Triple Click - Gaming's Biggest Night

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

Put on your gAMER hats and get ready for Gaming's Biggest Night, presented by Video Games. This week marks the 2022 Game Awards, which means it's time for a barrage of advertisements and trailers. Kirk, Jason, and Maddy talk about what to expect this week, what they're hoping to see, and the absurdity of some of this year's nominations.One More Thing: Kirk: The 67th Academy Awards (1995)Maddy: The Steam Room call-in show with Ben Mora and HesseJason: TwitterLinks: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

Get out the power vacuum for the mountain dew stains and cheetah dust on the red carpet because it's time for gaming's biggest night. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we talk about the game awards. Which deserves Game of the Year, Eldon Ring or the case of the Golden Idol? An impossible decision since one of those games wasn't nominated. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Shire. And I'm Kirk Hamilton and hello.

Hello. Hi. It's us. We're back in. Oh, my gosh. It's the end of the year. We're almost at the end of the year. That's crazy. Thank goodness. It's almost time for gaming's biggest night.

And I know I can't wait. Can't wait to see those looks on the red carpet. We don't get to wait for gaming's biggest night. You know, I do enjoy it every year, even somewhat ironically. But you know what else I really enjoy is the television show and or. I really liked it. I really enjoyed that show. If only there was a place where people could listen to us,

talk about the television show. That's true. That's right. That's right. That's right. For example, a place where we could just fully spill the beans about every single thing that happened in it, really get into it, really dissect it.

You know, I think we should record some type of bonus episode for it for the month of December. And you know why I think that is because we've been doing that every single month since we started this show on Max Fun, the Max Fun Network, and if you, the listener, were to go to Maximumfund.org slash join, you could become a member, and then you would have this huge backlog of every monthly bonus episode that we've ever recorded, which is like a lot of episodes. Like we did a God of War Ragnarok episode last month,

but this upcoming month, we're doing one on the television show Andor about Cassie and Andor from Star Wars. Good old Cassie and Andor. Really, we're going to just talk about Nemek for the entire time. But Cassian's cool, too. We're not going to talk about Dr. Forehands, Quadpa, whatever his name is. We could talk about Quadpa too. I just want to read all of the available excerpts from Nimick's Manifesto.

That's what we will be doing on this bonus episode. It's going to be great. But they have a fight on their hands, don't they? Our elemental rights are such a simple thing to hold. They will have to shake the galaxy awfully hard to loosen our grip. Love that kid. Anyway, we're going to talk about Andor. So Maximumfund.com.

dot org slash join become a member support our wonderful show which doesn't have any ads and listen to us spill the beans about various things that we like we also just did a big god of war spoiler cast which is really fun yes and you can listen to that right now if you become a member or if you already are a member instantly immediately as soon as you become a member you can you can immediately get access to all those episodes they're right there they're waiting for you it is behind the gossamer curtain press the subscribe button and then all three of us just comes out of whatever speakers or headphones you're listening on. We all mispronounce Yormingander at the same time. Yeah, we all did.

Yormenggemister. And then I just insistently say the world serpent as though that's going to help you guys. Yeah, that was a great app. Anyway, we're in this episode right now, this one. And we're going to talk about gaming's biggest night. We are. I was just looking, do they really call it? Do they really call it gaming's biggest night?

No, I call it that. I mean, if by they, you mean Maddie Myers? Yeah, then yes. I do, and I'm trying to get it started. Maddie is. I really thought that was like their slogan or whatever. Jason, it is the slogan of the Oscars, movies biggest name. Right, right, right, right.

That's the joke. But thanks for asking me to explain it. So on that, on this topic, what do you think was gaming's biggest night of the year 2022. Probably when Eldon Ring came out. The night Eldon Ring came out. That was about to say the night the night Elden Ring came out. That was going to be my guess too.

That's probably the easiest answer, right? Yeah. That was a pretty cool night. I guess I bet Twitch could probably tell you that. You could go by viewer statistics or something like that maybe to try to answer that question. Well, you could go by our podcast statistics and based on that. That's all things Eldon Ring.

That's pretty undeniable that Eldon Ring is the night that came out. Speaking of Eldon Ring. Yeah. Let's finally talk about Eldon Ring because we haven't gotten to it. Okay, so we are actually a little bit on meta info here. We're actually recording this a week early because I am heading off to Los Angeles

to go to the game awards, to gaming's biggest night next week. Jason is nominated for a content creator of the year. And who are you going to be wearing Jason? I'm going to be wearing the traditional video game journalist garb of jeans and a blazer. Yeah, jeans and a blazer, A button down and a blazer.

That's what I'll be wearing for most of the week. These are Levi Strauss. I feel like what I like about that look is it says I tried but not too hard. It says like I'm not a slubby. I'm not wearing a sweatshirt to this big game award event. I did my laundry. I'm not going out there in shorts and a hoodie, John Federman style, but I'm not going to wear a suit because like come on what kind of nerd.

Yeah, you're not some kind of shill. you're a cool casual gamer exactly so anyway so we're recording this early I'm going on television next week it's going to be fun looking forward to it can talk a little bit in a bit about the experience of being there

which is intense I'm actually been considering just like watching it from my hotel room which gives you the same effect you've never been in a theater with blaring advertisements for 90 minutes well the appeal of going is really just choosing afterwards at the

J.AW Marriott like I talked about this last year afterwards. But it was like you look to your left and it's Reggie Fisemae and then you like to your right and it's Phil Spencer and then all around you are just like people that are interesting that you can talk to and try to get some interesting gossip out of for future reporting at least if you're me.

In front of you, Sonic the Hedgehog. There's Luigi. Holy shit, it's Luigi. He's staring at me. He's giving me a dirty look. I got the biggest scoop from Safferoth. Last time I went, he was like Cloud Strikes. He was like, there's

This is a meteor. Don't tell anyone. Yes. This can all go on as long as you guys want, but the meteor will be striking as soon as the event is over. So if anything we say is a little bit out of date or like stuff has been announced, it's because we're recording this a week or at least. So like if suddenly there are big keely teases for things. Like if Luigi dies, then we didn't know about it at this time. If Luigi dies again.

It dies again the second time. Yeah. Both Mario and Luigi have died multiple times. Mario was killed by Sephiroth. Luigi was killed. I don't even remember what was it by By existential dread, I think he was scared to death Yeah, he was scared to death

Very strange, very strange experience Anyway, the Game Awards So from people who don't know The Game Awards are kind of this annual Video Game Award extravaganza And they're really, the reason that people care about them Is not because of the awards. They are half awards show and half like hype fest

For the coming years. That was a broad statement Some people care about the awards But yes, they are well known and well observed for the trailers. I would say they would get a fraction of their audience if it was only awards. Yes. But when you say no one watches for the awards, people only care.

I'm just pushing back on a patented Schreier overstatement. Okay, other than the parents of the people who were nominated for a war. Exactly. And that's quite a few parents. Because the awards are rushed through every year. They are just blasted through so that Jeff can get to those, those sweet, sweet trailers. Sweet, sweet, exclusive.

So it's basically like E3 in December. It's kind of like balancing out the year with a bunch of like, here's what's coming next. Hype reveals and announcements and stuff. And we can talk a little bit about that. So really the show is kind of like interspersed with, it's like a mix of that and then the actual awards. And then for some reason, because Jeff Keeley, the guy in charge, the video game industry's hype man who we've been talking about here, because he loves live music. sticks in like four band performances for no reason. And part of what makes it excruciating is just how long.

For no reason, for the reason that the performances are the best part of the whole show. Well, like, introduce Green Day and be like, I love Green Day. And that's why we're all getting. What about Green Day? Remember, like, the Cuphead singers? No, no, no, Kirk, that's not what I'm talking about. Kirk, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about random bands.

It's like he announced some. I'll look up exactly what he said was already coming up. Well, like Imagine Dragons. But, yes, imagine dragons. Sick, awesome. Love Imagine Dragons. Yes, or Green Day is randomly there. They play the song from Arcane. Yeah, well, I mean, Imagine Dragons had a reason to be there.

Green Day? That's going to be fun to watch Green Day. I don't know. I'd rather watch Green Day than another ad for another game that's coming out next year. Green Day is not there. This is not a thing. No. So Green Day is there is there is there? I think they were there last year. Who is Hozier? I think Green Day was there last year. Hozier is there. I don't know where Hozier is.

Now I'm working out. So I guess I will just, I will say then to just be clear that I want to support Jeff Keeley's overall love of music because I think that is also the thing that causes him to always have a large studio orchestra and a bunch of cool instruments and performances. And that, to me, that's the reason I tune in. Green Day was there in 2019, which says a lot about my perception of time that I thought that was quote unquote last year. My apologies.

But in a way 2019 was last year, if you really think about it. I think what you're, what you miss out by not being there, quote, quote, miss out is how excruciatingly long the whole thing is. And even at home, it can be just a slog to get there. And one of the reasons for that... Covering it from home, I'm not missing out on how long it is. I know exactly. I think it feels longer.

It feels longer when you have to sit there on like the commercials instead of being able to mute the commercials, because they're commercials for games in the middle of all the commercials for games. And instead of just being able to mute them, they're just like in your ears the whole time. I can get up, I can get a drink of water, go give you a whole time. Because she's going to bed and I'm staying up for something.

for more hours. Right. Nothing I'm saying is about the length of the show. I'm simply saying that when I am watching and a musical performance comes on, it tends to be one of the cooler things about the show. And hopefully there will be some cool ones this year as well. I agree. And hearing the orchestral versions of video game songs, still pretty freaking great. In any context in which that appears. I enjoy it. Yes. So there are kind of two reasons to tune in, I suppose. Three reasons if you count the music. But the main reasons that are able tune in are for the awards themselves to find out who won game of the year, which is kind of like, I guess considered among the industry, that's considered the game of the year award at this point. This is considered

the kind of like a big award show. Like winning best picture at the Academy Award, even though there are other Best Picture Awards that you could win. Except it's nothing like winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards at all because this institution is so completely different from the Academy. But I think in the industry that it is sort of agreed upon that if you win Game of the Year at the Game Awards, that is the closest thing to winning Game of the Year. In the same way that the Academy Awards are kind of the closest thing to winning Best Picture. That is true, but I also... It is the closest thing, and yet it is still so far from... Yes, it is still very different.

What the Oscars actually does as an institution. In one of the many ways that the Games industry is very, very different from the movie industry. That's all I'm trying to say, yeah. Yes. It's funny because even when you look at the Oscars, you're kind of like, whoa, how did that win best picture that? How did crash win best picture? The same way you might look at the game words to be like, whoa, it takes two one game

of the year last year? That's strange. But anyway, so there's that and then there's the new reveals. And we can kind of talk about both stuff. First, let's start by talking about what we want to see from the new reveals, what we expect to see, what we're hoping to see, what we have heard, the buzz we've heard, what has been teased. typically there's like a mix of updates for ongoing games like Among Us.

I think they're teasing that they're going to be there. And then like big new explosive reveals. Last year's Game Awards, they announced a Wonder Woman game that's 40 years away. And they announced Star Wars Eclipse from Quantic Dreams. So we'll probably see some others of those, like those sorts of teasers. And then we're going to see some updates on games that we already know exist. So, for example, Final Fantasy 16, they're going to be doing a whole showcase there. Probably will announce a release date for that game, which is exciting.

Diablo 4, the Blizzard has been teasing that they're going to be there and all sorts of other stuff. What do you guys, Maddie, I'll start with you. What do you want to see? What are you expecting to see? What are you hoping to see? I mean, I guess I have nothing I'm hoping to see because all I ever want in life is Metroid. news. That's all I ever want. What about Eldon Ring D.L.C.? Okay. You're right. That's true.

Leading question, Your Honor. This is a leading question. No, you're right. You're right. I was feeling sad for myself because I feel like as a Metroid fan, after Metroid dread, I'm like, I guess I'll just never get anything again. It's all over now. But you're right. It's not over. Eldon Ring DLC. It's, that's, I have something to live for. It's all going to be okay. Nice big chunk of Eldon Ring to jump. jump into. Maybe we'll find out. I have no rumors, Jason. I have no inside info. So here's just wild speculations. I'd love to find out more about the Assassin's Creed game that people keep

also similarly wildly speculating will be a return to form. And that means whatever the person saying that sentence wants it to mean, whichever part of the Assassin's Creed backlog they like the most, they believe that that is what the next Assassin's Creed will be. I'd love to see more information about that. Mirage, Assassin's Creed Mirage. Mirage, yeah. I think, I mean, I've heard about that game. It's a return to form in the sense that it's more

of a stealth game than an RPG, like newer games are. But can you push people around in a crowd or not? I'm sure you can. And are your dots on a map? I'm sure there are. It's all in one city like some of the older games, so that's, I think, part of that.

This is like a developer interview. Maddie, keep asking questions. Are there points of interest? Jason? What shape are the dots? Are they different colors? Is there a hidden blade? Do you level up? But you only level up like 1% of each kind of ability, so it doesn't really matter? Or is it like a real leveling? Are there dialogue options and branching dialogue? Kirk, what do you want to see from the game awards? If you can answer any of our questions, what do you expect to see from the game awards? I don't know. It'd be cool to see Eldon Ring. The trailer is all exhausts me even when they wind up being for games that I really like. I kind of tune them out at this point because they all operate at a sort of audiovisual frequency that I know. I know. increasingly deaf to. It's just that certain thing. I don't know. Looking at the game, hearing the game. What if it's all trombone champ DLC though, Kirk? Would that be exciting for you? If they have an ad for Trombone Champ DLC, I'll be very excited. I was thinking about that, Kirk, that sort of that point you just made because I wonder if game companies nowadays are like,

okay, so the benefit of being there is that you get exposed to millions and millions of people who are all watching this one thing at the same time. You trend on Twitter. You're like part of this big cultural moment. downside, and I think it's a pretty big downside, is you get lost among the crowd, and, like, the next week, is anyone going to remember that you announce your game at the Game Awards? Like, does anybody remember that there was a Wonder Woman game? Honestly, I didn't until you said it three minutes ago. No, nobody, right? So, so, yeah, I don't know. They're pros and cons to that approach. Yeah, I mean, this is all sort of, like, marketing punditry, which is just something I don't really understand. Like, I don't know who it benefits to be there more than it would benefit them to do something on their own. I'd love to see Silk Song. I mean, I just hope springs it. But a release date for Silk Song will happen at one of these things. Because at some point, it has to, right?

It has to eventually come out. So maybe this will be the night. Yeah, if it's not then, it's probably not this year, right? Like there's no other opportunities in December. They're not going to be like, hey, Christmas Day surprise. An Eldon Ring deal, see? Are you hoping for that? Oh, yeah.

I mean, that's the thing I'm most excited to play. And I will get hype when they show more Eldon Ring just because that's exciting. But seeing it the actual trailer isn't the thing I want, right? I want the game. I want the DLC. I want to be playing Elden Ring again. You want it to be available now. Yeah, I see that.

I mean, what's exciting about it is getting the date. And it's be like, okay, now I can mark this on my calendar. Now I can look ahead. Just getting to share the excitement with everybody on this board or whatever. Yeah, that's kind of fun. That'll be great. So, okay, so I think that there's going to be a good chance that in this period next year from like May through, I don't know, September or May through August or something that we're going to have the following things

Breath of the Wild 2, Final Fantasy 16, Diablo 4, and Baldur's Gate 3, which might actually kill me. I think that might actually just lead to my death if all of those games come out around the same time. Wow. I also think there's a good chance of Eldon Ring D.L.C. I think we're going to see the new Star Wars game, the Jedi Fall on Order sequel. rumor floating around the internet is that that is coming out in March

and is going to get a very quick announcement to release date, period. Which means that, yeah, next year is going to be full of a lot of cool stuff, and we're probably going to start to see some hints of that at the Game Awards. It feels like we might be heading into a period of, like, the post-COVID delay release slate where all the games that were delayed because of COVID are finally coming out, all the games that were delayed because of next-gen transitional issues are finally coming out. And maybe we'll start to see the fruition of that at the Game Awards.

And I don't know. I hear you guys not being into the hype or the marketing or whatever. But especially after a year like this, that felt pretty thin when it came to the big game releases. I would like to see some interesting stuff. I would like to have some stuff to write about. I would like some interesting stories to tell. With some of these games, I mean, I don't care as much about the games

as much as I do about the stories behind them. So I don't know. I'm into it. I'm looking forward to seeing what they have, despite the accostment of the senses, the costing of the senses. I don't know if I agree that this year didn't have that many games, though. They were just coming out at really odd times, which definitely made the year feel different.

Like, the fact that we had two huge... We didn't really talk about them, but there were two huge open world Pokemon games in one year, this past year. It's just that none of us is super into Pokemon, so we refuse to acknowledge those games. And we never will. And I mean, to have Eldon Ring and God of War Ragnarok and a Horizon sequel and Dying Light 2, which didn't really get any nominations, but like that's a bunch of huge big ticket open world games. I mean, those are things that we all enjoyed playing.

And I already know that Breath of Wild 2 is coming out next year. So that's already been something that I'm looking forward to. So it's not like I'm looking to the Game Awards this year to give me that release date. know it's coming. So it is kind of a weird spot where I'm like not entirely sure what the big reveal would be at the game awards. It's not like years past where we've been like, oh my God, Eldon Ring trailer. Are they going to finally tell us anything? This year I don't think there is something like that, at least for me, where I'm where I'm looking to Jeff Keeley to reveal something to me that I'm desperate to hear about. Yeah, I mean, there are a few things we could see.

Sony doesn't really have much announced for the next couple of years other than like Spider- in too, right? Yeah. Microsoft could always come out and be like, hey, here's this game that we announced five years and then disappeared for, which is like all of the games that they announced in like 2018. Nintendo can always just come out and show some inkle. They could show Metroid Prime 4 or something like that. And Maddie would have herself a night.

That would really surprise me. I mean, I guess that could happen. There are some, there's some like heavy hitters in the works behind the scenes. could, I don't think we'll see a new bioseach because I think that's still a ways away but that's in development could see Ken Levine's new game could come out of nowhere and blow us all away.

Sure. Sure. Could see, I don't know, GTA6. We're not going to see GTA 6. That perfect dark reboot that has disappeared and may never return again. Exactly. New Tomb Raider. I think that's going to be around at some

point. Anyway, enough of the speculation. Let's talk about the nominees because this after all, an award show. We can kind of go through some of the ones that stood out to us. We've all been kind of flipping through them. But first and foremost, let's talk about Game of the Year. So Game of the Year nominees are a Plague Tale Requiem, Eldon Ring, God of Or Ragnarok, Horizon Forbidden West, Stray, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3. What do you two make of this list of Game of the Year nominees?

These are so weird. I mean, I understand why Alden Ring is there. I also understand why Ragnarok is there. And then after that, I start being like, the game awards are very unusual. They're just an unusual show. And some of that is because of the diversity of publications who are asked to weigh in.

And some of it is because there's also fan voting. That's a piece of it. So you end up with very weird collections of games. Well, fans don't nominate. Right, that's correct. Only publications. So I think that speaks to the point I made earlier about this being kind of a thin year for AAA games. And I think kind of what I've gathered from like analyst conversations and all the numbers about like the sales.

Like sales have gone way down this year compared to previous years. There's some crazy set like down 10% or something year over year. And the general consensus is that there's been very few big games this year compared to other years. And I actually think this game of the year nominees list kind of reflects that because usually the game of the year at the Game Awards is like one of the big blockbuster single player action adventure games that we tend to get a lot of every single year, right? Which is why it takes two one last year. Well, and most years. Last year was a weird year. We all know that. But yeah, but that's why like seeing, yeah, Seldon Ring makes sense, God of War makes sense, horizon also makes sense. but the rest of them don't really make sense. I think we're kind of missing some games

that could potentially fill in there. And if you look at all the games that have been delayed out of this year, like Starfield or Breath of the Wild 2 or a lot of other things, those could have potentially been fits for that for this category. And so instead, we're getting kind of oddball choices

like Stray and Plague Tail and Xenoblade 3. Yeah, there's a sort of a like polish level, budget level to all of these games that just is a, has always been a weird distinction for me between this and the best indie category. Yeah. You have Stray and both, so that implies that there isn't a hard distinction between Best Indy and Game of the Year. But still, you look at this list, and it is all games with pretty beautiful visuals.

I mean, that's kind of the thing they all have in common. I know Stray was a smaller team, but it still looks like a AAA game. And then a Plague Tale Requiem, great game from what I've played of it, and I really like it. That's a really polished and beautiful looking game. And then there's nothing on here. I mean, there are other games that come to mind. Vampire Survivors, that got a nomination somewhere. But that's like definitely a game that's going to be in the conversation among people who play games as game of the year, things like Rogue Legacy 2.

Also, Wordle didn't really turn up here. And I think that could have been a really interesting entry. And I've been assuming that Wordle was going to turn up on a lot of lists at the end of the year, which I imagine it would. It's one of the most talked about games of the year, certainly. it's one of the games that I played the most, even though I stopped playing it a little while ago. I still play it sometimes. I don't think it's considered a game by the Game Awards standards.

Well, and that kind of gets into this odd categorization, like challenge that this award show runs into, where there are a lot of categories, like a whole lot of categories if you look at them, and then there are kind of unspoken rules about who gets nominated for which category, and those rules exist, but they're kind of fungible, and like I said, they're unspoken,

And there are so many different people nominating that it makes it even more vague. But the rules do exist. Like there is something similar across all of these Game of the Year nominees that it's a little intangible, but it's there. Yeah. And they are unspoken rules for what it's worth. Polygon does vote. And you two remember when Kataku voted. So you remember that it really is.

You can just submit the games that you want in each category. And nobody tells you what action slash adventure game. means. Jeff doesn't have a rubric that he sends out being like, okay, so here's what it needs to have to qualify as action slash adventure. And here's a different set of criteria that that is for the best RPG category. That would be really weird if he did that, but in some ways it might be useful because as it is, we are in a world where the best fighting game category includes Sifu, which is not a fighting game. It's a game with fighting. It is a game that has fighting in it. But it is not a fighting game.

And I have a suspicion, although I have no way to confirm this, but I believe that Si Fu is listed there because if you Google Fighting Games 2022, Seafood comes up. And I think that some editors somewhere, I don't know where not Polygon, I can promise that much, may have done that Google search and just filled in some games that they remember hearing Good Buzz about. And they may not have been aware that Seifu actually. actually is not a fighting game. I remember how much the one time we did this like 2014 or 2015, I remember how much we struggled to fill in some of the categories. So like only one person

would be able to vote on some of the categories. So it's kind of a haphazard process. I will say, I don't know. I always get a little bit miffed at some of the snubs every year. This year, specifically, I think the case of the Golden Idol, the only reason that it's not somewhere, and I'm going to do it's somewhere, best indie, best narrative, whatever, is because not enough people played it. And I always think that's a shame when just like a game goes under the radar a little too much. I think the timing didn't work out for what it's worth. Because I know the nominations for the game awards happen like a while before the voting level happens. Well, the game came out October. Oh yeah. Fair enough. When were the nominees, November?

I don't know. That's far off. Yeah, I think it's just, uh, uh, maybe not enough people had played it in time. Maybe there wasn't enough word of mouth. No, but I still think that. enough people have played it. It's just because like it looks, um, the art style as we talked about last year, is a little, last week is a little off-putting. And so, um, I think not a lot of people were even have given it a chance. And I think if they did, it would really, uh, really blow people away. So yeah, that's, that's a bit of a snub that I was a little, little irked by. It does seem like that best narrative or something. There's no best design category, which I think could open the door to a slightly different kind of a game getting recognized in a way that would

makes sense. And that's really, I mean, every time I look at these categories, that's always my first thought is that they've made their job very difficult because of the types of categories that they're picking, because they're not exactly, well, they are kind of genre categories. And genre is impossible. Like, if you write about things, music, games, whatever, on the internet, or talk about them, you quickly run into genre. It's just the first thing every time because there is no clear way to say, well, this is action adventure. It's not, you know, action. Or you know, this is jazz, it's not pop, it's the same thing in any art form. And that's why the stronger awards that are easier to talk about and consider tend to move, to not mess with

that. Like, at the Academy Awards, they're not doing best action movie, best comedy, you know, that kind of thing. And any time an award show does go into that realm, it feels really weird. Like the Emmys, don't they do that? Or the Golden Globes, maybe? They have like best comedy and and then best drama. And it's always a little like, well, but this comedy movie made me cry or this drama was funny. So what exactly? Like, it always feels weird because it's subjective.

Right. Yeah, because genre is bullshit. And in this case, Game of the Year is just Game of the Year. Where then Indy Game of Year, it's like, wait, what? And then Best Action Game, it's like, hang on, but weren't all the games of the year action games? So it's a way to recognize a lot of different games, but it moneys the water. And so many of the categories are doing that with a good goal to recognize more games

and to include more things. But it does kind of leave me feeling a little bit at sea when I'm actually trying to decide what I think deserve to be there, it didn't deserve to be there, or what should win. Yeah, well, it speaks to the problem that video games have, which is that there's so many different ways to be a video game from Overwatch 2 to Wordall that it's like it's almost bad terminology that we just refer to them all as games.

Like, it's just too all encompassing. Or you can go the other direction, where you're specifically recognizing, you know, you get more specific about it. That's why something like Best Design, that winds up being an interesting conversation, because you can argue about the design of Citizen Sleeper versus the design of God of War Ragnarok. They're different, but you're comparing a thing that feels like for like instead of just saying, you know, well, this one was indie and this one is big budget, so they're just in different categories or something. But that's only the case with some stuff, right?

Like you could also say best score, but not every game is it Wordle doesn't have a score. score or music. Wordle doesn't have a narrative or even, or I don't know if you want to talk about like best, I don't know,

best performance. I think that's, oh no, sorry, that's not, that's a, well, Wordle doesn't have actors in it. But yeah,

like, are any of these kind of category, well, so what's interesting about it, one of the reasons you can't really compare this to the Academy Awards

is because every single movie has a script. Every single movie has like an actor that can be nominated. Cinematography, whatever. Like you can kind of compare them all.

Whereas with games, you can't really. Like, it's very, very difficult to make, like, draw distinctions between, I don't know, multiverses and, like, God of War, Ragnor Rock, right? Yeah, I mean, it's all kind of subjective. I think they could have more fun with the categories. Best single button interaction. Like, there could be, and I'm serious, what a fun award that would be, right? That would be cool. That would, yes, 100%.

If we did triple-click awards, I think we would make you know. ones like that where like we should do that's just a lot more fun than than freaking action adventure whatever that means but because this is trying to be as mainstream as possible and also i mean i'm sure there's an element of like uh the award show organizers wanting to uh like bring in as many games as possible maintain relationships with as many companies as possible and make sure that they all have a chance to be nominated for some of this stuff so i'm sure that's a reason for all the categories as well. Mm-hmm.

It does get tricky with this next one, too. Best Game Direction, which every year I'm always like, well, I don't really know how good job the director did. For one. Like, the person with the title director doesn't necessarily have the same job at each studio, for one. Right. It doesn't mean anything.

It's a useless award. It's kind of like... We can kind of mean most coherent from start to finish. Yeah, that's kind of how I interpret it. is like the game that cohered and all of it felt like it contributed to that message or that theme. But there's such a huge difference between something like immortality, which is nominated here, and which has a very small team and which I think San Barlow, who works on that team, would feel fairly confident describing himself as the director of that game.

I think that's how he's described himself in interviews. Especially because that game is so much like a movie. Right. Right, as compared to Eldon Ring, God of War, Ragnarok, and Horizon Forbidden West, which are all such huge games. And I'm sure everyone would be like, well, Maddie, of course, Miyazaki directed Alden Ring. But you know what I'm saying. It's such a completely different conversation to consider a director's role in delegating to hundreds of people versus to three people or two people. I'm not saying it's easier or harder.

It's simply really different. Yeah, I think so I have a few categories that I want to throw into. to the ring that I think are interesting. I tend to think that these more specific categories, best score in music, best art direction. Those are pretty clear cut. I like those because you can just look at them and talk about them. There are a few, I think, are interesting for specific reasons. First, best performance. This is for two reasons. First of all, three performances that I really liked in games that I played, Christopher Judge in God of War, Ashley Birch in Horizon Forbidden West, and Manon Gage, who was the lead in Immortality, were all nominated, and they're all very different

performances. It's a tough one for me because Manon Gage is it's the type of performance you don't see in games very often. It's very edgy and risky in a way. Like she does nudity and sex scenes and death and murder and she's covered in blood and then there's so much stuff. Yes. She does a lot of different stuff. She's playing like different versions of the same character. And that's fun. And it's a live action performance. So we're really looking at this person. It kind of stands out. But like I said, when we were talking about God of War Ragnarck, I guess during the Beans cast. I think Christopher Judge was phenomenal in that game.

And like we said when talking about Horizon For Vind West, Ashley Birch again got to play multiple characters in the same game and did a great job. I mean, she was a real standout of that game. It's a fun, I don't know, it's a fun one to consider. I'm wondering what you think between those three, the two of you. I mean, I think Ashley Birch, if I had to vote on this personally,

I feel like it's Ashley. but I totally take your point about the other performances, and I feel like that's part of what's so cool about this category as compared to something shorter or something more specific, like a TV series. Like, games also don't always let you see every facet of an actor's performance, so you might even be biased by which scenes you happen to see with an actor, and that's pretty fascinating compared to awards shows

where everyone saw the exact same thing. But, yeah, at least with this category, it's something really coherent to vote on. And even if it's a hard decision, it makes sense. Yeah, I think that this one might benefit from maybe being expanded a little bit more. Maybe you get a best, especially as voice acting becomes more and more like professionalized, more and more like popular, more and more the quality goes up and up every year, might benefit from splitting the way that the Oscars do into leading male and leading female and

supporting maybe. I don't know. It would certainly be more interested in that. than some of these other categories. Like, best family and best sim strategy. But yes, that's a good run. I think Christopher Judge will win by a mile. Probably, yes.

Just because of the nature of the awards and who votes on them and stuff like that. And also recently bias, I think, plays in. I think, yeah, given that Ashley Birch is also in Mythic Quest, like it'd be cool to see her when she's been such an ambassador for games in a way that I could see her winning for that reason as well. But yeah, it'll probably be one of those too. but who knows. There's also, with best performance,

there is the fact that, you know, there's a performance quality to unvoiced characters and animation plays a role in performance and win Christopher Judge or Ashley Birch in particular since Minon Gage is playing herself on camera. When one of them wins best performance,

the animation team, the mocap team, there are a whole lot of people who play a role in that performance. I think that's very interesting. And you can kind of extrapolate it even farther to look at, I don't know, like a beloved character from maybe persona,

I guess they have voices in persona, some visual novel or something where people don't talk. Or how about Case of the Golden Idol? You know, one of our favorite characters from that game, any of the sort of recurring characters, you could say that is a performance. It's mostly just pantomime, it's freeze-framed faces drawn by their maniac art director, but it is a performance. And I think that's kind of an interesting wrinkle that games can add to the idea of this performance. I just think it's kind of cool.

Right. And I'm also thinking about how. Now, in Bayonetta 3, apparently they changed the dancer who ordinarily provides the dance moves. And that is not the same person who does the voice acting or any number of other things that contribute to Bayonetta's entire Uvra. And that was fascinating to me to just hear about that and have that be something that some people were complaining about. And we're like, the dance moves are a little different in this game. And I really noticed that they changed the dancer. And I don't like the moves.

It's just like, wow, that's something that you don't necessarily notice right away. But once it's pointed out, you're like, huh, yeah, it is a little bit different, isn't it? And all of that contributes to how you perceive this character. It's sort of like in Jennifer Beals and Flash Dance, right, where she had a dancing double and then the dancer didn't get credit. Yes, I do remember that. It's like the video game version of that, which is kind of cool. Another category I was thinking about that I just think is kind of cool because the entries are all very different, but they reflect cool aspects of video games is Best Narrative, because Immortality, Eldon Ring, and God of War Ragnarok are all nominated.

And this is another one where I think it's really, I like this category, because best narrative, you can look at immortality. We talked about this quite a bit last week when we were talking, we talked about two of the three of these games last week talking about mysteries. Immortality is this mystery where the story in your head that you're assembling is the mystery. And you can really not get the story by the end of it and totally miss the narrative because, because you didn't solve the mystery or you didn't see everything or kind of do the work or have it hit you in the right way, where Eldon Ring is kind of similar, where the narrative of that game, it lives in Vati video, YouTube videos, and it's this whole huge elaborate thing.

But it's amazing when you look at it and take it on those terms, which are uniquely video game. Where the narrative in God of Warragnair, I would say, and something that we returned too many times in our beans cast is a lot of amazing moments, but overall it doesn't quite coherent to something that we found that satisfying, even though it has all the trappings of an amazing AAA cinematic story with acting and the kind of traditional kind of cinematic storytelling. So I think it's actually really interesting that these games are pitted against one another. And just to see what the zeitgeist is among voters, what kind of stories they're more into. This is definitely a category where I'm sad to not see a case of the Golden Idol and a citizen

sleeper in there, though. It's cool to see an indie like immortality in there. I'm just, it doesn't make sense to me, especially given that Citizen Sleeper is in so many other categories, I'm not sure why it wasn't nominated here. This feels like its category. Yeah, Citizen Sleeper is nominated for Games for Impact. It's a game for Impact, Maddie. That's one of those meaningless categories. I think I said this last year, Games for Impact is just a real mealy-mouthed category.

It's a funny one. Yeah, it gets, I was a teenage exocolonist nomination, and I've heard something but good things about that game. And Citizen Sleeper deserves more awards, but that's a strange award. It just feels like ghettoizing games that are associated with marginalized people. I have nothing nice to say about this category. I'm sorry. I just, I would much rather see those games get nominated for awards that have titles that you can actually put on your resume and have somebody look at the award and be like, I understand what that is and how you're proud of this.

And Games for Impact just isn't that. And I feel like it does a disservice as a result of that. like put it in best narrative you know there's a rhetorical move happening even in the name of the award that i find objectionable that it is not even most impactful game it is games for impact it's so it just sounds like a second tier award right and it's like impacting this best that yeah it's the only one that isn't like of the year or like best yeah like what the hell it's it's it's it's it's it's something okay one more category that i think is interesting is best adaptation because they're all adaptations that i've watched and this was a great year for video game

adaptations. There was arcane. This is a new, this is a new category. This is a new one. Great idea. And kind of a good time for this to start happening because it's become the norm for it to actually be good video game adaptations, which did not use to be the case. Finally. Before it would be like the Assassin's Creed movie duking it out with, I don't know what else. The Tomb Raider movie with the third Tomb Raider movie. Well, what's funny is that the Encharted movie is on that same tier and that made it in here. That's the only one that shouldn't be in here and it won't win. I feel like this award exists to give Arcane. the award? No, it's arcane is going to

well, cyberpunk edge runners might be a close second based on the buzz. So I watched edge runners runners and I haven't finished it only because it's pretty grim, but it is good. It's very in line with cyberpunk. I've seen a lot of people make the point that it's kind of like the story that they wished cyberpunk 27 the game it had because it's a very similar story of someone who starts

with nothing and works their way up, becomes a cyber monster and it kind of intersects with a lot of the same stuff in the city and all of that. It's pretty cool. It's not bad, but I do think this is arcane's to lose, especially given that I kind of heard mixed things about the Cuphead show, and I don't like the Sonic movies that much, though I know a lot of people do. And I did watch Uncharted, and it was bad.

It was just a bad movie. But it's cool. I like the idea of that category, just because it, again, raises interesting questions about what does it mean for something to be a good adaptation? And in the case of Arcane and Edge Runners, they're both adaptations that move away from the game. Arcane, I don't play League of Legends.

I like actively kind of push myself away from League of Legends. I don't really like the aesthetic. I find it intimidating and I'm not into it. I loved that show. It was great. And I didn't know when I was watching it that a bunch of the characters in the show are actually League of Legends characters. I sort of was like, oh, I assume these are made up for the show, but they're not. There's a lot of League of Legends characters there.

So that's a cool approach. Edge Runners is very similar. It looks like the game in some ways and feels like it, but it's unique characters. where Cuphead is like kind of the actual characters of the game and you're getting to know them a little too well, I gather. And then Uncharted is the classic, let's just take Uncharted the game and make it into a movie so you're just watching weird, gooey, uncharted cuts, like cutscenes basically,

like not even set pieces. And it takes away the thing that makes it cool, so you're just watching kind of a charmless Indiana Jones ripoff. So it's cool to just look at different types of adaptations. I like this category a lot. Yeah. Okay, so two more quick things, and then we'll take a break. One is, first of all, if you want to feel really old, look through content creator of the year or best e-sports coach, both of which will make you be like, what?

This makes me feel kind of out of touch. Yeah, it makes you feel out of touch. Second of all, triple click isn't there. Come on. Yeah, where's triple click? Yeah, why aren't we under e-ports coach? We are the best e-sports coach. Three grumpy aging games journalists or ex-games journalists.

Second, just to end on a note of like the most hilarious, like, the one category that assures that this one category that assures that this one. will never be taken seriously as an award show. Most anticipated game, which is just the silliest thing. The fact that they have an award for the game that people want to play most. And that this award snubs Hollow Night Silk Song, because, come on, that's the most anticipated game. That's the one. Resident Evil 4, I already played that. That game already exists.

No, Silk Song, that should be. Maybe it's not on there because it'll be at the show. And so maybe it'll be ghost released at the show, so it can't be anticipated anymore. Maybe they'll show a trailer at the show, and then people will be so excited for it that the anticipation will grow to the point where it will become nominated and win that night because of the trailer. Jeff will pause the show and be like, you're all going to want to recast your votes in the most anticipated category. I'll allow all of you to boot up the website again, and then everyone will. Things have clearly changed in the wake of that trailer for Hall of Night Silkla. So this category started in 2020, as far as I can tell.

or at least it came back in 20. I don't know if they did it in the past. It came back in 2020. Jason, I looked into this. It has come back and forth. I think 2017 and 18, it was there again. And then in 2019, it went away. I also was transfixed by this and was like, when did most anticipated game get allowed?

Point being, I tweeted last year about how it was the funniest thing because all of the entries for 2020 most anticipated game were exactly the same as 2021 because all these games were just delayed because that's what happens in the beginning and then I tweeted this was last year December 4th 2021 looking forward to 2022's most anticipated game winner the sequel to the Zelda Breath of the Wild because it was that was on the 2020 list and the 2021 list and guess what it's also here the list for this includes final fantasy 16 Hogwarts legacy Resident Evil 4 remake starfield and the legend of Zelda tears of the kingdom, which is going to win,

undoubtedly. Going to win, as predicted, hilarious. Most anticipated game, congrats to the marketing teams. I would have more respect for that award if they just called it Best Marketing. But that, I think, is just, it kind of speaks to the nature of this show. Best marketing are like sequel to the

best game. That's really what that award is. SQL to a game that most people love. Starfield and the Harry Potter games are not sequels. And Eldon Ray. I know. I know. Alden Ring won it in the last two years. No, I'm just saying that Zelda, it's like partly marketing and partly that everyone is just excited for a sequel to Breath of the Wild. So of course it's very anticipated. Right. That's the thing. It's like how you win by like releasing the game of the year in 2017 and then announcing a sequel. That's how you win this award. Right. People are excited for sequels to great games because they're going to be good. All right. Let's take a break. I mean, we'll all be watching this thing tonight and I'm sure we'll talk about if there's anything exciting to talk about. I'm sure we'll talk about it in the coming weeks. In the meantime, let's take a break, and we'll be back for one more thing.

You probably already have a favorite animal. Maybe it's a powerful apex predator like the tiger or a cute and cuddly panda. And those are great. But have you considered something a little more unconventional? Could I perhaps interest you in the Greenland shark, which can live for nearly 400 years? Or maybe the jewel wasp who performs brain surgery on cockroaches to control their minds? On just the zoo of us, we review animals by. giving them ratings out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics.

Listen with friends and family of all ages to find your new favorite animal with just the zoo of us on maximum fun.org or wherever you get podcasts. Hello, I'm a stuffy dowager countess. Travis? I'm judging everybody's manners. Oh, no. Shwainers isn't judgy. It's about teaching you to be your best self and be a little more confident when you enter social situations that you don't understand. and maybe also teach you a little bit about history you didn't know

or give you interesting things to talk about at parties. Yeah, like The Secret Life of Emily Post. Or like why wrist watches are the way that they are. We can talk about table manners from the Victorian era. Sure, or what it's like to attend a Regency Ball. Yeah. You can find all that and more if you listen to Schmaners on maximum fun or wherever your podcasts come from, I guess.

Manner Schmaners. Get it? And we are back, Kirk. Maddie, let's do one more thing. Maddie, go first. Okay. So I have a recommendation for what I would describe as a podcast, but it's on a different app that is called Colin, like C-A-L-L-I-N.

Have you too heard of this? No. No. Is a website. Oh, I think she talked about it. Of this variety run. And almost all of them are really unpopular and like six people use the site. And so if you look at the top shows, this show I'm recommending will be there because this is an extremely unpopular website seemingly.

And this show is hilarious and it's extremely raunchy. So if you're listening with children, I'm going to, I'm going to try to describe what this show does without scandalizing your kids. So this show is called the Steam Room, which is a joke about how hot it is. And the co-hosts are Ben Mora and Hessa. Hessa does not reveal her last name anywhere, or at least I can't find it. And this is a gay man and a trans woman. And all they do pretty much is tell dick jokes for an hour every week. But it's a call-in show.

Can we nominate them for Best Content Creators? Honestly, I love them so much. They're so funny. Nice. Okay. So I'm going to recommend an episode, which is titled, how many inches is enough, which of course is about exactly

what you'd think it would be about. But it's a call-in show, and they have sort of like a rotating cast of characters who call in, and like, the more you listen, the more you're like, oh, I remember this person and this, that person. And it's, all of their fans are really, really funny. And they just have no issue at all

with just saying wildly offensive things against themselves as queer people. And that is weirdly refreshing to me in a time period when a lot of queer discourse is about how we're all, you know, about to have all of our civil rights stripped away. And there's just something really nice about listening to a show where people repeatedly make fun of the stereotypes about themselves, lean into the stereotypes, and also tell jokes about their dicks for like an hour every week. And it's really funny. I don't know. You really have to like raunchy humor to like it. But if that sounds appealing to you at all,

then I would recommend checking it out. It's called The Steam. room, you have to go to callin.com to find it. It's not on any podcast as one does. I don't know why not, but that is the place where you can download episodes to it. It's a delightful show. That's an underground recommendation. I haven't used it, but I want to check it out now. It's pretty good. Kirk, what is your one more thing? My one more thing winds up being kind of related to our main episode subject, and that is the 67th Academy Awards. Are you saying people should go out and watch the 60s Academy Awards? Yeah. How did you, well, watch it? Well, That's involved. There's a little bit more to this.

What year is that? What year is the 67th? That happened in 1995, so it's for films from 1994. And this was a year that I gave a shit about the Oscars for the first time. I was, I guess, 15 years old. And I just really cared and I was really into it. And so I remember it very well. My friend Sam and I were talking, I don't know, about movies and about that. And we decided that we were going to do a movie Club, which we've now been doing for a little while. And that's really my one more thing, is to talk about this and maybe give some listeners out there an idea for something fun they can do. So what we've been doing is watching every movie that was nominated for the 1995 Academy Awards,

which were a particularly interesting and varied bunch of films. They include, let me see, I've got our list here. So that was the year that Forrest Gump won best picture, and Pulp Fiction should have won best picture, which is how I felt at the time and still feel now. So it was a big year, but it was also the Shawshank Redemption. Quiz Show and Four Weddings and a Funeral give you some genre variants. Wow. Some good movies. Yeah, those are the best picture nominations.

Or I don't know if quiz show is best picture, actually. But then you get some much more interesting stuff. This was a cool era for film. Because like in Supporting Actress, you get bullets over Broadway, Tom and Viv. We watch The Madness of King George, which is a movie I never would have watched.

But it's really fun to just watch a movie from 1994. They tend to be made with a lot of, you know, cool cinematic techniques. as much of a cinematic monoculture. This is something that has been widely discussed by a lot of people these days about modern films versus films of the 90s. But you get a lot of cool stuff. We recently watched Priscilla Queen of the Desert, which I had never seen is like, you know, a very well-known film in the queer canon, not a movie I'd ever seen. It features Hugo Weeming and Guy Pears, younger Hugo Weaving. He's really great in it. Guy Pearce is really great

in it too. Anyways, we just watched that. So not to get sidetracked on any of those films. It's a very fun thing to do. For really, you could probably do it for any year for the Academy Awards. I know there are people who do this for every Academy Awards. So are you watching every movie that was nominated in every category? Yes. And we've kind of arranged them in order of presentation, which works out pretty well. And then we spread the best picture films out throughout.

I believe we put them in the order that they were, you know, sort of announced. You know how they all give awards and then they announce the best picture nominees? I believe that's how we did it. And it's kind of worked out. I assume Revenge of the Nerds for Nerds in Love was nominated for quite a few. It was, and I should say there are a couple of categories that we skipped. I think we didn't do, and there are a few that we didn't do, like, best documentary, I don't think we're going to do. You could do that.

We just kind of, it's already going to take us a long time because we do it kind of once a month and watch two movies. But it's just, there's a lot of stuff, the client, little women, true lies, hoop dreams, speed. We watch Maverick, that's a terrible movie. I used to think it was kind of a fun movie, but no, it's very bad. I thought it was so cool in high school and also rewatched it and was like, oh, no. It's barely a movie. It doesn't even, it's so bad. Barely a plot.

We watched the mask, which I haven't seen in forever. Oh, the mask. I watched the mask recently because of God of War. I guess because of God of War. So anyways, I wanted to suggest this. And really, I mean, anyone out there could do this, could watch this year of movies. And I'll probably be talking about them in the triple click this. court or something. So, you know, you could kind of watch

along. It's not a bad thing to do. It was a pretty cool year for movies. So that's my one more thing. Oh, the Pagemaster came out in 94. I remember playing. I think there was a video game based on that game based on that movie. I don't know. Nice. Okay, my one more thing is really depressing. My one more thing is Twitter. As you guys might have heard. And we haven't really talked about on the show. Um, no, thank God. Some rich guy bought Twitter. Who? What? Kirk I know you have cut, you have cut Twitter out of your life. Maddie, you have a complicated relationship with Twitter. Yeah, I'm on and off the wagon.

I read a lot of articles about Twitter and Elon Musk these days. Well, there's a lot of interesting drama. So Twitter has been an important part of my life for a long time. It's been an important part of my personal and professional life. I would not have met many good friends without Twitter, including Kirk Hamilton. I would not have had a lot of the professional success I have had without Twitter. And so it's unfortunate how much it's deteriorating and how quickly. As right now, the site is still online.

It has not had its big mega crash. Though in the next week. I mean, what I suspected would happen is what's happening, which is that it's just slowly getting more and more unpleasant. And part of that is in terms of the content, because so many people are just talking about Twitter and the drama surrounding it and the guy who owns it now, which is just always unpleasant to see. And anytime his tweets pop up, it's always just a very unpleasant experience.

But also, just like a lot of little things. Like, suddenly things aren't working the way they're supposed to. Like, suddenly there's some little quirks that you notice if you're, like, a big Twitter user. You see a lot more bots and spam. My mentions are, like, full of more and more crypto spam than they've ever been. And it just feels like it's going to turn into, like, I don't know, like reading a geo-media website on your phone, like trying to read Katako on your phone. where it's just like so unpleasant, then everybody just stops, and that makes me sad because

there isn't really a place like it in a few ways. First of all, there isn't a place like it. If you're a reporter and you want to get your work out there, you want to get info on your books or break news or whatever else, like it's really the number one place and there isn't really another replacement out there. And despite the rise of like other social media websites that are popping up, none of them have really been a viable replacement just yet. But also it's just like I have a lot of relationships on there that, again, I know you guys both have complicated relationships with the place, but like I keep in touch with a lot of people I met on Twitter. I'm like when I go to LA next week, I'm meeting up with some people who I met through Twitter. So I just find it very valuable.

And it's always a shame to see just some rich jerk just buy a thing and just ruin it for a lot of people. And it's too bad because I feel like if you polled most of America, They would probably say, no, one person should not be able to buy a company for 40, whatever, billion dollars and just take it off the public, take it off the NASDAQ, take it off the stock market, and just own it himself. But we allow that to happen because I guess everyone, inertia is a powerful force. Anyway, it's really a bummer, and I'm really depressed about, like, how it's going to look in the coming months and years. And yeah, I don't know what to do about it. I'm just sad. I'm just sad.

Yeah. Thank God we own this podcast and we'll never sell it to some rich asshole. No way. No way. No, it's true. Yeah, I don't know. I like hold on to all the relationships that I got from Twitter. Those are real and those still exist and Twitter dying won't make those not exist. And there could well be something that replaces it that's better. Like the platform does have problems and the way that Elon Musk is just unavoidable,

both on the platform and in life really reminds me of Trump. and the fact that Twitter, through its design, appears to most reward terrible dudes who just seem able to just command everyone's attention all the time, makes me think maybe we could do better. There could be a better platform. And that wouldn't erase all of the benefits that came from Twitter, which I had as well. I met so many great people, including Jason Schreier, through Twitter. And I guess Maddie, probably too. I mean, I think we probably were tweeting at each other before anything else. So, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of good things came of Twitter and a lot of bad things. but I'm a little more hopeful that something better could replace it. It probably won't tomorrow. Yeah. It's probably not going to be Mastodon or whatever. These current things are out there. No, it definitely won't that. Things change.

Things move in cycles. If he ruins, Musk ruins the site, something else will come up because that type, like a platform where everyone can communicate in that way, especially if it were better designed and not made to reward so much anger and that kind of engagement could be really cool. And someone's going to figure it out. It just seems like there's a market for it.

So someone will figure it out. I hope, I hope anyways. I appreciate your optimism. Yeah, I agree with Kirk for what it's worth. I know that there's been a lot of doom and gloom and especially writers I know are like, oh, all these other platforms like TikTok, they're all based on your face. I don't want to have to make videos of myself just to share my content or take pictures of myself like on Instagram. And I understand that. I love that Twitter is mostly text base. Like that is really what makes it different. Also a great thing about podcasts. Yes. Yes. Is that they're text base. You're right. And I love writing down every single thing I say on here and memorizing those lines and then saying them every week. It's a lot of work, but it pays off. But I think that, I think that that will remain. I think there is something to be said for just reading some words. And people were worried about that. I don't know, every year for my entire life.

Well, yeah, I mean, blogs have always been a thing. People would stop liking to read and they keep reading. A lot of people, a lot of writers have moved back to substack. I'm going to be using my substack a little bit more. more often. I loved your, you sent out a substack newsletter,

Jason, there was just a link to your work. Let's get back into blog roles. Yeah, I might do that. Let's do blogging. I may do that a little bit more often.

But the problem is that you talk to anyone who's successful on substack and they're like, yeah, half of my subs, half of my new subscribers come from Twitter every week. Yeah, I know. So what does that,

what does that say? I think other social networks will emerge. I don't know if they're here yet, but I think it will happen. All right. All right, well, on that optimistic note, I suppose, let's call it. Everybody enjoy the Game Awards tonight, or if you're listening to this post-game awards, hope you enjoyed the show.

And we will see you all next week. 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 Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at Triple ClickPod. 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.

Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Audience. Audience supported. Hey, Siri? Turn on recording. Hey, Siri. Why can't Siri close the door? Turn on recording.

That's a real question. Siri, close the door. Siri. If Siri got arms, that would be a problem. Siri developed some sort of physical. This is funny because Kirk isn't able to get Siri to do what he wants. He never will. She won't listen to me.

He's shaking his head. Siri put down the knife. Siri. Kirk, are you okay? Switch my headphones. Just amateur hour over here. We already synced and I'm doing all this setup shit. Okay, cool.

I am ready. Let's do it.