The Steam Audit | Triforce #334

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Trifles Hod Cast.

Maybe the best one.

Maybe the best podcast out there.

Oh, I thought you meant this was going to be the best episode we'd ever.

If only people would listen to it and give it a chance.

You know?

if only why won't you it's a hot new thing go on to i was going to say to our four listeners uh thank you so much for persisting um and honestly you know we'll try and make the show uh as good as possible yes for the three people one of them just left i just heard we got exciting new ideas to change things up you know freshen things

stretching i'm stretching so you're back from hamburg you had a lovely burger burgerly time in hamburg i did.

It was the international, or TI, as it's known, my 12th.

Were you turned around for it?

Did you like the city in the end?

I know you were thinking, it's going to be shit.

Did I say that?

No, a little bit.

You're not particularly interested.

International.

Yeah.

So I thought that it was going to be like

the, I think I said it was going to be like the Coventry of Germany in that it would be ugly as hell.

No, as usual, in Europe, they've done...

They've actually made an effort.

And Hamburg is beautiful.

And

I really loved it.

They did.

They really, they laid on a nice city for us.

That's good.

It was genuinely Hamburg's really pretty.

We were right by the lake.

I think it's called De Alster.

I could be wrong.

Let me look it up.

And it's just, I went for a bike run around the lake with a couple of friends.

And I was like, you know what?

This is really, really pretty.

You smelled some flowers.

I did.

You know what?

I did.

It's called the

Ausen Auster.

Aufen Auster.

I don't know.

Either way, it's a fucking lake, but it's nice.

Nice.

And you go around and you go all

these lovely Brücker, which is a bridge, all the way around it, different Bruke.

And there's like parks and stuff.

6 p.m.

every day, the Germans come out and row their little boats around and everything.

And it is, it is a proper lake in that it's not like the sea doesn't flow into it.

You know what I mean?

It does in a way, but

it's not directly connected.

Because

there is a river that you can that does go to the sea hamburgers you know is a port um i didn't realize that it's a it's a deep cut the elba goes all the way through it's a big river uh and then it comes to hamburg and just sort of stops dead it's pretty impressive nice yeah it has this huge docklands area doesn't it yeah it does very big um the airbus flug platz hamburg winkenwerde airport which is right on the dock

and the flughafen hamburg which is the other airport that's just to the north sort of you've you're okay

i'm speaking sprekense deutsch mate that's how it sounds they got two airports that's greedy yeah the airbus fruck platz hamburger winkenwerke uh to the to the west and the frukhaven hamburg fursbuttel which is to the north just south of wagenhorn god they must have like 20 train stations or something here oh they love it you know what i didn't get a chance to do i didn't get a chance to go to miniatur funderland which is where i really wanted to go but uh i just didn't get a chance i it's weird that what i what i am you should have you should have made a chance you should have created a chance okay i i'll just next time I go there, I'll tell them, look, I can't work today.

There is a miniature wonderland calling to

say,

I can't work today.

I got the shits.

And then go shit.

I should have gone.

Shot of you leaving the hotel and going to miniature wonderland.

Care to explain?

Yeah, no explanation needed.

Yeah, they got a toilet there.

They got a toilet there.

They don't know.

Yeah, it's a really comfortable toilet for my explosive, unstoppable diarrhea that day.

Yeah.

That was like the place to go with the little model.

I know.

My mates went and they said, first of all, it was packed and it's open until like midnight or something.

It's open all day.

Imagine you had like really bad diarrhea and you ran to miniature Wonderland and you opened the bathroom door and all the toilets were miniature as well, like simple-sized toilets.

No!

No!

I really gotta go!

I don't have a miniature poop.

I've gotta,

it's full, normal-sized.

Fucking miniature pool.

Where's normal-sized Wonderland?

Hurry!

Actually, the miniature-sized uridal is fine.

Jesus.

It's perfect.

It's the perfect here.

My tiny penis finally turned off.

It's like the three bears.

This urinal is too big.

Met

quite a few tiny penis havers in at the international proper.

Very nice.

Some German tiny penis havers who sidled up to me and said, I have a tiny penis.

And I was like,

that is great to hear.

Yeah.

So maybe we got some more fans then.

Maybe we can, maybe we can.

That's what it was.

That's why it was so busy because all the tiny penis havers were miniature von der Land.

Because I said, do you ever stop them and be like, what's your favorite episode?

No.

Who's your favorite member of the cast?

No,

because I know that it would be, it would not be me, which would be kind of a come down.

I'd be like, oh, get out of here.

You almost said who you thought it would be.

Like, you, you, you almost said a name there.

I did.

Well, it's obvious, isn't it?

Is it?

It's you.

It's you, Sips.

No.

Me?

Come on.

I thought you were going to say Lewis for sure there.

I thought you were going to say Lewis.

No one's favorite.

I've accepted this.

Oh, I also have accepted this.

But, you know,

it's just like someone runs up and is excited to see you.

And I say, who's the favorite member?

Who's your favorite member of the Triforce?

They're like, Sips.

I'm like, well, he's not here.

I'm sorry.

And then they look at me and they immediately disappear.

Yeah, but the thing is, if I went to a Dota thing, everybody'd be like, where's Flax?

No, it would still be saying, where's Sips?

No, but I wear Sips.

Nobody would say,

where's Sips?

As if he's like my keeper, as if it's like your PA.

I'm not even kidding.

Like,

I have commands on my Twitch channel

for both of you, that I do not know where you are.

Like, I do not have control over you.

You can tell your PA.

You could make a pretty safe guess.

I'm in one of like maybe three places at any given time.

Like,

I'd say probably 95% of the time I'm in my garage.

And then the other two places are in my actual house or at center parks.

I don't go anywhere else.

I know.

Quite a few tiny penis halves.

They were very, very happy to see.

That's lovely.

Any shout outs?

That was nice.

Shout out to, well, let me think.

There was one.

I've forgotten.

Shout out to, you know who you are.

Oh, that works.

That works.

I think that's a good catch-all, really.

Yeah, that way they'll think, oh, I think that was me he was talking about.

You bet it is.

You know what he says.

What a great person you are.

There you go.

That guy/slash girl.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

So you're home now?

Are you happy to be home and having a rest and not being required for too many things?

Very happy to be home.

Very happy.

It's a busy two weeks, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

Well, any event really is, but I guess TI, especially if you're doing hosting and stuff like that, I must say.

So I was doing interviews.

So I did, I got there before everyone else.

I came out a day earlier and we had to do media day interviews where we prepare all these questions for each player and for each team.

And then we sort of do a series of interviews with them, film some other content pieces that they edit up and everything.

And then I'm doing coach interviews and exit interviews and stuff like that.

So the series is done and we get one of the coaches or one of the players and we're like, oh, that was a tough series or you guys made that look easy.

Do you think you blah, blah, blah.

Control, you know, what's the meta, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

So those are kind of just filler bits where you get to hear from the players and the coaches.

And then we have there's three days in the middle that everybody gets off.

But I don't have those days off.

I still had to do media day stuff on several of those days.

So that was a bit sort of like everyone else is, hey, we're going to go to miniature wonderland and have fun.

And I'd be like, oh, I can't.

I've got to work today.

So, you know, there's a bit more work on the off days.

And then on the main arena days, I only did exit interviews.

So when you get knocked out of the tournament, you see my face.

I'm the Grim Reaper of Dota at the International.

Another tournament.

I saw you do an interview with a very lively guy.

South American lad?

Yes.

King Jungles.

Yeah.

That's the one.

His speech was something else.

Yes.

I claim no credit for it.

It was just, I just asked one question.

He just went for it.

He was amazing.

He went crazy.

Yeah, it was good.

Got the whole crowd hyped up.

And

sometimes EXE interviews go like that, where it's just gold.

And sometimes you have to have like seven questions prepared.

And it's tough because you don't want to ask the same question every time because that's kind of hack.

And you don't want to ask anything too different because they don't really really want to do the interview.

Most of them, they're the older guys that know what's up.

They're quite, you know, they're very professional.

They'll be like, hey, it's my job.

I'm the captain.

Or as part of being a professional is you're just going to do these interviews.

It's good for the team brand and your personal brand, et cetera, et cetera.

Some of them don't get it and are like pissed off and just say, yes, no, dunno.

It's like, fucking, come on, just give me something.

So those guys, you need to have like seven or eight questions because when they just say, dunno, you can't say, oh, tell me more.

You know, you just have to accept that.

They don't want to answer that question and go to the next question and hope that that's a good one.

And if you don't have those questions ready, well, let's do a practice of a bad interview.

Okay.

All right.

So I'll do, I'll do, I'll do Sips.

You can be the, you can be the good interview and Lulu, you can be the bad interview.

Right.

All right.

Sure.

So, Sips, you've just been knocked out of TI.

Yeah.

You, you know what the gig is.

You know the job here that I do the exit interviews and you've spoken to me before and I'm just going to ask the standard questions and you're like, hey, I'm going to be professional about this, and I'll give decent answers.

Not too long ago.

Sure, the stream.

Just imagine.

Because some of these guys are actually, actually, you know, understand how it works.

They have a bit of awareness about

what media looks like and everything else.

And they might have watched other sports.

So I'll come up to you.

I'll hand up.

Yeah, I'll put my hand on your shoulder.

When you didn't think about it,

I'm in.

Ready?

Okay, I'll put my hand on your shoulder.

There's the crowd.

They give a cheer.

The camera cuts to us.

Sips.

Really, really devastated to see you guys go out at this stage of the tournament.

You guys are such fan favorites.

You just talk to me about what went wrong wrong in that series oh you know uh we practiced uh we we went through all the drills and we practiced like we always do and uh you know just today we turned up and it just it just wasn't enough everybody gave 110 but you know we just needed to give 111 we just weren't there you know it just wasn't happening for us um but i just want to thank god and my family and uh i want to also thank my uh high school teacher all of them and all of my primary school teachers and i think all the other guys on the team probably want to thank all those people as well you know it's we turned up, we tried our best, just wasn't our day.

It just wasn't our day.

Just wasn't your day, but uh, certainly, when it comes to the opposition, these guys are some team.

Do you think they can go all the way?

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, we just had a bad day.

Uh, you know, it's just uh, we did all the training and we thanked all the right people and we've done all the stuff that we we need to do, but just wasn't our day.

And, you know, hopefully, it's it is the day, uh, the Dolmio day for uh Team X, whoever, whoever they are.

They, they, they definitely have what it takes to take the whole thing home.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

That's very sporting of you.

Final words.

Could you just maybe you have anything you want to say to the fans that have supported you all year and a bit of cheering for you guys here in the stadium?

Yeah, I know you can't see it, but I'm arranging my hands into a heart shape for all you guys.

And I'm also doing Kissy Face and I'm holding two fingers up, not offensively, more like peacefully to everybody.

And, you know, just stay tuned.

Watch this space.

Next year, we'll be back and we'll be better than ever.

And it will be our day.

Fantastic sips.

I'll let you get back to your team.

Thank you so much.

Back to the panel.

That's that's ideal.

Yeah.

Amazing.

That's the perfect exit interview in many ways.

Absolutely.

Positive.

Word salad.

Yeah, just a big

salad of positivity.

I know exactly what you mean.

Just

nothing.

Boring.

You'd be amazed.

We're going to be back next year.

I'm going to be back better than the crowd starts going, oh, like that.

that's Fucking love for next year.

fucking the whole thing

it's like next year it's so sure and then the panel go wow great words from sips there and you know blah blah what do you think about what he said they'll be like oh so it's like it's just seamless so then you get the interviews that are horrible okay so i'll do an example of one where i haven't prepared any questions other than the like one and i assume that you're gonna talk a lot and you don't and this this is my

can't sleep at night nightmare interview.

And Lewis is going to be the bad guy.

Okay, Lulu?

Sure.

All right.

Lewis.

Oh, my goodness.

What a series.

Came so close.

What went wrong in that final game?

You look like you guys had it.

Oh,

what?

I look at the translator.

Oh, no.

So, so you were assuming that you can't speak English and that that is what makes it a nightmare.

Yeah, that is another level.

That is another nightmare level on top of the nightmare.

All right, let's get it.

That's going to make it too difficult.

All right, So pretend that's the one.

The translator goes, the translator speaks all of it to me.

And I go, oh.

And then

she sort of looks at you and sort of shrugs.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

So you just shrug.

That's the first one.

All right.

And then I haven't prepared any other questions.

And now the interviewee is looking at me.

The translator is looking at me.

The whole crowd is there waiting for me to come up with the next question in response to, huh?

Right.

Yeah.

It's or it's very hard if you haven't got them prepared.

Very, very hard.

Like, that's

the crowd ever.

No, no, no.

You don't wave at the crowd.

You don't wave at the crowd ever.

Like, you don't give anything to the crowd.

Like, maybe I'll ask you, is there anything you want to say to the fans?

And you'll say, thanks.

Or I'll say, you know, this, your opponents here, pretty good team, aren't they?

They looked hard to play against.

What makes them so hard to play against?

They're good.

Oh, they cheated.

Yeah, they're just good.

All right, thanks.

And then the producer might be saying,

just fucking end this.

You know, in my ear, we'll just say, just throw back to panel.

But then it's like, well,

thanks for your great words there from so-and-so and throw back to panel.

Or they'll challenge the question and they'll be like, what do you mean?

You're like, come on, mate.

Like, you know, you know exactly what I mean.

Just some, some of them are out there like it's a contest of wills.

I notice some of it is because they are edgelords sometimes or whatever.

I honestly think some of them are just awkward.

Like it's socially Dota players and nerds in general.

We're all nerds in that building.

Sometimes they're like you ask a question and I mean I know if I asked my eldest a question that had an obvious answer

You know, it wouldn't I wouldn't get a good response.

I would get well, that's pretty obvious, isn't it?

It's like yes, but maybe just don't don't say that because now it's you've fucking killed the entire vibe.

Just go along with it and just say, say what you're meant to say.

I think if you've never watched any other sport or listened to any other exit interviews, you see it.

People tend to see it as an actual interview when it's not.

It's really just giving you guys a chance to show your face on your way out the door and to say some positive shit and to let people know, hey, this isn't the end of the world.

That's the job of the exit interview.

And sometimes it feels like it's not like that.

It's a tricky job.

It is a tricky job, but I don't mind doing it.

I would hate to do that.

That's why I would never sign up to do something like that.

I would be terrible at it as well.

I just, I'm not,

I'm not good at any of that.

It's the least fun job in Dota.

Genuinely.

I think when people do it well, though, and they come across really professional,

it's impressive.

you know like i think some people are able to do it very well um but uh that that's not me i know this of myself i know i would not be good in a in a situation like that i think i would get bored too i would i would not really like to do that job you know i do remember I think it's like whenever I tell these things, I feel like I've either told this story before or whatever millions of times, but I remember when I was a kid, I was interviewed on the phone for a local radio show or maybe, I don't know, some BBC bbc ess or something like that i don't know because i'd won this um

young science writer award back in the day right and i was so awkward and nervous about it that i vividly remember them asking me a question on the phone and me like pausing like like like almost like pausing in panic like freezing and then like having this big delay awkward delay before i answered and um i remember doing this whole interview on the phone really awkwardly and it going like terribly and

just waiting for them to sort of use my interview on the radio.

You know, of course, they never did.

They ever used any of it

because it must have been exactly that experience where they were like, look at this is awkward.

It's terrible.

You know, I guess that like these days, they could easily have cut the pauses and tidied it up and got something out of it.

Right.

But I think back then, you know, 1995, it wasn't as snappy and, you know, sort of quick, was it to play these things out?

And I was just glad it wasn't live, really, because, you know,

the cringe.

But I don't know, like,

I could see

nervous people struggling with that kind of thing being dropped on them all of a sudden.

I mean,

there's a, and the same thing, but the pressure, I guess, of playing in a big tournament, it's again, doing it live is very different to doing it in your past.

It must be exhausting

when they're done as well.

Fuck it, we'll do it live.

They must be so tired after coming out of a.

They are, yeah.

That's That's a very different part of the proceed of playing Dota at these tournaments.

It is a completely different experience to playing it at home, and you know, you know, overcome that.

The other thing is, is we tend to forget how much these games mean to the players.

And I know that sounds silly because they've dedicated their lives to it, but there's an idea that this is like where, like, that TI has diminished because the prize pool is not what it once was.

Well, what was the prize pool this year?

It was like two, three million, two and a half million, something like that.

Oh, wow.

Gosh, yeah, it has come down a lot because it was like 30 million one year.

TI 10, it was 40 million.

And then they stopped doing the battle pass and it went down.

We have spoken about it.

It doesn't matter.

But yeah, you're right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's this idea that

it's not worth it.

So they think that, you know, the idea is, oh, the money's not what it was.

Players probably don't care as much.

They really

fucking do.

It's still a $2 million tournament.

Yeah.

And people will really.

But more than that,

your name gets inscribed onto the Aegis.

And if you've been playing this game for your entire life, which these these players all have, your name being alongside the legends that you grew up watching is a massive deal.

The fact that you are forever known as a TI winner, which is a select group of people who've played this game, is a big thing.

You are, you're a legend.

You get a TI ring.

You get everything.

Like, you are a part of Dota history.

And all of these guys that are really passionate about the game absolutely love it.

Who is that guy, the team secret guy?

Is it Puppy?

Is it yeah?

Is it Puppy?

Yeah.

Who's never won it, but like.

He won it.

Oh, did he win it?

He won TI1, yes.

Oh,

and then he came second at TI3 and second at ooh, was it TI11?

What team was he with when they won it in TI1?

Was that uh Navi?

Yeah, oh, okay.

Um, so I thought he'd never won it.

I thought that's why

he's like, I can't believe he's never won it.

Like, everybody just assumed that he's won it like a couple of times, sort of thing.

So he, he, he's won it once and come second three times.

Uh, he came came second in 2012 to IG, the Chinese powerhouse.

Then they lost at Alliance TI3, which is probably most people's first big sort of Dota Awakening, if you like.

That was the big one.

I mean, certainly for me, a lot of other people, that was the one that was really genuinely...

Just this amazing moment because the games were good and the popularity of Dota had started to come up because

more people had access to the game.

It was massive.

Ti3 was massive.

The prize bullet

2013, TI3, it was my first TI, was $2.8 million.

The next year, it was $10.9 million.

And it went up every single year from then on, 2021.

It went all the way up to 40 million when it was in Bucharest.

That was the COVID TI when we lost a year.

And then we went to Bucharest.

It was meant to be Stockholm.

Then they had to move to Bucharest because the Swedish government collapsed and they couldn't, nobody, there was literally nobody.

It was a strange scenario.

And I mean, obviously, the whole point of it was that it felt artificially inflated, that price by the audience buying what was effectively the best set of cosmetics, you know, and God, that battle pass used to be this thing that got everyone back into Dota, spend huge amounts of money on it.

You know, you would spend basically you'd buying, you're buying cosmetics.

You're not really caring about contributing it to the tournament, but it did feel like Valve looked at that and said.

this much money should be going to us instead of the tournament.

Let's instead sell cosmetics in a different way and to keep it and and it i don't know that's my cynical side doing it but it definitely felt like it was this thing that they had no reason to change uh other than their own desire to bring the profits over to themselves instead of the prize ball right am i crazy because that's no so there's a few things the thing is they the look if that year the prize ball was 40 million that's 25 of of whatever the the battle pass raised so they made they made 120

okay so they made 120 million off the battle pass and 40 million went into the prize pool.

Right.

So that that's an insane amount of money.

That is an insane amount of money.

Are they still doing battle passes and stuff?

Like are they still doing the

Atlas and all that?

No.

Valve are not stupid.

They're not naive.

They're not your best friend.

They are they hire psychologists to understand how to best extract money from their audience.

They are very, very smart.

They're the smartest people in the world at this.

And that's literally.

I will just say,

I will just say, whilst I'm sure that's true, and I mean, I've known enough of them and worked alongside enough of them to sort of get some idea of how they think about these things.

They're very data-driven, very data-driven.

I honestly think that this was a manpower problem more than anything else because it's not like Dota.

I can't see how else it's making $120 million from one thing, like the battle pass.

I just don't understand where that extra money is meant to be coming from.

If they're supposedly saying, well, it doesn't matter, we'll make more money from from X because I don't know where that, what that X is that I'm meant to be spending the money.

That was such a strange decision to cancel something that was making so much money and was such a big community event.

And really, it was just a manpower thing.

Because the thing is, you could make more if those people did something else.

I think that's more likely to be that the answer is, well, wouldn't you be better off just putting these 10 people that we had to have working on this thing on some other project that's going to make more money?

That's probably the decision.

When we visited Valve a couple of years ago,

we were shocked at how few people actually work there it's like for for the stuff that they do it is a small company it's like it is very small 400 people you're right it yeah despite that steam alone you would think that you there'd be thousands of people and not just steam they have big games too like big live service games like it it seems crazy that there's only 400 people working yeah exactly you're right it is it is it is sips is right and i think somehow it valve is both incredibly genius and incredibly naive and i think that you know maybe that is their was their reason for doing it p flax like oh this is just too much work and but but but too much work to what put together 10 cosmetics you know and you know organize a little bit of

all the player cards and they and they had like the uh the book and and everything i could

quite a bit of they've done it they'd established they knew what the work was i don't understand so they they did do last year was the crownfall update which was a year-long event that had loads more to it than the Battle Pass has ever had.

Genuinely.

And I'm pretty sure.

And you think that makes more money over the years.

No, no, no, no.

I don't think it makes more money.

I don't think it makes more money because I don't see how it could.

Like, the amount of money that people were putting into the Battle Pass was enormous.

But I wonder if from our perspective, it was a lot of whales putting in huge amounts of money.

Whereas something like Crownfall, which cost, I can't remember what it cost, let's say it cost 25 quid.

And that was a bunch of quests and items and cool stuff for your whole year.

Maybe way more people bought that

would traditionally hardly put any money into the battle pass.

I don't know.

You have to assume

what they're doing.

Yeah, of course.

That's the thing.

But this year there was no Crown Falls.

This is the right call.

So, but

heads would have rolled.

Well, maybe.

But the thing is, the people who stopped.

Crownfall had nothing to do with Titi.

Stop the Battle Pass.

Right.

We would have would have been kicked out of Valve.

Do you know what I mean?

Well, yeah.

Sort of how

much of it is, unless they're high enough ranked to survive the purges type right but the the the the uh the crownfall had nothing to do with ti and they were able to release it whenever they wanted and i believe that one of the things they said at the time was we don't want to be tied to ti as in oh that's our big thing this year we want to be able to take a year and just work on this thing we don't want to have to think we need to do a battle pass um so if that was the explanation that they gave if that's true then apparently dota making money is not that big a deal because they've given up making as much money from the battle pass uh so it's a very weird situation.

And for a lot of Dota fans, they don't understand because Valve is not a communicative company.

Like they never have been.

They're very secretive and things come out and that's it.

And by not communicating, they really avoid the public getting in, getting into trouble.

Like if you never say anything to anyone, they can't question what you say.

Like they literally just zip it and they don't say anything and they release stuff and that's it.

And when they do speak, they're very, very careful.

It's very carefully worded and it's still kind of mysterious, and you just have to try and figure it out.

They're a very enigmatic company.

And as a fan of their games, and specifically of Dota, and people whose career kind of hangs off that game,

it can be frustrating at times and it can be mystifying.

And I don't know why the Battle Plus was stopped other than what they told us, which is they didn't want to have to spend their whole year working on this thing for TI.

They wanted to do other stuff as well.

So we've got Crownfall.

We had Crownfall last year.

It was great, but there isn't an equivalent this year.

And I don't know if there's going to be one next year.

We didn't get a new hero this year.

What are they working on?

So you just don't know.

And they'll also say things like, we're doing, now we're going to do a patch every two weeks.

And that's the way we're going to do it going forward.

And then you get that for a month and then they move on to something else.

So the nature of working at Valve, which is, hey, it's all very cool, guys.

We can do what we like, means that there is a genuine lack of direction and lack of people saying, uh-uh, we promised we'd do that.

We've got to do it.

That's part of our philosophy.

They just sort of opt out of that and say, ah, we've just decided we can't be asked so it's like having a really smart roommate who never does the dishes that's kind of what valve is like and they're just like i don't believe in doing the dishes 100 agree i 100 agree and sometimes that's there's a really good decision behind that right and sometimes there isn't yeah but that's the thing you'd never know you would never know yeah exactly that's a really that's the perfect analogy for valve honestly um you know they they you think why aren't they doing these things or why are they doing this like customer service stuff so badly or why are they like this?

And it's just part of the structure, the odd arcane structure that they've constructed around their company.

It's tough as a fucking, it wouldn't work if they didn't make so much fucking money.

Yeah, from Steam.

Like that's the other thing is how often does someone just say, well, look,

wouldn't you be better off just working on Steam, you know, or fixing this Steam problem?

And the answer is almost certainly, yes, absolutely.

So it's a tough one.

It is a tough one.

But hey, what are you going to do?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, we are blessed to have Steam.

It's a great resource.

I mean, look at things like the fucking mobile phone store, you know, trying to buy a game on your phone or play a game on your phone.

Because the stores are so bad has kind of, I think, damaged the industry on those platforms.

You know, how often do...

do I play games on my phone compared to what I might do if the stores were actually more conducive, right?

So few games end up even releasing on mobile.

Obviously, when they do, they have to be bilatto-size, you know, to make a dent and for people to go, oh, you know, you can play it together on your phone.

It's like,

look at the platform, it's insane, really, how underutilized it is to a generation of people.

I mean, kids, sure, they're playing Fortnite on their phone, maybe.

I don't know.

Fuck, who knows?

Or Minecraft on their phone.

Maybe.

God, look.

PUBG, but they're playing PUBG on their phone.

PUBG Mobile, biggest esport in the world.

They're playing Roblox on their phone.

PUBG Mobile, biggest esport in the world.

Exactly.

And I think that is a symptom of

a poor platform a poorly run platform a platform run by a desire for more more profit and it's not that steam is a desire for more profit but it certainly does seem to or it used to and i hopefully it won't change too much in in that in the wrong way it's more steam is is definitely more responsive to uh if a game is like going blowing up or going a bit viral or go or you know they they they will almost highlight it more you know i think some of steam's um

algorithmic

showing off what's happening, you know, you'll see it like on people post on like R slash game dev and how they released their game, it did nothing, they really upset, and then suddenly it got like, you know, a hundred view, 100 purchases out of nowhere sort of thing.

And then Steam suddenly decided that that had pushed it over a limit.

And then Steam promoted it a little bit on the platform.

And then that got them another thousand sales type thing, you know, and it was this, it's this kind of,

there's all these hidden visibility metrics that go on on Steam.

And you have to kind of get that snowball effects right going to sort of take advantage of it.

And in a sense, that can help indie games as much as it helps AAA games.

It's not like you're paying Steam to be on the front page.

I guess that's the point I'm trying to make.

So if Steam decides to do a full-page advert for your game, you're just lucky or you're a big game, or someone at Steam is excited about your game, or someone at Steamboat.

They do do that thing where it's like IndieFest or RTS.

So they sort of have this grouping, this category, where they're like, this is an indie game, or this is a game that'll help push remote play, or this is a game that is an RTS game, and we want to promote this.

So sometimes you'll get bundled in with that, where you just get suddenly uplifted to this category alongside all these big games.

And I assume that helps.

I use Discovery Q.

I don't know how many other people use it.

I use Discovery Q a lot on Steam because it's a way of finding games that it thinks I'll like, but that it's not going to put on the front page.

And I just tick through that.

A lot of them are absolute shit.

But sometimes I'll find one.

I'm like, oh, wow, I'd never even heard of this game.

And I'll buy it.

And it's really cool.

Like, there's a game called Nowhere Profit that I really like, which is like a sort of mini Magic the Gathering style card game, Roger-like thing.

And I've got hundreds of hours on that.

I really like it.

It's a nice, chill game.

There's lots of little secret things to unlock.

You would never have heard of that game.

I've never seen it promoted.

I've never met people who've ever played the game.

And I found that on Discovery Q, bunch of games like that.

So Steam, a lot of the time, knows that it.

I think it, like you said, they know what they're doing.

They promote stuff that they know are going to do really well.

They're very data-driven.

I think that's the thing people don't understand about Valve is they are very, very data-driven.

For example, one of the things I heard a while back was that player numbers during the TI grand final on in Dota don't really diminish.

An awful lot of people just play the game and don't care about the pro scene.

From their perspective, that's true.

But I will also say this: there are a lot of people that I meet that only watch and don't play.

And that's not a metric that Valve have access to.

So sometimes being very data-driven from one data source is incredibly bad because the TI finals across all the streams got millions and millions and millions of viewers.

And the game doesn't get millions and millions and millions of viewers.

It gets about, I think it's about 700, 800,000 concurrent is pretty standard at the moment, which is great.

The game's in a good place.

I'm very happy with that.

It's big.

Yeah.

It's like one of the top.

It's got to be a big thing.

Right, it's like top three, top four, something like that.

So

from their perspective, that data is great.

They're like, wow, we've got this many players.

And when they look at how many people are playing when the grand finals are on, in their mind, this doesn't really seem to matter.

But what they're not seeing is the people who just watch, because from their perspective, there's no value to that.

Like they don't get anything from people who just watch and don't play because they're never going to spend a penny on it.

So it's almost like data they're not interested in.

But from the perspective of people working on it and broadcasters, that's very interesting data.

So it's kind of weird how the focus is dependent on like, you know, what angle you're coming at this from.

Their perspective is who's likely to spend money in Doto.

It's not going to be someone who never plays it.

So do we really care?

So

it's kind of interesting when we think of TI as being the biggest thing all year for Dota.

And it is if you're a fan and you watch it.

But for a lot of people that play it, they really don't watch it.

They don't care.

They'd rather be playing.

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On with this show.

Well, we talk about, we don't normally try and talk about games too much, but I want to shout out a game I played this week that I enjoyed.

It had a really bad release because people accused it of using AI.

And I think they had used AI in the development process where they'd done done some translations with it.

And it was like placeholder translations had slipped in or whatever.

And I think they got like real bad PR for it.

And it kind of got panned.

I'm glad, by the way, that people don't like games that have wank AI in them.

Keep it up, folks.

Keep it up.

Tell me about it.

But I think in this case, I think it hurt the game quite a lot when actually it's quite

a game that I'm quite enjoyed.

I think that AI has its uses,

but it shouldn't be in final products, ideally.

It's just, yeah, if you look, who knows?

Anyway, we've talked about that a million times.

It's called The Alters.

And I wanted to shout out because it's such a weird idea for guests.

Sorry, The Altars.

I meant to play that, but

I never got around to it.

That's the one where you have like an army of clones, right?

And you have to go around and it's like, it's got like a bit of base management and like.

That's right.

So you're basically stranded on an alien planet, like Death Stranding sort of style, and you walk around outside.

That just looks crazy.

Yeah.

you're the only person who survives this terrible accident, right?

And you've got a cloning machine, but you don't know how to like fix the base or do research or do mining and the various things, right?

So you have to basically make clones of yourself, but give them a different life path.

So like at a crucial decision point in your life where you were like, should I leave my girlfriend or should I stay with her or whatever?

Do you know what I mean?

Or should I, you know, my mum's, my mum's like, you know, living with her abusive husband.

Do I, you know, fight him or do i run away type thing these are the choices that you make in your life right and they led you down a different life path where you became a doctor or you became a security guard or whatever right and so you clone yourself with these different personality traits and it's you and a team of like copies of you and of course you really don't get on with them um they are all like because they're all kind of judging each other for for like choices they made like how could you have you know left her how could you have done this you know and and stuff like this and so and also they're all dealing with the fact that they're clones sort of with a limited lifespan you know on a fucking horrible alien planet kind of thing and and um i don't know it's just it's just a really kind of a good nice experience i really enjoyed it it gave gave me like death stranding vibes because of how kind of weird and wacky it was and sort of surviving that you're doing and and i i really just i really enjoyed it i played it for like 20 hours oh and it was it was just a great experience so that's my shout out for wait you finished it after 20 hours?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's that's kind of all I want out of these games a lot of the time.

Right.

You know, I think I've obviously played the Planetcrafter for like a hundred hours in the last few weeks.

I've played Dune Awakening and I was like, this is the most generic ass game ever.

And I played Borderlands 4.

Yeah, I played a last generic ass game ever.

Borderlands 4 last night for a brand thing.

I kind of enjoyed it, actually.

The combat stuff was pretty fun.

If you like that kind of thing, it is a Borderlands game.

It's Borderlands 4, the 4.

It's another Borderlands game.

Not much different to the other Borderlands games.

I'm just saying, I've played a bunch of these AAA games.

If this was the App Store, and I was only being given Borderlands 4 and Dune Awakening, I'd be like, I have fucking eight games.

I played a whole bunch of Dune Awakening.

Because I played the alters.

It's like, actually, I've had a really good time in gaming this last week.

Yeah, Dune Awakening.

I like the progress.

It's kind of nice when you get the Ornithopter and stuff.

I think it was fine.

Maybe I'll go back in, but like, I know, I feel like it was just a bit fucking generic and boring and dull.

And like, ugh, give me a break.

I mean, is it because I'm supposed to be playing it with my mates?

Probably.

I think maybe that's it.

That's Horde Lands.

There's this thing, I don't know if you've heard of it, it's called Friend Slop.

Friend Slop?

Friend Slop.

Friend Slop.

It's games like Peak, which are only fun.

Oh, like Reap.

If your friends are funny.

phasmophobia and all those yeah all these they're basically not a good game unless you have funny friends to fuck around with in there

and i i wonder whether borderlands for and dune awakening are the same but no

like trying to you can you can easily play with your friends

we are out of sync right i want to play like dune with my friend but he's played 50 hours of it or even 10 hours of it and he's out of sync with me and he's like where are you and he turns up in this fucking you know all this shit and he's like oh i don't want to do the boring shit that you're doing.

You know, I'm doing interesting shit over here.

It's like, you can't join me and do it.

Don't get me wrong.

Like, you know, I can't, I shouldn't complain about it, but I just find it so boring.

I was like, God,

I'm hating it.

And maybe it's not for me.

Maybe it's for someone else, younger people, maybe.

I don't know.

Maybe it's for the new generation coming through who haven't played it before and want to shoot a fucking dog, an alien dog in the face, you know, for three hours.

Giant alien dog.

I've been playing,

well, I was playing No Man's Sky, the new update for No Man's Sky, which is really good.

And then I moved on to Water Park Simulator, which is cool.

See, this is what I'm talking about.

I'm not playing that now.

I want to play that.

Why?

This is my

Water Park Simulator is one of the better ones.

Like,

it's all right.

I want you to do me a favor.

I want you.

Louis, do you have your Steam available?

Yeah, I do, yeah.

Okay,

Sips, you've got your Steam available as well.

Yeah, I'm looking at it right now.

So I want you to go to your profile.

Just click on your profile.

And on the right-hand side, where it says games,

2,050 games.

Right.

I've got 701 games.

How many games you got?

Oh, games.

918 games.

Yeah.

Games.

So click on that.

Just click on games.

And then you can sort by playtime.

Sure.

Yes.

Right.

Sorting by playtime.

So I want you to give me your top 10 most played games by playtime.

Right.

You know what mine are.

Okay.

Are you ready?

Yeah.

Yes.

Right.

Number one, Dota 2.

Of course.

2,141 hours.

Yep.

Number one.

Last played in 2022.

Okay.

4,998 hours.

Last played October 2nd, 2024.

Right, Flex, we know yours is Dota 2 as well.

13,177.

That's too many.

That's too many.

Right, interesting, though.

Now, what is your second most played game?

Well, let's go in the same order we did.

Sips, what's yours?

Rim World, 929 hours.

Woof.

Nice.

Woof, 929.

That's less than my fifth most played game.

Now, I've got two for work.

So Gary's mod.

What's your second?

Gary's mod.

Gary's mod is my Gary's mod, and it's artificially inflated.

I obviously do a lot of TTT, but also it's a work game, Gary's Mod for me.

But I leave it on often as well.

I've been playing gary's mod on and off since since bloody

so my data time is all in game i don't idle i'm never idle if i've loaded it up he's gaming he just games so that's hours of like that that's games played that's a thousand hours a year because i've been playing it for 30 years i can't believe you played that much dot or two's insane

best game ever made the best game ever made what's the second best game ever made then according to this football manager 2012.

2012.

Wow.

Okay.

1,900 hours.

Now, I know why I've got all that time in that, and it's because that was when I was a stay-at-home dad

for both the kids when they were little, and I had a panic on a laptop.

Man, my laptop is a lot of fun.

My time is

actually so good.

Okay, you ready for number three?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Number three for me is Satisfactory, 666 hours.

Nice.

Yes.

Yeah.

So Hail Say.

Mine's very similar.

Mine's Factorio and it's 1,600 hours.

Nice.

So twice as much as your satisfactory playtime.

And your third flex?

Football Manager 2011.

1,435 hours.

I thought it was these.

Fourth game for me is Oxygen Not Included, 575 hours.

Okay.

Again, you've streamed that a lot.

Yeah, and I played it a lot.

575.

But those are like...

Those are rookie numbers.

That's not a lot of hours for a game, really.

But we'll come to my point at the end of this, which is a very good idea.

My next three are, again, games that I've played a lot of.

Wait, you're doing next three?

This is just meant to be number one.

Well, I've got because I've got Sid Myers Civilization 5, Sid Myers Civilization 6, and GTA 5.

Right, okay, yeah.

Those are all for recording games.

Those are all recording games.

These are games that I've played a lot of with, like,

not that I wouldn't have, but almost like I've had to organize them, though, right?

I've had to organize to play them with friends.

If I hadn't organized, if I hadn't had the work as a reason to play them, I don't think I would have put that many hours in.

My Factorio is almost entirely organic.

Yeah.

My number four is Counter-Strike, 1,235 hours in CS.

Interesting.

And then Football Manager 2024 with 1,000 hours.

Is that number five?

Yeah, that's number five.

Okay, listen to my number five is Fallout 4 with 541 hours.

Right.

Wow.

Okay.

But to be fair, most of that was spent just making murder machines in

Sanctuary.

big

elaborate murder machines as automated as i can make them as well um lots of fun making a murder machine yeah a meat factory um and then mine is my next is hearts of iron with a thousand hours oh my gosh a thousand hearts by four yeah yeah all right six for me is is that is farming sim 22 430 hours of farming sim 22 another one that i went crazy with and and got a lot of mods and automated a lot of stuff and and everything it was very fun.

Um, look, I'll just go through the rest of mine.

Uh, after Farming Sim 22, uh, Prison Architect, 415 hours.

Oh, yeah, you played so well, Planet Zoo, 403 hours, City Skylines, 400 hours, and Path.

And then my last two are Path of Exile 2, 400 hours, and Path of Exile, 400 hours.

So,

honorable mention, my boy, Played Up, 360 hours of play-doop.

And then, uh, Factorio, which

I've loved Factorio.

I finished Space Age and everything, but I haven't played it as much as most.

332 hours, but I've been playing that again recently, too.

So here's my point.

Is that when you're saying, oh, I've got to play that new Power Wash manager game or whatever.

If you look at the games that you play, a lot of your games are two or 300 hours in some game.

And it's like, I feel like the way that your games libraries works and the the kind of games that you play is like you'll play you'll grab the game you'll stream it for a week or two and then you never touch it again because there's some other similar kind of game has come along that's either a building game or a sort of chore based game as I call them like something like cleaning and stuff like that whereas my games list and I'd say it is pretty much just four or five titles played over and over and over again for I mean Dota obviously football manager Counter-Strike Hanse of Iron I'm going to ignore Civ 5 because again we did a lot of that for recording and XCOM 2 is a game I played a shitload.

But there are also games that I've played a lot of off-streams.

Dolaris, I don't stream very much.

I got 500-plus hours in that.

A game called Ultimate General Civil War, which I've played a lot, 450 hours in that.

Nice.

I feel like a lot of the,

your menu is much bigger of games that you play.

I'm much more pissed off with most games that I play.

And I just play them for like 10 hours.

I'm like, this fucking sucks.

Like 10 minutes, in all honesty.

I've got so many of my games.

I've barely played an hour and abandoned.

Loads.

Games that people will say, like, oh my God, I can't get it.

I've got loads of games at the bottom of my list here that have no time played.

God, yes.

I've got half of my list is less than 10 minutes.

Yeah.

It's so bad.

But, well, I guess there's a difference, though, right?

Between games that you have clearly come back to and come back to and come back to and games that you've had a good time but are not meant to be played.

Why do I have bus simulator 21 next stop?

No time played.

When did this happen?

God.

rectify that.

How the hell did I never play that?

But I mean, Stardew Valley, I've got 45 minutes.

Oh, 45 minutes.

That's one of the biggest games, right?

It's a huge game, yeah.

It's great, dude.

45 minutes.

Victoria 3, I managed an hour.

Oh, Victoria 3 is up there for me.

Yeah.

Peak, I managed one hour.

They are billions, one hour.

Stalker 2, one hour.

And I'm just like, I gave it an hour.

I thought it was wank.

I'm never coming back.

Victoria 3, I've played it.

So many games.

I've played more Victoria 3 than any any other Paradox game on my list.

312 hours of Victoria 3 I've played.

Right, yeah.

I would say half of that is spent asleep at my computer, though.

It does make me fall asleep while I'm playing it.

But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

You know, a bit of extra sleep.

Crusader Kings 2, I've got only 261 hours in.

Planet Coaster, 268 hours, seems low as well.

XCOM 2, 284 hours seems low also.

I feel like I've played so much of of these games, but I guess like, I guess hundreds of hours is, is kind of a lot too, right?

This is fascinating to look at.

Like, looking at my Skyrim, I've got hundreds and hundreds of hours in Skyrim, and yeah, I haven't played it since 2014.

Yeah, it's like very sort of strange.

I got 200 hours in Hitman World of Assassination, which is, again, I feel like I've played it so much, but only like what is the most kind of what is the most played game on there that you think you have played you like a lot on and it's an unusual game like so for for me there's a game which i've played for 300 hours called terraformers right now it again it's a small game you might not have even heard of it it's like a kind of an indie board game it's a lot like terraforming mars except actually fun um and single player and is it like real time or is it like a turn-based thing it's it's turn-based you build a little mars base you expand you build little things it it's i for some reason it just got its hooks in me and I completed everything in it.

Wow.

Or like all like all the achievements, all the most difficult settings.

I just got into it for some, it doesn't even look like much.

It's, you know, it's not, it's not a huge game.

It's got a thousand reviews on Steam.

You know, so it's sold enough to probably just enough to pay for its development.

Terraformers, man.

For some reason, I bought all the DLC.

Like, you know, wow, you just really went nuts on that one.

I just,

for some reason, I got into it in a major way and

loved it.

There's nothing on my list that is in a game like that.

I do.

Okay.

Somehow, and I'm not sure.

Have you ever heard of Black Desert Online?

Yeah.

Yeah, I have to do 300 hours of that game.

What?

I don't even know how.

It's my account been hacked or something.

Like, I don't even know.

I can't even remember any of that time played in that game.

300 hours.

I don't know what I even did in in that game.

I don't even know what you would do.

I don't even remember.

Is it like what it's what you do in it?

There was like crafting and trading and stuff, but like after 300 hours, I couldn't have gotten into it that much.

Crafting.

That's that's a sips classic right there.

Yeah, you've got

crazy that you can't remember.

300 hours.

Like that's quite a few hours.

But when did you last it?

I can't even tell you like how the game starts or anything.

When did you last play it?

Last played in 2020.

April 23, 2020.

But imagine you'd paid for 300 hours of woodworking lessons or something like that.

I mean,

you would have had something.

I played 273 hours of Lost Ark, but to be fair, that was kind of cool.

Like when it came, when the Global version came out in 2022, I played it a whole bunch.

Lost Ark.

It's like a big

possibly now dead MMR.

Yeah, it was like a big Japanese or Korean MMR.

Last updated yesterday.

It's still going.

It's a hundred.

So it's a big

whale game.

It's a thousand reviews.

Yeah.

It's a it's a big

money.

I could have done.

Think about all the things I could have done if I hadn't spent a thousand hours playing borderless gaming.

Oh, yeah.

Gosh.

One of my most played games is borderless gaming.

I wonder what game that was for.

Oh, They Are Billions as well.

234 hours of They Are Billions.

What a great game.

Have you ever played that?

Isn't it weird?

Isn't it weird?

I'm not trying to flex or anything.

I'd never do that.

But when you consider just how many hours you think, oh man, I played that game so much.

I'm now looking at Dota 2, this 13,000 hours.

That is genuinely a staggering number of hours to have in a game.

Yeah, when you see it actually like on paper, it's nuts.

I don't know how many hours I've played World of Warcraft, but it must be similar to your Dota.

I think that for me, it's got to be my all-time most.

Maybe.

I'm even going to play it again soon because the player housing stuff's coming out.

It looks awesome.

So, I'm gonna play WoW again.

Like, if you guys, any devs out there, if you want Sips to play your game, you have to be able to clean some put like some dumb shit.

He has to involve a factory

where you can build a house and he will, he will come.

I will.

If you allow him to build it, he will come.

Man, I was playing Borderlands 4 last night and

it was like I walked by a place and it said fishing spot.

I was instantly fishing.

I was there.

I was like, I dropped everything.

I was going to go kill someone.

I can't tell.

You can tell you're a fucking wow player, mate.

I walked past that fishing spot as well, and I forgot to say it.

I just saw it.

There was a boss.

There was a little mini boss on that island, right?

With a fishing spot.

Oh, maybe.

I don't know.

Is this the one I'm thinking of?

Too busy getting

excited.

See, I was looking for the fishing spot and I got killed by that boss and then I didn't go back there.

Right.

But I guess you were, you saw the fishing spot and you got distracted.

You didn't find the boss because of that.

It's fascinating.

Okay.

What game do you regret playing as much as you did?

I don't think any.

I genuinely don't think any because

all of these games, all of these games that I've played for hours and hours and hours, I don't think I would put that time in and regret it.

Like, there are games I regretted buying and just never played again, but I had fun playing all of these.

I'm very all in.

Like, I'll play a game, and if it grabs me, I will absolutely play the shit out of it.

But if it doesn't, I would just, I will never persist and be like, it's okay.

I'm just like, this isn't doing it.

I'm done.

Okay, I played 23 hours of Outriders

in 2021 for some reason.

Again, I don't know.

I don't know what this game is.

I apparently pay

like a

cash in.

It was like, what's that fucking one that flopped massively?

It's like Concorde or whatever.

I played that more than I played Helldivers 2, and I actually enjoyed Helldivers 2.

So I don't know what happened.

I don't know what's going on.

Let me look.

God, I i can't oh total war warhammer 2 what was that no that was fine um oh i actually do know combat mission battle for normandy that oh i regret putting oh dave the diver as well that stupid game i regret i regret my time in sit my civilization seven

yeah i've not got long in it i still regret those hours i really

that game jesus christ i don't know like i i don't know there's a lot of games that i don't enjoy clearly but i've ended up playing a lot of.

But there's also a lot of games that I've really, really enjoyed.

And I haven't got that many.

I was like, I guess the ano games are probably underrepresented on my list, given how much I love anno games.

That's how an anno game came out.

Isn't there a new one coming out soon?

Yeah.

I mean, they're fine.

It's going to be 18 fucking.

You know what it's going to be?

It's going to be the tedium of trying to get some fucking throughput from island X to island Y, where you need to assemble all these things to keep some prick happy who's like, Oh, I don't have any rum.

It's just that, but in different times.

And it's just after a while, you're like, Oh, God, we're going to need to build another game.

I think it's because there are some of the games that I've, for example, Satisfactory.

Oh, I don't actually own it on Steam.

I've got it on Epic.

See, I probably have more time in Satisfactory because I did play a ton of it when it was on Epic, but now I have it

as well.

But I've never switched over to the game.

Speaking of games coming to Steam, Tacoms come into to Steam.

Did you hear?

Yeah.

But you've got to buy it again.

Yeah.

Of course, of course, because they can't.

So can I just say, by the way, I've got 12 hours in Sid Meyer's Civilization 7.

I want those hours back.

You want them all back?

I want them all back because that game

sucks.

And I don't think it'll ever be saved.

Look, I've played every Civ, every single Civ game.

I've played a decent amount.

It has gotten less and less over the years.

I'm happy to admit that.

I really liked Civ 4 4 back in the day.

Civ 5, when that was finished, I really liked that.

Civ 6, it was all right.

You know, I didn't play it as much, but I did play a decent amount, liked it.

Civ 7 was so bad that I don't think I will ever return to that game.

I don't know how they managed to fuck it as bad as they did.

I also want the 30 hours back from Civilization Beyond Earth.

Give me those back as well.

Right.

Listen,

I got a couple here for you that, okay.

I got a game on here called Winning Putt Golf Online, total played.

Hell yeah.

One minute.

Hell yeah.

yeah.

I didn't even think I got to see the game.

Like, one minute is like you are so annoyed by the menu that you quit.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, man.

I also have

a lot of money.

One minute.

What?

What is that game correct?

That is correct.

What is it?

Wingspan.

I only played two minutes of that, apparently.

Hell yeah.

Two minutes.

I don't think I could get it to work.

Oh.

Total War Games, I'm not a fan of.

Total War, Medieval Medieval 2 Definitive Edition, four minutes played.

And also Total War Rome 2 Emperor Edition, three minutes played.

I guess it just didn't get past the menu for those ones.

Sometimes you know what it's like where you've got too much choice, though, right?

And you're like, oh, what should I play today?

And you go down your list and you light something up and you're like, oh, actually, I don't want to play.

I somehow played Wasted Pizza in the Jingle Jam for seven minutes, which is longer than a lot of other games on my list.

Seven minutes of what you're doing.

That sounds like something you did with Hat Films.

No, I think I played it with you, actually.

Me and you played it, or maybe it was Hat Films.

Disco Elysium, Disco Elysium, 14 minutes.

That's going to anger a lot of people.

14 minutes was what I gave that.

Yeah, but you thought it was too edgy.

I feel like I'm fairly ashamed of this one.

I've got a game on here called Shower with Your Dad Simulator 2015.

Do you still shower with your dad?

question mark and I played that game for 13 minutes.

Yeah.

That's how long I played Xenonauts 2 for before the side game was one.

I hated that.

I really hated that.

Yeah, really.

There's a lot of games in here that people will be like, I can't believe you didn't play.

Let me see.

What have we got here?

Oh, Hero Baseball 97, 20 minutes.

Stalker, 21 minutes.

I got one that's going to piss everybody off.

The binding of Isaac, 18 minutes.

Yeah, I think that's a good idea.

That is going to really piss people off.

People don't even have that game.

They do.

I don't understand why.

And that Cult of the Lamb, never got interested in it.

I didn't even care.

90 hours.

I enjoyed Cult of the Lamb.

I played it like a little bit.

Yeah, I've got like 20 hours in Cult of the Lamb as well.

Isaac, I never got into.

Viscera Cleanup Detail, 29 minutes.

Oh, I played a bunch of that.

Me and Lewis played a bunch of that, actually.

That's an old jingle jam.

We used to play, and we used to, when we used to

record like double dragon stuff, we used to play it a bit as well, I think.

Play shit like that.

Yeah, like these sort of idly

time waster games.

I mean, that one is like a massive time waster game.

I kind of like it, though.

I like cleanup games.

Oh, sorry about filling this podcast up with just hey, we got to do it occasionally.

You know, also, you know what?

We're all good.

I'll get fewer emails about this.

I'll get fewer emails about this.

So, yeah, crack on.

We talked about games.

If you have something you want to email the podcast about, premiflax at gmail.com.

Keep them coming.

Do you want some Lou's news?

Yeah, fuck it.

News me up.

Yeah, news me up, Lou.

So a woman.

I'll start with the gaming news.

Japan's National Library says that it's not going to be preserving Switch to game key cards, right?

So obviously the

libraries,

they have to have something, all new publications, right?

They have to...

It requires every new book that's published, you have to get a copy to the library.

And you'll know this, Pyram, because there'll be a copy of Bodega in the National Library.

No way, there will be a book.

No, there won't be because it wasn't officially published, was it?

I think it's too worn.

I think we had to send one.

We won't put it in there, they'll burn it.

Too worn.

Apparently, switch to game key cards are not eligible.

They're not books.

What the fuck?

This is not something that I've got.

I mean, by that token, why don't you announce that my bus ticket isn't gonna get in there?

My fucking train ticket isn't gonna get in there.

I know.

Right when I took a trip to Bristol on the train last year, no one's preserved that in the library.

But also, does it mean that they have been

preserving previous generations and

other game cards?

I fucking hope not.

That's dumb.

They've got like a whole box full of like every game card they're ever released.

It'd be kind of cool to have a collection.

Anyway,

Woman Whose Diarrhea was

such a biohazard that it cancelled an entire flight.

These stories come up.

There was a Netflix documentary about a cruise where there was a lot of overflowing diarrhea as well.

I think it's actually called Poop Cruise or something.

I think it is.

That is a great.

If it's the one I'm thinking of, that's a really good one.

Where they

quarantine a boat and they can't get off, and everybody is just shitting everywhere.

Like everybody's sick and shitting all the time.

The engines go.

Yeah, that's true.

And they're drifting in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

Of America, actually.

Sorry, the Gulf of America.

My bad.

They're drifting in the Gulf of America and so

the tugboats from either side are like oh it's pretty far so they won't tone one way or the other

I love it you should have read you should have done the commentary on that documentary um so basically what this story is a woman American woman was uh on a plane okay and she had norovirus, which obviously makes you very vomity and shitty.

So she was not feeling great when she took off at Newark, but decided to risk it and board the plane despite feeling a deep, deep disturbance.

So after takeoff, she had to rush to the bathroom despite the seatbelt on sign and to prevent the worst from happening in front of hundreds of fellow passengers.

So for the next 20 minutes, I have more diarrhea than any human should have in their life.

But the nightmare didn't end there.

She was vomiting, in real trouble.

The seasoned flight crew, who have seen it all, allowed her to stay in the bathroom for the entire flight.

She was told to brace for impact while staying in the toilet during landing.

Brace.

Brace for impact.

Yeah.

Brace for impact.

Yeah, because you're not supposed to be in the toilet when the plane is landing.

Yeah,

you're meant to do the brace thing.

You're meant to be

fastened.

You're meant to be buckled up.

I should, yeah, of course.

Because that would save you.

Finally landed.

She was helped out in a wheelchair before a hazmat team was brought in to deal with the mess.

They go, Wow.

Imagine why we're canceled.

Oh, hey, sorry, sorry.

I need to shit again.

Oh, I'm so sorry.

I'm shitting everywhere.

This stuff could.

This is like, I always, whenever I hear news articles like this, I'm almost like, you, you, you, sometimes it's like a Larry David curb your enthusiast matar situation where he's seen something that almost could have happened in real life, right?

Like this, and made it into an episode of a television show where he's like, oh my God, what?

Imagine, imagine how embarrassing it would be if I'd done this in this situation.

Or, you know, it's almost like a realistic scenario that this poor woman has come up with.

And I could see it happen to lots of other people, like a bad toilet episode coming on when you're just getting on a flight.

You know, you know what it's like, because you're at home and you're thinking, oh, I'm going to be fine.

And it's like a two-hour trip to the airport.

And you're waiting in the airport for two hours.

And by that time, you know, you're, you're much worse than you were before you don't want to cancel the flight you know and this whole process you know it wouldn't even that be that difficult if you had i've got i've got my kid with me and i haven't got anyone to look after them so i have to you know i have to go through this and it's this oh rigmarole disaster anyway crazy uh life on mars a sample collected by nasa's perseverance uh rover from an ancient dry riverbed in jezero crater yeah could preserve evidence of ancient microbial life.

So has.

It's a groundbreaking biosignature that's really exciting.

Kind of

boring when you see what it is.

It's like a dot.

And they're like, ooh, a dot.

But the scientists know it's a thing, apparently.

But they don't even know.

They're just like, eh, it could be.

It's kind of.

This is the best evidence we've got of microbial life on Mars.

Potential.

Potential.

Which is fun.

It's not that they've got a bacteria that they're actually breeding.

Right.

It's just a dot.

It's a dot.

Sophisticated malware called the Gay Femboy.

Gay Femboy is attacking multiple industries around the globe.

Gay Femboy quietly infiltrates systems in order to take them over from the inside.

Just like real life.

Mount DDoS attacks.

So it's quite a sophisticated.

I say,

go, gay femboys and piece of malware.

Make computers fabulous again.

You go, go.

Be gay, do crimes yes uh

so that is a thing that's happening watch out for gay femboy uh toothpaste

that is usually containing uh fluoride is to be made with hair uh keratin not buying that thank you no keratin which is keratin which is usually a protein found in hair skin and wool and is used in reparative shampoos can actually also help with teeth gross so if so the holes in my teeth will be filled with hair keratin yeah.

In future, maybe your toothpastes will be containing keratin.

There you go.

It's good for your teeth, apparently.

So that's the thing.

Scientists have found out that they can get quantum particles and reverse the age of them.

So scientists can reverse the flow of time for certain particles, right?

They can, you know, obviously we already know that particles could be in two places at once.

One action on a particle can affect another one very far away from it.

That's not what happens.

I'm pretty sure you're wrong on that one.

A particle can be in two places at once.

That's not.

Are you talking about quantum entanglement?

Yes.

That's not

quite how it works.

Yes, it is.

No, it's not.

Science.

Science is crazy, and it can now go backwards in time.

I'm not reading any more of that one.

No, no, A, I think you're talking out of your ass.

And B, well, I'm reading out of a news article.

I'm reading a news article from what website.

From thebrighterside.news.

Right, wank.

Probably absolutely exactly bbc is it just for anyone wondering quantum entanglement is not about i i i'm pretty sure and bear in mind i've read about this as much as i can and spoken to my friend who's a physicist to try and answer this but you don't like do something to one and it affects the other because the idea there was that oh well then we could communicate instantaneously across any distance that's that's not how it works like you're not going to have instant internet because of quantum entanglement.

The fact is that there's something to do with the spin of particles.

That it's if it's undecided, when you figure out whether it's an up spin or a downspin, the other one will instantly assume that state at the same moment.

But it doesn't mean that you can wiggle one and it wiggles the other, because that would be insane.

I'm pretty sure.

Please email in if I'm wrong.

I'd love an explanation on it.

A brief one.

If you're a quantum physicist, you're right there, Louis.

Let us know some interesting stuff.

I'm okay.

Sorry.

He's choking on his own quantum bullshit.

Finally, a man called Daniel Jackson

noted that there was a strip of forest between Serbia and

Croatia

that he has decided to claim as a country.

Yeah.

And he's named it the country of Verdice.

He says he's now the president.

However, he is not allowed to go there because it's not.

it's owned by the actual countries.

So he's disputed.

He's created.

It's disputed.

He's created his own country and then he can't go there because it is actually somebody else's country.

So he's tried to claim it.

It's a very narrow strip of land.

Right.

Like it's, I'm not saying it's like three feet wide, but relatively speaking, it's not a big bit of land.

But I think it was, from what I remember in the article, when the sort of Yugoslavia and all that fell apart into all these smaller countries, there were some bits that they were like, is that your bit or our bit?

I'm pretty sure it's our bit.

I'm pretty sure it's our bit.

So it's kind of just left there in the middle of this limbo, this geographical limbo, where no one is definitively claiming it.

So these chances who turn up and go, well, then I'm claiming it,

I don't think it's legal.

Why didn't I think it's legal?

It is interesting.

I know.

Well,

he's got like a cabinet.

You can get a passport.

It's all a load of guff.

I don't know to what end they hope to do.

He's got a cabinet?

See,

not a kitchen.

No, I know, I know.

He's got like, yeah, he's got people that work like, you know, with him, like the Minister of Finance, sort of.

He's got like

a whole government.

it's crazy it is well of course what's happened is every scumbag chancellor crypto bro cunt in the world has jumped on board and and there's a crypto called verdis coin or whatever which isn't even affiliated with right his country some some bros have made it and they've made a donation to him to try and promote it do you know i mean like it's and it's always these people who are like ah i can get a new passport i can be a lord i can sell i can have a domain name

I can sell that domain name.ve or whatever.

Do you know what I mean?

And so, you know, imagine Dave, you know, the TV channel wanted a Dave, Day, DA, dot VE.

They'd have to get it through this.

Do you know what I mean?

Like, there's a whole, there's a whole scam system.

I don't think they have that.

That, by the way, that.

VE, it's probably Cape Verde or something.

But do you mean, like, there's, there's, there's a whole crowd of punts that come around with this sort of thing.

They would have to be recognized as

it's like a fun thing, but until it's not, right?

Like, like, because you're fucking around with borders like Sea Land or whatever.

That we talk about Sea Land all the time, the oil rig off the coast, right?

Which, you know, it's just it's look, it's a fun little thing, but it until it's not fun anymore, and a police boat comes down and fucking around.

It just becomes like nonce island, you know what I mean?

Like, that's what they're always setting up for.

So, fuck them.

I don't give a shit.

Just, it's just, just stop, stop it, stop it all.

It's awful.

Because there's no good.

get it.

They're going to try to enter Eurovision.

It's just ridiculous.

I just want to know what's the scam.

Where do they get the money?

What's going on?

Fuck them.

It always ends up with some scam, right?

These things.

They always end up with something they found.

Nothing.

To make money.

What was a good thing that happened recently?

A big good thing?

Exactly.

Nothing.

There's nothing.

I can't think of a single good thing.

There's loads.

There's loads.

Look, not all of of it.

This life on Mars shit, it ain't going to be shit.

It ain't going to be shit.

And they're going to scan the universe and they're never going to find life.

And we're just alone and there's nothing and it's terrible.

Nothing good will ever happen again.

Listen, listen to me closely, listeners.

Nothing good will ever happen ever again.

All right.

We're going to go.

Thank you, everyone.

We love you.

You're amazing.

And we'll see you all next time.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

Hi, I'm Dan Maher, host of the Convergence Podcast, where I invite the talented, inventive, and uncompromising minds behind some of your favorite and soon-to-be-favorite indie games to talk about what they do best.

On each episode, I invite two members of the indie community, many of whom will be meeting for the very first time, to share their journeys, their formative experiences, their successes and failures, their advice for aspiring indie devs, and no doubt lots of unrelated waffles, too.

I mean, this is a podcast after all.

If this sounds like your cup of gin, then subscribe to the Convergence podcast from wherever you choose to ethically source your podcasts.