Triple Click - Which Troubled Video Games Still Turned Out OK?

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

What video games went through turbulent development cycles and still turned out good? What are some tips for getting into video game journalism? And should we gender-swap... Kratos? This week: your questions, answered!One More Thing:Kirk: El Paso, ElsewhereMaddy: Us (2019)Jason: Killers of the Flower MoonLINKS:Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinBuy Triple Click Merch: https://maxfunstore.com/search?q=triple+click&options%5Bprefix%5D=lastJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

Neither snow nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stops the triple-click email delivery, because, while it's email, there's no posted tripwired. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we open up the mailbag to answer questions about journalism, studios that face major restructuring and still manage to make something good, and investment advice? Sure, we can try. I'm Maddie Myers.

I'm Jason Shrier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello. Hello, it's us. my illustrious co-hosts. We're recording this on Halloween. I know. Are you guys going trick-or-treating? I'm going trick-or-treating.

I'm very excited. No. I'm entertaining the trick-or-treaters. I'm inviting them in. Mutual aid, candy distribution. We're doing it. We're sharing. You're inviting them inside.

Like, hey, guys, come on here. Come on here. We got a lot of here. We did a haunted house. Maybe we'll do a haunted house next year. You know, I actually did used to do haunted houses when I was a teenager. That was how I transitioned from trick-or-treater to part of the neighborhood was building a haunted house with my friends.

So fun. That seems like that would be a really, really fun thing to do. It's like the best way to spend your teenage years. There are neighborhoods in Portland where the whole thing is that like everyone goes really over-the-top. Ladd's edition is the name of this neighborhood. And people will build these huge haunted houses in their front yard. And I went one year and we went through their haunted houses.

Oh, yeah. This was probably really fun. Our neighborhood is kind of like that. We are not even close to the coolest house in our immediate area. but we do get a lot of trick-or-traders. Kirk, do you get trick-or-traders? Jason, I already know what you're doing. Yeah.

Well, we just moved, so I actually don't know yet. We're about to find out tonight. Yeah, that's exciting. It's always tricky because we had to gauge how much candy to get. We got some, but you don't want to get so much that you wanted to just, like, eating Snickers parts for two weeks. I know, right? That's actually not something I want to do anymore. Wait a minute, wait a minute.

Are you sure that's not something you want to have it? You know, 10 years ago, maybe. Well, you got to split the div. Get candy, you know you want to eat. Well, the thing is, if you're not trick-or-treating as an adult, you have to, like, store candy because you can't go out and get it. It's the candy tax. We just take a little bit off the top every time we give candy to the kids.

They have to learn somehow. Yeah, that's what Jason gets to do with his little trick-or-treaters that he's taking out this year. He gets to do the candy tax, the parental candy tax, which is a different form of taxation. One more thing before we actually jump in is I'm going to Anaheim tomorrow for BlissCon. So if anyone out there is a tropical listener, who's going to BlizzCon say hi if you see me. What do you think is going to be at BlizzCon? Like what are you expecting to see there? I haven't really been paying attention.

Well, it's the first one in a couple years. Yeah, it's the first, like, in-person one since COVID. They did a digital one. And then last year they just didn't do one at all. They were like, we're not going to have one. And also the lawsuit was going on. It was a weird time for them. Well, this is the first one since the lawsuit.

And yeah, they have Warcraft stuff. Probably a Diablo expansion, probably a Warcraft expansion. Overwatch 2 is a video game. Who knows what else they'll show. Interesting. I guess this is also post-Microsoft. So maybe that'll be a little bit of an interesting thing in the background there. So like Phil Spencer will come out and everybody will boo.

They're going to announce Master Chief and Heroes of the Star. Oh, my God. Can you imagine? That would be wild. I can. I'm imagining it. right now. They'd be wild to have a Heroes of the Storm announcement. So I think it would be kind of bittersweet, like if they just started bringing that one back out of storage.

Just a mix of craziness, a millstone craziness. Interesting. We'll be interested to hear from you what you see there. So yeah, if anyone's out there is going, say hi. Look for me. I'll be floating around. All right. Well, I don't have a transition, but I do want to say one thing before we get to the rest of the episode, which is that if you want to check out a cool website, maximum fun.org slash join is cool. But I think I'm going to describe what's on there just in case people are like scared to check it out. I mean, it's a scary time of year. People might be like, oh, what's this URL, Maddie's saying? I don't want to just go sight unseen there. What if something jumps out of me? There's

like a scary face. It's not like that at all. It is a super normal place where you can support triple click and all the other shows on the maximum fun network of podcasts. And I think you should do it because if you become a member, you get bonus episodes from all the shows, but in particular, you get a monthly bonus episode from Triple Click, which is us. That's our show that we do here. You're already listening to it. So, for example, this month, we have a bonus episode called Hunt for Best October, which I'm personally very proud of. I ran that episode. Have you ever thought, what's the best October? Well, finally, we figure it out. And according to terms that might not surprise you. Have you ever thought that question that everybody asks all the time? Everyone's always asking this. Everyone's always like, What's the best one? Is it this one? Is it some other year? Well, anyway, we did an episode on that and we had to analyze a lot of octobers.

But there are a ton of other backlogged episodes. We've done, spill the beans, beans casts on Tears of the Kingdom, the Horizon Games, Modern Warfare. I always think of that one for some reason. I feel like we all have a game we always say. Like Kirk's, I think, is like, the last of us two. I don't know. We all have one that we're like, this is the only beans cast I remember. Yeah, I think so. I don't know. That's enough of that. Maximumfund.org slash join. Check it out. It's a great website. And also, you can support the show by going there and being a member. Jason, what is today's episode? What is it? What's going on?

This week, we are doing a burning questions where we open up our old email box and pull out some emails and read them and answer them. Just a reminder, everybody can send us questions. questions at triple click at maximum fun.org. We've got some good ones lined up for you this week. I'm very excited. And yeah, without further ado, let's get to it. So quick, I just, I actually want to shout out one question that we're not actually going to address, but I just thought it was worth mentioning. A person named Melissa reached out to the show. She said she was getting married and had some questions about video games and couples and stuff. It was actually just ahead. as like an hour before our video games and relationships episode hit a few weeks ago. And that covered some of the stuff that she asked about, so we're not going to answer her question.

But just a quick shout out. She sent us a picture of her wearing a triple-click t-shirt the day before her wedding, like checking out the venue. So I thought that was pretty cool. So shout-out to Melissa. Pretty good. Really, really good. Yeah. Congratulations, Melissa.

Congrats to Melissa. Maddie, why don't you read us the first question? Sure. So this question's from Jacob, who writes, big fan of the show, triple-click episode. are a highlight of my week. But if that was the whole email and I just stopped there. It's not. Jacob continues.

I recently graduated with my degree in journalism and I've started to work as a freelance list article writer for a video game news publication. I'm grateful to be in this role, considering how awful the job market is right now, but I feel pretty railroaded into writing list content all day. In the future, I'd like to find a role as a full-time writer for a game's publication,

but I'm struggling to see the path to get there. So, as games journalists, what have your career journeys been like? If you were to start all over again with the knowledge you have now, what choices would you make? Any and all advice is appreciated. Oh, man. The problem of this question, we can get into our career journeys a little bit as well. But the problem of this question is that like the journey that we had when we were all starting 10, 12, 15 years ago is so irrelevant today. I know.

It's almost kind of like a waste of time to listen to that as potential advice. I mean, we can tell you about our stories because they might be interesting, but like not as useful models for the future because the business has changed so much. Yeah, you have to unfocus your eyes, I think, to get it what's useful. I will say that Jacob describes Triple Click as a highlight of his week, and I think that's nice that he's being very precise there because saying the highlight of my week feels a little hyperbolic. And I think if he is working on being a journalist that it's very good that he's using precise language like that. That is a very journalistic way of phrasing it.

I think I would read it that way too. I'd be like, well, I don't want to blow smoke up their ass. I mean, it's a highlight of my week. The real journalistic way would be to be like one of the top 10 highlights in my week and you won't believe. You won't believe number nine. Right. Right. I don't know. Yeah, I agree with you, Jason, that it is harder and harder with every passing year to give meaningful advice because

you know, five or six years ago, I would have said, well, maybe YouTube is the way to go, and you can build, you can build yourself up as an individual brand just by having a distinct enough voice. That was kind of how I got started was by writing kind of game reviews and humor posts that were good enough to get noticed. And I think that wouldn't, like the version of that that makes sense in like 2016 or 2015 would be making YouTube videos and video essays that are so kind of undeniable. that they get noticed. I think of someone like Noah called Welchervase, who's one of my favorite YouTubers. He makes these very long, very intelligent posts or videos.

And I remember watching his videos, maybe around then 2014 and being like, wow, this guy has a distinct voice. That's really cool. So I feel like whatever the modern version of that is, that's what you want to do, is find a way to get your work out there and then have your work stand out.

And then people will be excited about getting you to do work for them. I'm just not sure what the exact, like, what the exact, like, platform is for that or what the work looks like. TikTok. I suppose TikTok would be, that would be my guess, but I'm not on TikTok, so I'm not totally sure. I don't think so. TikTok isn't really designed to make people stand out. It's designed to create, like, an algorithm that just feeds people, just content all the time.

But I don't know. I don't know, for sure. Yeah, it's also really designed in favor of, like, parasocial relationships that people have. Like, there's certainly people that have brands on there, but a lot of them are about, like, their own social lives. But some advice I have for Jacob that I think has been applicable forever is just try to find other writers or other creative people who are in a similar, you know, career path or have a same set of goals as you do. Because at least for me, that was extremely important. Not for like, oh, networking, getting a job. Like, sure, yeah, that stuff matters.

But because writing is so lonely and because meeting other people and getting their feedback. is actually a really good way to hone your own voice and your own perspective on games or whatever you end up deciding to cover. And then the other piece of advice that I usually give is just write about other stuff. I mean, it doesn't have to be games because at the end of the day, hopefully you like writing more than you like anything else. I know Jason and I have said that before. Kirk, you probably have too. Like I basically, I'm like, hopefully you're not here because you love playing games. Like, that's great. But you got to like writing way more than that. And if that's the case, then you can write about anything and still learn how to structure a great story of whatever type you want to do.

Maybe it's not lists, but there's a huge range of different kinds of stories that you could write, including scripts for videos, a lot of which start as written work before they transform into a video later. Yeah, related to that another piece of advice I would give specific to Jacob is that you've already gotten in your writing lists for a video game publication, which is really useful. And I'd say something that I did when I was starting out and advice that I give to people, anyone who wants to kind of work in media, is that you've got to do it a lot and get really consistent at, like, just writing and creating articles. So I would advise, like, starting a blog, even if it's just a place to dump your ideas, like just somewhere, then you can, if you're talking to your editor at this publication, and you're like, hey, you know what, I'd love to write

something other than a list. Check it out. Here's, like, a bunch of stuff I've been doing. I'm just screwing around on my blog. Usually when you're having fun in, like, a really low-stakes environment like that, that's where people do a lot of really good writing. And it can be a good, just kind of resource to have to point people towards. So that's another kind of specific piece of advice for what you're doing. So let's table, we actually talked about our career journeys on a bean, on a bonus episode called Beanstalk, our past and features. So if you're a member, you can go check that out to hear our career journeys. But yeah, I mean, we've had different. They're irrelevant as advice. We have very different. We all have.

had bizarre juries that are not replicable in any meaningful way. Very interesting. We're not withholding it because it's advice, Jacob. We're withholding it because it's so cool and not helpful. But also become a member and then look at our stories. All right, Kirk, next question. All right, Sam writes, hey, triple click. I wanted to get your perspectives on the recent at the time of writing upheaval at

bioware specifically them laying off 50 people, including long time, devs who were on the original Baldersgate team. With all the turnover since Dragon Age 4 began development in 2015, plus multiple project restarts, it's been tough to have faith in an enjoyable end product for a while. Now I'm beginning to doubt if anything even nominally called Dragon Age 4 will be released at all. Do you all know of any games with analogously troubled production histories that still managed to get made even better that were still fun to play?

This question is for all of you, though I know that Jason has specifically reported on the situation at BioWare back in 2019. Thanks and love the show. Yeah, I mean, I think there are a lot of them. A lot of game productions go through some sort of torturous cycle or another. A couple that come to mind immediately, the last Guardian was one that was just in development hell forever and then finally reemerged. I think it was originally announced for the PS3 and then reemerged on the PS4. So that game definitely went through some troubles. Final Fantasy 7 remake was originally started with like one developer in 2015, and then not even counting all the various incarnations of like, hey, we're doing a remake of this game back in the day. But this current version started in 2015 with one developer and then shifted gears entirely to Squyriynex internal.

So I mean, a lot of games, and it's kind of like a coin flip, whether things come together at the last minute or not. Yeah, the example that came to mind when I, I read Sam's message was Telltale Games, which was it 2019 that they had their massive culling? It was semi-recent and then kind of rehired some people again. And I know people really like the expanse games and they're waiting for the Wolf Among Us games to keep coming out, even though Telltale did layoffs again very recently in 2023. I think it was a different entity. I think Telltale shut down.

So the original telltale is totally gone, but then a different company bought the name. Which is why I think it's kind of a good parallel, because if you read the way that people write about the expanse, which again, I haven't played, but I just kind of Googled around to see reviews of it ahead of this episode. People are like, oh, you know, telltale, they're so good at writing story games. And I'm like, it's kind of funny to read an article describing them in this way,

because this is a completely different set of people that, yes, has the telltale game's name, but certainly people who are good writers by all reports. So it's kind of interesting how a studio name might have total turnover, but then still have a license and end up making something good, or bad or anywhere in between. I don't know that it's always indicative of something other than maybe how much it sucked to work there. I feel like the tumult tells us that.

But maybe not much about the product. Right. And that's the flip side of this that's worth keeping in mind, I guess, even though it's more of a bummer, is that even if the game is fun to play when it comes out, the destruction, the path of destruction left by some of these years and years-long production cycles is hard to really quantify or hard to even get a sense.

just because layoffs are so traumatic for everybody, you know, this kind of production can really take a toll and kind of makes the overall games industry worse. So that's like the kind of flip side of this, that even when a game does come out and manages to be good, there's usually a lot of carnage behind the scenes. I'm thinking of a lot of the stories in your book, Jason, in your first book, like Uncharted 4, for example, of just people really put themselves through it for that game. and it came out, you know, it's a very celebrated, well-made game. But, wow, there was a real cost.

Yeah, I feel like it's almost, like, if you want to find the real unicorns, find the game cycles that weren't tumultuous and turbulent and brutal. And the game was great. Which there are a few. Yeah. There are a few. The one that comes to mind is some, and I haven't talked to every single person on this project, so I guess I shouldn't speak for everybody from what I have heard.

Motives, what was that game? Star Wars Squadrons, like had. was like healthy scope, healthy development cycle, bam. Wow. That's great. Yeah, sometimes it's the smaller scope stuff that like really stands out. The other part of this equation, by the way, is the story that the three of us have talked about and the entire industry is talked about over and over again.

In recent years, which is game comes out in bad shape and is turned around over time. The now man sky, the cyberpunk, the destiny, the Final Fantasy 14. It's just happened many times at this point. And that, I think, is its own kind of unique version of the turbulent development story. It's just that, like, it's kind of turbulent. And then turbulent before launch, and then it's bad, and then it's still turbulent. And then eventually, one day, it's good if they stick with it. It's sort of the second book subject in this.

If you were going to do a second book about video games, you would be right about those kinds of stories. The Phoenix stories, yeah. Okay, here's this question is pretty funny. Bill asks, Bill says, hey, Jason, your casino story had me wondering, do your friends ever try to peer pressure you into revealing any video game scoops? Come on, man. We know you know where the next five Assassin's Creed's are set. You can tell us. So, okay. Yeah, we do that all the time. Well, so this is funny because like, the answer is no. As far as my friends kind of outside of the game's world, because my friends outside of the games world, they might be. be into games, but they're not like reading IGN and Kataku every single day, like looking for the hunt. They are reading Polygon, right? Yeah, sure.

They're Polygon, yes. Of course. They're reading guides. They're finding guides on Polygon. Yeah, that's their main source. Hey, I'll take it. They're only human. So it's more like the people, like my main group chat with my, my closest friends, my

high school friends, like the questions they'll post me sometimes are like, hey, is this new game that's coming out next week? Is that any good? Is the new Star Wars game good? Is Baldur's Gate 3 good? Should I check that out? people always ask me to. That's what people want to know. Yeah. I think that it's the people who are like, the people who are closest to me in my life who aren't part of the games world are people who don't

care about like the cadence of regular gaming news. And so they don't care what the next Assassin's Creed is. They just want to know what's cool that's coming out. And I think that's the majority of people who play games, including I'm sure many people who listen to our show. So no, I don't get a lot of questions actually from people just being like, so give us the scoop and and stuff like that, except for Kirk and Maddie. Mm-hmm. And presumably other games journalists, you know, or they all knew better than to even not. No, I mean, yeah, no, not really. And also, it's not like I'm sitting on some gold mine of, like, secret information that I'm not reporting or anything like that. Like, it's not, I don't, I don't know

every single game that's coming out or anything like that. So, I think it would be futile to ask. But, yeah, other colleagues, I mean, it's kind of a weird, would be a professional faux pod to be like, so what's coming out and then your future and your competitor to me in the game. Yeah, I guess that's true. It would be really weird if your competitors were asking you that. But we have reigned to tease you and claim that you know information that you refuse to reveal. You guys are fair game. I've definitely seen game journalists gossip about things that are kind of commonly known. There are times where people would be like, oh, well, you know, that rumored thing that everyone is kind of winking about.

Like that kind of gets passed around, but yeah, there's not a lot of people like trading honest secret. I feel like a lot of people knew about Starfield ahead of time, even if they didn't know the title of it. Like there were a lot of things kind of in that zone where it's like, oh, we know this, there's a space game and development. Like things like that that just become known. Is that what you mean, Kirk? Like boring. Yeah. Just in terms of the professional malpractice of sharing secrets with other reporters, there's a bit of just sort of open talking about, hey, like, so-and-so is keeping this a secret, but I heard it was this.

But not a lot of like, I, sources are telling me this. like that no reporter would have any reason to reveal that. Yeah, because at that point you're going to write it up. Interesting. I haven't, I don't really see that a lot. The gossip that I see among journalism circles is more just like gossip about people and just like. Well, yeah, there's way more of that. Yeah.

But I mean, there's definitely a bit of gossip that sort of reveals some things that are going on behind this. And the gossip is always, this person is so much nicer than you think. And like, we love this person. Exactly. We love them. Of course, we don't want to get into it. A lot of times that is. the God's a text. People do like to share that kind of thing. You know, I've heard he's a really

great guy. That's true. Yeah, yeah, that's, that's always good. Okay, Maddie, next question. Sure, so this is from an anonymous person. And they write, please don't share my name on the show. It's a parent why in my question. My father died last year and I got a bit of an inheritance. One of the things experts recommend is to invest a bit in things you love and support. Of course, I immediately became a Max Fund member. Beyond that, I've been, looking at how to invest in games. One easy way is to invest in a games-related ETF, a fund that includes usually a mix of development studios, distributors, and associated tech companies. It's easy, but the problem is that I stupidly read and enjoyed press reset.

Stupidly. I don't know. And now the idea of being one of those awful stockholders that drive this rapacious, unsustainable industry is totally unpalatable. All the ETFs I've found include studios that might be characterized generously as problematic. in quotation marks. What do you think? Do you all see any viable options to help games get made but in a way that affirms workers

and sustainable careers? Man, I don't want to be like one of those, well, society type people, but like anything, any ETFs, any kind of like mutual funds, any index funds, anything you invest in that's a group of companies is going to include some problematic phase. So, I mean, better an Activision, Blizzard,

than like an Exxon, I think. Yeah. Don't invest an Exxon. I think that's great advice, just kind of morally. Maybe this is terrible. I really don't know anything about finances, but I do know that just from my coworker Charlie Hall, that investing in tabletop startups, like,

is pretty like one to one in terms of what you're funding as compared to other kinds of games, because there's such small teams and you're funding like a really specific product. And there's like a bunch of Kickstarter, competitors that are like just for tabletop games. Like it's a pretty kind of well-stocked industry when it comes to just people directly getting funds from the people who are going to play the game and you actually get the game right away.

Like it's kind of like a pre-order system and it's very it's very sustainable seemingly or at least so Charlie tells me. I don't know if that actually helps this anonymous writer. Maybe they don't care about funding tabletop games but reading about it. Well, this is less about funding a product and more about like an investment. Yeah. And it's more about funding like a sustainable company. which it seems like there are several. Well, you wouldn't get a return. If you put down money on a Kickstarter for a board game,

you're not getting return. I think this person is looking for returns. They want to contact a company and be like, how do I become your private patron? I think they're using the word invest to actually mean invest, like purchase stocks in a company, not like put my money back in to help indie people make games. I think we're talking about I have $50,000 and I want it to grow,

not like I have $100 to sink into a Kickstarter or something like that. So I do think, I mean, I think that kind of the traditional finance advice for investment is like, put your money in a mutual fund and just let it sit there and grow with the stock market, or fall with the stock market, as the case may be, but grow in the long term, hopefully. And I don't think that like picking a video game ETF is a bad idea from an investment mindset, from like a good investment mindset. It's just, yeah, you have to deal with the fact that you're potentially investing in companies that are. that are problematic. I mean, as a shareholder, there's certain things you can do. You can, like, there are activist shareholders out there who go out and, like, actually seek to make changes. Activision Blizzard had some of those. You can always become part of that.

I don't necessarily think it's, like, unethical or problematic to make an investment that includes game companies. Yeah, I don't either. Yeah. I don't have anything to add. I mean, yeah, it's complicated. Like, investment is complicated. What is money, by the way? Does anybody know? But I am glad that this person immediately became a Mex fund member,

because that's the most important part of this equation. It is. And that does kind of go to the other type of investment we were talking about. Certainly you can invest in cool kickstaters for, you know, indie developers who seem neat. And you can back up people who's work you like. That's definitely a valid way to use money, even if there isn't always a return on it. Yeah, I wouldn't call that an investment. I would call it kind of a donation almost or like a product.

purchasing a product. Yeah, purchase. Yeah, I mean, when you become a triple-click supporter, you're essentially purchasing a product in bonus episodes and also in allowing this thing to keep going. So I do think it's not like a, it's not an investment. You're not getting ROI, but you are getting the product that you like. So there is a trade-off there that is beneficial for both sides. Same with the Kickstarter. To your point, Maddie. Okay, next question. Let me do this one. And then Kirk, you can do the last one. So this one is from Amanda. I'm actually, I wanted to paraphrase a bunch of But basically she mentions in her letter that she's recently gotten back into gaming. And one of the ways she did is by playing as like a gender-swapped Zelda game where you play

a Zelda or gender-swapped mod of the new Star Wars games where you play as like a female Calcestis. And she writes, I'm wondering if there are any video game stories you'd like to see with a similar narrative shakeup where you would love to play an otherwise overplayed story. I love this. She had also mentioned the Resident Evil for there's like a Leona. mod that makes Leon into like a really cool butch protagonist. She looks great. This is one of those situations where I'm like,

maybe AI mods on voice acting are okay. Give Leon a girly voice. But I don't really think that or do I. Whatever. I'm not taking a stance there. But yeah, I don't have an exact parallel to what Amanda's doing. Although I did really like the Zelda mod that she described. I kind of wanted to check it out.

It sounded really cool. but I did back in the day install mods for CounterStrike where I could play as a female character because it wasn't until really recently the Counterstrike actually started to have female models and the latest one they're locked behind a paywall actually but you know 10-15 years ago as women as women typically are this is the wage gap people this is how it works

but but 10 15 years ago obviously call of duty didn't have female playable characters like no military shooter did until later on, even though women were in the military in those time periods. It didn't matter in the video game world. So I would install mods like that, but I was always really disappointed in them at the time because a lot of them were like sort of made as a joke. And I feel like these days, mod communities for games have changed so much from when I was a kid and a teenager. And that's so cool to see. It's like one of the coolest things about online in gaming as a past time is that now you can just play as any number of other things in games

and it's not treated as disparaging or weird or like some fetishy thing that you would want to do that. By which I mean like the original Counterstrike female mods would be like a woman in a bikini. Like it wouldn't just be like, oh, a normal female combatant. Like it would always be fetishized in some type of way. And I just think it's cool how much times have changed. And the other piece to this is just when I was younger, I was always like really. excited to only play as female characters. But these days, it doesn't, it's not as big of a

requirement for me because it's so possible now, if that makes sense. Like, it's so more easily achieved that it doesn't bug me as much as it used to. And that's something that makes me really happy, too, is just that now I'm, like, willing to play as Link and it doesn't bug me as much. Although, it would be really cool if we could play a Zelda. We can all agree on that. Like, come on, come on. But it is, it's cool because I can easily think of Zelda likes that have a female character or have the option to play as whomever you want, whatever you design. And that wasn't always the case. So it's really neat. Yeah, I think for me, Mass Effect was a really important game in having this kind of an experience because Mass Effect was designed to be playable as

either female or male protagonist. And your Commander Shepard was basically written the same way, no matter which you chose. So it almost was like you were getting a modded version, whichever you thought of as your canon version, the other one is moda because it's just the same. Like if you play Resident Evil 4 as Leona, you're playing the same game. You just have a different visual element. And definitely, I think the first time I played through Mass Effect

way back in 2007, I played as Bro Shep, Male Shepherd. And then I think I've just played it again because maybe the sequel was coming out. Or I think I just switched maybe to Lady Shepard for the sequel. And that was where it kind of hit me how much more interesting I actually did find the story with a woman in the lead just because, I don't know, like the society that I live in.

I mean, it's an underrepresented story. I mean, it's like, it was interesting for me to see a woman in that role in that kind of a story. And certainly Jennifer Hill's performance helped. And nowadays, that feels so much more common. I mean, that's something I was noticing recently while returning to cyberpunk 2077 is how Charami Lee is so great in that game. And the female lead just feels like the canon lead, but you kind of get that same experience. So anyways, Now that it is so common, like I'm kind of thinking of games where there is one set gender for the protagonist, like it's an established character like a girl to Rivia, for example. And what would that be like?

Or like Aloy. Right, or Aloy the other way around. And it is interesting how turning Aloy into a man, it would be like, okay, well, this is another open world game. Like it would still feel kind of like the norm because we're coming out of so many years of that being the norm, even though now it's really not. And having Geryl to become Geralta, I don't know, that could be interesting. It does feel a little bit less essential to me now, I suppose,

than it would have just because, like you said, Maddie, there are so many opportunities. But I love the sound of all these mods. The Calcestis one sounds so cool. I didn't even know about that. Yeah. I like that she included, like, the name of it. It's GALCestis, for example.

I like that. Amanda mentions in her letter also gender-swapped Kratos, which is hilarious. Oh, yeah. I didn't even know that existed. That would be incredible. And yeah, I mean, I think that playing, I've been playing Alan Wake 2 and even just playing the first couple hours of that game, a saga, you switch in the game between saga and Alan, has just felt so refreshing because it feels so much like a Resident Evil game.

And after playing Resident Evil 4 and also like Dead Space, after playing those few games earlier this year, it's kind of like, oh, this feels a little bit different just because it's a woman offering her perspective and I thought that was an interesting way to play. So yeah. Not just a woman, but a mom. Very unusual for video. Yes, a mom. A mom.

A mom. It is a mom. Mom representation. I think that like it doesn't have to just be gender swaps. I think that like any any sort of like shake up on the kind of the typical video game protagonist can be really interesting, I think. All right. Let's do one last question.

Kirk, take us away. All right. Charlie writes, in December 2017, Disney blacklisted at LA Times writers from the critics' screenings of its new movies in what was pretty obviously retaliation for some investigative journalism done by the newspaper. More or less immediately, movie critics circled ranks. Many individual critics said they would no longer review Disney movies and movie critics' organizations such as the New York film critics circle disqualified all consideration

of Disney movies from awards. Disney very quickly backed down. As yet another big game releases with some controversy about outlets being passed over for review code, this time with Starfield and, oddly enough, the nation of Britain, I wonder why games critics do not show this basic level of professional solidarity, and what will it take for the profession to do so, particularly as the three of you have all been part of multiple publisher blacklists. And I'll add for context to this question. This was about, I believe it was Eurogamer did not receive a copy of Starfield in time to review

it, even though Digital Foundry, their sort of technical partner who does the technical reviews did get a copy. So it was very clear that there were copies to go around and yet for some reason this major outlet Eurogamer didn't get one. And this is also coming from Bethesda Game Studios who, you know, when we were at Kataku, we were the subject of a blacklist by them for a very long time. So they have a history of withholding review copies of games. Well, so with that one, I mean, Eurogamer said that and then like two hours later they were like, oh, we got a code now. So there wasn't even time for critics to be like, we're going to like stand in solidarity with Eurogamer and be like, I think more relevant or more kind of telling is that in 2015,

Kataku announced that it was blacklisted by Bethesda and it was just kind of crickets all around the games industry. It's interesting. I've thought about this, this one a lot. Like, why is there, why does there appear to be more backbone in this other space? And I don't know, I think there are a lot of, a lot of reasons for it. But the first and foremost, the number one reason, I think, is just the general precarity in the games media space. I don't think, I think even if an IGN, say, wanted to stand by colleagues and be like, we're not going to cover Bethesda games, as long as they have this blacklist going, I don't know if they financially would be able to take the hit from not having the review of Starfield and the guides of Starfield and whatever else they do

surrounding a big launch. Yeah, it's hard to imagine something like this happening. But it makes me sad that I feel that way because it's clear that it's effective, like if it were possible for journalists to actually collaborate in that way. And I wonder if some of that is just because of the relative youth of video games as a medium and games journalism. I mean, we talk about that all the time. It's been many years and yet we still have to describe ourselves as being of relative youth compared to every other field of criticism because that's the case for the art form we cover. And it means that the professionalization of games journalism is a bit, later coming. Like in the early days, we sort of talk about the enthusiast press and the relationship

between PR and press is still kind of in a weird spot. I think a lot of people, certainly not triple-click listeners. All of you understand very well how journalism operates, but just sort of the average person may not understand sort of the difference between like an influencer reviewing a game or doing something I wouldn't necessarily call a game review versus a games critic employed at Polygon doing a game review and not necessarily having. that be like involving some type of gift from the publisher or other things that influencers disclose, but that people don't necessarily think of as being related to what score they give or what take they have. And just sort of that weird relationship between influencers and

PR and journalists and that fuzziness. I feel like it's still a confusing issue for people. And because of that, and it's just an ongoing issue maybe, that's why journalists already feel like their position is so precarious that they would have to fight for it and they don't really feel like they can afford to do something like this. It also might not matter if the YouTubers and Twitchs are still covering the game. It might not matter to something like Bethesda anyway. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's just been so much more time for the world of film to for both sides of this to mature. Like the studios and the PR people working for companies like Disney and also,

major outlets and newspapers and magazines who have been reviewing films for decades. There's just such an established relationship there between those two sides. And then on the critic side, there's just so much time. I mean, there are people who have been doing this for their whole career who are like the really old guard. There's a lot of solidarity. There are a lot of organizations that have been around for a very long time. So there's just kind of a sturdy structure there for when it's time to kind of gird our loins and say, all right, everybody like this cannot stand, we can't allow this to happen, there's more of a sense of a structure there that can kind of hold together in the face of something like Disney. And when I think of

the world of games media, like what we've all just been describing, what you've both been describing, it's just this much more diffuse kind of recently planted garden with a bunch of stuff growing in all different directions. There's just not a feeling of like a structure that can hold together as much as I wish there would be. Because, you know, it, it, it's, it would be nice in moments like what you described, Jason, the Bethesda Blacklist of Kataku in 2015. That was a very lonely moment for us. And yet it totally felt like, well, yeah, of course,

that's kind of how this is happening, because it was very hard to imagine it happening another way. And I think it's for a lot of reasons, but one of them is that newness or that diffuse quality that I'm describing. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, I think the sturdiness is less about the fact that people have been doing it for a long time and more about the fact that they're doing it for larger media institutions, the LA Times, the New York Times,

a lot of the movie critics are working for things that are way bigger than them that don't really care if the latest movie is not reviewed as opposed to working for dedicated movie sites or dedicated game site in our case, where it's a large part of their forecasts for any given years, what big games are coming out and relying upon coverage for that. To connect those two ideas, I think that one of the identifying things about those outlets is their age, that they've been around for a long time and they have a very established way of doing it.

So if you're writing for a New York Times or Washington Post, L.A. Times, like, if you're a movie critic there, you have the kind of power of that longstanding institution behind you where, yeah, if you're writing for like movie reviews.com, like that, who knows what that is, that just kind of came around? It just doesn't have that weight behind it. Yeah. I wonder also if the awards aspect of this is something that will change over time for games as well. Like I, we always kind of joke around about the game awards and I call it gaming's biggest night. But it's not, we don't have as many sort of professionalized awards shows or like sort of press-affiliated awards shows that we could all band together and sort of withhold, let's say, Bethesda from or Blizzard from or whoever, whatever studio you want to imagine. Like that's another bargaining chip that these film critics seemingly had.

Like the New York Film Critic Circle, I guess, is one of the ones that disqualified Disney for consideration if they didn't change their stance. I mean, there certainly are small video game award. There's a New York video game critic circle, for example, but it's very small. I mean, there's triple click picks. Oh, well, yeah. That's becoming larger and larger every day. Every year. Should we refuse to include Bethesda games until they unpack us?

Yep, that's why Starfield isn't on the list. That's the only reason. Yeah, that's the main reason. Excellent game otherwise. We all loved it. I can't think of any other reason why it wouldn't be there. Okay, all right. On that note, why don't we take a break and then we'll be back with one more thing?

I'm Jordan Cruciola, host of Feeling C, where we start by asking our guests just one question. What movie character made you feel seen? I knew exactly what it was. Clementine from Eternal Sunshine. of the spotless mind. Joy Wang slash Jobu Tupacchi. That one question launches amazing conversations about their lives, the movies they love,

and about the past, present, and future of entertainment. Roy in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I worry about what this might say about me, but I've brought Tracy Flick in the film election. So if you like movies, diverse perspectives, and great conversations, check us out. Oof, this is real. New episodes of feeling scene drop every week

on maximum fun.org. Oh my gosh, hi, it's me Dave Holmes, host of the pop culture game show Troubled Waters. On Troubled Waters, we play a whole host of games, like one where I describe a show using Limerick and our guests have to figure out what it is. Let's do one right now. What show am I talking about?

This podcast has game after game and brilliant guests who come play him. The host is named Dave. It could be your faith, so try it. Life won't be the same. A big business starring Beth Midler and Lily Tomlin. Close, but no. Oh, is it Troubled Waters, the pop culture quiz show with all your favorite comedians?

Yes, Troubled Waters is the answer. To this question and all of my life's problems. Now, legally, we actually can't guarantee that. But you can find it on maximum fun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. And we are back, Kirk. And it's time for one more thing. Kirk, kick us off. All right.

I'm going to kick us off with a video game that I've been playing that I really dig. That's very cool. Yeah, I want to play this game. Yeah, I wonder. if some folks out there will not have heard of it. So I'm excited to get to spread the good word. This is a game called El Paso Elsewhere. It's out on Windows, PC, and Xbox.

And it's very, very cool. And kind of, it's an interesting timing for it to come out because it is very much a tribute to old school remedy and specifically to Max Payne. So if you grew up like I did playing Max Payne on PC and you really love those old Max Payne games, then I think you will probably like El Paso elsewhere. So this game is made by a studio called Strange Scaffold. It's really overseen by

one guy who's kind of the creative force behind it. Zalavir Nelson Jr. is his name. I hope I'm pronouncing that right. He is the, I think the writer, like director of the game. He's also the voice actor who plays the main character, a character named James Savage. So he's the Sam Lake, if you will. Yeah, he very much is. Very much in the mold of Max Payne. Though he does not have, he doesn't really have a face at all, and it's one interesting thing about this game, is that it's very low poly, it moves super fast, and it looks very old, and the characters almost look like puppets, the way they barely have faces, and they turn and rotate and move almost like marionettes, and then, you know, are accompanied by this extremely angsty and overwrought

voiceover, very much like Max Payne, if anyone's played it. And then at times, rap music comes on, wrapped by Nelson, by the protagonist of the game, we'll begin rapping. And at first I was like, okay, this is a bridge too far. But then I kind of stuck with it, and it really does work, or at least it works for me. It's a very specific slice of pie, but it has a lot of interesting flavors.

So the premise of this game is that James Savage's ex Dracula is basically a lady Dracula and is in the process of beginning the process of ending the work. So she's like starting the ritual to kill everyone. And she's summoned a bunch of draculas and her, sorry, summon a bunch of vampires. She's the only Dracula. She's summoned a bunch of draculas and Frankenstines and Wolfman. There's a bunch of monsters, like undead monsters and whatever.

And he has to fight his way to her. And also he reveals this in a pretty effective opening cutscene that kind of sets the tone for the game where it started and I was like, okay, what are they doing here? And then the cut scene played out and I was like, okay, that was actually pretty cool. let's see what this has to offer. And the story winds up being really neat. The premise is sort of that they're broken up. So as much as it's a story about him fighting to save the world,

it's also a story about a failed relationship. And they'll have these scenes where they see each other. And they both speak in this kind of Max Payney, you know, overwrought, intense way. But they're really tearing at each other emotionally. Like it really is kind of this intense emotional story. And also he is an addict who has been cleaned for many years. But because this is basically a Max Payne, game, he has to take painkillers to heal himself. So he's broken with his sobriety in order to save the

world. And he's like making this sacrifice and kind of going through this relapse during the game. And so it really works. I don't know. It came out of nowhere. Russ Frustick told me about it because we were talking about Alan Wake 2, a game that we're both madly in love with. And I like love everything that Remedy makes. And he's like, dude, I know it's at the exact same time as Alan Wake 2, but you've got to play this game. So I went and checked it out. And I really, I really do dig it. It's very, very cool. I gather it's not super long. It's not really complicated.

It plays just like Max Payne, bullet time, diving, press the tab button to take painkillers and heal yourself. You're doing guns akimbo. It's the whole thing. It really feels like playing the original Max Payne back in 99 or 2000 or whatever that game came out. But anyways, I really recommend it. It's a little indie gem made by someone with a very clear vision who I think has a lot

of talent and feels like someone who's going to make a lot of very cool games down the road as well. So that's called El Paso Elsewhere. It's on PC and Xbox and it rules. Cool. Maddie, what's your own more thing? My One More Thing is a movie that I have been dreading, watching for many years. It's called Us. It was by Jordan Peel, one of my favorite creators of all kinds. I'm obsessed with Nope. It's one of my favorite movies ever made. I've watched it multiple times. Of course, get out. It's a masterpiece. but like nope is one of the greatest movies ever and I yes I also think about it all the time but I've

stuck in my brain I've seen pretty much every other Jordan peel thing that exists the bad stuff good why have you been terrified to see because I don't know man it's freaking scary I don't know I saw the trailer for us and just the trailer gave me nightmares because just the idea of having a perfect doppelganger of myself that is trying to take over my life I don't know why but that really freaks me out I don't I don't know if I can explain why but there's also like It's a home invasion horror. It is a home invasion horror. He does different pastiches, right?

Like, Nope is alien invasion. And home invasion horror, like funny games, those kinds of movies where someone's in your house. Funny games and like the strangers, if you've heard of that movie where it's just the masked people who invade a home. And there's no reason for them to invade. It's completely meaningless. Like that I think is uniquely scary because you're like, oh, this can't be explained at all. And I think Get Out and even Nope have very tidy explanations, even if they have sort of an absurd scenario. as Nope does, you can kind of map together what's being said.

But a lot of us is just plain unsettling. It's just like, I don't know why it's like that. It's crazy, man. Why is Lupita Niango talking that way? Yes. Yeah. It's like, what is going on other than Lupita Nyango playing herself and then another version of herself that's way freaking scarier and doing amazing.

Both versions. One of the most incredible performances I've like ever seen. I can't believe she didn't win an Oscar for this. but of course genre fiction never wins. Anyway, I'm glad I finally watched it. It's actually a lot less scary than the trailer is. Like, the trailer is a work of art of its own. It front loads the horror.

It gets a lot less scary after like 30 minutes or something. Yeah, or even after like 15 minutes. Like once the doppelgators show up and they're already there, the movie kind of wasn't scary for me anymore because I was like, okay, now I know what we're dealing with and we're going to fight the doppelangers. Yeah, I remember it being more weird than scary. Right. It's a mystery.

eventually. You're just like, okay, so what is going on? And that drives the rest of the movie. I really liked the explanation for what was going on, too. Like, I know some people were kind of like, uh, it didn't explain enough. To me, I don't understand the ending. I thought it was great.

I loved the ending. I thought it was really, really cool. And I've been thinking about it since I saw it, but not in a nightmare where just in a cool way where I'm really glad that I finally watched it and I conquered my fears. So I recommend it. If anybody's like, I'm actually really scared of this because I saw the trailer. You're going to be okay because I watched it.

and I was okay and you're going to be okay. And I'm even playing Alan Wake 2, a really scary game. So I'm like the bravest person in the universe right now. And you are too, listener. Alan Way 2 is scarier than us. It is actually a lot scary. No, I'm serious. It's really any jump scares.

We're not that many jump scares in us. Yeah, us doesn't really have jump scares. Anyway, it's a good movie. It's on Netflix right now. It is. By the way, we're going to do Triple Play in Allen Week 2 next week. We are. People are wondering since we've all mentioned this.

Yeah, we're all talking about it. All I want to do is talk about it. I know. Yeah, I'm not going to have that much time to play it since I'm going to Orange County. I'm going to have endless time to play it, but I'll barely be able to do it because it's the scariest game. I'm going to finish it. I can't stop. Just play it during the day.

I am playing it during the day. Oh, don't worry, Jason. I am playing it during the day. Next week, next week. My warmer thing is also a movie. I went to the movie feature last week and saw Killers of the Flowers of the Flowers. Moon, the new movie by Martin Scorsese, based in the book by David Grant. And it's really good.

My immediate thought leaving the theater was like, wow, I haven't been. So the last few years, since like pre-COVID, I haven't been to the movie theater except to see Marvel movies for whatever reason. That's just like how things worked out. What would Marty think is? Very common, I think. And so going and then after leaving Killers of the Flower Moon, I was like, whoa, it's so cool to actually see a movie that feels like a movie.

and not like something that is like designed to solve toys. Mostly people talking and like brands, you know, not like to CTI action. It was a movie. It's like it feels like a picture, as Marty would call it. So yeah, but also it's really good. It tells a really good story. It's a really horrifying story that I think I will leave it to people to watch and discover

because it's really riveting the way that Martin Scorsesey tells a story. It's like three hours and some change, like three hours, 20 minutes or something. But it actually doesn't feel that long because, Scorsese is such a master just like making you gripped and compelled and want to see every second of the film he's showing and the story he's telling.

The one takeaway I had was that Leo DiCaprio playing a stupid person is actually extremely entertaining. Usually Leo as an actor, I mean, he's got a ton of range, but usually the roles he's playing are kind of like sharp people who like are good at what they do, whether it's like a,

a scoundrel in Titanic who's just like a great card player Catch me if you can is another great example Inception, Wolf of Wall Street Yes, we can Should we list all of the Leo movies? They're all sharp characters though

That is true For sure, especially Wolf of Wall Street Especially he's like He's the center of gravity for this company And for this entire like he is He is a wolf of Wall Street right So watching him play this like Shlub who like doesn't follow things

That is like clearly being or at least letting himself be manipulated by his uncle to do horrible things. It's really riveting, and you're not rooting for him or anything like that, but you are certainly compelled by him in a really interesting way. And yeah, the story of the O's age, really tragic and really interesting, and I felt like I came out of this movie just like a little angry, but also just felt feeling like I learned an interesting piece of history and kind of America's, an interesting continuation of America's, or original sin that I think is a really just really compelling story. And there's a lot of really

interesting just kind of ambiguity. I think a lot of people, I've seen people critique this movie and critiques Scorsese in general for like glamorizing violence and awful things, especially with Wolf of Wall Street, where it does, where people have come out of that movie being like, oh, look, he's glamorizing this lifestyle. Really a lot of them, Goodfellas Casino. And I've never felt that way. I've always felt like he just leaves it to the reader to understand what's going on in this movie especially because so much of it is about the love story between the main character Leo's Ernest Burkart and his wife who is an Osage woman named Molly Burckhart and he I won't spoil all the details or anything but like you're kind of wondering you're left wondering like does he love her

does he not love her what's the deal here what is this relationship and I think Scorsese really just kind of diving into those contradictions is where he does his best work and I really enjoyed the film from that level too. I remember having that thought about Molly and Ernest when reading the book as well, which is recently one more thing and I talked about it. You know, I just watched Wolf of All Street over the weekend. Leo is so incredible in that movie. I'd never seen it before.

Oh, man. Oh, that's so funny. Wow. I know. I just kind of never did. And to that critique, I would say, first of all, just, I guess to Leo first, the sequence where he's high on Kualo's and, like, trying to get into his car is one of the most incredible, like, physical before.

I've ever seen. I didn't know that was in that movie. Oh, man. How does not, everyone not talk about that? And him and Jonah Hill, like, fighting over the phone. They did. They did. So it's a whole thing. Because I was watching it.

I was like, this has to be a whole thing. I did not know Leo had that. If you ever read like Scorsese breakdowns, people are like Leo breakdowns. Yeah, yeah, they talk about. You're just in the club now. The stairs getting longer when he looks at them and they're short when he falls down. That movie is incredible. But yeah, I mean, did you think it glamorized?

So I do think that Scorseseezy, by virtue of being such a, brilliant filmmaker, it's hard not to have a good time watching his movies. And so when you're watching a bunch of horrible people being horrible, which that movie is like nasty people, just being truly, like, amoral, it is so much fun because of the way the camera moves, because of his control over what he's showing you, that it's impossible not to just be sucked in. And because your point of view character is the wolf of Wall Street himself, you feel like you're like getting a first class, like, tour of being a sociopath. And so it's like, who this is really, fun. Wow, I could, what if I just broke every rule, man? I guess it would be crazy like this.

But I would have guessed, and I haven't seen Colors of the Flower and Moon yet, that the, the presence of Molly alone is kind of a, like, balancing moral presence in the film. Like, there is no character like that in Wolf of Wall Street. Like, it's really just him. Like, the whole thing is kind of through his perspective. You get the sense of the harm that he's causing to other people around him, but it's very backgrounded, where I would think that by focusing on Ernest and Molly, and then also just the obvious moral weight of what's happening of the story of that film. I don't know. I'm really, really interested to see it anyways. I don't want to theorize too much about a movie I haven't seen. Yeah, there's no glamour of anything in Killers of the Flower,

but the bigger question I think that people might have critically is, like, is this movie asking you to root for Ernest Burckhardt when he's clearly this awful person? And that I'll leave people to judge for themselves. But yeah, I mean, I do think that, like, my takeaway was like Scorsese is clearly saying something here and I don't really think he needs to like make it any less subtle, especially after watching the end of Fall of the House of the Usher, which was my one more thing last week. And the end of that is literally just like, they might as well put subtitles that are like, here is what, here is exactly what we are trying to say with this. Like wealth is bad. Like, it's pharmaceutical companies suck. They should all die.

It's like worse than that. Oh my God. I haven't finished it yet. We were. the ending. It's very cheap thrills, but very fun. Text me when you get to the ending, because it's just, I groaned in my bed watching it. Anyway, um, Keltz of the Flower Moon. It's great. Everyone should go see it, especially, I mean, it was so much fun watching in the theaters. Also, I expected that I would need to go to the bathroom like three times, but I did not. So, for what it's worth, I think you can make it through three and a half hours of watching this film in theaters, which I really enjoyed. Inspiring. All right, that is it for this week's episode. Thank you again to everybody who submitted questions,

and we will see you all next week. Yeah, see you next week. Bye. Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode

may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpod. Send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes.

Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network of artists-owned shows. Supported directly by you.