Day[9]'s End of Year AMA - 2025 is Over!

Me and everyone on Twitch say hello.

Look at that. It's time for the endofear AMA where you get to ask me whatever the hell you want. Although I might not necessarily answer all of the things,

but I'll answer as much as I truly can.

Hello lovely darlings. A little summary of the year. This is a really interesting year for me. Uh because

almost all of my work time was spent doing game development, super top secret game development instead of streaming.

Um, I've probably reduced my streaming hours by 70 75%.

I'm going all in, baby. That's a kind of a silly thing to say after I've just described that I still do stream. I'm

very clearly not all in. Otherwise, you

wouldn't see from me ever again. But the

fact of the matter is I love streaming.

So, definitely going to keep doing that no matter what. But, I've had honestly a pretty great year in a number of ways.

It's really fun to do development stuff.

Uh, still get to stream, which is lovely. I've also been getting up at

lovely. I've also been getting up at 6:00 a.m. this year and going to the gym

6:00 a.m. this year and going to the gym a lot. So, um, not really focusing too

a lot. So, um, not really focusing too hard on weight loss, just rather habitizing weightlifting and trying to lift more weights. And if I may

shamelessly say, super shameless, but that's okay. It's weird to say that

that's okay. It's weird to say that you're being shameless when there's an entire stream that has your name up in the corner that's all about you and you're you're hosting a show or you're going ask me things because you want to

know. Of course, I am a monument to

know. Of course, I am a monument to vanity. But here we go. Listen,

vanity. But here we go. Listen,

my booty has actually grown this year.

And you want to know how I knew? Because

I clipped my ass on a doornob about four months ago and I was like, [gasps] "Whoops. I didn't realize that was a

"Whoops. I didn't realize that was a consequence of my actions and it hurt and I was like, "Honey, honey, come here. Come here." I hit my butt because

here. Come here." I hit my butt because it actually goes out that far. It's a

cool feeling. Restart. I says, "Well, that was my AMA question. So, now what?"

Well, don't worry. You have plenty of time because I'm going to be here for the next three hours. Let me just adjust this camera up a little bit. I could see that it was lopsided. And as a lopsided person, I would never want to give you

lopsided answers. So, let's go ahead and

lopsided answers. So, let's go ahead and squeeze down this foot. Ah, perfect.

Perfect, perfect. So, um, this last year been doing a lot of getting up early, trying to be a responsible, diligent worker, streaming in the evenings, and honestly living a kind of simple life

outside of that where we enjoy watching lots of TV. We're currently going through all uh 10, 12, 13, 14 seasons of Vanderpump Rules. [laughter]

Vanderpump Rules. [laughter] That's been a year-long commitment because there's a lot of episodes. Uh,

and next year my big goal is to go even harder on gamedev stuff and to try to actually begin trying to cook more varied recipes because I'm the kind of

person that can eat like the same meal 10 days in a row and I'm like this is great. Let's eat it on day 11. Trying to

great. Let's eat it on day 11. Trying to

branch out to other things and also try to do a little bit more actual weight loss focus. We'll see if I achieve that.

loss focus. We'll see if I achieve that.

I don't particularly mind being at any weight. Nin muffin says let him cook.

weight. Nin muffin says let him cook.

[laughter] So I'm looking forward to 2026. 2025 was

awesome and in 2026 I turned 40.

A dream come true. So I would be delighted to start soliciting all of these lovely human beings in chat for various questions. Let me go ahead and

various questions. Let me go ahead and tuck this away so we can maximize. Okay.

All right. Twitch wants that to stay there forever, that's totally fine. Um,

there's also uh uh in the Discord on the Day Night TV Discord, there is a channel for the AMA. So, if any of you want to post there, you can, but I'd recommend

posting your question here. If you've

posted in that channel, that's largely for the people that um were unable to be here live because I like to engage with the live folk, right? Kind of makes a little more

right? Kind of makes a little more sense. Booby 184 says, "Day9, without

sense. Booby 184 says, "Day9, without giving away anything concrete at all about the game you're working on, how are you feeling about it?" You know, I think that the best way to describe how

I feel is similar to whenever I was practicing for a Starcraft tournament.

Because the weird thing about practicing for a tournament is you are not training against your opponent. You are imagining what your

opponent. You are imagining what your opponent could do and then you're trying to practice against that. And when you start feeling good against this thing, you then go, "Cool.

Oh god, what's another thing that they might do?" And then you invent this

might do?" And then you invent this whole problem that you can solve. So I

feel like a weird part of the competitive experience for me is like coming up with disastrous scenarios. [laughter]

scenarios. [laughter] I mean, maybe that's a little bit of an over dramatization, but it's really just going, "Oh god, what's the worst that could happen, literally, and let's try

to prepare against it." And so, with 100% of tournaments that I have literally won, I remember exiting the final match where

you've won, there's nothing else to do, first place, there you go. And I just would think, "Oh, thank God." because

there's a lot of stuff that I felt like I was out of practice against or that I didn't have time to practice against or I felt like my answer to this strategy wasn't good enough. And so there's that

side of me that is constantly trying to think of things going wrong or maybe more appropriately, what can I improve?

What can I do better? What can be made more awesome? Okay, it's the awesomest

more awesome? Okay, it's the awesomest it's ever been. How do I make it even more awesome? I'm always trying to do

more awesome? I'm always trying to do this with all aspects of myself and also I have boundless enthusiasm.

I I almost prefer when there are things that are going wrong or things that are problems that need solving. I find that really engaging and really thrilling and

really delightful. Um and so I would say

really delightful. Um and so I would say I'm full of boundless endless delight.

It's going great. It's getting better than it's ever been week by week by week. But at the same time, my brain is

week. But at the same time, my brain is and will no matter what constantly be going, okay, but what could be going wrong? How do we come up with a

wrong? How do we come up with a potential test to verify if that's an issue or not? And if it is, what would be the solutions to improve that? And

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Um,

so that that is effectively how it's going. I'd say it's going great. That's what objectively I would

great. That's what objectively I would have to say that. But um I think I don't know. I I can't get away from that Starcraft metaphor because it's

just it perfectly captures how it feels emotionally. Like I remember there was

emotionally. Like I remember there was uh when I was training for a tournament, I was practicing against a specific type of early game rush called a bunker rush.

And on the maps in this WCG map pool, bunker rushes were really scary. And so

I was practicing again and again and again and again and again and again and again against bunker rushes. And it was at the point where I looked forward to my opponents potentially bunker rushing

because then I knew I had a good answer.

All right. What if your opponent DOESN'T BUNKER RUSH? [ __ ] WE BETTER HAVE A GOOD

BUNKER RUSH? [ __ ] WE BETTER HAVE A GOOD ANSWER TO THAT. LIKE this is how it's going. Right. Sean, how was your

going. Right. Sean, how was your practice session this last week? It was

amazing. I'm now I feel great against bunker rushes, but there's more work to do. You know what I mean? Uh, and I mean

do. You know what I mean? Uh, and I mean partly also that's the point. I don't

think anyone should pursue game development unless you really like constantly doing more and more and more and more and more, which for some people is exhausting, but for me is fulfilling and

kick-ass. Rice Bites, thank you for the

kick-ass. Rice Bites, thank you for the gifted 12 subs. AND OH, IT MEAN JP IS IN THE CHAT. LET'S GO, JP.

THE CHAT. LET'S GO, JP.

Hell yeah. Oh my god, we got we got some familiar faces in here. I think I saw up a tree in there for a moment.

So, let me just adjust this.

Perfect. Forgive me. All right, Jewels.

Let's see. Day nine. Happy end of year.

Hope all has been well with the game studio. I'll be there day one as soon as

studio. I'll be there day one as soon as an announcement is made, which I'm cleverly not doing. And if you want to ask me about that, this is a good venue.

Uh says, uh maybe I should wait until day nine. Don't. We we'll go bankrupt in

day nine. Don't. We we'll go bankrupt in eight days unless you purchase on day one. Jules, a friend of mine has posed

one. Jules, a friend of mine has posed this question across our friend group.

I'm curious about your answer. If you

were about to be executed and instead of a last meal, you were offered one final bite, what would that bite be? Be one

bite of a larger meal, but you can only have one bite. Only one bite. One bite.

If I could only have one bite, what would it be?

You know, MY MY first answer was like, I just have a I just have a sip of water and I'd be like, I'm good. Take me out.

[laughter] I'd be a whatever. It's fine. You know,

if I'm at the point where I only get one more bite, listen, I've eaten a lot of good food. I'm good. I'm good. I'll just

good food. I'm good. I'm good. I'll just

have some water, then go out. you know,

love a good glass of water.

>> Delicious. Uh, but I think that if there is a single bite that is delicious, I would say a Chipotle chicken burrito

with black beans, spinach, sour cream, cheese, guacamole, mild tomato salsa with some smoked Tabasco, hot sauce on

top. That is pretty consistently an

top. That is pretty consistently an amazing bite of food for me. And there's

been a number of times when I've been having a hard time and I went, "H, screw it. I'm going to go get a Chipotle

it. I'm going to go get a Chipotle burrito." Man, that just made it it made

burrito." Man, that just made it it made me feel like things were going to be okay. Man,

okay. Man, you did call it. You did say burrito.

It's right up here. I saw Yeah, there it is. There it is. There it is.

is. There it is. There it is.

All right, let's see here. Oh, dude. We

got S in here. We got Joey in here. Oh

my god. It's only celebrities. Only

celebrities. All of you. Oh my god. And

RVY. Look at this. So, let's see here.

Uh, oh my god, this is so cute. New

sunshine says day nine. So, I have some exciting news. Rhetorical Meow and I met

exciting news. Rhetorical Meow and I met in your chat community. Today is our 9-year anniversary. And I proposed and

9-year anniversary. And I proposed and they said, "Yes, I'm so excited to be married. It's going to be amazing." Just

married. It's going to be amazing." Just

want you to know it's your fault. Love

you, Sean. Love you, Meow. Oh my god. Oh

my god, that's so sweet. Oh my god, I love that. So,

love that. So, dude, let me tell you, being married rules cuz you get to say my wife or my husband like or my spouse when you don't

need to. When I when I first got married

need to. When I when I first got married to Brett, like I would I would order food. food. I'd be on phone be like,

food. food. I'd be on phone be like, "Yeah, uh, I would like to order a sandwich." And my wife would also like

sandwich." And my wife would also like the sandwich. I was just saying my wife

the sandwich. I was just saying my wife all the time. Still love doing it. And

it's it's great. It's so good. I always

hated and never understood the meme of like, oh, the old ball and chain. Oh,

you know, well, I had to make up an excuse so I could get away from my wife and spend some time with the boys without all this nagging. Like I

remember watching that as a kid and being like what are these people doing is that that can't possibly be what it's like. I know I've been with Brit for

like. I know I've been with Brit for almost 15 years and uh yeah, it's not like that. [laughter]

like that. [laughter] I'm like really excited for when this is done cuz I'm going to hang out with Brit and when my work week is finished on Friday evening. Oh, let me tell you

Friday evening. Oh, let me tell you something. I have uh I have a slated set

something. I have uh I have a slated set of media consumption that I'm going to uh politely request [laughter] that my wife just watches through with

me. I frame it like that because we

me. I frame it like that because we already talked about it. I didn't want to be like I'm going to demand that she does this and she doesn't know. She has

no idea what's coming. [laughter]

But yeah, it's going to be freaking awesome. You know, I I I just never

awesome. You know, I I I just never quite understood the like a my wife is the worst ever. No, it's going to be awesome. some new sunshine. You're going

awesome. some new sunshine. You're going

to love it. It's going to be so good. So

good. Venarian says, "Your blueprint streams were a great escape from a recent loss. Always enjoy the positive

recent loss. Always enjoy the positive outlooks. Enjoy your holidays, Sean."

outlooks. Enjoy your holidays, Sean."

Thanks, Venarian. And dude, I really relate to that. There's been a number of times where I've had difficult life events or I'm just feeling sort of like a depression

for sometimes period of few weeks, months. And in those moments where I

months. And in those moments where I just like trying to summon the ability to resist that sort of downward spiral, I don't even have that. And I just plop

myself on my comfy chair and put on some delightful YouTuber or Twitch stream.

And it's just so nice to have that company because the company is just coming out of the TV at me and I just get to like sit there and be like, "This is nice. I don't have to do anything."

is nice. I don't have to do anything."

And I find it really lovely. I find it really, really, really, really lovely.

Um, so I'm I'm thrilled, Venarian, that we got to be a little nice reprieve from the stress you were going through. And

if you're ever having it, we're here for you.

I'm going to pull back up here cuz I see ruby ass in this. Oh yeah, dear day nine. Happy surviving another year.

nine. Happy surviving another year.

Thank you. How long do you think it'll take up a tree to get B rank in brood war? current data point is he is

war? current data point is he is bouncing between E and D after two months of playing. That's actually

pretty good. I mean like just being able to maintain D rank is insanely difficult in Starcraft. I think that um the big

in Starcraft. I think that um the big thing in my eyes that Starcraft 1 is is that it is a management game first and a

strategy game second. And I think that if anyone who sits down to play brood war goes, okay, I am going to just work on the mechanics

of managing a base, managing an army, clicking around.

You can probably hit B in a year. Um, I

would even say if you're if you want to be really hardcore, just spend three months doing build orders again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again in

1v zero with no opponents and like yeah at some point you will transition away from man when do I actually get to

start playing the real strategy game and you'll transition into oh my god my hands feel so good my brain

feels was so pure, dude. You know how when Sonic the Hedgehog is running and he runs into spikes and as a KID YOU'RE LIKE "NO [screaming] I'M NOT GOING fast anymore." But then

you learn the level well enough to just run through the whole thing, never hitting spikes. That feeling is just a

hitting spikes. That feeling is just a taste of how amazing it feels to perfectly be managing all your expansions and getting all your workers in the right place and not missing any

supply depot.

Oh, it's so good. It's so good, man. I

love Brood War so freaking much. Now, I

have I have a question. Uh uh I'm going to take one from my phone. This is from Poppy, who says, "What was your favorite

culinary experience you had this year?"

I think favorite culinary experience What was my favorite culinary experience? I'm now like sorting through

experience? I'm now like sorting through all the restaurants I went to in my head.

Favorite culinary experience cuz like Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay.

[laughter] You caught me. Yeah. I'm going to be like, I want you this Chipotle and I ordered a burrito and I've been into it and I was like, I only like one thing.

[laughter] Um, so, so for me to narrow this down, I'm going to remove home-cooked meals because my brain is trying to bring up

like all these sick amazing meals that Brit made. One of my friends made me an

Brit made. One of my friends made me an amazing meal as well. I'm going to skip past those and try to think of culinary experience. Okay, so there's this place

experience. Okay, so there's this place called Matia that's on Orca's Island.

Uh, Orcus Island is this island that's off the coast of Seattle in the sound where there's a whole bunch of little islands that poke up just west of uh,

Seattle. And

Seattle. And um, dude, this place Matia going there like it's one of those tasting menu places

like they have like a regular menu but this tasting menu I'm trying to remember. It was like all local

remember. It was like all local ingredients and there were things that were just If you've ever gone to one of those fancy meals, I try to go to like one a

year, you know, and it's like it's like very expensive. if it's like $400 for a

very expensive. if it's like $400 for a meal, but like if you save up for it and you like doing it, I cannot recommend this enough because like they have like

a a little bit of wine with every single course and there's like 10 courses in there and oh my god, this place was so good. The first of all, the wines were

good. The first of all, the wines were they were not sort of your standard rote wines. I don't know how else to describe

wines. I don't know how else to describe it. I'm not like a wine person. And I

it. I'm not like a wine person. And I

don't really drink wines, but I've had a lot of people be like, "Oh, to taste this uh Cabernet and look how different it tastes from this Cabernet." And my

unrefined palette is just like tastes like red wine. [laughter]

I don't [snorts] I have no idea. But at

this place, like every single wine had an incredibly distinct flavor. You can

already see how uncultured I am because I don't know how to describe food so well. Um,

well. Um, I don't have the language, but man, there was like this, it was like a spicy

cantaloupe soup with fennel, just like weird flavor combinations. There was

this like little tomato, like a small tomato that was like the best tomato I've ever put in my mouth. It was

unbelievable. And

in those tasting menus, they just keep bringing out course after course after course, and they kind of tell you what it is. And after the entire meal was

it is. And after the entire meal was done, the head chef told me that he also played Magic the Gathering, which is like I just love the idea this head chef

is like making these insanely delicious, unusual tasting menus and then like going home and I don't know, maybe losing to Red Deck wins the same way I do.

>> [laughter] >> Oh man, that was that was awesome because I think that I love so much whenever like dining out has that experience aspect to it, you know, just

like a really lovely ambiance and like there's a nice arc to the food and so on and so forth. What does this restaurant have to go there with my wife? Yeah,

dude. Let me tell you. Arl,

it's Matia. M- A T I A is the name of it.

Killer experience. Killer experience.

Baron says, "Will we ever get Tasteless versus Day Nine in Warcraft 3?" Okay,

Baron. Baron, I have an answer to this one because I talked to my brother about this.

My brother and I have spent a lifetime of people wanting us to fight against each other and like

we don't we don't like that, you know, cuz like growing up my brother and I would practice a lot of Starcraft with each other and like it was one of the main things that we talked about that we bonded over. Hey, look at this great

bonded over. Hey, look at this great game I played. And I could just go to my brother who's like four feet over there on his computer like, "Dude, come over here. Look at THIS SICK PLAY." OH,

here. Look at THIS SICK PLAY." OH,

THAT'S SO AWESOME. LIKE, um Barrett says, "I asked that question last year."

Yes, every AMA will be a copy paste. In

fact, I'll just have Ed edit 2025 up here and just cross out 2024 and do the same answers. But yeah, no, it was

same answers. But yeah, no, it was really nice having a brother that you can just talk to about Starcraft and Bond with. And then there's this sort of

Bond with. And then there's this sort of weird like, oh, you guys both play Starcraft, who's better? And Nick and I never really liked those kinds of things. And we've we've talked about

things. And we've we've talked about that a number of times. I think that like one of the things that in a general sense makes doing content with my brother difficult is that he's 16 hours

ahead in South Korea. So that's just like an ungodly annoying time to try to find an overlap. But I mean, even if we were in the same time zone, I'd rather do something collaboratively than

competitively. Like do 2v2s with my

competitively. Like do 2v2s with my brother. That would be more what I would

brother. That would be more what I would be in mood for.

Uh, all right. Hit me with it. All

right. Let me let me just double check this.

All right.

Let's see here. I'm Legend 97 says, "Will we ever go back to finish Shadow of the Earth Tree? I need more brick with a stick."

I'm I'm unsure.

I'm unsure. I am unfreaking sure cuz like next year is going to be the year of RTS as in I'm going to be streaming a ton of RTS games. Um, I'm

gonna make that kind of one of the main things in the rotation because I have limited time to stream and I want to gosh, I played RTS games for a good six weeks on air and it was really fun and I

felt like there were a hundred games that I didn't even get to touch and so like that is the thing that my brain is

focusing on. And Shadow of the Erd Tree

focusing on. And Shadow of the Erd Tree is the kind of game where I really need to set aside like 30 to 40 hours

per week to stream that game. Like

that's like when I played Elden Ring, I was doing like 25 hours of Elden Ring per week to be able to like make steady progress for

this massive game. Like right now, I'm only streaming like two and a half, three hours three times a week.

And it's just really hard to do something that is that enormous. So I

would love to do it at some point. Maybe

maybe when I'm not going so hard on gamedeving and I'm like, "All right, I'm going to take a month off gamedeving and then I'm going to stream Shadow the Tree for 10 hours a day." Ah, maybe that sounds pretty good. Maybe that sounds

pretty pretty good.

>> Oh, are you having a meeting? Sorry.

>> Oh my god. Wait, hold on. Hold on. I'm

live. Oh my god. Oh my god. I

accidentally was just staying in a Discord channel. [laughter]

Discord channel. [laughter] [ __ ] [ __ ] That's so funny. Sean, are you in

a meeting? No. No. I'm actually going to

a meeting? No. No. I'm actually going to text my friend. Hey, you just went out on air. Whoops. Lameo.

on air. Whoops. Lameo.

[laughter] Just heard.

So, um, so I don't know if you've ever done this. I don't know if you've ever

done this. I don't know if you've ever done this where like I use Discord as my main form of communication. Like I use it to chat to

communication. Like I use it to chat to my buddies. I use it for like all my

my buddies. I use it for like all my social groups. I even have a Discord

social groups. I even have a Discord with my wife that's like the family Discord and this sort of thing.

And like all the time I'm in a channel and I don't know I'm in a channel. Does

this ever happen to you? Like

constantly. All the time. All the time.

All the time. And that

it's funny to think that I've just been like broadcasting into that channel for like so long. [laughter]

Oh, that's so good. Okay. What What was the question that we were answering?

What were we talking about?

Jules says, "I fall asleep in voice channels a lot." Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Let's see.

Yeah. Yeah. The channel was, "Are you in a meeting?" Because I do a lot of

a meeting?" Because I do a lot of meetings in Google Meets and then I just like stay in Discord. So, if anyone ever joins in one of my personal Discords and

hears me, they're just just like belting about stuff, they just assume I'm in some other call, some other meeting.

Just happen to be going out live.

[laughter] Oh, it's so good. Yeah, that was the question. That was the question.

question. That was the question.

Ronchie, I am in a meeting. I I'm in an AMA right now. I'm in an AMA.

All right.

I'm going to come all the way back here.

It's the first time chatter. Uh, here it is.

Magnificico says, "Day9, I've been admiring you since the day 9 100 a long time ago. Very long now. How dare you? I

time ago. Very long now. How dare you? I

was sad to see you go subscriber mode on Twitch for a long time. I'm going to come back to this. It kind of fell off, but watching you now, you are still so positive. A great quality of life. Hope

positive. A great quality of life. Hope

and your brother are doing fine. Such a

lovely duo." Hey, thank you. Thank you.

[laughter and cough] Excuse me. Um, you know, it's kind of

Excuse me. Um, you know, it's kind of funny. the subscriber mode thing.

funny. the subscriber mode thing.

Back in the early days of streaming, there was God, how do you put this?

There was no moderation structure like at all. When I say moderation structure,

at all. When I say moderation structure, they were like moderating tools. You

could like ban people, stuff like this.

But I mean, there were no nice bells and whistles.

It's like if any of you try to post a link in chat, it gets blocked because that's a setting that you can turn on.

If any of you say something wildly offensive, it gets automatically held so a mod can review it and either block it or allow it in. None of that stuff

existed. So, it was kind of an

existed. So, it was kind of an interesting problem. Do you let anyone

interesting problem. Do you let anyone who wants to come in say anything? There

were also plenty of scams and virus links. Oh, it was such a nightmare. And

links. Oh, it was such a nightmare. And

so we just did the simplest thing possible, which was like, all right, we're turning on sub mode. And I think there was a huge downside of that. Um,

where Yeah. Magnafico, if you're watching Rainad streams. Yeah. Oh my

god. [laughter]

See, like that, right? We have the nice tool like clean it up. Um, it was kind of unfortunate because I think that it it shut out a lot of just very very

normal, reasonable people, BUT BECAUSE THERE'S A SMALL SUBSEGMENT THAT CAN'T be trusted,

it was great. It worked incredibly well.

But anyways, all right. I'm ready for the next

all right. I'm ready for the next inquiry. I'm ready. I'm not going to

inquiry. I'm ready. I'm not going to scroll back up. If you want to ask again, I encourage you to paste again.

Sometimes I will go back up.

Let's see here. Darth Morgana says, "Hey, day nine. Thanks for the advice yesterday. Interview went okay. We'll

yesterday. Interview went okay. We'll

see. It just wrapped up and my brain wants to now pour out of my ear." Hell

yeah. Darth Morgana, that's what I'm talking about. Oh my god. Yes. I'm

talking about. Oh my god. Yes. I'm

thrilled the interview went well.

Christmas 666, what was the first set you played Magic the Gathering? I mean,

it had to be alpha or beta or one of the early. I mean, it had to be like I owned

early. I mean, it had to be like I owned Moxes and thought they were bad and didn't include them in my list.

[laughter] Like, I didn't I [snorts] didn't do any of that. Um,

gosh, I mean, it's crazy. I I Let's see. So, I

was born in 1986.

Here's how I do my math. When I

graduated 12th grade, I was 17. So if I take my grade plus five, I get my age.

So I was in third grade. So that means I was eight. So 1986

was eight. So 1986 plus 8 would be 94. That was the first time that I played Magic Cards was 1984

or uh when I was in 1994. Goodness,

that's crazy. So um yeah, it had to have been really early. And gosh, I just remember it's funny when I was that age, I did not understand the difference

between flavor text and actual rules text. And I want to see if I can find

text. And I want to see if I can find this card. I think it was called like

this card. I think it was called like crypt mummy gatherer MTG. All right, hold on. Hold everybody.

MTG. All right, hold on. Hold everybody.

Hold. All right, so crypt mummy. Is that what I said?

crypt mummy. Is that what I said?

Uh, mummy. What's the oldest? Was it

Cyclopian mummy?

Oh my god. This is it. This is the card.

I found I found the card. Oh my god. I

have it. It's like Okay, hold on everyone. You're You're going to get

everyone. You're You're going to get completely covered.

No, you're not. Hold on.

What did I do?

I'm sorry. There appears to be a new feature where I've Hold on. And I got to close this whole

Hold on. And I got to close this whole browser. Oh god, Chrome. Chrome has some

browser. Oh god, Chrome. Chrome has some feature where it just put like two windows together in one window. OH MY

GOD, IT'S A NIGHTMARE. HOLD ON. All

right, so I need to open up my dashboard. And now I need to go back to

dashboard. And now I need to go back to gatherer. This is This is a crisis.

gatherer. This is This is a crisis.

All right, type a card name. Uh,

Cyclopian mummy.

There he is. There's my guy. All right,

pull this out.

And here's the guy.

Look at this. Look at this card. It

says, "If mummy is placed in the graveyard from play, remove it from the game." It's a two mana, 2-1. Yeah. And

game." It's a two mana, 2-1. Yeah. And

the flavor text says, "The ritual of plucking out an eye to gain future sight is but a curse that enables the living to see their own deaths." Now, imagine a

third grader reading this first line of text and going, "That's a rule." Then

seeing the second line of text that's in italics and going, "It's just another rule, huh?" So, I'm like trying to

rule, huh?" So, I'm like trying to figure out I remember reading this line of plucking out an eye and going, "All right, let me get the let me get the main rules out and read about plucking out eyeballs. Let me try to

figure out this shit." Like, I was like so confused. But even though I did not

so confused. But even though I did not understand how that card worked OR FRANKLY HOW ANY CARD AT ALL WORKED, I

didn't know how anything in the game functioned. Oh my god, I was completely

functioned. Oh my god, I was completely entranced and played Magic on and off for a very very very long time.

It was super super sick. I love Magic the Gathering. I just still

the Gathering. I just still oh man I I'm like trying to remember like the first time I saw a gold bordered card which meant that you needed two colors to cast it. I was just

like AH [screaming] I like lost my mind man. I thought it was the sickest thing ever. Oh my god.

Okay, I got to I I got to rewind because I think I Oh, here it is. Is this it?

Yeah. Okay. Dana, my brother and I are both gamers. We enjoyed playing games

both gamers. We enjoyed playing games together. I became a teacher. He became

together. I became a teacher. He became

a game game developer. I don't regret my job decision, but I got to admit I'm very jealous of his current position.

He's currently working on an out of words. Currently working on Out of

words. Currently working on Out of Words, a stop motion story focused game from Denmark. That's so sick. We just

from Denmark. That's so sick. We just

had the trailer at the Game Awards. It's

a bit like It takes Two. Would you ever play a two-player co-op game on stream?

Cheers from Denmark. Let me see. Would I

ever play a two-player co-op game on stream? Basically, just with my wife.

stream? Basically, just with my wife.

Yeah. [laughter]

And if it comes out, let me know because I've been playing a bunch of co-op games with Brit lately. Like, we played through Split Fiction. And Split Fiction

is like one of the greatest games of all time. Oh my god, I love Split Fiction. I

time. Oh my god, I love Split Fiction. I

mean, I I give it a hard 10 out of 10. I

recommend it to everyone. Potato

Elemental says the subtle advertisement.

I mean, I'm pretty it's pretty easy to tell when someone is a genuine person who's asking out of genuiness versus someone who's like, "Hey, day nine,

you're not going to believe this, but I was playing this really fun MOBILE GAME CALLED RAGE SHADOW LEGENDS, AND I just happen to have an invite code for you, you know, and I'm like, "Ah, get out of

here." [laughter]

here." [laughter] Uh, yeah. I mean, like, like, for

Uh, yeah. I mean, like, like, for instance, would anyone honestly say, "All right, we just had our trailer at the Game Awards. Day Nine is doing an

endofear AMA that gets way lower viewership than his usual streams. Let's get in there and ask him if he would stream the game ever." Wink. You know, I I think that this is just an earnest,

thoughtful person curious about something they're excited about because one of their family members just had something big announced, you know. [laughter]

you know. [laughter] Um, so many of you have posted questions that I still haven't even addressed. I

would once again warmly invite you to copy paste again, get your question, write out your question, control C, and then wait till I'm done. Bam.

Let's see here. All right.

Oh, Leoning, I have not read Misborn.

I've actually been really bad on reading this year. It's one of the things that

this year. It's one of the things that me and my wife want to start doing more just like going to a library or like a comic book shop or a bookstore or a coffee shop and just sitting down and reading for a few

hours and make that regular.

Um, dude, Osan the Flip, are you familiar with what Vintage Cube is? Do

you mean do I watch Louise Scott Vargas on YouTube? And the answer is, oh, I

on YouTube? And the answer is, oh, I watch a lot of LSV. Uh yeah, I'm very familiar with Cube and I feel like I didn't get Cube for a long time

because like with Cube my brain like I don't know. I just I didn't quite

don't know. I just I didn't quite understand it because for me drafting in Magic was always set based like oh let's learn how Return to Ravnikica drafts.

Let's learn how um what are recent draft sets? Oh my god. Uh I don't know

sets? Oh my god. Uh I don't know M20.

[laughter] you know, all of these kinds of things.

I thought it was fun to kind of solve this puzzle of how does this specific format work, but the idea of, oh, I'm only going to put in the most powerful

cards, I didn't quite get it, but it feels like Cube is a way to make an unbelievably rich, deep draft that you can play a bunch of times. And there's

tons of different styles and strategies that you can do. Sheriff, come here.

Come here, Sheriff.

Oh, I hear her thick paws thumping along. Come here. Come here. You're

along. Come here. Come here. You're

about to become content.

Hello Sheriff.

All right, we have the sweetest little cat of all time. Sus opening says, "Day nine. How has your perspective?" Oh, I'm

nine. How has your perspective?" Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't even finish. Um, but I

sorry. I didn't even finish. Um, but I haven't played Vintage Cube because effectively all the streaming that I do or me all the gaming I do is on stream almost exclusively.

Almost exclusively.

Um, but I love watching it because when I'm exhausted after a long day of having a wonderful life with my favorite kinds of work,

come here, sweetheart. Um, that's when I like to sit down and watch Cube. Um,

hell yeah. life. Love this. But sus

opening says, "How has your perspective on your relationship with yourself changed over the past year?

My relationship with myself?" Let me think about that.

There's two things that come to mind.

The first one is is more positive and the second one is a little dark. So,

we're going to leave that one for the second one. Isn't that right, Sheriff?

second one. Isn't that right, Sheriff?

Here, get in there. Yeah. Are you going to talk about dark stuff? Isn't that

nice?

Um, so first, I have been getting up at 6:00 a.m.

6:00 a.m.

for most of this year. And when I'm sleeping in, I'm sleeping in till like 8.

And I really like going to bed at like 9:30 and getting up at 6. Like I did not think that that was me as a person. But

I think that this has been sort of weirdly transformative to me because I think that I don't know a lot of times I feel like

I would stay up late because I just hadn't quite gotten something satisfying out of the day. So, I would just keep trying to squeeze that out of the internet in the middle of the night,

[laughter] you know, just like, well, maybe I don't know, maybe there's like another interesting YouTube video that I can watch to feel something. But I think for

me, getting up at the crack of dawn, the first thing I do when I wake up is I go to the gym and then I come back and instantly do gamedev stuff. And I just

find that I feel so excited to go to bed now, which is which is weird. It's

really weird for me. Ow.

All right. What are we thinking? What do

you think? Yep, that's the water bottle.

It's there every day, but it's the same.

It's good that you investigated. It's up

to code.

So, I think that that's one thing that's been really interesting to me is just to find that how much how much better days feel and how much

happier I feel when I wake up early and do things that I really care about that are for me immediately.

Immediately.

Um, I think the the the other one the other the dark one. I've talked about this here and there, but here's here's the biggest internal emotional change.

And I I was talking about this a little bit at the end of the 2024 uh AMA as well. But

well. But when I was younger, I used to think that if I could just

explain a concept well enough, I could get the other person to understand the same thing that I understand. This is

the foundation of how communication in math works. You start with these givens

math works. You start with these givens and then you do this step and then this step and then this step. And because

each step can be disagreed with at no point, I can get to the same conclusion that you did. And it causes us to be

forced to believe in and agree on the same thing. Like you know the oh here's

same thing. Like you know the oh here's a formula and you you're going to solve for x. You're going to divide both sides

for x. You're going to divide both sides by two and subtract 10. You know that's like you start with the given which is the equation the subtracting and the dividing of each step. These are the things that you have to agree are true which gets you the conclusion that x is

four or whatever. This is how I communicate.

And for many many years, if I felt like someone wasn't getting something, and I don't just mean intellectually, like here is how to build a shed. Here's the

instructions of how to do that. Uh, as

you know, a deeply intellectual pursuit building a shed. Let me rephrase this.

There are objective things with explanations that you might think I'm specifically talking about, but this is also how I think about emotional things like, "Oh, this frustrates me, Sean. Why

would that frustrate you?" Ah, if I can just come up with the right explanation, I can get you to appreciate why I'm frustrated. Or if you're struggling with

frustrated. Or if you're struggling with something and I provide to you what is amazing advice, I dare say the solution to the problem.

I used to think that if it was explained well enough, you could get someone to understand the same thing you do. And I I just don't believe that anymore.

And the phrase that I feel like I am that is more foundational to my belief is no one can be taught but some people can

learn.

This is the best description of how I see the world. Now,

no one can be taught anything, but some people can learn. If a teacher stands up and gives an amazing explanation, none of those people are going to get

the knowledge imposed into them by the teacher. It has to be them pulling that

teacher. It has to be them pulling that information out into themselves.

And I I think that in some ways this has felt sad because there are you know I I've met people for instance who are like really struggling and frankly

self-sabotaging and you know doesn't matter how many people say it to them they can't hear it and that's on

them. And on one hand, I think it's sad,

them. And on one hand, I think it's sad, but I think on the other hand, it's like weirdly psychologically freeing for me in some ways because it's like I just

don't think that that person will get it. So, I don't need to keep searching

it. So, I don't need to keep searching for the right explanation. I don't need to keep trying. It's up to them. Um,

which again, there is the the flip side of that which does hurt me sometimes. And I want to stress it's like it's not that they're

hurting me. It's like I'm hurting

hurting me. It's like I'm hurting because I again it's been so deeply ingrained in me this idea of explaining things. This is how I got my whole

things. This is how I got my whole career doing the day TV stuff was like if I can just explain the Starcraft strategy well enough people will get it.

And then I think back to Newbie Tuesday which at one point I just went I'm not doing this Newbie Tuesday anymore because the fundamental thing that newbies need to do is never stop building workers. And people keep

building workers. And people keep sending me replays where they stop worker production and they say, "What did I do wrong?" And I'm like, "You didn't keep building workers." And

they're like, "But what did you think about my strategy?" And I'm like, "I didn't. You're not doing the only thing

didn't. You're not doing the only thing that matters." You know? It's like, I

that matters." You know? It's like, I don't know, man. It's like getting served food and being like, "I'm hungry." It's like, well, you need to

hungry." It's like, well, you need to eat the food. Okay, but like what else can I do? It's like I I don't know. Eat

the food. Like that's it. That's the one thing. That's the way to That's the way

thing. That's the way to That's the way to feel no more hunger. You eat the food. Eat it. Oh my god. [laughter]

food. Eat it. Oh my god. [laughter]

So, there's your answer to that question.

I can't do it anymore. Wait,

I used to be able to make the noise.

This hurts now. Oh, this hurts. Oh, I'M

GETTING OLD.

>> [laughter] >> DUDE, CAN I SAY FOR ANY OF YOU who are worried about aging, aging rules, aging owns, man, it's so good. I love aging.

Ouch. Like that's that it's just it's so much better to be older than it is to be younger. It's the greatest. Nielsen

younger. It's the greatest. Nielsen

says, "Not 40 yet." You say, "No, I fully expect that the second that I hit 40, like one of my hips is just going to tumble out of my body onto the ground, and when I reach down for it, I'm going

to uncontrollably make a noise.

And then I'm going to start taking Sententrum Silver and telling one how much better I feel now that I have my vitamins."

vitamins." All right. Oh, Bencore. Yeah. No, you've

All right. Oh, Bencore. Yeah. No, you've

asked this a few times. And by the way, beniscore this is a great example of thank you for repasting this again and again and again because I see a set of things my brain registers it I start

answering one of them and then it leaves my mind that this question was asked. So

this is wonderful says I don't I know you don't really do IRL streaming but have you thought about visiting Alia sanctuary on stream. I know JP loved visiting when you went and seeing your interactions with the animal ambassadors would be magical. I know relatively

little about Albas Sanctuary, but everything that I have ever heard has been wonderful. [clears throat]

been wonderful. [clears throat] Absolutely wonderful.

And I think that a sort as as a sort of multi-part answer. I think it would be

multi-part answer. I think it would be piece one time is just the thing that I have none of because I basically work like 60 70 hours a week every week

minimum constantly because I like the work that I do. I find it really engaging and you know there's always problems to solve and always things to do. Um

do. Um so that's one barrier. Let's pretend

that I didn't have time as a barrier and I could do more. I would be open to doing more collabs and interacting with more people in the streaming space. I

mean the simple reason of why I don't do it is that collaborations are quite time consuming. um just setting it up and

consuming. um just setting it up and getting everything organized and trying to understand, you know, that you and the other person are on the same page.

And also, I'm a little bit unusual in that I tend to do more show style content historically and much less, yeah, we're just live and hanging out,

you know, eating chicken fingers or whatever. Um

whatever. Um and there's a third piece which is beniscore. I I I really hate the idea of

beniscore. I I I really hate the idea of imposing on anyone. I really don't like so fundamentally

there's something like I'm having a reticence right now Benor because I don't want to be like yes Alvia Sanctuary you might know nothing about me. You should collab with me though. I

me. You should collab with me though. I

am Day Nine after all. That's not really how I think of myself. That feels a little bit like a dick move. Yeah. Air

daddy says your Midwest is showing.

Yeah. How do I make myself as small and invisible as possible while apologizing for existing? Is that okay? I'm sorry if

for existing? Is that okay? I'm sorry if it's not like [laughter] I would be open to it, but I I I would

never want to impose my large goofy self on anyone's stream. Um, but in the future, I would be I'd be delighted.

I Maxis, you wouldn't impose their whole ideas showing their animals new audiences. Oh, yeah. know I again I've

audiences. Oh, yeah. know I again I've heard nothing but lovely things. It's

just that I because I know so little I don't want to assume. I don't want to research and dig in and send a very sort of like hi hello that my name is day [clears throat] nine. Um I wanted to you

be interested in a collaboration [laughter] as as I am want to communicate. All

right I'm going to come back here. Do

chickens have fingers? I'm confused. In

America they do. Um let's see here.

Ah, here we go. Rorach, I was looking for you. Says, "My question is about RTS

for you. Says, "My question is about RTS and game design. Since Battle Aces is no longer in the works and Stormgate is struggling, I'd like to know your take on the future of the genre. What do you think can make an RTS successful nowadays? And following that, can the

nowadays? And following that, can the early access model be a detriment for the development of RTS? Yeah, I mean I I've talked a little bit about my

feelings on RTS games where for me I kind of think RTS is doing amazingly in a number of ways. Let's talk about

the games that totally kick ass. Okay,

Brood War still has the Africa Star League. It's just hit season 20 and

League. It's just hit season 20 and season 20 has been like the best season I've ever seen. maybe with the exception of ASL 19 the previous season which was spectacular.

Um, Starcraft 2 has all manner of community tournaments. Shout out to my

community tournaments. Shout out to my brother Tasteless for RSL. Shout out to Wardy and Zombie Grub and Pig who every time I tune into their channels, they're

covering cups. They're hosting them

covering cups. They're hosting them themselves. Um, Age of Empires 2 has an

themselves. Um, Age of Empires 2 has an amazing community where almost all the top players stream and are amazing evangelists for the game. Warcraft 3, I

mean, what Grubby has done to grow interest in that game has been remarkable. And everyone I know that

remarkable. And everyone I know that puts in a good 10, 15 hours to Warcraft 3 puts in another hundred. Like, that

game is so good. Let's not forget that Age of Empires 4 launched in I think it was 2021. They're still adding factions.

was 2021. They're still adding factions.

Someone someone help correct me if I'm wrong. Like, don't they have like They

wrong. Like, don't they have like They started with eight factions, eight civilizations, and now they have 22.

Isn't that right? 23, 24, something like this. I mean, it's an insane number of

this. I mean, it's an insane number of things. And yeah, I know there's a lot

things. And yeah, I know there's a lot of overlap, but I mean, they're doing a lot of unique stuff. Um, what else?

Beyond All Reason is literally free.

Literally free. and has more features than uh any game in history. It I mean beyond all reason has more features than Microsoft Excel. OKAY. [laughter]

Microsoft Excel. OKAY. [laughter]

Like I mean it's like a lot of stuff. Um

and it has like you know 8v8 is like a core mode that people play a lot that's like super fun and uh super clown show.

And I I think that there's so in a lot of ways I'm like, dude, there's a ton of really awesome RTS games to play. And I mean, I think

that, you know, if you look at Stormgate, they promised a lot and just didn't deliver very much at all. And the

stuff that was there was just not of high quality. Um, I think that like to

high quality. Um, I think that like to this day, I think that none of the factions are finished. For instance,

they have tier one and tier two and no tier three. I haven't checked it out in

tier three. I haven't checked it out in a in a long time. Um, Battle Aces I was really enjoying and I don't know

what happened behind the scenes. I I

still have no sense behind the scenes or what's in front of the scenes or anything like that. Um,

I'm a little sad about that one. I I'll

be real. I'm I'm a little I'm a little sad today about Battle Aces because I just got my Steam review, you know, where it's like here's the games you played the most this year. You're not

going to be surprised that my top three were Dota, Silkong, and Blueprints. But

then like right there in four and five were Mechabellum and Battle Aces. And I

was just like, man, I wish they'd released that. Oh, it was it was just

released that. Oh, it was it was just gruesome. Hey, Mastermind RTS, it's good

gruesome. Hey, Mastermind RTS, it's good to see you. Yeah. And I've got ah man cuz there were some fun moments in in that game. And you know I I think

that there's there's something about this is uh not me describing what actually happened or what I think happened but just contextually

there's this sort of calculus that I know can exist where a company this isn't just in games this is just in any business where it's like ah let's say

I'm I'm trying to sell pens you know and they're really great high quality pens or like phone cases or something and I say ah if I spend a million in marketing,

I'd only make like $800,000.

So, it's not even worth it to market, you know, or in the game space, it's something like, oh, we'd make this much money, but it would take that much to keep paying the team and to keep the

lights on for the servers and stuff like that. And we just think it's not worth

that. And we just think it's not worth it. I I again I have no idea what

it. I I again I have no idea what specifically happened with battle aces, but all I know is that that just like that hurt that hurt so much.

Is Tempest Rising doing okay? Um, this

is I think another piece to the sort of RTS description where like if you a game like Tempest Rising.

Is it a game you're supposed to buy and complete and put down or is it a game that you are supposed to play 20 hours a week for the rest of the

year as you would with a Counterstrike or a Dota or something like this. And I

think that there's this kind of weird straddling that some RTS games do where it felt like Tempest Rising said, "Here's a killer campaign. It's going to be really fun and really nostalgic. It's

going to be reminiscent of the Command and Conquer games. Here's multiplayer as well." And you know, as far as I have

well." And you know, as far as I have seen from the the sort of brief times I've checked in, they're doing some updates over time.

Cool.

Um, so I think a lot of people just look at the concurrency of games and go, "Oh my god, the concurrency is horrible. Oh,

the concurren, it's the worst thing ever." When actually the company is

ever." When actually the company is super happy because they made way more than they spent on the money. There's

other games that are like, "We are a free-to-play live service. Concurrency

is everything." And for them, that might actually be an important measure of their health. There's also games that

their health. There's also games that have low concurrency, but the people who do play spend a lot, so they're doing fine. I would say as a critique of the

fine. I would say as a critique of the gaming community at large, I think there tends to be too much of an obsession over concurrency numbers. Uh, I mean, I was even joking with a friend about how

Dispatch was released recently and it has it's like a seven or eight hour game and I was amazed that the concurrency broke 220,000 players. Like the

concurrency doesn't really matter for an eight hour game. Like it's that it's kind of a dumb point for me to make in some ways, but also what the hell an eight hour long game like a storydriven

adventure game that's eight hours had 220,000 people logged in at the same time. That's crazy. So anyways, I think

time. That's crazy. So anyways, I think that people tend to oversess about concurrency numbers. Um

concurrency numbers. Um but I feel like I'm starting to get a little off track. So I'm going to pull back to, you know, like, hey, is Tempest Rising doing okay? I as far as it looks

like it was okay. Roric, where's your question? Ah, yeah. Uh, like Jason, the

question? Ah, yeah. Uh, like Jason, the future of the genre, what you think can uh make an RTS successful nowadays? And

following that, can the early access model be a detriment for the development of RTS? Um, so for for the future stuff,

of RTS? Um, so for for the future stuff, I mean, I think Sheriff, come on. Do you want to come back,

Sheriff? So, I want you to know

Sheriff? So, I want you to know something. The laundry room door is down

something. The laundry room door is down the hall. And if the laundry room door

the hall. And if the laundry room door is shut, sheriff gets really upset and meows because she wants to get in the laundry room.

The laundry room door has been shut for a year. She's not allowed in there.

a year. She's not allowed in there.

She'll pee on our clothes. She's not

allowed to go into the laundry room. Do

you understand? This cat every day goes downstairs and looks up AND IT'S LIKE, "NO, NOT AGAIN." WHAT DO YOU MEAN not again? It's always shut. It's never

again? It's always shut. It's never

open. Once it was open, she went in there peed in the laundry. Okay. Fortunately,

it was [clears throat] just some towels, right? Wasn't a big deal. It wasn't this

right? Wasn't a big deal. It wasn't this amazing shirt. It wasn't my AMA shirt.

amazing shirt. It wasn't my AMA shirt.

Sheriff, come here. She keeps losing her mind.

Hello Sheriff.

Yeah.

Hello.

Yeah, I think that like my response about RTS stuff I think is kind of similar to a lot of other games and genres where like

if you make a game, there needs to be a clear description of why someone would stop playing their existing game and go to the other game. So something like,

"Hey, we're gonna release a new MOA."

I mean, I don't I don't follow what MOBAs are coming out or not. I just play Dota. You know what I mean?

Dota. You know what I mean?

What a good cat. What a good cat.

Um, now if you said, "Hey, here's a MOA."

This is a terrible idea, but whatever.

"Hey, here's a MOA with a thousand players in it." And I'm like, "Wait, what?" Like I literally, as I'm speaking right now, I have no idea

what that would even look like. But that

is enough for me to go, I want to try this thing out. That seems like pretty cool. I think there's been um you know,

cool. I think there's been um you know, especially as the longrunning host of the summer PC games show um hosted by PC Gamer.

There's a lot of games that have kind of fallen into this description where it's like "Hey it's a game in this genre." Like, I've been seeing this uh conversation about

is it called High Guard? Where people

are going, "Oh, it's just a hero shooter. I already play my hero shooter.

shooter. I already play my hero shooter.

I'm good."

Yeah. What do you think?

All right.

And I think early access generally Okay.

So, so to answer that second part about early access, oh, sorry, I didn't finish the last thought. Yeah. So, I think that if anyone makes a new game, RTS or otherwise, there needs to be a really

compelling statement of here is why people would stop doing that and start doing this, which also sort of aligns with something

that I've said for ever, which is that if you release a six out of 10, you may as well have released a zero out of 10 because I got nothing but 10 out of 10

games that I can play right now. If you

release a seven out of 10 game, [snorts] that actually still might be a zero out of 10 for a large swath of people. You know, I got too much good

people. You know, I got too much good stuff going on. This feels like the golden age of being a gamer. I wake up every day and I'm like, gosh, I wish I could have one of those time chambers from Dragon Ball Z where I could just play all these amazing games that are

coming out. I haven't even opened Clare

coming out. I haven't even opened Clare Obscure. Okay, it's awesome. Um,

Obscure. Okay, it's awesome. Um,

and if your game is like an eight or a nine out of 10 for a group of people that really want that kind of game, I think you're I think you have a solid start. Um,

start. Um, but if you don't do those things, I mean, I think that you're kind of hosed.

I think that there was a time like in the 2000s where it felt like if you released a game that was kind OF STINKY, H IT wouldn't be a home run, but you also wouldn't go bankrupt, right? you

you you'd maybe sell enough to break even, maybe minus a little bit, but hey, you built this team that has good tech, so hey, it's a little small loss, but that's okay because it can fund the sequel and the sequel will actually be

good. There's a lot of games that come

good. There's a lot of games that come out right now that are livey or depend upon a certain threshold of audience and

like they peak at like a hundred players for, you know, like it's it's like not that, oh, we were hoping for 100,000 and we got 50,000. It's like we were hoping for 100,000 and like 12 people played

the game. Um, and I think that this is

the game. Um, and I think that this is representative of the six out of tens are actually zero out of tens for people that have amazing titles like Fortnite and Dota and League and Counterstrike and so on and so forth. Second part of

the question about early access, I think that early access I would divide into different chunks.

Like first of all, I I generally believe that um how do I hold on? My my brain is starting to come up with more divisions

and I'm trying to condense it. I think

that generally speaking, put your game in front of players and have them play it all the time and often. Just do that.

Make people play the game. Like the

amount of times that for me personally and all my friends that do gamedev have gone, "This is going to be an awesome idea and it gets implemented, they put it in front of players and the players

hate it." That's almost all of what

hate it." That's almost all of what happens. Wonderful. That's why you test

happens. Wonderful. That's why you test so you change it so that it isn't bad.

So eventually all you're left with is the good stuff. Um,

now does that mean that you're early access or not? I don't care to define it. I just think that this is a property

it. I just think that this is a property that early access can provide a small base of players to play a whole bunch.

Like Subnotica, like the first one was an early access for a really long time with like 20 to 40 people playing at a time. You can actually just see the

time. You can actually just see the graphs.

And then when Subnotica launched, it made, you know, sold like 20 million copies or some insane number. Um,

so I think that it's good to have people play. Um, I think that also a benefit of

play. Um, I think that also a benefit of early access is you can get some money in the door to keep developing a little bit longer. And

I mean, hell, I'd rather that the customers who are buying know that it's early access because it's labeled as such. Um, so the people in I mean, I

such. Um, so the people in I mean, I know there's some people that go, "Oh, this early access game is going to be amazing." and then they're pissed off

amazing." and then they're pissed off it's not complete, which is a different discussion. But like, you know, I think

discussion. But like, you know, I think it's really nice to have a small group of people that are willing to pay some money to get early access to something and they're engaged with the process and the developers getting some money to

keep developing and they're beholden to the players, not to a mysterious publisher or investor or something like this. I think there's a lot of positive

this. I think there's a lot of positive benefits. However, I genuinely genuinely

benefits. However, I genuinely genuinely genuinely think that whether you're in early access or not on Steam or whether you're just having a bunch of players playing your

game privately, whatever it might be, I think you have to have a pretty damn clear vision of where you want to go.

This is something that I've ranted about before, which is like um feedback is good and important, but

nowhere near as important as the person having a clear vision of what they're trying to do.

Um, you know, like Mattress's early access versus deadlock approach. Deadlock is

actually like a really, I think, good example of this. Deadlock does not strike me as a game where a committee came together and decided that this is what the game should be and the feedback

of the community was like we should add in more wall jumping and they went well if they want it we have to add it in.

You know that that game really feels like a sharp vision that I I have no idea how they came up with it but it's excellent. Um, I think that it is really

excellent. Um, I think that it is really positive to have someone with a clear vision getting feedback that can help inform that vision. Uh, as opposed to

someone going into early access, what was it like the culling two?

Was it the culling and the culling two where it's like they went into early access with one of them and then like 3 months later they changed the entire thing and then people complained about that. So they just changed it to fix

that. So they just changed it to fix whatever the complaint was. And then

people complained about that and said, "We wish we had the old one." And then they deleted everything and just re-released the old version. Someone

correct me if I'm wrong, but there there was like a game that kind of had this story where it was just like I don't know. It was kind of like uh design ping

know. It was kind of like uh design ping pong where it just bounced around.

Sounds like the calling. I'm pretty

sure. Pretty sure that was it. Um but

yeah, no, I mean I think that you know it's it's a what is It's like drinking from a fire hose when you have feedback coming in from your community.

And I think that that could be very overwhelming if you're not ready for it.

So Tuesday Twitch says, "Stellaris has changed a bunch of times in significant ways." Yeah. And I think that change is

ways." Yeah. And I think that change is can be very positive. Big change can be very very positive, but I like it when there is a vision holder who's in charge

of those things.

All right. By the way, a lot of the time I'm looking at the camera when I'm answering, so I'm not looking up at the chat window here.

Let's see these strange notes says, "What is something uh you started this year that you'd credit uh as being helpful mental health practice or habit?" Ooh, this one's simple. This

habit?" Ooh, this one's simple. This

one's simple.

Go to bed early. Just go to bed. Sleep

is the most powerful performance-enhancing drug on Earth.

Nothing makes me happier as much as five days in a row of just sleeping a lot.

Like just go to bed. This has been Yeah. Joe

Monkey says so easy to say. Yeah. Know

it's easy to say. It's hard to do. It's

hard as hell to do. I actually had to aggressively change my evening routine to where I was getting in bed at like 8:45.

I was setting it at that point in time.

Just get in bed. and I would mess up and get in bed at 9:30. But hey, I'm still going to bed, falling asleep by 10:00, and getting up at 6:00 a.m.

Um, Phantom says it's 1:20 a.m. and here

I am listening to your AMA. It's fine to stay up and watch me, but once I go offline, you go to bed, young man. Um,

[laughter] I mean, really, I I think that's one.

Um, and a lot of just the basic stuff like I take vitamin D.

That's awesome because I like, you know, I don't hang out with the sun very much.

Try to eat food at regular times.

Try to generally eat healthy.

Generally, you know, it's great. It's like

literally like transformative and it really piss Oh, and let me say exercising. I hate this. I hate that

exercising. I hate this. I hate that exercising makes me feel better. I I

actually I legitimately it pisses me off. The number of times when I'm like I

off. The number of times when I'm like I don't want to go to the gym. What if I just sleep in a day and then I make myself go by the time I'm done actually like feel good and I like feel relaxed

and I'm more awake and present in meetings, you know?

So stupid. Devastated to share it. Adri

says, "Yes, I would sleep so much better after a workout." Dude, same. Oh, it

sucks. I'm making myself work out over winter break, too. Normally, I'm like a complete degenerate, but you know, I'm trying to think if there's anything

emotional. Okay. Okay. Let me there's

emotional. Okay. Okay. Let me there's another thing that I Okay, I I'm going to share a weirdly strong opinion. So,

uh I am I am a straight man and for whatever reason, as a straight man, I'm not going to claim what it's

like for anybody else, but consistently I and my buddies who are also straight men have this thing where when we talk about, man, this thing's really stressed me out. I'm having a hard time. Almost

me out. I'm having a hard time. Almost

always the first statement is, "Well, bro, are you hitting the gym?"

[laughter] It's like, it's like no one no one wants to listen to me talk about my feelings.

Sometimes it feels like, man, oh my god. Now, I know for a fact that is not just a like a guy thing, but my goodness, just the bro, are you hitting

the gym, dude? Come on, man. Like, you

really got to you just start hitting that gym. It'll be fine. Just lift, man.

that gym. It'll be fine. Just lift, man.

This feels like such a jump for me.

[laughter] Like or unless you're not talking to me, ghosty. But yeah, know I I tend to

ghosty. But yeah, know I I tend to surround myself with people who don't do that. But I mean, especially Oh my god.

that. But I mean, especially Oh my god.

Like when I was younger, that's like no like I couldn't get anyone to talk about feelings at all. Like, bro, I know you're really sad. I get it. But if you trust me, if you hit the gym, [laughter]

you know, things like I'm worried I'm not going to pay rent. You should hit the gym, bro. Dude, this doesn't fix the rent issue, you know? It's like

[laughter] it's so stupid, man. Um, and so I I I feel obligated to after this year, it turns out, going to the gym and sleeping and eating healthy, these these

are like positive emotional boosters.

I'm not going to stop there. I'm not

going to stop there. Um

because I think that the the most powerful mental health trick uh is a introspection tool which is the following question.

When this thing happened, what did I feel about myself?

This is a weird question to sit with.

It's a super therapisty sounding question, which makes sense because I first heard it from my therapist.

[laughter] So, let me give an example. Let's say

um actually I've used this example a bunch of times. When I was younger, I was

of times. When I was younger, I was really quiet and my brother has always just been incredibly funny. Just

incredibly funny. So, I'm talking like when I'm 14 or something. Uh, you know, and I'd be trying to tell a story that I wanted to tell and Nick would make

interjections that were hilarious.

And, you know, it was that feeling where I'd be at like a dinner table and I'd be telling a thing and then Nick would make the interjection. Everyone at the table

the interjection. Everyone at the table would laugh. And I remember internally

would laugh. And I remember internally the way that I felt, the way that I was like in my mind thinking is I would go, "Dude, you [ __ ] I'm telling my

story. Stop interrupting. It's ah, you

story. Stop interrupting. It's ah, you know, it would be about how he's a jerk cuz he's interrupting. He's being bad.

This is how I would vent to my friends.

Oh, my brother never lets me tell a story. Always has to get in there. It's

story. Always has to get in there. It's

always about him, him, him, him, him.

Now, this is a kind of way of feeling stuff where you're talking about the other person. Oh, my boss is so bad in

other person. Oh, my boss is so bad in this and this and this way. Oh, this,

you know, community I'm part of, they're all going crazy about this and I think they're crazy and blah blah blah. Um,

but the question, what do I feel about myself was really was really interesting to like think about because if I go back to 14-year-old Shawn, it's like, oh, what's

happening is that I have a need for attention. I want attention.

attention. I want attention.

And if I feel like I'm asking for it and I'm not getting it, then I start to feel like maybe I don't matter. Maybe my

feelings don't matter. I feel invisible.

I start to feel bad about myself in those ways. And what is really powerful

those ways. And what is really powerful about this kind of introspection is that then you can go, "Oh, I see. So, if I feel like I don't matter and my feelings

don't matter and my stories don't matter, I actually think that what I need is more attention.

And now I can seek out that thing to help me get fulfillment in that way.

Or, you know, maybe if or maybe I can just go, oh, you know, in this situation, this might not be a good venue to do that. Cuz here's a flip side

consideration, which is I literally know of people that when they tell stories, they don't actually feel like it's a compelling or fun story. And if someone interjects with a joke, as my brother

would have at that time, and everyone laughs, it makes them feel better. It makes them feel like a good

better. It makes them feel like a good thing is happening. It makes it feel like they're being heard. It makes it feel like they're being listened to.

It's just it's different for different people. And this is why I love the how

people. And this is why I love the how do I feel about myself? Because if I said, "Oh, my brother was an asshole."

Then someone else would go, "Well, no, no, that's not being an [ __ ] That's great." And then we'd be arguing with

great." And then we'd be arguing with each other. It doesn't go anywhere. But

each other. It doesn't go anywhere. But

if I can describe how I feel about myself, then that actually gives me the opportunity to be able to fix things. So

that's my favorite mental health description. How do I feel about myself

description. How do I feel about myself when that other thing happened?

you know, like and I think there's like a lot of really interesting things from this, you know, like um I don't know if you ever like seen someone who's unbelievably ripped on

social media and you're just like, "Oh god, I'm I'm so frustrated seeing this.

I wish Twitter wouldn't show it to me.

It's so stupid. Oh my god." It's like, okay, what am I feeling about myself?

Oh, I'm feeling like I am unattractive and will never be attracted. Maybe

that's what's happening to me. So maybe

I should spend some time trying to do a little self-care. Maybe get myself a

little self-care. Maybe get myself a nice new outfit. Maybe start, you know, trying to work on my appearance. Or

maybe just taking a moment to go, actually, I'm fine just the way I am.

You know, like all these kinds of things are actually actionable.

Yelling into the void of Twitter is not.

So that's my answer to that one. Phantom

says, "And hit the gem." NO. [screaming]

[laughter] NO. ALL RIGHT. LISTEN, BRO. JUST HIT THE

NO. ALL RIGHT. LISTEN, BRO. JUST HIT THE G. Trust me, bro. Oh, man.

G. Trust me, bro. Oh, man.

All right, here we go. I'm going to go to Shinjx. Happy 67 months. Already done

to Shinjx. Happy 67 months. Already done

a ton of really cool things so far and still obviously do. Oh my god. Thank

you, Shinjx. But what would you say to be your white whale for you? Could be

anything like meeting someone you find really cool for the first time or doing something you'd be super hyped for or accomplishing an incredible milestone.

Wait, what do you mean by my white whale? Because didn't

whale? Because didn't didn't Captain Ahab never get the whale?

Didn't the whale win? I don't want to have a white whale at all, Shinjx.

[snorts] Oh my god. [laughter]

I really don't want this in the slightest.

Oh my god.

>> [laughter] >> Doesn't the whale get him? Yeah. No, I

think I think Listen, I don't I'm not into this white whale thing, Shinji X.

Let me tell you, you can you can keep the whale to yourself.

[snorts] Uh, I mean, I the obvious answer to your question more earnestly is like, well, the thing that I want to do is make an awesome game. I've made terrible ones.

awesome game. I've made terrible ones.

I've made ones that are pretty fun, but I want to make an amazing one that Yeah.

Like a KILLER ONE. LIKE, OH, I WANT PEOPLE TO BE LIKE, "OH MY GOD, YOUR GAME IS SO GOOD. I'M GOING TO THROW UP." You

know? I want to make a game that you stay up till 4:00 a.m. playing and ruin your sleep schedule. That's what I want to do.

Like a killer whale. Yeah. Amandel,

Darly, Sam. Hell yeah.

>> [laughter] >> Element says, "I like the one that let the chatters die." Yeah, know that was really fun. We made a interactive

really fun. We made a interactive textbased adventure game where people from chat would be the participants and they were given roles and characters in the story where they're trying to save

day nine TV town and if in the game you died, you got banned from my chat.

[laughter] And and the longer you the longer you survived in the game when you got banned, the ban time increased. The

first people that would get banned, they were out for like 10 minutes. Let me

tell you, if you were some of the last 10 and you got banned, you were out of there for like three days. Like, see you once your weekend is through. Uh I mean, that was that was really fun, right?

Because if I say to you, do you want to pick door A or door B? You go, I doesn't seem very fun. But if I say pick door A or door B and if you get it wrong,

you're banned. People are like, "We got

you're banned. People are like, "We got stakes, baby. We got stakes." [laughter]

stakes, baby. We got stakes." [laughter]

Oh, that's so good. Do we ever get back to Day Night TV Town? We got to do it at some point. The code's lurking around

some point. The code's lurking around there at some point.

Or not at some point, in some place. In

some location. Okay.

Let us return. Oh, Joe says, "What's your favorite song from K-pop Demon Hunters?" I still haven't seen it, and

Hunters?" I still haven't seen it, and I'm sure if I see it, I'll love it.

Also, sus opening. Since we took one of your questions earlier, I'm going to temporarily uh delay your inquiry.

[clears throat] This is Edub's lives day. Do you have any advice on how slashware to share things beyond your immediate friend/family group without feeling like a nuisance? I've just started making

a nuisance? I've just started making YouTube videos for fun and I'm having a blast. I love to share with more people,

blast. I love to share with more people, but I'm also adverse to going around annoying people being like, "Look at me."

me." Yeah. Yep. I get this.

Yeah. Yep. I get this.

I understand this one. Edubs,

I think.

So, to steal some advice from the excellent Brandon Sanderson, when trying to grow and to like find an

audience and to find content, a really good thing to look for is peers, people who are like at your level.

Like if you are making content about Warhammer and you're getting a small amount of views, are there communities of you know

peers that also share videos and stuff and you go there and you can also share like this kind of thing I think is a really effective way to frame your

brain. It's not I have something amazing

brain. It's not I have something amazing that you want or hey, I'm a piece of [ __ ] Will anyone like my stuff? It's

just kind of going to an area where people share stuff.

And I think that also as part of that idea of finding peers, I like the idea of like 90 to 95% of your time should actually be socializing in an honest and

sincere way and engaging. And then 5% can be your content.

You know, like I think that a lot of what I I'm going to go on a crazy tangent here.

Edubs.

There's this theory of communication that I've been talking about a lot, which I call the onus in communication.

Whose job is it to be giving or taking in an exchange? Something as simple as your boss walks in and says, "All right, we have this problem with the current project. How are we going to fix it?"

project. How are we going to fix it?"

Immediately, all the colleagues in the room, it's on them. The onus is on them because the boss came in and said, "It's on you." Right? And imagine, "Oh, maybe

on you." Right? And imagine, "Oh, maybe we could try this idea." And the boss goes, "Ah, that has issue A and B and C.

All right, what else can we do?" And all of a sudden, it's kind of like it's up to me to defend my idea. The burden's

back on me again.

And I think a good way in socializing to make people feel less stressed, make people feel more open and more willing is to put some onus back on yourself and

to not ask direct questions to people.

Um, well, I shouldn't say not ask direct questions. I mean put some burden on

questions. I mean put some burden on yourself as opposed to strictly putting more burden or questions on the other person in this sort of way. So if the boss came in and was like, "Hey, there's

this problem. Anyone have any ideas?

this problem. Anyone have any ideas?

Someone shares an idea, the boss could receive it and go, "Okay, yeah, because that could maybe work because of this and this and this, but I'm actually thinking some problems like this and this. I mean, maybe we could solve those

this. I mean, maybe we could solve those in this way. I don't know. What do you think?" Notice that the boss just by

think?" Notice that the boss just by taking some opportunity to put the burden on themselves to come up with this answer to come up with this you

know burden of solutions and considerations and all this and then asked back to the other person immediately it's deescalatory to the other person

and this kind of like model that I like is not I ask you something it's I put a thing in the middle that you can take or

leave. So, for instance, instead of

leave. So, for instance, instead of where do you want to go go to dinner?

It's like, hey, I was thinking maybe going to dinner soon, I was thinking something like maybe we go to this Italian place. Maybe there's that German

Italian place. Maybe there's that German spot up the street. Um, I don't know. Is

there a place that you were maybe thinking of going or is there a place you want to go to dinner? Do you want to go to one of those? like by giving some offers.

Hey, someone can pick that thing up. Or,

you know, the example that I was talking to uh one of my buddies about earlier is like one of my friends was really great about saying, "Hey, I'm going to be doing this like sort of uh evening gaming here in

Discord if any of you guys want to join." And just put it out as an offer,

join." And just put it out as an offer, not as, "Hey, does anyone want to play games in Discord with me tonight? Ping

you, ping you, ping you, ping you, ping you." Just like, "Hey, I'm going to be

you." Just like, "Hey, I'm going to be in if anyone wants to hang out." And

then afterwards, dude, Lameo, like I just did this and this and this. Oh, it

was super fun. Hey, I'll be there on Thursday if any of you want to come hang out. And I remember seeing that and and

out. And I remember seeing that and and going, "Oh, okay. Maybe I'll just maybe I'll

"Oh, okay. Maybe I'll just maybe I'll hang out at one point." Right? It wasn't

him going, "Sean, do you want to show up on Thursday at 7?" Because I don't know, sometimes that makes me feel really pressured. Um,

pressured. Um, but if there's just a thing that's happening, if there's an offer on the table that I can pick up, that's great.

And so, finally, veering all the way back to Edub's question about, you know, content sharing. This is why I like

content sharing. This is why I like finding communities where you can show up and you can contribute, you can give, you can chat, you can show up and go, "Hey, I love this thing that you made there. I

love that thing over there. It reminds

me of this other video. You link someone else's video." and you're just

else's video." and you're just contributing positively and again in a sincere and earnest way.

You're not going like, "All right, that's 10 messages not about me. 9 8 76 we're getting close to me time." People

will see through that in a heartbeat. Um

but then finally when you're like, "Hey, I've been making some content if anyone wants to, you know, see."

And then you drop it in. I literally do this with some of my Discords, including the one that I accidentally was just hanging out in [laughter] where my friend came and asked me if I was in a meeting. Um

um you know I I remember one of my friends was just talking about playing new card games and you know like hey has anyone play this card game or this card game? I linked him to my Yu-Gi-Oh video

game? I linked him to my Yu-Gi-Oh video and I said I'm I'm really cautious about learning new card games ever since I tried Yu-Gi-Oh and linked him to that.

You know I'm in there all the time talking all the time.

Um and I have found this really effective.

I really like trying to find peer groups and trying to treat people as equals, not you're below me or you're way above me, I worship you. How how you speak with somebody. Uh, and those are some of

with somebody. Uh, and those are some of my thoughts. And I don't know if I'm

my thoughts. And I don't know if I'm being that helpful, but I but I'm but I'm done. I've shared all of my thoughts. So

Tuesday Twitch says, "You used to say that your goal was to bring esports to North America. Do you feel like you

North America. Do you feel like you succeeded? Do you feel like your goals

succeeded? Do you feel like your goals changed? Um, I would say I think that

changed? Um, I would say I think that the success case happened. I don't

necessarily think I was a particularly large part of it.

But I think that it was really interesting growing up and being just made fun of and bullied so much for loving Starcraft and the competition around it. So much so. And I think about

around it. So much so. And I think about today Tuesday like I almost feel like with like Gen Alpha, Gen Z,

they've never even lived through a time where it was weird to play games. Like the idea that it would be weird is odd. Um,

and I think that that's awesome. Now all

of a sudden, I I think largely thanks to Twitch. Think Twitch was the biggest

Twitch. Think Twitch was the biggest reason that this happened. I think

thanks to Twitch, all these disperate communities from like fighting games to RTS games to Counter Strike to just they all kind of came together in this spot and started to just accelerate because

there were just millions of dieh hard fans all over the place. And then

because those games are amazing, that grew. Um,

that grew. Um, and I think that I'm a little sad about this weird I don't know what it is a situation with

esports where there was this enormous overreach of oh my god we're not going to have slow steady growth up from single digit millions of revenue to low double digits and then maybe long long

longterm eventually get to like you know nine figures. It was like no we're going

nine figures. It was like no we're going to jump right out the gate. And I I feel like a lot of this happened directly with the Overwatch League coming out and saying, "Oh, there's $20 million a slot

where suddenly there was like teams are raising huge amounts of money at crazy valuations when their actual revenue was really low." And this kind of caused

really low." And this kind of caused this weird kind of swell and then shrink [snorts] of the whole scene, which I don't know, it it feels like it was this

odd detour. And I sort of am relieved to

odd detour. And I sort of am relieved to see esports looking more and more like what I would expect.

Um, which is it's growing. It's slow.

It's steady. There's super dedicated niche communities and people love it.

Um, so yeah, I guess I'd say it's really awesome. I think esports is doing great.

awesome. I think esports is doing great.

It sounds fantastic.

My lips are sweating. all these

questions. My lips are sweating.

Oh, Deadlock, you've been asking this for a little bit, says, "I think you said you plan on playing Warcraft 3 next year." I sure do. Hardcore multiplayer,

year." I sure do. Hardcore multiplayer,

baby. I'm going to go hard on the multiplayer. That's going to be the

multiplayer. That's going to be the goal. I'm going to dedicate a good chunk

goal. I'm going to dedicate a good chunk of time to doing that stuff. Yes. Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Um, and there it is.

Ah, Trevor says, "What do you think is the most important thing you can do to replace a bad habit with a good one?

Struggle with alcohol use off and on and would like to see what you think." Yeah,

well, first of all, good on you for just going, I don't like my relationship with this substance. I have a number of

this substance. I have a number of friends who have never drank. I have a number of friends who used to drink and didn't like how they felt dependent on it and now are fully sober. I have

friends that just occasionally have a drink and don't think much about it. I just think it's wonderful the fact that you're actually going I'm kind of struggling with this a

little bit. I think that like that sort

little bit. I think that like that sort of question of like why am I drinking?

What makes me want to drink in a way that I'm not interested in? I've, you know, from stories of some

in? I've, you know, from stories of some of my friends and even some of my own experiences with alcohol, there there are things that are weird, like, am I

just drinking because I'm bored?

Is that a reason? Or am I drinking because I'm feeling bad about myself in a certain way?

Am I just drinking because I've not thought of something different to do?

You know, like, oh, it's it's Friday night. I always get a six-pack and watch

night. I always get a six-pack and watch TV.

And I think that anytime I have tried to change habits from one thing to another thing, there is a first step that I need, no matter what it is, always,

regardless of its health or work or hobbies or relationships, I need empty time. I need void time. So

maybe it's something like, okay, I'm going to set aside Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to noon every Saturday for the next

a.m. to noon every Saturday for the next few weeks just to think about X. And I I when I set that time aside, what I first do is make sure nothing is happening

there. So from 10 to noon, I just will

there. So from 10 to noon, I just will turn off my phone and step away from the internet and just sit and be by myself and my thoughts for a little bit and just have the time set out.

And then once I have that time and I can actually commit to the void time, I can actually free up this time in my schedule, then I

start trying to actually do whatever thing that I'm trying to do. If I were trying to write a book, for instance, I would set aside, again, let's imagine 10 to noon. Not a lot of hours to write,

to noon. Not a lot of hours to write, but I'd first set aside that time to just be away from everything else. What

I wouldn't do is first session, all it's 9:59, ready, set, 10:00 a.m. Okay.

Right right right right right.

That's not how I operate anymore. If

there's anything that's hard, I don't try to speed up or increase my intensity. I try to slow down. I try to

intensity. I try to slow down. I try to really pull it super far down in terms of energy or difficulty or impact.

That's why I always start with the void.

How do I create some void time? And I

think that if you have dedicated robust significant time, then you can begin to start saying,

okay, now that I have this time, what am I going to do to fix that other habit or to do that other thing? So like in your case, you might start carving out this

time and you might spend like, you know, a week or two just sitting by yourself for an hour twice a week.

This would be actually the thing that I would recommend doing. Pick one hour during the weekday and one hour on the weekend and just sit alone with yourself and your thoughts. Just free up the

time. Don't make any plans. Don't

time. Don't make any plans. Don't

promise yourself that you're going to make a decision. Just set aside that time. And then after maybe two, three

time. And then after maybe two, three weeks of this where you actually feel like you've secured it. I think that you'll find that there is now a lot

of comfort tackling this problem.

because you you now have time to do the solution. And whatever approach you

solution. And whatever approach you have, do it slow.

You know, for instance, maybe you spend week two, week one and two just freeing up the time, just embracing the void.

And then maybe week three, you start going, I think maybe I'm feeling like I don't have enough hobbies. And then you might

dwell on that for week three and week four. And then in week five, you then

four. And then in week five, you then might come along and go, you know what?

I'm going to start coming up with a list of stuff that I want to do. And I think I'm going to start making these new hobbies be the habit that replaces this other habit. Or maybe it's

not about hobbies. Maybe like you're sitting alone and you're just feeling a lot of feelings about something that happened in the past that's just like irking you. And maybe go, you know what?

irking you. And maybe go, you know what?

I think I am going to go talk to a therapist. It sounds great.

therapist. It sounds great.

And I think that like doing so without judgment or guilt or any of those things because I just don't like how often people use guilt and shame to communicate. You made a

mistake. Okay. Well, you need to feel

mistake. Okay. Well, you need to feel like really really really bad about it.

Just you need I need to bludgeon you into the ground. How else are you going to change? I think that's dumb. I think

to change? I think that's dumb. I think

the fact that you're engaging with this earnestly, like you're coming in front of a group of people publicly and talking about it, you you are you're already doing great. You don't need to feel bad. You don't need to feel guilty.

feel bad. You don't need to feel guilty.

You just need to dedicate some time to it. And I think you're going to be just

it. And I think you're going to be just fine. And I think reaching out for

fine. And I think reaching out for professional help is also amazing. But I

can't stress enough how much everything positive in my life comes from embracing the void. just finding this empty time

the void. just finding this empty time first and maintaining its emptiness.

One of the greatest pieces of advice that I ever heard um from one of my pals who said that when he was managing people, if they were overworked and overstressed and they were trying to figure out how

to manage a bunch of stuff, he would say to them, "All right, first thing I want you to do is to free up one day a week so that you have nothing on that one day." And they would, you know, high

day." And they would, you know, high achievers would go like, "Okay, well, like what is it you want me to do then?"

And my friend would just say, "No, just free up the time."

And once they had a day free [snorts] a week that wasn't being constantly budgeted and overbudgeted and all this sort of stuff, um, immediately, one, they would start to

understand what things that were actually urgent and what things were not. And two, just this empty time

not. And two, just this empty time actually gave this high performing individual time to just think and time to just process and reflect and actually

begin to start being even better at improving whatever work or pipeline or process they were part of. So maybe

that's helpful. Maybe that's helpful.

Maybe it's not. But I totally trust your judgment. You know your situation better

judgment. You know your situation better than I. I just hope this my experience

than I. I just hope this my experience could be helpful as well.

My lips are still sweating.

Jules says, "Heading out for now, but cheers to 2026." Sean, you may no longer feel like what you're doing is teaching, but I do learn a lot. Uh, but I do find myself learning from you almost every

time I watch. Dude, thank you, Jules.

Thank you so much.

Oh my god, IT'S A ZOMBIE. OH, A MORAL ZOMBIE. YEAH, [groaning]

ZOMBIE. YEAH, [groaning] A MORAL ZOMBIE who famously, and I can call you out for this, I can point directly to you because this happened live. You were asking for advice about

live. You were asking for advice about asking someone out during a previous AMA and and

I encourage you to just ask them out immediately and you did and then turned off your phone.

That is an amazing power play. That's

the greatest power play of all time.

THAT'S SO GOOD. OH MY GOD. I MEAN,

that's like that's like reaching out to someone who just applied and going, "You're hired." And then ghosting them.

"You're hired." And then ghosting them.

That's amazing. A 10 out of 10. Amoral

zombie. I look forward to seeing you every year. Am I zombie says, "I'm

every year. Am I zombie says, "I'm working as a math tutor, but I don't like teaching or children." Ah.

Ah, I see. My math degree doesn't transfer without reskilling. I have a decent Twitter following, but I'm scared to publish or stream anything because I don't want to fail in public. How do I pick a direction? Also, anime guy and I

are good friends. Came to eat New York 5 days over Halloween and met all my friends. I'm still yearning a bit, but

friends. I'm still yearning a bit, but it's manageable.

You might want to keep that phone off.

Amoral zombie, you're so [ __ ] cool.

[laughter] So, I want to zoom in on this. I don't

want to fail in public.

I don't want to fail in public. How do I pick a direction? Okay.

Okay.

Alex, too easy. This is a great question. I want to come back to this

question. I want to come back to this one too with my sweaty lips. And also Nil Dwin, I want to see your question again after that as well. Uh, so

like I think failing a lot is something everybody should do. I

think making tons of mistakes and eating [ __ ] is an important part of life because

it's just not that bad. Everything's

fine. You can completely eat [ __ ] and it's fine. It's actually totally okay. And the phrase that I like so much

okay. And the phrase that I like so much is not that people don't care if you mess up. I prefer the phrase people

mess up. I prefer the phrase people don't mind if you mess up. They just

don't mind. They just will not mind at all.

And I mean, it's kind of funny to think of how many things I have done in terms of shows or broadcasts or career moves in my life that have just

totally sucked and been colossal time syncs that made no money and often lost huge amounts of money. I used to do live event production for Red Bull. All that

happened is I lost years of my life to stress and made no money. I mean, in a literal sense, I made money, but I mean, like, for the amount of work that I was putting in and the amount that was earn,

I mean, it was just it was just consuming my soulfire for an event that would come and go in a weekend and everyone would be done and move on to the next one. And it was just like, wow,

my god, I hated it. So, I just stopped and no one went, wait a minute, Sean, that event that you did was bad and it wasn't good and you told everyone to

tune into it.

Everyone was like, "Oh, yeah, it wasn't very good, so the viewership was low and it's fine, you know, do the next thing."

I think in a lot of ways, you you can't really I don't know like like that feeling of oh my god, I'm so embarrassed. Oh my

god, I'm so so ashamed, so humiliated.

I'll I will quote myself from like 45 minutes ago. Like, if that happened,

minutes ago. Like, if that happened, what would you feel about yourself?

What would you feel about yourself?

Maybe some bit of negative self-t talk like uh maybe something like oh it would prove that I actually am a failure.

Okay. Well, sit sit with that feeling.

So suppose that you're a failure. What

does that mean? What happens in your life? I um

life? I um I take great inspiration from the number of just horrendous sociopathic humans

that you'll see on uh YouTube and streaming platforms who just put their foot in their mouth, say horrible things, get involved in insane

controversies, and then just go, "All right, well, you know, whatever. I'm

just going to go live again." And they just they just plow RIGHT THROUGH IT.

[laughter] THAT'S AMAZING.

They can do the worst stuff ever, like in chains. Like every week it's a new

in chains. Like every week it's a new bad thing. And they're okay.

bad thing. And they're okay.

And I mean, I say that only half jokingly cuz like um I think that the most important thing that one can do is just to do stuff.

There's no such thing as a wrong decision in Mortal Zombie. There's no

there's no such thing as a wrong decision.

Cuz let's say that you chose a career path and you wanted to go into uh cobbling.

You want to do cobbling. You want to become a cobbler. And you committed everything to moving to a place that is the best cobbling training program in

the world. and three months in you go, I

the world. and three months in you go, I actually hate this.

You can just quit the cobbling program and go somewhere else.

Great. Happens all the time. It's

totally fine. No one minds. And if

someone goes and goes, "Hey, you did this for three months, then quit." You

go, "Yeah, I thought that I would really enjoy it, but I really didn't like it very much, so I switched." People go, "Okay." And then you're done. And you

"Okay." And then you're done. And you

DID IT AND YOU'RE FINE. UH, and uh, another quote that I really like is you only need to be right or in business, you only need to be right 30% of the

time, but you need to be decisive 100% of the time.

I really like that. If you're in a situation where you're looking at choice A or B or C or D, I don't know, just [ __ ] flip a coin

or I guess flip roll a D4. Sorry, roll a foursided coin. and just pick one and

foursided coin. and just pick one and it'll be totally fine. And I think that that feeling of in of that like h what do I do? What's the right thing to do?

Oh god.

You can just completely ignore it. Pick

something. Pick it hard. Go all in. Push

really far in that direction and then bail two months later. Switch

to a different thing. Go hard in that direction. I think you'll find pretty

direction. I think you'll find pretty quickly immortal zombie that you're actually invincible. If you're someone

actually invincible. If you're someone that is capable of asking someone out and then turning off your phone, you're more than capable of picking a career profession and going all in and turning

off your self-doubt.

You're going to be completely fine. I

actually think that I am a good example of someone who you could frame you could frame my career as a bunch of success.

Oh, Sean's done a lot of successful awesome stuff. You can also frame it as,

awesome stuff. You can also frame it as, wow, Sean has just been daisychaining [ __ ] the bed for 16 years. And

because he's a clown on the internet, he just seems to keep chugging along. Like,

[laughter] believe me, the times when I feel really down about myself, I have an infinite amount of pieces of concrete evidence of

my failures that I just can't get out of my head. And it's all okay. No one

my head. And it's all okay. No one

minds. You can keep doing it. You're

going to be great, Amoral Zombie. You're

going to be great. If you're doing something with children and teaching and you don't like either of them, THEN YOU CAN GET ON OUT of it. Am I Moral Zombie, you can just pick a thing. Let me know.

Hey, early next year in January when I'm back streaming Immoral Zombie, I want to hear what direction you're going in. I

want you to come back and tell us all.

The audience at home would love to know.

You're a star of the AMAs, by the way.

You're a star.

I don't know. I think this is kind of funny because like on the topic of no one can be taught but some people can learn, you know. It's funny meeting

you know. It's funny meeting people who are like artists and I'm like, "Did you go to school for art?"

They're like, "No, I went to pharmacy school and I was so tired of doing pharmacy work that I just started I I began to draw in my college program."

And I've just I just obsessively draw and try to make things really pretty and now I just do 3D modeling professionally. And there you go.

professionally. And there you go.

[laughter] Are you finding balancing working on your game studio and streaming? If it

were me, I'd be perpetually exhausted.

Ethanet I am quite tired.

So Ashiman wait I Ashan I want to come back to yours because I remember I asked some people to repost their question and I couldn't remember who I said Alec.

YEAH, ALEX too easy says in a parallel universe we became a scientist instead of an entertainer video game maker would be your field of research.

Pure [snorts] math.

Pure math man. I just want hard abstract problems. I would be a math researcher because my hero I talk about this book

enough that I just have left it by my desk. My hero is Andrew Wilds, the man

desk. My hero is Andrew Wilds, the man that finally cracked Fairmma's last theorem and in doing so created one of the most foundational and

important theorems in modern mathematics called the modularity theorem. And this

story of him solving it is in fair enigma by Simon Singh. It's an amazing amazing amazing book.

That's what I would do. I just I love when there is a problem with no angle of attack. There's no template. There's no

attack. There's no template. There's no

solution and it's just you by yourself.

Go. Ah, it's so good. Hell yes. Nilden.

Yes. I think you're going to love the book. I I I

book. I I I did do some math research in college and I have three published papers.

Three of them.

See, one of them was what were they? Did I Did I do that? Who

cares? Um, I really enjoyed that experience of just having a pen and a blank sheet of paper and just thinking and thinking and thinking and drawing stuff and drawing stuff and thinking and

crossing stuff out and sketching little ideas. Then suddenly your brain starts

ideas. Then suddenly your brain starts to like feel that maybe this is a direction to go in. And that starts to expand and what was once nebulous thought is now like rigorous robust

you know equations and thoughts and then and then you go ah and now I can explain exactly why this doesn't work. Nice funk

move over here start working again. I

that's what I would do. I would do math.

Alex, I would I would do math. [snorts]

Um Nildin says also mine was one to repost.

Yes, but I forgot what I pruned it down to. So what if it that thing I said if

to. So what if it that thing I said if that thing is that what you did say I'll read it. [laughter]

read it. [laughter] Paste away Nildawin. Paste away

or you can paste it long. It's all good.

And then Ashiman, we're going to come to you. Oh yeah, Ashan, we'll do you and

you. Oh yeah, Ashan, we'll do you and then we'll come back to Nildin. My

partner and I had a great discussion recently. And also, dude, Ashan, I

recently. And also, dude, Ashan, I totally whiffed it. Thank you for the five subs. I see you right there. There

five subs. I see you right there. There

you are. Oh my god. Trickonry to 10. And

Zil, by the way, did five. Oh, that was yesterday. Dust wizard and Satan

yesterday. Dust wizard and Satan wilderness. Oh my god. Thank you all.

wilderness. Oh my god. Thank you all.

Holy moly. Sorry. I've been very emphatic about my various answers. Was

not paying attention.

It says, "My partner and I had a great discussion recently. Love your take. I

discussion recently. Love your take. I

think people who avoid trying new things such as food, hobbies, activities, etc. is a red flag if minor. She disagreed.

Do you have a take?

I think it's fine to do nothing new. I

think it's totally fine. I think it's fine. I think it's fine. I don't think

fine. I think it's fine. I don't think it's a red flag. And I The reason I say this

is that I happen like incidentally I am a very ambitious person and I work really hard because I like the work.

I just don't think that I am a better person for being that way. If there's

someone who's like, "Yeah, I work a nineto-ive and when my job's done, I come home and play Candy Crush and watch TV.

I like snacks.

I I walk my dog and that's how I'm going to live my entire life. That's awesome.

I think that's a great life. I don't

think there's anything wrong with that.

I in fact, I really dislike this attitude of like, I'm sorry, are you not hustling? You're not hustling? Let me

hustling? You're not hustling? Let me

tell you something. Let me let me tell you about the supplements I take and I get up at 1:30 in the morning so that way I can crush it by the time the sun set, you know, like screw that. Like I

think it's great to just be like, "Yeah, dude. Took two weeks off. Just kind of

dude. Took two weeks off. Just kind of hung out, re-watched some friends.

There you go." [laughter]

You know, that's that's great. I think

that's totally fine. And I think that a lot of how I view a relationship is that nothing is right or wrong outside of

what those two people agree with. Um, I

literally know a really successful couple that I I don't understand. It

doesn't make any sense to me.

The guy goes to bed at 8 and wakes up at 4.

The girl stays up till 2 or 3 and wakes up close to noon.

So there's this like sliver of time in the middle where they hang out and

they are both thrilled. They're over the moon. That's not enough time in my eyes.

moon. That's not enough time in my eyes.

Like I would want to I'd want to hang out with my partner a little bit more.

Um, you know, I know of partners where where one is a hardcore extrovert going out all the time, the other's a homebody introvert, and it works great. Works

great for them. I know of another couple who literally do everything together.

They go to sleep at the same time. They

work the same job together, like in the same department, they're around each other. They come home, they hang out all

other. They come home, they hang out all the time, they spend all their weekends just hanging out together, and it works for them. I don't think there's anything

for them. I don't think there's anything wrong with any of these. It would be bad if, say in that last example, one person wanted to hang out all the time, the other person wanted to hang out half the

time, and the rest of the time they wanted to be alone. There's nothing

wrong with either of those individually, but that would be frictive in that specific relationship.

So, I think it's totally fine. I think

it's completely totally fine. Now,

if I met someone who was like, "I don't want to do anything new." I'd be like, "All right, well, if I don't like you today, we're good. I need no more

information. I know what to do." And

information. I know what to do." And

it's to not hang out with you.

[laughter] You know, in a lot of ways, I I I am more on the side of doesn't do new things. Is that true?

things. Is that true?

There's a lot of habits that I really, really, really, really enjoy. Ashaman

says, "I meant in regards to food and stuff." Oh, I love new food. Oh, is

stuff." Oh, I love new food. Oh, is

there a new restaurant? I'm sorry. New

restaurant. Do you want to go to new restaurant? Let's go to new restaurant

restaurant? Let's go to new restaurant and order new food. No, it needs to be new restaurant. Oh, yeah. I love me some

new restaurant. Oh, yeah. I love me some new restaurant stuff.

I mean, it's kind of funny because I ate the same lunch probably 250 days, 300 days out of 365

this year. Same lunch

this year. Same lunch was chicken with brown rice and spinach.

Every lunch for the whole year and I love it. So good. I've done one

love it. So good. I've done one adjustment mid year, which is I started putting cayenne pepper on the brown rice and the chicken. Whoa. That's it. I love

it. It's so good. If someone's like, "Shan, do you want to try something new for lunch?" I would go, "No." And I'd

for lunch?" I would go, "No." And I'd put a thumbs up and I'd get back to work. Craig Loney says, "That sounds

work. Craig Loney says, "That sounds like a guy who's hitting the gym."

That's right, man. I I try to get 400 grams of protein an hour.

[laughter] Nin. Look, I'm coming back to your

Nin. Look, I'm coming back to your question. I did it. Oh my god. Says,

question. I did it. Oh my god. Says,

"What was it like for you the first time you had a situation where there was no context, i.e. at a terminal convention

context, i.e. at a terminal convention and people you didn't know at all just came up to you knowing like very personal stuff you said in an offhand remark on stream at some point my brain wouldn't know what to do other than to

be polite and look for exits. [laughter]

So, at first it was really weird. Like,

I would describe the the like I enjoyed doing this. Like right now, I'm alone in

doing this. Like right now, I'm alone in a room outside of sheriff who's she's gone. We're safe. But I'm alone in

she's gone. We're safe. But I'm alone in a room. I'm yelling at a webcam. I'm

a room. I'm yelling at a webcam. I'm

effusive and energetic by myself in a basement. Like

basement. Like I enjoyed doing that. And then all of a sudden someone would want to come up to me and talk about stuff and would bring up stuff I said on air. And then I'd start to feel like really embarrassed.

Be like, "Oh my god, did I say that? Oh

my god, what if I was making a fool of myself? Oh gosh." And I would describe

myself? Oh gosh." And I would describe that it was the emotional equivalent of if you had to do public speaking while pooping.

Just just think about that for a moment.

like really think because I think that actually captures exactly how I felt where I was like um I am so self-conscious right now but I have to

keep talking it's apparently I'm a public speaker now um how do I just stop existing is there is is there a button I

can press to just die that would help me a lot so [laughter] extreme Here's a guilty pleasure for you.

[laughter] That's very [laughter] [laughter] I like doing public speaking while pooping when I don't know who's

watching. Oh my god, that's so funny.

watching. Oh my god, that's so funny.

[laughter] Oh [ __ ] that's hilarious. Okay. All

right. I'm pulling it together. I'm

pulling it together. I'm pulling it together. Um.

together. Um.

Oh god, I have so much cat hair on my nose. It kind of sticks to my face when

nose. It kind of sticks to my face when she comes up and rubs against me.

What was the question? Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. I remember. I remember. Um,

but I think that what was helpful for me is starting to realize that really people are coming up and talking to me about

something that we connect with or some some thing that we connect upon and you know cuz for me just socially whenever I meet someone I wanted to find a way to connect to them. That's the first thing

I want to do. So I typically ask people what do you do for fun? Like if you had a free weekend where you were by yourself and you weren't going to see anyone else, like how would you how would you fill your time?

And then whatever they say, I try to find ways to relate to them so I can connect to them. Otherwise, I just I don't know. I feel I would feel

don't know. I feel I would feel uncomfortable when I was younger, unless I felt like I was actually having a conversation with a person.

So, what I started to realize is that if people are coming up to me, bringing up something that I said during a game that

I played, I now had the most obvious and clear way to connect like immediately like, "Oh my god, Sean, I can't believe that you're still not taking notes in Blueprints."

Blueprints." It I immediately go, "Oh, wait. Have you

played Blueprints? Have you been into it?" And if they say yes, I'm like,

it?" And if they say yes, I'm like, okay, wait, were you like a did you take tons of notes like or like what was your what was your first experience like? Or

no, I haven't played it. Oh, is

blueprints like not your sort of game?

Then wait a minute, why are you watching blueprints? And it's just like the

blueprints? And it's just like the easiest, nicest way to connect to someone. So, what used to feel like very

someone. So, what used to feel like very intimidating to me, I now actually kind of feel like it is it's comforting now because no one really comes up to me and

is like, "Hey, are you Day Nine? What's

your Starcraft stuff?" I'm like, "Oh, you play Starcraft." And they're just like, "I'm not telling you anything about myself. You're a piece of [ __ ]

about myself. You're a piece of [ __ ] Day Nine." [laughter]

Day Nine." [laughter] No one really does that. Um, if they're coming up to say hi, we're already on friendly friendly footing. So, kind of in a weird way,

what's the right term for it? So, let's

let's say that there's like an acquaintance and then there's like a friend. If

someone comes up to me, I actually consider them like somewhere in between acquaintance and friend. Like, if you're talking to me cuz you watch my stuff, I already know that you at least like one

of Starcraft or Magic or Hearthstone or Blueprints or Elder Ring. I just know that at the very least we can be better than acquaintances. You

know, Edubs [laughter] says, "I just came over to say [ __ ] you." That has happened.

That that absolutely has happened. Uh

which is weird. Which is weird because like the first time it's horrifying because you know I remember I said that I was going to a place called Tenno Sushi in downtown LA after a show and

someone just showed up to just be shitty to me. You're so fake. Day nine. [ __ ]

to me. You're so fake. Day nine. [ __ ] you. You fake piece of [ __ ] And said a

you. You fake piece of [ __ ] And said a bunch of things that I won't repeat. And

I was just like I just want Philadelphia rolls. Like like my brain starts

rolls. Like like my brain starts malfunctioning. I'm like oh if he goes

malfunctioning. I'm like oh if he goes away I get to eat Philadelphia rolls.

[laughter] Um but like you know later times when that's happened I also it it doesn't hurt me as much in my feelings. Um

yeah cuz like you know I don't know I just I feel more comfortable with that.

Disney Future says how do you imagine your streaming audience? one

conglomerate person, lots of diverse people, a vague concept. Yeah, I I imagine that you are just like Tetssuo during his transformation at the end of Akira. I view you all as one big rat

Akira. I view you all as one big rat king of human beings, like the huddle from the game Inside. That's how I see you sincerely from the bottom of my

heart. Um, [laughter]

heart. Um, [laughter] I I view you as one of the many states of The Thing from the movie, The Thing with arms growing out of you and [ __ ] That's how I see you every time I'm

here, and I'm grateful for your support.

Um, I think more accurately, I I kind of view it like you're, you know, I don't know, I each see you all individually as people. I'm

just chatting with people that I hang out with, you know, again, it's somewhere between acquaintance and friend. It's like somewhere in the

friend. It's like somewhere in the middle there, you know, where I don't literally know you, but like new sunshine, you've been here forever. I

recognize you. I uh am familiar with things you talk about and things you don't talk about. You know, I I I make jokes about Pinfeldorf always coming in

or Aaron 2A poking fun at me. I know

their personalities. I know Ghosty's uh incredibly clever humor uh coming in.

You know, I know Albatross at times enthusiasm like I don't know. It's just,

you know, you just I just I just know.

Yeah, I know. Amoral zombie with her ghosting. You know, Ethan says I feel

ghosting. You know, Ethan says I feel very uncomfortably seen right now. You

might be pooping. Careful. Watch

yourself. Huh? Um

the I don't know like because in a way if I'm streaming say let's say I'm a I'm back to my old schedule where I'm streaming about 30 hours a week. Um

I'm spending 30 hours a week with y'all.

You know just I see a lot of you.

Yamas says it's a gamer thing. We gamers

are used to usernames being people.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's the same way as like old Starcraft buddies that we play with and neither of us speak a common language. Like maybe they speak Russian,

language. Like maybe they speak Russian, I speak English, but we're playing this game together and I get a strong sense of their personality and who they are.

Fiona, good to see you. Fiona the T-Rex says Sean, when you compare good games that held up from our early years to games that were great but have not aged well, what sorts of things do you think helped those in the former category

stand out? Wow, that's a hell of a

stand out? Wow, that's a hell of a question.

I'm trying to because like okay, my brain has tons of games that were good at the time and are still good today.

What's a game that was great at the time but is like I I'm actually struggling because a lot of games that were great and then we're like it's like they don't even enter into my brain.

I want to see some like top 10 lists from like 1999 or some [ __ ] Diablo II is just great. Yeah,

Tomb Raider.

Tomb Raider is an interesting one. OR

GOLDEN EYE. OH, Golden Eye. Man, I don't even know if that game is good. Brit and

I bought Golden Eye on the Switch and we like we like couldn't figure out how to move. We like we just just kept turning

move. We like we just just kept turning left and right. We like couldn't make the character go forward.

Yeah. But okay. Every game on the N64 is awful except for Super Mario and Banjo Kazouie. All the rest of them are

Kazouie. All the rest of them are irredeemable garbage. So maybe it's the

irredeemable garbage. So maybe it's the controls. Maybe it's the controls.

controls. Maybe it's the controls.

Ocarine of Time. Yep. Totally not a good game. doesn't hold up because I have to

game. doesn't hold up because I have to maintain my prior statement.

Uh Starcraft 64. Actually, that one was pretty good. That one still holds up. Um

pretty good. That one still holds up. Um

[laughter] Super Smash Super Smash Brothers on the N64.

Got to go to the Gamecube to get a good one. Uh let's see what else here.

one. Uh let's see what else here.

So, I think a common theme that I'm seeing in my brain is uh controls. I

think like controls are probably the biggest thing that when you go back to those games, you're just like it's a nightmare to do anything. And I think that a lot of games that were in that

like 95 to 2005 window, this is when like 3D was like becoming a thing. And

so no one really knew about the general control schema. Like I guess I took my

control schema. Like I guess I took my controller out of here. You know, you have the dual thumb sticks on modern controllers.

That wasn't there until like the PS2 or until the uh Xbox One.

Did Xbox One have dual thumb sticks on it? I want to say it did. But I mean

it? I want to say it did. But I mean like a lot of those early consoles were just I mean it's like saying, "Hey, I

invented a new kind of third person game or a third dimension game and all you have is a mouse." How do you have

movement and aiming and any other buttons when you have a left mouse and a right mouse and that's it?

Um, yeah, all of those were terrible. Like I

remember there was a game, I can't remember what it was called. Every time

I bring it up, someone remembers it, which is that the way that you would move is you'd have your mouse I don't need to hold the mouse. To move forward, you would move your mouse forward and to go back, you move your mouse back. And

same with left and right. So if you wanted to run, you would like do this with your mouse.

OH MY GOD, IT WAS SO AWESOME, DUDE. OH,

it was crazy. And then you had to hold a button and move it to like turn. So

you'd like turn fast by holding the button.

Yeah, all of those all those games were terrible.

They really didn't hold up.

Rolex says, "That sounds incredible." It

kind of does. It kind of does. It has a nice quapy feel to it. Has a nice quapy feel if you ask me.

Um, all right.

All right, Fiona. I don't actually think I have a good answer, but I think I'm going to answer the opposite of what you asked, which is um, hey, those old

games that still hold up, what makes them really good? I think the one thing that I come to again and again and again and again is resonance

where every single thing in the game pointed in the same direction. So like

and and what's a good example of one that's sort of the opposite of this?

I don't even need to name a specific title, but I feel like we've all played some AAA game that's like, "Oh, we have a simple crafting system where you can

make stuff. Oh, and you have a base that

make stuff. Oh, and you have a base that you can build things at and you can decorate. And here's a light RPG system

decorate. And here's a light RPG system where you can level things up. And

there's crafting materials to upgrade your weapons. And there's a quest log

your weapons. And there's a quest log that and and like the game I'm describing, I don't even have a specific one in my head, but it feels like a Oh, yep. We have that. Yep, we have that.

yep. We have that. Yep, we have that.

Yep, we have that. Oh, what do you mean?

Oh, I can I I can play it with my friends and it has a friends list. Cool.

Got it. And there's cosmetics that I can unlock over time. Just check check.

And whenever there's a game that just picks it small set of things and pushes hard in that one direction, everything is resonating in this same direction.

It just it it takes whatever feeling it's trying to elicit and it just makes it strong and makes it loud. And I think a good modern example of this is Dark Souls, where Dark Souls, I would say, is

a game about triumph. It is a game that is trying to put [ __ ] in your way that you need to overcome to get a sense of triumph. So,

the enemies themselves are hard. When

you die, they all respawn. When you die, you lose all the souls that you had.

There's no map, so you got to memorize things. It's not clear where you need to

things. It's not clear where you need to go. The game doesn't tell you. So, you

go. The game doesn't tell you. So, you

have to figure it out. It's all just putting more burdens on you. If Dark

Souls, imagine that if in Dark Souls, we just changed a few of those things. When

enemies died, they stayed dead forever and there was an arrow on the ground telling you where the next objective was.

Intuitively, you'd go, "Ah, that would make it feel worse. That would make you feel ah that's just that that's wrong for the game. I don't like that."

Whereas, you know, if I if I think about something like a Skyrim where it's telling me where my quests are and it's giving me lots of clear direction and the quest log has all the information

organized.

That actually feels fine in that game because that game to me feels so much like an exploratory like experiential game. Like yes, no, here's the objective you can go to, but you should go wherever you want. Just

have a blast. There's nothing wrong that you can do. It's all about the joy of exploring this world.

Um, and so when I think about old games, what are games that really stand out to me and really feel like they're nailing it all these years later? I'll pick some

of my favorites. Fallout 1 and two.

Everything in that game pushes in the direction of post-apocalypse. Like

everything. the the UI are these like retrofuturistic buttons that like have this to them when you're doing your character creation.

Whenever you you you can pick up to two perks and the perks give you a huge positive and a huge negative. There's no

perk that just gives you a positive. So,

you have to just choose these like weird like, you know, I don't know, like these weird crazy downsides. All the resources are super

downsides. All the resources are super scarce, so you have to do lots of scavenging and scrging and careful management of stuff. All the settings and the problems are very post-apocalyptic.

It's great. Everything is pointed in that direction.

Um, even you know, the sort of quests that you're supposed to go on and where you go, there's some light guidance, but it is as much guidance as would be possible in the post-apocalypse.

It's cool.

or or or Link to the Past, I love, which is just a great sense of adventure and exploration. So, there's tons of

exploration. So, there's tons of guidance and secrets, and then you learn that there's the dark world, which is a clone of the light world, which makes you give another reopening of adventure and possibility.

Mega Man 2, tight controls, tight gameplay, amazing action platforming in eight awesome levels culminating in Wigh's Castle. It's awesome. I think

Wigh's Castle. It's awesome. I think

that like that that resonance where where everything's pointing in the same direction. I think another modern one

direction. I think another modern one that I like is uh Path of Exile where it's like we're going to make a game about progression.

They went [ __ ] hard ON PROGRESSION.

OH, I was so far in this direction. Oh,

Fiona, thank you for the gifted five.

Fiona, merry Christmas to you. Merry

Christmas.

So yeah, that's that's my answer to that. Also, Ghosty, I'm going to go to

that. Also, Ghosty, I'm going to go to I'm going to go to the Discord. I'm

going to go back to my phone.

All right, hold on. I'm opening I don't know how to use a phone.

Let me go back to the the old ones.

Let's see here.

Shenaniga shenanigator says, "Uh, what's your favorite Christmas New Year's tradition and what makes it so special to you?"

Oh no.

Um, honestly, I'm kind of working on that.

I'm working on that a little bit. I

think that um something about Christmas is and my birthday is that often gift receiving is makes me feel stressed.

Not always. And I have a lovely set of friends that I've spoken to enough about this for where they kind of get it. Um,

but you know, the big event where where I don't know, it feels like there's too much focus on me, which stresses me out in a weird way. I don't know. Um,

way. I don't know. Um,

yeah, Fiona says, "I remember when I came to chat on my birthday the year before last and only like 20 subs and Sean got mad me because I wasn't supposed to be gifting subs on my own birthday." YEAH, I KNOW. IT'S ABOUT YOU

birthday." YEAH, I KNOW. IT'S ABOUT YOU and if it was my birthday and you gifted subs, I'd be a little stressed, you know. Um,

know. Um, and so I think that like a lot of the the the the Christmas stuff that I was hyped about as a kid, like, oh, I'm going to open presents and I'm going to

get presents. Yeah. Woo. I I I I much

get presents. Yeah. Woo. I I I I much more so like giving presents.

That's great. I think that the weirdly the big thing over Christmas break and during that period of time is really dedicating a

lot of time to like just being alone.

just like really having absolutely no schedule or plan or obligation or anything, which I know is a kind of a weird sounding thing to say, but I'm not

thinking about Christmas Day as much as I am about like the time over winter break getting yeah like some true rest and some really nice

rest. But my wife and I are doing little

rest. But my wife and I are doing little traditions among just the two of us and are building up our little sense of ritual and tradition and those are really nice. But also kind

of keep some of those to my to myself.

There's a little close to my heart. It's

just nice to spend time with your with your partner over break.

That's the best part, dude. And like literally being like,

dude. And like literally being like, "Yo, merry Christmas. Do you want to watch Avatar the Last Air Bender start to finish on the sofa without [ __ ] moving and having everyone BE LIKE, "LET'S [ __ ] GO." LIKE THAT'S THE [ __ ]

right there.

Almighty says, "San, any chance you return to PAX East? Would love to meet you again and show you the day tattoo in person.

When is PAX East?" Because the answer is actually it used to be no, but now it's maybe. But now it's maybe.

maybe. But now it's maybe.

Oh, yeah. I'm remembering other traditions. I like to watch Die Hard.

traditions. I like to watch Die Hard.

[laughter] Love watching Die Hard. It's my favorite Christmas movie. All right. What What

Christmas movie. All right. What What

are some other questions that I'm getting in here? Let's see here.

Stein says, "Can we get a fridge tour?

You don't want to see my fridge because my fridge is either boring or it needs to be cleaned.

All right, I'm I'm scanning through this. Forgive me.

this. Forgive me.

All right, 30 more minutes for my last stream of the year. And dude, sus opening. You're

the year. And dude, sus opening. You're

so sweet. says, "Well, you you say press X to snooze because I asked you to ask this later on and you're doing it."

Says, "What new game, genre, mechanic, or system has come out recently that you are excited to explore.

[snorts] new mechanics that are interesting to me.

I mean, Blueprints has to be the most brilliant assemblage of mechanics that I've never seen anything quite like it,

but it also feels incredibly natural and straightforward and is like the best thing ever. I don't

know. I just think that's an absolute masterpiece. It wasn't just a good game.

masterpiece. It wasn't just a good game.

It was new in every way and it was amazing at it and it was just so good.

Oh my god, that was so killer.

I'm trying to think about a mechanic that's really intrigued me.

I got it. Okay. There is I I think what did Sean Bousard call these? Notebook

adventure games or notebook games.

Hey Moral Zombie, you're literally bringing up one of the games I'm going to bring up. Okay. There is this brilliant game called The Root Trees Are Dead.

And in The Root Trees Are Dead, um, and that was released this year. So good.

Notebook mystery is what it called. Ah,

that's right. Thank you, Tangerine 68.

where in the game you have access to like a '9s internet terminal. So you can like log into the

terminal. So you can like log into the '9s internet and type things in the search queue. And so, you know, if

search queue. And so, you know, if you've played other adventure games, you know, you might have something like there's a lock on the blue door, so you need to find the blue key to put it in there. It's very clear what the tool is,

there. It's very clear what the tool is, what the obstacle is, what you're trying to overcome.

And in root trees are dead, there's no specific mechanic where or I should say specific object that you're trying to find. Instead, what you're trying to do

find. Instead, what you're trying to do is you're trying to find clues about this enormous family known as the root tree family. You're trying to figure out

tree family. You're trying to figure out the names, the occupations, and oh, and and to find a photo of them. And

so the way you do that is you just like read an internet article and you see something and you type in the search query and it loads another article. So

you kind of feel like an actual detective. There's not like uh you know

detective. There's not like uh you know a page with this button in blue, this in blue and this in blue and you just click on them and it goes to the next thing.

Instead, you like actually begin trudging through the information and you're trying to figure out all these clues that can lead to other

things. And then, oh well, I got a

things. And then, oh well, I got a periodical search and there was a magazine that was mentioned in this article. Let me go look up this

article. Let me go look up this periodical and then let me look for this particular keyword in that periodical. And you start just like

periodical. And you start just like tunneling your way through all this information.

And again, your goal is to just fill in a couple blanks. Oh, you wind up, you know, printing off this photo from this album cover. And then you got this

album cover. And then you got this reference to an occupation which made it sound like they were a mechanic. Okay.

So, here there I'm going to put the mechanic. Okay. And it tells me that I

mechanic. Okay. And it tells me that I locked it in. Nice. Also, case of the golden idol did this where in case of the golden idol, you are looking at a large uh scene and you are collecting

words from the scene. Like you see a rake and you click on that and then rake goes to your inventory and then you see like a newspaper talking about like a car accident. So you get the word car,

car accident. So you get the word car, you get the word accident. And to solve the puzzle, there is a sentence with blanks and you have to drag the words that you found into the sentence in

order to describe what's happening. But again,

the idea of describing the scene that you're seeing and the conclusion of what you think happened in the mystery, it's happening in your brain. You're actually

needing to be a detective. And I just freaking love this style of game. I

think it's amazing. I almost feel like the recently released Seance of Blake Manor kind of falls into this category a little bit.

Oh my god, this my nose has been itching this entire time because I can feel these little bits of cat hair that just keep tickling my nose.

Yeah. And I I I really really love these notebook mystery style games because I adored playing old point-and-click adventure games as a kid. But the problem that I had with old

kid. But the problem that I had with old point-and-click adventure games is that you kind of had to apply insane logic to solve things. This was called moon logic

solve things. This was called moon logic at the time.

Um, and there were a limited amount of items in your inventory that you were trying to pair with a limited amount of things in the world. And if you got the right pairing, that would unlock it. Oh,

you had to use the sandwich on the locked door. And your character would

locked door. And your character would remove the toothpick from the sandwich, take the mayonnaise and smear it on the toothpick and shove it in to the keyhole to knock a key out from the other side and the cheese from the sandwich would

catch it. You'd pull it under and you'd

catch it. You'd pull it under and you'd be like, I'm sorry. What? Why was How was I supposed to think of that? I don't

know. I just tried and mixed and matched till it worked. And I I I I love the feeling of it being well done, but I hated when it was poorly done. And what

I think is so interesting about these kinds of games I'm describing like Case of the Golden Idol, Seance of Blake Manor, Rue Trees Are Dead, is that

so much of the game is happening in your brain with deductive reasoning. It's not

you have four objects and three doors.

Figure out which object to use on which door, which just kind of starts to feel a little bit like brute forcing. They're

like unbrforable.

um I shouldn't say un brute forceable, but but they but they feel like you're discovering it. You're figuring it out.

discovering it. You're figuring it out.

And the way that these games are structured, there's often like 12 different clues that could lead you to that conclusion, which means that the longer you play, you eventually just uh

uncover the clues and you get there. But

every time it feels like you figured out the clue and you made the connection, which is just awesome.

So that's that's my favorite recent mechanic that I've seen in more than one game because blueprints I felt like didn't count because in blueprints it's like oh I like games that are blueprints.

Oh my pleasure sus opening. It's what

it's why I do these.

It's why I do these.

So these have been some wonderful and earnest questions. Does anyone have any

earnest questions. Does anyone have any stupid questions they've been wanting to ask?

Ethernet says, "Before I forget, I just wanted to say thank you. I know you've been busy with the game studio. I really

appreciate you still streaming most days of the week. It's been a tough year and your streams on YouTube has been my go-to comfort watch." Really happy to hear Ethernet. I'm really really happy

hear Ethernet. I'm really really happy to hear that because honestly, like I really cherish streaming. Like I don't think that I will ever not want to stream because I just think it's such a

wonderful way to just do like focused bonding about things that I really love and that I really enjoy.

Oh, Ed says, "Can you think of any prequels that are better than the original?

Certainly the first Star Wars movie.

Phantom Menace is so much better than Star Wars 456. Jar Jar Binks is my guy.

[ __ ] love Jar Jar, man. I can't make out a word that [ __ ] guy's saying, but his ears are like doing this [ __ ] and I'm I'm laughing because I love comic relief. Oh, it's so good. And they

comic relief. Oh, it's so good. And they

did pod racing. I played a video game that was about pod racing. I love movies that are about video games. Has there

ever been a prequel that's better than the original ever?

I can't even think like I I I don't even know what what are pre because anytime a prequel is announced, I'm I just go, "Oh, well, I'm not watching it. You need

to give me something new.

Give me a new thing, please. We're going

to make a sequel to the prequel, which is going to We're going to call it a recquel. Like, dude, no. I'm just No.

recquel. Like, dude, no. I'm just No.

I'm out.

Uh, so for um Star Wars, I have watched, four, and five. I haven't seen six.

Uh, I've not seen anything beyond six at all. I haven't even seen like footage

all. I haven't even seen like footage from it. I saw Phantom of Menace when I

from it. I saw Phantom of Menace when I was a kid. I don't remember anything about it. I'm pretty sure I saw Return

about it. I'm pretty sure I saw Return of the Jedi when I was a kid. Don't

remember anything about it. I didn't

watch the second Star Wars. I watched

the third one in theaters and I thought that was pretty tight.

There it is. Better Call Saul was good, but I didn't finish Breaking Bad because I also didn't finish Better Call Saul because this is just a bunch of people that are having that are suffering and I'm I I just I'm not into that.

Spaniard. Uh, I have no nothing to announce at this time regarding merch because we had a vendor and that vendor I think either shut down or went bankrupt or just went, "We don't want to

sell your [ __ ] anymore." It was one of those things. [laughter]

those things. [laughter] Greater Tamarak. Oh, now this is a dumb

Greater Tamarak. Oh, now this is a dumb question. I'm like [ __ ] ready to go

question. I'm like [ __ ] ready to go into that [ __ ] By the way, feel free to ask non-dumb questions. There's been a lot of really reasonable ones that have been getting asked as well. What is a snack that is a guilty pleasure that

often accidentally ends up in your grocery cart? Baby, it's Cheetos.

grocery cart? Baby, it's Cheetos.

OH, I LOVE CHEETOS.

Oh my god, they get Yeah, Fracture Falcon, I'm going to come to your question next. Um, oh, my fingers get

question next. Um, oh, my fingers get all orange and I lick my fingers and and then I put my fingers back in the bag, which now means you're gonna get even more orange stuff.

And crunchier puffs, crunchy all the way.

Puffs are a garbage food. Now, I know that this is in the umbrella of garbage food, but this is the subcategory of garbage. Garbage food. I don't need that

garbage. Garbage food. I don't need that puffing. Like, what? You know what? Why

puffing. Like, what? You know what? Why

don't I just spray cheese into my mouth while inhaling? Why not do that? Huh?

while inhaling? Why not do that? Huh?

It's the crunchy that are so good. Yeah,

that Oh, that extra spicy nacho cheesy Cheetos. D, I love that [ __ ] Anytime I

Cheetos. D, I love that [ __ ] Anytime I I buy a bag of Cheetos, I just I sit down and I eat the whole bag. I I I never intend to eat the whole bag. I'm

just telling you as a piece of observable data that I eat the whole bag and the way I feel afterwards is is awful. I feel awful for about 48 hours.

awful. I feel awful for about 48 hours.

Like I'm lying in bed and like my lips are cracking because there's too much salt.

I'm like [clears throat] coughing. I'm

trying to sleep, but I'm like so thirsty. And I get up and I like drink a

thirsty. And I get up and I like drink a lot of water and I lie back down. I my

thirst hasn't changed at all. I'm just

so thirsty. So then I like keep drinking more water. I need the thirst to go

more water. I need the thirst to go away. I'm so tired. Just let me sleep.

away. I'm so tired. Just let me sleep.

But I can't because my body is nothing but salt and the color orange. And then

at some point I wake up and I'm like, "Oh god, how long have I been asleep? Oh

god, I drank too much water. I feel

sick." And I take my phone, I look and I've been asleep for 21 minutes. And I'm

like, "Oh, I should have had that whole [ __ ] bag of Cheetos." And I put it and it's just a long night of fever dreams, suffering. And every time I

dreams, suffering. And every time I burp, it tastes like Cheetos again. And

my brain goes, "It's actually okay. That

tastes kind of nice." And about 4 seconds later, I'm like, "Oh, wait. No,

it does. I feel horrible." And then what happens is I wake up the next day and my wife says, "How'd you sleep?" And I was like, "Oh, it was horrible. I shouldn't

have had those Cheetos. I'm never buying Cheetos again."

Cheetos again." So yeah, I wind up buying a lot of Cheetos. [laughter]

Cheetos. [laughter] A lot of Cheetos in my life. I don't eat that often, but might I might go through like six bags a year. Six bags a year. I

think that might be like my my Cheetos quota. If I have a really bad day. If I

quota. If I have a really bad day. If I

have like a really bad day and it's like a Friday, I'm going to have that Cheeto bag baby.

That's what I'm talking about.

[laughter] How long that statement lasts? It often

lasts for up to a few weeks.

What was a question for? OH MY GOD, BLUE SPARKS. OH MY GOD, BLUE SPARKS, I

SPARKS. OH MY GOD, BLUE SPARKS, I finally gifted 10. Thank you, Blue Sparks. My god, I was in such an

Sparks. My god, I was in such an impassioned description of my Cheeto mania that I didn't even see that. Oh,

thank you. Are you a fellow Cheetos enjoyer?

Fresh says, "Don, have you heard about the recent upsurge in unionization of the game industry? What do you think about the potential of collective action to transform the game industry?" So I I

I actually wanted to ask has there been an uptick and when I say this like I see articles written but there's a big difference between an

article being written about this with like a headline about a thing and then like is it actually meaningfully happening? So that's one question I'm

happening? So that's one question I'm going to set over here. Um because yeah several Microsoft studios are unionized now. So I observe that several Microsoft

now. So I observe that several Microsoft studios are unionized. Sure, that's like one thing. But like is that actually an

one thing. But like is that actually an overall trend in the industry?

I mean again I I do see it. And and this is just me saying I don't know the data.

I really don't because like as an example, if there had been a bunch of pre-existing unions that were like slowly dissolving and not doing well and then

these Microsoft studios unionized is that like overall the trend line is down but there's a recent surge like I I I don't know. I don't know. Like this is

don't know. I don't know. Like this is but yes from zero to existent has there really not been? I don't know. Okay. So,

so first of all, part one of my answer fracture falcon is I this is an area that I just don't know that much about.

Um, as in like I have not tracked these kinds of trends and I think that like one of the things that

I think is observably true is that there there do exist really successful studios that make a lot of money.

And I I believe it's completely reasonable for the employees of that studio to go, "Hey, I should get some of that."

Games are very projectbased, you know, like there do exist some games like World of Warcraft or League of Legends that have been around for a

really long time. and those studios, you know, it it can be much like a job where I work at Blizzard and I do this on WoW

and I have for 10 years. But I think that more often there is a studio that forms that um

releases a title, it does well, they make a second title, it doesn't do well, and it shuts down.

And I think that that's that's quite tricky. That's like a very tricky space.

tricky. That's like a very tricky space.

I know that the film industry functions with a lot of unions, like a lot lot lot lot.

But I also know that a lot of the the it's weird. I know more about unions and

it's weird. I know more about unions and film than I do with respect to games because you know with with film stuff having worked as talent

um on some you know traditional projects and done a small amount of like production work you know for like live event stuff there it's very easy for the

creators to just be and this is maybe a slightly over the top word but to be literally abusive and exploitation ative to their workers.

Really simple example. I show up to a set. They say, "Sean, your call time's

set. They say, "Sean, your call time's at 9 and we're going to be filming from 9 to 6. So, we're going to do 9 to noon.

There's going to be a lunch break and then 1 to 6." I This has happened to me before where I get to a shoot and they're late, so we don't start until 11

or 12. And then it's taking longer. So,

or 12. And then it's taking longer. So,

suddenly it's 900 p.m. and I've been there for 12 hours and they're like, "All right, it looks like we're just going to need to plow through, you know,

uh, looks like we're going to need to go till 1 or two in the morning because this is the only day we have to get this shot." And I mean, this has happened to

shot." And I mean, this has happened to me where I I kind of feel stuck where I'm like, "All right, well, I guess I just have to sacrifice my literal physical health and just work till 2 in

the morning being super high energy."

Like imagine the energy level that I have had for the last two hours and 45 minutes. Imagine it twice that with no

minutes. Imagine it twice that with no breaks. You're just constantly high

breaks. You're just constantly high energy. Need to be on. Need to be on.

energy. Need to be on. Need to be on.

Need to be on. It's exhausting. And then

I go to bed at 2 a.m. They're like,

"Sean, I'm so sorry, but call time is 9:00 a.m. tomorrow. And don't worry,

9:00 a.m. tomorrow. And don't worry, we'll be done at 6 for sure." And the same thing happens the second day in a row. I've literally done events that

row. I've literally done events that were just it was horrible. I mean, like I I don't even know how I didn't just like [ __ ] pass out. I would blow out

my voice. I would ruin my next week or

my voice. I would ruin my next week or two just recovering. Um,

and so, you know, I know that for films, a lot of what unions do is make sure that this shortterm thing actually has

enough thoughtful consideration so that people can be human beings. like that

that that actually makes sense to me.

Especially when oh, we're going to do a shoot for this thing. It's going to be two weeks in this location. Like it's an actual it's a it's a it's an actually knowable small thing. It's an actually

knowable small enough to wrap your head around thing. And I think that what's

around thing. And I think that what's awesome too is that a lot of what my experience has been with film is that

no one on set's [ __ ] lazy, man.

Like everyone on set shows up and they're there and they're hammering through and they're working and they're going hard because dude this talent day and night he

literally after 12 hours he has to be sent home and if he doesn't then the entire shoot gets shut down or like this crew can only be on for 12 hours. That's

all that they've agreed to and the only way they're allowed to work for 12 hours is if they get lunch and dinner catered there. it. It's the only way that it can

there. it. It's the only way that it can even happen. So, people are like on

even happen. So, people are like on point and organized. I think there's a lot of benefit to this idea of like, look, if you're treating us properly, we'll work our asses off. It's just that

with the the nature of games, it's weird because it's not short like a film shoot, but it's also not like, oh, I'm a machinist and this is just my

profession for the next 25 years.

So like uh Frightar I'm curious what you mean by I mean it's fine people should be paid for the contracted time slashamount schedule.

Yeah. The and here the thing that I have firsthand encountered is you can get a contract signed that says Sean will only be on set from 9 to 6

and then the very second you get there you realize it's not going to end at six. What do you do?

six. What do you do?

Is a very real situation and you could say [ __ ] you. I'm out.

And I have done that at times, but guess what? All the time that I set aside for

what? All the time that I set aside for this thing, it's now not going to happen.

And getting paid for a thing is one thing, but there's also like, oh, if I don't literally kill myself, the work that I'm putting into this, nothing will come out

of it. And as much as people love to

of it. And as much as people love to say, don't pay me an exposure. Well,

if I'm committing my time to something, the exposure that I get from it is something that I care about.

JF, it sounds like some cost fallacy.

Honestly, it's not a fallacy though because here's an example. suppose that

cuz in in this line of work with streaming, this is where I'm de deviating from games and just talking more about traditional film shoots or event work or something like this.

Suppose that I have spent two weeks of time away from this stream to do um work on a project that we that was going

south.

If I push, these are options. I'm not

just going to describe options. Option A

is I say I'm walking and the event just doesn't happen. So nothing occurs.

doesn't happen. So nothing occurs.

Therefore, I get no money. There was no product that came out the other side and that's it.

Or I could push really hard and it might something will come out the other side and I'll get paid. And that thing that comes out the other side is something that other people can wind up seeing

that gives me a potential future chance to also get hired.

And so like that that is that's that's a difficult choice to be in especially like early on in my career where if I

wasn't working consistently I I wouldn't be able to pay rent. Um,

and so this is, you know, again, I think one of the values of, at least in films, how some of the unions function where once you once everything's signed,

everyone knows that if you're going to work that work is going to happen and it's going to it's going to actually function.

But yeah, I I think that what's weird to me, Fracture Falcon, is that in games, it's that it's the it's the project nature of like the studio has one project coming out and it's come out and

it's h it's not really doing very well.

The company isn't going to sink. Company

isn't blowing up. It's somewhere in the middle and then in the next project comes out and it's not good enough and they shut down. Boom. Done.

Uh it's, you know, once that's done, that's done.

And so I don't know. I don't know. I

I've said a whole lot to say I'm not sure, but I think it is interesting. I

think it is very interesting.

But I think like fundamentally, if a game is killing it and and these people helped make the game great, doesn't it make sense to pay these great people who

did great things and let them share in the success? Doesn't that make sense? I

the success? Doesn't that make sense? I

think that makes sense.

Or you can say, "We did a great job, you amazing people. You're all fired." All

amazing people. You're all fired." All

right. I'm sure more people will want to come work for me now. [laughter]

Oh my god.

Sor Knox day spent years providing me with entertainment and life advice. And

I just want to say thank you. I love

when you have an analytical take on things when answering others. I also

apply my own life. My question to you, was there a time uh where you noticed significant growth like a oh look how far I've come moment one

and it's the weirdest feeling is the weirdest feeling ever in so many ways. I

feel the same emotional loops coming up again and again and again and again. If

I was working really really really hard on a strategy in Starcraft and then it started to work. Yeah, that

joy is extremely similar to working super hard on a on a very large scale project. Like the stakes are way

project. Like the stakes are way different, but the feeling's the same, right? But here is the weird thing

right? But here is the weird thing that's hit me, which is

there are events that have occurred that I know younger Shawn would lose his mind and be so wrought out and have a

meltdown.

Or I would hold it together to get through the tough situation and then have a meltdown.

And my god, last six, seven years, there's been a number of times where something awful and stressful happened and I

I wasn't melting down.

I was okay. I wasn't happy.

I felt sadness, but I also felt like I I was holding it together.

And I don't know, in a weird way, it it it was kind of like in the horror movies where like the high strings are going like and and you're like, "Oh god, when's the monster going to pop out? When's the

monster going to pop out? Oh god." And

then it just like doesn't and then it's like 20 minutes have gone by and you're like, "I don't think there's a monster."

But I've watched a lot of horror movies and I feel like the bad thing's supposed to happen. Like dude, that's that's

to happen. Like dude, that's that's insane.

Oh my god.

Um, yeah. So, I don't know. I I I I I am

yeah. So, I don't know. I I I I I am pleased to have been more emotionally robust. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

robust. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Exagens says, "Haha, you're good." I'm

sure he's danced his way around more contentious topics. I don't know. I I

contentious topics. I don't know. I I

don't I don't ever really feel a need to dance around [ __ ] And I I I just don't think that's that contentious of a topic

either. Um, I'm happy to address

either. Um, I'm happy to address generally contentious topics at times. I

I guess I I should caveat this. I we

tend to have a no major current events talk in this chat and sometimes that's political or world events. Other times,

like when there was the Johnny Depp Amber Heard trial and people were coming and talking about I was like just this is a place where we want to kind of get away from all that stuff in the world. But

like you know if there's a particularly stressful topic or difficult topic I mean we more than happy to talk about that. I don't have any concern or issue

that. I don't have any concern or issue about these sorts of things. I think

frankly for instance with with fracture falcon the concern I have is I just don't have enough expertise or conclusions on the subject matter to

necessarily give a complete and robust satisfying final answer you know but also also there's a lot of things in life that don't have nice clean neat

satisfying answers and I'm very comfortable holding that ambiguous space in a lot of ways I'm the source of Sean legitimately changed the course of my life. Oh, Danny

sore. Just feeling seen as a young nerd and slight nudges towards being a better person added a lot of really small moments and ideas that I do really think significantly contributed to what I consider an awesome life. Really

formative nerd for me in the early years. No question. Oh. Oh.

years. No question. Oh. Oh.

To you, Danny Sore. It's been wonderful to see you over so many years. is a

familiar face again and again and again and again.

H Danny Sore, cheers to you. Hope you

have an awesome holiday and I want to see you again in the future and just keep me posted on how life's going.

Danny Sore, I want to know, man.

Dude, this Kongzy kid says, "As your career has grown and changed, I remember when your identity was intertwined with Starcraft, how would you describe your current identity?"

current identity?" That was a really hard thing for me to go through. Um to try to

go through. Um to try to understand who I was cuz I mean like for me Starcraft was more than satisfying escape. It was like something that was

escape. It was like something that was baked into my identity because I was good at this thing. It made me feel like I had worth as a human being. when I

would go on losing streaks, it would therefore make me feel like I didn't have worth as a human being. And I

really enjoyed doing the commentary and doing hosting and doing the day and night. It's like I really enjoyed those,

night. It's like I really enjoyed those, but when I wanted to do other things, this is going to sound way overdramatic.

Um, but like I don't know. It just it it it felt like saying goodbye to a loved one or like a pet. Like goodbye forever,

pet. Like goodbye forever, you know? And it's like, well, Sean, you

you know? And it's like, well, Sean, you don't have to make that decision. You

don't have to say goodbye forever, but like I don't know. That's that's like how it emotionally felt. And in a weird way, when I started doing like non-S Starcraft streams or focusing on

development of games rather than streaming of games, I felt like I was betraying myself, which is such a weird thing to say, but

I mean, I was so wrapped up in or my identity was so tied to that um

that a major topic of therapy for me for years was getting a trying to understand what having a sense of grounding is

like grounding in myself, not oh, I'm going to attach myself to that thing over there and if that thing is going well, then I'm okay. But if that thing's going poorly, I'm not okay. Like, how do

I have me be okay?

And then if this thing goes great, amazing. And if it goes poorly, that's

amazing. And if it goes poorly, that's okay. I'm okay.

okay. I'm okay.

And it and I'm a lot more just even as a person. I used to be

Oh, it's 7:02. My alarm went off to do the cat litter after the show.

Um, I don't really think of myself as, oh, I I was a Starcraft player and now I'm a game developer, you know, or or like this to that. I like the

I used to define myself in terms of the external things and now I sort of define myself more internally.

More of things like I'm proud of my discipline. I like the fact that I'm a

discipline. I like the fact that I'm a disciplined person who just says, "All right, I'm not working out regularly and I stay up late. Time to get up at 6:00 a.m. and just make myself [ __ ] do

a.m. and just make myself [ __ ] do this." I like that. I like that feeling

this." I like that. I like that feeling when there is a problem that someone says, "Oh, Sean, I'm a little worried that maybe you're biting off more you can more than you can chew." And I go, "Oh,

oh, I bet you think I can't get that [ __ ] done." And trying to push and get through that. And I'm describing those

through that. And I'm describing those in the context of like me doing a thing.

And that's about my satisfaction that I get out of that.

And it can be about things that don't matter, like, "Oh, Sean, you have a meeting to get to in 10 minutes. There's no way you have time to do the dishes." I'm like,

"Oh, you think I can't get the dishes done?" I like do the dishes AND I'M

done?" I like do the dishes AND I'M LIKE, "WOO, LET'S GO." And I get a huge sense of joy out of that. And I've tried to work really hard to consciously go, I

am enjoying this process that is about me and myself versus that external thing. There are external things that

thing. There are external things that bring me joy all the time. I'm about to hang out with Britt. She is outside of me. It's going to be [ __ ] amazing.

me. It's going to be [ __ ] amazing.

Um, but like you know, I'm not in a situation where it's like if Brit doesn't want to hang out tonight, I'm not okay. Or if I was back in Starcraft days where if it was a Friday

night and I started a ladder session, was losing, well, I'd go to bed and not be okay.

This is Oh my god. Plain Tim, we are going to end on this note about pairs. We are

going to end on this note about pairs.

This is so good. This is so good. We're

going to end on this.

Just plain Tim says, "Sean, god damn it.

You are absolutely right. Pears are

simply the superior fruit over apples. I

can deny it no more. Thank you, Sean, for having the courage to say it aloud.

Merry holidays." Dude, this is one of my This this might actually be my favorite culinary experience of the year cuz it was it was insane.

So, few weeks ago, Brit gets me this box of deluxe pears.

And we put it in the fridge and just waited until they were ripe because if you put it in the fridge, it just ripens more slowly. So, I'd go in there and I just kind of poke poke. Okay, it's

not ready. Go a bit. Poke poke. Hey,

it's starting to feel ready. I'm going

to wait a little bit. Then I get distracted for two days and forget that there's pairs up there in the fridge.

Open it up and I went, "Okay, I think it's time to eat one of those pears."

And I took this pair out and when I bit into this pair, I have never had such a delicious bite

of fruit in my life.

It was so It was incredibly sweet, but nowhere close to that sort of sickly sweet of

way too much sugar and frosting, you know? It was like the texture. There's

know? It was like the texture. There's

that kind of graininess that can be in pears that can be kind of annoying. I I like a little bit of that graininess, but this was just like

it was like the essence of a pear. Like

I didn't even need my teeth. I just

pushed my tongue against the roof of my mouth and it just became pear flavor.

And it was so juicy. It was so Oh my god. You know how like if you bite into

god. You know how like if you bite into an apple that's nowhere close to ripe, it's like really crunchy and you got to like mash it up. Oh my god. Biting into

this pear, it was just like my mouth just oh just like covered in like pear juice. Oh, it was so good.

juice. Oh, it was so good.

And I remember just standing in the kitchen with like my eyes closed, just eating this pear and occasionally like opening my eyes and being like, I'm going to eat this side now. And like

biting into that pear again. Oh my god, I can still taste this pear. And when it was done, I texted my wife and I said, I just ate one of the pairs. It's It's

maybe one of the best things I've ever eat in my life. You can come to have one of the pairs. And then like she got home and I like got the other pair. I was like, "Okay, are you ready?"

pair. I was like, "Okay, are you ready?"

Like no one gets this excited about fruit. Like this is an important moment

fruit. Like this is an important moment in my life as this pair. And I was just like, "All right, all right. Here you

go." And she's like, "All right." And I washed it off, gave it to her, and she bit into it. And she was just like, "Holy [snorts] shit." And I was like, "Yeah, isn't that

shit." And I was like, "Yeah, isn't that great?" And she's like, "Oh my god." She

great?" And she's like, "Oh my god." She

started eating this pair.

And then I was like, "Do you are you going to have the rest of that pair?" [laughter]

pair?" [laughter] I was like, "Cuz like you've tasted it.

You know that I'm not lying, right? But

like are you going to finish that pair?"

And she was like, "I got them for you, Sean. Here's your pair." And I was like,

Sean. Here's your pair." And I was like, "YAY." [screaming]

"YAY." [screaming] [laughter] She got two. She got two bites. She got

two bites of the pair. But that was amazing. And I really think that it it

amazing. And I really think that it it reminded me of how how I I think I underappreciate in cooking

just how good a good ingredient is. Like

it's not that this pear was like well seasoned or it had like was hollowed out and filled with honey and pine nuts or something, you know?

It wasn't cooked or heated. I literally

just straight out of the fridge nice and right bit into it. Oh.

Oh, why did I have headphones in this whole time?

There's been no audio playing at all.

There's been none. What What was I thinking?

May you all have a wonderful holiday season. I hope you get nice rest. I am

season. I hope you get nice rest. I am

not going to be doing any work for the next two weeks. And then the week of January 5th and the week of January 12th, I am going to be doing a bunch of traveling for work. I will be back with

the first show of the year on the 19th.

And then the week after that, I have one more work trip. And then in February, I'm back for the year of RTS. And in the year of RTS, we absolutely will sneak in other games here and there. It'll just

be the main thing. If any of you are interested in having me address something that I didn't quite get the chance to ask in the AMA anytime I'm live, feel free to pop in, post a question. If I don't catch it, the

question. If I don't catch it, the wonderful mods here have an incredibly diligent habit of taking note and pinging me when they see that I'm free.

2025 probably the top one year of my life so far. Top one. Probably my favorite year

far. Top one. Probably my favorite year that I have ever been alive.

It was a good year, but 2026 is right around the corner, huh?

Who knows? Maybe we'll keep the streak going. At the very least, I'm thinking

going. At the very least, I'm thinking top two. Have a fantastic rest of the

top two. Have a fantastic rest of the day. Mwah to all of you. Infinite love

day. Mwah to all of you. Infinite love

forever.

Take care.