The Gaming Persona

Through Victory, My Gaming Chains Are Broken

• Daniel Kaufmann Ph.D. | Dr. Gameology • Season 5 • Episode 18

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Dr. Gamology and Marcus explore the struggle of maintaining gaming backlogs as busy adults with competing priorities, reflecting on how they've adapted their gaming habits to fit limited available time.

• Discussing the tension between wanting new games and having no time to play them
• Finding that most adult gaming happens during structured times - Marcus with his son, Dr. Gamology during morning streams
• Exploring how streaming can be both liberating and constraining for gaming enjoyment 
• Sharing the "Kobe Bryant strategy" of waking at 5am for peak productivity and concentration
• Debating the value of the Steam Deck for busy gamers with existing backlogs
• Reflecting on the persistence needed to defeat challenging bosses like Malenia in Elden Ring
• Acknowledging how different life stages affect our ability to engage with gaming fully

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Thanks for Listening, and Continue The Journey!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Gaming Persona podcast. This is the show that explores who we become when we play games, whether you're saving kingdoms, leading epic raids or just vibing in cozy indie worlds. Join me, dr Gamology and my good friend Marcus as we search for all the ways gaming and personal growth collide. Grab your controllers and let's continue the journey. Now we're talking about the difference between fate and destiny, and I think that this episode now is fated to be one of our best ever, I think every episode is our best ever.

Speaker 2:

Hell, yeah, it is All right. So here's my question, because it's been bothering me today. So I started my new job. We talked about it a little bit last week and I'm finishing up week two and I was working on something today and you know how, when you get like everybody gets notifications on their phones, but like some people turn off certain things, I leave and I need to turn off the notifications. Excuse me, the beer made me burp. The problem right now is I'm having is I've left the steam notifications up on my phone, okay, and the problem with that is that I get my game on your wish list is on sale every single day of my life, marcus yep, and today was a game that I actually do want to play, but I'm not going to play it.

Speaker 2:

So I want to talk to you about this. Of games, right? I this game, so I'll tell you it's not a secret, so the game is remnant 2 right yeah, you've been talking to me about that game for a couple years I think like it's a.

Speaker 2:

It's a shooter game, but it's like a Souls-like. It's really hard, but it's really, really, really good, and a bunch of people in my Discord have played it, all that stuff and it's on sale for $20, and I'm like I should buy it. I can do it, and then I stop and go when, Like when.

Speaker 1:

When are you going to play it?

Speaker 2:

I haven't Remember those battle mages that I was on in Elden Ring. Yeah, I'm still there. I've just been so busy, and it's not that I haven't gamed, I haven't turned on Elden Ring and my point of all of this giant circle of life is that I don't need another game.

Speaker 1:

That's just going to sit in the queue that I want to play. Exactly right? Yeah, you really do not.

Speaker 2:

And at 42,. As much as I want to play the mass effect trilogy, or I want to play final fantasy 14, or I want to play this or I want to play that, I find myself playing WWE two K 25 with my son. Or I want to play Final Fantasy XIV, or I want to play this or I want to play that. I find myself playing WWE 2K25 with my son, and then he goes to bed and if I'm not playing hockey that night, I'm taking a shower and going to bed myself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's very reasonable.

Speaker 2:

But how do you manage? I'm circling back to our backlog. How do you manage the stress of?

Speaker 1:

your backlog games. I really don't the way I play video games right now. I actually talked about this on Twitch earlier today. My gaming occurs when I'm live on Twitch. I really don't play video games outside of those windows of time, and whether it's talking with you or talking with Jenny about this because I have tons of gaming and work conversations with Jenny now gaming that way is part of my job, or it's a part of my job that I enjoy and I keep it safe so that it stays there. It really does help me stay sane, but I am accomplishing work goals with it too. To do that and then spend some magical, equal amount of time playing games completely alone as just a solitary self-care activity. I wish I did have some solitary activity like that, but it just doesn't fit in my life right now. So the backlog and all the games I've never played but I have purchased stay exactly the same as they are, and occasionally I do add another game to the list, but I know I'm not going to play it.

Speaker 2:

It's my camera and it made me happy, sorry.

Speaker 1:

You're way low. You're like my minion now, marcus, yeah, like the bridge of your nose is at my shoulder, I would rather you see my art in my head, my shoulders and my big belly and my fat. Oh my gosh, wait, wait, wait, wait. As far as art, do you see what is hiding in my background, right there?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's an Xbox controller. Cause it's amazing, cause you just stepped into a larger world.

Speaker 1:

I have game pass ultimate to use on my yoga book. I'm leaning towards not even bringing my steam deck on my cruise and just gaming on the yoga book and in order to use. No listen, I can play offline with one computer and I've identified that as the computer that can do it, so I can download the games directly on there and play that way. Okay, sure, I'm gonna try it, and if if I can't do it that way, I'll just use the laptop only for streaming movies and shows. And you know, that's only like a couple hours of time during the whole trip, because that's not why you go on the trip, and I'll just read books.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, there's this really good book. It's called the Gamer's Journey. Get it on Amazon or anywhere else. If you order it on Amazon, you'll probably have it before you leave. Just saying it wrote it. It's a really good dude. But anyway, moving on, my point to you is I'm going back to the backlog Like I'm stopping myself because, like you, I streamed for four years.

Speaker 1:

Four years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I streamed like every three days a week for four years and when I stopped, my gaming really slowed down because, like you just said, I was playing video games when I was streaming, so I was getting the best of both worlds and it almost was my reason to game. And now finding myself to come into my office to game, it's almost like I don't forcing myself, but it's almost like I'm forcing myself because I have to say to myself okay, do I want to go in my office and play elden ring and die a bunch, or do I want to watch lfg or watch um aew Dynamite or just watch YouTube? Sometimes I find myself I enjoy sometimes watching somebody else play Elden Ring or watching a lore video than actually playing the game.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense because you don't have the stress of winning or losing and you can just enjoy the visual element. And plus, if the person has a good personality and you enjoy them as a human, then that's even better yeah, it's really crazy how the evolution of that is.

Speaker 2:

And do you know who asmongold is?

Speaker 1:

I do.

Speaker 2:

He dipped his toes into final fantasy 14 during the wow exodus he puts out a lot of videos and I like him because he's like straight shooter kind of guy and, like I, I don't care about people's political beliefs, right like if you start spitting political bullshit I don't want to know, right like i't care. But he said something today about video games and he said that I'm trying to think of the right way. The exact way he said it. He was talking about making time and if it's a great game and you don't get stressed out, you're going to play the game. But if you're playing a game and you're stressed out, you're going to talk yourself out of playing that game.

Speaker 2:

And then I saw a video about the, the different levels of like souls, players, like you have the new, which was me a year and a half ago or a year ago, and like getting to the point, and then you're like starting to understand the mechanics and that's like level two. And then you have somebody who like understands, builds and like is building that and it's they're not dying as much because they understand the mechanics. That's level three. But then when you get into like the level four and fives, like there's only like five level fives in the whole world, that can just no hit, elden, right, everything right like it

Speaker 1:

doesn't compute to me, and some people do it with a DDR mat, which is Dance Dance Revolution for people who aren't old enough, or are old enough but weren't playing Dance Dance Revolution and they do not understand the amazingness of Techno Beethoven Right.

Speaker 2:

Have you ever played Elden Ring on your stream deck?

Speaker 1:

Yes, I have. How does it play? Well, I always play in offline mode, marcus, because the PvP stuff does nothing for me. So I don't want to see people's ghosts. I don't want them to be red and invade my world. I don't want to help them win. I don't want to hurt them. I don't want to help them. I don't want to help them win, like I don't want to hurt them, I don't want to help them. I don't want to see them. They don't exist to me, it's just me in the lands between. So, that being the way I play, I find it really nice. The fans inside the Steam deck are working for that game to work, but it's doable.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but does it okay? But does it play well? Cause I'm in a, I'm in a pickle where I'm going away this weekend, cause it's Memorial day weekend and I'm trying to figure out like I really want to take Elden rank. I want to take my laptop with me, but it's always a production to. So you got to take out the laptop, you got to plug it into a plug, you got to sit at the table, you got to get your Xbox controller because it's the greatest controller ever and plug it in. And you got to do all these things just to play, right, yeah, versus turning on your stream deck or turning on your Switch to play the game that you want to play, so that you can move on. It's almost. I'm at a point now where I just am ready to move on from it, even though I haven't done everything. I'm just like, fuck, I want to just do something else.

Speaker 2:

But I can't, because if I don't beat Millennia, I didn't beat Elden Ring. Well, you did beat Elden. Ring no, not a chance. No, there's an entire country that I have not explored yet. That's in the game. You didn't beat the game, like I still didn't beat the Lord of oh no, I did beat the Lord of Blood, but like I didn't beat the game. Melania is the game, you know. You talk to anybody who's played that game and you say they're like oh, I became leldon lord, yeah, but did you be millennia?

Speaker 2:

oh no, well then, you didn't beat it yet those are not the kind of friends you need in your life but those are the friends I have well, I think that you beat elden ring I became elden lord, but now, once you're elden lord, now you got to go find the boss you know what?

Speaker 1:

there's a wrestling parallel to this. It's like you're the world heavyweight champion, you're jay uso, but paul heyman is like. You don't handle the responsibility that well. Ladies and gentlemen. Yes, my name is paul heyman yeah, so so you have this chip on your shoulder. That's like, yeah, you're the champ, but now you gotta prove to people that you're a good one I just got an awesome idea.

Speaker 2:

What if one one like friday night, we watched smackdown together on the computers in discord?

Speaker 1:

that's my father son activity with my son, though he can't jump in discord for one friday night I'll ask him what he thinks about that, but I'm not gonna mess with the bond we have over wwe I would never say that, or I get it, because I watch what my kid do. But it would be fun or watch a replay of it. We do a replay anytime, yeah, especially since I fall asleep so much. It's bad really. Yeah, I really do. I don't make it. Smackdown is too long yeah, it's too long of a show.

Speaker 2:

Too many commercials.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can't do it.

Speaker 2:

Okay, but back I'm going to. I'm going back again to the backlog I so when you click on the little arrow at the bottom of my taskbar thing and it shows the steam right and I click on it, it says Elden Ring, star Wars, the old Republic, dark Souls three, dark Souls remastered and mass effect legendary edition and it's blue hasn't been downloaded yet and I want to click on mass effect legendary edition. So bad, but that's like a 200, 150 hours of a game and I know I don't have that time because I don't stream. If I streamed I would play that on stream because that would be two hours or three hours at a clip that I'm doing it, but I don't have time.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm. Yeah streaming doesn't fit your life right now.

Speaker 2:

Well, no, it does. But streaming's a prison sentence for me. I did it for four years. I missed so much shit and in order to grow and in order to do the things, you need to be live at a certain time and a certain day, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you can't just do it one day a week, right. That's why I love YouTube is because if I feel like going live, I just click go live and I have fun with it for a few hours and I shut it off and I have some great content that I can edit. But back.

Speaker 2:

Oh, that's oh, that's true. If there was one game in your backlog that you could play right now, because you've always wanted to, but you don't, what would it be?

Speaker 1:

can I open up steam while we're doing that so that I can? Actually? Because the problem with that question it's actually I think this is a clever thing to point out is, since I haven't played it, I don't know what the answer to the question is. I really feel comfy and cozy replaying games and getting deeper thoughts about them and bonding with the story moments better and really figuring out what the next book is going to be. That's my number one goal in life really is to figure that out and start doing it.

Speaker 1:

I actually was talking with my family about if I don't bring the Steam Deck and it's just me and reading the book I'm working on, I might actually open up my laptop a few times and just start goofing off and playing around with what would the 15 chapters in a prologue and epilogue like 15 chapters in an epilogue prologue and epilogue. Like 15 chapters in an epilogue for the next book. I might come back from my vacation be like marcus holy crap, you'll never guess. I have it. I know what it is and I wrote the first three chapters this magic world right, um near automata okay, so I want to play that game as well, but they have it on the switch yeah, they say the switch port is good, like obviously you're not going to get all the crazy graphics from the game, but that is yes.

Speaker 2:

They say the story is amazing, the gameplay is amazing oh, my god, I have a better answer now.

Speaker 1:

What Persona 3 Reload? I've never played Persona 3 and a lot of people believe it's the best one. And the only reason I haven't played it is because I have had in the past this moral dilemma that I'm a mental health counselor and the way you unlock your personas in that game is by shooting the persona out of your head with a gun. What, yeah? So in Persona 5, you rip the mask off your face. You see the blood going everywhere, but that's you unlocking yourself from behind the mask and being your true self, and that's where the power of your persona comes from. And then in Persona 4, I don't even remember how they unlocked the personas in Persona 4, but it wasn't brutal and violent. It wasn't visually dangerous at all. In Persona 3, you take a evoker, which is a mystical item that looks exactly like a gun, and you shoot the persona out of your head. The light comes out of your brain, okay, and then it becomes the persona and it does the magic spell that you just cast. So every single magic spell that you cast. In persona 3, you see the hero characters shoot themselves in the head in order to unlock the persona from inside their psyche.

Speaker 1:

As a mental health counselor, I've been like that's not a good look for me, but I've become a lot more genuine and a lot more comfortable with myself and I really wish that I could play the game and understand why so many people believe it's the best persona, especially since it's the newest persona. They did a full remake of it and I'm so curious. But it's not the hot trending game anymore either. So that's tough too. Like I, I don't know what I'm going to do. As a streamer, the next phase of time in my life Once I finished expedition 33,. Dreamer, the next phase of time in my life once I finish Expedition 33. It's hard because I want to keep the momentum going, all the prison sentence stuff you're saying. I don't think it's a prison sentence for me, but I do feel the pressure that I have to be smart about what I do next.

Speaker 2:

So okay, so can I explain the prison sentence?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, do it.

Speaker 2:

it's really important for this conversation, so please do so when you, when I did it, I did it four years three nights a week yeah, tuesday, wednesday, saturday that was my schedule.

Speaker 2:

Thursday was podcast. So tuesday, wednesday, thursday, saturday was content. I would stream for a like a minimum of two and a half hours minimum and over time I let the now people listening to this are going to call me a scumbag because they're going to say I don't care about the people. It's not that you have your regulars that come around and you enjoy them being there, but at one point you're making X about a dollars, right, and it's like, wow, this is worth it. And for whatever reason, because I became stale Cause, usually when you have a drop off of viewers, you're keep, you're the same as you were x like you need to constantly be changing where you, doc, have evolved so much as a content creator and watching you as a streamer, it's you're a different person and you've grown in your growth of your yeah, streamer creation, yeah, and and granted. And then you know I'm not, I didn't, I have young kids, I don't have the time to invest in more extras doing all the extra stuff, and when I was doing it four years ago or two years ago, in four years prior it was there, wasn't all the, everything wasn't available that it is today like eclipse or this or that, where you get you just log in and it takes. It takes all of your stream and it goes through, it cycles through, it finds clips and you make content.

Speaker 2:

Right, that stuff wasn't there and it got to a point where I'm I cause I run everything like it's a business. That's how I look at everything and it was becoming where I wasn't making money and I'm like, fuck, like I'm showing up and I'm grinding and I'm still having fun hanging out with my friends and the community, but the financial side of things is going away and I'm like I could be doing so much more and it started to weigh on me a lot and I let the all of those things weigh me down so much, to the point of like making it like I would say to carrie hey, I gotta go, let's take the night off. Well, I can't take the night off, yeah, but you're not x, whatever the said issue of the week was. And you know I don't have the luxury of like being home and available to play as much because of my kids and everything. So I'm starting to stream at eight o'clock at night, going until 11 11 30 at night, every night, going to bed, waking up at 5 30, going to work, grinding, taking care of the kids and doing it. It just got to be like the weight on my shoulders was so big and now, looking back at it, I'm like, fuck, as much fun as I had, it was like for what? And that's where the prison sentence kind of comes in, like you're dedicated to it.

Speaker 2:

But you, I think, figured out a great niche for it because you have the ability to be at home during the day and you found that, look, I'm going to stream in the morning and then, when I'm done streaming, I get it to go about my day. And that is something that I don't have. And I wonder, and I say to myself a lot, if I did that. That is something that I don't have. And I wonder, and I say to myself a lot, if I did that, if I woke up on Saturday and Sunday mornings at 5 am and clicked, go live stream for three hours, get up at eight, everybody's up and I have the rest of my day, my mental space about streaming and creating content would be different.

Speaker 1:

Would it shift the narrative from it's a prison sentence to it's my safe place?

Speaker 2:

Yes, like it's my time, Instead of doing it at night when I'm tired. Because you know as well as I do, Doc, if you start playing a game at 8.30 at night and you start yawning and you're like fuck, I've been up for 20 hours, I'm tired.

Speaker 2:

The content isn't great no and there's a reason why at work I take my coffee break at 9 30, not nine o'clock, because you start at 7 am and you get the most out of people in the mornings. So I push the guys to take break at 930 instead of nine and let me tell you they cry and bitch about it. But the point I'm trying to make is you take a 930 break, you're getting two and a half hours of dedicated work.

Speaker 1:

Then you take your break, then you grind until lunchtime, because then after lunch everybody's for, yeah, also just evolutionarily speaking, I don't think human beings were built, especially in physical labor, to do eight hour work days. But that's a whole other thing that the gaming persona is not worried about. I'm not going to try to change that one, I'm just saying, like you're not getting eight hours of a hundred percent efficiency, you're getting you worked eight hours in one day.

Speaker 1:

Marcus, I am sitting at this computer doing projects and stuff until midnight almost every weekday of the week.

Speaker 2:

I know that. That's my point. Eight hours is a. Anybody that says they get to work 40 hours a week they're lying.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I thought you were asking me as if I'm working less than 40 hours.

Speaker 2:

No, no, no, Dude come on.

Speaker 1:

Listen. Marcus Valkalkorian needs to enter the chat here. The emperor of the fallen order okay yep wait, fallen empire.

Speaker 1:

yes, fallen empire. Okay, so this is the emperor of the best storyline in star wars, the Old Republic, the game that brought us together. It's so important to the history of our friendship. The gaming persona it's what let me and Jenny become friends outside of work too. Like the gaming persona show, all of it does not exist without val freaking corian, a man, but we can be non-gender specific. Anyone can have anything if they will only sacrifice.

Speaker 1:

Okay. That is the big quote from SWTOR in my book. It is the thing in SWTOR that changed me as a person. It echoed throughout my psyche until I was able to put that quote in my book and sort of put a flag in the time of what that game meant to me. That quote will always mean everything to me.

Speaker 1:

People will see all the fun stuff and the smiles and the laughs and the jokes and my growth and how comfortable I am with myself.

Speaker 1:

Growth and how comfortable I am with myself.

Speaker 1:

They don't see that inside every social media person, every streamer, there's a huge amount of struggle and confusion and self-doubt and you have to battle through that so you can show up and do the thing you needed to do live in front of people.

Speaker 1:

It's a performance and I am incredibly genuine. And yet still, when I do an episode of the show, when I do a stream on my Twitch channel, when I do a YouTube video, when I do supervision with my counselors and the people I'm mentoring, those are all performances, yes, and when you are showing up to do work like that, and also you have the same thing when you're encouraging your workers to add that extra half hour before their break, you are in a role, you're in a persona and you are in a performance as that persona. Right, it's not all fun. I'm lucky enough with places like Kindbridge and places with my university where they leave me alone and they understand that, even if they see me online trying to make it look like I'm having a good time, that as soon as I turn that off, I'm jumping right into the next thing and I'm relentlessly trying to destroy those goals, the same way I destroy the video game goals.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I agree with you, no, no. So we're talking the same language. But circling back, where the difference is is you're doing your leveling up in game in the mornings and your jobs know that you're a lot. You're on the Internet live, but they know as soon as you get off you have your whole day ahead of you and you're not going to quit until that thing is done, because you reward yourself with your stream in the morning. Now can you imagine doing all of your work and then starting to stream at eight o'clock at night?

Speaker 1:

Marcus, that's a really good question and I'm going to be so honest. It's not just about video games. Okay, I wrote my dissertation at 5am, I wrote the gamer's journey at 5am and I became Twitch partner at 9am. The idea that I'm going to work all day and then I'm going to be an amazing doc student and work on my dissertation at 9 pm it never happened. It didn't work. I was stuck for six months making no progress, and I was talking with Jenny during bowl season for college football, right? So it's January, all the college games are doing their bowls and you know we met up and she was talking to me and trying to motivate me to get back into it. And that's when the Kobe Bryant strategy hit me.

Speaker 1:

Right, like so again, the people in my life, the things that became the gaming persona, the things that became KindBridge, behavioral health these things are all constantly in orbit. I'm always trying to solve the problem, like it's the water temple in the Legend of Zelda. Right, like there has to be a solution. In the way I'm doing. It is not working. So let's get crazy and change the strategy and see if that works. And it's like I am never going to have the energy I need for the sustained amount of time that I need it if my plan is to be amazing at 9 and 10 pm. So when do I have the most energy? 5 am Just like Kobe Bryant's first workout, right when he was on the Redeem team and he had that conversation where all the younger guys like Carmelo Anthony, lebron James, they're like you know, like those people have really amazing work ethics.

Speaker 1:

But there were some people on that team that are really more into the fun side of life and they'd cross by Kobe at 9am and be like, when are you starting your work? And I was like, what do you mean? I'm done with my second one already and that is why that guy is my favorite basketball player of all time. Right, because I learned so much from Mamba mentality and just turned that into what is this version of work ethic for me? And sometimes I go periods of time where I don't even have that, but I'm still showing up enough to make it look like I got it all together.

Speaker 1:

And anyone who's listening to this, I know we're building me up. I know we're like problem solving with Marcus right now. I don't wake up every single day and nail this. All right, it's really important that people know that and I still show up to do this kind of thing for you like you, my friend Marcus, you, my listeners, right Like that's important to me, and right now I figured out how to line it up so that I can always remember that for this season of my life. I might lose it, though right Like it goes away and it becomes a prison sentence again. It, though, right Like it goes away and it becomes a prison sentence again. So it's just really hard. You gotta put the things that give you peace and joy in a place where you're allowed to have them. That's what the whole thing is.

Speaker 2:

I don't disagree. I don't disagree with you. I actually agree with you wholeheartedly, right.

Speaker 1:

Marcus, your kids are so much younger than mine, and I only have one too. No, and I get that, but I think— that's a big part of what you're talking about, though, Right? I?

Speaker 2:

think my—for me now having this conversation, I feel like—and you say talking about this here and people might not want to listen to this, but, believe it or not, there's a million dads out there that are just like me and that are fighting for that 20 minutes or hour of game time in front of their computer because they are busy. And I meet them. There's a local brewery down the road where I would host our my Christmas parties and I know the owner and he knew about working class nerds and he goes. Do you know how many people come in here and say, hey, you know, there's a guy, a local guy, that has a podcast that we listened to and they would start talking and it would end up being me and they're like that's me.

Speaker 2:

I work 50 hours a week, take my kids to soccer practice and do all those things for three hours a week of playing a video game alone and I can it. People understand that, just like there's a, there's a thousand guys out there, girls, whoever out there like you, who are grinding and just trying to find that time to click, go live. And you your time. You know that the morning is your time and you know, maybe me going to bed at eight o'clock at night when my kids are during the week and all that stuff go to bed at eight or nine o'clock at night, but get up at four and click, go live, yeah, and see what happens you know what I mean and see if I can wake myself up to do that another thing to point out here is time zones are a really important part of the logic that I built around myself.

Speaker 1:

When I started doing my professor role, when I started streaming more consistently, but before I like had figured out what I was doing but I still was going live on Twitch I lived in Arizona, I worked in Arizona and that state is Pacific time zone some of the year and mountain time zone the other part of the year. It's not East Coast. I now work in the Pacific time zone for both of my jobs Kindbridge and my university and I live East Coast. So another thing to point out here is like my university workday does not start until 11 am, officially Arizona time. So if I go live at 9 am, for me that's6 am right, I'm not supposed to be at work. Then that's like waking up super early in the morning and streaming, and then a lot of things I do for KindBridge is based on Washington's time zone, the state, and so that's specific. So if I stream at 9 am or 10 am, that's 6 am or 7 am, like it's not. There's very limited amount of work things that I can do, like the social work goals I can't do so. Again, marcus, you work in the place that you live and that also is why it's hard to create a strategy like the one I'm using. So I'm very blessed and my my strategy for how to do this doesn't work for a lot of people and that's one way that I'm very fortunate and I just decided. Getting sick of not achieving the goals I had for myself, I was just like I'm going to do it. Right, I'm just going to. I'm going to do it. I'm going to show the data to people. I'm going to ask what they think. I'm going to talk about my vision for what this will do over time. And people bought it and they loved it and they heard that vision. They saw what the gamer's journey is and they hear what happens in the room when I start talking about it, really unleashing what I do.

Speaker 1:

Also, the dark side, marcus. The dark side is very important here. The dark side side, marcus. The dark side is very important here. The dark side, absolutely the Jedi. They're all mindful, right, there's no emotion. There's peace. Right, there's no death. There's only the force. That is such a way of saying there's no consequence. That's actually going to touch me, because I will accept life as it is. That's not me. I have a PhD. People with PhDs do not use the light side Through victory. My chains are broken.

Speaker 2:

Marcus, I knew you were going there so hard.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, like peace is a lie. There's only passion. When I open my mouth and talk about video games, I don't think very many people will confuse me for a Jedi. I am straight up Sith, maybe edging into the gray Jedi ideas a little bit on my most high faith believing days. But you got to break those chains. Marcus and my chains were all the good streamers stream at night and that is just not true.

Speaker 2:

That is not true.

Speaker 1:

Some of my favorite streamers to hang out with while I'm working. They don't have a schedule, even which blows my mind, but it's like I'm going to go live at 1 pm and stream for seven hours and then the next day I'll do 10 am and then I'll put a tweet out that says hey guys, I'm sleeping terribly, we're not streaming until nighttime. Then they show up at 6 pm and do five hours. All of those streams are longer than what I can offer, but everyone shows up for it because it's like I love the person.

Speaker 2:

But that streamer is his full-time job, exactly so there's a difference between somebody I'm going to use chronic director, chronic now, just chronic. I remember when he worked and he streamed. Now he's a full-time streamer. He can keeps his schedule, but that's all he has to worry about. Right Is streaming and making content.

Speaker 1:

That's it. Yeah, all the stuff that happens when you're not live, that's a huge time sink Right.

Speaker 2:

Right, Like that's the other thing. I have a question sidebar which stream deck do?

Speaker 1:

you have. I just have the one with the most gigabytes, but oled did not exist when I bought mine, so it's what? Would that be the? Is there a one gigabyte or is it 500 gigabytes?

Speaker 2:

no, no. So there's 500 and there's a one terabyte one terabyte.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's what I have.

Speaker 2:

I have the one terabyte okay, my next question is it worth it for 650 dollars?

Speaker 1:

yeah, it'll change the way you play video games.

Speaker 2:

It will will it, though, am I? Am I gonna get this and start because I can play elden ring on the PlayStation, which is not on Steam, so like. This is why I'm really like looking at this right now, Because I'm saying to him.

Speaker 1:

Oh, you'll be starting over a new character, Marcus.

Speaker 2:

No, I won't. I have my Steam character On the PlayStation. No, no, no, no. If I buy a Steam deck, I'm picking up in elden ring where I'm leaving off oh, that's true.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah and that's the thing that I'm I'm trying to decide am I going to use it? Because I don't. I very rarely use my switch like I get a game that I really love and I play it until it's done and then I don't really pick up the Switch again. You know what I mean, and the only reason why I play on the PlayStation so much is because I'm playing WWE 2K25 with my kid every day. And just for the record, he's getting really good at the game. He can't beat me yet. He does once in a while, but for the most part I whoop his ass every time, but he's getting good, like with the reversals, like I'll go for my finisher and he'll stop it every time.

Speaker 1:

oh, that's annoying, oh he's. My answer is still that if you have a steam deck, you have access to most of the games that you can buy on steam and they are playable, and that will change the way you play games. And if you're good at following instructions and doing things in the Linux mode like desktop mode, you can actually put Xbox Game Pass and these other things like the Epic Games Store and stuff on there too and set up your controls using programming stuff so that those will work too. I was not successful in doing that, but I know it's possible, yeah.

Speaker 2:

I know Linux. That's not, I guess, for me. I'm just looking at the cost of it. You could just wait and buy a Switch too. Nah, I don't think I am 500 bucks.

Speaker 2:

Basically, they say, if you mod it, they'll brick your system. And I know people who modded their Switches to put better batteries in them. And that's not really like modding it. That's you're upgrading the battery on it and if you open it there's sensors in it that they can actually brick it.

Speaker 2:

And if you read the instructions, you don't actually own the games because even if you buy the discs, like the physical copies, they're just blank discs that go in and allow you to download the game. So yeah, that them coming out and saying that and I granted, I buy digital games on steam. So it's like I understand, but like the digital games on steam I own. Like you buy them. You own them as long as they're on your hard drive or steam is around. But even if steam's not around, you can download the game onto your computer. Yeah, but either way, I'm rambling. The whole point is I'm just saying to myself okay, I can spend 400 or 550 bucks. Yes, the 400 one is an lcd display versus the oled, not as pretty colors got it. The battery life is less, but you're gonna end up playing it plugged in all the time I bought a magnetic.

Speaker 1:

What's it called?

Speaker 1:

you know, it's the mag power pack yeah, like a mag safe power pack with a bracket that you just clip on, no screws or anything, it just clips on the back, it has the mag safe, so just like, it's very fulfilling sound. And then you just plug the wire into the charging port and it like triples the battery life of the device. Like I've done five hour flights playing shadow, the tomb raider on it, which is really good graphics, and made it the whole flight, uh, with that battery still having maybe 20% left, so never using any of the Steam Deck's actual battery.

Speaker 2:

So yeah it's. I don't know. I got to think about this, but I think that might. I wish I had it for this weekend, that would have been great.

Speaker 1:

You probably won't have it for the weekend, even if you buy it right now. Also, if you're buying it because you want to play Elden Ring, but you started out the podcast talking about how you need to stop playing Elden Ring.

Speaker 2:

I need to beat Melania. I have a destiny, Doc. You might beat Melania tonight. No.

Speaker 1:

You don't even know.

Speaker 2:

No, I'm too far. I'm at these stupid battle mages and I haven't passed that. And the last time I played it, I just didn't take it seriously and I just got annihilated. I don't know who was hanging out with me when I was doing it, that was me and will wasn't it yes, and you were playing terrible yeah and I just didn't care. I was there to have fun. But my point is is I still have a long way to go to get to her and I'm actually in the hardest area of the game.

Speaker 1:

I know there's a boss.

Speaker 2:

I know there's a boss because I can see the boss arena, but I know nothing about what's after that. I have not looked at spoilers, nothing. All I know is I see the boss arena For all. I know that's Melania, right, but I thought she was in an inside world because I've seen the millennia fight. But my point is I feel like I still have a long way to go because I'm still up in the sky and I'm pretty sure she's at the root of the tree. So I'm pretty sure I still got a long way to go and I got a lot of hell to deal with before that.

Speaker 1:

So by real point is I've got a long way to go. Yeah, you're so close, marcus, but you know what? It's good that you recognize that there are stages to this quest, and there's a lot of stages you don't know about. But you really only have one choice, marcus. Do you know what that is? Click, go live. Nope, continue the journey.

People on this episode

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Daniel Kaufmann

Host
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MarcusB814

Co-host