Triple Click - Everything Is Connected

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Maddy, Kirk, and Jason pull out their red-stringed corkboards for a dive into the world of connected universes. What's the deal with games that seem connected in both subtle and blatant ways? Why does Jason hate multiverses so much? And what's a "brand-iverse"?The Types of Connected Universe:Shared Universe - A collection of stories and characters that all occupy the same time and place, e.g. MCU, most Marvel Comics, Star Trek, Star Wars, Assassin's Creed, Persona, etc.Transmediaverse - A collection of stories and characters that exist in parallel across media and occasionally intersect, often abstractly but sometimes concretely. A great source of easter eggs. E.g. any transmedia adaptation, MCU, novel adaptation, TLOU show, Alien: Isolation, so many moreMultiverse - An explicit fictional construct in which multiple timelines exist in parallel, allowing for infinite variations of various characters, storylines, and events. E.g. Everything Everywhere All at Once, Spider Man: No Way Home, Into/Across the Spider-Verse, Flash and the Arrowverse, Post-Thanos MCU, Dungeons & Dragons, etc.Brand-iverse - A collection of characters united primarily by their shared brand ownership and/or licensing deals between IP owners. E.g. Space Jam, Smash Bros, MultiVersus, the Sonyverse, Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale, Fortnite, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Indie game cameosFan-iverse - A shared universe as imagined and defined by fans of an existing set of characters or stories. E.g. The Zelda Timeline, The Pixar TheoryAbstractiverse - A shared universe defined according to abstract, shifting rules. Often but not always the product of a single creative vision. E.g. Zelda, The Kingiverse, Final Fantasy, The Remedy Connected Universe, Mario, Dungeons & Dragons and other tabletop settingsOne More Thing:Kirk: Steam Deck OLEDMaddy: VenbaJason: BillionsLINKS:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin 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

We've decided to launch the triple-click connected universe, aka the TCCU. So next week, expect to hear from Iron Man. Welcome to Triple Click where we bring the games to you. This week we are talking about connected universes in games like Alan Wake 2 and perhaps Final Fantasy 7 remake and even movies and books. I'm Jason Shrier. I'm Kirk Hamilton.

And I'm Maddie Myers. Hello, my friends. Hello. It's us. You both had a fantastic thing. I did. There was turkey. There were some other foods.

Didn't spadgettock it. You know, Jason, you can't stuff a turkey if you spatchcock a turkey. But you don't want to stuff a turkey anyway, because that actually... I know it's dangerous. Yeah, there's some food safety issues. Jason doesn't want to stuff a turkey. But we're willing to take the risk because the stuffing from inside a cooked turkey is the best stuffing you could ever have in your life. Yeah, but there are work around.

So what you can do is you can take the drippings from the spashkark turkey and then like drip them. Welcome back to triple cook. Here we are. Here we go again. I'm just saying there's some tips for next Thanksgiving for Thanksgiving 2020. Okay. So I'll tell you exactly what I do because this is really important and I think we need to talk about this. Let's get into it.

So when I spashcock the turkey, which means butterflying it, you cut out the backbone and you lay it flat. It cooks much more quickly and doesn't dry out and stuff. It's really good. And what you do is you put it on top of a bed. If you put it on a wire rack on top of a bed of vegetables, like celery and carrots and leaks and stuff. And then it has all those vegetables are cooked in the turkey fat. So they're delicious.

And you can either mix them in with the stuffing or just take the drippings and mix that into the stuffing. And it's way better than like stuffing inside of a gross turkey. See, that is a huge claim to make that that is, quote, way better than the stuffing that was inside turkey this year. It is because it won't give you food poisoning. But neither did the stuffing I ate all this past. But it's a risk.

Citation, me not having food poisoning right now. That's true. There's definitely some in my opinions missing from the conversation. No, this is all facts. We're just spitting facts right here. This is all. Don't you think that's implied, Kirk, by, like when you podcast, you just, everything you said. If you just repeated in my opinion over and over again, it would just.

Views are my own and not my employer, et cetera, et cetera. That's true, I suppose. It's less fun to have to say that. If you want to hear more from Triple Cook, which, by the way, I think we've pretty much decided that this is going to be a bonus episode next year. Oh yeah. Yeah. And what is a bonus episode? People might be asking, well, it's what you get if you support our show. We are a listener supported podcast. You can help us make this show possible by going to maximum fun.org slash join and becoming a member of our network, maximum fun. And if you support the show,

you get monthly bonus episodes, including a future one on cooking, which we will do. And we will have to stick in a bunch of in my opinions to, uh, to, to mollify Kirk over here. But in the more imminent future, you will also get a spoiler cast, a beans cast, as we call them, on Spider-Man 2. Again, we've all played and finished

and are going to talk about, and that episode will be up by the end of this month. So look forward to that, or maybe even on Monday, right? Kirk is that... It might be up, actually. It'll be up.

It'll be up. It'll be up very, very soon. Yeah, regardless. It'll be up very soon. So you can get that, become a member today. Go to Maximum Fund. All right, Kirk, what are we talking about today? Today we are talking about connected universes, which is a topic that we have sort of touched on before,

but in a way that I think opened the door to a lot of further conversation. So today we're going to have that further conversation, or at least the next conversation in a chain of further conversations because connected universes are so hot right now. And there are a lot of different kinds of connected universes. Bing, Kirk here as I edit the episode. Just wanted to throw in a bit of a spoiler warning, or at least a spoiler mention. Not a lot of major spoilers in this episode, but we do talk about some of the events of Spider-Man across the Spider-verse. And also some things that happen in Allen Wake 2, though nothing super major, just some kind of mid-game story stuff.

If you're super sensitive about either of those two things, I just wanted to let you know. Other than that, most of the stuff we talk about is a lot older, and we just, I don't know, we talk about various stories for some books and some games and some movies. Okay, back to the episode, bing. So on the show a little while back, we talked about the idea of the metaverse. Our episode was called What's the Deal with the Metaverse? And we talked about the sort of rising prevalence of connected brands and characters turning up in stories that weren't originally their stories.

And it was an interesting conversation, but I felt like it was missing some defined terms. We kept talking about the Metaverse, but that's such a kind of meaningless word, or at least It's a word with many meanings. It's not meaning less. It almost has too many meanings. Meaning full. And it's not meaning full. Meaning full.

Meaning too full. I don't actually think the word metaphors is meaningful. I think we should take that back right away. Well, it's spelled differently. Think it meaning dash, ful, L instead of F-U-L. Meaning rich. See, this is the whole problem. My friends, this is the whole problem.

We are already losing the thread talking about whether or not the word metaverse means anything. Guess what? You can talk about connect. universes without talking about the metaverse. You cannot even use that word, which you will notice. I have left entirely out of the taxonomy I have come up with for this episode. So I thought we would have a conversation about different types of connected universes, those being fictional universes, of course, that we've come across in various games, in books, in movies, kind of

all over the place, just to come up with a framework that we can use going forward when we talk about this kind of thing. And I'll say up front, I'm going to run through the different items, the different types of universes real quick before we get, before we get into our conversation. And I just want to say, as with all of these taxonomies, we do, something can be multiple, you know, it can fit multiple, like it can be defined as multiple different entries on this list. It can, you know, you can have a shared universe that is also has a multiverse within it, for example, to pick two of these. So keep that in mind. And also this whole thing is kind of a spectrum. Like, you don't have to be just one thing.

You can exist all around this. This is more just for the sake of understanding generally where things fit. Okay, so here we go. First of all, we have a regular old shared universe. That is a collection of fictional stories and characters that will occupy the same time and place, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's just a shared universe. Those people are all there together, especially leading up in the Thanos arc.

That was just like a world where a bunch of different stories all. took place. Star Trek, Star Wars, shared universe. Assassin's Creed, shared universe. Okay, then we have a transmediaverse, which is a collection of stories and characters that exist in parallel across different types of media. They occasionally intersect, often abstractly, but sometimes concretely. So that's where you have an adaptation of something into a new media, and it's kind of the same, but it's also kind of different. And there are times where the one story will make its way into the other story, but it's never like super solid.

Like you'll see, for example, in the HBO adaptation of The Last of Us, this is kind of a transmedia verse that now exists between the HBO show and the PlayStation games where you'll see like the voice actors from the PlayStation game turn up as other characters in the TV show

and that kind of connects them in a way, but it's this kind of transmedia connection, even though they're really separate stories and like different things happen. And then when people start talking about, well, what's going to happen on Season 2 of The Last of Us? When you're talking about the TV show, you are kind of talking about something different from the game. And who knows?

Like, different things really could happen from the sequel in the game. So that's Transmediaverse. Then we have a multiverse. This is an explicit fictional construct in which multiple timelines exist in parallel, allowing for infinite possible characters. Jason hates multiverses. So we'll get into it. We'll get into it. But I just want to make sure this definition is solid because this is becoming more and more common, as we're seeing,

something we're talking about. And a multiverse exists in the fiction. So we're talking everything everywhere all at once. We're talking Spider-Man, No Way Home, into the Spider-verse, Flash, those flash stories in the Aeroverse, the post-Thanos MCU with like multiverse of madness. Dungeons and Dragons is actually a fictional multiverse because there are planes of existence, anywhere where there are actually like multiple universes and anything can happen within the fiction. That's a multiverse. And some might say our real world is a multiverse, where there's another version of us. where Jason likes multiverses and I hate them. Right, you could say that.

I hate that version of us. Though for our intents and purposes, we're really just talking about fiction. We're not going to talk about science today. We've got a couple more here. We've got a couple more here we're going to get into. First, we have, I think, a very important one. I'm currently calling it a brand averse. This is a collection of characters united primarily by their shared brand ownership or licensing deals. So this is, I'm going to use the word.

this is, I think, what a lot of people use the word metaverse to describe. That's the last time I'm going to say it. I think thinking of this as a brand averse, other possible words are like a corpiverse, an IPaverse. This is a universe that's really only connected by the fact that one company or entity owns all of these different characters. So you get Space Jam or Smash Bros. for that matter. Multiverses, the Sonyverse, the fact that like there are references to the last of us in Horizon Zero Dawn or Horizon. Forbidden West. You've got PlayStation All-Stars, Battle Royale, Fortnite, of course.

Ralph breaks the internet where, like, all the Disney princesses turn up and all these other characters are there. And, like, Zankeith and everything, yeah. Yes. And also, even indie game cameos. Like, you'll see The Night from Hollow Night will turn up in various other games, like in dead cells. There will be Castlevania characters.

Like, a lot of that is kind of just brand synergy. It's not always bad. It can be cute, but it is, like, the primary reason that these characters are overlapping is because two people made a deal. And that's a brand of verse. Two companies made a deal. Two entities, let's say. Yeah, corporations are not people now.

No. Unfortunately, they are because we live in hell. Okay, let's keep going. We have a couple more. We've got a fan averse or a theory verse. I kind of like fan averse. This is a shared universe as imagined or defined by fans of an existing set of characters or stories. Like fan averse as if I am averse to fans.

So that is a little bit of an issue with this portmanteau. Also, Brandaverse. Yeah. It feels like your reverse. I like that. So maybe it's good. So fan ofverse examples include the Zelda timeline. There's a big fan theory of the Zelda timeline that goes beyond anything that's in the games.

The SCP Foundation, which is something Maddie explained to me that she can explain to everyone in a little bit. The Pixar theory, which is a theory that all the Pixar movies exist within the same universe. These are not canonical, but they are interesting enough in kind of, big enough to be considered a type of a type of connected universe. And then a subgenre of that is the conspiracy verse, which is like Q and on, like, real world stuff where people like start believing in a kind of fictional universe that is actually superimposed of our own. We don't have to get into that one here, but I just thought of it when I was thinking of a

fan of verse. Because what is Q&N? If not a fan of verse. It's like fan fiction of a certain type of world. Jason's face was, he would look very worried. We need to move on from this. Anytime you say the cue word on a podcast, everyone kind of shrinks into their chair. Finally, we have the abstract averse, which I think is the most interesting one.

It's really the one that brought us all here today. This is a shared universe that's defined abstractly according to shifting rules. It's often, but not always, the product of a single creative vision. So examples of this include the Remedy Connected Universe. We just played Alan Wake 2, but also Zelda or the King ofverse, Stephen King's Connected Universe. I have a few really interesting examples. to talk about with the King of Verse, Final Fantasy works this way, and now Final Fantasy 7 specifically works this way.

I think Mario Dungeons and Dragons is a good example of this, where every story takes place within Dungeons and Dragons, but they're all kind of unique. And so an abstractiverse is kind of my current favorite kind of connected universe, and that's definitely where Alan Wake 2 lives, which is one of the reasons that we wanted to have this conversation, because the remedy-connected universe is so interesting. Well, wait, Kirk, you should have put Scott Pilgrim on here because of your one more thing last week, which is also about a creative vision inspiring multiple versions of Scott Pilgrim, which the triple-click Discord was comparing to Final Fantasy 7 remake this past week. And I thought that was a wonderful comparison.

Yeah, that's totally true. Yeah, the Scott Pilgrim, the new Scott Pilgrim show on Netflix is totally an abstract averse. So to run them down really quick again, that's shared universe, transmediaverse, multiverse, brand averse, fan averse, and abstractaverse. So for starters, let's just talk a little bit more about Alan Wake, too, and the remedy-connected universe. The real reason we're here to talk about Alan Wake, too, again. I love it. I think starting at the farthest version of abstraction is a good way to kind of nail down these terms. And yeah, I want to talk about it a little bit more because that kind of, universe. It's something that we talked about when we talked about that game. I just think is really interesting. Yeah, I agree. I haven't played in a Felon Wake 2 to know what it's trying to do with all of that and how

everything plays in, but I did like meet Adi, the janitor in the game. And so it's very clear that there are explicit references to other remedy games, which I think is really interesting given the theme of the game of the kind of blurred lines between fiction and reality and how that all plays into everything. But It's hard for me to say, like, what's going to, I don't know what's going to happen, so it's hard for me to say what it's all trying to say or do with all of that. But I will say that there's always something kind of one of the reasons that all of this stuff is so popular is that it's always a little bit of a thrill when you see something and you're like, aha, I understand this reference. I get this. I have seen, I have consumed the previous piece of media that is relevant to this one. So I understand what it is talking about.

And that's kind of a cynical way of describing it. But it is kind of, it is a fun thing. Yeah. Yeah. Although I think Alan Wake, too, acknowledges and is self-effacing about that very phenomenon. So you're referring to Adi, who is a character, I think, originally in control, or at least that's the first time I'm familiar with him. But I also know from Alan Wake brainstorm meetings at Polygon that there are many things

about the extended world of the Remedyverse that I am not familiar with because Mike Maharty and Tucson Egan would go on for 16 hours straight or more, if I let them, about every piece of remedy-related media that exists in Allen Wake 2 and how they noticed it. And I do think the game rewards that, Jason. But I also think that the game works because it's about how dangerous, conspiratorial thinking can be. And like the idea of a cult and the idea of that sort of preying on your mind and like the power of stories as a horror. element. I mean, we don't need to get into the conspiracy verse or whatever Kirk called it, but I do think that adds a layer to the horror element of Allen Wake 2 in a way that's very effective.

And also, I don't want to say it pokes fun at the idea of somebody connecting all those dots and like having the bits of twine about, say, Stephen King novels. But it does acknowledge that. It is like, this is a pattern of thinking that's very human but also very scary or can feel very scary and overwhelming and intense. And I think that that's effective and understandable, even if you don't actually get every single reference. Yeah, it's interesting. I think that, like, in the real world,

we do it to kind of, because our minds can't accept randomness and coincidence, and so we kind of try to draw connections and try to make sense of the world, sometimes in ways that wind up are delusional. And I think that that is a very appealing, thing and also a very interesting form of storytelling. Yeah, there's something that Alan Wake 2 is doing specifically with the cult actually

and with these characters sort of understanding of this fictional world into which they're thrown. That's really clever having played through the whole game. Like there's stuff with the cult, there's stuff with every character in the game where they are reacting to the fact that they're within a story. So it adds yet another layer to this that goes beyond even something like Stephen King does where eventually you're realizing characters are playing their role within a story with the full knowledge that they're doing that in order to affect a different outcome to the story because they're aware that their reality is being tweaked and adjusted by some author, in this case, Alan Wake, like someone outside of their view. But I think that this kind of abstract world, like these loose connections between characters can be really cool and it can wind up having surprising amounts of meaning.

I think it's something that we're really, I mean, I guess it's been around in books for a long time, but it's something that we're seeing a little bit more of in other media. So I've been listening to Just King Things, of course, my favorite podcast. I think there's a T-shirt that says it's my favorite podcast, so it is my favorite podcast officially. This is a podcast made by a couple of friends of ours where they talk about Stephen King, and they just read through the regulators and desperation. The two of you know those books. Have you read them?

From Just King thinks, yes, of course I do. but I know I haven't read them. So what's cool about the regulators in desperation, even beyond the connected King ofverse, is the way that the two stories interact with one another. And I think that's the kind of thing that Sam Lake really thinks is cool. Sam Lake being the creative director of Remedy,

the writer, the primary creative force behind the Remedyverse. So first of all, the King ofverse is a loosely connected series of ideas that becomes more specific at times and is kind of unified around the Dark Tower series. series of books that he wrote, but it goes all the way from really specific stuff, like in one of the Dark Tower books, they just wander into the stand. And so then for a little while, they're just in the stand. But it's a different version of the stand than the actual stuff that happens in his novel, The Stand, but it's basically the same. There's a plague. It has a lot of echoes.

But then also there's just like, there will be a character named Flag. My niece just read The Eyes of the Dragon. The Bad Guy in That is named Flag. He's not the same as the flag that turns up in the He's a different character, but he's kind of the same character. So there are just these unifying theories that sort of connect everything. And you can sit down and do the cork board and connect everything if you want. But the real joy of it is just sort of in relaxing and understanding that it's this one guy's imagination and everything is connected. So what's really cool about the regulators in desperation and what really makes me think

of Alan Wake is that the regulators is written by Richard Bachman, which was the pen name Stephen King used early in his career to publish his kind of cast-off books, some books that are a little bit in ways more literary, but also just they're not as good, a lot of them, to be frank. And more like edge lordy, even though that word didn't really exist in the common parlance back then. Especially rage, but some of the other ones as well, but like the running man that was written by Richard Bachman. There are some pretty good books that were written by Bachman. So this was billed as a book that was uncovered when they, because Richard Bachman died, quote unquote, died before. the publication of the regulators, because King was like, okay, I'm going to retire this guy and just publishes myself. So then he decides he wants to do one last hurrah for Richard Bachman.

So the regulators, written by Richard Bachman. At the same time, Desperation is published. That's written by Stephen King. Both books have the same characters, but the characters are doing different things. They have the same names, and there are some similarities, but they're very, very different stories, and the characters are doing different things in each story. And I really like this. This is Michael Lutz, one of the co-hosts of just King Things. He explained this theory as basically the regulators is this kind of lurid, really violent book where all the characters are acting like Bachman archetypes. And then at the end of that book, this evil god kind of says, I'll get you, I'll be back to get you. And then they fight the same evil god in desperation as different people, almost like they're in a different universe. And they close the book on the evil god finally. And it's a way. that Stephen King is kind of saying, I'm closing the book on Richard Bachman. Sounds like Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons. Whoa, yeah.

The Zelda games, yeah. It's a really cool idea, and I think a really cool read that kind of adds a little bit more meaning to both of the books. And it's the kind of thing that when I'm playing Alan Wake, and I'm watching Sam Lake, who provided the face of Max Payne playing a character named Alex Casey who looks just like Max Payne, but is actually a fictional character written by Alan Wake. Like, I get those same kinds of layers in that. Yeah. Okay.

Can I talk about the SEP Foundation for a second, Kirk? Because I am now not entirely sure if I even think it fits into the Faniverse definition. But let's talk it out and maybe we can solve it together. Okay. So technically, the SEP Foundation, it was, it wasn't really founded because it first was on 4chan and who the heck knows anything on 4chan, who was the first to do anything. but 2007 and 2008 or two of the years that I found when trying to track down

when it first started. But at this point, it's basically just a really huge collection of fan-written wiki entries that are like creepy pasta-style horror. And if you don't know what creepy pasta is, we did an episode early in Triple Click history with Patricia Hernandez

where we talked about the idea of creepy pastas as like a horror storytelling format that emerged on the internet and was popularized by the internet and just kind of the way. ways that people create memetic and shareable content and like urban legends. And so the SEP Foundation basically taps into that sensation by being a system where you can submit descriptions of artifacts or descriptions of phenomenons that you've seen, phenomena, that's the plural word,

that you've seen in the world or that you're claiming to have seen in the world, like something kind of like a slender man, although he's not actually an SEP fixture. He's a a different meme, but whatever. You guys get what I'm saying. And then that can be a part of SCP, which stands for Secure, Contain and Protect, by the way. So it's sort of this fictional catalog slash organization that is tracking all these different paranormal phenomena with some unstated goal, sort of like how in control the video game that took a lot of inspiration from this format. I can't remember now, which is crazy, what it's called and controlled. The Federal Bureau of Control.

I mean, this sounds like the Federal Bureau of Control. Yeah. Who also turn up in Ellen Week 2. Right. And so when you're looking at just kind of artifacts in the world of control or Alan Wake 2, you might see like a piece of paper accompanying it that has like blacked out words. And that's been redacted by this organization. And that originated, I believe, with the SEP structure where they have certain blacked out

words just because I think it looks cool. Like to read a wiki entry and have the blacked out words and be like, Oh, nobody even knows what that was supposed to say. It just looks cool. I think the blackout words also serve an important function, in control in particular, because since we're talking about an actual video game written by people, I think the blacked out words are crucial because they leave space for your imagination. And that's a really important part of this, like, abstract averse, this kind of connected

universe where- And horror, where you're letting your mind fill in the blanks that can be way scarier than anything somebody could actually write in their little wiki entry that they've submitted. But unlike control or Alan Wake as a series, the SEP Foundation isn't controlled by a brand. It's not controlled by a corporation. There's no Kevin Feigey who's making sure everything lines up perfectly. Like it definitely doesn't line up perfectly. You get what I'm saying?

Like it's it's kind of a hodgepodge of different concepts and ideas and tones, although it's all horror adjacent and it's all supernatural. And there's a certain format that everyone's grown accustomed to over time. And enough so that it inspired directly. and Remedy designers have said this openly. There's no rip-off happening here. It's just a direct inspiration to the way that controls Bureau operates. So it's like a reverse fan of verse, I guess.

So this raises a good question that I think, I think this is a good transition into just talking about why some of these work better than others and what we like about some of these versus others. Because what I am really finding, at least lately, that I enjoy, I really enjoy it when there's room for me, when it doesn't have to all tie together, because it frankly gets a little exhausting after a certain while. For me, as an audience member, I can only imagine how exhausting it is for a writer. If you need everything to connect and it all needs to lock in.

We all watch The Wire. It was really amazing the way they did that by the end, but not everything needs to interlock quite so incredibly. And actually, it can be really fun when you have a lot of room to imagine. But, Jason, I know you don't like multiverses. And let's go back to the idea of a multiverse. This is a fictional multiverse where there's an infinite multiverse of possibilities. And I'm curious what it is exactly. I know you've said this before on the show, but what it is exactly that you don't like about multiverses.

Sure, it eliminates the stakes and the whole appeal of the MCU in the first place is that, like, hey, you're watching these characters grow and change and everything happens in a meaningful way. and oh hey Avengers in 2012 what's his name Phil Carlson, Carlson, Paulson, whatever his name is. Colson, yeah. Colson. Dies and he's a character who you knew in previous films and whoa, he's actually dead and he's staying dead for the future. I guess it's recond in a TV show, but whatever, putting that aside.

Things seem to matter in a way that they hadn't in kind of other properties and it felt more like a big interconnected TV show than anything else. And I've always loved that sort of serialized storytelling. And when you add a multiverse to the equation, suddenly nothing matters anymore. And you could be watching someone and it doesn't really matter how their motivations change and, like, what happens to their character growth because, oh, no, here's another version of them to replace it, like Gamora in Gardens of the Galaxy. Or like if someone dies, it doesn't matter. because they could just pop back up, which I know is a whole big thing in comics,

but I mean, that's one of the reasons that I never got into comics is because there were no stakes to any of these stories. And they just really mattered on kind of like a microcosmic basis, which doesn't interest me as much as watching a big unfolding narrative. And so, yeah, this idea that like nothing really matters, it just makes everything feel like a waste of time. Very different type of storytelling than the kind of leaving blanks for you to fill in. or leaving things ambiguous in their connectivity.

We're talking about a very different kind of connected universe in the MCU or really anything with the multiverse attached to it. But I think no matter what kind of story you're telling, if it doesn't feel to me like there are stakes and consequences and growth attached, I'm always just going to be pissed. I hate anything, anytime a show is like, and here's this character who throws out everything you knew about the character in the last four seasons or whatever.

whatever it is. I'm always just like, no, I think I'm done with you now. So I'm chewing on that because I can think of some multiversal stories, some of the examples I gave that really work. And I'm chewing on why it is that they work or how they maybe defy the thing that you're complaining about. Because I agree, the minute you just say, oh, psych, Gomorrah isn't really dead because there's another version of her. Oh, Loki isn't really dead. There was just another version of him. We grabbed him when we traveled back in time and now he's the main character of his own show. It really kind of, yeah, it kills the impact of the moment you just experienced where Loki was killed and it was like really sad. And you're like, oh man, Loki died.

Like he's immediately back alive. And now the most recent story, I believe it was a Hollywood reporter reported that they're considering doing an Avengers, original Avengers, like bringing them all back to life. Right. Bringing back Iron Man and paying him a billion dollars to be in the movie again. Yeah. So I think that there's like an overlap almost between that kind of multiversal story. storytelling and the brand-averse feeling where it's like, we're just bringing in these characters because you know you like them and we're really just doing it. And paying RDJ a million dollars, as you just said, like you inherently brought in the

corporate aspect of what would need to be achievable in real life in order for the fiction to work. Like, we can't not think about that. But go on. It just has that, it has that feeling of like, these are the characters that we have control of. These are the things we can do to kind of help sell this and get people interested in it. Rather than this is a story we can only really.

tell using a multiverse. Because two examples, two movies that I've recently watched and have really enjoyed are Everything Everywhere All at Once and Spider-Man across the Spider-verse, both of which embraced the multiverse as a really vital aspect of the story without losing sight of the stakes. I guess it's because both focus on a single character. Everything Everywhere All at Once is so great because the main character is split into this multiversal reality that she didn't realize existed.

and she gets to see all these versions of her life based on the decisions she might have made or just how things maybe could have gone differently and then channel all those versions of herself into this new version of herself that she gets to become. And it's all about her. I mean, you're following this woman through the whole story and whatever universe she's in in the multiverse,

she's still herself. And it's really about her in the end. She's the same character at the end as she was at the beginning. She's just gone through all these changes and learn so much. And then across the Spider-verse is kind of the same way

where Miles Morales winds up being the most important character really because he's kind of at the heart of this what anomaly that's happened that's causing the multiverse

all this instability in the multiverse because in the last movie he, like the whole reason that he's Spider-Man is kind of at the heart of this instability so we follow him as he kind of

you know it's really about him feeling alienated and not being able to fit in and not feeling like he's really Spider-Man It's all about his character. Even to the point that toward the end of the film, you know, you meet another Miles Morales. There is another character, but it winds up being a really important moment for the main character.

Like it focuses on him because he's seeing a totally different version of himself that might have existed in a very different world. And like, so it can work if it stays focused on characters and doesn't focus on undoing stakes just for the sake of bringing back actors and, you know, being able to sell the next movie. Well, right. So what you're talking about also is a more contained story, a story that is like following a single narrative. It's kind of like when I think about time travel stories, there are some that are very messy and some that are very well executed. And the ones that are well executed almost always follow the same rule, which is that like even if you as a time traveler are going back in time, you are still following a linear path. You cannot go back and just like change the events of your life and wind up in a whole paradox. and create all sorts of messiness and messy stakes. And so you are still following an arc of growth, even if you are doing it from 2023 back to 1980 and then to the 1700s and then to 2000 or whatever it is. So that's the best storytelling is when you have that kind of the character arc,

the character growth, the character going through obstacles and overcoming them or failing to overcome them and what that means for that character. And the flip side of that is what the monstrous mess of the MCU right now where you have no idea who is where or when and who, why it all, what it all actually means or who, what the stakes are for each character and everything is just reversed, constantly and flipped around. And I mean, there are a few reasons for that. And there are a few reasons that it's become such a disaster. But like, so much of it is like, you look at these characters

and their stakes and their desires and their arcs and none of it really matters because the multiverse can just deliver on it. I mean, the Wanda stuff is a, perfect example. She has this fantastic story about grief and overcoming the loss of vision, her lover, by like creating a false reality and like what that means and all that other stuff. And then it's just totally derailed by creating a story where there actually are other universes where she can go get vision and like live her life of him. And so none of it actually matters. It's just so frustrating as a person who likes good stories and enjoys the craft of storytelling. I think it helps that. I know you have

haven't seen across the Spider-Bers, Jason, and it's fine if you never watch it. I understand where you're coming from on this. But I think part of why that movie works when it comes to this concept is that even though theoretically the characters could go to another universe and, quote, fix it, like save their, you know, tragically murdered child or father or whatever led to their superhero antics in the first place, their tragic event that led to their gritty revenge arc, as many of the spider men's have, even if they could go to some other universe and save that person,

it would destroy something else in that universe. And that's made very clear repeatedly in that movie that, like, mucking around in the other universes is an issue and has just fall-off effects, basically, like causes this sort of background radiation effect on every shared universe, and therefore there isn't kind of a multiverse in the sense that you dislike,

because really it's all part of this same a larger universe. This is another episode where I'm like, I'm not high right now, but. No, everyone's moving according to a sort of set trajectory. And then a lot of the story is about Miles rebelling against that. That's right. Which is central to who he is. Because really we're talking about free will here.

And that's like really what I think makes a hero attractive. So there's the idea in across the Spiderverse that has become really popular on like TikTok and social media that I just referred to obliquely, which is called a canon event, quote unquote. which is like this idea of something that has to happen in your life that makes you who you are. And like for Spider-Man, it's like the death of Uncle Ben, for example. In many Spider-Man stories, there's something like that that he can never save Uncle Ben in time. And then he becomes Spider-Man and remembers forever that dark day. And like all the different Spider-Man's or gals or whatever have something like that,

some quote-unquote canon event, capital C, capital E. And like people now online kind of talk about the idea of a canon event in their own lives in like a joking way. But the irony of that is that the movie is asserting through miles that it is possible to potentially undo what we believe to be the can-in- It's the tension. It's the tension of the story. Right.

And that I think is very attractive. And I think everything everywhere all at once and some of the best stories, like I would argue Alan Wake 2, although I haven't beaten it yet, but like it's the idea of seeing a fate that may even be a horrifying fate and then daring to try to. change it, even if every force in the world is telling you, like, this is your fate, this is what has to happen to you. Everything is dooming you or leading you to this horrible thing. And you, the hero, are like, well, no, I'm going to keep trying to change it anyway, because that's an unjust system that I'm fighting back against. And that, I think, is what's so attractive, just

both as a horror concept and also just as, like, a hero concept. Well, so part of this also is that, like, with the MCU specifically there were a set of rules established and then those rules were suddenly changed. If it had started off as a multiverse story that was exploring the types of themes and obstacles that you're talking about. As Spider-Man did.

It would feel very different. Right, that's what I mean. It would feel very different than a universe that is like we're setting these stakes if characters die, they die like here are their consequences here. Look, we're doing, we're setting an entire movie that's setting up to Iron Man's ultimate sacrifice. Only if they were to then bring him back five years later

It would feel like the ultimate rug pull And that's what's frustrating about suddenly adding this concept Of a multiverse to this universe That had previously been set up to actually have events that mattered Because yes, you're right The multiverse can establish interesting concepts Can you change fate? What does that mean? What does that look like? Those are interesting ideas

It's just that when you're introducing them to a universe that had other was setting totally different rules before that it just throws everything on a whack. Yeah, I think that's a very important observation that it really matters if you shift from one kind of story to another one. Everything everywhere all at once is written and conceived of and executed as a story about the multiverse. Same thing with Spider-Man across the Spider-verse.

And as a result, the multiverse winds up being this force in the story that the protagonist is working with and against. Like it's a really important part of the narrative framework. What you're describing is very, very different when it's like, oh, we don't really know what to do, but we want to bring back Scarlett Johansson, we want to bring back whoever, whatever character who died, let's do a multiverse.

And time travel is very similar. I think a lot of the reason that people get frustrated with time travel is sometimes stories will just introduce it just because they need to retcon something or they want to bring a character back, they want to change something. And as a result, you don't really get a very meaningful character interaction

with time travel. I'm thinking about actually, speaking of Stephen King, 112263 is a fantastic time travel story. And one of the really cool things about the framework of that story is the way that time works almost as a character. So that's the story of a guy who travels through this portal back to the late 1950s, and he's trying to prevent the assassination of JFK because Stephen King is obsessed with the assassination of JFK. And also because this character has basically identified that maybe if you're

going to do one thing in the past and change one thing, that would have the biggest downstream impact and would maybe make the world a better place. So then it's a really great story on a number of levels, a great book. One of the cool things about time, though, is that each time, he goes back a few times to try to get it right, and time kind of fights against him. He's always, it's really hard to change things, and it's something that he finds over the course of the book. There's just this inelasticity to certain events, and as you start drawing closer and closer to a major event, what you would maybe even call a canon event, like the assassination of JFK is like a canon event for the United States of America. It kind of is in that way that 9-11 is or whatever.

as he draws closer to that canon event, time becomes more and more rigid and it gets harder and harder for him to change it, which is a really cool concept and winds up introducing the mechanism itself, in this case time travel, or in the case of across the spiderverse, the multiverse, that mechanism becomes like a character that the protagonist has to fight against. And that is really cool. That makes this kind of story work in a way that it usually just doesn't feel that well considered when it's just being inserted so we can bring back characters who died. It also sometimes can feel like the characters fighting the author, literally.

Like if they're fighting against time or the system of the multiverses, it feels as though they're fighting against the idea of being in a story, which is also something I love so much about Allen Wake 2 and also Miles and across the Spiderverse because it feels like Miles is facing a camera and being like, why did you write my story like this? Like, why does this have to happen to me? Why do the people I care about have to be hurt? Exactly. And, like, that is such an interesting and uncomfortable for the audience, but thrilling sensation to, like, have a character turn to you or turn to Sam Lake and be like, why are you doing this to me, man?

Like, it's so cool. It's something that Sam Lake has been interested in forever in the very first Max Waite. At the very first Max Payne. Yeah, that goes to show. That's how they're all merging together in my. brain. In the very first Max Payne, there's a sequence where he takes drugs and realizes that he's in a video game. It's kind of a graphic novel sort of cutscene. That's how the cutscenes play out. And he's like, looking at the camera basically being like, oh my God, how perverse my life was a video game.

I looked at the heads up display, which is a very max pain thing to have happened. And something that I think Sam Lake has just been interested in this whole time because he's created now a fictional world where the thing we're talking about, you know, Miles Morales turning to the writers and saying, why did you write this in? That's what Saga Anderson is doing to Alan Wake. She's like, dude, wait a minute, my daughter is dead now? Yeah. No, she's not.

My daughter is alive. Why did you write it this way, you asshole? And like, there are literally scenes where she gets to confront the writer because the writer is himself a fictional character within the broader world, which is just one layer deep, I suppose, of abstraction into this kind of beguiling abstract averse. This makes me want to read some Stephen King. That's really what I think. I play all in a week too. I'm like, I just got to read some more Stephen King.

The fun, to me, the parts that are most fun about the Kingiverse aren't like the direct connections, like what you were talking about. It's when he just like randomly slips in and like, oh, I heard about this other thing happening in Sam next door. And it's just like a random reference. Like, hey, what about that one time that town was covered by an alien bubble? Or there was like that hotel that was haunted and like a bunch of that shit happened there. That was down the street. Yeah. Those are fun, or even the echoes. There will be times where someone will say something like there are other worlds than these.

Some of those iconic quotes from books will turn up in other books just sort of as echoes. And he gets to play with that sort of thing. Yeah. And that also feels like Stephen King, like having the rare opportunity that I guess Sam Lake is also getting where he gets to talk to his own characters almost and be like, what if I could do it a little differently? Like that's how it feels to me when he's like rewriting his own stories is almost like the character's pushing back against his own brain. And he's like, all right, fine. Let me do it a different way for you guys. That's entertaining.

Yeah, it's such a difference between that and the way that, you know, I don't know, Fikey puts together the MCU. It's this more playful and interactive way of writing stories, which is how Stephen King writes, right? He's like long been on the record for not really making outlines. He kind of just writes the story and see what happens. And he's kind of in this interactive space with his own characters, just trying to figure out what they're going to do next. And then a lot of times that leads him to these weird cul-de-sacs where he then doesn't know how to write his way out

and just sort of sets off a bomb like in the stand to just be like, I don't know, whatever, we need to get into the last act. But it gives him this really cool relationship with his characters and lets them stretch and almost talk back to him in ways that I can only really imagine what happens in his brain when he's writing. But it's really cool. And it's cool to see more authors and more writers emulating that.

I think that is one of the really fun things about Alan Wake is this sense of playfulness, that's afforded by having such loose rules. You just are like, you know, Sam Lake is like, I don't know, we're going to write some songs about what happened in Alan Wake, and we're going to do a whole friggin rock opera, and like, that'll be fine, that'd be fun. Like, let's see what happens.

And then they do that. And then just kind of keep moving through the story to the next thing. And I think that must be really freeing, and it's really fun as a player. And it's also a very video-gamy way to think about a story. Like, it's like the Prince of Persia, like, oh, that's not how it really happened. I didn't die there. I actually leapt over the ravine or whatever it is.

And it's kind of like how people who maybe don't play a lot of games nowadays think of all games as being is like, oh, it can end any way you want. Anything can happen. You have ultimate control. But like as the author of a game or authors of a game experience, you can kind of play into the ultimate dream of that and be like, yeah, okay, what if it could actually happen any which way? What would it be like for the characters to exist in a world?

that. What would happen to Mario when he dies? We're all asking that. One day, in the last episode of triple click, we'll answer that question. The final episode. I mean, we haven't even gotten into the Nintendo of it all. I know. He didn't even get to Zelda. The way that Link is sitting there singing songs from different Zelda games, like he's kind of remembering them even though we don't know if those games. How does he know them? It's so weird to think about it. It's pretty abstract. I think that a lot of those, a lot of those Nintendo games are they're not meticulously put together. I think that's that, where I'm coming down from looking at all of this is that I really like all of these connected universes that are loosely connected, abstractly connected.

Yeah, a little sloppy, a little bit of messy. We don't need everything to tie up so neatly. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. All right. Well, so just to run those down really quick before we take a break, we've got shared universe, transmediaverse, multiverse, brand averse, fan averse, and abstract averse. And we'll put those in the show notes. Easy. So simple. Easy to understand. Easy to understand. And we'll put this one on the list of taxonomy so that we can reference back to it often whenever we're trying to categorize some connected universe or others. All right, let's take a break. And then we'll be back with one more thing. Folks, we get it.

Keeping up with an actual play podcast in this economy is a tough sell. That's why we have great news for you. The Adventure Zone is changing up its format. We're going to be doing some shorter seasons, more experimental stuff. There's never been a better time to get on board the zone. And if you're sick of listening to our voices, we're going to be. get that too. So we're including some guests. On this upcoming one, we've got Kate Welch and Gabe Hicks, who are incredible. And you want to try out some new games? You got it. We've got the new Marvel Multiverse RPG. We're using that and with a really brilliant GM doing it. It's dad. What he's saying is it's dad. It's just doing it. You can listen every Thursday on maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcast. I'm glad you said that because nobody says that. Can I just say thank you to you for such a thoughtful interview? Oh my God, yeah, I think you nailed it.

Bullseye interviews with creators you love and creators you need to know. Listen to the Bullseye podcast only from NPR and Maximum Fun. And we are back with one more thing, Maddie. Why don't you take us away? Sure. So I'm catching up on a lot of video games for the end of the year right now. And I circled back and played a game called Venba that came out in July of this year. I played it for PC, but it's out for, I think, every console.

And I really, really recommend this game. You can finish it in a couple hours. It's, and we love that. Do I need to say anything else? We do. Can I just end it there? That's it. Everyone's downloading it.

It's great. But it's a kind of game where I'm amazed by what games can do for lack of a less corny way to put it. Like, it feels like something that is, is, uniquely done in a game. Like, yes, it's a story, but it's not like, oh, you're just clicking through text and you're like, okay, yeah, this is a game, but it's not necessarily interactive. It's a cooking game where there are also stories being told around this household of people who are cooking together, but those stories are also told through the dishes that they and you, the player, are making. And that interweaves perfectly and feels really well-paced. Like, if you have

short game, it can really just nail the pacing. And I feel like I see that so rarely in games and that hugely recommends it. I don't want to spoil it too much, but I'll just sort of briefly summarize. Venba's the name of, um, at first a sort of young woman who's sort of newly married Indian immigrant in Canada married to a guy who doesn't know how to cook very well. That's the very first scene is that she's getting over a cold. He should become a member of Chippa. He should be He doesn't need to because his wife Venba is going to cook him a meal and do the player sort of assist with that. And then they have a child together. And then the kid grows up and you kind of see his whole life.

And then he becomes an adult and has sort of mixed feelings about his identity. And food is inextricably linked to that. There's a lot of moments where he talks about like not wanting to eat Indian food at school in front of their people because he's ashamed of it. And it just, I mean, it gets. really deep and intense. There were parts where I cried. I don't want to spoil those parts, but the game really made me think a lot about kids I knew. I didn't grow up in Canada, but I did grow up in North America in the suburbs, and I knew lots of kids with parents who were immigrants, who didn't speak English well and had certain cultural cuisines that they took

over, and then kids would bring different foods to school and have shame about it. And I remember my friends expressing that to me. And I wish that I could have played this game in high school, not because I think I like dealt with it poorly or something, but because it just really spoke to, like, the questions I remember having when I was 15, if that makes sense. Like, it really resonated in a certain way. And it just felt like a really cool and sad and then poignant and ultimately uplifting and beautiful story about the ways that food can play a role in how we see ourselves. And it's also a cooking game. That's just really, really cool. Like, I love the cooking element. of the game. And I just, I don't know, I have nothing but good things to say about Venba. If there were like a category for two-hour games, this would win everything, I think. It would always be Zelda and Baldur's Gate, you know? But like, it's hard to even think about it in those terms because it's like its own thing. So yeah, I really recommend it. It's called Venba. Sweet. I have that downloaded onto my one more thing. So I'll go next.

You will love it. Yeah, I'm ready to play it. I've seen a lot of great, reviews of it, and it looks lovely. It's just the screenshots. It's so colorful and just really doesn't look like anything else. It will make you want to cook immediately also. That's fine. I've been cooking a lot lately.

It will make you want to cook and we can talk about it on triple cook next year. So my one more thing is a new piece of hardware that I was sent by Valve called the Steam Deck OLED. And Jason Schreier, I gather you have one of these as well. I do. And I wanted to talk about it a little bit because it's pretty sweet. and it is a, man, it's a real reminder of, first of all, how great the Steam Deck is in general, and second of what a great job Valve is doing with this thing.

I think, I don't know, I played a lot of Steam Deck last year and played a little bit less this year, and part of the reason for that is that I got a new gaming monitor. I think it was my one more thing a little while back, and it's an OLED gaming monitor with HDR, with high dynamic range lighting, and it looks great, and as a result, I really wanted to play video games on that, and I didn't want to play quite as much on my steam deck. And now there's a steam deck that has a screen that is an OLED screen with HDR built in, which I've never seen in a handheld before.

Wild. Super wild. If you play something like, I don't know, Ori and the Will of the Whips on this thing, it's crazy looking. Like, I never got the Switch OLED. I just have my original Switch, which has an LCD screen. I always thought it looked fine. I've seen the Switch OLED, and it does look a lot better.

But because I didn't have one, ignorance was pretty. bliss. And now there's basically just a new steam deck model that is, I think Valve has even acknowledged this. Everything the Steam Deck should have been when it launched. It's just like the ultimate version of this first-gen machine. And then it sounds like they're probably not going to replace it for another couple of years. So I guess I wanted to talk about it both to again just express how impressed I am with OLED and HDR. Like what a big difference that makes, both on a computer monitor or on a handheld. HDR was not something that. that I thought was a very big deal up until I got that monitor that had it and saw just how

incredible things can look and how, I don't know, experience how much that makes me like a game more, just having that kind of beautiful thing in front of me. It almost feels like OLED and HDR are like what people thought 4K would be. Yeah, I think that's a really good point. I think both are so much more important than higher pixel density. Like, OLED, to explain to anybody who hasn't seen an OLED screen or doesn't exactly know what it is, really what it lets you do is go pure black. And it's not something I ever thought about with LCD screens until people started complaining about it.

But LCD screens have a backlight, so they just never get black. Like it gets dark. But then when it is black, you can actually see the outline of the screen. On a bad one, you can see white even kind of in the black. Where an OLED screen, like I think it's that each pixel on the screen can go like the full all the way down to black or any other colors. So the colors are more vivid. But also, when things are dark, it's just like, dark. So if you're playing a game like Alan Wake, for example, where it's really dark, it's just like black.

Like there isn't that kind of washed out gray thing. And it makes a surprising difference. And then HDR just has like a way brighter bright point and a much like a higher dynamic range of lighting. So you just get this feeling like your eyes are looking at the sun sometimes or like they're looking at a real thing instead of it as screen. So when you see them both together, it really is remarkable. I do want to say that I know a lot of people have already bought Steam desktop. and I'm sure there are people feeling pretty burned by it. I saw lots of comments from people who had like just bought a steam deck last week

or whenever they announced it, I guess a few weeks ago. And this announcement came out of nowhere. And they're like, dude, I just ordered one of these. And now they just announced. That's bad timing. For what it's worth, I wrote a story about it and tweeted about it and stuff. Despite, like, other than the people who got like bone by really bad timing, most people, I actually expected more anger about a mid-gen refresh.

Most people are actually pretty stoked about this thing. For what it's worth. Yeah. And I think I'm really speaking to someone who's hearing me say this, and they're thinking, dude, I bought it like a couple years ago. And that sounds awesome. And it is awesome. But the Steam Deck is still awesome. And I think it's actually really cool that Valve didn't upgrade the hardware.

I know they, it's a little, like there's a higher refresh rate on the screen. So there's like a slightly better response time. Better battery also. Yes. The battery is significantly better. I just went on a trip and played it. And it's a little lighter actually. It feels a little better to hold.

So there's like, there are things that are better about. it, but it doesn't perform better. And it's basically the same experience. And I actually really like the Steam Deck as a streaming device to stream from my PC or from my PS5. It's pretty much the same there. I mean, you can stream an HDR from PC, but it's basically the same. So if you have an original Steam Deck, I think, I don't know.

I mean, it's up to you, whatever, you know, make your own decisions. But it's not like this is actually, you know, whatever, a faster chip that really is just kind of better, but not like a huge generational leap, just a little bit better. I think that would make it harder to make the decision to just stick with the original one. But if you haven't bought one yet, I mean, damn, if nothing else, this is a, it really is a reminder that Valve seems committed to this device. And they really want to kind of keep it going and become a company that makes the steam deck, which is just kind of cool. Yeah, they are. I spoke to Lawrence Yang, who's like one of the designers, one of the lead designers on this thing for my blubber piece about it.

And he told me that they do have a Steam Deck 2 in the works. They're like currently figuring it out. It's going to be like a big next-gen upgrade. I don't think the tech is quite there yet. But that's not for two to three years from now. So like now if you're going to upgrade, you're not going to get burned for another couple of years. The C-set is the definitive first-gen thing.

And yes, the success of the first one, he told me, they wouldn't say how many units they sold, but multiple millions, he told me. So the success of that is pretty much driven them to be like, okay, this is a real thing. And one thing I'll say real quick is that, like, if you are not sure if you're on the fence about a steam deck, I think what's really cool about it isn't just the portability,

and I've been playing Diablo 4 on this thing in bed while watching TV. It's amazing. It looks incredible on the OLED screen. What's really cool about this, I think, is that it really makes buying a PC approachable in a way that it hadn't been before. There are a lot of people out there who are intimidated for whatever reason, about the expense involved in a PC, the time involved in building one,

all that other stuff. Or maybe they want a laptop that can play games, but they don't know what to get. This is also simplifying that. Like it's a less expensive option. Yeah, well, it's portable. So yeah, and it's a less expensive option for sure. And it's just kind of, it's a little bit finicky,

but it's gotten way better over time. And it's actually pretty simple to just like get games running on the thing. And on top of that, you kind of, the expenses even, out as opposed to a console because so many games on Steam are on sale all the time. And there's so many different options that you can wind up saving money in the long run if you go with this as opposed to a PS5 or whatever. So I think it's a really good buy.

That's very true, especially the games that play really well on the Steam deck are older and they tend to go on sale for peanuts on Steam. And it is, it's such a funny realization almost of Steam machines that ill-fated Valve initiative so long ago, like 10 years ago or more. Right. And I feel like we couldn't have gotten here, if not for that. I still remember being at Valve in like 2012, and they were showing off the big, Steam big picture mode for the first time. Yeah, and the weird controllers, do you remember those without the joystick? Oh, yeah. Well, that's how those were kind of the prototypes for what the Steam deck uses. There's a lot of kind of, it's been a journey to get to this point. But the thing about steam machines is that they didn't even make steam machines. They like put a branding on other. people's hardware. This is them making hardware. So they're like all in on this thing. And that's why it's so impressive. It's because Valve like straight up designed the thing and is manufacturing

this thing. Yeah. And this, I mean, the steam deck itself is just a self-contained device in a way that a steam machine never could be because it just wasn't. It was just a PC. You had to plug it into a TV. There was not enough to distinguish it from a PC where playing a steam deck, that is its own thing. There's nothing else like it. I mean, I know there are imitators and there other brands that make portable PCs as well. But it really does stand alone. And that, I think, helps them just be out front, along with the fact that it seamlessly integrates with Steam.

And I do think that's worth saying that the software experience has gotten so much better over the last couple of years. They've really improved the software. They've made it so easy to use. And people making games have increasingly been optimizing their games for a Steam Deck. There's a Steam Deck settings on a lot of these games. Even Diablo 4. I played that using that workaround way through BattleNine when at first.

came out. And it didn't play that well. Yeah, that's the last time I tried it. Yeah, it wasn't that good. But it probably is great now. Well, now it's on Steam. Now you can just install the Steam version. Although you do, it's annoying. You have to buy it on Steam, even if you want it on Battle Night. So that's a pain. Well, you can still do the workaround installation. That's true. But I'm guessing if you want the Steam version. Yeah. Yeah, you do have to get it on Steam. Anyways, yeah, what a, what a device, an even better version of something that I already loved. So it's just really cool. And it's got me playing a into steam deck again. All right, Jason, bring us home with your one more thing. Yeah, so I've been secretly watching billions. What? No, over the past couple of months, I've been re-watching

billions because I wanted to kind of see how it ends. The last season just came out. And so I finished season six, which is the one without Bobby, and I just got into season seven. So you're ahead of me. Yeah, I just started, I just started, like a couple episodes into season seven. And I've got to say, it is awful. Oh, what? Oh, no. Season six especially. Yeah, I had no idea where this is really good.

Man, I'm just kind of like watching just because I want to see where they go with this thing. That's too bad. This show just fell off a cliff. Like the characters. I mean, I think that happened a couple seasons before. Let's say, Jason, I don't know what you thought of season six. Do you want to back up and just kind of talk about it? Well, that's what I'm talking about.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm only a couple of episodes into season seven. and all this season seven throws everything out in another way. So, okay. So here's the main premise here is that this is a show about this guy, Chuck, Paul Giamatti, Chuck Rhodes, and Bobby Axelrod, Damien Lewis, and their kind of ongoing rivalry in cat and mouse game and back and forth. And Chuck is a prosecutor.

And Bobby is a billionaire. And Chuck is trying to get Bobby. And then Bobby's trying to get Chuck and blah, blah, blah, blah. At the end of season five, Chuck manages to get Bobby into doing, to do something. being illegal, and Bobby flees the country, and then suddenly he is no longer on the show for season six, and enter this new guy, Mike Prince, by McCorrie Stall, who is another billionaire, who just becomes the new target of Chuck's maneuvering and scheming and going after. And throughout all of season six, Mike Prince proves to be a pretty piss-poor replacement for Bobby

in a lot of different ways. He's like this noble billionaire who wants to do all these great things, like provide a universal basic income for people in New York and bring the Olympics to New York. And Chuck just has this kind of never-ending obsession that just doesn't make sense with bringing him down. Suddenly everything is just kind of falling apart. The writing gets really bad. Billions was always a show that was full of kind of pop culture references, but they've really taken it to the extreme. Just every other sentence is some reference to something or another. Some of them are just so out there that they don't, even make sense in context. The scheming has just gotten boring.

The characters are just going in totally circles. Terrible directions. Taylor, who is this great non-binary character who was a traitor who had like a sense of morals. It has like no arc in season six, just like walks in a circle 12 times. That's how I remember it.

Well, no. They throw out their morals and become this kind of like just psychopath in a way that just doesn't make any sense for their character development over the last few years. And then in season 7, Mike Prince goes from like noble billionaire to suddenly on a dime. He becomes a

fascist who's running for president and is supposed to be Donald Trump and the characters are all now trying to take him down. None of it makes sense. I'm going to watch till the end just because I'm pot committed at this point. But like it's really bad. If you're going to ever watch this show, stop at season like three or four.

Stop after Bobby leaves. Or whenever Bobby leaves. Even before that, that's where I stopped. Five, five, isn't that great. Four, the end of four is really the culmination. I didn't mind five. I'll go on record and say, I didn't mind it, and I think people can watch all the way until Bobby leaves.

And then maybe after that, the show is just over. And that's okay. Bobby comes back in season seven. That's the other part of this. The show lost me when Taylor left and then returned. Yep. It was upon Taylor's return that they seemed to not know what they were doing. Because Taylor leaving Axecap and going to go and going.

off on their own and forming their own company. Which was such a fun plot line. Being an interesting third party spoiler who's playing both sides and working with Chuck and working with Bobby. That was a really cool setup. And Taylor's such a great character that it was fun to watch that play out. And then the whole thing just collapsed. And Taylor was suddenly back at Axecap.

And then it just got so stupid. And I was like, oh, we've totally gone backwards and the writers don't know what they're doing. That for me was the moment where I was like, I'm out. I don't need to watch anymore. I've watched enough for the joke. a therapy session where we say, this is what ruined billions for me. I think for me, it was like when Wendy and Bobby suddenly had sexual tension and we were supposed to believe that that was like a love triangle the entire time. That moment, there's like a moment when she and Bobby are like naked

together in a hot tub and I was like, I don't know what's going on anymore. Jason, do you remember what I'm talking about? Yeah, that's season five. And then season five ends with like, they're about to kiss. They're about to have a relationship and then Bobby leaves. And then and then she's like, no, I can't. I'm with Chuck or something. I don't know. That's my imitation. Well, and that was an interesting relationship. Exactly. I think the three of them. Like, it started out interesting because it wasn't romantic, you know? And like, then it was as though they kind of didn't know what to do. It was intimate, but not romantic. I think

her relationship with Bobby was always super interesting during the seasons that I watched because they had this really unguarded, intimate relationship while she was married to his mortal enemy who was trying to destroy him. And I think that just made for a lot of really. fun stuff. But crossing that line, that does seem like a shark jump. Yeah, it was not good. That seems like a Rubicon. You just can't cross. Wendy and Bobby can never sleep together or even really have sexual or even talk to each other or sort of intimate that they want to. Like the fact that that even occurred, I was like, I should have just stopped watching that. They ran out of ideas on that show. That's too bad to hear Jason. Oh, well, R-I-Dibillions. It was a great show.

Yeah, it was fun for a little while. All right. Well, that is our episode. We did it. We made another one. We crossed the finish line. Yay. I mean, the thing about season 7 of billions is that they shouldn't have added that multiverse because suddenly all the stakes were gone. It's true. That really undid everything. They should have started with the multiverse or never added one at all.

Well, in this universe and many others, that is the end of this episode of Triple Click. Thank you all so much for listening in all of the universes in which you're listening. And I'll see the two of you next week. 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 maximumfun.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpods. send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artists-owned shows.

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