May 22, 2025 • 47 mins
Dr. Gamology and Marcus explore how gaming challenges parallel real-life growth, examining what our digital personas reveal about psychological development and personal identity.
• Comparing the difficulty of Expedition 33's perfect parry system to the challenge of writing and editing a book
• The psychology behind the "I've got this" moment in tough boss fights and how it relates to personal accomplishment
• Differences between story-driven games versus repetitive PvP experiences from a mental health perspective
• Research showing character customization as the top motivation across all gamer types
• The concept of "optimal distinctiveness" explaining why players invest heavily in cosmetic appearances
• How adult gamers balance gaming passion with work responsibilities and necessary sleep
• Why certain games are more likely to create problematic play patterns than others
• The time investment required to master difficult games and what this teaches us about persistence
Join us every week as we continue exploring the intersection of gaming and personal growth. Remember to follow Gaming Persona on your favorite podcast platform!
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You can watch us play games LIVE and join our communities to get more connection from every episode:
- DrGameology on Twitch - Continue the Journey LIVE in 2025!!
- MarcusB814 on YouTube - BOOMBA
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Thanks for Listening, and Continue The Journey!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Gaming Persona podcast.
This is the show that exploreswho we become when we play games
, whether you're saving kingdoms, leading epic raids or just
vibing in cozy indie worlds.
Join me, dr Gamology and mygood friend Marcus as we search
for all the ways gaming andpersonal growth collide.
Grab your controllers and let'scontinue the journey Now.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Do you think?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Let me rephrase that I do all the time all day I get
compensated for it.
Hear feel, think, marcus.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
That's what Heidlin told me to do.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Oh my God, dude.
So All right, sidebar instantlyas we start.
I need to upgrade because, likethe wired headset is just like
it's so 1999.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Right, but I get that wire when I haven't charged my
headphones, though.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Right, but that's different.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Your headphones probably last 40 hours not not
anymore, but maybe at thebeginning oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, either way, I just don't know how to do it.
So the go xlr has an aux cablein for the headphones.
I don't know how else, but itdoesn't have a usb in there.
So, like, do I need a differentaudio interface to like fucking
have my microphone I mean myheadset plugged in?
(01:32):
I don't know if I can handlethat.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
First world problems, Marcus?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh, no, it definitely has first world problems, but
that was not the question.
I'm going to come back to theoriginal question.
No, it definitely has firstworld problems, but that was not
the question.
I'm going to come back to theoriginal question.
Do you think Expedition 33 isharder than writing a book?
I've been waiting all week toask you this question Not even
(02:03):
close, because I saw the videoof you doing like nine parries
in a row and in a trophy poppedup and you didn't even make
credit of the trophy.
I would have been excited aboutthe trophy.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I did.
The clip was 30 seconds.
If you gave me an extra fiveseconds, I did actually go
straight at the trophy too, Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, extra five seconds.
I did actually go straight atthe trophy too.
Okay, yeah, you know, it alwaysboggles my mind that you wrote
uh hundreds of pages of a book,but yet you can't clear the rock
monster in uh claire edition.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
33 well, you know that's the logic that I use to
give mad props to Savage andNightmare Raiders from the
different MMOs I've played.
So, of course, savage rating isFinal Fantasy 14, nightmare
rating is Star Wars, the OldRepublic.
And the way I look at it islike this I have never failed an
(03:03):
academic course, marcus, ever,right like I've never even
gotten a d or an f.
Have you got a c?
I did in a religion courseduring my master's program
interesting yeah, they said I.
I didn't interpret.
(03:24):
I don't want to talk about it.
That does not belong.
On the gaming persona.
I got a C in a religion course.
Wait, wait.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
What?
The fact that you got a C?
It doesn't matter, the course,like forget about the course.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You got a C, C's get degrees.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Marcus, I was just going to tell you that.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I think that it's reallyimportant that I got to see in a
class that didn't matter to me,because it challenged me to
still love myself and think I'mgreat, even though one grade was
less than I think I deserved,but I did make the mistake I was
accused of making.
I just differ in the opinion ofhow much of an impact that
(04:06):
should have had yeah, Iunderstand that.
I completely get like if you hada microphone outside my door.
When I'm playing expedition 33,especially the first half hour
of my streams, and I'm missingmy parries and dodges so bad I'm
just taking hits to the face.
I start yelling like I disagreegame.
(04:27):
I did dodge that, I did parrythat.
You're so full of it.
You know the beginning of theday is always just trying to
recalibrate your hand-eyecoordination to react in time.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And that I'm so glad you said, because it's so true,
I'm gonna go to, like you'retalking about expedition 33, I'm
gonna go back to elden ringbecause I feel like that's all I
talk about.
But so I got to the haylicktree you know that and like I
kind of walked down the treesand now I'm like in this little
(05:05):
area there's a lion and hekilled me and anyway, moving on,
my point is is when I take daysoff now I haven't played elden
ring in probably like four daysit's gonna take me one or two
deaths to really Kind of likeget that reaction time back.
(05:30):
So I do understand what you'resaying.
Is that perfect Perry videothat you posted?
Yes, you did it, but how manyhours or an hour or how many
fights did you have to do to beable to like get that?
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
How many fights did you have to do to be able to,
like, get that?
You know what I mean.
Yeah, we got to ask some of thepeople in my chat or something.
It was probably an hour, maybe45 minutes to get to where I
could tell the differencebetween all the sword combos
that enemy had just from themovement of their right arm, and
then get the rhythm in my headright, which I used to be a
(06:08):
percussionist 20 years ago,right like you.
Would think I'd pick up on thata lot quicker, but it's hard.
It's just such an unforgivinggame I read.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
You just need the rhythm of the night.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I don't know what that means, marcus.
I read that the game companySandfall Interactive claims that
you can win this game on thelowest difficulty without
dodging or parrying anything.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe that at all,and I was talking about that on
(06:44):
my stream today.
Successful parries and dodgesis how you build your ability
points up.
Every attack you do, except fora basic melee attack, costs
ability points, and if you donot have ability points, you're
stuck doing really lame attacksthat don't move the needle at
(07:04):
all towards victory, and I justcan't wrap my head around how
you can survive the enemies inthis game when you're just
taking all their hits straightto the middle of your face.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I would imagine if you're playing this on the
easiest difficulty.
Imagine if you're playing thison the easiest difficulty the
enemies aren't doing soulcrushing moves.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I am playing it on the easiest difficulty now.
Yeah, I had to move it down,stuck for huge amounts of stream
time on like one fight at atime and not making progress and
not getting to experience thestory.
So I just decided to move itdown and it does not feel like
(07:55):
I'm playing a story campaign atall, compared to other games I
wonder if there's a bug that'snot actually turning it down,
that's possible because like Ibet if you started a new
character on story mode, I bet Ibet it is.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So let me give you my example of this.
So trials of mana I played thatgame.
I loved it.
I had it on like normal andthen I was doing it and I got to
this fight and, like themechanics, I felt like I was
fighting kefis, an explosiveconflict, the.
The mechanics were insane andI'm playing on a tiny little
(08:39):
switch screen and I'm like allright, I died like seven times.
I'm like like this ain't fun.
So I put it on easy, which isbasically what you're telling me
.
You put yours on and it wasdrastically easier.
The reason why is because whenyou die, you don't have to redo
(09:00):
the fight.
You can do continue 10, 9, 8, 7, 8, 7, 6, like the old arcade
games, and you just start backup and the boss's health is
already chewed up.
So that's basically you can'tlose.
That was the difference personahas.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
that is where you just revive the entire party
full health.
The fight just continues whereit was, so you don't end up
having to replay moments thatyou've already played.
That's on story, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, but I guess my question is do you need to get
good?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I'm doing my very best.
I'm enjoying the game, though,and it because it doesn't feel
like I'm playing an easy game.
I don't, I'm not worrying aboutit, I'm having so much fun, it
doesn't matter.
I think someday I will probablybeat it on the highest
difficulty because I will wantto, but man, the streams are
(10:04):
just so much fun these days,marcus I know I catch them later
.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, like when I'm sitting in my work truck eating
my lunch and I'll pop on one ofyour old streams like the day of
or the day before or whatever,and I'll just fast forward until
like a part oh, let's go anhour in and then, oh, you're
going crazy.
You know what I mean.
You're showing emotion andthat's something that I enjoy
(10:33):
watching is the emotion in youbecause over the course of the
last year and a half, yep,you've come out of your shell,
like you were always like headpopped out halfway out of your
shell.
You once in a while get thereal you.
(10:54):
And now I feel like on thestream, the real you is actually
coming out and it's actuallynice to see, and I think people
see it too.
And it's actually nice to see,and I think people see it too,
because you can always tell whena streamer or a creator is not
being real right In my opinion.
(11:14):
And when you see that pureemotion come out of somebody,
for me you're hooked.
When you see you do thatperfect parry live on stream and
you're like, yeah, that makessomebody want to continue
watching yeah I mean that moment.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
We worked hard for it and then it happened, and also
I've talked about the money I.
I've talked about thisexperience before with boss
fights.
There's always a moment in atough boss fight where you know
you've got it If you don't screwit up Right.
(11:55):
And so that perfect Perrymoment, that fight was taking a
significant portion of my streamtime.
And when I say that you knowThursday mornings, my stream is
two to.
When I say that you knowThursday mornings, my stream is
two to maybe two and a halfhours long.
That's all I have.
So if I'm stuck on somethingfor 25 minutes, marcus, that's a
(12:19):
huge percentage of the entiremorning activity.
And that fight was one of thosemorning activities and I just
their health bar was finallygoing.
I was just like, oh my gosh,I'm eight parries away from
ending this fight, and that hadhappened a few other times in
the morning and I screwed it upon the fifth parry or the
(12:40):
seventh, which is reallydemoralizing.
Yeah, it happens.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I had the same situation with Radagon in the
elden beast.
You know same thing.
I was there with the eldenbeast like he was like snip it,
like I'm gonna call it 10 or 20percent health, and I was like I
got this is on him and he'sdone yes, like, like I know, I
got it and then he swung histail.
Kamehameha yes, exactly, and Ijust did the oh, sad travel this
(13:18):
is sad.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Wah, wah, wah, this is sad.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Wah, wah, wah, but you know it's.
But those are the moments whereI can understand, where people
don't like hard games.
Right, I'll use let's go Callof Duty, and this is I'm going
to really make you think today.
So you have a game like Call ofDuty Warzone, where it's a
(13:42):
battle royale.
You're on an airplane, you jumpoff and you land.
Now you got your gun, you'regoing to start kidding yourself
up and the circle is closing andthere's less and less people
and, yes, it's hard, but you dieand it's over.
Now let's reload and go intoanother one, right?
(14:04):
there's no sense of worry,because when you die, you're
starting over anyways, and ifyou win, you're starting over
anyway right where, if youperfect parry this boss, you
beat this boss and let's say,you get the chugga level six
gear that you really need, orwhatever, whatever your
(14:26):
experience, you get because Ihaven't played the game, or
myself I beat this boss.
That means I get the sight ofgrace, that's the net there and
I get to progress in the story.
Or if you're on the final boss,you beat the boss.
But those emotions aren't thesame to me.
You know, when you're playingthat story-driven game, how do
(14:47):
you feel about that?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
the difference between story-driven games and
just repetitive experience games.
Often those are PvP games too.
It's very differentpsychologically and, as a mental
health counselor, one of themain ways that I see this is if
(15:10):
you have a game that you cannever beat because it's endless,
it's just a cycle and yourepeat the cycle endlessly.
Those are the games that cantake a lot of money from you,
take a lot of time from you,that can create awkward or
devastating social situationsfor you, and those are the games
(15:31):
that can more easily send youinto a psychologist's office and
saying I have a problem withvideo games.
It's not because the videogames are evil at all and it's
really important to understandwhy these games are different
and how they affect usdifferently.
But if you are doing that Callof Duty thing, do they have a
(15:53):
season pass model like where youcan get items or cosmetics for
playing loads and loads ofmatches?
Is that how they do it, marcus?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
yeah, okay, well, you get.
So, yeah, you'll earn cosmetics, but when you're in the game,
you have to find the chests thathave the better gun, right like
fortnite.
Yes, it's just like it.
It's just like fortnite okay.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
so those games.
You right, there's no stakesfor losing.
As long as you're okay withgetting blasted and being done,
maybe doing spectator mode tosee how the match ends, or
whatever, there's no consequence.
You just load up and do itagain.
Of that you can play this veryrepetitive cycle of game 16, 20
(16:45):
hours a day if you want to.
You could argue that I couldplay Expedition 33 for 20 hours
in one day as well, but thatwould not be a very repetitive
experience at all and for me Idon't binge games that way.
(17:05):
So I end up feeling like I'mdone at a certain point, turning
it off and walking away.
When you have the repetitivereplay multiplayer arena games,
you may have social pressuresthat convince you to keep
playing.
You might have one friend groupyou start playing with.
They all log out.
The second friend group showsup.
It's like, oh, I can join themtoo.
Before you know it, you take atwo-hour gaming session.
Now it's five hours.
(17:26):
That can have consequences.
So you know, it's just adifferent style of play and both
types of games can lead toconsequences in terms of your
time management and lifestructure if you're not careful.
But I don't see as many peoplecoming in for therapy because
(17:47):
they play the Witcher or theLast of Us, as I have seen
people coming into my office forhelp because they play Valorant
and night and um.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
you know other games like that yeah, and I can see
that right, and for me I I callthose games like sometimes you
just want to play a game and dosomething quick and you can just
easy fun.
Yes, you go in.
I play a couple matches.
25 minutes minutes later I'mdone.
(18:20):
I feel satisfied.
Nick and I always called it thequick fix game right, oh yeah.
And where Elden Ring, I havelike a three to three and a half
hour max on that game Becauseyou're tense, yeah you know, and
even though you're having fun,I think in the beginning it was
(18:43):
more stressful.
I think now that I'm in the end, end end game, because I'm
trying to find this ladymillennia.
But it's turning out to be alonger mission than anticipated.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Deep in the Howie tree.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Right mission than anticipated.
Deep in the howie tree, right?
So?
And I just got off the treebranches and now I'm in this
like little area, and then Ithink maybe I'm at her, I don't
know, I don't know what's next.
I'm not spoiling this, I justhope that it's not a long trek
anyway, moving on, but I'm I'mless stressed out now about
runes, because what do I care?
(19:20):
I'm already a high enough level, right, I could care less about
the runes.
I'm already level 165, right.
Do I want them?
Sure, but if I die and I losethem, I'm not crying about it,
because there's rune farms whereI can always just get them back
.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Oh, that's so healthy , Marcus.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Well, that's how I've gotten through this game.
I've shut down the care.
I think you watched me play itand I just said, nope, today's
not the day Put it down.
I'm not being stressed outbecause I don't want to shut it
off for a month or six monthsbecause I'm stressed out about
it.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, you'll find her .
There's only so many places youcan go.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, I don't really care For me.
I've already beaten the game.
I'm already Elden Lord, like.
However long it takes me to getto her, what do I care?
I've already beat the game.
Yeah gonna, I'm going to do anew character I'm like I already
started one on my uh, myplaystation and I'm gonna do a
(20:31):
pure strength build and go thatway.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I want a big hammer that's insane, marcus, that
you'd rather start a newcharacter than do new game plus
I don't want to do New Game, sohear me out.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I don't want to do New Game Plus, because I want to
go into the DLC with thischaracter.
Oh, with your second character.
No, my character I have now oh,you know what I mean I don't
want to do New Game Plus and Iwant to get good before I go in
there, because they say everyboss in the DLC is harder than
(21:03):
millennia.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Debatable, but they're not easy yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And I, anyway, moving on, I now I'm going to bring
this back to your book.
Now I'm going to bring thisback to your book.
How can it be easier to write abook than fight a boss in
Expedition 33?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Well, I said Expedition 33 is easier than
writing a book, yeah, but howwell you think about the number
of people that have finishedthat game and the drive and
focus and work ethic andwillingness to write something
and tear it apart and rebuild itand reframe it and make it work
and then make it flow better,and then deleting it because it
(21:54):
doesn't go the direction youneeded it to go.
And then like there there'smoments, marcus, where I hated
the gamer's journey and I waslike I'm going to keep working
on this every day but I wish Inever started this.
You know, kind of melodramaticFrodo, wish I never left the
Shire, kind of nonsense.
Those moments happened.
(22:17):
They happened.
I had an editor get a chance toread it, not my main editor,
that's Dr Tony Bean from GeekTherapeutics, but we had some
outsourced editors that are moreon the literary side,
definitely not on the video gameside, and the feedback I got on
(22:37):
my book was brutal and I wentthrough every single line of
feedback and I changedeverything that I could without
losing the spirit of thechapters, because she was
commenting on the writing, notthe content.
Right, and I was just like Tony.
(23:02):
I cannot remove Final Fantasy Xfrom the chapter about
atonement with the father,because Tidus and Jekt in Final
Fantasy X are a fantasticexample in video games of a son
who is upset about things inlife because of the lack of a
(23:25):
father figure and all of thechaos that that caused in his
life.
I can't remove that game anddelete 1,200 words from this
chapter and still have it be thechapter that's about atonement
with the Father.
There are going to be peoplethat read this book and wonder
(23:47):
why I didn't bring up TitusInject.
Okay, and I won that argument.
Tony completely had my backthere.
We did not use the editor'sfeedback on that chapter and
several other chapters withsimilar issues that I had.
I was just saying we have tostand up for the history of
(24:09):
video games and not just thehistory of psychology and
mythology and having those kindsof arguments.
When you care so much, marcus,that's what's hard.
Yep Right.
The parallel to gaming isknowing that you're going to
(24:30):
lose a boss fight 50 timestonight because your team's not
there yet.
But you need to do those 50reps because in a month you
might have what it takes to takeout that raid boss, whether
it's Darth Revan in the Templeof Sacrifice, whether it's
Kephis in Explosive Conflict orfor me, whether it's Leviathan
(24:53):
or some boss in Pandemonium, the, you know.
The situation is you don't justwin first, but you have to be
willing to lose a lot in orderto get where you want to be.
And you can't lose from astance of fear.
You have to do it with anunderstanding of.
(25:15):
It is important for me to feelthis.
It is important for me to feelthis.
Expedition 33 is just a videogame.
Right Like I can lose that bossfight.
Come back tomorrow and my egodoesn't have to be scarred.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Sure.
Just like how you describedElden.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Ring a few minutes ago.
It doesn't have to be an egodamage.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
No, and that's the difference, you know, and that's
why I'm completely content withplaying it at the speed I'm
playing it yeah and enjoying it.
You know it's uh absolutely.
Oh man, that's awesome.
Have you heard about this gamecalled the first berserker Kazan
?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I have.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
It looks almost like a Castlevania art style
souls-like game the anime.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, I haven't watched it get played yet, but I
have listened to some podcastswhere they're talking about it
and it definitely appeals to thesame kind of streamers that I
usually watch.
So I think I would like itactually just based on who's
playing it.
But I don't have room foranother game right now.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
No, you don't.
How many hours are you in 33?
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I don't know, I really don't.
I don't have a way to measurethat off the top of my head, but
I've been streaming five days aweek for two weeks straight.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
So that's 20 hours-ish.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Well, yeah, but I did 35 hours last week or this week
so far.
So, wow, no, that's all right.
That's the whole month.
That's the month total, isn'tit 35.
?
Yeah, like on the dashboardwhere it shows you the 30 day to
28 day total yeah.
Yeah, so I'm, I'm probably inlike the 20 hour range.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Huh.
I want out of three oh, oh man,I just blew up the screen a
little bit and you're just alittle bit bigger and I just
wanna bam oh wait, give me a hug.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, oh, because you're bigger.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Um, yeah, you know, adjusting my game time schedule
to my new job has been difficult.
So how is your new job going?
It's going great.
I I have to wake up at 5 amevery day, and I know you wake
up at 5 am every day, but I donot.
(28:00):
Okay, I'm a like 6 am kind ofwake up guy guy, because I
literally need I've narrowed itdown to a science I need 20
minutes to get up, brush myteeth, grab my coffee, pack my
lunch and walk out the door.
It's like I can squeeze it in15 minutes, but it's really 20.
(28:24):
Right, like so if I have toleave my house by 6, 30 getting
up at 6 is money.
Like I get to sit at the tablefor a second and scarf down a
cup of coffee before I leave.
You know what I mean yeah andwaking up at 5 am has completely
changed the game for me nowyou're understanding why I'm a
(28:47):
morning streamer on twitch,don't you?
I hate it ah well, I, I, it'sjust, it's just me, you know
it's.
I can't tell you how many timesI've started work at 5 am in my
life over time, all that stuff.
And that's not bad, becausethen, like a date the next day,
I get to sleep in until six.
(29:09):
It's just my natural body.
My natural clock in my bodysays sleep till six.
You know, really my naturalbody clock says sleep till eight
in the morning.
But anyway, I was playing WWE2K25, and it was like 9.30, and
(29:31):
I really wanted to do one morematch to unlock those points, to
be able to unlock a character,because I would have.
I think I needed like 60 morepoints and I was like, okay,
it's 10 o'clock at night.
I got to jump in the showerbecause I haven't showered from
work yet and then I I I gotta goto bed because I gotta get up
(29:53):
at 5 am.
And you want to talk about,like the mental stress of like
wanting to play a game.
I feel like I'm in thatmedieval torture device where
like one side's pulling me playmore video games, the other
one's like be responsible.
You know what I mean and it'sreally hard the adjustment, but
(30:17):
I played one more game I playedone more match and then I left
the um.
I left a note.
My son can't really read likesomebody read it to him in the
morning, but I told him turn onthe PlayStation, unlock a guy.
He was so excited in themorning.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Oh, that's really nice, Marcus.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, but the adjustment has been hard.
But I have been enjoying WWE alot because I'm starting to
understand like circle is thegrab and then you hit R1 or R2
and it doesn't move.
You know, I still haven'tfigured out how to throw them on
the ropes yet, but that'll,that day will come.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Um, grapple and then circle is Irish whip.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Oh yeah, so circle, circle.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Circles grab grab.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, circle is grab, then circle again is irish whip
and you hold the left stick inthe direction you want them to
go, whether diagonal is to aturnbuckle, oh yeah, left.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Right up down is to the ropes, wow um, and they just
unlocked, like the little DLCpack of characters, and so we
bought the season pass.
But I didn't get the mega boostone where you unlock all the
characters.
I just bought the season passbecause I wasn't going to spend
(31:40):
$60.
Him and I like it.
There's none of those wrestlersthat I really like have to have
, so it's a fun thing to unlockwith him and you earn it.
But they released four newcharacters the female Vasquez
from NXT Motor City Machine Guns.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Stephanie Vakar.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yes, stephanie, vakar , that's it.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
And there's one more.
Did they add Julia?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Maybe, maybe it is Julia the Motor City Machine
Guns and Stephanie Vakir, butthere's a secret celebrity, one
that they're going to releasesoon.
But what I was thinking aboutit is Is it Travis Scott?
I really hope not, dude.
It'll be game over for me atthat point.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I think it needs to be, though, because you can't
even recreate the WrestleManianonsense without him being in
the game.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
That's true, travis Scott next, anyway, but what I
was going to say is you want totalk about a moneymaker and I'm
going to man.
I've talked about so muchalready tonight
Microtransactions.
You know how much that pack offive characters costs if you
don't have the season pass.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Do they do 20, 10 bucks, 10 okay, for it's like
four packs, though total thatare gonna come right well, no,
so this is a mini pack.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
This isn't even one of, like, the big ones.
There's still five to come.
I think there's a big onecoming at the end of May and
then it's for the rest of theyear, whatever, but there's like
four or five big ones.
This is just a mini one and itcomes with it, of course, but my
point is is it's $10 for fivecharacters.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
And how many times that's $2 a character.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Right, but these are like.
But do that times how many moreof these they're going to do.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Well, you said five, so $50 more.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Well, no, those packs , I think, are going to be $20
each.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Right, okay.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
You know $100.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Right it's, you know, right it's just wild to me.
You know mortal combat, onewhich is the 12th mortal combat,
just so everyone's not confused.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Wait, so I just I'm interjecting Mortal combat.
One is the most recent.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yes, okay, great Thanks.
Yes, and um, it just gotannounced and launched today the
Complete Edition for that,meaning they have canceled all
plans for future DLC and thegame is locked as is.
You can buy the CompleteEdition for $70, and it comes
(34:24):
with all the DLC in it, which islike $160 of DLC.
So it's the base game plus allthe DLC in it, which is like
$160 of DLC.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
So it's the base game plus all the DLC.
Oh yep, so definitive by one.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Definitive yes.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
By Mortal Kombat 1.
Definitive Edition Comes withMortal Kombat 1, conan the
Barbarian, cyrax, emrak, pharah,ghostface, homelander, janet
Cage, chameleon, chaos, regions,expansion and more.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Oh, the Chaos Regions expansion is the story addition
to the game, so, like there'smore story you can play Right,
yeah, it comes with everything.
So mortal combat 1 is acomplete product now and you can
have the whole thing for 70 ifyou have not gotten looped into
any of the microtransactions oh,I see it.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Okay.
So it includes base game, thechaos region story expansion,
combat pack 2, which has a bunchof players, or uh combatants.
Combat pack one omni-man quanchi, blah, blah blah and uh
cameo fighters as well.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, and then about are like you can't play them,
but they're on the side and youcan call them in to do
interference right.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
So you got tremor, chameleon, janet cage, movado
farah, and then you have a bunchof uh, you got the jean-claude
van dan skin for johnny cage arethey're even doing skins?
Yeah oh my god, 1250 dragoncrystals.
Don't know what that is, that'sthe microtransaction currency
you got to spend your dollars toturn them into the crystals.
(36:11):
You get the Chaos Regionspre-order bonus gift, which that
should have only been forwhoever did that.
It's a Wedding Scorpion.
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3Sub-Zero Empress Mileena and
Ultimate MK3 New Sabot.
Separate Kombat 2 characterbundle not available.
Oh you have.
(36:33):
So now you can't buy thatbundle separate.
You have to buy this definitiveedition.
Yeah, how do you feel aboutthat?
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Well, I didn't enjoy the game enough to stick with it
because it's so loaded up withgive us more money kind of
thirst traps.
I don't mean thirst traps likesexy content or anything, just
like the whole game is justdripping with give us more of
your money, it's.
It just made me feelunmotivated to play.
(37:07):
You know, when you link allthese cool costumes to playing
an excessive amount to try toget it the free-to-play way or
spending all this money to getit the paid transaction kind of
way, those kinds of games loseme.
I just.
Those kinds of games lose me.
I just I would rather play atthe time, I, I, what was I even
(37:32):
playing back then?
It was either Final Fantasy 14or Metaphor Re Fantasio, like
there were just other things toplay where I felt like, okay, I
can log into this and the game'snot going to beg me for another
$20 every five seconds.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Right, it's Well.
I don't know how much it costs,but I know in WWE I saw it
today in the list of wrestlersyou can be the prime bottle with
whoever I show speed that's init or whoever's in it, Right,
(38:10):
and it says you can only get itby either unlocking it or
purchasing it in the island.
Yeah, I want to know how muchthat costs.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
The island is another one of those things.
As soon as I went to it I waslike I'm done, like I I.
I did do three different loginsto try to do things in the
island and then I just realizedI'm not going to spend the
amount of money to make mycharacter into a character that
I'm excited to play as it's like30 for a pair of nikes yeah,
(38:45):
that's the thing.
In the island the costs are kindof going in the direction of
what the actual thing would costin real life.
Like I know, you're not gonnaget a pair of nikes for three
dollars.
But these are not real nikes,they are shoes for your video
game character that have theNike logo on them.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
That is going to disappear when WWE 2K26 comes
out.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
These are not real world Unless they're going to
transfer unless they transferyour island character.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
WWE 2K26 is not going to be the first game to break
that ground and do the rightthing and do that Like.
No, I mean, overwatch 2 tookover over top of Overwatch 1.
They're the same game, right?
Overwatch 1 doesn't existanymore and all your skins and
(39:41):
stuff transferred with yourplayer account, and that is the
more ethical way of doing asequel.
Why sports games get away withdoing completely brand new
entries every year.
I can't figure out why youcould make a WWE MMO,
(40:06):
essentially, and just do aroster update and if people
disappear because they're notunder contract anymore, well,
guess what New people getbrought in because they are
under contract now.
Right, like, just have WWE, theuniverse as the PS5 game, the
(40:31):
universe as the ps5 game, andevery year after wrestlemania,
just do a massive roster update,update the belts, add the new
matches, like it would not behard right?
Speaker 2 (40:38):
no, I, I don't disagree with you, right?
Yeah, I don't disagree withthat at all.
I just the microtransactionsare killing games, but it's
still people buy them.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
That's right.
You know that's the number onething.
I was listening to a podcastwhen 2K25 for WWE first came out
.
They were begging theiraudience and this is a podcast
that I think they revealed theirnumbers once.
Like it's close to 100,000people every episode.
They're just begging them.
Do not spend money in theisland, because if you do that,
(41:20):
there will not be a my Rise nextgame.
Right, if you do that, you'regoing to tell them this is the
only mode that matters and we'llget an even bigger island next
time with so many more things tobuy and the offline content
(41:40):
will be trash.
And I think they're right.
There's something about and myresearch points this out too
Marcus customizing yourcharacter's appearance is the
number one motivation, no matterwhat personality or gamer type
(42:01):
you have.
It's just such a cool feelingto look fancy in front of other
people.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
You're not wrong, dude, you're not wrong.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Like the two MMOs that I've played, that you've
played both communities say,glamour or costume designer is
the real rating.
Everything you do is aboutgetting the weapon that glows,
the right color, getting theoutfit that makes you look the
(42:40):
right amount of intimidating orthe right amount of
attractiveness right amount ofattractiveness and that
motivates hours and hours ofgameplay and deliberate planning
and action.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yeah, it's, uh, it's.
It's mind-boggling to me to seepeople spend money on it.
If you earn it in the gamebecause you played it, fine.
But you just paid $70 for agame and now you're gonna go
spend more money to unlock X.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Back when the Force Awakens came out and they added
the vented lightsaber in the OldRepublic, I did straight up buy
that from the cartel market.
I think it cost 60 dollars todo that with, to have the number
of coins you needed.
But I just really wanted tohave a blue vented lightsaber.
(43:41):
You know, have the vented so itlooks like kylo ren, but put a
blue crystal in it so it feelslike it goes with my character
and that was something I reallywanted to do, so I bought it.
So you know I'm not going tosit here and be negative like I
don't understand why people doit.
(44:01):
I think optimal distinctiveness, which is a research term, what
it means is we want to be themaximum amount of unique
compared to the uniqueness othercharacters have too.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
That's the motivator for spending your dollars this
way.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Okay, I'm thinking about that, but yet people still
do it yeah, I mean for me too.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
The look of your elden ring character in my mind
is so clear to me like I see thehat, I see that you have no
neck.
I never see your face got likethe kung lao vibe going.
I just really like it.
I watched you play about 10minutes of dark souls 3 the
other day and you didn't looklike that.
I was like, ah, I can't do it.
(44:58):
You're not marcus um for real.
Like my brain couldn't wrap myhead around that.
I'm watching the same friendplay a very similar game,
because your identity to me iswrapped up in that hat.
Yes, I can't explain it.
And and I'm wrapped up in myhats all the time in my fantasy
(45:19):
games speaking of that, can Italk to you about dark souls 3
before?
Speaker 2 (45:24):
we go let's do it so I decided that I was going to
download it and I was going toplay it.
And when I did the, I didn'tknow what to expect.
And it's an older game thanelden ring, obviously, yeah,
it's beautiful, whatever.
But you know what's differentis the role.
(45:44):
The delay for you to roll theinput on.
It is wild.
Like I can't beat the firstboss.
I mean I'll be able to right,but my point is that there's no
other path right where eldenring.
I can't beat this guy.
Let's go over here for a littlewhile.
(46:05):
This game is like Nope, this isyour roadblock, get good and
it's not easy because it feelsjust that much different.
Now people can say it's theclosest thing to Elden Ring and
I'm sure it is because it's themost recent compared, but it the
(46:28):
delay in the roll makes yourtiming different and it's a
whole other game to learn.
Yeah, and I'm like I can't.
I can't learn another game.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Elden Ring is so massive, why not just keep
playing Elden Ring?
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Well, I have to, because I gotta find Melina.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Melenia.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Melenia, whatever her name is, and that is going to
be a shit show in itself.
Continue the journey you.
Welcome to the Gaming Persona podcast.
This is the show that exploreswho we become when we play games
, whether you're saving kingdoms, leading epic raids or just
vibing in cozy indie worlds.
Join me, dr Gamology and mygood friend Marcus as we search
for all the ways gaming andpersonal growth collide.
Grab your controllers and let'scontinue the journey Now.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Do you think?
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Let me rephrase that I do all the time all day I get
compensated for it.
Hear feel, think, marcus.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
That's what Heidlin told me to do.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Oh my God, dude.
So All right, sidebar instantlyas we start.
I need to upgrade because, likethe wired headset is just like
it's so 1999.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Right, but I get that wire when I haven't charged my
headphones, though.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
Right, but that's different.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
Your headphones probably last 40 hours not not
anymore, but maybe at thebeginning oh, okay.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Well, either way, I just don't know how to do it.
So the go xlr has an aux cablein for the headphones.
I don't know how else, but itdoesn't have a usb in there.
So, like, do I need a differentaudio interface to like fucking
have my microphone I mean myheadset plugged in?
(01:32):
I don't know if I can handlethat.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
First world problems, Marcus?
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Oh, no, it definitely has first world problems, but
that was not the question.
I'm going to come back to theoriginal question.
No, it definitely has firstworld problems, but that was not
the question.
I'm going to come back to theoriginal question.
Do you think Expedition 33 isharder than writing a book?
I've been waiting all week toask you this question Not even
(02:03):
close, because I saw the videoof you doing like nine parries
in a row and in a trophy poppedup and you didn't even make
credit of the trophy.
I would have been excited aboutthe trophy.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
I did.
The clip was 30 seconds.
If you gave me an extra fiveseconds, I did actually go
straight at the trophy too, Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Yeah, extra five seconds.
I did actually go straight atthe trophy too.
Okay, yeah, you know, it alwaysboggles my mind that you wrote
uh hundreds of pages of a book,but yet you can't clear the rock
monster in uh claire edition.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
33 well, you know that's the logic that I use to
give mad props to Savage andNightmare Raiders from the
different MMOs I've played.
So, of course, savage rating isFinal Fantasy 14, nightmare
rating is Star Wars, the OldRepublic.
And the way I look at it islike this I have never failed an
(03:03):
academic course, marcus, ever,right like I've never even
gotten a d or an f.
Have you got a c?
I did in a religion courseduring my master's program
interesting yeah, they said I.
I didn't interpret.
(03:24):
I don't want to talk about it.
That does not belong.
On the gaming persona.
I got a C in a religion course.
Wait, wait.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
What?
The fact that you got a C?
It doesn't matter, the course,like forget about the course.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
You got a C, C's get degrees.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Marcus, I was just going to tell you that.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I think that it's reallyimportant that I got to see in a
class that didn't matter to me,because it challenged me to
still love myself and think I'mgreat, even though one grade was
less than I think I deserved,but I did make the mistake I was
accused of making.
I just differ in the opinion ofhow much of an impact that
(04:06):
should have had yeah, Iunderstand that.
I completely get like if you hada microphone outside my door.
When I'm playing expedition 33,especially the first half hour
of my streams, and I'm missingmy parries and dodges so bad I'm
just taking hits to the face.
I start yelling like I disagreegame.
(04:27):
I did dodge that, I did parrythat.
You're so full of it.
You know the beginning of theday is always just trying to
recalibrate your hand-eyecoordination to react in time.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And that I'm so glad you said, because it's so true,
I'm gonna go to, like you'retalking about expedition 33, I'm
gonna go back to elden ringbecause I feel like that's all I
talk about.
But so I got to the haylicktree you know that and like I
kind of walked down the treesand now I'm like in this little
(05:05):
area there's a lion and hekilled me and anyway, moving on,
my point is is when I take daysoff now I haven't played elden
ring in probably like four daysit's gonna take me one or two
deaths to really Kind of likeget that reaction time back.
(05:30):
So I do understand what you'resaying.
Is that perfect Perry videothat you posted?
Yes, you did it, but how manyhours or an hour or how many
fights did you have to do to beable to like get that?
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
How many fights did you have to do to be able to,
like, get that?
You know what I mean.
Yeah, we got to ask some of thepeople in my chat or something.
It was probably an hour, maybe45 minutes to get to where I
could tell the differencebetween all the sword combos
that enemy had just from themovement of their right arm, and
then get the rhythm in my headright, which I used to be a
(06:08):
percussionist 20 years ago,right like you.
Would think I'd pick up on thata lot quicker, but it's hard.
It's just such an unforgivinggame I read.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
You just need the rhythm of the night.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
I don't know what that means, marcus.
I read that the game companySandfall Interactive claims that
you can win this game on thelowest difficulty without
dodging or parrying anything.
I don't believe that.
I don't believe that at all,and I was talking about that on
(06:44):
my stream today.
Successful parries and dodgesis how you build your ability
points up.
Every attack you do, except fora basic melee attack, costs
ability points, and if you donot have ability points, you're
stuck doing really lame attacksthat don't move the needle at
(07:04):
all towards victory, and I justcan't wrap my head around how
you can survive the enemies inthis game when you're just
taking all their hits straightto the middle of your face.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
I would imagine if you're playing this on the
easiest difficulty.
Imagine if you're playing thison the easiest difficulty the
enemies aren't doing soulcrushing moves.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
I am playing it on the easiest difficulty now.
Yeah, I had to move it down,stuck for huge amounts of stream
time on like one fight at atime and not making progress and
not getting to experience thestory.
So I just decided to move itdown and it does not feel like
(07:55):
I'm playing a story campaign atall, compared to other games I
wonder if there's a bug that'snot actually turning it down,
that's possible because like Ibet if you started a new
character on story mode, I bet Ibet it is.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So let me give you my example of this.
So trials of mana I played thatgame.
I loved it.
I had it on like normal andthen I was doing it and I got to
this fight and, like themechanics, I felt like I was
fighting kefis, an explosiveconflict, the.
The mechanics were insane andI'm playing on a tiny little
(08:39):
switch screen and I'm like allright, I died like seven times.
I'm like like this ain't fun.
So I put it on easy, which isbasically what you're telling me
.
You put yours on and it wasdrastically easier.
The reason why is because whenyou die, you don't have to redo
(09:00):
the fight.
You can do continue 10, 9, 8, 7, 8, 7, 6, like the old arcade
games, and you just start backup and the boss's health is
already chewed up.
So that's basically you can'tlose.
That was the difference personahas.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
that is where you just revive the entire party
full health.
The fight just continues whereit was, so you don't end up
having to replay moments thatyou've already played.
That's on story, right, yeah?
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Yeah, but I guess my question is do you need to get
good?
Speaker 1 (09:42):
I'm doing my very best.
I'm enjoying the game, though,and it because it doesn't feel
like I'm playing an easy game.
I don't, I'm not worrying aboutit, I'm having so much fun, it
doesn't matter.
I think someday I will probablybeat it on the highest
difficulty because I will wantto, but man, the streams are
(10:04):
just so much fun these days,marcus I know I catch them later
.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, like when I'm sitting in my work truck eating
my lunch and I'll pop on one ofyour old streams like the day of
or the day before or whatever,and I'll just fast forward until
like a part oh, let's go anhour in and then, oh, you're
going crazy.
You know what I mean.
You're showing emotion andthat's something that I enjoy
(10:33):
watching is the emotion in youbecause over the course of the
last year and a half, yep,you've come out of your shell,
like you were always like headpopped out halfway out of your
shell.
You once in a while get thereal you.
(10:54):
And now I feel like on thestream, the real you is actually
coming out and it's actuallynice to see, and I think people
see it too.
And it's actually nice to see,and I think people see it too,
because you can always tell whena streamer or a creator is not
being real right In my opinion.
(11:14):
And when you see that pureemotion come out of somebody,
for me you're hooked.
When you see you do thatperfect parry live on stream and
you're like, yeah, that makessomebody want to continue
watching yeah I mean that moment.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
We worked hard for it and then it happened, and also
I've talked about the money I.
I've talked about thisexperience before with boss
fights.
There's always a moment in atough boss fight where you know
you've got it If you don't screwit up Right.
(11:55):
And so that perfect Perrymoment, that fight was taking a
significant portion of my streamtime.
And when I say that you knowThursday mornings, my stream is
two to.
When I say that you knowThursday mornings, my stream is
two to maybe two and a halfhours long.
That's all I have.
So if I'm stuck on somethingfor 25 minutes, marcus, that's a
(12:19):
huge percentage of the entiremorning activity.
And that fight was one of thosemorning activities and I just
their health bar was finallygoing.
I was just like, oh my gosh,I'm eight parries away from
ending this fight, and that hadhappened a few other times in
the morning and I screwed it upon the fifth parry or the
(12:40):
seventh, which is reallydemoralizing.
Yeah, it happens.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
I had the same situation with Radagon in the
elden beast.
You know same thing.
I was there with the eldenbeast like he was like snip it,
like I'm gonna call it 10 or 20percent health, and I was like I
got this is on him and he'sdone yes, like, like I know, I
got it and then he swung histail.
Kamehameha yes, exactly, and Ijust did the oh, sad travel this
(13:18):
is sad.
Speaker 1 (13:19):
Wah, wah, wah, this is sad.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Wah, wah, wah, but you know it's.
But those are the moments whereI can understand, where people
don't like hard games.
Right, I'll use let's go Callof Duty, and this is I'm going
to really make you think today.
So you have a game like Call ofDuty Warzone, where it's a
(13:42):
battle royale.
You're on an airplane, you jumpoff and you land.
Now you got your gun, you'regoing to start kidding yourself
up and the circle is closing andthere's less and less people
and, yes, it's hard, but you dieand it's over.
Now let's reload and go intoanother one, right?
(14:04):
there's no sense of worry,because when you die, you're
starting over anyways, and ifyou win, you're starting over
anyway right where, if youperfect parry this boss, you
beat this boss and let's say,you get the chugga level six
gear that you really need, orwhatever, whatever your
(14:26):
experience, you get because Ihaven't played the game, or
myself I beat this boss.
That means I get the sight ofgrace, that's the net there and
I get to progress in the story.
Or if you're on the final boss,you beat the boss.
But those emotions aren't thesame to me.
You know, when you're playingthat story-driven game, how do
(14:47):
you feel about that?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
the difference between story-driven games and
just repetitive experience games.
Often those are PvP games too.
It's very differentpsychologically and, as a mental
health counselor, one of themain ways that I see this is if
(15:10):
you have a game that you cannever beat because it's endless,
it's just a cycle and yourepeat the cycle endlessly.
Those are the games that cantake a lot of money from you,
take a lot of time from you,that can create awkward or
devastating social situationsfor you, and those are the games
(15:31):
that can more easily send youinto a psychologist's office and
saying I have a problem withvideo games.
It's not because the videogames are evil at all and it's
really important to understandwhy these games are different
and how they affect usdifferently.
But if you are doing that Callof Duty thing, do they have a
(15:53):
season pass model like where youcan get items or cosmetics for
playing loads and loads ofmatches?
Is that how they do it, marcus?
Speaker 2 (16:02):
yeah, okay, well, you get.
So, yeah, you'll earn cosmetics, but when you're in the game,
you have to find the chests thathave the better gun, right like
fortnite.
Yes, it's just like it.
It's just like fortnite okay.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
so those games.
You right, there's no stakesfor losing.
As long as you're okay withgetting blasted and being done,
maybe doing spectator mode tosee how the match ends, or
whatever, there's no consequence.
You just load up and do itagain.
Of that you can play this veryrepetitive cycle of game 16, 20
(16:45):
hours a day if you want to.
You could argue that I couldplay Expedition 33 for 20 hours
in one day as well, but thatwould not be a very repetitive
experience at all and for me Idon't binge games that way.
(17:05):
So I end up feeling like I'mdone at a certain point, turning
it off and walking away.
When you have the repetitivereplay multiplayer arena games,
you may have social pressuresthat convince you to keep
playing.
You might have one friend groupyou start playing with.
They all log out.
The second friend group showsup.
It's like, oh, I can join themtoo.
Before you know it, you take atwo-hour gaming session.
Now it's five hours.
(17:26):
That can have consequences.
So you know, it's just adifferent style of play and both
types of games can lead toconsequences in terms of your
time management and lifestructure if you're not careful.
But I don't see as many peoplecoming in for therapy because
(17:47):
they play the Witcher or theLast of Us, as I have seen
people coming into my office forhelp because they play Valorant
and night and um.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
you know other games like that yeah, and I can see
that right, and for me I I callthose games like sometimes you
just want to play a game and dosomething quick and you can just
easy fun.
Yes, you go in.
I play a couple matches.
25 minutes minutes later I'mdone.
(18:20):
I feel satisfied.
Nick and I always called it thequick fix game right, oh yeah.
And where Elden Ring, I havelike a three to three and a half
hour max on that game Becauseyou're tense, yeah you know, and
even though you're having fun,I think in the beginning it was
(18:43):
more stressful.
I think now that I'm in the end, end end game, because I'm
trying to find this ladymillennia.
But it's turning out to be alonger mission than anticipated.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Deep in the Howie tree.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Right mission than anticipated.
Deep in the howie tree, right?
So?
And I just got off the treebranches and now I'm in this
like little area, and then Ithink maybe I'm at her, I don't
know, I don't know what's next.
I'm not spoiling this, I justhope that it's not a long trek
anyway, moving on, but I'm I'mless stressed out now about
runes, because what do I care?
(19:20):
I'm already a high enough level, right, I could care less about
the runes.
I'm already level 165, right.
Do I want them?
Sure, but if I die and I losethem, I'm not crying about it,
because there's rune farms whereI can always just get them back
.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Oh, that's so healthy , Marcus.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Well, that's how I've gotten through this game.
I've shut down the care.
I think you watched me play itand I just said, nope, today's
not the day Put it down.
I'm not being stressed outbecause I don't want to shut it
off for a month or six monthsbecause I'm stressed out about
it.
Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, you'll find her .
There's only so many places youcan go.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, I don't really care For me.
I've already beaten the game.
I'm already Elden Lord, like.
However long it takes me to getto her, what do I care?
I've already beat the game.
Yeah gonna, I'm going to do anew character I'm like I already
started one on my uh, myplaystation and I'm gonna do a
(20:31):
pure strength build and go thatway.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I want a big hammer that's insane, marcus, that
you'd rather start a newcharacter than do new game plus
I don't want to do New Game, sohear me out.
Speaker 2 (20:43):
I don't want to do New Game Plus, because I want to
go into the DLC with thischaracter.
Oh, with your second character.
No, my character I have now oh,you know what I mean I don't
want to do New Game Plus and Iwant to get good before I go in
there, because they say everyboss in the DLC is harder than
(21:03):
millennia.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Debatable, but they're not easy yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
And I, anyway, moving on, I now I'm going to bring
this back to your book.
Now I'm going to bring thisback to your book.
How can it be easier to write abook than fight a boss in
Expedition 33?
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Well, I said Expedition 33 is easier than
writing a book, yeah, but howwell you think about the number
of people that have finishedthat game and the drive and
focus and work ethic andwillingness to write something
and tear it apart and rebuild itand reframe it and make it work
and then make it flow better,and then deleting it because it
(21:54):
doesn't go the direction youneeded it to go.
And then like there there'smoments, marcus, where I hated
the gamer's journey and I waslike I'm going to keep working
on this every day but I wish Inever started this.
You know, kind of melodramaticFrodo, wish I never left the
Shire, kind of nonsense.
Those moments happened.
(22:17):
They happened.
I had an editor get a chance toread it, not my main editor,
that's Dr Tony Bean from GeekTherapeutics, but we had some
outsourced editors that are moreon the literary side,
definitely not on the video gameside, and the feedback I got on
(22:37):
my book was brutal and I wentthrough every single line of
feedback and I changedeverything that I could without
losing the spirit of thechapters, because she was
commenting on the writing, notthe content.
Right, and I was just like Tony.
(23:02):
I cannot remove Final Fantasy Xfrom the chapter about
atonement with the father,because Tidus and Jekt in Final
Fantasy X are a fantasticexample in video games of a son
who is upset about things inlife because of the lack of a
(23:25):
father figure and all of thechaos that that caused in his
life.
I can't remove that game anddelete 1,200 words from this
chapter and still have it be thechapter that's about atonement
with the Father.
There are going to be peoplethat read this book and wonder
(23:47):
why I didn't bring up TitusInject.
Okay, and I won that argument.
Tony completely had my backthere.
We did not use the editor'sfeedback on that chapter and
several other chapters withsimilar issues that I had.
I was just saying we have tostand up for the history of
(24:09):
video games and not just thehistory of psychology and
mythology and having those kindsof arguments.
When you care so much, marcus,that's what's hard.
Yep Right.
The parallel to gaming isknowing that you're going to
(24:30):
lose a boss fight 50 timestonight because your team's not
there yet.
But you need to do those 50reps because in a month you
might have what it takes to takeout that raid boss, whether
it's Darth Revan in the Templeof Sacrifice, whether it's
Kephis in Explosive Conflict orfor me, whether it's Leviathan
(24:53):
or some boss in Pandemonium, the, you know.
The situation is you don't justwin first, but you have to be
willing to lose a lot in orderto get where you want to be.
And you can't lose from astance of fear.
You have to do it with anunderstanding of.
(25:15):
It is important for me to feelthis.
It is important for me to feelthis.
Expedition 33 is just a videogame.
Right Like I can lose that bossfight.
Come back tomorrow and my egodoesn't have to be scarred.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Sure.
Just like how you describedElden.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Ring a few minutes ago.
It doesn't have to be an egodamage.
Speaker 2 (25:39):
No, and that's the difference, you know, and that's
why I'm completely content withplaying it at the speed I'm
playing it yeah and enjoying it.
You know it's uh absolutely.
Oh man, that's awesome.
Have you heard about this gamecalled the first berserker Kazan
?
Speaker 1 (26:00):
Yeah, I have.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
It looks almost like a Castlevania art style
souls-like game the anime.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, I haven't watched it get played yet, but I
have listened to some podcastswhere they're talking about it
and it definitely appeals to thesame kind of streamers that I
usually watch.
So I think I would like itactually just based on who's
playing it.
But I don't have room foranother game right now.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
No, you don't.
How many hours are you in 33?
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I don't know, I really don't.
I don't have a way to measurethat off the top of my head, but
I've been streaming five days aweek for two weeks straight.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
So that's 20 hours-ish.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Well, yeah, but I did 35 hours last week or this week
so far.
So, wow, no, that's all right.
That's the whole month.
That's the month total, isn'tit 35.
?
Yeah, like on the dashboardwhere it shows you the 30 day to
28 day total yeah.
Yeah, so I'm, I'm probably inlike the 20 hour range.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Huh.
I want out of three oh, oh man,I just blew up the screen a
little bit and you're just alittle bit bigger and I just
wanna bam oh wait, give me a hug.
Speaker 1 (27:36):
Yeah, oh, because you're bigger.
Speaker 2 (27:39):
Um, yeah, you know, adjusting my game time schedule
to my new job has been difficult.
So how is your new job going?
It's going great.
I I have to wake up at 5 amevery day, and I know you wake
up at 5 am every day, but I donot.
(28:00):
Okay, I'm a like 6 am kind ofwake up guy guy, because I
literally need I've narrowed itdown to a science I need 20
minutes to get up, brush myteeth, grab my coffee, pack my
lunch and walk out the door.
It's like I can squeeze it in15 minutes, but it's really 20.
(28:24):
Right, like so if I have toleave my house by 6, 30 getting
up at 6 is money.
Like I get to sit at the tablefor a second and scarf down a
cup of coffee before I leave.
You know what I mean yeah andwaking up at 5 am has completely
changed the game for me nowyou're understanding why I'm a
(28:47):
morning streamer on twitch,don't you?
I hate it ah well, I, I, it'sjust, it's just me, you know
it's.
I can't tell you how many timesI've started work at 5 am in my
life over time, all that stuff.
And that's not bad, becausethen, like a date the next day,
I get to sleep in until six.
(29:09):
It's just my natural body.
My natural clock in my bodysays sleep till six.
You know, really my naturalbody clock says sleep till eight
in the morning.
But anyway, I was playing WWE2K25, and it was like 9.30, and
(29:31):
I really wanted to do one morematch to unlock those points, to
be able to unlock a character,because I would have.
I think I needed like 60 morepoints and I was like, okay,
it's 10 o'clock at night.
I got to jump in the showerbecause I haven't showered from
work yet and then I I I gotta goto bed because I gotta get up
(29:53):
at 5 am.
And you want to talk about,like the mental stress of like
wanting to play a game.
I feel like I'm in thatmedieval torture device where
like one side's pulling me playmore video games, the other
one's like be responsible.
You know what I mean and it'sreally hard the adjustment, but
(30:17):
I played one more game I playedone more match and then I left
the um.
I left a note.
My son can't really read likesomebody read it to him in the
morning, but I told him turn onthe PlayStation, unlock a guy.
He was so excited in themorning.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Oh, that's really nice, Marcus.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, but the adjustment has been hard.
But I have been enjoying WWE alot because I'm starting to
understand like circle is thegrab and then you hit R1 or R2
and it doesn't move.
You know, I still haven'tfigured out how to throw them on
the ropes yet, but that'll,that day will come.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Um, grapple and then circle is Irish whip.
Speaker 2 (31:01):
Oh yeah, so circle, circle.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Circles grab grab.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, circle is grab, then circle again is irish whip
and you hold the left stick inthe direction you want them to
go, whether diagonal is to aturnbuckle, oh yeah, left.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Right up down is to the ropes, wow um, and they just
unlocked, like the little DLCpack of characters, and so we
bought the season pass.
But I didn't get the mega boostone where you unlock all the
characters.
I just bought the season passbecause I wasn't going to spend
(31:40):
$60.
Him and I like it.
There's none of those wrestlersthat I really like have to have
, so it's a fun thing to unlockwith him and you earn it.
But they released four newcharacters the female Vasquez
from NXT Motor City Machine Guns.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
Stephanie Vakar.
Speaker 2 (32:03):
Yes, stephanie, vakar , that's it.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
And there's one more.
Did they add Julia?
Speaker 2 (32:07):
Maybe, maybe it is Julia the Motor City Machine
Guns and Stephanie Vakir, butthere's a secret celebrity, one
that they're going to releasesoon.
But what I was thinking aboutit is Is it Travis Scott?
I really hope not, dude.
It'll be game over for me atthat point.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
I think it needs to be, though, because you can't
even recreate the WrestleManianonsense without him being in
the game.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
That's true, travis Scott next, anyway, but what I
was going to say is you want totalk about a moneymaker and I'm
going to man.
I've talked about so muchalready tonight
Microtransactions.
You know how much that pack offive characters costs if you
don't have the season pass.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Do they do 20, 10 bucks, 10 okay, for it's like
four packs, though total thatare gonna come right well, no,
so this is a mini pack.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
This isn't even one of, like, the big ones.
There's still five to come.
I think there's a big onecoming at the end of May and
then it's for the rest of theyear, whatever, but there's like
four or five big ones.
This is just a mini one and itcomes with it, of course, but my
point is is it's $10 for fivecharacters.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
And how many times that's $2 a character.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Right, but these are like.
But do that times how many moreof these they're going to do.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
Well, you said five, so $50 more.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Well, no, those packs , I think, are going to be $20
each.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Right, okay.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
You know $100.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Right it's, you know, right it's just wild to me.
You know mortal combat, onewhich is the 12th mortal combat,
just so everyone's not confused.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Wait, so I just I'm interjecting Mortal combat.
One is the most recent.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yes, okay, great Thanks.
Yes, and um, it just gotannounced and launched today the
Complete Edition for that,meaning they have canceled all
plans for future DLC and thegame is locked as is.
You can buy the CompleteEdition for $70, and it comes
(34:24):
with all the DLC in it, which islike $160 of DLC.
So it's the base game plus allthe DLC in it, which is like
$160 of DLC.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
So it's the base game plus all the DLC.
Oh yep, so definitive by one.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Definitive yes.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
By Mortal Kombat 1.
Definitive Edition Comes withMortal Kombat 1, conan the
Barbarian, cyrax, emrak, pharah,ghostface, homelander, janet
Cage, chameleon, chaos, regions,expansion and more.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
Oh, the Chaos Regions expansion is the story addition
to the game, so, like there'smore story you can play Right,
yeah, it comes with everything.
So mortal combat 1 is acomplete product now and you can
have the whole thing for 70 ifyou have not gotten looped into
any of the microtransactions oh,I see it.
Speaker 2 (35:19):
Okay.
So it includes base game, thechaos region story expansion,
combat pack 2, which has a bunchof players, or uh combatants.
Combat pack one omni-man quanchi, blah, blah blah and uh
cameo fighters as well.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
Yeah, and then about are like you can't play them,
but they're on the side and youcan call them in to do
interference right.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
So you got tremor, chameleon, janet cage, movado
farah, and then you have a bunchof uh, you got the jean-claude
van dan skin for johnny cage arethey're even doing skins?
Yeah oh my god, 1250 dragoncrystals.
Don't know what that is, that'sthe microtransaction currency
you got to spend your dollars toturn them into the crystals.
(36:11):
You get the Chaos Regionspre-order bonus gift, which that
should have only been forwhoever did that.
It's a Wedding Scorpion.
Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3Sub-Zero Empress Mileena and
Ultimate MK3 New Sabot.
Separate Kombat 2 characterbundle not available.
Oh you have.
(36:33):
So now you can't buy thatbundle separate.
You have to buy this definitiveedition.
Yeah, how do you feel aboutthat?
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Well, I didn't enjoy the game enough to stick with it
because it's so loaded up withgive us more money kind of
thirst traps.
I don't mean thirst traps likesexy content or anything, just
like the whole game is justdripping with give us more of
your money, it's.
It just made me feelunmotivated to play.
(37:07):
You know, when you link allthese cool costumes to playing
an excessive amount to try toget it the free-to-play way or
spending all this money to getit the paid transaction kind of
way, those kinds of games loseme.
I just.
Those kinds of games lose me.
I just I would rather play atthe time, I, I, what was I even
(37:32):
playing back then?
It was either Final Fantasy 14or Metaphor Re Fantasio, like
there were just other things toplay where I felt like, okay, I
can log into this and the game'snot going to beg me for another
$20 every five seconds.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
Right, it's Well.
I don't know how much it costs,but I know in WWE I saw it
today in the list of wrestlersyou can be the prime bottle with
whoever I show speed that's init or whoever's in it, Right,
(38:10):
and it says you can only get itby either unlocking it or
purchasing it in the island.
Yeah, I want to know how muchthat costs.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
The island is another one of those things.
As soon as I went to it I waslike I'm done, like I I.
I did do three different loginsto try to do things in the
island and then I just realizedI'm not going to spend the
amount of money to make mycharacter into a character that
I'm excited to play as it's like30 for a pair of nikes yeah,
(38:45):
that's the thing.
In the island the costs are kindof going in the direction of
what the actual thing would costin real life.
Like I know, you're not gonnaget a pair of nikes for three
dollars.
But these are not real nikes,they are shoes for your video
game character that have theNike logo on them.
Speaker 2 (39:07):
That is going to disappear when WWE 2K26 comes
out.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (39:13):
These are not real world Unless they're going to
transfer unless they transferyour island character.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
WWE 2K26 is not going to be the first game to break
that ground and do the rightthing and do that Like.
No, I mean, overwatch 2 tookover over top of Overwatch 1.
They're the same game, right?
Overwatch 1 doesn't existanymore and all your skins and
(39:41):
stuff transferred with yourplayer account, and that is the
more ethical way of doing asequel.
Why sports games get away withdoing completely brand new
entries every year.
I can't figure out why youcould make a WWE MMO,
(40:06):
essentially, and just do aroster update and if people
disappear because they're notunder contract anymore, well,
guess what New people getbrought in because they are
under contract now.
Right, like, just have WWE, theuniverse as the PS5 game, the
(40:31):
universe as the ps5 game, andevery year after wrestlemania,
just do a massive roster update,update the belts, add the new
matches, like it would not behard right?
Speaker 2 (40:38):
no, I, I don't disagree with you, right?
Yeah, I don't disagree withthat at all.
I just the microtransactionsare killing games, but it's
still people buy them.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
That's right.
You know that's the number onething.
I was listening to a podcastwhen 2K25 for WWE first came out
.
They were begging theiraudience and this is a podcast
that I think they revealed theirnumbers once.
Like it's close to 100,000people every episode.
They're just begging them.
Do not spend money in theisland, because if you do that,
(41:20):
there will not be a my Rise nextgame.
Right, if you do that, you'regoing to tell them this is the
only mode that matters and we'llget an even bigger island next
time with so many more things tobuy and the offline content
(41:40):
will be trash.
And I think they're right.
There's something about and myresearch points this out too
Marcus customizing yourcharacter's appearance is the
number one motivation, no matterwhat personality or gamer type
(42:01):
you have.
It's just such a cool feelingto look fancy in front of other
people.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
You're not wrong, dude, you're not wrong.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
Like the two MMOs that I've played, that you've
played both communities say,glamour or costume designer is
the real rating.
Everything you do is aboutgetting the weapon that glows,
the right color, getting theoutfit that makes you look the
(42:40):
right amount of intimidating orthe right amount of
attractiveness right amount ofattractiveness and that
motivates hours and hours ofgameplay and deliberate planning
and action.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Yeah, it's, uh, it's.
It's mind-boggling to me to seepeople spend money on it.
If you earn it in the gamebecause you played it, fine.
But you just paid $70 for agame and now you're gonna go
spend more money to unlock X.
Speaker 1 (43:17):
Back when the Force Awakens came out and they added
the vented lightsaber in the OldRepublic, I did straight up buy
that from the cartel market.
I think it cost 60 dollars todo that with, to have the number
of coins you needed.
But I just really wanted tohave a blue vented lightsaber.
(43:41):
You know, have the vented so itlooks like kylo ren, but put a
blue crystal in it so it feelslike it goes with my character
and that was something I reallywanted to do, so I bought it.
So you know I'm not going tosit here and be negative like I
don't understand why people doit.
(44:01):
I think optimal distinctiveness, which is a research term, what
it means is we want to be themaximum amount of unique
compared to the uniqueness othercharacters have too.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Right.
Speaker 1 (44:17):
That's the motivator for spending your dollars this
way.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Okay, I'm thinking about that, but yet people still
do it yeah, I mean for me too.
Speaker 1 (44:36):
The look of your elden ring character in my mind
is so clear to me like I see thehat, I see that you have no
neck.
I never see your face got likethe kung lao vibe going.
I just really like it.
I watched you play about 10minutes of dark souls 3 the
other day and you didn't looklike that.
I was like, ah, I can't do it.
(44:58):
You're not marcus um for real.
Like my brain couldn't wrap myhead around that.
I'm watching the same friendplay a very similar game,
because your identity to me iswrapped up in that hat.
Yes, I can't explain it.
And and I'm wrapped up in myhats all the time in my fantasy
(45:19):
games speaking of that, can Italk to you about dark souls 3
before?
Speaker 2 (45:24):
we go let's do it so I decided that I was going to
download it and I was going toplay it.
And when I did the, I didn'tknow what to expect.
And it's an older game thanelden ring, obviously, yeah,
it's beautiful, whatever.
But you know what's differentis the role.
(45:44):
The delay for you to roll theinput on.
It is wild.
Like I can't beat the firstboss.
I mean I'll be able to right,but my point is that there's no
other path right where eldenring.
I can't beat this guy.
Let's go over here for a littlewhile.
(46:05):
This game is like Nope, this isyour roadblock, get good and
it's not easy because it feelsjust that much different.
Now people can say it's theclosest thing to Elden Ring and
I'm sure it is because it's themost recent compared, but it the
(46:28):
delay in the roll makes yourtiming different and it's a
whole other game to learn.
Yeah, and I'm like I can't.
I can't learn another game.
Speaker 1 (46:41):
Elden Ring is so massive, why not just keep
playing Elden Ring?
Speaker 2 (46:46):
Well, I have to, because I gotta find Melina.
Speaker 1 (46:49):
Melenia.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
Melenia, whatever her name is, and that is going to
be a shit show in itself.
Continue the journey you.
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