Transcript

Peter

I don’t have time to game anymore [in humorous Irish accent]

Dave

Hello listeners and welcome to another, I think it’s the 13th episode should I say, of “I Don’t Have Time To Game Anymore”. It’s your usual hosts, David and Jay, and you might have heard a slightly different…

Jay

…a stray Leprechaun, that no one expected.

Dave

A podcast virgin, would you say Jay? It’s Peter Todd! How’s it going, Pete?

Peter

It’s uhhh, a special day today—it’s Canada day! I’m in the basement of my apartment in Toronto.

Dave

So, for all you listeners that don’t know, Pete is a… [hesitates] long and trusted friend of ours [chuckles]. It goes back to the university days. He is a gamer, so there is a link why he’s on the show, right Pete?

Peter

I am a ‘mild gamer’, shall we say?

Dave

I think there is an avid gamer inside of you somewhere, right? Like… deep.

Peter

There’s an avid gamer but there’s no time to game anymore.

Dave

Like me, Pete has offspring, don’t you Pete?

Peter

I do. I’m ‘with child’.

Dave

He is ‘with child’. He has a daughter, like myself. So it’s just Jay who’s slagging [splutters], slah, sluh, errrm, sloh, …what’s the? I don’t even know what the word is now.

Jay

I think you mean lagging.

The World Cup

Dave

Lagging? Haha, slagging behind! [laughs]. But it’s good to have you on the show, Pete. So at the start of the show me and Jay usually, you know, have a little chat about what’s been happening, and I’d just like to say—it’s the world cup!

Peter

It is the world cup, yes! That’s been all-consuming in my free time.

Dave

And we’ve mentioned before—so, me and Jay are from Wales… so I mean, Wales isn’t in the world cup. But Pete is actually, and this is verified—Pete is English, right Pete? We have an Englishman on the show. And how have England been doing at the moment? Have you been happy with their performance?

Peter

I have been happy, yes! So, we are OUT OF THE GROUPS!

Dave

You are out of the groups.

Jay

Oh, are we out?

Dave

No, we’re not “we”, Jay—”we’re” not Wales.

Peter

No, you’re not English!

Jay

[Chuckles]. You say that like you’re doing a lot better than Wales, but you’re out!

Dave

No we’re not out. When Pete says ‘out of the group’ he means they’ve moved on to the next round.

Peter

We’ve _progressed from the groups Jay.

Jay

Oh…

Dave

Moving swiftly on. I know you had an incident, didn’t you Jay, with your cat? You always have incidents. Your cat is like a walking vet bill.

Jay

[laughing] He’s a bastard.

Dave

Didn’t he have something stuck up his bum, or something? [laughs] He did!

Jay

Noooo, he didn’t.

Dave

He did! You said something got stuck up his bum.

Jay

I think you filled in the gaps.

Dave

Go on then Jay, what’s the story?

Jay

What happened was, he couldn’t go to the toilet. So he had what’s called Cystitis.

Dave

He had something stuck up his bum.

Jay

There were no objects being stuck up his bum.

Peter

[Laughing] until they pulled out a Lego piece.

Dave

[Everyone laughing] and Jay’s toothbrush.

Jay

[Still laughing] it’s got my initials on.

Peter

Oh, he always sits on that!

Jay

It’s just a massive smokescreen so I can stick a toothbrush up my cat’s bum.

Dave

Yeah, Jay doesn’t like eating meat, but he likes the odd shaving of cat arse cheek. It’s like caviar, right? It’s a delicacy. Jay slice’s it like a radish.

Interview with Doctor Peter Todd

Dave

Now, as Pete is a new guest on the show, I thought, Pete, we could do a little, erm, interview section. Are you down for that? Because if you say no, we’re just going to cut your mic right now [laughs].

Peter

Alright, shoot.

Jay

Pete is a very casual gamer, and so the idea is that his answers will be amusing to both Dave and I, and to you the listener. That was the only reason we got him on the show.

Dave

So the deal is Pete, I’m going to ask you a few questions, and you can’t really think about them too hard, ok? Some will just be ‘either or this’, I might ask you a few questions. Just, you know, roll with the punches. So… Jay, give us a little intro for Pete

Jay

[Jingle] Get to know Peter Todd.

Peter

[Laughing].

Dave

[Buzzer fires]. Name!

Peter

Peter Todd.

Dave

Nick name.

Peter

Pe-der Tawd [mock Canadian Accent].

Dave

Mario or Sonic?

Peter

Mario.

Dave

Gaming Motto.

Peter

Kill’em all.

Dave

[Laughing]

Jay

Very… unorthodox answers.

Dave

Your greatest quality.

Peter

Tapping buttons quickly.

Dave

God, what a gamer. Your dad finds you naked in the basement with a gaming headset on. What does he say?

Peter

Can I join?

Dave

Your mum finds you naked in the attic with a PlayStation Move controller, what does she say?

Peter

I’ll get your dad.

Dave

So now I’m going to list some words. Shout the first thing that comes to your head. [Buzzer fires]. Noob!

Peter

What? I don’t know what that is.

Dave

Gordon Freeman.

Peter

Halo. No. No, what’s that other game? Half-Life.

Dave

Solid Snake.

Peter

Solid Steak?

Dave

Solid Snake.

Peter

I don’t know what Solid Snake… that sounds like a sex game!

Peter

Fornite.

Peter

Fortnight? Erm, I dunno. Monthly?

Dave

[Laughing]. God.

Jay

A few of the classic answers we were hoping for already.

Peter

Is that a game?!

Dave

Carry on. Carry on—it’s still going, we’re getting to know Pete. So, finish the end of this sentence. ‘It’s a meeee.’

Peter

Mario.

Dave

‘You won’t win!’

Peter

Uhh, unless you try!

Dave

Rise and shine, Mister…

Peter

…Freeman.

Dave

Hahaaa, good!

Peter

I know that one!

Dave

That’s getting to know Pete [applauding].

Peter

How did I do? I felt like there were a few games that I might have heard on earlier podcasts.

Dave

You are an avid listener, right Pete? It is an excellent podcast?

Peter

I am, yes.

Dave

To get on our show, that’s all you have to do is subscribe, and we invite you on, basically.

Dave

There are two questions I actually have here, Pete, that me and Jay were thinking of, that we want a bit more insightful…ness from you if that works? We’ll cut you off if it doesn’t.

Peter

OK.

Dave

So my first question is about ‘rage’ in gaming.

Peter

Hmmm.

Dave

For those people that don’t experience rage in gaming, I want them to have some sort of like ‘what goes on through someone who has rage’ when it comes to video games. Maybe I’ll give you a scenario Pete, yeah?

Peter

OK.

Dave

FIFA.

Peter

Yeah [sighs], I think that’s a good example.

Dave

You’re playing a FIFA game.

Peter

Yep.

Dave

Dominating all match, hit the post, you know, cleared it off the line, then last minute of the game—someone pumps a ball upfield, and it comes off your bum and goes in the net. What’s the first stage?

Peter

The first stage of rage?

Dave

Yeah. You would say you have gamer’s rage?

Peter

I would say I’m a recovering addict of gamer’s rage.

Jay

I think Dave, you should explain the concept of gaming rage.

Dave

Basically if something doesn’t go your way in the game, and you think it’s bullshit—which is 99% of the time.

Jay

…you regress to a child, and throw your controller or do something irrational, when you feel a lack of control with the game.

Dave

And to be fair Pete has got a bit better. I haven’t heard as many controllers being… maybe that’s with having a family because, you know, you’re more budget conscious.

Peter

Actually, you know what—I have a steering wheel which has a base on it. So now, when I get rage, I just sort of tap the controller against this base. It’s strong enough that it won’t break the controller or the base. You need to channel it through the right mediums.

Dave

Yeah, well that’s a good DIY solution, there.

Peter

It is!

Dave

We’ll put the details on your Twitter account—about what you can do if you have gaming rage. And would you be open, Pete, to listeners? If they rage—for one-on-one…

Peter

We’ll I’m not really sure that I’ve actually solved the problem yet.

Dave

You lose all control? Is it something where you blank? Do you wake up the next morning, like it’s a total blank?

Peter

No!

Dave

It’s a blackout? You wake up, and there are fragments of controller around you, and you think ‘Oh no! I had another rage episode! Your wife comes down to the basement; she’s stepping on pieces of controller…

Peter

Yeah…

Dave

It’s like you’ve turned into the Hulk or something.

Peter

It’s not until you’ve broken something until you fully feel satisfied expending all your rage. So I think something to be said for having something that’s going to completely obliterate once you hit it.

Jay

No regret after the event has happened?

Peter

Oh yeah! Complete regret.

Dave

What’s the worst bout of rage you’ve had? Anyone died or something? [Laughing] you stabbed someone?

Peter

When I was a young…

Dave

A young warthog! [Bursts out laughing] Carry on.

Peter

When I used to live at home with my parents, I used to have soft walls. I remember when I used to play one game, I used to punch the walls.

Dave

Soft walls?! Were you in a mental institution?!

Jay

[Laughing] He’d also have these belts strapped around him.

Peter

This wall would get softer and softer—it had this indentation—until one day, I remember I was playing this football manager game or something, I punched it, and my first went all the wall through the wall and hit one of the beams.

Dave

No way!

Jay

…and the house collapsed!

Dave

[Laughs]

Peter

But the rage carries on. You finish the game but then you’re still in a rage for the next 15-20 minutes; it’s still on your mind.

Dave

Is it a disease? I dunno

Peter

It’s not a disease! I’m not dying.

Dave

Pete, what we do now, is do a rundown of the news, but news we wanna talk about.

Jay

[Whispering] Pete’s a bastard… Pete’s a bastard

Dave

[Giggling] He’s gone for a piss, listeners.

Jay

[Bursts out laughing].

Dave

If you tweet us now, and you want him cut. We can do that, right Jay?

Jay

Yeah but Dave, it’s not a live show.

Dave

Oh yeah. That’s true. That’s true, I’ve just realised. But tell us what you think listeners—if you like Pete, we’re thinking of keeping him on, potentially. So, you know.

Jay

He’s on probation at the moment.

Dave

Yeah, right. He hasn’t got any benefits yet. But if you like what Pete’s got to say, let us know, and we’ll keep him on board for future episodes.

Peter

And what if they don’t? Bought that microphone for nothing! Send that back to Amazon. ‘Lightly used microphone. Somewhat damaged by a fit of rage, after being dropped by…’

Dave

Basically sent back to them in a million pieces, sellotaped together.

Peter

Stuck it up my dog’s arse.

Dave

OK! OK! [trying to calm Pete down]. Yeah, don’t make fun of the arse thing. That’s a disease, right Jay? The arse disease.

Jay

Cystisis.

Dave

It’s a disease, it’s not a thing to be laughed at. Anyway, it’s news, news!

News

Dave

Pete, why don’t you give us an intro to the news?

Jay

Before you continue, Dave. I’ve got an idea.

Dave

Go on.

Jay

Why don’t we ask Pete to tell us what he thinks is the gaming news for this week?

Dave

I think it might be short.

Peter

Don’t undersell me. I have actually heard some gaming news. I don’t actually know if it was this week; might have been last week.

Dave

[Laughing] ‘I heard the PS4 is coming out’

Peter

[Laughing]. I don’t know if this is relevant for the news that you want to cover but I did see on the BBC News…

Dave

Oh!

Peter

…that they are now saying that gaming is becoming a mental health issue. Mic drop!

Dave

You know what?! My first news article is that! We’ll ask Pete for the next one but for now, let’s just roll with this one. So, basically, the World Health Organisation (or the ‘WHO’)…

Peter

I don’t think they call them ‘The WHO’.

Dave

They do, they do! They call them ‘The WHO’.

Jay

They do call them ‘The WHO’, so egg on your face.

Dave

Yeah, there’s massive egg dripping down your face. It’s called ‘Gaming disorder’ as a mental health condition. In their 11th edition of their ‘International Classification of Diseases’ (and I’m sure we’ve all read the first 10), they’ve basically said that playing too many games can be a mental health condition. And the first sign that you have a mental disorder is ‘impaired control over gaming’. So, basically, the frequency, the intensity and the duration—so basically playing a lot.

Jay

We did play, like 8 hours of Halo, the other night, Dave! [Laughing]

Dave

So maybe we do have a gaming disorder.

Peter

But. Were you playing together, or were you playing on your own?

Dave

Together—so I like to classify it as a social thing.

Jay

Surely the WHO are classifying this mostly on online gaming, so I’m not sure this would be excluded from their classification.

Dave

Hmm, yeah. One of their researchers actually said that ‘some of the worst cases seen in global research were gamers playing for up to 20 hours a day—forgoing sleep, work, school, and other daily activities’. I think we’re fine for now, but who knows—if we didn’t have adult responsibilities… but that’s what they’re saying though—if we did have adult responsibilities we would just like [pause]… I bet they’re shit hot on Halo though, right!

Jay

[Laughs].

Dave

OK, point number 2 — ‘Increasing priority given to gaming to the extent that gaming gives precedence to other life interests’.

Jay

I think we’re ok with that. I know, you’re the same Dave, I have to personally haggle with my fiancé to get gaming time.

Dave

It’s always trying to make a deal, isn’t it? I don’t know what women have got against… actually, not women! Cut that—we’ll have all the women’s rights people after us [chuckles].

Jay

No, I don’t think it’s women, it’s just a partner, where you’re negotiating time away from your partner.

Peter

I’ve got a question. So, have either of you ever tried to include your partners in a gaming session?

Dave

I know Jay has.

Jay

Multiple times.

Dave

But I can’t imagine it’s as good as you want it to be, especially if they’re pretty… I dunno—I just can’t imagine it’s that good. Jenn doesn’t wanna know anything; she just doesn’t care, she doesn’t really wanna know—so that knocks that on the head. I know Jana’s a bit interested, right?

The third point is the continued escalation of gaming despite the occurrence of negative consequences. So I imagine that means, you’re losing your job, your wife is going to leave you, but you still carry on gaming [laughing]. Your wife’s going “I’m leaving”, and you’re giving her the thumbs up as she’s going out the door.

Jay

“Killtacular”, as she slams the door.

Dave

One point I want to make though—I don’t know if your partners are the same—my wife always forgets, and I keep trying to tell her, but she always forgets how I can’t pause online games.

Peter

Yes.

Dave

Or if I can, it’s a very small window, and I’ve got to get back to the game…

Peter

Or, what happens is, you’ve got a small window to game, and you roughly estimate how long the game’s going to take, but sometimes you don’t know—a level can take 20 minutes longer than you think.

Dave

Yeah! You can’t just stop half way through.

Peter

Yeah, they’re watching the clock—you’ve gotta finish! You’ve got to get to that next save, or whatever it is.

Dave

You’re explaining that you’re going to lose all that progress, and they don’t give a fuck.

Jay

I have a story for you. I was about 16 or something—she came over and she thought she might be pregnant.

Dave

Oh, no! I bet she came over when you were on the last boss.

Jay

Well, this is the thing. She came over, and she told me that she missed her period or something. I wanted to have a serious discussion with her, but I told her…

Jay

…that I needed to find the next save point on Metroid Prime.

Peter

[Laughing]

Jay

… on the Gamecube. I said ‘can you just wait 10 minutes until I find the next save point?’ Because I’d made so much progress! And I knew I’d be thrown back 30 minutes. I felt horrendous doing it, but at the same time I knew it had to be done, so I had to tell her—’just hold off a second’.

Dave

Yeah, I mean—is it a big deal? To wait 10 minutes to find a save point?

Peter

What would you have done, Jay, if you would have said to you at that point in time “Jay, you come off that game right now, or I’m gone!” —what would you have done?

Jay

I would have paused it and turned the TV off.

Dave

[Laughing] you go “there, it’s off!” and the Xbox is still running. When I’m planning to game, if for some reason one of you can’t make it, I pretend that I’ve decided I’m not going to play with you and want to spend time.

Jay

Yeah I’ve done that. I did that last week, Dave. We decided that we couldn’t do the podcast for whatever reason—she started trying to like, barter with me, and make a deal. She said “if you don’t do the podcast, then we can do this”—I can’t remember what it was—her not knowing that we’d already decided not to do the podcast.

Dave

So, a new section that we’ve introduced listeners—is, you know at the end of a news article there’s comments from different people? So, on the mental health gaming topic, I’ve got a few comments to read out—you can tell me what you think. So there’s this one poster called ‘Criven’—he said “I think I’m hitting close to 40-50 hours gaming a week, and I have a productive full-time job. Spent even more time when I was in grad school. To be fair, my exercise mostly comes from VR, so that adds to it.

Jay

I’ve quickly done some calculations, Dave, and that’s seven hours a day—that’s quite a lot. That’s a full-time job.

Dave

Another guy—’Chunky CJW’—said “To be honest, just about everything can be addictive, from over-exercising, which can lead to heart problems and damaged joints, to binge-watching on Netflix which can lead to deep vein thrombosis. Why is it always a big deal?

Jay

I’ve never heard of that. I’ve never heard of D.V.T. caused by Netflix. I think he’s clutching at straws.

Dave

OK. A guy called Balthar said “Am I the only one that knows an adult who plays video games all day, with no income, still dependent on their parents, not in school, and becomes irrationally angry because every game’s difficulty cheats them. It’s funny because there’s a chain then, and one guy says “There’s too many of them and they’re entitled pricks. I have nothing nice to say about them.”

OK, let’s see what else is in the gaming news. Apparently, Nintendo has been cracking down on piracy with some new security measures. Nick9390 says “fuck people who pirate games”, and then he puts in brackets “(unless it’s a classic game that came out 20 years ago and isn’t even being sold anymore)”, so obviously his piracy ethics [laughing] —there’s a lot of caveats when it comes to piracy. This one guy, I dunno what you guys think of this— The ‘Hero of Time’, says “Good! The worse off things are for those scumbags, the better! I would be in support of a console that explodes when it detects piracy”.

Moving on from that, hackers were reported to be setting porn as, you know the Nintendo profile? Someone managed to set porn as their profile pic. Would you be shocked if you saw that porn?

Jay

I wouldn’t care.

Dave

Would you be shocked, Pete? If you logged on and there was all this porn? Pete’s like “oh nooo! Nooo, noo!” As he’s flicking through all the pictures. “Arrr nooo, not that! Noooo. Get out the room!” He’s shouting, “Let me bear this burden!”

Jay

“I’m going to report them for the next twenty minutes. Give me some time!”

Peter

Each to their own, I wouldn’t haven any issues with it.

Dave

One guy on the message board, he said “Many of the custom profile pictures on Black Ops 2 were the most vile and disgusting images that burned my eyes. I pray that they have no place on a Nintendo game”. So I’m thinking of getting Black Ops 2 [laughing].

Jay

A nice segue Dave, isn’t Black Ops 3 on PS Plus this month?

Dave

It is! It is a free game. There’s not many games that are good this month, right?

Explain That Game

Dave

So, Pete. Are you ready for our game of the week?

Peter

Yes.

Dave

OK Pete, so we’re going to play now. And for some of our listeners, it’ll be familiar—it’s called “Explain That Game”. And we’ve played it—I would say—what do you reckon, Jay?—a few times in the past? It hasn’t been for a while though… Jay?

Jay

[Munching noises]. Sorry, I’m just eating.

Dave

God!

Jay

I didn’t think you’d bring me in so soon.

Dave

So basically, what me and Jay used to do, is give each other some games that we’ve made up—titles of games. And then the other person would just have to explain what it’s about.

Peter

Ohhh OK.

Dave

We’ve given you games that are actual games that we didn’t think you would know. And we’re going to see what you’ll come up with.

Peter

OK.

Dave

Pete, are you ready?

Peter

So I’ve just got to explain what the game is?

Dave

Yeah. Try and act like a marketing person and say what the game’s about.

Jay

You’re fighting for your career here, someone’s given you a presentation to give.

Dave

Yeah! 5 minutes before you go in, they say “we’ve got to sell this game”. You go in and tell everyone what it’s about, OK?

Peter

OK.

Dave

“Conker’s Bad Fur Day”

Peter

OK, so. Conker is a squirrel but he’s having a bad fur day in that his fur is all falling off his body.

Dave

God!

Peter

He’s got, like—cancer for squirrels.

Dave

So it’s sad. There’s a sad scene at the beginning, where he’s losing all his fur?

Peter

Yeah. Actually, Conker, he undergoes some chemotherapy prior to the game. You know, as chemo does to people—it starts to kill off his fur. So not only is winter coming but he’s also starting to lose his fur. So the game is like a frantic dash to collect the acorns so that Conker can survive the winter before he freezes to death. There’ll be other scavenger animals trying to steal the acorns; badgers trying to maul him; people with BB guns.

Dave

What if he explains to the badgers that he’s got cancer and he needs this stuff?

Peter

There’s a boss scene where basically there’s a mountain of acorns, and there’s a badger in the way. He has to negotiate himself around the badger.

Dave

I like that. You can go in all guns blazing where you can shiv the badger, or you can try and talk him out of it. I like that story, what do you think, Jay?

Jay

Yeah, I think it’s better than the original game [laughing]. It’s also got an environmentalist story thread going to it, which I think is quite relevant to real life.

Dave

Yeah, I feel like quite a lot of people will, you know, sympathise with Conker’s predicament. Predicament sounds like such a soft word for cancer, but that’s a game that I would potentially buy, would you, Jay?

Dave

Yeah, I think that’s a first win for Pete, I think.

Dave

He’s got a point. OK, Pete—we’re goign to do your last one—Shadow of the Colossus.

Peter

So this is a stealth game.

Dave

OK. We love stealth games.

Peter

So, essentially you play the role of a shadow.

Dave

OK. God! [Laughing].

Jay

I wasn’t expecting that to be honest.

Dave

It sounds like a massive twist.

Peter

So… Colossus is basically this big Greek empire that you have to take down, and the way you do that is you’ve got to follow these like armoured men who are going to act as your weaponry. But you have to follow them in such a way that you look like the shadow of that person.

Dave

You have to stay in their shadow, sort of thing? Yeaaaah [getting excited]

Peter

Exactly! So there’s like a stealth meter, and if you stray too far in front of them or to the side, it starts to alert the people you’re trying to stealth-pass. So you have to stay walking at the same pace, you’ve got to follow where the sun’s going, and make sure that the shadow’s in the right place. Then every so often you can pop out and kick people.

Dave

You’re good, Pete. You’re a natural, I think.

End of the Show

Dave

So listeners, that’s been another episode of “I Don’t Have Time To Game Anymore”. I hope you’ve enjoyed the episode this week, with Jay?

Jay

What do you want me to say? What do you want me to say?!

Dave

[Laughing] Just tell the listeners you’ve had good times.

Jay

[Laughing] I’ve had a great time this episode.

Dave

I hope you’ve enjoyed our new guest. We hope to bring on new guests… and maybe invite Pete back.

Jay

Maybe.

Dave

Pete, have you broken you in? Are you interested on coming on board, you know, if we decide?

Jay

[Giggling]

Peter

What, if I “make the cut”? … Yeah. Bring me back.

Dave

Pete, what do you want to say to the listeners?

Peter

Follow this podcast and share with your friends. Let’s go viral.

Dave

If you do want to follow or subscribe to our podcast, you can follow us on Twitter as “I Don’t Have Time To Game Anymore” but use the first initial of each word, so IDHTTGA.

Jay

Smooth.

Dave

Yep. We need to just record that and just do it—put it in each time. And, what is it, Jay? Do the subscribe stuff.

Jay

If you’d like to star, heart, or favourite us on your podcast app of choice, or rate us on iTunes—that would really help.

Dave

Bye byyyeeee.

Peter

Bye.

Jay

Buh-bye.