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This episode of Distractible is presented by Vitamin Water.

Some drinks are fun.

Some drinks are functional.

But Vitamin Water said, why not both?

The Elevate Blue Raspberry.

Actually, very good.

As I'm getting older, I found that I'm a raspberry guy.

They also have zero sugar rehydrate pineapple passion fruit.

As I'm getting older, I'm finding I'm really a pineapple guy.

I'm like Wade, but with apples.

Grab a vitamin water today, copyright 2025, Glasso.

Vitamin Water is a registered trademark of Glasso.

Good evening, gentle listeners or watchers, and welcome to Distractible.

This episode, Malapert Mark asks for altruism.

Garrots, then the guys gabble about gaming.

Watchable Wade has ear excruciation, his flummocks by fecundity, screams at cons, and prophesies an RPG festival future.

Blotchy Bob's bosom is a bulwark.

He waxes hard, digs Dreamcast, but Dogs Doom, and BlizzCon.

from oracle awareness to family massacres

it's time for gaming news

now sit back and prepare to be distracted and enjoy the show

uh hi welcome to distractible bob vanished He was there, and then he evaporated.

And all you viewers

are seeing this.

The listeners, we're not gaslighting you this time.

Bob is gone.

Wait, is it this thing on?

Ah, hey, who clicked record?

I don't know.

It must have been the ghosts.

I'm not even wearing my headphones properly.

I had no idea we were doing this.

You look so different.

I didn't even realize it was you with your headphones half off.

Yeah, the headphones thing just made me realize like how ubiquitous this look is for streamers and stuff and anyone that does content on the internet.

Like, we don't have ears.

When I would do this, yeah, when I did this, everyone's like, oh my god, it doesn't look right.

What the fuck is going on?

We should do an episode where we all just wear earbuds.

And so we don't have.

I look fucking weird on like on camera without the headphones.

I mean, I can do it.

My head is like pointy.

No, no.

See, this is weird.

This is not normal.

This is not.

If I changed these headphones, my videos would fundamentally be different because I've had these for so long.

These have been the headphones that I've used forever.

Why has Incenteiser given me money for that?

Man, I really should, I really should hold that against them.

Missed opportunity.

Hey, audio technica.

I see an opportunity.

And we're always fishing for more opportunities for money.

But that's why this is distractible, the money-focused podcast.

You want to get rich?

Listen to us.

You want to get poor?

Listen to us.

We will guide you on the ups and downs, farther up and farther down than you've ever been in your life.

That's why they call us the Jim Kramer of Comedy Stock Podcasts.

What are those?

For the listeners, Wade just gestured behind him.

Yeah, the numbers, the stock numbers.

Give us some stock numbers, Wade.

Hit them hard.

Oh,

the NOS dock is up 22.

The craft is looking steady.

Would you say craft is mac and cheese right now?

Making cheese.

Making.

Oh, I get it.

I get it.

That was exactly for Wade.

Come on now.

Oh, come on.

I would never tell a joke like that.

I'll give you a half a point for the attempt.

We aren't dowing out yet.

All right.

So this is the podcast that you wanted.

It is Distractible, where we rotate out hosts depending on who won the last episode.

I won the last one, which means that I'm the host.

So I make up this episode and I assign points to these two gentlemen, Bob and Wade, who are going to earn points through their wit and through their strength and their ability to pick stocks, apparently.

Whoever loses the most money in the next hour wins.

A point for every $10,000 in debt you are.

Spicy.

If you're already in debt, I'll count those points.

Wade?

This is getting oddly personal.

Those repairs have been adding up, haven't they?

This isn't a fair episode.

I've got out of state of trance.

You rich bastards.

I could never have the kind of debt that Wade has.

So

before we get started with the main episode, which I'm going to warn you, you already know from the title, but

I guess there's no real surprise here.

So I guess sometimes I'm like, I shouldn't say what it is, but I guess it's for your benefit than anything.

Anyway, let's get with the small talk.

It's been not too long since we last spoke, but the world keeps spinning.

I just want to say I got away with something, and I want to brag about it.

I got away scot-free.

I got zero consequences.

It's been really hot.

It's really hot.

It's summertime.

It's been like high 90s, which for Ohio is pretty hot because it's also like really humid and gross.

But we went to the pool, which is fun.

But I am like, I don't, my face is probably the tannest part of me.

The rest of me is more like this color, which is just...

blindingly pale white.

We went to the pool and I don't know why, but I put sunscreen on everywhere except my least tan parts.

I like didn't sunscreen my torso.

And we got to the pool and I was like, hmm, should I put sunscreen on now that we're here?

Or should I just take my shirt off and jump in the pool?

Which I obviously did the second one.

And I didn't get, I didn't even get more tan than I was.

Like, I didn't get anything.

I didn't get sunburned.

We were in the pool for a solid hour and a half outside without a shirt.

I don't know what happened because I get sunburned sitting in a car sometimes.

Was there sunlight?

It was bright.

It was the middle of the afternoon.

It was like 94 degrees outside, super sunny.

Nothing.

Couldn't tell you what happened.

I honestly, I got a little like my, you know, when you feel that like almost sunburned where you kind of feel, I got that on my cheeks.

And I was like, oh man, I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night screaming in agony from this one.

And then I woke up the next day and was as pale as ever.

I don't know what happened.

I'm just going to go out and sit.

I think I've developed an immunity to the sun.

I was literally writing that.

Yeah, only on my torso.

I don't know what happened.

Immune to sun, which is really impressive.

Science, please dissect that man and analyze him.

I submit.

Would you...

If you...

Okay, let's say, for example, like you naturally had an immunity to almost every type of cancer, right?

Like your body somehow naturally fights it off.

I accept.

Go on.

Would you sacrifice yourself in the name of science so that they could dissect you and figure out how?

I mean, they could probably draw your blood, but let's say that that wasn't a possibility.

They tried to.

Assuming there was no way to do it other than to kill me and completely eviscerate me for whatever reason.

Since it's not a real scenario, I'm going to say, of course, I would, Mark.

What kind of monster wouldn't make such a meaningless sacrifice in the face of saving millions and millions of humans?

Of course, I would.

Wouldn't even think about it.

Sacrifice point.

You get that.

All right.

As soon as I'm dead of natural causes, they can have me.

I hereby submit myself after death to whatever they want.

You, you, they can't figure out the secret to your cancer immunity unless they kill you.

If you die of natural causes, it dies with you.

We need science to advance a bit before they're ready for what I got, you know.

Like, I'm bringing it.

All right.

Let's say instead of cancer, you, Wade, have this natural ability where you just don't age, right?

Oh, clearly, you don't have that, but hypothetically.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, you watch yourself over there.

Oh, okay.

I can't hear you.

What?

Wade is suffering from an ear infection, apparently.

Look, see it?

Yeah, I have ears too.

Yeah.

It's right there.

It's right there.

All right.

A point for every ear.

You can't age, so you generally wouldn't die of what you would probably call natural causes.

Your heart won't give out.

You're not going to, you know, no cancers.

Like,

you're going to be fine.

Would you submit yourself?

As soon as I'm dead of unnatural causes that aren't murder or manslaughter, they can have me.

What?

It's a ghost going to kill you?

What is something better?

And it better not be intentional to get my body.

All right.

So you

can say you won't because it sounds like a no.

What?

No.

The answer is yes.

Asterisk.

Terms and conditions apply, Mark.

I'm going to give you a point.

I'm going to put asterisks and say terms and attention.

I'll take it.

Wade, what's going on with you?

So, listen, a week ago, I had to go to the doc, and I was like, hey, doc, my throat's a mess.

Sinuses are bad and I don't feel good.

What's up?

The doc's like, hmm, your left ear, not looking so good.

But you know what'll fix you up?

Some good old moxicillin.

You want the pretty drinky or you want the nasty pill pill?

And I was like, ooh, pretty drinky.

They're like, all right, you get the pill.

Okay.

So took some Mox Mox.

Got all better, got the clean bill of health, went to Florida, did some swims, swimming, had a great time.

Flew back home,

what, four or five days ago?

Was fine.

Went to my mom's house, jumped in my mom's pool, got out.

Went back to the dock, doc.

Ooh, you got to do wah-wah.

Better get you some drop drops.

So now I've got like swimmer's ear.

What doctor are you going to?

He still sees his pediatrician.

Seeing the same seven-year-old pediatrician since he was six months old.

Yeah, I have Molly put me in a really big carrier and I've got the bald head, so we just put a little blanket over

and get pushed in on a stroller and your legs are displayed like ducky my ear hurt oh I don't know I got a swimmer's ear and I've always thought that like I don't know I think I had it as a kid and I didn't remember it but I was like but I have a little water in the ear ow big whoop what's that gonna do it's not that bad this is the most painful shit I've ever dealt with It's fucking terrible.

Like when you're trying to sleep, I don't know what it is about laying down, but it's the most agonizing fucking thing in the world of when you wake up after like two hours of sleep and your just whole head is clogged and on fire.

I was looking through forums last night to make myself feel better.

I was like, oh, maybe someone else has gone through this pain.

Every forum was like, I've given birth 36 times, but nothing compares to swimmers here.

And I was like, that feels like an exaggeration.

But also, like,

ow, it hurts.

How many times did they give birth?

Oh, 36.

I don't feel like that's the same number that you just said, but all right.

Double want to check the VOD.

Haven't you seen that reality show, Mark?

Stevie and Jamie Nick's plus 36.

Yep.

Oh man.

I gotta check that one.

Trenta ye say so, mom.

Oh man.

I don't even know what the record is for most kids, but I feel like that would break it for sure.

But I am sorry about your ear.

I got fleeced in ear-related news.

What?

Sorry, go ahead.

I found the record for most kids.

All right.

Well, let's get that out of the way.

Let's see what that is before we all.

This says 69 is the record, but there's no way that's true.

What?

Valentina Vasilyeva, the first wife of Russian peasant Fyodor Vasilyev.

It had to be multiple, like, twins and stuff, right?

16 pairs of twins, seven sets of triplets, and four sets of quadruplets.

Four quadruplets?

There's no way this has to be a lie or a book or something.

It's Guinness, so they kind of verify, don't they?

1765 was the last birth.

69.

Nice.

1707.

I mean, okay, this is hard to verify because it's so far in the past, but wow, that's

a lot of kids.

Number three on the list is 55, and that was 1981 was the last one.

That's incredible.

If that's true, that's incredible.

36 would be ninth on this list.

Ninth?

All right.

Okay.

Maybe it's not as crazy as I think.

Unimpressive, huh?

Yeah, no top that with whatever you were gonna say oh your host a generous host

all right

i'm not getting you point back

yeah uh so i don't know if you guys have seen there's a lot of people that were pushing this like ear camera thing to clean your ears and so all my life and this is a confession and i'm not saying people should do this is i take q-tips and i clean my ears after a shower to get the water out.

And I generally just like, it's something I do.

It's a habit.

And I know that that has been said to be very bad.

And I'm not disagreeing with that.

I'm not disagreeing with that at all.

I have a certain technique that I do about it.

I spin and twist as I'm, as I'm rotating around the sides.

I'm not just slamming it in there.

I spin and twist.

I was like, oh, God, I bet I have earwax in my ear because of my history of doing that for all my life.

I stick that camera in my ear.

And I've seen the videos of the people doing it with their ears.

I don't know what they're putting in their ears.

My ears were pristine, absolutely clean, not even the tiniest speck of earwax.

And I stuck a camera in both of my ears and I looked and it was utterly clean.

Now, I'm not saying everyone should start q-tipping because I have what 30 years of experience doing it in precisely the right way that I don't slam into my eardrums because I'm not doing that.

And apparently, I've created a technique that can really work to my advantage in doing that.

But

I'm also very very curious of how other people's ears get so incredibly clogged.

Genetically, I produce a lot of wax.

I think we're actually ear twins, Mark.

Yeah.

I have the exact same.

I have Q-tipped since I was a kid.

I have never had issues.

My ears are...

pristinely clean.

I do produce a fair amount of earwax.

Like every day I q-tip, I get some out.

It's not like there's like days where it's like, there's nothing.

I make a lot of earwax.

My theory is if you do it regularly and you do it safely, like you can absolutely damage your ear and cause problems with a q-tip.

But if you do it safely and carefully, I feel like it's the best way to do it.

My ear canals are pristinely clean, and I'm exactly right there with you.

I swear to God, other people produce earwax that's like calcified.

I don't know.

Yeah, like it's chunky, which is not a thing I would ever describe.

My earwax is always like soft and easily removed.

Mine is cement mortar that exists and hardens and calcifies and mummifies and petrifies and stupefies.

We have the good ears, Mark.

Yeah, we got the good ears.

And we're not saying everyone should start doing it because I feel like if someone hasn't done it and they have like a bunch of earwax, if they push it in, they will compact what's there.

Like it needs to be, you need to get a professional cleaning or something like that and then maintain it.

It's like flossing.

If you haven't flossed in a while, you floss once, blood everywhere.

Just

you've just destroyed your entire tooth structure but my teeth hurt just from saying that no i hate that thank you yeah anyway i'm sorry everyone i'll deduct a point for myself that was terrible i apologize and uh we're not saying do the ear thing but um yeah yeah i mean probably if you haven't ever done it you definitely shouldn't but like i'm with you mark i everyone knows i was like don't use q-tips it's so dangerous i'm like if i don't use q-tips for like a few days it gets really gross yeah i want to use i want to keep it clean in there they've got multiple ways of like if you just go to your general physician, they'll clean your ears.

And they have like three different ways they'll do it.

They have the scraper.

They have like the really loud suction machine.

And then my favorite is the weird water bowl where they like

water in your ear.

Oh, right.

Yeah.

And then like you pour it back out and you make ear cereal.

I'm so glad I've cleaned my ears regularly throughout my life so I don't have to experience ear cereal.

I clean mine too, but let me tell you, I produce a shit ton of wax.

I don't have to go anywhere to get clean ears.

I just do that at home.

Oh, God.

The day after I get my ears cleaned, it's like.

Does it affect your hearing?

This is the thing I don't understand.

It's like in those videos online where your people's ears are like completely stopped up with wax.

Isn't that just like wearing an earplug?

It can be, yeah.

If I, if my earwax was so thick and that it was affecting my hearing, I would be like, well, I should probably do something, not, oh, well, I have a lot of earwax.

I don't know.

Well, I mean, you would probably notice because it's like, you know, frog in pot of boiling water.

They don't notice the change because it's taking place over such a long period of time, probably.

And then suddenly it's like, wow, I can't hear at all.

No, it is.

It is like that for me with my buildup.

Whenever I go get my ears cleaned, it's like, oh my God, I talk loud after I get it done.

And then that's so crazy.

It's feels judgy.

I'm not at all looking down on people who have that different kind of earwax or whatever, but like, that must be fucking weird to live with.

Wade is.

Wade's looking down on you.

Oh, there's nothing like focusing on all these different ear topics while mine is just pulsating.

Yeah, how's your ear, Wade?

Feeling good?

I have a few drugs in today, and it's still not good.

Don't think about flossing your ears.

Don't think about that.

It made me made my teeth hurt.

It'll just make your ears hurt.

Kind of a cool, like,

I know that that is not how that works, but doesn't that seem like it would feel so good?

No.

Yeah.

Because I know there's a brain in between.

You just fish it in there and then you get out the other side of the you're just like, ah, yeah.

No, it'd be like, you know,

the thing that assassins, like the wire that people put around their necks, it'd be like that through your head, and it would get coiled up and it'd cut your brain off from your brainstem.

I don't want to do that.

Well, wouldn't I feel better if I just cut my brain stem off?

Then I wouldn't have to be conscious of anything anymore.

Wouldn't that be good?

If it gets stuck in your ear teeth and like breaks off, that would suck.

Your ear teeth?

What do you have in your ears?

Your ear teeth?

Yeah, that's how you chew up sound, man.

Mark, you wouldn't know because you don't know how you don't have to crunch up your ear bricks, but how do you think earbrick people crunch up their ear bricks?

It's with their ear ear teeth, Mark,

and then you use your ear tongue to move them around and spit them out.

Oh, god, I don't like how many points I've written to have ear in them, like when you take a sip and an ice cube accidentally gets in there, and you're all

no, no, no, no, no.

I'll give a point to anyone that can't that says a small talk that's not ear-related.

Well, my other ear is doing great.

All right, let's move on.

This episode is brought to you by Uber.

You know that feeling when someone shows up for you just when you need it most?

That's what Uber is all about.

Like when Wade's house was flooding and falling to pieces all around him, and you showed up just when he needed you to, so you could film it and exploit it for views on the internet?

No.

Whatever it is, big or small, Uber is on the way.

So you can be on yours.

Uber, on our way to your house, Wade.

So, today's topic is something that we used to cover a lot, and I feel like we don't do it enough.

We're talking about gaming news, because, ladies and gentlemen, we're on the cusp of a new generation.

Shockingly, Switch 2 is out, PlayStation 6 rumors are swirling.

The Xbox, whatever the hell they're doing, is rumoring.

Like, we don't even know what's going on over there.

So, I'd have PC and S tier.

We were talking tier list, right?

Okay, back to you.

No, go ahead.

Give me your tier.

Let's see.

There you go.

PC's up there.

PlayStation's up there.

Up where?

Oh, S S S S S

or Z.

Xbox is like, you know, the good Xbox that one generation of people liked.

That can be like single S.

Switch, that's like a C

Steam Deck, maybe a B.

Switch 2, I don't have one, so I don't know where to rank it yet, but I'm just going to say B.

I had the Steam Deck, and it was nice, but it was way too big.

I was so used to being able to hold the Switch that when it came down to trying to like play anything, I tried to play Elden Ring on it, and it worked, you know, acceptable frame rates, not bad graphics, but you know, just trying to do the controls just was too big and unwieldy to do.

I would have rather had like a laptop and a controller tied to it and just play that way as opposed to trying to do it on a Steam Deck.

But that being said, you know, I recognize what it's trying to do, and I do appreciate it.

It kind of started something cool there.

Even the Switch, I got tired of holding.

Really?

Yeah, that weak.

Switch is too, too small for me.

Somehow, I'm with you that the Steam Deck was too big, but then the Switch somehow is like

the ergonomics of it make it also awkward for being small.

I don't know.

I would like a handheld to be designed exactly to fit my natural body angles.

How did you live in the Game Boy color era?

Yeah, did you have a Game Boy, like any kind of Game Boy that you played on?

I didn't have a Game Boy until a Game Boy Advance.

And I had the limited release.

Well, it's not that special, but I had the Fuchsia Pink See-through plastic Game Boy Advance, which was sick.

See-through purple Game Boy Colors where it was at.

I also hated the ergonomics of that, but I was also in middle school, so I probably thought less about it than I do now that I'm old and my joints crunch and I stink.

I'm sorry.

But anyway,

we're approaching this next generation of gaming, and honestly, it's been an interesting year for gaming going from like PlayStation 4 to PlayStation 5 because I think PlayStation 4 was the last time that graphics did a giant jump and everyone's like, oh, it's amazing.

Then it went to five and it's like,

it's good.

And now we're going to six.

And so things are getting more powerful.

What is, I mean, what's the point?

Literally, what's the point?

What is what is the point?

What's the biggest graphical jump we've had?

For me, in my experience, it was PlayStation to PlayStation 2.

I'd say 2-3 was a big jump.

Yeah, I was going to say say 2-3 era, wasn't it?

I mean, 1-2, definitely.

Big jump.

Xbox to 360.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was quite a jump.

Because then you went from like Halo 1 to Gears of War when those cinema's were coming out and like the previous for that.

And then you saw the game.

It was like, well, whoa.

I will say,

I also went from having like an N64 to the Dreamcast because we did have a Dreamcast in my house.

That was an interesting switch.

Because the Dreamcast was pretty like idiosyncratic in how it looked.

And I don't know if it was the way the system worked or the whatever, but I thought the Dreamcast was mind-blowing when I got that jump back in the day.

But that was also a weird switch.

Yeah, that was an odd one.

Kind of like slanted, not quite up, not quite to the side, just off that way.

Yeah.

So, but Dreamcast was great.

I don't know why it failed.

I never know why these things fail.

I thought that was cool.

This is the little, the little

memory card slash Tamagotchis that you put in the controllers.

Those were cool.

It was so cool.

Why did it?

How could it fail?

How could it fail?

So, anyway, general gaming news.

What is going on in the world out there?

Well, Warner Brothers is continuing to explode in different ways.

It sounds like they're restructuring the way that they do video games.

They're going to be focusing, what was it, on Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, DC, and Mortal Kombat as they split up.

how they are handling gaming in general.

So it sounds like their main company is going to focus on those few IPs.

And I I don't know what the other split's going to be, but great.

Good IPs to focus on.

It's a choice.

I feel like you're just limiting yourself so much by focusing on specific things like that.

How much did they spend on that Suicide Squad game?

Wasn't it a lot?

It was a lot.

Was it good?

Not that I heard.

And not a lot of people played it.

It's this problem where when I read those IP lists, I can hear the boredom of old businessmen trying so hard to make a movie instead of a game.

And they're trying so hard to apply everything that they think they know about entertainment to this other sphere.

And then you have that, which is, which, you know, in any other context, it would be a fine game.

But when people were doing graphical comparisons to previous generations, it was a downgrade to the actual like gameplay itself.

It was a downgrade.

And it just like, I don't get how they have these other games that they've made, the systems that they made for them.

And every time they make a new game, they throw all that out.

And then they just start over.

And they're rushed the next time.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I'm not running a game.

This games radar reports that WB lost 200 million on the Suicide Squad, Kill the Justice League.

That's not that they spent 200 million on development, but that's like their reported loss on the game as a whole, which implies they did spend a lot on development.

That probably means they spent more than 200 million.

Oh my god, I can't even.

Apparently, Kings Road, Game of Thrones had a Kings Road game that came out a month ago.

It's got mixed reviews on Steam.

Is it a gotcha?

There was a Game of Thrones game?

Yeah, King's Road.

It came out May 21st.

And they didn't call it Game of Game of Thrones?

Game of Thrones, Kings Road.

Momentum gates, multiple unnecessary currencies, limited daily rewards, unless you pay, loot locked behind timers, tiny inventory, unless you cough up.

It's a

pay-to-win type game.

Which mobile games, you know, they exist, they can be fun, but like, is that their only gaming IP?

Do they have a game that's not a pay-to-win game?

No, because of course they don't.

They don't because they don't understand anything besides that.

And I think a counterpoint to their style of doing it and a recent success, I've not played this, but I've heard a lot of good things about it, is Claire Obscure Expedition 33, which I think is a really fascinatingly bad name for a game.

But that's what I thought at first first when I saw the name pop up on Steam or wherever I was looking.

But it gets glowing reviews, and it's made by a small team that is an offshoot of one of the big studios.

I forget who.

I don't know the full history of it, but people love that game.

And it's made by a small team trying to really focus on making something that they wanted to play.

It's so good to see a thing like that work to showcase now that all of the industry is matured, and there's so many tools out there there with like Unreal Engine, whatever you want to make it out of, like Unreal Engine or Unity or whatever there are.

There's so many tools that are there for people to make games.

And yet, yet still billion-dollar companies are churning out garbage.

Just garbage.

It doesn't make any sense to me.

Have you guys heard about that game?

Yeah, I've actually played it a bit.

It's very fun.

And I think, funny enough, if I'm remembering correctly, it's called Expedition 33.

I think the team had like 34 people on it, which is pretty funny.

But it did take six years to make.

Guillaume Broche, I'm sure I said that wrong, had the idea in 2020 and started making, like, making sort of prototypes and stuff.

And it took them until this year to get it out.

I guess that's not six years, it's five years.

But it did take a long time.

But yeah,

that's technically like a AA title.

And I feel like that's one of the better received games I can recall in recent memory.

versus a lot.

I can't really think of a triple-A game that came out and everyone was like, oh, it's so good.

We like the best case for AAAs right now is they come out and everyone's like, yeah, that's pretty much what I thought it would be.

One of the first Spider-Man game was pretty well received.

That's old.

I know.

I'm true.

I don't know.

That was beginning PlayStation of PlayStation 4.

No, late PlayStation 4.

That was a launch title for PS5, wasn't it?

Well, yeah, it was one of the ones that bridged, like, it released late PS4 and then re-released early PS5.

Would Elden Ring count as AAA?

That would be AAA, I believe.

Yeah, you would count that AAA.

I think that one of the things that I see from

it's so simple because I look at gameplay of these games and I can instantly tell that there is gameplay here.

And that's the biggest problem I see with games today.

And I harp on this.

Probably people think of Broken Record, but I'm like, they're trying so hard to make a movie.

And that's what I always see.

You can have cinematics in the game.

I like cinematics in the game.

I don't mind them at all.

I used to watch just cinematics of games, but it has to have gameplay in between the cinematics.

And I can tell this game has a very tight game loop.

There's a lot to play there, like actually playing the thing.

So that's what I, that's what I like to see.

And that's what you don't see out of.

I mean, I looked at gameplay of the King's Road of that game, throwing games, and I'm like, oh, God,

just looking at it, I can tell.

It's a guy running around.

He hopped over a log, and they thought this was the best shot to put in the trailer.

It's just so funny to me.

It makes me feel like maybe I'm out of touch almost, but I've had that same thing with the Dune, Dune Awakening.

That's been so big.

And I was at PAX East

this year in Boston, and Dune Awakening had a big presence, if I remember.

It's been everywhere.

I've been getting advertisements for Dune Awakening aggressively.

I couldn't really tell what the gameplay looked like until I actually just went and watched like a streamer play it.

I don't, that seems crazy to me, but it feels like the advertisement, like it feels like they're doing it on purpose.

Well, how could you advertise a video game?

And the take one of the main takeaways is not obviously, oh, this is what it will be like to play that game, even if it's wrong, because it's totally possible to make a trailer for a game and use footage and clips and things of like stuff that isn't representative of the main gameplay loop or stuff that is, you know, the coolest shit in the game is in the trailer.

And the rest, you know, that's maybe misleading, but that's fine.

I feel like I didn't see a single piece of advertising for doon awakening where i came away and i was like oh it's it's like this other game it's like this kind of how do they even do that because it's not like it's a gotcha game there is gameplay in doon awakening it's like a survival crafting thing right like there's you wander around you explore the world there's like vehicles and shit i hear there's a lot of pvp whether you want it or not yeah i've heard that too i see that in the reviews I'm not going to play it.

It's not doesn't look that interesting to me, but I just thought it was crazy that until I just saw people playing it after full release, I still didn't have like a really good image of what the gameplay was, what the game was going to really look like or be, which made me just completely uninterested, whether or not I was going to play it because of my personal preferences.

If I look at a thing, I had the same reaction you did, Mark, when I looked at Claire Obscure Expedition 33.

I just looked at the title and I was like,

and I was immediately like, I'm not going to, I'm probably not going to be interested in that.

But I am.

It's a good game.

Like, it's cool.

But it's there's a lot of these things that marketing people and like the game developers are just making decisions that immediately are like confusing confounding to me very much so and i think another example of that is i don't know if you guys have heard of mind's eye i have yeah

i don't think so i know that because of the co-carnage thing that happened but the co-carnage thing is that where he was he was on stream and he was about to go into a sponsored i think it was mind's eye he was about to go into a sponsored segment And he was literally like, All right, guys, we're going to play a new game.

Like, I'm going to turn this.

This game is called Mind's Eye, where he was like doing the preamble to now.

We're going to play this sponsored segment.

And literally, he was like, while he was doing that on stream, he was like, oh, wait a minute.

Okay.

While I was doing that introduction, I got an email and they have officially paused the sponsored segment I was about to do.

So,

but I was like live on stream as he was already live doing the anyway.

It was, but I've seen a lot of people.

There's other clips of streamers who are clearly like they're doing a sponsored segment and they're like playing the game and some terrible shit happens.

And they're like, don't forget, guys, this is sponsored by Mind's Eye.

So

if you want to

play this, it has mostly negative reviews right now, and it's a $60 game.

There's just a lot of funny clips about it, but the thing about it is, I bet it's a fine fine game because it's like it's trying to be kind of like GTA or Cyberpunk.

You know, it's like an open city kind of game.

There's been others besides those games that have been around.

I think it's really the performance issues that I saw most of the

most of the reviews about.

And

I'm so curious how these business decisions come down where

there's an executive, right?

And there's a game here that clearly is not ready.

Like it's not ready, but the executive's like, we got a date to hit.

We got to make it ready.

Push, push, push.

We can do it.

They're probably thinking they're inspirational.

When in reality, they would make more money if they had waited and allowed the team to finish it.

Because I don't doubt that the team wanted to make it right.

And all of them were ripping their hair out, like, it's not ready.

Are they crazy?

And yet, someone's cramming a deadline down their throats to get it out.

I don't know if that's the situation, but I imagine because that is a common thing that happens in gaming.

Yeah, I mean, I do think that's a that that's not exclusive to gaming.

You can certainly tell that there are like other forms of media where someone who wasn't in the creative process or someone who was just in charge of it was like, we got to hit this deadline.

And then they pushed it out before they pushed a movie out before it's done, before it's fully baked, or they push a TV series out when it's like, it would have really benefited from, you know, another six months or another year or something, and it could have been really good.

And instead, it's this.

But I feel like the thing with video games is it is not the entire representative of the entire community, but especially games like Mind's Eye, where their marketing strategy involves streamers, the community is much more like interactive around it, right?

If you go and you see a movie that turns out to be shit because it was rushed out and you'll talk to your friends, you might talk to people, you know, like if you're, if you're work people, you'll talk to them about it or what, but you're not like interacting with thousands of people live.

while you're watching the movie and being like, oh my God, guys, this is so terrible.

But like when you, they paid streamers to play their game.

And then apparently the co-carnage incident was only one of several where they literally, while people were streaming, tried to cut them off and were like, stop broadcasting, just to try and stop them from sharing their negative impression of the game because, like, they were streaming the game-sponsored segment, and then it was breaking, or I don't know the details, but like when you make that your marketing strategy, everyone gets to talk about in real time how shitty your thing is.

It generates all these hilarious clips of streamers who are like, Oh, I don't know if I'd recommend buying this, but it's this is sponsored by Mind's Eye guys.

It's crazy to do the first part where you rush it out and then do the second part where you're like, and make sure everyone talks about it a bunch.

That's a terrible idea.

As of nine hours ago, it looks like they announced layoffs.

No!

God, that's not what they should do.

I bet they definitely laid off the people at the top who caused this and not at all.

Only the people who were making the game who had nothing to do with how it turned out and were forced to put this unfinished work out into the public?

It's a formal consultation process that may result in redundancies.

Oh, my.

Okay, so it's layoffs.

Because they have the worst rated game of the year so far with a 2.6 out of 10 on Metacritic and a 38 out of 100 gaming journalist score.

What I think they don't realize as a team, and because, again, they're in movie mindset, is you can make the game better.

And gamers do appreciate that.

No Man's Sky.

No Man's Sky.

Cyberpunk, when it released, was a goddamn mess.

It's now one of the most successful games, incredibly well-rated because they kept working on it.

They just kept, you can make it better after the fact.

People don't really want that to be the strategy, but here's a review.

Here's a review that someone wrote.

This game reeks of mismanagement.

This is someone as 12 hours into this game.

Not a lack of talent by the development team.

I ignored all the initial reviews and actually enjoyed myself a fair bit, but I wouldn't recommend the game to anyone.

I'd recommend they watch some gameplay make it their own mind.

It runs great on my 5090 and Intel i9 Ultra, but DLSS and FrameGen needed to be active to achieve any kind of solid FPS.

Bugs were few and far between, but they were there.

Occasionally, AI would just freeze and they're not particularly smart, but they're serviceable.

It's pretty.

It has issues with draw distance.

It reminds me of like a B Studio PS2 action game, linear, not a lot of variety, and the story is kind of forgettable, but it provides a dopamine dopamine kick.

Like, there's a game in here, there's a game that could be fun if they just spent even a fraction of the amount that they spent developing it.

Just like let the team work on it to fix the bugs, let them fix it and

re-release every update as free.

Don't make them pay for it again.

Because I imagine some executives are like, I bet we could do that.

Don't.

How soon can we release a remastered version of this terrible flop widget just shit out?

Oh, God, a pre-mastered version.

Pre-mastered.

Oh, God.

It's not confusing because I feel like on some level I understand the mindset of the people who end up in charge of things like this.

Like, I get what they're thinking, but I just don't understand why they're the ones who end up in charge of these decisions.

Because there are clearly people who know how to take the time that it takes and know how to make good games.

And I think that includes probably people on the team that made Mind's Eye.

I'm sure a lot of them are great at what they do.

Some of them are probably good at, would have been good at leading this and getting a really good game out of the like assets that they have and the team that they have.

But not like I know anything firsthand about managing games, but it is, it is crazy, even from our perspective.

It feels like you can see like, oh, well, that was a stupid call.

But on the inside, no one is, I mean, maybe no one has the authority, and that's part of the problem.

But no one ever saves these things.

They turn out the same.

And man, the layoffs.

You guys want to talk about gaming news?

It's layoff season, boys.

Oh, why?

Why are so many layoffs?

It's layoff season.

Well, because AI is going to save it, right?

I was looking, I was like trying to scan stuff and remember.

Wade just flashed me his naturals, his big naturals.

What?

I missed it.

I was trying to scroll headlines and remember the gaming news that I had sort of gone over in the last little bit.

And all it was like, oh, EA, third wave of layoffs in two years.

Microsoft planning major layoffs next week.

BioWare scaled back after the Dragon Age, whatever it was called, the most recent Dragon Age was underwhelming.

There was another one.

Split Gate 2 developer 1047 games.

Yeah, People Can Fly joins gaming-wide layoffs, industry-wide cost-cutting and cancellations.

What a rough time.

Games do get shit on a lot, and they sometimes deserve it, but it really does suck whenever you think about the fact there's people behind it that did put their heart and souls, and they're usually the ones that pay the price.

It's shitty that that is the case, and it's even worse because you know that the executives are pre-doing that in the time when everyone's doing it because they're like, Oh, we won't get bad press if everyone's doing it, so that's why there are layoff seasons.

But now it's probably especially bad because all the executives are probably like, Oh man, we'll save so much money with AI replacing all these actual humans.

That'll fix it.

Yep, and AI won't talk back and tell us that our schedules are too aggressive.

They won't ask for sleep

or food.

Anyway, I'm really trying desperately to find some like good news.

Positive Death Stranding 2.

It looks like it's rated pretty well.

It comes out in, like, it will have been out for a little bit by the time this airs, but it comes out in a couple days for us.

Death Stranding.

Is that the one with the babies and the goop and the running across the terrain?

And the Norman Reedus.

That guy.

Yeah.

What's this?

Oh, what's his face?

I haven't played the original.

Um, because again, I tried to get into Metal Gear Solid, which I believe it's the same developer as Hideo Kojima, I believe.

Um, they are, they scratch a very specific itch for a certain type of gamer.

Unfortunately, I am not that type of gamer, so it's just not my type of game, but I would never

played it and she got super into the story.

I don't know how she felt about the game as a whole.

I had to ask her, but she got super into the story and the lore.

And was like, even after finishing it, she was all into like the lore and stuff for weeks afterward, just like looking into stuff.

So I imagine it's the perfect game for someone.

A lot of walking, isn't it?

Like you kind of walk a lot.

Down stranding, definitely a lot of walking, yeah.

It's basically a walking simulator, right?

Isn't that the whole thing?

Intense walking.

Wasn't there a walking wait by the maker of like uh getting over it.

Didn't didn't that guy make a like a walking game?

They didn't make baby steps, did they?

Oh, yes, yeah, they did.

That is

baby steps, yes.

Who's your daddy?

That's a different game.

I don't know that that was made.

Yeah, Bennett Foddy's on there.

Baby Steps.

That that just came out recently it looks funny it looks weird it looks like bennett foddy had their fingers in it uh but it does look pretty funny i don't really think it's made for enjoyment unless you like getting over it which as i recall mark was a huge fan of or something like that you played it a lot oh my god yeah i sure dared

i sure dared

What a meme.

Great meme.

I legitimately have not played much in terms of rage games.

The last one I did was when I was last year in

Austin,

still working on the movie, which definitely not doing that now.

It's all done.

Yeah, good thing that's done.

Yeah, that came out like last spring, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

But I was playing the climbing

offshoot of that one.

I forgot what it was called, but oh, I remember that.

It is bad for me.

It's just bad for me.

My blood pressure can't deal with it.

Oh, I can picture the game.

I can't think of the name of it.

We'd like to swing and go up.

Yeah.

Yep.

Some climbing, climbing horror.

A climbing horror game.

Difficult game about climbing.

No, wait.

Didn't you play a

climbing horror game?

What was that called?

White Knuckle?

Oh, that was great.

White Knuckle.

White Knuckle.

Oh, man.

I can't believe I haven't talked about that.

This is one of the few games that I've played recently that has

the tightest game loop.

The actual gameplay, but it makes climbing the most fun of any game that I've ever played.

It is, it is, that's all it it is.

It's just you're climbing, no matter what.

You're just getting out of this pit while this horrible amalgamation of nightmarish goop is rising below you and will absorb you into its mass.

And that's terrible.

But White Knuckle, as far as like gameplay goes, it's awesome.

Super fun.

It's just plain and simple fun.

And the environment, the atmosphere, all gels.

It's the perfect distillation of when a game knows what it's about, really solidifies that funnel down into like its theme, and and everything about the theming fits in the world and the story into the gameplay loop.

The entire world is built around verticality and the idea of climbing first out of the ground and then up this tower.

It's all about that, and it's just really fun.

It's difficult, but it's fun.

So, I love White Knuckle.

White Knuckle is great.

17 precision movement mechanics.

I'm reading the description about it.

It says, ascend through the guts of substructure 17 using, oh, substructure 17 using precision movement mechanics

it has 17 precision moving mechanics you know jump small jump left jump yoinky geet yoinky that actually is a really good strategy in that game that's great it reminds me of like old doom and wolfenstein graphics but like better but like it gives me that feel just looking at the screenshots and stuff

yeah it very much has a retro aesthetic which is very common in indie games because it's easier to develop let's let's be honest people love it though it's overwhelmingly positive.

There's a lot of reviews.

It's just really good.

If you look at all the reviews, it's just the climbing is satisfying.

It is satisfying.

It's fun.

It keeps you going.

It is, it's a, and it's at a right price point for that game.

It's $13, I believe, $13.

It was on sale when I first got it.

I think.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, $12.99.

Sorry, $12.99.

Not even $13.

I know.

Under $13.

Wow.

I know

I've made controversial statements about game pricing, and people assume that when I said realistically, it could be this, that it should be that is like, there are different nuances to these things, but that's a good price for this game.

It's made by a small team, but they work really hard at it, and it just works.

It works really well, and I love it.

What a positive thing.

This might be a positive one, maybe.

Wade and Molly might be excited about this one.

Blizzard has apparently officially confirmed that in September of 2026, there's going to be a revival of BlizzCon.

Oh, okay.

I mean, I've only gone once, but I just, I know, I mean, you had a funny story about sneaking in past security guards and whatnot, but I know that was someone I knew.

Oh, that's right.

That's right.

I think you're past the statute of limitations.

Don't worry, buddy.

Anyway, I don't really know any specifics about it, but like, if we set aside the current and more recent history accusations about behaviors and interpersonal things and everything about Activision Blizzard that you might know.

BlizzCon is a classic to me.

And conventions in general, I feel like, are part of the gaming community that I think is in a weird place right now.

Like I said, I was at PAX East in Boston this year.

It's the first one I had been to since.

I was at E3 2019, and I haven't been to a con since.

And apparently it's on a big bounce back, but like, obviously, the pandemic and the shutdowns and everything really put a damper on in-person conventions.

But it was, it was, it felt like it was building.

PAX felt like people were excited again.

The people who, the guests who were there who were like attending and do it, it seemed like there was a lot of buzz and excitement.

It seemed like it was in a path to like build back towards how PAX used to be, where it was huge.

It was always this event.

But also conspicuously, there were not many.

There were none of the like big names that I've been used to seeing at PAX, right?

Imagine, you guys have been to plenty of these things.

Imagine the floor.

The first time you look out at the floor of PAX, there's like a Microsoft booth and a Sony booth, and they're like huge.

They like, this is this huge convention hall, right?

But these booths are like,

none of that shit.

The only booth that had like a tall thing on it was the behemoth booth, which has been a mainstay at PAX for a long time.

And it's the one where they have the big behemoth chicken and the like the Castle Crashers guys and the big circular behemoth sign.

All of the other booths were so toned down, it was weird.

As a group, we're getting older.

I don't know if we're kind of over conventions a little bit, but like it's an interesting part of the gaming community.

Speculate for me.

Should they come back?

Should BlizzCon come back?

Are they going to come back?

Like

where are we?

Wait, I'll

let you take this one.

We went to conventions a lot before, by we, I mean, Molly and I went to conventions a lot before we did the Your Welcome Tour, which was what, like 2017.

So it's been eight years or so since we've really really gone to conventions.

And I feel like the industry has changed a lot since then.

Things are just done a little bit differently now.

But there was something to be said about going to a convention that had, like, I remember going and playing Alien Isolation, like a demo for Alien Isolation the first time, freaking out and, you know, screaming like an idiot while everyone else was quietly just playing out the demo.

And I got jump scared and let out a big scream.

And it was funny.

But walking around and seeing like the big, cool displays of things, Arc Survival Evolved had a really cool one back in the day.

I remember they gave us a little stuffed poop when we went to see Arc Survival Evolved.

But there was something just awesome about that.

I'm not a person who gets super into collecting things or I don't look into technology and gaming stuff the way you guys do.

Like you guys always bring a lot of stuff to the table.

I'm like, oh, I had no idea.

Because I just don't keep up with that kind of stuff.

But as a creator, it was awesome going.

I am an attention whore and getting the fan experience I really liked.

I like meeting fans.

I liked having a safe and good venue for that where it wasn't like we were just doing a fan meetup out in the middle of the woods somewhere.

It's like, okay, this is a place where they've got security.

There's people that, you know, seen a lot of middle of the woods fan meetups.

No, but it's hard.

Like, even 10 years ago, it was hard to like, hey, guys, I'm going to be at Kings Island.

Want to meet up at Kings Island?

And it was cool, but like, also, sometimes you just want to go to a theme park and enjoy the theme park.

So it's like, it was, it was a different, it was an actual experience where it's like, okay, I'm here to look at games, but also like other people are here that are passionate about this and meeting fans.

It was a, it was a fun combination combination of things I enjoyed.

And I wouldn't mind doing something like that again, maybe like once every year or two.

I wouldn't ever go back to doing three or four conventions a year like I was doing for a while.

But I imagine on the other side of it, for someone who's just really passionate about gaming or meeting content creators or both or whatever have you, those conventions had to have been pretty fucking awesome.

Like they were busy, but getting to go play demos early, especially the indie sections, the indie game sections were really, really shined for me because AAA Studios, as cool as it was to see their awesome big booths, you kind of got a feel for those things because they could afford to advertise and show things off.

A lot of cool indie games, I don't think anyone would have known about if it weren't for the conventions and walking through there and like some of the people who made content being like, oh, wow, this looks cool.

I'll play this.

And then they play it, someone else sees it.

That's the way a lot of indie games, I don't know, they're probably still how they take off, but how they took off way back then.

But they're just a cool, a lot of cool things like that.

Some of the, oh god, what was the D ⁇ D show that always played at like PAX?

Not critical role.

It was

what the the hell was it called I could picture the bald dude with glasses but I can't think of the name of it wade

fuck anyway they would do like a show there were different uh other panels and things we did a panel whenever that we were together and whatnot so there were a lot of cool things and things I enjoyed and things I'd like to experience again but I don't think I could ever do it the amount that I did it back then because it kind of got redundant if you went to four conventions in a year 90% of what you saw was at each convention.

It was the same thing at each one.

I mean, that's what they do.

They run what's called the convention circuit so that the exhibitors can reach the most amount of people, assuming that people aren't going to travel outside of their local convention, unless it's like a mega monolith convention where, you know, a million people are going to be there.

What's the one that's completely gone now that was big back in the day?

It was hosted in California.

E3?

Yeah, E3.

I only went to that one time, but that one was a little bit different.

E3 was cool.

The one I went to, I spent a lot of time around the Mixer Hype Zone tent.

The time to be alive.

Wow, Mixer.

Oh, I forgot about mixer.

Oh,

I think people are starting to really, this is not my concept, but I think people are really starting to come around on like, it's nice to do things in person.

I think there's a lot of social anxiety still.

And there's a lot, like, I don't really like being in loud, crowded public places.

But also, there's just something about being in the same place as other people all sharing in something that you really enjoy.

If it's like a concert or if it's like a festival downtown Cincinnati, or if it's like a PAX PAX or some like a gaming festival thing.

I think people are kind of we're coming out of the funk, the post-pandemic, post-lockdown funk still.

And people are kind of like, man,

I kind of fucking hate people, but also I kind of want to go hang out with people.

I think it's an interesting time if you're like for these conventions because I guess I'm optimistic.

I hope that they continue to rebound.

I hope people have a lot of interest, but there's no reason it has to be conventions.

Maybe everyone's going to lock on to some other thing and that'll be where they all go hang out or who knows?

I think it's as good an excuse as any.

Because the problem with

the COVID era stuff is you lost out on a couple generations of a lot of things, but you lost out a couple generations of people showing their friends what it is.

And once that chain gets broken, because of the people that were introduced to conventions were introduced by their friends or their family.

And so there had to be a first time for everybody, or maybe they found it on their own.

But most of the time, I believe it was probably an introduction chain.

But that chain got broken, so there were a few years where people weren't being introduced to the new experience.

So that's a whole couple years of people that they have to catch up on: of being like, Oh, this is even a thing.

There are probably people out there listening that have never been to a convention and aren't even really aware of how many occur around them.

In your city, there's probably a convention every week for the most random things.

I think we were in Austin one time, and we were so curious what this table of people were there.

There was one guy and like 20 women, and they all had lanyards, and they were clearly there for a convention.

And we were kind of like, why?

What business is this where there's one guy and 20 women, right?

And it seemed like he was the guy in charge because they were all trying to talk to him.

And then we realized there was a wedding dress convention.

And it was just, it was very peculiar.

There was a wedding dress convention.

I'm like, I didn't even know that was a thing, but it's a thing.

Look up conventions in your nearby area.

It's not all about gaming, but there's tons of conventions.

I get married once a year just to wear the new dress.

you know if i had it to do all over again or even moving forward if i end up transitioning away from gaming i think i would just i would do tabletop it would be like dnd roleplay type stuff like what critical role does if i could do something like that like three or four times a week and just have an awesome in-person setup i think that would be like the end game for me like that's that's what i really enjoy and thrive in is like role play stuff like when i did gta roleplay i enjoyed that quite a bit but even that was like somewhat constrained with what you can do i don't know i seem to remember Demon Elmo getting the posse together and then riding around doing murderous explosion things.

Seemed pretty unlimited from my perspective.

Wade role-played Demon Elmo on the server.

I was briefly on that server, also role-playing.

Yeah, I drove you around.

You were trying to join the legal team or something.

It was a whole experience.

Yeah, I was trying to be a lawyer.

Well, my main dude was Norm El Guy, Norm.

But Elmo was like my, I want to be chaotic.

I forgot about playing Elmo.

The good old days of GTARP.

Mark's right.

Conventions.

Check them out.

There's probably one about a thing that you care about.

Probably closer than you think.

Role-playing conventions are a thing.

There are a lot of tabletop conventions, yeah.

Tabletop people love getting together and doing tabletop stuff.

I'm sure people look into it.

There's a lot of

stores.

What are the little stores called where you buy, like, they sell like the Warhammer figurines and tabletop shirts and all that kind of stuff?

Like stores that also have like game session nights and stuff.

Yeah, they also have like game session nights.

Even if it's not like a DD, it's like board game nights and stuff like that.

A lot of places have those too.

Anyway, kind of got off topic there, but yeah, conventions great, gaming great, but I want DD all day, every day.

Well, you could.

Yeah, I could, but like, I don't know.

Local, a lot of people I play with are all over the fucking place.

Do you want us to officially kick you off the show so you could spend more time doing that?

Or

no, please.

That would be terrible.

No, I enjoy my time here.

If you say so.

I don't, I don't know.

Everyone I play with is like around the world.

There's, I don't have a local group I would play with.

Pay for their moves, buy them houses.

They've got like families and stupid shit like that to stop them.

I don't pay for their families.

Have their families killed?

Then they would need you.

Or you create a natural disaster in their area that sweeps away everything they have and their families.

And then only the people that you want to play, and you have the natural disaster funnel them.

Like if it's tornadoes, it's pushing them towards your place.

Am I like a life caster?

I throw fireball at Massachusetts.

Just donate to the Democratic National Committee, get in on their weather control apparatus,

and then craft a series of weather events and natural disasters to funnel everyone that you care about to Cincinnati and kill everyone you don't care about.

Boom.

Instead of conjugal visits, I'll have tabletop visits.

It's like, oh, guys, let's go to 20-minute session.

Hey,

whatever makes you happy, man.

Whatever makes you happy.

All right, we're wrapping it.

That was good.

Gaming news, everybody.

Thank you for participating and giving everyone an update on what news is.

The score, the score, the score.

Yeah, points.

Was there a lot of points in that?

There was a decent number of points.

I'll start with Wade's.

Don't sound so disappointing.

I'll start with Wade's.

Well, you had to circle back to all the ear stuff, so he's probably really disappointed in general right now.

Well, I'm not 100% sure what the first point is here, Wade.

It's I wrote submit post-mortem.

Ah, for your body, your body.

Oh, oh, yeah, yeah.

They can have me when I'm dead.

You have a conditional point.

I'm not sure how to work that.

It's for terms and conditions, apply to that point.

So we'll see.

Is it the same ones I applied?

So do I have to be dead to get that point?

Maybe, maybe, I have no idea.

Yeah, a posthumous point down the road.

One for ear teeth, one for ear infection, one for big naturals, one for broken to blitzcon, one for fan meetups in the middle of the woods, one for role play dreams.

So only a few of those are criminal.

I did not break into BlizzCon.

I was in BlizzCon and I broke into an Overwatch competition.

You evaded security, which is probably completely allowed and fine.

I just went with the crowd of two and ignored the long line.

The crowd of two.

That's what they say.

Two's a crowd.

I mean, I showed my badge.

They let me in.

Who's really at fault here?

The deceiver or the fool?

How How many times did you fool them?

Only had to show the fake.

Not even a fake badge.

Oh, he admits it.

He had a fake badge.

No, just that just showed the back of it.

We were with the other group.

Uh-huh.

Sounds like fraud to me.

So, Bob, you got half a point for mac and cheese.

Parentheses, making cheese.

I don't remember what it was related to, but I think it was.

The stock market.

The craft.

Craft is up 30%.

It's mac and cheese.

All right.

You're immune to the sun.

Meaningless sacrifice is what you called your sacrifice to science.

Still sees pediatrician.

That's for Wade, but you made the joke.

One for ear twin, graphical jumps in consoles, co-carnage situation for mind's eye, layoffs, convention talk, and then a point for desiring to be around people.

So how much did I win by?

Wait, well, we got to spin wheels, don't we?

Wade, I'll give you an option on the conditional point.

I'll allow you to spend that point whenever you want.

I'm not going to tell you what the score is, but the next time that you're a participant and I'm the judge, anytime that I'm, you have one

conditional point.

I can't wait for the subreddit to remind me in three years that I still have that point that I've forgotten about.

You all know what to do.

But you have to choose now before any wheels are spin.

Wait, yeah, wasn't the subreddit talking something about if Wade's house ever flooded, there was a win that you had to forfeit that went to me or something?

And they were like, hey, his basement flooded.

If my basement flooded, I had to forfeit a win.

Something like that.

Yeah, let's say that.

Yeah.

I don't, I, we'll, we'll hold on to that.

We'll, we'll put that one off too for now.

Okay, we're putting off the point and we're putting off the house flooding.

How many bonus points will there be?

Oh, there'll be three in there for me.

Well, there will be three, it looks like.

That's not a

strong start for Bob.

This is serendipitous because it is literally by the slimmest margins possible for Wade to have the win here.

I choose to use my point.

If he'd have used the point, it would have, but it's like shit.

It doesn't guarantee anything.

All right.

Let's add on

most unrelated tabs open.

And you have to share your screen and we count how many tabs you have that aren't related to what we were talking about.

I just closed all mine, so I have zero tabs.

Yeah, wait, no, no tabs closing.

No tabs closing.

I already did.

I did before we did this thing because I always maximize it so I can see the wheel.

All right.

Well, if it doesn't land on it this time, you'll have to...

You can press Ctrl-Shift-T to open old tabs and you have to press that until to slowly reveal your tabs.

All right, well there's

a Scottish accent.

Come on.

I've been practicing.

Ah, got biggest laugh.

Was it laughing at Bob's joke that we didn't laugh at originally?

Well, Bob made quite a few good jokes.

I really laughed at the pediatrician one.

I laughed pretty hard at that one.

You guys are funny, but I think that one might go to Bob.

Yes.

I don't remember anything, so I believe you.

Man, that ear infection's gone all the way into his brain.

Let's roll anyway to see what could happen.

We could always get something else.

Oh.

Who lost the most points?

Mark?

Neither of you lost points.

Oh, I did.

You're right.

I lost a point.

You literally lost a point, so you would get that one.

I mean, if you want to re-spin that one, that's fine, but you did lose the most points.

Yeah.

Look, it won't matter anyway.

Unless this next one's a whopper of a different different one.

And the next one is Bob wins.

Ah, most

also, Bark.

I think I got that too.

Yeah, I'm the only one that lost the point.

So I'm going to get third place.

Hey, man, I got a one on this one.

Hey, not bad.

Not bad, babe.

Good performance here.

All right, we're going to close that up.

With 10 and a half points, Bob takes the episode.

He did bring the most topics of conversation to the fore.

So I think that makes sense.

Wade, it's actually good that you didn't spend your conditional point uh because the wheels were not in your favor anyway damn right bob what's your winner's excuse i didn't mean to i didn't know what i was doing i was just following mark's instructions uh if you're gonna be mad at anyone i think you should be mad at mark about what happened today that's my excuse

Wade, what's your loser's excuse?

You can see by the charts, I was moving up up until the point where I opened my mouth and everything went downhill.

But I think now's the time to buy your wade stock.

Bye, bye.

Bye, bye, bye.

I don't think Jim Kramer rolls his sleeves up that far, but maybe I don't have longer sleeves.

Oh, you're rolling your sleeves up.

I can't roll up.

Weren't the Jim Kramer jokes that we were doing before we hit record for this so that the context?

For that is

outside of this episode.

We were just talking, and that is what we were talking about.

I deserve to be at the bottom.

Oh, man.

Yeah, it is not Ben Wade's episode.

That is really like

these numbers.

Look at the numbers.

Was that before we started recording?

What a callback!

Listeners, you're not missing anything.

All of you out there, we talked about Jim Kramer, the guy from Mad Money, before this episode, and Wade can't remember what happened when.

So he's been referencing that the entire time.

Just so you know.

All right.

Well, thank you guys.

That was it.

All right, there he goes.

That was an entertaining episode.

Bob goes from not even being here at the beginning of the episode to taking it all.

And I think that is.

Hey, and Wade left.

And now Wade's gone.

It ends as it began.

Thank you, Bob, who is also known as MySkirm on YouTube and Twitch.

Wade, thank you, Lord Minion777 or Minion777 on Twitch and YouTube.

Hi, Martiplier.

This has been Distractible.

Merch coming very soon, sooner than you think.

Have a good day.

Podcast out.