Triple Click - Is It A Good Idea To Buy Video Game Stocks?

Episode Date: March 24, 2022

Kirk, Jason, and Maddy open up the mailbag and answer some of YOUR questions about why they stopped playing Destiny, what games they use to relax, and whether it's a good idea to buy the stocks of video game companies. As always, these are real questions from our listeners. You can reach us with your own questions at [e-mail] More Thing: Kirk: Elden RingMaddy: Kimi (2022)Jason: Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy OriginLinks:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy a Triple Click t-shirt: https://topatoco.com/collections/maximum-fun/products/maxf-tc-tclogo-shJoin 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

Long time listeners, first-time emailers, the lines are open. By which I mean the internet tubes. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we open up the listener mailbag to answer questions about whether we'll ever go back to Destiny 2, our favorite games for taming frustration, and financial advice? Yeah, sure. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Schreier.

And I'm Kirk Hamilton. Hi. Hello. Hello. Once again. Yes. Yes. Yes.

For another week. Herk's wearing a cozy sweater. I am. Jason and I are enjoying extremely hot weather and can't even imagine wearing a cozy sweater. No. Welcome to Weathercast. Welcome back to Weathercast. Kind of sweater weather here, but it's warmer.

Triple weather. Triple weather. Now you know. Now you know the full update on what the weather's like. And it's definitely not Christmas weather. But despite that, I'm feeling very Christmassy because we're recorded a bonus episode about Diehard, the three of us did. And why would we do such a thing? Why would we record a bonus episode that isn't available to the public? Why would we do that?

Such a weird thing for us to do. I don't know. Maddie, could you tell us? I would say it's because we just like to give a little special present every month to all the people who are maximum fun members. And if you wanted to become one of those people and support our show, you could go to maximum fun.org slash join. And then you could join and you could listen to the diehard episode fairly soon. Kirk, let the listeners know when they might expect the diehard episode. That's going to be in the feed. This coming week, so I suppose it will already be in the feed. Great. Listening to this episode because we're recording a little early this week. So it's already here. You don't have to let the listeners know anything. They can just swipe up on their

phone and there it is. Yippie Kaye. Merry Christmas. Ho, ho, ho. we have a machine gun. But it's virtual because we're gamers. Right. That's how that is. So yeah, maximum fun.org slash join.

If you want to become a member, you'll get all the archives. You'll get that brand new episode. And so much more. All right. Let's get to it. Shall we? We are answering some burning questions this week.

Yes. They're on fire. They're hot. They're sizzling. Right out of the oven. Before we start, I just want to say, first of all, anyone who wants to send in a question or any other listener mail you can reach us at triple click at maximum fun.org.

I just spent a bunch of time going through all of our mail and we get some smart emails from listeners. I just want to say some smart listeners out there. And the only thing that I'm sad about is that I just don't have the time or bandwidth to respond to every single one. But just know, anyone who sends an email into us, I read them. You guys sometimes read them. But I read every single email we get. Even if we do not respond, we are still appreciating and reading all of your mail. So feel free to mail us anytime.

That said, I've picked out some great questions for this week. I'm very excited about some of these and I want to get right into. Yeah, these are good. Shall we? Let's open up the mailbag and answer some burning questions. I'm going to read this first one and we'll go in order after that. This is Tom. Tom says, hey, Maddie Kirk and Jason.

On this, the day of Bungie's acquisition by Sony, obviously he sent this a couple months ago. I wanted to ask why you all, many more recently, Kirk and Jason a couple years ago, stopped playing Destiny 2. It certainly has its content droughts, but it has been in a pretty good place since Fersaken, where there are just too many other good games to try out. Did you get sick of running the same strikes, nightfalls, and raids? So, Kirk Maddie, I want to talk about this. We should also say that the witch queen, which is the new expansion, just came out and none of us have played it. But I keep hearing it's good. the siren call of the witch queen is in the distance for me.

We are totally not in touch with Destiny 2 these days. But yeah, let's go around and say why we stopped. Maddie, you want to start? Sure. I mean, people might remember because I talked about it on this very show. Although I think I played most recently a few months ago, I got back together with some of my old Destiny 2 buddies, and we all reinstalled.

And we were all like, we're going to get ready for Witch Queen. And we played that one night and then we never did it again. So here's why that happened. I think in my case, the answer is Dark Souls. And that's also the answer for pretty much everyone else in that group of friends. We all started playing Dark Souls and streaming it to each other on Discord, which I've talked about a lot on this show. And now we're all playing Eldon Ring. And we're also even doing that multiplayer.

We're hopping into each other's worlds and helping each other out and just enjoying giving each other armor and items and things the other people of other classes need that we don't need. But it doesn't mean I didn't love my time with Destiny 2 when I was playing it. I really did. It's just once you fall off the wagon, it's really hard to get back on. It's a huge time commitment. It is the thing around which your social life revolves. And it's also like a group time commitment, at least in my case, since I was mostly playing at multiplayer.

Everybody in my social circle has to all agree. We all have to make a pact that we're going to get back into Destiny 2. and if we don't all do it, it doesn't work. So that's my answer. Kirk, what about you? Yeah, I mean, it's similar. It's pretty, you know, there's a lot of facets to my current relationship with Destiny 2, which I suppose is not a relationship at all because I haven't played the game in a really long time.

Yeah, it's partly what you're talking about, Maddie. It's that all of the people I used to play Destiny 2 with don't play Destiny 2 anymore, and that makes me not really care about playing it as much either, like a big part of the reason that I played so many hundreds of hours of that game. Back when I was playing it was the social, not social pressure, but just the social joy, really, of the game. I would say that was consistently the thing that even when I was feeling, you know, like I wasn't really getting a lot out of the game,

that was consistently the thing that I could look and be like, but this is still fun. I mean, I'm still hanging out with my destiny crew and talking to people and keeping up with them and especially, you know, I don't know, in our online world, this is even pre-pandemic. It was just nice to be able to keep up with people. And now that's not a thing. And, yeah, I mean, a lot of the same people are playing Eldon Ring right now.

That's actually been really nice because usually we're playing all kinds of different things. A lot of people I play Destiny with now, they play Minecraft, they play Sea of Thieves, they play Fortnite. They play a bunch of games that I don't actually play. And I thought about playing all of those games just because it'd be fun to play with them. Now, yeah, I keep hearing about the Witch Queen. And I think maybe my reaction... You should disclose here that you suggested to us just the other day that we should all play the witch queen. Well, yeah, I should disclose.

This is a big disclosure. I'm about to explain. Full disclosure. We should disclose that Kirk personally knows the witch queen, their friends, and he's been talking a lot about how cool she is. Yeah, I'm getting to that. So I've heard a lot about the witch queen. I did mention to the two of you that I've gotten some pretty, you know, some pretty convincing or really thoughtful. emails or messages, you know, from listeners who have been listening to us for a long time,

who were listening back when Kotaku Splitscream was just me and Jason was basically a Destiny podcast for like a year and a half, saying, you know, you guys are the reason that I got into destiny and I'll always associate this game with you. And I really would love to hear what you think of the Witch Queen because this is the best Destiny has ever been. It's so cool. They're doing so much of the stuff that you used to talk about loving back when you love the game. So I've heard this stuff. And my reaction to that, I think, is sort of, you know, my feeling about Destiny 2 is bound up in my reaction to that because I just can't get away from the feeling of, God, I can't. You know, just this, like, exhausted kind of resigned feeling.

Even though I acknowledge that the game is probably really great right now and there's a lot of good stuff in it, I think that once you've had so much of any one game and I've played just so much Destiny 2, It just becomes, if not impossible, really difficult to entertain the idea of going back to it in any kind of a meaningful way. Just because, you know, I ate the same hamburger every single night for years and it was a great hamburger. And now I just, I smell that hamburger. And I'm like, I just, I ate that hamburger too many times. It was kind of weird to go back a couple months ago in that. I mean, it wasn't witch queen yet. I just was like, wow, we really, nothing has changed.

There's the orbs. There's pressing a button or shooting at something. Those are the only two ways to interact with any given thing in the world. It's comforting. It's beautiful. And yet nothing has changed. I don't know. I think if I went back for Witch Queen, I'd probably be wowed by it.

Maybe I'll go back. It sounds great. Even the campaign, like people have said, you could just play through the campaign, which I may do. I still may give it a shot. But I do feel that feeling of exhaustion. I don't know. What about you, Jason? Yeah, well, so first of all, the social aspect

which is also there for me. My destiny crew is the same as Kirk's destiny crew. So similar experiences there. And we're all talking about Eldon Ring at the moment. But yeah, I mean, there are other components of this for me too. It's funny you guys say you feel like it hasn't changed because when I tried, I jumped back in. I had taken a long break before Beyond Light, which was fall of 2020.

I jumped back into that and was just like, wow, I'm so intimidated by all the new stuff. that's in here that I didn't know about because destiny is not a game that stays static in terms of progression and economy and systems. And so many of the systems are so new now that I was just like, what is going on here? And that's what of the... When I was playing a lot. So for me, for you, it's not as big a gap. For me and Kirk is much bigger. And so even now, they've added all these new systems and I see people tweeting about the game and I'm just like, you are speaking a different language to me. And I played hundreds of hours of this game. So it's almost like I have other comfort games that I keep returning to, Starcraft 2 is the biggest one, that game has not changed much.

Like maybe there's some balance patches, and so the meta is a little different, and the units are played more commonly than others, and there are more counters that I have to know about. But for the most part, I don't have to learn an entirely new economy or basic system every time I pick up that game. Whereas with Destiny, I do. So even now, picking up the witch queen, just to go through the campaign, I feel like you would have to train your brain on so much just for that. That's one big obstacle for me. There's this term that I'm forgetting now, and it was something like parasitic design, but I don't think that was it. I watched this YouTube video about Destiny, and it was explaining, it was putting those new systems that they introduced to the game into a really interesting context that I at least thought was interesting.

And it was the specific type of new game design, like new, you know, mechanic or currency or thing. You know, you have to get this new type of weapon ruin, and then you have to go to this new type of dungeon to charge up the weapon run so that you can use. use the weapon room to make a new gun that has a random drop and you have to infuse the gun with a special eye. This is just, oh my God. Just hearing that. Yeah, they always introduce this stuff, right? Just like, God, no.

The criticism, which I think is true of destiny, was that each of those systems that's introduced to the game only lasts a certain amount of time and is eventually made completely obsolete by just the game's sort of forward churn of content and time. and so you can invest all this time and effort and learning just mind power to learning this new system that you know is eventually going to go away and that that alone, it's like you're not only being asked

to learn all this new stuff, you're also being asked to learn new stuff that you know is just going to go away and you're going to commit to it and then it's going to just change and it's kind of a problem with this sort of game so as much as the specific stuff is different you know that description that you gave Jason

I feel that as well when I start I'm like, well, what does all the things? of stuff. Also, the big picture is still the same, and it's still the same game. And that is also kind of exhausting, just being like, do I care about any of this stuff? So that's the other element. Okay, that's the other element is that I started, got into Beyond Light, entered like this big frozen planet. And I was like, whoa, cool, it's frozen. And then it's like a bunch of fucking fallen enemies that I killed aliens over the years. And the fact that that that core element, like, the fact that like all these years later that I haven't even introduced a new alien race,

It's kind of another part of this whole equation that it's just like, wow, I'm really doing the same thing. Which they might do in the witch queen. I don't know if they're doing it. But yeah, I mean, it just feels like you're doing, it feels like it's totally far and different, but also you're doing the same thing over and over again. And so, yeah, I just don't, I feel so exhausted by the thought of more destiny that I just don't think there's room for it in my life anymore. The other part of it is that like, as I have been playing destiny, especially in the months before I quit or the years before I quit, which was kind of a gradual swirl. slow process. I kept just thinking to myself, wow, I could be doing so much other, so many other

things right now. And that's never a good feeling to have while you're playing a game. It's, it's happened to me several occasions. And I'm just like, wow, that sucks. I should just be doing something else right now. And yeah, if you get to that, you're just like, well, it's not for me anymore. And yeah, no matter how much good stuff I hear about the storytelling or whatever else, and there's some pretty cool destiny lore that I used to care about. I'm just like, I don't know. there's no space for this game in my life anymore, unfortunately. Yeah, I won't even say maybe one day, because I just don't think that'll ever happen unless you guys are like,

we're playing, come raid with us. And I'm just like, the social pressure gets to me. But still, I don't know. I don't think so. Let's move on. Here's another question. Kirk, you want to take this next one? Sure, this comes from Adam.

Adam writes, hey, Kirk, Maddie, and Jason, there's a lot of love for Soulsborn games on Triple Click. As such, I was wondering if any of you like to keep a relaxing and calming game close to hand for those times when you're playing a really difficult section of any game or where you're so stuck that you can feel your blood's starting to boil and you need to step away from the TV or the monitor gets broken. If so, what games work for you? In case the context from my asking this is of interest, after hearing so many good things about Souls games, I wanted to give one a try and I chose the Demon Souls remake as my jumping

off point. This question was well before Elder Ring, by the way. Yes, the game was brilliant and wholly addictive, but then I got to the ritual path, 4-2, where my love for the game turned to pure anger as I did over and over and over again, trying to make my way through that horrible level. After a couple of hours one evening, my frustration was so high that I just had to stop playing,

I immediately went on to the digital store, and I bought Spirit Fairer, and then spent the next three hours slowly calm me down as I hugged every character in sight. My peaceful mind was restored. So, yeah, either of you, I suppose. Do you have games that you let off steam with?

No, the thing that calms me down is finally getting past that level or that boss that's driving me crazy. That's my my solution there. It's funny. I thought this question was particularly apt now with Alden Ring because I think with Alden Ring, what's really nice about the rhythm of this game is that if you're on a difficult section and you feel your blood starting to boil, you can just go somewhere else and find something easier to do. And that can be calming in and of itself. So you don't need to go and hug people in spirit fair because you're just going to go and hug people in spirit fair. you can just go hug Fia in the roundtable hold. Or like, go do something else. That's fun. Or you can go to Jarburg and look at the little jar guys. Yeah, look at jars. Yeah. There's a lot of nice, cuddly places in Elton Ring, believe it or not.

I totally agree, Jason. I feel like also there's something wrong with me because I read this question and I was like, but Dark Souls used to be the game that I played when I needed something calming because it's so repetitious and there's so much just grinding involved. even, and I don't mean grinding just in terms of collecting a lot of souls. I mean like watching someone's attack patterns over and over, attempting to learn the dance steps to do in response to them. To me, that can be very soothing.

But I know that isn't typical. And so I guess I'll just say there are certainly other games that make me frustrated and Kirby games are my panacea for that because they're so easy. And they're almost like if a Metroid game were incredibly cute and easy, that's what Kirby games are to me. So that would be my answer to that feeling of sadness and dismay. I've thought about game pairings before, and we've talked about game pairings on the show before, though I don't really, I don't really pair games that much. I'll wind up playing games at the same time, just, you know, because I have to, because there's a bunch out. But I, you know, as people,

I guess, probably know, I try not to. I find that there are games that calm me down when I'm just feeling stressed out about other stuff. Like when I'm stressed out about something from life, video games tend to be a thing that lets me just sort of focus on the game and be in this nice and closed space and not worry about whatever is making me anxious. And sometimes the game that really will calm me down is a game like a soul's game. For the reason you say, Maddie, I think it's actually calming to master something difficult. You know, here's one thought. This made me, this made me think of a reaction I've had to some types of games that actually had to spirit Farrier sometimes.

I also have this visual novels. There are times when a game doesn't have much going on, and I'm kind of just reading text or following along, that that actually makes me feel anxious. The feeling of sort of nothing's happening here, I'm just reading, I start to feel kind of trapped. This will happen to me with Ace Attorney games, where there are just these long periods. That's exactly what I was thinking, where you're just in the same room for a really long time. Sometimes Ace Attorney makes me feel almost a little claustrophobic.

Like how long have I been in this courtroom? This is not going well. It's intense. I've never felt like this. Wow. That's interesting. There's kind of a soothing quality just to a game that lets me just keep doing stuff and keep moving forward. Like Minecraft is just a very soothing game because there's always something you can do.

Eldon Ring, as you say, Jason is also very similar just because there's always kind of something to do. There's this sort of steady feeling of forward momentum. and I find that more calming than any specific thing that I'm doing in a game. It's interesting. Makes sense. Cool. Okay. Let's do the next one.

Maddie, want to read this next question? Sure. This is from Nick, who writes, Hello, Kirk, Jason, and Maddie. Longtime listener and proud triple-click enamel pin wearer here. Hey.

Lovely. They're a Max fun member. I love the show and listening to this week's episode gave me a thought. I recently entered my 30s and started contemplating ways I can make my money go further for me. The idea of investing money into stocks and shares came to mine. But as a complete novice in the finance world, I feel lost. Where I don't feel lost is with games and studios large and small. I feel I have a reasonable shot at looking at a release calendar and betting which ones might make money or not. My question is, how viable does this seem? Have any of you bought

shares in any part of the gaming market? I'm not rich or anything. I'd be talking less than $1,000. But with Bloomberg Gaming and my Army of Gaming podcast talking heads, I'm already listening to daily. I could be rich one day. Just kidding. And all jokes aside, I love the show and we'll always listen and support y'all and whatever you do. Be safe and take care. Of course, you're not kidding, Nick.

We can read through the lines here and tell that you're asking us for hot investing tips. Right. Inside info. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that is why people tune into the show, I think, is mainly for our financial advice and just, you know, market watch. That's really what we do here every week. So. Triple C NBC over here.

Uh-huh. So have, I can say for myself, I've never invested in any gaming company and I never will because I believe it's a conflict of interest. And now that I've established that, have either of you ever done this? No, no, I never have. No, never. Yeah. I think not only is a conflict of interest, it's illegal.

Yeah. Because all of us get inside info in some form another. Yeah. It's early game releases. There's all sorts of, all sorts of SEC. Just by knowing Jason and having him send us G-chats, Kirk and I could be prosecuted for insider trading. Yeah, so that's pretty much off the trade.

Insider training is no joke. Unless if you're a billionaire, like those guys who bet, who invest in an Activision three days before the Microsoft deal, then it's okay. But if you're a normal person like us, then it's not okay. I want to give a serious answer here, actually, because I am mildly interest in finance and investing, and I read up on some of this stuff. I thought you were going to say in gambling. Well, so actually that's part of it, right?

Yeah. It's really important to know that day trading or really buying shares in any one company is gambling. And you should never do that unless it's with money that you are prepared to lose, that you would be okay with saying, hey, tomorrow, that money is gone, goodbye. Which is sort of how I feel about betting on anything, football, whatever. Well, Nick uses the word betting to describe what they might do and also is at least for, for Nick, it sounds like they consider this a low amount of money that they would be spending. So this is a-

It is straight-up betting. Yes, that's fine. But I should caution people that, like, I know people who have had their lives ruined because of day trading. And, like, it can be really scary and addictive. And, like, trying to beat the market in terms of individual stocks is just always a terrible idea. Even if you follow gaming every single day, you read all the game sites, you know the gaming industry cold, you will not beat Wall Street.

You will not get an edge on the market. It is a suckers game. Do not do it. But if you have a spare $1,000 and you're interested, if you're complete novice, what you can do is instead of betting on stocks, you find what's called an index fund or a mutual fund. There are differences, but I won't get into the specifics here. And essentially what you're doing is you're saying, hey, instead of betting on individual stocks, I'm going to bet on this collection of stocks and bonds that kind of correlate with the stock market.

So instead of betting on stocks, I'm betting with the entire stock market. If it goes up, which historically for the entire existence of the stock market, it has gone up over time, then I'm going to go up. And this is money that you're expecting to just park long term and not see for a while. But historically, over the – I look this up. Over the last 30 years, the average yearly return for the stock market has been 10 percent, 10 percent a year. And so, again, this is a 30-year span. So if this is money you need to use next year for a house or something, don't put it in the stock market. If you're looking 20, 30 years ahead, 10% return is the average, right?

If you took $1,000 and that's it and you didn't put anything else into it, and you put it in the stock market for 30 years, a 10% return, in 30 years, you would have $17,449. That's the power of compound interest. So in all seriousness, if you just park your money in a mutual fund, you go on Vanguard or whatever, fidelity, whatever it is, you just find a good index fund and you say, you know what, I don't need this money until I'm retired, I'm going to park it here. you will come out ahead unless our entire economy collapses, which I guess is possible. But that is a much better use of your money than trying to pick individual stocks.

So that is my advice. And I will say you also get some tax benefits. If you look up the amounts that you can put into certain amounts of funds, you can get some tax-free investment. You can. You get like savers credits and stuff. Roth IRAs, 401Ks. Yes. but we are talking about investing in your retirement basically.

Which if you want to make your money go farther for you is a smart thing to do because if you're not doing that, you are just gambling. Yeah. And so there's nothing wrong with going out and being like, you know, I'm going to put this money in the stock market. But like only do that with money that you would be okay with saying goodbye to. Like tomorrow that money is gone. If you're okay with that, think of it as crypto. Think of it as roulette.

Think of it as whatever you want. But like that needs to be money that you are comfortable with saying goodbye to or else you will really put yourself in a hole that you will have a hard time getting out of. Yeah, it's like money that Jason would bet against Tom Brady, for example. Exactly. Exactly. If it's, if it's money, you would feel comfortable saying, you know what, Tom Brady is going to lose tomorrow. I'm going to bet this like, did. Did you see, I'm sure you saw that Tom Brady is unretired, by the way. Of course I did. All right, let's move on. Let's talk about, let's talk about games. I'll answer that. I'll read this next question.

This is from Maria. Maria says, hey, I'm wondering how you guys feel about games that require the player to turn a natural environment into a town. When I was playing Animal Crossing, I saw AC and I said, Assassin's Creed New Horizons. When I was saying Animal Crossing New Horizons, I felt bad about paving over the entire island and ended up keeping a few bits untouched. There are plenty of civilization games that only look at natural environments as resource storehouses.

Doesn't the whole thing have a touch of settler colonialism about it? Are there any games that are about rewilding or restoring a natural environment? I know it's all pixels in the end and they were not re-reased. nature. So this is probably the definition of a first world problem, but are anesthetics also political. And one of the reasons I wanted to take this question is because I kept thinking about that in both Eldon Ring and Horizon Forbidden Wetchs, which encourage you to slaughter every animal you see for crafting materials, which is kind of similar, similar sensibility there. So yeah, what do you guys make of colonizing natural environments into towns? Yeah, it's, I know that we all use the word

colonialism to describe this, but I don't know if that's the only word for this. I feel like there should be some more video game-specific terms to describe the extent of environmental stripping that we are used to doing. Fracking. Let's just call it tracking. It's like, it's extreme. And I know that like going to other islands in particular in AC was what struck me as just brutal because you completely destroy them. Like if you just take a plane to another island somewhere, where it randomly generates something for you, and it's up to you to carry as much as you possibly can back to your home,

and you just leave it utterly destroyed in your wake. And it feels weird and bad to do that, because you're like, I'm cutting down every single tree. I'm whatever the opposite of Johnny Appleseed is. There's not a Johnny Appleseed game, is what I'm saying. Maybe there should be. And maybe there should be. I can't, I feel like there are games where you're building stuff,

But usually the implication is that something has been destroyed before you've gotten there, like in the Sims, for example. Well, there are games when you grow. I mean, Starter Valley, obviously, you're planting and you're building farms. And there are games where you're like cultivating a natural environment. But yeah, I don't know if there are games. I think I remember, I don't remember the name of the game, but I vaguely remember seeing a press promo for a game that is like,

instead of like, we want to rewild civilization instead of building civilization. And so it's kind of the opposite of this. Yeah. But I don't remember what the game is called. Yeah. I just find it odd. And I know in stuff like Pokemon, like there's so many other games that involve exploring and taming and completely changing the world around you or domesticating any being that you come across, even if they're intelligent beings. And the fact that that is such a core part of so many video games is something that I'm glad people are now finally questioning in much the same way that several years ago, people started being like,

is it weird that all video games are violent? I feel like now we're thinking about just another nuanced layer to the kinds of violence that can be performed and that this is more of like a, hey, is it weird that we kidnap Pokemon and make them do everything we say? That is a little odd, right? And yeah, I don't know what the alternatives look like,

but I'm curious to see them. I'd love to see them. Yeah, there's a sort of an innate extractiveness in the way that video games work just because you kill a thing and you take the thing from the thing and then you use the thing you took to make a new thing and become more powerful,

and that's been true of every video game, or not every video game, but certainly a lot of them. And you can repurpose that specifically to go in the opposite direction like you're saying, like what if instead you were knocking down buildings and planting trees? Yeah, you could make a game where you did that, though the fundamental actions you would be taking would still be extractive, they would just be reversed.

I like games that exist in a world that is sort of post, I usually post-apocalyptic and post that kind of development. Near Automata's world, for example, I think is an interesting one narratively, because while the machines in that world have started repopulating the Earth, there's really a kind of general view of the way that the planet works. It's just like, this thing is over. We're just in the ruins of civilization and it has been overgrown. and you're just trying to learn how to coexist.

Also, there's a really cool game called Tokyo Jungle. Did either of you play that game? I haven't played it, but I've seen videos of it. That's a cool one where you're in a post-apocalyptic Tokyo and you play as animals, and it's just a bunch of different kinds of animals, and you have to just exist in this city, and it's not a game where the ultimate goal

is to bring back civilization and build this whole thing back up again. So I think that that's kind of cool as well. But yeah, I don't know. I mean, it's a fundamental truth of Minecraft, which in a lot of ways is the ultimate example of this, that every single little cube in that world can be destroyed and repurposed into something else. I do think I guess my last thought is that Sardu Valley restricts the area that you can build in to just your farm.

So as a result, yeah, you do kind of colonize your farm or turn it into this maximally extractive space where it's like totally, you know, people build those super, super, you know, fine-tuned machines out of their farm. that they can get the maximum amount of stuff and the minimum amount of time. And there's totally a deep irony to that just narratively in that game because the point of the game is that you left, you know, the grind of the daily world working at your stupid corporate job to go have peace on the farm. And then when you got to the farm, you like established this extremely hardcore schedule where every single day you, you know, you're completely maximizing your farm's output.

But you can only do that on your farm. And a lot of the island and a lot of the space in that game, you can chop down trees, but the trees grow it back and you can't like strip mine the entire town and re you know rearrange everything and they do actually kind of appreciate that about that game compared to something like minecraft or animal crossing um so i was thinking a little bit about this and um i think uh i don't know if you guys have played a lot of four x games like the civilization type strategy games but those always do an interesting job of of tackling this sort of thing and they're all about i mean one of them is literally called colonization they're all about like creating these settlement

and establishing your civilization or cities or whatever in a world. And I was thinking about this game called Alpha Centurri, which is a sci-fi sieve spin-off from back in the day, from the 90s. It was 99 or something like that. Anyway, I played a bunch of that. And one of the systems that's kind of interesting about that, and the concept is you're landing on this futuristic planet and you have to build your civilization and deal with aliens and other factions and whatnot.

But one of the interesting things is that as your technology, evolves, you get some technology that lets you like harvest as many minerals as possible out of the climate, but it also has ecological consequences as a result. Like sometimes the alien, like the planet will react to you by like sending alien worms after you if you dig too much or like sometimes it'll cause like ecological disasters, like climate change that. It'll cause problems for you. So I think that's a really interesting way of dealing with this sort of thing. We're kind of like you as a player have to think about the consequences of doing too much

of this harvesting and taking the natural resources. That to me was always really an really interesting way of doing it. The colonization game that I mentioned is similar. It's not handled nearly as delicately. But you come in as a settler of a European nation and you run into all these Native American settlements. And the game is very clumsy. And there's some like stereotypes and things that are not handled very delicately.

in this game. But something interesting that it tries to do is that at the end of the game, you got the score and your docked points on your score for destroying Native American settlements. The more you destroy, the worst score you get. That said, this game has all sorts of issues in terms of its presentation of Native Americans. And it's not a game I would exactly look at as like a model of how to do this. But still, I always found it interesting when designers put in systems that would like make you as a player grapple with your choices like that. Right. Something that is definitely conspicuously missing from Animal Crossing or Minecraft.

It's like not what they're going for, I guess. It's a very different type of game. Yeah, it is, it is. But that is, the point stands. Yeah. I mean, if there was like climate change and like significant issues arose if you cut down all the weeds in Animal Crossing. Right, there's like erosion crisis.

Yeah, it's like, oh, wow, like there's erosion and the water. Like, our crops are dying. Like, that would be wild. Maybe it would be kind of profound if they did that. I'm not sure I would hate it. Some people might hate it, though. Yeah, there's very little conflict in Animal Crossing. I don't think that's what people go to Animal Crossing for.

You take a lot from it. You take a lot from Animal Crossing, and it has nothing but love to give and give to you. And that is, I think, just a selfish design that feels awesome. Right, it's like, yeah, I get to just enjoy this. Yeah, I get to indulge in it. But, yeah, it's also nice to play games that feel a little bit. more realistic than that and involve the give and take of real life. All right, let's do one or two more questions.

Kirk, I think it's your turn for this next one. All right, this question comes from Kate. Kate writes, I just thought of a question about video games and thought you three would be the best people to go to with it. What are your favorite in-game games? I mean, like, Gwent from the Witcher, Blitzball from Final Fantasy, caravan from Fallout 3, etc. Even gambling in Red Dead Redemption 2 or the arcade-style games in Nuka World.

and the golden saucer. Lots of games have these. Which ones do it best? This is a good question. I played so much blackjack and poker and reds ever. Yeah. The kind of iconic example that I have to bring up is triple triad, the card game in Final Fantasy 8, which is definitely one of the best mini games I've ever played in a game.

And then Final Fantasy 9 tried to do its own car game that was terrible and not nearly as good, sadly. But triple triad is just a classic, just excellent game. There are a lot of modern ones, too. Like the Ufi DLC had its own in-game game. Yeah, that's true. And what am I playing right now that has an in-game game? Horizon. Horizon Forgiven West has a strike, which is a board game that is absolutely nothing like fighting machines out in the wild,

but in theory mimics what it's like to fight machines out in the wild. But what's your favorite, Maddie? That's the question. This is an absurd answer. I almost never liked these. I kind of liked the Kingdom Hearts three ones, which are terrible. They are- The gummy ship stuff or something else?

The gummy ship stuff, I would say counts because the gummy ship is like its own minigame, but that isn't what I mean. There's also just this little handheld gaming device that Sora has, and it's like in a separate menu. Like he has a little cell phone in that game and he can update his fake Instagram and he also has a little like, I don't know, it's not a Nintendo DS, but it's basically the equivalent of that. And he can play Disney-themed, just crappy little video games.

And I don't know why I really enjoyed them and spent more time than you would think playing some of those. But usually I feel like in-game games, I just don't spend enough time on them because I'm like, well, I want to get back to the rest of the game. Well, that's the sign of a really good one is that when it takes your time when you're like, oh, man, I just spent two hours just playing this mini game. Yeah, like, Kirk, weren't you really? into Gwent. Am I misremembering that? No, you're right. Yeah. There's two that come to mind here. Gwent is the first one. That's the only time I've gotten really

into one of these in that kind of game, like in an open RPG type game where you go around and there's different people that you challenge and you play Gwent against them. It was only when I was playing a new game plus playthrough of the Witcher 3. So when I was reviewing that game and then the second

time I played it on PC, I just was always kind of like, well, I want to go through the story and I don't have time. There's always this feeling of, you know, you sit down and you have the plot conversation with a person, and then they say, hey, so you want to play some Gwent? And I would say, no, man, I want to go, like, on the next step of this quest. But because I'd played the game so much and sort of knew where things were going and was really taking it all in, I just felt less of that time pressure and got into Gwent. And, yeah, I really like Gwent. The reasons I like Gwent. I mean, it's, I think it's a good game. It's a fun game.

Obviously, it spawned a standalone spinoff, so it's got some, you know, some meat on its bones. I enjoy that it is the characters and the card. It's a collectible card game, and the cards that you're collecting, like, you know, Magic the Gathering cards, are based on characters in the actual world, which I just think is really funny.

Like, people will be like, oh, I've got this really great, you know, Yenifer of Engerberg card, and you can win it from me if you play me. And it's just funny because I'm like, oh, yeah, yen, like, literally, like, you know, my one-true pairing. Yeah.

Correct triple triad is the same. way to the point where like to get each special card for character you have to talk to someone who's like a relative of them or like close to them in some way and they have it so like sure well they're all one of the kind cards so to get like um the zelle card you have to play against zell's mother and then you can win it from her and then there's actually a really amazing thing where like there's a plot twist in the game involving the fact that someone is related to another person and you could figure that out early by realizing they have that person's card and you're like, wait a minute, why does this guy have, or why does Sid have a Dia's card? Oh, that's good. Oh, wait a minute. Yeah,

no, it's a funny. It's a cool thing. That is, that's really funny. So yeah, I mean, I like that about Gwent. I like that you're just sort of, you know, playing, playing at these wars featuring characters in this actually serious story that you're a part of. And I like the whole, the idea of going around the world and getting into tournaments. I mean, there are even quests tied to Gwent in The Witcher Three. You get a. to this cool tournament where there's all this intrigue and you're working through this house and like all these different people are trying to cheat and it kind of feels like, I don't know, Maverick or some famous, you know, poker tournament movie, which is also just fun that they

blow it out to that level, that there's story stuff. And the other thing this makes me think of is I do enjoy sometimes when games that are remakes of old games include a playable version of the original. In one of the Wolfenstein games, the Machine Games, Wolfenstein Games, you can play the original Wolfenstein 3D. I think the first game to do this was Day of the Tentical, which let you play all of Maniac Mansion. Right, you could play Maniac Mansion. I just think that's kind of cool.

I remember getting sort of into Wolfenstein 3D, just because that was one of the first video games I ever got into when I was a kid, and then being able to go and play it, and then just pop out of it into this amazingly realized 3D version of it is sort of cool. That is cool. I misspoke, by the way, I said a Dia's card. It was actually Safer's card. One other thing I wanted to bring up about this is that I think that the mini-games, one thing that makes a mini-game work best in a game is when playing it can benefit the real game in some way or another.

So it doesn't really feel like you're wasting your time. To your point, Maddie. So triple try it, just to bring that up again because I think it's a perfect mini-game. If you, as you win more and more rare cards, you can actually get an ability to let you convert them into like super powerful items that let you like really get really good at the game. So I think that's another, that's a way of keeping you engaged with. the minigame in a way where you play it and you feel like you're actually making progress in the

game. Nice. Okay, do we have time for one final question? Yeah. Yeah, okay, why not? Let's do it. Maddie, you want to zip through this? Sure. So, William writes, I often find myself down playing my interest in games, especially around new people. I think it's because I want to make sure they understand my interests aren't limited to just games. I tend to gleefully speak about all the movies I watch, music I like, the books I'm reading, And then I'm much more shy about games. I guess I still feel like people will get negative ideas about me if they associate me with the hobby,

especially now that I'm approaching 30 years old, since it is still thought of as a kid's hobby. So I'm curious, since you all have careers related to video games, is that an experience you can relate to? Or do you feel the same compulsion as me to hide your inner gamer a bit from the world so that other interests can take the spotlight? As journalists, is there a stigma that you can only write about games

once you've made it your thing? we have definitely answered some similar how do you talk about video games around normie's questions before but we might have some different thoughts on this one it certainly comes up a lot in our day to day right i mean the answer has changed like if you had asked me 10 or 11 years ago i might have been a lot more embarrassed about video games and i don't think it's just because i've spent the last decade working in games working on in covering the games industry i also think it's because like games have just become more and more mainstream even alone in the last five years alone. Like nowadays, most people you talk to will have, I mean, obviously everyone's played games on their phone, but most people will be like, oh yeah, I played Zelda on Switch or like I played Animal Crossing on Switch or something like that, even if people you wouldn't expect to play games. So I think that the stigma has really gone away, although it certainly doesn't help when

gamers are just like posting nasty things in women's article comments online. Yeah, there's definitely still bad behavior. at times there are still things about gaming culture that can feel sort of mortifying. But I think you're right, Jason, that by and large, when I talk to people, you know, they probably play games too. I just went and I have a new doctor and I met with my doctor and we're just sort of talking about various things. And he asked what I do. And I was like, well, I make a couple different podcasts. He's like, oh, what are they about? I was like, well, one's about music, one's about video games. He's like, oh, video games. And then he's like, oh, you know, I really like games.

And next thing we know, I find out he listens to all these people that we know, he, he, he, knew about Kataku. He's like read all of our work. That doctor's name, Dr. Mario. It's true. He's also a plumber and he was now going to come and do some plumbing for us as well. But no, I mean, it's like, it's way more normal these days, even though I think that, so I think it's more of a reflexive habit that carries over for those of us who were around 10 years ago, 15 years ago, when there were still more people who would sort of look down on you for saying, well, I really like video games actually. These days, I mean, you know, Eldon Ring is every,

There's so many people that I know who still don't play games. My sister's like, oh, Eldon Ring, I'm hearing all about that thing. And so, yeah, I think that it is easier now than ever, even if you don't make a living, you know, talking or writing about games. I also think post-pandemic, it's changed a lot, too. I don't know when William happened to write this email. I mean, it could be recent. Not to say that William might not still feel this way, but I do feel like a lot more people

are playing games, even if they don't call themselves a gamer. They might have a switch. they might still, you know, play something because their roommate got a PS5 during the pandemic or whatever. The switch has been really big. Like the switch really has gone a long way, I think. Yeah. And I just feel like that's changed a lot. And people who I know who weren't that into games are now playing them again or at least talking about them in a way where they're familiar enough.

And the other thing about it, at least for me, to give a more specific piece of advice to William, I feel like it helps people who already like talking about movies and TV. if you talk about games that have a story. Like recently, I was talking to somebody about Station 11 who doesn't play games, and I was like, oh, it actually reminds me of Horizon, the Horizon series in these key ways. And it's just this game I happen to be playing

and here's the broad strokes of the plot and why it relates to the conversation we're having in much the same way that I might bring up a TV show they haven't seen or a movie they haven't seen and be like, here's the broad strokes of this other thing I saw that reminds me of this. And here's how they approached this sci-fi conundrum as compared to the thing we were already talking.

talking about. And the person did not interrupt me and be like, wait, a video game? How dare you? Right, right. Get away from me. You're disgusting slob. No, that didn't happen. The conversation continued along normally. But I think because it just helps people connect better if you're just bringing it up in that type of way, I do think many people just assume all video games are purely mechanical and don't necessarily have other ways to innovate on storytelling and experiences and immersion. If they're not familiar, they might just still think

it's, you know, cell phone games in Mario and Grand Theft Auto 5. And that's totally fine, but bringing up other games that are doing different stuff might surprise them and also not make you look that weird.

I don't think. And then you bring up Belgian Ring Story and you're like, and then Godwin's son of Godwicks, son of Godfrey, called me a jerk and said I was not. And there's this turtle

that's wearing a pope hat. Yeah, the Pope Turtle. It's really cool. And then they're like, They just tune out. Sets video games back another 10 years. All right, guys. Thank you to everybody who wrote in.

Thank you to everybody who's questions, whose excellent questions we answered today. Why don't we take a break? And then we'll be back for one more thing. I'm a psychic. My name is psychic, Carrie. I'm Ross. Oh, what a pleasure to meet you.

Of course, I knew your name was Ross as I'm a psychic. But please, take a seat. Well, I was hoping we could talk about my podcast. Yes, I know. It's called, oh, no, Ross and Carrie. Yes. We investigate from science. Science, spirituality, and claims of the paranormal.

You took the words right out of my mouth. Yes. This whole podcast, it sounds like it's been a real challenge for you lately. Actually, it's a lot of fun. Yes, exactly. Because it's so fun. I don't know how you do it. This will be $75.

Okay. That seems fair. Oh, no, Ross and Carrie. At maximum fun.org. You knew it was a dot org. I have a gift. Schmanners. Noun.

Definition. Rules of etiquette designed not to judge others. but rather to guide ourselves through everyday social situations. Hello, Internet. I'm your husband host, Travis McElroy. And I'm your wife host, Teresa McElroy. Every week on Schmaners, we take a look at a topic that has to do with society or manners. We talk about the history of it. We take a look at how it applies to everyday life.

And we take some of your questions. And sometimes we do a biography about a really cool person that had an impact on how we view etiquette. So join us every Friday and listen to Schmanters on Maximumfund.org. or wherever podcasts are found. Manners, schmanners. Get it. And we are back for one more thing. Let's do it, shall we? Maddie, why don't you go first?

What's your one more thing? My one more thing is a movie. It is a movie called Kimmy, K-I-M-I. And it came out this year. It is a movie directed by Steven Soderberg, and it stars Zoe Kravitz as the lead character. It's basically a modernized COVID-19-themed version of Rear Window, the famous thriller.

And I feel kind of sad and weird about watching Hitchcock movies these days because I know how much he mistreated his actors and actresses on set. Of course, Rear Window is one of my favorites. It's a classic. And I really like the idea of it, which is like a guy breaks his leg. He's suddenly stuck at home in much the same way that so many of us were suddenly stuck at home. He starts watching his neighbors and happens to see a murder unfold and then he solves a murder.

And that is more or less the character So a great Simpsons parody of it called Part of Darkness. And there's a parody of it on Castle. I mean like so many shows and movies have done takes on rear window because it's just a cool like it's not a closed room mystery but it is like a closed patio mystery where you kind of get to know the cast of characters. And that's sort of the premise of this COVID-19 story. And I really feel like I would have been sick of a COVID-19 story because like we're

all stuck at home. How many of these can we possibly watch? but it works really well. And I loved it. And so Zoe Kravitz plays this character, not only as she's stuck at home, working from home because of COVID, but she also is a character who has just severe social anxiety.

So she panics any time she goes outside anyway. So just in addition to the anxiety, and she's a germaphobe, she's like depicted as constantly cleaning everything, but it's also just this very endearing character who has mental illness. And so she's very likable and relatable. And she works for basically,

like Alexa. Like that's what Kimmy is. It's not her name. It's the name of her Alexa. And everybody has one. And she does troubleshooting for customer complaints. And that's how she overhears a murder is actually through troubleshooting a customer complaint. And so she solves it through her Alexa. But it also still kind of involves some of the people in her patio who she sees out her window. And there's like a little bit of coincidental stuff. But like it's fine. I still really enjoyed watching it. I recommend it. thought it was a really cool movie that was probably also filmed during COVID because a lot of it is just one room and like small scenes with just a couple people in them. I thought it was very clever. A fun thing to watch out for these days is like, oh, was this film? How much of it? Definitely.

Yeah. So I liked it. Cool. Kimmy. I'll go real quick and then I'll throw it to you, Kirk, for what I'm sure will take us another hour to discuss. Actually, I don't think it will, but yeah, go ahead. I've been playing a game called Stranger of Paradise Final Fantasy Origin. This game is fucking weird, you guys. It's like it's entered so bad. It's good Territory. I hear chaos is in there.

It's a couple things. It looks pretty weird. It's an action game by the people who made Neo and it feels really fun and satisfying as an action game. It's also like a retelling of the original Final Fantasy. So I think Final Fantasy fans will get a kick out of that. Just like seeing these recreations of like old places like Corneria Castle and like the flying fortress and although the order is definitely not the order of the original Final Fantasy,

so it's a liberal retelling. And then there's a story, which is like the most incoherent nonsense. And that's even by Final Fantasy standards. Like this is a series that is not exactly known for coherent storytelling. Final Fantasy 7 kind of infamous in that like no matter how much people love it, they still probably at some moment in the original game where they just had no idea what was going on. This is not a game that is just known for like tight stories. This game is like bad shit. Like at the very very beginning of the game, you plays this guy named Jack and he's this like gruff muscle dude who is like constantly talking about how he's looking for chaos and wants to, his mission is to kill chaos. It's never explained why. It's never explained

what chaos is. Who chaos is? Like it's just kind of, wow. It just makes no sense. You spend all this time watching cutscenes where he like someone is like, someone is like, like chaos is a myth and he's like no that can't be a myth I have to kill chaos he meets he meets the two other dudes who are his party members and they all just look at each other and then they pull out these like little black orbs that are their crystals from their pockets and they all start glowing and they all and jack goes my mission is to kill chaos and the two of them are like me too all right and then they all fist bump and then they all fist bump and then they all fist bump it's like it's like watching the room or like something

elsewhere it's just like um it sounds like like metal gear revengents this has sort of metal gear revenge yeah it is it's very like be movie style like ridiculous absurd um i wouldn't really recommend it unless you're a final fantasy fan because like none of it is really like so um none of it really stands out unless you get a kick out of like seeing all this final fantasy stuff jammed together with this like action game and also this terrible story um but yeah i've i've enjoyed what i played so far i gotta admit um there is one thing i wanted to bring up which is that at who is one of your party members, whenever you're in combat, there's a lot of barks. There's a lot of people yelling things.

He likes to yell, try not to get hurt, try not to get hit, which is exactly what Kirk Hamilton used to yell when we would raid together in Destiny. You'd be like, try not to die, guys, try not to die. And every time I hear Ash say this, I'm like, thanks, this is the most helpful advice I can see, like try not to get hit. Thanks, buddy. I appreciate it. I think it's helpful advice, too.

If only more people listen to me. It is. I mean, that is what you're supposed to be doing. Only we all listen to you. All right. That's my one more thing. Stranger Paradise. Final Fantasy Origin.

Weird fucking game. Kirk, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is Eldon Ring. Oh, sick. I'm still playing this game. It started something specific, though. And that is, this game just got a big update. Yeah.

A couple of nights ago when we're recording this a little bit earlier for anyone listening to this. And I was traveling for the last week in California, so I wasn't able to play. So basically, the game has really, you know, significant changed. I mean, it's a lot of little things, but over, you know, taken together, it feels like a pretty significant change. And I just think that that alone is kind of interesting. It's interesting to play 90 hours or whatever of a game and then come back and it's a little bit different. And the one change that I think is most interesting that I just wanted to bring up for my one more thing,

is that they've added NPC markers to the map. And I just think it's fascinating that after all of the sort of accessibility slash approachability user interface discussion of this game specifically related to quests and whether it does enough work to keep track of the quests, I think it's super interesting that the game has changed in

real time in a way that actually so far at least I don't think undermines the way that side quests in this game work and does make them just a little bit easier to keep track of. The way that it works is now when you look at your map, you'll just see a little marker on

the map for I believe it is any NPC that you've discovered. So it doesn't just show you everybody like everywhere they are all the time. It's just sort of like, here's where a merchant is, here's where this person you haven't talked to is, or here's where the person you need to find is, and then you can just go there and know that they're there and go talk to them. And that's it. Which you could have done anyway just by sticking NPC markers. Yeah, wherever. Oh, yeah, but I mean, it's a pretty significant difference, you know, when the game does it automatically, especially like marking all the merchants. you know, anyone, even people you didn't mark, because there's definitely going to be a few

that even the most meticulous map updators lost track of. And it's pretty cool. Like there are a few characters that I had just sort of walked past and never gone and talked to. There was one marker for an NPC where it was in Limgrave near the beginning area. And I just went and they weren't there. There was just an item and it was their sword. So apparently they had died or somehow I'd kill them. I think it was just sort of an NPC that I missed.

But I could still get their sword because they have a unique sword that they drop when you fight them. And it's a pretty cool thing. I think it's a nice change. It's cool to see that added to the game to make it a little bit easier for people to know where they're supposed to go. Even while you do still have to keep track of where people tell you to go or what's next. You still have to read the item descriptions to figure out what the next step in the quest is. And it's certainly not like a quest log or a check, you know, a checkbox or a series, like a list or anything that's telling you what to do. It's not like you hover over the castle and it's like you're not quite done here. Like you still have to remember.

all by yourself what you've done. I think it's great. And it's still, I mean, you still kind of need a notebook. But I think that like part of the problem with that whole discourse that you're talking about is that nobody really knew what they were talking about because a lot of it happened before the game came out. Because if they had actually knew, if they had actually played the game, they would have noticed that or seen or knew that most of the quests in this game are like you get these

items and the item descriptions will tell you where they have to go. Like you'll find a key and it'll be like, this looks like it opens the chess. here, or like this letter you got, this is supposed to be delivered to this person in this place. So like none of that was really that esoteric. And then on the flip side, the quests that were arcane and esoteric remains still. Like it doesn't matter that you know where the NPCs lives. So this is just kind of a convenient thing that is great. I'm all for it. But you still kind of need your notebook and your notes. And the sense of mystery is still there, which I think a quest log might diminish, whereas this does. Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that it,

that it is completely unnecessary. I mean, it helps. Like, it's a nice little thing that doesn't obviate the need to be keeping track of things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying that this doesn't, doesn't ruin anything, definitely helps.

I'm saying, I think that there are some UX, UI things, like a Quest log, that would diminish some of the quests in the game and, like, diminish the sense of mystery. Yeah, yeah. But there should be a UI change where you can more easily compare weapons.

That would be nice. I'm coming out and saying it. Yeah, man, that's so an unknown. that you can't do that. Or armor. Like, I just never bought armor because I just didn't know. I can't. I agree.

The fact that you can't just hold the button and see them. Well, at least when you look at armor in your inventory, it tells you whether it's going to raise or lower. Yeah. The question is that shops, at shops. That's the problem. But when you're looking at it in a store, you can't. You just have to look at the numbers and remember them.

And then go back to your own armor and be like, is that different? I mean, I guess the funny, the thing is that in these games, you buy, you wind up buying all of the armor in the game anyways. So maybe they just assume that people are going to do that. I've gotten some pretty good drops, though. There have been a couple times when I've just been like, I may as well buy this. And then I'm like, no, actually what I have is better.

And I've been annoyed. So maybe that's just me. I think there should be a compare button. I also actually think they might add it in a couple weeks. This whole NPC update, I wonder if they wanted it at launch. It feels like the kind of thing that maybe they did intend. But who knows? Who knows? Okay.

So another part of this patch, in addition to that, is that they actually fix some quest lines that appeared to be unfinished. at launch. And so they, like, added a couple of things, resolutions for some of the quest that weren't resolved in the final game. So, yes, there's definitely some stuff in here that, like, they clearly meant to have at launch, including some of that stuff. But yeah, now, like, Hate Nafeli's quest is, like, now actually finished and, like, Fort Hate is finished and some other stuff. God, I'm so excited for, like, whatever DLC they add, and, like, hopefully that is, like, they add more polish and overhaul the game, because I would just start from the beginning and just play

through it all. I mean, so. They've done significant DLC. for every one of their games, except I guess, Sekiro? Except for Sekiro. Yeah, Sechiro never had D.L.L.C. weirdly. That's okay. Damn. Okay, cool.

That is it for this week's episode. Kirk, Maddie. See you both 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-supported.