The Dailey Edge Podcast
Join hosts Trent, TJ, and Todd Dailey as they explore the intersections of technology, culture, fitness, and personal growth. Through engaging discussions and personal anecdotes, the trio dives into topics ranging from childhood gaming nostalgia and cutting-edge fitness tech to the pursuit of happiness and lifestyle choices. Whether reminiscing about epic gaming marathons, sharing tips for staying on the forefront of fitness trends, or unraveling the complexities of modern life, The Dailey Edge delivers thoughtful insights, lively debates, and relatable stories for listeners of all walks of life.
The Dailey Edge Podcast
Episode 6: From Duck Hunt to Esports: Exploring the Evolution and Impact of Video Games
This episode explores the nostalgic impact of video gaming on our lives, discussing how it shaped our childhood experiences and influenced our skills into adulthood. We address the benefits and drawbacks of gaming, including screen time management, social connections, and the lessons learned, while ultimately advocating for a balanced approach to video games in today’s world.
• Nostalgic reflections on childhood gaming experiences
• Valuable lessons learned from video games
• Addressing concerns over excessive screen time
• The importance of social connections through gaming
• Balancing gaming with real-life interactions
Welcome to the Daily Edge where we bring you the latest insights, opinions and thought-provoking conversations to give you that competitive edge in life, business and six Wow Moving right along here Today is going to be different. We've talked about a lot of stuff sports-related, running-related, leadership, business but we decided that we wanted to go down a little different path and talk about video games. As much as we talked in an earlier episode about screen time. All of us grew up playing a fair share of video games and we have some favorites and some pastimes. So screens, video games we're going to dive in and kind of share some of our thoughts and some of our favorite moments from back then.
Speaker 2:Cool, yeah, I'll kick it off. You know, I think that this is. This is an interesting episode. This is something in our lives that I think has been our social connection point before anything else, before sports, before running, before any of that. This was kind of it because we had we had roped Todd into gaming with us when he was four, um, powering up our players on baseball stars.
Speaker 1:I was just going to say that. That's the first memory I have of Nintendo. It was set up in your bedroom. I had a half-day kindergarten and so I would come home at halftime and I would power up the players, and then you guys would come home and you were just blown away, yeah.
Speaker 2:But I think that there is trepidation today. We've talked about this before. Um, I'm not god, there's so many episodes now I'm not even or so much time I'm not even remembering if it was during one of these or not. But, um, as to I guess we did talk in another time about screen time and about you know how to manage that and the positives and negatives of it all. And, um, you know we played a ton of video games, um, and so I'm sure there are people out there listening who have kids. They may not have played growing up, and we still do.
Speaker 2:In our, you know, soon-to-be 40s and 40s, we still get together. As recent as, I think, early 23,. You know, we played games for a solid week together there, I think, when Elden Ring came out or shortly thereafter, and so we still do that, and so I think we can speak to and maybe allay some of those fears right, kind of speak to the benefits that we've seen and the elements of them that we do appreciate. There is a negative side. I know all of us have gone down particular, not sogreat paths, whether it be with microtransactions. There's something I want to tackle later that happened to Todd and I probably 15 years ago, that I still harbor resentment over. But we'll get there, we'll cross that path when the time comes. But I just wanted to kind of kick that out there and say that you know, hopefully you'll gain some insight as to what positive and negative impacts these could have on the people that are close to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean you guys started way before I did. I'm not sure how, what system you guys remember starting with. Say that again.
Speaker 2:ColecoVision was our first system. Okay. Dad had a ColecoVision.
Speaker 1:That was joystick.
Speaker 2:It had like the number pad. There was a number pad, joystick was Atari or Intellivision Atari, yeah.
Speaker 2:Intellivision. Colecovision was the first system we had, I barely remember, but there were a couple games were a couple of games. Uh, one that I loved playing was called venture. Um, and every now and then when I find an emulator I'll kick back and play venture. But obviously, like most kids that were born in the late seventies, early eighties, it was, it was, it was the Nintendo entertainment system, Like that was the absolute jump off to the point where, you know, and I think it was fun because it was such a unique and new thing you know our dad was playing with us.
Speaker 1:I know we both remember dad playing duck hunt rolling around on the bed, like you know, just clocking these ducks I used to go up to the screen and I would just hold it right on the screen, dad would be back. You know six, eight feet shooting here and the fact they had that technology where it figured it out was just pretty incredible back in the day. But I mean, you had those rounded TVs and go up, I'd hold it on the bubble and you know you'd fly it all around. It was a blast.
Speaker 2:That was. I think that kind of pushed it forward right, because he was a big, I mean, he played with us so it was kind of an acceptable thing to do. Um, you know, and, and I think we all played the early games, some of the the ones I remember obviously everybody played Super Mario Brothers and beating that game and learning how to do um, the infinite lives trick and some of those things and learning how to use the warp zones in Rad Racer. But I think the first game that really captivated a lot of our time was probably you in Legend of Zelda, oh, yeah, I didn't remember if that or Final Fantasy.
Speaker 2:Final Fantasy was for me for sure.
Speaker 1:Was Zelda first. Yes, do you think? Okay, yes, gold cartridge yeah, lots of memories of Zelda. Still, I could sit down and play it and beat it now in probably a couple hours, but back in the day, when you had the cartridge, you had to blow in the cartridge, you know, to get it to where, uh, it would play.
Speaker 1:But one thing about back in the day, as I think about it, I mean there wasn't no online, so as much as video games have can sometimes make you an individual like a kind of a loner by yourself. Back then we did it. You were really good about encouraging me and I, todd, was you're four years younger than me, so you probably weren't didn't feel this as much, but you would learn something, get good at it, and then you'd be like I'll just do the research. I want you to play. Yeah, and playing was always the fun part to me, and so I. You know, I was one of the control in my hand and you were like a way for us to do it together is like you would do the research and, um, some of the research involved calling seattle washington I still as of.
Speaker 2:It was probably six or seven years ago, I don't remember it anymore, but I I had. I could still recall the Nintendo Power Classified's phone number. That's how you had to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we, you get stuck in a game, and so for those of you you had Nintendo Power magazines that came out that had some tricks, but if you got hung up there was a hotline. And so I remember we kind of went at this for several months and I think and this would have been back in the eighties got like a hundred dollar phone bill and I think and this would have been back in the 80s got like a $100 phone bill. Yeah, it's like 99 cents a minute. It was super salty, but we called that several times until dad kind of informed us that that wasn't possible anymore.
Speaker 2:It was a really. I learned a lot of good lessons back then Learned how to control my emotions. I remember getting in a near physical fight with a babysitter because I had made it past a particular stage on Rad Racer that it had taken me so long to get past and it was bedtime and I had to turn it off and I was just furious and then the next morning woke up and did it again and so, like you know, realizing that it wasn't the end of the world when something like that happened although I believe it was sort of Vermilion where you was it Nerve that erased all of your progress.
Speaker 1:I don't know, man, there were some of those games that I remember early on where you could I think the first building games were like Baseball Stars, tecmo, super Bowl III For Genesis, for Genesis, like those games, and then, like you know, zelda you could save it. But, man, if the game we we used to call it crapping out, if it crapped out, you know, you could potentially lose everything um, there wasn't a security of actually keeping it. So I'm assuming, over the years we had several times where that became a reality and was quite devastating for us at the time, because you're just like, you put so much work into it and it's gone yeah, I do want to go back and kind of talk about early baseball stars because, like you said, with that being your first memory, I think we did that a lot with different games.
Speaker 2:And again it speaks to what you said about me liking to do the research, you having the controller and actually executing the things, and then, as we got older, you started to do some of that as well. But I think you know, even when you were four, we figured out. So Baseball Stars was a almost like. There were elements of it that were almost like a role playing sports game, where the game came preloaded with a number of teams that you could play, but you also had the ability to create your own team, and there were there was a lot of hard work involved in building your team to this maximum level.
Speaker 2:It required, first of all, you had to go through this process of goodness. I don't even know if I want to explain it all, but I will One of the. So there were, just like in any other RPG game, there were like six or seven different categories you could fill up, and one of the categories was prestige, and prestige was how you made money to buy new players, and there were these players that were $9 million or $99 million or whatever, and to get a player that you could max out all of their stats, you had to buy the player for 99 million. So you would make a team and you'd fill up just their prestige. And then you would make a team and you'd fill up just their prestige, and then you'd make another team and or you'd play the lovely ladies who had high prestige and you would have two controls, right, and your team you would bean the batters until they walked in enough runs, and then the other team, you would throw strikes, and I think there was a 10-0 rule, 10-0 rule.
Speaker 1:So you could do it in basically one inning. So the pitcher would hit 13 batters, you'd get 10 runs, throw three outs, you would put the person on bunt and do a triple play and then the next time you'd get three outs in a row again.
Speaker 2:And then boom, the game was over and you got that $56,000 or whatever, and I think it ended up being 128 when you had everyone fully prestiged and then you took that money it was a million dollars to get a high-end guy and then you'd have to buy a million dollar player and then you get a team full of million dollar players. That then you'd have to go through the process of getting all that money to upgrade all of those players. And it was a grind and we put you on that and just crushed. And it was a grind and we put you on that and just crushed.
Speaker 1:I don't actually remember any of that, exactly what I was doing, but I do remember playing the game and I remember some of the screens. We've all been I mean, there's been different times, we've done fighting games and sports games but something that you've always been interested in and I think it kind of translated is some more of the role-playing stuff. Like Zelda, for me, was an open-world map and you fought bosses and you increased your hearts and you increased your armor and you increased the different things you could do. Each stage would provide a different, you'd have a different element. You could now drop bombs or you could shoot a bow and arrow Just the building and the growth and the character. There was something about that that was just always intriguing to me.
Speaker 2:I think we've carried that into. That's a. That's a positive that we've carried into. Life is going through and building these characters and learning how to problem solve and get through challenges and and figuring. Also though going back to the or similar to the baseball stars thing, but in the vein of RPGs is the grind. Often, I think that's one of the things you wouldn't think right. You would think it'd be beating this amazing boss or getting this really unique item, and the only time that I would remember getting a unique item is if we had to grind to get it. I mean, you think about Final Fantasy. That was a defining game for us, again after the Legend of Zelda, hall of Giants.
Speaker 1:For sure.
Speaker 1:You know, it's probably from a life skill perspective delayed gratification Relative to the games. Today someone was showing me they were playing Royal Match, maybe if you've ever seen that, and he was on level 1,279. It's like, I mean, every time you play those games it's like you level up and there's like things that right there, like instantly, within minutes, you're getting, whereas I feel like in some of the older games, whether it was Final Fantasy or whether it was Zelda or even the future Zeldas, when we went and did all the Skulltillas, I mean that would take tens of hours, like dozens of hours. And the delayed gratification, like you said, you learn to grind until you achieved whatever you were striving for.
Speaker 2:I think we embraced that so much I don't even think we knew. Again, I mentioned this in an earlier podcast where I didn't know until later in life kids would leave our house and go to tell their parents like. These kids are on an entirely different level and I didn't really grasp that until because that was probably into my 20s when I first heard that. But I remember playing Final Fantasy VII. And.
Speaker 2:I would have been a senior in high school or freshman in college and we were recording our games on VCR tapes and I remember we beat Sephiroth without getting touched and to us it just you know, we had ground Because we love to max level guys. And I remember showing that to somebody that was in my dorm and their head almost exploded and he took the tape and was showing it around campus Like, oh my God, can you believe what these guys did? And that was normal. For whatever reason we've gravitated towards that. I don't know what it is. We found out with our dad in his 60s that he has that gene as well and it's probably in his most recent gaming iteration put all of us to shame in terms of long-term grind.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, that's a whole episode on itself. Yeah definitely. What do you guys? Let's do a lightning round real quick. Then I want to ask the depth question. Top game from regular Nintendo.
Speaker 2:I have two Final Fantasy and Tecmo Super Bowl.
Speaker 1:Zelda, sega Genesis Sonic. Sonic was pretty epic. The first Sonic was.
Speaker 2:I would say one that I love to. It has a special place in my heart that I love to watch Trent play with Super Hang-On oh yeah, I put a lot of work into that. N64 007 Goldeneye yeah.
Speaker 1:Bond PlayStation 1. Final Fantasy 7 that was one that had three discs. It did, and I don't think, super Nintendo. Yeah, super Final Fantasy VII, that was one that had three discs.
Speaker 2:It did Super.
Speaker 1:Nintendo, yeah, super yeah. Final Fantasy II, for sure, idea and Edge and all those that was probably my favorite Final Fantasy. It was the red cartridge on the front.
Speaker 2:That's probably my all-time, which was actually Final Fantasy IV in Japan, if I had to go back, I would say Nintendo, for me was Super Mario 3.
Speaker 1:That was monster Sega Genesis? Was that APTG Yep? Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf.
Speaker 2:Shout out to Faust, sort of a million was pretty good.
Speaker 1:Super Nintendo was probably Killer Instinct for me.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I played that heavy.
Speaker 1:Glacier, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Speaker 1:A lot of that. Yeah, teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a lot of that. Yeah, teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was good. 64 Mario was really good for 64, but I would say Link. Ocarina of Time. Ocarina of Time.
Speaker 1:I've played collecting all hundred of those skulltulas was just ours. Ps1, I've got to say Final Fantasy 7. I think it was you and I that played mostly Final Fantasy 7 seven. I think it was you and I that played mostly final fantasy seven. I mean nba in the zone jumps out pippin scotty that was. That was another one that we? Um, okay then what's next? The next system would have been ps2 ps2 was that the one where we waited outside when we were?
Speaker 2:in college we went outside.
Speaker 1:Xbox would have been first would have been me and you, inside, outside.
Speaker 2:I never played Inside outside, Inside drive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So that was a basketball game that me and TJ built a whole team around and we would work third shift and come home and play Inside drive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, inside drive that.
Speaker 1:PS2 story is great because we were in college and we went and drove. I think we were just randomly driving by the Best Buy and we noticed there was like 10 people in line. It was like, well, what is going on there?
Speaker 3:And we went home, I think for a few minutes and we found out what it was, we went home to get stuff and then we came back at 10 pm and camped out all night. It was like 40 degrees. Yeah, it was freezing cold.
Speaker 1:I remember I had to leave at 6 am. I 6 am remember holly came and and ended up purchasing it, but we stayed in line for I don't know hours yeah, 10, 10 to 12 hours to get the ps2 staying outside the line of best buy I'm trying to think of the first game, guitar hero 3 for me for ps2, oh for sure.
Speaker 1:Yes too, but a lot of guitar hero and these guys like I was okay at it, but tj is one of those. One like he went to the hardest level and you know you couldn't just strum it. One had to go both ways in order to get it and it was just we. I mean, that was at every family event Like you can get. Guitar Hero was way ahead of its time it was wonderful.
Speaker 2:And then the drums came in. That was Rock Band, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the Guitar Hero and then all the songs that they would send out. We had so much fun on Guitar Hero, but there was something with PS2 that started to come out that might have been Final Fantasy X. Was that PS2? Yep, what about?
Speaker 2:Call of Duty, that was PS3. I mean, it was out on PS2, but PS3, Call of Duty for me by far and away in the PS3.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we did play a lot of so that would have been Final Fantasy X.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did play a lot of, so that would have been Final Fantasy X.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was a walkable. We played a ton of that. What was Fallout?
Speaker 2:3? You had gotten that. For me, was that PS2 or 3? That might have been.
Speaker 1:PS3.
Speaker 3:You know, on Final Fantasy X, the thing I was thinking about like you said.
Speaker 1:We didn't just beat stuff. It was like Luna to get her secret weapon, you had to dodge 200 lightning bolts in this field and it was like there was this thing that would happen before bolt would. And it just like and I can remember just hours and hours, there's this chuckle boot race that you had to do, yeah, where we had to get under a certain time and we could. We did it hundreds of times.
Speaker 2:The emerald emerald emerald machine in the red monster in final fantasy 7 and the red dragon and then there was the, the phoenix. So I think there were three ultimate weapons that you had to beat, and we beat them all yeah, yeah for sure, which had nothing to do with beating the game they were all side quests, yeah it wasn't a matter of beating the game, it was how many side quests could be perfect.
Speaker 1:So I was listening to a podcast the other day kind of talking about how in today's society for understandably so video gaming is a little bit taboo as right. I think it's kind of looked down upon as an adult If you game like extensively or you kind of get portrayed as this like mom's basement kind of a guy like what are your guys? What's your take on that? Do you think that's founded? Do you think it's misinformed? Do you disagree with it? Do you think it's real? Do you?
Speaker 2:want to take that.
Speaker 1:Sure, I think gaming is a form of entertainment. Uh, I'm going to take this a little different way and say that there's a difference between, I think, gaming and an addiction, and, um, when you get addicted to anything, it can be dangerous, and so I think some of those stereotypes are like, if I came home and did X thing, whatever that is, every single night, and on the weekends I did it, and instead of wanting to have social time with, like if it was my go-to to where I'm spending, you know, more than 10 hours a week doing it, then I think some of that stuff probably resonates. It would be no different, though, if I sit down and watch 10 hours of television, yellowstone or a series, so I don't look at any different than that. I think what happens with games, at least with me, is that I don't just do it a little bit Like if I start.
Speaker 1:There was a weekend just a little while ago where the new Call of Duty came out. My son is an excellent first person shooter and I'm like let's go, and I don't stay up past generally 10 o'clock, and I looked up and it was one 30 and me and him are playing zombies, and we did that for kind of two days straight and I mean we were probably 10, 15 hours in and I got to share just something quick about the grind. So he wants to get unlock every skin for every gun. For every gun there's gotta be 50 50 guns. In order to do that you have to get 1,400 headshots per gun and he's almost done so, like you talk about the grind, it doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 2:I mean, he can grind 1,400.
Speaker 1:He found out this trick where he can go to this place and just like light people up and he just wants to unlock gold, and so he's got 70,000 headshots. He wants to unlock gold, and so he's got 70,000 headshots. Yeah, you should go up and see it, it's actually upstairs.
Speaker 1:But like his 70,000, his tenacity of wanting to unlock every weapon, unlock every skin and like these things, like so. I think he's wired a little bit like us and there are times where I could say so. To go back to the original question is like I can see how depend on what level you are if you're a casual gamer, but I think anything you do and the people where some of that stigma comes from are the ones that put gaming above everything else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think also you have to be able to. Unfortunately, just because of the way society is, it's like anything else. We talked about sports in our second episode. Right, same thing. There are esports leagues out there, there are esports players that make hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars, but it's like playing professional sports and, like we spoke about with our kids, related to sports, what we hope they do is take the lessons from sports and apply those to other areas and if they do the same thing with I mean, again, we were privy to watch our father who, again we found out and we have to talk about Ingress in a little bit has this insatiable ability to grind.
Speaker 2:He applied that to his business career, that to his business career. He worked the same company for 50 years and he worked, started mowing the founder's lawn all the way up to owning the organization and growing it and selling it off before he retired, and I think that's applying that grind to other areas of life. So I think you know when it becomes problematic is when that doesn't transfer. You know, because I think there are areas of entertainment. There are areas all of the things we've talked about sports being in entertainment in a traditional sense, like being an actor, a lot of those things that, a lot of those skills you can develop, understanding that the you're not, you're probably not going to reach the pinnacle, but those can be applied other, other places, and so you know, I think that's when for me it starts to become to become problematic. I still watch a ton of content as it relates to speed running classic games.
Speaker 1:I was going to say you should talk about that. So you sit around and watch classic games and people like speed run like on Twitch.
Speaker 1:So like talk about that a little bit, because I think there's kids today that like to sit around and watch people open packages. Yeah, talk about how you feel and see. This is again where sometimes your head goes. I was going to say, talk about the productivity in that, but it's not productivity, it's entertainment. But like, talk about the productivity in that, but it's not productivity, it's entertainment. But what intrigues you about that and what do you think intrigues these kids about wanting to watch other people do things?
Speaker 2:I think there's a couple. So this is twofold, because I've just recently experienced something else. So the first thing, watching classic games. For me, I appreciate that, like I appreciate sports. Recently, and the public will probably be more aware of this, you've seen some massive accomplishments in classic Nes Tetris. I've been watching classic Nes Tetris on and off, and not habitually, but I'll watch a couple hours a month, two, three hours a month, here and there if some accomplishment or achievement pops up. But just recently we saw two massive achievements in Tetris somebody breaking the game for the first time and somebody flipping the game for the first time, which is unbelievable.
Speaker 2:But watching people move pieces and place pieces in hundreds of seconds to the point where it's, it has to be muscle memory. You can't think that fast, it's just seeing and reacting. And it's you know. They've done those tests with um, with apes, or with with monkeys and they tend to be faster than humans and doing a lot of that stuff. Because they're not, they don't have the other things clotting their mind, they're just it's, it's, you know, it's just muscle memory.
Speaker 2:So watching that from an entertainment perspective is fascinating to me because it's very similar. It's just appreciating a skill set, like you appreciate a skill set from a basketball, football, soccer perspective. The new thing that I've been exposed to very recently that I didn't grasp was Twitch and not meaning that I didn't grasp what twitch was, but I didn't quite get the live stream thing, um until path of exile 2 came out recently and I was watching a content creator that I like on youtube um play path of exile and it reminded me of when we were growing up. Chat is giving this person suggestions on how to level up his particular character, what path on the evolution tree to take, or what type of character to play, or how to maneuver to beat this particular boss. So you know, it's not something that I would do on a regular basis, but I can see a glimmer of what we would do in person growing up in that digital environment.
Speaker 1:I think there are. Yeah, it reminds me when you said what character to pick. We used to try and beat Final Fantasy with like all four white mages or just wild stuff like that. I think, for kids, what's interesting, what I have tried to support certain games and certain gaming is, I think that's going to be an important social connection point. I don't, you know, I certainly am not getting compensated to play Madden, but we all know I played a lot of Madden growing up and got pretty good at it and I remember in the dorms playing a ton of Madden and like people would be coming down to our room at all hours of the day and playing Madden and that's how I developed a lot of relationships and a lot of connections. And any more social skills, I think are only going to become more important.
Speaker 1:One of these episodes maybe we'll talk a little more about AI, but as AI gets more and more advanced and does more and more of the thinking for us, I think humans' role is going to continue to be more and more communication and relationships and social, and so I think that's a huge, huge part of it that I think is good for kids and, I would say, as parents. What's interesting about this is the relationship with your kids. So, like you, playing with Roman, like that bonding time, I think is super valuable because you know it's his, in his territory, on his terms, you know, I think that can go a long way. We've talked about that in prior episodes having relationships for kids. So I think again, I think that can go a long way. We've talked about that in prior episodes, having relationships for kids. So I think again, I think when you have those more in-depth relationships, you spend that time together, it puts you in a better position to have conversations and coach them and teach them in other areas of life. So I think that's a huge benefit too.
Speaker 1:The last thing I was going to add about some of the speed running thing is it's not just skill sets, but it's appreciating someone doing something epic, right and the hours and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of hours that some of these people have put into these games thousands of hours, heck, if Roman got a headshot every minute, that's over a thousand hours. You know, to do that like, to appreciate the extent of those accomplishments, is something to look up to right, whether that's for us or for kids. Like that delayed gratification, the ability to grind at something, because I think that's what society is going to continue to get worse. At right, they said our attention spans less than a goldfish. I read that.
Speaker 1:The other day like ours is closer to eight, nine seconds, I think. A goldfish is 12. And so people's ability to grind like that and have a delayed gratification, and so I think that can be a good thing, depending on what they're watching right Now, opening packs of Pokemon or whatever, I'm not sure, but like appreciating someone just literally mastering every aspect. I mean you look at some of the speed runs on Mario. It is every you know, down to a 10th of a second. Timing for just pure perfection is remarkable.
Speaker 2:The other cool thing I'll add to that really quickly is for some of these things in the speed running community to take place and just to clarify that is beating a game as fast as you can possibly beat it. There are these massive community efforts, like you know. I was watching one on Donkey Kong 64 the other day and they've completely broken the game. But it's like some person on a random message board had like found this one part of the game and worked on how to clip through a wall and they found this thing that saved 10 minutes and it's, you know, dozens of people working together to find these ways to break the game, to beat these games in unbelievable times and then practicing them for probably in a lot of instances thousands, if not 10,000 hours to get them down. I mean, it's really cool.
Speaker 1:I think one of the things that I'd love your guys' take on this when we played a game, there was an ending, right, like, even though we would beat the game, then we would go back and be like, well, we got to get every single side quest and we had this, but at some point in time the game ended.
Speaker 1:And one of the things that I struggle with now with some of the gaming is, like all these games are set up for never ending, to your point, to that royal, whatever. But even like, there's always a new skin, there's always a new skin, there's always a new release. There's always they've developed these games and you buy and then they have the season, and then they roll out a new season every quarter. And so I can only imagine when I was a kid, if Zelda was infinite, I'm not sure I would have done anything else with my life, sure. And so they're building and putting so much time into these different games and these characters and they continue to release stuff, to continue the dopamine. So how do you guys process that? Do you think that's dangerous? Do you think that's a good thing? What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:I think that we're seeing a little bit now what we've seen in other areas of society where there's finally I shouldn't say finally, because it's been happening for a while, but there's pushback on that. We spoke earlier about getting as much as you can out of something for as little effort as possible the whole microtransaction thing. Ea has been lambasted over the years for certain different implementations of microtransactions. I forget what game. It was one of the Star Wars games and it was just egregious. It was just absolutely obvious, it was ridiculous and people pushed back hard and the game didn't do well. And I saw a video the other day. I didn't click in it, but it was something to the effect of people don't want AAA games anymore because all of the AAA studios are these massive conglomerates that are publicly traded, that need to hit sales goals and need to hit numbers, and so their entire businesses are based on abusive microtransactions. And then you have a smaller team, like the Path of Exile team I was talking about, who release a game for $30 and has no real meaningful elements in it that are pay-to-play and people are clamoring and it's one of the biggest releases of you know it so far. It was the biggest release in 2024, right, and it's there. There are some elements where people are upset, but you definitely are seeing more criticism of the games that are microtransaction heavy.
Speaker 2:But I, I agree with you. I mean, I said it in an earlier thing I felt, you know, I never understood skins. But, um, I I've played games and I'd love to get some, because you did it with Clash of Clans, you didn't do it with that. Simpsons games that you got really good at I think you were number one in the world at some point. But I have a problem with Beatstar, right.
Speaker 2:Beatstar is like rock band, but it's a tap game and there's music, and every time I hear a song that I like, I need to get it. But to get it I have to buy the season pass for $9.99. And then I want to buy, but I want to play the songs, and so unlimited play is $5 a week. So I've already spent $15 or $10 for the month for the pass and then $5 a week. So there's 30 bucks a month I'm spending just to play the songs I like. And then there's the gym element, right, and to unlock other songs that weren't part of the monthly ladder that you play on. And all of a sudden you're paying, you're playing 40, 50, $60 a month because you know they figured out how to extract that out of you.
Speaker 1:And that's what's horrible is, it's not just the time, but it's like any game that you bought. Up until probably 15, 20 years ago, it was a purchase. You purchased the entire game. Sometimes there were add-on packs or whatever that you could buy for $10. That gave you another 50, 100 hours of playing. And it's not just the time. Now it's the money, right. How about some any epic stories? You just you talking about the $30, $40 a month? I know I've got one for my kids, but, like, let's talk about some of the miserable failures or some of the going in deep from a financial perspective on some of these games. I think people would be impressed by that I think mine is the least aggressive.
Speaker 2:So I'll start with mine and then your guys' stories. I think are probably much more. But we've all heard horror stories. But we were in California, I think last fall not this past fall or maybe no. It was early spring of this year and just hanging out and I opened up one of the credit card apps or banking apps and my son, who at the time was five, had spent like $140 on V bucks to buy Fortnite skins or something crazy like that, because he was using my account and I forgot to add the extra password. So you know, I would say that is there. There's obviously instances where they figured out how to buy robux, but but, um, nothing super crazy, uh, other than than that one for him well, I had a similar.
Speaker 1:I'll go after that. I had a similar experience with oliver when he was six. This was two years ago.
Speaker 1:Um, we had lost track of the bank account statement for a couple of months and logged back in there and he had racked up $800 in purchases on Roblox, and I don't know how it got unlocked or what happened, but I have just about had a complete panic attack and I remember Jenna filed a dispute and I think we ended up getting maybe like half of it taken off, but he had racked up eight hundred dollars in just, I mean frivolous nothing of any material value whatsoever unbelievable, and they've probably spent three or four hundred on Madden legitimately over the course of the last few years. Now that that's over time, flash fans.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll tell that story First. I'll go into my oldest. He plays first-person shooters and so anytime he's got any cash at all he'll come in and he'll give me a $20 bill and he'll be like, yeah, I just got something new. So just this last week he spent $40. He's paying for most of it now, but he has spent a fortune on his games, um, over the years. Uh, all the games he played.
Speaker 1:But so my big story was clash of clans. Uh, I started playing this game. It first came out and I was kind of I was just I was grinding out, but it was just so hard to get further. So I started with the $19.99 packs, the gems, and you could speed stuff up. I was kind of getting used to that. Then I'm like, oh man, you can get a much more value for the $99 one. So you had the $99 packs.
Speaker 1:I don't know what happened, but I think a few weeks passed and I think I was two grand in. I had everything. I've upgraded everything to the max, my walls, I was winning these battles, I mean I was deep. And then they started releasing new stuff and then it was like, the further you got, the harder it was to advance and so the more expensive it got, and luckily I ended up quitting cold Turkey. I don't know if it was my wife that got me to quit, but I was a couple thousand dollars in on that one and luckily I haven't. I haven't taken that plunge since. I mean that's impressive, I mean like like that's, I mean you would consider yourself, I think, a thoughtful person. Right, you're not someone that's completely getting taken advantage of, whatever reason. And there's something to be said for how good companies have gotten at just kind of neurologically hijacking you and getting you to spend someone of high, someone of high cognitive capability, spend those kind of funds. I mean they've done a fantastic job.
Speaker 2:You see the stories of people over in Asia I think Japan specifically that spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on microtransactions and that live in internet cafes because there's nothing else or resort to selling in-game items. I know they've eliminated a lot of that in recent history, but there was a huge black market at one point in time where people were getting on ebay or other marketplaces and selling in-game items at world of warcraft and things like that, um, you know, and loot creating and it's, it's very it's, it's a very interesting thing. And we go back to talking about the status game, like in a lot of instances, like you get sucked into that rabbit hole and that becomes your drive to have status in that community.
Speaker 1:I think that's important though. So where I think it's getting dangerous and at times for me is like when it becomes your identity or it becomes what you, you know, like you know, I hope my son and all my kids find I think relationships are the most important thing and they find all of that and that video games is entertaining, it's a thing that they can connect with others on that it doesn't become the focus of their life. And I think if you're not careful, it can. It can become, because it is so addicting, it can become the focus of their life. It can become, because it is so addicting it can become the focus of their life. It can be something that that's all they desire to do.
Speaker 1:They get home on Friday night and it's not what are my friends doing? Or let's go do this. It's like, okay, I'm ready to pull my eight hour shift, go to bed at two, get up tomorrow, do the same thing and log that 20 hour, 25 hour weekend and it's all about the skins and you're growing and you're getting that, that satisfaction right as a person that you may not be getting. It's harder to get acceptance and satisfaction from humans these days, really easy to get it from video games, and so that becomes a desire, and then you do that long enough and then, I think, all of a sudden you're like you don't have any connection to people at all, and then it's a all of your meaning is tied and and then all of a sudden you're like you kind of fall out.
Speaker 1:So I think there's some dangers in that and I haven't figured out how. I mean we've tried to limit. I'm not sure that any of my kids are going down that path, but I think that's a fear right Of making sure that they have a balance and that it just stays a form of entertainment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I wonder how we've all had those points and times in our lives and I wonder how we've come out of it, if I say favorite PC game of all time.
Speaker 1:Age of Empires 2.
Speaker 2:Right, no question.
Speaker 1:We drilled a hole in the wall to connect our computers at Purdue.
Speaker 2:We played it on the Purdue network for a long time.
Speaker 1:I snapped out of that. It was just because I was doing really bad in school. I needed to go to class.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but similarly, when you moved out I was playing, and with Call of Duty, very similarly, when I was in the nightlife industry that we talked about a little bit earlier, that afforded me the opportunity. Once we built that empire over a couple of years, that afforded me the opportunity to play eight to 10 hours a day. And one thing I don't think people understand, that aren't heavily into video games, is to be at the upper end, at the upper echelon of competitiveness, especially in first-person shooters, especially in RTS games like Age of Empires. You have to play four to six hours a day or you'll lose that reaction time that you need to be great at those games. So it's this really.
Speaker 2:It's kind of like we've talked about in a number of these episodes. It's like man. It does help you a lot from a problem-solving, a quick, problem-solving perspective. It does help with hand-eye coordination and it is something at least those games were very gratifying when you would win and you'd perform well. And so it's like with fitness. It's like, well, you're going to have to play six hours a day if you want to be the best of the best. Are you willing to sacrifice that six hours? Do you have the ability to balance your life in a way that'll afford you that six hour time to be somebody who excels in that particular arena.
Speaker 1:What do you think it goes from here? Like, let's fast forward 20 years. Virtual reality has started to come out a little bit and I feel like there have been times where it has it feels to me, and I've been. I haven't really gotten into it, I haven't bought any of the VR systems, but it seems like they're kind of hot and cold.
Speaker 2:It's a novelty. I think you put it on for the first time. You're like whoa, because it's gotten so much better from the old. You put your Samsung device in a piece of cardboard. Vr to the original before. Was it before facebook bottom? But anyways, the original oculus, yeah, the original oculus. And then to the meta, quest 2 and now the 3 and some of the seen, some of the new ones.
Speaker 1:Have you had them? Tried them on?
Speaker 2:I've just I've not tried anything later than the two what?
Speaker 1:what do we think it's going to be in 20 years? Is it going to go more vr? Is it going to stay like gaming systems on tvs, like what is? What does gaming look like in 20 years, 30 years? I mean it's a great question. I I think they're building out I mean, you've seen ready player one right, haptic suits and things of more real life.
Speaker 1:I it's really going to be interesting to see what AI does and what technology does to work to um the economy to what. What like? What are people doing? What are their skill sets? How do they survive? Like, arguably, there's a, there is a. You know, you could say the world could go a thousand different ways, but one of them could be is like you know being, you could live in a virtual reality, like you remember when at bitcoin, they're selling all these different you know digital like land places where you could buy stuff and you go in as an avatar, like it could get to that. I hope it never does um, but I don't. I just don't know what that, what that looks like I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't think it will, and I say that because you've seen pushback on virtual reality and you can say that Apple's headset failed because it was a price point thing, right, but the hype around that particular item was off the charts and Apple Vision Pro is now dead. Um, I think there's something maybe it's a a something wired in us that that doesn't, uh, because that doesn't feel comfortable with things that are on people's faces. I mean, even going as far back as Google glass, right, when we had that, it was one of the first people to have that. Nothing in that realm has ever stuck. The other thing that's interesting is we were lucky enough to live in the era where it came from nothing to something.
Speaker 2:Video games were around when we were kids. Heavily, there were a couple of home systems, but it was mostly in the arcade and we've got to see it to evolve to what it is today. But if you think about it for the last, I don't know every now and then you'll see like a preview of the newest render on the newest Unreal Engine and it's like, oh my god, this is crazy. But if you look at the games, nothing's really changed in the last four to six years it hasn't gotten exponentially better or that much more realistic or created a world that you get lost in and feels like actual reality, and most of the mechanics of the games have remained relatively similar. I mean, we were playing some of the early dark soul stuff when you were in your old house in marion, and elden ring has most of the same mechanics that that did, and that was a 10 year difference in time span.
Speaker 2:So, um, I think that people are starting to appreciate the the difficulty of certain games. The um appreciate the things that we appreciated when video games came into play, and the hope is that it will kind of return to it. Never will return fully to what it was, but to more of a traditional form of entertainment. And I don't know if other industries have experiences I'm sure they have and maybe we can expound on that a little bit Like, have there been instances in cinema? Or like gambling as a form of entertainment? Have there been instances in gambling where, like, maybe you could go with gambling to the height of online poker? Like it was absurd? Got a couple of those stories right but they've pulled.
Speaker 2:It's kind of been pulled back a little bit in that arena although on the other side of it when it comes to sports gambling betting is through the roof blown up, yeah, um you know. So I I think it's kind of come back a little bit again. Maybe my world view is a little bit off. Um, and this is my echo chamber is it relates to kind of the content that I watch and the people that I follow, but um, I I don't think it's going to. I I virtual reality I mean, that's it.
Speaker 1:You got to have something on that makes you feel like you're in a completely different world, and if those don't catch on, I would agree with you. They're just so stinking good, and the games that they're coming out with are good. I just don't know if the market's going to shift to your point. If people want it to shift, yeah, it's going to be interesting. I mean, I think you've got like tablets. I think it'll be interesting to know if it retraces and does so permanently, or if it bounces back. So tablets are a perfect example.
Speaker 1:Microsoft came out with tablets. Right, it flopped, it was a complete flop and the iPad. And then, I don't know how many years later, multiple years later the iPad came out, and it took a little bit of time too, but then, all of a sudden, tablets were like it was crazy, crazy. So I'm just wondering if, for uh, for v, for virtual reality, if it's still bless you, uh, is this a little early, or if it's just a something, a trend that's not going to catch I mean, you've seen other other endeavors, like with the woozer, which is that wearable speaker that you can feel, or I have.
Speaker 2:I have a pair of shoes at home that have speakers in them that were or not speakers, but like vibrating subwoofer feeling and you're supposed to immerse you more in the game, and I don't think any of those products have ever taken off in any meaningful way, but it may be something that's just too early.
Speaker 1:They were with the Oculus or I forget which version it was, but they had a deal with the NBA ticket where you could like, put them on and you'd be sitting in the arena yeah, that was dope. Yeah, so there's been some things and I could see like concerts, like um. So I don't know where they've gone with that, because I haven't played much in the vr. We just charged it back up. I think we got the version last year. We haven't got a new one yet. But, um, I limit that because of the kids and the
Speaker 1:visuals and the ages, but my kids would. They'll take any device or screen they can get their hands on as long as I'll let them. So let's talk about that for a minute. There's been a lot of studies that have come out about kids and screen time, especially younger kids. I have some close family members who are basically not allowing their kid to have any eyes on a screen until he turns, I think, five or six or something, because there's a lot of research out there that shows kind of some of the. I think what is still a little bit out there is how temporary or permanent is the damage? Right, but I know for my kids, when they play for multiple hours and particularly if it ends a little too abruptly, sometimes it can end smoothly and they can transition, but I would say that's the exception.
Speaker 1:There is a level of irritability, there's a level of uh, frustration or just antagonism that comes out when screens are. I can noticeably tell a behavioral difference and again we talk about context and everything's boring, because when you're getting the most, you know, when you're just getting crushed with dopamine and you've got some of the most engaging things, everything else does seem boring. I remember it was actually just a little bit of a sidebar. They used to talk about how sitting around a campfire reading a story was like a very highly engaging event back, like way back in the day, like you know, when they I mean cause obviously writing and the printing press was it hasn't been around forever.
Speaker 1:Right, for us it seems like that. But to have like books and things to read was like that, was like a crate, and now obviously even that people struggle to sit down and read. But now, now it's, it continues to escalate, right In terms, is it dopamine desensitization, I guess, is where I'm going down that path, and so that piece and then the irritability of it, like what have you guys seen with your kids? And like, are there certain limits that you've kind of seen, where it's like they only play for this long or at certain ages? You're like, where do you, what do you observe and what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:Well, what I'm noticing is for me, for my kids I think it's especially the older girls it's more about the social connections that they've made in the game. Like it's crazy for me, with miles, miles watches probably more than he should, but when I say miles, turn it off, no fighting, just boom done. And obviously we've talked about you know, he is in five to six hours of sports a week on top of it, so there's not a ton of time. There just isn't time in the day for that for him. But there's really never any fighting, you know, with the girls, though. On the other hand, it is a social thing for them. They will join games and play Fortnite with a lot of their friends or Roblox with their friends, and when they're asked to get off those screens, I do get a lot of pushback.
Speaker 2:My middle child is probably the most temperamental. She's kind of temperamental regardless. It's more along the lines when friends are involved in an online gaming experience, but she doesn't want to turn it off, period. Um, you know, and Kay again, she'll turn it off right away. If I walk into a room and she's on the phone, it's time she's tossing it to me and I put it on the thing. But if there's kids, there's other friends involved, then it's a little bit more. But we were like that Get off the phone at night.
Speaker 1:You know if we're talking on the phone, depending on how old we were this phone when they came out first. You know you didn't have the cordless, but then you could keep it in your room and call late at night and people had their own lines I remember doing that. How about you? Well, we're so just to give you our kind of rules and boundaries. Kids get an hour a day on on their phones. Um, my seven-year-old does not have a phone, my 11 and 12-year-old and 15-year-old do. Fully functioning phones.
Speaker 1:Fully functioning phones. They get an hour on practically period. The only thing the exception to that is they can text and they can do those weird video calls with their friends. You have that set up a screen time limit like it shuts down after an hour.
Speaker 1:It just blocks. So they're all. They're all iphones and they just. It just collapses everything and anything outside of text messaging and calling because, like, again, it's their way to communicate and connect and I'm okay with that. So they'll sit on those random calls with 12 people on a video chat and sit there and like, look at each other and what, whatever?
Speaker 1:25 person group texts yeah, so there's a lot of that going on with the girls. The girls especially, tend to use the phones more socially. We have no social media. Our girls do not have any social media platform. Um, they do roblox, that's the thing that that, uh, eden is really involved in. Um dti, so is. So that's an hour phone time. Does that include any sort of screens, like if they wanted to play video games or they want to do other?
Speaker 1:things, that's where it gets dicey. We don't allow video games during the week, so that's not a problem. So during the week, Monday through Friday they got an hour and what happens is when they're done with that, they'll go sit in front of the TV and watch anime, or Isaiah's figured out, he can get YouTube kids on the television. So Isaiah, the seven year old, he does not have a device, but he constantly steals any phone he can find and he'll go hide somewhere and watch YouTube kits.
Speaker 1:Um, he's into Mr Beast right now, and you know he would. He would love to play Fortnite. I haven't really let him. He does play video games, Um, and he's got into the Zeldas and some of the other ones and actually is pretty good at that stuff. So I've been more lenient with my boys. Roman he's under the same thing, though, because I was finding that, as even a high schooler, he was spending five to six hours a day on his phone. Those kids are smart. They were figuring out ways to break around things and do things, and what's happened? One of the tough parts for us has been he's got a school iPad and they've figured out how to do whatever they want on the iPad.
Speaker 1:They install Retro Bowl and they can play football on their iPad in classrooms, and so when I limit everything on his phone and then the other rule we have is no devices in your room at night, right, so that's. The other thing is like you take the devices out of the room because I don't want them living in the room. So on the weekends I want them to have freedom Again. I want it to be entertainment, not addiction. But the hardest part is is like you're better off to just take it away period, because then it doesn't, it doesn't become a thing. But my, my girls are pretty good, they get off of it, they can go days without it. But there are times and especially when you come off of a break like we're getting ready to go in to break and they're going to have more access, boy, by the time that's over. It's going to be a nightmare. I find that that is also the case.
Speaker 1:I mentioned, I think, in some other episodes. We've had to do some detoxes and it's so much easier because there's no negotiating of how much time. We don't have the limits set up in the devices. So it's like did you set a timer, did you not? Or hey, I didn't use all my time yesterday, so can I use more time today. And hey, it's like did you set a timer, did you not? Or hey, I didn't use all my time yesterday, so can I use more time today? And hey, it's the. You know, it's raining outside. I can't go out there. Like, can I have? Like? There's just so much debate and negotiation and like stress. I find with that, if it's just not there at all, it's like a horrible couple of days to get there and then, like you know, generally forget about it we've loaded up their schedule so much for us that balance kind of happens.
Speaker 2:Naturally they just don't have time. I mean, what is today? I don't even know, but I think today was a day or yesterday was a day that my middle kid has two and a half hours of practice, and so she goes to cheer at 4 15 and she gets home at 7 15 solves the problem is already solved, yeah, like at most, and she eats dinner when she gets home at 7.15. The problem's already solved At most, and she eats dinner when she gets home. So at most she has 30 minutes of time on her phone. One of the things that I've always been curious about is social adaptation with extreme screen time removal. When I say extreme, I'm like my kid isn't going to touch a device until they're 14. Cause, you hear about that. You know we've. We've had to fight it and I've been happy with it. Actually, you know my kids saying they don't have any social media. I think they have. It's called Coverstar or something or Coverstar, and it's kind of like YouTube Kids, but it's a kids-only platform. You have to be under a certain age.
Speaker 1:Did you take YouTube Kids off? Do you allow your kids to have YouTube Kids?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, my kids actually have a restricted version of YouTube, so they actually have full YouTube, but it's for 13 and under. So you can set that up now and so, but again, like Miles, watches it on the main TV in the main room. So we're always conscious of what it is that he's taking a look at, and most of it is like Mark Rober stuff and Mr B stuff and things that are pretty highly produced and that have some type of inspirational message and or, um, something to take away from it. You know, rober's into engineering and solving problems and things of that nature. But I've always wondered will there become a point in time? Um, you know, we've dealt with it a little bit because my kids don't have social media and they do have friends.
Speaker 2:Again, when you're at schools that are this big, there are going to be parents that get their kids and it's everybody's prerogative phones at seven. Right, there's a kid in K's class who has a new iPhone 16, he's 10. They have full-blown, unfettered access to phones and all social media at all times. And you know, I had the conversation the other day about Tik TOK. Dad, I want Tik TOK. All my friends are doing these dances and this is at a birthday party overnight and I don't know the trends and I don't know this and I don't know that and that's real, it is, and it's like oh well, you know, I'm sorry, Tough.
Speaker 1:But there is an element of that social connection of like our girls deal with that from time to time, where it's like there's these things that certain girls know and they don't know because they're not watching those things and doing those things. But it's a it's a real thing when you have different levels of parenting happen and to your point, it doesn't mean one's right or wrong, like I don't want to say that we're doing it right and someone else is doing it wrong, but it does create, uh, a social disconnection for people that are having different experiences, because there's an unrelatability based on what they're watching and so like, oh, did you see that thing or did you see the new dance? And like, all of a sudden they, they feel left out and it's tough as a parent.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, right, right, you're like, oh man, I don't want my kid to feel left out. But ultimately, you know, I think, the negative thing that some of those platforms do and some people are more impressionable Again, I would say my middle kid, kennedy, is more impressionable than any of my other two they normalize behavior. That's not. If you get down the wrong rabbit hole. They normalize behavior that isn't normal. You don't like YouTube, prank channels and people making like one of the things attracts lots of views and this is something that's interesting In your teens and twenties, I think. For us, god, this has gone kind of off the rails. But social media, kind of came into play for us.
Speaker 2:I think Facebook was when guys were in college. I didn't even have access to that.
Speaker 2:For me it was myspace like, oh, five, yeah, and so for me it was. It was more myspace leading into that and then and then whatever before that. But like, um, I'll kind of say where I'm going with this the people who have, when we were, when we were in our early 20s, we were much more vocal. We would get into these Facebook arguments with anybody, and it was you and I did it, we all would do it where we would just build out these kind of like in video games, these just meticulously well-researched, every point and counterpoint was laid out, and we would just be, we would eviscerate people and just take absolute passion in how cutting we were with our verbiage and our messages.
Speaker 2:That get attention in social media are still those people that are really outspoken, that are really aggressive, that are not afraid to say things that are controversial, and I think, with the kids seeing that and being exposed to that, this is the kind of. Again, the negative side of it is that becomes normal, like, oh, I'm going to call her out because that's what you do and I'm going to check her or him because that's what you do, or fight him or do whatever. And then you know, of course, as you get older and more mature, you realize that that's not the path to the right place.
Speaker 1:Favorite video game of all time.
Speaker 2:Switches, switches, all time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't pull us back to video games here all time. Yeah, don't pull us back to video games here. And then my follow-up question, while you're thinking about that, is if you had to pick a video game for your kids to play for the rest of their childhood, which ones you, which one would you pick and why? And that could be from an entertainment value perspective, could be from a learning perspective what, uh, what was your favorite game of all time and which one would you pick for your kids to play for the rest of their childhood? I mean, there's so many monumental like I would have to just pick Top five. I'd have to pick a genre and say like top five, zelda, all the way from tears of the kingdom and breath of the wild, which are phenomenal games which I've got to play with my kids together and that's been a blast. So those two. But back to like.
Speaker 1:If I could say the Zelda series was an incredible series. There were the final Fantasy II in particular. That would be one that I'd be okay with my kids playing that or one of the new Zeldas. Like Final Fantasy II, there's just so many lessons and there's just so many things in that and I love the characters in it and I love the storyline, so it would have to be in the Zelda range or maybe Final Fantasy, one of the Zeldas or Final Fantasies, just because I think when you play with something as a kid you just have this connection to it. That would be where I would land in that realm.
Speaker 2:You go, and then I'll go.
Speaker 1:I would say my favorite game of all time. This is really tough because I'd say it's between two Final Fantasy VII and X. In particular, I feel like we played more VII. I feel like we played more X in college those two but Madden is right there.
Speaker 1:I played a lot of Madden and that was a lot of fun and I just from a social perspective, that was really big and I don't know how many people play some of the sports games anymore because first-person shooters and there's so many other different genres. I don't know that Madden is what it was 20 years ago. It's crazy to think about when I was going through school. But I would say those two, probably on both fronts in terms of my favorite games growing up, and I think there's just a ton of lessons embedded into those, from the problem solving to the delayed gratification to the hand-eye coordination and strategy, the social aspect of it being able to play it together with people, with them. What do you think you spent the most hours in? I think it's AOE. I mean it's so hard because there were phases where I did both in such high volumes Like we played AOE 2 at Purdue. I mean we would go on 10-hour binges and go to bed at 6 in the morning.
Speaker 2:Well, that's after I did it with.
Speaker 1:TJ for three years. I think AOE 2 might be my.
Speaker 1:We played that a ton Because me and you did that for three or four years and then I flipped around and did it with you. I had like a seven-year run in that game. But a seven-year run in that game but Madden. There were lots of years where I played just so much Madden at college and shortly after I remember being down in my basement.
Speaker 1:It was the only time I ever had a migraine and gosh, I never really could never relate to people that had migraines. But I sat down, I don't know what I was doing, I was kind of sitting like sideways and whatever, and I must have played for like eight or 10 hours and I felt a little bit of like kink in my neck but I had no idea it was coming. I had to stop because I think this was maybe close to when Noah was born, so it was maybe 10 years ago. I remember just kind of getting a little bit of a headache and I couldn't get out of bed for like two days. My head just pounded and I was throwing up and like it was.
Speaker 1:It was unbelievable and no body aches, no, nothing, it was just all um. But I, yeah, I would say, I would say those would be close. But we also spent a ton of time on some of the final fantasies. Now, the final fantasies, I don't know that it racked up because I mean there was an inch to those games right we might have played them multiple times.
Speaker 1:We might have put in 30, 40, 50 hours each time, but I mean we played hundreds of games of alien I would have to top five it, but it's all around specific experiences.
Speaker 2:My safety blanket's always final fantasy, one um, anytime I see a system or that's kind of something I gravitate back to. Really enjoyed that game um, double 007, golden eye. There were a couple of years where we would play um. What an experience. You, the three of us, phil dodick and then john faust, who wasn't playing um, was down watching Happy Gilmore. We'd stay in the basement for APDG 12 hours.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for an entire summer, every day. So that was a big one. For me. Aoe was a huge one as well, playing that for hours and hours a day. I think the game I've put more hours into than any is just a Call of Duty series. I mean, there was a point in time where there was a year, I think probably when Modern Warfare 2 came out that I put in probably 3,000 hours in a year Because, you know again, my lifestyle afforded it, you know, in terms of having that time available. If I think about what I'd like to see my kids play, I can't think of a specific game, but I'd like something that rewards like a Fallout 3, that's sandboxy and rewards creativity and really challenges standards in that game. I think, if I remember right, you can. You can build in or craft things out of things you would never think to craft together, to make things to help you solve problems kind of like spells in the latest zelda and breath of the wild.
Speaker 1:You just put random things together, yeah yeah, so something like that.
Speaker 2:um, you know, although I would love it if they were to play something like a Final Fantasy, I don't think that that translates well to today's kids. It's just not sophisticated enough, and I just know it's a nostalgia thing for me.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned and this is 100% true we would be down in the summer.
Speaker 1:We had probably 60 days of summer and we would probably, from 8 a had probably 60 days of summer, and we would probably from 8am to 10pm and we'd play basketball probably for a few hours as part of that, but we would probably put in, I would say, a good 500 hours of video games over the course of the summer, and I guess I feel like, if I look at my kids today, I would just be in a complete panic if they were spending 500 hours.
Speaker 1:I guess I feel like, if I look at my kids today, I would just be in a complete panic if they were spending 500 hours a summer playing video games. However, we made it out, and I wonder if there's also aspects of this where we're overreacting a little bit. Is it some of this that it's a phase and they're going to take what they take from it, but they're? Is it some of this that they you know it's a phase and they're going to take what they take from it, but they're going to grow out of this? Or are games so addicting and these days that we really need to be more intentional about managing the you'll know in about 15 years.
Speaker 2:I think that the social I think social skills are so important. I think if we talked about that, if we sat around and talked about that for an hour, we talked about any skill set as a human. That is the most important. We heard this from our parents. It's the most important for overall success is by far your social skills, your problem-solving, your communication.
Speaker 2:For me, when the fear subsides is when they're doing it together. So my kids have recently been playing fortnight together downstairs on a team and they went down one day and they said dad, we're going to play fortnight, can we get a new skin? I said, if you win 10 games of trio, you can get a new skin. They were downstairs for 10 hours and won one game, but like I didn't have I never problem with that because I was listening to them talking about strategy and how to win, and then I went down and played with them and kind of coached them a little bit on how to particular. You know, if you want to win the game, guys, you might not want to fight, you might. You might not want to take this approach or that approach or you might want to focus on staying together versus like the things we've learned, but I that's when I had no problem and I think that may have been with our parents, like we were down there together and I think that was a big thing.
Speaker 1:It was an end of games. We were down there together, we were involved in enough stuff that always brought us out of it, and I think there's probably some of both. But as AI gets more and more prevalent and it takes a lot of the technical skills of what you need to do and learn, really the only thing left is social interaction. Right, like we were talking about this in the insurance world, if you can have AI can do all the technical stuff, if it can read a contract, which is a policy, and it can tell you what it's missing and what the gaps are like, that is a huge skillset in insurance, right? You have the individual that has to understand contract law and be able to analyze the policy, and then you have the sales guy, and sometimes that's the same guy. But if you can replace and or help a sales guy with the technology side of it, now it's all relationships and nothing moves in this world without sales, and so I'm the same as you, like if they're doing it in, like when call of duty came out and it was like the first time where you could get your headsets on and we could all sync up and play together.
Speaker 1:That was awesome. I mean you guys were out in Seattle, we were still playing. I mean 4am came quick, um, and you could just, you would get lost for hours and hours and hours. But I don't have as much concern when it becomes a social aspect. It is the individual aspect to where you, when somebody chooses video games over social interaction over a long period of time, is where I think it starts to get dangerous. And when you say social interaction, you're defining that as they're playing with people in their social circle, locally, people that they know. Is that that how you would define the social interaction?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1:As opposed to first-person shooter with random people.
Speaker 2:I think, well, I think you could.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's very important, but there is definitely a little bit of value, even if you're playing like it's a different dynamic, right, because when we were coming up, there wasn't the ability like there is now, where you can jump on discord and play with randoms.
Speaker 2:You know you can get a new random group of four people every time and just rip through back. Then you would find somebody in game that had a particular skill set or that complimented well or that went on a good run with you for three or four hours and they'd become part of your crew and then you develop a social. So it's just another person that you're honing your social skills, um, that may be from somewhere else in the country and have some different personality quirks and it's helping you improve that. So you know it's different in that regard, as opposed to just ripping mindless people through your group and never really developing a bond with anybody or um I think there was a game called destiny 2 where, where my oldest you have to you, they do enforce teamwork where you have to yeah, you have to go on raids and you you take people through it.
Speaker 1:So there's an element of coaching and showing people how to do stuff and someone taking you through it. So I think games like that that encourage that type of interaction are positive. If you could take one platform off the table or one game off the table indefinitely, what would you take off?
Speaker 2:mobile gaming.
Speaker 1:Like like I I I struggle to validate in other words versus youtube, versus video games.
Speaker 1:We talked about this a little bit but, like to your point, well, if you limit their phone but then they go straight to the tv and watch cartoons or anime, like which one does the most damage? I think it's. I think you said this earlier. I think the shorts, the shorts, regardless of its youtube shorts or whatever it is those things, um, I think they the attention span, they crush it. I think that's when the kids get more irritable. Um, I think the video gaming a lot of times is skill. Uh. So I would say, if I eliminated something, it would probably be like youtube shorts or some, some form of shorts that that the kids got involved in roblox would be. There's some positive stuff there, but there's some weird stuff that happens in that game too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have one Most catastrophic video game experience, Like something that happened. You lost a save file, you got beat by someone. I have one, but I'm going to go last.
Speaker 1:Most catastrophic.
Speaker 2:Something you remember that just hit hard.
Speaker 1:Well, I will just tell my party poker story, even though it wasn't a video game story, it was an online poker story. I can't think of anything unless one of you remember, but I remember going to school would have been my freshman year. I think it was my freshman year and I had a certain amount of money for the semester, for the entire semester. I think I had $700 maybe for the semester of spending money that mom gave me up front and I would play party poker on occasion. We played in the summers and I would put in $50.
Speaker 2:Pocket ones four and two.
Speaker 1:What's that?
Speaker 2:Pocket ones four and two.
Speaker 1:That's right, that was a good hand. I would put in $50, and if I lost then I would be done. I was always just pretty good about setting limits and I was at school and no one was watching and I had. You know, it's one of those things where you're kind of experimenting with stuff when you're out on your own. I remember I put in $50 and I ran it up to like 250 bucks and I was like man, this is going to be great, I'm going to have almost $1,000 for the semester.
Speaker 1:And then I proceeded over the next hour to lose it all and my only thought in my head was, like that is the most unbelievable bad streak of cards that you could possibly have. Right, like to lose $250 straight. I was playing a reasonable table limit to where, like you had to have an unbelievably bad streak to lose that much. It's like I gotta put the 50, because you gotta you know you gotta put another 50 in to get the swings right. Wait for the cards come back, kind of like a slot machine, you know you want to put enough in to where it like pays you back. Right, you pull a slot machine, so anyways. So I put in 50 bucks and I lost it. And I was just thinking to myself like this has got to come back. And so I thought, well, here's what I'm going to do now. When I put in this third 50 dollars, uh, I am going to play just this one last kind of at the same limits. And I ended up losing that $50. And I was like this is just like the odds of this has got to be excruciatingly low. So I'm like I'm going to put in a hundred, this time $250, but I'm going to go up the limit. I'm going to go up a table because I'm going to get my cards when the you know when I'm betting more money.
Speaker 1:And I remember putting in the next 100, and then I lost it. And I put in the next 100, and I lost it. And I put in another 150, and I lost it. And I remember sitting there it was like 3 in the morning and I had lost $500, the vast majority of my money for that entire semester. I remember just sitting there, stunned. I had eaten. I still remember that moment there was a box of Mad Mushroom Pizza. It would have been off to my left of where I was sitting and it was just one of the most eye-opening and, uh like sobering experiences, because I had lost 500 real dollars like never have I had I had ever. You know we had grew up not with abundance of excess, but like we never had to real worry about financial and it was the first time that I realized that like I'm not in a play world, like I literally just lost $500 and I've got to somehow survive on $200 for the semester, um, it was, it was travesty got something you're gonna go to domain wars, aren't you? Yep, I uh.
Speaker 1:I don't remember anything particular. I know that there's been times where someone wrote over a file or didn't save anything, but nothing like I can sit at this moment and say this. I remember where I was sitting and what I was doing damn right, I'm going to dope wars.
Speaker 2:I'm never gonna forget it. Yeah, this is good gosh. So there's this game called. There's this it was. It was like a. It was almost like a text-based game. There were very rudimentary graphics. I think it was an iPad game or an Apple game or something, and the premise of the game was you bought and sold things and you attacked people and whatever they dropped you would get. But it was like a traditional gangster-type game and you tried to build this empire and then you'd buy new things. And again back to kind of our theme here. It was building, building, building. Well, I was in Seattle, todd. Was you might have, were you in Indy at the time? I don't know, but you were definitely back on East Coast time. We would run the game 24-7 because there was a running clock and so when I would sleep he'd get up and he'd play, and then he'd sleep and I'd play and we were like hitting the leaderboards. We were way up there. Well, I swear to God, and no going into this as TJ tells the story.
Speaker 1:Tj, which is part of the context, is TJ's always been very good about just being able to pick things apart and at a young age he is always able to kind of figure out how things worked and would leverage that kind of to an advantage in a lot of cases.
Speaker 2:So in this particular case In this particular case and I don't know if we'd heard about it post or prior that there was hacking going on in this community and I got in a battle with somebody and they dropped like $30 million or something and in a normal battle you'd get a grand or two grand or three grand and I got it and I started buying all of these things because you could. You could buy um or or set up like enterprises that would generate more money, like a gold mine, I think was the top thing you could do and you could have it, and so I bought all of this stuff and our account got locked out.
Speaker 2:It got shut down and I emailed him. I'm like no, and Todd from the day it happened swears that I did it, that I hacked it that I put a cheat in and I got this 30 and I will never admit. I swear to god, I fought a random guy.
Speaker 3:I actually do remember when this went down and he dropped 30 million dollars like I bet, I bet he dropped30 million. I'm willing to let that one go after 20 years. But I was convinced that TJ had tried to find a way to get the edge and got the account shut down, and I mean that would sound-.
Speaker 2:And I don't blame you, because I typically would do something like that- I do want to say this and this maybe is a good closing statement, because you made a kind of a statement earlier.
Speaker 2:I think that the three of us really, collectively, because of our exposure to video games, because of our exposure to everything, and I think we've got to be cognizant of the fact that it's a moving target. When we were younger, the balance between we're just talking about social the balance between sports and video games was probably here, right, as opposed to this being the middle. Today it's probably right in the middle or maybe even a little bit more. This way, I think that and I guess I'll speak for myself and then maybe, if you guys want to close out too with how you feel about it, my career and success is almost a direct result of that.
Speaker 2:The ability, my entire skill set, is the ability to translate the technical into the sales and or layman's terms.
Speaker 2:That's what I do, like.
Speaker 2:You know, the exposure that we got to the types of people, the technical skills that we acquired, solving problems in those realms, things that we learned about that technology, just as secondary benefits, right, building the computers to play Age of Empires on.
Speaker 2:But for me, that skillset, combined with the skillset that we learned in sports and in other things and the blending of the two, and being able to talk to the technical people that we've talked about may, at some point in time in that world or now, be considered the basement nerds and talk to the people that were the stars of the sports team and blend those worlds. And talk to the people that were the stars of the sports team and blend those worlds. For me, I think it's invaluable, and whether or not it was an intentional move by our parents, you know, I think that that's something I'm forever, forever grateful for, and so I think about that when it comes to our kids. I want to make sure my kids have enough of a blend that they can handle both sides of it. And now we could spend another entire podcast going deeper on our social exposure from a cultural perspective, but keeping it relevant to this particular conversation, I would say that it was a real positive thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would point out three things that I would say are probably real positive things that stuck with me out of that. Delayed gratification is certainly one of them. I would say the problem solving is another one, because you were put in some very abstract situations and you had to explore. But I would say probably the number one thing if I had to look back and really unpack it that I took from our gaming is the standard of excellence that we set. We set a standard of excellence. It wasn't just beating the games, it was dominating them and perfecting that.
Speaker 1:I feel like I directly carried into other areas in my life Personally, academically and professionally. I feel like there was a part of me that enjoyed so much that satisfaction and gratification, albeit delayed, when we achieved that very unique, rarefied air that I tried to maintain that. For me, I think the biggest thing and you touched on this T is it did create some relatability and I wouldn't say that video games was all of it, but the thing that's been beneficial in my life is the ability to relate to everybody. There's something that happened in my childhood, whether it was where I grew up, playing basketball from a sports perspective, the video games and like you talked about it, todd, where you're at college, and just your ability to connect to people, right. So when you talked about it, todd, where you're at college, and just your ability to connect to people, right.
Speaker 1:So when you base a connection why long distance relationships are so hard? Because you run out of stuff to talk about, right, because you don't have that daily connection. But when you figure out different ways to connect to different types of people video games was definitely one of those there's a and you can relate to people and you can have a conversation with someone that maybe currently you know, uh, games, all the time we have people that we work with, that that loved a game, and we can have conversations and I know, I, I, I know what they're talking about. So I think there is a benefit. Um, you guys nailed on a lot of good stuff there too.
Speaker 2:Very cool. We didn't talk about our dad's Ingress playing, but maybe we will do that later, so I think that's probably a good place to end, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's good. Anything else you want to share? Yeah, I think so. I would just close on. You know, for me what can be a little bit complicating with the video game piece is like we've incorporated a sliver of spiritual uh into. You know, probably each episode, and I think for me that's the other thing that I kind of stumble on when I think about getting back into video games and some of the things I learned and the worldly success and those sorts of stories. Like I do find myself trying to fit it in the spiritual realm as well. Where can that fit in that? So we can maybe leave that one unanswered, but I think that's something that I am still pondering. Really good discussion.
Speaker 1:Thank you guys for your insight. It was fun to reminisce about the old days. Hopefully all of you got something from that. I don't know. I think we all struggle with how video games have either impacted us Struggle is probably the wrong word but how video games have impacted impacted us, struggle is probably the wrong word, but how video games have impacted us or impacting our kids, how to navigate it, the things that we worry about. I know we got into screens there a little bit as well, but ultimately we are all sitting here as functioning normal human beings and played a shit ton of video games, so appreciate you guys coming by. And that's a wrap for episode six.