Latest / Archons Corner / Reflections on the Keyforge State of the Union Address

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Reflections on the Keyforge State of the Union Address · Archons Corner

• 0:00
  Welcome to you. Hello, this is Josh with Ghost Galaxy and you're listening
• 0:15
  to the podcast The Dreams of Electric Sheep are guns Corner. But what's going
• 0:21
  on? Everybody? I am the one, the only, the w oh
• 0:23
  okay I e joint here. We have nobody in the audience today. Guys?
• 0:27
  Is that right before Thanksgiving? Yeah? And it's yeah. We didn't
• 0:31
  announce we were recording. You did normally when we like do an off cycle,
• 0:35
  we'll get like four. We put some emojis in the chat. Maybe
• 0:39
  the gifts. I'm going there full full jiff. There was there was one
• 0:44
  person, but they ran away quickly once they saw I didn't know who that
• 0:48
  was. But happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating stateside. So I think what we
• 0:55
  should do. We should go around the horn, starting with Sheep and have
• 1:00
  one thing for key Forge of what we're thankful for key Forge friends, aw
• 1:07
  aw dress a key Forge thing. That's what we're talking about. Something that
• 1:18
  you love that you know worked out really well for us preaching. Yeah,
• 1:26
  I'm gonna go with uh. The opportunity to see so many folks at KFC,
• 1:34
  the fact that it worked out even though I had a business trip that
• 1:38
  I sent me halfway across the world. I was still able to get there
• 1:44
  and have a great time and and yeah, yeah, time of gratitude,
• 1:53
  KFC. We had our first World championship, boys and girls. I am
• 1:59
  so thankful for that. It happened five years, but it happened five years.
• 2:07
  I'm thankful that stole another idea from me. You wookie, stop,
• 2:17
  you cannot use sarcasm. It's all I know. I am. I'm really
• 2:24
  I'm sorry that I am better looking than you and you're you know, it's
• 2:30
  not an appropriate apology in my classroom or here. We're apologizing now. No,
• 2:36
  no, no, we're not apologizing. But I mean you have to
• 2:38
  be sincere with what you're thankful for. Listen, I'm very sincere. My
• 2:44
  stamp will forever be on this game. What good or bad? I mean,
• 2:49
  alliance is here and everyone hates me for it, so you know what
• 2:54
  the right word. Yeah I am. I'm not disappointed. I am disappo.
• 3:00
  I thought it'd be cooler. Yeah, it's like you know, dry
• 3:05
  cleaned, it comes back, it's still there. Yeah, I mean I
• 3:09
  tried. That's what counts, right, That's what I was always taking sure,
• 3:14
  trying is what really matters. But we also have a wonderful segment.
• 3:20
  Oh and there goes our segment. He just left. I take this segment.
• 3:28
  I was literally going into the wone should be my neighbor's segment for ewok,
• 3:30
  and he just laughed his because Peter crashers up of him. Maybe I
• 3:36
  think that was a mic that just dropped on the ground. If you heard
• 3:38
  that, that was definitely maybe we'll give him. Oh, there he is,
• 3:43
  So you're back just in time for your segment. I just needed to
• 3:50
  go hout to balance my whole computer. I'm I'm grateful for technology and being
• 3:53
  able to quickly get back in after that complete failure because I was literally going.
• 3:58
  I was like, it's time to go, and you're just gone,
• 4:00
  and I'm like, well, there going our segment. Yeah, no I
• 4:05
  had. I had a little screen of death there. So I'm thankful for
• 4:09
  technology. What won't you be my neighbor? I have to say that this
• 4:15
  week it goes out to our own Peter Griffin. That's not his name,
• 4:21
  Peter, but I'm pretty sure his last name was not. All right,
• 4:27
  but now you are never coming back? Okay, okay, okay, but
• 4:32
  we in all seriousness, we had a local who showed up. Who surprises.
• 4:39
  I mean, we had a different plan that was in place that we
• 4:40
  were going to be able to run, but we actually had after advertising,
• 4:44
  after working with the store, after the store losing our product, after the
• 4:48
  store going ahead and hiding some product, we had someone. It was prizes,
• 4:54
  but we had someone come out and it was it was great to see.
• 4:57
  So we have to have we have to celebrate those small victories. And
• 5:00
  won't you be My neighbor goes to Peter because he dealt with us. I
• 5:02
  mean, he dealt with Sydney and he dealt with dealt with mister perfect.
• 5:08
  Shitty tokens, Hey, tokens are allowed. You can you you too can
• 5:15
  fill up your gas tank and have tokens for keyfors at the same time with
• 5:20
  change. No, it was I just like it to be said that this
• 5:25
  week they were out of woe. Thought of the goodness of my heart.
• 5:29
  I bought a two players starter set to get some wow decks, which looking
• 5:32
  back, I shouldn't have done. And I was like, I can give
• 5:35
  the tokens to mister Perfect, maybe he doesn't have any being the good person
• 5:41
  that the Wookie is right, And then he goes No. I that's the
• 5:45
  first word I think of when I think of Yeah, definitely your wants on
• 5:49
  somebody else. Yeah, yeah, good person. Probably why I backfired for
• 5:54
  you. I'm just gonna be a host. We all got to start somewhere,
• 5:57
  right, And this was my contribution to the world this week to only
• 6:01
  find out, No, he's got plenty of tokens, he just doesn't like
• 6:03
  them. M Hey. In our game, it is it is very cash
• 6:10
  and you can bring tokens as long as we you can bring the cash as
• 6:14
  your tokens. Next week, I'm playing with singles. Are we playing are
• 6:20
  we playing Anti? Or is this just singles to notify what's happening? That
• 6:26
  would be an interesting key forge concept. ANTI like you because if you lose
• 6:30
  your deck's toast, then me remember the old days of magic, were you
• 6:34
  actually anti the card? The old days that nobody actually did Yeah, yeah
• 6:41
  I never did it. All it all that there was was just like you
• 6:46
  know, there was a lot of talk about how some guy took like that
• 6:51
  card where like you flip it and it touches all the cards. Yeah yeah,
• 6:58
  yeah, some guy like tore it up in the tiny p is't through
• 7:00
  like Confetti. Yep, sorry everything number one, that's a myth. Number
• 7:04
  two, it didn't inspire another card called Chaos Confetti later on. Mmmm,
• 7:10
  this was I was I was young at the time when this story was going
• 7:14
  around. I I didn't know if it was true or not. And that's
• 7:15
  what they made. That's why they made the giant Chaos Orb, like the
• 7:18
  really oversized card. It was. It was good, which which I know
• 7:24
  we are totally off my segment of won't you be my neighbor? But that
• 7:28
  was one of the concepts. Would that not be cool to have a big
• 7:31
  giant card of just one of our keyforged cards. Now, hey, Garbo
• 7:41
  a right car, you're a little more receptive lately, we need to have
• 7:46
  a giant card like yeah, like you do you remember the old Chaos Orb
• 7:50
  like it was just a giant oversized card. Have you have you seen have
• 7:56
  you seen any of the oversized cards for Pokemon or for Magic or for any
• 8:00
  their cards? So we say oversized, how big are we talking? Well,
• 8:03
  okay, so like not bigger than the Pokemon one because the Pokemon ones
• 8:07
  are oversized and they're kind of good at all. You're not helping him at
• 8:11
  all, Like three inches? Yeah, or is it sixty? I suggest
• 8:16
  use an Yeah, it's about a sheet of paper, is what I remember?
• 8:20
  Okay, okay, see I could say with like some poster size situation
• 8:26
  like hanging out on your wall. See I don't I don't want ife angry
• 8:30
  at you. You know, no ewok wants something that he has no way
• 8:33
  to carry with him to take anywhere because they fit in absolutely nothing. Hold
• 8:39
  on, hold on, hold on better yet, this is on the spot.
• 8:41
  Are you guys ready? Because Loca Car, I mean Loka Car is
• 8:43
  up in the corner right now and he loves his flat keys. Can we
• 8:48
  get three giant oversized cards? But they will be keys that we can Oh
• 8:54
  No, No, Number one, that man plays with paper ember and a
• 8:58
  drys. So what I'm finding is change our paper. It is a problem.
• 9:05
  Number one. Change is not a reasonable source of tokens. It's totally
• 9:11
  acceptable as long as you know it's damage or amber listens. Like I told
• 9:18
  you guys, next week, I'm just I'm going to buy dice and I'm
• 9:20
  going to have a QR code. You have to scan to figure out what
• 9:24
  all my dice numbers mean. Each like each side is a QR code.
• 9:28
  Yeah, Well, no, each each no, each side of my dice
• 9:31
  is going to mean something different, like a two will be a ward,
• 9:33
  a one will be a damage, six will be a stun. And I'm
• 9:41
  gonna have a QR code that you have to scan with your phone because and
• 9:43
  the rules all it says I have to have is we have to both understand
• 9:48
  what they mean. Well, I mean you can look it up on your
• 9:50
  phone anytime you want if I give you a QR code, okay. Can
• 9:54
  we put that as a rule segment for Marcus and g Is that okay?
• 9:58
  If we use dice with different numbers, I mean dice are unallowed anymore.
• 10:03
  So like the number three means one damage, we couldn't very well. This
• 10:11
  sounds like a terrible idea. It is a horrible idea. It always to
• 10:16
  Yes, it is to pick on our poor friend Jason, who is using
• 10:22
  three tokens to represent everything in the game. And it's it's humorous because I
• 10:26
  can mostly keep track of it, and it drives these other guys absolutely bonkers,
• 10:30
  not just me, which is justus because I never know what's going on
• 10:35
  because I can't keep control of my own. Boy, you gotta pay attention
• 10:41
  at key Forde in front of his heart. I just want to call shadows
• 10:46
  and steal all your ember and win the game. Well, in this case,
• 10:50
  you're stealing actual money. Yeah, I'm gonna just start keeping them.
• 10:54
  I'm actually just gonna start keeping his pennies. Be like, ah, now
• 10:58
  you can't choose your pennies. No more seeing of a bad penny. Someone
• 11:03
  just jumped into our chat. Hello, jam So nice to see my Canadian
• 11:09
  friend. Ah but did we Yeah? So Peter Griffin, I mean what
• 11:16
  Okay, So our segment was won't you be my neighbor? It was actually
• 11:18
  really good to see a new body out. It's it's blood, But this
• 11:24
  returning Blood was our first person to actually come to an event, And so
• 11:28
  all of that time and effort that's been put in to create the events to
• 11:31
  be able to be their weekend week out for a very long period of time
• 11:35
  did finally have some payoff. It wasn't for someone brand new to key Forge,
• 11:39
  but it was someone who had experience, who actually had funded the game
• 11:43
  found campaign for that had to have been woe from what I'd seen at the
• 11:48
  mats, But someone who had key Forge experience and was still interested. So
• 11:52
  again those lagging or returning players. It was good. It was good to
• 11:56
  be able to see. Yeah. So I am, of course on damn
• 12:00
  near exactly the opposite end of this situation. Great having a new player,
• 12:05
  depressing that we have been playing at a store for eleven months. How long
• 12:13
  have we've been playing there now? Well, so, I mean we had
• 12:16
  been there in January. We did leave and not make it a day and
• 12:22
  not make it a weekly moment, and that was mid February to like mid
• 12:26
  March April because we had no product. We didn't have any products, and
• 12:31
  so that was a real issue. But once we got into late April,
• 12:35
  we were back and we've been there ever since we can. So we have
• 12:39
  been playing non stops once April. And the biggest conversation I had with this
• 12:46
  gentleman is like, well, how did you find out we were doing something?
• 12:48
  Which is they finally put it on their calendar at the store. So
• 12:50
  our six months of constant showing up and playing has paid off in that regard.
• 12:56
  Well, reridiculus frustrating that the only way we were able to finally because
• 13:05
  we've posted on every Keyfarde related discord, every key Forge Facebook group for Wisconsin
• 13:13
  that we know of, but those don't work because those are all Facebook junko
• 13:18
  formed, which means you post something in there and it doesn't show up to
• 13:22
  half the members in the group. Well, not only that, you got
• 13:24
  to be in a keyfardge for in the page to actually they got so.
• 13:30
  Yes, the only place we have to reach out to find key Forge players
• 13:33
  right now are places that are only full of active Keyfarde players. I hate
• 13:37
  he responded to my only fans account. Oh goodness, no, that's like,
• 13:43
  hey, I know that he paid to not have to see anymore.
• 13:48
  So so on a completely different topic to steer this derailed train. I'm still
• 13:54
  on my thing, like there is no way still to try to reach players.
• 14:01
  There's nothing going on, there are no tools, there's just absolutely nothing
• 14:05
  to try to reach these last players, Like how do they You talk to
• 14:09
  these people and some of them when you meet people are coming back around.
• 14:11
  They don't even know what Alliance is because it didn't get to them. How
• 14:16
  are lass players supposed to come back when they don't even know there's something going
• 14:20
  on. So what I'm hearing you say, sheep to redirect this is that
• 14:26
  we want to have a game finder. No, and they can't find keyforging
• 14:33
  dot com because it's not on f FG. If they went there, they
• 14:37
  theory, no alliance is a thing because once you're there, it's not that
• 14:39
  hard to click around. But nobody can even find that, like unless they
• 14:48
  actively go to Google and type in key forge, which I don't even know
• 14:50
  what you get if you type in keyforde. I'm going to assume it finds
• 14:54
  keyforging dot com. The good times, something else came up. Mine immediately
• 15:01
  goes to it's the Master Yeah, it's it's key forge games. Then key
• 15:09
  Forging, so it goes to the Master ballt which is particular. I guess
• 15:18
  there is the game up in the corner, which then gets you to key
• 15:20
  Forging. Well, hold on dot com is I guess this is? This
• 15:31
  is for like physical keyboard key I was gonna say, because the biggest thing
• 15:33
  you gotta do is you have to go into somebody else's profile, not yours,
• 15:39
  because Google tends to learn your learn your stuff. I'm gonna go,
• 15:46
  Yeah, but I went to my kids typed in key forge and the master
• 15:54
  bault is the first one that shows up. Nope, I'm sorry, So
• 15:56
  the first one i'd see it's the first one who shows up, then Walmart,
• 16:02
  then Noble Knight, and then master Vault. So key Forge boxes on
• 16:14
  Etsy. It's got a four to five star review. But that's all I'm
• 16:19
  saying is that it doesn't really matter my incognito. The first thing that comes
• 16:25
  up is still KeyForge dot com. So clearly on your kids, is they
• 16:27
  shop Etsy a lot? Yeah? Maybe, but because I have no problem
• 16:33
  getting I search on my blank I guess that's where all this junk has come.
• 16:38
  Probably what we've learned is it only takes six months to get one new
• 16:45
  player player. Maybe they'll come back, maybe they won't. One returning player.
• 16:49
  Hey, a returning player is still a returning player, and that is
• 16:53
  that is a note for celebration. That is fantastic. It is depressing and
• 17:00
  how excited we are over one person one, But doesn't it doesn't a movement
• 17:08
  start with one. I'm just gape mouthing you. Yes, take that.
• 17:18
  Hey, it's all perspective. It is Villiams Hope. Okay. Anyways,
• 17:30
  so it is great, but like this, one player came back due to
• 17:37
  well not really the amount of work, because he did know some key Fortune
• 17:41
  stuff was going on. He went to Celeberations in twenty twenty two, but
• 17:44
  not twenty three. So it's not like he is totally clueless to what's going
• 17:48
  on, but the fact that the only way he found us was because we
• 17:52
  finally got it on a stores event calendar, and like, this is a
• 17:56
  particular player that may have found these games if we had an event finder,
• 18:03
  which we still don't have. It still doesn't reach all the other people who
• 18:08
  don't know that key forging thing are going on. Okay, go, go
• 18:12
  on, go, I'm not going to be positive again today. Sorry,
• 18:17
  No, we got to part We've just been. I mean, I have
• 18:22
  been very clearly told in the discords that I'm not allowed to have negative feelings.
• 18:26
  Celebrations was the best thing ever, and you should be excited. I'm
• 18:30
  sorry that key Forge. You did have a little bit of a smile when
• 18:34
  we were playing key forg in person, and and when you got coffee afterwards
• 18:41
  and I shouted, brobnar and you said, okay, you got hot choca,
• 18:45
  probably smart at ten o'clock at night. Well what did you shout when
• 18:48
  I said brob nar And I came to check tackle you elusive? I know,
• 18:52
  And then I was sad, but like it's those small little moments that
• 18:57
  like we're across the street or getting gas, you know, we're getting filled
• 19:02
  up for a hot chocolate. It's but those are the small moments that this
• 19:06
  community is awesome we have. That's the problem though, is the amount I
• 19:11
  love key Forge does not correlate to the amount of key Forge that is going
• 19:18
  on. So, I mean you had posted a question is is this is
• 19:22
  this where you want to go ahead and lead us into I don't know,
• 19:26
  Book's supposed to be running the show where I with the in the Wook He's
• 19:32
  in the Wookmobile and I'm driving this off. No, no, I go
• 19:37
  this show is always going to go with the flow show, right. One
• 19:41
  thing I do want to say, usually Wookie, Wookie, we have this
• 19:45
  highly scripted I must read, I must read off my chart. Now hold
• 19:52
  on one second, do not dev eight Okay the back. One thing I'm
• 20:02
  going to say is is that like I understand, like somebody is like,
• 20:06
  well, you've got to put a positive spin on it because new people finding
• 20:10
  the game. No new person is listening to this show. I hope that
• 20:14
  there would be some new people and listening to this show. But yes,
• 20:18
  there was some really crazy things. You finished up in our conduck tomorrow.
• 20:25
  Nobody is going out there searching up key Forde podcasts and then like, just
• 20:30
  I mean maybe there are I guess are we are we not going to get
• 20:33
  more hits than we are the number three podcasts. When you search key fords
• 20:37
  podcast there you go, oh are we? Oh who's ahead of us?
• 20:41
  It depends on what platform you're on. The people who do se O,
• 20:47
  Yeah, we don't do se O here. We do very little se O.
• 20:52
  And by very little I mean you number five is sanctimonious and they don't
• 20:56
  even exist. They still they did se O too. We've so yeah,
• 21:03
  I just need to I just need to copy everything what's his name does and
• 21:07
  just paste it in theirs. Either way, all right, so keyboards public
• 21:11
  radio and help them futureself ahead of us whatever people who do s c O.
• 21:17
  But what I'm saying is if you're on, if you're coming in for
• 21:19
  the first time, that's okay to listen to them and then be like,
• 21:23
  oh and then by the time you find out you will be ready. You'll
• 21:27
  be ready for this show. But but but but there there there were some
• 21:33
  really good things that did happen, and there were good things that happened,
• 21:37
  But like, my biggest thing is like, you got to put a positive
• 21:41
  spin on it. No, I don't really know. You don't. You
• 21:44
  don't have to put a positive spin. But you also don't need to go
• 21:48
  ahead and just have this complete downer of an episode like that doesn't engage anyone
• 21:52
  and says, woo, let me listen to you and let me go ahead
• 21:56
  and play Key Forge in the future. I know that blindly saying that they
• 22:00
  delivered when they didn't is great for this game, right GG has done so
• 22:07
  below average, let's keep celebrating. No, I hear that argument. I'm
• 22:15
  just saying, sometimes going ahead and pointing out what was good is still an
• 22:22
  acceptable answer. The time. Everything that was good about k KFC had nothing
• 22:30
  to do with Ghost Galaxy. Okay, very little, very little. They
• 22:37
  put. They put on the game. They they brought the game. They
• 22:41
  brought the game back from extinction, okay, because it was lost. Number
• 22:45
  two. They actually put together an event for us for our first World Championship.
• 22:51
  There was money that was actually given away to people, and they brought
• 22:56
  in people internationally so that we had a very good turnout that was there that
• 23:00
  I got a chance to be well again that that's that's where you may disagree.
• 23:04
  But I saw more international people here than I have at any well,
• 23:10
  of course, like why would they come to any other event? Uh?
• 23:14
  And the turnout for international is great and the turnout from Americans was mediocre.
• 23:22
  Yeah, I loved seeing everyone who is there my family and I'm very happy
• 23:27
  with that. Nobody even I said it in my Pissy Downer podcast last time.
• 23:33
  The community and the people are it right. Without that, this probably
• 23:40
  could go fly cut you right now. But it is the people that are
• 23:45
  well. That's because I'm saving my quarters at the moment I would prefer is
• 23:51
  that because you need to afford because their keys, Yes, because I forced
• 23:55
  him all his key, I've lost all my corner. But like, yeah,
• 24:03
  every I mean honestly, like, yeah, they they threw an event
• 24:07
  to which they charged me to come to forget, like we got a chance
• 24:12
  to money. I understand they have to know. Well, no, they
• 24:17
  don't have to. They're a business. And you also talked about okay,
• 24:23
  but any of the Magic, any of the Magic pre release events or anything
• 24:27
  there, even lore Kana pre release, you're paying money in order to be
• 24:30
  able to go. Okay, and I don't know you. Here's the one
• 24:33
  you get a chance to play Grim Reminders. I did. But here's here's
• 24:37
  the one thing I'm going to say. At one point, and and this
• 24:41
  is gonna be my my kind of big dig. At one point we were
• 24:45
  kicked out of the main hall because Magic players were coming in. That's what
• 24:52
  Ghost Galaxy thinks. The game not the main hall. Well, it depends
• 24:57
  on what you consider the main That was not the main keyboard, the main
• 25:02
  gaming area to where most of us we were conglomeraated. We're asked to leave
• 25:07
  and go into the other gaming area because Magic was coming in. You dirty
• 25:12
  key forgers, go to your dedicated giant key forard room. Yeah, we
• 25:15
  had a We had two giant key Forde rooms. One of those is being
• 25:18
  used for games, the other was being used for the actual tournament play.
• 25:23
  They still had to have miniatures be there. It's a game spot like that.
• 25:33
  The Magic guys paid money to be there. They do they do they
• 25:37
  take? Did they pay eighty two dollars get to come into the rooms we
• 25:42
  were in? Did they want to? Probably not. We should have invited
• 25:48
  them, We should game. I'm on our side, You're you're off on
• 25:52
  a non real tangent, sweat the ministre out of their hands for you and
• 26:00
  this hatred, I will say. Our AC live show, you got Jamiel
• 26:03
  going ahead and punching in here. He says, we're comparing what has done
• 26:07
  relative to what many of us think they could have done, not what we
• 26:11
  want them to have done. Okay, now it's a comparison to what they
• 26:18
  did versus both what we want and what they said they were going to do,
• 26:22
  both and what we think they could, which are two different things,
• 26:26
  because what I want and what I think they could or fairly do are are
• 26:30
  different things. Because you know, we really not do we really do?
• 26:37
  We really think that the that our expectations are unrealistic, and I guess that's
• 26:41
  rarely of us are slightly different. I don't. I do not believe my
• 26:47
  expectations are unrealists. I mean, really, what we're our expectations whole local
• 26:52
  play, is that unrealistic? No? My it was possible to do more.
• 27:03
  I think that is that is true my goals and what we were kind
• 27:07
  of rolling around to before, is is key Forge actually a lifestyle game?
• 27:11
  Was the question I wanted to present because I don't know if that's their goal,
• 27:19
  because right now, all right, I am looking for something else to
• 27:26
  do because there isn't key Forge. There isn't even a fixed date when I
• 27:30
  know I'm meaningly playing key Forge again. So I think misstake could be six
• 27:37
  months, it could be never. We don't know anything. I think this
• 27:42
  is very very important before we ask out what again. I asked this in
• 27:45
  our chat, what did you mean by lifestyle games? There's so everyone is
• 27:49
  super clear because that definition lifestyle game to me means it's like your primary choice
• 27:56
  hobby when you are looking at what you're going to be doing and it's on
• 28:00
  your schedule, and you're like, every Wednesday, I play KeyForge, and
• 28:03
  when I can go to major key Forge events, I'm going to choose to
• 28:07
  do that over going kuba diving or bike riding or going to play Magic or
• 28:15
  going to a general board gaming tournament. I'm going to be choosing key Forge,
• 28:21
  right Like, That's what lifestyle means, Like you invest time money into
• 28:26
  it on a daily basis, maybe not money on a daily basis, regular
• 28:32
  basis, yes, you're it's you're regularly spending time and money with it,
• 28:37
  and it's part of your lifestyle right, Like you are a key Forge player,
• 28:41
  that is, you would define, like what are your hobbies, and
• 28:45
  you'd say, I play key Forge, because that's what I tell people.
• 28:48
  I don't play. I don't tell them I play card games. I'm not
• 28:52
  a card gamer. I am a key Forge player, and that is it,
• 28:57
  and that's what I'm looking for. And when you look at before I
• 29:00
  was playing KeyForge, if you ask me what I did, I played Adventures
• 29:04
  League and I did a ton of it, and I traveled probably more for
• 29:08
  playing Adventure League than I traveled for key Forge. Because they had a system
• 29:12
  that permitted it. That's a little bigger, may well definitely more money behind
• 29:17
  it. So I don't expect it to be on that scale where like every
• 29:19
  weekend there is a tournament or convention based around it, with it within a
• 29:26
  few hours drive. Like that is the real reality of some of the bigger
• 29:30
  game things. I don't actually expect that in key Forge. That's not realistic,
• 29:37
  But monthly meaningful play doesn't seem unrealistic. Plus the other part is we
• 29:48
  talk about KeyForge and I'm talking about lifestyle and how much you invest in the
• 29:52
  game in the time, But there is also some truth to this is that
• 29:56
  we needed to be a dad style game because most of us don't have that
• 30:00
  ability to do something for our game every significant every week anymore. Right,
• 30:07
  We can't every weekend be going to some semi major tournament that's going on,
• 30:15
  right, We can't dedicate that much of our lives to it anymore because most
• 30:19
  of us are responsible parents and adults. Because key forges, you know,
• 30:23
  we say it's a dad's game. I think that's true. There's quite a
• 30:26
  few younger people at the event is won by seventeen women, right, yeah,
• 30:33
  and women it can be a mom's game too, for sure. Like,
• 30:37
  don't take the terms being meant to be sexist by anymoons. Everybody can
• 30:41
  play. What I'm saying is generally slightly older people with other responsibilities in life,
• 30:48
  so they, you know, like, it's not it's hard to you
• 30:52
  know, it's hard to complete with how much time you can put into magic,
• 30:56
  or even as you get older, it's hard to stay on the magic
• 31:00
  scene with how much change and constant input needed. So this is a better
• 31:07
  game for a lot of people for that. But lifestyle still just means like
• 31:11
  consistent and meaningful and right now we are well, we have a nothing window.
• 31:18
  We have four to six weeks before we're even going to hear about the
• 31:22
  next thing happening, and in four to six weeks we hear sometime in twenty
• 31:27
  twenty four we will do something. Well, let's get into what we do
• 31:33
  now, because the whole part point of the what we're doing today is we
• 31:37
  wanted to kind of go over the state of the Union, which we said
• 31:40
  we were going to last week. Yeah, and I hear that, what
• 31:44
  is your thoughts on it being a lifestyle game? Though? I think Sheep
• 31:47
  asked a great question, Like clearly everybody sitting in this room right now,
• 31:56
  to a certain extent, has definitely treated it closer to a lifestyle type game,
• 32:02
  like it is the primary hobby many of us are doing. Like we
• 32:07
  still played board games and card games and role playing games on the side,
• 32:10
  maybe even have I'll find some time for video games. But like you know,
• 32:15
  the question comes at some point is on a Tuesday night, do you
• 32:21
  go I'm playing key Forge because I play key Forge whatever your weekly or I'm
• 32:25
  gonna stay home and play boulders Gate because that's more interesting to me now And
• 32:30
  that kind of tells you where you treat it to me, dres, where
• 32:36
  would you place it? I mean I definitely hmm, I definitely see as
• 32:42
  a lifestyle game in many ways. In that so, if we look back
• 32:45
  at this past year, I went to vaults and keyfordge events instead of,
• 32:53
  for example, the World Board Gaming Championships, which i've pre pandemic had gone
• 33:00
  to for a number of years in a row. And and my you know,
• 33:07
  my board gaming buddies ping me, they're like, hey, are you
• 33:10
  you know we're all going back this year? Are you coming? And h
• 33:16
  and not only because I'm blacklisted on Airbnb, but that's another story now I
• 33:29
  need to know. But anyway, he had a drazcore experience and was running
• 33:36
  around naked into walls. There is video cameras and he went through a few
• 33:40
  of them. I mean, that's the short story, and that's what I'm
• 33:43
  speaking too. So I yeah, I've chosen to play key Forge over over
• 33:49
  these other things. And you know, even so we're coming up not this
• 33:55
  is Thanksgiving right this weekend, but next weekend is packed and plugged, And
• 34:00
  there were some folks posting about like, hey, people want to get together
• 34:02
  at pack some plugs and play some Keyforde And I'm like yeah, so uh
• 34:09
  so, if something happens, I'll play, and I won't I'll do less
• 34:14
  time in the EXPA hall or doing other things because because there's key Fords going
• 34:17
  on, Wookie, do you consider it a lifestyle game? Here's what I'm
• 34:23
  the one, Yeah, because you're the one who is closest to kind of
• 34:28
  being on hiatus, And to be honest with you, I'm still close to
• 34:32
  being on hiatus. Like there are many times where I was going to take
• 34:37
  my ball and go home like it's and even now is still a struggle because
• 34:42
  I feel I've missed some things. So I don't know as much as I
• 34:46
  used to. I'm a little behind. I'm lagging right, Tuesdays are my
• 34:54
  sacred day. As long as I can get there, I'm there right like,
• 34:59
  that's that's my am. I've worked my work schedule to be off on
• 35:02
  Tuesdays so that I am able to go see Danny walk right, Like,
• 35:07
  those are the days I like going out. I like playing, even if
• 35:12
  a pole junk and means I get beat by DT. Like these things happen,
• 35:15
  right, so and I'm fine with it. And then then there's like
• 35:22
  when we do like the online stuff like Sheep still runs Sunday Sealed. Do
• 35:27
  we still do ar con on Tuesdays? No? No? And then Wednesday
• 35:32
  Sealed with Local Car like those, I'm like, I can miss those,
• 35:37
  right Like if I make them when I remember them, I'm making when I
• 35:40
  remember them. But if I don't, don't you know, so when it
• 35:45
  comes and I appreciate and I appreciate local Car. I know all of our
• 35:49
  attendance has been down lately. I mean, but like live in life,
• 35:53
  real play, it does have meaning to me, whereas online play has very
• 36:00
  little meaning to me. Now I'm gonna have to go back online and sty're
• 36:04
  playing again because like I said, I'm I've basically missed more or less two
• 36:09
  to three sets. I haven't played a ton of well, just because of
• 36:15
  life and things and DT happened. Not that DT necessarily matters, but then
• 36:21
  you know, then I pretty much missed most of MM, Like I got
• 36:24
  into it hot and heavy in the beginning, and then I kind of petered
• 36:28
  off there for a while, mainly, I mean, I had work things
• 36:30
  going on when MM finally decided to sprawl out. So and it's not easy
• 36:36
  getting back into the groove and back into the rhythm right, there's a lot
• 36:39
  to learn, a lot to remember stuff you don't see. It's tough and
• 36:45
  it gets frustrating from time to time. And to be honest with you,
• 36:49
  if it wasn't for this show and the people on it, there's a good
• 36:52
  chance I'm out, Like there is nothing meaningful for me to go to.
• 36:55
  So why am I going to continue to pump money into it and keep showing
• 36:59
  up if I don't have any real tangibility to it? And I can see
• 37:05
  how a lot of people just were like, yeah, I'm good and just
• 37:07
  kind of moved because it wasn't like we were banging having banging numbers before the
• 37:10
  pandemic. I mean, we had a really good showing at that board game
• 37:16
  Barrasser that where that was where we used to go right that our local I
• 37:20
  mean that we had what probably anywhere from ten to fifteen players weekly, yep,
• 37:27
  and that you know, And even then there was some times where I
• 37:29
  was like, yeah, if I make it, I make it. If
• 37:30
  I don't, I don't because there's just there wasn't anything keeping me there.
• 37:36
  There wasn't anything exciting to go get and go see. I can only take
• 37:38
  so many change trackers. I can only take so many matts. I can
• 37:43
  only take so many of the same things over and over again that have no
• 37:47
  meaning. And maybe I go play Balder's Gate three with Sheep. I don't
• 37:52
  know. Yeah. Ah. The fact that even our meanful play, the
• 38:00
  only thing that currently makes it meaningful is that we are down to a group
• 38:06
  of people that, conveniently for us, like each other. So we actually
• 38:12
  do want to go and play and hang out with those specific people because there
• 38:16
  have been other games that I have been into where I was like, well,
• 38:20
  there is a weekly game at this store, but I don't really care
• 38:23
  to go play with those folks again, so I think I can miss that
• 38:28
  one. So there's that. And then the only other meaningful thing that we
• 38:32
  have is to show that Keyfde is still a thing because we get we open,
• 38:40
  we give the store money for Dax, we open them, and then
• 38:45
  we play this game of trying to hide them each other's bags because none of
• 38:47
  us want to take them home because they're all trash, right, They're they're
• 38:52
  they're not. They were fifteen dollars of fun for one night, which I
• 38:57
  am still okay with. Spending like that is well within my comfort range of
• 39:02
  money to throw away for a night's of entertainment and not worry about it.
• 39:07
  Because if we went and did an escape room, or we go to a
• 39:09
  movie, or we go just hang out and chat at the bar, I'm
• 39:14
  gonna spend more money and have less actually to show for it than potentially opening
• 39:21
  a cool KeyForge deck, right, because if we're just going to the bar
• 39:23
  or going out to dinner, then I'm just eating a bunch of expensive calories
• 39:27
  that you know, I didn't need. So it's like I find it to
• 39:34
  be a good expense for time, but you know, like we're not getting
• 39:40
  that much meaningful out of it. You know, like they're they're The meaning
• 39:46
  is we're with friends and we're still trying to make key Forde a thing.
• 39:54
  I mean that only goes so far, and then I don't know if trying.
• 40:01
  Are we still even trying to make it a thing or is it just
• 40:04
  we we enjoy hanging out with each other and keyboard champions to be the glue
• 40:07
  that's still there. Well, even that every once in a while we're like
• 40:10
  we could play a different game. No no, no, no no,
• 40:14
  no, we can't do that. I can't do that. Yeah, Well,
• 40:17
  I mean that's teetering on the spot. We've seen that, and that
• 40:21
  happen even when we're playing mechware and all of a sudden he's played some board
• 40:23
  games. I still enjoy Key Forge. I enjoy the experience. I know,
• 40:28
  Sheep. When we were there, Wookie, we were talking again about
• 40:31
  decks, and too many decks are still unplayable after that first experience, and
• 40:37
  so what do you what do you do? I think it's a real problem
• 40:40
  that Keyfarde exists or is struggling to deal with. I really think they need
• 40:45
  to tighten it. They need to tighten up variants because there's just there's there's
• 40:51
  well hold on because I feel like I watch if if every deck you open
• 40:55
  has the same value as the next act because the variants is too tough.
• 41:00
  They I'm not saying I'm not saying get it to you know, rub two
• 41:04
  pennies together and it squeaks, you know, squeaks. I'm saying it needs
• 41:07
  to be tight because it's just like there's so much trash. There's so much
• 41:12
  trash you make it. The more everything becomes trash. Well, and I
• 41:19
  will say, from the competitive players standpoint, which is what podcasts used to
• 41:22
  be focused on, having decks that you've invested in its significant chunk of money
• 41:28
  where people would say, hey, this is definitely a lifestyle game. I
• 41:30
  am investing a good amount of money for this deck to see power creep or
• 41:36
  new sets come out, where all of a sudden, it just means nothing
• 41:38
  to a previous set. That hurts. That hurts some of the players who
• 41:44
  have been their long term like it is, it is typical all games,
• 41:47
  like I don't that's not but that's but it's not it's not typical. Yes
• 41:52
  it is. That's valuable. Yes they do, so I agree with I
• 42:01
  agree with sheep that they do go out. I will say what becomes interesting
• 42:06
  is when you have other CCGs. Typically you're not losing all of your cards
• 42:12
  set, and so you can keep some of those cards that you've invested in.
• 42:15
  We're all of a sudden here, I mean, and this has been
• 42:19
  from the community that there has been some argument, Hey, Whoa is just
• 42:22
  absolutely hot, and now all of a sudden, I uh, these decks
• 42:25
  can't be played now. I will still argue you saw quite a few very
• 42:30
  old school traditional decks all the way from first print run Coda through to one
• 42:35
  through Whoa. Yeah, Coda did win Worlds and kodabers there, run coda.
• 42:42
  You'll never have first print run coda ever again, the first print run
• 42:45
  coda behind me right now? Actually, well, six silly people, guys,
• 42:53
  because I don't want to open it, because then, like I'll just
• 42:55
  have a bunch of twelve mediocre Coda decks, right, I mean even it
• 43:00
  would be something crazy. Dream that that box is magical is worth more than
• 43:06
  opening it. It is. But Sydney. Sydney brought one of those code
• 43:09
  decks for of An on Tuesday, and her deck was not shabby at all
• 43:14
  either, so it was pretty good. It was pretty good. I couldn't
• 43:16
  deal with the twenty seven creatures that was opened in a crappy World's glide brobdarknack.
• 43:23
  But do you know what did deal with that Corona phage from DT baby
• 43:28
  Corona phaege from DT. That's right, So I don't know because people just
• 43:32
  played against you and automatically checked out. Like Actually, that DT deck was
• 43:38
  a lot of fun. There was a lot of recursion and some interesting lines
• 43:40
  there. I drew pretty poor against you, but with the rest of the
• 43:45
  nights I did not have that same pulled against me. And again it there
• 43:51
  were a couple of things that were wrong. It just it's it's exack,
• 43:54
  You're not always gonna pull hot. It is what it is. I think
• 43:58
  that there's some great experiences out there in the decks. I'd like to see
• 44:01
  a little bit more replayability. I don't know how to do that, though,
• 44:07
  And that's what's That's where I'm looking at. Okay, what can we
• 44:09
  do because those of us who've been in the game, there's a we're acquiring
• 44:14
  more and more and more decks. I hear people say, hey, go
• 44:16
  ahead and reforge. We can repack these, But the end result is I
• 44:20
  don't want to go ahead and give my shoddy decks in ver to someone else.
• 44:23
  And and they're good for a play experience for the night, but some
• 44:27
  of those aren't even great play experiences. The DT deck I had was perfectly
• 44:30
  fine. I did enjoy that, But there have been a lot of DT
• 44:35
  decks where I'm like, oh, I don't want to play this at all.
• 44:37
  I don't think you would have had fun against another DT deck. You
• 44:39
  didn't raise tide for Crumb in that deck. Well, that's part of part
• 44:45
  of you. You would have been like this decks. Thanks, but we
• 44:51
  all just let you have the tide and went, yeah, you're gonna have
• 44:52
  the die because that's that's what happens for the set. But I think that
• 44:58
  that is really the case. For me, Yes, I placed myself more
• 45:01
  into the lifestyle game, especially across the last year, from going ahead and
• 45:06
  attending from Philadelphia to Minnesota to Dallas to our nationals at gen Con to Worlds.
• 45:12
  For me, there was a there was a much higher investment of time
• 45:15
  and money. But the real question comes, how is the gg's staff and
• 45:21
  team acquiring And I think from judges down again this is my perception, but
• 45:27
  there still seems to be not a lifestyle game, but more of a beer
• 45:31
  and peanuts type game, and I think that is probably the bigger question should
• 45:37
  have been, as phrases beer in pretzels, it is beer and pretzels.
• 45:45
  But again, when we're looking at beer pretzels, so we're gonna say peanuts
• 45:49
  now it it's essentially regardless, Louder, regardless of what you're saying. We
• 45:58
  need to understand that what the vision is for your leadership, whether that's in
• 46:04
  your company, whether it's in your business, whether that's in your own home
• 46:07
  that will dictate a lot, and I think that's where from CTP on down,
• 46:12
  I don't know if they have the bigger vision and the willingness to invest
• 46:15
  upfront to be able to produce the lifestyle game that the three of us want
• 46:21
  and some of the more competitive teams want and Jam if you ever say adaptive
• 46:27
  ever again, I'll just ban you from the server. I think. So,
• 46:32
  I think okay for people to like bad things. So I think the
• 46:37
  problem is, so I do I liked I liked adaptive. But here here's
• 46:43
  the thing with short adaptive. It gives a huge advantage to those of us
• 46:45
  who are very active and who know the sets and who are who are presently
• 46:51
  playing, and so anybody new coming in, it's not that's ARCon, that's
• 46:54
  sealed like that's anybody. Yeah, but adapt adaptive gives that much. Adaptive
• 47:00
  really doesn't give any more value to the one thousand decks I own. Yes,
• 47:05
  I can play any of them, but it becomes a meaningless to some
• 47:09
  extent what I'm picking right. I there has So the idea for KEYFDE is
• 47:15
  that we gravitate towards a deck that you know we have affinity for that there's
• 47:19
  some interest. If we don't have an interest for it, it just cooks
• 47:22
  off in the back. I mean, honestly, the whole idea for Shutter.
• 47:24
  We don't need the deck because it doesn't matter to us, And you're
• 47:28
  like, oh, it could matter to someone else, Well, but it's
• 47:30
  not with someone else. It's here, and what are we gonna do.
• 47:34
  We're gonna go ahead and store it until I have mounds and mounds and mounds
• 47:37
  and Keyfords that I'm doing nothing with that that's not helping me either. This
• 47:39
  could mean something, No, it doesn't. Playing with junk decks is not
• 47:45
  like, who does that have meaning to? And we can go ahead and
• 47:50
  say, okay, go ahead and put it back for reforge, but the
• 47:52
  end result is many people are already doing that on d okay for hey,
• 47:55
  go ahead and purchase this deck for four bucks. No one wants any of
• 47:59
  those, and the few that want to go out now that we've had alliance
• 48:02
  are on a very select focused because of a pod that's coming from that deck.
• 48:07
  So yeah, we had a little boost, but frankly, frankly,
• 48:13
  key Forge has a struggle with majority of decks are falling in Arkhan or a
• 48:20
  little bit for Alliance or just frankly are enjoyable, and the best majority are
• 48:25
  just everybody owns for any game. I bet you even own significantly more lor
• 48:31
  Kana cards that you don't use than you do use. Now again, lar
• 48:37
  Kana is for the girls. We have not I'm just saying how many how
• 48:40
  many cards have you bought and how DIY do you use versus how many are
• 48:46
  just in the box. Honestly, we don't play a ton. I have
• 48:52
  a box that was purchased for each the new set that is here even when
• 48:55
  it's picking it up on Tuesdays. You're my question. I don't never any
• 49:01
  idea how many cards you've even bought for the game, because that's what I
• 49:05
  mean, unless they generally are No, That's what I'm telling you. We
• 49:07
  literally have one box each and it just it's played for the girls. It
• 49:12
  was distributed. But when you're distributing a box between four people, cards are
• 49:15
  already slim. So I know what I think is actually the most worthless pile
• 49:21
  of things I have in my house are the Pokemon cards my kid collected.
• 49:24
  But your kid ensuring that. But he enjoyed that, and so that's you
• 49:31
  know, like when he wanted to waste a little money gambling on it,
• 49:35
  and he was sort of playing it. I was okay with it, but
• 49:37
  when it came to just he's opening Pokemon packs because it's gambling, I was
• 49:43
  like, okay, I am done supporting this. And Pokemon gambling is a
• 49:47
  horrible thing. It's just a total throw away your money. But you open
• 49:52
  shiny things, and shiny things are fun. I get that, Like,
• 49:54
  I can deal with that. But but if the kids are doing it and
• 50:00
  they pass like they trade cards, like that's what I see from fourth and
• 50:02
  fifth. But that's but there's still when you buy a box of Pokemon cards,
• 50:07
  there are only four or five cards out of that box the kids actually
• 50:13
  care about. If it isn't a the shiny goof a zord or whatever the
• 50:15
  hell you call them. Now, that's how little I actually paid attention.
• 50:20
  I can't evolution of if it's a common on common or regular rare and Pokemon
• 50:34
  it's basically junk, like even care about it, which is what I'm here.
• 50:42
  And every game are pointless. But here's the thing about most of them.
• 50:46
  When you buy a box of cards, you're right and most of the
• 50:51
  cards yourself to lie. I might be able to use it someday that what
• 50:55
  we're killing ourselves. You there's guys, there's this magical format in KeyForge that
• 51:02
  solves all these problems. You are sealed. Okay. I don't know if
• 51:07
  anybody's heard of it, so help me. God, you off the shows.
• 51:13
  We talked about this. So it's a good investment for a night like
• 51:15
  we don't go to the bar. You know, it was well in the
• 51:20
  movies I went with from my family tonight. But the end result is it's
• 51:23
  a good investment to be able to go out and play with some good friends
• 51:27
  and to have fun for a couple hours. I agree with that it would
• 51:30
  be to do just often if there was something meaningful to some extent you could
• 51:37
  do with the deck afterwards, if you didn't want to keep it. But
• 51:42
  all there is, I mean, you put it out, okay, and
• 51:46
  you look to get a dollar for it and you're happy. Often maybe you
• 51:52
  got something sort of neat that somebody will want and you can get most of
• 51:55
  your money back out. Sometimes that happens even if it's not a can aitive
• 52:00
  deck. It's got double artano and some idiot like Sheep will buy it,
• 52:02
  right Like people will say double decks to sheep. He is still looking so
• 52:09
  that there are a few things right but general yes, and then there's shredder,
• 52:14
  But how many shredder decks do you actually need? It turns out you
• 52:16
  don't need seven hundred shreddered decks. You need a few if you're even willing
• 52:22
  to do that. But I'm saying, like something to do with them,
• 52:29
  because are in the US. Paper recycling is still kind of a joke,
• 52:35
  like you can't even do an environmentally good thing with it. It's just like,
• 52:40
  yep, this is all now just waste, and now it's going to
• 52:45
  sit in my house and our problems right, like I don't know, I
• 52:51
  mean, like really having like that was a big problem that people say they
• 53:00
  had with the game that left is because they got a bunch of meaningless decks,
• 53:02
  which is definitely true. And I don't know why the brain doesn't say
• 53:08
  the same thing about the box of magic cards that are sitting behind them that
• 53:12
  nobody will ever touch. But it's fine, right they see it because you
• 53:15
  can do whatever you want with them, because you could still take some percentage
• 53:21
  of cards, even if it's one. We two. We all know,
• 53:22
  we've talked about the argument, but we all know it's a fake argument.
• 53:27
  Yeah, it's you can't do that when no, no, no, because
• 53:30
  you can't do that when you're holding full decks. Like, I hate this.
• 53:34
  It's a fake argument. You don't ever go back and build decks with
• 53:38
  your box of junk magic cards. Wow, See this is really do that.
• 53:44
  See this is where there's a disagreement. Even today when I was listening
• 53:46
  to my lor Kana podcast. There is a roll of decks of cards that
• 53:52
  we are basically keeping track of that we go, you know what, it
• 53:57
  doesn't hit in this set, but it has some things that will allow it
• 54:00
  to be successful if these other parameters come in. It's not every it's not
• 54:05
  every card it stays true, that stays true, But there are George decks
• 54:07
  that there are certain cards that are going to bring a deck out of mediocrity
• 54:12
  to medium decency. Correct, But it's not that it's even in the on
• 54:21
  commons. There are so many printed in Magic it doesn't matter if you kept
• 54:24
  your six because you can just buy them online for a dollar apiece when they
• 54:29
  become good like that, And I agree with that. I still like mostly
• 54:34
  useless stuff. But the problem, the problem is that key fords. We
• 54:38
  can't get rid of them because they're only printed one. You can't get rid
• 54:43
  of common magic cards either. You bring up comments and uncomments to the store,
• 54:46
  and stores will be like, we won't touch that. I think I'm
• 54:51
  saying if I can throw away my cards now right, Yeah, I can
• 54:54
  throw away my magic cards, but I can reget them. However, I
• 54:59
  can't throw away a key Forage deck and we get it well up to this
• 55:02
  point. I can't throw a yeah for fifty there but business thing. But
• 55:09
  we know that isn't really a major wookie. You a mediocre decks. Yeah,
• 55:15
  woo. You actually talked about this because when we are making our proxy
• 55:19
  deck, you're like, hey, I just tore these decks apart. And
• 55:21
  then you're like, why don't I just hold four of each of these cards
• 55:23
  and keep my arc on card? And he's like, if I ever want
• 55:28
  to go ahead and get the deck again, maybe it's just becomes super hot,
• 55:30
  then I could send in to Gigi to be able to get it.
• 55:34
  If that becomes viable again, it was offered. We haven't seen fulfillment or
• 55:39
  even a trajectory date of that. Months well, three to four months is
• 55:46
  we're still waiting, and also said that's great corporate week for soon. Yeah.
• 55:53
  But anyway, outside of that moment, the comment that I had said,
• 56:00
  is is it really going to be worth it to send it back in?
• 56:04
  It has to now if I've torn up, it has to be so
• 56:07
  far above in that one to three percent that I'm like, yeah, I
• 56:12
  really want that, like because I'm not because I already spent money on it
• 56:15
  once. Now I'm gonna have to spend money on it a second time.
• 56:20
  Like, Eh, that's a that's a feel bad moment, and I'm just
• 56:22
  sitting I mean, have we actually been like ooh, this is hot now?
• 56:28
  Just this bad way off? It's rare to happen now and you already
• 56:32
  weren't trashing that deck because it was probably already it was already good. So
• 56:38
  yeah, So that this is the problem. We've talked about it many times,
• 56:43
  like it's just that there is really nothing to do with them is a
• 56:46
  little frustrating. It comes back when we were talking about like what what are
• 56:50
  we even doing playing or buying more decks right now? And it's just for
• 56:54
  the experience of playing key Forge with decks that are new and exciting, because
• 57:00
  key Forde is fun. The Stranger is fun in KeyForge. For a lot
• 57:05
  of us, a lot of us actually really enjoy playing a random deck we've
• 57:10
  opened that night and played, which is funny because like I try it and
• 57:15
  I just don't really care for playing sealed online, Like you could just do
• 57:17
  it on TCL. You get a random deck, but there is something to
• 57:21
  oding it and be able to know that any affinity I have for this deck,
• 57:25
  it's with me and I can keep playing it. That's that's great.
• 57:30
  Like that is kind of important because sometimes you do open a deck and it
• 57:32
  just does something like I opened a deck in a seal then it was a
• 57:37
  good Oath of Poverty deck and then I went and put sixty reps on it
• 57:40
  because it was just fun to sell my artifacts for twenty amber. Yeah,
• 57:45
  stuff like that. It wasn't good, but it was fun and that's fine.
• 57:51
  Like a lot of people, that's how they play magic. They show
• 57:53
  up to their weeklies with janky combo decks in magic that are never gonna win
• 57:58
  anything, but they just want to do their silly thing and see if it
• 58:00
  can win a game. And that's good enough to which that kind of play
• 58:05
  is important and needs to be accessible as well in this game. I mean,
• 58:13
  it's plausible because they hinted at the storyline situation, right, So let's
• 58:19
  it's plausible the storyline will lead down that path of some sort. Hey bring
• 58:23
  it deck, that looks like this that the other thing, or we're saying
• 58:27
  focus tonight, very madom. Sure, that's we have completely blown past what
• 58:32
  we're going to do in the state of the Union and gone an hour nothing
• 58:37
  to talk about in the state of Unit was the same thing as twenty twenty
• 58:39
  two. No, it was a little bit different because there was a whole
• 58:44
  slide on local play support, which we had in twenty twenty two. Well,
• 58:50
  last last time, they gave quite a lot of detail on what they
• 58:55
  wanted to do that they then ended up not being able to do, and
• 59:00
  so I think they said, oh, shoot, well we shouldn't. We
• 59:04
  shouldn't make the same mistake again. So they said way less from an actual
• 59:09
  commitment standpoint, a lot about way less. They said almost nothing. They
• 59:16
  have starre Champs. We're going to be able to sign up for store Champs
• 59:20
  in a month. So I think that's what they said. For those of
• 59:23
  you who were not there and didn't see the post Local play support for twenty
• 59:29
  twenty four. Store championships are in Q one January February March. Sign up
• 59:36
  start in December of twenty twenty three. Now, why a little QR quode
• 59:40
  or something wasn't given out to players to take back to their locals to get
• 59:44
  their local to sign up for a store championship is beyond me because it's not
• 59:47
  actually ready and happening. Okay, well either that, all it has to
• 59:52
  be is a QR code. Was somebody to contact from Ghost Galaxies to figure
• 59:54
  out how they're going to do this or is everything stuff to go through Asthma
• 59:59
  dae nobody Casual play kicks well, I mean that's where they were supposed to
• 1:00:04
  be ordering kids from before, but casual play kits no. Never have they
• 1:00:09
  said order kids from asbad I thought they did last year. But Casual Play
• 1:00:14
  Kids will be coming out in Q one so again January February March, which
• 1:00:20
  is exactly what they showed us on slide last year. I don't remember this
• 1:00:23
  point. Yeah, they showed us store championships except it was gonna be And
• 1:00:28
  this is where Joker got very very sad because the store level stuff or whatever
• 1:00:32
  is gonna be called vault keepers. Oh yeah, okay, right, and
• 1:00:37
  that was all Q one gold, all right, and then it then by
• 1:00:44
  mid January like yeah, no, so yes, I know field last year,
• 1:00:49
  but WOOKI you are right? The sheet said local play support twenty four
• 1:00:53
  store Championships Q one sign up starting in December, which would be coming up
• 1:00:59
  in just a few days, Casual play kit Q one, in store tournament
• 1:01:05
  Kit, Q two major storeline event, Q two pre release event, and
• 1:01:09
  supporting pre release kits prior to all major set releases. Will there be minor
• 1:01:15
  set releases? I don't know. They also had play Style Public Launch December
• 1:01:22
  release. Yeah, play Style Public launch in December, so retail registration,
• 1:01:30
  event registration, retailer plus event finder widget, retail op kit orders for North
• 1:01:36
  America Q one twenty twenty four, event integration with play Style Tournament feature Q
• 1:01:40
  one twenty twenty four. So like they're they're saying Q one giving themselves more
• 1:01:46
  like leeway versus here's what's actually happening. But it was not as specific as
• 1:01:52
  we saw last year. And I do think that they protected themselves because they
• 1:01:55
  got blown out last year. And rightfully, so if you're gonna say,
• 1:01:59
  hey, we're having this amount now, the one in retrospect looking back further
• 1:02:05
  that really they well, it says prerequisites to local OP, so you know,
• 1:02:10
  they understand they have to re establish or for the first time connect with
• 1:02:15
  local OP. Says new consistently released sets into market. Establishment of distribution routes
• 1:02:22
  sorry routines and supply line of communication for publisher to retail event organizer method to
• 1:02:30
  set up and inform players about local events. We were talking about that earlier
• 1:02:34
  high level aspirational competitive tier. So what the hell did they do last year?
• 1:02:39
  Like the short answer is they they acquired that well, but they acquired
• 1:02:49
  the acquired, but they acquired personnel, and they acquire they utilized money in
• 1:02:54
  order to purchase machines that would go ahead and do the work such as packaging
• 1:03:00
  and things of that sort. That's what we have seen. And we can
• 1:03:02
  go ahead and tell that they have been doing mm hmm, I know that
• 1:03:07
  there's always so much more that's done behind This means that you're not aware of
• 1:03:12
  and and and they're they're doing it all like up to the second almost right,
• 1:03:17
  Like, so, so when do you guys think the video that we
• 1:03:22
  saw the keynote. When do you think that video was recorded? What the
• 1:03:28
  making dex one the whole keynote? Sure? Sure, the making deck's part
• 1:03:35
  of the video. Are you talking about the slideshow? The video is talking
• 1:03:38
  about the video? We saw the keynote video that was released Ala, so
• 1:03:43
  we saw right. Remember this is two weeks previous, now, the previous
• 1:03:51
  two weeks. So they recorded the logs supposedly of the of the deck generation
• 1:03:59
  going right, So we're seeing this on Saturday the eleventh, Right, the
• 1:04:04
  logs say Wednesday, November eighth, at four oh seven pm, So they're
• 1:04:10
  literally recording this thing like two days, like less than it's like hardly more
• 1:04:15
  than twenty four hours before their events starts to like, oh shit, we
• 1:04:18
  better record something, so so theyund like streaming. Yeah, I do feel
• 1:04:26
  every very delayed that they're on a shoe string and just keep you know,
• 1:04:30
  we gotta get this done. We gotta get this done. And they're proposedly
• 1:04:32
  looking at these logs. I'm not convinced this is actually generating decks like they
• 1:04:36
  do. The screen is actually OLYMPG warning I dat too much image data server,
• 1:04:44
  no valid transformed frames to trigger in the polygon of like wait what So
• 1:04:49
  there's just a whole bunch of errors flying across the screen. People level that
• 1:04:55
  they probably just had some random something streaming there because they don't want to show
• 1:04:59
  any actual data. That's probably true. So they probably show us a bunch
• 1:05:02
  of errors. And then there's Josh's I'm sorry. Then there's uh, what's
• 1:05:08
  his name's had every two seconds Jeremy's head. Yes, yes, yes,
• 1:05:12
  yes, I'm like, man, have nobody taught to you guys about framing?
• 1:05:15
  Well, that's that's the that's the style now right. It's like action.
• 1:05:19
  It's like, you know, oh my god, I like I like
• 1:05:23
  the guy filming the guy right, Like, that's the thing, dude.
• 1:05:27
  And it's like and and we're at such a shoe string budget. Just use
• 1:05:31
  your iPhone. Hey, I give credit to he does a good videographer.
• 1:05:38
  Man, I will defend him to buy a video camera that does better than
• 1:05:43
  an iPhone for a reasonable amount of money. That's probably true. I agree
• 1:05:47
  with that. Like they they a bunch of people have tested it, and
• 1:05:50
  you read about that crab on the internet a little bit, and like,
• 1:05:54
  it's pretty hard to beat the iPhone for the level of recording quality you need
• 1:06:00
  for that kind of thing, expending a whole bunch more money on better video
• 1:06:04
  camera stuff. The gain is so little that it's not worth it. So
• 1:06:12
  I will say another big takeaway from here was key Ford to release Cadence.
• 1:06:15
  They had talked about two sets per calendar year. They did show Fall of
• 1:06:19
  twenty twenty three, Wins of Exchange, Spring Groom Reminders, and Fall twenty
• 1:06:24
  twenty four Amber Sky. So being able to get away from one set to
• 1:06:28
  two, there's no way they're going to be able to do that, not
• 1:06:31
  if they're going to not if they're going to continue on a game found thing,
• 1:06:35
  it's gonna be one, like it's gonna be one a year. If
• 1:06:38
  they're going to continue with game Found, well, good, we'll get away
• 1:06:42
  from game founding everything. We already got our answer that at Ghost at I
• 1:06:47
  think it was at the Q and A when they're like, we'll do whatever
• 1:06:50
  seems to continue to make sense for for Ghost Galaxy, which means yes,
• 1:06:55
  we're going to continue to do game funds. But why do you say that
• 1:06:58
  the two sets per year Cadence is not viable? Well, okay, you're
• 1:07:03
  having enough trouble getting out one game Found, right, I mean there are
• 1:07:06
  people, there are people who still don't have what I do agree, well,
• 1:07:11
  okay, I agree with that. I do feel like they actually were
• 1:07:15
  producing grim Reminders before, like that has been going. See that that would
• 1:07:20
  have to mean that that they are sunsetting Grim Reminders and moving into Ember Sky's
• 1:07:27
  like they need to be printing Ember Skuys right now to be ready for that
• 1:07:30
  Game Found whatever may come, and ready to ship it once the Game Found
• 1:07:34
  is closed, because after that they need set Elemental P and they need to
• 1:07:40
  be continuing. They need to be they need to be onto set whatever number
• 1:07:45
  that is, well fall would be. So yes, yeah, I don't
• 1:07:47
  think I don't think it's not far out. Yeah, I don't think the
• 1:07:50
  the production cadence like they if they get that smooth, I think that'll be
• 1:07:56
  fine. Right. I don't think that's the problem. I do think think
• 1:08:00
  you're pointing out something that that's real potential challenge in terms of trying to run
• 1:08:05
  via Game Found twice a year and how much are how much were people gonna
• 1:08:13
  how much you're pocket to put forward? Yeah, if you're if you're gonna
• 1:08:16
  do it twice a year, And I mean because I don't think it's gonna
• 1:08:19
  we actually have found. Yeah, Now you wouldn't expect most people would be
• 1:08:26
  doing that level of investment on every game found. So then what I know
• 1:08:30
  that there's gonna be no return, right, but we know what the average
• 1:08:34
  is. That average falls in that. Yeah, but that was that's also
• 1:08:39
  considering one game found a year. Now we're adding another one. Yeah,
• 1:08:44
  I mean people who spend money on most card games spend more than a couple
• 1:08:50
  hundred bucks once a year on their card games, probably, And honestly,
• 1:08:56
  I think they'll actually do a better job selling more key for or by getting
• 1:09:00
  it in stores and letting people be able to buy that one play at fifteen
• 1:09:04
  dollars. Then every time you buy keyfards you have to be spending sixty one
• 1:09:10
  hundred, two hundred, three hundred, five hundred dollars at a time.
• 1:09:13
  Like I agree this kind of thing with the way keyfdge is. It is
• 1:09:16
  just designed to sell much better one deck at a time than it is always
• 1:09:21
  having to buy boxes every time you a set comes around. The only way
• 1:09:27
  you really get it is by buying boxes. Like this game is best at
• 1:09:30
  one deck at a time or a couple of decks, but not like we
• 1:09:36
  have all done it, and most of us in this sitting arrangement here have
• 1:09:43
  quit where we buy large quantities, tear them all open and just keep the
• 1:09:48
  three good decks, like, oh, everybody here has quit doing that.
• 1:09:53
  Even if we do buy masks, we have boxes sitting behind us because they're
• 1:09:57
  like, we all really only want to open them if we think we're gonna
• 1:10:00
  try to play them, like we don't need to, just it's not this.
• 1:10:04
  The chase isn't good enough in this game. And because you don't get
• 1:10:10
  collector like cool stuff where you like like go, I have the foil version
• 1:10:15
  of this card and that makes it cool, like because this game doesn't do
• 1:10:19
  any of that stuff. Even when you open the high sas Banger, if
• 1:10:23
  it doesn't play well, it doesn't matter all right, Since you brought up
• 1:10:28
  foil, I know it's a completely off topic, but we're already all around
• 1:10:32
  Wookie, you and I were talking about foils. It is. There are
• 1:10:35
  not a reason, boys that we cannot have here. You win your foil
• 1:10:40
  card, just one one card for the month that you can go ahead and
• 1:10:44
  slot in your local play. Is there a reason that we couldn't go ahead
• 1:10:47
  and do that for local play, which is very casual and there should be
• 1:10:50
  no issue. Tell me, explain to me why I can't go ahead and
• 1:10:55
  do that there. Now, with the way a lot works and sleeving and
• 1:11:00
  junk there is really I'm with you, there's no real reason that they couldn't
• 1:11:05
  have one off foil cards. Well, on side of the way magic or
• 1:11:10
  magic key forge decks work versus magic is there's no guarantee, Like picking the
• 1:11:16
  card is hard because you have it there, but then you played decks from
• 1:11:26
  that set if you go to historic sets, so it's got to basically only
• 1:11:29
  be new a set and then well there you go with the storyline, right,
• 1:11:31
  it's like you but then you get that card and foil and then you
• 1:11:38
  Yeah, it could work, especially especially because with the way we were talking
• 1:11:44
  is I mean obviously Vault tours, Nationals and worlds, they're out right like
• 1:11:50
  you can't you can't use them, and I don't think anybody would really be
• 1:11:56
  like oh man. You know, maybe there'd be an oh man, but
• 1:11:59
  like like nobody's really gonna be like, ah man, this is you know,
• 1:12:03
  throw up their arms in absolute disgust because they can't use you know,
• 1:12:06
  they have to use the deck as it was printed, as opposed to you
• 1:12:11
  know, I can't play my I don't even know why you would have to
• 1:12:14
  do that at that high level of a tournament, Like, as long as
• 1:12:18
  the sleeves are good, it doesn't really matter. Well, foils tend to
• 1:12:23
  curl, so it has not been a problem every other card game it has,
• 1:12:32
  and just make sure you print quality foils. So yeah, okay,
• 1:12:35
  it'll be a problem in this game. Never mind, never mind, I
• 1:12:39
  take it all back. I don't know. It was just something that you
• 1:12:42
  know, we had ruled out in the past, but we're like, why
• 1:12:45
  not for casual play? Does it really matter? We have sleeves that are
• 1:12:47
  here, and if your local is not playing with sleeves, okay, well
• 1:12:50
  then maybe it's not the choice for you. But to have one card to
• 1:12:54
  slot in, especially if it's a common where we see it show up in
• 1:12:57
  the recent set, I love it. Go ahead and throw it in.
• 1:13:00
  It's easy enough that you can produce a larger stack. That's frankly everil well,
• 1:13:05
  we went ahead and said Phantom Reaver, like, literally, here,
• 1:13:09
  here's your card to start off with. It's one. It's something for the
• 1:13:12
  people who've been around something to collect something to look forward to. But you're
• 1:13:15
  not breaking the bank by giving everyone a big giant deck. It's one card.
• 1:13:20
  I don't know. I thought it was an easy, low hanging and
• 1:13:23
  not only that you have you have a back for it too. It's not
• 1:13:26
  like you because of the art. Because the one thing I know that they're
• 1:13:29
  going to say is the archon backing would be weird and funny. And the
• 1:13:33
  collector set or whatever it is, has a back, So just use that
• 1:13:38
  back on the backside. And we could go ahead and put a different who
• 1:13:42
  cares it's going in a sleeve, it's going in a sleeve. Or you
• 1:13:45
  could basically say here's your promo for you know, storyline or Q one or
• 1:13:49
  Q two, like you can. You could literally put almost anything there to
• 1:13:53
  symbolize that you have the special promo. Great are we talking about files?
• 1:13:58
  It was it was just it was just because it was brought up. We
• 1:14:00
  were trying to come up with one too, right, But we were trying
• 1:14:04
  to come up with ideas for like meaningful prizes that you can handle somebody that
• 1:14:10
  would where do we get on that you want to come back? I have
• 1:14:13
  no idea. We threw inkywok tried to hit the cat on the way back
• 1:14:18
  and he swerved. And now we're here, all right, so to go
• 1:14:21
  ahead and refocus, I will say in our State of the Union address,
• 1:14:27
  what was basically talked about is, you know they did all they did a
• 1:14:30
  lot of pr work, in my opinion, in order to say, hey,
• 1:14:33
  we migrated data of seven million, seven million plus decks to our new
• 1:14:38
  infrastructure. We executed that. You know, we were able to transform twenty
• 1:14:44
  twenty two. No, no, but like, but this had even been
• 1:14:46
  done in twenty twenty one. When did master fall? Now master Ball went
• 1:14:49
  live something twenty two. But Pitcher, you know we were able to go
• 1:14:54
  ahead and do account transfers from FFT to AS and day over to GG,
• 1:14:59
  optimizer, overload, implement, enhancement, data build. This is all pr
• 1:15:03
  of, like, hey, we're trying, We're doing this. This is
• 1:15:05
  all the stuff we did in the first six months, which is why you
• 1:15:09
  didn't get store championships last year. I hear that. But the end result
• 1:15:15
  is that, in my opinion, was it took more of a chunk of
• 1:15:21
  what the slide show was and that, in my opinion, could have been
• 1:15:27
  hey, great, but this is pr man. You don't need to be
• 1:15:30
  able to go through and tell us this. It's basically like, hey,
• 1:15:32
  I've punched you in the eye. You're all black and blue, but hey,
• 1:15:35
  let me let me just say it's okay. Here, it's okay,
• 1:15:39
  boy, you're you're fine. I mean that is meaningful information, and that
• 1:15:44
  it was people not aware, no like you. And we have a problem
• 1:15:50
  that we think people have the same interest and same knowledge level as us.
• 1:15:56
  Yeah, and people don't. We don't just do not like right. Plus,
• 1:16:00
  we are actively seeking out information constantly, and most people just get whatever
• 1:16:08
  roll across their feet, right. Well, and plus remember this this is
• 1:16:12
  also the CEO of a company talking to an audience. And there's not just
• 1:16:16
  customers in the audience, there's employees as well, right, so he does
• 1:16:21
  have to consider how is this going to feel and sound to my employees,
• 1:16:28
  and if the employees are like, holy crap, that was hard and a
• 1:16:31
  shit ton of work having him mention it place to that audience. Yeah,
• 1:16:38
  I don't think we're like whatever. I don't think that was the audience.
• 1:16:42
  I think that we are the people who are spending money and you should have
• 1:16:45
  been placating to us. I'll be one hundred percent on us there. I
• 1:16:47
  think the g G. I think the G I think the GG staff does
• 1:16:51
  a phenomenal job. But that is an internal Hey, guys, i'm getting
• 1:16:56
  lunch or i'm doing this, I think that you have been busting your chops.
• 1:16:59
  But that's that need to be published here for all of the people who
• 1:17:02
  are spending money on it. This to me was, hey, I know
• 1:17:06
  things didn't turn out the way that you guys wanted to, So let me
• 1:17:09
  just let me go ahead and smooth this over by telling you what we've done.
• 1:17:13
  Even on the next slide seven seven vault tours, twelve nationals, they're
• 1:17:16
  just listing what they've done, and again they accomplished some items. You do
• 1:17:20
  have. State of the Union is here's the things we have accomplished, all
• 1:17:25
  right, That's that's an important part of any of these kind of speeches.
• 1:17:29
  Here's the things that were accomplished last year, and then you go into here
• 1:17:32
  are the goals for next year. But that's what I'm or you guys all
• 1:17:38
  sucked and we're going to fire half of you. I mean, it just
• 1:17:40
  depends on which State of the Union you're giving, right, But what I'm
• 1:17:45
  saying we don't know if it's good or bad. But what I'm saying is
• 1:17:48
  you went from very specific data of hey, we ran these events, which
• 1:17:53
  frankly we could see. Fine, if you want to go hide and goss
• 1:17:55
  over it, I'm awesome with this. But the end result is they do
• 1:18:00
  not tell us anything specific or here's the date that you're going to hear specifics
• 1:18:03
  by even in generalization of like like when we go ahead and talk about,
• 1:18:09
  uh, there's gonna be high level aspirational competitive tier, that is literally what
• 1:18:14
  replaced we're holding this amount of vts. You don't have to tell me that
• 1:18:18
  we're gonna go ahead and have seven Vault Tours again this year, or it's
• 1:18:21
  gonna be five, and it's going to be in these months. But you
• 1:18:25
  should have said, hey, guys, we're gonna have Vault Tours next year
• 1:18:28
  and we'll let you know that by this point where and when they are.
• 1:18:33
  They didn't do that, and right now there's a I don't even freaking we
• 1:18:38
  needed a by this point we'll let you know. I think just the fact
• 1:18:42
  of saying, like we're doing vaults, we look to continue the Vault Tour
• 1:18:45
  again in twenty twenty four. Yeah, look for dates, look for dates
• 1:18:50
  you know coming, you know, as we secure them, that would have
• 1:18:54
  been a like thumbs up, because you know there's still coming, and there
• 1:18:58
  doesn't. There leaves nothing to the imagination of because a lot of I mean
• 1:19:02
  again, we left last year on a high. Here's here's your quarter,
• 1:19:08
  fucking pumped, like we were all we were all just absolutely ecstatic to get
• 1:19:15
  more key forge, right, and then we got like the little like you
• 1:19:19
  know, the drunk dad who went to go get cigarettes and maybe came back
• 1:19:24
  three weeks later, right, Like it was kind of like that feeling.
• 1:19:28
  I'm sorry, but that was the feeling like that, like Daddy went out
• 1:19:31
  to go get the milk, and you know that was February and it's now
• 1:19:34
  July, but Daddy's back now and everything's gonna be okay, right, Like
• 1:19:40
  that was how I felt. That's that's how But like just it's great America
• 1:19:47
  and I'm too drunk to know the difference, but I'm taking this is the
• 1:19:50
  speedway, dad, I did. I did feel like see the great America.
• 1:19:57
  I feel that they are listening to us, and I think that's a
• 1:19:59
  real highlight. I want to be able to point that out because they talk
• 1:20:01
  about OP on the next slide, like retail registration, event registration. They're
• 1:20:06
  hearing that, they're listening to it, but it almost feels like it is
• 1:20:11
  very delayed for the responses to what we want. Yes, there is,
• 1:20:16
  there is no Yeah, where's where's the OP? No to be there,
• 1:20:24
  but you have to tell us. The biggest you have to have me is
• 1:20:28
  there was no like it wasn't even like, hey, look guys, you
• 1:20:32
  know we made a mistake. Right, We really thought we were going to
• 1:20:35
  be able to do this just didn't shake out the way we thought it it
• 1:20:40
  was going to shake out. But hey, here's some things we did to
• 1:20:44
  make sure that OP continues in twenty twenty four at the store level. Right.
• 1:20:47
  Isn't that the narcissism thing where you never take responsibility Typically that is called
• 1:20:53
  narcissists. Yes, so it's I guess I was just looking for if we
• 1:20:58
  have local play, and they did a much better job at being able to
• 1:21:00
  say there's gonna be local play. We've been screaming for that. We have
• 1:21:03
  that. I'm very excited by that. I wish I wish shine. But
• 1:21:11
  here's what I know. I know what you want. I want to ownership.
• 1:21:14
  That went right into my job because the fact that there was zero ownership
• 1:21:17
  taken, that there was no local organized plan twenty twenty twenty twenty three really
• 1:21:24
  jobbed me because it's like, well, what's gonna stop you from going,
• 1:21:27
  Yeah, we tried, just didn't work out again this year, so maybe
• 1:21:30
  we just won't talk about it. See so next next year, next year
• 1:21:34
  staying and I'll be like, and so we've pushed the start championship too.
• 1:21:43
  We'll see you later. That's gonna be the whole thing. There'll be game
• 1:21:45
  founds again next year, That'll be the whole thing. So see, the
• 1:21:48
  reason I had to say the reason I asked this is I think they did
• 1:21:53
  a much better job at saying, oh, pe in local play. But
• 1:21:56
  now I feel like, Okay, we'd asked for vts and we don't last
• 1:22:00
  time. But well, yes that is dangerous because they didn't follow through.
• 1:22:02
  But I'm saying, like, right now, we don't have anything outside of
• 1:22:05
  the little slide we have. We have no no. I'm saying they're reviewing,
• 1:22:13
  but I said high level, high level, aspirational competitive tier. They
• 1:22:17
  know that it's important, but we don't know if and when or what and
• 1:22:24
  I I'm stuck in this spot again of hey, we didn't have product from
• 1:22:28
  last year. Now we don't have OP we need to get that going and
• 1:22:31
  we need that like that needs to be tomorrow. That people were already signing
• 1:22:38
  up for stores, because it's going to take time to get stores signed up
• 1:22:42
  and to get things out. But it's scary. It's scary because we're going
• 1:22:47
  to be delivered December signs for March events. That will be fine. Well,
• 1:22:53
  I I agree, I just don't know how you would turn that around.
• 1:22:55
  I mean, you have your game found, so at the very least
• 1:22:58
  you should be reaching out to those stores December first with here's your game found
• 1:23:01
  information, this is what's happening. Follow up, Well, you guys have
• 1:23:05
  heard me talk. I'm still not on the positive of week of what we
• 1:23:12
  actually get because they say they're now reviewing their data, so they're finally because
• 1:23:16
  they didn't bother to collect it. Although, like we can sit down and
• 1:23:19
  in one night come up with pretty convincing numbers about things just using the data
• 1:23:26
  we have on how many people showed up to things, how much money was
• 1:23:29
  likely spent, earned cost things, like we could do this in a night
• 1:23:33
  so I don't know why it would take them four to six weeks to analyze
• 1:23:36
  their data. I work for a company too, with far more employees than
• 1:23:43
  they have, and it doesn't take me that long to collect and analyze data.
• 1:23:47
  Oh, it takes us way longer. Yeah, I will say,
• 1:23:50
  I will say book Wooki was on fire. Anti states what I'm saying.
• 1:23:56
  Well, but Wooki went ahead and said when we are there at KFS,
• 1:24:00
  they should have given us something in our little goodie bag that should have gone
• 1:24:03
  back to each of mind. No, no, no, he spared it
• 1:24:08
  and then cheap you added onto it because you said it should have been double
• 1:24:12
  sided with a window cling or like a point of sale. And then on
• 1:24:15
  the back side, what the actual like, here's the product that we have
• 1:24:18
  in. Here's how like QR code is scanned to get in Like both of
• 1:24:23
  you guys were spot on, because we are the player base. If you're
• 1:24:26
  using us, then use us. Put it in the goodie bag, Take
• 1:24:28
  this back to your stores, give them something we're already transporting. You're saving
• 1:24:32
  on shipping. I thought you guys were on fire there with it. I
• 1:24:34
  really did. I mean, if I can't get a check at least get
• 1:24:38
  a four oh one K or something like four O one K. We'll give
• 1:24:43
  you. We'll give you a key for age check one retirement goes again.
• 1:24:48
  So I am still just very concerned about what we get because I still look
• 1:24:54
  at this financially and say, the numbers don't add up to a Now I
• 1:25:00
  don't know what they're. The number that I don't have is there after game
• 1:25:05
  found sales. I don't know how many boxes they moved through actual retail.
• 1:25:12
  None of us really have any feel for that. Outside of that, in
• 1:25:15
  general, it felt like our stores were having trouble getting them, which to
• 1:25:18
  me says either they moved a ton more through other outlets that we don't know
• 1:25:23
  about, or there wasn't as money. It's hard to say because they're not
• 1:25:27
  very well. They're not transparent at all. They don't share any of those
• 1:25:30
  kinds of numbers. Oh gosh. So but we know looking at the Vault
• 1:25:36
  Tours and the head counts and we did live which we ran almost as cheap
• 1:25:43
  as you could run an event, and we lost money. Uh, there
• 1:25:46
  is no way in hell they did anything but lose money at Vault Tours this
• 1:25:51
  year. It's just especially when you include the prize money, it's they all
• 1:25:57
  lost money. So when they go back and like, what were their metrics
• 1:26:00
  because they were also celebrations, was down in player count year over year?
• 1:26:08
  Like there none of the numbers to me say wow. But but if you're
• 1:26:18
  not investing in marketing and still having that player base turnout, I think those
• 1:26:23
  are good numbers. But we don't know what their goals and what their opinions
• 1:26:30
  are because they're stuper not transparent with anything. So if it's just a numbers
• 1:26:35
  game, it's not going great. But if it's a beer and Pretzels game
• 1:26:40
  that they're selling again behind the scenes, seven million decks and million, that's
• 1:26:47
  seven million they imported. That's not seven million they sold. They sold.
• 1:26:51
  None of those seven million, Those seven million were sold by FFG. I
• 1:26:58
  do agree with that, but I'm saying like, if they're going ahead and
• 1:27:02
  selling some of their decks, if they're looking at a beer and Pretzel's game,
• 1:27:06
  that it is a very casual around your dinner table and we don't need
• 1:27:11
  this competitive market. Is it just that it's a lifestyle game for a few
• 1:27:15
  of us, but they really see as the majority are going to be very
• 1:27:20
  casual. Maybe that's it would be nice if they were clear on what their
• 1:27:26
  strategies are, which maybe in three to five weeks now we get something clear
• 1:27:31
  in their strategy, because if they came and said, hey, you know,
• 1:27:34
  we ran the Vault Tours, we had this great world thing. It
• 1:27:38
  was great, but the numbers and stuff are just not there to do it.
• 1:27:42
  So we're going to refocus on store organized play to increase the player base
• 1:27:48
  so we can bring back Vault Tours in a future. Because that's the language
• 1:27:51
  they're going to say. And then after a year, if local play doesn't
• 1:27:57
  pick up, they'll be like, well, so local play isn't really building,
• 1:28:01
  so we're going to retract there to just these not store level stuff.
• 1:28:06
  We're just going to make a couple of casual could year and do this and
• 1:28:12
  see how much money we can get on minimal effort. Yeah, like that's
• 1:28:16
  the route it could go. That is one route this could go. Because
• 1:28:19
  if there isn't an increase in numbers, there's not going to be an increase
• 1:28:26
  in events. Well why do why do they think there's going to be an
• 1:28:29
  increase in numbers when we when when they're not investing in building the player base
• 1:28:35
  and they're not investing in marketing because they believed that just by rebringing out the
• 1:28:43
  game and adding Alliance would bring back enough players to make it a thing like
• 1:28:46
  I really like catching a knife scenario. Man, How how does catching a
• 1:28:51
  knife go ahead and equate to adding more players just through osmosis? I don't
• 1:28:56
  get that. But it wasn't adding players, so it was just getting your
• 1:29:00
  return. There's the prela, the local ip slide where they talk about what
• 1:29:05
  they're thinking will help here. Now now I will this play out? Right?
• 1:29:11
  Like you know, we talked about some of the bullet points here,
• 1:29:14
  right, but they feel, hey, they really need consistently release new sets.
• 1:29:19
  Hey they're going to do it every six months. It seems like of
• 1:29:23
  all the things, it seems like they're they're positioning themselves to do that,
• 1:29:27
  to be able to do that, establishing distribution routines and supply maybe sure lines
• 1:29:33
  of communication for publisher to retailer, event organizer. So that's a big gap
• 1:29:38
  that they need, right, So they if they're just going down this list,
• 1:29:41
  they need to focus their method of set up informed players about local events.
• 1:29:45
  They really need that. They did say they we're gonna have some sort
• 1:29:47
  of Widget, right, Yeah, that levelspirational competitive tier. They have that
• 1:29:53
  in VT, so they're saying they want to continue it. So this slide
• 1:29:56
  to me says, what what they're thinking now, how how effective or they
• 1:30:00
  can be each space? What are they actually going to do under the covers
• 1:30:02
  to make each of these occur? And where do they think they are versus
• 1:30:09
  where do we think they are? And each of these is an interesting question
• 1:30:13
  I believe in. Josh, go Josh, don't let me down man E
• 1:30:17
  Jeremy for some of this stuff too, right, we need we need to
• 1:30:20
  pass on more information to Janet so she can kick some ass. There you
• 1:30:25
  go, let's go. You know you know what I did for my name,
• 1:30:29
  Dex. I went with a Janet best of GG for one of the
• 1:30:31
  actually submit that, yes, yes, okay, since you are talking about
• 1:30:39
  that, if you have not submitted for your Grim Reminders Game Found campaign,
• 1:30:44
  you are going to keep getting pinged by GGI don't ask me how I know
• 1:30:47
  this, but it is quickly approaching the end of the day Monday, November
• 1:30:51
  twenty seventh Central time. You have to have your your name decks in or
• 1:30:57
  you just are in real trouble. So do that now anyone who is really
• 1:31:01
  a procrastinator, And I'm totally gonna like, uh you know, quote unquote
• 1:31:08
  lose a card from that deck and then and then make Josh read it.
• 1:31:15
  I really know. When Devin pinked me to tell me about that, I'm
• 1:31:17
  like, how are you think the before they catch on? Like like I
• 1:31:21
  was like, this is genius. This is the most genius thing that's happened
• 1:31:25
  at a vault this long to figure this out, it doesn't matter if they
• 1:31:30
  catch on. Oh no, No, Devin had placed many many different cards.
• 1:31:33
  We talked about that. I am really disappointed boys that we were supposed
• 1:31:38
  to have some GG staff members read off our equoton cards and or wasn't it
• 1:31:43
  in now they were supposed to play our One thing about world is there wasn't
• 1:31:49
  much It was pretty busy consistently, like there was not much downtime. Uh
• 1:31:57
  so like on all there there wasn't all bad things. Like I'm obviously unsatisfied
• 1:32:04
  with the overall e bank because now he's back. See he missed that.
• 1:32:10
  Say it again, cheap now you missed it. You literally went away,
• 1:32:16
  but not through his microphone on the floor. Book. I'm gonna keep throwing
• 1:32:23
  it on the floor. Josh, you missed this, but sheep gave you
• 1:32:26
  a compliment. You'ren't have to go back and just put that on loop.
• 1:32:29
  You did some good things, is what he said. You know, there
• 1:32:31
  were some good things that did happen, right, like unlike previous years,
• 1:32:38
  or I should just say the previous year, things seemed to run at least
• 1:32:43
  mostly on time. Right. It wasn't like I said mostly. I mean,
• 1:32:51
  listen, they scheduled the but they scheduled the State of the Union at
• 1:33:00
  like six. It happened at like six. It was like six ish,
• 1:33:03
  and then you know, they said that they were gonna do this at seven,
• 1:33:08
  and it happened around seven. It wasn't like three hours later like it
• 1:33:13
  was the year previous. Just saying I caught out immediately. I was like,
• 1:33:19
  how long do you think before they catch on? Like it's gonna be
• 1:33:24
  like a card and they're gonna be like this is dumb. Take this back,
• 1:33:28
  go sit down. I don't know, that's just me. Remember getting
• 1:33:33
  a chance to get dinner on Saturday? Dinner? Yeah, we didn't get
• 1:33:40
  dinner on Saturday. Yeah, there's going to be an op. Okay,
• 1:33:45
  So this coming from Josh, there's going to be an o op track.
• 1:33:50
  Told y'all, I ain't saying nothing until I can deliver nice Okay, So
• 1:34:00
  he has a plan, but until it's in place in concrete, you're not
• 1:34:05
  going to hear it. They had a plan in twenty two, well they
• 1:34:13
  fully learned a lot cast in whatever Portland Ce meant and immediately crumbled when tried
• 1:34:19
  to pick up No. So I think what's important for us to be able
• 1:34:24
  to hear though, Josh, is that it's coming sooner rather than later.
• 1:34:28
  And by that I mean this December or January like, but this is where
• 1:34:32
  that whole idea of Q one when it was said last year and then all
• 1:34:35
  of a sudden it magically got pushed back to April. May like when you
• 1:34:40
  can see the end of that finish line on a long race, especially coming
• 1:34:44
  out of the pandemic, that helps. But when you're still here places like
• 1:34:47
  Na who are waiting and you're like, hey, I'm good, I'm good.
• 1:34:50
  Oh no, just just another another month, another six months, that's
• 1:34:55
  where it absolutely is backbreaking. And so that's what we need to be able
• 1:34:59
  to see re what we do, where is it what we need? And
• 1:35:01
  I can't say it's going to happen, but you told me that there was
• 1:35:04
  going to be things produced Q one. I need information about those things that
• 1:35:12
  will be produced in Q one by the end of Q four because I need
• 1:35:18
  to know that they're happening and not being like, well they're coming, because
• 1:35:23
  that might just go back and playing Allen disappear, just that it just becomes
• 1:35:28
  the doom tracker of like, oh it's March thirtieth, still no word,
• 1:35:33
  you know, Like well, that is the scary part for some of the
• 1:35:38
  competitive players right now is that, unfortunately, it's very easy with our fast
• 1:35:43
  paced world, to simply glitch over to another game, whether it's a board
• 1:35:46
  game, another card game, a video game, or to another hobby frankly
• 1:35:50
  entirely. And so that's why I think this time is critical. And yes,
• 1:35:56
  I agree we need to have things in place, but the longer we
• 1:35:59
  wait, it's creating this longer time where I'm out. And I mean you
• 1:36:04
  said that we have there are people I know about right now who are already
• 1:36:09
  on that spectrum or frankly I tested out, they're just done. So this
• 1:36:14
  has happened every time I went to buy a new car, I'll go to
• 1:36:16
  dealership, they'll have something I want and I'll be like, it's just isn't
• 1:36:21
  making me feel special enough to want to buy here. I'm like, and
• 1:36:25
  if I walk out this door, you're going to put me back on research
• 1:36:28
  and there's a good chance I never show up back here again, and they
• 1:36:32
  never close and I always end up buying a car somewhere else because you find
• 1:36:38
  out, like during the first approach to buying a car doing something some things
• 1:36:43
  that you'd like to see different. And when you go and start looking for
• 1:36:46
  things that can deliver that stuff because it wasn't delivered you on first chance,
• 1:36:51
  you find it and then you're gone forever. Well, And this struggle is
• 1:36:57
  if you're placing a lot of moms and dads, they already have other things
• 1:37:02
  that are taking part of their life. So it's just real easy to be
• 1:37:05
  like, hey, this is on the back burner, get pushed back and
• 1:37:10
  Tuesday isn't there anymore? Boys, Sorry, sorry, we can't go ahead
• 1:37:13
  and do this event where just it becomes easy. As soon as Tuesdays aren't
• 1:37:17
  key forged, they become something else and then they can never be key forge
• 1:37:20
  again. And same thing like the fact that I don't have something in January
• 1:37:25
  or February to say this is what I'm planning on doing means I'm looking for
• 1:37:29
  something else to do. And once I find that, I may just be
• 1:37:33
  on a different course where I never make it back. But if I had
• 1:37:38
  something, if I already knew what I was doing in January, I wouldn't
• 1:37:41
  be looking for something else. But the problem, the problem that you're saying
• 1:37:45
  is real. Yeah, but you have your vacation time and so now is
• 1:37:53
  the time where you can plan for all of next year. And there are
• 1:37:56
  people with different jobs where they know this is this is my time off.
• 1:38:00
  Where can I slot it? It's not going to be the next week And
• 1:38:03
  and I know Dascore you were joking about, hey, November a couple of
• 1:38:08
  days before KFC. But that is what we have seen is the m O
• 1:38:12
  right now this past year in small group, a lot of pressure, but
• 1:38:17
  things seem to be showing up consistently right before the Vault tour, before this
• 1:38:23
  event, and again they're doing a lot to change. But it's very scary
• 1:38:27
  when you don't have notice. Even the idea of the last couple of ball
• 1:38:30
  tours, I couldn't go to them because of how late they were and how
• 1:38:34
  they are rescheduled. We need to be able to plan I question, and
• 1:38:40
  then we're going to wrap it up because yeah, everyone, yeah this may
• 1:38:46
  seem unrelated, but but it's a related question. So the when when we
• 1:38:53
  asked in the Q and a, uh, you know, hey, if
• 1:38:57
  you can hire an additional employee, like, what would they do? And
• 1:39:01
  it was graphic design? Is that is? Like? What do we think
• 1:39:08
  about? That? Is that would the graphic designer dreamline all these things that
• 1:39:14
  we want because they've got Jeremy and Josh. We got to remember a geographic
• 1:39:18
  designer isn't just a graphic designer. He also does promotions, game design?
• 1:39:27
  Is it game design? Probably? Like is that the bottle neck? It
• 1:39:31
  like or the biggest bottle neck? Like when they're looking at their Hey,
• 1:39:34
  what are you doing in your that shouldn't be in your job bucket? That
• 1:39:40
  slowing you down? Is everybody like graphic design? Well, I mean we've
• 1:39:44
  we've heard awful for me to have to do it at work, like I
• 1:39:47
  have to do our flyers and I mean like and it's just even internal stuff
• 1:39:51
  like hey, we're having this gathering on this day and even putting something together
• 1:39:57
  for that is a ridiculous amount of work for me because suck at it and
• 1:40:00
  we don't have any tools. If they have a graphic designer, Jeremy won't
• 1:40:03
  be taking that video on November eighth. He'll be taking it right. That's
• 1:40:10
  different. That's that's video production. But I mean we've heard Jeremy and Josh
• 1:40:16
  both talk about like when they're doing things, like they have to go to
• 1:40:20
  the graphic designer. And I'm sure with only one there's a wait, you
• 1:40:24
  know, so maybe Josh gets bottlenecked by maybe I'm trying to come out with
• 1:40:29
  store championships, but I need to get some graphics YadA YadA, so on
• 1:40:32
  and so forth, so I can do all of my stuff, but I
• 1:40:35
  can't get it because we'll call him Kevin. I don't know what was his
• 1:40:41
  name. Did we get his name in the video? Yes? Does anybody
• 1:40:45
  remember it? No? So he's Kevin Will Will is his name. Will's
• 1:40:50
  waiting, you know, and it's like I know it might you know,
• 1:40:55
  like with my like even just running my store, we have between sixteen stories.
• 1:41:00
  We have one it guy, and literally sometimes when things go sideways and
• 1:41:08
  you're all leaning on that one it guy like he can only get so much
• 1:41:13
  done so quickly, right, and when your entire everything runs off of it,
• 1:41:18
  your sol and you're just stuck waiting and it sucks. And that's quite
• 1:41:23
  possible. What's happening here? You know, Josh needs stuff, well he's
• 1:41:27
  got to wait on Will. And then you know, but Jeremy needs stuff,
• 1:41:30
  well, Jeremy's behind Josh. Oh, now Michael needs things, well,
• 1:41:33
  Jeremy's behind Josh and Jeremy and and you know whoever else got in there
• 1:41:41
  beforehand. So now they're all just twiddling their thumbs, not doing anything because
• 1:41:45
  they're all waiting on Will. I mean, that is definitely a thing that
• 1:41:49
  happens in companies. And when you or Will your management meetings, you gotta
• 1:41:56
  go where is our lack of resources? And you have to address those issues.
• 1:42:00
  So my question now is who does Will bump off of the chart?
• 1:42:04
  Ooh, where does Will stand? Because it's Janet, right, She's never
• 1:42:08
  gonna number one? Janet? Yeah, And then I think, did we
• 1:42:12
  have Josh next? After Janet? Is Josh number two? He's got up
• 1:42:16
  and I don't know. Jeremy was pretty upset that he was he was bumped
• 1:42:25
  a lot further down. I don't know. He might be going down seven
• 1:42:28
  now that we will our video production guy gets to be number two right now
• 1:42:32
  because he's pretty. He is my good videos this year, so he can
• 1:42:36
  be number two for now. Yeah, he's done some good work. Yeah,
• 1:42:40
  all right, he's been great, you know, so we're going to
• 1:42:43
  put him number two though, wow, well who else we're going to have
• 1:42:46
  his number two? I don't know. He hasn't done anything to disappoint us,
• 1:42:49
  So he's just not done anything to disappoint really piss off off, So
• 1:42:58
  number two lost point. You're right. Sorry, So if you are listening
• 1:43:02
  to this and you are a graphic designer and you're willing to for you know,
• 1:43:10
  yeah, keep forge decks for for breakfast, send g an email graphic.
• 1:43:18
  I can do things, but I don't really know what they all need
• 1:43:21
  is in my wheel? You should? You should sign up. I don't
• 1:43:25
  know. But you're gonna have to be able to deal with vectors. Yeah.
• 1:43:28
  I can deal with vectors. It's fine. Like it's not a thing
• 1:43:32
  I enjoy, but I mean I understand it enough to the point where I'm
• 1:43:39
  competent, But I don't know what they also want out of it, so
• 1:43:44
  I won't be applying for that position anytime soon. But with that being said,
• 1:43:49
  that's gonna do it for us this week. You can join uh join
• 1:43:53
  us here every week typically Thursdays, not today because of Thanksgiving, but thank
• 1:43:58
  you for I mean for very short upisodes too. We like to keep it.
• 1:44:01
  Yeah, we like to keep him under five hours typically, so you
• 1:44:05
  know, here we are again reaching our reaching our If you just moved the
• 1:44:10
  goalpost, you always reach your goal. How that works. So I want
• 1:44:14
  to help our future self. And like we're talking and I'm like, oh,
• 1:44:17
  this is gonna be a great conversation. And then Siddy's like, well
• 1:44:20
  that's it, so we're wrapping it up this week. Let's do the help
• 1:44:25
  of futureself. I was like, we just we just got started seventeen minutes
• 1:44:29
  episode. Yeah. I have done a podcast for a very I don't even
• 1:44:33
  know. We did one live all night long when we were doing a very
• 1:44:38
  old show called Bedtimes and band Aids, and that was probably the longest show
• 1:44:42
  I've ever done. But it was a lot of fun. Janet Keith,
• 1:44:47
  Mike, Mike Michael, is that what you're saying? And we we we
• 1:44:53
  slimmed him down to Mike, Mike, Mike, Gosh, Jeremy, Alex.
• 1:44:58
  Which one is Alex the guy who does the the sales stuff? Oh
• 1:45:04
  yeah, Alex. Will. Will's all the way down there, though he's
• 1:45:11
  new to the list, so he's got to He's nothing to deserve anything.
• 1:45:15
  But but I mean, can we be very very clear that there is a
• 1:45:20
  big, big, big jump between where Will is and where CTP is.
• 1:45:28
  We'll go over that next week. We'll see you all next week. Made
• 1:45:31
  the Forge be with you, be for everyone. Nos, no dy,
• 1:45:43
  no disease, no big control, no no welcome to your one again.
• 1:46:11
  Sell you know you this CALICONI Cavacon the cackle