#63 Why do we go to gaming conventions?

Gaming conventions like PAX, TooManyGames, and MAGFest have become bigger and bigger over the years. Toss in gaming-adjacent conventions like Momocon and Comic-Con, and sprinkle in ones run by the companies themselves like Blizzcon...there are so many. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but this week we wanted to talk about why we actually go to them.

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TODAY'S CRUBCAST HOSTS
Chris: https://www.youtube.com/@MykonosFan
Justin: https://www.youtube.com/@WorldFamousJtart9
Moriarty: https://www.youtube.com/@reallycool
Trav: https://www.youtube.com/@ThatTravGuy

CHAPTERS
00:00 We go to em, but why?
04:17 The growth of gaming conventions
16:10 Conventions as a social gathering
28:03 Trav's favorite moments from gaming cons
32:41 An awkward encounter with Bruce Davison
42:21 The odd side of parasocials at cons
46:42 The worst con Moriarty has went to
58:15 Justin's Funko Pop obsession
1:03:09 Will digital conventions take over?
1:13:54 TK_Hubworld's Crubscriber Question of the Week

Creators & Guests

Host

Chris

Chris is the owner of the MykonosFan channel on YouTube. He hasn't been to Mykonos.

Host

Justin

Justin is Jtart9, world famous Twitch streamer. He's so famous.

Host

Moriarty

Moriarty is the owner of MRIXRT on YouTube, it's @reallycool.

Host

Trav

Trav is the owner of the That Trav Guy channel on YouTube. He T-posed once. Once.

What is Crubcast?

The Crubcast is a weekly podcast tackling various gaming and life topics with a touch of controlled chaos.

Hi.

I just told Trav a really funny joke.

Welcome to the episode of Crubcast that is happening today, where we are wondering, why do we go to gaming conventions?

Moriarty, can you define a gaming convention in three words or less?

I can't either.

Place for people.

Okay, that's not bad.

That's actually pretty good.

I would have said fountain of odor.

That is also close to that Trav guy.

Yeah, that's not good.

Hot and moist.

That's what I would go for.

Oh, good one, good one.

All right, Chris, now give me yours.

You're the one who smelt it, so you must dealt it.

Avoid always, please.

All right.

Can't argue with that.

I think you've gotten our opinion on gaming conventions in a nutshell there, actually.

Moriarty, why do you go to them?

I think out of all of us here, you maybe have gone to the most, unless Justin's like putting in some time.

Yes, you already.

I've done a lot of gaming conventions in my time.

I've also done quite a lot of gaming conventions.

I've gone all over the world.

I've been in multiple countries, and I've done as many as I can.

I think gaming conventions are super cool, even though on one end, I really hate them, and I'll talk about why I hate them so much.

But why do I go to a gaming convention?

Why do I go to any convention?

It's really kind of like, well, partially boredom, partially shared interests, right?

There's this sort of camaraderie of being around people who like the same thing as you, who like anime and games and movies and comic books and being able to go in there and be like, Oh, I know what this is, and have other people be like, I know what it is, too.

Let's totally geek out and get crazy about this thing.

And that's very cool.

And I think that's probably kind of the draw for most people.

There's obviously so many different kinds of conventions, right?

There's conventions that you go to because you want to see somebody do a panel, or there's conventions that you go to because you want to buy stuff.

And there's also the type of convention, which I think mostly professionals and much older people will think of, which is sort of like, you know, like a trade convention, where you're going to meet people, which is not the type of convention that we're necessarily talking about.

We're definitely talking more like merch tables and, you know, panels and concerts kind of thing.

A little bit more fan base, a little bit more public facing, as opposed to like a trade show or an exposition, as it were.

Yeah.

I mean, expo halls, I do love them when they have those trade shows because I get a ton of free stuff.

But that's usually just because I know someone that's like presenting there and they get me a free pass.

And then I just walk in and it's like, oh, Nestle's there.

They're giving away a bunch of free like chocolate bars.

And it's like, I'll take a free chocolate bar.

Might as well.

Believe it or not, there was one time I had my dad went to a convention and I really like Takis.

You have a dad?

Sorry.

I'm not excited.

Believe it or not.

And what's the name of the company?

Bimbo.

Bimbo is the name of the company.

They make Takis.

I love their, like they have these little chocolate bars.

Not chocolate bars, but like pastry bar chocolate.

Yeah, and it has chocolate on top.

Yeah.

But they also make Takis.

This is the other thing they do.

And my dad came back from the trade show and walked up to me and said, Hey, I talked to the Takis people.

Here's an entire, like, box of...

You can't have any.

They're mine.

Are you not supposed to tell the story, Justin?

I got a whole box of Takis.

They call it...

Long story short.

Bimbo?

The name of the company is Bimbo.

Yeah, Bimbo is like a bakery.

They make bread.

Yeah, they make bread.

Bimbo bread.

If you ever look at a soccer team, and sometimes it says Bimbo across their chest...

Oh, I don't look at sports.

That's the bread company that sponsors them.

I'm used to that meaning something different.

Okay.

Just had to make sure.

I really like conventions.

The bimbofication of this...

Never mind.

I don't like this.

Anyway, gaming conventions.

Are you bimbofying Crub?

What is going on here?

What can I say?

I guess the first...

What we can start with is sort of like the evolution of gaming conventions, because I think most, at least Kevin...

I'm sorry, not Kevin, but Justin has been to gaming conventions at a time when they were much smaller.

And what we're seeing is sort of, along with many things in the gaming industry, this sort of coalescence, right, into a single sort of big thing.

Right.

And so we have these mega gaming conventions.

You've got PAX, you've got MagFest, you've got, you know, all these really large conventions that sort of take over.

You've got Comic-Con, right?

There's San Diego, New York, Austin, right?

Comic-Con is just expanding out there and they're using that brand to kind of do that.

And I think it's interesting because we've seen them transform from these small gatherings, right, to these major events.

And I think maybe the best example of that is PAX, which was started back in 2004, 2005, by the Penny arcade Webcomics.

And they did it because E3 was canceled that year, or, I'm sorry, E3 canceled public showings.

They wouldn't show it to the public, right?

You couldn't go in as just a random person.

You had to be industry.

You had to be trade.

And that wasn't what E3 was about for a lot of people.

It was about going and getting hyped for these video games.

So Penny arcade decided they were going to do their own thing.

And they started in like a ballroom.

And there were so many people that showed up that they went to the next bigger thing and the bigger thing.

Now there's like six of them.

There's PAX Australia.

There's PAX East past West.

PAX South, PAX Unplugged.

I mean, there's so, so many.

There's three or four of them on the East Coast now.

And so what we're seeing is this sort of, again, major event, but also mega gaming convention coalescence where every single thing has to be kind of branded, right?

If it's not part of PAX, if it's not part of VidCon, if it's not part of Comic Con, what value does it have?

Why would I ever go to that?

TooManyGames is sort of the exception, I think for us, but even still, if we were going to go to another convention, right?

It's a mag fest.

It's a PAX.

It's a thing like that.

It's something with that large branding.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like you get some weird ones like Momocon, which isn't really, it doesn't really have like a big name attached to it.

It's just kind of Momocon, but it's a huge, it is like it's become the big name.

Yeah.

And I mean like Momocon has been around for so long is the thing, right?

People really like it and that's why they go to it.

Even when you look at TooManyGames, they say that they started back in like 2002 or something, which is a lie, of course.

But yeah, I don't know.

Like the first one I ever went to was 2014.

Yeah, it's absolutely a lie.

I know they started before 2014, but I don't know exactly when.

They said they started back in the 2000.

I know they didn't, not unless it was like two guys at a garage sale.

But the point could be.

I mean, I'm going to those older TMGs.

It could be.

I went to Gifts for Gamers one year, and that one was just sad.

Gifts for Gamers is real sad.

We actually did a signing at Gifts for Gamers.

If you recall, it was myself.

Yes.

And Kevin.

And next to us was, next to us was some Connie, Johnny, and the Angry video Game Nerd.

And they have lines at the doors of the two of us.

It was four tables.

And I remember Kevin hitting me up and be like, yo, I got free passes for this.

You want to come?

And I'm like, sure, I guess.

And they won't even give you a pan.

I never got to talk to John and Elliot.

Yeah.

It was incredibly embarrassing to sit there and have like just Jake, one of our friends come and ask for his signature.

It was like, yeah, sure.

I was like, I gotta make it look like somebody's looking towards you.

Shout out to Jake.

Shout out to Jake.

I guess the question is sort of, are these sort of intimate gaming experiences being lost?

Right.

Because like, Gift for Gamers is an intimate experience.

And early TooManyGames is an intimate experience where we're going in there and we're having these sort of personal, you know, smaller experiences versus having a meaningful interaction in this massive, crowded space.

Yeah, like the first couple years I went to TooManyGames, I was able to find like Super Best Friends Play and like all those like bigger creators at the time, just wandering around the show floor and nobody cared.

And you kind of miss that with how big things like TooManyGames have become, just from the virtue of.

You can't walk around a convention hall like that if you're somewhat known because you will just get stopped every five seconds.

Yeah, yeah, I was telling people like for me this year, like I'm making about myself now for me this year.

I'm I'm a tiny boy.

I don't even compare to some of these guys.

I literally didn't have enough time to walk around vending hall the first day because I kept getting stopped by fans and friends and shit.

I can't even imagine what other folks larger than me go through.

Like the first couple of years, I'm like, oh, man, like, where's all the people, you know, like where's the people I came here to see?

Where the hoes at?

Yeah, where the hoes at?

I was talking to Johnny the first time I'd seen Johnny in like three or four years, and like five seconds in the talking to him, someone comes up.

It's like, what's your favorite Mega Man soundtracks or something?

And I was like, oh, right.

That was me, actually.

No, I'm kidding.

Yeah.

Trav walks up.

And that's part of it, right?

Like, there's a sort of opportunity as a creator or as a fan when you go to a smaller, more intimate group to kind of meet the people you want to talk to.

Right.

I am very happy to be kind of a part of the creator ecosystem at TooManyGames.

But the only reason that that happened is because I was able to go in there and meet people, right?

If I had to go in there as a small creator today, I could maybe come over and talk to somebody, but I'm not going to be able to meet 10 people or 15 people and get invited out to dinner because that group isn't going to be receptive when they are sort of lambasted by huge numbers of people.

And there's also beyond just kind of the difficulty of meeting somebody and talking to them and interacting with them.

There's the difficulty of interacting with sort of the perks of going, right?

So it's difficult to get to the panels.

They're filled with long lines.

I mean, some of these panels, I just look at them like, well, I'm not going to that one, I guess.

Yeah.

Or getting into try like that.

TooManyGames, for example, and I think this is the best one to talk about just because of the familiarity for this particular panel on it.

But a lot of these events will have like, try out a game kind of thing.

Well, if I want to try out your game, and there's a line, I'm just not going to try it out because I don't care that much, right?

Like, I don't know who you are.

You haven't appealed to me yet.

Your marketing hasn't worked on me.

And that's a negative for literally everybody involved in that chain.

The game developer is losing out.

I'm losing out.

The people in line are losing out.

Nobody's winning from this inability to reach and try a game.

When you're like EA or Ubisoft or Activision or whatever, you can command that, right?

You can be like, look, you want to try out the newest call of Assassin, you need to sit in this line for nine hours.

And it's like, OK, I guess I'll do that.

But yeah, because a lot of times at conventions, you want to keep moving.

You want to keep looking at whatever what's coming up next down the line, because a lot of conventions, a lot of the reasons why I like to go to them so much is you get to see so many cool new things from creators you know, or artists you may not know, but you like their stuff now because you found them at a convention.

A lot of the stuff on my wall is stuff.

I was walking through the convention halls of some random convention, and I stopped and I said, hey, that's a really cool piece of art.

I want that.

And now I'm a fan.

Now I follow them, like stuff like that.

I agree.

You know, and there's sort of this focus on spectacle that I feel overshadows the genuine gaming enthusiasm of a smaller event.

And I promise, I'm not going to be all negative about conventions, but it is certainly easier to point out why I don't like something versus why I do like something.

So take that as a point for it.

But when I go to one of these conventions, right?

I'm not looking for a concert from a YouTuber, unless I'm there for that, right?

I'm not looking for a wrestling ring in the middle of the hall.

Why not?

A lot of people go for that.

That's like, that's their thing they go for.

Yeah, I hate to say it.

I think you're in the minority there, buddy.

No, no, and I accept.

I really do.

What I'm saying, though, is that like that sort of spectacle, I feel, by having, trying to have all of this stuff, by having the concert, by having the wrestling hall, by having a hall filled with arcade games from 1982, having all of these things that don't necessarily appeal to me, having a line of 35 different voice actors from some anime that nobody's watched, right?

Like, I get why that appeals to a certain crowd of people, but I feel that the benefit of a smaller conference, a smaller convention, is that it's more narrow and focused on the things that I want to go see.

I want to go see the retro gaming stuff.

I want to go see retro gaming YouTube.

I do not care about the magic gaming champion, right?

I don't care about this voice actor.

I don't care about a guy who plays Roblox on YouTube.

That's not the crowd for me.

Why not?

Why not?

I was gonna say, and that's just kind of a beast.

I mean, I guess that's a good question.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just kind of the burden of trying to become a bigger convention.

It's just, you gotta appeal to more people to get more people to buy a pass.

And everyone will have a reason to buy that.

And everyone will have their own reason for wanting to go to that convention for that weekend.

And because they're trying to spread themselves thinner, they can't do one thing super, super well.

Right.

It's a question of sort of like in a city builder, right?

Do you want to build wide or do you want to build tall?

Right.

Do you build lots of little towns or do you build one that's really strong?

And I feel that that is a negative of these sort of events, is that they all build wide because they want to appeal to as many people.

And what that means is that for the the audience, nobody's getting a great experience, right?

Everybody's paying way too much for, like, kind of an OK experience.

Whereas I would much rather pay a little bit less for a really great experience.

And I recognize that maybe that's not for everybody.

But if you told me that I could go and out of the three days that I go to TooManyGames, for example, I enjoy all three days.

Boy, I'm a lot more willing to pay for that.

But right now, if I go there, I barely even want to be at the convention itself.

You didn't like walking around with me to go to the Monster Energy Hut to get some peach green Monster Energy Cans?

I chugged one of those and I almost passed out.

What?

What?

Yeah, I this year, I had one of the I took one of the monsters.

Like if I have a monster that's not sugar free, it makes me really sleepy.

I forgot about this.

And so I just like almost passed out like halfway through the day.

I'm like, guys, I have to go to bed.

And then I didn't.

Classic.

And then he immediately drinks an entire thing of Starbucks on the tallest Starbucks cup I've ever seen.

Right.

It's like a big boy.

I need my meat in that cup.

I guess my question then from there would be, you know, can a gaming convention create a sense of belonging?

And is that something that we even necessarily want out of these gaming conventions?

Belonging?

Well, belonging, right?

So examining the role of these sort of events in fostering connections between gamers and the gaming community.

Right.

The joy of finding, quote, your people.

Right.

It's weird for me.

Take that, Justin.

I'm going to talk.

You go, you go, you go.

I never really went to them feeling like I needed to belong.

I don't know if I'm an outlier or not in that.

I always went because like the panels were good or in TooManyGames' case, I guess it was just like we're doing YouTube.

So that's the place we go.

Right.

Even before I knew a lot of people, just the ones I did know, that was the place you went to.

Right.

But even when I go there, I'm never like, oh, I need to meet a lot of people.

I need to feel like I belong.

It's usually just like, are the panels good?

Is the entertainment good?

And I kind of view it through that lens, especially now that game prices are so outrageous, secondhand, that buying anything is ridiculous, which used to be the main draw of TooManyGames.

I found one thing this year, because I was looking up the prices of everything on like eBay.

Like, all right, how much can I find this for?

I found like one thing that was actually cheaper than I could find online.

And it was just a Metroid Prime 2 strategy guide.

How much was it?

You want to say?

20 bucks.

Online, it was like 30.

Okay.

Not bad.

Not bad.

So I guess, Chris, to kind of follow up on that there, right?

How do you feel that these sort of shared convention experiences, do you think that since you don't go there for your people, right?

Do you feel that they help strengthen your friendships, right?

Do you think that you have a stronger relationship with the people that you meet there versus the people that don't show up, that maybe just stay online?

Oh, definitely.

I mean, through that lens, yes.

It's just I never went to them to meet people was kind of the distinction, right?

Especially now where I will go and you will introduce me to like 20 new people, right?

I mean, yeah, it's like, hey, Chris, come on, let's go meet some people.

Yeah, yeah.

Very much a thing where it's like, well, I have a name to the face.

I can see their mannerisms.

I know how they behave.

Maybe I can get a better read on the way they type just through meeting them, right?

You can't always tell if someone's telling through text.

So sometimes when you meet someone, you're like, OK, you make a lot more sense now, actually.

So that does help.

Yeah, especially since I go to TooManyGames to see the boys.

Like at this point, I don't buy them.

The show on Amazon?

Yes.

Oh, season four.

Yeah.

Season four is crazy.

Just watch it every year.

I've heard it's very highs and very lows.

Like that's what I've heard from reliable sources.

No, so I like the price of the admission to go into TooManyGames is mainly to go with the boys.

And I don't go there specifically for a panel or anything like that.

Because it is so expensive nowadays to go to something like a TooManyGames.

If I'm not going with the boys, I wouldn't find as much of an important like I'm necessarily like, I don't think I need to go by myself.

If the price was cheaper and it was like 40 bucks to walk around, I'd pay 40 bucks to walk around.

Sure.

But the prices that they charge now for bigger conventions, not just TooManyGames, because I go to Pax Unplugged every year too, but I go there with all my boys.

So what do you want to go from the TV?

Because it's all board games.

I guess this is the thing with this is that actually why it's called unplugged?

Yes.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

So I want to ramble for a second because I know this will be good for content.

Please do.

My whole time.

I thought that unplugged because you've talked about this before when we are roaming the streets of what was it?

New York?

No, philadelphia, philadelphia.

Yeah.

We were roaming the streets and you mentioned Pax Unplugged.

The only time I've ever heard unplugged used like that was when in an album.

It was like a composer name unplugged and it was all acoustic covers of their own songs.

And so I was like, oh, okay.

It's a concert for only acoustic music.

That makes sense.

I can see.

It's not a bad.

Yeah, the A to B there makes sense.

It's not like Nico.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's that man goes like from A to D when there wasn't even a B.

Yeah, exactly.

Chris, you were about to say something there.

I was I was going to say that might be the issue with our very big TMG focus in regards to the panels, because I remember the one year I went to Momocon, it's like I can go to a panel from a guy who animated on Journey, the video game who animated for Disney.

Like he was talking about how he personally animated Sonic and Wreck-It Ralph, which was a very interesting talk, a very interesting perspective from that guy.

And I can walk down the hall and like a very long time Simpsons writer is there talking about his time working on Simpsons.

It was very interesting.

Meanwhile, I look at the TMG panel schedule and I'm like, well, there's the ones people I know are doing.

And then there's all these other ones.

And then I don't really they're playing Jackbox on like a big stage.

Yeah.

And it's like, you know, I'm sure they're gonna have a good time, but like, what pool do I have to go to it?

You know, I mean, that's my fault for just liking the big names.

But yeah, I guess that's the thing with TMG specifically, is that the panels flip a coin, you know.

But when I look at other conventions, I'm like, oh, it feels like there was thought put into the panels and trying to get interesting things in, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

If I could add something to that.

Yeah.

My first year at TooManyGames, I went to so many panels, you know, like I and I didn't know any of you guys at that point.

I only knew my local friend that I went with and my girlfriend who I went with.

And we went to a bunch of panels for a bunch of creators that we liked, got to talk to them for the first proper time outside of Twitter comments and shit.

And like, yeah, that was fun.

And then the second year, I had met Kevin that first year by happenstance.

I literally, we knew each other from Ant dudes Discord.

I posted, hey, if anyone here sees me, come slap me.

He actually did slap me.

And I was like about to punch him.

And then I realized, oh wait, we're from Ant dudes Discord.

Oh wait, I asked for this.

Yeah, I asked for this.

I thought this dude just came up to me and slapped me.

And it was this man who was notably shorter than me in a purple shirt, looking up at me, just like.

So, you know, so that happened.

And the second year, I knew Kevin, but like not enough to like get in the Airbnb with y'all yet.

I met Nico for the first time.

But so I still was more there as a fan, less so for the boys, you know?

But even that second year, I'm like, I don't really know what I want to go to.

Like I've seen Johnny's panel before.

I've seen antdude complain about not getting a panel, which is always really funny.

But like every year, the biggest gaming YouTuber is that goes to it.

antdude.

Yeah.

And it's like, even as a fan before, I was going there for the boys and for the connections.

It was like, I don't know what I'm doing.

Yeah, especially when you start meeting a bunch of people too.

Sorry, Justin, I'm doing it again.

No, you're good.

You're good.

Just real quick.

It's like I remember Kevin saying it once and it resonated with me because it's like once you kind of like the friend, a creator, and then they have a panel.

If you go to it, it's cool to show support.

But then you're also like taking a seat from like a viewer who would want that seat, especially back in the dreaded days of Panel Room 3 at TMG where it was like the side closet.

Super tiny.

50 people max.

I loved standing off to the side.

Yeah.

What were you going to say, Justin?

I didn't.

Oh, go ahead, go ahead.

No, I was going to say the con that I go to the most for the panels is Comic-Con, New York Comic-Con.

Whenever I do get a chance to go there, yeah, you're going to be learning and you're going to be seeing really, really cool stuff.

Like when I was, I still really like, I really like Ruby, the show.

Shout out to Viz Media for picking it up.

It's not, in my opinion, the show has gone very downhill, just because they kind of lost me after a certain plot point in the show.

But I went to the con, I went, I got, I got lucky and I got a ticket that you had to be in a raffle for to go to their panel at New York Comic-Con.

And it was in a separate theater that you had to walk down the street to get to.

And it was such a cool, such a cool experience because it's just a room full of people who really like the show.

Interesting.

And they were talking about how they got greenlit for a bunch more seasons and how their characters were just guiding in a blaze blue cross tag.

And they were talking about their other shows that they were launching.

And you got to see a bunch of trailers that didn't go out to the world yet.

You got, you're like the first person to see it.

And like, you get a lot of really cool things like that.

It sounds exciting.

And then even before they were able to get that theater, my brother was at Comic-Con the year before and all of the voice actresses, I do, all the voice actresses were doing a signing table and it was free.

You just walk up to the signing table and they weren't, like the show wasn't super big yet.

So like my brother just walked up and said, hey, my brother's a really big fan of you specifically.

He's pointing at one voice actress and was like, I want you to sign all this stuff.

Other guy who's also in the show, I didn't watch the show, so I don't know who you are, but you're probably cool too.

I've had that experience before.

It was that Sonic and Sega fan jam, a very, very small, close-knit kind of thing down in Savannah, Georgia.

They invited Tyson Hess, very big in the Sonic space.

He was the one who redesigned Sonic for the movie, basically, just to put the biggest thing he's probably recognized for.

So I went up to him and I met him, shook his hand and stuff.

I was like, wow, this is cool.

And it was like his partner, his girlfriend, wife or something next to him.

And I felt so bad.

It was like, oh, I know you do art too, but I don't know anything you do.

So I guess I'm going to awkwardly walk away and think about this for 10 years by and it doesn't feel good.

On my podcast.

Yeah.

It does not feel good.

Your content now.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Sometimes I just still think about that and I could have at least been kind and shown interest.

Right.

It was one of those things too, where like my brother was just there and he was like, hey, I know you like this show.

You want me to talk to them?

And I was like, yes, please.

And I still have all the stuff that she signed on all in the corner over here, like it all of it's personalized to was like to Justin, thank you so much for watching the show kind of thing.

And then she signed it and it's really, really cool.

You know, it was really funny because it was my brother was off to the side talking to the other voice actor and he was like, well, now you have to watch the show.

And my brother has never watched the show, still has not.

Speaking of thanking you for watching the show, thank you for watching the show.

And we're listening to it, dear viewer at Crub, underscore official on Twitch or Crub official on every other platform, except Patreon, where it's patreon.com/crub.

Where for five dollars a month, you can get the podcast early in access to all of our video content.

We just posted a new audio party.

Bless you, Trav.

It's so exciting.

You sneeze.

It's like his ears are burning.

Yeah, dude.

It's like looking at the sun, you know, like I saw what gives me life and I sneezed.

I feel that way about Justin.

He's just got such a nice smile.

Thanks, man.

I can't stop sneezing at Justin.

Dozens of hours of exclusive content there.

Justin and I have our penultimate Makoto Shinkai Rewatch podcast episode going up this coming this past Monday when this goes live for everyone else.

But it's coming Monday for those who are here with us live in chat.

I could plug a lot more, but Trav, I want to wait.

We're doing this live.

Oh, we weren't supposed to tell Trav.

We got some contracts to redo.

Trav, I need to distract you.

What's your favorite moment from a gaming convention you've ever been to?

Like when you think this is why I like going to these, what comes right into your head?

First thing.

Oh man, do you want me to get like personal or for my brand?

Because I have two different answers.

If you want to hear both of them, that works too.

Let's go both.

I think that brand-wise, it was two, three years ago when we had a panel that was myself, Kevin, Buckets and Sean, where Sean admitted publicly that he had never played Kingdom Hearts.

That was the best moment.

No, I'm kidding.

But it was that moment where we had this panel.

We were relatively smaller at the time.

I don't even think Kevin had broken 100k subs yet.

But we filled out seats.

We had people standing in the back because we didn't have enough seats, and people stuck around.

There were people that were like, hey, I don't know who you guys are, but your panel was great.

I'll watch your stuff.

Can you please sign my stuff?

That was a really good moment.

It made me feel in a way that I had made it.

In a similar way to this year where I literally couldn't get through a vending hall on the first day because I kept getting stopped.

Like I complain because that's a funny thing to complain about.

But it's like genuinely, it was an amazing moment.

I'm like, wow, this is a reminder of why I'm doing what I'm doing.

And then if you want a personal answer, which I guess still is on my brand, but it was a personal answer.

I met someone at TooManyGames this year, and I'm going to bounce back to another moment similar from last year.

I ran into some guy.

It was a relatively thin person who got really personal.

He was telling me that, he showed me a scar he had on his arm from when he was going through chemo treatment.

And he was like, yeah, people like you, Johnny, Crub, I listened to all you guys, and you helped me through this really hard period of my life.

And I got emotional.

I just hugged the guy.

I'm just like, I'm so grateful for that.

I was so full of emotion.

I'm just like, I don't know what to do with this, but I'm like, damn, I guess you could turn it on its head and be like, if it wasn't me, it was someone else.

But it was me.

And it was a sweet moment that I will continue to think about for a while.

Shout out to that person.

Yeah, shout out to that guy.

I didn't get his name, so oops.

You're a cool dude, but didn't get your name.

Sorry.

I remember one year at TooManyGames, someone gave us...

I'm sorry, I should have passed that off to Justin.

Chris, what's yours?

Well, my favorite time is the time when Justin was never allowed to talk on his podcast.

I hate that guy.

Justin, don't spray it.

I remember the one year we were talking, I think a fan came to Trav and said, hey, what's up?

I'm a fan of your content.

And then they gave us seasoning for food.

They gave us little bags of seasoning.

And then we cooked our eggs with those seasonings.

So guy who has the family with the seasoning business, we made ribs.

We need that seasoning for the ribs next year.

I think I know who that is, actually.

I don't want to get their name wrong if I'm just remembering.

I want to build off of this.

I'm sorry.

I'm taking the spotlight again.

There was a moment last year.

So I gave, if you got a sticker from some Call Me Johnny, it was me and my sister who printed those.

I was going up to give them to her and it was Johnny's line.

And I have a lot of inter whatever with Johnny's audience overlap.

Yeah.

And people recognized me.

I stopped there to chat and someone in that line was like, Oh my God, is JTART9 here?

And so I literally left to go find Justin.

And I'm like, Hey, a fan wants to talk to you.

And Justin was a disbelief.

Like a fan?

What?

What are you talking about?

It was my first year streaming and we hadn't made Crub yet.

So I think they probably knew me from Charity Room.

Yeah, no, that's exactly the case.

But no, they specifically asked for you.

And so I left to go find you and brought you to this person.

Yeah, because I was just walking.

I was just walking and Trav just grabs me and he says, Hey, someone wants to see you.

And I'm like, What did I do?

And every story, I'm like, That's the guy that played Smash Brothers that one evening.

Wow.

I beat Johnny.

Yeah.

No, it was really funny because it was like that that happened.

And then they Trav brings me over and they say, Are you the world famous Twitch streamer JTart9?

And I was like, Yep, that's me.

Oh, that was such a good moment.

It was great.

We saw them again this year, I think.

They were at the Crub Meetup.

Oh, nice.

Yeah.

Shout out to that.

If you showed up to that, you were a real one.

What was it that Meetup was us?

Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about some of the negatives of being at these cons sort of as an exhibitor.

I'll give you an example of a time that I went to a con, where I ended up meeting Bruce Davison.

He's an actor and he's one of those, one of those faces that like you see and you're like, you know him.

He was in the X-Men film as the senator who turned in to goo.

Oh, okay.

Bruce Davison, he's around in everything.

And I saw him years and years ago at a convention.

He was just sitting there in a dark room around a dark corner, right?

Like you had to walk in.

This convention had several rooms and this was like the back room.

And he was in the back room and you had to walk in and then like turn a corner and then turn another corner, like is 180 degrees staring back.

And he's just in this little corner in the dark.

The room is like half the lights are on kind of thing.

And I remember this because the person I was with at the time wanted to get a photo with him.

And he was like, I have to charge you $35.

And some of these conventions require these people to pay.

Like it's not set up by the actor or whomever, right?

Like the convention has paid them to show up and then charges to get a photo or a signature.

Yeah, so they're getting the money back kind of thing.

Yeah.

And so he's like, I have to charge you for this.

And there was this moment where the person that I was with was very clearly gauging the value of this human being, right?

For just a moment where it was like, you know, yeah, it's $25 for a photo.

And then this, I don't know, are you worth $25?

That is so awkward, that is so awkward.

Right?

And so you've got this kind of very, we've talked about it here, and maybe you've heard the word if you're, you know, following YouTubers, but there's a sort of parasocial thing that happens where the people who are there are not people, but product, right?

And we see this when we go to these events too.

I know where the YouTubers who have been invited to TooManyGames are product, where the people are showing up at a VidCon are product, right?

And this is what's going to sell tickets.

You're here to sell tickets in order to produce a profit so that we can make a lot of money off of your performance.

Pretty much, yeah.

And I'm curious, how do you feel now that you're all part of that, where you're becoming product, right?

How do you feel about that experience?

I think maybe Chris is one of the more interesting ones to see.

Well, I charge $85 a photo, so it's been very lucrative for me personally.

You suckers have been paying for his rent for the past six months.

Yeah, and I need some more, so I'll be at the next convention near you.

So catch me outside.

How about that?

How about that?

Um, no, actually, though.

Wait, so how do I feel about being on the other end of that experience, like approaching someone and then there's a pay thing or being like a reason people may go to the thing?

Yeah, being a reason that somebody may go to it.

It's a weird thing.

It's also why I'm a little quieter.

I think lately about if I'm going to a thing is I just I don't know.

Not fully embraced it is maybe the way to put it.

Um, surely.

So if somebody were to say to you, I bought a ticket, I paid $100 to come to this convention.

I drove here.

I have an Airbnb.

All right.

I got a hotel.

I'm here to see you.

Oh, that's say I wish I had a panel or something for you to go to, buddy.

But here I am.

Let's talk for 30 seconds and then I'll walk away.

Awkwardly.

No, it's very humbling.

I've had all kinds of things where even like it wasn't obviously something where someone went to it for me.

But Sega has a weird thing now and then.

We'll look across the line between official event and convention.

But back then, it was called Sonic Boom.

And you would go and they'd have like five or six hour night planned of like, here's the new game.

Here's like actors from the games or writers from the show or whatever is going on at the time.

And someone came up at the end of that with like a like a yearbook or something.

I forget.

And someone was going around with like their 3DS and just approaching like me.

Smoothies was there.

Smoothies did their graphics work and stuff like that.

If you know of DCR, you know Smoothies.

Gareth, right.

And we were signing their stuff.

And I'm like, this is surreal.

I just came here to look at the new Sonic stuff and see my friends.

But now I got to know somewhere people are here to like sign.

Yeah.

Somewhere in the world, a really poorly cursively written meekness fan is in someone's book interior somewhere.

It's very humbling.

And I it's basically all the value I have when I think about my ego.

So I guess I like it a lot, actually.

It's pretty great.

More people should approach me.

Yeah, it was good.

I would say I would say it is bizarre because like you guys had to bully me to like tweet out when I was streaming, because when I started streaming, I would just start and just not tell anybody and just be like, if they want to show up, they'll show up.

They'll find a way.

God damn it.

It's not how it works.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's just not how it works.

You still got to find shiny Arceus, by the way.

You don't have anything to find shiny Arceus, but I'm also not going to be here for a month.

What about you, Trav?

You've had a whole lot of experience with people coming up to you and finding you.

You said that this year at TooManyGames, you couldn't even make it through the hole.

I think the meat drink got to him.

You all right?

The meat smoothie, the meat smoothie.

I was zoning out, what's up?

Am I that boring, Trav?

Is my personal stories not endear you?

No, I was very enthralled of like you and Smoothie signing that smoothie, like I just forgot my name.

What's up?

I don't know, how you doing?

How do you experience these conventions?

Doing on the other side of it, being the draw for somebody as a field to have somebody come up to you and be like, I'm here to see you.

We can role play if it'll help you.

I don't know.

All right.

Yeah.

All right.

Justin, you're fan one and Chris, you're fan two.

I want to be fan one.

What?

I'm even his fan.

You're fan one.

Thank you.

Justin, you're fan two.

Okay.

Justin, is that that Trav guy?

I think I could tell from his crazy hair, but like, he's not T posing.

I don't know.

He's a lot shorter in person.

Do you want to talk to him?

I could dunk on this kid.

$50?

I paid $90 for this weekend.

What do we do?

The monster energy is free.

And that's an extra $50 bucks to talk to Trav?

What the hell is going on here?

I don't like this bit anymore.

Do you think he pays for the food at the food court?

Absolutely not, I've been giving it to him for free.

How have you felt about people coming up?

How does that make you feel, Trav?

Like, I need to go home.

He's shorter in person.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's weird, and I guess it's just hard for me to process.

I wish I had more to say, honestly, but like...

It is strange, especially when you...

It's a good feeling.

I don't think it's bad.

It's just, I guess I don't even really process it even in the moment.

It's just hard for you, I think, to be...

If you're like me, I'm just assuming.

It is like, what have I done that has earned it?

Right.

It's like if I step back, it's like...

Imposter syndrome a little bit.

Imposter syndrome.

You talk about Sonic Funny, Review Games, act like an idiot on charity streams or whatever.

And that's kind of it.

And that covers most of it for a lot of us, right?

So you're like, what have I done to earn you coming up to me and saying such a nice thing or wanting any moment of my time?

Right.

So I'm always a little like, what are you doing in a kind way, in a gracious way?

But in a way, like, it's a thing, right?

Where like you look and it's like, at TooManyGames, it looks to your right.

It's like, oh, there's Colleen O'Shaughnessy.

She's Tails in the Sonic movie.

Why don't you go talk to her?

She's like, done thing.

So, you know, I just...

Yeah.

Meanwhile, on a live stream, I just go...

Oh, the goblin.

Yeah, it's holding back.

Yeah.

I was like, M, you don't really get this experience that much because you are a ethereal blob in the void.

Yeah, I'm anonymous.

Nobody knows what I look like.

Exactly.

Nobody, you know, comes up and sees me.

I have had a moment of standing next to somebody and talking and then them looking when they heard my voice.

But other than that, I don't really get a whole lot of people coming up to me, which I actually prefer.

Like, I don't want that.

I want to be able.

And I think maybe that can talk or segue into sort of the toxicity of that experience, right?

Where I've seen some people that I won't name necessarily, but they can't go out onto a show floor, right?

They literally cannot do it.

They walk outside and they get mobbed.

And I will also pretty happily say that, you know, there was one of our Mutuals, sort of, I think, some of our Mutuals who has a stalker.

He's very famous.

He's millions of subscribers.

And while he was doing a very, very affordable for the convention signing and handshaking and, you know, general meet and greet kind of stuff with, I think, 6,000 people, I think, 6,000 people.

Yes, and they didn't get them security.

And he had no security.

So his stalker showed up and ran over to him and accosted him in the middle of this convention, just grabbed him, right?

Like touching you.

Yeah.

And so there is a sort of toxicity that exists there through that parasocial relationship that we do have, right?

Like it is natural to find these parasocial relationships with fans.

That is certainly a part of it.

And so you have both the, I can't go out because there's too many people, right?

I can't wander the floor.

One of our mutuals, antdude, right?

Like he can't walk through the floor without people being like, Hey, are you antdude?

And Trav is starting to get that now, too, where it's like, Oh, hey, are you Trav guy?

And it's like, Yeah, I am.

And now you're done.

You're done for the next 30 minutes.

Yeah.

Which I love it when a convention is open for a very long time because you have plenty of time to walk the show floor.

But usually people leave.

They like the people stop selling their stuff on the show floor and stuff like that.

So you just have an empty convention center at the end of the night, which I'm not asking the people who are vendors to stay there the entire time it's open.

I recognize that you should go and eat food and get some fresh air because all you're smelling is gamers for a second.

But it like when you have a 24 hour convention center or whatever, and by the end of the night, if you're still getting mobbed like that, it's like, when does it stop?

Like, when do you just like, like, do you feel OK going back to your car?

Like, someone's going to see that you're in that car and see that license plate and be able to follow you.

You know what I mean?

I hadn't even thought about that.

Oh, oh.

Yeah, no, I mean, like it happens.

We do see people.

And I think for YouTubers, it's maybe ever present whenever some thing happens.

Like, you know, one of these there was a girl who was shot in her home because she's a YouTuber and this guy decided to find her address.

That's not an uncommon story.

If you Google that, you'll find several, right?

Like, YouTubers are murdered by their fans.

And so, like, I think that that is something that we, even if we're not millions of subscribers, we're certainly prescient, or I'm sorry, conscious of, right?

Like, we see it happen.

Yeah, it's something you think about and you go, okay, so this is part of the Faustian bargain that we're agreeing to, where, yeah, I'm gonna have food, but also maybe get murdered.

It's an unfortunate thing.

But will that stop me from going to conventions?

And that's a big old no.

Yeah.

Because I really enjoy going to conventions.

Like, there's a lot of negatives, but I enjoy, especially really, really good conventions, I'll leave it, like, just energize and be like, I wish there was a fourth day.

Yeah, like, yeah, when they're good, when they're good, when they're good.

Yeah.

Like a man.

I think the problem is not a lot of them are super good.

So I come to some conventions that are literally one ballroom in a hotel.

Yeah.

And I walk in there and I'm like, Oh, this is like the essence of conventions.

And I love it.

But also I'm done after 30 minutes.

All right.

So I'll just randomly go off on one of these.

There was a convention in New Jersey.

I don't remember what it was called.

I think it was called like New Jersey GamerCon or something like that.

I believe that I was asked to attend and I was given free tickets.

And I was like, yeah, sure, whatever.

And I went to this thing and it was being held in a gym, in a police station.

So there were there was a there was like boxing for one of them, but they were currently doing the boxing.

So they were holding a boxing thing at the same time as this gaming convention.

And so there's a bunch of cops punching each other and making loud noises.

And on top of that, just being sweaty and gross, right?

Because like they're actively working out.

The whole convention just smells like sweaty gym socks, right?

And it's the grossest thing I've ever been to.

So that sounds terrible, but you will never forget that.

There are some TMGs.

I will never forget it.

I can't differentiate anymore, but that you would never ever forget.

No, I remember the layout of the building even.

Like, it's crazy.

I never went back, of course.

But like, I went to the thing.

I went to the thing.

I was I was introduced by the show organizer to the other YouTubers that came, right?

And they started just ranting about stuff.

And I was like, oh, hey, well, what's your channel?

I remember looking and they had like 280 subscribers kind of stuff.

And it was like, oh, oh, this is the kind of event I have shown up to.

I feel that I shouldn't be here.

Right.

Like, I made a mistake.

And you're talking to these people, like all excited about their YouTube channel and you're just here.

Yep.

And I was horrific.

It was absolutely horrific.

So like, yeah, these conventions can be very bad when they're bad.

But I will remember it forever.

They're memorable when they are.

I do want to kind of maybe go for a higher, a little bit more light fare here.

How do you guys feel about cosplay at conventions?

I would love to take part one day.

I actually really like it.

Justin?

When I shaved my head, One Punch Man.

OK, I support that.

How do you feel?

Justin, you could do a pretty good Denzel Crocker.

That's a positive.

Is that disrespectful?

That's a compliment.

Yeah.

So I'm curious.

And how do you feel that cosplay has transformed or maybe helped evolve sort of gaming conventions in general?

Because it didn't used to be that you would see cosplay at all of these things.

And now it's sort of an expected, you know, facet of the convention.

It is like a tab on the convention website when you look it up.

Like you expect to see cosplay.

And it's kind of weird because it's expected of the fans to do it.

They don't like, I mean, they probably do have professional cosplayers that they'll invite and bring and have them show off their costumes.

I swear to God, I've seen the same guy wearing the slicer costume from Metroid, I don't know which Metroid it was.

He's there every year and it's the same costume every year and I love it.

But it's an interesting one because a lot of them are very bulky and it makes it hard to walk around them if you're just trying to get around them to get to the next thing in the hall.

But like, I'm not going to fault you for that.

You put a lot of time and effort into this costume and I honestly want to see it.

It's just when I've seen it the 20th time and I'm like, all right, well.

They're brave to do that.

Such a warm, crowded environment.

I don't probably going to get grabbed by somebody.

I don't want to put them on blast, but it did make me laugh.

But near the end of TMG this year, there was a I think it was the Helldivers 2 cosplayer.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That was around this when I was just hanging out with Nico and I think him was around, right.

And Nico was like, oh, cool.

Hey, can we get a photo?

You know, great interaction.

So they did whatever Helldivers 2 arms out thing.

And I was like, oh, I don't get it.

But that's fun.

And then they went in for a hug.

And I got the photo for them.

And then as they separated, the guy started looking concerned.

And I guess Nico maybe dislodged something or I don't think he broke anything.

But the guy was suddenly like his vibe shifted and he was like, oh, yeah, no, it's a little flimsy.

And I said, oh, no, did Nico just break this guy's cosplay thing?

That would be very funny.

That he spent a lot of time and money on.

Yeah.

And like on the one hand, if that's what undid it, maybe it was going to happen anyway.

But on the other hand...

Shout out to that one guy dressed up as Joaquin Phoenix Joker.

That guy is that guy, the homie.

But that was last year's TMG, though.

You weren't there for that, Chris.

Oh, yeah, we used it for a thumbnail for Nico.

Just like David Hayter right there on that one.

You know, like he was a shout out to the Joker.

He wasn't there.

He wasn't there, but he had a pretty good cosplay last time I saw it.

How do you guys feel about cosplay then as sort of, you know, tribute for games?

Do you do you look at it and go, Oh, it's super cool to see, you know, Samus.

It's super neat to see that.

You know, is it a positive overall?

Do you think that it fits in into the same kind of realm as, you know, going and geeking out about video games?

I guess it's not my thing.

Right.

I'm like, oh, that's cool.

That's kind of as deep as my thoughts.

I'm not going to say that a gray area doesn't exist where there are people who do it just to, you know, be popular, that they don't even care what they're doing a tribute to.

But I mean, I don't really care.

I don't think it's that big of a deal.

At a certain point, you're going to a video game convention because you like video games.

Whether or not you like the character you're class playing as, you probably should because you're spending a lot of time and or money to look like this character.

So like, I don't know, there may be something there.

But like, I think that it's just really cool because if you like that character enough to be them, it's just really endearing.

Got to win the contest, bro.

Oh, true.

Ever felt any sort of pressure to participate?

Have you ever felt like you need to cosplay?

No, no.

If anything, I feel de-centrified to cosplay because I know I'm going to be in a crowd where people are going to stop me a bunch of times.

And also you see the very good ones and you're like, well, I know I can't do that.

So yeah, I don't have the money or time for that.

It's like the ones that light up or something.

Like, I remember, I think I was at...

I feel de-incentivized.

It was like 2018's MagFest or something.

And someone had like the Ridley Super Metroid sprite, but they moved with it.

And like the sprite animated basically, if you looked at it from the side.

And I was like, that's really cool.

I was like, that's insane.

I would never do anything like that, but good on that person.

Right.

So I'll wear my Jet Set Radio shirt and pretend I'm that guy.

That's about as far as I think I'll go.

Unless it's really funny.

What's up?

The one I did see.

Shoot.

I don't remember the name of the character from Tears of the Kingdom, but it's the NPC you see everywhere that's trying to put up a sign.

Oh, yeah.

He was holding the sign.

It was so good.

Addison.

Like that guy was going around.

And you see people do conventions.

I think it's just my favorite thing where he's trying to set up a sign and he tries to get someone to help him.

I'm like, that's a good bit.

That feels like someone coming in here and doing a skit.

And I like that energy.

So I enjoyed it because I saw several links show up, right?

And each link would of course help them set up their thing.

I think that's great.

That's really brilliant.

See, that's why they're part of cosplay is just the weird organic moments like that, where it's like, oh, there's suddenly a bunch of people here under the same banner of series.

So this weird one-off cosmic event is going to happen in front of me.

Cool.

Yeah, I think it helps foster, right?

Like this sort of sense of community and collaboration amongst the attendees, which is cool.

It makes it feel like, you know, you're not just because let's face it, when we're talking about the marketplace, right?

All these people are going on to price checker or whatever, right?

And they are looking for the current price today.

And here's the price of it plus 20 percent.

Do you want it?

Which is never really a good experience.

You're not getting anything as, you know, a shopper.

You're not going to find a deal.

You don't need any of the stuff necessarily, right?

Like, I don't need that.

I could buy it on eBay and get the better quality and it will show up and it will be half the price.

I don't feel like I ever get a whole lot out of that.

For me, the panels are typically not what I'm going for either.

Right?

Like, not necessarily out of TooManyGames because I'm going to see my friends, but like a VidCon, I'm not going for the panels.

I don't want to go listen to Dame Dash explain what a reviewer is.

Right?

Like, that's cool.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And like, that's cool for the people who are like, you know, starting a YouTube channel, I guess.

But that's not for me.

So I'm really looking for like the attendees to do kind of stuff.

That's neat.

I want to go see the cosplay.

I want to go see the guy who's like, you know, an artist.

And here's my artist alley stuff that's really neat.

And you can only find me here.

Right.

Like, this is the place I come to because I live down the road and I decided to spend $15.

And here's my shit.

I don't know that like the core kind of, if we were to break out a convention into different modules, right, like most of the core modules that people think of are the stuff that I think is kind of bad, right?

Like I go there and I'm like, yeah, I'm not gonna buy anything and I don't really care about that stuff and I'm not gonna go listen to this thing.

I'm just gonna be here to hang out.

And I recognize that's terrible for me, right?

Like I'm the one losing out, I guess, in that situation.

But what I'm looking for really is sort of the opportunity to have these one-off experiences, to remember that thing, to remember the boxing gym, right?

To be like, yeah, that's on a moment.

I had this moment, and I'll always remember just this horrific, sweaty, terrible experience in the gym with, like, they literally had the wrestling gym mats on the floor.

That's what you walked on.

That's what you walked on.

And just the whole thing was this, ah.

So to have that is really neat, right?

And to have that memory of it is really neat.

And I think it's interesting because we talked a little bit this year about how memory works with reflective versus current self.

And I feel that having this sort of reflective or reflections of moments that are interesting is really kind of a neat thing to come out of the convention.

And part of that, part of what leads to those neat reflective memories, what leads to saying, you know, that was an interesting experience is seeing a cool cosplayer.

And seeing somebody who does, you know, the Zelda, you know, sign thing, and seeing a link show up and be like, let me help you out, because we're both doing this.

You know, I think that's really neat.

And for me, you know, that's what I want when I go to a mag fest.

That's what I want when I go to VidCon.

That's what I want when I go to a PAX.

I'm looking for those kind of cooler, one-off experiences.

You know, I don't want to just go in and see a whole bunch of tables with things for sale on them.

That is just not the experience that I'm excited for.

It's neat at first, but once you've done it a few years, you're like, yes, this is just visual noise at a point.

Yeah.

Unless you want something really specific.

But yeah, you know, you look at the prices, you're like, expensive.

Boy, I've never felt less materialistic than I do every time I walk through a con, right?

Like I walk through and I look at everything and I'm like, this is all plastic.

It is a bunch of Funko Pop bullshit.

And right.

If you love Funko Pops, I think you need to get a personality, you know?

Like this is not a thing that you should have on your own.

It's not cool.

It's not neat.

It's the most generic pumpkin spice latte bullshit you could ever have.

And people will go in there and buy 350.

I'm sure I'm pissing off somebody.

I'm sure there's somebody who was listening to this being like, boy, why are you attacking me?

And it's like, you know what?

You're not a person and you deserve to be attacked for it.

Justin, what's your closest Funko Pop to you?

Upstairs.

I have them all in a box.

If you have one or two, it's whatever.

It's when that becomes...

All of mine are gifts.

Oh my god.

I got like 50 of them.

You need to get rid of those.

That's why I was sitting here like, I think Funko Pop is in the room with us.

Oh, there's one right there.

There's one right there.

Oh, I heard.

I got it right there.

But the point I'm trying to make isn't so much that like some people buy these things because like some people buy limited run games and I don't like shit on that person for buying a limited run game.

I don't like the way that the company operates.

I think that it's consumerist tchotchkes, right?

Like, it's stuff that's going to end up being thrown away when you die.

And that's not a good feeling.

Why would you, you know, like, like, I want something that when I buy, you know, a thing, I wanted to either have a deeply personal meaning for me, where this is a thing I was given and it reminds me of X, Y or Z.

Or right, it needs to be something that I think of as as more heirloomy, you know, or I guess utilitarian.

And I'm not saying that that having a Funko Pop and it making you happy isn't a utility that's worth the value.

I just, you know, like, it's hard for me to go into these conventions and look at all of this absolute garbage.

Like half of the garbage stuff, half of the stuff these people buy is going to be thrown away this year.

You know what I mean?

And so and that's real hard pop.

You can always remember the time I gave you a Funko Pop and therefore it's valuable.

It would be more valuable than him going out and seeing a Funko Pop and buying it.

Correct.

At least then it has something.

Yeah, Funko Pops for me were just the thing.

Cause I like statues.

So I wanted a statue before I could spend money and Funko Pops are $10 a piece.

So I was like, you know what?

To have a little Skyrim guard with his arrow in his knee for 10 bucks, I'll take that.

Why not?

I'm tired of Funko Pops.

Let's talk about conventions more.

I'm also tired of the end of the convention talk.

What a sad note to end on.

Pretty much there.

But, you know, I just on a very real note, I find that that sort of consumerist thing is what I end up leaving a convention with.

You know, that's I want the experiences.

I want to go see the cosplayers.

I want to see the people doing things.

I want to see the random artist who lives 10 feet down the road and paid $15 to come in there.

I want to see the things, you know, I want to go.

I want the part of the convention that is unique to that convention and not the part that they stole from Pax or the part that they stole from MagCon or the part they stole from Momicon in order to try to get more people to buy tickets.

No, I feel that.

I mean, conventions are a good time.

If you find one local to you, especially support your local cons, especially if they're smaller, because a lot of them will probably be gone within a year or two if people don't support.

So if you guys enjoy going down to them and there's like a panel that you enjoy or there's like a thing you want to see, like check it out.

And most of the time, like my local con that I go to every year, it costs about 20 bucks to get in for the day.

20 bucks to go and support a local thing that has some cool things and has some local vendors that you can go and support.

It's a cool time.

It's really a cool time.

There's some neat stuff.

Let me give you a question then that I think we can kind of close out on.

Yes.

Oh, Chris, did you have something you wanted to say first?

Give me that question.

Let's hear it.

Let me give you a question that we can kind of close out the whole conversation on, which is how do you think conventions are going to be once digital conventions happen a little bit more, right?

So there's a game called Warframe, and the creators of Warframe, they hold a TennoCon every year, and it's in Reykjavik or something, right, where nobody can ever get to.

But they do it online as well, and you can go and you can be a part of this sort of digital convention.

And you can see, you know, the stuff.

So I'm curious, how do you feel about the concept?

And we saw this with the pandemic, right, where conventions like VidCon went online, and they started making a lot more money doing it that way.

And now you've got-

Yeah, running out of space.

Yeah, no space and no overhead and all that kind of stuff.

And it's a lot easier to have somebody join up through, you know, Zoom or Discord than it is to have them physically fly in for their hour long panel.

How do you feel that these sort of digital alternatives, will they make physical gaming conventions obsolete?

And how might they reduce the need for it?

Because I tell you what, one of the things that we saw from the death of E3 is there's no more gaming announcement, right?

Like that doesn't happen anymore.

You've just kind of got these floating ethereal, whenever I feel like putting it out kind of things happening.

So how do you feel about the inevitability, I think, of it becoming more of a digital thing?

I feel like they will co-exist.

I feel like that's something where the digital event won't erase the physical event, unless the draws to the physical event find it so much more lucrative and efficient to do the digital event, right?

Like the guests, because I just think there is something to the in-person aspect, like I don't like conventions that much, but it's a lot different to go to one and feel the energy and have everything going on around you.

And like, if you want to meet someone, you know, paying them $50 to get their photo or whatever, it's very different than just popping in like a Discord stage call and that person happens to be there.

Still cool.

But I think it's a thing where I could be wrong.

I just don't think it would erase the physical one, but I do see a lot more of them popping up these days, for sure.

I do see them growing more and more.

I'm seeing things I'm into doing kind of Discord events, and they'll bring in the voice actors for whatever series it's about, right?

So the cosplayers can't do that, though, so you're always going to see the physical event, basically.

They'll make sure.

If anything, the cosplayers will just have their own events for cosplay, and that'll be it.

That has to be a thing, right?

Hold on.

It has to be.

I feel like I don't want any part of a digital con, to be honest with you.

I don't see the value.

I don't see the value of a digital con.

I mean, it would be cheaper.

I suppose I don't have to leave my house.

But part of going to a con for me is going and walking the show floor, seeing what people are putting out there, seeing new artists, meeting new people, seeing the boys.

I mean, I guess I could see the boys at any time.

Amazon Prime, give us your Prime sub.

This is worth that one in there.

Always selling, baby.

I'm trying to be cognizant of it because I would have said the same thing about physical versus digital games a long time ago before internet speeds got real good.

Right.

And be like, oh, you'd always want to see the game and have it on your shelf and have that tactile feeling and look at the manual.

And then now all those things are gone and it's so much more convenient to do digital and you're seeing physical dying.

And I would have been very wrong about that call.

But I feel better about this one.

I'll put maybe $3 on it, just a fogey.

Maybe I'm just like an old dude and just like old head.

I got to be able to see the thing in person.

You don't spend four hours scrolling TikTok and just being inside anyway on your phone and thinking, why would I go outside?

Maybe that is the new generation's thing.

It's like, I'll just join Discord, you know?

I'll talk to Bryce Papenbrook over Discord stage call.

That's all I need.

That's all I need.

Trav?

I couldn't really even care less about digital conventions.

I'll be real.

I have zero interest.

Like when TooManyGames this year was like, oh, yeah, we're also live streaming our stuff.

So you can catch these concerts and panels if you miss them.

I told I was nice to the lady.

You know, it's not her fault.

She was just a cashier.

But no, not a cashier.

Whatever.

We were in the Wendy's.

Yeah, we were in the Wendy's.

But it was like.

But like I in the back of my mind, I like if it was like the TMG founder or whatever that told me this, I literally would probably just say, I don't care.

Like, but I'm not going to shoot the messenger.

I'm going to be nice to the person telling me.

But just like, damn, I don't care.

Sorry.

Yeah.

Nice option, I guess.

Yeah.

Like it's not for me, I guess.

Like if I if I want to partake in a convention, like worst case scenario, I'm feeling FOMO and I don't even want to watch it online.

But realistically, it's just like, no, like if I wanted to be there, I'd just be there, you know?

Yeah.

What about you, M?

As I am, it seems like you kind of led the message here.

You said like, you think that it's going to be that's going to be the way it goes in that in-person canons are going to just kind of kind of die.

No, I don't think they're going to die.

But I do think that you're going to see more and more of it, especially as it becomes harder and harder to justify going to them because of how expensive it is.

You know, if I don't live near a convention, it is two or three hundred dollars a night for a hotel room, right?

Unless you get lucky.

But if you want to go stay in the Gaylord for for magfests, two or three hundred dollars a night, you know what I mean?

Getting a Gaylord room is an immense exercise in pain and self-loathing.

Yeah, it's incredibly expensive, incredibly expensive.

It's hard to get to.

And if you're not in there, you know, it's actually kind of detrimental to your experience because it's a 24 hour con, you know, and like in the winter you are missing out on stuff.

So there is sort of this this thing where I think it will become more prevalent and more popular over the years, especially people don't like going out.

They don't like spending money.

They don't want to do these things.

And as the online experience becomes more and more parr-de, the parity becomes better, right?

We will see people doing these things a lot more.

When you're able to have a better experience watching the panel at home, why would you go?

It's the same reason why more people prefer to watch sports on on television, right?

Like, why would I go if my experience in the stands is worse?

And there's always going to be people who go because today, people still go to an NFL game.

They still go to a baseball game, right?

They still go to a basketball, but that experience is for most people paying for tickets to go to the live game.

It's a worse experience than if you stayed at home.

If you're interested in the game itself, right?

If you want to go out to watch the game, go to a local bar, find your friends.

You don't have to pay any money to go into the building and you have a bar in front of you.

Like, yep.

I think that there is going to, as the parity of these events gets higher, as the quality of them gets higher, as people figure it out, it's going to be just like esports, right?

Like esports today is not an incredible experience for the average person watching it because nobody really figures it out, right?

Like you've got the Counter-Strike majors and you've got League and Dota and that's it, right?

Everybody else has failed.

So there's going to be...

And Evo.

Well, yeah, Evo even, I would argue, is not particularly a good experience.

And that's why it's not as profitable as it could be, right?

Like it still has to bring in investors in order to pay for things because it doesn't make...

Like it's not super profitable.

And if it's not profitable, you know, somebody's eventually going to figure out a way to do it.

So it's that and also all the developers for all the games made their own tournaments to kind of undercut Evo to try and do their own thing.

But yeah, why would you give...

Why would I give money to you when I can just do it myself?

The same thing that we see with game announcements.

So I think that over time, there's going to be a...

Not an exodus, but smaller conventions are going to disappear.

And some of these larger ones are going to disappear too, because it's no longer going to be economically viable.

If I am PAX, right?

And PAX Swaziland is no longer making money.

Why would I do that anymore, right?

When I can just stream it to them from, you know, my much more popular one in Kazakhstan.

It doesn't make sense not to do that.

And I think that we're going to see that being a major shift towards these sort of digital-only events as the years go by.

And I think it's being led by game developers who are doing it currently.

I don't necessarily want it, right?

Like, I have no interest in that kind of a thing either, because I don't feel that I'm getting any of that exclusive experience that I mentioned I want.

But I do think that that's going to be very standard.

I could say it.

I see where you're coming from.

I hope it doesn't go that way, because I really do genuinely enjoy the in-person con, and I don't want it to go the way of a blockbuster.

Yeah, I think it will.

So, Chris, I think we have a Patreon question of the week.

I think so, too.

I didn't pick it this week, so I don't have it.

I think Trav has it, actually.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to share it.

Hold on one second.

You could just read it now.

Yeah, I'm pulling it back up.

Hold on a second.

Come down, Justin.

Wait, hold on.

I just opened the Crub OBS package.

Hold on.

You bingo.

I'm in the wrong channel.

There we go.

Found it.

OK, here we go.

All right, fellas, this is building off a conversation we were having earlier.

Oh, hold on.

I'm looking for it.

All right.

This one comes from TK Hubworld.

The question is, game genres are crazy.

Not really a question.

Just kidding.

There's more.

What two genres would you like to see made into a new game, i.e.

stealth and puzzle, rogue-like farming sim, etc.?

And I'm going to pass it to Justin, because I feel like he has thoughts sometimes.

Sometimes.

They come and go.

A genre that I'd like to see.

Yeah, a mishmash of two different genres.

I can't say sports and town sim, because we already have that, and it's called Football Manager, and you just read a bunch of spreadsheets all day.

That's not very fun.

Like a good version of that, though.

Like if you not built the stadium and you got to customize it, maybe there's something.

Yeah.

Like and then you build your stadium, you bully the local government to try and give you taxpayer dollars to build it.

You throw out the people who get too drunk, right?

Yeah.

The VR hung out and take them out.

You tell them that there's going to be legacy.

This is going to be a legacy event, right?

We're building.

Yes, it's going to cost you $480 million to build this stadium, but think about how many other things you'll be able to host in it.

Yeah.

And you'll get a cut of all that, except the fact that you probably won't.

And all the local economy will go straight to the ground because no one's going to want to go near the stadium during a game day.

Yeah.

Love those politics.

But in reality, probably just like a...

I think it'd be really fun to have more fighting game turn based strategy games.

There's a game called Yomi Hustle, and it is literally just a strategy game that you put all the moves together, and then it all plays out like a taskbot, and you try and fight each other.

It's really, really cool.

And more games like that.

You get to see it back in real time.

Your only move is hustle.

Yes.

Your only move is hustle, shortened to Yomi Hustle.

Oh, weird.

That's a really cool game, and more things like that would be really, really cool.

It's basically like the entire game is a taskbot.

Oh, and you're fighting someone else also using a taskbot, and you're trying to fight each other.

It's really, really cool.

So you just want more of that?

Yes.

So I've only seen it once, and it was really cool, and more things should do that.

More things should also be popsicles.

More things should be popsicles.

Trav?

Chris?

Em?

Yeah.

So I guess if I were going...

I think of this moment in a game that I played called Dune 2, I think.

It was an RTS where you could play as the...

the...

boy, they fell out of my head.

The people in the desert and...

Spice Boys.

Yeah, the Spice Boys.

They had a unit in it, which was the Fedakene Sniper.

And it was a stealth unit that you could go and you could, you know, use this to take out things that were in the enemies.

You could shoot things, you know, I'm pretty...

I recall that you could...

Maybe it was a different game.

I can recall that you could snipe the driver of a vehicle out, right?

And then they would have to send out like a little, a little infantry unit to claim the vehicle again.

It made me think that it would be very interesting to have a stealth RTS, right?

I love stealth games.

We don't really see them anymore.

They don't exist, right?

The last stealth game we had was Deathloop, right?

Oh, that's so...

Yeah.

Like, there's no stealth games.

And so to have sort of a stealth RTS where your goal is to be, you know, doing things in an RTS world, but to maintain stealth and to have sort of the mechanics that would allow that to exist, right?

Because they're not really designed when you're doing an army versus army type of thing, right?

Like, you're not designed to have stealth units out there.

You're not really intended to be, like, paying attention to one unit over this, you know, huge thing.

I think there could be some very interesting stuff going on there.

I agree.

That sounds fun.

It sounds kind of like a Hitman Go kind of gimmick.

But that's more turn based, though.

I'm still thinking about the Roguelike farming thing.

And I actually like that because I think they're the Rune Factory games that are farming sims slash RPG things.

Never tried those.

But the idea...

What?

Cult of the Lamb, kind of like that, too.

Oh, right.

Yeah, it's like a it's like a it's like a town builder and it's also a Roguelike.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah.

I'm just thinking about like your farmer dies and you come back with new modifiers and you have to try to work with the existing crops that the prior farmer had.

Maybe I feel like that could probably be a mess.

That could be interesting.

Yeah.

And then the ground would probably have its own modifiers.

Good idea.

I'm taking that answer from the question.

That's my answer.

The Fremen.

That was what they were called.

The Fremen.

Boy, I actually like that story.

I've read it and I've watched the movies and everything.

Like all of them.

I've even watched the sci-fi film.

Like like the sci-fi films.

It's in the sci-fi channel films.

Oh, well, I enjoy that.

I forgot the word Fremen, man.

I feel like a fraud.

Big fan.

Trav, you're holding us here.

I've been I've been trying to buy for time because I'm struggling to think of one.

And I'm going to start my answer with a question that I need an answer to.

What genre would you say that Papers, Please falls under?

Sadness.

That's a hard one, right?

Like, all right.

So I guess I use the game as a genre, I guess.

But here, I'll let you finish your point.

I was just I feel like I would call that like maybe RPG sim, right?

Because like you're clearly role playing and it's clearly a simulator, but it's not quite either one of those.

Yeah, like you're role playing as like someone who's just sad.

Yeah.

Chris, Chris Sim.

Because Chris Sim.

OK.

Social job simulator.

That could be a good one.

Because I was going to say, all right, we take the idea of papers, please, and make it.

I initially wanted to say a fighting game, but I'm having a hard time thinking of how that would work.

Someone coming up with the papers is being shitting.

Like you deny their entry into the country, and they're like, well, let's throw down now.

Best two out of three.

Counterattack.

Oh my God.

It's papers, please.

But when they choose to appeal their denial, turns it to a fighting game.

Yeah, right.

Round one.

Yeah, I have no idea.

I've been struggling to think of one because genuinely, a lot of the ones that I initially wanted to go to, or think of, is shit that's already been done.

Is that a swear jar?

I forgot.

No, you're good.

Jugglers are so full lately, especially, right?

Like what is an RPG in gaming nowadays?

So a lot of crossover stuff has actually happened, I'd say at this point.

I'd say a little bit of everything at this point.

I was even thinking like a farming puzzler game, but I think one of the new Harvest Moon games did that too.

So I was like, hmm.

Like the first thing that I thought of when this idea was pitched was, oh dude, like a game that has the style of momentum of platforming of like a Mega Man X, but in first person, but that's kind of been done before and done a lot.

Ghost runner?

Yeah, ghost runner.

Exactly.

Yeah.

It's like that's already been done and been arguably mastered.

Like, it was like after I asked the question, I'm like, wait, I don't think I have anything good for this.

All right.

I'm just going to pick two games at random from my seed list.

I'm scrolling through it now.

All right.

First game, Doom 3.

Oh boy.

Doom 3, Cross, Hotline Miami.

No, that would be terrible.

That would just be Hotline Miami.

That would just be Dark.

It would just be Hotline Miami, but Dark and Slow.

Hotline Miami, but you can't see 90% of the game.

That's great.

dude, Em, I think about your comment.

This was like before we became like really good friends, but I remember I got a comment from you on my Doom 3 video that was like, oh, it's way worse.

Doom 3 was way worse than just people not having the graphics card to play it.

People would upgrade their computers and then not be able to see 90% of the game.

And I have thought about that constantly since I got that comment.

Yeah, you know, that's, it sucks.

Yeah.

All right, gamers, I'm going to call it.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

All right.

Cross it over two more games.

All right.

Ready?

Ready?

Here we go.

borderlands, Cross, Sonic Generations.

Oh, Classic and modern borderlands.

Tiny Tina, Classic.

All right.

So that would be a Sonic, a Sonic looter shooter.

I can see that working.

Okay.

But then, you know, how do we separate the Classic and modern?

You have the original Psycho.

Spin Dash.

And then you have-

And the other one's borderlands, but with boost formula.

Classic and modern.

You're going around getting pickups that allow you to change what your boost does, whether it becomes, you know, a spin dash or like a-

Fellows, I think we have a winner with this one.

Jack Black, Claptrap, and the guy who got accosted by Randy Pitchford, Claptrap, in the same game.

Okay.

And Kevin Hart.

Can we just have Kevin Hart in the game?

Yeah, Kevin Hart's there.

He's not even in character.

All right, gamers, I'm calling it.

All right, yeah.

If you want us to answer your question in that much detail, you can go to the Patreon and give us as little as $2 a month.

We have a spreadsheet.

Fill it up.

Throw a bunch in there.

We want questions.

And that's it.

Give us more.

Boys, listeners, good episode.

I think we covered it.

Guys, gals, and non-binary pals, I appreciate your company.

Yes.

All right.

Hell yeah, brother.

Hey, Justin.

Yes.

Guess what?

What?