Which Parts of EA Would We Want To Buy?

What would Triple Click do if they had the chance to buy pieces of EA? Why do so many people talk about games before finishing them? How do patches impact the way we experience games? All those and lots more questions on this week's Thanksgiving special Burning Questions.

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

• 0:03Jason Schreier?

  Happy Thanksgiving. Hooray, hooray, hooray. Aren't you glad you have TripleClick on this Thanksgiving day? Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. This week, we are opening up the listener mailbag and answering a whole bunch of questions like, what parts of EA would we want to buy? And what happens when a game gets patched?

• 0:30Jason Schreier?

  I'm Jason Schreier.

• 0:32Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm Kirk Hamilton.

• 0:33Speaker 02

  And I'm Maddy Myers. Hello.

• 0:35Kirk Hamilton?

  Hi. Hey, hello. Hello, my friends.

• 0:37Jason Schreier?

  And happy Thanksgiving to both of you and to everybody out there.

• 0:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's the day of.

• 0:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Happy Thanksgiving.

• 0:42Jason Schreier?

  Don't forget to, well, if you're listening to this on Thursday morning, it's too late to defrost your turkey, so if you haven't done that yet, you're getting takeout tonight.

• 0:50Kirk Hamilton?

  No, there's no speed defrost option. That's just not in the cards.

• 0:54Speaker 02

  It's not very safe.

• 0:55Jason Schreier?

  Not for a turkey that's like 20 pounds. You cannot.

• 0:58Kirk Hamilton?

  You can use the microwave.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, just throw it in the microwave.

• 1:01Jason Schreier?

  If you could fit a turkey.

• 1:02Kirk Hamilton?

  There's a defrost setting in my microwave, Jason. I might just have a more advanced microwave than you.

• 1:06Jason Schreier?

  Are you gonna, I mean, you either have a massive microwave or you'll chop the turkey into like pieces to fit into the microwave.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  A frozen turkey?

• 1:14Jason Schreier?

  Either way, it seems not ideal.

• 1:15Kirk Hamilton?

  I could imagine myself trying to like fit a turkey into my microwave. Like, this seems like a kind of a montage of a person. They're like backing into it, pushing the turkey. They finally get it in and then defrost.

• 1:27Jason Schreier?

  Well, hey, if you out there would like to help Kirk afford a microwave that can fit a turkey in it, like a giant.

• 1:34Kirk Hamilton?

  Giant industrial.

• 1:35Jason Schreier?

  Fridge-sized microwave.

• 1:36Speaker 02

  Huge microwave?

• 1:37Jason Schreier?

  A walk-in microwave. Then you should become a Maximum Fun member and help us make this show possible. We are entirely listener-supported. You can support us by going to maximumfun.org/join, signing up, supporting our show. And in addition to making the show possible, you will also get bonus episodes every single month, including the most recent one we did. What was that again? Indie Game, the movie we talked about?

• 2:02Speaker 02

  Whole month ago.

• 2:03Jason Schreier?

  Really fascinating. Yeah, I mean, time. And a new one we're about to put up on the feed, which is about. About The Sopranos, season one. We are going to talk about that. I'm very excited. So that's gonna be cool. And also, if you, in case you missed it, there's a little special extra bonus that you don't have to pay for. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 Kirk Talk 2. Some fascinating people about that. That extra episode should be in the main feed. So check that out as well.

• 2:32Kirk Hamilton?

  Bit of an all-star roundtable for that one. It was very fun to have those guests.

• 2:36Jason Schreier?

  Wolverine himself.

• 2:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, you got Logan on.

• 2:39Jason Schreier?

  Wolverine himself, Tom Bissell.

• 2:42Kirk Hamilton?

  We had an actor, Liam McIntyre, an actor who knows how to sword fight because he was on Spartacus Vengeance. And so he could talk about the sword fighting in the game and actually come from a place of some amount of training.

• 2:53Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I started playing the game and I'm excited to listen to it. I'll talk about the game at some point in the future too with you.

• 2:58Kirk Hamilton?

  That's very exciting.

• 2:59Jason Schreier?

  But yeah, Sopranos is coming soon. And support us, maximumfun.org/join.

• 3:04Kirk Hamilton?

  Actually, I should mention too that we have new merch in the merch store. We've said that for a while because there was new merch a little while ago, but now there is new, new merch. And one is, one item is by request. There are now mousepads and desk pads with the TripleClick logo. Some people had written in to ask about those, so you can now get those. And excitingly, the Bing pin design that is in the style of the Ace Attorney objection is now available on merch. So this was previously a reward for a Max Fun Drive from, I believe, last year, from like two years ago now. And it's a wonderful design by an artist named Merritt Bondaru. And it is just really, really cool. And so now you can get that on like a shirt or a mug. I'm gonna get it on everything because I love it. So anyways, definitely go to the merch store.

• 3:49Kirk Hamilton?

  It's time for the holidays. Like, we've got new stuff, so support TripleClick Buy.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  Give the gift of Bing.

• 3:54Kirk Hamilton?

  Buy, buy some merch. Yeah, give the gift of Bing.

• 3:57Jason Schreier?

  The gift of Bing. When you say that, I think of the D and D character in our Triple Quest campaign.

• 4:03Speaker 02

  That's right, everyone does, I think.

• 4:04Jason Schreier?

  Bing the Barbarian. All right, this week, we are doing some burning questions. We're reaching into our turkey bag and answering some Goblin questions for the week.

• 4:16Kirk Hamilton?

  Did you defrost these questions before? I hope you defrosted them like yesterday.

• 4:20Speaker 02

  They're burning.

• 4:21Jason Schreier?

  I stuck them in my microwave.

• 4:22Speaker 02

  They're burning up.

• 4:23Jason Schreier?

  In my question-sized microwave. That's why they're burning. Stick them in the deep fryer.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  We gotta take them out because they are just covered in charcoal at this point.

• 4:32Kirk Hamilton?

  More than deep frosted, really.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  They're smoldering.

• 4:34Jason Schreier?

  As always, you can reach us at tripleclickamaximumfun.org. These are real questions from real listeners. And let's-

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Do we need to say that? I feel like that makes it sound like they're not.

• 4:46Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, you say that every time.

• 4:48Kirk Hamilton?

  This is a long running thing.

• 4:49Jason Schreier?

  That's your response every time.

• 4:51Kirk Hamilton?

  Jason always says this and then you always say that.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  I still think it.

• 4:54Jason Schreier?

  History repeats.

• 4:55Speaker 02

  You know what? I don't remember what I've ever said on any previous episode.

• 4:59Jason Schreier?

  That's why we love you because it's just Groundhog's Day over and over again.

• 5:03Kirk Hamilton?

  It's all a new, it's a new day every day.

• 5:05Speaker 02

  Who are you guys?

• 5:06Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, why don't you read this first question?

• 5:08Kirk Hamilton?

  All right, this question comes from Neil, who writes, here's a burning question for you all. Now that Electronic Arts has been bought by what functionally seems like private equity, presumably at some point, some parts will be sold off to pay the debt. After looking at the TripleClick checking account balance after a very successful Max Fun drive, you realize that TripleClick can buy an Electronic Arts property. Which one are you buying and what do you do with it?

• 5:33Jason Schreier?

  So, okay, I think that like the obvious answer to this question might seem like, oh, BioWare. Oh, The Sims, oh Battlefield. But, well, okay, hold on, that's, that's what I was getting at.

• 5:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, sorry, you finish your thought.

• 5:45Jason Schreier?

  For me, I mean, people might not realize this, but EA owns a lot of like beloved old franchises that have just been never touched or have only been touched in mobile game form. For example, Dungeon Keeper, the classic Bullfrog franchise. Ultima, the classic Origin franchise, Richard Gere franchise. And so there's a lot of good stuff in there. I think a new Ultima game in kind of the style of Baldur's Gate 3, maybe not as quite high fidelity, but like in the same sort of systems heavy, you can interact with the world in all sorts of ways. The way that like Ultima Underworld and Ultima 7, all those old Ultima games did, I think could be really cool. So I think that would be my answer. I would be like, I want to buy up Ultima.

• 6:29Jason Schreier?

  And also, I feel like we might actually be able to afford that because like they don't give a shit about Ultima, right?

• 6:37Kirk Hamilton?

  Fifty bucks.

• 6:40Jason Schreier?

  Make us an extra beans gas and you can can get Ultima.

• 6:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Matty, how about you?

• 6:44Speaker 02

  Well, I guess we're we're just saying we don't want to buy BioWare. I I don't know.

• 6:49Jason Schreier?

  I was saying my that was my.

• 6:51Kirk Hamilton?

  That was just Jason's pick. Pick whatever you want.

• 6:53Speaker 02

  I'm down to buy it. I apparently I have no competition in this sale. I guess we made so much money on this hypothetical Max Fun Drive that each of the three of us can purchase our own EA property. Jason will be buying Ultima and I'll buy BioWare and then I'll sell it back to BioWare for a dollar because I actually don't want to own a game company at all. And they can just be an independent company and run themselves however they see fit. I would ask that they make a really good RPG, but that would just be my advice to them. They wouldn't have to take it.

• 7:23Kirk Hamilton?

  A new Jade Empire and you can have yourselves.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can do whatever you want. I think it'd be cool if you made a pretty good RPG with, you know, just like some fun characters in it and some player choice. But hey, go nuts over there. I just I just wanted I just want to see BioWare making cool stuff again. And I'm sad about what's happened to them.

• 7:45Kirk Hamilton?

  A cool RPG with good characters.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  I know.

• 7:48Kirk Hamilton?

  Matty's out on a limb here.

• 7:50Speaker 02

  I didn't have like some complex answer prepared for this. I just want I just want things to go back to how they used to be because I'm actually conservative and we all know that and I've always been that way. Kirk, what about you?

• 8:02Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, I have two picks, I guess. Jason, your answer made me think of Magic Carpet, which was a game series that I loved that EA also owned back in the day. So maybe I would buy whoever I need to buy or I would just buy the Magic Carpet series and make it do Magic Carpet game. I'm a little worried that I would realize that it's not actually as fun as I remember it being. But I think that the really the smart business answer is I would want, okay, I think I'm going to get the name right. I would want EA Sports FC, which used to be FIFA, because that just prints money. And so I would take EA Sports FC and then I would just be like, please just do whatever you've been doing. Absolutely no input from me. I'll just you can make the checks out too and then give them my my business name. And then I would just enjoy having a lot of money forever.

• 8:47Jason Schreier?

  And you could use that to invest in the Magic Carpet game.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  Right, because it's gonna need a lot of help. It's gonna be in development hell for a long time. They're gonna have to be figuring out the fun factor. It's gonna be tough.

• 9:00Jason Schreier?

  Maddie, something you said reminded me of one of my favorite bits of EA trivia, which is you talked about how you would sell Bioware back to itself. Did you guys know, or do you guys remember that in 2005, Bioware and Pandemic were both purchased and set into, like, put into this entity by, by a company called Elevation Partners, which was this private equity firm. And then in 2007, it was then sold to EA for some enormous sum of money, $800 million or something like that. But here's the rub. Elevation had a founding partner by the name of John Ricotello, who was part of Elevation. Then John Ricotello became

• 9:40Jason Schreier?

  the CEO of EA and then bought Bioware and Pandemic from his own private equity firm. The type of things that, that you can do if you're really rich is just transfer money from yourself to yourself and just make a lot along the way.

• 9:56Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, that sounds great. That's the kind of story I love to hear.

• 9:59Jason Schreier?

  Fun times. Maddie, why don't you read this next question?

• 10:02Speaker 02

  Sure. This one's from Riley, who writes, "I was listening to the episode with Cameron Kuntzleman and his comment at the end about Expedition 33 and how there was less discourse around the ending than expected got me thinking. Games seem to be the only medium where so much criticism and discussion isn't looking at the whole work. It's pretty rare to see someone write an article or make a podcast about the first third of a book, but games are often very long and there's been a blurring between criticism and product reviews over the years. Social media also creates its own incentives to cast a very broad net and get your opinion out there early. Of course, you don't need to play a whole game to determine whether you like it or would recommend it, but there's a distinction between that and deeper criticism of a work. I guess I'm wondering how you approach this as people who make a

• 10:47Speaker 02

  gaming podcast, since you have to balance your time, how many listeners finish or even play the games you discuss, and a variety of other factors."

• 10:56Kirk Hamilton?

  This is a great question. I mean, this is one of those questions from clearly a very thoughtful listener who answers some of the question in their email. And I mean, that's fine. Like, I think that some of these, uh, these factors that Riley lays out are part of the reason and part of the reason that people don't finish games. They're very long. It takes a long time to finish them. There are so many of them, it's hard to keep up. And there are all kinds of incentives on social media and elsewhere to get your opinion out there really early. So that's definitely, you know, those are, those are some of the incentives driving, uh, what, what Riley is describing. And I think that is very true. It is unusual. Um, it's an unusual thing about video games that so much of the discourse around them is being generated by people who have not finished and in some cases have not even seen a significant percentage

• 11:41Kirk Hamilton?

  of the whole work.

• 11:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's tough.

• 11:43Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's, it's unfortunate. It's like, it's something that I don't think there will ever be a satisfying answer to because, um, uh, it's, uh, like, when you watch a TV show, it becomes timely to talk about that TV show in the day out, the day after it comes out, the week after it comes out. When a game comes out, though, because it takes so much time to actually complete it, you either, you have to find a balance between like talking about it in a way that feels timely, AKA release day or release week, and being able to finish it. So unless you just marathon the whole thing, like the day it comes out, or if you're fortunate enough to get early copies, um, which is the case for like professionals working in the field, but to talk about general gamer discourse, you either talk about it

• 12:24Jason Schreier?

  like right then and there and give half complete thoughts and like early impressions, or you wait a month and then everybody's moved on to the next thing. So, yeah, it is unfortunate. And again, I just don't think there's a good answer to it because of the nature of games, like they just take so long. Um, as opposed to shows where you watch it and finish it in an hour. Uh, maybe a more apt comparison is books, but like books don't really have the same sort of discourse machines surrounding them. Occasionally they will, but like even that can be, um, uh, there isn't really a time constraint on them because usually if a book breaks into discourse, it's about some bigger thing than just the book itself, or it's about some, some big topic plagiarism or, or, uh, Something being PC and pissing people off or whatever it is.

• 13:10Jason Schreier?

  Or cultural appropriation was always a big one with in the book space is like, does this person have the right to be telling this story? And those sorts of conversations, because they're more breakout and broader, can be discussed long after the book comes out. But yeah, I just don't know the answer to this when it comes to discourse around games.

• 13:27Speaker 02

  The book comparison is funny, though, because can you imagine a world where people read the first three chapters of every book that came out and just immediately weighed in on it? And we're like, I don't think I'm going to continue this one. Like, that would be wild, but that is the world that we live in. And I don't even think it's strange. And I agree, I don't see it changing anytime soon, even though I am the person that beat Claire Obscure. I'm not holding it against anyone for not beating it. I think that would be strange, but I also think it's sad at the same time, because I know I wrote at least one story about the end of the game. And I don't remember it getting like a ton of reactions, but I also think that's because a lot of people didn't beat the game.

• 14:09Speaker 02

  So I don't have a high expectation of somebody reading my one opinion story that I wrote about the ending, because in order to read it, you're going to scroll past my spoiler warning. And why would you do that if you haven't beaten the game? You know what I'm saying? And then I therefore am kind of decent decentivized to write something about the end of a game, because I'm like, well, probably people want to finish it. So can I write an opinion story that doesn't spoil the game, but still makes my point? And I do try to do that sometimes, but it's not always easy to do.

• 14:42Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. One thought I just had while you were talking about this is that, so we were all playing, actually, no, I don't remember if we got review copies of Claire Obscure, but usually we're playing games at like, one or two weeks before they come out. And usually we will be finished with the game, or at least like, close to the end of the game, when the rest of the world is just starting to play it. And then so for us, we might start having that conversation about the entire game, maybe the ending, the spoilers, whatever, when it's a little too soon for people. Sometimes we might wait, we might try to find a balance there. But then Silk Song came out, and Silk Song was a really interesting one. Because there was a ton of like half baked impressions, pieces and nonsense that came out on ostensibly professional video game websites in the days after it came out.

• 15:27Jason Schreier?

  But also, it did feel like we were able to play that at the same pace as like the normal world. And so maybe the discourse felt a little bit fresher after a couple of weeks and we could all talk about the ending together. So yeah, maybe having kind of staggered releases doesn't help when it comes to quote unquote discourse. Then again, also, we're kind of talking, when we talk about discourse, we could be talking about a million different things, whether you're talking about what you're seeing on your individual blue sky feed, or in the discords you hang out with, or the reddits that you hang out with. So it's kind of a scattered, fractured environment in the first place.

• 16:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Blueprints is another game that comes to mind as one where we actually did have it quite a bit early. And I think you, especially Jason, had maybe almost finished the game by the time it was out.

• 16:10Jason Schreier?

  I did finish it, yeah.

• 16:11Kirk Hamilton?

  And then there was a lot of, okay, you had finished it. And there was a lot of very early and fairly incomplete criticism of the game in the first few weeks. And I think you have, in particular, found that very frustrating because you knew, you had such a broader picture of what that game was. And that game certainly demands the kind of conversation we eventually had about it in the Beanscast. Like, it is this incredibly elaborate thing that makes more sense, taken as a complete object than if you play the first few hours of it. And then, of course, that's true of a lot of games.

• 16:41Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. And you're playing it and you're like, oh, I bet this is just a video game thing and not like some deeper thing without realizing that you're just...

• 16:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Right.

• 16:50Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 16:51Kirk Hamilton?

  That actually, like the thing about the, right, the religion or the world building, where it's like, oh, this just seems pretty tossed off. And you're like, oh, no, wait, they invented the entire history of this, of these people. So my own thoughts on this, let's see. Yeah, I think there is room for complete video game criticism. I think of people like Noah Caldwell-Gervais, a YouTuber who I really enjoy, who puts out these very long, very in-depth videos where he'll talk about, you know, the entire Alan Wake series. And he'll have played all, he just recently made this video, it's great. And it's played all of Alan Wake, played all the DLCs. Played Alan Wake 2, and he is able to like, take this really wide view of the whole thing. And he has an audience. His videos get lots of views. He is supported on Patreon,

• 17:35Kirk Hamilton?

  and I think he is able to do that as his, you know, bag. That's, that's his thing. And I don't think he feels, I don't, I can't speak for him, but he does not engage in, oh, we gotta get out quick impressions. I'm doing product reviews for people, so they need to know at embargo day, whether this new Alan Wake game is good. He's gonna go and just make a big series about Fallout that will be really thoughtful. And there are other people who do this as well. H Bomber guy, doesn't do it as much, but used to, you know, he's one of the, one of the best at it on YouTube. So, in certain spheres, there's a world for this kind of thing. Actually, to mention Cameron Kuzelman at Mages and Murder Dead. They did this with the Baldur's Gate series, with Disco Elysium. Like, it's much later, and they have an audience. So I think if you can establish an audience of people

• 18:18Kirk Hamilton?

  who wanna hear complete criticism, then you can sustain yourself, and you can do that work. And I personally find that work far more satisfying. I mean, considering that we get games early, I still really, I mean, almost all the time that we're doing a triple play, I feel as though I wish I had been able to play more. Like, and we don't even rush to get things up, but we try to be timely. And I always feel like, I would have such a stronger take on this game if I just had like, three more months to play it. But then, you know, like, that's just not the world we live in. And, and you kinda gotta, you gotta just decide to come back to, to finish the thought if it, if it occurs to you, if it seems worth doing.

• 18:56Jason Schreier?

  That's the difference between a triple play and a Beans Cast. I mean, what you're describing, right? We can give ourselves kind of, and I, I do think there is like, room for these early impressions. I don't think they're necessarily a, a bad thing. And I think the part of having a conversation about a game can be, just kind of acknowledging that your perspectives and opinions on it might change over time, especially if you've only played the first five hours of a 40 hour game. And then you can, I, I think what's helpful about our triple plays is that we all just put our cards on the table and say, this is what I played, this is how I'm feeling about it. And I think all of us are pretty Open to allowing that perspective to change. And actually, I think that's the biggest difference

• 19:40Jason Schreier?

  between podcasting as a medium or YouTuber, YouTubing as a medium versus social media. And even to some extent, written articles, because I think that like, when you have something in writing on the internet, it can be weaponized a lot more. You feel like you're kind of, you're, you feel a lot more committed to it. You feel like you have to double down on it in a different way than you would if you were just kind of sharing thoughts out loud with your friends on a podcast. There have certainly been times where like, I put something on social media and been like, hmm, I've kind of changed my perspective on that, but like, are people just gonna start like, giving me shit and like, screen capping my old thing if I'm like, actually, I've changed my mind about that. I kind of, you feel like you have to put your foot down, like you're entrenched

• 20:23Jason Schreier?

  once you put something out there on social media, or again, to a lesser extent, in a written article. It's harder to withdraw, like to backtrack on that or change your mind, I think.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  And people won't always see the follow-up too, which is the frustrating thing about social media and also articles and just the way the internet works. I feel like I learned that really early in my blogging career, as it were, where I would write something and then be like, okay, I have more thoughts on this and I'm gonna link back to this and even try to crosslink them. People would still not find it and would link back to the first thing and be like, did you know this and that? And I could be like, yeah, I wrote about that four times, but it's, it's fine. You don't know that. How could you have known? It's just a tough thing. I, I do, I agree. It's kind of a thing about the written word. It feels permanent, even though the internet doesn't seem as permanent as maybe a print newspaper or a book does. There's still just

• 21:19Speaker 02

  something about the written word.

• 21:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, some of this is, is related to the incentives of the internet and of the way that communication works on it. I mean, you know, social media is essentially a bunch of people at a cocktail party who haven't seen the movie talking about it. There's so much of that. And because it incentivizes reaction above content, because it incentivizes reacting to headline over reading the entire article and saying something meaningful about it, it incentivized short soundbites. You know, it it leads to a pretty significant degradation in discourse, which we've seen happen over the last 10 slash 20 years. And I mean, you know, like, we were talking about books. I don't actually follow book talk, but it actually wouldn't surprise me if there are people on book talk who are like, I've read the first three paragraphs of the new whatever book and like,

• 22:05Kirk Hamilton?

  and I think it sucks. You're like, the first three chapters and this chapter three is where I'm getting out. And like, people actually do share like immediate impressions or or almost live reading it. Like, that actually wouldn't wouldn't surprise me if that existed because the incentives of social media are what they are. And one other thought here, which is a separate conversation, but this also relates to spoilers. And that's something that we also run into where even if you have finished the game, if you finish the game early, a lot of times you're trying to say to people, well, the character is actually a lot more interesting than they seem at the beginning. And it's because you've seen all this stuff that happens, but you don't feel comfortable telling people about it because they don't want to know about it. And that can also kind of hinder you. Where and that is another nice thing about some of these, like people like Noah,

• 22:47Kirk Hamilton?

  who are doing criticism years after a thing came out, you can just talk about it. Everyone assumes that you're going to spoiler, have spoilers. And it's why I love making our beans cast. It's actually why I loved our dispatch conversation a couple of weeks ago, too. It's so nice when all three of us have just seen the whole thing. We're not talking around anything and we can just talk about what the damn thing was. Like, I really think that is by far the best kind of conversation you can have about a work of art.

• 23:10Jason Schreier?

  Yeah. I mean, also, part of this is like story games versus games where you kind of can get a sense of how the whole thing is going to play out after just playing a few hours. Right? Like, in a couple of weeks, we're going to do a triple play on Metroid. And none of us will have completed the game because we'll only have it for what, like, five days, six days by the time we actually have to, maybe even less than that by the time we have to actually record it. And that game, I mean, I don't know, maybe it's heavy on story.

• 23:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, might have more talking in it than maybe we thought it would, actually.

• 23:40Jason Schreier?

  Sure. But I have a feeling we'll be able to like, deliver. Like, we'll be able to get a sense of what that game is after playing five hours, 10 hours, whatever it is, as opposed to a game where you're, or a book where you're just kind of like giving your impressions on like the first act of a three act story.

• 23:58Kirk Hamilton?

  You know, we have an upcoming question that's about the kinds of games that you can't play the entire thing. You know, if we did an episode on Battlefield 6 or Fortnite or something, like, that's kind of a different thing, but I guess there's an upcoming question about that. So maybe we can get into that when that question comes up.

• 24:11Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, all right, let's keep moving. Here's the next one from Lulu. Hello, Team Click. Is there a deliberate reason why Kirk never chooses a musical album as a one more thing? Yeah, Kirk?

• 24:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, what's going on?

• 24:23Kirk Hamilton?

  Why am I holding back? Yeah, I guess there is. I don't, it doesn't occur to me to do that, partly because I do a lot of that on Strong Songs and in my newsletter. Like, I do share music recommendations, but part of it is that there are a lot of new albums that I love. I mean, I'm constantly sharing music recommendations in those two places, especially in my newsletter. I like do it all the time. But it's rare that there's an album where I'm like, I think TripleClick listeners need to know about this one album in a way that is, you know, more than, I don't know, something else. So it's not like a conscious choice, but, but it's mostly that I have another venue to do that, that is like really specifically, two other venues to do that, that are really specifically geared toward music recommendations. So I always have a variety of things competing for my

• 25:07Kirk Hamilton?

  one more thing. Like, I know the two of you do as well. I'm always thinking, well, you know, I want to talk about this, I want to talk about that. So it's rare that there's an album that'll edge out, you know, something else that I could only talk about on TripleClick.

• 25:18Jason Schreier?

  Good answer. Satisfying answer.

• 25:21Kirk Hamilton?

  Cool.

• 25:21Jason Schreier?

  I think it's your turn next also, Kirk.

• 25:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Oh, yes.

• 25:25Jason Schreier?

  Do this next one.

• 25:25Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay, so this is the question I was referring to a couple minutes ago. Joe writes, "Hi, TripleClick. One thing I find interesting about video games is that they can change after release through patches. A recent patch to the ending of Hades 2 got me thinking about how much that can affect the overall video game experience. In this case, they reworked the entire ending, and I think it's way more satisfying now." That's actually exciting to hear. I didn't know that. Sorry, back to Joe. Joe says, "So I'm curious, how do you think patches impact the way we experience games? And are there any patches you can think of that changed a game for better or for worse?"

• 26:00Jason Schreier?

  Man, it's so weird to think that like you can play a game and then the ending will be patched and other people will just have a totally different experience of the ending. It's so bizarre. I mean, I'm not like, I'm not pro it or against it necessarily. It's just so strange.

• 26:14Speaker 02

  It is strange.

• 26:15Kirk Hamilton?

  Remember when they patched Cats, the movie?

• 26:18Speaker 02

  They actually did and it was very game-like that they did that. And I think we compared it to games at the time, maybe not on this show, but certainly amongst ourselves.

• 26:26Kirk Hamilton?

  There were certainly Polygon articles about that. Sorry, but anyways, to this question.

• 26:29Jason Schreier?

  I always think about Destiny and the many evolutions that that game has been through over the years. Peter Dinklage getting patched out of the entire game and replaced by Nolan North was a big one. Also, just then, every single time, way back in the day, Destiny 1, early days, every single time we found some fun little exploit that just made the game more interesting, they would patch it out and just make the game slip, maybe more stable, I guess, but slightly less fun. Like when we could beat Crota Zen by pulling out the LAN cable and like getting him to free.

• 27:01Kirk Hamilton?

  The loot cave, the loot cave, which was the ultimate metaphor in my review of Destiny 1, where we all just stood in front of a cave and shot enemies all weekend. That was how we played Destiny.

• 27:11Jason Schreier?

  And yeah, I think that like the, this kind of changing the nature of a game

• 27:19Jason Schreier?

  and smoothing over the friction, I think can have some downsides too. It's just such a strange, there's no other medium like that, except I guess in Cats' case, but that's a rare exception in games. It's a lot more common. And I think you just have to accept that games are kind of like, I don't know, like stage plays or something where they're just kind of changing over time and evolving. And especially these live service games where the version you play today is very different than the version you play, that you played a few years ago, to the point where like kids at the playground might be treating Fortnite like it's an oral tradition of like telling the stories of how your, your, your father used to play Fortnite and what it was like then and what his father, his version of Fortnite was like. That's like, games are gonna be like.

• 28:04Kirk Hamilton?

  And especially Fortnite, because there's this Simpsons thing going on with Fortnite that looks totally amazing. I don't play Fortnite. Fortnite and haven't checked it out, but it looks so cool. You can like explore, you can explore Springfield and like go to Mr. Burns's house. But that is going to end. And when that ends, at least historically, I believe that it will just be gone. So it isn't even just that like they're updating the game and making it smoother and balancing it. They're also adding things and then taking things away. I guess Destiny has done that too. Most MMOs have to take things away at some point, otherwise the install size just gets so huge that they can't, that the game can't support it.

• 28:38Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, or like Sony, they gave us Concord and then they took it away.

• 28:41Kirk Hamilton?

  Okay. The whole game goes away.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  That's a really sad example, I would say. I, I mean, I was gonna say, I mean, Concord aside, I generally think the concept of ephemeral art is really cool. I mean, I, I've always liked theater as an art form, and this is a place where I think games are really similar to that in that it's like, you really have to see this live. It's going to be taken away at a certain point with a live game. You can actually have that experience of participatory role playing or experience, whatever it is. And I think, um, to give an example of something we've all played, at least a little of, Helldivers 2 has done this in a really cool way by just continually updating the game and having patches be a story that is told to the players over time where the, they'll be like,

• 29:25Speaker 02

  oh, rumors that a certain kind of insect or robot is joining the game or like leaks, quote unquote, and people will get really scared in character about what's going to happen. And then they'll all have to fight it together. And like the in-universe government is denying reports of these things, even though players have seen them. I mean, those types of updates are so cool and they can only happen in a live game. And I just think it's neat to see something like that emerging in our current time period, even though it's also funny to think back on like the Peter Dinklage examples where it's like, well, that's also ephemeral art that we all got to experience at the time. And we can just look back on the memories of that

• 30:09Speaker 02

  and the YouTube videos of that. And it's, it's lost to the ages, but it wasn't intentional ephemeral art in the way that Helldivers 2 is, and that Fortnite can be.

• 30:19Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, there's an interesting. Causing sort of bit of tension there in the way that games work, right? Because yeah, ephemeral art is wonderful. I mean, I won't start talking about jazz, but jazz is one of the ultimate ephemeral art forms. It is, it is the thing that happens in the spirit of the moment. And recording jazz is almost, in some ways, anyways, counter to the whole idea of this improvised conversation that everybody experiences a lot.

• 30:41Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, it's about what you don't record.

• 30:43Kirk Hamilton?

  Right, it's about the raids that you don't go on. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, there, yeah, certainly. And I actually really like that theater comparison that you both made. I think that's an interesting way of thinking about it because, you know, one example that we haven't mentioned is the ending of Mass Effect 3. That was a very famous example of, you know, a studio changing the ending of a game, in this case, after widespread, you know, criticism of the ending and a lot of players didn't like it and they went and changed it. They added stuff to it. And then they also made a DLC, the Citadel DLC, that gave a much grander and more emotional sense of closure to the whole thing. That really does feel like a really wonderful final chapter, sort of final hurrah for that game. And that does feel kind of like a live performance where, you know, a Broadway musical or something,

• 31:27Kirk Hamilton?

  where there's one version of it and then someone reimagines it later. You know, you've seen the recent reimagings of Oklahoma, for example, one of the very first musicals ever written now has been reimagined in this whole other way and they've like recontextualized everything that's happening. Like, that's a good way of thinking of it and games work in that way. And then the tension, I guess, arises because games are also software and we think of software similarly to how we think of games where, you know, they changed Microsoft Word, so now it's like so hard to select multiple paragraphs, it's so annoying. They moved the edit bar to somewhere, I hate what they've done with it, you know? Like where software is always getting updated and in theory it's getting better, but a lot of times it's not. And games kind of do the same thing because games are also software. So it's this sort of tension between games as art and games as software.

• 32:10Jason Schreier?

  Well, yeah, I mean, it's, it's kind of, it follows what we were talking about before, where it's like you can patch the gameplay and you can patch the story. You can patch a boss to make it less difficult. You could also patch the end of the boss to make it so he no longer dies. And those are kind of two different, interesting things. I think there's a school of thought that like, a game is a piece of art and the artist put it out. Out there and should not change their vision just because players react in a certain way. And I've never really bought that school of thought because every single game, as far as I know, certainly most games, have play testers and the people who are making them respond to how play testers are reacting in the game and releasing it to the world is kind of just like getting a whole bunch more play testers to check it out. And all

• 32:53Jason Schreier?

  games are kind of in conversation or a conversation between their authors and their players. And I think if you, as an author, are finding that people aren't resonating with something or aren't reacting to something in the way that you want it to, it's kind of like changing the design of a level because you're finding the players aren't experiencing the feeling that you want them to feel with it. So why not do that on a grander scale? So I've always I've always kind of been into that, this idea that games in general are just kind of an ongoing conversation between their creators and their players. But still, it's so weird. It's just super weird.

• 33:26Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a distinct thing about games, you know, it's it's what makes them different from George Lucas tinkering around with his movies and adding stuff to them in a way that I think a lot of people feel sort of makes them less good, you know, sort of impacts his original artistic vision. And I think a lot of people, myself included, I sort of wish he'd just left the original, the original Star Wars movies be. But then actually getting back to theater, there is the very interesting behind the scenes process with musical theater where there's like a set, usually a kind of pretty rigid production book, like the bible for a given show. Like Hamilton, I know, for example, has a very rigid production bible where the ropes on the stage all need to be a certain length. And they're like really, really strict. So every performance, the West End performance,

• 34:10Kirk Hamilton?

  the touring performance, the Broadway performance, like the set looks the exact same, the blocking is the same, like everything is really set. And this was true for Phantom of the Opera for a long time as well. And I'm going here off of Lindsay Ellis, who came on Strong Songs several years ago to talk about Broadway. And she was explaining some of this because she's a big Broadway aficionado. And she was talking about how for a long time Phantom also had a very rigid production, you know, the guidelines for production were very, very rigid. And as a result, it was kind of sclerotic, like you always got the Same Phantom, which was fine because Phantom was, I think, the longest running Broadway show ever. But it never changed. It couldn't change with the times. And that's finally, I think, starting to change with Phantom. So they can like do more interesting casting and they can change the blocking and they could start to reimagine it.

• 34:55Kirk Hamilton?

  And you can see a little more of that reactivity happening, like happens with games. So anyways, I think there's actually a really interesting theater games comparison to make here.

• 35:04Jason Schreier?

  Sure, yeah. And Sleep No More is kind of that ultimate, just crossing the border between theater and games.

• 35:10Speaker 02

  And it has influenced so many games. I mean, far from the only example of a theater piece that's influenced games. But I think because it's interactive and because it's different, as people experience it, it's, it makes so much sense that it influenced games.

• 35:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Let's keep going. Maddie, what's the next question?

• 35:27Speaker 02

  Okay, so the next one's from Jess, who says, "My question for you is, if you could be programmed as an NPC into any game, past or present, what game would it be? And how would you add to the story slash what would your side quest be?"

• 35:44Kirk Hamilton?

  Man, I would just be with a saxophone player in GTA IV because he's pretty good.

• 35:50Speaker 02

  It would just be you. There'd be no differences.

• 35:52Kirk Hamilton?

  No, I'd just stand there playing saxophone and I'd get to be as good as that guy because he's pretty good.

• 36:02Speaker 02

  I think I'd probably be a character in Metroid Prime 4 who talks to Samus the entire time and just kind of like tells her where to go and what to do and...

• 36:12Kirk Hamilton?

  Makes lots of self-deprecating Marvel-style jokes.

• 36:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's kind of like self-effacing and then just kind of dies horribly at a certain point.

• 36:20Kirk Hamilton?

  That's a great call. That's a great call, Maddie.

• 36:22Jason Schreier?

  Samus, Samus gets trapped in a room and Maddie is like, "Well, that just happened."

• 36:29Kirk Hamilton?

  And then immediately starts suggesting how to solve the puzzle to get out of the room.

• 36:33Jason Schreier?

  Maybe, maybe you should look up.

• 36:34Speaker 02

  I think that door's locked. Look for a key. Oh, that door seems to be locked. Hmm. I don't think you can open that right now.

• 36:40Kirk Hamilton?

  You got it. You could, you could play this character. I think you're already recording your voice lines.

• 36:43Speaker 02

  I know. It's, I'm made for it.

• 36:45Jason Schreier?

  I feel like I would be, I would like to be added to one of these RPGs that like has a... Journalist character and I'd be the person yelling at the journalist character that they're completely like fucking up every ethical boundary and should be staying out of the story and not helping the player because they should be trying to stay fair and at least somewhat

• 37:08Kirk Hamilton?

  Like J. Jonah Jameson, but actually with like journalists together.

• 37:12Speaker 02

  Were you like an editor character who's like calling a journalist character on the phone and yelling at them?

• 37:17Jason Schreier?

  I'm thinking of like, you know, the journalist in Fallout 4, the journalist has some problematic, some problematic notions.

• 37:25Kirk Hamilton?

  They usually do.

• 37:26Jason Schreier?

  I would be the press sneak fuck who comes in and is like, actually, I can't join your party because that would not be appropriate, but I can chat with you and hear your story and monitor you and try to tell your story in a fair way, but don't be surprised.

• 37:43Kirk Hamilton?

  The first thing you do in every dialogue exchange is establish whether you're on background or on the record.

• 37:47Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, we're on the record here. Yep, exactly.

• 37:50Speaker 02

  Well, that's really what the player character should be doing. Jason's gonna assume it's all on the record and the player character needs to very carefully select whether or not it's actually off the record ahead of

• 38:00Jason Schreier?

  It's funny you say that. I do. No, I always establish it pretty clearly because like I don't assume that people will know that how that works.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  Sadly, they don't.

• 38:10Jason Schreier?

  All right, next question. Let's see if we can fit in two more. Maybe I'll do one more. Let's see. Chris asks, hello Kirk, Matty and Jason. I was wondering what it's like being on the other side of a parasocial relationship. Listening to the podcast each week for years, I've learned a lot about you three, your tastes, interests, histories, experience, likes, dislikes, etc. You three are part of a large network of parasocial pals, quote unquote, that exists in my life. And I imagine that's true for many other listeners. But y'all didn't even know I existed until reading this. To me, these parasocial connections feel distinct from traditional, quote, fandom. They're more intimate and personal while still remaining very one sided. So what's it like on that other side?

• 38:48Kirk Hamilton?

  It's a good question. It's pretty chill, at least for me. I mean, it's funny. You know, we've been doing enough, we've been doing live events for a few years and meetups and, you know, these wonderful times where we get together. And kind of a crowd of people come out and they talk to us and everyone's really, really nice and it is a manifestation of what Chris is talking about, of where it's a lot of people who have listened to the three of us talk maybe every week for years. And as a result, yeah, like Chris says, they know all kinds of little things about us. And we're meeting them for the first time. For me anyways, it feels very natural and relaxed. I think we have relaxed listeners. We are a fairly relaxed show. The whole thing is pretty chill.

• 39:30Kirk Hamilton?

  We're not trying to be larger than life in any way, I don't think. And so when people meet us and we are in fact just normal life sized, it just kind of feels like, oh, you make a thing I like. This is so nice. I get to say hi to you. And it always just kind of feels fine. So to me, that fact makes the whole thing just feel pretty much fine. And I have lots of podcasts that I listen to or YouTube, Youtubers that I watch or whatever, people that I also, I guess I have a parasocial relationship with them. I feel like I've been watching them for a long time. I've watched their career change. I, I do know things about their life. And to me, that also feels kind of chill. Like if I ever met one of those people, it would be really similar. It'd be like, hey, like, this is funny. You know, there's that little odd thing where I've watched you do a lot

• 40:14Kirk Hamilton?

  of different things. I'm kind of aware of that part of your life. But it's just increasingly a part of the tapestry of life. Like, so many people now have, you know, an audience or some kind of like relationship, like that kind of one sided relationship with some level of audience. So everyone's kind of grown comfortable with it and it's become a little bit more natural, I would say, over the last 10 years.

• 40:36Speaker 02

  I think I've also gotten better at it over time before I ever was on split screen, which I'm just thankful that I, is the case for me and that enough people read my work and recognized me at a PAX or whatever it may be, that I got used to people coming up to me. And I will say I wasn't that great at it at first and I regret being really shy early on and, and often not knowing what to say in those early days when people came up and were like, oh, I'm so excited to meet you. I'd be like, why? I definitely like have some regrets about. Being so self-effacing. And that was like a really important lesson that I learned very early on was that people get very uncomfortable if you're self-deprecatory in that moment,

• 41:20Speaker 02

  even if that's how you feel, which for the record, it's always how I feel. Like Kirk said, I don't feel like I'm a big deal when I'm beating any of our listeners. But if somebody comes up and they say, oh, I've followed your work, you have to just say, thank you, and treat it like a compliment, which it is. And I have, I just do that now. And it makes every interaction so much better. Because anytime I was self-deprecatory, I didn't realize I was kind of accidentally insulting the reader.

• 41:49Jason Schreier?

  Right. I suck.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Well, you're actually stupid for liking me.

• 41:54Jason Schreier?

  Well, your taste is terrible, clearly.

• 41:56Speaker 02

  I'm trying to like, make the interaction less awkward. But in actuality, I would always be making it worse by doing that. But now I just say, thank you. And I love now to learn about our listeners or my readers. And that's so fun to get to have a real conversation with them and find out what they're into and get to, you know, be on the other side and not be the one who's talking. That part is really great.

• 42:20Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, I mean, what you guys said, we've had pretty good interactions with people over the years. I feel like Kirk, what you said was particularly funny to me because I have watched the Psychotesty documentary many times and met some of the people in that documentary, including some people in that documentary who listen to TripleClick. So it's kind of like a duel, a double sided.

• 42:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, like we're both parasocial.

• 42:45Jason Schreier?

  Which is very funny. Oh, you're on my favorite TV show. Oh, you're on my favorite podcast. Yeah, that which is, which is fun. Yeah, I think maybe, yeah, I think that to your point, Maddie, I actually think there's some other shows, including some that I've listened to over the years, where like, there are people who maybe act a little bit differently, or are putting on more of a front while performing on stage or on a podcast, because they're actually quite introverted and they have to be extroverted when they're putting on the show. And so Meeting them in person, they're kind of like, almost like different people. And that can be a little off putting. I think the three of us are not really like that.

• 43:28Jason Schreier?

  All three of us are just kind of the same people on this show as we are in real life. We don't really have to put on a personality or put on a character or anything like that. Although I will say that for all of you out there wondering, Dan Reichert is exactly the same in person as he is.

• 43:42Speaker 02

  He really is though.

• 43:43Jason Schreier?

  On his podcast.

• 43:45Speaker 02

  Not a character, not a bit.

• 43:47Jason Schreier?

  And so I think that is helpful. And yeah, I mean, it's just is like, the biggest factor here is just that our listenership is so chill and cool and normal. And I can probably count on one hand, the number of times I've had weird interactions with like triple click listeners. I've had way more weird interactions with just kind of like, just, I don't know, oddball people in the world who just have nothing to do with triple click. Or just gamers or like weird people at conferences who are just confrontational and stuff like that, who don't listen to our show. I think if you listen to our show, chances are you're a pretty well adjusted person, I will say.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  Huge compliment.

• 44:27Jason Schreier?

  Like, well adjusted might not even be the right word. You're pretty, you're like, someone who treats people well, I think is, might be the best way to put it. And we've experienced that nonstop in our real lives. In fact, I remember one time Kirk and I were doing, before you joined the show, Matty, we were doing a split screen episode or a panel or something. And it was like, right after Gamergate had started and we were like so nervous. No, it couldn't have been split screen. It was some Kotaku panel.

• 44:51Kirk Hamilton?

  It was at PAX. It was like, I think just a Kotaku panel.

• 44:54Jason Schreier?

  We were nervous about the reactions. And it turns out everyone who was there was just super chill and nice. And there wasn't a single like bad person among them. And we realized that like, oh, actually, okay, the people who are like fans of us are not going to do like pull that type of shit. So.

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. And the, the people who are haters are often very reticent to actually talk to you in real life, I've found. And thank goodness.

• 45:16Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 45:17Jason Schreier?

  But that's, that's as far as interactions. As far as just like knowing that like tens of thousands of people out there listen to us every week and know things about our lives is always a little bit strange, especially when it kind of crosses into the real world. Like, um, my wife will be like, oh yeah, this person I met is like a fan of Triple Click. And it's always a little strange, but, uh, but it's fun. I mean, it's not, it's not a bad thing. It's just, uh, just a little weird, kind of like video game patching. It's like, not a bad thing. It's just weird. Weird part of life.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. Makes it feel like a small world.

• 45:51Jason Schreier?

  I don't think we have time for another one. So I think we're gonna, uh, call it here. Thank you to everybody who sent in the great questions. Once again, if you want to send in questions, tripleclickatmaximumfun.org is how you reach us. Let's take a break and then we'll be back with one more thing.

• 46:10Speaker 03

  Ready, go. Knock, knock. Who's there? We got this.

• 46:14Speaker 04

  With Mark and Hal?

• 46:15Speaker 03

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• 46:19Speaker 04

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• 46:21Speaker 03

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• 46:27Speaker 04

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• 46:29Speaker 03

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• 46:30Speaker 04

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• 46:32Speaker 03

  With a chisel.

• 46:33Speaker 04

  There's only one hue in rock and it's Huey Lewis.

• 46:37Speaker 03

  And the news is, we got those with Mark and Hal is available every week on maximumfun.org.

• 46:41Speaker 04

  I walked right into that.

• 46:49Speaker 05

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• 47:27Jason Schreier?

  And we are back. It's time for one more thing. Matty, start us off.

• 47:32Speaker 02

  So I went on a PC gaming journey, like the kind of frustrating experience that will make you sarcastically go PC gaming to your friends. And I just wanted to warn some people.

• 47:44Jason Schreier?

  That'll make you out of ISC machine.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  We'll see about that. So I wanted to play Black Ops 7, specifically the campaign and not the multiplayer. But even if you want to play the campaign for Black Ops 7, you still have to install their anti-cheat that is for the multiplayer, I would say. And that requires you to change a setting in your computer, specifically in the BIOS settings, which is called Secure Boot. And if you don't change your computer to be in Secure Boot mode, you can't run the game at all. And this is also true for a ton of other games, Battlefield 6, Valorant, a bunch of other modern multiplayer games have this as like a way to implement

• 48:30Speaker 02

  anti-cheat. And I've certainly changed stuff in my BIOS settings before. This is like, you know, when you're restarting your computer, you see those things at the bottom of the screen. It's like, press the delete key to go into BIOS settings. I've done that before. I've changed things. And I'm pretty cocky about this, actually, as it happens. So I was like, whatever, I'm just gonna go in, I'm gonna change this toggle. And I would say, like, for a huge percentage of people, that is all you do. You change a toggle to a Secure Boot, and your computer does that, and it's fine. But for some percentage of people, I'm not sure how high, but I know it's tons of people, because I found dozens upon dozens of Reddit threads from other people who had this happen to them. If you change these settings, your computer will not work anymore.

• 49:16Speaker 02

  And that is what happened to me. I changed these settings.

• 49:20Jason Schreier?

  They should call it secure can't boot.

• 49:22Kirk Hamilton?

  Secure brick.

• 49:24Speaker 02

  Insecure, non booting, am I right, folks? Anyway, I'm on my computer again. I did fix this. But I did want to warn people about this. It is a pretty serious thing to change. And it's fixable. If this happens to you, it's not going to brick your computer or anything. But in my case, it did make it so the display didn't turn on anymore, even though the computer was on. Basically, my

• 49:49Jason Schreier?

  Do you really need that?

• 49:50Speaker 02

  I know. Like, do you need to see Black Ops 7 to play it? More and more people are asking this. And so I did figure it out. I did have to like, learn how to Q flash my BIOS, whatever the frick that means. And I did that and it's all fine now, but it was really frustrating. And I guess I'm just gonna go ahead and come out and say that even though this was really easy for a huge majority of people, it wasn't easy for me. And so therefore I'm against it. This does mean I'm biased. And maybe the anti-cheat software is going great, but I don't think that you should have to go into your BIOS settings to play a video game. I just, I don't know. I think that might be a bridge too far for me.

• 50:30Jason Schreier?

  The burning question here is, is it PC gaming that's the problem or Call of Duty that's the problem?

• 50:36Speaker 02

  I don't know. I don't know what the problem is. And I did end up fixing this, but it was quite complicated to fix it. I luckily I have a laptop, so like I could download the motherboard, like Q flash stuff to a USB drive and like learn how to, where to plug it in and learn how to Q flash the motherboard. It was all a wonderful PC gaming learning experience for me. And by wonderful, I mean it wasn't because I was really scared that my computer was never going to turn on again. And it was, it all turned out okay, but

• 51:03Kirk Hamilton?

  Sounds like a real PC gaming experience. Terrified for a moment and eventually relieved.

• 51:08Speaker 02

  It turned out fine, but I just, I guess I don't really understand why this level of anti-cheat is necessary if I simply want to play the campaign. So that's my big existential question is, are games going to start doing this now? I hope not.

• 51:24Kirk Hamilton?

  Isn't this the case that Black Ops 7? You can't pause the campaign because it's like a multiplayer. It's like running multiplayer. I think I saw people complaining about this, among many.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  I can't verify that, but that could make sense.

• 51:35Kirk Hamilton?

  I remember playing Black Ops 6, and this was after watching Dunky's review. Video game Dunky's review was like just the menus and trying to play the campaign of Black Ops 6. It was like 10 minutes of him failing and getting kicked from menu to menu to menu. Because there are like 17 menus that you have to go through in order to play the campaign to the last one.

• 51:54Speaker 02

  I did experience the menus. Yeah, it's wild. Call of Duty is a series of menus now.

• 51:59Kirk Hamilton?

  They've had some real cruft accumulation in that series. Jason, you and I earlier this year, we both this year had to do the BIOS update because I got the pop up. I think it was for Outer Worlds. I believe that both, maybe it was both Obsidian games did this. Where there's a little Windows pop up that says essentially, "Alert, your computer will explode like a grenade." The wrong wires crossed, so you might want to update your BIOS.

• 52:20Jason Schreier?

  But it wasn't the games, it was the Intel CPU that we both have that had an issue. That this game just happened to warn you about a security vulnerability or like some big vulnerability that like we should have been fixing regardless. It's just this game happened to warn us about it. It didn't have anything to do with the game, I don't think. It was like.

• 52:39Kirk Hamilton?

  No, my understanding was that there was some sort of critical error that could happen.

• 52:42Jason Schreier?

  No, it's your Intel CPU. If you didn't do this one update that we both did, your CPU would just melt over time, just like lose performance over time. Unrelated from the game. The game was just warning you to be nice.

• 52:54Speaker 02

  That was actually a kind service that the game was doing for you.

• 52:57Jason Schreier?

  Yeah.

• 52:58Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I'm happy to have done it. It was just a pain in the ass. I mean, it was a very similar process, Matty, where you have to install a new BIOS on a USB drive, but then it has to be formatted to a certain type of FAT formatting. And then it doesn't read it, and so then it already can't load it, or it doesn't see a BIOS because you actually downloaded the one for the Asus motherboard that doesn't have Wi-Fi, but I have the Asus motherboard with Wi-Fi.

• 53:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, did you download the V 1.0 motherboard or the 1.2? And which motherboard do you have?

• 53:25Jason Schreier?

  I was kind of joking before, but like if the Steam machine, running SteamOS, will likely not run into a lot of these same issues.

• 53:31Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, but the Steam machine can't even run the anti-cheat that we're talking about, and so these games will not play on it.

• 53:37Jason Schreier?

  Yeah, that's true.

• 53:38Kirk Hamilton?

  Black Ops 7 and Battlefield.

• 53:40Jason Schreier?

  I mean, so it's doing you a favor.

• 53:41Speaker 02

  Actually, the solve is you don't play Black Ops 7. That's the solve, as it happens. I have yet to play it.

• 53:48Kirk Hamilton?

  You didn't want to play Battlefield 6, the most popular multiplayer.

• 53:51Speaker 02

  It turns like you didn't want to play it. You didn't want to play it that bad.

• 53:53Kirk Hamilton?

  Just trust us. You're gonna thank us later.

• 53:55Jason Schreier?

  You can play deadlock.

• 53:59Jason Schreier?

  Kirk, what's your one more thing?

• 54:00Kirk Hamilton?

  My one more thing is a podcast series that I listened to and loved, and I just really want to spread the word about it because I'm sure it will appeal to a small percentage of our listeners, but those who don't know about it and might like it, I think might really like it, and I want more people to listen to it. It is called Fela Kuti, Fear No Man. This is a new series from Higher Ground and Audible, Higher Ground, the Obamas production company. So, one of the last companies that are producing narrative, sort of high production value podcasts. Last year, they made The Wonder of Stevie, which was all about Stevie Wonder, hosted by Wesley Morris, an incredible show. Actually had Wes on Strong Songs last year to talk about it. And then this year, they worked with Jad Abumrad,

• 54:43Kirk Hamilton?

  the creator of Radiolab, podcasting legend, to make this show about Fela Kuti. And actually, I had Jad on Strong Songs as well to talk about it. So if you've listened to this series and like it, you can also hear me talking to Jad about his career and about this show. So, Fela Kuti, Fear No Man, is the story of Fela Kuti, who I'm sure is a name that some of you out there know. And I'm guessing that some of you don't really know who he is. Like, you're like, yeah, I think he's like an important African musician, but I don't really know who that is. And I think that's a totally reasonable way to feel. It's pretty common. He is someone worth knowing about, and he is a fascinating figure. So, Fela Kuti was, he is credited large, kind of as the father of Afrobeat, which is a whole style of music that you will hear in everything you listen to now, but was kind

• 55:28Kirk Hamilton?

  of a new thing in the 1970s. It was this like evolution of highlife music, which was a style of African pop music that kind of merged with African American music, like James Brown, and became like funkier and kind of more urgent and more intense. And Fela Kuti was like at the forefront of that. So, he's a Nigerian musician. He made most of his music in the 1970s and then the 80s. The music he made in the 80s was pretty different. And the 70s is kind of where he did the bulk of the songs that you will hear.

• 56:04Kirk Hamilton?

  He was also, very importantly, a really intense political activist. He was a radical political activist at a time when Nigeria, recently independent, granted its independence by Britain, but of course saddled with all kinds of restrictions that led to all sorts of horrible things happening in Nigeria, which are still happening today. This is very much like the legacy of colonialism and how formerly colonized countries were not really given an opportunity to flourish after Britain left them. And that definitely happened in Nigeria. So Fela was a really important figure in like the movement for African independence, for Nigerian independence, and he kind of became a figurehead. He was a really intense activist. He suffered all kinds of violence. I mean, there were just raids on his compound all the time.

• 56:49Kirk Hamilton?

  Being in his band meant you were going to get beat up by the police, beat up by the military, and maybe even killed. There was a lot of that. So this podcast series tells his story. It's the story of his music, it's the story of his family. His mother, actually, Fumaleo, was a really amazing lady. She was like also an activist in Nigeria, kind of leading in the years leading up to independence. Britain had like left in the 1950s, but they still had a kind of puppet ruler, and she was part of this, this big like women's union protest that was amazing, where like this whole group of Nigerian women protested against the kind of puppet ruler in Nigeria and like ran him out of the country. They tell the story of that. Then it's the story of Fela, of the good and the bad. He was definitely like a complicated figure.

• 57:34Kirk Hamilton?

  He did a lot of bad things and a lot of good things. He was kind of a cult leader in some ways. A lot about his music, what it meant to people. Zombie, his most famous piece, like what that means. It's this kind of anti-military anthem that you'll hear all over the place. Beyonce quoted Zombie at her Coachella performance. Like, it's a really important piece of music. And then it gets into his children as well, who, his two, two of his sons are actually big Afrobeat stars as well. So it's this kind of generational story about Nigerian history and about what protest music can mean, about how to make art in the face of oppression and Why that art matters. And it's like a really relevant series. It's so well made.

• 58:15Kirk Hamilton?

  I mean, Jad is like the best to ever do it. There's some incredible audio storytelling. They conjure the feeling of like being at a show, you know, at an Afrobeat show in 1974 and what that would have been like so effectively. They interview all kinds of people, women who worked with Fela, who've never been interviewed before. They went to Lagos in Nigeria to talk to all kinds of people. Like, it's so, so amazing. And you'll learn so much about the world, about music, about Nigeria, and just, I can't recommend it enough. So, that is my glowing recommendation for Fela Kuti, Fear No Man. It's a podcast series. They're, I think, a little over halfway done with it. They're releasing new episodes still. I've listened to the whole thing. It's really great. And if you do listen to it and you like it, you can also check out my interview with Jad on Strong Songs, which was a lot of fun.

• 58:58Jason Schreier?

  Nice little cross-promotion opportunity.

• 59:00Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah.

• 59:01Jason Schreier?

  One more thing there.

• 59:01Kirk Hamilton?

  That's why, that's part of the reason they probably, they probably let me have you on.

• 59:05Jason Schreier?

  My One More Thing is a book about a period in time where the stock market was frothy. People were really excited about tech stocks. There had been a pandemic just a few years earlier, but now things are really, really rocking and people are really excited about money. And that book is, is called 1929 by Andrew Ross Sorkin, a reporter for The New York Times and also the co-creator of Billions. Oh, cool. Prolific journalist. He has a great newsletter called Deal Book that pops up in my inbox every morning. I always appreciate it. Always interesting, interesting business

• 59:47Jason Schreier?

  reporting on there. And he has written this book that is about not just 1929, despite the title, but that entire period of like the stock market crashing leading into the Great Depression, which includes a presidential transition, and it includes a lot of kind of ups and downs along the way with the stock market and the kind of financial fate of the country, and then leads into

• 1:00:10Jason Schreier?

  FDR's New Deal and the Glass-Steagall Act and the formation of the SEC and a lot of things that happened as a result of that. It's a really fascinating book. It is fun to read and Sorkin, not to be, not related to Aaron Sorkin as far as I know, but Sorkin does a good job of picking these characters to follow who are all pretty much awful people who just take advantage of the stock market in all sorts of different ways. He paints a lot of really interesting pictures. He's done a ton of reporting for this book, did a lot of like research into old depositions and newspaper articles from the 20s and

• 1:00:54Jason Schreier?

  all sorts of other just kind of primary sources that he did a really good job digging into and paints this really interesting picture by following these people and like the effects they had on the market at the time. And as you're reading it, you just keep thinking like, oh, my God, this is so similar to what's happening now, the income inequality, the way that people are making these bets. It's actually, there are a lot of parallels between this and like the housing crisis of 2008. People are making a lot of bets using money they don't have, doing what's called margin calls where like you're, you're buying stocks that maybe you're putting down 10 or 20% of the actual money that you're using to buy it and the rest is based on debt. But everybody feels like they have to keep buying because they're excited about the future and all this technology and all

• 1:01:36Jason Schreier?

  there are all these kind of, quote unquote, irrational reasons to remain exuberant, irrational exuberance is a famous, a famous stock term. And people just kind of like continuing to whip themselves into a frenzy until the house of cards comes collapsing down. And it's also about how it's like, what's the quote? It's like, stock market crashes or any sort of like tragedy like happens gradually and then suddenly. And you can, if you see that and the way that Sorkin tells the story is really cool because he like focuses on specific days over time. So it might be like October 26, 1929, and this is the day that like they, they call Black Monday or whatever it was because.

• 1:02:19Jason Schreier?

  That's when the stock is crashing, but actually then we go ahead a few weeks and then, oh, things have recovered. Actually, maybe it's not so bad. Oh, go ahead another few weeks. Oh, bam, bam, it's crashing again. And it's really, you kind of get that sense of foreboding as you're reading, like, oh, my God, this is all about to collapse.

• 1:02:35Kirk Hamilton?

  I'm getting a sense of foreboding as you're describing this. I just looked at the New York Times homepage to just make sure that there hasn't been a massive stock market crash since you started your one more thing, because it feels very possible.

• 1:02:45Jason Schreier?

  It's really interesting. It's, uh, uh, similar to 2008. There were very few people who suffered serious repercussions as a result of the misdeeds they did. And there's a lot of just kind of like, uh, bad behavior, such as, um, companies offering, uh, stock prices at one price to, or stocks at one price to the public and then another price to preferred traders and friends of the, of the firm, including like prominent politicians.

• 1:03:18Kirk Hamilton?

  Well, this was when you couldn't trade stocks unless you had, uh, unless you were like a licensed stockbroker, which is something they didn't even relax until like, I think the seventies, sixties or seventies. So there was a lot, there were a lot of restrictions over who could even get involved in the stock market.

• 1:03:32Jason Schreier?

  It's a really, it's a fascinating book. Um, I really enjoyed reading it.

• 1:03:36Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, it sounds great. I, I would love to read it.

• 1:03:38Jason Schreier?

  Highly recommend it. Um, and Sorkin, like the best nonfiction writers, has a really good knack for, um, uh, just writing in an interesting way, in a way that is compelling and fun to read, even when it's about a subject that you might find dry, such as finances in the 1920s and 1930s. Uh, and he does that in, uh, a smart way by focusing on these people and you kind of, you get into their heads for, uh, for that time period, which is really interesting. So, yeah, I recommend it.

• 1:04:06Kirk Hamilton?

  Does he do a good walk and talk? Like the two, two characters are walking toward the camera and having a conversation?

• 1:04:10Jason Schreier?

  Different Sorkin. Different Sorkin.

• 1:04:14Kirk Hamilton?

  Does he not know how to write women?

• 1:04:16Jason Schreier?

  There, I mean, there aren't any women in this story, but that's because of the history, not because of the story itself. I don't think there were any women on the trade market back then.

• 1:04:27Jason Schreier?

  And other than like the wife, there's one guy, one main character, who to avoid paying taxes, sells his stock to his wife. And that's a fun little side plot there. But anyway, it's a good book. I recommend it. 1929, Andrew Ross Sarkin, really cool, fun read. And that is it for this week's episode. Thank you to everyone who sent in questions. Thank you to everyone who supports us. I hope you enjoy the Sopranos episode shortly. That's gonna hit pretty soon. And thank you Kirk and Maddie for being my podcast hosts on this wonderful Thanksgiving day. I'm feeling very thankful.

• 1:05:01Kirk Hamilton?

  Yeah, I feel very thankful for our friendship and for this show that we get to continue to make together.

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  Same. Thanks to you both. That's so nice. Happy Thanksgiving.

• 1:05:11Jason Schreier?

  Happy Thanksgiving and we'll see you next week for Game Awards Predictions.

• 1:05:17Kirk Hamilton?

  All right, I will see both of you then.

• 1:05:19Speaker 02

  Bye.

• 1:05:22Kirk Hamilton?

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

• 1:06:20Speaker 05

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