi, though. We know he's coming. Hopefully they're not making us wait for Galaxy 2, but we're going to get Yoshi. They're just, you know, saving something for the next trailer or for the movie itself. Who knows? But, yeah, what you said, Daniel, that was sort of the main takeaway for me is that given the title, you just expect this to be kind of a direct adaptation of Galaxy, Galaxy 2.

And it does appear to be more than that, that this is. sort of spanning the Marioverse because, yeah, we get some Odyssey references. We get some Super Mario Sunshine of all games, which I guess makes some sense with Bowser Jr. But we've got a paintbrush. We've got Castle Delphino or something that looks like it. And there's even like the corrupted form of Bowser Jr. from Super Mario Wonder. So I like the idea that this is just sort of spanning decades of Mario games. And there's just kind of a postmodern Mario mashup happening here in addition to, the bedrock of Galaxy, which may be my favorite Mario games. So that's a great start.

And obviously, Nintendo has ambitions for a whole Nintendo cinematic universe here, spin-offs, the Zelda movie, et cetera. We'll see how all those plans come together. But I was with you. I think the first Mario movie did its job, which was make a billion dollars, mission accomplished, and get everyone excited in this property and, you know, help Nintendo spread out beyond games, which remains their core focus, but they're into theme parks, they're into shows, they're into movies, and, you know, sort of erase the very product of its time, stane of the first video game adaptation on the big screen, the first Mario movie and reestablish this as a hot property. And it was just kind of like, you know, paint by numbers. It was like, yeah,

this is sort of what you'd expect from a Mario movie, not done in a super weird early 90s way. And, you know, it was a crowd pleaser. It was fun for the kids, you know. I had my popcorn in the theater. I had a decent time. It didn't overstay. It's welcome. But it wasn't inspired, I didn't think. And we'll see whether this is or whether it's more of the same.

And Nintendo would probably be fine with more of the same money. So we'll see if the kids come out. So it's a huge streaming hit, obviously, too. So it had a life even after the theater. I imagine the anticipation will only have built. Plus, we got the galaxy re-releases on Switch, Switch, too, recently. Yeah. So before all that, before.

anything we're talking about here. Fallout, coming December 17th to Prime Video, and we got a first full trailer shortly before we started recording on Thursday. Daniel Jomi, I know you guys watched some first season of Fallout. We're heading to New Vegas here. Daniel, what did you make of the first glimpse we got? I'm excited because the first season, it was one of those ones where I felt like it very much could go either way, especially like an Amazon show.

And I was very pleasantly surprised by it. Me too. There's just so much they can pull from from, because whether or not they're just doing New Vegas or they're doing any of the other fallouts, like, there's so much they can pull from. There's so much great material from all the fallout games. And I really just like the kind of quirky cast

of a lot of familiar faces. Like, like, McCauley Culkin was in the trailer. I had no idea he was about to be in this. Like, I just appreciate the vibes that they go for in this. Yeah. I'm just really glad that we finally, we're getting a show that's coming out every year, man. You know?

Yeah. First season came out last year. Year and a half. But, you know, we'll take it in this era. That's what I'm saying, Ben, I'll take. With an effects heavy show. Yeah.

Ben, I'll take it. Yeah. If it was HBO, we would have got season two in 2039. You know what I mean? Yes. So I'm just glad that it hasn't been too long between seasons. No, man, I mean, obviously, I mean, speaking HBO, Juan Goggins has been the man this shit.

year. So I'm extremely excited to see him again. He was great as the ghoul. And I, like, honestly, once I saw the Elvis ghoul, and I was like, oh, yeah, I'm back. This is, this is real TV, man. So I can't wait. I really enjoyed season one. And I can't, I can't, I can't want to see, like, the mysteries they uncover is season two. It seems like there's a lot to do with Ella Prunel's dad, Lucy's dad. And so I'm really interested to see, like, how that unravels in the season. Because Kyle McLaughin, man, that guy, he's a real one. He's a sneaky little guy. Sometimes on the show,

so he did a good guy. And sometimes he beat a bad guy. And then this one, who knows what's going on, you know? He has range. He's got rings. So I'm excited to see, like, what his deal is.

It feels like they're striking while the iron is, if not hot, hasn't completely cooled down. We haven't entirely forgotten season one, though I will have to rewatch over the next month in addition to... Oh, no, I just got to read Wikipedia summaries. Okay.

It's a 74-minute episodes, man. I got a family. It's an investment. Yeah. And I'm going to be playing Fallout New Vegas over the next month to prepare because it's heavily based on that game as well. And we see some New Vegas here. We see Mr. House. We see some death claws and rad scorpions and other fallout signatures here.

Yeah. And what I'm interested in, season one was a surprise sensation, I would say. It kind of took us by surprise here at the Ringiverse. I mean, we knew it was coming. But the track record of video games. game adaptations and who knows if this is going to be good and prime video, as you say. And then it turns into one of the biggest streaming shows of last year, if not the biggest. And we did one episode on it.

Van and I did a Fallout Season 1 reaction pod or recap pod here on Buttmash. We're planning weekly coverage on the feed this year. And I think it merits that. And, you know, I think there's a recognition of how huge a hit this was. It was a binge drop in season one. And now it's going week. which is something that, you know, Amazon has toyed around with, but often something will come out binge. And then if it hits big, then they will parcel it out over the course of several weeks or months.

So we'll see if that leads to more coverage, more enthusiasm during the run of the show. And I'm glad that it's coming back as soon as it is. And we will have far more coverage of fell out coming out. Now, one big announcement that was something of a surprise, though, it had been rumored and leaked, but you just never know with Valve. The Steam Machine. We're getting a sequel to the Steam Machine, but this is an all-new Steam Machine.

So for those of you who don't remember, it was about a decade ago that Valve first announced Steam Machines. Sort of this solution for console gamers who want to play PC games on TV, or PC gamers, for that matter. You want something so that you could take games that you usually play on Steam,

play them on your living room, on your couch, with your controller instead of sitting at your mouse and keyboard, the first incarnation and rollout of the steam machine was kind of a dud for a few reasons, really. One is that Valve didn't make its own steam machine. So it was just outsourced to a bunch of different companies. There were a bunch of different permutations and options and customizations,

and it was all kind of confusing. That was one issue. Another issue was that it was Linux-based. It just didn't run a lot of really prominent PC games, which was kind of the whole point of. the steam machine so you could play these games in a console-like setting. And for a lot of games, you just couldn't do it. It wasn't supported or it didn't perform well. Finally, a lot of people didn't vibe with the controller at the time. And it's, you know, tough assignment to combine a mouse

and keyboard functionality with a controller. And a lot of games at the time weren't really optimized for game pads. So for all those reasons, it kind of fell flat and sold maybe a few hundred thousand steam machines all told. Now we're bringing it back. And it feels to me, like if it was ahead of its time a decade ago, it might be the right time. Its time could be now. So we're getting a new steam machine made by Valve, very cute, little cube. People calling it the Gabe Cube, of course. And we've got a new steam controller.

And we've got a steam frame, which is a VR headset that can be used wirelessly as well as in a wired way. And so it's sort of a steam deck for your face, if you well. This is all meant to work with the steam deck ecosystem, too. So you can stream from one or the other. If you have a bunch of games that you play on Steam Deck, you can play them on the Steam Machine, which is reputed to be about six times more powerful than the Steam Deck,

which has been a success, you know, not a huge breakout hit for, but for the people who are in the market for that sort of thing. Steam Deck has delivered. So are you guys into this? I'll give my take, but I don't know. Is this something that you could see yourself playing? Or does this seem more niche to you, Daniel? For me, I feel like Steam's been really.

interesting because I'm like I'm not on Steam at all and I've kind of just been following their their rise from afar. I think for me I've always been more into just the handheld handheld gaming and I think that was something where I wasn't initially drawn into it for that. So this is where I'm like really curious to see what it's going to look like on the console again. Like having a console rather. I am curious what the price point is going to be. Yes. That's really what's going to be what's going to stop me or not.

So I don't know. I'm curious. Yeah. Jomey. So here's the thing. If they could get away with any price when they wanted. If they released this thing with Team Fortress 3, Portal 3, half-life 3.

Yeah, sure. Right? If they found out of coming up, we would be in business right now, you know what I mean? Yeah. Frankly, I think this might be a little bit past this prompt. There might have been a moment, you know, in like the late 2010s, early 2020s, where this would have done numbers. but I kind of feel like either people like have the PC

or they got the PS5. We're not really like the cost of war is over now. We don't have time to get into what Xbox was over there doing, which is nothing. I'll get into that with Stephen later on the show. Don't worry. It's PS5 or PC. You've made your choice, right?

And so for them to kind of like try to bridge the gap now or especially in what, Q1, 2026, I don't know if the market's there for that. But hey, you know, VALV's no better than me. They stop learning the count of three and they still make money. So ultimately, hey, you know, Gabe Newell, you know a ball. Yeah, I think the time could be right. Again, I don't think it's for everyone and it definitely does depend on the price.

And it makes sense to me that they're announcing the concept to get us all hyped and then they'll drop the price in the future. But, you know, they've said it will be comparable to consoles. Now, who even knows what consoles will cost because that keeps changing. as I'll discuss with Stephen too. But I think this is kind of the time because we brought up Xbox. This is sort of what Microsoft is aiming to do itself, right? With its handheld hybrid,

with its possible plans for an Xbox successor, they're kind of trying to bridge this gap between PC and Xbox. And I'm not sure that they're thrilled that they now have this competitor. And, you know, I think that for me, at least, there's a lot of intrigue here. I'm in the target market for this thing.

As someone who at this stage, is primarily a console gamer, but constantly has FOMO and laments that they're PC games that I can't play or can't play the way that I want to play them. You know, even just recently, there's a new mystery game called The Seance of Blake Manor that I want to play, but it's PC only. It's not on consoles yet, and so I've waited.

Or, you know, minishoot adventures is a game that I've wanted to play since it came out last year around when Fallout did, and I just haven't gotten around to it because it's not on consoles yet. And, you know, so many things get poor. but not everything does. And the convenience factor of something I can just play on my TV, you know, I don't have a dedicated gaming PC at this point in my life. This steam machine can double as just a regular computer if you want to use it that way.

I think a lot depends on the price point. A lot depends on the specs and how well it works. It seems like it's going to be powerful enough to play at least current AAA, you know, big budgets, pretty looking games fairly well. and that bodes well. I think it could fall into a middle ground where maybe it's just like too complicated for a casual,

you know, just a console gamer, but not customizable enough or not powerful enough for the high-end PC gamer. Or it could just kind of price everyone out of the market. But for me, this is pretty compelling. And I think for anyone who plays PC games but wants to play them with the better form factor

or someone like me who just isn't so much in the PC gaming ecosystem anymore but wants to be and laments missing out on a lot of games. If they nail this thing, if it works really well out of the box and it's convenient and it's powerful and it's semi-affordable at least, then I think this could hit. You know, it's not going to do like PlayStation numbers. Even the Steam deck as big as success as it is has sold, you know, a few to several million copies and units.

And, you know, it's for a certain kind of. very invested, hardcore kind of gamer crew that wants to play these games multiple ways, maybe multiple times. But if they nail this, I think the promise of the steam machine that we saw a decade ago, it could finally be fulfilled now. So that's my take. I don't know if I've sold you, Jomey, and, you know, it's okay if not. But I'm going to be picking up one of these things, I think, pending price and other details.

I got to play backyard soccer because for God, knows what reason. They won't put it on Switch. Yeah. All I want to do is get on a plane and play backyard soccer for a thousand years. And they're like, we're bringing it to mobile. Guys, I need my phone to listen to a podcast. I can't be also

gaming. Listen, humongous entertainment. I'm talking to you. Right? I need backyard soccer on the switch. Por favor. Please. I'm begging. I'm on my knees. What can I do? Help me help you. Please. Get a steam machine.

Maybe. So if it's just a console that plays PC games, I'm sold. Okay, that's a persuasive product for me, essentially. So we'll see if it can live up to its promise here. And it's just another example of the convergence of console gaming and PC gaming and the barriers between them falling down. We're tearing down those walls. And Stephen and I will get into that later.

Actually, the news of the Steam machine surfaced while we were recording. So we gave our quick. reaction to how it fits into the whole picture of this console generation and future console generations. But I'm pretty pumped. I'm pretty pumped. All right. Another thing that we are pretty pumped about is dispatch. Let's talk about it. This is the debut game from an independent studio called Ad Hoc, which is made up formed by veterans of Telltale, the iconic interactive narrative adventure game studio that we knew and loved in its original incarnation. This is sort of in the same mold, but much prettier and a different kind of gameplay.

This is an original IP as opposed to a lot of the telltale properties that were based on preexisting IP. It's a superhero comedy. It is dramatic. There's romance. There's emotion. There's humor. There's a star-studded cast headed by Aaron Paul and Jeffrey Wright and Laura Bailey and some prominent influencers. And essentially, you're taking over the titular character, Robbie Robertson, my favorite, my second favorite, Robbie Robertson, after the leader of the band, who is Mecca Man in his alter ego, but is forced to take a desk job for a while while his Mecha Man suit is repaired. And he becomes a dispatcher for SDN, the superhero dispatch network.

His job is to take over a superhero team of former super villains who are trying to walk the straight and narrow to reform, turn into superheroes. He sends them on assignments. But the core of the game is essentially a superhero TV show that you're watching but also playing because it's interactive. Daniel, you often lead our superhero coverage for the website. You talk about it on podcast too. You've covered Invincible. You've covered The Boys. there's a whole lot of superhero content out there.

But there's clearly a place in the market for dispatch. So were you skeptical that there was room for yet another superhero universe here and did dispatch when you ever? I wasn't so much skeptical because I think they did a really good job of filling this space of just doing the workplace comedy. And I really enjoyed this game. I really liked the concept from the very beginning of it. The story is great. The writing is great. for me, as an actual video game, I think the gameplay was the thing that was lacking a bit for me.

And I'm sure we're going to get into that a little bit more. But overall, I really just enjoyed the whole experience. Yeah. And just to lay it out, so there's a few types of gameplay. There's, you know, the bulk of the game is essentially watching a cutscene, right? Which sounds almost derogatory, but I mean it a complementary way, as complimentary as it could be, because the production values of the writing and the acting and the animation are up to par with, with anything you would see on TV, essentially.

So it does feel like playing an interactive show. You are in that telltale vein making choices, you know, about romance options and who to kick off the team and which assignments to take. And that, to some extent, at least changes how the story unfolds. But there are a few interactive elements aside from just, you know, dialogue tree and sort of story choices. You've got your quick time events, you know, blast from the past, just, when you have a big brawl and action scene,

you're pressing buttons, and when you're prompted to on screen, then there is also the actual dispatching game, which is sort of like a excom-like. You know, you're sitting on a screen. You have various hotspots. This is set in L.A., essentially, and you're sending your superhero teams

to deal with various problems. They're leveling up. You know, you're checking their skills to see if they're best suited for this assignment. And then when you do that, occasionally you dive in yourself as Robbie and you do a hacking mini game as well. So there's a kind of a jumble of ways to interact with dispatch. But the core appeal, I think, is the characters and the storytelling. Jomi, what did you think of dispatch?

I thought dispatch was amazing. Real quick, you mentioned L.A. It's not quite like L.A. it's the South Bay which is where I grew up and so Ben Daniel you gotta like think about it I'm sitting in my house

playing this game and they talk about Torrance Dallas Verdes San Pedro that's where I was at I was like yo it's it kind of nothing took me out of it but like

there's a scene where they're outside of at the SDN SDN torrents right and it says Delamo and I'm like yo that's down the street, that's the crib. That's the, that's the crew. So for me, like, that part added a little bit of, like,

it was a nice touch for me, person. I'm sure, like, nobody else cares. But for me, I was like, oh, my gosh. But then, yeah, no, the whole thing is predicated on these characters and can you fall in love with these characters. You know, Robbie is, what's incredible. Blondeblazer and Visigal. Sonar, Coup.

All these, all these people, like, you get to know them with the dispatching. mini-game. And so you're just there for hours and you kind of fall in love with all these characters. You want to see, you know, the best for them despite their disposition, despite the fact that they're all like actually like super villains, but actually like kind of bad people, just in general. It's just, it's a masterclass

in storytelling that I think I haven't seen it a long time and it's really fresh and it's really out there and the voice cast It's amazing. I know I talked about it when I did my recommends on it, but it doesn't do the show justice. It's just how perfectly cast everybody is. Aaron Paul is amazing. Jeffrey Wright is incredible.

It took me second to get Laura Bailey, but that's shame on me because I should know better, right? Alana Pierce as Malevola. Shout out, Funhouse, rest in peace. But it was just, I was just amazed by the level of quality. It brought in every single aspect of the game. gaming experience. I had an absolute blast. It was an absolute treat. Everybody should go play it, and they should make season two. Jesus two should come up before GTA6. That's how I.

Probably will. I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah. I mean, Jeffrey Wright, kind of a quiet nerd culture icon, you know, just like Westworld's, Last Abus, Batman, he's the Watcher, you know, he's popping up all over the place. And it could have been easy for him to just come in and get a check. You know what I'm saying? And Jeffrey Wright, he'd be out here. I could, I'll be, I was just the highest to lowest. Me and Dazel, me and Spike like this. But nah, I'm gonna come in. He went hard as Chase.

Yeah. He went hard as track star. I loved it. It was incredible from start to five. That's who should be voicing Yoshi, really. That would be true. But he's got a voice in ass chase. Yeah, motherfucker.

The amount of times he says fuck in this game is phenomenal. Like in any given line, he says it like five times. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, the workplace comedy, it's a tried and true. format, the sitcom. And yet you follow these people outside of work. You learn about their personal lives. There's kind of a found family aspect to all of this, maybe an overused phrase. But they bond, right? And everyone's got some damage, some trauma, right? They've been through a lot. They're

trying to turn over a new leaf and they're trying to help each other together through that. And Robbie is just a master, you know, coach Taylor level pep talk deliverer. He pulls the team together. He learns from them. You know, they bond. And there are some sort of recognizable superhero archetypes, I guess. You know, you look at like track star and you're reminded of a train maybe or something like that. But none of it feels super derivative.

Like obviously we've seen a lot of this where we went from, you know, superheroes as these mythic, mystical beings. And then we kind of got the deconstruction of the traditional Marvel DC superhero. And we've had Invincible and we've had the boys and the whole boys universe and umbrella academy and all the rest of it. And yet this still felt fresh to me. You know, the idea of showing the personal lives of superheroes and the mundane aspects and the warts and all of that. That's been done, obviously. But rarely has it been done better than this, just the quality of the writing, the storytelling, the acting, all the rest. of it. And I quickly came to care about these characters. And, you know, it's not a long game. It's

essentially a season. And it's broken up into eight episodes, which are digestible. I'd say, what, you know, an hour on average maybe per episode. And so you can just sit down and play this in a way that it's tough to play a lot of games, right? Which just aren't divided up into discrete chunks like this. And so I found that really nice, you know, the way that I would sit down to watch an episode of Fallout or something. Instead, I'm, I'm sitting down to play an episode of this game. And I want to talk to Nick and Pierre about this. But the rollout, the way that it came out weekly over not too protracted, a period,

that really led to kind of a community springing up around the game and a lot of commentary and fan art and people being pleased about certain developments, people being upset about certain developments. Again, we don't want to spoil anything. I guess, you know, the big beats, right? Like you have a couple mean romance options. You can go blonde blazer or brunette blazer, even, depending on your choice. Or you could go in Visigal. Which way did you guys do as Robbie's love interest? I'm just waiting to hear Jomey, honestly.

So here's what happened, right? I posted like a little dispatch thing online, you know, and people were asking the comments. Like, Jomi, who Jomey romance? They're like, bro, blonde, blonde, bays, or obviously bombay. He's the milk merchant, blah, blah, blah. That means y'all don't know me at all. There's there one thing. There's one thing I'm a do.

There's one thing about me is that I can fix her. I was team in Venezuela the whole way from the jump, fellas. Blonde Blancelior name across my mind. Yeah, I would have put money that. You would even put money that. I was there. I wouldn't, who? Oh, that's my, that's my coworker.

That's, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. We just worked together. Don't worry about her. It was in Missal gal from the jump. From the jump. Yeah, yeah. Well, how did that you?

that go for you, Joe. I don't want to talk about it. Yeah. I mean, I don't know that you're beating the milk merchant allegations either way, frankly. But, you know, your options were limited, right? So what are you going to do? I'll talk to Dick and Pierre about that, too, about the romance aspects of this. So, Daniel, did you go in the other direction?

I went with Blom Blazer. I did, too. I was thinking about which is worst of an HR violation? I was like, I was going to play out. Yes. I was like, this is my subordinate. This feels wrong, you know? Yes.

Especially the way episode four starts, I'm like, all right, she's into this. Like, this feels like I am really just taking advantage of the situation here. You know, this is my boss the other way. So it feels slightly. Invisibly loitering in rooms without announcing her presence. While people are in various states of undress definitely feels like a violation. Right. I feel like somebody should have made a call at some point.

I don't want to get too much in the spoiler talk. Yeah. But there was a point. where I'm playing the game and I'm like, I'm there, fellas, right? Like, I got it, man. Like, I'm making all the right choices.

I'm there. It's, like, like, I felt like I was, I had the ball at the five-yard line. And I'm, I'm running in for a touchdown. And then I fumbled it out of bounce at the end, fellas. Are you, are we talking romantically?

I'm talking romantically. Okay. I'm talking romantically. Fellas. I'm not going to lie to you. I couldn't sleep last night. You know what? Fuck it.

Hey, we getting into spoilers real quick. I just need, I just need three minutes. Oh, boy. I'm begging y'all. All right. So we'll do time stamps here, okay? So if you don't want spoilers for the finale of Joey's playthrough, then Devin will put up times tramp in here for you to skip ahead, okay?

All right. You've been warned. Okay. So I load up episode seven. And I feel like I've been playing true to my, I've played true to myself, right? And so I'm like, I'm team, I'm team Z team. So, like, I don't know if it's the first big choice. One of the big choice of episode seven is do you cut Visigal out from the team?

And I cut it from the team because I felt like I needed my guys. No, no, no. Daniel gets worse. Daniel gets worse. Hold on. Let me cook. Let me cook. So then we go.

We have, you know, the scene in the locker room, whatever. Fast forward to the end, right? And guys, when I tell you, this sequence felt like a step. F. Curry floor. I felt like France at the Olympic Gold Games, bro. Shotgun shell number one to the chest. Okay? She kills shroud leaves and goes on to be a villain.

I'm like, yo, I sold it. Shotgun shell two. Did not complete any romance. Tough. That's another L. Shotgun shell three. You and 99% of people failed to be a good mentor to Envisigal.

And then I'm like, At that moment, I'm like, dang, that's tough, bro. But I guess it didn't happen for everybody. 99%, you know what I'm saying? It must have been a real exclusive, real hard. And then I get on, I get on Reddit. I get online. Everybody's time, I'm like, hey, man, it was easy for me, man.

I made it work. Shotgun shell to the chest number four, fellas. I can hear Mike Green in my head going, bang, bang, it hurt. So you know what I did? I was like, I can't go out like this. I went back and I replayed it. Oh, no. I'm waiting.

Guess what? I made different decisions. I made different decisions. I said, you know what? I'm a defender of front of everybody. I'm like, I did the whole thing again. And guess what, fellas? I got the same ending.

Just wasn't meant to be. It got the same ending. What am I supposed to do? I don't know what I did. I had her back the whole. Tom, I was locked in from the jump. I knew what I saw the vision. It was there.

It was right there. I knew what I had to do. I was locked all the way in. You're going through 14 million permutations of this game to try to find one that works out for you. There's only one that does. You know what it is? It's karma. It's karma because I made fun of the Toronto Blue Jays all them weeks ago.

And now I'm the Toronto Blue Jays. I had multiple opportunities to get it done. And I sold. I failed. I'm sorry for you. But Blunt Blazorne and I... That's the way. That's the Miguel Rojas home run, dog.

That's sick. You know what I mean? Like, what can I do? What can I do? My playthrough went perfectly fine. I was Will Smith. I mean, you had happy ending, Blomblazer night. Y'all was Yoshinovumama.

Yamamoto, bro. And I was Addison Barger. Living house of the ever after. Oh, my God. Guys, I'm distraught. Like, I'm distraught, disgusted, disappointed. And frankly, just, ultimately hurting myself because I should be better.

I should have been better. And so now I'm going home. See, y'all got Blondeblazer. Y'all listen to y'all might have gotten a vis-a-gall. I'm leaving with nothing. I'm leaving with nothing. It's tough. There's nothing else to say, really.

I'm just, I'm hurt. I'm hurt. There's not much else I can say. Well, go spoiler free again. I'm glad we went spoiler because that was worth it. My condolence is Jomi. But, you know, can you even spoil a game that has different endings, clearly.

That was not reflective of my experience. I was like, wait, you could have did it that way? Third times the charm. So we maybe go back, give it one more ago. I believe in you too.

We start from scratch. Yeah. I'm not getting sold. Not he did. Do everything different from the way you did it the first time. Just do the George Costanza. Do the opposite.

It will work out for you. Yeah, I was satisfied with my ending. I won't get it to the specifics, but Daniel and I... Hey, hey, how are you? We got on this call and Jomey's like, gotta be honest, guys, I didn't sleep last night. We're like, what are you? I thought it was fine.

Great, great ending. Happy ending, you know? No, because not guys... Cashing out over here. Not only did I go back and replay it, I just couldn't sleep. I was up. I was like, man, if I made one decision, man. You can be thinking your choice.

I'm replaying the game. my head. I'm like, if I go, if I go, if I do this, I could have been here. Oh, no. Well, it's bad. It's a game that provokes strong reactions. It's a sign of good storytelling. There exactly. Yes. You got invested in it. You know, it's kind of, it's true to the story of these characters that perhaps things didn't work out exactly the way that you envision. But there's always season two or your next play through. So I was happy with how it came together narratively. I thought it did the story in the characters justice. So the gameplay, you alluded to this, Daniel, what worked for you and what

didn't? I liked the concept itself with the dispatching, especially because it really just gives another path for them to explore more dialogue and like the banter between the heroes as you're dispatching them. I thought it was really fun. But especially when it comes to like the hacking mini games, I could not do anymore. Yes, I'm with you. Apologies to ad hoc. I've just we got to declare a moratorium on hacking minigames. I'm sorry. This is old. This ship has sailed.

It's rarely done well. If you have a whole hacking game, if you're focused, I feel the way about hacking the way I feel about stealth. You know, it's like if your whole game is based around stealth, great. But if you're sort of slipping stealth elements in there and it's kind of half baked and it's never satisfying, then just don't bother hacking. I'm with you too, you know, like hacking. Steve said it on Slack the other day. Maybe hacking peaked with Sly Cooper, you know, and it just feels like a diversion. It just never feels necessary.

It feels like just get me back to the meat and potatoes, the main attraction here, you know. I don't want to sort of steer a little ball around and, you know, like press buttons in a sequence that the game tells me to. And it just, it never really, you know, sometimes it was frustrating, but not in really a satisfying way. And it just, yeah, it felt like, okay, we've got to shoot. horn some more gameplay in here so it doesn't feel like we're just watching this instead of playing it. But I would have been perfectly fine playing it, quote unquote, a little less because the elements of that aspect of the story were so strong. There's a level, like, because I agree with you guys.

Like the hacking was a little bit OD. But if you go into the settings, you can turn off quick time events. You could do that. So you could really just watch the game for the most part. Yes. You know what I mean? Which I don't know how I like, completely feel about that.

I think, like, ultimately, like, it's fine. When I'm thinking about it, I'm like, I could just be, like, watching this cutscene. Because I know, again, there's, like, in the last episode, there's, like, a quick time event that goes hard. You got to, like, be locked in a little bit. You know what I mean? And so I'm not mad at that, but when I think about it,

I'm like, huh, that means you kind of really didn't have to be out here pressing R2 and X and the whole thing. Yeah, it was a lot of X over and over, at least in my game. You know? I'm with you. I left the QTEs on. You know,

I like a little light interaction. It makes me feel like I'm a little bit more part of the story, I guess, but it wasn't essential to my enjoyment of it. You know,

I guess the most fully fleshed out element of the gameplay is the actual dispatching. Right. Which, you know, like if the whole game were dispatching,

it would not really be that big a draw to me. But as one, part of the mix, you know, as one ingredient in the salad of dispatch. I enjoyed it. You know, I don't know how much more of the dispatching I would have wanted because it is a little, it's, you know, let's be honest, man. Like it, the dispatching is cool because I get the conceit for it in this universe, right? But I don't need more.

That's what I'll say. I don't need more. Yeah. Okay. The magic of this, of this game, I'm going to say show because that's how it kind of feels like. The magic of this game is the characters, like, interacting, you getting, like, to pick one of your three options and going on from there. There is some fun stuff you can get, you know, with the dispatching.

But, like, I didn't come to the item. Nobody's like, man, I can't wait for this dispatch admission. Let me lock in. Let me go, let me go save the torrents refinery. Yeah. Let me go to East High. You know what I mean? Let me go to the port.

Like, it's not really what we're there for. Again, it's not. I don't want to say like it's a time suck. I don't think that's fair. It's a nice way to like Pat, the runtime, the length of the episodes. But in terms of like coming, that's what we come here for.

Yeah. Let's be for real, man. Yeah. And some of the storytelling happens in kind of organic way during the dispatching, which is the main attraction for me. It's not so much the gameplay, you know, assessing the stats and the strategy and all of that,

which took me a while to get the hang of. But then eventually, you know, it's kind of, well, there's only so much you could do. This is the combination of heroes that will work here. But while you're doing all that, you know, you get some sort of storytelling that's happening in the missions that you're sending the superheroes on and just the banter as the whole crew is talking to each other. And that was the highlight of the dispatching for me, more so than the actual dispatching itself. And so when I would

get to the end of a day of dispatching, I can't lie, there was a little bit of relief where it was just like, all right, you know, now we're getting back to what I really want. Let's it. adds the story here. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Now, I think I got the, I got the gameplay on that pretty quickly, but it just, it got tough

because you would, brother, you would solve it. You'd be like, all right, 75% completion. Like, I got a chance. That little thing would bounce out one too many times. Yeah, there's a,

random element to your success. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. How'd I miss that? Yeah. That's a little bit of, and I mean, to be fair, also there were times, it was like 33%, 25%, and I got it. You know what I'm saying?

That little black ball, that little bean would do some weird bounce. And I'm like, bro, I was there. I was there. What do you mean? So, yeah, like, ultimately not a lot. Like, I found it a little bit interesting, but ultimately, like, the more, the more interesting thing is being able to, like, talk to these characters and make those other types of decisions.

Yeah. I don't know whether you guys had this issue, but sometimes when things got busy during the dispatching when you have a whole lot of missions and things that you could select. I had a hard time selecting the right thing sometimes. Oh, yeah. Just like scrolling between the heroes or something. Yeah. Scrolling between the missions on the map.

Yeah. Yes. There was something I couldn't get to. Yes. I'm like, I'm like, oh, get there, get there. And then I got it. Exactly.

Yeah. I missed out on a couple missions because the timer ran out before I could actually select the one that I wanted, which was, you know, maybe it's user error, but it sounds like you guys had the same issue. So I think, yeah, there was a little finikiness. with the actual UI. But yeah, I'm with you. You know, like, it feels, I feel bad about saying it

because obviously a lot of work went into these aspects of the game. But I do feel like you could just sort of strip out the dispatching and the hacking entirely and just give me the narrative and the interactive choices in the story. And I would enjoy this just as much, you know, which is, it feels like an insult, but it's also kind of a compliment just because I enjoyed those aspects of the story so much that that alone would have sufficed for me. I would have gotten more than my money's worth, which, by the way, this game is $30.

So it's a budget title, too. I think I get the dispatch. I got to understand what the dispatches there. The hacking, for sure, though. That can kick rocks. Those red balls, man. I'm tired. I'm sick and tired, fellas.

Can't do it. That's the bottom of line. Can't do it. Again, though, just like the amount of dialogue that you do get from it, I thought it was really gratifying. And especially over the course of the eight episodes, you do get to see how the chemistry

is naturally growing between the characters, too. especially like one of the early episodes. They're all like sabotaging each other and the ways that you're like, it's frustrating for you as a dispatcher too because they're just like, eh, I'm not going to go to this one or like, oh, somebody put some laxatives in my coffee or something like that. Yeah. So it was clever just to see how that kind of changes over the course of the game.

And also just the chemistry between the synergy between certain characters is fun to kind of uncover to as you go along with it. Yeah. And it's just, it's a beautiful show. I almost want to say too. It blurs the lines between those things where it's not at all like, oh, this is well animated or well told for a video game. You know, you don't have to grate on a curve here whatsoever. This looks a lot better than some, you know, purely animated, non-interactive shows that we've all watched and discussed.

It looks great, which is... You can say invincible, Ben. I was thinking that, yes. You can say it. It's okay. We love Invisible. It looks better than invincible. But we know it's made with a matchstick in a dream, then, you know? you can say it's cool.

Yeah. I love my guys. You know. Nice change from the OG telltale where the presentation of that much as I loved a lot of those games and the choices they allowed, you know, the engine was showing its age by the end. And here, this looks absolutely beautiful. And like no expense was spared.

There's a lot of money on the screen every second that you're watching this thing. So absolutely everyone should check this out. And, you know, again, if you're not usually a gamer, this is a great way to dabble because it's, it's very much in the vein of the things that we talk about. The show is the movies here on the Ringiverse. And, you know, it can be as interactive as you want it to be or as uninteractive as you want it to be. And so this is a pretty big tent. And I'm not surprised that it's been such a success, though. I think it's exceeded really everyone's expectations, including ad hocs.

But we'll find out about it. let you guys go because I have to talk to a couple of the people who made dispatch. So this has been a pleasure. Ben, real quick, can you, can you, can you ask them if there's anything I can do to fix my situation? I'll ask if they can patch dispatch specifically for you, you know, if you're having a little trouble with your love life. Because I'm not going to go on YouTube and see the ending I want.

That's not, that's not how real G's do it. Yeah. Real G's got to go back. I'll see if like mistakes, but if they can make it easier for me. Yeah, you know, I'll give them your email. address. Maybe they can just send some personal instructions for you to, you know, land a lady here. I know you need some help. I need all the help. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Great talking to you guys. Jomi, better luck next time. We'll get them in season two, fellas.

Thanks for having me, Ben. Okay. Coming up on this episode, my chat with one of the writers and one of the directors of dispatch, followed by a five years in state of the console generation conversation with Stephen Totillo. Longer term, pods to look forward to, ButtMash will be back next week when we'll be doing our online shooters shootout. We'll be breaking down Battlefield 6 versus Arc Raiders versus Call Duty Blackop 7, which one will win and which one is for you? The week after that, we'll be back again to speed run the surprise steam sensations of 2025.

In early December, we'll be talking Metroid Prime 4, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, yes, more superhero gaming content coming your way, and Five Nights at Freddy's 2. And after that, we'll be into fallout slash game of the year season. So stay tuned. Contact us at ringerverse gaming at gmail.com. And now let's learn more about how dispatch got made, how it could have turned out, and why its fans, not just Jomey, are down bad for the Z team. Well, the players' choices affect the story of dispatch, but they don't affect it as much as the choices made by my next two guests.

Two of the co-founders of dispatchmaker, ad hoc studio, and executive producers of dispatchers of dispatchers. Mitch Herman is the creative director of ad hoc and a director of dispatch. Welcome, Nick. Hey, how's it going? And Pierre Charette is the chief creative officer of ad hoc and a writer of dispatch. Greetings, Pierre. You gave my official creative director title. I'm going to make sure you give Pierre's his narrative directed title because it, you know, it's a board.

I went with chief creative officer, which sounded fancy. It is bigger and more fancy. You're right. Yeah, okay. I don't want to leave out any titles. One's like 10. One's Tinder. You know what I mean?

That's right. This is not the first duo interview you've done. Do you guys get a boost to your stats when you're sent out on a call together? A synergies. I think we'll assess that at the end of this. Yeah, well, you can cover different aspects of development. And you two have a history. You go way back together because you both worked on the Walking Dead and the Wolf Among

Us and Tales from Borderlands and Batman at the original telltale before you teamed up to start your own company. So you had a whole lot of experience working with other people's IP. Take me through the journey to creating your own. How did dispatch begin and evolve? And what were the upsides and downsides of starting something from scratch? Look at this synergy. So synergistic.

Sabotage. We'll answer first. We were at Telto for a long time. I was there for 10 years. It was kind of an incredible place to be, especially for the time that we were there. And the whole time we were kind of jotting down. little notes in the margins of here's if we ever got to do this ourselves you know here are the things we would change and the things that we thought could could use improvements so when when we

created ad hoc these were all like essentially became pillars of what we were doing and you know things like we want the we want people to look at this thing and be convinced as a television show not be able to tell the difference and not classify it as a game and kind of have that be something that they can, you know, give it a reason as to why they wouldn't play it. But I don't know, Pierre, like, I mean, we were talking about this earlier. Like, we've done so much licensed IP. Like, we're always, you were so used to being handed things in like the Walking Dead, Fables, Borderlands, things that we had to, you know, maybe we weren't there, you know,

their number one fans or we weren't already digging into all the Fables comics. But every step of the way, the sort of the journey has always been, How do we turn this into something that I would love or that we would really get excited about? And when essentially RIP for dispatch is superheroes. And it kind of took the same sort of journey where, I mean, Pierre is much more of a superhero like comic guy than I am. But it was just about like, how do we take this thing and make it something that we would want to see and we'd see a trailer for it and get excited about? And all of that starts with characters. Like for us, it's just like, let's create a cast of the characters that you want to spend time with and have agency.

over those relationships. Yeah, I think there's also budgetary constraints, too. Like, it's been talked about before, but we actually, we're going to do this as kind of like a bandersnatch style interactive live action thing. And the early sort of ideas around it, I mean, we were sending around clips of like old sports center commercials. You know, it's like, okay, well, this is like a way that we can have superheroes interacting with people in like a controlled space.

And then we'll like look at all the expensive special effects through like, shitty surveillance cameras, right? So you can see how, like, that is, like, the foundation of just, like, the constraints that we were working with. And, and, yeah, I think it's also just as a comic book, or at least a person I'd write a shitload of comics growing up, like, I think we're just entering that phase of, well, we clearly have gone from the dudes and underwear who are only good and have transitioned into the heroes with clay feet to everyone's alcoholic or a piece of shit phase of, like,

greater comicdom in media. There's also this additional bit of like things like powers or damage control where it's just like it kind of sits adjacent to superheroes where it's like, oh, well, what if you're a cop that has to deal with superheroes? Or what if you're the cleanup crew for a superhero like fights, you know? And that's kind of what this isch kind of feels like. The janitor of the superhero office who becomes a superhero himself. So when did this start?

When was sort of the initial germ of the idea or when did this enter active development? because ad hoc goes back to 2018, right? So I assume this was a long road. This was the first thing. Yeah. This was the first thing we wrote. Our team was pitching. And so, you know, we were, again, like Beer said, this was going to be a live action project.

And we were, I don't know, weeks away from stepping on set and starting to shoot March of 2020. And so we kind of found them. Yeah, I don't remember why we didn't do it. But basically, you know, Hollywood shut down, we weren't able to shoot this, and it got, it got shelved for like four years. And it was really when we were sitting down to talk about what our first original IP was going to be for our first, like, original internal video game. It seems obvious, but it wasn't the first thing that we, we had lined up.

We were kind of, we had other ideas and other things we wanted to explore. But eventually just this week, we had this world and these characters that we were really, you know, excited to get out. out there. And so we ended up finding our way back to dispatch. So, Pierre, you're following the superhero media landscape increasingly crowded. You are a ringer listener. And so, you know, I don't know if there's such a thing as superhero fatigue so much as there's fatigue of superhero stories done badly or done the same as they've done before. But as you're working on this and developing this over a course of years, as various other superhero properties are springing up or expanding, are you worried? Are you thinking we've missed our moment or, you know, this is not going to

seem as original as we thought it was? Did you tweak what you were doing at all in response to other things released in the interim? Or did you feel like you had sort of a singular creative vision here and you weren't so worried about competitors in the superhero space? Yeah, no, no, we're fucking terrified. I was like, what do you mean? No, it was horrifying. Yeah, because, It actually, I feel like it slowly occurred almost the entire time that we were working on. You know what I mean? It's slowly... It's just a constant list of things where we're just like, come.

Why did we take seven years to get this game out? We were so ahead, you know? Yeah. And at the time, I think we also, you know, it's really not been talked about much. This has actually been like a nightmare to get made just from a investor standpoint, from raising money. you know and like this would always be one of the first things people bring up it's like oh well this is this is kind of dead and then and then you know you pair that with and it's an interactive narrative video game that crushes in the box office yeah yeah so it was a really extremely tough sell but i also

think that like i think you said it yourself i think that a lot of i think a lot of genres are sort of proven dead but the data is really dirty you know like we're talking to someone who brought up like romantic comedies it's like oh there's like kind of romcom elements in this. And like, do you think that you're bringing something back that's out of vogue? It's like, no, I think that we worked on something that we worked really hard on making the writing good and it resonating and being a cool story. And I think that good rom-coms are still good movies. And then you can put them out whenever you want and they're going to find an audience. And I think that way about superhero stuff too. I think it's, I mean, when I saw Thunderbolts,

I was like, fuck yeah. Like, this is kind of, I was actually initially like, oh, fuck, this is exploring some depressed superhero team stuff, I found family stuff. But at the same time, it's like, okay, maybe this will vibe with people, you know, and resonate because, you know, this is like kind of the trajectory that creative people are. This is maybe in the zeitgeist right now.

Yeah. Well, Thunderbolt's not the biggest box office success, but dispatch has not been a hard sell to players, at least, because plenty of players have bought it. So that's sort of the origin story of the game. I was curious about how much origin story you wanted to get into the game because there has been a trend, I think, with established characters. Now, we kind of fast forward through how did Batman become Batman? How did Spider-Man become Spider-Man?

But you're starting something from scratch here. And there's a lot of lore that is not here yet, at least. And I imagine that you have written it or you've constructed it in your heads and maybe you're saving it for some expansion of this universe or maybe it just didn't fit into the budget or the time that you had here. But how much more did you think about getting on the screen here? You know, just like, why do people have powers in this world? How did the SDN arise? Why is part of Robert's ear missing? All these questions that people might have, you know, it just drops you into this world. And we get it because we've seen enough superhero stories that we sort of understand the foundations of it. And maybe you don't need to belabor that stuff. But I am curious about how fully

fleshed out that is in your heads at least. There's like a world part of this, and then there's the character of Robert, where I think we already were worried we were, like we had kind of a not traditional pilot where the first episode, Robert never steps foot in SDN. And normally, and for a long time, we were trying to shoehorn it in or cut things out so we could get him there sooner so you understood what this, what the kind of day-to-day and the steady state was going to be of the game. So we already felt like episode one was already maybe too much. So it's funny that, you know, we're talking about not enough backstory

and there being so much other stuff out there. But, you know, Pierre, I think we're aligned in that sometimes, like, having to, like, flesh out the world and the lore and, like, the backstories of why all this, that's like the least interesting stuff to us, like, which is a part of the job. Like, it's like, oh, you're building a world, you're crafting. And, like, I just think it's just not why we did it or why we got into it. wanted to, you know, tell cool stories, sort of tell great stories with great characters.

And then everything else comes out of that. It kind of trickles out of the character. Like, a lot of the times where, you know, scenes are getting written with superheroes who we don't even know what their powers are yet. So it's just being written as an archetype with this guy's an asshole. And we'll figure out kind of what, you know, how we can make, you know, visually, what happens when he gets mad,

you know, we'll depend on what we're, what we settle on. But it's not where we start. I'm not, I'm really not a lore guy and I'm not a theme guy, which really bums people out. But that's not to say that those things are important. It's more like I think everything in a script is like a tool, right? Like for us to emotionally manipulate you, frankly. And you kind of don't know what tools you need.

And I think a lot of people who start with lore will basically create a box that they don't even want to play in anymore, you know, because they've constrained themselves, right? So like it's like, in a lot of ways, lore is like the easy part to do where it doesn't, It's like kind of the fun like designing your house, but then you have to build it. And sometimes it's like once you're faced with the reality of it, you wish you'd done something different before. Totally. Or you feel boxed in.

And like with theme especially, like I think sometimes we'll build something to theme as opposed to writing a story that is trying to do some fundamentals of good storytelling and then leaning into the themes that are emerging from the story that you're telling. So I think we still do it. It's just we kind of do it during the process. And I think that it's a great compliment to us that it feels as, like, deep and rich as it does. But I think that a lot of that just sort of is projected by our players and bands are just like feeling there must be more to us. And there is, in some cases, it's just that there, but there are also cases of just like, oh, this is a facade or this is a, this is a puddle.

This isn't that deep. Yeah. But, you know, Robert's ear, that, for instance, does exist, you know, like, yeah. things like that. Or this started as a joke, and then we just started taking it seriously long enough to where now it's like, yeah, this wasn't, this wasn't crafted. This was just a, yeah, this started as a fart joke, and now he's a character. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking forward to the DLC where we finally learn the identity of the cat mascot character. Mr. Whiskey. His name is Mr. Whiskey. Oh, okay. That's the canonical name. Did not know that. Thank you.

So one, I think, complaint. that players had in the old telltale days, as much as I love those games, by the end, the engine was looking a little dated, you know? Things were looking a little glitchy. And so as storytellers,

as directors, the tools you had to work with were a little limited, the presentation, right? And here, you just have the most beautiful, polished, expensive-looking production, I can imagine.

And going from live action to animation probably opens up the possibilities for what you can actually show on the screen. So as storytellers, how liberating is that to go from that sort of reused and reused engine that we saw for so many telltale stories to this, which just has an entirely new look and frankly better than we've seen in this genre of game before? Thank you. I mean, I'm very thankful for the time. I had a telltale for many reasons, but one of them is because the way that game looked and like the sort of philosophy was

I mean, we were pumping out episodes. Yeah. Like, we were working on stuff for six weeks and then it's out the door. No time to build a new engine. Yeah. Yeah. And, but what that also means is as like a director and as cinematic artist, I was just shooting stuff constantly.

Like every week in a new scene, every, you know, there's always, you got to get, you get to kind of move through content so fast that you get a lot of experience, really. I ship 42 episodes in 10 years, which most people spend 10 years making maybe a game or two. So luckily, by the time, we get to ad hoc and it actually needs to look good and be good myself, Dennis, Chris,

the other directors, like, we had enough experience to where we knew that we weren't going to make pretty, you know, bad cutscenes that were pretty. But, you know, the secret here is really that we just, we made two different products simultaneously. We made a video game,

we made a television show. And then the production nightmare and the narrative nightmare and the logistics nightmare of blending those two things, making things that, you know, working with the studio that is only ever done linear. They don't, they're not a games animation house, figuring out how to work with them on how to teach them, how, you know, what makes what we do special, where the magic is, how to cut, how to hide the sort of scenes and all the stuff that's happening behind the scenes. That was what made

this really challenging. But because this was such a pillar of like, this has to look as good as it ended up looking, like, we had to kind of just break a lot of new ground and do a lot of things that, you know, frankly, are a huge pain in the ass. Yeah. But that was tough. There's also an aspect of this, too, that we've talked about, like, I think we look back to the stuff that we did at Taltaltale and we're super proud of it, but it tends to live in your memory much nicer looking than it actually does when you boot it up or you

watch the political video of it. And I think, you know, having something that's a little more evergreen, having something that feels like, like, we talk about stuff like Dragonslayer, which I was. around in the arcade when Dragons Thrones around, but that must have blown people's minds for that shit to be sitting next to, like, Gallagher, you know? And it looks like full-blown,

amazing Don Bluth animation, you know? So, like, the idea that we can, that we took a route that feels like, you know, unlike, I think I've said this before, it was like, I don't look at like a 10-year-old episode of Bob's Bergers and go like, oh, look at this last-gen

version of this show I love. You know, he just accepted for what it is. So finding a style and aesthetic that will have a little bit of more like a shelf life I think was something we really wanted because I think we looked back to the stuff that we did very fondly

but we wish it was more accessible and sometimes I think the fidelity makes it not accessible for folks now. And that was a real quick shout up to Derek Stratton or art director who is insanely talented and I'm sure we'll be leaving our studio immediately.

But yeah, another one of these pillars was, or one of these truths that we believe was there are, there's a bigger audience for what we're doing than we're traditionally showing up for interactive narrative games. We think, you know, we tell great stories and you get people agency over those stories. Like, that's the best version of a story, you know, or at least our hypothesis. And so it was important that we break down any barrier that someone who would look at it and go, oh, I don't know. I don't know if that's for me. I'm not a gamer. That we, that we were able to kind to kind of make them feel a little bit safer.

This is a game? Yeah, exactly. Which is half the comments of all our trailers of like, I thought this was a show. Yeah. They don't sound like that. They don't sound like that.

That's not the voice we use. Doodoo. And then buy the game and they sound smart. Mission accomplished, you delivered on that respect. And so that's what I was wondering, how much game did you want to get into this game? How did you decide that? Because I hope this comes off as a compliment,

but I think I would have played and enjoyed dispatch if I couldn't play it quite as much as I can if this were less interactive than it actually is. So how did you decide whether that was additive, whether it was worth the work, whether this should have been more like just an interactive TV show and less of a game? It was at one point.

Yeah, early on. And that's one of those pillars we shifted, where initially it was like, yeah, let's just do only interactive dialogue. look, you know, let's just make this a thing that is, that is just about the cinematic experience. And, you know, we did, we had a version of that for a while. We had a version that had like a different mechanic instead of dispatching. That was a little bit more hands-on, more one- basically like what you're seeing when you're in those like action set pieces with this a gal and

like, it's just the donut shop. It was like a version where... Watchdogs, camera cutting kind of stuff. Yeah, you're able to swap between cameras, see scenes from different angles. Still a lot of cool stuff and maybe one day will, we'll use some of it. But I mean, honestly, it just, there's, there's like, we didn't want to completely abandon, like, gamers as like, that's like a thing. Like, we didn't want, want, I mean, knew a lot of people like exploring spaces in the Walking Dead or they like puzzle solving. And I think some of those, for us, they were pacing killers in some of our previous games that we made. So we were looking for solution where it feels like an extension of the story or a continuation. And it's, you're not hitting a brick wall.

And it's, you know, now it's time for gameplay. So that was, it took a. while to get to what we got to, but once we got there, the focus was on how do we blend this and try to make it as same as possible. There was a, not to reuse an anecdote, but like Sean Vanaman who hired me at Taltail. I remember hearing him talk about an X-Tom play through, and he was like, yeah, I just named all the characters after NFL quarterbacks. I was like, okay. And the second you hear like, fuck Peyton Manning's dead. You know, it's just like, there's something to that that adds like a NIST, right, to what is like, you know,

usually like faceless, often nameless characters that you're kind of sending out in these resource management, the type of games, and like similar to like a game called This is the Police, which we played a lot of and like the mechanics were sticky. Like being able to actually interact with characters in the cutscene and bring some of that drama into the workplace where you're actually having to dispatch people, that felt like a magic little solution for the game feeling like it's always connected, you know? Like the drama from the office is always going to come in and show. up in your ear when you're dispatching as well.

And I think that that's a unique thing that I think we've added to resource management these kind of games. You guys and your colleagues did a lot of work that people who play this game once will never see. What percentage of the content in dispatch would you estimate a player sees in a single typical playthrough? I don't even know what this answer is. What do you think?

I think it's about, I think we knew this at some point. I think it's like of what they're not going to see. Yeah. It's, I was going to say, I think it's like mid to high 60s is like a linear playthrough. That you do see. So you see a majority maybe, but not by much. Yeah, but just a little bit over. I mean, every time you're making a dialogue choice, there's two other options.

And our job was to make them great. And even if it's not like consequential on a macro level, they need to be entertaining. They need to make sense for Robert, for the character of the scene. So, you know, I don't envy our writing team because, you know, the job is essentially, it's already hard enough as a writer to write one great scene. Every, every, you know, fork in the road is another, you know, you got to write a new great scene. And so your best idea, I need another best idea that's equally as good because these playthrues are going to be, you know, 50-50. So write three inspirational speeches that are all resonating. Yeah, that's a nightmare.

Yeah, well, talk to me about the degree of choice that is available to players in this game, perhaps compared to past games that you worked on at Telltale, because there's always that discussion of how much is this an illusion? When characters remember something, what does that actually mean? How much are you actually shaping the story? And, you know, often in video games, the degree of player agency is somewhat oversold just because of the realities of making a video game. and the production values and the expense,

and not everything can be Baldur's Gate 3 in terms of just enabling you to manipulate the world and the story. So how manipulable is this, actually? It's hard for me to gauge having completed it only once this far. I think it's very, like, I think the outcomes are very consequential, but I also think that it's a little bit of like a strange place that we're all in, where we'll see someone review the game or, you know, player review the game and say,

this was incredible. I felt all these things, but then I found out that my choices don't matter. It's like, well, it was a piece of entertainment that we wanted to make you feel something and did that.

So if you want to be the person that fucking runs to the back of the stage of the magic show and be like, guys, it's all bullshit. It's like, okay, you could be that guy, you know, and like, you can figure out all the details that are required for you to dislike this thing.

But I think that every choice in life doesn't matter in the way that people are assessing these choices. And I think if you, my friend Joel Burgess put it a different way, like he makes game games, you know, like Skyrims and real games. And, you know, he's telling me like, no, man, it's like it's like barrels in a game like Skyrims. You know, to put a gold bar in every barrel, you know. Sometimes there's nothing. Sometimes there's, hey, sometimes there's a couple coins.

Joel only speaks in like Skyrim metaphors. It's true. But I think that that's true because it's like if I'm sitting there going like, oh man, I'm late for work, I gotta take a shit. I think that could mean I just get to work and have to, you know, hustle in, you know? It doesn't necessarily mean I shit my pants on the way to work. And I feel like sometimes people think that every choice has to feel like this, massive impact on your life. And like, that's not how it is.

Sometimes it's just how you want to like navigate through a conversation or like what you want the energy of a conversation to be. And I think this over, I think it's actually plagued a lot of interactive narrative games because they hear that, that criticism. And then they try to make every choice matter in a way that feels in a sentence and false. Yeah. It doesn't feel like human beings having a conversation. It feels like human beings.

putting each other through like some touring tests. Remember what you said three minutes ago? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So you're no strangers to the episodic release schedule. This is an ongoing conversation, even more so in non-interactive media, the binge drop versus the weekly drop. This is a little bit different from the telltale schedule.

And maybe that's because of the production schedule that you mentioned earlier, Nick, where you're, you know, constantly just laying track in front of you like Wallace and Grommett as you're making these things. Here, you were able to release these episodes on a rapid cadence, right? And, you know, it's hard to assess how this game would have been received if it had been a binge drop or if you had a month or two between episodes. Hard to imagine the reception being much stronger than it has been. Do you attribute that success, in part, at least, to the fact that you had these games

coming out on this schedule where people had time to dissect them? and discuss them and speculate, but not so much time that they moved on to something else. Yep. Yeah, you nailed it. I mean, yeah, we knew as a risk. We knew that there's a, you know, a group of players who are going to just be mad and want to binge it all at once. And, you know, we look at it like, they only have to wait three weeks after the launch to do that. So it's, it's kind of like a short-term problem. And it'll be bingeable forever after that point, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Today, it launched yesterday. forever now. It's, yeah, it's bingeable. But kind of first and foremost, we're just

fans of this type of experience. Like, I like it when I'm forced to wait for Nandor or for something that I'm really resonating with. It's one thing if it's like, I just want to burn through this show. I'm not in love with it, but I'm going to finish it. I kind of feel differently about those shows, but something that I'm really excited for, the experience, the in-between moments, the conversations, the, you know, the community is always such a big word, but even just like, people in your life getting to speculate. I love watching Survivor. I love, I mean, I'm still, you know, the amazing race.

Like, these things, like, get me excited for the next week. And then when they're over, I'm sad. And I think this is the kind of story where we wanted that bittersweet feeling at the end. We wanted to kind of build that community. And also, from a marketing standpoint, we're an indie studio no one's ever heard of. And we need every tool in the bag to get people to find out about this thing. While Battlefield is launching. Yeah.

Yeah, we're up against arc raiders. So, like, you know, Pierre early on was like pointed out that we should be very, we should, at Delta, we were very adverse to people streaming our game. It was kind of early streaming era too, where Twitch and everything really started popping off. And it's just a bunch of people who aren't going to buy the game now because they get to watch our game. And our game is very watchable, our games that we make are, you know, part TV show. the weekly cadence here helps give streamers content to share and get them excited and want them week to week to be able to share that with their audience. And it's also a nice breaking point for anyone who watches maybe the first two episodes.

And now they can't just binge it. And maybe they would have just binged it. But now they're forced to ask themselves, like, is it something I want to be a part of myself? Do I want to share this with someone that I, you know, someone on the couch, my girlfriend or whoever? Or do I just want to keep watching? And which we're totally okay with. You know, we don't, we're not, I think we like the idea that people can experience this in multiple different ways that they want to experience it in a chat room.

That's how, like, that's what this is kind of built for everybody. And we want to kind of meet me post where they are. I also think that like I'm old now and I don't got eight hours all the time. And I find some stuff to be kind of overwhelming the, the sort of time investment required. And because of that, I think being able to just go, give us a couple, couple hours a week. You know, and if you don't want to do that, it's okay. You can come catch up. But I think that that is appealing to folks who maybe your eyes are just burning, you know,

and your thumbs are sore, you know, and just come chill out and hang out with us for a couple hours and create that, that cadence. And I also think that just in this extremely instant gratification world we find ourselves in where it's like, I'm on TikTok too. You know, like I see seven million things an hour when I get stuck on that. thing. I think we're also introducing to a group maybe of like a younger generation, of people who are watching on streams, having to wait. And what that nightmare feels like sometimes if you're left on a cliffhanger, like it's a new thing for a lot of folks, you know?

Have some patience. Learn some delayed gratifications, young ins. A lot of those seven million TikToks are about dispatch right now, which is probably good for you. So pretty wild. Speaking of player choices, you can spoil. something specific here if you care to. You do play testing, and you've probably played this game a zillion times, and you've seen every possible permutation, and you know what your limited pool of pre-release players did. But then you get a deluge of data about what the public did

and how the public played this game. Is there a specific decision that stands out to either of you about, wow, this was not the way that we thought this was going to go? Yeah. You want to go first, Nick? Sure, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's the... Don't pick the one eye.

Thank you. Okay, well, great. I mean, the obvious one, or the one that sort of caused off-card initially was the romance with Blazor and Invisigal. We had been testing that. You know, we've got focus groups, like you said, pretty close to even, you know? There's what... It was favoring Invisigal a little bit. And then the game goes out, and it's, like, kind of like, yeah, 75% of players are going with Visigal.

And I think there are a lot of factors there. And there are things that maybe we could have... There's one factor. The storyboard version of the sex scene was not selling it nearly as much. That's true. When all the lighting gets in there and yeah. Actually, I think in the storyboards there wasn't even nudity. And then we turned it up.

So that stuff certainly at play. But I think, you know, also what's interesting about this episodic release is I really do think that there has been... There was so much, I mean, it's one thing to sit down and play the game by yourself and kind of make those decisions. It's another to do it in front of, you know, 15,000 people where a chat has seen five other streams. And they start to coalesce on narratives. And like, they start to convince each other of things that might be true. And then that spreads beyond that chat room into Reddit and people reading the game. And so, like, I saw a lot of things that if we were going to test this again, what would be interesting to do is to have people play.

episode kind of with, you know, with headphones on and then come together into a room to discuss the episode before they play the next one because we might actually be able to predict better what people were expecting betrayals. Exactly. That we're not there. The biggest plot for is very radical. Nice people were nice. You know, it's like a weird, weird thing we're saying about how cynical the landscape is. I actually think maybe speaking to to that cynicism, I'm shocked at how many people are killing Shrown. I'm like, this is such a classic setup of the superhero story. And because video games tend, people tend to play Paragon first, you know, the renegade is the second

play through, you know? And I'm shocked that people are feeling so away about this character that kind of just shows up in the last two episodes. He's kind of a release valve of maybe, Pierre, because like, just thinking about like, because everyone's playing nice for the, rest of the game. Like, it's frustrating. Like, they're nice to everybody. Like, you know, I was saying another call. Like, this is their throw that shared through the vending machine.

Yeah, like, like, there's, like, people who are convinced, you know, that, you know, whatever, Mandy has got other motives or she's evil and yada, yada. And then she's like, oh, like, how do you like my dress? And they're like, oh, it's incredible. And it's like, come on, man. Like, just tell her that, you know, you've had options. You could have been a jerk to her. You could have been funny to her. And, like, they still go that nice path.

So shroud might just be that outlet of like, you know what? I don't give a fuck about this guy. I'm smashing his face in. Speaking of the dress moment, there is a moment where there's a minor wardrobe malfunction involving Blazer. There's a slight nip slip almost. And you have the option. A huge shift, Ben.

Yes, it's a huge shift. It's only Ariola, but there's the option to tell her about that or not. And I was wooing her. I was being a gentleman or so I thought. I see the stats at the end of the episode. And if I recall correctly, it's like, you and 1% of players told her. That's probably a bug, then. That's probably a bug.

I hope so, because I'm side-eyeing the rest of the play. Okay, guys. I hope that's the audience. Yeah, fun, you know, an anecdote about that scene. It's actually a scene that started in like a rom-com I wrote, like, spec rom-com before I was even paid to write. it was called Typecast. So, like, Typecast 2, when she's recapping what Typecast is when, uh, when, uh,

when, uh, in those gals after movies. Yeah, that's just like, that's just the plot that, that particular spec script I wrote. And like that, that was a nip slip scene that like, from that. And just the awkwardness of like not quite wanting to. I think I was just so in my own head that I'm like, it's so awkward to just tell someone that they're, there. Yeah. Because you don't, the anxiety of like, I.

was nothing. You have to admit. Exactly. Right. So it's funny to me that, like, I think that this is one of those nice small lessons that people may take from our little video game of fart jokes and dicks, where if this ever happens to your life, just tell the person. And she's so normal about it.

She's like, oh, okay. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Good. I had some questions about the player base.

So that's somewhat rest of it. I'm glad your spec script paid off eventually, Pierre. always nice when you can self-plagiarize, you know. And we own that script or something. That's that script. That's true? I can't tell it. Okay.

Yeah, because you use it in our. It's true. Yeah, that's ad hoc IP. Well, I have to take you to task, Pierre, for a second, because you did do an interview with inverse in which you talked about your regret about cutting sex scenes from the game. And here's what you said about essentially fan horniness, quote, I don't know what I anticipate or I don't know that I anticipated. it to be as ravenous as it's been. It's probably why we didn't plan for more romance options because we didn't know it was going to be such a meaningful part of the experience

for folks. And I have to ask, have you met the internet? Yeah. I was telling Nick that like, after seeing the first couple episodes come out and like really seeing people's reactions, I guess I didn't realize how horny a lot of the stuff was. And part of that too is like when you don't see the visuals against it, you know,

It's not the same, right? It's my fault. It's too horny. It's too much. Too much barbecue sauce on the page. I also think that it says something about maybe, like, we just looked at it like, well, we get to make superheroes and we like these types of archetypes of superheroes. So, like, I don't know, let's just throw them into a mixer.

And then I think we just somehow landed on the cast that everyone was just thirsting for in a way that I wasn't sure would be. Beyond the video for Waterboy. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don't expect of that. Yeah, there's someone out there for everyone. Water boy's got Nick's body, you know? His name is also Herman.

Thank you, Pierre. Yeah, it is. He gets people wet. He gets people wet. No, but it's also like with dispatch, we had never really, we had kind of opportunities in the past. Like, we're like with Wolf, like, canonically Big Bee is, you know, with, so white.

So there's kind of a really limited thing you can do there with romance. Tales in the Borderlands. We didn't really love the idea of romancing yourself because it was a split personality. We've all been there. We've all romancing ourselves from time to time. This is the first kind of real opportunity where we were like, hey, let's try a real love triangle there

and let's explore this. And because it's kind of our first time going this hard on it, I think we didn't want to, we didn't want to go too far. We didn't want to make the whole thing about it. We didn't, you know. So there were opportunities in like what, you know,

in that previous interview, it's like we had to scopes things. We were running, you know, the budget is only so big and we had scenes written. I mean, we had a scene with Mandy that I'm sure everyone would have, you know, appreciated. All the blazer glazers would have been stoked

about, but it was like not critical and it was more, it was great and then, you know, we want to maybe, hopefully, maybe if we do more stuff in season two, if there is season two, yes, we could explore it. To get serious about, you know, boobs, for a moment. I do think that the, I think that the romance options you're off, like, presented

with threat story also sort of thematically resonate with kind of what Robert's going through, right? It's like you've got one character. It's like, if you get with Blazer, that means you are acknowledging that you need help, you know? And if you get with someone like, like, in Mizzagal, it's more of an instance where you're in a place where you're, you could help someone, right? And I think Roberts for is struggling with both these things throughout the story. And I think that it's its extension of what is going through. But it's also worth noting you can actually go through this game without romancing anyone. And also not getting kissed by anyone or not like this.

Like this is possible too. Yes, my friend Jomey discovered that unintentionally on his playthrough. And if you could do maybe a personal Zoom session or some tutoring with him, possibly after this call. actors in and then they'll just roleplay for him and just give him exactly what he needs. He would really appreciate that, I think, because, you know, I was, I was team Blazer. I'm team Mandy. I had some second thoughts as the game went on, but that's the choice I made. Do you feel vindicated by the end?

I do by my personal play through, yes. And Jomi, things went poorly for Jomey. So did Jomey go Invisigal and then she broke bad? Is that what happens? Yes, and also he got no, no romantic action whatsoever. So it was kind of worst of both worlds. He didn't get kids. It was worst of both worlds for him because she broke bad and also.

Yeah. And those, to be clear, those are separate. Like it was one of the things that was important within Visigal is that like you can romance her. But that doesn't mean she's going to be like a hero all of the side. So like romance and kind of her sort of conditional state at the end of the game are separate. And then they're looking at different things that you're doing. So it's really funny that he. So that might be a true 1% of players outcome.

that Joe me experienced. You somehow put up the bumpers at the bowling alley. It's still struck out. It's like, wow, we didn't. You can realize that was possible. Gosh, we didn't. It's wild. And he just completely de-rised Robert's character.

That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah, that's Eric Paul we're talking about here. I mean, he got punched in the dick by Malevolus. So that's true. Yeah. Okay. Well, lastly, this is all new and exciting for you.

And I'm sure you're reveling in the success as you should. be and it's probably premature to duck about. This is the first day. So every week, just so you know, every week we were dropping an episode, it was the same deadline for when we needed to have the build box for the next week. Okay. So we have yet said, this is like basically the first or second day where when the game came out, we weren't like buzzing with all the next things we had to do.

So we're kind of, know that we really appreciated what this is fully yet. Yeah, well, I imagine it's transformative financially for an indie studio with your debut game. And then you face the choice that anyone has, I guess, if they have a success and it's a good choice to have. But do we double down on this? Clearly, there's an appetite for it. Do we just, as you said, go hard on it. I believe you said, Nick phrasing. But, you know, do you deliver a second season?

Do you do DLC? Do you just fully flesh out the world of dispatch? or is there a part of you that wants to press on and keep breaking new ground and making new things and starting from scratch yet again? I mean, it's tough because you might have certain creative impulses and then you have reality of having to pay people and pay yourselves and operate a studio. And sometimes those things are in conflict, but sometimes they're not because maybe you want to live in this world for a while longer, as I think a lot of players do.

So what's your current thinking on that, which I'm sure is very much in flux? you want to go first thing? Sure. Just to give you time to have a better answer. I mean, I think everything you said, I think we want to do. And now the problem is, you know, yeah, we want to do DLC. Yeah, we want to do season two. Yeah, we want to, you know, we've already announced that we're working on

and we're working with critical role on the video game. So it is now, I mean, luckily success brings us the ability to choose and not, and not be kind of forced down the path. Yeah, that's going to be kind of what the end of this year. looks like is us sitting, staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what we want to do next. Yeah,

and I think there's also just, to be honest, an immense pressure now to live up to this season with this season two. We kind of, you know, and I think even in the case of like how we told the story,

like, if we knew this was going to be three seasons, maybe season ends on the chase run. Do you know what I mean? Like, like that's the kind of, you know, you're all the votes to get this one on.

These were all the ideas. Yeah. The well is right. Yeah. Yeah. And then there's luckily, you know, and as we mentioned, because we have such a deep lore, you know, we can just easily just like conjure up the season two, right? But I also think that like, you know, that whole thing about, you know,

you take your whole life to write your first album and you got eight months to write your second, you know, and we're kind of, there's probably a little bit of that, a little bit of recharge that has to happen. But obviously we're in love with these characters as much as other, you know, as the fans are. So I'm sure we want to explore it soon, you know, one way or the other. Ben Lindberg will remember that. I hope that you do get a chance to savor the success before you impose the pressure on the next thing.

But congrats on the reception and on how good the game is. And we'll look forward to whatever's next from ad hoc in the world of dispatch or beyond. Thanks, Nick. Thanks, Pierre. Thanks, man. Thanks, man. This episode is brought to by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess.

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Sign up for Fandual Predicts and predict it from the couch. Offered by Fandual Prediction Markets LLC, a registered futures commission merchant. 18 plus. Trading derivatives involve significant risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Manage your activity with our consumer protection tools. Well, tough look for our boy Jomi, who unlocked new levels of non-game having. Hopefully his love story with Invisigal is not over, and neither is this episode. Because I've got a great segment coming up with my conversation with Stephen Totillo, founder and proprietor of GameFile. We're going to get into the fifth anniversary of this console generation.

We'll sum up what's worked, what hasn't, and what the future holds. Let's quick resume right now. Well, some of the best money I spend on gaming or independent media is my subscription to GameFile, a substack newsletter started and written by Stephen Totillo, former editor-in-chief of Kataku, reporter for MTV News, Axios. The price of the subscription does not include podcast appearances, but Stephen is throwing that in for free as he joins me to talk about the fifth anniversary of the start of the ninth console generation.

And Stephen, welcome and I guess happy early second anniversary next month to GameFile. Thank you, Ben. Lovely to be here. And it's debatable whether that's my second anniversary or not. I've asked readers this in the past. I soft-launched GameFile in December of 2023, but I wasn't publishing regularly until January 2024. And I don't know what we actually count.

Well, I think if you look up my account, you'll find that I was there from the start. So whichever anniversary we're celebrating, I will celebrate it with you as a subscriber, an essential read every week, tons of incredible reporting. And happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, PS5. Happy birthday, Xbox Series X, S. Probably a bit happier a birthday for PS5 than for series SX. But it does not feel like five years to me.

And maybe that's because as we get older, time seems to have passed more quickly. But I also think it's because of some trends we'll talk about it. It took a while for this generation to get going. and in some respects, it seems like it still is getting going. Yes, this has been a confusing one, but obviously we had a major global event that happened in the middle of it. And I think that has distorted all of our sense of time as well. Yeah, I think that is part of it.

And it's hard to talk about this generation without talking about the fact that November 2020 was a very different time in the world and for the gaming industry, for that matter. And perhaps was the peak from a revenue sales standpoint of gaming with the hardware and software at that point when we were all inside. Some of us still are cooped up inside a lot of the time because we're playing video games, but not everyone. The rest of society has ventured outside. So let's talk a little bit about what sets this generation apart.

And I think part of it just is that that this generation next gen, as we were calling it for the longest time, we kept calling it next gen because the last gen was still very much here. We had, and to some extent even still have. a cross-gen situation. In fact, just this week, Call of Duty Blackop 7 will be playable on PS4 and Xbox 1, five years into this generation. And I believe you've documented that that is not the way

that it used to work in previous generations. No, some of the legacy support has lasted longer. MLB, the show, I believe, finally dropped prior gen support, and that was one you could look at in terms of PlayStation and whether they were supporting, you know, PS3, when the PS4 versions were coming out. or PS4 and PS5 versions were coming out. But you could also look at Call of Duty.

You could look at some of the other FIFA Madden. And several of the series held on and have held on longer before ditching the prior generation. Some of that is how successful the prior generation was, particularly for Sony. It doesn't make sense to abandon selling games to people who already own a box and potentially release a game that they can't buy because they were so. satisfied with having a PS4 or maybe an Xbox one, that you still want to support that. But it also is, I think, just a sign of the lack of urgency to upgrade that has happened for quite a few reasons, one of which is that the aforementioned happiness that people had with those systems.

Some of it also is that you have games such as Fortnite and Roblox that have become constant plays for many people and for many families. and these are not system hardware pushing games. So there's been less of an impetus, say, maybe from parents here and from their kids, if we need to get the next thing, because kids might be pretty happy with the machine that are already playing the most popular games on

that isn't pushing for that. And then also you just have the question of what development studios have been able to create for the new generation that make it a must to upgrade or get a new one. And that's where I think some of the, at least what I'm, I think, I'm Chris where you think we're a lot of the dissatisfaction that I see people expressing during this fifth anniversary is coming from is how come people didn't, how come these studios haven't been able to turn out games that feel like they define this generation. Yeah, I do want to talk about that.

And yes, if you're one of the whatever 20 million people playing grow a garden on Roblox at any particular time, you can you can grow your garden on old hardware and you won't really notice the difference. But yeah, I think part of it, you know, there was sort of a slow adoption initially. even though there was great demand, supply was somewhat constrained because it's the pandemic and there's supply chain issues. And so there's a stock shortage at first. Now, I think, you know, they've kind of caught up at this point. And if you look at the sales figures for PlayStation, Sony's up to 84 million PS5s versus 86 million PS4s in the same time frame. So essentially the same. But, and you did some reporting around this until fairly recently, if you were playing a PlayStation, you were just as likely to be playing PS4 as PS5.

And Sony actually gave some stats to that effect, again, years into this generation. And that has to do with the big install base for PS4, but also, yes, not everyone feeling that need to upgrade. So that was within what, the last year or so probably, right, that they were saying something like 50% of people who were logged it on a PlayStation were on a PS4. Yeah, it was a little over a year ago. They were saying that.

The ratio, I believe, was tip more towards, PS5 now, then PS4. Some of those that stuff wasn't as trackable during prior console generation transitions. So some of the data just may have just been invisible to us and if we'd seen it, we might have

seen some of the slowness of people transferring over. But bear in mind, like, Sony was happy to move from PS3 to PS4. PS3 in the long term was more successful than it initially seemed it would be up against the Xbox 360 in terms of its most direct competition, but really even more so up against the Wii. But PS3 eventually kind of closed the gap, I guess, in terms of units sold.

But it was a difficult machine to design for, and Sony was happy to move to the PS4 generation. So you have that factor of companies that are making these boxes, the eagerness that they have to kind of move on. Microsoft, you know, ended the pull-de-plug on the Xbox 1 pretty quickly to try to change the conversation to what they hoped was going to be a better story with the Xbox series consoles. until they were hopeful to get people excited about moving up to that next generation and leave the old one behind. I think Sony was more in a position where, at least in the early going, hey, if you're going to buy something on the older machine,

it's going to benefit us a fair amount, just as buying something on the new machine would. And if you look back, Sony has had a history of supporting the so-called outgoing hardware for quite some time. They released God of War II on the PS2 after the PS3 launched. there's even some interviews that I think happened back around that time where Sony executives are questioning each other, why are we doing this? Why are we not putting this exclusively on the PS3?

And it's because when you have a massive install base like the PS2 had, when you have so many people who own a PlayStation 2, you're doing the business, you know, the calculations, and you're looking at how many copies you need to sell to recoup your development costs or what the potential profit level could be for the game. And if you don't have that many people, who owned PS3s at the time, but you have 100 plus million people with PS2s,

why wouldn't you want to sell your Big New God Award to those people? Obviously, the other logic is, no, you want to get those people to feel the need to buy a PS3, but fast forward to now when you were to more recent, you know, console transitions, and you see the similar dynamic of wanting to still get a piece of that larger install base. So PS4 did quite well.

And so as you mentioned before, when PS5 was coming out, you had games like Miles Morales, which was a launch game for the PS5, but it was also running on PS4. You had a sequel to Horizon Zero Dawn, rather, in Horizon Forbidden West, which was coming out years after the console transition

had kicked in and yet you could still play it on PS4. And you had a lot of that last-gen legacy support. I remember that when Microsoft was announcing the games that were going to be on the Xbox series, they made a whole point of talking about how they were going to continue to support the prior generation, but then switched to exclusive games, and it seemed like, oh, they're waiting a while

to switch to exclusives. Well, in retrospect, that's kind of how people, how the transitions happen for a lot of these systems. And so you have not had that many games until fairly recently that were purely made just for the PS5, made just for the Xbox series consoles, particularly the Series X, which I guess you're not allowed to do. You have to make it for the Series S, which is a weaker machine and the series X. But even Sony, it took Insomniac a while to put out, the most prolific Sony game studio. having released that Miles Morales game and launched for PS5. And while Ratchet and Clank,

which they put out in the spring of 2021, was PS5 only, they were still trying to support PS4 as much as they could. And it took a while for them to put out another genuine PS5 only game. Yeah. And one of the big developments of this generation has just been the erosion of exclusivity,

the end of exclusivity, if you want to be hyperbolic about it. And the end of the console world, quote unquote. And I guess part of the motivation for that, which is just let's get our software in front of as many people as we can, regardless of what hardware they're playing it on, that kind of also applies to that cross-gen sensibility, just of, well, the lack of exclusives, we're going to put our software on as many platforms as possible. Also kind of applies to if you have a multi-platform hardware set up yourself, you want people to play, even if they're playing

on a PS4 instead of a PS5. And so it did take a long time. You can look now and you can say Astrobot, for instance, or Death Stranding 2 or Spider-Man 2, or Final Fantasy 7 rebirth or Returnal or games like that that are exclusive to this generation, but it took quite a while to build up that library. And then you also have the multi-platform library that might be exclusive to this generation, but not to any particular system. And so, you know, maybe there are some.

There's Balders Gate 3 and there's Claire Skior and there's Alan Wake 2 and various games for this generation only. But so many games are out now for multiple systems. And I think in a way that also makes it seem a little less like it's kind of anchored to a particular generation. It's just it's all amorphous, right? It's hard to draw the lines. And I think in the past, perhaps, when there was more of an active. console war and people kind of had a horse in the race and you knew that you could get this game only for this system, then that cemented the perception that, oh, things have actually changed.

This is meaningfully different from the previous generation because there are things that I can get on only a certain system. Yeah, I mean, the trap that a lot of games, journalists, pundits and I guess some gaming fans fall into is becoming armchair business analysts of hardware manufacturers, it really doesn't. These are toasters, right? These are appliances, game consoles. And who really cares? Like, as long as, like, they make something good to eat,

as long as the toast is crispy and you can put butter on it, you're fine, right? It matters to a minor extent, I guess, to the general public, how well these consoles are doing. Microsoft isn't going out of business anytime soon, but I guess it's conceivable. They could get out of making gaming hardware, but they've committed to at least another generation of it. Sony, I guess, could for some reason decide

they're not going to make consoles anymore, but it doesn't seem like it's coming out. That's going to happen anytime soon. So these companies are going to stay in business. They're going to make a lot of money, selling games, selling hardware to an extent. But ultimately, what really matters is whether the games are any good.

And the games these days are phenomenal. There are more amazing games coming out now than possibly any time in the history of the medium. Whether they run on this machine and not that machine or they happen to run on more machines, and if that class, or confuses the discussion of whether or not this is genuinely a great generation of consoles

in and of itself has become more beside the point. It is certainly worth noting that it's five years since these new boxes came out. But even those boxes are less clearly defined than consoles used to be because with the prior generation, we got mid-generation refreshes like the PlayStation 4 Pro,

like the Xbox 1X and the Xbox 1S. And so the consoles themselves have been, are behaving more like constantly upgradable devices. Certainly Nintendo, which I don't even consider, I think the switch should be counted in a console generation as opposed to I think it should be counted in the handheld generation. It is, I think, a fifth generation handheld, if I remember my counting, or maybe it's a sixth generation.

But it is, and it is showing that that's actually the winner of everything. Like the winning mode for gaming hardware is constant upgrades of a vector towards portability, which seems like a direction that we're seeing both Microsoft and to an extent Sony experiment with. And it may puncture the romanticism around there being these boxes that come out every eight years and are supposedly unchanged and can have all this kind of nostalgia and identity built around. I mean, that's all fun. I certainly was into that for a long time as a kid and still think about, you know, the consoles in that way to an extent. But I think it just matters a lot less, right? Like the generation of consoles that we're in right now is underwhelming in terms of are you, can you point to say these were great games that only, that this machine was needed in order to, you know, propel, you know, into our hands and into our, into our, imaginations, less so ever than before, right? Does any console feel essential for creating a gaming experience? But the game experiences themselves are incredible these things.

Yeah, I agree with that. I was going to say something similar because Polygon published a package this week about the anniversary called The Lost Generation. And a lot of it was about this sense of dissatisfaction or unfulfillment, which I feel to a certain extent. And yet it is kind of hard to square that with the fact that I don't have enough time in the day to play the many great games that keep coming out. We don't have enough podcasts to cover them all. And so it does feel almost outmoded to talk about a console generation because, yeah, you have

the Switch and Switch 2, which are sort of off cycle and aren't really directly competing with the other platforms that we're talking about, which to an extent aren't even directly competing with each other anymore. Plus, you have the Steam deck. And there's just so little exclusivity. And things are, you know, if it's a PlayStation game, if it's an Xbox game, you can probably play it on PC, if not immediately, then pretty soon. So it's the concept of a console generation maybe is not as useful as it was. And, you know, what you were saying, though, about the mid-generation hardware upgrades, that has been a bit of a dud this time around. And I wasn't thrilled about the fact that we were getting that in the console space. There was this kind of convergence with PC gaming and console gaming.

It used to be just set it and forget it. You buy a box every several years. And in between, you don't have to worry about spending more or not spending more and then having that fomo of am I not playing these games in the optimal settings? But this generation, Xbox didn't do one, which was maybe partly just because of the stagnation of the series X and S in general, but also maybe because it would have been difficult to have a game that supported the series S and also a souped up series X. And then Switch didn't do one either. There was no Switch pro, even though we were always.

waiting for one forever. The PS5 Pro came out, but you could easily forget about that. And as someone who never sprang for a PS5 Pro, I don't feel bad about that. And in fact, many people who own a PS5 Pro don't feel great about that either, or at least don't feel like it's essential. And so maybe it's the needs or the incentive to make everything cross platform. So it still has to support a base PS5 or even a PS4 or a series S, et cetera. but we haven't seen that push for the mid-generation refresh this time around to the same extent. I mean, the PS5 Pro came out almost the exact same moment, and the PS5's lifespan as the PS4 Pro did in the PS4's lifespan.

And it just, it showed, and this is, I think, supportive of the idea that it's been a disappointing console generation, and that it didn't feel like as much of an improvement in performance, PS5 Pro over PS5. And this whole generation has been one where, to the extent that people expected graphical improvement, to indicate the worth of spending the money to move into a new console generation, the graphical improvement just really hasn't been there in a way that has felt meaningful, you know, hasn't been dazzling in a way of, oh, I got to play a game that looks like that. I got to move up to this system. And that is because some people are simply playing, not some, many people,

many millions of people are happily playing Fortnite and not really caring about what Fortnite would look like on a PS5, or God forbid a PS6, they're happy with what Fortnite has looked like even down to, you know, whatever, whatever device they're playing it on. You mentioned, by the way, before you said that the switch, Switch 2 is kind of an off thing and it's not directly competing with the other machines. And I would loveingly push back just on that thinking, it is not directly competing if you are a person who is invested in the sales of the hardware and you're thinking about who am I worried about is my competitor. But if you're putting yourself in the gaming gamer brain, it's directly competing

for your time. If you have a switch and you have a PlayStation, if you have a switch and you don't know if you want to buy an Xbox, they're direct competitors for your time and to play amazing games. And right now, for me, gaming is about, you know, the choices I made this year were, I guess in the background impacted by what hardware I had available to me, but they were about spending 100 hours playing blueprints, the amazing first-person puzzle game of a 45-room mansion where we're looking for the 46th room. They were the current 20-plus hours I'm playing

of a simulation of a newsroom in the 1930s game called News Tower. They are the dozen plus hours, I believe, seen I played in Outer Worlds 2, and the time that I've played Mario Kart World with my kids, they are whatever games I've been playing or not getting to, right? Something has competed with my ability to get to Clare Obscure Expedition 33, which I know I should be playing. Yeah.

And it's just some other game that took me away from that. Maybe if I had, you know, I'm fortunate as a games reporter, that it's both a job I can justify the expense on to buy hardware, but also that sometimes companies will send me the hardware that I have every device available to me. and so therefore I have pretty easy access to just about any game I'm interested in playing, but you wind up just realizing that

there is not enough time to play games that just so many demand your attention there's so many amazing games coming out right now. If anything, the consoles feel archaic in the sense that they are representatives of a slow pace, they're part of the slow lane of the video game industry and of the culture of video games.

a lot of the games that are amazing people in 2025 are games like Peek, the comedic climbing game on PC or Grow a Garden, the sort of Farm Bill for Roblox. By the way, you saw it going to be turned into a movie? Are you excited to the Grove Garden movie? Yes. These are games made by small teams made in short periods of time. They are coming from the fast lane of gaming.

They are coming from a place where people can come up with new ideas quickly. They're iterating quickly. They're throwing a lot out there and seeing what works. Of course, that is a very difficult lane to be in and mostly it's roadkill. You see so many games being put out on Steam that fail immediately. But the consoles are part of this slow-moving area of gaming. Every seven years or so, a device comes out that was conceived years before that when they guessed what hardware level would be necessary and they cross-reference that with what they thought the parts would cost. And did they anticipate there would be a new trade war from a colorful new United States president or not.

And so I put those in the same category as these nine-figure budget mega games, you know, AAA games or if you yourself had their way, quadruplea games that take years to make. There are these long-term bets. And now you see a lot of the business people in the industry, freaking out about them, pulling the plug on a lot of those games. the slow lane of gaming, they're in trouble,

they're struggling, they're having trouble figuring out how to survive or how to thrive. The fast lane of gaming, like I said, it's very volatile, it's rough, but it's producing a lot of the energy

and a lot of what's exciting and a lot of what works. And the consoles feel like left out of a part of that. They do run some of these games, but it feels more and more like the rapid iteration of games, the experimentation, And it needs platforms where that is welcomed and supported and encouraged.

And that really feels like the PC these days. And part of what I'm looking at with consoles is can they keep up? Can they keep up with the expectations and just the creative energy and the pace that you need, I think, to survive and succeed in the industry these days? And the PC player base is expanding. And the console player base, not so much. You've really wedded my appetite for the Grow a Garden, Roblox cinematic, you know. universe there, just narratively rich, you know, just so much meat on that phone IP-wise. But I know from reading Game File, you know, you're sinking your 60-plus hours into Star Wars Outlaws

and Assassin's Creed and Ghost of Yote. And so you're right. It doesn't leave a lot of time to play everything else. Now, those are big budget AAA productions. Part of our perception of, wow, games are great now is because there are so many great indie games, some of which you've mentioned. And because those tend to be made with smaller budgets and smaller teams, they don't necessarily push the boundaries from a technological perspective to the same extent.

That's not true in all cases. You've got some beautiful, fancy-looking games like Claire Obscure, of course. But you have written, and many people have written about the production cycle for those AAA titles, how it just takes a lot longer to make those games and release those games. So no wonder we're saying, well, there aren't as many this generation or there aren't as many exclusives because there just hasn't been enough time. We're still waiting for GTA-6. you know, maybe we will get a new console generation.

If they delay GTA6 another time or two, then maybe we'll be playing that on PS6 instead. Who knows? But maybe that's why, you know, Indies have sort of risen up to fill that space. So there's no shortage of great games to play, but they're perhaps not leveraging the hardware to the same extent. Or there's not as great an argument for,

yes, I must play this on PS5 or on Switch 2 instead of Switch. because it essentially looks the same, and generally it's going to be a multi-platform release anyway. Yeah, I think there's something to be said for user convenience features. So much of the marketing around consoles has been and had been about performance. One of my favorite things of this console generation is the Quick Resume feature in the Xbox series consoles. I was going to say it. That justifies the whole hardware upgrade from me, Quick Resume alone.

I don't know where the engineers at Microsoft got the idea from, But for me, it fit within the continuum of mobile games that I'd been playing. In that when I first started playing mobile games on an iPhone, it was a novelty to me that I could be playing a game and then I could switch another app. When I went back to the game, it was still there and I was still running. Because it wasn't that long ago on console gaming that that couldn't happen. You booted up a game on your console.

And that was the only thing the console was doing. That's why Microsoft had that wacky idea of Snap. Remember Snap for Xbox One? where you were going to be able to have a vertical stretch, a strip of your TV screen devoted to some other app that was snapped to the side of the game that you were playing or whatever else you were doing in the main screen. And they had that idea,

they were presenting that because it was so unusual to think that your console could do anything other than the game that it was playing. And you'd have to quit out of the game, right, to go to the next thing. And then Microsoft with the series S and X consoles, I will interrupt myself, You could start to suspend games.

I believe that was in the prior generation, in the PS4 and Xbox 1 generation. And then with Xbox series, it sounds like you know, and those of you listening who don't have a series S&X, which is probably a large number of you may not realize. You can suspend multiple games. You have like, I forget which games I've had suspended. I'll turn on my Xbox and I'll happen to go over to the games tab.

And I'll look at games that are in quick resume. And I'm like, I haven't played that game in months. But it still... It almost makes me feel... guilty in a weird way when I returned to a game after a couple months and it just snaps right back into action. Oh, those poor characters were just trapped in Amber all that time while I was off playing something else and they were waiting for me as the second I wanted to play again. To give you a little silly aside, I was recently interviewing the developers at Obsidian Entertainment,

Microsoft Own Studio. Those who don't know, revered for over two decades for making some of the all-time great role-playing games like Fallout New Vegas, 19th of the Old Republic Two, or recently they pull as a fraternity and avowed. So the Outer Worlds, too, is their big new role playing game for the fall, sci-fi RPG on Xbox PC PlayStation. And I'm interviewing them about the writing process. And they were really proud to talk to me about how even the startup screen were the game Outerworld's mascot, the Moonman, this guy with the big moonhead.

He talks to you and they're like, even that's a dialogue tree. And it's the longest dialogue tree we've ever written. And he reacts to everything that you've been doing every time you boot up the game. And I'm like, I'm about 10 hours into the game when I'm speaking to them. And I'm like, I'm sorry, I haven't noticed that. And they were like, well, it should happen every time you boot up the game. And only after the interview did I realize, oh, but I'm playing it. I never boot it up.

On the Xbox, which is always just suspending it, even when I go to other games. And so it's never in a quit state and then a resume state, which is kind of funny that basically a feature that Xbox, Microsoft, you know, owned Xbox, created for their console is working across purposes. But if I were playing the game on PlayStation, which does not have, allow for multi-game suspensions, and therefore, if I'm going from outer worlds, I can suspend it, but if I go to another game, then I lose my outer worlds and it's quit out, I would be experiencing that, right? But on Xbox, I can't, but I look, but Quick resume is great. PlayStation had this weird switcher thing, and I still don't understand what the switcher does on the, on the PS5 interface.

I don't know if you've seen that. They had a game help thing where they were going to tell you, okay, you have this many minutes to go. Like, here are all the different tasks that you're working on right now in the game, and there's like, you got like 20, all you have is 20 minutes, this is the one to do. If you have two hours, this is the one to do. And it was supposed to be kind of handcrafted. And I don't notice it and or it's not really being used that much. Microsoft is obviously now very into AI.

God help us with co-pilot. And so I think their hope is to have you, when you turn on the system, feel like you can talk to an AI about whatever you're doing. And while I'm skeptical of most discussions of AI around gaming and if anything is useful, I will say that very often when I turn on a game, I haven't played in a while, I do not remember what any of the buttons do. And I would not be against an AI that was ethically trained, ethically managed,

not destroying the planet, not stealing anybody's jobs. Tell me, Dan Stevens, but yes. Say, hey, Stephen, don't just remember, X's attack and right trigger is this. And you're pressing the wrong button right now. We can tell you want to do this. Because you must have had this experience, turning on a game. Oh, yeah, sure. You've forgotten like, oh, yes, that was like a core mechanic.

I forgot I had the grappling hook or whatever. My old Cotaku colleague, Kirk Hamilton, I remember wrote this great piece for Cotaku, which is about going back to a Tomb Raider game and completely forgetting, like, he had some key gadget that, like, was the thing he needed to get across some chasm. And he just, like, he'd forgotten. He was, like, doing all the other things. And it had just been just enough time. And you forget these things.

And so, like, I wonder if there's a user convenience things that consoles could be defined by that there are services and just ways to make things easier. I mean, frankly, the Switch was just a massive user convenience thing, right? Like, it was, yes, maybe it was more powerful than the Wii U. and I don't think that's what really people were yearning for was they needed more power on the Mario or the Zelda games they were playing. But it was such so magical that you could just play a fully fleshed out 3D Zelda game on the go, continue to play that same game at home, and never have to worry that,

oh, I don't have this game that I'm enjoying. I have to go play something else because the game that I want to play will not run in the circumstance that I'm in right now. That's a user convenience thing. And frankly, if the next Xbox and PlayStation simply give me the convenience of never having to be away from the game

that I was playing on that machine, which is what Nintendo did with the Switch, that would be great. It doesn't need to be more powerful to make it just more convenient. And I do think the sense of a console malaise, it does have to do with that nostalgia, especially, I wonder whether people who are more recent adopters of gaming feel this as acutely as people who go back a bit like us and remember just how truly transformative it was to go

from one console generation to the next, not just visually or aesthetically, but in terms of what games could do and what type of gameplay would be possible. And, you know, we don't talk about terraflops that much anymore, even as much as we did five years ago. But, you know, you got a PS5 and you sort of had to squint to tell that this was actually a PS5 game instead of a PS4. And that's changed over the course of the generation as the developers have figured out how to harness that power or they haven't been shackled to the previous generation and they could develop for PS5 only, etc. But it's still inevitably diminishing returns. And yes, you can point to other innovations and ray tracing and 4K and cloud gaming and the PS5 solid state drive reducing loading times to an. extent or the dual sense controller. You know, there are innovations. It's not standing still,

but it's hard to compete with going from eight bits to 16 pits or 2D to 3D or offline to online or standard definition to high definition. And that's not going to change in theory, unless there is some sort of unanticipated innovation that changes everything. One would expect that the leaps will continue to be more and more incremental with successive generations to the extent that there even are successive generation. So I think that's part of it. You just, you want to be blown away and you want to know that you're playing something that you absolutely could not conceivably play on a previous generation of hardware. And I've had that feeling from time to time during this generation, but much more rarely than in the past. Yeah, I got used to, I was upgrading my iPhone

every other year for a while because that seemed like the smart thing to do, even though they were putting them out every year. Oh, look at me. I beat the system. I was only, upgrading it every other year. I'm sure that's what they planned from the beginning. That's what I would do. Sucker. Yeah.

But then I should stop doing that too. Because eventually it just ran well enough. It did whatever I needed. And one of the things I think the bigger question that kind of hangs over gaming right now, I think it's about what is a natural state for games? Like the world of tabletop gaming is, as far as I understand, because I don't play much.

But I believe it is still exciting. and there are still new tabletop games being created. But ultimately, there are certain staples that stand the test of time, even more primitably, be it monopoly or go back to chess or something like that or Catan or something newer. Sports, they're not having new sports all the time, right? Dana White tried to make slapping people in the face a sport a couple years ago, but hopefully that's not going to catch on.

Mostly sports have been locked in, right? The rules of sports change. They change the height of the pitchers now. or they, you know, tweak the rules for football, but they're not eventing new sports because the ones they made are good enough. People enjoy them and then whatever else they get out of them. Is it the natural state for video games

as a culture and an art form to constantly have new games? Or is it the natural state as it is with other competitive forms? Granted, not all games are multiplayer, far from it. Would it be a more natural state? Or some of these games is just kind of lock in and be the games and not change and not evolve? And when that happens to more, greater and greater percentage of the games that are made.

How does that affect things? Maybe that's what we're experiencing right now. I don't know. Yeah, I've had that sense as well, and we had a recent piece run at the ringer from Lewis Gordon, one of our contributors, about Sony's lack of multiplayer hits and sort of misbegotten live service efforts, which is maybe another reason why we've gotten fewer exclusives and titles this generation is that that's been sort of a sidetrack. And you had Sean Layden, the always quotable former play.

PlayStation Studios boss, who you can count on to say something inflammatory that gets aggregated. And he said something to the effect of he doesn't see live service games as games, right? Because to him, it's more about the single player narrative experience more so than just kind of keeping you playing. And, you know, I don't fully agree with him on that, even as I understand what he's saying. But, but yeah, maybe we're locked in an old mindset and that that will be the dominant thing. And, you know, New Zoo will put out stats every now and then suggesting that it's hard for new games to break through because everyone is captured. You know, it's audience capture and people are playing that ongoing game that never ends. And, you know, I think part of it also that's maybe contributing to this perception of less newness or innovation is that, and, you know, this is not exclusive to video games either.

And I guess a lot of these conversations that we're touching on here apply to a lot of things. And you're right, I upgrade my phone a lot less, my computer a lot less. just as I'm a little less excited about console upgrades when it comes to video games. But also, there is at least when it comes to AAA big budget titles where there's so little margin for error and tolerance for risk. There's just a lot of doubling and quadrupling down on the same IP. And so so many sequels and remasters and remakes, which is not new this generation, but has intensified even further. And so sequels are great, though. I love sequels. I do too.

I mean, you know, the market demand is there. That's why they make them because we eat them up, obviously. And it's just, you know, there's so many games, however many thousands of games coming out on Steam every year. And so a more marketable commodity that you know the name. That's important. But maybe that leads to this kind of breakdown of, was this even a PS4? You know, Eldon Ring comes out for PS5. That's new.

That's fresh IP. That's not exclusive to this generation. But in so many cases, you know, how many, like we're talking about Ghost of Yote or Horizon or God of War. you know, what's that for this generation? In so many cases, it's about giving us more of those preexisting series, which I love and a lot of people love, but also maybe that leads to making it more difficult to kind of rope off this generation and say this was what this generation gave us because it's kind of iterations on preexisting properties. Perhaps. I mean, the defining game of the Nintendo 64 is a sequel, Super Mario 64, or if you heard me say that, you might have been

thinking legend of Zelda Okerina of time. Yeah. Or Majores Mask, your favorite, which we discussed recently on this podcast. Games, not news to listeners, but games are an iterative medium in terms of how they are created. The developers are often operating on new technological standards because of the changing nature of consoles or even PC hardware. They are redesigning the foundations of what they're building.

And then they're experimenting on top of that. And if they get a chance to make a set. second game or a third game on the same hardware standard. That's when they really have a chance to be creative. Thus, Majora's Mask, in my mind, being much more daring and risk-taking than even the great Okerina of time. Two games made on the same hardware,

the second one allowing for more experimentation. That iteration that game developers benefit from, of trying something and reworking it, we see in both the development process that leads to great games, but also the development process that allows a developer to take a fantastic game, or maybe even a not-so-fantastic game, and make a better see.

a better sequel. Sequels and games tend to be better than sequels in movies, sequels and books because so much of gaming, game creation is technological. It is about engineering. It is about getting the computer program to operate better or to have gotten the computer program operating well enough last time that you don't need to spend as much time on the program part of it and you can spend more time on the creativity aspect of it. So I don't fret over the lack of, to me,

me, an abundance of sequels does not denote a lack of innovation because innovation can happen so frequently and abundantly within gaming, within the known franchises, IP, whatever it is that you want to call them. But what you were referring before to the length of time it takes developers to make, and with us being mindful of the fact that the pandemic, no doubt slowed people down on top of other delays like distractions into making life service games, we stand in a spot five years into the Sony console generation, for example, were naughty dog. arguably the top studio of Sony has yet to release a new game

for Sony's hardware. That feels weird. That's part of what feels strange and different. How much of that is because Sony had the making The Last of Us online, which they eventually canceled. How much of that is because lead creative person at the studio

was also making a critically claimed TV show adaptation of The Last of Us. How much of that is because they just needed the time to figure it out? And how much of it is that just games take longer and longer to make? And so back in the day, when console generations were six, seven, eight years, but games could be made in two and even sometimes in one, you could have a talented development team take many cracks at the same hardware

and benefit from that iteration and that led to so much creativity that I was just referring to. Console generations didn't get any longer. Maybe they should be getting longer. But the time to make games is getting longer. And so you wind up with these studios that are barely getting a chance to show up on these consoles. Look at the story of Microsoft around how their console launched without the Halo game. They thought they would be launching with.

Took that development studio another year to make it. Game was so-so, I think a lot of people would say, and we haven't seen another game from that studio. Since then, five years in, you would have liked to have seen them get a second crack at it. Now, to your point, give you maybe some points there for lamenting the over-focus on remakes, what are we going to get next from the Halo people? it's not even a new Halo game. It's a remake.

Little Halo game. Yeah. So you're hungry for like the elite teams to create new things. It's you're more starved for that. It just takes teams longer. Again, I got to say we got to give people, cut a lot of teams, a lot of slack this generation because of the pandemic

and how disruptive that was two game creation on top of all the other distractions that people have had to deal with. But that has led to a lot of, a lot of creative teams, It's just not having a chance to even show what they can do a long time. Yeah, I think even more so than just lamenting. You know, I'm not saying, oh, there's less originality in gamemaking or anything. I'm just saying that as a consumer, as a player, it's harder to sort of separate

this into a discrete generation just because there are fewer franchises you can associate with this generation, whereas in the past you could say, oh, this generation gave us Kratos or Joel and Ellie or, you know, I'm just naming Sony series or Aloid. right, whereas now it's usually more about... We got the lady from Returnal. Right, yeah, just not quite... She's cool. Yeah, sure.

I don't remember her name. Miss Returnal. Miss Returnal. Last thing I wanted to note, because you did some reporting on this, and you made a very work-intensive chart that I wouldn't want to go to waste, is that one way in which this generation is out of step with previous ones is that these consoles cost, in some cases, more than they did. when they were new, maybe a little less so if you'd adjust for inflation. But the price tag, you know, you're still getting just as much sticker shock, if not more. And that is unusual, whereas, you know, five years into a previous console generation, you could count on cuts. And now you cannot. You can count on price hikes now. You know,

we've talked about some of the reasons for that and the tariffs, of course, but that is one thing that I will remember this generation for in addition to everything we've been talking about or, you know, kind of being the last days of physical media or, you know, physical game sales. Like there are a lot of things that have happened during this generation. But that's one that stands out to me is that we have not seen price jobs, in fact, quite the opposite. Right. You look at, and thank you for referencing the chart about all the, was it eight price drops in six months? Is that what it was?

I got it on headlines now. And it was, hopefully I got that right. And we just never seen anything like that before in gaming. You're right that when you just for inflation, it. It's not quite what it initially looks like in terms of sticker price. But the fact is in the older generations, like the older PlayStation's went down to $99. Like people were chasing that.

Yes, $99 of yesteryear are more than $99 of today. But when you look at the fact when analysts lament that there's no increase in the number of people, a number of console playing owners, you know, console users, but maybe some of that is because the price never goes down to the, I don't even think about it. I'm just buying it at price. I mean, look, $99 probably isn't the, I don't think about it at all. It's not like, you know, buying like an extra pack of breathments or whatever at the checkout counter.

But it's closer to that. It's closer to like, oh, I can buy this as a gift for somebody. And it's reasonable. I don't feel weird about it. And you just, the hardware gets abandoned. That's something that really stood out to me when I was looking at that history of console price changes was that what we had in the prior generation was the elevation of the price floor for consoles that no longer would consoles continue to drop in price?

No, they would hit a certain price and then they would be replaced by something that the manufacturer or Sony or Microsoft could sell for the same price but with greater storage so that they could still say, they could keep the same, you know, like a revenue model or whatever around it, but they could argue that the feature set was better.

Prices therefore don't continue to drop as many times as they used to. And so everything is more expensive, nothing gets down to within reach of maybe the people for whom the launch range of pricing was out of reach. And that's, you know, that, again, surely that must have something to do with the fact

that the console market isn't expanding. I did want to bring up one other thing about the console generation that we haven't discussed, and I'd love to get your take on this. Has this been the best console generation for industrial design, for the look of the boxes? Because the last generation,

sure was not. The Xbox one and the PS4 were two of the most boring-looking consoles ever created. Yeah, I would say it's definitely not boring, whether it's good or bad. I don't know. You know, the PS5, I mean, it's bulky. I know there is a slim one. I have always struggled with figuring out which alignment to use and getting it to stay on its base. And mostly I have them just behind my TV and I never actually see them anymore. But it looks like it was designed by a space alien. It's got like weird, like, flaring, white, top collar thing going on. Yes. And then the Xbox Series X is a little hard to appreciate, but it's like, I think what it's supposed to, like, what you are supposed to be using it for is you set it up vertically and you have

like this monolith in your, like next to your TV. And then it has this green thing at the top. They didn't have the green thing in 2001. This is like it takes to the new level here. They're like this great at the top and this green thing. It doesn't, again, it doesn't quite work out because to your point, consoles, when they're designed, they really should be thinking about how is the user going to orient this thing and if they get shoved into an entertainment center, does it really look like anything?

That's why I still think the greatest console in terms of physical design of all time is the GameCube. Because it's just this amazing-looking box. I got the purple one. I don't know why everybody buying the black one. You got a good, indigo is what they call it. They're worried we'd feel weird about finding purple. No, give me the purple game cube is what I told the people.

Yeah, not enough handles on this generation of consoles. That's what we're missing. Minutes before we got on this call, did you see that Valve introduced something that is called their new steam machine? Yeah. Which is essentially like they're advertising it as more powerful than the Steam deck,

so they're clearly hoping for the sort of like the console, simplified gaming world-minded people who like the Steam deck, like people like me, will then see that as an appealing thing to upgrade to. This is a six inch by six inch by six inch cube, which is almost the same dimensions as the six by four game cube. And I'm like, great.

They're bringing back the cube. It has a blue LED light on it, which reminds me, do you remember the Wii had that amazing glowing light? You knew something had changed about your Wii. If you went into your room where the Wii was, and it was glowing. And you then had to turn it on and find out. And the best thing about the Wii was that it had better than the motion controller.

Was the stand? Do you remember that the Wii was kind of on a tilt? Of course. Yeah. It's a question of this. This is important stuff. But the Wii was there up against the PS3, which was ugly. It just looked like a little small refrigerator.

And the Xbox 360 was, I guess it kind of was okay. I had that big silver button in the middle in the front and had the changeable face plates. I love it. But the Wii had a good look. The GameCube had a really good look. But now I really feel like the Series S has a really good look. the series S looks just like a dictionary turn into a game console.

It's the book size. It is the most portable game console ever, I think, in terms of like, I mean, you can throw a Super Nintendo in your bag, I guess. But it's very nicely portable, but with a lot of power. And it's got the black Foreman-Griller, like black and white thing going on,

which is great. The PS5, again, I think it looks like it was made by a space alien. And it's so good. And I really hope, really hope that the next generation, the PS6, and the Xbox,

whatever it's going to be called, I hope they look really weird. And that'll be great. Yeah. Right now, the best generation for weird looking hardware. A full circle moment, everything old is new. Again, we're getting the return of region-locked consoles. Suddenly, we're getting Japan-only PS5s and switches, perhaps in a response to the tariffs,

so that they are cheaper. But this is another thing that I thought we had left behind. And so, yeah, I guess in closing, and then I'll let you get back to game filing. So, I mean, there were some console generations that I guess weren't much longer than five years. I mean, that was the gap between the PS1 and the PS2, I think, whereas it feels like there's more mileage here and there's so much uncertainty about what the next generation will look like. And there's still GTA6 and maybe the narrative changes in the next couple of years. And we're all saying, oh, actually, this generation salvaged its reputation

with a bunch of late releases that were in the works all the while. People have been forecasting the end of consoles for years. I know I've written my version of that article, whether it is streaming or whatever comes for consoles. And I'm glad you brought up the Steam machine. I'm certainly in the market for that. It sounds like future Microsoft Xbox hardware will be that, to some extent, will be sort of a PC console hybrid. Maybe the PS6 will be more traditional, perhaps,

but maybe Sony will get back into handheld. So will this conversation seem quaint, I guess, is what I'm asking in five or 10 years. Will we look back and say, will we even delineate console generations anymore? or will there be a 10th console generation, or will we not even talk about these things in these terms? Because everything will just blend together.

And I guess, you know, that could be almost a utopian vision in theory. You know, maybe we're all just gaming together, right? And we've all just, we're in the same ecosystem and all the walls have come down. The console wars are over. There are no PC fanboys and console fanboys. We're all just happily playing every great game on every platform or we all have the same platform. You know, then you worry about, well, if there's a lack of competition, is that bad for consumers too? If there's sort of a monopolistic trend that happens.

Anyway, do you think that this is the last time that we would even bother to have a conversation of this kind? No. Of course, we'll talk about it again. As long as Sony's going to continue to number of the PlayStation's, we are going to be in the mindset of thinking of these as console generations. You know, Microsoft's numbering is, you know, wonderful. I wish they were numbering. Yeah. They went from no number to 360.

to one, to letters, who knows what they'll do next. I really like when it seemed like Nintendo 64 is going to be called the Ultra 64. Nintendo was just going to have a new adjective every generation. Can you imagine what we'd be up to by now? Oh, yeah.

The stupendous Nintendo instead of a switch. But yes, we'll certainly be ruminating on this generation. We did get a Sony exec saying this week that they're only been way through the PS5 generation, so they may be sticking with this longer. I'm sure Microsoft I'd like to move things long and get to the next one.

That could be the other thing, though, is that if all three Nintendo and Sony and Microsoft all wind up off cycle from each other, and we've seen Sony and Nintendo, excuse me, Sony and Microsoft be simultaneous or best one year off from each other for multiple generations in a row. But if everybody begins to just kind of

wind up on their own cycle, that could be the end of it too. But look, as long as the great games keep coming out, and if somebody can make a console that will give me more time, that would be the best. Yeah, that would be great if they could figure that out. I guess there are various sci-fi solutions for that. And sometimes they end up being very dystopian, but I would appreciate having a little more time in my day. I guess you, you know, we like to forecast everything will be new and different and unlike what we've seen in the past.

But generally, the best bet is that things will stay more or less like they've been for decades with some changes here and there, which is what we've seen with this console generation. Everyone should subscribe to GameFile at GameFile. News. It is an essential resource. You get three updates a week, sometimes more, if Stephen is feeling generous or particularly prolific. Very much appreciate your work and also your time today. Thanks, Stephen.

Thanks. It's been a pleasure. And yeah, you can read GameFile for free for a bit. If you're curious, you do not have to pay me. And if you want, I'd love for people to check it out. So thanks so much. Well, Sony, CFO, Lynn Tau told investors this week, we believe that the PS5 is only in the middle of its journey. But for today, we've reached the end of ours. Thanks to Devin Renaldo for producing this episode. Thanks to

Arjuna Ramga Powell, who will no doubt return from a few days off and be overjoyed when he sees how long this episode is. Thanks to you for listening, especially if you stuck it out all the way to the end, which I hope is not a hardship. We know that like dispatch players, you choose your own adventures, you tell your own stories when it comes to your podcast consumption. So we're grateful that you have opted to romance the Ringaverse. And unlike Jomey's, your affections are not unrequited. But MASH will be yours forever. Contact us at RingiverseGaming at gmail.com.

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