Latest / WASD and Beyond / Episode 95: Video Games, Hardcore and Horror flicks an Interview with eyyohbee

Transcript

Episode 95: Video Games, Hardcore and Horror flicks an Interview with eyyohbee · WASD and Beyond

• 1:04
  Hello everybody, and welcome back to the apps with the wasd
• 1:07
  and Beyond podcast. I'm your host, Nick.
• 1:09
  Accompany this week is a ob see, I didn't fuck her name up
• 1:14
  because you've had this put it in your Instagram and your
• 1:17
  Twitter and get it. I buy it.
• 1:18
  That's how it's pronounced or Austin and it's not Evan.
• 1:23
  I don't got Evan. I don't got Matt out of anyone
• 1:25
  else but a ob or Austin. I'm just gonna call you awesome
• 1:28
  for the rest of the show, if that's cool.
• 1:30
  Yeah, either work, I always tell people either.
• 1:33
  All right. So this could be an interview
• 1:35
  this week and I think you guys should be very stoked on what
• 1:40
  this episode is going to be and what we're going to hit on this
• 1:43
  episode Austin's. Got a lot of cool shit that a
• 1:46
  does been a part of and he's currently a part of right now.
• 1:50
  So before we get into who Austin is, what he does and why he's a
• 1:54
  dope dude, this episode is sponsored by final boss and Doc
• 1:58
  Lonnie. I am wearing the final boss Doom
• 2:00
  shirt. I did.
• 2:01
  That was not planned. That was now clear.
• 2:05
  Yeah, it's a fine by all the way shirt.
• 2:07
  Oh wait no, it's not Espionage Espionage.
• 2:11
  My Max Payne stuff is final boss.
• 2:13
  Yeah, the Max Payne stuff. Is he?
• 2:16
  So Eric, or yeah, that's right. So, final boss already, put out
• 2:19
  the Max Payne stuff isn't and they're doing another mcilvain
• 2:22
  drop. I gotta get the coaches jacket.
• 2:25
  I got to get the new shirt, dude.
• 2:26
  I'm hyped. That coaches jacket so I crazy.
• 2:29
  Eric had sent me that about a month prior.
• 2:34
  It's like kind of like, see some of the shit priori like, starts
• 2:36
  work on it all that. Yeah, him and Khloe.
• 2:39
  And he sent me that coaches, Jack.
• 2:40
  I was like, dude. Yeah, I'm like absolutely goes
• 2:43
  so hard. The big remedy logo on it, dude,
• 2:47
  it's so fucking insane. So yes, final boss in Doc longi.
• 2:51
  They both have drops out right now.
• 2:53
  Final boss has PaRappa the Rapper and Nine Inch Nails.
• 2:57
  Doc long. He has Liquid Swords and
• 3:00
  Kendrick Lamar don't miss that shit.
• 3:03
  Once more Once it's done, it's done.
• 3:05
  All right Austin let everybody know exactly who you are.
• 3:09
  What you do and let's just start right there.
• 3:13
  Yeah. Hi if we don't know each other.
• 3:16
  Yeah my name is Austin or aob. I am a lot of things.
• 3:22
  I plan a metalcore band called go ski.
• 3:26
  I work on video games for a living at Raven software.
• 3:31
  I sometimes stream games on the internet, I also love horror and
• 3:38
  remedy is my favorite company of all time and I like tabletop
• 3:42
  games and obviously video games. I think that's it.
• 3:48
  So, do you fuck with 40K that or no?
• 3:50
  Okay, so I think 40K is dope, like the, the aesthetic is cool,
• 3:57
  the world is cool. The Lord is dope.
• 4:00
  Right. But it is so primitive.
• 4:03
  Tabletop games in general are pretty good, like prohibitively
• 4:06
  expensive but 40K specifically is extremely expensive Games.
• 4:12
  Workshop does not, can I can I cuss?
• 4:16
  Yeah, I figured yeah, but I'll just said Games.
• 4:19
  Workshop does not fuck around when it comes to like pricing
• 4:23
  and know getting a whole Army together is like hundreds of
• 4:26
  dollars and it's just it's a lot but I think 40 K is sick.
• 4:30
  Don't play. I currently only play one war
• 4:34
  gaming style, tabletop game, which is it's by a really small
• 4:37
  Indie company called black side Studios.
• 4:40
  It's called Don't Look Back. It's like an 80s horror themed.
• 4:44
  You play as like teens and you're running from the Killer
• 4:47
  and it's a super fun War gaming style gesek.
• 4:50
  I'll dice, you know, stuff like that.
• 4:52
  But yeah, it's still 40 days time.
• 4:54
  So if I worked out, if you ever get into 40K, it would you say I
• 4:58
  worked on a 40K games? The first game ever were Done.
• 5:01
  Which, what 40km did you? Work on.
• 5:03
  Is it game called Warhammer, 40K, Dhaka.
• 5:05
  Squadron, it's like a little arkady, like, flight shooter
• 5:10
  with the or yeah. Yeah, it's onsets.
• 5:13
  It's on Steam. That's so sick as the first
• 5:16
  game. But dude, so, before we get into
• 5:19
  gaming horror, obviously your Halloween fan, yes.
• 5:22
  Big fan, not my favorite movie even though you think it is.
• 5:27
  What's your favorite horror flick?
• 5:28
  Evil Dead 2, dead by Dawn. Let's go, baby.
• 5:32
  Absolutely, it's really hard to scam behind me, but I just got
• 5:36
  my Evil Dead. The game collector's edition
• 5:38
  which is this guy right here is the Necronomicon.
• 5:42
  The it's the trick-or-treat Studios one.
• 5:44
  It's still. I really like it.
• 5:46
  Bunch of those collectors. But yeah, Evil Dead 2.
• 5:49
  I got my Evil Dead 2 pillow right there as well.
• 5:53
  I missed out on the collectors edition of that game by like a
• 5:56
  millisecond. I was like, it wasn't my cart.
• 5:59
  I had to go back to work on. Alright, cool like give me like
• 6:02
  two seconds. I'm gonna go to the bathroom to
• 6:04
  take a shit and I was going to check out and I was just like
• 6:07
  nah yeah there weren't there. It was like a thousand and then
• 6:11
  I think I want to say there was like a thousand one addition and
• 6:15
  then I got like the ultimate which came with like the
• 6:18
  soundtrack on vinyl which I haven't actually got yet because
• 6:21
  it got delayed because vinyls all fucked up.
• 6:23
  But yep yeah I like hopped on it because Evil Dead 2 like one of
• 6:28
  the best horror films of all time.
• 6:31
  Well, you will head to the interesting thing is how it
• 6:33
  transitions into Army of Darkness because he will the to,
• 6:36
  if, for those who don't know is, it's basically the reboot of
• 6:40
  you'll Dead one. Yeah.
• 6:42
  It was a licensing issue. Its new line.
• 6:43
  Cinema wouldn't give them the rights to their own movie with
• 6:46
  Evil Dead one. So they like kind of remade it.
• 6:50
  But then like even though the first 15 minutes is a recap of
• 6:54
  the first film, it's really weird.
• 6:56
  It's really fucked up. What?
• 6:58
  Sam Raimi Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi Do but ultimately, it
• 7:02
  works in their benefit because you get Evil Dead 2 into Army of
• 7:05
  Darkness, which Army of Darkness.
• 7:07
  The cool thing was, it had so many different endings prior to
• 7:09
  its release. We're like, just ash was like,
• 7:12
  either completely fucked. He got back home, he was kind of
• 7:16
  fucked or he was just like just stuck and its like the beauty
• 7:20
  behind Sam and Ted Raimi a Campbell.
• 7:24
  It's on Peril and man I got I don't have an evil that clock
• 7:27
  right? Like monitors.
• 7:29
  Like I've so Much you with that shit.
• 7:31
  My wallet is the middle of Beyond Necronomicon.
• 7:35
  Oh yeah. Yeah, de middle whah stuff.
• 7:36
  Super cool. I just nuked it though, man.
• 7:40
  Like, I had it in my work pants. I threw it in the wash and I
• 7:44
  didn't realize I had done that and I pulled my pants out of the
• 7:47
  washing, like, why is my why are my pants heavy?
• 7:51
  I pulled my wallet. I'm like, fuck dude.
• 7:53
  So I fucked up my satanic temple membership card.
• 7:58
  That's fucking wiped. They're not going to just give
• 8:00
  me For free because they want money so bad and then like my
• 8:04
  Evil Dead. While it's fucked.
• 8:05
  It's all fucked. But anyways, so gaming, let's
• 8:08
  just, let's just hop in. Before we have a tendency to,
• 8:12
  like, go off on tangents, okay? Pop it.
• 8:14
  I just love talking about things I love.
• 8:16
  So I get it, dude. So, like, it's going to be the
• 8:20
  quintessential questions to start out with.
• 8:22
  And as I told you, we will wrap it up and we'll just go into
• 8:25
  really deep or shit. But like, what got you into
• 8:28
  first off, metal will it with metal and music in general
• 8:32
  because I was vocalist of a Michigan band.
• 8:35
  And you are still the vocalist of ghost key and we are having a
• 8:39
  dispute of which show we played together.
• 8:41
  I know I played ghost, yeah, we talked one time in Michigan, we
• 8:44
  cannot figure it out. But so like what got you into
• 8:47
  all this, being a musician and also gaming, which you would
• 8:52
  think a synonymous with how it looks nowadays but it wasn't
• 8:55
  back in the day like if you were in like a hardcore metal band
• 8:58
  back in the day, Play in those bands.
• 9:01
  Like you almost had to put on a front of.
• 9:04
  I am only I'm all metal all the time and I'm all hardcore the
• 9:09
  time and I'm not gaming at all. Yeah.
• 9:11
  Right like so like what like got you into all this shit and we'll
• 9:17
  start there. Yeah I mean like honestly it was
• 9:20
  all my dad so my parents were divorced it like a pretty early
• 9:26
  age. I think it was like Five, maybe
• 9:29
  even earlier. My dad's always been a big nerd.
• 9:33
  He was super into video games like right when they dropped,
• 9:37
  you know 2600, what also was super into metal.
• 9:41
  He I mean you look at photos of him, super rebellious dude, in
• 9:45
  his teens like love smoked a cigarette smoke weed.
• 9:49
  Drink a beer is like he pictures of him as a teenager.
• 9:53
  It's like all those movies from like the 70s and 80s or like
• 9:57
  Movies of people in the 70's and 80's.
• 10:00
  It's like that's my dad long hair like the baseball tee
• 10:03
  ripped, acid-wash jeans. And and so yeah, like growing up
• 10:08
  my dad was super into metal, like, some of the first bands I
• 10:11
  remember hearing and like, absorbing or Black Sabbath or
• 10:15
  like Ozzy solo stuff. Dio, Metallica Slayer.
• 10:21
  He was also in a hair metal, which I didn't really think was
• 10:24
  cool. I thought it was kind of whack.
• 10:26
  So you know you're like Motley Crue Cruz Your Guns and Roses
• 10:29
  stuff like that for. I don't know.
• 10:32
  He always like kind of joked that.
• 10:34
  Like for some reason the the like satanic stuff I thought was
• 10:37
  cool but the hair metal stuff because I wasn't like in a
• 10:40
  girls. Like I just I was never that I
• 10:43
  wasn't that like eight year old kid that was like I want to kiss
• 10:45
  girls like I just thought like the devil was cool because it
• 10:48
  was rebellious and whatever. So yeah I just didn't get into
• 10:52
  hair metal for whatever reason. Meanwhile, my mom was like in
• 10:55
  the country and like pop my I'm loves Madonna and stuff, which
• 10:59
  it came up late on my sis. Yeah, definitely got into pop
• 11:03
  later, but same thing with video games, I had a console from
• 11:09
  literally. Like the time I was born and I
• 11:13
  think I've had basically every console like every Main Line
• 11:16
  console it's dropped except the Dreamcast in the Saturn, those,
• 11:20
  the only two that I've never owned played them, but never had
• 11:24
  it in my possession. My dad raised Us online.
• 11:27
  Like the, you know, the original NES and then like the Super
• 11:30
  Nintendo he was definitely more Nintendo for a while and then
• 11:37
  like PlayStation dropped and he kind of Switched.
• 11:40
  So like PS1 PS2 I like some of the earliest games that we
• 11:43
  played together Call of Duty Call of Duty, Big Red One Max
• 11:48
  Payne holy fuck, Max Payne, Max Payne 2.
• 11:52
  I've like a really distinct memory and we could talk more
• 11:55
  about remedy later. Like I'll talk about it forever
• 11:57
  but like A distinct memory of their is like a pretty early.
• 12:02
  I want to say it's like first third of the game in Max Payne.
• 12:07
  I literally just replayed it but you're running through like a
• 12:11
  rundown kind of like crack Den but it's not crack in the game
• 12:15
  it's V and you're like running through and there's like a bunch
• 12:20
  of the V heads and they're like mumbling to themselves.
• 12:22
  It's super creepy and my dad's like running up these steps and
• 12:27
  he goes He's around a corner and a he whips a grenade and it was
• 12:32
  the first remembered like it was the first time of video games
• 12:35
  I'd ever seen, like, actual physics or that I could remember
• 12:39
  because he whips our grenade and the guy goes what the hell?
• 12:42
  And then it dinks off his head and then like blew up and my dad
• 12:46
  was so hyped on it. Be, I like we beat Max Payne
• 12:49
  together, so he kind of Switched the PlayStation, when I don't
• 12:53
  want to say like that's where the more violent games were but
• 12:56
  like I think that's kind of what it was.
• 12:57
  My dad was like your Shield. 88 yeah.
• 13:00
  Yeah, right there. Yeah, he was like, super new
• 13:02
  Shooters and like played a lot of the military games.
• 13:05
  He was super into like, so, common shed.
• 13:07
  So come baby seals. We played like Metal Gear Solid
• 13:11
  Sons of Liberty together for some reason didn't play the
• 13:14
  other ones just Sons of Liberty. And I barely like I know that
• 13:17
  metal gear solid's big and a lot of my friends are into it but it
• 13:21
  was not a Series II. Every Super into, but I played
• 13:24
  actually pretty charged game though.
• 13:27
  Sons of Liberty, if I remember correctly was a fairly like, I
• 13:30
  don't remember sexually-charged, I just remember playing.
• 13:34
  Whoa, I think it's like the first two hours of the game.
• 13:36
  You're on a ship like out in the middle of the ocean.
• 13:39
  Yeah, I remember doing that level with him.
• 13:42
  So yeah, I mean like honestly it was all my dad, my mom is not
• 13:45
  super into like nerd shit. My mom really the only thing
• 13:50
  that like we like heavily share Common interest in is Twin
• 13:54
  Peaks, it was on TV. That's my parents are pretty
• 13:57
  young. I guess that's kind of
• 13:59
  important. My I think my mom and dad are
• 14:03
  both like between 50 and 53. I can't remember their exact age
• 14:07
  right now where the same person were both Children of Divorce.
• 14:10
  Yeah, my parents are in their 50s.
• 14:12
  Are you how old are you? I'm 30.
• 14:15
  Oh yeah, I'm 29. Yeah, fucked up.
• 14:18
  Yeah, so yeah, our parents are young like compared to most
• 14:22
  people because I owe Oh, I still like, I'll say something and
• 14:25
  I'll be like, how old are your parents?
• 14:26
  And I'm like Oh my mom's like, 50 know, like holy shit.
• 14:29
  It's like, oh yeah, I guess she was like 20 when you know, when
• 14:32
  I was born. Yeah, but yeah, she got me into
• 14:35
  Twin Peaks and like, X-Files. That was the other thing.
• 14:37
  Yep, she's watching my mom's fiction, but, you know, it was
• 14:42
  like Primetime TV in the 90s and that's what she was watching.
• 14:46
  And even though Twin Peaks turned out to be like the
• 14:48
  weirdest show in the world, it made sense to her, because it
• 14:51
  was Soap opera, you know, kind of whatever.
• 14:54
  Then you get 2 episode 3 and it's all fucked up.
• 14:56
  But oh yeah yeah she was like yeah super into it.
• 15:00
  I'm like oh that's awesome. But yeah, so nerd shit like all
• 15:03
  my dad from there, like kind of found my way into this stuff.
• 15:07
  He wasn't super into my grandpa kind of helped with horror and
• 15:12
  science fiction. My grandpa was fairly young as
• 15:14
  well. He is not, my dad's dad, my
• 15:18
  Grandma had remarried like twice, she passed away when I I
• 15:22
  was younger like 12 from breast cancer, but my grandpa's, like,
• 15:27
  65, 60, 65. He's pretty young goddamn and my
• 15:36
  dad lived with my grandparents for a really long time.
• 15:39
  And I would always go over there.
• 15:41
  And my grandpa was always watching, like, sci-fi, or we on
• 15:45
  Saturday mornings. We'd watch like, the 90s X-Men
• 15:48
  cartoon. That's a good watch, like the
• 15:51
  spider. A cart like he was pretty into
• 15:53
  superheroes and stuff. So I kind of like gravitated
• 15:56
  towards a lot of that nerd shit because of my grandpa.
• 16:00
  I have an alien background like my grandpa got me into a lot of
• 16:03
  like 20g horror alien Halloween Evil Dead, Texas Chainsaw Puppet
• 16:10
  Master super in off at Master. Holy, fuck crazy series like 10
• 16:17
  movies, the latest was so sick that I haven't seen any of like
• 16:21
  the Newer ones. You need you and you need to
• 16:24
  yeah, it gets so off the wall. But yes.
• 16:26
  Sorry, no no, you're good but I mean yeah, I guess so stoked.
• 16:30
  I definitely like the men in my family, my grandpa and my dad,
• 16:34
  specifically were nerdy in their, in their own aspects.
• 16:38
  So like that's kind of where it all came from.
• 16:41
  See, that's so awesome because like, for me, the only reason I
• 16:45
  am the way I am today is because of my mother's brother.
• 16:49
  My uncle Keith. Yeah.
• 16:50
  My father is straight off the boat from Mania.
• 16:53
  So like and all my family came off the boat from Romania words,
• 16:57
  you like first generation? Yeah, work.
• 16:59
  So like my first language was Romanian than English and so on
• 17:04
  and so forth. So like for them it's you are
• 17:07
  not the men. You have all these things, these
• 17:10
  giant things. Yeah.
• 17:11
  Like for like my uncle, he's like bro, just like what you
• 17:14
  like, I played doom on floppy and like Wolfenstein all of
• 17:19
  that, because of my Uncle Max Payne is also Max Payne.
• 17:24
  Max Payne, Max Payne and Alice American McGee's challenge.
• 17:28
  Yeah, dude, American McGee's. Alice.
• 17:32
  Sorry, I'm glad kidding. Yeah.
• 17:33
  People do not talk about it enough.
• 17:35
  It's so good. Dude, those are the two games
• 17:39
  that in Resident Evil. So, my uncle had a computer in
• 17:41
  my grandmother's basement cause he was, he was, he was on tour
• 17:44
  all the time. My uncle would tour with
• 17:46
  Metallica, Marilyn Manson, all those dudes like a stagehand
• 17:50
  sound for those sound. Okay, you head of sound.
• 17:53
  On all those tours bad. Dude he just Robert Plant was at
• 17:58
  his house, not too long ago. And I showed up and I'm like,
• 18:02
  oh, what's up? He's like dude, that's Robert
• 18:04
  Plant. I'm like he's like I'm like wait
• 18:07
  from LEDs after like bro you need to yeah I was like I gotta
• 18:11
  get the fuck. I was like, what the fuck is he
• 18:13
  doing in? Dearborn Michigan, but I digress
• 18:16
  but yeah, my uncle is the one who got me know, I could still
• 18:19
  remember him booting up, Max, Payne and Alice and all this
• 18:22
  shit has computer and I was like, holy fuck.
• 18:25
  I remember playing doom and that was great and made me the game
• 18:29
  where I am today like f PS and all this but Max Payne and Alice
• 18:33
  for story and Half Life. 4 story is, I was like holy shit.
• 18:37
  Like this is like the entertainment I need and I don't
• 18:40
  want to be a manly man like I'm not a manly man.
• 18:43
  Yeah, just not, I'm a dork dude. So like it's really interesting
• 18:48
  to see like, Two sides of the same coin from both you.
• 18:52
  And I yeah, like, we both each had that influent influential
• 18:56
  mail or just person our life who just like, not brought school.
• 19:00
  Yeah, just just, this is what it's about right here.
• 19:01
  Is have fun. Yeah, but I mean, I played my
• 19:03
  first computer game on my grandpa's computer like yeah, he
• 19:07
  was like kind of a tech guy which sort of LED he didn't
• 19:12
  really play a lot of games, but like he would just buy them
• 19:15
  because a new GPU would come out.
• 19:18
  Like I like a remember. Her him installing like the foo
• 19:21
  do like he throws the voodoo and like the Windows 95 and he would
• 19:27
  just buy games to run it. Like he didn't really play the,
• 19:30
  but I was there so he'd be like, yo, I bought my first game I
• 19:35
  ever played on PC need for sweet, hot pursuit to fuck.
• 19:39
  And he like pops in and he's just like, I just want to see.
• 19:41
  I just want to see it. Do its thing and so here and at
• 19:45
  the time I mean he's I don't know, like 40, 45 years old.
• 19:49
  Like still pretty young and he was just like, yeah, just go at
• 19:52
  it. Like I just want to see.
• 19:54
  I just want to see like the PC do its thing because I felt it
• 19:57
  but I don't know. I'm not really going to play
• 19:58
  this so like I played Need for Speed Hot Pursuit to on PC
• 20:02
  Oddworld. Abe's Oddysee, oh my god dude
• 20:05
  one of my first like one of the first Platformers I fell in love
• 20:09
  with like I had Mario but I didn't really get into Mario
• 20:13
  until later that was more. My dad's thing, something about
• 20:16
  Abe just being like weird as fuck like I was all dark dude.
• 20:19
  Yeah, yeah, like I'm are playing on the PS1 hell is Odyssey on
• 20:23
  the PS1 and then Abe's exoddus. And you know he took a Oddworld
• 20:28
  took a back seat to a lot of shit and then you had a bunch
• 20:31
  and then you get ya Strangers. Wrath, which is super cool
• 20:34
  Rangers wrath was. Yeah, the latest odd world is
• 20:37
  great. I need to play game, haven't
• 20:39
  played it yet. I would they've optimized it.
• 20:42
  There was a level the further you get into it.
• 20:45
  It becomes impossible mode. You just you can't.
• 20:48
  You can't do. Shit and it just fucks you and
• 20:51
  fucks you and then they patched it, I need to go back.
• 20:54
  I also played it when I had covid.
• 20:56
  So I like my brain was like melting.
• 20:58
  I was like, this is so sweet, but I feel like shit dying.
• 21:01
  But yeah, dude, Oddworld I'm so happy.
• 21:04
  You brought that up cause that's another game that just like, I'm
• 21:08
  a weird fucking kid. Experiencing all this weird
• 21:11
  media. That feels like it's made for
• 21:13
  me. Yes, the beauty behind video
• 21:16
  games like you and it's I'm stoked, you know, Cuz like, I
• 21:22
  mean, I'd world was like big at the time.
• 21:24
  It wasn't the biggest thing in the world but like it's
• 21:26
  definitely one of those things where I'm like, damn, I the only
• 21:29
  one that played this. Yes, that's exactly how I felt
• 21:32
  about that. It's exactly how I felt about
• 21:34
  Oddworld. There's a I felt that way about
• 21:37
  Half-Life 2 when I was kid, man. Like yeah, but there's no way
• 21:39
  other people knew about this shit.
• 21:41
  Yeah, but I was cocky though, right?
• 21:42
  I was like ten years old. I'm like, yeah, bro, I'm Gordon
• 21:45
  Freeman. What of it?
• 21:45
  Everyone's like, what the fuck you talking about it.
• 21:47
  And then I look back and runs like I was No everybody plays.
• 21:51
  That looks like shit. One of the biggest games of the
• 21:53
  world. Post-revolution nari shooters
• 21:56
  ever made. So, from all of this though, did
• 22:01
  video games influence, your music?
• 22:04
  Because if you look at my fucking, I'm going to call them
• 22:08
  SP. Yeah.
• 22:10
  Josias ganache Hosea. Yes.
• 22:14
  Heavily influenced by video game.
• 22:16
  Yeah. Ya like you hear that shit you
• 22:19
  hear it? You see it but that's who they
• 22:20
  are for ghost key because I do want to talk about ghosts key
• 22:23
  because again, I'm not gonna be able to catch a ghost key right
• 22:28
  here, changed my life. Yeah.
• 22:30
  Right. Like I've liked go ski since you
• 22:32
  guys came in Michigan. The first time meeting you even
• 22:35
  though that was way back when it was great.
• 22:38
  Awesome, dudes. And now we're talking on a
• 22:40
  podcast. That's just just the power of
• 22:42
  video games and music. Did anything in video games ever
• 22:45
  Inspire anything for go ski. Not really.
• 22:49
  I like I would say, like, kind of buried that habit, like it's
• 22:56
  always been there. I never liked stopped playing
• 22:58
  games but I went through high school.
• 23:03
  The only thing that was cool. My high school.
• 23:05
  As far as like games went was, it was a small group of people
• 23:07
  doing MLG for like, Halo and I riding give a shit about Halo.
• 23:12
  I know it was like the biggest thing at the time, but by that
• 23:15
  time I had built my first PC. That was my own in my room.
• 23:20
  Yeah, I wasn't really playing on a So any more outside of like
• 23:23
  here and there I go to my dad's on the weekends, my dad had like
• 23:26
  the PS2 and the PS3, which I eventually ended up with one but
• 23:32
  I was playing on PC and I was mostly playing single-player
• 23:35
  stuff. Like, I wasn't a big
• 23:37
  multiplayer, dude. I'm inherently not competitive.
• 23:41
  Like, I just really don't care about winning most things.
• 23:45
  Most of the time. So like everybody that was doing
• 23:48
  games at my high school, it was like, yeah, we're playing Halo
• 23:51
  an Xbox. And I was just like ah like
• 23:53
  that's I'm not a fan so I didn't fit in with those kids and I
• 23:58
  definitely didn't fit in with anybody else.
• 24:01
  And I slowly started to gravitate towards hardcore
• 24:03
  because my step brother took me to a few shows.
• 24:08
  One of the first shows I like, remember it kind of clicking.
• 24:13
  I grew up in Peoria Illinois which is where mud doing is from
• 24:16
  so like like that you know, Heavy Music is like a big part
• 24:21
  of My I don't know whatever, like 12 years old on.
• 24:26
  Yeah, it just being around in the town.
• 24:29
  I was in like knowing people that were going to shows and
• 24:31
  stuff I wasn't super allowed to go.
• 24:35
  Like my mom was like not really stoked on the idea of like me
• 24:38
  going to see Mudvayne but I didn't really fit in with like
• 24:44
  The Gamers because it was just Halo.
• 24:47
  So my brother would like take took me to a few shows at the
• 24:51
  legion hall and I saw bleeding through and that I think it was
• 24:54
  under oath one night and then the next night it was bleeding
• 24:57
  through that's and it was just really cool.
• 24:59
  I was probably 14 like fresh into high school, maybe 15.
• 25:07
  I thought under oath is the worst thing I've ever heard
• 25:09
  because it was like old under oath like me.
• 25:12
  Messy chaotic, you know, all over the place.
• 25:15
  There's noise. Yeah, now it's sick.
• 25:17
  Like now, under oath is up there for me, but I didn't make a lot
• 25:21
  of sense to me because I wasn't in a metal core.
• 25:23
  I pretty much was exclusively in the, like, new metal.
• 25:26
  So, then, like, the next night it's bleeding through bleeding,
• 25:29
  through, makes sense to me, because it's just sort of an
• 25:33
  evolution of, like, what I've heard on the radio.
• 25:35
  I mean, because that's really everything I had heard was on
• 25:37
  the radio. It's like I'm listening to like,
• 25:39
  volume 3 by Slipknot I'm listening to Like curved.
• 25:43
  Yeah. Like all that shit and like some
• 25:45
  of those bands to this day. I mean Slipknot probably one of
• 25:48
  my favorite heavy bands of all time but oh yeah, bleeding
• 25:51
  through made sense to me. So I was like alright man, like
• 25:54
  fuck video games like still my thing but I'll just bury it.
• 25:59
  I won't tell anybody like I'm a gamer because like this shit's
• 26:02
  going to get me made fun of. And I started going to shows, I
• 26:08
  actually met my wife, sister at a show.
• 26:12
  And we like started hanging out. She would take me to shows but
• 26:14
  like I didn't wear video game merge.
• 26:17
  I didn't tell people. I was a gamer.
• 26:19
  I have like one or two friends that went to shows that also
• 26:21
  played games, but I definitely like buried it.
• 26:25
  For the most part, I didn't want to be seen as like a nerd.
• 26:27
  I had a like, a lot of trouble fitting in a junior high and
• 26:30
  high school. And so anything that was going
• 26:33
  to get me called out as like being different than the people.
• 26:36
  I was around, was out of the question.
• 26:39
  Like, it was not wasn't gonna happen.
• 26:40
  Yes. Oh yeah.
• 26:41
  I buried that. Shit honestly until I was like
• 26:44
  22 or 23 years old. Like they took a really long
• 26:47
  time for me to just be like this sucks.
• 26:50
  Like this is dumb and then like that I did and of course it's
• 26:54
  like I was an idiot I should have never done that but
• 26:58
  hindsight's dude like high school and like the scene in
• 27:02
  general back then at least because we're literally the same
• 27:05
  age pretty much. So like back then it was like
• 27:08
  one of those things where it's like it wasn't dirty to be a
• 27:11
  gamer man but like to be that gamer in school and then to be
• 27:16
  the gamer at the show, You were just you were just a dork.
• 27:20
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah for sure you weren't the
• 27:23
  cool kid. Wearing a doom?
• 27:24
  Sure. Or an Alan Wake.
• 27:25
  Sure you were. Just fuck that kid.
• 27:28
  We don't, you're not here. You're not sitting with us.
• 27:30
  Yeah. Why would you sit with us like
• 27:32
  seats taken? And it was like, I was like
• 27:34
  young too. I mean these are like I'm like
• 27:37
  15 16 years old. And yeah I'm going to like These
• 27:41
  shows where dudes who are like, 20, 22 23, I like beating the
• 27:46
  shit out of people. Oh yeah, my age because their
• 27:51
  news literally Roman. Yeah.
• 27:52
  Yeah. He's just going, especially like
• 27:54
  the back of the day. The straightedge Cruz.
• 27:57
  Oh man, we had the courage crew. Ratings FSU.
• 28:00
  Oh my God didn't lock. It wasn't too much of curious
• 28:03
  because like Peoria is always been a bit of a Melting Pot
• 28:06
  where like there weren't enough hardcore bands, to just have a
• 28:08
  hardcore scene and there weren't enough metal.
• 28:11
  Just have a metal scene, the one enough indeed I got a mix of all
• 28:13
  those like a mix but like I mean on any given night there'd be
• 28:17
  like pop punk band and then like a straight edge band and then
• 28:22
  yeah like a southern metal band and and it was cool because like
• 28:27
  I got exposed to like a lot of different things that way.
• 28:29
  But yeah, it was like, the straight edge band would play
• 28:33
  and like, people get the shit kicked out of them and then,
• 28:36
  like the pop punk band will play and like the younger people
• 28:38
  would be hide and like, all the older dudes would Like cross
• 28:41
  their arms, and look, bummed on it.
• 28:43
  And then like the metal band would play.
• 28:45
  And then it was like, those dudes were all friends with each
• 28:48
  other, so it's like, oh, everybody came back on.
• 28:49
  Start beating the shit out of each other again.
• 28:52
  Yeah. And it's like, little 16 17.
• 28:54
  Year-old means like, why don't I want to fit in?
• 28:56
  Well, he's pissed. So like, yeah, like, I'm, I'll
• 29:00
  just wear my, like, Slipknot shirt or like my bleeding
• 29:03
  through shirt or whatever. So that they don't think that
• 29:05
  I'm weird and hopefully, I don't get the shit kicked out of me.
• 29:09
  All right. Difficulty right there, I had to
• 29:12
  get up and check on my son. Make sure he wasn't strangling
• 29:14
  himself with a fucking blanket. So it's going to be weird cut in
• 29:17
  the video. The audio will be just fine but
• 29:22
  I know that feeling of like being that kid who just wanted
• 29:25
  to fit in. Yeah yeah and you had to hide
• 29:28
  that part of you and it sucked so fucking bad and I don't want
• 29:35
  to say I was bitter when everybody was coming out of the
• 29:39
  woodwork Does that make sense like everybody was like?
• 29:42
  Yeah, a game or two. And I like this too.
• 29:44
  And I'm like, I mean, I thought, why were you dogged on me?
• 29:47
  I think, you know, as much as, like, hardcore supposed to be
• 29:51
  like, for the weirdos and like, for, you know, for the people
• 29:55
  that didn't fit in like, The like those subcultures are
• 30:01
  weird. Like all subcultures are weird
• 30:03
  and there's always gatekeeping even in like the smallest cell
• 30:07
  culture and like I gotta be honest.
• 30:09
  I think it's a lot better. Nowadays like I it seems way
• 30:13
  more diverse like way more willing to embrace like the
• 30:17
  actual weirdos. Yes.
• 30:19
  But it was weird to sort of see a lot of people all at once
• 30:24
  simultaneously realized that we were just like burying parts of
• 30:27
  ourselves to like Maintain this weird image tough-guy image.
• 30:33
  It's like like I don't I don't know why we did it.
• 30:38
  I mean I do but it's just like young dude.
• 30:40
  Yeah, it's so weird cause like yeah, like now everyone's like
• 30:44
  yeah I'm a fucking weirdo. I like yeah, we all play D&D now
• 30:48
  and like all this shit and I had nobody had any idea.
• 30:52
  It's like man what if we would have just all like decided to
• 30:55
  tell each other at the same time from the get-go?
• 30:58
  Like hey, Like all this shit's cool, like don't worry about it.
• 31:02
  People would have a lot more fucking friends.
• 31:03
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're that would go people have
• 31:05
  a lot more fucking friends. I'm glad it's cool.
• 31:07
  Like, it's like, I'm glad it's over with him.
• 31:09
  We're all just we're about it now but it.
• 31:11
  Oh yeah. But it's not to say that gaming
• 31:14
  itself doesn't have its issues within its own culture or
• 31:18
  subculture. Yeah.
• 31:19
  Because it does, there's toxic toxicity but racism sexism
• 31:27
  abuse. There's a A magnitude of
• 31:29
  bullshit that comes with gaming, as well, much like hardcore,
• 31:33
  were you have these sets of people who are doing terrible
• 31:38
  shit, that aren't getting called out for it, then get called out.
• 31:41
  And then this and that we're not going to go too deep into that.
• 31:45
  But in gaming, there's problems too.
• 31:49
  And let's just talk a little bit about what you actually do in
• 31:52
  the industry because I think that is important for people to
• 31:56
  know a little bit what you actually do.
• 31:58
  Do then, I will continue on with the point.
• 32:01
  I'm trying to get it. Yeah, for sure.
• 32:03
  Yeah, so like I said, I work at Raven software, a triple, A
• 32:07
  video game developer. We currently work on Call of
• 32:12
  Duty but we've worked on a bunch of games that you've probably
• 32:17
  played to be honest. Game.
• 32:18
  Bright some games that like I didn't even realize I had played
• 32:21
  until I started working there and I was like no way we worked
• 32:24
  on that because we're kind of Half-Life game I believe at one
• 32:28
  point. Mcraven did.
• 32:32
  I'm going to ask somebody about that because that one I don't
• 32:34
  know but Soldier of Fortune is like a one kind of a nice title
• 32:39
  that like some people know Citgo.
• 32:41
  Yeah I got it from this man Lions neck.
• 32:43
  Yeah. I got it from a Big Lots.
• 32:47
  If you don't know a Big Lots is like if you're listening to the
• 32:49
  fuck is that. It's like a step above Dollar
• 32:53
  General. You just go there and everything
• 32:56
  is cheap and like it. Yeah.
• 32:58
  But we like yeah or bootleg. And I remember like Soldier of
• 33:03
  Fortune to the box like sick, Big Pete, feel fat PC box.
• 33:08
  Like they were top tight on the five bucks and I was like, I
• 33:12
  mean, I like Shooters, whatever. And I bought it, I like got it
• 33:15
  home. I was, I could have been, I
• 33:17
  don't know, maybe fourteen something like that.
• 33:19
  I just remember, like shooting, dudes.
• 33:21
  I'm like, yeah. Like limbs blowing off and stuff
• 33:24
  and I was like, dude, I had never seen that in a game.
• 33:27
  So I was like, holy shit and I didn't know that was us until I
• 33:30
  like started working there, but I had played Add that, you know,
• 33:32
  forever ago, I worked on like a couple Star Wars games that a
• 33:37
  lot of people played. We worked on the Wolverine game
• 33:40
  which I think is one of the dopest superhero games of all
• 33:43
  time. Fuck, yes.
• 33:44
  The only superhero game that is like, what would actually happen
• 33:48
  if a superhero whooped ass because like, it's wicked vile.
• 33:52
  I mean, like Wolverine, especially right?
• 33:54
  You always get these like depictions of him where he's
• 33:56
  like, slicing people, but there's no blood.
• 33:58
  And it's like, bro has adamantium in his And it is
• 34:02
  literally like been through your flesh would be dead.
• 34:05
  Yeah, like I mean like we got the Old Man, Logan movie.
• 34:10
  That's like the only time you've ever seen him.
• 34:11
  Be that violent, other than the Wolverine game where you are
• 34:15
  straight like ripping through people put in your closet
• 34:18
  through their face. It's dope.
• 34:19
  Great game if you haven't played it, we made that.
• 34:23
  But yeah, now we do Call of Duty, which is, I mean, huge
• 34:27
  obviously it's like one of the, if not the biggest title in all
• 34:31
  of video games and I'm a community manager.
• 34:35
  So I primarily work on Warzone. I technically a The manager for
• 34:40
  Raven software, but given that our main focus is war zone.
• 34:44
  That's 99% of my day-to-day Community.
• 34:49
  Manager is sort of all-encompassing job.
• 34:53
  It's a little bit of social media, it's a little bit of
• 34:56
  moderation. It's a little bit of
• 34:58
  copywriting. I do, you know, writing here and
• 35:01
  therefore different things like patch notes.
• 35:03
  It, it sort of just changes day to day.
• 35:07
  It's like, it's a really tough job to explain to people
• 35:09
  because, like, a lot of people think it's just social media, or
• 35:13
  it's like just moderation or what, but it's like anything
• 35:18
  that Community touches, anything that is player facing and Way
• 35:23
  like, it comes across my desk in one way or another, whether I
• 35:26
  worked on it or like approved it or had a discussion about it.
• 35:31
  So I do a lot of different things every day, which is
• 35:37
  really cool. It's like, literally, every day
• 35:39
  I login, I could do something completely different which is
• 35:41
  super entertaining. And like as somebody who's kind
• 35:45
  of scatterbrained and like a little chaotic, it works to my
• 35:48
  strengths because it's not like just the same Anonymous thing
• 35:52
  every single day. It changes.
• 35:53
  His minutes a minute. So my brain is like, always just
• 35:56
  firing on all cylinders, so it's literally never dull.
• 35:59
  You're always trying to do a new challenge.
• 36:02
  Yeah. There's always over new channel.
• 36:03
  As always a problem to solve, like there's always a wall to
• 36:07
  climb light, like, it doesn't matter.
• 36:09
  Yeah. Like you said a challenge,
• 36:10
  there's always like a new challenge every day.
• 36:14
  It also can be like, extremely difficult because it is player
• 36:18
  facing a lot of the time you'll see across our industry like
• 36:23
  Community managers usually are really public that's like you'll
• 36:27
  see like Destiny to you can find the community manager for
• 36:32
  Destiny to posting about Destiny, right?
• 36:35
  We don't do that as much mostly because I think that that's a
• 36:40
  thing that's sort of like we're trending away from in the
• 36:43
  industry and that we should try and away from because I think
• 36:49
  like, I've had my Twitter account for, I don't know, like
• 36:52
  a decade. Yeah, I don't want my Twitter
• 36:55
  account to be like the Call of Duty Twitter account, that makes
• 36:58
  sense like your observation of you and work, right?
• 37:02
  Exactly. Yeah, like, I'm me, I'm Not Just
• 37:05
  Call of Duty guy. So like, you know, from time to
• 37:08
  time, I tweet about something because I'll be stoked.
• 37:10
  Like an update will drop or like I'll be hyped on a play that I
• 37:14
  got or whatever. I just interact with the
• 37:16
  community here in there because Something cool.
• 37:18
  But it's something that I think we're turning away from an
• 37:21
  industry because people were really value like work-life
• 37:26
  balance and I don't want to be Call of Duty 24/7, especially
• 37:30
  because I've had that Twitter account for a decade like my
• 37:33
  friends. Follow me and said, like, they
• 37:35
  don't give a shit some of them do they don't want to see you as
• 37:37
  me. Someone message me every day and
• 37:38
  they're like, hey bro, Call of Duty Call of Duty but most of my
• 37:42
  friends are like they just want to know what Austin's doing.
• 37:44
  You know what's awesome working on this week is he putting out
• 37:46
  new music Or is he skating this week and he's got some clips you
• 37:50
  want, you know. It's like so I don't really post
• 37:53
  on my personal account a lot but I get I get hyped about Call of
• 37:59
  Duty on there every once in a while.
• 38:00
  So there's definitely like a separation where Raven software
• 38:04
  does all of this stuff now and it's really healthy because it
• 38:10
  can be a really taxing job. People still will seek me out on
• 38:14
  the internet and like try to blame me for Every issue they're
• 38:18
  having, you know, they don't like a gun, the way that it is
• 38:23
  or they don't like a certain challenge or what like literally
• 38:26
  anything you can think of somebody's like found me and I
• 38:30
  keep my messages on request. So like people don't know if
• 38:33
  I've seen the message or not. Yeah, I allowed EMS because some
• 38:38
  people have something they want to share with me.
• 38:40
  That I think is dope or that, maybe I should know about and I
• 38:43
  want to respond to him. I don't want to like, cut people
• 38:46
  off because like I love People and I love communication
• 38:49
  obviously I wouldn't like come on a podcast but I didn't just
• 38:52
  tell of like shooting the shit. I never want to like cut myself
• 38:56
  off from somebody. But it does give me sort of like
• 38:59
  a level of protection where I can like read it.
• 39:01
  If it's just like overly toxic. You know, people are weird, the
• 39:05
  likes I've had people send me death threats, then it's just
• 39:09
  like Oh They'll Never Know. I read this.
• 39:10
  I'll just like delete that shit and move on and not to say that
• 39:13
  it's still not taxing to like get that from strangers but it
• 39:17
  Like offer me a level of protection, which is really
• 39:20
  nice, right? Yeah, it's taxing man.
• 39:23
  It's a hard job. I love it.
• 39:24
  I love it so much, but it can be really difficult.
• 39:28
  So that's what we were talking about.
• 39:30
  Hardcore metal and then going into the community of gaming and
• 39:35
  how it can be. Toxic it can be Taxing.
• 39:40
  These Gamers can be very opinionated.
• 39:43
  They could be very volatile, people are in distress, but
• 39:48
  passionate in quote, passion, passionate and quiet would be
• 39:52
  very passionate. And I think a lot of people lose
• 39:56
  sight of You are human? Yeah, yeah.
• 40:00
  You're all humans working on something that we all love.
• 40:04
  We all want. I wish people understood that
• 40:08
  but they don't. So how do you overcome that?
• 40:13
  As like someone is working in the industry.
• 40:16
  Yeah. Some days.
• 40:17
  I don't like like just being, you know, Frank and honest is
• 40:22
  like some days. I do not.
• 40:24
  Write kid good. Yeah, I saw I saw the headphone
• 40:27
  I saw we're doing. Yeah.
• 40:29
  No. I'm just making sure.
• 40:31
  Yeah, yeah, some days. I don't like some days that
• 40:33
  honestly can be a little, like, a little soul-crushing because
• 40:37
  it's like, damn. I really just want people to
• 40:39
  understand that. Like, I'm just a dude and I'm
• 40:43
  doing Bess and like, you may not think it's enough.
• 40:46
  Like you may have an opinion about the way I do or don't do
• 40:50
  my job and like, you know, I am not going to tell you Cam and
• 40:53
  opinion, but yeah to like comment humans is like super
• 40:57
  weird and like just like scream at them.
• 41:00
  A shout at them because I think the thing like even the worst
• 41:05
  game in the world, like whatever that game is, you know, because
• 41:09
  like if I say that there's like a game that might come to mind
• 41:12
  for Buddy, whatever that is for you like somebody still worked
• 41:17
  really hard on it like exactly they even if it's like it wasn't
• 41:21
  their dream project, most people don't especially in an industry
• 41:25
  like games where like you don't get paid super well.
• 41:29
  Like just to be honest, most people you could go into any
• 41:33
  other form of software development and make
• 41:37
  exponentially more than you could making games.
• 41:40
  It's not as cool, you know, it doesn't fulfill that sort of
• 41:43
  artistic value that most people have, and that's why people
• 41:45
  stick around rival will take pay cuts or, you know, they won't
• 41:49
  move out of the industry because they love that part of it.
• 41:54
  Those people don't want to make something bad, nobody shows up
• 41:57
  and it's just like, yeah, I'm going to show up today and just
• 42:00
  make total shit right exact, because if they were going to do
• 42:03
  that, they would just go to the software like they would just go
• 42:06
  to an industry. That pays them more money if
• 42:09
  they like, To make really didn't give a shit about their job.
• 42:13
  They would just go somewhere that pays them more because then
• 42:15
  they could not give a shit and get paid good money which would
• 42:19
  be sickly. So yeah, it's always liked it
• 42:22
  and I know that like some people don't care, they're just like, I
• 42:24
  don't care. I just want to scream at
• 42:25
  somebody that's just the internet, you know.
• 42:27
  Like some people are just looking for some time.
• 42:29
  Go shouting. Yeah, fucked.
• 42:32
  But most days. I do, I am able to mostly brush
• 42:36
  it off. Like, I'm just like, man, that's
• 42:38
  wack whatever. But like, I also get to remember
• 42:43
  that I'm in a position that a lot of people would like truly
• 42:48
  fight tooth and nail for and absolutely, I get to affect like
• 42:53
  hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people on a daily
• 42:56
  basis, like people just get to login and like play and because,
• 43:01
  you know, there's always like people who don't, they don't
• 43:03
  read anything, I don't give a shit about social media, they
• 43:07
  don't read patch notes, they don't know that this gun got
• 43:11
  They're this thing, did that or what?
• 43:12
  It like, they literally just like my little brother all the
• 43:15
  time. He's like, I don't even know you
• 43:16
  change anything. He just logs in and plays.
• 43:19
  And I, it's really easy to forget that, that person exists,
• 43:22
  and that person is just there. Just stoked to have a thing to
• 43:24
  play. They just login play Smile on
• 43:27
  their face, log out. They'll play tomorrow and I,
• 43:31
  that helps like I remind myself. I'm like, damn that person.
• 43:34
  Just logs in every day, has a good ass time, and then like
• 43:37
  they're just going to do the same thing tomorrow and that's
• 43:39
  it. Well that's what gaming used to
• 43:42
  be like it still is that right? Like there is still I would say
• 43:45
  a majority players. Still just play games online.
• 43:49
  Single-player whatever. Um, oh yeah, just because it's
• 43:53
  like, hey man. That's just what I love is.
• 43:54
  What I'm doing. This is who I am and I'm stoked.
• 43:58
  Yes, there's rough times in every game.
• 44:00
  Let's not pretend that every most games that come out
• 44:03
  nowadays is specially with the current state of the industry.
• 44:08
  Buyouts and mergers and shitty people.
• 44:11
  Getting raised losing their job. Like games are delayed, there is
• 44:16
  issues. Games are getting pushed out
• 44:18
  before, they are ready to come out of the oven.
• 44:21
  Let's not pretend, but Still man, like just like loading up
• 44:26
  for me, man, just like, loading something up and playing it even
• 44:29
  if it's fucked, right? From the get go, I will always
• 44:32
  in my head, go might be fucked, but I guarantee I'll find some
• 44:36
  sort of way to have fun with this.
• 44:37
  I never am I attack somebody go fuck you and I and not even like
• 44:43
  like I don't tell myself I need to be that way.
• 44:45
  I don't know what it is. All my friends, know me as just
• 44:48
  the dude that likes everything I could play like something that
• 44:53
  by all accounts. It's people's is like this.
• 44:55
  Game is dog shit. And I'll be like, man, I had a
• 44:56
  really good time with this. Like, I'll see a movie that
• 44:59
  everyone is like that movie was dog shit.
• 45:01
  And I'll be like morbius. I haven't see, I actually didn't
• 45:04
  see that not because everyone talk shit.
• 45:06
  I just like kind of missed it but I guarantee you I watch that
• 45:09
  movie on my God. That's fine.
• 45:11
  Like I'm gonna incriminate myself smile.
• 45:13
  Look about Finds Its on Twitch, all right?
• 45:15
  Oh yeah, I saw dudes people been like looping it for her because
• 45:19
  it's like a meme. So like yeah so I watched it and
• 45:22
  I was like Okay, it's not great, but Jared Leto is, Michael,
• 45:29
  morbius is kind of sick. I got, I've been through, he's
• 45:34
  not that bad. I hate germs but like, I heard
• 45:38
  he's a douche. Yeah, I'm kind of weirded out
• 45:41
  by, like the whole, like, cult thing with golfing on this
• 45:43
  little island thing. Yeah, that's like, kind of
• 45:45
  weird. I'm not really down with that,
• 45:47
  no, but when they cast him, I was like, you know what?
• 45:50
  For all the terrible castings. I feel like he's been I kind of
• 45:55
  yeah like I kind of get it for Michael Morgan little bit and
• 46:00
  then yeah it was like everyone's are awesome worst movie ever
• 46:03
  made and I was like got a sequel look man I watch Rubber and I
• 46:07
  love that movie Rubber was sick okay but it that movie are bad
• 46:12
  it's bath but it's not the room bad?
• 46:15
  Yeah dude. I've seen the room more than any
• 46:17
  other bad movie ever. I am know.
• 46:19
  What about Tommy? Yeah, she's great me too.
• 46:22
  I got And the room Blu-ray behind me, Tommy asked what my
• 46:29
  name was. He was like, what do you?
• 46:31
  I can't do his weird-ass. He says he's from North
• 46:33
  Carolina. He's not from like I look at
• 46:35
  polling. Yeah, it's from pole.
• 46:37
  Is like what do you want me to ride on it?
• 46:39
  And I'm like you just like write my name and like to Austin from
• 46:43
  Tommy or something and he was like, okay and he asked me how
• 46:46
  to spell my name. I spelled it out to him.
• 46:49
  He wrote on the disk love Tommy that's it.
• 46:53
  Not my name. Name not to me.
• 46:55
  He I specifically spelled out every letter and he looked like
• 47:01
  he was right. He hands it to me.
• 47:02
  Just as love Tommy. And he goes, ha ha have a good
• 47:05
  night and dude. So, awesome.
• 47:11
  The room played at the Royal Oak Music about.
• 47:13
  He's there Roy Look movie theater over here in Michigan
• 47:16
  and we were just chilling. And we went me my buddy's house.
• 47:20
  Just walk through the lobby and it's just this small, dude.
• 47:24
  She's not that. Yeah, it was like a wet small
• 47:28
  fucking guy with like, 1,000 belts out.
• 47:30
  Yes, he had a saint. I don't know why.
• 47:33
  Did I was like, is he wearing sunglasses at night?
• 47:35
  Yeah, dude. Yeah, like because he thought he
• 47:38
  liked flip them up. You looking at fuck he look like
• 47:41
  more bees. Motherfucker look like morbius.
• 47:44
  I'm like, Tommy. He's like ha ha.
• 47:47
  Yes, yes dude. He's literally the coolest
• 47:50
  character ever do it, but he's embraced it.
• 47:54
  Anyways, back, I'm literally looking.
• 47:55
  I have a bobblehead that's sitting over here.
• 47:58
  Also, signed by him, that's so sad.
• 48:01
  I bought new underwear, dude. You are crazy.
• 48:04
  Didn't I bought like the banana hammock on?
• 48:07
  Yes and I put them on. I came home and my wife is like
• 48:10
  you're a fucking moron, that looks Terrible on you because
• 48:14
  like I'm a chubby. You guys will like Muffin Top.
• 48:16
  Yeah. I mean she's like she's like I
• 48:18
  like that. You're chubby Zach Galifianakis,
• 48:20
  kinda like that looks bad and I was like, yeah, I'm gonna go
• 48:24
  change. So how much were those like 40
• 48:26
  bucks? She's like, dumbass get out.
• 48:27
  My fucking face was like this sucks, dude.
• 48:30
  But anyways, fuck you. Tommy wiseau's.
• 48:35
  He's, it's perfect to be sidetracked by that, man.
• 48:38
  Yeah, so Speaking of a bit more on the industry and your job,
• 48:42
  specifically, what led you to want to get into the industry
• 48:47
  and take this job. And then from there we'll just
• 48:50
  talk about the industry to really wrap the episode up and
• 48:54
  we'll just put a bow on it. Yeah, right there.
• 48:56
  But what led you to this job? And what where do you also like,
• 49:01
  where do you see yourself in the industry down the road because
• 49:07
  Community manager, big position but it's you have aspirations
• 49:11
  for anything else within the industry.
• 49:12
  Yeah, I mean, honestly, I didn't know that I was gonna work on
• 49:19
  games. I mean like every kid that plays
• 49:21
  games, like I wouldn't work on video games someday.
• 49:24
  But like generally that's I want to quote unquote, make games
• 49:28
  that's like what most kids say. And that's sort of a general
• 49:31
  idea of Like programming or art or whatever.
• 49:36
  Yeah, I never thought I didn't even really think about like the
• 49:41
  communication side of games until like 2013 2014.
• 49:47
  And I mean, to be fair it's it's more of a modern position, you
• 49:49
  know, when we were kids. Like there wasn't social media
• 49:53
  really there wasn't Community managers like press releases,
• 49:59
  pretty much exclusively happened in magazines.
• 50:01
  So like right. Companies had PR people, but it
• 50:05
  was like a lot of times it's like a third party or it's just
• 50:07
  one guy, it wasn't an apartment, you know, it's like one guy
• 50:11
  sending press releases so like IGN and PC Gamer and Gamespot
• 50:14
  like all those people. But like yeah, there wasn't a
• 50:17
  Communications Department. So I didn't it was never an
• 50:20
  aspiration as a kid. It was more of just like a, I
• 50:23
  don't know what I want to do. When I grow up, games are cool,
• 50:27
  but I didn't take it seriously at all until like, 20. 15.
• 50:35
  I was touring. I we toured like pretty much
• 50:38
  full time from like 2013 2 probably 2018 2019 shut up
• 50:48
  pandemic but also just like being a band is really hard?
• 50:52
  Yes, not easy. Yeah.
• 50:53
  So we were on tour. I had met a guy named Chris who
• 51:00
  at the time was working on a game called paragon.
• 51:03
  It's now, shut down was the first multi-player game that I
• 51:06
  ever, like, truly fell in love with and played a bunch.
• 51:09
  It was a for people that don't know.
• 51:11
  It was epics game before Fortnight like, literally
• 51:16
  exactly. Before Fortnight, and then 49
• 51:18
  came out right after it was a 3D MOBA.
• 51:21
  I don't like mobas. I played Heroes of newerth which
• 51:24
  is kind of vintage for the League of Legends fans.
• 51:28
  Like it was, which one's going to win heroes are legal Legends.
• 51:32
  And then, yeah, League. Obviously, one Heroes.
• 51:34
  Just shut down recently. I played Heroes a little bit.
• 51:38
  I played League very briefly but didn't really care about mobas
• 51:44
  and then I played Paragon because it was in beta was like,
• 51:47
  free on PC and it was like, holy shit.
• 51:50
  I love third person shooters and then it mixes this kind of cool
• 51:54
  strategy thing. It's because I just don't like
• 51:56
  league and stuff because I I don't like that style.
• 51:59
  Again, the top down, clicking everyone attention, span won't
• 52:02
  work. It's just not for me but it's
• 52:04
  like, oh, you're you take 3D third-person shooter mechanics,
• 52:08
  that's way more interesting. And so I got super into Paragon.
• 52:12
  I like tweeted about it. I think for the band account
• 52:15
  because I used to just tweet, I mean, I still tweet dumb shit
• 52:17
  from there, but like I think I just tweeted like, if anybody
• 52:20
  wants to play Paragon, you know, we should do that because like,
• 52:25
  our whole thing, when we were touring all the time was Who
• 52:29
  gives a shit about being like, professional.
• 52:31
  We really just want to be friends with people because
• 52:33
  yeah. Like music was never supposed to
• 52:35
  be our full-time job and I mean it wasn't we didn't get paid but
• 52:39
  it was never intended to be more than just like we were playing
• 52:43
  local shows. So we didn't really give a shit
• 52:45
  about being professional and we were just like yeah who wants to
• 52:47
  be friends? So we were like, yo here's our
• 52:49
  Paragon usernames. If anybody plays this game and
• 52:53
  their Community manager, was it, dude that played in a band that
• 52:56
  was on facedown records. And we had played a show with
• 53:01
  them. They were called a Dallas, they
• 53:02
  were like a rock band. And he like tweeted at our bank
• 53:06
  account was like, yo, you guys play this game and I was like,
• 53:09
  yeah, it's sick. And he was like, DM me?
• 53:11
  And I DM him and we started talking back and forth and he's
• 53:14
  like, yeah, like I'm a community manager on this, we played a
• 53:16
  show together before. If you guys ever want to play
• 53:20
  like hit me up and then I can't remember exactly how it
• 53:26
  happened, but at the time we were managed by my friend,
• 53:31
  Taylor who played in the metalcore band, Beartooth, he
• 53:33
  doesn't now, but he did at the time and we had done a tour with
• 53:36
  them and Chris reached out to him and was like, yo, you and
• 53:41
  Austin should fly down to Epic Outlook all-inclusive will pay
• 53:46
  for your flights just like come down.
• 53:49
  Hang out for the day. Do we did like It was like they
• 53:54
  did like a weekly update episodes, so it was just like a
• 53:57
  video, they'd sit down talk about like what was in the patch
• 54:01
  that we and then they would sometimes have guests never
• 54:05
  music dudes. And that was his whole thing was
• 54:07
  we're going to try this. We normally have like guests
• 54:09
  from gaming come down, you Esports people and stuff like
• 54:12
  that. He was like, but this is my
• 54:14
  world, I'm from music. So I'm going to have these guys
• 54:16
  come down and we flew down. That's cool as shit I've ever
• 54:19
  done in my life, like I get on a I mean, I'm like, This I lived
• 54:23
  in Chicago at the time but I'm just like this kid from the
• 54:25
  Midwest never done anything outside of touring.
• 54:29
  That was like even remotely cool and I'm like, getting on a free
• 54:33
  flight to Epic Games. You know, it's like I know what
• 54:37
  epic games is, you know? It's like this is Gears of War
• 54:40
  epic games. Like, I'm freaking out, we got
• 54:43
  down there super like one of the dopest days I've ever had and at
• 54:47
  the end of the the day, he was like taking us on a final walk
• 54:52
  through the building. Because I mean we got to see
• 54:54
  like everything at Epic and that's so fucking.
• 54:57
  Yeah, so sick, dude. Like, seriously life changing
• 55:00
  for more than one reason and he and I are having a conversation
• 55:05
  while my friend Taylor because epic did robbery call for Oculus
• 55:13
  and they have like a little, they had like a little VR test
• 55:16
  station because it was like VR was still kind of new and like
• 55:19
  the Oculus had just come out. So they had like a little VR
• 55:22
  test station and and Taylor is doing the Oculus trial, which he
• 55:27
  later got really sick from because he didn't know he was
• 55:30
  kind of motion sick from, but we're sitting there talking and
• 55:35
  he was just like, are you gonna do you think you're going to
• 55:37
  tour forever and I'll Chris from epic and I was like, I don't
• 55:42
  know, like that's a weird question and he was like I just
• 55:46
  don't like I'm gonna be honest I just don't see it and I was like
• 55:52
  Damn dude. My getting called out right now.
• 55:54
  He is in like I was like, what do you mean?
• 55:55
  Like do you just like my band sucks or like what's going on?
• 55:59
  Are you saying, bro? And and he was just like, no, I
• 56:03
  just I just don't think that's what you're supposed to do.
• 56:07
  And I was like, damn damn and and he's just like this B.
• 56:12
  Seriously the nicest you in the world, biggest smile on his face
• 56:16
  and this is a dude that I had known.
• 56:20
  I don't know, like a month, two months.
• 56:22
  And we'd had conversations and like I mean, I'll call anyone a
• 56:26
  friend after honestly, like a conversation.
• 56:28
  So like I consider us friends this point and he said that and
• 56:33
  it just like hit me, like, that's Charlie to the core and I
• 56:39
  kind of buried it. Thought about it for years.
• 56:43
  And then 2019 happened. We were like exhausted.
• 56:48
  We were Rogue. We, I mean like if anybody knows
• 56:54
  what playing music is like, it's a fucking journey and it is
• 56:57
  exhausting. And we were just it sucks.
• 56:59
  Yeah. Just fun.
• 57:01
  But it sucks. We were tapped out.
• 57:02
  Like most people's bank accounts are like floating is zero and
• 57:08
  and it had been seven. Eight years to record labels to
• 57:12
  full length records. And I mean there, I could get
• 57:18
  into it but like it's We just felt like the music industry was
• 57:22
  fucked and it is like, it really is.
• 57:24
  It's one of most heartbreaking, things you'll ever realize.
• 57:26
  Yeah. You start a band to go play
• 57:28
  music but then you realize your music that you're creating
• 57:33
  everyone is enjoying but they don't enjoy.
• 57:36
  So therefore politics plays in. Yeah you go on tour.
• 57:39
  You meet more politics. You get fucked and you're
• 57:42
  supposed to take it and smile. Yeah.
• 57:44
  I just not about the money. I hate.
• 57:47
  I think it's this sucks. It's honestly.
• 57:50
  After after being in the games industry for like two and a
• 57:54
  half, almost three years, I can confidently say that the music
• 57:57
  industry is way more toxic I think because it's smaller and
• 58:02
  so the toxicity is more tight-knit.
• 58:05
  Like it's way easier for because the games industry has a small
• 58:08
  have a people have a grip on it. Yeah the games industry is small
• 58:11
  and like everybody knows everybody but like in music it's
• 58:15
  so small that it's really easy to keep people out and it's just
• 58:19
  Toxic, and I hate it. And I'm super glad I'm done with
• 58:22
  it because, like, now I just play music for fun, and that's
• 58:24
  the dopest way to do it. Yeah, yeah, 2019 were burned
• 58:28
  out. We're done were over it and I
• 58:30
  was like, man, I guess I get a real job now.
• 58:33
  Like, I don't know what to do and my friend, Chris, who I'd
• 58:39
  played shows with, he plays like a super cool band, he He worked
• 58:46
  at a small studio in Chicago called phosphor, they had had a
• 58:50
  couple of hits with some like early VR titles like a 30-person
• 58:55
  studio. Still indeed not owned by
• 58:57
  anybody and he knew that I wasn't touring all the time.
• 59:01
  And he was just like, hey man, if you're like interested you
• 59:04
  can apply. Maybe I can get you a cue a gig
• 59:07
  because like there's only two people right now, we're maybe
• 59:11
  looking to get like two more people.
• 59:13
  I was like f uck. It might as well, you know,
• 59:15
  shoot my shot. Applied January 2020.
• 59:19
  I get the job. It's my first game job ever.
• 59:22
  I'm working Q&A in an indie Studio.
• 59:24
  That as much as I loved working there, it's like falling apart
• 59:28
  like yeah financially. I mean, an indie studio is
• 59:33
  you're doing the same thing. A small band is it doesn't
• 59:35
  matter if you've been successful.
• 59:36
  Like every day is a struggle because you're trying to survive
• 59:41
  in an industry that Is just not friendly for a small Studios.
• 59:45
  And so, like, they're struggling financially, which I could kind
• 59:48
  of tell, but I'm just like, kind of berry in that fear.
• 59:51
  It's like, this is my first job. I just, I'm just happy to be
• 59:54
  here. Pandemic happens.
• 59:57
  I get sent home. And we're work from home for
• 1:00:01
  like, three weeks laid off and I was like, damn, that's it.
• 1:00:06
  I worked on games or three months, I'm out like no more
• 1:00:10
  industry job shits. It's just With and I didn't have
• 1:00:14
  a job for, like, two months. I applied everywhere and I found
• 1:00:19
  Raven just like through a Google Search and I was like, it's just
• 1:00:22
  over the border and Wisconsin I lived in Chicago, you know is
• 1:00:26
  like two hours away and I figured fuck it.
• 1:00:28
  Why not? I might as well.
• 1:00:28
  Try got an interview, got the job, got my foot in the door.
• 1:00:34
  and then, the, the communications position opened
• 1:00:36
  up and You know, I thought about all that shit that Chris told me
• 1:00:40
  he was just like, you know, you because basically what it what
• 1:00:43
  he told me at the time was you should be a community manager
• 1:00:46
  because you're already doing that.
• 1:00:47
  Like, that's what you're doing. You're on social media, or your
• 1:00:52
  banding with these people. You're you're giving them a
• 1:00:55
  reason to give a shit about what you're doing.
• 1:00:57
  You just got, you know, you just move that to video games.
• 1:00:59
  And so I put all that shit on a resume and I applied internally
• 1:01:05
  and I got, I mean, I got to be - it's a lot of it is luck.
• 1:01:09
  Like it was, it was definitely like will take a chance on you
• 1:01:13
  because you're already here and we'll see how it goes.
• 1:01:17
  And like, I'm not fired yet. So like I'm doing pretty good.
• 1:01:22
  Like I still have a job. It's been over a year and you
• 1:01:26
  know, I've learned a lot still is always something else to
• 1:01:29
  learn. But I mean, getting into the
• 1:01:31
  industry is tough. I am never one of those people.
• 1:01:35
  That's like I worked really hard because I don't Leave in that,
• 1:01:38
  like, I believe that hard work matters.
• 1:01:42
  Yeah, but I also I don't believe that anybody just does anything
• 1:01:46
  on their own, like I just think that's bullshit and that's like
• 1:01:49
  something that is told to people to like, I don't know.
• 1:01:52
  You pushes you I guess in your head that like, I just have to
• 1:01:56
  work harder and I'll get there and it's like, no you work hard.
• 1:02:00
  And then eventually hopefully you get an opportunity to show.
• 1:02:05
  Somebody will see you and go ho belong with us.
• 1:02:08
  You get lucky in the right person.
• 1:02:09
  Sees that hard work and they're like, alright?
• 1:02:12
  I'll give you a shot but like, so would you recommend it?
• 1:02:14
  Then? Would you recommend, I mean to
• 1:02:17
  somebody out there, listening, right now, whose dream was your
• 1:02:20
  dream. Yes and no especially like it's
• 1:02:27
  tough, right? Because like you see all these
• 1:02:29
  stories everywhere you go you're reminded that like the games
• 1:02:33
  industry is super toxic especially for like marginalized
• 1:02:37
  people, you know? Like if you're a woman, you're
• 1:02:40
  fucking terrified, you see, you see like all this stuff going on
• 1:02:43
  tires like, oh my God, like that's why would I ever want to
• 1:02:45
  work there or you know you're a person of color.
• 1:02:47
  You know what the fuck like that place is not for me, but right.
• 1:02:52
  If you're willing to take a chance and try to find somewhere
• 1:02:56
  that will actually treat you the way that you deserve to be
• 1:02:58
  treated, I think especially those people should should get
• 1:03:03
  in, because like, that's how you make it better.
• 1:03:05
  Like I'm not saying the burden is on women or on people of
• 1:03:09
  color do making make the industry better but like when
• 1:03:13
  it's a bunch of white dudes who like run right, everything a
• 1:03:17
  fucking course, it caters to like a bunch of white like rich
• 1:03:21
  white, dudes. So right, you know, you get
• 1:03:23
  those people in the door and then like they can like they're
• 1:03:26
  like your fucking here and we're going to do something so like
• 1:03:28
  we're gonna change this shit. Yeah.
• 1:03:30
  If you're like dead-ass passionate about getting in and
• 1:03:32
  like making the industry as a whole a better place and also
• 1:03:36
  making cool shit than like. Hell yeah.
• 1:03:39
  But also I would never ever put that burden on anyone because
• 1:03:42
  that's a lot. Take on like some people just
• 1:03:44
  want to go to work and do their job and I respect that because
• 1:03:48
  some days I just want to go to work and do my job.
• 1:03:50
  But yeah, I think like the industry has a lot of growing up
• 1:03:55
  to do. It's still very young to like I
• 1:03:57
  think people forget that it's the youngest entertainment
• 1:03:59
  industry by a mile that it's got a lot of growing up to do.
• 1:04:03
  But it needs the right people to like, cultivate that change and
• 1:04:08
  that growth and people speaking up and speaking out, like doing
• 1:04:11
  the right thing and it's Getting there.
• 1:04:13
  Like I see, I see it every Growing Pains.
• 1:04:15
  Yeah, yeah. I see it every day and it's
• 1:04:17
  like, it gets better and better, but if changing an industry for
• 1:04:22
  the better is something you're passionate about while also
• 1:04:24
  making cool shit. Then like, yeah, definitely.
• 1:04:26
  Or if you just want to go to work every day, then like it
• 1:04:29
  might be really fucking hard to do that, to be honest.
• 1:04:32
  Right. No, speaking on the industry
• 1:04:36
  still because you're not at work.
• 1:04:38
  We're not going to make you feel like you're at work.
• 1:04:39
  But what we're gonna do is if you're cool with it, talking
• 1:04:43
  about the industry, before to wrap up the show to me.
• 1:04:47
  What I'm seeing right now with the industry is a trend of
• 1:04:50
  delays. Like I've said which in my
• 1:04:53
  opinion, a delay. All right, take it.
• 1:04:55
  Easy peach. That was such a good cat that
• 1:04:58
  she is huge. Dude.
• 1:05:05
  There's there's delays which again for me personally, I'd
• 1:05:08
  rather a game be delayed, then rushed.
• 1:05:11
  Yeah. And people need to understand
• 1:05:12
  that a delays, honestly, it can be bad, but it's not at least.
• 1:05:17
  It's usually means it's, am I right?
• 1:05:19
  Shigeru Miyamoto. Yes.
• 1:05:22
  What Zelda? Well, he says that a delayed
• 1:05:27
  game can eventually be great, but a rush game will never be
• 1:05:29
  good. Something like that.
• 1:05:31
  I'm paraphrasing. But it's something to that
• 1:05:33
  effect, which she's absolutely correct.
• 1:05:36
  And I don't know what that cats about to do.
• 1:05:37
  It could be a nightmare behind me in a second thing.
• 1:05:40
  Is she 17 pounds? So she's fucked up, she's fun,
• 1:05:45
  she's doing her thing. But With delays, and these
• 1:05:51
  Acquisitions from Microsoft and Sony and all this.
• 1:05:57
  I'm seeing not only, that was AAA itself ND, when you look at
• 1:06:02
  Indy, these motherfuckers are pumping shit out, and they're
• 1:06:06
  not pumping shit out. It's good quality games.
• 1:06:09
  You are seeing the Indie Studios, rise to the top.
• 1:06:13
  And in my opinion they have to in lieu of a lot of traveling
• 1:06:17
  seriously dropping the ball. Yeah, no.
• 1:06:22
  I mean, I just think that the in d.c. do is really have to rise.
• 1:06:26
  In lieu of what the AAA studios are doing, and I'm totally
• 1:06:29
  curious what you have to say right now.
• 1:06:30
  So my theory on Indie Studios, obviously there's a for every
• 1:06:35
  like one big hit. There's like a million games
• 1:06:38
  that don't do well from Indie Studios.
• 1:06:40
  Correct. My most recent that comes to
• 1:06:43
  mind. It's like a banger right now.
• 1:06:44
  V Rising. It's like the up in the Darling.
• 1:06:48
  Vampire, crafting survival! Open world.
• 1:06:50
  Vampire. Diablo.
• 1:06:51
  Yeah, like with crafting and survival.
• 1:06:54
  It's fucking wild. Great game.
• 1:06:55
  I've been And it a bunch but I think the reason that indie
• 1:07:00
  games that do hit like super polished and and they blow up
• 1:07:05
  because they're so polished. AAA games.
• 1:07:10
  Have a name like they've convinced themselves.
• 1:07:14
  They have to mark it for two years before something comes
• 1:07:17
  out. And I always think back to
• 1:07:20
  Fallout 4, I think it was Fallout 4 where it was like
• 1:07:24
  announced in November or something and it came out like
• 1:07:28
  six months later like day it was I was that Fallout 4.
• 1:07:31
  It might have been like middle that it was a Bethesda title.
• 1:07:34
  I can't remember specifically which one but I remember it was
• 1:07:37
  like it wasn't November. It was announced.
• 1:07:40
  In the summer at E3 and then three, four, five months later
• 1:07:44
  it came out in like November and may have been Fallout 4 and 76.
• 1:07:49
  Maybe this isn't the best example because like their games
• 1:07:52
  are so huge. Everyone's like all they have so
• 1:07:54
  many bugs, it's like well those games are incomprehensibly
• 1:07:57
  large. Yes.
• 1:07:59
  Like I'm not a, I'm not a chauffeur Bethesda, but like as
• 1:08:03
  somebody who has worked on games, like I will defend them a
• 1:08:06
  little bit, just a little, not a lot.
• 1:08:09
  There are some inexcusable Todd offered, but love you, I love
• 1:08:13
  you but it's same time. Yeah, like but like that's I
• 1:08:17
  think what we should be doing and that's what indie games do.
• 1:08:20
  Indie games are like I'm at work on this shit quietly for like
• 1:08:24
  six years and then when I'm about ready to come out like
• 1:08:29
  three months cycle like I'm gonna announce that shit 3.
• 1:08:32
  It's not always like there are some indie games.
• 1:08:34
  Like there's a cool Trend where Though, like tweet about the
• 1:08:38
  game forever, like, they'll just like constantly update it.
• 1:08:43
  But yeah, there's no like Big Marketing push.
• 1:08:45
  It's just like a guy's Twitter account who's like, oh, this
• 1:08:48
  week, I'm like implementing AI or what?
• 1:08:50
  A, that's pretty cool too. For like the really dirty people
• 1:08:52
  but I mean, yeah, like V Rising it.
• 1:08:55
  Got an ounce like two years ago, kind of, but not there wasn't a
• 1:08:59
  big marketing push. It was just like, yes thing
• 1:09:01
  exists and then when it what it does come out, you know, there
• 1:09:06
  was never a like a word delaying because they never said when it
• 1:09:08
  was coming out, they were just like this thing exists and it'll
• 1:09:12
  be out when we're ready and then see ya.
• 1:09:13
  When we see ya and then when it's ready, it's an early access
• 1:09:17
  and it's like the most polished game I've ever played it since
• 1:09:20
  you the same. So like I would love to see the
• 1:09:23
  trend be like we just said now shit when it's ready instead of
• 1:09:27
  cyberpunk saying seven years ago, that it's coming soon as
• 1:09:32
  like, dude, nobody needs that like This is not necessary.
• 1:09:35
  Just tell me when you're in pushed and pushed and pushed
• 1:09:39
  though that was cyberpunk, the problem is I see the problem
• 1:09:42
  being the community and I see the problem being the people,
• 1:09:46
  the top, because the communities, here's a release
• 1:09:49
  date. Okay, guys.
• 1:09:51
  Listen, it's Fox. We can't put it out.
• 1:09:53
  Promised us. You want us to work on it.
• 1:09:55
  Okay, cool. Let's push it back.
• 1:09:58
  Alright, here's the next release date.
• 1:09:59
  They shot themselves in the foot.
• 1:10:01
  They just released after releasing a release date, and
• 1:10:03
  then So people are pissed, right?
• 1:10:05
  And then the people that operate the investors and everyone up
• 1:10:08
  the tops like you have to put something out something so
• 1:10:11
  fucked that Sony will take you off the store.
• 1:10:15
  Yeah as somebody who is not an Executives and doesn't I don't
• 1:10:19
  make millions of dollars a year. So I can say this.
• 1:10:25
  I think the worst thing that ever happened to like probably
• 1:10:30
  companies but like video games specifically is Is companies
• 1:10:34
  being public and being beholding, the shareholders.
• 1:10:37
  Yeah, I recognize the games cost money and they cost like this
• 1:10:41
  point, like millions and millions and millions of
• 1:10:43
  dollars, but I'm not responsible for solving that problem.
• 1:10:46
  So, I can just say that I think money in general, is like the
• 1:10:50
  worst thing to ever happen to Art.
• 1:10:52
  But, like, specifically being beholden to like a group of
• 1:10:55
  people who don't care or understand the art of video
• 1:11:00
  games and like, they're just expecting a payout thing.
• 1:11:03
  It's a We're seeing that's a wrap and the games, but I don't
• 1:11:08
  make, I don't make money decisions.
• 1:11:10
  So I can say that because I don't have to solve the money
• 1:11:13
  problem. Like, I, you know, I have so not
• 1:11:15
  trying to get you in trouble on this podcast with your job.
• 1:11:19
  I do that. I mean II.
• 1:11:20
  Think most people feel that way, most people agree with that.
• 1:11:23
  Yeah. But you got these fat old white
• 1:11:26
  dudes at the top going product. Where is product?
• 1:11:29
  Where is product? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:11:31
  Right. And of course, I feel that way
• 1:11:33
  too. That's what.
• 1:11:34
  Yeah, but it's so fun not just but like, no.
• 1:11:38
  That's the reason you invest in a company is to make money.
• 1:11:41
  Then like, yeah, you're like, give me give me the money.
• 1:11:45
  Well, how evident to me, is it not only in their games, right?
• 1:11:48
  But then you look at a lot of these companies, merchandise, or
• 1:11:51
  said games, like obviously for me like remedy if she like that
• 1:11:56
  great merchandise. Great shape.
• 1:11:59
  If you have no idea, the fancy moves, I'm wearing a shirt.
• 1:12:04
  And I have three remedy posters in the background, which are so
• 1:12:08
  beautiful beautifully spaced perfectly to, from what I
• 1:12:10
  measure them, a measure like I did.
• 1:12:13
  So, the initial plan was this, makes no sense for people who
• 1:12:17
  are listening, but I have a bunch of other stuff to add.
• 1:12:22
  So the self these little ones in between are supposed to connect.
• 1:12:27
  T', the the posters. So this is an Alan Wake poster
• 1:12:30
  in between is control a photo of Alan's face and then a photo of
• 1:12:36
  the cabin, which directly relates to control because they
• 1:12:41
  take place in the same universe and then I have an Alex Casey
• 1:12:46
  document from control. Who is Alice?
• 1:12:49
  Casey is Max Payne. When Alan Wake writes the book.
• 1:12:53
  So I was going to put that in between these two but that's now
• 1:12:56
  I'm Moving. So I've that project is on hold,
• 1:13:00
  that's done. You can save it for the next
• 1:13:01
  house. Exactly?
• 1:13:02
  Yeah. But yeah, I'm kind of this is
• 1:13:05
  like all my nerd shit about remedy.
• 1:13:07
  It's like, it's too much. I'm a shill for valve again and
• 1:13:12
  I don't say it proudly. I don't say it probably because
• 1:13:14
  they are on my shit list with everything that they do.
• 1:13:18
  But what I was saying though is, it's never more evident that the
• 1:13:23
  people who should be pushing aren't able to push, Shhhh
• 1:13:27
  because with video game merchandise back in the early
• 1:13:29
  2000s, the 90s shit was fucking insane.
• 1:13:32
  Oh yeah, every special edition you got in the special dish and
• 1:13:36
  had a special edition and it wasn't a thousand dollars, just
• 1:13:40
  like the shirts were sick and you don't see it anymore and
• 1:13:44
  then people bitch about Bootleggers.
• 1:13:46
  It is weird as he might do. You notice how like Bootleggers
• 1:13:50
  put out sick merch, right? Like, that's that's like up why
• 1:13:53
  that stuff sells as well? It does, it's so weird to me.
• 1:13:57
  When? There are people at companies
• 1:14:01
  who like their whole thing is like they just want to make
• 1:14:03
  money. What are you doing?
• 1:14:06
  Put out simmer check merch. Put it people one of your logo
• 1:14:10
  on a shirt. What are you doing?
• 1:14:12
  Like I've never a big boxes. Make big boxes, you have to have
• 1:14:17
  disc in it, just put fucking codes and that I have never in
• 1:14:21
  my life, wanted more than for companies to go back to at least
• 1:14:24
  putting out a limited edition like PC big box, PC gets screwed
• 1:14:29
  so hard on like special editions and it like, even if it isn't
• 1:14:34
  physical and you don't put out an actual disc, like you're
• 1:14:36
  saying, because like I have the, I have remedy, the quantum break
• 1:14:41
  Timeless Edition, which is it was, they're like little special
• 1:14:44
  edition. Yeah, games on discs, I get it
• 1:14:47
  man. There's like nine CDs in there
• 1:14:51
  or nine DVDs because like games are so big now.
• 1:14:54
  So, like, Half-Life shit. I got back there had a bunch of
• 1:14:57
  disks to. Yeah.
• 1:14:58
  So like I get it if you don't want to put it on physical
• 1:15:00
  media, but like, I mean, even in like 2010 2011, when they were
• 1:15:04
  starting to get too big, you just use the disk as, like a
• 1:15:07
  validator. I just want it because it looks
• 1:15:09
  cool man. Just give it drop a fucking
• 1:15:11
  piece of paper in there bro. Yeah, but give me scheme of the
• 1:15:14
  box. I got doomed to.
• 1:15:16
  I got a bunch of shit rack there, but like just give me the
• 1:15:19
  Box, the big, beautiful chunky box, not a clamshell, I don't
• 1:15:23
  fuck with that. Would give me the nice cardboard
• 1:15:26
  box and just drop piece of paper in the yep.
• 1:15:28
  With a steam code with like a manual.
• 1:15:29
  Give me a manual at least. Yeah, yeah, yeah. 100% like not
• 1:15:33
  even like a die-hard collector but like they're just there are
• 1:15:37
  some games where it's like I love this enough that I want a
• 1:15:40
  physical representation of it. It's a part of preservation
• 1:15:43
  though. To I'm like with you take the
• 1:15:44
  shit that you have. And like preservation is also
• 1:15:47
  important in the industry. And that's like with wadda wadda
• 1:15:51
  is trash. It sucks that what I didn't know
• 1:15:53
  about this? I think maybe you tweeted at me
• 1:15:56
  about this but I tweeted a Visa goes like kind of want to get
• 1:15:59
  like a graded copy of like Max Payne and like all these other,
• 1:16:02
  like remedy titles just to have, like, the sealed.
• 1:16:05
  You know, never open which is really cool.
• 1:16:08
  Yeah. But then everyone was like, yo
• 1:16:09
  don't like water is bad and I was like oh what's up?
• 1:16:12
  Literally the next day? The Water lawsuit.
• 1:16:15
  Gets announced and I was like, oh, this is bad.
• 1:16:18
  This is a really bad thing, so it's so not good.
• 1:16:21
  The plastic case for out, like skip the grading but
• 1:16:25
  presentation, find it on eBay. Yeah, I've seen a couple Max
• 1:16:29
  Payne, big boxes on eBay with the mouse pad inside.
• 1:16:31
  Dude, like 100, 150 bucks. That's a couple times that's
• 1:16:34
  been my Grail. They pop up every once in a
• 1:16:37
  while, when I don't have the money from, but yeah, getting
• 1:16:41
  getting the box with the mouse pad is very difficult to do.
• 1:16:45
  I will venmo you, bro. We'll go halfsies, it'll be
• 1:16:48
  yours what? But I will help you out there.
• 1:16:49
  That custody it just ship it at Michigan here and there, and
• 1:16:53
  then you just ship it back. Yeah, it's gonna be a
• 1:16:55
  problematic child when it grows up.
• 1:16:58
  Fuck, dude. Well, we've been going for an
• 1:17:00
  hour and 20 minutes and I don't think this conversation is close
• 1:17:06
  to being done when it comes to the industry and just what we
• 1:17:09
  love in general. Yeah.
• 1:17:10
  So what I'm proposing is because I also had to check up on my son
• 1:17:14
  because he's trying to kill him. Self is that we do a part two to
• 1:17:17
  this episode. If you are cool with that you
• 1:17:19
  come back to wasd show I would love to.
• 1:17:21
  Yeah. 100%. Do I like I said at the
• 1:17:24
  beginning my issue is that I could talk about stuff.
• 1:17:27
  I love forever so you say, I am 100%.
• 1:17:32
  Well, let's tell everybody where they can find you, what you are
• 1:17:36
  currently doing what you're working on when it comes to
• 1:17:38
  Twitch. Maybe some ghost quiche, it
• 1:17:40
  maybe some from the Shelf. Shit.
• 1:17:42
  Let's just figure out what Austin's doing.
• 1:17:45
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:17:46
  So we need to talk about. It hurts a little bit.
• 1:17:50
  So I'm gonna plug from the Shelf because I please there's there's
• 1:17:55
  there's a little part of me that like the spark is still there.
• 1:17:59
  I used to run a podcast where we would talk about game.
• 1:18:01
  Eames. We used to talk about the
• 1:18:03
  history of games and like how things were made.
• 1:18:07
  Then we did one episode where we just talked about how much we
• 1:18:10
  liked games and some of the stuff and everyone was like
• 1:18:12
  that's the best episode you ever did.
• 1:18:14
  And somebody at a show recently brought it up to me, they were
• 1:18:17
  like hey man I love your music but I liked your podcast more
• 1:18:22
  and I was like that's sick. So yeah, used to run a podcast
• 1:18:26
  called from the Shelf you can follow us.
• 1:18:28
  We're on all social media. If you just look up from the pot
• 1:18:31
  from the shell, Games. I'm not saying it's coming back,
• 1:18:34
  but I'm not saying it's not. I also play metalcore under the
• 1:18:40
  moniker, go ski with for my best friends.
• 1:18:44
  If you like music, the talks about mental health and politics
• 1:18:47
  and the state of the world and what it's like to exist, that's
• 1:18:52
  where you can find all that stuff.
• 1:18:54
  I do stream on Twitch. Sometimes it's not like a
• 1:18:57
  priority for me these days, it's more just a fun thing I do.
• 1:19:00
  I really like showing off Like indie horror games, especially
• 1:19:04
  games that are made by one person.
• 1:19:06
  That's like a really popular theme that I do.
• 1:19:10
  That's a ob same thing on Twitter and Facebook.
• 1:19:13
  The Facebook people use Facebook.
• 1:19:16
  I don't think so Twitter and Instagram is this a ob u iy?
• 1:19:21
  O HB e. Yeah and then I work on games.
• 1:19:26
  So every time a Call of Duty war zone patch comes out, you can be
• 1:19:30
  mad at me about it. You can be psyched about it
• 1:19:33
  because I had a very, very small hand in helping that thing, get
• 1:19:38
  out the door, and it's a really exciting part of 40 hours of my
• 1:19:42
  week. So yeah.
• 1:19:44
  Well please don't be a shithead to Austin.
• 1:19:47
  Austin as a great dude. And everybody if you could tweet
• 1:19:50
  out hashtag bring back from the Shelf that'd be sick.
• 1:19:55
  Let's make that fucking happen. Even if you're not a fan of my
• 1:19:58
  showing your listing because Austin's on the show, tweet that
• 1:20:01
  out, make That happen at that show needs to come back when
• 1:20:03
  they'll be a C4 started. We actually bumped into your
• 1:20:06
  show first. Yeah, I remember you guys think
• 1:20:08
  I'm anything at us? Yep, I was trying to figure out
• 1:20:10
  like, okay, like, how do I structure wasd?
• 1:20:13
  I listened to from, from the Shelf podcast and I was like,
• 1:20:16
  okay be a bit more free like, don't don't structure too hard
• 1:20:22
  and that's like what when I was listening to your show.
• 1:20:24
  I was like just have fun. Stop being an asshole like
• 1:20:26
  Doctrine to put a suit and tie on.
• 1:20:28
  Yeah you can podcast me. That's all it was for us is just
• 1:20:31
  like Nick is like one of the funniest people I've ever met
• 1:20:34
  and I was just like, I just want to talk about games for like an
• 1:20:36
  hour every week and he's really funny and also likes games.
• 1:20:40
  So that's why we did it. And yeah, honestly man, it's
• 1:20:43
  been like it sucks not having it because it was like one of my
• 1:20:47
  favorite parts of my week. So it's it definitely is not
• 1:20:51
  dead it's it is a sleeping. Whatever you want to call.
• 1:20:56
  I don't know. It's a sleeping building giant
• 1:20:58
  sleeping giant. There you go.
• 1:20:59
  Shout out to a metal core of the Christian metalcore sleeping
• 1:21:02
  giant but yeah, I want to bring it back for sure.
• 1:21:07
  I just we gotta I gotta figure out plus, I gotta talk to Nick
• 1:21:10
  because he's the other half of it.
• 1:21:13
  Well, hash tag bring back from the Shelf.
• 1:21:15
  Podcast is a thing. I'm launching it right now.
• 1:21:18
  So come Friday. Yeah man.
• 1:21:21
  Should be sure to check out Austin.
• 1:21:22
  I'm gonna have all those links in the about on this Episode.
• 1:21:26
  I'll make sure I plugging you the entire week up till Friday.
• 1:21:30
  Don't forget to check out our sponsors.
• 1:21:33
  Check out Austin. You just heard from him.
• 1:21:35
  The entire hour and 30 minutes and check us out.
• 1:21:38
  If you dig us, leave us a rating checks on an Apple Spotify.
• 1:21:42
  All that cool shit. YouTube, check out the entire
• 1:21:45
  spawn Camp Network. You got us, you got the Diggity
• 1:21:48
  podcast for video game news. You got build Bros for anime and
• 1:21:52
  gunpla and you got wasd for me. Getting Drunk as shit with Evan
• 1:21:57
  talking about video games. And usually, Just going off on
• 1:22:00
  tangents. Thank you guys, for pop it on
• 1:22:03
  the episode. Thank you, Austin for hopping on
• 1:22:05
  to talk to us. It's been a great episode.
• 1:22:08
  I'm stoked to have you do it. Yeah thank you so much.
• 1:22:10
  I had a blast. So until next until next week
• 1:22:14
  guys take it easy. Be safe and I'm sure you guys
• 1:22:17
  are here from Austin again on the show.
• 1:22:19
  Take it easy, everybody. This is the wasd.
• 1:22:29
  D & Beyond podcast.