Triforce! - Triforce! #286: No Cash? No Cookies!

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Triforce! Episode 286! We're going deep into the lore of Fallout while Flax dives head first into the corrupt world of Girl Scout Cookies! We also start plans for episode 300 and get angry and ranty over some gaming news! Go to http://auraframes.com/triforce to get up to $30 off Aura’s best-selling frames. Go to http://expressvpn.com/triforce today and get an extra 3 months free on a 1-year package! Support your favourite podcast on Patreon: https://bit.ly/2SMnzk6 Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Pickaxe. Get ready for puck drop at Bet MGM, an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact ConX Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge.

Bet-Am GM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This episode is brought to you by Secret. Secret deodorant gives you 72 hours of clinically proven odor protection, free of aluminum, parabens, dyes, talc, and baking soda. It's made with pH-balancing minerals and crafted with skin conditioning oils. So whether you're going for a run or just running late, do what life throws your way and smell like you didn't. Find Secret at your nearest Walmart or Shopper's Drug Mart today. All right, you ready? You want to do a test? Test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test, test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test test Oh, great to be back. Hey, welcome back! Hello. I noticed you just fed your tortoise, how's that?

Yes! Man, he is being so annoying. Oh no... He's a pacer, he's a roamer. He just spends all his time trying to get out of the cage. Yeah. I would too if I was living in a fucking cage. I'm on his side, let's to live i already live in a cage

mate it's called society wow can't keep me down that's right i'm gonna stick it to the man i'm gonna bring down the organization from the inside how did you stick it to the man yesterday oh by uh sitting in my garage and playing video games for most of the day me too the man's not gonna get the best of me. I played Rimworld for seven hours yesterday, take that! Hey, how's the new DLC? I haven't played it yet.

Very punishing. Yeah, it's like a horror theme or something, right? An anomaly? Yeah, because of the new DLC, I've been wanting to play Rimworld again for ages, haven't played it since 2022, so fight it up, load the new anomaly, immediately lost to the new anomaly thing, I was like, ah shit, this is hard. So I thought, what I'll do is I'll do another run where I just play through to get back into the groove, and I didn't realise that the anomaly thing is just like, you know the

Mechinator stuff, where you can control mechs? So, that'll just sit there on the map, until you interact with it. Like, there's a ship, and you blow that up and it drops a thing, you put it in a lad and now he's your mechinator. So if you want, you can start that really early for some reason, you wouldn't be able to do anything with it, but you could. And equally with the anomaly, it's just a monolith that sits there. So you don't have to do anything with it until you're ready.

Of course I thought... Right. Right, so I thought, waaah, just went and opened it, and immediately one of my lads got killed by some terrifying creature that appeared out of thin air, and I was like, okay, I'll come back when I figure out how to play Rimworld again. That's one of my most streamed games, Rimworld. Yeah, I know, you play it a lot. It's up there, yeah. It's up there with Overwatch of all games, and Minecraft is my top streamed game. This genre is prevalent.

The colony setup sim, lots of men, and all the sort of banished alike, cause Manor Lords is the current one. I think you've seen it. Manor Lords. Manor Lords. It's very hype. It does. Very hype.

Are you excited? Are you excited? Are you, um... Not really, no. I am kind of... I dunno, like, it does... these games, man. They're so similar. These video games.

How many times have I spawned around a little warehouse with five men that need houses, and they need to build a logging camp? Jeremy, it's like, give me a fucking break, dude. Yeah, give me a fucking break, dude. I know. Yeah, give me a break. That's why I've been playing Oxygen Not Included, because like, fuck all that. Oh god, that's so hard. I've set up a colony and...

That's so hard. Nah, I'm just joking, I love that. It's funny though, I think there's this thing about games that you know well, that you are comforting and that are familiar to you. Yeah. When you're very good at a game, you kinda start overlooking all of the problems with it, I think. Once you've played a game a lot, you stop seeing the things that used to annoy you as

harmless quirks and elements of the game that are fun. It's like, I dunno, I've said it about it, it's like Civ 5, there's a lot of problems with Civ 5, but we just kinda overlook them because we've played it so much and it works for us. Do you know what? I've got a thought about the difference. The reason that the build a woodcutter log thing, whatever, is a lot of these colony management games lack the character that Rimworld does. Because I get genuinely attached to the lads in my colony because it's not just build

building and building is now the thing. The thing is with Rimworld, it's the people that's the focus. So, it's listed as a story generator on the main page when you boot it up, a story generator by Taina Silvestre, right? And it is a story simulator, a generator, because it's about people, not a fucking wood gathering cabin. Which just any lad works in. So, in my current playthrough it's like, everyone in there has a specific role, there's like stories that emerge, like, we dug into this ancient horror, unlocked it, killed the monster in there, and there were these two lovebots, basically, these two people who were bred

to be love machines, who were in the sarcophagi, we got them out. One of them died, one of them lived, she was three thousand years old, but still, she was twenty-seven, but actually she's three thousand and twenty-seven. One of my colonists immediately fell in love with her. But his religious beliefs meant that they couldn't share a bed until they were married. She didn't want to get married. So while I'm trying to convert him to our religion- She's a love bot, she's not tied up to no man.

Well, no, she was cool. She's not tied up to no man. Well, no, she was against her programming. No, no, no, they were in love. She wanted to sleep with him, and he wanted to, obviously, want to sleep with her, she's a fucking lovebot. But he was like, but my religious beliefs, so I'm trying to convert him, trying to convert him, and because they'd never consummate, she was like, fuck this, I'm moving on, I'm a lovebot, and we're not even getting it on.

So their relationship broke it up. He lost his mind, we put him in prison, I converted him, and then released him, but it was too late. The relationship was dead. Oh, you finally shifted the religion. You had to mind... you had to brainwash him. You had to break him. To atheism. But it's like, this is really funny. Like, that is a good story. Rimworld, honestly, always, yes. It creates these great little stories. Any time you tell someone about your Rimworld playthrough, it's always so interesting.

It makes you wanna play it every time. Yeah, every time. Can I change the subject, chap? Yes, please do. Something I wrote about. The Loch Ness Monster. Oh, no. Right.

Now, I don't believe in the Loch Ness Monster. No, of course not. I do find it kinda sweet that people do. But I've just... ALICE Old Nessie. STAN Old Nessie. I just saw this news story, this was from last week, that NASA has been asked to help. On the 90th anniversary of some expedition that took place, Edward Mountains, which is

a great name expedition to find Nessie, that people are urging NASA to come and use all their technology to scan the Loch. I have a paddling pool in my garden, I think there's a monster in there, maybe we could get NASA to scan that. Because the chances of finding a monster in either is the same. ALICE There is definitely a monster in there. I took a huge dump in your paddling pool last night. JUSTIN Did you, son of a bitch?

ALICE Yes. JUSTIN That's what the kids were playing with, I wondered where it was, jeez. I'm scared, daddy! Don't be scared. Those peanuts are natural. They're meant to be in there. Jesus.

Oh man, sorry about that. But the lot of myths, most- I don't understand why it's so persistent. Do you know what I think it is? I think it's, like all this fake news, right? It's like a harmless myth that's quite fun, but then you have these hardcore idiots who believe it, right? Like, this is the problem with all of these fun fake nonsense myths. Some lunatics actually think they're real, like Bigfoot, and they actually get it into

their heads. A lot of people are just really stupid. They're really stupid. Sorry. You believe in the Loch Ness Monster, for real, and you're going out there believing... You're a believer, a Nessie hunter, a Nessinator, whatever the fuck- A Nessie enjoyer. A Ness- a big Ness head.

I think it's the same for- I like NASA doing it, because it is, like, funny, but in these days of playing and messing with flat earthers, what's next? Are NASA gonna be like, oh, let's just have a quick look to see if the Earth's flat? Do you know what I mean? The problem is, like, sometimes with the flat earth... It definitely is flat in parts. For example, my backyard is pretty flat. Yeah, therefore the rest of it is flat. I don't see what the argument is here. Exactly. Sorry. So, with the Longest Monster, I like the idea. I think it's a promotional

fun thing to maybe get kids involved in science. I dunno, maybe it's an example of a small... Maybe they were looking for a small body of water to do this on anyway as a test, and so that fitted it. Do you know what I mean? There's a lot of reasons why this might be fine, and it's not some problematic thing. I think the good thing I read this week was that when you have, like, a debate, right, what that does is that immediately it puts the two arguments on the same footing. If you say, oh, you know, flat earthers versus round earthers, suddenly that puts them 50-50, just by saying that they're having a debate.

And it almost, like, it gives, despite the lack of evidence on one side, it's completely disgenuous, right? To the actual messaging of the whole thing, right? Because it should be fact-based. Anyway, I had a thought when you were saying that, I don't know why, I saw a post today, which was the... I saw a Twitter post earlier, it's stuck in my head, you know Girl Scout cookies, right? Yeah. Only in America, but yeah. They do... I know, we know of them, right? Yeah, yeah.

I think Girl Scout cookies are like, obviously something that caught on because of Halloween probably or something like this. Like, when kids come to your door, you're under slight threat, right? At Halloween. Yeah. I don't see it there, but they only sell Girl Scout cookies at certain periods. There's a couple of factors, right? When kids come through our door, we're used to giving them sweets under threat of tomato ketchup being squirted on our car, right? Or whatever. And I think when Girl Scouts come to your door and try and sell you cookies, I think

it would be unusually successful because of that. Because that's the only other reason I could possibly think it would be successful. And I think because it makes money, and I think the markup is pretty huge on them, it's now franchised. Anyway, I saw this post today and it was Girl Scout Cookies deodorant. You could actually buy other branded, cookie smelling deodorant. You can buy like, other... they've got a whole merch range of this like, Girl Scout cookies brand now. ALICE Oh. LIAM Um. ALICE Ha! LIAM Sips, I can imagine you, like, investing in the whole briefcase full of goodies.

ALICE Yes, I would love that. Put it right beside my briefcase filled with jelly beans. ALICE Apparently they just sell them all the time. I thought it was just a seasonal thing, but they sell them all the time. They're constantly raising funds. It's like the scouts, like the bottle drives and selling apples door to door and stuff. They always need money basically because. Yeah, of course they're like, it's a youth program. That's, I don't, I don't know if the government puts any money into it.

It's a very middle-class youth program, isn't it? You'd think that they'd be able to just get a couple of parents to pay like 20 bucks here and there, and then they'd have enough to go on there. Yeah, but this is... This is what these youth groups are all about, right? The Cubs and the Boy Scouts is, and to a lesser extent, the Girl Scouts. Slogging it. Slogging through it without any help from anyone.

It's a paramilitary organization. The objective is to have a miniature army ready to go. All right, we're going to convince them once and for all. This earth is flat. Yeah, fuckers. We're fucking job. They're fucking get out there. Paramilitary training. Think about what you're training them.

You've got rank and leadership. You've got it's divided into squads, with the troop. All the characters are named after Jungle Book characters. Right, but that's just to appeal to kids. Instead of saying Sarge, or Lieutenant, or Captain, they say Octavia. I'd rather say Sarge. I'd rather actually say Sarge. Well, that's only the US military over here, you don't say Sarge, you get in trouble.

Right, what do you say? First Surge. Sarge. Yes, Sarge! First Surgeon. You don't say, you don't say Sarge. Right, what do you say? First Surge. Surge. SON! Yes, son! First Surgeon. You don't say Sarge. Right, okay. Do you... do you say we're training our little girls to kill? No, I'm saying that they're the support network for the paramilitaries.

What, in Brownies? Yeah, the Brownies, all of them. It's all part of the paramilitary organization. There is a rank system. Brownies is not a paramilitary organization. The whole thing is. Oh, I got you, you're totally right. During World War Two, right, the women were in the Wrens and the WAF and stuff like that, so they were the support, they were logistics and support troops, and intelligence and radio

operators and radar, for the front line. The front line troops is the Boy Scouts and the Cub Scouts. They're the soldiers, right, they're the front line. The Scouts and the Cub Scouts. They're the soldiers, right? They're the frontline. The Scouts are the main body of the troops. The Cubs will be the rear echelon and sort of rearguard troops. And the support network is the Girl Guides, Brownies, and to a lesser extent the Beavers. They can only do so much.

Now in America, in America, it's a very different system. ALICE Right. They mostly just get jammy fingers and... Right. But think about what the Girl Scouts are doing. You're training kids that the key to getting ahead is selling things. So in America, they don't have a paramilitary set of youth organisations. Their group is young capitalists.

And young business leaders. Oh my god, it is! So they're like, we're gonna sell cookies, this is the brand. Girls, we've got to sell cookies. Where's the money going? How much do the Girl Scouts see of the money? They're being trained, from a young age, to accept their role as selling for the wealthy owners, the ruling class, aka Brown Owl, and whoever else runs the Girl Scouts, they're

selling these fucking cookies! Oh, these shit, you're so right! Brown Owl! Brown Owl, that's what they call the leader of brownies, is Brown Owl. Do they? Yeah, I'm sure. Oh my god. And you know what, they have all these systems in place to keep them hooked, like with the

badges, right? So the badges are just like the stars in McDonald's, right? It's just, you know, it's meaningless, it just makes you feel invested, and like, you've sunk costs and time and you can't quit, right? Because you're tied to this... You're part of the system now, man. You're part of the family now.

Yeah, you're in... I mean, they have ranks within the Brownies. You have Brown Alsheez a leader, then the other leaders are Tawny Al, Snowy Al and Grey Al, right? So that's like, you've got the Colonel, then you've got the Captain, got the Lieutenant, got the Sergeant... Yeah, you're got the captain, got the lieutenant. ALICE Yeah, you're right. The grey isle is like the old wise field marshal.

RILEY Yeah. It's all just training. I mean, we were both in the cadets at school, Lewis. I was trained to use a firearm and unpractised shooting. What for? For the inevitable invasion of these fair isles by foreign forces. That's what we've all been trained for. Ever since World War Two, they've been training the youth to be ready just in case.

The Home Guard was about that. We got rid of that. A national service. We didn't get rid of national service. It's there. It's in play. It's hiding in plain sight. The scouts, the guides, and all the different organizations that support them. I'm just calling it out finally. I want people to know. Well, I'm glad somebody finally was brave enough to call it out. Thank you! That's improved my day tenfold, actually, now. Well, now you know. A little bit of truth.

A little truth bomb for you. Yeah. That's right. Wow. You gotta think about that next time you're lost in the woods. Yeah, true. So, you've been playing Rimworld, Lewis, have you been playing anything? And have you guys watched the new Fallout series?

The TV series? I watched episode one. I'm reluctant to get into game chat, because that's all we end up doing on these episodes. No, no, but did you guys watch the Fallout series? You watched episode one? Did you like it? I did. I watched episode one.

I thought it was okay. I did read something funny about... What's it? Is it Vault-Tec? Is that the name of the company that went to build all these? Vault-Tec, yeah. They're the ones who build the vaults. So I didn't know this, because I didn't play a huge amount of Fallout over the years.

I didn't play 4 much at all. ALICE Oh man, you're missing out. That's great. ALICE Well, and I don't really care for the world and the setting. It's okay. I'm not having a pop at it. It's just not really my thing.

JUSTIN Oh wow. No, it's not fair enough. You should try New Vegas. That's the thing everyone says. Oh, you should try New Vegas. ALICE Well, I'd say the story in New Vegas is great, but the rest of the game looks like ass, it's old, and it's very on rails.

It is a story, you know? Whereas Fallout 4 gets a lot of shit, but you can build settlements and there's all sorts of fun side shit that you can do. The story in 4 is pretty bad, but it doesn't matter, because there's just so much else to do. There's so much of it as well, and there's like five different factions that are all interesting. Just a huge world where you can just completely ignore the storyline and just have fun farting

around and going... It's really super goofy, is what it is. It's really goofy, yeah. And the show is pretty, sort of, loyal to that as well. The show itself is quite goofy too, but in a very fallout way, in a good way. But so here's the thing about Vault-Tec. The whole point of Vault-Tec is, I think it was a Reddit post, or it might have been a tweet longer or something, I don't know.

Careful if you're spoiling anything. It's not a spoiler. I don't believe, anyway. Is that some of the vaults, a lot of the vaults, were set up to fail deliberately as an experiment, right? Yeah, it was meant to test humans, yeah. Why? Why do that?

Well, I think that they just wanted to... I mean, basically, the point that the world is at in the Fallout universe pre the bombs dropping is that the world is running really low on resources and that's the cause of this prolonged war, which then eventually ends in a nuclear holocaust. I think they want to start doing testing on humans to get a better understanding of their limits, because there is the very real possibility that a set of chosen humans are going to be responsible for furthering the human race beyond the bombs dropping and 99% of the population dying on Earth.

But so you're down to a very small population of people, and you decide to fuck with them, and let most of them die in experiments. It's the same way that they're testing humans in isolation for trips to Mars. They know that they want to send humans to Mars at some point, and they need to figure out what the limitations are for humans. Are they going to go insane after two years of isolation? Are they going to go insane after two years of isolation? Are they going to go insane after three years? So they do these tests. It's just gathering information. Those people know they're doing those tests and there is an identifiable

end goal and we have lots of people. There are eight billion people. So you're using a few of them to do an experiment that might eventually benefit everyone, and those people are willingly doing it. The Vault-Tec, from what I understand, like I said, I'm only going by this thing I read, they had all these vaults, and only a few of them were the control vaults, where it was actually normal, and the rest were designed for the people to go crazy and die and end up eating each other to gather data. But for what purpose? Well, that was, yeah, for, to learn about humans. The part you gotta understand that

they never, like everyone today, no one ever thinks that there actually is gonna be a nuclear war. So, I mean, everything is all, they're all just raising funding. All of these corporations in the future, like Voltec, and even Rob Co and Repcon, they don't care about anyone, or humanity at all, they just care about money and profit, and they don't believe, no one believes that the world's gonna end. ALICE If you watch the show you find out a lot more about Voltec as well, and more of their motives and stuff. RILEY Okay, I'm just curious, because it doesn't

really make sense for them to have this all set up. ALICE No. RILEY But they can only do it if there's a nuclear war, and then presumably the government or whoever's in charge, even the corporations, because they need customers, would not want to risk 95% of all of the remaining people that are in these vaults just to gather data. They never care about the people in first place. But they need people. No, but they don't.

They don't. They don't care. Like, it doesn't matter. It's the enclave, what's the remainder of the government, right? Yeah, the government secures itself and then lives on beyond. They're like, well, I'm okay with me and my family in our special thing, and we're gonna emerge in a hundred years and take over, but of course everything doesn't go as they plan, or they think.

You know, everything takes a lot longer, there are more bombs, it's a lot more devastating, there's a lot more problems, y'know, like, it's a whole... All of this is just ignorant people making bad decisions. The whole world of Fallout is that. Yes, they ran out of oil, and so they started just using nuclear generators in cars. And they kind of, like, almost, it's this strange nuclear punk world where everyone's like, look at this shiny green stuff that you can drink! Everyone's drinking nuclear coke!

Yes. It's like, culturally stuck in the 50s, but with the advancements far beyond where we're at now in technology. It's a completely different world, and it mirrors stuff in... If you saw the first episode, you would've seen the glossy pre-war, you know, people having a barbecue, but like all the TVs look very retro, all the advertising is very retro, you know? It's like the world just got stuck in the 50s, but technology continued to move ahead. And also it's a very good plot device for making a video game.

If you're making a video game, you have to have a lot of bad guys, and nuclear radiation creates the mutants and the ghouls, the various different mutated things that you can fight, and all the vaults, you know, people want an excuse to go to the vaults. It would be no good if all the vaults were all just perfectly safe, full of vault dwellers, right? You want them all full of weird stuff, you want them all full of vault dwellers, right? You want them all full of weird stuff. You want them all full of individual stories. And in New Vegas, another great thing about New Vegas is there's loads of vaults that have their own lore. That have nothing really to do with the main story. You can just go

into them and find out what happened to them. You find out what the point of them was, and then there's all these log entries on computers about the people that lived there, what they did and stuff. And some of it's really, really well written and worth exploring. Some of it's brilliant. I see. Each one is like a little episode. Yeah. A little sci-fi episode.

But then there's also like, you can craft your own weapons, you can craft your own armor, and the further the games go, there's more to them. There's legendary affixes that you can add to weapons and armour to make them better, and there's... It's a game. Yeah, it's just a big roleplay game. It's a game. Really fun.

If you like the setting. I mean, if you're not thrilled about the setting, then it's probably gonna fall flat for you. Yeah, honestly, the thing I loved most about the TV show was the way it felt like the games. If you've played the games, you're constantly like, oh, that looks like that thing from the game, that's the music from the game. Yes. All the Pip-Boy sound effects are from the game. In the way that I've never seen it happen, ever. Every video game adaptation ever has never been this faithful. Yeah, it's very faithful. I mean, bear in mind, I called this two years ago, maybe even three years ago. Called what?

I said that with the superhero genre dying out, all these fuckin' big studios are gonna start thinking, what's the next thing where there's just piles of content and fans lying around? It's games, isn't it? Well, absolutely. The Mario movie was a success, the Barbie movie was a success. The Halo TV show was not, though. Right, but that's the thing.

I mean, there are a bunch of superhero movies that didn't make it, it doesn't matter. The barbie movie was a success. The Halo TV show was not, though. Yeah, the Halo TV show was not. Right, but that's the thing. I mean, they're a bunch of superhero movies, it doesn't matter. They made The Fucking Last of Us into a TV show. They made Fallout into a TV show. They made Super Mario into a movie. They're gonna keep doing this. They're gonna keep doing it.

What's next? What's next? I dunno, I was thinking about that. I mean, they made The Witcher TV series, but apparently that was based more on the books than the game. But Henry Cavill's performance was clearly based on Geralt in the game. ALICE I could see them making a TV show about Destiny, the game Destiny, but I'm not a huge fan of Destiny, I don't know if I would bother watching

it but- RILEY Sure, I mean, they made a League of Legends cartoon, the Dota cartoon. ALICE Yeah, yeah. RILEY Even though they sucked, the Dota one, the League one apparently very good. This is the thing, now they're gonna start cranking it out. So they're gonna look for big games.

I would expect it to be, I mean, there was a Son of the Hedgehog movie, you know, there were a couple of those. They're gonna keep doing it. There could be an Elder Scrolls series, the Elder Scrolls lore is vast. I think you could do loads with Elder Scrolls if you really wanted to. Oh my god, yeah, they could have a proper Skyrim TV show! Yeah, they could do Skyrim TV shows. That would be the next logical step.

Oh my god, with people floating up into the sky and glitching out and stuff. Oh, give me that. I mean, they could do a Red Dead Redemption, they could do a Grand Theft Auto, a Grand Theft Auto TV series. Grand Theft Auto, I would watch the shit out of a Grand Theft Auto. I mean, Grand Theft Auto's already kind of a TV series. It's like just playing a movie, right? Like Grand Theft Auto?

I mean, like... I thought you meant cops. The TV show Cops. Red Dead is the same. I thought you just meant Florida News. Still my gripe with Red Dead 2 was awesome, but I hated, like... I loved the story and the lead-ups to the stories, but I hated the action intervals because they were just all the same, right? It was just like turn up somewhere,

find out something and then a million cowboys attack you. Like you're in the biggest fucking gunfight of all time over like, you know, some crappy cabin in the middle of a field. And it was like that every time it was, it just got. It just got really samey. I wish they would have just been a bit more, sort of like, you know, have some more interactions that you could choose how they would resolve rather than just, hey, I just slaughtered another 500 cowboys out here. Yeah, just me and my gun. Luckily I had enough ammo on me to kill all 500 of these cowboys that just turned up out of nowhere.

I loved it. I loved it too, but I just- I mean, bear in mind, Grand Theft Auto- The action stuff was silly. It was- I think GTA did have a bit more variety in its missions, but a lot of them involved, get this car or thing from here to here. Like, that is a lot of it. I think maybe they spend a lot of time on the world, and the immersive feeling of, you can just wander around.

ALICE It was a big sandbox that you could have fun in. RILEY Yeah. But maybe, when you get into the sandbox, it's very big, but there's maybe a limited number of toys in the sandbox, I would say. Further information about the Girl Scout cookies. Oh, thank god, yeah, I was hoping for more. Here are the award badges. This is just backing up my theory that this is all training to turn all the Girl Scouts

into good capitalist businesswomen. Here are the names of the badges. Count it up, talk it up. Meet my customers. Give back. Cookie CEO. Customer insights. Think big. Business plan. Marketing.

My portfolio. Profit and lost. Customer loyalty. And research and development. Which is all, yes, these are all badges. How many cookies do you think the girl scout who sold the most cookies sold? How many do you think she sold? Oh, like 1.5 million worth?

SEAN You're at least three times over, it's half a million. She sold them to Delta Airlines in 1983. ALICE Oh wow, okay. SEAN 1983! ALICE Do they have their own, I think they do have their own copyrighted cookie brand. SEAN You can't make these, you can only get these from them.

And apparently some of them are very very good. ALICE Well this is it, yeah, you hear that there's like the Samoas or whatever. It's weirdly culturally... we know about it, do you know what I mean? Just through movies and... ZACH It's because they put it in all their fucking sitcoms and stuff. Like, here's the thing, I'm sure I've said this before on this podcast, I apologise. American comedy, whether it's stand-up or sitcoms or anything like that, they seem to feature brand names as a big part of their comedy.

So they will often make like a lot of their cultural references are to brand names. So you'll often see jokes about, oh, he's blah, blah. He probably buys pop tarts. Do you mean like just just referring to someone eating pop tarts is itself a punch line? I'm not saying it's a good one, but it comes up so often that brands and products are used as punchlines and descriptors for characters. That they use this or they use that and that almost defines who they are.

So Girl Scout cookies are a thing that you see in loads of American comedies. Girl Scout cookies are referenced. I doubt that even more than 0.1% of people in the UK have ever eaten a Girl Scout cookie, but we're probably well aware of them. I don't know why we don't have them over here, apparently it's hugely successful because the Girl Scouts raise about $800 million a year selling these fucking things. ALICE Wow. Where does that go? RILEY Well, exactly, Lewis.

My next question, where does it go? ALICE Where does it go? RILEY Apparently, as of 2018, more than 200 million boxes are sold each cookie selling season, so it is seasonal, for 800 million dollars, leaving approximately 600 in net revenue for the Girl Scouts to distribute. Revenues at all levels are used to pay for events and activities for the Girl Scouts, maintenance of the council's Girl Scout camps and other properties, see? Cookie sale incentives and council administrative costs. Now those incentives... I'm really

getting into this now, okay. You get these incentives. There's like toys and special things that they can get. They don't get a profit share, there's no profit sharing. Stuffed animals, trinkets, coupons, credits towards Girl Scout camp activities, uniform stuff, all kinds of stuff like that. Oh my god. It's like Pachinko. So it's illegal to gamble, but you can still win prizes, right? You can win prizes. Yeah. You don't win money. So the Girl Scouts, they get all of their awards and they get all their commission is in prizes instead.

Now all I'm saying is, Lewis, that this in any other country, I think they would allow the Girl Scouts to unionise. And they would unionise, and they would demand a share of the profits. Much like college football players in the US, college football players made millions for their universities, were not allowed to be paid, because it's meant to be amateur and not professional. They make fucking fortune. And finally there was some big case, I think, recently, where they were like, this is bullshit,

you guys are making tons of money off our labour, where's our cut? I'm saying give the Girl Scouts more than trinkets and stuffed toys, if you're gonna give them badges like cookie CEO, where's the fucking money? Where's the remuneration? Where is it? Like, it's gonna turn out that the Girl Scout cookies is secretly like their biggest landowner in the US. Yeah, they're like McDonald's. No cash, no cookies! These Girl Scouts aren't for sale! Get that going.

No cash, no cookies! These Girl Scouts aren't for sale! I want that! Say it loud and say it proud! No cash, no cookies! These Girl Scouts aren't for sale! Bam! Bam!

Bam! Someone's banging a big drum. Least threatening protest ever, but you give them what they want! Because, you know, these are the voters of the future. Mr. President, these girls will be voting in a few years time. Yeah, what are you talking about? They'll be future presidents. Yeah, that's true.

Mr. President, these'll be CEOs in no time! Look at their badges! Cookie CEO! Profit and loss badge! Marketing badge! We gotta get on top of this! Oh, man. That's when they bring in the UK's paramilitary scout and guide organisation to break up the

unions. We come in as union busting organisations. Oh I see, because we have all the military training. Yeah. So we come in, paramilitary, full guerrilla warfare, break up the supply lines of Girl Scout cookies, disrupt, disrupt, disrupt, and just cause chaos. It shifted from Survivor to The Apprentice, you know, that's another example of the way it's changing. We're so cosy now. The battle is in the border room, instead. Exactly. Well, we're gonna take it back to the fields. That's what I want the Winston Churchill of speech for Boy Scouts. We shall fight them in the playgrounds and in the old World War II billets, mysteriously

still Scout-Huts. Oh, man. Get ready for puck drop at BetMGM, an official sports betting partner of the National Hockey League. BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns

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years to get past ExpressVPN's encryption. It's easy to use. Just fire up the app and click one button and it works on all devices. So you can stay secure on the go. expressvpn.com. Thank you very much. On with the show. On with the show. Oh, fucking, fucking Girl Guides, eh? Wilderness Girls. You remember that loaded- remember National Lampoon's Loaded Weapon? The spoof movie about the lethal weapon movies? I mean, they still do that. Imagine thinking, I mean, how was there not one for Lord of the Rings?

I felt like that was calling out for some idiot to make a ripoff. Because they did one for fucking 300, right? The Spartans movie. Meet the Spartans? Did they? Yeah, there was a Meet the Spartans, like a spoof of the 300. I've lost track. I've lost track.

They did one for Scream. Oh, the scary movie. The scary movie, right? Yeah, I remember that one. They did a thing.ream. Oh, a scary movie. A scary movie. Yeah, I remember that one. They're so fucking bad. These are so bad. Some of them are pretty bad, yeah. As bad as they are though, the Christmas vacation one was really good.

National Ampute's Christmas. What was it called? National Ampute's Christmas Vacation. Yeah, yeah, but that was just... That wasn't like a spoof on something. Summer Vacation was really good. No, it wasn't. It's not a spoof, really.

I think it was just, you know. wasn't like a spoof on something. Summer vacation was really good? No, it wasn't. What was that a spoof on? It's not a spoof really. I think it was just, you know. I just think the moment you see a spoof movie, to me I'm just like, this is going to suck. Yeah. Like, you automatically know what half the jokes are gonna be, it's just literally back of a napkin script and plot. The gags are like, so fucking bad. Yeah.

I don't think I'm trying to think of a spoof movie I've seen that was actually any good. I guess Airplane, which was a spoof of a movie, I think, called Airplane. But this is from the 80s, though. I mean, recently... That was 1980, Airplane. The spoofs have really not done it lately, y'know? I think it's because it has such a dangerous copyright area, plus you have to be a real fan of something to be able to laugh at it properly as well.

So, it's Airport 1975 was the name of this movie. It's an air disaster film, and the first sequel to the successful 1970 film, Airport. Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, were both in that. And then Airplane was obviously the sort of spoof of it. But I'm pretty sure that one of the guys, like there's a line in Airplane that is directly lifted from one of the airport movies where he's like, can you land this plane? Like that whole scene is literally verbatim. But the thing is with Airplane is, it is really stupid. Like, if you watch it, it's such a dumb movie. But it's kind of beloved.

But a lot of these spoof movies, a scary movie I thought was dreadful, they made one called The Starving Games. Did you hear about this? No. Starving Games? What, like, at the heart? No, superhero movie. Right. Did you hear about No. Superhero movie.

Did you hear about that? Disaster movie. Epic movie. I mean, there's just so many of these. Oh, I see, yeah. These are just... there's always been loads of these odd, low-budget movies that are deliberately spoofed. They're kind of meant to catch people out with the wrong one, as well.

Like, you've heard of a movie with a crazy shark hurricane or whatever, and you're like, oh yeah, must be called Shark Hurricane. ALICE Sharknado. Yeah. Yeah. ALICE That's what I'm saying, Sips, that was the joke. ALICE Why not just say Sharknado, though?

JUSTIN No, because the spoof movie is called Shark Hurricane. ALICE Oh, the spoof, sorry, yeah, sorry, I missed that bit. JUSTIN And it tricks people into watching the shit movie that they've made. And this apparently industry of idiots who get accidentally watched the wrong one, or just naive people, or people on a plane, bended this the other day. Tom recommended him a book, he started listening

to it on an audit board, and it wasn't until halfway through that he realised it was the wrong book. And it was good to just have the same name. And it was like, special. Yeah, it was recommended Lord of the Rings, but why are all these kids on a desert island? I don't get it. But it was called exactly the same name in this case, so it's easy to boil bed. And also they were both set in like the middle ages. So Tom said, oh yeah, there's this great book about the plague. And the book that Bayman's reading was sort of a young adult romance. And he was like, this doesn't feel like what Tom would have recommended me.

No, I love that stuff. Yeah, my god. I think Legend of Zelda is gonna be the big next, the next one, right? That's huge. Oh yeah, that they could make a moot, yeah. Yeah, you're right. Wait, what is? But there's so...

Zelda. I mean, there's so many, actually, when you think about it, the big games, they've already had some TV shows or stuff done with them. Like Pokemon, there's tons of Pokemon movies and TV series. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's, like, even Detective Pikachu, there's a Sonic movie, there's another Sonic movie coming along. I mean, there was a Pokemon TV show in the 90s, the cartoon, right?

Like, I remember it. Yeah, well, I mean that was... ...95, 96. That was iconic. Yeah, that was good. I think that was more, in some ways, well known than the original video games were. Me and Mrs. F used to watch that, actually. We thought it was hilarious. It was funny. I like, my favourite was Pidgeotto. This is the shittest name. It's just a pigeon.

They just stuck E-O-T-O on the end to make it sound cool. Half the Pokemon have shit names like that, it always makes me laugh. ALICE They really do. Pidgey-Oto. RILEY Like Charizard. When things get hot, they sometimes get charred, and he's a lizard, so Charizard. Ha ha. Brilliant.

Brilliant. ALICE Yes. Yes, very good. RILEY A lot of it is terrible, even like, the worst one is Ekans, which is a snake. And that is just the word snake backwards. Does he move backwards? I don't think so.

Missed a trick there, Pokemon, didn't you? Not really sure. Missed a trick there. But I think it's all because these were... they all had Japanese names, right? I think Pidgey is Poppo in Japanese. Which sometimes they keep them, but sometimes they... I mean, Pidgeotto is literally the Japanese word for... I think it was called Pigeon in Japanese. In fact, they just didn't even call it... They just called it Pigeon.

They just called it Pigeon. They didn't even try and theme it up a bit. And so it is weird when you get the translations. I always find the Pokémon... Some of them are insane, by the way. Some of them are actually really weird. Like a charm bracelet, or a key, or like a clock. What, there's a Pokémon that's a clock? There's a Pokémon that's everything. There's a Pokémon that's a spoon. There's a Pokémon that's an ice cream. There's a Pokémon that is... like, you name it, there's like a Pokémon of it. Now, there's men.

Men. I'm gonna do weirdest Pokémon. Here we go. There are some very weird ones. The ten weirdest Pokémon of all time. Clefki. It's a set of keys. There you go.

Love disk. It's just a heart. It's a fish shaped like a heart, actually. Litwick. Lampunt. and Chandelure. Fucking brilliant. Chandelure! Sorry, it's the candle that evolves into one of those old school Victorian lamps that evolves

into one of these old school Chandelures. Chandelure! Chandelure! There's Vanillite, Vanillish, and Vanillux. It starts off as an ice cream and then turns into a double scoop cone ice cream. Mimikyu is a disguised Pokémon, because it looks like Pikachu, but it's just a lad in a Pikachu costume, I think that's great.

Cubone. Cubone. Yeah. I don't know why he's... He's just a lad with a bone. He wears his dead mother's skull. Alright, that is weird. Trubbish and Garbodor? Trubbish is just a bag of rubbish, and he transforms into garbador, just a bigger bag

of rubbish. There are so many now as well. Crabominable, alright, that's brilliant. It's a crab. Crabominable. That's brilliant. And Licky Tongue, who's a lad with a big tongue, and then Licky Licky, who's a lad with a slightly bigger tongue and a quiff.

Fantastic. I say more of that. More I say, more of that. More. You want more of that. I've seen so many of these over time. I think there's so many now of these games that are Pokémon-like games, that it's kind of almost hard to even know if they're a Pokémon or not, right? Because there's...

You'll see, like, I think the one that I saw just today was Comfie? Which is C-O-M-F-E-F-E-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M-F-O-M- It's like one of those flower rings that you put around your neck, or whatever. Or like a daisy chain. Kind of, but what's it called, a luau? Uh, yeah, it's like the... I thought a luau was a party. Yeah, I know, but what's it called, the chain thing, the flower chain? Chain of Flowers Hawaii. It's called a lei. A lei. A lei. Here you go, that's what it's called.

Okay, god. Good thing I'm not on a quiz show. So I got that wrong. Luau. Incorrect. Oh, I've lost everything. Never been to Hawaii. I would like to go. Well, you need to work for Valve, mate. Have the annual trip to Hawaii. Oh, shit. Yeah, maybe we should do a Yogg's cast one.

Oh, well, speaking of, Dav, I don't know if we should talk about this on the podcast. Dav suggested we do a for our 300th episode, we do like a live one. ALICE Yeah, he said that you guys wanted to do a podcast from a boat in Jersey. Yeah, we're gonna come to Jersey. JUSTIN We're gonna come to Jersey. That's the easiest way for this to happen.

ALICE Yeah, that's the easiest way. You guys can come here. JUSTIN We come to you. Yeah, we'll come to you. And I've never been to Jersey, so I'm happy. ALICE We need to find somewhere to, to, to, to Pocaste from? JUSTIN Yeah.

ALICE Well, there's a German underground hospital, We need to find somewhere to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, to, summer, you wanna escape that heat, you know? It's cool in here, boy! If you wanted to escape that heat, that's the way to do it. I think it'd be nice to be out on a boat. Imagine that we get on a boat and go and do the podcast in there, I think that would be

lovely. I do get a little seasick, but I'm up for it, as long as it's not too wavy. Oh, no, it'll be just one that's like on the harbour. Yeah, yeah, we'll be moored up. We'll have lunch and we'll have drinks brought to us and we'll sit on a boat and pretend to be those kind of people. We can rent one for a day and we can hire a boy to pilot. You there, boy!

You there, boy! Bring me tea and crumpets! Immediately! Pilot this ship for me! Maybe like a Cub Scout we could get, like a little Navy Scout. What are they called? They have got them haven't they? A cadet.

Yeah, yeah. Let's get our own little cadet. They call them... Aqua Patrol. Oh my goodness. No, they're called Sea Scouts. Yeah. I don't want a Sea Scout, I want a cadet.

In a little sailors outfit. I want a ripe little cadet. Jesus. What? Oh my god. I want someone who knows what they're doing, I want an actual... I want to get the Royal Navy involved. If they can get NASA to look for Nessie, they can get the Royal Navy to assist with Triforce episode 300.

ALICE They've got a chapter over here, like a territorial army and Royal Navy and stuff, so we could maybe contact them and say... RILEY They're not busy. ALICE Would one of your boys or girls like to pilot a podcast boat for a couple of strapping men? They did get activated recently though, when France came over and tried to block all the fishermen off. I fucking love a war with France.

Let's go to war with France again, I'm so up for it. Get a Type 43 destroyer out there. Where's the Type 23? One of those big fucking destroyers with all the fucking things. Helicopters in the back, missiles, trained a bunch of Frenchmen come out. You've thought about this a lot, haven't you? Yes, of course. We get the Girl Scouts, the Boy Scouts, get them on the island, set up the paramilitary organization and we get the ship there.

Get the Sea Scouts in. Sea, Sea Scouts, training the Navy, next generation Navy, very clear. And they get the destroyer there and any French boats come within a mile, we say, if you come within one mile of Jersey, you will be fired upon. And they're like, they are bluffing, of course they are bluffing. And they get their little putts, brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr with the French army or navy. Because... Why? You think we couldn't take them? We'd fucking take them. I don't know, man. They're pretty sophisticated and large.

We've pretty, pretty sophisticated ourselves. We both got nuclear weapons as well, so let's really make this happen. Come on. Fallout series two, it's taking place in Jersey. Jersey, yeah. In the underground hospital, that's my vault. That's your vault tech. Vault number 69, that's my vault. That's your vault, Tec. It's safe down there. Vault number 69, let's go.

Those bombs are never gonna penetrate those walls. There's no way. I'll be safe as anything down there, I can't wait. Okay, do you wanna hear some news? Yeah, let's hear some news. We'll try some news. Sure. So, first one on the news is Mike Ibarra.

The ex-Blizzard executive, right? You've news is Mike Ibarra. The ex-Blizzard executive, right? You've heard of Mike Ibarra? Yeah, yeah, I've heard of him, yeah. Oh, is he not in charge of Blizzard anymore? No, he's not. Has he been kicked out? Because Diablo 4 wasn't popular enough or something. He said, I've often thought, I wish I could give these folks another ten bucks, because

it was worth more than the initial eighty bucks I paid, seventy bucks I paid, and they didn't try and nickel and dime me every second with microtransactions in the game, right? So, he tweeted this, like, as a thought exp- well, well-intentioned thought experiment, right? That feels to be very out of touch. Do you know what I mean? It was. Yeah.

It was not received well. He's saying that, you know, I paid my It was. Yeah. It was not received well. He's saying that, you know, I paid my 70 bucks but I got more than 70 bucks out of the game so I wish I could tip. Yes. So he wants a tip functionality on Steam, or somewhere, where people can pay extra money just for fun, to the game developer, to say thank you for making a good game. I'll be honest with you, I think obviously he stated it pretty poorly, but I have bought

some games where I thought I actually would have paid more for this. And the problem with all pricing, especially if it's a fixed product like a game, is that unless you have DLCs and deluxe editions, you're not getting extra value from what they call price insensitive customers. So customers who don't give a shit, they just want it and they'll pay whatever. You want to get more money from those guys and you want to get the people who can only afford or will only spend the minimum, you want to get them too. So, if you have layered pricing structures for something, where the people who pay the extra, they do. But a small indie game like...

There's the game of the year edition, the ultimate edition, the season pass edition, the fucking... I kind hate it, because I hate the idea that, oh, I'm gonna buy this game, and then I'm gonna have to pay, like, if I like it, I'm gonna have to pay another full price for the DLC later. It's like, do I gamble that I'm gonna enjoy this game and pay the hundred dollars for the Far Cry 6 Ultimate Edition? Or do I just buy the default one for $19? Right. I mean, I get it, there's the FOMO. But again, the idea that they're making you spend more by offering these options is silly. Because you go about your day all the time making price conscious choices. For example, if you go into a coffee shop and you just

buy a basic coffee, you can't say, I'm missing out on the pumpkin spice and I'm missing out on the cream and the chocolate sprinkles. Ugh. Like, if you don't feel that about everything, why about this? Okay, okay. We can't fucking tip on everything. Like, imagine you finished a book, right, and on the back page it was like, did you enjoy this book?

Why not tip the author? Five dollars by scanning this QR code. You can't get to the end of a fucking game. You can't complete Elden Ring and then at the end of the credits, it's like a little pop-up on Steam comes, how much would you like to tip? We recommend ten dollars. It's like, what? Like, do you know what I mean?

What the fuck? Like, we can't start just tipping everywhere. You don't have to. At the end of the movie they have like a tip jar outside the fucking movie theater. If you want to tip anyone, tip me. Okay? I'll take it. I will take it.

I'm just saying, this isn't like the tipping culture they have in America where you have to tip, and if you don't people are like, oof, no tip? There's no person to person tip. But for example, Bellatro, which I loved, I played a lot about Bellatro, I'm gonna keep playing it, I would have paid more for that game. And if I could, I might consider tipping the guy. Like, as an indie dev, I'm sure people would love to do that. ALICE Here's the thing, right? Instead of tipping on this shit, what we used to have is being a fan. And if you're a fan of something, then you go and watch the fucking TV show of it, or

you buy a little Fallout bobblehead, or you fucking, I dunno, just buy the next one, right? Like, you don't have to constantly be fucking showing your gratitude, like, in a sort of panicked way, by throwing money at it. But again, I will just say, you don't have to. Like, if he'd said we should put all game prices up by $100, like that idiot said, the game should be $100, and everyone was like, who the fuck are you selling them to? No, but I think it's like, you finish a game, right? You finish dollars, and everyone was like, who the fuck you selling them to? No, but I think it's like, you finish a game, right, you finish a game and it's like a good

experience, you lean back and you're like, ugh. It's kind of a little bit of an annoying thing to be like, we can't afford our food, could you give me some money, Beech? Like at the end of it, like, no, and it's like, fuck you. Do you know what I mean? Don't nag me for that, don't bother me. Because that's where it's going, right? That's where it's going with this. Every opportunity to monetize. This is what those Girl Scout CEOs are doing.

Yeah, that's exactly it. When we put you on the sad face, people give us more Girl Scout cookies. Do you know what I mean? Very simple. It works on me. When I see those sad little girls, I'm like, here you go. I'm just saying, if it's a choice, if it's a choice that you don't have to take, you can just not tip them. Yeah, I know, but it's... You don't have to do it.

The idea of just a tip is... I agree with Lewis, it's kind of preposterous actually. Like I think make some merch or something. You've already made a big multi-million dollar game, so make some merch or something that is worth something to somebody and that can be your tip. You know what I mean? Yes, you're right. And do you know what this is all about?

That does not need to be changed in any way. I think that contract is fine. But those big games still already do that. Exactly. And they can just keep doing it. There should not be a box that says, did you like our game? Here, leave a tip. Like you have to have something in return instead of just a tip, right? Again, very, very true for big games and big companies. This is clearly just trying to screw some more money out. But all I'm saying is, for indie devs and smaller games, is it such a bad idea? I don't know, I'm just saying.

People love to support indie devs and indie studios and indie games, and they love them, but they're like, but I only want to pay ten quid, how gay, you ask, more money. Also seems like kind of a shitty attitude. Because maybe I've spent hundreds of hours playing a game I spent ten bucks on, and maybe if they were like, would you play this game for a hundred hours, would you like to tip the dev? I might go, yeah, you know what, I've got a fucking ton of value out of this. Is that so bad? I don't know, I'm just saying.

I'm just trying to play the dev with an advocate. I don't think so, no. I don't think that's bad, no. Here's the thing. Not for a small indie dev, but at the same time, there's other ways that they could get some money out of you, you know, like through... But it doesn't have to be about all, it doesn't have to be that thought. That's the problem.

Like, everything is always that thought, right? You gotta understand that we all have a little number in our head, and when we think of something, like imagine Steam, we all think of that, imagine a number, like a hundred is the absolute best, where a megafan zero is, we can't stand it, right? And that number, it's unconscious to us what it is, but that number changes based on our experience and other people's things that you read and other things you're like, oh, I heard that Steam did something shitty. Number goes down in your head a little bit. Everything happens like this. I might be a fan of Fallout and then I play this game and I have a bad time or it's a bad game game like Fallout 76, that number drops, you know. And then something else happens and

that number goes back up again. And you have this kind of, like, unconscious awareness, not even awareness, unconscious... I guess, sorry, you have to tidy this up. But what I'm trying to say is... Tom, fix this rant. Fix it. Fix this rant, Tom. What I'm trying to say is that, you don't... I think a lot of people who are trying to monetise their audience don't realise that they're actually alienating them, right?

Yeah. Like, you think, oh, you... Like, getting money in the short term. Like, the classic thing, okay, and I always use this as an example, was, we put out a video, okay, a video and it does well, right? We put out... The next video we put out a video, okay, a video and it does well, right? We put out, a next video we put out is terrible, okay? But it still will get the views because it's coasting off that old video, right? It's like everyone enjoyed the first video, they're going to watch the second

video. So monetarily, that video did great. And if you only looked at the money, you'd think, fucking hell, that was amazing. But what you don't realise is that everyone hated that video and they watched it based off the reputation of the first one, right? And so then when the third one comes out and no one watches it, even though it's a good video, you are like, well why would you watch it? And it's like, well because that's not how it works, right? And this I think is happening at all levels of games and culture and other things too. And there's this push for short-term gain, all the time, with everything, and it's just not sustainable, nor a good way to do business.

Like, if you're gonna do things that you think are a little bit sleazy, or mean, you're gonna slowly destroy your reputation. I think that is the most important thing. Fans want their thing that they're a fan of to be cool. And they are hurt when it's not. I think a lot of people unreasonably feel an attachment to the Blizzard developers, or, y'know, or JK Rowling. And Harry Potter's been ruined because of JK Rowling for a lot of people. And that's really sad. Yeah?

And the same thing with all sorts of other things that's happened. But I think that, you just... JK Rowling could... if she only wanted money, she should have just not done any tweets. Right? Wait, who? JK Rowling. If JK Rowling wanted money, and wanted to make money off Harry Potter, she should have just not made... she should have just deleted her Twitter. She's made over a billion quid. Years ago. Right? Wait, who? JK Rowling. If JK Rowling wanted money, and wanted to make money off Harry Potter, she should have just not made...

She's just deleted her Twitter. She's made over a billion quid from butchering Harry Potter. Yes, but what I'm saying is that, moving forward, sometimes you will make more money by doing nothing. Not trying to nickel and dime everyone. If JK Rowling had started charging extra and putting, I dunno, y'know, making loads more books that are behind some other paywall or asking for tips, or, y'know, begging, or... I dunno, like doing... what I'm saying is that sometimes the best way to make money is to do nothing.

Mm. That's what I've been trying. It's not worked. What other news do you have? Sorry! Tom, you could cut all that around if you want. No, no, leave it! It certainly feels like Simpsons B-flags are tuned out. Okay, next up. Someone's been playing Elden Ring with... Okay, can you guess what the latest machine people have been using to play Elden Ring is?

Because, you know, you've heard about people playing games with the DK bongos, or with the Guitar Hero guitar, or whatever. Or like a Dance Dance Revolution map or something. Yeah. With a map. People who finish with a map. Guess what the latest thing that someone's completed Elden Ring with? So this is presumably a normal computing peripheral. No, it's not. It's something they've adapted. Yeah, it's a hundred years old.

Oh. Um, an accordion. A Morse code machine. Why? So, he's using... this guy has been using a Morse code machine to type out commands using that. I think it's a pretty interesting and impressive achievement, right? Just because of, like, apparently a streamer

called, or a content creator called, Miss Micah, finished two of the games at the same time. So she had one game running with a controller, and one game running with her Dance Dance Revolution mat, and she finished the game. She completely killed the end boss twice. Jesus Christ! What, so she's playing it at the same time? Two different copies of Elden Ring, yes. So she's playing it simultaneously, one with the controller and one with the Dance Dance Revolution map.

That is genuinely super athlete. It's amazing. That is up there with, like, we should be celebrating that the way we're celebrating Usain Bolt winning a world record, cause that is fucking insane. That is insane. That's the coordinationICE That is insane. That... JUSTIN The coordination! That's insane!

ALICE Why do people do this stuff, though? Like, where do they find the energy and the willpower to do it? I do not know. JUSTIN Well, I do not know. And B, lots of people want to watch people do it. I mean, you need a shtick to get big on Twitch, right? If you're not one of the old school, who's coming from YouTube or whatever, or something else, you need an angle, you need some shtick. And like, that girl, I can't

remember what her name is, but she got Tourette's, and she sort of swears a lot. People watched her because it was interesting and funny, and then they realized that she was personable and entertaining and all the rest of it. A lot of these guys, I mean, Dr. Disrespect, his whole shtick was the Dr. Disrespect character, which no one else had, like, you've gotta have an angle. So if your angle is, I'm gonna be Elden Ring using Morse code, you'll get way more viewers tuning in. Like, that's why they do it. And they're young enough to want to do this kind of shit.

Well, but also, they're challenging themselves. Anyway, Elon Musk saw this. Oh, thank God. What does Elon think about it? I'm on the edge of my seat. He said, the final battle is easy, try that with millennia. So he shits on this guy, basically, he was like, oh yeah, anyone could kill Pete Outerring with a Morse Code device!

Of course he fucking did. Such a fucking cunt, isn't he? He really is an insufferable prick. Within like an hour, the guy said, oh, here you go, here's a clip of me killing Melania with the boss coat device. Because of course he had, right? I thought you meant Melania the fucking strategy game. Oh, no, Melania.

She's the boss in Elgin. She's like, the boss of the option. I think it's Melania. Melania. Well, no, there's a few that have got similar names. There's like, Godric and Godrot and Godfrey and Godric and Morgoth. There's loads of... They were deliberately given...

It was a weird... It's a whole thing. Milenia Blade of Mekwella. So yeah, she is meant to be the hard... I think she's generally meant to be the hardest person out of them. She was the hardest one for me, for sure. I don't know if I met her, actually. Oh well, you missed out.

How might I miss her? Speaking of Legends of Zelda... Mmm. Well, you missed out. How might I miss there? Speaking of Legends of Zelda, IKEA... you know how everyone has neon rainbow PCs? Well, not everyone. Not everyone, but yes. Anyone who is a gamer has that. Right. I resent that.

IKEA are... Most gamer rooms are neon purple now, though. People put LEDs in there. Yeah, I know what's up with this shit. I bet they've launched stream of furniture with IKEA. BronBol. The Stroomie, and the Stroomie. The Stroomie in the background of the Stroomie.

And the Stroomie running around in two sheets. That's what they said, in an official statement. Yeah, it's an official statement. You're going down for this, Flax. You realize this, right? You are going down for this. You are going down for this. You are going down for this.

You are going down for this. You are going down for this. You are going down for this. You are going down for this. You are going down for this. You are going down for this. You are going down for this. You are going down for this. You are is an official statement. You're going down for this, Flax. You realise this, right? You are going down for this.

They always just say, but we don't sound like that. That's what Swedes say when you bring up the Swedish chef. Do you want me to... I've got the actual statement from... Love that guy so much. There you go, this is the official statement from David Wool. David Wool, during his person from the people of the video games,

I wanted to create the channel and activate the video. There's a connection between the player and the game can hopefully lead to more engaging and immersive experience. This is David Wool, the sooner the better. So there you go. IKEA have gaming stuff now. That's not an advert. She's gaming with us in the city of Sweden. Yeah, it's almost like they want to make money.

It's crazy. They're nuts. If you really like it, you can tip them afterwards as well. If you go to Ikea and you really like the furniture, a little pop-up pops up. Would you like to pay ten pound extra for this? Purple LED lights that you got for your room from Ikea, don't forget to leave a little tip. So, did you... you know how some people collect copies of things, right? Some people have like a thousand copies of a video game, you know, that they like, or something like this,

right? And they'll... every time they see it on eBay they'll buy one. I personally like it. Someone saw... someone's bought four thousand copies of Alan Wake. Right? Sounds like a good investment. I'm intrigued. They are... but it's not the actual game, it's like the full game download cards. And it's like a cardboard box with four thousand copies. How much did it cost them?

The thing is, they don't work anymore, right? Because they've run out there expired or whatever. It cost them like, $200 or whatever. Oh my god, why? And why? Because they've referred to it as an object of power, which is a reference to control. Or like, SCP, where it's like, you know, it's like a strange... it's got like, as an Alan Wake fan, having four thousand of these, you know, it's like, wow.

No, it's not. I mean, first of all, Alan Wake is not good. That game sucked. It's so shit. It's a really boring game that is just hilariously bad. I did a playthrough of it. I played the whole thing. It was one of my old YouTube series, was me. I played Alan Wake. It is so hilariously shit. Did you like, have you played Alan Wake 2? No. Because I didn't like Alan Wake 1.

Would you like to play it for money? I don't know. I don't know. I'm probably for money, I'll do anything for money. What would you collect 4,000 copies of, like, for fun? Uh, gosh. Why would you need 4,000 copies? It's a Uhh, gosh. Why would you need four thousand copies? It's a lot of space. What would you start collecting though? Is there something that

you have multiple copies of, or that you seem to... you think would be nice? I wouldn't collect multiple copies of something. Honestly, I'm not much of a collector to begin with. But multiple copies of the same thing is not an appealing prospect to me. Do you have any collections? Do you have anything like stimpels or stamps? Nah, I've got comics. No, my kids are collectors, though. They love collecting stuff.

They like to, you know, they don't even care what toy it is. If it's part of a series where you can collect them all, they're down. They want to do that. They love collecting. I have a lot of comics. I have a lot of comics going back quite a way. I wouldn't mind having like all the issues of, say, 2008 or something like that or like, you know, because I was a big fan of that comic. I really like The Punisher.

I really like Daredevil. I like Spider-Man. Like, I'd love to have collections of of those. But the thing is, with collecting a lot of things is, I mean I know this for a fact because my shelves are full of old comics and old games that I really like and I kind of hold on to them a lot of the time for nostalgic purposes. And it's just a nice thing to have and maybe one day my kids will read them or their kids will read them and I it's just I like to have, but I wouldn't have multiple copies of these. I don't really get why you would. I'll sometimes buy like a collector's edition of a thing.

So Forbidden Planet sent me a big big copy of Brian Bolland's Judge Dredd book, which is like, amazing. But I don't want fifty copies of it, I want one copy. ALICE No, just one copy is enough. What about you, Lewis? Do you have multiple copies of the same thing? Are you a filthy collector of the same thing? I'm not really.

I've got, I dunno, I've... I don't... I've got a bunch of Lego. And I could see that if you... I could see it happening, though, if you got, like, a meme. If there was a meme, like that Morse code guy, or whatever, the Dance Dance Revolution Matt girl, if she had some meme on her stream where there was like a be code guy, or whatever, the Dance Dance Revolution girl, if she had some meme on her stream where there was like a beanie baby, y'know, that was like her avatar

or something, and she just made that her thing, that she tried to collect all of them, and so y'know. I can see the allure, it's never quite... I've never quite grabbed me. So no, not yet. But I can feel the pull of it though, as well, every time... ALICE You can feel yourself potentially... ALICE I can feel the pull, especially playing Warhammer

and things like this, like, you know, when you've got an army and they bring out a new thing for that army, you're like, oh god, I have to get this now as well. You know, I've got all the other ones, I can't not have this one. You know, there's a hole. But actually, that's how they get ya. That's how they get ya every time. Hey, so how they get ya. So yeah, thank you everyone, that's a podcast. We did it. We got there. By God, we got there. We made it through. It was ranty. It was angry.

There was some angry ranting in there. Sorry. It was getting angrier. Yeah, you got angrier as it went along. It was impressive. Sorry, don't worry, Tom will cut all the ranting. No he ranting in there. Yeah, you got angrier as it went along. It was impressive. Sorry, don't worry, Tom will cut all the ranting. No he won't, Tom. He usually does. No, cut it. The people need to know.

What's gonna be left, though, after all that's out? The five minute podcast. Alright, thank you everyone, we'll see you next time. Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye!