Finish Him! Arcade Wars, Console Battles & VR Dreams with Guest Boyd Tufts

Step into the arcade with us as we fire up this Original Geek episode—our very first with a guest! Steve and Jeff are joined by Boyd (aka the Ferris Bueller of their geek crew) to dive deep into the evolution of gaming.

From the quarter-eating beasts of Wells Beach Arcade, to the glory of Gauntlet, Cyberball, and Dragon’s Lair, to console wars and the dawn of online play with the Commodore VIC-20—we trace it all. We also rant about the rise of DLCs, praise the Wii for uniting generations, and debate whether exclusive console games killed or saved innovation.

It’s nostalgia, laughs, and a healthy dose of Gen X sarcasm—because sometimes the real final boss is just adulthood.

🎧 Grab your joystick (or VR headset) and join us for a journey from pixelated Pong to full-on VR immersion.

 #OriginalGeekPodcast #GamingHistory #GenXGeek #ArcadeLife #RetroGaming #PongToVR #PacManFever #ArcadeLegends #ConsoleWars #DLCFail #Gauntlet #Cyberball #BlueElfNeedsFood #GeekCulture 

Welcome to Original Geek—the podcast for anyone who rolled their first d20 on shag carpet, waited hours for a comic book JPEG to load on dial-up, and wore the label “geek” back when it got you mocked, not monetized.

Hosted by stand-up comic Steve Scarfo and Forever DM Jeff Shaw, we dive deep into what it meant to be a geek in the '70s and '80s—and how that underground culture became the mainstream multiverse we live in today.

🎙️ Subscribe for weekly episodes on Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, comic book chaos, geek court debates, and critical hits from your childhood basement.

👾 Follow us @OriginalGeekPodcast on socials and visit OriginalGeekPodcast.com for merch, extras, and to send us your own geeky tales.

If you ever hid a Monster Manual like it was porn, you’re not alone. You’re an Original Geek. Welcome home.

Chapters

• 0:00 A Deep Dive into Video Games
• 6:53 Geek Flashback
• 14:44 Geek Flashback w Special Guest: Boyd Tufts
• 30:30 Geek Court
• 37:15 Basement Treasures
• 43:13 Geek Evolution
• 49:15 Message to the new Generation
• 53:21 Critical Hits & Epic Fails
• 1:02:20 Ask an O.G.

Transcript

Jeff (00:00)
And then Nintendo had up there, Auntie, by with their Wii controller, which was motion control.

Steve Scarfo (00:06)
I have the MetaQuest 2. You can just use your hands.

So we went from a horrible controller that was basically just your hand through 972 buttons to a controller that is just your hands. We've basically evolved all the way back to just using our hands.

Jeff (00:18)
Yeah.

Exactly, that's awesome.

Steve Scarfo (00:49)
All

right, welcome to Original Geek. This is the podcast for anyone who rolled dice in a basement, waited hours to download comic covers on dial-up, and proudly wore that label of geek back when it was a target and not a trend. We're gonna dive deep into what it meant to be a geek in the 70s and 80s and how that compares to this mainstream world we live in today. And who are we?

Well, we're two of the Gen X survivors who didn't just watch geek culture evolve. No, we lived through every awkward phase. Hi, I'm Steve

Jeff (01:19)
and I'm Jeff Shaw and will be your cheat codes for today's final boss What's our topic today?

Steve Scarfo (01:24)
All right.

All right. Well, that might have been a little hint. We're talking today about gaming. I know we did a little bit last week when we talked about the Internet, but this is more of a deep dive into the history of gaming, the evolution from Pong to PlayStation, arcades to augmented reality. This episode is going to trace the evolution of gaming from the golden age of pixelated glory to the mind bending worlds of modern VR. It's high scores, low res graphics.

and a whole lot of nostalgia. So.

Jeff (01:55)
Yes, video

gaming. I'm glad we brought it right back. ⁓ We talked about the internet. We dabbled in it a little bit, but man, lot of pleasant memories about gaming and we're still gaming today. I mean, we haven't stopped. We never stopped.

Steve Scarfo (02:15)
Yes.

It's it's a little different. I remember, ⁓ you know, we started in an arcade for anyone under 30, although I guess they still have arcades. They've evolved quite a bit ⁓ because now they're like bars. know, there's Chuck E. Cheese has got Chuck's arcade now. It's like an adult version of Chuck E. Cheese, which is really what it really was.

Chuck E. Cheese was just an arcade for adults so that they had a place to, it was like daycare and a bar at the same time. Kids could go play and they had beer and wine and stuff you could eat. know, Petra and I spent not drinking for the record for our fair share of time at Chuck E. Cheese. But our arcade was down by the beach, because again, we grew up in Wells. And we had this awesome Wells Beach arcade.

And we saw first games like Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong.

Jeff (03:16)
Well, yeah, but did, was it arcade that you first played a video game or was it a console?

Steve Scarfo (03:25)
I it must have been in an arcade. I remember, well, no, no, maybe not. So when we were kids before we moved up to Maine, we got one of those old pong games where it was just a, you know, it was like a spinner. I don't know why I'm doing this, but ⁓ yeah, yeah. And it was the one that.

Jeff (03:27)
Really?

That was my entry

in 76, I think. They got the pong game and it could not be simpler. And then there was a tank game with it. I know if you remember that. It was awesome. It was so great. I loved it. But that was...

Steve Scarfo (03:58)
Yes, the tank was the most advanced. It was like a little block tank. Did you guys ever leave yours

on too long?

Jeff (04:08)
and it's seared into the screen now.

Steve Scarfo (04:10)
It

seared into the screen, we did that. I couldn't have been more than seven or eight. My brother was 10, and we seared the crap out of that TV.

Jeff (04:12)
No, we did not.

Yeah, but

yeah, so that was my like my first recollection of video games was that old console that pong the tank game ⁓ and then I'm sure I went to an arcade now we I didn't move to Wells until I was in high school so 84 so when you're playing Pac-Man at Wells Beach it wasn't with this guy but

Steve Scarfo (04:45)
wow.

Jeff (04:49)
I do remember ⁓ early 80s, I was living on Lopez Island in the Puget Sound in Washington state. There was no arcade, but the restaurant got a Pac-Man game and it was, ⁓ it wasn't in your standard cabinet. It was like a sit down and it was tabletop. Yeah. And then ⁓ I remember much.

Steve Scarfo (04:50)
Ooh.

was the tabletop.

Jeff (05:18)
to my father's dismay. Like, cause he took us to this restaurant, like, oh, we're all gonna eat together. We saw that and we were just playing Pac-Man. yeah, to like, for as much of our allowance as we could pump into that thing, we were just playing that. And that was it. Like that, like that just sucked all of our attention, Pac-Man. So for me, that's like the big one.

Steve Scarfo (05:19)
You

Pac-Man was the best.

I look at Pac-Man now and I'm like, really? Hours I spent on that game, hours. ⁓ But now it's all different, man. Now we, know, remote gaming and ⁓ I got one of those ⁓ MetaQuest 2 VR helmets, helmet headsets, I guess. ⁓

Couple years ago, I don't use it as much as I thought, but there was, and then there's augmented reality, which is now becoming quickly a thing. ⁓ Actually, Meta and Ray-Ban have done a deal where you can get glasses that have a camera and ⁓ I guess it must be, I don't know if it's Siri or whoever the heck it is, but they have like a VR assistant. So while I'm looking at you, I could ask it a question and it would tell me what's going on and it's crazy, crazy, crazy.

Jeff (06:31)
Yeah, I know,

I know, it's awesome. Yeah, it's definitely a golden age of gaming.

Steve Scarfo (06:40)
Golden Age. We love our Golden Ages.

Jeff (06:43)
So, but hey, before we talk about, you know, kind of current state golden age, let's have a flashback. I think it's time.

Steve Scarfo (06:52)
Is it time?

Whaaaa-

Jeff (07:02)
Ooh, all right. And then on our flashback, I know we started talking about arcades. Let's talk about those quarter eating beasts in the arcade. Cause I said I spent all of my allowance as much as I could at the arcade. ⁓ And you know what? Let's start with that Wells Beach arcade. Cause that's something we both had in common. ⁓ And we went to quite a bit.

Steve Scarfo (07:27)
God.

Jeff (07:32)
And the downstairs was all the video games upstairs was like Ski Ball and the games that spit out tickets. But downstairs, that's where we were. We were at the Street Fighter level, fighting on the streets.

Steve Scarfo (07:44)
Yeah.

with Mortal

Kombat, the first Mortal Kombat, finish him. It's funny too, because if you go to an arcade today, even the one Hampton Beach has a pretty big arcade still, in Chuck E. Cheese, everything is ticket based. Even the regular video games aren't just regular video games. You win a ticket to go to the thing. And it's almost like the gamified the gaming, which is really kind of meta, but.

You play a game to win the tickets and you win the tickets so you can go get a prize. And they really made it a tent. You you and I and God, how many times I might jump a half a step forward when we were in high school, we would go to the Fox Run Mall because they had a huge arcade to be you, Jim, Boyd, Bill, Bill Ponder's. And we would take thirty dollars each in quarters because you had a stack quarters on the machine. Do you remember at the beach? Actually, in Wells, if you wanted to play Pac-Man, you put a quarter on the

Jeff (08:33)
Yes. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (08:50)
screen right because that's how you knew you were next didn't you didn't know whose quarter was whose but everybody just honored the quarter system if there was a line of quarters like seven quarters long that means you had to wait seven people before you could get on that pac-man game ⁓

Jeff (08:51)
Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah, and

the thing is the reason we had multiple arcades in our our youth was because we I did because Wells Beach arcade was seasonal. So it was just a summertime arcade. So most of the year we were driving 20 miles to the next closest arcade, which was in Portsmouth, New Hampshire or Newington, New Hampshire. And

Steve Scarfo (09:12)
Did you just say ute?

Jeff (09:34)
But I loved a lot of my favorite arcade memories were actually in that arcade. Because my favorite, one of my favorite cabinet games, arcade games was Gauntlet. And Gauntlet came out in '84 - '85 And it was the first time four of us could play simultaneously. And it was, of course, you we were

Steve Scarfo (09:46)
I think I know where you're going.

⁓ I forgot about gauntlet.

Jeff (10:04)
D &D fanatics and it was a fantasy game for those aren't familiar with it. You could be a barbarian, an elf, a wizard, a dwarf. think initially that's all there was. And then there was Gauntlet 2, which had some more characters and you could be any one of those things and you were color coded too. So you could have a red elf or a green elf or a blue elf. And then the game would tell you, which I always loved and still quote to this day,

Steve Scarfo (10:15)
this is for.

Jeff (10:33)
Blue elf is dying. Blue elf needs food. And so like you'd hit, you'd destroy a monster and it would turn into a steak or like you'd eat the steak or you'd blow up ⁓ yeah, a potions and things like that. It was awesome. So four of us playing simultaneously, that for me was my favorite arcade game. ⁓ And

Steve Scarfo (10:34)
Yes.

Yes, that's right. And you'd get health, you'd get potions.

Jeff (11:03)
Wells Beach Arcade did not have it. So we could only play Gauntlet there or other bigger arcades, but our small Wells Beach Arcade did not carry Gauntlet.

Steve Scarfo (11:06)
It never got it.

So now I have two. I had a different one and I'll do that one first but now you reminded me of a different game. I thought you were going somewhere else. So the game that I loved the most was at the Wells Beach Arcade. The first time I ever saw it was ⁓ Dragon's Lair. And I loved it because it was, it was only single player but it was, at the time, it was the better graphics because really it was a cartoon.

Jeff (11:41)
It was amazing.

Steve Scarfo (11:42)
It was like you played a cartoon and it would, and it was hard enough because you had a time everything, but it was also sort of simplistic in that they already, they kind of led you to the next step. You didn't have to figure it out. There wasn't running around for hours. Like it would be, he's stuck at the lava. You can go left or right. And then right before he died, it would flash on the right and you knew you had to go right.

And so it was fun because you were sort of playing this thing. And I know we all sort of played and watched each other play. But that was sort of my my that was where I was going to start with, because I thought that was sort of cool. But. The the multiplayer game in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, that I thought you were going to say was Cyberball.

Jeff (12:27)
That, well, yeah, cyber ball was amazing.

Steve Scarfo (12:29)
because Cyberball,

all the same things that you said about, of course, not the red dwarf dying and stuff, but it was four players at once. And it was cool because we played, it was two on two. So you played each other and it was really some of the very first, those both of those games, the first interactive gaming I think I ever saw was those two games.

Jeff (12:51)
Yeah, so, ⁓ listeners, cyberball and this is, ⁓ I wish they, they still had this game. And I know with Madden and you know, the way things have gone, like you can play a real NFL looking game and player. why would you want these robots to be playing? ⁓ but, I, I think this would still work. So, ⁓ game designers, I think you'd find a real market.

Steve Scarfo (13:08)
Right.

Jeff (13:20)
if you came back out with cyberball, a new version, because it was very original. The ball would explode after it wasn't like you just needed four downs. You actually had to get it past the 50. Then the ball would get back to safe and you only had four plays. It would go from safe to critical to exploding in four plays. But you got to pass the 50. Then you could.

Steve Scarfo (13:28)
Yes.

and it would damage players.

Jeff (13:47)
the ball would get safe again until you only had a total of eight plays to get it down for a touchdown. And as players, every time your robot got tackled, you'd start to break down and your robot could blow up. So you catch the ball, but you're still like smoking and on fire and all it would take is one hit for your guy to explode, which of course you can do in Madden. can have like, you know.

Randy Moss catches the ball and explodes. Like that would actually, now that I'm saying it, this could, that could be a fun like Mortal Kombat, you know, cyberball combo. But yes, exactly. Yeah, it could be fun that way, but yeah, so cyberball, like bring that one back. Absolutely.

Steve Scarfo (14:19)
and burns up.

It's Mortal Madden. Finish him.

Yeah, there are emulators

out there. Somebody make an emulation. They can easily do it.

Steve Scarfo (14:44)
Alright for those of you yeah if you're if you're watching the screens changed a bit ⁓ we have talked about Boyd in many episodes ⁓ you'll hear from him again after this one more time at least ⁓ Boyd we're talking we're talking video games and the original how

Jeff (14:45)
All right, we got Boyd with us.

Boyd (14:47)
Hey guys

Jeff (15:03)
and

Boyd (15:03)
⁓ yeah.

Jeff (15:06)
Before we get into that, I

just want to say that in the first episode, I talked about our friend group being like ⁓ the Breakfast Club, but ⁓ Boyd was like our Ferris Bueller. ⁓ And I seem to recall there was even a Save Boyd campaign at one point. So.

Steve Scarfo (15:15)
Yes.

There was.

Boyd (15:23)
God, Yeah, it's

one of the Samson, Samson, Stacey Samson, I forget, one of the Samson girls.

Steve Scarfo (15:32)
Yeah.

Jeff (15:32)
Yeah, so in Boyd was a bit, it was a ringleader for us in, in high school. And we, we did a lot of things that Boyd did and dragged us on his adventures. In fact, your parents were the most accepting of us throughout high school. played more D & D at his house than anywhere. In fact, if your parents didn't have us in, I don't know where we, we wouldn't have been able to play nearly as much.

Steve Scarfo (15:35)
Big signs.

Boyd (15:50)
yeah.

Steve Scarfo (15:53)
my god.

Jeff (16:01)
or nearly as conveniently. ⁓

Steve Scarfo (16:02)
No. Big shout

Boyd (16:03)
Die now.

Steve Scarfo (16:04)
out. Big shout out to Marcus and Vicki. They were my second parents for like a decade.

Boyd (16:06)
⁓

Jeff (16:07)
Yeah.

Boyd (16:08)
Yeah, they were great. I mean we played until like 3, 4 in the morning at their kitchen table.

Jeff (16:13)
Yeah, I know.

Steve Scarfo (16:14)
I

only ever remember one time. There was one time we played at your house. I think it's the house they're still in on Maryland Ridge. was the newer house. And we were older because we were drinking. ⁓ there was only one time your mom actually came out and was like, can you guys keep it down? But like a decade of nothing. would just let it. They would let us do whatever we wanted.

Jeff (16:16)
Only your parents would allow.

Boyd (16:37)
Yeah, I

Was that when Kevin peed out the window onto the porch? Was that that time? That guy.

Steve Scarfo (16:43)
I think it was. I wasn't gonna say that part. It was that time. He thought he

was going to the bathroom and he peed out the window onto the front porch.

Jeff (16:50)
Hehehehehe

Boyd (16:51)
I went to the room, I went to the living

room, which, well, it was not a living room, it was like one of the side rooms, but it had a window that went out to the front porch, and Kevin's standing at the window, we're playing D &D, I'm like, dude, what are you doing? He's like, using the bathroom. Like, that's a window, dude, you're peeing on my porch. And, and we still got to play there.

Steve Scarfo (17:10)
Yeah.

Jeff (17:11)
You

yeah, that was good.

Steve Scarfo (17:18)
Yeah, so, ⁓ so.

Boyd (17:18)
Yeah.

Jeff (17:19)
So I just wanted to introduce our

Ferris Bueller of our group to everyone. And he's our historian. His memory, your memories are far clearer than ours. So.

Boyd (17:26)
I don't know about a story.

Steve Scarfo (17:30)
Listen.

Boyd (17:32)
⁓ well.

Steve Scarfo (17:32)
of the three at the very minimum

of the three of us, you're the historian. That might scare you, but it's true.

Boyd (17:37)
Wow.

Jeff (17:37)
Yeah, and like I said, it's a trip down

Amnesia Lane for me often where I'm just trying to remember what happened ⁓ and your memories are a bit more crisp.

Boyd (17:46)
God.

Well, in some areas, some areas not so bad.

Steve Scarfo (17:50)
Well, yeah, and in I'll

I'll tell you this in prepping for this episode, we were just talking before we started recording and we were talking about some old video game stuff and you started to bring some stuff up that Jeff and I were completely like, holy shit, we forgot. So we we've talked a little bit about the gaming revolution and we talked about how I had the Commodore 64. I think we talked about it on the Internet.

Boyd (18:08)
Ha!

Steve Scarfo (18:19)
episode as well, but that was our first gaming. what you were telling us, tell us what you started telling us before about how you had it set up.

Boyd (18:25)
Well, when I first got a computer it was a Commodore VIC-20. And the first game that I was able to play, I guess you'd say online, was Tellengard.

and there was a server out of Boston. And back then you didn't click on a website, you had to phone the number directly because you didn't connect to the internet and then connect to a webpage. You called the server and put your phone on it and it connected directly to their server, which was weird.

Steve Scarfo (18:56)
Let

it was like war games, right? You had to put your phone on a cradle almost.

Boyd (19:01)
Yeah, well you had

it plugged in, I had a 14.4 modem and you had it plugged in, but once ⁓ you started hearing that ⁓ handshake start from the other computer, that's when you had to click something and it went to the 14.4 modem and then it just went through. The computer started talking to it.

Steve Scarfo (19:20)
I say war games like that's gonna help any of the younger viewers if we have any. I used an old reference to reference an old reference. That was just not, I didn't think that shit through. Yeah, because we were talking about, there was one, there was a D &D game, I think it was either Colecovision, but I had forgotten, Intellivision.

Boyd (19:23)
HA!

That's awesome.

Yeah, no, it was in television. was Advanced Dungeons

Jeff (19:40)
yeah!

Boyd (19:41)
and Dragons. It was on television. I know because the guy that... This kid that lived down the street, Super pothead I became friends with him and he had it I was trying to get in there to play it all the time. He's like, oh, that game's terrible. I'm like, I was just frothing at the mouth to play it. I finally got to play it. And it was awesome. Yeah, it was in television. Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

Steve Scarfo (19:56)
It's...

I love how he says he's,

I love how you say you're not the memory and yet you pulled in television out of your ass like nobody's business. You're like, no, that wasn't Coleco, that was a television. And I'm like, yep, know, he's right though. That's exactly what it was. It's just funny that you deny the memory, but then you have it clearer than everybody. ⁓ Cause I remember that game. I thought it was Colecovision. My cousin had that game, but I forgot that it was on the television. And the same thing.

Boyd (20:08)
Hahaha

Jeff (20:11)
Wrong.

Boyd (20:11)
Yeah.

I didn't say it wrong.

Yeah.

Well, that I remember.

Yeah. Yeah, that was a weird console.

Steve Scarfo (20:31)
They didn't care about it because they're sports guys and they're awesome with what they do, but they didn't care about D &D. And they showed me one time, we were there for like Easter and I'm like, oh my God, this is amazing. It's playing D &D on the computer. But I forgot about teleguard.

Boyd (20:41)
oh yeah I know yeah yeah and I...

Telling Guard yeah that was the the TSR back in the day that was their that was their first foray into video games so TSR had hooked up with whoever was producing this video game Telling Guard and you could play it online it was it was very like you were a blip and you moved

to places but it was like Bard's Tale almost and you had stats, you could level up but there was no visual. Well there was like a slight visual of the creature but it wasn't great. I mean we're talking eight bit.

Steve Scarfo (21:24)
Yeah, Barge Tale had the one picture, was the static picture of a creature coming at you. And then on the side, I would say 85 orcs or whatever.

Boyd (21:28)
Right, and it...

Yeah, and you had your whole party listed and, but I mean, I remember Bardstill, that was like, God, I sunk so many days, hours into that one, that was awesome. I knew the maps without having a map. Like I knew where to teleport on a grid anywhere in that game. It was crazy.

Steve Scarfo (21:50)
Yeah.

We talked a little bit about arcade stuff too and how we used to go down to the Fox Run mall all the time. ⁓

Boyd (21:59)
Yeah, dream machine. Well, first

it was Newington, then it Foxrun.

Steve Scarfo (22:03)
Right. Yeah, the dream was it wasn't the dream machine. Was that the name of the arcade? That actually had a little chain.

Boyd (22:06)
Dream Machine, yep, yeah. They had one in each one.

But yeah, and then the new games started going to the Fox Run Mall, so we stopped going to Newington and they were right next to each other, so it didn't matter. But that's where the fun games were.

Jeff (22:23)
Cyberball!

Steve Scarfo (22:23)
And we talked about cyberball.

Boyd (22:25)
Yeah,

yeah. I, you know, who was the teams? Was it Jeff and someone? And I think I got stuck with Bill every now and then and he was so stoned, man. I would get so pissed. You guys remember, I'm such a bad player. I'd get so mad, I'd be like, Bill, what the F are you doing? I'd berate him there in front of everybody watching us play cyberball like some kind of asshole.

Jeff (22:38)
is Steve.

Steve Scarfo (22:41)
I don't

Jeff (22:45)
Yeah

Steve Scarfo (22:49)
You

I don't remember if we had specific teams or if we just sort of switched in and out. It depended on who could go that day.

Boyd (22:58)
Well yeah, but the tournament, remember we played in the tournament? Jeff, Jeff... Jeff and Jim were unstoppable in that tournament. They were so good in that tournament. Because Jim's a really good video game player anyway. You know? And Bill was pretty good, but Bill was one those guys that like, you know, he would throw it just because he could. Like he thought it would be funny or something, you know?

Jeff (23:00)
no, we did.

no, we did.

yeah, that's right. That's right. It was Jim.

Steve Scarfo (23:10)
Yeah.

Jeff (23:15)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (23:26)
Hehehehe

Boyd (23:26)
throw the game

and I'd be like, Bill, what are you doing? But yeah, Jim and Jeff, I think you won that turn. I can't remember, but there was a prize. Jeff and Jim were unstoppable at CyberBall

Jeff (23:32)
That's right.

Steve Scarfo (23:41)
Now

Jeff doesn't care if your memory is correct, he just likes it.

Jeff (23:44)
I love it. That's it. Champion.

Boyd (23:44)
Yeah.

But Steve and I played, and I think I was playing with Bill that time because Steve wasn't able to come and play during the tournament with me for some reason. But Steve and I were really good. And we could have matched you, but I got Bill.

Steve Scarfo (23:53)
I could, yeah. We did pretty well.

We had a substitute. We talked a little bit about ⁓ Red Wizard is about to die with the old gauntlet. ⁓ Do we how many times have we raised to the mall just to get on gauntlet and stack quarters on the machine?

Boyd (24:04)
Yeah.

Jeff (24:04)
Nice.

Boyd (24:19)
god. Jeez.

So much. So much. I can't even remember now what levels we got to, but we'd be there for hours playing that game. know, quarters back then weren't like quarters today. know, like that was a lot of money. You know?

Jeff (24:35)
Yeah,

we plowed some money into those games.

Steve Scarfo (24:36)
no, we were working...

Boyd (24:38)
I 10 bucks back

Steve Scarfo (24:38)
We were working s-

Boyd (24:39)
then, mean, what's 10 bucks then as compared to now? 30, 40?

Steve Scarfo (24:44)
Oh, more I would think. We were making what? Four bucks an hour, maybe in the kitchens. Three, three or four. Yeah. So even it. So three thirty five. So you had to work four hours to have enough to spend one afternoon at the at the arcade with ten bucks. And that was spending everything you made. So think of it about as a half day's pay. That's kind of the money we were putting in. So I guess.

Jeff (24:44)
Yeah.

Boyd (24:50)
3-335. 335 was minimum.

Yeah, yeah.

yeah. Yeah, it's crazy, isn't

it?

Jeff (25:14)
Well, the interwebs is saying only 30 bucks today, but still, yeah, feels more feels like.

Steve Scarfo (25:14)
15.

30? I was gonna say 60.

Boyd (25:19)
$10 is $30? Yeah,

so for four people, know, that's $120 and what were we there for? Two, three hours?

Steve Scarfo (25:30)
yeah.

Jeff (25:30)
But

to your point, 10 bucks would have taken us, well, I guess that's about right, would have been two hours worth of work. you know, if some places, you can make 20 bucks today.

Steve Scarfo (25:35)
three or four hours.

Boyd (25:41)
Three hours.

Steve Scarfo (25:43)
No,

three or, well, you were waitering, that was different. When you're working in the kitchens, we were getting $3.50, maybe four bucks. I think the most I got, and I think this was at the shoe store, this wasn't even the kitchen, I got four bucks an I remember going to four bucks an hour and was like, yeah! So it was still two and a half, three hours just to play for a day. It would be different on, waiters made a lot more money, floor staff made more money than we did.

Jeff (26:02)
Yeah, that's funny.

Boyd (26:02)
yeah, that's crazy.

I looked into buying one those gauntlet games, friend of mine had one in St. Pete, it was awesome, you could play for free. But you know, when I looked it up, that game is, it was designed just to eat your quarters, like it was designed to make money. And it was like the most successful quarter eater that they call them, they had ever made. There was no end to the game, it just kept going and going and going as long as you fed it quarters. And it got harder and harder. And the people who designed it were like, they couldn't believe how much money people

were dumping into these this game and everybody wanted one in their arcade because they made so much loot it was like dragons lair i can remember going to play dragons lair and just to learn the moves just to learn the moves i would watch other people and then i would put the money in and i would have to have you know four or five dollars lined up just to be able to get through you know four or five new screenshots that i'd never mastered before and just monopolizing this game for like an hour hour and a half

Steve Scarfo (26:45)
⁓

Boyd (27:08)
or until my parents came to get me because we were leaving the mall. eventually, eventually, and Jeff King contested this, ⁓ like Street Fighter and those games, I got so good, I could put one quarter in and people would come up and if they put a quarter in, they'd challenge you and I'd be there all day on 25 cents. I wasted people. ⁓

Jeff (27:26)
It was so annoying. It was so annoying. Because

Steve Scarfo (27:26)
Yeah. God, you were so good at that game.

Jeff (27:31)
he always played Ken or Ryu because their moves were the same and they were super like basic. But and I always wanted to be one of those cool like characters, one of the long arms or the Chun-Li or the beast that was flipping around. Yeah. but not like

Boyd (27:34)
Or Ryu. Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (27:35)
Alright.

Boyd (27:44)
Chun Li. yeah.

Steve Scarfo (27:49)
Goro. ⁓ Blanca. I loved Blanca.

Boyd (27:51)
the Brazilian Blanca.

Jeff (27:55)
Even as cool as those characters looked with their powers and abilities, you just destroyed me every time.

Boyd (28:02)
why i was

i was fast with that game i knew all the moves so like i could grab someone who is just going to do one of their special moves real quick you know but yeah i learned the hard way though i spent a lot of time watching those guys and we didn't have we didn't have books or or the internet didn't tell you the moves back then you had to learn that stuff as you went you did or you had to

Jeff (28:11)
Yeah, it was crazy. It's annoying.

That's true.

Steve Scarfo (28:23)
No, there

was

Boyd (28:27)
learn it from someone who was playing it that knew it because you couldn't just look up a cheat code or look up how to do a specific move. You had to learn the hard way. ⁓

Jeff (28:37)
Boyd's message to the new generation.

Steve Scarfo (28:37)
Yeah, I don't even. Yeah, I don't even know.

Boyd (28:40)
hehe

Steve Scarfo (28:41)
I don't even know that there were cheat code books when we were playing. They might have had them at Barnes and Noble for like a couple of the top games like plays, but I don't.

Boyd (28:44)
No.

Jeff (28:49)
I first

remembered it for NBA Jam. So, cause I remember, I remember you actually could look it up cause they did exist. You had to find out the hard way, but I remember Jim speaking of Jim, ⁓ he did that for NBA Jam and we're like, how are you doing that? Like he's instantly on fire. Like, come on, how are you doing that? And he knew like the buttons to hit and he would not tell any of us.

Boyd (28:53)
Ugh, you're heating up.

Steve Scarfo (28:54)
Yeah, the flaming fire. ⁓

Boyd (29:01)
yeah!

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, well it's

like Galaga had that. Galaga, I forget what it is, if you move to the extreme left or right and you don't shoot and you wait a certain amount of time for the things that are falling to shoot, then they don't shoot ever again in the game. And it's a cheat code that was built into Galaga that I never knew. And you could do that from the very get.

Steve Scarfo (29:36)
It ⁓

was probably like a tester code. They put it in so that while they were testing the levels, they didn't have to restart. And then they never took it out. That's funny.

Boyd (29:43)
yeah I don't yeah

Jeff (29:46)
Nice.

Boyd (29:46)
I know that look it up you can you can still to this day if you play Galaga if you do that what they say then they that things never shoot again so that you don't have to dodge bullets

Jeff (29:56)
Nice.

Steve Scarfo (29:57)
Awesome. All right. Well,

we do have to keep moving on. So thanks for joining us, Boyd. ⁓ This is ⁓ crazy how much stuff that Jeff and I both completely blanked on. So we'll definitely be talking again.

Jeff (30:01)
Yeah.

Boyd (30:03)
Sure.

Jeff (30:13)
Yes,

we'll be tapping into your mind again, Void. Thanks for being an OG with us. Yes, open your mind!

Steve Scarfo (30:16)
Use your mind, Quaid. Your mind.

Boyd (30:16)
⁓ That sounds good guys

Steve Scarfo (30:24)
All right, we're gonna jump on, thanks, boy.

Boyd (30:24)
Hahaha

Alright, thanks guys, see you.

Jeff (30:28)
Thanks. Bye.

Jeff (30:39)
Wow. All right, I'm ready.

Steve Scarfo (30:40)
Yeah,

I got the real sound this time. So. So we're talking about stuff that we used to love, but doesn't exist anymore because of what, Jeff? Console gaming. Console gaming.

Jeff (30:43)
I am ready.

It's true.

Steve Scarfo (30:55)
did ⁓ consoles and their, you know, the one thing that was great about the arcades was we could always go. Didn't matter where they were. It depended on which game was in which arcade, but it was for everybody. And the console showed up and then you can only play a game if you have that console.

Like Mario, and everybody could go up and play Donkey Kong. For those of you who don't know, that's where Mario came from. But as soon as they put out their own console, Mario was too good for everybody. Mario just had to be with his own people. What do you think? It kind of annoyed me that you couldn't get other places.

Jeff (31:41)
I have to say that those console exclusives, actually saved gaming. Because I think we would have been frozen in time. There wouldn't have been a reason for Atari to get better if everyone had to make content that was for that Atari system. It's because Nintendo created their own system and then Sega and then Microsoft, because they were trying to push boundaries and made

things innovative because the, you know, because they needed to, like, if you created a game for, and I know I'm using a more modern example, but the Wii, like the Wii was so innovative with the way the controller, you know, moved, like that you move your arm and it's like you're moving your sword or, you know, you're punching and you're actually moving your arms and punching.

And like, you couldn't do that with any other controller, with any other product. And if anyone wanted to make that, they had to innovate. They had to create their own console. So I actually think that having exclusive content pushed innovation and it was worth the expense that you had to buy. I mean, the only reason I even own an Xbox

is because I to play the Harry Potter game. So I know it's kind of your point, but hey, I wanted to play it. I bought an Xbox. Shoot! ⁓ forget I made it!

Steve Scarfo (33:18)
But you're making my point, which I actually, I kind of love.

Because listen, I love the Harry Potter game too. ⁓ But I, you know, I have at home, I'm like a multi-layered geek, cause I'm an IT geek. I built my own computer a few years ago. I just actually, a while ago now, I just upgraded it two years ago. I have a beast of a machine I've put a lot of time and effort and money into. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to play the Harry Potter game.

on that computer. Now it eventually came out on Steam, but it was a while. It took time because it was exclusive to the Xbox. And of course, they did that on purpose, branded content, but they did it so people had to go buy a console if they wanted to play this game. And I just out of sheer stubbornness and go, go, hell no, I never bought the Xbox. I'm sure it's wonderful. I've seen the Xbox. It's great. But I hate that I had to.

buy an Xbox, play Harry Potter. But I mean, even further back into like the Mario games, you had to buy a Nintendo. There's no Mario games on, heck, don't even know if they, Nintendo puts anything on Steam these days. ⁓ You have to have a Switch. You have to have one. And you know, just like every other company, they keep changing the hardware that works with their software, so you have to buy something new. ⁓ You know, it's...

I understand it as a IT techno geek. get that and I don't disagree with the innovation part because I mean, there was, what was the one with the boxing gloves? Those were horrible. But like I had a wee too and it was fun to be more interactive, but I just, I hate the idea that I had to go buy something new.

Jeff (35:06)
⁓ Look look at you. Come on that we we we had to yeah We talked we've talked on this podcast before that you got to pay with your dollars and if you want innovation It's gonna cost you and it's gonna cost you hundreds of dollars for an entirely different system And that is worth the price for innovation

Steve Scarfo (35:15)
I'm just wa-

that I'll play twice.

Jeff (35:35)
Otherwise, you'd still be playing Pong. That's right. That's all you'd have today. There'd be no innovation, zero, without exclusive content for each of these consoles.

Steve Scarfo (35:48)
Damn you. Well, I don't like to admit defeat, but that's a really solid point. But I still stand by. It's annoying to have to buy for a con. So I, you know, especially at my age with kids and the family and in ever all the work that we're doing, I don't have time. So it's hard. Like I told you, I bought the headset, the Meta Quest 2. I think the only game I've ever played with any frequency is Beat Saber.

because it's easy. can get in, although I did play the Star Wars game, the Darth Vader game, so those were pretty cool. But I need something that I can get in. I don't have a lot of time, so I can't be spending money on an Xbox and a Sega and a PlayStation 12, 13, 14, whatever the hell they're at now. It's gotta be, but why don't you guys write in and tell us what you think. Which one? Do you think it was better to have an exclusive or do you think it's better?

to have it be free for all.

Jeff (36:48)
You know, and as long as we're talking about a lack of innovation, sometimes it's good to, you know, go back and dig up a basement treasure before something changed and something evolved. So let's dig up a basement treasure now.

Steve Scarfo (37:04)
Hmm.

Jeff (37:22)
Love that.

Steve Scarfo (37:23)
⁓

For the record, my favorite of the sound drops so far. ⁓

Jeff (37:29)
Absolutely. So what do want to dig up?

Steve Scarfo (37:30)
All right.

So it's somewhere in the middle. It's console, but it's an early console. ⁓ And it's the Colecovision. Colecovision was, I don't even know if it was even popular for very long, but it was, at the time, it was cutting edge. Like Pong was the game that everybody was doing. That was pretty much those Pong style games were the ones that people had, but this was cartridge-based.

Jeff (37:44)
⁓

Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (38:05)
or at least selector based, could change the games that you were playing. I think the Pong game we had just had a little dial, like a little slider. You could play this one, this one, and it had five or six games pre-built. This one was a cartridge style game. And my cousins had this. ⁓ My cousins, Paul and Rich and Jen had it. And well, probably more Paul and Rich. I don't think Jen was playing the video game. She's a little younger. ⁓ But they had a Dungeons and Dragons game on Colecovision. And so it was the

Jeff (38:09)
Yeah.

Yep.

Steve Scarfo (38:34)
first time for me that I saw this combination of D &D and video games. It was super basic, ⁓ but I was like, you had to, like you'd go find, it was like stick figures. And they had like a, it's almost like Minecraft, even less digital than Minecraft is. ⁓ Like what Minecraft is, retro, you know, it's retro, it's better looking, of course, but it's that throwback to the stick figure swords.

That was from the original Colecovision game. So I wish I could find one that didn't cost a billion dollars, but they're like they're like a, I don't know, a collector's item now.

Jeff (39:06)
Yeah.

Yeah, Colecovision, I agree that was quite a treasure. I loved ⁓ Colecovision. Also short-lived, I think it was a relatively short-lived console, but that was kind of to my point, innovation, because it had that giant, ⁓ it had this giant controller that had ⁓ a number pad on it. ⁓ Think of those of you who...

Steve Scarfo (39:38)
Mm-hmm.

Jeff (39:44)
Yeah, we know what a giant digital phone would look like. So it had a one through nine. so it had and the instead of the joystick, it had like this disk. It was still a joystick, but it wasn't the big long joystick. Yeah, there's a but you could like turn it and side buttons is like a really innovative controller. And you could have a lot more functionality because I had nine additional or whatever, how many additional buttons over an Atari button.

Steve Scarfo (39:56)
Yeah, you.

spinner.

Jeff (40:12)
actually, I had over 10 more buttons. So there was a lot more you could do with it. Yeah, it had side buttons and then a dial pad. Yeah, which was, was pretty wild. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one. So for me, the Basement Treasure, I think,

Steve Scarfo (40:18)
You had side buttons too, didn't it?

Yeah, I think you could click down. Yeah.

Jeff (40:40)
I was, it's funny because we already talked about it, was Cyberball was my, as I was thinking it would be a great basement treasure because I loved that. Yeah. We, and so, ⁓ and what made that even more innovative over Gauntlet for being four players is that I two screens. So, so like you were, you were teammates with, with someone, cause you could have four players on two separate screens and you couldn't see what the other team was doing.

Steve Scarfo (40:59)
Yes.

Jeff (41:09)
So we had, yeah, so I loved that. And of course, making the plea to bring back Cyberball. But there was another basement treasure that I thought I wanted to bring up, but of course I've read it before, but I'm gonna bring it back up. It's the Lords of Conquest, ⁓ which was this Risk-style ⁓ console game. And actually, I don't remember what console we were playing that on. ⁓ We played it on like your giant TV. is it PC?

Steve Scarfo (41:10)
Sure, forgot about that.

It wasn't, it was

a Commodore 64 game. It was a floppy disk game. Yeah.

Jeff (41:40)
Oh, Commodore 64, that's right. That's

right, Commodore 64. But we still attached it to your TV screen, so it kind of seemed like we were playing a console game. But yeah, that I, so I love that game. It's like a risk style game. And I think, you know, and you know, that kind of strategy game, definitely my preference. I'm more onto that, because you talked about Dragon's Lair. I love the look of it.

Steve Scarfo (41:51)
Yeah.

Jeff (42:10)
I sucked at that game. I was so bad at that game. And it made me see things from the point of view. Every now and again when I judge the younger generation for watching YouTube videos of just someone playing a video game, don't you want to play the video game for Dragon's Lair? I'd want to watch someone else play it because I was not good at it. This is only way I was going to know how this story was going to end if someone else played it because I was not getting very far.

Steve Scarfo (42:38)
I will admit I got pretty far, but

I don't think I ever completed that game. It was not easy. was, and listen, it was frustrating, but yeah, I it.

Jeff (42:44)
So.

Yeah.

So I'll watch someone else do that. Absolutely.

Steve Scarfo (42:54)
Well, know, things change, Jeff. And they have to go from what they were to what they're gonna be. ⁓ So I think they have to evolve.

Jeff (42:57)
This side.

Yes. And I think we've kind of hit on a few, a bit of that evolution when it comes to the joystick, right? And, and because, and we were talking about it before the podcast or, you know, we exchanged this idea that I totally forgot how painful eventually playing an Atari joystick game was.

Steve Scarfo (43:45)
my goodness. Yeah. And specifically the evolution of the controller, right? Because we talked about it with Pong. It was literally like a it was like if you're holding a mouse, I can't even think of a dot like it's just a spinner. That's all it did. You all you could do is back and forth, left and right. And every game was zip, zip, zip and bong. And, know, the brick breaker.

I remember as a kid, probably as a late teenager, I got probably one of the first handheld versions, but it was basically just pong in your hand. But it was all spinner. And then the button came out with Colecovision. They were super advanced, but Atari had the one button. You know, Nintendo got crazy and put two buttons and then eventually they had like 75 buttons on their controllers. But now...

Jeff (44:21)
Yep.

Yep.

Yes.

But that Nintendo

controller, was the game changer because even to today, that was the first time, because the controller's, like the Colecovision controller was enormous. It was not comfortable. It was innovative, but not comfortable. It was like playing with a giant phone in your hand.

Steve Scarfo (44:43)
Yeah.

yeah.

Jeff (45:06)
I

know it's hard for anyone to imagine today what those phones look like. Yes, gigantic, gigantic.

Steve Scarfo (45:09)
Actually, think about a really big calculator. That's what it was, just a huge flat,

⁓ it was, well, I have a pretty good sized phone. This is the ⁓ Samsung, I'll throw a picture. That's about the size of what it was and you just did this. For those of you who are actually watching.

Jeff (45:22)
Yeah, just throw ⁓ a flat joystick on the top and here.

And then Nintendo did away with the joystick

entirely. It was just a pad. And then instead of our wrists hurting from the joystick, we got calluses on our thumb from moving that.

Steve Scarfo (45:43)
Yes.

But then they eventually created that U-shape, or almost M-shaped pad that had two buttons for each hand in the front. You had four buttons for each thumb, two joysticks. There was a point in time, especially I had an accident with one of my hands, I just gave up. I couldn't do it. There was too many options for buttons. And you play against a kid or somebody else who'd be like, brrrr

Jeff (45:51)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (46:13)
And it would be done. You're like, I don't even, I didn't get to play.

Jeff (46:16)
I know, and usually Nintendo was the one pushing that innovation, talking about innovation, but then when, I think it was PlayStation though that created what you're talking about, which is like the two handles. So then it'd be like... ⁓

Steve Scarfo (46:29)
Did PlayStation start that?

Jeff (46:31)
Yeah, it's it's two handles and they added, ⁓ they threw in, ⁓ Nintendo, so yeah. So they had like the handled one and then Nintendo answered back with innovation of adding like a third thing to hold onto and put in an analog controller.

Steve Scarfo (46:49)
Yeah.

See, damn you, this is

why your geek court case wins. Because this is why this shit exists.

Jeff (47:01)
Yeah, because then like they each had to keep up in the ante and I think was ⁓ and I think the shock one the what the first one that had like like you're playing and it actually vibrated the controller. So yeah, so like whoever created that like that was that was huge when it when that first vibrating the something shock.

Steve Scarfo (47:14)
I think that was PlayStation.

Jeff (47:27)
It was actually the controller actually actually had shock in the name, I think. And then, so like you're, you're interacting with it in a new way. And, and, ⁓ you talk about virtual reality that, you know, having that kind of tactile feel that actually helped create a certain reality when you're playing with that game, cause you can get that feedback. And then Nintendo had up there, Auntie, by with their Wii controller, which was motion control.

So you're like you're really punching or you're really swinging a sword or and I know people got so into it that they actually destroyed their TVs because they're like I really got to throw this thing and ⁓

Steve Scarfo (48:06)
Well, they didn't put the wrist thing on and they would throw it across the room.

Well, and now...

It even goes a step further, Jeff, because I don't know that you how much you've used the VR helmet, but the new and the again, I have the MetaQuest 2. It's probably a generation or two old, but you don't even need a controller. Like it comes with two controllers and it's easier because this buttons just like everything else. Like it's just a different form factor. You just hold them. And so if you're playing a gun game, there's actually a trigger and then there's thumb controls. But you don't need that for some games. You can just use your hands. You just show the screen, your hands and maps your fingers and you do everything with pinch and zoom.

like

you can make pictures bigger just literally by moving your hands. So we went from a horrible controller that was basically just your hand through 972 buttons to a controller that is just your hands. We've basically evolved all the way back to just using our hands.

Jeff (48:56)
Yeah.

Exactly, that's awesome.

All right, so I feel like it's time to offer a message to the new generation or a rant. It's our choice.

Steve Scarfo (49:21)
Officially my second favorite sound rep because he sounds like he might die at the end

Jeff (49:24)
Yeah.

That's so true. It's so true.

Steve Scarfo (49:31)
So, do you wanna start this one? Or do you want me to run?

Jeff (49:35)
Um, I just, I'm really the, the, the message to the new generation, think is more, you know, we normally, you know, are like, Oh, you know, delivering to the younger generation, but really I want to, I want to also deliver this. Actually, I really want to deliver one to Gen X. So, which is probably most of our listeners anyway. So that.

Steve Scarfo (49:59)
Okay.

Jeff (50:03)
I don't know about you, but I always thought it was ridiculous that younger generations watching people play video games. Like I was just, you know, when we talked about being in the arcade and you're your quarter number seven, you're gonna watch six people play this game before you get to play. But then you do get to play. So what I don't understand is watching someone play a video game and then not playing.

Steve Scarfo (50:26)
Yes.

Jeff (50:33)
because it just doesn't make any sense to me. Like at some point you want to play the game. ⁓ But the message to Gen X is get over it. We got to get over it because really that could be as interesting as like for us watching football or baseball or any other sport. They're just watching this in a kind of competitive entertaining way and like the person who's narrating their play is engaging.

Steve Scarfo (50:37)
Yeah.

Jeff (51:02)
So it's hard because we're thinking playing a video game, watching someone play a video game, why wouldn't you want to play it? so for me, that's message as much for me like, hey, that's their entertainment. Let it go.

Steve Scarfo (51:17)
⁓ goodness. You know, I have ⁓ young girls because the first thing I thought of was a Disney movie when you said let it go. ⁓ The I think the other side of that that I want to jump in on a little bit is ⁓ there's a whole new generation of sports called e-sports. And I think this is why as Gen X, we have a problem. And we I think you're right.

I'm on both sides of this. Again, I'm a techno geek. I love gaming. I love computers. I love all that stuff. Work in IT. So when somebody creates something new that involves technology and something that I enjoy, like video gaming, it's like, OK, which, you know, those kind of have to go hand in hand. I love it. But I remember the first time I heard the term e-sports, I laughed. I'm like, what the hell are you talking about? But it is it is viable. So don't go out.

expand what you're looking at and watch some of these folks because Jeff like you said it before and The reason why I watched the Patriots play football instead of play football is I'm not good. I Loved playing football when I was in high school and in college I never played in college, but you know when I was college age just with friends playing football But I was never good enough to play on a team, but it doesn't mean I shouldn't watch the game ⁓

Still go play games, but it's okay to hang out and watch a game here and there. ⁓ But don't forget the playing part. Find the games you love and play them. That's all I'm saying. You know what I'm saying.

Jeff (52:50)
I do. I do.

Steve Scarfo (52:52)
So yeah, I think that's where we're at. But I think as we wrap up all of our episodes, we get to talk about some stuff that went phenomenal and some stuff that didn't go so well. And I think this time ⁓ we are doing, we're gonna do this a little different. We don't know what each other's gonna say. So it'll be a little more interesting, but here we go.

Jeff (53:33)
Nice. All right, so I'm do a critical hit. Steve's gonna do an epic fail. So the critical hit that I wanna bring up in this video games is the Wii. I feel like video games are going, we're talking about evolution, like it was just getting more realistic, the graphics were getting better, and then the Wii came out and it, like the graphics were like took.

took a step back a decade. there wasn't about looking, you know, amazing, like you're just drawn in. looked like you're playing a movie. It didn't look like that. It looked like more like a classic video game. You know, the Wii avatars that you got to design, your Mii, were very cartoony, not exactly, you know, reality. But it was,

Steve Scarfo (54:29)
Yeah.

Jeff (54:33)
it like, I think it may still be the best selling console of all time. At least it's one of the best of all time. And that's against a lot of heavy hitter consoles. And, but it was this very simplistic, relatively comparatively simplistic compared to like the Xbox or PlayStation or other things that were going on. And what was amazing is it also was in, it brought generations together.

in the living room playing together. Grandma could play, ⁓ little kids could play. It really was an amazing console for bringing generations together, playing video games together as a family and with a lot of different family-friendly content from sports to, yeah, the Mario games, but that was,

Steve Scarfo (55:04)
Yeah.

Jeff (55:31)
Those have been out long enough to be like cross-generational as well. So for me, I think the big hit was the Wii, it got it so that the video games weren't just for the nerds, because they were like, as Steve pointed out, the consoles were getting really complicated. Like the controllers, mean, like having all these buttons and it's really complicated.

Steve Scarfo (55:36)
Right.

Mm-hmm.

Jeff (56:01)
that we couldn't have been simpler. was just, just, games, games can work and be simple. And that's what I want to call out for this critical hit. I felt like that was amazing. And, you know, I don't have the latest Switch. Do you have the latest Nintendo Switch?

Steve Scarfo (56:24)
I don't think

it's the latest one. We do have a switch.

Jeff (56:27)
Yeah, so I mean, it kind of, you know, it kind of, they've kind of kept that kind of spirit going, right, with the, with the, with, with this. So, you know, that's my critical hit. I think it's fantastic.

Steve Scarfo (56:40)
Yeah, no, I agree. They were the first, I'm gonna say this and people are gonna tell me I'm wrong. ⁓ I think they were the first socialized, like you said, in the home gaming, right? Because they didn't try to go for ⁓ hellaciously fast processing of graphics. If they didn't worry about the...

realistic views. They put all of their power into socialization, to getting people on their feet and to the motion control. You know, what they, and I agree, I don't think it was a sacrifice, but what they may have sacrificed in visuals, they made up for more than, you know, you and I used to play the Nintendo Wii Golf all the time, because you actually got to swing the thing and tennis and pong. Like it was, it was fun because you were up and around, but you were still playing a video game. ⁓

you didn't have to run track first before you got on the field, you could just goof around and have a good time. So I like that. That's a great one. ⁓ I think my fail is also might be a little ⁓ controversial, but it goes back to this idea of.

⁓ having to continuously pay for the same game I've already purchased. ⁓ And that's in the form of downloadable content, DLCs. Like I play a lot of games on Steam, we both do. And some of them, ⁓ they will give you downloads for free, but some of them they make you pay for every little add-on. Or like ⁓ I play Call of Duty, not as much as I used to. And sometimes I'll play... ⁓

PUBG, which is another great game, but those games, you have to buy the add-ons for your gun. If you wanna have this piece of equipment, you want that piece of armor, you have to spend money, even though it costs you like 65, 80 bucks, to buy the game to begin with, they continuously...

are looking to bleed you for money and I hate it. I think it's a huge fail in the gaming industry. ⁓ I know it's not a monetary fail. Trust me, I know they're making millions. That's why they're doing it. ⁓ But personally, I'm like, God, it's just frustrating. Same reason I didn't want to buy a second console. Like I'm someone who will play a game.

over again and play one like we both love ⁓ civilization and games like that like those are games i'll continuously play i don't want to have to spend another 30 bucks to find out you know what happens when the Mayans show up or whatever the next dlc is going to be drives me crazy that should have been my rant

Jeff (59:14)
That's hilarious.

So DLC, yeah, I mean, I can see that and I don't have that many games where that's a problem, but one that we definitely did was Talisman. Talisman was this board game and someday, let's talk about the board game again. Give it some more time. We talked about it a little bit, but give this some more time. But the video game version.

Steve Scarfo (59:36)
We talked a little bit.

Jeff (59:44)
notorious DLC. ⁓ my God. Just to play. Because some DLC I get like there's like it's substantial, but then some DLC is, we just made this one character DLC, five bucks. And it's obnoxious. And Talisman is getting so bad with it, I think they were getting ripped a bit, you know, in their reviews is that so they made.

a season pass where they knew they were gonna come out with a bunch of DLC and you could just buy it up, like pay upfront, okay, and they called it a season pass and all the DLC that was coming out would be included in it. You'd prepaid for it before you even got it. So I can see this is still not the best experience, but.

Steve Scarfo (1:00:33)
I'll be honest,

still not a fan, but better a season pass for say 20 or 25 bucks, then charge me three bucks every two weeks. Cause every time I pay an extra, even if it's a little amount, it'll annoy the living shit out of me.

Jeff (1:00:41)
Yeah.

Steve Scarfo (1:00:51)
And I will be I will more likely not play a game in spite because I god damn it. I am not spending any more money on this game. It's just just can't do it as much as we like that one specifically.

Jeff (1:01:03)
Well, and I did this with Civilization 7. ⁓ There was DLC content you could prepay for, and I just did it, because I didn't want to, I knew I was going to want it. I knew I was going to want the DLC content. I was going to want it. So I just prepaid, so I get a little bit of a discount. But yeah, it is funny, like, right when they're releasing it, they're releasing the game.

Steve Scarfo (1:01:16)
Keep playing it.

Jeff (1:01:32)
and they had two DLCs coming up in the first six months.

Steve Scarfo (1:01:36)
yeah, which by the way, you know

had to be already complete. It's like when they finish an episode of TV, or season of TV and they go next season and you see like that's done. They're just waiting to release it because they don't wanna put all their content in one barrel. So these guys have a DLC, they could have added it to the game, they could have just made it part of the base game. And like, nah, nah, we're gonna make you wait and by the way, we're gonna make you pay more.

Jeff (1:02:02)
I think our podcast needs some DLC.

Steve Scarfo (1:02:05)
Well, it certainly needs some TLC. But don't go chasing waterfalls. That's all I'm saying. ⁓ So, ⁓ all right. Well, I think that's been another great episode. ⁓

Jeff (1:02:07)
Hahaha ⁓

Nice.

I agree.

Steve Scarfo (1:02:20)
I think we have a lot of content out there. If you've been with us this long, thanks for hanging around. Don't forget originalgeekpodcast@gmail.com. Send us in those questions so that we can have an ask an OG. We will answer what you got, but that's basically our pitch. Send us a note, us what you like. If you want something we want to talk about. We actually had somebody write in and I apologize. didn't get a real name, but I got a note online from somebody who really wants us to talk about John Hughes films, 16 Candles

Jeff (1:02:50)
⁓

Steve Scarfo (1:02:50)
those kind of things. ⁓ I think that's a great idea. ⁓

Jeff (1:02:52)
Nice. Yes.

Steve Scarfo (1:02:56)
I thought I had told you all that. I apologize if I didn't. But yeah, so we have a little interactivity too. So ⁓ originalgeekpodcast.com has all our links, ⁓ TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, ⁓ and we just put merch live. ⁓ So show off your geekiness and have some fun with us.

Jeff (1:02:59)
No, that's great. Great topic.

Great.

Download

that content.

Steve Scarfo (1:03:20)
down it not down it don't download just download it ⁓ otherwise i guess we'll

Jeff (1:03:29)
Yeah, and spread

the word. Just tell even one person about this podcast. And that's how great art, ⁓ you know, people get to be aware of it because a word of mouth counts a lot. So we really appreciate that.

Steve Scarfo (1:03:35)
No.

Jeff, you know how the old commercial went.

You have to tell two people and then they'll tell two people and then they'll tell two people and then we'll have told 16 people. All right. ⁓ Check me out. SteveScarfo.com SteveScarfo on all the social medias. ⁓ I'll be on stages around the region. Come out and find me.

Jeff (1:03:51)
Yes, we've got the world. We've got the world. Nice.