Simone brings such a great energy to the show, despite only ever having been on two episodes so far I think she’s one of my favorite guests. Which is saying a lot cause almost every guest episode feels like a special treat or a distinct vibe
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I find arguments for physical games on the basis of price/eventual discounts curious.
While you will eventually find used copies of games for cheap, the selection is probably biased in favor of two categories: AAA single player (often based on licenses; think Sony first party, etc) and big multiplayer franchises. In case of the latter, the value will depend on where you live. Network latency plays a big role in match quality and while a large urban area (like greater LA, etc) might still have an active player base large enough to sustain a decent community, more sparsely populated areas will not.
When I worked on a large AAA multiplayer franchise, some game modes were essentially unavailable in certain territories due to the small populations where interparty latency becomes untenable. As an example, about half a year after release we were unable to start matches of high player count game modes for players in Australia due to population decline in combination with sparsely populated geography.
If you are not too focused on particular games or genres, digital marketplaces like Steam are more competitive on pricing. On any given day, there’s probably some game worth playing on sale for less than $5. Combine that with an ever-growing catalog and you have constant downward price pressure. In other words, if a title is not $5 or less today, there’s good chances it will be sometime in the future since newer games push prices on older games down, particularly in case of deep back catalog stuff where the publisher (developer) has made its money back and can sell profitably at any price.
Even if you are discerning about which games you’re interested in, you may have a price advantage on Steam (and similar). While physical AAA console games will see deep discounts in second-hand and overstock markets, niche games have more of a U-shaped price curve where the price declines as retailers try to clear out stock, only to rise again as collectors seize on the limited quantity of available units. You can find examples of this in games published Atlus and similar: physical copies sell for hundreds of dollars, while PC ports on Steam regularly go on sale for less than $20.
When discussing physical games, the fiscal/financial argument tends to show up with the oft-repeated preservation argument. I find both of these arguments bogus and have outlined some of my objections to the former above. I could expound on the latter as well, but this post is already long (the short version: PC and piracy does way more for preservation than decaying physical media). Maybe that will come up in response to some future topic (probably if Frank ever gets more opportunity to complain about nostalgia; complaints which I am fully on-board with).
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I’m pretty big on physical media, but for completely different reasons.
What’s great for anyone in my friend circle who picks up a cheap xbox one, is that they can borrow any of my 50+ compatible game discs whenever they want.
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The Declaration of Independence of video games is the Doom source code.
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Some of the early game cracking intros (Wikipedia) in games may qualify as an important written document of sorts. I think they codify a certain culture that would come to surround games.
(Source)
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This episode kept me sane yesterday as my 3 hour train ride slowly escalated into a 6 hour train odyssey. It was very fun and goofy - exactly what I needed!
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Impressive that they got through that entire Democracy question without mentioning Helldivers 2.
Edit: or the Democracy games.
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sounds like we should’ve prepared a longer episode!
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Fortunately we have a backlog of 217 great episodes
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I would take it! But also
Nothing quite like a list episode to survive a failing railway system.
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I’m surprised Jaffe didn’t include the oft forgotten state nickname: Satan’s Armpit.
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Oh, and I second the recommendation for watching NHK World Japan. It’s not something I do regularly but whenever I’m so sick that I’m bound to the couch or the bed I turn on the TV and watch NHK World. It’s a great channel to slip in and out of consciousness to.
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It is, in fact, related to playing with pogs!
The original PogChamp emote, pictured below, is a screenshot of fighting game commentator Gooteks making a face as in outtake. Him being the the Pog Champ is a reference to a sketch where he wins at Pogs. He was a Pog Champ, you see.
Here’s the original context, if you’re curious
Here he is being a Pog Champ:
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Also, NHK World Japan has a 24 YouTube live stream. Maybe it’s the same as cable! I have no idea I don’t have cable.
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@esper can this picture of sonic pogging be in the thumbnail art for the youtube upload? thanks
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the original pog has been lost to time or is not carried in your local grocery’s refrigerated juice aisle, and that saddens me greatly
(tbf these days there are other brands of passion-orange-guava juice that aren’t as HFCS-ful as the og and are better. bring back original recipe pog w sugar, or even no sugar at all and just 100% juice, pls)
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What?! Is this where the circular pogs came from? I had no idea.
That guy looks chill as heck. I’d drink anything he told me to.
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that is where pogs come from! back in the day pog juice came in glass bottles from a dairy in hawaii, something like this:
and those cardboard/thick (waxed?) paper caps were used cuz they were cheap and disposable and only needed to be used once, while the glass bottle could be returned to the store/dairy, cleaned, sanitzed, and used for something else. kids started collecting the caps to play the game with, and it reached the mainland and took off from there in the 90s where instead of just saying “delcious POG!” on them companies were making these milk caps (“milk caps” being the non-genericized name of the game, too, but everyone just called it “pogs”) separate from any consumable liquid, and put pictures of the power rangers or bill clinton or the noid on them
the carton i posted above is from the original company afaik, but back in the day it didn’t used to have high fructose corn syrup in it and tasted way better. it’s pretty common and easy to find in most west coast cities to this day, in my experience, but there are also other brands that go for a more juice-forward blend without the corn in it, using real sugar or just letting the juice do its thing on its own. sun tropics is my fav, and look at the rest of their lineup! calamansi juice!! just straight guava nectar, even, which as we all know is the best juice and has MOUTHFEEL! i’m pogging just thinking about it! (buster_bluth_i_love_juice.gif)
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So cool — Thanks for the little history lesson! I had no idea the game had an actual cultural background.
I’m going to keep an eye out for that and Sun Tropics - I’ll let you know if I pog out from flavor
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