The Ringer-Verse - ‘Mythic Quest’ and Our Favorite Fiction About Video Games, Plus Ashly Burch | Button Mash

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

Ben and Jomi discuss their mutual affection for the Apple TV+ comedy ‘Mythic Quest,’ examine what makes the series stand out, and react to its return for a fourth season. Then they name their top five movies, TV shows, and novels about video games, game development, or gaming culture (1:20). After that, they talk to Ashly Burch, a prominent video game voice actor, ‘Mythic Quest’ costar, and writer/director/producer of ‘Mythic Quest’ and spinoff ‘Side Quest,’ about making both series, her prolific career, and the evolution of the games industry (1:09:00). Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Jomi Adeniran and Ashly Burch Producer: Devon Renaldo Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're a fan of the inner workings of Hollywood, then check out my podcast, The Town, on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name's Matt Bellany. I'm founding partner at Puck and the writer of the What I'm Hearing newsletter. And with my show, The Town, I bring you the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. Every week, we've got three short episodes featuring real Hollywood insiders to tell you what people in town are actually talking about. We'll cover everything from why your favorite show was canceled overnight. Which streamer is on the brink of collapse? And which executive is on the hot seat? Disney, Netflix, who's up, down, and who will never eat lunch in this town again?

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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. We've also had some lows like COVID ending. When the pandemic lifted and life went back to normal, the video game industry took a hit and we felt it here at home. Mythic Quest lost a lot of good people when we fired them. But we are bouncing back with the help of our head of monetization, Rachel,

me. She is going to make this company more money than that virus ever did. Ain't that right, Rach. No, no, no. Hello and welcome into the ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindbergh, and we are so back on Buttonmash. By we, I mean me and the person sitting in the co-host seat today. Midnight court was just adjourned. Buttonmash is now in session And with me is a man who's more clutch than Patrick Mahomes. Or should I say, Majomes. He's Jomey. Mr. Adrenaline.

Adoneron. And do what I can. Here's the thing, right? You know you get out of court and you take that suit off and you just feel like the weights lifted off your shoulders. Yeah. I'm saying. Like, I'm out here. We're going to have a good time, man.

This is going to be, we're all being serious in court. You know what I mean? Doing the whole thing. Now it's time to let loose. You know what I'm saying? Have a good time. Let's go. There's no bailiff on button mesh.

No proper procedure here. No one to bang a gavel. We're just going to do what we do, and we're going to have some fun. And despite not owning any Apple products, I am the world's number one watcher of Apple TV Plus. And so, of course, I tapped in, as you would say, to the first pure comedy ever to air on that streaming service. Before Ted Lasso, there was Mythic Quest.

And there still is Mythic Quest, which just returned for its fourth season. And I was wondering who could come on with me to discuss this series. So I started asking around. And I discovered that Jomi is a mythic quester too. I knew you had great taste. I do what I can. Listen, this is like in the throes of the pandemic. Yeah.

And I was like, man, my anxiety is really getting to me. I need something to tap in on to take my mind off it. And I had recently subscribed Tablet 2E4, Ted Lassow. I was like, look, I'm not getting my value out of this subscription. Let me find something that I can get into. And Mythic Quest was the show I picked. And it worked. I had a blast watching the first couple seasons on Apple TV.

And I was like, I hope they make more and they did. They did. So I can't wait to talk about more with you. Yeah. Animal Crossing and Mythic Quest got us through 2020. And Doom. That helped too. Season 4's two-part premiere went live at the same time this podcast did in theory.

So go watch those episodes and then listen to us or listen to us and then watch those. episodes. Either way works. We'll be keeping it pretty spoiler light today. It's tough to spoil a sitcom, even if you're trying to. If you haven't watched any of Mythic Quest, shame on you. No, that's okay. Maybe we can convince you to start today. But that is not all that's on the docket today. There is more in store because we will be taking a page out of the big picture playbook and picking our respective top five fictional stories about video games, our favorite media made about games, not game adaptations, but movies and TV shows and novels that are about games or game development or gaming culture.

And Jomi, I went into this thinking thin category, but I actually had a pretty tough time narrowing it down to five. There will be some smuggles and honorable mentions on my list. And see, and that's the difference between you and I, because as soon as we were like, this is what we wanted to do for this episode, I was like, I, there's so many, I can only be true to myself. Yeah. Right?

I can't sit here and be fake with y'all and give you all the stuff. I know you want to hear. I got to be real to me. What are the things that are about video games that mean the most to me?

And so you will see it. This is a little bit in the business we call a tease. Yeah. And we will talk about it later. But my list will be very different from your list. I will be fake for the both of us.

I will have the canon and the consensus represented here, but also things. I sincerely enjoy. We've also, speaking of things I sincerely enjoy, got a great guest today. We will be talking to geek icon, Ashley Birch,

who has been voicing video game characters dating back to Borderlands 2. We're talking Tiny Tina, Aloy from Horizon, Chloe Price from Life is Strange, Ray from Fortnite, Mel from The Last of Us Part 2, Danica Hart from Spider-Man.

We could go on, but it would take too long to list all her roles in games and animation. She's also a writer and director and singer, a legitimate multi-hyphenate, and she's part of the creative team behind Mythic Quest and its forthcoming spin-off SideQuest. That's right. Mythic Quest is a franchise itself now in addition to co-starring as Rachel Me since season one. So we will talk to her about Mythic Quest and SideQuest and her career and the games industry.

And Jomey will fanboy a bit about Life is Strange. Of course. So we hope you'll stay tuned for that conversation. It's a fun one. Absolutely. had a great time. It was asking her about like her. I mean, we again, I do fanboy about like her whole career. Yeah. And everything that she's done in this industry is just, is just incredible. It's a great interview. We hope you guys stick around and listen to it. It's a pretty incredible resume.

All right. For those who know nothing of Mythic Quest, let's lay out the premise. Imagine if some of the creators of community and it's always sunny join forces to make a workplace comedy. And instead of Greendale Community College or Patty's Pub, the workplace were Mythic Quest Studios, makers of an eponymous World of Warcraft style massively multiplayer online RPG, then picture a cast that includes Rob McElheny, Charlotte Nick Dow, David Hornsby, Danny Pudy, Jesse Ennis, Buttonmash guest Ashley Birch, and a deep bench beyond that, and then let them loose in the world of game development. Does that sound like a series that might be of interest to you? It is certainly of interest to us.

I would describe it as like Silicon Valley with less satire and more sentimentality, but maybe less sentimentality than, say, Ted Lasso, which maybe dials up the sentimentality. A tad too high at times. Mythic Quest is the happy medium for me. So, Jomey, make the case for Mythic Quest, sell our listeners who are not already sold on this series. Well, I mean, if you're listening to the show, that means you love video games. Probably. Not in all cases.

Sometimes you just, you love me so much that you'll just listen to me talk about anything. Like the Lindbergh listeners out there listening, tap it in. You know, Ben's babies out there all rocking it, you know what I mean? But video games, and you mentioned, and this is the part that I didn't get until later, and then I realized this is why I love the show, the community aspect. Megan Gans worked on community and co-created the show, with Rob McElaney and Charlie Day. And it just,

it just oozes the, the good feelings of community in the sense of the, not to make a pun, but the community, the relationships between the characters, just the random offshoots of things that will happen in like random episodes,

you get like a mystery or like another genre. Those things that make community special on a week-to-week basis happen on Mythic Quest. And it's just something that seems so familiar yet so new. And I've had an amazing time

watching this show. And so, yeah, tap all the way in. Again, what, three seasons with this new season coming out? If you're not binging anything right now, you're like, ah, my next watch, tap in a mythic quest, it is legit. Yeah.

And if you are not a big gamer, if you are one of those, just that multitude of Ben fanboys who will follow me anywhere, you can still enjoy the series because this is not daunting if you are not a gamer or if you're not plugged into the industry to a great degree, it's very accessible. And they made a point of sort of splitting the writer's room between hardcore gamers

and people who know nothing about games to represent that portion of the audience to be the proxy for those people. And it doesn't condescend to gamers. So if you are a gamer, they're not going to be hitting you over the heads, over explaining certain concepts. They don't go to great lengths to argue that games are important or justify the existence of the series or the subject matter, it takes that for granted, which is refreshing. So I never feel like, oh, it's holding my hand too much. And yet, if I knew nothing about games, I could enjoy this just as kind of a classic sitcom that nails all of those beats that you want from a workplace comedy, regardless of what the workplace is. Yes, exactly. That's what makes it, that's what makes it special. That's what

makes the show click. It's something that you can just dive into. It's not the stakes aren't too heavy. You're not going to be scanning up, watching it with your hands behind your back, worried about it. Oh, no, it's the fate of just going to enjoy getting to know these characters and watch them grow and watch them change over the course of three plus seasons. It is fantastic.

Yes. The series revolves around Ian Grimm, who is played by McElhany, and Charlotte Nick Dow's character, Poppy, who is also a programmer. and there are creative clashes and also creative partnership as they work on this giant game, Mythic Quest, and they develop expansions for it, and maybe they or others strike out on their own and try to make a go of it, or they come back to the fold, and the game itself evolves. And that's sort of the focus of this season, or one of the focuses of this season, is that Ian and Poppy, they're back making Mythic Quest.

They're excited about their new expansion, but Mythic Quest itself has evolved to the point where Playpen, which is sort of a side project that I and Poppy developed, it's sort of a sandbox just using tools to create user-generated content. And that has now eclipsed Mythic Quest, vanilla Mythic Quest itself and started to generate so much revenue that the old game is kind of forgotten. So there's that conflict. And then there's the conflict of Poppy having a personal life, which is new for her. These people are largely married to the. their jobs, but she's got a boyfriend. And she is starting to strike off into that realm. And from Ian's perspective, this is a threat. It's almost like a love triangle, but not a physical one,

more of a creative one. A mental one. Yeah, Poppy is being pulled in different directions. Ion is wrestling with that. He doesn't take well to sharing. And so it's kind of navigating that dilemma of the work-life balance, personal professional divide, your personal life is evolving, and how does that affect your work and your vocation? So we're going even deeper into these characters' lives away from the game, I would say, even though there's still plenty that's set in the studio.

I will tell you a few other things that I really like about this series. So one is that I love a platonic male-female relationship. Oh, okay, let's get it to it. Let's go. Yeah. Let's get it to do it. There's no will they or won't they, aspects to the ion poppy pairing, or rather there is, but it's about whether they'll consummate

their creative chemistry, because physically there's no attraction, there's repulsion. They tell you that at every turn. Very explicitly. I at every single opportunity to be like, I am not attracted to Poppy at all. It's not even close. It would be like me being attracted to a lollipop with hair that you found under the bed one night. Like, that's how he describes Poppy. And they're not in denial.

That is how they feel. That is actual factual. And it's a part of the show I love, you know, because relationships in, like, they make TV. And so seeing these two characters find love, but

in work and not each other. Like, it does mean something. But got to be honest, got to be honest, Ben. I'm going to call everybody out right now. now. Okay. Because at first I was going to do this and then I wasn't going to do it, but then I realized

actually, you know what, I will do it. Do it. I don't know what it is, but do it. We got to stop the cap. Okay. Okay. So, I don't know if you guys are fans of the show, The Bear. Okay. Yeah. Every single time

somebody goes, oh man, you know what would be cool if Sidney and Carme like hell has with time. hell descends upon these people. Like, how dare you? My brother's in Christ, there are good male-female friendships

and television all the time. Yeah. Y'all not locked in like that. Y'all pretend y'all locked in like that, y'all not locked in like that. Because if you were, you would bring up eyeing and poppy all the time, you don't.

Yeah. You don't. It's a good counter example. And it's nice because sitcoms, they try to force that so often. Or that's part of the draw. Will they get together? And it's just not here.

And the relationship that they have is in some ways much more meaningful than just are they going to make out? It's a creative meeting of minds. Like there's deep fulfillment happening here. And it's just a more interesting way to portray that in my mind just because it's a little less common. And I want to be very clear. I don't particularly feel any way about sitting car me. If they do, they do. They don't.

That's up to the show. Let them have it. But the way that Myth and Quest handles that particular problem, or not, I would say problem, that is that particular relationship between the two main people and gives their relationship something

that means more to them than love than just a simple, you know, sexual relationship is like how they get on intellectually. Yeah. It's something I love. And yeah, I would love to see more of that, but that's not really how TV works, does it? And so let's relax on all the hate, okay?

This show is doing something that a lot of shows are afraid to do, right? And I think it deserves some credit. Let's not lie and act like, man, I would love if the office was, you know, not about Jim and Pam, but about them selling paper. That I mean?

Or if, oh, man, Brooklyn and I not, I can't believe Jake and Amy got together. They're supposed to be believe. Not I mean? Let's be for real. This show is doing something that a lot of shows don't do and should be credited for it.

Don't act like, oh, man, this is, oh, it's regular, degolette. This happens. Yeah. People, like you said, sometimes they force it, sometimes it happen naturally. But relationships, particularly those of romantic nature, are what drives a lot of shows. Don't be mad at a show for doing it. Credit a show for not doing it. Look, this probably applies to Sid and Carmie, too, but there's already a codependency there. These two are spending a ton of time together as it is. Might be better for them not to be up in each other's business any more than they already are, because that's not always healthy. The show makes it extremely clear that that's not what it is. And like I keep saying,

it should be celebrated that it didn't just take the easy way out and did the hard thing and said, look, these two, they are in love. Right? The season three finale, it's like, I love you.

Not romantically, but as a work partner, as somebody who can facilitate my growth within this sector, they need each other in a way that's beyond romance. It's real. It's mental.

And they really can't, they don't know how to, like you said, codependency, they don't know how to work without each other. And so watching their relationship grow and change is something that is just, I want to honestly, one of the tenets of the show.

If you're looking for, if you watch the bear, are you mad to sit at Carmen get it on? Tap in the Mififix, man. That don't happen over here. It's not what it's about. It's not what it's about. It's a Lenin-McCartney creative partnership.

It's, it's an Adeneron Alman. It's one of these just, indomitable pairings. Also, relatedly, I love a show or any type of media that depicts the creative process, which can be tough to do well, but we make things. I admire other people who make things. I like shows about that, about how difficult it can be to be inspired and to navigate the clash between art and commerce. Something like a halt and catch fire, for instance,

comes to mind when I think of this show. And these are people that you can root for, because another thing I like about the series is that it doesn't shy away from the dark side of gaming, the toxic side of gaming. We will talk to Ashley about that, but it does highlight how transformative games can be, how empowering they can be, how magical these experiences can be. And it really just captures the very fraught world of game development and how chaotic and punishing but also magical it can be. I'm not saying it adheres to realism entirely, but basically the process of just finding the fun and not knowing if that's going to work and just stumbling upon these solutions. And that's how they make the show as well. They're finding the funny. They're experimenting with the form of the sitcom.

And when you get these transformative moments that just highlight how much games can mean to people, those are beautiful sentiments that aren't overdone for the most part. I would say it doesn't stray into too sappy territory. It strikes that right balance where as a gamer, as someone who appreciates games and really admires people who make games, it does capture how difficult that process can be, but how incredible the results of that can be. And finally, I like a show about a highly specific occupation or subculture. I like a lot of lawyer and doctor and cop shows, too.

Those are the staples, the meat and the potatoes, but something slightly off the beaten path. Maybe it is the bear. Maybe it's in a kitchen. But obviously a story about game development appeals to me and my interest specifically. But whether I'm into that thing or not, I appreciate the specificity of it. Something like Party Down or Detectorists or Slings and Arrows or Mozart in the jungle, these aren't huge hits, but they put a spotlight on something that you're not normally seeing on TV,

that you might not be that well versed in. And I love just spending half an hour a week in that world that maybe I'm not normally thinking about. Are we having fun yet? I was going to say it deserved more, but it already got another, like they already rebooted it once. So that might be the end of that. Adam Scott's doing well. All the party down alums are doing great. Absolutely.

But these shows become cult hits a lot of the time. And maybe that's because they are more niche in their subject matter. But that's what makes me like him because it's just not the standard thing that we see on TV. Yeah. Yeah. You love seeing new things. Like I mentioned, like community is something that was new, you know, community college, because like that.

I, you know, scrubs for me. I know James is on season 175 right now, but that was the sitcom for me that I thought I I wanted to be a doctor at one point for 30 minutes each week. And you went into the lucrative world of podcasting about pop culture. Listen, listen. It was better from my student loan balance and my mental health. So I think it all worked out. It's true.

We don't need to go to medical school to be qualified to do what we do. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. There's no, no, no, no. There's no, eight-year podcast school. If there was, though, look, listen, you be seeing, I don't know if you're on what kind of Instagram or TikTok you be on, but I'll be seeing them clips of them alpha dudes, you know what I mean? Those dudes who be trying to tell you, like, eat liver and stuff. And at some point, you kind of like, hey, man.

if there was like an eight-year podcast class, hey, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be bad about it. You know what I mean? If it kept the mic out of some people's ass, I'd be down with it. Wow. But no.

Subtweeting Liver King here? Yes. Liver King, catching the strays from you. All those guys. I don't think the liver is his secret. But, yes. Take the mics away from those dudes. One more show, highly specific,

that is kind of like not in the same realm, but also very interesting. How to Gavey Murder. That was a show. I don't know if y'all was locked in to, what's her name? Shonda Rhimes on Thursdays on ABC. Okay.

I wasn't, I didn't get, I got to scandal too late. So like by then it was already like, you know, four or five seasons. I was like, y'all got that murder. I was locked in

and it's about teaching the, I know band was locked in. You watch Tiger Red Murder. You know, Viola Davis, acting, going crazy. That was a show

about, you know, teaching kids and how to get a room and murder and law and stuff. Like that hyper-specific workplace stuff, that's not just a random office building. I mean, like, we like the office, selling paper. Nobody cares about selling paper. It's not like them setting paper is not a part of the, you know, what makes you tune to show. Whereas Mythic Quest, community shows like that, you tune in because like, man, you kind of like, I wonder what's going to happen this week in the community college. What's happening this week in Mythic Quest?

things like that. Maybe it's teachers, Abbott Elementary, English teacher, just some sort of specific setting or subculture I always appreciate. And you touched on this with Mythic Quest. So from week to week, it's typically your standard 20-something minute sitcom. You get some laughs. There's a serialized element to it, but it's not too serious. However, once a season or so, they do something special.

We get a very special episode of Mythic Quest. A dark, quiet death. in season one, backstory in season two, Sarayan in season three. Some of these have been dictated by the circumstances, as we will discuss with Ashley. A pandemic happens. They find a way to make a mid-pandemic episode

or a bottle episode. Again, kind of that community DNA. But sometimes it turns from comedy into drama, into profound, really, representations, again, of storytelling of what gets us into these types of tales, what makes us want to make more of them, that is catnip for me. That is deeply meaningful to me. And this show does that as well as anything, which is really impressive because, again, from week to week, it's just making us laugh. And then every now and then, they say,

no, look what we have up our sleeve here. And that's the idea behind the upcoming spin-off, SideQuest, is that let's just focus on that. And we'll give you some of those episodes specifically packaged separately. But I love that the show, show. And I talked to McElheny for an article for the ringer.com. What a great website a few years ago about this. And just playing with the form, just trying to push back against all of the sitcom workplace comedy conventions and saying, what would be funny? What would make an impact? How can we turn this sitcom into something that will really leave a mark and resonate with people and capture why people make games? Why anyone does any kind of creative endeavor? This show does that

as well as any drama does. And that's particularly impressive because it's just like, I didn't know you had that club in your bag. I didn't know you didn't have to go that hard. We weren't familiar with your game, Mythic Quest. Exactly. We apologize.

We weren't familiar with your game. You mentioned that episode with Kristen Miliotti and Jake Johnson. A Dark Quiet Death, Season 1, Episode 5, classic. I mean, a classic episode of TV. Like you mentioned, it. comes out of nowhere. You're what, you're like,

I was, I was bingeing it. Like, oh, this is different. Okay, I'm sure they'll go back to the,

oh, they don't. Yeah. No characters from the main show. Just a special cast. Some, some tie-in, some connections, some reinforcing of themes

of the season, but- reinforcing is good. Reinforcing is a good because of the pillar. I see what you did there. See what you did there. Yes.

But you're watching the episode and you're like, oh my goodness. It leaves you wanting. It leaves you, again, watch during the pandemic. It was an emotional time for everybody. Show me some grace. But I was very moved by this 30 minutes of television. And again, I didn't know that it was supposed to be there in the first place.

So the fact that they're building on that and giving us, you know, how many ever episodes they are of snippets like that can just show how diverse and well-elected these guys. are in telling stories. You know, it's not just the week-to-week stuff. There's way more clubs in that bag. There's an eight iron. You know what I'm saying? There's a wood in there. I'm sure there's a stone club.

I don't know golf like that. I'm just making stuff up. But seriously, though, like to be able to tell all those different types of stories in 22 minutes and make people feel something after is a, takes a special, a special, level of filmmaking acumen. Yeah. And I can't wait to tune and I can't wait to see what they have in store for us. Because like you mentioned with all the ones they've done in the previous three seasons,

it's left an indelible mark on the show. So the fact that they're leaning into that is incredible. And that's something I appreciate about video games themselves, that they can be anything. The only limit is your creativity and also your budget and industry realities and the amount of hours that you can work in a week, et cetera. But you have to find a way around the, those constraints. You got to get those, that work, work, life balance. Exactly. Right. As Poppy would say. And

they tend to have their finger on the pulse. Even though the series are shot and produced in advance of their airing, they have that knack for sort of rip from the headlines, storylines and themes. For instance, one of the big themes, again, of this season is oversight of these user-created levels and content inside Mythic Quest, which is just the most lucrative part of the game. Essentially, Minecraft, Roblox, Fortnite even. Just last week, Epic Games announced that it had paid out about $350 million to Fortnite creators last year that more than 70% of Fortnite players play both Creator-made games and Epic-made games, and that about 37% of total Fortnite playtime was spent playing Creator-made games.

Now, if they're paying out $350 million, I'm sure they're making much more. But that is a big part of this season. Just what's our responsibility to these creators? are we exploiting them? Are we giving them a platform? Do they owe us? Do we owe them? What sort of moderation and oversight is necessary here? So they're wrestling with that, but they're finding the funny in that. They're mining that for humor as well. And I would say that Rob McElheny, even though he is the most recognizable actor in the series, at least post-departure of F. Murray Abraham, who was on the first couple of seasons, he is pretty generous with his distribution of screen time. He's not hog in the screen here. He's the nominal ostensible star, but this is an ensemble series. And everyone is good. Everyone has their part to play. And in my mind, Poppy, Charlotte Nick Dow, is actually the star of this series and certainly of this season. Because again, her personal growth and the way that pushes against her work obligations, that's a big focus here. I think she is just one

of the funniest actors on TV. And I wish that she were in more things. She does a lot of voice work, I want to be seeing her pop up in everything because she is just incredibly funny in the show and yet also can convey emotional depth and these sort of heart-rending situation she finds herself in. I think she is incredible in this series. And really, like, everyone who comes on, there are some people who, you know, they kind of have their set sort of beat that they do, their type of humor, and it tends to repeat, but they're all really good at nailing that aspect of their character.

And so you spend some series or some episodes just without the nominal stars or really like spreading the minutes around. And it works. You're never like, let's get back to I and Poppy. You want to explore these other people's lives. Listen, you mentioned Charlotte Nick Dow's incredible voice work. You know, the most recent things you can see you're in is lower decks, baby. Yes. Get that agenda off, baby.

Yeah. I mean, no, the cast of characters is amazing. We talk about it in the interview, but I'm a big fan of Dana and Rachel's, you know, relationship and their growth over the seasons. Shout out my guy, Danny Pouty, Brad Baxie. I mean,

it's so funny watching, like, you know, I've known Abed for so long, right? And then I see Danny Pudy on TV, and I'm like, that's Abed. And Brad is, like, the opposite of Abed, like completely and utterly. Yeah. Like, just very much.

you know, honestly, it's two sides of the same person, you know, obsessive, very much somebody who has a single goal once they get their mind on something, they can't get it off. But Brad is just so evil and devilish, whereas Abed is innocent and, you know, incredible work from him. Yes. I, yeah, like you mentioned, they do a great job of spreading the wealth with all these characters. And you just, it makes the world feel so lived in when it's not just, you know, Rob. taking up all this kingdom.

Like, he's the guy, you know, always sunny. You know what I mean? Like, he's the man, right? But they do an excellent job of making this world feel so. I mean, I laugh every single time they bring up David's Cerritos apartment. You know, somebody who lives in SoCal, somebody who knows. Like, I don't know where that office is, but the quest is, but if he's getting there from Cerritos, that's a trek, man.

Yeah. That's a hike, my man. Like, you got to be, the gas bills got to be through the roof. You know, but just things like that of these little, like, things about these characters that most shows might, you know, glance over that we get to spend time with. It's just a ton of fun. And it makes the show just feel more real and more lived in. Yeah. And I've watched ahead.

We're not covering the show week to week. And again, no spoilers. We have not seen. They're going to get mad at you, Ben. Screenergate. I know not screen. Screenergate, but I'm not playing anything. I haven't watched, guys.

I only watched the first two. I'm good. I'm clean. Don't get mad at me. I don't watch ahead if we're covering weekly, but we're not covering weekly. Maybe we'll return to this at the end of the season, and we have not received the finale. So I don't know what's in store for that. But all I'll say is that we're in good hands here.

It's another solid season. I don't know that I would say that it reaches new heights necessarily, but I would say that it's the same kind of comfort watch. It's nice to be back with these characters. It's been a couple of years, and the quality of the writing remains high. So if you enjoyed it before, you will continue to enjoy it. Last thing I'll say about the series, one amusing aspect of it is that there's a Ubisoft tie-in to this series because it's co-produced by Ubisoft, which initially proposed the idea

of the series to McElheny. And they're not writing it. They're not dictating everything creatively. but there are fairly frequent allusions to Montreal, right, to the just faceless corporate publisher that is dictating all of Mythic Quest decisions. And one of the interesting things is that this show is coming out as Ubisoft is in crisis, essentially, right? Everyone's kind of on death watch for Ubisoft. Look, we hope that Assassin's Creed will be good. But there is a lot riding on the success of that game.

It's been a bad couple years with shows or games that did not pan out that got to. delayed, that did not generate the revenue that was projected. And so everyone is sort of the vultraser circling. What is going to happen to Ubisoft? Are they going to have to sell? Is there going be a takeover? Are they going to sell off certain assets? And I look back to when the Ubisoft sort of film and entertainment was announced, there was, with a lot of fanfare, okay, we're going to be converting and adapting all of our Ubisoft properties for the screen. And this was more than a decade ago. This was before we actually got good video game movies and shows. Not a lot has come of that initiatives thus far.

There was the disastrous Assassin's Creed movie, which was supposed to start a franchise and did not. There was a French kid show based on Rabbids. There was Captain Laser Hawk on Netflix. There was Werewolves Within, which was pretty good. Always support Sam Richardson in all of his endeavors, except maybe the new Star Trek TV movie. But. We don't have time. We don't have time. We don't have time. We don't have time. That's a whole other podcast that we will probably not record. But MythQuest is the best thing that has come out of that relationship, of that effort to try to turn Ubisoft into a Hollywood production studio. That really has not panned out for the most part. But at least we got Mythic Quest out of it. And for the most part, it's not too intrusive. There are sort of interstitials where you see CGI. kind of cut scenes that come from Mythic Quest ostensibly that look like they come from a Ubisoft

game. Other than that, it's not too heavy-handed, but it is amusing just against the backdrop of Ubisoft sort of circling the drain that all of the stuff about we got to keep Montreal happy. We got to keep generating revenue. It feels almost too real right now. Ben, the interstitials are so funny because it is completely and utterly unsurious. Yeah. Like if we're seeing seed, I'm like, oh, this is the good CGI that they put in the trailer that makes you buy the game, and it's only in the

first 15 minutes and the last 15 minutes. In between, you don't get this level of quality. Yeah. You know what I mean? We got a budget here. So. We got a budget. But only for the eight seconds that they needed. Yeah. I'm like, again, it's been like two years since the show came out, so I forgot. I'm watching it. I'm like,

ah, they got the they got the good CGI back. man, wow, this is real, man. We're really back a myth of quest, baby. Yeah. I just cannot believe that they've done that, but they've stuck with it. It's part of the show's, you know, fabric. It's something that makes the show unique.

All right. Let's talk about other projects in this vein that have tried to scratch the same itch, whether they be TV shows or movies or books. We can keep this pretty fast and loose here. We can be liberal about our categories here. This isn't super serious. I'll tell you something. I eliminated, and you don't have to abide by this, but this is kind of how I define it, these

stories about video games. First, I'm not talking documentaries. So I'm not talking the King of Kong or indie game, the movie. These are good films, but I'm talking fictional narratives here, okay? I'm not talking movies that feature people playing games in a scene or two, swingers, let's say, or Anora, for that matter, Best Picture nominee, which feature. some of the least realistic controller usage you will ever see on screen. But from what I've read, it was intentional and sort of suits the character, so I will allow it. I'm also, and this is kind of controversial, well, I'm not counting, say, halt and catch fire, which I name-checked earlier, which is not really about video games, but sometimes it is, especially after its second

season semi-reboot when it becomes about mutiny and game developer and Cameron is a game developer. And that's a big part of it, but I wouldn't say it's about games. Games are sort of a plot device, a pretty important plot device, but it doesn't entirely revolve around games and game development the way that Mythic Quest does. Finally, and maybe most controversially, I'm not counting things that are sort of inspired by games, but not explicitly talking about them or based on them, for example, edge of tomorrow slash live, die, repeat. I see the vision. I see the vision.

Great movie. And if you want to say that it meets the definition, then absolutely no problem putting it in the top five. It is very clearly explicitly inspired by video games and by respawning. It's not really about video games. We can see the connection to video games, but it doesn't depend on that entirely. Scott Pilgrim versus the world, and I'm talking mostly about the movie here, very steeped in video games and gaming culture and constant. Instant gaming references and even the structure of it is somewhat video game inspired, but it's just as much about comic book culture or music culture. I wouldn't say it depends solely on games or that it is about games necessarily. It's part of the stew. So I'm excluding it here, but if you want to say that that's one of the best stories told about video games, I'm not going to quibble. But those are those are kind of the classifications that I'm going in with here. And you can

straight from those if you want. Maybe we can just trade off here. We can each toss one out. So what's something on your list? So I'm going to start. I'm going to go from bottom to top. Okay. With my list.

Again, I want to be very clear. Super unsurious, but this is true to me. Yeah, follow your heart. And something, I don't know if you guys were outside. I don't know the quite, the demographic of this podcast, but it's going to sing a little refrain from you

and let me know if you remember. Okay. I shoot my arrows in the air sometimes saying, A-O, creeper's K. No, you guys weren't there for the T&T, Captain Sparkles, Minecraft parody? You know, no. Probably my sweet spot from a culture perspective,

but I got the reference. So, you know, we're in slightly different demographics, which is part of the strength of the ringerverse. We go from the young guns to old man, So I'm picking up what you're putting down here. Ben, but that was 13 years ago, by the way. Yeah, I know. We're all old.

It's just different degrees of old. You could have told me like seven. I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. 13? Excuse me? Look, I'm getting old at this point. Explain Captain Sparkles in the Minecraft mix for us here.

Oh, man. Listen, y'all had to be there, man. If y'all was real Minecraft heads, you're locked in. you know Cactus Sparkus used to go crazy and it just speaks to like again

it's way in the past but just a different time in gaming where you know it was so fluid and so empty you know anybody could really make that mark

in the landscape and making you know silliest parody songs about you know Enderman and creepers and whatever it may be TNT will just make you

we'll just make you smile and so when I'm thinking about like stuff about video games that that messed up to me. That was one of the first things came in my head because it was just like, wow, we used to have it all back then.

I mean, we used to, we used to be a proper country, you know, that made a parody songs about, about creepers in TNT. So that's just something that was, that came to mind. What about you?

All right. I'll go in ascending order also. And I'll start with the one that started at all. Even though it's not necessarily my favorite. I don't know that we would have so many other things without it. I'm taking Trond. Because how can,

you not take Tron on a list like this. Tron came along at this time, really the golden age of arcades and Atari before the pre-NES crash, where we got a run of movies made about video games. This is pre-the-wizard. I'm talking Tron, the Last Starfighter, war games, cloak and dagger. This is early to mid-80s. And Trot was really the one that started it all. And it was the OG, like the premise for Tron.

Tron came from Pong era, mid-70s. And this was formative. This was foundational because it brought video games in the world of game development to a larger audience. It became a cult hit. It spawned a franchise, which is still with us. Shout out to Tron Aries coming later this year. Now, did it age perfectly well? No.

Is it a strength, its story, and narrative? Not necessarily. but it was trying some things. It was exploring the space. It was ahead of its time. The special effects, the CGI, if anything, were too far ahead of the time. According to the director and writer, at least,

it was essentially banned from an Oscar nomination for visual effects because it was seen as sort of cheating because it was all visual effects. This was pre-big Jim and the abyss and everything. And so the idea that it would be, all-CGI, that there would be extended scenes that were entirely computer-generated, this just blew people's minds at that moment. And granted, this was also the year of E.T. and Blade Runner and Poltergeist, et cetera. So, stiff competition. But Tron really was sort of the tone setter, I think,

and kind of normalize the idea of we can make a movie about video games and that video games could really influenced movies that the idea of just a CGI, just a digitally generated setting, that's almost something that came to movies from video games for better or worse. We're appreciators of practical effects here on this podcast. So maybe this opened Pandora's box. But never let it be said that video games are just emulating movies. It works the other way around too. Ben, did you know that Tron also has a song?

Well, yeah, I guess. Did you know? It's got a song rap. Yeah, the big T I am rolling with Flynn and my homeboy ramp. Life cycles going left and right. Now that's right. Especially all those haters and two are flash a lie. So what's up?

You think you better than me? You think you take down the MCP will step up. I'll bring it down the size. My name is Tronson. You better recognize, recognize. Yeah, throwing Frisbee's taking names, pointing ear, Sucker thinks he's got more game program, please. Wow.

This joke is just sat and your boss is nothing more than an overgrown iPad. Ooh, and you know, that's right. does rush my boy Flynn as he jumps inside you turn blue or like MC shame now watch my disc score as they all say my name come on man you wasn't outside are you second screening right now are you on genius right now how it should have ended I know it's right word for word word word word they went crazy man you not locked in it's not on tron the original soundtrack true an important contribution to trong lore thank you

I should have just laid down a beat there and just stepped out for you to drop the mic. But you can't drop the mic. You've got to continue to talk into it. What's your next pick? My next pick is one of a film, dare I say, changed my life and lives of all the children that went to go see it. You got to theater. You were like, I want $20 for this movie. Actually, it was cheaper back there.

That was probably like 12. Right? Yeah. And they gave you the 3D glasses. Talking about Spy Kids 3D. That's the one. Man. Man, Ben, I know you were there.

Ben, I know you were there. I don't say you weren't there. I was not there. I must confess I was not there. No. Ben, what? Tell me what I missed. What were you like?

16? You didn't go to the local Cineplex? I was probably not a kid by the time that edition of Spy Kids came out. Also, not a huge fan of 3D movies and 3D glasses. I'm not. sorry that we as a culture have collectively decided that that was not for us other than Avatar, but yeah, tell me. What was it?

Like, what, 2005? You know, 2004? It was cool. No, I mean? No, but the thing, like, again, we talk about things that are video game inspired or have these elements in them. And the first two Spy Kids are not even close to anything like this. You know, it's always been the green screen, you know, like affects Robert Rodriguez style

of filmmaking. Yeah. But going into the. a virtual world when that was still like, oh, imagine. You know what I'm saying? And now you look about like 20 years into the future. Like, oh, snap, no, we kind of, we kind of do have that. Like we legitimately have the putting the goggles on and just getting herself.

The metaverse. It's happened. Yes. Yeah, the metaverse. That's the thing that happened and continues to get updated, I'm sure. But it's just, there's a joke about, you know, somebody making a joke. And then it's Apollo throwing a. red ball at them with the gift of foresight, you know?

And so they're just making a movie about what it, oh, the future could look like this. And guess what? The future kind of does look like that. Am I going to say that Spy Kids changed the world? Maybe, maybe not. But it definitely changed mine. Yeah. This is another reason why I took Tron because it really originated that trope of we're in the game.

The game is taking over everything. We're trapped in the game, et cetera, which. A sports. It's in the game. Yeah. So many of these things. things that we're selecting here follow that rough model, more or less, even Existends, the Cronenberg movie from 99 or gamer from 10 years later. All right, Spy Kids 3D, game

over. The game is never over in your heart. I don't love when the Spy Kids style of effects come to the book of Boeufet and the Star Wars universe. We can keep them in Spy Kids 3D, but that's another tangent. Respect, let's see, respect Spy Kids. Whatever they was doing over there, that on them, okay? There's no Vespa Rangers. All right. All right. It's by Kids 3D.

Okay. All right. My next pick I'm going to take, this is somewhat obscure, but I am taking players, which is a 2022 mockumentary TV series on Paramount Plus. And it's a parody of sports documentaries, which have been all the rage, not necessarily super popular in all cases, but they've made a lot of them. And this was, unfortunately, I think, little scene mockumentary about a fictitious e-sports team called Fugitive Gaming, a fictional

pro-League of Legends' e-sports team. And we follow these professional gamers and all of the clashes that they have in their house and their backstory and how they got into games and all the interpersonal ups and downs and the triumphs and the travails. It's really funny. It's really heartfelt. out. It's 10 episodes, just half hour-ish. And sadly, I think that's all we're going to get. But it's a really, really satisfying series that I don't think enough people saw when it aired. You can still stream it. Go check out players. In fact, you don't even have to subscribe to a streaming service. You can find it for free on YouTube on the Funnier Die channel. All of the episodes are on there right now. So go watch players if you have not yet. Just, you know, I'm following my heart here too.

we're singling out some lesser-known, underappreciated examples of the genre, as well as the classics. So from underappreciated and lesser-known, so I think the thing that people probably know the most. Okay. For my third one, I'm going to go, you know what I'm saying?

It's a little-known show, South Park, I don't know if you've heard of it. You know, season 10, episode eight. Rings a bell. Make love. Not Workcraft. Yeah. I mean, there's some classic South Park episodes. I'm not going to go as far to say this is the classic,

but it's got to be top three in terms of just breaking the zeitgeist open. I had literally never heard of Ward of Warcraft until I watched the episode of South Park. Yeah. And it's just something that even to this day, I can remember where Carmen's telling, but hey butters what you playing I'm playing pony little princess butters

don't download water work out right now like this is just something that at least I'd again maybe for people my age if you were locked in or not I know I wasn't but this exposed me to a world of gaming I had never seen before

and the machinima which will come back later was just something that was very interesting to me and something that really piqued my interest into this world and I got to give it to do that episode again a classic television episode and one of the quintessential South Park episodes

and honestly, one of the quintessential gaming episodes of television that we've ever seen, just a special, special case of genius and storytelling that we rarely see nowadays, but, I mean, Make 11th on Warcraft is one of the most important episodes of television for gaming. Yeah, you were not alone in being introduced

to World Warcraft specifically, or gaming culture more generally, through that episode. this was the time when Wow was crossing the streams, was bringing gaming more into the mainstream, not only World Warcraft, but specifically World Warcraft, where you had celebrities just pledging their allegiance to that game, where it was a massive cultural event in a way that even big games

had not been very often prior to that. And this was just a good example of that. And it was done with the cooperation to some extent of Blizzard, and that sort of prefigured the way that some adaptations would be, done down the road. Was it the most flattering portrayal of gamers? Perhaps not, but was it at times too accurate? Yes. Yes, it was. So that's an excellent pick. And probably one of the most seen things that we're going to select here, even though it's a single episode of a single television show. Okay. I'm going to take a TV show too, and I'm going to go with another OG. And that's the

Guild, which, again, came along fairly early before South Park was mocking World of Warcraft. You had the Guild, which was about a World Warcraft-esque game, just called The Game. And this was a web series. And this came along in 2007 and ran until 2013, the brainchild of Felicia Day. And of course, at first, it was sort of a low-budget DIY kind of production. and then ultimately it was sponsored by Microsoft and it was a bit more polished, but it really did kind of capture just the idea of being in a clan

of the fact that gaming does not begin and end when you're actually playing the game. It extends its tendrils into the rest of your life. It leads to social connections. It leads to emotional moments. And the guilds kind of captured that in a way that I don't think a whole lot of shows or movies had. to that point.

And in fact, the last season of the guild, when Kodax starts to work at the company that makes the game and finds out how dysfunctional it is, Felicia Day said that that was supposed to be basically a backdoor pilot for a TV version of that web series, which didn't happen. But fortunately, Mythic Quest did. So I almost see Mythic Quest as a spiritual successor in some respects to the guild. Nice. Shout off Felicia Day. One of our most accomplished nerds in the space.

Yes, he does her thing. What's up next? My turn. I got to, you know, I got to be really real to myself right now. Okay. I think that's ultimately what it comes down. Do I have to be honest to Jomey? I got to go with Pantheon.

Ooh, okay. This is a show that came out on AMC Plus in 2022, right? I had gotten, I got, this is really funny, I'd got an AMC Plus to watch gangs of London because everybody's like, you got to watch Gang of London. I was like, cool, I'll get to that. But I'll tap into this Pantheon. You know, we'll see what's going on.

I like, you know, I like animation. Let's see what's going on. Oh, it hooked me. I cannot, I cannot describe, like, with all the, we don't have enough time for me to get into how excellent and amazing this show is. And the reason I bring it up is because first season aired. They already made season two, right? Season two is going to come out, 20,

are all hyped. And then they were like, actually, just kidding, we're going to zabs off this baby and nobody's ever going to see it ever in life. Until, until I just found this out, actually. It's coming to Netflix,

season two on February 21st, 2025. Ladies and gentlemen, I will be there no matter what. I know season two had premiered in 2023 in Australia and New Zealand on their Amazon. But I wasn't going, you know what I'm saying?

I wasn't going to get on the high seas for that. You know what I mean? I'm a man of pride. You know what I'm saying? I can't be out here. Taking the money away from the people. Sure. Feel me?

Yeah. Now I have a chance to watch it. Like, for real, Ben, I can't even get the words out. That's how excited I am. Like, I cannot wait to rewatch season one. It's just something there's a, it hooks you almost immediately. And in a world where it's very easy to get bogged down. by specifics and terminology.

The show does the thing, forget it, I'm just gonna compare it. Succession, not in like, they're all the same level, but when they throw terminology and stuff at you, it doesn't bog down the story, you know what I mean? When they're talking about, you know,

ROI and this deal and for the succession, it's, you know, business and monetary things. For this show, it's technology and it does not ruin the show at all. In fact, it somehow, like, gets you invested. I have no idea what this means, but I know it's important to the characters. And so I feel away about it. And by the last episode, you're kind of like, oh, my God, where's season two? I need it. Now, I need it now. I need it now. If you're listening to me right now, go on your

Netflix and watch the first season Pantheon and lock in on Pantheon season two. when I tell you it is some of the best animated storytelling that we've seen in a very, very, very long time, that doesn't even begin to cover it. Legitimately a special show, I cannot wait to tap in. Hopefully I get to talk about it. Yeah, I look forward to your ringerverse recommends entry for February. Brother man, we're going to do eight hour podcast, Ben. Okay.

We're going to lab overnight, man. It'll be another month of mint edition like arcane. You know what I mean? I'm ready to lock all the way in. This is a show that legitimately gripped me from the first episode. I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I cannot wait to get to season two then. I cannot wait.

And Pantheon is not anime. It's American made, but it's anime influenced. And so I just, I want to shout out some things that I will not be selecting. And in fact, haven't seen. But there are a lot of anime shows in this vein, too, of saying, get stuck inside a game, kind of video game-inspired storytelling, like sword art online or overlord or got hack. sign, et cetera. So I just want to represent for the animaniacs in the audience. I know those things exist. I sadly have not seen them as of yet, but maybe my day will come. Okay. My penultimate

pick, I'm going to stay in this same general area. And I'm going to take a show. So if if the guild walked so that Mythic Quest could run, I would say the same about a British show, a British sitcom called Dead Pixels. Again, I'm going semi-obscure here, at least for American audience is this aired on E4 back in 2019. There are two seasons. And again, it's a group of friends playing a fictional MMO called Kingdom Scrolls. And we follow them in games and we follow them outside of the games and how do they balance their in some cases, perhaps unhealthy attachment to this game with their needs to make

connections in meat space in real life, to make a living so that they can feed their addiction to Kingdom Scrolls, etc. again, sometimes too real. And like the guilds and like Mythic Quest and even to some extent like Tron, I suppose, that like there's an effort to say games are not just for white dudes, which historically, in many cases they were or at least were portrayed as being that way. And so there's kind of a conscious effort to be a bit more inclusive to say that this is not just for one demographic of society, but it's just a funny show.

And again, just two seasons and British TV season length, which is basically where we are with American shows at this point too. But it won't take you long to watch. And it's all on Hulu now. So you don't have to sail the seas or do a VPN or anything nefarious. You can go stream it on Hulu. It's very much, if you like the Guild, if you like Mythic Quest, you'll also like Dead Pixels. Check it out. By the way, I'm excluding Mythic Quest for my top five just in the interest of being able to name more things.

but it's definitely one of my top five, to be clear. Okay. What's your last pick? Are we up to last pick? For my number one, I can only be me. It's red versus blue. Yeah, I figured. Yeah, man.

To say it's a time of my life is an understatement. Again, don't have time to get into it. But one of those things that you pop on, you think like, oh, this seems fun. And then, what, at this point, like 10 years later, I'm still, like, thinking about reaping the effects of watching that for the first time. If you guys don't know, I can't imagine how you wouldn't know, because it came out in 2003. Yeah.

Ran for a long time. Very long time, 19 seasons movie to wrap it all up. And it's, I mean, it started with, you know, red versus blue, a red team on one end of the canyon. Yeah. And a blue team on the other end. For those who don't know, made in the Halo game. mentioned, not explicitly about Halo, at least early on, but Halo character models, Halo level

setting. Yes, but Goathe. If you know, you know, I used, man, we used to, we used to go into, in computers class, senior year, you know, listen to the lesson, no. Load up Halo and start running people over with the word hog, absolutely. That's a valuable lesson too, Jomey. That's maybe a more important lesson to learn. Life will run you over. Created by, you know, Bernie Burns, starring him, Matt Hallam, Jeff Ramsey, all those guys over there. Rest of peace, Richer Teeth. But that was the thing that got me into, you know, creation, like creating stuff online.

And I, again, like, my life wouldn't be the same without it. Yeah, it made you a meme lord. Right? When I think about video game media and I think of things that, that made an impact on me. Red versus Blue is definitely, definitely the main thing, just something that even to this day, the first 13 seasons,

oh man, they mean everything to me. Like, when the company was shutting down, the first thing I did was going my Amazon, it's been like, I want to say like a cool, like $200 on the DVDs and said,

I need those. Yeah. I need those. What's not going to happen is no lost media for me, physical media all the way. You did a Red versus Blue ringer verse recommends,

if I recall correctly. I did for resurrection because that was the season 20 or whatever was the last thing. But nah, it was just, it's a show and it just means everything in the world to me. And so it was always giving me number one on this list because it just, it changed my life. Great pick. Okay. My top pick, I am going with the printed word now. I've gone with movies.

I've gone with TV shows. I'm taking tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. an incredible book by Gabriel Zeven from a couple years ago, 2022. Everything that we were saying about Ian and Poppy and about a dark, quiet death, the standout Mythic Quest episode, this is that, but novel length. This is exploring game development, exploring a creative partnership over the course of decades of ups and downs. And again, exploring that almost two weeks. intimate partnership when it comes to just the meeting of the minds more so than the physical

forms. It's a beautifully written book. It gets games like Myth of Quest. You can just tell that, okay, this person knows what they're talking about and has a love for this medium that they're able to express in this other medium. And it's just, again, a pretty profoundly affecting story. And you'll spend a lot of time reading it. It's a hefty novel and it will suck you. you in. Can't recommend it more highly tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. All right. We'll leave you with a few honorable mentions. I'll tell you what I had here. So wreck it Ralph and Ralph breaks the internet. If I were younger or my daughter were older, maybe one of those would have made my list or the two of them in tandem. Really good. Good animated movies, obviously inspired by

video games, but not really a direct adaptation. Enjoyed them very much. Also, Ready Player 1. I was going to say, that didn't make the list. I was shocked. Neither was that on there. I considered it, and I considered the book specifically. Not the movie.

He didn't like the movie. He didn't like the Gundam coming in. Sorry, Stephen. A bit of a disappointment there. And also, the sequel, as I understand, it sucked. I have not read the sequel. Ready Player 2. Yeah, there's been a bit of a re-evaluation of Ready Player 1,

time is going on? And was it too dependent on nostalgia? And was it too kind of hackneyed and repetitive? And is it just sort of member berries and kind of tossing out cultural references? And yeah, there is a lot of that. Speaking of South Park, but I enjoyed it when I read it. I have not revisited it. I cannot say how it holds up, but I quite enjoyed my initial read of Ready Player 1. Shout out Olivia Cook, though. You know what I mean? Yeah, sure. Also, Black Mirror, just as a blanket category, we could go. Bander Snatch, we could go some of the isolated video game inspired episodes, playtest, striking vipers, even USS Callister, kind of, which is getting a sequel. The only reason I didn't

pick these is that they are very much in that dystopian dark side of gaming. What if this takes over our lives and terrible things happen? Which, okay, it's a legitimate concern, but personally I prefer the slightly more uplifting message that Mythic Quest has. has, again, not Pollyannish, not ignoring the dark sides of the endeavor, but really embracing the potential, the power to uplift that video games has, as opposed to the, this is horrible and may ruin everything, which is kind of Black Mirror's brand. So I get it. But, you know, thought provoking, sort of, but also the same thought each time to some extent. So just wanted to shout it out. Also, the Tetris movie from a couple of years ago. That's right. Tetris. Also on Apple TV Plus, while you're streaming mythquess, you can check that out too. Take some liberties, you know, based on true events loosely based, let's say.

Finger quotes. Yeah, pretty entertaining, making of flick. And then final thing I wanted to shout out was Free Guy. Now, I hope Sean Fennacy is not listening because Sean has strong feelings about Free Guy, which are not my feelings. I think Free Guy is fun, and I don't care who hears it. think it's a masterpiece. I didn't take it in my top five, but I thought it was a fun time at the movies that was based on video games and had some affection for the medium and, you know,

had a little fun with NPCs and just some of the conventions of online gaming that we take for granted but are inherently ridiculous. I enjoyed free guy. I like what they were going for. Yeah, definitely a solid one. I can't believe you left pixels off your honorable mentions. Oh, yeah. Huge oversight. I feel like that should have made, that should have made somebody. list at some point. No, I'll give one. I'll give one honorable mention. Okay. And video game high school, I don't know if

if that's something that rings a bell, but that was another thing I discovered in college. And I was like, oh, this is really cool. Shout out to, you know, rocket jump and all the people behind that one. Because it was, it was a time, you know, and Jenny Matrix, you know what I mean? Brian, the law. Man,

y'all had to be there. Shout out Freddie Wong. That was video game high school was dope and something I had a lot of fun with watching on the YouTube's way back one. So I just wanted to give that a little love because that was something that was really, really cool. All right. And I mentioned the last Starfighter in war games and even the wizard varying quality there. They're dated. But if you were there, and I guess I wasn't quite there, but still, they had a charm of their time, absolutely.

But trailblazers for sure. All right. Solid lists, I think. And even some solid snubs, we could have gone. 10 deep and not compromised on quality too much. But if we omitted something that you would have put on your personal list, let us know. Email ringerverse gaming at gmail.com.

Okay. Does Sonic count? No, Sonic's an adaptation. Sonic is. That's where I'm at. Okay, okay. Yeah, okay. I'm just double check.

Yeah. Because if we had left Sonic off the list, they would have canceled us. No, we did a whole pot on Sonic. Don't worry. We like Sonic here at the Ring ofverse. Okay, quick programming teases on Friday. Jomi and Steve will be back in your feeds as Mint Edition dishes out reactions to your friendly neighborhood, Spider-Man. On Saturday, a special weekend pod.

We will have our first Ring Reverse recommends episode of the year. Then ButtonMash will be back next week when we will discuss Kingdom Come Deliverance to and look back at 25 years of the Sims. Speaking of getting on in years, that episode will sadly snap a streak of seven straight Ringervverse podcast featuring Jomea Denneron. What a run you've been on here. Just isobal these days for Jomi on the rig of universe feed. Yeah. I do what I can. It's time to retire.

Hashtag save Jomi's job. He's thriving. Over on our sister feed, House of our Mal and Joe, we'll be looking back at X Machina on Friday, followed by a power ranking of animated heroes next Tuesday. Speaking of animated heroes, you ready to get to our guest? I am. Let's go!

And by the way, if you want to watch our interview, view, you can find it on YouTube at Ringaverse. And if you're content to listen along, then don't touch that dial. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need WeatherTech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech. And unless you plan on doing summer.

Visit weathertech.com today. This episode is brought to by Nass Energy. Every ounce of dirt, sweat, and gears, every checkered flag and trophy raised, every lap, every race, every hard-fought place. They're all jammed inside every can of Nass energy, high-performance energy for burning the midnight oil in the garage, and pedal to the metal human horsepower for the streets.

Go ahead, crack open a can of Nass energy and get after it. This episode is brought to you by, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2% cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me, the active cash credit card from Wells Fargo,

be a 2%er. Learn more at Wells Fargo.com forward slash active cash terms of play. Okay, let's post some mythic quest questions. Mythic Questions, and more, to Ashley Birch after a quick clip from the premiere, and just to set this up, Ashley's character, Rachel, is in a meeting with David and Ian and Poppy, and they're talking about Playpen and monetizing Mythic Quest and the relationship that Ashley's character, Rachel, has with Dana, who has gone up in the world. Along with Ashley, they started as testers, and now their lead creative and management figures. And Ashley is working in monetization. and Dana is one of the lead creators. She created a game called Cozy Galaxy inside Mythic Quest that is minting money for the studio, and that has created conflict in their relationship.

The amount of users flocking to Playpen is exploding. I mean, Dana's game alone just cracked one million users per day. One million? For real? Oh my God, I have to text her. After the morning she had, she could use some good news. Ah, what the hell, man? If you text her so much as an emoji,

I will fire you faster than you can say microaggression. These are company secrets, not couple secrets. But we work for the same company. Same company, different size. Your management, she's creative. So zip it. Zip it. If you could just zip it, that would help.

I barely talk to me. Whatever, okay, I'm sorry. I just thought we should give her something. Oh, don't worry. I'll be giving her something later. Oh, what? Sorry, that came off way too sexual. No, I just meant a trophy.

See, a trophy shows that we value our creators without showing our creators their actual value. We are joined now by someone who has almost certainly acted in, written for, directed, or produced one of your favorite shows, movies, or video games. In the case of Mythic Quest, she's done all four and more.

Ashley Birch, welcome to Button Mesh. Wow, what an intro. Thank you. You are jackball trades. We're going to get to that. But it's been two years since season three, five years since season one. A lot of upheaval has happened in that time,

a pandemic, a few strikes, multiple industries downsizing. yet Mythic Quest indoors, could you tell us about how the show has been able to adapt its story and sometimes its format to all of those ups and downs and disasters and delays? Wow. When you put it like that, it's really wild. How long the show has been going on?

What I love about this show and about our showrunners is that we don't really sweep things under the rug as a general rule. Like, the biggest thing, I think, honestly, part of the reason that Mythic Quest has reached as many people as it has is because of the pandemic episode. That's still one of my favorite episodes of the show, which is, you know, we did an episode, I think it must have been in,

maybe it was May of 2020, that we shot completely remotely. And, you know, all the actors were their own camera people and miced ourselves. And we told a story about what it was like being in quarantine while we were in quarantine. And so I think doing stuff like that, it keeps Mythic Quest relevant

because we don't really shy away from things that are happening. integrate them and we make them, you know, we talk about our authentic experiences in the upheavals as you put them that have happened over the course of the show existing. So yeah, I think that's probably why is that we've, you know, rather than trying to ignore that those things happen, we've put them into the fabric of the show. Ben mentioned that it's been a long two years since we last saw MythorQuest. What was it like getting back into that world and with all those people? It really was like no time had passed. I know that. probably sounds like a line, but it, it, I love this show. And like when you say that it's been

five years, it doesn't, it feels like it was yesterday to me that we did season one. It's so bizarre to me to imagine that was 2018, 2017. So, you know, I've formed relationships and friendships with all the people that I work with. So it was really wonderful to come back to the writer's room and kind of feel like we were picking up where we left off. And same with the cast. The main thing that we thought about was just like, okay, what stories do we want to tell? And, you know, we want to acknowledge that there has been a time gap and not just act like, okay, let's just pick up from the, you know, the last episode of the previous season. It's been a minute.

But I've been on this show since the beginning as a writer and as an actor, obviously. And, yeah, I feel like I kind of know it inside and out now. So it just sort of felt like, in a certain point, it feels like you're writing fan fiction, you know, because I'm a fan of the show as well. You alluded to this, but one of the things I really admire about Myth of Quest is how it doesn't tiptoe around issues facing the industry, but tackles it in a lighthearted way. somehow. Even though there's serious issues, never more so than in this season, you've got layoffs, you've got AI, you've got content moderation, child labor and safety, something that is of great

concern to Rachel this season. The COVID's 19 pandemic, of course, which David laments the end of throughout the season, which is one of the best running jokes. So how do you all talk about that, not wanting to shy away from these issues and not wanting to make light of them, but also wanting to find the humor in them somehow? It really is a funny sort of needle to thread because you don't want to ignore anything that's happening in the industry that is relevant and meaningful.

And it's also a comedy. So as you say, how do you marry those two things? And I feel like it really comes from the sort of deft hand of our showrunners and also our writers that we can find ways of, you know, as you said, there's a running gag where David's like, you know, how sad it is that.

that COVID ended because of how astronomical the games industry profits were. But we always have someone being like, David, David, you know. So it's kind of playing both sides and also like using it to fuel stories where we can like go a little bit deeper into those conversations and those ideas. I think it also helps that by and large, all the people that work on the show are kind and empathetic people. So I feel like we're usually trying to make sure that it's funny without it being dismissive of anything real that's happening.

Yeah, and another balance the show tries to strike, as we do on this podcast, is to try to be accessible to non-gamers, to people who are not super plugged into all these developments, but also just constant knowing winks. People who are in the know who are immersed in this world will recognize that, oh, there are people making this show who understand the industry, and you're, of course, one of them. So I assume there's a blend in the writer's room of people who are very into games

as you are and people who are less so and can, and kind of be the proxy for the portion of the audience that might not be aware of those things. So, again, how do you sort of make it accessible without turning off people who are very plugged into this world and would sort of sense if there was an inauthenticity to it? Yeah, I mean, the primary thing about the show, right, is that it's a sitcom and you have to love the characters and be invested in the characters. So I think we as the show really shine when we're able to use. use real authentic things that are happening in the games industry to create comedy and also to promote character conflict or growth or whatever it happens to be. Like, you know, coming out of

season three, Playpen is now this massive hit that is rivaling slash maybe has just toppled Vanilla Mythic Quest. And so now that creates a really fun power dynamic where Dana is actually more valuable to the company than I and Poppy. So it's a real thing that's happening in games where games like Roblox are massively, massively successful. But then it also does the dual thing of helping tell more interesting stories with our characters. So I feel like if you do too much of one, then it doesn't feel authentic to games. And if you do too much of the other, then it's not authentic to it being a sitcom. So it really is like, how can one bolster the other?

Yeah. And I guess the conceit of any workplace comedy is that you want it to be relatable to anyone's workplace, regardless of the specifics. But that does lead into something I wanted to ask you, which is why aren't there more shows about not just based on video games and the making of video games. There are so many shows and movies about making movies, making TV, less so in video games, which is why Mythic Quest fills a need. But is it just, again, that maybe there's a perception that there's less mainstream

awareness of the specifics, or do you see more of this thing coming down the road? Yeah, I do think that as games, especially there's so many game adaptations happening now, that have reached a certain level of quality that lots of people watch that may have no awareness of or interest in the original game. I think it's just the more ubiquitous gaming becomes and the more ubiquitous games become.

It's possible that people might try to make more shows like Mythic Quest. I do think that, you know, as you said, it was five years ago. So this is pre-fallout the show, this is pre-Last of Us the show. This is pre-A lot of stuff. This is pre-Super Mario Brothers in the movie.

So we were kind of a little bit ahead of the curve in a way in terms of knowing how culturally significant games are. So, yeah, my hope is that people that still kind of think that games are only Mario have started to learn that that's not the case. And yeah, I think the more that that happens, the more you'll see these types of stories weeding in where it's, you know, maybe there will be like an eight and a half that's about games instead of, you know.

But yeah, I think that's just starting to happen more and more as culturally different mediums kind of blend. And it has always been a show about relationships. more so than just Mythic Quest the game. But it seems as if it's moved more and more in that direction, that Mythic Quest, certainly Vanilla Mythic Quest, has receded somewhat into the background. But we're following these characters' lives in ways that almost don't interact

really with their professional occupations at this point. And so I wonder how that has evolved also from a writer's perspective when it comes to kind of the nitty-gritty of game-making versus, okay, now we're invested in these people as, as people and we are interested in what they're doing even when they aren't working on the game. Yeah, I think as you say, a big part of any workplace comedy is the people. It's the, it's the characters that you're following. You know, I think Rob said at one point, you don't watch the office because you care about paper. You watch the office because you care about the characters.

And I think that's sort of the thing that we we sort of wanted to do with Mythic Quest was we wanted it to feel authentic to the game's industry. But at the end of the day, because it is a TV show and TV shows are about characters, the most important thing is making sure that we're telling those stories and the best stories that we can tell with those characters. And so I think there is cross-section often between what's happening in the industry and character plotlines. But we also didn't want to like hem ourselves in and say, okay, we can only tell stories with these characters if they're somehow directly related to Mythic Quest. So this season we have a lot of stories of like, you're getting to see people's home lives. I'm very excited you get to see David's apartment

And Cerritos, which was a big thing for me. I went on to the set and I was like, this is where it all happens. And I think, you know, hopefully at this point, if you're, if you love the show, then you love the show because you love the characters. So I think it's fun also for audience members to get to see other facets of these people's lives. Speaking of relationships, one of the best and personally my favorites is Rachel and Dana's relationship. How is it that in, you know, this new season with Dana being on the creative side?

and Rachel being, you know, on the baddie side, right? How does that relationship work now? How will we see it evolve going forward in this season? Yeah, so that's a fun wrinkle in Dana and Rachel's relationship. I think what's kind of cool about what we decided to do with them is rather than, you know, string people along and act like it's, they're not going to get together for seasons, after season, after season. We kind of solved that problem.

And then went, no, they like each other. They're together. So now we get to tell stories that are relationship stories that are, I think, can be pretty relatable as someone in a relationship. Like if you're working with that person, how does that complicate your relationship? As you said, with Dana and Rachel, Rachel is technically management. So then it creates this strange rift between her and Dana where, you know, there's secrets that she's not allowed to tell Dana. Or, you know, Dana kind of wants to take down people in her company. And we get a lot of humor out of the sort of tension between Dana as a creative and Rachel

as management. But the other, one of my favorite plot lines of the two of them in this season is how their different jobs mean they are bringing in different levels of income. And you learn that Rachel, although she makes more money, is extremely irresponsible with it. And I think that's a very common thing with relationships where, you know, someone is the breadwinner and someone isn't and how does that affect your relationship. And then what if it switches? And someone makes more money and the other person makes less. So I think the fun thing about like just getting them together and building their characters

is that we've gotten to explore other interesting relationship stories. that hopefully people can relate to. Yeah, I mean, I'm team Dana because, frankly, one, you know, let's go creative. Sure, yeah. Gout's bad. I've never had gout, but it sounds bad. It's called the King's Disease, which is really like seems, yeah, like that's something you do not want to have.

Rachel's kind of constantly torn between her conscience and her desire to pay down her debts. So she's always wrestling with what she's forced to do, but I wonder whether you, as a creative, enjoy kind of getting to dabble in the dark side of management via this character. Absolutely. It's so fun to see this character who, you know, in the early days of the show, was so kind of single-mindedly focused on doing the right thing. And now she has some money and she can afford some pat-te and she kind of likes it, the comedy that you can get from a person that has like really strong ideals, also not a lot of intelligence to back it up, and maybe has gotten too much of a taste of the good life,

and it's sort of like affecting her. So yeah, it is fun to play a character that especially has grown over the course of several seasons now and went from being like the most socialist socialist, whoever socialist, to now she has money, and how is it affecting her? Yeah, she's come quite a long way in a short time from tester to director of monetization.

It's a little whiplash. I'm kind of grading on a curve here, but I would say Dana and Rachel are maybe two of the less exaggerated personalities in a cast full of larger than life hot messes. We have maybe multiple sociopaths working at MQ. So again, it's all relative. But if you're doing a scene where Rachel's in a room with, say, Ion and Poppy and David, how do you play off those extremes? I mean, you are neither straight nor a man, but do you feel like you are a straight man to some extent in this cast? I think I am sometimes. Yeah, I think, which I love that role because I think it's a fun, like,

without a sort of audience perspective, then the humor doesn't land a lot because you need, if it's all chaos all the time, you need a balancing element. But I think the fun thing about this cast is that people play that role at different times. So, you know, there are a couple of times where David and I are paired this season. And in the first episode, I'm more of the straight man for David. And then the other, he's more of the straight man for me. And so it's a fun, like, carousel that we can do with these characters,

because we've developed them, so I think over four seasons, that we can slot in differently. And I also feel like it's a fun color to play, because I think even when Rachel is the least sociopathic person in the room, she's still probably the most confused and the most troubled, and so there's always humor to be mined from that as well. So, yeah, I think it's a testament to our showrunners and then also all the writers that we've had

that over the course of four seasons, we've been able to build an ensemble cast that really can plug and play in one. a lots of different ways. And personal professional boundaries and work-life balance, or as poppy puts it, work-life balance are a major theme of this season. And also in gaming at large, as studios try to combat crunch and make games in a more humane way, how have you handled that challenge yourself in your own very prolific professional life? And how do you think the industry has evolved in that respect during your decade-plus in gaming? I have had to learn to force myself to rest.

which is a silly thing to say out loud, but is truly a thing I had to learn. I really pushed myself and still pushed myself, but sometimes to the detriment of, let's say, my body and my health. And so I really had to learn to listen to myself when I'm tired, I need to rest. Some things that feel urgent aren't necessarily urgent. They could be dealt with the next day.

And balancing, you know, working hard, but then also when I'm not working to be with the people I love, to do things that I love that have nothing to do with work. So it's a constant process that I'm in of learning how to do that. And as far as the industry, I do think the industry is still trying to figure that out. I think there are companies that are, you know, really acknowledge that crunch is a massive problem

and that it needs to be addressed for like the longevity of the industry and the people working in it. And there are some ships that take a really, really, really, really, really long time to turn. So I think there is more conversation happening about it, I think, than ever before in my experience, which makes me happy because I do think that devs really deserve to be able to do this thing

that they love in a way that's sustainable that doesn't cause them to burn out after one game or five years or whatever it happens to be. Like any good game, BithQuest is elastic in its format. How do the creators of the show make room to experiment amid the conversations of workplace comedies? I think we're all really open and Megan and David and Rob

are really open to what the most interesting version of the show is and you know Megan comes from community and community did so many form breaking episodes and some of the best episodes are like really form breaking like the paintball ones and when we did Everlight doing quarantine and then doing Everlight

and then especially starting with Dark Quiet Death which was I guess in really our first form breaking episode because it was a standalone that had none of our main cast in it it was so well received. It was like, okay, like our audience is down for this. Like, they're down to to expand what we think the show is going to be. It doesn't have to just be like a rinse and repeat of an office format. And so then after Dark Quiet Death, it was quarantine. That was so well received. And then Everlight was like, I think a big departure in terms of, you know, how far we went

into like the geeky nerdy world of it all because our characters larp in that episode. And so then when that was so real received, it became this thing of like, okay, so we, our audience really likes it when we break form. And, you know, we don't want to do it just for the sake, but when there's a really good story in it, like, why not? Why not dress everyone up and bring them to a murder mystery party? Why not have a really stylized poker game? And I think, to me, that's what's so exciting about the seasons. I feel like we take a lot of big swings like that. And I personally think it really pays off. And you've done it all. As we said at our intro, you have acted, you've written, you've directed, you've produced, you've created. We will ask you about SideQuest in just a second. You wrote an

episode this season, you've directed multiple episodes, including the finale, so you have worn every hat. How did that happen? To be totally honest with you, I asked. I asked, which I'm still like, wow, I asked. Holy crap. I asked if I could audition for Rachel, and then I got cast as Rachel. And, you know, at some point, pre-pandemic, Rob had mentioned that they wanted to find some more female directors, and maybe we could do something where, you know, one of us could shadow,

and then the pandemic happened. And so then after that, we came back and I was like, can I direct an episode? And he said, yeah. And, you know, coming back into this season, Megan was like, you're directing an episode. So it's really been, A, it's a testament to our showrunners for being really receptive and open

to people like me taking swings like that. And yeah, I think it also is something that maybe, you know, we just did a panel for SideQuest. And Megan talked about how, you know, know, there are lots of women that are applying for jobs or trying to get writers positions or whatever that feel like they have to check every single box before they do something. And I had directed like a couple of shorts before, but certainly never a TV show. And so again, it's really crazy to me that I did this because I'm an anxious person sometimes, but apparently not so anxious

that I was, wasn't like, hey, give me an episode of TV. But to just like ask for what you want and the worst thing that people can say is no. And I think, you know, once I started doing that stuff and then proving that I was capable of doing it, then, like I said, Megan was like, we're too busy, direct this episode, and we're just going to go right and you do this, and then we'll see you later. So yeah, I think I earned that trust over season three. And yeah, I'm really, I'm really grateful to have directed two episodes this season. Yeah, it's really been fun to watch you spread your wings creatively as many projects as you've been involved in just, you know, writing everything from Everlight on and just to see you on screen flexing different acting muscles

than you would when you're in a sound booth. So we are very much looking forward to side quest. We're still a couple months away from the premiere. But tell us what to expect. Should we be thinking of this as in the vein of Dark Quiet Death and Backstory and Sorayan? Or is this sort of a different thing? No, it's very much in the vein of those episodes. You know, our standalones in Mythic Quest, I think, are special for so many reasons, but also they always end up bolstering the theme of that particular season. You know, they're always about what, you know, usually they're related to I and Poppy in some way in terms of either their relationship or literally Sorayan was about iron and poppy. But they're always bolstering the theme of the season. And then in terms of side quest,

because we are, you know, we're an offshoot of Mythic Quest. We're not directly commenting on any of the characters, except there is one episode about Phil, our long-suffering art director, played wonderfully by Derek Waters. So we really, what we wanted to do with these episodes is tell stories that are funny, but also tell stories that are really relatable that people will feel seen in. So we have, there's one episode that is all about a group of basically high schoolers going into college that are part of a Mythic Quest Guild. And over the course of the episode, a lot of stuff, a lot of Chuffa from between them and their relationship dynamics comes out. And it really is about how relationships change. And sometimes you have friends that are circumstantial that don't last,

sometimes people's past take them in different directions. We have, you know, an episode that's about an all-black comic bookstore. That's owned by a black woman. It's all-black community. And it's so much about the black nerd community and also about gatekeeping and what does it mean to have a community like that. So we really tried to keep the spirit of like dark quiet death is so much about creative relationships and what makes them either last or break apart.

And so we tried to keep that sort of same deep thematic thread in each of our episodes for SideQuest. I mean, this is so mind-boggling me. This is going to go through just a little bit of your credits. Okay. Horizon, Zero Dawn, Life is Strange, The Last of Us Two, Borderlands. Like, these are enormous games that you have, you know, been a part of, and now they're getting, like, TV and movie adaptations.

How does that feel to see, you know, some of the work that you've been a part of, hit the screens? It's really surreal, I have to say, Because at no point was I like, you know, playing Tiny Tina and being like, one day, this will be a movie with Cape Lancho. Like, that's not something that ever crossed my mind. So really surreal. Extremely surreal is the first answer. And then also, I think really validating.

Like, obviously I've been able to be part of these games and these franchises that have been popular enough and have spoken to enough people that they're being adapted into TV and film. So it's like a humbling and really gratifying experience to know that, you know, the work that all of us did from the actors to the devs on these games is so beloved that now they're reaching an even wider audience. By the way, 10 years since the first life is strange. Oh, my God. That's so, that's so crazy. Shout out, Chloe Price. I can't handle that. That's too wild.

Oh, no. Ten years. Okay. I'll process that on my own time. That's a favorite of yours, Joby. I love life of Strange. Oh, that's awesome. We don't got time to get into it. You know what I mean?

Did I save Chloe or save Arcadia Bay? Who knows? Yeah, be careful about which one you say. People are very hot about it. People are hot about it. I did want to ask you weren't able to play Chloe and Life is Strange before the storm because of a previous voice actor strike.

and there's still a voice actor strike going on, a different one now. And, of course, you've been supportive of those efforts. And I wonder if you could just sort of lay out for people who haven't followed it, briefly, the issues that are at stake there or the progress that you and a lot of your colleagues are hoping to see. Yeah, absolutely. So if you followed the writers or SAG Theatrical Strike, you know, a couple years ago, I don't understand time anymore.

It was the last year or the year before, you know what we're talking about. A lot of the issues are similar, and I would say they're even more urgent for gay performers. So AI is a big concern. And then also, you know, for voice, but also for movement, you know, we have so many movement performers that work in games. I think we often see, you know, footage of games like Horizon or The Last of Us, where the actor playing the character is also on the motion capture volume. You see that kind of footage a lot. But what you probably don't see is all of our stunt performers, all the people that bring the characters to life in different ways who have imbued so much performance into the movement that they do, even if their faces aren't being seen and their voices aren't being heard. So we're asking really for common sense AI protections.

The thing that's usually said is consent, transparency, and compensation. So I need to give you my consent to make a digital replica of me. You need to be transparent about how you're going to use that. and I need to be compensated for it. And seems pretty simple to me, seems pretty straightforward. But we're striking over it, you know, because this is really, it is the future of our industry is at stake. And one of our committee members on the negotiating committee,

Zeke Alton talks a lot about how voice and movement performers are sort of the canaries in the coal mine. Like, AI is affecting all of our industries. So it really is something that I think should concern people that love games because even if I wasn't a performer, I don't want my characters to have computer voices and computer movement. I like that there are humans behind these. I like that they have instincts and perspectives that I wouldn't expect.

They would play characters in ways that I wouldn't expect them to play. So that's a big, big concern. There's also safety for movement performers. There's, you know, pay raises, but really it's the big bulk of it is AI. And so we've been on strike and we're still on strike. And, you know, I'm really proud of this community. They've been holding strong. And they know that this is important.

And, you know, really for someone like me, I'm so lucky that I came up in the time that I did because I was able to cut my teeth on characters that could very easily be replaced by AI, you know, combat barks and small NPCs and villages and RPGs and stuff like that. So it's very personal to me because this is how I became a voice actor. I don't know that I would have had the career that I had if these opportunities weren't available. So it's very important to me that the next generation of, voice actors and movement performers get to have the same experience. Well, we support your efforts.

Somehow I doubt David would be as receptive to your request. And I'm sure Rachel would be conflicted as always. We will end just with two very quick ones. First, is there a role that you have played or voiced that you feel a twinge of, gosh, I wish I could play that role in the adaptation, whether there's an existing one already or whether someday there might be one. now that you have played Rachel, that you feel like,

okay, I can make the leap to live action. I'm trying to think what the funniest dancer is, but like a baby. I played once or something. Yeah, I mean, it's tough because a lot of the characters that I play are canonically like 18,

and I am, spoiler alert, no longer 18. But, you know, if someone came up to me, it was like, do you want to be the live action aloy? I wouldn't say no. I might be like, are you sure? Oh, yes. Actually, yes. I mean, yes.

But also, I don't like expect it. Do you know what I mean? Just because the beautiful thing about being a video game performer is my age and my appearance does not matter. It's really like, can I do the performance? You know, am I the right person for the performance? For that reason, I have played many teenagers. So I understand why they might want someone different to be in the adaptation. There's a proud tradition in Hollywood of 30-somethings playing teens.

That's true. You know what, look, if you want to get the, what do you call it, petition, if you want to get the petition going, Change.org. We got you. Real quick, no spoilers, but what can fans expect out of this latest season

Myth DeQuest? You directed the finale so you know what can people get in their heads ready as they go on this season. I hate not being able to spoil things. I will say

one of my favorite episodes that we've done of the entire season is in this season, which is the fourth episode, which Megan Gans directed, and it's in the trailer. So I think it's safe

for me to say that there is a murder mystery episode. So it's like basically the gang gets together and plays our version of Werewolf and it's so fun and Megan crushed it in terms of direct. She also co-wrote it with her husband and I was part of the breaking of that episode and it was such a difficult episode to break. And the fact that we got there, because there were a couple of moments where we were like, we're not going to be able to do this. We're just going to have to throw this episode out. And then we finally got there. We finally broke through and I think it's a really satisfying episode and it's, it felt like the hardest escape room I've ever done. And I'm so happy that we got to actually do it and that it exists.

Well, it's been such a pleasure to watch your work on Mythic Quest and elsewhere. We're looking forward to SideQuest. And it's been an equal pleasure to talk to you today. So Ashley, thanks so much. Yeah, thank you. Jomey, enjoyed the conversation with you. Enjoyed the conversation with Ashley. Thanks for keeping the coho seat warm today. This was a pleasure. Hey, I do what I can. Thank you for having me. I cannot wait to be back. I do have to go, though, because this mythic won't quest itself. You know what I mean?

I will see you later, man. Thank you again. Tap in, people. Thanks to Devin Ronaldo for producing this podcast. Thanks to our Juner Remgapal for giving it the green light. Thanks to you for listening. Hit us up at ringerburst gaming at gmail.com. But MASH will be back next week.

Stay tuned for Mint Edition and Ringerverse recommends in the interim. And I'll give Poppy and Ion the last word. Wow. He didn't ask for a podcast. Get to work, Phil. That's what I was going to say. I was just so good. I feel like one of those handphrases are really very much.

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