Video Gamers Podcast - Women in Gaming: The Stories We Don’t Hear Enough | Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Gaming host John sits down with two incredible female gamers - Liz and Devin - to explore what it’s really like being a woman in today’s gaming world. They get real about role models in video games, underrepresentation of female games, and the best gaming foods (coming from a pro-chef), it’s a candid conversation packed with real stories, laughs, and valuable insight. All the video game news and discussions you need, every week, right here on the Video Gamers Podcast! FOLLOW Liz - https://www.instagram.com/lizzy.lizard.96/ FOLLOW Devin - https://www.instagram.com/devin.brenna/ Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, and Phelps Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Hey, everyone. John here with Video Gamers Pod with a special message in advance of this week's episode. One of our guests, Liz, took the time after we recorded this episode to share a very personal but sensitive story about her path through life and how gaming affected her at different parts of her life. Now there's parts of this that are very sensitive in nature and wouldn't fit our normal format, but we would like your opinion. There is a poll if you're listening to this on Spotify that should take you just a minute or less to fill out literally just

an option and we would love your opinion. Please take a moment to open up your Spotify player now and click one of the options so we can get a great opinion from our audience. Thank you very much and enjoy the show. Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Gaming has come a long way since entering homes in the 80s, and so has the community. And yet, gender representation still seems like it has a long way to go. Today we're joined by two awesome female gamers to talk about what it's like being a woman in the gaming world. We're going to dive into what got them into gaming, their experiences as females in the

gaming world, and how the scene is evolving. But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host, John, and joining me today are Liz. Hi, John. Happy. And and Devin. Hey John. So right out of the gate I wanted to give people a little bit of insight into how we know each other. How do we know each other? Well I see you every single day. Literally every single day and why do you see me every day Liz? Well I manage a restaurant and this is our chef and you come in and get coffee and pastries every single morning.

It'd be nice if they'd let me work there. Yeah. So people have been listening to the show for a while. I drink a toxic amount of coffee primarily. Yeah, that's true. My doctor would probably argue, but I sleep like two to three hours a night on average. And what? What more do you need? I guess not a lot. I feel like I

function pretty well given the little amount of sleep that I get. But the coffee is oh my gosh, it's like medicinal to me at this point. And my wife bakes for a charity. And so I have a unhealthy addiction to sugar as well. And these guys are my purveyor of two of my favorite addictions So, uh Liz how long have you been working at at the restaurant? I've been there for eight years in various capacities Okay, and Devon I've been there like one and a half years now one and a half years so the reason this all came to be, guys, is my wife and I run a chapter for a charity

called For Goodness Cakes where we deliver birthday cakes and celebration cakes to kids that are in either emergency shelters or foster care. And because we have this relationship with this restaurant, they were the first people that we asked to potentially host a volunteer appreciation event. And Liz and Devin were kind enough not only to volunteer their space, but also volunteer their talents and their wares to our awesome volunteers. And from that sort of evolved this conversation, you know, we got to know each other a little better. And I threw out this, Hey, and by the way, you know, I happen to work on a podcast. And if either of you guys happen to be gamers, or if anybody there happens to be a gamer, you know, be kind of cool to do just a little like impromptu gamers in the wild sort of

segment. And wouldn't you know, they're both like, yeah, we actually both game. So I wanted to talk to you guys a bit about this. How did you get into gaming, Liz? For me, it was my dad. He was always a big gamer. He grew up with the OG Atari systems. That was always his thing. Movies and video games were the way that he and I were able to like bond

and connect. Being able to like bond over these amazing games and these cool, you know, fantasy lands that we both got really into was the way that we did that. And so then it was just, you know, kind of history from there. Did you have a favorite game that you guys played together? SSX3 was the first one that we got super, super into, and he would always beat me, and this was when I was super young.

So then I just, I logged hours and hours while he was busy with work playing that game so that I could kick his butt every single time. And then he slowly started not liking to play with me as much. Just because he was slimmer. Yeah, I was not as fun. And then, you know, he slowly started not liking to play with me as much as It's so funny I think that there's so many things out there like Playing a piano playing video games learning a language that if you don't

Start when you're young or you just have like an edge when you start when you're young and I think you're learning curve is so Much shorter for whatever reason I can imagine that would be pretty frustrating. Yeah, what about you? Similar to Liz My like we grew up kind of poor and my parents were super excited whenever they were able to afford first of PlayStation the original and then we got a PlayStation 4 and my are I'm sorry PlayStation 2 and my sister and I would play like crash bandicoot together and Spyro together and she was way better on like the Harry Potter games where you'd have to do the button combinations to make the potions and everything and Like I made it my life's goal to be able to do those and

like do them well and not need any help with that. Yeah. With the PlayStation 2, we had those game connectors, or adapters where you can plug in for controllers into it and play like four people game. And like the whole family we wouldn't just play like champions and champions in or like those types of games. Nice Yeah, and just like it was we kept it in the family. How many siblings? Yeah, just one older Okay, and is she currently still a gamer? Um, she like passively. Yeah, like her and her husband They'll turn on like a nice fun like RPG game and Like passively. Yeah, like her and her husband they'll turn on like a nice fun um, like rpg game And they'll play that together to unwind after the night

Nice, and did you have siblings growing up? I have one little sister, but she's eight years younger than me um got it She never got like super into video games. She would play a little bit with my dad but like when the Wii came out, she got one of those for Christmas and it was still when she was really young. So I think we had like the, what was it for the Frozen game or something or no, there was a, I don't know, like one of the princess games. So we'd get, you know, super down and dirty with it.

I don't know, one of the princess games. Yeah, right. So we'd get super down and dirty with it. Nice. So when you were growing up, I mean, obviously you had your sister, but were there a lot of female gamers? Did you know a lot of female gamers when you were growing up? My best friend in elementary school, she also liked to play games. We, I think probably an entire weekend, no slept, or no sleep, played Gauntlet, Dark Legacy,

start to finish, was getting all the characters, just trying to perfect that game. And yeah, that was like, but that was the only person I really talked to and connected with. Like everyone else just like their Barbies and to do like fun little girly things, which like, cool for you. But I just was more games and bionicles. Did you feel like, what was your experience? Liz, did you have any female friends growing up the played games? Mine was pretty similar.

I did have some female friends growing up, but I was mostly friends with guys. So then I'd end up playing video games with them. I had my Game Boy Advance, my friend Adam and I kind of play against each other. This was in elementary school, so it's not like we're doing anything crazy. I don't know. I was pretty competitive back on the school year. But yeah, we I didn't really know a lot of other girls that play games. I'm sure that they did maybe. But you know, if they did, like we didn't talk about it. And I do feel like I didn't share a lot of interests with girls my age.

Gotcha. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Do you do you think that there is something to that? Like, were you ever like, I don't know, was there any like feeling of like, otherness or something where you felt like you, you like shouldn't talk about it kind of thing? Or was there like any societal stuff? Not necessarily. Like I never felt ousted for it.

Like if I ever talked about it, and this goes like up until now, like if I ever say that I play video games, 99% of the time the reaction that I get is, oh, that's awesome, what do you play? From people that have played games or like from people that like have never played games in their life, they're like, cool.

You know? Yeah, like no the yellow kind of thing yeah yeah that was my experience at least pretty similar experience like uh i had all growing up i sort of just surrounded myself more with people who like to game um so whenever like my guy friends or they found out that like I played games like oh cool like similar to Liz and Yeah, I was never like Except for like in the lobbies like they treat you a little bit different. We'll get to that. Yeah Yeah, no like among my my peers there's always like oh cool like It's just like another hobby like skateboarding or... I think it's just like we both had pretty good communities.

Yeah. You know, like I didn't surround myself with negative people and like if there were people that like weren't the nicest people, then I just wasn't friends with them. So they didn't even have a chance to go, you're a gamer, that's a good rule. So it kind of prevents you from even having that experience in the first place. It's interesting because when I was growing up, I'm a kid of the 80s, and so there was certainly sort of like a different culture. It was like boys played with Ninja Turtles and G.I.

Joes and girls played with Polly Pocket and Barbie. And as you know, sort of gender norms started breaking down, it felt a bit more blended. But gaming was certainly like a guy's thing. Like my growing up, my sister and I grew up with like Star Wars and Princess Bride and all these nerdy IPs and stuff, and she's just as into them as I am, but she never got into gaming even though she had an equal opportunity to do that. And even now, you know, I agree with your statement about surrounding yourself with good people. I think ultimately you are like who you hang out with to some degree or at least it's very representative of who you are. And one of the things I'm most proud of with this podcast is that we have like a Discord community

of about a thousand people with no moderators. It's like the most positive welcoming, like place inclusive place where it's just very casual. Everybody is just there for their love of the gaming. And there's this sort of social infrastructure that exists where when you come into this community, you know you at least have something in common with everybody else in there. But even today the representation is 85% male,

15% female. Yeah. Why do you think that is? 15% female. That's why. Yeah. Why do you think that is? I mean, I have a theory and obviously like I don't have any data to back this up. I do think that a lot of girls do play games. I just think that a lot of girls aren't as loud about it. Like, I think for men and I don't obviously want to generalize for all men, but it's a lot easier to make it like part of your personality Like you know, this is like a part of who I am. I'm like a gamer, you know And that's like kind of like yeah us guys have a lot going on

You know, that's not your whole identity But it is and it's part of like bro culture like you like are able to connect with other guys that way and that's that's awesome but I think like for women, like, you know, and maybe this ties into like their experiences in online gaming or something, but they're just a little bit quieter about it. Or maybe they prefer to play like, kind of like single player, not online games,

where it's just you go and you enjoy the story a little bit more and it's less about like, well, I don't know. Well, I mean, that is my preferred method of gaming too. Usually when I'm gaming, it's to get away from all this. It's to escape this reality and sink into something else and kind of just unplug for a bit. Yeah. But I hear what you're saying.

There is a pretty avid eSports slash competitive community out there where it is very bro-y if you'd call it that. And I can see that if you didn't, you know, if you didn't either grow- I don't think that's a bad thing. No. It just kind of is a thing though. It is a thing. And I could see it being like a barrier of entry for people who aren't built that way.

You know, again, self-include, like again, I, I work on a gaming podcast and we do community gaming nights with like, uh, Marvel rivals and halo infinite and stuff, which are like super sweaty games. And like, I'm like, this is too much. Way too much. But I think that's the type of game you're into, right? It's actually playing marvel rivals Um, it was like my second time playing it the other day at my boyfriend's house while he was doing his school work

And um, I just casually went like 24 in one What were you a fortnight player or And he's like how many i'm like 20 24 Wait, what? That's like pro level. But no, didn't I? I couldn't get into Fortnite. It just felt too like PUBG meant Minecraft. And I'm like, I want to do like one or the other. Like, I can't do both. Interesting. Interesting. Who did you main? If you don't mind me asking, who was your character that you? On Rivals? Yeah. Oh man

I don't know her name cuz like like I said, I only played it like two times in my life But she she's fairly new and she's this diamond Using diamond attacks. Yeah. Yeah, that's uh, oh my gosh I'm like a comic book dork too, but this is this is what being on camera does to you. Yeah. Emma Frost. Yeah. Yeah, that is really impressive, honestly. Like I'm a pretty avid gamer. I game like for a living, more or less for a living.

And like every time I plug into that game, I get skunked. Actually, like my ineptedness at playing these types of online games has been a huge deterrent for me, aside from the competitive culture at it. It's like, I just got sick of getting schooled by 12 and 13 year olds. It's really demoralizing. Just like sucks your spirit. It feels my, my spite drive.

You're gonna go fight my boyfriend over this. What are you playing besides Rivals? I'll play. Right now we're playing split fiction, which is so much fun. Yeah. And then destiny just came out with like their last expansion, their last DLC that they're doing and I've poured like the last 10 years of my life into that game. Yeah, I was D1 day one. But so going to be getting back into that it's just relearning the new meta. It can be exhausting and then like going in there and all your main loadouts are now nerfed. And you have to learn like all everything else and you're getting schooled by things that you've never even heard of. You can't even pronounce anymore. Right. And it's just like, this is tight.

Yeah, it's interesting. You mentioned Destiny, one of our other hosts, Ryan, he's put like, I think, close to 2000 hours into Destiny 2. I don't even want to see how many I've put in. Do you think it's more than that? Yeah. Ah, that's awesome. I took a full week and a half off of work whenever Destiny 2 came out.

And just- That is commitment. From whenever I woke up to whenever I went to bed, like I slept maybe four hours. So that entire span, I did nothing but like on my couch playing it over and over on all three of my characters. I made a hunter, but I wanted to have like my Titan and my warlock up in rank as well. And godly. I did you get like bed sores?

No, Um, and godly. I know that is commitment right there. I think I probably my gaming habits fall more in line with yours, Liz. Like I don't know that I've ever taken work off to go game before, but like the other two hosts like certainly do are actually other three hosts certainly do. That is a level of commitment. that is my 21st birthday was a LAN party. Friday the 13th man that is so fun. The only time I did something like that was we had is when uncharted 3 came out and my dad went to Costco. We bought a bunch of snacks and we stayed up for 24 hours and we just took turns playing this game together It was so much fun. It sounds amazing Yeah Man, I mean taking off work

Yeah, it's funny Like so I play a lot more video games now than I did prior to coming on the show because now I have like an excuse To do it and I've tried to get my wife into gaming several different times and she's very generous about it. Like she'll give everything a try, but she's just, she'd rather do like real world stuff. So I'm like playing, I'm playing the new doom right now and she'll come and sit by me for like 10 minutes and then like go work and like on charities and stuff. And I'm like, you're making me feel bad here.

Like, you know, do something like go out. Just a skate for a minute, it's fine. But one of the positives that I've been able to pull out of gaming, and it's actually something that I've like, I've tried to get a lot of real world utility from, this kind of goes back to, I guess, my movie habits growing up, you know, I used to watch a lot of real world utility from. This kind of goes back to, I guess, my movie habits growing up. You know, I used to watch a lot of Disney movies and like Princess Bride and Star Wars, things that had like real strong hero characters. And, you know, we've had some

discussions about this offline, but I grew up very, very anxious. And I got to a point in my, I'll say my 20ss where I started to like actually utilize some of this like hero warship that I grew up with to Lift myself out of these anxious states and I'm like, okay John is really scared right now But like what is Luke Skywalker doing like Luke's fine, you know, like like he might be scared too, but you're gonna do it anyway did you or are you able to like extract like Positive role models out of gaming was that ever something that like resonated with you? Absolutely I mean, I know that like

I'm gonna use this example because like she gets a lot of crap for As like a female lead in a game, but Lara Croft, when those games came out, like, she was awesome to me, I wanted to be Lara Croft, like she was independent, she didn't need no man. And she you know, she's going off on these great adventures, she's super strong and powerful and smart. And that that was like, she was literally my I also had a crush on her. But you know, also literally, yeah, they're awakening. Yeah, for sure. How about you? Um, yeah, I'll pull from like, I don't I don't say I have a strong female lean.

But it would be like, you know, the resilience of Kratos, the sly and like cunningness of like Sly Cooper, you know, just anyone I sort of played. I would say my biggest. Influence, though, would be Sora from Kingdom Hearts. Yeah, a lot of people in our Discord are like loving you right now. He's like, Kingdom Hearts has got a huge fandom. I just felt like my parents, they're always working and everything and I played the Kingdom Hearts games like so much and just learning how he navigated life his thoughtfulness and kindness and thinking

about like other people I learned a lot of I guess morals and values from that and his courage and like facing his fears, even though he doesn't know. He's just some kid from an island and now he's hanging out with a big dog and a duck. And he's the chosen one with his keyblade. How scary is that? And he's just taking every challenge face on. It's like, yeah, just don't think, just do it, for it and you know what's the worst that's gonna happen? I think that's kind of a cool point because we were talking the other day you know after you

kind of sent some like notes over and thinking like okay like were there any like female leads in video games that we kind of looked up to and what we had kind of landed on was that like we both related to all characters regardless of their gender and like were able to identify with and find traits in all of these different games that we played that that we were able to like align with and see so like even though it wasn't like you know a woman protagonist like we're still able to be like oh that's like something I want to emulate or also sometimes it's just it's not that deep like sometimes it's just a place to go and be safe and live in this like fantasy land you know right

you don't have to put a bunch of weight into this is my escapism yeah you can be both like it just kind of depends on the situation and what phase of life you're in yeah I love you and I think like many things you pull out of it what you need from it at the time. Yeah. Yeah, I remember very distinctly growing up, like Star Wars was probably like my first IP that like I really, really loved. And the first person that I remember having a really strong sort of like heroic attachment

to was Leia, because I go, okay, well, like, Han's not really a good guy. He's kind of like forced into this role where he like kind of has to be a good guy. But like, you know, he's kind of a murderer. Yeah. And like Luke, you know, he's like a he's like the son of the most powerful Jedi ever. And he's a Jedi and he's got all these magical powers that I'm never going to have. But like Leia, I remember being in the situation where like, it would have been very easy to sort of like typecast the role as a, you know, token princess sort of character. But she like took her very first line, she takes charge of the situation. And

even though she's just like, for all intents and purposes, a regular person in a world, a universe full of horrors, she's like, we got to get this done, guys. And that was something that I really admired about the character through the, you know, through her story arc, even, you know, the the new, the new movies that people didn't like so much. But I liked it a lot. But actually, you touched on Lara Croft being somebody that you looked up to. That is actually a character that has, I think, grown very well with the times. When that character came out in the old, it was a PS1 title, if I remember correctly.

It was like a puzzle action game that came out and was groundbreaking, rightly so at the time. But it was designed for a different audience and as the, you know, the gaming community has evolved, I think they have done a really good job at refreshing the character so that it's not just, you know, some caricature of something. I think with Lara Croft, the thing about her is like, she's always had a really powerful character and she just so happens to be attractive. Yeah, that's not her main feature.

Yeah, like Chris Helmsworth. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, come on. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, you, how much online gaming have you done? Done. None?

No, I played when Modern Warfare 2 came out and Black Ops 1, I played with my dad a little bit, but as far as like my own online gaming, I've never been super interested in it. Not for any particular reason other than I have a very small social battery and my entire job is being social. So like when I get home, like the only person I can really tolerate is my partner. And the only thing I want to do is play video games. It's because I want to get like, I want to to have some fun and like a cool story or spend some time doing it with her or something like that. I just don't necessarily feel like being competitive or talking or engaging with others. But yeah, a roomful of strangers oftentimes.

Yeah. Yeah, I, that's my nightmare. I really enjoy talking to strangers face to face, but there's something that happens with a particular very vocal segment of the population where when you take away, like when you place anonymity in there, they just act like animals. And I remember I was actually working at Blockbuster. I don't know if you guys shopped at Blockbuster. Oh yes. Every Friday. All right. I can't even lay now.

All right, P. But I worked at Blockbuster in one of their store-in-store concepts that was like a video game store. It was one of the very first video game rush managers at Blockbuster. And we did a LAN party to celebrate Halo 2 for its release and it was like the first time. So we did a LAN party, but we also plugged in and did like online gaming. It was my very first experience online gaming. And like right away I had this like terrible experience. You know, people were throwing out all sorts of obscenities.

And it was like immediately, as soon as you started playing, people were like negative to complete strangers. And it was like, I don't know. I don't know that I have the durability for this. This is not me. Again, I kind of wanted to just have fun. It's one thing if you're in a room full of friends and you can like kind of just like give each other a little nudge on, I'm just messing around.

But it seems interesting that it's such a you know prevalent feature of the online gaming community. I mean it takes away the consequences you know like if I'm talking to you and I say something horrible like I have to see it on your face and I have to like know your reaction and look at you as like a real human being but it's like you know it all related to like being on Instagram or Facebook or something like that Like you you don't have to know how it makes someone else feel like you're just like for all you can imagine Is you're just talking to a bunch of robots? So like why do you have to care about what you're feeling right? What other what someone else is feeling?

I guess right right and we should be caring what the robots think about us because that's that's coming real soon It's coming real soon. But now you've done quite a bit more online gaming, is that correct? Yeah. So tell me about that experience. I think it's important to note that the experiences we're talking about here are very subjective. They're only speaking for themselves here, but I would love to hear your experience as a female They get spicy But I just feel like it helps It helps you kind of be able to learn how to let things like roll off of you not take anything too seriously Because you know like Liz said like this is and you said this is a too seriously. Cause you know, like Liz said, like this is,

and you said, this is a complete stranger online. Like they don't know you. They, you know, attack my weight, make fun of, you know, like being a woman, the stereotypes telling me like, how'd you get your Xbox, your PlayStation in the kitchen? And I'm like, very strategically. Yeah. Very carefully. Yes. With my hands. How'd you get your Xbox, your PlayStation in the kitchen? And I'm like, very strategically.

With my hands. That's, that's a good handle. I'm like, come on. Top of the leaderboard after they're like, you know, talking all this mess at me. And like, how's the weather like down there? And they're just like, shut up. Um, so there's like that aspect. So why they're like down there and they're just like showed up So there's like that aspect and sometimes like I go in there and they just like don't care Which is like super cool. Like I'll be like, hey, I'm planning at B and they're like, okay cool Like we'll be you know, is this that and I'm like, okay tight or it's just like I'm planning at B and it's just like heavy breathing

It's just like I'm planning at being it's just like heavy breathing and And then I have like a like a softer voice sometimes like especially whenever I'm going into the lobby for the first time and Your customer service voice and no I'm just like hey guys like my customer service voice It's like Mickey Mouse. Yeah. But that was three of the worst Mickey Mouse impressions I've ever heard in my life. Rude. But then they think that I'm a 12 year old boy, which sometimes I just I'm like, this is better than them.

Have you noticed things getting better or worse? Is it kind of the same? Same? Yeah, which sometimes, me and one of my friends, she lives in Michigan, but we actually reconnected. I would stream and she came on to my Twitch stream one time and was watching me play and then we got back into playing together. So we'll hop on like Call of Duty and go into search and destroy and you know, like you have to be in the game chats. And just whenever we're feeling like being menaces, we'll like to stir the pie and like engage.

Be fun that it like kind of fuels your fire a little bit like you take on a challenge is like I get to like assert my dominance a little bit. Here we go guys. Yeah they like they you know kind of like an underdog they they don't expect anything from us and then I'm like we're over there just carrying the team. Yeah. And then they can start to like cool off, you know, sometimes especially if we're on the same team, then they're like, Yeah, you're actually pretty cool and stuff.

And I have a Julie. Thanks. I have a long term friend join my stream and would be a consistent person in there. And like to this day, this was like about 10 years ago and to this day like we're still friends Yeah, and like we've like played destiny together and like night Friday and I Feel like you know if you're looking for that That spiciness you can definitely find it

But if you're looking for those good and solid connections, you can definitely find that too. So it's wherever you're feeding your energy. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And we, not that long ago, had a guest on the show named Jamie Madigan. He's a author and a psychologist, and not a psychologist in the conventional, you know, like tell me about your childhood kind of way, but a psychologist who works in the practical

applications of psychology. And he actually has written several books, but he wrote a book on the psychology of gaming. And he mentioned, you know, we talked to him about the merits of friendships that come through online gaming. And his position was that, you know, friendships are of equal value, regardless of kind of where they come from, but there's some distinct advantages

that come from online-based or gaming-based friendships in that there is an easy barrier of entrance because again, you have something in common right away and that may lead to other things in common in genuine bonds. But there's also an easy barrier of exit where if you get into a particular community, a spicy community, as you were mentioning, you're like, this isn't really my vibe. You don't have to like back out and say goodbye to everybody and think of reasons not to like talk to everybody

Irish this is my favorite. Goodbye Liz I'm out later guys, maybe that Yeah, that's funny, oh my gosh guys it's it's uh, it's very interesting to have you both on at the same time because you know of course the the kind of like topic that we agreed on is like, what is it like to be a woman who is also a gamer? And you guys have completely different representations of your experience, which is good. I mean, because in reality, like, it's just people gaming, you know?

I mean, the representation is, that's an interesting thing, but I think that the gaming industry is coming quite a long way in, you know, broadening its appeal. Nintendo famously during the Wii period made a console that was for everybody, you know? It was like, I think the first time in gaming where like you could have three or four generations of gamers in the same family playing something because they were just so easy to access and easy to pick up. And I think that as people become more and more comfortable with technology, we'll probably just see a greater integration overall with electronics and gaming type experiences from the entire population.

So, yeah, really, really interesting story, guys. Really interesting stories. Do you mind if I ask you some fun questions? Sure. Okay. These are intended to be super fast, don't think about it answers. Okay? We answer at the same time or? We'll go Liz, De answers. Okay. We'll go we'll go Liz Devon. Okay. Favorite gaming character? Sly Cooper. Sly Cooper. Kratos. Kratos. Nice. What's your favorite go to comfort game? Sky Room. Oh, dang. Probably Skyrim. Skyrim? Yeah. Nice. Did you

guys play the Oblivion remaster yet? Yeah. Yeah, me and my boyfriend, we did a land party with it. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Did you play Expedition 33 yet? No. What's that? Oh my gosh. So it's a turn-based RPG, so you have to like turn-based RPGs. But it is like either one of you guys would. I can't imagine anybody not liking it, unless you just really don't like turn-based games. But this is the finest representation I've seen in probably ever of how far gaming has come from a storytelling perspective.

It's no secret now that gaming is a bigger industry than movies and music combined. I don't know if you know that or not, but this is a, uh, it's a game that was developed by a French studio, an independent French studio, by the way, of like 30 people. And it rivals any gigantic triple A game, maybe surpasses any gigantic triple A game that you've ever seen out there, but they nail every single part of it. The combat is fantastic, the exploration is fantastic, the voice acting is the best I've ever seen. I mean it is like, yeah. So if you get a chance, like we shilled for this game super hard, yeah. And you'll like fall in love with every single character in the game. It is beautiful. It is art in gaming.

So what was that called again? Expedition 33. Expedit, yeah. Trust me, I'll get you the information. We probably created more Expedition 33 fans than any other podcast that I can think of. If you're listening, Sandfall, we would love to come and visit you. Anyway, that's my go-to comfort game house. What's the... this probably isn't relevant to you. What's the worst DM or comment you ever got online?

Probably being accused of using some very high quality sound headphones whenever I don't play with sound volume like at all like in my shooter games I just like know the maps and I know like where the paths that they're going to run so it's either like around this point if the objective is over here and like these many people are dead or like where my last teammate died at my combatant is probably going to come up around like this area. And so I like I went to where I thought that they would be at. They weren't there yet. So I turned around because I knew that they're going to like come up and they did and I like just I got

the shoot on him even though you can see that he saw me first and then it was just very nasty Surprisingly his yeah turtle beaches and his dad was actually who's the Microsoft guy? The amount of Bill Gates' sons I played on. Funny. He's been big. He's been a famous man. I can't afford it. That's so funny.

I can't imagine that Bill Gates' son probably wouldn't have to announce that he's Bill Gates' son. That is too funny. I mean, like, what if, who cares if you were using like high end audio? Like what's the implication? Well, cause he, I guess they thought it was like cheating or that like I was like getting the... But I don't even use any volume anyways. So it's just like in the total opposite direction. I'm just like, just get good. Yeah, that is crazy to me, man. I mean, the amount of heat that people get over the littlest things online

is crazy to me. But I have no doubt. Oh, man, I hope you kept your seats on that. I have no doubt that that escalated somewhere really dumb. It's probably in my Xbox 360 archive somewhere. That's awesome. What about Mario vs. Sonic? Mario. Mario. You guys grew up at the wrong. Well, it's all categorically something like this. Grew up playing, you know?

Yeah, same. And I had a Nintendo, but like my bulk playing was like on a Sega Genesis and I just got a soft spot for the guy. Fair enough. Yeah. What about PC or console? Console. Console? Really? Yeah. Even online? Yeah. Computers just scare me a little bit. They scare me too. I was actually having a good conversation with my buddy Johnny about this. He was talking about his PC having trouble and he's encountering a lot of lag with some of the newer games that are coming out. And he's like, but on my PlayStation, it works fine. And I think there's something

to be said for developers when they go like, okay, the PlayStation is this PlayStation and these are the limits that we have to work with. You can't go over that because it's going to break the system. But components for PCs are always evolving and so they're always pushing the graphical limits and you know oftentimes people can't keep up and stuff and so I feel like objectively there's worse experience. I am also a console gamer most people are PC gamers at this point but good answer guys. Shooters or RPGs? RPGs Feuders. Single player or co-op? Single player. Co-op.

Co-op. Have you played It Takes Two yet? Yeah. My boyfriend and I, we played it just a little bit. It's on his Xbox, but, and yeah, he's, that's his one faulty trait is that he plays Xbox. Um.

I, I've come a long way with Xbox because of their cloud stuff. Like I've been playing Xbox games right now on my TV with no console. Like I just stream it right to my TV, like through a cloud and then my Xbox controller. And for 25 bucks a month, I'm getting like brand new titles. Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, 25 bucks a month, you have getting like brand new titles like oh, that's cool. Yeah, 25 bucks a month You have like a buffet of hundreds of awesome triple-a titles like including brand brand new titles Yeah, I feel like so I did that at my sister's house and we streamed Indiana Jones I just feel like the game by the way. It is a fantastic game Um, I just feel like the quality like kind of suffers you have to have a like I have gig speed but my game. I just feel like the quality kind of suffers. You have to have a... I have gig speed, but my actual connection usually ends up topping out at 500, 600 meg. But at that rate, it's perfect. So it may depend on whatever kind

of connection you were getting at the time, though. But you should check it out. It's freaking awesome. So do you think It Takes two or split fiction would be good games to get non gamers into gaming or do you think? It's a bit too complicated. Um, I would do Probably split fiction first just because the story is so immersive And it's it's so fine because like, you know the premise of it, correct? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, one person's into sci-fi, one person's into fantasy. Yeah. Yeah. And they're authors and they end up in this.

Oh, that's cool. It's really cool. Yeah, it's fun. And it goes into like all of the fiction stories that they've written through their lives as like dark or hokey as it might be. So I feel like that might be like just fun for your wife to see and to be part of. It takes two, it kind of feels more like portal vibes.

I love the portal. Oh my gosh. Those are good cozy games too. Like underrepresented female character because she doesn't speak the whole time, shell the main character. But like Gladys is not nice to her. Like she's just like, reaming her the whole time. And this girl to her credit, like says nothing and just keeps testing, you know, she's like, I'm going to get out of here. And you got to respect it.

That's a really good observation. Yeah. There were, have you guys heard of a game called blueprints by any chance? Okay. I haven't played it yet. It's a new puzzle game that a lot of people are calling sort of like the new portal, like the new, I love that kind of game. Like a physics kind of?

Physics puzzle strategy, but with like some sort of roguelike elements to it to make it in RNG. A puzzle game. I might have to get your review on it actually. Yeah. I might have to get your review on it uh Coffee or energy drink energy drink energy. What are you serious? What's your poison we both drink both? Yeah? Yeah, we just drink a lot of caffeine really how many caffeinated drinks Do you think you have a day?

Three plus like three plus 16 ounce 20 ounce. I drink like 60 ounces of coffee a day. Oh really? Yeah. That's good. Nice. Sometimes 80, yeah. I don't track my ounces. I just know I'm, you know, I like to stay in a healthy range of 700 to maybe 900 milligrams

of caffeine. Yeah, that's like 80 ounces of coffee worth All of the different front of house employees for coffee It's not one person making all the coffees It's like my mom go ask dad that that's Stop giving it to me Do you get to cut her off a couple times. Do you get like the jitters or anything from it?

No. I go home, I go take a nap or something. That is crazy. I admire that. Let's go. What time do you, what time do you guys actually get to the restaurant in the morning? Six.

Six? Okay. When we bake, it's three or four. Okay. Yeah three or four, mate That's that's what I was expecting. I've heard from other bakers that we met in the past that that's a rough schedule Yeah, getting there that early. It's not fun Yeah, my wife was gonna be working as a like part-time baker when we just moved out to Arizona But it fell through for one reason or another but it was probably a blessing in disguise. What about breakfast or dinner? Dinner well, you're supposed to go for

Pancakes or waffles pancakes. Yes Nothing wrong with the waffle obviously but pancakes are and then you can make like little Like yogurt burritos with them like I do like protein pancakes put like yogurt in there and you just like a taco Yeah, yeah, that's how you to menu. Yeah, but like plain just plain Basically, yeah, basically, yeah. What about for you burger or taco? Taco. Who makes the best fast food taco?

Okay, so they don't have it here in Phoenix, but in Tucson, Nico's Tacos. Is that a chain or is that like a- It's like a Tucson chain. There's like a few of them in Tucson. Got it. It's like literally the best taco I've ever had. Nico's if you happen to be listening, Liz is taking endorsement deals. Although up here, Taco Spot is delicious.

They have the best birria tacos I've ever had and I love birria. You're like the third person I've talked to since moving here who's mentioned that to me. Well, I have this mango magic drink too. It's like a mango slushie with the chamoy and tahini around the rim. Oh, oh, ruined me. Well, I have this mango magic drink too. It's like a mango slushie with the chamoy and tahini around the rim. Oh, oh, ruin me. I very easily get derailed by food stuff like that. My poison. But yeah, beer came out of nowhere. Like I remember growing up, I never heard of it or whatever. And then maybe like five years ago and I was like everywhere. You can get

beer at like Disneyland. Yeah. Well, they have a beer,ria ramen at the taco spot too, which is like a spicy tapatio ramen with the birria meat in it. You're saying my other things, Liz. Screw video games. Let's talk about food. Well, they go to go. Okay. What's the ultimate gaming food? Like the ultimate gaming snack food? Oh, biscuits. Biscuits? Oh no. Biscuits. I feel like nachos has got to be close, but maybe messy. I don't know. Like there's something, cause you get like all the food groups in one scoop and you can like. That's a solid, that's a solid answer. I'm, I'm an animal and I'll do like chicken wings all the time Like I'm just like then in your controller player, too

Why you want to play Can't let it go Like or like if it's gonna be a movie part part, I'm just like, all the chicken wings I can eat like real quick and then go and wash my hands. That sounds like an exercise in futility. You should film yourself doing that. That sounds like, that sounds like a fun thing. Do you go super hot or do you go more like sweet heat?

Oh, super hot. Yeah. Like how hot are we talking? Um, like mango habanero. That are we talking? Like mango habanero. That's like, mango habanero. Habaneros are pretty spicy. Yeah, I've had habaneros before. I've dabbled way too much into the hot stuff, honestly.

Like hot stuff and coffee are like my two things. Same. But I'm trying to like Buffalo Wild Wings, you know, they have a scale. That's, so I used to work at Buffalo Wild Wings actually. That one's like more on the lower, like I think bottom three, I think it's like the bottom one is Diablo,

and then right above that is Ghost, or I could be mixing them up, and then above that is Habanero, Mango Habanero. So it's like hottest at the bottom? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I tell people whenever they're like ordering, and they're like, how do you think about these? And I'm like, well, how much do you hate yourself?

Yeah, do you want to do you want a reason to not go into work tomorrow Did you guys have arcade games at Buffalo Wild Wings? No, no, no, man Did you guys grow up with arcades at all? Yeah, a little bit. That's a lost art, guys. I mean, in one hand, I spent ridiculous amounts of my parents' money in quarters. And on those things, for honestly pretty crappy,

scammy gaming experiences a lot of the time. But there was just something that's something that I feel like is missing now with the way gaming has evolved is that like, it used to be something that you would like sit next to a partner and play like your friend or your partner or whatever. And now it's a much more solo experience. And there's merits to that too obviously but there was something magical and lost and you could probably never recapture it about that arcade generation where you literally just you know come up to somebody playing Street Fighter put your quarter on

the arcade and everybody knew what that meant like it's game on and you might make a friend or an enemy and you never know. Skone or muffin? Muffin. Muffin. What's your favorite muffin you guys make? We don't really make muffins. We have a carrot muffin sometimes.

The carrot cake muffin? Yeah. Yeah. This is pretty good. Yeah. Well, cream cheese frosting, like you can put that on anything and it wins. That's true. You think you could put it on pizza and it'd be good?

One way to find out. That's a good place to call it. If honey goes good on pizza, I'm sure there's an audience out there. That's another thing. Yeah, honey and barrier, like under the radar forever. And now it's like, how did I live my life without you? So good. Last question I wanted to ask you guys, this is actually a, uh, community question from our discord from a member called AKA Wallaby, a buddy of mine.

He's got two daughters. Their names are Grace and Amelia. They're probably listening. Hi, Grace and Amelia, uh, who will be old enough to start gaming soon. What are your favorite games right now or that you've played recently that you would recommend for a young generation of future gamers? Stray. Stray?

Yeah, Stray is like, it's especially two little girls. You play as this cat and you're going through this like lost, sort of locked away underground on city. And this robot that like is sentient is helping the cat or the you and the cat, the robot and you as the cat are helping each other free this civilization that got locked and forgotten about like underground during this like war that was happening above ground. And it's just a really, it's so much fun like who doesn't love cats? If you don't then, oh, come on.

You're allergic. Actually I'm allergic but I still have a good excuse. That's a good excuse, yeah. Allergic to love. Okay. Allergic to joy. That's funny. I will say that that summary of that story, that sounds way too complicated to be able to put into a couple of sentences.

Yeah. It's adorable. You get to play as a cat and you get to run around like best. Pretty approachable for somebody who's like just getting started gaming. Yeah, it's not complicated at all. Nice. Yeah, I'm not I'm not on the up and up with newer games, if I'll be honest, but like, I feel like we have it's like for like Ratchet and Clank or Jack and Dino. I love older games and they're like rebooted on the you can find them on PS3 and PS4 like um those

are just so much fun you know it's just it's like a good storyline you have interesting characters like some humor in there and it's just like kind of like a peaceful fun playthrough and like harry potter they're into little fandoms oh like the lego like the lego star wars lego harry potter those are just like easy Relaxing my girlfriend really like some Stardew Valley. Yeah, and that's just like a Yeah, is it well You either love it or you hate it Yeah, you know like if you hate cozy games like you're gonna eat that game. Yeah

The Lego games is I used to be like embarrassed to play those like those are some of my favorite games but I'm happy to hear so many people coming out of the closet as Lego fans because it's like there's such fun shameless you know joyful experiences which I think is a lot of what gaming should be. Well it should but like growing up like I always I don't know if this was just like a me thing but like I put a lot of pressure on myself like playing a game like if I didn't play it through on like a harder skill level and Like complete it on that level then I wasn't like a real gamer or like I wasn't like it didn't really count

You know, so there's some competition stuff there Yeah, then I've like gradually evolved into like now like I prefer to play it through easier like it's just fun It's just more fun that way, you know like and like there's some people that really enjoy the challenge of it and like, you know booey for you, but It's been cool to like kind of accept that like it doesn't make me any less of a gamer Just because I enjoy playing through games like in a chill way. Yeah, I agree I it's like musical on that way you know like some people listen to music to kind of wind down some people listen to music to get jacked up and like

Neither one of them is wrong, you know, like you just get you get out of it what you need from it But that opens up a whole nother line of dialogue here Souls like games. Do you play those? Yeah, you do. Yeah dark souls Elden Ring blood-borne. I Hated it. Yeah exactly. It's awful. I was like socks man. Which ones have you played Devin? Um, I played dark souls 3 blood-borne in Elden Rings. Okay, I Shadows died twice. That's from the same developers. Gotcha. From software? Yeah.

Yeah, it sucks. Those games from an aesthetic and from a storytelling standpoint are like so dialed in for me. Like I love fantasy. I love hard, dark fantasy, but the difficulty level is just prohibitive for me. It's funny, growing up in the eighties and nineties, like all of those games are super, super hard. And like we took for granted how hard those games were. Like I've tried to go back and play some of those games now as an adult and they're like unplayably hard. Like Contra Contra like oh my gosh, man

like there's probably people laughing at me right now, but but like I Am with you Liz where I'm like if this is too if I'm if this is too sweaty Like I'm probably not enjoying it and I turn the difficulty down I think for me at a certain point was it was just really frustrating. And I really like I love I'm kind of like you like I love fantasy games. And that's super engaging for me. But not being able to like see how the story progresses because I get past like the first level. I was like, well, this kind of ruins it for me. Yeah, exactly. Like if I'm dying to the most basic guy over and over and over again, like

it's just not fun. But you got something out of it. Yeah, so, Bloodborne was my first from software game that I played, and I did not know, like my friend was just like, download this game, it's great. The less you know, the better it kind of is. Yeah, and I'm like, okay, cool,

and then like, make my character, you know, that's cool. And then immediately like this werewolf it kills me I'm like, okay, like some games they make you die first for like progression I'm like, okay, whatever and then I see people and I'm like, oh people friends. Nah, like not And then I'm like going through and I'm like, oh wow, this is so hard. And I'm like, I need to kill every single enemy. And then I die and then they're all there again. And I'm like, what is this? And so I'm like meeting it's this is the whole game.

I wish I would have got the like footage from one of my first started that game because I like I play that game I also didn't know there are soft level caps and hard level caps for your Attributes, so I'm putting everything into strength Yeah, cuz you not knowing that it's not giving me anything yet. And so like after I kill the bloodletting beast I grind for like six hours between central yarn. I'm an old yarn. I killed a bloodletting beast, I grind for like six hours between central Yharnam and old Yharnam, kill the bloodletting beast, or bloodstarf beast, and then a new enemy spawns in the game. It's just this like tall, skinny Santa in new places.

And so I like walk out. I think that's what it's called actually. Yeah. The government names. I walk out. Yeah. Skinny. Yeah. And then I walk out of this cathedral and he wasn't normally there before. And then all of a sudden he jumps out and just eats me one time and kicks me down. And I'm just like, all right, put the game down for a couple of years. And then I'm just watching all the lore on it. And I'm like, oh, wow, like this game is so cool actually.

Because I didn't know like you're supposed to read the items to like uncover the lore. And so I became like in this pro on the lore of the game and I was like understanding it more and better now. And so I started, I was playing it again and two of my friends wanted to watch me play at the same time. And then you can't do that on PlayStation. So I started a Twitch so that they can both watch me. And I was going through the game and I was telling them the lore on it.

And that's whenever it became free on Xbox or on PlayStation 4. And then my stream just blew up in like two weeks and they're like, did you get the DLC? Let me buy you the DLC. And they're like bidding on the pillows I'm using too. And I'm just like, I'll take the DLC, but this is too much. So you have a room to streaming? Yeah. Oh, that's cool.

Yeah. And then- You just wanted to show your friends and then all those things. Isn't it funny how those things happen? They evolve that way. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah, and I wanted to show your friends and then all this Isn't it funny how those things happen? They they evolve that way. Yeah, that's crazy yeah, so I like I was doing the streaming thing and I was streaming that game and destiny and like a few other games and even Elden Rings whenever it came out, but it's whenever it came out, but it's something I would want to get back into whenever my schedule calms down a bit more.

It's a bit of a commitment, yeah. Yeah, it is. I want to have a set schedule time for everyone to, I'm going to be on this time every single day or this day and this week. Yeah. Well, right. So you could do the social experience with it, is that what you're saying?

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, honestly. I mean, what a cool little side benefit to get out of it. Like you get to play through these awesome, very challenging games with great lore that you have immersed yourself in and you build a community around it, that's pretty rad. And it happened by accident too. Yeah, it was a happy little accident.

Yeah, happy little accident, like this conversation. Guys, it's a happy little accident. Yeah happy little accident like this conversation Guys, it has been so awesome having you on the show It's it seems weird because I see you every single day, but it's cool This is like for sure the longest we've ever talked Is there anything you guys would like to plug people to follow you any projects you guys are working on or anything like that? social media anything any movies you like I Mean if anyone's into like cooking or like high protein foods they can follow my

My Instagram. I'm a big foodie in that sense my handle is At Devon dotrenna on Instagram. So you're into it. Awesome. We'll put it in the show description. Yeah. I do a lot of outdoor adventures and I really enjoy taking photos of beautiful nature things.

That's pretty much all I post. So if you're interested in seeing that, my profile is public and on Instagram it's at Lizzie.Lizard.96. Awesome. We'll post those both in the show description on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, whatever you're listening to this on, it'll be there. Thank you guys so much for being a part of the show. Everybody listening, please make sure to follow and submit a review for the show for an independent

podcast like us. It goes such a long way to keeping the podcast going and helping us find new viewers and listeners. If you really like the show and want to take your support a step farther, please make sure to check out our Patreon, which will also be in the show description, comes with lots of great perks. And finally, we talked about it a few times in the show here, but take a moment

to join our discord. We've got almost a thousand active gamers in that community with no moderator. It is the most positive online community you could possibly imagine. Come in, make some friends, be a part of the show. That's all we've got time for today, everybody. Until next time, happy gaming. Thanks so much, John. Thank you, John.