Triple Click - Pressing Reset On The Video Game Industry

Episode Date: May 6, 2021

The video game industry is broken. Perhaps it's time to... Press Reset? On this week's first-ever LIVE episode of Triple Click, the gang discusses Jason's latest book about the video game industry. They talk about the closures of game companies like Irrational Games and 38 Studios, the industry's sustainability problems, and lots more. Plus: find out how to win a free copy of Press Reset!One More Thing:Kirk: For All MankindMaddy: The Mitchells vs. The MachinesJason: Killing EveLinks:Buy Press Reset: Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry: https://www.grandcentralpublishing.com/titles/jason-schreier/press-reset/9781538735480/Press Reset giveaway: https://app.viralsweep.com/sweeps/full/7b4618-86973?framed=1Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinJoin 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

You ever notice how when you see a pile of books in a video game, you'll start seeing that same pile of books everywhere? Like, I get that someone might own two copies of Gravity's Rainbow, but five? Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we're recording live as we talk to our own Jason Schreier about his new book, all about the video game industry. There's some risk, some ruin, and some rebirth. So stick around. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Maddie Myers.

And I'm Jason Dreyer live. Live. Live. Live. Live. It's from the internet. Here we are. our first very triple-click live

presented in front of a live virtual audience. Right. We have done live shows before the three of us, but we have never done a live show like this on the internet. And we've never done a live triple-click show. So this is the first hopefully of many. We have not. No, our first, because we started this

during the pandemic, so we never could. It was so fun. We've done some live shows in real life. Those will be fun one day. But there are people watching us right now. We must assume anyways on our Twitch channel. But otherwise, this is going to be I think a pretty normal episode because each of us is just sitting at home. Totally normal.

Normal energy. Don't feel weird at all. Completely 100% normal up. If you're listening at home, just assume that there's an audience laughing in all of our jokes and cheering every time we say anything. We can hear it too. You just have to assume it all in your head. It's like that meme of what's his face. This is going to be good.

Anytime someone says it's like that meme of what's his face, you're like the guy. It's like the guy. What's his name? I love the comedian, but I'm forgetting his name. But he's standing there and he's like, all of my friends are here out of frame, hanging out, having a great time at this party for my birthday. I don't know.

This is a good story. I think we really let you down on that one. Yeah, okay, great story. Kirk, what are we celebrating this week? We're celebrating Max Fun Drive. This is the beginning of Max Fund Drive 2021. We are a Maximum Fun podcast. We love being a part of Maximum Fun.

We just celebrated our first anniversary, which we talked about on the show. And yeah, it's time for Max Fun Drive again, which is a sort of pledge drive for maximum fun. So Max Fun is a totally listener-supported network. It's like a whole bunch of different shows, some that you probably listen to, including Triple Click. People sign up to pledge support to the network,

and then you pick the shows that you want to support. A bunch of people support Triple-Click, which is super awesome, and we appreciate them because it makes it possible for us to make this show. Max Fun Drive, it's going from May 3rd to May 14th, and it's sort of like, Pledge drive. It's just like, I don't know, like an NPR pledge drive or whatever. There are some rewards that you can get. Those are kind of the reasons that you would want to like sign up or

boost your pledge. And we finally have revealed them. And this year, so if you pledge a $10 this year. Or upgrade or upgrade your current membership. Or if you boost your existing pledge, right? You can, you can boost as well. You get the triple click pin. Last year was the one that said triple click. I have two of them on various things. Cute little controller. This year, it's super, super cool. It says spill the beans and it has some beans being spilled. It has a tribute to our beans cast. Jelly beans. They're so cute.

It's awesome. Yes, they're colorful and cute, which is nice. I was glad the artist didn't go with, like, just sort of pinto beans, which would have been fine. I like pinto beans, but jelly beans are kind of prettier. There are a lot of interpretations of beans, but jelly beans are fun. It's kind of fun to spill some jelly beans. It is.

You can pick them up and then you can eat them. And that's the vibe of our beans cast. Call it 10 second rule. That is the vibe of our beans cast. Yeah, you're right. It's a lot more fun to spill jelly beans. and it is to spill pinto beans. You spilled pinoc beans, it sucks.

You spill jelly beans, it's a fun time. Yeah, it's fun. Though jelly beans are kind of stickier than pinto beans. They get more dirt on them. We're getting sidetracked. So anyways, yes, that is a reference to our beans cast. Those are monthly bonus episodes. Mostly beanscasts, we do other things as well.

We just did one about the MCU, about Captain Falcon, and the Winterman and also Wander Vision. And then just the whole MCU was... No, Captain Falcon and the ice climbers. Right, of course. That's right. That's what we decided on. So that was kind of to kick off Max Fund Drive, which was a pretty fun thing to get to do. But we do one of those each month.

Anybody who becomes a member at any tier gets one. But if you're at $10, you get the pin, there's like other stuff you get. There's a hat. There's a T set. There's all this cool stuff. They always do this. There's going to be events going on for Max Fund Drive. Other shows are doing this like live events and stuff.

I mean, this counts as part of it. Including us. Yeah, we're doing a live episode. Someone told me that anyways. So anyways, you can find out more at maximum fun. dot org slash join and we'll be talking about it more next week but uh thanks so much to everyone who's already a member and to people who support us you rule we should say also that the bonus content they changed links um to coincide with max fund drive so if you didn't see the mccu beanscast

check your email or check your your the max fund website for the new bonus feed link to get that one so there's one other thing that's happening in due to max fund drive related to triple click jason why don't you tell us what it is oh yeah this is super fun okay so um as Many people know I have a new book coming out called Press Reset, Runa Recovery and the Video Game Industry. We will talk about that in a little bit, I think. But here's a really exciting announcement. I am doing a giveaway of the book for triple-click listeners. And so we're giving away 10 copies of the book. All you have to do is sign up. I have a link that I'm going to post in the show notes. And for the live audience, I'll drop it in Twitch chat at some point. And so if you fill out this form,

you enter into the swoopsakes, then you can get a copy. all you have to do is follow the form. So the form is like what? Your social security number. Yeah, your bank account info. Your favorite barita restaurant. Naturally. Just got to upload your driver's license and passport if you got it.

Right. And yes, I'll add that to Jason. Here's what's really cool. What we're doing is if you, once you fill out the form, if you then upload proof of your max fund membership, you get an extra form. So essentially you'll get two raffle tickets into the sweepstakes. So little bonus for Max Fund subscribers for, for people who support the show, I wanted to give them like a little extra special bonus.

So yeah, so that link will be in the show notes for people who are listening to the show, not live, and I'll drop it in Twitch chat shortly for people who are listening live. I love a good raffle. So we're here to talk about your book. We're going to talk to you about this book that you've been writing for low these many years, and I'm excited to get into it. So that's kind of our topic, even though it's kind of just the video game industry and video games in general is also the topic. so let's get to it. Press Reset, Ruin and Recovery in the Video Game Industry is published by Grand Central Publishing.

It is 320 pages long and it weighs 9.6 ounces according to Amazon.com. Interesting, interesting. It was written by our co-host Jason Schreier. I've read it. It is a wonderful and interesting book. And when you take it all together, it raises one really interesting, kind of hard to answer question, at least for me. So I'm going to put that question to you, Jason. Why hasn't Sony announced Bloodborton 2? That is the question that is constantly discussed in this book.

Every single chapter ends of the question. It ends with, hey, this industry is really messed up, but it could be fixed. If Sony was an easy way to fix it. Okay, so that's not my real question. My real question is, okay, real question. On your about the author page at the end of the book, it lists your time at Kataku, how you've written for the New York Times, Edge and Wired. It makes zero mention of triple click.

What motivated you to betray your character? co-hosts so thoroughly? Oh my God. I can't believe that it doesn't do it. It's because I didn't actually write that bio. What happens is the publisher writes that stuff. And like also the copy in the back of the book book and all that other marketing material you see is written by the book publisher. So you're blaming us for not marketing ourselves adequately to your publisher. Really, we should have hired VR people. Exactly. I'm blaming you for not contacting Grand Central Publishing and saying, hey, what the hell? But I will be filing a lawsuit in the state of New York against Grand Central publishing for not mentioning triple click. So I have your back.

It seems like a good fight to pick with your publisher. Okay, actual question. Jason, you wrote this book. This is all about the video game industry. It's really good. I like it a lot. I think it's a cool evolution from your first book. What is the biggest misconception that people have about the video game industry? And you can start, but we can all talk about it. That Bloodbourne 2 is in development. The saddest misconception of all. Yeah, so, so yeah, so press reset, it's a book, I should say, just kind of broad strokes for anyone.

I should zoom out. I got to do that live for everybody. I should say broad strokes for people who aren't familiar with it at all. It's a book essentially about volatility in the video game industry and what happens to people when game studios shut down. And so I went out, I spoke to a whole bunch of people about like their stories of like volatility and getting laid off and studio closures and stuff like that. Covered a bunch of stories from Bioshock, Irrational Games, to 38 studios and the Kurtzilling disaster, lots of good stuff in there, wild stories in there. Biggest misconception, I mean, I think that like, it depends who you ask, right? Like, if you ask an enthusiast gamer or someone who listens to triple click or like reads IGN or Katakou and stuff,

they might have different answers than like your mom, except Maddie's mom, but listens to the show. Of course, yeah. She's very well. But like your average person might hear video game industry and think, oh, man, that's a lot of fun. Whereas your average reader these days might say, oh, okay, the video game industry. Yeah, sounds like fun. I want to work for Sony to Santa Monica so I can be on God of War or whatever. I think that, like, in general, a lot of people think it's a lot healthier than it is because you see all these stats about, like, how much money the video game industry makes

and how lucrative it is, how lucrative these games are, how many millions of copies all these games sell. And you kind of are under the impression that, like, the people who make them should be rich and happy and satisfied because, like, that would make sense, right? Like you see the new call of duty has sold more copies than God. So why aren't all those people happy and rich? God has sold a lot of copies of himself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's just that one book. But then you look at how much money Bobby Codick makes and you're like, ah, so that's where it goes. I see. You start with the money thing. I feel like that's always the way that you have to pitch these sorts of things to a mainstream audience or to a publisher, for example, is you have to be like, okay, look, for starters, money. And then you kind of go from there.

For this book, actually, I started with that. And it's literally the first sentence of the book is how successful the video game industry is. Yeah, because that's like, it's such set up for like, okay, this is a successful industry. And, you know, okay, so I've been doing a lot of interviews and stuff. This, of course, is my favorite one and the one I've been most excited about this particular interview. But I've been doing a lot of interviews. And actually, a lot of conversations have wound up steering towards the media industry and how many parallels are between journalism and a game.

It's almost like journalists would prefer to talk about themselves, if given any opportunity to do so. It's very true. It's very true. But I think the important difference between, like, media, which also is super volatile and like treats people like shit, the big difference between media and games is that media doesn't actually make money. Games does. And I think there's kind of like this weird, you would assume that the video game industry, because it makes so much money that like it actually treats people while and doesn't have to deal with these issues. But, but alas, you would be wrong if you made that assumption. So that's actually why I started with that exact note is because, like, hey, this is a thriving industry. This is an industry where, like, people are doing well, are rolling in it. Some people are rolling in it. People at the very top are rolling in it.

So, yeah, I mean, I think that's an important context for what we're discussing here, right? I mean, we run into this every time we talk about the games industry on this show, but it's such a huge mix of systems. It's so many different layers. Like this, the book does a good job. I mean, as good as any, like, one book can do of trying to look at, like, an individual person's story. You follow this one guy. He, like, goes through EA and, like, works his way up. And then he's kind of working, working, working.

And then he's at visceral. And then, like, visceral gets shut down. And then he loses his job. And he winds up going in, like, he becomes, like, an architect or something, right? And it's, like, has a normal, like, life where he can sustain his life. Right. And, like, that's a cool thing. Well, then there's also, like, like, 38 studios or whatever, these huge, you know,

big stories kind of from the top down. I don't know, man. Like, your takeaways are convincing, like, about unionization and about organizing people, but it's so, it's so easy to throw your hands up, I guess, and say this stuff is just impossible to even conceive of sometimes, because it's so big, like any of these things. Do you feel like you have, like, doing the process of, like, making this book has given you a better sense of that, of the totality of it? No, I mean, I actually think, I think it's a really optimistic book. And it's possible, By the way, I should know that Kirk, you read. I think Maddie, you read the final version. If you finished it. I'm not sure if you finish it. But I did read the final version. Yeah. And I

I completed it. Nice. Nice. Kirk, you read an early vision of the book. So it might actually read the final version. Or I like skimmed through it, but I read the beginning and ends in a few parts. Well, I actually think, I think it's a bleak book, but I think it's an optimistic book. And I mean, like you said, I think I do make some convincing cases in there about ways that things can be fixed. Because like I didn't want to just, I didn't want this to just be a book that is like, here are all the problems. Man, this sucks. Like, I really wanted this to be a book that that explores potential solutions. And I found myself surprised that, like, some of the roads I took and, like, the answers that I got from people. And, like, in some cases in the book, I thought that, like, certain people would be,

like, all aboard onto this one idea. And then I found that, like, actually, they're not. And here's why. And so that was really interesting. But, like, I think that some of the solutions I explored are certainly viable. I mean, unionization, for example, we just, we just, saw a stat that is like over half of game developers want to unionize. Like the GDC survey last week said that. Um, remote work is a big thing that I explore. And obviously for the past year, that's been viable. So like, I do think there are ways. And hopefully this book goes and open some eyes and make some people say, hey, at my studio, I want to do this, this, this and this. Like, I really hope, one of my hopes is that this book gets in the hands of some of the decision makers

in the industry. Um, I know some of them were fans of, of my first book. So hopefully they check this one out because I think that like there is some stuff. There's some there's some stuff that's not too expensive and like not too unrealistic that can be done to really help fix things. Yeah, something I noticed about it as a pattern throughout the book was how often you interviewed people who had worked for a studio that had notably shut down, but they still described the experience as one of the best places they ever worked. Like there are multiple people who described that experience. Like even at 38 studios, which I mean, of course they were spending money on some things that didn't really make sense to me personally in that particular studio. There were some

cushy perks there that maybe could have been spent elsewhere. But there were lots of other examples in the book of people who had really, really good studio cultures and the studio shut down. And that was just a depressing through line in a way to be like, well, some of these folks worked with a group of people who they really, really vibed with. And then you had certain stories where people would split off and make an indie game after breaking off with that studio. And some were success stories and some weren't. But there were also several examples in the book of people who just got split up or really talented larger teams that couldn't have feasibly become an indie group after the fact. And all that talent just ended up getting split up for, in my view,

no reason. Like I do understand logically why the industry works the way that it does. The ideation phase for games takes a really long time and you don't need hundreds of staffers just waiting in the wings for you to finish coming up with the idea and spring into action on like combat. systems, all the other, you know, animations and design aspects. But there must be a better way to do that. Like, there must be a better way to keep really talented teams of people together who are already vibing. And I don't just mean like five people. I mean like 35 people who are already really jazzed to work together, you know? That was depressing to me, kind of. There's a whole thing in there about the combat pit, like those guys from big huge games, right? Is that right, Jason?

They're from big huge games. And they were like, so it was like this team of people who got really good at making designing combat. And they like worked on the combat for kingdoms of Amalor. For kingdoms of Amalur. Yeah. And they are really good at it. And it's this, they had this dream that sounds so cool. Like when I was reading that chapter, you're kind of like, oh man, this is kind of a great idea. Like they, the whole thing falls apart and they get shut down. But they're like, we were really good at this one sort of specialized skill. What if we went and, you know, did it sort of as a contract organization where we're all, you know, we like sign a contract with people and they just tell us what they need and we give it to them, but we're not

beholden to all of their nonsense. Basically, the stuff you get sucked into when you're on full time. But then it kind of, his name is, I have it written down here, Joe Cadera. Joe Cadera, is how he pronounced his name? He was sort of the head of that group. And he gives you this really great quote about like things that you can outsource and things that you can outsource and how the closer you get to the player experience, the line goes inverse, as to how well it can be outsourced. So once you're really like combat, for example, is something that is super fundamental

because it's the way that the game feels, the way that you're actually interacting with it. And if you're not a part of the team and you're not in the room for those sort of long stop and start trial and error sessions, you're not able to make that work as well as you could so it's kind of just not a feasible thing. But it sounds so good.

I don't know. It sounds like such a good idea. Well, okay. So that is one of the things I was mentioning before where it was like I was exploring these solutions. And I thought, so I called up Joe where I met with Joe and I was like, hey, I'm like looking into solutions. I'd already heard a story. I'd been talking to him for a while. And I was like, what do you think of this idea of like what you guys were talking about back in the day of like going around?

Like would you ever do this today? And he was like, no. And that surprised me. And I was so curious. And I'll leave some of the stuff for the book to discover because he has a lot of interesting perspectives on like, like, gay or gay and like. like like yeah and like um the concept of combat as a as a like combat as a concept combat as a concept and him just losing interest in that but also yeah like you were saying i mean outsourcing is one

of those really interesting topics that i dive into them in the book of like the question of of if why is this the video game industry right now is kind of treats its workers like their gig workers so why not create a model where like everyone is a gig worker and and make that work instead of acting like everyone has long term careers at the company that they're going to And so that is a really interesting conversation topic that like some people are still discussing even to this day. And some game companies hire people on like what's called term contracts or project contracts or something like that where like you're come on. And instead of a fixed contract, which is what most contracts are, you are coming on until the end of the project and then you leave. And yeah, I mean, that's another interesting way of going about it.

And that can also have its pros and cons. One big con is that like when you're on contract, you're not getting the same benefits as people who are full time. And so that sort of needs to be coupled with unions that provide benefits. Like if you look at the Hollywood model, if you're a writer, you're constantly bouncing between gigs, but you're part of the WGA. And so you get your health insurance there and you have your pay standards there and whatnot. So yeah, I mean, these are just potential solutions. Another pattern that I noticed that's related to that is just the age, the average age of people in the games industry. I was thinking about that a lot while I was reading the book as well and how young,

It is, and that's a stereotype for a reason, because as this book explains, you need to be somebody who's willing to put up with the level of volatility that this industry has, and that means you're probably somebody who doesn't have kids yet, or no big firm plans to put down roots somewhere, buy a house. And the more heartbreaking stories in the book are the people who are achieving that like late 20s, early 30s, late 30s, stages of life where they are married or have a partner and want to have a kid or have a kid and then suddenly they lose their job or they've just bought a house and then suddenly they lose their job or they need to sell a house because they're moving across the country every three years. And that is why people quit and become an architect.

I mean, you illustrate that very well there because I don't know, it just had me thinking about the other stereotype of video games as being just immature. And it's like, like, well, yeah, if most of the people who work on them are 22 years old, then they're going to be, have a certain vibe to them. And ideally, games would have a lot of different people of different ages and different backgrounds and different income levels and so on coming into the space and being able to thrive there. But that's not really what your book describes. It's describing this situation where you basically have to be a really hardy 22 year old and then you're probably going to get burned out by 28. And that, I don't know.

Was that something you noticed? Also, if you're 22, you're willing to spend nights and weekends of the office because you're just like, hey, I'm happy to be here. So, Maddie, so to that point, I think that like the other big difference between games and Hollywood, which is a good model for all this stuff, is that Hollywood is mostly in one place. Like, if you lose your job in Hollywood, you stay in Hollywood. Like, you don't have to go anywhere. And I think that is where remote work plays into the picture. So a little bit of background here. I started writing this, or I finished writing most of this book in like January, February of last. last year. I took a bunch of time off Kitaku was writing. Nothing happened after that and you just, it was a super chill normal year. I was writing in a coffee shop. Man, I would be so bummed out now because I did so much good writing in a coffee shop near my apartment on the every side. And so suddenly the pandemic starts and suddenly this concept that I explored in the book of like remote work has become very, very real and everybody is forced to do remote work. And that to me was fascinating. And I explore some of that in the book and I'm very curious to see what happens next because I think that like even if you change nothing else about the video game industry right now, if every single

game company said, hey, you can work for us no matter where you live. You can work remotely. And suddenly if you're working at irrational games and like your studio shuts down and you're stuck in Boston where there are no other big companies or there are very few other big companies, you can still get a job. You don't have to move and uproot your life and take your kids out of school just to move across the country and get a new job because you can work anywhere. That would be so industry changing that I think that would prevent a lot of the burnout we see. Even if none of the other bad stuff was changed or fixed or improved

in any other way, that alone is such a game changer. And so very curious to see what happens. Have either of you ever moved for a job? I've never moved for a job. No. But I mean, I'm in New York where like a large part of the media industry is. So I guess I'm lucky in that way, like that we have a hub here. It's like the Hollywood of media. Yeah.

Yeah. So true. Yeah. Because I agree or I can at least imagine that that man, even the idea of moving for a job is so stressful because no job is that secure, really. And I've, you know, I've had a lot of different jobs over the years. And every time I start a new one, it's enough of a, you know, anxiety-inducing thing to just be like, I'm committing to this new thing. Well, you're in media. No immediate job is secure. If you were in like, I don't know, banking or something. Well, I was a teacher before that. I don't know. Like it's, you know, if you're a high school teacher, there's other high schools in town. Yeah, but if you're a teacher, your skills can apply, but you don't have to leave. San Francisco where you were

or Oregon where you were now. That's what I'm saying. Like I've never had to do it. And it's enough anxiety just committing to a job even if it's in town with you. Let alone being like, okay, I'm doing this new job and we're going to move across the country. And yeah, maybe you have like young kids or something. You uproot your family. Like that the tax

that would take on you. And then, you know, to lose your job a month later, there's the guy who went to telltale and then like lost his job immediately. Holy shit. Yeah, that guy. Well, I was going to bring up Andy Johnson, who's a person that I highlighted in the 38 chapter who like was a THQ saw the THQ was imploding was like I need to go find a new job. Huh, 38, that looks good. He moves there. Within five months he is let go and struggling and like can't

pay his rent. It has to rely on his mom to help pay his rent at 40 years old with kids and a wife. And it's just so sad the way that this industry treats people. Yeah, we've talked before. I don't know when, but at various points about how there's like not a lot of elder statesmen in video games and how There's this sort of like loss, this like brain drain that happens because so many people go to become a proverbial architect because like you want to be with your family or a literal one, right? Depending. And I think the war inspector stuff is interesting because he is, you open with him and this is war inspector of, you know, ion storm and whatever. DeaSX's mastermind. Epic Mickey, mainly what he's known for.

Yeah. And how like, he's a great guy to talk to. I've interviewed him a couple times back when I was at Kataku. He's just like, he's got great energy. He's a really smart, creative dude. And I always thought of him as like, man, Warren Specter, like, that guy, he's just got it, figured out. He's like the master. He, like, made all these great classic games and he's still at it.

He's making new studios and reading this long story of like the constant struggle that this guy had to deal with just to like get funding to make games. And then eventually it's like, you know, even making Epic Mickey. It's like, well, I mean, I guess they want a Mickey game. So I'm just going to do that. Even though the way that I always thought of him at least 10 years ago or something was like, well, this guy's a legend. He made day a sex. He can do anything. But that's totally not the case when you're actually in the room like making the pitch and trying to get enough money, especially to make like a game with that many people.

Because you kind of need a lot of money to do it. Even the legend. Yeah. Even the top most respected game designers in this field, the people who are like famous and successful. And in Warren Spectre's case, have money. Like he was financially successful. even he could not find stability in this field. Like that is

ridiculous, right? Yeah. It's absurd. Yeah, I mean, part of that is because he described the phenomenon of publishers and bean counters as you love calling them in the book, Jason. He does use that term. Well, there's your triple click shoutout. Hey, there you go. Oh, okay, sure. That counts.

Yeah, you're right. Jelly bean counters. Just constantly obsessed with beans there. It's so weird. Anyway, so publishers are obsessed with beans and by beans, I mean money, of course. And that means that Warren Spector not only needs to make a game that is critically acclaimed, it also needs to like year over year be making more money. Like the sequel to that game needs to make twice as much or however much absurd amount of money is demarcated on some piece of paper somewhere. And then

the third game needs to be making triple that. And if it's not increasing exponentially, then the games are failures. And like breaking even is is terrible, but also like even making $10 million isn't even close to good enough, which is absurd. And just, I just, life was creativity to even think about games in that way and to be like, okay, well, if I'm making a sequel, it not only needs to be good and iterate on the concept and tell something further compelling in this world, it also needs to sell twice as many copies. So that means a ton of people who didn't play the first game need to pick this one up. Like that's such a silly way to think about game. But it also makes so much sense when you look at the way that AAA games operate. You're like,

oh, yeah, of course, that is how the entire industry has been set up. Well, that's why I tried to throw in some indie stories about people who can actually be creative. And that's why I say it's helpful. Because for everything like that, there's also some really cool stories about like really cool games, like Enter the Gungeon. One of those is the flame in the flood, which you talk about. And I think like the remote work thing, there are all these signs of change because things just change. Like industries change. And it always feels a little bit random, whether that's going to help the people that work in that industry or hurt them.

Like it's just sort of change happens. and sometimes it's good and sometimes it's not. Like I think about the music industry and how labels used to just totally run roughshod over people. People made no money for albums that were making like tens of millions of dollars. And now there's Spotify, so you're fine, right? Now there's streaming royalties, so it's all good.

Yeah, now you can make 0.11 cent. 0.001 cent for everybody. Yes, yes, yes, yes. That sucks. Well, but your point stands, though, is like there's been a monumental change, but like what has it resulted in? Different monopolies.

Well, no, but there are other changes too. and people have a lot more connection with their listeners. It's like way easier to be a sort of mid-tier musician right now and make money just selling albums directly and using band camp, which is like great. There's actual stuff. And in video games, it's sort of similar where there's this change. Like the Flame of the Flood is a great example

where the common wisdom and the thing you were even talking about Maddie with Warren Specter and his challenge is it's the whole hit-driven AAA thing where you have to make a game and it has to like be huge and sell really huge numbers quickly. And then it's probably just going to fade. eventually you make a sequel. You look at what Activision does, like, churning out these yearly franchises. And then you get the Flame and the Flood, which is this fascinating chapter in the book that I guess I'm going to kind of spoil, but they release a game. All these spoilers. This has been

nonstop spoilers for press and stuff. We're just ruining the book. That's really the plan is to get people to not buy it. They can just listen to. Just kidding. Yes. They should buy it. It's great. Is it people from Mythic who went to Flame in the Flood? Am I mixing that up? No, irrational people. It was irrational people. Okay. And so Irrational falls apart after Bioshock Infinite, which is again like another kind of needs to be a big hit kind of a thing. The game that did well actually, sort of, right? But like, yeah, that's an interesting one. Like, that's Ken Levine personating like, I don't want to do this anymore.

But anyway, I won't get you off a topic. Anyways, yeah, decide the point of this specific point. So the Flame of the Flood, they release their game. It, like, doesn't do that well. It doesn't, it does okay, like, but it makes some money for them. And then they keep kind of slowly updating it and releasing it. And then they get this huge bump from the switch that just happens to be this thing that, like, pushes their indie game up. And then, it does it.

Enter the Gungeon is another good example of a game that like just slowly got bigger and better post-release. I've been playing Returnal, which has got me thinking about binding of Isaac, like those kinds of rogue-like style games that get released and they do okay and then they build and they build and they build. Hades is another good example where like that was, I guess, pretty big when it was in early access, but then it like really blew up when it came out, you know, 1.0 and it was on Switch. Games as a service. Well, right. And it's not, like, games as a service makes you think of EA and like Destiny and whatever, but it can also mean. these littler games. Yeah, they're the same thing. And it's just a way that that shift really helped people who were totally screwed over by the AAA seed make this thing work long term by just making one game and then updating it, which just seems more sustainable in a lot of ways, like, that they can keep working on the same game for so long. Yeah, well, that's what a lot of indies are doing. They're just like releasing a game and continually updating it and adding it to it over time. And I think that like, yeah, the misconception you were talking about earlier is that idea that like you release a game and it makes all of its sales,

on day one. But in reality, there's like this long tail. Yeah, the same thing has happened with, with, at least with my first book is that, like in the book industry, I mean, I have no idea how the wizardry of publication and sales work. But it's like, it's sold, it just had a good tail and like had these spikes at Christmas and stuff like that. And it's interesting to watch as someone who just observes media is, it's been interesting to watch the sales of that in relation to like how other things work and just seeing like, oh my God, Christmas time, like it's spiking up the charts. That's because you do that Christmas event in the book every year.

Right. Yeah. There's new costumes that people can get for the walls of the pages. You can buy Blood Sweat and Pixels, costumes. Do you ever get sick of making jokes about how your book is like a video game? It's like the only joke I ever make about your book. But you have like a perfect one you can tell next about how the sequel needs to double its sales. Like why aren't you continuing to yes and this premise?

That's true. That's true. If this does not, yeah. If press reset does not make at least 10 times. The bean counters are. are after us. We need to get these beans into pockets. Yeah, that's very true.

I think people would be shocked also at how little money the book is just going to make. I don't think they would be. That's kind of media in general, right? So do you guys want to hear a story? I had a story that I've been saving just for this podcast. Absolutely. It's a pretty wild story. Oh, okay.

I think I've told you this privately. I don't remember if I've told you, but I don't think I've spoken about this. I've probably forgotten it. So just go ahead and tell you. Yeah, probably your memory's shot. So when I set out to make bloods, after Bloodsone pixels, I finished that, didn't know what I was going to do next, had some ideas for a new book, was talking to my editor. He was this great guy, Eric Myers and Harper Collins. And I was like, what should we do next? We talked for a while we pursued kind of a false lead. Games as a service, actually, I was going to write a book about that, decided not to for a variety of reasons, didn't work out.

Towards the end of like 2018, like fall of 2018 is where I finally landed on this idea and was like, okay, I'm doing this, studio shutdowns. That's what I'm going to write my next book about. around the same time I got a call from Eric my editor he's like I'm leaving Harper Collins I'm like oh shit what does this mean because this is a guy who like advocated for blood sweat and pixels bought blood sweat and pixels essentially made it happen at Harper Collins the way it works in the book industry is you and your agent go out and you pitch to specific editors and that editor is basically and that editor is basically and that editor is basically and that editor is basically and that editor is basically and that through the champion for your book at that company they push for it and all the meetings they like get it and all the meetings they like uh okay and through the a series of bizarre events over the next year, I just got saddled between editors to the point where, like, my next editor also left. And then the editor after that also left. It got to the point where I was on my fourth editor at Harper Collins. And eventually got to the point where they were just like, they, like, it felt like they wanted to just kill the book. And so I called on my age and it was like, oh my God, what do we do? I think this was like, like, I was in the middle of book leave

because I had sent them some chapters and they were like not into it. Someone said it was too dark. It was brutal stuff. It was like people who didn't really know games and just got saddled with my book. So it was impossible for me to blame them or anything. Like they just got saddled with this thing that they knew. This is almost like a video game story. It's like Warren Spector getting saddled with like Disney executives

who have no idea what to do with console games. And so my agent, Charlie Olson, who is a superhero, within a week got me a meeting with Hachet and Grand Central Publishing and Wes Miller, who's my current editor. And we signed it up and like smoothly transitioned into a new publisher. And it was incredible. Like my agent worked magic making that happen. And yeah, and then just now I'm publishing the book with them.

And it's been great. But yeah, the parallels between that whole saga and the video game industry are also really fascinating to me because it's so similar to some of the things that you face. But also just the fact that like your editor can just quit and you just be totally screwed is so weird and interesting. and makes you think a lot about luck and how much that plays into everything we do. Yeah, which is another way of saying that nothing is certain. I mean, like, anytime you're relying on luck for success, which I think about all the time.

Just like how everyone is so unstable all the time. Like, I feel like, you know, there's this huge wealth gap in America and there's people with tons of money and people with no money. I feel like even the people with tons of money still feel like they could lose it all at any minute. Right? I feel like just like everyone has that baked into them. Unless you're like a billionaire and maybe even then. You're like, yeah, but I don't know, man.

Like I could lose it all and like tomorrow have no money. And it's the reason that people sort of hoard wealth and hold on to it. I think that's why people hoard wealth. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the reasons that billionaires. I think you're right about like I think a lot of billionaires do think that way. And like especially the ones who grew up poor just have that mentality. It's almost like if we had a better social safety now in this country.

Yeah. Man, I think about a God. Yeah. I think about that all the time. I was just telling someone else about this is that my career started essentially because, oh, I told you guys about this on our beans talk about our histories. I told you guys about that job I had a patch that was paying me like $500 a week to do nothing. And that essentially allowed me to be a freelancer, like having this job I lucked into.

If I hadn't had that, I probably would have had to like, I don't know, go work at a coffee shop or something. And maybe I would have gotten sick of it and like change careers. Or have been more tired from a job like that. I mean, that's a grueling job. Yeah. Well, and yeah, not been able to write as much, like, freelancing. And so the fact that I lucked into this, like, plum gig is the reason that I'm able to have a career today. And there's so many of the factors that go into anyone successful who, like, doesn't say, I'm so lucky, is lying to you.

And I feel like luck plays such a big part in all of this. So this is, your next book is going to be about universal basic income. That's a great idea. I would love to. I would love to write that. Now, smarter people than I can cover that subject. Nice. Well, I guess we can wrap up. When's your book out? Let's let's do the, do the pitch for the people. Yeah, Pressure Set, Runa Recovery, and the video game industry comes out this Tuesday, May 11th. Very excited about it.

I think it's personally, I mean, I know a lot of people like Bloods, certain pixels, but I think this is way better. But I guess it's inevitable that like, like I took so many, there's so many things I learned and tried to do better from the first book. Like, for example, this is all one big story that I think both of you appreciate it as opposed to like, like 10 segmented stories that were all independent. I did think that was really cool. It's the Assassin's Creed to the Assassin's Creed of your first. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. But you wove together the stories more across the entire book in a way that I thought was surprising and enjoyable. I expected discrete chapters and instead I got more of a journey. Yeah, that was very deliberate. And I mean, it was deliberate for the first one that I did discrete chapters. I wanted them to be like, I wanted Blitzin and Pixels to be a book where you could pick it up and just skip around to whatever chapters you wanted to read about,

because I assume most people would not want to read about all the games. I also wanted to be very much like human stories, and everybody said, everybody told me that their favorite chapter in Blood Southern Pixels was Star Do Valley about Eric Barone's journey. And so I was like, I want this book to be entirely human stories like that, which I think I did. And the other important thing that was really important to me was Bloodsart and Pixels

for a variety of reasons. Some of them in my control, most of them in my control, but some of them out of my control. Blood Southern Pixels did not have a lot of women voices in it and I was like man this sucks at the end of like after I finished it I was like god this sucks like I and I addressed it in the prolog but I was like for the next book I want to get some women spotlight some women in it and I also did that with this book yep which is nice so yeah just a lot of things it's it's funny you learn as with any creative endeavor you learn a lot the first time around

and you're like man got to take these lessons apply them to the next thing and I think I did that I'm really proud of press your set and I think people will will dig it I think people will find it bleak and hard to get through, but also optimistic and really addicting and not hard to get through. I think it's very much a page turner like the first book was. Am I allowed to say that about my own book? Are you allowed to call your own book? I think so. What the hell, man. You wrote it. I agree with you. I turned its pages. I read it in the last couple days. It's a very smooth read. I agree. Yeah. I have a question for you guys because I don't know the answer to this. I really don't. Have either of you ever wanted to write a book or ever given it any thought? Yes. Yeah, sure. I've thought about it. I don't know, though. I'll let you know my pitch after off air. But yeah, I have a lot of ideas.

Oh, off air. Well, have either of you like ever seriously pursued it or considered seriously pursued? No, no, no. But I have always wanted to write a book. Like you, Jason, I've also wanted to write fiction before in my life. Just because I think it would be fun. And when I was a kid, that was actually the job I wanted was to be a novelist. And I used to write little short stories all the time.

And then eventually I got into journalism, which is like nonfiction writing, of course. And these days when I fantasize about writing a book, I usually picture nonfiction books. Cool. But yeah. Yeah, that's true. I was very similar, Maddie, and wrote short stories. It would be fun to write fiction.

I think if I wrote nonfiction, it would be something about music. And writing about music is hard, man. Like, if you can't be making a podcast where you're, like, playing the music at the same time, it's hard to, I admire music critics who are good when I... Strong songs, the book? Strong songs, the audio collection. It wouldn't work. I'd be like, reference CD, like, number three, this track at this timestand.

It just isn't the same. So I don't know, maybe. It'd be fun to have a big project like that. But albums are sort of similar. So maybe that's. Yeah, albums are. And I have made an album before. So in a way, I've written a book.

Yeah, that's both of you. It's the musician's book. That's what albums are. They're the musicians book. All right. Well, everybody should go by press reset. And yeah, let's take a break. And then we'll be back with one more thing.

Hi, everyone. It's your friendly co-host, Kirk from the future here. Given that it is Max FunDrive, we're actually not doing our usual network promos in this spot. And since we already talked a lot about Max Fun Drive at the start of the episode, I'm not really going to reiterate that here. The Drive has only been going on for a few days. We've already got people signing up to become Max Fun members and boosting their membership. That's super rules. I also wanted to just let you all know that in honor of Max Fun Drive, we're going to be dropping some bonus stuff in the main feed this week for everybody, not just for members.

In addition to normal episodes, you're going to get a little bit of extra stuff. So keep an eye or an ear out for that. All right, that's enough for me. Go to maximum fun.org slash join if you want to sign up and help us make this show. But for now, let's just get back to the episode. Take it away past triple-click hosts. Bing! And we're back for one more thing, the segment of the show, where we talk about one more thing each.

Maddie, what's your one more thing? Do you really think that needs explanation, Kirk? I just like saying it. It's just fun to do a radio announcer thing. Every week, we need to explain to people what we're about to do. Every week there could be a new listener who's listening for the very first time. Also, we need to go over the rules every week because sometimes certain co-hosts try to sneak in more than one thing. That is also true.

Set the boundary. It couldn't be me. It could not be me. Definitely not something I've ever done either. And it's not like one more thing has a self-explanatory name or anything. No, that's the thing. It's totally a thing. It's very confusing.

It's so gimmicky. Okay, Maddie, what is your one more thing? Okay, it is a movie. Dina and I watched the Mitchells versus the Machines this past weekend, which is an animated film that is on Netflix. Yes. It is incredible. I highly recommend it. This is a children's movie.

It's written by two people who worked on Gravity Falls. I don't know their names offhand, sorry. But if you like Gravity Falls, you probably like the Mitchells versus the machines because it's a similar science fiction kids in an absurd situation vibe. So it's about the Mitchell family. Katie is the main character. She is applying for college or about to go to college, and she is an artist and her parents. Her dad doesn't understand her. And then also the backdrop for that is that there is a robot apocalypse happening in the world,

thanks to the actions of a sort of Mark Zuckerberg-Alan Musk-esque figure who creates like a Siri AI who turns on him and decides that robots must rise. destroy all humans. And so Katie and her family have to get along with each other and use Katie's tech skills slash artistic talents to save the world. And I loved it. And part of what I really loved about it is because I feel like I've seen a lot of movies that lampoon the tech industry and, you know, video games and so on and that culture and like young people being into tech and looking at their screens all day, but don't necessarily acknowledge the value. of those pursuits. And this movie's really determined

to acknowledge that value and be like, no, Katie makes digital art with her screen and that's really cool. And that's actually something special and important about her. And then she sells it as NFTs for millions of money. No. No. There's no NFTs in this. There's the one scene where he's like, get off

your phone and socialize or something. And she's like, but I am socializing right now. Like there's some nice acknowledgments. Yeah. But then there is also like the acknowledgement of like the artistic pursuits that her father does. Like he like builds a house and like is into wood carving and like hunting in the woods and like all these other like survival skills that help them too.

So it's like it's a movie that respects both the part of me that wants to move into the woods and abandon all society and also the part of me that loves technology and art and making stuff and connecting with people online. And I don't know. I was just pleasantly surprised that the movie spoke to both parts of my id in a very pleasant way. But you watched it too, Kirk. What did you think about it? Yeah, I was a little, it's interesting. I actually really like that perspective on it. I was a little, like, medium on this actual just mechanics of it.

Like, I feel like I could see the gears turning a lot with just like. It is very much a kid's movie. Now we're going to foreshadow a thing that she learned from her dad, that she'll do later. Like, you can see where a lot of it is going. So, you know, that part was what it was. But I like that a lot that it's sort of, it's paying respect to both parts of us, like how her dad really doesn't like technology and wants to disconnect. and you get where he's coming from. And then she, of course, lives this whole life online and is so excited.

I like that Abby Jacobson stars in it. This is Abby from Broad City. She plays the lead, which is just cool because she should be in more things. And I like the visual design of it. It's a, Lauren Miller produced this. They didn't like write and directed, but the guys who made the Lego movie and Spider-Verse, and it has that kind of Lego movie energy. It's a lot of, like, meme jokes and internet stuff and Snapchat filters.

And it's kind of got that really caffeinated vibe. But I liked how the robots looked. I like the way that there's this like huge design shift that happens in the robot world where it almost becomes like a digital like Tron universe even though it's real. Like, and it just becomes all clean colors and like neons. And then the real world is this messy almost photo realistic weird place. And they really juxtapose those really well too. So it's like a visually awesome looking movie. Yeah, I like that.

It was a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. The visuals are weird. Like anytime they juxtapose like the too realistic world with the cartoon world, it's like supposed to take you out of it and make you feel disordering. oriented. It's a little freaky.

It's very effective. Yeah. Yeah. It's cool. And it's like on Netflix. We look at this watch. Yeah. You just watch it.

Not bad. Nice. Jason, what's your one more thing? No video games this week. What's your one more thing? No video games this week. Well, because all of the video game we've all been playing is Returnal, which we'll talk about next week. Yeah, we're going to do a triple play.

We're going to do a return of triple play next week. Yeah. I've been watching Killing Eve, which is a fascinating show that I like quite a bit. I know I'm late to the party on this one. Yeah, we've already seen it. But tell us about it. I know both of you have. But for listeners, well, so yeah, so my wife has been just on a crazy work kick recently.

And she finally had some time to start a new show. So we were like looking through our list of shows we wanted to watch together. And we were like, let's start killing Eve. And so over the weekend, my parents actually took our toddler. So we were able to watch a bunch over the weekend. And I think I'm one episode away from the finale of season one. So about to finish season one. So don't, no spoilers.

Oh, so you've seen my favorite scene in the dance club. I won't say what it is. Yeah, the, oh, yeah, that was, that was nuts. That's my favorite scene of, like, any TV show ever. So this show is crazy and good. It's awesome. I really, really like it. It's essentially the premise is that there's this assassin, this lady assassin,

played by, do you guys know the actresses name, Villanelle's actress? She's fantastic. She's phenomenal. I've never heard of her before. I've never seen her in anything before, but she's blowing me away in this. And Sandra O, who is, people probably know, plays this woman named E. Plansky, and her job is to, she puts together this team essentially to go trace Villanelle and find where she is.

And I don't want to spoil because you kind of have to just watch it and see what happens because all sorts of crazy stuff happens. And Villanelle is just captivating and impossible to look away from. And the actress who plays her is just tremendous. And Sandra O is also tremendous. Jody Comer is her name. Yes. Yes, Jody Comer.

And Sandra O, is also tremendous as Eve and the two of them just have fireworks together when they are together. Sandra O's hair. It's like its own whole character. Yeah. Well, she comments on her, Villanelle comments on her hair all the time. Yeah, no wonder Villanelle's obsessed with it. Yeah. And it's really good, really good. It's like, I actually thought it was going to be funnier than it was. I thought it was going to be more of a comedy, but it's still really good. It's a little bit bleaker, but there is some good comedy to it and a lot of globe trotting. It was made by the BBC, and you could tell that they had fun traveling across Europe. to shoot a variety of things

from like the British countryside to Paris to Russia. It's really, really good. It almost reminds me of the Americans in some way, which I also just watched, but there's some parallels there. Yeah, I could see that

and that you're sympathizing with characters with being like, do I sympathize with you know? Why? Well, also like spies and Russian spies and handlers and stuff like that, a lot of secret identity stuff. And the other thing that I thought was fun was my wife turned to me, and I think she had read this online, but she was like, I just read that, like,

you can tell this is a show made by women because the assassins don't wear heels and have their hair up in ponytails. And if it was made by men, then the assassins would be in high heels, the female assassins would be in high heels and have their hair down. Interesting. That's interesting. But yeah, it's a really, really good show. Really enjoying it. Nice.

Amazing outfits on that show, too. That's the other way. By women, four women. You were texting me, Jason, that like, there's the one episode that's basically just a hitman level. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. She goes to this party and she puts on a costume and pretends to be in the waitstaff and, like, winds up using this really elaborate way of assassinating the guy who's like the host of

the party. It's like so hitman. I remember watching that just being like. It is extremely hitman to the point where someone says, hey, you're not supposed to be in here while she's wearing that outfit. Yeah. She goes walking by someone and they're like, hey, waitstaff, what's up? In that hitman way that.

Amazing. It makes me want, yeah, I want a female hitman game starring villain out. Oh, man. Killing you game? That would be good. I'd play it. All right, I'll do my one more thing. It is a TV show.

It's an Apple TV plus show, the one streaming network that everybody needed. The world really needed one more, even though it did give us Ted Lassa. So I guess the world is. And Mythic Quest, which is awesome. It's kind of justified its existence. No, I know. Damn it. We didn't need this Apple.

Why did you have to go and fund good content? And now you're going to tell me about another show I've never even heard of that's apparently on there. Yes. Okay. So the show I'm going to tell you both about is called For All Mankind. And I actually first heard about this from Chris Plant, who was talking about it on the besties, our buddies over on that video game podcast. And he was saying, oh, well, this show is really cool and it gets a lot better in season two.

Season two has been really great. And he kind of described the premise. And I was like, well, we needed something to watch. Let's watch it. And it is a good show. I've seen a lot of people talking about season two because the season two finale was out of control. Like it was an amazing episode of TV, just in a kind of old school way, actually. It was really good.

So I'll just describe it really quickly. So this show is run by Ron Moore of Battlestar Galactica and before that Star Trek fame. And it very much feels like a Ron Moore show in a lot of ways, generally very good. Some kind of soapy. It can be a little bit soapy. So the premise is this. It starts in 1969 and Russia beats Earth to the Moon. So that's the kind of instigating event of this show.

And then the whole rest of the show is an alternate history. timeline where the space race never ended. That's the premise. So because Russia got there first, NASA is like, shit. You know, like, well, we have so much better technology, but they got there first for we don't even know how, but they beat us. We're humiliated.

Like, we need to get to the moon now too. And then it keeps going. And like soon there's, you know, various other things pretty early on. Russia sends a woman up to the moon. So then America's like, oh, we need to let women into the space program. And like, things just start changing. And then the show is really ambitious. Like the scope of it and the way that it reveals that is pretty cool as you watch.

But I think that it is actually nice to know going in that it's not just like about that year. Like it's about a huge sweep of time. And it's actually going to be this like saga that plays out. And they even hint at this in the opening credits. I don't really know where it's going because it's been two seasons. But I think it's going to like play out over like they're going to go to the cosmos and beyond. And soon it's going to be like hard sci-fi. With the same characters?

Well, no. And like, I think that they're going to hand off to new characters. They're not going to do a Mars trilogy thing where people, maybe they'll have like a youth serum so people can stick around. No, but I mean so far. So far, what have you seen what you've seen before? Is it like characters or like what's the actual premise of the show? Oh, yeah. Oh, sorry, yes.

There's, yeah, there's a whole cast. And they're like a character who is a child at one point, you know, kind of grows up. Like at the very beginning of the show, there's a girl coming over with her family. And she and her father are like sneaking across the border from Mexico. And she's very young. and it's like you know from the beginning they're showing you this really young girl and you're like well this is going to be important

but she's like 12 years old so at some point she's going to be older and it's going to become you know an engineer or something and maybe go work for NASA and so they're kind of they kind of show where they're going with it really early on and then at some point she's going to be older and she's going to pop back in the show and say Bing I'm here from the future

right yes exactly so yeah and then there's main character they're like Joel Kinnamen the guy from like altered carbon and the killing is one of the lead characters who he's a cool actor. His character is kind of a butt head so he can be sort of frustrating. But the cast sort of expands and there's definitely like a bunch of

astronauts and astronaut spouses and the families and the people around him, the engineers, the people in mission control. And then it's a sort of political drama as well. All this stuff is happening in the background. And it's very fun. It's fun to watch how this one thing serves as

the kind of butterfly effect change that then leads to these downstream effects that aren't all really obvious or you wouldn't see them all coming and a lot of things are still basically the same but the more time passes the more things are different because of this one thing that was different and it's super fun to watch that happen I think that it's based on a book series and it seems like it would work really well as books so once you get to season two like a bunch of stuff has changed and things really get cooking and like I said kind of soapy got some soapy energy like there are

some subplots where you're just like okay like they're short but you're just sort of like I don't care about this person having an affair with this other person like I get that it's character development, but get back in space. Like, come on, do some crazy shit where you're like are in zero gravity. Make some people almost die because they're doing absurd space missions. Exactly. I want some peril. Yes, I want some peril. But it has a lot of that good, like, kind of the Martian, you know, let's solve this crazy problem in orbit with no gravity and we only have these tools to work with stuff. And it's just a well-made show that I really enjoyed. And the season two finale is a smoker. It's like really amazing. It's an amazing episode of

So it's like certainly worth watching for that and because of the promise of what it is where it's going. And yes, it smokes. Smoke coming off of my TV. I like it. Is it more of your jazz lingo? It's a smoker. Yeah, I guess that kind of is. Smoking.

Yeah, you can put like a smoking jazz solo. It's nasty. Well, that's it. We did it. We did a live episode and didn't go too badly. I don't think. Hopefully the stream didn't break. Yeah, nobody, people listening to this at home are like, what?

That was live? What? They could probably tell. You got to throw in some crowd noises, man. All right, I'll work some huge arena cheers in there for the, no doubt, thousands and thousands of people that are watching. Every time I say the title of my book, you just add some screaming. That's what I'll do. Nice.

Well, yeah, we'll sign off. We'll go chat with everybody live who came to watch. That's it for this week's episode. So, yeah, everybody, don't forget, Max Fun Drive. Don't forget to go and subscribe. Yeah, please do. Boost your membership. Become a Max Fun member.

Boost your membership. You'll get a pin. You'll get other sweet stuff. And you'll know in your heart that you were supporting Triple Click. You were. All right. I'll see the two of you next week. See you next week.

Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org

slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpod. Send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum fun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned.

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