Latest / Stuff Mom Never Told You / Monday Mini: What's With the Women in Inheritance Games?
Transcript
- 0:05Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha. You're welcome to stuff
- 0:07Speaker 1: I never told you protection of I Heart Radio. Annie.
- 0:19Speaker 1: I've had a question for you. Did you play the
- 0:22Speaker 1: game that I told you you needed to play for
- 0:25Speaker 1: this episode? No, I forgot. I downloaded it, I meant
- 0:32Speaker 1: to and then completely forgot. But I do want to
- 0:36Speaker 1: play it because this sounds fascinating to me. All Right,
- 0:39Speaker 1: So today's episode is centered around a phone game, and
- 0:43Speaker 1: we'll talk about a little bit. But I did try
- 0:45Speaker 1: to tell you about it earlier, and I was like, Okay,
- 0:47Speaker 1: I need you to download this specific game and go
- 0:50Speaker 1: play it, and then you need to come and talk
- 0:51Speaker 1: to me about this because we're gonna talk about this
- 0:53Speaker 1: on Mike for our for an episode. Because I'm very
- 0:56Speaker 1: intrigued by this whole thing. And as as we've talked
- 1:00Speaker 1: about it before. I've talked about it before in several
- 1:04Speaker 1: of the gaming episodes that we've had, whether we were
- 1:06Speaker 1: talking about female characters or women characters in these video games,
- 1:10Speaker 1: or you know, just the issues within the gaming world.
- 1:13Speaker 1: The fact of the matter is that I don't play
- 1:16Speaker 1: a lot of video games, and I'm not very good
- 1:19Speaker 1: at most of the ones that I do play, and
- 1:21Speaker 1: I know any you can attest to this as we
- 1:24Speaker 1: have played Mario Karton many times, and while you and
- 1:27Speaker 1: my partner are usually one and two, I'm always down
- 1:29Speaker 1: to eight and below eight and belower my numbers Mario Party.
- 1:34Speaker 1: Though you've you've won several times, Mario Parties a little
- 1:37Speaker 1: bit easier for me because that's a little more on
- 1:39Speaker 1: my chance rather than skill. So I don't know you
- 1:46Speaker 1: won the last few times. You keep saying that I
- 1:48Speaker 1: feel like to play the victim in these games, but
- 1:51Speaker 1: essentially the last few games that you have won when
- 1:54Speaker 1: you're like I'm gonna lose, I'm gonna lose one because
- 1:58Speaker 1: a loser start anywhere a couple of times, but no,
- 2:05Speaker 1: the last time, you actually kept getting the double stars,
- 2:07Speaker 1: and I was very upset with clearly got some issues around. Yes,
- 2:13Speaker 1: and I did get the switch, and I you know,
- 2:15Speaker 1: I think we talked about this before the pandemic or
- 2:17Speaker 1: in the middle of the quarantine stuff, and people recommended
- 2:20Speaker 1: what I should do some of the games that I
- 2:22Speaker 1: might enjoy. And my partner loves gaming as well, but
- 2:26Speaker 1: he loves a new banal things, so he has a
- 2:30Speaker 1: VR set and has been trying to get games for
- 2:33Speaker 1: me to play, trying to get me involved in this world,
- 2:35Speaker 1: and unfortunately, I get really dizzy at a lot of
- 2:39Speaker 1: the viewing, and because a lot of these games are
- 2:41Speaker 1: very glitchy, it makes me nauxious very quickly. So I
- 2:43Speaker 1: try to be careful of what I play. But one
- 2:47Speaker 1: of the things that I do enjoy is playing phones
- 2:51Speaker 1: on my games. Like I am a multitasker and I
- 2:53Speaker 1: love if I'm watching a movie, I will also be
- 2:56Speaker 1: playing the game if I like. It's just something that
- 2:59Speaker 1: I do. I don't know why if I'm watching TV,
- 3:01Speaker 1: but that's kind of my favorite pastime is just to
- 3:04Speaker 1: sit kind of watch a movie while I'm playing my
- 3:09Speaker 1: little phone games. Which again, these little phone games are
- 3:11Speaker 1: not that difficult. I don't know how else to say, Like,
- 3:15Speaker 1: it's not like you have to jump around and do
- 3:17Speaker 1: these things and avoid zombies or anything. I don't do
- 3:19Speaker 1: any of these games. I play all of the narrative games.
- 3:22Speaker 1: So Candy Crush was one of my favorites. You've heard
- 3:24Speaker 1: us talk about best Fiends, and I even try to
- 3:27Speaker 1: make you know a competition between amongst us and the
- 3:31Speaker 1: other shows which they did they didn't go for. That's fine,
- 3:35Speaker 1: I think that kinda did. Lauren from Savor kind of did. Yeah,
- 3:38Speaker 1: she did. But while playing these games, I was inundated
- 3:43Speaker 1: by all of these other game ads while I'm playing it,
- 3:47Speaker 1: and which finally one piqued my interest enough that I
- 3:51Speaker 1: was like, Okay, I need to know what this is.
- 3:55Speaker 1: And these are the damn narrative puzzle games or the
- 3:58Speaker 1: narrative puzzle rule games. I guess there's so many titles
- 4:02Speaker 1: in these games, but I'm like, oh, what is this?
- 4:05Speaker 1: And honestly, I'm not the only one because I was
- 4:08Speaker 1: really really glad to see that. I think an article
- 4:10Speaker 1: from Mary Sue happened. There's a New York Post article
- 4:13Speaker 1: about it as well, about these ads and y'all it is.
- 4:19Speaker 1: I'm like, what is happening? And I think I described
- 4:22Speaker 1: it to you right when I'm like, Anny, you need
- 4:24Speaker 1: to go download this game because these ads, these ads
- 4:29Speaker 1: are ridiculous. And for those of you who aren't as
- 4:33Speaker 1: addicted to phone games as I am, most of these
- 4:37Speaker 1: games seemed to like center around a woman who was
- 4:40Speaker 1: having the worst day ever, but only to be given
- 4:42Speaker 1: an inheritance at the same time when they're down on
- 4:46Speaker 1: their luck. With some streets attached and again, these ads,
- 4:51Speaker 1: all these damn ads. In a twenty nineteen there was
- 4:54Speaker 1: a huge discussion in the world of gaming and downloads
- 4:58Speaker 1: about the ad teck niques several of these games and programs,
- 5:03Speaker 1: and it included the game I am currently playing and
- 5:05Speaker 1: tried to get you to play, hopefully you will play,
- 5:07Speaker 1: which is called Lily's Garden, and you probably already heard
- 5:11Speaker 1: of it. If you have any ad for our pop
- 5:14Speaker 1: up ads or anything, you've seen it. It is one
- 5:16Speaker 1: of the more popular of these games. And God it worked.
- 5:20Speaker 1: I downloaded it and I've not I've been playing NonStop.
- 5:23Speaker 1: I think I'm already in like the thousands level because
- 5:26Speaker 1: I'm like, what is this. I've even paid to it.
- 5:29Speaker 1: I'm like, I don't usually pay for games, and I'm like,
- 5:32Speaker 1: I will pay for extra stuff for this because I
- 5:34Speaker 1: don't want to keep playing. And I will say it's honestly,
- 5:39Speaker 1: it's a refreshing in regards to not know what I'm
- 5:41Speaker 1: coming into, like not knowing what to expect. It's more
- 5:44Speaker 1: refreshing because it's not as bad as I thought it
- 5:47Speaker 1: might be. I'm like, this is this is bad because
- 5:50Speaker 1: this is not the only game that I have played.
- 5:52Speaker 1: I've played a couple of others and quickly and installed
- 5:54Speaker 1: them because they were like ridiculous, like this is this
- 5:57Speaker 1: is weird? By the way, A couple of these match
- 6:00Speaker 1: narrative games with these ads, which I guess I need
- 6:03Speaker 1: to mention what these ads are. So, for example, for
- 6:06Speaker 1: Lily's Gardens, you have an example of an ad of
- 6:10Speaker 1: where she says she's pregnant and goes to her boyfriend
- 6:13Speaker 1: to let him know, and he scurries out and literally
- 6:17Speaker 1: runs away, drops everything, gets on a scooter and scoots away,
- 6:21Speaker 1: and she says they're crying, and then you see the
- 6:24Speaker 1: the pregnescy stick and she rubs it off and she
- 6:26Speaker 1: faked her pregnus, so you're like what. And then another ad,
- 6:32Speaker 1: which is what we know, he cheats on her and
- 6:34Speaker 1: you see him choosing this other woman over her, and
- 6:38Speaker 1: she looks like a big mess and it's so sad
- 6:41Speaker 1: and like she has this moment of just being all alone.
- 6:44Speaker 1: And then there's another ad I can't remember apparently I
- 6:49Speaker 1: didn't see this one. I just read about it where
- 6:51Speaker 1: she's on a washing machine. Oh yeah, and the fun
- 6:55Speaker 1: she had on that washing machine, y'all. I'm like what
- 7:01Speaker 1: are these ads? And then there's other games that are
- 7:04Speaker 1: similar to this and did the same ad type technique,
- 7:08Speaker 1: but a couple of the games actually got banned and
- 7:11Speaker 1: they were sued by outside people because they're like, this
- 7:13Speaker 1: has nothing to do with your game. This is misleading,
- 7:16Speaker 1: and so they had to ban their ads because it
- 7:19Speaker 1: was so off track apparently to the game, but it
- 7:23Speaker 1: was the same level of like you have to save
- 7:25Speaker 1: this couple so one of them and I haven't downloaded it.
- 7:29Speaker 1: I'm not ready to download this one. There's a woman
- 7:33Speaker 1: who gets pregnant finds her husband I cheated, so she
- 7:36Speaker 1: and another child, which by the way, in the ads
- 7:40Speaker 1: looks like it's like an indigenous child, which is very
- 7:44Speaker 1: red headed white woman, so it doesn't make sense. They
- 7:48Speaker 1: go off into the woods and have to try to survive,
- 7:51Speaker 1: but most of the times in they as they die
- 7:54Speaker 1: like yeah, I'm like, what what is happening? And another
- 7:58Speaker 1: big one is this is one that I did download
- 8:01Speaker 1: and deleted, which was The Mergent Mansion, and it has
- 8:05Speaker 1: the woman gets left at the altar. Her grandmother comes
- 8:08Speaker 1: in and sweeps up and she's like, you know what,
- 8:10Speaker 1: come live with me. You can help me. Restore our mansion. Cool,
- 8:13Speaker 1: they go restore the mansion. All of a sudden, you
- 8:16Speaker 1: see Grandma being taken away by police, and she leaves
- 8:19Speaker 1: a note the secret of our family. And then as
- 8:22Speaker 1: she goes away, there's one ad where it says he's
- 8:25Speaker 1: still alive, so it alleges that she killed the grandfather.
- 8:30Speaker 1: But another ad shows her she writes things on our hands,
- 8:34Speaker 1: it's your next to the granddaughter, and apparently there has
- 8:38Speaker 1: nothing to do with the actual, uh the game, what
- 8:43Speaker 1: is happening? So of course this has caused and still
- 8:45Speaker 1: causing a lot of controversy because with those ads, y'all,
- 8:49Speaker 1: they're still out there and I'm like this. But outside
- 8:54Speaker 1: of that, and as we mentioned earlier, a lot of
- 8:57Speaker 1: these games are supposed to center around a woman down
- 9:00Speaker 1: on her luck. But the game I was specifically talking about,
- 9:03Speaker 1: she gets an inheritance from her great aunt, but she
- 9:06Speaker 1: has to renovate it within a certain time for to
- 9:08Speaker 1: actually get all of this inheritance. And there are several
- 9:12Speaker 1: that have created different goals and different endings. Again, but
- 9:16Speaker 1: the for the one I'm talking about, it has the
- 9:18Speaker 1: match three puzzle, which is kind of like that candy
- 9:20Speaker 1: crush on a lower scale, and each wind earns a
- 9:24Speaker 1: star that leads to being able to renovate the mass
- 9:27Speaker 1: of property she now owns. So each star like you
- 9:30Speaker 1: have to have certain amount of stars to redo the
- 9:32Speaker 1: bushes and we eat it. It was weird, and within
- 9:36Speaker 1: these goals you have other characters and mysteries that you
- 9:39Speaker 1: slowly have to unravel. And I was gonna let you
- 9:55Speaker 1: do this. So can you tell us the Google play
- 9:59Speaker 1: the scripture? I absolutely can, It would be a delight.
- 10:02Speaker 1: And also just a why I this is not currently
- 10:05Speaker 1: a sponsor, not currently alright, So here is the description
- 10:14Speaker 1: Romance Garden Puzzles. Yes, Lily's Garden is all of this
- 10:19Speaker 1: and so much more. Renovate the garden and solve challenging
- 10:22Speaker 1: puzzles with this relaxing and romantic free match three blast game.
- 10:26Speaker 1: Help Lily renovate her great aunt's garden to its former
- 10:29Speaker 1: glory and match flowers to solve challenging blast puzzles. Dig
- 10:33Speaker 1: into a romantic love story full of twist and turns
- 10:36Speaker 1: as Lily interacts with a cast of colorful characters. Match
- 10:39Speaker 1: flowers and start your garden makeover. Play with themed boosters
- 10:42Speaker 1: and renovate the areas with dozens of customization options. Discover
- 10:46Speaker 1: hidden areas and choose among hundreds of flowers for your
- 10:49Speaker 1: garden decoration project. Sit down, relax, and enjoy this puzzle
- 10:53Speaker 1: game enriched with a beautiful, romantic story. Start your Makeover
- 10:57Speaker 1: now really great. There's a lot more to it, but
- 11:02Speaker 1: I was like, I'm just get the crux of it
- 11:03Speaker 1: and we'll go on. But this whole game is ridiculously popular,
- 11:08Speaker 1: so the reviews are pretty interesting to see a lot
- 11:10Speaker 1: of complaints about this doesn't allow me to do this,
- 11:13Speaker 1: But there are over one point one million reviews for
- 11:18Speaker 1: this game alone and it has four point six stars
- 11:22Speaker 1: out of five, so pretty highly rated. But it's also
- 11:26Speaker 1: fantastic because it was written by a woman. Stella Soako
- 11:30Speaker 1: is the one who created this game, and when she
- 11:33Speaker 1: talks about it, she talks about the ad and it
- 11:34Speaker 1: was like, yeah, you might have falsified a few things
- 11:37Speaker 1: just to get your interest. Gise are tool out of
- 11:39Speaker 1: stretch because you do have each one of those characters
- 11:42Speaker 1: involved in these games, so you you kind of get
- 11:45Speaker 1: introduced to them through the ads and then come back.
- 11:48Speaker 1: And I don't think the storyline is really it's really
- 11:51Speaker 1: interesting and even to the point that she has a
- 11:53Speaker 1: great aunt who was a part of World War Two.
- 11:55Speaker 1: So you're like, what, Okay, look at this, And I
- 12:00Speaker 1: will say I could definitely tell it was written by
- 12:02Speaker 1: a woman, because within the narrative you have a really
- 12:06Speaker 1: good point of view of each one of the women characters,
- 12:09Speaker 1: and they're being they being likable, like usually you'll see like, oh,
- 12:13Speaker 1: this is bad. This has been their competition and as
- 12:15Speaker 1: in fact, some of it does have that with the
- 12:18Speaker 1: whole cheating scandal. But like you see Regina, who is
- 12:23Speaker 1: the friend who is a carpenter, who is a woman
- 12:25Speaker 1: carpenter who comes in and becomes one of our best friends,
- 12:28Speaker 1: who is part of the narrative, and her storyline is
- 12:32Speaker 1: interesting and very adult, like in conversation about she not
- 12:35Speaker 1: want to have children, her husband wanting to have to
- 12:38Speaker 1: interest us bringing them, bringing them really like hard decisions
- 12:42Speaker 1: in their marriage, and I was like, what is this?
- 12:46Speaker 1: And then you have the neighbor, the rugged, artsy neighbor
- 12:50Speaker 1: that she of course falls for, really funny too, but
- 12:54Speaker 1: he you know, comes with baggage. He has recently divorced,
- 12:57Speaker 1: has a kid trying to get stay involved. This kid's
- 13:00Speaker 1: live and You're like, what he married an Asian woman
- 13:03Speaker 1: who is an art like dealer or something into your
- 13:06Speaker 1: designer who comes in and she's really likable, she's not
- 13:10Speaker 1: the horrible ex wife. She and the main character, Lily
- 13:13Speaker 1: are good friends, and you're like, what's happening? What is happening.
- 13:19Speaker 1: So all of that to say, y'all, I'm still trying
- 13:24Speaker 1: to figure this game out and it doesn't hit all
- 13:27Speaker 1: the ad stuff. No one's gotten pregnant yet, and I
- 13:30Speaker 1: have seen a couple of complaints that they're not fast
- 13:33Speaker 1: enough in developing new levels because people have already reached
- 13:36Speaker 1: that point to the end of the game. It is
- 13:39Speaker 1: continuing to be created today, and with the fact that
- 13:42Speaker 1: it's still so popular, I can absolutely see it. But
- 13:45Speaker 1: I need someone to explain to me because I could
- 13:48Speaker 1: not find it anywhere other than the dramatic, you know,
- 13:51Speaker 1: over the top soap opera ads. What is with this
- 13:55Speaker 1: whole character arc of these women that has to be
- 14:00Speaker 1: the center of focus for these stories? Who thought this
- 14:02Speaker 1: was the way to go? Which, by what, I'm not complaining.
- 14:05Speaker 1: I just even know where this came from. Yeah, yeah,
- 14:09Speaker 1: when you were telling me about this, because I've never
- 14:11Speaker 1: heard of this before, he's like basically women inheritance games.
- 14:15Speaker 1: I at first was like, oh, like are we talking
- 14:17Speaker 1: like pride and prejudice level? Like are we going way back?
- 14:20Speaker 1: And then you know, I thought about we did. I
- 14:25Speaker 1: might have been a two parter. I think it's just
- 14:26Speaker 1: a one party. But I'm women in romance and video
- 14:28Speaker 1: games and I just had a conversation with about that
- 14:32Speaker 1: with a friend who I had just met, and we
- 14:34Speaker 1: really went in hard on like alien sex and video games.
- 14:37Speaker 1: So that was interesting. But you know, there's still alien
- 14:41Speaker 1: sex in this game, not that you know of yet,
- 14:44Speaker 1: but I have hit up on ghost stories in this game.
- 14:48Speaker 1: Well there you go. You never know, Yeah, just kind
- 14:52Speaker 1: of why that's fun and why people are into it.
- 14:55Speaker 1: Um And I do think this whole like inheritance, cheating, pregnancy,
- 14:59Speaker 1: like a all these issues we talked about all the
- 15:01Speaker 1: time and here that do impact women a lot. That
- 15:03Speaker 1: that has become kind of a popular the phone game.
- 15:08Speaker 1: But also there's you know a lot of times when
- 15:11Speaker 1: we have this conversation around video games and do women
- 15:13Speaker 1: play them? First of all, yes, and they've recently surpassed
- 15:17Speaker 1: men and what are cult traditional video games, But when
- 15:19Speaker 1: it comes to phone games. Women have always dominated that space, um.
- 15:22Speaker 1: And it's not that men do play them, and it's
- 15:24Speaker 1: not like a huge gap, but women have always like
- 15:26Speaker 1: clearly dominated it. So I do find this interesting. And
- 15:29Speaker 1: phone games do count as video games, by the way,
- 15:31Speaker 1: they're just sort of a separate category. But I do
- 15:34Speaker 1: find it fascinating that this has taken off in a
- 15:37Speaker 1: space that is a lot of women playing playing these games,
- 15:42Speaker 1: right and according to several researchers, it shows that they
- 15:45Speaker 1: the highest money maker right now, like multimillion dollar money maker.
- 15:52Speaker 1: And I gave money because I was trying to get
- 15:54Speaker 1: more lives as well as all of the ads, and
- 15:58Speaker 1: that's there's plenty ads, because there's also this bonus stuff, um,
- 16:02Speaker 1: And it's not just with the match games. I was like,
- 16:04Speaker 1: I try to play the one with a solitaire component,
- 16:07Speaker 1: and that was super sexist. That one was because I'm like,
- 16:10Speaker 1: they made the character get married and ordered for her
- 16:12Speaker 1: to own the house, and I was like, why why
- 16:17Speaker 1: she could only have the house if she had a
- 16:19Speaker 1: male partner. And yet a lot of these games are romantic,
- 16:22Speaker 1: but it's says romance like heroist relationships. Again, I haven't
- 16:26Speaker 1: gone all the way into it like I'm not near
- 16:28Speaker 1: the end, so things may have changed, and again things
- 16:31Speaker 1: are being added on, so I don't know, but it's
- 16:35Speaker 1: interesting and there's a lot of pop culture references within
- 16:38Speaker 1: these narratives. And there's no more games that have voiceover
- 16:41Speaker 1: characters as well. This one does not. I think I
- 16:44Speaker 1: would be freaked out if it did have a voiceover character,
- 16:46Speaker 1: to be fair, but they have like like narrative written narratives,
- 16:50Speaker 1: some of them don't. They just kind of just do this,
- 16:53Speaker 1: just do this. And it's also I feel like, I
- 16:57Speaker 1: feel like this is sounded like it's a sponsor and
- 16:59Speaker 1: it's really not. It's just me getting like what is
- 17:01Speaker 1: happening here? I don't know why I enjoyed this so much,
- 17:05Speaker 1: but like they have a really nice sound to it,
- 17:09Speaker 1: so musically is not redundant. It's just kind of like relaxing,
- 17:12Speaker 1: and even like the sound effects are nice because you
- 17:15Speaker 1: feel accomplished when something happens. I'm like, look at that.
- 17:20Speaker 1: And then the scenery, even though it is all just
- 17:23Speaker 1: like cartoonish, it's really nice and I'm like I want
- 17:27Speaker 1: to live there. I want to buy that lake right there.
- 17:31Speaker 1: So it is an interesting thing. So someone needs to
- 17:33Speaker 1: tell me what is up with these games, because I've
- 17:36Speaker 1: fascinated about how they even got to this point. Me too,
- 17:40Speaker 1: Me too. Um, I was excited to learn more. I'm
- 17:42Speaker 1: definitely going to play it, so you'll recap when you
- 17:45Speaker 1: play it, and I'll see what I think. I've never
- 17:49Speaker 1: really played a phone game, so this will be a
- 17:51Speaker 1: fun experience for me. I'm gonna say it's gonna be
- 17:53Speaker 1: new for you. I'm the old pro. It does one
- 17:55Speaker 1: that's right, that's right, that's school on this tell me
- 17:59Speaker 1: how to get or of my garden? Oh yeah, I'm
- 18:05Speaker 1: looking forward to it. And if any listeners, if you
- 18:07Speaker 1: have any answers, if you love these types of games,
- 18:10Speaker 1: or if you're involved in making any of these types
- 18:12Speaker 1: of games, oh yeah, yes, please please contact this. You
- 18:16Speaker 1: can email us at stuff Idea, mom Stuff at i
- 18:18Speaker 1: heeart media dot com. You can find us on Twitter
- 18:20Speaker 1: at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram and stuff I
- 18:22Speaker 1: Never Told You. Thanks as always to our super producer Christina,
- 18:25Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks to you for listening Stuff Whatever
- 18:28Speaker 1: told the protection of I Heart Radio for more podcast
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