The Games Podcast News Report, Hosted by Amanda “Ralts” Silberling
It’s been one year since Games and Feelings burst onto the scene as the only games advice podcast and shaken the podcasting world to its core. We sit down with creator and question keeper Eric Silver to hear about this show’s meteoric rise to success and how games actually require having feelings.
Stuff We Talked About
- The Navy's press release about seals playing video games
- The Father of the Xbox Is Building an Ancient Egyptian Bakery In His Backyard
Find Us Online
- ask questions: gamesandfeelings.com/questions
- patreon: patreon.com/gamesandfeelings
- twitter: twitter.com/gamesnfeelings
- insta: instagram.com/gamesnfeelings
Credits
- Host, Producer, & Question Keeper: Eric Silver
- Games Podcast News Reporter: Amanda Silberling
- Permanent Guest: Jasper Cartwright
- Editor & Mixer: Mischa Stanton
- Music by: Jeff Brice
- Art by: Jessica Boyd
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Games and Feelings is an advice podcast about being human and loving all types of games: video games, tabletop games, party games, laser tag, escape rooms, game streams, and anything else that we play for fun. Join Question Keeper Eric Silver and a revolving cast of guests as they answer your questions at the intersection of fun and humanity, since, you know, you gotta play games with other people. Whether you need a game recommendation, need to sort out a dispute at the table, or decide whether an activity is good for a date, we’re your instruction manual. New episodes drop every other Friday.
Transcript
[news intro]
AMANDA: This is the Games Podcast News Report - the only podcast that covers games podcast news. I'm Amanda Ralts Silberling, professional journalist. And this is the credit that I list first in my Twitter bio. Later on in the show: which board games are making you less attractive? The answer might surprise you. But first, our top story: Games and Feelings has just passed one year of podcast existence. That's 7 in dog years, 5 in cat years, and 5 million rounds of combat in D&D. I sat down with creator, question master, and best DM in podcasting, Eric Silver, to celebrate the anniversary of the only games advice podcast on the market.
[wipe transition]
AMANDA: Hey, welcome to the studio.
ERIC: Wow. My God, this is so nice. I mean—
AMANDA: Yeah, we—
ERIC: —these are some nice chairs, since the last time I was here like uh—I know.
AMANDA: Yeah, well, so you wouldn't know this, but the chairs are actually made out of the fabric from the $400 Spheal plushie from the Pokemon Center.
ERIC: Oh, wow. Oh, this is Pokemon Center plush?
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
ERIC: Well, I can feel it!
AMANDA: Yeah, you really—
ERIC: It was—
AMANDA: —it—i’st subtle, but it's there. But you know, the budget for this podcast is just through the roof. We have to figure out how to spend the money somehow since you know, there's just—in games media, we're just all rolling in it right now.
ERIC: W— yeah. Where are you going to i—if you don't use it, you lose it. That's what everyone's saying.
AMANDA: Exactly.
ERIC: I didn't recognize you without the hat. That's the thing—
AMANDA: Ohhh.
ERIC: —is like, oh, —I—who is that? Oh, they're not wearing a Bidoof hat. I can't figure out- is that Amanda? Is that someone else? Oh, you have the Bidoof hat. Now there it is, that's Amanda Ralts Silberling. That's the journalist I know.
AMANDA: Oh, yes you know, it's just sometimes I—I do this so that when I'm in public, people don't recognize me because you know, I like to keep a low profile. It's just—
ERIC: Sure.
AMANDA: —you know, everyone recognizes me from Games Podcast News Report. A podcast that exists and is very popular.
ERIC: And everyone's always like, ‘oh my god, Ralts, take a photo with me. Tell me about the newest worker relations over at Activision Blizzard.’ And you're like, ‘sorry, I'm at dinner. Ca— this is my safe space. Please step back,’ and I think that's great.
AMANDA: Yeah, you know it's like my fans need to know that workers' rights extend to very powerful Games Podcast news reporters like me, who just want some privacy when they're eating their caviar out on the town.
ERIC: When I'm at Carbone, the number one Italian restaurant in New York City, and on Newer— New York City Tiktok, my worker's rights are my table, and my right is ‘leave me alone, please.’ I get that, I understand that.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah, you know, I'm glad you understand. But, um, well, it's so great for you to be here with us today, Eric. So to start, what inspired Games and Feelings?
ERIC: Hard-hitting question from the beginning, that's what I like to know. First of all, it's a wonderful occasion to be here, to be here at the—let me read the name of this podcast that definitely exists. Games Podcasts News Report. I've– listen, I've been listening to the show first on radio, then on Network TV. And then when you moved over briefly to HBO, and then back to network. It's—it's really nice. I followed the journey for a long time.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. The—the HBO GPNR era is— You know, we don't talk about it, but we learned a lot, you know?
ERIC: Yeah. I mean, listen, the spin-offs, the crossover with the Sesame Street. It could have been huge. It could have been huge.
AMANDA: Yeah. I mean, we even had that feature in Succession where on the podcast in the show, we interviewed Shiv Roy.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: She's a gamer. People don't know this about her, but—
ERIC: They never show it. Jesse Armstrong— it's more about on Succession what they don't show you, than what they do show you. Like that's why—
AMANDA: Oh yeah.
ERIC: —they're only doing a few seasons.
AMANDA: Brilliant television show.
ERIC: I loved it when you got fired by—I love it when Kendall just fired you, that was like, oh my God, that's Amanda Ralts Silberling. I didn't recognize her without the Bidoof hat, but that's her for sure.
AMANDA: Yeah, it's like you know how like Tavi Gevinson can be Gossip Girl and I can be in Succession. But anyway, so—
ERIC: Oh, right, you mean how Tavi Gevinson from Bubble, the narrator of Bubble? Yeah, I remember that.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah, she's great.
AMANDA: So anyway, I'm so—I'm sorry, but you're ducking the question.
ERIC: Ohh.
AMANDA: Where's—where did the idea—
ERIC: Sorry.
AMANDA: —of Games and Feelings come from?
ERIC: E— this is actually really funny. I remember coming home from a party or something, and I was with Amanda McLoughlin, my wife. And you know, she's a huge fan of advice column— She's a huge fan of advice columns. You know, she's been reading Ask a Manager, which is one of our favorites, for a very long time. And also like she's been on Dear Prudence a few times and we've been to live shows for Dear Prudence on the various iterations of it. You know, dating all the way back to— I don't acknowledge anyone from before— from before Daniel Lavry. So yeah, Daniel Lavry, so great. And you know, we were talking about trying to do another games podcasts because Join the Party, we’ve been doing for a long time, but it's very fictional. It being a fiction podcast requires a lot of legwork and me working with a lot of our collaborators. which I love, and I love doing it. But you know, there's space in Multitude for doing more than that. And we've been kicking around ideas for a long time. And this is also Amanda has been, like, learning more about games, and I've slowly been chipping away from her— at her of being like, ‘games are bad.’ And now I'm just like poking her and poking her and being like, ‘nope, you gotta keep playing games with me. You just got to do it, you gotta keep doing it.’ So eventually, Amanda has come around to like games. So I think we were in like, a—we were definitely in an Uber coming back from a party. And she's like, ‘what if there was a games advice podcast?’ I'm like, that's an incredible idea, and I'm gonna make it. And that happened only a year ago. I think it was also monumental, and the reason why I remembered it, because like, I was in an Uber, which I hadn't been in for like, 2 years, coming back from a social engagement. And I was like, “Whoa, this is crazy. Look at me.” So I—I remember, it was like on one of the streets coming up to our apartment, and she said it and like this is a really good idea.
AMANDA: So does Multitude, as a company, patronize Uber? I think there might be something– how much do you tip your Uber drivers?
ERIC: Enough and a lot, all the time. Man, hard-hitting tech journalism, I love it. Listen, the only— for somehow Amanda constantly has like a discount on Lyft at all times. And—and I'm just like, wow, that's what you get for having a credit card. Absolutely incredible. I just—you know, Amanda found me, we first started dating, she found me just in the woods. She thought I was a chupacabra, but it turns out, it was me - I was just hanging out attacking goats, just to like get my arm strength up a little bit. And, you know it's— we've been together ever since. So it's been a really—a really emotional half decade dating her and she's just constantly coming up with more ideas. But no, she just always has discounts. I want to shout out Obi, O-B-I, which just, you can put all of your rideshares in there, and you'll figure out the cheapest one. And I think it's just for—it also has like Curb on it. So—and it's like a worker collective and stuff. So it's just like one of those cool apps.
AMANDA: I did not know this app existed, which I will not admit because I'm a very serious tech journalist, and I know all technology.
ERIC: Yeah, cu—cut this out. Cut this out. But yeah, I mean it was wild. Just—just I mean, you know, podcast ideas come out of anywhere. Sometimes you do it just to fill a hole that doesn't exist. I know that maybe you were joking by saying Games and Feelings is the only games advice podcasts out there. And I'm not gonna say that it's—that it is or is not, but it certainly is, like— You know, the comedy advice podcast category is rife with ostensibly brothers of some sorts, talking to each other, making jokes about things and like– you know, however much they do or do not answer the question, is kind of up for it. But I like that doing something a little bit more specific. You know, there're like the really emotional ones like Dear Prudence and some other relationship ones, like Just Break Up. I remember— Fun fact about that, Sierra DeMulder, I know her from Slam Poetry. So I've been knowing—she's been making people cry for like 15 years, on the internet in various genres. So it's just like—
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: —it's always been either something that's like, incredibly emotional, or something that's like, purely for jokes. And it's always like, general, which then kind of opens up a lot of like, the—the worst trauma you've ever heard in your life, with no space k— to kind of talk about anything else. So doing this specifically about games, and then being able to give good advice about that, I think was— is really necessary when you kind of drill down to what the show was supposed to be.
AMANDA: That is true. And what a beautiful love story of you lost in the woods, and Amanda comes riding through in a discount Lyft to save you from yourself. But, you are the question-keeper and the best DM in podcasting, but you don't make this show alone. Would you say everyone fits together like a heist crew or an adventuring crew?
ERIC: Honestly, I would 100% say this. The thing that you learn the most about making podcasts is that everything is a group effort, even something like this, which feels super lightweight. And like, ‘oh, we're just gonna talk about some games and read some questions, blah, blah, blah, and maybe do an extended bit, that this is a tech podcast at the same time.’ But like, I like being able to do a joke like this or have an idea. And I need other people to help me out along the way. I mean, obviously, Amanda spends a lot of time being like our CEO and doing business stuff, which you know, that's the only way that all this can exist. And then having someone so dependable like Mischa to edit the shows and make—put in funny sound effects to make things sound better. [sound effects] which is something that like I don't— I can't think of on my own. Like I want that to happen. I think the best podcasts out there are when the sound design, which—shows that should not have sound designer in it. Hey Riddle Riddle is an incredible example of this. Where like you put in a joke of sound design where you don't expect it. And then that enhances the joke that's already happening there. And I think that it's something that people don't expect at all from a conversational podcast. There's a lot of room to be funny. So Casey Toney does an incredible job of that. And Mischa has been doing that on the many—the various shows that we do here on Multitude and I love— I just love that they do it. Especially because they're gonna make me sound like a duck here, from a bunch of quacking. [quacking noises]
AMANDA: Yeah, and I—I am also still wearing the Bidoof hat, so if we could get some beaver noises? [beaver noises join the quacking]
ERIC: Just some beaver noises. Yeah.
AMANDA: I'm just gonna wear the Bidoof hat the entire time.
ERIC: You should. It makes you look—
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: —even more professional. And then of course, like you know, being— the idea to push this weekly. Being able to mix up different show ideas. I couldn't have done that without Jasper, which is wonderful. I mean, Jasper is someone who I've like admired for a very long time because we've been talking ever since Three Black Halflings got going. And he's just like a good bruv that I want to hang out with. And here's the thing about being in your 30s, you got to invent a podcast to hang out with other people. So just being able to do that and throw them in. I want to say congratulations to myself for getting WhatsApp, so I can text Jasper whenever I want. But yeah, if I— if it was a heist crew. I mean, Amanda is— I feel like Amanda is the explosives expert. Much like, you know, business is the same as explosives, you're blowing up a bank vault usually.
AMANDA: I have heard that from the CEO at the Games Podcast News Report.
ERIC: You know, who's always threatening you with a bomb to stop asking for more money.
AMANDA: Yeah. Owned by Hasbro.
ERIC: Oh, Jesus Christ. Um. And I think Mischa, I think Mischa has other tech skills. So we have an explosive expert, but we have like a hacker. I think Mischa's the hacker. And Jasper is of course the face, you know? Ja—Jasper is going to charm his way into any single—any single situation. Then I think I'm the wheels. I think I drive the car. You gotta get there and you gotta get out, and I really think that's my job.
AMANDA: Well, at the Games Podcast News report, you know, it's not all serious. We do have some fun and games. And um, in the Games Podcast News Report D&D campaign last night, we did have a skeleton wearing a hat who was steering a ship. So that's how I like to imagine you, Eric - as the skeleton steering the ship of Games and Feelings.
ERIC: Is this just like goofy, like the skeleton in Halloween Town who drives the— the taxi? Or is this like Charon, the boat driver of the dead?
AMANDA: Um, this is a bit more like goofy. Yeah, I think this was just our DM wanted to make this person non-threatening and made it kinda like an Undertale Papyrus-type character.
ERIC: Oh, that's fair. Sure. I mean, if you just want to call me Sans Undertale, that's me. Everyone on Tumblr loves me. I have one eye, I go, “Ughgugugu” whenever I speak. I am exactly the same as Sans.
AMANDA: How did it feel— how did it feel to win the Tumblr sexy man contest?
ERIC: It felt great. I'm glad I was finally recognized as a sexy man. Because you know, just because I'm not 6 feet tall and incredibly skinny, I feel like I deserve some recognition, and Sans is representing just like me, for all the short and medium princes out there.
AMANDA: We stan a short and medium prince.
ERIC: Short kings, medium prince, that's me.
AMANDA: So back to the tech news. So. there have been some really serious gaming acquisitions in the last year - we're still waiting to see if Microsoft will be able to close the deal to buy Activision Blizzard for nearly 69 - nice - billion dollars. But another really pivotal acquisition in games news this year was your acquisition of a white sequined glove. So— so, since getting a white—
ERIC: Sure.
AMANDA: —sequined glove, how has this impacted your role as the Dungeon Master on Join the Party?
ERIC: That's a very good point and I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to talk about how I begged the FTC to allow my acquisition of a white sequinned glove. Honestly, that's also not where I thought this question was gonna go. Thank you. Good—good question. Good question.
AMANDA: Oh, I'm just improvising. You know I'm— listened to like three episodes of Tell Me About It and I can do improv now.
ERIC: Oh, there you—there you go. So you're gonna tri—you're gonna trip me up in the—in the middle and say that I'm doing a bad job, for sure. Yeah, I mean, the sequinned glove is funny. I'm still kind of trying to, like formulate a thesis on this. But as someone who's been like, involved in loving the actual play genre for such a long time, both in podcasting, and in video, especially once Dimension 20 burst on the scene. There has been a real like LA-ification of actual play. And it's not to say that it's not great, because it is. Because they have wonderful budgets, and incredibly talented actors, and they all live in the same place. So they can all go to the sets in Los Angeles that are rented and all of them can do it together. Like it's all—it's very important for that, and really makes stuff stand out, especially in a post-Covid world where we're still getting used to like actors being in the same place at the same time. But it's like even the genre itself, like this is becoming the modus operandi of the— of arts. Like this is the most popular version of this version of art, which is like you need to be a voice actor and live in LA. You gotta be a professional actor or an impressional improver/TV writer. And they have large budgets to do this stuff. And there's a very specific type of gameplay, which is it's always Dungeons and Dragons. It’s always incredibly rules-light, actually it’s closer to like long-form improv than, like anything that's a little bit more crunchy, which I think that like D&D is the only game that gives you permission - not even gives you permission, but like no one gives a shit, so they're just like, ‘I'm gonna throw out this rule. It doesn't really make sense, so I'm not gonna follow it.’ It's um—so it's more akin to long form improv. And then like, the peaks and valleys of emotion are so high, like, you're going to talk about dicks for 30 minutes. And then like 20 minutes later, someone's going to talk about like how their parents left them. And they're literally going to cry on set and make the listeners cry as well. So I just think that those—that's the type— the mode of art that we're dealing with right now. And it's not something that like, I—I don't, I don't necessarily gravitate towards that type of art in general, when I'm talking about my movies or TV, or actual play stuff. Again, this stuff is super popular and I respect everyone— I mean, there's— so many people love it, because it's very talented, very well made. We're trying to do something different, especially with Join the Party, which is something I'm like, I want this to feel like a game. Like there should be game elements to it. And that means there's fun, and there's competition and there's like a challenge. So leaning into that and making sure that's part of this art is making sure the game can stand up on its own. Which then means we're not always playing D&D, we're playing pla—Powered by the Apocalypse games, where form and function really follow each other. Or maybe I'm hacking some other stuff together, like making my own game that we're going to play out. It's fun, I really enjoy it. And I love melding games into fiction. And I just worry that that kind of stuff falls away because especially with the LA-ification of it, it becomes more of like the entertainment business. So it's like, well, money and famous people are behind it, so it must be the only thing that exists. And then when people pursuing this—this art form, only kind of do this thing. So I've been thinking about it a lot and kind of buying the glove and having my heel turn, and saying I'm the best DM in podcasting, I think it's just been my— giving myself permission to like, say that I'm doing something different, and I think I'm really good at it. And hopefully, everyone listening will also feel you know permission to say it out loud. In the great stan wars of the internet. Like you know, it's—it's— you can still talk about like smaller stuff and it's just— I don't know. I have a lot of feelings about it. So that's the best I can kind of say at the moment.
AMANDA: Damn, Eric Silver hive, rise up.
ERIC: Yeah, all my Silver Streakers out there, my Silver sur— my Silver Surfers—
AMANDA: Silver Snakes?
ERIC: Ah, Silver Snakes!
AMANDA: Wait. No,
ERIC: Yeah, no, no, no! That’s—
AMANDA: Legends of the Hidden Temple. Which one is that? I feel like it's like Silver Cheetahs or something.
ERIC: No, it was Silver Snakes, yeah.
AMANDA: Okay, cool. Cool.
ERIC: I was a Red Jaguar myself because the Silver Snakes were always absolute nerds. So Silver Snakes rise up. Go on Tumblr, go on Twitter. Tell your friends that I'm the best DM in podcasting.
AMANDA: Damn. I did have a really—not to—you know, as a very serious journalist, I rarely talk about myself. But I did have an experience the other night where I was watching the mediocre Netflix show Jewish Matchmaking and—
ERIC: Oh, how's that going, by the way?
AMANDA: It was fine. I mean, I do think it's funny that I do know someone who knows someone who was on the show, which is proof that Jewish geography is a real thing that somehow works. But as I was making my own D&D spell cards, because I'm very committed to not using D&D Beyond because—
ERIC: Sure.
AMANDA: —in my job as the host of Games Podcast News Report, I'm looking at screens all the time.
ERIC: Right.
AMANDA: And I prefer to not look at screens when I'm hanging out with my friends.
ERIC: That's a good idea though on its own, because you can also cut down the text and they can be— it can be bigger on the spell cards that you print out.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: So I was—I was just like watching Jewish Matchmaking, writing some spell cards. And then this guy is like, ‘oh, so here's my Game of Thrones tattoo. And then this is my tattoo written in Elvish.’ And I was like, ‘Haha, nerd!’ And then meanwhile I'm writing down, like, here are the rules for like, thaumaturgy, or like, however you say that cantrip. I also am trying really hard to get the line “they're called cantrips, not can't trips” into something, but it hasn't really come up yet. But it's, you know…
ERIC: I think you can do that for sure. I you— that opportunity is absolutely going to arise, Ralts, for sure.
AMANDA: Yeah. It's like when—when you run out of all your spell slots, and then you use kind of like, not the greatest thing at your disposal, but you have to use a cantrip because you don't have any slots left and then you're like, ‘well, so they don't call it a cantrip for nothing.’
ERIC: [in accent] ‘Oh, w—oh what? you're little— your little ed—Eldritch Blasts is going to defeat me, Diedrich, the Dark Knight?’ And then Wolf Kaminsky says, ‘They're called Cantrips, not can'trips’ and then Diedrich dies.
AMANDA: Oh yeah, for sure. Well also now I'm playing a cleric as well as everyone—- you know, everyone knows from Interplanetary 20, my hit actual play podcast. You know Wolf Kaminsky—
ERIC: God.
AMANDA: —my —my warlock who is well known by the masses.
ERIC: Named after your dentist, of course.
AMANDA: Oh yes. This—this episode is sponsored by Kaminsky Wolf Dental.
ERIC: I'm so glad you could get that ad—that ad sales. It's been a tough market. It’s good.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, I collaborated with Amanda McLoughlin before this podcast to like, you know, see if I could help with some ad sales because as a very professional games journalist, news report podcaster that's something that I think about, you know, the business behind the games. Yeah and uh—
ERIC: Luckily, you have– you have ads that reflect your– your, your values, so maybe that's important. Yeah.
AMANDA: And my values are that everyone deserves a dentist who writes in your file, “Tearful.” It does say that in my file at Kaminsky Wolf Dental.
ERIC: That's incredibly funny. I did not know that.
AMANDA: It is true. Like I am afraid of the dentist.
ERIC: Sure.
AMANDA: I get nervous. You know, it's—speaking of getting nervous—
ERIC: Wait, was it tearful appreciative? Like does Wolf Kaminsky know– Wolf Kaminsky, the dentist. Does he know about the Tumblr adjectives to put in? So that when someone's actually looking at a file, they know it's tearful understanding, or was it just tearful derogatory?
AMANDA: I don't know. I think I'm trying to remember the exact wording, but it was like, “Patient was nervous and tearful” or something like that.
ERIC: Oh, that's fine. That's more—that's pretty descriptive. That's good.
AMANDA: Yeah. Which, you know, I do get nervous and tearful. And so I'm wondering, did you feel nervous and/or tearful when you pushed Games and Feelings to a weekly podcast with, you know, content, like the advice episodes, bringing in Jasper as a permanent guest, the Replay, and, of course, everyone's favorite podcast with an acronym that everybody knows and uses all the time, WYFPATISSNAY?
ERIC: Yes. You know, it's funny. I mean, I feel like so many shows need to be weekly right now unless you have a really good reason.
AMANDA: A really good reason, like you're making a podcast that is barely breaking even. And one of you is a very serious games journalist, and one of you is a corporate lawyer?
ERIC: Yeah, that's a really good reason. If you're doing it for fun. I mean, profession— I'm saying like business professionally. I think that's always the thing I—
AMANDA: Yes.
ERIC: —need to say that like, when I give this advice this is like for— for my full-time job currently right now.
AMANDA: [in deep voice] Business.
ERIC: Is like I—this needs to come out. And you know, Games and Feelings, I wanted to do more of it. Also, it was like too guests-dependent, which is something I always tell other people not to do. But I kept needing to have two guests on. And also I wanted to shout out the other people like all the people at Multitude, and the various guests that we've had on over this last year. Like they're all incredible and it was so nice, like having Jenna Stoeber on and having Jeremy Cobb on also from Three Black Halflings. And also like Julia and Brandon coming on as well. But I—I just wanted to have someone else to— it was fun to be around. And Jasper is always super fun to be around. And again, I wanted to spend more time with him so I locked him into a podcast. And it's been— it's been incredible. I mean just hanging out with Jasper over the last like— you know, we only started going weekly like a few months ago. So it's just been ki—really nice flow. Also just being able to intersperse other types of shows in. Amanda and I have been doing The Replay on the Patreon for a while, and everyone should join the Patreon at patreon.com/gamesandfeelings, so you can hear all the episodes. Various times I say, ‘the Replay is a better show than Games and Feelings. I don't know why we're not just doing this.’ Because it's just like a critique of advice columns and trying to like understand why advice columns exist and who uses them. Also, it's kind of nice, like exposing my advice to advice columns, it’s just very much not for me, and not like in the vein of people who need to use advice columns, or might respond to them. Like, you know, it's very— I think that the people who use them are trying to like validate like bad feelings that they have. Whether they are not allowed to share them, like in their own community, and they're scared, or they did something bad, but they don't want to admit it. And then they write into an advice column, like— so many questions in advice columns are really just ‘am I good? Was this fine that I did this? Please validate me,’ more than asking questions. And like, that's not the kind of person I am. I just—I'll run forward and then just see what happens later. Because I'd rather you know, defend myself or my family, or my friends or my relationship or whatever. But at the same time is like I—I—I think I come down a little harder than some of these advice people. Like even Ask a Manager who's great, I think she also— which is a wonderful advice column about work. I think that she still believes in like the corporate structure because she worked in HR for a long time, and like, man, I got drummed out of corporate life so quickly because I had feelings and they didn't like that. And it's just like, especially in 2023, examining like the Capitalist structure, which I think is Games and Feelings at large. But also a lot of these advice columns about like, you know, so many are about manners and who's supposed to pay for stuff, or blah, blah, blah. It's like it means so much different I think to me in 2023. Also, I'm so happy I got to bring back WYFPATISSNAY.
AMANDA: I know. I love WYFPATISSNAY. I listened to it in the pandemic before I knew you. Because I was just like, this is nice to just hear people talk about Pokemon.
ERIC: Yeah. It's nice. I mean, I was also trying to use it as like a way to make more friends like, invite people–
AMANDA: See, that’s the secret, you have to podcast to make friends.
ERIC: Yeah. And also just like, ‘hey, I don't have a real good space to say nice things about you, because it's May 2020 and everyone's being really fucking weird.’ So it's just been really nice to bring that back, and just kind of expanding the space a little bit. I mean, the birthday episode that came out was really sweet and it kind of made the whole thing worth it. And I was just super happy about that. And, you know, you also get to reveal that people like Pokemon.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Unless they're saying it like, explicitly, you wouldn't know that someone loves Pokemon.
AMANDA: I feel like I say it explicitly pretty often, but I get what you mean for other people–
ERIC: But I—I guess like unless—
AMANDA: – that aren’t wearing a Bidoof hat right now.
ERIC: True. Unless you are outwardly talking about Pokemon. Like, I know plenty of people who play it and just never talk about it. And then you’re like, ‘do you want to play this Pokemon ROM hack?’ And they're like, ‘what the fuck does that mean?’ I'm like ‘never mind.’
AMANDA: Speaking of which, have you started playing Pokemon Emerald Rogue?
ERIC: I want to, here's the problem. Uh, so you told me about it. It seemed really great. I've watched a bunch of actual plays of it. Oh, sorry. I watched a bunch of YouTube vi—
AMANDA: Actual plays.
ERIC: Not actual plays. I've watched a bunch of YouTubers play through it. And now I kind of understand it a little bit more, of like the flow of the game. I used to play it on Macs, which is where I would just put it on like OpenEmu or one of the stuff and I know it's easier.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: But like my most powerful computer, the King of Games, is Windows, and I'm definitely a little bit more like antsy about trying to get that going over on Windows. So it's just like trying to just push through. Like I ended up re-buying Skyrim just so I would have something to play. While I'm like— when this comes out Tears of the Kingdom will al— already be out. But like I've been kinda like really twiddling my thumbs for the last few weeks just kind of waiting for the new Zelda. So I should have been playing it.
AMANDA: Well, as the Kara Swisher of games journalism, I do have a confession, which is that I still haven't finished playing Breath of the Wild because I found it really hard at first.
ERIC: Sure.
AMANDA: And I had to like FaceTime Isabel, the co-host of the Games Podcast News Report. The—the only podcast I host. And I had to FaceTime her and be like, ‘how do I get the paraglider, you need to help me.’
ERIC: No, I think it's fair. I mean, it was also my first Zelda game. I was not a Zelda person. I'm definitely— and I love Nintendo. It's just that those puzzles just never—never appealed to me. I was definitely— I would rather platform or play like Pokemon instead. Definitely the Mario and Pokemon arm of Nintendo. So you don't realize, it's very much like Zelda thinking. And you don't know— which is funny to think that like Breath of the Wild also, many considered to be the best game of all time. But it still does have video game logic that other people don't know. So I totally understand. I didn't understand how to do like any of the Divine Beasts. Because doing the dungeons is very much like Zelda puzzle thinking that I've never been exposed to. So I had to look up walkthroughs for every single one. Every one, every single one. Even on both playthroughs that I've done. First when it came out, and when I got a Switch. And then recently I replayed it on like when I got a new TV. And I'm like, I still don't know how to do this. This is so stupid.
AMANDA: Yeah, I was like, in like the first 5 minutes of the game being like, so if I cut down this tree, and I get it to land in the right place. And then I can walk across this on a bridge I created. And then— and I was like wait, I'm making it too hard. I don't even have the paraglider yet. But I need to get back to that. Anyway, before we continue, we're gonna throw to a commercial break.
[news sting]
AMANDA: This podcast is sponsored by: cheating at TTRPGs. Cheating - when you want your friends to think you're so cool that nothing bad ever happens to your imaginary character. Now, even though I'm the Kara Swisher of journalism, let me tell you a story that happened to me yesterday. I was rolling an attack roll to hit. I rolled a Nat 1. No one knew I rolled, and I thought ‘should I just re-roll it?’ And then I did. And then I thought ‘I feel so guilty.’ And then I thought ‘at my table, we have a rule that if you're the person that ordered the pizza, you get free inspiration.’ So I just used my inspiration and then I didn't cheat. Sometimes cheating at TTRPGs could be the right move for you if you do not have pizza inspiration. Cheating at TTRPGs comes in a few flavors. Adding modifiers where there aren't any. Disguising your dice roll and saying it's good. Or being so annoying about small stuff that the GM says ‘fine.’ Cheating at TTRPGs - get them wherever games are played. And we'll be right back.
[news sting]
ERIC: I like your personal experience you put on that ad-read, good job.
[theme song plays]
ERIC: Hey, it's Eric. And usually, I have a snack here. But I would love to share part of a message from Polly Burrage, our first producer-level patron. “Hey, Eric, happy nearly one year. Just wanted to drop a little line and say how much GNF has meant to me in the past year. There's a reason I was the first producer-level patron. I knew it was going to be amazing. Everything you touch turns to gold. I love games. and I love that there's no discrepancy in the types of games you're willing to talk about. I feel like traditionally, something like this may not include sport, but you do and that makes it even more special to me. Surely no shocks there.” Context: Polly is very into sports, especially Australian rules football, and it's wonderful watching her on Twitter. Okay, back to the note. “The way you discuss feelings always hits close to home for me because I think we have a very similar nature. But you're so mature in your responses. I seriously look forward to it every week, the Replay included, and I hope it continues for many more years. P.S., I honestly think about the ‘what shall it be!’, from the Buddha games once a week. I don't think I've ever laughed harder at a podcast.” Oh my god, that was one of our first episodes. That was with Mischa and Marquez. Ugh, I love that episode. Thank you, Polly. I appreciate it so much. And honestly, that's why I like making the show. Being able to talk about games and doing like advice, being funny, and giving actual advice. Is—is nice. Being able to give feelings and also laughter. I mean, that's how we do it. That's how we do it here on the pod. If you want to give us an anniversary present and support this wonderful independent content, come on over and join the Patreon. You're not just doing it for fun, you get the Replay, which you're already getting on the main feed, but you get Patreon versions of it. I think you're really going to like it. We're also going to do ad-free episodes very soon. So if you can get that RSS feed that you get from Patreon, then you're already in there. You're already in the mainframe. That's gonna be easy for you. patreon.com/gamesandfeelings. And as always, shout out to producer-level patrons Polly Burrage, Kelsey Duffy, and Peyton who are just ride-and-die homies. I love that. Thank you. patreon.com/gamesandfeelings. No ads today, just get back to the episode.
[theme]
[news sting]
AMANDA: Speaking of the Replay: So I mean, it's really brave of you to pioneer a new genre of advice podcast, which is a husband and wife telling people advice. Like no one has ever done that before, especially not anyone who also has a brother. So how has that felt for you to be pioneering a new genre of media?
ERIC: You know, Amanda Ralts Silberling, I don't like talking about ‘ifs’ or ‘whatevers’. I kind of live in the now. So I think this is a really unfair question to ask. It's really a gotcha question setting me up for—for one of those like, you're just gonna clip this out and put it on Tiktok. So I'm— next question, please. My PR person is saying next question. I really don't appreciate it, I thought that you had better journalistic standards than this.
AMANDA: Oh, interesting. I didn't know that Mischa also was your PR person now. That's— I feel like that's a conflict of interest for them to be both your editor and doing your PR that makes me wonder about Multitude's standards as a podcast studio but—
ERIC: Mischa, can you just put some duck sounds over whatever Amanda just said? Thank you. Appreciate it.
AMANDA: And you know, speaking of some scandal, there's been some real scandal this year. And I wouldn't be doing my job as a journalist, if I didn't ask about the incident with Nintendo where, you know, Games and Feelings just had Nintendo send FBI agents to the studio to retrieve some unreleased Amiibo from Generation 10 of Pokemon. So what was that experience like? And how did they get into the studio? It's on, like, the second floor.
ERIC: Yeah, that's a good point. Uh actually, I think that you have the story incorrect. I sent the Pinkertons to Nintendo to go get Amiibos. You know, it's actually it's different. Because, you know, we're a small business here at Games and Feelings. And we really, you know, we got to punch above our weight. So we actually can afford the Pinkertons as well. We're doing so well financially, that's why we sent them to— all the way to Japan, to Nintendo to get the Amiibos. I just thought it was a really good marketing play for Games and Feelings.
AMANDA: I do think this is good information for the patrons of Games and Feelings to know that their Patreon dollars are going towards hiring the Pinkertons.
ERIC: Can you fucking believe that actually happened? What a cr—
AMANDA: No.
ERIC: Like—
AMANDA: I still just think about, like how did that happen?
ERIC: Nothing is funnier than knowing that like a game—a toy company hired the most notorious like goon squad in American history to go harass a guy who accidentally got magic cards early. It's so funny.
AMANDA: There was a question about the Pinkertons on Jeopardy! last night, and I was like, oh, I know this. I just read the entire Wikipedia page of the Pinkertons, like two weeks ago.
ERIC: Here, I would lo—I want to– let's answer this question in a different way. I just think it's wild. I wasn't prepared. Like, obviously, the world's pretty dystopic in the way that companies are running them shi— their shit right now. But I didn't know it would affect games so much. Like obviously, when we started kicking around Games and Feelings, like all the Activision stuff had been going on. And of course, like the Me Too movement, and their intersection in games and games media and games, like creation, and we're all living in a post-Gamergate world that like people can just— just knowing that the right-wing can mobilize like that and ruin people's lives. Like that's just out there, and that's the thing there. But like, at the same time, it was like, oh, gamers are just you know gross guys g— capital G gamers. And then we're trying to create a new space for more— for people who think about this a little bit more complex. But I didn't know this was going to directly intersect in the thing I like, which is like, how many unforced errors there's been on behalf of Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast and like Tabletop RPG Twitter. I just wasn't anticipating that. And it's been great to be able to talk about that freely and talking about labor rights and worker's rights on the show. I just wasn't—I just didn't think it was gonna be so much of a focus, that it was going to be that easy for laymen to talk about so many hilarious scandals, as opposed to like, you know, digging into video game companies like investor talks and trying to like glean this from— from secrets. It's just— it's just out there.
AMANDA: No, it's so funny how I went to a party a couple of weeks ago, because I go to parties even though I'm the Kara Swisher of games journalism, but um—
ERIC: How are—how are people supposed to know you're Kara Swisher if you don't go out there and go to parties? For sure.
AMANDA: Yeah, I did meet real Kara Swisher in real life a couple of weeks ago. She was just like a person. I don't know.
ERIC: That's the thing about like journalists in like their 40s and 50s. Like they have like $10 million and they still dress like your mom. It's wild.
AMANDA: Yeah, she was just like, ‘I'm texting my son about Snapchat, so I know what to ask Evan Spiegel at this thing later.’ Which is honestly a good like—I mean, I do think that's like a good idea as a journalist to like talk to young people about things that young people are using, when you're not the young people.
ERIC: But it's not young people, it's your son. You always know that it's just their children. I mean, this is where Kara Swisher— Bill Simmons does this all the time. It's so funny.
AMANDA: Yeah. But, so, you know, as the Kara Swisher of games journalism, when I was at this party, someone was talking about the D&D movie and I was like, ‘oh, yeah, I don't really know if I want to see it. Like, feels just kind of like, like a money grab from Hasbro. And like, if you look in their investor reports, like they've been saying that they want to make Dungeons and Dragons into a four-quadrant gaming franchise, like Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter. And did you know and then the OGL and blah, blah, blah.’ And then now it's just like, ‘they sent the Pinkertons to a random guy's house because he made a video about magic cards.’
ERIC: Yeah. Uh—
AMANDA: Which I also do acknowledge. I'm hypocritical in my not wanting to see the D&D movie because I think the Mario movie sounds fun.
ERIC: The Mario movie is great. The Mario wa— I lov— okay. It's all— it's all complicated. I also want to say the D&D movie was fine. It was like a 6. And I can see how people like it. And it's nice having— Chris Pine is incredibly charismatic. Justice Smith is very funny. Hugh Grant is so good at playing a cockney villain. You know, Michelle Rodriguez is funny, the big cameo. It was all very fun. It just felt like they were truly mailing it in and say like we have IP now. And everyone— now there's the—the fans are so ruined by Marvel that like everyone thinks they're a little Kevin Feige. So it's like there are articles— I literally read an article the other day, that's like, ‘it's so unfair, that um, the D&D movie’s probably not gonna get a sequel because it made over $150 million, but it didn't—it's not gonna make its budget back, so they're not gonna give it a sequel.’ I'm like, either you like the free hand of the market or you don't. Like, get— what the fuck is your problem? So it's just— it's just the whole thing is wild. I also want to point out that I told my wife, Amanda McLoughlin— she started reading, like a third of the way through the movie. And I told her—I told her to leave, because we were at like a— a free screening that we were able to go to, and like people here are gonna like this movie. You can't be on your phone reading the entire time.
AMANDA: Well, that actually brings me to my next question which again, you know, as a quality journalist, I have to ask the hard-hitting questions. But according to social media, your permanent guest, Jasper William Cartwright seemed to enjoy the Dungeons and Dragons movie.
ERIC: Sure.
AMANDA: But I did— you know, you just said it was a 6. I also received an anonymous tip on Signal that said, maybe you thought it was actually more like a 5?
ERIC: No, I said it was a 6.
AMANDA: So—
ERIC: I don't know who is spreading rumors. I don't know what whistleblower’s out there saying I said it was a 5.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. I mean, not to like, not to betray my sources, but it was Mischa.
ERIC: Oh, that's fine. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.
AMANDA: But you know, how has this disagreement impacted your relationship with Jasper?
ERIC: Something I love about Jasper, and this is why he's infinitely more successful than me, is that he genuinely likes a lot of things. And like, in a way that I think that you might think that if someone else was doing it, it'd be like, oh, wow, you're really just gassing up other people just so you could seem like a yes man and they'll like you. But he genuinely loves things and he loves talking to people. And he’s just like, incredibly accepting and like, listen again, I'm also not saying that it wasn't interesting. And it wasn't like, yeah, that was a fantasy action con— film with some Marvel-esque writing. But Jasper just liked it better than me. And he's much better at liking things than I am. And I'm— it's one of the reasons why I like being around him.
AMANDA: See, this is why it's just blatantly false when people say that Jews control the media, because we would both be doing better if we didn't hate everything and complain about so much.
ERIC: Absolutely true. We would both have so many more Twitter followers if the Jews ran the media. Absolutely.
AMANDA: I know. Like instead of being the Kara Swisher of games journalism, I would be the… uhhh… Anderson Cooper of games journalism.
ERIC: Pretty good! Also good.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Just hanging out with the Andy Cohen of games journalism, and getting drunk. For sure.
AMANDA: I would be doing the New Year's Rocking Eve.
ERIC: Just watching the big D20 drop. Yeah, for sure.
AMANDA: Yes, exactly. You also launched the game show Tell Me About It this year with Adal Rifai. And Apple podcasts reviewer Luke Astro wrote, on 4/20 - blaze it - “A billionaire and his blurf-derf butler, quizzing semi-celebs about unctuous nonsense. Sign me up thrice.” And I'm curious what you think Luke means by ‘blurf-derf.’
ERIC: I did not read this review before. You were just like ‘yeah, I guess he says blurf-derf somewhere.’ I didn't know it was about me. I don't know what blurf-derf means. I also don't know what unctuous nonsense means.
AMANDA: Me neither.
ERIC: Unctuous like the word you say when like something's like, you go to like a tasting menu, and you realize you spent like $200 on something that's like mostly fat. And you're like, ‘mmm, it's so— the mouthfeel, it's so unctuous.’ So I'm like, I don't know what unctuous nonsense means here. Semi-celebrities also is such a— what an absolute neg did— Luke Astro did on 4/20. I don't know. I do also think that there's like a lot of capacity for more game shows that can be like a little more— more wacky instead of straightforward. I mean, listen, Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me! and Ask Me Another are backbones of radio. It's like loose, but it's also a straightforward game show. Like people get it. So I was just trying to bring a Taskmaster to podcasting and being able to do it with Adal who I've been calling a legend of improv both in Chicago and on podcasting. And I wouldn't do that to his face, because he's so Midwestern he would say, ‘no, no,’ and then pay me $20 to stop saying it. Uhhh it’s— I mean, it’s been so much fun. And he's—he's great. And the show has been really fun to make.
AMANDA: I also do think it's really funny that you know, as a member of the press, I did receive an early test run of Tell Me About It.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: And at first, you were the billionaire, but now you're the butler. So how has that impacted, you know, your ego and the show?
ERIC: I always thought it would happen. I mean, honestly, that's like, all of my shows is I'm the—I used to be— I'm the butler, but also I created the show— and I’m show running it. Like, that's all my shows, it's fine.
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah. That was also a fun thing. I mean, it's something that I also— I don't get a chance to talk about that much. But like it was something that Mischa and I started kicking around a while ago. And Mischa is also the co-creator of that. And Mischa also edits it and does wonderful sound design for it as well. So a lot of the stuff we do here on Games and Feelings, I think is transferred over to Tell Me About It. And like being able to do like an improv show, I think also allows for more of that fun sound design. So it's like vaguely fiction, so it's easier to like just put the sound design jokes I was talking about. It's a little bit less startling, and it just makes people enjoy it even more. Well, Amanda Ralts Silberling, I know that you spend so much time asking people questions. Well, what if I turned this around on you, and made you talk about something instead?
AMANDA: Oh, ho ho! In— in real life this happened to me on a stage in front of like, thousands of people. And it was horrifying.
ERIC: Yeah, that's because VC guys love pulling one over on journalists.
AMANDA: It wasn't a VC guy. It was a scary lawyer lady.
ERIC: That's the same. Those are the same people!
AMANDA: So that was representation for girl bossing.
ERIC: That’s girl– that’s yeah– that's truly girl boss, trying to pull one over on a journalist on the stage.
AMANDA: She was like, ‘well, why does it matter, what the percentage of adult creators versus non-adult creators are on OnlyFans?’ And I was like ‘because the working conditions are different. And the things that they have to deal with are different with like legislation, and like—’
ERIC: Cause they're children, you ghoul. What the fuck do you mean? See, this is why no one gives me jobs - because I called someone a ghoul on this podcast.
AMANDA: Uh-huh.
ERIC: You have—but hey, I have two— two pieces of news I would love to talk to you about. Because you know, you are a tech journalist alongside being the host of the Games Reviews Pod— News Podcast, I can't remember the name of the show.
AMANDA: It's um—damn your—name 5 of our songs.
ERIC: Oh shit.
AMANDA: We’re the Games Podcast News Report.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: Which, as I mentioned, is the first credit I list in my Twitter bio.
ERIC: That's true. That's true. So I have two pieces of news here I would love to talk to you about. One is a depressing news that I would like to try to find uh— find some positive lining on it, which you'll hear in a moment. And the second one is about things you don't usually talk about on podcasts. Which would you like to talk about?
AMANDA: Hmm.
ERIC: We'll probably have time for both. So please—
AMANDA: Oh, God.
ERIC: —whatever you want first.
AMANDA: I just kind of like blanked out.
ERIC: Okay, we'll do the first one then because it's about the American military. So we'll start there.
AMANDA: Hell yeah.
ERIC: This—this recently came across my Transom and it's the wildest shit I've ever seen. I saw it on Reddit, and I had to run it down to be like, this can't be real. Oh, it's real. Here is a press release from the Navy, saying ‘the Navy sea lions love video games.’
AMANDA: Imagine being the person who is doing PR for the Navy and then writing about the video games that the sea lions are playing apparently.
ERIC: The only thing about that is like they're also in the Navy, so I think they're okay with it. Like imagine you're in the Navy and you do PR? Like that's— that's wild.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah.
ERIC: The—the short answer. I'll include a link to the episode— in the episode description to this thing. But it's like— because also, it's PR from the Navy. So it's pretty pro-Navy. But basically, they're training sea lions to use rudimentary video games. Part of some program of video enrichment for sea animals. And I'm just like, ‘why are you do— why does the Navy need to do this?’ Like, why is this a specific program? Apparently, 300 people care for the program's more than 120 sea lions and dolphins, all of which are trained in reconnaissance and recovery tasks that marine mammals can perform better than humans. But don't worry, enrichment activities such as open ocean swims, playtime, and with toys, and now video games are central to their care. So basically, the Navy has adopted some sea— some marine creatures to make them do Marine stuff for the Navy, but also they're calling it like the same thing as when you throw a watermelon into a tiger's cage.
AMANDA: So this is like instead of the TSA having dogs that can smell weed. This is like the Navy having dolphins that can retrieve like weapons from the sea.
ERIC: I think so. I think it's also really funny that they're doing like an Ender's Game for sea lions. They’re like ‘sea lion, you're so good at the video game, do it in real life.’ I don't want to talk about this anymore, because it's absolutely fucking bumming me out. So as a tech journalist, and someone who also loves games— the like dystopic thing I was talking about with companies earlier. Like, man, how do you feel good about some of the news that's coming out? I think the only thing is that, like, it's so fucking goofy, from the bad guys, that it actually is like, easy to kind of like, mobilize around it. But I just wanted you— I just wanted you to know, because you're someone who has to deal with Elon Musk quite a lot more than I do.
AMANDA: I do have to deal with Elon Musk quite a lot. I feel like this kind of gets at my primary rant about being adjacent to tech, which is that by working adjacent to Tech, I realize more than ever how important humanities education is. Where just like, knowing a little bit of history, and knowing how, when corporate greed goes too far, bad things happen. Like I guess—
ERIC: Right.
AMANDA: —this kind of reminds me of one of my recent rants of late, is that everyone is like, ‘oh my god, like how can we use Chat GPT to like—’
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: ‘—write found poetry and whatever.’ And it's like, people have been doing this shit for hundreds of years. Like, please take one art history class. The same thing happened with NFTs, where someone— like I wrote about this like years ago, where someone made something called a low-effort NFT, where it just was a piece of paper that said, “low-effort NFT” and they photographed it and then sold it for like thousand of dollars.
ERIC: Yes, that's Dada–
AMANDA: And then—
ERIC: That's Da— the Dada Movement, my guy.
AMANDA: And then people— like crypto people were so mad about it, and like having discussions like, they're the first people who have ever discussed the relationship between effort and value in art making. And it's like, guys, please, one single art history class, please. And that's sort of how this makes me feel. It just feels like they're not thinking about any of the implications of like training sea lions and dolphins to do your military bidding for you.
ERIC: Right.
AMANDA: It just feels kind of weird.
ERIC: It's like, yeah, they're running down something that just doesn’t— it’s like, yeah, ‘oh, you know who totally remembers things and will definitely— are so easily controlled. And we have tons of stories about how easily they are controlled? Animals, the natural world, for sure.’ Yeah, I think that that's the only thing, that's what I'm saying is like how goofy and stupid everything feels, is like the thing that's giving me hope, especially around the writers strike, is like, as terrible and ghoulish as the world is like, it ju—it can't win out because it's so stupid.
AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, that's what's wild about the writer's strike. And I wrote about this for my real job that— you know, actually, no - what am I talking about? The Games Podcast News Network website.
ERIC: Crunch.
AMANDA: Is that even—? Yeah, it's wild, because from the writers I talked to, it seems like the striking writers put something like ‘AI can't be— like, we can't be used to iterate on AI-generated content, or—’
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: ‘— we can't adapt an AI story.’ Like that was something that they just kind of threw in there. Because they were like, ‘yeah, why not cover all of our bases?’ And then the studios were like, ‘no.’
ERIC: Were like, ‘we are never responding to this claim ever.’ It's like, oh, wow. It's just—yeah because the people at the top they’re— they’re just following the flavor of the week. And I also thought it was silly. Like, why are we addressing AI stuff? It's like, no, you have to because they heard it from their son that AI is the future. Now it becomes a massive bargaining point in a union dispute. Yeah, for sure.
AMANDA: And then to bring it back to Succession, the show that I, Amanda Ralts Silberling, guested on and was fired by Kendall Roy.
ERIC: Yeah, you worked at Vaulter. Yeah, it was cool.
AMANDA: Yeah. Yeah. Someone— which like I replicated this also on ChatGPT, but there's just had a funnier little line. But someone wrote a Succession script with ChatGPT.
ERIC: Yeah.
AMANDA: And the opening line was Kendall saying, “who will be the successor? Me.” And that's just been like stuck in my head for like the last week. “Who will be the successor? Me.”
ERIC: “Me. Me, Kendall, the character.” Yeah, I mean, everything— every single thing is a Mechanical Turk. Right? Every single thing is.
AMANDA: Yeah. And literally in 2016, I wrote a paper about how it's unethical that people were using Amazon Turk to do weird poetry projects.
ERIC: Yep. Because a person's in there. That's the whole thing about Mechanical Turks. There's always a person in there. Every single time. Oh, boy.
AMANDA: But in the case of ChatGPT, the person is literally all of us because it's trained on just the internet.
ERIC: This came out yesterday, I read it on Gizmodo and I —This is coming out a little while from when we're recording it. But like, also, there's people in the global south are tagging data so that ChatGPT can exist. So literally, there are people—
AMANDA: Yeah.
ERIC: —involved. It's not like— AI doesn't exist. It's not like in the movies. It's always— there's always a person's hand on the wheel, which— whether we're talking about self-driving cars or ChatGPT.
AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, like, Meta has contractors in Africa that get paid very little to, like watch horrible videos and be like—
ERIC: Of course.
AMANDA: —yep, this was a video of violence. This was a video of like, insert bad things here. We're gonna get demonetized on YouTube, if I say certain words, yeah?
ERIC: They get— if they— ‘someone got unalived.’ Again, but the thing is, is that like, I know, it's so horrible. But again, like it's not like they're the undefeatable company from like a movie, because Meta is a great example. They just pulled out of the Metaverse, because it was stupid and no one fucking cared. So it's like they took such an L, they spent billions of dollars on the whole thing. And Meta is by f— is such a worse company after Zuck tried to run this shit down. So it's like, even as there are horrific things happening at the same time, the goofiness, I think is galvanizing people, instead of making like— bury their heads in the sand at like there's just too much tragedy that we can't deal with. But like the goofiness and the stupid stuff I think is actually starting to get people like oh, he's joining— to join unions, support the writer's strike, ask, like confront their bosses. I mean, we hear about this all the time when we're talking about Gen Z in the workplace. But I think that that's— that's the only silver lining is like these people keep fucking up so hard. It's so —either A) it's— it's ei— unle— you're an absolute ghoul if you defend it, and B), it's galvanizing people to actually stand up to it.
AMANDA: Yeah. And I mean, to bring it back to some serious times in this Games and Feelings anniversary podcast.
ERIC: Sure.
AMANDA: Like a lot has happened in game studios over the last year with like, labor drives that literally would have never been thinkable a couple years ago. But like multiple units within Activision Blizzard have unionized. Microsoft has this like union neutrality policy, where they're basically like, ‘yeah, if you guys get a supermajority on your own, we're not going to make you like send it to the NLRB for a vote.’
ERIC: Right.
AMANDA: ‘We'll just be like, alright, cool.’ And then so because of that, then ZeniMax which is, I think, part of Bethesda, did I make that up? It's hard to keep track of all the moving parts when you're the Kara Swisher of journalism. Just Kara Swisher of journalism, generally. You're the best DM in podcasting and I’m Kara Swisher.
ERIC: ‘And I'm Kara Sw— and I’m Kara Swisher.’
AMANDA: ‘And you're listening to Pivot with Scott Galloway.’
ERIC: Oh my Go— yeah, I've been Scott Galloway the whole time.
AMANDA: God.
ERIC: I understand your point. I also don't want to make light of this, but I think that this is the thing, is like if the story didn't come out, that like bros were drink—were like messing around with people's breast milk that they were pumping. I don't think— like you need the ridiculous story or the— the— to shake you out of like the banal evil of these corporate existences. I think is like the only like— they're not even good at being bad. They're just bad.
AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, also, we see so much good happening.
ERIC: Yes.
AMANDA: But we're not seeing all of the bad. Like a group of like 150 people at Sega’s headquarters in California want to form a union. And I wrote about them wanting to form a union a couple of weeks ago. And then I looked on the NLRB page yesterday, and it says that they hired Littler Mendelson to be the lawyers for Sega.
ERIC: Yes, Sega did, yeah.
AMANDA: And this is the union-busting company that is like behind Amazon and Starbucks, which also then somebody told me that they think Sega might have hired somebody else, which— but that's just hearsay. I'm—
ERIC: Sure.
AMANDA: —I'm doing journalism in real-time. I don't know what the exact truth is. But if you do go to the NLRB website, where they have the Sega case open, it does say that Sega hired Littler Mendelson. And this is also funny because the president of Sega, his response to the initial like announcement that they wanted to unionize— in an email he was like, ‘you know, I don't know much about unions, but it's time to learn and then we'll like regroup’ and it's like—
ERIC: ‘I learned and I hated it.’
AMANDA: Well, I guess you–
ERIC: Yeah, for sure.
AMANDA: ‘I learned and I hired the most notorious union-busting law firm.’
ERIC: Nothing is going to be more galvanizing to spur people to stand up is like all the Sonic memes that's going to pair along with union drives. Like again, they— they should start making better 3D Sonic games before they start union busting. Again, Starbucks— like Howard Schultz shouldn't be so much of a goddamn clown if he wants to continue to like have economic dominance, you know what I mean?
AMANDA: Yeah. It would be lovely if people would pay people.
ERIC: Yeah. And I think w— it will happen, because they keep getting absolutely clowned on.
[theme]
AMANDA: Alright. Well, that's it for us at Games Podcast News Report. I'd like to thank my producer Katty Wampus Jones— I didn’t read this before - my editor, Maximus Alphanumerical, my co-host Scott Galloway, and our engineer, Good Audiobot 5000. For legal reasons - meaning that she's legally threatening me with two broadswords, one in each hand - I'll think my lawyer, Isabel. I'm Amanda Ralts Silberling and that was all the Games Podcast News that was fit to print.
ERIC: Wow, great show. Great show. Good, that was great.
AMANDA: Yeah, I really learned a lot about you know, your creative process. Yeah.
ERIC: Yeah contemporary poetry, huh? I wouldn't have thought.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah, you know, just really like the teleology of it is very similar to games.
ERIC: Damn.
AMANDA: You know, the meta-narratives at play.
[theme song plays]
ERIC: Games and Feelings is produced by Eric Silver, and edited and mixed by Mischa Stanton. The theme music is Return to French Toast Castle, by Jeff Brice, and the art was created by Jessica Boyd. Find transcripts for this episode, and all episodes at our website, gamesandfeelings.com. Until next time, press X to enjoy the podcast.
Transcriptionist: KA
Editor: KM
Proofreader: SR