Episode 41: The Hubris Era

Total Playtime is the official Jank podcast, funded entirely by our paying subscribers (and formerly our backers on Patreon). This week’s episode is free, but subscribers get additional episodes every other week. You may join them by subscribing here, and you can find all previous episodes here.   

Alice and Nate were both unavailable this week, prompting Brendy and I to realise the crushing shortage of local whimsy in our lives. Our daily existence is simply devoid of rural oddities or freestyle whimsy that lends itself to a banging cold open, so we ended up with several minutes of middle-aged car chat which Brendy heroically drags back to a gaming reference. 

Those matters aside we turn to the matters of the week, chiefly Saber’s CEO lashing out at a departed writer who handled it by having a great night out that ended in karaoke, which is the sort of karmic vengeance we should all aspire to. Plus: good philanthropy yet with concerns about whether philanthropy can actually be good, the ongoing destructive instincts of large corporations, and big walks with medium guns. 

Our music is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies and our editing is once again by Alix Attenborough. Thanks to backers of Jank (formerly on Patreon) for enabling the podcast to exist. You can send your favourite CEO faceplants and vintage shooter recommendations to [e-mail], or simply comment on this article. 

Links!

Stella Sacco said she'd been kicked from Rideshare Stimulator and replaced with genAI, something which is now reflected on the Steam page. Matthew Karch responded poorly and subsequently apologised; Stella went to karaoke. The battle continues on LinkedIn which is OK because you shouldn’t go there anyway. Thimbleweed Park 2 is being funded by this one rich guy who liked the first one. Oxenfree developer Night School is closing five years after they were bought by Netflix. It would appear that Amazon is buying rare books in order to destroy them, part of a wider trend of AI firms destroying books. 

Games!

Rideshare “Stimulator”, Hell Let Loose, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, Verdun, Day of Infamy, Big Walk.

Recommendations!

Steve Rosenberg’s Reading Russia, and Tom Wolfe’s The New Journalism. 

What is Total Playtime?

Total Playtime is the official podcast of Jank.cool and is a conversation about videogames, mostly, by games industry veterans Alice Bell, Nate Crowley, Brendy Caldwell and Jon Hicks. Join them for discussion of the latest and most interesting PC and indie games, grumbles about the state of games media, and impromptu quizzes dredged from the unknowable depths of Nate's brain. Public episodes are released every two weeks, and if you subscribe to Jank you'll get weekly episodes. Send us questions, ideas and feedback at [e-mail], and follow us on BlueSky if you like.