Episode 12: Esports

We chat gender and Esports, and go off on a couple small tangents.

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Transcript

00:00:09:27 - 00:00:28:14
Gabe
Happy. Happy Tuesday, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of I Don't Believe In Sequester. I'm Gabe and I'm Lauren. And happy happy easter. Hope everybody had a good Easter or a good weekend. I think it warmed up pretty much for everyone across the country. So welcome, I think to spring officially.

00:00:29:21 - 00:00:59:06
Lauren
And it was super gross all weekend for us. It was just a great torrential downpour here. It's finally like blue skies again. But I was cat sitting for my neighbors cats just like Thursday through Sunday. And so I was. Usually they like to go outside, but it was so gross and so rainy that I was just like, I don't want to stand out there for 2 hours waiting for them to want to come back inside because I can't just like leave them out there unattended.

00:00:59:23 - 00:01:03:28
Lauren
So I was like, now I'm not. Doing it, which.

00:01:04:27 - 00:01:30:16
Lauren
They have been asked not to, like just let the cats roam. So we were also just kind of experimenting, just like not letting them outside and seeing how they would react and deal with it. And the mom cat is the one who gets like the most irritated about it. The kids are fine. And then like 3 hours before my neighbor was coming home, we couldn't find one of the cats.

00:01:30:16 - 00:01:30:24
Lauren
And I was.

00:01:30:24 - 00:01:31:23
Gabe
Like, Oh my gosh, did.

00:01:31:23 - 00:01:58:17
Lauren
I accidentally let him out this morning when I was leaving? I was just losing my mind because he's never just hidden for a long time before. And so I like I'm in there where we're cutting down her Christmas tree. That is still up because my husband has been like that is a fire hazard, like where our entire apartment buildings can go up in flames.

00:01:59:23 - 00:02:26:28
Lauren
So he's been like stressed about it. And I was on a call with my neighbor the last night that I was over there where she was on speaker phone. And we were just like having conversations just so the calf could, like, hear her voice and know she, like, wasn't dead. But anyway, so they like all came into the room that I and the phone were in and they all just like fell asleep and just various areas around the phone.

00:02:26:28 - 00:02:44:10
Lauren
And it was so cute, but I was just like, I say this with love. Are you emotionally attached to this tree or can we remove it? She was like, Yes. So it's like one of those like mental blocks where she was just like, I should get rid of it, but I don't really know how to get rid of it.

00:02:44:10 - 00:02:58:24
Lauren
And I'm not like and she like had a bit of back problem from doing stuff with it earlier. So she is just something that just she knew she needed to get rid of it, but she just hadn't done it. And I was like, great.

00:02:59:19 - 00:03:02:05
Lauren
So a lot of work totally.

00:03:02:20 - 00:03:04:18
Lauren
It was a small tree, but totally.

00:03:04:18 - 00:03:05:08
Lauren
So I.

00:03:05:08 - 00:03:25:25
Lauren
Was like, We will get it out of your house before you come home. Don't worry about it. Like Wall saw it up and a little bit will clear up all the little branch. Like when you come home it will be gone and so she came home and she like got to vacuum all of the little bits that I was left over.

00:03:25:25 - 00:03:31:06
Lauren
And now she just like has this empty space in her house so she can, like do stuff with anyway, she's delighted.

00:03:31:25 - 00:03:33:27
Gabe
So that's awesome.

00:03:34:07 - 00:03:38:09
Lauren
Associate is delighted and so it's all good.

00:03:39:27 - 00:03:41:28
Gabe
Because I thought it's a fire.

00:03:41:28 - 00:03:43:21
Lauren
Hazard for the entire building.

00:03:44:15 - 00:03:45:17
Gabe
You're endangering.

00:03:45:17 - 00:03:47:19
Lauren
All of us needs to go.

00:03:48:09 - 00:04:19:24
Lauren
Assassinated all weekend we celebrated my grandmother. Well, my grandma was turning 94 on Friday and so we always do like a combo Easter and grandma's birthday because they're always right around the same time. So we went down and did that on Saturday and again it was just pouring rain. So no one was out driving. Usually I feel like on Easter Sunday is when people like at the nice cars and do the little driving around and you know, half the top, whatever and the time.

00:04:19:24 - 00:04:22:22
Lauren
No, no. Now everyone is like hunkered down.

00:04:23:13 - 00:04:27:09
Gabe
It's just warm was warm and sunny where we were in fifties.

00:04:27:09 - 00:04:29:22
Lauren
But that that's really warm air. Oh yeah.

00:04:30:00 - 00:04:33:28
Gabe
So it's nice. A lot of the snow's finally melted.

00:04:34:15 - 00:04:35:12
Lauren
Actually. Good Easter.

00:04:35:28 - 00:04:48:07
Gabe
Yeah, it is a good Easter. We did we talked about ten years could change from dinner to breakfast or something. Our lunch and hours got changed to lunch too. Yeah, we.

00:04:48:07 - 00:04:51:23
Lauren
Had a lot of quiche, but I.

00:04:51:23 - 00:04:53:02
Lauren
Love quiche.

00:04:53:06 - 00:04:55:18
Lauren
I want to share. I really.

00:04:55:21 - 00:04:56:00
Lauren
Love to.

00:04:56:00 - 00:05:04:27
Gabe
Brunch. I do kind of get the breakfast taste, but it's definitely like a heartier lunch or dinner meal. So you don't feel like.

00:05:05:25 - 00:05:07:00
Lauren
Any time of day.

00:05:09:13 - 00:05:10:00
Lauren
So good.

00:05:10:05 - 00:05:12:20
Lauren
That's it. All day tonight. Maybe I'll just make it quiche.

00:05:13:29 - 00:05:21:03
Lauren
I would. It's frickin phenomenal. I'm like, Oh.

00:05:22:02 - 00:05:24:04
Gabe
How do you just not have milk? What's wrong with.

00:05:24:04 - 00:05:25:20
Lauren
You? I don't.

00:05:26:05 - 00:05:38:10
Lauren
I, I don't put milk in anything whack unless I'm specifically, like baking or cooking with it. Like, I just. I just habitually have milk.

00:05:38:25 - 00:05:39:18
Lauren
Or if I do.

00:05:39:18 - 00:05:50:08
Lauren
It's like oatmeal or almond milk or something. And it's probably been opened for months on end so that it's just taking up space in my fridge. At this point.

00:05:51:05 - 00:06:02:15
Lauren
A glass a day keeps the doctor away. I don't drink that much, but I drink quite a bit of milk.

00:06:02:15 - 00:06:04:06
Lauren
My husband loves milk.

00:06:05:12 - 00:06:05:26
Gabe
I just.

00:06:05:28 - 00:06:18:24
Lauren
How often? But every once while he's just like, go for glass of milk. Oh my gosh. My sister's husband, who just started listening to Pod. So shout out to Colin.

00:06:18:24 - 00:06:19:13
Lauren
Yes.

00:06:20:29 - 00:06:30:23
Lauren
His his college drink freshman year when he was at like heat chaos.

00:06:31:06 - 00:06:31:15
Lauren
Yeah.

00:06:31:24 - 00:06:49:12
Lauren
Maybe not freshman year. It must have been later, but was milk and vodka and he call it mice because it'd be on so it'd be milk ice, but then he'd, like, throw in a shot of vodka. Anyway, we will not let him live that down because that is horrific.

00:06:50:04 - 00:06:55:24
Gabe
Like like if you want, like some creamy alcohol, why not just have some, like cola or.

00:06:56:14 - 00:06:56:24
Lauren
Yeah.

00:06:57:02 - 00:06:58:19
Lauren
Or something, you know.

00:06:59:29 - 00:07:10:00
Lauren
It's so bizarre. I think I was just like broke college kids stuff, though. I'm just like, what do you have? Milk and you've got ice and you've got vodka. All right, let's.

00:07:10:01 - 00:07:35:12
Gabe
No, that's still not even our normal like it's one thing if it's like maybe you need a chaser, right? And that's all you have. But like, mixing, like, was he actually mixing it? No, that's disgusting. That's just straight up disgusting because in the flavors are just like go and have it in a glass and then in your mouth together.

00:07:35:12 - 00:07:35:22
Gabe
Like, that's.

00:07:35:22 - 00:07:36:12
Lauren
Gross.

00:07:36:29 - 00:07:44:29
Gabe
If you at least if the milk's the chaser, you get one flavor and then for the most part, you get it on separate flavors.

00:07:45:09 - 00:07:45:27
Lauren
I'm sorry.

00:07:46:02 - 00:07:46:16
Lauren
You want a hit?

00:07:48:04 - 00:07:50:25
Lauren
No, that's that's that's about all I'll.

00:07:52:12 - 00:07:53:11
Gabe
You know, I could.

00:07:53:11 - 00:07:55:12
Lauren
Talk about it. Maybe I'll talk about it.

00:07:55:12 - 00:08:09:10
Gabe
So last Thursday, at a doctor's appointment to get I'm sorry, I have e sports on my other monitor. Oh, he happened to be talking about to get another.

00:08:09:10 - 00:08:09:23
Lauren
Option.

00:08:10:29 - 00:08:18:10
Gabe
As valorant's valorant sports, which i think you have an article about it, but yours is about the VCT game.

00:08:18:16 - 00:08:23:05
Lauren
Anyways, I'll get to that.

00:08:23:05 - 00:08:39:25
Gabe
Sorry to get Isaac to get another like opinion on my ankle or like thoughts on my ankle. So if there's anything we could we could do. But it's not like a traditional doctors. It's it's called a regenerative medicine.

00:08:40:15 - 00:08:41:23
Lauren
Or like that's what they do.

00:08:42:01 - 00:08:44:04
Lauren
Okay.

00:08:44:04 - 00:08:54:09
Gabe
And I didn't really know anything about it. I was like, it could be I don't know. I had no idea what it was when my dad made the appointment and brought me in. So I think so he knew.

00:08:54:09 - 00:08:55:11
Lauren
What I was.

00:08:55:26 - 00:08:56:12
Gabe
And he was.

00:08:56:12 - 00:08:59:11
Lauren
Like, they set to music.

00:09:00:17 - 00:09:04:00
Gabe
If the stem cells are from babies for not doing that.

00:09:04:00 - 00:09:05:25
Lauren
And I was like, Wait.

00:09:06:12 - 00:09:24:15
Gabe
What are you talking about? What did you bring me? But it's like, I'm just telling you. And I was like, Okay, well, I don't think I want a baby in my ankle anyways. So I guess we're on the same page. And like we were talking.

00:09:24:16 - 00:09:24:24
Lauren
Then.

00:09:25:23 - 00:09:40:09
Gabe
And granted, I mean, that's when they used to do stem cell stuff way back in the original. That is how they did it. But I think we could safely say we're a little more advanced now. And so they did. They took my.

00:09:40:09 - 00:09:47:28
Lauren
Blood, my life source, and they the sorry.

00:09:49:12 - 00:10:01:22
Gabe
Very essence of Venus. And they bought it around the centrifuge and like pull the plasma out of it. So that's for like all of your like healing stuff.

00:10:01:22 - 00:10:02:23
Lauren
Is at.

00:10:02:23 - 00:10:18:11
Gabe
Least for this first round. That's what that's how it works. And then they took it and they put it in my ankle like cortisone shots. So they injected some directly into my ankle and they put some kind of around the outside where I have a lot of swelling.

00:10:19:12 - 00:10:19:25
Lauren
Hmm.

00:10:20:18 - 00:10:41:14
Gabe
Because my issue is with my ankles, it's always inflamed. It's always really swollen, is always really big. So it's constantly dealing with, you know, trauma and stuff and just degrading and and you can only get two ankle replacements probably in your whole life, maybe three.

00:10:42:07 - 00:10:44:12
Lauren
And they only last ten years.

00:10:44:29 - 00:11:04:04
Gabe
And he's like, if, if we and I can't get more cortisone shots because my first surgery, they had to do so much stuff that cortisone shots are too caustic to to do anymore after the two I've had. So it's like anyways, basically the hope is that this.

00:11:04:04 - 00:11:04:17
Lauren
Will.

00:11:05:15 - 00:11:06:19
Gabe
Help save my ankle a.

00:11:06:19 - 00:11:07:13
Lauren
Little longer.

00:11:08:03 - 00:11:27:19
Gabe
So far it hasn't done anything. My ankle is more massive than it usually is because it isn't absorbing any of the stuff they shot into my ankle and it just hurts like a C-H. So we'll see what happens on that.

00:11:29:15 - 00:11:34:25
Lauren
So what is the process of the regenerative?

00:11:34:25 - 00:11:35:13
Lauren
You know.

00:11:37:01 - 00:12:05:29
Gabe
I was just there. I from my understanding and if I understand what they're doing right, it's like they're taking my body's ability to heal itself. Right? Like they're taking it and then moving it in, like, you know, like high doses to where I need it. Essentially, I think, is my understanding of what's happening, right? Because inflammation is your body's saying something's.

00:12:05:29 - 00:12:06:22
Lauren
Wrong.

00:12:07:19 - 00:12:20:18
Gabe
And like and maybe not responding how it should to it, but it's responding. Right. And so I'm too tired and not smart enough to tell you anything more.

00:12:21:13 - 00:12:28:23
Lauren
Okay, but your body heals itself.

00:12:28:23 - 00:12:29:12
Gabe
Yes.

00:12:29:21 - 00:12:32:19
Lauren
Some science jiggery pokery.

00:12:32:25 - 00:12:40:21
Gabe
I felt like I was in a sci fi movie, to be honest, when they were like, We're gonna take you and then give you back to you. And I was.

00:12:40:21 - 00:12:42:17
Lauren
Like, Okay.

00:12:43:06 - 00:13:15:28
Gabe
Alright, if you say so. Well, here and there he was like, You know, I suspect your ankles start feeling better in a few days, especially because I'm young. I'm currently their youngest patient, I don't know if ever, but usually they have older people and then older athletes who have, you know, worn out whatever joint. And I was like, Oh yeah, my young body shows got this.

00:13:15:28 - 00:13:17:10
Gabe
I'm sorry. I have a lot of.

00:13:17:10 - 00:13:18:01
Lauren
Sarcasm.

00:13:18:15 - 00:13:31:23
Gabe
Because I'm afraid to be hopeful that it'll work. So I'm just kind of like, I don't know, especially when we're at Tuesday, right? We're two days from a week and it's worse than before.

00:13:31:23 - 00:13:35:19
Lauren
They injected me, so we'll see.

00:13:36:27 - 00:13:42:01
Gabe
And then next Thursday they do it again. But they take a little bit different stuff from my blood.

00:13:42:01 - 00:13:49:15
Lauren
So I don't know. I said, Hey, it's all I got.

00:13:50:14 - 00:14:02:24
Lauren
Well, we'll cross our fingers for you. That that works either this week staff or next week staff or whatever.

00:14:04:21 - 00:14:31:22
Gabe
Or none of it. It's a five treatment, five five course treatment over six months. So I think there's four treatments in a matter of like three months, and then you wait three months and then they do another one. I know at some point they take a high concentration of a certain protein out of your blood, and that's to like coat everything.

00:14:31:22 - 00:14:37:16
Gabe
You know what? Next time I'll bring the project, I'll just bring the packet of information. Okay, how about that? Because I.

00:14:37:19 - 00:14:38:01
Lauren
Was.

00:14:38:23 - 00:14:47:24
Gabe
There after the appointment. I was like, okay, I can recite everything this man told me almost a week later. I'm kind of and I just showed up.

00:14:48:21 - 00:14:50:22
Lauren
I'll just bring him on the pod and.

00:14:50:25 - 00:14:51:09
Lauren
And.

00:14:51:13 - 00:14:54:13
Lauren
I'll just be able to ask him all of my little questions.

00:14:54:18 - 00:14:55:19
Lauren
That I want.

00:14:56:08 - 00:15:02:02
Gabe
That's fair. I mean, you give me the list and I'll bring in next three shots.

00:15:03:09 - 00:15:32:28
Lauren
So that's all about us. But we wanted to touch on what the newly came out from her interact is they hosted another puzzle for fans to solve on their socials, and it was like a little word puzzle and our favorite gaming momma went on Twitch and she and her community solved it. So it said Thanks for sleuthing along, but some of your theories are wrong.

00:15:33:09 - 00:16:08:26
Lauren
There is more to the trivia. So should you ponder all night? Do you stay awake or you might encounter a fright? Take a page from Shore's past and mix up more clues. We have a new case and no time to lose. So people were trying to, like, find a little hints and whatever in all of the trivia questions that were in the original newsletter that went live on April Fool's Day.

00:16:09:01 - 00:16:24:09
Lauren
And apparently not everyone or her interactive didn't see people finding all of the things that they hit in the trivia. Take a page from Shawn's past and mix up more clues. Makes it sound like.

00:16:25:03 - 00:16:31:24
Gabe
Geralt's chores pass. What is chores like? Like chores like you have to go clean. Or like, what do they mean by that?

00:16:31:24 - 00:16:42:26
Lauren
I see you like chore list in Nancy Drew games like Wolf High School, Cleat Creek where you have to do the cooking that you have to do the cleaning and or from.

00:16:43:16 - 00:16:46:24
Gabe
Manual labor you have to do before you can do anything.

00:16:46:24 - 00:16:47:07
Lauren
Else.

00:16:47:26 - 00:16:49:14
Lauren
Hashtag pay, Nancy.

00:16:49:18 - 00:16:52:14
Lauren
Yes, yes.

00:16:52:14 - 00:17:33:18
Lauren
Or from Shadow Ranch where you have that whole chores list and you have to mix up a cake. There are just a variety of games where you do have to do like household or farm chores or whatever to satisfy. Like why you're there and then kind of adjacent you solve the mystery. So I'm I'm excited. They are handing out new puzzles to keep people involved and invested like her interactive will typically host word scrambles or trivia questions or something on their socials.

00:17:33:18 - 00:18:12:12
Lauren
That's kind of the low maintenance social posting that they do when they're not just highlighting a fan artwork or something like that. So having them create this word jumble puzzle that has this genuine response to what's the conversation's been, that's very exciting for me. I'm excited that they are, you know, getting involved and being proactive. It's kind of reactive, but at the same time it's proactive.

00:18:14:03 - 00:18:43:11
Lauren
Another good friend of ours, Tina Baldacci, who is a big fan of Nancy Drew but is also a professional software developer. She poked around in the coding on the heard her active web page for the new Nancy Drew mystery, currently untitled and ran into the following message Hidden in the code. See, you're snooping the code sleuth. Congrats. Congrats for finding this.

00:18:43:12 - 00:19:07:27
Lauren
You're quite the snooper. We'd love to tell you more, but it's against NDA, so you'll have to wait for our planned releases. Trust us. We'd love to chat and share, but this mystery must stay just that until all is revealed. Now, I don't know if this code maybe has been in there for a long time and so peep.

00:19:08:00 - 00:19:31:19
Lauren
So the planned releases, the plural on releases is just like if you're poking around the code because you're trying to find out more about the next game, like you won't be able to find it. I don't know how long ago this code was put in, whether it was fairly recent, which genuinely would be surprising because they don't have any in-house coders.

00:19:32:12 - 00:20:02:00
Lauren
So but I also don't know when they update this page because if this is a brand new page and anyway, it depends on where they got the code when the code was written. But I think that's fun of her interactive to have put that in there, especially since they're actively trying to encourage kids and young adults to be looking into coding and doing coding pieces.

00:20:02:00 - 00:20:04:20
Lauren
So it's fun. They showed that little Easter egg in there for us.

00:20:07:01 - 00:20:08:11
Gabe
It is like that there.

00:20:08:19 - 00:20:09:11
Lauren
I should like.

00:20:09:11 - 00:20:10:26
Gabe
It seems like making more.

00:20:10:26 - 00:20:11:25
Lauren
Of an effort.

00:20:12:19 - 00:20:15:11
Gabe
Than they have done in the past.

00:20:15:11 - 00:20:25:19
Lauren
Yeah, their marketing team is working overtime at this point because based on the marketing stuff they've been doing in the past, there's no way they were full time people.

00:20:27:08 - 00:20:27:19
Lauren
Yeah.

00:20:27:25 - 00:20:43:10
Lauren
On it. So they were interns or part time or whatever and now it seems like they are having again more dedication to what's actually going on.

00:20:43:28 - 00:20:47:29
Gabe
I heard them means good things for the game.

00:20:48:24 - 00:20:49:22
Lauren
That's going to come.

00:20:50:04 - 00:20:52:14
Gabe
Like I hope that means.

00:20:55:02 - 00:21:00:24
Lauren
I don't know. I just hope it's not better than Salem. I guess that's all that I can really.

00:21:01:12 - 00:21:27:24
Lauren
I just would be surprised given all of the feedback, because if this game doesn't do well, I mean, her interactive, unless they are bought out by some bigger company, if this game had had the reaction that Salem had from the community, her interactive would be done.

00:21:28:11 - 00:21:29:01
Lauren
I think so.

00:21:29:01 - 00:22:04:05
Lauren
Right there are just truly be no path forward. If they showed people that they had learned nothing, taken no feedback into the account when making a brand new game, if it came back with similar problems or was equally not. And it will never live up to what the community is going to feel. There is no Nancy Drew game that the community together loves.

00:22:04:05 - 00:22:17:02
Lauren
There is no Nancy Drew game that everyone says, Yep, this is truly the best. Maybe treasure in the real tower. But there is basically no consensus.

00:22:18:02 - 00:22:24:10
Gabe
There's no consensus, but I think there's a handful that like everyone agree it's in the is in the top.

00:22:25:03 - 00:22:25:15
Lauren
Yeah.

00:22:26:00 - 00:22:37:26
Gabe
I feel like there could be a greater power in top five, maybe not the order, but I think there's definitely a handful that everyone are like. Those are I mean that's hands down some of the.

00:22:37:26 - 00:22:42:19
Lauren
Best treasure tower is really good. It's a good one.

00:22:43:27 - 00:22:46:25
Gabe
I feel like Blackmore Manor's just a classic.

00:22:47:24 - 00:22:54:20
Lauren
Yeah, I now some people don't like it because it's, there's plenty of it that is so not intuitive.

00:22:55:15 - 00:22:56:14
Gabe
Yeah, that's fair.

00:22:57:27 - 00:23:06:08
Lauren
So for first timers or second timers or anyone who's still trying to, you know, bump over like.

00:23:06:08 - 00:23:09:09
Gabe
Realistically how intuitive the whole mystery.

00:23:09:09 - 00:23:10:06
Lauren
Ever really be.

00:23:11:03 - 00:23:18:28
Lauren
It's just it's a miracle. And Nancy figured it out.

00:23:18:28 - 00:23:19:21
Lauren
That's fair. Yeah.

00:23:20:15 - 00:23:33:01
Lauren
I'm just saying, like, this game has so much riding on it. Yeah, I'm glad I'm not involved because that is so stressful.

00:23:33:16 - 00:23:33:24
Lauren
Well.

00:23:34:03 - 00:23:55:09
Gabe
Like, and it doesn't have to be the best Nancy Drew game to ever come out. It just has to be better, honestly, kind of quite a bit better than Salem. Like not you has to be quite a bit better than Salem, but it doesn't have to be the best. Like, I don't think people would freak out if it's not the best Nancy Drew game to ever come out.

00:23:55:09 - 00:23:56:17
Gabe
You know what I mean?

00:23:56:17 - 00:24:03:23
Lauren
But just more than what Salem was. Yeah.

00:24:04:16 - 00:24:33:15
Lauren
I think Salem's I think if they maintain their cohesiveness because that was the biggest problem with Salem is that story. There were so many things going up like because every single piece of it was done by a different group and because it was written and rewritten as different groups and designers and coders came and went because there was no consistency in the people who are working on it.

00:24:34:08 - 00:24:54:29
Lauren
Yeah, there were so many pieces that I really like. There were a lot of puzzles that had move ability and capabilities that we had never been able to have before. Right. That I really enjoyed the puzzles at the end of the game. They were different, they were new. They were exciting. I wanted to see like how different pieces fit together.

00:24:54:29 - 00:25:24:10
Lauren
I had to use different parts of my brain that otherwise would have to like the work, the use of space to move around. I loved that. I thought that was so, so cool, so exciting. And I just I just think if they have a more consistent vision and a more concise, better tailored storyline.

00:25:24:27 - 00:25:25:05
Lauren
Yeah.

00:25:25:19 - 00:25:26:09
Lauren
They'll be fine.

00:25:28:03 - 00:25:29:06
Gabe
I will say I felt.

00:25:29:06 - 00:25:31:19
Lauren
Like Salem was more linear.

00:25:32:03 - 00:25:40:17
Gabe
Than any other Nancy Drew game before, and that was sad. So I feel like that's a big thing to think about too.

00:25:41:09 - 00:25:43:23
Lauren
Yeah, but it.

00:25:45:01 - 00:25:49:06
Gabe
I think that was also why Sam was so disappointed though, because like you said, there's so many.

00:25:49:06 - 00:25:49:18
Lauren
New.

00:25:50:12 - 00:26:00:22
Gabe
Cool things, things that had never been done before, but then for just to not be executed properly, it was like.

00:26:00:22 - 00:26:01:04
Lauren
Yeah.

00:26:02:17 - 00:26:20:18
Lauren
There's a reason you have to have a task list and all the other Nancy Drew games because it's at any given point, there are like six different things you could be doing, whether they were kind of mini games or whether they were talking to this person or whether they were solving this clue or whether you could do all of these things.

00:26:21:02 - 00:27:03:18
Lauren
And yeah, the Knight and Salem was very much, you have to do this and then you have to go and do this and then you have to go and do this. And so you can't just say, you know, I'm tired of trying to figure out what's going on with this. I'm going to go do this instead. And doing this instead was, you know, mixing up one of the potions at Lauren's Apothecary Shop that you didn't have to or like didn't give you any, you know, you get three frogs that then even go play this like the exact pieces in there that are just added in for like fun or color or whatever those were missing.

00:27:03:18 - 00:27:13:07
Lauren
And so there weren't anything that you could go and kind of entertain yourself with to take a break from trying to solve the true story.

00:27:14:20 - 00:27:25:19
Gabe
And like when you could take a break, sometimes that's where something finally clicked in your brain was because you'd walked away to go do something else, to go work on something else. And I was.

00:27:25:27 - 00:27:28:15
Lauren
Like, Oh, duh.

00:27:30:06 - 00:27:36:01
Gabe
Right? And you just, like, didn't get that. You're just there's just, like, beating your head constantly.

00:27:36:01 - 00:27:40:21
Lauren
Against a brick wall. Okay, maybe not that extreme, but you can't.

00:27:40:21 - 00:27:43:21
Lauren
Do anything else until you've solved it.

00:27:44:03 - 00:27:44:12
Lauren
Yeah.

00:27:44:21 - 00:28:36:27
Lauren
So, yeah, I, I think with just a couple tweaks, Salem, it would have been different, which still would have been upsetting for the community, but it would have been okay. Like it would have been fine. MM There were just a few and again that's hopeful. I'm hoping that they're listening, the community and that they've heard, you know what a lot of the complaints were and went in and did some more research to really understand the pieces of the game that like clicked in and that made the games really, really enjoyable and iconic to play, figured out that formula and then figured out ways to adjust the formula, modernize the formula to kind of, you know,

00:28:36:27 - 00:29:18:09
Lauren
migrate things around, but keep the components in place and then just modernize, you know, the engine behind it and so on. So our main topic today is e-sports and specifically women in e-sports. So there are a lot of articles about various women in e-sports and different players and a lot of different teams or companies are coming up with specifically female teams because they can see the writing on the wall and see that that market is just growing bigger and bigger.

00:29:18:21 - 00:29:23:25
Lauren
I was looking at an article on That's.

00:29:23:25 - 00:29:24:27
Gabe
Not why they're doing it.

00:29:25:05 - 00:29:26:12
Lauren
That's not why they're doing it.

00:29:26:27 - 00:29:57:14
Gabe
They're doing it because the issue is that esports has always been predominantly male, I think, for a long time, like females. Danny Well, there's probably a why where there was none and then they didn't even make a percentage. And now I think we're maybe 5%. And the problem is that like the reason they started to sort of started to come of as a topic of like how do we get women into esports?

00:29:57:26 - 00:30:25:20
Gabe
And there's been two approaches to it. There's one part that says it should be, you know, fully makes fully integrated. We should be getting females onto the teams. Then there's the other part that is like, well, what if we just make a separate competition for women? So having the men and the women, which is I think one of the articles you saw was the DCT Game Changes program.

00:30:25:20 - 00:30:56:08
Gabe
Right? And that's for Valorant eSports. And that's so that so the women have their own separate league and though it's a little more diverse in that they have women and like trans and like a little like a variation. And it's not just maybe solely what you would typically think for women, if that makes sense, right? It's like a more broad, but it's focused on women and highlighting women.

00:30:56:27 - 00:31:21:07
Gabe
And so there's this constant argument of how do we get more women? And because when you don't see women in e-sports, girls don't think, I could go do that, right? You don't see the representation. You don't see someone that you relate to or identify with. So you're not like, Oh, that's, that's a job I could go do, right?

00:31:21:07 - 00:31:56:13
Gabe
That's something I could go do. And part of it also too is just in the esports industry itself is predominantly male, you know, like casters and and all of that were mostly male. I would say casters now are, are more half and half. I watch more of the Valorant eSports than some of the other e-sports. So like Valorant, I know for sure the casters, regardless of which division it is, is pretty equal to male and female.

00:31:58:01 - 00:32:06:21
Lauren
I know in San Diego there like a couple women that cast for a lot of different things to be the one woman, two men.

00:32:07:13 - 00:32:08:02
Lauren
Mm hmm. Mm.

00:32:08:17 - 00:32:11:00
Lauren
Trio.

00:32:11:00 - 00:32:42:03
Gabe
Yeah. Yep. And and honestly, the the the small amounts of like Rainbow six Siege Sports. I've watched. I don't even think I've ever seen a woman caster their card. I don't really know. I haven't watched a lot of that league. I think I've seen pretty half and half. But I mean, League and Valorant are both riot games, so there is that.

00:32:42:03 - 00:32:43:10
Lauren
So why?

00:32:43:26 - 00:32:59:20
Lauren
Why is it so hard for women to break into the e-sports teams? Because the teams are not like it's not in the rules that they have to be all men. Right.

00:32:59:20 - 00:33:00:29
Lauren
So that's just not.

00:33:01:00 - 00:33:27:27
Gabe
Right, I don't think. Right. No, I saw it honestly, I don't really know if there is an exact answer. I mean, part of the problem is, is like like you could say, like we could start at home, right at home. Parents are always like for a long time. And it's so happens now, you know, gaming is for boys, right?

00:33:27:27 - 00:33:48:00
Gabe
There's the mindset that gaming is for boys and it's like shameful if you're a girl gamer, right? It's just something we've talked about in the past. So they've got that. You've got where like you're not seeing role models to look up to. You're not seeing people you identify with. So then there's all these girls not even thinking about it as an option.

00:33:49:05 - 00:33:53:03
Gabe
You have I mean.

00:33:53:03 - 00:33:56:20
Lauren
The.

00:33:56:20 - 00:34:23:05
Gabe
The like harassment side of it where you know, you're going to deal with as a female, you deal with swatting doxy for you mean griefing, banning hate speech, you know, the voice chat, abuse and like even the women who have broken into it right in our in the in the e-sports, they constantly get told, you know, like they're cheaters and or a male gamers playing for them.

00:34:23:24 - 00:34:24:18
Lauren
Or.

00:34:27:10 - 00:34:39:04
Gabe
Or like people won't try as hard because it's just a girl, or they'll just kind of be like, whatever, you know? I mean. And I don't really know. I don't.

00:34:39:04 - 00:34:42:09
Lauren
Know. I don't know. Okay.

00:34:43:08 - 00:34:46:15
Lauren
So it's not a welcoming.

00:34:46:15 - 00:34:47:03
Gabe
Yes.

00:34:47:28 - 00:34:52:04
Lauren
And so they're less likely.

00:34:53:15 - 00:34:54:26
Gabe
I think you get to.

00:34:55:02 - 00:35:03:27
Lauren
Really publicly do it all the time because it's bizarre staying if every single time you're playing a.

00:35:03:27 - 00:35:04:16
Gabe
Match.

00:35:05:21 - 00:35:43:08
Lauren
And if you don't have your voice, does that voice alter your voice changer so that you if you do sound like a woman and you're trying to play matches and every single time you're playing, there's at least one guy in the group who is harassing you or just talking down to you or being unkind or inappropriate or whatever every if every single time you try to do something, that is the reaction you get.

00:35:44:13 - 00:35:57:06
Lauren
Yeah, totally understandable why people would say, All right, I just want to play with other women or people who I know or people who I know won't act that way.

00:35:58:00 - 00:36:41:12
Gabe
Yeah, well, and why would you want to put in the grind? I mean, why would you want to have totally overcoming that? Because so many. Right. They just don't talk if they don't have to or. Yeah. Like you try and get a voice change or something. They try and pick neutral avatars, have neutral names, so like and make it as hard as possible to be picked out as a female because you just know you're going to get met with I hope someone are words I would ah word you if I was there or like the C word or you're a fab B, it's a H or shouldn't you be in the kitchen or go back

00:36:41:12 - 00:36:58:28
Gabe
to your cooking classes or. Oh, yes, so many things. And then when you do have success, it's so undermined and like, whatever, like, okay, cool. Guess you did. You did it. Wow. You know, there's it's not celebrated.

00:36:59:26 - 00:37:00:14
Lauren
And.

00:37:01:25 - 00:37:55:05
Lauren
Yeah, I think think I was initially kind of like, well, I don't think we should have, you know, women only t like we should create separate teams and areas for women to compete separate men not and I, I've changed my mind on that not because I think the women are playing at a different level, but I totally support them saying, all right, screw that, I'm not going to go into that and I want to have a community of non harassment and just play with that and compete against people who are not going to harass me and I support that 100%.

00:37:55:23 - 00:38:23:27
Gabe
See I would say is I don't even think it's necessarily the women choosing that. I don't think it's women saying they want that. That's just what the organizations are trying to do. That's what the organizations think. The best way to start trying to get recognition for women is I, I don't know either way which the women in general lean that's just of what they get.

00:38:24:21 - 00:38:49:24
Gabe
I would argue that I don't think there should be separation. I think that just furthers it furthers. The issues, I mean, it adds I feel like substance to the fact that, well, I don't know, I just I don't think I don't think it should be separate. I if you wanted to do like a one off every now and then separate to highlight more.

00:38:50:02 - 00:39:06:11
Gabe
Sure I get that. But to have to have totally separate teams when they don't need to be in what I mean it's not like girls are playing at a disadvantage. It's not like.

00:39:06:18 - 00:39:07:01
Lauren
Write.

00:39:07:09 - 00:39:32:02
Gabe
Real sports where you're having the physical body chemistry of a male and the physical body chemistry of a female going up against each other. Whereas in that sense, for a lot of sports, I think it makes sense that they're separate. I mean, not to offend anybody, but just like the science behind it, you know, men are typically a lot stronger than women.

00:39:32:02 - 00:40:00:00
Gabe
Not that women can't be stronger, but just because they have so much testosterone and testosterone is what build your muscles and all of that. And like, it's just that I guess for e-sports there's nothing that's separating them. There's no advantage that males have over females. You, you know, it's just I just think it's silly. I just think it's all silly.

00:40:00:00 - 00:40:11:19
Gabe
I did also want to note, though, that I have I find this so fascinating that even when we're out of sports, there's still drug issues. And so there's a.

00:40:11:19 - 00:40:14:12
Lauren
Huge and you're.

00:40:14:12 - 00:40:33:25
Gabe
Right, there's so there's a huge issue. And as far as there's the pressure to use amphetamine based prescription drugs, you know, so it's just Adderall because it, you know, enhances your performance, it enhances your focus. And it's just like you just can't escape it, I guess. And it's not steroids, but it's still just like.

00:40:34:17 - 00:40:34:29
Lauren
Steroids.

00:40:34:29 - 00:40:35:29
Lauren
For your brain.

00:40:36:10 - 00:40:41:00
Gabe
And is it is it is and is short term steroids.

00:40:41:11 - 00:40:44:24
Lauren
So don't get your racket in rolling.

00:40:46:22 - 00:41:03:01
Gabe
But I said there's probably another thing that stops women from joining, too. Like, it's just like another thing on top of all of the other obnoxious obstacles you have to face. Like, why would you bother?

00:41:03:01 - 00:41:51:18
Lauren
Why do you think companies that have programs where there is a lot of voice, chat, harassment and whatnot of female gamers? Why do you think there has not been clearly enough work to ban people or put them in timeout if there is, you know, usually clear evidence of, yes, this person is saying inappropriate things to this person and I know there can be like locks on typing and whatnot.

00:41:51:18 - 00:42:16:11
Lauren
So they can say, well, these words aren't allowed. Whatever, but they're, you know, recordings of people. And you can see their gamertag and see that, yes, it was them who was saying that. And I, I guess I don't know why the harassment is so rampant in all of these communities.

00:42:17:18 - 00:42:41:28
Gabe
Well, first, I would say, like so like you said right there, there can be bans, there can be timeouts. So it can be whatever. Right. So since we're talking about Valorant, Valorant recently added towards the end of last year where they were finally actually recording the audio. I think it's only when you talk in game, I mean, it's not just like sitting there playing everything you do, right?

00:42:41:28 - 00:43:10:16
Gabe
But that way, right. They can verify when someone reports comms abuse, they can go back and there's the recording and they can do that. I know this is true in Siege and I know this is true in Valorant. I think this is also true or not is true in COD. I don't know about CSGO and stuff, but they can they can time you out from voice.

00:43:10:16 - 00:43:34:02
Gabe
They can time you out from typing where like you can still play. But because of your harassment or saying inappropriate words or whatever, you no longer have that privilege to speak or to type even doing that. So what was the question? The question is, why is this still such an issue, right?

00:43:34:27 - 00:43:35:10
Lauren
Yeah.

00:43:35:15 - 00:44:07:27
Lauren
Why is it the culture of AI seeing, gosh, I think I was seeing a tweet or something of a teacher who was talking about how they their school district didn't have some feature on Zoom that would allow them to like mute everybody. And so some 12 year old kid in their class had the class on mute, so he couldn't hear what was going on with the class.

00:44:07:27 - 00:44:25:18
Lauren
But he was playing some game and just, you know, taunt, saying every inappropriate and horrific thing and she could not turn him off. And so had to just end the zoom call for the whole class because he was just going nuts and he knew what was going on.

00:44:25:29 - 00:44:29:07
Gabe
Did he not realize that the class could hear him? Well, that's some.

00:44:29:17 - 00:44:32:26
Lauren
Bears unmuted, but he couldn't hear the class.

00:44:33:00 - 00:44:33:26
Gabe
Because she had.

00:44:33:26 - 00:44:41:05
Lauren
Everything to the side, because he was game in and just talking up the whole storm and the teacher could not meet him.

00:44:41:19 - 00:44:42:24
Lauren
Oh gosh.

00:44:43:15 - 00:45:03:20
Gabe
I'm well, for one, people are always brave or behind the keyboard. So many of those pushy little boys I know and they're not even like little boys. They're grown ass men. But I'm still going to call them little boys like the whole group of them.

00:45:03:27 - 00:45:04:26
Lauren
They started doing it.

00:45:04:26 - 00:45:25:26
Gabe
So many of us. Well, that's true. But I just mean, like so many of them I know wouldn't say to my face they would be so scared to say it to my face. And I am, which makes me just laughs. Boy one three People are so brave when they don't have to say to your face, there's no like you can't suddenly do something to them.

00:45:25:26 - 00:45:57:00
Gabe
When it comes to banning and timeouts, if it's not an IP man, they can just go make another account or whatever and it's fine. They can go make bot accounts or you can have a VPN and then it's impossible for them to truly IP ban you because you just change it. But the VPN. But yeah, like you said, they it starts when they all start when they're young, like they're all constantly hearing it.

00:45:57:10 - 00:46:04:13
Gabe
So just like it just is a cycle of like they, the little kids hear from the older and they think it's okay. So then they do it.

00:46:06:09 - 00:46:10:13
Lauren
And I don't, I.

00:46:10:13 - 00:46:24:00
Gabe
Don't know. And I would say some communities are way worse than others too. Like some are way more toxic than others. And it's like, does that game just attract a certain type of sick? Oh, like, I don't understand.

00:46:25:03 - 00:46:48:00
Lauren
Well, and it might be that, you know, they played some of that game heard some of that tried to take it to another platform and people in that game were like, Hey man, that's not cool. Because I think right, that would be so much more impactful if you have a bunch of guys in the game who are saying, Bro, not cool like it.

00:46:48:06 - 00:46:52:25
Lauren
It can't just be the women who are, you know, you know.

00:46:53:12 - 00:46:54:11
Gabe
Reaction, be.

00:46:54:16 - 00:47:21:04
Lauren
Reacting. It has to be everyone. But it really has to be guys, especially ones that like and they respect and maybe are at a higher level or whatnot. Like it has to be the alphas in, the group to be like, Dude, you can't talk that way to people. Cut it out like they're the ones who have to. And so if enough of those people, which I valorant is very popular with women.

00:47:21:18 - 00:48:16:24
Lauren
And so I think that there's enough of a gender or I mean, obviously there's still the majority are men, but I think there are enough of a women community now with Valorant and the men enough men there know or play with women routinely to not be cool with a lot of stuff. So I think it's people who they and their buddies just talk smack all day and get really excited with the woman because they know that that's an easy target and that all of their buddies are going to pile on and they don't want to piss off a guy who's really good because he might be their friend, right?

00:48:16:26 - 00:48:37:06
Gabe
Yeah. I think there's a lot more guys maybe on Valorant than on the others that I will speak up and say something and say, Hmm, but not even just the guys. I mean, honestly, it's everyone like kids. There's kids that will say stuff, there's females. And I think a lot of the females oh, here's another thing I've run into.

00:48:37:06 - 00:49:02:19
Gabe
This one always just blows my mind. So I think in Valorant a lot of the females you get there is equally sick of the bullshit that women have to deal with as you are. So they're willing to stick with you and stick up with you like any time women meet other women involved and they're like and they have like an immediate, like, love connection, okay?

00:49:02:19 - 00:49:56:19
Gabe
Like it's just an immediate bond. But I feel like in others you get the women who are almost worse than the guys that are like more toxic, and they're like sometimes they're like the pygmy girls. Like they're trying to get the guys to like them and they think to do that, they have to put down other girls. Or they're so toxic or they kind of remind me of like some of the girls I met in engineering who just they acted very superior and and rude and stuff, which then set off other guys and like, honestly, I, I understand why they would be set up because I would be set off from these girls acting like

00:49:56:19 - 00:49:57:26
Gabe
that. And I'm like, what are you.

00:49:58:07 - 00:49:58:13
Lauren
If.

00:49:59:03 - 00:50:27:09
Gabe
You're not out of that, no one is calm down, like chill, but there's just I think that makes it worse from like it's not only are you having to deal with toxic toxicity from men, but then you're also having to deal with it from your fellow women. And you're just like, it's just exhausting. Like, why? Why is it so normalized for women to put other women down?

00:50:27:27 - 00:50:28:07
Lauren
You know?

00:50:28:19 - 00:51:39:00
Lauren
Yeah. So FIFA launched a FIFA woman's EA Sports program titled Fame. Her game, and it was set up to, quote, increase visibility, build grassroots opportunities and create a safe space for women competing in the FIFA ecosystem. So that's another one of, you know, separating out the women to create that safe space them, which again, is debatable about. Maybe it would be nice to have a women only space, but just making the current space just more coed and more friendly to women, whether that's by severely increasing the number of women who are playing on their or having actual ways to deal with harassment, whether that's in real time or whatever or figuring out how to better

00:51:39:00 - 00:52:04:12
Lauren
track people across different accounts and say, Hey, you have a history of acting inappropriately. I'm thinking I'm thinking like an H.R. person again, just like progressive discipline. And let's, you know, keep track of these derogatory marks and say, hey, you are not functioning well in this community. Figure it out.

00:52:04:28 - 00:52:06:15
Lauren
And you could do that.

00:52:06:29 - 00:52:07:20
Lauren
I know.

00:52:07:28 - 00:52:30:08
Gabe
I wish it was that simple. Like, I wish there was a way to really enforce that. I'm so sorry. I just want to say, since you use the term grassroots, I don't know if you know what that is, but that's kind of like your heart like in sports, right? You have, you know, clubs and stuff that people do.

00:52:30:27 - 00:52:49:04
Gabe
Okay. Well, that's kind of like what grassroots is in the east. Sportswriters, writers tier, too. It's not your professional level, but it's kind of like above just normal playing, like they're trying to get there, but they aren't getting there. And kind of part of the new thing in e-sports like.

00:52:51:00 - 00:52:53:12
Lauren
I think that's called the grassroots phenomenon.

00:52:53:16 - 00:53:12:25
Gabe
But like people are tired of seeing the same old teams over and over again in the Tier one. And so they're trying to create opportunities to showcase and give like Tier two, Tier three chances like move up and new e-sports teams to.

00:53:12:25 - 00:53:16:20
Lauren
Form and grow. Yeah.

00:53:18:08 - 00:54:06:00
Lauren
So there is big news coming out about one of the call of duty competitions that they do they do a Challenger event every year that's just a championship series where people compete on different teams. You compete against U.S. team or North America teams. If you're in North America, you compete against European teams. If you're in Europe. And for the four and it's only been going on for a few years, I think two, three years, maybe it started in 2020, but a woman made history as the first woman to qualify for the call of duty challengers elite tournament.

00:54:06:15 - 00:54:40:24
Lauren
So she's on a team share with four other guys, whatever. That's fine. But so she was the first woman on any team that qualified for this elite tournament. And she's just 22. Her name is for towels, Kelsey. Her full name is Grigg and she is Scottish and she was a soccer football player and she got injured. And so she moved into esports and, you know, has made history this year again at 22.

00:54:40:24 - 00:55:10:09
Lauren
And it's now doing, I think, communications or something for a different team. And it's just getting nothing. The accolades and there are tons of articles about this and it's cute because I like reading interviews from people kind of under the age of 25 because they're so cute, you know they're, they're still just really young and sweet and just excited about a lot of things.

00:55:10:10 - 00:55:36:15
Lauren
Pure. Yeah. So she was telling EA Sports that EA Sports don't gag that the support and encouragement she's received have been truly incredible. I truly hope that encourages other females to get involved. It would be good to rubbish the stereotypes that people have, especially in such a male dominated scene. Call of Duty, of course, is quite a community of young men.

00:55:37:07 - 00:56:00:14
Gabe
As I said, I think playing COD, I ran into a female gamer like gender is such a rare occasion, like Valorant, at least it's every couple games. I mean, it's not every game, but it's every few games. It's, it's notable enough. But yeah, call of Duty years just like, felt like once a week.

00:56:01:01 - 00:56:04:25
Lauren
It is quite a sausage fest from what I understand.

00:56:05:20 - 00:56:06:08
Lauren
Yeah.

00:56:07:05 - 00:56:45:29
Lauren
And she said that Kels said there's always been some sort of stereotypes around women competing in e-sports. And whilst I experienced some of that and COD, for the most part, the community has always been welcoming. So I love that that was her experience. I'm delighted that that's how she has felt and I hope that is absolutely, really inspiring and the article continued on saying in regards to her role in promoting Call of Duty to a female audience, she said, I would ensure I would encourage any woman thinking about getting involved in Call of Duty to peruse it.

00:56:46:15 - 00:57:23:16
Lauren
I'm hopeful that qualifying for the elite, it's just the beginning for me and I can continue to show I'm good enough to compete. And the effused director of content Halima Malik. She was on the eve U.S team and if users absolutely invest in the development of women's esports, Kels accomplishments have been trailblazing and inspiring for Women's Call of Duty, and there are just a lot of articles being written about this, being very excited about her because again, she is so young and she qualified for this.

00:57:23:16 - 00:57:51:00
Lauren
So now there's officially, you know, been a woman who's gone to this elite championships. And so hopefully next year there's going to be more teams with more women coming in. Because I think for a lot of these teams that have never had a woman or the woman they, you know, haven't seen a woman at that rank or the rank from which they're pulling their new members that first woman.

00:57:51:01 - 00:58:15:08
Lauren
It's a very breaking the glass ceiling, right. Of just saying, hey, one woman is here. She has made her first step into here. And from here on out, it's no longer a oh, well, it hasn't been done, so it can't be done. It's like, okay, now we just have to figure out how to find them. It's just finding diversity in your workforce.

00:58:15:08 - 00:58:26:07
Lauren
I mean, they're there. You just have to ensure that you're looking in the right place or your community is welcoming enough that they would want to join.

00:58:27:11 - 00:58:27:19
Lauren
Mm.

00:58:29:01 - 00:59:04:00
Gabe
I was thinking about how you're asking like why I think it's so hard for women to get in to that. And I think part of it is like you were talking about, it's just like opportunity is, is, is, is not that there's this like a rule that women champion. It's just not the app. There's no there's not a lot of opportunity for them to join, but not only for them to join, but for them to be able to grow, to get to the level to join, if that makes sense.

00:59:04:13 - 00:59:05:29
Lauren
You know.

00:59:05:29 - 00:59:25:17
Gabe
It's hard for them to get on teams to do practice scrums or to, you know, to play at that level, to be I don't want to say bigger enough because I'm not trying to say they're not good enough to be able to play at that level that they could go try out to be on a team, you know what I mean?

00:59:26:04 - 00:59:45:01
Lauren
Yeah, the feeder pools aren't there or welcoming or open or whatever. And You know, maybe some of the teams at the lower levels, maybe they feel they don't want a woman in there because they.

00:59:45:07 - 00:59:46:22
Lauren
Only make champs.

00:59:47:00 - 01:00:19:15
Lauren
Right. They might think it would make them look weak or what? Or they would get harassed because they are a team with a woman in it. And so then they would face some of the harassment that women face just for having her in their midst. And so, yeah, some of those feeder pools absolutely I think need to and so and and that's some of my thoughts as well as maybe some of those feeder pools could be, you know, teams of women and could go up.

01:00:19:18 - 01:00:42:00
Lauren
And so the women could still be, you know, competing against a variety of other teams. But that could be a way to say no. The five of us ladies, we're going to get together and we're going to do this and then rise through the ranks, and then we can start splitting off and joining other teams or whatever. But I think so maybe not at the top necessarily to have women only.

01:00:42:00 - 01:00:54:17
Lauren
But I think in the feeder was just to like get the start going and start really showing off what they can do. I think that's maybe where some of that could come into play.

01:00:54:17 - 01:01:22:19
Gabe
I just had another thought. See how we're talking about how like there's the one side that's like there should be integration, you know, mixed sex team, right? And then there's the side that's like there should be separate leagues. What if you combined them, right? So maybe you had sex specific teams, but why couldn't they compete in the same league?

01:01:22:25 - 01:01:44:23
Gabe
You know what I mean? Like, if if it's so hard to get women on the male teams. Okay, fine. So then we have teams that are specifically women, but instead of forcing them to only be able to compete against each other, why not have it so they can compete against I mean, literally, they're equals, I mean, against other people.

01:01:45:18 - 01:01:50:15
Lauren
Yeah. I think yeah. I think having.

01:01:51:18 - 01:01:55:18
Gabe
I feel like that's more of a step in the right direction than complete separation.

01:01:56:08 - 01:02:27:23
Lauren
Totally. Totally. I don't think we need a women's tournament. I think we need sponsoring women's team to go into normal tournaments. Even sponsoring coed teams, I think, yes, sponsoring female teams. But I think sponsoring coed teams. Having the companies that have teams or sponsor teams is saying, hey, you've been only men for the past 12 iterations. What's the plan?

01:02:28:13 - 01:03:06:10
Lauren
And it's I mean, it's always going to come down to money. So I'm not saying there be a quota, but I think it's a question that sponsors can be asking of, are you looking like, how have you been ignoring what's out there? Or Why haven't you found any women who meet your standards? And if so, like, how can we help women train up or get to a point where they are able to meet some of the standards that they may not know about or just don't have.

01:03:06:10 - 01:03:07:02
Lauren
Access to.

01:03:07:29 - 01:03:32:25
Gabe
For you do that. I did copy her biography. I Just want to shout out Tricia. So Sangeeta, I think is how you say her name. Obviously there's there are other female leaders, but she's like a huge one and one that I've seen a lot of and she's one that inspired me to. She originally was the CEO of Fly Quest.

01:03:33:10 - 01:03:33:22
Gabe
She is.

01:03:33:22 - 01:03:34:09
Lauren
Now.

01:03:36:12 - 01:04:19:26
Gabe
The CMO of Cloud nine. I think it's cloud nine, which is a huge I mean, they're huge e-sports team. They're they're in all of the top e-sports games. But so she started her career in e-sports competing in and streaming for Starcraft two and then she kind moved into being like an interviewer and like hosting major e-sports events and kind of being a caster and all of that and this is in 2014, she's using streaming platform as Ubu Dot TV as the global director of e-sports.

01:04:19:26 - 01:04:24:09
Gabe
I don't know anything about that streaming platform. I don't know if they're just specifically for.

01:04:24:09 - 01:04:25:08
Lauren
E-Sports.

01:04:25:08 - 01:04:36:09
Gabe
But she also I think she's a big part of league too. If I remember right. She became one of the founding partners of Riot Games franchise ALCS. I think that stands for week something.

01:04:37:23 - 01:04:56:18
Lauren
So a Zulu was a live streaming e-sports website in 2017. It was shut down, succeeded by smash caste. Okay. And it was it was in 2012, shuttered in 2017, the biggest game there was League of Legends.

01:04:57:21 - 01:05:02:27
Gabe
As incestuous fusion. The League of Legends, I'm pretty sure. So it was mostly just for that's.

01:05:02:27 - 01:05:04:10
Lauren
What it was focus was e-sports.

01:05:05:09 - 01:05:23:02
Gabe
But she I mean she's been such a, I think, prominent female leader in fighting for women in e-sports and like showing it's possible and, pushing through all the struggles and the backlash.

01:05:23:22 - 01:06:00:00
Lauren
So now my favorite segment is the female developer spotlight. So today we're talking about Aya Kyoko Goku, who is a name you all are likely fairly familiar with. She's a Japanese video game director and producer, and she is currently managing Nintendo's Entertainment Planning and development group. Number five, which oversees Animal Crossing Splatoon and we sports. So she has been a producer, director and supervisor on Animal Crossing since 2008.

01:06:00:21 - 01:06:09:18
Lauren
She started at Atlus, which was a subsidiary of Sega in 2000, where she was an assistant planner and assistant director.

01:06:10:00 - 01:06:10:14
Lauren
I'm sorry.

01:06:10:14 - 01:06:19:19
Gabe
And do you know when Animal Crossing first started? Is 2008 the beginning or close to the beginning?

01:06:20:21 - 01:06:25:26
Lauren
It was no. Animal Crossing was originally released in 2001.

01:06:25:26 - 01:06:28:00
Lauren
Oh, okay. So it as much. Wow. Okay.

01:06:28:22 - 01:06:31:06
Gabe
I guess that makes sense. I just can't remember how old.

01:06:31:06 - 01:06:33:05
Lauren
Animal Crossing was. Yeah.

01:06:33:13 - 01:06:46:15
Lauren
That's wild world was released in 2005. City Folk was released in 2008 and then New Leaf was the first game that she was really involved in, and that.

01:06:46:15 - 01:06:46:27
Lauren
Got her.

01:06:47:15 - 01:06:53:10
Lauren
Released in 20. It was announced in 2010. Released in 2012.

01:06:53:24 - 01:06:54:19
Lauren
Right? Yep.

01:06:55:06 - 01:06:57:12
Gabe
Yep. I remember that one on the way. Okay.

01:06:57:19 - 01:07:06:25
Lauren
So 2003, she joined Nintendo as a scriptwriter for Legend of Zelda Games for Swords Adventures, as well as Twilight Princess.

01:07:07:10 - 01:07:07:20
Lauren
She won.

01:07:07:20 - 01:07:10:28
Lauren
The Game Developers Choice Award for that for her.

01:07:10:28 - 01:07:16:05
Gabe
Writing, I think it was the first Zelda game on the way, and I don't know if it was exclusive to the Wii.

01:07:17:13 - 01:07:19:25
Lauren
But I loved.

01:07:19:25 - 01:07:21:09
Gabe
It. And they did a remake.

01:07:21:09 - 01:07:21:22
Lauren
Of it.

01:07:22:05 - 01:07:42:06
Gabe
Before they before Breath of the Wild came out. They did a remake and they had an anime bow. And then if you played with the amiibo to it, you got to really do certain minor stuff from the Twilight Princess game, but then you put the amiibo there and then you could bring your and Meebo into Breath of the Wild and you'd have a little link wolf with you.

01:07:43:10 - 01:07:52:15
Lauren
That's pretty cool. So cute. Sorry for the adult link, Wolf. Of course you did.

01:07:53:00 - 01:07:57:09
Lauren
I did. You seem like a wolf girl.

01:07:58:18 - 01:07:58:27
Lauren
What do you.

01:07:58:27 - 01:08:16:01
Lauren
I know you're like a dragon girl, but, like, I don't know. I just feel like there's a lot of color in you. Furry now. But I can understand how it would come across like.

01:08:16:01 - 01:08:16:20
Lauren
I just feel.

01:08:16:20 - 01:08:41:22
Lauren
Like, you know, wolves. I feel like in fourth grade, you know, they're like horse girls, and they're a wolf, you know? I think. I think they were. And then there were, you know, girls who didn't really care about animals in general. But I feel like there was a certain segment of Wolf Girl who.

01:08:42:21 - 01:08:45:12
Lauren
Were a little more feral.

01:08:45:12 - 01:09:16:25
Gabe
But I was feral. But it wasn't because I was a wolf girl. I was just feral. I always have been. Always will be. That's probably why I like them. They're like my fucking people. It's okay to be feral when you're a wolf. No one's going to judge you. It's if you just go a little crazy sometimes. Dude, ironically, my dad, one of my dad's best friends, he had I don't think it was full wolf.

01:09:17:00 - 01:09:33:27
Gabe
I'm pretty sure it had some like dog in it, but it was it was pretty like definitely more than what is probably legal. And I thought it was the coolest thing ever. And I was like if I take it.

01:09:33:27 - 01:09:36:06
Lauren
Out, Wolf, I can have a pet wolf.

01:09:36:20 - 01:09:40:24
Gabe
Then I'd stick them on a nasty.

01:09:40:24 - 01:09:41:16
Lauren
Get them what?

01:09:42:18 - 01:09:47:14
Lauren
How did you feel about the wool? The one of the Direwolves and Game of Thrones?

01:09:48:11 - 01:09:50:06
Gabe
There's Direwolves in Game of Thrones.

01:09:51:13 - 01:09:54:04
Lauren
And then I'll call Direwolves whenever the stark kids.

01:09:54:04 - 01:10:03:03
Gabe
Have come. Oh, yeah, the wolves. They might have been called direwolves. I mean Direwolves are I think that's right. I forgot about that. I wanted to have one. I was.

01:10:03:09 - 01:10:03:29
Lauren
Yes.

01:10:04:19 - 01:10:06:17
Lauren
I only watched the first season of Game of Thrones.

01:10:06:17 - 01:10:08:10
Lauren
So that's one of.

01:10:08:10 - 01:10:10:12
Lauren
The only things I know.

01:10:10:12 - 01:10:11:05
Gabe
I just type in.

01:10:11:05 - 01:10:12:17
Lauren
Wolves and see what it says.

01:10:12:17 - 01:10:14:10
Gabe
And they might have been direwolves.

01:10:14:10 - 01:10:16:00
Lauren
Yeah, they were dire. Yeah, they were.

01:10:16:01 - 01:10:16:25
Lauren
Let's go.

01:10:17:06 - 01:10:21:07
Gabe
Because I wouldn't say Direwolves are like usually bigger.

01:10:22:05 - 01:10:24:16
Lauren
Than normal wolves. Like, they're big dicks.

01:10:25:06 - 01:10:27:09
Gabe
So, like the megalodon of wolves.

01:10:28:17 - 01:10:28:22
Lauren
Hmm.

01:10:28:28 - 01:10:35:05
Gabe
Honestly I thought I was really cool and I was jealous, and I was like, Why can't I be real? Why can't you have such a bond.

01:10:35:05 - 01:10:39:18
Lauren
With the animal? That was so cool.

01:10:39:18 - 01:10:59:07
Gabe
I you know, the other thing, if I couldn't have had a wolf, I would love to have a cheetah. I thought cheetahs were so cool as a kid. And I thought wolves are really cool. I thought it was incredible how such a tiny creature could take down a giant mouse. Because I don't know if you've ever met a moose, but I've met moose in real life.

01:10:59:17 - 01:11:00:02
Gabe
And them.

01:11:00:15 - 01:11:02:00
Lauren
Them are scary.

01:11:02:21 - 01:11:07:11
Gabe
They're. They're nasty. They're mean. They will. They will come for you.

01:11:07:15 - 01:11:20:04
Lauren
I've never seen a moose, but I lived in Montana for a year and a half. And so I've heard many, many stories about all sorts of mean moose that are just roaming.

01:11:20:23 - 01:11:21:20
Lauren
Nasty.

01:11:21:20 - 01:11:22:03
Gabe
Little.

01:11:22:03 - 01:11:31:12
Lauren
Things and a wolverine will just be dead, gone. So. Yeah. Veronica Hey.

01:11:31:26 - 01:11:34:01
Gabe
Yeah, I met runner.

01:11:36:10 - 01:11:39:19
Lauren
Finding Nemo anyways. Yeah.

01:11:39:28 - 01:11:44:15
Gabe
I think if I could have had any this if I obviously since I can't have a dragon.

01:11:44:19 - 01:11:45:23
Lauren
You know.

01:11:45:23 - 01:11:49:09
Gabe
It would be one of those three creatures that I would probably then choose from.

01:11:49:24 - 01:11:50:04
Lauren
Crying.

01:11:50:22 - 01:11:55:06
Lauren
Wolf. Cheetah Wolverine.

01:11:55:06 - 01:12:15:09
Gabe
Yeah, and Panther. But the cheetah kind of goes with the panther. The thing I was like, the cheetahs have that, that extra flap of skin, which is why they're so fast because it allows them to a long gait. Their legs. Yeah. Yeah. That's why they look kind of fat. It's because they have this, like, extra loose skin at the bottom.

01:12:15:09 - 01:12:47:22
Gabe
And then I think of their stretch. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was like, Shoot, that's pretty cool. And then I've always thought too, it's unfortunate. I'm allergic to fur, but like, obviously, since you can't have pet cheetahs, there's what are they called? You can have like, like Bengals or there's like African cats that you can get that are more wild than domesticated.

01:12:48:04 - 01:12:48:28
Gabe
And I was like.

01:12:49:22 - 01:12:54:01
Lauren
I want one of those, except I'm allergic to fur. So it'd be awkward.

01:12:55:15 - 01:12:59:25
Lauren
Well, what's your favorite book series growing up?

01:12:59:25 - 01:13:01:02
Gabe
I like what age.

01:13:03:14 - 01:13:04:01
Lauren
11.

01:13:05:06 - 01:13:05:28
Lauren
Sat in.

01:13:05:28 - 01:13:06:08
Gabe
Middle.

01:13:06:08 - 01:13:08:21
Lauren
School. Mm hmm. Fifth grade.

01:13:10:12 - 01:13:25:19
Gabe
Typically, I have to think about my reading history. The issue was that I was really stupid as a kid. I was like, not even joking. Like, my.

01:13:26:04 - 01:13:26:27
Lauren
Mom.

01:13:27:18 - 01:13:52:05
Gabe
Actually thought I was mentally handicapped and, like, maybe needed to put me in a special school. Okay, this is how. Which I have a really hard time learning. Like how what I need to learn is a lot and I'm really slow processor. And so I struggled a lot as a kid because I didn't know, I couldn't figure out how to learn and honestly I thought I was the issue.

01:13:52:27 - 01:13:59:14
Gabe
And like, I'm not saying my teachers were the issue, but also like they kind of were the issue because, you know, teachers.

01:14:01:11 - 01:14:01:29
Lauren
Kind of all.

01:14:03:13 - 01:14:29:03
Gabe
There's a standardized way that they all teach. No offense to them. It just is what it is. And I it wasn't until like middle school but mostly high school that I finally learned what I had to do to learn. And so I was like, I was I struggled with reading, but I didn't struggle with reading because I feel like I've talked about this before when I was in kindergarten.

01:14:29:03 - 01:14:48:28
Gabe
Kindergarten is when Harry Potter released in the US, the first book that came out in the U.S. and my both of my parents are huge readers. I mean, we have like huge amounts of books. I have three massive bookcases in my room because of my reading habits. And they always encourage me to read and they would read with me.

01:14:48:28 - 01:15:12:19
Gabe
My mom was at Barnes and Noble, and she just happened to see the Harry Potter book. And I'd like just release the recently like within that week in the Barnes Noble. And she was like, oh, cool, I'll, you know, bring this home and we can read it. So I was able to become a really advanced reader because I was dumb at everything else, and that was like my way of escape.

01:15:13:01 - 01:15:44:23
Gabe
Besides sports was reading, and I was always reading with my parents and and like my dad talked to me like I was an adult. So I was always hearing words and scene wars. And so honestly, my fifth grade, this is so embarrassing. But like I was, I was like reading like I was a high schooler, like I was reading erotica, smart adult books, anything I could get my hands on because my parents didn't already.

01:15:45:11 - 01:16:08:20
Gabe
They didn't always know what I was reading. Hmm. The like. So I think by fifth grade, I think my mom's friends had given me the Sookie Stackhouse, our True Blood on HBO. I think I had started reading those. And then I had also started reading Mercedes Thompson by Patricia Briggs. To be honest with you.

01:16:08:20 - 01:16:09:04
Lauren
Okay.

01:16:09:21 - 01:16:15:18
Lauren
So I don't know the direction I thought we were going in, but I love to hear it.

01:16:16:05 - 01:16:23:25
Gabe
I did read, though. I mean, I did read young adult books. I read Twilight before. They were popular. I read The Hunger Games before they were popular, but they kind.

01:16:23:25 - 01:16:27:25
Lauren
Of bored me a little bit.

01:16:28:06 - 01:16:36:10
Gabe
Like, I still love Twilight and I still watch it every year for the nostalgia of it. Kids, just like I remember.

01:16:36:10 - 01:16:38:00
Lauren
But my and.

01:16:38:09 - 01:16:39:12
Lauren
The movies are a camp.

01:16:40:08 - 01:16:42:00
Lauren
That's true. That's true.

01:16:42:11 - 01:17:03:04
Lauren
Well, I feel like the you know, the series, whether it was like Eragon or, you know, any of those kind of series with, you know, a main animal friend or something. I was just to know what was kind of during their formula. Seven years.

01:17:03:04 - 01:17:23:12
Gabe
Urban Fantasy. I can answer that. That was the question. That's easy. Urban Fantasy. I loved Urban Fantasy. I still love urban fantasy. That's probably my favorite genre. And it's I don't know if you know what it is, but it's like our world, right? Like it's like current day. It's like if we're in our world but with different, the different reality.

01:17:24:00 - 01:17:36:04
Gabe
And so there's usually like a lot of times there's fake vampires, werewolves, you know, there's magic. It's like our current world. If there was magic.

01:17:36:04 - 01:17:58:12
Lauren
Have you read a blade so black? I think that's the first one. It's a Alice in Wonderland retelling that like with a black woman in Atlanta. And so it's a series where she is Alice. So there's Alice in Wonderland and she goes in and out, but she's like, in Atlanta.

01:17:58:15 - 01:18:01:07
Lauren
Oh, no, I haven't. But I heard about it.

01:18:01:23 - 01:18:23:10
Lauren
I've read the first and the second, the third one. It was supposed to come out a few years ago, but then like something happened with the publisher. And so I don't think it's out yet, but the first and second are so good. Oh, the third one's going to come out in September. I'm excited but alone l kitty. Truly so enjoyable.

01:18:23:15 - 01:18:25:26
Lauren
So urban fantasy. It's right there.

01:18:26:24 - 01:18:28:10
Gabe
I like that you're trying to figure out if I.

01:18:28:10 - 01:18:29:20
Lauren
Like books where you.

01:18:29:20 - 01:18:45:07
Gabe
Have, like, an animal, pet animal. Why don't you just ask? What does the most childhood books I really remember were like Nancy Drew, Boxcar kids or children or something like that.

01:18:45:07 - 01:18:45:29
Lauren
Eight year old.

01:18:47:06 - 01:18:48:16
Gabe
And the Magic Treehouse.

01:18:49:13 - 01:18:51:17
Lauren
Oh, Magic Treehouse. Yeah.

01:18:51:28 - 01:18:55:06
Lauren
Third grade right now. Yeah.

01:18:55:06 - 01:18:56:10
Gabe
Pippi Longstocking.

01:18:56:22 - 01:18:57:01
Lauren
Yeah.

01:18:58:08 - 01:19:08:12
Gabe
Those are like really all that I really remember reading for younger younger books. It kind of just went from.

01:19:08:26 - 01:19:09:01
Lauren
There.

01:19:09:27 - 01:19:17:05
Gabe
And then I can just skip the inbetween, to be honest.

01:19:17:05 - 01:19:18:15
Lauren
Feel like I just outed.

01:19:18:15 - 01:19:43:22
Gabe
Myself in ways that maybe I didn't know about myself. I remember being so young when the Trueblood came out on HBO and I so wanted to watch it like I wanted to know, like, to see. And it wasn't because of the weird sexual shit, but it was just I wanted to see what had come to life from the books because I like thinking back on it.

01:19:43:22 - 01:20:09:05
Gabe
I'm like, in the bookstore, okay? But like, I loved those when I was that young. Like, I thought they were so cool. And I actually, I just started finally decades later, I just finally started watching True Blood on HBO. Well, I was sick over spring break last week. I binged the first three seasons and I'm like, I remember why.

01:20:09:15 - 01:20:11:11
Lauren
You made it, Bill. I remember, right?

01:20:11:28 - 01:20:39:18
Gabe
Oh, shit. Like, I never lied to Bill. I always hated Bill. I was always like I was always like, Oh, Serkis, just be there, just be there. Just be with Eric and I. I hate how they ended it. I don't even think I actually ever truly finished the last book because spoiler alert plug ears if you don't want to know the second her and Eric were done in the last book of the series, I said Dish out.

01:20:39:27 - 01:20:40:15
Gabe
I was like.

01:20:41:01 - 01:20:43:27
Lauren
What do you mean?

01:20:45:00 - 01:20:55:01
Gabe
He's clearly the only one ever meant for you. Bill sucks. Oh shit. Piss me off at point. Quinn pissed me off. Sam, this.

01:20:55:06 - 01:20:56:10
Lauren
Job, I was like.

01:20:57:12 - 01:21:23:25
Gabe
Eric's the one. I felt like she did him. So dirty, not working with the author. And I was like, You know what? I think you're canon is false. I don't care if it's in your head, it's wrong or wrong. I have learned, though, because recently in the past couple years I've been rereading a lot of like my favorite series and there's very much a consistency in my book, boyfriends.

01:21:24:08 - 01:21:24:25
Lauren
I think.

01:21:25:25 - 01:21:26:10
Gabe
There's that.

01:21:26:10 - 01:21:27:15
Lauren
Type of.

01:21:27:18 - 01:21:42:07
Gabe
Kind of a type. There's definitely someone I'm like, Ooh, that was definitely the like weird pushing agenda of like toxic masculinity is okay and like now I'm like, Nope, I don't like.

01:21:42:07 - 01:21:43:03
Lauren
That at all.

01:21:44:00 - 01:21:49:12
Lauren
Sorry. Just so we're clear, were you Team Edward or Team Jacob?

01:21:49:28 - 01:22:14:07
Gabe
I was team neither. Even as a child. I thought both of them are fucking idiots and I thought they were. I'm sorry. I started to swear in this episode. They were honestly both toxic in their own ways. And and I don't really. The movies it's so easy me to be like, I hate both of you. I don't remember if they were both as bad.

01:22:14:07 - 01:22:24:01
Gabe
Actually, I think Edward was worse in the books than in the movies. And Jacob might be worse in the movies than he is in the books. I'm not sure about that. But like.

01:22:25:05 - 01:22:37:12
Lauren
Well, I was reading that Stephanie Meyer had named Jacob because in the first book, he's not a romantic interest. He's just some guy I know.

01:22:37:13 - 01:22:44:25
Gabe
You definitely know that there's. But, you know, he likes her at the very least. In the first book, you definitely know Jacob likes Bella.

01:22:45:23 - 01:23:08:13
Lauren
Okay, well, maybe what I was reading was wrong, but I was reading that Stephanie Meyer named him after her brother and like, I don't and like the book, the intention wasn't fully there that he would actively be the part that he would like, be the triangle that he was. But he became that.

01:23:09:06 - 01:23:35:05
Gabe
I believe it. I believe that like he was maybe he was definitely up in the air, but I think he was like, I think at the very least you knew that he liked Bella. Whether that went into anything else, whether he acted on it, you knew he had at least a childhood crush on her and potentially still seeing her, had a crush on her.

01:23:35:05 - 01:23:50:01
Gabe
But like, I don't think it was necessarily clear that it was going to become more than that. Honestly, I feel like from the first book she even could have taken and he could have just become her brother from another mother. And I think that would have been yeah.

01:23:50:16 - 01:23:50:29
Lauren
Kind of just.

01:23:51:00 - 01:23:57:22
Lauren
My friend zoned him and gotten into just like, all right, he's about to do.

01:23:58:10 - 01:24:11:03
Gabe
Yeah, yeah. Honestly, I don't think I was ever more pissed as a child than when he was like, I imprinted on your daughter. Like, even as a child, I knew there was something sick and wrong about that.

01:24:11:10 - 01:24:13:05
Lauren
I think I.

01:24:13:23 - 01:24:14:13
Gabe
Threw the.

01:24:14:13 - 01:24:15:00
Lauren
Book.

01:24:16:10 - 01:24:40:01
Gabe
I wanted to rage quit. That was when I were I definitely like there no team Edward or Team Jacob. Like if I even teetered for a moment, it was in that moment that I was like, You're done, you're done. You're going on. I don't care how hot Taylor Lautner is. Jacob used.

01:24:40:12 - 01:24:41:03
Lauren
To go.

01:24:42:29 - 01:24:47:22
Lauren
Or how much of a wolf he is. Yes, yes, yes.

01:24:47:22 - 01:24:57:03
Gabe
See, that really went to persuade me over a vampire. I don't necessarily prefer vampires over werewolves or werewolves. Over vampires.

01:24:58:10 - 01:25:02:10
Lauren
I mean, that's fair enough.

01:25:02:10 - 01:25:07:01
Gabe
Can I have a pet werewolf? So is that ethical?

01:25:08:13 - 01:25:09:27
Lauren
When you say that.

01:25:11:15 - 01:25:14:27
Lauren
Could you have a friend who is also a werewolf.

01:25:16:17 - 01:25:18:02
Gabe
That I keep locked in my basement?

01:25:18:18 - 01:25:19:21
Lauren
But why would you.

01:25:19:21 - 01:25:20:08
Lauren
Need to.

01:25:20:08 - 01:25:32:21
Lauren
Keep them locked in the basement? That's my question. Like, why can't you just, like, have a nice friend who then turns into a werewolf and lets you pet its head? Like, why must they be in your basement?

01:25:34:12 - 01:25:41:29
Lauren
Because I like it down there. Were you.

01:25:42:10 - 01:25:42:20
Gabe
Really.

01:25:44:03 - 01:25:48:01
Lauren
Really this?

01:25:48:01 - 01:25:49:16
Lauren
Okay, we're pulling it back together.

01:25:49:22 - 01:26:06:24
Gabe
Okay, wait a minute. I would just like to say I don't feel like I was a wolf girl anyways. I know we went through all of that, but I felt really personally attacked when you're like, So you're a werewolf girl.

01:26:07:25 - 01:26:23:14
Lauren
I would say that was not an attack. BE was not intend to be an attack. It was an attack. It was an attack. It was not intended to be an attack. And B, I don't believe you. This whole conversation has just led me further down the back.

01:26:24:24 - 01:26:30:12
Lauren
Yeah, she was a forest wolf girls. A wolf girl. So wolf Croft.

01:26:31:27 - 01:26:38:22
Lauren
You I mean, let me know in the comments if I'm wrong.

01:26:39:00 - 01:26:46:24
Gabe
I'd just like to say which of us has bunny ears on which of us as? I actually got some. And I'm all ears. I'm sad.

01:26:46:24 - 01:26:53:08
Lauren
Amy Yeah, I think my sparkly bunny ears definitely scream out wolf girl.

01:26:53:18 - 01:26:53:27
Gabe
No.

01:26:53:27 - 01:26:54:19
Lauren
But does sure it.

01:26:54:20 - 01:26:56:21
Lauren
Screams out something.

01:26:56:28 - 01:27:01:23
Lauren
I think there are girls who are into fairies and it's probably a bit of a fairy girl.

01:27:01:28 - 01:27:05:18
Lauren
Dude, fairies are awesome right. I love fairies.

01:27:06:23 - 01:27:11:11
Gabe
Can I just be a girl? Why do I have to have a label like a wolf girl? I just be a.

01:27:11:11 - 01:27:12:18
Lauren
Girl and.

01:27:12:19 - 01:27:16:20
Lauren
Change your name and I'm going to put your label as a girl.

01:27:17:02 - 01:27:24:23
Lauren
Nothing you do now, it's going to be like, What's going on? Until they get to this part?

01:27:25:06 - 01:27:30:25
Gabe
That's stay tuned to the whole episode to found out.

01:27:30:25 - 01:27:31:14
Lauren
Why.

01:27:33:28 - 01:27:35:13
Lauren
They got this cut, this whole part out.

01:27:35:13 - 01:27:51:29
Lauren
And just leave. You just look. So as you get more rest, you just start from this.

01:27:51:29 - 01:27:52:19
Gabe
Just finish your.

01:27:52:19 - 01:27:58:24
Lauren
Spotlight. Just let me get out of here. I want to be here anymore, okay?

01:28:01:12 - 01:28:02:06
Lauren
Yeah. Like some.

01:28:02:06 - 01:28:05:16
Gabe
Damn tears.

01:28:05:16 - 01:28:35:21
Lauren
So I ask you go, girl. So like we just said, she joined intended in 2003 for Zelda. In 2008, she joined the Animal Crossing family. She was a sequence director on city folk where she was responsible for more script writing and then elements related to non player character, behavior and dialog. So she was just doing a lot of writing and she was the co-director of New Leaf, which as we mentioned, came out in 2012.

01:28:35:21 - 01:28:56:21
Lauren
And the kind of thought process behind it from Nintendo is that they're hoping to get back to the series Roots with the game. When she became co-director of New Leaf, this was making her the first woman to direct a video game at Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development. So in her department, she was the first woman to direct a video game.

01:28:57:11 - 01:29:20:16
Lauren
She and her producer decided to hire a team that was half female after she noted that she was frequently the only woman on development teams. And then I had a quote from her and said, When you're trying to create something that will appeal to many types of people, I have experienced how beneficial it is to have diversity on your team, which makes sense to me.

01:29:20:16 - 01:29:52:06
Lauren
If you're trying to create a game that's going to appeal to a wide variety in a diverse audience, making sure you have diverse people in the room, creating the game seems logical. All makes sense to me. And there was a Nintendo developer chat where they asked her for message to women who would like to work in the game industry, and she responded, If you want to please join, I'll be so happy.

01:29:52:06 - 01:30:15:00
Lauren
If we can work together that. Just thought was cute. So they approach to animal crossing. New leaf was different. Not only did they want to make the game for both men and women, they wanted it to be made by men and women. And during the first three weeks of sales of New Leaf, the primary players were 19 to 24 year old girls.

01:30:16:05 - 01:30:49:24
Lauren
So they did a great job. And so she really credits the diversity of her team for New Leaf's success. There was an article that came out in 2016 titled I Kotaku, Nintendo's a Rising Star and Secret Weapon. And the article said, While she remains the most powerful woman within the Nintendo organization, Goku opened the door for many other Japanese female developers, stressing the need for more diverse teams that bring fresh points of view to the design board.

01:30:50:10 - 01:31:21:25
Lauren
As gaming slowly becomes an equally acceptable hobby for both genders, the industry is becoming equally accessible as well. With Kaio Goku leading The Pack in 2019, she was named as the manager of the Nintendo Group Number Five, which was a position previously held by Hisashi Nurmi. Before he got promoted to the deputy general manager of that department, she directed New Horizons, which, as we all know, launched 2020 with incredible success and adoration.

01:31:21:25 - 01:31:50:27
Lauren
And that was not co-directed. She did it by herself and she received obviously a lot of praise broadening the series appeal beyond the typical teen age male demographic. And there were a lot of changes and adjustments they made to new horizons. They allowed a lot of character customization and clothing items and hairstyles that weren't restricted by gender. And so players had a lot more options on how to represent themselves in the game.

01:31:51:00 - 01:32:15:16
Lauren
And Kotaku said that this level of fine tuning the character is not just about gender, but relates to the team's overall feeling that society is shifting to valuing a lot of people's different identities. We basically wanted to create a game where users didn't really have to think about gender or if they wanted to think about gender. They're also able to kind of pick and choose what you were interested in doing.

01:32:15:26 - 01:32:19:06
Lauren
What colors, what designs look you wanted to.

01:32:19:06 - 01:32:19:19
Lauren
Have.

01:32:20:16 - 01:32:24:18
Gabe
Definitely do a better job of not having like ethnic care too.

01:32:24:26 - 01:32:25:20
Lauren
And.

01:32:25:20 - 01:32:26:07
Lauren
Yes.

01:32:26:22 - 01:32:29:16
Lauren
Yeah, yes, absolutely.

01:32:29:28 - 01:32:58:15
Lauren
They did a lot of work, especially with, you know, various drops that were coming out over time and updates of adding a whole variety and things to buy in the game using. Yeah, not real money, but like in-game money to be able to buy a whole bunch of different hairstyles as well that I think there was an entire pack that was specifically different types of.

01:32:59:16 - 01:33:01:15
Lauren
Yeah, more diverse hairstyles.

01:33:01:15 - 01:33:02:14
Lauren
Yeah. Yeah.

01:33:03:24 - 01:33:32:10
Lauren
There was an article in The Verge about New Horizons saying particularly wanted to shift the way players interact with the world. When we thought about changing those relationships between the user and the animals, we thought, Well, what if we take away the village? And so putting a player on a deserted island is the solution we came up with, which is just so fun that they were like, Okay, well, we changed this, we changed this, we changed this.

01:33:32:10 - 01:33:59:25
Lauren
What if we like maintain the relationships and then just change the environment? I'm sure Sims and any of those kind of games also led to some of that inspiration, and Kotaku has the co-producer of the Animal Crossing series as a whole, so she's moved on from director and moved into a co-producer of the whole series because she has been so instrumental to its success and its growth.

01:34:01:18 - 01:34:06:28
Gabe
I don't know a whole lot about Animal Crossing, but I did like that. The new one.

01:34:07:09 - 01:34:07:25
Lauren
That.

01:34:08:11 - 01:34:35:00
Gabe
Their newest on Horizons or whatever like that. You really owned the village. You owned it like you made it, you know? And I mean, you're just coming to a completely blank canvas, a deserted island, and like, you know, like, what would you do with a deserted island? How would you populate? How would you design it? What would you try to do for the island?

01:34:35:04 - 01:34:38:03
Lauren
I really like that about it. Yeah.

01:34:38:19 - 01:35:08:21
Lauren
And just the care and keeping of your villagers and the design and the creativity aspects and the just kind of tranquil joy that you can get from doing your little fishing and doing your little tasks and not getting penalized for not doing them. Because I think that's what a lot of get real time games. You feel like you're missing out on so much if you don't play every day or you don't.

01:35:08:22 - 01:35:30:01
Lauren
Yeah. And certain times that you know so like yes you won't get fish if you don't play. Like there's some fish and some things that are only found during certain times of the day, blah, blah, blah. And like some specific things, you know, Sunday mornings you can get turnips or whatever, but if you you can always make more money.

01:35:30:09 - 01:35:43:27
Lauren
You know, there's there's no there's not a lot of time constraints on when you can do things. So you don't feel rushed and you don't feel stressed out. Just really appreciate.

01:35:44:12 - 01:35:44:27
Gabe
It to.

01:35:45:10 - 01:35:47:01
Lauren
Where you and.

01:35:48:21 - 01:36:14:07
Gabe
Okay this is building off of something you originally said when you responded back. But that I mean, you were having to take care of your island there. There's like the whole read system and like picking up weeds and weeds respond. You could sell weeds in the game, encouraging you to take care of your island. But like, yeah, like you said, there wasn't the pressure that some of these other kind of games have and the stress and anxiety of like you had to.

01:36:14:26 - 01:36:16:09
Lauren
And I'm.

01:36:16:16 - 01:36:35:03
Gabe
Sorry, worst case scenario, if you didn't really want to play during a certain time, you can shake series month and time and day and all of that. You're not your what you sorry your switch to do that.

01:36:35:03 - 01:36:43:16
Lauren
But yeah don't tell anybody. I told you that it's a secret.

01:36:44:29 - 01:36:45:09
Lauren
It's a.

01:36:45:09 - 01:36:52:04
Lauren
Legal. How could you say? Well, I.

01:36:53:15 - 01:37:07:15
Gabe
Feel like we started off so strong in this episode. We had a very clear path. And then I feel like you tricked me into exposing things the world wasn't supposed to know.

01:37:07:15 - 01:37:08:21
Lauren
So you know.

01:37:08:21 - 01:37:11:14
Gabe
What I said? I'm never coming.

01:37:11:14 - 01:37:18:13
Lauren
Back. I'm done. This is the end. So I'm over it. You?

01:37:18:13 - 01:37:40:07
Gabe
Yeah. You go ahead and you forgive myself about it. You live and you know it. This is it. I'm done. I'm ending it. Right. I'm supposed to say if you have a developer game or side quest, you want us to talk about or any localized anonymous gossip, you simply must tell someone. Let us know on Twitter at AD No sequester.

01:37:40:07 - 01:37:45:23
Gabe
Email us at no sequester gmail.com. I'm not coming back. So it doesn't matter if you have that because.

01:37:45:23 - 01:37:46:25
Lauren
I taught.

01:37:47:17 - 01:37:49:21
Gabe
The world knows too much about.

01:37:49:21 - 01:37:55:24
Lauren
Me.

01:37:55:24 - 01:38:09:28
Gabe
But if you'd like to see us while she exposes me during the podcast, we do post each episode with video to our I Don't Believe in side quests youtube channel if you want to know.

01:38:10:06 - 01:38:11:29
Lauren
Yeah, yeah.

01:38:12:23 - 01:38:18:08
Gabe
You can find me at Nenyaadamas on Twitter, Twitch, YouTube and Instagram and you can find Lauren at sweetie_potat

01:38:18:26 - 01:38:19:15
Lauren
Twitter.

01:38:19:15 - 01:38:25:10
Gabe
Twitter and YouTube and that's it. That's the end. Goodbye. Have a good one.

01:38:25:10 - 01:38:33:13
Lauren
Bye!