Triple Click - Should You Buy A Switch 2 Before Prices Go Up? [Mailbag]

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

Jason, Maddy, and Kirk open up the mailbag to take some of your questions on all sorts of things. How do you deal with a creatively unfulfilling job? Why don't more game studios allow employees to work remotely? And is it worth buying a Switch 2 now before it inevitably gets more expensive, even if you're on the fence? One More Thing: Kirk: Weapons (2025) Maddy: “Iran,” Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown (2014) Jason: People of Note 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

According to Kirk Hamilton, everyone is 37, except for Triple Click, which is now 300. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. For this 300 episode, we are opening up the mailbag and taking some questions. We talk about our finances, about creativity and work, and much more. I'm Jason Schreier. I'm Kirk Hamilton. And I'm Maddie Myers. Hello.

We are at episode 3. I just kicked a guy into a well and I shouted, this is triple click. Yes, well done. We always celebrate that particular number in my household. Wow, what a milestone. What an accomplishment. We've been doing this for nearly six years, about to hit our six year anniversary,

which is pretty wild. Yeah, just a little over 60 more episodes and you will be able to listen to one episode of triple click for every day in a year. That is obviously something someone would want to do. And it's important that on our 365th episode, we remind them that finally they can listen to one episode every day. Every day. If you listen to one episode every day by the end of it for a year, then by the end of it, you will have written a book. Here's the thing, though. Let me tee Jason up here.

I actually think we might almost already have enough episodes for a year if you happen to be a maximum fun. member. Oh yeah. Well, that's a good point because we are a listener supported podcast and you can support us by going to maximum fun.org slash join or the new maximum fund.org slash join triple click, which is a nice, easy way to join us to help support the show. And if you do, you get bonus episodes, not just from us, from a whole bunch of shows on the MaxFund Network, but ours are every month, including one we just ran about Resident Evil Requiem, a game that we all finished and talked about. A very fun game to play through and discuss and so much ridiculousness in that game

that we really didn't into involving Leon and Grace and all of the other supporting cast along the way. Next up this month at the end of April, we'll be running a bonus episode about the Sopranos season two and season three, two for the price of one. as Maddie continues to watch the show for the first time, and Kirk and I rewatch it. Kirk for the second time, me for the possible to count the number of times. Enough times that any scene that I text Jason about, he immediately replies with a verbatim quote from that scene.

Jason has been watching the sopranos every day of each year from when it came out up to now. He never really stopped. Well, if you watch the sopranos every single day for a year, you become a gang. You actually become Polly Walnuts. You get a track suit. You start getting income, but it's like really stressful terms by which you're collecting it. Right. You get some free income, but your life turns to total garbage.

Oh, Maddie is on episode, Fortunate Son. You can really tell what episode I'm on based on that. I'm so upset for Christopher. But hey, you'll have to listen to the app to find out why. Yeah. I'm worried about the him. As Polly says. but that'll be really fun and once again you can listen to that by becoming a member maximum fun

org slash join or maximum fund.org slash join triple click a new new little feature we got here all right episode 300 and to celebrate we're going to be answering some listener questions that's right it is time for some burning questions opening up the mailbag and taking some of your finest emails and lighting them on fire once again as always you can reach us a triple click at maximum fun.org if you want to send in a question that is triple click at maximum fun.org. We get so many good ones. We're really, uh, listeners are really, really delivering for us to the point where we have way more good ones than we could possibly answer, but we'll, we'll try to get through them as regularly as we can. Let's start with this first one from Lily. Maddie,

why don't you read this one? Sure. So Lily writes, hi, long time listener, first time emailer. On the latest episode, Kirk mentioned his theory that everyone is 37. This kind of caught me off guard, so I wanted to let you guys know that I'm actually 26. Not sure if it's just me or there are others. Love the show, Lily. Interesting. So here's my response to Lily. Have you considered the possibility that you are actually 37 years old? You might think that you're 26, but have you had yourself carbon dated? It is possible that you're 37. and you just don't realize. Well, Kirk, I have a counterpoint, which is that if you were 37, you wouldn't be in so much body pain all the time.

You'd still be... Right, I suppose the theory here is... Well, I remember I mentioned that I've gotten the body pain under control. That's true. Part of being in your 40s is getting in shape. And that you are, in fact, better than ever in your 40s. But that also kind of... I don't know about better than ever, but...

Well, now you're 37. Kind of undercuts your theory, though. Right. It's as though you're 37 again, perhaps. Right. So let me explain the actual theory. because I'm kidding. Lily, I acknowledge your actual age

and I validate and see you. No, the theory of everybody being 37 is it's kind of a joke theory, but it's the fact that I think when you're at that point in your 30s, somewhere between 36 and 38. Somewhere in there. Somewhere in that right.

I just say exactly where. Well, because you can be 38. You can be 36. But if you were between them. You might also be 37. 37, though, comes to my. When you're at that point in your 30s, it seems as though in media at least,

you reach a point where you start making the kinds of shows that I listen to, at least right now. Like that particular age of millennial is this kind of dead bullseye center millennial who is, you know, making Pokemon references and talking about other things that I don't totally follow as an elder millennial slash exenial and is just in a position to be making podcasts about politics or the internet. And there was a period of time where I just kept, finding that on every podcast I was listening to, the host would say, say, oh, how old are you? And the guest would say, oh, well, I'm 38. And the host would say, yeah, well, I'm 37. And I was like,

I just feel like everybody I'm listening to is this exact age. And all of culture, at least all of the culture that I interact with is being defined by this age. And so because the internet tells us that whatever we're seeing is universal and it's true for everyone, I've extrapolated that out to a theory that everyone in the world actually is just 37 years old. It's funny you say this, because I was having a conversation recently with someone, this is a little spicy. But I was having a conversation recently with someone in the games industry who was like, you know, the problem of the games industry right now is that the Gen Xers are in charge of everything. And the millennials have not had a chance to, like, step up and run game studios and lead teams. So maybe if everyone in the games industry was 37, things would look differently.

This is classic generational stuff, right, where every generation will blame the other generation for whatever is. going wrong. And there's usually an element of truth to all of it, right? But yeah, I mean, generations kind of just don't exist to begin with. Yeah, that's all fake. It's all completely made up. You know, the problem is that all these stupid millennials are in charge. Like, that's probably what the Gen Xers would say. Yeah, 100%.

Well, the Gen Xers, they want to make stuff that is like, oh, remember the 80s? I'm going to make all the things that I loved back in the 80s. But meanwhile, the millennials, if they were in charge, it would just be like, hey, we're going to remake Doug. Y2K era stuff. He had a journal. It's all like Disney Channel originals. It would be like BuzzFeed quizzes turned into video games.

None of us have any nostalgia for BuzzFeed quizzes. I reject that. No, no, no, no. Maddie, the BuzzFeed quizzes are the millennial nostalgia. Like those are all just millennial nostalgia quizzes. Right. That's a good point. Yeah, they were banking on millennial nostalgia in and of themselves.

Yes. It'll be like which Rugrats character were you. That's the sort of our... It could be maybe the next AAA game is. Yeah, exactly. Which Rugrats character? Or like, yeah, AAA Rugrats game where it's like dark and gritty versions of Tommy Pickles. His baby, baby crew.

He's got nothing but a screwdriver and he knows how to use it. Can you imagine? And your inventory is your diaper and you just keep things in it. But you only have a screwdriver. That's it. The entire screen is flying. Kirk doesn't get these references because he's a few years older than we are. For what it's worth.

that is true. This is one of that, that microgenerational divide. I don't know if this answer actually helped really understand my theory, but like I said, when I first mentioned it, this is a work in progress. I'm chewing on it. I'm feeling it out. Thank you for writing in and sharing your perspective as a 26-year-old on this theory. I want to, can we do a whole episode about Rugrats triple-I? Can we do a whole episode where Jason and I talk about the micro-differences between Yeah, we talk about our millennial nostalgia. Between us and Kirk. That sounds fun.

You guys record that. Just send me the audio files all that. You'll be out of here. You'll be like, I'm going to talk about Ghostbusters. And I'll be like, that's okay. I mean, it's fine. I just don't have quite as strong an emotional attachment to it. No, nothing against Ghostbusters, please don't write in.

It's just, I didn't grow up watching it. I'm so sorry. For us, it's like the sandlot and like the mask. Yeah, great pull. Oh, I love the sandlot. I love the mask. So, you know, there are things that we have in common and things that we don't. It's weird.

Yeah, there we go. It's true. All right. Next question. Kirk, you want to read this one? This next email comes from Samuel who writes, Hi, triple click. I work as a technical artist in a double A game studio.

I really love my job. I get to solve interesting problems with creative people in a studio with a healthy work culture. My coworkers are all incredibly passionate about the game we're working on. Here's one thing, though. I'm not. In fact, I dislike almost everything about the. aesthetics, mechanics, and narrative of the game that I help create five days out of the week. While I have no intention of leaving my job in the near future, this situation is pretty

creatively draining. As three creative people, how have you balanced enjoyment of the creative process with passion for a final project? Is this dissonance something you felt in your own work? Interesting. Yeah, I mean, I have some thoughts. My media thought is that I think there's some benefits to working on something you're not super passionate about. One is that you can actually treat your job like a job and not get super attached to everything to the point where you'll come in on weekends to get a feature, to prevent a feature that you're working on from getting cut because you love it so much and you really want to see it in the game. You can kind of treat your job as a job as more of a nine to five, which I think can be beneficial to you. The other thought is that I think a lot of

the creativity, a lot of the great creativity, a lot of the great works of art come from people who are bored during their day jobs and just can daydream and think about stuff all day. Granted, it's a little tougher when you're doing art for your day job. And so you have to do art, even though you're not inspired to do it. You might feel burnt out at the end of the day and not feel like you could be creative about other stuff. But I mean, boredom and kind of lack of inspiration during the day can lead to more creativity at night and weekends and during your during your spare time, which you can channel into personal projects or like projects you want to be professional projects. It can be, can go anywhere or channel it into your family. I don't

know. It could go anywhere. Yeah, it's tricky because Samuel, it isn't just that Samuel is sort of ambivalent about his job. He seems, he says he actively dislikes it. He dislikes the game that he's making and finds it creatively draining. And that's a little tougher than, you know, if you're just going into clock in at some true job that you find not that engaging and then working on creative stuff at night, you know, going into a creative job that is really engaging and, you know, challenging. He describes it as this really kind of interesting problem solving, really engaging job. But then everything that he's making is sort of aesthetically repellent to him. That seems like a pretty serious long-term problem to me. Yeah, you're right. I hadn't

thought about it that way. I guess I've never really been in this situation because when I'm kind of over my career as a journalist when I'm kind of forced to do something I don't want to do or like put in a position where I don't find something. super satisfying. It's over so quickly because articles are ephemeral and you generally do them pretty quickly that I don't really have to linger on it too much, which I guess is very lucky that I haven't been in that position. Yeah, that was how I thought about the question the first time I read it was like, oh, wow, I'm so grateful that even when I have to cover something that I'm not really passionate about or write about a game that I don't like, it doesn't last for very long, it's over.

And then I can move on to the next thing and embrace something I'm passionate about But in reading this again, now I did remember some of the odd jobs that I took on after the Boston Phoenix went out of business before I got hired full time at the Mary Sue. And I was just freelancing on top of those jobs. And some of them were like social media manager and technical writing jobs that were totally outside of the games industry because I wanted to keep writing about games. So I found jobs that were unrelated. And I hated them. And getting myself to write about things I did not care about, I found to be. just anathema for me personally. So that was part of why I was like, okay, it's really important

to me to, even if it's not in games, to get a journalism job of some kind about a topic that I'm passionate about because I have so much trouble motivating myself to write over and over again. Like a couple times I found I could do it. But the longer it went on, the more I was like, wow, I do not have this ability. So Samuel, unfortunately, my solution was eventually work at a place that was intellectually stimulating for me. But hopefully that's not the case for you because you said you have no intention of leaving your job. Yeah, I think there's something there. I mean, I've had experiences somewhat like this.

There were certainly times writing for Kataku where I felt like this isn't really what I want to be doing, you know, since what I really want to be doing is like playing saxophone, is like playing and teaching music. And writing about video games was a lot of fun. and especially at its best, you know, when I was really getting to dig into some creative video game review or something. Or certainly podcasting has been really fun. Like, those were all really fun parts of the job. But there were definitely parts of the job that weren't really what I wanted to be doing or that could feel a little bit draining. Managing people.

Oh, well, sure. And even, and writing, I guess. Like, you know, there were times where I was just kind of churning out articles, especially in the early years. And that's, like, not very inspiring to me and actually. led to me doing kind of mediocre work sometimes because I was hitting too many deadlines and I wasn't proud of what I was doing and I didn't really care about most of the video games like that much like it was fun and interesting but not something I was super passionate about. So it was draining in that I would finish and it wasn't like I was wrapping up my shift at Kataku and then going

and practicing and writing music. I was like playing video games or just sort of burned out and tired. And so I do know that feeling and I know a lot of people who do similar work in music actually, you know, who are maybe studio musicians or professional composers. I'll fictionalize it, I guess, and talk about Jason Siegel's character in forgetting Sarah Marshall, who's one of my favorite depictions of a musician where he, he like composes for law and order essentially. And I believe his line is it's just ominous tones. It's not even really music. He's just going when the killer, you know, leaves the new body. And like people who work in those fields really struggle. It's a challenge, you know, to to like show up every.

every day with your guitar at work and then play music that's going to be in some movie or like be really high profile, but it's not actually very interesting and then find the energy to still write your own music. So I'd say, I guess, my advice is whatever you're doing, it does play a role in your broader artistic self and in the vision that you have for what you want to make long term, you know, if you're thinking of yourself as an artist. And even if you're working currently on a project that's like not what you would be making if you could just make anything. You're still building skills that you're eventually going to be able to apply toward that work that you want to do. But it is important to keep your eye on that work that you want to do

because as we've kind of said a few different times, you can only do this for so long where you're making something that isn't what you want to make because it is fairly draining and it's hard to get around to the thing that you want to do. So think of it as kind of a step on the way toward where you want to be and just don't lose sight of where you want to. be. That's good advice. And I think as I hear you, I can say that I did actually learn something at all of those little odd jobs that I had. And all of those things helped me improve at different kinds of writing, even if at the time I was like, oh, this is so boring or I can't see what the value is in this. It's usually true that when you look back on it, you're like, I actually did learn something from that. And I'm sure that's true of Samuel. And also, eventually the studio will work on a different game, I'm sure. And maybe it'll be something with a totally different aesthetic and vibe and something that Samuel can contribute to in the process, hopefully, and be like, hey, what if we did this or that? And by building skills now working on something that you don't like, Samuel, you might have a better sense of how you could contribute to something that you do like and what that would even look like at your job. Can I also, can I say something a little bit contrary in here, which is that

Samuel writes that he gets to solve interesting problems with creative people in a studio with a healthy work culture? There are a lot of cases where you might be working on a game that's really cool and interesting, but you are working in a very toxic environment with an awful work culture. And I don't know, after talking to many people in this industry and hearing a lot of stories, I think I would rather be working on the boring project with the healthy work culture and the good people than the other way around. So try to cherish that part of it, at least.

It sounds like you are. But I think like having a good boss and having good coworkers and getting to hang out with them all the time can help make up for things. And grass isn't always greener on that aspect of work. That's so true. Okay, let's get to the next question. This is Dusty. Dusty writes

Hi all a long time first time writing from Australia and hoping for a triple click live world tour someday. Maybe I don't know, Kirk is very famous in Australia So maybe we can make that happen In the state of video games episode Jason made the point the game budgets are predominantly made up of worker salaries And ballooning costs are in large part due to increased cost of living In major American cities.

So my question is this, why are major studios forcing employees to return to offices in places like L.A. when many were happily working remotely in less expensive cities slash states slash countries. Why indeed? Yeah, why? Do we know?

I mean, I guess I kind of know in that I've asked companies this or I've asked that people who are making decisions at companies this and they say, and I'm curious if you guys believe this, but I've talked to people who are in management roles and they say that they have data

that shows that people are less productive. working remotely and more productive working in the office. And maybe that's true. Maybe it's not. I don't know. Maybe it's a case-by-case thing. Working remotely seems to work for a lot of people. Maybe for some people it doesn't.

Maybe for some people they do tend to slack off when nobody's watching them. Maybe they're spending more time on Twitter because nobody can see their monitors or they have Netflix on in the background while they're like doing stuff. I don't know. And I say this all as someone who has been a proponent of remote work since before COVID. And has been working remotely. And I work remotely. And so, and I think remote work can solve a lot of problems.

I actually think it's kind of immoral to make people move for a job in the games industry, given how there's no guarantee of security, of job security in the games industry. So to make someone uproot their family only to potentially lay them off a year later is just obscene. But that said, I mean, that's what these companies believe. So they're not calling for return to office for no reason. in. I do think there's a, obviously a lot of people see it as like, oh, it's just managers wanting butts in seats just for the sake of it. And maybe that's true to some extent. But I do think and have heard that these companies like genuinely believe that their workers are more

productive in the office and that they see more gains when they have people in the office. I wonder what that data is based on. And if COVID was part of what the data was taken from? No, this is more recently. Okay. That's reassuring. Because I just want to say, I don't know that COVID's a great indicator of anybody's ability. No, no, because that was so long ago at this point that I think companies have died of like the last two years or so. And so there's some companies, I don't know, like I talked to people at Blizzard, for example, because I wrote a book about them, obviously. And they had a pretty strict return to office policy implemented in like 23 or 2024, something like that. It's been relaxed a little bit and now it's a little bit like turning a blind eye and at least.

on some teams, but it was a little stricter. And back then, their management said they had data showing like, hey, we see productivity gains of X, Y, and Z when people are in the office. And maybe there are other factors there. I don't know. Maybe there's a lot of variables there. I do kind of think there, I mean, there's something to be said for working in the same room with people, too. Like, even just going to meetings with people in the same room. Like, we're talking in terms of productivity. And I think that makes sense, especially because this question was asked in terms of the economics, which, you know, when you're forcing people to all live in a really expensive city and then paying their salaries so they can afford to live there, that's like a whole

systemic issue in the video game world. But I do find, you know, recording a podcast in the same room with people, for example, just to go with something that I'm very familiar with doing, it's a whole different world. I mean, if you just sit with one other person and two microphones in a room and record, like, I'll do that and then I'll go and edit it, and it requires essentially no editing because people are so much more effective at communicating with one another when they're in the room together. So that makes podcasting in person easier than podcasting remotely, the way that we all do, even though the three of us have learned how to do it remotely. But more broadly, it kind of, it's like a way of documenting communication, right? Because

what is a podcast other than just a conversation that you're having with someone? I can look at the recording and show you, like I can understand the ways that people are communicating differently when they're in the room versus when they're on a Zoom call. And it's remarkable. I mean, it is really noticeable. We have not crossed that technological gulf to make, you know, in-person meetings remotely on the same level, or sorry, to make remotely meetings remotely on the same level as in person. So like, I think there's something there. I mean, I can certainly understand why someone leading a team of creative people would want to get them all in the room together. Now, you have to weigh that against the many upsides of letting people work remotely. It's a really great thing for a lot

people. And I don't know that this outweighs that at all. And then more to the topic of the question, you know, if you're asking them to move across the country, you're putting them in an expensive city. These are all kind of separate factors. But I do at least understand why someone might make the argument to just like, we're going to do better work, it's going to be more fun, we're going to communicate better if we're all just sitting around together and actually in the same space. I get that. Especially someone who had done it that way successfully for a long time and then suddenly that way was changed on them. I mean, we were talking about Gen Xers before, right?

Like, that's a lot of people who were in charge of these studios and they were making games for, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 years a certain way and then suddenly it got upended and they're like, no, actually, it was pretty, we were much more successful during it that way. And it really isn't to say that, you know, you can't make games well remotely. We've seen games that have been really well made really well remotely. And we make a podcast well remotely. It's possible.

It just requires a different process. And I, yeah, I can definitely see. preferring one or the other because they are different and they have different strengths and weaknesses. Yeah. I mean, I strongly prefer working remotely and I have my own years of personal data that I've collected in my own life to prove I work better remotely. And I think some of that is the mental illness cocktail that I have. I really appreciate being able to control my own environment and an office is often overstimulating for me. And I think that those kinds of conversations have become more prevalent now, especially in the post-COVID era where sometimes people are like, whoa,

I'm actually way more productive remote and I had no idea. And now I can talk to my manager about that. And then maybe the manager doesn't have the ability or means to accommodate them. And then we get down the accommodations road, which I only mentioned because I do think it's a piece here that's worth bringing up. But that is part of why my take generally is I would encourage and hope that most companies could approach this on a case-by-case basis and just be like, okay, so maybe the data at large says everyone's more productive in person. But I have a couple members of my team who were actually way more productive when I let them work from home or do three days from home or whatever it is. And getting the permission to do it that way,

I would hope that that would be possible. There is also just the piece of things where I just feel so drained going in and out of an office sometimes, like socially. And I know, I mean, my wife's job deals with this a lot more because they have a lot of very outgoing people. It's just part of the company that she's at, the culture there. And a lot of those people are like really upset that some people are remote because they're like, I just miss talking to you in person every day. And those people who are remote are like, I don't know that I want to talk to you in person every day. And so like there is also like the social minefield piece of things that I think is maybe doesn't really fit into accessibility conversations in quite the same way, but it's also

a factor where it's like some people just sociability wise are like, I feel better in my brain when I'm like in an office that's buzzing and full of people, you know, your classic extroverts. And then there are people that are like, I would rather never do that actually. And that's interesting to me. And there's everyone in between. And there's like a whole gray area in between, which is I think really important to acknowledge. And, like, I do a lot of things better on my own, and I work from home. I am pretty much working for myself.

But then there are things that I like to do in person. Same. And so, you know, it's like, it requires a level of flexibility that most modern workplaces have not really figured out how to do. Because that's a really tricky challenge. I don't know. The cost of living thing seems like such a big issue. And I don't get the sense that game studios are, like, taking that into account when they're asking people to come back to the office. Or are they maybe, Jason?

Have you heard of game executives thinking in these terms? Like, well, if we worked remotely, actually, we could dramatically lower our overhead because we wouldn't have to pay quite as much money if people weren't living in this expensive city. Well, I mean, that opens a whole can of worms there too, because would you feel like it was fair to be paid 30% less than your coworkers just because you're in a different city than they are? Like just because you're in, I don't know, Tennessee, you think you should be making, getting a giant pay cut over your co-worker in Los Angeles? Well, don't ask me that.

I mean, you're turning around on me, but I'm asking if you, like, have heard of any game developers. Like, I don't have an answer. But are people making games like thinking this way at all? Like, are they thinking that they can lower their overhead by going remote? Yes, there are. If you look at salary ranges for job listings, not just in the games industry, but all around. Sometimes it'll be like for New York and California, this is the salary for other states. Like, this is the salary.

So it does happen. As of right now, I mean, most game companies, maybe not most, but a lot of game companies are pushing return to office in some way or another. Usually it's like three or four days a week. We want you in the office. In some cases, like Naughty Dog has been pushing hard on five days a week, at least for certain amounts of time throughout this final push shot. the next like year and a half as they try to finish intergalactic. Then on the flip side, you have companies like Insomniac, one of the most prolific game developers that is entirely remote first.

And people can choose to go into the office or not, depending what they want to do. But they have plenty of people who live all over the country. So we're seeing a wide variance in what companies are doing. I don't know how much overhead is taken into consideration for that. I would think that a big factor would be the rent of an office. And so like to just use Insomniac as another example, I believe they had multiple offices and then they consolidated it to one, which I'm sure helps them save some money. I believe they had a North Carolina office that doesn't exist anymore. And so they just have those people working remotely.

So yeah, I mean, I'm sure it's a factor. But again, I don't think that they're thinking like, oh, we're going to really save money on people's salaries by letting them live wherever. because I just don't know how practical that is. But I don't know. All right. Let's get through some more questions. Maddie, it's your turn. It is.

This next question is from Morgan, who writes, Hi, Jason, Maddie M. Kirk. I know Jason always says to keep it short, but where would we be if I didn't start by saying, I love the podcast? My friend got me into it. And chatting about the new episode on Thursdays is a crucial part of our routine.

Thanks, Morgan. The same friend and I. get to talk about themselves this Thursday. Yeah, the same friend and I try to make big financial gaming decisions together to help prevent impulse purchases and are currently struggling with one that we were hoping to get your insight on. We both eventually want to get the Switch 2, but it doesn't have any exclusives that interest us right now, so we've been holding off.

However, we've been getting spooked by the looming microchip shortage and rumors that it will lead to big price hikes or limited availability of products, which might then impact us by the time there is a game we really want to play. Can you think of anything similar that has happened in the video game industry in the past that might give us an idea of what to expect? If you were in our position, would you buy now to avoid these potential issues or continue waiting? I don't think there's any precedent for this. We've never seen a console generation where the consoles get more expensive at the longer U.S. That has never happened before. We just live in the worst time, I guess, for that. And for other reasons, but also this.

Yeah, I mean, I feel like if you, I don't know, I don't really know how to give good advice here. I don't think any of us do because we all receive, correct me if I'm wrong. Do we all receive our Switch 2s from Nintendo? Oh no. No, I bought mine. I just bought mine with my own money. Yeah, I bought mine. You just bought yours.

Okay, well, I received mine from. Jason got his for free. So I didn't have to buy it in the first place. So I don't really know what I would do if not for that. But I think just as a long-term investment, I would probably buy one. now because the price is only going to go up from here. We already saw PlayStation 5 just raised their price. I believe Switch 1 has raised their price.

Xbox has been raising their prices. I expect Switch 2 will raise their price imminently, like within the next year, because this RAM shortage is not going away and the supply all across the world is only getting worse by the minute. So, yeah, man, I don't know. It's bad out there.

Yeah, I mean, Speaking for myself, a person who did buy a switch to that did play a role in my decision. And I know I talked on the show about how I rebuilt my computer about six months prior to that because I was so worried about the incoming tariffs and also just general supply chain issues that I knew were coming. And that I have not regretted at all. I have opposite regretted that. I have been so grateful to my past self for making those decisions.

decisions. Of course, I also host a video game podcast. So in my mind, I was like, I'm going to need a switch to eventually. This is an investment in a sense. I can write it off on my taxes. That's probably not true for Morgan and their friend. But I knew I was going to need it eventually. So it made sense to go ahead and just get one right away. Yeah. But the example of my PC is maybe a better one in the sense that I was like, it's not going to get easier. I may as well get the parts now. I think what you're getting at is the question to ask. The question to ask is, will I get one no matter what or will I always be on the fence? And like if you are someone who has traditionally enjoyed Nintendo games, like if you know when there's a big new Zelda game, you will be there no matter what, then there's no reason of wait.

You should get one now because it is cheaper now than it will be in a few months or in a year or whenever things go out of control. Whereas if you think you'll be on the fence, even in a couple of years, even after Nintendo has released like new Mario and new Zelda and whatever, then that's more of a question and you'll just have to kind of figure out if it's worth getting now if you think you'll like, because that's the question to ask. Will I get one no matter what at some point in this console generation or am I just going to wait no matter, like wait and see? Because if you're going to wait and see, then maybe you can afford to wait just a couple of years and see what happens in 2029 or what. whatever. But that's the question, I think. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I guess so. I feel like we're sort of telling Morgan to buy a Switch 2, but I actually think maybe they shouldn't. No, that's good. Go against us. Like, if there aren't any games that you want to play on it, you know, it'll maybe be $50 more by the time you want to get one, but that might be in two years if you're

waiting for a certain game that you want. And also, or it could be $200 more. We don't know that. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's true. The thing is, like, the PSA, 5, let me look up the exact numbers, because the PS5, it is not a, we're not talking about a $50 difference here. Okay, the PlayStation 5, just to give context here, the PlayStation 5 launched in November of 2020 at $500. Today, you can buy one for $650. Like, we're talking about $150 price difference, not an insignificant price difference.

No, it's true. It's just like, at the same time, like that mentality of, oh, it might get more expensive. I better buy one. Like, part of me instinctively pushes back against that for a number of reasons. I think it's just, it's a mindset that's pervasive everywhere. We were just talking about it with AI recently. Every AI company in San Francisco is selling that same mindset. Don't get left behind.

You got to act now, you know? And, I mean, do they have to act now? Like, I mean, yeah, they're going to want to play a switch game eventually. But at the same time, something in me urges caution there. And also, it's hard with technology, in particular, something like a game console, because Nintendo will also release a better version of the Switch 2 at some point here. And it might be that maybe a price increase kicks in, and they release an OLED model with a better screen. And there's a lot of variables.

And technology like this does just kind of depreciate over time, even though these price increases are like throwing a monkey wrench into that. It's still true that, like, in general, a console you buy now in 10 years will be worth less than you paid for it, just because there will be better technology that's, like, supplanted. So I don't know. Part of me says, or just caution, because there aren't any games as you want to play on it. And it's a big chunk of change since I bought mine too. And it was a feeling of like, damn, I just paid a lot of money for this console that pretty much plays all the same stuff as the switch I currently have. So I don't know. I think I would at least just add that perspective for Morgan that you could also just wait. I mean, yes, you may have to pay upwards of $150 more. And maybe you'll feel bad about that. But also, I don't know, maybe you'll wait long enough that there will be. be a better Switch 2 or somehow prices will come down.

Who knows what the future can hold. What you do know right now is that there's not actually anything that you want to play on the Switch 2. And I think that's an important thing to keep in mind. Man, yeah, you've kind of swayed me too. Yeah, same. Don't buy it more than. Here's the other reason.

Of all the consoles, I feel like Nintendo is the one that is most likely to support Switch one the longest because historically they tend to do that with other consoles where they just keep the e-shop or whatever it may be going for a long time. And there are still so many great games on the Switch 1 that it's not like you're going to fail to have things to play. It might be that you end up waiting out this entire generation and you don't buy something new until the Switch 3. You could be like all those people that got a Nintendo Wii and not a Wii U. So in that sense, maybe it's fine. Maybe you just wait it out and you'll be fine.

You don't know it's a video game podcast. Maybe a good, I mean, we don't know when the price is going to go up if it goes up. It could be in the next month. but maybe a good kind of benchmark will be whenever they have their big summer direct, whether it's May or June or whatever. Traditionally, I think they do a big June direct because that's when they'll announce what's coming to switch to for the rest of the year. And there's a lot of stuff they've announced so far, like a fire emblem, a new fire

emblem that's supposed to be out later this year. There's stuff that's been rumored, like a Zelda Ocarina of Time remake and like a new Star Fox. By the way, hilarious that Ocarina of Time remake is reporting. coming the year after we all replayed it. Pretty exciting. It is cool. The original.

Yeah, it'll be fun to talk about the remake too. But anyway, when you see that, like when they announce their big guns for the rest of the year, maybe it'll give you a better idea of whether you want one now or you can wait and you don't mind paying that extra whatever down the road. So yeah, maybe do exercise, caution and maybe wait a little while. If nothing has you excited right now. Okay, let's keep going. I'm going to read this next question.

Actually, no, Kirk, you read this next question, and I'll give us an answer to this next question. Oh, okay. This question comes from Neil. Neil writes, Last Mailbag, you all, mostly Kirk, talked about his theme song for the distraction podcast. Frequently at the end of that very good podcast, host Drew McGarry would say that the theme song was written by The Immortal Kirk Hamilton. But in more recent episodes, he just says Kirk Hamilton. Is this cause for concern for triple-click listeners? Did some malevolent Eldritch being break the wards that were set up to prolong Kirk's form?

Is there a ritual that we should be performing to restore Kirk to his immortal form? I've got a whole bunch of spare goat entrails and consecrated salt if someone wants to organize a meetup on the Discord. I would prefer East Coast, but a trip out west is always fun. So I email Drew to get an answer to this question. Oh, great. Oh, great. And he says. I don't know what he said.

Hey, we're hearing live on the air. Why I'm no longer immortal. guys. He says, he says, ha. No, there's no explanation. Sometimes I give Kirk an honorific. Sometimes I don't. But if you want to tell your listeners that we had to downgrade Kirk because he stole my sneakers one time, go for it. I do have Drew's sneakers over here. I didn't think he knew it was me. Wow. Drew knows all. Just goes to show. I got busted. He's everywhere. Didn't even realize it. Is that an actual thing that you stole his sneakers or he just improvising them? Yeah, they're right over there. Oh, my good. They're inside the bus. They're inside the bus. bucket. Yeah, keeping them in this bucket on my desk. So there you go. Not wearing them. All right. Next question. Derek writes, hello triple click. I am a relatively new listener of your

podcast and have really enjoyed catching up on the backlog. I particularly enjoy the mailbag episodes. Oh, thank you. As an actuary and someone who is very interested in personal finance, I would love to hear more about your own personal finances. I know this is a topic some people shy away from speaking on, but I think it's very important, particularly for young people, to be comfortable talking about money and to hear about the various ways they can sustain themselves. You all have multiple streams of income, and I wonder how you value each of those and what they bring to the table.

If you're comfortable sharing hard numbers, that would be extremely interesting, but I think relative terms would be helpful as well. How do you decide what endeavor is worth your time and what's not? Are some things like Triple Click a passion project, or do they provide you in material income? What have been your most lucrative projects and what have been your least? Yeah, this is a great and very like complex question. I guess we could spend a long time answering this just because we all, I think,

have very complicated finances. Well, it's tax-tide, so. It is tax-star, so it's really top of mind. It is front of mine. How specific are we intending on getting with our answers? I don't know. I can go first. I mean, I don't want to get into like specific hard numbers or anything, but I can sort of explain how my current situation works. So my two primary income sources are Strong Songs and

Triple Click, both of which are listeners supported. So it's all just listener donations, but, you know, Strong Songs is on Patreon, Triple Click is on maximum fun. The three of us split triple click, though unevenly I make more from it because I do more work, like producing the show and everything. And then Strong Songs just all goes to me. And those are my two main income sources. They're pretty similar in terms of size. Those strong songs is way more work, but also something that, you know, I'm sort of differently passionate about. Like, it's like a whole personal thing that I'm building out into live shows and maybe a book all right. And like it's a, it's a kind of a whole separate thing that I put a lot more into. Ah, just sneaking that in there. Maybe a book all right. Yeah.

Well, yeah. Man, after I finish this live show first the live show, then the book. After you finish the full-length musical, that is the live show that you're composing. Which is kind of what the live show is, my God. So anyways, it's like those two things kind of come together, and then that's most of my income. And then I'll take jobs, you know, composing music for something. I did that game Aridia a couple of years ago. I'll write a theme song for a podcast for somebody. A lot of times I'm doing that because I think it would be a fun challenge. It's not essential.

Like I'm making enough money from the two podcasts to basically be okay and for me and Emily to cover our expenses. So I choose those projects a little bit more based on doing. I want to do it? Because it's always kind of having an extra project on top of these two things is like a lot of work. So it has to be something that I want to do. And I think I would resent it. Even if it paid a whole lot of money, if I took some composition gig that I wasn't really feeling that I was kind of grinding out to do, it would be really draining kind of in the way we were talking about with that earlier question. So then last thought, I guess just to mention a couple of other things. I have health insurance through the ACA marketplace, so I rely on that every year. So does

Emily. We both have ACA health care. That's something that has gotten more and more expensive every year. And as someone who's self-employed, I definitely feel it. Like, health insurance has gotten so freaking expensive and it covers less and less. And that is a significant part of my calculation. So I'll just mention that. Like, I'm someone who is just doing independent work for myself, the ACA made it possible for me to access health care in a way that made things a lot easier. And it's gotten harder over time. And the more, you know, Republicans try to slash it or get rid of it, the more concerning that is just because that's a significant expense. All right. I'll go next because I'm pretty similar to you, Kirk, nowadays, although a year ago, I never would have

thought I'd be saying that. Yeah, you were a salary woman. I was a salary woman a year ago. And I intended to be one for the foreseeable back then. And at Polygon, I did pretty well. Any unionized journalistic enterprise is going to have generally salaries that start at 60K to 70K is like the lowest end. So you can imagine one works up the ranks and where I might have been at the top of the food chain running the game section of Polygon. And one of the decisions that I made in voluntarily Hary deciding to quit that job was to look at my finances and be like, can I afford to do this? Triple-click making money was a big reason why I felt like it was possible. But also, I'm on my wife's health insurance.

She's gainfully employed and has always made more money than I do. It doesn't matter what she does. It's not relevant to the question at hand, but it does mean I don't have to worry as much. And we had that whole conversation, and she was very encouraging of me, launching mothership, which I had expected at the time to not. necessarily do well immediately. But I'm happy to share subscriber numbers because I think they're a good metric for how we do and I think being transparent about them is useful. So for the listeners sake, at least when it comes to how much independent publications usually garner, about a thousand

subscribers is about one person's income. That's like really rough math, but because there's a lot of variation in how much people do their monthly charges. But based on all the other indie pub people I've talked to, that shakes out to be about right. Cost of living, blah, blah, blah, blah. Lots of qualifiers, you guys can imagine. But that's around where we are. And so for Zoe and I, we have a huge freelance budget as well. So we kind of think of that as like an extra person that we're trying to save up to get to. Right now, we're at about 2,300 subscribers. And so we'd love to have more. but we're comfortable. And we still have the freelance budget being as big as it is and pay ourselves less

because that's just what we've chosen to do and because we really want to publish a lot of writers that aren't just ourselves because that's part of the mission of mothership and that it's a site that's publishing marginalized people a lot. And we are marginalized people and that's just who we want to write for. But it also means that we hope to continue to grow. And that's exciting. It's exciting that we have as many subscribers. as we have, I feel really great about it and great about how much money we're making,

but it also means that I still think about growth and how we can continue to achieve it moving forward. So that's like a healthy income stream. How many hours a week are you putting into mothership? Um, hmm, I don't like set a clock every day on that. At this point, I asked just because part of Derek's question was like, how do you decide what's worth your time and like how much time you're putting into things vis-a-vis how we could- It's probably hard right at the start of a project, the way that mothership is still fairly new, and you're like, ah, like in that early stage. It's more of a baby ship.

It also super varies. Like, there are definitely weeks where it's easily 40, and there are weeks where it's 20, and there are weeks where it's 30, and there are weeks where I feel like I'm thinking about it 24 hours a day because I'm stressed out about something, and do we put that on the calendar? I don't know. But obviously, I have time for triple click, and I have a life somehow, and I play video games in it. I also have something that I consider just a pure passion project that doesn't really make a significant amount of money, which is the X-Men podcast I host with my best friend since I was 12. It's called The Mutant Ages.

It doesn't have a ton of listeners. It's extremely niche. And the goal of it is that I talk to my friend at least a couple times a month. And that is like a project that I also think is really important and meaningful to me. But it is not necessarily something like mothership or even Triple Click, where. I really rely on the income, but also I'm extremely invested in it continuing and growing. And I care a lot about our subscribers and listeners and that they are paying my salary right now. So Kirk and I are in the same boat and our taxes are probably not too dissimilar in certain ways because of that.

And it's weird. It's a weird way to live. Jason, you're more like how I used to be, right? You got a salary. Yeah. Well, I have a day job at Bloomberg that pays most of, most of them what I make, because that's significantly more than what I'm making from triple click or what I'm making from books, which I guess I can get into that part because that's the

part that's most unique for me and what people might be curious about. Once I tried to do the math, I'm like what the hourly wage should be on the books. Oh, God. It's very depressing. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if I want to know how much I'm actually spending hours on anything. It's upsetting. I mean, it's a useful exercise. But yeah, with books, you don't go into books to make money. And I've been very fortunate. Like, my books have been, all three of them have been bestsellers.

Like, they all still sell very well. Numbers-wise, I don't want to get into specifics, but like, they all do much better than most books that are out there. Like, I was meeting with my agent and my editor a couple months ago. And they're like, yeah, man, like, not a lot of people are buying books, but a lot of people are buying your books. I was like, oh, wow, I should be making me. more money from them then.

Hey, leverage. Leverage the next time we're out. I mean, maybe one day we can talk about the economics of the book business and how crazy it is because like sometimes I'll be talking to indie game developers and they'll be talking about their publishing contracts and recoups and how that all works. And the book business is really designed to just kind of be very weighted against authors in some ways. But all that said, I mean, it's it's nothing this neat.

Like, it's not the amount that I make from books every year varies drastically. But it's a combination of, like, advances for projects or future projects. Actually, let me break it down for a sec. If you guys want to hear a little bit of the nitty gritty, essentially when you sell a book, you get an advance. And that advance is non-repayable. So you never have to repay that advance, which is nice. But what that means is that you don't start making money on the book and on royalties of the book

until you've paid out that advance, until the publisher has recouped 100% of that advance. And what really makes you screwed over is that the money that goes into recouping the advance is based on your royalty rate, not based on total revenue of the book. It's based on specifically your royalty rate, which typically is like 15% for hardcover book sales. This is very much like a record deal for what it's worth. It's similarly difficult to deal with once you've released the thing. Do you also get like an advance on a record? deal? Is that how that works? You do, and it's paying back is like different depending, I guess,

but royalty rates and like all of that stuff where it takes you forever to dig out from your advance. Yeah. So like I've been lucky in that all three of my books have earned out their advances. And so they are making royalties. But it's not a significant, it's not like enough that I could quit my day job or anything like that. That said, it's nice to have. Nice thing is it's passive though. It's passive. Yeah. Which shows up. It's pretty great. It's funny. It shows up one of my royalty chunks shows up in April just in time for me to use it to pay my taxes. Yeah, I feel like what we should just say is all of us don't get money back from our taxes, right? Like I don't, I haven't gotten money back for years.

Absolutely not. And I pay quarterly estimated taxes. I actually am getting money back this year. I've been paying estimated taxes. And for whatever reason. So you did a great job paying your estimates then. Yeah, good job overestimates. Oh, yeah.

I pay so much money for taxes. Knowing especially that I'm paying taxes to these fucking people to like, I mean, my God. Like, yes, we can't even get into that. It makes me so angry. The money is not being spent according to how I would choose to spend it. It sure isn't. But I do pay taxes. And yeah, and I'm actually getting some amount back. That could be due to expenses too, you know, because I have a lot of work expenses. If you're creative about writing things off. You know what we should get? We should get, you know how when you sign up for maximum fun you can choose which shows to support?

we should have that for taxes where we choose which government. Yes, like, taking boxes and I can, like, take off all the social services and, like, leave the military off, for example, just as a, for instance. That would be great. I would 100% do that. I know that's not, like, really how our Republic works, but it would be, I would still love it. And I would say, both Tripliclic and books are just, like, a nice supplement that helps me pay

for my children. and I don't know, all the other like whims, house mortgage, whatever, then rather than like my main income. But that said, I enjoy both the books and triple click so much that it doesn't really matter to me the amounts that I'm making on both of them, especially the book part. Like I said, if I calculated the math, it would really not make sense for me to be spending any time on the books. But I get so much satisfaction out of the process and out of getting to interview people

for them and having an excuse like I'm doing, I'm working on my next book right now very, very early days. So like don't get your hopes up for a while. But one of the reasons that I'm doing it in the first place is just to have an excuse to call people up and like ask them questions about like this topic that I'm really interested in and want to know more about. So that alone is like what drives me for the books rather than the money part of it. I think there's some mythical world where you can like turn your book into a Netflix series and then make some more. money out of it than you would before. But even that, I feel like these days is not life-changing amounts of money. It's more like, oh, this is nice to squirrel away or this is nice to like

make extra payments on my house kind of money or help put a down payment on a house kind of money, but not like you don't have to work again kind of money. You know, in terms of how I value different streams of income, and I'll relate this back to when I was working at Kataku, one thing I will mention is I greatly value anything that I own, that is mine that I'm making. Yeah. You know, that has my name on and it is mine.

And we, I think that almost goes, it kind of goes without saying to the point that we didn't say it. So I'm just saying it. That's true, though. I think it's worth saying because it's like Jason gets to own triple click and his books in a way that Bloomberg and in my case,

Polygon and in all our cases, Kataku, it didn't work that way. And that's fine. They were great salaries and the stability and times in our lives that I was grateful for and still am. but there is a benefit to owning projects and owning work. It's just cool.

I know we're running long, but I want to hit this next question. So I hope that's okay with you too. Maddie, you want to read this? Okay. We're all the way to Josh or we're doing Shane. Okay, we're just doing Shane. Shane writes, Hey cubed.

It's a good way to greet us. It's like three Hayes. Yeah, get it? Three Hayes. Anyway. in your most recent episode, you spoke about the increased expense of making games and the yawning chasm of time between blockbuster releases. Developers have more advanced tools and can achieve greater fidelity, but has the technology not also enabled developers to more quickly achieve

the same fidelity as before? I did not upgrade from a rake to a leaf blower so that I could tidy more leaves than ever before. I did it so that I could clean as many leaves more quickly. in the same way, couldn't some budding Ken Levine crack out a game just as beautiful as Bioshock Infinite, but not one hair more in a few short months with a lean workforce? Cheers cubed is how this sounds. Well, a budding Ken Levine. I hope nobody out there is a budding Ken Levine. We can only handle one.

We just need the one. Just the one. One is fine. Okay, so two answers I have to this. One is a short one for me, which is that I think it's kind of a misconception that fidelity is the biggest reason the games are taking so long. I think it's a lot of reasons. Fidelity is only one of them. Another one is just scope increases. A third one is mismanagement and the increase in like game publishers pushing games as a service, which sends all sorts of

projects awry. So that's just one thought is that like even if you were making games lower fidelity and even if that part of it took less time, I think that that wouldn't necessarily solve the problem. For the other part, I was curious as to like technically, whether it's true that these more advanced tools like Unreal Engine 5, for example, allow you to make lower fidelity stuff at a faster pace. So I texted friend of the show, Brett Duvill, and I was like, hey, can you like give me the technical perspective on this. Bing! Kirk here editing this show with just a little update since Jason didn't actually really identify Brett, which is understandable, given that long-time listeners probably already know who he is, but I'm sure some of you don't. So just in case,

Brett Duvill is a programmer who has worked in the video game industry for a long time. He worked at LucasArts back in the day. He also worked at Bethesda Game Studios, where he was a lead on Skyrim, among other games. Now he works on indie games, and he hosts the really great podcast Dev Game Club, which is all about video games. He and Tim Longer, and make that show. And incidentally, I actually wrote the theme music for that show. So Brett is a longtime friend of Triple Click and just friend in general. He is a helpful person to ask about things like this. And I wanted to let you all know who he is. So, okay, back to Jason, who will relate what Brett had to say. Bing! And essentially, he was like, yes, on the art front, there have been enough

improvements that that is probably a win. You could spend less time creating like PS2 quality art. But there's many other factors. Like animation is probably a wash. You're probably spending just as much time on your animation pipelines. On the coding side, you still have to write all the gameplay code, even if you save some time on not having to write like a renderer and stuff like that. One big save would be that the new hardware has so much RAM that you could store a lot more stuff in memory. And so optimization is like going to be a cinch if you were making like a PSD fidelity game on a PlayStation 5. So that's a pretty big win. But for the most part, I mean, it's like, it's like, like more of a slight to moderate increase in speed if you were to go that way from the actual process point of view than like a big like shaving years off of the production sort of win. So in practice, it turns out it's not quite the equivalent of going from a rake to a leaf flower. I mean, so my thought on this is just that tidying your lawn and making art are two very different

things and that. Well, unless you're, unless you're drawing things with the leaves. a lot. That's so true. Sure, I guess. But I think based on the way that Shane is describing this, he's thinking of making a video game

as just, you know, assemble the widgets into the thing and then you have the game at a certain level of fidelity. But making art doesn't work like that. Art is a container into which you can pour an endless and infinite amount of time and energy.

Every project I've ever made will accept as much time as I'll give it. And I will obsess and rework and reimagine and listen back and go back to it again and tweak it. it and then decide I want to throw something out and change it. I mean, that's just kind of how the creative process works. It's just very different than like, okay, I've got this, you know, one acre plot of grass and it's covered in leaves, and I need to get the leaves off it as

efficiently as possible. Like, there are steps of making art that are like that, but the process itself, like the broader process, is just an endless vacuum for time and energy, and that's just kind of how it works to make things, at least for a lot of people. And then it's probably exponentially worse with a large group of people. Because the more people you have doing it, the more they're all going to want to put in input and just take time. So I think also it's just important to keep that difference in mind

when thinking about this. I've had that experience with editing my books where you're working on something that is 350 pages long and that you could just continuously polish and edit forever. If someone wasn't telling me, hey, you have to submit this, you can just do it work on it forever. Every episode of Strong Songs that I make, if I finish it, way in advance. Sometimes I'll be working way in advance. And then I just work the entire time

that I started in advance because I'll just kind of keep working on it. Even when it's done, I'll be like, well, this could be better. Oh, what if we did this? What if we added this? And it just, like, it can go forever. You just kind of have to stop. It's one reason that deadlines are useful because it forces you to just say, okay, it's done. Take it. Get it away from me. And we're talking about linear media with games. It's even more pronounced and exponentially. Right. Linear media made by like a single person, right? A book or a podcast made by one off. It just adds to the complexity and to the amount of time you need. And games have the additional factor of like, okay, maybe you made this perfect game on paper,

but then you actually play it and you're like, this is just so unpleasant. Like for some reason, it feels really bad. What do we do now? So like even the idea of speed, applying it to every single other piece of the process is perhaps irrelevant to that final step. And even, I mean, uh, to bring up Mina the Holler again, I know I've been talking about that a lot recently, I think because I'm really excited for it. But that's a, that's a 2D game that's been in development for, I think, almost six years at this point, more than six years at this point, despite having Game Boy Quaididelity graphics. And a large part of that is just because they could keep working on it and polishing it and tweaking things forever if they really wanted to.

Yeah, like Team Cherry did. Big and complicated game. Yeah, that's another game that's like a 2D art anime, a 2D game that just took a very long time. So yeah, there are a lot of variables here. But Short version is I don't think anyone could just crank out at like high quality, uh, 3D open world, bioshock level game in just a few months just because the tools are better. I think all of the obstacles that prevent art from being made quickly will always still be there. But I mean, we got our technical answer. So thanks to Brett for sharing.

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. The answer is slight to moderate gains, but not, not as significant as you would think. All right. That was a long one. But hey, 300 episodes. Let's take a break and we'll be back for one more thing for the 300th time.

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Sorry, I was distracted by Kirk highlighting everything. It's because my fucking text keeps disappearing in its window. Kirk is messing with us. By highlighting the Google Doc repeatedly. It's killing me. I don't know why. It's like Safari or something. Like I'll be looking at it and then it just goes blank and I'm like, why are you doing this to me? Well, for the record, it is distracting to see you repeatedly. No, I know, I know, I know.

I had this thought when I did it. And then I was like, no, this is going to go back to buckets. Kirk, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is weapons, Zach Crager's 2025 horror movie that recently won an Academy Award for Amy Madigan for her performance in the film, playing a role that I will not talk about since I'm guessing that some of you haven't seen it. Including us, I think. I haven't seen it yet. Including both of you. But I just wanted to say that I watched this.

movie last week and really, really enjoyed it. I have not seen Crager's other film Barbarian, which is also a horror movie, and also I gather pretty great. And it has some kind of major, like, twist or something that, and I don't know what it is. I find myself kind of shocked that I'm still unspoiled on it. And I should really watch it. This was a reminder of how fun it can be to watch a horror movie. Though I watch this by myself, it's on HBO right now, and I just saw it there, and Emily was out, and I decided I would just watch it. And that was an okay way to experience it, but man, this movie would have been way better to see it in the theater

with a bunch of people. I can only imagine seeing this opening weekend with a packed house, like at the Hollywood Theater here in town, I really wish I had done that. I actually saw sinners that way, and that was a great way to see that movie. Man, people would have been losing their minds at this movie. Okay, so let me describe it, like the setup for the movie a little bit,

and then talk a little bit about what I thought of it. So this is set in a modern-day small town. The premise is relayed to you via the voiceover of a child, kind of telling you with a story in the way that a kid might tell you about something that happened at a town, one town over. Oh, everyone knows this thing happened there. So it's got this kind of folk story quality right from the beginning with the narration. The setup is that at one school in this town, a group of,

I want to say it's like second graders, it's around that age, second or third graders, entirely vanished, except for one student and the teacher. The teacher walked into class and the whole class was gone except for one student. And what happened was at 2.17 in the morning the night before, every single kid in that class, got up and ran out the front door of their house into the night. They all ran away. And no one knows where they went. And that's kind of the premise of the story.

That's where we begin. So the first parts of this movie are really interesting because it's kind of looking at, you know, moral panics and parents freaking out about what's happening in a school and like a community coming together around some kind of horrible school-based event. And it just channels the energy of, you know, a school shooting or an abduction or just some kind of horrible tragedy that would bring a bunch of parents together. and all of the kind of awful and difficult anger that comes out of that. In particular, it starts by focusing on the teacher who is played by Julia Garner, who's not an actress I'm super familiar with, but she's kind of a young, nice, cool teacher. She's in Ozark. She does a great performance. That's right. She's in Ozark, which is not a show that I've watched.

And also that Anna Delvey show, the show about that Huxter in New York City. Oh, okay. I did watch that. I didn't love that, but not because of her. Okay, that makes sense. She's great in it. And she's great in everything she does. Yeah, she is fantastic. She plays the teacher.

And she's kind of this hip, young teacher who clearly really cares about her students. And all of the parents think on some level that she knows what happened or that she was teaching them something and that she did something that caused the students to leave. So it begins with this really nightmarish experience she's having where everyone is so angry at her. It's this, you know, in this huge meeting with all the parents. they're yelling, and they're, like, really upset in the way that you can only imagine they would be. All their kids went missing. And so it's this really kind of nightmarish and really sort of naughty, difficult setup that feels very current, even though it's not expressly about, you know, any one current event.

So that's where we begin. Then the story kind of plays out in a really interesting staggered way, where it tells her story for a little while. Then it jumps to another character, a father of one of the children played by Josh Brolin. And it actually rewinds in time, and then it tells another story from his perspective that overlaps with the teacher's story in the first part. And you kind of start to see how, oh, okay, the timelines are going to stagger and then come back together. So then maybe at the end of one timeline, something crazy will happen, and then it'll jump to another character and go a little further back in time. So then you get to see that crazy thing that just happened from yet another perspective. And it kind of fits together a series of different perspectives from different characters all around this community.

to present a view of this kind of small town and of the community and the way that the whole, like, social fabric is fraying because of this thing that happened. And just because everything feels frayed in general, there's this kind of undercurrent of just wrongness and anxiety that I think just kind of fits with how the world feels right now, even outside of some, you know, mass, unexplainable events. So that's all just, like, really well done and really exciting. It's a pretty long movie. It's like longer than your average horror movie. It's like more than two hours, I think. But it doesn't feel long because of this sort of episodic, staggered timeline. And also because you spend the whole movie just being like, what happened?

Like what and what is going on, you know, as like creepier and weirder things start to happen and you start to learn more. Is it more of a, it sounds like more of a thriller than a horror movie? No, it, I mean, it's not as scary as the dissent or like some of the really scary stuff. It is pretty scary. Like there are scenes, there is imagery that really scared me. I was watching it at night one night. And you were alone, which, wow. I was alone watching it at night.

And I'm sitting there and she's having a dream. There are some dream sequences that are scary. And I was like, uh, this is actually, this is too scary. And I like, turned it off and I was like, I'm going to go play video games. I'll watch the rest tomorrow during the day. So it got a little too scary. Now that I've seen the whole movie, I'd say it's actually not as scary. It's not that scary.

And even those sequences weren't really that. scary. But there's some horrifying stuff. There's definitely like violence and things that you see happening that are like gnarly and hilarious. Like you're kind of laughing or like being like, oh my God, you know that. It's the stuff that's so fun with a big group of people. Like with whenever, it's just mayhem in the theater because no one can believe what's happening. And my final thought is that the ending of this movie, which I will not spoil, is incredibly effective, I think. And I was so knocked out by I loved the final five minutes of this movie and just I've, it's It kind of tied the whole thing together and made it all make sense in a way that really raised it up above just a fun thriller.

So I, like, loved this movie. It knocked me out. And Amy Madigan really is great in it. I think it's kind of hilarious that she won an Academy Award just because it's such a weird performance. But, like, she's really good. So it's super cool that she won. And, you know, she's been doing it for a long time and deserves it. So anyways, that's my recommendation for weapons.

A real wild ride of a movie that you should watch with some friends if you're going to watch it because it would be a good. great time with a group of people. Wow. Yeah, it sounds great. Maddie, what's your one more thing? My One More Thing is an episode of the Anthony Bourdain show, Parts Unknown, which I've seen random episodes of in my life, but have never really sat down and watched all of. But a friend of mine was sharing this episode today because it's the Iran episode. And I think every episode is him going to a different country. That's the premise of the show and trying their food and also learning about the culture of the country in as much as one can by being there for a few days with a camera crew.

And this episode is from 2014, which is relevant because I think it's also a very political episode. It's really dealing with the politics of Iran in 2014 specifically. For example, there are a couple of journalists that Anthony Burdane talks to as part of the episode and talks about politics with the politics of the oppressive regime that they live under and report on. And they get arrested after the episode finishes filming. But they include that context in the episode as part of their lives. But the interesting thing about this episode and why it's famous, I think, is because during a time period when Iran was described as the axis of evil,

remember the 2010s when people still said that, That is something that I think it was kind of revolutionary to just show regular people in Iran who don't necessarily agree with what's happening but are just living their lives and being restaurant owners because of course this is a food show they're simply trying to own small businesses. And in the case of this episode, Anthony goes to people's homes because everyone tells him like, oh, the best food is actually going to be a home-cooked meal. So he manages to like finagle an invite to someone's home and learn more. about the significance of different types of home-cooked meals

and that humanizing effect that it has of just hearing people joke around and describe their completely normal mundane lives living in an admittedly oppressive regime that they have very little freedom to describe as such, but find their own roundabout ways to describe as such is a really fascinating part of the episode. And I think it's why people still talk about it today. And yeah, I think it's worth watching.

I think it's really fascinating. It's just a portrait of 2014 in particular in Iran. And also I think Anthony Bourdain, he wouldn't have described himself as a reporter, I don't think. But in watching this, I felt like he was doing a reporter's job in a certain way by just being a curious person and asking good questions of people that he met and repeatedly saying to them how conflicted he felt about the politics of Iran. and also just feeling like all the people that he met didn't reflect what he thought they would. And I don't know. I thought it was really good. So it's called Iran.

I'm not sure where it's specifically streaming. I actually watched it on CNN's Facebook page of all places to watch it for free. But if you Google it, you can watch it in a whole bunch of different places. Parts Unknown is streaming for free in many various bizarre corners of the Internet, including Facebook. for some reason, so you can definitely find it and watch it if you want to. And I recommend it. Nice. Yeah. I'll watch it. All right. My one more thing is a video game called People of Note. And this game just came out this week. It is a musical JRP. And by that, I mean musical in both senses of the word, that it's like a very music heavy and music inspired JRP. And also it's literally a musical.

There are interludes where the characters sing songs about their feelings to try to express themselves. I really like it. It's got a lot going for it. There are some, it does some things better than others, which I will describe. So it's got turn-based combat very heavily Final Fantasy inspired. And this game, I feel like, would fit in very well in like the PS2 milieu of Final Fantasy the game slash square JRPs that were released back then. In fact, maybe this game is a PSU graphics fidelity, graphical fidelity game though

you were all in earlier, although it took many years to make. So another example of why that's not, that can't actually make games in less time. And it's got a really cool combat system that has a rhythm component to it and that you have to like hit these kind of circles like you're doing a rhythm game in cue with the beat for every attack you do. But that to me is much less interesting than the customization aspect, which is that each of your characters, you get, you get a bunch of abilities that you can equip them with and then modifiers for those abilities. And you can play around with like different abilities that impact the battlefield in different ways. So like one viable way of beating enemies

is to like put your super powerful, super powerful ability on one character and then have other characters be supportive of them and like do abilities that buff up the next attack and just like set up your turns in a way that allows you to do one ultra powerful ability on your enemies. And it's very cute. It's got a lot of, it's shockful of puns like to an excessive degree, I would say. The puns are pretty out of control. Everything in the game is a pun, including a dog you can pet who is called an accordion. And it's a corgiian. And it's a It's a corgi made out of an accordion. They're all like music puns.

Almost all of them are music puns. I need to play this game. I mean, even the name is a pun. It's called People of Note, right? Note is the name of the world that they live in. And like every town, every city in the game, they're like these four or five different countries and cities that are each based around a specific type of music. When you said this to me, I was like, it's, it's trolls world tour.

So the second city you go to is like the rock city, but the rock has been broken down into genres. It kind of looks like Mad Max. It's like a big desert with like these kind of like huts and stuff made out of like garbage and stuff. And you have your metal area and they only listen to metal. And then you have your punk area and your grunge area. And they all each only listen to the music that plays there. And your characters will be like, hey, this kind of sounds like this metal. it kind of sounds like the punk and they're like how dare you no it doesn't oh that's fun there's one guy at the

beginning is like hey i just heard about this thing called scah and someone's like no there will be no skah in this game um so yeah and then there's like another character i met who's like talking about jazz and someone's like maybe someday down the road like hinting at a sequel then it'll involve jazz so no jazz in this one if they want to sell five copies of their game they'll make they'll make the jazz super well the thing about jazz is absent is that it's all about the music that isn't featured in this game. Right. It's the NPCs that aren't in the game. So it's really fun. And it's short and sweet.

I'm almost done with it. And I've only been playing for, I don't know, five or six hours. So if you want like a nice compact short and sweet, I think it's pretty cheap. I think it's only 20 or 25 bucks. PS2 style, very Final Fantasy heavy, very pun-heavy, JRP. The story is cute. It feels a little compressed. They have these big ambitious swings.

I don't know about some of the musical numbers in this game. They're trying to do, the developers are trying to put a lot of ideas into this one game. So, like, each character has their own arc. So one character might, I don't know, be trying to deal with the pressures of show business and, like, fame and pursuing fame and fortune and prioritizing that over working with a team and helping other people. and they have to learn to get past that. But it's all done in such a compressed period of time

that there isn't really an opportunity for these characters to have like real proper story arcs, narrative arcs. So the story is a little bit hindermous, I would say, overall. But it has some fun elements and the characters are fun and the art is fun and the puns are nonstop. There's also a lot of good puzzles. There are a lot of good environmental puzzles throughout the game that I enjoyed with one exception,

one section where I got so annoyed by the puzzles that I just turned them off entirely. for that section, which, by the way, in this game, you can turn off the puzzles if you want. There's a lot of accessibility options. I love that. Yeah, that's cool. It has a lot going for it. I really recommend it. I think you would both enjoy it. And largely because it's just an easy game to play through and just you'll be done with it in a few hours and you'll enjoy it. The combat part, like I said, it's all about the setup and like customizing your abilities. are called song songs song song song song stone sorry and um yeah it's it's just fun i really enjoyed it

i recommend it to people um nice it's short and sweet and uh very very musical cool yes i have it installed and it sounds like i should probably play yeah it sounds fun yeah i'm curious i mean you should definitely play because i'm so curious to hear your thoughts on the musical numbers the music in general just how this game explores music there's just so much to it man there's so many puns that I'm just the first area it's like there's a subway there's a train you can go on and the options are like uptone or down tone so just to give you an idea of what kind of game is like it has so many puns every line is a pun but it's creative and clever and like unlike other games I played it's very distinct and I appreciate that about this game that it's just like it's trying to do its own thing it's very clearly influenced by those old PS2 JRPRPagies, but it is also very much in its own category, and I appreciate that. So yeah, it's called People of Note, and I do recommend checking it out. Awesome.

Cool. All right, 300 episodes in the can. That's it. Yeah, here's the 300 more. Here's the more than 300 more. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, 300 more and onward into infinity. Ever upward.

Yeah. Kirk Maddie, I'll see you both. to next time. Yeah, I will see you both 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 maximum fun.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 artists-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you. That was the 300th.

Bye. You did it.