[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Got challenging to do again, instead of just all deciding for you what to do. Uhm, I don't know man, so the only thing I did in the end game of Black Flag was beat all the, all the ghost ships and master ships. Cause that was actually interesting. And actually required you hitting buttons at the right time and in the right order. But then uhm...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, there was just a lot of, just go here and run there and collect this orb of light.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Something that I've started to grow to realize is that the kind of game I like is not the game that sells really well. And it's almost scary to a point because it seems like the games that sell really well


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's not a whole lot of challenge to them, but it is an open world with a lot of junk in it. Specifically, the Bethesda open world RPGs like Skyrim and Fallout 4. You never have to actually play them. You just sort of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Point your camera in the direction of where you want to go. You shoot anything red that gets in front of your camera.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, you don't have to pay attention to anything, you don't have to learn anything, you don't have to- I mean immersion in the sense that you can just turn your brain off.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] All the dark souls, demon souls. But they did a lot of cool stuff before that, which I feel like never gets a lot of credit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So we got some new Casper mattresses in the office. Uh, Brewster Joel, if you have time, why don't you come over and share your experience?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Casper has a risk free trial and turn policy that'll deliver straight to you and you can try for a hundred days and if you're not happy they'll pick it back up free charge. So if you are hesitant about your mattress you can have a hundred days to try it out. Give it a little test run.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, so that's, the price point is $500 for a twin and $950 for a king mattress, and that's actually pretty good for a new mattress. This is one of those adult things you learn about how much mattresses cost, and like tires, shit costs a lot of money, it's stupid. Uh, and now you can get $500, or sorry,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] $50. We're not that generous. Towards any mattress by going to kathbrite.com slash dudesoup and using code dudesoup. So please try an elegant mattress today. Be a grown-up! This is uh, man. You can enjoy adulthood. You just have to treat yourself right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Man, talking about how VR might change shit. A VR Assassin's Creed would just be amazing. Cause one of the things I love about that series-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, that's exactly it. Those games are kind of just digital tourism for me, and also I really enjoy the historical aspect in the sense that I read almost every, every like, uh, database entry that they throw in there. It's just so interesting to get that dose along with a game that's kind of educational. Uh, man, but could you imagine...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any, any historical place you go to with the, with the detail that they recreate, all the historical buildings, just being able to walk around and look at them, climb on them, like, look out over an amazing city, ugh. You wouldn't even need to travel anymore! You just buy Assassin's Creed once a year.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well speaking of VR. Lawrence, you gotta watch Moonbeam City. I do?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, I'll stick it out. There's no continuity, I guess I could just do that. Uhm, so Oculus, Oculus Rich pre-orders are going live tomorrow, or today, depending on when you're listening to this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you were saying? Oh, just, just, it's here. It's happening!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. Pre-orders for the retail, yeah. There are no, there are no, uh, oh wait, it has to be a lot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They make a VR avatar with crooked eyes. It's uh, this, I mean this stuff happens already, like somebody goes onto a forum pretending to be somebody else and, and that's, that's like fun for a while. But, man, what happens when, and, and so there's that Twitch plugin now where you can have an anime girl talk for you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But what happens when a Twitch personality kind of builds their empire on having a virtual persona?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You could, uh, make money while you're sleeping.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, and also, when you spend, you know, an entire week inside virtual reality with an IV drip in your arm, uh, you won't wake up with a backache. The bed sores. Yeah. You got a few bed sores, that's okay. No, you also take something to suppress all of your, like, uh, your oil secretions and stuff, so you're just basically a cadaver for about a week. And then the drug wears off and you're like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yea, but they already do. There's a lot of second life furry stuff going down. Sanic? Sanic. I wanna be sanic! You know, it's just like ripped, ripped, uh, jaguars and stuff. Standing around, talking to each other.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, you're- oh yea, you're right, it is crooked. Oh, oops, nevermind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He's got a game guide. Oh, I should do that too. But first, if you're digging the look of this triangle, perhaps you have an artist's eye and can build your own website with Squarespace. Man, I don't know. We'll see, maybe that'll work, who knows. That's pretty good. Thanks! Thank you!


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So Squarespace is a, if you're unfamiliar, is a platform that offers website creation tools, and it's actually pretty easy, it's all drag and drop.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if you want one of those nice looking fancy websites that has a little picture that scrolls slower than you're scrolling, you can do that on Squarespace. You know what I'm talking about, parallax shit. Nobody knows what I'm talking about. I like dragon drop. Oh yea, you can do that. It's got a lot of that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, dragon drop? Like dropping a dragon? Yes. How many dragons do you want on this webpage?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sometimes, sometimes at night, when I've had a bit to drink, I go and start registering domains, just in case I need them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if you want, if you want people to masturbate to what you do on the internet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You should go to squarespace.com and make your own big booty website. Or hey, just re-host my Twitch stream or whatever. Uh, you can start your free trial today at squarespace.com slash dudesoup. And when you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure to use our offer code dudesoup to get 10% off your Squarespace. They would like you to build it beautiful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like a big booty. So thank you Squarespace for your... Booty-ful. Booty-ful? For your sponsorship.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hopefully we did not, uh, hopefully we didn't, uhm, really let you down there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whoop. R. That was enter. There we go. Oh, nice wallpaper.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, alright. What's next? What's next? Uhm, so this is kind of, there's a couple things, uh, so in addition to all the rumors, uh, that were kind of broken on 4chan, it's weird, Kotaku ran an article pretty quickly that was like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This guy said that, but our sources said that too. So, so we're reporting it. Double confirmed? Uhm, so I guess double confirmed. I'm putting that tone on it, I'm pretty sure it wasn't like that. I'm pretty sure they read that and they were like, oh shit, and reached out to somebody they know at Ubisoft.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, yeah, they were blacklisted from Ubisoft, right? Ubisoft and Bethesda. Which is amazing, cause like, this is why, Kotaku, you don't get to do both. Anyway, uhm.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But they also said that their sources told them that Watch Dogs 2 is currently in development and will be in San Francisco.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It kind of fell victim to the Ubisoft steeze of just needing to assault the earth with stuff. So there's a lot of stuff. The thing I'll give Watch Dogs is it's more Assassin's Creed 1 in the sense that the stuff that's there is actually challenging and interesting. The hacking stuff may, maybe not so much at its best, it's okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But most of the time it is just a series of cameras to get you exactly to what you need to hack.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Control your environment? Like that? I think that was kind of a unique gameplay mechanic. Because there are a lot of Grand Theft Auto games, and I guess Driver...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] San Francisco kind of did it, but it was neat to be able to drive around and also control bridges and control lights and blow up cars just by tapping a button.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It really was like having a superpower, which I thought was kinda neat, and plus the commentary in the game I thought was cool. It's kinda the first...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As far as I can tell, Aiden Pierce is the first character whose superpower is having a cell phone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I also like the narrative, there was never an attempt to make Aiden Pierce a good character. And that's something that- Oh, he's not even neutral, he's just a shithead. He's a total asshole.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, he-he ruins everyone's life around him and he acts very selfishly all the time. And the game kind of makes commentary on that, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But mostly you're just playing from his perspective. And it's interesting to me because that and Edward and Black Flag kind of had a turnaround but not really. They were serious, and not like playing Big Boss in Metal Gear Solid V. You're objectively the bad guy. And in a lot of games now and nobody even seems to notice or care or really comment on it. Which I thought was kind of interesting. Nobody picked up on that in Watch Dogs. You're just, you're the villain really. You're just a really shitty person.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm really hoping they don't- I'm really hoping Watch Dogs does not follow the path Assassin's Creed did. I mean, so fundamentally, the fact that they made as many Assassin's Creed games as they did is really amazing. Uh, Ubisoft was kind of one of the first


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I'm trying to think, I remember a big hubbub when the 360 PS3 generation kind of debuted. Everybody was like, there's no way, we can't afford new IP anymore. People just don't buy them. And even then it was sort of this dawning realization that you had to make.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Three or four of a game before it even would remotely start to become profitable. Because if you invest all this money and make a new AAA franchise, no one's gonna buy the first one. Some people might buy the second one, and by the third, then people are starting to catch on, and then you've got a good annual series on your hands.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To invest in three AAA games just to start earning money back is something most companies couldn't do. Whereas Ubisoft seemed to really figure it out. I can't- What other franchises started in the 360 PS3 generation and are still active?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mirror's Edge, maybe? Cause there's another one coming out. Yeah. Batman. Uh, Deus Ex. Deus Ex. Uhhhhh. Kinda. Tomb Raider. The new Tomb Raider. Uhhhhh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there aren't many, really, uh, but I think it's, from a business perspective, I think Assassin's Creed has been an incredible, incredible series to watch. Um, I can't- Crash Team Racing. Yeah, there you go. Uh, Killzone Sucker Punch went on to, uh, wait, was Killzone Sucker Punch?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So yea, Killzone, I mean that, that's starting, they're starting a new thing, which,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think Sony deserves a lot of credit too for risking on new franchises a lot. Anyway, just from a business perspective, it's been really cool to see Ubisoft kind of force their hand throughout all this. They figured out how to make it work, and I think that deserves a certain amount of credit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hope that making it work doesn't mean that every franchise becomes what Assassin's Creed has become. Which is to say, you know, an open world filled with junk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, you're right. I-I never play it, I just watch somebody play it. That seemed cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't, I, to me, to me the most interesting thing is like VR is coming up that could potentially disrupt a lot of stuff. And we're also in a period of transition where all of the franchises that were really big in the PS3 360 generation are just now starting to really catch on in the new gen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Infinite loop! Let's get that laser power. This game is teaching you how to program. It is. This is really weird. Uh, there's a power minus one, there's laser power over here, there we go. Uh, and then there, uh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's, Lisa, that's incredible. Oh boy. Thank you for that. Is that what it's supposed to be? No, it's a pony! Oh wait, it does have a unicorn hood.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kill him. Oh shit, he's gonna shoot a laser blast at me. Aaaaah. Got him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I like watching you problem-solve. Something about ponies really resonates with me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, there we go. Got it. Oh boy. The next conversation topic. Uhm, I guess this is a quickie. We got maybe about 10 minutes left, but MLG has been fully acquired by Activision.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, they have. I don't think they were ever profitable. Uhm, and I remember back when I did a lot of esports reporting, I went to a lot of MLG events and every time I would try and get some kind of indication of financial health out of the company. And Sundance, the then CEO,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] MLG would throw a live event, uh, and then they would get sponsors to come. It's almost like an expo. They would have booth space. And then, uh, they would sell sponsorships on the stage and on the stream.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then they built their own, they built their own streaming platform, MLG.TV. And the idea was they would sell advertisements there, so I guess fundamentally it was meant to be all ad run.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think the thing a lot of people don't understand is that MLG had to pay licensing fees to run tournaments for most of those games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, there are a few, there were a few companies that they could actually, that would actually pay them to run the tournament, mostly for like, when he's, when,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I think all that combined never really amounted to the kind, like, a break even amount of money. Yeah. I think, I think what I-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The narrative that I kind of cottoned onto in around 2012 is that they were able to, they were, they were not in a good spot. They were able to throw one, uhm, profitable event.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I haven't heard anything about it. They showed some pictures of the arena getting constructed, and that's the last I ever heard of it. It's actually a model though, it's like really close. Yeah, it's a macro shot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know. I don't know either. Uhm, so it's, yeaah, the, I guess the takeaway is, now, now Activision has all of the assets, and I guess the staff to run their own streaming events. Uh, I don't know why they would purchase instead of just contract that stuff every time. Maybe they see a lot of future there and they just want to have it in-house.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It does seem like, so Nance, you know, you had a decade plus and a lot of money to make this a profitable thing you never did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, it's weird, yea, Riot did that, which I think they kind of set the standard for a lot of eSports stuff and how to do it, cause they own it all. They run the LCS, they, they administrate the LCS, they produce all their live events, so they don't have to like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They have the money to, yeah, it's not a freedom that, that any, just any game developer has, but Riot had shitloads of free to play MOBA cash.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I think yeaah, at least what you said is really interesting.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, event production staff. Uh, whether it's recording media or like Disney does with Toybox TV and stuff like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, believable personalities to execute, uh, media with strategy for them. And to promote their stuff, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and theoretically that's even better for the audience too because then there's no question about what's purchased and what's paid for and what's authentic and what's not. Yeah, that's true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's been like a long term thing, even like before working here, like at Funhouse, or even like going back years, like when I first moved down here, I worked for G4, and was like this is gonna be the best thing ever, it's video games and TV and stuff like that, and then I moved to like a city called Los Angeles, and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I've never really, like, liked it here, like that much. And like, all my friends are back home, and all my family's back home and stuff, and I have a big family, and we've always been close and stuff like that, and so I've been down here.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but on this particular birthday, I don't know how this happened, I'm still baffled by it as a child, but uh, or as an adult, but as a child I was baffled and I'm still baffled now, but,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And when we arrived, the staff informed me that I was too old to go inside. How old were you?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, my guess- Don't take your 50 bucks, but you sit there. You sit there. If I had to guess, I would say it has more to do with the fact that whoever books these things doesn't care, and then the, the preteen, whatever dude who is there and is supposed to care, uhm, like, like the dude- Yeah, you have to stomp them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, anyway, the dude who was there, the pimply teen, was like, you can't go in there, cause that's his job to maintain that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Probably the same sad fucker that works at Celebration Station.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's gone. It's gone. It's long gone. Well, no fucking shit. Whatever it is, it's not called Celebration Station anymore. It's under new management. Too many, too many children got molested.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is better than the scenario I thought you were gonna say, which is that you're in bed, your friend comes in, like, hey, it's your birthday, it's your birthday! He has a knife in his back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] She may not have invited you. Someone else may have invited you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, VACman's much better by the way, much better toy. Not that I'm saying that you would have gotten that had you requested it, but VACman's much better than the stretch arms.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, I had a Stretch Armstrong, this is, I'm not gonna, my experience with Stretch Armstrong wasn't bad like yours was. But, uhm, I had a Stretch Armstrong and, uh, it worked fine for a really long time and I enjoyed it. The Vac Man is better.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, no, so like, Stretch Armstrong was great, but the problem is over time he's gonna die no matter what. He basically has an expiration date. And so like, if you let him sit in a closet for too long, then like, you're like, hey, Stretch Armstrong, there he is, buddy, you wanna play? And then you go like this, you go, here we go! And then his arm just pops.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hey Josh. What's your favorite birthday memory?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Honestly, that's a good idea. We should try and get Michael to play and be the new voice of Sonic the Hedgehog.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I actually genuinely like Patton Oswalt, but people like love him and worship him.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He'll do anything. He's been in fucking Two and a Half Men, King of Queens, like he's been in so much shit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was really cool. The only problem is that they have a classy drink menu, like a bunch of novelty names for their drinks, and I was like, which one am I gonna get? I was like, oh I know which one I'm gonna get, and Elise goes, it's the Gatsby, isn't it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So he didn't get smart with doing anything. Sorry. He basically, so what he did was he went to war, right? And then he, he, and he knew that he wouldn't ever be able to be with her unless he was rich, like high society dude. And so he got in good, kind of out of luck, got in good with this rich guy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then when the guy died, he was basically gonna set himself up as the benefactor, and then when the guy died, he got screwed out of all the money.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, cause he doesn't actually do any of it, he just- He's like a mob boss. He's just basically like, I mean, yeah, kind of. He's just invested in black market, he does, he does, uh, like, Prohibition era, alcohol distribution, and stuff like that. Talk about that in the movie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Anyway, I drank, I bought a drink called, it was called a Gatsby, but then I evened it out by buying a drink called, because it was called the Hemingway, which is actually pretty delicious. Yea. I mean, we know how to drink.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We goofy voice everybody. That's true. Well, it's funny because Bruce had, he had interacted with Bruce but he didn't inter- He just came up to me. Did he say hi?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He didn't, he wasn't like, oh hey, I like, I know who you are, right? Like, I wouldn't, I don't ever expect anyone to recognize me, right? Unless they explicitly state, I recognize you from this. And so, so he just came up to me and he just goes up next to me and he's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hello stranger. And then he goes, he goes, so what uh, what is Adam like? And I was like, who?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember though when they brought out like all those shots. Yeaah. They're like, they're like the bartender, they're like, sit down, sit down with us! And he's just like, like, I gotta get back to work, I got tips to make.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I will say, I think- His eyes looked really beautiful when he said that. I think Kit Kats only have like 210 calories for an entire- Really? For a bar of gum. Which, I mean, that's uhm-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm, I'm the combination of mature, immature, where, where I basically, every time, every year when my birthday is coming around, I go, oh, let's see how wet day it falls on to see if it falls near the weekend. Yep. I don't know what it is. Friday birthday would be ideal.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're too old, we've had too many birthdays to still be ex- like excited and fixated on one day.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Think about the events surrounding it. Take that time to go and go like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look at my life now. Do I like where I live? Do I like who I'm with? Do I like what I do? This is just a reminder to take a moment and just kind of do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know. A full-size old man. I know. So he's born as a baby old man. Right. Get it. Got it. So then he should be a large baby. So then he grows up to being an adult, right? In the middle of the years he crosses a path. This is like, wow, whatever he is. And then, but then when he's an old man, he shouldn't shrink back to a baby again. You're right. You're right. He should just be a really large baby. He should be a large baby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, it sucks for other reasons. It's also three hours long. It's really long. Nothing happens. Yeah, not a lot happens. There's like one point... The movie's also paced really weird because it's like... Well, it's cause he's young and then old again. Or older. But he's old at the beginning and then there's a lot of that. And then there's like, he's like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Raise you until you die? What does he die of? He dies of old age.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Stone Temple Pilots, I like Stone Temple Pilots, but they don't have enough


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're kinda like the red hot chili peppers, except the red hot chili peppers have maybe...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah. I don't think they partied though. They must've. No, I think they were like, that's why they got a new lead singer. They were like, we want to keep getting these residual checks, we want to do a couple tours a year, but I guarantee you,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Basically being high on stage. Yeah, he was blessed with a good voice, I'm sure he worked for it too, but like, I mean he just kinda twists around like a monster.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I want, I want Michael to be the new voice of Sonic, and then I want, I want you to be the new Scott Weiland. Only it gets mixed up, and then Michael ends up high on heroin. But doing Sonic still, yea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Flying around during the dogfighting battle so you can shoot them down so now I can have stuff to kill.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I still have not spent a dime on Marvel Puzzle Quest.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The fact that you all said different people, I think speaks volumes. Oh, real quick, uh, I was watching the Honest Trailers for the new one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't think that Marvel does great trailers. Cause like I think, I thought Guardians of the Galaxy was awesome but I didn't think the trailer was that good. It was basically a song and then a bunch of kind of people not really being that charming or funny. Right? What? What?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, our collab, like we, we, eh, you notice we did a bunch of collaborations a while back, and then we got super busy with, uhm, work. Life. Yeah, anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I would, I would have the world's greatest developers, writers, and voice actors come on and help me develop the game. And it would be like an 80 hour play experience. And it would be a creative endeavor the likes of which the world has never seen. And then I would make one copy of it and lock it in a safe.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Truth bombs. Uh, next question.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You don't have to do this, Bruce. You don't have to do this. Yeah, bring it up. Let's check it out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I've told Aaron that if he needs us for social disorder.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, pretty much what they said, we all worked at Machinima. Uhm, before that I knew Adam in college, and I just happened to be between jobs around 2008, 2009, or about 2010 actually, and that's when, uh, he brought me into Machinima and the rest is history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's not many video games that go 20 years and, and, you know, our job is to make sure that we're keeping, we're being good stewards of the franchise.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Our developers are big fans of Tomb Raider, but we also know that we want to continue pushing the gameplay and the character forward. So we hope that we can make as much as possible the fans of the classics happy with what we're doing, the decisions we're making, but also hopefully get a whole new crop of fans that might have never played the classic games.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Look at how shiny she is, damn. I like Adam. Oh. How's it going Adam?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Always hairless. Absolutely hairless, except for, you know, eyebrows, hair. That's it. Uh, even the eyebrows. Yea, they're penciled on probably. By Haru.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There has to be. I just realized y'all, this clicking is probably gonna come through on the podcast. Click quiet. It's okay.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Alright, well, this episode is sponsored by Squarespace.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Some clips, and uhm, you know, just personal information, ways to contact you, things like that. So start your free trial site today with no credit card required. When you decide to sign up for Squarespace, make sure to sign up at squarespace.com slash dude soup.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If you get 10% off your first purchase, want more? That's squarespace.com, slash, dude soup. Uh, 10% off your first purchase. Thank you for your sponsorship, Squarespace.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And moving on to other games that probably didn't take a long time to make but still earned lots of money. Um, PewDiePie played Five Nights at Freddy's 4.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, uh, yeah, get out of that deal, see what you're doing. I don't know what this is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, uh, it's interesting because what we have here is a good old fashioned case up. So, uh, after the video came out, he saw some...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, it's not, it's not exactly what they were expecting. And then even from the creative side of things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, PewDiePie could have tried to tell them, listen,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What, what happens when your audience wants something from you, but you know it's not something you can give to them? Right? Like, uh, and,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, there's a weird thing going on with the Final Fantasy VII remake, get to that in a second. But basically, there are times when...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The thing I've always been scared of is when you get to PewDiePie territory, there may come this like breaking point where you enter this death spiral where all people want from you is what you've already done, and if you do that, you're not gonna do it with any kind of enthusiasm, so it's gonna be shit content. So you have to tell people


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's all I got. That's it? So since 2007, what? They've done something?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, you know, just because they're being nice to their fans doesn't mean...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That they can't take advantage of their consumers.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You could, you shouldn't ever say, you, listen, if you say, I'm never gonna say that to a game company, then you're out of your, you're off your rocker, bud. You're not listening to anything we've been saying.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Say I go out right now, I buy the cheaper on sale DLC pack for 25 bucks.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I buy the Taken King for 40, that's still 65. How much is the collector's edition?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is my third playthrough, and the first one that I will actually


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Continue, I believe. Uhm, but uh, this is my third playthrough, and just this playing through, even though I basically know how to get everywhere, and how to level my character, and how, the best way to execute bounties and stuff like that, I've still been playing, I'm probably about


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because like, cause otherwise I would, I would just go and continue. There's times where I haven't continued the basic story missions or raids or anything like that. Because there's a bounty that says, like, get 100 kills without dying and I have 75 and I'm like, well I guess I'm going to Earth. Yeah, you can just roll and clean it up real quick.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Okay, so it does make more sense for me to go out right now, pay $25 for the DLC pack, and then pay $40.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you play a lot of Destiny? I do. Okay. So are you, are you excited for taking the game? Are you gonna, or do you already have it waiting for you? Right? Uh. I think I asked that question. I mean, uh, yeah. James asked it better. Did I already pay for it? I'm, I'm like, are you already committed to the game? Yeah, are you on the hook? Are you just gonna buy it as soon as it's out? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So, Taken King, basically, the way I see it, uhm, because


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Kind of taking that leap, it used to be, it's a side scrolling game, it's a third person platformer, it's, you know, it's a first person shooter, but now it's not really, like Destiny is not really


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Real quick concession, I've noticed we always say things like, people like to hear this, or the internet doesn't like to hear this, but Destiny is-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Lawrence's review for Destiny may be very well influenced by his knowledge of like MMOs and the structuring of the games industry. That's another thing, a lot of people will


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so uh, yeah, yeah, it's a store. It's a store, but then if you pay a certain, if you pay a certain, I think the minimum subscription, they just give you a token.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, or you smartly decide, I'm gonna buy a ten dollar book, because it's only ten dollars, I'm gonna save my tokens for bigger books that I want to use the tokens on, you can do that. Like the encyclopedia. Exactly. You can do that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The novel, but uh, but it is basically just a, it is basically just a young adult novel.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have, I have from time to time been like, I'm just gonna read a young adult novel. Fuck it. It'll take me, it'll take me...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, okay, except that, except that, the, the, the,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But uh, but it was, that was a fun read, but I'm not like, I'm not like, oh, this is one of the greatest novels of our age, this is Great Gatsby, except Adam Hates Great Gatsby.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, somewhere up there. Like my dog was panicking.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's a good thing and a bad thing. It's a good thing because I guess it means they're listening.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] To school's point, I feel that way about Ratchet and Clank.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It looks more fluid too, cause some of my big problems, I love the Battlefield franchise, but some of my problems are, as I've said before, it's like you hop on a motorcycle, but it's like a guy's like eeeeh, like not realistic at all, like they've never seen a motorcycle or a car in their life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then I sat on the couch playing Marvel Puzzle Quest as another group of people put it together.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It also seems like they may have gotten that vibe from the actual production team behind the movie, which are like, narrative.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I mean, that was kind of like the second push though. Yea, you're right. I mean, the first push was stupid trailers of him touching footprints on the ground that I was screaming wasn't going to represent the game at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm still mad about that, I don't think it represents the game at all. And I'm really happy that the Mad Max trailer, all of the ones that have come out have- the very first one was like, let's detail what this game might be. I guess the very first one was a dude standing by his car. But like, the actual game trailer is like this, it's not-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's no way they hired out Blurr, that studio, to make a short film, like they didn't- If they optimized it to be really cool for a trailer, that's one thing, but if they-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Also, a little, a little, uh, uhm, inside baseball, when we were discussing, this was back at Machinima, and we were discussing the Inside Gaming Awards, and the best trailer came up, Cyberpunk was like, everyone's pick, and I was like, it's not a trailer for a video game. It's just a short film.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's good and bad marketing at the same time because marketing has to sell it whatever shit it is and unfortunately


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was also kind of a replacement for the fact that it was stupid to have to unlock songs in those games, and when it first began, Guitar Hero was play through all of the songs to unlock them, and it's like, that's stupid. Like, you shouldn't make me play through it in an arcade mode style thing to have the song, I just want it immediately.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember when I was young. I appreciated that they had a replacement for that hole because it was unnecessary to have to, you know, do the song unlocking and so what's another play mode to do it by yourself?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] See, see to me it seems like that, at the time I was like


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, they can't figure out how to make this game, so they're padding it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Cause remember when they were like, now that you can do music videos in rock band. Like, they shoot music videos in rock band now and it's just like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The characters on a green screen with swirling lights and stuff, but like it doesn't matter because it doesn't stand in the way of the game. But I just remember every single time a new rock band or guitar hero comes out, they're like, we're adding these features that aren't directly related to the gameplay, but they ultimately end up just being whatever. Choose your passion.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The only thing I would say is the Telltale games do have sometimes amazing stories, but they sacrifice being a game for being a narrative experience.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can I, can I tell you that, uh, I played the most recent Game of Thrones episode, right? And, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Any telltale game that I've played, there was a moment where Elise made a conversational decision, and it led to the death of, like, like, all, every, everyone.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, because the game stopped and said, try that again. Oh. But it was a conversational choice. That they were like, uh, wrong.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's what I'm saying, because the game has to so much be a narrative vehicle that they couldn't, this point, you couldn't even diverge too far before they were like, uhhh, get back, like even the things you're saying are not in line with the story you've written.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was just really interesting because in all of my playing, like all of those games, I've never had an incident where conversation, just the topic of conversation has immediately led to, led to consequences like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, like Adam said, as long as the core gameplay is there, like who cares what they tack on around the outside, I don't really care. What's interesting to me is Guitar Hero, which appears to be changing the core gameplay to make it


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Almost more, like, narrative. Like, well, because they're turning it into an actual concert. Like, it almost feels like, and it's not narrative in the traditional sense, but to do, like, we are trying to...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Make this obviously different from what you're experiencing, so we're going to change the core gameplay to do so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's because when you see Rock Band, like part of it is, part of it is just purely, I know what this is, I know that I enjoyed it, so I know I'll enjoy it again. I think the other part is, I see the trailer for Guitar Hero and I'm like, where's the game?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's kinda like DDR. That's like DDR. But it's also three and it had nothing to do with resembling playing guitars. It's literally just buttons and go. Gotcha.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can't wait. It's gonna be, yeah. What'd you say? More HD-er?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's just what I was saying! When it was coming out, I was like, this is the most beautiful game ever made. And I'm like, it won't be in five years because they've committed to this weird, not Pixar-y style of just totally looking out of date eventually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uncharted, which to me, felt like you entered a room, the door closed behind you, the door opened in front of you, and then a swarm of guys came in, and then you would hit B to hopefully stick to the nearest wall, though it would generally be the wrong one, and then, and then you would try and shoot them off with a-


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] About three different weapons that all did the same thing. And then, uh, and then they, if they, but if they got close to you, an Uncharted one, they resolved it slowly as the game went on, but if they got close to you, they would just hit you and then Drake would go limp and then fall down and you'd enter the room again and try again, like.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What you're saying is totally justifiable and fine, except that everyone who holds the game in such high regard generally talks about the story.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I know because it all comes back to money and whatever like it doesn't it's the same Why isn't the studio saying we shouldn't make another Uncharted because they're looking at the big fat check that they're gonna get for making another one


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know if it's good, but it's, I mean, I kinda got into it. I watched the first two episodes. It's interesting because, as you know, I've seen all of American Horror Story, but I'll be the first person to admit that it's terrible. Right?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I don't normally watch terrible television that then I will just actively admit is terrible, but this is terrible and I still somehow watch it every single- But this is, this is a lot, I think this would satisfy that itch without necessarily being terrible. Only two episodes in, things could fall apart, but uh, tonally I'm pretty much digging it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The best thing about it is you, certain, Michael Bay movies, you get a cue into Michael Bay's morality meter. Like, that's one of the best things about watching, uhm, what is it, the, uh, Pain and Game? Pain and Game. Oh yea. It's cause you're like, is this what he thinks is cool? I think this is what he thinks is cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Just to get like the story or whatever. Like, it's more fun to watch a lore video than it is to actually play that game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I don't know, I was kind of morbidly curious. I don't like scary games, so whatever.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's true. His messaging is so simple that you can't fault him. It's like, here's the game, it's done. Uh, it's a sequel, it's out, it's cheap.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As big as something like an Assassin's Creed or Destiny or something. So there's gonna be less scathing opinions.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You get into like, Arkham City territory or uh, Arkham Knight territory where it's like, there's a lot of things that can go wrong. Yeah. Things will go wrong for different people, for different systems. Five Nights at Freddy's works on your goddamn cell phone, so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Ooh, nice. Uhm, that's just what it is, but when you go to Comic Con, you're gonna get a lot of people complaining about the Batman vs Superman trailer, even though they have no business to complain about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well I, I like this game right now because it just, this is what video games in my brain are like, should be. They take an idea, that's, you know, should be fun, soccer, and then you play games like feet.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But like, there was that aspect too where like, there's a new series out there, it might be intimidating for some people, and it's easier for them just to watch it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, so Adderall is the one that keeps you up, right? Or keeps you focused.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Exactly. Yeah. Well, but then also the Batman v Superman thing. That's the third showing that's had at Comic Con. The very first time was when they revealed the logo. Last year was the leaked footage of him, like, it was all CGI, but it was like the rooftop scene.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's, it's just that time where it's like, yeah, of course I had a trailer. Suicide Squad just started filming like two weeks ago, so, uh, but yeah, apparently a lot of that was, I don't know if it's a temp, but it's probably gonna look different.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh, nice shot. Hit it with my ass. Uhm, so yeaah, I like the idea that they already did a Suicide Squad animated feature based on the Arkham universe. And it's pretty cool because there's one character, never heard of him, some villain, and they're like, alright, does anyone not want to go along with this Suicide Squad mission? This guy's like, fuck it, I'm out, and they blow his head off. And it's like, cool, I want to see that in a movie.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, and they also, I like this world because they're already establishing, establishing that, uh, Joker is established in this world. With the Batman v Superman trailer, they're showing what could essentially be Jason Todd or Dick Grayson, depending, or, uh, actually it may have been, well, Drake has got the pole, but they showed the, uh, the Robin outfit with Joker riding on it. And it had bullet holes on it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Batman's been around long enough that he even retired. And they're doing a very Dark Knight Returns style thing where now Batman's coming into retirement because he's got to put this alien menace down. And I'm like, I love this. I really love what they're doing with this idea.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, yeaah, I mean, Dark Knight Returns assumes that they had a, a past and like a history. Uh, and then, you know, Superman is put there as a stopgap to basically, he's, he's the, uh, the American Boy Scout, who's basically told by Ronald Reagan, like, you need to stop Batman because he's a mess. He's getting in the way of everything, so stop it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, in the same way the Suicide Squad trailer is for me, Man of Steel was not for everyone. I got walked away from that going, like, Spool said, I'm like, this is the best way you can do a Superman film. It was, yea. So, absolutely. I'm not saying it's...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For some reason, I can't explain it, but I remember enjoying Iron Man 2 way more after Avengers came out. And I was like, because I think of Iron Man 2 as sort of, yeaah, it was sort of like Blue Balls where you're like, okay, he fought the electric whip man and nothing really happened.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, yeah. And after Avengers came out, I was like, cause going from Iron Man 2 to Avengers is so much more satisfying than going from Iron Man 2 to nothing. And you're kinda like, oh, my balls hurt.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well that's the thing I'm going and understanding. Not everyone's a Batman fan. Not everyone's a Justice League fan. I think it's a bit more adult. It's a bit darker. So already you're alienating a part of your audience. There's a lot of kids who are not going to see these movies.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If they came out and said, we're making Batman more family friendly, Joker has no tattoos, uhm, he rides in a little convertible and it's okay, and like, it's very teen friendly, I'd be like, well that's not for me. I wouldn't be happy.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know, I feel like a kid sees Iron Man, he sees Batman. Batman's scary, he's intimidating, uhm, his parents are dead, and then like Iron Man, he's a little robot and he flies around, he's got a big green friend, I'm like, yeah, he's a bit more kid friendly. He's got a butler, a robot butler.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The logo's like, really crappy. It's got way too many bat wings. It's not, I mean, it's not wrong cause there's, they redo the logo all the time, but it's just like, it's like the worst one. Anyway, sorry, go on.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's when you put Tim Burton in charge of something when, uh, Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns is the hottest comic out there at the time. So, it was like, okay, you got, oh nice, oh you got this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, just because they put Tim Burton in charge of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] A whole lot. Yea, like, it's most of the soundtrack. Jokers running around and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pull an Andrew Ryan. Fuck it. Let money decide.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's a shitty broken mod, people will probably stop buying it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They'll be even angrier than if it were free, you know? Like, they'll be even angrier because they spend money on it. So, like, I've seen enough negative Yelp reviews of places that are kind of okay, and so, uh, so I just think like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think, I think you leave it up to the modders. If the modders want to put a little donation ticket on there, or if they want to put a price ticket, or if they want to not even ask for anything at all, just let them do it. That's what Valve had.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And everyone exploded, even though it doesn't have to affect- it's all optional, right? This isn't the game. There's a game called Skyrim, and then there are other things made by people who aren't at all related to the makers of Skyrim, right? Who are making things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Breaking the game open, they're adding stuff and then you can try that if you want to but that's on you. I think that's totally on you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Fucking drove to downtown Los Angeles to try and find a hidden letter. There was a hidden letter down in like the fashion district that was spray painted onto a wall and if you took a picture of that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You could, like, link that picture to another picture, and it would spell out, basically. Basically, it became a note that the Joker was writing, but instead of...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is like the 80th mystery fun thing that, that Kojima has done and it's not fun anymore. It's just, just release the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Takes away from the fact that the games can just be fun, and they can just come out and be fun.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know, like, he doesn't need to do all this extra stuff. It makes me, actually, I start getting in his head and I'm thinking, wow, he must be really fucking bored of making this game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, I'm not sure where you're headed with this. And then Metal Gear Solid 3 was like, we're rewriting the script, baby! And like, everyone loved it because the game was so, like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Hold on, real quick, real quick Joel, I feel like Hideo Kojima sits in an office, writing up a script, and then at the end he holds it up and he says, Jeff Keighley's gonna love this. And then that's it. And then that's his qualification.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But the thing is, could you imagine if instead they dropped PT and they were like, by the way, in one month the game's gonna come out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have, I have three words for you, Adam, in regards to how do you make money. A. R. G.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You know what's interesting? Uhm, when all this was kind of unfolding, uhm, my wife Elise was saying to me, she's like, well, Silent Hills is done. And I'm like, is it? Yeah, it was done.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it is kind of interesting how Kojima does appear to be so integral to the games that he makes that they're like, well he's gone, we can't make this game, which to me is absurd.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like, it's like how Apple went out of business when Steve Jobs died.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's probably a good thing to encourage. It's a curiosity thing and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's a curiosity thing. I'm sure you would like to be part, someone that makes a mod, probably in the back of their mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Or blogs or websites or forums that follow us, like people who are in the industry, and then they, out of hand, dismiss the next story that we come up with.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I appreciate your pointing out the hypocrisy and, and I don't think it's, I don't think it's good enough to let them off the hook, uh, by saying, oh they were excited about this game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yep. Episode number five. It's like when you leave a soup out overnight, and then it kind of loses its- it coagulates. It develops a skin. That's the thing. Dude's soup coagulates.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can I, I don't know if this is the right discussion for this, but, and I'm not saying this to troll or anything.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But, like, I'm a pretty big gamer and I don't care if Half-Life 3 ever comes out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, I mean, I played all of Half-Life 2, I played most of Half-Life 1 after the fact, and for me it's like, it was cool because at the time it was this crazy physics experiment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They're probably working on passion-y projects like...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And then the quest list got way too, way too large and then I said no thank you. I played Half-Life 2. And you didn't really like it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's what I'm saying though. The game was mind-blowing, but then three years later, it didn't blow my mind.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know that they wanna make a game that's gonna blow your mind now and then three years from now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Completely unfathomable, unfathomable, fathomable? Unfathomable secret sauce that is, I don't know what it is, that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This is, again, this is my personal opinion. I'm not saying I don't like Half-Life 2. I'm not saying that. I played the whole game, which if I beat a whole game, chances are I liked it, right? Uhm, but uh, for me, it was, it felt like a mathematician's


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, perfect game, right? And so, that didn't grab me. Again, I played it three years after the fact. But, uh, but, a game like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It sticks with me, and I like it a lot. So I don't know, I don't know, it's just, that's just...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think the important thing is there are games where I look at it and I go, I don't understand why people are so excited about this. We don't have to mention them, everyone knows what they are.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like, I'm like, why are people so excited about this? This is not, this is not new, this is not, like, this isn't,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This doesn't do anything new, like this isn't some amazing new thing. Uhm, I do see Half-Life.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And Half-Life 2 and I go, okay, I understand its place. I understand, I understand why it is held to such a high regard.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't necessarily have that passion, that emotion tied to it, but I do understand why it does have something tied to it, why it's important. Uhm, so I don't want it to seem like I don't think that it is deserving of its spot.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, for me, it didn't, it didn't resonate that way. I just didn't have, it wasn't like, oh god, you know, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Shit balls. You're fine back there. I don't know about that one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Everyone knows, everyone knows that a priest's stand is designed to withstand explosions. That's right, because of all the sweet gunfights that break out in...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, I remember when I was playing Half-Life 2 on the orange box, there was an achievement that you could get for not touching the sand in that whole, that whole section, um, and I... That one's hard as fuck, by the way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was so careful, cause this is when I was like, achievements are the most important thing in the world. I'm not anymore, I know you still are. Uhm, and so, uh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There were like 90-something of them in the whole game, and they were each worth like one. Yeah. So, uh, so anyway, I was trying to do this one, the specific one, and, uh, I thought I did it?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it is the exact moment I gave up on orange box achievements. Okay. Uhm, because I was like, oh well fuck this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uhm, but uh, yeaah, that's my, that's my, and then the other one is, is probably because it was on the same disk as Portal. Portal. Portal is my other Half-Life 2 memory.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And in considering most of that was like non-verbal and like that was another game where, where if you just happened to go one way you would find a little like tile that was a jar and you could go behind it and there was someone who like made a little world for themself back there and it would be written on the walls and stuff. Uhm, I always liked that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uh, Ravenholm? Ravenholm. Yeah. That one's like littered with, there used to be people that lived here kind of thing going on. Um, but uh, I mean, I wasn't like blown away by it. I wasn't like, oh my god. I think because, because Portal is so minimalist that anytime they put in a hint of something there, it's like, it's like, oh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It isn't just what it seems, you know, whereas you kind of expect that they should have


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's my expectation for them. And again, they did hit that expectation. It wasn't like they didn't do it or they didn't, they didn't succeed at it, so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But that's another thing with Destiny, I was like, uh, I never played, like, like, I never was like, oh my god, those late Halo games are just the best.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's like okay, and what you were saying about everyone going like Buckwild for Halo, I kinda had the same thing with Halo too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We're not Halo 2 the sequel, but Halo also, because like, I played it a little bit after the fact, like not when it first came out, but a little bit after the fact, and I was like, that was a game, but it wasn't like,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Like I don't understand why this game is changing the landscape of stuff. My big thing is I am not.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Psychonauts is a game that starts as like a fun, simple platformer, but it has so many other layers in there that if you choose to, uh, if you choose to find them and enjoy them, then you'll get more out of the game itself. Uhm, and so...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Halo is just kind of a game, you know, it achieves the gaminess of it. My favorite thing about Halo are my best, the only reason I kind of played the rest of them were that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Wait, you're telling me I can drive a warthog and my friend can sit on the back and we can just go around and it's not even telling us where we kinda have to go even though it's linear? Like, awesome! But, uh.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Try and guess why I hate Half-Life 2.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's another thing. Perfect Dark I have fond memories of because I could play Perfect Dark with bots if I didn't have friends to play with, but then if it was just me and one other friend, we could still do big multiplayer matches.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This bold maneuver here, I see this a lot now on YouTube, where people don't reveal that it's sarcasm or actually a satirical comment until the very last line of the comment.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Doug is so good! There's a Twitter account called Dougepisodes, where he writes Dougepisodes, but they're all insane. He like gives them a title.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm genuinely curious now how much I would pay to have surgery to be a rip Dorito. Not as much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Graphics are pad. We saw something very similar to this, I remember when we went to, uh, when we went to London. Someone had a shirt. That was really good.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No! Are those, uh, uh, tattoos? Temporary tattoos? They better be. I mean, it's sticky, so sure. No. Except they're gonna be facing wrong. Yeah. I still like them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yeaah. Remember that thing that lasted a week that you said?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Pull over? What's the problem? I'm trying to pull...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Over and under and all around my friend. There's a lot of pulling going on. You really like pleasuring yourself. Are you having fun with that chandelier? Yes. How come the wire isn't moving? It's the only thing you can shoot in the game.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Nothing. Wait, what? Matt Peake in a snowstorm. Ah. Alright everyone, thank you.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm glad you brought that up because I think Half-Life 3 is a passion project for them. I think that's exactly what it is. I think because the reason they've held off on it so long is because somebody, Gabe or whoever, was like, you know what, we need to start making money. Like, we need to figure out how to make these services and along the way,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It is. It was very, yea, it was story-like. And I think a lot of people at Valve, uh, thought the same thing. I think they all sort of enjoyed what they made and this was like their, this Half-Life 2 was their passion project.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So I, I, you know, I think they're gonna make a sequel, I just don't know how.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's actually, you know what, that's something I haven't thought about. Adam, the integration of portal world into the Half-Life world, which is something that could be another hook for Half-Life 3. That would draw me back.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well the crazy wild genius part of what you're talking about, like, you integrate Portal, you integrate Half-Life, Gravity Gun, Physics, all the other, yes, into Half-Life 3, then you've got the VR.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I played like a couple hours of it and it got too big for me already.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's kind of the case for almost everything. Yeaah. It's very rare that something lives up to the hype of millions of people telling you it's the best game ever. Or the best video, you know, best movie ever, best television show, whatever. It's very very rare, so. That's uh, I get it, I mean it makes sense.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Uuuh. What? Come on, dude. There you go. Is that a headcrab, Daniel? Fuck me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Oh yea, fan art. My favorite part. I think I like stuff like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Sizzler Adventure. Are a scissor? No, you're right, Sizzler Adventure. I just think it's weird. It's a three finger salute right there. That's right.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Lawrence is riding a horse. Yeaah. That's awesome. Cool.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No. Well you see, I was often compared with my older brother when I was very young. Well I should explain


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was in England up to the age of seven. I had my eighth birthday in Canada. This was when the Second World War broke out.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I sometimes tell people this story, I don't know what you make of that. You see, I never liked to eat spinach. This is something that has changed and when I got older I love spinach now. But in those days I just couldn't stand it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had decided that I ought to eat my spinach, which was a sort of circular spot on the plate.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well you see, they were more prodigious, or whatever the right word is.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he was second in the class. He was certainly a prodigy and he read all sorts of things. It's very useful to me because he taught me quite a bit of physics.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I was young, just sort of basic things, but I think I learned a lot from, I learned a lot from my father, certainly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He was a scientist, but not a physicist. He was on the biological side, but he knew quite a bit of maths.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I couldn't kind of understand how he could beat me that game and it seemed to me it was a pure game of chance. And I wondered whether he was reading my mind or something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It depends. There was one person I remember who did, I think he regarded me as the dark sheep of the family. This was Oliver Strachey, who actually was a high-up, and I didn't know anything about this, in what became the, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I think he spotted something, I don't know. I don't know what it was. But on the whole,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think I was known for my brothers and not myself. But I did, I didn't do terribly well in


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] School, I did get moved down to class when I was in high grade three.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And she had shared what was called high grade two and low grade three. And I was in low grade three and she considered I was too stupid for two low grade three, mainly because I couldn't keep up with her and the cast with mental arithmetic. She would give, you know, add three multiply by seven.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That sort of thing, I was completely, and I was very slow. I was very, very slow when I was young. And she moved me down and then decided I was too good for high grade two and not good enough.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But eventually she got rid of me by moving up to high grade three, just to get rid of me I think. And I like, I got on better with the teacher.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I did have a teacher, I think later on, not grade three teacher, I forget, it was grade four, grade five, I don't know whatever it was. Yes, it was something about skipping a grade, which I think I did. Right. I remember now. But the teacher who I thought was very insightful, Mr. Stannett, and he, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Partly what the test told me, partly because secretly,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was not going to be a GP, a general practitioner or something, which my mother thought, you see, she thought I would have a good, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I remember three teachers and the teacher that I had in the end is the one I got on best with. There was one point he said something.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] As I said, if you take y equals x to five thirds or something, then it has an inflection.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That's true. Well, apparently it was Wheeler. I'm not sure. I think it was Fairley.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In common practice by the time I got interested, but I should go back a little in the history.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because, well, what stimulated me, you see, there were other things earlier on, going back, particularly where people go back to Chandrasekhar, who was, who discovered that


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It was, again, you see, my father was a big influence on me and I remember when he decided, I told him that we were going to learn calculus the next day and he instantly took me away and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He just thought there was something really beautiful about it and he wanted to convey this to me. And he did. And it was true.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I picked up on it enough to realize how beautiful that was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, and he and my mother saw the eclipse with this telescope.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That was when I went on a walk out to see the headmaster, because up to that point I was still going to be a doctor.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I read Berman, both my parents were furious. Really? I remember.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Who wanted to become a scientist and he wanted to do nuclear physics. He never did it as it turned out, but he wanted to do nuclear physics and at that time it was the worst crime in the world to do nuclear physics because my parents were both pacifists and the idea of nuclear bombs was the most dreadful thing you could think of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I didn't exactly want to be a mathematician at that time, and you see there was a second phase of the same thing, which happened later.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because I did this Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry and I did all those subjects.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] For my uhm, whatever you call it. Different things in those days. Yeah. So I didn't call it a high school certificate. Yep. That's what it is. And I did that and I did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mathematics, physics and chemistry. I think my best paper was in mathematics, as far as I remember.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Mathematics, yes, I didn't know quite what I would do with it, but I wanted to do maths. I was proposing to do it at University College, which was my father's, he was a professor of human genetics at University College.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had the view that mathematicians were people, people who just did mathematics were pretty odd people. They were just sort of focused in this direction.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And he thought that these sort of odd people who were sort of separate from the world would do mathematics. So he did, he did do something, I must say it was to his credit.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He got one of his teachers, he was called Kesselman and he was a, as I learned later, extremely good teacher he was.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Whether it was 6 or 12, I can't even remember whether it was 6 or 12, very special problems.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My sort of knowledge of legabilities at that stage, but unusual problems. Certainly six, I think they may well have been twelve. And he said to me, look, I've got this set of problems. You may find that you can only do half of them, maybe only two of them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I worked away for the whole day and did the whole lot. Right. And when he picked them up he was quite impressed by that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He gave him, oh, he didn't completely give in because he thought I ought to go to Cambridge. And there was, yeah, that was a rather not very good set. Cause I think I'd done my first year already. I think I was in the second year and he thought I should go to Cambridge.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He gave it to charities and that sort of thing. He hated money. He's pretty well given it all away by then.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When I was in my second year as an undergraduate, my father attended and must have heard about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But I'd learnt about various theorems from our geometry teacher, who was a sort of an oddball, he was called.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Picked up on various things and saw how to generalize them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It's when they have double contact. So that's when they touch two places. So you can imagine one of your comics, lips like that, and then another one inside it, which touches here, touches here. And that is the condition.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They have double contact. The theorem is, if you've got your cube almost finished, except for one vertex, there are three more lines you've got to fit in and the last vertex will be there.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It exists. The last one exists. And that's, that's a theorem. The point about it was you could specialize in all sorts of ways.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The little blobs represent the econics to say how they specialize. And you get all these theorems out of special cases. That's why I'm just quite proud of this theorem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] John Conway almost published it, I think he didn't because I think he died. He was going to write a book, I don't know if you know, he was going to write a book on triangles.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you know anything about that? I don't. No, his intention was writing a book on triangles, and he wanted to put my theorem in it, and I explained it all to him. Why is that a book on triangles? Because you get triangle theorems out of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, I have two ways of answering that question. The way I normally answer it, although I'm not sure whether it's still true because people say it's the other way. I say that uhm, if I'm with physicists, I'm a mathematician to them. If I'm with mathematicians, I'm a physicist to them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I considered that I was normally the outsider, yes. I think that's true still, to some degree, that I am sort of an outsider in that respect, yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And applied mathematics was what people might call physics.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Undergraduate degree, I specialize, at the university college there's a slightly strange rule, it's a three year course.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And the first two years were general. Everybody did the same thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I did a paper on the first two years and then I did specialist paper on the specialist papers and the specialist subject I did.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was algebraic geometry and projective geometry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My best paper was on algebra, not geometry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You have to say this goes here and then why is this true because so and so implies so and so. And it's words like that. And I was slow. I was slow at writing. And I only got halfway through.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Absolutely, well that's even though I speeded up enough to get through my school exams, I'm still slow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I showed up when I was doing my geometry.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it's partly, it's probably more true that my thought processes are a little bit different from other people somehow.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So if I hear, I have to translate it into my way of thinking. I don't know if that's it at all. There is something about it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I like to work things out for myself. I gain most from lectures and things like that when I see the general idea. And then I go away and figure it out my own way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If it's a lecture course which is just following equations, I get lost. That doesn't help.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But if I can see the general idea and then I can go back and go through it myself, then I can do it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Many lectures in mathematics are not very visual. And I learnt this through. When I try to do diagrams and things, often people have trouble. That's it. And I remember early on when people maybe suggested my giving a popular talk in the early days of this.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Because when I talk to undergraduate mathematicians, they don't like the pictures, they like the equations and they want to make sure they can do it that way. I don't know, some do and some don't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess that's also the artistic strand in my family.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I hadn't said this before. My father was a very good artist, actually.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] In fact, his younger brother Roland became a big figure in the, certainly in Britain, in the surrealist movement. He more or less founded the Institute for Contemporary Arts.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I do take pride in it. In fact, I like to draw the diagrams in my books.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which I do. Early on I got somewhat sort of talked out, brow beaten out of it to some extent. And I would sketch them and they were then redrawn professionally.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I had to, the thing that I remember worrying about was you had to kneel on one knee and not on the other. And I get, one of the confusions I have in life is not remembering which is my left and which is my right. Or am I learning the wrong way around?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Unlike what the film suggests. According to the film, there was a lecture given by me, at I believe King's College London.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I did give a lecture on black holes, my theorem on black holes in King's College London. Stephen Hawking was not present.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] That whatever matter you put in and it could be very asymmetrical and that always produced singularities. And Dennis Sharma, who I had worked with a lot before and who had become Stephen Hawking's supervisor, Dennis Sharma heard of this talk and suggested I give a repeat. The talk was given in 1964.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I gave a repeat in Cambridge in early 1965 and Stephen Hawking was present at that talk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But this was a more private little session where I explained the details of the techniques that I was using.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But it was an interesting occasion because I read the thesis, which had four parts. And I remember I said, I think in my, uh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Right up of the account that uhm, any two of them were good enough for a PhD.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I made a note of various mistakes that there were in me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think it was, he'd made errors previously. It was interesting because he made, you can have errors of the first kind and errors of the second kind. Errors of the first kind, which is when you correct them, the theorem still works. Errors of the second kind, as they wreck the theorem.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] These were all errors of the first kind, so that, although they were technically quite correct, where you could correct them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The disease took a long time before it was hard for him to talk.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] He had his tracheotomy and then he couldn't talk at all.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] When he was in Switzerland he got pneumonia very badly and he almost died of it and they had to make a hole in his neck.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can tell you two things which I don't get them in. You've just mentioned two of them. One is in my office. When I say my office, I don't mean my messy thing at home where I sit and...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And do other things in, but that's, I mean my office at my university.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yes, I'm sure I've had one crossing the bridge, but I can't remember when and where and what. I've had it, I think in the mountains, yes, or walking. Yes, definitely.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, it's usually when you're thinking of something else and it clicks with something. You see one idea on another topic and you think, oh, and you can see it realize that there is something similar. That is a big thing.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Reminds you of a way of thinking that you've thought about something before and it was in a different problem maybe. And that can be important, yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Objects brighter than our galaxy, enormously far away because of the redshift.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And people used to argue, is this a real redshift? Is it some funny physics? Is it gravitational redshift? Is it really part of the universe expansion? Is it an anomalous motion or all sorts of things?


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And that bright and that small. Why that small? How small? Well, because the brightness varied to a degree within a week or so.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And they brought up this old paper by this Wheeler who I worked with at one stage and he was rather keen to get people to look at this old paper by Oppenheimer and Snyder where they had studied black hole, what we now call collapse of a black hole, but this was


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The material was just dust, which has no pressure, but it was just called dust. It was zero pressure material, so nothing to stop it collapsing. Spherically symmetrical, and so it just focused itself into the middle, and so the density would become infinite, the curvature would become infinite, you get a singular energy in the middle,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seem to have proved, this was Lifshitz and Chlatnikov, who seem to have proved that in the general case you wouldn't get singularities, things swish around and swirl out or something like that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And so that was a sort of common belief and so, I don't know, it doesn't explain the quasars.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But maybe something did something like that, I don't know. And so, question is,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] They weren't the kinds of things that you could really get a proper proof that there was no singularity. So I thought the question was a bit open. And I had developed techniques from other things I think about looking at generality from global, not solving equations. I wasn't good at solving equations. I could do it occasionally.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So what is that point? And how do you characterize in a way which doesn't depend on symmetry or solutions of equations and like that? So I hadn't got my mind around that exactly.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Eival Robinson, who was a colleague of mine for quite some while, I'd known him for a long time, and he had a way with words. He was English, but he


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Was working in Dallas, Texas, where he spent most of his later life. Well, they all loved him because of his way with words. And he was talking to me.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I don't know what he was talking to me about. And we were walking along, uh, quite near to Birkbeck College where I worked at that time. And there came a sort of cross road, side road, and we crossed the road. And as we crossed the road, we was looking for traffic and the conversation stopped. We got to the other side of the road and he went on talking to me, talking, talking, and then he went off. And that was the end of my conversation with him. But then I had this strange feeling of elation. I thought, huh,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Property of a surface, a two-dimensional surface. When it had this property,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] This was too late. It was had it and this was the end of it. So I went back to my office and I sort of sketched out a proof using the methods I thought of.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I guess I tried to think of why, what things in my, I've tried to do this, that time it was successful.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] No, it didn't mean that much to me. You see, I think we'd moved into


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] But my wife Vanessa had looked at it and she noticed it seemed to be, uh, what people call a Penrose styling. So she's happy to look at that pattern.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was a person and he was making puzzles and things using, with my permission.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] commercially successful because at that time the techniques for making these shapes was a bit, uh, a bit expensive.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's find all the places where people had published articles with these tidings in them.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There was an article by Paul Steinhardt, I think on quasicrystals or something, what it was now.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] There's a curious story about that. Gosh, all sorts of curious stories. I was just playing around with designs and I had played around with patterns which covered the plane and that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Seen a lot of Escher patterns and I was very intrigued by how you could make birds and fish and do all sorts of clever things.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I liked the idea of patterns which maybe didn't repeat themselves. And I had come across a.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Let's say with a logo from somebody who'd written me a letter and I'd been very long, never answered it for a long time.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We've got all sorts of almost repeatings and lines and things like that. We don't fully look nice. Inspired by a letterhead. Inspired by a letterhead.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wonder whether you can make a jigsaw puzzle out of this, which would force that arrangement. Well, this is a sort of idea. I sometimes have ideas.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which I give about 50% being true, 50% not. It's not that, yes, I have the confidence that Poincare seemed to have when he got on the bus.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] What 50% might be true? That you might force this arrangement


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And you couldn't have, do it only in a non-repeating way.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I was quite proud of that. I think this was when I just had my job at Oxford. I can't remember which the ordering was. Must have been just about Penn. That's right. When I was at a gathering of some sort in Oxford and I met Simon Cochin, who's a mathematician, who's a good friend of John Conway's in Princeton. And Simon Cochin had been talking to me about a non-periodic design.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So this is a jigsaw puzzle, which originally had to have, I don't know, several thousand pieces, several thousand different shapes. And they would only tile non-periodically. And that...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Raphael Robinson had got this down to six, and he told me that Raphael Robinson


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] With these funny shapes of mine, I could get down to five, because I knew there was a funny little...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Puzzle, knob and notch that you could only fit together with two pieces.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Well, maybe, is that the best I can do? And I just fiddled around, and I got an answer too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I'm not quite sure why I was disappointed. I just thought, this is just too damn easy. It's, this is so simple.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Yeah, I don't know why I thought it was. I'm not sure whether I thought somebody must have done it. That was part of it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have various reactions, it depends what happens. If they've done it well, I feel pleased with it, yes.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] If they've done it well and they didn't mention it to me at all, they just did it.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] The one, the most, well I guess the one which, which I guess I'm most proud of, of course I had a lot of hard work involved in that, was the Trans Bay Centre. It's called, no it's got another name to it, in San Francisco. No, the architect there, and he, he is a very nice fella.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] My aunt wants to make a cushion, you know, a lot of people ask, they say my aunt wants to make a cushion, she'd like to use your hat.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Can't remember how much I could see of it, but they'd done it by making big panels, and they'd repeated the pattern on the panels, and that was in light very much.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Later on I think as I got, I got more focus and it got more into the physics. So I think it was when I was an undergraduate I was sort of interested in general relativity a lot and


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Dennis Sharma was trying to focus me much more into cosmology and general relativity and the steady state mobile which was a thing in those days and he got me invested in that.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] And I go and watch the telly and maybe paint or draw pictures or...


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I think people aren't paying me enough attention and therefore I've got to publicise myself.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I can watch some things on Netflix. I would occasionally if there's something very special. Yes, I would. I have watched occasional ones.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I wouldn't have probably been any good at it, but there's, I had a colleague when I was with Christopher Screcci and the only group I ever had anything to do with computers, seriously. And Colin Merton was a colleague of mine. He had a zither.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Which, uh, he had tuned 19 to the octave, so I call that 19 to the dozen.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Do you play any conventional musical instruments? Well, I used to play the viola, which also was a mistake because I should have learnt the piano. No, I haven't.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Definitely. I'm not being, I've had tours all over the place planned to go and pick up actually Paris prizes and things too.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] I have this, well there is this plan to write the Escher book, uhm, and that's taken


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You should gravitize quantum mechanics. It's the other way around. And there are a number of other people who want to do this. Limited, but quite a few.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] It tends to be about two or often later, unfortunately. And then I wake myself up at about eight and then get myself up.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] You can Google him and I'm sure what will come up is the sports illustrated deal with him stretched over the goal line at the university of Florida. Like as a fullback for LSU.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] So there's a pretty cool moment for West Monroe sports. Like that was a, that was a big one.


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] We grow doctors. There he is. Look at it. I remember that magazine cover. Cause he, so my brother,


[User] Please transcribe this text

[Assistant] Played with him at West Monroe and they were friends and I was friends with his little brother Brandon, so uhm.