Triple Click - Epic vs. Apple and Other Gaming News

Episode Date: May 20, 2021

It's time for news! This week, the Triple Click clique dives into some of the spring's big gaming news, from the Epic vs. Apple trial to Ubisoft's decision to embrace free-to-play games and much, much more. Plus: Maddy explains why Pokemon cards are back and bigger than ever!One More Thing:Kirk: The NeversMaddy: Lupin S1Jason:  The Plot by Jean Hanff KorelitzLinks:The Axios Video Game newsletter: https://www.axios.com/signup/gamingMicrosoft’s internal review of The Last of Us Part 2: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.364265/gov.uscourts.cand.364265.551.21.pdf?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosgaming&stream=topVice on Pokemon cards: https://www.vice.com/en/article/7kv9a9/pokemon-cards-psa-cgc-bgs-turnaround-timesSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Well, hello there. It's nice to meet you. I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite podcast on The Citadel. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are talking about the Springs gaming news, including Epic versus Apple, Ubisoft's shift to free to play, and much, much more. I'm Jason Shrier. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers. And we are back for another episode of Triple Click. I almost said, talking split screen, but I didn't. Every time. You've got to think really hard. Every time. Slowly but surely, the muscle memory is fading, but it is there. Yeah, it comes out at the weirdest times. Welcome, welcome to Triple Click. Max OneDrive is over. We had a good time. It was lots of fun. We did a live stream. We got a lot of support from all of you for the show. We did. Thank you all so much. And thank you to all those of you

who joined up. New Beanscast to listen to for all those people. Yeah, if you joined, if you're a new member, you have a lot of beans costs to listen to. If you are an upgraded member, you might get some cool stuff, including our sweet pins, which you could actually buy because there's going to be a little bit of a pin sale. How long does it last? Kirk, do you know, or Maddie, do you know how long it lasts? I don't know. There will be like an ad during the trailers, there'll be an ad with info. And all the proceeds go to charity. And so you can still go buy your spilling the beans pin, even if you missed out on joining Max Fun Drive during, joining Max Fun Drive. And if you are not a member and you would like to be part of fun and help support our listener supported show and get access to

our monthly bonus content, then you can just go to maximumfund.org slash join and become a member today. And if you do so, you will get access to our May beans cast, our May bonus episode, which is going to go up at the end of the month. And that is an episode about Portal with special guests, Justin McElroy from Mum, Bam and Adventure Zone. And I guess the McElroy is just a brand. Let's say the besties since that's his video game podcast.

And the besties. Right, yeah, that other show. Yeah. We have a lot of crossover audience of those folks. But yeah, so help us out. Support the show. Help us make this show happen. All right.

Without further ado, let's get to it. Shall we? Let's do this show because people are paying us to make this show happen. So let's make it happen. We better make it happen. Wow, the pressure's on. It's cooking. This week, we are doing a news roundup.

Spring News Roundup, because there's been some gaming news. and we felt like, hey, we should talk about it. Roundup. Starting off with... That's the roundup sound. The big gaming, one of the biggest gaming lawsuits in history, Epic versus Apple. Boom, boom, boom.

It's Epic, it's Apple, it's Epic versus Apple. We're all saying it. It's, imagine, like, the Mortal Kombat music and, like, the Epic Apple, Round 1. Epic versus Apple. Some house music says playing. This trial has been very, interesting, at least the first week was, less in the actual contents of the trial itself and more

in the documents that have leaked out and revealed some interesting stuff about the behind the scenes of gaming. Nothing that was too shocking or surprising or anything like that. A lot of it is just stuff that people already had a feeling for. But long and short of it of this case, in case you are not really following it closely, is that Epic has sued Apple arguing that Apple is a monopoly and essentially that by both maintaining the iPhone and selling the iPhone and also selling operating the store, which is the only place you can get apps on the iPhone, it has a monopoly by having access,

by having control over both the hardware and the software for the hardware. And, yeah, I mean, Apple's argument is that that's not true because they're part of this broader competitive landscape that includes every video game system. And it remains to be seen what will be decided. It's a bench trial, so there's a judge. There's no jury, so the judge is going to decide. The outcome, it'll end next week.

We don't know when the verdict will come in. It could be weeks from then. It could be months from then. Who knows? And then it'll almost certainly be appealed. So get ready for lots more of Epic versus Apple in the years to come. But yeah, it's been interesting to watch. I guess rather than talk about the stuff that's come out of it,

I'm curious to hear what you guys think of, like, the actual battle between these to companies because I think that like it could have a lot of interesting ramifications whoever wins. I mean if if Apple wins it's kind of like maintaining the status quo. It's saying this is not a monopoly, everything's fine, go back to normal. But there's already been a lot of pressure on Apple to lower their fees for developers, which is kind of at the heart of this whole thing is that they charge 30% for every app and every app purchase on the app store. And so they I mean they already took steps to lower it for people who are making under X amount and there's pressure that they might do a bit further, even if they win this trial.

Now, if Epic wins, that'll be really interesting because if it's determined that, like, that Apple has monopoly and is violating antitrust laws by both selling the hardware and also controlling all the software on that hardware, then doesn't that mean that Nintendo and PlayStation and Xbox are all guilty of the same thing on their respective consoles? So then we get into really interesting territory. But, yeah, I mean, Maddie, you have been at least somewhat followed. following this in your capacity as a polygon editor. What's your take on this whole trial?

I think that some of the stories that have come out of it have indicated that a few things have already changed, actually. So a couple things that have happened are that Roblox has changed the way that it describes games in its service. So Roblox is basically, I would describe it as a video game platform. It's sold in the app store, but anybody within Roblox can create a game, sort of like how Minecraft people use Minecraft to create other versions of games using Minecraft's tools. But Roblox is designed for that exact thing. So you can make games within Roblox and you can sell

them using like in-game currency as opposed to like real money. And they've had to update. Well, we don't know if they've had to, but Roblox has updated all of its software to say experiences instead of games after getting mentioned in the trial because I think they're kind of worried about the fact that it's weird that they're in the app store. because it seems like yet another store within a store, and that's something that's skirting a little close to the line of what Apple wants to pretend that its store isn't doing. Well, that's essentially what Epic did. That's what Epic did that started this whole thing was open up their own store within Apple store.

Yeah. Right. And also Epic has Itchio as part of its service. And so the lawyers on this case, there have been all these funny quotes coming out about the way that people describe Itchio as a service, which is like an independent games platform. on the internet. Basically, anybody can upload a game there. I've put my twine games on there,

so that's how I know anybody can upload something without them stopping you. And there's a bunch of very sexual games on there. There's a lot of horny dating sims on Itchio. And the result of that is that lawyers will just, there will be these quotes that people will share on Twitter of lawyers reading out these absurd or like wonderful, delightful titles of games or like content that you don't even know is on there.

And describing it as unspeakable, which I think led some indie devs to make an unspeakable game jam of games to put on Itchio that can't be described in the Apple versus Epic Court case, because it's just shining a light on these corners of the games industry that these lawyers and these corporate big shots don't ordinarily have to talk about. And then there's the fact that they're trying to define what a video game even is in order to define the terms. Well, hold on. Well, so back up. The reason so the reason that all came up is because Apple, is trying to make the point that when Epic, even though Epic has its own store and allows itchEO on there, therefore saying Epic allows a store within a store on their service, they're like, it's out of control and it's become this, this like uncensored, like lurid playground where,

and like Apple is saying, we want our store to be clean and we don't want to allow this filth on here. So we can't have this. Right. Of course. I mean, that's, that's nominally the reason. but it's kind of a diversion that mostly involves a light being shown onto something that ordinarily wouldn't be shown on in a courtroom, which is like queer sex games. And that part's funny, but also a little worrying because it's like, you don't really want

these massive corporate stakeholders to be taking too much of a close eye on something like Itchio, which is kind of this special cool thing where indie creators can upload anything they want as compared to something like the App Store, which isn't so much that way. So that part of it is interesting and exciting and scary, but cool, because it's like we're watching events unfold in real time and then watching how they're affecting the real world before the case is over, like with the Roblox example. And then also developers responding to the Itchio controversy as well. So that's pretty fascinating, at least to me. Yeah, there's a sort of an underlying puritanical, like tone to a lot of the way that this stuff. has talked about that's as old as anything, you know, just always, this is pornography, it's smut,

it's, it's, it's disgraceful and, you know, thus it, you should be ashamed of it. Video games? Sex. Right, when it's, when so often it's like, whatever, like, this is not really the point. And that stuff is just sort of annoying slash concerning just because it reflects a way that people still think about a lot of this stuff in this kind of, you know, like tying back to video games being for children and then, oh, but there are games about sex. and so then they're being shown to our children

and those kind of things that we've seen since time immemorial about various panics related to video games like that same tone and that same language is in some of these lawyers' arguments and that sucks to see, but I agree that it's fun to see someone just trying to describe like a hentai game or whatever like using legal language.

For anyone who is like me and doesn't have to follow this for work but does find it kind of interesting, I do want to make a recommendation, and that is the newsletter made by Megan Faroak Minesh and our former boss, Stephen Totillo, both sort of, you know, people we've worked with over the years in various ways, both great, Megan's great, Stephen's great,

and they're making the gaming newsletter for Axios, which I've been subscribed to since they launched it, and they've been following this very closely, and it's been a really great way for me to keep, like, track of what's going on, or just to get these bullet-pointed Axios-style breakdown. So anyways, shout out to them if you want to follow this kind of thing. That's a good way to follow it, And that's mainly where my knowledge of this comes from.

And the one thing that I like, I really like this stuff that is like coming out in discovery about Microsoft and the way, you know, how they approach console sales. There's this Microsoft document where they had an internal review of The Last of Us 2. Did either of you see this? I don't think I did. But tell me about it. It's fantastic. It's like this very frank review written by, I think, a couple of people at Microsoft just playing the Last of Us part two

and then just giving their take on the game to people at Microsoft. And it's really, there's just something specific about the tone that I find very enjoyable. It's a very positive, you know, it's like this game is extremely impressive. It's amazing what they're doing. You know, in the end, they're like, people will have different takes on it. People will, you know, feel different ways about the story. But there's no denying that these people made the game they wanted to make. This is like very much this like artistic statement.

It's pretty incredible. So it's just nice to see the way they talk about. It's just a little different than a game review. There's also a line where they're like, also naughty dogs still cannot make good gun combat to save their lives or something like that. Which is also just funny because it's kind of an internal document. Like they're being frank. They're like, look, we've played a lot of video games and the shooting in these games is just never very good. I think their takeaway is like, but that's okay because it kind of pushes you towards stealth and it's a better stealth game anyways.

Imagine your job being a game critic, except instead of for like a public facing review site you're doing internally at Microsoft. It's so funny. There's people who do that. You get paid a lot of money. Yeah. Yeah, you get a lot more. Well, yeah, there's like also consultants. I wonder if this was external consultants that they brought in

or if this was actually people at Microsoft who did it. Yeah, I'm not sure. One last thought is just that my understanding of this is that Apple is probably going to win this. Even in hearing Jason your breakdown of this, it's very difficult for me as a layperson to understand how you would possibly draw the line between a monopoly and a non-monopoly. Like as much as I may have different feelings when I read a specific argument about something Apple did or something Epic did, the distinctions that they're trying to draw legally just don't seem to make sense to me,

because you're not a monopoly, even if you do make the phone that the thing is on. Well, the idea is that the iPhone is so big and so ubiquitous that like it's... But that's the problem, right? Because like you said, Microsoft and Xbox, like Sony and PlayStation, those are all pretty big, too. So where do you draw the line between them being or not being a monopoly and Apple being a monopoly because iPhones are just more popular? Like, to me at least, that doesn't seem like a legally enforceable line that you can draw and no judge would want to be like, well, let's pick a number. And if you're past it,

like, that's not really how monopolies work. So my sense of this anyways, from the outside and just my very layman sense of the law is that Apple is probably just going to win this and then it'll get appealed and then they'll go on forever. But that's just me looking at it. Yeah, I mean, in general, antitrust laws are hard to win as a plaintiff. But yeah, I mean, I think there is a compelling case in that if you are a game developer releasing your game on Microsoft's Xbox, you have the option of multiple stores. You can also release it on the PlayStation and can also release it on the Nintendo Switch, whatever. As opposed to if you are a phone developer, I mean, you realize you really just have Apple and Google.

And so I guess you could say it's a dual-oply. That makes sense, but right. I mean, when you're talking about the law, when there's another option, you're already like, there's no real argument there. I guess the question is, is Apple so, like, has Apple, does Apple have such a big market share that they have the control there? And also is it like is, I mean, yeah, you get into all sorts of questions about their 30% fee and what that actually offers some people. And that's what this week is actually Apple's defense and they're going to be talking about like why that's justified and it'll be some interesting conversations. And just how there could be a legally enforceable ruling on any of that. I don't see it.

But I guess I'm not a lawyer and I don't know anything. It seems unlikely that Epic will win this. But I think part of Epic's calculus here was spending the money to win the PR battle. and in some ways that they've won. Yeah, you can see their internal documents about the PR battle. They're like, well, we're concerned. The people are going to see us as this big company that has all this money. So we need to start this campaign and that campaign.

Like, that stuff was all in discovery, which is also kind of wild. And we're going to purposefully leak this document about how we feel this way as a part of the trial. Yeah. Lots of stuff in there about like them spent all the money they've spent, the amounts of money they spent on exclusive games for the Epic Store and yada, yada. Yeah, and how much they all cost for the. those exclusives. That was pretty fascinating to hear about, to see Indies talking about what they were each bargaining for to be on the Epic Store. And that's valuable information for indie developers,

actually. So that part's kind of cool. That'll be helpful leverage for people. One thing that we learned from the case is that, even though this is kind of like common layperson's knowledge, but now it's official. Microsoft has confirmed that it's never made a profit on the Xbox. And I'm pretty sure that Sony is in the same way. It might not be 100% confirmed, but they're also selling PlayStation at a loss. Nintendo is done the same for previous consoles. I don't know if the Switch is sold at a loss. It might not be, but Microsoft confirmed

that every Xbox is sold at a loss, which really helps you understand a lot about their strategy and why they don't really care that much about selling the most Xboxes as much as they do, getting you on their services and getting you subscribing for GamePosts. And in fact, maybe want to sell fewer Xboxes since each Xbox

Xbox costs them money. Yeah, they don't want you to buy it. They hope you don't. Guys, don't buy Xboxes. We make money the less, the fewer Xboxes we sell, the more money we live. Sell us back our Xboxes. We are really hurting for cash. No, but of course, I mean, of course Microsoft also makes a buttload of money from their store because they're taking that 30% cut off of every single game that's sold on the digital Microsoft store.

So they make plenty of money. Right. And like Microsoft is the size of a large country. Like, that's something that gets lost a lot of times when people talk about Microsoft, even comparing them to Sony and Nintendo is just a weird comparison because Microsoft is so much bigger and has so much more money. They're like a juggernaut. And like, you know, I don't want to say Xbox is a roundinger

because I don't know what their finances really are, but they're nowhere near as concerned with losing money on Xbox, even as Nintendo or Sony would be on losing money on a console. Yeah, yeah, yeah, which is why it's funny that all these companies have their fanboys and, like, their tribalistic armies because it's like you are literally like you're fighting for this, this scrappy Xbox brand and Phil Spencer and it's like, no, this company actually owns everything in the world. So it's worth a trillion and a half or whatever it is. They make money from

military contracts. Come on. But yeah, no, just interesting, just interesting industry stuff. Hey, Maddie, tell us about Pokemon cards. Yeah. So this is, this is a bizarre pandemic story that's been unfolding. It actually started a little bit before the pandemic, I believe. It's hard to say when the Pokemon card speculation blew up exactly. but it's become a huge bubble. And I think part of why it happened was because apparently in 2020, Logan Paul, YouTuber, you know, noted A-Hole. That's his persona that he plays on the internet anyway.

But a really expensive card as like part of a video stunt or whatever. And that kicked off some of the conversations about Pokemon cards in general and how valuable certain cards are. But then that's coincided with just over the course of the pandemic, a whole bunch of people, for whatever reason have just been going through their basements and all their belongings and doing spring cleaning or whatever and finding all of their old Pokemon cards. And this has been happening with magic cards as well and just other card collecting games and general CCGs where people are finding these old valuable cards from their childhood and being like, well, let me let me give these to somebody who professionally inspects cards and see how much these cards are really worth. And then let me sell these cards for a profit. And then that has been something that so many people have been doing in the past few months, that it has led to significant problems for the people who run businesses to price cards,

first of all. Those businesses are like wildly backed up and overrun. And there's a wonderful report and vice about how these businesses have popped up just for people to price out how much each Pokemon card is worth. And they're like months and months and months behind. And they're just getting tons and tons of cards and boxes from people who are like just tell me how much my cards are worth. And these are like really expensive boxes that people are concerned about mailing away that are just stacking up in these warehouses. But then at the same time, why are people still buying them? Well, why did people buy Beanie Babies? You know what I mean? It's like, it's just become a speculative bubble where these cards are worth money because people say they're worth money.

And some of them are, you know, specifically rare cards. There were only a few of them created and there are only a few and pristine enough condition to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so that's explicable. But then also new Pokemon cards and just regular card packs at Target have become in hugely high demand. And there have been actual physical altercations at Target specifically because I guess Target is the main retailer that's still selling them. Also, McDonald's did a Pokemon card thing as part of its Happy Meal promotion for a while. And that was hugely in high demand. So basically, people have lost it over Pokemon cards.

and it's resulted in some very weird and fascinating stories that we've been reporting on in Polygon, and I've read other outlets reporting on because it's just been... So Target stopped selling them, right? Yes, briefly, yes, because of safety concerns, because they didn't think they could, like, stop people rioting in the aisles over Pokemon cards and, like, actually getting into fights over the card packs. So, yeah, for now, at the time of us recording this, Target is not selling Pokemon cards. But they might again soon.

This feels to me like it's sort of another arm of the general financial insanity that has gripped all of us between Dogecoin and crypto and NFTs and the GameStop meme stocks. The GameStop thing really reminded me of this too in the sense that as I was as I've been reading about the Pokemon situation, it feels like it's just a little bit heightened above a perception that I have where I feel like somebody's going to write us a wonderful lengthy email explaining more of the. Pokemon speculative bubble, like, beyond my understanding. In the same way that GameStop, I'm like, I think I kind of understand this, but there's a few levels to it that are beyond me. Because there are also people like flipping cards online for a profit and stuff like that and like bots, using bots to get cards. And that's a whole part of the market as well. Right. I think everyone in their 20s and 30s, who is A, stuck home and bored and B realized that they're there with their stagnant wages and crazily exploding home prices, there's no way to live

the kind of American dream middle class life of a home, two kids and a dog without doing something to get rich quick. So suddenly you have all of these get rich quick schemes popping up. Yeah. And I guess for some of them kind of work. It's working. Yeah. Some of them don't work. I mean, it's also the economy is so crazy that it's like, yeah, I mean, why not make a bunch of money by putting it all into Doge going? Well, yeah, I mean, there is a lot of money being put into the economy right now. A lot of people maybe have expendable income that they got from stimulus money. And there's just, there's like a group psychology to this that I'm sure much will be written about. Where like on TikTok, the financial advice on TikTok, it's this whole thing.

And I'm sure that this Pokemon card thing is a whole thing on TikTok and on other social media, but there primarily. And it's while, I mean, there's people giving terrible, like, advice, financial advice. What? On social media? No, that can't be right. But there's this sense of like, I sold this card for X amount of money or like I bought this stock and sold and I made a million dollars. Or like, I went to my parents' basement and I found this rare charmander and like, I don't know, maybe you have some cards like that. And then like more people are mailing away their cards to these people who are having to expand their businesses to like price out how much these cards are worth. And in six months, maybe no one will even care anymore. And these cards will not even be worth what they were worth now. So who even knows? It's so silly and kind of sad, but probably it's fine. I don't know.

Maybe people shouldn't be trying to sell their Pokemon cards right now. I don't know. It feels like another act in an ongoing, in an ongoing saga. Speaking of pandemic craziness, semiconductor shortage continues. We are still just, I mean, it's been months, almost a year now. We have been facing these issues of parts, just being like this massive shortage on chips. and that is affecting GPUs, it's affecting

PS5s, it's affecting Xboxes. And like washing machines and cars and everything. Yeah, everything you can think of. Who cares about those? This is a video game podcast. Yeah, right. We're talking about games here. It's going to affect Apple stuff. Yeah, they said they're going to lose a lot of money. Although I did just buy a new MacBook

so I guess mine was fine. But I guess I got one of the last semiconductor chips in my laptop, my new MacBook here. There is kind of that feeling right of preciousness to where like I you know not that long ago six months ago or so I was talking about how I wanted to upgrade my graphics card and you know get a get a 3080 the 3000 series and now they're still completely unattainable and they will be for a long time not just because of the semiconductor thing but also because of crypto mining I just saw that invidia is now nerfing their graphics cards so that they can't be used for the specific type of processing that like crypto people want to use. which then means that if you got an earlier one that doesn't have this marking of, I can't remember what it is, but, you know, it's like, you know, they've removed the ability

to do this thing, that that's going to be worth even more. So there's going to be another weird market for like these aftermarket limited edition now, 3080 is going to be worth a crazy amount. Like my graphic cards, like old GPUs are worth a ton of money right now. I know. I don't know how I haven't looked, but I bet I could get like more than I paid for it several years ago. A lot more. Yeah.

I have an old graphics card that I kind of want. want to sell, but I'm also like, because I got sent the 3070 to replace of work. And so I still have my old card that I just was like, after I move, I'll try and go through stuff and sell some things. But now I feel like if I sell my old card, some crypto weirdo will buy it and ruin rainforest. So I'm like, should I not sell it? Like, what should I do with this? I don't know what to do anymore. So it's burning a hole in my pocket. There's the feeling of preciousness too. Like my Switch, Nintendo has said, like this could affect Switch manufacturing. And if they're going to announce, like it's been rumored this better switch for later this year,

that could become another thing where like if you pre-order it, maybe you get one, maybe you don't. And it just becomes impossible to get. And I think like, what if I drop my switch? Like I'm never going to be able to replace that there's still out of stock everywhere. And there's a feeling of sort of, well, I got all the things, managed to buy a PS5. Let's just hope nothing breaks because I'm never getting a replacement for any of them, which is a weird thing to feel. It is bizarre.

And there's really no end in sight. It's just so strange. And it seems like every time like, like there's just something in the news every week that seems to be affecting supply shortages that grow around the world. Yeah. Like the Suez Canal thing. Well, yeah. Okay, let's move on. Let's talk about some video game companies.

Ubisoft is doubling down on free to play stuff they've announced. So they're essentially saying, hey, we are going to, we're not just making three to four big budget games per year, three to four, AAA games per year. We are making high-quality free-to-play games across our biggest franchises. So, for example, they announced the Division Heartland, which is a free-to-play version of the Division. They're doing a mobile

division game, et cetera, et cetera. It's basically them branching out into all these different worlds. Essentially, they're looking at Activision and seeing Activision do Call a Duty and then also Call-Duty Warzone and then also Call-Duty Mobile. And they're saying, hey, we want some of that pie. So Ubisoft is doing the same thing, which means that we'll see free-to-play Assassin's Creed games and free-to-play far-cry games and all that good stuff. In addition to that, and we can also talk about this,

Ubisoft, again, delayed skull and bones, the long, long-delayed pirate game. Does anyone care? I feel bad because it's, yeah, I feel bad about the development of that game. But it was originally announced as like, hey, this is a spinoff of Blackfag. It's just the ship combat. that people love. And it's funny because as an outside observer, if you knew nothing about game development

and the way it works, you would think, oh, that's a great idea. Like, easy thing to make. Like, you can make that and just take what you got. Yeah, take the mechanics. Just release it as a standalone game. Easy, like, fall, fill a gap in your financial hole that fall. Four years later, the game has been delayed like seven times

and is nowhere in sight. That is because it's changed direction a lot and, like, gone through multiple reboots and multiple creative directors, among other things. but yes, very, very wild story. But so yeah, I mean, what do you guys think of both bits of Ubisoft news here? Just on the like spin-off thing, because the free-to-play thing is the sort of bigger topic,

but just something that I thought of when you were saying that is that, you know, Immortals, Phoenix Rising is a kind of a good example of a game that Phoenix, there that Ubisoft did kind of knock out that was taking a lot of the systems from Assassin's Creed and then just borrowing a bunch of stuff really liberally from Zelda. And they made a game that felt, it felt like kind of one of those, let's just make a thing and we'll put it out and see what happens. It's supposed to be out even sooner. It's supposed to be out like the February before.

That's right. It had like this ludicrous release date. And it is like a perfectly good game. And so that's kind of an example of them actually pulling off the thing that I'm surprised skull and bones wasn't. It could have been very similar where it's like, well, the pirate ships and, you know, it's all familiar. A lot of the same people. And then it has its own thing and it's just a pirate story. And yet, no.

Well, it's multiplayer. So I'm sure that added all kinds of complexities to balance. And all of it. I mean, that's got to be a nightmare. Yeah. I mean, I think that I think what happened there is that they were just going in different directions. And it was like, okay, we should add more of a story campaign. And okay, oh, see if thieves came out.

So we have to be different than that. And it was just like kind of one of those classic game development stories. I believe I'm sure. Boondoggles. Come out one day. But right, as of now, the game is delayed until what next year, 2022. And who knows? Who knows what's going to happen?

But the free-to-play thing. Yeah. Yes. It's interesting. It is. This is one of those things where there's like a part, there's this whole huge money world that's just like not the world that I think any of the three of us live in. Whereas it's just like they make a ton of money.

I mean, clearly anyone looking at a balance sheet at most of these companies is like, look at where we're making all our money. It's like from free to play games on phones and stuff. Like that's still the case, which is funny because it just makes it feel like it's whatever year that was, 2011 all over again. But in a lot of ways, that never went away. It's just companies figured out that they could make money there and by making big single player games when the PS4 and the Xbox One came out and were so popular. Let me just make one thing clear.

Because there was originally some reporting that came out when this was announced. It was like they're assuing, they're abandoning some of the AAA stuff in favor of the free to play stuff. But that's absolutely not the case. That's just how gamers think of everything. It's always zero sum. Yeah, single player is dead. No more Assassin's Creed single player. It's all over.

But, no, they made it very clear that, like, Assassin's Creed Valhalla was the most lucrative one. Yeah, and, like, they're making a ton of money on those games. So, yes, to your point, Kirk, I think it's true. Those consoles are selling, like, hotcakes. Like, people want to buy PS5 games, like, you know, really badly. Right now. So you would be dumb not to do both. Yeah, maybe if there were more of them, that would help, actually.

But, yeah. So I guess the doubling down on free to play, it's very hard not to view it as that kind of a zero-sum conversation because it's like, oh, the division. division free to play. With the division, I'm a little like... Because the division is a loot shooter, and that comes with a certain style of play where, like, you can put on a podcast and just enjoy those dopamine hits and just run around and pick up different kinds of guns and shoot at people in the White House or whatever, and it's an apocalypse. And it's fun. It's a lighthearted gun apocalypse game. And you just kill some time in there. Whereas something like Assassin's Creed, like, yeah, sure,

there are moments that feel like that and have that, you know, just clicking dots on the map, as I always say. But there's also story in there and there's emotional beats and there's the single player part that's dying and getting abandoned, as we all know, as gamers. Stuff to get attached to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it makes sense that the division would have a mobile tie-in. That is logical. I can envision some games that that would be and they would work within that game's world. Yes, basically, there's actually kind of a direct line from a service game to a free-to-play game. Like, most service games can very easily morph into some version of free-to-play similar to what Destiny he did where like the base version of the game became free and then they gradually released stuff

that was paying. And now that game has become closer and closer and closer to just being Warframe to just being free to play. Warframe is a great example too where there is a story. But it's like a service game story. You know, it's a little more like an MMO. And those kinds of games just seem to lend themselves that way. And the division has always felt like that because it is a service game.

It's always been, like you said, a lute shooter where Assassin's Creed just isn't. So I think I have a more hesitant reaction. when I hear the idea, like Jason, you just threw this out there. I know that they haven't announced anything like this, but of an Assassin's Creed free-to-play game, because that feels a little more like, oh, well, you're taking a thing that is one thing and turning it into something else.

Or with the division or even Far Cry. Well, they've already done that a million times. They're Assassin's Creed platformers or Assassin's Creed like movies and books and like Assassin's Creed is on everything. No, but like those platformers aren't, I'm not talking about mobile. I'm talking about free to play. Those platformers, as far as I know, aren't free to play games. Those are self-contained, side-scrolling, whatever.

they're spin-off games, but they're not like a sort of like just open, free-to-play Genshin Impact style Assassin's Creed game, which is I think the thing that people might picture. Oh, no, no, no. That's not what I had in my... So I was thinking that this would be like a spinoff, like a Battle Royale, Assessons Street Battle Royale where everyone plays as like an assassin and tries to stab each other, that sort of thing.

I'm not imagining. That would be really fun. Yeah, like everybody gets on, into their own personal mainframe and then they all enter this like multiplayer world where they're playing as their own ancestor. but it's like Fortnite or whatever. And like that's exactly what they're going on. And like also, I don't know, some other warlord is there as well.

Stalin. Yes. I mean, that's 100% going to happen. Like Kirk, the Genshin impact is really like super far on the extreme. Like most, most even most game publishers do not want to take that risk of like going into gambling and like that.

No, no. I know. I'm not talking about, no, I'm not talking about making it into a into a gotcha game. I'm just saying there is, there is certainly a widespread. concern whenever this conversation comes up among people that a game like

Assassin's Creed will be turned into a game that you just play for free and kind of has a thin plot and mostly revolves around loot and you wander around the world and do repetitive stuff like you do in Assassin's Creed already and it just becomes more of a maybe Genshin Impact is a bad example but of like some of free to play game like that that looks AAA but has all of these you know like microtransactions built into it and that's the ongoing, like, for more than a decade, concern among people who play video games. And I think that what we're really describing happening is not that. It's more like these series make a more natural shift into these other worlds where there's

just a lot of money to be made, clearly because Ubisoft is already making money in those spheres. But it's not even a shift. It's like separate entities. It's like Call of Duty. Call Duty is a perfect model to look at. There's still a yearly Call of Duty game in addition to Warzone, which is a free-to-play Battle Royale thing. That's exactly what we're going to see from Assassin's Creed.

it's exactly we're going to see from Far Cry. Like, it's going to be the big, temple games, and maybe even unique, weird, smaller games, in the case of Far Cry especially, and then also free-to-play stuff. Like, it's just add-itory. It's, like, totally additive. It's not morphing.

Like, I know the next Assassin's Creed that's being worked on is certainly not, like, going to be a weird free-to-play thing. It's like a massive, another massive game. So, yeah. Which is the important thing to reassure people of, is my point. Yeah, that's the thing. Yes, the new, like, Assassin's Creed,

the mainline Assassin's Creed series is not transforming to some like, like loot shooter, like predatory gotcha stuff. But yeah, no, I mean, I just think it's interesting that like you see these companies, like it almost feels like they should have been doing this for years already, adopting these multiple models and trying to do all the above. But yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see what they do. And if they make anything that like people really stick with and that resonates with people. Because like you guys said, I mean, as soon as I said, Assessons Group battle royale,

you were both really excited. I could see it working in a lot of ways. Yeah, I could see it working. And also it working in a way that doesn't seem like, like passes me by completely, but then they announced that it made them $5 billion. I'm like, oh, it did? Yeah, totally.

Because that happens all the time with these kinds of games. You either stick with it or you don't. Just like any service game, it's like it either becomes your big game for a while or it doesn't. Let's talk about one more thing, one more news item. This happened a couple of weeks ago. One more thing. One more thing.

One more thing. One more news item. Bloomberg reported that CD Project, the developer of Cyberpunk 2077, is giving its executives massive cash bonuses despite the game being kind of a disaster. A flop, I would call it. But not financially. Yes, financially, because it sold fewer copies than... I remember I got into so many arguments with gamers about this because I called it a flop in

my article. It sold 13 million copies, which to the three of us, to anyone, seems. amazing. It's like, holy shit, 13 million copies. But that was below their expectations. And therefore, it was a flop. Like, when you're CD Project and you're only releasing one game every five years, and you need to sell... Kirk, don't, don't, don't even... Can I be a gamer and argue with you? Just that the word flop comes mostly from the world of movies. And when something is a high profile flop, it's like a real failure. Like, it doesn't recoup the money that they spent on it. Exactly. And is that the case here? I don't know. I don't know if they're recouping the money they spent on it.

probably, but that's not what they needed. What they needed was like a game that sold like 30 million copies or I believe 16 million was the analyst projection and that's like a good, a good kind of baseline for looking at like what the executives expected. And then what happened was even though it was 13 million sales at launch, it just went boom and plummeted because it got removed from the PlayStation store and all the feedback and critical reception made people not want to buy it anywhere. And so it just became a massive flop. But we're not here to get into. to semantic arguments. I mean, the word flop is loaded and I can understand why people would take umbrage with the bit anyways. We are here to talk about the fact that the executives, including the director of the game and everyone on the board, walked away with giant cash bonuses of between four and six million dollars. In contrast to your average, like, employee bonus, which is much, much lower, closer to the thousands. And those employees are still crunching, right? They're making that online mode, I guess, supposedly. I don't know if they're crunching. I mean, from what I've heard from at least a few folks over there, the company has kind of

like eased up on the gas pedal and said to people, hey, you don't know, since the game came out, really, I think they've been less, um, has a, I mean, I think they're scared of like the, the reception and the articles and like, people quitting maybe. Yeah, oh yeah, they, widespread attrition is definitely a concern, um, especially once bonuses are paid out. It'll be interesting to see, like, how many people leave. But yeah, no, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's very just, typical, it's like such a typical story because these executives, I mean, essentially, like, did not do their jobs. Like, they were responsible for making sure that this game released in the state,

in a fair state, in a state that people would want to play it in. They were the ones who chose not to delay it into 2021 for whatever reasons they chose. Maybe there were financial necessities, but this was up to the board to decide that. And they, I mean, they definitely got punished financially in the sense that a lot of their compensation is tied up in stock and they own a lot of stock in CD project and that has gone tanked to like a two year low or something like that. And so that money is is lower than it was. They have less money there than they did before. But they're still walking away with these massive, massive cash bonuses more more in these cash bonuses than most of their employees will see

in a lifetime. And that to me is just like, well, yep, this is exactly how this all works. This is what happens here. The numbers were pretty spectacular. Essentially, they took 20% of the company's profits and split them into two pools, 10% and 10% 10% went to 865 employees and 10% went to like 5, 6, 7 board members. So that's all you need to know about how this. Yeah, that pretty much says it all. I mean, it's nice that people got bonuses at all, like, you know, lower on the totem pole, but still, like that's what that tells the whole story.

Yeah, I mean, I think they had a lot of people that hope for bigger bonuses. And what's really ironic with this whole thing is that if they had pushed the game to 2021, and like it hadn't gone through all the catastrophe it had, let's say it sold twice as many copies or whatever, they all would have received much bigger bonuses, including the executive. So it was really just such a short-sighted thing and the executive still walk away with millions. I'm sure the executives are very bummed out about only getting a $3 million bonus instead of $8 million. They probably actually are, is what's sad about it. They probably still see this as a failure and are annoyed about their stocks and so on and so forth and are blaming each other,

which is sad because as you say, Jason, a lot of it does come down to them, at least according to your reporting and other reporting, it seems like management was the problem in a lot of cases with this game, because just the descriptions of employees not being directionless, not knowing what they should be working on, the game itself feeling so unfocused. I mean, those are leadership problems. Those aren't just individual underlings having trouble. So that's very depressing to me to think that that resulted in leadership getting rewarded

and regular people having to find new jobs probably if they really want a different workplace that doesn't suck so bad. Do you feel like people's attitudes about CD Project have changed? This is mostly a question for the two of you because I feel like you two were assuring me before this game came out that CD Project has a great reputation with gamers, which I guess is true. It did. Yeah, no, it's 100% change. I mean, no, it was true at the time. It was definitely true. But I think that now, I mean, I think it's so easy for them to win people back.

Like all they have to do is fix the game, release like some enhanced edition, give away a bunch of stuff for free. Like anything that's like gamers, as a way of saying, sorry, we'll give you all the DLC for free or whatever it is. Like we'll give you the PS5 version for free if you bought the game anywhere. Like whatever it is. Like they know how to win people back. If CD Project is excellent at anything, it's marketing and PR and they will find a way to like win people's hearts back. I will say though that I don't think that's easy only because fixing this game is, not easy. And also, they have taken a hit. I mean, there's no question to me, at least.

When I see people talk about them, like, it's not at all the way that people used to talk about them before this game came out. So they do have something they have to fix. And while I think they know what they have to do, saying, well, they just have to fix the game is like, the game is pretty fucked up. Like, I know some people had fun with it, but, you know, they can probably get it there, but it's got some real issues. So they could also blow it. And it is a mark on their reputation. So I don't know if it's quite as easy as or quite as much of a sure thing. Yeah. I almost feel like the re-release of The Witcher 3, which I don't think is out yet, they're putting together like a next-gen update for it. So I feel like something like that is a way

to recoup some goodwill because that game's already so popular. But I don't know if fixing cyberpunk in a meaningful way is really possible because the problems with that game and its lack of direction are baked into the game. Like it's not just the bugs and the fact that it didn't run very well. Like those things you could fix. But then also the game itself wasn't what people thought it was going to be. And I don't think you can fix that. Yeah, I wonder. I mean, only because there are, I know people who've played all the way through it, which I should say, I don't think any of us have and I haven't.

So, like, there are people who played all the way through it on PC and have been like, it was good. I totally enjoyed myself and thought it was fine. And I could see the game getting rehabilitated as just like a solid B plus that like gets polished enough. Or like a cult favorite almost. Yeah. It's like a kind of a DeusX, whatever, that like it fades into the past that it was promised as this like amazing transformative grand theft auto world that you can live in. And it just becomes like, oh, it was like a pretty fun open world DeSX game that they

polished up enough to make it playable. I could see that, like given that there are enough people who say that. But also, I haven't played it all the way through. And I wonder, I mean, at some point I will. I hope that I want to at some point that they get it to where it's interesting enough to do that. So I guess it's partly something that at least the three of us will have to see. Okay, why don't we take a break?

And then we will be back with one more thing. We have wasted this world. Our magic put a storm in the sky that has rendered the surface of our planet uninhabitable. But beneath the surface, well, that's another story entirely. In a city built leagues below the apocalypse, survivors of the storm forged paths through a strange new world. Some seek salvation for their homeland above. Others seek to chart the vast undersea expanse outside the city's walls. and others still seek what else, fortune and glory.

Dive into the Ethersea, the latest campaign from the Adventure Zone, every other Thursday on maximum fun.org or wherever you listen to podcasts. The 2021 PIN sale has begun. Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the Max Fund Drive. This is the last year for a while that we'll be doing pins for MaxFund Drive, and the fifth year that will be selling pins and donating all proceeds to charity. The past year proved what we already knew, that having access to the internet at home is a necessity for work, school, health care,

and keeping in touch with family and friends. So the proceeds from this year's PIN sale will go towards everyone on, a nonprofit working to bridge the digital divide. We're grateful that with your support, we'll be able to help low-income folks gain access to affordable computers, internet services, and digital literacy programs. The sale will run until May 28th. Folks at the $10 monthly level and above will have access to all of the pins from the drive.

That's 38 pins, one from every show on the network. We also have a special 2021 Max Fund Drive pin that all members can purchase. Go to maximum fun.org slash pin sale for more info. And to learn more about everyone on and support them directly, you can go to everyone on.org. Hello, hello, we are back. Kirk, Maddie, let's do it. Let's talk about one more things. Maddie, take us away, start us off, kick us off here. So I watched a television show called Lupin, Season 1.

It's a Netflix show. It's in French. I speak French, so that was a huge perk for me. I got to watch it in French with English subtitles and feel like I totally understood all the French. Would I have understood it if I'd been watching it with French subtitles or no subtitles? Who can truly say? But I got to feel like I really know French and I'm so good at it. But more importantly, I really recommend this show.

This is a very, very cool show. It is set in the modern day. It is about a man who gets, for a variety of reasons, very obsessed with the fictional character, Arsaint-Lupin, who is a gentleman thief. And he sort of self-styles his own life and thieving practices after the practices of Arsaint-Lupin. And is on a revenge quest that's very sympathetic because of something that happened to his father when the main character, whose name is A-San. not our son, Asan. When Asan's father is wrongly accused, when Asan is a little boy, that affects him and then

motivates his revenge quest for the rest of all time. And it is a thriller. It is also one of those shows where you get to watch somebody pull off amazing heists over and over and you can't believe they're going to pull it off. And it's so fun to watch. Like very Ocean's Eleveny. Like that's always very pleasing to the brain to watch somebody plan something out and then enact it.

or they don't tell you what they're going to do and you just get to watch whatever absurd scenarios they set up. And that's fun. And then the other added bonus to it is that there's just some general commentary about like the assumptions that people make about black people in day-to-day life. And he gets away with a lot simply by virtue of no one paying attention to him. And that's signposted pretty effectively in the show and is something interesting about it. So yeah, I liked it. I liked it a lot. Cool. I want to watch it. I like heist. Oh, yeah, you should watch it. You also watch it, Kirk. What did you think?

I did also watch it. I think I talked about it as one more thing a while ago. Yeah, you thought it was great. Because I remember thinking that I would want to watch it. So I also speak a little bit of French and so enjoyed the Frenchiness of it all. Yeah. It's also only five episodes, I should say. So it's like a very digestible watch. So I would say like, and I made this complaint at the time. So yeah, Omar Sy is amazing. The actor who plays the lead in this show is just wonderful and so fun to watch. He's really good. And it is only five episodes, though part two is coming out very shortly and it's going to pick up right where part one ends off, which is on a huge cliffhanger.

And I actually felt like the show was a little bit diminishing returns only because the way that it's organized is like there's one amazing heist that it opens with that's just this amazing heist. And there's a lot of fallout from that and some subsequent subheists. And then we're setting up a much larger conflict. That's all part of the same revenge plot that's going to, I think, reach its conclusion in part two. and I think my critique at the time was a little like, oh, the final episode is like pretty, has a lot of contrivance and times we were just like, wait, why is this person here? Like, how did this happen? Which I think it would be less of a big deal in a middle act kind of a deal than it was as the finale. And given that part two is about to come out and I'm really excited for that.

I have a feeling that I'll hopefully like have a much stronger opinion of the whole narrative once it's complete. And I can't wait for part two just because like, how's he going to fool it off? How is he going to get out of this one? I know. I know. He's in an absurd situation. This is reminding me why I waited. I think. I think I was waiting for part two

to come as. It's only two parts, right? Or is there going to be more? No idea. I don't know. It was planned as two parts initially. Like this story is clearly being told over two parts. I mean, I think it's pretty successful for them. So I would be surprised if they weren't at least considering making more but I don't really know. Cool.

Blue Penn. I want to watch it. Kirk, what's your one more thing? One more thing is a TV show that I didn't like. Great. I don't know. It is rare. It is rare that one of us brings up one more thing that we didn't like. It's true. But bring it on. Yeah, I thought

I'd throw it in there because it's been much discussed in the nerd averse. And I actually didn't watch every episode of it. Emily started watching this show called The Nevers that was on HBO Max. This is Joss Whedon's much troubled show that he sort of launched and then abandoned. How can you watch a Joss Whedon thing now? I don't know. It's because it was on. You just put it on the television and then you sit down in front of it.

Yeah, I guess so. No, okay. Yeah, go ahead. I don't know. Sorry, don't judge me. No, no, no, it's not a you thing. It's more just like he's so. Gross. Yeah, right. Well, he's not even involved with the show anymore, so that's part of it. Like it. So he created this show, and it's a very Joss Whedony premise for better and for worse. It's like the premise is kind of like Victorian ex men, mostly ex-women in sort of Victorian England. These people all get special powers from a crazy event that happens. And then you've got people with all sorts of powers, being oppressed by the government, but in Victorian England, pretty cool sounding premise, right? And then there's all.

this wild stuff that starts happening. I didn't watch this show until like the third episode, and I just sort of have been out of stuff to watch. And Emily will just sort of put stuff on sometimes. And I'm like, all right, whatever. I'll watch this like Victorian England X-Men shows. Sure. And started watching it and like really just was disappointed by it in a lot of ways. It's a lot of just people sitting around being glum and sort of talking about things and not a lot of people shooting fireballs out of their hands or like, you know, doing other cool stuff. thing is that one of the women's powers is that she's just huge. Yeah, I haven't seen screenshots.

She's just a giant lady. Yes, yes, but she's much bigger than that. She's younger than a lot of them. So she's kind of like, I don't know, maybe like a 14 year old girl, but she's like the size of a house. And they don't use her a lot because it's, I think, difficult to do the special effect. But every time she's on screen, it just rules because it's like hilarious and weird looking.

And, you know, you're like, most of the powers, it's like, oh, I can see the future. I can shoot fireballs. It's like heroes or X-Men or whatever. But then there's just this huge girl sometimes and you're like, oh, right, that's pretty weird. But then she doesn't get to do much, so that's also sort of disappointing. Most of the powers aren't that interesting. That's like when Ant Man is just big in the

Avengers. It's kind of got, yeah, it's just like a outsizedly huge person in a scene with other people. Or even re-watching Lord of the Rings recently the way the hobbits look next to Gand-off. Those kinds of camera effects are just enjoyable and cool. So anyways, kind of disappointing. It has what's

kind of weird about it, and I didn't really know this because I hadn't looked a ton into the making of it. I knew Weedon had stepped away from the show and that it had gone through some trouble, but it's just that it only is six episodes. The six episode, I won't spoil anything, but like has a huge twist and like a giant, like paradigm shifting stuff happens. I'm sure some of you listening have seen headlines, like what just happened on the Nevers? And I was like, what? Like it has a, it's just a giant paradigm shift that then is the season finale. And the show is, I don't think in production right now, there's a new showrunner taking over

because we didn't left saying like he couldn't commit to the show but it was also when all the allegations were coming out about him being horrible on past sets so who really knows why he left but he's gone now someone else is taking over the show but it was supposed to be a mid-season like and now you know what's really going on let's go and instead it's like

and now you know what's really going on okay see you maybe in a year or two and that's also very disappointing so I was just you know disappointed by the show in general despite not seeing every episode I was like I would watch this this premise seems okay and just, yeah, not really. So not much of a recommendation, I guess.

Maybe it'll have a second act that's actually pretty good, though. I could see it. It could potentially have a turnaround. Yeah, if the right person takes it. For sure. Yep, I could totally see that happening. That'd be nice. That'd be cool.

This has reminded me of billions, which just ended in the middle of the last season, last year, because of the pandemic. I know. I still haven't watched that because of you telling me about how it just unceremoniously ends. And I'm like, that seems like a weird thing to watch. Yeah, we don't even know when it's coming back. Yeah, no idea. Okay, let me give you guys my one more thing.

So I'm playing a bunch of games that we'll talk about like Porto, Mass Effect. I'm playing this game called World Ends Club. It's just wild, but I'll talk about that another time. In the meantime, I'll talk about a book that I read this weekend. I read through it all in one afternoon. It was fantastic. It's called The Plot by Gene Hanf Correlitz. It came out the same day as my book, but I won't hold it against that.

I won't hold that against it. It is awesome. It's like this thriller book about this writer, this guy named Jacob. And he used to be the superstar writer. He was like named a new and noteworthy by the times. A book about a writer. Wait, what? Yeah, I never heard.

What a wild idea. So he, and then his career kind of tanked after that. He wrote one book that was successful and then he kind of tanked after that. So he wound up becoming a teacher and he's teaching this MFA program and he's kind of miserable. And he meets this kid named Evan Parker and this kid is just a brat, total brat. This egocentric, like doesn't want to be taught at all. And he meets with them

And the kid is like I have this idea for a book That is going to blow everyone away Going to be a bestseller Like be on Oprah's book club Like change my life And Jacob the main character is like Okay what is it

And Evan tells him the plot And Jacob is like bowing away Then cut to two years later Jacob finds out that Evan Parker has died And so Jacob decides He's going to take this plot And write it Like turn it into a book

Cut to a few years after that It turned out to it came true Like all of Evan Parker's predictions came true, it's a bestseller. He's suddenly this world famous author. He's on Oprah. Everything. Until, like, well, not until, but suddenly one day he gets an anonymous message saying, you are a thief.

And that's what kicks the plot into gear, is that message. Cool. And from there, it's a very fascinating thriller as he tries to figure out what's going on and lives his successful literary career while also having this thing hanging over his head that he stole this plot from this kid. And it asked a lot of interesting questions. Like, who owns a story, which I think as writers you would both appreciate. But I certainly loved reading it.

And yeah, I found it a fantastic novel and really enjoyed it. The Plot by Gene Hanf Correlitz. Yeah, that sounds great. Not my favorite book to come out on May 11th, but a good one. It's always fun when people write books about being super successful and then how that's actually bad. Well, it reminded me, one of my favorite books of all time is a book called How I Became a famous novelist by Steve Healy, which is one of the funniest books I've ever read. And not a similar plot, but also about someone becoming a bestselling author in a very different

way. And also, he did it in that book. He does it as a way to make his ex-girlfriend jealous because he gets a wedding invitation from her. And so he really wants to. So despite her, he becomes a best-selling author. Yeah, he wants to show up at the wedding as a famous author. That's very funny.

Exactly. Oh, by the way, Jason, I started reading the seven and a half deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. and it's awesome. I'm only a little ways into it, but it starts with a bang. It's a real mystery, man. I'm really enjoying it. So, that's a good recommendation.

I get, sometimes I get messages from people who just like use triple click as a book recommendation device, and that makes me so happy. They're welcome to use our show in that one. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, the plot.

Go check it out. Really good. One of my favorite piece of the year so far. Cool. Cool. All right. Well, that is it for this week's episode. Girk, Maddie.

See both next week to talk about Mass Effect. Yeah. See you next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration.

You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximum fun.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple click pods. send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening.

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