Speaker 1: Leaning a light. Man like this, Man, you letting butterfly
flapping his wing big down in a force. Man, it
gonna cause a tree fold, letting five thousand miles away. Man,
nobody see it.
Speaker 2: Nobody else. Let you see what you don't need? No, man,
don't you follow? And you got back that? Man? Don't
black a d on Panama?
Speaker 1: Man, you don't don't matter?
Speaker 3: Man anyway?
Speaker 2: All right? William from in soel Riots Studios. How you
doing man? Pretty good? Are you? Yeah? I'm doing well.
Speaker 1: I mean I realized dating your podcast in the first
twenty seconds, UH is poor form.
Speaker 2: But if you're wondering less, sir. This is the day
that the chat feature.
Speaker 1: On x Scott pushed out, which means that UH, as
someone whose job it is to basically coordinate things via
dms on Twitter, today has been a disaster for me.
Nothing has gone according to plan. But nonetheless are here
so anyway, man, Obviously this was set up by our
mutual friends at Antelope Hill.
Speaker 2: But who are you and what do you do? Who
am I?
Speaker 3: And what do I do?
Speaker 2: My name is William Dale? About just docs myself and
I make board games. I've been making board games for
I guess seven eight years now professionally, and before that
I was a commercial illustrator. I guess we'll get into
that story at some point. That it all came to
a screechy halt in twenty sixteen when I backed their
own candidate for president.
Speaker 1: And that's sort of an interesting thing. I'm not really
a board games guy, but I am in areas that
are kissing cousins, right, Like I sort of grew up
as a you know, a war gamer. You're playing a
lot of tabletop RPGs and there's a lot of crossover, right,
you sort of see the same treatment happening, and uh,
those faces got just absolutely overrun with like horrible progressive
types sort of at the same time, slightly earlier even
than we saw with you know, gaming, which obviously gamer
Gate is how a lot of people ended up, you know,
by getting pushed out of mainstream politics.
Speaker 2: I think they were always there, I think I think
I think the election brought them out as well, one
hundred percent. It brought it out.
Speaker 1: And you know, I was giving a teenager at the time,
and you know, I had always been interested in kind
of nerdy at nerdy whatever that means, you know, activities, Uh,
and obviously to me, in my mind, if there were politics,
it was sort of like nineties liberal politics, like generally
be nice to people, you know, authority is generally negative.
But it was all pretty background stuff, right, I mean,
that's a very general thing to say.
Speaker 2: But I guess I guess if you're in high school
during the nineties, I suppose that's true.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about in the in the mid two thousands,
like that was the sort of politics that you saw,
like I'm thinking about like uh like or like sort
of before fifth edition D and D, you know, for
for rough context.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I lost track of D and D after
second edition. I just just completely ignored it.
Speaker 1: You didn't miss much.
Speaker 2: All I have to say about that is some uh
faco as cancer and uh roll to hit tables are
the way to go. It's the way God it came
to be played. It's a fair enough man.
Speaker 1: So obviously you you you started out on your own,
what almost ten years ago? Now, Uh, do you want
to just briefly summarize your your cancelation. We don't need
to get into the details, but.
Speaker 2: Oh the cancelation. Sure, yeah, well, I guess you might
not remember in twenty twelve when you had during when
elections happened. So me working as a commercial illustrator, right,
like a freelance I have. I had representation, but you
know they only shot me like a project like three
or four times a year if that. So I'm like
completely on my own, like on the hands and dribble
and on social media just posting things like to get
the attention of people. And one really way a good
way to do that back then is like if a
really popular franchise came out, like Breaking Bad comes out,
you do some Breaking Bad fan art and people will
spread it around because it's a franchise they like. And
during an election like in the twenty twelve you had,
like that was a way to do that. You could
be like I'm an Obama guy or I'm a McCaine guy,
and uh, I'm a Ron Paul guy, and you you
do like fan art of your guy, and people who
also liked your guy like spread your guy around. It's
a good way to get attention. It's a good way
to get work. And so that's what I did. I did. Uh,
I picked I picked Trump as my guy, like very
on really we way way early in the election back
when they were like seventeen candidates Republican and it was
I was working on it during the uh that first
Fox debate with mecon Kelly, like the Rosie O'Donnell that
that one and the the mood as hours after I
posted it. So I posted, I went to bed, and
I went to and uh I made fan art like
the spanner of Trump, but I still have it on
my on my website and stuff. But then I go
to bed and then I wake up and he the
narrative has shifted from clown candidate to Hitler and our age.
Speaker 1: And yeah, everything, And I remember that that was sort
of a funny, funny like transfer, I guess you were
talking about, right, the pivot from Donald Trump an inherently
comedic to he is Orange Hitler Because again, like I
was in height, like I said, late high school at
the time, and so you know, when you're like seventeen,
you're like, this guy's hilarious. He is my favorite presidential
candidate ever because he, you know, makes fun of people
on the Internet and says rude things, right, just kind
of core interests at that stage in life. And you know,
at first it was sort of this like attitude of like, oh,
boys will be boys, like whatever, no one cares. But
then it shifted into you don't know what you're saying,
You're you're promoting something dangerous. It became even more fun.
Right obviously there's no career tied to it, but I
remember exactly that moment you're talking.
Speaker 2: About it, this sense of becomes fun. Yeah. Oh man,
it freaks me out how people like like like schools
of sardines in the water, just the the media shifts
course and they all shift course and they don't realize
that they've shifted course, and they say, well, you know
I was always against You're like you you meet like
a democrat, wh Well, I always hitted Trump. I always
knew was a racist, you know all. You know, all
the way back in the eighties when he was making
appearances on you know, the Fresh Prince of bel Air
or whatever, like, No, you didn't. Everybody left him, even you.
Speaker 1: Well, it's like this is much later in time. But
do you remember when they made a big deal Disney
did about editing him out of Home alone too, you know,
like he remember that.
Speaker 2: And they just like roll my eyes and keep scrolling
because there was so much of that. Well, it's weird.
Speaker 1: And the only reason I remembered this is because like
that's you know, that's back page news even when it happened.
But right, you know, last holiday season, I was watching
it that movie with you know, some family members, and
it got to the part where you know, Kevin walks
down the hall and he's supposed to, you know, Donald
Trump is supposed to point him in the right direction,
and Dale looked at me like a crazy person. I
was like, where did Donald Trump scene go? Because admittedly
that does sound like a crazy thing.
Speaker 2: You know, there's just a scene. Oh, they'll get Mandela
if they don't remember it was ever there, And so
I was easily justified.
Speaker 1: But to that point where it's like you really can
just rewrite history through like selective media application, And when
you're the one guy, you're like, there's no way, I'm crazy,
Like I remember this happening.
Speaker 2: Even if something is induging bunchel as that really terrify me.
But that is one of them, like like's be like
living with pod people, Like how did they erase that
part of your brain? How does that work? Why am
I the only human? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Well man, so obviously you got pushed out as a
as a commercial illustrator. Uh Ay, I mean look like
that's a that is a a crowd with a certain culture.
Perhaps I'll leave it at that.
Speaker 2: So who do you go next? Yeah, you don't go anywhere.
It's like, well, let's see, well, what of the options
are starve to death? That's one. Put a pin in that.
The other one is, uh, did you starve to death?
I haven't starved to death yet. We are we are
operating on much, much less money than we used to.
But then I thought, well, let's see if I can
find a new audience, which has been an ongoing Uh.
I don't want to say struggle, it's it's been very interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So obviously there's at least some crossover with doing you know,
board games if you can do the art yourself, obviously
that's a big part of it, especially in the era
of Ian and you probably know more about this than
I do, but you're the era of you know, sort
of bespoke hobbyist board gaming right where you can there's
an audience for well illustrated, expensive board games.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, there's that. Okay, but yeah, I what am
I saying? Uh? Well, as a you know, on an illustrator,
I've worked with a lot of I had worked with
a lot of companies and uh, like a lot of
stuff got printed. I had relationships with a lot of
factories who made things. You like you do a show,
uh a convention, right, we need we need our branded
swag in this location. We need like all the specifications,
blah blah blah blah. You take it to the printers.
You know, you know all about the you know how
to pick the colors and uh, you know and how
to how to get it all. So, okay, I have
this skill set. Maybe I can just apply it to something.
And I also like board games and listen like strategy games,
so so that works out well. I just I guess
I was referring to, Uh, I guess I'm very liberal brained,
if that makes any sense. I'm a liberal brain person
with conservative values among conservatives, And I don't know, I'm
just constantly aware of, like how I don't connect with people,
and how things don't land and help people don't care
about the same things that I care about.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense one hundred percent? And like I
even say that as someone who has right wing politics
but is not particularly conservative for whatever that term means.
And I think there is an important difference there, you know, yeah,
even see this with like Honestly, I think that in
many ways, current millennial culture is actually quite conservative in
the sense that they are very interested in maintaining a
certain type of status quo, like the values handed down
to them by wider society. They want to preserve those.
It's just they grew up in, broadly speaking, very left
wing culture. So I think there's there's important distinction to
be made there.
Speaker 2: There as these pseudomorphosis at work. Yes they are the
millennials are becoming what they are. No, certainly and so.
Speaker 1: But but so when you're speaking about that, that's sort
of like, I guess real latitude, right, how does that
affect your work?
Speaker 2: I guess, well, it's it seems to me just to
start out that the political divide right now has less
to do with politics and more to do with personality.
Certainly personality types like if you are extremely left brained,
you're probably a Republican Now, I don't think it would
be it would have been that way twenty five years ago.
And if you're extremely right brained, like a creative type,
you are easily you are very susceptible to imagery and
emotion and propaganda, and you will be on the left
currently right brain on the left, left brain on the right.
So when I approach your project, like I'm really interested
in like the aesthetics of the thing, right, and I
find that my audience really isn't like they don't care
even if they notice. Well, that's always a tough thing.
Speaker 1: And I noticed this as well someone who's maybe not
a creative themselves, but it's surrounded myself with creatives, is
that it's always tough when it's it's like the thing
you care about, the thing that you want to be perfect,
has very little determinate value on what you actually need
the project to do. But it's like I can't let
it go. It has to be perfect, even in a
way that doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: Well, on the back of my mind, I tell myself
that they actually do perceive it, even if they it
doesn't register, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Like one hundred percent. And actually this is a horrible
podcasting form. Will what's the game that you've most recently made?
Speaker 2: Right, because this is what we are supposed.
Speaker 1: To be talking about twelve minutes into a conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned currently are we are promoting Civil War two,
which is my most recent release. It is just about
to cross twelve thousand out of of a goal of
seventeen thousand, seventy six, which I thought would be immersive,
very immersive. It is completely an arbitrary number.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, Yeah, that's what platforms are you using to
promote that? Because I understand that there are some platforms
which or friendlier than others.
Speaker 2: Well, I decided to do it on Kickstarter, which may
have been a mistake. I think they're very I think
they're very hostile to us. I kind of I got
it in my mind that this time I would do
something that would be appealing, appealing to a broader cross
section of people, and that the curmudgeons that the pearl
clutches a kick Kickstarter would give me a fair shake
this time. I think that might have been a mistake.
Well see, I mean, look, the Kickstarter is still up,
so it's true. It's still up. Yeah, let's business.
Speaker 1: Model of Kickstarter, if you will, because I think it's
actually an interesting thing because I know, well, and here's
the angle I want to take it. I think this
is interesting. I think the there's a much heightened skepticism
around crowdfunding than there was ten years ago because of
well of no good reasons masters.
Speaker 2: Right, like how do you do it right?
Speaker 1: Like how do you run a kickstart in a way
that actually that people can feel like they're not wasting
their money or they're going to get scamed.
Speaker 2: Well, I have built up a base over time. I
have the mailing list. It's got about three thousand people
on it, former and former and current customers. Most of
it comes from that. I guess I've done done right
by them enough times that they want more. I've got
to get a lot of repeat buyers, not as many
new ones as I would hope. But as for reasons
that you say, yes, the kickstarter model is throw up
some slop, take the money and moved Costa Rica. Yeah,
fair enough.
Speaker 1: I mean, look it's a goal, right, So that's a
good answer. And honestly, I think that that's sort of
the And you see this in any sort of like
online environment, like I remember forum culture back when that
still existed, would have like a rep kind of yes
and no, it's been eaten by social media. So if
you go to your favorite forms, yeah, like if you
go to your favorite forums, there's just no volume anymore.
You know, a lot of them unfortunately have been fully
killed off, like they don't pay for hosting anymore. But
there's just it's still alive, but not like it used to.
See I think of you know, like the REP system
that used to exist, right just asper to.
Speaker 2: The successor to the successor of the forum that I
ran and used to frequent is Kiwi Farms. And they're fine,
but buying and large. I believe you're correg guess oh.
Speaker 1: That's that's actually really interesting. I had Josh moon on
not too long ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very few of them actually remember me. Some of
the posters might. It's all overrun by millennials now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean I think with Kiwi Farms, it's
sort of its own, sort of its own thing now,
you know, Like whereas the model for forums, and I
was around for kind of the tail end of it,
but as someone who had specific interest, it was a
great way to collate information. But the reason I brought
it up, it's not just a reminisce about when the
Internet was more fun, but to say there there was,
you know, either in an informal or formalized REP system,
you know, like you see, like, yeah, your postcount how
people rated you, you could sort of sort information. And
I've talked to other you know, artists who fund their
work via crowdfunding. I think of you know, Matt Cotts,
who's you know, five hundred pages into a graphic novel
series now in a decade and uh yeah, stuff's great,
like genuinely great. You. I'm sure you would like it.
It's uh, i'll we'll we talk about it later. But
the uh, that's one of the things he spoke about,
which is that that exact thing of you having people
who have bought your products before having a track rad
record saying you know, here's what I do. I deliver
on time. I'm not gonna scam you, right like that.
That is in a way like building up a customer base.
And uh yeah, that's a very valuable, very valuable tool
for creative right yeah.
Speaker 2: Hey, being honest. Actually, you know, it's it's a good
way to live your life. Turns out, Yeah, controversial opinion.
Don't want controversial opinion? Yeah yeah, yeah. And now with
just to uh, you know, shout them out as that
would you say it? In hip hop culture? Uh? Uh?
And Lapill they're great, they're great, straight shoot, Yeah.
Speaker 1: And that's the cool thing I was actually, you know,
I was actually talking to uh, you know, the founder
of analy Uphill actually less than a week ago, and uh,
I'm not gonna tell tales out of school obviously, but
that was one of the things that he spoke about
that I thought was really exciting is that he's, you know,
now at a point where he spends a significant amount
of time telling people no, which like, Okay, you could
look at that and say, well, that's bad for those
individual people, but it's exciting from the perspective of, well,
now there is a large amount of well there's obviously
a market to sustain it, but on a secondary level,
now there is a large group of people who maybe
aspirationally want to create for that audience. And you know,
you look back at, you know, a previous model. I
was talking to an author earlier today where your one
choice for getting your workout was you know, the two
big companies in whatever your industry was, Right, You're not
beholden to that anymore. And it means you can do
interesting and exciting things, right, Yes.
Speaker 2: It does. Some of my exciting ideas are still too
a radical randal uptil I'm going to work on them.
All right, all right, let's.
Speaker 1: See, So what are your other games? Right, And obviously
we don't need to go into detail, but like you
speak about building up some sort of rapport, so like
how do you do that? How do you get your
initial audience and build from there?
Speaker 2: One my first campaign was in twenty seventeen, I think,
I think that's right. Yeah, think twenty seventeen. Oh maybe later,
maybe it's twenty, I don't remember. It's but it was
Virtue sing of the game, which was a game that
I had been working on on the forum that Kiwi
Farms is a successor to the Successor too, and I
had been working on for a long time. Which is it?
It simulates the infighting in liberal groups. If if from
the outside it may not be a parent, but inside
those groups they are buckets of cannibal maggots, just devour
each other and climbing, trying to climb to the top. There.
It's a it's it's a very vicious environment. Well maybe
you do. Maybe maybe it disapparent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they seem to be largely, completely and
totally miserable.
Speaker 2: Right, I mean actly miserable all of the time, terrified
if you step one toe out of line, you know,
the the rest of them will turn on you in
a minute. You thought you were your friends. And to
top that off, the narrative is constantly shifting and you
have to pay extremely close attention. This actually isn't a funny.
This is a funny story. I've told this.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've told it all on air before.
This is one hundred percent true. It sounds like made
up bullshit. I've I've been doxed, been docked for a
long time, okay, and uh, literally the week or two
after I was doxed, I was hanging out with some
friends who were the plans had already been made. They
sort of disassociated after the politics changed, you know, but
it was sort of this awkward like everyone knows, but
no one really wants to have the conversation sort of thing.
And we're sitting around playing board games, and of course
the game Secret Hitler is there, and I'm like, all
right that I'm looking at it right now, mylf. Literally,
I've never played this game in my life before. William
the first hand this, there's this kind of uncomfortable, you know,
cloud in the air. I'm there with some friends who
were aware of what I am and didn't care who
are kind of on my side? And the hints got
at the beginning, and of course it's Werewolf right or mafia.
You know, there's one guy who's him. Obviously there are
differences to it. But for people who don't know, you're
looking for secret Hitler, right, and uh literally the first round,
I'm secret Hitler and I'm like, oh no, this has
just happened. It's happened twice, right first, this tragedy then
is farse right, I have the literal Nazi in their midst,
I don't know which was just like incredibly odd the nose.
But I think that that is sort of a you know,
an interesting counterpoint, right of like their their game is
rooting out the Nazi, you know, like that's the that's
the ha ha, funny edgy party joke or party game rather,
And I think that sort of indicates an interesting bit
of psychology there.
Speaker 2: And if there is no Nazi, you must create a
Nazi from one of you. Yeah, someone's got to be
crucify him. Yes, somebody has to be crucified all the time.
And if nobody is a parent, right, if there's nobody,
if you have to find somebody. It's got to be
somebody you got to root them out for some reason,
and you got to crucify that person. It's got to
happen on a regular basis, right, So the game simulates that.
And I had no experience doing a Kickstarter. I had
no experience like with the I had no advertising or
marketing set up. I just threw it up on Kickstarter,
and by the third day we were trending number seven
across the entire site. I mean, that's not bad for
a first attempt, right, it's pretty good for a first attempt.
Like I didn't. It stresses me out like things like that.
So I wasn't paying attention. But I had like a
friend slash partner. He's like, hey, like we're going We're
number seven, Like oh in BAM's no across the whole site. Wow.
And people start giving me, calling me up and I
got noticed by the Feds and a whole bunch of stuff,
and then then Kickstarter that obanned me hard. As soon
as as soon as I hit funding, I set the
goal of forty thousand dollars, extremely ambitious for a board
game period, let alone a first time, and oh wait, no, no, no, no,
I said it a twenty five thousand and forty thousands
what we ended up making. So I hit funding like
in the first week or something like that, and then
they bam, they brought the hammer down and we were last.
We were last on the entire site, like after people
with no pledges, the dead last, which is just great.
Speaker 1: I mean again, it's like the very aggressive response from tech.
It's sort of moderated slightly, but it bears repeating, right,
very yeah, one hundred percent. It's like, look, just like,
send a corporate hit team and paint my brains all
over the wall. At least then it's like direct, you know,
instead of this like corporate HR approved way of making
me go away. But in all seriousness, is someone who's
you know, played board games quite often, but wouldn't really
consider myself a board gamer. What goes into the actual
process of designing a game from the ground.
Speaker 2: Oh, good question, nobody's actually I never asked me that.
Lots of revisions, I guess you start with that's a
good question. I was not ready to answer that question.
It's finding the game in real life, if that makes sense,
and identifying games that are interesting right, games with them
that are layers that appear to be self contradictory, if
that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Hmmm, so do you start Do you start with sort
of like an initial I guess even say loop or
like an initial like concept and iterate from there or
are you looking for a more complicated idea? Again saying
this is someone who's never designed a board game, I
started out with, Okay, how do we simulate this? So
it went through, Uh, well, I'll do virtual single because
I think that went through the most revisions.
Speaker 2: We're going to you. It's a contest to develop like
your liberal virtue. It's a race. Okay, we'll start it
out as a race. So I thought, okay, we can
start out like Millbourns are familiar with. It's an auto
racing game where you just like put down miles. You
count up miles right, and and then other people can
put hazards on. You can inhibit you by putting it
on a hazard. You clear the hazard, and then you
keep putting down miles. It's extremely simple game, not terribly fun,
very very luck based. So I had that for a while.
It was just like a liberal count count count count
count count counter of liberal points like this could be better,
So instead of one counter, we're gonna make four counters.
We're gonna divide it up into suits, red, yellow, green,
and blue, and they will represent One will be feminism,
one will be LGBT stuff, another one will be uh economics,
and then there will be politics. So politics is blue
virtue within the Democratic Party. Economics has read how Marxist
start you and no like LGPD stuff and then the
feminist stuff and okay, rather than in generic points, maybe
these points can represent something within that thing. So now
instead of having like generic numbers, all the cards are
going to be unique. It set a very high bar.
All the cards are going to be unique, and they're
going to be all individually illustrated. Okay, So all right,
so I am an influencer now and I am my
points are people? Okay, and then and they're just going
to go in a stack and go okay, maybe there's
something better than going in a stack. Maybe I could
do it like like Dominos or people accuse me of
like ripping off Illuminati. I didn't. Actually, it really did
start out as a Millbourne's game. What if like they
I put my card down on the table and then
like these different people like all the all the all
the all the points used to be points. Now they
represent people. There are your followers, and they influence other people. Right,
So supposing I'm the communist influencer right with, there are
a couple of them, uh, I forget his name, but
and I have like mostly like red valances on my cards.
Like I'll attract all the communist guys, but those guys
may have friends who are may have a Democrat sympathies,
and they may have friends who are Democrats. So I can,
I can, I can get those guys, and then I
can start adding. Right, so you add, you start with
like a red card, and then you add some red
followers which have some blue valances on the end. They
can touch blue cards to those and uh and and
branch off from there. So now it becomes strategic instead
of just being a running count. And then the hazards
which used to be against the uh the character personally. Again,
this is just like Millboy's where you have a flat
tire and then the remedy is to get a spare tire.
So in the in virtue signal, you will have the microaggression. Right,
this is the this is the competition part. You you
accuse somebody a micro of a microaggression, you slap the
microaggression card on them or on their on one of
their followers, and this hinders your your liberal virtue. And
the only way to get out of that is to
with a virtue signal. Right, some uh some some expression
of liberal piety that makes no sense and doesn't actually
help any everything anybody, but makes you look like a
really good person. Okay, And now, but and now these
are alignment coded, So if you're accused of like being
bad at Marxism, you have to do something like extremely
Marxist to remove that thing. And now you can now
you can grow in that direction again. And and that's
how it worked out. And then maybe there's one more thing,
so the shifting narrative. You gotta be able to uh
simulate the shifting narrative too. So now there are add
the plot cards, right, which which get played in the middle,
and they alter the game state for everybody. So sometimes
the competition is mostly cooperative, like like there's some game
states where where there is not very hostile you accuse people,
it doesn't really damage you very much. Then there's a
but then there's the game state called race to the bottom.
Which is like a nuclear cloud with the angry face.
And during race to the bottom, people get extremely vicious.
And when they play the microaggressions against you to actually
damage you, is you actually lose followers. So things like that,
and uh, and there are male characters and female characters,
and like certain game states only the boys can play,
certain game states only the girls can play, and boys
have to sit and listen, right like that, So that
that that was the final state of the game pretty much.
Speaker 1: It's sort of an interesting thing. Uh, you know, the
the psychology that goes along with with games. You know,
I can think of I haven't played video games in
a very long time at least seriously. But you know,
one of the last games I played a lot on
the couch, right, couch co op or guess couch multiplayer
was actually, uh worms. You know, it's sort of like
Tank Commander right heavily of all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a ton of fun.
Speaker 1: And the whole reason the game was fun it's not
the actual game, but it's it's the metagame of psychology,
right of, like the wheeling and dealing of like well wait, wait,
I've only got one worm left. Don't kick me off
because I'll screw you next round, Like, how about we
go together against the guy who's in first place? You
know that sort of stuff that was entirely exogenous, right,
it's not really built.
Speaker 2: Into you know, the game itself.
Speaker 1: But that's what I think is interesting about those systems
is you're, basically, for a fun end, sort of manipulating
your players into acting differently.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, and should I do the uh okay? And
then the one that after that. The sequel to uh
Virtus sim of the game was Virtual Signal Deplorables, which
is also my my shelf. I'm looking at it right now.
People kept asking me, He's like, hey, what can we
make where you make fun of the right left wingers?
Why don't you make fun of the right wingers? Like
that might be interesting, That might be interesting, but I'm
not gonna. They wanted me to just like trash them, right, which,
so I thought, how can I do this in like
an interesting way? So I basically made like an entire
separate mini game of being a groper. Yeah, they're all frogs,
they're all frogs. This was this was four or five
years ago. They're all frogs and there's one groper player,
Like it has to be proportionate. Right, you have to
have you know, two lib tards to every groper, otherwise
doesn't work. And his job is to just he's going
to infiltrate. So you have like these chains running off
your character card, right, that represents your points. He's gonna
infustrate those chains, right, and he's got he's got alignments too,
and he's gonna he's gonna go in there and infiltrate.
And by that, he's going to build up the toxicity
level in your chain, right, and when it hits a
certain level, he can do some epic trologe that that
earns him points. Every every one of his people that
you kill of your people that he kills or kills
you know, quote unquote, Uh, he triggers becomes a trophy
for him, right, and he's so he wins by acquiring
trophies from by trolling people. Yeah, that's an interesting thing. Uh,
And I'm curious.
Speaker 1: I just don't know anything about this this model. Right,
So when you're when you're kickstarting something, right, obviously you
know you need money to live. You can illustrate, you
can do it yourself, but like, what are the economics
of this, right, Like do you how much do you
have to and genuinely I'm not trying to get you
to divulge that, but like, how much does it cost
to make a video to make a board game?
Speaker 2: A lot? Well, uh, the the setup and the uh
the cost and printing is mostly the labor, right, The
paper and the ink cost virtually nothing, so you'll get
you'll get priced for the labor. So if so, the
depending on the the the price will scale radically depending
on like how manuch of their there if there is right,
so if you make one that the unit price is
gonna be astronomical, Like if you make a sample. If
I make a sample, like one board game will cost
me three hundred dollars, okay, But if the wider the
the the larger the print run, the the the it
goes down a lot. So if you make five hundred
or if you make if I make, say two hundred
and fifty, the unit price will be about fifteen dollars
if I make If I make five hundred, it goes
down to like ten. And if I make thousands, like
in the case of my first run of Virtue Signal,
then I think the enterprise is two dollars and then
sold it for sold it for twenty eight twenty eight
dollars and says it's just me. I'm doing all the
writing and the illustrating. Then all of that is profit
except for well, except for thirty percent which I give
to which I gave back. When I had promoters, I
would give that to them. Is I promoted with people,
they all got canceled except fair fair. I mean, that's
sort of an interesting, interesting thing of itself, right, is
sort of the death of the middleman in certain forms
of media, you know, like you've seen the several times.
And I say this as a as a podcaster and
technically is a YouTuber. My stuff ends up on YouTube,
even if I don't spend a lot of time there.
The business model, maybe sort of fifteen years ago, right,
is you wanted to get on on a network.
Speaker 1: Network works a lot like a record label. They would
do a bunch of stuff for you. But what's interesting is, sorry,
what's that.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, a few winners, a whole lot
of losers in that model exactly.
Speaker 1: And people got burnt, they wasted their lives, they they
got screwed. And we sort of saw several versions of this,
like the the guys who've been around for long enough
on the site will remember. You know, Machinima was a
big one early on. They were intamous for that, and
you know there were there were dozens of others, right, Uh,
you know the guys who made Red versus Blue turned
into that before it exploded. Oh and what's interesting is
it seems as if that that model is sort of
going away. Obviously, if you're famous enough, you need a manager,
right just to tell people now, William, I think neither
you or I is in danger of.
Speaker 2: Ending up in that position anytime soon. Not soon.
Speaker 1: It'd be nice if we were, but you know so.
But point is, you can sort of get all of
the both the benefits and the consequences of getting rid
of like a middleman.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: Like, on one hand, kind of sucks because everything is
your problem, like you have to do everything, but also
you get to do everything. I know, it's sort of
a blessing and it curse there true true.
Speaker 2: Uh. My problem is that as an artist, my solution
to more most problems in dramare which really isn't the
solution to most problems. Uh. You kind of want a
second guy just to have like a guy who doesn't
think like you you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, that's very true. Hey, maybe this is a
dangerous question to ask, but William, are you worried at
all about like generative AI's regard your work.
Speaker 2: My work? Oh dude, I just I just posted this
thing that that thing that the Elon's Musk, the cartoon
that was terrifyingly good. Man. I had a mini freak
out about that two weeks two days ago.
Speaker 1: I mean, the will Stancil stuff, Like, I didn't think
it's the funniest thing in the world, but but it's psch.
It's within spitting distance of like lower end cartoon network shows.
Speaker 2: It's good. And I did kind of a deep dive
on it on I guess Wednesday to figure out if, like,
maybe I could use AI to like, you know, on
my own stuff. Turns out not really. So I fed
a whole bunch of artwork into Grock, a whole bunch
of my organs. Okay, make it like this, make it
like this, and it couldn't do it right. And I
kept asking you questions and probing, And it turns out
what happens is when you upload artwork to grock or
an AI, it will analyze the image, it will describe
the image and words or I guess on their side
as data, and then it will go out on the
internet and find other things that it thinks meets that criteria. Right,
So it's not actually basing it on my stuff or
your stuff. So if you have a unique illustration style,
h A, I can't hurt you and it can't help
you if you have it an illustration style that is
very uh. I don't want to say generic, but generic,
I'll say it, okay, generic like if you want to
do studio ghibli or like an adult swim style, like
which what will stancel is that art style is a
very uh, you know, adult swim cartoon kind of a thing.
Then yeah, it can find lots of references and can
cobble together something on that so well.
Speaker 1: And also I feel like from the outside looking in,
it's even in like even in like ship posting, which
is the most I've used it for. It's like, okay
for a certain type of high effort ship posting. It's
kind of taken in away. But like AI memes are
not as interesting or as popular as like the old.
Speaker 2: Fashioned type, No they're not.
Speaker 1: They're obviously trash you know, and may change, but like
to me, it's like, yeah, sure, it will get rid
of a lot of the like joyless grunt work, like
in the same way that like low level graphic designers
have been hit hard by AI because like a handyman,
business just wants something that looks okay. They don't care
about something looking you know, perfect. But for someone who
has a specialty product like you, it's sort of a
different It doesn't I don't see it feeling that niche
at least as if yees it probably can't.
Speaker 2: I really tried hard to get it, to get it
to match my style. Cannot do it. They can't do it. Uh.
But yeah, but it's interesting you mentioned that because it's uh,
it's true. Millennials have a very interesting aesthetic. It's very
interesting to me, and I think about it a lot,
and it's it's kind of amazing to me that nobody's
really analyzing that.
Speaker 1: You bring up the memes like go ahead, no, no,
I think that that's actually an interesting point. I've just
spent the it had extended weekend in Portland, and Portland
is sort of like a rent fare for millennials, you know,
it is it is twenty ten forever there.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of there, and I would say it's nineteen
ninety seven forever there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, fair enough you could say that the h
I mean that is the line from Portlandia, right, the
dream of the nineties is alive in Portland.
Speaker 2: Yes, indeed I graduated in Portland.
Speaker 1: Date Oh wow, yeah, don't go back is my one
piece of advice. Okay, no, in all series of Portland's
actually a very nice style. It's just fun to make
fun of. My point is that I think that esthetic
vision you're talking about is very identifiable.
Speaker 2: It's not just that. It's not just that you mentioned
that millennials do not like the polish right, because AI,
if you're if you're an AI engineer, your goal is
to make things look polished and cinematic. And I think
I think millennials are very mistrustful of that, of anything
that looks like that, and they will intentionally destroy it. Right,
make the editing choppy, throw on some uh some some
some deep fried like like VCR lines or or or
grain to it right, distort the music right, distort, distort
and slow down the visuals. And this makes it, uh,
this makes it palatable for millennials just kind of wreck it,
if that makes sense, wreck that polish, Yeah, well, one
hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And that is like the esthetics of authenticity, Like I think,
really this is explosion of podcasting, and obviously there exists
at the very top of it it kind of like
ultra polished like New York Times podcasting with you know,
a million producers. I question how genuinely popular that is
if it weren't boosted. But like even look at you
know podcast in the top ten, like yeah, sure Rogan
has a producer, but the form of it is very
you know, low fi. Right, it's two guys sitting around
just talking and there's yeah exactly, there's a level of
authenticity to that that you can't get with kind of AI.
Speaker 2: Polish, right, yeah, true. And uh well, and also like
the memes that uh that that are most popular that
everybody uses, right, like uh just going back to like
like the like we had very polished, like a very
professionally drawn memes back in the back in the two thousands,
but people people prefer the ones that look like they're
made an MS paint with a mouse.
Speaker 1: Look as someone who has created multiple famous wojacks, which
is the dumbest thing I ever say, should be compared.
I drew the Uh, there's a David French wojack that
I drew. Uh, there's a Dreer one. There's multiple ones
that have sort of staped containment. Uh, literally all of those.
I drew with one line weight on my laptop touchpad
in Microsoft Bait. And I believe a hear that way
it does.
Speaker 2: It looks funny, it looks more authentic. It looks like
it's made by a person. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to make fun of some guy with a you know,
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year job, and
you know, somehow it makes me feel better that I
can make.
Speaker 2: Fun of him on Twitter. But uh, can I brag
for a minute my memes. Of course, you're not gonna
believe that. You're gonna laugh at me, roof Koreans. I
invented that fair enough. I believe it.
Speaker 1: I've actually had that moment with with Bog Beef the
Good Old Boys, a veteran poster where I quoted a
meme he made to him, you know, because it's just
one of those great like you know, throwaways, right, and
they sort of enter the common lexicon. Yeah, I'm not
surprised by it, William. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to step
out a little earlier than normal. I have real world
obbligations and it has really been an interesting conversation. I'll
make sure to leave the links to your Kickstarter I.
Speaker 2: Mentioned roof Koreans and you get into the podcast. No,
but I'm sorry man, I do have to step out early.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately. Where else can people find you? Obviously, other than on.
Speaker 2: X I just look for well, it's dale about William
my name on x now because I lost so many accounts.
This is my ninth account insol riot dot com and
also on the the Antelope Hill website in the board
game section. That's all me. Well, sure thing. I will
make sure to link to that again. William.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I had to to let you go early. Unfortunately,
I have a real life. As gay as that sounds.
Speaker 2: But it was great talking to again, and be sure
to check out his work all right.
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