The Gaming Persona

How Small Studios Deliver Big Experiences: The Hollow Knight Phenomenon

• Daniel Kaufmann Ph.D. | Dr. Gameology • Season 5 • Episode 27

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The Gaming Persona crew explores the stark contrast between $20 indie games like Hollow Knight Silksong breaking Steam records while many $70 AAA titles struggle to deliver comparable experiences. Marcus shares his unexpected journey from organizing pickup hockey games to being offered a position managing ice rinks, highlighting how the leadership skills from raid leading transfer to real-world community building.

• Hollow Knight Silksong's massive success at just $20 raises questions about game pricing and value
• Small studios with focused vision often create more engaging experiences than corporate-driven development
• Games designed as "lifestyle choices" (like MMOs) aim primarily for engagement rather than finite experiences
• One of the hosts spent over 365 days of real-time (20% of his existence) playing Star Wars: The Old Republic
• Memorable indie games often succeed through vision and execution rather than massive budgets
• Many of today's AAA franchises began as smaller projects that earned their success through quality
• Trophy completion statistics reveal that many players never finish games they purchase

Join us on the Gaming Persona Solo Quest where we'll explore the academic side of gaming psychology and healthy gaming habits. Follow us for more discussions on how our gaming personas shape who we become both in-game and in real life.


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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.

Speaker 2:

Holy cow, holy cow.

Speaker 3:

That's where Swiss cheese comes from.

Speaker 1:

It's a bit sensationalist to start our episode, but I'll bite what's going on, marcus, all right going on, marcus, all right.

Speaker 2:

So if you followed the adhd journey of marcus b814 for the last years, I went from fat marcus to less fat marcus, started playing hockey, which has, in turn, made me more social than I already am, and then one of my skates per week ended and there was a group of people like five of us that didn't have anywhere to play hockey. So I did what Marcus does and talk to people who own ranks where my son plays, and it's really hard to get them to give you a sheet of ice, because there's a lot of people that want it. Well, they decided to give me a sheet of ice this past summer. So since may, I have been running a pickup hockey league every week and filling it blah, blah, blah. There's a big pickup skate.

Speaker 2:

Pickup skates are like random people you can sign in. It's like no commitment hockey. Like, hey, I got a Wednesday night free, I'm going to go play hockey. You sign into this app, you click that, you're in. You pay the money, you go play hockey. Well, there's an actual business in my area that does this and they host anywhere from 40 to 70 skates a week all across my state and out near me and the Western part of my state. There's three a week and they've really been struggling. Well, I was reached out to by the said company because they're upset that I've been stealing their business without taking their business and they've offered me a job.

Speaker 3:

So you become a professional poacher.

Speaker 2:

So in my world right now, I in the next few days will be driving to Boston to meet with this company and discuss future employment, to help run the western part of my skate and help grow it to be what it is out east.

Speaker 1:

So is this like a career change or is it like a side hustle?

Speaker 2:

I'm looking at it as a side hustle, but my friends and my wife think it's going to be a full-time job opportunity. Whoa, that's so cool. So I'm going to go from being a carpenter to a hockey bro. What can go?

Speaker 1:

wrong Everything, doritos. I feel like this really ties into our sort of dialogue or our narrative that Marcus has to be the group leader, right? Because he's like, screw this, I don't get to have the ice skating rink. He's like, screw this, I don't get to have the ice skating rink. So I'll just go promote myself and convince someone to give me their skating rink, and then I'll make a team and then I'll make sure people show up to do the raid. I mean the hockey game and I'll make rinks.

Speaker 1:

It's working class rinks it's. It's death star skaters it's. You know, it's everything I've ever known Marcus to be, but he just hockey-fied it.

Speaker 3:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

So it's really something that I had to talk about here. I know it doesn't have to do with video games everybody.

Speaker 1:

It does. I just made it about video games, marcus. Your identity and who I've always thought you are, since I raided with you, is a metaphor for what you just did with your hockey league stuff, and that is not something to be upset about. That's freaking amazing.

Speaker 2:

I just you know what it is it's. I don't want to see my friends not have somewhere to go, and I guess it has to do with like rating. Like my friends, I wanted them all to play together, so I made a team and I made everybody die a lot yes, you did.

Speaker 3:

I mean what?

Speaker 2:

no no yeah, I did, but you know something that it doesn't trigger this, but it made me think about this week is, and I don't know if this could be our topic or not, but it's been on my mind. So do you guys know what hollow night is?

Speaker 1:

I just started playing it today, Marcus the first one. No, I would, what Heck no.

Speaker 3:

Playing silk song. Okay, I've got. I've got the first one. I haven't downloaded it yet, all right.

Speaker 2:

So silk song came out, it broke Steam right 500 million downloads or 500, like millions of downloads within minutes. It's like crash Steam. But you have this game, which is a 2D side scroller, metrovania, souls-like. It's actually a lot like a Souls game, but my point is it's $20. Yeah, and then you have these AAA games that are $40, I mean $50, $60, $70 that aren't as good as this $20 game, and it makes you ask yourself what makes a game so expensive in comparison.

Speaker 1:

I want to also add to this conversation that Claire Obscure Expedition 33 was $49.99.

Speaker 2:

Right, and it was made by a team of, with all their subcontractors, a team of 200.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and people in the base studio was like 30-something.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was 33.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I know Allegedly.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, but my point is do you guys I mean some of my favorite games that I've played weren't triple A games?

Speaker 1:

Of course you know I want to throw out the idea of movies. You know I don't have a specific movie to call out here. Actually I do. Are you both familiar with the movie Clerks? Yes, oh yeah, yeah, okay. Clerks, yes, oh, yeah, yeah, okay. So the the view is universe. You know Kevin Smith has all these movies that I grew up loving and you know just Jane Silent Bob love the whole thing. But Clerks was made on a budget because Kevin Smith was not really anybody back then.

Speaker 1:

Right, and it's an amazing movie. It's it's fun to watch even today, and it's more fun to watch than 30% of the Marvel movies that all cost hundreds of millions of dollars to throw together. Because of the effects and because of how many people are in there doing the writing and the editing, and then the camera people and the salaries for the actors.

Speaker 2:

I was just going to say that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. So you put Robert Downey Jr on screen for one second and you just add $50 million to your budget. So nobody was like that. On Clerks Clerks 2, by the way, has Ahsoka Tano in it. So I just want to throw that out there for a nice Star Wars reference. I love Rosario Dawson.

Speaker 1:

So my point is that's kind of what happens with video games. You get a big studio that has high, skyrocketed expectations for their game, like Naughty Dog making. Eventually they're going to make the Last of Us Part 3, I'm sure. But you look at how much money have they put into the Last of Us Part 2 and all the remasters of the Last of Us Part 1 and making sure that game is current on the most current hardware so that people who fall in love with the TV show on HBO Max have something that's modern as their first introduction to playing it as a game. And you spend millions and millions on those game experiences so that it's as perfect as you can make it. And then there's other games that are just like. We can choose an art style that doesn't require a thousand people team to refine the graphics. You know that's Hollow Knight, you know it's. I'm sure you can do the kinds of things in Hollow Knight with straight out of college, or even during college, depending on what you're learning as an art designer and graphics designer.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yes, I'm with you and it's for me. It's just, you see, all these AAA games that come out that cost all this money, and yet a $20 game is better than most of those games that they spent hundreds of millions on well, this perspective, though, better, more popular, I mean.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so a lot of people have downloaded it, a lot of people are playing it, a lot of people playing it on twitch and various those streaming platforms, but you know what's how long is the content, though. Is it a 15 hour game? Is it a 20 hour game? Is it as hard? I mean, I haven't played it yet. So, doc, is it really as hard as elden ring? I made it look hard, but you what you were learning though I mean it's like you're still.

Speaker 3:

You know, you go to lingrave for the first time and you die a lot till you learn parrying and dodging and and.

Speaker 1:

Don't fight the tree sentinel that's up to you, or do fight the tree sentinel.

Speaker 1:

Okay, we're gonna have to put a pin in that this is a difficult game thing, because I want to include that in this episode, but it's not the right time. So, everyone, I am promising you a mental health moment, this episode where I will just open up everything about me as a gamer and let you watch all of my pain, just explain who I am when I play a new video game. The thing that I was tickled by the most during my stream today, doritos was I got the first trophy in the game at least right the path that I took and the playstation network said one percent of people that own this game have this trophy the first one.

Speaker 1:

So we're days into the game being out a week. Right, we talked about this as the opener for last week, but none of us had a chance to play it. So now, a week later, I have played it. One percent of people who own the game have the first trophy in the game, right, right? So that means people are buying it because of fandom and curiosity, and the hype and the lore of this game is that it took forever to came out, to come out, and so it's 20. So I can drop the 20 on it whether I play it or not, right? I think that that's something a lot of game players will think. They'll'll add it to their backlog. It's not expensive and it's a moment.

Speaker 1:

Hollow Knight Silksong is having a moment, but people aren't necessarily playing it yet. It honestly is, because I did my first two TikTok lives this week since the last episode, and these are different activities than what I do on Twitch, because I haven't actually played any video games on TikTok. I'm actually doing this on TikTok and talking about the psychology of being a gamer and talking about. What is the gamer's journey and what can we learn about ourselves, the way we play games Just talking with the PlayStation in the background, so you hear the noise on the menu of whatever game I'm thinking about playing and that's the background track for the conversation. But I have no intent of playing video games on TikTok until I get my stream key. I'm there to create an offshoot for the gaming persona, which Marcus I'm going to announce this now because Doritos knows, because he was on the stream this morning Doing just the talking on TikTok has made me decide that I'm going to start recording what I'm going to call the gaming persona solo quest.

Speaker 1:

It's going to go into the same feed as the gaming persona and it's not going to be every time I do TikTok, but once in a while, like once a week, once every two weeks, I'm going to pick one and it's going to be me doing a solo walkthrough of the academic side of the gaming persona, topics of like. Here's the research. Here's my observation as a expert in psychology and as a clinician who has worked with hundreds or thousands of gamers. And this is how you play in a healthy way and this is how you find the love of video games to build you up, because society is so quick to say, oh, you play video games, you're ruining your life, right? And it's like no, marcus is a raid leader and he just took over hockey in Boston.

Speaker 3:

That's right. No, it's not. No, it's not.

Speaker 1:

No, just Western Mass. Let me blow you up, Marcus. Wait, wait, that can be clipped in very bad ways. Let me celebrate your victories, Marcus.

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm going to go back to the 1% trophy for that. Whatever trophy you got, what you got. I googled the Godric the Grafted trophy Just trophies. This is just PlayStation as of July 11th 2025, so the game's been out three years, three years yeah. Only 56.3% of PlayStation players have the Godric the Grafted trophy.

Speaker 1:

That's the first boss in the game that has a trophy to it Right 53% of people that have bought 56.3% of people that have bought the game on the PlayStation Store.

Speaker 2:

Just over half the people have gotten that far.

Speaker 1:

The PlayStation Store just over half the people have gotten that far 43% of people that have bought the game have not killed Godric the Grafted. They've quit Quitters. You should be ashamed of yourself. You gotta live your journey. Come on, people.

Speaker 2:

Alright, well, no, so I'm gonna go with this. I started that new character in Elden Ring on the PlayStation and it's actually really hard to start a character fresh.

Speaker 1:

It's so hard.

Speaker 2:

Because I already know where to go and what to do. So I'm kind of like pushing myself forward, where before, like that first encampment you find by, where, like I don't know if you meet ronnie or millennia where they give you like the steed yeah, I know what you're talking about.

Speaker 1:

It's the place where you grind it 50 times.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I grinded that over and over and over and over just to level up. But now I'm there, I'm like I don't, you don't get that many runes here, why am I gonna farm this? But then I went into the first dungeon with only going up one or two levels and that first boss in that like cave, the guy with the giant nose yeah he whooped my ass like I won right because you rolling Marcus.

Speaker 1:

No, no, I didn't die.

Speaker 2:

I beat him, but it literally took a lot of hits to beat this guy. Oh yeah, when before?

Speaker 3:

And then he put his, then he equipped a sword.

Speaker 1:

Ah, I try to punch the stone, boss. It's like that episode of Doctor who where he keeps living his life and punching the diamond wall and then dying instantly. And he takes like millions of life regenerations to break through a diamond wall by punching it with his fist, but that's literally the only solution to the problem. It's one of my favorite episodes of Doctor, whoever. It's from the Peter Capaldi era of him being the 12th Doctor. I know we don't usually talk Doctor who on here, but that's really important to me because I did my PhD program because I just wanted to be able to call myself a doctor. Honestly, I thought this is within my capability and I love Doctor who enough that I want to do this. I want to go do it. Alright, back to you, marcus.

Speaker 2:

Back to me.

Speaker 1:

Punch that stone boss with your fists.

Speaker 2:

No, it's just because I pulled up the top played Steam deck games and I look at, most of these games aren't AAA games, but they're some of the most played on the Steam Deck Because they run well on the Steam Deck.

Speaker 2:

Well, okay, yes, I guess my point is that a game doesn't have to be a AAA game to be great. But when will these AAA studios realize that and realize that these, like Claire Obscure 33 people built that game plus some contractors 33 people built that game plus some contractors where you have studios like Bungie who have thousands of employees trying to make Destiny 2, and they still fail?

Speaker 1:

Destiny 2 is an online game of service that is trying to pack in so many activities into the game that it becomes a player's lifestyle, and that is a different thing to build than a game that has a purpose, a goal, a story and a finite calculation of hours that you want a person to experience it to go through one time. Whenever you create gear grinds, you are expecting people to play that content forever until they pass out and die or hydrate, and it's not very healthy for psychology if all the games you play have these kinds of grinds. I was just talking with a group of mental health counselors about this. They asked me a question about what's the difference between a game where most people play it in a healthy way and games where most people play it in an unhealthy way. I was talking about how.

Speaker 1:

What are the game developers trying to do in terms of generating engagement? So let's take a Resident Evil game, marcus. Okay, you shoot things, they're first person. So let's compare my Resident Evils with your Destiny 2. What's the difference? Even if I'm trying to Platinum Trophy, resident Evil Village, the eighth game in the sequence of core games, I'm going to play that game. I don't know. Off the top of my head, they have websites to explain this, but I would't know. Off the top of my head, they have websites to explain this, but I would guess that 60 hours right and the platinum trophy.

Speaker 1:

For people who don't know, that's a list of achievements the game builds into the the game developers have built into the game and by me accomplishing every single one of them, I've cleared all activities in the game successfully. That's what it means. So that's like overachiever, perfectionist, completionist gamer. We want the platinum trophy. That's a badge of honor that I am one of the best at this game, because it matters to me. Destiny 2 can it be platinum trophied on the ps5? Is that a thing that they built in? I mean so in order to like max out everything and clear all bosses and instances on the highest difficulty. How much time would that take?

Speaker 2:

I don't think there's trophies, or at least on Steam.

Speaker 1:

Well, there you go. Well, OK, so you're playing because of your own goals instead of the goals the game studio gave you. That's fine, and I actually like that more from a motivation perspective. But how long would it take to do that same level of mastery in destiny 2 that we just described in resident evil village?

Speaker 2:

a long time. Thank you a long time because probably hundreds of 500 hours.

Speaker 1:

What did you say?

Speaker 3:

doritos, hundreds of hours, 500, I don't know again, a lot of it's going to be, if it's, if it's instances and bosses, because a lot of it's, you know, raid content. So you're gonna have to have a solid, constant group, like you would in most mmos when you do raids, especially if you're doing progression raiding. That would be able to go through those, learn the fights and then become proficient at them yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I want to bring us back to a game all of us have loved for a very long time in our life Star Wars, the Old Republic. Oh boy, do we all remember the very first Dark vs Light event?

Speaker 3:

Yep.

Speaker 1:

I, of course, do. I was collecting my data from my dissertation during this event. It was a very important time in my life.

Speaker 2:

Could you tell everybody what the Dark vs Light event was?

Speaker 1:

time in my life Could you tell everybody what the dark versus light event was? Yeah, so in the game of Star Wars, the Old Republic, there are a lot of moral choices, and moral choices in Star Wars come down to are you championing the light side of the force and doing good in the universe, or are you powering up the dark side and spreading death and devastation at your own whims and fancies, using the dark side to kill?

Speaker 1:

the dark side of the force, and all the thousands and thousands of daily accounts that were signing in were being tracked by the studio the entire summer to see does this population of gamers champion the light side or the dark side of the force? And there was an incentive that we would get a special companion that represented a complete alignment with either the light side or the dark side, based on which side of the force we chose. It's a voting system with our morality chose. It's a voting system with our morality, and one of the coolest things that I ever did is I went on UtiniCast after I collected my data of players and I had a question about the morality choices. It was so staggering in the light side direction that, months before the end of this competition, I told Chill and Tio, the hosts of that show, it will be the light side and it will not even be close, and I was right. So yay for science. That was just cool, because I really put my name out there and it would have been devastating if the dark side won. So that's fun. The reason I bring that up, though, is during that event is the first time that I ever learned that you could put in the chat, slash played okay, I did not know this was a thing, and of course, it 2016. So I've been playing the game since 2011,. Right, is that correct? Yeah, so five years of playing, and in 2016, I typed slash played. And what that does is the game tells you how long exactly you've been playing on the account that you have signed in playing on the account that you have signed in and it told me a number that was more than 365 days. So more than 365 times 24 hours in a day is how long I had played Star Wars the Old Republic in the first five years of it being out. I spent 20% of my existence on planet Earth playing Star Wars the Old Republic and, by the way, just to remind you of what's really important to me, I got all A's in my doc program during that too. So you know, just because I was playing games a lot doesn't mean that I was ignoring my academic or family responsibilities. That's important. It's important to me and that I want to challenge all gamers always to keep your priorities straight. You can play games a lot, but don't forget what's important to you. But that slash played is what we're talking about here. Thanks for the extra five minutes to get there.

Speaker 1:

Games like Star Wars, the Old Republic they're MMORPPGs. The goal is not for me to play and have fun. The goal is for me to stay engaged and keep showing up, to sign in full stop. The end goal of why they do things in that game, when they program it and develop it, is not actually fun number one. I would say it's fun number two. Number one is engagement. Keep the environment of the game as alive as possible. You need players for it to feel that way, and so they designed the game with little tricks to encourage me to do things I've done before, over and over again, and most online games of service do this.

Speaker 1:

This is not a Star Wars the Old Republic thing. It's a World of Warcraft thing. It's also a Candy Crush thing. It's a Marvel Rivals thing. It's a Dead by Daylight thing. It is an online video game thing. All right. So while some video games are like play me, you can finish me in 12 hours, hope you have fun and have a story you'll remember for a while. You can finish me in 12 hours, hope you have fun and have a story you'll remember for a while. The online games are going after your lifestyle, right? Yep, I'm not saying that's a bad thing. It's their business model. There are many things in life that we do that are going after your lifestyle Schools, churches, occupations. Some of these things help you pay the bills. Some of them give you a hobby, some of them give you a community you belong to, but let's just call it out. Some of these video games are going after your lifestyle, and that's the currency they actually want from you?

Speaker 2:

Well, yeah, so you're completely correct. The online live service game is meant to keep you engaged. So in june of 2020, steam star wars the old republic came out on steam. Now that was towards the tail end of me playing. I think I played for really truly, another year or so, but I have 800 hours clocked. But in Destiny 2, I have over 1,000 27 hours clocked, and I only played Destiny 2 for a couple years, really truly so it's. It just proves where you know where Elden Ring, I have 169 hours clocked.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

But I don't have to keep playing it. I mean, I can play the rest of the DLC, but I'm not. It's not a game. That's like forcing me to come back because of new content.

Speaker 1:

Marcus, can I beat a dead horse and maybe a horse that?

Speaker 2:

our audience doesn't know is dead.

Speaker 1:

You know it would help you play that opening area in the game but not have to grind that first campsite 50 times. What new game plus?

Speaker 2:

Well, I'm going to. I don't want to do new game plus through shadow of the earth tree I'm gonna do shadow of the earth tree and then I'll decide all right but I needed a break and now I really like clara. Expedition 34 you should.

Speaker 1:

It's one of the best games of all time doritos.

Speaker 2:

How many hours do you have in Star Wars?

Speaker 1:

All total. Why are you calling him out on our show like that? This is public information.

Speaker 3:

What's wrong with that? I have no problem sharing.

Speaker 1:

Well, he's been playing it since it came out. Yeah, he's the one that didn't quit.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so of all time on all characters, probably over 19,000 hours over the past 14 years, so it's averaging about 1,800 hours a year.

Speaker 1:

How many hours are, even in a year? Do we know that?

Speaker 3:

Oh, if you go by an actual 40-hour workweek job, there's 2,080 man hours in a year, so roughly a man year.

Speaker 1:

There are 8,736 hours in a year. Well, in 52 weeks that's awesome so if you have 18,000, that's like 2.3 years of time.

Speaker 3:

Across all my characters. Yeah, Across all your characters.

Speaker 2:

Right and what makes you come back, Like what's your driving factor to make you come back to a game?

Speaker 3:

Replayability, so the enjoyment of it, the graphics I mean, so tour plenty of community in there. So I mean I've played what mass effect? I played through the legendary edition once, but I've played through mass effect one, five times. So part of it is the OC completionist bit where I want to get all the achievements.

Speaker 2:

Sure. How many times have you played Mass Effect 2?

Speaker 1:

Four. I've played it.

Speaker 2:

Zero, Marcus we know, but you might have not played mass effect, but you're an award-winning author that's true.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, marcus. It's an author and in my book I did talk about mass effect yeah, I feel like that's like not right because you never played it.

Speaker 2:

You shouldn't talk about a game that, that is.

Speaker 1:

I have played it. I played the demo of Mass Effect 2. I played the first 15 hours of Mass Effect 1 on my beautiful R2-D2 Xbox 360. Before the Red Ring of Death I never got the Red Ring of Death. Wow, my stuff is clean, marcus.

Speaker 2:

Nice.

Speaker 1:

It's only ever been with one gamer.

Speaker 2:

Nice. I think I got it two or three times well you shouldn't be passing your xbox around to everybody, jeez that's how those things get transmitted, man what would you say? Your favorite game that wasn't a triple a game. What was?

Speaker 1:

it besides expedition 33.

Speaker 2:

I think we got to add that because if you've listened to the last 25 episodes of this podcast, right, that's like unfair yeah, yeah, because yes, well, no, you could say it's that because then it is not a triple, a title, that is, is not owned by the big five, or whatever.

Speaker 1:

Oh, what are the big five? Marcus? Ea, Epic, Tencent bioware not bioware, because that's owned by ea we say like sony sony bandai namco microsoft microsoft microsoft has become such a kingpin the last three years just buying up everything yeah, but now they're laying off so many of that group though yeah, that's true, it's very sad.

Speaker 2:

But okay, here comes positive Marcus. Yeah, as a game dev, it sucks. You lose your job. But most game devs, once they lose their job, they start their own and they create an indie game or they create something and they end up creating a whole new studio and it's a whole new circle of life I got a exhibition 33.

Speaker 1:

Yes, thank you ubisoft yeah that game exists because ubisoft laid off those people and they're just like. We can make a game without you. Watch this. That's so epic.

Speaker 2:

So I watched the making of Claire Obscure one night when I was laying in bed and I just put my phone on the wireless charger and I kind of watch it until it's time to fall asleep. And they were talking about how it happened with Ubisoft and they actually said they were going to bring it to the Ubisoft team to create the game and they said that in order to get Ubisoft to actually do it would have taken them 20 years to get the approval because they would have never thought it would have worked.

Speaker 1:

Because of this, the board of directors or whatever- yeah, cause they look at things in terms of profitability and their algorithms and their metrics. And right, you know it's it's so hard in terms of profitability and their algorithms and their metrics Right, it's so hard. Movies are experiencing this too. It's why Marvel does all these movies and then it's really hard to see anything that's not a big IP tentpole thing actually make it into theaters. I also think my answer is I got to disqualify the obvious answer, which is Journey by that game company.

Speaker 1:

You know, like, we have a whole episode back in the day where Jenny and I did a narration of a full playthrough of that game. Like it's in the DNA of the show, it's in who it is, who I am as a person at this point, and it's an indie game. You know it's. It's a very small game to download. You can play it on your phone, like and that's not a new thing Like you can play Resident Evil Village on your phone. Now, coincidentally, talking a lot about that game, that was not my bingo card, but you know it's been on the apple app store for over a decade even have you guys ever played baldur's gate 3 yeah, I played it this morning all right.

Speaker 1:

So would you say that's a triple, a game yes so larian studios is a big one they spent a long time making that game.

Speaker 1:

Marcus, like I played the demo for that game at my very first pax east that I went to wow, that was a long time ago first psychology of pokemon panel, so that would have been like 20, 21 or 22, and then the game was in beta testing so you could play the opening act of the game. But it wasn't the full game and it was in development and everything was with that asterisk of everything subject to change. The full release of that game was a big deal, long time coming.

Speaker 2:

Okay, then there it is. I was just curious.

Speaker 3:

So I guess, Marcus, what are you defining as a AAA studio?

Speaker 2:

If it's the big five, six, whatever it is, it's the big big ones.

Speaker 3:

The household giant name?

Speaker 2:

yeah, but I don't know anything about larian studios like did they publish the game on the? Budget than it is the the studio, though yeah, maybe yeah, you don't have to be, you don't have to be a big guy to have a big budget.

Speaker 3:

That's true. You have to have the right guy to have a big budget. That's true, you have to have the right investors.

Speaker 1:

I want to ask an interesting question about this.

Speaker 2:

Hold on, doc. You have to have investors that have big pockets to create a AAA. You're right, doritos. So it doesn't have to do with the dev, it has to do with the money soaked into the game. So then, what would you consider the money Like? How much money do you have to spend for us to label it a AAA studio? 100 million, 200 million?

Speaker 1:

I want to throw out an interesting question because obviously God of War Ragnarok is a AAA game. Made by Sony yep, sony, santa Monica, right, but what if I said God of War 1 for the PS2? That was still a big budget for then, what did Sony, santa Monica do even before God of War 1? I don't know the answer to this question. I don't know how much money it took to make that game and I know inflation and the year they came out probably like 2006, right?

Speaker 2:

So the original God of War cost 22 million. The budget for the game was 10 million, but it went to 22 million in 2005.

Speaker 1:

In 2005,. Right, so is 22 million in 2005 in 2005. Right, so is 22 million in 2005 a triple-a game, okay, so game development costs in 2025 were significantly lower than today.

Speaker 2:

Later titles budgets for sequels like god of war 3 was 44 million. God of war rock was 200 million, which is much higher, reflecting the increasing cost and complexity of a AAA game development.

Speaker 1:

So my question is was God of War 1 a AAA title?

Speaker 2:

I think for the time yes.

Speaker 3:

Budgetarily, you're talking tens of millions of dollars to be considered a AAA title. So you know, even if it's, you know, 15 to 25 million, that's still pushing the boundaries of AAA game.

Speaker 1:

Of course, yeah. So I'm just thinking about the games that I've really enjoyed and what is the first game by that studio that I ever played and trying to figure out? At some point, these AAA studios were a studio making a game that a lot of people believed in, lot of people believed in, so I'm thinking about games like bioshock.

Speaker 2:

I'm thinking about the very first devil may cry, or the first resident evil on the ps1.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the original halo is it possible for halo, published directly by microsoft with the launch of the xbox console, okay, bungie, right. Like, is that? Were they ever indie? I don't know. I think that this is a little bit up to our own definitions too.

Speaker 1:

I don't think this is a real label. I think it's just a way to separate expectations for game audiences and say like, oh, this one should have this because it cost a lot of money to make and had full corporate backing by a major corporation and had full corporate backing by a major corporation. And then this one, we can expect different style of graphics, different style of voice work, different style of game involvement for the game player to experience it, because it was made by a smaller studio, a smaller budget, a smaller period of time. Well, maybe not in Hollow Knight's case, because that game took a long time too. Yeah, but is Hollow Knight a AAA game or is it still an indie game? Like, I'm sure, the first one, you could argue for its indie status, but it's got such an audience now Everyone's talking about it, but they still released it.

Speaker 2:

They haven't, but it's releasing for $20.

Speaker 1:

That might just be because of the price point, that the amount they spent on it and their estimate of how it can become profitable.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

I'm going to ask Google what the best indie games of all time are, and our answers are Hades, celeste, hollow Knight, dardu Valley, cuphead, journey, cuphead, the Binding of Isaac Ori and the Will of the Wisp.

Speaker 2:

Hey, Doritos is playing that Bellatro.

Speaker 1:

Undertale.

Speaker 2:

Bellatro's a card game.

Speaker 1:

It was nominated for Game of the Year last year and many people bought it on multiple consoles because it was affordable and people were addicted to it and wanted to be able to play it on everything they owned yeah, well, it was one of the best.

Speaker 2:

It was like number one on the steam deck for a whole year yeah, because it runs well on the Steam Deck Disco Elysium Spirit Farer.

Speaker 1:

Oh, I love that one. That was one of my favorite parts of my book to write about Tunic Mm-hmm. Fez Papers Please. Sifu Shovel Knight Fall Guys Gone Home. Papers please, seafood shovel. Night fall. Guys gone home fall guys, huh, that's what they said fall guys was fun oh, would we say, among us is an indie game. Yeah yeah binding of Isaac. Did I say that earlier?

Speaker 3:

I'm surprised Minecraft hadn't been on the list yet.

Speaker 2:

Minecraft isn't an indie game.

Speaker 1:

It's not on. Oh Outlast. Look at that Horror being represented. Love that.

Speaker 2:

Subnautica. Yes, that game's creepy. I watched somebody play that game Outlast. It made it because the game is like the scariest game you'll ever play.

Speaker 1:

That sounds fun wait, you've never played outlast I have it in my backlog on steam, and october is happening soon though but if you're gonna play it, I think you need to play it in complete pitch black in your office well, I am in pitch black with all my purple and blue lights you gotta turn everything off and I can't stream in the dark yes, you can, though.

Speaker 2:

That's the whole point of the horror, your screen, your face, is the only thing lit up and to get the full effect. So when it scares the bejesus out of you, you're fucking.

Speaker 1:

Marcus, you might see me in the light right now, but I have the darkness inside of me. I'm always in there. I do not fear the dark side as you do.

Speaker 2:

I just rolled my eyes so hard I have brought peace, justice, security to my new empire.

Speaker 2:

Oh my God, I can't believe you just did that. So maybe three weeks ago or so, I was at work and I was talking to Doc because I don't know that's what we do and we were talking about books and audio books and all this, and he goes oh my fate. And I said what I don't know how it came up, but he said his one of his favorite books is, uh, revenge of the sith, an audio book, because it like portrayed who he is kind of sort of with anakin. And I was like I didn't even know they had an. I didn't even know they had a novelization for Revenge of the Sith, let alone an audio version, so I downloaded it. I'm going to tell you right now if you do audiobooks, do yourself a favor and listen to, to Revenge of the Sith. It has to be the darkest version of Star Wars ever written, because you feel the pain of Anakin Skywalker through the whole movie and you really feel bad for Mace Windu.

Speaker 1:

No.

Speaker 2:

No.

Speaker 1:

No, you will fail. Oh sorry, did that? My phone fell off my monitor? Yeah, because it was really convincing.

Speaker 1:

So, yep, I'm glad you enjoyed it, because I'm serious the poetry for each section of that book because there's section transitions with poetry about the balance between light and dark and what it's reflected in the character of Anakin and how Anakin is a metaphor for the balance in the galaxy because he's the chosen one, those poems have meant everything to me since 2005. They seriously are what I use to reflect on how I fit into the things happening in the world or the things that I hope to have an impact on. They're just beautiful and they're tragic and heartbreaking and they still give you hope because you know, the whole point of Revenge of the Sith is that it leads you into a new hope, right Like that. That truly is the entire reason, for the story is doom and gloom and devastation in the dark winds, but it still ends with the twin sunset and and Luke and Leia. Right and sorry, spoilers for Revenge of the Sith, but you know, go watch the movie.

Speaker 1:

What even were we talking about? We had the Revenge of the Sith, but go watch the movie. What even were we talking about? We had Revenge of the Sith, we had Journey. Oh, favorite, most influential indie game. I read that big list. I didn't read all 100 games in the list, but the ones that I've heard of and I know we've mentioned before on the history of the show. Anything pop out to either of you from the games I just threw out there, blurted my god my favorite from ign.

Speaker 3:

I mean, journey is always a good one. I've never played it.

Speaker 1:

You can always say mass effect, marcus it's not an indie game I'm kidding of course it's not.

Speaker 3:

I mean I've got, uh, I've wrapped up, or in the blind forest, I mean that's still really good. So that whole honestly franchise.

Speaker 2:

Mine is Norman's Night in the Cave. Norman, yeah, so we met I remember that.

Speaker 2:

Nick and I went to PAX East it was our first year with media badges we met the developers for this game called Norman's Night in the Cave and it's a Metroidvania kind of and it's a slingshot mechanic where you like bounce off stuff. You can't like actually jump. Everything is like spring, like slingshot, it's about angles and geometry and stuff. And we met them. Nick Irofino was the dev and he came on the podcast a bunch of times and we helped promote the game and I had so much fun playing that game because I played it on my phone but you could get it. You can get it on steam as well, but it was so much fun to be able to play that. You know, in random times, oh shit, I've got five or six minutes to waste because I'm waiting for my kid to be ready or gymnastics to be over or something and you could play this game and it was so much fun and it's like $3.99. Let's see if it's still on here.

Speaker 1:

I don't know if games get removed from Steam.

Speaker 2:

They can, but if you've bought them, you still get to own them. Norman's Night In.

Speaker 1:

Yep, you can still get it. I have a question for both of you. Is going back to 1980 and playing Super Mario Brothers an indie game, or was Nintendo big enough even back then?

Speaker 3:

they were big enough back then.

Speaker 1:

So that's a triple A game too like did any yeah, like did triple A gaming exist in the 1980s? Like could I say, final fantasy one is my favorite indie game I don't think that was an indie game it was the final fantasy before they go bankrupt and their studio dies.

Speaker 1:

But it hit and it propelled Square Enix into what it is now. I would argue that is an indie game that just launched a crazy successful franchise. I mean, that's my point with like we started out small with God of War, like obviously God of War is a AAA game for the PS2, right. But my argument is games with a very good vision and great execution are what allow these studios to become AAA studios. But that first hit was not AAA. It just has the reputation of launching the AAA for that group of people.

Speaker 2:

And as you ponder that, continue the journey. Thank you.

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Daniel Kaufmann

Host
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Doritos

Co-host
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MarcusB814

Co-host