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Episode 221 - What is Pinball Media, Really?

Eclectic Gamers Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 13m·analyzed·Jun 9, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Pinball podcasters debate 'media' identity, Patreon economics, and interview integrity.

Summary

Dennis and Tony discuss what constitutes 'pinball media' in response to listener Scott G.'s critical email questioning why pinball podcasters call themselves media, all have Patreons, constantly reference each other, and conduct what are essentially advertorials rather than interviews. The hosts defend the technical accuracy of calling themselves media, explain Patreon's practical advantages over merchandise monetization, and critique the current state of pinball podcasting culture while positioning Eclectic Gamers as deliberately different.

Key Claims

  • Pinball podcasters refer to themselves as 'media' instead of 'influencers' because influencer carries negative baggage and 'media' sounds more prestigious

    high confidence · Dennis: 'Because they don't want to refer to themselves as influencers because it brings up bad connotations... I also think people may feel that saying media, it sounds more prestigious than saying podcaster.'

  • Patreon became dominant in pinball podcasting after Canada's Pinball Podcast put their entire show behind the Patreon paywall

    medium confidence · Dennis: 'I would say for a lot of people they'll note that it was Canada's pinball podcast really was seen as a one that did a lot of patreon because it put the whole the whole show is on patreon at this point'

  • Most pinball podcast listener bases are too small to attract traditional advertising sponsorships from major companies

    high confidence · Tony: 'the market for pinball podcasts is small... most pinball podcasts don't have the listener base to warrant... manscaped isn't going to ask for an audio ad or square or squarespace... the listener counts are too low'

  • Merchandise monetization (shirts) generates minimal profit margins of $5-15 per item after fulfillment costs

    high confidence · Dennis: 'what i've seen what we make on shirts is usually somewhere between 5 and 15 bucks... depending on the quality of the shirt or whatever... it wasn't a good mechanism'

  • Charlie Emery (Spooky Pinball) has stepped back from day-to-day operations and is focusing on licensing work

    medium confidence · Dennis discussing listener feedback: 'charlie basically kind of what we interpreted that charlie's taken a step back still supposedly working on a lot of the licensing right but the rest of the operations are really under a bug in the rest of the family'

Notable Quotes

  • “Media is not journalism. I often when I hear journalism is a type of media, but not all media is journalism... podcasts, sure, they fall into that landscape. It's technically correct.”

    Dennis @ ~1:05:00 — Defends the technical accuracy of calling podcasters 'media' while acknowledging the prestige motivation

  • “Why do some pinball podcasters refer to themselves as media? I cringe when I hear that... Why the insistence on mentioning other podcasters constantly... Why call them interviews? They are typically commercials with no relevant insights, just hugs and kisses.”

    Scott G. (listener email) @ ~47:00 — Encapsulates core critique of pinball podcasting culture that prompted entire segment

  • “John Wick is a mediocre game. I played the LE yesterday, full of plastic buildings and no shots that excited... those who buy these for home use will be rewarded with a strong haircut to their original investment.”

    Scott G. (listener email) @ ~1:22:00 — Strong contrarian opinion on recent Stern release; represents collector/home buyer perspective

  • “It became a very easy way to monetize something where you had flexibility... Patreon lets you set up tiers, which we did to give flexibility.”

    Dennis @ ~57:00 — Explains practical appeal of Patreon over other monetization methods in small hobby niche

  • “We're two friends who hang out and have these conversations with ourselves all the time and just decided to start recording them and putting out a podcast as something extra to do.”

    Tony @ ~42:00 — Establishes Eclectic Gamers' self-positioning as authentic and unpretentious

Entities

DennispersonTonypersonScott G.personCharlie EmerypersonBugpersonDavid FixpersonEclectic Gamers PodcastorganizationCanada's Pinball Podcastorganization

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Patreon emerged as dominant monetization model for pinball podcasts, partly following Canada's Pinball Podcast's successful paywall-first strategy

    medium · Dennis: 'I would say for a lot of people they'll note that it was Canada's pinball podcast really was seen as a one that did a lot of patreon because it put the whole the whole show is on patreon at this point'

  • ?

    event_signal: Eclectic Gamers Podcast received multiple listener emails critiquing pinball media practices, suggesting growing community awareness of interview/editorial conflicts

    high · Multiple emails including Scott G.'s detailed multi-part critique of pinball podcasting culture and interview integrity

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Listener Scott G. expresses frustration with pinball podcasting calling themselves 'media,' conducting advertorial-style interviews, and exhibiting Stern fandom rather than critical evaluation

    high · Detailed email from Scott G. asking pointed questions about why pinball podcasters use 'media' terminology, maintain Patreons, cross-reference each other constantly, and conduct what are 'typically commercials with no relevant insights'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: John Wick criticized by home collector as mediocre game with uninspiring playfield layout and poor investment value

    medium · Scott G.: 'John Wick is a mediocre game. I played the LE yesterday, full of plastic buildings and no shots that excited... those who buy these for home use will be rewarded with a strong haircut to their original investment.'

  • $

    market_signal: Small pinball podcast listener base prevents traditional advertising sponsorships from major brands, forcing reliance on listener direct support

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.222

0:00
Welcome to the Eclectic Gamers Podcast. Today is Sunday, June 9th, episode 221. My name is Tony. I am Dennis. Tony, we've got stuff to get through. We're excited. We're always excited to be here. We've never been tired. We've always been, and we remain excited.
0:36
Unfortunately, we can't really be too excited about pinball because, well, we'll get to that when we're in the pinball section. First, we need to get to the fencing and the home section. That's in the pinball section as well. Home improvement section. All that is in the – all right. So I'll give you my quick update. I'm still playing Gun Grave Gore. So that's my gaming update. and I still haven't played John Wick. That's my pinball update. And I don't have the quote yet for fence repairs. I got two sets of quotes in for the tree trimming. The giant tree in the back is a cottonwood. So I now know what that is. And so I went with the lower of the two quotes, which there was a $400 spread. And I guess it'll be weeks that I'll hear back. Probably. Ready to do it. But yeah, so we're looking at, well, not we, me is looking because you don't have to help pay about $1,600 to get all that cleaned out. That's not bad. The higher quote was $2,000. That's not terrible in all honesty. There's my plant update. I've been playing Ultimate Admiral's Dreadnoughts. Yes, that's your sequel to Rule the Waves.
1:45
It's like a fancier, prettier UI version of Rule the Waves. Though there's a lot of things Rule the Waves does better. and like Ultimate Animals Dreadnoughts doesn't have airplanes at all where with Rule the Waves you have carriers and stuff. But the overall large thing is pretty similar.
2:04
I've been having a fairly decent amount of fun with it. I would like the war to be over. I've been at war with England for 14 years now in-game, and I'm tired of winning, Dennis. I mean, I am Italy. It started out in the first three years. I lost half my fleet, but I successfully captured Cyprus, Malta, and Gibraltar. So I completely kicked the British out of the Met. Wow. And I rebuilt my fleet, and everything was beautiful. But every time I asked for peace to end the war, they refused. And every time they tried to end the war with me, because of how the game's designed, I can lean on the scale and say, yeah, we want the war to end, but I'm not actually a member of government. And the government sometimes just goes, no, we're winning too much. Let's keep the war going.
Spooky Pinballcompany
Stern Pinballcompany
John Wickgame
Albert A.person
David P.person
Wendy H.person
Chris G.person
Shannon B.person
Pinball News and Pinball Magazine podcastorganization
Nap's Arcadesorganization
Triple Drainorganization

high · Tony: 'most pinball podcasts don't have the listener base to warrant be able like manscaped isn't going to ask for an audio ad or square or squarespace... the listener counts are too low'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Charlie Emery of Spooky Pinball reportedly stepping back from day-to-day operations, possibly due to criticism or preference for licensing work; Bug family member taking operational control

    low · Listener feedback discussed by Dennis: 'charlie's taken a step back still supposedly working on a lot of the licensing right but the rest of the operations are really under a bug in the rest of the family... someone else who indicated their understanding was Charlie was getting a little frustrated with some of the uh negative criticism'

    • 2:59
    I've wanted this war to end since like year four. Well, you've always desired peace. True. So now in year 14, the Italian Imperio consists of Italy, Cyprus, Malta, Gibraltar. all of india except for bangladesh every single british colony in africa um wales eastern england northeastern england um i'm currently fighting on the ground in ireland and scotland but you know they don't want to give up so they basically have part of scotland part of Ireland and London. Yeah, basically.
    3:46
    Well, at this point, it's like an existential crisis. They have to just endure as a nation. I mean, they've got like some islands and stuff in the Americas and Latin America. But I literally asked them for peace and they were like, no, we had some good ships and we won a battle. It's like you won a battle because you put like three of your newest ships against ships that I haven't refit since 1908, and it is 1920. So no kidding, you outgunned something that old. Good for you. By the way, would you like some Yorkshire pudding? Because I own Yorkshire!
    4:27
    Wow. So, yeah, it's annoying. The other game is I did pick up also because it went on sale, Infection Free Zone, which I recall I might have mentioned it in the past. It rings a bell. But it is from the same people who do like 911 Operator and 211 Operator and some other games that uses Google Maps to create like correct city layouts and stuff. So I am currently also building a fortress using one of my work locations as the home fortress where I'm fighting off the zombies here in town. Your house was useless when we ravaged your house for gear There was nothing There was no food, there was no bullets, there was no guns I spent it all on tree trimming It was all spent on tree trimming And we couldn't pull pinball machines apart to make bullets with apparently So your house gave us nothing But otherwise So that's interesting just because you get to use the actual map layouts neighborhoods to do a zombie game. That's fun.
    5:42
    Well, cool. Speaking of cool, a special shout out, thank you to Albert A. who joined our Patreon at the basic support level. We always appreciate our Patreon members. Very much, thank you. I think I'm going to have to pivot away from the Baby's Firsts. They're getting harder to come up with. I'm thinking maybe I'll start doing a monthly pinball meme. We don't promise the Baby's Firsts as part of Patreon, but give me more flexibility than the duck because I use the duck and all the babies first. Anyway, that's just an aside. Memes. There's always room for memes. The language of society at this point. Speaking of the language of society, pinball segment. So the language of pinball is we're going to do a whole bunch of listener emails. Now, thank you very much, listeners, for sending in these emails because you have saved the pinball segment because there is nothing, Tony, going on. Okay. That's not – there's stuff, like, being talked about. None of it is interesting. There are rumors – not to me. There's a reason why we don't do Rumor Corner anymore. There are rumors everywhere about the next JJP games, the next Stern games, the next Everyone games. I think Dutch DPX – so not Dutch Pinball Prepper, but DPX, PX, PX. They've confirmed their Alice game. so I guess there's that and I guess Pinball News and Pinball Magazine podcast has an interview with David Fix which honestly I refuse to listen to because I've listened to multiple interviews with him and I don't think I'm going to get anything out of this one because I didn't really out of any of the other ones they're all the same it's like Blue Steel all the same it's all the same Hi, I'm David Fix, so what do you think the next Pinball Machine it should be david fix well that might be licensed and that you know ap doesn't seem to like to do licensing i i don't i don't know anyway so if you want any of that stuff like go to your usual news sites go to your nap arcades go to your kineticist go to your uh pinball news pinball magazine podcast if you care about the interview just fyi it's there i don't have a link in the show notes because i ain't talking about it what we will talk about are all of these uh emails that we have received. So again, I just stuck all the emails in the pinball segment because you do actually have stuff in the video game segment that we can talk about. But a number of these emails do touch on pinball, but not all. So let me go ahead and start with Wendy H. She wrote in saying, listening to EGP, Tony did not go too far with his reading gadget. Hours of reading is hard on my hands, neck, etc. Anything to make it comfortable so you can enjoy it is perfect. I'm with you Tony Yay Kindle No more heavy books to hold up I can't do it Don't know why she's Southern Belle That's just look That's where the words I just have to feel it It's the feeling The feeling that's just where it came from your gut So there you go You got an endorsement on that Kindle tool For those that don't know what we're talking about Tony got a Kindle tool That he talked about on the last episode It's a clicker So it turns the pages for me And I made fun of it And I asked for people who agreed that it was silly to write in. And I have to disclose, nobody wrote in saying they disagreed with the gadget. We had two messages, and they both supported it. Speaking of support, the second message comes from Chris G., who also wrote about your Kindle tool.
    9:12
    Isn't it just a PowerPoint clicker so you don't have to swipe? I'm pro-clicker. It is, and it's wonderful. it's functionality that kendall needs to realize and build into their next generation of kendall like bluetooth or something and then just sell the clicker with the kendall it's great now he did continue he actually sent me some stuff on fencing about fence law in kansas which we had a email conversation about which uh i am not going to go into here because no one needs to learn about boundary law in kansas and this has to do with more agrarian uh areas but anyway it was something that actually i had spoken to with my my boss that i work with um but continuing the rest of his email y'all should rename the podcast to the adults in the room pinball podcast yard maintenance emotional maintenance futuristic reading tech etc y'all touch all the bases eclectic baby yeah we could just rename it to eclectic baby eclectic baby podcast i heard a rumor was coming i heard rumor corner was coming back as a quarterly segment please address this rumor on this quarter's rumor corner well we're not at the quarterly quarter but thank you chris by the way for writing tony what about what have you heard about the rumor of a quarterly rumor corner i you know i've heard that there is a burning desire for there to be more rumor corner there have been requests i thought about sticking it up on the patreon if we were to do it however However, here's the thing that I run into, and I don't mean this to come across as overly judgmental to anyone doing anything in pinball, but it seems like everyone has realized that trading on rumors is an easy way to get listens, views, watches, whatever format you're doing. So it seems like everyone's doing rumors now because they realized, hey, people just gobble this stuff up. And so the value that Rumor Corner was kind of doing, because I thought this trend was already obvious when we started Rumor Corner. I don't think a lot of people were really picking up on it. Like they didn't understand. Like, I mean, there were examples of the like the CGC topper was delayed because the topper was too big and they had to saw it down on size. You might remember that one, Tony. I don't know if people understand where some of these rumors were coming from. And since people didn't get it, I didn't want to keep doing it because I felt like maybe we were doing more damage to the hobby than good. We want to be a force for good, not for evil.
    11:52
    We were supposed to destroy the Sith, not join them. So anyway, so I don't know yet on rumor corner. But I still do have the song because it is catchy. I think that's what people mostly miss is the song.
    12:07
    So anyway, moving on. Next message comes from David P. who wrote in. Dennis and Tony. Let me do a different voice because that one sounds a little bit like Chris. What sort of – I'm running out of voices. I just thought, should I do – I was like, should I do him as Schmeagle? And I saw how long this email is. I should not. I should not do this as Schmeagle. I mean, you could – how's your Theoden King? oh the actor died yeah i know it was sad yeah all right david wrote in dennis and tony thank you for making my dream come true by including a segment on fencing in your podcast you're welcome now all of my hobbies are covered on your podcast pinball video games board games not really and fencing i tremendously appreciate the glorious seven minutes and 36 second discussion of dennis's same link fence my second favorite fence type second only to electric fencing and barely edging out barbed wire i'm sorry for laughing you should consider renaming your podcast to eclectic gamers and fencing podcast while this may confuse some fencing enthusiasts who are looking for commentary on the sport of fencing are those flimsy looking things really swords those of us who love nothing more than stretching barbed wire between t-posts with come along we'll Listen in droves. Think of all the new Patreon members. But the real reason I emailed in was to comment on Tony's automatic Kindle page turn. I'm wrong. There was a third one. Oh, my gosh. I got lost in all the fencing. As someone who deeply appreciates useless gadgets, this sounds absolutely amazing. It is. I picture Tony lying flat on his back, motionless, with his Kindle hovering over his face, suspended by an elaborate Kindle holder. Somehow, he is also managing to wear one of those beer hats that holds two cans of beer with a long straw going to his mouth. Finally, the remote control for the Kindle page turner lies under his thumb, requiring only the slightest movement of the flexor pollicis' longest muscle to turn the page, allowing all the other muscles in his body to remain motionless. This is truly reading perfected. You're not necessarily wrong. It's pretty darn close. The only thing I don't have is the hat. I do have one of those big thermos or cup things you get when you're in the hospital for a while. It's got the super long bendy straw. I might be able to rig something up with that set next to the pillow where I could just have a little sippy, sippy. As always, I enjoy your podcast and the effort both of you put into it. I bumped my Patreon up to the intermediate tier. Oh, well, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you to David P for bumping up the Patreon to the intermediate tier. Sorry, I didn't catch it on the notification. I don't know if it gives us a notice when people change the tiers with an alert. I'll have to check. He does have a couple postscripts. So, P.S., the fencing commentary was obviously my dubious attempt at humor. Feel free to read any part of this email on your show if you would like. David, I kind of already decided to do that before I read your postscript. P.P.S., regarding a previous email I sent, I got a huge laugh when Dennis made fun of the 3D printed look of my sharky ball shark that is magnetically attached to my Godzilla pinball machine. Oh, he's the one who sent that in. I got that off Etsy, and it's definitely 3D printed. However, it sounds like Dennis was more interested in the keychain with my mini Godzilla on it. I found that on Amazon. For some stupid reason, I like to have appropriately themed keychains on all my pinball machines. That's not stupid. It's not. I actually, most of my key, other than the newer games, but newer in terms of acquisition, I have little labels, usually of the back glass on clear. Like you could print them out and then stick them in. So, yeah, I normally have thematically. It makes it easier to grab the right keys because they all look the same. Otherwise, unless you have a cool key chain that points it out. So, wow, that was quite an email. OK, so you've got three pro clicker clickers and there were zero anti clicker. So clicker good. So, I mean, I guess Tony was right and I was wrong. that makes me sad to say that all right more emails shannon b wrote in hey but he didn't say hey he said hi hi guys thank you for the most recent episode around the rollout of wick and recent media tour i really think you both need to open an investigation to find charlie emory we need answers keep up the great work shannon well thank you shannon um tony have you done any more investigatory work on where charlie is no i have not either however we did have i think one maybe two people comment i think on facebook on our post yeah there's one who mentioned i i've seen a couple notes about that uh one was that yeah charlie basically kind of what we interpreted that charlie's taken a step back still supposedly working on a lot of the licensing right but the rest of the operations are really under a bug in the rest of the family saw someone else who indicated their understanding was Charlie was getting a little frustrated with some of the uh no you know the negative criticism that kind of comes the way of of a pinball company and just felt like focusing on licensing would be a better use of his time and that hey you know he's been at it long enough that it was okay to let another family member you know work on this sort of thing don't know how true that is or isn't but there are some theories so there you go I mean I've yeah I've done no investigation. I'm pretty lazy. Now, our last email is from Scott G. And this one's got a lot of questions in it. So, Tony, I've actually got it broken out into chunks after. I'll read the whole email, and then we'll go ahead and we'll tackle it. He's got four points sort of for us to address. So we'll go ahead and kind of do it like that so that it makes sense. Okay. I think it'll make sense. I think once people get to the end of this, they'll understand. So here's what Scott wrote. gentlemen, I consume a lot of podcasts, both pinball and other interests. Dennis and Tony, you're the only ones I support through Patreon. While these comments to follow aren't directed at y I am interested in your perspective Why do some pinball podcasters refer to themselves as media I cringe when I hear that Why do almost all of them have Patreon It doesn seem to be that way for other hobbies Why the insistence on mentioning other podcasters constantly Does a blog to watch or others talk about Hodinkee, etc.? Not too often, if ever. I realize pinball is a smaller pool of participants, but it's odd to talk more about the people babbling into a microphone than the games and people who get them to market. Why call them interviews? They are typically commercials with no relevant insights, just hugs and kisses. Personally, I am not seeking hard-hitting gotcha journalism, but if you aren't able to ask anything interesting or controversial, it's merely pub for that project. Pub, I assume, means publicity.
    19:12
    Lastly, the fanboys of Stern. Sounds like they had a nice time, but that doesn't change my opinion that John Wick is a mediocre game. I played the LE yesterday, full of plastic buildings and no shots that excited. It's great that a distributor can earn money selling this, and guys who have locations or write about pinball can cheerlead. However, those who buy these for home use will be rewarded with a strong haircut to their original investment. Thank you for remaining consistent, transparent, and eschewing interviews. You boys do it right. Well, thank you, Scott, for the compliments. There were a lot of pieces to that. Yeah, there were. Let's do it chunk by chunk, Tony. I think now people understand why I said I wanted to go ahead and tackle it that way. What are your thoughts on why do you think pinball podcasters often will refer to themselves as media?
    20:02
    Because they don't want to refer to themselves as influencers because it brings up bad connotations.
    20:09
    Now, that's a good point. Definitely, I am in concurrence. The term influencer has a lot of baggage. I do know some people who that are able to comfortably call themselves an influencer. I don't know if I would ever be able to comfortably say that. So like when I do my and by the way, that some of the stuff when I know things are abbreviated in emails, I'll try and spell them out. So like for those that don't know, because it came up later in the email, a blog to watch and Hodinkee are wristwatch related.
    20:40
    They're blogs, basically. Well, Hodinkee is more of a media empire. I was going to say. And a blog to watch is a news blog that covers wristwatches. So just for folks that don't follow that hobby.
    20:51
    But I also would – so, yeah, the influencer thing is an issue. I also think people may feel that saying media, it sounds more prestigious than saying podcaster. So is that? I can see where they could think that. But, I mean, is it really more prestigious? I mean, we've made no bones about it. We're two friends who hang out and have these conversations with ourselves all the time and just decided to start recording them and putting out a podcast as something extra to do. Sure. And, I mean, we're literally sitting in a living room talking about stuff. Yes. Now, all that said, one of the things I will point out, though, too, Scott, is it also is an accurate term. Yeah. Media is not journalism. I often when I hear journalism is a type of media, but not all media is journalism. When I hear the word media, I always think journalism first and foremost. But technically, media is like any of the components of mass media. Advertising is media.
    22:01
    Movies are media. These are by the definition per Wikipedia, which I'm double checking as we speak. And so I had looked it up, but I'd looked up the definition of media once before because I was like, is that really accurate? Are we really media? And the Oxford Dictionary definition of media is the main means of mass communication, broadcasting, publishing, and the internet regarded collectively. So in that regards, podcasts, sure, they fall into that landscape. It's technically correct. So for that reason, I can't – well, I could, but I won't criticize podcasts for referring to themselves as media because they are. but I do think it's to gussy it up to make it sound a little more respectable. I know I've used the phrase before in conversations, but we're podcasters.
    22:51
    I mean, we're of the age where there's the running joke of, oh, you're having a midlife crisis. What are you going to do now?
    23:03
    I think I'm going to start a podcast. I'll tell you what. It may be more work, but it's definitely cheaper than a Ferrari. It is. Or dating an 18-year-old. Oh, yes. They're very expensive. Well, I'm married, so it'd be very, very expensive. Well, yes. Yes.
    23:22
    So let's move on to his second major question, which was why, in your opinion, Tony, do almost all the pinball podcasters have Patreons now? I think Patreon has very much become one of those everywhere things, and it's not just in pinball podcasting, but in podcasting, YouTubers, Twitch streamers, everywhere. And the simple reason is it is honestly probably the best way to make some funds off of what you're doing because there's no major other entity pulling large chunks out of it, and there's no advertising. You don't have to do the hackney. Well, you know, here at Eclectic Gamers Podcast, we also like Bravo Fence Tools, the best way to tighten your fence. We don't have to do that kind of stuff.
    24:23
    And we're not, in our case, Some people make amazingly stupid amounts of money off of Patreons. We make enough money so we can go to TPF and pay to keep everything, all the streaming stuff online and everything. So it's just a net zero for us for a cost to continue doing the podcast and stuff. But I think it's just a way to get direct support from the fans. Without, I mean, nobody wants to see my only fans. so patreon is the best way for them to support me yeah the uh you touched on a number of the main factors i and i agree a lot of that i mean basically everything you covered really applies regardless of for podcasts in any media category out there i use the term media in any field any hobby field uh not just pinball specifically uh in terms of pinball specifically uh obviously i would say for a lot of people they'll note that it was canada's pinball podcast really was seen as a one that did a lot of patreon because it put the whole the whole show is on patreon at this point it's behind the paywall and that might have gotten some more focus on patreon obviously it existed for years before that um here's where uh so maybe some people saw the success of that and that was a motivator though i don't know of how many other shows are like behind the paywall, so to speak, for Patreon. I don't know any, but I don't listen to all the podcasts. Here's what I think. It became a very easy way to monetize something where you had flexibility. The nice thing about Patreon is you have a whole bunch of different ways, a bunch of different perks that you can deliver. We basically promise nothing.
    26:17
    And there are other services that do things like this. There's one that's like, I don't remember the name of it. It's like buy me a cup of coffee sort of thing. They're designed to let people go and support with an amount that sort of consistently. Patreon lets you set up tiers, which we did to give flexibility. Over on the Pinball Show, we have three tiers as well where the goodies are different. So everyone who is a member at the lowest tier gets on the Discord and gets the additional content that we upload. We always upload an additional audio piece every other week for them. Whereas like the middle tier, we're able to say, okay, well, in addition to all of that, we're going to do a monthly online Google call with all of you for at least an hour. We'll talk about whatever industry stuff you want. And then at a higher tier, like they get clothes and stuff. And there are others that will do things like they'll let the people have like triple drain. We'll give early access to people. Some of them will put the Discord at a middle or higher. It's just flexibility. Here's the – trying to keep it more focused on pinball. Historically, the way pinball tried to monetize was with merch. It's really tough. I mean we've had shirts for years. You don't sell very many. I know plenty of people that have tried to support pinball by buying merch. The thing is the merch lasts a long time. So how many shirts do you need? Like I still have my very first EGP blue shirt I got years ago. So I throw a shirt away the moment it gets eaten in the smallest hole in it. It doesn't have a hole in it. So the shirt lives. It lives on. And so not to mention with merch, you're asking someone to often spring something generally on the order of over $20 to maybe up to $45. That ain't all profit. Most of that goes to the merch store. So your profit share is generally in the range of – it probably varies by the item you sell. uh my what i've seen what we make on shirts is usually somewhere between 5 and 15 bucks i would say depending on the quality of the shirt or whatever or whatever the site recommends you do and if there's a sale or not so it's just it wasn't a good mechanism but that's what everyone tried to do was sell merch it's just tough people get too much they don't want to constantly buy shirts oh no understandable and as you noted what we've all found out in pinball maybe later than a lot of other hobbies is there are a lot of people who are really willing like they want to express their appreciation they want to do it monetarily on a consistent basis it's just that's how they like to support creators and maybe that's at like how we offer and to my knowledge we're the only pinball we might not be but to my knowledge we're the only pinball podcast that offers a dollar a month here we promise you nothing it's just hey if you feel like that's how you want to do it you can do it that way another nice thing about patreon specifically is the fees they keep are lower than a lot of other options. So for my wristwatch channel, I don't do Patreon. I have a 99 cent club that people can join, but the amount YouTube keeps out of the 99 cent club is higher than if I were to do the 99 cents through Patreon. I just do it through YouTube because it's convenient and it allows me to auto embed a lot of the perks that I want to do, like sending messages to those members through YouTube. And it's 99 cents. Who honestly cares how much of a percentage they take? It's 99 cents. It's – I have it there really so that people who want to show their appreciation can show their appreciation, and I don't – I'm not trying to make a bunch of money off of them, but it lets – like it feels good for me to have members of that and – because it's a form of – that they think I'm doing enough that they went to this trouble to send me 99 cents. Yeah, and this is the same way I feel on Patreon. And then they get to – and I support some other pinball podcasts through Patreon.
    30:01
    And I just – I don't really like – the ones that do early release stuff, like Triple Drain, I don't consume it there. I just wait for the regular episode. I just give them the Patreon because I want to support them. I've actually done the same thing with things that do early. Oh, you get it a week early. I don't ever consume it. So there are probably a lot of reasons. To me, the fundamental one is there's a lot of flexibility on how you can incentivize people. and it's a way that can be a lot more affordable than merch to let people do something. And it offers a subscription model. So people basically, they treat you like Netflix. And they're like, they have content creators they really, really like. They just want to do these things because it makes them feel part of a community. And that's where the discords and stuff come in, is they have community and things like that. But yeah, it's just really flexible. I think that's what it comes down to. It is a much more balanced version of, like, case in point, I've got one mobile game that I've been playing for years, Azur Lane, I've talked about it in the past. And I make a point every year of spending a little bit of real cash because I play the game completely for free, and I've been doing it for years now. So every year it's like, oh, I'll grab 20 bucks worth of their little in-game currency just to spend on stuff just because I feel like I should support the game because if nobody's supporting the game, it's not going to stay around. Yeah. Another thing that that reminds me of, though, that's good to point out for pinball podcasting in particular, the market for pinball podcasts is small. Like there aren't very many people that listen to them. so you mentioned the thing like the your example the fence ad you know dropping like most pinball podcasts don't have the listener base to warrant be able like manscaped isn't going to ask for an audio ad or square or squarespace or any of the other uh things they're not going to ask for an ad the listener counts are too low so there's not a lot of advertising potential again audio podcasts because now some people will upload theirs on youtube they don't tend to get a whole lot of listens through YouTube usually. Some people are doing it with video as well to try and drive that. The traditional audio-only podcast, not on YouTube, there's no ad sense. On my YouTube videos, most of my money I make for watches with Dennis is on ads. Ads that YouTube does because it's a video platform and they sell commercials. That's where most of my money comes from on YouTube. It's not a lot of money, but that's where most of the money comes from. We don't make any ad money for EGP. Now, we don't put our audio on YouTube, and even if we did, we don't have enough subscribers to monetize it. We would need to get 1,000 people. Well, they may have changed the rules a little bit, but basically we'd have to monetize our YouTube channel and then upload it, and then we'd only get ad money on the people that get the ads played for them. Because YouTube will support RSS podcasting now, but I don't think it plays any ads for people who are getting it through a podcatcher. So just like when people use an ad blocker, if an ad doesn't play, you don't get any money. So, yeah, that's it. I've had YouTube premiums for so many years that I don't even – Right, right, right.
    33:14
    Sometimes we were doing a thing at work the other day, and we were using YouTube to watch some safety videos, and there kept being ads. And I'm just sitting here. It's like – Yeah, it happens at work. Well, you just log out and let me log into my own account so that we don't have to watch ads because I'm just like so having forgotten what it was like to have ads. Yeah, and there's some algorithm. I also – I don't want to turn this into a YouTube monetary explanation thing, but I also have a breakdown that shows me how much money I get from YouTube premium people. that there's an allocation I get based off of how much time or whatever that they spend watching me versus everything else. But it's small. It's pretty small. But thank you.
    33:59
    Third question from Scott's email. Why do pinball podcasters mention other podcasters constantly? You know, this is something that I feel is a distinctly pinball thing. And I think it's because it's such a small niche hobby that the closest I've come to seeing this kind of referencing in other podcasting and video shows and elsewhere are either tight friend groups or people who all work for the same larger overall company where they'll refer to each other often and such.
    34:42
    But otherwise, most stuff, yeah, you don't see that where they refer to others nearly as much. And I think it has to do completely with how small of a niche hobby it is. It's kind of just a tiny little umbrella that we're all directly underneath.
    34:58
    That's probably the biggest reason. I will note, because he had used some watch examples. Well, I don't hear like wristwatch podcasts really referencing other wristwatch podcasts. I do agree with you, Tony. It does seem to be a pretty distinctly pinball thing. I found the same with video games. They didn't really talk about other video game podcasts. I have heard, like in watches, them talk about other, quote-unquote, media groups.
    35:22
    In the – like Hodinkee losing a whole bunch of money has been pretty big news, so that does get covered. Some of them that have branched out into selling their own watches, I've heard them get criticized for cross-contaminating journalism with selling product. That sort of stuff has – but it's usually in the context of the industry and what the entity that – they're basically trying to have their foot in two different worlds. So I've seen stuff like that, kind of like how we've had amongst video game podcasts. There have been plenty of discussions, especially a few years ago, regarding the issue with embargoing and reviews and what they do to ensure they still get access to the games early and things like that that come up a little bit. but not so much like podcasts talking about other podcasts. That is a very pinball thing.
    36:11
    A lot of it that I would add on to versus what you said is there ain't a lot of news. I mean, look at this episode. Most episodes, they will not do what we just did. They will make there be news, so they will talk about rumors. So where do these rumors come from? They're coming from other podcasts, so they're going to bring those up. there's also a little bit of the I'm going to call it drama well yeah it is drama but I was trying to think it's sort of a I don't know where it always drives from but there I'm going to describe it as if you know there a limited audience pool like a podcast in pinball can only get so big really and you view the other podcasts as competition then running the other ones through you might find advantageous to try and shore up your own numbers
    37:12
    Now, I don't think I don't personally think most of them tend to do that. No, but I can see where it's. But the suspicion, because that's one of the things I thought was interesting. There's also a narrative that happens outside of the podcast about the podcast. So let's take Pinside, for example, you know, my favorite place to talk about. So on Pinside, this isn't everyone, of course. There are a lot of people on Pinside who are very critical of people who do pinball podcasts. They basically think that the podcasters are beneath the people on the forum, even though the forum people are basically content creators that just couldn't figure out a way to properly structure it outside of a forum. that's a little unfair of me but i mean when you've got 30 000 posts on pin side i don't know what you're what you're trying to do criticizing people who audio record i really don't because who's honestly spending more time but um but i do think there's often this narrative uh and i think where that comes from is because pinball is so small we don't have like pinball journalism like video games have real websites with real articles with people who get paid to write about them like a staff right wristwatches have that too but video games have it in spades but it's a big hobby area so in pinball because there's nothing like that you have a few standalone blog format sites, Nap Arcade, Kineticist, This Week in Pinball. And then you've got the podcasts.
    38:46
    They become, I don't want to say it. I'm going to say it. Pinball famous. They're the pinball famous people. And so, you talk about the designers because they're pinball famous. Some of the software people, pinball famous. and then your main news sites and your podcasters are pinball famous. And how do you possibly get listens? You talk about other famous things in the hobby. So they talk about each other because, you know, like if you other than maybe the most obscenely vocal people like on Pennside, no one knows who any of those people are. They're all hiding behind handles anyway. But, you know, all the podcasters are almost all of them are operating under their real names. All of them that I can think of do. so it's like people feel they know them and they're they're the big they're the closest thing to a star you have here's i hate saying it because it's like what it's just i mean but i'm gonna make it i think that's why they i think that's why they do it because it's like oh well we're gonna talk about something let's see um well people know the loser kids tony so we can name drop them i mean you talk to them behind the scenes yeah i know famous pinball people they're also like the only other podcast that i spend any time listening to sure well but But that's beside the point. But I'm going to make this all hurt more. Why? Why do you hurt me? Because here's the real dark, deep, horrible truth. pinball podcasters and pinball people in general we like to look at ourselves as being the pinball version of the video game podcasters and video and streamers the the watch people all those other big hobbies but the truth of the matter is we're more akin to the vtubers A small group that interacts deeply is in a deeply, I'll even go so far as to say almost inbred way, that is so separate from all of the other outside groups because our group is so small that it gets to the point where self-reference and running jokes are one of the most common and easiest things to get to the in-group, which helps keep the outer groups away.
    41:16
    Interesting. That's a good point about the self-referential, because I've seen instances where people will, like on Pinball Farms, criticize, or I've seen them on the Pinball Show. We've had iTunes reviews where there's just too many referential jokes. I don't get it. Yeah. And it's like, that's fair. Yeah. That's a fair point. You're not wrong. But, I mean, it's like IGN doesn't have to refer to PC Gamer or Euro Gamer or any of those because they're IGN. But there is nobody in pinball who's IGN. All of pinball put together isn't IGN. No.
    41:56
    Interesting. Last question out of the Scott email. This is getting really good, Scott. Well, yeah, it's fleshed this out quite a bit. I'm going to go, this should be the thank you, Scott section. Yes, thank you. So finally, last piece that was in there that I thought was worth a good discussion on.
    42:19
    Why call the interviews that podcasts do interviews when the questions are so basic, is I guess how I would summarize it.
    42:30
    I mean, I'll initially, kind of like I did with the word media. They are still technically interviews, even if the questions are super lame. I mean, they are. But if you bring someone on to ask them questions about something, it is an interview.
    42:46
    But why do you think they do it that way, I guess? pen ball is so small it's so niche that you can't risk a friendly contact if interviews are your way of doing things you can't risk getting one of the few players because there are so few players mad enough at you that they won't talk to you again.
    43:20
    You can't play hardball because those few players typically are involved with each other so that if you get one person against you, you've lost a group and there's just not enough people to make up for it. And nobody in pinball is so big that they have no choice but to talk to you even if they don't like you. hmm uh i do think that that uh explains a lot of why the interviews are so softball and i and i know scott noted in his message to us that he he's not looking for like hard-hitting style stuff it's just he's he's not finding the questions very interesting now we've had a really odd relationship with interviews on egp we have because we go back years and there was a time where really early on in particular, we tried to do interviews, not just in pinball either. We tried to do interviews. We did a few. And then we pivoted. And for a while, we did a lot of guest hosting. And I very deliberately structured those as guest hosts because it wasn't about bringing someone on to talk about a particular project and ask them questions about it. It was, we want your perspective. We would let them have a say in the show notes, like in terms of what content they wanted to cover. And that's where we've brought on, talk about the whole thing, podcasters mentioning other podcasters. Let me tell you something. When you want to have guest hosts, one of the easiest groups of people to turn to are other podcasters. And I'll tell you why people do that. It ties into the vast one. So I'm going to do a self-referential to the earlier part of the discussion. We do it that way for two reasons. Reason number one, there's always the thought that if you bring in the other podcaster, you might get a portion of their audience to listen to you, even if they don't normally listen to you so the thought is it might get you more listens the other reason uh podcasters turn to other podcasters so often is you know they actually have decent equipment to do the audio that is such a huge point because so many of these interviews that happen are on total garbage potato microphones and stuff it's like it's shocking i mean you can just look at some of the most recent george gomez interviews that have happened and how horrible his audio is it's so deeply annoying it's easier to turn to people that you know have the stuff yeah and podcasters do so that's why i mean we've had and i've known people where you know like we've had jason nap on a couple of times to be a guest host and stuff who like he's gone and explicitly got a decent microphone so you're like you know jason's a good one to talk about because he knows pinball uh he's got an audience it might not listen to us and so we've done a lot of guest hosting and then we sort of dropped doing that uh regularly as well mostly because the scheduling got to be really tough. Right. I think why they call most of the time. Again, I do have to lean back into. I do think they're accurate in describing those interviews of softball interviews as interviews because it is about asking about a project. I mean, they're bringing on George Gomez to ask about the drama of John Wick or they want to bring on Keith Elwin so he can talk about Jaws. I mean, it is very much in a what you would think of as any normal media tour. What I know can get frustrating for people is the same person is doing the same interview over and over again in a niche hobby where a lot of the audience is listening to multiple of these shows. Right. And that happened with Gomez just recently. Like people asked him on. He said yes to all of them. And he's answering the same questions from everyone. So you're feeling like, why is it so redundant? And the reason is because the podcasts are operating separately, even with all their self-referential. They're operating separately. And there have been instances where podcasts have tried not to run into that. It's because of the egos involved in this niche hobby. It's tough. Like, we had a guest host on once. I won't say who it is. People can ask us at a show. And the guest host agreed. Then they came on and the guest host told me after the fact, I think it was after the fact, that they were supposed to actually be on another podcast. And that podcast then canceled them because they came on us.
    47:31
    And said they would have to wait a while because they didn't want to. And I think that was sucky because they had already agreed. however i have been sympathetic to i knew someone else once who another podcaster who i was in communication with who upset someone involved in one of the on a game release because they asked are you going on any other shows because they were trying to set up an interview and they said yes and that show was going to come out first and they said okay well we won't do an interview with you then because you're already going to be having an interview out but then the the designer i don't remember as a designer or code person or whoever it was was upset that they didn't get to be on both shows but the other podcaster was trying to be sensitive to the whole idea of well how many times do you want to hear the same interview right what are we going to ask about that's any different than anything else and it and so they tried to take steps to not do that to the audience and then you end up pissing off the the the content you know the the game maker because they want to be on everything they don't care that the same audience is listening to all the shows it's so So there's all of this. So as you noted, like, yeah, you don't want to lose your access to them. So you don't want to be too rough on them. There's also just standard human nature. Because again, while we may be quote unquote media, this isn't journalism. You have journalism training, Tony. I don't think most of the people in pinball podcasting do. And it gets really, really tough to be hard on people when you're looking at them face to face or talking to them direct. And one of my favorite podcasts to listen to is Slam Tilt Podcast. But I brought it up when it happened, and I'll go ahead and cite it here. I don't mean it to be offensive, but they are pretty tough on brands as a group. But when they brought in American Pinball, it was all sunshine and rainbows in front of them. And I understood why. Because when you're talking to the people who make the stuff directly, it's hard to be mean. It's really hard.
    49:28
    Why are you so terrible is a tough question to ask. And even if you even if you would be willing to never have them back, it's really tough to do that. And then you have to ask yourself, because we see this also in corners of the pinball content world of, you know, making your bread and butter going around being a.
    49:49
    I mean, is that helpful or positive? I know I don't like to consume content that's just negative solely for the sake of shock. yeah so i mean it's so why they call them interviews is it's because they are they're going in and asking about a project why are the interviews so bad because of everything we just said you don't want to alienate them it's hard to be mean to their face uh you don't want to be overly mean um you can't think of anything more creative you're not a trained journalist it's just all of that we're just not really well equipped to give what scott's wanting here because it's a bunch of hobbyists that bought microphones and are trying to create content with no training well and i think even more than that i mean that i think that's the main core of it but you'll see the same thing in actual uh interview settings if you watch especially if you go online you can go on youtube and you can find clips because like when actors are stumping for their new movie They literally like sit in a room and then they just rotate out interviewers like dozens and dozens and dozens of interviewers over the course of a couple of hours. They're all asking the same questions. But you can find clips where after hours of this, the actors start getting silly and stuff. There is a clip out there that is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my entire life because Leslie Nielsen talking about one of his movies had gotten a hold of a fart machine. and the entire time he's talking, he's just hitting the button on this fart machine. He's like, oh, sorry. Sorry, lunch is just not really great.
    51:34
    So I was, for the entire interview, I could barely breathe through it. I was laughing so hard. But you'll see this, I mean, especially, there's clips out there of the people from the, like, the Spider-Man, one of the newer Spider-Man movies, where they were getting silly because they'd been interviewing the same questions for, like, three hours. because those even even the actual quote-unquote journalist people they always ask it's the same questions and very rarely are they anything hardcore and it just gets yeah hold after a while i've and there there are instances and i mean i don't want to because it's not really their job but i mean if you want to also blame the people that are being interviewed like they don't hold the uh they don't hold content creation podcasters accountable for the quality of the questions either so i've seen instances of those scenarios where you'll see the actors and they'll get asked something and they'll be like that question is terrible like why did you ask that it's starting to come up a lot more when they start asking women about like their clothes and stuff that they wore in the in the movies but sometimes it'll even just be like the most banal just thing and and some actors are more known for it like tommy lee jones purportedly is not a great interview because he has basically zero tolerance for stupid questions and he will tell you that your question is horrible because you're not asking anything that's interesting. There's no intellectual stimulation to what you're asking him. Some people just don't ask him anything. That's my understanding. So he won. Right. So just like where – as a case in point, one time when we had on as a guest host, this is before I did This Week in Pinball podcast or I think – or the pinball show or any of that. Zach Minney was on as a guest once years ago. I don't ever remember it. But I remember he did something a lot of people do. It's almost a verbal tick where they'll say, that's a great question. And I had asked two or three questions, and he had said it two or three times. And I responded, you don't need to tell me it's a great question. I know it is. That's why I asked it. Now, maybe that was mean. I thought it was funny. but the point being the word you're those words we don't like i don't want to go and have to edit that out we don't need to hear how great my questions are i know my questions are really good that's why i had questions i don't like asking silly questions but sometimes you do i remember early on i i used i agree completely a lot do what we all have our verbal verbal tics are a whole other there's a whole like running running joke with joel engelbert saying And that's fair. And Travis Murray's got a catchphrase line, and I'm sure I've got one too. So we all have our lines. But okay. Well, thank you, Scott, and everyone who emailed in. You saved the entire pinball segment. Victory! Yay! It was actually a really good, fun segment. When I went through these, I was compiling all the emails last night. I was like, you know what? There's actually a lot of stuff here. I think it's going to get us a good discussion period. And it did. And the Kindle clicker. The Kindle clicker. We don't need to talk about that anymore. It's great. I highly recommend the Kindle. Let me tell you, this morning I had it set up at my desk because I made myself some homemade corned beef hash for breakfast because nobody else in my family is awake before the crack of noon. And I'm just sitting there, click, eat breakfast, click, eat breakfast. It worked great. Okay. Click.
    55:04
    Well, did your clicker write your video game segment? How did you know? because I just see click click click in the notes okay so a lot of stuff happened in video games two big runs of game announcement shows because we getting to be summer so it that time of year I thought I would open up with video game adjacent uh specifically all of the many tv shows and movies that have been announced or had uh more information released about them uh amazon uh really surprised me with this one uh releasing on october 25th is a like a dragon yakuza live action tv series oh i didn't know about this one i didn't either it was the first i'd heard of it uh i mean obviously for to be releasing that quickly it's been in production since before fallout became this enormous hit uh but uh yakuza series not what i would have originally thought of somebody picking up but i can understand it but it's i don't know it'll be interesting because i typically think of the yakuza games as kind of like over the top yeah they well they are yeah this the humor is just goofy i it'll be interesting to see do they go with that vibe or is this like amazon's response to shogun yeah this is gonna be super serious i guess the yakuza games surely it's like to me the yakuza games are somewhere between like grand theft auto and uh uh saints row saints room yeah no i i definitely could see it after having played a couple of them yeah uh well i mean if amazon again obviously done uh production wise before Fallout came out, but I think what Fallout showed to a lot of people, I would hope, is that you need to capture the spirit of the game that you're making the show about. That was what went wrong with Halo. The sounds are all there, but it doesn't feel like Halo. They decided the audience was too stupid to understand the game world. Master Chief doesn't wear a helmet. It doesn't work, whereas in Fallout, it's like, no, they're going to be naive. You're going to see their low charisma score. It's silly, over-the-top stuff. Yes, and just ridiculous. I mean, it's a post-apocalyptic world where people walk around with little mini-nukes and stuff. I mean, come on. And the monsters have fingers for teeth. Yes, finger teeth. Finger teeth. Netflix also dropped a new trailer for their animated Tomb Raider show. It finally has a release date of October 10th. And they also announced that they're doing an animated Minecraft series, which is going to be interesting because there's also a Minecraft film coming out with Jack Black involved. So we'll see how that goes.
    57:46
    And there's an Among Us animated series on the way as well. No release date on that, but I can see where that could be hilarious.
    57:56
    Last of Us, obviously, we knew there was more Last of Us coming out. They've decided that it'll probably be a total of four seasons to cover both games. like season one was game one but they think they're going to need like three seasons to do the second game because it's got so much more story and they are breaking up and it's going to be shorter like the season two is only going to be seven episodes. Okay. But the episodes are going to be longer. One of them is supposed to be especially long and they're going to be more blockbuster style feeling is what they're aiming for but they think it's going to end up being four seasons total to get both games completed. And in the one that really kind of was weirdest to me, there are two film adaptation of John Romero's autobiography, Doom Guy, Life in First Person being made. One is a straight up documentary and the other is a dramatized adaptation.
    58:58
    Now, it's tough because obviously we know who John Romero is. But is there really enough nostalgia for him to warrant? I could understand the documentary because anything – No, the documentary, that makes sense. But does anyone really care about him enough that we need a dramatized adaptation? I don't know. I can't wait to see the dramatized adaptation of the production of Die Katana. Yay.
    59:21
    I just imagine Carmack is going to be the villain in this. He would have. He'd have to be, wouldn't he? But no one who knows is going to believe that. Right. But since when does it have to be believable? All they have to do is say, based on a true story.
    59:36
    Inspired by real events. Yes, thank you, signs. The first of our two big game reviews I wanted to talk about was the Summer Game Fest. There was a ton of games. Yes. I'm only going to talk about the ones that tipped the top of my scale. If I miss one that touched on your scale, Dennis, feel free to interject.
    60:03
    Lego Horizon Adventures is a Lego version of the Horizon games? Yes. Hide in the tall Lego grass to fight the Lego dinosaur robots. I highly recommend watching the trailer, though, because it was hilarious.
    60:19
    I mean, they definitely embraced the Lego-style camp to go with this game series that's, like, super serious. Right. Uh, and we're going to have, uh, Potter 25 because obviously Harry Potter needs a Quidditch game so they can enter the sports. I hope they start doing them every single year. Maybe that'll be what the JJP version is. Oh, that would be, that'd be so good is what you were going to say. That's to be so amazing. It's just a Harry Potter Quidditch championship. That, that, that's the JJP game. Uh, but sure. Why not? We need the sports here. I mean, Hogwarts Legacy did well. It sold well. Yeah, but that's not a sport game. I know.
    61:07
    I wonder if they're thinking that there's like a crossover between the dude bros who love, you know, all the sports games and Call of Duty and those who love Harry Potter. It just reminds me of that terrible. Is there a niche little market in there? That terrible Wii game, the Link archery game that was so awful. that's what it reminds me of yeah oh my god that game was terrible game was terrible uh star wars outlaws they had a trailer that showed some more from that with which of course played the nostalgia because you got to see londo playing sabacc in it while during the course of the trailer i just the biggest thing to me is how has it taken this long to get an open world game star wars game where you're playing a smuggler yeah it seems like it would have been the simplest thing it seems like it would have been one of the first games you would have seen but yeah i don't know i a lot of people probably think people just want to play jedi so i guess i mean uh civ 7 Yes.
    62:19
    I mean, it's Civilization. It's going to be good. Has there ever been a bad Civilization game? I don't think so. Well, maybe one of the non-Sid Meier ones, but not terrible. Not terrible. I tried. To be fair. I played a lot of them. There's no way it's going to match Civ IV. I don't know that any other Civilization game can ever be as good as Civ IV. Without Leonard Nimoy to do the encyclopedia. Yeah, Leonard Nimoy's encyclopedia was amazing. His Sputnik was so good. beep beep beep oh i i there is i hate to admit this i i know i'm sad but i there is a group out there that literally just has a video that is every leonard nemo narration from civilization and you can play it Just to listen to him do, because all the quotes, it's great. I have definitely gone through it to listen to certain clips, but I always have to listen to the Sputnik clip.
    63:30
    We finally got a release date for Space Marine 2, which was a Christmas release that got pushed. Yes, I am looking forward to this one. It got pushed to September 9th, so we're not very far away from it. So that is probably going to be a – I'm not going to preorder said game, but I will probably get that game before it goes on sale because I really enjoyed the first one. I may wait on it, but I do plan to play it. Yeah, I'll get it not launched. I like to wait at least a couple weeks to get the major bugs fixed on stuff, but I'll get it pretty early. They've decided to follow up the Batman Arkham games With a new game one called Batman Arkham Shadow That is exclusively a MetaQuest 3 VR game I didn't know VR was still a thing You know, I really didn't either Until there was just so much VR announcements this summer Most of them are PlayStation VR Because the new PlayStation VR just came out But it's just It just cracks me up Batman Arkham is a VR only game seems like such a terrible choice.
    64:38
    Slitherhead, it's a horror game where it appears that you play a parasite that jumps from person to person and possibly into dogs and stuff as well, fighting monsters or other parasites that have embedded themselves into people. And it's got some serious body horror stuff going on from the trailer with people looking absolutely normal, then suddenly they're changing into giant monsters. As you rip out of the face of one of your hosts and jump into another host, jump straight into their eye and take over.
    65:16
    Hmm. Takeover. Creepy takeover stuff. Yeah, it was like, oh, what was that? Fallen. It reminded me. Exactly. Time is on my side. Someone watched that on the airplane when I flew out to Virginia a few weeks ago. Did they? I haven't really thought of that movie in a long time until just now.
    65:36
    But that was Spirits. That was like a demon jumping, so there wasn't body horror. This definitely has some body horror in it.
    65:45
    Another thing I found interesting was Inner Sloth, the makers of Among Us, has created a new indie game funding overcompany called Outer Sloth that is just there to provide support for indie companies. And they've specifically said they want to provide the kind of support that they looked for and really wish they had when they were creating Among Us. And Among Us, if you don't remember, is the cute little game where it's like somebody's... You're the imposter. No, I'm not. Exactly. Mom, he's calling me the imposter. You're the imposter. Kick him out. Exactly. But the interesting thing is that game was out for an extended period of time before it suddenly blew up into popularity because streamers started playing it a bunch on Twitch.
    66:29
    So there is a Dune open world survival MMO coming. Yeah, I was sad when I learned it was an MMO. Yeah, that kind of ruined it for me too. I didn't like their trailer because it's literally just a cinematic trailer that showed nothing about gameplay. and it seems like it's basically just a kind of alternate history what-if type world. I thought the idea of it being an alternate timeline, you know, the Muad'Dib is a woman sort of thing, I thought that was a clever way to justify it being a different world than what obviously the narrative would be of the story. But the MMO part just… It just ruins it. Yeah, for me it does. I'm kind of done with MMOs. Yeah, I don't want to. The time sinks are just so extreme. Right.
    67:23
    Speaking of alternate universes and what-if scenarios, Alan Wake 2's Night Springs DLC is that. It follows three different characters through some what-if scenarios. I haven't played Alan Wake 2 yet. I have not either. I also heard that they indicated it will be getting a physical release. They did. It's supposed to be getting a big, fancy physical release soon. I do need to play it. I really like the first Alan Wake. The first one was great. like like i didn't expect it to be nearly as good as it was i thought it was kind of a silly thing when i first put it out i'll shine the flashlight to hurt him i thought i was gonna get really pissed with the mechanic it actually was a lot of fun yeah yeah it worked really well uh monster hunter wilds looks to be coming out in 2025 the monster hunter franchise is huge i've tried to get into it so many times and i just i i don't i can't but i know so many i have so many friends that they are just giant monster hunter fans.
    68:18
    I've just never been able to get into it. There was also the PlayStation State of Play. They announced a ton of games. I have very few that I'm going to cover here.
    68:31
    Dynasty Warriors is finally putting out Dynasty Warrior Origins, which is a return to a Dynasty Warrior-style game that we've not seen in a while, which is its medieval Chinese. The original. Yeah, it's the originals. Because lately they've been doing all the crossovers with Legend of Zelda and Persona and a bunch of other ones. To be fair, one of the funnest games I ever played of a Dynasty Warrior was an old crossover they did, which was the Dynasty Warrior Gundam series, which was hilarious and fun. But the Dynasty Warrior games are great just because they don't play around with these super... It is not Elder Scrolls or that type of gameplay because it's like, here's a thousand enemies. You have a spear. Next time they're going to send 5,000 enemies because you killed a thousand in a second. And it is just over-the-top action that is fun in its own right without being the get-good-noob style that has become so popular lately. They did announce that God of War Ragnarok is coming to PC With its DLC as a single package Marvel Rivals is coming out Which is Overwatch with Marvel characters I've been keeping an eye on that one I can see where that one could have It could be interesting And let's be honest, it could be enormously popular If the gameplay is halfway decent and so many PSVR games have been announced. But what I thought was interesting was ahead of the video, they had an investor presentation, and the upcoming CEO of PlayStation, Herman Holst, talked more about their plans for PC and PlayStation integration. And they said specifically they are going to be releasing live service titles day and date on both systems. Oh.
    70:39
    But they're being more strategic with single player and narrative titles. Because they are hoping this will entice PC owners to buy consoles to play the sequels earlier.
    70:55
    Okay. It's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Does that work on PC people, Tony? No. It's literally the dumbest. I am not going to buy a PlayStation to play Horizon 3 like a year early. I'm not. And I doubt most people will.
    71:17
    Sure, you might get some people who have both systems for other reasons already, but you already have those people because they've got the systems for other reasons. I don't think nobody's going to want to buy to play a new God of War game. Man, I just really enjoyed that God of War Ragnarok, and the new God of War is coming out, but I have to buy a PlayStation to play it? I don't think they're going to get nearly as many sales there as they think they are.
    71:47
    But we'll see. We'll see what ends up happening. And my last thing to finish out this little segment is Yoshida, director for Final Fantasy XIV, has decided to tempt the fates as massively as possible. after their major issues with their last expansion because they were ddos in addition to having the expansion launch the servers pretty much completely collapsed wait times were insane nobody could log in for an extended period of time major issues is a very terrible bad look he went ahead and said that there is almost no chance of server congestion with their new expansion that's getting ready to launch and that they fixed those issues Good for you He's all good to go Good job tempting the fates Just put that out in the universe So It has been a big And the thing is How big this is I really didn't touch on anywhere near all the games That were announced And I didn't touch on a lot of the drama That has been going on In the last two weeks Because it hasn't stopped sorry to those of you who love Kerbal Space Program 2 it sounds like the entire staff is being laid off and the company's being shut down but it's just a lot of stuff going on as it always has been as it always will be so say we all yay but that's it well if people want to reach out to us there's a facebook.com slash collectedgamerspodcast there's email which is the preferred way eclectic gamers podcast at gmail.com you can support us on patreon for as low as a dollar a month at patreon.com slash eclectic underscore gamers we're available on twitch and instagram as eclectic underscore gamers and we will be back in two weeks with all the new game news that you can handle but until then i am dennis i'm tony bye bye see ya