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RIP Childhood - Add to Party 03.19.2024
15 Plays9 months ago
This week we discuss the passing of Akira Toriyama, Rooster teeth, the yuzu emulator, and Mario Maker 1.
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Transcript
Introduction to Add to Party
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I'm joined by Andy K. And I'm joined by Derek Kostihov.
00:00:28
Speaker
Good evening, you two. Hey, good evening. How are you guys? I'm doing well. Yeah, doing pretty good, actually. That's what a good thing, because today's episode is going to be about nothing but bad things. No, no.
The Pandemic YouTube Show Sale
00:00:45
Speaker
OK, well, let's turn this into what was that YouTube show that Jim from The Office made? Jim, I don't know. No. So like at the beginning of the pandemic,
00:01:00
Speaker
Office Jim made a YouTube show that was like just about happy things.
00:01:06
Speaker
And I don't know, I don't know if he released it every day, I don't know, but it became a big thing. And then he sold it to like some news corporation or something. And I remember there was a lot of pushback because I was like, wasn't this just about joy? Like, why did this have to be sold? And it wasn't a big production. It was like him trying to be quirky at his desk and like drawing things with crayons. But no, he sold it and then we never saw anything about it again. So.
00:01:34
Speaker
Don't yell out everyone. Andy, it's in its essence, it is still about joy. I'd be joyful if I got a big payout. I mean, fair. Like, oh, gosh, you guys remember the Animal Crossing talk show?
00:01:50
Speaker
Oh, that Gary Wooda, that Gary Wooda did. Was he the Star Wars guy? Yes. Yes, that one. Like that was joyful and he didn't sell out. But as with that, and I'm sure the office gym show is going to run its course, like we're all going to be over in a couple of months. So I guess can we blame him for selling? Maybe not. I guess sell high.
00:02:14
Speaker
Maybe not.
Lottery Ticket Woes
00:02:15
Speaker
Yeah. I think I saw the lottery was over 800 million. It is. But they took out the lottery ticket machine at my grocery store. Oh, no. I don't want to go to the desk to get a ticket. There's something. And this would have been the one you win in. Shut up. Like, do you guys have machines or do you have to go to the desk?
00:02:39
Speaker
We have machines, but I usually go to the, when I check out at 7-11, I grab one. Oh, really? Well, I guess if you're already there. Yeah. And I've got machines in my grocery store. Do you have to scan your ID when you get it at the machine? No. Oh, you have to scan your ID in Massachusetts. Huh? I guess what's the age that you can buy a ticket at?
00:03:06
Speaker
It's either 18 or 21, probably 18. OK, because there was I was talking at work with some people that they raised the age on cigarettes to 21. And I didn't know that because I thought that's what you do. And also, like, I guess, and it wouldn't surprise me, you can't buy magazines anymore, if you know what I mean. Oh, yeah, I actually have that issue in
00:03:32
Speaker
of excess.
Texas' Adult Content ID Law
00:03:33
Speaker
Now I need to give Pornhub my ID. That's true. That's true. Derek lives in liberal paradise, Texas. Yeah. I mean, I haven't been impacted yet, but someone else in our group seems deeply troubled. I can't imagine. And then you have to play the VPN game. And I'm too old for that.
00:03:56
Speaker
Or you just use hundreds of other sites. I mean, that's fair. There's a lot of other hundreds of others. Yeah, that's right. Hundreds as if that was the only amount I. But so I guess I'm not too familiar with it. But so porn is saying no, screw you. Fair. OK, so it boils down to it's illegal to give pornography to children under age. Right. Reasonable.
00:04:23
Speaker
reasonable law. Reasonable. Now, most sites just have a pop up that says, are you over 18? Sure. And I'm assuming Pornhub had that too. But Texas is like, we card for alcohol, we card for cigarettes. We don't card for the lottery for some reason. We need you to card for porn now.
00:04:47
Speaker
And yeah, I can't remember for now, but self was susceptible to it. But there's been a lot of leaks of private information from these unsavory business dealings online.
00:05:02
Speaker
Although I think Hornhub as a technology stack is actually pretty good. But that doesn't betray your point there, which is like, yeah, I don't want to volunteer that kind of information to a third party site unless I absolutely
The Quilt Story
00:05:16
Speaker
have to. Oh, I know. I know some information that makes me not believe I don't have as much trust in them as you.
00:05:26
Speaker
I know. Well, maybe maybe it's only from a networking in a video on demand service that they're they're well respected. No, I I know what hardware they have in the back end. Oh, I see. So what are they running on just out of some dude's basement of a Mac mini somewhere? I know someone that had the largest porn server in Wisconsin in like the 90s or something. Now, Wisconsin was even more.
00:05:57
Speaker
Um, but he would talk about, uh, you know, the amount of traffic that moves through that in the early days, right? But he was able to run it out of his house. So Pornhub is run out of a house. No, that's not what I'm saying. But wait, so with all the other varieties out there, do they all have to card or are they
00:06:21
Speaker
I mean, are they getting away with it? I think technically they do. But I mean, the first step was to like sue the biggest site that didn't comply. Sure. I guess I don't I don't know. Like, yeah, you're going to implement this. You have to be a part of the solution and not just force a porn site to have copies of your legal ID. Mm hmm. Like you have like a virtual cell guy. That's even worse. I don't want a virtual Texas ID.
00:06:50
Speaker
Just stop Texas. Just stop. You don't want a freedom ID, Derek? No. The freedom to have a secondary ID. Like you want the freedom to not be on the power grid, but why do you want to give your ID? I don't get it. I don't get it.
00:07:09
Speaker
I don't control Andy. Andy, you're trying to use logic and reason from your point of view. Think about the lawmakers filling their pockets off of all of these decisions. Who's funding this? Like, can't big porn, like, don't they have lobbyists? So Andy, two things drive lawmakers, money and election years. And what year is it?
00:07:36
Speaker
You think you'd think, though, that porn would turn the party against them. Wouldn't it? Well, certainly women's reproductive health. I mean, we'll find out. I guess. Yeah. What could be I mean, you know, everybody says porn is the leader when it comes to a lot of places in society. Why shouldn't it be law to Texas is going blue.
00:08:02
Speaker
Oh, this is going to backfire. Oh, no. Andy, I love your point of view. Like porn is why we had VHS instead of Betamax. Porn is why we had blue ray into HD DVD. Yep. Okay. What will porn force us down next? Okay. Going blue. Not even blue. We're lefties over in Texas now. Let's go.
00:08:27
Speaker
Oh, although I keep my gun. How many electoral votes does Texas have? Too many. Let's let's let's see how many electoral votes porn gave us. One hundred and fifty. Yeah, it's a lot. Yeah. Is electoral by amount of people?
00:08:52
Speaker
Right? Because that's the amount of representatives you get? I think it's by congressional districts, I think. So every so many districts have so many representatives, and that translates also to so many delegates. Well, but they don't add districts or delegates anymore. So they're just stuck from the last time they expanded them.
00:09:16
Speaker
OK, I wonder if I'm reading this correctly. I might be reading it wrong, but it looks like they do have a lot. And porn turned the tide. Sorry, Trump. If you're not already in jail, you can afford that four hundred million dollar bail. See, they're good stuff. Trump might be in jail and porn turned the tide. Maybe we are going to be OK. Maybe everything will be OK. You want to hear something beautiful?
00:09:45
Speaker
Sure, Andy, let me tell you guys about this. So a couple or like two weeks ago or whatever, when I had covid and, you know, you go through like that fever phase, right? Well, ever being sick, right. But I was in the fever phase of my covid. And so naturally you're freezing.
00:10:04
Speaker
and you're looking for every, every blanket, any layer to put on you so that you can try to break the curse. It doesn't work, but trying helps. And I took a blanket out that I had in my closet that I very rarely use. It was a blanket that was gifted to me a long time ago by a friend, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I always thought like, like I always called it a blanket or a quilt, but I always figured it was just something that they got cheap from somewhere.
00:10:32
Speaker
And I was talking with someone who quilts. And I showed them my blanket because I've fallen in love with it. It's so comfortable. And they told me it's a handmade quilt. I have a quilt that someone, I guess the determining factors of a quilt, and maybe everybody knew this except me, but with a quilt, it's different pieces of fabric stitched together, right?
00:10:59
Speaker
And it'll be in all different directions, but all of the stitching follows the lines of the fabric. And it's not something printed, it's all in separate parts. And then the back is a single sheet that will have more pattern sewing through it. And mine matches the criteria. I have a handmade quilt. Someone handmade my quilt. I have some beautiful artifact of love and time, but I don't know who did it.
00:11:27
Speaker
But I'm obsessed with it now. I have it around me right now. Who made my quilt? What is the story of my quilt? I don't know.
00:11:38
Speaker
Where did you get it from? What's that? Where did you get it from? I got it from a friend and they were the kind of person that had a lot of cats. So and
Transition to Serious Topics
00:11:49
Speaker
every time I go over, though, they always put a blanket on one of their chairs so I could sit down and not like react and lose my mind. I'm very, very allergic to cats.
00:11:59
Speaker
And this was always the blanket that they put down. It was always this one because it was the old one. They always kept clean and didn't have cat hair on it. And then when they moved away, they thought of me and gave me this quilt.
Remembering Akira Toriyama
00:12:10
Speaker
But like their mother didn't quilt. I didn't know anyone in their family that quilted. I don't know where this came from. I don't know the story of it. But I literally almost donated it to Goodwill. I know I almost gave away this beautiful story.
00:12:27
Speaker
but I don't know the story of the quilt. And I don't want to reach out to the friend because while we were close, however many years ago, the only contact I've had with them was like five years ago, they messaged me and it turns out they're like a recruiter and they're just like, hey sir, are you interested in any job opportunities? And I was like,
00:12:47
Speaker
Doesn't our friendship mean anything? Did nothing mean anything? Always be hustling, Andy. Exactly. If I want to give you that quilt, maybe now you give me some business. 10 years later, more than that.
00:13:03
Speaker
So, you know, that friendship's gone, which is fine. You grow up and grow apart. But I don't know. I just, I have a beautiful handmade quilt and this is a recent revelation and I'm losing my mind that I have this thing that took time. It took time!
00:13:19
Speaker
And I don't what when they were when they were spending their time and investing their energy and their presence and their spirit into this quilt, what was their intention? Where did they mean for it to go? Am I not living up to the legacy of the quilt? Let me stop you right there. Let me stop you right there. You're not.
00:13:40
Speaker
Um, that's okay. It is. It is. Well, I don't know the, do you guys, well, I want to ask you guys, do you guys have quilts? Do you have blankets that you don't know are quilts yet? No, I don't have quilts. I have animals. Well, you should have a quilt that you can put on a chair that I can sit on. Selfish.
00:14:04
Speaker
What a monster. And Derek, you don't have any quilts either? I do not. It's not typically quilt season often here. Oh, I guess. Yeah, that's fair. Do you have throw blankets? I do. Oh, yeah. I have throw blankets. OK. They all have holes in them. From animals. From your pets. I have throws so that they make my couch look less empty. OK. Like.
00:14:32
Speaker
It is just there for a style. Oh, stylish. And my board game night, one of the girls is always cold. And she says, I keep my apartment. Women. Women. Well, what do you keep your apartment at, Derek? I like to go down to 68 if it's not too warm. It'll go up depending on how hot it is outside because electricity bills are hot. That's a gentleman's temperature, Derek. I appreciate it.
00:15:01
Speaker
You might need a throw at 68. I'll put on socks if I feel cold, okay? It's kind of cool. I'm too scared to put mine below 72.
00:15:16
Speaker
Andy, my house, my house, well, in the summer, I set it for 68. And you know, it ends up being what it ends up being. But like in the winter, this house is, I don't know, anywhere between like 63 and 66 on average. No. Well, I'm not going to blame you because I'm sure heat is very expensive. I don't pay for heat. Really? And I control the thermostat. What? Your landlords better give you a discount.
00:15:44
Speaker
I have raised my rent in four years, so. OK, let's go. Andy, mine is in a similar situation. I wouldn't even touch the heat if it wasn't for the risk of frozen pipes. Oh, sure. It's like, OK, landlord, I get you don't want burst pipes. So keep my closet door open and put it up to 60.
00:16:07
Speaker
Listen, I've always been on the side that being cold is better than being hot. I would rather be cold than be hot. And you can be cold and you can just get a blanket, right? Exactly. A quilt. A quilt! And then you got comfy vibes. I'm obsessed with this quilt. It's so much more comfortable than any throw I have. You guys need quilts. You're doing it wrong. Oh, but you need a handmade quilt. Yeah.
00:16:32
Speaker
I don't frequent enough flea markets, unfortunately, so. I mean, a real handmade quilt is going to be extremely expensive. Or someone in your life, you know, well, I took this from someone that made it with love. Or can you not make a quilt with love?
00:16:52
Speaker
Wait, wait. Do you mean that the other way? Can you not make a quilt except with love? Thank you. Yes. Can you make a quilt without love or not make a quilt without? I don't know. You said it correctly, but like.
00:17:11
Speaker
You can't make a... Has capitalism got to quilts? Yes. Has big quilts taken over. I'm currently browsing quilts on Etsy. I was about to say Etsy, yeah. No! There's quilts on Etsy? Of course there's quilts on Etsy. They gotta be fake quilts, though. Well, they're definitely not made with love. Are they dropship quilts? Dropship? Are these quilts? I'm sure there's someone hand making quilts on Etsy, but...
00:17:40
Speaker
How much is a quilt on Etsy? Let's take a look. I'm going to say $120 conservatively. This one says $16. Even $120. I feel like it should be $300 or $400. Yeah, $450 is a good price for one. OK. I'm looking at ones that are a lot cheaper, though. Why do all these say $16? There's no way they can be this cheap. Well, because they're probably made out of like the thinnest polyester human possible. Maybe. I don't understand. But yeah, like this is a lot of someone's time.
00:18:11
Speaker
They should be rewarded for their time. Was mine a $16 quilt? No. It sounds heavy, so I don't think so. It's not the most heavy. To be fair, I usually give it, if I have guests or something, it's the blanket I bring out for them in case they need one. But the pattern on it gives me early 2000s.
00:18:37
Speaker
Interesting. Very early 2000s or late 90s. And in the late 90s, capitalism did not get to quilts in the 90s. I don't think the technology existed to do it efficiently and exploitatively.
00:18:52
Speaker
I don't see it. I don't see it. But I don't know the story of my quilt and it's been kind of bumming me out, but I still think it's really beautiful. So I've been wearing my quilt all the time. Andy, don't get so hung up on its past. Think about the future of its story, OK? You're going to die one day and it'll go into a dump. Speaking of dying one day.
00:19:14
Speaker
Don't make that the transition! Pull the quilt up tight, Andy. Wrap yourself up the warmth, because we're going to face the cold, hard reality of the end of life for most of this podcast. This is not going in the dump, by the way. This is in my will. Jesus Christ. Please, James, take us away. Well, first in our episode of Death.
00:19:37
Speaker
R.I.P. Akira Toriyama, Akira Toriyama passed away last week suddenly and surprisingly, he died on March. I believe he died on March 1st. March 8th is when the news came out of it. Yeah, but he had died several days prior. That's right. Yeah, they the yeah, he died on March 1st. Yeah. And then they let us know on March 8th.
00:20:06
Speaker
And I think it was a head trauma, right? He had a he had a sub. What is it? Subdural hematoma, which is basically a brain bleed. Man, I think that's what Danny Tanner died of, right? I don't know who Danny Tanner is. Who's who's the guy? You know, it was the full house guy. And then he told the dirty. Oh, you mean you mean Bob Saget? Yeah. Yes.
00:20:37
Speaker
And I don't know if that's what I thought. I don't know. I just know he like hit his head and then like died. Well, you hit your head, you guys. Akira Toriyama and.
00:20:51
Speaker
I'm doing a disservice to say if you don't know who Akira Toriyama is, but if you don't, famed creator of Dragon Ball Z, Dragon Ball Super,
00:21:07
Speaker
Character design will not be a character designer, art designer for Dragon Quest and Google Crowner. There it is. And the upcoming game Sandland, which comes out April 25th, I think. That's true. And Blue Dragon and Blue Dragon. That's right. So you're telling me Akira Toriyama is somewhat in part responsible for all the hiatuses of Hunter Hunter?
00:21:36
Speaker
I mean, that is fair, yeah. Every Dragon Quest release, it led to a hiatus of like weeks. Really? For a Hunter, Hunter? Yeah. That's great.
00:21:47
Speaker
Oh, Akira Toriyama. He was supposed to be, you know, he he he was kind of the the elder statesman of of manga manga. I think Gona Guy is actually a couple of years older than he is. I'm a casual. Who's that? Devil man. Oh, OK.
00:22:11
Speaker
Uh, and then I was looking this up. I was like, trying to say who are the oldest, like very popular monk has left. And I think it's going to guy now. And then, um, Iraqi who does JoJo's was our old man now. He's in the sixties. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Curator was 68. I think going to guy is 69. Oh my God. He was only 68. Yeah. Oh.
00:22:41
Speaker
Man. But I think like it's it goes without saying like. I can't think of perhaps a more influential artist for like gaming and pop culture. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I think one person who like is up there with it is Osamu Tezuka. Astro boy. Yeah.
00:23:08
Speaker
You have a Dragon Ball. I agree with you, but Dragon Ball is just...
00:23:15
Speaker
Man, it's what it's a global. Are you guys aware of like how big it is in Latin America? Yes. So cartel violence goes down considerably for the next two days after a new episode gets aired. Anecdotally, yes. But by all by all measurements, cartel violence in in in Latin America goes down when there's a new episode of Dragon Ball, even super.
00:23:40
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, it's super. They had showings in town squares of the episodes when they came out. Yeah. The Japanese embassy of Mexico asked for them to stop doing these viewing parties as it was not following their licensing agreement or some such. And I went lol. Yeah. They sent a letter to a mayor who was hosting his own party. Yeah. Huge Mexico. Yeah.
00:24:09
Speaker
It's, it's just crazy. Um, something else. And you just hear a lot of like little stories, obviously like the manga community has like come out and talked a lot about it. Um, uh, Oda creator one piece and Kishimoto creator of Naruto, uh, both saw Akira Toriyama as kind of like their senior and just being like, Oh,
00:24:31
Speaker
I in particular, I imagine Oda is probably more devastated than most because he probably wanted Toriyama to see the end of one piece. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's devastating. It's like I just never would have thought it happened, but. What can you do? I mean, but like with his death, though, I saw it across all media and by all media, I mean NPR, so.
00:24:59
Speaker
I mean, the fact that he got to NPR, which is a pretty normie, like, sort of very normie. But so, yeah, the fact that he got to there, he was he was a goat. Right. Yeah, truly. It's also funny, just a lot of like little stories that have been coming out about Toriyama, obviously, so like
00:25:27
Speaker
Um, turning super saying in Dragon Ball Z is probably one of them. Like if you had to list like top five pop culture scenes, like that's in there. The one of the other ones being the Akira slide on the motorcycle.
00:25:43
Speaker
Oh, yeah, for sure. But Toriyama said the reason he did that was because it took his colorist so long to color in Goku's hair because it was black. So he changed it to blonde to make their lives easier. Really? Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. So that's the reason Goku's hair is blonde, because he's like, I want to make it easier on them. No way. Oh.
00:26:10
Speaker
Oh, man. And Dragon Ball was in the 80s, right? When it started, it was Super Saiyan and Dragon Ball. No. Dragon Ball Z. Well, it was actually launch. The first Super Saiyan there, I said it. Who was the first Super Saiyan? That was from. Yeah, launch was in Dragon Ball and she had an alternate personality in her hair would turn blonde. First Super Saiyan.
00:26:39
Speaker
Derek, what was the name of the manga before Dragon Ball? Was it Ariel? Dr. Slump. Dr. Slump, thank you. But Ariel was like the main character, wasn't she? Yeah, she was. I've never heard of that before. What is Dr. Slump?
00:26:53
Speaker
It was pretty long run series in itself. It's not nearly as popular as dragon ball, but it was Toriyama's first series. It's her first life, like a little wacky. It had a lot of similar cultural like peculiarities that the dragon ball world has, but it's, I had to drop it because it just didn't hold my attention, but nothing wrong with it.
00:27:19
Speaker
I would say that's actually probably pretty inspired from Astro Boy because Ariel's a little robot girl. Oh, OK. I would imagine the DNA flows through there. Yeah, but I mean, sad news, sad hit me, hit me harder than I expected it to, to be honest with you. Oh, yeah. It's one of those things where you just kind of expected him to be alive forever. Yes, exactly. 100 percent agree.
00:27:46
Speaker
Like, like a Miyazaki. Miyazaki keeps going. Miyazaki's too mad to die. Yeah, he smokes like a chimney. Like, dude is just angry all the time. But he's infinite. He would have expected it from... What is it? Who's... Derek, who's the... Who's the mangaka who does all the horror manga?
00:28:13
Speaker
Oh, uh, Junji Ito. Yeah. My favorite comparison is between, um, Miyazaki and Junji Ito. We're like, Miyazaki is this miserable old man who makes these beautiful things. And Junji Ito is like the nicest guy in the world. He makes the most horrifying manga that he possibly could. Oh, I didn't know he was a sweetheart. Oh yeah. Junji Ito is like the nicest guy. Aw.
00:28:42
Speaker
His stuff is too scary for me to read. I don't know if scary is the right word. No, it's scary. It is scary. It is scary and is disturbing. I feel unsettling is like, yeah, it's not. It's a visceral horror. It's a it's a horror for the lizard brain. Oh, it's like body horror, right? Yeah. I don't like body horror. It's got it's got a Hieronymus Bosch kind of. I've never heard that word before. He's a famous painter. Don't worry about it. Yeah. No, in all of his interviews,
00:29:12
Speaker
Stand up guy. He talks about going for like walks in fields of flowers and stuff like that. And then he'll put on like your headbands and pose with fans. That's adorable. And then Miyazaki's like, I'll kill you. Yeah. Brother is so he's so. My son is a disappointment to me.
00:29:40
Speaker
Miyazaki hates us. I, yet the dude is making movies too. Who, who knows? But Toriyama too soon. Genuinely too soon. Well, let's keep it rolling. Cause that wasn't the other notable demise.
Rooster Teeth Shutdown
00:29:59
Speaker
Oh God, no. Rooster Teeth has been shut down by Warner brother discovery. Yeah.
00:30:07
Speaker
Rooster Teeth. I didn't even know they were bought. I always thought they were. But I want to say like five or six years ago. It's been that many. Yeah, Rooster Teeth. If you again, I feel like I'm doing the service to say if you don't know them. But I would I would say their popularity has waned in the post covid covid era. But they were instrumental to the early Internet. Red versus blue, probably one of the
00:30:37
Speaker
I think the most popular machinima, where it's basically making using a game engine to create, you know, third party content. Yeah, I can't think of another one. And then also. The Let's Play Channel and Achievement Hunter, which I mean, up there with, say, you know, your Markiplier and PewDiePie's in terms of just like the Let's Play popularity.
00:31:01
Speaker
They used to have their own convention. They did. RTX. RTX. I knew someone who would go to Texas every year. I think it was in Texas, right? It was in Texas. It was awesome. You go to Texas every year for RTX, and I never knew what it was. Like, what do you do at a Rooster Teeth convention? Is it truly just to celebrate the property or is it like a PAX where it just doesn't really have anything to do with penny? It's more to celebrate the property. Sure. Yeah.
00:31:30
Speaker
Um, they also had a wide range of podcasts. They also created the, uh, anime like sensation Ruby. Yeah. Um, trying to think of what else they did. They did a lot of stuff. They, they made a few live action movies. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. It was a called laser team. Okay. Um, they're funny. I liked them. Um, how much like,
00:32:00
Speaker
It's just a bummer. Uh, yeah. And it will result in the layoff of approximately 150 full-time employees and dozens of contractors. I didn't know they were that big of a company. Yeah. They, uh, at one point, I don't know if it's still true. They had two airplane hangers in Austin that were essentially their studio. Wow.
00:32:25
Speaker
Oh, man. Like, well, have they been doing anything recently? Were you into that Rooster Teeth or were you? You were. Yeah, I was I was a big Rooster Teeth fan back in the day.
00:32:38
Speaker
Oh, this also. Yeah. Fun House, too, which is their L.A. Let's Play Group as well is will be shuttered because of this as well. The podcast, which is the Roost Network, is still potentially going to exist. They're looking at selling that off. So the podcast may still live on. But all the video content, let's play content, animation content is even Ruby, even Ruby, even Ruby. Wow.
00:33:09
Speaker
Again, a bummer. Thanks, James. Oh, yeah. No, you're welcome. I mean, again, it's just one of those things. Rooster Teeth is probably one of those formation parts of the Internet, depending on where you were. I wouldn't say it's necessarily as formative as say in Akira Toriyama on other media. But Rooster Teeth definitely was like. They were a big part of the the early Internet. Yeah, I think I dropped I knew about Red versus Blue when I went to school. Yeah.
00:33:39
Speaker
I even watched it. I watched it on DVD. I don't know. Yeah, I bought that DVD. OK, then that's probably the one I watched. Someone lent it to me. And it was funny. I can't remember any of the memes from it, though. So I guess it didn't stay with me, but I remember it was funny.
00:33:56
Speaker
They are also, um, consistently one of the bigger. Donators to the extra life charity event too. They pretty consistently raised a million dollars. I want to say cheese to the point, to the point that they have like, um, at like the Austin children's hospital, there's like a Rooster Teeth healing garden. Like they, yeah. Oh, that's great. And now they're gone because Warner and Warner brothers has been cutting everything. Yeah.
00:34:27
Speaker
They're the ones playing the, we cancel it and write it off as a loss. Yep. They also, uh, Warner brothers also recently, uh, shut is delisting all the adult swim games from stores as well. What? I didn't even know there was adults. Yeah. That's Eric is shocked by the snooze. What adult swim game are you into? Honestly, the only one I can think of is unicorn rainbow stampede, but still just like,
00:34:55
Speaker
The game's already released. Why are you going to stop making money off them? I guess they they can they can take future profit as an as a current loss. They say, oh, we're going to deal with them and then we're going to assess that we would have sold this many and we're going to take that as a. As a current right off, that's probably what they're doing. It's insane. They're playing the tax game so hard. They're chasing so much like immediate profit.
00:35:24
Speaker
I don't know what's happening with them, but I also don't know enough about the industry, but it just seems like this is a bad idea. Yeah. Rooster Teeth just celebrated. It's, this was, it was a 20th birthday last year. So it was 21 years old. It was founded in 2003.
00:35:43
Speaker
They were. So here, here you go, Andy. Here's the, in 2014, Rooster Teeth was bought by full screen, which in turn was bought by Otter media, which is a joint venture of AT&T and the Sherman group. Before Rooster Teeth became a part of Warner media under AT&T's ownership in 2022 discovery closed the acquisition of Warner media to form Warner brothers discovery. And that's when they went on their rampage. Yeah.
00:36:10
Speaker
You know, there was a pillar in my life, I think Destructoid might now be finally dead, which bums me out, but they sold out to a company. And then that company was bought by a company, which was bought by a company. And now they're just, they're nothing. They're nothing like they were.
00:36:30
Speaker
Um, and that's terrible. I've been reading destructoid for like over 10 years. It was, it's such a huge part of my life, but it was making me think that like now it's like, uh, it's again, it's literally nothing anymore, but I'm wondering, was rooster teeth having to bend to the corporate formula? Like is, were they put out of their misery? I should say. Um, I mean, you hear about it like fun house. Um,
00:37:00
Speaker
There's been rumors like Funhaus was like they they made more money than they than they spent. It's like they were they were they they balanced their books. I don't know about the rest of Rooster Teeth as a whole. So it's it's tough to say how much Rooster Teeth was making versus not making something else. This article that I have from Variety, they talk about their first subscription service, which is it was kind of like Patreon before Patreon. Oh, OK.
00:37:30
Speaker
And it says at its peak, there was 225,000 paying members for first. I was one of them. And this was before they were bought out? Yeah. And it says they were down to only about 60,000 as of recently. So at their peak, there were 225,000 and recently they were down to 60,000.
00:37:57
Speaker
So maybe they weren't delivering. I mean, 60,000 is still a lot. I was reading about the success story of what's the college humor service? Dropout. Dropout. They're hugely successful. Yes, Dropout is great.
00:38:12
Speaker
Dropout basically Sam Wright bought college humor and it was like, I'm going to winnow this down to just the core things that we need to do it. Um, if you're unfamiliar, dropout, um, yeah, they were used to be college humor, but now they're really kind of focused on doing like improv game shows and, um, D and D game and D and D. And they're very funny. I pay for dropout subscription. Oh yeah. It's not that expensive. It's five bucks.
00:38:41
Speaker
Yeah. But actually, when I was in Japan last year, I was when I was walking around from place to place, I was listening to drop. I was catching up with drop out a lot of the time. Yeah. Wow. There's one I get served some videos on YouTube. The only few things that YouTube does well for me now in my life. There's one guy I think his name is Josh. Is it is there a Josh on one of the shows? And it was due to.
00:39:10
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I know which two you're talking about. I think it's Yama. Josh Yama, I think is his name. Maybe he's a big guy. Wherever the really big guy is or Jacob, maybe. I don't know. But he's my favorite. He's the best. God bless dropout. I mean, they've and they're independently owned so nobody can close them except their own incompetence.
00:39:34
Speaker
Oh, don't jinx it. Don't jinx it. But yeah, and that's what happened to Detoy. They're independently owned and they were their best when they were independently owned. And then they got bought and they were still fine. And then just the bigger the companies got that own them, the worse and worse and worse it got.
00:39:54
Speaker
And it's like, I don't know. Who also just re-bought the smosh, right? Didn't Smosh get like, they re-bought themselves. Smosh. The original Pokemon voice, like, sinking. Like, do you remember? You had to have seen it. Like, they just lip-synced the opening with passion. And that's what made them go viral.
00:40:23
Speaker
Or at least that's how I discovered them. I don't know who Smosh is. I'm trying to think of something else you'd know Smosh, the Smosh brothers from. They're a YouTube group, right? Yeah. I think I just know of them as like they were just a big part of YouTube, like one of the big ones. Yeah. But I literally don't know what their content was. I think it's a lot of React stuff now, isn't it?
00:40:51
Speaker
What does yak mean? We react. Oh, react. That's still a thing on YouTube. Oh, God, Andy, it's it's so much stuff on YouTube. Really? Yeah. Wow. But the drama pulls in the views, Andy. Oh, the drama. People love drama. They do. I thought those are T channels.
00:41:15
Speaker
I guess maybe reacting more to it. I don't know, but you're well, they're reacting to other people reacting to the team. Oh, my God. It's it's an ouroboros of just. Yeah, he can't escape it, but I did a little bit of digging since this topic came up. I was surprised how bad Warner Brothers Discovery was doing since they released Barbie last year.
00:41:40
Speaker
Yeah. But Barbie made up half of their profits, or is it half? OK, it made up half the box office average for their top 10 films of the year. Wow. Like, I'm just going to list off their top 10. Yeah. Meg 2, The Trench, The Nun 2, The Flash, Evil Dead Rise, Shazam, Fury the Gods, Blue Beetle, Magic Mike's Last Dance, House Party, and Mummies.
00:42:10
Speaker
Those were the. Yeah, it's. Yeah, but they got to. They got two and two right now, so they're doing fine. Yeah. By the way, James, I'm into doing now. Oh.
00:42:20
Speaker
Yeah, we had a long conversation on it yesterday. I'm into Dune. I saw Dune 1 on Thursday. I saw Dune 2 on Friday. I'm obsessed. Dune is incredible. I'm into Dune now. Andy, let me tell you something. Those movies barely touch the what is the dense lore of Dune. That's what I'm excited about is I just love the world. Well, I love the idea of the plot to and like everything that was explored in the movie. God, I loved those movies. Oh, God.
00:42:50
Speaker
Andy, I want to take this enthusiasm and put it in a constructive direction. Yeah. You should read The Wheel of Time. No, I'm not. Derek, I'm in to Dune. It's heavily and there's lots of elements that are heavily inspired by Dune. Are you going to read the book now, Derek, or Andy? Yes, I bought it yesterday and I read like 10 pages. I'm so into Dune. Now, Andy, let me ask you this. Was Paul a trainee as a hero?
00:43:19
Speaker
I don't know. It felt like. Oh, well, I don't want the fact that you didn't say yes immediately means that you got the moral of the story. Yeah. Yeah. I as the police, everyone see Dune too. I got to see it on IMAX. It was incredible. I I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. I loved it. I'm into Dune. But now I've been telling everyone I'm into Dune. I just shouted at people. And it turns out pretty much everyone's red Dune didn't know that.
00:43:46
Speaker
I haven't read Dune. Much like many other properties, I have subsumed all the information involving Dune. I can tell you everything about Dune. I have never read a single page of Dune.
00:44:01
Speaker
Well, I love it, but even when I bought the book yesterday, I tried buying it from my local bookstore, by the way, I was trying to be a good boy, but then they were sold out, and then the guy told me that they're sold out everywhere, and then I was like, oh my God, I can't read Dune, I need to get into Dune, and then there was a ton of copies at Barnes and Noble, so. He was just like, I don't know, man, you're gonna have to either put it on reserve or look at all the used bookstores that are out everywhere.
00:44:28
Speaker
Um, but then I found it at Barnes and Noble, but then when I was buying it at Barnes and Noble, the man shouted at me some nonsensical phrase, which I'm assuming was like Fremen or something. Um, but... So he leaves it out, Gabe? Uh, no, it didn't sound like that. I don't know. But then I told him, I'm sorry, I'm just not enough nerd yet. I'm not on your level, brother.
00:44:51
Speaker
Oh, God, I brought it up at work and just all the things I was yelled at at work. Anyways, everybody's into Dune. I'm now into Dune. I love Dune. Dune is great. Watch the movie. I love Dune. Let me tell you something, Eddie. It gets hard. The first three books are OK. And then after that, I'm only planning on reading the first three. Yeah. So once once he died, he obviously stopped being able to write good books.
00:45:19
Speaker
Well, yeah, but that's only that only affects six and seven because he wrote the first five. I have to admit, I stopped at three also.
00:45:30
Speaker
That's the vibe I got. There's like 30 of them, but his son wrote like 21 or something. It sounded like he really cashed in. Yeah. And let's be fair. He wrote a book. That's not easy. That's not easy. You know what, James? How very level headed and fair of you. That was that you are very, very correct.
00:45:52
Speaker
Um, but when I was telling one person I'm into Dune now, I'm a Dune head. He was just like, well, what order are you going to read the books? Um, and then I got to hear the timeline of the million billion books there are. So really I shouldn't be reading the first book. I should really be reading like, I don't know, some, a couple of prequels or whatever. And it's just like, no, don't worry about the stomach. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're not doing this.
00:46:16
Speaker
Read the first three, maybe fourth and fifth, if you feel like it. Well, we have to just hope I actually read it. Like, I'm really hoping not to lose this momentum. I tried to get it from the library, but it's on hold for months. Oh, I'm sure. So I had to buy it from our corporate overlords, Barnes and Noble. Handy, maybe I'll read Dune. Oh, and then we can talk about it.
00:46:42
Speaker
Well, I mean, I could talk to you about it now. That's true. You know everything. So please, all listeners, look forward to Dune talk because I'm super into Dune. Also, go back and watch the 1987 version of Dune. The David Lynch one. The David Lynch one, yeah. It's starring Sting and Patrick Stewart.
00:47:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's wild. I've seen a few clips of it. I'm I I like David Lynch. And by that, I mean I like Twin Peaks a lot. I don't have it. Oh, then I think you'd like that because it's man, it's got Twin Peaks in spades. Oh, does it? OK. Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:20
Speaker
Maybe I will go to it. I mean, I'm such a Dune head. I need to. I'm so into Dune. I love Dune. One last thing. Dune 2 was funnier than I expected it to be. Funnier? It was funny. Dune 2 was funny. I don't remember. I left. Funny at all. Oh God. All the stuff with Vinicio Tultur. Not Vinicio Tultur. What's his name? Stilgar.
00:47:46
Speaker
I mean, I know I'm a dune head. I don't remember who that is. I actually think I just had someone recently also tell me. I had a friend also tell me who that is and I forgot who it was. Who played it? Yeah, there it is. The one the one who would go. He's not going to. Every time he was, every time Paul did something, he was funny. All right. I laughed a lot.
00:48:14
Speaker
Listeners, go watch Dune. It's so good. Yeah, you should. You should watch it like the movies more than a book, more than a book. I don't know. I mean, people say I would say that Dune suffers a bit from what I would call the Citizen Kane problem, which is many books pull from Dune. So you will see things and be like, this isn't new. That's because Dune did it. Sure. OK.
00:48:43
Speaker
And everyone else's defense, uh, Dune took so many elements from existing sci-fi, like. If it wasn't true, Derek, cause I feel like Dune was maybe the first sci-fi, like one of the first sci-fi epics, like, like long-term running series. Like I think Dune was one of the first, because everything else before that was, it was short form stories or novellas. I mean,
00:49:14
Speaker
Tool it, I think it's the first one to take itself seriously and have hard ties between each work. There's a few Robert A. Heinlein series that are technically related, but they go over such vastly different. Yeah, a dude came out in 1965. Yeah, and Heinlein was writing in the 20s. Yeah.
00:49:41
Speaker
Oh, yeah, obviously. Like, I mean, like, I think like if you looked for like the prototypical like sci-fi like epic, I think Dune is the pro creator of that. That's what I hear about it, and I'm a big fan, so I will argue for that. I am a Dune head.
00:50:05
Speaker
And I will know all the now I will know everything about it up through the third book. Please. I have no interest in reading that many books. Derek trying to say read Wheel of Time. That's like 30 books. Get out of here. It's like 30 books worth of the thing. Dune is the first Dune is the biggest book. It's like 900 a book. Yeah, it's like 900 pages. After that, they get much more reasonable. Dune Messiah is only 256. Do the.
00:50:35
Speaker
Children of Dune is 450 ish. So those are quicker reads.
00:50:43
Speaker
We were talking about Wheel of Time yesterday. I've read the first three or four books and I remember nothing. I remember literally zero about Wheel of Time. I remember everything about Dune. It's not like asking people to read fucking Sanderson's Radiance series. OK, here James, here's a hot take from a actual science fiction writer. Oh, the Epic of Gilgamesh is the first. Oh, fuck off with this.
00:51:13
Speaker
Yes, of course. It's, yes, yes. It's Gilgamesh. Yes. But I mean, in terms of pop culture, what a hot take can be attributed to Pierre versus for saying it out loud first. And then what a hot, what a hot take that Gilgamesh was the first epic to the first science fiction epic.
00:51:44
Speaker
It's he considers it a science fiction work due to its treatment of human reason and the quest for immortality. Is that what makes science fiction? I don't want to get into this argument. I mean, Warhammer 40K is a fantasy series, so. Like, and people don't like hearing that. Oh, it's like science fantasy, right? Yeah, and then.
00:52:11
Speaker
Same way that Star Wars is in fact a Western in space. Yeah. The original one, the original three. It's like, yeah, it is. It just makes sense when you think about it. I'm not 100% saying Gilgamesh is a science fiction series, but an actual accredited science fiction writer said it. So there's some way to it. There's some way to it.
00:52:40
Speaker
Well, it's all about Dune. What were we talking about before Dune? There was a lot of bummer bombs. What other bummer do we not have? Oh, we got a couple more bovers. No!
00:52:51
Speaker
And that's Yuzu, the popular Nintendo Switch emulator, has been shut down. Ah, that's right. I'm saying this a lot. If you're unfamiliar, Yuzu is the emulator that plays Nintendo Switch games. It's not the only one. There's also Ryuzu, and then there's also
00:53:12
Speaker
Is it Riju? Riju Ninks, I think, is the other one. I know. Don't worry about it. Nintendo sued Yuzu. Yuzu. And they came to a settlement for two point four million dollars in shutting down their website. Which, first of all, to me is how the fuck does an emulator team have two point four million dollars? Well, to answer your question, Patreon,
00:53:42
Speaker
That's, that's the thing. And that's what I, that's what I found out is that they had a Patreon, which people subscribe. Okay. I am 100% in the camp that piracy and emulation more often than not good. In this case, Yuzu should have been sued harder. Like they were profiting so much off of this. I didn't know about the profit.
00:54:08
Speaker
And that changes things. It's not even it's not even profiting off something that Nintendo's can't profit on. The switch store is alive and well. Oh, I didn't know this. It also they also ended development of Citra, or they ended their support of Citra, which is the 3DS emulator. But I think I don't think
00:54:34
Speaker
I think they're separate,
Andy Discovers Dune
00:54:36
Speaker
but I, I don't know. I have to look more into that. Well, the problem is that like, yeah, we need these emulators though. They shut down the 3DS store. Yeah. Like things are lost to time. We need these. Yeah. So the 3DS simulation 100, like I don't even care if they have a Patreon, whoever's doing that, Godspeed. Right.
00:54:58
Speaker
but for an active store with active games and just like, to be profiting off of that. Well Andy, everybody who used Zuzu obviously dumped the ROMs from their own Switch copies. Of course, of course, of course. That's exactly what happened.
00:55:16
Speaker
If you saw people playing like Tears of the Kingdom at like 4K 60 FPS, they were probably playing it on Yuzu, although I think Ryujinx was the one who did it better when Tears of the Kingdom came out. I'm still of the mind. Do I support emulation of current games? I don't know.
00:55:37
Speaker
I don't know. I've turned my mind, though, that I do support emulation of like discontinued or like deprecated stores and stuff. We need access to the games. Like, sorry, brother. Like, you can't do that. But the switch is active, alive and well. I mean, the real thing, too, is like so they pulled down their GitHub page and all that stuff. But any forks of use of
00:56:04
Speaker
Yuzu, I don't know why I have to stop myself to say it every time, of Yuzu still exists, obviously still like Ryuzu, but
00:56:16
Speaker
What it means is like this development team is no longer existing in the way that it will today, but I think open source switch emulation will continue. I think this has just been like, Hey guys, if you create profit off of this, we're going to sue you into the ground. I think Nintendo said they attributed in the court documents, um, 1 million pirated copies of tears of the kingdom. Wow.
00:56:46
Speaker
I mean, they set that up by having a, like a no port business decisions. Like you can't, if you don't have a switch, you can't play it. Correct. And some people just don't want to switch for one game, but that doesn't mean they're right to hired it. I mean, don't worry, Nintendo, I bought it twice. So I'll make up for it for all those 1 million. Yeah.
00:57:17
Speaker
I have a digital copy and I have my collector's edition. Hmm. Hmm. But yeah, it's like, it's like Nintendo's not the bad guy because they kept it. Well, they they're not. They're not. Yeah. In this case, they're not the worst guy. I think they had a reasonable case to be like, Yuzu, you're kind of fucking up here. We're going to say you down. Yeah. If there are no profits involved, I think Nintendo would be like unable to do anything because all Yuzu has to do is make it open source.
00:57:46
Speaker
Well, I think I think them settling did a good thing because it prevented Nintendo from getting a court case with precedent for them to go after other developers. But that doesn't necessarily mean they still can't and won't do that. So and those other developers won't have the financial resources to defend themselves. They won't have to. They won't have a two point four million dollar settlement.
00:58:12
Speaker
How do these guys even afford to defend that? Well, the Patreon, I'm guessing. Yeah. I, yeah, I don't know. It's, it's kind of like, what did they expect? But 2.4 million, like, I hope like they can get like community service or something. Like, I don't know. I think it's only, I think it's only a payment for that, like,
00:58:40
Speaker
Resolving the case so no jail time or anything candy. Yeah, it's it's also civil right there's no This is a civil case. This isn't a criminal case sure sure It's just tough like these are normal people I bet but people need to be held responsible for the decisions, right? But it's only the people who can't afford it that are truly being punished right if this was just a different like a Corporation or something. This is just a little slip a little you naughty boy
00:59:10
Speaker
a finger wag, but I don't know. And what did they expect though? They were collecting money. What did you expect? Um, but yeah, so they're shut down. I wasn't using them. So my heart's not broken. I don't really care.
00:59:28
Speaker
And one last thing that's getting shut down to round out.
Nintendo's Community Efforts
00:59:33
Speaker
Well, this is kind of sad and heartwarming at the same time. Mario Maker 1 servers will be going down April 8th. And players are desperately trying to finish every level on Mario Maker 1 before that happens. At one point there were 400. There is now only one level left. No way.
00:59:58
Speaker
Yeah. Every Mario maker, every Mario maker level that's been uploaded has been beaten except for one currently. Oh, and that is beaten by someone besides the creator before he published the creator has to be able to beat it. Oh, okay. A lot of times though, the creator puts in cheap paths for themselves. Oh, really? Oh, I didn't know that. But I'm assuming that they've tried to utilize a few of those for some of the more unbeatable ones. Yeah.
01:00:27
Speaker
Do you think Nintendo will keep it up until someone beats it? No. Absolutely not. What? Oh, come on. No, they're going to hit a switch and just kill it. You're not going to have a situation where like someone's in the Halo 2 game for a week after they shut down the servers. Was I there when the 14 servers shut down?
01:00:51
Speaker
I'm forgetting. That's the only thing I can think of when I was around for it. But I have to say, this is a sad episode because Rooster Teeth was like the content creators of my childhood. And. Mario Maker One made up a bulk of content for VTubers when I first got into VTubing. Oh, I mean, Mario Maker Two still exists. I mean, I know. Yeah. And these weren't ported into two? No.
01:01:21
Speaker
But are the V-Tubers trying to go after this last level, Derek? Probably not. They go. These are probably hardcore Kaizo players.
01:01:32
Speaker
Well, God is actually, uh, there's actually an official website called is, uh, it is called I S S M M beat beaten yet. So is Mario maker beaten yet.com. Oh, and it currently is 99.99% clear. And the one level is still there.
01:02:00
Speaker
I think Nintendo's gonna wait. They have 19 days and 20 hours to beat it. Nintendo's gonna wait. No, they're not. Come on, there's gotta be some good there. They're the people's people. They're gonna release Mother 3 here, I swear.
01:02:20
Speaker
Andy, you have to keep in mind that their top top leadership is deeply rooted in Japanese culture and work ethic and everything that entails, which means doing something nice that costs money to make a few people happy is not on their list of things to do. Listen, didn't you hear the Game Boy Grandma story or whatever?
01:02:46
Speaker
where some grandma was like playing her Gameboy up until like two years ago and it broke and she sent it in for repair. And Nintendo found an original Gameboy to give her. All right. Oh, yeah, that is nice. It was very sweet because Nintendo is gonna keep these servers up until some do you see the difference there that cost them no money. They probably had a way they probably have a warehouse somewhere that has all their old hardware that they couldn't sell. And they're just like,
01:03:16
Speaker
Eh, maybe some grandma will. How much does it cost to run a server from Mario maker? Come on. More than it does to not.
01:03:29
Speaker
I mean, okay, Derek Fair, but they're sitting on so many billions of dollars. And they didn't make the billion dollars by giving people stuff for free. How dare you, Derek? They got that billion dollars by potentially sex trafficking trading cards and sex trafficking cards. Oh, we're not doing this. Oh, no, only in the early years. Okay. Okay.
01:03:55
Speaker
Don't worry, we're not getting into this. Neomoto! We're not getting into this. We're not getting into this now or on another episode of Atu Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a news show. I've been your host, James R.I.P., my childhood, Hartwell, and I've been joined by. Andy Doonhead, Doonboy, Doon Forever, Doon Fan, only first three books. Okay. And I've been joined by.
01:04:25
Speaker
Derek, Wheel of Time Advocate, Kasia. Derek, I mean, fair. That's fair. Maybe one day. Is it only three books, Derek? I'll splice together the audiobooks into three for you. Well, there you go. Maybe there's hope for me. But well, good night, everyone. I'm watching the guy, the guy on Twitch trying to beat the level right now.
01:04:54
Speaker
And listen, Nintendo's waiting there just as long. Rooting for him. We'll keep him up. He's not getting very far. Have a good night, everyone. Have a good night. Have a good night. Bye.