With an episode full of news about how healthy sales numbers are around video games, the pals are wondering: as gaming grows, how will gamer culture grow along with it?

PLUS: Christian Bale is FUCKING DISTRACTING.

-What We're Playing

-Christian Bale’s Rant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0auwpvAU2YA

-Reader Mail

-RANDOM QUESTION OF THE WEEK: What Is Your All-Time Favorite Story in Gaming?

-DA NEWS:

1. R.I.P. Corey Gaspur

Family and friends have set up a fund to support Corey’s young son Cain. If you’d like to donate, you can do so here: http://bit.ly/2uhIMkN

http://blog.bioware.com/2017/07/31/remembering-corey-gaspur/

2. Atlus and P Studio have announced a slew of new Persona spin-off titles:

https://www.polygon.com/2017/8/2/16082740/persona-3-dancing-moon-night-persona-3-dancing-star-night-announced-ps4-playstation-vita-persona-q2

3. PS4 Passes 63 Million Units Sold:

http://www.businessinsider.com/ps4-playstation-4-sales-june-2017-8

4. Steam has added 1.5 million new users every month for the last 18 months:

https://www.geekwire.com/2017/valve-reveals-steams-monthly-active-user-count-game-sales-region/

5. PlayerUnknown’s BattleGrounds has broke 500,000 concurrent players:

https://twitter.com/PLAYERUNKNOWN/status/893474629527846912

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/playerunknowns-battlegrounds-crosses-500000-concur/1100-6452288/

Meat and Potatoes: As gaming becomes more mainstream, how does gamer culture evolve? Do you think there will always be a “hardcore” contingency of players that drive the industry or will the medium ever reach the mass-market penetration of something like TV and film? Has it already?

Music:

"Swanky Ballroom Party For Sophisticated People" by Adhesive Wombat - @adhesivewombat

The Video Game Pals is The Pals Network's weekly video game podcast where we talk about video games, the news and how it all makes us feel.

The Pals:

Sean: twitter.com/SeansSoapbox

Pete: twitter.com/Loud_Pete

Andy: twitter.com/Tiger_Millions

Thompson: twitter.com/RelicVampire