Input: A Video Games News Show

On this episode of Input the team have sat down to read Jason Schreier's report on Rockstar Games and have met to discuss it.

Works Discussed

• Inside Rockstar Games' Culture Of Crunch - Jason Schreier
• Red Dead Redemption 2's labor controversy, explained - Owen Good
• Some Red Dead devs feel that crunch is mandatory, but Rockstar disagrees - Jeff Grubb

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Theme Song:

"Ancient Heavy Tech Donjon" by Komiko

We are a new podcast so please show your support by rating and reviewing us on iTunes. It really helps!

Input is a product of Irrational Passions

Follow us on twitter!

Irrational Passions – @irrationalpod

Jurge – @jcruzalvarez26

Logan – @leftyloggy

Jarrett – @jarrettjawn

Jarrett, Jurge, and Logan pick up the "100 hours" dialogue form that there Vulture interview with Rockstar's Dan Houser  with commentary from the most important people in the conversation: the workers themselves.

Stories Discussed

Rockstar allows employees to speak out on 100-hour week controversy

Shout Outs

The History of Red Dead by Blake Hester

iTunes

Google Play

Spotify

Theme Song:

"Ancient Heavy Tech Donjon" by Komiko

We are a new podcast so please show your support by rating and reviewing us on iTunes. It really helps!

Input is a product of Irrational Passions

Follow us on twitter!

Irrational Passions – @irrationalpod

Jurge – @jcruzalvarez26

Logan – @leftyloggy

Jarrett – @jarrettjawn

This week Jarrett and Logan go back and talk on some of the big stories that have seen some major updates since the boys first covered them. Jurge was sadly lost in a chocolate factory in Nebraska and couldn't make it.

Discussion Topics:

Fortnite Galvanizes Cross-Play Talks

(Originally covered in Input Ep. 46)

Riot Workplace Harassment

(Originally covered in Input Ep. 56)

Telltales Games Closure.

(Originally covered in Input Ep. 61)

Works Mentioned: 

Sony Enabling Fortnite cross-play for PS4 against Xbox and Switch by Tom Warren

Two Riot Games Employees depart after defending a Pax West event excluding men to League players by Shannon Liao

Riot Games Says It Wants To Clean Up Its Mess, But The People Who Made It Are Still There by Cecilia D' Anastasio

Riot Games hires former Uber exec Frances Frei as senior diversity and culture advisor by Dean Takahashi

TellTale's Walking Dead: The Final Season Will Get Its Ending Through Robert Kirkman's Skybound by

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Direct Download

Theme Song:

"Ancient Heavy Tech Donjon" by Komiko

We are a new podcast so please show your support by rating and reviewing us on iTunes. It really helps!

Input is a product of Irrational Passions

Follow us on twitter!

Irrational Passions – @irrationalpod

Jurge – @jcruzalvarez26

Logan – @leftyloggy

Jarrett – @jarrettjawn

Jarrett, Jurge, and Logan sit down to have an in-depth discussion on John Warners Games Industry article about the need to stop encouraging indie devs. It soon evolves into a larger conversation on encouraging people to chase their dreams, the hardships and realities that often don't go acknowledged, and whether or not its ultimately feasible or worth it. A classic Input optimistic and pessimistic conversation.

Topics of Discussion:

Encouraging Indie Devs and chasing your dreams.

Works Mentioned: 

It's time we stopped encouraging indies by John Warner

Developers weigh in on "cold reality" check for indies by Rebekah Valentine

Shoutouts: 

We Need More Pessimistic Games by Cameron Kunzelman

iTunes

Google Play

Theme Song:

"Ancient Heavy Tech Donjon" by Komiko

We are a new podcast so please show your support by rating and reviewing us on iTunes. It really helps!

Input is a product of Irrational Passions

Follow us on twitter!

Irrational Passions – @irrationalpod

Jurge – @jcruzalvarez26

Logan – @leftyloggy

Jarrett – @jarrettjawn

The boys are joined this week by the lovely and Matthew McConaughey stand-in Logan Moore from Dualshockers to shoutout some of the best writing from the past week in games and I don't know, probably talk about wrestling at some point too.

Shoutouts: 

Prey's Director On The Polarizing Final Act: "There Was Definitely Too Much" by Jason Schreier and Kirk Hamilton

Arkane Studio's Interview - The Design Challenges of Prey: Mooncrash and What's Coming Next by Logan Moore

Red Dead Redemption 2's Black Cowboys are Important by Funke Joseph

Occult Space by Sam Zucchi

iTunes

Google Play

Spotify

Theme Song:

"Ancient Heavy Tech Donjon" by Komiko

We are a new podcast so please show your support by rating and reviewing us on iTunes. It really helps!

Input is a product of Irrational Passions

Follow us on twitter!

Irrational Passions – @irrationalpod

Jurge – @jcruzalvarez26

Logan – @leftyloggy

Jarrett – @jarrettjawn

Jarrett and Logan untangle the complicated situation surrounding the sudden closure of Telltale Games. What were the situations that got the studio to this point? Where do we go from here? We try answer those questions and more.

Works Mentioned: 

• Exclusive: How a Culture of Crunch Brought Telltale From Critical Darling to Layoff

• TOXIC MANAGEMENT COST AN AWARD-WINNING GAME STUDIO ITS BEST DEVELOPERS
• Sources: Telltale CEO Steps Down [UPDATE]

iTunes

Google Play

Spotify

Theme Song:

"Ancient Heavy Tech Donjon" by Komiko

We are a new podcast so please show your support by rating and reviewing us on iTunes. It really helps!

Input is a product of Irrational Passions

Follow us on twitter!

Irrational Passions – @irrationalpod

Jurge – @jcruzalvarez26

Logan – @leftyloggy

Jarrett – @jarrettjawn

Jurge is sadly missing, but Logan emerges from the great sand dunes of Austin, Texas to make his triumphant return to Input alongside Jarrett.

Discussion Topic: 

Youtube Gaming comes to a close.

Story Referenced:

•  YouTube Is Closing YouTube Gaming - Ethan Gach

History of  Youtube Gaming:

• 2013 - Twitch reaches super popularity status, eclipsing all the traffic of then owner Justin.tv. 45 million views in the month of October, watching 100 hours of video a day. Gets so big that Justin.tv rebrands to Twitch Interactive. YouTube introduces subscription channels, mostly to combat Netflix and Hulu.

• 2014 - Twitch is the 4th largest source of peak traffic on the internet. The general interest part of TI is shut down. Amazon buys Twitch for almost $1 billion that august.

• 2015 - Twitch has 1.5 million broadcasters, 100 million viewers/mo. Not insignificant also was Twitch's burgeoning IRL and non live streaming video game content. Shows like Kinda Funny Morning Show became break out examples of twitch's appeal for other things that were watching games.YouTube had been focusing on TV so much that the sorta let live gaming slide. They'd been a dominant force in Let's Plays and vlogs, but live-streaming was a one outlet show. They release YouTube Gaming, and hope to set the world on fire.

• 2017 - By Q3 Twitch was still growing, while YTG was shrinking, in the concurrent streamer space.

• 2018 - Twitch had 2.2 million broadcasters monthly and 15 million daily users (1 million concurrent) by May

Shoutouts:

Remembering the only choice that mattered in Telltale's The Walking Dead by Tom Baines

The Mysterious Disappearance of Lara Croft by Colin Campbell

Scientists Gave MDMA to Octopuses - and What Happened Was Profound by Ryan F. Mandelbaum

iTunes

Google Play

Spotify

Theme Song:

"Ancient Heavy Tech Donjon" by Komiko

We are a new podcast so please show your support by rating and reviewing us on iTunes. It really helps!

Input is a product of Irrational Passions

Follow us on twitter!

Irrational Passions – @irrationalpod

Jurge – @jcruzalvarez26

Logan – @leftyloggy

Jarrett – @jarrettjawn

It's that time of the month, the time where there's not a whole lot happening in terms of news and so here we are with some shout outs!

This time we have a fun spin and resource for those shout outs with the recent release of DED LED, a collection of stories that were previously published on Kill Screen.

You can find this collection here!

Our Shout Outs, the links below are to the current Kill Screen website post but most of these stories can found in the DED LED collection

• Jak and Daxter: The Search for Player Two -  Jess Joho

• Against Crafting - Matt Margini

• The Cycles of Violence in Bioshock: The Collection - Brent Ables
• Role-playing Games are Just like Medieval Oral Culture - Sean Smith
• Failure and Rebirth in Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter - Levi Rubeck

Spotify

iTunes

Google Play

Theme Song:

"Ancient Heavy Tech Donjon" by Komiko

We are a new podcast so please show your support by rating and reviewing us on iTunes. It really helps!

Input is a product of Irrational Passions

Follow us on twitter!

Irrational Passions – @irrationalpod

Jurge – @jcruzalvarez26

Jarrett – @jarrettjawn

Jurge and Jarrett discuss the big civil suit coming from the Madden 19 tournament attack. 

Spotify

iTunes

Google Play

Theme Song:

"Ancient Heavy Tech Donjon" by Komiko

We are a new podcast so please show your support by rating and reviewing us on iTunes. It really helps!

Input is a product of Irrational Passions

Follow us on twitter!

Irrational Passions – @irrationalpod

Jurge – @jcruzalvarez26

Jarrett - @jarrettjawn

Jurge and Jarrett are here for a all Shout Outs episode of Input!

Shout Outs: 

• How To Improve The Guns In Doom (2016) - Nathan Fouts

• We Can't Fix The Internet - Gita Jackson

• Digital Foundry Retro: Shenmue - John Linneman

Spotify

iTunes

Direct Download

Google Play

Theme Song:

"Ancient Heavy Tech Donjon" by Komiko

We are a new podcast so please show your support by rating and reviewing us on iTunes. It really helps!

Input is a product of Irrational Passions

Follow us on twitter!

Irrational Passions – @irrationalpod

Jurge – @jcruzalvarez26

Jarrett - @jarrettjawn