Gamifying Fatherhood

There's been games that he's seen in the queue and like, oh, I'd love to play that. It's like, that has a lot of words to it. Like, there's a lot of instructions you're gonna have to read.

If you can get over this hurdle and learn how to read, like there are so many games that you have access to, like some of the greatest stories, like some of my favorites, like I can't wait to show you, But you gotta keep reading.

Again, you just see those gears turning where it says reward system. I said, alright, well, I don't like reading but I really want this game So that just gives me this motivation, this carrot, there's like reason to do it.

Alrighty folks. Welcome back transacting value, where we're encouraging dialogue from different perspectives to unite over shared values.

Our theme for season 4 is intrinsic values. What your character is doing when you look yourself in the mirror. Now if you're new to the podcast, welcome. And if you're a continuing listener, welcome back.

Today, we're talking our May core values of unity, honor, and mental toughness, and also our second mini series of the year called socializing value. So what does that mean? We're talking to people that have a social presence.

Right? Whether it's through gaming or maybe YouTube or maybe Instagram, pick a platform, unruly in particular apply. Maybe it's even in books, in this case, because you can socialize in written form as well.

But that's who we're showcasing. And this particular month, we've got Dad, gamer, and cohost to the podcast, New Dad Gaming, Trevor Alexander. So folks without further ado, I'm Porter. I'm your host, and this is transacting value.

Trevor, how you doing? Very good. Thanks so much for having me. How are you? I'm well. I'm well. Thanks. You know, it's interesting that I think at least not many people ask back in introductions like that.

You know? Yeah. I'll sometimes listen to I can almost understand it. I'll listen to radio sometimes and every single time they take a caller, it's like, how are you doing? The caller's like, Still doing fine.

I've been doing fine every morning for all 16 of these calls. So I can almost understand that, but I always like to give it a quick how are you? Yeah. Yeah. No. No no worries. I appreciate it. I appreciate the courtesy nonetheless.

So listen. For everybody listening, Trevor and I don't actually know each other. We haven't met in person. Right? So What's really cool about now, I think, a decentralized reality, it doesn't just apply to gaming anymore.

You know, just playing with your friends hanging out and What was the that Leroy Jenkins video, for example? You know what I mean?

World of Warcraft. Right? In Warcraft. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or you're not like I don't know. Storm and funerals. You're not laying siege or or grand theft autoing whatever whatever the verb is. But with your friends, you know?

And so this is pretty cool. It gives us an opportunity to be able to talk and relate on a few things that I think we have different namely nationalities. For 1, everybody listening, case you don't pick it up, Trevor's Canadian.

So nobody's perfect. Right? But Yeah. Sorry sorry. Yeah. I'll say this. I do a lot of business in the States and I cannot delete everybody who has an accent says this, but I never pick it up.

I would never think that I have a Canadian then. But I I would swear to you, like, 9 times out of 10 when I'm talking with a client in the States.

They're like, oh, you're Canadian. Like, how do you do? What were I'm not sitting here saying like a boot and like the rope or something like that.

Like, how are you picking this up? But they pin me every time. I don't know what it is. You know, it might be nicer to be pegged based on your accent than by like your warcraft skin, you know, like you do look like an ogre.

I get it now. You look exactly like your character. That's a shame. Yeah. Oh, man. But no. So nationalities and jokes aside, we do have a couple of things in common as well.

Right? Obviously, we're both dads and for people that have been listening transact in value. I've told you a little bit about me and We'll dive into a little bit more of that as this conversation goes, I'm sure.

However, none of you guys can see Trevor. So Trevor, I think we should just start at the beginning so people know who to listen into.

And short run down, the floor is gonna be yours, but who are you? Where are you from? What kinds of things have shaped your perspective? Yeah. For sure. So born and raised in Canada, as you said?

Unbelievably fortunate. I could definitely put that down there. Really great family, 1 of 4 kids, 2 great parents, so born in Southern Ontario if you have to know where that is close to Toronto and was an artist actually.

So tried my best at drawing, just had a certain creative bent went to school for art, found out very quickly I was no good at art.

There was no there was no money in it. But 1 note that I discovered in school was with computers, and computers specifically graphic design just took an absolute shine to it.

Took that course got a job in it, also sucked at that job as I was very fresh and new, but that was a really exciting moment.

It was great, got fired from that job, and had nothing going for me. Total of us. Yeah. Well, what ended up happening is the father of a friend of mine had a startup company.

And being, you know, young, fired at nothing going. And fortunately, I realized that was the case. Mhmm. So I said, alright. Well, If you give me a place to sleep and you feed me, I'll come work for free.

Your startup is super cool, like, I love to see it. Okay. And I did for so for the year, I was living in this guy's basement. I wasn't making any money but I just had a place to sleep and doing this awesome work.

Yeah. That company got sold So it was a great upside and from there like I've never wanted for work because I just I kind of proved myself in that moment and people kept dragging me along.

So as much as that I think my perspective on that is as much as it was hard work and like we were doing 80 hour weeks. It was like old school kind of startup mentality.

So as much as there was hard work involved, like, just the fact that I kinda continued to stumble upon those type of opportunities, I was able to take advantage of it, has really sort of guided me as far as just being incredibly grateful for all of those kind of things lining up and just being able to take advantage of my hard work if you put it that way.

Yeah.

So came back, married, had 2 kids living in Ottawa up here in Canada and yeah, just as you mentioned with our podcast started that with a good friend from college, that same college and that was where I was having my first child he already had is first, a second on the way.

And in a conversation, what does fatherhood look like?

What's it gonna be like? What would it look like after to have our kids look back on this show and pinpoint moments of what was my dad thinking when I was 5, when I was 7 when this thing first happened.

That's a cool idea. Kind of it. Yeah. And kind of in the guise of gaming. So I was like, I've always loved gaming.

What would it mean to my Hobby. Am I gonna be able to game? Will I be able to game with my son? Like, I went through some pitfalls and some great moments of gaming when I was coming up. My parents didn't know what it was.

Because I do know what it is. What does it look like for guiding our kids through gaming? And thus, the podcast was born. That's super cool. That was fairly I hope that wasn't too rambly trying to fit it all in there quickly. No. No.

No. No. That's fine. We have time and if people didn't wanna hear you, they wouldn't listen to me either. So I think I think we'll be alright. And for 1, I think gaming for me and gaming for you carry a little bit of different gravity.

My older brother played video games when we were growing up. And we were Give or take a few days about 9 months apart. We had nothing in common. Well, I mean, the same parents, I guess.

And we shared a room until we graduated high school. But we didn't have the same boat, you said? Okay. Same boat. Yeah. I wish it was a boot. No. I'm copying. But I think we had our first conversation after we graduated high school.

Our interests were different. Our athleticism was different. Our friend circles overlapped some, but we didn't talk to each other about it, so we didn't really know.

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I think we had our first conversation after we graduated high school. Our interests were different. Our athleticism was different. Our friend circles overlapped some but We didn't talk to each other about it, so we didn't really know.

You know, I slept on a futon, he slept in a 2 man tent. Some differences were what they were. He got into video games. I think sort of as an escape and just for entertainment value.

And I just didn't have the coordination or the attention span. It But now now my son and I play video games, I'd say 4 or 5 nights a week. And because we're long distance, it's how we communicate.

And it's also entertaining and now we have things in common. You know? So it's funny you bring that up. What's it gonna look like gaming and its influence on fatherhood? I think there's a lot of different ways it could go.

Right? You share some things you're passionate about or you learn some new things they're passionate about in the process. Have you found that it gives you guys opportunities to learn from each other, not just to teach them? Absolutely.

Especially with some of them current titles, things like Roblox, things like Minecraft, where it's just big, large worlds that a bunch of intricacies, like, a bunch of things to learn and its own language in the sense of, okay, well, here's how you do XYZ, and where do you go.

What's really amazing is if you do engage if you participate, even if you don't wanna play the game of the kid, so be it.

But even just sitting by them and being part of that world, and listening to how their mind thinks and seeing how they would approach a problem different than yourself.

So classically, okay, I played games and the thing I would do is this.

But instead they'd go off and they take a complete right turn. The swerve off in an entirely different direction of this wild kinda crazy way to come about it and you know, like, that's would have never come at it that way.

That's really fascinating the way you did that. So it's really it's an interesting way to see how they would problem solve how they would approach different scenarios and just even, like, the different ways that anybody can be.

And and so doing, like, kinda teach you a thing or 2 about a, who they are and different ways to approach something. Yeah. That's exactly the point I was gonna tie on to who they are or who they're becoming as a person.

I think it's 1 thing to I mean especially for your first child and especially if you're a man in that first child is your son. I think there's a little bit of bias there because even more if there's a tendency of them to look like you.

I mean, you start to think of all the stuff you experience. You're like, I want them to experience these things in in whatever capacity.

I think a hallmark of people growing is how they interpret and evaluate their surroundings. And seeing I don't remember which game we were playing now off the top of my head.

It was just within the last few nights. It's a tycoon game. And so for everybody listening or Trevor in your case, if you're familiar with a tycoon type format of gaming and Roblox specifically.

This may make some sense. And if you're not, you hit buttons and it allows you to make more money. And over time playing the game, you make money to make more money to make more money.

And then you contribute it to some bigger structure, new weapons, new whatever gameplay applies. Also we're playing this, And a few nights ago compared to a few weeks ago.

K? So a few weeks ago, we're playing a tycoon game. They're some of his favorites usually. And he doesn't care about the money, the droppers, nothing. He just wants to get weapons and shoot people. He's just having fun. Sure. Yeah.

Right. Which is super cool. Few nights ago, we talked essentially about compounding interest and why it makes more sense yeah. And about why it makes more sense to spend your money on droppers before you spend your money on weapons.

And oh, by the way, if you wait to buy weapons, nobody else is gonna break into your base to steal them. You're not gonna die as often.

And then, you know, we sort of went from there. Last night, we're playing a tycoon game. I had give or take 3000 dollars in game currency. He's over a hundred thousand within the first 10 minutes. Cheese. Yeah. So -- Oh my goodness.

-- you know, something to be said for passing off the lightsaber so to speak. You know, like he's he's outclassed the Jedi, I think. Yeah. Absolutely adore that lesson too. Just the I've gone through the same 1 with my kids as well.

Where they they wanna spend the currency to get the thing immediately. Mhmm. And then that's that's an obvious trait. Like, that's like every kid going to the corner store buying candy. Right. As opposed to putting anything away.

But then it's just like those slow that reinforcement of that lesson in game where it's like, you know, if you invested that into something that would actually produce money, you'll spend upfront but in the long term you're gonna keep making more and more, next thing you know you can buy all that stuff Mhmm.

And then you slowly see, like, the pieces just fall into place where they kinda start to realize like, oh, 0, there's kinda like this saving mechanism, this investment mechanism, that's interesting.

And there's a part of you kinda just like, shake your fist like, yeah, got them. I teach them savings. We got this. I'll still have to deal with the laundry or whatever else. But you know what?

You'll be rich. That's fine. It's a start. I'll live in your basement. You feed me and I'll do your laundry, whatever. Figure it out. Perfect. Yeah. You're my retirement plan. You're my 04:01 k. So let's go. That's it.

Yeah. Do you think that something like that Right? And let's just say finance since that's where we took this. But do you think that's something like teaching finance through gaming financial principles, I guess, through gaming?

Is easier than transitioning that lesson to real life application? Or do you think it's gonna be just as easy now that they have a foundation to stand on? If I if I might categorize that as I'll let you know. Yeah. Sure.

I think the I'll say that it it continues to come up because it Foundation is actually probably the proper word for that because it's existed now for us in a couple games where you kind of explain, you know, if you invest instead of just spend rate.

Mhmm. We see it even coming out a little bit into the real world where we recently actually took them to an arcade and it was the same type of thing where it just had literally like swipe cards, put a bunch of money on it -- Mhmm.

-- like old school type games and you can just kind of see them again processing these lessons where they're at 1 game, for so long, it was kind of expensive.

They weren't getting much out of it and they're just kind of wasting quote unquote, grabbing funds, so it's not quite a waste.

But ultimately, not maybe the experience expecting because they were swiping the 1 machine cost a little bit too much and then next thing you know, they're out of money.

Yep. So you're like, well, you see, this is like a lot and because like you said, the foundation, you can kinda just now start to stack a few more things on top of it.

Where, well, you put all your money to that and that's not gonna pay you the tickets if you wanted to get the prizes So, you know, you need to think through these decisions.

Whatever you choose, there's a finite resource you have and you need to kind of plan it accordingly. And those aren't the words, obviously, I used my kid, but Yeah. In our kid friendly fashion. Yeah.

So, yeah, I think that's a really A key way to say that is like you said there's opportunities to lay foundations for some of those core lessons in any of these platforms and these games and then slowly as you branch out into other parts of the world like it just keeps building, keeps building, and you can always say remember in Minecraft which immediately would just peak, you know, their lizard brain would immediately like for a couple of, oh, Minecraft?

Yeah. Then you could sneak in some life knowledge and see if you can teach them a thing or 2.

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Slowly as you branch out into other parts of the world, like it just keeps building, keeps building, and you can always say, remember in Minecraft, which immediately would just peak, you know, their lizard brain would immediately like for a couple of oh, Minecraft?

Yeah. You can sneak in some life knowledge and see if you can teach them a thing or 2. Yeah. And I mean we just sort of jumped on finance but I mean reading is another easy go to. And my son doesn't like reading books.

He prefers reading graphic novels and depending on your school of thought, it's still just a picture book not to offend any listeners, but You know, you can be an adult and still enjoy reading picture books.

He, even still, I'd say, shirk's those more than picks him up though.

You ask him to read a message board -- Mhmm. -- or add up numbers in his head to see who's winning on a leader board and how much it's gonna subtract if he buys something.

He's getting quick? You know? He's getting quick. He'll read to me the instructions of a game or the gameplay that shows up on the screen before we get started.

And it's now more uncommon, but initially that was part of our We'll play that game, but you gotta tell me how to play it first.

I think it's a a cool opportunity that really didn't exist up till a decade ago, maybe. We're absolutely aligned on that. It's it's very much the place we're at with our kids.

And he's he is in graphic novels first. And we're very pleased with that. And actually, he has unfortunately, for our kids, they have the the dual disadvantage of we've put them into a French school.

We wanted them to to have an opportunity be bilingual. Sure. It's been difficult, but they've actually really been rising to the challenge, so I'm incredibly proud of it.

But they're also reading in French. And so 2 points from now, like, I'll actually change the language on their games to French -- Oh, cool. -- to reinforce it. And in fact, games become this huge carrot for it.

Where there's been games that he's seen in the queue and like, oh, I'd love to play that. It's like, that has a lot of words to it. Like, there's a lot of instructions you're gonna have to read.

If you can get over this hurdle and learn how to read, like there are so many games that you have access to, like some of the greatest stories, like some of my favorites, like I can't wait to show you, but you gotta keep reading.

Again, you just see those gears turning where it says reward system.

It's like, alright, well, I don't like reading but I really want this game So that just gives me this motivation, this carrot, there's, like, reason to do it. Yeah. Yeah.

That I think it really hit on something where I think gaming can be incredible opportunity for reading. There's even some when they eventually get into computers, like whether or not they get into it, a job of computers, doesn't matter.

Generally speaking, you should be able to type this modern world being able to write letters. There's games called like type of the dead, I think it is.

So it's a computer game and zombies will come up, but instead of having a light gun that you would shoot them in order to get rid of that zombie a word shows up over top of them and you have to type out that word.

Oh, that's cool. Even as an adult, it's honestly pretty fun and it gets your typing speed up. Yeah. But again, it's 1 of those things where they can find these opportunities that it's a legitimate fun experience.

But in order to do well at the game, you're gonna have to improve your typing, not to mention spelling and just like you're seeing all these words on screen.

So if you indulge in it, there's this real opportunity in the medium to be quite educational opportunities. And I don't know that that aspect is super new though. Right? The edutainment industry.

I remember in the early nineties, you know, where in the world is Carmen San Diego was our geography class. Or at least -- Yeah. -- the geography aspect of computer class, I guess. Or I don't know what else do we Oregon Trail, you know?

I I think a lot of those things were a similar end state where now the gaming industry seems to be a lot more entertainment focused. A man, if it flips the switch, Did you imagine the curricula that could be built around something?

I mean, it is now, I guess, is a core sort of kernel. But like, more holistically capitalized around something like, say, Roblox to design and into higher curriculum?

It's really getting close with Minecraft. There's specific version called Minecraft Education. Mhmm. And it's made for teachers who will hold classes inside of Minecraft. What? So, yeah, Minecraft education edition.

They added all these extra things around science and math and like other experiments you can do to an in the world if you can think about the physical limitations like, okay, I want to take carbon monoxide or liquid nitrogen and do all these experiments well.

Budget cuts like facility constraints, like secure safety -- Yeah. -- if you want to.

But what if you could have your kids mix certain elements and have a rocket like take off, except that as opposed to the real world constraints that you're inside of this world, this Minecraft world that you wanna be inside of anyways.

Those are happening there's code camps that happen, so your kit you sign them up and for this time for an entire week or 2. They'll show up and there's this instructor that teaching them how to code this entire time of it.

So it they're starting there with the I think it's Gaming like if you think back to what you're saying about you and your brother, when you're younger, it was a lot less omnipresent.

Know there's some kids who kinda got into it a little bit more. A lot of kids didn't. Yeah. Now it's fairly just every kid plays Minecraft every kid plays roadblocks.

There's some 90 percent penetration rate. It's pretty wild. So the, you know, the impetus now to find ways to better capitalize on people the fact that the kids are all in there and they're engaged becomes really exciting.

And you also have the other thing I'll say too is that you and myself, like, we grew up with games.

Again, even if you don't put yourself as a gamer, it's just the fact that you saw the market where it was tiny little glips on the screen.

Yeah. And disconnected to everything to now where it's live concerts with megastars like multi trillion dollar industry.

So, like, you've seen the rise. You have a solid understanding of it. So we're the first generation that would have that type of understanding that now has our own kids.

I could kinda jump into it, which makes this new this generation coming up very interesting. Already folks sit tight and we'll be right back on transacting value.

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So we're the first generation that would have a type of understanding that now has our own kids that could kinda jump into it.

Which makes this new this generation coming up very interesting. Yeah. That's a great 0. 1 thing I wanna move to talking about cross generational I guess you could say divides or like I guess cross generational bridging.

Or we're talking about how gaming is influenced people also wanna make sure we include how people are influencing gaming.

Right? I think frankly the way you make AI more human is you continue to inject more humanistic things into a digitized fashion.

Not specific to clothing and texture and graphics and audio and sounds and gameplay, more specific to human strengths and weaknesses and character flaws and the ability to make decisions as a character or the ability to inject somebody's values into the character of gameplay.

Right? To be able to recognize maybe even subconsciously or subliminally, if not overtly sort of intrinsic and inherent values within a society that actually brings people together in a game.

So it's not just sort of muted gameplay by comparison. And I think the easiest way to do that for everybody listening usually this is earlier on in the conversation but it's totally cool.

I'm enjoying where this is going. This is a segment of the show called developing character -- e. -- developing character. So Trevor, it's 2 questions, sort of temporally based, I guess you could say.

You can answer them as in-depth or as vulnerable as you want. Totally cool. But the first question so what were some of your values then growing up? As a teenager or from what you remember?

Yeah. Growing up, it's just kinda funny because I'll say that. I found that I took a pretty me leaving for college it was a very large and a vast gap in my maturity where I really grew into who I was.

Like I sometimes think about I was as a child and was not very proud of it. Fairly annoying just kind of a little self centered.

Mhmm. Which makes me again like I I talked with some of my core tenants gratefulness and to have I still have friends from kindergarten to this day. We managed to, like, keep in touch and, like, we call them any time.

They're wonderful. The fact that they stuck through with me at some of my worst times. So when I think about what values I had as that would be think if anything and 1 that's probably, like, persistent would be fairness -- Oh.

-- than, like, honesty. So where you got yours, I got mine. Okay. I've gone. Now it's your turn. Because, like, I remember played hockey, not very well, but played hockey all through when I was a kid.

It was interesting. I was always right at the cusp of being good enough to play at the like upper level teams, but I just never wanted to because I wanted to play with my friends.

Mhmm. And they weren't able to get up to that league. They all quit so I was like for a couple years, I tried, okay, I'll try the upper leagues.

Let's see what this is all about. I wanna say the more professional teams that's not how you would say it. Just more like we call them like triple a or double a or whatever. Sure. So this house team and there's, like, the bigger 1.

I wish I had kind of realized it at the time, but what didn't square with me is that we did playtime wasn't fair. On the house teams, as much as you're trying to win, everybody got the same amount of ice time.

Like, okay. You get to go, then you get to go, and then you get to go. Like, everybody gets there 2 minutes. Mhmm. And, okay, there's a value to that.

Sure. And that's great. So that's all I'll say is like, fairness always stuck out to me as like a part of it. What I was sad about is the thing that I missed was that the reason I wasn't playing was because I wasn't very good.

Like, I I didn't understand that the impetus was If you want to play more, you need to improve. You need to work harder. You need to want to and get you so that you're able to play the more.

This is something that I came much more to as an adult where it's merit based rewards basically where it's if you want to obtain, you have to, like, put in that effort.

So I'd say fairness was always there and otherwise there's just like a lot missing that kind of got filled in when I eventually did go to college.

Well then so as you grew, question 2. How is that changed? What are some of your values now? If they're different.

So gratefulness for sure, you know, I keep coming back to it, but I think it's just 1 of my core tenants that drives a lot of how I act. Is with gratefulness come like, the reason I work so hard is for gratefulness, honestly.

So I I still put in really a lot of hours for work, so put in just kind of a general sense of happiness I come. The reason I work so hard is because I'm grateful. I would wish for everybody to have the type of opportunities I've had.

And I would like to think that anybody on the outside looking in who for somebody who's had those type of opportunities, if that person didn't work just their ass off because of the opportunity they were given, like it'd be unfair.

Kinda like to go with that. So 1 of the drivers of me working so hard is like to be given such opportunities and not try to maximize it and just put everything and you can into it would feel selfish would feel like unnecessary.

So gratefulness, hard work, honesty, just giving everybody a fair shake, telling them what you actually think being fair and open with them like just not trying to present an affront to get something else that you don't need.

So we're the, I think, gratitude, honesty, and hard work. I mean, presenting a front to get something you don't need is sort of the hallmark of a lot of video games now.

I mean you put on a character that game play almost necessitates you to, I don't know, depending on the game, I guess, trade or build or swap or whatever.

And in a lot of games if what you have is shinier than the other person's and the trades good even if it's worth less. What you want is what's shinier, metaphorically are actually in some games.

Right? And so I don't know that there's I guess as far as MMO games are concerned. I don't know that there's a lot of honesty in how a game is played because it's easy not to.

You've got distance between you and the decisions and the repercussions of those Cisions, you as the human and the decisions and repercussions as the avatars.

And so there's room for you to make mistakes. I think with a chance of you not having to feel judgment or the consternation or whatever comes from as a result, those decisions.

Whereas in person, you know, you do something and somebody else gets the short end of the stick kinda like you brought up.

Maybe you feel bad, maybe you feel that it's unfair, maybe you feel whatever you feel. Do you find that similar in gaming?

Is that still a thing? I think it's actually gotten much better and it's for the better because you could think back to some of the earlier days of MMO, there would be some terrible stories of there's you defend this particular boss.

You get the super rare item everybody wants and somebody already already has 6, like, runs in, steals it, like logs off.

And when just like shakes or fist at, it doesn't much matter. But now 2 things, like, 1 is with the advent of online video Twitch streaming. Like, Pete, there's a certain callout culture that can happen.

So if your character is going to continually act bad, there can come a bit of come up in is a bit of a reputation that goes with it. Mhmm. And so many of these games do rely on a team type of dynamic.

There's some interesting videos that say they're more violent game, so it's really nothing for kids. There's there's 1 called rust. It's a survival game, very difficult multi multiplayer online.

And 1 of the most popular types of videos is what I call it come up in videos where some particular characters act terribly, still kill like just like somebody's work hard to build something, someone comes in just raids and takes it.

Mhmm.

And some of those popular content is when that guy comes back with a whole tribe of people to enact some revenge to get it done because as much as it's 1 of those games that actually rewards some degree of community and acting proper with your fellow players.

Because sure you can, you know, if you wanna go the famous proverb where it's you wanna go fast, go alone, if you want to go far, go together.

Mhmm. And that very much happens in gaming. The other ones would be with these modern ones like even some of the call of duty ones, Overwatch, any of those there's now these new team based ones.

You can act a fool. You can act Terrribly you can treat your teammates poorly, you could yell at them.

But you'll get kicked off your team like your team at any point can vote on you leaving. Fine. You might be incredibly talented, but a a plus jerk is always gonna lose to a b plus kind person who can actually work with the team. Mhmm.

It's been interesting to see where some of these there's a lot less opportunity to be a completely blown wolf in a lot of these titles and some of the most popular titles on the planet often are kind of relying on a certain degree of teamwork.

So you're kind of getting that old human try mentality where if you're not going to be productive for the entire tribe, you're going to get kicked out of the tribe.

And then you're not gonna be able to have as much fun in these games. Already folks sit tight and we'll be right back on transacting value.

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You're kinda getting that old human tribe mentality where if you're not going to be productive for the entire tribe, you're going to get kicked out of the tribe. And then not gonna be able to have as much fun in these games.

Sure. And then you're right back to well, how bad do you wanna play and have fun in these games? Yeah. It's been great to say I think you had mentioned as well, like as far as imbuing some human characters into these games.

And, you know, you'll see waves like I've games at first for like simple blips that became very cutesy and then just for the shock treatment, it can be very violent and bloody it just kinda got overboard where you're looking at them like this is juvenile and not very helpful.

Mhmm. And then they got larger, but then they came online, then it can make way too much money.

Is going in all these waves and eventually see them kind of I feel come back to a a mean where it's This is where people are and this is how it supports people in society and this is how it's gonna keep going forward.

A recent 1 being that there's a type of game called a live service Marvel Avengers is 1 of that, but they charge you every month much like world of warcraft.

Right? It's a subscription thing if you wanna play this game, you have to pay so much.

Mhmm. More and more, all of a sudden, like, about 50 of these things came out. They wanted if you would like a different colored glove, you have to pay 20 dollars.

It got incredibly manipulative, really awful, really like wasting people's time to make sure that they would pay their money using gambling tactics make sure people got addicted to it.

It really well started you could see it like live service games and it became fairly known and the best part is like about 20 of them have failed in the last year.

It just the industry kept trying to shove this thing downwards, manipulative gambling, like, microtransactions getting as much money as possible this terrible part and it just became so apparently naked and obvious that this is a net negative to gaming, to people, to everything else before, and they just started to fail, like, locked off 1 after the other.

And right afterwards just some like good basic fun enjoyable games came out afterwards about the same time.

So you can almost I I think in some small way you can almost chart there's a general desire on the humanity to make sure like we as a society are moving forward.

I feel like you can almost like chart gaming where every now and then you can see the excesses where it just gets silly and foolish -- Yeah. -- and they get punished.

And eventually it kind of comes back to the mean where it can kind of properly be part of society and hopefully be a positive force. I think on some degree that that scatter plot has been effective. Oh, I don't know.

Over the last 50 years, let's say, but only in a digitized environment. I think you could take the same scatter plot with the same data metrics that you're talking about in gaming and just apply it to the 50 years prior.

When it comes to actual people sort of carbon based in the real world tendencies or decisions or actions just in a different setting because we're really just taking us and our tendencies and our fill in the blank everything else and putting them into games because that's we had to base it on.

Right? It's not like Star Trek in the seventies. Well, this is all brand new. Right? Or sci fi -- Mhmm. -- moving through I guess you could even say the the forties fifties and golden age to present.

Nothing's really new there anymore. Right? But there was a time when it was. It was revolutionary. A wolf that walks on 2 feet? Right? A guy that drinks blood. Let's not get too crazy with that. You know? Easy. Yeah.

But, you know, you come to now and I think it's sort of the same new frontier concept where this I don't wanna call it the golden age of gaming, but as a parallel construct here, we're just in this new environment and everything seems new Really, we're just injecting our imaginations and our sort of viewpoints into being able to do that and fulfill those constructs.

And what's cool about what you just brought up, Trevor, is that Specifically the point about moving to this mean in this sort of baseline of humanity.

I mean that's the long game. You know, the instant gratification is sort of following the crowd. And when it comes to podcasting or any other number of industries, you can follow that and sort of make a quick climb.

Or not. Those are the 2 options. You come in and you play the slow grind or you come in and you take over the competition early and leave.

Yeah. That's that's an interesting point you brought up. But actually I'm losing track of time in the conversation. So for the sake of it, we are running low. And let me give you the floor for a few minutes.

So if people wanna jump in and listen to New Dead Gaming and check out some of your material or YouTube or wherever it is. Where can people go to find you, more about you, more about the show, or just get in touch?

What sort of outlets do you guys have? For sure. So the the podcast itself is on all the major networks. So Google Play, iTunes and Spotify Caster anywhere where you find your favorite podcast.

You just search for new Dad Gaming. 1 of the greatest things has been and I'm sure you would emulate this as well where 1 of the greatest things has been conversations.

Mhmm. Like as you are podcasting, as people here show, they have a question or like their own input or, you know, just creating that dialogue. It's always really great.

So we were most active on Twitter at new dad gaming. And otherwise, if people wanna reach out to the show with a show idea or comment, anything else like that? Story of their own fatherhood in gaming that's at new dad gaming dot com.

Okay. Cool. And for everybody listening, we'll have well specifically Twitter and the website, but also a couple of those links to say Apple or Google, whatever to be able to find your podcast.

Linked in the show notes. So depending on your platform and preference, see more show more something that effect under this conversation, and you'll be able to see all those links as well.

But again, Trevor, for the sake of time, man, I really appreciate the opportunity and the conversation.

Topics were cool. I hope everybody listening, enjoyed the conversation. So on behalf of all of those people that you can't hear, thank you for your time, man. I really appreciate the opportunity.

That was an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for having me on. Yep. Yep. Definitely. And to everybody listening, folks, thank you for tuning in to our May core values of unity, honor, and mental toughness.

I'd also like to thank, in this case, Roblox, Minecraft, Rust, the Gaming community, Twitch, everybody that's influenced probably Cincinnati, in our case, the present, or computer gaming in some cases or another to present.

For influencing all the topics in this conversation, frankly, it wouldn't have been as cool without you.

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Follow along on our social media where we continue to stream new interviews. Every Monday at 9AM Eastern Standard Time on all your favorite podcasting platforms. But until next time, that was transacting value.