- 2 days ago
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GamingTranscript
00:01Okay, so I want to talk to you about wasting time in video games.
00:06You've been wasting my time all day, so let's keep it going.
00:08I waste your time. Your time is worthless, but I treat it as such.
00:14No, video games are inherently a way to pass time.
00:17They are a, you know, I feel like we use the term time sink.
00:21I feel like if you say they're a waste of time, a lot of people are like, hey, hold on now.
00:24And if you're having a good time, then you're not wasting your time.
00:27Like, that's the whole thing is you're if you're enjoying yourself, then there's a video game podcast that some of our peers do,
00:33which I've always loved the name of called A Life Well Wasted.
00:37And it's and I always I think that that's a fantastic philosophy of like, yes, are you chipping away at a greater goal that you should be doing your life?
00:45No. Does it matter because you're having a good time?
00:48No. You know, enjoy yourself. Relax.
00:52It's a hobby. Have fun.
00:53Yeah. But that said, I think there are certain kinds of games where it's it's very much like, you know, the term the whole that I always think of like the movie Trainspotting,
01:02which I'm like, why is it called Trainspotting?
01:03And it's like it's the whole thing of Trainspotting is like birdwatching for trains, which sounds like the most boring thing imaginable.
01:09And you're like, why would you do that?
01:10Which is also a mentality that could be applied to heroin.
01:13You're like, why would anyone do that? That seems horrible.
01:15And it's like, actually, here's why it's fun.
01:17Don't do heroin.
01:17But do you play video games?
01:21So there's there's a bunch of like Power Wash Simulator 2 just came out.
01:25Uh huh.
01:25And that is a comically stupid premise for a game.
01:31OK, let me let me tell you about my relationship with this game.
01:34The first one came to Xbox Game Pass day and date when it launched.
01:38And I was like, you know, I never got into any of these.
01:41But with Game Pass, I was like, I'll download the new stuff.
01:44I'll give it a little bit of time.
01:45If it sticks, it sticks.
01:45If it doesn't, if he dies, he dies.
01:47Right.
01:47It doesn't matter.
01:49So that one I sat down and I'm like, oh, this is actually really addictive.
01:53Like it's got this awesome little ding.
01:56I'm I'm I'm not necessarily like a neat freak, you know, but I'm tidy enough for I'm like if I, you know, if I have the opportunity to do that in a video game, I don't like living in like a messy.
02:06I know if you're looking at me on camera, you're like you're surrounded by, you know, walls and balls of action figures and junk.
02:11You got all this tchotchkes and crap.
02:13Yeah, I know.
02:13But they're organized and dusted and all that fun stuff.
02:15So when I sit down and play Power Wash Simulator, I'm like, man, I actually really like this and I get to do stuff that like, you know, I can't do in my own yard.
02:22If I like wash my driveway or like wash a car, it doesn't make a dinging noise every time I get, you know, the rearview mirrors or whatever.
02:29And in this game, unless you, you know, go Power Wash Final Fantasy 7 or SpongeBob's bathroom or whatever, you can go do all that fun stuff.
02:39And I was super into Power Wash Simulator 2.
02:42I got the game on Switch the day it came out, paid full price for it.
02:46It was one of those games I was playing constantly.
02:49I got to this roller rink level and Switch was the perfect place for it.
02:53And I think on PS Portal would be awesome, too, where you can just have something else on in the background or like you're sitting on the couch, your kid's watching, you know, Bluey or something like that.
03:02And you're like, I'm just sitting next to you, it's a Saturday morning, I'm power washing, you know, this, this mansion or whatever.
03:06I, they had me power wash a roller, a roller rink, right?
03:11And it's got this huge turntable and boom box in there.
03:14I cleaned every inch of this place and, uh, saved the game, put it down, came back a week later, uh, cause I was playing a bunch of Hyrule Warriors and I came back and, uh, it said I was 4% done with the roller rink.
03:27And I was like, you killed it. You lost my save file. You have murdered my, like, you have, you have reached the ceiling of what I'm willing to put into something that is utterly wasting my time.
03:40That is not giving me back anything narrative wise. It has just given me little dings. It's given me slightly better hoses and power washes and stuff like that.
03:47But like, I go on the subreddit and it turns out like this is a known bug and they're working on it and they're patching it and it's happening across a bunch of different versions of the game.
03:56And I was kind of like, that sucks, man. Like that wasn't the deal. You know, like the, the deal was like, I gave you wasting time on my turn.
04:05I was wasting time on my time. And you guys made me waste the same time twice and I have to walk away. So now I, I probably won't finish this game for like a year.
04:13I'll come back in like a year and I'll be like, I'm going to frigging roller rink. Yeah. I'll clean it again. These damn kids who keeps, I mean, you don't have to, I think there's that, there's that feeling of like, you got to finish the thing.
04:22And there's that sort of sunken cost fallacy of like, if you got, that's true, you know, I always talk about the, you know, movie Matilda, there's a kid who gets caught stealing the cake and they're like, you got to eat a whole cake in front of the whole school.
04:33Yeah. There's Bogtrotter. And I feel like that's kind of it is like this thing you enjoy in small quantities. What if it was a punishment? What if it was an ordeal that you have to deal with?
04:41And, uh, yeah, I don't know it. This game is, is great, but like, what do you, you know, what's funny about that scene?
04:49A lot of it.
04:50No, he, he eats the cake, but like the, uh, you know, Miss Trunchbull, uh, is basically like, you got to eat this cake in front of the whole class. It's going to humiliate you. It's going to be physically, emotionally repulsive. It's child abuse, right? Straight up.
05:03So that's, that's not the funny part. It's a Roald Dahl story. Say no more. Yeah. But the, the, uh, the funny part is that he's like, he, he struggles a little, but he mostly just takes down. Like he's, he's kind of just like, yeah, man, you know, I'll, I'll do what you got to do in front of the whole class. I'll eat this whole cake. You know, not the best way to do this for sure, but I'm doing it. Yeah. And so I, I, I always thought about that scene because you and I have talked about that scene a lot and I revisited the book and the movie with my kid recently and was kind of like, oh, he actually kind of takes it.
05:33Like a pro like, man, good dude. Right. But yeah, I mean, again, it's, it's, if you, if you're eating a cake and you have a slice of it and you're going to go, Ooh, that was a good cake. And you have like another slice. You're like, Oh, that's pretty good. And if you eat the city, you're like, well, I got to eat the whole cake now. Like that's, you're not going to feel great. Like that's going to have, it's going to be generally a bad time. So I don't know with a game like this, where it's kind of, it's repetitive actions. You're doing the whole thing. I think there is that sunken cost fallacy. And maybe, maybe the thrill is getting everything power washed and going, all right, we're done here. But yeah, I mean,
06:02if you, if you lose a bunch of progress, then, you know, then, uh, but yeah, I, this is, I mean,
06:08it just cracks me up that this is a game that I think a lot of people are, you know, really vibing with. It's really, it's a good time. Um, I mean,
06:14I think in the last day or last few days, they announced this, like, it's like a leaf blowing simulator.
06:19There's another one where you have to like play with and clean up the snow in the town.
06:22So it's like, there's a market for this stuff. Right. And I, I thought that this,
06:26this was my entry point into like the, you know, the obtuse European vehicle simulator stuff that we
06:32always see on this games come show floor. And I was like, this is, that's not necessarily for me,
06:35but, but this one is, yeah, there's, there's a leaf game. Like that. One of the games I had the most
06:39fun with this year was, uh, the, what's it called? The road craft. That is a game that is infuriating.
06:46Like I was like, I wish this is a little bit, a little bit more of a video game. You're like slowly picking up
06:51stuff with a crane. It falls off. You got to pick it up again. Like it's just, it's, it's tedious in
06:57a way that's kind of, kind of a thrill. I don't, I don't know. And again, it's, it's, if you're
07:01having a good time doing it, you're not wasting your time. Like it's a kind of, it's a, it's an
07:06activity, uh, ball pit. We talked a bit about on the show. A lot of people are hooked on ball pit
07:12right now. It's, it's a thing. Uh, I, I hit a point with that game where I was like, Oh, I love this.
07:19It's, it's, it's definitely like, it's gratifying. It's like you, you, you know, you unlock the new
07:23stuff, you get the next thing, you power up the stuff, you do the thing. But ultimately the thing
07:26you're doing is like, it's akin to, it's like somewhere between a slot machine and, uh, watching
07:32popcorn pop and bubble wrap. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that, that like, I don't know if like
07:39sitting down and playing God of War Ragnarok is a steak, this is popcorn and popcorn's great.
07:45You know, I love popcorn. I could probably eat popcorn every day. Like Reddit actually started
07:50being like, Oh, do you want to see more from the popcorn subreddit? And I was like, not that,
07:55not that much. That's a, that's a lot. Those guys, they're into it, right? They love popcorn.
07:59But for me, there was this thing that after a while I was playing this game and I said to myself,
08:03this is really good, but you've been snacking on popcorn for 15 hours now and you need, you know,
08:09you need to grill some chicken thighs or make a steak. And I don't understand that food,
08:13food comparisons are lazy. So am I. No, I mean, the, the, I feel like roguelites in general are,
08:17they're Sisyphean by design. Like they are the, you lose, you lose so much. That's part of the
08:22deal. That's part of how it works. That's, that's part of the thing. And for the longest time,
08:26I thought that I hated that. I thought that was stupid. I don't want to do that. I was like,
08:29let me, give me something where I can just like save my progress. And I feel like I've gotten
08:32way more into roguelites in recent years and way less into sort of more long form single player
08:38narrative type games. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't, I can't quite put my finger on why
08:42I have less time to game because I, you know, I have a four-year-old and spend a lot of time with
08:47her and there's always a bunch of chores and stuff to do. And, you know, again, it's being,
08:51it's being a grownup. It's part of it. And like, there's, I think because these are sort of bite
08:55size experiences, you know, like a run is it's going to be 15 minutes and you're going to, yeah,
08:59I feel, I feel like I kind of did something and maybe you, you know, lose a bunch of stuff along the
09:03way. Maybe it's a complete wash, but I think the fact that there is, you know, in a, in a,
09:07in a roguelite, there's always going to be a sense of, of wasting time. There's always going to be this
09:11feeling of like, oh man, I, I, I should have been doing something else that time. And I think with,
09:16I don't know, like if jumping into like some massive sprawling open world single player game,
09:21there's like, there's a sense of like, oh, I need to accomplish something. And again, when that clicks,
09:26that clicks, you feel like you accomplished something. You're like, I, yeah, I solved the quest.
09:28I saved the princess, whatever. Uh, you know, I liberated an outpost and unlocked a skill point
09:34or, you know, whatever the hell it is. But in, you know, in so many roguelites, you're just,
09:38you're like, man, I, I, uh, I played twice and I got some cool stuff and I maybe moved some
09:43permanent upgrades along. That's it. Right. I knew I was going to lose twice. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's
09:49kind of this. Yeah. The great ones give you like just enough of a little treat afterwards to make a
09:54bar go up just enough that it has like a slightly tangible feeling of improvement afterwards. And
10:00I think the sort of classic roguelites didn't write, they hadn't really built a blueprint for
10:03that yet, but the really good ones are the ones that make you go like, okay, I'm a little bit
10:07stronger. I'm a little bit faster, a little bit better. And my next run is going to do this,
10:11this, and this vampire survivors did that dead cells did that. Like, you know, some, some of the
10:14best ones, uh, back to the binding of Isaac and stuff. Uh, and even of course, before that,
10:18like those are the ones that make you go like, I'm not just dumping, you know,
10:22like there's those arcade games where you just put coins in and the coins fall down this thing
10:27and you look at them and they're with all the other quarters. And then this big bar pushes the
10:31quarters towards you. And maybe sometimes you get some tickets back. And like, there's a thing where
10:36after a while you're like, I'm a monkey, I'm a stupid monkey, man. I'm an idiot. What am I doing?
10:41It's a lizard brain. You know, you're just, you're, you found something that makes dopamine come out
10:47and you're like, Ooh, what's this? And I don't know. That's the bizarre thing I'm kind of dealing
10:54with is like, I, I feel like I have less time to game. Uh, I think I just have, you know, a bunch
10:59of, a bunch of stuff on my mind. And when I sit down to play a video game, I just want to play
11:02a video game. Like I want to do something that's just the quickest route to like, you know, I, I have,
11:07I have 10 minutes to have the thrill of having a little snack, like a steak dinner. It's going to take
11:12them 20 minutes to bring me my food. Yeah. Popcorn. I can have popcorn now. I'll enjoy the popcorn.
11:16I'll eat lots of popcorn. I'll put seasonings on top, extra butter, num, num, num. Sure.
11:21Yeah. And I mean, I've been playing a bunch of battlefield as well. And like, I'm, I suck
11:24at it and I have fun. I just run around, you know, I give people the defibrillator, you
11:28know, I put little backpacks in front of them and sometimes they're mean to me. And, uh,
11:32occasionally I kill a guy and it's like a really, I don't know. It's these little, you
11:36know, and then I finish a match and it gives me like, and I go, you unlock the new handle
11:41for your gun, you know, like it's something completely, you know? Yeah. And some guys like,
11:45you see these dudes run by and they've got like everything all specked out or like, you
11:50know, maybe they get killed and I get to pick up their thing. And I'm like, wow, you got
11:52so much cool stuff on your weapons. I don't have any of this stuff. I suck at this game,
11:56but it's like, I don't know. It's, it's a bizarre thing where it's, I have, I have less
12:00time to play games and the time I'm spending playing them. I feel like I'm playing more trivial
12:05sort of more, more junk food stuff. And I think it's just trying to kind of streamline
12:11that, that sense of like, it's not accomplishment. I don't really know what that is. Exactly.
12:16It's, it's a, I don't know. No, I, I, I put like 60, 70 hours in a Yote. Right. And I did
12:22almost everything you can do in that game. And I think I kind of ebb and flow when I kind
12:26of crashed out after a big game like that. And I go, I need some, some smaller kind of a
12:31Moose Brucius for a little while. I rolled credits on Hyrule Warriors. It's the first Musou game
12:35I've ever beaten. And I was just like, Oh, this is perfectly scratching that itch between
12:39like third person, uh, ghost of Yote combat with, you know, some ridiculous over the tall,
12:45over the top dragon ball stuff. But also like, it's just mindless enough where you can finish
12:50a level or a run in like 10, 12 minutes. And it's pretty passive. And I was kind of like,
12:56this is, this is what I needed. So I don't know what's going to be next for me. It's probably
12:59going to be another big open world, single player story driven thing, or it could be
13:04just something, you know, kind of quick and sleazy, like, like ball pit, like more of that.
13:08Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the big one right now that a lot of people are playing is arc raiders.
13:11And I was curious about this and I, I don't even know what I searched. I feel like I'm just
13:16doing like full, like boomer dad stuff where I'm like, what's arc raiders about us typed in
13:20arc raiders into Google. But one of the first things that popped up is two, two things like
13:24the two top results. And this is again, it's all changing algorithmically or whatever. Uh, first
13:28thing was a post on Reddit that said arc raiders makes me feel out of touch. It's got like
13:336,000 comments, a whole lot of, you know, a lot of people talking on this. Um, this guy
13:40named Ragnarok night was like, Hey, I bought arc raiders my first extraction game because
13:43I wanted to give the genre a try. And a lot of people have been saying it's arguably the
13:46most accessible game in the genre, yada, yada, yada. But after playing for a few hours, I don't
13:51really get it. I extracted maybe 40 times now. And I think I've found literally one interesting
13:55thing the entire time, a weapon blueprint, but it's a blueprint that requires a bunch
13:59of high level materials. I haven't even seen yet. So it's basically useless. Uh, and basically
14:04they go on to say like, I don't understand the feeling of loot anxiety for me. It's just
14:08like, Oh, I died and I lost that gun. I wasted materials on that's kind of lame. I guess I'll
14:12use the free crappy gun again. Sure. And I'm like, is that, is that, is that, am I missing
14:16something? Like, did I get it? Am I doing it wrong? Is it just this thrill of like feeling
14:21like you're going to lose your stuff? And again, I'm, I'm curious about this game because
14:25a lot of people have a really good time. And so I, you know, I backed out of that.
14:27And the next thing that popped up was a little YouTube short from, it's called, this is why
14:33everyone loves arc Raiders. Um, from what's this guy's name? Uh, uh, and it's just this
14:42fast cut montage of him playing this single player thing. And it just feels like here's
14:46everything you can do. And admittedly, there's much better video games than me, but he just kind
14:50of goes in and he's having these bizarre interactions with people. Like the fact that
14:54it's this kind of, I don't know, in, in conventional multiplayer, there's other
15:00people on the other team who are going to try to kill you. Yes or yes. That's the
15:03objective. That's the point. Right. In this case, he like runs into a guy and the guy
15:07is like, he's like, he's like shot at him by accident or something. And he's like
15:11talking to us. Hey man, I'm not going to shoot you. I'm just trying to try to get down
15:14the stairs. And the guy's like, yeah, I'm not going to shoot you either, but I'm not
15:16coming through that door. They have this weird standoff where they solve it by just
15:20like talking to each other. He found like, you know, he's just, he's running around
15:24scrounging stuff and there's this feeling of just sort of desperation and he's running
15:27around and it's like the, the, the social aspect in this weird sprawling, you know,
15:34wasteland. And again, that's not even factoring in the aspect of like the robots running
15:38around. And I've heard that you can play this game as single player, but I'm also just
15:42like reading the, you know, reading the out of touch Reddit posts. I'm like, that's,
15:47that feels more like where I'm at, you know, and I feel like I'm just going to bash
15:51my head against it. And no, it's like, I think there's that thing where like a big
15:55new game comes out and you're like, Oh, I'm compelled to feel like I need to make
15:59this for me. And it doesn't always have to be the case, right? Like sometimes you
16:03can just, a big new game coming out can just be a net positive for your hobby
16:07without you engaging in it independently. Like sometimes it'll be like, it gives you
16:11that Reddit post, right? It gives you some memes. You get the dopamine through that.
16:15Like you, there's, there's things where it's just like more people are playing PC
16:18games. Maybe these people will be like, Hey, I like third person survival games.
16:21I'm going to play the last of us too. And then they finally make a third one of those
16:25or whatever it is. Right. Like all of those things, the, you know, rising tides and raises
16:28all ships or whatever. And so, yeah, I think, I think I see, I see stuff like this. And I,
16:32like, I looked at the player movement was immediately like, I don't know if this one's
16:36going to be for me. Like, I just, I can just kind of tell there's a lot of like, you
16:40know, you, you need people in your ear. And I, I, I like to play, I either play like couch
16:44co-op stuff with my family or friends, or I'll just like play, I'll just shut off the lights
16:49and play a single player game. It's a couple of times a year where my wife will just be
16:52like, Oh, you got a big new video game that you got to play by yourself. You know, I'll,
16:56I'll take the kid out. We'll go to the trampoline park or whatever. We'll go to the, you know,
17:00the zoo, you, you stay home. And I'm like, well, I want to go to the zoo. I love the zoo,
17:03but also like this, I love, I'm hooked on this game. And so I need this big single player game
17:07every now and then. And so, yeah, it's okay if it's not, if it's not, everything is for everyone.
17:12Right. Yeah. Like I guess the, you know, going back to the, you know, video games are a waste of
17:16time unless you're having fun, but sometimes you kind of need to re-examine, like, am I having fun?
17:20Yeah. I think it's, I guess that's the thing that I'm, I'm kind of wrapping my head around is that
17:24like, as I've gotten older, my tastes have changed and I feel like, Oh, I should enjoy this thing that I
17:28used to enjoy and I don't necessarily enjoy it. And it's just, I don't know. We're, we're kind of
17:33spinning our wheels here, but it's just, no, no. To add to that, like the, the free to play thing,
17:37the games popping up on subscription services you've already paid for, like that, that really
17:44changes the way you can have, uh, an interaction or relationship with these things. Because I I've
17:50said this before, but like when we were younger and you wanted to watch a new movie, either you
17:55turned on the TV and the three movies or one movie that was on TV was the movie you watched,
17:59or you got in the car and you went to blockbuster or like, you know, Suncoast video or whatever,
18:03these, you know, these old dumps and they were great. And you would bring home a movie on a Friday
18:08night. If you didn't get there early enough, you just got whatever slim pickings were left on the
18:12bottom shelf. Right. Uh, basically like the bagged cereal of movies and you'd come home and at like
18:17seven o'clock you and your friends or you and your, your, your, you know, your, your, your parents or
18:22your siblings or whatever you'd put on this movie. And if it sucked, like you just kind of had to
18:27watch it all the way through. Cause you're like, what's the alternative? Like we pull like the
18:30Lion King VHS out for the seven billionth time. Like this is the only new thing we have. And so
18:35now I noticed with like games like this free to play stuff or like games that show up on PS plus
18:40or game pass, I'll play them for like 10 minutes. And if I'm like not immediately hooked, unless
18:46someone's like, Oh, it gets really good after this, this, and this stick with it, stick with it,
18:49stick with it. Um, I have a tendency to kind of like rip the game out and just be like, no thanks.
18:54Cause it, all it, all it took was the download time. Right. And so you need that if you're,
18:59if you're streaming it, if you're streaming it, yeah, you don't even need that if you're
19:01cloud streaming it. And so, yeah, I think that like, it's, it's very different now. And so a game,
19:06if it doesn't, if it doesn't feel like it's respecting your time or you feel like you're not
19:11getting the most of your time from it, it's okay to walk away early, you know? Um, notoriously on this
19:16show to what, 10 years ago, I said I was doing that with Bloodborne and then I went back for a
19:20second pass and it became, you know, my favorite game of all time. So, you know, your, uh, your
19:24mileage may vary, but no, I'm just, I'm really, I'm really like, I'm looking at our creators and
19:29I'm like, I want to play this. This looks like fun, but I'm also like, do I want to spend 40 bucks
19:33on it? And I, I feel like if they do it, if they do a demo trial run thing, they're going to hook a
19:38lot of people. Yeah. Because it's yeah. I mean, that's the other thing is like, there's time, but
19:42there's, you know, there's also the money aspect. Um, yeah. And you know, video games are still very
19:47good for you. Bang for your buck, which is nice. Even if it's the crazy subscription thing. Um,
19:52yeah, I don't know. It's again, there's so many, there's so many things to play and you know,
19:57when you're a kid, you're like, I got a new game for Christmas. I'm playing that. Yes. Yeah. That's
20:01what I got to do. I mean, you know, you go to, you have you ever walked out of a movie?
20:05Like at theaters? Uh, yeah. Uh, the, the time machine. Oh, with Guy Pearce? Yeah. Wow. Where you're
20:12like, I want my time back. Is that what I did? I think I did. Hey, thanks for watching this clip
20:17from beyond IGN's weekly PlayStation show. You can find the full episode over on youtube.com
20:21slash IGN games. And don't forget new episodes of beyond drop every Wednesday on IGN.com the IGN
20:27games, YouTube, and all your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks again for watching. And as
20:31always beyond.
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