Y-Button

SPEAKER_1: We have talked about games like it's software for a very long time.

SPEAKER_1: Like, I actually think we've broken out of that only in the past decade or so and thought of, like, oh, like, how do we review games and treat them the way we do other forms of art, right?

SPEAKER_1: I think we've only gotten to a point recently where we actually appreciate the craft of how games are made and how they're played.

SPEAKER_2: Hello and welcome to Y-Button, the podcast that asks why we care about video games.

SPEAKER_2: I'm your host, Kyle Starr.

SPEAKER_2: On this show, I interview creators, enthusiasts, journalists, and media personalities about their origins with video games, what keeps them so interested in the medium, even when they're not playing, and what excites them about the future.

SPEAKER_2: On this episode, I'm joined by Kevin Nguyen.

SPEAKER_2: Kevin is the Features Editor at The Verge and the author of the new novel, My Documents, a story following four cousins whose lives are upended after a series of seemingly coordinated terrorist attacks prompts the US government to establish internment camps for Vietnamese Americans.

SPEAKER_2: In 2020, the second I opened Kevin's first novel, New Waves, I immediately became curious about his relationship with video games.

SPEAKER_2: The novel's epigraph?

SPEAKER_2: It's dangerous to go alone.

SPEAKER_2: Take this.

SPEAKER_2: The iconic quote from the 1986 video game, The Legend of Zelda.

SPEAKER_2: Clearly, Kevin was into video games.

SPEAKER_2: If this conversation feels a little wobbly, there's a good chance it's because I'm sleep deprived from late nights and early mornings with our new son, but more likely that Kevin and I were rattled by the news of the sale of the beloved gaming outlet, Polygon.

SPEAKER_2: News that broke just hours before we began recording.

SPEAKER_2: Kevin, thanks for joining me on Y-Button.

SPEAKER_2: The opening is always the toughest for me.

SPEAKER_2: I never know how to start these things.

SPEAKER_2: Today especially, it's weird.

SPEAKER_2: I was planning on berating you upfront because you released your latest book, My Documents.

SPEAKER_2: Congratulations, by the way.

SPEAKER_2: Thank you.

SPEAKER_2: You released that book.

SPEAKER_2: What's the release date of that?

SPEAKER_1: April 8th.

SPEAKER_2: So, April 8th.

SPEAKER_1: That's shy of a month ago from when we're recording.

SPEAKER_2: Congratulations again.

SPEAKER_2: It is an awesome book.

SPEAKER_2: I just finished it.

SPEAKER_2: The reason I ask, and I'm not, I'm just coming back from a walk with my family.

SPEAKER_2: So I'm like racing to get, rushing to get everything put together right now.

SPEAKER_2: But I bring that up because the video game, Blue Prince released on April 10th.

SPEAKER_2: And so I just wanted to say, how dare you, first and foremost, for releasing a book two days before, a book that I was eager to read, because I loved your first book, New Waves.

SPEAKER_2: That's one of my favorite reads.

SPEAKER_2: Your new book comes out, I'm thrilled about it, and then Blue Prince drops.

SPEAKER_2: And I'm like, what do I do?

SPEAKER_2: And I had to pick one.

SPEAKER_2: And so I went with the one that obviously is the most talked about phenomenon out there, right?

SPEAKER_2: And I put as much time into this because I feel like it's going to be, it's a game changing piece of media.

SPEAKER_2: And that is, of course, your book, My Documents.

SPEAKER_2: And I haven't touched Blue Prince since.

SPEAKER_2: I've only a couple of hours in at this point.

SPEAKER_1: That's very kind of you.

SPEAKER_1: I mean, I had a similar dilemma.

SPEAKER_1: Like the book came out and like I had to do all these events and interviews and podcasts and all these commitments.

SPEAKER_1: And I just wanted to play Blue Prince, which actually I've already rolled credits on it.

SPEAKER_2: So, man, you're doing much better than I am.

SPEAKER_2: I think I'm only about eight to nine hours in or something like that.

SPEAKER_2: And just chipping away slowly, which is great.

SPEAKER_2: But that's besides the point.

SPEAKER_2: We can talk about Blue Prince in a sec.

SPEAKER_2: We can talk about your book in a sec.

SPEAKER_2: There's another thing, I didn't mean, I obviously didn't anticipate bringing this up, but for me personally, we're also recording on May 1st, which is the day that this news just broke about Polygon.

SPEAKER_2: I don't mean to make this a news show.

SPEAKER_2: This is a show that should be about you and your work and why you care about games, but it is relevant.

SPEAKER_2: And we may talk about it more, but I'm just bringing it up because it's top of mind for me right now.

SPEAKER_2: It is a big, Polygon means a lot to me personally.

SPEAKER_2: It's a big reason why I even probably even started this show, I was blogging about games to begin with, it got me into web development.

SPEAKER_2: Early on, I was very inspired by the design of that site and what they were trying to do with their content.

SPEAKER_2: And so it just feels it's particularly odd that we're going to talk about what games mean to us or what games mean to you.

SPEAKER_2: And a day where for me, one of the vessels of the games content, the games media that I consume is basically, it's not being shuttered, I guess, but more or less this is the end of Polygon as we know it.

SPEAKER_1: No, so I work at The Verge full-time.

SPEAKER_1: So Polygon is basically our sister site.

SPEAKER_1: So it's been a very painful morning in dealing with it at work.

SPEAKER_1: We obviously have a lot of friends over there.

SPEAKER_1: We're actually, we were trying to get a couple of Polygon people to come to The Verge, save some jobs.

SPEAKER_1: But yeah, I mean, you're catching me at the rawest moment of it, but it feels bad.

SPEAKER_1: The whole thing is bad.

SPEAKER_1: I'm not thrilled about it.

SPEAKER_1: And I don't, and part of it too, is they sold to this company, Valnet, which, who knows, they promised that they'll keep Polygon intact the way it is.

SPEAKER_1: But I think a lot of the Valnet sites are basically slumped.

SPEAKER_1: So I just don't have a lot of optimism for Polygon right now.

SPEAKER_1: And it's so sad.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it's terribly sad.

SPEAKER_2: And again, it's about all that's on my mind right now is looking forward, and I still am very much looking forward to chatting with you, but it's just like this cloud looming right now, which is total, total drag.

SPEAKER_1: But you know, actually, I was thinking of before we start recording, you know, I've listened to some of Y-Button.

SPEAKER_1: I feel like you're like a pretty positive guy, and I think I'm a bit more cynical even when it comes to video games.

SPEAKER_1: So I was like, oh, what is, I was like, are we going to jail?

SPEAKER_1: But yeah, I think, I mean, the games industry is obviously in distress.

SPEAKER_1: Games themselves are in distress.

SPEAKER_1: I actually think people who play games are in distress.

SPEAKER_1: So even though it's like a medium that I really love, I think there's just a lot to be skeptical of and critical of.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I can't agree more.

SPEAKER_2: And I think maybe I try to exude some level of positivity on the show.

SPEAKER_2: I think it's important to try to remain positive, especially right now.

SPEAKER_2: It's a very strange time.

SPEAKER_2: I mean, at large, regardless.

SPEAKER_2: And especially talking about a medium that I enjoy.

SPEAKER_2: And I think one of the interesting things and the reasons why I made Y-Button is that I don't actively play a lot of games, to be truth be told.

SPEAKER_2: Like I've got a lot of other responsibilities.

SPEAKER_2: We just had our second baby.

SPEAKER_2: So now I'm raising two.

SPEAKER_2: Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_2: That's intense.

SPEAKER_2: I have very little time to do anything at all.

SPEAKER_2: So as I'm going back to Blueprints, I'm saying I've only played whatever, seven, eight hours of that thing.

SPEAKER_2: A lot of that is just, you got to pick your battles.

SPEAKER_2: And that's a game for me that I feel like I might be able to chip away at this thing over the course of years.

SPEAKER_2: And people rolling credits like yourself really quick.

SPEAKER_2: Right now, I have no interest in rolling credits as fast as possible.

SPEAKER_2: And that I just kind of want to like live with it, breathe with it, understand it's going to kind of unfold even past credits.

SPEAKER_2: And so there's not a lot of rush for me there.

SPEAKER_2: And I've found that I get a lot of the satisfaction of talking about games from the media, which again is why this Polygon News hurts so much, is I spend more time probably consuming media about games than I do playing.

SPEAKER_2: And actually, this sort of brings me to your book too.

SPEAKER_2: I also, and the reason I think I've probably reached out to you, I've been following you on Twitter for a while and your work at The Verge, and obviously reading your previous book New Waves, again being one of my favorite reads of the past probably five, ten years.

SPEAKER_2: In New Waves, and you do the same thing in my documents, which I want to talk about and kind of pivot to a little bit, in New Waves, there are these little...

SPEAKER_2: That's a book that kind of revolves around the tech startup world.

SPEAKER_2: It's fairly natural to kind of talk about games here and there or make reference to games.

SPEAKER_2: The book opens up.

SPEAKER_2: I mean, not even starting.

SPEAKER_2: The book opens with the quote, it's dangerous to go alone, take this from The Legend of Zelda.

SPEAKER_2: And I saw that initially, I was like, I know I'm going to love this book.

SPEAKER_2: I don't care what it's about, like very bold that you're starting with that statement.

SPEAKER_2: And even in my documents, which is a book about, I'll let you do most of the explaining, but it is the summary, I guess, is that it's kind of an alternate history, alternate world of today, where there's these coordinated terrorist attacks by some Vietnamese people.

SPEAKER_2: And through that, the US government makes a drastic overcorrection as they are want to do in a lot of cases, and it's fairly obvious today, by basically standing up concentration camps for Vietnamese Americans.

SPEAKER_2: And even as heavy as that sounds, and there's actually some humor in this book too, I caught myself kind of laughing at some of your writing and the way that the characters interact.

SPEAKER_2: But as heavy as that topic is, there's still games sprinkled in here.

SPEAKER_2: You know, it's kind of like three or four instances where you're making some kind of comment about a game or a reference to games.

SPEAKER_2: And it's just like I could feel that in you, that is part of you.

SPEAKER_2: And so that's really why I wanted to have you on the show is I want to kind of talk about that before we get on the couch and start doing the whole therapy thing.

SPEAKER_2: I'm curious, how how has my documents been received?

SPEAKER_2: How is everything going for you?

SPEAKER_2: This has got to be a crazy, crazy month for you and even leading up to it, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, so I will say my first book, New Waves, it came out on March 10th of 2020.

SPEAKER_1: So I had like one book event and then everything was in lockdown.

SPEAKER_1: So the rest of the tour got cancelled.

SPEAKER_1: And I was like, I did some Zoom events, right?

SPEAKER_1: But honestly, like doing Zoom events, like you just read into a camera.

SPEAKER_1: Some people ask you questions in the chat.

SPEAKER_1: And then at the end, you just close the laptop and drink by yourself.

SPEAKER_1: So I would say that was not, so I guess I was excited to get on the road and meet people and talk with readers for this book.

SPEAKER_1: So just like that on its face has been so much fun and I'm so grateful.

SPEAKER_1: And the reviews have actually been really glowing for this book too.

SPEAKER_1: So I think there are ways in which it's like a complicated book, like as much as it is about like kind of this supposedly outlandish scenario that I had imagined that suddenly feels close to reality.

SPEAKER_1: I do think that like people are understanding that like as you pointed out, like the book is also funny.

SPEAKER_1: It's like a family story.

SPEAKER_1: It's about, you know, like there are characters that end up in these detention camps.

SPEAKER_1: And outside of like kind of the existential dread of incarceration, they still find a way to make things like they tell stories, they make art, not all the art is great.

SPEAKER_1: Like one character that we meet is making video games in camp.

SPEAKER_1: And so even though like the scenario is quite, quite bleak, I do think there's kind of like an optimistic threat about like human beings just like naturally wanting to make things.

SPEAKER_1: Like we cannot be stopped.

SPEAKER_1: Like it is a form of survival, but it is also about adaptability.

SPEAKER_1: It's about like who we are.

SPEAKER_1: Like we're always gonna, you know, we're always gonna like make and play games.

SPEAKER_2: When did you, specifically about the book, when did you come up with this idea?

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, it was 2018.

SPEAKER_1: So, you know, I didn't want this to be like a strongly like capital P political book, even though there are politics in it.

SPEAKER_1: So I guess we're, yeah, like midway through the first Trump presidency.

SPEAKER_1: But I don't know, a big impetus of this is the sort of the scenario in the book is inspired by, you know, like the real life history of Japanese American incarceration from World War II.

SPEAKER_1: And it's just kind of like this history that like doesn't get taught that often.

SPEAKER_1: I think, well, depends on what state you're in.

SPEAKER_1: Doing the book tour has been kind of interesting because I feel like if you go to school, like public high school in California, like they will teach you about the fans that are.

SPEAKER_1: But where I grew up in Massachusetts, like we did an entire year of World War II.

SPEAKER_1: And yeah, Japanese American incarceration like never came up once, you know?

SPEAKER_1: So so I just kind of wanted to combine a lot of these things.

SPEAKER_1: You know, I'm Vietnamese American, so I wanted to get some of the history or the legacy of the Vietnam War in there.

SPEAKER_1: And then some contemporary stuff based on some of the reporting and editing I've done about like modern day migrant detention, which obviously like now everyone is thinking about.

SPEAKER_1: So so yeah, like seven years ago I was I had started this.

SPEAKER_1: I had this concept, you know, and it's weird seeing it out in the world.

SPEAKER_1: And I you know, when you write a book, I think, or at least I wanted to write a reality that was like a little that resembled ours.

SPEAKER_1: You know, it's grounded, but like heightened.

SPEAKER_1: And then I think in hindsight, I'm like, I wish I had heightened it a little more.

SPEAKER_2: It feels like it could have been like thought up a month ago and just cranked out.

SPEAKER_2: But it is it's it's awesome.

SPEAKER_2: It's a great book.

SPEAKER_2: I was moved by it, what I appreciated at least.

SPEAKER_2: And I don't I won't spoil anything, but towards the end, there's some things that are open to interpretation that are, you know, more about just personal familial stuff.

SPEAKER_2: It doesn't matter who you are.

SPEAKER_2: You might experience some of these things, which I thought was very moving.

SPEAKER_2: I identified personally with a lot of the characters and what they're going through, which is shocking.

SPEAKER_2: I'm not Vietnamese American and or have I had to go through any traumatic situation like that.

SPEAKER_2: But there's a lot of things you can identify.

SPEAKER_2: It really strips people down.

SPEAKER_2: It strips the characters down to their core essence of being a human.

SPEAKER_2: You have a lot of relation to the humanity of these folks.

SPEAKER_2: I think specifically just a compliment to you while I have you is my highest compliment to your writing is that you make these, use the word contemporary and I think that's a perfect word to use.

SPEAKER_2: Shout out to our probably mutual friend Chris Plante.

SPEAKER_2: Previous guest to the show, I was chatting to him about the book and was mentioning how you write about modern day things whether it's business or pop culture or whatever.

SPEAKER_2: But you treat the audience with the respect that they would know what this is.

SPEAKER_2: I don't need to go in to detail about what Google is and why SEO matters or what a video game is and why it's important.

SPEAKER_2: You just talk about it or glaze over it briefly assuming the audience knows what this thing is.

SPEAKER_2: There's a lot of I think talking down to when I read books that mention something that's contemporary or modern, there's a lot of talking down and trying to explain what this thing is to make sure that the reader has a grasp of it.

SPEAKER_2: But it's like you're writing it just assumes they do know and we're moving on.

SPEAKER_2: You don't make a big deal about this little reference that you're throwing out there.

SPEAKER_2: And so I appreciate that of your writing.

SPEAKER_2: It's one of the reasons why I really enjoy reading your writing is that you treat me like an adult is not the right way to say it.

SPEAKER_2: But you treat me like I'll be okay reading this and not have to look everything up.

SPEAKER_1: I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_1: That's the most specific compliment I've ever gotten on my writing, which I'll remember that one.

SPEAKER_2: One other question about the book specifically, hopefully it's not a spoiler.

SPEAKER_2: I don't know how you dance around this and maybe you don't have to dance around it.

SPEAKER_2: I found the title of the book interesting because it's mentioned once in the book itself that I could count and I thought that's brilliant.

SPEAKER_2: What came first?

SPEAKER_2: The title of the book or that moment in the book?

SPEAKER_1: The title came first and then I like jammed it in there.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I don't think it's like a real spoiler, but so the book is called My Documents, but you know, if you look at the cover, there's a diacritic over the Y and the Vietnamese word for America is May, but it's spelled like that, the Y with the diacritic.

SPEAKER_1: So I like that double meaning.

SPEAKER_1: I liked the idea that, you know, there'd be a way for Vietnamese people to pronounce this book, the title of this book that was like different from everyone else.

SPEAKER_1: And you know, it's interesting, I was thinking a lot.

SPEAKER_1: I had that title pretty early with New Waves and like, it came like way later.

SPEAKER_1: Part of it too, there was this like kind of trend in like Asian American literature to have titles that like, you know, like evoked nature, you know, like very Confucian.

SPEAKER_1: And New Waves kind of sounds like it's going to do that.

SPEAKER_1: And then like later in the book, you learn that it's like kind of the opposite of nature.

SPEAKER_1: It's in reference to a bunch of wave files on a hard drive.

SPEAKER_1: So I don't know, I like, I think it fronties me that like both of my books like kind of explain the title in the book, which is like a, they call it a that's chappy moment.

SPEAKER_1: But I don't know, I think that's like, I think it's fine.

SPEAKER_1: I will probably do that in every book I write.

SPEAKER_2: You should.

SPEAKER_2: And one of my dreams truthfully, I have like a bucket list item is to be the guy in the movie who says the title of the name in the movie, even if it's just like an extra, right?

SPEAKER_2: Like, so when do they say it and if they actually say it, that's it.

SPEAKER_2: New Waves, going back to that real quick, that also, there's a, it evokes Bossa Nova, right?

SPEAKER_1: Like that's true.

SPEAKER_2: And there's a lot of chatter and dialogue about Bossa Nova, the jazz music.

SPEAKER_2: And that largely comes out of Brazil.

SPEAKER_2: And you do, I think, make a reference back to Brazil, maybe even Bossa Nova in my documents at some point.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_1: The earliest like sign that, of what the title might mean is like Bossa Nova is Portuguese for New Wave.

SPEAKER_1: It obviously is a very popular genre of music in Brazil.

SPEAKER_1: And then later there are kind of like references to Joan Didion, like she talks about grief coming in waves.

SPEAKER_1: And then I think sort of by the end you're like, oh, actually it's like a very literal meaning.

SPEAKER_1: It's this, these wave files.

SPEAKER_2: Right.

SPEAKER_2: I was curious if there, between the two books, if there's any significance to Brazil or Portuguese or anything like that, but I just found it interesting as I was reading my documents.

SPEAKER_2: Like, oh, there's another reference to Brazil.

SPEAKER_2: Like to me that harkened back to New Waves.

SPEAKER_1: That's a good question.

SPEAKER_1: I think in weird ways, like, you know, authors put pieces of themselves in a book.

SPEAKER_1: I just always thought that, like, Brazil is a country for like being the fifth biggest country in the world, like we don't talk about very often.

SPEAKER_1: And I grew up in a town, I grew up near this town in Massachusetts called Framingham that had this huge Brazilian population.

SPEAKER_1: So it's just like, I've just like been ambiently aware and around Brazilian culture, like for a long time.

SPEAKER_1: And it just doesn't show up that often in literature, which I found like, I always found it kind of confounding.

SPEAKER_1: So anything we can do to like to add it to the culture, yeah, just feels like a feels like a positive.

SPEAKER_2: Speaking of, you know, injecting yourself into your writing and author injecting, well, outside of you actually making a reference to your own name in the book at some point, which I about died at, I thought that was hilarious.

SPEAKER_2: Like I said before, there's reference to video games in these.

SPEAKER_2: I want to talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_2: So, I mean, without hitting the nail too heavily on the head, like, what do games mean to you?

SPEAKER_2: Like, that's the most blunt I've ever been on the show about just jumping into it.

SPEAKER_2: But like, they obviously mean something to you because you're referencing them in these books you're writing pretty significantly.

SPEAKER_2: And I'm curious where that all starts.

SPEAKER_2: Like, maybe the best way to start is like, what's your first gaming memory?

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, probably does Math Blaster count as a game?

SPEAKER_2: Absolutely, Math Blaster counts.

SPEAKER_2: Number munchers and Math Blaster, that's absolutely.

SPEAKER_1: It's so funny.

SPEAKER_1: I think the concept of Math Blaster, there's something really funny about it.

SPEAKER_1: It's like you just you just do math, you do math and your reward is you get to like shoot stuff in space afterwards.

SPEAKER_1: And there's just something so transparent about that relationship.

SPEAKER_1: There's no like merging of the math and like the fun part.

SPEAKER_1: It's like you do the thing that's not fun in your award is like gentle child appropriate violence.

SPEAKER_2: Math Blaster.

SPEAKER_2: That's the first for this show and hopefully not the last.

SPEAKER_2: You're going to take me back down to all the early Apple gaming and Apple or PC gaming education days I have to like Mavis Beacon and all that other stuff now.

SPEAKER_2: But yeah, math blasters.

SPEAKER_1: Well, Mavis Beacon features quite prominently in my in New Waves.

SPEAKER_1: And yeah, like is Mavis Beacon a game?

SPEAKER_1: I would argue yes.

SPEAKER_1: Right.

SPEAKER_1: I guess the racing part is like straight up a game, a great game.

SPEAKER_2: So if that's if math blaster is where it starts, is that truly where it starts?

SPEAKER_2: Was it that there were no consoles or anything like what?

SPEAKER_1: I have a memory like my dad brought home like a like a Nintendo entertainment system with I actually think Super Mario Brothers 3 was the first one I played before I went back to play the other two.

SPEAKER_1: But yeah, obviously like all the early Nintendo stuff, actually Nintendo stuff at Mario games continued to be a revelation to me.

SPEAKER_1: Like I can't believe how good those games have been and still are.

SPEAKER_2: I think you started with the right one too.

SPEAKER_2: I would wager, you know, or I would venture to say that Mario 3 is probably the best one of or my favorite of all of the Marios.

SPEAKER_2: Jump back into your into your writing really quick.

SPEAKER_2: How do they come up in your writing?

SPEAKER_2: Maybe that's a better way to start to really kind of start this conversation.

SPEAKER_2: How when you're writing a book like My Documents, how does it feel natural all of a sudden to talk about?

SPEAKER_2: I feel like there was a mention of a costume party or people dressing up for a costume party as Mario and Luigi at some point in it.

SPEAKER_2: There's also you mentioned there's a game developer who's in the camps writing.

SPEAKER_2: There are a million ways you could have took the direction of people are making things in camp.

SPEAKER_2: There's people who are making videos or movies.

SPEAKER_2: There's obviously people could be writing.

SPEAKER_2: I usually when I'm reading a book, I waiting for that moment where the author talks about writing and books because almost every book talks about books and talks about writing.

SPEAKER_2: You don't tend to do that very much, although there's a whole journalistic bent to My Documents.

SPEAKER_2: But it feels like you are naturally drawn to including these moments about games inside of the book.

SPEAKER_2: I think you started to talk about it a little earlier.

SPEAKER_2: I'm very curious about what that-

SPEAKER_2: Yeah.

SPEAKER_1: I don't think at the beginning, I was deliberately like, we need to put references to video games in novels or something like that.

SPEAKER_1: I don't know, I just feel like I'm someone that played games my whole life.

SPEAKER_1: I've watched TV and film my whole life.

SPEAKER_1: I like theater, music.

SPEAKER_1: I just feel like they're just rich textures of life.

SPEAKER_1: They're in everyone's life.

SPEAKER_1: I'm shocked how music and films show up in books quite often.

SPEAKER_1: But games strangely don't.

SPEAKER_1: It's only when I started writing that I realized, we actually don't have a lot of language to describe how games work, or to make it legible to people that maybe don't play games, or even to people that do.

SPEAKER_1: Maybe this is just on my brain today because of the Polygon stuff, but we have so few outfits for games that are good.

SPEAKER_1: We have so little literature that is about games.

SPEAKER_1: There actually aren't even that many films that are about games, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_1: We have films that are IP of games, but that's not the same thing.

SPEAKER_1: So I think when I started, I felt wrong to not include.

SPEAKER_1: It would be inauthentic to the life I see around, and I want, I don't know why books, even when they have high concept conceits, they should still reflect a cultural reality that we experience.

SPEAKER_2: Do you have a thought as to why we have, why we have a hard time writing about games?

SPEAKER_2: Like, is it just that it doesn't translate well to the, I mean, there's obviously, again, going back to Polygon and lots of other great writers out there that I appreciate their work and read about games, but I'll be the first to admit that I don't know if I get the same, if reading about games evokes the same sort of feelings or I don't know if it's nostalgia or whatever it is, as people may be talking about games.

SPEAKER_2: For me, at least, I think I get most of that vibe from the talking about it.

SPEAKER_2: Maybe that stems back to the schoolyard conversations when you'd go play a game at home and then you'd come back to the schoolyard and you'd talk to your friends about you did X, Y, and Z in the game and you would kind of talk about these things and they seemed grander than they may actually have been on the surface.

SPEAKER_2: In the last episode of Y-Button, I mentioned this idea that games can feel organic in an odd way.

SPEAKER_2: There are these digital things that feel extremely organic and you can kind of make your own story by just the interactivity of it.

SPEAKER_2: And I'm wondering if there's something about the way, the grandeur that we give these things when we talk about it versus we write about it.

SPEAKER_2: And maybe if that doesn't translate as well to the written word or even watching something passively through a medium like film or something like that.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah.

SPEAKER_1: I think I'm going to disagree with you.

SPEAKER_1: I kind of think that like strong writing can kind of can express and communicate any idea well.

SPEAKER_1: The thing is like games is such an immature medium, right?

SPEAKER_1: Like we haven't had it around for very long.

SPEAKER_1: And which also means that writing about it is also quite immature, which is not to say that there haven't been like some critics that have, you know, gotten pretty close to figuring it out.

SPEAKER_1: But yeah, we're talking about like, you know, like a 30, maybe 40 year old medium, whereas like you talk about film, like we have like 100 years of film criticism and thinking about film and hundreds of years of thinking about music and communicating about it and talking about it.

SPEAKER_1: So I think that's like, on one hand, I do think it is possible to write well about video games.

SPEAKER_1: We're just like really early in the life cycle.

SPEAKER_1: And then on the other hand, you know, I think we've also just like never really had a robust games journalism, like industry.

SPEAKER_1: There have been, you know, like we'll reflect fondly about some of like the magazines we had in the 90s, you know, but it's kind of funny, like even those magazines were not that good.

SPEAKER_1: Like, I will go out and I will be a Nintendo power hater, even though like I'm someone who like read all those like issues as a kid.

SPEAKER_1: But like, it was just basically like advertising, you know, like there wasn't real writing or criticism being put in there.

SPEAKER_1: And I think just to like continue on with this theory, I also think we have talked about games like it's software for a very long time.

SPEAKER_1: Like actually we've broken out of that only in the past decade or so and thought of like, oh, like how do we review games and treat them the way we do other forms of art?

SPEAKER_1: Right.

SPEAKER_1: It's so much early games writing is about like the value, the literal dollar value and like how buggy or not buggy something is.

SPEAKER_1: And I think we've only gotten to a point recently where we actually like appreciate the craft of how games are made and how they're played.

SPEAKER_2: I like the way you put that.

SPEAKER_2: It did make me think of one other thing, as you mentioned, music, which also comes up on the show in a kind of oddly natural way.

SPEAKER_2: And it almost feels like there's a natural comparison from video games to music and vice versa, where with music, I also, and again, maybe we differ here too, but I also find it hard to read about music, about the actual music part of it.

SPEAKER_2: Like that is something I'm going to need to experience myself to make some kind of conclusion.

SPEAKER_2: And what I appreciate about writing about music is the story behind the music, behind how this thing was created.

SPEAKER_2: What was going on in the artist's head at that time?

SPEAKER_2: Why are they writing about what they're writing about?

SPEAKER_2: What interesting things are they describing in the music that you get to go then go experience yourself and hear that person do?

SPEAKER_2: But in my head, it's almost impossible to describe how music sounds on an written word.

SPEAKER_2: And I almost feel, again, personally, this is maybe where we deviate.

SPEAKER_2: I feel like there's almost something to that with games, right?

SPEAKER_2: Like it's, to some degree, you almost need to experience it a little bit.

SPEAKER_2: And that's kind of killing my original argument about hearing people talk about them.

SPEAKER_2: But just again, it's the way that people can talk about games personally, that almost exudes that experience.

SPEAKER_2: You can feel that experience coming from them and the excitement, the way they describe a game.

SPEAKER_2: But yeah, I wonder if there's something there too, at least again, that's on my side.

SPEAKER_1: No, that's a good connection.

SPEAKER_1: I mean, the other thing that like, if there's another industry that has been as bereft as video games journalism, it's probably music journalism, right?

SPEAKER_1: So I actually think we are also, we don't have access to as rich a core of literature of that stuff as we used to.

SPEAKER_1: So I think that's happening on hand.

SPEAKER_1: I think the other thing too is we do live in a world where, and maybe this is some of the games, it's like you could read about a game or you could read about a band, but it's just as easy to click a thing and listen to the song or see a Twitch stream or something.

SPEAKER_1: That's probably more viscerally satisfying in a way.

SPEAKER_1: But I think to really understand deeply how these things are made or why they're made, I think that's expressed most strongly in writing.

SPEAKER_1: I think the absence of a lot of these things leads us to this generative AI moment.

SPEAKER_1: The entire foundation of generative AI is a total lack of appreciation or understanding of how or why things are made, or who's making it, or what labor it takes, or what decisions are necessary to actually create art.

SPEAKER_1: The actual appeal of generative AI is like, you don't make any decisions, right?

SPEAKER_1: You prompt something and then the thing just spits it back at you.

SPEAKER_1: And that's supposed to be the satisfying part, I guess.

SPEAKER_1: And I don't know, it's a dark time out there.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah, yeah, that also makes me think about, again, the behind the music, the thinking about the art, thinking about the thing that's created.

SPEAKER_2: That is one of the more satisfying aspects of video game writing that I've read, is like getting into the details about how this thing was made, talking to the engineers, talking to the artists, talking to the producers who actually went through the process of building this thing that's endlessly complex.

SPEAKER_2: It's a freaking miracle that any of these things actually work when you actually peel back the layers to understand everything that went into it.

SPEAKER_2: Even honestly, even from a business side, like the luck of the draw, that, okay, we made a call to make this game, you know, four, five, six, seven, eight years ago, and we got it right.

SPEAKER_2: Much like your book, you make a call to write a book about basically what's happening today.

SPEAKER_2: They're having to make these business decisions about, like, we're going to spend a ton of money on this thing, and hopefully we got it right.

SPEAKER_2: And some of these things actually do.

SPEAKER_2: And that's, it's a miracle.

SPEAKER_2: The success stories are a miracle.

SPEAKER_2: Unfortunately, there's a lot that are not successful that maybe ought to be and get looked over for various different reasons.

SPEAKER_2: But there is something very satisfying to reading the behind the games because they're so complex, there's so much to it.

SPEAKER_2: Whether it was 300 people making a game or one person actually making a game, those are the stories that I find very, very interesting.

SPEAKER_2: One of the things I'm doing at my, you know, when my son is waking up at 1 a.m., 2 a.m., 3 a.m., whatever, I have a hard time knowing what time it is at any given time now, is that I've just, I pull up YouTube and I've started watching game dev videos about people making games.

SPEAKER_2: I'm curious, I want to tinker with it.

SPEAKER_2: I played with Godot a little bit, I've played with Unity a little bit, and I've tried making some little things here and there.

SPEAKER_2: I'm now even more curious, but I've found this very just intriguing to read, to listen to people talking about how games were created or how to actually build games, watch somebody, watch the process of it actually happen.

SPEAKER_2: And I think that's also what could be, could transpire in, you know, through writing as well as hearing those stories.

SPEAKER_2: So much like, and I think from an audio or visual perspective, just to throw out some names there, from a music standpoint, I'm getting some of that from Kirk Hamilton's Strong Songs Podcast.

SPEAKER_2: That's just a shout out to that show.

SPEAKER_2: He recently did an episode on Mars Volta's song, and it's just super cool how he peels back the layers and plays it back for you so you can understand all the nuance that's happening with the music.

SPEAKER_2: But also, you know, watch, like I said, watching these YouTube videos of people trying to make their first game or going through the process, or even somebody who's analyzing what that process looks like.

SPEAKER_2: One of the shows that I'm pouring over right now is Game Maker Toolkit, which is awesome.

SPEAKER_2: He's actually, I'm running through the series where he's building his first game and seeing what goes through his thought process.

SPEAKER_2: And I'm finding that to be extremely interesting.

SPEAKER_2: And it gives me more of a, not even an appreciation, but like just more context around some of my favorite games and how complex these things would be.

SPEAKER_2: Just it could be from the mechanics of the game, the game design, the art, but even some thinking around like the UI or the UX of it.

SPEAKER_2: One of the things that struck me was, and now I'm going a little deep here, but they talked about in Dead Space, the game Dead Space.

SPEAKER_2: I've never played Dead Space, but he's talking, he talks about, again, this is on Game Maker Toolkit.

SPEAKER_2: He talks about the idea that there's no HUD on that game.

SPEAKER_2: There's no visual indicator of how much ammo you have, how much health you have.

SPEAKER_2: It's all baked into the game.

SPEAKER_2: The health is these little lights on the character's back.

SPEAKER_2: So as you go, you can see, oh, he's depreciating in health.

SPEAKER_2: The ammo that you have is actually a little indicator on the actual guns the character is using.

SPEAKER_2: It's all baked into the game itself.

SPEAKER_2: It's part of the environment.

SPEAKER_2: That's very novel from a UI UX design.

SPEAKER_2: It's just these little things that you miss, I think, when you play the games are shown when people actually dig into the analysis or dig into the actual detail of what's happening and going back, sorry to say it, but back to the actual software.

SPEAKER_2: The thought behind the actual software of these games is quite fascinating.

SPEAKER_1: Dead Space is a good game.

SPEAKER_2: I have not played, is it good?

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, actually, I'm kind of curious.

SPEAKER_1: I downloaded the Dead Space remaster from a year or two ago, and I didn't beat it, but I played like 10 hours of it.

SPEAKER_1: And I realized that's kind of my sweet spot for games.

SPEAKER_1: I don't think I need to beat a game to feel like I've gotten everything I need to get out of it now.

SPEAKER_1: And also, I just kind of think games are too long, but.

SPEAKER_2: Totally, totally.

SPEAKER_2: And I agree with you there.

SPEAKER_2: I think we should, let's talk about that a little bit.

SPEAKER_2: I feel like I want to, with games specifically, I mentioned I don't play a lot of games, but I like just dipping into a game, just to get the feel, understand the vibe, understand what people are talking about, right?

SPEAKER_2: On my blog, Zero Counts, for a second there, I was trying doing this little column called demo mode, where I just play the demos to get a feel for the game, because I just wanted to be part of the conversation.

SPEAKER_2: But like you said, 10-hour game is great, but I'll even play four hours and feel like, okay, I got what I need, two hours, okay, I got what I need.

SPEAKER_2: With the Blue Prince conversation, I haven't rolled credits, like I said, only played about eight hours.

SPEAKER_2: I feel like I know what I need to know about that game at this point.

SPEAKER_2: I'm not gonna put it down, I still want to chip away.

SPEAKER_2: It's satisfying when you solve the puzzles and feel like you're a genius, but I got what I want out of that game, I think, in the immediate term.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.

SPEAKER_1: It's actually like, I'm thinking about this out loud, but part of, I think, the reason that we sort of struggle to talk about games in a way is because I think the way we classically talk about a lot of forms of art is through narrative, from beginning to commission, whereas really what games are, games are often not really stories.

SPEAKER_1: Games have stories, but games are really just systems, right?

SPEAKER_1: They're a series of systems and environments or however mechanics you set up, and then you let the player go, and you hope it guides them towards something.

SPEAKER_1: But what is interesting and unique about video games is not narrative, right?

SPEAKER_1: Even though there are games with strong narratives and some with genuinely great writing, not that many, but there are some.

SPEAKER_1: Well, yeah, I think it's sort of, and we still don't have great language to talk about how those mechanics and systems work.

SPEAKER_1: I think we're figuring it out and we're better than we were 10 years ago talking about it.

SPEAKER_1: But yeah, so I'm just thinking still about that gap.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah, I think you're right.

SPEAKER_2: I think there's certainly a feel to it as well.

SPEAKER_2: That could come through a lot of different avenues.

SPEAKER_2: When I say feel, I immediately think of something like Ori and the Blind Forest.

SPEAKER_2: I couldn't tell you specifically what that game is about, a little character trying to find his parents or home or whatever happened to be, but the game feels amazing and all you want to do is keep playing because it feels great.

SPEAKER_2: Journey, another game I love.

SPEAKER_2: I wouldn't say it feels great mechanically, but there's something drawing and the narrative is like maybe it's environmental storytelling, but there's a narrative there is pulling you through somehow, but there's just visually, aesthetically, you don't know what's going to be around the next corner, how this thing is going to blow your mind or that it's going to inspire.

SPEAKER_2: I think a lot of the draw for me was the music behind it.

SPEAKER_2: That was creating this really surreal feelings.

SPEAKER_2: I wanted to keep feeling it and going and going and going and it's also very simple.

SPEAKER_2: I just knew that I could keep, I'm going to see something new, I'm going to feel something new, I'm going to hear something new at every moment.

SPEAKER_2: It kept pulling me along.

SPEAKER_2: I think you're right.

SPEAKER_2: There's something that pulls you along as with a good game that is not likely, typically not likely narrative.

SPEAKER_2: Although that is used as a mechanic to move the player along too.

SPEAKER_1: It's going to motivate you.

SPEAKER_1: Journey is an interesting one because my memory of it is like, oh, I remember visually, in visually stunning the orchestral soundtrack being really amazing.

SPEAKER_1: But I sort of remember my first playthrough of it, and you play with an anonymous person, you get paired with a rando online and you don't get to choose who you play with.

SPEAKER_1: I just remember playing, and it's not a very long game, but I just remember going through it with this one stranger.

SPEAKER_1: At first, I found him quite annoying, the way he played, and then I felt over time we actually grew to an understanding.

SPEAKER_1: Then I rolled credits and then it tells you who you played with, and it turns out I was playing with five different people.

SPEAKER_1: Each chapter was a different person, and that blew my mind because I had made this leap that we had some kind of relationship that did not exist.

SPEAKER_1: I don't know, you asked me about aha moments in games, and I was like, that one blew my mind a little bit.

SPEAKER_1: And it's like, I don't know, that's like the big aha moment, and then there's just like a million other things in that game that are really wonderful, too.

SPEAKER_2: I'm glad you mentioned the aha moments because that's kind of what I wanted to dovetail into it anyway.

SPEAKER_2: What are some, are there other examples of those aha moments other than Journey that you've had?

SPEAKER_1: Yes, there are many.

SPEAKER_1: I'm trying to think, you know, it's funny because I actually think aha moments for me are less about like games being really excellent.

SPEAKER_1: Like I could just like talk to you about like, yeah, seeing the open world of Breath of the Wild for the first time, which, you know, to be fair, it is extremely impressive.

SPEAKER_1: But I actually think more about games like, oh, maybe like a metal, you're solid person.

SPEAKER_2: I've only played and finished the first one, actually only a few years ago.

SPEAKER_2: And I've played, I think the intro to the second one a bunch of times.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, well, that's one of those games where, we're doing a series where I really like it.

SPEAKER_1: And the way everyone talks about those games is like the politics, the writing, like whatever.

SPEAKER_1: I was like, all that stuff in that game is actually pretty awful.

SPEAKER_1: Like it is like anime nonsense.

SPEAKER_1: You can defend Kojima as much as you want, gamers, but the man does not know how to write a scene.

SPEAKER_1: But the fifth one, the Phantom Pain, mechanically it's really great because it's just kind of like a weird stealth sandbox type thing.

SPEAKER_1: But famously, Kojima got fired before the game is finished.

SPEAKER_1: So it's like a lot of stuff in the game is amazing.

SPEAKER_1: And then you'll just hit something in the game that just doesn't work at all.

SPEAKER_1: And it's like, you just like, you're like, it's either like a bad idea or it's just like not finished or it's just like genuine, like Kojima bullshit.

SPEAKER_1: And I just like loved everyone.

SPEAKER_1: Every time I hit something that didn't work in what is like a largely polished game, I like had this like meta-textual experience of wondering like where, what went wrong?

SPEAKER_1: You know, like, was it a deliberate wrong thing?

SPEAKER_1: Was it an unfinished wrong thing?

SPEAKER_1: And I don't know that that just like kind of broke my brain in a really fun way too.

SPEAKER_2: It's funny you mention that too, because when you start peeling back the layers, when you start learning about game development, and this goes with any medium too, when you learn about how to make music or make film, software or whatever, like there's a magic that gets lost a little bit once you understand what goes into it, and it kind of breaks the allure of this thing that I don't think we had when we were kids playing this, understanding that a bad game is just a poorly made game, probably because there wasn't enough time for anything.

SPEAKER_2: But we thought they were all amazing and, oh, there must be a reason why it's so hard or whatever.

SPEAKER_2: No, it's just terrible.

SPEAKER_2: But now, yeah, you have that context and when you run it, when you butt up against those things, it's very easy.

SPEAKER_2: You all of a sudden see the code, you see the developers, you see the business transactions going on.

SPEAKER_2: At that very moment, it's a very strange feeling.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I think that happens mostly for AAA games.

SPEAKER_1: And on some level, you kind of see that happening with, I guess the equivalent of a AAA movie would be like a Marvel movie, right?

SPEAKER_1: But you can just now see the seams in these things.

SPEAKER_1: You can tell what the reshoots are or where they rewrote it, if you're looking carefully.

SPEAKER_1: And I actually think it does not make for better or more consistent art, but there is just kind of a meta-textual level that is quite appealing.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah.

SPEAKER_2: I keep going down the road of games that struck awe, but I'm also curious about what are the favorite three to five games that you have?

SPEAKER_1: Actually, really quick, I wrote them down last night and I'm just going to send them out.

SPEAKER_1: But I was like, oh, I could do this forever.

SPEAKER_1: I could list games I like forever.

SPEAKER_2: I think that's one of the reasons I asked this question and a lot of people ask it.

SPEAKER_2: It's hard, it's extremely difficult to do, especially when you start talking about the moments of awe.

SPEAKER_2: There's a very different difference between your favorite games, best games, games of importance on some level.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, okay, one I was thinking about was when I played right after college, so probably getting close to 20 years ago.

SPEAKER_1: Have you ever played Gravity Bone?

SPEAKER_2: No.

SPEAKER_1: It was this small indie game.

SPEAKER_1: There's this one developer, Brandon Chung, and I forgot where he worked before.

SPEAKER_1: He was at a big house, Activision or something, and he struck it out on his own to make these kind of lo-fi first-person games.

SPEAKER_1: They just have this tremendous sense of humor, but Gravity Bone, I think this game takes you maybe 45 minutes to play.

SPEAKER_1: I think it starts you as a spy and you're doing a tutorial.

SPEAKER_1: When you start a shooter in a game like that, you're just looking at your weapon scroll wheel, you're thinking about all the guns that will fill that out.

SPEAKER_1: In this game, you actually die 45 minutes in, and that's the end of the game.

SPEAKER_1: There are just so many ways the game is setting expectations before it takes them away from you.

SPEAKER_1: I just remember that was the closest thing to an art house movie experience that I had in a game up until that point.

SPEAKER_1: So that one sticks with me a lot.

SPEAKER_1: I do play a lot of AAA games like the Mass Effect series, I think is probably one of the few games that are actually pretty well-written.

SPEAKER_1: Just really strong characterization and dialogue.

SPEAKER_1: I think that's the other thing too.

SPEAKER_1: What is memorable, especially in games, is not the overall plot, but just how memorable the characters are.

SPEAKER_1: What else?

SPEAKER_1: I could go all day.

SPEAKER_1: Return of the Obra Dinn, the hardest game I've ever played.

SPEAKER_1: I just do not have the logic brain for that.

SPEAKER_1: But just, again, an incredible commitment to an idea.

SPEAKER_1: And one that's not interested in holding your hand, it's just going to be a capital P puzzle, logic puzzle, that you will figure out.

SPEAKER_2: All these games that you've mentioned throughout this episode are very different.

SPEAKER_2: And I think that that's true of almost anybody you talk to about games, is they'll talk about a platformer, and then the next minute they'll jump to a racing game, and then they'll jump to a shooter or a puzzle game.

SPEAKER_2: There's, oftentimes people can tell you their favorite genre, but they'll still touch and feel almost all the different games that are out there, right?

SPEAKER_2: I'm curious for you, what is that draw, that overall draw to games?

SPEAKER_2: Why would you go play Mass Effect?

SPEAKER_2: And then why would you go play Obertin?

SPEAKER_2: You know, is it just, is it word of mouth?

SPEAKER_2: Is there, what's the draw for you?

SPEAKER_2: Why did you go play Blue Prince, you know?

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I think, well, I think if you play a lot of games, like hopefully you're just sort of curious for like some kind of novelty, right?

SPEAKER_1: Like it's strange.

SPEAKER_1: I know there are like people out in the world whose favorite games are like Assassin's Creed games, but like, I don't know how that can be.

SPEAKER_1: Like they're all the same game, you know?

SPEAKER_1: Like, and there's not a single inventive thing in any of them.

SPEAKER_1: And like, in fact, maybe the appeal is that it's the same stuff year in and year out, right?

SPEAKER_1: Um, I mean, I have been reading, they're like reinventing the franchise or whatever.

SPEAKER_1: So like maybe they did finally hit a wall there, but like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_1: I think if you play a lot of games, like you want to see how things change and what's new and it's, there's a lot of games and it's hard to find someone doing something new and surprising.

SPEAKER_1: And you usually find that in the fringes, you know, like that's, I still think like, I have a lot of skepticism about whether like the mainstream games industry can last the way that it does right now.

SPEAKER_1: But man, like the indie games right now are so exciting, you know, and they're successful.

SPEAKER_1: I feel like if I was Ubisoft or whatever horrible company, like instead of putting $300 million into the next Assassin's Creed, I would just like fund 300 different indie developers and give them each a million bucks, you know, and hope one of them pumps out like the next Pilatro.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it's, I think the novelty is right.

SPEAKER_2: I think that there's, and again, I think I mentioned this on the last episode and probably other episodes of the show too, there is that like, for me, games are infinite.

SPEAKER_2: When you talk about soft, like there's one about it being in its infancy, like you mentioned, like we still don't know where this medium is going to go.

SPEAKER_2: We still don't know everything it has to offer.

SPEAKER_2: We may never know.

SPEAKER_2: And I think that's kind of the brilliance of it.

SPEAKER_2: It's like there's this infinite possibility to the space.

SPEAKER_2: And it's almost like an exponential infinity and that doesn't make any sense at all when you say it that way.

SPEAKER_2: But when you think about it, books, there's gonna be an infinite amount of books and an infinite amount of stories to tell in books.

SPEAKER_2: But you have one, I mean, there are some variations out there, but it's really one way to tell that story.

SPEAKER_2: And that's written text linearly.

SPEAKER_1: Boom.

SPEAKER_2: But there's gonna be, you know, there will forever be books written, new books, all kinds of books, you know, forever and ever and ever.

SPEAKER_2: And same with games.

SPEAKER_2: But with games, you have different ways of changing this.

SPEAKER_2: You could have a game that is just a book.

SPEAKER_2: You could have a game that is, you know, in a massive open world allows you to do anything to your heart's content.

SPEAKER_2: You know, you could have something like The Sims or you could have a puzzle game like Bellatro.

SPEAKER_2: You could have, there's just so many different versions of Infinity.

SPEAKER_2: Again, doesn't make sense.

SPEAKER_2: But I think you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_2: Like the amount of ideas is endless.

SPEAKER_2: And I think I hope I'm right, but I think that that is always going to be true because it's true of even the simplest medium, which might be writing, right?

SPEAKER_2: And so that's what makes games exciting for me.

SPEAKER_2: And I don't know if that's rings true to you or not.

SPEAKER_1: No, I think that's, that's like really well put.

SPEAKER_1: I also think like the inverse is true to like the games that are like kind of like, I guess like the antithesis of like Assassin's Creed, like is a Mario game, right?

SPEAKER_1: Like on some level, Nintendo has been making the same game over and over and over.

SPEAKER_1: And yet like within those constraints, like they find crazy new ways to like reinvent the thing every time while still satisfying the things like you expect from it, still making it extremely accessible for like really young players with like tiny hands.

SPEAKER_1: Like, I don't know.

SPEAKER_1: I like think intended as some of the most remarkable work in games, like by being constrained too.

SPEAKER_1: So it's cool to see like the infinite games and then also like the very singular games too.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah, that's, that is, you say that I immediately start trying to think of those moments within Mario games or even a Mario Kart or anything that are like inventive, you know, at that scale.

SPEAKER_2: Maybe if we go back to, you know, Mario 3, the difference between Mario 3, Mario World.

SPEAKER_2: When you look at them, they're a platformer.

SPEAKER_2: If you were just like to walk by, you'd see this character on screen, platformer looks fairly similar based on today's standards of what games look like and feel like.

SPEAKER_2: But there's so much variation in whether it's different power ups or what's a hidden Easter egg or the way the map's laid out or whatever, like you're right.

SPEAKER_2: There's a lot of variation just in that simple, simple conceit.

SPEAKER_2: I mean, how many versions of Tetris are there?

SPEAKER_2: Tetris is like a perfect game.

SPEAKER_2: You just need the Game Boy version and you've got it.

SPEAKER_2: But somehow they have figured out how to continue to make this thing even better or more perfect or all these different variations of it.

SPEAKER_2: Pac-Man, I don't know why I'm laughing so hard at this, but Pac-Man is fairly simple game.

SPEAKER_2: I've never liked Pac-Man personally.

SPEAKER_2: At the latest Nintendo Direct, they showed this action Metroidvania side-scrolling game with this little character that looked like a ball with a mouth on it, following your main character.

SPEAKER_2: I'm like, that's Pac-Man.

SPEAKER_2: They called it like Puck was his name.

SPEAKER_2: I know it's Pac-Man.

SPEAKER_2: Eventually in the trailer, they said that that's Pac-Man.

SPEAKER_2: I'm like, how did he turn into this mech-like action platformer guy?

SPEAKER_2: Okay, sure, whatever.

SPEAKER_1: Maybe we should have kept it constrained.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_2: That's a perfect example of like they let it loose.

SPEAKER_2: Oh my God.

SPEAKER_2: Pac-Man's on Pac-Man.

SPEAKER_2: Letting Pac-Man loose was the worst thing we could have ever done.

SPEAKER_2: But yeah, it's just I think this is more about me than you, but it's infinite possibility within the software space or the game space, I think is wild and interesting to me.

SPEAKER_1: I mean, it's like if we do hit some kind of limit on like the form of games, like I don't know, like I don't even think we've hit the limit on film, but like maybe we're getting closer to that.

SPEAKER_1: But like that's a hundred year old art form, right?

SPEAKER_1: And we're like 30 years into games.

SPEAKER_1: So we have at least 70 more years of crazy invention left, if not more.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah, yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_2: I also think with games too, we've maybe, I'm not, we probably haven't seen the limit.

SPEAKER_2: We'll probably back the other way again at some point.

SPEAKER_2: But I think we're starting to see maybe cracks in this idea of like, people want big endless open games.

SPEAKER_2: This goes back to what you said about liking a 10-hour game.

SPEAKER_2: I think we're starting to feel that fatigue of these large massive games and people maybe wanting something a little smaller.

SPEAKER_2: And something a little more condensed or simplified or focused.

SPEAKER_2: And I think big publishers are seeing this as well.

SPEAKER_2: And I think, like you mentioned, the indie space is seeing this.

SPEAKER_2: And that's great.

SPEAKER_2: We may then snap back the other way and want big open worlds again and full immersion and, you know, this hyper realistic VR setups and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_2: And maybe there's room for both of these things.

SPEAKER_2: I think both can be true.

SPEAKER_2: But I do think that finding the essence, finding the core of what makes these things appealing might just be in that simplicity or understanding what the simplicity is behind each one of the games is, right?

SPEAKER_1: And I just feel like, at least on the understanding simplicity, I just feel like Nintendo is the only one that has been consistent in understanding that.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah.

SPEAKER_1: I know I sound like a real Nintendo show, but just like out of the major companies that have been doing it for a long time, they really, it's like, it's so remarkable how consistent they are.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah.

SPEAKER_2: No, they make good games.

SPEAKER_2: It's the reason why they are where they are today.

SPEAKER_2: And people are eating up the new Switch 2 and all that stuff, which we'll see how that goes, but interesting.

SPEAKER_2: A couple of quick questions just to kind of hit you with a little lightning round, if you will.

SPEAKER_2: How do you balance playing games with your professional life?

SPEAKER_2: You're busy.

SPEAKER_2: You wrote a book on tour, maybe finishing tour, doing a very important podcast like this one.

SPEAKER_2: And you're also the features editor at The Verge.

SPEAKER_2: Like, how do you keep it all afloat and play some games at the same time?

SPEAKER_1: That's a good question.

SPEAKER_1: I actually just try to play as few games as possible, or just limit the number of hours I can play in a week.

SPEAKER_1: And it's actually interesting.

SPEAKER_1: I just sort of got off.

SPEAKER_1: Like, I took a pretty long gaming hiatus, like six months.

SPEAKER_1: Part of it, I was living in Vietnam.

SPEAKER_1: Part of it, the book was coming out.

SPEAKER_1: So I'm just recently kind of back.

SPEAKER_1: And then, of course, I started playing Blue Prince, and I just blew through it.

SPEAKER_1: I was just playing every night, staying up late.

SPEAKER_1: And it was very satisfying.

SPEAKER_1: But I wish I'd done it like you, just taking my time a little bit and let that experience luxuriate a bit more.

SPEAKER_1: And I just started Clear Obscure Expedition 33, which is actually pretty fantastic so far.

SPEAKER_1: And I played five hours in the past three days.

SPEAKER_1: I'm just like, that's too much game time.

SPEAKER_1: So I don't know.

SPEAKER_1: That's the other thing too.

SPEAKER_1: I think we should be skeptical of how much modern games want us to play them.

SPEAKER_1: I don't think they're very, especially on the mainstream side, very respectful of our time.

SPEAKER_1: I played one zillion hours of Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth last year until I realized, like, this is, like, not a very good game.

SPEAKER_1: So to say the balance, it's like I actually really, I really try to not play video games as much as I want.

SPEAKER_1: I like, I don't think it's, I kind of think it's like a little unhealthy to play them at the level that a lot of people do.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah.

SPEAKER_2: I wonder how much of that is.

SPEAKER_2: I think about books too.

SPEAKER_2: I wonder how much, I have a hard time putting down a book.

SPEAKER_2: If I started a book, I sort of want to finish it.

SPEAKER_2: But there's also this, like, the cost of that, of putting down a book that maybe cost me, books can be expensive too.

SPEAKER_2: I buy through Bookshop.

SPEAKER_2: I spent a little extra to, you know, what I feel is like supportive of indie bookstores and things like that.

SPEAKER_2: But let's just assume that I buy a book that's 20 or 30 bucks and I only read 50 pages because that's my limit.

SPEAKER_2: If I hit 50 and I don't like it, I'll put it down.

SPEAKER_2: Did I just throw away 30 bucks potentially?

SPEAKER_2: Yes, maybe.

SPEAKER_2: Do I want to do that with a 60, 70, now $80 game?

SPEAKER_2: Like, I feel like I maybe have to keep going a little bit.

SPEAKER_2: That's maybe part of what keeps you going.

SPEAKER_2: Like, you don't want to waste that.

SPEAKER_2: I don't know.

SPEAKER_2: It's a weird thing.

SPEAKER_1: It's fair.

SPEAKER_1: It's so strange that I think it comes back to the roots of video games and software.

SPEAKER_1: We must get a bang for our buck.

SPEAKER_1: But on some level, you can buy huge games.

SPEAKER_1: You can play for hundreds of hours for $10.

SPEAKER_1: The price of the games is very strange, I think.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah.

SPEAKER_1: It's actually interesting to me too because people are frustrated that Nintendo never lowers the price of their games and never makes them more accessible, which I think is a fair critique.

SPEAKER_1: But it's like the price of a book does not drop from $30 to $1, just because it's older all the time.

SPEAKER_1: It's just funny like that.

SPEAKER_1: Even a used book is still like 12 bucks.

SPEAKER_1: There's just something about games where just like everyone is so weird about how much it costs.

SPEAKER_1: I don't know.

SPEAKER_1: I agree that you do want to get the value out of the thing you spent money on.

SPEAKER_1: But also any meal now is like $50 at a restaurant.

SPEAKER_2: There's also a part of it too that circles back to the beginning of the conversation with Polygon is like one of the sad parts about these closures, not just Polygon, a lot of people, I think Giant Bomb went down as well this week, is that a lot of these sites can be used as consumer protections on some level.

SPEAKER_2: You want to hear, is this going to be worth my 80 bucks?

SPEAKER_2: Even if it's a good game, is it the type of game that I want to play?

SPEAKER_2: Is it something that I think I'm going to enjoy?

SPEAKER_2: The newest Assassin's Creed could get rave reviews, but if I know I'm not really an Assassin's Creed guy, it may not scratch the itch that I want.

SPEAKER_2: I'm probably not going to spend my $60, $70, $80 on it or whatever.

SPEAKER_2: If it's a poorly reviewed game, if it's the Gollum game that came out a couple months or a year ago, or whatever it was, it just got panned as the worst game ever made, I definitely don't want to spend my money on that.

SPEAKER_2: Having outlets that I can rely upon to tell me, is this something that I'm going to get value out of is very important, I think.

SPEAKER_2: That goes really for any medium, not just games.

SPEAKER_2: Typically, the last question I ask is, what excites you about the future of games?

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, I think, I kind of alluded to it earlier, but I think there was a moment in the late aughts where indie games were really exciting, and I think that moment kind of died out, but it really feels like we're back.

SPEAKER_1: And I think there's also just lots of investment pouring into indie games now because of the success of things like Blueprints and Bellatro.

SPEAKER_1: I think I'm most cynical about subscription models for games.

SPEAKER_1: It's kind of funny, I have friends who are like, Xbox Game Pass is a great deal.

SPEAKER_1: It totally is.

SPEAKER_1: And we all lament what streaming services have done to our TV and film.

SPEAKER_1: They've made that industry untenable, and now we're rooting for it for video games.

SPEAKER_1: The same outcome is going to happen even more quickly, probably.

SPEAKER_1: But at the same time, it is cool that one developer can make something that reaches millions of people and is extremely novel, and it's honestly extremely good.

SPEAKER_1: Blue Prince is getting where it is because it's good, and it's new, and it's creative.

SPEAKER_1: I'm excited for you to play more of it.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_2: Maybe this is a better way to sign off.

SPEAKER_2: Without spoiling, if possible, and I'll give you a second to think about it, a beat if you want, is there anything you would give a Blueprints player like a hint you would give to a Blueprints player?

SPEAKER_1: Yeah.

SPEAKER_1: Actually, maybe my one design critique of the game is that every run you have, it says like day six, day 12, and it just keeps counting up.

SPEAKER_1: Just ignore that.

SPEAKER_1: Just play it at your own pace.

SPEAKER_1: It's a game that rewards you for being thoughtful.

SPEAKER_1: It's actually like a real rigid puzzle game and that doesn't hold your hand.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah, the true satisfaction of the game is like you solving it.

SPEAKER_1: It is you experiencing the mechanics of it.

SPEAKER_1: It is not like the atmosphere, the music or the narrative.

SPEAKER_1: It's like what you put into it.

SPEAKER_1: Like you get back and you are rewarded for it in a way that I don't know.

SPEAKER_1: I don't have seen something like that since Return of the Obragan.

SPEAKER_2: So cool.

SPEAKER_2: Is there anything that we missed that you want to bring up?

SPEAKER_2: Any poignant thoughts that you want to lay out here before I let you go?

SPEAKER_1: No, I think we covered it.

SPEAKER_1: I mean, we started talking about Polygon and I just want to end with just lamenting the loss of Polygon.

SPEAKER_1: I'll say maybe there's some world that this company, Valnet, maintains what Polygon was.

SPEAKER_1: I doubt it and maybe I just hope someone else out there starts a new Polygon or maybe there's a world where there's just a burgeoning number of thoughtful newsletters and podcasts about games.

SPEAKER_1: But if we're going to figure out how to talk about and write about and communicate about games, we just need a rich environment where people are trying to do that.

SPEAKER_2: Well put.

SPEAKER_2: On that note, I'll let you go, sir.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah.

SPEAKER_1: Thanks for having me, Kyle.

SPEAKER_1: It was such a blast.

SPEAKER_2: Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_2: Long time coming.

SPEAKER_2: And congrats on the book.

SPEAKER_2: Again, anybody who's listening, you should absolutely pick up My Documents.

SPEAKER_2: Great book.

SPEAKER_2: Pick up New Waves as well.

SPEAKER_2: Like I said, I like them both.

SPEAKER_2: Probably equally very different books, but also very similar in a lot of ways too.

SPEAKER_2: So just excellent writing, great stories.

SPEAKER_2: Thank you very much for your work and for coming on the show.

SPEAKER_1: Yeah.

SPEAKER_1: Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_2: Very cool chat with Kevin.

SPEAKER_2: Really an honor for me, truthfully, because I love his work.

SPEAKER_2: As I mentioned, I love his first book, New Waves.

SPEAKER_2: I love his new book, My Documents.

SPEAKER_2: I think you should check out both of them.

SPEAKER_2: If you're into the techie startup vibes stuff, New Waves is a great place to start.

SPEAKER_2: If you're into current events, strangely, sadly, My Documents is a great place to start.

SPEAKER_2: Both are awesome.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah.

SPEAKER_2: Wow, just the Polygon news.

SPEAKER_2: It continues to shake me.

SPEAKER_2: I'm still very bummed out about it.

SPEAKER_2: If you follow my blog, you probably notice that I'm posting a bunch about it.

SPEAKER_2: Yeah, it's just, it's super sad.

SPEAKER_2: I love that site.

SPEAKER_2: It means a lot to me.

SPEAKER_2: It really got me involved in the space and thinking about games journalism and even thinking about web development.

SPEAKER_2: There's a lot of really cool parts about Polygon I'm going to miss.

SPEAKER_2: There's also a documentary that you can find on YouTube called Press Reset.

SPEAKER_2: It's like a 13 part documentary about the making of Polygon, everything they went through from, you know, concepting the idea of the website to the actual development of the website, which is shocking to watch because it's like, they're talking about like responsive web design, which is something we all just think exists, has existed forever now and it definitely didn't like a decade ago.

SPEAKER_2: So it's wild to watch that documentary.

SPEAKER_2: Let's talk about like the advertising model and all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_2: Really quite insightful and again, just makes it all the more sad that that site is gone.

SPEAKER_2: But enough about that, Kevin was so awesome, awesome for him to give his time to be here, especially with all the stuff, the promotion he's got going around the book right now.

SPEAKER_2: Again, that's My Documents, buy it wherever books are sold.

SPEAKER_2: If you want to hear more from Kevin, you can find him on Bluesky at K-Nguyen, but more importantly, you can find his work on The Verge.

SPEAKER_2: Again, he is the Features Editor at The Verge, so you can find his work firsthand there, as well as all the extraordinary big in-depth features that he is supporting and editing as well.

SPEAKER_2: If you enjoyed this episode of the show, please share it with a friend or post about it on social media.

SPEAKER_2: The easiest thing to do is to share the website, ybutton.online.

SPEAKER_2: That includes links to most podcast platforms.

SPEAKER_2: I'd also appreciate a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

SPEAKER_2: If you want to get in touch, ask questions or recommend guests, feel free to reach out to ybuttonpodcast.gmail.com, Instagram at ybuttonpodcast, bluesky at ybutton, or mastodon at ybutton at mastodon.social.

SPEAKER_2: You can also find me on bluesky at kyle starr, or mastodon at kyle starr at mastodon.social.

SPEAKER_2: This episode was edited by AJ Fillary.

SPEAKER_2: Thank you, AJ.

SPEAKER_2: Our theme song was written by Kyle Starr, which is me, featuring my friend Scott Wilkie.

SPEAKER_2: He's doing all the fun synthy stuff on it.

SPEAKER_2: It's called On the Same Page.

SPEAKER_2: You can find it on all streaming platforms.

SPEAKER_2: Thanks again for listening to Y-Button.

SPEAKER_2: And remember, when you press Y, ask Y.