March 27, 2025 • 52 mins
We explore why old games are being played more than new AAA titles, diving into nostalgia, content creation pressures, and the psychological appeal of returning to simpler gaming experiences.
• The therapeutic effect of watching others play retro games like Tetris and Mega Man
• How streaming transforms gaming from personal enjoyment into performance, creating a "prison sentence" feeling
• The psychological concept of flow in games like Tetris that creates perfect mental engagement
• Why MMOs like Star Wars: The Old Republic retain players through community rather than cutting-edge graphics
• The problem with bloated modern games that don't respect player time
• Visual appeal versus gameplay mechanics in creating lasting gaming experiences
• The challenge of returning to content creation games after playing them just for yourself
• How nostalgia guarantees a safe, predictable emotional experience compared to new games
Play the games that bring you joy, not just the ones that might attract viewers or validate your gamer status. Gaming should remain primarily about personal enjoyment rather than performance.
If you would like to support the show and help us unlock additional possibilities for future episodes and projects, this can now be done through Patreon!
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
Subscribe on YouTube for more content on the Psychology of Gaming or Follow on Twitch to catch the Live Streams!
For more info, check out DrGameology.com!
More Links Here!
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.
(00:20):
Now.
And we're live.
I'm untying a hockey skate.
Continue the journey now.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And we're live.
I'm untying a hockey skate,thank you.
Thank you for the delay.
Usually, I started off and Ididn't today, and I was seeing
what you were going to do andyou were like, and we're live.
And you were silenced likeMarcus, why aren't you talking?
And I'm unlacing a hockey skate.
I had the most interestinggaming week ever, oh really,
(00:49):
yeah, so you got to listen tothis.
So I've been playing elden ringand I'm in the mountain tops of
the giants oh, that's such agood area.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
How are you liking it ?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
it's.
It's definitely hard.
The last time when I last shutit off, I was at I got to the
urge tree avatar and I wasfighting it.
All of a sudden the second oneshowed up and I was like, oh no,
this is not gonna be good and Idied because the second one
came over and slammed me withits hammer and I was just like,
okay, I need to think about thisand that was probably three
(01:21):
days ago.
But that's not the interestinggaming point.
The interesting gaming is Ihave found like myself, before
I've been going to bed I've beenwatching people play old video
games, like last night I watcheda guy live play tetris whoa and
(01:43):
it was like a video on YouTube,right, it was just like of
their like old live stream.
But I found it to be sotherapeutic because I remember
playing it as a kid and I wasalways like, only if I could
play it at level 99 speed.
Wow, that's intense too, becauseyou make so many extra mistakes
(02:06):
when you speed it up like thatand it was like I don't want to
say it was called like, it waslike a speed run, but like I'm
finding like people playingthese old games super relaxing
and I'll watch it for five orten minutes before I go to bed
and it's only been like threedays, but intertwined with our
topic of the week, which istalking about, like, why people
play old video games versus thenew video games.
(02:27):
And it's an interesting topicbecause I just found myself it's
you know what, what's it calledASMR is.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Oh, of course I do.
Let me just rub my microphoneand make everyone have weird
feelings during the podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Okay, exactly, but it's almost for me, it's almost
like an ASMR, because it's superrelaxing to me without the
noises, so you don't want me toput my entire microphone in my
mouth right now.
If you did it, I would love it,because Patreon would see the
video and it would get clippedand sent all over the internet.
So I want you to do it.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Oh my gosh, I don't want to do it now, because then
there's implications on what DrK does when he's not teaching
class.
Dr K is bi-curious everybody.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
But anyway, whoa.
So I guess the point I'm tryingto make is it brought me back
because, like on one side I'mplaying a lot of Elden Ring and
I've also I watched somebodyplay Mega man 3.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
That's like going back at least to nes, right?
Yes, yeah, yeah, wow.
Now I don't know if they wereplaying it on like the nes or
they were playing it like on theswitch through, because if you
have switch online, you can playall the nes games on there.
They have it so you can streamit.
So I'm not sure which is which,but it's one of those things
where I thought it was so cool.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, because those games did not exist as new
during the era of streaminggames.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
So when you get to see footage of someone playing
at a high, masterful level,there is a novelty to that, even
though the game may be 40 yearsold at this point you know
that's a great point when, backwhen I played the game, back
when I played the game, therewas no way to watch somebody
else play it unless they were inyour living room exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So the internet has unlocked all kinds of social
potentialities for us that wetake for granted, because we're
playing games here in 2025 andwe all have whatever year it is
where it's like.
I became a gamer in 19,whatever, or 2000, whatever, but
the online environment isconstantly giving us new ways to
(04:41):
interact with each other, andthat changes the psychology of
what we become when we playgames.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
There it is.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Like we said in, just kidding.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh my gosh, I thought you were going to make my week
so easy for editing.
On the topic of Tetris, though,it's really exciting for me to
hear you bring up that game forthis topic in this episode,
because one of the mostinfluential books in my journey
of learning about gamepsychology before I started
being a voice in it was by JaneMcGonigal is broken and how
(05:21):
video games can help save theworld, and her example of what
defines something as a videogame.
She used Tetris, if I remembercorrectly, as the pure example
for what a video game is, and soyou use the concept of having a
goal, having rules, havingfeedback and participation is
(05:44):
voluntary.
Those are the four requiredelements of playing a game, and
in my book I actually used aimage that was a hybrid mixture
of generic Mortal Kombat andStreet Fighter visuals to
explain this, because you havethe health bar, you have the two
characters getting ready tofight.
You have the health bar, youhave the two characters gang
(06:05):
ready to fight, you have thecommand fight in the middle of
the screen and, of course, theperson holding those controllers
is playing voluntarily, and somortal kombat and street fighter
go back a long time in ourhistory too, but tetris is even
more pure than those gamesbecause you play it alone and it
(06:26):
creates psychological flow forthe player, so that your psyche
merges with the activity soperfectly when you're playing a
game like Tetris.
That's correct.
Yay, I got all points fromProfessor Marcus.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
But you're right because, if you think back, like
, tetris was the first game toever come out for the game boy
is it?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
oh my gosh, that's a neat trivia question.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
If it's true, I don't actually know so if tetris is
the first game, that really wasthe pave, the way for the future
, kind of a thing.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
You know what I mean and we're talking about the game
boy.
In an era where my primary waysof playing games is the steam
deck and the playstation portal,that's wild to me yeah, you're
at that point where you'refinding the convenience of
gaming.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
You're finding the convenience of gaming when it's
handheld right, where I'm nowfinding the convenience of
gaming, when it's handheld Right, where I'm now finding the
convenience of gaming, of couchgaming.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah, when I say the majority of my gameplay is
handheld, that's actually a lie.
The majority of my gameplay ison Twitch, followed by handheld,
followed by the couch.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
The couch is the one that I could actually go the
entire week and not even do itbecause, yes, I understand, but
for me it's always been, as longas I can remember, it's been a
computer, except when, obviously, when I was a kid, it's always
been the the computer like Ilove.
There's nothing better thansitting at your computer,
(08:04):
putting on your headset and justgoing into your own world and
playing whatever, whatever saidgame that is I have a really
tragic rebuttal to that idea inthe case yeah, tragedy is about
to end the episode, here we go.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yep, we're gonna get the eeyore, doom and gloom,
winnie the Pooh style going here.
Oh boy, when I'm at my computer, my brain does this thing,
where I start thinking aboutwork or content creation.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, you're not wrong at that.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah.
So in terms of my contentcareer journey, dr Gamology is a
lot of fun.
But Dr Gamology is tied intoone of my work roles and I have
tied it into the other work role.
So if I'm sitting at mycomputer I might turn on my PS5
and I might open the capturecard and have my controller.
(09:00):
It's right, here I have my PS5controller always here so I
might play, but usually the playis not for a purely and only
for a sense of fun, and I missthat.
I'm just going to call myselfout.
That is not the right way forme to live my life.
I have some changes I have tomake.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Okay, so I'm going to go one step further, man, we're
going to talk about games, butI think this is going deeper
back when I streamed, and Istreamed for years and I loved
it.
And at the end, towards the endof my streaming stuff, I missed
turning on a game.
To play a game.
Yeah, I felt always if I'mgoing to play a game, I have to
(09:51):
do it in front of people.
It was just in my mind I'mthinking like, oh my god, I have
to do this with people.
I need to like what would theaudience think, and it was.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
And that's the kiss of death, marcus oh, but it's
the truth.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
When you stream, it becomes I don't want to say an
addiction, but it becomes thatpoint in your life where you're
everything is for the clip oreverything is for the viewer.
And I stopped in the end of mycontent creation.
Look at streaming now as muchas I love it, but I look at it
(10:20):
more as a prison sentence.
Ooh, that is a fun metaphor,because if you're married to a
schedule, you need to be on time.
People count on you to be thereMonday, wednesday, friday at
1030 at night or whatever thatis.
They're counting on you at thattime.
(10:42):
And if you're not there, sure,sure you can take the day off,
but at the end of the day, ifyou're not there and that
happens a couple times and thennoob1234 is a brand new streamer
and they're playing the samegame they go over there.
They may never come back.
So it's oh, am I gonna lose aviewer and this and that?
And sure these giant contentcreators?
They don't care, becauseasmongold has 51,000 people
(11:06):
watching him at all times, solike he doesn't really care
about the one viewer not comingor going, but like to the small
time streamers who have beenstreaming and grinding, who have
10, 5, 20, 50, 100 viewers,five people don't start to not
come, who are chatters.
You start to notice that.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
That's absolutely true.
Sometimes it works a little bitdifferently.
We had a time change a coupleof weeks ago In fact, this might
be our first recording sincethe time change and, as a result
, I have been really strugglingwith hitting my 9 am start times
on the two days where that'swhat I've taught my community to
(11:45):
expect.
Lucky for me, I'm a professorin Arizona, and do you know why
that is?
A is a quirky element of mystart time, marcus.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Because they don't have daylight savings time.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Because they do not have daylight savings time.
So my 9 am start used to be 7am, so people could turn on my
stream when they're driving towork or after they do their
morning shower.
They might have some work fromhome.
It's very easy to turn on astream at 8 am, but for me it's
10 am.
I started missing those peoplebecause they're not going to
(12:21):
wake up at 6 am to watch me,even if they are awake at 6 am.
So what happened today?
I had to sleep in, I was notfeeling good this morning and I
actually started my stream after11.
And boom, all the people thathave been missing me because of
this time change showed up andmore people showed up and some
(12:42):
of the advertising things thatwe're doing.
Oh nice, you finished lacing itup.
Marcus just finished lacing uphis hockey gear, his what do we
call them Skate?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, I don't play your sports puck.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Sports puck.
I like that I was going to say,sports balls, Anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So my point is, in principle, losing five people
when you're a small streambecause you missed your target
starting time.
That is a real thing.
But sometimes you find newpeople by messing with your
schedule and then the old peoplestill show up and you end up
almost doubling your viewership,which, luckily for me, is what
(13:22):
happened this morning.
So thank you.
Everyone who got your coffeeand chose to hang out with me is
what happened this morning.
So thank you everyone who gotyour coffee and chose to hang
out with me gaming in FinalFantasy 14.
It was so much fun, so I'mnothing without all of you.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah and that's, and so you're making my point is
that's, but that's contentcreation.
And it got to the point for mewhere I was just and I'm not
even being negative still tothis day.
I love streaming, but I wouldwant, I wouldn't want to play
games unless I was live.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, I felt like that many times.
In fact, I have ended up noteven playing certain games
because of the worry of will myaudience care about me playing
this game?
And then by the time, I decidethat, okay, I don't care about
that anymore.
I'm super motivated to play it,but now it's not the hot topic,
and so you might go live doingthis game that you've been on
(14:16):
the fence about for two weeks,but it's old news and you don't
get anyone to watch you becausethe people that know you for
playing one or two other gamesthey're like oh, I don't need to
check that out.
And then the people that wereexcited about this new game they
found their people that they'realready invested in, and I have
(14:37):
done this to myself so manytimes, marcus.
Oh yeah, and you're not the onlyone Right this is actually a
phenomenon that many streamersalmost every streamer runs into
at least once.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yep, that's what I'm saying.
So you're just finding yourgroove, and for me it was the
straw that broke the camel'sback.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah, I'm still thinking about this metaphor of
streaming being a prisonsentence and I'm wondering if
hate raids are like gettingshivved, or leaving your viewer
counter up is like dropping thesoap.
I don't really know that muchabout prison, but I think we
could use this down the line.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I look at people that hate raid as just people who
are unhappy with themselves andthey want to make somebody else
feel bad.
Oh, that's true, you know.
But moving past that, right, Ithink that playing an old video
game brings you back to whatevertime, back to like whatever
(15:49):
happy time you might have had asa kid or as a young adult, and
that's why so many games, oldgames, are played.
Older games are played becausethey were saying I saw a study
that more old games are beingplayed more than the new AAA
games, and it said that peopleare preferring to play the older
(16:13):
games versus the newer gamesand game companies can't
understand why.
I kind of laugh at that.
Yeah, because maybe your gamejust sucks yeah and they?
I don't.
I can see a point.
(16:33):
It's all nostalgia, right.
There's a reason why skyrim isone of the most played video
games.
It's because it's so good andpeople love it and you can
change the game.
You can put your face on everycharacter in the game because of
modding.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah.
Mods turn games.
Evergreen for sure.
In fact, I think people havemodded Morrowind into Skyrim or
something like that.
So that's also just thecreativity of the gaming
community can take an old gameand make it alive in a way, 20
(17:13):
years after release, that thegame devs never intended.
And as long as you're notselling the mods and doing
things that infringe oncopyright, that's usually fair
game, and sometimes the gamestudios actually support mods
like that, like in Fallout.
People creating Fallout Londonis a really great example.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Wait, is that really a?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
thing, yeah.
So people loved Fallout 4 somuch with the game engine and
the updates and what the gameplayed like, and someone built
what is London going to looklike in the world of Fallout and
made it a completely fan-madeexpansion project.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So you're just adding .
You're proving my point rightnow.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Absolutely.
I did something that I did nothave on my bingo card last
episode.
Ooh, tell me.
Oh, you already know, even ifyou don't realize you do.
I was doing something verysurprising to me on Tuesday
night, Marcus.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Oh, I know what that is now.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
So one of our best friends in our gaming community,
marcus Doritos 95,000, decidedto tell me give me the inside
scoop last week, said Doc, youshould start playing Star Wars
the Old Republic again.
Sorry, I haven't done that yet,but the rest of the message was
(18:35):
because the final episode ofUtini cast is next week.
So I picked up my phone.
I texted Chill from Utinicast,who has been the lead host of
that show for 15 plus years.
Wow, that's insane, right,isn't it?
Yeah, so I had a master'sdegree the first time that Chill
(19:04):
did an episode of Utinicastwith Tio, and for those of you
that are new to the show, Idon't talk about this every
episode.
It's very possible you don'tknow this about me.
My original creator name is notDr Gamology, it's Dr Swotor.
Exactly, my dissertationresearch was in 2016 is when I
(19:27):
collected the data, and it wason player personality and
motivation styles for Star Warsthe Old Republic players.
So when I got my doctorate anddefended my dissertation, I
changed my name and announcedAnu Tdcast.
My streaming name movingforward is going to be Dr Swotor
, and the reason I didn't streambefore that moment is because I
(19:50):
didn't want to meet all kindsof people and build personal
relationships in the game andthen have my professors say that
I tampered with my data.
And then have my professors saythat I tampered with my data.
So I stayed pretty much a soloplayer with only my in-person
(20:12):
friend group in Star Wars, theOld Republic for the first five
years of playing the game, andthen I only allowed myself to be
more public and accessible onceI ended up guest starring on an
episode of Utini cast.
So Star Wars the old Republicis an MMO.
That is the reason that Marcusand I met as well, so it's a
(20:33):
huge part of the DNA of ourgaming persona show.
Now.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
But I'm going to back up to before.
You guessed it on the lastepisode of the show.
And when you talk about fullcircle, right, excuse me, when
you talk about full circle ofthings, that's full circle.
(21:01):
Your content creation journeystarted with Utteni cast and it
ended.
You ended the last show withthem.
That's a full circle.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
And we talk about if we miss a week of the show or
whatever.
Or I just went through it withending working class nerds.
But can you imagine how it'sgoing to feel for chill three
weeks from now?
You know, the first week,you're relieved to have not
podcasting.
Second week, oh yeah.
(21:37):
Third week, wow, thatmicrophone is just sitting in
the office doing nothing maybeas zoom calls, we don't know
yeah, but it's different.
I guess.
Saying like it's just I can'teven imagine.
I can imagine what it's like,but you're talking about like
(21:58):
the 15 years man nick and I didour podcast for almost eight and
that's that's almost doubleyeah, this show is at five, but
I did take half a year off lastyear, so which?
Is good.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Sometimes you gotta do it, but my point is, he has
never taken time off yeah, itwas a really cool series of
moments for me too, because,marcus, the hero's journey has
three large stages that all havesmaller stages inside them.
But the last leg of that cycleis the return, and I like how
(22:44):
you connected me being on thatfinal episode with coming full
circle, because I was able toreturn and I'm very different
than I was when I left, whichthat's also what happens to the
hero in the hero's journey aswell, is you never get to return
if you're the same person.
(23:04):
It's whiny Luke on Tatooing andthen mandalorian, season two
luke yeah, 100 I just like tothink that's the luke that I am.
I might be the last jedi lukefor most of the day, though yeah
(23:27):
, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
I can't ever see you throwing a lightsaber over your
shoulder Fuck.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Robinson.
Okay, not the way that he didit, because that was like a
weird Saturday Night Live joke,but there are so many versions
of a saber toss that I thinkwould have worked better there.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
But we're not, we're not, we are not.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
No, we're not.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Can I ask you a?
Speaker 1 (23:48):
question you can, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
What do you got?
Do you know about the Mandelaeffect?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I do know about the.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Mandela effect.
Okay, I think.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
And I remember it happening in reality very
clearly.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Okay, so I think that the Mandela effect happened
right as the Last Jedi wascoming out, and it changed the
movie for us in our timelinebecause it was so bad, that's
how it altered all of Star Wars.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Now, yeah for me.
Oh my gosh, we're talking theLast Jedi on our episode.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
And I love it.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
It's all Chill's fault because I came so close to
accidentally going there onUtinii cast.
Wow, there's.
I don't really want to lose ourtopic to talk about, Can I so?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
can I just tell you?
I asked, I told you when youand I decided we were going to
team up.
I told you, I warned you that,look at, we can start the show
with a topic, but there's a 90%chance that I'm going to fuck it
up and we are going to go on acomplete sidebar and then say to
the audience we're sorry, wedidn't talk about that game, but
(25:01):
we had a great discussion aboutthe Last Jedi.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Here's the thing I really want to start doing a
community movie night in discord, and if I do that, the first
movie that I want to do is thephantom menace do you want to
put people to sleep?
No, the phantom menace is great.
Marcus trade routes the bestokay.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So listen, the best part of all of the phantom
menace is at last we will revealourselves to the jedi.
At last we will have revenge.
Best part of the movie rightthere, boom done, it's over.
Roll credits like you getsidious and you get Maul and
it's over, like that.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
You watch the Phantom Menace so that you can watch
Attack of the Clones, so thatyou can watch.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Revenge of the Sith Anakin and Padme fall in love.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
I love watching Anakin and Padme fall in love.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I do too, especially with the fork and the apple.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
The CG apple is totally suspended in the air in
front of him.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
The point I'm trying to make, doc, is we don't have
to have the topic be the topic,because we're having a better
discussion.
I am a very open platform kindof guy and you're a very
scheduled guy and when ourpowers combine, we're not
captain planet, we're just docand Marcus in the gaming persona
podcast.
Okay, I want to go back to starMarcus in the.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Gaming Persona podcast.
Okay, I want to go back to StarWars, the Old Republic then.
All right, I played that gamefor a very long time.
It was my first MMO, so we'retalking about why do people play
old games?
And then I get the chance tohelp chill, wrap it up and say
some very sentimental things andsay some very sentimental
things and all the names in thechat for Moutini Guilds that I
(26:51):
used to be so used tointeracting with like old
friends that I get to hang outwith one more time on Twitch and
I had a lot of nostalgicfeelings even going through
Wednesday after recording that.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I bet.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
And it was really nice and I think that the reason
that was on my mind for thisepisode the on-topic part of the
episode anyway is nostalgicfeelings are a guarantee that
you're going to be safe inassuming you will have a good
(27:29):
time.
It is why we need a live-actionMoana movie coming out very
soon for all the people that areworried that they might
accidentally go to the movies inNovember and see a movie they
hate and they just rememberenjoying Moana in November a
decade ago.
Do we need live action Moana?
(27:52):
I do not think we do, but thatmovie is for the movie viewer
the same as playing a very oldgame.
Again, there's no secrets,there's no surprises.
It just looks to your eyes theway you remembered it, in a way
that feels right now.
(28:13):
So that's kind of like remakesinstead of playing the retro
version.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
But I think it's worth including in this
conversation I believe that mmosare the ultimate video game,
because a they don't end, andexcept when they shut the
servers down, obviously.
But my point is the an mmo issomething that never ends, right
(28:40):
you can put.
The people have been playingstar wars, the old republic, for
15 years, or 12 years, 13 years, 14 years, whatever that may be
.
And the point I'm trying tomake with that is people have
done the same stories over andover and over again, because
there's always people to playwith.
I have been a few times lately.
(29:01):
I've been doing world bosseswith Doritos and Intisar and all
of that, and it's been a lot offun.
And gone are the days aboutworrying about do I have the
best gear, rather than hangingout with old friends.
You haven't heard their voicesin a long time and sometimes
(29:23):
that is more important thangrinding.
Yeah, and I think back to thisweek, me going on the switch
online Cause we were talkingabout this and I played F zero.
Do you remember that game onsuper Nintendo?
(29:44):
Show me your moves.
Yeah, so I played the snot outof that and I played it this
week and it made me rememberbeing a kid, playing that on
Christmas and running over thoselike the track dots that
electrocute your car and slowyou down.
(30:06):
Let me remember being a kid andlike those days are obviously
gone.
Right, I'm not crying that Iwant to go back, but my point is
it was just that feel-goodmoment, or when you hear a good
song that you remember and itgives you a little bit of
goosebumps because you're like,fuck yeah, I remember when this
shit came out.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, yeah.
It's why every time I'm at thegrocery store and they're
playing like n-sync and britneyspears, and it's oh my gosh I'm
old.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, I'm old, I'm officially old, but no, I guess
the topic or the question waswhy are old games played more
than the new ones?
And I think it's because peopledon't want any bullshit.
People are sick of all of thebullshit that comes out with a
new game, cause the new game iscoming out March 1st, but two
(31:00):
weeks before there's a thousandreviews for it and people are
saying it's trash, rather thanbefore.
It didn't matter.
There was nobody coming out andsaying this game sucks, like
you had to wait for euro game orwhatever.
What was the game?
Facts gamer, pc gamer to giveit a review on the?
And it didn't matter becauseyou already ordered it, you
(31:22):
pre-ordered that shit yeah andit didn't matter.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
You played the the game and if it sucked, you were
like fuck, I made a $50 or $60mistake that I'm more planned
and structured and you're morespontaneous and that's our
(31:47):
personality types and I knowthat because you gave me your
data in my dissertation researchway back in the day.
But I'm glad you recognize mybrilliance now, here in the
present.
But let's talk about anotherway that we're completely
different.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Wait stop, I got a needle Hold on, I just had to
pop the ball a let's get moreasmr going, all right.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
So, marcus, let's talk about another way that
we're incredibly different.
Okay, when is the last timethat you looked at a video game
and your reaction was like goddamn, this is the best looking
video game I have ever seen?
All the time, okay, I do nothave that thought ever, ever
(32:38):
like it, does not?
It's like the differencebetween a taster that has three
times the amount of taste budson their tongue versus me.
I really don't taste anything,which is why I like spicy foods
and can survive anything thatends up in my mouth, because my
mouth is not reacting to it.
Okay, you have that in youreyeballs with video games.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I don't have that.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Okay, there we go.
I am able to survive, with allmy senses being all but dead,
and your senses are veryimportant for you being an
effective human being.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, let me ask you a question what game did we both
, elden Ring?
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Elden Ring.
It is beautiful and I know, uphere in my brain I'm pointing at
my brain I know it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
I know, but you never rode torrent to a giant field
or like to the edge of the waterand just stopped, got off the
horse and just looked around atthe waves or like the grass
moving or the trees, likeactually didn't play the game
didn't just exploring motivation, discovery motivation like just
appreciating the environment.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yes, I have done that , but I'm not doing it in a way
that is in awe of how this gamecompares to other games.
I could play jedi survivor andthen final fantasy 14 in elden
ring, and I don't see thedifference.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
So do you remember the game Tomb Raider when it
first came out?
The new ones, the new yeah, Iplayed them recently.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, I love that trilogy.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Okay.
So I remember when it firstcame out and I had a really good
graphics card and I had ashitty one when I first got it
and then I upgraded and I couldput it on ultra and I could see
Laura Croft's individual hairlike waving in the wind and I
literally died, you could,marcus.
I literally died three timesbecause I was in awe of how
(34:32):
beautiful the game was.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
And that is not something that I like.
That would never happen to me.
That's my point.
But I do know, looking at thosegames, that those games are
made to look beautiful.
And, by the way, when I playedShadow of the Tomb Raider on
Steam on my PC, the one time itturned my desktop computer into
(34:56):
a desk fan, right Like it was asloud as if I had a fan during
summertime turned on and Ilooked at that I was like my
steam deck doesn't even do that.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I think I'm gonna just play this on the steam deck
because that cannot be good formy computer it's not that it's
bad, it's just that it's yoursystem is working, it's
rendering a lot and yourgraphics card is fucking working
, and I don't want it to work.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
I want it to just be like chill and relaxed and let
me do my work Then you betterplay Star Wars the Old Republic.
That's right.
All right, if we're talkingabout where does the value of a
game come from?
For someone like me, it is notthe visuals, and I believe the
CEOs they're looking at whytheir games underperform and are
(35:43):
confused because, a most of thetime CEOs don't actually do a
lot of the work and end upactually being idiots, but B I
think the thing that helps CEOsearn the most money being at the
top of a studio that createsvideo games are not the things
that video game players actuallywant.
Okay, I did something prettycool this week as well.
(36:06):
That is not a tini cast was onmy stream.
I fought sephiroth and jenovafor five hours on sunday marcus
and I completed dynamicdifficulty.
It was like a five-stage bossfight and it took me five hours
to complete the fifth stage.
So all the stages.
(36:28):
I wasn't on the fifth stage forfive hours, but I was on the
fifth stage for two and a half.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Okay, it was a big accomplishment in the list of
things I've ever done as a videogame player.
And by the end of that I havesome former students.
I have some colleagues andpeers that do mental health
counseling that watch now.
I have my game community peoplethat know me as Dr Gameology as
well.
So I have a wide range ofpeople from all the parts of my
(36:57):
life watching this and they'rejust talking to me as I don't
give up.
We got the John Cena towelnever give up.
And I earned that towel righton Sunday and I did not give up.
And they were just saying, doc,you are a very different gamer
than me.
I would not be able to handlethis and things like that, like
you are showing us.
(37:17):
The definition of perseveranceis one of my other favorite chat
messages from Sunday.
And that game, I know, isbeautiful, okay, and when I see
it I know it with my eyes too.
But that game has a flaw in myopinion, and that is too much
bloated mini game activities andside quests much bloated mini
(37:45):
game activities and side quests.
It is a 50 hour game in themain story that balloons up to
85 or 90 on your firstplaythrough and it's not 40
extra hours of things that Ifelt like I actually want to do.
I did them because I wanted aspecific cutscene event to
happen.
Okay, and so if I'm looking atthe CEO for Square Enix and I'm
(38:09):
looking at how that game gotpublished and they're wondering,
why didn't this sellgangbusters on PS5?
Because the moment the gamereleased, the narrative became
this game is going to force youto play some bloated, lame
minigame activities that youdon't actually want to play,
when all you want to do is helpCloud, tifa, aerith Barret and
(38:31):
the gang defeat Sephiroth andsave the world.
And if you want that experience, play the PS1 version, because
you can play the entire story,not just part two of a
three-part story, in 30 hours.
It just looks like a ps1 gamebut it's so much better yeah,
(38:53):
you can.
The ps1 game is timeless.
It's a classic game, but it'sit's really okay.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
So it's really hard for me to play an old game.
They're clunky.
What we're talking abouttonight, though, yeah, but I'm
saying like, if you have anopportunity to play a new
version of the game and you goback, it's not easy.
Like playing super mariobrothers one, it's hard because
of the d-pad and, like jumping,the mechanic is different.
(39:18):
We've been trained for so longwith the greatest xbox
controllers ever and the shittyplaystation controllers that
like that was uncalled for.
Penalty box for marcus fiveminute major but my point is the
it like the pressure sensors inthe controllers, and the way
(39:41):
platforming happens now isdifferent than back in the day
and it it feels different.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Can I take that idea and raise you one, Marcus Sure?
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Throw the chip in.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
I can't believe we just did gambling lingo on my
show Wait.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
So Stop what Our show .
Wait, stop what Our show.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
That's a good correction.
I accept everything you justdid, marcus, and I apologize.
I actually prefer Super MarioBrothers 1 and 3 from the NES to
playing the new Super MarioBrothers games that launched on
the Wii and the Wii U and youcan play them on the Switch now.
It feels to me like both Marioand Luigi are on skates in a
(40:27):
very icy world in those newergames and all of my instincts
for how to control Mario andLuigi on those older games like
they slide, like they slidedifferent, they stop different,
they jump different heights andthe mechanics of keeping them
(40:48):
alive to me feel better thanwhatever they've done to
transform and update it formodern console and modern game
player sensibilities.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Did you ever play Mario Wonder For 30 minutes?
Speaker 1 (41:00):
yes, it's so good, I agree.
Did you ever play Mario WonderFor 30 minutes?
Yes, it's so good, I agree.
I still only played it for 30minutes.
Then that wasn't that good.
There was a lot going on in mylife at the time.
It's one of those games that'sa casualty of me trying to
become an author.
(41:20):
And I did become an author, youdid, I didn, you did.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, what's?
Speaker 2 (41:29):
your book called you're being so ridiculous the
gamer's journey, thank you, butI didn't play.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
I didn't play super mario brothers wonder because I
was buried by where the book wasat the time.
So it's one of those gameswhere I own it.
I know I own it.
I know it's there waiting forme.
I never I same thing.
Same exact thing happened toastrobot for me, marcus, I need
to make time to play astrobotand so why don't you play it?
(41:54):
You stream, just put it onbecause of the thing like how
many people want to who gives ashit?
Speaker 2 (41:59):
astrobots?
Time is over.
Who cares not?
Speaker 1 (42:02):
every game is john cena and can say their time is
now for 20 years why not?
Speaker 2 (42:06):
it's your game for right now.
If people don't listen, ifpeople don't come to watch you
play astrobot, then that's theirloss.
That is true it would.
You can't stream a game justbecause you're afraid somebody's
not going to show up.
If somebody doesn't want towatch, you play Astro Bot, which
is going to take you twostreams to beat or three streams
(42:26):
to beat, like who cares?
Play for you, man.
Like all the big streamers andcontent creators, they play
whatever the hell they want andyou come if you come.
If you don't, then don't.
And is it really going to hurtyou if 50 people don't come
because they don't want to watchyou do you get?
Ah, see, this is where I getdown and dirty.
(42:47):
You're.
Are you getting paid more moneyif 50 people are watching you
or 100 people are watching you?
No, it's you.
Play it for you because youwant to play it.
I challenge you to play itmarcus.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Then the question becomes do I actually want to
play Astro Bot?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
I think you just did, because you just made a face
and you were like cringing Ijust need to make time.
So either you're talkingbullshit to yourself or you
actually want to play the game.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Oh my gosh.
So now we have this amazingtopic on the table of without Dr
Gamology, who is Daniel?
Right?
That is such a big part of thisconversation of why haven't you
played Astro Bot?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
No, it's not, it's just your, your.
I understand you have thestreamer viewer worry.
If I'm not playing the gamethat people are used to me
playing, are they going to watchme?
But you got to just do itbecause if you don't, you'll
never play a game and you'regoing to get into the prison
trap like I got into.
You know, what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
You're the ghost of Christmas future, trying to save
me from myself.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
And how about this?
How about if you stream AstroBot and you make it a mental
health thing and you like findout what the hype is about and
like how it makes you feel,because I'm sure there's some
spots of that game that aredifficult and you talk about
that, it could be a great mentalhealth minute or moment.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah, I need to get back to doing those dependably,
like predictably too.
I just have dropped that as afeature.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
But that's okay, you don't need to.
But my point is you should playthe game you want, especially
an astrobot.
An astrobot's, not an mmo.
That's going to take you 90hours.
You're going to play astrobot.
You're going to play 5, 10, 15hours, whatever that may be, and
it's over and you, I playedastrobot, and then you're back
to your regularly scheduledprogram or maybe you move on to
Detroit, become Human or someother mental health game.
(44:42):
You know what I mean.
Like you got to just do it,because if you don't do it,
you're going to always have thatgame in the background that you
want to play but you won't.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Like Mass Effect.
Oh it's so good.
I know it's so good, but I'm inthe same boat right, oh, it's
so good.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
I know it's so good, but I'm in the same boat, right?
So I bought the Mass EffectLegendary Edition and Mass
Effect 2 is, hands down, myfavorite game.
It took me years to come tothat conclusion.
Mass Effect 2 is my favoritegame of all time and I want to
play Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3.
I know how many hours it'sgoing to take.
I probably won't finish it.
(45:21):
But I don't even want to play agame unless I'm playing Elden
Ring, because I don't want toquit Elden Ring.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, I also need to finish the Shadow of the Erd
Tree.
Since our last episode I didcomplete Final Fantasy VII
Rebirth.
So as far as things that I wantto do in my gaming life, I'm
making progress.
As far as things I'm doing inmy professional life, I'm making
progress.
It's just a process.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
And speaking of Final Fantasy Rebirth, I saw the
Final Fantasy Orchestra play in.
Boston.
Oh man, I'm so jealous it'scoming to Tampa, you better go
Buy your tickets.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
It's.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 14 mixed.
That's going to be rad, butanyway, it was so cool how they
did all of they had I'm going tocall it like a melody where
it's like a bunch of differentlike terrain, like riding the
chocobos through and all thatchocobo music, and then like
(46:28):
battle scenes and like the setharoth fight and it was wild and
it was so on a ps1.
I have not played the finalfantasy.
I started remake again.
(46:48):
It's on the playstation 5 and Ican't sit down to play it
because elden ring is stillthere and it's bothering me and
at the same time it's hard forme to turn Elden Ring on because
I know I'm just going to dieand get frustrated.
Oh, you're deadlocked.
Yeah, it's just the way it goes.
(47:09):
It's the way the cookiecrumbles.
Have you tried rolling.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
I get that a lot, I get that a lot, I get that a lot
, but now it's talking to myself, because I don't stream for an
audience anymore and have thatextra weight on my shoulders.
Yeah, that's true.
It's a whole other level ofholding it together.
If you need to do it in frontof the people, if you let the
(47:43):
people feel that is an extraweight, which I don't think I
had.
That on sunday.
It just felt like havingfriends that wanted to see me
get there.
It was really nice that's notelden ring, though, but the
difficulty made it feel like anelden ring fight for sure, but
that's because of who you are.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Me people know that I get cranked up and I oh, that
game makes me mad.
Funny elden ring story is Iwent and somebody's I haven't.
I don't use summons,everybody's.
Do you have the mimicked here?
I'm like, oh, yeah, I beat themimic.
They're like no, that's not howyou get the mimicked here.
Oh, how do you get the mimictier, show me.
(48:21):
And I went online, opened up mylive on Discord and I showed
them.
They're like yeah, you don'thave the mimic tier.
Oh, how do you get it?
You got to go do this and this.
I thought I did that.
Nope, you got to go back andI'm like listen, I've done this
without a summon all this way.
I don't know if I want to cheat.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
It's not cheating, Marcus.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
I beat Margit and Godric with summons and I felt
like I didn't.
I just stood in the back anddidn't have to do shit have to
do shit.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Yeah, that's because when you raid, you're not a dps
and you don't see how valuableit is to be able to stand in the
back and do your damage fromrange like that but I don't have
range, I use a sword then youdon't know what it's like for
someone else to be your tank.
yes, marcus, all the boss fightsthat we beat in Star Wars, the
Old Republic I never once hadthe thought of man, I'm such a
(49:26):
lame-ass Sith sorcerer.
I only won that because theboss was looking at Marcus the
whole time.
Oh wait, because it wasn'tlooking at Marcus the whole time
, because I was pulling the bossoff of him.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Ah, Maybe in the beginning, at the beginning,
until I got good.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
You remember when the other tank got really upset at
me for having my opener down.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, do you remember it took us months to beat a
hard mode boss?
Speaker 1 (49:59):
I do remember that Dread Fortress man months to
beat a hard mode boss.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
I do remember that dread fortress man.
Dread fortress, yeah he, youare not allowed to win marcus he
collects his toll in blood,blood worse if you didn't play
that mmo.
The last 45 seconds went overyour head, but that's okay, I'm
fine with that yeah, but if youhave, if you play mmos and you
(50:30):
haven't played star wars, theold republic, you're doing
yourself really a disservice.
Download the game and play it,because it is actually
unbelievable and you do get somuch stuff for free.
I'm being really honest andtransparent.
Whether I play it a lot now ornot, I played this shit out of
that game for a long time.
Doc wrote a dissertation aboutit.
(50:51):
It's that good brought to youby broad sword entertainment.
This episode is hey, that'sokay.
I love jackie, love musco, andpapa keith is awesome, like the
team.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Yeah, I know thank everyone for your support over
there for my dissertation.
My professors were in awe ofthat.
I was so over the moon whenthose numbers started coming in,
(51:27):
and that's because of you andTio deciding there's something
in me that's worth saying yeah,help this guy out.
And you helped me also begin mypodcaster journey, and the
gaming persona exists and iswhat it is because of the three
years that I was on a teeny cast.
There is no way to slice that adifferent way.
It's true, and you have beenone of my very best friends and
(51:51):
I hope you hear this episodesomeday, but if you don't,
everything I said is still true.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Continue the journey.
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.
(00:20):
Now.
And we're live.
I'm untying a hockey skate.
Continue the journey now.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
And we're live.
I'm untying a hockey skate,thank you.
Thank you for the delay.
Usually, I started off and Ididn't today, and I was seeing
what you were going to do andyou were like, and we're live.
And you were silenced likeMarcus, why aren't you talking?
And I'm unlacing a hockey skate.
I had the most interestinggaming week ever, oh really,
(00:49):
yeah, so you got to listen tothis.
So I've been playing elden ringand I'm in the mountain tops of
the giants oh, that's such agood area.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
How are you liking it ?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
it's.
It's definitely hard.
The last time when I last shutit off, I was at I got to the
urge tree avatar and I wasfighting it.
All of a sudden the second oneshowed up and I was like, oh no,
this is not gonna be good and Idied because the second one
came over and slammed me withits hammer and I was just like,
okay, I need to think about thisand that was probably three
(01:21):
days ago.
But that's not the interestinggaming point.
The interesting gaming is Ihave found like myself, before
I've been going to bed I've beenwatching people play old video
games, like last night I watcheda guy live play tetris whoa and
(01:43):
it was like a video on YouTube,right, it was just like of
their like old live stream.
But I found it to be sotherapeutic because I remember
playing it as a kid and I wasalways like, only if I could
play it at level 99 speed.
Wow, that's intense too, becauseyou make so many extra mistakes
(02:06):
when you speed it up like thatand it was like I don't want to
say it was called like, it waslike a speed run, but like I'm
finding like people playingthese old games super relaxing
and I'll watch it for five orten minutes before I go to bed
and it's only been like threedays, but intertwined with our
topic of the week, which istalking about, like, why people
play old video games versus thenew video games.
(02:27):
And it's an interesting topicbecause I just found myself it's
you know what, what's it calledASMR is.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
Oh, of course I do.
Let me just rub my microphoneand make everyone have weird
feelings during the podcast.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Okay, exactly, but it's almost for me, it's almost
like an ASMR, because it's superrelaxing to me without the
noises, so you don't want me toput my entire microphone in my
mouth right now.
If you did it, I would love it,because Patreon would see the
video and it would get clippedand sent all over the internet.
So I want you to do it.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
Oh my gosh, I don't want to do it now, because then
there's implications on what DrK does when he's not teaching
class.
Dr K is bi-curious everybody.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
But anyway, whoa.
So I guess the point I'm tryingto make is it brought me back
because, like on one side I'mplaying a lot of Elden Ring and
I've also I watched somebodyplay Mega man 3.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Oh, wow.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
That's like going back at least to nes, right?
Yes, yeah, yeah, wow.
Now I don't know if they wereplaying it on like the nes or
they were playing it like on theswitch through, because if you
have switch online, you can playall the nes games on there.
They have it so you can streamit.
So I'm not sure which is which,but it's one of those things
where I thought it was so cool.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (03:49):
Yeah, because those games did not exist as new
during the era of streaminggames.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
So when you get to see footage of someone playing
at a high, masterful level,there is a novelty to that, even
though the game may be 40 yearsold at this point you know
that's a great point when, backwhen I played the game, back
when I played the game, therewas no way to watch somebody
else play it unless they were inyour living room exactly, yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So the internet has unlocked all kinds of social
potentialities for us that wetake for granted, because we're
playing games here in 2025 andwe all have whatever year it is
where it's like.
I became a gamer in 19,whatever, or 2000, whatever, but
the online environment isconstantly giving us new ways to
(04:41):
interact with each other, andthat changes the psychology of
what we become when we playgames.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
There it is.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Like we said in, just kidding.
Speaker 1 (04:55):
Oh my gosh, I thought you were going to make my week
so easy for editing.
On the topic of Tetris, though,it's really exciting for me to
hear you bring up that game forthis topic in this episode,
because one of the mostinfluential books in my journey
of learning about gamepsychology before I started
being a voice in it was by JaneMcGonigal is broken and how
(05:21):
video games can help save theworld, and her example of what
defines something as a videogame.
She used Tetris, if I remembercorrectly, as the pure example
for what a video game is, and soyou use the concept of having a
goal, having rules, havingfeedback and participation is
(05:44):
voluntary.
Those are the four requiredelements of playing a game, and
in my book I actually used aimage that was a hybrid mixture
of generic Mortal Kombat andStreet Fighter visuals to
explain this, because you havethe health bar, you have the two
characters getting ready tofight.
You have the health bar, youhave the two characters gang
(06:05):
ready to fight, you have thecommand fight in the middle of
the screen and, of course, theperson holding those controllers
is playing voluntarily, and somortal kombat and street fighter
go back a long time in ourhistory too, but tetris is even
more pure than those gamesbecause you play it alone and it
(06:26):
creates psychological flow forthe player, so that your psyche
merges with the activity soperfectly when you're playing a
game like Tetris.
That's correct.
Yay, I got all points fromProfessor Marcus.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
But you're right because, if you think back, like
, tetris was the first game toever come out for the game boy
is it?
Speaker 1 (06:50):
oh my gosh, that's a neat trivia question.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
If it's true, I don't actually know so if tetris is
the first game, that really wasthe pave, the way for the future
, kind of a thing.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
You know what I mean and we're talking about the game
boy.
In an era where my primary waysof playing games is the steam
deck and the playstation portal,that's wild to me yeah, you're
at that point where you'refinding the convenience of
gaming.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
You're finding the convenience of gaming when it's
handheld right, where I'm nowfinding the convenience of
gaming, when it's handheld Right, where I'm now finding the
convenience of gaming, of couchgaming.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Yeah, when I say the majority of my gameplay is
handheld, that's actually a lie.
The majority of my gameplay ison Twitch, followed by handheld,
followed by the couch.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
The couch is the one that I could actually go the
entire week and not even do itbecause, yes, I understand, but
for me it's always been, as longas I can remember, it's been a
computer, except when, obviously, when I was a kid, it's always
been the the computer like Ilove.
There's nothing better thansitting at your computer,
(08:04):
putting on your headset and justgoing into your own world and
playing whatever, whatever saidgame that is I have a really
tragic rebuttal to that idea inthe case yeah, tragedy is about
to end the episode, here we go.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
Yep, we're gonna get the eeyore, doom and gloom,
winnie the Pooh style going here.
Oh boy, when I'm at my computer, my brain does this thing,
where I start thinking aboutwork or content creation.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
No, you're not wrong at that.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yeah.
So in terms of my contentcareer journey, dr Gamology is a
lot of fun.
But Dr Gamology is tied intoone of my work roles and I have
tied it into the other work role.
So if I'm sitting at mycomputer I might turn on my PS5
and I might open the capturecard and have my controller.
(09:00):
It's right, here I have my PS5controller always here so I
might play, but usually the playis not for a purely and only
for a sense of fun, and I missthat.
I'm just going to call myselfout.
That is not the right way forme to live my life.
I have some changes I have tomake.
Speaker 2 (09:22):
Okay, so I'm going to go one step further, man, we're
going to talk about games, butI think this is going deeper
back when I streamed, and Istreamed for years and I loved
it.
And at the end, towards the endof my streaming stuff, I missed
turning on a game.
To play a game.
Yeah, I felt always if I'mgoing to play a game, I have to
(09:51):
do it in front of people.
It was just in my mind I'mthinking like, oh my god, I have
to do this with people.
I need to like what would theaudience think, and it was.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
And that's the kiss of death, marcus oh, but it's
the truth.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
When you stream, it becomes I don't want to say an
addiction, but it becomes thatpoint in your life where you're
everything is for the clip oreverything is for the viewer.
And I stopped in the end of mycontent creation.
Look at streaming now as muchas I love it, but I look at it
(10:20):
more as a prison sentence.
Ooh, that is a fun metaphor,because if you're married to a
schedule, you need to be on time.
People count on you to be thereMonday, wednesday, friday at
1030 at night or whatever thatis.
They're counting on you at thattime.
(10:42):
And if you're not there, sure,sure you can take the day off,
but at the end of the day, ifyou're not there and that
happens a couple times and thennoob1234 is a brand new streamer
and they're playing the samegame they go over there.
They may never come back.
So it's oh, am I gonna lose aviewer and this and that?
And sure these giant contentcreators?
They don't care, becauseasmongold has 51,000 people
(11:06):
watching him at all times, solike he doesn't really care
about the one viewer not comingor going, but like to the small
time streamers who have beenstreaming and grinding, who have
10, 5, 20, 50, 100 viewers,five people don't start to not
come, who are chatters.
You start to notice that.
Speaker 1 (11:25):
That's absolutely true.
Sometimes it works a little bitdifferently.
We had a time change a coupleof weeks ago In fact, this might
be our first recording sincethe time change and, as a result
, I have been really strugglingwith hitting my 9 am start times
on the two days where that'swhat I've taught my community to
(11:45):
expect.
Lucky for me, I'm a professorin Arizona, and do you know why
that is?
A is a quirky element of mystart time, marcus.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Because they don't have daylight savings time.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
Because they do not have daylight savings time.
So my 9 am start used to be 7am, so people could turn on my
stream when they're driving towork or after they do their
morning shower.
They might have some work fromhome.
It's very easy to turn on astream at 8 am, but for me it's
10 am.
I started missing those peoplebecause they're not going to
(12:21):
wake up at 6 am to watch me,even if they are awake at 6 am.
So what happened today?
I had to sleep in, I was notfeeling good this morning and I
actually started my stream after11.
And boom, all the people thathave been missing me because of
this time change showed up andmore people showed up and some
(12:42):
of the advertising things thatwe're doing.
Oh nice, you finished lacing itup.
Marcus just finished lacing uphis hockey gear, his what do we
call them Skate?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Oh, my God.
Speaker 1 (12:54):
Yeah, I don't play your sports puck.
Speaker 2 (12:56):
Sports puck.
I like that I was going to say,sports balls, Anyway.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
So my point is, in principle, losing five people
when you're a small streambecause you missed your target
starting time.
That is a real thing.
But sometimes you find newpeople by messing with your
schedule and then the old peoplestill show up and you end up
almost doubling your viewership,which, luckily for me, is what
(13:22):
happened this morning.
So thank you.
Everyone who got your coffeeand chose to hang out with me is
what happened this morning.
So thank you everyone who gotyour coffee and chose to hang
out with me gaming in FinalFantasy 14.
It was so much fun, so I'mnothing without all of you.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Yeah and that's, and so you're making my point is
that's, but that's contentcreation.
And it got to the point for mewhere I was just and I'm not
even being negative still tothis day.
I love streaming, but I wouldwant, I wouldn't want to play
games unless I was live.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Yeah, I felt like that many times.
In fact, I have ended up noteven playing certain games
because of the worry of will myaudience care about me playing
this game?
And then by the time, I decidethat, okay, I don't care about
that anymore.
I'm super motivated to play it,but now it's not the hot topic,
and so you might go live doingthis game that you've been on
(14:16):
the fence about for two weeks,but it's old news and you don't
get anyone to watch you becausethe people that know you for
playing one or two other gamesthey're like oh, I don't need to
check that out.
And then the people that wereexcited about this new game they
found their people that they'realready invested in, and I have
(14:37):
done this to myself so manytimes, marcus.
Oh yeah, and you're not the onlyone Right this is actually a
phenomenon that many streamersalmost every streamer runs into
at least once.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Yep, that's what I'm saying.
So you're just finding yourgroove, and for me it was the
straw that broke the camel'sback.
Speaker 1 (15:07):
Yeah, I'm still thinking about this metaphor of
streaming being a prisonsentence and I'm wondering if
hate raids are like gettingshivved, or leaving your viewer
counter up is like dropping thesoap.
I don't really know that muchabout prison, but I think we
could use this down the line.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
I look at people that hate raid as just people who
are unhappy with themselves andthey want to make somebody else
feel bad.
Oh, that's true, you know.
But moving past that, right, Ithink that playing an old video
game brings you back to whatevertime, back to like whatever
(15:49):
happy time you might have had asa kid or as a young adult, and
that's why so many games, oldgames, are played.
Older games are played becausethey were saying I saw a study
that more old games are beingplayed more than the new AAA
games, and it said that peopleare preferring to play the older
(16:13):
games versus the newer gamesand game companies can't
understand why.
I kind of laugh at that.
Yeah, because maybe your gamejust sucks yeah and they?
I don't.
I can see a point.
(16:33):
It's all nostalgia, right.
There's a reason why skyrim isone of the most played video
games.
It's because it's so good andpeople love it and you can
change the game.
You can put your face on everycharacter in the game because of
modding.
You know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah.
Mods turn games.
Evergreen for sure.
In fact, I think people havemodded Morrowind into Skyrim or
something like that.
So that's also just thecreativity of the gaming
community can take an old gameand make it alive in a way, 20
(17:13):
years after release, that thegame devs never intended.
And as long as you're notselling the mods and doing
things that infringe oncopyright, that's usually fair
game, and sometimes the gamestudios actually support mods
like that, like in Fallout.
People creating Fallout Londonis a really great example.
Speaker 2 (17:33):
Wait, is that really a?
Speaker 1 (17:34):
thing, yeah.
So people loved Fallout 4 somuch with the game engine and
the updates and what the gameplayed like, and someone built
what is London going to looklike in the world of Fallout and
made it a completely fan-madeexpansion project.
Speaker 2 (17:51):
So you're just adding .
You're proving my point rightnow.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
Absolutely.
I did something that I did nothave on my bingo card last
episode.
Ooh, tell me.
Oh, you already know, even ifyou don't realize you do.
I was doing something verysurprising to me on Tuesday
night, Marcus.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Oh, I know what that is now.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
So one of our best friends in our gaming community,
marcus Doritos 95,000, decidedto tell me give me the inside
scoop last week, said Doc, youshould start playing Star Wars
the Old Republic again.
Sorry, I haven't done that yet,but the rest of the message was
(18:35):
because the final episode ofUtini cast is next week.
So I picked up my phone.
I texted Chill from Utinicast,who has been the lead host of
that show for 15 plus years.
Wow, that's insane, right,isn't it?
Yeah, so I had a master'sdegree the first time that Chill
(19:04):
did an episode of Utinicastwith Tio, and for those of you
that are new to the show, Idon't talk about this every
episode.
It's very possible you don'tknow this about me.
My original creator name is notDr Gamology, it's Dr Swotor.
Exactly, my dissertationresearch was in 2016 is when I
(19:27):
collected the data, and it wason player personality and
motivation styles for Star Warsthe Old Republic players.
So when I got my doctorate anddefended my dissertation, I
changed my name and announcedAnu Tdcast.
My streaming name movingforward is going to be Dr Swotor
, and the reason I didn't streambefore that moment is because I
(19:50):
didn't want to meet all kindsof people and build personal
relationships in the game andthen have my professors say that
I tampered with my data.
And then have my professors saythat I tampered with my data.
So I stayed pretty much a soloplayer with only my in-person
(20:12):
friend group in Star Wars, theOld Republic for the first five
years of playing the game, andthen I only allowed myself to be
more public and accessible onceI ended up guest starring on an
episode of Utini cast.
So Star Wars the old Republicis an MMO.
That is the reason that Marcusand I met as well, so it's a
(20:33):
huge part of the DNA of ourgaming persona show.
Now.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
But I'm going to back up to before.
You guessed it on the lastepisode of the show.
And when you talk about fullcircle, right, excuse me, when
you talk about full circle ofthings, that's full circle.
(21:01):
Your content creation journeystarted with Utteni cast and it
ended.
You ended the last show withthem.
That's a full circle.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
And we talk about if we miss a week of the show or
whatever.
Or I just went through it withending working class nerds.
But can you imagine how it'sgoing to feel for chill three
weeks from now?
You know, the first week,you're relieved to have not
podcasting.
Second week, oh yeah.
(21:37):
Third week, wow, thatmicrophone is just sitting in
the office doing nothing maybeas zoom calls, we don't know
yeah, but it's different.
I guess.
Saying like it's just I can'teven imagine.
I can imagine what it's like,but you're talking about like
(21:58):
the 15 years man nick and I didour podcast for almost eight and
that's that's almost doubleyeah, this show is at five, but
I did take half a year off lastyear, so which?
Is good.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Sometimes you gotta do it, but my point is, he has
never taken time off yeah, itwas a really cool series of
moments for me too, because,marcus, the hero's journey has
three large stages that all havesmaller stages inside them.
But the last leg of that cycleis the return, and I like how
(22:44):
you connected me being on thatfinal episode with coming full
circle, because I was able toreturn and I'm very different
than I was when I left, whichthat's also what happens to the
hero in the hero's journey aswell, is you never get to return
if you're the same person.
(23:04):
It's whiny Luke on Tatooing andthen mandalorian, season two
luke yeah, 100 I just like tothink that's the luke that I am.
I might be the last jedi lukefor most of the day, though yeah
(23:27):
, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
I can't ever see you throwing a lightsaber over your
shoulder Fuck.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Robinson.
Okay, not the way that he didit, because that was like a
weird Saturday Night Live joke,but there are so many versions
of a saber toss that I thinkwould have worked better there.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
But we're not, we're not, we are not.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
No, we're not.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Can I ask you a?
Speaker 1 (23:48):
question you can, let's do it.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
What do you got?
Do you know about the Mandelaeffect?
Speaker 1 (23:54):
I do know about the.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Mandela effect.
Okay, I think.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
And I remember it happening in reality very
clearly.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Okay, so I think that the Mandela effect happened
right as the Last Jedi wascoming out, and it changed the
movie for us in our timelinebecause it was so bad, that's
how it altered all of Star Wars.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Now, yeah for me.
Oh my gosh, we're talking theLast Jedi on our episode.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
And I love it.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
It's all Chill's fault because I came so close to
accidentally going there onUtinii cast.
Wow, there's.
I don't really want to lose ourtopic to talk about, Can I so?
Speaker 2 (24:39):
can I just tell you?
I asked, I told you when youand I decided we were going to
team up.
I told you, I warned you that,look at, we can start the show
with a topic, but there's a 90%chance that I'm going to fuck it
up and we are going to go on acomplete sidebar and then say to
the audience we're sorry, wedidn't talk about that game, but
(25:01):
we had a great discussion aboutthe Last Jedi.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Here's the thing I really want to start doing a
community movie night in discord, and if I do that, the first
movie that I want to do is thephantom menace do you want to
put people to sleep?
No, the phantom menace is great.
Marcus trade routes the bestokay.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
So listen, the best part of all of the phantom
menace is at last we will revealourselves to the jedi.
At last we will have revenge.
Best part of the movie rightthere, boom done, it's over.
Roll credits like you getsidious and you get Maul and
it's over, like that.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
You watch the Phantom Menace so that you can watch
Attack of the Clones, so thatyou can watch.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Revenge of the Sith Anakin and Padme fall in love.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
I love watching Anakin and Padme fall in love.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
I do too, especially with the fork and the apple.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
The CG apple is totally suspended in the air in
front of him.
Speaker 2 (26:10):
The point I'm trying to make, doc, is we don't have
to have the topic be the topic,because we're having a better
discussion.
I am a very open platform kindof guy and you're a very
scheduled guy and when ourpowers combine, we're not
captain planet, we're just docand Marcus in the gaming persona
podcast.
Okay, I want to go back to starMarcus in the.
Speaker 1 (26:29):
Gaming Persona podcast.
Okay, I want to go back to StarWars, the Old Republic then.
All right, I played that gamefor a very long time.
It was my first MMO, so we'retalking about why do people play
old games?
And then I get the chance tohelp chill, wrap it up and say
some very sentimental things andsay some very sentimental
things and all the names in thechat for Moutini Guilds that I
(26:51):
used to be so used tointeracting with like old
friends that I get to hang outwith one more time on Twitch and
I had a lot of nostalgicfeelings even going through
Wednesday after recording that.
Speaker 2 (27:08):
I bet.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
And it was really nice and I think that the reason
that was on my mind for thisepisode the on-topic part of the
episode anyway is nostalgicfeelings are a guarantee that
you're going to be safe inassuming you will have a good
(27:29):
time.
It is why we need a live-actionMoana movie coming out very
soon for all the people that areworried that they might
accidentally go to the movies inNovember and see a movie they
hate and they just rememberenjoying Moana in November a
decade ago.
Do we need live action Moana?
(27:52):
I do not think we do, but thatmovie is for the movie viewer
the same as playing a very oldgame.
Again, there's no secrets,there's no surprises.
It just looks to your eyes theway you remembered it, in a way
that feels right now.
(28:13):
So that's kind of like remakesinstead of playing the retro
version.
Speaker 2 (28:17):
But I think it's worth including in this
conversation I believe that mmosare the ultimate video game,
because a they don't end, andexcept when they shut the
servers down, obviously.
But my point is the an mmo issomething that never ends, right
(28:40):
you can put.
The people have been playingstar wars, the old republic, for
15 years, or 12 years, 13 years, 14 years, whatever that may be
.
And the point I'm trying tomake with that is people have
done the same stories over andover and over again, because
there's always people to playwith.
I have been a few times lately.
(29:01):
I've been doing world bosseswith Doritos and Intisar and all
of that, and it's been a lot offun.
And gone are the days aboutworrying about do I have the
best gear, rather than hangingout with old friends.
You haven't heard their voicesin a long time and sometimes
(29:23):
that is more important thangrinding.
Yeah, and I think back to thisweek, me going on the switch
online Cause we were talkingabout this and I played F zero.
Do you remember that game onsuper Nintendo?
(29:44):
Show me your moves.
Yeah, so I played the snot outof that and I played it this
week and it made me rememberbeing a kid, playing that on
Christmas and running over thoselike the track dots that
electrocute your car and slowyou down.
(30:06):
Let me remember being a kid andlike those days are obviously
gone.
Right, I'm not crying that Iwant to go back, but my point is
it was just that feel-goodmoment, or when you hear a good
song that you remember and itgives you a little bit of
goosebumps because you're like,fuck yeah, I remember when this
shit came out.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Yeah, yeah.
It's why every time I'm at thegrocery store and they're
playing like n-sync and britneyspears, and it's oh my gosh I'm
old.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
Yeah, I'm old, I'm officially old, but no, I guess
the topic or the question waswhy are old games played more
than the new ones?
And I think it's because peopledon't want any bullshit.
People are sick of all of thebullshit that comes out with a
new game, cause the new game iscoming out March 1st, but two
(31:00):
weeks before there's a thousandreviews for it and people are
saying it's trash, rather thanbefore.
It didn't matter.
There was nobody coming out andsaying this game sucks, like
you had to wait for euro game orwhatever.
What was the game?
Facts gamer, pc gamer to giveit a review on the?
And it didn't matter becauseyou already ordered it, you
(31:22):
pre-ordered that shit yeah andit didn't matter.
Speaker 1 (31:26):
You played the the game and if it sucked, you were
like fuck, I made a $50 or $60mistake that I'm more planned
and structured and you're morespontaneous and that's our
(31:47):
personality types and I knowthat because you gave me your
data in my dissertation researchway back in the day.
But I'm glad you recognize mybrilliance now, here in the
present.
But let's talk about anotherway that we're completely
different.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Wait stop, I got a needle Hold on, I just had to
pop the ball a let's get moreasmr going, all right.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
So, marcus, let's talk about another way that
we're incredibly different.
Okay, when is the last timethat you looked at a video game
and your reaction was like goddamn, this is the best looking
video game I have ever seen?
All the time, okay, I do nothave that thought ever, ever
(32:38):
like it, does not?
It's like the differencebetween a taster that has three
times the amount of taste budson their tongue versus me.
I really don't taste anything,which is why I like spicy foods
and can survive anything thatends up in my mouth, because my
mouth is not reacting to it.
Okay, you have that in youreyeballs with video games.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I don't have that.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
Okay, there we go.
I am able to survive, with allmy senses being all but dead,
and your senses are veryimportant for you being an
effective human being.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yeah, let me ask you a question what game did we both
, elden Ring?
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Elden Ring.
It is beautiful and I know, uphere in my brain I'm pointing at
my brain I know it's beautiful.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
I know, but you never rode torrent to a giant field
or like to the edge of the waterand just stopped, got off the
horse and just looked around atthe waves or like the grass
moving or the trees, likeactually didn't play the game
didn't just exploring motivation, discovery motivation like just
appreciating the environment.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Yes, I have done that , but I'm not doing it in a way
that is in awe of how this gamecompares to other games.
I could play jedi survivor andthen final fantasy 14 in elden
ring, and I don't see thedifference.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
So do you remember the game Tomb Raider when it
first came out?
The new ones, the new yeah, Iplayed them recently.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah, I love that trilogy.
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Okay.
So I remember when it firstcame out and I had a really good
graphics card and I had ashitty one when I first got it
and then I upgraded and I couldput it on ultra and I could see
Laura Croft's individual hairlike waving in the wind and I
literally died, you could,marcus.
I literally died three timesbecause I was in awe of how
(34:32):
beautiful the game was.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
And that is not something that I like.
That would never happen to me.
That's my point.
But I do know, looking at thosegames, that those games are
made to look beautiful.
And, by the way, when I playedShadow of the Tomb Raider on
Steam on my PC, the one time itturned my desktop computer into
(34:56):
a desk fan, right Like it was asloud as if I had a fan during
summertime turned on and Ilooked at that I was like my
steam deck doesn't even do that.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
I think I'm gonna just play this on the steam deck
because that cannot be good formy computer it's not that it's
bad, it's just that it's yoursystem is working, it's
rendering a lot and yourgraphics card is fucking working
, and I don't want it to work.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
I want it to just be like chill and relaxed and let
me do my work Then you betterplay Star Wars the Old Republic.
That's right.
All right, if we're talkingabout where does the value of a
game come from?
For someone like me, it is notthe visuals, and I believe the
CEOs they're looking at whytheir games underperform and are
(35:43):
confused because, a most of thetime CEOs don't actually do a
lot of the work and end upactually being idiots, but B I
think the thing that helps CEOsearn the most money being at the
top of a studio that createsvideo games are not the things
that video game players actuallywant.
Okay, I did something prettycool this week as well.
(36:06):
That is not a tini cast was onmy stream.
I fought sephiroth and jenovafor five hours on sunday marcus
and I completed dynamicdifficulty.
It was like a five-stage bossfight and it took me five hours
to complete the fifth stage.
So all the stages.
(36:28):
I wasn't on the fifth stage forfive hours, but I was on the
fifth stage for two and a half.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Sure.
Speaker 1 (36:35):
Okay, it was a big accomplishment in the list of
things I've ever done as a videogame player.
And by the end of that I havesome former students.
I have some colleagues andpeers that do mental health
counseling that watch now.
I have my game community peoplethat know me as Dr Gameology as
well.
So I have a wide range ofpeople from all the parts of my
(36:57):
life watching this and they'rejust talking to me as I don't
give up.
We got the John Cena towelnever give up.
And I earned that towel righton Sunday and I did not give up.
And they were just saying, doc,you are a very different gamer
than me.
I would not be able to handlethis and things like that, like
you are showing us.
(37:17):
The definition of perseveranceis one of my other favorite chat
messages from Sunday.
And that game, I know, isbeautiful, okay, and when I see
it I know it with my eyes too.
But that game has a flaw in myopinion, and that is too much
bloated mini game activities andside quests much bloated mini
(37:45):
game activities and side quests.
It is a 50 hour game in themain story that balloons up to
85 or 90 on your firstplaythrough and it's not 40
extra hours of things that Ifelt like I actually want to do.
I did them because I wanted aspecific cutscene event to
happen.
Okay, and so if I'm looking atthe CEO for Square Enix and I'm
(38:09):
looking at how that game gotpublished and they're wondering,
why didn't this sellgangbusters on PS5?
Because the moment the gamereleased, the narrative became
this game is going to force youto play some bloated, lame
minigame activities that youdon't actually want to play,
when all you want to do is helpCloud, tifa, aerith Barret and
(38:31):
the gang defeat Sephiroth andsave the world.
And if you want that experience, play the PS1 version, because
you can play the entire story,not just part two of a
three-part story, in 30 hours.
It just looks like a ps1 gamebut it's so much better yeah,
(38:53):
you can.
The ps1 game is timeless.
It's a classic game, but it'sit's really okay.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
So it's really hard for me to play an old game.
They're clunky.
What we're talking abouttonight, though, yeah, but I'm
saying like, if you have anopportunity to play a new
version of the game and you goback, it's not easy.
Like playing super mariobrothers one, it's hard because
of the d-pad and, like jumping,the mechanic is different.
(39:18):
We've been trained for so longwith the greatest xbox
controllers ever and the shittyplaystation controllers that
like that was uncalled for.
Penalty box for marcus fiveminute major but my point is the
it like the pressure sensors inthe controllers, and the way
(39:41):
platforming happens now isdifferent than back in the day
and it it feels different.
Speaker 1 (39:49):
Can I take that idea and raise you one, Marcus Sure?
Speaker 2 (39:53):
Throw the chip in.
Speaker 1 (39:55):
I can't believe we just did gambling lingo on my
show Wait.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
So Stop what Our show .
Wait, stop what Our show.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
That's a good correction.
I accept everything you justdid, marcus, and I apologize.
I actually prefer Super MarioBrothers 1 and 3 from the NES to
playing the new Super MarioBrothers games that launched on
the Wii and the Wii U and youcan play them on the Switch now.
It feels to me like both Marioand Luigi are on skates in a
(40:27):
very icy world in those newergames and all of my instincts
for how to control Mario andLuigi on those older games like
they slide, like they slidedifferent, they stop different,
they jump different heights andthe mechanics of keeping them
(40:48):
alive to me feel better thanwhatever they've done to
transform and update it formodern console and modern game
player sensibilities.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Did you ever play Mario Wonder For 30 minutes?
Speaker 1 (41:00):
yes, it's so good, I agree.
Did you ever play Mario WonderFor 30 minutes?
Yes, it's so good, I agree.
I still only played it for 30minutes.
Then that wasn't that good.
There was a lot going on in mylife at the time.
It's one of those games that'sa casualty of me trying to
become an author.
(41:20):
And I did become an author, youdid, I didn, you did.
I didn't know that.
Yeah, what's?
Speaker 2 (41:29):
your book called you're being so ridiculous the
gamer's journey, thank you, butI didn't play.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
I didn't play super mario brothers wonder because I
was buried by where the book wasat the time.
So it's one of those gameswhere I own it.
I know I own it.
I know it's there waiting forme.
I never I same thing.
Same exact thing happened toastrobot for me, marcus, I need
to make time to play astrobotand so why don't you play it?
(41:54):
You stream, just put it onbecause of the thing like how
many people want to who gives ashit?
Speaker 2 (41:59):
astrobots?
Time is over.
Who cares not?
Speaker 1 (42:02):
every game is john cena and can say their time is
now for 20 years why not?
Speaker 2 (42:06):
it's your game for right now.
If people don't listen, ifpeople don't come to watch you
play astrobot, then that's theirloss.
That is true it would.
You can't stream a game justbecause you're afraid somebody's
not going to show up.
If somebody doesn't want towatch, you play Astro Bot, which
is going to take you twostreams to beat or three streams
(42:26):
to beat, like who cares?
Play for you, man.
Like all the big streamers andcontent creators, they play
whatever the hell they want andyou come if you come.
If you don't, then don't.
And is it really going to hurtyou if 50 people don't come
because they don't want to watchyou do you get?
Ah, see, this is where I getdown and dirty.
(42:47):
You're.
Are you getting paid more moneyif 50 people are watching you
or 100 people are watching you?
No, it's you.
Play it for you because youwant to play it.
I challenge you to play itmarcus.
Speaker 1 (42:58):
Then the question becomes do I actually want to
play Astro Bot?
Speaker 2 (43:02):
I think you just did, because you just made a face
and you were like cringing Ijust need to make time.
So either you're talkingbullshit to yourself or you
actually want to play the game.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
Oh my gosh.
So now we have this amazingtopic on the table of without Dr
Gamology, who is Daniel?
Right?
That is such a big part of thisconversation of why haven't you
played Astro Bot?
Speaker 2 (43:29):
No, it's not, it's just your, your.
I understand you have thestreamer viewer worry.
If I'm not playing the gamethat people are used to me
playing, are they going to watchme?
But you got to just do itbecause if you don't, you'll
never play a game and you'regoing to get into the prison
trap like I got into.
You know, what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
You're the ghost of Christmas future, trying to save
me from myself.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
And how about this?
How about if you stream AstroBot and you make it a mental
health thing and you like findout what the hype is about and
like how it makes you feel,because I'm sure there's some
spots of that game that aredifficult and you talk about
that, it could be a great mentalhealth minute or moment.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Yeah, I need to get back to doing those dependably,
like predictably too.
I just have dropped that as afeature.
Speaker 2 (44:19):
But that's okay, you don't need to.
But my point is you should playthe game you want, especially
an astrobot.
An astrobot's, not an mmo.
That's going to take you 90hours.
You're going to play astrobot.
You're going to play 5, 10, 15hours, whatever that may be, and
it's over and you, I playedastrobot, and then you're back
to your regularly scheduledprogram or maybe you move on to
Detroit, become Human or someother mental health game.
(44:42):
You know what I mean.
Like you got to just do it,because if you don't do it,
you're going to always have thatgame in the background that you
want to play but you won't.
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Like Mass Effect.
Oh it's so good.
I know it's so good, but I'm inthe same boat right, oh, it's
so good.
Speaker 2 (45:00):
I know it's so good, but I'm in the same boat, right?
So I bought the Mass EffectLegendary Edition and Mass
Effect 2 is, hands down, myfavorite game.
It took me years to come tothat conclusion.
Mass Effect 2 is my favoritegame of all time and I want to
play Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3.
I know how many hours it'sgoing to take.
I probably won't finish it.
(45:21):
But I don't even want to play agame unless I'm playing Elden
Ring, because I don't want toquit Elden Ring.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Yeah, I also need to finish the Shadow of the Erd
Tree.
Since our last episode I didcomplete Final Fantasy VII
Rebirth.
So as far as things that I wantto do in my gaming life, I'm
making progress.
As far as things I'm doing inmy professional life, I'm making
progress.
It's just a process.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
And speaking of Final Fantasy Rebirth, I saw the
Final Fantasy Orchestra play in.
Boston.
Oh man, I'm so jealous it'scoming to Tampa, you better go
Buy your tickets.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
It's.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
Final Fantasy 16 and Final Fantasy 14 mixed.
That's going to be rad, butanyway, it was so cool how they
did all of they had I'm going tocall it like a melody where
it's like a bunch of differentlike terrain, like riding the
chocobos through and all thatchocobo music, and then like
(46:28):
battle scenes and like the setharoth fight and it was wild and
it was so on a ps1.
I have not played the finalfantasy.
I started remake again.
(46:48):
It's on the playstation 5 and Ican't sit down to play it
because elden ring is stillthere and it's bothering me and
at the same time it's hard forme to turn Elden Ring on because
I know I'm just going to dieand get frustrated.
Oh, you're deadlocked.
Yeah, it's just the way it goes.
(47:09):
It's the way the cookiecrumbles.
Have you tried rolling.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
I get that a lot, I get that a lot, I get that a lot
, but now it's talking to myself, because I don't stream for an
audience anymore and have thatextra weight on my shoulders.
Yeah, that's true.
It's a whole other level ofholding it together.
If you need to do it in frontof the people, if you let the
(47:43):
people feel that is an extraweight, which I don't think I
had.
That on sunday.
It just felt like havingfriends that wanted to see me
get there.
It was really nice that's notelden ring, though, but the
difficulty made it feel like anelden ring fight for sure, but
that's because of who you are.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
Me people know that I get cranked up and I oh, that
game makes me mad.
Funny elden ring story is Iwent and somebody's I haven't.
I don't use summons,everybody's.
Do you have the mimicked here?
I'm like, oh, yeah, I beat themimic.
They're like no, that's not howyou get the mimicked here.
Oh, how do you get the mimictier, show me.
(48:21):
And I went online, opened up mylive on Discord and I showed
them.
They're like yeah, you don'thave the mimic tier.
Oh, how do you get it?
You got to go do this and this.
I thought I did that.
Nope, you got to go back andI'm like listen, I've done this
without a summon all this way.
I don't know if I want to cheat.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
It's not cheating, Marcus.
Speaker 2 (48:50):
I beat Margit and Godric with summons and I felt
like I didn't.
I just stood in the back anddidn't have to do shit have to
do shit.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Yeah, that's because when you raid, you're not a dps
and you don't see how valuableit is to be able to stand in the
back and do your damage fromrange like that but I don't have
range, I use a sword then youdon't know what it's like for
someone else to be your tank.
yes, marcus, all the boss fightsthat we beat in Star Wars, the
Old Republic I never once hadthe thought of man, I'm such a
(49:26):
lame-ass Sith sorcerer.
I only won that because theboss was looking at Marcus the
whole time.
Oh wait, because it wasn'tlooking at Marcus the whole time
, because I was pulling the bossoff of him.
Speaker 2 (49:38):
Ah, Maybe in the beginning, at the beginning,
until I got good.
Speaker 1 (49:47):
You remember when the other tank got really upset at
me for having my opener down.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
Yeah, do you remember it took us months to beat a
hard mode boss?
Speaker 1 (49:59):
I do remember that Dread Fortress man months to
beat a hard mode boss.
Speaker 2 (50:09):
I do remember that dread fortress man.
Dread fortress, yeah he, youare not allowed to win marcus he
collects his toll in blood,blood worse if you didn't play
that mmo.
The last 45 seconds went overyour head, but that's okay, I'm
fine with that yeah, but if youhave, if you play mmos and you
(50:30):
haven't played star wars, theold republic, you're doing
yourself really a disservice.
Download the game and play it,because it is actually
unbelievable and you do get somuch stuff for free.
I'm being really honest andtransparent.
Whether I play it a lot now ornot, I played this shit out of
that game for a long time.
Doc wrote a dissertation aboutit.
(50:51):
It's that good brought to youby broad sword entertainment.
This episode is hey, that'sokay.
I love jackie, love musco, andpapa keith is awesome, like the
team.
Speaker 1 (51:01):
Yeah, I know thank everyone for your support over
there for my dissertation.
My professors were in awe ofthat.
I was so over the moon whenthose numbers started coming in,
(51:27):
and that's because of you andTio deciding there's something
in me that's worth saying yeah,help this guy out.
And you helped me also begin mypodcaster journey, and the
gaming persona exists and iswhat it is because of the three
years that I was on a teeny cast.
There is no way to slice that adifferent way.
It's true, and you have beenone of my very best friends and
(51:51):
I hope you hear this episodesomeday, but if you don't,
everything I said is still true.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Continue the journey.
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