Total Playtime

Total Playtime is the official Jank podcast, funded entirely by our paying subscribers (and formerly our backers on Patreon). This week’s episode is free, but subscribers get additional episodes every other week. You may join them by subscribing here, and you can find all previous episodes here.   

Alice and Nate were both unavailable this week, prompting Brendy and I to realise the crushing shortage of local whimsy in our lives. Our daily existence is simply devoid of rural oddities or freestyle whimsy that lends itself to a banging cold open, so we ended up with several minutes of middle-aged car chat which Brendy heroically drags back to a gaming reference. 

Those matters aside we turn to the matters of the week, chiefly Saber’s CEO lashing out at a departed writer who handled it by having a great night out that ended in karaoke, which is the sort of karmic vengeance we should all aspire to. Plus: good philanthropy yet with concerns about whether philanthropy can actually be good, the ongoing destructive instincts of large corporations, and big walks with medium guns. 

Our music is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies and our editing is once again by Alix Attenborough. Thanks to backers of Jank (formerly on Patreon) for enabling the podcast to exist. You can send your favourite CEO faceplants and vintage shooter recommendations to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com, or simply comment on this article. 

Links!
Stella Sacco said she'd been kicked from Rideshare Stimulator and replaced with genAI, something which is now reflected on the Steam page. Matthew Karch responded poorly and subsequently apologised; Stella went to karaoke. The battle continues on LinkedIn which is OK because you shouldn’t go there anyway. Thimbleweed Park 2 is being funded by this one rich guy who liked the first one. Oxenfree developer Night School is closing five years after they were bought by Netflix. It would appear that Amazon is buying rare books in order to destroy them, part of a wider trend of AI firms destroying books. 

Games!
Rideshare “Stimulator”, Hell Let Loose, Hell Let Loose: Vietnam, Verdun, Day of Infamy, Big Walk.

Recommendations!
Steve Rosenberg’s Reading Russia, and Tom Wolfe’s The New Journalism.

It’s a free-to-all episode this week, so Alice, Nate and myself turned ourselves to the major issues of the day: Xboxes are really expensive, how a Skyrim username error can get you wrongly imprisoned for soliciting minors, a new Thimbleweed Park and a very detailed explanation of how good the Space Marine x Helldivers 2 partnership is. 

Join us for a detailed overview of the Astra Militarum, a half-remembered summary of the Xbox P&L and a fleeting cameo from Alice’s dog. Plus: children who chew on cigars from birth, engaging worm protocol, and clown husbandry. 

Our music is by God Ribbon, our art is by Marsh Davies and this week our editing is by Dave of the Sonic The Comic podcast who did a banger job even with limited guidance. Thanks to backers of Jank (formerly on Patreon) for enabling the podcast to exist; if you sign up for Jank then you get an extra podcast every fortnight which will soon include Season 2 of Text Adventure. You can send comments and suggestions of Space Marine deep lore to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com, or simply comment on this article.

Links!
Xboxes are now incredibly expensive in the UK and EU. Xbox had a big revenue drop but Microsoft did just fine. Brendy says don’t call it a reset. Double Fine had to lay people off. Rebekah at Kotaku summarised how hard it would be to reach a billion people a day. The Space Marine Legendary Warbond is out next week. Ron Gilbert announced Thimbleweed Park 2 and it is neither sequel nor prequel but Alice is excited regardless. An innocent man spent 18 months in prison because the police got his Skyrim name wrong. Clown husbandry. RIP Tusko. 

Games!
Thimbleweed Park 2. Helldivers 2. Age of Empires 2: The Three Kingdoms. The Mermaid Mask. Wax Heads.Truck-kun is Supporting Me from Another World?!

Recommendations!
Strange Aeons reads Clown Husbandry. The Mean Time perform Your Monster: The Beast Inside.Josienne Clark’s Errors Tour.

This week it’s a free episode available to all, in which our four hosts gather to judge the news of the week - chiefly, Bethesda’s smoke-bomb declaration of Fallout 5 in an effort to distract from laying off a number of people who would have made it; Sony’s abandonment of discs as a storage medium and EA’s correct prediction of the World Cup final. If that all sounds a little dull, don’t worry, Nate naturally and effortlessly channeled it into pornographic takes of classic Gothic novels. Plus: the four male hobbies, a Henry Cavill origin story and headphones made out of eldritch meat. 

Our art (now feat. Brendy) is by Marsh Davies, our music is by God Ribbon and our editing is by Alix Attenborough. The podcast only exists thanks to those who subscribe to Jank (and previously backed it on Patreon, which will endure for one more month). 

Links! 
The Trojan Horse worked until it didn’t. Bethesda announced that it is making Fallout 5 which wasn’t fooling anyone. Obsidian missed their New Vegas bonus due to a single Metacritic point. Alice reviewed Dungeon Crawler Carl and people got cross about it, so now she has to review the next two books as well. Sony is giving up on physical discs, which is bad news because they have a history of delisting digital purchases. Microsoft has a plan for converting Discs2Digital. 

EA correctly predicted the World Cup again. Nate did not imagine the psychic pig; he was called Mystic Marcus but has not been seen since 2022 and so must be considered missing, presumed bacon. Messi was vanquished by the baby he once bathed. Peter Serafinowicz is really excited about being in the Elden Ring movie. Remember to switch off your poison sockets. Alice subjected innocent people to Brian Butterfield’s Christmas Pizza. Look Around You. Here’s the Jank review of The Incident At Galley House.

Games!
The Incident At Galley House is a glow up of Type Help and here’s how that happened. The Mermaid Mask. Hypogea.  

Recommendations!
Chinatown, Widow’s Bay, Beef, DW Documentaries.

Total Playtime is now the official Jank podcast, and is produced through the munificence of our paying subscribers (and formerly our backers on Patreon). This week’s episode is free, but subscribers get additional episodes every other week. You may join them by subscribing here, and you can find all previous episodes here. 

This week we started recording mere hours after Xbox started firing people, so we didn’t have the full despair reserves to draw on but we managed to discuss it anyway. We also mourned the loss of the corporeal, as represented by Sony’s announcement they’re ceasing disc production, and celebrated the spiritual, as represented by Alice’s potentially magical waspman. 

There’s also an exclusive tease of an upcoming Jank article, and it’s right at the start so you don’t even have to keep listening – although of course you should because there’s so much to learn here about Nate discovering horny Marvel artwork. Plus: getting vouched for by a non-naughty priest, drinking a pint of wasps, piracy for the greater good, wholesome role models for 40-year-old men having feelings, and giggle-based social deduction. 

Our music is by God Ribbon, our editing is by Alix Attenborough, and our art is by Marsh Davies - and now freshly updated to add a tiny image of Brendy to your pod-listening device. Thanks to our backers on Patreon and Jank for enabling the podcast to exist. You can send feedback and your own preferred social insect suggestions to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com, or simply comment on this article. 

Links!
The 'Physical' edition of GTAVI costs £70 and won't have a disc. Bees are worshipped in Manchester. Schism! Schism! Schism!  Hit Points on GTA 6. Nick Harkway’s Angelmaker.  Sony are discontinuing dics. Unfortunately Sony also want you to know that you don't own digital things. Xbox has the chance to do the funniest thing ever, if they weren't still busy deciding who to fire. What fate our games? Arkane has the benefit of formidablé employment legislation so their future is uncertain. You can’t fire Ted Gill because he quit, and the Subnautica devs are all getting a bonus because the Krafton CEO took legal advice from ChatGPT. When Captain America swings his mighty dick. Brendy reviewed Wall-E (2008). Crate and Crowbar discussed 007 First Light. Here is Nirvana The Band The Show singing game titles to the Wii shop music.

Games!
Hot Wheels Unlimited. 007 First Light. Wall-E. Meccha Chameleon. Prop Hunt. 

Recommendations!
Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie. The Devils. Get a Raspberry Pi. The Drain Unblockers.

Total Playtime is a weekly podcast about PC games, formerly funded by Patreon and now part of Jank. This is a free episode, but premium episodes are published every two weeks and are only available to paying subscribers. You can join them over here.

The prodigal dad returns! Yes, Brendy finally got enough sleep to return to podcasting with his newly minted As A Father Of A Daughter viewpoint, meaning that we are now tied in a dead heat between parents and what I’ll generously call “free spirits”. 

There was too much news this week, to the point where we even snuck in some commentary about Kier Starmer. It’s only brief, though, as we move on to considering the social media ban and the associated elevated risk of teens becoming cool hackers, the head of AI who thinks generative AI is bullshit, and what was at the time the latest bad news for Xbox although characteristically they’ve pulled some more out since. 

Plus: the Steam Machine, Nate’s narc child, and please don’t touch my grass. Please ask your doctor if having a baby is right for you. Thanks to all the Patreon and Jank backers who made this happen, the podcast would not exist without you. Thanks also to Alix Attenborough for the editing, Marsh Davies for the art and God Ribbon for the music. Submit parenting advice of any quality to totalplaytimepod@gmail.com or in the comments below.

Links!

The UK is banning social media for under 16s and the gaming impact is somewhat unclear. Poncle are 'reviewing' their collab with Epic. The former head of Take Two's AI division says it's 'poisoning the well', and a bunch of game devs hate it. Ed Zitron has many thousands of words about why OpenAI is full of shit. Tommy Thonson covers the good AI in games. A superficial level look suggests an AI disclosure on your game means 60% fewer reviews. What happened at State of Unreal. Here’s GI.biz on rising genAI costs and what uses it actually has in game dev. The Steam Machine is pretty pricey but it’s okay, you can’t buy one anyway. Here’s James’ review. Valve probably wanted it to be $750 which it turns out is like £570. Claude Guillemot and Bobby Prince recently died. The Microsoft gaming closure rumours will continue until morale improves. Big John Valorant Pub Pop Up

Games!

Iron Nest and Beware of the Cartographer!

Recommendations!

Gelatelli Mini Sticks Double, The Pitt, The Bells of Westminster, For Whom The Spell Tolls, and Mr Beast’s Beef Lumps.