#1327: More Blogatog

I'm pulling out my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time to their drive to work Okay, so I'm somewhere in the 1300s of podcasts. I've done a lot of topics So one of the things I've realized is there are topics that I might have done before But I did a long time ago and maybe I have enough content to do more Cation point today. I decided I'm gonna do a podcast about blog a talk Which is my blog on tumblr now I once again did I mean but once before I did a blog a talk podcast But it was number 93. That's like 13 years ago So I felt like okay, maybe having since I do blog every single day. Maybe I have enough to say since then I do realize that Especially some of the early podcast where I did stuff like I can revisit things I mean, obviously I try as much as possible do topics. I've never done before but I think I'm coming to realize that it's okay If I have some new content on an old topic You know, I'm allowed to talk about things more than once especially if a lot has happened since then Okay, so let's talk about blog a talk once again. I have a podcast on blog a talk which you can go listen to It's from a more innocent time just because it was 13 years ago So blog a talk real quickly. I go over this in the first blog a talk Podcast but I will go very quickly here. Where to blog a talk. What is blog a talk? Where to come from? So I have a blog on tumblr It's called blog a talk It is before coming to Wizards. My favorite creature was a talk and so it's an eight on these blogs I guess so anyway, I caught blog a talk originally was called tales from the pit The origin of my podcast is I for a long for many years made a comic called tales from the pit and I needed a place to put the comic and so I Evan Irwin a Magic celebrity person Suggested me that I put him up on tumblr, which I did I called the tales from the pit But when I was setting it up It asked me the question. Are you willing to answer a question? And I said sure I guess And as I mentioned my previous podcast, I don't think I understood what I'm signing up for but uh So what happened was I was I would put my Comics there a few people learned about it. So I had a few people on on the site and they would ask questions And then obviously somebody posted that I answered a question and anyway, I started getting a lot more audience So let me let me walk through sort of modern-day what how I interact with blog a talk now Um, so basically, I have access to what I can get on my phone or the computer or whatever I would say the vast majority of my answering blog a talk is Sort of on my free time. I'm not saying I never do it at work Everyone's in a bloom and I'll answer a question at work Sometimes I'm like in the middle of a draft or something and I'm waiting for cards that I've answered so I use it during downtime the downtime is most often home downtime but sometimes work downtime and the idea is So one of the philosophies of my blog I learned long ago was people seemed really excited When I answered their question So I've kind of made it a goal to answer as many questions as I can which means that a lot of my answers are short Every once in a while I get inspired. I will make long answers. I do do that from time to time Oh So one of the interesting things is I answer I answer many questions on my blog at one point I was averaging like 35 questions a day I'm not quite sure whether I'm above or below that but I answer a decent number of questions every day Enough so that Most people who read my blog don't read all my blog because I just outstrip their ability to read all the stuff I've written Some people do and I definitely have regulars There are people that come all the time to the blog that I recognize There are certain names that just pop up again and again. I realize they're regulars on the blog So I do know the regulars on the blog. I I do recognize seeing them time and time again And who regulars are will vary with time They're definitely and people have their own take on things So the idea is I answer questions as much as I can and then some of those questions because I've been doing this blog now for Quite a while. I think I think I started in 2011 this might I might have been doing for 15 years been a while And I've answered I don't know how many I answered a lot of questions. I've answered somewhere between 150,000 and 200,000 questions My guess is I'm like 160 170. I haven't looked a little while But anyway, I've answered a huge amount of questions and Mostly my goal is I'm trying to give behind-the-scenes information That I think it's kind of cool that if you were really into magic that the head designer will answer your questions now I get way more. I have more questions than I can read So I don't actually read every question. I try maybe on a slow day or a day where I'm traveling Right to have more I have more time. Maybe every once in a blue moon. I do read all the questions, but Many many days. I don't read all the questions. Just cuz I get so many questions and You know, I answer what I can there there's a bunch of reasons that I can't answer questions It might be something I'm not allowed to talk about it might be something that I don't have the answer to it might be something that I don't have a simple answer to I get questions a lot where people ask me very complicated questions and I'm like well if I have time I can answer this but I can't quickly answer it And and and a lot of the questions are very thought-provoking just when I'm trying to answer a lot of questions I just don't want to spend an hour thinking about one question and you know And not only they thought-provoking questions, but not even questions that would require me to write a lot once I write the answer It just takes a long time for me to come up with the answer. Just not to think through and think you know and So I try to answer as much as I can to you know That I'm able to answer that I have easy answers for Or not easy. I mean sometimes I'll answer harder questions, but it's it's just a matter of I mean like Really my goal on Logo talk is hey You have the ear of the head designer as much as I can I will tell you things One of the interesting things is people just don't believe me There's a lot of like oh like I'm lying or I'm making up things or I'm I Mean the one caveat I say is I have to answer questions without quote-unquote knowing the future Which means is I don't answer things with actual knowledge in the next three years Because I can't the goal of this is not to like tease Upcoming things or to give away information that I'm not supposed to give away So if somebody asked something let's say somebody asked are you gonna do thing X and I know we're doing thing X I'm working on thing extra. I have worked on thing X my answer is not yeah, we're doing thing X because I can't tell you that And if at the time I'm writing it like For example, let's say we're doing something that I don't think we I've given any knowledge that we're going to do for example Once I knew we were going back to Kamigawa. I had years of answering I don't think we're ever going back to Kamigawa So I couldn't start changing how I answered those questions because I didn't want to give away We're going back to Kamigawa. So I just I just ignored I knew the future It's kind of how I answered the questions and just answered as I would not know the next three years That is the only where I'm saying something different from what I know only because I can't give away I can't give away what we're working on Now normally if I know we're working on something I don't traditionally say we'll never do it because I know in my head that we're doing it But I will say it's unlikely, you know, I will give the answer that I would have given had we not started working on it Is usually started in my head but barring that barring not sort of you know giving away the surprise party sort of I Don't know what to call but you know There's a certain amount of me not saying something because I don't want to give away information that's supposed to be a surprise other than that I don't Everything I say is the truth. I know people I mean I know people want to somehow believe that like I'm Making things up or you know, for example, I give a lot of background information I see a lot of data now. I'm not allowed to share the exact data. It's a business We have competitors like you know, but I I will give Jen the general vibe of things Because I just want people to understand like one of the things that's really interesting is as someone who actually You know works on the game who's behind the scenes who's seeing information There's a lot of things that people might not realize and I try as much as I can on my blog to sort of let people Fill people in about how something is doing or not doing and there are sets like it is sometimes very hard to gauge from the outside Whether is that did well or not? Because the only criteria you have to go on is you know the general consensus of the public and maybe whether it's still on sale in your store Not you know like the there's not a lot of things to judge how something did and we on the flip side We have lots of data, you know, we have sales data. We have play data. We have Market research data. We have lots of data. So I have a pretty good sense of whether it's that did well or not And be aware that not all data is necessarily correlative Like sets could have a big pre-release but not sell as great as you would think or have a poor pre-release It's so way better than you think That there's a lot of things that the the audience will think well This is the sign and it's not as correlated as you think in general I Mean I'm not saying there's zero correlation, but it's not it's not as correlated as you think and so I'm trying to sort of let people in and that the hard thing is that oh Well, one of the tricky things is magic is different for every person every person there's things they enjoy about the game And to you that's what the game is And part of my blog is trying to say is look I don't design for one player I'm not trying to make one section happy I got to make every magic player happy and every magic player don't all want the same things Some of it is contradictory things and so we do a lot to try to make Every man like the idea is I don't expect you to like every card in every set But I expect you to like some cards in every set that I want every set to excite you on some level I want us to be doing something And one of the ways magic works is we keep I say pushing the pendulum We keep just doing different things on the idea that well Maybe this is your thing that it's not but it's somebody else's thing And if we keep doing different things at some point we hit upon the thing that really engages you And we're trying to do that for everybody And so a lot of my blog I like the blog my goal of the blog is to both be educational and be entertaining I my background is in writing and entertainment like I understand that part of what I want this blog to be is I want the blog to be something that people enjoy coming in reading every day And also look it's behind the scenes information. I actually am trying it like One of the cool things about my blog is I can tell you things that you're not gonna read anywhere else Because no one else knows you know what outside the building knows a lot of the things I'm saying and while I'm not free to say everything I'm free to say some things and as much as I can I really I want people to understand how things work in behind the scenes So let's go into those two things to talk a little bit about how making an entertainment and making education What impact that has on making the blog because it's very interesting So entertainment so first and foremost one of the things that's important to me Or well, I want it to be both educational and entertaining Probably entertaining slightly more important than educational because if people aren't enjoying reading it I it's hard to be educational if you are not also entertaining because educational but boring no one will read So one of the things is I like to have a lot of back and forth on the blog Meaning if I answer a question that question will shape future questions And so one of the things that I enjoy in the blog is if for regular readers will know this that they're kind of our themes for the day Not it's not a conscious thing. I mean everyone's while I do an active like gimmicky theme I do do that from time to time Where I say to them okay, I'm doing this today and you can ask the questions and every April Fool's I'd make up answers And you know like there's certain sort of things I do that are like a day-long thing And then usually other than the April Fool things I just do and you figure out soon my answers are crazy But most other things all announced. That's what I'm doing. So every once in a while I I Like for example one day I said list two things whatever two things you want And I'll say what's more likely to happen and people just gave me lists of things and the list could be Whatever they wanted to give and I would just say what's what I think is more likely to happen Um, I did another day where one of the things that I do um I'm now blinking. I'm thinking about them. I've done a bunch of different ones a lot of times just me giving Information on things or me giving my vantage point on things Um, so I do like the idea. I lean into themes and what I mean by that is not not the ones where I say Today's this theme I do those but uh more common is I answer a question And and I give an honest answer Something that's interesting and then that provokes other people to ask questions about the same thing And then I start answering those questions and that once I start I don't need to do that a lot I answer three or four questions on the same topic. It'll start becoming the topic everyone talks about for the day So I do like having themes the themes are kind of organic, which is fun meaning I don't necessarily answer questions assuming this is what everyone's going to talk about today But it's clear once I do it and watch the responses When I hit upon something it's pretty I I realized pretty fast. I've hit upon something Um, and what those themes are like for people who don't listen to the blog There's all sorts of things going on. Uh, the other thing I tried to do is I'm a comedy writer I try you know, uh, I have different characters that have been on the blog. I have an evil twin I have a little squirrel that talks sometimes um I mean I I occasionally will lean into failure of things People also ask questions that are Tengential to magic sometimes and we'll go off on topics that have nothing to do with magic, although Usually they're magic adjacent. Um And sometimes they're just literally about magic itself that there's some think people care about we get we we dive in the In the weeds on something I have the ability to do polls. So I do polls a lot Um, a real common thing is somebody who asks a question. I'm like, oh, I wonder how well you guys think about it I think my My I have somewhere like I'm between 70 and 80 thousand regular readers. I believe right now on my blog um probably if you uh Those are people who are signed up. I think to read the blog who you have to like, uh So I I believe that's how many people at least are Um, who follow my blog. I guess there are other people that visit So I I'm not sure the actual number of people total people that read it's a lot a lot of people read my blog um and um Every once in a while and when I mean every once in a while every other day um Somebody will post one of my comments to reddit that happens a lot Um, and and and sometimes other social media. I've seen it on blue sky and twitter. I've seen it on uh Instagram like I like I will answer something and then people will use that as a jump Also, people make videos all the time where I said something and they're going to make a comment on it, you know So my answer will inspire all sorts of things and I'm well aware. I know for example when I write an answer I have some set well I I should say there's some things I answer that I'm pretty confident will end up on reddit And there's some things that end up reddit. I have no idea um, for example Sometimes I'll answer the question giving facts that are not new that I've said before that I'm not I'm just I answer the same question a lot Meaning I understand that not everybody reads the blog every day So I answer the same questions from time to time if something's a pressing question I'll answer it more than once and there are definitely questions that I've answered 20 30 times um So sometimes when I answer one of those questions and it gets to reddit. I'm like, okay I wasn't even sharing new information, but to that person they didn't know it so they go put it on and read it so um, it's interesting to see uh reddit definitely is very reddit-ish They're very skeptical um, so, uh They uh They like to call me marketing rosewater. That's that there's really this on reddit. It's a concept that um I'm just spinning everything and I'm I'm the corporate mouthpiece and anyway, that's that I The thing that's that's funny to me is look. I mean, I don't have freedom to just say everything I have some restrictions. I do work for the company. I I'm not going to dunk on my company. So I'm not it's it's obviously Look, I you have to take who I am. I'm the head designer. Um, but within that context, uh, I am I don't know if anybody else any other gaming company that had that creates the amount of volume Where I just answer questions from the public like one of the things about blogger talk that I'm very proud of is Look, I'm super transparent. You want to know something? I try to answer the questions Once again, I get way too many to answer them all and I can't answer everything. So but but I answer a lot of questions I've answered over 150 000 questions. Uh, I I I don't know of any other You know, forget head designer just designer of any other game company answering the volume of things I answer And that's not I also write a weekly column. I do this blog. I mean, I I make a lot of content Um, and the most the reason I do it is I want people who love magic to want who want to know more About how magic is made. I want to share that I love behind the scenes like I On my own fandoms. I love behind the scenes information It's really cool and as much as I can provide that I like to do that And I know it's really fun to ask a question and I answer your question That's one of the reasons I try to answer so many questions as you know, I see people on other media get so excited They answer their question. Um And there's some topics that I am fascinated by I love the color pie I can talk color pie to my you know, till I turn blue like it's really neat. What are you doing? What are you thinking? Why do you do this, you know, and is this in pies? Is this a bend? Is this a break? You know, I I get really into that stuff and and so, um, I'm playing to the informational part, uh, there's a lot of things that I care about and there's a lot of time and attention What one of my general beliefs so, uh Many years ago when I got to wizards Even in the very early days of wizards back on use net I like to answer questions from the public I used to be even before my blog existed. I would answer questions I would just find a place where I could answer questions answer questions. That's why I sort of drifted to blogger talk I like answering questions. I like explaining things. Um, it's why I have my column. That's why I do my podcast I like explaining how we do things. It's fascinating to me. I think magic design is super super cool Um, and not everybody I mean For example, you can drive a car and not understand how the car works You can play the game of magic and don't need to know how we make it Um, but for a lot of people it's super enjoyable. It's a fun part of it I know a lot of people like making their own magic sets and magic cards and it's great I think that's awesome. Uh, and so I want to do what I can to sort of Like when I was coming up as a game designer, um, I don't know back before I was a professional game designer Just an amateur game designer. I was so intrigued. I wanted to read about game design and there was like nothing There was so little on game design Um, and that when I got in position to say, oh, well, I like to write and I like game design I really made an effort to do to share a lot. That's where the blog really comes from Um, although one of the things about the blog that's fun is I I don't make the question so I get to answer very bizarre questions all the time And you guys come up with some really creative questions. Um, Like for example, this was a couple weeks ago. Someone was talking about what plane can you get the best pizza on? and I think I said, oh, okay, I new capena and ravnica and um Theros I said that that not theros. Um Newt Pena ran up ravnica. What's my third one? um, oh fiora fiora Um, I said, okay, those are the three. I think you get the best pizza and then someone said, oh Well, what guilds would make the best pizza? And I shared that with r&d and then there's a giant like we have the big pad We have on the wall where we ask questions or people can answer questions and that became a question for the day um, and so, you know The oh and the other big thing about the blog that I guess I should mention is that I get information from the blog people tell me things. It's one. I mean, it's not my only source of information, obviously And it's more anecdotal than dodle, but um, dodle than date than data. Um That uh, and so I learned a lot of things like for example One of the reasons we went back to kamigawa, at least one of the reasons I Helped steer in that direction was because my blog was so loud about how much they wanted to go back to kamigawa And I'm like, okay I mean, maybe that's just the enfranchised players who are on my blog But there's a group that really wants to go back to kamigawa. We're doing another japanese theme set It could be kamigawa and I spent a lot of energy trying to make sure it was kamigawa because of that Um, there are a lot of smaller themes. I've done There's like a wizard theme in dominaria because there's a lot to talk about like I did a poll and people really liked wizards And so like there's opportunities where I see things and I take advantage of them Not every poll goes anywhere. Some a lot of it's just for entertainment and sometimes just to see what people think Sometimes I know the answer. Sometimes I don't know the answer. Um, or sometimes I think I know the answer I don't always when I see the data the the thing about my blog is my blog is not representative of magic as a whole It's a much more enfranchised crowd. It's really interesting for me to learn from that crowd We care a lot about the enfranchised crowd, but um, it can be non representative sometimes of larger magic because I'm not seeing everybody. I'm seeing that people that are into magic enough that they're on the blog of the head designer um The other thing is so every once in a while I I write a long post Uh, it's just I get inspired everyone. I mean, I'm a writer in my core Like one of the reasons that I do the blog to be honest, uh, I mean I want to be educational. I want to be informational I also enjoy writing. Um There's something about being a writer that you got to write and so I just need like I'm going I have to write somewhere I have to take the energy and write something. Uh, and so Uh, one of the things that the blog is really good for is it's it's it's All the outreach to the audience to me makes me better at my job Like how do I know what players like? Well, if I read, you know, like I said, I um, and I've answered 150,000 questions I've read way way more than that. Like right now on my blog. I believe I've over 750 000 unanswered questions In fact, I'm getting really close Yeah, it'll happen this year. Maybe next year where I hit a million. I've gotten a million questions Not answered a million questions, but I've received a million questions Um, at some point I want to answer like 200 000 and maybe 800 000 will be unanswered. Uh, so that by the way, I think I answer About a fifth of the questions is my my rough estimate looking at unanswered versus answered. Um I answer a lot. Uh, what else can I say the um Oh, I like to do the long form things from time to time just because it lets me get more in the deeps and it gets me tapping to my right my right or sense, uh And there's some topics I think are really important and there's nuance to them um, like I did a topic on the importance of Uh, diversity and the importance of letting people see themselves I don't normally get to see themselves that I believe really strongly in but it's a complex topic um, oh the other thing that uh, I do try is I try very hard to treat everybody who writes to me with respect Um, I don't always receive respect. I mean one of the things I ask on my blog is I like people to be polite Um, you can disagree with me. I have no problem with you not liking something we're doing Um, but you can be polite about it. Um, but I I do answer people who aren't polite um There's a lot. I mean a lot of my blog is trying to for it with a straight face answer real criticism I do not try to avoid criticism regular readers of my blog. No, I have people are critical all the time um, and the funny thing is Because I respond to critics I spend more time responding to criticism than not that a lot of times it seems the criticism Is the majority opinion and most often it is not the majority opinion But it is what it makes for good content and and I'm honestly trying to address what people are saying If somebody doesn't like something I want to explain why we're doing that thing um, and more often than not Usually the answer to why are you doing this thing that I don't like the answer is because other people do like it That you might not like it, but I'm other people that do like it I'm doing it for people that do like it just like there's things that you like that other people don't like You know, whatever you think is the best most awesome thing about magic There's somebody out there that hates it that if they could banish it from magic They would and it's the thing that brings you the most joy And the and the reverse is sure the thing you hate most somebody brings them the most joy And and that's one of the tricky things for us is look. I'm trying to make everybody happy And I'm trying to use my blog to explain that my job is to make everybody happy Um And the other thing that's really hard is um, what I call the line Everybody has sort of their line in the sand where on one side that is what magic is It's lovely. It's great. And the other side of the line is that's not magic You know stop doing that what you're doing isn't really magic And the challenge is that line just isn't everybody has their own line And so the thing for you that just isn't magic for somebody else completely is magic Um, and so a lot of what I try to do and I like once again, I I really try hard I treat every answer very seriously Oh, sorry, there's silly answers silly questions. I treat silly but um, what I mean is if somebody I I don't try to diminish what people are saying. I'm trying to give honest answers Now one of the challenges If my answer is Like sometimes people are like I like thing x. Why aren't you doing it? And my answer is well enough people don't like it. We don't do it or I don't enjoy thing x. Why do you do it? And my answer is well the people that really do enjoy trying to do it and so um In short people do not want to hear We're doing something You know we it comes across to some people as well. I don't care I don't like this thing. Why do you do it? Well, here's why we do it. Well, you obviously don't care about me No, I do care about you for starters. I'm answering your question and the boot look I There are a lot of magic players and it is not I have to care about all magic players and that if you enjoy something that the majority of magic players really dislike That leaves the unfun gameplay and just is something that isn't good for the game It isn't making enough people happy. Look, we here's why we're not doing it. We don't do everything There's things that aren't good for the game and or I mean I would argue that if enough people dislike something It's bad for the game because enough people dislike it, but um, there are also some things that Cause problems for us like sometimes we don't do things not because it would upset players But because it's bad for the game I want to explain that and I want to explain things of why we don't do things But the challenge is if you write to me and say I don't like the thing you're doing and my answer is anything other than Okay, we will stop doing that thing. You don't like Uh, it comes across to some people. It's like I just don't care. You you clearly told me what you wanted I clearly am ignoring you, you know, and it's not I'm not trying to ignore you. That's why I spend the time and energy It's why I answer so many critical people. I want to talk about why why the thing you hate. Why do we do that? Why do we do that thing you hate? Well, let me walk you through why or why don't we do the thing you love? Let me walk you through why? And like I said, I The other challenge is I ask questions as they are asked I do not assume what people mean Um, and so that's another it's probably a quirk of mine meaning I ask what people ask of me Um, and like for example, there's a lot of terminology in wizards. I'm very open on what the terminology is Uh, if you ask me something, uh using terminology I will answer using that terminology if you want to talk about flip cards. I will talk about flip cards It's a mechanic from kamigawa That we made that the cards rotate 180 degrees Now if you mean double-faced cards, you say flip cards Sometimes sometimes out of context, I understand you mean double-faced cards that go well You said flip cards, but I think you mean double-faced cards But a lot of the time I will answer the question a real common one in our bog is Kindred is the creature is the creature type that used to be tribal Typal is the theme of using creature types as a thematic thing We do not use kindle to mean typo. We use typo to mean typo Um, so if you ask me about kindred, I will answer about kindred of what rnd talks about when we say kindred, which is the card type Um, and if you mean typo, well, you need to ask me typo because that is I mean on my blog I actually to refer to things as rnd refers to them because that's how I talk Um on your own things call wherever you want. Um, I'm just saying when you're talking to me I'm going to be very technical and I'm using the rnd terminology. That's the that's the language I speak in And so if you want to ask me things If not, I will answer the questions as asked of me and I will use rnd terminology That is that's the language I speak in um And like I said, if it's very very clear to me somebody means something different I can catch that some of the time, but also I am The other thing that people kind of miss is I'm answering so many questions. I'm just answering moving on um Sometimes by the way, uh One of the things that I another big question is people sometimes ask Questions in which I can answer some of the questions about all of their question. Um I try to answer some of the question if I can if I I mean if I can't answer all the questions Sometimes I don't answer them But sometimes they ask more than one question and one of the questions is really interesting and I'll answer the one that's really interesting um In general people writing to me if they can ask one question and they're ready to set like multiple questions on one thing Oftentimes I have to ignore because I can't answer them all I don't answer most of the time every once in a while There's a really interesting question. I will answer it. Um, I also do it quickly. I'm doing this Often time in my spare time sometimes well, I'm You know multitasking meaning my attention The only way for me to answer the volume of questions I do is to kind of use downtime when I can find it Um, but that doesn't always mean my attention is you know Like sometimes I'm shopping and waiting for my wife to get something so I answer two questions But I'm doing things quickly and so I do admit sometimes I miss some nuance of questions or or sometimes I I assume someone means something's not quite what they mean and I so I you know, like I It is tricky answering a lot of questions. Um And even things that might seem obvious to other people what they meant sometimes I interpret a little differently and I answer the question I think they're asking um And so I never mean to not answer questions. I mean every once in a while someone asks multiple questions and I'm answering one of them Um, I do try to answer all the questions when I can And I'm not I'm not trying to be evasive or anything There are other things I can't answer And most of the time I can't answer I don't even I don't even answer the question But sometimes there's an element I can answer and I will um The weird traffic today, which is why we get extra content here on blogger talk um I mean the thing that is really interesting to me is I enjoy I actually enjoy getting tough questions I have no problem with people, you know wanting to understand things like I said I Your tone could be friendly, uh and I One of the things that's really hard about being a public figure Is that there are a lot of people that want to assume the worst of you And you know it's it's challenging sometimes we're like literally Answering questions on my blog. It's not my job. If tomorrow I stop answering questions. Nothing would happen to me I it's not it's not an official part of my job. I do do it. They're aware. I do it. Um Part I mean another thing that you guys might realize is sometimes I have to answer a question And I need to make sure I'm allowed to answer the question You know, there are people I will check in with If I'm answering a question about a certain section of the company that's not really my area of expertise I will I will double check with people sometimes I I ask about a question and they're like, uh, let's not answer that one so sometimes, you know, like I answer a lot of questions, but some of them depending on the question Look, I have to make sure it's okay to answer the question. Um, and I have people I talk to to double check because As much I mean, I have a pretty good sense of what I can and can't answer from doing this for a long time But I still like having a second pair of eyes and there's other people I'll go to Um, and sometimes for example, I'll have a question all of an answer I need to run the answer by and it takes them a while to get back to me So if you ever ask the question to answer days later, that that is why that happens where I have an answer I'm clarifying make sure I'm not saying something. I'm not and the person who's getting back to me It just takes a long time to get back to me and I post it when I can but that that's how that stuff like that happens um You know, like I said, it is oh, have I ever gotten Sorry, let me drink my water Have I ever gotten in trouble for things I said on my blog I have it doesn't happen very often I've been doing this a long time. I like I said, I answer a lot of questions um, and the number of times I've gotten sort of I mean trouble is I don't quite the right word. I mean where someone's come to talk to me It's it's I can count it on two hands. It's under 10 um And most of them are Okay, I see why you answer this but in the future. Can you try not to do thing a or thing b? I've done that Uh, I I can't get the details. I had one where I got in I bought this big trouble. I've ever gotten into anything um You know, I I had the I had to have a conversation with the vp about it. So um And you know the You know, one of the big things is understanding what I can and can't say and that was an example where I said something I can't say and I learned I can't say it and I will not say it again. Um, once again, I can't get into the details, but um But the the very idea one of the things that's that that is Good on my end is Even though I've gotten in trouble I said things that shouldn't have said I I've definitely had people talk to me about things No one has ever stopped the blog. No one's ever said don't answer the blog Um, they recognize it's an important thing. They recognize the outreach to the to the audience is cool They they do understand that like I I mostly know what I'm doing, you know, um, barring a few rare occasions I don't really say things. I'm not supposed to say. Um, have I ever given away future information? I have very subtly um One of the times I said something that but by itself Was not giving it away But in the separate interview somewhere else another r&d person said something else and our two information together gave something away that happened Um, and then I have a couple cases where Uh, I like this one time I meant to say dragon and I said dinosaur and we were working on xtl on Um, and nobody at the time picked it up. It wasn't until xtl on came out that someone said, you know Like a year ago mark said dinosaur not dragon You know, um, but no one picked no one they only picked it up after the fact. Um So I most of the time that I said something No one caught on to it or didn't catch on to at the time. Um, you get the pressing questions the What is my favorite part of doing the blog? Uh, I really like the camaraderie. I like that there is very much So I I call the people on my blog question marks because they question me mark Um, and so there is a community. I enjoy the community. I do recognize a lot of the people who ask questions all the time um I have I have some cermudgens That uh, like taking you know, no matter what we do. Here's the most negative take you can take on it. Um I people that are very flowing like oh another thing that's important to understand is A lot of people will write to me on the blog and they don't want to quit They're not trying to get information out of me. They just want me to know something Um, and so a lot of the stuff I read is important like someone will go, please don't answer this But I just want to let you know I get a lot of people writing to me. Um You know, I've used the blog for example one of the things I've taught the the question marks is if you see magic out in pop culture Anywhere let me know they do so that's why like a lot of the things about the blogs are interesting is um, I usually know things before anybody else in r&d about magic just because The second something breaks. I get questions about it. So Oh something's going on people mad about something. I I know The one interesting thing is sometimes people are asking me about something and I have to go figure out what they're asking about Like what's what what like they're mad about something. Oh, okay. Let me figure what they're mad about like I have to go figure out What happened or or a leak happened or something happens. I'm like, what's going on? Um, so sometimes in r&d like I'm the one that goes, okay guys something happened. We need to you know, and I'm like, okay something Uh, another time it's you know, it's broke on reddit or somewhere But just I you know because I don't read reddit every moment of every day You know, I read my blog much more. Um, someone will say, oh this happened, you know, I saw this on reddit or whatever Or I saw this somewhere. Uh, and so that's why I learned things So the blog also is very informative to me of just keeping me up to date on what people do and don't know and Whatever the topic of the day like some days people are mad about something and that's what people want to talk about And I'm like, okay people are you know Another interesting thing about the blog is I have people all the time coming to me to ask how What the bell weather of the people are? Um, because I talked to I mean once again, it's more in franchise audience But okay, what's in franchise audience thinking about I I know my blog there are some questions about it. And so Um, the blog is a really interesting tool for me and one like I said one of the reasons I do the blog a I enjoy doing the blog b I think you guys enjoyed me doing the blog and see it's valuable. It helps me in my job I honestly believe I'm much better at my job because the blog exists So I while it's not part of my job in the sense that I'm not required to do it. I don't get paid to do it Um, it is something that I think makes me better at my job And I I do enjoy it. So But anyway, uh, I'm now at work that is Hopefully more about blog a talk. I try to add on to the first blog a talk from 13 years ago. Um The first podcast. Uh, anyway, I hope this was uh, enjoyable Um, if you've never been to my blog, it's on tumblr. If just I believe you just google blog a talk you'll get there Um, I I answer questions all the time Oh, people ask all the time if I don't answer a question. Can you ask it again? Yes? I don't see all the questions All right, now, maybe I'm not answering a question on purpose or for many reasons Um, but you can ask questions again and feel free feel free to repeat. Like I said, I I get so many questions I just don't see everything every day. Um, but if you've never been to blog talk, it is fun. Um And like I say, I make a lot of content. So it might not be I'm not even saying you should read it every day I'm just saying every once in a while go and look and there's fun things I just rnd read my blog talk many of them do although most of them don't read everything because I write so much. Um Uh, well anybody else uh in rnd started a blog other people had tried Um, I think gavin did for a little while dug buyer did for a little while all the play design did for a little while um, but there's something about there's something about my personality of my My inability to get tired of doing the same thing again and again and my desire to constantly write That makes it perfectly suited for me and not for most people. So I don't expect other people doing what I do on blog a talk Um, but I do so you have a chance to come see it Uh, but anyway guys, you got a little extra content today because we have some traffic Uh, the only podcast where traffic means more content for you. Uh, but anyway, I am at work So I don't know what that means means to the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic It's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys all next time. Bye. Bye