The Frogsnacks Podcast!

Frog and Snacks have to make an addendum to last weeks episode, given the new information on Blizzard's Overwatch. The guys ruminate on the upcoming Nintendo Direct, and Snacks puts on his aluminum hat and goes off on Bethesda. 

Snacks kicks off a discussion of Blizzard and their recent news regarding WoW subscriptions, Overwatch, and the overall influence on culture and gaming Blizzard has had. Frog reads some tea leaves with Blizzard's direction, and a certain developer gets put on blast.

Frog and Snacks navigate the murky waters of microtransactions, trying to figure out how to use them correctly behind the up front cost of a game, and put companies who abuse them on blast. The guys come up with a great metric to gauge corporate gaffes. 

The guys talk about how Japanese views on video games and business both hinder and help the very unique products that come from the land of the rising sun. Rune Factory 4 gets a shout from Snacks, and Frog reads some tea leaves on the new NX news.

Frog discusses his excursion to see The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses and the use of music in today's games. Snacks offers his theories on palpable advantages different game peripherals can have, and the history of these peripherals' usage.

In light of these two articles about games as social tools and commentary, Frog and Snacks discuss the future of the medium in this regard, and what advantages it may have over TV, Movies, Sports, and other forms of entertainment that have shown similar potential. The guys imagine a world in which Huge Chavez and Barack Obama play Halo together and shit on BK's.

Frog and Snacks talk about the increasingly blurred lines between traditional sports and eSports in the wake of the new CS:GO/TBS television deal and the inclusion of analytics and fantasy sports to the competitive gaming scene. Real talk on the 'jock vs nerd' trope is tossed about cavalierly. 

With the release of Super Mario Maker for the Wii U, Frog and Snacks discuss how user generated content in games works, how it has been implemented in the past, and what makes it succeed or fail. The modding community gets a lot of play, and Snacks messes up the episode count. 

Frog and Snacks are joined by Uncle Pause to discuss the new Pope of Videogames AKA Nintendo's new CEO. The immediate future of AR games like Pokemon Go is brought up, as well as the pronunciation of Beyonce, Caterpie, and Hermione.

Thumbnail art is from the-prez.

Frog and Snacks talk about Playstation's recent integration of YouTube game streaming and their movement towards in-house game hubs, a la Steam's community pages and Miiverse. The ripple effect of game streaming outside of the gaming world is discussed. Snacks finally has completed Europa Universalis IV in the broadest, most technical sense of the word.