Triple Click - When Is It Ok To Use A Video Game Guide?

Episode Date: May 14, 2020

It's time for Burning Questions, in which Triple Click answers YOUR questions about all things gaming (and more). This week, Jason, Kirk, and Maddy open up the mailbag and answer questions about the best time to use strategy guides and what a video game industry without crunch might look like. Plus: One More Thing and Maddy's new job! 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 | @tripleclickpod Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Crunch. Not only is it a systemic labor issue plaguing the games industry, it's also a popular and particularly delicious brand of candy bar. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week we're answering your burning questions about when we think it's okay to use a video game guide and what a world without development crunch might look like. Those burning questions, as well as one more thing coming up, so stick around. I'm Kirk Hamilton. I'm Jason Shire. And I'm Maddie Myers.

And hello, here we are making Triple Click yet again. It's nice to see both of you. Good to see you beautiful people. Yes, these such beautiful people on a beautiful May Day. So before we get started, a couple things up front as usual. First of all, people have written in to ask sort of about supporting the show since this isn't, we're not like a Patreon podcast. I think people sort of understand supporting a show in the context of Patreon. We're listeners supported, but it's a little bit different.

So I thought I'd just run through that, run through a couple of things up front like that. So to support us making this show, you go to Maximum Fun.org. slash join and then you become a member of maximum fun, which is the network that we're a part of. When you become a member of maximum fun, you get, you can join it at a bunch of different tiers, but if you join even at the lowest tier, you get access to bonus episodes from every maximum fun show, including triple click, which we're going to be doing a lot of those, like one a month about, thereabouts. And you also get like cool other stuff at higher tiers, maximum fun stuff. There's a lot you can get. If you go to that website, maximum fun.org slash join, you will see all of that.

So when you do that, you can choose Triple Click as one of your shows that you listen to, and that's kind of how you pick us to support us. And then some percentage of your money that you're giving to maximum fund goes to us then. So that's how that works. However, the other thing you can do, of course, is to spread the word. People have been spreading the word. It's been wonderful. We've seen people writing in to tell us that they're telling their friends about the show

or that they're converting people to be listeners, which is really nice. We've seen some cool social media sharing going on as well, which has been cool. Yeah, we just got a nice email. Shout out to Nate, who just sent in a nice email saying, congrats on the new show. He's thankful that we're podcasting together. And so far he's convinced two friends to follow the podcast. Yes.

Now, this is what we need, people. Yes, superhuman hero. I love it. Each listener tells two of their friends, and they tell two of their friends, and they tell two of their friends. Yeah, because it's triple click. So each of you has to convert two more people to be triple-like super fans.

And then we have these knives, and we're going to send them to you, and you buy them from us. that is definitely not what we're doing not what we're doing at all however as jason mentioned you can also reach out to us we love getting listener emails you can email us at triple click at maximum fund.org you can also find us on twitter at triple click pod we love to hear from you and actually we're going to be hearing from some of you on this episode so those are those are kind of the main vital things to get out of the way up front yeah so real quick also an announcement that I think a lot of you will appreciate so

As Craig mentioned, we have these bonus episodes. I think we're going to wind up calling him Beanscast, but we'll see. We'll discuss essentially the spoiler cast that we're going to be doing about once a month. And the first one, as we've mentioned a couple times, is going to be on Final Fantasy 7, the remake. But we've gotten some feedback from folks who feel like it was a little bit unfair because we've been talking about this for weeks now, including on the old show about how we're going to do a spoiler cast about Final Fantasy 7 remake, etc., etc. and so people felt like it was a little unfair to lock it behind a paywall only make it available to subscribers. So here's what we're going to do for this episode only because we've gotten that feedback and we want to make a right to all of you fine folks.

We're going to release the episode to subscribers in late May and then two weeks after it goes out to subscribers, we're going to give it to everyone for free. So this is only going to be the case for this one episode. Future Beans cast, spoiler cast will be subscriber only. they're kind of like a little bonus, a reward for people who help make the show possible. But Final Fantasy 7 remake will put on the main feed for free and early to mid-June. So look forward to that. Maddie, I hear you have some news. I have an announcement, which is that I have a job. Maddie has a job.

Mazeltov. Thank you. I am senior games editor at Polygon.com because I've just decided to do an elaborate form of A-B testing on every video game publication. You know, you work at Katakakur. Why not try Polygon out? See how those guys do it. Does that mean you edit senior games?

Yes. Only games for seniors. That's right. I just wanted to check out the games that my parents are into these days, which is mostly Danzance Revolution from what I understand. So I'm going to be reviewing that over and over again. That is very exciting. Congratulations, Maddie.

Thank you. Now we have a Bloomberg reporter. We have a Polygon editor. And we have a saxophone player. Absolutely. really quite a trio here on triple click. All right, so let's get into our main segment for this episode. This is going to be a segment that we are going to call Burning Questions.

Pow, pow! The questions are on fire. They're burning. And these are your burning questions. They're so too hot to handle. Listeners burning questions who, any listener who writes in with maybe a question for us to discuss, we've gotten a whole bunch from people, thanks to everybody who sends them in. We, of course, can't get to everybody's questions.

But if you write in with a question, you may get your, question featured on a future burning questions segment. So for our first burning question, let's, Maddie, how about you read this question that comes in from Taylor? Sure, Taylor writes, I find sometimes it's hard not to use a guide or walkthrough for some games. Yet I feel my experience of the game is somehow ruined by looking away from the screen to read someone's description of where I need to go. What are your opinions of game guides and walkthroughs? How often do you use them? When do you use them. Do you avoid them on initial play-throughs? What is your advice on using walk-throughs and game guides? This question comes at me because I really want to play Super Metroid on my S-NES classic,

but I'm intimidated by missing something. I don't want to use a guide for it. I have a lot of thoughts on Super Metroid, but I'm going to kick it over to you guys. What if we start there? I have like a lot of thoughts on these broader questions. Let's just start with the Metroid thing maybe. Just just talking about Super Metroid for two hours, you know? So, but yeah, I was like, What's the shortest? Can you just give Taylor some advice, Maddie, on a guide for Super Metroid and feeling intimidated about missing things? Yes, absolutely. So the first time I played Super Metroid, I played it without a guide. And I played it by talking to my friends about Super Metroid, which was an incredibly fun and old school way to play Super Metroid. And I really recommend it. And I actually have another friend of a friend who's doing that right now, even in quarantine. And I got a text recently from our mutual friend asking me how to get past one of the bosses in Super Metroid, which I then passed along some tips on how to do it to this person who is trying to play. Super Metroid the old school way by just talking to their friends, which is kind of like using a guide but kind of not.

Super Metroid also has a ton of signposting and you can like really explore the entire game. It's not that big of a game. Like you can find all the energy tanks if you just search every nuke and cranny. And in a lot of cases, it's clear where you're supposed to go. Unless I'm misremembering, I don't think there's anything that like you can lock yourself out of getting. That's right.

Until you get to the end game, obviously, when the planet's exploding. Yeah. You've got to lock yourself out of the planet by getting. getting back to your ship and not dying. Man, just spilling beans. Just spilling all the beans on Super Metro. Yeah, what's that heck? Spoilers, the planet starts exploding and you have to get out.

Is there maybe like a timer and you have to escape in a metric game? Like an alarm sounding? You need to jump up a series of platforms in order to get out. The statute of limitations has expired on that particular one. I think that's probably safe to say. Well, just don't say what the Metroid's allegiances are, you know? Don't spoil the big stuff. So I have.

Lots of thoughts on when to use a guide, but I do like just to kind of pick up something you were saying, Mattie. I like the greatest guide, I think, is the friend of yours who's played, who can just give you the subtle nudge. I'm thinking back to when each of us played the Outer Wilds or just Outer Wilds. I guess there's no The, because that's such a game that the whole game is in discovering things. And if you use the guide for Outer Wilds, it would ruin what is otherwise this magical, incredible experience. But sometimes, and there are a couple places in that game where you might. might kind of get stuck or want to know what to do. And it's so helpful then to have a very compassionate friend who can listen and has played the game and then give you the exact,

like what I would do a lot of times is I would even just ask questions. I would say, so what have you done here? Okay, well, how does this mechanism work? And then in explaining it, the person trying to figure out what to do would figure out what to do. They'd be like, oh, I got it. I know what to do. And that was kind of the best feeling. I wouldn't even tell them anything. That's hard to get from the internet. But I do think that's kind of the best possible way to get over a hump if you get stuff. Yeah. Although in that case, you have to know a friend who's played the game. And in some cases, you don't. So I feel like the other half of this question is when do you use guides?

And my personal story of the first time I ever used a guide was when I played the first Metroid Prime. That was when I finally cracked down. I was in my, I think I was 21 when I played that. And I was like, I want to know where every single thing in this game is. It's a Metroid game and I want to be sure I get everything. And so I finally got over the mental hurdle at that point. I guess it's also worth saying that I had a book guide to Mist, like one of those paper books. I guess that was technically the first time I ever used a guide for. You kind of needed a guide for that game. That game was crazy, but great. But yeah, I remember, I remember playing Metroid Prime. I was like, it feels weird to use a guide. And then since then I'm like, I just use

a guide if I hit a point in a game where I can't deal with it anymore. which I guess that's different for everybody, but you know when you hit it, right? Well, so there are two different types of guides, right? There's the guide of like, how do I get past this? How do I beat this boss? Or how do I get past this?

How do I find the weekends? And the guide of what do I even do? Like, how do I solve a puzzle? What do I even do next? Or how do I 100% every single thing in the game? I'm using a guide in that way. Yeah. Yeah, I've been playing persona 5 Royal.

And first of all, if I hadn't Googled like a certain thing, I wouldn't have even known that, like, in order to unlock the new content, which is the entire reason I've been playing, you have to actually get certain confidence up to a certain level by a certain date. And the game kind of signposts this and tells you like, oh, this guy's leaving soon, so you better do this. And it also happens to be the three new confidence that you have to get. So it kind of makes sense. But I had no idea that there is, and I could have fucked myself over and like not gotten the entire new semester or new palace, which would have really sucked. Because that's why I was playing the game. But yeah, Persona 5 is actually the perfect game for like a guide of min maxing.

And some people use like a guide that tells them exactly what activity to do on every day. Because every day you go and you fight in a dungeon or you go and hang out with your friends. And there's only so much time you have in the calendar because it goes on real time. And if you don't take advantage of like, oh, okay, I know that Akechie is over here and Yuske is over here. But Yuske, I haven't ranked up with him yet. and you like play this giant interlocking puzzle in your head of like what I can do and how to build on my social stats and stuff. And so these guides on game facts, you look them up and they're intense. They're just like, here is every single thing you have to do.

I was reading one guide and at the beginning it was like, if the crossword in our guide is different than what you got, you missed a week. Oh, man. Well, but does it take you out of the game if you have to check a guide that often? And like, how often are you? I never would do that. No, no, no, I'm not doing that. I was just looking through it just because I was trying to figure out what I had to do to make sure I would get the new stuff. And so I was like, okay, which days can I go see this confident and make sure that I actually got it?

But I wound up being fine. But no, persona 5, if you're just following a guide, what's the point of you been playing? Because the whole point of the game is to make those decisions on your own. I mean, that's your take, right? But I'm sure there are people who do find something out of the game by playing it with the guide. Like, even though I'm with you, especially on a game that can be as rigidly structured as persona. Well, so by guide, I don't mean, I just, I mean the min-maxing guide. Like, I mean following the instructions of what to do every single day.

Not just following a guide, like, for fun or for hints or stuff. No, right, right, right. Yeah, it kind of, it really changes the nature of the experience at the very least. I feel like, I guess there are a number of different kinds of guides, which might be an interesting thing to talk about. Let's focus just on, like, specifically guides that tell you where to find things, how to solve puzzles, how to get through things, only because I have a few times where I do, use guides like that. I really try to resist it, but there are times where I do. And let me think

what they are. Okay. So what are the times? When do you hit your limit? One is for older games. If I'm just playing like especially old JRPGs, I just don't feel any preciousness about getting through everything, probably just because JRPGs tend to kind of, I don't want to say waste your time, but things take a lot longer in those games. They're just like a lot happier. Sure, you could say they waste your time. A lot of them waste your time. You just spend a lot of time listening to repeating dialogue and going places and then doing a thing and going through a really kind of onerous menu that makes you drop off one item and then you do that 50 times. No respect for games that waste your time. No.

And so, well, and older games just kind of were more like that. So when I'm playing through, like if I'm playing through Final Fantasy 6, I'm sure I'll use guides to get some of it. Like not for the main story, but to get through side stuff or to not miss things. Well, a game like that also has all this esoteric stuff that you can miss easily. Right. Like at one point early in the game, you have to say no to a character three times when they ask for your help in order to get a better item than you would if you said yes immediately. Wow, very biblical. That is kind of biblical, isn't it?

I'll sometimes, that's another version is I guess this is sort of similar, but at the fringes of the game, I'm fine to use a guide. Like if there's just some really weird hidden thing that requires you to go. Or like a weird side quest or something. Yeah. I'm thinking of like there was a Horizon Zero. Dawn. There's this really good armor you get in that game, and you have to pick up these little things at various points throughout the story. And I think, I'm not sure if you can miss any or not, but I really wanted to make sure I wasn't. And there are actually guides now that

are written online to this end that'll just say, here's the big picture. There's one thing that you don't want to miss, and it's in Chapter 5, and that's the missable one. So just be sure you grab this thing in Chapter 5 when you walk past it. Otherwise, you can kind of go at your leisure, and now we'll tell you exactly where all the things are, which is nice. Like, guides have gotten a lot more considerate of the different types of advice people want, which is like a nice reflection of how we play games, I think. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, guides are where all the money is in games journals. Well, they've gotten better at them, though. It's nice to see them get better. Not real money, but that's where all the traffic is, I should say. Right, right. But I mean,

I think a lot of them are written now so that you can also just search for the specific problem that you're having. And they're written with the assumption that you'll have a set of those problems because the person who played the game to write the guides probably also ran into those issues and took a bunch of screenshots while it was happening so that they could tell you. And then you just do the old Control F on the page and be like, well, where is this stupid key? And then you find that one sentence and that one screenshot that shows you where it is. And then you can just close that window and go back to playing the game. That is my ideal situation with a guide.

I don't like having to follow a guide to the letter every single time. I really just prefer to use them for that one instance where I've looked everywhere. I just can't, I'm just not seeing whatever signpost I'm supposed. to see and clearly it's somewhere and I'm just missing it. That is the circumstance in which I will use a guide and that's about it. Can I say also that I want to just throw my support behind written guides on the internet? I don't want them to all become video guides. Because like there are times, there are totally times where the thing like in destiny, sometimes it would be like you have to jump up a weird wall to get to a thing where I would watch the video because it was just easier.

But when I'd find, especially the guides where they draw the little arrows on and they say there's the thing. I'm like, this is what I want. to look on my phone. I don't want to stop and watch a video and, like, fast forward around to find it. I want to just find the thing in an article, so hopefully those never go away. So let me, the other couple times that I will use a guide. One is if I'm just tired of the game, there was actually, like, I'm in a place in Final Fantasy 7 remake where I'm sort of like doing all these side quests in Chapter 14. And I kind of just looked at some of them to see what the heck they were and what they even paid out. Because I was like, I just want to get going.

I kind of want to get the story going. And it just feels like I'm good to skip those. still worry. I mean, you can skip them. Yeah, that was the main thing is that then Jason, you were kind of like, you know, it's not a huge deal. Like, I did some of them, it seems fine. So that's one. I did all of them and it's fine. You don't need to do with them all. Right. Okay. That's good to do. So, and then the last one is, and this is a little different. I use guides when I play horror games, especially like Resident Evil games, pretty liberally, actually. I'm in Resident Evil 2 remake. I used, I spoke about this on split screen, but I used not only a guide. I would always look at stuff online like, when's Mr. X going to turn up?

because I didn't want to turn him off. I don't want to mod him out of the game or change the game. But you want to be emotionally prepared. Yeah, and there are times where you'll trigger him at a really inopportune time, and then you have to deal with all this stuff. And I know that's like the magic of the game, and some people love that, but it stresses me the F out and I don't love it. So I did use guides for that.

And it just, that, it gets me more into a relaxed headspace with horror games, which can kind of ratchet up the stress to where I'm not having fun. So I do find that guides can be useful for that, too. So I want to talk about another angle. entirely, which is the idea of reading guides for pleasure. So when I was a kid, and I'm sure some people out there have the same experience. I'm so glad you're saying this because I did the same thing. So when I was a kid, I used to get those beautiful Prima Brady game strategy guides.

And they were usually for like these big JRPs that I would play on the PlayStation 1 or like Super Nintendo or something like that. And I would get home from school and like at dinner, I would always have a book in front of me. Sometimes it would be a real book, but then sometimes I would be like, you know what? I'm just going to read the strategy guide. So, like, a lot of games, well, so first of all, I had strategy guys, not just for games that I actually had and played, but also, sorry about the baby crying, but also for games that I didn't even own, like, just vicariously experiencing them through the strategy guides. That was what I did is I wasn't allowed to have game consoles growing up, and I remember. So you just got the consoles. I would read the guides.

I would like, we would have like this, I don't remember where this was. I think it was like the scholastic book fair. Yeah. Sometimes you could get walk through book. like those would be among the books they sold. And I remember getting one, it was just like a bunch of Nintendo games, because the walkthroughs for those games were just a few pages long because the games just weren't that complicated.

And I remember it was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles NES game. And I didn't have a Nintendo, and I couldn't play that game, but I really wanted to. And I remember just reading along, and I read the whole thing. And it was kind of like, it was a little like a proto let's play. Do you remember those let's plays that weren't videos but were blog posts where people would post screenshots? They're still around. They're still on something awful, yeah. Yeah, there's actually, like, let's play archive.

You can find them and read them. I've read a few of this. It was a little like that, but it was a tips post or whatever, a walkthrough, but it was the same feeling of I can't play this game. I can now, you know, I can watch this. Yeah, well, so the awesome thing was like, if I couldn't finish or didn't feel like finishing a game, the second thing, the second reason that I would read them was just to like get, understand the rest of like what was going to happen.

And sometimes they would, they were very like, the quality disparity was big. everyone knows or a lot of people know the Final Fantasy 9 infamous guy that just said like check playonline.com on every single page I wrote like an article about that right yeah but um but some of them some of them would like go in depth on the story while others would just like not mention story points at all but something there's something very sad about the fact that like future generations won't get this because strategy guides in print are so rare these days and uh they'll get other things though right they'll get youtube videos no i know but still it's not quite the same. Yeah, instead they just get Twitch

streamers that they get to have a parissocial relationship with for hours and hours and hours. They're really missing out though on those strategy guides. You get home and it's like 4.30, 5 o'clock you're like eating dinner and instead of flipping a strategy guide you're staring on Twitch on your phone. That's kind of

the kids today. They just are. Kids these days. Do I sound like an old man? It's fine. We all do. So one of Taylor's questions was do you avoid walkthroughs on an initial playthrough? And that I do, and here's a thought related to kind of soul style games. And that is that I do avoid walkthroughs for a lot of those games for like how to get through

different areas of them. But then there always comes a point, especially in From Software games, where there's something that you need to do, usually to get to, you know, a huge castle area with a special dragon boss and all this cool stuff that you could literally just miss if you didn't know about this and you have to go do an emote. This is, I'm thinking of Dark Souls 3 specifically. You have to some obscure shit, right? You like do an emote next to a, you know, I don't remember. Like you have to match some statues, emote, and then a dragon comes and carries you away to this place. And it's like, if you don't know to do that, you're never going to do that. You pick it up for maybe some little

subtle clues. If you really know these games and know what to do, maybe you'll find it on stuff like that, I'm happy to look at a guide for Bloodbourne. Yeah, I use one for Bloodbourne. For getting the true ending where you have to like get these whatever kin pieces or whatever like i mean if you want the quote unquote true ending of any game you're gonna have these guys like the whole concept of a true ending is like god okay you're just gonna look it up yeah especially when there's like things you can miss and you need to get onto a certain track pretty early and even looking at a guide too late it'll at least tell you okay you're you blew it you're not you're not gonna make this happen so you can kind of just skip out yeah i feel like guides are really normalized for dating sims as well

for that reason because like any type of, I mean, just for the one true ending reason, but also like you want to see every ending, you're going to have to know which arcane dialogue choices to choose. And the only way you could know that is either your own trial and error or a guide. And I feel like it's pretty socially normalized to use them in that genre at least. A couple other guide thoughts. One is there can be too many guides. I struggle with build guides like a lot. I don't know if either of you do, but when I'm playing a new, especially like a from soft game, something that's going to be very demanding. Oh, when I was playing, what's that game called?

Oh, Dragon's Dogma? There are so many build guides for that weird game because there are all these specific builds. This is, you know, a build is what your stats are and the things that you're going to use, and you want to build toward a certain loadout they're going to get maybe five hours into the game. And you could never know this stuff unless you've played it a bunch of times, which some people do. And then they write guides. Those guys always just give me analysis paralysis. I just wind up reading them.

And everyone has a different opinion. It's a little like PC building where they're like, no, definitely don't use that heat sink. that's garbage, that'll scorch your CPU. And, like, it's the same thing in Solz. You're like, oh, my God, no way. Never put points in decks, only strength. Like, because then you can get this great sort. And I'm like...

And then there's another person arguing that you need to only put points into whatever you just read that you need to never put points into. And it's the only way to play. And everyone's so convinced that they're right. Yes, that you're just like, shit. Like, I don't know who to believe. It's almost like it's subjective. You know, and it tends to be there will just be someone who'll be like, it doesn't matter.

Like, just get a sword. I just read until I get to that comment and I'm like, that's right. And then I close the app. Yes. I definitely follow that person as well. Have you guys ever gotten a print strategy guide that then turned out to be completely obsolete because the game changed so much? I was thinking about Diablo 3 and how that. I had actually, I interviewed a prolific strategy guide author not too long ago and read his memoir and stuff, which is good actually. But he was talking to me about Diablo 3 because he wrote this guide and then it became useless because literally everything.

in the game changed so much. I guess that's another reason that print guides just can't work with modern games. No, because it'll tell you all these stats and bugs and stuff and everything just gets patched out. That even happens online. I'll read tips for Monster Hunter or something and they'll be trying to say in the post, you know, well, this is the 1.4 version, but it's like, it's been a year I'm looking, so as the tip is from 2013. I mean, this goes beyond games, right? You'll be like, how do I turn off this stupid thing in Mac OS and you'll find a post from 2015? And it's like, go to this menu and select this option that no longer exists for you. So I think that's maybe broader than just games, but yeah, definitely a problem.

All right, well, plenty more to say about guides. I'm sure we would be happy to hear your thoughts on when you use a guide right in to triple click at maximum fun.org. Yes. I just want to hear from you. So let's do another question here, another burning question. Jason, why don't you read Vince's burning question? Sure. Vince says, imagine a world where crunch was no longer a thing.

Perhaps people of the developers have unionized and all employees at all game studios were given a guaranteed schedule of 40 hours a week, no overtime. What do you think would be the consequences of this as it pertains to the quality and scale of games that are produced? I imagine that crunch has to happen right now because the pressure from investors to ship a game by X state. Should crunch culture be eliminated, I can't imagine that pressure would also go away. So a studio is given the same amount of time to produce a game, but they don't have the

manpower to ship a game like The Last of Us 2 or Red Dev Redemption 2. and perhaps the budget doesn't allow them to double their staff to potentially double their work output. What would video games look like without crunch and what would the entire video game landscape look like? Would games become shorter, more episodic in nature with these big budget games cease to exist, at least as we know them? This has led me in a very conflicted direction without being able to change the entire way the industry functions, not just crunch, but investor pressure, etc., is crunch necessary in order to be able to continue to be able to enjoy the games I love? what would life look like without god of war the last of us red dead two etc as they are now or at all man this is an interesting question i have a lot of thoughts on this one yeah i mean i do too but i'm i'm interested in your thoughts so why don't you start okay well i can give some some overall thoughts which is

first of all i mean i don't really think that even if game developers unitized i don't think that anyone would really say like we have we should have a guaranteed schedule of 40 hours a week And the context here that is worth getting into a little bit is that there are a lot of different kinds of crunch. Like, I don't think anyone in the world would object to, like, a week of, like, overtime to finish one last deadline, like, working some nights for a few days in a row to, like, get some work done. Hit that last stretch, like, get those bug fixes in, et cetera, et cetera. It's just that crunch can be this, like, all-encompassing thing that's months at a time and you don't know when it's going to end. and their constant direction changes and things are coming down

and people are scrapping what you did and changing things and overhauling things. And it combines in the stew of all the other problems that go into the video game industry, the volatility and the sexism and the harassment and the low wages and etc., etc. And that's what really causes the root of issues. But that's said, in this hypothetical scenario

where crunch couldn't happen, I mean, first of all, my immediate thought is that like a game like, look at a game like Red Dead Redemption too, because that is a game we know a whole lot of man hours and woman hours went into making. That is a game that could have been probably two-thirds of the size and would have been just as good, if not better, of a video game. So I for one, when I hear like, oh my God, like, like we would never have the time or manpower or budget to ship these masterpieces without working these ridiculous schedules, I just think, well, maybe these masterpieces could be a whole lot smaller and they would still be masterpieces.

That's something that I've always thought about. But the other part of this equation is the mismanagement and is the mismanagement that ultimately leads to the crunch. And that is kind of, that is one of those complicated human error leadership problems and like making a decision and not being able to stick with it or thinking that you have a better decision a year in and going with that better decision, even if it costs you people along the way. Those are really the things that you have to kind of wrestle with when you're unpacking this question. But, I mean, ultimately, I just don't, I don't think, I think we could still get great games without crunch culture.

I think that that is something that could happen. Like, I think that it's very much inertia that is on, taking the game industry on this path that it's on now where it feels like everybody has to put in this, like the, like themselves on fire to make games. Yeah, what do you guys think? Yeah, I think that the difference between crunch and crunch culture, is important. Like they're kind of two different things. Like, like you said, working really hard and working extra hours to make something good. But, you know, like you, anyone who's ever made

anything knows that you spend a ton of time on it, especially when you're in the finishing stages. Like making, even, God, forget making an album, making a single recording. There's this, you spend so long making it. And then the last 50% of hours you spend on it is just like the finished thing, making it perfect. And it you just, you do because you care and you want it to be good. and any artist who's going to make anything worthwhile is always going to do that. So making it a culture, like you said, Jason, of just like every month, we're just kind of always doing this, even when there's no deadlines, we're just, this is just what we do for the whole last year of development of this game. Like, that gets into, like, that's a cultural problem, that it's just accepted that that's a norm of the games industry. And that is the kind of thing that could be pushed back against and changed, even though fundamentally it is always going to require a lot of work to make art.

My thought is, I like the idea of a world where there's just some weird rule that this could never happen, but just like you cannot ever go over 40 hours a week. What will you do? And I think I agree with you, Jason, that it's like, well, if that was somehow this like imposed hard limit, people would still find ways to make cool stuff. Like if people didn't let me spend however many extra hours, like, fine tuning the whatever of a song, it would still probably be fine or I'd find a way to like make it work. It just. Or those hours would be much more productive. And that's something that I see. And there have been a lot of arguments in favor of like the four day work week because if you didn't, if you felt more refreshed on those, if you were working eight hours a day, four days a week and you felt more refreshed on those hours, spent less time like checking Twitter in between projects or whatever. Well, there's that, but I also feel like a lot of creative people and I include myself here work in fits and starts. Like I'll have a day where I want to work like 12 hours straight because I'm like really feeling it. Either I'm just like working on a story or a song or whatever and I'm like really in that zone. And then I'll have a day where I'm like, it's just. just not, it's not in me today. But if you're working in a place where you're expected to work over time every single day and you just have to be at your desk forcing yourself to work or at least have the appearance of working, which those are the crunch stories that I read that make me feel really sad. It's like the people who are in an office where they just have to be there for 12, 16 hours a day, whatever absurd number of hours is. Come in Saturday because the houses are coming in town.

Right. Because you just have to look like you're working and you're not even actually getting anything productive done. Like that to me is what crunch culture really is. and why it's terrible. It's not, I was really excited about this. I just wanted to keep working for 12 hours. And like tomorrow I'm going to work for two, or I'm not going to work for any hours because I will have already like done my awesome day.

And that is okay to encourage to me. And I feel like when I talk to indie developers, a lot of times they'll talk about having a studio plan that has something like that or trying to normalize stuff like that because like the discussion of crunch has obviously trickled down into indie studios and the way that they talk about their projects. And that's really cool to me. I'm glad that it's something that people are talking about now and being like, yeah, we have a more flexible work schedule now.

And we do not force our reports to work on Saturdays. But if they're really excited about something and they want to work on a Saturday, we'll let them have it. But then they don't get to come in on Monday or whatever. So that, I think, ties in with like the sort of costs and incentives part of this, which like the impossible world where everybody is locked into 40 hours a week. Okay, that's like an interesting hypothetical. Yeah. But there is this world where if people were compensated, like if it weren't mandatory over time, if you were going to work overtime, you get paid overtime. You're like, the people in charge now have a much

stronger negative incentive to allow things to spill out to where people are working tons of overtime every week. Right now, the incentive for management does not let people crunch is basically, well, we don't want a culture of it. We don't want there to be a Kataku or I guess a Bloomberg article about it. And we don't want to lose people over the long term, which is like a pretty tough incentive, that last one. It's like, yeah, that's a problem. And you can see it if you really look, easy to not look and not see it and just be like, I don't know, it's fine. And there's always another 21-year-old who's willing to work like absurd hours for three years before they get burned out. So you can then kind of tell yourself, well, we're just filling the chairs in,

so it's fine. But like if you're actually, it's costing your bottom line, it's getting really much more expensive. You have, it's just kind of a stronger incentive away from allowing that. And that seems like an actual, like a way toward this, like a version of what Vince is talking about, which is that overtime is allowed and possible if you need it. And if you're in like a real place where you're like, we're so close, let's like make it perfect. But there's a strong incentive to only do that sporadically because it's very expensive or for whatever other reason. Yeah, I mean, the problem is it's not that expensive in the grand scheme of things. Like a lot of, I mean, a lot of typically what happens is that a game studio, you're either on salary or you're

hourly, and typically the people who are on hourly are also on contract. And both of those types of workers are expected to crunch. In fact, I've heard from some rock star folks back in the day that, and more recently, that like, sometimes they wouldn't want to be promoted to full-time positions because they were making more while crunching hourly. And then I heard from some people who were like, oh man, now that Red Dead 2 is out, we're not crunching anymore, I can't make a living anymore. I have to go somewhere else. So it was definitely the case, like, it's definitely the case all around that people are getting paid for their overtime if they're hourly workers. Right. But the fact that the system revolves around that is pretty messed up.

Right, usually a sign of a system that needs reform. Well, part of the problem is that wages are so low in the video game industry, and that's going to be so infuriating if you're like at Infinity Ward or Traiark, you're working on the new Call of Duty game and you're making $20 an hour and you're seeing that Bobby Codick is taking millions from you and the work you're doing. And that kind of gets a thing with this question, too, is that it's hard to look at crunch as an isolated thing. Like, any time, as the wire has taught us,

anytime you look at one aspect of a system, you then realize that it's just one thing of a huge interlocking system, that then that system itself is part of another, like, macro system of systems that all... Yeah, capitalism. Yeah, so, like, you start talking about crunch. Soon you have to start talking about wages. You're talking about labor. You're talking about unionization.

You're also talking about representation and reform and all these different things. And, like, so it's hard to imagine the games... The way games are funded and maybe there are problems with that and, like, how they're sold, and what we consider to be sellable in a game and so on and so far. So I guess that is kind of a form of an answer for Vince is that a world without crunch is a very significantly different world along a lot of different axes.

And so to imagine a world without crunch requires a big imagination. You have to think of all these different things, but it's sort of a cool exercise. So part of this equation is that a lot of the times when there's like a huge crunch problem at a studio or on a game project, it's because of the cycle of like

the stops and fits. of game development. And like, so I actually, I wrote about this in my new book coming out next year. But the, there's a certain, I won't say who, but there's a certain game developer that used to be around a few years ago, a very famous game developer. And their process was kind of infamously to just fuck around for a couple of years. And then once they figure out what they're making, go on and make the thing. And so it's like two years of relaxing and in creative paradise.

and then another two years of hell crunch production. And that's the case for a lot of games. That's the case for a lot of studios. It's a case for a lot of creative directors who just not only are like in that world of like imagination, paradise, idea land for a while before they actually execute and sit down and make something. But also they might come in.

A lot of game developers always talk about iteration because that's the most important thing in game development is like figuring out, okay, is this fun? What if I move this guy a little to the left? Is that more fun? What if I change the controller? So there's a tiny event more. usually more fun if you move the guy a little bit to the left.

It's almost always the answer is yes. I think it was Sin Meyer who said that. Always move the guy to the left. Slightly, just a little bit. That's the real one-up game development. Just a little bit. Tighten up the graphics and move the guy to the left. Tighten up, moving to the left.

But yeah, the idea is iteration. And then on a grander scale, it's like if the creative director decides, you know what, actually this level isn't working. I have a different vision for that. You know what's seeing this on paper looked a lot more fun. then actually seeing it in the build, there is so much, like, there's so many incidents of just people throwing things out and changing things. And it's all in the service of a better game, at least in theory, like, we don't know for sure if what was thrown out might have been

better. But in theory, it's like, this is making a better game, but it's prioritizing the game over the people because suddenly you're like making all these people who worked on this feel like shit because they just crunched for a month and now you're throwing out what they did. So that is one of the severe problems that, like, not only causes, crunch, but also makes that crunch feel all the more brutal because you know that you just put three weeks of like not seeing your family into something and that thing is no more. It's not even in the game anymore. I think crunch works as a topic because it winds up being a focal point for discussion of the entire process of making video games. Like it's such a, it's a flashpoint and

it's like, you know, it's something that a lot of people have a lot of feelings about. But it winds up being a broader conversation in a lot of different ways. So I guess that's one reason we keep talking about it is because when you talk about crunch, really, you're talking about everything, and then solving for crunch means solving for a lot of other bigger systemic issues. But Vince, hopefully that is a satisfying conversation and beginning of an answer to your question. I'm sure it's a question we'll be trying to answer for the foreseeable future on triple click. So that'll do it for this burning questions. As always, if you have a burning question for us, or just a regular question, like a room temperature question, feel free to write in to triple click at maximum fun.org. Let's take a break,

and we'll be back with one more thing. These are real podcast listeners, not actors. Hey, thanks for coming. Here's a list of descriptors. What would you choose to describe the perfect podcast? I mean, vulgarity. Dumb. Definitely dumb. And like, right here, this one.

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It's The Outer Reach. Stories from Beyond. Now available for free at maximum fun.org or anywhere you listen. And we're back, and now it's time for one more thing where each of us talks about one more thing that we want to talk about. Maddie, what is your? Your One More Thing for this week. Okay, so I beat Final Fantasy 7 remake and I have very few things to say that are bad about this game.

But I just want to complain about one aspect. You're like, I love it. I love it. I love it. Well, okay, but listen, we just talked about the side quest a little while ago. And I played every single side quest in this game. And a lot of them are very extraneous and silly. But I actually enjoyed every single one, which is why I bothered.

to play them all. And I am totally down for just shooting the shit with the characters in this game and watching Cloud's facial expressions and watching some cutscenes, whatever. I will run around and find CDs for a little girl or find lost cats. Like, I'll do all of that stuff just for the sake of living in Midgar a little bit longer. And I'm already sad that every day when I wake up now, I don't get to play this game anymore. And that's just me and maybe I'll play it again. I don't know. However, there are so many extra boss fights in this game and there's so much of the padding of this game, which Jason, I know you talked about and you talked about side quests, but I feel like a lot of it is just extraneous boss fights. Like there are so many moments in this

game where in the original game, it wasn't even close to a boss fight. It was like a two second interaction that you have with Reno or whoever, and now it's a boss fight in this game. And I don't love it. What did you guys think about all of the extra boss fights in this game? One of the funniest things in this game, I tweeted a gif of this actually like a week ago is, I think it's in the haunted railroad or what's it called? The train graveyard. Yeah, train graveyard. Train graveyard.

There it is. Where there's a boss at the very end and it's this ghost or something and it appears. And Cloud pulls out his bus or something and he says, he like pulls out and he's like, I don't have time for this shit. And I was like, Cloud, you feel me. That's me with every boss. Right. I was like, especially there because they're running.

they're trying to get back and, you know, there's like a time pressure on. But there's always the time pressure on. Like, every single time they do anything in this game, they're in a hurry to go do something really important, and then they have to, like, fight a motorcycle guy or like a different other bigger motorcycle guy. Yeah, I am not. The boss fights in this game definitely are like something that I don't generally love. There are times where they're fun, but I don't love the combat in this game in general.

I voiced this opinion on Twitter in the midst of a tweet thread about why I think the game is great and I just said as an aside I was like it's not perfect like combat isn't great you know whatever and combat is the best thing in the game

Yeah it seems really love it or hate it which is interesting to me and I think it's just dependent on whether you enjoy micromanaging and switching between characters a lot which I've sort of realized I don't love and a lot of times I'll just want to play a whole fight as one person not because there's one character that I really love playing as

because I actually think they're all pretty fun I just tend to like playing a fight as a character and just getting the feel for them, getting that rhythm, as opposed to what you kind of need to do in this game, which is switch between everybody every time and make sure they're all doing their chores and that all of their right spells are being cast at the right times. They're all pointed in the right direction. Yeah, they need to divide up the dishes, the vacuuming, and the laundry, and they just aren't always doing it. And I just need to tell Arenda Theta what to do every day, and it's tiring. You know, Jason, you mentioned, is it called the Gambit System?

What's it called in FF12? Yeah. I wish that was there in this one. Did you get the auto cure? The auto heal material is nice. That is helpful. And there's the provoke material, which helps as well with, like, making sure that people are being attacked or attacking the right things.

But it doesn't go as far as you want it to go, at least in my experience. Right. So my gripe is mostly about, like, situational awareness in the camera and the way that the game conveys information. I just think it's like a mess. And I know that some people are fine with that. have gotten around it and learned to master the system. And a lot of people have said, actually, that on hard mode, on the hardest difficulty,

that's where the combat system comes into its own and begins to really shine. Yeah. Which I kind of get, I guess I get that you could like once you... Hard mode, by the way, you can't unlock until after you be able to. Exactly. So once you have a whole bunch of stuff unlocked and you have like all your material and your abilities, then it's like, okay, now I really know how everything works. I know where to put everything.

It's time to do this. I think it also won't let you use items, if I remember correctly. Right. Yeah, you can only use spells. to heal, right? Which like I'd never, well, I use items to heal, I guess, but I don't use them for a lot of other stuff. But so anyway, I just have these issues with like the readability of the way that like it feels a little rubbery. It feels like magnets bouncing around on like a table to me, like the way that combat moves. I'll watch videos. I just saw this video today of Tifa just kicking

the living shit out of this guy. Like, it was like a Bayonetta clip. Yeah, she feels a lot like Bayaneta, I really enjoy the way that Teepa feels to play as. And I feel like there's like a version of me that unlocks her fully. But she's so, she's such a glass canon in so many ways. Like she can really take a hit, which I guess counteracts how powerful she feels to fight as when you're like connecting. But yeah, I mean, I think that's part of it is just I wish I enjoyed the combat a little more. And I think I would find all the extra boss battles a lot more exciting and less frustrating if I liked that combat management stuff, which is less noticeable in the like just average fighting some slimes in a corridor. battles. Like, those are always cool and fine, and I don't even mind switching around. But in a boss battle that lasts, like, you know, 10 minutes or two hours, depending on how frustrated you are in the moment, it's like some of the only moments I've been frustrated with the game have been those really long boss battles. And pretty much the entire rest of the game, I'm like, this flippin rules.

But it's just those bosses, though. All right. So, Jason, I see what you've put for your one more thing, and it's just a person's name. and I'm curious what that means. So what's your one more thing? My one more thing is Harvey Weinstein. Interesting. Okay.

Heard of him. Weinstein. Steen. It was a Weinstein. It is. I always say Weinstein. I don't know why. Harvey Weinstein.

So I have read, the reason I bring him up is because over the past few months and then more recently. So a few months ago, I read a book called Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow about Harvey Weinstein. And then this week, I read. read a book called She Said about Harvey Weinstein. I want to read both of those books. And so I'm curious what you think of them? And so I wanted to bring them up because they're both really interesting books. So just give you an overview. So these are Ronan Farrow and then also Jody Jody Cantor and Megan Toohey are the writers of She said. So Jody Cantor and Megan Tuhi were the people who

broke the Harvey Weinstein story in the New York Times in October of 2017. And then And about a week later, Ronan Farrow ran another big story in the New Yorker that had more details and just kind of expanded upon what the Times had reported. So Ronan Farrow's book, Catch and Kill, is written like a thriller. Like you can tell, you can imagine the movie in your head as you're reading it. A lot of it is about his own personal interactions and his own paranoia that, like, people are following him, which turns out to be real and true because people were following him from this Israeli spy organization called Bolinor. Black Cube. I think they're ex-Mussaud or something like that. And so that is like, it's a riveting read in its own right. And it's very much like, like, it's a thrilling read in a lot of ways. And so that's, that's like a really compelling book. But it's very much about Ronan Farrow. And that's

for better or worse. Like I've read some criticism online about how he kind of made the story about himself. I'm not sure. I mean, I think that my perspective is kind of that he has the right to tell his own story just as much as anyone else does. But you could read this and certainly, there's definitely stuff in there about the victims of Harvey Weinstein and you see his interactions with them, but a lot of it is about him and his own personal thoughts. It's written in a very movie thriller-ish way, like in the protagonist's head and you're getting the sense of his paranoia and like he'll have all these section breaks that end with like, and then I turned around, oh, there was no one behind me, like that sort of thing, right? He's a good writer too.

She said is a really interesting compliment to that because she said is this very, like, matter of fact, by the book reported piece that is like, here is what Megan and Jody and the way, because it's co-written by both of them, they actually write it all from a third person perspective. So it'll be like, then Megan did this and then Jody did this. And it's very much like these two reporters going through the boot leather, the shoe leather, like boots on the ground reporting process of like here is exactly. what happened in this reporting process and how we found these people and they share emails of like how they approach some of the subjects, some of the victims of Harvey Weinstein, and they talk about their personal interactions and like trying to convince them to go on the record. And obviously there's some of the same ground of like Harvey Weinstein contacting them and threatening them over the course of the story. But it's a lot more of like behind the scenes journalism than it is like the thriller approach of Ronan Farrow. So this is another interesting look. And then there's one, the one caveat here is that she said,

said only like two-thirds of the book is about Harvey Weinstein. And then for some reason, they go into the Brett Kavanaugh story for the last third. And they weren't actually personally involved with that. So it's kind of weird and not really clear why it's in there. So kind of like a marred on the book, a blemished on the book. But the Harvey Weinstein stuff is really, really interesting. Cool. Yeah, I've heard, I've heard Kantor and Tui.

I think it was on the daily. But I've heard them on a couple podcasts maybe talking about this. And the way they talk about the story is just cool because they're both clearly very good reporters and hearing reporters talk about reporting is cool. And there's the story, I guess I don't want to spell the beans. There's a story about like a diner and a phone. Do you know what I'm talking about, Jason? And it's like the information.

And it's, it was wild. I was like, man, breaking the story was a wild and like intense process. I mean, basically someone, one of their prospective sources like handed them a phone and then went up, got up to use the bathroom. He's like, I'm going to go to the bathroom. I'm just going to leave this here. It was very much another like movie moment. There were a lot of movie moments. It was some spy shit.

Yeah, that was great. So hearing them tell the story is pretty cool, too, to like hear them talking about it. So the reason I bring this up, and this kind of relates to the crunch conversation we had, is because the Ronan Farrow book was, like, entertaining and depressing and riveting and, like, all these things that you would expect. But she said actually gave me a lot of thought and, like, left me with a real impression, which is that they spend a lot of time talking not just about Harvey Weinstein, but about the people around them, around him who enabled him and allowed him to be this monster at the Weinstein Company.

And so it's like a lot of like they go in depth on some of these orbiting figures who were like who knew about his behavior or like had some idea of his behavior and were only concerned about like how will this affect the company. How will this affect the liability of the company? They also get into this woman named Lisa Bloom who is this lawyer who ostensibly like said she like went out there and defended harassment victims. But they should. share emails from her to Harvey Weinstein about like, here is how we discredit these victims, and here is how we make you, you the subject that everybody, like, pities. And she just seems like a real piece of work that one. But it's just, it's just very clear that like, again, systems,

right? It's all systems. It's like this one person, sure, he's a monster and awful, but nothing he did would have even been possible if not for all these people around him who were just, like, concerned with prioritizing profits and liability and the company's protection and saving their own masses and not wanting to confront him and not wanting to bring anything up. And she said also has one person who kind of reckons with that and like eventually does the right thing. But it's really, it really makes you think a lot about like, like, how these people are able to keep doing what they're doing and how this keeps happening. And so it's worth reading even just for that. But yeah, both books. I like both both.

Yeah, I want to read them both. I'm going to read them both too. Nice. Salt. Well, my one thing is Animal Crossing. No, that's a good way to end it. We've been too heavy so far. Yeah, it's been a crunch. Harvey Weinstein, it's been a lot of tough topics. Animal Crossing and capitalism is my one thing.

So I'm still playing Animal Crossing. Emily and I are still both playing. She's really into it, so we're really into it together, which has just been really great. And now that I'm kind of an end game, you know, KK Slider came into this concert and I can start to customize my island, I've been sort of doing all the endgamey stuff you do in this game, a lot of which is try to get the cool things that you really want from the store.

So you want things to come in stock and you go visit your friends to go to their store to see what they have in stock and trying to like really beef up what you've got. The main reason I can do that, though, is because I have a lot more money than I used to. And that is because I use the turnip exchange because I've started trading turnips. More systems, capitalistic systems. This is fascinating. So in Animal Crossing, every Sunday morning, a turn-up vendor turns up. I think her name is Daisy May.

Turnup, turn up vendor turns up. She turns up, yes. That wasn't even on purpose. It just happens. So she turns up and she's somewhere on the island from like, I don't remember, like 8 a.m. to noon. She's only there for a limited window of time and you can buy turn-ups from her then. It reminds me of Zer and Destiny or any limited time weekend vendor because you kind of... Yeah, there's some MMO-like attributes to Animal Crossing.

Definitely. Especially to the turn-up system. So you buy a bunch of turn-ups, and you buy them from her at a set rate that's, I think, random. And then throughout the week, not on Sundays, but every other day, at 8 a.m. to noon, and then from noon to 10 p.m., there are two turn-up prices at your store. And those also change. So that further locks you into this little calendar where you're like, well, if it's morning, going to check on the turn-up prices. Your turn-up prices are always garbage. Almost always.

Like, you'll buy them for, like, 98 bells per. you'll get like a bunch of them like I'll get a couple hundred thousand bells worth and then you're waiting for someone to be you want to be sold for like 400 bells each you can make like four X profits but at your store it almost never happens so if you just play locally it's this it's this kind of game of like oh god should I sell now I'll make like a 10% profit but that's not really that much I could wait but I've only got one day left because on Sunday your turnups go rotten and you can just have to buy new ones so you have until Sunday to sell or you can go visit a friend and go to their store and if they're

selling, they're buying it a good price, you can make a bunch of money. Yeah, and if you have good friends, they have a Discord channel where they all post their turnip prices all the time. I just want to point out that you are not producing anything. You're not adding any value to the world of animal processing. You are simply buying turnips and selling them for a profit. The thing I keep coming back to is the person who said that video games offer the fantasy of capitalism that just works perfectly.

Yes. It doesn't make sense, but it works perfectly. The fantasy of meritocracy and so on. Yeah, yeah. So this is just a stock market where it's purely just buy stuff. then sell it if you can and none of it really matters. There is no actual stock market. So, yeah, if you have a bunch of friends or like a workplace or something, I think there might be a max fun channel where they like do this. Daniel was talking about it in the news. He was talking

about the newsletter last week, which I haven't gotten in on yet, but I should. But I've been asking just various people that I know, like, oh, hey, do you know of anything? But what I wanted up having to do last week was a thing called the Turnip Exchange, where you just go online and you sign up and you like get in a queue and then you can just go visit someone's island and sell your turnips. Like a stranger? Yeah. Yeah. And it's like totally automated. It's an incredible site. You can find it if you want to get rid of your turnups. I'm sure everyone listening to this knows about it. And it was amazing. I made like a million and a half bells. I just like got in a queue and and then went to someone's island. It was like hi and I gave him a couple of knick miles tickets and

then I like made a ton of money. So now I'm doing that and me starting a hedge fund. Yeah. Right. Well, and I wonder if I get like a good price if I'll want to go there and be like, give me your stuff and you can come visit. Because people... I want to know, now that you've gotten the taste of money for nothing, like, do you want to apply that to real life? Yeah, you're going to start playing the stocks in real life? Yeah.

No, if it were this easy, I would, but it's not. So I'm sure some stockbroker out there will tell me that it is. But no. Anyways, it's changed the nature of the game for me somewhat. It's really entertaining to see the layouts that people do. They'll build, like, signs with arrows leading to their store, and they have little toll booths to accept the tolls and let you pass. And it's all very creative and, like, reminds me of a lot of other cool things

and other games where players like build systems outside of the game to coordinate things like this. And it's been fun to see if it weren't, even if it weren't so profitable, it would be fun to experience. But it's also nice that I now have tons of bells and can buy whatever, like, add-ons and bridges that I want to buy.

Maybe I should start doing this and then I can capture some footage and edit it together to all of the billions theme music. That'll be really funny just to me, personal. Absolutely. If that hasn't been done, it needs to be done. All right, well, I think that that'll do it for this week's episode of Triple Click, but we will of course be back next week to talk more about

video games. Thanks so much for listening. And yeah, I'll see both of you next week. See you next time. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Shrier, 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. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll head over to maximum fun.org slash join and consider becoming a member, doing some helps support us and gets you access to an exclusive triple click episode each month. Find us online at triple clickpodcast.com on Twitter at triple clickpod and send email to

triple click at maximum fun.org. Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum fun.org. Comedy and culture. Artist owned, audience supported.