TWIG #400: Is the Game Industry Actually Crashing, OpenAI's Astra and 8 Years of Hot Takes

[music]
Hello everyone and welcome to Deconstructor Fun This Week in Games number 400. Woo! Well, no celebration highlight.
The only one who hasn't lost hair is Adam during these hundreds of episodes. I think his hair is thicker now. But it's probably the longevity of not not doing too many of these. You kind of like don't [music] get the brain trauma.
Yep, that's it.
Yeah, but he has like he has like a he doesn't have a forehead. He has like a six-head, you know? Like look at that thing go.
Oh, that's the problem of having too big of a brain.
I'm projecting here.
I am Jen Donahoe. Who else we got on the broadcast today?
Eric Kress, strategy and investing.
Adam Telfer, product just product.
Eric is cutting the line.
Phil. Uh Phil Black, monetizations are.
What is that t-shirt, Phil? This week

[laughter]
Friend of the founders.
Did you even say your name?
Mishka Katkoff.
I just Oh, okay.
Katkoff. It's Katkoff.
So here's what we got on the episode today. Oh, I guess it's going to be great. Uh number 400, who would have thought this silly podcast on the niche-est of the niche-est topics would last [music] and here we are. So number one is the US is going to be the last country able to play GTA 6 because Rockstar has a rolling midnight launch on November 19th. New Zealand has a 19-hour head start. So all the streamers are going to be, you know, up in the middle of our night watching that. Uh we're recording the day before the big Apple event, so we won't get to know about any foldable iPhones and and their impact on games. I wonder that'll be a kind of a fun topic of like what's going to happen with that. For Zelda fans, which I am of the OOO OG 86 version, Nintendo Direct has a Zelda direct for you. It's the 40th anniversary of Legends of Zelda and the movie is coming

on April 30th of 27, live action if I remember correctly. So, that's going to be interesting. So, here's one of the stories that we're going to be covering. It's total doomer clickbait. It's called is the video game industry crashing and then we're going to probably transition [music] into the positive end of that unless your doomer of AI is open AI Astra is out and [music] so what are early thoughts on how Astra could be helping us. So, before that let's do free shill. Mishka, why don't you go first?
What am I shilling? Oh, we have events coming in next month, October, Limassol end of the month. Just go to deconstructoroffun.com events. We'll also be adding all the events to our newsletter. So, we're doing events in two cities, Limassol and Tel Aviv. That is coming at the end of October. Oh, and podcast series continues. Akin Babayigit was on the podcast this Monday. People seem to really like the

episode. So, check it out. Akin is co-founder of tripledot and founder of Arcadia Gaming Partners a $100 million fund that he dishes out himself. So, very interesting one. One more shill. This is important. This came out today. So, we have a deconstruction article just deserved from Century Games versus Gossip Harbor from Micro Fun. So, Yael Haliva who is our one newest fighter, also known as the merge queen, wrote a really good deconstruction comparing those two games. One is rising, one is at the top. If merge two is your thing, which is definitely not mine, then this article is for you.
Don't we have one other shill about another podcast launching?
You're absolutely right. That was a pun. Right, smart Adam smart Adam smart and know. John Wright. They launched a podcast together, so they launched their own British version of Twig, let's put it that way. So, if you want to listen to banter in beautiful BBC accent, this

is a good show. It just launched for the first episode, so check it out.
All right, let's get to our first topic, which is not the way back machine, but it is the most clickbaity article I've seen in a long time. This is from Polygon. It was called the worst crash we've seen since the 1980s, says top gaming exact. Well, um here are some of the facts that say, it actually is, you know, a little bit challenging. July was the lowest month for gaming hardware spending since COVID. Obviously, supply chain shortages, PS5, Xbox Series X, and Switch 2 prices are all up due to RAM shortages. Xbox also announced that 3,200 layoffs over the next quarter and cut ties with four studios in July, and there's a whole bunch of other stuff, too. This article went and just asked a bunch of older gaming executives, what do you think? Epic Tim Sweeney and other industry experts don't have good things to say about AAA games. The root cause is the hardware component shortage driven by AI data

center build-out. They can, quote, they can outbid the entire entertainment industry for all of the components. That was a Tim Sweeney comment. He also blames internal dysfunctions, chiefly AAA budgets, which he puts at 250 million to 400 million for higher-end games.
That's even higher these days. It's crazy.
Yeah. Didn't Sony just have that data point recently for Wolverine? I think it was over 300.
Yeah, I thought so, right?
Like Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2, Wolverine, it was almost like double. Yeah. Like 100, 200, 400.
Even the single-player games.
You Yeah, you're making like the same game, and it's double the cost. That you would assume.
Fidelity keeps going up.
Then Amer Sohbat, formerly Tencent BD director, I think he just left to do um
Become a VC.
Become a VC, yeah, like uh
Yeah.
One of them.
And he's just like
What the [ __ ] are you doing? [laughter]
I don't even know. This is Amir guy.

He's not even a gaming person really.
No, he is.
He's a Look at his background.
Yeah, he's a he's a 10cent BD guy.
He worked at Amazon Game Studios for you.
Yeah, for 3 years. He was at Amazon at AWS.
He worked at AGS for a year or two as a producer.
Yeah.
I call him the saint of the game industry. He has his website that does all of the game industry advice for people that are looking for jobs. He actually provides like a really wonderful service, so check out his [clears throat] LinkedIn.
value.
Yeah, like it's really actually like altruistic and well done. But so he often covers the layoffs. He actually got an award at The Game Awards. Geoff Keighley gave an award. Anyway, so on the layoffs he says, "I think this is is bad as the '83 crash. If you're game developer based in North America or Western Europe and or in a traditional AAA studio, that's ground zero for destruction." One other quote I pulled of Ralph Koster, Playable Worlds CEO, said, "AAA costs rise roughly 10x per decade. It was a million in the '90s, 10 million in '05, 100 million in '15,

inflation adjusted." Apparently Phil
nobody under 50 had anything to say about this. Like if you're under 50, you're not even asked.
Phil, I I First, let's turn it to you for your really insightful take, and I know it's long, so I'm going to hold on for it.
Uh and I'll I'll I'll I'll make it brief. So, what would be the evidence of a crash if one were to exist? Well, normally you think of a crash as something was high and then it became very low. And so, has that happened to game value market caps? No. We look at Take-Two, we look at EA. It's not like those markets have completely evaporated. If we look at employment, which is what we see right here, we almost never talk about hiring. You remember Jen we were talking about this a couple episodes ago. And so he provides a data source and a data set that helps coalesce a couple different other sources and I did some source gathering myself because if you remember a lot of these countries will have national reports where they do surveys

about what their workforce is like in Germany or in Sweden. And so you can kind of get an idea of things are growing or shrinking within each country. And so the analysis shows from 2022 to 2026, we basically started and ended with about the same number of global game workforce employees, which was around 750,000. So that also puts some perspective on the industry being under 1 million workers. Now we could have a bunch of arguments about, okay, what counts as an outsourcer, you know, what someone's working on an engine but the engine could be for games that there's a lot of debates we could get in, but I don't think it's been this massive collapse in employment. There's been contraction since our COVID highs. That's always what we've been reconciling with. And I guess people just have a really hard time swallowing that data point. There's been changes in composition. North America down 12%, South America down 8%, Europe up 6% and Asia up 2%. But there's no definition of a crash that I can imagine that fits the evidence that we see and so I think this is just a bunch of baloney.

I just think this is just like a bunch of baloney hyperventilating. I would love for us to grow, but our our struggle is shrugging towards mediocrity, not crashing. Like we're not going we're not going to evaporate tomorrow. That's not the place we're in. This is not the '80s. And and like look at
[laughter]
look at you look you look at like individual countries. Like look at Germany. Germany I think is really good example. They have great data set here. 2020 they had 10,000 employees, 2025 they have 12,000 employees. Yes, there was no growth between 24 and 25, but from 2020 to 2025 the industry has grown. Just give yourself perspective. I know it's tough right now, but it's not the end of the world.
To quote-unquote double-click on this, it's like, look, the industry is consolidating, it's not crashing. Like, there's an We're We're We're still growing, and we're growing slowly. Like, in the '80s, they were down 97% one year, right?
Yeah.
And it's just it's a completely different thing. I Honestly, I think this is completely beneath, you know,

Edge, gameindustry.biz, and Polygon for publishing this garbage.
Tim Sweeney
He said this.
No, Tim Sweeney, Shawn Layden, Amir, those guys should shut the [ __ ] up because this is This is complete clickbait [ __ ] Like, this doesn't even make sense like in terms of what they're talking about. Um All economies are boom and bust, right? We are in a bust, right? And I think again, I've said this a million times. People been in this industry during a time in which we're growing at double-digit growth for like 15 years, right? And so, that's their level of expectation, but now we're sub three. This is what it looks like. This is what it looks like, right? You don't have the opportunity. You don't have all these venture capital douchebags coming in there like going after the the shiny thing because of 2021, right? When gaming was up, you know, triple digits almost, right? It's like, the grifters have moved on, right? They're moving on to AI, right? They're looking for the next shiny penny, right? And they're leaving us all behind. So, good riddance, right? Let Matthew Ball and Lightspeed and A16Z kind of move on. But

what happens is things consolidate. Things get less frothy, and so there's less opportunity, right? And this happened to all of us that aren't like 30 years old, right? This happened in 2000, this during the dot-com bust, this happened in 2008. Everything kind of goes through this boom and bust, and we're just in this bust. So, buckle in, right? But we're not crashing, right? People are still spending on interactive, they will keep spending on mobile, they will keep playing on PC, and yes, they will keep buying consoles. Interactive will always be a better form of entertainment than passive. And so it we will we will survive and continue. It just doesn't look as frothy as an and as interesting particularly to these like douchebags at venture capital and others that like McKinsey and they're gone, but we will remain and be strong.
This is what mature froth looks like.
[laughter]
The froth has gone down to just a a coffee. Mishka, what do you what do you say?

It was interesting reading this and Phil, thanks for sharing like all these data points. They they're really sobering because they kind of, you know, pull you back, zoom you out that it's not as good as last year, but it's way better than, you know, 6 years ago or 5 years ago. And I was reading through this article. I'm like, "God damn it." Like they're referencing to '83 crash. To me it was like referencing to like the great flood. Like I don't know what you're even talking about. It's just like what's what's the point? And I bet like most of the readers are as well. Like we don't What are you guys even talking about? And then there's this, you know, Tim was mainly Tim Tim Sweeney in this. He was mainly focusing on the crash of AAA, not the crash of the industry as a whole, but Polygon kind of equates his words to all of the industry. Maybe that's how they read the industry that it's AAA and everything else. And then Tim singles for the crash was component shortages. We've talked about this for exhaustion. It's the AI boom, the price of memory, the increase of price of new hardware, lower penetration hardware cycle. Like Chris kind of

debunked this that they won't be happening that way, but you know, they're still talking about it. Then they talked about the AAA budgets, how they've ballooned. They talk about the, you know, 250 to 400 right now and how it escalated really quickly. And I think the counterpart for that has been is that that had pushed big studios to do a lot of safe bets, the Spider-Mans, the Wolverines, the sequels, which has led to enormous indie boom. And then we also have the the AI decreasing production costs, so that may have some kind of effect or won't. Maybe it will just increase the scope. So, overall, like very much a clickbait. Uh and it ends in referencing the Star Wars Zero Company article, where basically that studio shut down despite releasing a game that is, you know, such a fan favorite cuz based on XCOM and and it has good reviews. And yes, that is sad, but it misses the journalistic aspect of it is that the most likely reason why that studio was shut down is of course because maybe it didn't reach the high

financial target of a company or a studio launching a Star Wars game. And secondly, most importantly, it's probably because of the lawfare that the founders were having against each other. That's my point of view on on this article.
Technically, the staff was furloughed, so it's not shut that Well, I don't know what it is this week, but last week it was the people were furloughed.
I was trying to think about like what are the five positive things about the game industry. So, you know, Phil, you showed some graphs, but let's say five positive things. GTA 6, will that be the biggest game ever? Probably yes. The revenue from indie games is 6x in 10 years. That's a significant boom. Movies and TV shows, has gaming ever been more relevant? Like we have all kinds of transmedia IPs now. And we've never had more gamers. It's over 4 billion at the moment. And plus, I know we harp on mobile revenues when we look at the Sensor Tower graphs, but they actually grow double-digits, 16%

compound annual growth rate if we account for ad revenue. So, I'll verify that source, but ad revenue growth has been quite significant. So, just random five positive things about the industry. It's not even bad. It's just consolidating and and not growing as fast as before.
Um there was another positive, I think you wanted to talk about uh AI uh announced the Astra model, which is kind of in competition with Fable. So, you're saying that it was like the talk of the game industry. What are you hearing about this being one of the saviors?
We all work with with with bunch of studios. So, what I was hearing like the moment it launched is a lot of studios were were giving it a go. I mean, I can I can probably show the the video of this on the side as we're running. Or Phil, can you show it?
Yeah. Mishka, I you know, this is what happens when Mishka asks for a topic to be slotted in.

[laughter]
And I naturally do it for you. This is what happens. Perfect segway. Apparently after 400 [ __ ] episodes, you still can't follow.
How can you guys still be surprised? It happens every time.
Just so we all know how it's actually made.
Can you
one to one
I want your wife's WhatsApp number. Can I I want [clears throat] to speak to this woman and understand everything. I just need to understand everything.
to pick up the kids today? Again?
[laughter]
I have to go in person with my wife to the to the Wi-Fi place because my wife is on the Wi-Fi and my name isn't on the Wi-Fi to fix my Wi-Fi.
We can just talk AI for a second.
I know this is just it's like brand new this week, but are you guys playing with it?
it's really hard to give like an assessment. But usually when I'm looking

at these like new model drops and hype cycles is you get this big surge of let's say like LinkedIn posters like one-shot prompting an entire game and saying this thing is the greatest thing on Earth. What I am seeing though is like there's a big difference between teams and tools that are getting that like first big spike of interest that book first prototype as really interesting to all of a sudden really skilled teams that understand how to productionalize that benefit. Like when you finally talk to a team that's using AI properly and has been able to ship player-facing features from it at a very, very fast rate, which there's a number of those in the industry now, like those are the teams that are really going to take advantage of this. What I'm seeing a lot still is a lot of people that are kind of interpreting that first like, "Hey, one prompt first big spike interesting prototype as the full value." when that's not where it is. That's not necessarily slop, but it's just like the benefit of that we've already reached a

ceiling, I would say, a year ago on AI use on that.
Are you seeing it more in mobile versus PC console because of the you know, the brand of AI
I have a biased perspective. I'm not talking to literally everyone in the industry. I'm seeing more from mobile teams.
Okay.
Um definitely, especially from um say some of the uh let's say like Turkey, Israel, China, Vietnam. A lot of those those ecosystems that already were at such an advantage in terms of their ability to deliver content, um they're only leaning in harder into this uh this tool.
Are there any internal conversations? So, the brand of AI has taken a huge hit in the US and I don't know if it's if it's all of the West, but I know in the US this comes up all the time. All my podcasts are the US revolting against data centers and AI, but the brand of AI in in the East is still pretty much okay if like in the high 80% of approval

rating. Is there any concern with different teams as they're making games? I guess mobile's like mobile consumers don't care, but it's the PC console consumers who care.
I can't really speak for for that, but I can speak in terms of like what I'm seeing in data from players, yeah? That definitely there's a more North American tilt towards people that are a lot more sensitive around AI usage, and especially that it comes more from say the PC console space. But I I still think that pretty much every publisher, regardless of what platform, is using it. There's just degrees between teams that are just using it for say prototypes and concepts versus the teams that are really figuring out the productionalization.
Satori. It's the Japanese Zen Buddhist term for sudden enlightenment. That flash where everything clicks. We're told that Heroic Labs team had theirs when they realized that most studios run live ops like a horoscope.

Vague, kind of generic, same advice for everyone. So, they built Satori. Real-time experimentation, player-level personalization, events that actually respond to player behavior. Say sayonara to your old live op stack, and konnichiwa to Satori from Heroic Labs.
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[music]
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All right. Now, let's do it. We have a 400th episode retrospective. [music] So, we went back and asked asked ourselves a bunch of hard questions. We have a few different categories, so I'll set up each one, and then everyone's going to share a story. Try to make it a story, [music] guys, cuz those are interesting. But first, I wanted to go

back and pull the history. So, it was really cool. So, between Adam and Phil, Adam kind of pulled [music] down all the transcripts, Phil threw it into an MCP server, so we were able to kind of query all of the transcripts. The only thing [music] about the transcripts they didn't have like the best on like naming different people, but anyway, we did the best we could. So, if you are looking at the screen, it's the cast of the eight years of Twig. Twig number one went out Tuesday, July 17, 2018. Here's the crew. The first two were JK, Joseph Kim, and Mishka, and that was back eight years ago, 8.15 years ago. Crush joined in episode 12. Eric Seafert joined in episode 26. Telfer 35, episode 35, 7.27 years, maybe.
that at all.
You don't
That's that early?
You don't remember joining it?

[laughter]
James Cameron, you good?
I guess that's It was your adult It's your dulcet tones. I just It's It's not memorable.
[laughter]
He joined pre-COVID. Ethan showed up in episode 137 in June of '21. Then Laura was 184. Phil, you were 216 in January '23. I was in 230, episode 230 on May of '23. Josh Chanley has joined as a kind of a guest host for us and does a lot of UA podcasts. He started guest hosting in 351 in October of '25. Anyway, that's the cast. So, Mishka, why don't you take us back, give us the origin story. Um was there a spider bite involved? Um anything else that happened to bring the podcast to life?
Uh super super simple. So, we this podcast was just interviews first because I didn't have much time to write anymore of the deconstructions cuz of the child. And then I just thought about

like let's do podcast. It's just faster than to speak rather than to write. And it was very hard to keep the cadence of the interviews going. And so what ended up happening is JK was in Finland for he was speaking at Rovio Con and then I had him in the podcast studio for an interview like one of the first episodes. And then you know we we talked a little bit more and I knew him from before and I pitched him this idea of like let's just do a weekly rambling easy to keep up to. And then the first episodes were absolutely awful. Just unbearable. Like you would have to like I don't know how much you would have to pay me. I would say $10,000 for me to listen to the episode. If you pay me 9,000 I wouldn't listen for for that money. I was speaking in the first episode. And they're in fact so bad that Eric decided to get to join the podcast. He was listening to them and probably screaming screaming at this

[laughter]
whatever he was listening from. And yeah and the rest is history. So that's that's how we did it.
The thing is that Joe and I worked together at Sega. I was a consultant at Sega for a while. And so after I left a while after he asked me to do this podcast with him. So and I was like I'm a huge fan of podcast. I've been listening them forever. But I kind of ghosted him because two reasons. One I was lazy but the other reason was that I really can't express all my opinions on a podcast when I'm trying to sell them to investors, right? So there's a conflict there. Which I had to get over my own self. Um I listened to the first couple of episodes. I mean there's just I go there's no [ __ ] way
[laughter]
they can continue this way. They're embarrassing themselves, right? So I had to come on and kind of save them from themselves, right? Because it was so bad, right?
It was really really bad.
technology improved over time, right? Cuz I remember in those early days I forgot what tech we were using but we could barely hear each other talk to each other. Yeah.

There was no amount of technology that could [laughter] have saved those guys. Like I just to be clear.
That's true. But I'm just even saying like in the beginning we had to almost like stop ourselves and let the other person talk cuz you couldn't talk over each other cuz the audio would [ __ ] up. You remember that? And then we had like multiple episodes that we almost had to throw out in the trash because we just kept talking over each other.
Well, specifically everyone would talk over each other, but whatever.
[laughter]
Yeah, but like in in terms of the beginning mine's similar to Mishka. You like mine was just from laziness. I was really jealous that like here you guys can just jump on a pod and shoot the [ __ ] around the news. I was [ __ ] slaving away at textbook size deconstructions for the website. I was like, "No. No, I'm not going to do this anymore." Um but actually I'm sad Chris doesn't remember this. But after I came on and I think we're talking about like Apex Legends and a couple mobile games. Chris you called me and we're like, "I need you on the podcast because you're articulate and we need somebody to basically call out

Mishka all the time."
[laughter]
That sounds like me. That sounds like me.
And then and then you motivated Joe to basically drive I was still living in LA at the time. So Joe drove over to my house, gave me a shitty enough mic to at least join the podcast and that's how I got started. There you go.
I love it.
Phil, do you want to do yours first since you were before me?
Yeah, I mean look, I still remember being at Scopely like early days Scopely when you and I worked together Jen you claim you have no knowledge of.
No knowledge.
[laughter]
Zero.
We did we did our tour of duty together and I remember one of the PMs there would always send out the newsletter for the week and there would always be some Twig shenanigans on there and that became like the thing you would talk about like in the hallways of Scopely is like you know, there'd be a couple people who'd listen and you'd like, "Oh my god, what did they say? What you know, what's their take going to be?" And I was like, wow, this podcast is awesome. I love podcasting, too. And when Eric was leaving, I shot him a message and I said, hey, I saw that

you're leaving your loop for no hosts. I just left Amazon. I can say whatever I want to say. And sure enough, I got hooked up with Eric, Mr. Eric Kress, for an interview and then I planned a debate that he would disagree with. If I knew if I could get him going, the job was as good as mine. And sure enough, we debated loot boxes, which by the way, you've never taken me up on the loot box debate, which I've offered you multiple times, the ethics and moral correctness of randomized monetization. You've cowered at every opportunity I've given you to show me my ills and my evil of my ways.
I just I just I don't want to illustrate your dark heart, you know?
[laughter]
It's okay. I don't need your charity. It's okay.
Just look Just look at him. He lives in Cyprus. Just Just the whole video right now really just
[laughter]
exemplifies that.
Yeah, he looks Phil looks like he's in crypto. Like Phil like he never left.
[laughter]
Yeah. Tell you about my my new conference I got coming up.
Well, my whole career was working at the

big companies in toys, as you know, cuz my friends love when I tell a toy story. Oh, Toy Story 5 actually was really cute if you haven't seen it. And then in the game industry, and then I had gone to a startup that Remember in '22, the market was like kind of crashing. Uh we had this deal with Snapchat. They had a game division and the economy tanked and that deal had gone through and I was like, oh [ __ ] I think my startup is going to go under and I needed to become a consultant. And all through that time, I was listening and I heard that Eric Seifert was leaving and they're like, oh, we needed somebody to sit in the marketing chair. And so I was like, huh. So I reached out to Ethan. Ethan was fielding applications. And again, like huge kudos to Ethan. He really wanted a woman to fill the podcast. I have no idea why with you boys need like at least someone up but and someone to back up Laura, poor Laura to to back her up. So, I was one of the first to go. I think someone went before me and I remember doing the podcast and prepping what I was going to

say and I was actually asking Ethan like, "Hey, how do we do this? Do I just show up and talk?" He's like, "No, we have this like Dropbox document and we kind of script things out and so I wrote some stuff, but I just remember Chris where was actually so nice to me. When I came on, you were like asking me questions and you were like genuinely interested and I was like, "Who is this like it was so un-
[clears throat]
unlike typical Chris." And then I think it went really well and I think afterwards Ethan called me back cuz like, "Dude, you crushed it." So, yeah, that was you know, 3 years ago now. So, that is crazy. One of the things that I wanted to talk to you about next and getting into kind of our next topic is how did you guys evolve and focus your content on the pod? So, in the beginning it felt like it was it was news, but it it felt like also, you know, it it needed to evolve into yelling at different companies, Chris. I mean, I don't I don't know how many times you

yelled at Iron Source or or pissing off Apple. What was the the thought in evolving your content and and evolving the content? I mean, I know now what we have our own kind of style, but we've like evolved the style of the podcast over time. Was it just natural?
The first rant was really about Apple and Apple Arcade and I don't want to sound like a jerk, but like I went off the deep end on this thing cuz I was so upset that this was actually a thing and that people were giving it any type of airtime at all, any oxygen because it's such a stupid [ __ ] idea.
[laughter]
Like it was always a stupid idea. Sorry, Graham, but it is a dumb dumb idea, right? And so, I think when I ranted about that, that's when things kind of shifted. I mean, I think I've always been that kind of personality, but like that's when it shifted and it became more of a rant cast for me. It was to basically go against the machine, against the the guys, right? Because because it was the response I got, right? Cuz then Apple called and then some douchebag from Apple Arcade almost got me canceled and

almost got Mishka canceled. I'm like, "Oh, wait. I'm actually having an impact here. People are listening to this [ __ ] right? And I can actually speak up for people that are frustrated with what's going on in this industry." And that's what kind of like set me more down that path of talking against, uh, you know, kind of this [ __ ] that's out there. So. I think I've always been like that. I mean, if you talk to anybody I worked with at EA, I mean, all we did was talk [ __ ] about all the executives at EA when I was at EA. Like, "What the [ __ ] are these people doing, you know?" But but I think, you know, that making a podcast about it that was kind of a big
Any other memorable moments? I think this this category I'll I'll shift us a little bit into like, what do you remember most about your time either on the podcast or being a part of this whole engine, Chris? Let's get Care Bear side of you.
The most The biggest impact, again, besides getting negative feedback from what I've said is like the positive feedback of what we say and what we do. And so, numerous times at trade shows, people have come up to me and said similar

things like, "Look, you really helped me kind of understand this market and be able to present my opinions to my boss in a more of an intelligent manner. You helped me get a job because, you know, you informed us about what's going on in the industry." Like, that really does feel good. Like, I'm actually contributing something positive besides sitting here ranting and raving about, you know, all these crazy executives out there.
Yeah, I'm I have to agree with that because like seeing people who got their jobs and who progressed in their careers and just coming in just naturally to you and just saying thank you. Not a message, not a tweet, not a LinkedIn post, but but real people from all sorts of countries all over the world. That's why like going to events is so awesome. They would come in and talk about like deconstruction that I wrote like million years ago when I had hair. And thank you all so much on me or whatnot. Or, you know, this podcast or the interviews that they would come in and and, you know, say about the things they've learned. That is so awesome. It just feels so good

because you're you're honestly like, you know, giving more than you're taking from this awesome industry. So, that's naturally and always will be the best thing about Deconstructor of Fun. And then the memorable things, of course, Eric versus Apple was a campaign that I got dragged into just like a conscript.
[laughter]
I wasn't through that [ __ ] [ __ ] show. It was and that was pretty big. Like that's when I understood the impact of the show when when, you know, you have to do a call with Cupertino about what's being said on the podcast. And then the other part that I remember vividly for somewhat reason is my takes on Supercell. Just the annual letter and kind of like being just constructive but also criticizing some of the things and kind of reading between the lines. But when I started doing that it was like early early 2000. What were we talking? 2018, 2019? Like Supercell at that time was untouchable. It was the holy company. It Nothing that Supercell did

was wrong. Everything was right from from the way they organized to the way they speak to the games they shipped. And so for somebody to kind of even say anything remotely criticizing was somehow in my sphere of the finished game development was like, "Dude, you [clears throat] went to say that?" And like they were, you know, it went out like a viral moment of somebody, you know, willing to do to say that maybe King I'm not saying King doesn't have clothes, but maybe King forgot one of his gloves. That kind of stuff. So, so that that made me realize that the podcast actually carries a lot more impact than what you feel when you're just, you know, sitting in your office and and talking [ __ ] about games and getting [ __ ] from from all of the co-hosts.
Yeah, for me there's been a bunch of memorable moments. I think the advantage was joining the podcast so early. I was able to be there during some of the more seismic changes that the industry's had. And be able to actually debate and sort of predict its impact. I don't know if

you remember Chris, but like debating with Su Ford on D2C. Where Su Ford basically arguing that it will not it will not have an impact. Whales will prefer Apple payment systems and you and I basically going off the rails.
[laughter]
Really? I don't remember that. That's about right.
Yeah, see.
Wow. That's the thing. You got to remember these things Eric. And then even like the impact of IDFA early. Rise of Battle Royale early.
The IDFA was a good one. Like how much impact that would have. Everyone was kind of like head in the sand for a while. Like thinking it would have no impact.
Yeah, you've been screaming about that for a long time and since since that happened.
The stuff that actually sticks out of my mind throughout that whole time is still the times that I said something on the podcast that was blatantly wrong and then somebody involved reached out to me and said, here's the real information. Right? Like where was the real take. And then all of a sudden like those are moments that like imprint in my mind because it pushed me to think differently. So, like for example, Brawl Stars, Call of Duty Mobile, Apex Legends. All of those moments.

Having that like someone reach out and really correct me. That's really moments that really stuck out to me and changed me.
That's true.
Yeah, agree. When you get the the mild nudge of you were right or wrong from people who actually know the numbers, it's super helpful because I always tell people like, you know, remember we don't have all of your numbers. We have Sensor Tower which is lovely and directional and you know, we're using our intuition, but we might not know all of your numbers and and so that that is super helpful. I agree with everybody on you know, the stories of people coming up to us and telling telling us how much if you there helps the podcast helps them in their jobs or helps them get a job. I think Chris, I literally saw you tear up when Chris and I were standing there when this one woman told us that she got a job and it was her dream to get into the game industry and and it was because of the podcast and that was like it was really special. It was like one GDC, I remember that happened. I also get to speak at a lot of universities

and to hear the next generation like listening to us. Like they were I'm about to speak at USC on Monday and their professor makes them listen in advance and so a lot of them messaging like we're listening to 399 right now. We can't wait for what happens in 400. It's like it it's so cute. And then let me tell a couple of stories. I think some of my favorite moments when Chris is wrong and I say something and he's wrong. Because like he's often, you know, we I call him the villain of the podcast and we agree on like nine of we agree actually on like 90% of things. One of the things that he does really well is and and I think we all need of a little bit more of this in the world is to take some accountability and admit when you're wrong, which is why we have the correction section is we don't have the arrogance to think that we always get it right. See above. We don't often have all the information. You know, so one of the things I was thinking about Chris was when I was talking about that Severance TV show they set up in Grand Central Station in New York like all the actors did like a fake working thing and I was like holy [ __ ] this is marketing

brilliance. They had like 10 million in like free impressions on on Tik Tok. All of the local news was covering it and you're like this is stupid and then you went home and talked to your wife and I think your son and they were like, oh yeah, that was really badass and then you came back the next week. You're like, okay, like that was actually a good idea.
That that was humiliating moment actually. [laughter] It wasn't the fact that they said like oh that was awesome. They said oh my god I can't believe you thought that was stupid.
[laughter]
They were like so disappointed in me. I'm like oh my god I'm well I got this one really wrong.
[laughter]
I guess what I want to point out is like what a great human for you to come back on the show and admit that to everybody. I just think we need a little bit more of that in the world and so thank you for always you know doing that. And I think all of you do a great job of like hey we all admit when we're wrong like when Phil says that Squad Busters is going to be the next best thing and
[laughter]

I was I was riding that that one hard. I was like yeah me and Phil were like let's go Supercell.
[laughter]
Oh so Phil what was memorable for you?
I would say easily when we made the clan about League of Legends. You remember this conversation? League of Legends having 90 to 95% plus revenue share from Asia. I have never gotten more messages. Well see well I have never gotten more DMs from an episode from various people all with conflicting information than that single episode and I'm still left wondering what the actual share of Riot's revenue is outside of North America specifically from Asia. I would SAY ALL EVIDENCE
[laughter]
WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY GOOD OR BAD THOUGH? LIKE I I DON'T KNOW IF THIS is good or bad. I just fact or reality.
This is a Chinese Chinese game. It's a Chinese game.
Yes. No I mean no it's a it's a US game that happens
game. It's a Chinese
No it's a it's a
It's a Chinese game that is also played in the West.

[laughter]
Yes.
Made by Made by Westerners just
Made by a company for China.
[laughter]
Who bought them after it was a US company so it was not Tencent bought them later on.
It's almost like outsourcing.
[laughter]
All right. Um let's do things that you got really right. So, let's take a little celebration. So, this is Chris's favorite part of the podcast. This category is things you got right. Um and and Chris, please time box this. I know you want to go on for like 10 minutes about all of the things. Go for it. I'm just kidding.
I don't want to explain just exactly what I've all gotten right, but I just want to feel understand of why I get everything right. You know, I mean there's a method to this madness.
So humble.
I just want to be clear. The thing is that I talked to so many people that actually know what's going on. That what my opinions are based upon actually what's going on, right? So, this is this is why I'm right like 99.9% of the time. So, for example,

I was right about Ubisoft. I was right about Embracer. I was right about A16Z and Lightspeed. And the reason I'm right about A16Z and Lightspeed because all the other venture capitalists are telling me what morons these guys are for making these investments and causing all kinds of drama in the industry by increasing valuations beyond recognition, right? So, that's why I'm right about these people, right? Netflix, Activision, terrible deal for the industry. 1,000% actually happened. This is terrible terrible deal for the industry. The Glu acquisition, disaster. Roblox, turning into a disaster, right? Subscriptions will never work. Google Stadia, Apple Arcade, I could go on and on and on, right? Because I am informed, right? This is why my opinions and I'm so strong in my opinions is because I'm informed. [clears throat] All right, I'm joking. I'm joking. I got a lot of right.
Well, we talk to people, we don't divulge sources, so to speak, but it isn't as though we don't actually engage

in talk to people. It's not quite journalism, but it's
It's not journalism at all.
It's it's it's gossip. We are gossip kings and queens. Got it. Mishko, what about you?
Yeah, it's it's an expert network. I think I was pretty right on the apps versus games. So, that that already I started speaking when it didn't look that way. But, there were some trend lines and I started sounding the horn on that. Most of my predictions are yearly and I'm about 80% right. I always calculate it cuz I always post from the last year. So, I always get something so stupidly wrong, which is usually due to geopolitics and economics, which is my YouTube feed. And then I predict that [ __ ] and that goes wrong. But, on the gaming side I've been I've been quite right about things. The Supercell has probably been kind of like my longest examination cuz just I love the company and I think it's so unique and so interesting. And then pointing out that the things that made it successful are the things that will likely make it fall behind and that has been happening, you know, the small teams and etc. etc. So,

yeah. Adam?
Mine were mostly protocols cuz that's most of the time that I'm what I'm commenting on. So, like things like a lot of stuff from Blizzard and Supercell. Like Diablo, especially Arc Light Rumble. Um but, to be honest like
Yeah, but like to be honest saying a game will fail when like 99% of the games that launch in this industry fail isn't that impressive. So, the frustrating part for me is just more of the patterns of these games failing all for very similar reasons. And I think the solution still always bounces back towards needing a lot of discipline and pushing back against I would say the easy or feel-good path, which I think a lot of dev teams uh go to.
By the way, I have to add add to to one thing about the other games failing and part of the the expert network is we're sometimes privileged to hear a perspective of why a game failed and it's everybody who's worked in gaming knows this. There's always the human story. This call was made and this executive said that thing and we wanted to do this

and and this guy took his dick out and made a super stupid decision, like not figuratively speaking. And like hearing those stories are kind of nice and then we try to bring it as an inside but not referencing directly to that story not to, you know, get the source out, etc. So, there there plenty of plenty of these and and I love the the human aspect of a failure. I think it's even more interesting than oh, we got the market right. It took us too long to ship and it was too expensive type of a thing.
Yeah, I think the thing we all do really well too is explain from our discipline or our perspective why certain choices were made or why we think they were made. So, I don't know if I do a lot of predictions as much as talk about, you know, giving feedback on what I'm seeing. I remember one was Rollic or I think it's Rollic or Zynga has a a Barbie merge game and because of my history and IP and brand, I was like, guys, like danger, danger, your artwork

is not going to attract your core audience. It looks like it's for little girls when you're trying to attract older women. I think it was a prediction that was, you know, sadly successful when it could have been an awesome awesome idea and experience. My little brother calls me for advice, but he really just wants me to agree with him. And so, he'll say, yeah, but as a way to like say he's listening but not really listening. And I think part of the service we give on the podcast is that kind of advice of I know you don't really want to hear this cuz it's painful, but we're often right because of these reasons. One other thing that I was kind of proud of that we talked about and Adam, cover your ears for a second, was the whole Monopoly Go discussion. Phil and I used to work at Scopely. And I'd worked on Monopoly Go version one. We knew that once this game was successful, how profitable it's going to be. And we didn't actually know how profitable and I think a lot of our discussions prompted the team to start talking publicly about its

successes. Scopely at the time was well, it still I guess is private and and didn't have to do any public conversation. They didn't have to have PR and I think some of our nudging caused them to start talking publicly. That's where we found out at you know, one year into the game marketing was 25% of revenue-ish and spent they spent $500 million in its first year about at the time. I mean, so that was kind of fun to know that we had a hand in us all learning a little bit more of what was going on at Scopely publicly. Phil, what are your memorable moments?
Uh where to start? Let's go through the list. Uh May 2025 Roblox 100 million DAU during the summer that panned out. The collapse of squad RPG basically framing that as can our squad RPG become 4X faster than 4X can become squad RPG. I think I've been pretty consistent about that coverage and what was going on in that genre and what was facing them. Battle Pass doesn't solve monetization. It's an engagement driver. I've had that's that's probably one of my first

takes even on the internet. Streaming is useless and doesn't make sense for games. I think that's been pretty much validated. Subs don't make sense for games. I've been shouting this from the rooftops since day one from the rooftops. And I would say the other thing is that Microsoft wants out of the hardware business. I've been pretty adamant that's the case. I think all their moves, you know, see the above two on streaming and subs. The three red rings of death I think scarred that company and I think that's informed a lot of their decisions and I think it makes sense from what they want to a tech perspective not to be in the hardware business. I think that takes largely been validated and will continue to be validated as we get to the new generation or new era of Xbox.
Mhm.
I wanted to cover this but since we're not really covering news is that Microsoft is capping Xbox Cloud Gaming to 15 hours per month for ultimate. Are you [ __ ] joking? Like it's over. Like if anybody is still holding on Chris Heatherly to the idea that streaming is going to be a meaningful part of this industry. Dude, putting on caps like that is like it's like game over. Dude, no one's going to do streaming, right?

It's insane. It's insane. And that's because, fundamentally, it's an unprofitable venture. Even Microsoft, who has [ __ ] Azure and all kinds of other tech out there, which could probably subsidize the [ __ ] out of it, still is capping usage. So, yeah, you're right about streaming, Mr. Philip Black.
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Let's shift to things that we got wrong. Again, Mishka, you have to time box this cuz your list is really long.
Well, no, it's uh basically everything that has to do with like geopolitics or economics. Like if either or both are there, then I'm going to be wrong. For example,
sex.
[laughter]
There's so many different subjects that you are not an expert in, right? I mean, we could go on.
The subjects where I'm not expert, I will be wrong. I'll give an example, perfect example when I'm like, "I think Tencent needs to divest out of

the US-based companies or gaming companies overall in the West." Like I'm talking about like Supercell, Riot. I think they have to sell them because of, you know, and then I'm going to like, "What does Trump do? How they going to, you know, force them to sell just like TikTok was forced to sell?" That's just a wild prediction and those tend to go wrong. But then when it gets to like needy-greedy data-driven stuff, like Phil is right about squad RPGs. Sure, that's a safe bet. Come on, that's not that interesting.
[laughter]
That's that's like huge industry GDP-affecting position. Not not the [ __ ] that Eric's usually shoveling.
Yeah, it's like everything [laughter] is a forex. I can make that prediction and it'll be right. So, great that you guys take those safe ones. I like to I like to go for Hail Marys and they're often wrong.
Uh-huh.
That's your excuse? Or okay.
Uh Chris.
Yeah, all right. All right, fine. I will take credit for the not getting the Activision deal correct in terms of it happening. However,

what I really wanted, this is like wishful thinking cuz I just didn't want that deal to happen because it was bad for the industry and that's exactly what's happened. It's really bad for the industry. The results of the Zynga acquisition, I will still contend that they spent way too much for Zynga. If they waited 6 months, they would have got it for half price. However, the results of the Zynga acquisition for Take-Two have been almost all positive, right? After the first 2 years of devastation of that of that business, now it's actually a meaningful contributor and actually helping their valuation pre-GTA as they get ramped up for GTA. And then Roblox. So, I can't say that I've been right about Roblox all the time. I think Roblox has surprised me in terms of how resilient it is in terms of delivering these experiences that seem to become meme factories and and generate significant amounts of revenue and users, right? Having said that, the core problem with Roblox is now kind of been exposed and so we'll see if they can pull out of it, but this is what I've been talking about from the very beginning cuz I've always been bit bearish on Roblox, you know,

despite the ups and downs. And from a stock perspective, I definitely have not gotten this right every time. I've definitely gotten it right a few times.
Finally, you you admit it. You you have you have almost never confessed to Roblox shyness when I pressed you on it.
No, I know. I'm trying to I'm trying to acknowledge it. I've been bearish on this stock since the beginning because I think it's a terrible business and I still think it's a terrible business and I think that's been now has been shown for the variety of reasons, which is exactly what I was saying before. I'm saying that I did not get the ups and downs correct all the time, but but now I'm feeling a little bit vindicated these days, but we'll see.
of history argument.
[laughter]
Mine again are more games calls. So like the worst call I think I made was early, which is I was bullish on Dr. Mario mobile.
Really?
Yeah, I was.
I remember that. I remember that take.
Yeah. It was It was a take and deeply scarred me and uh

[laughter]
uh realized my bias there. But some of the more like wrong bear calls that I made on things like Call of Duty Mobile making less than 300 million in its year one.
Yeah.
I was wrong and the team even posted it on their wall just to prove me wrong. So kudos to that team. And also Brawl Stars. I said that it would not launch based on some of the first versions that we played.
Yeah. Oh, I remember Brawl Stars like wasn't it in portrait mode and Well, I was right. I remember we were following it cuz we were we were about to launch our games and we're like, "Oh my god, they went landscape. Oh, thank god." Cuz we we had to be landscape.
It launched portrait and landscape. Like it was dual mode. Remember? 2018.
it being dual mode.
There was There was a lot of iterations there. Like again, kudos to the team. They they got through that soft launch and found a way to get through those KPIs. But at the time, if you remember those first takes, that first podcast on Brawl Stars, I was very bearish.
Uh well, let me plus one on Call of Duty cuz we both got this one wrong and it's

because they went scorched earth and like
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
a scorched earth a gazillion downloads out there and they were make weren't making any money. So Adam and I were looking at each other like, "There's no way." But they pulled it out.
And then the big thing obviously they they launched in China when we didn't even factor it into our forecast. Within that first year.
You got Apple 11 as well wrong, Eric. You were talking about their demise after fingerprinting for a while.
Dude, they they got crushed after I mean, they got so destroyed. I was right about the stock on that one, by the way. But I was really late on them pulling pulling out of it, right? But I I think their stock was at like $16 or something insane. And it went up to like 40. And I was like, still bearish. And then I'm like, okay, dude, these guys are crushing it. Then I changed my tune. But you're right, over the years these meme stocks or these these like momentum stocks have been really, really tough to call. But
Hedge fund
I wasn't all wrong about Apple.
Well, Adam, my family loves Dr. Mario. So, thank you for that that it's like a

a timeless year. I think we all underestimated mobile rivals. Remember that conversation? Yeah. I think some of us picked Delta Force. Although Delta Force hit 10 million this past month, so maybe they're they're coming back. So, Chris, this is the one I was thinking about is we did that podcast when Johanna Faries took over as president of Blizzard. And her only game experience was like running e-sports for Call of Duty Mobile, and she had been in the NFL. And we And you were like, oh my god, we can't have people running historic franchises like Blizzard having almost no game experience, not working on a game team. And then I agreed with you, but I was like, well, you know, maybe if they build a support structure for her, maybe if they help her along the way. And then, sweetie, that podcast. And then I ended up seeing her at GDC, and she's like, oh, hey Jen. Like, you and Eric were were harsh, but really fair. Um, and I was like, oh my god. Oh my god.

Um, hi.
It was Eric. It was Eric. It wasn't me.
No. I I said nice things. I I said they should help you and you can do it. And And like, look at Blizzard. I mean, I talked about it a couple weeks ago. You weren't on the podcast cuz I was like, I wanted you to say something. Like, they've turned it around. They've like had last 2 years of growth. And so, I think that was one that you got a little bit wrong.
All right, I'll I'll take I'll take that.
they were toast, too.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'll take that. But have you guys actually played the new Starcraft mobile game?
Is there a StarCraft mobile game?
Overwatch Rush.
Overwatch.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
No, it's in it's in soft launch in like the Philippines or something.
Yeah, it's going to be it's going to be a rough launch.
beautiful, but there's no [ __ ] way that thing can monetize. There's just no way in God's green earth. And Adam, there's my prediction right there. There's just no way that this game could be successful.
What about the eventual NetEase spin-off, the team play tactics avenue?

No, I don't think so.
Immortal?
Diablo Immortal had that end game monetization mechanic that did well in PvP.
Yeah, and PvP.
Yeah.
It's still That game is still doing it.
still think crank it. This guy This game is just pure Blizzard. It's beautiful though, man. It is [ __ ] beautiful. Like it is amazing.
Who used to work for me, um Hunter, he is a clan leader in Diablo Immortal of one of the top clans like in the China server. And he's like, "Jen, it's like being a CEO of a small company cuz the You know how much money his clan spends in the game? Like millions of dollars. Like it's insane."
And you have to understand the Eastern version is completely segmented. It has its own systems design. It's it's a radically branched version of the game.
they play in the North America so they play on the American version, but they have servers that are like there's the European server, the North America server, the the China server, and [clears throat] then they have like this world world tour where they all come

together and have like the Olympics of Diablo Immortal. That's what he was telling me. Like that's what he was telling me.
way, Jen, what you mentioned about seeing the real people who you've commented on, it's challenging because you end up meeting, you know, in this industry you meet a lot of the executives and leaders who we have to talk about regarding the news in real life, and they're really nice people. So it's really difficult to criticize. You know, their actions will be like, "You know, she's really nice and good and so friendly, but I kind of have to say that this might not be the best path forward. So, that's that's the toughest one is seeing the people who you're talking about.
That's why I don't know. I'm a little bit more measured than Mr. Kress on [laughter] what I say sometimes.
Kress also gets it in real life sometimes. So, we know.
[laughter]
When you dish it out, you got to take it.
Yeah, and he does. Like to be fair, he really does.
uh
It led Yeah, it actually [laughter] led to some of the funniest moments. So, I think we can go over this episode. Like,

what are some of the funniest moments, Mishka? What do you got?
This one was the fun one. I was thinking about it. So, in the first episodes, Kress's target was Glu. Like he had a thing for Glu. Like we had entire episode about Glu. And I was told that when Kress and JK went at Glu, like you could feel it in the company the next day because these guys were talking about them and the things that they were saying. Like the mood was was was down. And I was told by by certain someone who was was sailing with the now former CEO of Glu, Nick Earl, you know, a very nice guy. Also met him in real life. And they were sailing and Eric Kress came as a topic. And this was like years after the acquisition. Like he's literally sailed to the sunset, won the game, top of the leaderboards. You don't have to like Like I guess like you're exited. Just like, I'm done. And um
[laughter]
And when Kress came

as a topic, he got like so moody. He's like, "Oh my god, like that Kress." Like he's still remembering Eric Kress throwing shade at him like after sailing to the sunset. So, those type of a funny kind of punching up moments are are great. And Kress was right in the end. Like after the acquisition, remember when EA acquired Glu? It was just like It was like I don't know like carrying water like it just it just evaporated. The whole company evaporated. It was like 1.2 1.4 billion just inside like 6 months there was nothing left. So yeah and just overall when talking about fun like I don't think you can have a longevity of a show unless it's fun doing it. Like not every episode is super fun but we've had some really fun like video call episodes were just ranting and talking [ __ ] and and laughing and then you know hearing about it afterwards. So I think overall it's a fun process.
Adam what's your fun moment?
My fun moment sorry.
What's been funny funny sorry sorry

sorry sorry sorry sorry.
I can hear the fun in your voice.
Yeah wow.
[laughter]
Well I was talking with
When I first met Adam I thought he was German. Like I'm not kidding. I was like and then I realized he's I'm like you're not German but you're so German.
I'm distracted [laughter] because uh they just announced a new Metroid game so
Oh.
I'm I'm elsewhere right now. My mind is elsewhere.
[laughter]
Uh the funniest moment for me was always shut up Ethan.
It's actually shut the [ __ ] up Ethan.
Yeah right. Because it just anytime that somebody would take or like just fend a stupid data point or some like nascent market that was just so obviously going to blow up their face. Those were probably my favorite moments. So anything around metaverse UGC web 3 streaming web 3. There you go Eric. Those are definitely my funniest moments. Those are the ones that like I definitely was muted but snorting snorting [laughter] up my coffee. Yeah.

Ethan was such a good sport about it well at least he was for a while. He
[laughter]
He got lost a little bit there. But the funniest things for me are really anytime that Mishka talks about economics right? Like I think I I have the best screenshots of me with like banging my head head, and like shaking my head, and rolling my eyes like all when Mishka starts talking about economics cuz he doesn't know [ __ ] all about economics, [laughter] okay? Just nothing.
Geopolitics is another one.
Geopolitics.
All.
Or about when to tell a podcast appropriate story. There's so many stories he tells us and I'm like, that's really funny, but please don't say that on the podcast.
Trigger after hours.
Yeah. Wow, Jen Jen you need to be with me at these supper clubs when I'm hosting a table. Like I was looking at some people like like with their mouths open cuz I'm [laughter] like, hey, let's talk about Burning Man. Has somebody just crazy stories.
Oh, that's why I want to talk to your wife and be like, where's this guy's

filter?
[laughter]
Nonexistent.
and shouldn't be saying. Yeah, I guess my funniest moments is pretty much that and it usually starts with, Jen, you're going to love this and then I immediately know
[clears throat]
that that is not going to be appropriate and it usually ends in me saying, uh, go ask your wife if you I mean, there've been times where I've had to be like, go ask your wife if you should say that and she usually usually come back and you're like, yeah, I I I I I it's been videoed. I'm not going to say it.
Yeah, the same by the way about LinkedIn. My wife is just like, what what did you do? What did you do? Uh, let's let's do crisis control this one. Happens about once a year.
Yeah, you [ __ ] up big on that one with the it was like the rodeo sustainability report and all of us were like, yeah, you shouldn't have done that.
[clears throat]
You should not have done that. Let's get to best fight and actually this is the reason why everyone actually loves the podcast. Phil pulled a bunch

of graphs that kind of show some of the interactions between certain people and when I say fight, it isn't necessarily like an argument as much as it is like a discussion. So, two of the biggest conversations or or interactions was Chris and is it
The Erics, yeah, yeah. So, just to give a little bit of methodology here, we take it the transcripts and what we're doing is we're looking for when there are transitions. So, when the speaker is say Eric and then it transitions to Mishka and that it becomes a pair. And then what we do is we rank the average transitions between a given pair for each episode that that pair co-presented in so you don't carry any dead weight. And so it was really interesting to see Eric and Eric, you guys actually chatted with each other quite a bit. That's what this tells us. Adam, in fact, the first four entries are all Eric
[laughter]
because he chats with everyone. You chat with everyone. You chat You chat with the other Eric. You chat with Adam a lot. You chat with Jen and you chat with me.

Can I Can I just Can I pause for a second here?
Sure.
what's so funny is because I keep getting accused of being the rant it ranter in chief and that I don't listen to anybody or don't talk to anybody. I just say my own [ __ ] But the reality of it is completely different when you actually look at the numbers, right? I'm the only one that's interacting with people on this [ __ ] podcast. You know what I'm [laughter] saying?
I think you throw in a grenade and then it pushes everyone around you to add nuance and a little bit of details to it to [laughter] round out the edges, let's say, of your rant.
Yeah, I think my job on the podcast is to polish the Chris turd.
Hey. No. No. No. No.
No, it's not a Okay.
It's just a rough gem.
It's a blast radius.
It's a blast radius.
That's better. Thank you, Mr. Adam.
Yes. All right. Right.
Chris and [clears throat] I, I don't think we've ever really fought. I think we just kind of talk around the problem, right? And just have different perspectives. I don't think we'd ever fought.
Yeah, I don't think that this is fighting. It Well, I I do think that's

what people tell us they like when I think they really mean the different like people giving their different perspectives in a way that represents what it's like to be at work. I think actually people learn how to interact because of us. I don't know if that's a good thing or not.
No, don't don't ever take any interaction you've heard on this podcast and take it to work. That would be a terrible
That would that would probably be like super terrible.
Yeah. The Seaford stuff, I don't really remember all that much. I just remember he's so smart, right? Like he's like he has like he's like he very very insightful and knows his stuff cold and I think I don't know he I don't
You just got to remember that sometimes this would include transitions like for instance going from the investment section to wherever Eric might talk about. The other Eric.
Remember [clears throat] when when Seaford would take a podcast out of like Bahamas? That was my favorite one. He would just phone it in from like a sunbed with like even worse internet than I have. He was there in Greece. That was amazing.

Phil, is all of our time that we talk about Inzoi and Love and Deep Space and all the other games that I had trouble pronouncing? Were those hard times?
That probably makes up the bulk of our exchanges.
[laughter]
It's like [ __ ] on bad names.
[ __ ] on bad names, talking about IP and your favorite transmedia.
All right, let's get to what everyone has come here to understand which is who's got the potty mouth. Uh all right now and I I mean I've been waiting to do this section for a long time. We know that Eric is a [ __ ] and uh a bullshitter and a [ __ ] Uh he's got a little bit of [ __ ] in him.
[laughter]
But he he's more into crap. So when we just look at the overall swear rates, Eric Crass says [ __ ] 27 times per 10,000 words. And when we look at above baseline, Eric lights up the row of swearing. So he swears the most. I actually I actually have the second worst potty mouth.
Oh my.
And then it's Eugene and then it's Mishka, uh Ethan, Joseph, Adam,

the other Eric and Laura.
My parents would be so proud.
[laughter]
triple triple everything else.
Laura is a prude, by the way. What is going on here?
Apparently, I like to say [ __ ] I didn't realize that. Okay.
[laughter]
It's You can say it on TV, so it's okay.
[ __ ] and [ __ ]
Okay. Well, we all have our favorites.
That was irrelevant information. I think there's one more piece of relevant information, which is the number per episode as a bar chart in my stats. There was like this golden mice nuts period between 23 and 24, where Eric was just really laying those acorns.
[laughter]
What was going on?
In 23 and 24, I mean, there were so many games. Yeah.
Was this pandemic? Yeah, I think pandemic might've been it.
If I remember when I was on, like Laura or Phil would bring a game and like kind of deconstruct the game on air, and then

you would always be like, this is mice nuts. Like, why are we talking about this? Like every week.
That's true. Yeah, okay.
She would talk about games in soft launch, or Phil would bring, you know, something. So.
Yeah, Laura Laura always brought the mice nuts, you know, like she continually every time she came on, she brought the mice nuts. She's not here to defend herself.
She she was trying to find games that were doing things differentiated. Uh I think everyone is looking at something a little differently. You want to You're a filthy capitalist, as you like to say, and she was looking for uh cool cool game design and features.
One last one, and I think this one's pretty interesting. It's looking at a heat map of the topics that we've covered over time, where the darker shades indicate that we talked about it more often. And so, you can see that the rise and downfall of web three extremely quickly. You can see for instance product design has always been a big

part of the cast. You can see that game performance, like this is this week in games. Like we actually do talk about game performance quite a bit. And I would say the other big piece has been company strategy, which you can see kind of getting a little bit of an uplift. And we've always been strong with deals and capital. So like we are a podcast about games and the strategies behind them. I mean, that's kind that's kind of what we've been doing.
And so on and so forth. Economics and geopolitics.
I yep. Yep. I don't God forbid that one I said. I would Well, Jen, I want to give you credit. If you look at marketing community, it's really since you joined it starts to light up.
Oh, we talked about
All right. Well, try to reflect the the full discipline support of the game industry.
I would say the topic that has actually surfaced most recently has been platforms and distribution. We talk about that a lot. We talk about
Yeah.
Eric's quote, new platforms are new opportunities. And that's exactly
on with the rise of D2C, the the

platform changes with Epic versus Apple and Google, the rate changes, you know, the my ability to try to read through blog post after blog post and somehow communicate all of these complex changes to people. Yeah, I think that's been a big topic this year specific well, last year into this year, right? When all the lawsuits were kind of starting to culminate. Adam had to leave, but I'll do a public service announcement for him. He wants to hear a bit more from the community on what topics they want more or less of. In fact, every time we have GDC and we get together, he always gets a [ __ ] because we kind of circle the drain around a couple of different topics, Netflix, Apple Arcade, Xbox and Game Pass, mobile MOBAs. Uh they are big and the scripts are easy and obvious.
[laughter]
But the takeaways are always the same. Stay in your lane.

Lean into your strengths, innovator's dilemma. So, he also thinks that what did he say? That change the the footprint of who the audience of DOF is. I think originally the blog was intended more for like PMs and operators and like people making games and now it's a little bit more about the business of games, a little bit more about the strategy. Uh, let me share you love your yeah.
I don't have the chart in front of me. One of the other things I found in my analysis is we've done way more PC console coverage in the last couple of years since you and Jen and I have been on. That's also been a shift as we've been far more equal whereas previously, you know, I would say Jen one, you guys were basically all mobile. And that's shifted a little bit over time. It's it's plateaued, but it certainly has changed.
Agree. I I think I saw that in your heat chart that it shifted to be I would just say more balanced. I think we try to bring in all of the game industry news especially because of cross-platform. Some games are doing that, live service games are doing that.
One thing I just want to say cuz sometimes I've I've I've gotten feedback from people who I otherwise respect who

say that they mute the podcast whenever we have to switch platforms between PC and mobile. And I would say one team one dream. Like I know we have different parameters and economics that we operate by, but if you don't love this in all of its forms, maybe you're in it for the wrong reasons, but I think if you love games, it doesn't matter what platform they come on. They all have interesting problems. They're just different sets of problems.
Well, I think because we cover company strategy and business, it's broader than any platform.
Yeah, and that's such a weird take. You like there are Roblox games that we might not be playing, but not to know what, you know, Adopt Me for example is is kind of like just it's just Like you just have to understand the industry. So, that's what we're trying to do here. Like you don't necessarily have to play it, but at least you recognize the top games on different platforms and why they're there. So, I think we should continue doing it.
Yeah, and we cover Roblox, we cover UGC, so I think it's a The one thing we don't really cover at all is like web games,

not that we should, but you know, there are are other things going on that just to be mindful. So, anyway, Adam would like to hear what you all would like us to talk about. If you want more philosophy corner from him.
Yeah. All right. I think that is going to wrap it up for these 400 episodes and we will see you next week for the start of the next generation. 401, here we come.
Next gen. Thank you for tuning in.
All right.
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