The Gaming Persona

When Play Becomes Purpose: Finding Joy Beyond The Stream

• Daniel Kaufmann Ph.D. | Dr. Gameology • Season 5 • Episode 34

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A joke about cows opens the door to something bigger: how we get hooked on stories, why endings are so hard to accept, and what happens when streaming turns play into obligation. We start with the Stranger Things trailer and fan expectations, then jump into the real friction—when our headcanon collides with a creator’s finale. That same tension shows up in games we love: we crave challenge, but we also want our time respected.

From Elden Ring’s dungeon pacing to Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’s sprawling checklists, we unpack how smart checkpointing, clear goals, and optional depth shape whether a 45-minute session feels thrilling or wasted. Claire Obscure becomes our case study in obsession, with a late-game twist that expands the world and rewires how you plan builds, approach difficulty, and read story beats. One of us finished under-leveled and learned to parry out of necessity; the replay flipped the experience into empowerment. That contrast reveals how design meets player psychology in the moments that keep us thinking about a game at work, in the car, and long after midnight.

We also talk frankly about streaming. The “prison sentence” mindset creeps in when you pick games for chat instead of curiosity. Our fix is a hybrid plan: keep one on-stream game for narrative continuity and play a second passion pick off-stream, then bring highlights, analysis, and story beats back to the community. Along the way we swap memories of SWTOR podcast commutes, Horizon’s platinum chase, Mortal Kombat’s nostalgic rewind features, and a few spicy debates about Fortnite SBMM and map fatigue.

If you care about game design that respects your time, the psychology of finales, and finding joy on and off stream, you’ll feel seen here. Subscribe, share with a friend who’s stuck on what to play next, and drop a review telling us the last game that took over your brain.

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Thanks for Listening, and Continue The Journey!

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, guys, I got a question for you. Okay, what do you got? How do cows count?

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know. How do cows count? A calculator. A calculator. Wow. We haven't had one of those yet.

SPEAKER_02:

But that's okay. That's okay. It was fantastic.

SPEAKER_01:

My mind is blown. I don't even know where to go from that.

SPEAKER_02:

I asked Rhino what how cows count, and he goes, Cow.

SPEAKER_03:

But he didn't get the collater part. That's okay.

SPEAKER_01:

His enthusiasm is impressive though. Yeah, where do you think he gets it from? His mother.

SPEAKER_02:

No, that would be the negativity.

SPEAKER_01:

You're married to the negativitron from Little Big Planet?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Okay.

SPEAKER_03:

Are you guys stranger things fans? Yeah. From Netflix. You know, the show about the upside down. And Eleven and Waffles. And 1980s. D D.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow, that was a compelling conversation.

SPEAKER_01:

I am a huge fan of Stranger Things. Where are you going with this?

SPEAKER_02:

So they released the season five trailer, and I think I've watched it nine times and watched like four videos. Because I'm hoping they don't screw up the final season like every show f screws up the final season. Can I share a hypothesis?

SPEAKER_00:

Of course you can.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that final seasons are actually fine. It's that us as human beings have a problem letting go and seeing stories as final.

SPEAKER_02:

I can see your point, and I'm going to raise you 20 and say that I think final seasons are good, but people have their own mind made up on how their show is going to end or their game is going to end or something like that. So you can't ever live up to your own hype. Like me with the Mass Effect 3, we talked about this before. Like I loved one, two, I loved three, but the way it ended, I was just like, that wasn't how I would have done it. And move on. Just if they ever did Knights of the Old Republic remake, they would have to end it the exact same way, or it would be trash to me. Because I know how that ends.

SPEAKER_01:

Why would they change that? Because they are giving people choices.

SPEAKER_03:

We have bright side, dark side. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, he coughed. But anyway, so I'm a little obsessed right now with the whole Strangers Things Stranger Things hype. And I didn't even know that trailer came out. Dude, you gotta watch it. It's wild. Okay. Like you definitely have to watch it. The other thing is tomorrow night I'm going to Friday Night SmackDown in Albany, New York.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's cool. Ooh.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Have they announced anything that's going to be there?

SPEAKER_02:

So Jay Uso versus the Miz in the last time is now tournament. And then LA Night, yeah, versus we don't know because Nick Aldous wouldn't say who they're wrestling against. So if I had a guess, it's going to be a secret, like a top secret guest. I'm going with Joe Hendry because they said I'm not going to say his name. And that's like his gimmick. You say his name, he appears. So I think I love Joe Hendry. Yeah. Chris. Yeah. He's going to appear. So then B Fab versus Jade Cargill. Who killers? Who cares? And Cody Rhodes will be there, which I'm believe it or not, out of all the wrestlers, I'm the most excited for Cody Rhodes because I've never gotten to see Cody Rhodes live. So and this was like spur of the moment, like last minute, last Friday. I was drinking a beer. We were watching Friday Night SmackDown, and I looked because Albany's only an hour and 20 minutes from me. And I looked and I got tickets for 50 bucks a piece in the lower bowl. That's crazy. It's because they're struggling. Raw is like the A, and definitely SmackDown's really like a D. So like they're having trouble selling tickets right now. And they had a me plus wait, three plus me, so four ticket price, and it was like$56 a ticket. And I'm lower bowl like seventh row. So it's perfect.

SPEAKER_01:

That's really cool. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And my kids love it and they're excited. I'm going to throw them in the dad van and I'm buying a pizza, throwing it on the floor of the dad van. They're getting plates or drinks and we're cruising. We're eating pizza while we drive. Be safe. The kids are going to be eating pizza. Me, I'll just eat it whenever. Okay. Be on the way back. I have a topic for tonight that I'd like to talk to. Okay. Talk about. Wait, talk to? Talk. I'm talking to you guys.

SPEAKER_01:

You can talk to the topic.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, I want to talk to the topic and I want to talk about the topic.

SPEAKER_01:

Which is what is it?

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, I'm sorry. I was rambling.

SPEAKER_01:

No way.

SPEAKER_02:

All right. I want to talk about how games suck us in. Because Doc did not get sucked into Mass Effect, but he got sucked into writing a book. If you guys didn't know, it's called The Gamer's Journey and it's won an award. But anyway, I'm I get sucked into certain games. It doesn't happen super often, but like I got sucked into Swo Tor, and then I got sucked into Elden Ring. And now I'm 100% obsessed with Claire Obscure Expedition 33.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, you really are. I couldn't drag you out of the game in order to do the podcast tonight. It was funny.

SPEAKER_02:

No, I didn't know what time. So sometimes, Doc, you're like 8:45 Eastern. Sometimes you're 9.15 Eastern, because it just depends on how much of your coffee is prepared. And if you get sucked into making your coffee and like you end up chatting with your wife and like life. And then it could be 20 minutes before you come back, or Doritos has to take the dog for a walk or whatever. And most of the time it's me that's late, but I'm just using you guys as the examples of being late. And so I was like, Oh, I'll just play Claire. And I can't figure out why my character is taking damage on her first move every turn. She's taking like a thousand K DPS to herself every single first turn.

SPEAKER_01:

Or I'm unequip everything, unequip everything, and then just start over. Re rebuild her. Yeah, just yeah, it's a good idea. I think you'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_02:

I'll be doing that.

SPEAKER_01:

It's gotta be a weird combination of having this skill with that skill creates a weird effect because they conflict with each other.

SPEAKER_02:

Sure. And I've made a decision that as soon as the Steam fall sale comes out, I'm buying Doritos Claire, just so I can tell you he's gonna have no choice.

SPEAKER_01:

And then Claire was on sale this week.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. On Xbox, right?

SPEAKER_01:

On Steam. I got an email about it.

SPEAKER_02:

It's not on my list.

SPEAKER_01:

It's like 48, 48 dollars or something instead of 60 or something like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Autumn sale is coming in a week or so. So but anyway, so back to my addiction. What I'm I want to know, and I want to break this down. Have you guys ever gotten to that? Like it's what you can think about all day. Like, I'm watching build videos just to like further my knowledge of the game, even though I don't actually do anything with the build videos, but it's just to keep it in my head. Like I think I've watched what to do in act three videos, like three or four of them, because I feel lost. But you guys ever get like that? Do you ever get infatuated with the game?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. I used to a lot. Used to, so what happened? That sounds past tense.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I can tell you what I I still could. I just haven't found the game that's going to do it. And if you are paying attention to my Twitch channel, it's very obvious that I don't know what I want to play right now.

SPEAKER_02:

Bing bing! You know what it is? You guys want to know? It's because he's in his prison sentence right now, and because he's making a choice of the game he placed for his audience rather than for himself. That's why. Prison sentence. I've been there, done that.

SPEAKER_01:

You gotta make bumper stickers or something, Marcus.

SPEAKER_02:

Streaming is a prince's prison sentence.

SPEAKER_01:

Dirty, dirty Marcus Mysterio.

SPEAKER_02:

No, but I'm serious. Think about it. He was playing Fortnite, he was getting great numbers. Yeah, it's a Fortnite's a fun game, and I couldn't play it every day all day. I play it with my son. It gets monotonous. You know, how many battle royales can you do in a row? Five, ten, if you do pretty good, twenty, you know what I mean? Before you get tired of it.

SPEAKER_01:

On that topic, the Simpsons map is not my jam. I really liked the map that I started playing with a lot. It was huge, and the matches had about 100 people. The Simpsons map is small, there's about 75 people every match, and I think a lot of really good players returned, or I got worse. I don't like the gun selection because some of my favorite guns are not in the game right now. And it's harder to be successful.

SPEAKER_02:

Two things I'm gonna say because I played a lot with Rhino. So first is the good players aren't coming back, you're actually getting better in their matchmaking you with players of your skill or better now, because it's all about it's a skill-based matchmaking, right? So once you so once you get into like the rhythm of being better, now you're being put in a pool of better players. So now you're having to elevate your game more rather than be like in the ish section where you had a better chance because did you just call me a new bitch? No, noob is yes, he did. He said you're a noob bitch in playing. You're a noob bitch. This is an Xbox 360. Thank you, thank you for that.

SPEAKER_01:

I really did not hear that correctly, but it still works.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, so what I'm saying is the skills-based matchmaking, that's how it works. So, what I can say is so if you do zero build battle royale with the Simpsons map, after you do five of them, stop and do the Blitz Royale, which is a smaller map, and then the storm shrinks faster, and you land with a gun. And it's usually a pretty good gun, and it's a faster game. So I think there's only 50 people, and it's much faster, but you do that five times and it takes you out of the rotation of the zero build, and then you can go back to zero build, and it almost starts the matchmaking over again.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02:

Because the more you play the same thing, the more it's gonna scale you the way you're going.

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks for the tip.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, but back to the you were pretty addicted to Claire.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh I beat it twice and on stream the whole playthrough for both. And I do want to go back to it and do a trophy cleanup and maybe even do New Game Plus, because there might be some stuff in New Game Plus that I really appreciate. But I just haven't had a morning where I had time. I think that the issue is with a game like that, I really want to make it to where I have two hours at least. And my morning is just getting so crunched by work stuff and the automatic family routine that and I'm trying to exercise and take care of my body goals. By the time I could sit down, boot up Streamlabs, get the capture card running with the PS5, it's oh my gosh, I'm gonna have a 55-minute stream. And I just mentally I talk myself out of it. And is a 55-minute stream better than is than no stream? Absolutely it is. But when I'm sitting in this chair lately, because I don't have a channel goal right now either, I just talk myself out of it.

SPEAKER_03:

That's how I was with Elden Ring. Elden Ring Shadow of the Ur Tree ruined my Elden Ring experience.

SPEAKER_02:

And it wasn't because of the difficulty, it was because they scaled up their dungeons so much that I went into this cave and I spent 45 minutes going through this cave only to die and start over in the beginning and have to do another 45 minutes to get to the same point I was at. Actually, it probably took me 35 minutes this time, but still it was a long time. And then I got down there and died again. And if I like you, if I only have a half an hour to play a game, I'm not gonna spend it doing that just to die. It's not that at that point, it's not fun anymore. And the Fromsoft gamers that are listening to this telling me to get good, it's not about that. It's about respecting time. And I if you're gonna have a dungeon that's gonna be 50 minutes or 45 minutes as a cave, give a grace at the bottom halfway through to respect that.

SPEAKER_01:

Where you put the graces in a game like that really is important for game devs to look at, I think. Respecting the game player's time is something you and I, Marcus, have talked about in the last eight years over a hundred times. Because there have been so many games where I'm like, it's really fun, but I don't feel like the people who made this respect my time. And these are games that I love, by the way. This is just a critique, it's not usually a thing that makes me say this game is trash. I'm talking about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, one of my favorite games of all time. And my viewers have seen me play it on stream. I shared a lot of those moments with my community, and that was my second playthrough. My first playthrough, I did not stream because the maps have so many side quests to get specific things for the characters, and my main battle party that I chose to use was Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa, and so I would do everything that would benefit Cloud, Aerith, and Tifa first, and it's hundreds of little objectives. Every new map, you have a new set of 75 quest goals on that map, but the story would take you 45 minutes to go across the map, get the new boss, get the new cutscene, continue the story. The story of Rebirth is not an 80-hour game. The 100-hour version of that game is the player who gets stuck on the map doing all the things that Square Enix shoehorned into it with little measurement markers of we have 40% of this done, you have 85% of this done, and if you want this summon, you gotta go do the these six extra boss fights on this map. And mini-games galore. I don't think that's respecting time. I think you're padding a short, very enjoyable story game with the elements that appeal to skibbity ADHD gamer population that thinks everything has to be illogical and random in order for the game to be worth their time.

SPEAKER_03:

Sure. Yeah. And that's how we get obsessed with the game.

SPEAKER_02:

So, Doritos, what game has gotten you obsessed lately or that you can clearly remember?

SPEAKER_00:

There has been one lately. Pick a game, it's a newer game that I've started. I'll play through it just because I want the change of pace because I've been playing what, Sotor for since beta, so it's almost 14-15 years now. When when that came out, yeah, definitely was obsessed looking at builds, watching videos, being a student of uh that type of game, because this is that was my first MMO that I played. So, how how does this work? How do I interact with this? I'd say I've done the same thing for to the old republic, the original. I picked it apart. I even went into the I and I files and started being able to change a little bit of the code to mod the game a little bit. So definitely went that far into it. Sure.

SPEAKER_01:

I loved giving myself all the cool items at the very beginning of that game. That made it so you could just enjoy the story and walk around feeling a little bit more like you're a Sith Lord the whole time. Sure.

SPEAKER_00:

Um I'm trying to think of other games that I was that thinking about. Like if I'm at work or in a meeting, it's popped in my head, oh, I really need to do this. There really hasn't been one that has grabbed my attention like those two did.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I I I want to just bring up about the old republic because I was a first-year doc student when it launched, and I had still life balance at that time, and I did things that I enjoyed. And I'm here tonight talking to the two of you because one of the main ways I would enjoy the old republic when I didn't have the chance to play is I'd listen to Old Republic radio, I'd listen to Uttini cast, and I'd listen to eventually I found the Escape podcast and oh, what was Bad Feeling podcast? So I had like my whole commute from work and to my clients' schools and stuff was all just learning more about the old republic. And I didn't have friends who could raid, and I didn't think I was good enough to raid at one point in time, if you can all imagine that. And so they would talk about this mythical thing, the Dread Council and Kethys, and they'd talk about it in a way that made me imagine, oh, they know all the secrets about these. And so I'd imagine these fights even though I've never seen them. And it made the game feel like a mythos to me. I really miss having a game that made me feel like that. I don't have that right now because of the prison sentence. That's what I'm really searching for is what's gonna be the next game that makes me feel good about thinking about a game with my imagination like that. Right. You were gonna say something, Marcus, but I really didn't want to lose that thought. No, I'm good. I was rude and I talked right over you.

SPEAKER_02:

No, it's fine. I started to. He says, Dorito says he wasn't obsessed, but I remember a game like he couldn't put it down, and myself and Nick watched it happen, and that's horizon Horizon Dawn Zero Zero Dawn.

SPEAKER_00:

There's the original Zero Dawn, and I did play Forbidden West and the DLC No, the first one, the first one you played Forbidden West Horizon Zero Dawn every day.

SPEAKER_02:

Duridoza was in Discord playing that game, and I would pop in because I like beautiful games. That game is so beautiful. You played that every day, yeah, nonstop.

SPEAKER_00:

And then I went back and did every did I put it on every mode and Platinum trophy did.

SPEAKER_02:

So there it is.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow, that's so cool.

SPEAKER_02:

But speaking of like the Platinum Trophy and Doc saying he's gonna go back to Claire to clean up stuff, he told me yesterday that he didn't do a boss that I was doing, and it made me feel like yeah, I got it. I've done more than Doc in this game. Let's go.

SPEAKER_01:

Except I wouldn't go that far. My Lune does not self-harm.

SPEAKER_02:

Mine's my lune's stressed out because I'm controlling her. What can I sell?

SPEAKER_01:

I do not panic, Perry. Oh my gosh. You had a fight yesterday where I was like, yeah, that's you're doing so good. I didn't want to say it out loud because I didn't want to jinx it because I know that can happen. But hanging out with you while you were playing the game a few times this week has been some of the highlights. It has been the highlight of my social life, but some of the highlights of just my whole week in general.

SPEAKER_02:

Really? Why?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Because I'm overworking myself and I have no boundaries with my schedule.

SPEAKER_02:

I've enjoyed, and but you're a good you and Doritos are a great viewer, like somebody to hang out with because you guys respect games. And what I mean by that is you have you guys understand that if I'm in the middle of a fight, you're not going to start having a full all-out conversation with me because you know I'm terrible at terrible at multitasking.

SPEAKER_00:

Not if we actually want to watch you succeed, if we want to just give you a hard time and watch you fail colossally, we'll start talking to you and see how how fast we can get you off the rails.

SPEAKER_02:

Or it's if I'm in a cutscene, you guys don't talk where other people, if they're in there and they're watching you and they see a cutscene, they're just like so I have a fun story that brings back one of our favorite people on the show, Jenny, from the first 125.

SPEAKER_01:

I invited her to a Final Fantasy community night on my channel, which had a lot of AIE players. And at that point in time, the composition of AIE players was very loud, very chaotic. Used to raiding with me. I'm not loud and chaotic, I'm pretty contained. And at the end, she just like text messaged me on my phone after we got out of Discord. Is that what playing on your channel is like all the time now? And it was just like that's awesome. Yeah, so I get what you're saying about the chaos, but I want to talk about our restraint because Dorito's watched me play this game twice. And and of course I've played the game twice, and you're finishing act two out of three, and I accidentally let slip earlier in the play session. Like, Marcus, is this act three? And you're like, I don't know. Luckily, you didn't think about what that means, because and you clearly didn't connect that to the puzzle inside your head because the whole boss fight, you're talking in a very final way. This is such a beautiful game, this story was amazing. What am I gonna play next, guys? I'm like, you're gonna you're gonna play Claire Obscure Expedition 33 for 20 more hours.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh all right, so I'll back it up. So let's give the context. So I'm playing Claire and I'm at the painteress fight. So this whole yeah game for the first I don't know, I've spent 28 hours in to get to this point. And I'm finally at this boss that this is the big boss, the big baddie bad, and I beat her, the painteress, dead, gone, kaputs, and I'm back in Loomie Air, everybody's celebrating. I'm like tearing up, I'm so happy. Doc is hanging out, and I'm like, I don't know what I'm gonna play next. I gotta pull up Steam and figure out like what's next for me. And I'm gonna watch it. And I did, I watched a YouTube video.

SPEAKER_01:

I let you do it too.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, like what to play next after Claire Obscure because I'm in that turn-based mode and I kind of like it. And then and then it and then shit goes down. Like in a pano snapped, that's what happened. Pano snapped, and I oh my god, I remember no joke, get ready to bleep me out. I was like, what the fuck? I thought this game was done, like I just lost it, and then the game opens up, and it I sound like Ariel to a whole new jasmine to a whole new world, and it's now I'm lost because I see this quest marker on the map, it is blinking. Finish the game, but all of a sudden I can go anywhere now. And there's I was doing something, I don't know who I was hanging out with, maybe it was Doc. I was just flying around on SK and I flew into this like serpent. Flew into a bonus box. I flew into a bonus boss. I'm like, oh no. And the first hit this boss hit me, it was like a million damage done.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, you're dead.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. So the reality is I'm this game is a lot bigger than I thought, and now I can't. So now I gotta figure out how to play this game. Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of really good story moments left, too. So it's not just an open world game. It's in fact, I don't even know if that quest marker is the end of the game.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, it's Lumier. Yeah, but that's that's the I'll say that's the all that's the beginning of the end game. That's once you start that quest, the game that you're finishing the game.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, probably. The story, anyway. Yeah, see, that's my big problem is even games like Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild, I play them as if they're very mission focused. And so that quest marker was just too much for me to resist the first time. My first playthrough that I finished it in 31 hours, about 20 levels lower than you're supposed to for the final fights. So everything was super hard, and I had to parry in order to survive, which did make me a better player, but it also felt like this is not balanced right. This is a very hard game. I came back on my second playthrough, more in the 45 to 50 hour range, and I flattened everything. So it really depends what you want out of the game. Sure.

SPEAKER_02:

I have 36.9 hours in the game, and I'm just I'm like 30 minutes into act three.

SPEAKER_03:

That's fun.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, this is not Expedition 33, but it is two things that I've done in my gaming that I want to talk about. I started Kingdom Hearts. One. Yes, I did. I won eventually Platinum Trophy it, but I have no trophies, so I have to just play it. And I made it through Traverse Town, so I'm gonna get my gummy ship next time I play, and I'm gonna get to leave, I'm gonna get to go to Alice in Wonderland, I think is the first Disney World, but it doesn't matter. I'll do it as they come. And I also off-stream have been playing the Mortal Kombat collection, and it's just such a cool experience because they have rewind. You can push the left stick in and rewind, you can do debug menus on the arcades, and you can really choose to have you can choose to have your move list displayed on the top left of the screen, so you know your special moves at all times. And I was able to beat Mortal Kombat 1 on arcade and Genesis and Mortal Kombat 2 on arcade, and yesterday morning I beat Mortal Kombat 3 with Cyrax. So my my my winning characters so far are Scorpion, Liu Kang for Mortal Kombat 1, Baraka for 2, and Cyrax for Mortal Kombat 3. And it's just really taking me back because that's the origin of me as a gamer. That's where the description of oh, that's Daniel, and he plays video games is even my very first fight I ever did was at a pizza hut. I picked to play as Kano, I fought Raiden, Raiden destroyed me. I got to relive that match on my big TV in my living room, and I felt connected to things across the entire timeline of my life. And I just wanted to share like moments like that, whatever your game is, we all have that in us, and it's just really magical when a game company takes time to bring us a chance to find that moment again.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I feel like Claire is giving me that. Elden Ring gave me that, but in a different way.

SPEAKER_02:

I enjoy a good story where Elden Ring, I didn't care about the story as much as making a promise to myself that I wasn't gonna let that. That game beat me.

SPEAKER_01:

That game became a status symbol for the players who played it.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. You're right.

SPEAKER_02:

You know why? Because this guy at the lumber yard where he works at the counter, he's like a counter salesman. He was dressed up as, oh my God, you guys are gonna be so mad. What's the elf from Legolas?

SPEAKER_01:

From Lord of the Rings.

SPEAKER_02:

Lord of the Rings. And he was dressed up as Legolas, and he looked legit, right? And I was like, bro, you game? He goes, Of course I do. I was like, okay, what do you play? He goes, Elden Ring, baby. And I was like, I beat Elden Ring. He goes, What's your build? And then I was like, Moonvale. He goes, it's like cheating. And I was like, bro, that wasn't cheating. That's game hard. And he started laughing. He's like, oh man, I did this like super bonk build and blah, blah, blah. He's like rambling off. I was like, whoa. This and I was like, all right, you play Dark Souls? Nah, I'm in Securo now, and that is the hardest game I've ever played. I'm like, all right, here we go. This guy's a gamer. And I was like, oh, you play Claire? And he's like, it's on my list. My girlfriend bought it for me, and I just haven't played it yet. He's because I'm when I was because I can't put these FromSoft games down.

SPEAKER_01:

I had a similar situation with this. We were on a Disney cruise this past summer. To Alaska. And you get Yeah, to Alaska. And we had you get the same family to sit with you at all the restaurants every single night. So you really get to know them. He's this big musley dude with a beard. Like he could bench press six of me if he wanted to. Really nice guy, and was fascinated by what I do. And I was talking with him about what he does, but he had to be secretive because of like company NDA and stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

So basically he's the Navy SEAL.

SPEAKER_01:

It was like finance, actually. So like big buff guy that does money stuff. And he's Alberut. He was he was talking to me about the video games he's playing. And the first dinner, he just looks at me. I'm wearing a video game shirt, don't remember which one. And he just do games and psychology, right? I was like, Yeah, he's what do you think about Claire Obscure Expedition 33? I almost died. And my wife is sitting next to me, and she's just so thrilled that I got this person to bond with at all these dinners. So then we just talked about Expedition 33 for the whole 90 minutes. He's like, When we get a good internet signal, I'm gonna buy it, I'm gonna get on my laptop, I'm gonna tell you what I think about it. And and so that was really fun.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, what plays?

SPEAKER_01:

He talked to me a lot about Halo and Show, yep, MLB the show.

SPEAKER_02:

That's a good game, man.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I know. Yeah, so a lot of sports games and a lot of shooter games, but he was just thinking like he talked to me also about Zelda games that he played when he was much younger. So he had an itch to get a story game, I think is what he was talking to me. And of course, I dropped name dropped my book and tried to be interesting sounding. It worked The Gamer's Journey. I have a question for you, Marcus. When I said I was playing Kingdom Hearts, you said, Oh, interesting, and we didn't get any follow-up, and I want to hear from you what that means.

SPEAKER_02:

I thought you played a lot of, I thought you've beat them all. Like, I thought you've played them all. You love Kingdom Hearts.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so I do. I love Kingdom Hearts. It's one of the three most important game franchises to understand what I'm saying in the gamers' journey, right? It really comes down to understanding Kingdom Hearts, understanding the Legend of Zelda, and maybe a few others, but I had to challenge myself to do certain sections of that book without Kingdom Hearts because I didn't want people to think I was writing the psychology of Kingdom Hearts. Maybe I should write that someday. I don't know. I think it would sell pretty well. But I hired a coach for my YouTube channel through vidIQ, so I get to meet with him a couple times a week. We're working on a video for me to create about Kingdom Hearts and overcoming the darkness and using games in our mental health journey. And so, in order to get ready for that, I wanted to have some footage of me playing the game as B-roll. So just that morning, I was really thinking about the script. I was thinking about the outline and what kinds of things I'm trying to target. And a lot of those moments are early in the game. So I thought I can get this footage now or in one or two more streams after today. And so I just decided to do it because that was the thing that felt the most relevant for me that morning. And when I wake up in the morning, I don't have a plan of what I'm gonna stream, and maybe this is a problem. It's whatever I feel like, and Kingdom Hearts is what I felt like that morning. I can't explain it.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm gonna start texting you every day at 8 45 a.m. that says Mass Effect.

SPEAKER_01:

It might work. Like I've been seeing, listen, I do have a problem when people tell me to play a game and I'm gonna like it. My brain is such a contradictory mess. It's oh, you watch, I'm not gonna like this. And and I think that did happen with Mass Effect, and it's not your fault, actually. The best man at my wedding made me borrow Mass Effect on the PC, and I never even installed it because I was like, I didn't ask for your game. I if I'm gonna play this, I'd rather just play Knights of the Old Republic and have lightsabers, sure. And that's that's not the right mentality. I wish I okay, it can be the right mentality if I really love Star Wars that much. And in the late 2010 years, I did love Star Wars that much, very much. But I do regret that mindset. Someday I will play Mass Effect. I might wake up on Monday and be like, it's a Mass Effect day. None of us know.

SPEAKER_00:

None of us do know.

SPEAKER_01:

I just have to meet someone in that game that I want to romance, and then it's on. I have to turn on my safe search and do some Googling to figure out if this is a thing, because I don't want to actually accidentally stumble into the weird side of the Mass Effect fandom.

SPEAKER_02:

I don't think there is one.

SPEAKER_01:

I think there definitely is a weird side of the Mass Effect fandom.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

Which means we're on the weird side.

SPEAKER_00:

It's okay then.

SPEAKER_01:

There's some thirsty gamers out there, Marcus.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, maybe.

SPEAKER_01:

I don't know. I don't look at it like that, but how many hours does it take to finish Mass Effect 1? A lot. I need a short game with a story that packs a punch.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, let's see.

SPEAKER_01:

I've never streamed that. I did Platinum Trophy it already. It is one of my favorite games of all time.

SPEAKER_02:

Heavy Rain's a good one. Mass Effect 1, 2, or 3 is a good one. Did I mention Mass Effect?

SPEAKER_01:

You did. Alright, great. I could just I could also pick up Horizon Zero Dawn, which I streamed one time last year and never came back because my aim is so bad. But I've been playing Fortnite, so maybe my aim is a little better.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, see, it's hard because a lot of these games are it's gonna take some hours. Yeah. And being this is the biggest problem with streaming, is you're picking a game that packs a punch in a short period of time, so you can your stream audience. Ignore it. Yes, your exactly your stream audience can enjoy the game, and that's what sucks. And I don't mean that in a wicked negative way, I'm just saying that you have to you have to overcome that. And the way you can do that is if I'm gonna use Expedition 33 as an example. It's a long game, you don't want to play it. There's nothing wrong with you screen recording yourself playing it for three hours and then just posting that video on your YouTube channel, or you know what I'm saying, or get clips from it. You don't need to play the whole thing continuously through your stream, I guess is what I'm saying. You can play these games off stream. A game, too, that would be really interesting for me to see you play is cyberpunk.

SPEAKER_01:

I do have cyberpunk, and I've thought about that a lot. No, I've never played it.

SPEAKER_02:

So that has I've only played three or four hours of it, and that has some crazy decision-making story elements. The graphics are beautiful, which that's important to me, and the story is incredible, and you're in a super futuristic world. Have you played Cyberpunk Doritos?

SPEAKER_01:

No, I haven't. Okay. I'm not doing sure it's great because I am a I'm a fan of The Witcher. Same company.

SPEAKER_02:

The other game you could play is like a Final Fantasy X.

SPEAKER_01:

I've only played Final Fantasy X one time, and that's before I was even a master's level counselor. Like I was a baby adult.

SPEAKER_02:

But that's a long game. That's an 80-hour game.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

It's hard because all of these games are most games are 30 hours plus. What's the Laura Croft game, Doritos, that you played that I watched you play?

SPEAKER_00:

I'll play all three of the new series, Two Raider Rise and Shadow.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Those are good games too.

SPEAKER_01:

You would like those. I'm about 70% through Shadow on my Steam Deck. That's like my air airplane flight travel game.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, then that's out. You could play Sekiro.

SPEAKER_01:

I could.

SPEAKER_02:

You know what I mean? That's not a that's not a story-driven game necessarily, but it's a combat, it's like a dark, it's a Frumsov game, but it's really hard. And that's a game that you can play for an hour and be okay on stream because people are just gonna enjoy watching you die.

SPEAKER_01:

I should do a special post in my classes for students that are not passing the class and be like, hey, I'm going live. Come watch me die. Yeah, it's hard.

SPEAKER_02:

A lot of these games are long. I still think you should play Cyberpunk because it's a shooter, but it's also a wicked RPG. I tell you to play the what do you call it? I got The Witcher, but that's a hundred-hour game.

SPEAKER_01:

If I did play The Witcher, I wrote a chapter in psychology of The Witcher, then it creates another set of really interesting content for what I've become on both sides of my identity, the game player and the academic who studies and analyzes games. Right. And I've thought about that a lot. Like, eventually, I think I want to get my own Switch 2 and the new Pokemon. I don't want to play the new Pokemon on my Switch 1. I just don't. There I just can't imagine it works well.

SPEAKER_02:

The game is terrible. Don't even buy it. Really? The new Pokemon game is terrible. All the Pokemon people that I know, they say it's the worst game ever.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh no. My son liked it. Anyway, I what I'm saying is there's all these there's all these games now that have done really cool work to help analyze it for people. And I think that's what I'm trying to do is build up the content about me talking about games, and that's where the Kingdom Hearts stream came from. I also think for better or worse, I think I have to settle on one game and just play it until it's done. If as a streamer, I think this idea that I had in my head that I can do Sunday, Monday, Thursday, and then bonuses on Tuesday and Wednesday when I'm well organized and ahead on work. And every day I just pick what I'm gonna play. I think that has led to the mentality of I'm gonna skip a stream. If it's if I just say Kingdom Hearts is the game until Zora defeats Ansom, spoiler alert, I think that would work better, honestly. I really do.

SPEAKER_02:

I agree, but don't be afraid to play it off stream, is what I'm saying. If you have an hour or two hours now at night and you can play, don't feel like you have to only play that game in front of people. There's no reason why you can't do two chapters and then the next stream you're at Hercules.

SPEAKER_01:

Doritos, I want to ask you this because you are a very diligent viewer for my channel. You're usually there. If I were on Alice in Wonderland, the first Disney World you run into on my Sunday stream, and we beat that, it's great. We're on our way to Tarzan. And then on Thursday, it's guys, I've played about 11 hours, and now we're at Halloween town and we're two Disney Worlds away from the end. How would you feel if I just blipped us forward in the story 40% of the game?

SPEAKER_00:

It would we would feel left out because you like to have us come along with the journey. Interacting with the stream while you're doing the game, so you can have the conversations, and you like sharing tidbits for each world, and how and how the encounter, even like the major encounters, how they go and some of the other how that relates to the gamers' journey and the modern monolith, how all that ties together with those type of games. So we would feel somewhat left out because you're leaving out a good chunk of how so you've met the mentor, you've done all that, and all of a sudden you're jumping to okay, I'm Supreme Ordeal Road of Trials. Yeah, right. So you're missing a big chunk in there of how this now relates to the gamers' journey, and we're playing catch-up, going, okay. You know, if you're just watching it for the gameplay and the entertainment, hey, that okay, I don't think it's really gonna matter where you jump to. But as you like to be bring people along the journey of the game, you will probably feel somewhat dissatisfied, and a large chunk of the viewers would be going, okay, we missed a whole lot because you played it offline.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, I think if I would have answered it myself, a lot of those same beats would have been in there, but it's really helpful to hear from someone who watches what I do. I think my second playthrough of Claire Obscure was much better than my first as well. Why? Because I had the broad beats of the story in my head already, and so I had more of an analysis prepared of this is this moment. Pay attention to this character. But when you're trying to pay attention to chat and watch a brand new cutscene with lots of stuff happening, right, you miss stuff, and you're just like, what just happened? So the kinds of things I do as a streamer, I'm constantly tinkering with it, and I think different games are pushing me to do different things. And if it's a story I've never seen before, I almost wish that my stream of it would be my second time doing it. But that's tough too, because now I have if I want to do that with Mass Effect or something, I need to beat Mass Effect off stream and then come back and play it again on stream, which is never gonna happen because I gotta just play it one time. So I'm Marcus, I see you shaking your head, but I'm that's what it sounds like, me literally trying to figure out how do I get the kind of content I'm gonna be excited by from a playthrough of Mass Effect. And because I don't know what the game really is, other than its reputation, the things I need to know about are just in the shadows. I can't imagine them yet.

SPEAKER_02:

I was smiling because I have two words. Mass Effect sentence. Oh. Ah you're making print the shirt. Right. You're making all of your gaming decisions based off of streaming, not based off of the game you want to play and how you want to play it. That's where I'm actually with Doritos because when you play a game and you're going in step by step, your content actually gets better throughout the content because you have a really good mind. With do you guys remember back in act one fighting the demi dog and how that dog jumps at you and claws this way and how it blinds you? But then the next boss, six hours later, you remember that and you talk about that and you connect dots. And obviously, everything I just said is just a placeholder.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, but you I love that you said demi dog though, because that just sounds like such a clever thing that a game dev would call it.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm just stranger, I'm in stranger things mode right now.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_02:

But the point I'm trying to make, so Doritos is a hundred percent with what he used as your example of your viewers missing out. But the problem is now you're sacrificing a game that you want to play, and I'm not talking about Mass Effect, I'm just talking about any game. You're sacrificing that game because it's not for your viewers' pleasure. You know what I mean? So that's where the prison sentence always comes in. So that let me challenge you to this. Why can't you play Kingdom Hearts on stream and play Mass Effect when you're not streaming? Play off stream.

SPEAKER_01:

I could, once I have finished all of the Mortal Kombat.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm using Mass Effect as a placeholder, right? Yeah. Because that's a game or cyberpunk or whatever. You don't have to play every game on stream. You don't. You can talk about you can give people your Mass Effect content weekly on the gaming persona.

SPEAKER_01:

That's very true. I was just going to say that about a minute ago, and then we got to the same point.

SPEAKER_02:

That's a really good you don't need to stream every game, and that's where I was all those was probably three years ago, now or four years ago. But that's where I was, doc. And I was a nobody streamer. Don't I'm not saying I was this top dog. That's not what I'm trying to say. But I was making my decisions based off of stream instead of what I actually wanted. But Doritos is right. If you play a game, you should play it all the way through, and just play two games and use the gaming persona and your quests to talk about that content of the second game. Make people drive people to the podcast and your solo quest.

SPEAKER_01:

This is the pep talk I needed.

SPEAKER_02:

I give them to you. My friends are my power. With your powers combined, he is Dr. Gameology.

SPEAKER_01:

That's really nice. Thanks for the support. Thanks for the pep talk.

SPEAKER_02:

Can I ask you one question before we wrap up? Because I know we're coming to this end. What's the name of your book?

SPEAKER_01:

The Gamer's Journey.

SPEAKER_02:

Continue the journey.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's a spoiler.

Head Shot

Daniel Kaufmann

Host
Head Shot

Doritos

Co-host
Head Shot

MarcusB814

Co-host