What Would We Do In The Video Game Industry?

If the Triple Click gang worked in the video game industry, what would they each do? What's it like to pitch a game? And should Steam bring back its Greenlight process to help slow down the barrage of new games every year? This week, it's time for some burning questions!

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

• 0:04Speaker 00

  You know it, I know it. There are just too many video games out there. But there are never too many letters from TripleClick listeners. Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. This week, we open the mailbag and talk about the thousands of games. And also what our jobs would be if we worked in the games industry for some reason. And video game names yet again. Oh, and guess what? It's Max Fun Drive.

• 0:30Speaker 00

  I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:32Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:33Kirk Hamilton?

  And I'm Kirk Hamilton, and hello.

• 0:35Speaker 00

  Hello.

• 0:37Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, from now on, I'm gonna be self-conscious, saying, "I'm Jason Schreier." Because I don't know if you're gonna sub it out.

• 0:41Speaker 00

  I can't imagine why.

• 0:43Kirk Hamilton?

  So we're listeners. I think they're always gonna be wondering, is this past Jason that I'm hearing? Or is it present day Jason? And they'll never know.

• 0:52Speaker 00

  Is the show just a series of Kirk editing together various things that Jason and I have said to him?

• 0:59Kirk Hamilton?

  We're coming up on 250 episodes, so we are probably to the point where that would be possible.

• 1:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, that's true. But we have something far more important to celebrate today, which is that it is Max Fun Drive. It's Maximum Fun's annual pledge drive. The best possible time to become a member. And we're gonna tell you more about that during the break later in our show. But for now, I'll just say, I mean, you can always go to MaximumFun.org/join. If you just can't wait any longer, just go to that URL. But I also want to say, like we do every year, we are gonna do a stream together, a Twitch stream. We're gonna do it on our own Twitch channel, TripleClickPod on Twitch, on March 27th at 8:00 PM Eastern. So please come and tune in.

• 1:46Speaker 00

  We love to do this for Max Fun Drive and sometimes other times throughout the year. But definitely for this time of year, because it's a super duper special time of year. And we love to have the listeners come by. And we'll tell you just a little bit about how cool Max Fun is. And mostly be playing a video game and doing our thing. So come tune in then. And also, if you wanted to see us in person and you downloaded this episode really early in the day and you're in San Francisco right this second, today at 2:00 PM, we are going to do a meetup, sort of adjacent to the fact that all of us are in town for GDC this week, while you're listening to this, if you downloaded it right away. So today,

• 2:30Speaker 00

  we're going to be at the Yerba Buena Gardens at 2:00 PM, hanging with some listeners. Whoever daans to show up and hang with us, come say hi. So that is that. I think I got it all. I just talked for a long time.

• 2:46Jason Schreier?

  You did. You didn't specify that it's 2:00 PM Pacific.

• 2:49Speaker 00

  Oh, right. That's true. So like, you know how I said the Twitch stream was at 8:00 PM Eastern? Well, don't get confused, because when we're in San Francisco, we're gonna be on San Francisco time. That's the time zone we're gonna be in.

• 3:01Jason Schreier?

  Very important.

• 3:02Speaker 00

  Yup.

• 3:02Jason Schreier?

  We're gonna be meeting up in the park at 5:00 PM Eastern. Don't miss it.

• 3:06Speaker 00

  Well, it's gonna feel like 5:00 PM Eastern to me and Jason, because we'll be, we'll be adjusting to that jet lag, but it's gonna be 2:00 PM to all you San Franciscans.

• 3:15Jason Schreier?

  Can we just say also, our pin this year for Maximum Fun Drive is super cool.

• 3:20Speaker 00

  It's so good. We'll talk about it later.

• 3:22Jason Schreier?

  Get excited for it. It's very good.

• 3:24Speaker 00

  Pins are always really good. It's good to get this year.

• 3:27Jason Schreier?

  Okay, it's a good time. It's a good time to support TripleClick and become a member of Maximum Fun.

• 3:33Speaker 00

  It is. It always is. But now more than ever. All right, Jason, what are we, what are we talking about on the show today?

• 3:38Jason Schreier?

  This week, we are doing Burning Questions. We are reaching into a flaming hot bag full of emails from all of you fine listeners out there and saying, "Ow, ow." Put on our asbestos gloves. I can't prepare. Just a reminder, you can reach us, as always, at tripleclickamaximumfun.org with your own super hot burning questions. And these are some real questions from real listeners. Got to specify that. None of these are AI. None of these are Kirk pretending to be a listener, as far as I know, unless he's like scamming us. I guess Kirk could be starting another email. To just like send pretend emails. In fact, one of these questions that we're feeling today might secretly be from Kirk,

• 4:22Jason Schreier?

  but we'll see when we get to it.

• 4:24Kirk Hamilton?

  I think that we've actually answered a question from Jason before.

• 4:27Jason Schreier?

  That is true.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  That's true, we have.

• 4:28Kirk Hamilton?

  So you're actually the only one of us to actually have done this? This feels like a smokescreen. Jason is covering his tracks right now by pointing at me.

• 4:35Jason Schreier?

  Well, but I was upfront about it. I didn't pretend to be somebody else.

• 4:39Speaker 00

  I don't know that there's any evidence any of us would pretend to be somebody else.

• 4:43Kirk Hamilton?

  No, this is a strange way to begin our mailbag episode because these are all actual emails from listeners.

• 4:48Speaker 00

  Yeah, it seems a little defensive.

• 4:50Jason Schreier?

  I did say.

• 4:51Kirk Hamilton?

  That's what I'm saying, kind of smokescreening.

• 4:53Jason Schreier?

  You got the, I said at the beginning of this, these are real. These are very real. All of the questions.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  No one's doubted this.

• 5:03Jason Schreier?

  All of the questions posed by these emails are real t-shirt are answered by the t-shirt. All right, let's get on with it. Kirk, what do you read this first question?

• 5:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, this first one comes from Mateo. Mateo writes, "Some game journalists have made the jump to game development. Ignoring the game industry's prevalent issues in the current state of the world, pretend it's 2015 or something. If the three of you worked in the games industry, which jobs would you do? My guesses are that Jason would be working on the writing and the story. Kirk would be doing music and sound design. And Mandy would be in production and maybe systems design."

• 5:45Speaker 00

  Mateo misspelled my name.

• 5:46Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm sorry, Mateo.

• 5:47Speaker 00

  It's fine.

• 5:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Unfortunately, Maddie's name is Maddie, M-A-D-D-Y, not D-D-I-E. And I feel the need to.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 5:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Remind some listeners of that, just as my name is not Kurt, though no one really calls me Kurt. They seem to have the K at the end, right? I don't know. What do the three of you think of these, of Mateo's guesses?

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Oh, boy.

• 6:07Speaker 00

  I do appreciate the compliment that I'd be doing systems design, like level design. I think that's really overestimating my abilities. So even if Mateo misspelled my name, they really do think highly of me. I think that'd be cool, but I think it's far more likely that I'd be like a project manager, producer is what it's usually called in that field.

• 6:29Jason Schreier?

  Well, that was the first.

• 6:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:31Jason Schreier?

  He wrote production.

• 6:32Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:32Jason Schreier?

  No, he wrote production or maybe system design.

• 6:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. I'm just, I'm just shaving off that maybe systems design. I'm excising it. I'm a, I'm a manager through and through.

• 6:41Kirk Hamilton?

  A producer.

• 6:43Jason Schreier?

  Could you see yourself like writing, so by systems design, I think that means like the mechanics of a game, like writing a combat system or coming up with a cool encounter system for a world or something like that. You can't see yourself doing that?

• 6:58Speaker 00

  I don't think I'd be very good at that, to be totally honest.

• 7:01Jason Schreier?

  Production seems like a good fit for you because production is like, producers have to wrangle people and make sure they're working well together.

• 7:10Kirk Hamilton?

  You have years of experience doing that.

• 7:11Jason Schreier?

  And you're good at that stuff.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  You've both been wrangled by me back at Kotaku in the day.

• 7:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Matt is a master wrangler. It's true.

• 7:17Jason Schreier?

  But also, yeah, a lot of kind of people management stuff you would be really good at.

• 7:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, I could do that. Transferrable skills.

• 7:24Kirk Hamilton?

  I mean, when I look at this, like, it'd be fun to write music for a video game, but I'm not, I don't actually think I'd like to do that. I think it'd be more fun trying to write or do narrative design. But honestly, my real answer is I don't, I don't want to want to make video games.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  That's all of our answers, right? Is we don't want to do it.

• 7:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. We should kind of throw that out there. That, like, at least for my part, I don't really want to make that jump. I, it just doesn't seem like it would be fun. And even if it were 2015, taking Mateo's framing into account, I still wouldn't want to make the jump because, you know, a little bit after 2015, I got out of full-time games journalism and I didn't get into game development because I didn't want to.

• 8:03Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I also think there are many things I would rather do before going into full-time game development, especially having kind of heard a lot about how the sausage is made.

• 8:14Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, you know, and you're, you're a writer and have written books. And I feel like surely that kind of writing, writing nonfiction and maybe even writing fiction, is just more appealing to you than writing on a video game?

• 8:26Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, like, so if, if you're gun to my head, if you're like, you have to work at a game studio, writing story like, like Mateo Guest would definitely be my answer. But like, the thought of writing on a game where you have so little control over like, how your writing appears, how much it's changed, even like, that is so unappealing to me. I would rather, if I ever left journalism, my first choice would be like, holding myself up in my office and just writing books where you have complete control over your story.

• 8:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. Every writer who thinks about getting into video games should play the writer will do something. Matthew Burns and Tom Bissel's Twine Game about a writer on a video game. That will maybe put the fear of reality into you and make you change course.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:10Jason Schreier?

  I know a couple of video game writers who listen to this show, and if they are listening to this right now, they are probably having to take a break because they're too depressed.

• 9:20Speaker 00

  Listen, don't be depressed. None of us are entering the field, so.

• 9:25Jason Schreier?

  That's true. We're not competing.

• 9:26Kirk Hamilton?

  It's true. And hey, what do we know?

• 9:28Speaker 00

  We respect you. We respect everything that you're doing, and we know how hard it is. And I really do mean that. And when it's done well, it's all the more impressive to me because I truly don't think I could do it.

• 9:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes.

• 9:40Speaker 00

  I'm not being sarcastic at all.

• 9:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Co-sign.

• 9:43Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. And, and that said, I mean, there's so many cool, kind of like, narrative experiments being done in the indie space. And there's so many cool story games out there that I feel like you could, and maybe I could, in theory, take, get a lot of satisfaction out of that sort of thing. It's just like the thought of joining a triple A studio and becoming a writer is just so unappealing to me.

• 10:05Kirk Hamilton?

  I feel similarly about music and video games, where so much exciting composition and musical experimentation is going on in games with this interactivity, this Play you can do with the player. There's really, really cool stuff there. Working on something like that would be really cool. It's just very unlikely that you you get to start there and.

• 10:23Jason Schreier?

  Well, very unlikely you would get to make money there. That's.

• 10:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. And and also, audio design is just really tough. You know, every audio designer, everyone who's worked in an audio department on games like that is a very, very hard place to be in terms of where your placement is in the trench warfare. It's just a it's a hard role to fill. Huge respect to everyone who does it. It's a very hard job.

• 10:43Jason Schreier?

  In other words, I think if the three of us ever decide to quit journalism, we'll all just make a game together.

• 10:49Speaker 00

  Right. We need a programmer, though. But we do have a pretty good lineup.

• 10:54Kirk Hamilton?

  I thought we were gonna start a name consultancy.

• 10:56Speaker 00

  Right, that's easier.

• 10:58Kirk Hamilton?

  If we make a game, though, we'll just have a really good name on it.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  We just prefer rubbernecking and being annoying and saying what we think other people should do.

• 11:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Maybe we should make a game about naming games.

• 11:10Speaker 00

  Ooh, that's pretty good, actually.

• 11:12Jason Schreier?

  Where you have to pick names and then.

• 11:14Kirk Hamilton?

  And that's the whole game.

• 11:15Speaker 00

  You are a CEO who's clueless about what the game is about. And you're like going into the pitch meeting and you're like, okay, what about Spider Mansion? And you're like looking at everyone's faces and they're like, no.

• 11:31Kirk Hamilton?

  Name wars.

• 11:32Jason Schreier?

  What if it gives you, okay, it'll give you like a one paragraph description and then you have to pick one of three selections and like there's a right answer. It might seem subjective, but there's.

• 11:43Speaker 00

  It's a correct answer.

• 11:45Kirk Hamilton?

  I think we're on to something here. Let's put a pin in it.

• 11:46Jason Schreier?

  Let's put a pin in that.

• 11:47Kirk Hamilton?

  This really could be the first triple click video game.

• 11:50Jason Schreier?

  All right, let's let's get to the next question. Matty, read this one, please.

• 11:54Speaker 00

  Okay, this one's from Martin, who writes, "The movie industry and video games share a lot of common attributes. Cost a lot to make, need both creativity and technology, long timelines, hard to predict consumer tastes, et cetera. Yet crunch does not seem to plague movie making, but it's a persistent issue with game development. Is there something that movie producers are doing better than gaming studio directors? What can game devs learn from the movie production process to avoid crunches?"

• 12:20Jason Schreier?

  So, okay, so I thought this was an interesting question. So crunch, for people who don't know, is an industry term referring to excessive periods of overtime, working long hours for long periods of time. Crunch absolutely plagues movie making. Right, okay, good. I'm glad that's where you're starting. There are all sorts of just kind of like infamous stories over the years about movies where people had to work insane hours. I mean, every time I read a book, I was just, I was just kind of skimming through this book about The West Wing that came out a few months ago. It's called What's Next? And I haven't really read it. It's, it's a little bit puffy for my taste, but skimming through it. And West Wing was infamous for like working until three in the morning on their show shoots and then like coming back in again the next morning.

• 13:05Jason Schreier?

  So the premise of this question is a little bit flawed, but I do think there's one part of this equation that, that is different for movie making, which is that in movies, every single person on set, or most of the people on set, are part of a union, a different kind of union, and they're very restricted in like set hours, set lunch breaks, set overtime pay. So if they work past X number of hours, they get time and a half, or double time, or whatever it looks like. And so that, I think, makes a big deal because that means when you're making a movie, you have to be a lot smarter about your timeline and your decision making ahead of the movie. And obviously, there are all sorts of like techniques that people can use to make up

• 13:48Jason Schreier?

  for shortcomings there, like reshoots, which are infamous in the MCU world as an example. But for the most part, movie producers have to plan and they have to know a lot more about what they're doing before they go into production. That said, it's very difficult for games to do that because in games, you have to figure out if something is fun and works, and in movies, you do not. In movies, you just point a camera at something, and in games, you can discover midway through production that your main feature is actually not very fun. But I think that the one thing that, that I think more game makers could learn from the movie world is Planning, more planning.

• 14:27Speaker 00

  Oh, I thought you were gonna say unions, but yeah, sure.

• 14:29Jason Schreier?

  Well, unions are part of that, and unions force more planning because you know that you're burning so much more money every single hour. Like, right now, when it comes to crunch, if you're a game producer or game executive, you can kind of schedule crunch into your planning, or at least know that like as a backup plan, you'll just make people crunch because there's no downside for you, other than the long-term downside of burning people out, or forcing them to leave, or whatever. But like, that isn't a downside on the current project. Whereas in the movie business, if you are shooting, you know every minute you go after 12 o'clock, or whatever, after 12 hours, or whatever, you are just like burning through so much money that you are incentivized not to put in that extra overtime because it costs

• 15:13Jason Schreier?

  so much. So, that's a part of the equation, too, for sure.

• 15:16Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, there's also so much more going on with a movie shoot. I mean, if you're shooting on location, if you're doing something kind of difficult, where if you miscalculate and go long, or if you've ever read the story of any hellish movie shoot, you know, something like The Abyss, or Mad Max Fury Road.

• 15:34Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 15:35Kirk Hamilton?

  These movies that were very, very difficult to make, because they were out in the desert, you know, or on a boat in the middle of the ocean, they were doing something very, very difficult. So if you miscalculate, you're also putting your actors through it, you're putting your crew through this incredibly difficult, physical, rigorous, physical experience, where in games, the stakes are a little lower in a certain sense, because you can just say, "Well, mostly, we're all just at computers, we're just trying to crack this thing and get it working." But because the stakes are lower, it's a little easier, I would imagine, to just say, "Well, yeah, we're just gonna stay late for two weeks." Because it doesn't feel quite as bad as, "Well, we're gonna stay out in this hurricane," or whatever, "in this storm in the middle of the desert for a week, trying to get this shot while we

• 16:19Kirk Hamilton?

  all have sunburn, and we're getting, you know, dysentery," or whatever. So, as a result of that, I think maybe it can sometimes feel easier to slide into crunch in video games. And it also means that the comparison, you know, isn't quite as one-to-one. It's a pretty significant... Different difference between the two things.

• 16:37Jason Schreier?

  It's also when you're in video games, because it's an office job and you're kind of doing your work individually as opposed to on a set that is coordinated shooting. Like on a movie set, you can't have just like the lighting guy crunching because it's all just kind of like a giant collaborative effort as opposed to in games where a programmer could be off crunching at home. And you might even not even know, like it's very easy to slide into that.

• 17:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. And something that occurs to me in talking about that is that as movies have become more digital and more like video games, that kind of crunch has actually become more prevalent. I'm thinking of the reporting on Across the Spider-Verse, which was a notorious and very, very difficult production. And reading the story of that, it was all animated. It really just felt like one of your Bloomberg stories, Jason. I mean, it was, it was so similar in terms of everything, the creative direction, the way that the work worked, and certainly the crunch.

• 17:31Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, you know, that's really interesting because yeah, it's much easier to not plan when you don't have to worry about, okay, our actors are only available for 14 days in the Mojave Desert and that's where we're going and like, we need to get this all now or else we're never going to get it. If you're like-

• 17:47Kirk Hamilton?

  The season is going to change.

• 17:49Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, exactly. The lighting, the lighting will be like, we have to do this before sunset. As opposed to just animation where as the decision makers, you can like reverse, reverse course four times and not really have any ramifications because you're just animating in a computer. Yeah, that's a good point.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  I feel like it's also worth noting before we wrap on this, that movies have been around for like 100 years and that there's a pretty locked in standard for how a movie is made. And video games are relatively young. And I just think it's worth remembering that, like a lot of the organizational problems that people run into with video games are because it's still nascent. I mean, yeah, it's been a few decades by now. There's sort of a standard for how a triple A and a double A video game should be made. But movies have a lot on games in terms of just time and experience and just citing past examples of movies and being like, well, this worked for this movie. There's, there's decades upon decades of examples to point to.

• 18:49Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, not just nascent, but also changing drastically from year to year.

• 18:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, that too. Yeah. But the animation comparison is very apt. I, I, I mean, woof, those Sonic redesigns. I mean, we remember hearing about that.

• 19:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of similarity.

• 19:06Jason Schreier?

  Next question is from Sammy, who writes, "I first discovered your podcast from my gamer boyfriend, and she never listened to a podcast before triple click. So thanks for all the fun time and insightful information." You're very welcome, Sammy. Sammy says, "I'm curious if any of you know or have heard from other sources what the process tends to be for pitching game ideas? Is it significantly different from how movies, books, and other media get pitched? How do the initial stages of pre-development compare?"

• 19:35Kirk Hamilton?

  This is an interesting one. I've talked to some people who've pitched, though I would say, I'm not sure that I'm the most well-informed person to answer this question.

• 19:42Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, well, let me try to fill this one, or at least kind of give a basic answer, which is that it's really drastically different depending on what the game company is. So like, if you're at a big AAA game company, a naughty dog or something like that, then the pitching and the game, like deciding what's happening next, is happening at a pretty high level. Like, most people at the studio probably just have no input in that. Maybe they can give their feedback or something and be like, "I want to work on this." But like, those decisions are happening at a high level. At a company like Double Fine, which we've talked about quite a lot, they have like their own prototyping process called Amnesia Fortnite, where everyone stops what they're doing for two weeks and like works on a bunch of cool game ideas that could then potentially turn into games for the studio.

• 20:27Jason Schreier?

  So like, in theory, anyone could pitch an idea and have it turn into something. At other companies, I've heard of like votes and polls and people being like, "What do we want to do next? Let's try to figure that out." And some companies, a lot of it is determined by executive mandates and what publishers are looking for. If you're a smaller company and you're not owned by a big publisher, it might be just what you can get funded. Like, you might be taking around your pitches and trying to get funding everywhere. So it's all over the place. It really can drastically differ. As opposed to, movies can also differ a little bit, but a lot of times it's a more linear process. Like, a screenwriter writes a screenplay and they shop it around, and maybe it gets made, or maybe it gets kind of packaged as

• 21:09Jason Schreier?

  something else. Maybe it gets rewritten five times before it's made, but in general...

• 21:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Usually.

• 21:14Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. But in general, it's a pretty linear process. Or a studio decides, "We need to make the next Iron Man, so we're going to hire a screenwriter for that." And that's kind of how it goes. Books... Are very similar to screenwriting in that either an author can shop an idea around, or maybe an editor at a book publisher like has an idea, or a publisher really wants a book about X topic. And so they might be looking and talking to agents to try to figure out if there's a writer out there who's fitting for that.

• 21:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Is that nonfiction versus fiction? I'm guessing you're kind of talking about nonfiction.

• 21:47Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that would be nonfiction. Although with fiction, I guess if it's like cereals, then or some big franchises, then they might have a story in mind and hire someone. But in books, I think 99% of the time, it's just the writer, the author, making a pitch, and the publishers deciding whether or not they're interested. So in games, I would say it's a little bit more all over the place than books or film.

• 22:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. All I really know from people I've talked to who've pitched is that it can be incredibly sold the string to do, and it's really grueling and difficult process.

• 22:22Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 22:23Kirk Hamilton?

  I feel like that's true for everyone who's ever pitched anything, though pitching just sucks.

• 22:26Speaker 00

  Yeah, it does mean, I mean, I recommend the Double Fine documentary that we're constantly recommending to Sammy, because I feel like that process is so cool and is a great insight into a pretty specific pitching process for games and how they could get made. I feel like that gave me a lot of insight into what that could look like in a positive way that I don't know that, I mean, maybe other studios could look to that. I don't know. Might be cool.

• 22:55Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. And a lot of times, by the way, it's like, there's like momentum. So like, you'll feel something in the air. And that, I don't know exactly, I don't think the doc even shows exactly how Psychonauts 2 was pitched. It just kind of shows Tim Schafer being like, next up, we're doing Psychonauts 2. But I imagine there were a lot of conversations in within the office that were like, all right, feels like Psychonauts 2, feels like it's time, like, feels like this is, we're gonna see, we're gonna see this, like, it feels like there's something in the air here. We're all excited about it. Because I think that, like, when a studio leader gets a vibe that, like, people aren't excited about something, that can kind of change things. And so I think there is a little bit of kind of democratic input, but usually the decision itself is made at the high, highest levels.

• 23:40Kirk Hamilton?

  You can think about all of these service games that have failed or been canceled, and how they were pitched, and when they were pitched, right? There was all this energy and inertia and momentum around service games. Everyone was very excited to greenlight things. And then we all saw how that went.

• 23:55Jason Schreier?

  Next Fortnite, baby. Next Destiny. Yeah, man. Well, that's the problem with pitching is that you pitch something and then it doesn't come out for another five years, six years.

• 24:06Kirk Hamilton?

  Trust me, in six years, I'm telling you. It's gonna be all about just Ace Attorney clones. That's all the way down.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  Well, but I also wonder how many of those examples were games that were pitched one way and then the pitch was accepted contingent upon it being a live service game or having some other element. Name that trend from the past several years where games got kind of shifted. And sometimes that makeover can work and sometimes it doesn't. So I don't even know if all of those live service games were really connected to that when they were initially pitched.

• 24:39Kirk Hamilton?

  That's true. Though I guess one thing I've learned from Jason's reporting is that as often as not, the people pitching the game are the ones who made the decision to make it what it was and it wasn't actually imposed on them.

• 24:49Speaker 00

  True.

• 24:49Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, by the publisher.

• 24:50Jason Schreier?

  Well, there's, there's some nuance there. I mean, if you're a game studio, if you're a rocksteady within Warner Brothers and you're making pitches, like you want to pitch something that you know Warner Brothers is going to be excited about.

• 25:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. You kind of mold yourself to the person you're pitching to. That's a, that's

• 25:06Jason Schreier?

  And also you're getting like, while you're making these decisions, you're getting PowerPoint presentations from executives being like, here's why the future is live service.

• 25:14Kirk Hamilton?

  And you're in the middle of the pitch saying, we're gonna make a Suicide Squad game. It's gonna be cool. And you're watching their attention wand and you're like, it's gonna be live service.

• 25:22Jason Schreier?

  Right, right. Yeah. Okay. So just to, just to kind of like ground things for us to talk about it in terms we can understand. Think about how we, when we were at Kotaku, like it wasn't, traffic was always a big discussion at Gawker Media. Like there was always, Charpy was always up. We always talked about like, oh, this, this, this story is a big hit. Like it's getting lots of views. A lot of people care about it.

• 25:45Speaker 00

  The big board. We've talked about it.

• 25:46Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, the big board. But like, there was never a conversation internally that was like, every story has to do great traffic. But like, it was implicitly understood.

• 25:54Kirk Hamilton?

  It was just there.

• 25:54Jason Schreier?

  And we all knew that like, it was, you were rewarded if a story did good numbers. And also you felt good about it. This is a story people care about. Like there are lots of legitimately good reasons to care about traffic. Think about that on a bigger scale when you're talking about a project worth billions of dollars where it's kind of like, they might not be saying to you, hey, this has to be a service game, but it's kind of, it's kind of understood from the conversations you are having when they, or when they're on earnings calls being like, the future of EA is live service. Like, it's very clear what they really want. And you know, it's going to be just kind of a constant, like, uphill battle, like, resistance if you try to pitch something that they don't want. So it's a little bit more nuanced than just like, the studio heads made the decision.

• 26:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, that makes sense.

• 26:39Jason Schreier?

  All right, next question, Kirk.

• 26:41Kirk Hamilton?

  This comes from Marta, who writes, "It's no secret that the current industry crisis is in part caused by how many games there are. Do you think Steam should reintroduce their greenlight process, or that there should generally be any process to lower the amount of yearly releases?" She writes, "In 2024, there were 19,000-plus games released on Steam alone, apparently. Or do you think that a good game will always defend itself? What other risks do you see associated with how games are being made now?" And by made, I presume she also means released now.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:17Kirk Hamilton?

  So yeah, I don't know. What do we think? Should greenlight come back? Should we tell people what greenlight is?

• 27:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, we should probably explain what it is.

• 27:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, go ahead, Maddie.

• 27:24Speaker 00

  Oh, okay. So, greenlight was something that Steam introduced whereby it, as a storefront, would, as the title implies, either greenlight a game and it would appear on Steam storefront, or it would get rejected. And the, the application process was like, pretty broke and just confusing for people, at least according to a lot of the indie developers that I talked to in that time period when greenlight existed. It was really unclear why or how Steam would greenlight these games. People would try to game the system in a lot of different ways, and there became emergent methodologies for gaming the system that game developers would

• 28:07Speaker 00

  use. It really just introduced additional problems. But I think part of why it existed was because in the early days, Was kind of prestigious, like it it didn't have every game on its platform, but it was still a really important PC gaming storefront. And then when Indies came to the platform, I think, you know, the Steam head honchos, Gabe Gabe Newell was out there being like, all right, how how are we gonna decide what's on our platform? And it's a totally different ballgame now. There's tons and tons and tons of video games on there. There's all kinds of stuff, some of which is shovelware. Like, that is that is part of the issue, I would guess.

• 28:43Kirk Hamilton?

  I remember that if you were in the IGF, if you were a finalist in the Independent Games Festival, you got onto Steam and that that was as big of a deal as winning in the IGF, just because it was so huge to have your indie game on Steam. Because there were just people who would look on Steam and because there weren't 19,000 or whatever the number is new games, they could just find you. And that was a better world for those developers. And that was a lot of good games because the IGF, you know, tends to have some of the best games featured. But at the same time, that also left a lot of people out in the cold.

• 29:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:19Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I remember fans could vote right on them and that was also a big process.

• 29:24Kirk Hamilton?

  There was a point at least where I remember there being.

• 29:26Jason Schreier?

  Because I remember people were pitching us a lot of Kotaku being like, hey, we want this to get greenlit.

• 29:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it was sort of the new Kickstarter. There was a period, that whole period when we were at Kotaku, first there was the Kickstarter era where people would write and say, my game has a Kickstarter, please, please write about it. And you'd feel kind of, you know, you you maybe feel like you could help them out, but then didn't want to feel that responsibility toward them. And then green light felt very much the same.

• 29:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, especially because as a reporter, you don't know if the game is good or not, especially in the Kickstarter phase, but also in the green light phase. Sometimes it's just like, I don't know anything about this. Why why would I support this? And it just became, I mean, now it's an explosion. It's the indie apocalypse.

• 30:05Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so let's get to the question. So the question is like, should there be some sort of gatekeeping? Or should there be some process in place to reduce the number of releases? Because it's true, I think it's kind of an accepted fact. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago when we did our episode about why the video game industry has fallen apart. One of the biggest factors is just the complete and utter oversat. ...of games, which I think can be a really good thing for players because they're more cooler, new, they're more cool new games coming out every week than there ever have been in the history

• 30:36Kirk Hamilton?

  A challenging time for podcasters, as evidenced by last week's episode.

• 30:39Jason Schreier?

  And also for discoverability and for making games and releasing them and getting them noticed. And there are a lot of problems with that. It's kind of, it's very much a double edged sword where there's a lot of good and a lot of bad that comes with it. Should there be a gatekeeping process of some sort?

• 30:55Kirk Hamilton?

  And what would it look like? I mean, it's so, it's so hard to know. So I think about podcasts a lot because one of the things that I love about podcasts is that they're distributed via RSS. And I think RSS is the great hope for the future. It's this open platform that anyone can use. You know, I put my shows, I put Strong Songs, for example, on an RSS feed. Anyone can listen to it and there's no gatekeeper. I'm not reliant on a platform the way that a YouTuber is reliant on YouTube. And yet, at the same time, there are these podcast gatekeepers like Apple Podcasts and Spotify, two of the big ones. And you put your RSS feed into those services and then you get distributed that way. And I like that a lot. I mean, I think that the openness,

• 31:40Kirk Hamilton?

  the fundamental openness of RSS is a really wonderful thing. It's not a one to one comparison, but when you think about Steam being an open platform that, you know, you pay some fee or something and you can list your game, that openness strikes me as a good thing. Like, I'm not sure, just my gut tells me that moving away from that-

• 31:58Jason Schreier?

  I mean, podcasts also have a discoverability problem. So it hasn't, this isn't a problem, as perhaps as a result of that openness, it has the same exact problem. So yes, it's a good thing, but also has that same pros and cons, I suppose. Yeah.

• 32:11Kirk Hamilton?

  That's sort of right. That's sort of what makes me think of it. And it's why I'm, I'm resistant to say, well, what we should do is close things down and make it harder for people to put their work out there, just because that just doesn't seem like the way we're going to go. And also, it just seems like moving backward. And in general, things just don't move backward. They move forward in a new direction.

• 32:28Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I agree. It's hard to imagine any sort of gatekeeping system that would work in a fair and just kind of in a way that makes people happy. On the other hand, like, maybe there are better options that don't go backwards, but go forwards. Maybe there are better options for discoverability. Maybe there are other methods that can be used for discoverability. I don't know. A large part of me feels like this is just the world and this is just like where we have to adapt to now is just this glut of games coming out all the time. And that's just what we have to find a way to navigate and what game makers have to figure out how to deal with. Because like, I don't see this

• 33:09Jason Schreier?

  changing. The game I'm playing now, I mean, this game I'm obsessing over and won't stop telling you two about called Blueprints, which we'll talk about more in the future. Wait, what's it called? I've never heard of this. I was thinking about that in the context of this conversation. It's like, here's a game that has blown me the F away. And it's just like, made by this dude and a couple of other people and just came out of nowhere. And they're gonna be game, there are games like this every single year that just completely come out of nowhere and blow us away. And that's obviously a good thing. It's not a problem, but it's also just like, yeah, I mean, that just feels like what the future looks like is just this massive glut of games that just keeps growing and growing. And maybe it's on people like us and people at

• 33:53Jason Schreier?

  platforms to be curators. And I don't know. I don't know if there's an answer to this.

• 34:00Speaker 00

  I mean, I think that is the answer. I actually do think the answer is human curators. And this is the kind of question that makes me really depressed about so many video game publications closing, which isn't what Mark is asking about, but it's what it makes me think of. Because I'm like, there's really nothing better than a human person curating a list based on their taste. And then you understand what that person's taste is. And you're like, okay, I usually like things from this games critic that I'm following, or music critic, or book critic, list goes on. And this is semi-related. I've recently gotten really into watching music DJs on Twitch, because the music rights have been sorted out over there. And it's just a way that I'm discovering new music now, is by

• 34:44Speaker 00

  just watching DJs play it. Because obviously, there's so much new music coming. Constantly, how would you ever discover it? And the way to discover it is by a human person who makes it their life's work or passion to be like, here's some new stuff to check out. And like, that's our responsibility. I mean, not to get all corny about it, but like, it is our responsibility to tell people about blueprints or whatever it is. I just, I always hope we're not the only ones, you know? I want there to be other people out there like us doing it.

• 35:16Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, and also, the problem with that is that it's so, it's like determined by our personal taste. Because the three of us, I mean, we're not gonna be, yeah, but like, so the three of us, we're not gonna be up and triple click like recommending the best, I don't know, sports games every single week that come out. And so, it's a little unfortunate that like, the curator is even there, it's so limited to what we like and care about.

• 35:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, but I'm sure there's curators for that.

• 35:45Kirk Hamilton?

  We're limited by our human capabilities. And this is some, this is somewhere where AI is going to become more and more noticeable. Like, AI DJs are already a thing on Spotify.

• 35:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:55Kirk Hamilton?

  And, you know, I think some people get something out of that. And I could imagine an AI's capability to look at a vast amount of information and sort through it is helpful in this instance. Because like, you were just saying, Jason, a human being can only play so many games. And I mean, forget about music, movies, books. It is possible to read most of the big new books each year. It's possible to watch most of the movies. Music is a lot harder, there's a ton of it. But with games, I mean, games are so huge, they take so much time, it's just not possible. So you do start to see a world where they build an AI that can do this because it's able to. But then you lose the humanity of it. You lose getting this actual human being.

• 36:35Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, how can an AI possibly tell whether a game is good or not?

• 36:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, this is not going to be an either or choice. This is going to happen. Like, an AI is going to exist to tell you what kind of game you might like. After you talk to it and tell it what kind of games you do like, it'll go through a bunch of things or whatever, who knows? I can imagine a bunch of ways that'll work. It won't replace humans, though. It's just, we have to kind of lean into the humanity you were describing as our limitation. Thing that makes us not able to play every single game and just go with what we like. And then the connection to us as people is the thing that actually makes our recommendation hold weight with people. And I think that's already true of TripleClick. We, we don't have time to play nearly every game that we want to. There are so many games I'd love to play if I had time and I just don't. But at the same time, I am still myself.

• 37:23Kirk Hamilton?

  And I think that my, my experience, my understanding, my way of explaining and understanding games is useful to some people, just in the same way that other people are useful to me, because we like to have those human connections. So hopefully we can keep sight of that as well in this world of infinite media, to the point that only machines can process it all and make recommendations.

• 37:44Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. Well, as long as an AI isn't gonna become the new steam green light and deciding whether games should be I don't think it will. Allowed or not.

• 37:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, hopefully not. I mean, that's like what's happening on Spotify, right? Is there's an AI DJ that's recommending music to thousands or millions of people.

• 38:00Jason Schreier?

  Well, but I mean, allowing something to exist on the platform in the first place would be my concern. Anyway, let's keep going. Matty, next question.

• 38:08Speaker 00

  Okay, this one's from Dom, who writes, "I recently received a board game from a Kickstarter I pledged for called Aridia: The Paths We Dare Tread. And imagine my surprise when I discovered that our very own Kirk Hamilton composed the official music for the game. The idea of composing music for a medium that doesn't typically call for it is so interesting to me. And I was wondering if Kirk could speak a little bit on his experience. How did this partnership come about? What were the challenges that he faced during the composing process? Are there any interesting anecdotes he can share about his experience?"

• 38:41Kirk Hamilton?

  I would love to talk about this. I'll be brief. This is the kind of thing I could talk about at length and maybe will on Strong Songs or something. But this was a very, very fun project that I completed a while ago. The game is just now coming out. This is a game from Far Off Games called Aridia: The Paths We Dare Tread. As Matty said, it is similar to Gloomhaven. It actually comes in an even bigger box. Cody Miller, the head of this company, sent me a copy of it since I did the music. And It's the most unbelievable box I've ever seen in my life. I still haven't posted a picture of this. It is so awesome. It weighs, I think, 24 pounds. I weighed it. Wow. It is a box the size of a car, and it has so much stuff in it. It's such a cool game. I still haven't had a chance to play it, but I really, really want to with my

• 39:26Kirk Hamilton?

  board game group, because it looks very cool. So anyways, how did this come about? Cody is actually a TripleClick listener. Hi, Cody, if you're listening. He's a very, very nice guy. He runs Far Off Games and designs board games and has had some success with past games. He's well-known in the community and did a Kickstarter for Iridia, pitching it as, "I want to make a big, persistent role-playing game adventure that people can play through, where you have a character, and it's like a big D and D campaign, but it's a tabletop game, similar to something like Loomhaven." And it was very successful Kickstarter, and as one of the stretch goals, he had me come on as the composer. The reason for that was actually that he hired me to write music

• 40:09Kirk Hamilton?

  just for the Kickstarter trailer. So it started with me just writing the theme music for Iridia that just played on the little Kickstarter video that showed what they were envisioning for the game. Then the stretch goal came, and that was, "Hey, do you want to actually try writing some music for this game?" So I said, "Sure, I'll do it." So I wound up composing five tracks. There's a field music and a town theme. There's a battle theme. There's a boss theme, and a magical mystical theme. And the idea with the game is that as you're playing, some cards that you draw that have certain activities or actions or events will have a little color-coded music cue written on the card. And then you are to play that track of the five tracks. And you can put it on repeat,

• 40:54Kirk Hamilton?

  because I wrote them all to be able to just loop. And then action music, like fighting music, plays when you're in a fight, or really peaceful chill-out music plays if you're in a town, that kind of thing. The biggest challenge, I'll just cite one thing, because I think this is, it was interesting for me as a composer and is actually relevant to video games as well. So much of what I had to do, and I worked with Cody on each piece, so much of what I had to do was remove stuff. I would write this kind of elaborate piece of music and send it to Cody. And he'd say, this is cool, but there's too much. There's too much melody. There's too much going on. And so we just kept pulling stuff out. And the eventual versions that we wound up with were very stripped down because it has to be in the background.

• 41:39Kirk Hamilton?

  It can't be super distracting. And I've actually gone and used this music during my Dungeons and Dragons campaigns with my friends. I'll put it on when we're in a fight. I put on the battle music because I haven't had a chance to play Aridia yet, but we're playing D and D pretty regularly. So it's a way for me to test the music and it works. It's actually been really informative. I've, I might release new versions of the tracks that are like five times as long, just so you don't have to put it on loop and it'll just play for 15 minutes, where I just copy paste the thing basically five times in a row and maybe make a couple little changes. Anyways, that was the, the one interesting challenge for me as a composer is remove stuff. Just remove, remove, remove less timbral variety, less melody. Just, it has to kind of really get in the background. So it was a super fun process.

• 42:23Kirk Hamilton?

  You can listen to the music on my SoundCloud and I'm going to put it up on Bandcamp at some point and, uh, and actually, you know, make it for sale for anyone who wants it. But anybody who bought the game gets a copy of the music and it was really cool. That game is amazing. We'll put a link in the show notes. People should go check it out. It's, it looks like a really awesome game and it's, it's been getting good reviews too.

• 42:57Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I hope you talk more in depth on the process on strong songs, as you said you would.

• 43:01Kirk Hamilton?

  I probably will at some point.

• 43:02Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that's awesome. Let's slip in one more question. This is a fun one. This is from Ricardo. Ricardo says, hello guys, I hope you're all fine and dandy. I'm making a game that's similar in style to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, My Life as a King. I was wondering if you could help me with being a soundboard for some names I'm considering. For context, I'm half Italian and half English and wanted to have a blended name to pay homage to my roots. Anyway, here are some of the names I've got. Let me know what you think. Sovranos Will, Dominio Eterno, Reign de Luce, Throne Bound, Dominion's Call.

• 43:40Jason Schreier?

  All right. First of all, Ricardo, I just want to say that from now on, to listen to the rest of the podcast, we will be charging $100 an hour for our services.

• 43:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, Spider Mansion Consulting is now in session.

• 43:54Speaker 00

  Oh my goodness.

• 43:56Jason Schreier?

  All right, let's, let's put our money where our mouth is and give Ricardo some suggestions. Please, Kirk, go first.

• 44:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, so just looking at all of these, I would say that I think Thronebound is the strongest name of the ones that we have just listed, though I don't think that it's incredibly strong.

• 44:13Jason Schreier?

  Hard to say with like Thronebound is not a pleasant word to say.

• 44:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, and the thing about Thronebound as a concept, it's like being stuck in a chair.

• 44:21Jason Schreier?

  Right, that doesn't sound fun.

• 44:23Kirk Hamilton?

  It's not very active. So here's my other thought. Looking through all of these, I think that dominio eterno doesn't quite work together, but either of those words could work. Dominio, that could be the name of a game, not bad at all. Eterno, so maybe like less is more.

• 44:40Jason Schreier?

  Too much like eternal, which is too common a word in games. I would nix eterno.

• 44:46Speaker 00

  I think it's different enough for what it's worth.

• 44:48Jason Schreier?

  So Severano, so if this is a game about being a king and kind of like doing cool stuff, I never actually played Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, My Life as a King, but this is a game of being a king and doing stuff. Severano means king in Italian, so if he wants to blend Italian and English, I think you could play around with that. You could do some alliteration thing. If this is a game about killing a king, like Slay the Severano would be a fun name. Maybe you can play around with Severano and like another word that is relevant, maybe another word that starts with an S. You could have some fun with that. You could, you could find something a little catchier than Severano's will. Will is kind of a soft, boring word. I'm gonna look up what you actually do in

• 45:33Jason Schreier?

  life as a Final Fantasy.

• 45:36Speaker 00

  I like just Severano for what it's worth. I think a one-word title is pretty powerful.

• 45:41Jason Schreier?

  It's a little tough.

• 45:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. Dominion's Call, I think that something's something is generally not my favorite structure. Like, Call of Dominion is a stronger name. It sounds a little like Call of Duty, but Call of Dominion, I would say, is stronger than Dominion's Call, if we're just punching up any of these individually.

• 46:00Jason Schreier?

  Strong Severano, strong songs, Severano's.

• 46:04Speaker 00

  Severano's Song.

• 46:07Kirk Hamilton?

  Strength of Severano. That's a little bit. It's tricky. I mean, I'm not wild about any of these names, Ricardo. I will say that. So I think, I think you should keep working on it. And I think if we were really workshopping this, we would actually talk through like what the game really is, who the characters are, and what you do in it.

• 46:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, what are the verbs is really what I want to know.

• 46:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, what do you do in the game? And then how can you convey that? Because I will say that all five of these games don't really convey game to me. You know, like what type of game it is in a way that I think it is helpful when a name does.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Great feedback.

• 46:41Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. That said, I would not recommend come like other people emailing burning questions with the name suggestions. Because we're not gonna do this every single time we do a burning question.

• 46:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Every burning question just becomes a name brainstorming session.

• 46:55Speaker 00

  Just game tips desperately asking us.

• 46:57Jason Schreier?

  If you go listen to our episode, I mean, some of the tips that we talked about, I mean, catchy is first and foremost. Something memorable is first and foremost what you want to go for. Something unexpected, like, I don't know, not this, because I don't know if it fits this game, but something like sad, sad Severano, where you're kind of like, oh, who is the Severano? Why are they sad? Something, something that plays around with kind of, and especially I'm respecting that Ricardo wants to have the blended Italian and English here. And I think you can do that. You just need to find a catchy way to do it.

• 47:30Jason Schreier?

  Severano, like Severano's Steel, or like something like that.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's, that's better. Or like something implying like a climb or like a battle. Or what, again, what are you doing in the game is part of my hang up here, where it's like, if you have a verb in there or something that describes action.

• 47:50Jason Schreier?

  So My Life as a King, I was just skimming through the Wikipedia page. It's like a city building game. You have to like build yourself a new kingdom.

• 47:59Speaker 00

  So it's like Severano's Empire.

• 48:01Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah, something like that.

• 48:03Kirk Hamilton?

  That's why you get like Call of Dominion kind of tells you that this is a game about, about taking dominion over or something.

• 48:10Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 48:13Jason Schreier?

  Severano City. Severano Spire, Severano's, I don't know.

• 48:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Severano the Spire, I think.

• 48:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 48:21Jason Schreier?

  Severano the Spire. Save Severano. Slick Severano, Sly Severano. Yeah, there are a lot of ways you can play around with this.

• 48:30Kirk Hamilton?

  As long as it's an alliteration, really.

• 48:32Speaker 00

  I like all that Jasons.

• 48:33Jason Schreier?

  Alliteration. Well, I just think it feels punchier. If you're gonna take like the Italian name and you want it to feel a little punchier, I think adding a little, like something like Severano's Will, which was his original suggestion, that to me feels pretty weak because Will is a weak word and also because you don't, you can't really tell what Severano is from it. Like, if you're gonna use the Italian word, it's helpful to make it clear what it is in the title. Anyway.

• 49:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Severano's Dominion.

• 49:02Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, God, no.

• 49:06Jason Schreier?

  Sorry. That's just way too like.

• 49:09Speaker 00

  It's too long, like two, three syllable words.

• 49:13Jason Schreier?

  Dominion is a tough word. Dominion is like one of those that I feel like is in a lot of game names or a lot of names in general that just kind of like, like flies, goes in one ear and out the other.

• 49:25Speaker 00

  I mean, that's what's tough about this list, right? Is it's like Will, Dominion, Reign, Throne, Call, like all of these, I'm like, these are very familiar. Well, Ricardo, we could do this for hours, as you can tell. You've really, you've really.

• 49:40Kirk Hamilton?

  I think we'd get there. I feel like we would get there if we actually really sat down and spent, spent an hour or two on this.

• 49:46Speaker 00

  For sure.

• 49:47Kirk Hamilton?

  At some point, you'd have to start paying us.

• 49:53Jason Schreier?

  I think I got it.

• 49:54Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 49:55Jason Schreier?

  Severano's Suburbs.

• 49:57Speaker 00

  Perfect. 10 out of 10.

• 49:59Jason Schreier?

  That's, that's the city builder of your dreams. All right.

• 50:02Speaker 00

  It's a sim city killer. It's coming at you.

• 50:04Jason Schreier?

  Thank you again to everybody who sent in their questions. Let's take a break and talk about Max Fun Drive. So don't skip ahead for this one because it's gonna be fun. It's gonna be us going at it live, talking about Max Fun Drive, and then we'll be back after that with one more thing.

• 50:22Speaker 00

  So like we said at the top of the show, it's Max Fun Drive.

• 50:25Jason Schreier?

  Max Fun Drive.

• 50:26Speaker 00

  Does that mean? What does it all mean? Well, you know, if you're a regular listener, every week we tell you to go to maximumfun.org/join. We're like, become a member, pay $5 a month, you get the monthly bonus episode. That hasn't changed. That's still true now. But during Max Fun Drive, if you bump up your membership, if you bump it up to say $10 a month, if you bump it up to say $20 a month, you get something extra. And you only get that something extra if you do that during this specific time period. And the extras are really, really cool. Like this $10 one, okay.

• 51:07Speaker 00

  So every year we get to design an enamel pin and we've had some really cool pins in the past. And I feel like I say every year it's my favorite pin, but actually though, this is my new favorite triple click.

• 51:18Jason Schreier?

  It's a good one.

• 51:18Speaker 00

  It's really, really good. So if you, if you become an upgrading member to $10 a month, you can become the proud owner of a lowercase g pin that has a game controller on it. And it's in the triple click colors. So if you know, you know, like this is one of those pins where it's like, okay, yeah, I'm a lowercase g gamer. I'm not like a weird elitist gamer with a capital G who's exclusionary and mean. No, I'm lowercase g. I'm really cool. I'm inclusive and open and I, I'm down. That is what it means. That's what the pin means. It means you're part of the club. So yeah, the $10 per month, that's, that's really fricking cool.

• 52:00Jason Schreier?

  If you want to say to all your friends, hey, I play video games, but I do not check Reddit Kotaku in Action. Then this is a good video.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  Exactly. But also if you were to upgrade to $20 a month, I guess we should say like the theme this year of Max Fun Drive is like spring break. So, and there's some like very Lisa Frank inspired designs. And also it's like a classic setup where if you, you know, join at $20, you still get the pin. And you also get the $20 reward, which is like a decision between a really cute hat or like a Lisa A frank towel, for example, or you can go to $35, you get like this, this cooler bag and then you get all the previous rewards, et cetera, et cetera. You can find all of that stuff at maximumfun.org/join. But I mean, the most important thing here is the pin that we especially designed for all of you, right? I mean, you love it. Lowercase g.

• 52:49Kirk Hamilton?

  The pin rules.

• 52:50Speaker 00

  The pin freaking rules.

• 52:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Pin is very good.

• 52:52Speaker 00

  Don't delay, don't put it off, don't procrastinate it. Just go ahead and type that URL into your address bar. I, I know that's always a stopping point for people. I include myself in this. It's like, I'll just get to it later. You're gonna forget. Just do it right now. Go ahead.

• 53:06Kirk Hamilton?

  And just to be clear, you can sign up for a new membership and you'll get rewards if you sign up at 10 bucks, or you can boost, like Manny was saying.

• 53:14Speaker 00

  Right.

• 53:15Kirk Hamilton?

  You can boost your existing membership. Both of those things totally valid. So whoever you are, wherever you're at, you can get yourself some cool bonus stuff and you can get that pin one way or another.

• 53:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Which is really all that really matters. You just, you want the pin.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  I mean, I guess what really matters is that you're like supporting the show and us not having ads and like us being part of a really cool podcast network that supports us and we love them and we feel supported by them and that's why we still work with them. Da, da, da, support artists, creative people, whatever. You want the pin. You want the freaking pin.

• 53:51Kirk Hamilton?

  We're here for the stuff.

• 53:54Speaker 00

  All right. So that's, that's that. Maximumfun.org/join. Happy Max Fun Drive to all of you.

• 54:03Jason Schreier?

  And we are back. Kirk, Manny, it is time for one more thing. I will go first. I just read a cool book that I want to tell you guys about. It's called Dead Money by Jacob Kerr. Jacob Kerr, Kerr? Kerr? Jacob Kerr is a, is a longtime Airbnb executive slash tech guy who lived in San Francisco for a long time. And he has written this book, his first novel, that is a twisty thriller set in the world of tech. And it starts off with the CEO slash whiz kid founder of this book's fictional version of Uber, which is called Journey. And their slogan, man, I didn't write it down, but it's hilarious. It's like, it's not about the journey, like something like that,

• 54:48Jason Schreier?

  And so this guy is found dead and this woman who is a who works for a big venture capital firm and is also kind of like a lawyer slash investigator is paired up with an FBI agent to investigate what happened and goes on this fantastic path through Silicon Valley and all the tropes that go with it from like the the co-founder who's been sidelined and given the bullshit title like chief whatever it was like invention officer or something to the the VC firms and the the billionaires who are fighting over which startups

• 55:30Jason Schreier?

  they get to invest in even though none of them are actually profitable and it's got it all in there. You have the woman.

• 55:36Kirk Hamilton?

  It's got it all. Lots of things that will make me mad.

• 55:40Jason Schreier?

  No, actually, it'll make you very delighted and entertained because it's so fun to read. This book is really good and I'm surprised that it's this guy's first novel because it's so well structured and well well written and just very compelling book. I really enjoyed it. I really liked it a lot and it has a lot of twists and turns like it goes in directions that maybe aren't entirely unexpected but are certainly fun to read because they don't

• 56:08Jason Schreier?

  they're surprising. I'll say that. They're surprising and satisfying and interesting. And the main character is this kind of six foot one badass woman who has a really interesting backstory that is explored in the book. And I think I'll just leave it at that because she's really interesting and you should read it to learn more about her. And it does some good lampooning slash not even lampooning slash capturing of Silicon Valley as you go in a very fun way that never feels like annoying to a degree that you would react like that character like the characters just feel believable and interesting and real

• 56:50Jason Schreier?

  and you might hate them all or hate most of them but a lot of them get what's coming to them. So that's fun to read. Anyway, I really enjoyed it. I recommend it. It's called Dead Money by Jacob Kerr. You should check it out. It's a cool book. Matty, what's your one more thing?

• 57:06Speaker 00

  All right. My one more thing is a TV show, a sitcom, is called We Are Lady Parts. And it's about a band, a punk rock band called Lady Parts. It's fictional. It's a sitcom. And it's, it's a British sitcom and it's all about these sort of 20 something ish Muslim girls. They're all Muslim girls, women, I should say, that live in Britain and they're in this punk rock band together. And some of them feel different types of ways about Islam, but they're all like cool rebel girls. And the music in this is so freaking good. Like that alone, I feel like you two would love is just the music of the show, but also

• 57:49Speaker 00

  it's really funny. Like at the start of the show, it kind of feels like it's going to be like a rom com about like the main character who ends up being the lead guitarist in the band and she like totally slays on the guitar. It's amazing. But like, you know, she's like, oh, I should be like focusing on getting married and like settling down with a nice Muslim guy and all that. But of course she gets seduced by the world of rock and roll and joins this band and her life goes in this different direction. That's like exciting and fun, but she's like very torn about it because she's also like kind of conservative. And so like it kind of follows her, the main character, but all the other characters are great. And there's like a queer storyline that's awesome and unexpected and fun. And you just get to know all the different women in the band and you love them. But like best

• 58:33Speaker 00

  of all, the music is just really, really good. And I've been in bands. And so like I can really relate to like the fights that some of the characters have and like the tension and all that. But yeah, this is just like great, even if you haven't been in a band. It's just funny and fun and about like these really specific human characters and what their life experiences are. And I think it's awesome. Nita Manzoor is the, the person who created the show. And I think she's just like brilliant based on this. I think it's awesome. And I hope she gets to do a million more things. So yeah, I really recommend this show. It's on Peacock. It's only 12 episodes and they wrap everything up. So, hey, what's your excuse? It's called We Are Lady Parts. It's really good.

• 59:16Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, finish this off.

• 59:19Kirk Hamilton?

  When I think of bands fighting in movies or TV, I always think of Almost Famous. Your looks are becoming a problem.

• 59:26Speaker 00

  Actually, Nina Benzner said Spinal Tap was an inspiration for this because it's a comedy show for sure. So like, that's maybe a little closer to the vibe.

• 59:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, I know. That just always makes you think of that.

• 59:37Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 59:37Kirk Hamilton?

  I don't know. Almost Famous is pretty funny.

• 59:38Speaker 00

  It is pretty funny. It's also dark.

• 59:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Especially its depiction of that band. My one more thing is notifications, specifically the notifications on all of your devices. Because I want all of our listeners to be thinking about the role of notifications in their life, because I have been over the last week. And it made me realize that, man, notifications are very insidious, and they kind of pile up in ways you don't realize. They're like dust bunnies under your couch. I am, as listeners probably know, always trying to really keep control of my attention and keep my digital distractions at a minimum, because the more distracted I am, the less happy I am. It's pretty much that simple. I'm also less productive. I don't feel as creative and focused. But really, I just sort of feel bummed out and depressed when

• 1:00:25Kirk Hamilton?

  there are a million things pulling at my attention at all times. And in this modern technological era, it is very easy to have a million things pulling at your attention. So I just wanted to mention notifications because I went through on my phone and checked my notification settings, which, you know, now has its own. I use an iPhone, it has its own menu. And I swear, you know how every app wants to send you notifications? Whenever you install a new app, the first thing that it asks is, hey, turn on notifications. Can we send you notifications? First of all, I think that that should be a sign right there that notifications are bad and that you should never let an app do it. The fact that they're so into having notifications turned on tells me everything I need to know about how little I want them turned on.

• 1:01:07Jason Schreier?

  It's like when a restaurant is like, no shirt, no shoes, no service. I mean, come on. Like, now I just want to go in without a shirt despite you. Like, you really don't want to wear a shirt.

• 1:01:17Speaker 00

  It's exactly like that.

• 1:01:17Kirk Hamilton?

  It's pretty much the exact same thing.

• 1:01:19Speaker 00

  Perfect analogy.

• 1:01:19Kirk Hamilton?

  So anyways, I went through and looked at my notifications and realized that there were just a ton turned on, just various things, you know, even like...

• 1:01:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Extraneous things and essential things, my calendar, for example, or my messages app, they just are sending me notifications all the time. And as a result, when I mark in my computer up in the corner, there's always a few things there. I log in and there's just a couple of things up there. Oh, this is updated. Oh, there's some new thing at this website. Oh, you've got these messages from this person. Even having notifications from messages on my lock screen is kind of an issue.

• 1:01:54Jason Schreier?

  Wait, why is that an issue?

• 1:01:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I'll get into it. So I went through and I turned off every single notification because I wanted to start there and just see, okay, I don't have a ton going on today. If someone needs to call me, they can call me if there's an emergency. I'm gonna turn them all off and see how it goes. So I did that just to see what it would be like. And it was great. I really, I have no notes. It was fantastic. Looking at my phone and no longer seeing that I have all these messages is wonderful. I really appreciate it. I can open my phone and then I'll see the little badge on the messages app and I know, oh, some people have messaged me. And then I can hit it and look at it. But I don't need to actually look at my lock screen while I'm working and see Jason Schreier says, "Blueprints is so amazing." Oh, my God. You know, I don't need to have that immediately told to me.

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  You don't need to?

• 1:02:40Kirk Hamilton?

  On my lock screen.

• 1:02:40Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 1:02:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, maybe that was a bad example. I do need to have that told to me. That is important information.

• 1:02:44Speaker 00

  That's like 911 emergency levels.

• 1:02:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Good point.

• 1:02:47Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I think if you're gonna do this, you should put, leave on notifications for your podcast co-hosts and a couple other people. Maybe your wife, like, a couple people should have.

• 1:02:57Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, I think, I don't think there's a way to do that, though I kind of wish there was. I guess it, maybe if you had like some special setting with your favorites or something.

• 1:03:04Speaker 00

  I think there is a way to do it, but it's fine. We don't need to dwell on that.

• 1:03:06Kirk Hamilton?

  For me, turning them all off was great. I would suggest, here's my thing for listeners. I would suggest go through your notifications and just do an audit. Just take five minutes and do it. Turn off almost everything. Like, go even further than you think. And then you can always add things back. If you find, oh, you know, actually, I missed a couple notifications I wish I'd gotten from messages or a calendar thing or whatever. Go ahead, turn it back on. But I would say just try that. Try turning it off and you might be surprised at how, just how much better it makes every moment interact. With technology feel, to not constantly have all these little bugs at your periphery, just throwing things at you when you're trying to focus on one thing. So that's my

• 1:03:48Kirk Hamilton?

  one more thing. It's just a little idea for anyone out there who wants to explore it.

• 1:03:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'm into that. I have a lot of notifications off and I'm into just specifically checking things at designated times. It works for me really well.

• 1:04:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:04:02Speaker 00

  I'm not as, I'm not as extreme as you. Like, Jason can still text me, for example, but, you know, that's just me.

• 1:04:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I mean, I still get, to be clear, I still get text messages. I'm talking about notifications. I'm not blocking anything. It's just about having the notifications jumping at me.

• 1:04:18Speaker 00

  No, I know what you mean. I know what you mean. I, I think it really works, especially if you're trying to concentrate and actually not be diverted. It's diverting you more than you think every time, for sure.

• 1:04:28Jason Schreier?

  Good to know. All right, that is that for this week's episode. We hope to see some of you later today in Yerba Buena Park, Yerba Buena Gardens. As for the rest of you, we will see you all next week.

• 1:04:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, see you next week.

• 1:04:46Speaker 00

  Bye.

• 1:04:49Kirk 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. Find us on Twitter at TripleClickPod, send email to [email protected], and find a link to our Discord in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

• 1:05:47Jason Schreier?

  Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows supported directly by you.