What It's Like When Your Game Flops

Hundreds and hundreds of video games have already been released this year. Is that inspiring? Or just a record of how many great games we haven't heard of? Welcome to TripleClick, where we bring the games to you. This week, we bring on game developer Nels Anderson, who put out a game called Generation Exile that just couldn't seem to hit with people. It's fun to talk about success, but let's not forget the other side. I'm Maddie Myers. I'm Jason Schreier. And I'm Kirk Hamilton. And hello. Hello. We're back again. Back, back, back. Can I say something real quick? I want to do kind of an addendum to a previous episode because I got a message about this. A few weeks ago, I was like, we were talking about that blog post that was about AI and how it was found out to be written in part by AI. Oh no, another addendum? It was an ongoing saga. We already got one addendum. Well, but then I said something that seemed kind of contradictory that I need to elaborate on, which is that afterwards I was basically like, I can always tell when something's been written by AI. I just want to be very clear. I can always tell when something's been written by AI and not edited afterwards. The reason we couldn't tell with that blog post is because it was written by AI and then purportedly written by AI and then edited afterwards, such as replacing all the M dashes with semicolons, et cetera, et cetera. What I'm saying is if something is raw written by AI, it is very easy for me to tell. Yeah, I think we did clarify that because we also went on to describe my experiences trying to tell which freelancers are and are not using AI. And I was explaining how it becomes very difficult if the person generates something in AI and then rewrites it on their own. And I think that is going to become something that we continue to debate as to what is and isn't creativity? What is and isn't truly coming up with an idea yourself? I mean, I don't think it has satisfying answers. We will certainly discuss more. Yeah, that question is going to be really important. Like, or if a small part of something is AI generated, you're playing a game and one song is AI generated. And you didn't even notice as it went by because so many other things were handmade. Or you're listening to a song and one synth part was AI generated, you know, like that kind of thing is going to be a really common and is a kind of much more complex part of the conversation. It's so funny you say that because there was a game that was like controversial. I think Totillo was telling me about this, that there was a game where like, it was an interesting game. And then all the music was just generated by AI. And the developer was like in the comments defending it. It'd be like, this wouldn't exist, but for AI. And people were like, well, why does it need to exist if you couldn't be bothered to create it? And yeah, really fascinating stuff. Yeah, I think that's just going to keep happening. But hey, you know what isn't generated by AI? This show or all of our bonus episodes. I thought you were going to say, you know what is going to also keep happening? Episodes of Triple Click. That's way better. I love that. Episodes of Triple Click are going to keep happening. That's the Triple Click promise, people. The episodes of Triple Click will continue until more elements. We obviously have Triple Click every single week. That's going to keep happening. But we also have bonus episodes. And there's just one way you can get them, folks. It's to go to MaximumFun.org slash join and become a member. And if you do that, you will get the huge cash of every monthly bonus ep we have ever previously recorded, including several in which we are slowly watching all of the TV show The Sopranos. Our most recent mega, mega bonus episode is about seasons two and three. And it's like two hours long, something like that. Almost three hours. It's like two and a half. Yeah, it's a really meaty bonus set, but there are different ones of different lengths and check them all out. The next one we're going to do is about a TV show that I've never seen, but I think you two have both already seen it before. Similar to The Sopranos, but also not at all because the TV show is real different. It's called Players. So, Jason, why don't you talk about Players? Because you've seen it before and I haven't seen it yet. Yeah, so Players, it's a mockumentary by the creators of American Vandal. And it is hilarious. It is this incredible look at this esports team called Fugitive Gaming that plays League of Legends. And it's kind of like a send up of sports documentaries like The Last Dance, except it's about this esports team. But it's also just like American Vandal, even though it's at its core very funny. It's also a very human, emotional story. So it's fantastic to watch. I love it. We're going to be rewatching it and talking about it. But we're also going to talk about some of the broader themes and e-sports and stuff. So it's hard to find. So if you can't find it, you can't watch it. I had to like pay 20 bucks on YouTube to stream it. Yeah, that would be the best way to watch it. Yeah, that would be the best way. If you don't want to watch it, that's totally fine. This bonus episode, we're going to make sure it's listenable and fun to listen to and interesting, even if you haven't seen it. So we're going to talk about it in a broad way. But if you can watch it, it's incredible. I highly recommend it. I will be watching it. And excited to see what it is like. Yeah, I'll be very curious what you think, Maddie. It's a wild ride. Yeah. But we aren't going to keep talking about bonus apps. We're going to get to the meat of the episode now. Jason, what are we talking about today? So today we have a really interesting, candid conversation with someone who released a game that not very many people played. We talk a lot to people who have made successful games on the show. And now we're going to talk to someone who kind of did the opposite. So our guest today is Nels Anderson, who is a veteran game developer. Kirk and I actually know Nels. We've been friendly for a long time. He was on the show back when it was split screen at one of our GDC interview episodes. And he actually, he reached out not too long ago because he wanted to offer his perspective on releasing a game in early access and what happens when things don't go well. He's worked on games including Death Spank, Mark of the Ninja, and Firewatch, the fantastic walking simulator released by Campo Santo, the indie studio that Nels helped co-found that would then go on to be purchased by Valve after Nels left. Nels left Campo Santo to start a new independent studio in 2017 called Sonderlust Studios that released a game recently, last month, called Generation Exile. That is kind of part visual novel, part city simulator. And it's really, it's just kind of a grand strategy game. And it is about the environment and eco-friendly themes. and he released it and he told us that it has not done particularly well. And so we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about what it's like to spend many years of your life on a project, on a game that comes out and doesn't resonate with quite as many people as you wanted. We're going to talk to him about that whole process and why it took so long and lots of other good stuff. So without further ado, let's bring in Nels. And we are joined by Nels Anderson. Hello, Nels. How are you? Hello. I'm good. Hello, Nels. I'm good. Hi. Nice to see you, man. How are y'all? We are doing okay. Congratulations on launching a video game. Generation Exile is, of course, out right now as we speak. It is. It exists in the world. It exists in the world. And there's a lot to get into. We're going to get into some of the nitty gritty of launching a game of 2020. and what that's like. But first, let's back up a little bit. So people out there might know many of the games you've worked on, like Mark of the Ninja and Firewatch, but I actually want to cut to 2016 when you decided to go even more independent than you already were. So you were at a place called Campo Santo that would later be purchased by Valve. What made you decide to start a new company after that? Because I'm stupid. Oh, there we go. Starting off spicy. That wasn't the reason back then, though. That's true. Back then, you probably had a good reason. No, I mean, it was really like, so the setup with Campo Santo on Firewatch was there was kind of a locus of most people were in San Francisco. I was here in Vancouver, and then Ollie Moss and James Benson were in the UK. So it was like that experience kind of demonstrated to me that it's possible to have that kind of just like we can actually be we don't need an office with only people in the same geographic location. And there were so many incredibly talented people both here in Vancouver and folks elsewhere that I knew that I'm like, well, it would be really rad to be able to work in this way with a bunch of these folks. and also, you know, Campo had been talking a little bit about what they wanted to do next. And then obviously we know where that story goes. They got acquired by Valve. But certainly at that time, the creative interest was like largely building upon a lot of the learnings from Firewatch, right? So like the next thing would have been like a first person story driven exploration narrative thing, which was cool. But I also just made one of those. And because we can be artistic can say I'm a dilettante and not simply someone with an attention disorder that I've never made the type of same type of game twice. Cause like, why utilize all those learnings? You can just throw them away and start over knowing nothing every single time. So that was also part of it. I think that, you know, my interest was like, okay, what else is out there to do? Like creative design game wise to put this timeline in, in perspective for me. So they announced this game, Was it called In the Valley of the Gods? Yes. This was a follow-up to Firewatch? Correct. Had you already announced you were leaving Cambo at that point? Yeah, I had departed at that point. There was a very hazy notion, I think, shortly before I left. But even when Firewatch came out, you launch a game, but you're still doing support for quite a chunk of time as well. So what the next thing was was quite hazy, but it was certainly still going to be in that same mechanical design format. So did you have a plan at this point? So you're going indie, you start your own studio, you bring some people over. Did you have a financing plan? Did you have a game plan? What was kind of the next, those few months after you left Campo Santo, what were those like? What I did was I had a human child. So that took up my... Perfect timing. Yep. My child was born about a month after Firewatch came out. So that both his physical size as well as his size in my consciousness continued to balloon over that time. So that was also very consuming and just a giant parade of, I don't know what I'm doing about any of this. But once that at least vaguely stabilized, fortunately, at least in this country, there's this entity up here called the Canadian Media Fund or the CMF. It exists primarily to fund like film and television productions made up here in Canada, but they do have a dusty halfway forgotten corner. That's like, Oh, also video games, I guess. So back in 2000 and 2017 managed to secure prototyping funding from the CMF. It's not like an art grant. It's like an interest-free loan, but that's like kind of the second best source of funding one can hope to get. And so we were able to take that prototype funding, make enough of a rough skeleton of what would eventually become Generation Exile, and then we're able to take that around to various more traditional funding type entities. And eventually we signed a funding arrangement with this entity, I guess, called Kowloon Knights, which is a fund. They're not like a publisher. They don't do like, oh, we'll actually do the marketing or the loc and we'll have like an assigned producer it's not that it's like we will give you money we will give you advice and then everything else you will provide via those funds we have given to you and that you know that's kind of how we'd always worked in the past anyway so that seemed like a perfect fit and they were you know incredible to work with i think that fund has largely wrapped up but most of the same people are now running kepler interactive yeah the people they did uh clear obscure most notably correct um and so probably between when we have started this conversation and now uh clairobscure has cleared more funds than our project ever will so they are doing just fine i have a kind of budgetary follow-up i guess or a question coming from the perspective of i think how a lot of people who don't work in game development think about how games are funded which is that firewatch was very successful and then campo a studio that you at least, I think, co-founded, was bought by Valve. Like, did you have money coming in from that game's sales or from the acquisition that you considered part of the funding picture for putting together something new? Yeah, so it wasn't much. So I never owned any equity chunk of Campo Santo for various, like, international law and taxation reasons, because I was a citizen up here in Canada. So I had an entity, like a legally distinct entity up here that was like contracting for the same amount of money every month. That was like wages, essentially, with Campo Santo. And so everybody at Campo did have a revenue share arrangement from Firewatch. But the Firewatch earnings were already split between Campo and Panic, who like funded the production of Firewatch. So then of the Campo chunk that was left, there was a small portion allotted to all the individual people. In brief, there was a small amount, but it was like not that much and spread over, you know, six or seven years. Certainly not enough to fund even one person making a video game, let alone multiple. So it was really the CMF funds initially and then that funding from Kellen Nights that actually like afforded us making our game. Got it. Yeah. So, OK, so at the end of 2017, while you're getting the CMF and then eventually taking it out to publishers and funders and getting that money, I assume at that point you did not think you would be shipping in 2026. Can you tell me a little bit about what was the kind of what was the projection? What was the plan? And what went awry? I mean, obviously there was that, you know, whole global pandemic thing. And so even though our working practices were insulated from that, the general life toll, non-zero, the intention was always to stay relatively small, particularly at the beginning. so with a game like this they're so complicated and so many pieces have to touch so many other pieces that if you just slam a ton of people on it once without kind of having built up enough of all the various systems so they can like actually interact and you know talk to each other so to speak that it just you just end up having to like generate work for people to do but then you don't know actually is that thing exactly correct and so it can be a big old mess so we stayed with like a relatively small cadre of people for like quite a long time. Even going in knowing I'm like, oh yeah, these things are really complicated. So when I was thinking you can know, but you can't really know until you experience it. And then you're like, oh, I get why almost nobody makes games like this. Okay, cool. And the people who do. By games like this, you mean city builders? Yeah. Describe the elevator pitch. So yeah, Generation Exile is a sustainable solar punk city builder where you are essentially rebuilding a society inside of a generation ship that has departed from Earth due to ecological collapse of our planet due to excessive desire for growth. Completely unrealistic. Utter fantasy. Totally made up. Not at all. Whoever could have thought. So the idea was, kind of the incepting idea of the entire game, the emergent narrative stuff that lives in a Crusader Kings or a Rimworld, the player-driven, non-deterministic, like it's different every time type emergent stories that live in those games, I find experientially like incredibly compelling and a thing that like kind of only exists in games. But, and I say this as someone who loves CK and RimWorld and DoorFortress, like those games are for crazy people, crazy people like me, but they're also for crazy people, right? So it's like, okay, well, can we get at some of the emergent narrative stuff that lives in those games, but maybe set it on top of a bedrock of like a slightly less inherently complicated game, right? Like rather than, you know, a big paradox, you know, Europa Universalis Hearts of Iron type grand strategy game. What if it's a little, what if it's a city builder, which is like a little bit more discreet, contained, familiar, right? And then we discovered that actually that is doing that is way more complicated than one might think. Um, like I'm still trying to figure out exactly where so much of that complexity came from. But I think part of it is when you have a game where ultimately what you do is you move little guy around the screen in whatever format that might take, including little guy being like a gun and your eyes are the guy that that necessarily bounds what the game is about. And I don't mean in terms of fiction. I just mean like in terms of experience. What is the game about? Like, what do you do is kind of like inherently person constrained. But when you don't have that, then it's like, what's the game about? And now your constraints are like, well, what can a board game be about? And the answer is, well, whatever the hell you write in the manual and then whatever pieces of wood, cardboard, and plastic you put in the box, it can just be anything. And that seems empowering. It is also means that you have no like firmament that you're building on at all. But then you're just staring into this like infinite possibility space. And so that's itself challenging. But I think that that property is why if you look at strategy games, there are pretty like discrete lineages of game and stuff is a lot more like iterative in conversation within that lineage. It is actually quite difficult. So just because like so many of these just like invisible assumptions depend on the way that all the systems interact with each other and you kind of can't not nearly as easily can just pick one bit out of it and put it in here so like oh we'll take the emergent narrative stuff from your crusader kings ish type things and we'll put it in the city builder it'll just work i mean not that we thought it would just work but the the integration difficulty there i think was uh significantly higher than we imagined. So did you ever think to stop? To go in another direction? Because, like, there's only... I don't know, personally, there's only so long... I thought of that! Well, I mean, there's only so long, I personally would be willing to ram my head against the wall of something that's not working. I'm curious, and I don't know, are you happy with what you ultimately wound up with in the game? I mean, I think we ultimately got to an interesting expression of some of those ideas, right? Like, I don't think, you know, the thing we shoved out the door was like, oh, this is some horrible half-baked trash, but well, here you go. Like, I think we ultimately got it there. For good or for ill and the answer actually is probably a bit of both like i have a disposition toward being unable to uh not see something through no matter what um and obviously as we were you know iterating through like we tried all kinds of different like experiments within the actual systems of the game itself so it wasn't just like oh there's one thing we'll force it to work no matter what but Stunner doing a new thing really hard, it turns out. But I think also a confounding factor with all of this is, you know, like a big systems driven strategy game. It's so hard to evaluate any of it until almost all of it exists, right? You have to build like 90% of the systems in the game before you have any idea if any of it's working or not, right? Where it's like, you know, you can't, the prototype of civilization that, oh, the only thing that works is the tech tree. It's like, that's not, that's not anything, right? Like everything that exists, like, sure, you would have like literally the software where you could have the branches, then you click on a thing and then you get it. But like the actual game there is like, okay, well, like, am I, how, okay, what's the tradeoff of getting this type of unit versus this type of technology? Well, that depends on like, well, now units have to exist and like combat has to exist and your economy has to exist. And like just all of this stuff has to be there at like at least a relatively complete level of at least like resolution. Otherwise, just none of it makes any sense. So then you're in the situation where like, OK, well, is this not gelling just because we don't have enough critical mass of all the bits talking together? Or is it something a little bit more fundamental? I'm struck by the fact that you're describing the end point of what sounds like a pretty intense learning process where you learned all of these things. And now you're kind of like, OK, I've learned all this stuff. Here you go. Uh-huh. I'm interested, though, in your decision-making process still, because I just think that's something that a lot of listeners can relate to, the idea of finishing a project and wanting to try something completely different. But when you were doing that, though, did you talk to anyone who had worked on games like this or who had experience making them? yeah a bit you know i remember chatting pretty early on about to um soren johnson who was at for access for ages on sit on the on the various civs um and then has left to start his own shop uh and they made um the mars trading one that's kind of like mule oh my god off-world trading company and then more recently old world um and you know there was useful learnings in there but also i think and maybe now i realize uh what soren was actually saying is that like old world is just him fixing problems that he saw in civ right and again that's kind of in that oh yeah like these games exist in like pretty specific lineages but certainly there's nobody i talked to who was like describing that broad this is how the design of strategy games works and maybe it's a thing that like oh yeah if you're you know if you live in this format this is like pretty intuitive to you maybe and I'm doing a thing that's that's distinct is difficult and you never know if it's going to work until it does or does not sure so okay so you're working on this game you're plugging away these challenges for many many years um at what point did you start thinking about the marketing of it all because in the past you've worked with publishers that handled that side of things now because of your funding deal, as you mentioned, you're expected to handle it yourself. And something that we will definitely get into is the kind of the launch of the game and not reaching the player count that you would have liked, which is something you've been open about. But was there a point when you started thinking, OK, we need to figure out how to reach people with this game? How are we going to do that? Yeah, that had been a consideration for, I'd say, most of development. The, you know, even though, yeah, Ninja was like technically published by Microsoft and with Firewatch, Panic did a ton. Like a lot of that still was driven by us internally as well, like a significant amount. Yeah, so that consideration was always there kind of from the beginning, you know, and we'd had a pretty deliberate strategy of, okay, we don't want to try to find an opportunity to announce the game with as much like visibility as possible. Because you got, that's like an arrow in your quiver that you can't unfire. like once the game is announced it's announced right um so we ended up being able to announce the game at the pc gaming show in 2024 uh like they pc gamer actually sent a film crew up here did like a little mini documentary thing like they usually for every given pc gaming show they'll do like three or four like oh we'll actually talk to the people making the game in addition to just like here's the trailer for the game and that announcement trailer you know we worked with Derek Liu, who is probably one of the best, at least like independent game trailer editors in the planet. So, you know, okay, how do we capture as many eyeballs as possible in just in terms of the announcement, right? And try to get that like snowball going. That was there from the beginning. And then similarly, you know, like, okay, and then we'll have an updated trailer at the PC gaming show 2025 that also concords with the demo for the game being in next best. like in general i would say that we and again this isn't like you know defensiveness or anything but i'd say we like tried to follow breast practices as much as they exist the i think the challenge is that one you know certainly i probably underestimated just how time consuming so much of this stuff is if anything maybe now more so than i don't know five seven ten years ago is that it all tends to be this like halting problem where when so much awareness is driven particularly by like content creator, influencer, whatever, coverage and promotion, that there's this halting problem where many creators don't want to cover a thing unless they think there's interest in it. But then now there's this like standoff of like, well, I'm not a first mover problem where no one wants to be the first, take a chance on a thing that doesn't have people connecting with unless you already have validation, so to speak, via like hooded horses publishing your game. So people will kind of like take it as read that, okay, well, this isn't going to be like complete junko trash, right? Right, or it has X number of wishlists or something. Well, backing up for a second to that. So that's an interesting one. So, and it's funny you say kind of doing the quote unquote right things, because that is also a playbook from 10 years ago and things have changed so much since then. But putting that aside, you're in this PC gaming show. That is, if I remember correctly, that's like part of Summer Games Fest, right? Like they do it around the same time. So I guess the advantage of that is that you get eyeballs. I'm not sure how many eyeballs that one gets in particular, but... Quite a bit. Not as much as like the main Jeff Keighley thing, but a good amount. So that's the pro is you're getting eyeballs. I guess the potential downside is that you're getting kind of announced at the same time as dozens of other games are getting announced. and so you might get lost in the shuffle there. Did you find that to be a successful strategy? Did you get good kind of metrics from that? What was that announcement like for you guys? Yeah, I think so. I mean, off of that, obviously, I could dig around in the big jiggity-jig chart in the Steamworks backend, but I think that initial announcement was well into the five figures of wish lists on Steam, which all things considered, I mean, obviously, it ain't a barn burner, but it's not bad. It was, it was, yeah, it was certainly, you know, again, relative to our scale, which is, which is like half dozen people. Right. It's like, okay, cool. This seems at least like we haven't completely missed the mark. I guess it wasn't like, and silence of 44 wish lists. And we know 42 of them. It was nothing like that quiet. Right. So we're like, okay, let seems at least it wasn't like a bad sign. Yeah. Okay. So, um, yeah. So that was effective for you guys. Like you're happy that you went with that decision. The reason I mentioned that it feels like a playbook for 10 years ago is because it feels to me like marketing, like all rules of marketing have just gone out the window in 2026. And we are just in a totally different spot. So, okay. So then moving forward, you guys launched in early access last year. Last November. In 2025. In November of last year. And that's when you came out and you said publicly, like, hey, we just launched this thing in early access and crickets. Tell me a little bit about that experience. Like, what were you expecting when you launched it? What kind of setup did you do ahead of the early access launch? Were you trying to build a community? What was your kind of plan? And what went awry? That's a $55 million question, ain't it? Oh, is that the budget? $55 million. Ignore that golden bookshelf behind me. Just to be clear, you're saying that is far more than the budget. Correct. Correct. Just so the listeners don't get the wrong idea, because some actually might, and we should be clear about that. Oh, my gosh. Also, we're not on video, so they don't see that there is actually no golden bookshelf. They don't see that there's 16 golden bookshelves there. it's so hard to know because like there so much of this stuff especially whatever in the broader world gets talked about as if there's all these universalities which are like absolutely not true right like make sure you put fucking 40 TikToks up of your game every week or whatever it's like that works great for some games that will not move the needle at all for other games that are otherwise like just as quality marketable whatever right so there's already a challenge of like what to do that's appropriate for your title the try the type of people you're trying to reach etc etc is itself like extremely muddy but you know when we launched i think we had around like 35 40 000 wish lists which again like not nothing perfectly fine right and it's the kind of thing where you know in general you can be like okay you know obviously not it's not like 100 of those people show up minute one and click purchase and some people purchase without a wishlisting, but you can kind of take that number and be like, okay, within your first month, you'll have like 15, 25%. Like that's normal average-ish. But in general, you can be like, okay, conservative around here, like a good solid outing here. And then, you know, crazy edge conditions on either side. Right. And so looking at kind of how things have been going, we're like, okay, this is probably going to be fine. But then when it came out, it was like, oh, no, it is so, so much below even the most conservative of projections. In terms of the wishlist numbers, you mean, like the percentage of people that actually followed through, that percentage was way lower. Yeah, so there's two factors. There's like using wishlists as proxy for how many, because some people will purchase it without ever wishlisting it. So then you've got like, OK, well, that's a decent proxy measure still, though. So, but the, both the number of raw purchases, but then also, and this is the one that continues to be the most difficult to try to like be, come up with like a clear understanding analysis, explanation, whatever of the actual wishlist conversion as well. Like in Steam, it'll show you like, okay, this is your, this is how many people actually had the game on their wishlist and then clicked add to cart. Right. Relative to other games on Steam, here's where you are. And ours is much below average. So, yeah, what do you do when something like that happens? Is there anything you can do? What were your kind of internal discussions when the game launched and didn't hit the audience that you were hoping for? It's a great question. I mean, so obviously there was looking at the sentiment, right? And while I probably would ultimately be more bummed out if the situation was people played the game, they're like, yo, this game sucks. like at least that would be a little bit more explanatory like at least there'd be like a clearer okay i guess it's just like it's just not that good it didn't really some we missed some very big things in here people who actually played it were like into it you know obviously i'm not gonna be like it's the greatest game ever get the hell out of here sid meyer or anything like that but it wasn't like i mean whatever obviously everyone thinks their own baby is cute etc but being as distanced as i can be like i don't think the game is like significantly below average and then when we were you know looking at sentiment i put this post up on reddit that a bunch of people responded to and you know there were several currents in there you know there was one kind of like big through lines in terms of response like there were certainly some subset of people were just like i just don't play early access games i simply won't and i think maybe like well obviously and this this has always been the case that like there's just a certain crop of people for whom they're like early access just not for me i'm gonna wait till it's 1.0 and done that i think that the pool of people who are even like kind of open to that has gotten smaller and i think in general the sentiment around early access as like a gate from like an audience facing perspective is one of like skepticism and like it's got kind of a stink on it particularly if the game isn't like and it's six bucks and it's like pocket money purchasing if it's like you know priced the way like a normal strategy simulation game is that there is a lot of skepticism around just like early access is a thing it's like what is this game just going to get abandoned after a week etc right and then the other big through line was people are just like i just don't understand what the game is and we're like okay well all right maybe that's maybe there's like some you know whatever communication marketing as far as like concept type challenges in there plus maybe there's just like some amount of people are just like not into early access thing at all. And that ratio was higher than we thought. We're like, okay, how on earth do we even continue to pay to keep making this game? Because it's not going to be from its earnings. Well, can we just back up a second, Nelson? That reaction you're talking about is from the Reddit post you made after the launch had happened. Was there, what was the strategy for actually getting people to even know about the launch? And just to give you a personal example, I mean, you had emailed or you had messaged me and you were like, did you know that this, and I was like, I had no idea this was out. I didn't even get a press release about it, which seems like a flaw. That seems like a bit of a problem. But were you doing press? Were you guys doing any sort of reach out to streamers? Did you hire PR people? Did you hire marketing people? What was that kind of calculation for you ahead of the early access launch? Yeah. So at the early access launch, in brief, I sent so many emails to so many content creators and so many various outlets as well. So you were handling it? Largely me. Correct. you know i think like in general how to approach particularly talking to press what's like well the game is is just really access so we're not being like would you like to review the game because like by definition it's not done so it's essentially like okay well it's just kind of news updating that type of coverage right and certainly there was coverage of the early access launch in the places that you kind of hope and expect that it would be right like bc gamers website and rock paper shotgun and euro gamer and stuff like that um you know there was some write-ups of like the The way that usually early access coverage is where it's like it's an impressions type thing, right? Again, those were like, you know, it wasn't like, ah, the game is perfect and flawless, right? But the sources of friction were, like, I don't think significantly out of bounds for, like, the states that many early access things are in, right? But yeah, for that, for the early access launch, we're largely doing that under our own power. We did not do that for the 1.0 launch. I knew it would be a tremendous amount of work and it was work that I was gonna do to the best of my ability but I did not recognize perhaps the degree to which it is just like it's it takes so much goddamn time oh my god so much time and then that's also has to be bounced against but you still gotta keep making the video game um related to the early access thing the numbers you were talking about you know with the wish lists and then looking at the conversion does Valve contextualize any of that for early access? Like you were looking at how you're doing relative to other games. Was that like relative to other early access games? Is there a way to distinguish that? Or were you just sort of comparing yourselves to like games that fully launch in 1.0? I would have to double check, but I think that is broken out comparably to other early access titles at that stage of thing, because so much of the stuff in that backend is a little bit opaque, But I'm pretty, because the conversion rate counter and how it compares to other titles, it did reset when we went 1.0. So I think that does indeed mean that it was just amongst other early access games as like a cohort or whatever. How many copies did you sell? In around the early access month, it was about 300. Okay, about 300. it and so you were in early access for about six months and you guys entered 1.0 release in april of this year and you said you were doing things differently can you talk about how that went did it did it did did things like turn out any differently um based on your approach nope what was your approach yeah you were saying that you were handling everything yourself in november and then you change things this time, what did you do differently? So in another positive turn living in the country that we do, or at least I and most of the folks do, there's a totally separate, unrelated to the CMF program called Creative Export Canada. And it's run by the Ministry of Heritage up here. And it's for like all kinds of Canadian cultural works, period. Like everything from like dance performances to fashion to like film, television. and then also it includes video games. So that funding grant exists primarily to export Canadian cultural works to other locations in the world. So we were able to use that grant to then have an actual PR firm help out and do the full-on blasting of emails and connecting with content creators and do all of that stuff. Still did not receive a press release about the game, by the way. Well, I'm sorry to say. The Canadian government can maybe talk to the PR company a little bit better. And then, yeah, and it's like, given that, I mean, that says a lot about the state of the games market today that you put in money to hire a PR firm and it didn't move the needle at all. Yeah, I still kind of don't completely get it. So did you sell another 300 copies? Was it around the same? Was it more of a just kind of, oh, this is a 1.0 and people didn't really notice? Yeah, I mean, we, you know, we did a couple big content. Like, you know, we went through early access, like, genuinely, you know, we didn't, we didn't, you know, intentionally. I mean, obviously, with a giant systems-ish game like this, like, you can kind of always keep adding more stuff, right? But we did have a pretty specific, it's like, okay, to at least have a thing that is, you know, feels to us complete. and has the major, all the beats that we are imagining existing in this game. Okay, it's about this much stuff. Can we get, what is the most expeditious way we can get there? And maybe some of the nice to haves are not going to be nicely had. So we did a couple of big content updates throughout that early access period between November and April. And, you know, there was, again, a small uptick of interest at each of those content launches. So, you know, at the end of the day, I think we're sitting around like just shy of 2000 units sold, which is like, it seems like a big number, but then you do the math and you're like, wait a minute, that has to cover payroll for a half dozen people for how long? Oh. So what the answer to that What do you do moving forward There was a reality certainly that could have been like after one week post the Early Access launch in November like some people probably smarter people than me would have simply been like this is not ever going to go anywhere Time to walk away, bye, and just like left it. um you know it was as i mentioned earlier like the signs were not so absolutely clear cut and dry that that's the best that that is the that is the only advisable course and at least for me like contributing to that just culture of disposability that seems to be pervading so many aspects of life not just video games where it's like hey if this thing isn't immediately connecting just throw it in the trash and then also it would kind of be contrary to the whole goddamn games themes too right um that you know it would be both a disservice to the to us as as people who spent so much time on this thing as well as like the people who did show up and were interested in the game to simply be like i didn't immediately catch fire we're done sorry uh this thing will just sit eternally incomplete forever right that felt very bad as a thing to do so we just continued to get it to that 1.0 like as robustly no in in as robust a fashion as we could but how we covered that time was digging around in the couch for as much coinage as we possibly could being smart about borrowing and some tax credits and things like that so we were able to get it over the line but certainly at this point you know the the revenues from the game would not sustain continued development it's just like mathematically it's simply impossible right like you know but since the you know the game isn't at least it feels like to us like complete you know we achieved at least some form of a thing that isn't just like an abandoned disposed work now we're like okay well in in what turned out to be a um a rather salient hedging of bets uh last fall in a very compressed amount of time, I filled in another CMF application for prototyping funds that was by some miracle successful. And that program, it's, you know, as we were kind of talking about earlier, like in particular, getting funding for making a prototype, especially now is like impossible or you're getting terms that are like effectively usury. It's outrageous, right? So the CMF existing to provide effectively like an interest-free loan on prototyping stuff that then can potentially turn into full production funding with them. Or if you get with some other entity, you just pay them back dollar for dollar and that's it. You're free and clear. It's an incredibly valuable thing. Yeah. Nice to not be in the United States. Okay. So, so that's what you just, so, so yeah, that's your next thing is you're going to be working on a new prototype. But that funding is like project specific. and so you cannot spend one beaver emblazoned nickel on the project aside from the one that you applied to them for and it has to be a new thing, et cetera. So it was just like running on fumes to get Generation Exile over the line. And now we're able to start discharging those funds on prototyping a new thing. Are you going to make an entirely new kind of game? That's what I was going to ask. Kind of. You don't, you don't. Okay. But you just explained that throughout the course of this process, you learned how to make a strategy game. Correct. But never, never again. Well, of this nature, no. So, no, no, no, no. So every video game hates being made, right? Like all of them. There's the quote of the episode. Yeah, it's true. I don't remember where I heard that, but I heard it from somewhere and I'm like, that is maybe the truest thing I've ever heard in my life. um it's a good one but this game in particular like it really it really hated being made um so for the next thing i was like okay one what what am i like obviously the overriding interest has to be like what am i interested in doing right because without that like they're far far less stressful and challenging ways to ensure that one can cover their rent and groceries um but then also i'm like okay what is something that i at least feel relatively confident that is designable by myself and everybody else at SondraLest that will maybe this time leverage some prior expertise. So obviously we're obviously not, the thing doesn't even, it exists as an empty, currently Godot project. We'll see if that sticks or not. So there's nothing but like pure premise and concept, but it is hearkening more towards something that I both enjoy a lot and also feels rich design-wise, but does have that property of little guy move around on screen in that like we can prototype, say three minutes of the video game and it will not require building 90% of the goddamn video game to do that. So are you thinking about market research this time? I recently had a conversation with the CEO of Atari for a story that'll be up pretty soon. And it was really interesting. He's an interesting guy for a lot of reasons. One of the things he told me is that his first couple of years on the job, he was greenlighting things based on vibes, and that didn't work so well in games that he greenlit were not selling. And then he started thinking a little bit more about getting market research in there, kind of looking at doing more proper kind of finance stuff and projections and thinking about what the market wanted and working for that. Is that something that you're thinking about after this experience with Generation Exile? Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, that thinking occurred for Generation Exile as well, right? Where were like, okay, you know, like people like these big strategy games that have emergent stories in them. Like there's a reason why people kind of conceptualize Crusader King separately from a lot of the other Paradox, you know, Victoria, Europa, Universalis, Hearts of Iron, etc. Right? Like there's something about CK that is like a little bit more distinct and resonant and hit a bigger chunk of people than all those other Paradox grand strategy titles did. So this was a thing that we were thinking about like from the jump, but for reasons, some of which I would probably be able to identify others remain to me mysteries that particular constellation of stuff just didn't line up it's very difficult to directly compare like any two games even just like a broader constellation of games in anything but like kind of the highest level and with almost anything you can find some amount you can find information that will like let you tell whatever story you want to for the type of things that we would be making at our scope and scale like it's not just like one single outlier title and everything else equivalent is like crickets, right? Like you can kind of find some picture that tells you whatever you want, kind of, right? But like, all that is to say, like, we did as much due diligence as we could, but I do not think there's any actual, like, yes, we did the market research and we know exactly what to do. I don't, I just don't think that is a thing that like exists. It's just, you, you can, I think you can get to a point of like, are we making a tremendously bad decision? No? Cool. So I guess let me reframe the question, which is what, after this experience of spending a lot of time on this game that didn't resonate with people quite as much as you wanted, what is your takeaway for the next project and how are you, like, what are you thinking in terms of strategy to hopefully try to avoid that for this one? I certainly hope so. I don't think I can survive this again. Yeah. that a part of that is, you know, spending even more time thinking about what are the properties of this that will, it's a difficult thing to explain where I think the takeaway that some people have right now in 2026 is just like, just puke out the cheapest, fastest thing you possibly can that is immediately parsable. That is incredibly simple. And if it catches cool, if not just bounce and go on to the next one. Right. And also it needs to be co-op and you need to be doing something viral with your friends. Correct. Exactly. That's, you understand the broad things that I'm gesturing at. And just for me, one, as a format that doesn't appeal to me a ton. And sure, that might be the case right now, but also 24 to 36 months from now, is that still going to be the thing that people are interested in? Like, this is also part of the eternal challenge of all of this stuff, right? Like, you know, obviously the highway of burning cars of various like live service shooters that all seemed like it would be a good idea when Destiny was huge. And then the three to five, seven, however long years it takes to make them. Then at the end of the road, nobody wants them. So that's also part of the challenge. Right. And again, you know, I'm not it's easy for it to sound pejorative. It's not. But it's not even that they're shallow. it's like those just like wacky viral co-op shit with your friends type games are fun right but like I guess they're not really like about anything they're about having fun with your friends right and like creating something that facilitates those experiences can genuinely be goddamn beautiful right but like as the person creating the thing like they're not really like about anything really right like that RV game it's like what is that about it's about like oh it's fun to do stuff with your friends and that rules right but if the broad trend of what to do if you're a relatively small game studio is just to make things that are like kind of shallow a little bit disposable or at least like aren't really about anything as like a creative work or whatever like i don't want that to be the takeaway right i mean there are a lot of games that are about something that are successful i'm kind of like to maybe to push you to be a little more specific or maybe a little less specific about some of your thinking. Let me, yeah, let me rephrase that. To push you to be a little less specific, like, not just like, okay, you don't want to make a friend slop game, sure, but what are you thinking just keeping your values intact? There we go, there we go. The philosophies that you have as an artist, the things that you want to make, the kinds of games that you believe in, games that are about something, that mean something. Certainly that's true of Generation Exile. That's true of everything you've worked on. Keeping that intact, like, how do you think you might approach your next game differently? Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that's a good way to frame this very long and meandering walk. I think, so yeah, holding true that there is this just broader challenge around like attention, comprehensibility, whatever, that I think for us a lot of thinking about is like, okay, well, how can we make it clear? The appeal, that's maybe like a not yucky way to talk about it. Like what is the appeal of the thing we're working on and how can we make that manifest like as quickly as possible? Because I think it is the case that right now, you know, you have an incredibly, incredibly thin window to, like, get something to actually lodge in someone's mind. And if that doesn't happen, that opportunity is gone maybe forever. And just another slightly different, like, slightly easier, more comprehensible thing will fit in there instead. And that's it. So I think that like the window of ability to like get someone's ultimately attention is very, very, very thin. So we're like, OK, well, how can we for the thing that we're working on, how can we make the appealing parts of that like very clear, but not in a way that's like, oh, we'll just build the entire thing to be like shallow and immediately recognizable. Right. Because I think that, you know, there still is space for something that has the, again, this is not exactly the thing we're making or anything like that. But like, you know, there isn't like a cool six second video blueprints that in any way conveys like why that game is so unbelievably incredible and compelling, right? Just that core notion of like you're exploring this house and then every time the house rearranges itself every day. but now you have this like little seed in your mind of like be able to wonder about the thing in a way that isn't like the game isn't so immediately parsable that you know exactly what you're going to be doing in a way that something that has like a higher degree of virality or like you know comprehensibility or whatever like what is the appeal there right and i think that oh it's like okay well how what is our version of of that well what blueprints did i mean to kind of get it what you're you're going after here blueprints had a few things going for One, it was obviously very highly rated and word of mouth helped a lot. But it was also the people behind it, Raw Fury, the publisher behind it, they were putting on a pretty hefty PR campaign months in advance. They were talking in the press. They had a great interview with our colleague, Steven Totillo, about the game. He was streaming. They were building a community and talking to fans early and getting people kind of interested in the game with a drip feed of talking about it. And there was a lot of outreach that they did ahead of that game that kind of primed it to be a success, which seems like it's a necessity these days. Is that something that you're kind of looking at or thinking about? Totally, totally right. And I think, you know, part of that is also it becomes a little bit self-reinforcing, too, right? Because like, okay, well, that initial outreach, it's if you have that, you know, comprehensibility, that appeal, that a reason why someone should care about this thing. Okay, well, that becomes easier to then generate. It's like these positive feedback loops, right? So certainly, yes, a great degree of any amount of future budget planning as well as like production planning and staffing and all of that is like, okay, yes. how do we ensure that all those gears are turning, but in a way that isn't compromising, like just making the game itself, right? Because it is like a bit challenging. It was like, hey, come into our Discord for this game that isn't out yet and you can do something. You want to have the game there, right? I mean, Blueprints did a good job of marketing, but also the game was there and the central idea of it was immediately appealing. Like it came across pretty, you saw, I watched a six second trailer of that. I saw the rooms redrawing when you open a door and I was like, oh, I get it. I see the visual style. I see what it looks like, how it moves. And I'm like, oh, that looks cool. And then I see that there's all this buzz around it and the people that I know are like, dude, this game is amazing. And I'm like, okay, sold. So there is like the content of the game itself matters quite a bit in this equation. Yeah, well, I think that is the bedrock that everything sits upon is like, okay, yeah, the thing has to be like strong and compelling in and of itself. And then you then also need to stack all this other stuff on top of it. And it really is about, okay, well, how can we just try to have as many of these things like pointing all in the same direction as possible? That's all. Just make a really good video game and then talk about it in a really good and compelling way. That's all you have to do. That's all. That's the solution here. We got it. The secret to success. We have to wrap things up, but now before we go, I have to ask one more question, which is, how are you feeling after this like you've been through now you've been through some big hits uh firewatch especially was a humongous hit and now you've been through a game that was a little bit less of a hit but you also finished it i mean you also like after eight years you you came out with a game you finished it came out of early access you put in that extra effort i imagine you were feeling a lot of things can you try to try to sum them up a little bit what what are things like for you? Ah, yep. It's extremely complicated. Um, it really like, yeah, it's, it's, it's so much. And again, it's easy for some of this stuff to end up sounding like sour grapes or like we were owed anything. And I do not believe that is the case in, in any way. Right. Like, you know, there, everyone only has a finite amount of time to spend doing anything. And I think that, you know, as someone creating something that you're ultimately asking someone else to spend their time with, like you have to earn that every single time. And so that is the case always. And I think that will always be my disposition. And yeah, it's, it's very difficult. Um, because like I said, I don't, I don't feel like we were owed anything. Right. But it's also just the, had things just been like kind of on the softer end, right. Like, you know, around that, like most conservative side of projections, it would be a lot easier to kind of square like, oh yeah, you know, it falls within bounds, right? It being so much further below that, it really, it really does a number on you, right? Where you spend so much time thinking about like, you know, what did we miss? Like, what, yeah, it's just like, what does this say about my own competence? Like, thinking about the people you've like ultimately let down it's it's a lot and again just because we worked on that thing doesn't mean that you know therefore inherently people somehow must show up and uh spend their time with it spend their hard-earned coin with it certainly nothing like that um it really is more just like you know at the end of the day i would certainly much rather like struggle for the right reasons than to succeed for the wrong ones so the fact that you know we did get something over the line as as quip to every video game hates being made and the fact that we were able to rest this one into reality at all in in the in the form that it ultimately ended up being i think is something to be proud of but like it's also really yeah it's rough to be like i thought we were making something that at least like some reasonable number of people like there was something here that that could connect with people right that there was like something here that people would like want to pay attention to we care about and having to square all of that with like, okay, maybe not. And you can just never also like really know, right. You don't get to like AB test reality and being like, oh, if we just done blah, instead of blah, it would have been, so you're just kind of like, I don't know, you, you, you book up a whole bunch of therapy appointments, that's for sure. And then you also just like, uh, you, you try to look at the, you know, the, the qualities and the that you can appreciate and be proud of. And as well as yourself as a creative, okay, well, what things did we do well? And what things did we want to do differently in the future? And that's kind of all you can do. Still is a little bit of a bitter tonic on top of all of it. And it's just like, man, yeah, I don't, people ask me how I'm doing. I just kind of make a sound and they go, I don't know. Well, I hope this was a useful therapy session for you among your other ones. Yeah, you guys can submit the invoice. No big deal. No, I mean, yeah, I do think that there is merit in just like being honest and talking about this stuff. It's easy to hear from the people who made a thing that turned out far better than they ever could have possibly imagined. But I do think there's value in also being like, and then what's the other side as well? So I appreciate it. It's always lovely chatting with you all. So, yeah, thank you. Yeah, man. Nels Anderson, thank you so much for coming on the show and for being so candid about this stuff. People can, of course, check out Generation Exile on Steam. And yeah, thank you for coming on the show, Nels. We appreciate it. My pleasure. Yeah, thanks, man. We're going to take a break and then we'll be back with one more thing. Thank you to all the MaxFun members who supported us during MaxFunDrive. You're helping us as we try to put more good into the world. And as part of putting more good into the world, we've opened our annual post-drive charity sale. MaxFun members at $10 per month or more can purchase MaxFunDrive keychains featuring designs for shows across the network. And all members can buy our charity exclusive keychain starring Mikey, our little microphone buddy from this year's MaxFunDrive. This year, we've decided to send the proceeds of the charity sale to the Center for Constitutional Rights. They dedicated to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change tackling issues like human rights abuses racial injustice and sexual and gender violence These folks are fighting to make things better So to get your keychains and support the Center for Constitutional Rights, head to MaximumFun.org slash Charity Sale. And if you're not yet a member, you can still get in on this. To support the show you're listening to and get access to bonus content and the charity sale, just click the link in the show notes. The sale is live now and it ends on Friday, May 15th. That's MaximumFun.org slash charity sale. And thanks again. Sleep is important, but it's difficult sometimes. I'm John Moe. On Sleeping with Celebrities, famous people help conk you out by talking in soothing voices about unimportant things. Maria Bamford on parking. I parked in a bus stop. That's just not right. I am not a bus. Roxane Gay on airports. My favorite airport is Indianapolis. It has a really smart layout. Alan Tudyk on yardsticks. You hand somebody a yardstick, yardsticks become part of the family. Granted, it's a weird idea, but it's lots of fun and it works. Listen wherever you get podcasts. And we are back. Thank you again to Nels. That was really cool. It was really great to hear from him. But now it's just the three of us back for one more thing. Maddie, why don't you kick us off? Sure. So Dina and I are watching a show called Couples Therapy. And when I was writing this in the document, I was like, are the guys going to think that I'm just going to talk about me and Dina going to couples therapy? That would be unhinged behavior. Well, it says in the one more thing, Paramount Plus. I was like, I'm going to make it really clear this is a television show. Well, I actually, I assumed that you were going to couples therapy on the Paramount lot with David Ellison. as like your therapist? No, it's actually all online. It's part of Paramount Plus. It's a service they're offering. Got it. They're offering AI therapists. You gotta diversify your streaming services. Oh God. Movies, TV, therapy. It's an incredible television show. I don't know if you two have heard of this. It is essentially a reality TV show that presents actual couples who are going to couples therapy and you get to watch their sessions. And okay, so here's how it works. It's hosted by this woman, Dr. Orna Guralnik. She's pretty famous. She had a pretty hit podcast where she did this same thing where people came on the podcast and did couples therapy. And then I think that's what launched her television show career. It's had four seasons already. There's going to be a fifth one. The show is definitely successful. And I can see why, having watched it. We haven't watched all of it yet. But I'm going to recommend how you would start with it. So Paramount Plus. Is this exploitive? I don't think so. Everybody knows what they're signing up for. So when Dean described the show to me, I was like, okay, so I, Maddie, am automatically being kind of judgy of anybody who would agree to go to therapy in this way. Like, are all of these people going to be narcissists? Like what kind of person agrees to go to couples therapy on TV? Oh, you mean not go to couples therapy, but to go on TV and have it broadcast. I was like, and I wouldn't say that that's entirely worn off for me. My apologies in that sense where I'm just kind of like, why wouldn't you just go to couples therapy privately? I do think that's an inherent structural, I don't want to say problem, but it's something about the show that's interesting, where you're like, what kind of person wants to air these grievances publicly? Yeah. And it's also always going to be performative when you know you're performing. And it is a performance. There's definitely an element of performance to all of it. But I do think the show changes as it goes along. And part of why I say that is because since Paramount Plus is not a good app. It will do this thing where when you start a new show, it just starts you on the most recent season as opposed to starting at the beginning of a show. I don't know why it does this. If anybody listening works for that app, please fix this. So we accidentally watched season four. So help Maddie get her therapy properly. Help me get in touch with Dr. Orna. No, really, I don't want to do this ever in my life. It sounds horrifying. That's the last thing you want. You're like feeling vulnerable enough going to couple therapy to be doing it on TV. I can't imagine the type of person. But this is why the show is fascinating. Look, I think it's like the kind of thing where you have to watch it and just see if you can take it or not. And if you think it's fascinating or not. I happen to. So we started with season four and then we went back and watched season one. And those two seasons are very different. And I'm really glad we started with season four because the couples on season four are really grounded. you root for several of them and you kind of feel like you understand their problems and how they came to be here and it feels much more human and I think that perhaps people saw the show and kind of realized like okay I'm willing to be on this show I I think I understand what it is whereas if you watch season one and you start there all the couples are like really performative and the show feels more performative and I think is harder to watch. So are the problems that they're having, like more kind of red zone, bad couple problems in the first season. And they're way more stressful, like way more where you're like, I'm maybe not rooting for any of these couples. Like they're in crisis. These are couples in crisis. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Whereas in season four, you're kind of like, okay, these are kind of more grounded problems and maybe even things where just kind of an everyman could relate, or at least understand where the people are coming from. So you can kind of tell that the dynamic of the show is changing over time and that people watched it and that they're like, okay, there's sort of a structure to the show that I understand. But there's an inherent kind of voyeurism to the show that makes it a kind of guilty pleasure territory, I would say. And it's not for everyone, but I do think it's really interesting. I think it's a bizarre result of the reality TV phenomenon, but I also think that it's interesting. And I don't know, I've gotten something out of watching it enough that I recommend it. And I think it's a fascinating artifact of our time. So anyway, it's called couples therapy. It sounds like what it is. And it is what it is. I recommend just going to season four. I cannot imagine more, anything more horrifying. Yeah. I mean, I think it's not for everyone, Jason. I said what I said. You could see it being interesting. I'll have to watch it. I have all these thoughts, but because I have a lot of thoughts about couples therapy and I think it's actually really great, but they may not have anything to do with this TV show. So I'll maybe save them for a different conversation that we'll have at some other point. It's just, it's just so hard to imagine people actually being open and honest and doing the things you need for couples therapy. But just like with any other reality TV show, Jason, people forget the cameras are there over time and you can kind of tell that they become disarmed and that they aren't thinking about themselves as being on a show. I mean, I'm imagining that that's true. Perhaps they never forget, but I think they do. And I think that, I mean, we kind of see that happen in any reality series or documentary that's well-made, right? Where eventually people just forget about the cameras and they're just like, whatever, I'm just going to do this. But again, it is sort of inherently only including people who are willing to air all of their grievances publicly. And you got to make what you will of that when it comes to the couples on the show. Fair enough. Man, sounds wild. Kirk, what's your one more thing? My one more thing is a show that I referenced a couple episodes ago. Maddie, I think I mentioned it to you. Yeah, I really want to watch this. And then I, you know, we're still watching it. Emily and I both love it. It's so good. I just wanted to make it my one more thing to give it its due and actually properly recommend it. This the show Margot's Got Money Troubles, which is an adaptation of a novel by Rufy Thorpe from just a couple years ago, which makes me think this is one of those noted author writes book and it is immediately optioned before it's even published type situations, which I can imagine a screenwriter reading this book, or in this case, I think that it was actually Elle Fanning the star and being like, I want to make this. So I'm going to option it before it even is published because it's a really great story. So this is, I'm going to talk about the show. I haven't read the book. Emily listened to the audio book, which incidentally is read by Elle Fanning, the star of the show, which is like further evidence that she is very attached to this story and like wanted to, wanted to make a show out of it. And Fanning is one of the executive producers on this show, along with Nicole Kidman. The showrunner is actually David E. Kelly. So this is a really star-studded production on Apple of this book adaptation. It's co-produced with A24. There's clearly a lot of money behind it. The cast is totally amazing. It's got Elle Fanning, Nick Offerman, Michelle Pfeiffer, Greg Kinnear, Nicole Kidman is in it. She's got a small role, but she's fantastic. Everyone is really bringing it as well. This is like everyone really cared and tried to make something good. And it is really, really good. This is a story of Margot, who was a young woman attending Fullerton College in Fullerton, California. She is a writer, I think a quite gifted young writer, the daughter of a single mother who used to work at Hooters, but now works at Bloomingdale's. This is a fact that winds up being relevant in the story. And of an absent father who is a pro wrestler. So her mother and father are played by Michelle Pfeiffer and Nick Offerman. Her father was kind of a, he's kind of a gruff and grumbly guy, a Nick Offerman type, named Jinx, who was a pro wrestler for a long time and then had a really bad back injury, became addicted to opioids. His whole life kind of fell apart. And he's never been really a part of her life. So Margot now, of course, is going to college. And she gets into an affair with a professor at Fullerton College that quickly results in her becoming pregnant. The professor is totally useless. He basically offers to help her get an abortion. And she decides, you know what, I actually want to keep this baby. And then he completely is like, I'm not going to be part of this, like, and, you know, vanishes. So she's left kind of alone in this really difficult situation where she is pregnant. She has decided she's going to keep the baby and she has almost no support. So we, the first few episodes are really just getting to know her, getting to know her mother. It really kind of reminds me of Lady Bird, that film. Have I, did any of you see Lady Bird? Yeah, I liked it. I liked it a lot. It's a great movie. It's Greta Gerwig's first, a kind of autobiographical story of a daughter and a mother. Saoirse Ronan and Laurie Metcalf plays her mother. Anyways, kind of similar energy there with like this prickly relationship between a daughter and her mother, a mother who worries for her daughter and the choices that she's making. And then it kind of shifts a couple of episodes in. Margot has the baby, her son. So she now has an infant, or first a baby and then eventually an infant child that she's taking care of. Her life just really changes. She winds up dropping out of school. And then she discovers that her talents as a writer make her kind of work on OnlyFans. So this winds up being a story about OnlyFans and about kind of existing online and figuring out who you are and how that kind of thing works in the modern age. Sorry, what do you mean her talents as a writer make her work on OnlyFans? Yeah, like is she doing skits? I would think something else makes you work on OnlyFans. Well, she looks like Elle Fanning. No, I know, I know. But that's the writer part I was just tripped on. So it's that she wants to express herself. She wants to be a writer and she's this very creative person. And as she builds a persona on OnlyFans, she names herself the Hungry Ghost and comes up with this whole kind of narrative and a persona around who she is. So she's like bringing her creativity into this role, providing like titillating photos. You know, she's not like shooting sex scenes on video. Like she's just kind of showing her boobs and stuff on camera. I think in the book there's a lot more, as Emily described it, it's kind of like post-pregnancy body horror. There's a lot of just stuff about the ways that pregnancy affects your body. And I do think that part of the story, at least in the book, is that her breasts just get way bigger. And so she's like finds herself the object of attention online in a way that she wasn't. In the show, that's downplayed. And it's really it's more that she's just good at titillating people. She has a sense of humor. She's very creative. And then she brings that on, you know, in an ongoing way on the show into like her persona. Like she does build this whole persona. She starts working with two other women who are already big on OnlyFans and they build this whole storyline. They are doing skits. They're like acting out these big sequences. And she's being helped by Jinx, her father, who has come back and kind of is helping with her son because he's a pro wrestler. That makes sense because like pro wrestling has a similar like really big performance aspect. But also incredibly weird that your dad is helping you show pictures, show your boobs. It's funny. And the whole thing is very wholesome. The way that they depict it is actually really great. And the way that he finds a way to help. And it's just a great story. It's a really feel-good kind of a story that I think does depict some of the misconceptions or the generational divide in the ways that people think about any type of online sex work. Certainly the way that each of her parents reacts to finding out that she's doing work on OnlyFans. Her mother is in the process of marrying her boyfriend, played by Greg Kinnear, who is very religious. He's a pastor of some kind. But he's a really nice guy and he's like trying. So there's this whole interesting thing there. You can kind of imagine Greg Kinnear playing this character. Anyways, we're a couple episodes from the end, so I haven't finished it. But I'm far enough in and have enjoyed it enough to say it's a very easy recommendation. It's not like an incredibly provocative or difficult show. But it is, I would say, notably well made. It's beautiful looking. They put a lot of money into it. It just has this feeling of a product, like of a creative work that people spent time on. There are these beautiful sequences of just, I don't know, they go to a party and the lights and the way that they depict it, it just feels very vivid and lovely. Those Apple budgets. Yeah, I want A24, I think. I think Apple is giving money to production companies like A24 and saying, okay, we will fund something like this with A-list actors, a lot of talent, and we'll give you the time and the budget you need to actually make something that sort of stands up. And it definitely is that. So I really recommend it. I think it's a pretty easy recommendation and a great show. And I'm really looking forward to the final two episodes. Awesome. All right. My one more thing is a book that I teased a little bit last week called London Calling by Patrick Radden Keefe. This is a tremendous book. It's a work of nonfiction about a boy in London who suddenly jumps off of the balcony of a building and is found dead in the Thames River shortly afterwards. The Thames, I believe. Yeah, I was going to say. It's pronounced Thames. I'm going to pronounce it Thames because that's how it's written. No, the Thames River afterwards. Patrick Redden-Keefe, for people who don't know, is a longtime journalist. He's written a bunch of books, including Say Nothing about the Troubles in Ireland. He's written Empire of Pain about Oxycodone and the Sackler family. Yeah, that's the one I know. And done a bunch of other stuff. He's written for The New Yorker a bunch. And this book is really cool. And the way he describes how he even found this story is really interesting, which is basically he was doing, he was on the set for the TV show adaptation of Say Nothing when someone came up to him and basically said, hey, you should hear this story and meet this couple. And he met this husband and wife whose son had died and that led him down this rabbit hole of this story. I don't want to say anything about it, or I don't want to say much about it, because part of the really riveting nature of this story is just hearing how it goes down and the kind of the rabbit hole of his death and the questions of, was it really a suicide? Was it an accident? Was it something more nefarious? Oh, actually, it turns out that this kid had gotten himself wrapped up in criminal activity, potentially, or at least some lies before his death. What could that mean? What is that going to lead to? Eventually, it gets into some interesting history about Russian oligarchs and London that I didn't know about. But basically it's a ride that I think is worth just kind of starting from the beginning of this book and reading it. A lot of people out there have probably heard of it. It's been very successful. It's been a New York Times bestseller for a while. So it probably won't be a shock like you've probably seen it in the front of your local bookstore. But I do highly recommend it. It's really good. It might be my favorite of Patrick Raddenkief's books that I've read so far. largely because it's about just this one specific story rather than some big picture narrative that tries to link a bunch of characters together. This is really a more hyper-specific story that also kind of broaches some big themes about lies and deception and sadness and grief and all sorts of other interesting stuff. So yeah, really good. Also lots of journalistic questions surrounding it. I think that are really interesting just in terms of how he told it and how he told it, not like murky ethical journalistic questions, but more like the way he wrote this book is very much, and he acknowledges this at the end, it's very much told from the perspective of the family. And he has a lot of empathy towards the family and kind of spent a lot of time with them while writing this book. And that, I think, just is really interesting from a journalistic point of view, that he chose to approach it that way rather than a little bit more of a zoomed out point of view or a more cold and distant kind of perspective from the family of this kid. But anyway, really worth reading, I think. It's called London Calling, Petrograd and Keefe. I highly recommend it. Nice. Yeah, that sounds great. I will put it on my list. You should. Put it on your hold at the library. It's probably got a million holds. Yeah, my endless, endless list. Yeah, well, you did get to King Sorrow. So hey, that made it through the queue. Slowly but surely, working through it. All right. That is that for this week's episode. Once again, thank you to Nels Anderson for coming on the show and being so open about it's very easy to be open about success, not so easy to be open about failure. So we really appreciate him coming on. And thank you to Kirk and Maddie for always being here. Yeah, we're going to keep being here. Thanks to both of you too. This was fun. And yeah, and very, very interesting. I will see you next week for another interesting episode of Triple Click see you about next week, bye Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows. Supported directly by you.