Gamesight Podcast Ep #5 - We 💙 Halo and Xbox gaming
In this episode of the podcast, we do a nostalgia dive into the world of Halo with Head of Influencers, Emilee Helm, and Campaign Manager, Gabriel O'Meara.
From its early beginnings as a first-person shooter game on the original Xbox to its evolution into an esports powerhouse, Halo has captured the hearts and minds of gamers around the world. We discuss fond memories of late-night LAN parties, falling asleep on mic, and heated multiplayer matches; as well as how the video game industry has evolved to cater to the most epic gamer -- but ironically may have left its core player base in the dust.
Join us as we take a trip down memory lane and examine what we can learn from the enduring legacy of Halo, a game that molded and inspired a generation.
Yane An: [00:00:00] Welcome to the fifth episode of the Gamesight Podcast. Today we have here with us Emilee Helm, head of Influencers. Woo. Wow. Look at you. And then we have Gabriel O'Meara. Did I say that right? Gabriel O'Meara.
Gabe O'Meara: O'Meara. Yeah, that's it.
Yane An: Yeah. Gabriel O'Meara Creator Program Manager, also known as Grabe.
Gabe O'Meara: Oh, to some. Only to some, not everyone. Only my friends. If I hear anyone call me Grabe and you're not my friend. Yikes. I'm coming for you.
Yane An: Oh my God. All right. So I wanted to try a new thing on the podcast where we talk a little bit about current events.
Ooh. So I have prepared some topics I wanted to talk about -- kick.com, the new competitor to Twitch. What are people's thoughts?
Gabe O'Meara: If you wanna watch slots streamers, I think kick.com is a great place to go.[00:01:00]
Emilee Helm: Right.
Gabe O'Meara: If you wanna watch other content, other places are probably the best bet.
Emilee Helm: Yeah. Seems to be really thriving in the slots and casino category. A little bit of just chatting, but I, I don't think it'll take off. I mean, even with streamers behind it, I just, we've seen it time and time again, not be successful with a ton of money behind it without a ton of amount of money behind it.
It just doesn't, it's hard to reinvent the wheel, I guess.
Yane An: You're talking about like how there was like pushes from other platforms to try to get their live streaming working and it didn't work?
Emilee Helm: Right. I mean, if you look at something like Mixer, I think they, I mean, I think they walked, so YouTube could run essentially, but, you know, they had the idea of bringing over different communities to a new platform. And it kind of worked for a little bit, but just it wasn't able to maintain the community piece that I think is so ingrained in things like Twitch and YouTube.
and YouTube had that community established already, which gave the edge, I believe in, in, you know, launching live streaming services. So [00:02:00] I think it's hard. I think it's gonna be, I think someone can do it. I just don't know if it's gonna be kick.
Gabe O'Meara: It's like the internet companies in America, right? ISPs in America, in order to be a competitor in the ISP market, you have to have such a substantial
investment into like getting into whatever area you wanna start your ISP in, like hundreds of millions of dollars because of the infrastructure and, and the difficulty and like the, the stranglehold that a lot of the larger companies have.
Right? And it's the same thing with any, any product, but I think for streaming, right? Unless you have a substantial amount of money, a willing audience and a good platform that enables interactivity and, and in the ways that YouTube live and, and Facebook gaming and, and Twitch Live can do, it's really difficult unless you can really bring over some of those larger creators, which costs a ton of money.
You can have, I think you'll find like maybe disgruntled creators who like, don't really, don't like Twitch or really don't like YouTube, go to stuff like Kick. But it, it's, [00:03:00] it's, you know, and I, I know people talk about it, but it again, like it takes time and a lot of money to invest in it. And if you don't have one, it takes more of the other, know?
Yane An: Counterpoint, what if you just copy all of Twitch's UI and
Emilee Helm: I mean, I think we're seeing that a little bit. I, I know Ludwig and Truffle like that, that's part of what he's done with that extension is to make the chat look like Twitch chat.
And to feel really comparable to the Twitch experience.
Again, still something that is backed heavily by a lot of money and a lot of community members.
I think in that case you have a content creator who is influencing other content creators and bringing them on board saying, Hey, I know that we all came up on Twitch
and there were features that we really loved about it, so let's keep embracing those things, but on this new platform.
So yeah, I, I, I think that's right.
It, it, the Twitch UI and, and what makes Twitch Twitch is part of what is special. So we are saying people try to replicate it [00:04:00] and to some level of success, I would say.
But yeah, you know, YouTube is a bigger beast. YouTube and Google is a bigger beast than
Probably what, what Kick has behind it. So, but curious see, I I, I wonder if, if creators really commit to this push and, and this, this jump.
And I don't think there's any conflict. I mean, I guess their partners are, I don't know if they're allowed to cross stream on other platforms, but
that's something at play that we haven't seen before. Right.
Because it, it's always been exclusives, it's always been just Twitch, just Mixer, just YouTube just Facebook. But now with that flexibility, maybe there is some way to make some waves. I don't know. I'll, I'll be interested to follow it. I, I I think they've been very vocal about it and excited to see kind of what unfolds it.
It's fun to watch, I guess as a, as a third party
Yane An: Yeah, I mean the, the 95 5 split, like creators get 95% of the, the income. That just sounds crazy. I don't know if it's sustainable, but if it ends up being a thing like
Gabe O'Meara: I don't think it's sustainable long term if they wanna compete with YouTube and Twitch on the [00:05:00] level that they're at right now. Because I mean, you know, obviously spending efficiencies depend on the company, how large it is. But eventually, like if they have enough creators come over to their site and they wanna maintain the backend, they want to introduce features like new features, being able to support all those streams, right?
Like cost server fees, right? There's just a lot that goes into it. And while Twitch and YouTube aren't perfect, they have done a really good job of creating stable platforms that are reliable, like, you know, you can go on there pretty much anytime and like the uptime is 99.99%. So it's just, you know, it's difficult.
I'm not saying impossible, but again, like it takes a lot of money. It takes a lot of time and it takes, and the reason it takes a lot of time is cuz you have to build that brand and that reputation to something that's a stable pillar of the community rather than this like offshoot, right? Like there's been a lot of streaming sites that have tried to [00:06:00] compete over the past, you know, decade with Twitch and YouTube Live and Facebook Gaming are really the only two that have stayed, and that's because they have a lot of money.
Facebook puts lot of money into Facebook Gaming, and YouTube puts a lot of money into getting creators to switch over to their platform. And I don't think you'll find a better platform than Twitch for finding new communities, like one of YouTube Live's biggest downfalls is it's really hard to find new streams that you didn't already know about.
If you have a creator that you like watching on YouTube live, it's a great experience. But if you're looking for new creators, Twitch still has the best algorithms for like, Hey, we notice you like these games and you like these creators. Have you tried these And it's spot on pretty much all the time.
And that's another huge feature is finding new content. We'll see how Kick does it,
Yane An: Mm-hmm.
Gabe O'Meara: If they can.
Yane An: Another thing about Kick is like they have no content regulation pretty much. Right? streamed the Super Bowl, like there's like news stories every day about like, some new crazy thing was streamed on Kick and I just don't understand how, how long they [00:07:00] think they're gonna get away with I don't know about that. Yeah.
Emilee Helm: Right. I mean it does come back to maintaining a brand and maintaining something that is safe. I think in theory it sounds cool to be able to stream whatever you want, but at the risk of sounding like a boomer, like, there's terms and conditions for like a reason. Like you can't just publicly use these platforms because they're accessible to everybody.
So if there's not restrictions, we get into weird territory. And then obviously working on the influencer side what does that mean for brand deals? Like if I know your audience is on Kick and I'm just paying for your viewership, is it worth it? I'm not sure. I don't know if it's impactful to, to spend my marketing dollars on that platform alone.
So lots to see. I'm, I'm sure it will unfold and, and there'll be a lot to take away from it, but definitely always fun to see a new competitor kind of come into the arena, I guess.
Yane An: True [00:08:00] that. I also wanted to talk about some new game releases that have been trending this week.
So obviously Hogwarts Legacy made like a huge splash in the middle of February with its release. I don't know if you guys have been playing it.
Gabe O'Meara: I'm a level 35 Wizard,
Yane An: ha Nbd.
Gabe O'Meara: Yeah, it's hard to have, I mean, like with a lot of new game releases, I feel recently, there is always some sort of drama or like superlative, like tied to the release. And it's, it's really interesting because I feel like that wasn't the case for such a long time, and I feel like it happened infrequently, but it happens more frequently now.
Like people are able to find some way to say, you shouldn't play this game, or you shouldn't play that game because of this or that. When it, it's like if you look deep enough into any game, you can be like, yeah, there's a reason you shouldn't play this. So it is interesting to like see if that's gonna continue, if that's gonna be like [00:09:00] a trend or
Yane An: The social discourse.
Emilee Helm: The optimist to me is like somewhat excited about the conversations it's brought up. I think I would say that a lot of people probably didn't know a lot about the creator and where their stances are on things. And so, you know, in the right hands that could be a really good form of a tool of education.
So I've seen a lot of streamers try to embrace that and then obviously do some charity plays and, and try to, you revert money back to organizations for trans folks. Which I think is great. And personally in my opinion, I think has a, has a bigger impact than probably sending a tweet and being angry about it or, you know, making somebody feel bad for playing a game.
But again, that's all opinion. I'm sure that is also subject to scrutiny, but the game is, the game is great. I think it'd be easy and it would be easy for myself to just hop on the bandwagon and hate it too, if it sucked. But it's a pretty good game. It's [00:10:00] fun.
Gabe O'Meara: It's phenomenally like, it's well optimized, it's fun, it's got engaging characters. Like the combat is super fun and that's, that's rare. It's honestly rare these days for a game to hit all the heads on the nail, especially with how fun the game plays. Depending on the game, the majority of the time you spend playing a game, right, is fighting or action, like if you're playing an action game.
So if the action and the fighting mechanics of the game feels stale, then they, even if you have a really good story, really good soundtrack, really good, everything else, if the game doesn't play well, you're gonna lose a lot of the casual audience, especially who are gonna be like, this isn't fun to play.
Yane An: Mm-hmm.
Gabe O'Meara: You'll always have the niche audience who really love the story. They really love the glory. It's adapted from something so they're really into it. But gameplay should be the core of most games. Obviously not, it's hard to put a template for all games. There's like visual novels, whatever, but for like your default game, your default action slash adventure FPS whatever game.
Gameplay should be the number one focus. Cause if it doesn't feel [00:11:00] good to play, then what's the point?
Yane An: Mm-hmm.
Emilee Helm: Totally.
Gabe O'Meara: that's where, you know, Hogwarts shines, I think mostly.
Emilee Helm: None of the quests, even the side quests are painstaking, I guess, you know, I've had fun with most of them. Whether it's a stealth mission or combat focused mission, I think there's a lot of variety there.
And to me, as somebody who's played a lot of different games, it feels like a gateway to a bunch of other kinds of games. There's like semi souls like combat, and then there's, you know, kind of the fable aspect of like the storytelling and community that you're embracing and the reputation, reputation you're building.
And the choose your own path type thing. Then obviously just as a core role playing game, like it is you, it is you get to kind of, you feel like you're in it. And so it, it obviously helps that it's around an IP that is so deep and well loved. But the game itself is, is phenomenal. And from that objective [00:12:00] standpoint, I'm, I, I can't get enough of it.
I'm having a really good time with it.
Yane An: I feel like so like obviously Hogwarts Legacy is like one of the most outselling games of this year right now. It like outsold everything pretty much. Actually, let me look up official stats on that.
Gabe O'Meara:
selling at a faster rate
than Elden Ring
Emilee Helm: It like 825 million units or, that's revenue. That's revenue. 12 million units.
Yane An: yeah, that's
Gabe O'Meara: Which is crazy. That is insane. That amount of units for a video game. Especially a $70 video or I can't remember what the retail price is for, you know, a retail price
Yane An: 70, yeah.
Gabe O'Meara: Um, Elden Ring just passed 20 million. Right. And that's substantial feat. Hogwarts is already at 12. And Elden Ring came out about a exactly a year ago from, what is it?
Yeah, February 24th. Yeah, about a year
Yane An: It's literally the, the anniversary of Elden Ring. Yay. Yeah. Are [00:13:00] Zoomers playing this game or is this like a testament to the power of millennials and people who grew up with Harry Potter? Right.
Gabe O'Meara: that's
Emilee Helm: That's a great question. Cause I'm on the cusp, right? Like, I'm 1997, so I kind of have millennial traits, but then I also have, you know, some zoomer traits. But I wouldn't classify myself as like a potter head or anything. I love the movies. I'd never read the books was never really involved in those communities.
I just know the world is rich and it's fun to be, you know, fun to kind of consume. My lukewarm take is that the game is better. Right. You know but it's, it's true. Like being able to reclaim that and put yourself into it is way more fun. And it's less about Harry Potter and his journey and more about you and your journey, which is great.
But yeah, I would be, I would love to see the demographic breakdown because I feel like, I don't know, my girlfriend played it and she does not play games. Like she's made her own character. I know that [00:14:00] like we have some coworkers who, like their kids are playing it for the first time, like first time ever playing a video game.
So, I don't know. It seems to have the range. Can a video game have rizz?
Yane An: It does, does have rizz. I love that. Hogwarts has it. Yeah.
Emilee Helm: My dad called me the other day and he was like, Hey, are you playing? And I was like, yeah, why? He's like, okay. Interesting. And, and my dad is a guy who, who got a Series S I got him a Xbox Series S for Christmas. So he's, he's a gamer, but he has never liked anything Harry Potter.
But even his interest is piqued.
Gabe O'Meara: Well, there's, there's certain franchises that are timeless, like Pokemon. I mean, what's demographic for Pokemon? Right.
Yane An: the entire world
Gabe O'Meara: 5 to 60. Right. Anywhere in anywhere in between.
Yane An: Same with like animal crossing. Yeah.
Emilee Helm: Yeah. Well I was, I listened to a lot of podcasts and especially Pokemon like, you know, Pokemon realized that their audience grew up and then had kids and then now they have wallets to spend money on themselves and their kids. And so it's [00:15:00] it's just stacking on itself and I think it's only getting bigger and bigger.
I wouldn't be surprised if we saw something similar with Hogwarts and, and, you know, the wizarding world so to speak, which would be cool.
Yane An: We can talk about other games that are also trending. Sons of the Forest also came out. I don't know
Gabe O'Meara: Yeah, it did.
Yane An: franchise. Yeah. It's like the long awaited sequel to the forest.
Emilee Helm: That was one that. I totally had like a viewer moment with is, cause I think I posted it in Slack. I was like, what is this and why is nobody streaming it sponsored , like everyone's just streaming it because it's good, which is crazy. So I don't know a lot about it, but that was my initial impression of it was why does this game have like just under a million concurrent viewers insane
Gabe O'Meara: Games like the Forest and Sons of the Forest, you know, by, by virtue of being the same franchise, like the Survival games where you kind of make your own adventure.
You make your own content is perfect for content creators because, you know, a content creator plays it with four or five other friends.
It's just goofy. It's silly stuff [00:16:00] happens, makes great content, and it's, those kind of games are really fun to play if you're a like a player, right? The aspect of you and your friends having to work together. Like my friends and I, we play Raft a lot, and that's like a game that's in the similar vein of like that survival.
And it becomes like a, a thing cause it's funny for people to watch, but those kind of games are just so, they're, they're almost timeless at this point.
It's really easy for hardcore gamers to play. It's also really easy for casual gamers to play because there's usually difficulty levels.
Everybody knows about The Forest. So when people say, oh, the sequel to The Forest is out, I don't need to watch someone play.
I already know I'm gonna like it
Yane An: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, that's Minecraft is still popular, right?
Gabe O'Meara: We were just talking about starting a Gamesight Minecraft server, because that's another Everybody goes through these phases where they're like, man, I haven't played Minecraft in a while. I should play Minecraft, you know, for the first time this year. And then, you know, you play it
Yane An: Build your house
Gabe O'Meara: Yeah. And then you're like, oh, that was good. And then you, [00:17:00] yeah, you, you forget about it for another year and then you start over again.
Yane An: still fun.
Gabe O'Meara: It's the journey, not the destination.
Yane An: True That, true that there's like a couple other games that are out that are trending too, that made a big splash, like, Like a Dragon Ishin from the creators of Yakuza
Gabe O'Meara: There's also Atomic Heart that just came out.
Emilee Helm: Yeah,
Yane An: Oh yeah. Atomic Hearts.
Gabe O'Meara: I haven't played it yet, but it looks really good that, that, that kind of game, that kind of cerebral mystery F P S game with really unique, like a really unique setting, you know, a Bioshock esque, right? That kind of interests me because the game market is so saturated with games that all look and all play the exact same.
So when you get these games that are more esoteric and more kind geared towards maybe. A niche or like a smaller community, they tend to be better because they tend to have more love and care put into them for that community. And if you're a part of that community, the game is phenomenal. If you're not, it's harder to get into obviously.
Yane An: Mm-hmm. [00:18:00] Yeah. I do like games like that. But the problem with story games is that, you know, you play it once and there's not a lot of replayability unless it's like a, you know, like an Elden Ring type or like a God of War kind of beat. Skyrim, huge replayability,
Gabe O'Meara: Games that allow and encourage mods tend to be far more long-lived and have far more sales than games that don't because the modding community is what keeps games alive after they've initially launched. It's always really sad to see a game that has a lot of promise come out, and the developers are really anti mod, and it's game is so perfect to mod
and I know that there's arguments against it, but man, so many games are so popular because they're modded or they're moddable.
Emilee Helm: It's one of those things, you know, we're, we're talking about entering an era of like user-generated content and, and companies are still hesitant to embrace it. And, and it doesn't have to be anything crazier, like, like, than just being able to mod a game. And, and that's why you do see games like [00:19:00] Minecraft have such a long life.
And I think that's what makes communities thrive and that's why I'm excited we're talking about Halo. Cause I think they were early to the game when it came to embracing user generated content.
So lots to say there so really excited to kind of talk about it.
Yane An: What an excellent segue.
Emilee Helm: to embracing user generated content So Lots to say there so really excited to kind of talk
Yane An: Yeah, so just as a heads up, I, my experience in Halo extremely minimal. So I'm here to be, I'm here to learn today. Like what I know is only like people whispering about like this epic legacy of the past and like this epic downfall.
Like I know there's that one photo of like someone being like duct taped to the ceiling and then they're like playing
Gabe O'Meara: So Counter, that's, that's Counterstrike
Yane An: Oh, that's Counter strike
Gabe O'Meara: yeah. That, that picture
Yane An: see, that was the era. That was the era
Gabe O'Meara: That was the era though.
Oh man.
Yane An: What are your experiences?
Gabe O'Meara: Best years of my life. To be honest, I can't think of a time in my [00:20:00] life where I've had more fun. . Then there's, so there was this local game store I used to go to every weekend when I was a kid in like middle school and grade school and you know, early high school where you would go and you'd play Yugioh and Pokemon and Magic and you'd do these tournaments throughout, like in the beginning part of the day, it had this huge back room.
It's where all the kids in the whole city would come from different school districts, like a lot of, you'd meet a lot of different people there, but they had these TVs in the back and if you paid it was like 10 bucks or 20 bucks or something, you could be in the back room all day and you could bring your Xbox and hook it up to the tv.
And so we would, my friends and I would all go to this lgs and we would play card games all day. We'd play Pokemon and then we'd play Yugi and then we'd play Magic, right? Like back to back to back. And then from like three to four, starting at three to 4:00 PM until 9:00 PM we would play Halo 2 LAN parties.
Cuz this was like 2004 to 2007 was when like, this was like, the LAN was really at its peak and it, it was so. Fun. It was just so fun. It doesn't matter, like who won, like there, [00:21:00] like, it wasn't like, it was always we would play like Tower Power and we'd play like Rat Race or we would play like all these fun custom games and it, it was just like, it's, it's nostalgia to, it's, it's to the highest extent in where I know that if I did it again today, I think I would have just as much fun with the right, with the right group.
Right. They were the most fun I've ever had gaming. And it's so, I'm so sad that there's, like, LAN party gaming is not like an encouraged development option in games, especially like in Halo now, even though they said it was gonna be and they didn't do it. Anyways, I, I'm incredibly, I'm incredibly a huge LAN proponent in like any fps game for sure.
Emilee Helm: Definitely similar to Gabe. I would say that Halo, oh, I always say it and it, it's the reason I'm here, it's the reason I'm any anywhere involved in gaming. It is just to me like it, it's everything. [00:22:00] And so similarly, just some of the most fun I've ever had playing games, I got my Xbox 360 for Christmas when I was 10.
And then, so I was 11 when I was really starting to play Halo 3 for the first time, which is crazy that my parents let me do that. But like online that was the thing. I remember getting into lobbies and like putting on my little headset and sometimes it really sucked. But sometimes you made friends and people were nice and they wanted to help you learn and you know, you found community cuz it was like almost self moderated, right?
You had people in chat telling people to shut up or, you know, help you out or whatever. So,
Gabe O'Meara: The in-game menu for Halo two, like the tip section encouraged players to trash talk each other using their mics. Like it was actively encouraged by the developers. It was a different time. It was a time where like you, like it formulated so many like people my age, like it like formed our personalities because you would have these [00:23:00] lobbies of people who would like shit-talk you and who would like get really into it.
And it was never like personal and it was if you, like, you learned to A, take it and B, to dish it out. it would be like, you would shit-talk each other like at the end of the game. And then you guys would be on the same team and it'd be like, oh. All right. Like, what's going on, man? Like, you would immediately shift like, like tones, right?
And it was just so funny to, to see that sometimes it didn't happen like that sometimes, like you would game cuz you would in, because you would like be shit talking from the last game for this
Emilee Helm: Yeah, you're still fighting
Gabe O'Meara: yeah, it was the community, like Halo 2 had clans integrated into the So it was so easy to like find groups of people to join. I remember my first time playing Halo, it was December of 2001. Halo had just come out cuz Halo came out in November of 2001, cuz it was like one of the Xbox launch titles. And my friend invited me over to his house. I was in fourth grade, I was like nine years old.
And he's like, there's this new game that just came out, you shoot aliens. And I'm on this level where there's like this thing, it's called the Warthog. And like one of us drives and one of and I'm thinking we could do the [00:24:00] level and I'll drive for the first half and you can drive for the set, right.
And he was just so excited about it. And I was like, all right man. Like sure. And I go over, we played the entire Halo CE campaign in one night, you know, as, as fourth graders. And I got, I was like, dad, I know what I want for Christmas. I want Halo. Like I need Halo and that's all I want for the next like year. Everyone, like everyone in my family combined to get like an Xbox and halo for me. And I, at this point, what is it, 2023, I've been playing Halo for 22 years. I have probably 16 or 17,000 hours of Halo played across all the games.
Cause I have quite literally been playing Halo my entire life. It is Halo. Halo is the biggest game in the world for 10 years. It's insane that a game can go from that height to where it's at now, which is not a great place, unfortunately.
Emilee Helm: Yeah. I mentioned it to you in passing once like at what point do we enter the age where certain digital video [00:25:00] games are like forever. Right? And is that gonna be League of Legends? Is it going to be something like Counterstrike? Like when do these games end? And I think for Halo we are heading that way.
I don't know if it, it's gonna live forever. I think the community, obviously Gabe and I could sit here and talk to you about it all day cuz we are so passionate. But a lot of that is still driven by nostalgia. So, you know, until certain improvements come, I, I don't know if it's gonna have the caliber of like a League of Legends or something like that, that'll just be forever.
I think it had the potential to be, and, and maybe still does. It's one of the first times that I was like, this has to be forever cuz this is the best my life.
Gabe O'Meara: It's such a huge game. How could it not be forever? Right? And you'll find that people, like I was, I was actually just playing the Master Chief Collection last night with some friends. We were playing Halo 3 and there's still, there are more people that play Master Chief Collection than play Halo Infinite.
Right. The newest game. And that's a testament to a nostalgia and. Just timelessness, halo [00:26:00] One, two, and three are all timeless. It's like, as time goes on, it gets a little more difficult to play like Halo CE Halo you know, which is, is Halo Combat evolved, which is the first halo Cuz it's very old. And it was the first, one of the first games to truly enrapture FPSs games to truly on console, to truly capture like the, the casual audience.
Golden Eye was the first iteration of that, and it did a really good job. But Halo, like when you compare Halo to Golden Eye, like obviously there's a massive leap there. And Halo was the first game to prove that a FPSs games can work on console, and b, there's a demand for it and the demand is insane. Because everybody had an Xbox and everybody played Halo.
If you were a gamer, you had an Xbox and you played Halo. And if you didn't, you know, you were probably like a niche gamer who's really into PlayStation or you had like a really good pc. Like those were the only two you were anything else, you either had an Xbox or played Halo, or you went to a friend's house and you played Halo on their Xbox. True.
[00:27:00] And that's, that was the, the reality from 2001 to 2010,
Emilee Helm: Yeah,
Yane An: so is there an eSport scene for, for Halo? Like what? What's
Emilee Helm: it's still, still around, still alive. It's, it's called H C S, the, the Halo
Gabe O'Meara: championship series.
Emilee Helm: Halo Championship Series. And they funded by 3 43 and, and run by them. They've done, I know, like international tours this year. They, they've done a few different you know, circuits, I guess.
They pump a lot of money into it.
But again, not something that I feel like has picked up in the mainstream. I don't know how the viewership does.
Gabe O'Meara: It has a bad rep for a number of reasons. But one of the biggest reasons was it is hard to run custom games on Halo Infinite without someone crashing. There are lots iterations in the HCS like the game is unfinished still to, this at this point.
And it crashes frequently. At these, at the tournaments and they have to like, game [00:28:00] or pick the game up off, like where it ended. I can just manually calculate like, you know, it's gotten better. But like early on when people were really interested in it, it, you know,
Emilee Helm: They didn't capitalize.
Gabe O'Meara: they didn't capitalize, no, they didn't capitalize on the hype and they didn't capitalize on the volume cuz the content wasn't there.
And key parts of the game, like Halo Infinite still doesn't have infection. It doesn't have Griff Ball, it doesn't have. It just now implemented forge mode, but like, it's just there's a lot of problems with it. Theater mode still really doesn't work that well. A lot of these things that were done easily in 2007, they've just had an insane time implementing in a game developed in 2000, between 2015 and 2023.
There's just far more of a market now, so people aren't just gonna say, I'm only gonna play Halo anymore. Right? They're gonna say, I'm gonna go play Apex, or I'm gonna go play Val, or I'm gonna go play Counterstrike.
Emilee Helm: There's, there's too many things fighting for our attention. And, you know, to come out and ship a [00:29:00] game that's just not complete and especially not have those features that fans love, which is custom games and, and Forge and all of these really cool opportunities for user generated content, to not have that even not have co-op campaign hurts.
And I think that, don't know, it really hurt me as a fan. Just like on a personal level. I was like, that sucks. You know? Like I, it sucks that I, I would've loved to have run through this campaign with friends online, or I would've, you know, loved to do, do custom games games. But like Gabe said, to, to not have things that were. You know, may, and maybe
Gabe O'Meara: integral.
Emilee Helm: maybe this is like rose colored glasses, but like to not have things that were polished in 2007, not be polished in 2023. It just sucks. Like it just sucks as a fan. So and I think it is, it is integral to the, to the space. Cuz I remember growing up it was, I followed Halo eSports, I followed like Halo Machinima, like I followed Halo.
Like [00:30:00] anything, like I was in custom games, I was on the bungee forums. I had a clan that had its own website. Like I was so into this.
Gabe O'Meara: And all of those things were so important for, especially for Halo 3 like 2007 to 2008, I still think it's the greatest time period for video games of all time. Cuz you had Gears of War had just come out Halo Three came out and was just popping. You had Modern Warfare and then you had Modern Warfare II the next year or two years after.
I can't remember the release window, but like the Halo Machinima almost helped create what YouTube is today because it's what everybody watched. watched Machinima and a lot of the best Machinima was Halo. Some of the funniest, and it's funny some of it, like I went back and I would look at some of the videos I thought were the funniest thing I'd ever seen in my life to wow, that was cringe. Times change, like stuff changes, but it was like, it's still like at the time and for its time. It was really funny. It was really innovative. A lot of those Machinima people do, [00:31:00] Red versus Blue obviously started in Halo ce and I think Red Versus Blue did an incredible job I have friends who have never played Halo, but they've seen every episode of Red versus Blue
like, you
Yane An: me.
like I don't know why I was
Gabe O'Meara: whatever.
Yane An: watching this.
Gabe O'Meara: Halo Three especially. Right? You would, I was a part of this clan, I was a part of multiple clans, but like we were really into being competitive into winning and playing other clans and, and we had like, we kept track, we had our own website, we kept track of our loss.
But like you would play. like these, like ranked right? You play ranked for a couple hours and you'd be like, oh, okay. I'm like, you know, we're kind of burned out, so let's go play big Team battle. So you go play big team battle for a couple hours, you're like, okay, we're tired of playing Halo normally let's go play like hide and seek, or let's go play Fat Kid, or let's go play, you know clue, right?
Like there's just, or Centar, right? Or Minotaur there was just an insane amount of custom games to where, and it was all in the same game, all in the same contextual lobby. You could just back out to the main menu with the same go to a different, you know, go into theater together. Like my team, like, we would always go after Clan Match.
We'd go into theater together. I'd [00:32:00] be like, all right, like, what went right, what went wrong here? And we would like analyze it, it, and it was all in the same platform. Seamless. And it all worked at launch. Unprecedented, Halo Three, especially at launch, I think. And I obviously, I think a lot of people think Halo three is overrated, but I, I think it's underrated.
Halo three is the pinnacle video It is just the video game, like,
Emilee Helm: The share system, the file everything. Everything was just incredible.
Gabe O'Meara: 2007
Emilee Helm: true. It's true. I know. And, and I feel like those clans at that time almost operated as like mini eSports orgs. Cuz I know my clan was similar to Gabe's. Like we had a competitive team, but then we also had like a broader clan game night or you know, like there, and like we had a functioning website that had moderators and staff and you know, it was very serious.
Like, and, and people were spending their time there. Yes. Had ranks, yes.
Gabe O'Meara: whenever you would spend months trying to get a promotion in our [00:33:00] Halo clan. And when you got it, you'd be like, yes. Like I got a promotion in the Halo. Like it's all that mattered. I remember being 15 and 16, all I cared about was progressing in my Halo clans, helping my Halo clans grow, like putting all my effort into it, like recruiting, like cringe recruitment messages on bungee.net and, and like reaching out to, because we were an elite clan, so like in Halo.
there were two player models you can play as, right. There's the Spartan model, which is what Master Chief is, and then there's the elite model and all the clans I was ever part of, you had to play the elite model. We were elite clans. Like that was our thing. We built our whole clan structure on being elites
but it was so fun cuz everybody had the same interest. And we would go into a match and we'd all be elites and people would be like, oh, it's a bunch of Dinos. It's been 15 since I've had like that feeling of I want to do well for my clan and you know, we're, we're a community
Emilee Helm: A part of me wonders if like, some of this is still out there, like there's a good chance that, folks like Gabe and I came up and, you know, we're here, we're [00:34:00] in the gaming industry, right? Like that this is probably all we could have ever dreamed of. But I'm sure there's still some, you know, 15 year old kid who's doing the same thing on Rainbow Six Siege or League of Legends or, or wherever.
You know, they're, they're trying to do this. But it just, it felt like such a bigger deal back then. I think to some extent it was, like social media was not the social media that we live on today and, you know, these were your main forms of communication. Sitting in forums and talking in forums was like a big deal and where I spent my time, yes and seriously like Skype and I remember getting on, you know, just all of those things to try to talk to anybody and, so, I can't remember a world where people would recognize a moderator from a forum and be like, that guy, that guy's the coolest dude ever.
Like moderators had clout back then. You know, like Shishka was like the man,
Gabe O'Meara: Bungee and their team would actively be on the bungee.net forums and not only read them but interact with the com. By the time bungee.net, like the [00:35:00] old bungee.net got shut down, I was like a mythic legendary poster or whatever. The amount of times I interacted with actual bungee members that we would like converse in the comments about something was insane.
And there are still game devs that do that, and I think Discord is a great application to facilitate that. But to the extent that Bungee did, like especially in two, again in 2007 when this was almost unheard of, like this type of community, it was just something, it was something else. There's no word like there's hard, it's hard to describe.
You had to be there. It's such had to be there It's, there was so many facets to the community to how Halo operated within the community and how Halo like presented itself to people who had never played before. I had friends who'd never played a video game before and they were like, I'm like, they played Halo and that's all they do.
Like in 2023, everybody does, everybody's a gamer. 2007 there weren't that many like outwardly gamers cuz you would get like picked on for [00:36:00] being a nerd still. And so back then it was almost a safe haven being able to go online and your envision free Halo clan forums with your little chat bar at the bottom and you have your RP section and then you had your like whatever section and you just felt safe and you felt a part of that community and, and its own thing.
And then like when you would play other clans or you would meet other people in the community, and people cared so much. I don't think I can emphasize how much people cared about like as Halo communities back then. Yeah, I, so I admin a Halo community server.
We've got like a thousand members. And it's, it's like an elite server where all the people who like used to play as elites back in the day hang out. There's like young, like new members that just discover Halo, who like join in and stuffs. And what I find and what you see is that so many of the people are like, we're just, we are ravenous for good Halo, for more content, for like just something with [00:37:00] soul in it because we miss so much that community, that warm feeling you would get playing Halo.
Cuz you don't get that from many games anymore. Especially not from Halo Infinite. And it was just special.
Emilee Helm: Yeah, I agree. And I think we talked about, like earlier, how we talked about Hogwarts has such a rich ip, Halo is such a rich ip. There's books, there's so much lore, and I think there's a world that is worth developing.
But to some degree has maybe been mishandled or, you know, just missed the mark on a few things that make it great. I think there's a ton of potential because it is, it's a comfy space. It's a, it's a good world. It's a place you wanna be in and learn more about.
I feel like we see a lot of pivots in the Halo world away from the original lore or away from, I don't know, just like, it,
Gabe O'Meara: What made Halo great. Well Halo one, Halo two and Halo three were all designed to almost be party games. They weren't designed to be these really intense [00:38:00] eSports shooters. I mean, eSports wasn't that big back in the day. And one of the reasons eSports was big back in the day was because of Halo and the MLG circuit.
And I remember reading an article in Game Informer when I was like, fricking 12 years old about how Final Boss won an MLG tournament. They won a million dollars. I was like, as a kid in 2004, when that ha or 2005 when that happened, I was like, whoa, you can make money from playing video games. Right. lot of kids had that same idea.
And like, I think that Halo three, Halo two obviously were very competitive, but they weren't designed to be super, like really in-depth competitive. They had their nuances. A lot of games have this issue now where they really try to make the game an eSports game
Yane An: Mm-hmm.
Gabe O'Meara: Whereas like, the reason these games were so fun to play both competitively and casually back in the day is because they were just games that played a certain way and people found a way to make them competitive.
And that But like a lot of these games, especially with Halo Infinite, they lean so much into the [00:39:00] eSports side of it, into the competitive side of it. And I'm on that side. I, I, there was a point where I was one of the top hundred ranked Halo players in Halo Reach and I had seven fifties on my Halo three account, right?
Like I am in that community and I think it's too much. They are straying away from what made Halo so fun to play for so many people by focusing on one of eight total parts that made it what it was. And other games do that too.
Emilee Helm: Well, I think too, when you stray away from what makes the game accessible, you I don't think you could ever make a game that is perfectly competitive that everybody, that no one has a gripe with. But it was easy in Halo to be involved with, you know, eSports.
But then also, like everybody I knew played everything right. They wanted to be a level 50. But also I had friends that. You know, wanted to get recon armor from taking screenshots or, you know, like wanted to get a 50 in big team battle and like everybody played custom games. Like, it just, it was for everybody.
There was [00:40:00] not and if you chose to get to that level where you wanted to be fluent in, in eSports, you could, but it wasn't the reason the game existed. The game existed to be a game and that all that other stuff fell place. Right.
Learned about it, the more you wanted to, to invest, I guess.
Gabe O'Meara: We have a coworker, Rob, who he spent most of his time in Halo building racetracks, like mongoose, like he was a part of like a
Yane An: That's so wholesome
Gabe O'Meara: racing community where they would go in and they would build racetracks on different maps, like, and communities like that existed for so many different facets of, of forge creation and, and community generated content.
Yane An: So my processing of this is sort of like I, I was never like the Xbox generation, but you guys are like the epitome of like that era. You guys are those people. And what I'm hearing is you guys were sort of the origin [00:41:00] of gaming, of eSports and it all happened organically.
Like you guys created your own websites, your own clans, right? But then the companies, the developers and like the gaming community in general saw this. And I feel like they sort of misunderstood what the initial appeal was. And by trying to cater to like the most epic standard gamer, they actually ended up alienating like most of what was good in the first place.
Gabe O'Meara: Right,
Yane An: That's insane
Gabe O'Meara: and
Emilee Helm: Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. And you have like, yeah, such, such a good point. There is, there is easy money to be had, right? In eSports,
Yane An: Hmm.
Emilee Helm: like the, the instant appeal is like, you can make a million dollars winning a Halo tournament. That's insane. That must mean we can make a lot of money if we keep funding this eSports thing.
What you don't realize is having tools and resources for communities to build themselves also brings you a lot of money. So I think that's been [00:42:00] lost a little bit is, is, you know, I get it from a business standpoint, probably not as efficient to invest in your forge mechanics and, and the development of Forge and co-op campaign when you know that a Halo tournament would bring in more money.
But I think it ultimately is kind of hurting things down the line because people don't have a reason to come and pick up the game as an everyday person, you know?
Gabe O'Meara: It's crazy how the, like, the best word I can think of right now is comfy. How comfy Halo three was, because you could do whatever you wanted. Like, so there was a point, there was this website, it's called Halo Charts. It was fricking awesome. As long as you searched for someone's gamer tag on Halo Charts it would track all their stats.
They tracked how many campaign kills you had. I was like, top 100 in the world for Halo three campaign kills, as well as like being this guy who really liked playing custom games.
And it like when a game is only catering towards being competitive, it's especially as like, cause I'm 30 now, like it's just, I [00:43:00] don't have as much time or energy to just constantly be grinding, ranked on a game. And like, it's like with Vaorant or CS:GO right? CS:GO is highly competitive, but the most fun I have playing CS:GO is when I do social lobbies.
When you just play competitive ranked games over and over and over and over again, especially if it's the same game and it doesn't have another outlet for you to like chill and to, and to like other parts of the game for you to explore.
It's so easy to get burnt out on it. Halo was great cause you could play ranked and then you could go play social games or you could go play custom games or you could go play campaign. I play a lot of War Zone now. It's one of my main and and Escape from Tarkov are two of my main FPSs games.
They really only have one play style and that's win and, and like be as good as you can be. And they're great at that. But after I play Warzone or Tarkov for like three, four hours, I'm like, whew, that's enough of that for today. But for Halo
Yane An: I got my wins.
Gabe O'Meara: Ha. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, that's it.
Like it's over for today. Halo three, I would get home from [00:44:00] school on Friday. I would start playing Halo 3:00 PM and I wouldn't sleep until like, you know, I had to go to school on Monday, you know, like, and you would just
Emilee Helm: I would fall asleep with the mic. I would fall
Gabe O'Meara: the mic on.
Emilee Helm: I had a futon and I would be by the time they had released Xbox parties,
Gabe O'Meara: Xbox Party Chat
Emilee Helm: I would fall asleep in on my couch in, in my party. And I would wake up, my friends would still be there. They'd be like, oh, hey. Like, what's up? You're like, good.
You woke up, like, we it back up again. Like it was that serious. Like it really was , like it was yeah, it was a big deal.
Gabe O'Meara: Xbox Party Chat was one of the biggest game changers where up to eight people could all be playing separate games, but you could all like chill. Or if you wanted to play Halo three, but you don't wanna talk to the enemy team, you'd all be in a party chat or you don't wanna talk to your randoms, like on your team or whatever.
And that was like the first wasn't the first integration of, of voice chat, obviously like Ventrio and oh, the other, the other big one that I used all the for like Team Speak for World of Warcraft, right? Like, but for consoles. You never really had that ability to have your own custom area [00:45:00] where you and your friends could hang out and chill.
And for Halo, that was huge. It was just, it was like a game changer. It was so awesome.
Yane An: You guys think there's any hope
Gabe O'Meara: Hope is dead, there's no hope
Yane An: We should just not have expectations here.
Gabe O'Meara: it's hard. It's hard to have expectations in the modern gaming ecosphere because we're let down so often. I'm not, and it's not saying that games back in the day were always perfect because the problem was back in the day, if there was a problem with the game, there's really no easy way to patch it.
Especially cuz a lot of games were on disk. A lot of developers and a lot of game companies now, they're like, oh, it's okay if we release the game like broken cuz we can just fix it. Or we can say it's just an alpha so we can get away with it. Not saying that there's not labors of love out there.
Every game is fighting for your attention. Every game has a battle pass. Now every game has microtransactions. Every game is fighting for your dollar.
The game industry is very noisy nowadays. Where back in the day, there was like maybe three or [00:46:00] four major releases a year.
Yane An: every week, every week three to four.
Yeah.
Gabe O'Meara: like big, big game releases.
Emilee Helm: I've had this conversation a lot with just other people in the industry. It's like, used to be really predictable, right? You know, in the fall you could expect some, some of your big major AAA releases, your holiday releases, but now we're, we're seeing months, like January and February and like, just almost random times where the game of the year's debuting, right?
Elden Ring was February release. Like that typically, like, at least when I was growing up, like that was not the case. Like everything would release in, you know, November, October, September, all of that. And those would be the time of the year that you're, that those games are coming out. But no, now it's just so, it's just so different.
Gabe O'Meara: But now it's just all year
Yane An: Yeah, the market is oversaturated, but these communities still pop up. You know, people still band around.
Like for example, like Rocket League. I don't think anybody knew it was gonna be like a huge eSports game, but now it's like, [00:47:00] one of the top, like top five. Right? And it, it also started off as like a goofy casual game. It's like, oh, what if, what if we played soccer with cars? Right. And now it's like a huge eSports scene.
So like, you know, not, it's not like, oh, like all hope is lost or something. I do feel like, I do feel like I feel bad for the Xbox generation a little bit -- times have changed. Yeah. But I mean, like,
Gabe O'Meara: The now old man
Yane An: Yeah. The future is now. We still have communities, luckily. And you know, if you, if you wanna learn more about that too, you can always go to Gamesight.
Gabe O'Meara: We specialize in it. Because we know what it's like to have to have a cuz we lived it. No, you do, you, you do see those communities, especially in games like Final Fantasy 14. Their community is so close-knit and they have a very close relationship with the developers. And like I view Final Fantasy 14 and the dev team almost like Bungie and Halo, where so many of the members of the 14 dev team like [00:48:00] Yoshi P and Soken and like some of the more senior devs who've been around forever, like they're idols within that.
Where as in Halo, Joseph Staten. Marcus Lehto. Marty O'Donnell. Those were like idols for kids. I remember I met Marty at the Halo Reach launch in Seattle in 2010. He signed my poster and I talked to him about music for five minutes. And I'll never forget it. I was shocked. I'm like, this is Marty O'Donnell, like the guy who made the Halo theme.
And
Yane An: Wow.
Gabe O'Meara: you know, people like game devs like Cliff Bleszinski right? Another good example of like a rockstar game like game devs or Todd Howard, Gavin. There are rock stars in the game developer like field, but you see less of that now. You see less of the people and more of the company. It's a riot game or it's a a Bethesda game or whatever.
Emilee Helm: I think you really only get Kojima. I mean, like,
Gabe O'Meara: Right,
Emilee Helm: he's one still, who's, who's like still kicking, but like
Gabe O'Meara: a, he's almost a relic from that era of rockstar.
Yane An: Dang. I feel like [00:49:00] this sort of reminds me of the talk from like the first episode I had with about the fighting game community where it's a lot of games develop these grassroots communities, but then the transition into becoming more of like an industry like program can be really hard. Like, like we've seen with like Super Smash Bros.
Right? And like a lot of the fighting game communities. So I just wonder if like, I don't know, how do we make that transition smoother? I guess
Emilee Helm: Well, the scaling is hard, right? Because it's, it's hard to make something for everyone when it's grounded in the fact that you have to be extremely good at the game. Because then it's not for everybody by default, right? So it just, it just doesn't scale. And I think, you know, tying the bow on it, that's why I believe that Halo three did scale, right?
Because everybody was involved with all pieces, or at least it felt that way. Everybody kind of got their time in the spotlight, which I think was really powerful. But yeah, now it's just, it's hard. It just, the barrier to entry is really [00:50:00] intimidating. I, I just started playing league and I'm like, I don't get it and I want cause it's really fun, but I don't get it. So.
Gabe O'Meara: see that with like Halo Infinite, where like when you look at the ranked population, half of the people that play ranked are the highest rank possible. Whereas in a healthy game, the people at the high, like in League of Legends, like if you're Diamond, it's like what, like top five, top 4% are Diamond and up or something like that, where the vast lower than that.
But, and Halo is the same thing. You were like a level 40 colonel and you saw a level 50, you were like, this guy's hot shit. Like, I, I immediately respect this person cuz I can see the, the number 50 next to their name.
You would see the symbol, you'd see they were a general and like that kind of clout meant so much back then. But now it's everybody. Is that right? Like especially with like really competitive games, like everybody's a diamond or like everybody's an onyx. Because they are just focusing on that community that, that really hardcore community.
Like [00:51:00] when I played Apex, I played the character called Mirage all the time. And Mirage was like known as being like the worst character cuz he is worthless.
But my play style, I always used his abilities pretty well I thought. But they changed him, like they've changed him so times. Whereas with Halo, all you have to do is balance guns. You don't have to balance character abilities and passives. Right? So it's hard, it's definitely harder for a game like League or Valorant.
Yane An: return. Return to Monkey.
Gabe O'Meara: Return to 2014 League 2007 Halo
Yane An: Okay. I don't know about that. I think, I think Riot is doing a great job. not getting paid to say this.
Gabe O'Meara: No, I think they, I think they are And I'm not saying that like, cuz I still play league at least, at least two or three times a, a week with my friends. But as someone who played like back in the day, it's definitely shifted in a way that's completely different than it was. It's almost an entirely new game.
Yane An: That's true. Yeah.
Facts.
Gabe O'Meara: Either like it or you don't. There are things I like and there are things I don't like is the best way to put it, like about current League, but there were things I liked and I didn't like about Old League. Same thing with Halo. Halo three wasn't perfect. It had all of it. Like, I know I said earlier about like the, the, the hit reg and, and and the Melees, but it's, it's hard.
It's really hard. I don't envy game balancers.
Emilee Helm: No, not at all.
Yane An: Thank you guys for sharing your expertise on this super interesting niche subculture that like defined the generation, right? It, it was like a hugely mainstream thing because I even, I was involved even though I literally, like, I did not grow up with these games, just a huge, huge movement.
And I think just talking about it has like elucidated a lot of interesting things about the gaming community and sort of like, how did we get here now? Right. So yeah. These are the guys running your campaigns at Gamesight. If you
Emilee Helm: Oh no.
Gabe O'Meara: I would, I would say if you --
Emilee Helm: they're like these grouchy people that are mad about Halo are running our influencer campaigns.
Gabe O'Meara: you wanna the best TLDR about Halo watch Crowbcat's Halo video. It's like 10 minutes long. It's like a masterpiece. It, it pretty much takes everything Emily and I just talked about and condenses it into a 10 minute video that makes you feel nostalgic for a thing, even if you haven't played it.
Yane An: All right. I'll put that plug in at the end of the videos or the end of the podcast so they'll have watched this whole thing.
Gabe O'Meara: True.
Exactly. That's why I'm saying, that's why I'm saying it right now.
Yane An: Ah, yeah. It's perfect. But yeah, you know, like when it comes to like creator programs influencer campaigns, you should hit up Gamesight. You guys have any last shout outs you wanted to?
Emilee Helm: Shout outs. I shout somebody out.
Yane An: Sure, sure. Yeah.
Emilee Helm: I'm like, all right, well shout out. Shout out to my mom. Kidding? Like to tie it back to game site and just like all of the things that we are founded on it, it is that community. I think, you know, our CEO will give you the same pitch, like community driven is kind of how we all got here and it's what we still value.
And so yeah, we're trying to link that [00:54:00] together for game devs and these big businesses that know that they need to engage with their influencers in their community, but might not know how, or might not know the best way to do it. So yeah, I guess that's what we're just trying to do is be, be that mouthpiece for them and, and try to get a pulse on the community and, and see what works.
Cause I think there is room for business and, you know, like the pleasure of it all to kind of mix. But it does, it has to be fun and it has to be accessible. And so it's definitely something I'm passionate about and I, I think, you know, our broader team is passionate about is just, you know, bringing games to people because I think everybody, you know, Like to Ratatouille it, like everybody can game.
Yane An: And you, Gabe?
Gabe O'Meara: Gabe Loves Lamp. I think like the best way to put, I think Emily put it in a really good stop laughing. It's, stop laughing at me. It's not funny. No, I'm kidding. Emily put it, Emily put it in a really good way in that like, we really care about making good content [00:55:00] and helping represent games in their best light.
Cuz even a game that's quote unquote bad right? And has bad ratings, there's still people that like it, right? And there's a lot of games that I like that have like really low ratings on Steam, but I'm like, yeah, but I kind of like 'em, so whatever. And I think everybody has that for so many different games and yeah.
Cult cult classics, right?
Yane An: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Gabe O'Meara: It, and, and we want to do that, you know, to our best ability without like, while making everyone feel like they're a part of that community. And because when you feel like you're a part of a community and you feel like you really contributed towards something, Especially if it's in a professional sense like through a sponsorship, like, you feel good because you did a good job and like everybody's happy and, and there's a lot of people who might not have known about a game and now they know about a game.
And, and we wanna do that in a way that is, is comfortable for both creators where they feel like they've made good content and where game devs can feel comfortable in the budget they've spent. And we're not flippant [00:56:00] about it and we just, again, like we're really passionate about it.
like we try our very best to make sure everything goes right and to make sure that, like the work that we do is, is quality.
Yane An: Yeah. Gamesight forever. Woo. Yeah.
Emilee Helm: I heart Gamesight hashtag ad.
Gabe O'Meara: hashtag ad
Yane An: add. Woo. sponsor. Yeah. All right. That's pretty much it for this episode. Thank you guys again, so much for being here.
Emilee Helm: Yeah, thanks for having us.
Gabe O'Meara: Let's go.
Emilee Helm: I hope we get invited back.
Yane An: Woo.
Gabe O'Meara: We won't.
Emilee Helm: Big fan of the pod. Big fan of the pod. this was big moment for me.
Gabe O'Meara: We're big pod-ers