Video Game Journalism with Jason Schreier

This is a head gum podcast.

Audival's romance collection has something to satisfy every side of you.

When it comes to what kind of romance you're into, you don't have to choose just one.

Fancy a dalliance with a duke, or maybe a steamy billionaire.

You could find a book boyfriend in the city and another one tearing it up on the hockey field.

And if nothing on this earth satisfies, you can always find love in another realm.

Discover modern rom-coms from authors like Lily Chu and Allie Hazelwood.

The latest romanticy series from Sarah J.

Mas and Rebecca Yaros, plus regency favorites like Bridgerton and Outlander, and of course, all the really steamy stuff.

Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash wondery.

That's audible.com/slash wondery.

It didn't seem like anybody was following me.

Thanks for meeting me.

Are you wearing a wire?

I'm not wearing a wire.

You can pat me down if you want.

All right, I'm going to pat you down.

Okay.

Okay.

You're not wearing a wire.

I'm not wearing a wire.

All right.

You swear this lead is legitimate because I'm trying to uncover a vast conspiracy that involves the big three hardware companies

and video games.

So

you got my letter then.

That's right.

I want you to know that this conspiracy goes all the way to the top.

Holy shit.

The big three, Sony, Nintendo, Xbox, they got blood all over it.

They're all involved.

They're all involved.

All the big and I want you to know

it doesn't just stop there, man.

It doesn't stop at the top.

We're talking about state governments.

We're talking about import-export.

Oh my God.

We're talking about California, Nevada, Texas.

We're talking about Oklahoma.

Uh-huh.

Washington.

That's a lot of you could just say like North Dakota.

A lot of the states.

South Dakota.

We're talking about about Iowa, Idaho.

And now I'm just kind of honestly pretty impressed.

Colorado.

I can only name this many in alphabetical order.

Tennessee, Kentucky.

We're talking about Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi.

How do you know which ones you haven't said?

We're talking about Illinois.

We're talking about Ohio.

We're talking about Michigan.

Don't tell me Utah's in there.

We're talking about Utah.

Oh, my God.

We're talking about the upper peninsula of Michigan.

This is a conspiracy that goes all the way to the top.

Okay, well, like...

All the eastern and seaboard states as well.

Maine.

Maine.

Rhode Island.

Pennsylvania.

We're talking about South Carolina.

Okay, but like, come on, I just don't think we have a lot of time.

I have to, I have to break this story soon.

All right.

Can you just give me any information?

Wait, don't rush it.

Don't rush it, kid.

Sorry.

Hey.

Okay, I want you to know one thing about breaking a story.

It's that you can't rush the story.

Okay.

Can I just say something?

What?

It kind of just like...

You're telling me all this that it goes all the way this and that or whatever.

It's the states and all that.

You want to know how serious I am?

I kind of think you don't got anything.

What are you talking about?

I shot my wife in the head, I put her in the bedroom.

So, when you said got rid of them, that's what you meant.

I had no choice.

I had a suspicion.

I had no choice.

I don't want to talk to you.

You're involved.

You can't walk away.

This is so funny.

You can't walk away.

I have the documents.

I have the documents.

Okay, show me the documents.

I'm about to put this gun in my mouth.

Oh, my God.

Don't do it.

Don't do it.

Just show me the documents.

Here's the documents.

I got a receipt.

So, this receipt is that you just bought an Xbox, a PlayStation 5, and a Switch?

Ask yourself how I was able to do that in a single store.

They sell these at stores.

What have you done?

What have you done?

I've done what I had to do.

I guess.

Do you have any bus fare?

No, I don't.

All right, then I got to start walking.

Don't.

I'm walking.

Don't tell anybody.

I don't want to.

Don't tell anybody you know who I am.

I don't know who you are, and you don't know who I am either.

Is any of this true?

Is any of it true?

You're a great journalist, kid.

Don't give up on it.

We review the history of games journalism and also take a deep dive into Google AI as we interview Jason Schreier on this week's Get Played.

Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between.

It's time to get played.

I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell, along with my fellow host, Matt Appadaka.

Hello, everyone.

And wow, Nick, you got anything to say?

No, Nick doesn't have anything to say.

Wow, okay.

I guess he's just not going to talk on this one.

He's angry at us, but he is here.

He's mad.

He's really upset at something we said to him right before the show.

Yeah, he's blair witching himself in the corner right now.

It's really upsetting.

But

hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast, where we've got a really, really cool guest this week.

And I say we tarry no further and just get him in.

Wait, Terry?

Yeah, people say that, right?

This would be when I would ask Nick, but he's refusing to talk about it.

I'm refusing to talk, but I see him and the way he's like moving around, I think he's saying that that's good.

I think that's right.

You tarry.

You tarry no further.

You tarry no further.

In that context only.

I don't know of the word tarry otherwise.

Is it like other than a name, perhaps from

what's that game?

S and K.

S and K.

No, that's the brand.

The game.

S and K is the brand.

Like Fapcom.

Is it what's Final Fight?

There you go.

Is that it?

Is that where Terry's from?

Terry Bogart.

Oh, boy.

But anyway,

before we bogart this anymore,

I think that actually works.

That's actually pretty good because we're bogarting our guests.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's get our guest in here.

He's a reporter at Bloomberg, co-host of the great podcast Triple Click, and the author of Blood, Sweat, and Pixels and Press Reset.

His new book, Play Nice, The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, is out October 8th.

That's tomorrow as of this release of the recording.

It's Jason Schreier.

Jason, welcome back.

Hello.

Thank you guys for having me on.

Matt and Heather and Nick.

It's great to see you.

Nick, why are you being so fucking rude?

He's being really, that's the thing is actually he's being rude.

It's just, yeah, it's so, I mean, you have me here.

I haven't been on in like three years since I played Mario is missing with you guys and you guys subjected me to that.

And then you don't say a word.

I mean, come on, Wager.

What the hell?

I'll say from my point of view, you're somebody who I would like to have on the show much more frequently than once every three years, but you're somebody who I think we all respect a great deal and don't want to bother.

Oh, it's no bother.

No, you got to email me.

Email me all the time.

You should be constantly bugging me because I would love, I love get played.

I

would be happy to come on anytime you guys would like, especially if you're playing something cool.

Because

I want to talk about good games instead of Mario is missing.

Yeah, that was, we did punish you with having you on for Mario is missing a game that made us all miserable.

Well, the truth is, we were thinking about having you on for, there's a ROM hack of the game that lets you move half as fast.

So maybe that would make the game better.

Just like a slower version of Mario is missing.

Last time it was Mario is missing, and now it's Nick Wager is missing.

So interesting.

He's pulling a real Mario, isn't he?

That Nick Weiger.

He's a bit of a Carmen San Diego as well, in some ways, when you think about it.

Because he's a sneak.

He's a thief.

He's a sneak and a thief.

Sure.

But he's not a globetrotter in the way Carmen San Diego.

If it was like, where in the world is Nick Weiger?

It's like in and out or.

The tiki theater on sunset.

Is that the porn theater?

Yeah.

Famously where

the late Fred Willard was busted.

Oh, shit.

Yeah.

It's okay.

He didn't do anything wrong.

But, yeah, but also going there is, I mean, that's a choice.

Yeah.

My traffic on my way to work stops right there very often.

Oh.

You get to see people going in, or is that the morning?

It's the morning.

I see people coming out of there at 8 o'clock in the morning.

Wow.

Well, maybe there's good video games in there.

It could, it's possible.

There's no Mario's missing in there, certainly.

So, Jason, you're free to go.

Yeah.

If you're going to go to a porto theater, I guess first thing in the morning, a fewer people, more space.

I don't know.

I don't really.

Get it out of the way.

Get in there.

Go about your day.

It's like going to the gym.

Some people like to go to the gym at six in the morning, and some people like to go

frequently.

Putting a new meaning to rise and grind.

Oh, boy.

Oh, boy.

So, Jason.

So, Jason, I have to, I'm sort of, you know, I'm sort of podcasting for two here.

I have to be Nick and I combined.

Oh, okay.

Wait, was that Nick or was that you?

That one was Nick.

Anything that you don't like that I say is that I started doing a Nick surgery.

That was Nick.

That was Nick.

Great.

So, Jason, I listen to Triple Click every week.

How do you have time to be doing a podcast, writing books, and being a journalist?

And do you have time to play a game for leisure at all?

Like, do you like, because your whole life is games in other forms.

Do you get to sit down and relax and just like play something for fun?

Well, to answer your question of how I have time, the answer is I neglect my family.

No, it's,

I don't really think, okay, so I've been like writing about the video game world for some 15 years now.

And at some point along the way, like something in my brain switched and I can't, I don't like,

I play games for fun all the time, but like there's no such thing as not playing games for work.

Like every time I'm playing a game, I'm thinking about, okay, how can I write about this?

How can I talk about this on the podcast in some way?

And that's just the state in which I've operated.

Like, I'm sure you guys are the same way.

When you do this and you talk about games or you write about games regularly, you're just constantly talking about and turning them into content.

Your brain becomes

a factory that turns video games into content sludge.

It used to be, and Heather will agree,

because in our old format, in the Mario's Missing Days, for example, we would do a new game every week, right?

Where we'd cover like a bad bad or weird video game, and that became such a slog, and that took over the actual time you have to play something that you'd actually like to be doing.

Yeah, I mean, like every Saturday and Sunday of that entire time of my life was ruined.

Ruined.

Yeah, because we had to play like Ballin Wonder World.

No, we do that in the new format.

Yeah, that's right.

Rebranding was extremely smart on your all decisions.

As was adding Matt as an official co-host, I think last time I came on, Matt, you were just kind of the informal producer slash.

Just a producer.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know.

And look at us now, Nicholas.

Nicholas, indeed.

Everything's going great.

So, Jason, yeah, the book comes out on Tuesday,

as of this release.

Why don't you tell us a little bit about it?

We'll get into like the nitty-gritty of it in a little bit, but just tell us like what the book is about.

Sure.

So it's a book about the history of Blizzard Entertainment, the video game company behind Warcraft and Diablo and Hearthstone and Overwatch and StarCraft.

And like one of the reasons I wrote about this company is because there are so many, it has so many franchises that you have to say in that sentence because so many people have played.

Like it's created five billion dollar franchises that are essentially all cultural phenomena.

And it is essentially, I mean, I like to describe it to like the normies as the Pixar of video games.

yeah it's essentially like one of like the most beloved video game company not named nintendo or at least it was until recently until the last few years um wait i want to i want to play this game for one second i i want to interrupt you please i'm gonna i'm gonna name a studio and you have to say it is the blank of video games okay because you said blizzard is the pixar of video games except i'm gonna do it in reverse so what do you think is the

uh the blumhouse of video games Well, Blumhouse is making games now.

Yeah, but that doesn't count.

Because I was going to say, what is the A24?

No, okay.

What is the

animal?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

What is the Sony of

Warner Brothers?

No, fuck, fuck.

I guess there aren't.

Who is the Hideo Kojima?

Kojima just signed the WME.

The Hideo Kojima of video games is Kojima.

Oh, okay.

Gotcha.

Wait, did you think he was making movies this whole time?

I mean, it's easy to be confused.

Wait,

are you asking who the Kojima of movies is?

No, I was asking who the Kojima of video games is.

Because the Kojima of movies is like all his guys.

Right.

It's like George Miller.

It's

Nick Ruffin.

It's

Nick Wiger.

Jordan Peel.

Yeah, New Wiger.

Jordan Peale.

Lynch is in there, I'm sure.

He doesn't talk about him as much as I think he does.

Yeah, I'm sure there's a connection there all right so i guess i guess what i what i what i did was bad and i shouldn't have interrupted and i feel bad about it but so blizzard is the pixar of video games because they've created all of these iconic um

these iconic franchises but uh you know your book says the rise fall and future so it sounded like there's there's been some drama at Blizzard spoilers but okay fine if we're gonna go there heather

It's on the back of the book.

Yeah, and you don't go to the back of the book until you've read it all.

Come on.

But what?

That's...

Oh, no.

I have been reading books wrong.

If you're reading a manga, that's incorrect.

Yes, it's about the rise and fall and future of Blizzard.

So, okay.

So

Blizzard was for a long time, it felt like it couldn't miss.

Like every single thing, game it came out with was a hit.

It was like synonymous with perfection.

And it had this reputation for like every single time you got a Blizzard game, you know you're getting something special.

And then in recent years, it's kind of lost its luster for a whole bunch of reasons.

A lot of PR debacles, a lot of

the release of a bad game in the form of Warcraft 3 Reforged, which could have been like a fitting entry for how did this get played.

And

then most recently, the California lawsuit in 2021, where the California government sued Blizzard, Activision Blizzard, the parent company, for misconduct, sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, and discrimination, and

which led to it getting bought by Microsoft for $69 billion.

So it's been a wild ride in recent years.

And it's definitely safe to say, I mean, you look anywhere on the internet or talk to anyone who's a fan of their games, and they'll have

something to say about why Blizzard is no longer the kind of the

unanimously beloved company it once was.

It's still a hit machine.

It's still huge.

It's still an empire, but it's not like it's lost a little bit of its shine along the way.

And it's had some real, like,

real, real nadir moments.

They've lost a lot of people over the years.

They've gotten into, they had to like essentially deal with a corporate takeover, a little more complicated than that, but like this battle with their parent company, Activision.

It's been a long and turbulent ride that got most turbulent over the last, I would say,

six or seven years.

As somebody who works in podcasting, the phrase corporate takeover means absolutely nothing to me.

I have no idea what that could be like at all in any sort of way.

Very interesting information.

Sorry to hear that it's not good.

Hey, there's a weird, there's like a giant Spotify logo just popping up on the bottom of the screen here.

Like, what's going on?

Just pay no attention.

Pay no attention to that.

So I grew up here in Southern California and like the on the ass end of like LA County, basically.

And where

by that I mean closer to, weirdly closer to Orange County than actual like LA, but still within the LA County.

And I would spend a lot of time,

like I would spend more time in Orange County and doing like Orange County stuff.

I remember being at a friend's office recording a very old, old podcast that I used to do with some friends.

And there was a lot of people.

How was it called?

Can we find it on the internet?

How embarrassing is that?

Oh, God, I hope not.

I really hope no.

It was a comic book podcast, and we were all actually nice, good boys.

And there's no reason to look.

I'm surprised that we haven't heard about this podcast more often, given how frequently Joel Miller stops by our podcast.

You know, yeah,

one time he came into that show and he took all the comic books.

He's like, oh, this is like,

Easter on easy mode.

This is where I don't have to look for them.

They're all here.

But that office was in an adjacent parking lot to the Blizzard corporate office.

Oh, wow.

And I was like,

this shouldn't be here.

This is so weird that I

have heard of this company and I can just technically just walk in there if I wanted to.

Very strange.

Was this on UC Irvine or was this when they were in the big okay?

So this was the old days.

Okay.

Yeah, in the Irvine building.

Yeah.

I used to be a grocery delivery girl

back

before I was a games journalist and i delivered to the head of activision blizzards whatever that ceo's name was

uh yeah i delivered to his house which looked like a portal to hell

it was terrifying it was like i think there was a black triangle above the door but i'm not i like i'm not quite sure how to describe it i just remember being like holy shit this is the largest building i can't believe this is a home.

Did he give you a nice tip?

No, they never, none of them did.

No, they did.

What does Bobby Kodak?

I think this guy's not so good.

What does he order from his grocery?

Like, what is his grocery order?

I don't remember.

This was so long ago, but it was like, it was like

groceries.

It was just

celery.

It wasn't like celery.

I feel like it was like Pringles and a vodka.

I don't remember it.

I have no idea.

That is not true.

I feel like you would remember that if it it was Pringles and a vodka you were delivering to Bobby Kodak's house.

I wouldn't remember it because so many people ordered basically that from the early days of grocery delivery.

They were like,

what I want is a bottle of vodka, but what I have to make it look like that wasn't the only thing that I wanted.

So it'd be like a bottle of vodka and a toothbrush or a bottle of like a full handle of rum

and a notebook.

That's like when you have to go to a CVS cvs and buy condoms but you're embarrassed so you're like condoms and some gum

sir you know these aren't the two these aren't the same thing yeah they're not the same

don't chew them

heather because you are a delivery person do you think that's why you connect to samporter bridges so much um i connect to samporter bridges because i have been in an apocalyptic hellscape for the majority of my adult life.

That's why you guys in your LA, LA jokes.

Oh, man.

It's so hard.

Jason, you don't understand.

It's so hard living in LA.

Yeah.

Well, because all you talk about is 40 degrees today.

I feel like a rule of living in LA is you have to either

constantly reference LA, like, oh, the cheeky theater on Sunset.

Yeah.

Or, or

you just are talking constantly about how it's a hellscape that's those are if you've seen

if you've seen the sketch the californians we're just like that yeah i get it that's what we do i get it uh mildly jealous

yeah we're like everybody in here is like the coolest people you've ever seen

ed is more common than you think and simpler to treat than ever through him's you can connect online with a licensed provider to access personalized treatment options discreetly on on your terms.

Through HIMS, you can access personalized prescription treatment options for ED like hard mints and SexRX Plus climax control if prescribed.

HIMS offers access to ED treatment options ranging from hard mints to trusted generics that cost 95% less than the brand names if prescribed.

Now that's quite a savings.

You shouldn't have to go out of your way to feel like yourself.

HIMS brings expert care straight to you with 100% online access to personalized treatments that put your goals first.

This isn't a one-size-fits-all care that forgets you in the waiting room.

It's your health and goals put first, with real medical providers making sure you get what you need to get results.

Think of HIMS as your digital front door that gets you back to your old self with simple 100% online access to trusted treatments for ED and more, all in one place.

To get simple access to personalized, affordable care for ED, hair loss, weight loss, and more, visit him.com/slash get played.

That's him.com/slash get played for your free online visit.

HIMS.com slash get played.

Actual price will depend on product and subscription plan.

Featured products include compounded drug products, which the FDA does not approve or verify for safety, effectiveness, or quality.

Prescription required.

See website for details, restrictions, and important safety information.

Do you struggle with procrastisaving?

You know, when you put off doing something that could save you a ton?

I used to be a huge procrastaver until I heard about Mint Mobile's best deal of the year that's ending soon, 50% off unlimited premium wireless for new customers.

Let me tell you how I procrastisaved.

I would reuse toilet paper.

Stop overspending with big wireless and cut your wireless bill to $15 a month when you switch.

All Mint Mobile plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text on the nation.

largest 5G network.

You can use your current phone and phone number on any Mint Mobile plan and bring along all your existing contacts.

Don't miss out on three months of unlimited premium wireless from Mint Mobile for 15 bucks a month.

But hurry because this deal ends September 22nd.

Look, cell phones are cell phones.

What are we talking about?

Your wireless carrier isn't, it's all the f ⁇ ing same, man.

Am I allowed to say f ⁇ during an ad?

Well, I just did.

And I told you I would reuse toilet paper to save money.

Think about how much you could be saving with Mint Mobile.

Quit stalling and start saving when you make the switch.

Shop plans at mintmobile.com/slash get played.

That's mintmobile.com/slash get played.

Upfront payment of $45 required, equivalent to $15 a month.

Limited time, new customer offer for first three months only.

Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan.

Taxes and fees extra.

See Mint Mobile for details.

I guess I don't know this much about what your gaming diet is typically like.

If you could, if you weren't gaming for work or for anything like that, what's like the type of game that you absolutely gravitate towards?

Like, this is my shit.

This is my Jason Schreier special.

What are you going for?

Two answers that I think will please you guys.

JRPGs and

like adventure games/slash visual novels, like story-focused games.

Or like

Obradin likes.

I count that in the same category, like Chris with the Kiss of the Gold

and stuff.

In fact, I'm playing a JRPG right now.

That has me very excited.

I know you guys are into Persona 5, right?

Am I remembering that right?

I feel like I've heard you.

Wait, is it Metaphor?

What's the name of it?

Oh, yeah, Metaphor Refantasio, which I'm like, I'm playing an early copy.

Yeah, I know.

It's possibly the worst title, definitely top five worst titles I've heard about.

I disagree.

I think it's good.

It's really funny.

And

it's from Atlas.

It's from the director, and art director, and composer of Persona, the Persona series.

And I can't get super detailed on it because the embargo is not up yet, but there's a demo out so I can essentially talk about what's in the demo.

And so I can tell you guys that it is Persona 5, but with fantasy and with like a job system instead of Personas.

And it's pretty cool.

Oh,

I didn't.

I didn't even know it was.

I I didn't even know it was like that.

Oh, no.

What metaphor?

I didn't know.

You'd heard of it, though.

No, you hadn't heard.

You'd heard of this game, I guess, coming out.

But is this a new one, or is this like a

brand new?

I think it comes out on the 11th.

Yes, October 11th comes out.

Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Yeah.

Fuck.

Look at that.

Look at that games journalist, like that brain, the brain coming back online.

I have to play it now.

Yeah, so there's a demo.

You could go and you could just cut this podcast right now and go and download the demo and play that.

Guys,

I gotta go.

And the save carries over to the full game.

So you could check it out.

I'm gonna

download that afterwards.

It's space, though, also, right?

No.

From the trailer, I thought there was space.

Not that I've

seen maybe like later on.

Maybe that's a twist or something.

Maybe not.

No, it's in like this fantasy medieval world.

And the kind of the concept is everyone in this world is like a different race and there's a lot of racism.

Some of the races are like lower tier, and others are not.

But here's the funny part is that there are these massive monsters that are like deformed, like incredibly creative, artistic creations.

Like, again, Persona's art director, like one of them is like a giant baby.

And these monsters, these monsters are called humans.

So you play as like these other races and you're like, they are constantly talking about defeating the humans that are wreaking havoc on the world.

And And it's just a, it's, man, I'm excited to go more in-depth on this game.

You guys will enjoy it, I think, because if you're into Persona 5, it's like a new Persona game, essentially, that you're getting that I think will surprise some people in just how close it is to Persona 5.

Giant baby.

Yeah, it's like a giant baby, but I didn't even describe that right.

It's a giant baby monster that like eats children.

That really starting to sound like someone we know.

Yeah, the guy in the corner vibrating.

Sorry, Nick.

Well,

that sort of then brings us to

something that we do on every episode.

We ask a question.

And that question

is,

what are you playing?

What are you playing?

Hi, it's me, the Resident Evil Merchant, and I'm here.

To ask my friends what they're playing.

And I get when we've got a guest, which is infrequently because of the behavior of Nick Weiger.

Do we ask him first, or do I ask you first, Meta Bonaku?

Well, Jason said what he was playing right now, but we could also, Jason, are you playing?

You could ask him if he's playing anything else.

Are you playing anything else, Jason?

I'm playing Zelda, too, but I'm sure we'll get into that later.

But metaphors that made me Lady Zelda.

Lady Zelda, or I guess Lady Link,

as she refers to Goba.

Wait, Link is a lady and the lady.

I just think, because the game is called The Legend of Zelda, but you typically play as Link.

Right.

Right?

So in this one, you do play as Zelda.

Lady Zelda.

Yeah, I guess the thing is, you're not wrong.

You are just, like, confused, kind of, though.

In what way am I confused?

I guess because...

I guess, because

I guess the franchise isn't necessarily.

Have you played as a lady in any of the other ones?

No, you do have to sort of disguise as a lady in Breath of the Wild.

Oh, yeah, when you get in the desert.

And Link looks real good.

He's a little twink.

Okay.

I don't know if that's all right.

I don't know.

Resident Evil 4 merchant, I gotta say, I love you, man.

I love you, too.

I was at your wedding.

I know.

You made a lot of people extremely uncomfortable.

I just wanted to dance.

Anyway, so, uh by the way, when you handed us the rings up there, it was for I'm so happy I didn't lose them.

They were all gunked up.

Well, I was in the river.

Uh, Jason, did you have to buy the rings?

Like, did you have to trade for them?

This is the thing.

He presented them to us in that sort of like open cloak

motion.

What are you wetting?

There were a lot of rings in there.

And I was like, wait, we gave you the ones for us.

We have to buy them back.

I thought you wanted some options.

Yeah.

I have to trade those pink little crystal things for them from the remake.

The question is, how many did he just go to other weddings that morning and just steal the rings from each of them?

Yeah, I think there was.

I played the fifth

amendment.

So, Jason, you're playing Lady Zelda.

I'll also say that I'm also playing the Lady Zelda, so I could talk about this.

We could talk.

This is where we could talk about the Lady Zelda.

All right, you guys talk about Lady Zelda.

I've dipped my toes into this.

I haven't, I have not had a chance to get too far into it, but I will say,

because this is a completely new thing, right?

You're obviously playing a Zelda, but there's like a, this is a,

almost a Tears of the Kingdom take on the Lynx Awakening type thing where it's like a...

Top-down.

Top-down

Zelda game, but it's that cute art style from the Lynx Awakening remake, but

it has a lot of things in common, I feel like, with Tears of the Kingdom in the way that you have this magic wand that can copy things and you can place them around in the world and

use them to for platforming puzzles or to like, you know, there's uh guards in the first area that are on like a loop or something, and you can copy a box and put another box just in the way, and they'll be like, What the that box was there before, and then get stuck.

And then you can copy monsters to do attacks and things like that.

So you can be very creative with how you play this game, which is very, very fun.

I was worried, for some reason, I was worried that the mechanic, that main mechanic of the wand was going to become tiresome.

And so far, every time I get to do it, I'm so excited.

I love to do it.

How are you enjoying the game, Jason?

I am a little underwhelmed.

Okay.

Ooh, spicy.

Yeah, this is hot take

corner here.

I like, so I'm up to the second dungeon of the game.

Okay.

And so,

so I made a little bit of progress.

I guess not super far, but

I'm not really feeling it because, like, the combat is so just clunky.

Because, like, in a, okay, in a normal Zelda game, when you see a monster, it's just kind of like a very simple impediment to your progress because you just hack it with your sword a bunch of times.

Or, like, in Tears of the Kingdom, you exactly.

You shoot it with like, uh, you shoot it with an apple arrow and then you make it go away and it all feels very quick and smooth yeah exactly please keep keep keep it coming um

whereas in this you have to you can't just hit anything you just have to you have to summon a monster and the ai for the monsters is pretty dumb so you have to kind of hope it attacks it or you can come up with some creative concoction which is fun for a bit but then when you are walking and just trying to get to the next area and you just keep running into monsters everywhere the way you would in any zelda game having to keep

summoning things just to take them all out is a real pain, at least for me.

It just feels like it's like impeding the fun.

I almost wish that they had gotten rid of the combat and just made this a puzzle game because that would have been much, much better.

Yeah.

And then on top of that, you got, well, let me just finish real quick.

On top of that, you can transform into like Link, the sword fighter, and you get a sword and you become like Link, but it's on a timer.

So it's like, you can transform into a sword to kill monsters more quickly, but it's limited.

So it's just really frustrating when I'm like, man, this is how I want to beat monsters in this game.

Like, I don't want to be taking an extra 20 seconds to have to summon monsters and watch them attack the enemies.

And I'm just trying to get to a new place.

So I find it a little bit frustrating overall.

I heard a TikTok review of this,

as the merchant puts it, Lady Zelda game, and baffling.

And it described it as the best Pokémon game that wasn't Pokemon.

How accurate would that be?

I guess I can see that.

Because, yeah, every time you kill a monster, you can kind of absorb its echo, they're called, and then you can summon it.

Here's the thing, though, I hate Pokemon games.

Oh, shit.

I don't enjoy those either.

So maybe that's why I'm not enjoying this so much.

As somebody who loves Pokemon,

I rarely find that I play a game and early on I immediately think this is better than Pokemon Gold.

It's not.

There's never really a game that to me is as good as that.

So, you know,

I can see it, but

I'll have to save that assessment for when I'm done with it.

I've also been hearing complaints that it like runs like shit on the Switch and that

people are thinking that it's going to run better on Switch 2.

Because I mean, we're about pretty close to probably when a Switch 2 would theoretically be announced, is what people are speculating.

And

people are saying that this is, I mean, this is like the last major release for the Switch from Nintendo, most likely.

I have no concept of when the Switch came out.

It came out, I think, in 2017.

It's been seven years.

March 2017.

Yep.

That's right.

It's almost eight years now.

Yeah, almost.

So the reason it came out in 2017 was the Wii U failed, so that release was truncated, right?

Yeah.

Is that what happened?

Because like, I feel like it's not in usually all the consoles kind of come out at the same sort of window, but like the PS5 came out in 2020 or 2021, right?

Yeah, 2020.

Yeah, that is what happened.

I mean, the Wii U failed, only lasted

less than five years.

And yeah, the search.

What happened was Nintendo during the Wii, the Wii U was such a failure that Nintendo decided to combine, like instead of making handhelds and consoles and having totally separate like software development pipelines for both,

they combined all of those teams to just crank out games for the Switch, which is why they've had such a prolific output of new first-party games on the Switch is because it's like all those teams that were making games for the 3DS combined with all those teams that were making games for the Wii U.

But yes, and then that was a short life cycle because

it was like underperformed so badly and the Switch came out and that started selling gangbusters.

And that has been an extended cycle because it's done so well.

I almost am like, I mean, here's the thing: as soon as they announce a pre-order for a Switch 2, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get one.

Right.

I'm just, I'm like, we don't need to be doing this all the time.

The Switch runs perfectly good for me.

I'm fine.

I don't know if I need a new Switch.

Well, this is the first iPhone generation I've skipped in a long time.

Oh, yeah.

For very similar reasons.

Like, I'm, I'm a

habitual early adopter.

I'm a habitual tech updater.

Obviously, I'm the only, well, no, I know one other person who has the Vision Pro, but I do feel like I was like,

what can then it like it feels like a plateau of returns is happening kind of across the board.

Like the PS5 Pro didn't sell out on day one.

Yeah.

Which is

crazy for, I feel like the PS4 Pro sold out immediately.

And I feel like when you, when you're watching the demonstrations of the new updated Fidelity, it's not overwhelming anymore.

I have a theory as to why the Pro didn't sell out.

And I'll just rule out that it's stupid first.

Okay.

I'll just clear that one real quick.

But then my initial thought is because I think right now the only place to pre-order one until

I think October 10th is when pre-orders at other retailers go out is the only place to get one is PlayStation Direct and a lot of people I think are waiting to be able to trade theirs in

like at like a GameStop or something and then get one is what I would do in that situation.

But I don't think I'm I'm not necessarily compelled to do it at all.

I wish there were more ports on it so badly.

Like more places to plug stuff in.

I wish there were like as far as I know, there aren't multiple USB-C ports on the front of the machine.

And as somebody who wears the headset a lot,

you have to have the headset dongle jammed into one of those things.

So you only have one port.

Yeah.

I want more ports.

I was, I was concerned you meant

like games because I said, I was thinking from the PlayStation 5 library, I got some good news for you.

No, I mean a lot of those.

The USB ports.

Yeah, no, I get you.

Ports.

I'll also say,

I'm playing something else, too.

Not playing it, but I got it to like mess around with it a little bit and see if I, I, how good I am at it.

I gotta go.

Sometimes you kind of mess around, see if you have a connection before you commit.

I get you.

Yeah, just see if I pick it.

You know, if I am going to play it, but this is not a game that I'm going to, like, this is going to be like a party time type of thing.

I got the Marvel versus Capcom Fighting Collection Arcade Classics.

And let me tell you something.

I'm bad at these games.

I'm so bad at Marvel vs.

Capcom 2.

Like, and that's the, like, that's kind of why I bought it.

I only really bought it so I could have Marvel vs.

Capcom 2 on my Switch.

Right.

Because that's, I think, one of the most beautiful-looking games ever.

It's just great.

It just looks good.

The sprites are gorgeous.

I love that.

I love how that game looks and I like playing it in theory.

But

getting online with strangers is completely demoralizing yeah you are I'm just not an online competitive uh fighter a fighting game player I just can't do it that's just not that's not my community I shouldn't I shouldn't be going around there that's that's that's their they have a whole world they're very very good and I'm I'm playing on a switch I'm just trying to have a little fun So there's this guy, Justin Wong, who's like a professional fighting game player, and he was posting online that like videos of him just playing random matches of Marvel versus Capcom 2 and just wrecking everybody who saw.

So it's possible that one of the reasons you think you're bad is because you were playing against a professional Justin Wong.

I really hope that that is the case.

But I can guarantee you the most average player would destroy me.

I think his name on Switch is Wazler.

That sounds if I'm not, if I'm not mistaken.

And Justin Wong is the guy from the famous clip from Evo,

where the parrying clip that I showed when I talked about Street Fighter 3,

where he's facing off against Daigo in one of the Street Fighter 3 tournaments in the early 2000s.

And

Justin decides to launch everything he has as a super, as Chun Lee, at Ken, and you hear somebody shout over the crowd, let's go, Justin!

And then he gets totally

just demoralized, depressed.

Oh, so it happened.

That clip happens to him.

Yeah, happens to him.

Not he didn't do it.

It happened to him.

Yeah, it happened to him.

Okay.

That

either way, if I had fought, if I played him online, there's, I think I would have died in real life.

Like, he's that good to be at even that level to get destroyed like that.

Like, I would have

disintegrated, leaving my Switch behind in a pile of dust.

Guys, fall is here.

The beers are colder, the football's back, and the fits are getting layered.

But if you're still rocking old beat-up boxers under those flannels and jeans, we gotta talk.

It's time to upgrade to me undies.

These things are ridiculously soft.

Like, don't wanna take them off soft, if you catch my drift.

They're made with micromodal fabric that feels like a cloud, but they still breathe when things heat up.

And just in time for spooky season, Me Undies limited edition Halloween line features festive prints, including glow-in-the-dark underwear, so you can bring the spooky vibes underneath it all, because that's what you want, your underwear to be scary.

Me Undies has a cut for every butt with over 20 styles in 100 different colors and prints.

Me Undy's signature super soft micromodal fabric is breathable, stretchy, and unbelievably cozy, perfect for crisp mornings, chilly nights, and everything in between.

Whether you're layering up for a hike or lounging in flannel all day, Me Undies moves with you and keeps you comfy.

Want even more seasonal comfort?

Try the Breathe Line, designed for moisture wicking and anti-odor tech to keep you fresh throughout fall workouts or just a long day of pumpkin picking.

I love it.

They use sustainably sourced materials and work with partners that care for their workers.

Not happy happy with your first pair of undies?

It's on me undies.

With more than 30 million pairs sold and 90,000 five-star reviews, me undies are an essential summer must-have for every drawer.

I've talked about the undies, okay?

I've talked about me undies.

And folks, the me stands for me, mine, me, I, Matt.

I got the undies.

And I loves them.

Because guess what?

The old undies, I gone back to them one time in a moment of weakness, right?

Laundry Day, all my me undies are in the freaking

wash, and I put on an old pair of undies, and I'm just like, ow, ow, ah, I can't breathe.

Ah, it hurts.

Oh no, it stinks.

But with the meundies on, those are not my problem anymore.

Right now, as a listener to my show, you can get cozy and spooky for less with deals up to 50% off at meundies.com/slash get played and enter promo code get played.

That's meundies.com/slash get played.

Promo code get played for up to 50% off.

Me Meundies, that's comfort made for all.

This is an absolutely true story.

One time I was in Japan and I had my cell phone with me, but I was

following somebody around in the city and having a good time.

And then they locked me on a roof of a skyscraper because they were a crazy person.

That's a true story.

And my cell phone didn't have wireless access.

So this next ad is specifically something that I could have used in the past.

Because if I'd had Wi-Fi, I could have called somebody, but instead I had no cell phone service trapped on a roof in Tokyo.

If you've ever been lost abroad or badly needed an internet connection with no Wi-Fi spot in sight, you'll understand what a difference a local SIM card can make.

An e-SIM provides an internet connection wherever you travel and saves you money on roaming fees.

That's where Saley comes in.

Saley is a new e-Sim service app brought to you by the creators of Nord VPN.

Here you can choose from several affordable e-SIM plans in over 190 countries and eight regions.

With a Saley eSIM, you'll always have a connection when needed.

Download Saley once and you won't have to install a new e-SIM for each country.

You can avoid scammers selling fake SIM cards outside of train stations and airports.

No more wandering around looking for a public Wi-Fi spot.

With a Saley, you're always connected.

They provide 24-7 support and you get a full refund if your device isn't eSIM compatible.

Download the Saley app in your app store.

Use code GetPlaid at checkout to get 15% off your first purchase, or go to saley.com/slash get played.

That's S-A-I-L-Y dot com slash get played.

I eventually got off that roof when the sun rose.

Heather, what are you playing?

Well, I've continued to play Astrobot.

Okay, hell yes.

I am 290 bots into my play.

I have not yet beaten it because I am determined, again, to gold flag everything before I walk into the boss's arena.

And I think I have one more bot to get on a regular island.

And then I'm off to break the chains and smash the boss's face in.

I feel like they, I feel like the hardest level in the game was a triangle level.

And I am surprised how much of a step down the X levels were,

the cross levels.

Yeah, those ones didn't give me

as much trouble.

But I will say, there's a level that combines all the shapes.

Uh-huh.

It's going to be a nightmare.

That's a hard level.

I can't believe it.

It's like such an exciting level because of the challenge, but it does not, it is

in a game that is filled with joy and is so fun and exciting.

It is relentless.

I love to hear it.

I also,

uh, I loved, I loved that one triangle level that I texted you guys and I was like, this level's kind of tough.

Yeah.

And then you were like, do you want to know my tips?

And I was like, actually, I just beat it.

It's such a satisfying game.

It's a really satisfying game.

It remains super charming.

Often, you know, when

we

close up a game for We Play, You Play, I will be like, I'm going to keep playing it.

And I don't.

Yeah.

But I am,

I think I'm going to finish this out and maybe platinuming it.

depending on like I know that there's like those little things that you're supposed to take pictures in in front of and I'm like motherfucker if one of the fucking achievements is taking photos in front of every one of those little standout cutouts things then I'm definitely not platinum.

It's not I did look at a guide because some of them are a little more obscure than just completing a certain task.

Gotcha.

But they're all very doable.

Okay.

They're all super like Even some of the ones that are like, you have to go to a certain level to do it.

It's not like you have to get to the very end of the level for this one thing.

You can get it, and then it pops, and then you leave, and then it's go do something else.

Okay, okay.

You could do it.

It's, it's, they're super achievable.

I am currently putting Outlaws on hold because of the roadmap of improvements that are being launched in the next month.

Yes, I'm taking a

Outlaws sabbatical as well.

We're two Outlaws enjoyers, Jason.

We're a couple of sickos over here.

I'd like to do it.

I don't know how much more I'm going to play.

I thought it was okay.

It's no Astrobot.

I'll I'll say that.

No, Astrobot.

Almost no game is Astrobot.

Astrobot is like really up there, I think, with like a, in, in the pantheon of perfect games.

I want to ask, Jason, in your games, journalist, this is not a hard shift to actual topic, but it, but I guess it kind of felt like it, and it would be a natural bridge.

And maybe if I hadn't called it out, we could have just rolled with it.

But instead, now I'm hypercycling inside my own head.

Look, it's just going to depend on where Ranch puts the brake is all.

That's true.

We'll be right back.

So,

Jason, in your

one of the things I think is interesting about your career and say my career as a games journalist is I exited right when you started.

And so, we have, we have very few overlaps in terms of like the things that we could have been reviewing at the time.

I want to know what

game stands out for you as like one of your most pleasurable reviewing experiences of the last 15 years so first of all heather it's funny because when i was in college i like thought i wanted to be a screenwriter so uh to me you have a way cooler job than i do um

uh uh reviewing video games is not really that pleasurable to me what's pleasurable to me is reporting on video games and like writing stories about the video game industry and like talking to people and interviewing people and just like calling them up and asking them lots of questions because there's nothing better than like

the pleasure of being a journalist is getting to call up people who are smarter than you and ask them questions that you don't know the answer to, and then getting to like know the answers and share those answers with the world.

It's so cool.

I mean, that's why I write books, it's just so satisfying for me.

So, like, yeah, I mean, I love playing games and getting a game early is cool.

I have a lot of fond memories of like reviewing like Final Fantasy 15 or like

reviewing, like getting the Switch a couple weeks before it came out.

Lots of cool stuff that I've been able to do, but

I would happily give all that up if,

like,

as long as I could keep reporting and writing stories.

When you got the Switch early, did you have a

you can't show this to people in Bargo?

Like, could you take it to a bar or did you have to keep it inside your house?

No, I played it on the airplane to GDC that year, I remember, and got a lot of got a lot of, got a lot of looks,

a lot of jealous people.

No, they they got, well, so Nintendo used to be like hardcore about that stuff.

Yeah.

When we got, so I was at Kotaku in 2012 and the Wii U was coming out and we were set to get a review unit, but I think we had to turn it down because they refused to give it to us unless they could have people come and

like

attach it to a desk with like a lock and only they would have the key.

Like they would have to like padlock it to our office and not give us the key so we could not move it, which we were like, no, that's absurd.

We're not going to do that.

So yeah, they used to be

militant about that sort of thing.

Yeah, I remember

the Wii came out when I was a games journalist and I remember this sort of draconian, I want to say there was a briefcase involved.

Like

there was like a special briefcase.

Like the nuclear code?

Sort of.

It's been a while, so I don't quite remember it, it, but

my vague memory of it was there was a briefcase, and when there was a game to review, they would come, unlock the briefcase so that you could play the test game because

they didn't want that test unit to get out because then you could like theoretically hack the Wii.

Wow.

You would play the test game, and then when you were done, they'd re-lock the briefcase.

with like and and like chain it to a desk or something was like kind of what i remember them doing.

The thing about your life that this could be

you could be conflating a time you were in the room with nuclear codes.

Yeah,

I would buy it.

That might have happened.

It could have happened.

I guess I mean I

am not a journalist.

I know nothing of journalism.

So I'm sort of just like somebody right now that's like, I just want to pick Jason's brain about a bunch of different things that I think are kind of interesting.

And like just very, like, very basic things because i'm also not very smart what is computer yeah so what is computer how you tie uh all right well um

okay

have you heard of electrons

okay um start uh earlier than that um uh no I guess for me, what was, so how did you become even a games journalist?

Obviously, you have to have a journalism background at some time at some of some kind, but I'm guessing that you don't just start with games, right?

Well, or did you jump straight into games?

It all starts with our Lord Almighty, who on the first day created the sun and the moon.

Oh, my God.

Oh, no.

On the seventh day, he rested.

We'll be right back.

This is a religious podcast now.

It's actually, I'm turning it into Get Prayed.

So welcome to Get Prayed with Jason Schreier.

It's been a religious podcast, I'll tell you, sir.

I was wondering about all the crucifixes.

Oh, Nick Weiger is like in a full-on priest's garb.

Whoa, this is.

Yeah, that's right.

He's a man of the clock.

He has priests.

Oh, he took a vow of silence.

That explains everything.

Yeah, that's right.

What was the question again?

I totally love it.

I guess, like, what was your entry point into games journalism in general?

How did you start?

It was an accident.

I mean, like, I,

so I mentioned I, so I went to NYU.

I, like, was into film and stuff and wanted to be a screenwriter for a bit, but I also wanted to be a journalist.

So it was just kind of, I knew I wanted to be a writer my entire life.

I knew I just wanted to be a writer and write something or another, tell stories.

And I wound up going to the school at NYU called Galladin that is like a create your own major thing.

That's just kind of like a joke of a college experience.

Like the classes were just like absurdly stupid.

And the majors are so funny.

There was one kid who majored in, like some of these we would swap stories.

It was amazing.

One kid who majored in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

And he did that by studying animation and then Renaissance history, which combines to make a major of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

There were like people who

majored in evil.

There were like all sorts of urban legends about what people majored in, egaladin.

It was kind of like the

quirky joke of a school.

Anyway,

and then after school, I wound up doing like freelance local journalism.

And the story I tell, it's kind of apocryphal, but it's true,

is that I was back in my parents' place for like a few months after I graduated.

And so I was doing local journalism in the suburbs of New York where I grew up.

And then I was like in this zoning board meeting in this one little city.

And it was a bunch of old dudes like sitting at a podium and they were arguing over whether a fence is allowed to be 25 feet or 30 feet.

And I was just sitting there with my laptop and I was just like, this is hell.

Like I cannot do this.

Is there something more interesting I could write about?

And then I kind of was like, oh, I should get into writing about games.

I should see if that works.

Cause I had done like

unpaid reviews in college for like little volunteer websites where like you get a review copy and that's your payment for a review.

And I was like, I wonder if I could just try to do that full time and see how it goes for like a year or two.

And then I got really lucky

because the internet hadn't quite destroyed journalism yet.

It was like on the way.

It was close, but it hadn't quite destroyed it yet.

And so there was this website popping up called Patch.

Do you guys remember this?

Do you guys remember Patch?

not so patch it was it was uh this local journalism like network it started in like 2009 or so um and the idea was like it was going to be hyper local local journalism in a billion different places and they had all this seed money and investments so they could pay people and i found this gig uh this is like 20 10 or 2009 or something like that.

I found this gig that would have me copy edit retail listings because part of their like way of making revenue revenue was to advertise for like retailers.

And so the retailers would write things and then I would have to copy edit them to make them like into proper English.

And

you had to do like 100 of them a week or 300, some some number a week and you would get paid $500 a week.

And I, because I'm a very fast reader, I found that I could do them all in like five hours.

So I was getting paid 500 bucks a week to do five hours of work a week, which allowed me, it gave me this like this safety net that allowed me to do actual freelance journalism and start building a career and like writing about games and stuff.

And then eventually got a job at Wired, which is my first kind of like permalance job.

And even Wired, they didn't pay me enough to like pay for my rent.

So I just had this baseline of this patch job.

It's almost like UBI that I, I was very lucky.

I found this job that gave me like a safety net for five hours a week.

I could do it while watching football on Sundays for five hours.

It was amazing.

Wow.

And

so without that, I probably would have like found another job because I would not have been able to support.

It's impossible to support yourself on a freelance writer's job without having like some other day job or like something else.

Um, that's true, even more true today, but it was true back then.

Um,

and then, yeah, I was a wire for a couple of years.

And then Kotaku, uh, Stephen Totillo, who was the editor of Kotaku, called me up and we had a meeting and I had way too many drinks, but still somehow got a job.

Um, and then I was at Kotaku for a long time and that kind of kickstarted my career.

But really, I just kind of fell into it because I never thought I would

stick with video games.

I thought it was just going to be one more thing on my way to like writing other things.

And then maybe I would go do other types of journalism or I would write like different kinds of books or like I would explore screenwriting or TV writing or something like that.

And then just kind of landed into this.

And then inertia and laziness prevented me from stopping.

And now I'm like fully pot committed.

Can't go back now.

No way.

Cause I think of when if somebody mentions like the idea of a video game journalist, you're somebody who comes up in my brain as somebody who does that.

It's like that means I've been doing this for too long and I need to find another.

I think it's like

I need to interview Heather about how to pivot from journalism into something more fun.

Well,

you got to deliver groceries for a time.

Jesus Christ.

Well, no, because I went grocery delivery, transcribing reality television were my

day jobs that allowed me to break into games journalism.

Got it.

Uh, cause, yeah, at the time, if you're like, I was writing stories, my initial work on like, uh,

what fuck, what was the name?

It was Edges, it was Edge's online portal, which was called like games industry.biz or

game informer.biz.

It was some some fucking online portal because edge.com wasn't their online portal.

And I can almost guarantee you now that's a different website.

But I, yeah, I went from grocery delivering and transcription, which were my patch,

and then into games journalism.

And then when the whole fucking system collapsed in 2008, 2009,

then I

exited and spent about three months in a fucking free fall of absolute

abject panic as like I blew through all of the money I had remaining and then maxed out all of my credit cards

and was doing sketch comedy at the time constantly.

Yes.

And so then I went straight from that to SNL.

So there wasn't really a

there.

I think you have to be so scared

for such an intense amount of time

that either the simulation that we're all a part of bends just slightly to catch you,

or

I'd also been, I mean, I'd been doing comedy for like 20 years or whatever the fuck at that point because I started so young.

Do you think your time at SNL, do you think you had maybe ever mentioned out loud that Wario should be in a courtroom sketch and that's why they did it with Elon?

Dude, when I was at SNL in 2010,

I pitched Pokemon sketches and they were like, what is Pokemon?

And I was like,

it's huge.

It's enormous.

It's the most profitable IP on planet Earth.

And no shit, no shit.

I'd pitched it on the weekend that was the

anniversary that happened in 20, it was either 2011 or 20 or something.

No, no, no.

The Pokemon anniversary.

Because it was like some big anniversary that year.

Was he 2010 or 2011?

And when they were like, well, nobody knows what Pokemon was.

Downstairs at 30 Rock, they were having a massive concert that the presidents of the United States were playing.

And they had a huge Pikachu float.

And I was like,

it's the thing out the window.

But we did not get a Pokemon sketch on that week.

Damn.

Heather, is that why Wire calls you Edge?

Because of Edge magazine?

Is that where it comes from?

He doesn't call me Edge.

He just calls it out.

He says, Edge.

Edge.

Gotcha.

Can we start?

I want to circle back to something that Jason said earlier.

He said that

because I think this idea is interesting that the internet has destroyed journalism.

Do you mean in terms of like physical

like print media or like the way that now any article has comments, a comment section under it, and you can just say whatever the hell you want about it?

No, the economics of it all are completely torched.

I mean, there's no way to make money doing journalism unless you're very, very lucky because

Google and Facebook have just eaten up all the ad revenue and now it's even worse.

Like t literally, like in the last few months, it's gotten like, it's gotten from really, really bad to apocalyptic because Google added these AI summaries on top of all of their searches.

And so now,

so a lot of websites had been kind of like

finding, so after all the ad revenue went away, which just continued to get worse and worse every year, some of the, some of the websites like found some kind of salvation with guides because a lot of people were googling like how to beat this Baldur's Gate 3 dungeon or like the best Elden Ring build or whatever.

And so all these gaming websites would post their own guides.

And that has now been torched because now when you Google like how what's the best Elden Ring build, instead of going to Polygon or IGN, Google will just take their stuff and put it in their AI summary.

So Google is just completely like the, it's a vampire of news media and is just killing.

I want to,

Jason,

maybe you can give me your theory on what the fuck Google is going to do for revenue if they're cannibalizing their own ad business by putting AI summaries at the top of the search pages like what do you think the fucking plan is there a fantastic question um I don't think they know I think they're just like oh this is cool let's do this let's attach this AI stuff where like all our shareholders are into AI let's put AI everywhere.

I don't think they have a long-term plan because it makes no sense.

How the fuck are they?

How are they going to make money?

Like selling ads is all that Google is an ad company.

That's right.

And we'll be right back.

What?

It's like we're trying to get as more ad breaks in the show.

Oh, right, right, right.

Grapes.

I mean, like,

I've been eating grapes a lot lately.

This episode is brought to you by grapes.

Well, I'm glad that you're as confused as I am because when the AI summaries came up at the top of the Google search, I was like, wait, but you're not paying for this.

What the fuck is happening?

And

it feels like it shouldn't be legal.

Like, they're literally just stealing things from websites.

It just doesn't compute for me.

It doesn't make sense.

I'll say the good thing about them is they're almost never the exact thing you need.

They're always

like, I'll see something in one of those sometimes and be like, well, this is just wrong.

The good news news is that they're useless.

Yeah.

Yeah, like if I'm like, if I'm like, wait, is a baked potato 350 or 400?

I'll put in how long to cook a baked potato for.

And it'll be like, cook it at a thousand degrees for two years.

And you'll be like, what the, what the fuck is this?

But yeah, gosh, I know.

It's such a double-edged sword because obviously, like, I hate, I hate AI and I hate all that type of stuff.

But then when you do look up a recipe online, you got to read someone's whole fucking life story of how long to like bake mac and cheese in a day.

There's always a jump to recipe.

Which is because of Google.

So, this is because of the way Google search results work.

Like, it's all the entire internet is just a house of cards that Google has forced like everybody to build.

And it's like one Google algorithm change away from collapsing, but it's all because of Google.

It's some absurd stat, like 90% of the internet's ad revenue is like Google and Facebook, which has just completely eviscerated the rest of the internet and like made it so it's impossible for.

And really, I mean, the kind of the original sin, to get this back on get paid messaging, the original sin of the internet is

making news free and making news available for free because it's conditioned us all to think of news as something we should just get without having to pay for it.

That of course means journalisms, journalists like have to do their jobs for free or like find some other way of making money and ads won't cut it.

Like, ads can be part of the equation, but like, you need to be, we need to recondition everybody to pay for news again.

And it's, it's, um, nice that we've seen some people found success with like subscriber models on websites and on podcasts and like different types of media.

Substack too.

Yeah.

And so that I think is a good step, but like

not everyone can do that.

And a lot of people are just getting chewed up along the way, sadly.

do you think there's like a way forward outside of the the ai uh like transcription things or like like is there a way for

i mean it's like such a big question like is there like a way for games media to recover beyond that like outside of just publishing guides like what do you think

like what are you like what are you super honest

about this like i think that sure I think that just yeah, I don't know.

With games media, it's impossible to know.

Cause it's not like,

I don't know,

it's really tough.

I don't have a good answer to that.

Jason, I think that in a way, your path is the path forward.

Because, like, if

people are going to look at,

if you Google like, you know, latest release

PS5 this week, it's just going to be an AI summary.

But if you're looking for actual in-depth journalism, the books that you're writing are

in a space that I don't think a lot of other people are occupying.

And it is a totally unique

and very dense and very critical form of journalism.

I feel like deep dives like this are the maybe, maybe I don't know how enormously profitable they are.

Like, I don't know if they're making you an old multi-millionaire, but they do feel like a way to take the thing that we all used to love about journalism and still create a space for that journalism to be purchased, ingested.

Like you're not going to enjoy an AI summary of play nice as much as you are going to enjoy the book itself.

Heather, do you know how many people read books and buy books?

It's like, it is so depressing, the numbers.

Like a successful book release,

the numbers are all funky, but like I feel like a book publisher would consider a book really successful if it sells like 50,000 copies total.

Like that would be very successful for a book.

Like, books don't make any money, unfortunately.

I've been very lucky in that I have this job at Bloomberg and they treat me very well and they pay well and they like they're very good to their staff.

But Bloomberg stuff is behind a paywall.

Like, we have readers who pay for it, and that's how they're able to do it.

Just like the New York Times, it's behind a paywall, and they are able to operate as a successful business because they convince readers to pay for it.

Um, books, yeah, I mean, books for me have been like a nice supplement.

Like, every few, every six months, I'll get a nice royalty check.

But even I, I mean, my books have sold quite well.

And even I haven't been able to like quit my day job just to write books all day.

So like they're not, books, books are not really a feasible option.

We're fucked.

Yeah, well, like, I mean, let me, let me put this another way.

Like, there are going to be YouTubers on Tuesday when my book comes out.

They're going to be YouTubers who have 20-minute videos where they skip through the book and like read all of the highlights, and they're going to get more hits than the book will ever sell.

Like, that's

what I want to throw up.

That is how the internet works.

God, unless that's so depressing.

Unless you're like J.D.

Vance, you're not making millions of dollars off of books.

I guess I'm glad I'm not JD Vance.

I don't know.

Jason,

have you seen All Watched Over by Machines of Love and Grace?

No.

It's It's a documentary about the creation of the Internet and sort of the

libertarian ideals that all of these guys shared when first crafting the internet and the world that they thought they were going to make and then what's actually happened.

It's an Adam Curtis documentary.

I think you would...

you would enjoy how miserable it is.

I think I would just be depressed.

It's like depressing enough having to work in this field and see like the layoffs and shutdowns every day.

Game Informer magazine, like a stalwart of the video game industry, just shut down a couple of months ago.

It's just like constantly.

Yeah.

And that's such a bummer too because they just like came back in like a

with like a subscription plan for people to not have it get it through GameStop Pro.

Well, I think that's kind of like a last effort, like

trying to save it.

But yeah, I mean, GameStop is kind of fucked, so it makes sense that their magazine, that they would shut down their magazine, and magazines aren't profitable either it's just all it's all a mess like it's all a disaster i wish i knew what it was about japan um because i was having a conversation with a new friend the other day and we were talking about the japanese new friend yeah a new friend what the heck

what first i'm hearing about this new friend

what wait is it weird to say new friend no i'm just

Matt is jealous.

He's interested.

I'm just

I'm not jealous.

I'm just saying I'm just kind of interesting.

What does that mean?

I don't know.

If Nick was here, I can guarantee you he would have been like, new friend, huh?

What is that?

Was the new friend at Matt's wedding?

No.

Oh, that's a faux pas.

No, it's just a friend.

Yeah, that's what everybody wants.

Everybody wants somebody that they know very well to bring somebody they've never met before.

Well, isn't that so plus whatsoever for?

That's right.

I was trying to be like, I had a conversation the other day with, and I didn't want to say someone I had just met but i also didn't want to say friend because i would that implies like a long-term relationship so i was like a new friend well matt is just upset that you're not updating him on all of the new friends i gotta have a new friend roster at all times i gotta know who's campbell's talking to i gotta know i gotta vet these people i gotta make sure they're okay there i gotta i want to make sure they're gonna be nice to my friend Okay, well, we were having a conversation about the Japanese retail space and how it has succeeded and endured even as the retail space everyone everywhere else has sort of dried up.

And that extended to me in all of my magazine subscriptions are Japanese magazines.

Yes.

And when I was in Japan a few months ago, I would go to the bookstores and there'd be stacks and stacks and stacks of magazines in a way that I don't feel

is something that still exists in American retail spaces.

And I wish I knew what the fuck was happening.

It's not like they don't have the internet you know it's not like they didn't even have the internet before us like smartphones were like

were we they were on the cutting edge of smartphones before the iphone came out so why the fuck did retail and magazines succeed in japan where they're failing everywhere else in the world i don't know i don't know the answer to that i do know that in the Japanese media space, it's a little bit more symbiotic with the publishers as opposed to like an independent kind of journalistic outlet stuff.

But I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't really know what the economy is like there.

I don't, I don't know either.

I have like a sort of like,

I have a specific like journalism question I have for Jason.

This is a podcast where we just ask questions where we don't have answers.

Hey, though, here's the thing.

Look, on this podcast, we're just asking questions.

We're just asking questions, man.

We're just asking questions.

Hey, we're just talking here.

What is our journalism question?

I want to know.

So, like, when you're writing a story, Jason, what is like the thing that like that you're looking for to get you interested in pursuing an investigation?

Because I'm sure there are a bunch of things that come across your desk often that you're sort of like, ah, there's not a lot of juice there.

What are you looking for like in pursuit of like a good story?

Um, usually it's like, uh, I usually when I work on a story, it starts with like some question that I think is interesting that I'm very curious about the answer to.

And I think other people and readers will also be curious about the answer to.

So it might be like, why did this high-profile game turn out to be a disaster or something like that?

Or Or

how did this get made?

That sort of thing.

And then

there are other kind of elements that make a good story.

Every good story has some sort of conflict and tension.

Every good story has some sort of like, this person wants X, but here are the obstacles getting in their way from getting X.

And that's as true

in journalism as it is in fiction storytelling.

See, Heather, this is me auditioning to be a TV writer.

So hit me up with those TV writing gigs.

well that is interesting to me because like obviously like and i i guess so when you write something that's like like when you write a book versus writing like a story for bloomberg i i would imagine that that's not too different of a muscle but it is probably like just a little bit different because the scope is so much larger correct yeah it's a lot more elaborate the structure is much different the structure structure is the biggest thing i i'm i tend to work in in structure like structure is the biggest thing to care about for me it's the thing that i spent the most time thinking about and storytelling structures.

And when you're doing a story, an article on Bloomberg or anywhere, really, you need to have a specific structure that is like,

if it's a feature or something, usually it'll have some sort of grabby lead and then it'll open and then it'll get into a nut graph that kind of contextualizes things and explains why this matters.

And it'll go in a bunch of different directions from there.

But it's generally following a very specific type of structure as opposed to a book where you have a lot more room to explore and

you can kind of of

ask a bunch of questions instead of just one single thesis.

And

it's a lot more sprawling, and

there's a lot more room for nuance and complication.

And so, like in Play Nice, for example, I mean, I cover a lot of different aspects of Blizzard's culture and get into a lot of themes that, like, I think an article wouldn't be able to do.

Like, an article wouldn't be able to explore some of the nuances of like various parts of Blizzard's history and Blizzard's culture.

Yeah.

Like, a good example, to give you guys like a concrete example,

please.

The book explores this battle that happened between

Blizzard CEO Mike Morheim and co-founder, Blizzard CEO and co-founder Mike Moorheim and Activision Blizzard CEO slash Pringles and Vodka orderer Bobby Kodish.

No, no, no.

I do not want to get

a hit with a fucking lawsuit.

That is not what happened.

It's not against the law to allege that somebody has enjoyed Pringles and Vodka.

I don't.

Please.

He represents you in court.

Oh my God.

I'm going to get, I'm going to lose everything.

Gonna walk in there with a tie wrapped around my head.

What are we even doing here?

And so on top of, and so this battle is like,

it's,

I think you could explore it in a lot of different ways.

I think in a more simplistic article and something that is only 2,000 words, you might have to go with a more reductive approach that doesn't take the time to understand like how we got to this point where Blizzard, which values creativity, is butting heads with Activision, which values predictability.

Whereas in a book, you can kind of, you can explore every side.

You can try to understand why each side is doing what they're doing and making the decisions they're doing.

So like I have a whole chapter in the book called, it's just titled Bobby, and it's about the rise of Bobby Kodak and his path to taking over Activision and like transforming it into this multi-billion dollar business and how much predictability kind of steered him along the way and this idea of like hitting schedules and releasing games every single year and exploiting, to use his words, franchises.

Whereas the context about Blizzard is a little bit different.

And that's like a company created by people who love playing games, who wanted to make games that they enjoyed playing and were addicted to and stuff.

And so getting a lot of that backstory and context and just exploring it in different angles is not something you can do in an article, even like a long form magazine article.

You just have a lot more space in book storytelling to get to know those people and get to know the companies and get to know the histories involved.

And so like with like the structure that you have for like with writing a book, did anything change with this book as opposed to how you tackled the first two books?

Or was this like a pretty like a pretty linear process like as far as like starting from nothing to having a full book?

Yeah, I mean, so the first two books were both, the first two books I did, Bloodstone and Pixels and Impress Reset were both anthology stories.

So they were both kind of compilations of different, the first, the first book was about how games are made, like different development stories.

And the second book was about game studios shutting down and those kind of those stories about what happened to people after that.

And so this book is all one big story, which

by itself made it very different and made it a much different kind of structural challenge for me to approach as opposed to like within anthology, I could be like, Okay, this is like one big article.

I can do that.

Whereas with this, I was like, Oh, I have no idea what I'm doing here.

So, yeah, it was definitely, it was an interesting challenge to take on, but it was fun.

It's, it's, uh, I find it more rewarding, and I'm proud of it.

Like, I think this one is the best book that I've written, so I'm pretty proud of it.

I've been reading it and I've been really enjoying it.

Um, and I guess it should, I mean, it's coming out the same day as

Diablo 4,

right?

It's like the sequel to Diablo 4.

And fortunately, I'm releasing an audiobook version of Play Nice, so you can listen to it while you play Diablo 4.

Don't worry.

There you go.

And it should be noted that Ray Chase, our friend as well,

does all of Jason's audiobooks.

Yes, Ray Chase, best known as the designer of Date Everybody, the video.

That's right.

But also the voice of Noctis in Final Fantasy 15.

Just a smooth set of pipes on that.

Yeah, he's good.

He's good.

We love Ray here.

Jason, thank you so much.

I mean, before we get you out of here, though, I do have a segment for you.

Oh, wow.

It's time for a segment.

That's right.

I'm going to read a vague plot summary of a video game and see if Heather or Jason can tell me what it is.

It's time for vague rent story.

That's good.

I love it.

I love it.

That's pretty good, right?

Okay, so these are just vague plot descriptions.

and if you can tell me what it is, you get a point, okay?

Okay, just a simple, silly little game.

It's just like a silly thing.

Here we go:

a young hero and his sidekick embark on a quest to save their world, facing various obstacles and mysterious creatures while uncovering ancient secrets.

Along the way, they navigate vibrant landscapes and collect unique items, ultimately confronting a dark force that threatens everything.

What the fuck?

That's there's no fuck you're every single game.

Eat shit, Matt Appadana.

Eat shit.

It's vague.

Yeah, but like, literally, if that's going to be, are you just going to read that five times?

I only have the one, yeah.

No, I have, there's different, there's different ones that are all more or less kind of similar.

All right, I'm going to guess Dragon Quest VIII.

That is incorrect, Heather.

Of course it is.

Because it could be fucking anything.

Look, it's the game.

A boy and his blob.

That is incorrect.

The correct answer is Jack and Daxter.

Moving on to the second one.

What the fuck?

In a dystopian world,

a woman uncovers a conspiracy while trying to save her planet from an oppressive regime.

With the help of allies, she documents the truth, battles enemies, and seeks to reveal hidden secrets.

Parasite Eve.

As incorrect.

Fuck.

I thought I had a shot on that one.

Veronica Mars.

It is not Veronica Mars a video game.

It is in fact Beyond Good and Evil.

Moving on.

This is making me mad.

A soldier undertakes a secret mission, facing off against former allies and navigating complex loyalties while uncovering deep conspiracies.

Metal Gear Solid 3.

Give it to him.

Give it to him.

You made the face.

I'm going to give it to him.

The answer is Metal Gear Solid 3 Snake Eater.

Oh, come on.

Well, that could have been, it could have been any of the Metal Gear Solid games, right?

He is kind of doing that a lot.

Jason got a point.

Jason's on the board with one point.

A young warrior navigates a conflict between powerful factions and uncovers truth about his identity and destiny amid a backdrop of chaos and betrayal.

Stop.

Okay.

Stop it.

Final Fantasy 16.

It is Final Fantasy 16.

Stop it.

Fuck yeah.

We're all tied up here.

Got a couple more.

See, actually, huh.

It's a terrible game.

No, no, no.

There was naping before, but actually.

It's a giving yourself fucking credit for me.

It's interesting.

The game is kind of good now.

No,

it's not a good game.

The game is good.

A mercenary seeks power and identity in a sprawling, dystopian city, making choices that shape their fate while navigating complex relationships and corporate interests.

Final Fantasy VII.

That is incorrect.

What?

Cyberpunk 2077.

Heather's got two points.

Cyberpunk 2077.

Oh!

And now the game's kind of interesting because there's a bit of an upset.

You know why I'm good at this?

What's that?

It's because the opening paragraph to any Play Magazine review of a game was this kind of recap.

Here's our next one.

This is still anyone's game.

A hero pursues a dark entity across varied realms, battling evil forces and seeking powerful artifacts to restore balance and confront the ultimate threat.

Jason hates it.

You've ruined our relationship with our new friend.

I mean, man, Matt hates new friends.

I'm going to guess.

I'm sort of in my.

Well,

Drake once said, no, new friends, but actually, we don't abide by anything he says anymore.

Yeah, fuck Drake.

So, actually, new friends only.

All right, you ready?

Yes.

Kingdom Hearts 2.

That is incorrect.

I will say it is a sequel.

I don't know, man.

It could be anything.

Chrono Cross is not Chronocross.

It is Diablo 2, in fact.

And then finally,

a hero reunites with friends to battle dark forces and restore balance to multiple worlds while uncovering mysteries.

The next part was going to be a little less vague.

While uncovering mysteries.

I know I just swung the fences, but I'm doing it again.

Kingdom Hearts 2.

It is Kingdom Hearts 2.

Heather is the winner of our game.

Sorry, Jason.

And that's this week's get played.

That's insane.

Wow.

Jason, anything you'd like to plug before we get out of here?

Yeah, I'm gonna plug never coming back on this show.

What the hell?

No, Jason, please come back.

Nick's gonna be so mad.

Yeah,

everyone out there, if you've heard of get played, but have you heard of get play nice, the new book from Jason Schreier?

That's what you should go and do this week.

Go yeah, you should get play nice the book.

Yes, that's a get it in multiple formats.

Get a hardcover book, get the audio book, and uh where can people find uh your your writing otherwise, Jason?

People can find my writing on a website called Bloomberg.com.

It's a website started by a former mayor who decided he wanted to write about video games and he decided to

know you can find my stuff on Bloomberg and on TripleClick, of course, and all sorts of other places, but most notably in the book Play Nice, The Rise, Fall, and Future of Blizzard Entertainment, which is full of descriptions that are very specific and not vague at all.

I will say,

I listen to Triple Click every single week.

I'm a huge fan of the podcast, and it's

like

Bizarro us, but in that

they're smarter and better at it than we are.

Jesus Christ.

I mean, you just knifed yourself and knifed me at the same time.

Heather would fit in really good over there because Heather's really nice.

Ugh.

Ugh.

Can you guys?

I feel like you guys should set a trap for Wiger, like, in that studio.

Like, you should put a big, like, bear trap on his chair just for

the next time he comes.

He's just like, ah, oh, no, it's a bear trap.

There's no trap required for that guy.

He's always fucking around doing something stupid.

The other day.

He spills constantly.

I don't know if you know this about him, Jason.

He's always spilling.

He revealed to us an hour after we were in the same room together that he had spilled prior to the record.

He didn't even, because he knew we would bring it up.

He's always spilling.

Breaking glass.

We're even going to talk about it on the podcast where he never said anything.

I know.

He does it that much that it's just a constant, it's a threat that looms over us all.

But that's this week's Get Played.

Our producer is Rochelle Chen Ranch.

Ranch.

Yard underscore underscore starred on social media.

Our music is by Ben Prunty, BenPruntyMusic.com.

Our art is by DuckBrigade Design, DuckBrigade.com.

And check out our Patreon, patreon.com/slash get played for our entire pre-head gum back catalog plus ad-free main episodes, as well as our Patreon exclusive show, Get Animate, where we're watching Terminator Zero.

That's right.

Come with me if you want to live.

He's not actually.

No, he's not in it.

And yeah, you can find that over at patreon.com/slash get played.

And Jason, I know that we kind of we seeded this earlier because my game was bad and it made everybody really upset.

But you did get played, Jason.

I'm really sorry.

Oh, no.

Oh, no.

That's the best reaction.

That was a hit gun podcast.