Triple Click - Mailbag: Microsoft-Activision, Sims, And Zelda Sax

Episode Date: May 11, 2023

The Triple Click crew opens up the mailbag to answer some listener questions about all sorts of things: why the United Kingdom can block Microsoft-Activision, what jobs we'd turn into sim games, and what Kirk thinks of Zelda's jazzy sax. Plus: One more week until Triple Click Live!One More Thing: Kirk: Party Down Season 3 (Starz)Maddy: Zelda: Breath of the Wild (still)Jason: Magic for Liars (Sarah Gailey)Links: Triple Click LIVE IN BROOKLYN, May 18th: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/triple-click-live-tickets-513213584647Support 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

This just in over the wire. There's saxophone featured prominently in the Tears of the Kingdom trailer. We need a comment on the record from Kirk. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we open up the listener mailbag to answer questions about the Activision Blizzard acquisition, feeling like a superhero in a game, and that sweet, sweet, high Julian saxophone. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Shrier.

And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello. Hello. It's us again. We're back again. Here we are. We're back. Kirk, you want to hear a funny story? I have a funny story for you.

I do. I always want to hear a funny story. I went to go, after you talked about the book Last House on Needless Street on your One More Thing, I went to go buy it at my local indie book shop because I like to buy books from an indie store. Because you're a man of the people. And the guy there, the guy was like, this is like the third or fourth copy of this random book that we've sold. Oh, man. It's not random.

I was like, oh, that triple click bump. Sounds like a bump to me. Sounds like the triple click bump. He was like, why are people buying this book? I was like, I don't know. A friend recommended it to me. I didn't tell it that our popular podcast recommended it. So if you out there, if you, if you listeners, if you went and bought a copy of this book at Bronx River Books, say, let me know.

Let me know if you go to my indie books. Yeah, let us know. Right. One of the places that you could let us know is actually in person because all three of us Oh, good segue by Maddie. Are going to be in the same place next week. Oh, that's true.

Which is Brooklyn, New York, home of the Mario Brothers. We're going to be at the Bell House. We're going to be performing live on May 18th. That's a Thursday night. And it's also an online live stream for those of you who don't want to travel to Brooklyn and don't live there. So, yeah, get a ticket. come check us out. Come see us talk about Zelda live.

I can, is that a spoiler to say we're going to talk about Zelda? People know. It will just come out. What else are we going to talk about for the next six to eight weeks? My excitement for The Kingdom has totally mixed in with my excitement for the live show, and I'm just so excited about everything. I'm like Muppet excited at all times. Well, you get a, you get like a six-hour plane ride to play on.

That's exciting. That is true. That is exciting. That is true. Maddie has to drive here. Maybe the most excited I've ever been for a long flight. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty exciting. Well, maybe I'll make Dina drive the first leg and then I'll just be playing.

Just see you can play. Yeah, totally. That seems fair, I think. That's only fair. That's what partners are for. And, you know, while I'm talking, I don't have a segue for this, but just something interesting I've discovered is that we're on a podcast network called Maximum Fun. And because we're on that network, people can actually become members of Max Fun.

and then when they do that, which, by the way, you go to maximum fun.org slash join. Once they do that, they would get bonus episodes that we've been recording every month. I just found this out. I thought those were just something we were doing for fun. But it turns out that people can pay $5 and listen to every single one of those once a month. And we did one recently. That's like a spoiler cast, Beans cast, Spill in the Beans about Persona 5 Royal. And we've got other fun stuff coming up.

But there's a huge backlog of times we talked about the Last of Us TV show and all kinds of other video games. And yeah, there's one every month. So maximum fun.org slash join. Become a member. Support the show. All right. Jason, what are we doing today? Onwards.

Today we are opening up the mailbag. Oh, oh, it's hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. We're picking up some burning questions. They are on fire. Sizzling. Was that Kirk talking or sound effects? I can't even tell. We got some burning questions for you today.

We heard a foley artist for this episode. Professional following up in here. As always, these are real questions from our listeners. These are real questions. These are real questions. Has anyone ever done? Real listeners. Guys, we have listeners.

People, it has been rumored. We've just been. No, I think I got that from, I think the sports journalist, Bill Simmons used to do, like, a mailbag. And I think he always put that. Like, as always, these are real questions. So I just got stuck in my head there. It's hilarious. Real questions from real listeners.

If you would like to send us questions, send them in at triple click at maximumphone.org. And yeah, we got some good ones this week. So onwards. On with the show, we will read them. Maddie, why don't you start us off with a question from Ben? Sure. Ben writes, I've been hearing lots of news lately that the Microsoft acquisition of Activision Blizzard is getting approval from various governments around the world.

Good for them. But since they're both American companies, why do places like the UK and Japan get a say on this? It's not something I've heard of in other tech giant acquisitions. What makes this deal so special? Thanks, your show is a delight. So I actually, we haven't actually talked about the fact that like this deal might actually not go through. So I thought this would be a good kind of way to talk about that for a couple minutes as well. But to answer the question, so my understanding is that because these companies do business and all

of these countries, they need to get approval. And so, like, what happened recently, I think after Ben sending this question was the UK's CMA, which is their kind of regulatory board, block the deal. They said, nope, can't happen here. Activision or Microsoft is appealing, but it seems like their path to actually making this acquisition happen is getting much, much slimmer, much to Kirk's delight, since that was one of his predictions that the deal would not go through by the end of the year. But what that means is that they would effectively, if this deal happened, my understanding is that it effectively means they'd be blocked from doing business in the UK, which is just not practical by any means. Also, what will happen is the U.S.'s FTC, which is already suing over this to block the deal, is suddenly newly empowered. They have a lot more kind of they can point to the UK deal and say, hey, look at this thing too. And so it'll probably be a domino effect where it gets blocked. here as well or at least gets caught up in litigation for a while here. But the basic question, my understanding is that, like, essentially, if you're going to do business

in a country, or if you are actively doing business in a country, your merger needs to go through whatever antitrust legislation they have in place in the same way that, like, if you were doing business in a country, you would need to follow all the rest of their laws. And the whole idea of antitrust lawsuits and blocks and stuff is that you are breaking a law. break a law in a country can't exactly do business there, right? That's true. And I also think that it can sometimes be confusing to people to even fathom how international video games actually are. And this deal is a great example of that. I mean, Americans are sort of stereotypically myopic about this sort of thing.

I'm not trying to say that Ben is because I do think this is a great question. But I certainly... No, and a lot of people have this question. Yeah, a lot of people have this question. And over the course of my lifetime and also in this industry, I've really realized how international these companies are and how companies all around the world make games and people all around the world play them and how fascinating that is. Like, it's kind of incredible. I know I've got Zelda on the brain, but it's kind of incredible that we have like a Zelda game coming out that is not necessarily based in Western storytelling tropes with like refuse the call and like all these other familiarities. It has its own specific tropes that are based in like, Jack.

Japanese folklore and like, no, it's an international game. It's going to be played all around the world. It's a cultural phenomenon that stretches everywhere. So when you think about that phenomenon, it might help make it make sense that something like this acquisition is so massive that it affects consumers everywhere and the laws that pertain to those consumers everywhere. Because it's huge. Yeah, this is also a good example of the sort of broader context of, European regulators doing what American regulators won't, especially when it comes to tech. With privacy, this is something we've seen a bunch, right? With European privacy regulations being imposed on Facebook and whatever, Google major tech companies. So it's, yeah, it's just like this sort of zoomed out version of this is the global economy at work. Yeah, well, so real quick, what do you guys make of the UK blocking the deal on potentially preventing it from actually happening? Like it does seem we're about to hit some other key deadlines.

I believe in late May, there's a EU deadline. They get to make their decision. And at some point, Microsoft has to decide, like, are we going to really just, like, spend the next two years fighting this in appeals? Or are we just going to, like, pull out pay Activision, the kill fee of, like, whatever, a couple billion dollars, whatever it was. The journalism term. Yeah, that's what it is.

Really? It's still the same term. I don't know. No, I don't know if that's the actual term. That's essentially what it is. It's like, hey, we're not doing this, so we're going to pay you off. And then just call the whole thing off. And I think that like that is, I mean, that seems like the most likely outcome to me at this point.

What do you guys, what do you guys make of all this? I mean, I think it's fascinating from a journalistic standpoint in terms of just how wild the story has been. But it does make me think like, what is going to happen to Blizzard after this? Because it seems like they were really counting on this. And who else would buy them? I don't know. But that'll be interesting. interesting to cover. But I look at like how Overwatch 2 is doing and all this kind of stuff. And I'm like,

Blizzard kind of seems like they need Microsoft's help with some of these strategy questions and these big picker questions and not to mention all the cultural issues they've been going through that they don't seem equipped to handle internally. And I'm not saying Microsoft would like do a great job, but there's something to be said for morale getting a huge influx of cash from a new buyer. And like Phil Spencer has a lot of public goodwill. Like people had kind of been attached to the idea of Phil Spencer making Blizzard clean up their act. I don't know if any of that is true. This is just kind of like the public narrative, you know, like,

Overwatch 2 failed. Phil Spencer's going to fix Blizzard. They're never going to have a sexism problem again. So like I do feel like even if all of that is just messaging and a lie, Blizzard will still have to navigate that if they no longer have that acquisition and we'll have to be like, we're good. We didn't want to be acquired. We're actually doing amazingly and we're going to fix ourselves on our own.

and influx of cash, who gives a shit. Like, that is going to be kind of a tough pivot for them from a company business standpoint. Well, okay, a couple of things there. Financially, Blizzard, I mean, it's hard to extricate the Blizzard unit from the entirety of ABK because they don't really. I mean, they have a little bit of a breakdown in their finances every quarter, but it's not a huge one. Blizzard still prints money with World of Warcraft.

That's the thing to always remember. And they, they're kind of operational decisions. I don't really think Microsoft's preceded so far is to leave companies alone and let them do what they want. As we saw just now with Redfall, which was made by Xenomax and Microsoft was pretty admittedly hands off on the whole thing. Maybe they have a different strategy in mind for Activision Blizzard, but I doubt it. I think what's more pressing for people who work at Blizzard is that like what the sequence of events was essentially summer of 2021, there's a big California lawsuit. The scandal erupts.

There are walkouts. People are pissed. November of that year, there's a big Wall Street Journal article about Bobby Kodick, the CEO of Activision Blizzard, kind of implicating him in a bunch of things.

At that point, there's a big petition, 2,000 people sign all across ABCK calling for Bobby to step down. That fizzles because two months later, Microsoft swoops in. They said, we're going to buy ABK. Bobby's going to go, and it's reported that Bobby's going to go

when the acquisition completes, which is obviously the entire C-Suite will be gone. if the acquisition completes. So as a result of that, we've spent the past couple of years not really confronting the question of like, is Bobby capable of like winning people's trust and like running this company? Because everyone's just like, oh, Microsoft's going to come in. Exactly. That to me is the real big question.

I don't think they need another kind of savior in terms of like another acquirer for financial reasons or anything like that. But the question is, what is Bobby going to do? Is someone else going to take over the company? Is the board still going to have trust in him? probably because the board's a bunch of his buddies. But that's the kind of the Game of Thrones of it all is wondering what the new plan is there. That's a good way to think about it, the Game of Thrones of It All. It does feel that way, especially since these companies are effectively monarchies

in terms of how much they own and how much power they have. Yeah, my main question is just sort of how big of a merger is too big. And that seems to be maybe what we're about to get an answer to is, okay, they kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger, you know. One massive corporation bought another one. Yeah, Lucasfilm being acquired by Disney, et cetera, et cetera, yeah. Finally, we get to this one that is the biggest of all time, and maybe finally it's just too big, because it had to happen at some point, right?

So maybe this is the one or maybe it's not? Well, the question is, is Gojo going to be allowed to buy Waystar? Yeah, I know. Everyone's wondering about that. Actually, do you think, I think there's no way that Gojo is going to buy Waystar, but I haven't seen this week's succession, so I don't know. Oh, well, they mention regulatory stuff. That's what the joke with, so you'll see it.

You'll enjoy it. That's part of the story. Let's move on to the next question. Kirk, you want to read this next one? Sure, this comes from Kyle. This is a paraphrased rendition of Kyle's question. Kyle writes, over the past few years, I've noticed an incredibly sharp spike in the amount of simulator games being made.

I'm amazed how many areas of interest they can cover. You have business management sims. Think Planet Coaster, Two Point Hospital and Campus. There are numerous vehicle sims like flight sim, bus sim, train sim, truck sim. Then you have the novelty sims like house flipper, power wash sim, lawn mowing sim, brewmaster, beer sim, and many others. What would be your perfect topic for a simulator?

Oh, man. All right, journalist simulator. Of course. Yes, of course. You have to balance not being able to pay your rent with working 14 hours a day. Being laid off, like every few cycles you get laid off. Every week. Yeah.

And you have to avoid getting. trapped by alcoholism and depression. Oh my God. You join a union. Join a union, yeah. And then the company fires everybody as a result. You try to start a union and you get pegged as an agitator and can't get promoted. No, I don't know.

Do you guys have simulator games that you would love to see? We're not going to do podcaster sim. I mean, we're just going to continue the jokes here. Like, you've got to balance the levels. I mean, Kirk plays that one every week for it. That's the level. Try not to interrupt your co-hosts fail. Yeah, I think

sort of related to that that, you know, looking at some of the things that I do that would be fun for a simulator, there's a game called, I'm trying to think, it's called, like, it's not PC building simulator, but it's something like that. There is that. It's on Steam.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I'm starting from there. So this exists. You build a PC. There's also... It is called PC building simulator. You got the name. Okay, so this is one Kyle didn't mention,

but this is another one where you build your perfect dream PC. I've also seen a simulator where you can design your perfect office, like game space, like cool, you know, apartment or something, which is really cool if you're kind of, I don't know, you're like a college student and you're dreaming about your first apartment. You can just play this game where you kind of perfectly lay everything out. Kind of like the, I guess it's like unpacking that game. The pleasure of that game was putting together these lovely spaces.

Or like Houseflipper with all the mods installed. There's a whole lot of like mods available for Houseflipper where you can just design gamer stuff. I mean, there's many other mods, but I am very familiar with the game. But that's kind of pleasing. And having done a lot of home studio creation and optimization, I think that would be really fun. It sort of ties in with it where you go beyond just the sort of animal crossing, where do you want your TV, where do you want your couch, and into like I.O. routing. like really getting into like putting cables in the wall and like setting up sound reinforcement and acoustics. Like I think that could actually be really fun.

It's a whole discipline that people really get good at can dedicate their lives to doing it. Just building recording studios and music spaces. And I could actually see a game where you're just designing those being really fun. Like herbal space program, but like you're like there's a wine somewhere in these cables and I have to figure out where it is. And you just like keep trying random stuff. Rumoring at like 120 hertz. Not to be spoiling or anything, but that's basically tears of the kingdom. Yeah, Link makes a recording studio.

Links do ultra-hand. Link's got a cut a record in his sick recording studio. Link gets into podcasting. I mean, it's going to happen. I really, if I were making a game, I would make a parenting simulator where you have to just make decisions about how to ethically raise your child and not screw them up too much. The Sims 4 has included a lot more of that, and it's very funny. Like the child raising content is new. I can't remember what it's called, but it's like the most recent expansion.

And I've been watching friends played on Discord and it's like, it's incredible how much you can do. That is fun. I think I would want to see something that's a little bit more visual novel. Yeah. More like Papers Please. Yes. Paper's please style where you have to just constantly be making decisions. Yeah, like negotiate with a preschool teacher or whatever about your kid.

Exactly. Exactly. More like your team. your teen comes home drunk and you have to decide what to do about it. Like that sort of thing. I think that would be fascinating. Yeah. Like gone home,

but from the parents' perspective. More and more people are asking for this. Exactly. Exactly. The people want it. Yeah. All right. Let's keep going.

This next question is from Alex. Alex says the term makes me feel like a superhero gets thrown around a lot when talking about the power fantasy of being a video game protagonist. When people talk about this, a lot of them ignore the themes of restraint in heroism. comedy and how that distinguishes the hero from the villain. Do you have any game recommendations to focus on self-restraint as a theme? I find the games that want you to unleash all you have as a player are more fun in the moment while games that give you terrible power, quote, TM, but ask you to

hold back, stick with me a lot more. For example, Death Loop was incredibly fun to play, but Dishonored One and Two sat with me much more, and Dishonored in particular asks you to use your superpowers responsibly. Unlike the recent Spider-Man games where you can web people to exploding cars and fling them off buildings. But Spider-Man, quote-unquote, never kills. To be fair, this is me interjecting. When you fling someone off a building in Spider-Man, he always attaches them to the building. Like, you could see them attached. Thank you so much. It's ludicrous, though. So then they just spend the next six hours hanging upside down, stuck on a wall, and they're traumatized. Yeah, that's true. He's just traumatizing people. Yeah, like Peter Parker is a mass murder. Like, we all know that that's the case. Thank you so much for taking the time to read this and I'm sorry the question I ended up being so long when I've been listening since the split screen days and I'm so thrilled

to hear y'all every Thursday. What do you guys think? Any games with restraint that you guys can think of? Yeah, I mean, Hitman also comes to mind. I think stealth games tend to kind of swim in these waters in a way that a lot of other games aren't able to. I think this question really brings to the front a super interesting tension in video games, just in general, that there is this narrative tension and with superhero games in particular, where they're not allowed

to explore so many of the most interesting superhero scenarios, like the scene where Superman goes and talks to a normal person, and it's not actually about him being really strong, it's about him having a human connection with someone, even though he's not human. You know, those things that make Superman meaningful. It's not

that he's so strong. It's not that he can, whatever, catch a building. That's cool and everything. But the problem is that's more fun for a video game unless you're doing the like telltale Batman You know that kind of thing where it's a more narrative game So it's a real challenge Dishonard is such a good example of this But Dishonard kind of from one to two

Played with it in different ways And I think Solve the problem differently In Dishonard one If you kill a bunch of people Like you use your powers and you play super dark It makes like the game harder right There's more rats everywhere

And you get a dark ending It's like a chaos mode It goes from chaos increases, and yes, it makes the game harder, adds more rats, yeah, a different ending, yeah, you're right. Right. Where I'm trying to remember the specifics of Dishonored, too, but it works differently. They made it so that I think you can play that way, but it's more about the choices you make and the way that you play the game. I know they've made a few changes. I might bing my way in here later to explain the specifics because I can't remember them off the top of my head.

But I know they kind of played with that idea, and then, bing! No, no, no, Kirk. I'm going to cut you off here. You can't invoke the Bing past Kirk and not think that future Kirk is going to make a Bing and interject while he's editing the episode. That's just not possible.

So you have invoked the Bing, and here I am to explain that actually you are remembering incorrectly. Desonard 1 and 2 both had a chaos system that affected the ending, depending on how violently you played. It was Death of the Outsider, the standalone expansion for Disunard 2,

otherwise it was an expand-alone that did away with the chaos system and actually made that a really strong entry in my mind just because you had already worried about chaos so much in the first two games. It was nice not to have to worry about it. Though Disunner 2 did introduce something new that passed me as about to talk about

in a minute here, and that is replayability because you could play as either Corvo or Elizabeth, it kind of encouraged you to play a low chaos and a high chaos playthrough, so it made it a little bit more narratively easy to relax the second time through, and just play high chaos and get to see all that extra stuff and do all those cool extra moves. Okay, the Bing has been satisfied.

I am now leaving back to the show. Take it away past Kirk. Bing! It is interesting, Death Loop. When we talked about Death Loop, I think we were like, man, it's really cool that it doesn't matter how you play because it's very freeing. You can just do whatever. You can kill whoever.

The loop resets every time. It's just not a big deal. But I think Alex's point is a good point, like that it doesn't really. stick with you narratively in the same way because your actions don't really have weight. But then I think a lot of people would say that the death loop approach is more fun. So it's that tension again is just sort of there. I don't know. Yeah.

My first thought on reading this question was about Star Wars Jedi Survivor, in part because we've all just been playing it, but also because that is the theme of every Jedi story is restraint. And not using your powers for evil or giving into the temptation to use them to achieve your own ends. And of course, there's a lot of that tension just baked into Star Wars stories whereby I can look at a new hope and be like, Obi-Wan is mind-controlling people. How is this guy not evil? Like the situation doesn't fully add up and never has.

But that's also why I think Star Wars is great because there isn't any way to define what evil is other than just looking at a situation as a person and being like, that's evil. I'm going to choose not to do that. And the more often you do that, the more you tend toward the life. side and that's just that's just kind of how it goes and like all those little individual actions add up to be something meaningful and complicated at the same time and I wish that the Star Wars games could include that tension more but they also kind of can't because I also feel like I'm just straight up murdering dudes as Calcasters and I'm like I guess this is fine because like they're all space Nazis but it does have like a little something to it I haven't I haven't played the game

enough. I'm sure there's a storyline where Cal's Tempton to the Dark Side. I've seen Star Wars movies and games and I know what happens. But it is kind of too bad that that isn't like baked into the way that you play in the way that it is in something more narrative-focused like Mass Effect or games where your choices impact how other characters interact with you just based on dialogue choices. But it's not really quite that kind of game. Yeah. To the theme of restraint, I think it's really interesting to look at like narratives about, for example, superheroes as opposed to video games about superheroes. And in a narrative, and when you're watching a movie about a superhero, you're watching a story about a character who has powers and has

to reckon with them and keep himself restrained by not using them every chance he gets. Whereas in a video game, because you, the player, are getting to experience being the super, like being the superhero for a temporary amount of time, part of the appeal in the first place is getting to use those powers and getting to live out this fantasy of actually being able to do them. So there's something kind of like a little bit it's a little bit less fun, certainly less fun.

And I think even less interesting in some ways to be like, hey, we're going to give you a bunch of powers, but you can't actually use them because of the story. You know, though, like, there is the sort of power of making you wait and then unleashing your powers. Like, I'm thinking of I'm always angry. That's my secret cap. I'm always angry.

Like, you do get, like, that Hulk is kind of the ultimate example of a hero who has to restrain himself and then gets to like finally unleash and release in wreck stuff. When was last time you played a good Incredible Hulk game? But that's why it's so hard to have an Incredible Hulk game.

Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not disagreeing with that at all. But I think when you, I think when the player picks up the controller and is like, I'm going to spend an hour tonight playing this game. Right. Where I try not to get angry. Like, it's not quite as. Yeah, right. What a good game.

It's not quite as cathartic when you're trying to restrain. brain yourself. Actually sounds like a great game. It's like that bowl in a china shop game that I can't remember the name of where you're just like a huge bowl and you try not to knock anything over. I remember that thing. Well, yes, there are all sorts of like creative things you can. So speaking personally, like power fantasies are not my favorite types of game.

My favorite types of games are like mysteries and narratives and like cerebral stuff. But that said, if I'm going to play a power fantasy, I want it to be a power fantasy and not like, hey, we're dangling this power in front of you. you can't actually use it type of story. Or making you feel bad for using it. Yeah. I think Dishonored is a good example because Dishonored has so many creative powers. But like I would never want to play that game without playing around with them and getting

to use them. Like you don't want to just have to friggin blink everywhere. Although I will say those games do a good job of giving you non-lethal creative powers as well. But even that like says that we don't want you to be restrained. We want you to actually use the stuff we're giving you. Like, we don't want to give you stuff and then make you not use it. So, yeah. It's like a thing where you need to design a second layer on top of it,

thinking of dishonored or Hitman is another example, where in Hitman, there is a reward for you if you play very, very restrained. Nobody sees you. You just kill your target. You get out totally clean. But that's not restrained. I would argue that that's not what the story is here. Like, restrained would be if Hitman gives you a dozen different, like, supernatural powers

but says you can't use them. You have to play with, like, sneaking around them. Well, but they did. I mean, what I'm saying is, like, Hitman also gives you a level full of explosives in a million different ways that you can, like, super violently and ridiculously and comedically kill your target. The upper level thing that I'm talking about, like the second layer is that Hitman then also rewards you for doing all that stuff. And the real goal of that game is to play every level a bunch of times and do all of the things from the restraint to the complete lack of restraint. Got it. Yeah, that's a good point.

Which Dishonored, like, arguably does as well, though it's not quite as, like, built with repetition in mind. So I think a lot of people just wound up playing it kind of more restrained than they wanted to, especially the first game, because they felt like they were being kind of narratively punished for playing unrestrained, which is sort of a problem or something that the game did need to figure out how to solve. So I guess the problem with Hitman in regards to what Alex is writing about here is that like the story is not really, like does not support that. Like restraint is more, it's not really a mechanical thing, but it's not like a game. It's not like a story about a guy who, I guess,

gets multiple chances to finish a level and can do it one way floating and another way, thinking out. Anyway, let's move on. Maddie, you want to read the next one from Colin? Sure. Colin writes, hi, long-time listener from the split screen days, first time writing in. After all these years of being an avid listener, what possibly could have made me grab my keyboard and compose this email? Well, I want to hear Kirk's take on that, oh, so jazzy sax line halfway through the frankly incredible tears of the kingdom trailer. Sounds like the Hamilton hype must be real. Love you guys.

Keep up the awesome work. Well, Kirk. Okay. So I have been asked about this a non-zero number of times. Yeah, I just rewatch this trailer and re-listened to this music because of this question. The Hamilton hype is definitely real. Man, what a trailer. Yeah, I love that saxophone part. I'm going to play it right now for everyone.

Link. And that's not the only saxophone party. It plays during this part of the middle of the trailer, but then toward the end, they're building up, they're building up, and then what happens? But the saxophone comes back in. But you are not alone.

Link, our final hope. So that makes me think there's going to be a lot of saxophone in the actual soundtrack, which is the thing that makes me excited. There was also this sort of other track that was kind of released, and it also has some saxophone in it. And yeah, I mean, I love hearing saxophone and things.

There wasn't really any saxophone that I can think of in Breath of the Wild. And I guess the thing I'll say, the take that I'll offer about this sax playing, is that I really like this use of saxophone. This is an alto saxophone. And it's not the cliched, like, oh, it's time for a kind of lousy, you know, like subtony sound that a lot of, you know, games do is the kind of go-toe, like a tenor sax down low. This is like strident Super Pop Alto Sax

Like it kicks ass And it's supposed to kick ass Like it sounds like a laser beam And I think that's a really cool way To use the saxophone Like I love that style of sax playing So I hope that it has that bold of a presence Throughout the whole soundtrack

Because it rules It's like an epic sound It is jazzy I guess But it's not, it doesn't sound like jazz It just is like another texture In this epic orchestral soundtrack And it fits perfectly So I love it

I'm super psyched I'm really excited for the music for this game, I'm definitely going to do a strong song, something and whatever about it. The main theme is so good. I spent, like, an hour of writing today and just listening to it on Loop. There's a YouTube video, of course.

There's like exclamation points in every sentence that you're writing. I use my ultra-hand ability to use words together. Really good. Beautiful. All right, that's a good answer. Kirk, you want to read the next question, too?

Sure, this comes from Max. Max writes, There was a great question of the day on the triple-click Discord, shout out to the triple-click Discord, about Dead Rising 2 off the record, which took the protagonist of the first Dead Rising game, Frank something, right, the photographer, and placed him into a modified version of the second game.

People discussed what characters they would love to see moved into the driver's seat or into a different driver's seat. The obvious answer for many is Zelda, but there were other good ones like Melania and Eldon Ring or the other gods in Hades. Do you all have any characters that you would love to see become playable for the first time or in a different game than usual? Love the podcast.

Can I answer this one first with the easiest one? I want to see Hornet be playable in a hollow night sequel. What? How did you come up with that? I had to imagine that one. It's funny, this has become like the Sony first party trope. Like Last of Us, you play as Ellie. Last of Us do.

You play Zavi. Like God of War, Ragnarok. You play as Atreus. It's become this whole stick of Sony games. It's cool. It works, thanks. I mean, I guess it is a Sony cliche, but honestly, every example you just listed, I thought was cool. No, it's really cool.

I'm playing as a character I didn't expect and learning more about the main characters as a result. Yeah, clichés can be a very good thing. Oh, yeah, for sure. Or tropes, I guess we should say. Clchet has a negative connotation. So since the you have a sidekick, AAA thing is such an established trope that. works very well. Does that mean we'd love to play a Marin Star Wars video game? Because I would definitely play that game. I would and I feel like I said that on our Star Wars spoiler

cast about the first game to the point where I was like, surely they're going to give us a playable Marin. Yeah, I remember we all kind of thought, yeah. And I mean, again, none of us have beaten it. But I feel like I would have heard by now if that was in there. But yeah, who knows, maybe it's somewhere. But yeah, I would love that. I would love that. And also it could still happen, certainly. They're certainly doing well with those games and they could do even a whole Marin spin-off series. I would love that. I love the other gods and Hades suggestion. And I've also already been curious whether Hades 2 is going to have an element of that because it already, the premise is like Zagrius's long lost sister or whatever. And it's like, wait, was she here all along? And

like, what's her vantage point on Zag trying to escape the underworld this whole time? And like, does she have her own comedic version of that. I mean, it's a very story forward game. So I feel like we might actually get a version of that with Hades, which would be really rad. You know, it would be fun. It would be playing. We've gotten to play as the prosecutor as Miles Edgeworth in the Phoenix Wright games, which is fun. But it'd be fun to play as the judge. How would that work? You just have to. I don't know. Let's think it through. You just watch a series of bizarre things happening. And you're like, well, yes, this is it. Guilty.

You just have, like, each of the buttons makes a different befuddled expression. Okay, maybe it wouldn't be fun. You're, like, an apprentice judge, and you have to make, like, tough calls. I mean, talk about a game with, like, moral decisions. You have to decide. But if it gets really serious, I mean, you have to pull Miles Edgeworth and Phoenix into the side room and be like, guys, you got to cut it out in there. We know that's what would happen, right?

There'd be some conspiracy that goes all the way to the top. Judge Simulator. Yeah. That's actually the answer to the previous question. Lawyers. What simulators do we want? Judge Simulator, obviously. Perfect.

I like Melanian Eldon Rui. Yeah. That's a cool idea. Yeah, Zelda is the big one. I mean, I guess we still don't know if Zelda's going to be playable. It's true. In Tears of the Kingdom. But I mean, it's crazy that they never did a chic spinoff game after Ocarina. Nintendo has done so many spinoff games.

Retro Studios was working, or pitched one. Yeah, I'm sure they did. But it didn't happen. But it never happened. Yeah. Yeah, Sheik would have been a great one because that's such a good mechanic of like being able to transform. You could do like some self stuff as Zelda.

Or just do puzzles and stuff. You can still just have it be a Zelda game. You're just playing a Sheik and that's your explanation. Well, but I mean as part of that, yeah, well, when you're walking through a town, you have to go back to Zelda and you can't be chic or else they'll all get mad at you and like chasing up town. Sure. It could be like an Assassin's Creed style, style back and forth.

Yeah, like the Avaline, Assassin's. Creed game where you have to put on these different outfits and sort of adhere to different social norms. That could be fun. Yeah. It could be cool. All right. Let's do the last question. James asks, and this is paraphrase. This is actually an older email, but I brought it up because it's a newly relevant question. It is. Hi, Jason, Maddie and Kirk. Just became a Max Fund member. Thank you, James. Love your podcast and I've been listening since your Katakar days. That's a big theme today. Everyone is listening since the split screen days. My question is this. Have we hit Peaks with regard to games as a service.

Games as a service being, of course, games that are continually updated and full of microtransactions and such. This is a newly relevant question because Red Fall just came out. And even though that isn't technically like a microtransaction or game of service, because it doesn't have any microtransactions in it, it is yet another multiplayer game meant to be played over and over with your friends and missions and stuff. And Suicide Squad, which we've talked about extensively, although it's been. Delighted.

Yeah. Yes, just got delayed to next February. But that game also has been talked about because it is yet another game as a service that is like a lot of people are wondering who are these for? Who is asking for these games? I think the answer was executives in 2017. Seems like a safe guess. That is who is asking for them. But do you guys think we've hit peak saturation or did we already?

Did we hit it yours? ago? Where are we at in the games as a service world? I think we definitely have at this point. I feel like Marvel's Avengers was the beginning of this being, the beginning of the end for these games. Not even Anthem. Not an anthem. Good, good poll. Yeah. I see, I feel like Marvel's Avengers, because Marvel's Avengers is also like an IP licensed game and that it doesn't, a game as a service doesn't have to be that, but it feels like it was like two different trends merging to create a thing that everyone was like, this needs to be really good and original and interesting in order for me to want to engage with it. And that is like a licensed game or a game as a service. And it was both

and it didn't work. And that's tragic. But I mean, now we're just looking at Suicide Squad where the response to that has been such that the team has been like reacting to that that pushback against that trailer that we all clowned on on this very podcast and that affected the delay of the game. And even at this point, I'm like, I don't know if people are going to want it even then. And I feel like a jerk saying that. But it's just people don't want that.

People don't want that. I don't know. So, I mean, things might have happened behind the scenes. My understanding is that at least it was conveyed to the makers of that game that the delay has nothing to do with the trailer. So the delay was to fix bugs, and a lot of people are like, oh, my God, why is it a delay for so long? The answer to that is because, like, when you delay a game, you can't just be like, all right, we're going to release in October, especially when you have a marketing deal with PlayStation. You have to be like, hey, PlayStation, when is a good time to release?

And I'm imagining there were many, many conversations about that, and they landed on February, maybe because Spider-Man 2 is coming in September, and they don't want to be so close to that. Maybe because there's other stuff. maybe because it doesn't work strategically. So, I mean, there are many reasons why a game could be delayed just for bug fixing and slip that long. True. Point being, the reason I say all this is because that game is not changing at all in response to the trailer, as far as I know, unless they make some other drastic decision and push

it back two more years. But fundamentally, that game is going to come out. It's going to be the same. Maybe they'll decide, hey, we're going to strip all the micro-transactions out, which would be crazy at this point. But it's still going to be a co-op, shooter game, suicide. squad game where you're playing as like these characters that shark man whatever their names are king shark you know king shark yeah good old suicide i mean i don't take issue with the suicide squad members it's more

the actual structure of a game like that it is not it's really hard to get a co-op group together for something like that like it just it doesn't i don't know not everything's destiny two and destiny two had such a long road to get to being destiny too you know yeah we've talked about it yeah And there are different kinds of service game, right? I mean, Suicide Squad just looked like such a AAA service game from five or six years ago. It just totally turned people off. I think that's kind of what some of that reaction was coming from, where you can think of a game like Wordle as a service game. I mean, the idea of an online game that a lot of people play that's always being updated that can kind of continually generate revenue,

doesn't have to be what Suicide Squad looked like or what I gather Redfall kind of feel. multiplayer mission-based, lose. Right. It can be a lot of different things. And then there's also kind of dying light, too, as an example of a game that, you know, Techland, they just update that game forever. And it's not they sell some stuff, they don't sell

some other stuff. And it kind of falls under games as a service, but it's different, right? It's the same thing they did with the first game. Where it's pretty different now. They've added a lot. Assassin's Create Odyssey, also very similar. True. Right. So there are these kind of other categories. I don't think we've hit a saturation with that.

I think that's just broadband internet is widespread enough and everyone's online and the games are all digital and it's easy to update them and add stuff and that keeps people engage with them and that can be cool. That's not going anywhere and I don't think anyone's sick of that. People are sick of the game coming out and feeling unfinished and then having to wait a while and then get patches. That's kind of the sort of flip side of that same thing. But that happens with non-service games too. It does. I think the harder part is like the multiplayer aspect and it needs to be your whole life, which is kind of the destiny two of it all. It winds up being like, it's a kind of narrow category of games as a service, which I do think is what James is talking about.

And that, yes, I think at least in terms of like, here's a new one of these, it's a big one. Are you so excited? People are going to be like, no, no, we're not. Because I think Suicide Squad is a good example of that. Counterpoint to all that is that Diablo 4 is coming out in a few weeks. I was just thinking that too, Jason. I think all three of us are pretty excited for it. We're all going to play it certainly.

I think that like, really, I think what we're getting at here, maybe. I don't know. Here's a thesis that I'll throw out here. Maybe the real oversaturation point is just that specific type of game that feels like every other game we played before. And Diablo 4 is coming. And even though that's a service game, that's a multiplayer game that's a game designed for you to play for hundreds of hours, it just feels so different than everything else that's on the market. Because there aren't a ton of like action RPGs from an isometric perspective that are also item collections. Like there are a few Path of Exile has been running forever and that game's really good. obviously previous Diablo games

but there aren't like a bazillion others the way there are looters so you see a suicide squad game and you're like it's not the game as a service part that really turns people off so much as the oh this looks like a billion other like anthem and destiny and the division and Warframe

and whatever else. What was that game called outfielders? Yeah, Outlanders. I literally don't know. Outwriters. Outriders. Yeah. Yeah, it's an aesthetic thing too. I mean, it's partly the service game pitch that it looks exhausting, all the loot and everything.

But yeah, it's definitely an aesthetic complaint, I think, that people are lodging. Like, why does the loot look exhausting in Suicide Squad? And yet, in Diablo 4, I will collect it endlessly. It's aesthetic, right? It's the menus. It's the third person. It's the gameplay. It's the way you're just like, no, no thanks.

The gameplay in Diablo 4. I mean, we all play the beta. It's just super fun, like to play it. And don't get different. Suicide squad game. It's still made by Rocksteady. I know. I know.

Good designers. Maybe we're all wrong. Could be super fun. Yeah, it could be very fun. Maybe. That'd be crazy. But so is destiny too. And like,

I know. I thought of playing that again is exhausted. Well, yeah. I mean, it's been a while since I tried reinstalling that. I don't know if I'm ever going to go back. I think maybe one of the fundamental problems here is that like we already hit the apex of like the the looter shooter genre and you really can't like you can't get much better than that as opposed

to action RPGs where it can still be iterated upon. and it can still get better and better. I don't know. Maybe there's a lot going on here. This is going to sound ridiculous, but I'm going to say it just because it's a thought I'm having. But I think that for me, it's that everything is small in Diablo form. And so it feels like it can fit into my life more than it. And everything is bigger in those other games.

And it feels like it takes up more space. I can't fit it. If you play it on a Steam deck, then it'll look much smaller. I think that's why I like playing some of those games on Steam Deck more. I get that though, because you can carry the steam deck around, and that just feels like it fits in your life better. Like, it doesn't make sense, but they're... It's littler. Guys, we need smaller games.

Yeah, we need smaller. Literally smaller. We just zoom the camera out. Jason, do you mean you want shorter games? No, we need smaller. Like, just smaller. This is where I say, once again, we have to play the Minish Cap, Ledge of the Minish Cap, because that is the smallest game that you'll get. I will play it. That sounds wonderful.

Once again, thank you to everybody who sent in questions. Once again, you can reach us at triple click at maximum fund.org. Now let's take a break and then come back for one more thing. Hi, I'm Travis McElroy. And I'm Teresa McElroy. And we're the host of Schmaners. We don't believe that etiquette should be used to judge other people. No, on Schmaners, we see etiquette as a way to navigate social situations with confidence.

So if that sounds like something you're into, join us every Friday. on maximum fun wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's John Moe, inviting you to listen to Depresh Mode with John Moe, where I talk about mental health and the lives we live with all kinds of people. Famous writers. David Sedaris, welcome to DePresh Mode. Thanks so much for having me.

Movie stars. Jamie Lee Curtis, welcome to DePresh Mode. I am happy to be here. Musicians. I am in St. Paul, Minnesota. I'm talking to Amyman. Great to talk to you. And Song Exploders.

Rishi Case Hereway, welcome to Dermuda. Depress mode. Thanks so much for having me. Everyone's opening up on Depress Mode on Maximum Fun. And we are back, Kirk, Maddie. It is time for one more thing. Maddie, start us off with some Zelda. Sure. I'm still playing Breath of the Wild. I'm not playing anything else or really doing anything else. So I felt like I was destined to pick this as my one more thing this week. I love this video game. I also just wanted to note, I feel like a lot has changed in my gaming. appetite or intake since the first time I've tried playing it, not just because now I'm not playing Street Fighter every single day, although that's about to change, but also because I have since

played from soft games and have really gotten used to difficult combat. And I remember thinking when I first played Bethlehem, like some of those guardian fights and like the amount of strafing you have to do and just careful calculating and like, oh, is there a column nearby that I can hide behind while it's lasering me, all that stuff. Didn't think it was that fun back when I was playing at the first time. And I just was like, I don't want Zelda to be this hard. But compared to Dark Souls, this game is cake. You can just pause it.

Just wolf down some steak. Yeah, eat some fruit. You literally pause it anytime. You can make a billion meals. I love cooking in Zelda. Loved it then, still love it now. It's so great. I'm so excited to.

cook more in Tears of the Kingdom. Going to be amazing. You can make a bunch of specialty meals and then head into a fight that you know everything about already because maybe you've already died there and go back to it and be like, here's all my meals. And you just freaking pause it. I don't know. It's crazy.

You can pause it. That's so easy. So yeah, Breath of Wild. Great game. I remember when I played the preview of Tears of the Kingdom a couple of weeks ago, in this one, so in Breath of Wild, you have to kind of pull out, like have Link hold each item individually. You have to select them individually. And this one you could select a group like based on a recipe all at once, which seems like a game changer.

For cooking. I love that. I love that. I'm so excited for recipes. Oh, you also, uh, there was like a portable pot, Zonai portable pot thing. Yes, that's the other thing I'm really excited for is cooking anywhere. Because in Breath of the Wild, I've already been thinking about those two things a lot. recipes and wishing I could cook anywhere and having to like remember where pots are that I can cook at. Because I'm really reverend. evolving my play, not just around trying to actually do the challenging fights that I never bothered to do the first time and enjoying them. I won't beat the game in time for Tuesday of the kingdom, but it doesn't matter. I'm having a great time. But I'm really revolving everything around

my cooking. It's a great strategy. I love it. I love this video game. Oh, man. So I hope you're not burning yourself out for Tuesday of the kingdom. Because I, all I want to do it again. It's not possible. It's possible. When I, after I marathon that game. I was like, right, I didn't need to be. I don't know. I played Eldon Ring for like 150 hours and I was like, I just want to play more Eldon Ring. So I think I'm going to be fine. Okay, fair enough.

Well, I also cannot wait. By the time people hear this, we will be one day away from the legend of Zelda, tears of the kingdom. Kirk, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is Party Down Season 3. The new season of the beloved cult classic comedy

Party Down, which Emily and I just watched and is amazing. It's so funny. I laughed so hard at this show that I just wanted to remind people that it exists because it came out. People talked about it. But it was, you know, like a sort of return to a kind of niche show from a little while back that didn't ever do that well, but it's kind of grown to be a cult classic. So I think some people might have forgotten that it came out. It's just six episodes. Each episode is a half an hour long.

You can watch the thing in the length of a star's free trial. Take it for me because that's what I did. because I just am not subscribing to another streaming service. And it's time well spent. Man, a couple things I will say about this, especially for anyone who has watched it. One, it features the character Roman, who's played by Martin Starr, saying the funniest thing I've heard on a show in a long time. I'm not going to say what it is, but it involves his car. I'll just say that.

And anyone who's seen it knows what I'm talking about. It's something that I just say out loud regularly and just start laughing. That's the first thing. Second, Ken Marino. Great guy. Who plays Ron Donald on this show. One of the funniest people in the world. Yep.

There are, I think I would rather watch him uncomfortably sweating and looking like anguished while kind of looming over someone. I think he's better at that than anyone else. I've been thinking about what makes someone funny while watching this show. Two other actors, Bashir Salahuddin, who plays Officer Goodnight on Southside. Oh, my God. And Tim Robinson. from I think you should leave.

Of course. There are two more comedians who, like, are both so good at being uncomfortable on camera and, like, looking uncomfortable and just making you uncomfortable, but in a way that's hilarious. Yeah, we have been watching some South Side and I'm obsessed with Sandy. His character is unreal. There is a scene in season three. There's a scene involving a police car on that show. Yes, we, oh my God.

And getting owned by a teenager. But that episode, I mean, we can say. because it's at the beginning, but a teenager steals his police car, and she's trying, and she's slowly driving it away from him as he was trying to negotiate with her to get the car back. And that is the entire episode, essentially, it's so good. It's so funny. His character is this cop who's like the ultimate chump and is always getting chumped by everybody at all times. And it's made, man. So Ken Marino on Party Down, very similar where, you know, if you've seen the show, anytime he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, like something horrible has happened.

and that's kind of his catchphrase. And in this season, they just, he is so on fire. Everyone in it is so on fire. It's just like absolutely great. I can't recommend it enough. I laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed at it. So yeah, Party Down season three. Go watch it.

If you haven't seen Party Down, watch Party Down from the beginning. Yeah, I mean, that's my stopping point is that I'm like, well, I need to rewatch all of Party Down before I can watch season three because it's been way too long and I don't really remember it all. And that's going to be just such a big chore, but I'm going to have to get through it. Yeah, Emily had never seen it, so I rewatched it. And yeah, it takes like no time. It's not that long and very watchable.

So, yeah, great, great show. Rob Thomas, also the creator, Veronica Mars and the showrunner of Party Down, a real talent. Yeah, that's true, though. There's a different guy. Rob Thomas is a producer on this, but I'm forgetting his name. But there's another guy who was like the director and writer of Party Down. Actually, hang on, I'll look it up. John Enbaum is the, he wrote a lot of it.

He's kind of the showrunner of the season three in particular. He's apparently. hilarious. And the first two seasons have a lot of Veronica Mars like characters coming in, which is very fun. Yeah. Yes. A lot of great cameos in season three as well, of course. Excellent. Cannot wait. My one more thing is a book called Magic for Liars by Sarah Galey. And it is about a wizard school. And the book opens up with a guy, a teenager who thinks that he is, who believes that he is the chosen one, wearing an invisibility cloak and sneaking around the library. and there's a line about the welcome back dinner downstairs where people are joking about house elves and pumpkin juice.

And you read this first chapter and you're like, hmm, interesting, interesting. And then it ends with the guy screaming in hers, he discovers a corpse that has been split into and is lying in the middle of the library. And then we meet the real protagonist who is this lady who has no magical powers, who has no magical powers at all,

and is actually a private detective. And her twin sister does have magical powers. And she is a teacher at this magical school. Oh, boy. And over the course of the next few chapters, you start to realize that the protagonics of this book is actually not like a wizard, but a kind of like nails tough private eye

who has seen some shit. And that the school in question is no Hogwarts, but in fact, like an actual high school where people like have to worry about getting pregnant and abortions and like prank each other and call each other. Yeah, that's cool. It is very much inspired by the magicians. There's a lot of that in there.

That's sort of kind of like realistic high school slash wizardry stuff. But it's also just a good detective story. The mystery, the fundamental mystery at the core of it is who killed this person. And the answer is a little bit kind of obvious and unsatisfying. But the story is just a. a good read and it's really fun to get through the main character is really good and probably the main reason that I would recommend this book is because the main character is just really interesting. A lot of gay characters in this book, a lot of a lot of queerness, which another

contrast from Harry Potter, which I don't think is as a single page with a single gay thing. Not until after all the books were done. Not until post, post release. And yeah, and it's just, it's just a solid read. Like it wasn't my favorite book I read this year, but I enjoyed it and read through it in a couple of nights. It's a very easy read. And yeah, I recommend it. It's called Magic for Liars by Sarah Galey. If you, like many people out there, are a lapsed Hogwarts fan and you're kind of craving some good wizard action, some good wizard school content. This is a good book to check out. Cool. Nice. All right. All right. That is it for this week's episode. By the time, we all convene again, we will have played

the legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom for like an entire weekend. So excited. I'm freaking out. So excited. I'm excited. So excited. For to that. Freaking out. Also, by the time people hear this again, it will be time for the Triple Click Live show in Brooklyn, New York.

So don't miss it. If you can, come out. Get a ticket. I think I think we are still, we still have like a few seats left. We didn't sell out yet, but I think we're kind of close. I'm not sure. I'm not sure a full wind up selling it. But if you want to go, get your ticket. now. Better to get in advance.

See what happens. Yeah, go see. Maybe it'll be there. Maybe it won't. Who knows? I can't make any promises. And Kirk Maddie, I will see you both next week. See you next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ.

Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member. of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org slash join.

Find us on Twitter at Triple Clickpods, send email the triple click at maximumfun.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.