January 8, 2024 • 35 mins
The loss of a pet can pierce the heart with a sorrow as deep and raw as any we experience in our lives. Today, we dedicate our heartfelt episode to Gene's cat, Illyria, and embark on an emotional exploration of the profound connections we forge with our video game pets. We open up about our own experiences of pet loss, sharing those vulnerable moments that remind us of the joy and sorrow our animal companions bring into our lives, both in reality and within the pixelated worlds we inhabit.
As we journey through the nostalgia of '90s virtual pet crazes and into the immersive companionship provided by modern games, we reflect on how these pixelated companions can teach us responsibility and offer genuine companionship. Jenny and I swap stories of our favorite in-game pets and mounts, like those in Final Fantasy 14, revealing just how much these digital friends enhance our gaming experiences. The conversation also touches on the excitement of community achievements and how in-game pets can mirror the importance of real-life furry friends.
We wrap up with a dive into the psychology that underpins our treasured virtual pets and their influence on our gaming behaviors, extending playtime and enriching our digital personas. As Jenny anticipates the addition of a dog companion to her gaming setup, we touch on the importance of mindful gaming, informed by recent research into the intricate relationship between players and their in-game pets. To close, I share a tender moment about my cat, Lexicon, and invite listeners to join our inclusive gaming community, reminding us all to cherish the companions that walk, trot, and scamper beside us in life's epic quest.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to the Gaming Personal Podcast.
This is the show that exploreswho we become when we play games
.
I'm your host, dr Neymology,from YouTube and online
classrooms across the country,and I'm joined by one of my very
best friends for my gamingjourney, jenny Lebron.
How are you doing this week?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm doing fantastic and I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I am too, and we are going to do a two-person show,
which we have actually donequite a few of recently.
If you're watching the feedlots of updates from the Gaming
Persona this week.
I will talk more about that inmy ordinary world, but we
unfortunately are not able to bejoined by Gene tonight.
(00:59):
I'm just going to go right outhere in front of the episode.
One of Gene's Mikote friends inreal life, one of his cats,
illyria, passed away today.
For me, I literally have wakingnightmares about how I'm going
to handle when my lexicon is nolonger with me someday A long
(01:23):
way from now, and I'm just sooverwhelmed with sadness for him
and I don't even know how.
In the sentence, Jenny, help me.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
No, it's really hard losing pets.
I've lost a couple myself andit is devastating.
I was talking to you before theshow about just how much of my
time and my day is spentthinking about my dog and my cat
, looking at my dog and my cat,petting my dog and my cat,
(01:57):
wondering if they're okay,loving on them.
It's such a huge part of mylife and when this happens it's
really hard.
So I feel for you, gene, andthis episode is dedicated to
Illyria.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yes, all right.
So, jenny, what are we talkingabout from the world of video
games this week?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Again in honor of Illyria.
We are talking about pets invideo games.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, all right, let's go ahead and do the
ordinary world, where we shareour everyday life through our
games.
So, jenny, how is your week inthe world of gaming since the
last time we spoke?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
No new video games to report, but I did establish a
new group to play board gameswith in person.
We were going to be startingthat here soon, in the near
future, and I'm really excitedbecause it's one of my previous
remakes that I haven't seen in areally long time and, yeah, I'm
(02:59):
just excited to get thatstarted.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
What kind of board games?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
All kinds.
So we've played with this groupbefore a couple of different
games.
We've played Seven Wonders,we've played Tiny Towns.
This is the same group ofpeople that I play Magic with,
so we are just expanding ourhorizons.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Awesome.
I was thinking earlier todayactually, about all the
different board games I own andalso about what content would be
interesting.
And I have this board game.
I don't know how long it's beenon the show since I mentioned
it, but it's called Call toAdventure and the entire idea of
the game is you use the cardsthat you draw to build your hero
(03:47):
and complete the quests thatline up with the type of hero
that you're building.
And it's not completely yourchoice.
There are things that happen inthe game where you have to pick
this or that and, depending onthe type of hero, the type of
quest that you have, itdetermines what your final boss
is that you have to defeat.
And there's not really D20 kindof dice, but there is a dice
(04:12):
style mechanic to the game.
But the cards that come alongwith that game and all the
different heroes I was thinkingthat, right, there is a gold
mine for me.
I totally should just draw acard every week Think what video
game has a character that isthis kind of hero, and then
(04:34):
cater my content to completingthe story of the board game
called to adventure.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That is a great idea.
Have we played the gametogether?
Speaker 1 (04:46):
We haven't, because I bought it in Arizona and my
wife and son didn't like it andI just thought this is the best
board game ever.
Actually, we were talking inthe pre show about one of the
other podcasts I listened to andhow it's a wrestling podcast.
It's hosted by Frayy Prince Jr.
Not that I'm trying to plugthat, but you were blown away
(05:07):
that Frayy Prince Jr was awrestling writer because we know
him from Star Wars Rebels, weknow him from she's All that.
We know him from.
I know what you did last summer.
Anyway, last night on wrestlingcompletely unrelated, but this
is how my brain works.
You just have to hang with mehere.
Last night, on Monday Night Raw, the rock came back.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Oh my goodness, that's huge.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yes, that's huge.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I know that's huge.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
And the rock is, of course, known as the People's
Champion.
Yeah, and the one time I got toplay this board game, the type
of hero card that I pulled offof the top of the deck and this
is the character I'm trying tobuild, and if I build him
successfully, I'll complete thequest of the hero's journey was
(05:55):
the People's Champion.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I did not realize until that moment that the
People's Champion is a conceptfrom heroes that are
mythological in origin.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I thought it was just .
I thought it was just a phrasethat was assigned to Dwayne
Johnson by Vince McMahon to tryto make it more interesting to
the crowd.
But then I was like, oh my gosh, wrestling is modern day
mythology.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Oh, is this something that they thought of?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Oh, I'm sure.
I'm sure wrestling is steepedin mythological concepts, mixed
with masculine ballet orfeminine ballet, just with
punches and kicks.
I love it.
We don't have to gender theballet, it's just fighting,
dancing.
What does this have to do withvideo games?
(06:53):
I did play WWE 2K23 this weekas well.
There we go, ordinary world.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Tied it all in a nice little bow.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, we just needed for a Prince Jr in order to make
it work.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Six degrees of separation.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, there we go, so I also have been playing Final
Fantasy 14 and the playlist Ihave since I started my new
character is at nine streams now.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And I have leveled up Thaumaturge to where, if I get
the story far enough, I will beable to become a black mage.
So the goal with this character, jenny, is to do everything.
(07:52):
I'm not in a hurry to get toendgame.
I don't even know if I want toget to endgame.
I just want to play the game asmy stream game forever and just
talk about the psychologyinside making a video game,
playing and enjoying a videogame, being motivated to choose
different activities insideonline games.
(08:15):
And I have to mix in othergames into my stream portfolio
because the competitive stuffand some of the more addictive
stuff the way I play MMOs atleast is not going to become a
conversation.
So if I need to talk aboutgamer rage, I need to play Dead
by Daylight Stuff like that,yeah.
(08:37):
Or depression, right, becauseI'm pretty bad.
Yeah, so that's really thethree games I've been playing.
I played Final Fantasy 7 thisweek a lot because I'm trying to
finish it before Rebirth comesout.
Yeah, so let's do the Call toAdventure and start our topic
(08:59):
for the week.
Jenny, I'm going to let youanswer the main question here
first, so what we are going totalk about for this week's
episode in honor of Illyria andpets in our past, present and
future Nice to meet you.
(09:19):
Is what are some stories thatwe can tell from our gaming
lives about in-game pets orvideo game-based pets?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I have not really been the type of video game
player that collects pets.
I played many games where petsare available Star Wars, old
Republic you can have a littleguy following you and then Final
Fantasy 14, same kind ofconcept.
It's fun, but I've never beenlike a God of Catramal pet
(09:54):
person in video games.
However, when I play Sea ofThieves, when I play Sea of
Thieves, they have the abilityto have pets that you can call
out just whenever you want,which is similar to most games.
But anyway, when I firststarted playing that game, the
only pets that were availablewere oh, and Sea of Thieves is a
(10:18):
game where you are a pirate andyou play mostly on a ship and
you go do pirate quests andpirate things on the ship.
They had available threedifferent kinds of pets.
You could either have a cat,you could have a monkey or you
could have a bird.
This was before I owned cats.
(10:40):
Now I have two cats and I lovethem so much.
I have always been more of adog person than a cat person.
Now I'm just like pets areawesome and I love them all,
except for birds.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Except for birds.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
It's just not.
That is not an animal that Ithink I will ever own or enjoy.
So those were my options and Ireally I definitely didn't want
a bird.
I was like, is there a coolwool?
And then the cats were liketreat and cuddly and you can put
them in the cannons and shootthem out.
It's really funny.
But they announced that theywere going to start allowing
(11:19):
dogs and then I was like, ohokay, this game has me forever
now.
And one of the dog arts lookedlike my dog Merlin, and I ended
up getting a dog.
I named him Glitter Beast andhe was my favorite.
He would pee on things and Iwas just fun to have him around
in the game.
(11:39):
That's really the only time Iever got super insipents.
The other thing in video gamesthat I do get into sometimes is
so in Final Fantasy 14, you canhave a mount and your mounts can
be one of a million differentthings, and a lot of the mounts
are animal based, and I've toldthis story many times on the
(12:02):
podcast.
But the origin of me being theRNG goddess is we played, we
were farming the mounts onenight all of the little horsey
mounts.
I wanted all of them.
It was a gotta catch a mallmoment for me and I ended up
getting all of them on the firsttry, ruling for them all on the
(12:24):
first try.
That I'm pretty sure we gotthem all in that one night, plus
the like the next nightmare.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You got them all in that one night.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I continue to suffer for weeks.
So yeah, it was that.
That was really fun.
It's just a fun extra elementto the game.
It's also really nice becauseyou form a connection with your
animal and, depending on thegame, it's just a nice way to
(12:52):
pull reality into your videogames.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, when I was a more active Star Wars the old
Republic player, one of thethings that BioWare would do for
us is send us codes that wecould give out for exclusive
pets, so that people who watchthe streams for their content
creator team could get rewardedby getting one of these codes.
(13:16):
And the only way to get them iswatching people that BioWare is
including in this program,right, and so it would be a
different colored R2 unit or alittle ship flying behind your
shoulder or little things likethat, or a different colored
lizard.
You would be able to encouragepeople to interact on the stream
(13:40):
by typing in chat and trying towin a raffle gambling, but
you're not spending money inorder to participate in that.
So it's it's carnival kind offun reward stuff.
You also can win pets in a lotof online games by defeating
different bosses, which youtalked about the mounts and in
(14:03):
Final Fantasy 14 specifically,which we will do an episode soon
.
that just explains what FinalFantasy 14 is, if you want to
start playing it right now,because we're not doing that
tonight because circumstancesdictate that we talk about the
importance of pets.
But I do think that it's reallyneat to think about why people
(14:28):
go after these deep challengesin order to get something that
is just a digital set of pixelsfloating close to the character
that is a digital set of pixels.
It's not a real pet.
It's not like my two cats oryour cats and dogs that we just
have them on screen with us andthey don't often do anything
(14:53):
except follow us.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Follow you around.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah.
So, jenny, what's the what's?
Some of the earliest games youremember playing that involved a
pet kind of activity or a petdynamic?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So and?
And is it Super Mario 3, whenYoshi's introduced?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
No, that's Super Mario World, okay.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
So that to me is the first, probably the first pet
like interaction in the videogame, because they were your
companion.
Yoshi couldn't really doanything on his own.
He wasn't a playable character,he was just an addition to
Mario.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, he's an extra set of powers actually.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Extra powers, different kinds of jumping, but
he was your companion.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, also, he gives you an extra jump if you want to
sacrifice him into the pit.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Right Yoshi.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I was really wondering if you were going to
bring up Gigapets or anythinglike that.
Oh my God, Keychain things.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I didn't even consider that, but I absolutely
had to get so many Gigapets.
I had the nano baby, which waslike there we go.
The one that was.
It was a baby and you had tochange his diaper and it wasn't
a little dinosaur or whatever.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I don't know how well we're doing with the under 20
year old demographic here, butkids.
This is a story from a littlething that we call the 90s or
the 20th century All right.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
We should explain what these things are, because
they feel like Sure, yeah, Iwill try.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I never owned one, but let's go.
It was a little keychain, Ididn't.
It was a little keychainlooking thing about this size,
like this file fantasy stone.
It had a little screen on it, acouple buttons, and you have to
feed it.
You got to take care of it, yougot to clean it, you got to pay
attention to it.
It was like smartphones before.
We had smartphones to distractus.
(17:09):
Yeah, it would die if you wenta whole school day without
helping it be alive.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
It'd be a little tombstone yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Like a pet, like a child, like a little digital
baby.
Yeah, yeah, this is what weoccupied ourselves with A huge
craze.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
They ended up being banned at school.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Our teachers were monsters, killing all of our pet
babies.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
I'm like you don't understand.
This is teaching meresponsibility, Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So not only were our teachers allowed to hit us with
parent permission, but they alsowere allowed to force us to
neglect and murder our petdinosaurs on our keychain.
Yeah, that's the world that wecame from.
This is why I like Elden Ring.
Jenny, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, that was the beginning, though, of the custom
ones and the exclusive ones anda bunch of I don't know third
party ones that ended up comingout that weren't as cool.
But then you had the like Stier level tomagotches and nano
babies, and If you didn't havethe cool one then you weren't
(18:27):
cool.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
That's like the exclusivity around different
trading card games like Pokemon.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Never got to have my hollow foil Charizard from the
original generation of cards.
And that has haunted me so badthat I have a giant-sized
version of that card right thereon my wall.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
The first pack that I ever opened, the first Pokemon
part card pack that I ever don'tsay it, don't say it.
No, I got a holographic blast,oyes.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
No, that card's on my wall.
Right there too, jenny, you'reconstantly getting oh.
I'm mad at you now.
All right, if you'd like to bea co-host for the gaming person
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Email.
I was it.
I honestly wasn't that inPokemon.
I watched the show like everyday, but I the trading cards
didn't really grab me and I wasjust like, yeah, what's this?
And my mom bought us both packsand he didn't get anything cool
at all.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Okay, eventually give it.
You're so nice, jenny, thankyou.
I wasn't actually thinkingabout Pokemon at all when we got
ready to do this episode, butthose original Game Boy games
that I played on my atomicpurple Game Boy color, the whole
process of seeking out everysingle Pokemon, and I walked to
(20:00):
Kmart and used my lawn mowingmoney to buy the transfer cable
so I could Sneak my Game Boyinto eighth grade and trade so
that my cadavera could become analakazam, and Just things like
that that are part of the DNA ofme as a game player.
(20:20):
It really is about thecollecting aspect of getting
each Pokemon and if you thinkabout Pokemon as pets because
you're the trainer and you pickyour team of six to battle with,
that kind of has to leavePokemon, our pets.
Okay, yeah, I think they aretoo.
(20:41):
But Pokemon yellow versionTakes that to an extra level
because, like in the anime withAsh and Pikachu, you have a
Pikachu walking behind you theentire game.
You can turn and press thebutton to interact with it and
it will have an emote at youthat pops up on the screen.
(21:02):
He's either Hungry or angry orsuper happy, and you're his
friend till the very end.
Oh no, like Chucky.
Oh, that's not what.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I was trying to make people think about.
Not a pet.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
No, not a pet at all.
That is a different kind of toy.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yes, I just like my body.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Right, yeah, so I think that might have been the
first game where I really gotinto the collecting and finding
everything aspect that involveda pet like dynamic.
I remember playing Mario 64 andtrying to get all 120 power
stars.
I remember playing Zelda andHunting down all the golden
(21:46):
skull tulas.
But those are not things thatyou keep with you, they're just
things that you Touch and thenit's a number on the screen with
Pokemon it's.
I have all of these.
I can put them in my battleparty and I can level them up
and get them new abilities andmake them the Powerful winner of
(22:06):
my team.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
So let's go ahead and do our next segment, the road
of trials, where we face ourchallenges and discover our
strengths.
This is, we do not have tolinger on this, jenny.
There's a lot of research,actually, on pets and video
games, which it seems like sucha small thing.
But if it's such a small thing,why do all these video games
(22:31):
have it, mmos have it, rpgs haveit?
Anything that has a Lifestylecreate your family kind of thing
has something like this,whether it's the Sims or animal
crossing.
Lots of cozy games havesomething in it that feels like
pets.
My wife, I remember, was tryingto create her aquarium and
(22:53):
animal crossing and wascollecting all the different sea
life.
That is definitely a petdynamic.
I Don't know what are some ofthe?
What are some of the reasonsthat pets are interesting to you
, jenny, before we we give themall the spoilers from the psych
research?
Why does this work for you?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Okay.
So it's similar to how, likewhen you create a character
typically Not always, but a lotof times you create a character
that's like you because you'replaying yourself in the video
game, and For me specifically so, when I was super excited about
getting glitter beast and seeit these, it was because of that
.
I wasn't a cat person, stilldespise birds, monkeys are cool,
(23:41):
but didn't really consider thata pet.
But as soon as they were like,oh, we're gonna introduce dogs,
I was like I was legitimately sohappy when that came, that news
came out, I was like this isall I've ever wanted this do you
have my dog in the video game.
Yeah, it's really just.
(24:02):
It's a part of who I am, mylove for animals in.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
If I'm injecting that into my video game persona and
feeling connected to my videogame, then that's a big part of
that so glitter beast Was, had acertain set of traits or
represented something in thegame that made the character you
created Feel more genuine foryou.
(24:27):
I yes okay, yeah, so that's acustomization motivation, which
this is episode 120.
Glitter Beast is a reallyinteresting addition to our
conversation, because I'm prettysure you mentioned Glitter
Beast on episode one of our showI am almost certain it was one
(24:51):
or two and and that's really funfor me yeah, as the person who
edits and has to always updatethis information, I know that I
have interacted with that soundbite because I accused you of
neglecting Glitter Beast in aepisode shortly after that and
letting him die.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
This is true.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I remember that oh oh yeah.
For anyone who's been followingthe almost four-year history of
our show and if you're new hereit is customization.
Motivation is the onemotivation that appeals to all
the personality profiles in someway.
(25:35):
That doesn't mean it's high Forall of them.
Some personality profiles reactin a I really don't care about
this.
Okay, but that number of whatyou are as a game player and how
it's measured, your Personalityis either gonna push that up or
it's going to push it down, orit's going to actually have a
(25:59):
neutral effect.
But it's going to move specificto your personality profile and
not randomly.
And that's one of the coolestthings, because the other, for
example competition, is anotherplayer motivation category and
(26:20):
there are certain personalitieswhere it just doesn't register.
The needle doesn't move Becauseit's not a part of the game.
That is in your interestprofile.
But customization always movesbased on your personality, and
that was one of the coolestthings that I realized early in
my research career.
(26:41):
And pets are actually found toinfluence a lot of player
in-game activities.
It will make us do boss battlesthat we actually don't have
that much interest in doing.
Oh yeah, yeah, it'll extend ourplay time by hours and hours
It'll turn.
Yeah, I'm gonna play until 8 pmand then it's 11 30 pm, which
(27:03):
is not cool.
Pay attention to the clock,people.
This is my main message is wecan learn a lot about ourselves
from video games.
That doesn't mean we need toplay recklessly, and that's why
a lot of people judge videogaming as a bad Leisure activity
.
But I would just say there's somany times I'm watching a true
crime series on netflix and theyhook you with the final 20
(27:26):
seconds of the episode.
Yeah, are you still watching?
Yes, because they haven'tdecided the verdict.
You fool, yeah.
So we have a couple researchstudies that have been published
from 2017 and up to now.
So 2024 just started.
(27:47):
So let's just give us thebenefit of the doubt.
Five years or less and they allconclude that your personality,
design and the level ofcreativity that you pour into
your character, plus socialstatus, are going to determine
whether you're going to go aftera pet or not.
(28:09):
You do this in Sea of Thieves,jenny.
Just for my own curiosity,when's the last time you played
Sea of Thieves?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Man, I'm gonna say going on multiple years, oh no.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Since episode one of the gaming persona.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's been like either a year
and a half or two years sinceI've played there's.
There's been a strong push inmy friend circle to get me back
on, but we'll see.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Jenny, I know it's not Sea of Thieves, but I'm like
a level 38 Thaumaturge in FinalFantasy 14 and I currently have
traveled back to the crystalgoblin server.
So if you ever wanted to signin on a sunday night or one of
the other nights that I'mstreaming, we totally could do
(29:05):
sastasha and battle some piratestogether.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
That sounds fun.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
I can't tell if you're being genuine or yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
That's just terrible.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I can do copper bell mines and Halitally and Cutter's
Cry.
I'm getting all the early onesunlocked.
I haven't met your boy toy yet,though, but I know where he is.
I've talked to him.
He's going by a different nameright now.
He's got his hood up and he'stotally not sit Spoilers.
(29:39):
Oh, by the way, did you get tolisten to the or watch the
episode with me and Jean talkingabout the Final Fantasy 7
trailer?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
No, not yet.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
We had a fun little sidebar there talking about how
every seed is hot now.
Yes, that's fun.
Yes, I think that we summarizedall these research studies
pretty well with that little bitabout itself, expression, its
social interaction.
Sometimes the pets are a quickway of people knowing oh, this
(30:11):
person's good at the gamebecause they be so insane.
So even if it's an ugly pet,you'll display it because it
means something.
Yeah, yeah, like a visualachievement list.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
My favorite pet in Final Fantasy.
I just popped in my head thethought is the whale mount,
because then I can sit on itwhile someone takes me somewhere
.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, yeah.
So that's a social factor there.
It changes the way the game canbe played with other people.
It also enables laziness, yep,yep.
So let's go on the ascent.
Elevate the topic.
Pets bring a fun aspect of lifeto video games, and if you have
(30:57):
never gone after a pet or otherkind of extra cosmetic item in
a video game, where have youbeen?
They're in all of our games.
They encourage deeper play andfurther understanding.
They ask us to accomplishthings that we haven't completed
yet, and when we get to displaythem, they become a fun way of
(31:20):
feeling like.
This is my character and theconcept of optimal
distinctiveness that gameplayers are striving for when
they play online games is thisidea that I'm creating a version
of this character that wasuniquely created by me.
That can be our outfits, ourweapons, our hairstyle, the way
(31:43):
that we create the face andother physical features, and it
can also be our fur friends, ourpets and our mounts that get us
from place to place.
Before you start thinkingthat's a silly thing to involve
ourselves with, think about allthe things that your pets
represent in life, and then theidea that we can bring a little
(32:04):
bit of that into a video gamemakes the experience feel more
complete, but then we can alwaysreverse it and have a greater
respect for how wonderful ourfur friends in life are, just by
thinking about the way they arein our video games.
And our video games reflectthings from our lives.
Alright, let's do the returnand go back to our daily lives
(32:28):
and take our next step forward.
Jenny, we're going to take withyou from this episode into the
coming week.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I'm going to lava on my Merlin and my winter and my
rocket extra hard.
This week.
I'm going to send all my goodenergy to Jean and his family
for losing their family member.
And yeah, just think about thatand keep doing what I'm doing
(32:58):
my pets, because that's all Ithink about all day.
The amount of text messages andphotos that my boyfriend and I
send back and forth of ouranimals is insane.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that all my devices, the lock
screens, are either pictures ofJourney, the game, or my wife or
son holding one of our cats,and that's it.
Oh, there we go.
That's a consistent theme onher phone as well.
Actually, you know what?
I was cleaning up the kitchenbefore this episode and my fur
(33:38):
baby, lexicon, who is one of myemotes on Twitch, he did his
thing, where he stands on theback of the couch and just
stares at me while I'm in thekitchen, and usually that means
he's going to do a high five,and then that means I will give
him a big hug, say the thingthat I always say to him, and
let him know that he's loved,and then I'll throw a treat
(34:00):
across the room and he'll justgo bolting for it.
But he did not give me my highfive.
He left me hanging, that's work.
So after this episode I'm goingto try again because I feel
like that ritual was leftincomplete.
But I'm not really aiming forany pets in video games right
(34:26):
now.
I just really love both of mycats so much and my my feel I
almost didn't do the episodetoday when Gene sent us that
message because I just mysympathies or maybe we can call
it empathy just went off thecharts and I was like I am not
going to be able to do thisepisode now.
(34:46):
But I believe it turned outokay and we got to talk about
some cool research, not inspecific detail, but just the
overall findings of how it worksand why it works, and that's
what we try to bring to people.
So if these conversations soundfun for you and you're looking
for some great people to playonline games with, check out aie
(35:08):
at aie-killorg.
And I have one last quest foreveryone to collect for the day
Treasure your pets and continuethe journey.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
See you next week.
Welcome to the Gaming Personal Podcast.
This is the show that exploreswho we become when we play games
.
I'm your host, dr Neymology,from YouTube and online
classrooms across the country,and I'm joined by one of my very
best friends for my gamingjourney, jenny Lebron.
How are you doing this week?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
I'm doing fantastic and I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I am too, and we are going to do a two-person show,
which we have actually donequite a few of recently.
If you're watching the feedlots of updates from the Gaming
Persona this week.
I will talk more about that inmy ordinary world, but we
unfortunately are not able to bejoined by Gene tonight.
(00:59):
I'm just going to go right outhere in front of the episode.
One of Gene's Mikote friends inreal life, one of his cats,
illyria, passed away today.
For me, I literally have wakingnightmares about how I'm going
to handle when my lexicon is nolonger with me someday A long
(01:23):
way from now, and I'm just sooverwhelmed with sadness for him
and I don't even know how.
In the sentence, Jenny, help me.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
No, it's really hard losing pets.
I've lost a couple myself andit is devastating.
I was talking to you before theshow about just how much of my
time and my day is spentthinking about my dog and my cat
, looking at my dog and my cat,petting my dog and my cat,
(01:57):
wondering if they're okay,loving on them.
It's such a huge part of mylife and when this happens it's
really hard.
So I feel for you, gene, andthis episode is dedicated to
Illyria.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Yes, all right.
So, jenny, what are we talkingabout from the world of video
games this week?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Again in honor of Illyria.
We are talking about pets invideo games.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Yeah, all right, let's go ahead and do the
ordinary world, where we shareour everyday life through our
games.
So, jenny, how is your week inthe world of gaming since the
last time we spoke?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
No new video games to report, but I did establish a
new group to play board gameswith in person.
We were going to be startingthat here soon, in the near
future, and I'm really excitedbecause it's one of my previous
remakes that I haven't seen in areally long time and, yeah, I'm
(02:59):
just excited to get thatstarted.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
What kind of board games?
Speaker 2 (03:05):
All kinds.
So we've played with this groupbefore a couple of different
games.
We've played Seven Wonders,we've played Tiny Towns.
This is the same group ofpeople that I play Magic with,
so we are just expanding ourhorizons.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Awesome.
I was thinking earlier todayactually, about all the
different board games I own andalso about what content would be
interesting.
And I have this board game.
I don't know how long it's beenon the show since I mentioned
it, but it's called Call toAdventure and the entire idea of
the game is you use the cardsthat you draw to build your hero
(03:47):
and complete the quests thatline up with the type of hero
that you're building.
And it's not completely yourchoice.
There are things that happen inthe game where you have to pick
this or that and, depending onthe type of hero, the type of
quest that you have, itdetermines what your final boss
is that you have to defeat.
And there's not really D20 kindof dice, but there is a dice
(04:12):
style mechanic to the game.
But the cards that come alongwith that game and all the
different heroes I was thinkingthat, right, there is a gold
mine for me.
I totally should just draw acard every week Think what video
game has a character that isthis kind of hero, and then
(04:34):
cater my content to completingthe story of the board game
called to adventure.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
That is a great idea.
Have we played the gametogether?
Speaker 1 (04:46):
We haven't, because I bought it in Arizona and my
wife and son didn't like it andI just thought this is the best
board game ever.
Actually, we were talking inthe pre show about one of the
other podcasts I listened to andhow it's a wrestling podcast.
It's hosted by Frayy Prince Jr.
Not that I'm trying to plugthat, but you were blown away
(05:07):
that Frayy Prince Jr was awrestling writer because we know
him from Star Wars Rebels, weknow him from she's All that.
We know him from.
I know what you did last summer.
Anyway, last night on wrestlingcompletely unrelated, but this
is how my brain works.
You just have to hang with mehere.
Last night, on Monday Night Raw, the rock came back.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Oh my goodness, that's huge.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Yes, that's huge.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I know that's huge.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
And the rock is, of course, known as the People's
Champion.
Yeah, and the one time I got toplay this board game, the type
of hero card that I pulled offof the top of the deck and this
is the character I'm trying tobuild, and if I build him
successfully, I'll complete thequest of the hero's journey was
(05:55):
the People's Champion.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
Oh, I love it.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
I did not realize until that moment that the
People's Champion is a conceptfrom heroes that are
mythological in origin.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
I thought it was just .
I thought it was just a phrasethat was assigned to Dwayne
Johnson by Vince McMahon to tryto make it more interesting to
the crowd.
But then I was like, oh my gosh, wrestling is modern day
mythology.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
Oh, is this something that they thought of?
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Oh, I'm sure.
I'm sure wrestling is steepedin mythological concepts, mixed
with masculine ballet orfeminine ballet, just with
punches and kicks.
I love it.
We don't have to gender theballet, it's just fighting,
dancing.
What does this have to do withvideo games?
(06:53):
I did play WWE 2K23 this weekas well.
There we go, ordinary world.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Tied it all in a nice little bow.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, we just needed for a Prince Jr in order to make
it work.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Six degrees of separation.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Yeah, there we go, so I also have been playing Final
Fantasy 14 and the playlist Ihave since I started my new
character is at nine streams now.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
And I have leveled up Thaumaturge to where, if I get
the story far enough, I will beable to become a black mage.
So the goal with this character, jenny, is to do everything.
(07:52):
I'm not in a hurry to get toendgame.
I don't even know if I want toget to endgame.
I just want to play the game asmy stream game forever and just
talk about the psychologyinside making a video game,
playing and enjoying a videogame, being motivated to choose
different activities insideonline games.
(08:15):
And I have to mix in othergames into my stream portfolio
because the competitive stuffand some of the more addictive
stuff the way I play MMOs atleast is not going to become a
conversation.
So if I need to talk aboutgamer rage, I need to play Dead
by Daylight Stuff like that,yeah.
(08:37):
Or depression, right, becauseI'm pretty bad.
Yeah, so that's really thethree games I've been playing.
I played Final Fantasy 7 thisweek a lot because I'm trying to
finish it before Rebirth comesout.
Yeah, so let's do the Call toAdventure and start our topic
(08:59):
for the week.
Jenny, I'm going to let youanswer the main question here
first, so what we are going totalk about for this week's
episode in honor of Illyria andpets in our past, present and
future Nice to meet you.
(09:19):
Is what are some stories thatwe can tell from our gaming
lives about in-game pets orvideo game-based pets?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
I have not really been the type of video game
player that collects pets.
I played many games where petsare available Star Wars, old
Republic you can have a littleguy following you and then Final
Fantasy 14, same kind ofconcept.
It's fun, but I've never beenlike a God of Catramal pet
(09:54):
person in video games.
However, when I play Sea ofThieves, when I play Sea of
Thieves, they have the abilityto have pets that you can call
out just whenever you want,which is similar to most games.
But anyway, when I firststarted playing that game, the
only pets that were availablewere oh, and Sea of Thieves is a
(10:18):
game where you are a pirate andyou play mostly on a ship and
you go do pirate quests andpirate things on the ship.
They had available threedifferent kinds of pets.
You could either have a cat,you could have a monkey or you
could have a bird.
This was before I owned cats.
(10:40):
Now I have two cats and I lovethem so much.
I have always been more of adog person than a cat person.
Now I'm just like pets areawesome and I love them all,
except for birds.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
Except for birds.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
It's just not.
That is not an animal that Ithink I will ever own or enjoy.
So those were my options and Ireally I definitely didn't want
a bird.
I was like, is there a coolwool?
And then the cats were liketreat and cuddly and you can put
them in the cannons and shootthem out.
It's really funny.
But they announced that theywere going to start allowing
(11:19):
dogs and then I was like, ohokay, this game has me forever
now.
And one of the dog arts lookedlike my dog Merlin, and I ended
up getting a dog.
I named him Glitter Beast andhe was my favorite.
He would pee on things and Iwas just fun to have him around
in the game.
(11:39):
That's really the only time Iever got super insipents.
The other thing in video gamesthat I do get into sometimes is
so in Final Fantasy 14, you canhave a mount and your mounts can
be one of a million differentthings, and a lot of the mounts
are animal based, and I've toldthis story many times on the
(12:02):
podcast.
But the origin of me being theRNG goddess is we played, we
were farming the mounts onenight all of the little horsey
mounts.
I wanted all of them.
It was a gotta catch a mallmoment for me and I ended up
getting all of them on the firsttry, ruling for them all on the
(12:24):
first try.
That I'm pretty sure we gotthem all in that one night, plus
the like the next nightmare.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
You got them all in that one night.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
I continue to suffer for weeks.
So yeah, it was that.
That was really fun.
It's just a fun extra elementto the game.
It's also really nice becauseyou form a connection with your
animal and, depending on thegame, it's just a nice way to
(12:52):
pull reality into your videogames.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Yeah, when I was a more active Star Wars the old
Republic player, one of thethings that BioWare would do for
us is send us codes that wecould give out for exclusive
pets, so that people who watchthe streams for their content
creator team could get rewardedby getting one of these codes.
(13:16):
And the only way to get them iswatching people that BioWare is
including in this program,right, and so it would be a
different colored R2 unit or alittle ship flying behind your
shoulder or little things likethat, or a different colored
lizard.
You would be able to encouragepeople to interact on the stream
(13:40):
by typing in chat and trying towin a raffle gambling, but
you're not spending money inorder to participate in that.
So it's it's carnival kind offun reward stuff.
You also can win pets in a lotof online games by defeating
different bosses, which youtalked about the mounts and in
(14:03):
Final Fantasy 14 specifically,which we will do an episode soon
.
that just explains what FinalFantasy 14 is, if you want to
start playing it right now,because we're not doing that
tonight because circumstancesdictate that we talk about the
importance of pets.
But I do think that it's reallyneat to think about why people
(14:28):
go after these deep challengesin order to get something that
is just a digital set of pixelsfloating close to the character
that is a digital set of pixels.
It's not a real pet.
It's not like my two cats oryour cats and dogs that we just
have them on screen with us andthey don't often do anything
(14:53):
except follow us.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
Follow you around.
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Yeah.
So, jenny, what's the what's?
Some of the earliest games youremember playing that involved a
pet kind of activity or a petdynamic?
Speaker 2 (15:07):
So and?
And is it Super Mario 3, whenYoshi's introduced?
Speaker 1 (15:14):
No, that's Super Mario World, okay.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
So that to me is the first, probably the first pet
like interaction in the videogame, because they were your
companion.
Yoshi couldn't really doanything on his own.
He wasn't a playable character,he was just an addition to
Mario.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah, he's an extra set of powers actually.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Extra powers, different kinds of jumping, but
he was your companion.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, also, he gives you an extra jump if you want to
sacrifice him into the pit.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Right Yoshi.
Speaker 1 (15:57):
I was really wondering if you were going to
bring up Gigapets or anythinglike that.
Oh my God, Keychain things.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I didn't even consider that, but I absolutely
had to get so many Gigapets.
I had the nano baby, which waslike there we go.
The one that was.
It was a baby and you had tochange his diaper and it wasn't
a little dinosaur or whatever.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
I don't know how well we're doing with the under 20
year old demographic here, butkids.
This is a story from a littlething that we call the 90s or
the 20th century All right.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
We should explain what these things are, because
they feel like Sure, yeah, Iwill try.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I never owned one, but let's go.
It was a little keychain, Ididn't.
It was a little keychainlooking thing about this size,
like this file fantasy stone.
It had a little screen on it, acouple buttons, and you have to
feed it.
You got to take care of it, yougot to clean it, you got to pay
attention to it.
It was like smartphones before.
We had smartphones to distractus.
(17:09):
Yeah, it would die if you wenta whole school day without
helping it be alive.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
It'd be a little tombstone yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
Like a pet, like a child, like a little digital
baby.
Yeah, yeah, this is what weoccupied ourselves with A huge
craze.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
They ended up being banned at school.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
Our teachers were monsters, killing all of our pet
babies.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
I'm like you don't understand.
This is teaching meresponsibility, Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
So not only were our teachers allowed to hit us with
parent permission, but they alsowere allowed to force us to
neglect and murder our petdinosaurs on our keychain.
Yeah, that's the world that wecame from.
This is why I like Elden Ring.
Jenny, I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, that was the beginning, though, of the custom
ones and the exclusive ones anda bunch of I don't know third
party ones that ended up comingout that weren't as cool.
But then you had the like Stier level tomagotches and nano
babies, and If you didn't havethe cool one then you weren't
(18:27):
cool.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
That's like the exclusivity around different
trading card games like Pokemon.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Never got to have my hollow foil Charizard from the
original generation of cards.
And that has haunted me so badthat I have a giant-sized
version of that card right thereon my wall.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
The first pack that I ever opened, the first Pokemon
part card pack that I ever don'tsay it, don't say it.
No, I got a holographic blast,oyes.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
No, that card's on my wall.
Right there too, jenny, you'reconstantly getting oh.
I'm mad at you now.
All right, if you'd like to bea co-host for the gaming person
a podcast.
Speaker 2 (19:18):
Email.
I was it.
I honestly wasn't that inPokemon.
I watched the show like everyday, but I the trading cards
didn't really grab me and I wasjust like, yeah, what's this?
And my mom bought us both packsand he didn't get anything cool
at all.
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Okay, eventually give it.
You're so nice, jenny, thankyou.
I wasn't actually thinkingabout Pokemon at all when we got
ready to do this episode, butthose original Game Boy games
that I played on my atomicpurple Game Boy color, the whole
process of seeking out everysingle Pokemon, and I walked to
(20:00):
Kmart and used my lawn mowingmoney to buy the transfer cable
so I could Sneak my Game Boyinto eighth grade and trade so
that my cadavera could become analakazam, and Just things like
that that are part of the DNA ofme as a game player.
(20:20):
It really is about thecollecting aspect of getting
each Pokemon and if you thinkabout Pokemon as pets because
you're the trainer and you pickyour team of six to battle with,
that kind of has to leavePokemon, our pets.
Okay, yeah, I think they aretoo.
(20:41):
But Pokemon yellow versionTakes that to an extra level
because, like in the anime withAsh and Pikachu, you have a
Pikachu walking behind you theentire game.
You can turn and press thebutton to interact with it and
it will have an emote at youthat pops up on the screen.
(21:02):
He's either Hungry or angry orsuper happy, and you're his
friend till the very end.
Oh no, like Chucky.
Oh, that's not what.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
I was trying to make people think about.
Not a pet.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
No, not a pet at all.
That is a different kind of toy.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yes, I just like my body.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Right, yeah, so I think that might have been the
first game where I really gotinto the collecting and finding
everything aspect that involveda pet like dynamic.
I remember playing Mario 64 andtrying to get all 120 power
stars.
I remember playing Zelda andHunting down all the golden
(21:46):
skull tulas.
But those are not things thatyou keep with you, they're just
things that you Touch and thenit's a number on the screen with
Pokemon it's.
I have all of these.
I can put them in my battleparty and I can level them up
and get them new abilities andmake them the Powerful winner of
(22:06):
my team.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:09):
So let's go ahead and do our next segment, the road
of trials, where we face ourchallenges and discover our
strengths.
This is, we do not have tolinger on this, jenny.
There's a lot of research,actually, on pets and video
games, which it seems like sucha small thing.
But if it's such a small thing,why do all these video games
(22:31):
have it, mmos have it, rpgs haveit?
Anything that has a Lifestylecreate your family kind of thing
has something like this,whether it's the Sims or animal
crossing.
Lots of cozy games havesomething in it that feels like
pets.
My wife, I remember, was tryingto create her aquarium and
(22:53):
animal crossing and wascollecting all the different sea
life.
That is definitely a petdynamic.
I Don't know what are some ofthe?
What are some of the reasonsthat pets are interesting to you
, jenny, before we we give themall the spoilers from the psych
research?
Why does this work for you?
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Okay.
So it's similar to how, likewhen you create a character
typically Not always, but a lotof times you create a character
that's like you because you'replaying yourself in the video
game, and For me specifically so, when I was super excited about
getting glitter beast and seeit these, it was because of that
.
I wasn't a cat person, stilldespise birds, monkeys are cool,
(23:41):
but didn't really consider thata pet.
But as soon as they were like,oh, we're gonna introduce dogs,
I was like I was legitimately sohappy when that came, that news
came out, I was like this isall I've ever wanted this do you
have my dog in the video game.
Yeah, it's really just.
(24:02):
It's a part of who I am, mylove for animals in.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
If I'm injecting that into my video game persona and
feeling connected to my videogame, then that's a big part of
that so glitter beast Was, had acertain set of traits or
represented something in thegame that made the character you
created Feel more genuine foryou.
(24:27):
I yes okay, yeah, so that's acustomization motivation, which
this is episode 120.
Glitter Beast is a reallyinteresting addition to our
conversation, because I'm prettysure you mentioned Glitter
Beast on episode one of our showI am almost certain it was one
(24:51):
or two and and that's really funfor me yeah, as the person who
edits and has to always updatethis information, I know that I
have interacted with that soundbite because I accused you of
neglecting Glitter Beast in aepisode shortly after that and
letting him die.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
This is true.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
I remember that oh oh yeah.
For anyone who's been followingthe almost four-year history of
our show and if you're new hereit is customization.
Motivation is the onemotivation that appeals to all
the personality profiles in someway.
(25:35):
That doesn't mean it's high Forall of them.
Some personality profiles reactin a I really don't care about
this.
Okay, but that number of whatyou are as a game player and how
it's measured, your Personalityis either gonna push that up or
it's going to push it down, orit's going to actually have a
(25:59):
neutral effect.
But it's going to move specificto your personality profile and
not randomly.
And that's one of the coolestthings, because the other, for
example competition, is anotherplayer motivation category and
(26:20):
there are certain personalitieswhere it just doesn't register.
The needle doesn't move Becauseit's not a part of the game.
That is in your interestprofile.
But customization always movesbased on your personality, and
that was one of the coolestthings that I realized early in
my research career.
(26:41):
And pets are actually found toinfluence a lot of player
in-game activities.
It will make us do boss battlesthat we actually don't have
that much interest in doing.
Oh yeah, yeah, it'll extend ourplay time by hours and hours
It'll turn.
Yeah, I'm gonna play until 8 pmand then it's 11 30 pm, which
(27:03):
is not cool.
Pay attention to the clock,people.
This is my main message is wecan learn a lot about ourselves
from video games.
That doesn't mean we need toplay recklessly, and that's why
a lot of people judge videogaming as a bad Leisure activity
.
But I would just say there's somany times I'm watching a true
crime series on netflix and theyhook you with the final 20
(27:26):
seconds of the episode.
Yeah, are you still watching?
Yes, because they haven'tdecided the verdict.
You fool, yeah.
So we have a couple researchstudies that have been published
from 2017 and up to now.
So 2024 just started.
(27:47):
So let's just give us thebenefit of the doubt.
Five years or less and they allconclude that your personality,
design and the level ofcreativity that you pour into
your character, plus socialstatus, are going to determine
whether you're going to go aftera pet or not.
(28:09):
You do this in Sea of Thieves,jenny.
Just for my own curiosity,when's the last time you played
Sea of Thieves?
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Man, I'm gonna say going on multiple years, oh no.
Speaker 1 (28:25):
Since episode one of the gaming persona.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's been like either a year
and a half or two years sinceI've played there's.
There's been a strong push inmy friend circle to get me back
on, but we'll see.
Speaker 1 (28:42):
Jenny, I know it's not Sea of Thieves, but I'm like
a level 38 Thaumaturge in FinalFantasy 14 and I currently have
traveled back to the crystalgoblin server.
So if you ever wanted to signin on a sunday night or one of
the other nights that I'mstreaming, we totally could do
(29:05):
sastasha and battle some piratestogether.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
That sounds fun.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
I can't tell if you're being genuine or yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
That's just terrible.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I can do copper bell mines and Halitally and Cutter's
Cry.
I'm getting all the early onesunlocked.
I haven't met your boy toy yet,though, but I know where he is.
I've talked to him.
He's going by a different nameright now.
He's got his hood up and he'stotally not sit Spoilers.
(29:39):
Oh, by the way, did you get tolisten to the or watch the
episode with me and Jean talkingabout the Final Fantasy 7
trailer?
Speaker 2 (29:47):
No, not yet.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
We had a fun little sidebar there talking about how
every seed is hot now.
Yes, that's fun.
Yes, I think that we summarizedall these research studies
pretty well with that little bitabout itself, expression, its
social interaction.
Sometimes the pets are a quickway of people knowing oh, this
(30:11):
person's good at the gamebecause they be so insane.
So even if it's an ugly pet,you'll display it because it
means something.
Yeah, yeah, like a visualachievement list.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
My favorite pet in Final Fantasy.
I just popped in my head thethought is the whale mount,
because then I can sit on itwhile someone takes me somewhere
.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Yeah, yeah.
So that's a social factor there.
It changes the way the game canbe played with other people.
It also enables laziness, yep,yep.
So let's go on the ascent.
Elevate the topic.
Pets bring a fun aspect of lifeto video games, and if you have
(30:57):
never gone after a pet or otherkind of extra cosmetic item in
a video game, where have youbeen?
They're in all of our games.
They encourage deeper play andfurther understanding.
They ask us to accomplishthings that we haven't completed
yet, and when we get to displaythem, they become a fun way of
(31:20):
feeling like.
This is my character and theconcept of optimal
distinctiveness that gameplayers are striving for when
they play online games is thisidea that I'm creating a version
of this character that wasuniquely created by me.
That can be our outfits, ourweapons, our hairstyle, the way
(31:43):
that we create the face andother physical features, and it
can also be our fur friends, ourpets and our mounts that get us
from place to place.
Before you start thinkingthat's a silly thing to involve
ourselves with, think about allthe things that your pets
represent in life, and then theidea that we can bring a little
(32:04):
bit of that into a video gamemakes the experience feel more
complete, but then we can alwaysreverse it and have a greater
respect for how wonderful ourfur friends in life are, just by
thinking about the way they arein our video games.
And our video games reflectthings from our lives.
Alright, let's do the returnand go back to our daily lives
(32:28):
and take our next step forward.
Jenny, we're going to take withyou from this episode into the
coming week.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
I'm going to lava on my Merlin and my winter and my
rocket extra hard.
This week.
I'm going to send all my goodenergy to Jean and his family
for losing their family member.
And yeah, just think about thatand keep doing what I'm doing
(32:58):
my pets, because that's all Ithink about all day.
The amount of text messages andphotos that my boyfriend and I
send back and forth of ouranimals is insane.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that all my devices, the lock
screens, are either pictures ofJourney, the game, or my wife or
son holding one of our cats,and that's it.
Oh, there we go.
That's a consistent theme onher phone as well.
Actually, you know what?
I was cleaning up the kitchenbefore this episode and my fur
(33:38):
baby, lexicon, who is one of myemotes on Twitch, he did his
thing, where he stands on theback of the couch and just
stares at me while I'm in thekitchen, and usually that means
he's going to do a high five,and then that means I will give
him a big hug, say the thingthat I always say to him, and
let him know that he's loved,and then I'll throw a treat
(34:00):
across the room and he'll justgo bolting for it.
But he did not give me my highfive.
He left me hanging, that's work.
So after this episode I'm goingto try again because I feel
like that ritual was leftincomplete.
But I'm not really aiming forany pets in video games right
(34:26):
now.
I just really love both of mycats so much and my my feel I
almost didn't do the episodetoday when Gene sent us that
message because I just mysympathies or maybe we can call
it empathy just went off thecharts and I was like I am not
going to be able to do thisepisode now.
(34:46):
But I believe it turned outokay and we got to talk about
some cool research, not inspecific detail, but just the
overall findings of how it worksand why it works, and that's
what we try to bring to people.
So if these conversations soundfun for you and you're looking
for some great people to playonline games with, check out aie
(35:08):
at aie-killorg.
And I have one last quest foreveryone to collect for the day
Treasure your pets and continuethe journey.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
See you next week.
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