Gaming Podcast Discussion

When they leave Valve, probably.

Jake recently posted on ResetEra confirming that they’ll be casting again soon!

Thumbs stuff will return eventually! I feel insanely overloaded still to be honest. Eg: We’re still working on Firewatch Switch along with everything else. (It’ll be at PAX along with a new Firewatch booth somehow??) But yes we want to keep doing podcasts and eventually we will.

I’m not seeing anything suggesting “soon” in that.

They said people are still in the process of moving etc. It makes sense, it was a big move. Miss those shows though.

Ryckert is great, he is clueless about anything other than videogames. Which is why they always bring up stuff like that to him, it is funny because he never questions that he is wrong or deficient in some areas of knowledge, it is just incredulous that so much could fly over someone’s head like that. I love hearing that stuff on the show, especially Vinny and Jeff’s reactions to his questions.

Also, Ryckert luck is real… That Xcom series finale.

Good interview with Todd Howard.

Nick Wiger of the Doughboys and Heather Anne Campbell of UCB and games journalism have a new gaming podcast, How Did This Get Played. As the name suggests, it’s a riff on How Did This Get Made, playing and laughing at the worst games ever made.

Fans of internet meme Drew Scanlon may be interested to know he is a guest on the Beastcast this week.

Another reason to not listen to the Beastcast this week.

I tried to listen to Giant Bomb a few days ago because in the show notes they mention Last of Us 2 and I wanted to hear about that. I ended up scrubbing through the podcast to get to it and found it an hour in. They talked about it for about 2 and a half minutes (literally) and said “well I don’t have anything to add to our video we recorded” and then went on to talk about, I assume, the WWE or something. Useless. Them moving most of the game discussion to videos on their page is a large part of why I haven’t listened to them in awhile, I’d forgotten I guess.

I haven’t listened to a gaming podcast (other than Qt3) in a long time. Is Waypoint still doing a good podcast? I remember enjoying them a while back. Anyone else that’s really great?

When Waypoint is good, it’s really good, and they’re one of the few outlets that talks critically about games now that Idle Thumbs is gone, but they put out a lot of podcasts and half the time it’s about specific games or other topics I’m not interested in.

Qt3 is still the only one I listen to. Occasionally I listen to Cane and Rinse if they’re covering a game I’m familiar with, they go deep in their experience and analysis. They’re pretty good.

Three Moves Ahead needs to condense the format to about 30 minutes instead of the hour+ it is right now, because they tend to start rambling and nitpicking. Their take on things recently just seems more undergrad-y and it feels i’ve moved past them.

Listening to a guy ramble on about Colonialism and displacing the native population in Anno 1800 - because the game is a series of bare islands in some hypothetical Carribean where there were some hypothetical natives that are no longer there - when every Anno game, regardless of the setting, is a series of islands, seems like reading into the setting, like making an hour long digression about the oppression of the Proletariat because in the WarCraft games the human workers are called peasants and are represented as thick-headed lumps.

Crate and Crowbar is superb. It’s basically all games talk, with none of the {pop culture, comment on current affairs, random rambling} filler that most other general purpose podcasts have. They actually discuss the games in enough depth that you can really understand whether you’d want to play them or not. And the hosts are really funny and insightful.

Looking at what I have in my feeds, still listening to Gamers With Jobs after all these years, they stay pretty focused on games as opposed to energy drinks or pro wrestling or personal issues. The Cheap Ass Gamers podcast is far less focused by comparison. The Continue podcast is a continuation (get it?) of the lineup of the late lamented Games Radar Plus podcast, but also frequently lacks a tight focus on games, and could really use a normalization pass before release, Anthony likes yelling and Susan is mixed in too low. But it’s still usually fun.

USGamer’s Axe of The Blood God podcast is specifically focused on RPGs, and Kat Bailey really knows her stuff. Scott Johnson’s Boop is a 2-person podcast that tries to focus on smaller/indie games. Ladies of Leet is fun and surprisingly deep, but not updated more often than monthly.

IGN’s stuff is generally decent middle of the road stuff to pass time with, but I can’t say I usually bother with the Nintendo-focused one or the UK/Austrailian ones. I also listen to Retronauts if the subject is interesting, but they can be pretty hit-or-miss.

That’s the only other one I listen to other than Tom’s podcast. I’m worried it won’t have the same impact with Shawn gone, because one of the things that makes that podcast so great is the friendship between all of them. A piece is missing without Shawn at the helm.

No love for DLC? Starring Jeff Cannata and Christian Spicer formerly of 1up Yours. They do a pretty good job doing in depth discussion about current news and games. I don’t always agree with them, but always listen to the show. Sometimes has a VR & board game segment.

Another vote for Crate and Crowbar. it’s the only gaming podcast I listen to every week, everything else I sample.

Okay, caught up! It’s a bit sad how this thread tapers off at the end. Anyway, here are some the gaming podcasts I am still subscribed to that I didn’t see mentioned here. I think they’re all worth at least sampling.

  • Paradox’ The Business of Videogames - Shams and another Paradox exec talk about producing, licensing, joint ventures, how Paradox is doing, etc.
  • Explorminate - a 4x-focused podcast that tries to cover pretty much all of them.
  • The Important Thing - this is actually a management podcast but about 20% of the episodes are about Destiny. I like this show because it’s short and cuts a 20-minute show into about 15 chapters; very scannable. The management stuff is good, too.
  • The Long View - you have to triage this feed because they let other shows syndicate in there, but at its best it’s an interview with a guest about a board game they have played dozens or hundreds of times. Very courteous hosts with the capability for historical perspective.
  • Ludology - a game design and mechanics analysis podcast by Geoff Engelstein and friends.

Also, this is indeed an amazing segment of that episode, and the podcast overall. Thank you for mentioning this. Here’s a link to when the story starts:

Thanks for the list. I have not heard of some of these and will check them out.

I like the new host, Amanda, but her voice is like nails on a chalkboard. I’m considering dropping GWJ from my podcast rotation as a result.