Triple Click - Nintendo Hype, Steam Taxes, and the Best Games Ever [Mailbag]

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Kirk, Jason, and Maddy open up the mailbag to tackle listener questions about the expectations surrounding Nintendo surprises, what Valve's 30% Steam sales cut means for studios, Wikipedia's "list of video games listed among the best," one listener's Triple Click Dream, and more.One More Thing:Kirk: Marvel’s WolverineMaddy: The Rehearsal S2 (finally)Jason: Sleep Deprivation (AKA: The NFL Is Back, Baby)LINKSOne listener's Claude-assisted database of Triple Click One(s) More Thing(s)List of video games listed among the best (Wikipedia)Kirk’s 2018 review of Red Dead Redemption 2Tim Rogers’ Kotaku review of Football Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member 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

They say when you're jet lagged, it takes one day to make up for each hour of time difference between where you started and where you've landed. And I've actually found that to be true. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. Today, we're answering your burning questions about the hype surrounding recent Nintendo announcements, how we try to actively foster being thoughtful about the games we play, and one listener's dream about the three of us. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers. And I'm Jason Schreier.

Hello, hello. Oh, man. I'm about to fly to Japan. We're recording this early. We are. Because I'm about to go on a flight and you guys want to hear something fun? Always. So I land and then I have like non-stop back-to-back like interviews and business meetings and whatnot.

And so I really want to find a way to avoid jet lag. And so I went to chat GPT, which I should not have. Because I went to chat GPT and I said, hey, outline a plan for me. I figured this could be the type of thing that like generative AI is actually decent at. Outline a plan for me for like when I should sleep. and when I should wake up and when I should have a coffee and all that stuff for avoiding jet lag. My flight to Tokyo is at 11 o'clock on this day. And it puts out a plan.

11 a.m. and the plan involves sleeping until 10 a.m. I'm like, you're telling me to sleep until 10 a.m. The day that I fly at 11 a.m. And it's like, you're right. Thanks for the pushback. I shouldn't have done that. Thanks for the pushback. It's just like it's incredible how sometimes,

it'll have these glimpses of like, oh, this is so useful, but like it's always just plagued with so many stupid things that I just don't understand how. I've found it's weirdly bad with time the few times that I've tried to use it. Time in particular, it can't figure out. I don't know why. Because you would think that that would be something it could do, but it just can't. Yeah, but it's because it's it's auto-completing and not actually, it doesn't understand time or something, right? Yeah, it's not actually calculating anything. Don't email.

I'm sure there's like now it understands. time or whatever. Sorry, I'm not keeping up on the latest technology to any of the AI fans. There's actually going to be a question that we're going to answer on this episode. We'll talk about a sort of cool AI thing that somebody did. So look, just just just take easy. Maybe it understands time. Unless you're emailing us a wonderful question, which we will get to. But that's not what we're going to do quite yet because we're still introducing the show. We are, of course, listener supported. We're on the maximum fun podcast network. and we love all of the Maximum Fun members that support our show.

If you would like to sign up to support our show, go to maximumfund.org slash join triple click. There are links for it down in the show notes. You can become a member. You can support the creation of this show, and you can get access to monthly bonus episodes that we put out every month. I guess that kind of goes without saying

because I called them monthly bonus episodes. But we do put them out every month. There are so many of them. We've been making them since we started making this show. Recently we've been covering The Sopranos. There's like some really long episodes about The Sopranos, which have been really fun. We covered Nolan's Odyssey, some spoiler casts for video games like Resident Evil Requiem. And this month, we are going to be giving some love and dating advice to all of you who write in.

We're calling it triple kiss because if you play your cards, right, maybe you'll get a kiss or three. And you can write in and ask for our advice. If you send an email, you can send your emails to triple click at maximum fun.org. going to want to put triple kiss in the subject line so that we know that you're writing for some advice and really any dating advice just anything at all doesn't have to be video game related doesn't have to even be dating advice it can just be love advice marriage advice just anything that you're wondering about or maybe want to hear our thoughts on we are not experts in relationships we are not certified therapists or anything like that but we are all married and

have been through a lot of different relationships and have a lot of thoughts secretly got a PhD in this. Oh, right. And Jason's, Jason is a licensed marriage counselor. Maddie, you're the one who still has to do a prank against the two of us. That would be a good one. If you secretly got a PhD. Yeah, I could have gotten a PhD and like behavioral analysis or something. That'd be crazy. That's true. That's true. Maddie. Anyhow, uh, maximum fun.org slash join triple click. Become a member. Support our show. Get lots of bonus episodes. All right. Speaking of writing into the show and asking questions, Jason, what are we doing this week? We're doing a burn.

questions. We're recording this a little bit early like I mentioned, so we were decided to open up the old mailbag and pull out some of your hottest questions, including a few that we actually just got, just pulled in from yesterday. Oh, these are smoke, pipe and hot. Pipe and hot. So just as a reminder, you can reach us once again, as Kirk just said, a triple click at maximum fund.org. And as I always say, please keep them short. Keep them secret, keep them safe, keep them short. All right. That kind of went unsaid when Gandalf was talking to Fred. Yep, he was like, guys, shut up. Gandalf was always saying that to everybody.

Keep a secret. Keep it safe. And I mean, keep it short. Keep it short. And stop asking how we got into video game journal. Quote, Gandalf is always like, how did I become a wizard? People are always asking me this. It's a different path for everybody. It's such a boring question. The wizard industry has been destroyed by private equity.

so these days. There's only a couple of them left. I mean, that's true. That's true. There's only, what, five of them left and two of them are just gone. There's IGN and there's Kataku. And there's Gandalf. Is Gandalf IGN?

We can't do this. We can't continue this. This is a giggly day. I put this in front of us and they regretted it immediately. Sometimes you can just tell it's a giggly day. Do you think it is, is, uh, I was going to to say something mean. I'll hold that to my Yeah, it's a trap. It's a trap.

To quote a different movie franchise. No one is Gandalf. Our show is Gandalf. This question is from Mitch, and this is a very recent one that I thought was really interesting. Dear Kirk, Maddie, and Jason, this week at Time of Writing, so we're recording this the week before this is going to air.

We, the gaming public, were treated to two Nintendo Direcs in which we saw, among other things, an Aquarina of Time remake, an open world Kirby game and a new 2D Metroid. Congrats, Maddie. Thanks. However, a large subset of viewers seem disappointed, frustrated, or even angry that Nintendo

did not announce a new Mario or Super Smash Brothers out of the blue. My question is, how do we, in a positive way, balance excitement for possible future games of appreciation for current and near-term games? Or would we all be better off disengaging from the gaming rumor mill and hype cycle entirely? Thanks for bringing some sanity to the world of gaming. every week your strong friendship and love of the medium always shines through. I have a lot of thoughts on this, but one immediate thought that I had when I read this is these companies friggin' bring this upon themselves by like building up these hub cycles

and turning image into marketing extravagances like Nintendo Direct. So I mean, if people are being let down because of the lack of big surprises, it's kind of the companies that have like set up this hype cycle that to make them expect it is my immediate thought. But I don't know. What do you guys think? I think you have something there. It's definitely true that surprise is a major part of all of these live streams at this point. It's what they trade on. It's why you tune in. It's why the silk posting, Silk Song, Whereas Silk Song was a joke for so long and why it still is a meme. It's funny to imagine that at any time something you've been waiting for could show up. And that only works because we don't know, and if we constantly got press releases publicly ahead of time, like, oh, hey, we're

working on all of these things and you'll see them more eventually. And none of it was surprising, then maybe this wouldn't feel quite the same. But I mean, I think Mitch is also getting something here that I agree with, which is it is kind of strange to see people be actively angry when something that they want isn't being developed. But maybe that's just because I'm a Metroid fan. So I know patience. I know what it's like to wait and to maybe never have your dreams revealed. And every now and then I do. But, you know, sometimes you just, you just see what happens in life. You stay, you stay meditative. This is a particularly strange for me. I mean, I haven't been paying attention to like what people are saying or whatever, but I can't quite follow even the logic of this.

So I'm struggling to imagine it because I think the Metroid ravenous announcement, as far as I know, was a total surprise. Is that right? Like, I had no idea that was. coming and it looks totally sick. So that was really cool. And on the other hand, we knew the Ocarena of Time remake was coming because Nintendo announced it a while ago. And then they just showed it. And it looks, I mean, I think it actually looks pretty cool. We just played that game. I don't know that it needed a remake, but at the same time, it looks neat. And I think a lot of people are going to play that. I just had some friends who don't play a lot of video games were texting me about it just this morning saying, hey, did you see this? Wow, Akrona of Time.

And, like, I think, you know, that game is a big deal. And a new Kirby game, I mean, Kirby in the Forgotten Land is that, that game is great. Did either of you ever really play that game? Yeah, I did play that game. I loved that game was fun. It's so good. I started playing it just sort of randomly. We had some friends over and their kids were here.

And I was like, oh, let's play a little Kirby. And we were playing it. I was like, dude, this game is so joyful and clever and good. So another game like that, a 3D Kirby, that looks totally great. And, like, I don't know. Like, I can't really relate to the theoretical person who is, like, upset about. whatever, like, especially a Mario or a Smash not getting announced because those are two series that we know there will be another one of them at some point.

Like, it isn't, I don't know, like, so it just because Nintendo didn't announce one now, like you can just be patient and eventually there's going to be a new Mario game. It's going to be a new Smash Bros. Yeah, I guess I was thinking about this question beyond those two specific examples and more along the lines of you have this big Nintendo direct announced for you a week in advance or a few days in advance and you spend all that time just driving yourself into this feverish hype wondering what could cool big secrets will be announced there and then inevitably it turns out to be kind of a letdown. This whole model seems to me at least to be in need of a rethink in some way.

Especially I was struck by this by the last one, the one over the summer where the big ending surprise was the Aquarium of Time remake but everybody or at least a lot of people knew that was coming because it had leaked in advance so it wasn't a big surprise for a lot of people and they didn't really do anything to kind of change up their presentation to account for that. So I don't know. I've been thinking a little bit about just kind of the nature of just like kind of sending people on this hype cycle where it's like every week. It's like, will there be a direct this week? Will there be a state of play this week? What what big surprises are going to be revealed that I can get all jazzed about? It just feels like, I don't know,

something about it has just felt a little bit off to me as exciting as it might be to be looking into the unknown, the unknown future of when they'd be coming. So I guess I'm thinking about that I'm kind of extrapolating beyond the just like lack of 3D Mario or whatever to think of it in terms of this just as a marketing event. There's kind of been a shift, right? We've moved a little bit away from pre-order culture, which was the term I remember using at Kotaku a while ago, even though people still encourage pre-orders and like pre-orders are still a thing. You know, it's because everything is going digital, it's just kind of a little bit. less of a thing than it felt like it was back in the days when retail was still around because

there was still lines at GameStop to get physical copies of games. And that's kind of less of a thing now. So there's a little less of the emphasis on pre-ordering, which means you're like the cell like that you're getting from the announcement is a little bit different. And as a result, we are moving into a world that feels to me a little bit more like things are in Hollywood, where you hear that Christopher Nolan is making the Odyssey, like a long time before you ever see a clip of it. And then when you finally see the clip of it, it's really exciting because, oh, yeah, I knew Christopher Nolan was making The Odyssey, but whoa, they showed that Trojan horse

sequence and it was totally sick. And that is true in games now too often. I mean, we knew Rockstar was making Grand Theft Auto Six for a very long time. That did not diminish the excitement when they finally revealed it, and we saw what it was. And so, I mean, that world where just we kind of know what people are making, and then they finally reveal it to us and it's like exciting because we're like, hey, there's the game. It's this game I know about and I'm going to get to play it. That seems fine.

Like that seems like a healthy way for creative, you know, studios to interact with their audience where we know what we're working on. We'll show you when it's ready. And hey, it's ready. Check it out. This is what you're going to get to play. And then people see that and get excited. And there isn't this kind of, I don't know, an expectation that goes beyond that into something

a little more sour. Do the two of you feel that, that things have kind of shifted in the last 10 years in that direction? Yeah, it's funny you say that because we're recording this the day before BlizzCon is about to happen, and Blizzard is about to do their big keynote. And so this will air afterwards. And as you guys will see tomorrow and listeners will have already seen, Blizzard is doing exactly what you said, where they're like, here's all these things that are a million years away,

but like we're working on them and then we'll show you more when the time is right, which I do agree with you. I think that's an extremely healthy way for this all to be working out. And I think it might undercut this idea of a big surprise, but maybe 90% of the time those big surprises are leaked on Twitter anyway, which undercuts everything. So I think doing exactly what you just said is the right way to go. The downside to that is that you have Wonder Woman,

where the big CGI cheeser is announced really early, and then the game is canceled because it never comes together. So that's why it can be risky in the game's world. Which happens in film too, right? you got Mahershal Ali coming out to be played and then like, whoops, never mind. You know, that it totally happens in any, any feel. Yeah, I am still sad about that, by the way. Sure, yeah.

And that's about as far as it goes. At least for someone who's fairly well regulated, you're like, oh, yeah, they announced that thing and it didn't work out. And that's too bad. Like, it's a downside, but it happened. Yeah, maybe gamers should get accustomed to that. I mean, yeah, I do think that blessedly the people that Mitch is referring to are a minority. because we're talking about already the minority of gamers that are super tapped into every cycle and are like checking games news every day and know what time the Nintendo Direct is and they're watching it live and they're in the chat.

That is a minority of people already. And then within that minority, there are the people who are really angry when things don't go their way. And maybe we don't need to worry about those people because they probably have something else going on. Right. I mean, the far more people are like the friends I was mentioning earlier. who just started like, hey, oh, cool, an Aquina of Time remake. I had no idea. And they hear about it days later, maybe.

They hear about Ocarina of Time remake days, days later, and they're excited. Yeah, they're texting me about it today, which is days afterwards. No, so you know what's funny, Maddie? I think it used to be the case that maybe they would hear about it days later or even like closer to release. But now, because short-form video is now the way everybody consumes everything, what happens is the Nintendo direct goes up. And then within hours, group texts are filling with people just sharing clips from it

that have been posted on their TikTok or Instagram or even X. And so I noticed that too in my own life that like shortly afterwards, someone posted in like my group chat where people are just kind of casual, more casual gamers, a short form video that compared the original N64 Ocarina to the remake. So that's the sort of thing that I think is actually happening more now. So some of the stuff is actually penetrating the mainstream a little bit more, I would say. But the negative aspect, to your point, that part isn't like nobody in my group chat or nobody who's like in casual gaming spheres gives a shit about, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And that'll especially be true of things

like Aquarine of Time and Gtta 6, like games that are just menomita mainstream or a remake of an incredibly famous game that so many of us played when we were done. And by the way, I think this all speaks to just the way that marketing has changed and needs to change to kind of match with a modern era because, yeah, the kind of the old-school way of doing things does not seem to work anymore. All right, let's move on. Maddie, why don't you read this next one? Sure. This is from Mike who writes, hi, triple-click team. Thank you for making my favorite podcasts. I look forward to it every week. Thanks, Mike. I especially love your one-more-thing recommendations. They've helped me get out of some reading, gaming, and watching ruts over the last

few years. King's sorrow, the low-down, and root trees were all one-more-thing discoveries that became personal favorites. As a Saturday project, I worked with, I worked with Clod to create a collection mini site with the full history of picks and a surprise me feature too. Thought you all might enjoy it. So have you, have either of you clicked through this thing and put it in picture out? It's so cool. It's very good. We'll post it to link to this in the show notes. So anyone can access it, but it's, I'm assuming that it's accurate. It seems accurate from what I've seen. And it's pretty Tim, good. So this will be very helpful for people, I think. I mean, if it's not accurate, that'd be funny.

Yeah, we get a lot of questions about that. There are, you know, there are definitely, like some users and someone in the Tripoli Discord has been maintaining a spreadsheet, which has all of our own more things, because there are so many now. But it's a lot to maintain, and it's also with that many entries, hard to browse. And yeah, I was impressed with us. It seems like a really useful way to just, you know, find, it's like categorized by different type of media so it's got books and movies and games and you can see which of us pick the most games it's kind of fun very very fun it has a lot of good data if you're kind of a data yeah so the comparison is crazy yeah so i have the most games i was going to say could i guess could i guess who has the

most movies um me right yep yep because we have we have a weekly movie night and so tvs probably guess who has the most tv kirk maybe you and kirk are basically tied okay this 69 for kirk 70 for Maddie according to this thing. Guess who has the most books. You, I would say Jason. Almost certainly. By far, 80 bucks compared to Maddie's 28 and Kurt's 40. Jeez, this is putting me to shame.

I need to read more. I can't with this. Other could be anything. And that's just kind of 57 other for Kirk, 42. Other for Maddie, 37 other for me. Anyway, really cool. We'll post the link in the show notes. And if you're curious, check it out.

So big thanks to so Mike for doing that. And hey, good to know that the cloud is useful for something. Yeah, just don't ask it to help you avoid jet lag. Yeah, right? It's useless for helping you avoid jet lag. Very useful for vibe coding things. I think for cataloging existing data sets, in my experience, is pretty good at that. Yes, working with existing data, it does seem to be something that generative AI is not half bad.

Well, it's not generating as much, so that probably helps. That's true. There's little it can hallucinate if you force it to stick with. I wonder if there's any hallucinated one more things in there and what they would be. I'd be curious if anybody finds one, let us know, because I would definitely crack up to find out what that hallucination would be. Kirk, you want to read this next one? Sure, this comes from Eleanor, who writes, Hi, MJK. I had a dream about you all last night. In it, I was watching a video in which you all were playing and discussing a game that does not exist. It was some kind of first-person sci-fi parkour thriller, wherein you played as a princess. Also, Maddie had a wolf cut, and it

looked awesome. And she was the only one with a face cam on. Do you know what this could mean? Any interpretations? Also, have you ever had dreams about your favorite podcasters or favorite internet personalities? Regardless, Eleanor. Thanks, Eleanor, for, wow, taking the opportunity to share your dream on another podcast, which is something that not many people get to do. I don't think a wolf cut would actually look good on me, but I have considered it. It felt like I needed to address that right out of the gate. It's kind of like a shaggy, mullet-y kind of a thing, but I have a really big forehead and I just don't look that good without bangs to cover for it. And wolfcuts are designed to have your bangs besides some wolf cuts. And it looks like there are some bangs on some of these wolf cuts.

Yeah, I would have to do that, I think. All right. I know this hairstyle from a lot of character creators. Well, to answer the question here, I've never had a dream about my favorite internet personal user podcasters. I have because I sometimes will listen to podcasts to fall asleep, not all the time, but sometimes I do. And I will say my best example of this, or perhaps worst example, is that I used to listen to Just King thinks to fall asleep. Don't worry, I would actually listen to the rest of the show well awake if that happened, if I didn't complete it before falling asleep. But the reason why I had to stop is because I would start having dreams about the plots of Stephen King books because I would fall. asleep and like sometimes Cameron and Michael would like be in the dream like narrating the plot of

whatever was happening in the dream and like I would be going through it like live and that started to really freak me out so I had to stop doing that and now I listened to podcasts where nothing happens and no one's recounting the plot of anything because I can't with that. Okay I have a lot of questions here first of all is this is this lucid dreaming where you're like forcing yourself to dream about something it basically is right like it kind of is I have long thought that I could start lucid dreaming. We don't need to get too far into this, but I did recently like start doing this thing in dreams where if I'm having a bad dream, I try to alt tab out of the dream. Have you guys ever done that where you think a dream is a game? I don't know about alt tab, but kind of that. That's something

I started doing. I'm like, I need to get out of this. I need to wake up. Yeah, I've started doing that. And I think that's like one of the steps to lucid dreaming is that like you train yourself in real life to like turn light switches on and off and then you associate that with real life versus dreaming. So I'll let you know, Jason. Maybe that'll be a one more thing in the future if I figure out lucid dreaming. Because I feel like I'm on the verge of a breakthrough here. It seems to me like listening to podcasts to fall asleep would not be good for your sleep quality. Oh, almost certainly not. Okay, okay.

I'm just checking out. Terrible idea. Yeah, I don't know. I tend to nap. I think I've mentioned this on the show before. Back in the Destiny days, I would watch Datto, the Destiny YouTuber, who probably YouTube's about other things now. He would do these big long videos that were these just deep dives into like the new gun balance and Destiny. And this was kind of when I was falling off the game, but I was still subscribed to him.

And I would just start watching one of his videos, and I would just kind of fall asleep. And it was sort of soothing. And it wasn't like REM deep sleep at night. It was just like a little nap in the middle of the day. And that still happens. I'll be watching Fantano or some gear review or something, like a guitar lesson on YouTube, and I'll just kind of fall asleep. I don't think I dream about those videos, though. and I don't typically fall asleep to podcasts.

Well, do you want to answer the question real quick? Have you ever had a dream of your favorite podcaster? Not that I can remember. I mean, I'm sure I've dreamed about just about everything in dreams that I don't remember because we all dream so much that I'm sure every aspect of our lives makes it in. Okay, sure. Yes, okay. Let's fit in the answer is yes to everybody.

This is a real technically aliens exist. Yeah, come on. Well, you know, I just want to acknowledge that we are all dreaming about so many things. And just because we don't remember a dream doesn't mean it didn't happen. Have you two ever had a dream that we were recording the podcast, like in the dream? No. Probably. I don't remember now.

I feel like I have, but I don't, I don't know. I'm sure I have. I've certainly had dreams that I've like been blogging for Katagu or Polygon or whatever. I like have dreams about the CMS not saving or things like that. So only a matter of time. Anything that you do regularly that has that kind of worked in groove in your brain tends to turn up in your dreams, since your dreams are kind of your brain just like going back over those grooves and kind of going through the things you've done. We've made this show for so long.

There's almost no way that all three of us haven't dreamed about it. I'm curious about what Eleanor's dream means. It's not like, you know, it's not a Tony's soprano, like super obvious. My teeth are falling out. I tried to shoot the gun and all the bullets fell on the floor. My coach told me I wasn't ready. Like it's a little more just like I had a dream. You guys were playing a cool game and Maddie had a good looking haircut.

which like you know is either the interpretation could be well mattie you should try a wolf cut see how much i should i can look into it again just grow the sides out and keep your bangs as is i don't know i could see it i think it would look good and then also like what would be a first person action sci-fi parkour thriller it's kind of dishonored too you know you kind of play as a princess in that game not a princess i guess but similar but uh i don't know what game that could be either so it's a little hard to interpret the dream since there's not a lot of like symbology in it not a lot of dreams not a lot of dream logic. It's just sort of like, well, we played a game and Maddie had a haircut, so I'm not really. I guess Maddie being the only one with a face cam maybe means something about how Eleanor listens to the show, like that she visualizes Maddie in some way.

And so Maddie has a more visual element than me and Jason, which could be a little bit of an interesting ringhole. And we're playing as a princess. I mean, I don't know. Eleanor maybe is a princess in this scenario. Eleanor, you got to see if that's symbolic to your own life in some way. Maybe Eleanor is the character we're playing as interesting. Yeah. Like, do you do science fiction parkour metaphorically in your life in some way? And maybe we're helping guide you through whatever that experience is. Or I specifically am.

I don't know. My interpretation is that the stream is telling Eleanor that she knows her best friend is a rat and she has to take him out. Right. Listen to the fish. It's trying to tell you something. Anyway, $4 a pound. All right.

Next question. This is from Nathan. Nathan says, when Steam or Apple or whatever takes a 30% cut of sales on their platform, does the publisher or developer selling the game get to write that off as a business expense? How much does that change their bottom line? Thanks all. Love the show. The answer is yes. This is got to be a yes, right? I mean, I have a lot of platform fees on, for example, Patreon for strong songs. They take a chunk and there's transaction fees and all that stuff. I don't pay taxes on that. Like, that's pre-indexam. income, you know, withholding or expense. Yeah, so I can speak to this because I have to do something similar with my book income because I pay 15% of all my book income to my literary agent. And that is fully tax deductible. But I think sometimes people don't understand what writing off as a business expense means.

They think it means that you just like don't have to pay that money. Yeah. In taxes, it just means you're deducting. The IRS refunds it to you. Yeah, exactly. Isn't that be nice? They're like, thank you for running a business. Here's the 30% cut.

That's not. So in fact, writing it off as a business expense is not exactly accurate either because you're just, you're deducting it from your income because it's not actually income that you're making. So when you file your taxes, you just are deducting that from the amount of money that is taxed. Right. Yeah. I guess expenses are sort of thought of in a different way, but like in the blanket term.

So, okay, so another, to kind of put this in perspective here, so that that would be fully tax deductible because it's not actually money that you're even. in keeping. Whereas if I go on a business trip and spend money on a ticket to Japan, I can write that off too, but that doesn't mean the entire thing is tax deductible. It might be that certain parts of it are tax deductible in some way. Or already, it's kind of, that's what you hire accountants for if you are running your own business in any capacity. Which I have done. We hired an accountant, and I would absolutely just ask her this question. But I feel pretty confident about it. I've met with her enough times to know that that's the case and like the stripe fees for all the

mothership subscribers that could take it out for us. That would be something that we would write off as a business. Perhaps it won't literally be classified as an expense, but it would be written off on our business taxes. And then what you're describing, Jason, going to Japan, you'd be writing that off on presumably your personal taxes as Jason Trier. Yeah. Yeah. And then, I mean, the other question is like, are you reporting your gross revenue or your net revenue? because your gross revenue would include the 30% that you pay to Steam, whereas your net revenue would just be the money that you're making, so you wouldn't deduct that.

Which is kind of, I mean, essentially you're doing the same thing either way, but it just depends. If you're just reporting net revenue, you wouldn't write it off. I mean, essentially, just to make this as simple as possible, if you are making $10,000 and Steam takes $3,000, you only have to pay taxes on the $7,000 that you are keeping. That's what writing it off as a business expense means. So it does not change your bottom line at all.

Essentially, this is saying you only have to pay taxes on the money that you made. All right. Next question. Maddie is your turn? I don't know, but I can read it. This one's from Liam, who writes, hi, triple click. I find myself reading books and playing games in a way that has me getting to the end with very few interesting thoughts on what I just consumed. On your show, all of you have very thoughtful opinions on the games, films, and books that you three talk about.

Do you have any mental frameworks or processes that help you have more thoughtful media into? take either before, during, or after. I really appreciate your show. It's been a part of my weekly routine for four-ish years. So what do we say? Do we have processes? Yeah, I mean, the main one is just take notes. This is something I do for books that I read, for movies that I watch, every time I'm watching The Sopranos, I just have my phone with a notepad open, and I just write down stuff as I notice it. And because I know what I'm making, I know I'm going to make a podcast in this case. It's the same with definitely fiction. When I'm reading one of those for Kosigin books, I like take notes on post-its and stick them on the pages. I actually just stick post-sits on and then go back over the book and I remember whatever it was that I was marking. Or in my, if I'm reading in a candle, you know, highlight the words. If I'm watching a show. So yeah, like taking notes and then also knowing what you need to use the notes for makes a big difference. Like we're making a podcast. So because of that, I know now what is going to make for good podcasting. I know when Polly says something that's a great quote that's also thematically relevant.

I'm like, oh, okay, write that down. Be sure to mention that when you're talking to Maddie and Jason. That'll be a fun little back and forther thing to talk about. So it's kind of a mix of knowing the output that you're going for. And then having a process, for me, it's taking notes, but having a process to sort of create the thoughts and document them so that you'll have them ready when it's time to make that thing that you're making. Yeah, agreed. I also try to take notes when I can. The only other thing that comes to mind is with games, especially one of the frameworks I try to use is just thinking about how this was created and what kind of interesting factors might have led to decisions being made a certain way, not always possible to know the answers to that, but I always try to find the answers impossible.

Yeah. If I'm playing a game in particular, I'm going to be thinking about it that way because of the podcast that we do. And so that's kind of like a default way that I will consume a game, although every now and then I'm playing a game that's so superficial about which I might have so little to say that even in my own head while playing it, I might think, well, never going to mention this on triple click. And I feel that way about certain movies and shows as well, which is what my next point is, which is sometimes I'll watch a movie or show. And like right at the beginning, I'll be like, oh, this is really interesting.

I'm going to start zooming in on this more and considering it from an analytical angle because I'd like to talk about it on the show or write about it or whatever the case may be. And that is also just because I think it's really fun to think about media in that way. And that's part of why I have the job that I have is because I find that to be an entertaining way to think about media, to be like, oh, what is this trying to say? What were the circumstances it was made? Like Jason was saying, that's really fascinating to me. But also what is the author or authors of this media trying to convey?

And do they succeed or fail in an interesting? interesting way and what do I think about that? Does it hit me in the way that it's intended or not? Cool. Yeah, that's true, actually. I've been thinking a lot about how the game that's my one more thing, Marvel's Wolverine, was made. Like, that is a game that definitely raises those questions for me. And that has been a big part of my thinking as I'm playing it. And I am kind of reaching out to, like, who might know, you know, who could I ask? And, you know, asking people, yeah, have you heard about this? Because it really seems like this happened. And like, and even just reading news coverage of that game, how it changed creative directors and being like, okay, I can see that, oh, all right, it was the

Ratchet and Clank team that kind of took over. I can see that too. And it starts to inform how I'm understanding the game as I'm playing. And that's true for books to, you know, true for movies. There will be, I'll totally do that as well. So that's, that's a good thing to mention. I was thinking about that in the framing of your, one of the best things you've written, Kirk, which is your review of Red Dead Red Dead Redemption, too, which is very much about the parallels between the story of the game, which is fantastic, and the way in which it was made, which was a great, great review. Yeah, greatly informed by your excellent reporting.

That was a fun note to go out on Ankataq, because it was kind of a Shriar Hamilton 1-2 combo. Yeah, it's a wonderful. You should put a link to that in the show notes. I mean, I'm sure I've mentioned this on the show before, but I had an AP English teacher who said all the time, all movies are about making movies. And ever since he said that, I started seeing all. media in that way in the sense that like red dead redemption is about making red dead redemption and

not everything quite works through that lens but i i think it's actually a really helpful framework with which to approach things because someone created them and the process of them creating it is probably part of the story that ended up there or at least informs something about what it looks like or feels like all podcasts are about making podcasts our podcast art though i remember lee alexander they're making that observation about Bioshock Infinite, and I found it to be a really revelatory at the time. And she articulated it very well, but it was very much like, oh, this is a game about a world that lives according to the whims of this one man on top

who is constantly, you know, changeable and impossible. Very telling. Everyone is in chaos and battling all the time. And I was like, oh, that's a very interesting insight. And then it got me thinking, like, you know, actually, I feel like maybe a lot of games reflect the way that they were made. She has a very similar set of insights that I agree with about the Metal Gear games and how they reflect, like, Kajima's insecurities about making games at the time and his leaving Konami or getting pushed out and, et cetera, and that kind of being reflected in those stories as well. She's definitely applied that methodology to a lot of her criticism in excellent ways.

Yeah, it holds up. Kirk, do you want to read this next question? Sure. This comes from Ben. Ben writes, hi, a triple click. I cannot possibly be the first person to suggest this, but if you're doing all seasons of the Sopranos in the bonus feed, you've got to do that other first-generation HBO prestige TV classic, The Wire.

And then maybe Chernobyl. Thanks for all your work. I love the latest triple-click picks episode and everything else. We've certainly considered it. The Wire would be great. I will see ads for The Wire, you know, in those HBO, those ads HBO is running about their legacy. And I'll think, yeah, that would be a really rich,

series of podcast episodes if we decided to do that. So it's one of the things. It's one of the things that we have thought about it, the very least. A great show. Yeah, we've done, yeah, man. So what shows have we done? We're obviously doing a big, a big kind of series about the Sopranos. We've done better call Saul as beans, but that was really just about the kind of the end of the show. We talked about Silo, which I only remember because I talked about the third season of that. And And there are a few other things like that, like Pluribus. Yeah, we did one season on Pluribus. Some of these more recent shows, severance, right?

The Last of Us and stuff. Oh, yeah, we did two severances. That's true. We did the first and the second season as two bonus ups. It's just such a commitment to do, like, to be like, we're going to do five beans casts about the wires. Yeah, the thing is, like, and I think for these older shows, because we've talked about doing Lost, which would be interesting and then frustrating and then interesting again. There are a few other shows that would be fun. Jason, I know you really love Lost.

and would be really into that. It's something about the older shows where there's a lot of them, we know they're good, and they're a very known commodity. It just makes for a different sort of conversation. And I personally have found our sopranos episodes to be incredibly rewarding and fun

in a way that is somewhat different from everything else we do. Like, for example, we've batted around and talked about doing a Witcher 3 series, which would be maybe bonus or maybe main feed, we're not sure. But when they put out the sort of remastered version of that, like we really play through it

which is a long game, and it would be a big commitment similar to probably in length of time to, like, watching the entirety of The Sopranos. But what you get for that is this, like, there's a really rich thing to talk about. You come back to it again and again, and so you have this, like, very dense understanding of it. Like, when we talk about the Sopranos now, it's informed by just hours and hours of watching and talking about the show, which I find at least really rewarding. and because the thing is a little bit older in that way that the wire is and the way the Witcher 3 is, you have something with a really robust body of criticism around it, and a lot of just people have spent a lot of time chewing on it and understanding it, plus a whole world of memes and just like the Sopranos, everyone knows all these characters,

and there are so many things that have been referenced so many times. It winds up leading to, I think, a really rich output. Like, I think the podcast episodes that we make are very cool, and I would love to keep that going. Like, this Sopranos experiment has been a whole lot of fun. And I'd love to do it again. Maybe not on the wire. Maybe on the wire.

Something like that. Like, Chernobyl is an interesting other pick that Ben picks. That's a little more like the TV episodes that we already do. Like, there was one season of that show. It was fantastic. But it's kind of like, it's history. We would just kind of be talking about what happened at Chernobyl. Like, that'd be cool, but that's a little more ordinary.

The Wire, though, something like that lost. One of those older shows where there's a ton of it and there's a lot to say. I think that could be really cool. And it's influential. We did one on the leftovers also. Did we? That's right, back in the split screen days. I think was that...

Oh, I think that was before my time. I think that was just me and you, Jason. I think we did a GDC, like some sort of... It wasn't a bonus of it? Was it the leftovers? I don't remember. Anyway. Yeah, we did something on the leftovers

because someone was talking about it in the discordant reminded me that that happened. But it was long enough ago that I barely remember it. Yeah, I mean, it's worth chewing on. I think if we were to do another big TV show commitment, it wouldn't be for another, for a minute after we kind of take a breath after the soprano. So, but we'll see.

Yeah, I can happen. I'm not against doing the wire. I like that show. I've only seen it once, and I would love to rewatch it. As someone who just launched a new podcast covering a book series that will end at the end of 2027, I am just generally like dispositionally in favor of long things that require a big commitment because they lead to such interesting and kind of rich output and

criticism. So I'm always in favor of that kind of thing. All right. let's do one more question. This is from Ryan. Hello, triples click. Wikipedia has a list of video games listed among the best.

I'll throw this in the show notes using the best video games list of major reliable outlets. Before 2017, an average of seven or eight games per year. We're named by six plus outlets is one of the greatest video games. Since 2020, we've had five added in total. I wonder if studios are not ambitious enough with their sequels. It's notable that the two most recent entries are sequels or successors, Eldon Ring, and Baldersgate 3. Curious to hear your thoughts.

Ryan also mentioned that he is an editor for Wikipedia, and so he's involved with this list. Actually, I should note that I'm going to pull this up, because I actually exchanged a couple of emails with Ryan, and I said, essentially, I said, I asked him about the criteria and he said basically, like he said in his email, it needs to have appeared on at least six best of lists by separate publications that are like widely regarded as reliable. And so I said, well, it feels like there are two kind of obvious answers here. One is

that no major publications have done updated like best of all time list recently and the other is that there are fewer reputable game publications these days. And he said, yeah, that seems like a reasonable take. But yeah, curious to hear, we two think of this. Is it the criteria or is it the lack of best games of all time? Yeah, I mean, do games just suck now? It's a very funny way to And we're getting our list of triple click picks, which we don't call the best games of all time, but we call triple click picks has quite a few recent games on it for what it's worth. It does. I would say we trend towards recent games and how we design that list. And if we were to create a list of all time greats, it would be a different conversation that would include us having to talk about things

like Ocarine of Time and Half-Life 2 and, you know, all the classics that appear on these kinds of lists. Have you two ever had to make a list like this? I had to do one at the Boston Phoenix back in the day. We did a 500 best video games of all time list. 500. Yes. And we did, we had a game on the website where you could vote and it would like pit, it would pick two random video games, I think from Wikipedia. media's listing. And it would pin them against each other and you had to pick the better one of the two. And you could play it like infinitely and you just have to pick the better one.

And that was how we came up with the final list of 500 of which I believe Half Life 2 was number one. Interesting. Hey, valid. Yeah. It made sense that that ended up there. And it was, it was fun to be part of it. And we had to write blurbs for all of them. And I remember that being pretty fun to divide up as well. But yeah. So yeah, as for the question, what do you guys think? Do you guys think that it's like the lack of, it's the game quality or like the lack of lists or something else entirely? It feels like kind of an old school thing to do this kind of project. Like it's like very legacy media to do. I mean, I feel like there's something to be said for

the fact that the last time I did this was when I was working at a paper newspaper. Yeah, and it's kind of an SEO thing. Like you make a list of the best games of all time because you know people are always kind of Googling that. And that's a little less of a incentive these days. I wonder. I mean, I think there is probably data, and it is interesting that this emailer has access to some of that data and could probably look at it to understand this. Because, yeah, I think those initial data points you mentioned, Jason, are there just fewer outlets and fewer of these lists to go off of? Like, that seems like an important one before we start saying, oh, modern games aren't as good as older ones. Well, okay, let's do a quick thought experiment. Well, finish your thought, and then I want to do a thought experiment.

And then even if that is the case, you know, there are other factors that could be at play here as well. I mean, for starters, the longer, the more time that is passed, the more games any given entry on a list is up against. And so, you know, you're always having to put, to say something is better than Pac-Man or Tetris every time. And there are enough games like that, the Half-Life 2s that, you know, old heads like me keep saying, well, that's still the best game ever. And so, you know, Half-Life 2 is on there, and you wind up in this interesting and challenging proposition where you're weighing the quality, such as it is, as you view it, of a game, against the legacy and importance of a game. I don't know if you've ever listened to the besties, our friends, their video game podcast, they will make these lists where they attempt to make the best games of all time. Or in a lot of cases, they picked, like, eras, the best game of, like, the 80s era and the kind of 90s. I don't know if it was by decade.

I can't quite remember. And they wind up in that position where they're like, well, this game is more fun to play now than this other game that we're weighing it against. But this other game that we're weighing it against was one of the most important games of that decade because it led to all this downstream stuff. So are we weighing the quality of the game as a game experience, as we understand it today, or are we weighing, you know, the legacy of the game? So that winds up being a problem.

And even if people aren't articulating it as thoughtfully and cogently as they do, with the besties because they've done it a lot and they think about it a lot. On a lot of list, they just wind up with people who are kind of weighing like, well, Frogger, like was, I mean, it was Frogger. Like, we got to put Frogger on there. And then, you know, something like Blueprints doesn't make it onto the list, even though like, if you ask me which game I would rather play right now, it's, I would very easily pick blueprints. So I think that's like, that's part of it as well. I have more thoughts, but go ahead, Jason. Okay, let's do a quick thought experiment and then we'll take a break. One of the best games of all time. Thoughtexperors.

So since since. Since, one, yeah. Since 2020, here are the most recent entries of the list. Baldersgate 3, 2023, Eldon Ring, 2022, Animal Crossing, New Horizons, 2020, Haiti's 2020, the Last of Us part two, 2020. Those are the most recent five entries to the list. Thought experiment, if we were making this list of games among the best of all time, are there a bunch we would add that are more recent or that are the last five or six years that have not? You could safely add, I think, every entry on triple-click picks would be fine on this list. Like, I guess looking at this, I mean, Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds, Eldon Ring, Baldersky

3, I mean, several of these are triple-click picks. So there's just a few more triple-click picks that could very easily be on here. And then, you know, there are other games that I personally would put on. You know, it's funny. This list is just very tilted toward older stuff because I think when you're talking about of all time, the amount of time winds up being this variable that increases the weight of a given entry, even though there are many, many games, I would say, released in the last five or six years that are excellent and push the medium forward and, you know, are works of brilliance

that could very easily be on. Yeah, I don't know. I think the answer here is just that there haven't been enough lists created. Like, they're just aren't that, these sites are just aren't doing it anymore. Yeah, it's a less fun reason, but I think you're right. I do think that's a huge factor. But, but just to build on what Kirk said, I do also think the fact that older games are influential adds to people wanting to put them on any list like this. And that will always be a factor, even if more of these lists were created, because it's why Citizen Kane is never going to leave the conversation about film because it was so influential and just kind of created certain storytelling techniques that hadn't previously been used. And there are games on this list that also

created techniques that hadn't previously been used. And what, are we going to are we going to downplay that? You know, you feel like you can't. The reason that this is aggregated from so many lists is because one of the things, and it notes this on the page, one of the things it does is it aggregates a cross of lists that are based on just historical importance and also lists based on how fun they are to play right now, which it notes in this thing. So it doesn't really matter what the criteria are as far as inclusion on the list of video games listed among the best. Yeah, it's a fun project though. Like this is a fun. Wikipedia page, if only because the title is very enjoyable.

It's an incredibly enjoyable. List of the best video games listed among the best. It feels like you're like having a seizure or something when you read that. All right. Let's take a break and then we'll be back with one more thing. Hello, I'm John Luke Roberts and I host Soundheap and I'm here with Max Fun, member of the month, Ryan Adams. Thank you so much, Ryan, for being a listener and supporter of our show and congratulations.

on being this month's member of the month. Hi there. If you were recommending Soundtee to a new listener, how would you entice them to the show? I'm making notes on this, by the way. You have all sorts of podcasts from different topics and whatever out there, and you have a lot of fictional ones. It's a podcast, but it's not really a podcast,

but I'm not describing it very well. No, you're describing it almost as well as anybody could. It's a podcast, but it's not really a podcast, but it's also an infant number of podcasts. That's what I would. That's how I put it. What would you say to other people who are considering supporting the show? If you like podcasts at all and you like humor, supporting sound heap is a good choice.

Is there anything else you'd like to add? Support Maximum Fun and SoundHeap. God, that's perfect. That's absolutely perfect. Support the shows you love, including this one. Check the show notes for a link or go to Maximumfund.org slash join. You know, we've been doing my brother, my brother me for 15 years. And maybe you stopped listening.

For a while, maybe you never listen. And you're probably assuming three white guys talking for 15 years, I know where this has ended up. But no. No, you would be wrong. We're as shocked as you are that we have not fallen into some sort of horrific scandal or just turned into a big crypto thing. Yeah, you don't even really know how crypto works. The only NFTs I'm into are naughty, funny things, which is what we talk about on my brother and my brother and me. We serve it up every Monday for you if you're listening.

If not, we just leave it out back. It goes rotten. So check it out on maximum fun or wherever you get your podcast. And we are back at it's time for Uno Mo Thing. I still haven't learned it. Not even close. We're 10 years on. It still hasn't happened.

It is time for one more thing. Kirk, kick us off. All right. I alluded to this earlier. My one more thing is Marvel's Wolverine. the new PS5 exclusive from Insomniac that Mattie, you and I have both been playing anyhow on early codes provided by Sony. I've played most of this game. We're recording this early, as we said, when this episode comes out, this game will be out.

And reviews for this game have already hit. And it is safe to say they are mixed trending negative. There is a pretty, this is for an insomniac, PS5 exclusive especially, this is a pretty lackluster showing. And I think that's right. I am pretty not, I don't, I played a lot of the game. It's all right. But I am not super high on it. And I think it has a lot of problems that are pretty evident.

And that a lot of reviews have, I think, really cogently articulated. I mean, if you really want to know about this game, I think you can read reviews of it. And I think we'll be talking about this a little more in depth next week. Mattie, you and I will get into it somewhat anyhow. But I just wanted to throw out there that I've been playing it. just because the game just came out and it felt worth mentioning. The story is okay, but not great. But I will say I am somewhat biased because I like Liam McIntyre.

He came on Triple Click to talk with me, Matthew Burns and Tom Bissell about Kingdom Come Deliverance, too. He's a really nice guy and a great actor. And I think his take on Wolverine, I mean, I'm acknowledging my bias here, but I really think that his take on Wolverine is the strongest part of the game. He is terrific as Logan, like his version of this character, who we know so well, and in particular, we're very familiar with the Hollywood version, played by Hugh Jackman across so many different films. I would say his performance in Logan in particular is an iconic and really outstanding performance. But, I mean, he just reprised the role in Deadpool and Wolverine. And we just think of Wolverine as looking like Hugh Jackman.

So it's really interesting to see him looking so different. and he does look very different in this game. He's kind of just, it's his eyes. I think a lot of people have mentioned this, but when you first see Logan with his mask off, he has these big kind of puppy dog eyes, and he has this gentleness to him that is a really interesting choice for the character

and is at odds with the incredibly violent gameplay. This is essentially a god of war game. It's like a linear third-person action game where you just murder the hell out of thousands of people by the end. It's so brutally violent and bloody, and that's kind of what it's getting. It's doing a lot of this kind of typical gesturing at, oh, this tortured, traumatized man who is full of rage, and that's like he's learning how to control that, and he needs to do better, which is, you know, very well-trod territory for games, and I don't think particularly

interestingly explored by this story. But I will say that I think that Liam's performance and the way that Logan seems in the game is a really interesting contrast with the like bottled rage that he has inside because he is so gentle and believable as this I don't know a take on the character that I'm actually into and I hope they get to keep this character around and like do more with him because I liked him I think his scenes with Jean Grey there are some really great ones in the story that I really liked I'm much less enamored of a lot of the other characters in particular the antagonists of this game I just think are kind of weak and so there's a lot of stuff about it that I'm just pretty negative on, including the gameplay, unfortunately. I just think it's close to like a Ninja Gaiden type, you know, super fast, super intense, slashy action game, but it lacks for me the timing and the feel of those games and just a sort of broader combat sauce that's sort of hard to articulate. Encounter design is pretty bland. Most fights are just waves of guys. There aren't really that many types of enemies. It gets quite

repetitive, especially by the back third. I just can't tell you how many of the same guys with the blue swords or the ninjas with whatever. You know, like you just fight the same enemies over and over and over and over and over. And while the combat is functional, it doesn't have the sort of customizability, the opportunities for player expression and the variety and sort of, I don't know, just the sauce of a game like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, you know, a truly great third-person action game. I don't know. There are a lot of things that I am kind of, I found lacking, and I'm just sort of cruising through it because it's pretty easy to cruise through it. The story is it's an X-Men story, and I like the X-Men, and it looks really nice, especially in some of those Insomniac set pieces.

It's just kind of a step down after those Spider-Man games, which, I mean, even those games I wasn't wild about, you know, especially the combat started to feel repetitive to me. My thumb gets sore. I don't really care about fighting another wave of guys. Insomniac seems to have this issue with all of their games. The problem is that Wolverine does not have. have the soaring around Manhattan web slinging, and that's what makes those Spider-Man games, you know, really special to me. The stealth was also pretty fun in Spider-Man if you, like, kind of sneak around the rooftop and take out guys one at a time. Right.

It was, and I think it's, I don't love the stealth in those games. It's not as good as the Arkham game stealth, I think, but it is pretty fun in the Spider-Man games. And in Wolverine, it's more bare-bones. It's an interesting game. It feels like there is a development story here, for sure. The fact that they changed directors midway through, this definitely feels like a game that was rebooted. They had some kind of open world segments. It feels like they made an open world

map, but you're not ever in an open world game. You're just going through an open world map, but it's linear, which is the hallmark of the game that was, they were trying to make open world, and they're like, this isn't working. We have to reboot it as a linear game, which I would not be at all surprised if that is the case. It just has all the hallmarks of like a troubled It is. It is, it is, it is, Kirk Campbellton. I'm being kind of, I don't know how certain I want to, I want to sound. I'm no Jason Shire over here, but yes, that is. in here. That was indeed the case. It was, yeah. I mean, when a director

leaves two years before a game comes out, like, that is not a normal thing. And then when you play the game and you can see, oh, there's a lot of stuff in here that's kind of redundant or weird or feels like maybe it was, yeah, vestigil, that's the perfect word. There's so much of that in this game. So, we'll talk about it more

next week. Maddie, any quick thoughts on Wolverine? Yeah, you're further than I am, but I do still intend to complete it because I'm actually quite a fan of Wolverine as a character. And so I have a real soft spot for him. And I agree I actually really like the interpretation in this game, which surprised me because the trailers didn't really show that to me. And I was actually pretty skeptical going into it.

But I've liked it more than I thought I would from that one specific angle. And I don't have many other compliments to share. But I just wanted to second the ones that you already shared about. Logan is a character in this game. Yeah. And by the way, I'm just in case people are wondering. I have a code too. I just haven't a time to play

because I've been prioritizing other games since I'm not going to be here when you guys talk about Wolverine on the show. Yeah, spoilers. Jason's not going to be here next week. He'll be in Japan. I'm not like going to boycott. I'm not like boycotting it or anything.

Just saying. Jason's offended by blood. I am. He's scared. I'm offended by X-Men. He's an anti-mutant activist. He agrees with Bolivor Trask and he thinks he should be gunned down by Sentinels.

He's actually wearing a ball of her Was Right shirt. You can't see it if you're listening to this. Maddie, what's your... By the way, the director of the new ex-bud movie is named Jake Schreier. So it's very funny. Yeah. Any relation? I assume not. I think that every time I see it because it's the same exact spelling, I believe, right? Not always the case.

It's not always the case. It's not always the case. It's my turn, right? Maddie, what's your one more thing? Yeah. So mine is that I finally watched season two of the rehearsal. I had meant to watch this and I just didn't get around to it when it first came out. And then there was that incredible, spooky horror movie style trailer of Nathan Fielder's upcoming documentary project about Elizabeth Holmes. And I was like, oh, right, I really wanted to actually watch the second season of the rehearsal. I really liked it. And I feel like that's

worth stating because there were parts of the rehearsal season one that I was really put off by. And I guess I'll just explain the premise of both shows for people who don't know or don't remember, which is that Nathan Fielder is a comedian, and he kind of plays a character exaggerated version of himself in these shows and also in his former show, Nathan for you, although in this version, he kind of plays a person or version of himself, who is a person who imagines a world where you could rehearse every interaction ahead of time and ensure that they go perfectly,

or to whatever outcome you might desire, or allow each person in that interaction to grow more and change, in all the ways that they wish. And wouldn't that be a wonderful world to live in, except that in the version of the rehearsal, he has seemingly unlimited funds from HBO to create elaborate set pieces of, like, other people's houses. And in the case of season two of the rehearsal in the airport.

What's the line he says in season two about his blank? He's like, I have a limited budget or like a blank check. Yeah, he's like, I have unlimited funds within HBO's budget, which is like a really funny kind of one to punch. Really all running jokes. is like what's the stupidest thing this guy can send? Or the most ridiculous thing this guy can spend money. And part of the sort of escalating comedy of both shows is like the reveal of some of those

sets and how increasingly absurd they are. If you think the airport is a spoiler, it's really not even close given how many other things are revealed about the extent of the effort, I think we can say that Nathan Fields are put into this season, which Kirk summarized this season quite well several months ago or however long ago this came out, by explaining that the premise of this season is that Nathan Fields of research plane crashes, and he found that a lot of times the co-pilot won't speak up

when the captain is doing something that they disagree with. And that's sort of like the central concept is that he's like, how could I make that conversation go perfectly? What would be some ways we could rehearse that conversation ahead of time and make sure it went well? And then that just spirals endlessly from there. You're reminding me of some things about this season of the show.

It's so good. I mean, I think I know what because there's one episode of particular that is so comical, but I don't know. Some of the episodes I actually found to be quite poignant and moving, especially the last two. Absolutely. I was really struck by them. And I appreciated how respectful Nathan Fielder was of some subjects that he addresses in those last two episodes. I was really kind of curious where they were going to go because he kind of hits on some subject manner I wasn't expecting. And I really liked them. And I read a bunch of articles about it and found a lot of people who, also really liked them and that was nice to read about. But I did want to say something else Nathan

Fielder does is Google his show and its reception extensively. So Nathan Fielder, for some reason, you're listening to this and you want some ideas for the third season of your show. Something that comes up in season two, this is not a spoiler either. It's like in the very, very opening of the first episode of season two is that there's also this problem of sexism between co-pilots and pilots at times. And Nathan Fielder acknowledges that. And that's like sort of touched on. briefly in the show, but it's not something that gets fully gotten into as much as I think it could. And I think that Nathan Fielder addressing bigots could be a really fascinating, bizarre, and even also comedic thing for him to attempt to do. How do you have a conversation with a bigoted person?

I want to see Nathan Fielder tackle this. Kind of like an autistic borat. Yeah. What would that? I mean, one could argue that as a character when Nathan Fielder is already playing in many ways. I think I want to see him do that. And I am in a similar vein curious about the Elizabeth Holmes documentary for that reason, because I feel like that's also starting to touch on the concept of him questioning someone who has done some very immoral things and how could that go. And so he's clearly unafraid of harsh and scary and sort of topics people don't want to touch, third rail topics. And I think he could handle it with some interest and respect. So that's what that's my hope, Nathan, if you're listening to this. Well, first, first we have the Theroness movie.

coming, which is going to be a wild round. I will be there. Just imagining he is such a manipulator to the point where it makes you uncomfortable sometimes watching it. And she, of course, also such a manipulator. The idea of the two of them, I don't even know. I feel like if anyone could get one up on her, it is him, though, which is why I almost feel like it could be.

Well, and knowing him, right, it'll go somewhere beyond even that. Like, it'll wind up being some moving thing that sort of comes at you from an I go in a completely other direction that none of us could predict. That's what he always, it's what he's so brilliant at, is that you don't see it coming, and then you're suddenly actually being moved by some beautiful thing. So did either of you watch how to with John Wilson that show? I did, yeah. Not all of it, but I watched certain episodes of that.

Oh, okay, you both watched it. All right. Okay, just making sure, because Fielder produced that show, it has, I think, a lot of Nathan Fielder DNA. It's quite sweet. I think a more sweet end of the spectrum, I would say. Absolutely. Just like one end of the Fielder verse that I think sometimes. people have sort of missed out on or have not watched that I do think is a very special show and

kind of fits in with all these other Nathan Fielder shows that we so enjoy. I agree. And I think it kind of speaks more to the sweet side that I believe he has as a person, even though he's also plays a manipulative character at times in ways that are played for comedy. Sometimes he's somewhat scary. Yeah, exactly. Just when he's looking, he's sitting there with his, you know, his tablet like in the background of a scene looking at you. Yeah. It's the laptop. The laptop is so weird. The laptop, like, get up that he wears?

I don't even know how to describe it. It's bizarre. It's incredible. And the parts in the show where he, like, he's desperately tried to prove he's not autistic. Oh my God. It's so good. It's great. Those are some of my favorite parts, truly.

My one more thing is that the NFL is back, baby. And long-time listeners of this show know that occasionally once or twice a year, I like to share an NFL story, a story from the wild world of football. my favorite sport. I don't have a great NFL story today, but I do. Well, I guess I kind of do. It's not from in a game. It's kind of from around the game because one of the fun things about following the NFL is how many ridiculous stories, both positive and negative, often horrible and negative. This one is not, though. But how many ridiculous stories just kind of are in the orbit of the NFL, like the stuff that happens around the games themselves. And here is a very fun one.

So this week, or I guess when people are listening, to this. It'll be last week. There was an NFL game in Australia, the first ever NFL game in Australia, which is pretty cool. I think there are a lot of Australian football fans. A lot of them are into rugby, so it makes sense they would be into NFL football as well. Our old colleague, Luke Plunkett, was into NFL, despite it being played in like a time zone that it was very difficult to watch it. And so logistically, it actually is really difficult to do a game in Australia because you have to have two teams fly all of their players to Australia, which is a very long flight from anywhere in the U.S. can be upwards of 18 hours from different places, depending where you

are in the U.S. And you have to deal with the time zones and the jet land. And so the two teams that played in this Australia game were the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams, both California teams, and they took two very different approaches to this situation. The 49ers decided to do what a lot of teams do when they play like UK games or other international games, which is they flew in a week in advance, gave their players a bunch of time to hang out in Australia, get used to the time zone, get their bodies acclimated,

try to get on a sleep schedule that was fitting for Australia. Wait, can I guess what the Rams did? Do they sleep until 10 a.m and then get on the flight? Because they asked Chattee P. Yes, yes. This is a fitting caft of this episode. No, so what the Rams did was over the last two years, according to reports from like NFL insiders.

Over the last two years, the Rams have been sending staffers to Australia and tracking their body and sleep rhythms in order to find the optimal way to do this. They've been studying people for years. They've been preparing for this game, the last two years. And what they decided was that they were going to fly to Australia and land less than a day before the game

and essentially force their players, like make their players act as if they were on L.A. time. still and just basically not even have a chance to get jet lagged by just kind of staying there, trying to stay on L.A. time, sleep on the plane, and then play the game and then just get out of there right away. And this is the cause of so much debate. How did that go for them? This was the cause of so much debate. There were people being like, is this crazy? Is this genius? The head coach of the Rams, this guy named Sean McVeigh, he was like, known as this Wonder kid, this football genius who everybody wants their own piece of.

And like people hire like assistant coaches of him. Like that's how much of a genius, how well respected he is around the league. People are like, does McVeigh, no? Like is this the best way to do this? Like is this. Some people have theorized actually that they've like, they're sacrificing this game to avoid jet lag coming back so that the rest of the season they're not fucked up because the 49ers, they could come back and be super jet lag for their next game.

And the Australia to America jet lag much worse for me anyways than the America to Australia jetline. Yeah, because it's in the like wrong direction, quote, unquote. That is, that is what they were, they were worried about. But that is what they did. They flew in. They came in. They played the game. The game took place. Do you guys want to know the final score? Absolutely. 49ers 27, Rams seven. Oh, turns out. Turns out. Obviously a lot of factors here. Right. I'm curious. Did they, what did they say about it afterwards? Or have they talked about like the jet lag factors specifically? I don't know if they've like commented.

on that, but it clearly did not work for them. Some of their players looked really off, and I'm not going to sit here and be like, I know this was because of sleep deprivation, but... At the same time, like, I don't know, I did that. I mean, they're going to Melbourne, I guess, and we went to Sydney, but same difference. And, like, that would be rough, man, having to land and perform at a very high athletic level very shortly after landing. You're a little bit rocked on Mars when you land in Australia for the first time, or at least I was. Which is why this is the source of so much debate. And this was an important game.

It was a divisional game, which counts for more than just like a normal game because the two teams play in the same division. And so it really didn't matter. But we'll see what happens because like in the long run, if the Rams wind up like going on a run and the 49ers deal with jet lag and are like fucked up for the next couple of weeks, could be that the Rams went in the long run. But still, it was very interesting to see. It was very fun to see the debate and then very funny to see how it actually kind of played out in the game. game. This is so interesting. I did not know this was happening. Just that the NFL is doing a game in Australia. What other countries do they, are their NFL games? So they've been doing UK games for

a while now. Okay. That makes sense. I guess. They did, they've done a couple in Mexico, which much easier to deal with. But UK has been the main one. And then I think Canada, I guess presumably, right? There must have been. No, I don't think so. There are no Canadian NFL teams. Well, there's Canadian as their own, Canada as their own Canadian football league. Right. But no, I don't think so. I don't think there have been something I can remember. UK has been the main one for the last few years.

UK has been, and it's funny because Sunday is already so long in terms of football, as my wife will happily rant to you about. It's like normal, normal time is like you have 1 p.m. games, Eastern time. You have 1 p.m. games. And then you have an evening game at 8.20. So it starts at 1. It ends at 11. But then adding the UK games, the weeks that they have UK games, those start at 930 in the morning. So you have 930 until 11 p.m. Easter and I'm just football.

It's a whole day of football. An entire day. It's it's, it's the life. It's bliss. I cannot do that. If they do this right, you know, they can start having like just a game like for 24 or 48 hours straight. Like just if they start spreading around the whole world. Like you've heard of the 24 hour news cycle. What about the 24 hour football cycle? It's a football game somewhere. It's funny you guys say that because there's been a lot of discussion about the fact that the NFL has been starting to take over more and more games. Like Christmas Day used to be the NBA's day and the NBA would have its marquee games on Christmas Day.

NFL started doing games on Christmas Day. They've started this opening week started on a Wednesday night. There's never football on Wednesdays. It's like Wednesday, Thursday, Sunday, Monday. So they're starting to take over as much of the week as possible no matter what that means for player health and whether fans. actually want it. But anyway, this, yes, Kirk, to your, to your point, this is so fascinating. I thought it was really interesting. I've been following it with, with a lot of interest over the last week. It's a really interesting storyline. And it also speaks to just like playing a game

in Australia as cool as it is for Australian fans. And I think they had like 100,000 people at this game. It also feels very irresponsible for NFL teams and player health and safety. And just like the rigors of a season, the season is a hard enough on these players. And it's now 17 games. It's going to be moved to 18 games at some point in the near future. So it's already pretty tough. Making them go through this jet lag stuff is...

Well, and there's just that new study, right? Or there's some findings that almost every player is suffering from brain injuries from playing the game. Oh, yeah. That's another story entirely. Well, so why not make them play even more games? And also play while jet lagged. I'm sure that'll help.

Yeah, that's good for their brains. Yeah, it's certainly not going to help them at all, sleep deprivation. NFL is back, baby. I think anyone who watches football regularly as I do as to kind of reconcile in their head the fact that this is an extremely violent irresponsible sport with the fact that it's... Maybe an evil organization

that is responsible for more bad in the world than good. Perhaps. I say that maybe as not an NFL fan myself. I assume that you have to reconcile that with the fact that it's also like the best sport to watch and watch people compete in and it's just the most fun. Yes, as so beautifully articulated

by our former colleague Tim Rogers in his review of football that he's He wrote for Kotaka. Still one of my favorite things that he ever wrote. It's such a, yeah, it's such a beautiful, beautiful game, beautiful sport. Anyway, that is that for this week's episode. I am off spulunking. I am off on a global adventure.

Good luck and have a safe trip. Yeah, good luck with the jet lag. Thanks, guys. I can't wait for you to tell us and our listeners about it when you get back. I will tell you how my jet lag approach works, hopefully works better than the Los Angeles. Yeah, let us know. Let's hope. Let's hope.

Just be sure to get to the airport on time. I will see you both next time. Yeah, see you both next time. 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. Email us at Triple Click. at maximum fun.org and find links to our merch store and our Discord server in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.