Did The Activision Purchase Ruin Xbox? (Mailbag)

Did the $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard ruin Xbox? How do you build a new studio while simultaneously making a video game? And what's up with the lack of gender representation in esports? Jason, Maddy, and Kirk open up the mailbag and take some of YOUR questions on all sorts of things.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  This podcast isn't going to save your life, but we'd sure like to think it'll make the next hour or so worth living.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we answer listener questions about the nature of art itself, and also Xbox Podcast production, the best non-human voice lines in games, and more.

• 0:31Speaker 00

  I'm Batty Myers.

• 0:32Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:33Kirk Hamilton?

  And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Hello. We're back again for another episode of the show.

• 0:39Kirk Hamilton?

  We sure are. Here we are, another episode.

• 0:42Speaker 00

  Here we are. We're still doing it.

• 0:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Let's do it. Pumped up.

• 0:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Let's make Triple Click.

• 0:46Jason Schreier?

  I think I told you guys this offline, maybe, but my daughter has discovered K-pop Demon Hunters. She's six, and we will be having a family watch, the watch party movie night this weekend, which I'm very excited for.

• 1:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Did you see the sing-along version of that?

• 1:03Jason Schreier?

  No, I did not. Not yet. But I'm worried she's gonna be a little scared, but I think she'll be able to handle it.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  You can always just turn it off and put the soundtrack on, and it's kind of the same experience. It's fine, for a six-year-old, anyway.

• 1:16Jason Schreier?

  She already is just running around the house singing "Golden" all the time.

• 1:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, "Golden" is so catchy. Oof.

• 1:22Kirk Hamilton?

  I was browsing Netflix, and I don't know how much stock to put into Netflix's self-reported top 10 in numbers. Like, I kind of don't believe those anymore. They're just kind of, it's not top 10 most viewed, it's top 10 things we want you to watch. But if we do, if we do believe them, both K-pop Demon Hunters and the K-pop Demon Hunters sing-along, which are separate films, are both in the top 10 films, which is...

• 1:44Jason Schreier?

  I would believe that.

• 1:45Speaker 00

  I think that's believable. I don't know about the rest of the top 10, but I think there's plenty of data to support that. And, by the way, if you want to hear us talking more about movies we like, and just sort of generally shooting the shit, as it were... You could be getting access to monthly bonus episodes, one a month, every month since we began this show, lo those many years ago. And how would you get access to them? Well, you would go to maximumfun.org/join and you'd become a member, a monthly member, and then you'd get those bonus episodes. But we don't just talk about movies or whatever. We talk about video games in the bonus episodes. And for example, in this upcoming one, we're

• 2:28Speaker 00

  going to talk about Hollow Knight: Silk Song, which we've all played, and we're going to spill the beans on it, or the beads, the rosaries, as it were. We're going to spoil everything. We're going to talk about Hornet. That should already be in your feed if you're a member already. But if you're not, then hey, it could be in your feed if you go to maximumfun.org/join. And that would be how you'd listen to that. Before we get to what we're really going to talk about today, Kirk, you wanted to talk about Ghost of Yotai just a little bit more, so go for it.

• 2:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I did. I just wanted to mention that I played a whole bunch of this game in the time between we recorded, when we recorded last week's episode and now, which is actually funny, because we're recording this episode a little bit early. So it's only been a few days since we talked about Ghost of Yotai.

• 3:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, like two days.

• 3:15Kirk Hamilton?

  But I played a lot of it. I just sort of let myself be a gamer for a few days. This game really lends itself to that because it's just this nice, big, open world game. And I just wanted to say that, I mean, we were pretty positive on it last week, but I wanted to say, like, I really like this game, actually. I've played a bunch more now. I've upgraded my character a whole bunch. I've gotten every weapon in the game. I've like upgraded all of the skill trees. I've uncovered a bunch of stuff that I had not found when we talked about the game. I've completed two of the sort of main storylines, the Oni and the Kasune. Or I guess I haven't quite completed the Kasune. It's quite long and involved, but they're both really good, especially the Kasune story. This is the

• 3:58Kirk Hamilton?

  sort of in the frozen north, the ninja story is really cool. And there's another story that involves like the indigenous people of northern Japan that you kind of tell on the way to that area. And I would actually suggest Anybody playing this game, do that storyline first, partly because there's some abilities that you unlock doing it that are really helpful in the rest of the game. But also because that's like, it's just really strong storytelling. So mostly I just wanted to say like, yeah, I'm really into the game. Like I'm liking it a lot. I'm like still playing it. I'm going to keep playing it. It's such a relaxing thing. It's such a well-designed open world. And I just really like the particular frequency that it's hitting and I'm finding it to be even more different from Assassin's Creed Shadows now that I've played even more.

• 4:40Kirk Hamilton?

  This was something, Maddy, that you mentioned in our episode, talking about it. And I wanted to really underline. There's this like mythic quality to everything in this game, and I think this game sits in a really cool place. Somewhere between grounded realism and total fantasy.

• 4:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, I love that.

• 4:56Kirk Hamilton?

  So Sekiro and Neo are two examples of games that are like Samurai ninja action. That are fully set in a world where there's just like yokai everywhere, demons are just in the world. There's ghosts and monsters and you're fighting totally outlandish things. And then Assassin's Creed Shadows is much more grounded where it's like, this is pretty much just the real world, even though you're in the Animus and whatever. And I think that Ghosts of Yote, it's similar actually to Ghosts of Tsushima, but actually maybe even a little more pronounced in this game. It really is cool how it manages to be in this heightened world. Where like ghosts are kind of real and myths, you know, you learn, you hear these stories and you find these mythic characters and like, they're real.

• 5:37Kirk Hamilton?

  And you know, there is this, this wolf that follows you sort of mysteriously and like, there are magical powers, kind of, but not really. And it actually kind of explains how the whole game, like every tree's leaves are falling at all times, like every. Fight that you have is framed like this perfect Samurai fight. Well, to be fair, the leaves are falling because the wind is constantly blowing every time you want to get somewhere new.

• 5:58Speaker 00

  But even that is kind of mystical, right?

• 5:59Kirk Hamilton?

  But the trees never run out of leaves. They just, they keep generating more and more leaves. There are no leafless trees in this game. So anyways, I really liked that about it, but mostly it's just super fun, man. Like the more I've played, kicked it up to hard difficulty, unlocked a ton of abilities. I'm going to keep going. I'm really, really enjoying it. So I wanted to just throw that out there now that I've played a bunch more of the game. Good to know.

• 6:20Jason Schreier?

  So this week, in addition to some bonus Yotay talk, we are doing some burning questions. We are answering some questions from all of our fine listeners out there. As always, you can reach us at triple click at maximumfun.org. And I'll say what I'll always say, which is that keep them short and you're more likely to be right. Keep them short, keep them weird. And we're going to start with a nice, short, weird one. Perfect, perfect length here. I'll read this one. This is from Fay. Fay writes, Dear Jason, Maddy, and Kirk, this question comes straight out of the studio. Is art just as important as fighting cancer?

• 6:59Speaker 00

  Amazing question.

• 7:00Kirk Hamilton?

  I love this question. Mostly, I loved this conversation on the studio. So should we recap this? Maybe, Jason, can you like, explain the context for this question?

• 7:10Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so The Studio, which is a show that we've talked about a lot and all love, is a show about this kind of Hollywood studio executive played by Seth Rogen and his misadventures throughout Hollywood. And in this one episode, he winds up at this gala with this girl that he's dating, who is a doctor. And he winds up talking to these doctors and just kind of like, gets involved in all these conversations where he's, his importance is diminished by these doctors talking about how they save lives and operate on people and try to battle cancer and whatnot. And he's like, well, yeah, I just greenlit the Kool-Aid movie. And although it's all, it's, it's very absurd and hilarious, it also gets to some interesting questions

• 7:54Jason Schreier?

  about like, the importance of art and Seth Rogen's character, who is pretty, I would say, inept in general. He brings up some interesting points about the importance of art. So I do think this is actually a kind of a poignant question, I would say.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  I think it's great. And my main memory from that episode that I'm going to highlight again here is Seth Rogen angrily retorting when being asked about a hospital room. Like, they, they all have to leave because there's an emergency of some kind. He goes, and what'll be in that room? A screen. And I just keep thinking about that as my takeaway for the episode and kind of my takeaway for what it's like to be sick in any context and kind of getting through chronic pain or any other problem you might have, even if you've only had a minor version of it. How are you getting through it? A screen, people!

• 8:46Kirk Hamilton?

  Love it. Yeah, I loved this episode. It's a funny episode because everyone in it is behaving badly and not making their argument very well. Like, the doctors are jerks, and they're clearly so self-important and think they're so great. And Seth Rogen is a bumbling fool, as he is through the whole show, and like, fails to kind of rebut them as effectively as someone who isn't Seth Rogen's character would. But the fundamental question is great, and I think he says something so true, which is, I can't find the exact quote, I was looking for it, but essentially, one of the doctors is like, "Yeah, we save lives, like, how can you be more important than that?" And Seth Rogen essentially says, "Well, you save lives, but art is what makes life worth living."

• 9:28Speaker 03

  But they are not as important as medicine.

• 9:31Speaker 04

  Why does one have to be more important than the other? That's all I'm saying! Why can't they be equally as important as each other?

• 9:36Speaker 03

  Because they're not! I'm sorry, but if a parent has a child with cancer, they bring them to Cedars, they don't take them to the Cinerama Dome!

• 9:43Speaker 04

  Okay, okay, okay, but once they get to Cedars, what is on the wall of every single room?

• 9:51Jason Schreier?

  Heart monitor.

• 9:52Speaker 04

  A screen! A television screen to watch movies on! People need entertainment, art, whatever you want to call it. Look, you guys save lives, and I applaud you for that. Thank you. But we, the artists, we make life worth living!

• 10:07Speaker 03

  No, no, no, people like movies. They don't need movies. They need doctors. And if you don't see that, then you're fucking delusional!

• 10:16Speaker 04

  You're fucking dumb fuck, you know that? Don't call me a dumb fuck, because you are perhaps the most boring man I've ever met in my entire life!

• 10:23Kirk Hamilton?

  And I think that that's so true. It's such a beautiful statement. And as much as the studio is taking the piss and being silly and presenting these ridiculous characters, I think that they very much mean that. I think that Seth Rogen believes that, at least, given what I've, you know, what I know of him and have heard him say about art. He is someone who like, deeply loves movies and loves art. And I certainly feel that way. And I think that that's actually something that's like, a beautiful and important thing for all people to keep in mind, especially right now, you know, amid the Trump administration's escalating carnival of horrors. It's so hard to just keep your head. And it's very easy to like lose your core and start to feel like you don't know what you're supposed to be doing.

• 11:06Kirk Hamilton?

  And as someone who makes things, who makes art, who makes podcasts, who makes music, I can lose track of the fact that that's what I'm supposed to be doing. And, you know, the Trump administration and all the horrible things that are happening, that's a fairly extreme situation. We have to hope that that will not always be the case. But I think that the conversation they're having in the studio just reflects a sort of broader and actually like less urgent version of the same conversation. You can make things. You can do things that don't literally save lives, but still are important and still can make life worth living. And that's, I think, a really beautiful sentiment and something that it's just so easy to lose track of.

• 11:46Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I agree with both of you. And also to take it even one step further, I feel like the three of us are in a lucky position in that we create things that people read and hear and see. But creating art is just as important when you do it for yourself and nobody else actually gets to see it.

• 11:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Absolutely true. I totally true. I mean, I say this to people all the time who are learning music and like just learning a new instrument and they're like middle aged and like, I don't know, I just finally wanted to learn piano, but I'm worried that there's no point because I'm not going to perform or I'm not going to be like, you know, I'm never going to be great. But it's like, no, that is the point. Like the joy that you feel when you-

• 12:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's edifying in and of itself.

• 12:19Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, just play a piece of music by yourself. Like, that is like an important part of your life. Like, just doing that is a good thing and makes the world better, even if you're the only one who ever hears it.

• 12:29Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, as someone with two small children who are constantly in like coming home from school drawing with like their drawings that they're doing. But it's important to remember that art is like a part of like what's taught in school as a way to just like learn how to live in the world. So, yeah. Definitely as important as fighting cancer.

• 12:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, and how to express yourself and learn how you really feel. And that's, what's, what's more human than that?

• 12:53Kirk Hamilton?

  It's very important.

• 12:54Speaker 00

  So to answer Faze's question, yes, art is just as important as fighting cancer. Maybe not more important or less, but just as.

• 13:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. It's the fundamental flaw of everyone, especially the doctors in that studio episode, is that they were trying to say my thing is more important than your thing.

• 13:08Jason Schreier?

  Right, right, right. Next question, Maddy.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, so this question's from Chad, who writes, "Over the last few years, Xbox has changed from the company that offered a phenomenal deal with Game Pass and seemed to give stability and a lot of creative freedom to its second-party studios like Obsidian and Double Fine, to a company that has repeatedly laid off thousands of employees, canceled games, and shuttered studios, and tripled the price of Game Pass. You all have said that with the acquisition of Activision, Microsoft started expecting more profit from its Xbox division to justify its purchase. The acquisition seemed like unbelievable good fortune for Xbox at the time, but in hindsight, did it actually ruin a great thing?" What do we think?

• 13:53Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know if Activision just kind of like accelerated what might have happened anyway, or if Activision was the big catalyst for Xbox's current mostly negative changes. I don't know the answer to that. We'll never know. We'll never know the answer to that question. But no, I don't think Activision would ruin a great thing. I think Xbox just kind of, the dominoes just started with the Xbox One selling for a hundred dollars more than the PlayStation 4, including a Kinect.

• 14:31Speaker 00

  That was pre-acquisition.

• 14:32Jason Schreier?

  And since then, yeah, well, long, long before the acquisition.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, way, pre, pre.

• 14:35Jason Schreier?

  And since then, just like you can trace that to then Xbox deciding to put all of its games, both on console and PC at the same time, making it really pointless to own an Xbox console if you also had a PC. And then from there, going to like all this other stuff that they've been doing since then, including multi-platform and Game Pass. And yeah, I think it was just part of this kind of like baffling sequence of events for Xbox, but I don't know if that was the main reason that Xbox was a problem. But yeah, I mean, I guess that like Xbox offering this phenomenal deal for players and also giving creative freedom to Obsidian and Double Fine, that has all happened in the years since that

• 15:16Jason Schreier?

  kind of fateful Xbox One release. So they have done good things since then. I don't mean to paint the picture of it just being like a comedy of errors since 2013. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know the answer to this question.

• 15:30Kirk Hamilton?

  It's interesting that this question is framed from the perspective of how did this affect Xbox rather than how did this affect, say, Activision Blizzard or the small studios that Xbox bought? And those are, I mean, I guess those are a variety of different questions because it's going to be different answer for each studio, but it is kind of harder to consider what this means for Xbox only because Xbox is a part of such a massive corporation. And it's just very hard to tell like which, you know, which decisions or which, you know, like directions that Xbox was going are the result of Xbox decisions and which are the result of Microsoft decisions. And like especially given that Microsoft is so big that it operates in this kind of imperative way almost reacting to the market.

• 16:14Kirk Hamilton?

  Like it's just very hard to know like what would have happened to Xbox one way or another based on like different decisions that someone may have made at some point in time.

• 16:24Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. Well, so one thing I can draw a parallel to is actually Activision itself and Blizzard as part of Activision because I wrote a book about this. And so when Blizzard was part of Vivendi, which was, which was quite a few years, they were part of Vivendi Games from, I believe it was 1998 up until the merger between Vivendi and Activision, which was like the end of 2007. So about nine years when Blizzard was part of Vivendi, they had corporate pressure, sure, but they were also a very small part of a much larger corporation and they could get away with a lot more because if Blizzard, say, delayed a game, it would not affect Vivendi's stock price. And so it wasn't something that they then had to jump through hoops to justify.

• 17:06Jason Schreier?

  But then when they became part of Activision Blizzard, suddenly Mike Morhan, the CEO, was going on quarterly earnings calls. And suddenly when he wanted to delay a game, they had to justify it to their investors and they had to go through a lot more. And they were clearly like when they did something and had an impact on Activision Blizzard's stock. And so they played a much bigger role and so they were, they had a lot more scrutiny on them from their corporate overlords, specifically Bobby Kotick. In the case of Xbox, I think they certainly weren't small before buying Activision Blizzard, but after buying Activision Blizzard for that much money. Sixty nine billion dollars. Suddenly, they were a much bigger part of Microsoft than they were before.

• 17:44Jason Schreier?

  And that always is going to bring in more scrutiny, which means less being able to get away with the sort of freedoms and kind of being able to spend years and years just noodling away on a creative idea. Those freedoms, by the way, can be a double sided sword. Like, that's not something that is necessarily good for developers, having like the kind of years of development that some of the Xbox projects had. But that said, I mean, I think that having that scrutiny can also be really tough.

• 18:11Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, here's a question. Do you think that Black Ops or Call of Duty in particular is is like a notable part of this acquisition? Because it's, I'm thinking back to your Blizzard book and the fact that when Blizzard released World of Warcraft, it suddenly had this massive hit on its hands. And that changed things because, not only because they had to develop the game differently and run the game differently, but because they suddenly had this thing that made so much money that their decision making was affected because it's like, well, we need to prioritize that thing that's making us crazy amounts of money. And in this case, I know Xbox got a ton of games when they bought Activision Blizzard, but they got Call of Duty. And it seems to me, just looking at some of the reporting about, you know, the Game Pass price increase,

• 18:55Kirk Hamilton?

  that Call of Duty is like clearly become a major consideration for them, just because it's so popular, it's such a regular moneymaker, that they're having to almost shift their whole strategy to Game Pass and to consoles because now there's this opportunity, like, well, we have this like game that everyone is going to play that's going to be so popular. So as a result, you know, we could jack up the price. Like, we could think differently because we have Black Ops. Do you think that, like, Black Ops plays an outsized role in that way?

• 19:25Jason Schreier?

  That's a great question. Yeah, I mean, certainly could. I certainly wouldn't be shocked if this decision to boost the price was related to them thinking, well, like, we could probably get away with it because a lot of Call of Duty fans, they're like going to become subscribers or are subscribers already and will keep paying to play Call of Duty. Then again, the math no longer makes that much sense. Like, wouldn't you rather just buy Call of Duty for seventy bucks?

• 19:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, the number. Is getting really high. And at a certain point, it's like, some of these games literally are $20 or $30 that are on Game Pass, like Song for example.

• 19:59Jason Schreier?

  I don't think we established this, by the way, but, uh, but the new price is, in case people haven't seen the news, the new price, they just hiked it from $20 a month for the highest tier of Game Pass to $30 a month. And that's now the only tier that gets you like day one Game Pass games like Call of Duty.

• 20:13Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 20:14Jason Schreier?

  To your point, Maddy, yeah, you're now paying $30 a month for these games. And how many of them are you actually playing a month?

• 20:20Kirk Hamilton?

  Right.

• 20:20Jason Schreier?

  Is it really worth it?

• 20:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:22Kirk Hamilton?

  And like, thinking of that as $240 a year versus $360 a year is like helpful for me at least.

• 20:28Speaker 00

  It's a big jump.

• 20:29Kirk Hamilton?

  $260 a year. Now you're paying a lot. Like that is like, that is several full priced, you know, $70 full priced games.

• 20:36Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's a, it's a good question.

• 20:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. And could you maybe just buy Call of Duty? And maybe that's the only thing you need to buy. And even though it feels like that $30 is cheaper the first month, it maybe doesn't make any sense if that's the only game you're playing. It's, it's funny because as soon as I saw that price increase, I, I thought the opposite from you, Kirk. I wasn't like, oh, they feel like they can get away with it. I was like, oh, the value proposition on their end must not be working out. Like Netflix style where it's like, this is not paying for itself. And there's a price increase that's attendant with that. I have no evidence for that. That was just the assumption that I made when I saw it was this must not make sense math wise on the other end for the developers. I don't know though. We've all wondered that.

• 21:19Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. I, so I don't think, I think that this is more about the overall business than it is about Game Pass. And I think a lot of the numbers are kind of squishy here because when you're accounting for like what Game Pass is making versus how much you're spending on it. You have to think about lost sales as part of that. And that's where you get into just imaginary number territory.

• 21:38Speaker 00

  Yes, all theoretical.

• 21:39Jason Schreier?

  Like how many people would buy X game if it wasn't on Game Pass? Like it's all just complete nonsense, made up numbers, right? So, um, that's kind of like a strange thing. I think this is more about just like boosting profit margins across the entire business, which is what they've been trying to do for the last two years, really since that Activision deal. They've had something like, is it four mass layoffs since the Activision? Deal, um, which is that's one way to boost profit margins is cutting costs. And then this is the other way, which is like trying to boost revenue by charging more. So, yeah, it's, uh, the other thing, by the way, we didn't mention this in this. I don't think this was in the email, but, um, this is coming after Xbox announced that they were going to hike some of their games to $80 this fall and then backtracked on that.

• 22:22Jason Schreier?

  So this could also just be trying to make up for not being able to do that.

• 22:26Kirk Hamilton?

  They're kind of thinking out loud right now. We're really getting to see their work.

• 22:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it's also after the handheld got announced and then they took a really long time to announce the price of that new handheld. Like, it does really feel like, yeah, pretty high. I can't remember it anymore.

• 22:43Jason Schreier?

  It's a thousand dollars for the highest end. It's like 600 and 1,000.

• 22:47Speaker 00

  I wouldn't personally be that interested in paying, but I've got a Steam Deck at home, you know? I'm maybe not their target audience.

• 22:54Jason Schreier?

  Highest end Steam Deck is 650. Maddy, to be fair though, that hardware is, is tariffs, which is a whole nother world.

• 23:00Speaker 00

  Totally, but that's an issue. And I mean, it does feel like just yet another example of Xbox kind of figuring it out as they go along.

• 23:07Jason Schreier?

  Just improvising. Well, if you think of Xbox, so Microsoft's whole big initiative now is AI. Everybody is talking about AI within Microsoft, right? Uh, if you think of like the way ChatGPT functions and how it just makes things up as it goes.

• 23:20Speaker 00

  Great point. Xbox is hallucinating and they're working on getting rid of that, you guys.

• 23:27Jason Schreier?

  Well, Phil Spencer is actually just co-pilot in a suit right now. Co-pilot in a psycho dot t-shirt.

• 23:33Speaker 00

  We don't know that he's not.

• 23:35Jason Schreier?

  Um, next question, Kirk, read this one.

• 23:37Kirk Hamilton?

  This comes from Christopher. Christopher writes, hi, longtime listeners since split screen. I have an answer, a question and a request. His answer is to the question that I asked about, um, my archived interview with, uh, Ariane Williams, the creators of Hollow Knight, where I mentioned that my voice sounded very different all those years ago. And he says, yes, that he agrees there's a noticeable change in my voice, which yes, I think that that is true. Um, then his question is, do you guys do, what do you do production wise for the podcast? We know Kirk edits the episodes probably every time, but is there anyone in charge of a topic schedule, keeping the pacing, doing joke revisions, et cetera? Let's answer this question.

• 24:18Speaker 00

  Like, yeah, we're, we're normally doing multiple takes of a re-joke.

• 24:22Kirk Hamilton?

  We do workshop jokes, you know, Maddy will make a joke and I'll be like, that was pretty good, but let's try. Give it to me.

• 24:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Give it to me with like a slightly reversed order there on the punchline. Well, I do edit them. I think I'll say that first. I edit every episode quite a bit. Just a lot of like pulling out overlap and removing some cross talk, making it just so that the ideas, like a lot of times when we're transitioning from one person to another, you know, one of us will be wrapping up a thought and the other will begin a thought and then maybe both other hosts will say something. And like one will just be a little like, Maddy, you'll say a little observation and then Jason will begin a longer thought. And when Jason begins his longer thought, he says, "Well, you know, it's, you know, it's actually interesting that this, this." And so that first "well, you know, it's" was his kind of entry ramp.

• 25:12Kirk Hamilton?

  And then he restated it after we stopped talking and it was time for him to talk. So what I do is I'll cut out the entry ramp and slide over his actual beginning so that Maddy's little interjection, whatever it was, has, you know, space to breathe. So you'll kind of just hear me and my sentence, Maddy will say her interjection, and then Jason will just cleanly begin talking. That's an example of like the kinds of edits that I do on the show.

• 25:35Speaker 00

  Perfect example, because that's how we talk.

• 25:37Kirk Hamilton?

  So I just did one right there. What, you didn't hear it, but I actually just did one right there. And no one knows.

• 25:44Jason Schreier?

  I like it when people think that we're just naturally perfect podcasters.

• 25:48Speaker 00

  No one thinks that. There's no way. I'm sure they can tell the beauty of editing that is involved, surely.

• 25:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Editor Kirk here in the future. And you know what? I'm going to actually show you what just happened. Because you probably didn't hear it. There would be no way for you to know all the editing that just went into that tiny little back and forth. And this is actually a fun opportunity for me to show you a little bit of what goes into the editing of this show. So I'm going to play that back and forth again, starting with me sort of wrapping up a thought. And then Jason and Maddy both begin talking. And here is the unedited version. So you can hear what it sounds like before I take the editing scissors and get in and start moving things around and getting every idea to kind of flow in a sequence that will make sense when you listen to it. Here's what it sounded like with no edits. So you'll kind of just hear me and my sentence.

• 26:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Maddy will say her interjection and then Jason will just cleanly begin talking. That's an example of like the kinds of edits that I do on the show.

• 26:45Speaker 00

  Perfect example, because that's how we talk.

• 26:49Kirk Hamilton?

  So I just did one right there. You didn't hear it, but I actually just did one right there. And no one knows.

• 26:56Jason Schreier?

  I like it better when people think that we're just naturally perfect podcasters.

• 27:00Speaker 00

  No one thinks that. There's no way. I'm sure they can tell the beauty of editing that is involved, surely.

• 27:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Bing. Okay, back to editor Kirk talking now. And that was the unedited version. So you could hear there was some crosstalk. Maddy and Jason both started talking at the same time. Jason tried to pick up what he was saying, but I was already saying something. So he stopped again. Then there was some sort of crosstalk because Maddy was still talking underneath what I was saying. And then Jason said something, then Maddy said something, and I was saying something along with her. So there was a little crosstalk there. So some little cleanups and also some tweaks and adjustments to make the ideas flow and make it clear who's talking. So you're kind of only focusing on one person at a time. Okay, so now we'll get back to the show and I'm going to play that same back and forth one more time, but the edited version. And you can hear how it's different and then we will continue the conversation. I hope you thought this was interesting.

• 27:52Kirk Hamilton?

  It's always fun for me to kind of show what I do. Okay, back to the episode. Bing. Me and my sentence. Maddy will say her interjection and then Jason will just cleanly begin talking. That's an example of like the kinds of edits that I do on the show.

• 28:04Speaker 00

  Perfect example, because that's how we talk.

• 28:06Kirk Hamilton?

  So I just did one right there. You didn't hear it, but I actually just did one right there. And no one knows.

• 28:13Jason Schreier?

  I like it better when people think that we're just naturally perfect podcasters.

• 28:18Speaker 00

  No one thinks that. There's no way. I'm sure they can tell the beauty of editing that is involved, surely.

• 28:25Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, I'm not sure. I think so, but also like I think you shouldn't notice ideally.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Ideally.

• 28:30Kirk Hamilton?

  I recently had the hosts of Know Your Enemy, Matt Sitman and Sam Adlerbell, came on Strong Songs to talk about Bob Dylan. And I love those guys. I love their show. It was really fun to have them on the show. And it was fun editing them because it actually gave me a perspective on how editing. Their actual show is. It's not a huge thing, but like they just, you know, there are a little, there's a little more.

• 28:52Speaker 00

  You got the rough draft.

• 28:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, there's a little more, a few more ums, a little more pausing, beginning a sentence and stopping and starting it over. And like, cutting all that stuff out and cleaning it up. I'm sure I didn't do the exact same job that their regular editor does, but it did give me a perspective of, oh, right. Like, everybody does this. You know, especially when you listen to like, The Daily or The Ezra Klein Show or something. Like, those shows have got to be very edited, and so you're getting this very clean articulation of everyone's ideas. And certainly, that is, that is something that we do as well. As for planning, I don't know, I've talked about editing, but maybe one of you talk about how we plan things?

• 29:27Speaker 00

  Well, we all contribute to that.

• 29:29Jason Schreier?

  Talk about what we want to do.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Yeah, we talk about what games are upcoming. Periodically, we'll check in with each other and do a little planning meeting, usually to talk about upcoming releases. But then we intersperse burning questions episodes like these ones, and what's the deal withs and hot topic episodes along with that. And try to keep a healthy mix of all of the above, depending on what's timely or interesting to each of us.

• 29:56Jason Schreier?

  Do you want to read his, Christopher's suggestion?

• 29:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, yes. Yes, Christopher's suggestion is, just a request slash suggestion. I've really liked the interviews that you've been running recently. I distinctly remember the one explaining Rumble, when we had a developer come on briefly to explain Rumble. The one with Casey Newton, where you talked about AI, the one with the creator of Date Everything, and the Andor episode with Tom Bissell. Please use your vast contact network and give us more.

• 30:20Jason Schreier?

  Sure.

• 30:21Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 30:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, sure. Those were really fun. I think we'll do more interviews.

• 30:24Jason Schreier?

  I mean, I think maybe a couple a year. It's just that, like, having four people on a podcast can get a little, little unwieldy, but.

• 30:31Kirk Hamilton?

  It changes it. It's more work for me, and it just really changes the vibe. But I agree, like, I think especially, you know, Ray Chase and Tom Bissell, the Andor and Date Everything episodes. Those were just really fun. Like, they were, they were great and interesting. So I, I like those as well, Christopher, and yeah, we'll do more guests.

• 30:48Jason Schreier?

  I think a cadence of two or three a year is probably a good, a good cadence, maybe a couple more.

• 30:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, special guests, special occasions.

• 30:56Kirk Hamilton?

  All right. Make it special.

• 30:57Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, can you read this next one also? Because I think you should, you will be best primed to do these sound effects.

• 31:04Kirk Hamilton?

  This comes from Chad. Maybe the same Chad, maybe a different Chad from earlier. Maybe just our listeners are all Chad.

• 31:09Jason Schreier?

  It's a two Chad up.

• 31:11Kirk Hamilton?

  It's just sometimes you gotta do a two Chad up. Chad writes, "Hi, lowercase g gamers. During the Silk Song preview episode, Kirk mentioned that one of the best lines in a video game is a Zelda's voice line, 'Bapinada.'"

• 31:23Speaker 03

  'Bapinada.'

• 31:25Kirk Hamilton?

  And later mentioned Hornets phrase that sounds like, "Get good before you fight the Radiance."

• 31:32Kirk Hamilton?

  This got me thinking about other classic non-human voice lines from games. Some that immediately come to mind for me are lines from the elites in Halo, Combat Evolved, "Wart wart wart." Or Pazuli. And the Twillex in Knights of the Old Republic. Obviously, it's hard for a video game to have non-repeating lines of dialogue or phrases, but what makes a good alien slash non-human language voice line? What are some of your favorite voice lines?

• 31:57Jason Schreier?

  Oh, man. So good. Okay, so I have a thought on this. I'm no expert on this by any means, so I'm curious to hear the two professional musicians give some thoughts. But my thought immediately is that like, it's important for there to be consistency across the whole game and for it to feel like it makes, it just kind of like has, I don't know, oral themes and makes kind of tonal sense. And Hollow Knight and Silk Song are really good at like creating this language that just like feels like it makes sense, even though it's all gibberish. It feels like these bugs are speaking to each other and speaking the same language, even when it's nonsense. That's... Another one that comes to mind is like Simlish in The Sims, which is the classic example of this.

• 32:39Jason Schreier?

  And that again, sounds just very consistent across, even when it's gibberish. But yeah, what do you guys think makes good non-human voicing?

• 32:47Kirk Hamilton?

  I really just want to mention the time that Katy Perry sang last Friday night in Simlish, and I want to play a clip of it for everyone.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  Her finest hour.

• 33:09Kirk Hamilton?

  It was so funny. This was like when Katy Perry was on top of the world. And just a reminder of, I actually honestly have to say that I appreciate that she was up for this.

• 33:18Speaker 00

  I do too, legitimately.

• 33:20Kirk Hamilton?

  She's like sung the Simlish version of the song in concert and stuff.

• 33:31Speaker 00

  It was great that she did this.

• 33:32Kirk Hamilton?

  And I just think it was very funny and it was a good, it was a good like example of how strong Simlish is that, you know, you hear it in the context of the game and it's one thing, but it is very funny to hear someone, I guess, translating the lyrics of her song. Like, we know what the lyrics of last Friday night are and now we can hear her singing in Simlish. I wonder if she sat down with someone.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  We did a story about this at Polygon that I can find for you where we talked to the developers who helped create the Simlish version. And there are people whose job that is not their only job, but to come up with Simlish versions of words we know, or at least to approximate the feeling of phrases we know, so that you kind of get a sense that the Sim is saying something familiar or that kind of sounds like English.

• 34:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Bing! Editor Kirk here. Again, just really quick, Maddy let me know that she went to find this article. And as it turns out, the Polygon article was based on an episode of the podcast 20,000 Hertz, which we've actually referenced recently on this show. And that 20,000 Hertz episode was the one that was all about Simlish. And I've listened to it. It's actually really great. So we will link to that in the show notes if you want to know more about Simlish. Bing!

• 34:41Speaker 00

  I mean, the Silk Song team is much smaller, but I feel very similarly to what Jason said, where some of that is the voice actors emoting very well in even the brief moments that we hear them, but also just the words they say, even though we don't understand them, feel like they match with the sentiment of what they're saying. Because we do get the subtitles and in the Sims we don't. We just pick it up.

• 35:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. And occasionally, those words even sound like real words. You know, I joked about the bug that goes, "Jesus!" when you run past him, but there are these moments.

• 35:16Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, hearing the audio clip on the episode that you played was so good.

• 35:22Jason Schreier?

  It really sounds like it.

• 35:24Kirk Hamilton?

  It really sounds like it. And there are, I can't remember them now specifically, but there are like four or five times where someone would say something where it sounded like they were like, "Fuck off!" or something, you know, like, and you're like, "I think that bug just told me to fuck off." And you have to imagine them sitting there being like, as they put it in the game, knowing that it sort of actually sounds like a word in English.

• 35:45Jason Schreier?

  Just imagine them in the voice recording, like Chris Larkin, like with his headset on, be like, "No, I need you to say 'get good.'" I need it to sound like this, but not quite. All right, let's, uh, let's try to get through a few more. Maddy, you want to read this next one?

• 36:01Speaker 00

  Sure. This one's from Ben, who says, "Hi, y'all. Jason, I came across this quote in an article you wrote, which is, quote, 'Over the next few years, Cloud Chamber tried to simultaneously build a studio and a game, which was a lofty challenge,' end quote."

• 36:16Jason Schreier?

  That game being the new Bioshock, for context here.

• 36:19Speaker 00

  Good context. Uh, Ben continues, "I'm wondering, are there other ways that a new studio starting from scratch could get off the ground? Are major publishers willing to give a new studio the time to form before having them start development? Is that a position that developers and artists would feel comfortable in, waiting to start work? I'd love to hear more insights on how studios get started from scratch if you've got time. Thanks."

• 36:42Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that's an interesting question, because like, building a studio is probably the toughest part of game development. And I've heard all sorts of stories over the years about like, how important team chemistry is and how this industry is just kind of short-sighted. Um, layoff cycles just rip teams apart and potentially cost their companies a lot of money in the long run, just trying to build new teams as a result. Um, so, starting a studio and finding the right people, hiring them, training them, that's a very lengthy process. I, I, nobody's found like, a real solution to this problem of like, trying to start a studio and build a game at the same time. Uh, trying to start a studio and build a game as high pressure as Bioshock 4 is like, certainly a lofty task. Sometimes

• 37:26Jason Schreier?

  what companies will do is they'll be like, "All right, we're gonna start a studio and have them do this small..." Smaller stake project, maybe it's a smaller type of game, maybe it's a remake. So they can just kind of like get their development pipelines going and figure out how to talk to each other and work with each other. But yeah, super tough. And then also, I mean, I think that like even the concept of waiting to start work is kind of a funny one. Cause a lot of times in game development, the work that people are doing is just kind of like made up. Maybe it's doing stuff that they know will never see the light of the day, but it's just like a useful way to. Maybe it's prototyping an idea and seeing if it works, or maybe it's a way to test out the pipelines.

• 38:06Jason Schreier?

  It's just like making stuff that will never actually work, or you're just kind of like treading water while you figure out what the game is going to be. Who knows? There are a lot of different kind of ways to do that. Are major publishers willing to give a new studio the time? I mean, who knows?

• 38:24Speaker 00

  No.

• 38:24Jason Schreier?

  I think it's kind of, it's baked into a timeline is that time of just like building the team and trying to figure out what that looks like. But it's definitely one of the biggest challenges in game development, especially if they're working with like new tech and not like an engine that is already established.

• 38:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's a tricky question just for any collaborative creative group, because you kind of find out who you are by making something. I mean, this is true of bands, right? A lot of times you'll put together a band because you have a specific show that you have to play. And then you work on that and you find the musicians that you need and you hire everybody and you start to play it. And then if you, if it's like a regular show, you do it a bunch of times and eventually you kind of become a band and you figure out who you are as musicians. But it's a totally different proposition to get together and like spend some time just figuring out who you are. I watched the Mars Volta documentary fairly recently. I made an episode about them last season of Strong Songs. And their documentary, it's really great. It's called Omar and Cedric, If This Ever Gets Weird.

• 39:27Kirk Hamilton?

  And those guys had been in a band already and then they decided, we want to make something new. We want to make a band called the Mars Volta. Their last band at the drive in like fell apart. And then they actually had this period of time where they were like in this crazy room with all. This recording gear and instruments and they like got all the players they wanted and they were just like, let's figure out what this thing is, like what this band is. And it actually sounds amazing. Like it was this amazing time of like creative exploration. They knew how to be in a band. They knew what they wanted to do. They just had the time to figure it out. And then they made D Last in the Comatorium, which is like, you know, the one of the greatest albums ever made. So I, it's hard to imagine a game studio doing that, even though with a smaller studio, it would be possible if you like,

• 40:09Kirk Hamilton?

  figure out, you like plan to have that time, like you were saying, Jason, like, let's just get, you know, whatever, our kind of small team together and we're just going to spend a year like talking and trying stuff and making things and like figuring out what we want to be and what we want to make. It seems luxurious, but it is technically possible.

• 40:26Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, although sometimes that can result in disaster because if you don't feel any sort of sense of urgency, sometimes you just like take forever to ship something. And then when you ship something, it's kind of like, well, this is our, our little baby that we spent seven years on better be a hit or else we're fucked.

• 40:42Kirk Hamilton?

  It would need to, you'd need to be like, we have until this hard cutoff and then we like have to shift. Like you'd need to be very disciplined.

• 40:49Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, man. The, the band comparison is really an interesting one because of the sizes of the teams involved and how games these days, like the big budget games need to be in the hundreds and the thought of a, a band jamming as 400 people is just a hilarious one.

• 41:09Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's funny. I mean, I'm really thinking of it's the, it's just such a quintessential story, but the story of Fulbright, when they first got together to make Gone Home, it was four people. They were in a house. It was very much like a band, like the story was, it was kind of romanticized even and told like a band narrative. But if you had a smaller indie studio of that size, you could actually do this. That would make this kind of approach possible. Where, yeah, if you're trying to make a double or triple A game, like it's just, there's just way too many people. It's too expensive. It just doesn't seem possible.

• 41:38Jason Schreier?

  I will read this next question from Ryan. Ryan writes, why is there such a noticeable lack of gender representation in esports? It feels like I only see men playing and competing with a small amount of women limited to casting and commentary roles. Even in a variety of game types, MOBAs, MMOs, FPS, RTS, fighting games. The biggest exception I've seen is that games done quick charity events where there seems to be a large set of women, trans and gender queer folk. I recognize this is a complex topic that likely involves how games have been, are marketed, gender roles, power dynamics, and more. What insights and thoughts do you all have?

• 42:13Speaker 00

  This is a pet topic of mine. I've been Googling studies about this since I was a teenager because I was a teenager who played competitive fighting games and first-person shooters and was often in environments and tournaments that were entirely men. And I was like, why is this? What is up with this? And I feel like I have an encyclopedic knowledge of so many studies that have been done over the years on why this is the case. And it's part of what kind of radicalized me, as it were, to believing that gendered socialization is a real thing and it impacts our behavior a lot more than you would think. And that like a lot of innate quote unquote differences between people aren't as innate

• 42:57Speaker 00

  as we might think they are, especially between the two genders. I think there are more than two, but for the sake of scientific studies, usually they just stick with the two. And some that I think are really interesting are, a lot of times, women will underestimate their abilities. There's tons of studies about that, especially when it comes to tech, STEM, computer literacy, period. And that's like shown to be influenced by media that they consume and stereotypes. To refer to the marketing question, there's a really good story at Polygon by Tracy Lee called "No Girls Allowed" that we can link in the show notes. It's a really long, encyclopedic explanation of how games marketing in the 90s got super fixated on the young boy demographic.

• 43:42Speaker 00

  This is like peak Game Boy has boy in the name console marketing era. That was really effective. A lot of people were like, oh, video games are for boys after the 90s. And I think many of our listeners remember that time period. And also, Basically, no matter what kind of sport you're playing, if you believe you can't do something, you will be worse at it. And that can like, give you the yips, as it were. And so like, that piece of gendered socialization is really interesting, but also, you'll put yourself in roles that you're told you should inhabit. And there's a lot of women who play as healers in games. And there's a lot of social pressure for women to play as healers. And there's some really interesting studies on that as well, especially if they're like,

• 44:26Speaker 00

  they have a boyfriend, and they're playing that pocket healer for their boyfriend who's playing as the DPS. That's a really common like, relationship dynamic. That and, women are pretty strongly discouraged against being competitive, period. It's considered unattractive in society. Now, I think that's wrong, but, you know, that's just like, a fact. And like, it's, it's just the way that our society is set up. I think that's very slowly changing. I've seen it change in my lifetime, which has been really, really cool. I do think that because games done quick, it is a competitive environment, but it's very community oriented as just a subculture. And I think that that changes the dynamic of the assumptions that people outside of it make about how welcoming it would be, in a good way. Whereas competitive

• 45:11Speaker 00

  games, a lot of women and girls are looking at that, and they're being told over and over by society, like, that's not supposed to be for you. It's going to be unattractive if you do that. List goes on. And like, that's kind of sad to me. But, I think that's, that plays a huge role in it. And it really ends up contributing to just the overall makeup of those events. But, again, I've seen it change. Like, yeah, there's only a few notable women we can name that like, compete in StarCraft or fighting games or whatever, but, there used to be none. And so, there are some changes. And that's cool.

• 45:42Jason Schreier?

  Can I, I have been thinking about something with gender dynamics for a long time that I think is interesting, or noticed something, or had an observation, which is that, I think, this is obviously a stereotype, so obviously does not apply to everybody, but kind of broadly, the stereotype is that, men, when they socialize, like to be doing something together, while women tend to, or tend to be better at socializing, just talking to each other, just sitting and talking. Talking to each other.

• 46:08Speaker 00

  Right, yeah.

• 46:09Jason Schreier?

  And I think as a result of that, like, a lot of the men I know, we get together and play a game together, or watch TV, watch a football game together, or whatever it is, whereas the women will just sit and chat at the coffee table. And so, maybe that is at least one reason why a lot of men might have kind of had a controller in their hand more often, playing against their friends, playing competitive games while socializing, where women might have, or even, or young girls, might have just been doing other stuff.

• 46:35Speaker 00

  Because it's also just, it's socially normalized. Yeah, totally agree. I mean, I think that gender dynamics play a huge role in that, for sure, just from the socialization perspective. Like, it's more socialized in women and girls growing up to talk to each other, with no barriers to entry. And that's like, a sad thing, that for boys, that's not as normalized.

• 46:56Jason Schreier?

  Do you think that's a culture thing, as opposed to an innate gender, like?

• 47:00Speaker 00

  I think it's a culture thing, yeah. And in part because I was never good at it as a kid. So I'm like, I don't know, I feel like different people are different. But I also like, remember being told I was weird for doing things the way that I did them, and like, kind of learning feminine traits. Like, I really remember feeling that way a lot, growing up, and being like, oh, it's like weird that I'm not girly enough. I mean, I also like, I have the queer experience on top of that, so like, I'm not a perfect example of any of these things. But, yeah, I think some people can probably relate to that, to being like, I don't really like, fit into my gender role as much as I'm supposed to. That's weird, right? It's not that weird. A lot of people feel that way. And I think that's fine.

• 47:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I think those are all great thoughts. I don't have a ton to add, or, I mean, I could go on forever, and we could talk about this for a long time, because this is a very interesting topic. But, the main thing I'll add is, yeah, I think that I want to underline what you were just saying there about how the revert, that reverse dynamic, like, the fact that a lot of men don't feel comfortable just sitting and talking to one another, is a big problem. You could argue that the entire state of the world and all of the disasters we're currently facing are because men are not good at sitting and just talking with one another, or at least, talking about their feelings. And, so it's like, this is kind of like, it's the other blade of the double edged sword, or whatever, or the other way that it cuts. And just something funny that I'll share from my own life, is that I have certainly found that

• 48:26Kirk Hamilton?

  In making friends with other men in Portland, like having a kind of group of guy friends that I hang out with, we definitely arrange our social gatherings around something for a long. You know, I have a tabletop gaming group that is also just a group of my friends. And for a long time, we were playing Gloomhaven, Frosthaven. We played all these board games together. And we still have a weekly gaming night. It's every Wednesday. More often than not, we just go meet up at someone's house or at a bar, and then we just sit around talking for like an hour or two.

• 48:53Speaker 00

  That's good.

• 48:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, we just sort of talk. Yeah, because like, as it turns out, if you really want to get together to talk and you're using the like activity as an excuse, sometimes you're like, okay, hang on. I don't, we don't, let's not play. Like, let's just talk about whatever, this thing or that thing. And it winds up being really nice. So we've kind of morphed from the one, the one type of socialization into the, into the other.

• 49:13Speaker 00

  They're both great. I mean, it's, it's fun to play games with your friends. I'm not saying all of us should just be talking all the time. I mean, you know.

• 49:19Kirk Hamilton?

  No.

• 49:20Speaker 00

  God knows, I have a weekly gamer night. And we're gaming. We're not just talking. We're fricking gaming, but.

• 49:25Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, there are some good, there are some things where you have an excuse. It's kind of like you're doing something, but you also are mostly just talking. Like, I have a poker night pretty regularly. And that's like, you're mostly talking while you play. And it's mostly an excuse to get together and just hang out with people. We do this thing every week called Triple Click that we say is like a podcast, but it's really just an excuse to hang out with each other. And talk, talk for an hour or so every week.

• 49:51Kirk Hamilton?

  For sure. Yeah, I don't mean to, whatever. Of course, I'm not saying anything absolute here. All kinds of different activities are good. And actually, when you don't know people that well, if you're getting to know people, having an activity is great. And like with this group of friends, we got to know each other by playing Imperial Assault and Gloomhaven. And we used to play the games a lot more. And over time, we've just become friends and now like very good friends. And so it's a lot easier for us to just sit around and talk because like, we're really comfortable with one another.

• 50:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's nice. That's good.

• 50:21Jason Schreier?

  Once again, big thanks to everybody sent in questions. And you can reach us at [email protected]. If you too have a question that is burning in your back pocket and you just gotta pull it out and throw it at us. Let's take a break and we'll be back with one more thing.

• 50:42Speaker 05

  Now, everybody knows that The Greatest Generation has always been Max Fun's go-to podcast for old Star Trek recaps. But what my theory presupposes is, what if it isn't? In a shocking turn of events, Greatest Trek, the comedy podcast covering new Trek, has gone through a temporal wormhole back to the very beginning.

• 51:01Speaker 06

  Because we are now reviewing Star Trek: The Original Series. That means when you subscribe now, you'll get episode-by-episode recaps of all the 1960s-style action and intrigue, along with all the jokes and fun that make Greatest Gen and Greatest Trek the number-one Star Trek podcasts out there. Subscribe now to Greatest Trek on MaximumFun.org.

• 51:25Speaker 07

  Hey, gang, it's Jesse Thorne, host of Bullseye with Jesse Thorne. We are ringing in 25 years of Bullseye this fall. That's right, listener, 25 years. I started the show in my dorm room at UC Santa Cruz. What does that mean for you? Well, we'll have a whole month of special shows, new and old, for one thing. We are putting on live shows in Los Angeles, New York, and Santa Cruz. Got guests like Adam Scott, Roy Wood Jr., then Rebecca Sugar, just to name a few. And on October 9th, I will interview 25 people in a row. You can watch that live and streaming on our YouTube channel. I hope you'll plan on celebrating with us. That's MaximumFun.org/events. Thanks.

• 52:07Jason Schreier?

  And we are back. Guys, we got an email this week from someone who, I won't say their name, but they were talking about, remember last week we were talking about skipping advertisements on a podcast while driving?

• 52:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:21Jason Schreier?

  This person said, I'm just gonna read this real quick. "Love the pod, absolutely fundamental part of my week. I listened driving to work on the subject while skipping advertisements of driving. I live in London and was caught by the police doing so last week. I was pulled over, given a 200-pound fine and six points on my license. Stay safe, kids." So... No, no. Once again...

• 52:42Speaker 00

  They saw them on their phone and they got pulled over for that?

• 52:45Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, just like, I guess, skipping podcasts. So, once again, shout out to us for not having... Having ads that you have to skip. And if you are driving, I hope you didn't just skip past those promos. I hope you didn't do it. Unless you have, I guess you could, it's much easier to do if you have like the dashboard on your car and you could just press the button while you're driving.

• 53:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, like CarPlay or whatever.

• 53:04Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's still a little unsafe.

• 53:05Speaker 00

  You're just like, have a little zen meditative moment while they're playing, you know? Just be alone with your thoughts.

• 53:13Jason Schreier?

  Maddy, what you just said could be an ad. Have a zen moment by downloading our new app, Meditation X.

• 53:19Speaker 00

  Well, it wasn't. No one paid me to say that. I don't know anything about any meditation apps.

• 53:24Kirk Hamilton?

  You know how like it's, it's actually, it is technically against driving laws to use your phone when you're driving, like in some states?

• 53:32Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 53:32Kirk Hamilton?

  But I don't know that I've ever heard of that being enforced, especially lately. It just seems like no one enforces that. I am curious, if you are listening to this, if you like recently have had an experience like this in America, like a cop has actually seen you skipping ads or like interacting with your phone and they've pulled you over? I would love to know about it, or if you know somebody. Cause I'm very curious if this has happened, if this happens to anybody.

• 53:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I've never heard of this in my locality.

• 53:57Jason Schreier?

  Some, my dad got pulled over recently for using the phone while driving, but it was because he was, it was to his ear.

• 54:02Speaker 00

  Right, he was on the phone.

• 54:03Jason Schreier?

  It wasn't like texting. I, I do think that it's very hard for someone to actually see you like looking, like using your phone and like get away with that. That's very difficult to like catch in the act, but I don't know. Yeah, that's a good question.

• 54:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, how many ads were you skipping? I, we, you need to tell us, listeners.

• 54:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Man, some of these podcasts I listen to though, I have to just skip.

• 54:20Speaker 00

  I know, I know.

• 54:21Jason Schreier?

  There you go.

• 54:21Speaker 00

  I know what you're talking about. I have had times.

• 54:24Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, like you're talking about last week.

• 54:25Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, since we talked about it also, I want to, I want to just mention like, most of the ads that I'm complaining about are the ones where in the first seven minutes of the podcast, you have like a giant three minute chunk of ads.

• 54:36Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 54:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Cause a lot of hour long ads, they like begin and they're like, welcome to the show. Okay, we'll be back after these ads. And then it's just ads. And I get that that's where the most money is because the advertisers pay the most for like the pre-roll and the like first mid-roll spots. But woof, I really think that it like, it really does degrade your listening experience. So anyways, just to add a little bit of, of specific criticism there.

• 54:58Jason Schreier?

  Thank God for listener support and we love all of the listeners who are able to make this show possible. All right, uh, let's do some one more things. Maddy, kick us off.

• 55:07Speaker 00

  Okay, so Dina and I have been watching a bad show called Prison Break. And while we've been watching it together, she said, I saw a documentary about a real life prison break that is really good. And she engages with a lot of like very dark true crime that is kind of beyond my capacity. And I would describe this as like on the edge, not for kids. And I will explain why this is not in the show Prison Break, all the characters are innocent. You're really kind of rooting for them and it's, it's very silly and dumb.

• 55:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Prison Break is one where the guy has like the tattoo of the prison on his back.

• 55:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, he like tattoos of prison on his, like, look, I don't watch it.

• 55:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Just making sure I remember that.

• 55:46Speaker 00

  Here's the thing, I've been playing a lot of book song while quote unquote, watching Prison Break. Um, anyway, so the name of this documentary mini series, it's on Netflix. It's called Beauty and the Bester. And that's because Bester is the last name of this guy who is known as the Facebook rapist. He was in prison for very good reason. He pleaded guilty to two rapes and a murder. His full name's Thabo Bester. And he is also like one of those terrifying charismatic people who just seems to have the ability to just mastermind anyone, including multiple prison guards were in on his, his escape. It's wild. And the other character, the sort of like Bonnie and Clyde character in this is this

• 56:31Speaker 00

  gorgeous female doctor who falls in love with him and helps him as well. And it's just wild. It's a wild story.

• 56:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Wow.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  All takes place in South Africa, so I wasn't familiar with any of the particulars. But the fun part that you two will also like is that the people who broke this story, all journalists, the cops could not figure this out. And that is just a really cool part of the documentary is that you've got kind of multiple journalists, talking heads, who you get to hear about how they tracked down these kind of main characters, what happened. They did have help from one guy in law enforcement who leaked the story to them because he was like, no one's gonna find these people. I'm, I'm gonna leak this to the press. And then they took it from there. And that part of the story was really wonderful to me. Everything else about it is just absolutely harrowing and concerning, but I recommend it.

• 57:25Speaker 00

  It was, it was a wild ride. It's called Beauty and the Bester. And again, it's on Netflix. So if you like that kind of thing, oof, it's a good one.

• 57:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Kirk, what's your one more thing? Thanks. Well, speaking of journalists, I have a recommendation for a new TV show that's about a journalist. And here I am again recommending a Hulu show after watching three episodes, and I'm going to tell everyone that I think it's awesome. And then you'll check back in with two more things in a few weeks. And I'll be like, it's pretty good, but you know, a little flawed. No, that was what I did for Alien Earth. Actually, I think this is, this is on even more solid ground. This is a show called The Lowdown, which is the new show from Sterling Harjo, the creator of Reservation Dogs, beloved by me and Maddy, I know. Amazing show. And this is the new one from him. And apparently, every character actor who watched Reservation Dogs and liked it and wrote him an email saying, hey, can I be in whatever

• 58:18Kirk Hamilton?

  you work on next? Because this is just a character actor extravaganza. It is a really, really good show so far. We're three episodes in. I just watched this week's episode, which was killer. And I absolutely love it. So The Lowdown stars Ethan Hawke as a Tulsa freelance investigative journalist. He calls himself a truth storian. And he's a real piece of work. His name is Lee Raybon. And this is Ethan Hawke at his best. He is playing this kind of shambolic, slightly manic man whose life is constantly falling apart and who is always on the, on the heels of some news story. Real quick, is this based on something, or this is totally just a fictional story?

• 59:00Kirk Hamilton?

  This is totally fictional. It's essentially a Tulsa noir, is how I would describe it. Tulsa, of course, in Oklahoma, similar to the setting of Reservation Dogs. And like Reservation Dogs, The Lowdown features many Native actors and like a lot of just sort of Native American storylines and characters and stuff, which is just a cool and interesting thing about it. So Ethan Hawke is like, he's a crusader for justice, Lee Raybon. He is always trying to expose, you know, whatever is going, you know, going on behind the scenes. He's a bit of a conspiracy theorist. He has a big conspiracy board in the apartment he stays in above his independent bookstore. But he's not wrong about things exactly. And while he's a total disaster, like, he's not a guy that you would really, he would be so-

• 59:43Kirk Hamilton?

  So exhausting to be friends with because Ethan Hawke is such a great actor and the character is so well-written. He is like really, really fun to watch and like just a great time to be around. And then, of course, the supporting cast is wonderful. Kyle MacLachlan plays the head of the Washberg family, who are this very powerful political family. Kyle MacLachlan, of course, Agent Cooper from Twin Peaks. He's running for, I think, governor of Oklahoma and he's kind of, you know, Lee Raybon is obsessed with him and has been like reporting on him. Keith David is in it, of course, the wonderful Keith David with his beautiful voice, playing a private investigator. Gene Triplehorn turns up. And then Tim Blake Nelson, who Coen Brothers fans will recognize from, I don't

• 1:00:27Kirk Hamilton?

  know, everything. He's one of the main characters of A Brother, Where Art Thou. He plays the sort of black sheep of the Washberg family, who at the beginning commits suicide. And it turns out he was like a closeted gay man, whose family didn't accept him. The Washberg family are very successful. He shoots himself, or at least appears to, and has left all these notes behind that are sort of explaining what happened. And Lee Raybon gets on to this story and becomes obsessed with it. And then each time he finds a note, Tim Blake Nelson sort of appears and he reads the note in, you know, like he's right there with them. And it's almost like the characters look at him and can see him.

• 1:01:03Speaker 08

  Family can be a peculiar thing. I love my brother Donald, but he's in a league with agents of evil.

• 1:01:10Speaker 09

  Wait, wait, read that again. I say it. He is in league with agents of evil. Donald is attempting to feather his nest, hell-bent on satisfying his ambitions. And he will use this family as so much fuel for the fires of his greed.

• 1:01:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Which, if you've watched Reservation Dogs, is something that I think Sterling Harjo really likes to do, is he thinks of the dead and the living as sort of existing in the same world. And so there's this kind of, it's not a magical realist show at all, but it just presents the words of the dead and the stories of the dead as happening now, like as happening Just simultaneously with reality. Anyways, this show is so funny. It's so good. It's so chaotic. It feels quite a bit like The Big Lebowski, a show that I actually recently watched. It has a kind of Coen Brothers chaos energy where there's a lot of stuff happening at once. The protagonist is nowhere near as passive as the dude from Lebowski.

• 1:02:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Like Lee Raybon is actively going out and doing things. He is very reckless, constantly just like mixing it up with really unsavory characters and a really relentless guy. But it's, I don't know, it still has a sort of Coen-y energy. I just, it's so beautifully shot. It's so well-written. If you've watched Reservation Dogs, which I would say is easily one of my favorite TV shows of the last 10 years, like it's an amazing, amazing show. It was this shape-shifting show. It could be anything it wanted to be from episode to episode. You never knew what you were gonna get. And just Sterling Harjo is clearly an incredibly creative and thoughtful writer and showrunner. And so this show has all of that going for it, plus a bunch of like great character actors in addition to

• 1:02:51Kirk Hamilton?

  all of that. So I really just am in love with it so far. I have no idea what's gonna happen. It's not really like, I don't know if the mystery is gonna be satisfying in the end, but that's, it's not really the point. Like this is a show where it's just about the characters and about the themes and about these surprising insights into life that you get every episode. And just the wonderful performances, especially Ethan Hawke, who is just such a great actor and is having so much fun. And it's just a joy to watch him. So yeah, I really highly recommend this. This is The Lowdown. It is on Hulu. Give it a watch.

• 1:03:22Speaker 00

  Sounds awesome.

• 1:03:23Jason Schreier?

  Sounds fun.

• 1:03:26Jason Schreier?

  I also watched this show. I'm not sure I recommend it. Are you guys familiar with the story of Amanda Knox?

• 1:03:31Speaker 00

  Yes, of course.

• 1:03:32Kirk Hamilton?

  I am because you texted me about this when I looked at the show. And I was like, what was that again? And then I remembered. So a little, but you can probably refresh listeners.

• 1:03:40Jason Schreier?

  I didn't know anything about her, other than maybe like hearing her name, like her name sounded vaguely familiar, but I didn't really know anything about her. So the show I watched is called The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox, and it is from her perspective. Amanda Knox is a woman who in 2007 was in college and studied abroad in Italy. And her roommate was murdered and she was accused of the murder by Italian police. And it became a media sensation, both in Italy and in the US. Italian press dubbed her as Foxy Noxy because she is a beautiful woman. And there was all sorts of kind of sexual elements to the case and to the prosecution's case against her.

• 1:04:22Jason Schreier?

  There was also, there's, there's a whole lot to unpack here, including the way that Italian legal, the Italian legal system works, which I think would come off as draconian if you live here and kind of ridiculous if you live here in the United States. Just as an example, here in the United States, juries are sequestered and not allowed to be exposed to media coverage about a case, especially a high profile case that would have media coverage. Whereas in Italy, it's totally fine and like anything leaked by prosecutors and like lawyers can just be heard by juries. And it's like considered part of the, the, the legal system is just the media's impact on it.

• 1:05:00Jason Schreier?

  Anyway, this documentary, it is told from Amanda Knox's perspective and Amanda Knox herself actually had, played a big role in creating the documentary. She was involved and it's interesting.

• 1:05:12Jason Schreier?

  It's eight episodes. It really should have been six because two of them are just kind of like post everything happening and are just a real waste of time, just a lot of kind of clunky monologuing. The writing overall is really uneven, I would say. There's a lot of just purple prose and narration from Amanda Knox that is a little off. The woman who plays Amanda Knox, Grace Van Patton, does a pretty good job of capturing her and she's a captivating figure. And the story itself is really, at least the way that it's told here, is really infuriating. Just watching what she has to go through, the kind of the unfairness of it all, the police interrogations, the, the tricks that they use.

• 1:05:54Jason Schreier?

  At a certain point, a big part of this whole case was that she signed this document that blamed someone else, the bartender where she worked, like her boss at the bar, who was a black man. She blamed him for the murder and he was brought in and his life was kind of ruined as a result. This, this fictionalized. The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox makes the case that like she only did that under coercion from the police and prosecutors and she was like in a haze after like not being able to use the bathroom and not sleeping and just it was all in a foreign language to her. She wasn't allowed to have lawyers or interpreters there and it just sounded like a total disaster. The caveat here, and I think that like as I was watching this, I just kind of had that feeling in the back

• 1:06:38Jason Schreier?

  of my head is that this is all just Amanda Knox's one perspective and it's like very much about her side of the story and we don't really know what wasn't told or what's left out of this version of the story, but it was still interesting. I don't know, I definitely don't love it as a show, but just even getting to go like now going down the rabbit hole of learning the Amanda Knox story, it is an interesting one in that a lot of people believe it's a miscarriage of justice and certainly reading about the way that the Italian legal system works. I mean, that's certainly the most compelling argument against like that, that it is kind of a fucked up thing that happened to her. A lot of people online also have raised questions about like

• 1:07:23Jason Schreier?

  holes in Amanda Knox's story and like questions about evidence and different elements. I don't know, I went down a rabbit hole. I won't get into all of this stuff that I was reading about.

• 1:07:32Speaker 00

  I get it. It's like the kind of thing you watch and you Google everything after it and you're like, I gotta know more.

• 1:07:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Soon you're reading court documents.

• 1:07:40Jason Schreier?

  Exactly. Well, it's the type of thing with this story in particular, because this is a fictionalized mini series that is told from very much from Amanda Knox's perspective. If this story in particular, it's like you really want to know the other side, like what's missing, what's left out of here, because this is not journalists trying to tell the entire story to the best of their ability. This is like one woman's version of the story. But like I'm glad I watched it because I it's an interesting story and it's interesting to hear her perspective. The show itself, like I said, it's uneven. A lot of it is just messy and kind of bad, but like her performance is good and just hearing the story is interesting. I very deliberately like didn't read anything about it until the show was over because I just wanted to see it unfold in the show.

• 1:08:23Jason Schreier?

  And then, yeah, it's just, it's like, it's one of those stories where you just kind of leave it with an icky feeling. The other thing I'll mention is that the family of the victim, Meredith Kirshner, have come out and just kind of criticized Amanda, criticized the show, been like, she's made it all about her, when our daughter was the woman who was killed. And they're still grieving as a result of that. So that also just adds a layer of nuance to this whole thing. There's also that, the show tells the story, the other kind of main character is her, the guy that she was dating at the time, who she had only

• 1:09:03Jason Schreier?

  been dating for a week. And he also was accused and convicted of murder and went to prison with her. And he's become a pariah as a result. His life has been ruined. He doesn't, can't find a job, and so on and so forth. So it's really just a tragic story. And I came away from it, like, still not being clear on exactly what the, all the facts are, but just feeling like, man, this is just a fucked up story all around. And man, the Italian legal system really seems to have some issues.

• 1:09:33Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:34Jason Schreier?

  Be careful in Italy. Yeah. The other thing I'll say is that, like, it seemed like it was really a media battle, and there's a lot in there about the media. It seems like American media, like, was more on Amanda Knox's side, and maybe still is more on Amanda Knox's side, whereas Italian media was very much, and still very much believes that she was guilty. There's also this third party who, I guess, this is kind of a spoiler for real life, but there's a third party who was also convicted of the murder. And there's a lot more compelling evidence that this person did it. And the prosecution's argument in Italy was that Amanda Knox also played a role. But, yeah, it's, it's pretty, pretty rough stuff all around. Again, I don't know if I would recommend watching this, but the story, reading about it, is, is pretty wild.

• 1:10:19Kirk Hamilton?

  It's tricky with these fictionalized adaptations of real stories. Your description makes me think of the Anadelfi series that I watched on Netflix.

• 1:10:27Jason Schreier?

  That's, that's the best comparison.

• 1:10:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Which had that same feeling where I was like, I don't feel like I'm getting the whole story here. So I don't know. Like any takeaway I take from this just feels like useless because like this just doesn't feel like the whole story where compared to something like The Dropout, which was based on a work of journalism, it was based on Bad Blood, which was like a very well-reported book and like, you know, was based on Wall Street Journal reporting before that, like it had a whole lot of reporting behind it. It was still fictionalized, but it just felt more substantive because you felt like you were getting a more complete story. So there's like different versions of this type of adaptation.

• 1:11:02Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, and I think in both of those cases, we have a better idea of the facts of what happened, whereas here, nobody will ever know like what really went down in that house on that night and how it all unfolded. But yeah, it's, you're right, that it's like, it's never quite as satisfying from a like wanting to know the real truth point of view to get the fictionalized version.

• 1:11:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's interesting. The fictionalized version allows you maybe to explore the things that can't be established as easily in the factual record. Like, for example, in The Dropout, it's, the real question is like, what was going on in Elizabeth Holmes's mind? Like, who is she? And that question also drives the Anna Delvey story. But like, with the Elizabeth Holmes performance, partly it's that like Amanda Seyfried's performance was more nuanced and it was just a little mysterious because we can't know. Where the Anna Delvey story was just so much more vague in general, and she's such a vague and strange person, that it just never felt like there was anything there that I could hold on to. But it is kind of cool how the fictionalized approach does allow you to try to answer those unanswerable questions, because no amount of reporting is going to be able to tell you exactly what Elizabeth Holmes, for example, was thinking when she started there.

• 1:12:10Jason Schreier?

  Well, ironically, despite the twisted tale of Amanda Knox, having Amanda Knox as one of the kind of creative people, this doesn't actually do that good a job of like telling her, like, helping us understand who she is. Like, there's a lot of weirdness to her and quirks to her that are never really delved into. In fact, the last episode, which is kind of a mess of an episode, it winds up showing her meeting her, who would turn out to be, who would wind up becoming her husband, and getting married. And they show like this 10-second clip of her wedding. And everyone is like dressed up as a spaceman and it's never explained and it's just so strange. And it's just like, what is going on here? And I was Googling about

• 1:12:52Jason Schreier?

  it and like, it turned out she had like a time traveler themed wedding and she tried to crowdfund it on the internet. And there's like some like whole like books worth of stories, it seems like behind her that she doesn't really like get into in this in in the one fictionalized version that is supposed to be like ostensibly telling her story and helping the world to understand her. So there's a lot of weirdness there. But yeah, I mean, if you believe her story, which a lot of people certainly do, it's this is a story of someone who was accused of murder and wound up in prison for four years because she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, which is just truly tragic. And you do wonder, watching it, at the very least, what would have happened

• 1:13:33Jason Schreier?

  if this was an American legal system. Not to say that our legal system is is all that great or all that perfect by any means, but there, there is some, some tainting going on in the Italian one. The other thing is just like their treatment of the DNA evidence is just, oh my God, the way that that that comes off. If you guys ever watch it or read up on it, it is the way they just like fumble around and like totally taint all of the evidence and just completely mishandle it is, is infuriating to watch. But yeah, anyway, interesting story. Amen and a nox. Yeah. All right. That is that for this week's episode. Make sure everyone check out our Silk Song Beans cast. If you cannot check it out, then you should probably become a member. Otherwise, see you both next week.

• 1:14:18Jason Schreier?

  Yep. See you both next week.

• 1:14:20Speaker 00

  Bye.

• 1:14:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Triple Click is produced by Jason Schreier, Maddy Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network. And if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join. Email us at [email protected] and find links to our merch store and our Discord server in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:15:21Jason Schreier?

  Maximum Fun. A worker-owned network. Of artist-owned shows. Supported. Directly. By you.