How Do We Feel About BioWare Closing? [Mailbag]

Kirk, Maddy, and Jason open up the mailbag to answer some listener questions. Have we ever changed our minds about a game we reviewed? Why do people leak video games? And how are we feeling about BioWare's closure?

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

• 0:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Look, sometimes you just finished Ace Combat 8, you're incredibly excited about it, your co-hosts haven't played it, and all you want to do is talk about it.

• 0:13Kirk Hamilton?

  Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are answering your listener questions, sadly, none of which were about Ace Combat 8. But we got some pretty good questions, so let's dig into the mailbag.

• 0:31Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:32Maddy Myers?

  I'm Maddy Myers.

• 0:34Jason Schreier?

  And I'm Jason Schreier. Hello. And happy Halloween to you both.

• 0:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Happy Halloween.

• 0:40Jason Schreier?

  Are you guys going trick-or-treating? I'm going trick-or-treating.

• 0:42Maddy Myers?

  Right. I guess you have to. I'm gonna give out candy. That's what we do here, which is really fun. I love seeing the costumes and finding out what's popular.

• 0:50Kirk Hamilton?

  We don't get that many trick-or-treaters at our house, so I think we're gonna put out candy and maybe go to our friend's neighborhood, where there's like a block party where they have all kinds of fun decorations. And I think people from all around come and hang out. And I think we'll give out candy there. And some of our friends are gonna come by with their kids, too. So I'm very excited. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

• 1:09Jason Schreier?

  Do you not get trick-or-treaters? Because there are no children in Portland.

• 1:14Kirk Hamilton?

  There are so many children in Portland. No, man, that was the thing about San Francisco that I always felt, was living in San Francisco because it's just so expensive. Pretty much everyone has kids and leaves. Not everybody. A lot of people have kids and then leave the city. It was a wild thing about moving to Portland, is that there are kids everywhere in Portland. Portland is like full of children. It's kind of an awesome thing about the city. It makes it feel a lot more normal, because normal people with their families just live here. Yeah, there's like just kids around.

• 1:41Maddy Myers?

  As opposed to only man children in San Francisco.

• 1:44Jason Schreier?

  Well, hey, if you out there listening would like to make it so Kirk can afford to have children, you can become a TripleClick supporter. Go to MaximumFun.org/joinTripleClick today, and you can make this show possible and get our children fed.

• 2:00Maddy Myers?

  How about the Halloween candy budget? Because that's a more realistic expense.

• 2:04Jason Schreier?

  CBS charges a lot for that candy bag, those candy bags these days. You also get access to our monthly bonus episodes, including one we just put out about the movie You Can See Everything, the Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheimer documentary, and a whole bunch more, tons of other bonus episodes, including new ones. Every single month, the value just keeps going up for your bonus subscription. Every single, for your monthly subscription, every single month, thanks to those bonus episodes. Once again, MaximumFun.org/joinTripleClick. Make this show possible.

• 2:42Kirk Hamilton?

  So Jason, what are we doing today? What are we talking about?

• 2:45Jason Schreier?

  This week, we are opening up the listener mailbag and pulling out some hot, hot questions. It is time for burning questions. As always, you can reach us at TripleClick at MaximumFun.org with your own burning questions. This first one is from Jason S. No, that's too obvious. We'll call him J. Schreier.

• 3:09Kirk Hamilton?

  That's less obvious. I don't know who that could be.

• 3:11Maddy Myers?

  As a reporter, you know how to anonymize your sources.

• 3:14Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 3:15Maddy Myers?

  You've done so here.

• 3:15Jason Schreier?

  This is an anonymous source named Jason.

• 3:18Kirk Hamilton?

  This is from Sason Dreyer.

• 3:19Jason Schreier?

  And the question is, how are we feeling about Bioware shutting down? We haven't talked about this. It happened last week, I think, either just before we were about to record or just after. I don't remember exactly. But we didn't have time to talk about it last week. Let's get into it real quick. End of an era, as EA has shut down Bioware, the RPG studio behind Mass Effect and Dragon Age and many other games. EA purchased it in 2007 and shut it down 19 years later. How are you guys feeling?

• 3:51Maddy Myers?

  Sad.

• 3:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, not loving it.

• 3:54Jason Schreier?

  Not loving it. It's tragic.

• 3:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Mm-hmm. Opposite McDonald's.

• 3:57Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's interesting. My initial reaction when I heard the news, which, I mean, I wound up breaking the news on Bloomberg, so I heard about it a little before it became public, was kind of like, oh, yeah, okay, yes, that sounds right. Because to me, it feels like it is, it was essentially shut down last January when they gutted the studio after Dragon Age, Dragon Age: The Veil Guard, or The Veil Guard was seen. And they even said publicly, like, this is really, a lot is riding on this game. We're all in on this game. And after that, they wound up gutting the studio, shrinking it from 200 people to like a few dozen. And it was only about 50 people when it was shut down last week.

• 4:40Jason Schreier?

  So to me, it was just kind of like inevitable. Like, it felt a lot more like a slow ripping off, or not ripping off the Band-Aid, like a slow death rather than ripping off the Band-Aid. So I guess I wasn't super surprised. But yeah, still sad, even if their games in the last decade had been a little disappointing to a lot of people.

• 5:01Maddy Myers?

  Yeah.

• 5:01Kirk Hamilton?

  I saw someone put out a list of all of the beloved PC studios that EA has closed: Bullfrog, Westwood, Origin, Pandemic, Maxus, and just now Bioware. And that was striking.

• 5:14Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, do you remember that meme of like, the guy like bringing a, like it was like, it's like a stick figure, bringing in a little stick finger to take a walk? And the little one is like, where are we going, Papa EA? And EA is like, you'll see. And then they get to a pit full of bodies, and it's all the different studios, and the little one is like, oh. It feels like that was, that was a prophecy that was like 19 years ago. And it took a long time for it to come true.

• 5:39Maddy Myers?

  Yeah.

• 5:40Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, and like, it just kind of like hordes all of those franchises and those IPs, too. It just never uses them again. So all those iconic PC games that we loved, like you just never see them again.

• 5:52Maddy Myers?

  It's also frustrating to have heard about the ways that EA's corporate dictates have affected Bioware games, like specifically Veil Guard, we talked about it on the show, that dictate that it should be like a looter shooter, and it should be like a character action game, and then later retrofitted into having some of the old Bioware kind of dating sim stuff that I much prefer to see in a Bioware game, but then felt really strange when we actually played the game. I mean, I still really enjoyed those aspects that were kind of retrofitted in, but they, the game is a reflection of that, I would call, mismanagement. And that is part of why this is sad, is because it feels like

• 6:35Maddy Myers?

  the studio's slow death is not the fault of the people who wanted to make different games.

• 6:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it's too bad. And yeah, I mean, I don't know, did you two watch that Mass Effect 5 trailer?

• 6:48Maddy Myers?

  Oh, sure.

• 6:49Jason Schreier?

  Yep.

• 6:50Kirk Hamilton?

  What did you think?

• 6:51Maddy Myers?

  Seems cool.

• 6:52Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, it's like, it's so hard. That trailer was very much like a pre-production, like internal demonstration trailer.

• 6:59Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, let me ask it a different way. How did it make you feel?

• 7:01Maddy Myers?

  Like emotionally? Sad, you know, sad. We're never gonna have that game. It is, it is what it is.

• 7:09Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I guess. I don't know.

• 7:11Kirk Hamilton?

  Jason doesn't care.

• 7:12Maddy Myers?

  Jason, is it because of The Veil Guard? And you kind of feel like it never would have worked anyway?

• 7:17Jason Schreier?

  Well, not just that. I mean, Andromeda, and then Anthem, and then Veil Guard. That's a real run of games that I think were disappointing all for different reasons. And all, I've written development stories about all three of them, all at different kind of explanations, but also the same kind of explanation. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. It was hard for me to get super jazzed about like the idea of a new Bioware game, especially after Veil Guard, because I think that's the one I, and I'm also more into the Dragon Age games than the Mass Effect games in the first place.

• 7:48Kirk Hamilton?

  So I think, you know, Maddy and I are talking kind of about how it feels, or, you know, looking at these, these lost, beloved studios and what that's like. But I am curious how you think of this now. You know, you're kind of past your initial reaction to it, Jason. And because of what you say, you have this kind of distinct perspective on Bioware. How do you feel about Bioware closing now? Now that you've really had time to think about it?

• 8:13Jason Schreier?

  I don't know. I mean, it's sad. Like, the human aspect of it all is really sad, because it's just like another 50-something people. 400 total at EA, lost their jobs, by the way, including 50 at Bioware. Just another 400 people plus 50 at Bioware, just off in this job market that has just proven very difficult for anyone to get jobs in. And that's the part I'm saddest about. I don't, like, the studio and the games and the franchises are kind of less, less tragic to me, I would say. Especially because it's like, I was talking to someone else about this, and they were like, it kind of feels like the end of an era for like a certain type of game. And I was like, I disagree.

• 8:54Jason Schreier?

  It just feels like other companies have kind of taken the baton from Bioware. Like, the games, it used to be that you could only get this kind of game from Bioware, this kind of deep branching narrative, CRPG, Western RPG, PC RPG, whatever you want to call it, type of game with relationships and all sorts of party customization mechanics. But now you have Baldur's Gate 3 and CD Projekt Red working on their own kind of versions of that. And so it just feels like it's gone in other directions and evolved in other ways. So for me, I guess I'm most sad about just the people involved and less, kind of, to me, it's less tragic.

• 9:37Jason Schreier?

  Or like, I don't know, I personally am less impacted by like the studio being gone and just more impacted by the people just losing their jobs.

• 9:46Kirk Hamilton?

  I do have to say that the fact that Mass Effect ended, as a trilogy at least, so many years ago, and while I really liked those games and have a fondness for them, there hasn't really been a Mass Effect for a long time that's felt like, oh, you know, it's been, it's really going, and they have all these new ideas. And really, same thing with Dragon Age. Like, it doesn't feel as though Bioware is now over, and we were about, we were in the middle of something. Like, there is kind of a feeling like, well, it had been over for a little while. And yeah, you mentioned Anthem. I mean, they had kind of gone down these cul-de-sacs for a long time. And whoever's decision that was, the case remains that like, we aren't in the middle of this golden, beautiful Mass Effect story that is now cut short.

• 10:28Kirk Hamilton?

  So that does kind of affect how I feel about it, for sure.

• 10:32Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I think that's accurate. And Maddy, to your point, you're 100% spot on about Veil Guard. But Anthem was actually entirely a Bioware decision. It was Casey Hudson, who was the leader of this game, and then wound up becoming studio head of Bioware after leaving for a bit. It was his kind of vision, that game. It was muddled along the way because he left, but still, they wanted to make a multiplayer game. It wasn't that Anthem was just kind of forced upon them. It happened that EA was also just going all in on service games, and I'm sure they were thrilled and willing to give a lot more resources to Bioware for being like, hey, look, this is what we're doing. But still, it's not like EA came in and forced them to make Anthem.

• 11:15Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 11:17Jason Schreier?

  All right. Yeah, there will be more to say, I'm sure. Certainly more reporting to be done and more of a requiem to be done about BioWare. But yeah, I mean, the other thing I'll say about the trailer is that it's always, canceled games always get frozen in our memories as these like rare precious things. And the reality of production changes the nature of a game. And games that were canceled always seem like they could have been perfect, right?

• 11:44Maddy Myers?

  Yeah. And I like your attitude, Jason, that the spirit of the older BioWare, the storyteller BioWare lives on, and all these other games that it influenced. And some of those developers are working at those other studios and doing other projects. And it's not like the spirit of BioWare as we originally see it, like that original trilogy of Mass Effect games and originally trilogy of Dragon Age games. Those people went on to make other things and other people were inspired by them. And now we have games like Baldur's Gate 3 that we talk about for hours on end. And that's exciting, too.

• 12:19Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. Yeah. And actually, there's a game that I'm sure the three of us will play and talk about called Exodus that's coming early next year.

• 12:26Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, I'm excited for this.

• 12:27Jason Schreier?

  That is made by a bunch of ex-BioWare people. Kind of looks like a spiritual successor to Mass Effect. So I'm curious to see how that turns out.

• 12:35Kirk Hamilton?

  There's kind of a few Mass Effect spiritual successors, right? There's also the Expanse game.

• 12:41Jason Schreier?

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, that too.

• 12:42Kirk Hamilton?

  That feels very Mass Effect-y. And that's a really cool universe to tell a story in as well.

• 12:46Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, 100%. Okay, yeah, let's move on. Let's get to some actual listener questions. Matty, why don't you read this first one?

• 12:57Maddy Myers?

  Okay, this one's from Juan, who writes, "Hey, guys, I've noticed that Jason, as a big fan like me of Final Fantasy, usually has positive opinions of more recent FFs than other reviewers, with the possible exception of 16. I remember his review of 15, back in the Kotaku days, he was very positive about it. My question is, over the years, has your opinion changed on how you felt about those games, especially the ones you reviewed? As time passes, my initial good impressions of 15 and 16 seem to have changed for me to more of a meh. What do you think?"

• 13:31Jason Schreier?

  I'll answer this first, but I'm curious to hear from you two, like if your opinions on games you've reviewed has drastically changed. My perspective of 15, which I really loved when it came out, has not changed. I still remember the emotions that I felt at the ending of that game and how much I loved it and how much I loved just hanging out with those four, four bros with Noctis and his crew. And for me, the kind of the, the power of that story at the, or the power of the relationships within the characters, I should say, more so than the, the narrative arc itself, outweighed a lot of the negative aspects of it. And so, no, I'm still pretty high on that game, although I haven't replayed it since then. 16, yeah, I was less positive on for sure. But what about you guys? I mean, have you

• 14:16Jason Schreier?

  played any game? Have you like reviewed any games and said something and then like had a drastic change of heart since then?

• 14:23Maddy Myers?

  I don't know if I officially reviewed any of these games, but it's funny, we're talking about BioWare. I remember not actually being that into Dragon Age Origins way, way back in the day and considering it kind of janky and hard to play. And I don't know that that's a controversial opinion now. It's more just, like, people will say that if they go back and play Origins. But I think I have so much more fondness for it because I see where the series went since then. And so therefore, it's like I can retroactively see what they were trying to go for in the first game. And that can kind of change my opinion of something by being like, oh, now that I've seen a better version, a more structurally

• 15:07Maddy Myers?

  cohesive version of this game, I understand what the intention of it was. And I like it more.

• 15:14Jason Schreier?

  Did you write about Origins for, like, were you a reporter at that point?

• 15:17Maddy Myers?

  I don't think I was at the Phoenix yet then. I might have been, because I was so young. I don't know. I know I wrote about the next two.

• 15:26Jason Schreier?

  You were only like 12 when that came out.

• 15:28Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, I know. I was just such, such a tiny baby.

• 15:30Jason Schreier?

  You're still in your 20s now.

• 15:31Maddy Myers?

  I might have, I might have been at the Phoenix then. But I didn't write an official review of it, I don't think.

• 15:35Kirk Hamilton?

  I reviewed Dragon Age 2 while we're talking about Dragon Age and gave it, I panned it. I gave it a very negative review.

• 15:41Maddy Myers?

  Oh, wow.

• 15:43Jason Schreier?

  Well, that wasn't a shock at the time. That wasn't.

• 15:45Kirk Hamilton?

  No, that's not shocking in any way. I still think that game has major problems. And if I were reviewing it at the time, I probably would have written the same thing. I, you know, since then have enjoyed reading things written by people who really liked it, or critics who are kind of highlighting the things about it that are interesting. And I've come to appreciate what it was trying to do. And I, I think it, you know, it's, it's hard to write a review because a review is sort of one type of criticism, where just getting to write about, oh, how interesting Aveline's story arc is, and, you know, her romance arc not involving the main character is actually really cool and groundbreaking. Like, there are things in that game that are just very cool. Even just the idea of telling a fantasy story within a single town, which is something that we've subsequently

• 16:29Kirk Hamilton?

  seen games do, Disco Elysium or something like do exceptionally well. Dragon Age 2 was trying a lot of cool, new ideas. So I at least give it more credit than I did in my reviewer mode when it came out. And the only other one that comes to mind is one that I've mentioned before, which is that I give a pretty negative review to Rocksmith, the guitar teaching game from Ubisoft when that came out. And I've subsequently come to think it's pretty cool. Like, I think that people have learned from it. And just over time, they've really stuck with it. It was this project currently made by people who wanted to figure out how to teach guitar. I know a lot of people who've really learned guitar from it. I've like played with it more. And now that I'm a better guitarist, I've come to appreciate some of the things that it's doing. And I just, I think it's

• 17:11Kirk Hamilton?

  neat. And I think it's a good way to teach music. And I was kind of being an overly, like, purist music educator at the time, like, ugh, video games can't really teach music the way a human can. That may be true, but video games can teach music. And, and I think that Rocksmith actually does it pretty well.

• 17:26Jason Schreier?

  If anyone out there worked on Rocksmith, please reach out and let us know what you think of Kirk's changing his mind.

• 17:33Kirk Hamilton?

  I feel like I've acknowledged this enough times. I've mentioned it many times. And I think, I would hope that at this point, anyone who listens to me who's still smarting over that review has, has heard my mea culpa.

• 17:44Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, you, I'm now thinking of another one that I did. I did officially review the original Call of Duty: Modern Warfare at the Phoenix back in the day. And I remember, this was a time period when I was like really coming off my Counter-Strike playing days. And I was like very firmly a PC gamer when it came to shooters. And I remember being kind of hard on some of the multiplayer design in that game, which is just like a crazy take. Like, I, I don't, I mean, I was very biased. And I really like had some strong opinions about Counter-Strike at the time. And I think some of them made it into my review. But I think even back then, I was like, the campaign's pretty cool. But also, I look back on that and I'm like, I was, again, I was like in my early 20s. I was like

• 18:27Maddy Myers?

  still learning how to review a video game, you know? Like, I was just trying out my own critical ethos and what I wanted my voice to be as a critic. And so some of it is not even just disagreeing with my past self, per se. Like, I might agree with my overall take. But I read those old reviews and I'm like, well, this is structured in a ridiculous way. And like, the points I chose to make were not points I would make about it now.

• 18:53Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, Jason, I noticed that you basically said, oh, I still feel the same way. Now, Matty and Kirk, you guys both talk about games that you feel differently about now. And I want to know, are there any games that you feel differently about now that you reviewed back when you were starting out or a long time ago?

• 19:07Jason Schreier?

  Oh, well, I was thinking about 16 in that 16 I was like initially very high on, and in fact, was raving about this on the show, and then got to the kind of final fourth of the game and really soured on it. And then thought about some of the things I really didn't like, including the side quests and like the lack of party members and all that other stuff. And therefore, was kind of like, I kind of, I've really changed my mind since like my initial kind of criticism of it. So that's what I was thinking.

• 19:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. But I guess Juan acknowledged that one as being an exception. But are there any reviews where you look back at the review that you wrote and published and think, I kind of feel differently now?

• 19:43Jason Schreier?

  That is a good question.

• 19:47Kirk Hamilton?

  You were just always right.

• 19:49Jason Schreier?

  No, I'm sure I wasn't. I'm sure I would highly regret some stuff that I wrote. I just can't think of anything off the top of my head.

• 19:59Maddy Myers?

  This is the thing. You do something for long enough.

• 20:02Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's funny.

• 20:03Maddy Myers?

  If I went back and read all my old articles, I'd be like, who is this?

• 20:07Jason Schreier?

  Some of the most controversial reviews I've written, like the ones that got the most polarizing reactions, I still kind of agree with, or still 100% agree with today, like.

• 20:15Maddy Myers?

  Same.

• 20:16Jason Schreier?

  Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and the first one to a lesser extent. I don't know, nothing comes to mind immediately. I'm sure there's something that I wrote about that I'm just kind of like, yeah, this is, this was not quite like some 3DS game that I reviewed and just ran it like later on. It's just like, oh, what, what is this crap that I was just kind of like high about? But nothing comes to mind immediately. All right, let's do the next question. Kirk, you want to read this one?

• 20:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Sure. This comes from Jess. "Greetings, TripleClick. If you could add one character from The Sopranos to your favorite video game series, which character would you add and why?"

• 20:55Maddy Myers?

  First of all, given that my favorite video game series is Metroid, it's just inherently comical to picture literally anyone from The Sopranos appearing in that world.

• 21:06Jason Schreier?

  Make a pick, Maddy.

• 21:07Maddy Myers?

  It's gotta be Polly. It's gotta be Polly Walnuts. He's such a character and so hilarious that I'm like, wouldn't it be funny if he was the voice in Samus's ear?

• 21:18Jason Schreier?

  Just him talking in Samus's comments.

• 21:19Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, if he was trying to give her advice, she absolutely would disrespect his orders as she does in all of her best iterations. Haven't changed my mind about Metroid Other M while we're talking about games we haven't changed our mind about. But yeah, I think Polly Walnuts would be like a funny foil to a character like Samus. Again, no idea why that would happen. Some time travel shenanigans would be involved, I guess.

• 21:41Jason Schreier?

  I want to add Ralph Siffaretto to Final Fantasy VII Revelation, and I want that to be the DLC that comes out next year. Where you just have to, you learn Ralph Siffaretto's origin story through Final Fantasy VII Revelation.

• 21:54Kirk Hamilton?

  That would be good. I want Dr. Melfi in almost every game.

• 21:57Maddy Myers?

  Good answer.

• 21:58Kirk Hamilton?

  To talk to the protagonist.

• 21:59Maddy Myers?

  Good answer.

• 22:00Kirk Hamilton?

  And so just every now and then, it cuts to the protagonist in Melfi's office, like trying to justify whatever he just did, all the people he just killed or whatever. And then Melfi being like, maybe kind of not a good therapist and inappropriate, but also sometimes asking good questions.

• 22:15Jason Schreier?

  It's kind of like GTA V where he has that therapist that he likes.

• 22:19Kirk Hamilton?

  I hate the therapist in GTA V. Wow, I was really reminded of.

• 22:21Jason Schreier?

  Well, he's meant to be the worst, yeah.

• 22:23Kirk Hamilton?

  What a pale, what a pale Sopranos reflection that was, I thought. Like, just how the therapist is such this obviously like self-interested schmuck.

• 22:32Jason Schreier?

  I mean, apparently the writers of the game, Dan Hauser and others on the game, have said that they did not watch The Sopranos while writing GTA V.

• 22:40Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, they said that about GTA IV as well, right? Which, which stretches, it strains my causality, but I'll take them at their word, I suppose.

• 22:48Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I also like to imagine Janice just being dropped into like a video game world and having to find, like, imagine playing as Janice as a main character. And so you have to find like a husband to glom onto because you just don't want to work.

• 23:02Maddy Myers?

  You have to scam people. Honestly, that sounds like a great game.

• 23:05Jason Schreier?

  You don't want to work a day in your life. Yeah, it would be a good, a good open world crime simulator where you play Janice.

• 23:09Kirk Hamilton?

  And it would occasionally become a shooter.

• 23:15Jason Schreier?

  In very rare, very rare circumstances. But like, the important thing is that she can't, she doesn't want to work a day in her life. So you can't actually do anything that would be considered work. So she really has to just like go around and like find other people to leech off.

• 23:29Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, it would be kind of like a Disco Elysium style, like charisma-based game where you just had to constantly convince people of things. And that, and that I think would be like similar to Disco, you'd maybe hate the main character sometimes. I would love that.

• 23:45Kirk Hamilton?

  And again, with minions, you're dispatching people to do things for you while you kind of sit back. And then occasionally you kill them when they make you mad.

• 23:52Jason Schreier?

  All right, this is from Alex. Alex says, hello, triple clickers slash kissers. Thank you for bringing the games to me each week. It's always greatly, greatly appreciated. I was fortunate enough to see a show at the Sphere in Vegas and the experience blew me away. The truly immersive screen, the way the music was panned across the venue to make instruments sound like they were circling around us. The haptics in the seat to accentuate the bass at opportune moments, it was crazy. And maybe want to enjoy more media like this. So my question for you is, what video game would you like to play in the Sphere? Man.

• 24:29Kirk Hamilton?

  First, I'm trying to think about what video game I would like to play on the Sphere.

• 24:33Jason Schreier?

  On the outside?

• 24:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Like, sitting in a helicopter, since there's a screen on the outside of the Sphere. So that was kind of where I initially went.

• 24:41Jason Schreier?

  One part of this, both inside and outside, is trying to figure out what game wouldn't look bad when stretched out to such a massive resolution, right? Like, it would have to, like, it can't be a pixelated 2D game. It has to be something that like would really support that.

• 24:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, right. You would definitely not want to play anything retro. Just, and this is true on a huge TV as well, like playing. I even find some Steam Deck games, I was playing a little bit of Echo Weaver on our TV and was finding that I, I don't like it as much as on Steam Deck just because I can't see everything. Like, I wanted to be further away from the screen. So you would have to pick something kind of immersive. This is kind of like asking what you'd want to play in VR, which there are these VR mods for games like Skyrim or racing games. Or, you know, that Star Wars, the Starfighter game where you're in the cockpit of a TIE fighter. Like, these games where it really lends itself to you being immersed. And I would think any game like that would be really cool. I mean, Ace Combat 8 is gonna be my one more thing. Dude, I would play, I would play that at the Sphere.

• 25:42Kirk Hamilton?

  Crank up the soundtrack when the shadows roll in, the score is going crazy. That would be amazing, like surround sound.

• 25:48Jason Schreier?

  Like Flight Simulator?

• 25:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, like planes shooting by you and missiles and explosions. I mean, so maybe that's my answer is Ace Combat 8.

• 25:55Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, that's a good answer. Any kind of flight simulator, like something where looking all the way around yourself, like in a sphere, obviously. Like, would, would lend itself well to the circumstances. Like, even just playing Microsoft Flight Sim. And it, I would say it doesn't have the graphical fidelity capabilities, even though it's pretty good as of 2024. I still am picturing it, Jason, and I'm like, yeah, I'd probably look really bad in this sphere.

• 26:20Jason Schreier?

  It's all stretchy and gross. Yeah, I'm trying to imagine like playing GTA VI in this sphere. I would, I feel like that, maybe that's the answer here.

• 26:28Kirk Hamilton?

  It'd be brutal playing GTA VI, at least the PS5 version, because it runs at 30 frames per second.

• 26:33Maddy Myers?

  Oh, God.

• 26:34Kirk Hamilton?

  A huge screen like that is you want a very high refresh rate. This is a VR issue. I wonder what the refresh rate is of the OLED. That, it's this crazy OLED display thing they built for the Sphere. Like, it's almost a misnomer, I think, to call it a screen. I don't totally know how it works, but it's like a, it's a display, but it's this incredible piece of technology. I would guess the refresh rate is capable of going incredibly high. But then imagine, like, you'd need at least like two graphics cards to run a game on that screen.

• 27:03Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, at least two.

• 27:05Kirk Hamilton?

  You'd have to kind of link them together like we used to do.

• 27:08Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, you would need a whole data center. You'd be wasting so much water to just play GTA VI in the Sphere for like 10 minutes.

• 27:14Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. Next to the Sphere is just like a giant rectangular building that's just full of processing power to play video games on.

• 27:20Maddy Myers?

  It's also like, I don't know that GTA VI, I mean, I guess we don't know everything about it, but I don't know that it has the capability to generate everything in 3D all the way around you. So I, it would, there's a lot of technical limitations.

• 27:34Kirk Hamilton?

  It would be modded. I mean, these are things that people mod into games later. Because, yeah, the engine is not actually rendering at 360 degree. But sometimes people will, are able to mod that, and it really depends on the game.

• 27:44Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, maybe VR is really the best comparison point here, because that's.

• 27:47Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, I would probably get motion sick in this sphere. But in this fantasy, I also don't.

• 27:53Kirk Hamilton?

  It'd be hard if you were there, because you're kind of assuming there's a large audience and everyone else isn't playing.

• 27:58Maddy Myers?

  I wasn't, actually. I was assuming no one was in this sphere.

• 28:01Kirk Hamilton?

  It's just you, there's one chair in the middle of the room.

• 28:04Maddy Myers?

  It's literally just me. I was picturing just me, and somehow I'm also in the middle of the Sphere. Like, I'm on a really high chair, like Organization 13 and in the really crazy high chairs in Kingdom Hearts. I'm on one of those chairs and no one else is there and I'm playing a video game.

• 28:19Kirk Hamilton?

  This is what video games will eventually be.

• 28:21Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, this is what everyone will have.

• 28:23Jason Schreier?

  Well, because we'll eventually have our own spheres in our homes.

• 28:26Kirk Hamilton?

  Right.

• 28:27Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, after the collapse of civilization, there'll be so few people left that we'll all have our own spheres.

• 28:31Jason Schreier?

  Very much the Ready Player One. Yeah. All right, next question, Maddy.

• 28:36Maddy Myers?

  Okay, this one is from Chase, who writes, morning, how do review codes work? How do you actually get the games? What keeps them from getting leaked? What would happen to you if a game you were sent broke containment on your watch? I can wrap my head around the concept of getting the physical game early, but with everything being digital first now, the logistics just don't make sense to me. Won't stop, can't stop clicking. Thanks, Chase.

• 29:02Kirk Hamilton?

  How do review codes work? Well, they're codes for games and you download the game. It's, I guess it's more straightforward now than it used to be because there aren't physical copy, you're not being sent a physical copy.

• 29:14Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, it's easier now.

• 29:15Jason Schreier?

  It used to be that like you could get a retail code, or if you wanted to play it even earlier, that you had to have like a debug PlayStation unit or debug console. And then you could get a really early copy, but it was such a pain in the ass to configure and you had all these updates and all this annoying hoops you had to jump through. Sometimes it wasn't even worth it, but they had to do that for like magazines, because those were a thing back in the day and they had those heavy lead times. And so they needed copies really early. Nowadays, yeah, it's just you get an email like saying, hey, you want a code for this? Agree to the embargo date, which is when, like, which is a restriction that essentially you're giving them your word. You won't play it, you won't talk about this game until this date. So everybody has a fair chance to play the game at the same time.

• 30:00Jason Schreier?

  And people don't have to rush through it just to be first on the internet. And then you get a code. And I guess what keeps them from getting leaked is that people don't typically share the codes that you get. You just kind of enter it on Steam or PlayStation or Xbox.

• 30:16Maddy Myers?

  And sometimes companies will ask you for your handle on those platforms as an additional layer of security. And they'll see like, oh, this person's PlayStation account is playing this specific game. Different companies kind of have different levels of security when it comes to that. Some of them just fire off a code into the wild and some of them. I mean, Sony in particular, I remember really caring what my PlayStation handle was.

• 30:39Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, and I mean, there are companies with really high-profile games where they'll send out NDAs, where there's like kind of an extra, an extra layer of legal security, where your more, your ass is more on the line if you were to reveal things about it.

• 30:52Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, like you're liable.

• 30:53Kirk Hamilton?

  And then that can be a whole point of, you know, negotiation. That would happen at Kotaku, where we'd get NDAs from, I think it was, 2K would send, and they had like one NDA where like every time our lawyers would be like, "No, you have to change this." And they always would, you know, it was always kind of fine. It was like a, just a back and forth.

• 31:10Jason Schreier?

  Do you remember Nintendo wanted to like chain debug of like the Wii U to our desks?

• 31:16Kirk Hamilton?

  Was it the Wii U?

• 31:17Maddy Myers?

  Yeah. I remember that story, that they like wanted the Wii U to be chained to a specific desk.

• 31:23Kirk Hamilton?

  And Steven was like, "Absolutely not. You are not modifying our workplace."

• 31:27Maddy Myers?

  It's very funny to imagine that, like a physical console being chained somewhere in the Kotaku offices.

• 31:33Kirk Hamilton?

  I have a, I had a debug PS4 that I used, I think only for The Witcher 3. I used it for a few things, where Sony sent it to me, and it was like a loan. I returned it to them eventually, and I used it for The Witcher 3. The bummer there was that my save didn't carry over, which is one reason that I've played The Witcher 3, I think, more than any other single-player game ever, because I played it on PS4 after playing the debug version, and then also played it on PC. So I'm just always playing The Witcher 3.

• 32:00Jason Schreier?

  How early did you get it with the, that you needed the debug version?

• 32:03Kirk Hamilton?

  It was very early, and it's a very long game, so I really was able to-

• 32:07Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, that was kind of them.

• 32:08Kirk Hamilton?

  -play this huge RPG and like have a comprehensive review. And I think they just did not have the, the retail version.

• 32:14Jason Schreier?

  It's funny you say that, because I remember your review starting with you saying that you're covered in chips and all you've done for two weeks is playing The Witcher 3. So I thought it was only a couple of weeks, so you got more than-

• 32:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I don't know that it was like an incredible amount of time ahead of time, but it was definitely like far enough in advance that I could play this like 80-hour game or whatever and review it, which was not, not really the norm.

• 32:35Jason Schreier?

  Do you remember we got Persona 5 like two months early? That was, that was incredible.

• 32:39Kirk Hamilton?

  It's nice, especially games I think that are being brought over from Japan, right? Where the game's kind of done, and a lot of times the retail version's done early, so they'll send it to us. Then one thing actually, you know, to protect against people using the game, one thing that happens now pretty often, this is just a little bit of inside baseball, is that you'll get a Steam code with like a beta key. So you enter the Steam code and it gives you the game, like it puts it on your account, but then you can't actually play it because it's not out yet. But then if you enter a beta that's for reviewers, it'll be like, "Reviewers' beta build," and that has like a password or like a series, like some security around it, which is another way of like giving people the code for the game, but keeping the game from like being loaded up on, you know, Steam's general servers or, you know, that kind of thing. So there's like this extra layer there.

• 33:23Jason Schreier?

  I'm not sure if that's the reason. I think it's more because they like are still working on the game, and so they just like froze a branch of the game for reviewers while they still work on the main branch. I think that's the reason that they do that, rather than for security.

• 33:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, I don't really know, I guess. I mean, but it, when you enter the code, you don't get the main branch game. The main branch game is not really there. You'll download like 10 megabytes or something.

• 33:45Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, so I'm saying that like, so they're working on this game, and then they freeze the code and take that and make it a branch for reviewers, so you have a stable version while they're still updating the main game, because they're still working on it for the next two weeks or whatever. And so I think that's why they give us kind of that beta branch.

• 34:01Kirk Hamilton?

  That makes sense. Like, it's not really a security thing, it's just kind of just one more code.

• 34:05Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 34:05Kirk Hamilton?

  But it is kind of like an extra layer.

• 34:07Maddy Myers?

  Yeah. I know it's also like a multiplayer thing, too, like for games where that's applicable, they'll like give you a code that's specifically so that you can play with other people, and it'll only be like the developers of the game who are demons and other journalists who are just learning how to play it. And you can always tell who is who when you're playing a multiplayer game under those circumstances. I will say, I think maybe part of Chase's implicit question, I'm very used to entering in these alphanumeric codes. Like, I know exactly where to redeem my code on every single platform, but like Chase maybe has never gotten a code for a game, like has never had that happen for whatever reason.

• 34:49Maddy Myers?

  And so they just didn't know that that was something that you could do on all of these platforms. There's like a "redeem code" quote-unquote option in a lot of video game stores and digital libraries. It just may be an option that you didn't know was there. I know where that is, and I also know where to enter in the beta key and the password and all the stuff Kirk just said. It's like second nature to me now. I don't even need the tutorials.

• 35:10Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that's a good point. I guess unless you like sign up for a Kickstarter and got a code that way or some other, or a Humble Bundle or something, that you would-

• 35:16Kirk Hamilton?

  I think that codes, I mean, I think people use codes for a lot of different things other than just getting whole games, like promotional stuff or little add-ons. Like, I think you send out codes, it's like, "You'll just get this costume pack if you enter this code." So there's like a lot of reasons that people would have to enter a code, even if they aren't getting review codes.

• 35:32Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, but if for some reason you've just never had one before-

• 35:35Kirk Hamilton?

  For sure.

• 35:35Maddy Myers?

  That's how it works. There's, there's a place to enter in a code in every platform that you game on.

• 35:39Jason Schreier?

  I'll tell a story real quick. It's not so much my story to tell, so I'll keep the, the kind of parties involved anonymous, but essentially, the story is, I understand it, is that a game reviewer had an early copy of the game and their console got stolen, and that early copy of the game leaked, and that caused the company that made the game to like throw, to get extremely angry and upset. And for, like, essentially, they like changed the way that they send out codes and started being more restrictive to everybody as a result of this incident. So-

• 36:16Kirk Hamilton?

  That sucks, because that could just happen. I mean, you know, like-

• 36:19Jason Schreier?

  Because that could just happen, yeah. But I mean, their argument is you should, you need to be more, like, you can't just be leaving your early copy of a game unsecured in your car or whatever. And so, to the answer the question, what would happen to you if a game you were sent broke containment on your watch? Sometimes it could be changed, change the nature of how that company sends out codes forever to-

• 36:40Maddy Myers?

  For everyone.

• 36:40Jason Schreier?

  -screws over all the reviewers, yeah.

• 36:42Maddy Myers?

  Yeah. And also, the company gets really mad at you and maybe doesn't ever send your publication or you a code again. That's another downside that can happen.

• 36:50Jason Schreier?

  Okay, let's move on to the next question. Kirk?

• 36:55Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, this comes from Jack. Jack writes, "Hi TripleClick. How do you explain your video game hobbies/careers to people who don't play or understand games? For example, my dad hasn't played a video game since Super Mario Brothers on the SNES. I tried showing him the current game I'm playing, Red Dead Redemption 2, and it simply didn't register for him. He asked me what the point of the game was when we were exploring Saint Denis. After, he asked if the goal was to kill everyone in town. I took a bounty. I finally gave up when he asked me why I was wasting my time playing a video game about bounty hunters. Is this a my dad thing, or have you all had similar challenges showing games to non-gamers?"

• 37:36Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, explaining my career is a little different than showing games to non-gamers, but-

• 37:47Kirk Hamilton?

  I guess instead of explaining your career, what about explaining your video game hobby? Like, just the fact that you like to play video games is-

• 37:53Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I was thinking about this. I haven't really had that experience, because like my parents got it. They like played games while I was a baby, and so they, and my dad will still occasionally like play Flight Sim or something like that. I gave him my old PC rig, so he could, he could download a couple of games. And my mom always knew games, so like, I haven't really had that experience. Have you guys?

• 38:15Maddy Myers?

  Not this specific one. Jack, I do think this is partially a your dad thing, but I will also say that I think explaining Red Dead Redemption 2 and the concept of a sandbox or open world game to somebody who's like, "All games are Tetris," would be really mind-blowing for them. And like, his dad's reaction is, is very comical to me. I'm just being like, "But what's the point of the game?" And it's like, so vibes-based, and so many modern games, especially an open world game, is going to be way more vibes-based and like trying to kind of say something artistically, potentially, that I think it might be harder to explain quote-unquote "the point" of the game to somebody who thinks that they're win-lose conditions only.

• 38:59Kirk Hamilton?

  I struggle with this story specifically, because I just don't think it would be, I don't know, like, I think it's just that Jack's dad is having a hard time getting it. Because Red Dead Redemption 2, honestly, like, it's funny how different it is from Super Mario Brothers, but Red Dead Redemption 2 speaks for itself. I mean, when you begin to show someone that game, you're like, "Yeah, look, it's this incredibly detailed Wild West simulator, where I can just ride around and I can do whatever I want, and I can just go explore, and I can find mysteries to solve, or, yeah, take a bounty and try to figure out where this guy is hiding." And like, that's kind of obvious why you would want to do that. It's pretty cool. It's like an interactive movie. It's an interesting life simulation. It's beautiful and different from your life. It's action-packed and exciting.

• 39:40Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, it has all these things in it. So I think you could just point that out. I certainly have this, you know, my sister, who I'm very close with, does not play video games and has never had much time for them or understood them. And so, it's just not something I spend that much time telling her about. And then she knows that this is something I do as one of my jobs, and that it's something that's been a big part of my adult life, and that I like video games. And I mean, I am professionally maybe better than average at like explaining video games to people and telling people why they're cool and interesting. So like, I'm pretty good at that, and I think I could explain it that way to her. So I enjoy kind of flexing that muscle when it is time for her to, you know, to tell her about Big Walk, for example, a game where I'm like, "This is just a cool

• 40:24Kirk Hamilton?

  thing. Anyone will think this is interesting if you kind of explain it to them, right?" And when I told her about Big Walk, she was like, "That sounds really neat. Like, I really get it."

• 40:32Jason Schreier?

  Is she gonna play it?

• 40:33Kirk Hamilton?

  No, I don't think so. But you know, her daughters, my nieces, are into video games, and like, games are more and more a part of their household, so then that also helps, too, that there's this kind of multi-generational thing going on, and there are kind of more people around her who are interested in games.

• 40:48Jason Schreier?

  My grandma, after reading my Business Week story about GTA 6, wants to see that game in action, so stay tuned.

• 40:55Maddy Myers?

  That's good. That's so good.

• 40:56Jason Schreier?

  I'll tune in in a few, few weeks and let you know if my 93-year-old grandma-

• 41:00Kirk Hamilton?

  You should start a spin-off YouTube channel, Grandma Plays GTA.

• 41:04Maddy Myers?

  Grandma, Grandma Shire Plays. Yeah, I, Kirk, you're making me realize that I, I think part of how I would answer this question is that I tailor it based on the audience, and I'll try to figure out, like, what are the person's other cultural references or interests? And I can kind of explain my career or hobby depending on that, because if the person is maybe more interested in the industry, and then I can be like, "Okay, well, here are all the fascinating like tech stories that emerge in this world, and how much money it makes, and how influential it is, and that might interest them in games, even if they don't think they're important, especially if they don't think they're important. And if they're interested in other art forms like movies or TV shows, then I can explain it in the context of those other art forms and be like, "Well, what are the other things

• 41:46Maddy Myers?

  you like? Here are some games I've played that are similar to that." And that usually works, or at least helps people understand, like, "Oh, this thing that I maybe didn't know anything about besides Mario Kart or whatever mainstream game that I maybe played as a child, has all these other things about it that are fascinating."

• 42:05Jason Schreier?

  It's funny, Kirk, to your point earlier, I think you're right that like Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the easiest games to explain because like everything works the way you would expect it to.

• 42:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Like GTA is.

• 42:16Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, you play something like Mario and everything is friggin weird. Like, why does a flower like turn you into a power, like power you up and make you throw fireballs? None of this makes any sense. You play Red Dead 2 and it's like, oh, you pull out your gun, people will react and run away and be scared. It's, it makes total sense. So yeah, that's a little, little funny. Although I guess the question of like, what's the point? Are you wasting your time is a little bit more existential and a little bit different than just kind of explaining.

• 42:42Kirk Hamilton?

  What are you getting out of it?

• 42:42Jason Schreier?

  What do you get out of this?

• 42:43Kirk Hamilton?

  It's probably a good exercise to be able to articulate what you're getting out of it. You're playing one of those spreadsheet games where it's mostly just putting things into bins with matched other things. And like, you're like, well, it's just soothing for me to organize everything. Like, if you can actually articulate that, people will understand that.

• 42:59Jason Schreier?

  Sure, yeah.

• 42:59Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, but it can be hard when you're just watching it. And it's like, you're just like moving stuff around on a screen. Like, what in the world? Like, why are you doing that?

• 43:06Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, why are you, why are you washing cars in the power washer? All right, let's fit in one last question. This is from Kevin. Kevin writes, I'm curious about leaks, how they happen, and also why they happen. Why does someone have to gain by leaking stuff like development footage or early info regarding something like the timing or contents of a Nintendo Direct, especially for people who are anonymous and can't even claim internet clout as a motive? I really hate leaks and think they're bad for everyone, workers and audience alike. So why do people do it? I'll, I'll add the caveat here that we'll talk specifically about leaks of like, games and what's coming and not whistleblower type leaks in this conversation.

• 43:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Right. I think that's, this is just like gameplay footage or, you know, details about a, like a project that's in development.

• 43:57Jason Schreier?

  Direct is coming, et cetera. Here's what's in the next Xbox development direct, whatever. Yeah.

• 44:03Maddy Myers?

  I mean, I, I think the internet clout answer is sometimes correct. Like, we talked about this with the hacker who was like airing GTA footage and like advertising their meme coin, for example. There's pretty obvious benefit for that particular person. And

• 44:18Kirk Hamilton?

  That's beyond internet clout. That's real money.

• 44:20Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, that's real money. It's like clout and also money. But also you do get clout. Like, there are some pretty notable, like fake leakers who create really believable Nintendo Directs. There have been some kind of notorious ones that people have believed, where people like quote unquote leak something and like pretend like, oh, this is all this Pokemon footage that's gonna be released. And like, that is purely for internet clout and trolling. And why, why do people do that? Because it's fun to get attention, I guess.

• 44:49Jason Schreier?

  But why would someone, to the point Kevin is making, especially for people who are anonymous and can't even claim internet clout, why would someone go to like, Nate the hate and say, here's what's coming in the next Nintendo Direct? So you can tweet about it and you can get all the internet clout.

• 45:06Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, why do you think, Jason?

• 45:06Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, why do you think that? I don't know the answer to that.

• 45:09Jason Schreier?

  So in my experience, people might have a few reasons for leaking product information. And again, we're not talking about workplace conditions and whistleblower type leaks. When it comes to products, in my experience, people have a few reasons. One is they just don't like secrecy and they like having information out there and they believe that the world is better off if just everybody has more information. Another potential reason is that they are pissed off at their employer and they, they want to see things burn. They want to rub a, they want to poke a, poke a stick in the eye of some company and so they're leaking all their products. Another is that they just might genuinely like the

• 45:52Jason Schreier?

  person they're talking to and want to do them a favor, want to do them a solid, or they think they might get something out of an insider or a reporter or whatever by, by giving them information about something that is coming. Another, and this is something that I've had personal experience with too, is that they might just be super excited about something and like want people to see it because they are just really proud of their work and they don't want to wait. That can be a reason too. So yeah, I mean, I feel like there are a lot of potential reasons for that stuff. And I think different types of leaks have different like levels of, of value depending on what they are. It seems

• 46:36Jason Schreier?

  to me like there's rarely a good reason to say, here's a list of all the games that are coming in this Nintendo Direct tomorrow. Whereas saying, hey, this company is now working on this thing, that might be more valuable than that. I don't know. Who am I to judge?

• 46:52Kirk Hamilton?

  Did you mention that being disgruntled? Was that one of the reasons that you said?

• 46:55Maddy Myers?

  Yeah.

• 46:55Kirk Hamilton?

  You got laid off or you're pissed?

• 46:57Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 46:57Kirk Hamilton?

  And you're like, oh, fuck these guys. I'm just gonna tell some reporter like what they're working on and blow up their spot.

• 47:02Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, yeah. That might be the most common one. I don't know. But yeah, the development footage, the GTA thing is, is profit minded, even though.

• 47:09Maddy Myers?

  That one has an obvious answer, I guess.

• 47:10Jason Schreier?

  Well, I think Cyberleak, the, the handle that was like, putting all that GTA leaks over the last couple of months, they put out this manifesto that was like, this is because GTA is not on a physical disc and Rockstar can stop this by putting out discs.

• 47:25Maddy Myers?

  Okay.

• 47:25Jason Schreier?

  But then they did a meme, meme coin and cashed out of their meme coin, so.

• 47:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Was that a hack? Did they get that through like active hacking? Like they reached in and got it? Or was it leaked to them? Or do we not know?

• 47:35Jason Schreier?

  I don't think we know. We know that the first one, the one from 2022, when it was like a bunch of, that was.

• 47:40Maddy Myers?

  It was like a phishing scheme, right?

• 47:42Jason Schreier?

  A phishing attack, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we know that. We don't know.

• 47:45Kirk Hamilton?

  So even that like kind of goes beyond this leaking question where, you know, Kevin is kind of asking about people at the company who voluntarily leak out. There are many ways that people will reach into the company.

• 47:54Maddy Myers?

  And find out.

• 47:55Kirk Hamilton?

  And breach their securities and grab stuff and then put it on the internet.

• 47:57Jason Schreier?

  Sure. Yeah, that's part of it too. And yeah, actually, a lot of kind of the most infamous leaks over the years have been like YouTube backend stuff where it's like, now we can, we can leak what's coming in this direct because we see the, the YouTube video. We work at Google or whatever. That's happened. People who work at YouTube or people elsewhere in the pipeline. Sometimes it could be that it's like someone who works for someone, like a middle person somewhere in the chain of information. So it could be someone who's like at the ESRB being like, oh, I just got this cool info. I'm gonna go and share it.

• 48:28Maddy Myers?

  Oh, yeah. Or like a vendor or something, like some other external company that's being worked with that finds something out or hears something and is excited about it.

• 48:36Jason Schreier?

  I also, I think there can be a little bit of power, not to psychoanalyze too much, but I think there can be a little bit of a powerful feeling to like knowing someone, sharing it with someone else. And then even if you don't get credit in some way or clout or whatever, you then see that second person posted online and you see it like setting the internet on a fire and you know that's because of you. That can be psychologically rewarding maybe or satisfying to that person.

• 49:03Kirk Hamilton?

  That makes sense, yeah.

• 49:03Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, totally.

• 49:04Jason Schreier?

  To be like, look, this is all because of me. Look what I did. There's thousands of people talking about this thing. Tens of thousands of people on Reddit talking about this thing that happened because of me. Even if you don't get the, the internet clout for it, I think it can still be just a trip.

• 49:20Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, like you said, watch the world burn, like the Joker. Exactly.

• 49:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Or like if you just work at a kind of, you know, in a big studio and maybe a lot of the things that you do don't lead to direct outcomes, it just, it does feel good to just do something and see an immediate and significant, you know, reaction from the thing that you did.

• 49:39Jason Schreier?

  Yep, that's true.

• 49:40Kirk Hamilton?

  I get that.

• 49:41Jason Schreier?

  Yep, that's 100% true. Yeah, I think there are other reasons too. It might be like a competitor of a company and you just like found something out and you just want to share it without like them knowing. A lot of times that will happen. Yeah, it could be a whole bunch of reasons.

• 49:57Kirk Hamilton?

  Or like financial incentives, right? Like you're investing in someone else. I mean, I don't know how much that happens in video games, but certainly that can be a way to manipulate stock prices and stuff.

• 50:06Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, there aren't that many publicly traded game companies anymore. It's like Take-Two is the last one in the US at least. But it could be, it could also be literal financial. I got a Signal message not too long ago, a couple of weeks ago, being like, hey, I work for X company. I once saw the company. Do you pay for leaked information? And I was like, nope, sorry.

• 50:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, sure. Right. You could just literally sell it. That's a good point.

• 50:28Jason Schreier?

  You can literally be like, hey, I'm gonna sell this to you.

• 50:30Maddy Myers?

  I mean, it's maybe some of these other like posters online who don't have your integrity are paying. We don't know. They might be.

• 50:36Jason Schreier?

  I do not know the answer to that. I would not want to speculate.

• 50:40Kirk Hamilton?

  No, for sure.

• 50:41Jason Schreier?

  But it's funny to get that message.

• 50:42Maddy Myers?

  It is funny.

• 50:43Jason Schreier?

  Nope, sorry. You're welcome to share.

• 50:45Kirk Hamilton?

  Absolutely not.

• 50:45Jason Schreier?

  Share anything you'd like with me, but not gonna pay you for it. All right. Why don't we take a break? Thank you again to everyone who sent in questions. Once again, triple click at maximumfun.org is the place to go. As always, please keep your questions as short as possible, your emails as short as possible if you want them to have a better chance at getting read. All right, let's take a break. We'll be back with one more thing.

• 51:15Speaker 03

  Pokemon, Insecure, Love Island, Paramore. What do all these things have in common? Black people love them. That's where Black People Love Paramore comes in. We're a pop culture podcast, taking a funny look at the common and sometimes very uncommon things black people love. From asking why so many black kids were secretly emo, to debating whether Beyonce is underrated. Hint, she is. We're getting into all the things that make us feel a little bit more seen. Get it? And yes, everybody's invited, no matter your niche, we have room for you. Listen to Black People Love Paramore on MaximumFun.org and wherever you get your podcasts.

• 51:59Speaker 04

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• 52:35Speaker 05

  Simply go to MaximumFun.org.

• 52:38Speaker 04

  I'm reaching for my Samsung Galaxy 4 as we speak. Mother! Mother, not that hat!

• 52:43Jason Schreier?

  And we are back. Kirk, you threatened us with your talk of Ace Combat 8. What is your one more thing?

• 52:51Kirk Hamilton?

  My one more thing is Ace Combat 8: Wings of Thief, a game that I have now become obsessed with. I have played all the way through the campaign and am now an Ace Combat superfan.

• 53:03Jason Schreier?

  Oh my God, how do you have time for these things?

• 53:05Kirk Hamilton?

  I saw someone saying last week that it was nice to hear me be so enthusiastic about two different games in the same episode about Control Resonant and Star Wars: Galactic Racer, and, well, let me just say, buckle up.

• 53:17Jason Schreier?

  Also, hold on, is Thief, is that like a proper noun? Or is that them, like, wings of thief as in theft, as in thievery?

• 53:25Kirk Hamilton?

  No, it's T-H-E-V-E is the name of the capital of the country. That you are fighting on behalf of. So you are the wings of thief. You could think of it as like, you know, the, I don't know, Wings of Portland, and that's what they would call me if I was the hero of Portland, because I flew above Portland and saved a bunch of them.

• 53:42Jason Schreier?

  Which they do.

• 53:43Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, they do call you that.

• 53:44Kirk Hamilton?

  They do call me, yes.

• 53:47Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, they call me the Wings of Portland, that's me. Yeah, so, okay, Ace Combat. I have wanted to get into this series for a little while, since Ace Combat 7, which came out a few years ago. That was where it first got on my radar anyways, and I saw critics and people who I respect and whose opinions I kind of share on things saying, "These games are awesome, they're not what you think, and they're super great, and more people should play them." And I started that game and just like, didn't really get anywhere in it. Like, I barely started, I didn't have time, I think I like, played the prologue, or I don't even really remember. And I was like, "Okay, planes, I don't understand what is going on in this story, maybe I'll come back to it," and then I just never did. Totally just one of those things.

• 54:27Jason Schreier?

  Can you elaborate on "they're not what you think"?

• 54:30Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I will, I'll tell you all about this one. So, so then Ace Combat 8 comes out, and it's like, even more hosannas from all around, like, people just being like, "Oh my God, this game is peak, it's the ultimate thing, it's one of the best games of the year." And it's overlooked by so many people, because people see that it's like fighter jets, and they just think, "Is that like a flight simulator? It just looks like some military game, I don't care." And so I finally was like, "Okay, I'm gonna try this." And I started it, and I was like, "Oh, man, I don't know what's going on." Like, I don't understand the world, or the setting, or what anyone's talking about. And it was kind of hard, because it's like, a combat jet flight game, and I was like, "I'm really bad, like, I don't know what's happening." And I played a couple missions, and it was like, crashing, it was like, "I don't know, man."

• 55:13Kirk Hamilton?

  So, then, I just decided, I am going to learn how to play this game. Because I think it's actually a really healthy thing, as, for people like us, who talk about video games and play them, to actually challenge ourselves to learn a new kind of game. So I just like, every now and then, to kind of push myself, and I've actually found that this year, Karen is another example of a game, where I like, pushed myself, and was like, "I have to learn how to do this new, uncomfortable, difficult thing," and then wound up having an incredible experience. And Ace Combat 8 is the same thing. So I learned how to play it, and then was just off to the races, and like, am so into it. And then this game, I mean, oh my God, like, the story, missions, the campaign of this game is so awesome. It reaches such like, ecstatic heights.

• 55:58Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a musical masterpiece, like, it's so musically amazing. And I just, I finished it last night, I was stayed up late, playing the final few missions. And it's that feeling of, I think that is, at least distinct to Japanese games, where there's like, more than you were expecting, a lot of times. Like, the boss fight has like, a whole extra phase that they just really give you. It's very extra, it's very abundant, there's just a ton of it. And like, the ending of this game really just goes for it so hard, and gives you so much, that I felt just so satisfied and thrilled by the end of it. So, let me explain what it is. This is a fighter jet game. It is a game that is fundamentally about flying a fighter jet, you know, like, an F-18, an F-14, like, the ones they flew in Top Gun. It looks like Top Gun when you first start it, you think, "Oh, this is gonna be like

• 56:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Top Gun Maverick or something, and I'm gonna be a fighter ace, and I'm flying against other fighter aces, and we're gonna dogfight in the sky." And that's true, that is kind of true, but it's so different, it's so peculiar, and the things that make it so peculiar are what make it so special, and what make it work so well. I would describe it as a mix of Top Gun, in what I was talking about, it's about jets, but also Call of Duty, in just the like, overall arc, at least of the single player. This game does have a whole multiplayer suite that I don't really engage with, kind of similar to Call of Duty. And just that it has the contours, kind of of a Call of Duty campaign, where there's a campaign going on, there's a big war, you're just like, one soldier, there's a story going on in cutscenes in between each mission.

• 57:26Kirk Hamilton?

  You even like, wind up behind enemy lines, and there's a stealth mission in a plane, where you're, you like, run into the big bad guy, and there's these kind of outsized characters, like in a Call of Duty campaign. So it has those contours, but, and the most important thing about this game is that tonally, and in terms of the writing, it feels more like Metal Gear Solid. It really has a lot of that peculiar, very intelligent and strange writing that Metal Gear has, where characters just are like, going off about like, the history of the world, and of war, and the philosophy of conflict, and culture, and how these clashes work, and like, what is, what's currently happening says about what's going on, and art, and music, and like, all of, these things are all like, integral parts of the overall experience,

• 58:11Kirk Hamilton?

  in the way that they are in Metal Gear. It feels very similar, where you're playing Metal Gear, and you're like, "Yes, okay, this is kind of a Cold War espionage game," but also, like, it's all, it's so much more than that, like, it has this much bigger remit.

• 58:24Jason Schreier?

  But, wait, but this is about the fictional world, because Metal Gear is set in the real world, this is set in a fictional.

• 58:29Kirk Hamilton?

  Yes, and that's, I think, a fascinating thing about these games, that I didn't even know go again, and yeah, I'll explain that next. So, in this game, like, you are in a world called Strange Real, which is the setting of all of the Ace Combat games. It's one word. It's not Strangorial or whatever, it's actually just Strange Real. Like, it's strange and it's real. And it looks kind of like the world, like, the map, kind of, but it, not really, like, the continents are shaped different. The countries all have totally different names, like, Ujia and Satoa, and they're kind of like, there is an America-type, you know, country, and like, Ujia, which is sort of Asia, is also kind of like Europe, and it's like, a mix of cultures, where you'll

• 59:10Kirk Hamilton?

  hear like, French language and accents, or Spanish accents and Spanish language, but it's kind of like, more located where maybe India would be, or the Middle East, like, so, nothing really corresponds to anything else, and the politics and the geopolitics are all completely different as well. And as a result, they're able to tell a story where you can be flying an F-18 Super Hornet, and you're the underdog, which is like, not something that is actually possible, if you're doing like, a military simulation based in the real world. In the real world, if you're flying some of the jets that you fly in Ace Combat, like, you're probably the oppressor, like, you're probably blowing up, like, people in some country where like, no one can even fight back against you. And so, in this world, that's not the case, like, everybody kind of just has fighter

• 59:53Kirk Hamilton?

  jets in Strange Real, and the narrative of this game is actually, you're, you're like, in Ujia, I guess is how it's pronounced, which is this large country that has been invaded by Satoa, or the Satoans, which is this other country that is technologically superior to them. And they've kind of like, you're on the back foot, like, your whole country has been invaded and taken over, and you're on the run. The whole first part of the story kind of plays out like Battlestar Galactica, where you and your friends are like, the fighter wing on this aircraft carrier, that's like, barely made it out alive, and is like, kind of trying to regroup with the rest of the military to push back against the Satoan army, who are like, overwhelmingly powerful.

• 1:00:35Kirk Hamilton?

  And so, it's all totally fictional, and that kind of lets them, it gives them so much room to play with just like, this broad philosophical war story, that doesn't really hew too closely to anything happening in the real world, even though you can definitely see like, you know, you can see echoes of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, for example, in this story. And I think there are people who have found it very moving for that reason, that it's this story of like, fighting off this larger force, and like, the power of rebellion, and what it means for a people to like, bond together and figure out their shared identity, and how that can power a war effort. So like, that stuff is all there, it's just that it's this abstracted setting, that I found to be very interesting, even though most of the game, I didn't know what the

• 1:01:17Kirk Hamilton?

  fuck was going on, because I don't, like, I haven't played any of the other games, and there's like, a continuous story happening. So now, I've kind of, I'm up on more of it, and I've actually been watching YouTube videos to be like, "Okay, so, what is the history of this?" Because it's, and I'm kind of interested. The actual plot is that you are an unnamed fighter ace who, the Wings of Thieve, is the name given to this guy named Jan Kope, who is like the pilot who people thought was like the hero of Thieve during the, I think it's like during the retreat from Thieve, when Satoa attacked. And there's this one fighter ace that people thought like shot down a bunch of planes and saved a bunch of lives. So the Wings of Thieve, not the Wings, but just Wings of Thieve, was this heroic figure who in truth, didn't kill anyone

• 1:02:01Kirk Hamilton?

  and is like a propaganda creation. And then he dies at the beginning of the game and you're tasked with like becoming him. So you're gonna fly in his plane with like his marking, because people need something to believe in. But actually, Wings, they're like, don't do any fighting, don't get shot down, like your whole job is to just be alive and inspire us, like as we try to, you know, get the rebellion together. But then, of course, because you're the main character in a video game, you start shooting people down and it becomes this really fun underdog story where it's like, wait, I thought, I thought Wings was bullshit, but actually, he's like a really good fighter ace. And you begin fighting the bad guys and like taking it to them and eventually kind of start turning the tides of the war. I don't know. It's very hard to describe this game

• 1:02:42Kirk Hamilton?

  in ways that make sense to people who haven't played it. You know, the, um, the overall like feeling of playing it is, you know, you're in this like really heated, complex tactical situation where you're trying to like escort a series of gunships that are being harried by helicopters. There's cruise missiles coming in suddenly that you have to shoot out of the air. And then out of nowhere, like the enemy like shadow squadron shows up and they're talking shit over the radio and they're here to kill you and you've gotta like scramble and adjust. So things are always like happening, you're always having to improvise. And the actual gameplay is like very tactical and situational and often quite difficult. It's nothing like Call of Duty in the gameplay, because as you play this game, you actually have to pay attention to your mission briefings. They

• 1:03:24Kirk Hamilton?

  show you these like wireframes, you know, of like where all of your targets are gonna be, how this is gonna play out, where you're gonna be moving. And then you're in a fighter jet, you know, covering like miles and miles across a huge combat theater. And you have to be really aware, like, okay, we're getting calls from requests from like the eastern front. You have to know where that is. And you have to go over there and scan a very complicated picture and like actually figure out, okay, what's the number one threat? What do I have to deal with? You'll lose, like I lost a lot of missions, like I would get a mission over because I was not doing a good job of being aware, like, oh, those helicopters came up behind us and started shooting the boats and they shot all the boats and then we lost. And I have to be aware of the helicopters. And like to do that, you really have to kind of be aware of what's actually happening. Like you can't pause

• 1:04:09Kirk Hamilton?

  it and pull up a whole 3D map and look at what's going on. You're just in the cockpit of a plane. And that makes for a really interesting experience, playing it. Like you're keeping a lot in your head and tracking a lot of things at once. And then, the better I got at flying, like then you're just pulling sick dogfight maneuvers and like, you know, constantly just spiraling and looping and spinning and shooting guys down. You have like hundreds of missiles on your plane somehow. And so you're able to just like constantly be like getting the lock on and shooting guys down. And so the gameplay becomes more and more satisfying, the better you get. And then, because this is set in the future and there's crazy technology, you're fighting against like what's called a land battleship that's basically this like giant Mecha covered in like railguns that's shooting at you.

• 1:04:50Kirk Hamilton?

  Or there's like stuff involving orbital lasers and like, you know, rockets launching into space that you have to intercept. Like there's missions, there's a space elevator, that's this huge space elevator out in the ocean that you have to like defend in one mission. So it becomes kind of sci-fi. And it starts to feel like a Mecha anime. Like there's really a lot of Mecha anime, like Gundam to this, where like, oh no, it's like an experimental ship has come in and it's doing all this crazy shit. And so you're kind of always adjusting. This game is incredibly fun. I think I've made my case for it. It's one of my favorite games this year. The last thing I just want to say is, I mentioned this game as a musical masterpiece. Musically, this game is out of control. There are three

• 1:05:29Kirk Hamilton?

  composers, Kaitiki Kobayashi, Ryo Watanabe, and Mitsuhiko Kitadani. And the main thing that happens, and the thing that I will describe that happens a lot is, I mentioned the shadows show up. So the like scariest dudes are shadows and Shadow 22 is the hardest of all of them. He's like the Red Baron of the Satoan Air Force. And every time the shadows show up, they play over the public band of the radio, this song.

• 1:06:02Kirk Hamilton?

  It's this like chant. It's like, whoa. And everyone starts freaking out because there's all this radio chatter going on. And it's like, oh no, the shadows are here. And the shadows are like, we've come to destroy you, you know, and you're freaked out. And you, and they like play their theme song to psych out their opponents.

• 1:06:29Kirk Hamilton?

  So this super cool, like ominous music starts playing, but then you fight back, right? And a big part of the story is like, the shadows being like, wait a minute, Wings is fighting back. Like, we didn't think he had it in him. And then suddenly you shoot one down and they're like, how did this happen? He's shooting us down. And so their, their theme begins to work into the music of the game, until there's this like massive, you know, crashing rendition of the theme where like a choir has come in and is singing it. 1-4-4, cut debate. Copy. Shadows closing fast on Queen One.

• 1:07:02Kirk Hamilton?

  So the music is really cool, but the overall soundscape is super crucial to what makes this work.

• 1:07:09Speaker 06

  Priority One is downing the SU-47, pursuing Queen One.

• 1:07:16Kirk Hamilton?

  It's so dramatic and exciting. I really, I kind of can't oversell it. It's not him. They'll bear their fangs when cornered. There's also a super shredding guitar player on the soundtrack. You can hear him on that strat.

• 1:07:30Kirk Hamilton?

  So this shadows theme is like woven through the whole soundtrack, to the point that at the end of the game, it reaches these unbelievable heights that are as dramatic as anything, you know, when you're fighting Sephiroth at the end of Final Fantasy VII, it's like that awesome. And you're in these incredible aircraft fights, like where everything is exploding, there's railgun, like fire in the sky, this choir is like screaming, the theme is so exciting. And I like, I was falling out of my chair. It was the coolest shit ever. So if any of that sounds good to a listener, I really highly recommend giving this game a shot. And just watching some YouTube videos and like learning how to play it a little bit, because it might have a learning curve, you'll be very glad that you did. And it's like an incredibly rewarding and satisfying game, and easily one of the

• 1:08:15Kirk Hamilton?

  most fun games that I played this year.

• 1:08:17Jason Schreier?

  Oh, man. I think you blacked out for like 15 minutes there.

• 1:08:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I got to high altitude, you know, but I've been working on, on-

• 1:08:23Jason Schreier?

  I think that might've been the longest one more thing that we've ever-

• 1:08:27Maddy Myers?

  It was impressive. I, I am glad you played it though, Kirk, because I've heard about these games for many years and I've always been curious about them.

• 1:08:34Kirk Hamilton?

  I think that the length of this is just, it betrays how hard it is to encapsulate this game. And then also how, when you've played it, you've become so excited about it, that you really want people to understand why it's great. But that kind of requires a lot of explanation, because it's very peculiar. Like it's, it's very distinct. It exists in its own little world. It's just an awesome, awesome world that I wish more people would experience.

• 1:08:56Jason Schreier?

  All right. Maddy, what's your one more thing?

• 1:08:58Maddy Myers?

  Uh, I've been reading some comics, specifically some Alison Bechdel comics, that, uh, I kind of like read some of Alison Bechdel. She's pretty famous for the Bechdel Test. Most people know this. It's like, you know, it's a test for movies, but you can apply it to anything. Like, do two women talk in something about something other than a man? And you just evaluate a piece of media based on that. And so I've been reading her original, like old comic series that actually started in 1986, called Dykes to Watch Out For. And it ran all the way to 2008. And I'm about halfway through it. And it's pretty interesting.

• 1:09:41Maddy Myers?

  It's, it's famous for a reason. It's famous because it's, it's a fun read. It is, it starts out as like, kind of like Far Side style, like literally Dykes to Watch Out For, like single joke panels where it's just like depicting different queer women of the era and like stereotypes about them and like telling jokes about them. There aren't recurring characters in the first book. And it's just like, kind of silly, funny, weekly comic strips that Bechdel was writing way back in the mid 80s. And then it becomes eventually, uh, like a serial comic that is semi-autobiographical, that is like mostly about this woman, Mo, and her friends' group of other queer women of the era, and like their foibles and misadventures, and like the specific political debates that all of

• 1:10:25Maddy Myers?

  them have at the time, but like presented in a comedic way, because it's like a weekly comic, so it's also funny. And Mo is like this character who, I think, I think this is why people love this comic, is because she's like a relatable character for the present day, even though obviously these comics are many, many decades old, because she's like, she's this, she's a white woman, but she has like a lot of friends who are like, kind of marginalized in other ways besides her. But she's a lesbian and she's always like trying way too hard to like be the good liberal, as it were. And she's like always picking all of these specific sides to be on and like kind of like sometimes irritating her friends by being excessively political about things that she doesn't like need to care about and so on and so forth. And like-

• 1:11:08Jason Schreier?

  Average blue sky poster.

• 1:11:10Maddy Myers?

  Kind of, yeah. Like I did, I do read Dykes to the Watch Out For and be like, these are literally blue sky arguments. And like, that is the thing about it that's funny. But I also, like, I do recommend it, but I feel like I need to recommend it with- The caveat that this is also like very much a historical book, and I don't know if it would be as entertaining to me if I weren't like specifically interested in the political history of the time. Like, reading it, I've been thinking a lot about John Gantz's book, When the Clock Broke, because it covers the same time period, actually. Like, John Gantz wrote about, like, the early 90s, like specifically 90 to 92, and like, the political issues that were happening at that time period. And like, that is, like,

• 1:11:54Maddy Myers?

  Mo, for example, is like constantly railing against George Bush Senior, and like, I ran contra, and like, all of these specific historical events that like, if you didn't know about them and you read this comic, you'd be like, I don't think this is funny or understand this. But partially because I so recently read this book that like details all of these historical eras, I'm like, these are some pretty funny observations.

• 1:12:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Right.

• 1:12:15Maddy Myers?

  This time period. So I'm enjoying it from multiple levels, and I think I'm gonna finish it. I've also never read Fun Home, which I know is like her other pretty famous book that's been adapted into a musical. And so, yeah, I think I'm just gonna continue with Alison Bechdel for a minute, because I'm pretty impressed by her comedy stylings and like, ability to predate some of the same old leftist infighting arguments that we still have to this day, but in a fun way that is like relatable even to our modern eyes. So yeah, it's called Dykes to Watch Out For. You can actually find all of it on the Internet Archive if you want to read it for free for some reason, but there's no reason not to buy it if you're gonna support her. And it's by Alison Bechdel.

• 1:12:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Nice.

• 1:12:59Jason Schreier?

  My warmer thing is a book that I teased at when we did our bonus episode. It's called Gandolfini: Jim, Tony, and the Life of a Legend by Jason Bailey. And it was written after the death, in fact, it was published just last year. So written way after the 2013 death of James Gandolfini, who plays Tony Soprano, a relevant character in all of our lives over the last year or so. And it's a really fascinating book, and it's a really good biography, because it does a good job of capturing what a complicated figure James Gandolfini was, and what an interesting actor he was. He started off

• 1:13:41Jason Schreier?

  as this kind of character actor, and thought he always would be, and then landed this role as Tony Soprano, became a superstar, and then just kind of went, tried to go back into character acting and found it really difficult. And he found that the toll of playing Tony Soprano took a lot out of him. He was always a heavy partier, he was always into drugs and drinking and women, but under the, while playing Tony Soprano, I think it especially exacerbated some of his demons. He was known for like, not showing up on set some days, and everyone would get to like, the set to start filming, and he just wouldn't be there. And then he would try to make it up to everyone afterwards by like, buying fancy, expensive meals for all the cast and crew, and like, he was like-

• 1:14:26Kirk Hamilton?

  That sounds somewhat Tony-ish, even though I know that Gandolfini was nothing really like Tony Soprano.

• 1:14:31Jason Schreier?

  He wasn't, but also he was. Like, and the book does a good job of capturing how his life, his life and Tony Soprano's life bled together. Like, he literally would, like, he was known for his generosity, and he would just like, buy extravagant gifts for everybody, and like, try to make up for wrongdoing by like, spending money.

• 1:14:49Kirk Hamilton?

  But not in a Tony way, where it's all kind of poison and terrible, right? Like, he was a pretty great, my understanding is he was a pretty great guy, like, in a lot of ways, right?

• 1:14:56Jason Schreier?

  By a lot of these accounts. And so, like, the author does a really good job of talking to a lot of people who knew him, and then also quoting posthumously from interviews that James Gandolfini did, and his family did. And he talks to pretty much everyone you would expect, all the cast and crew of The Sopranos, including David Chase, who like, had a particularly rough relationship with James Gandolfini. And like, by the end, after The Sopranos, they like, really weren't speaking to each other for a long time. And he does a good job of capturing like, both the generosity and the kindness of Gandolfini, and how he would just treat people on a personal level in like, the most kind way you can imagine. Just also, kind of, you see some of that in Tony, just it's in a more manipulative

• 1:15:39Jason Schreier?

  way. And then at the same time, like, his demons and what he was going through. And him battling the, the press and the tabloids as he became this famous superstar. He gets into a lot of really interesting, just kind of behind the scenes, gags and anecdotes that you too will appreciate if you end up checking out this book. And then he gets into James Gandolfini's death, which was of a heart attack in Italy. His son, Michael Gandolfini, discovered him, discovered his body in their hotel room, where they were staying on a trip in Italy. And, yeah, really tragic death. He was in his 50s, I believe,

• 1:16:18Jason Schreier?

  when he died. Yeah, it's really interesting. And it's, it's cool to hear from people like Michael Imperiali, who plays Christopher, and Vincent Corrotura, who plays Johnny Sack, and all these other people around him. Like, here's one anecdote. Vincent Corrotura, I think I'm pronouncing that right, he plays Johnny Sack. And so, he, like, his wife had an incident or something, was in the hospital on Christmas, and he was telling Gandolfini about it, and Gandolfini was like, I'll be there. And like, he spent the day of Christmas Day, like, at the hospital with him, just like, helping his wife out with some, some minor thing that she was going through. So yeah, it really does a good job of capturing his generosity. And then there are also, one of my favorite anecdotes in the book

• 1:17:01Jason Schreier?

  is that like, there were, there's things in The Sopranos that, whether intentionally or not, seem to have been taken from James Gandolfini's life. Things that kind of mirror reality in a way that you would expect from just kind of art in general. But yeah, and it gets into how grueling it was for him, because when you watch the show, you see how much of it is just, like, he is the sun, and everything else is just in his orbit. There are scenes without him, of course, but most of the show is, is focused on him. And it also gets into the ways he like, threw himself into that work, and just the ways he portrayed Tony. And yeah, one other interesting fact that I learned from this book is that

• 1:17:42Jason Schreier?

  James Gandolfini and Edie Falco, who plays Carmela Soprano, did not have much of a relationship or a friendship or anything. They were essentially like strangers to one another.

• 1:17:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Professionals who did their work together.

• 1:17:54Jason Schreier?

  Professionals who did their work, yeah, which is like, makes it all the more incredible the way that they, their marriage unfolds on screen, and especially the incidents of whitecaps, the season four finale. Just seeing the way that unfolds, and knowing that these two were essentially strangers, I think, makes their acting ability even more impressive in retrospect.

• 1:18:14Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah. That's cool. It's like the opposite of how sometimes people will have, you know, become involved in a relationship, and then their on-screen performance will kind of fizzle. It's like, they're both just really, really good actors, and they worked out how they wanted to do the scenes, and then just destroyed it. And that was as far as it went. That is cool to know, because, right, when you watch it, I mean, I cannot separate the actors from Carmela and Tony, especially having seen those scenes. I just totally believe them as people who are married and hate each other.

• 1:18:41Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, it's like what people mean when they talk about like, chemistry, quote unquote, which like, almost has nothing to do with whether the actors even know each other on screen. Like, I would argue that Zendaya and Tom Holland's chemistry in Brand New Day is electric. And like, they are also actually married. And like, that's just, like, it doesn't always fizzle, you know what I mean? Like, it's great. But it's just funny how that seems to have absolutely nothing to do with what relationship the actors had in real life. It's just, it's an unrelated thing.

• 1:19:08Jason Schreier?

  Well, I think Gandolfini is such a good presence. He has chemistry with pretty much everyone he runs into, because he's so magnetic and charismatic. And it's hard to imagine that show being a success if anyone else was in the role, or as much of a success if anyone else was in, in that role.

• 1:19:25Maddy Myers?

  Totally. But that's why it would be so stressful, as you just elucidated. Like, that would be so much weight for him to be carrying.

• 1:19:31Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, and he talks about so much weight, both literally and figuratively. He talks, Bailey talks about in the book how Gandolfini, all these different times, wanted to quit, wanted to leave the show, but couldn't imagine it because he was supporting the livelihoods of so many people that he couldn't just, he couldn't just leave, or else he would knew that, he would know that he put all these other people out of work.

• 1:19:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I would imagine that'd be hard. I'm sure he put a lot of pressure on himself.

• 1:19:55Jason Schreier?

  Kind of like Tony Soprano. Can't just quit.

• 1:19:58Kirk Hamilton?

  That's true.

• 1:19:59Maddy Myers?

  That's true.

• 1:20:00Jason Schreier?

  All right. That is it for this week's episode. Thank you again to everybody who sent in questions. And yeah, Kirk, Maddy, see you both again next week. Hope you enjoy giving candy to strangers. I will enjoy taking candy from strangers.

• 1:20:16Kirk Hamilton?

  Beautiful. We'll play both sides of the eternal Halloween cycle. Yeah, I will see the two of you next week.

• 1:20:23Maddy Myers?

  Yeah, see you next week.

• 1:20:24Jason Schreier?

  Bye.

• 1:20:28Kirk 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.