Conversations between friends about gaming, its culture, and an outsider’s perspective on the industry. Hosted by Chris (@zivilyn) and Aaron (@BCGAaron).
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Episode 76 - Business Casual Game Gripes
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It’s a new year, sure to be full of great new games. However, we have some gripes about the games we play and the industry at large that we hope every game publisher out there is setting a New Year’s resolution to fix. In this episode, we discuss some of our biggest recent gripes with the industry and offer our suggestions on how to fix them. Intro…
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Episode 75 - A Eulogy to Blizzard: The GOAT of Gaming
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What do Blizzard Entertainment and Ozzie from Chrono Trigger have in common: They’re both in a pickle. If you’ve gone to any website over the past month, it is hard to miss the news of all the hot water that Blizzard Entertainment finds themselves in. In this episode, we ask ourselves a question that may prove to be one of the most important in gam…
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Episode 74 - BCG Hall of Fame Showdown
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In a few past episodes, we’ve taken a deep dive into games we believe to be Hall-of-Fame levels of quality, talking about what makes them so special. Over the past few weeks, Aaron and I both came to each other with a game that we thought was worthy of the Hall of Fame. The only problem: We weren’t talking about the same game. So in this episode, w…
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After a recent announcement and subsequent change of heart by Sony regarding their online store, gamers across the community were forced to revisit an important question about our community. Are we merely buying a game to entertain us for a time or are we preservers of a hobby’s legacy? Are game developers shipping products to pay the bills or are …
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Episode 72 - Cyber-Punk’d: When Good Games Go Bad
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Back in Episode 40, I listed Witcher 3 as number 9 on my best video games of all time list. Naturally, I was excited when the developer, CD Projekt Red, was set to release their follow up game, Cyberpunk 2077. 18 frames per second lots of awkward glitches later, the developer and retailers are issuing mass refunds for the most hotly anticipated gam…
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Episode 71 - The Next Generation is Here
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Microsoft and Sony have finally graced us with the announcements we’ve all been anxiously awaiting. During the 2nd week of November, the Business Casual Gamers are looking forward to entering the next generation of video gaming. In this episode, we talk about our reaction to all the news of the past week, our buying plans and what we’re most excite…
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Episode 70 - Sony’s Next Generation
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From the days of Ridge Racer and Crash Bandicoot all the way through Last of Us 2 and Ghost of Tsushima, the Business Casual Gamers have been there through every step of Sony’s journey in the video game world. Within the next few months, Sony is going to enter its 5th generation of the Playstation. In this episode, we discuss our expectations for t…
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Episode 69 - Gaming During a Pandemic
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Over the course of our gaming lives, we've seen it all. Multiple generations worth of console wars, 3D graphics in video games, virtual reality and even Blockbuster video. Just when we thought we'd seen it all, a global pandemic breaks out, forces us to stay at home for months, and had a profound effect on every aspect of life. In this episode, we …
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Bởi Chris Smoak and Aaron Konnick
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Episode 67 - State of Gaming 2020
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Bởi Chris Smoak and Aaron Konnick
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Episode 66 - Comfort Gaming: Gaming for Relaxation
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All of us play games for different reasons. Sometimes we want to socialize with a group of friends over an epic raid or multiplayer deathmatch. Other times we want to master our favorite fighting game character, chase that Platinum trophy, or experience a great story. But sometimes, you just want to relax while playing a great game. In this episode…
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Episode 65 - Selling the Collection
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As a video game collector, you spend time pouring over Ebay listings, visiting used game stores, pre-ordering the special edition of a long-awaited game. You stare at your game collection and feel like you’ve assembled a masterpiece. But sometimes, like jumping in a freshly-raked pile of fall leaves, you just have to get rid of stuff. In this episo…
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Episode 64 - The 3 Pillars of the Modern JRPG
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The JRPG, while still popular, is a niche genre these days. Many of the best pieces of the format have been adopted in mainstream gaming as everything seems to have “RPG Elements” that made the genre stand out in the early days. While new games are still coming out, the genre is being kept alive by 3 defining franchises that represent most of the s…
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Episode 63 - Games as a Service
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It seems like every company is trying to convert their offerings into some form of subscription or service. While we’ve had PSN and Xbox Live for years, games as a service has clearly become the new hotness. Between Google, Microsoft, and id Software, we’re seeing a dramatic push for technologies that now make this a reality. In this episode, we di…
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Episode 62 - The End of Physical Media
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Since the beginning of video games, the physical object has been a core part of the experience. The game disc, the manual, the box, the strategy guide—all of these are tangible symbols of the hobby that have lasted for decades. We now find ourselves in a place where the manuals have disappeared, the online platforms have expanded and the consoles a…
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Episode 61 - Listener Request: BCG Thoughts on Your Recommended Indie Games
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When our community recommends games for us to play, we listen. Over the past several months, we’ve assembled an enviable collection of indie game recommendations and taken the time to put them through their paces so we could discuss the games you wanted us to play. On today’s show, we’ll discuss 4 games on your list in the hopes that we can help th…
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Episode 60 - Video Game Purgatory: The Never-Ending Development Cycle
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Red Dead Redemption was recently released after an 8 year development cycle. While that sounds like an eternity, and it is, it is hardly alone in the world of video game development. It seems that there is no end to the scope creep of games, but are we about to hit a wall where developer ambitions and player demand goes head-to-head with practical …
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Episode 59 - Akihabara: The Mecca of Gaming
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When we hear the term “video games”, we tend to think of a particular game or favorite console or a certain fond memory. However, after a recent trip to Tokyo, the first word association I’ll have going forward is not a thing, but a place. That place is Akihabara - the international destination for all gamers. In this episode, we talk about making …
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Episode 58 - Reimagining the Classics
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For the entirety of the past console generation, remakes and remasters have been the hottest trend in gaming. You can nearly be assured that if a game sold well or is being talked about by enough fans, there is likely a plan to rerelease the game for modern consoles to sell additional copies with almost no downside risk to the publisher. Games like…
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Episode 57 - Aren’t You A Little Old For This Gaming Thing?
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Whether the question was asked by a parent, a spouse, a coworker, or a friend, anyone in the BCG community has likely fielded the question “Aren’t you a little old for this gaming thing?” sometime in their adult life. If you are listening to this podcast, chances are you made the decision to face this question head-on, connect with your “why”, and …
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Episode 56 - GameStop: The Elephant in the Game Room
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Love it or hate it, GameStop is one of the biggest players in the video game universe. After years of retail consolidation into a few major players, GameStop is the largest game retailer in the world. Prior to the advent of digital games, GameStop was one of the few companies that could dictate price, availability, and even what games were made bas…
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Episode 55 - EA: The Decline into Mediocrity
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Over the years, Electronic Arts—the 2nd largest video game publisher in the world—has gone from respected incubator of many must-have franchises to one of the most reviled entities in the industry. Somehow, the company has found itself in a downward spiral while its competitors take full advantage. In this episode, we dig deeper into EA’s impact on…
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Episode 54 - SNES Classic Edition: The Perfect 20+1?
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We’ve talked on this show about how the Super Nintendo was the greatest console of all time. In late 2017, Nintendo released the SNES Classic Edition, a small form-factor SNES with a prepackaged set of 20+1 games with high-quality HDMI output. While supplies have been short up until now, many listeners will undoubtedly be looking to find one in 201…
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Episode 53 - ‘Merica - Land of the Neglected Customers
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In Episode 48, we discussed the once mighty Japanese gaming market and its continued, gradual decline. It is not an overstatement to say the United States of America has single-handedly kept the traditional console-based gaming model alive, without which we’d all be playing Candy Crush and other assorted mobile games. You would think that all major…
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Episode 52 - Two Years of Business Casual Gamers
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While it is hard to believe, Episode 52 marks the 2 year anniversary of the Business Casual Gamers podcast. It has been an awesome ride and we wanted to spend an episode reflecting on the past 2 years, talking about some of the highlights, giving some insights on making the show, and talking about what it has meant to us.…
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Episode 51 - Game Difficulty Round 2: The Rise of Adaptable Difficulty
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In our 2nd episode, we had a discussion about difficulty in video games. Since then, some of the biggest game developers are changing their philosophy of how address this fundamental topic to games of every genre. Despite selectable difficulty not being a new concept, today’s games are experimenting with adaptable difficulty, scaling it in real-tim…
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Episode 50 - The Death of the AAA Model?
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It was recently announced that Visceral Games is being shuttered by EA. This is a developer that made 90+ Metacritic rated games throughout the Dead Space franchise history, selling nearly 5 million copies to date by estimates. There was a time in gaming history when 1 million copies of any game would have spawned an endless stream of sequels and s…
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Episode 49 - Lifestyles of the Business Casual Gamer: The Traveling Gamer
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Growing up, most of us did our gaming in front of our home television or computer screen. The exception to this rule was when we went to a friend’s house or had to make that trip to a relative’s house and wanted a game to pass the time. I can remember Chris and I both playing linked games of Tetris on Game Boy on a car trip to the beach. As we’ve m…
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Episode 48 - Japanese Gaming Culture in Decline
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While Japanese video game companies didn’t invent the category, they have certainly been the most influential throughout the life of the industry. Neither of us would be sitting here doing this podcast today if not for the likes of Nintendo, Sony, Sega, and many others. In spite of the emergence of Microsoft as a platform holder, Sony and Nintendo …
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Episode 47 - The Allure of Collector’s Editions
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Throughout the history of the Business Casual Gamers podcast, you’ve listened to and watched our multiple purchases of Collector’s Editions, video game paraphernalia, and countless other physical objects that have nothing to do with playing the actual video game on offer. The obvious question becomes, why do we keep hanging onto all of these physic…
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Episode 46 - Does a Story Dictate a Game’s Genre?
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We’ve all grown to know our favorite franchises as representative samples of their respective genres. In fact, after a bit of time with these games, it becomes challenging to separate the genre from the game itself. This brings us to an interesting question: are game developers pigeonholed into a specific genre depending on the story they want to t…
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Episode 45 - The Resurgence of Quality in Licensed Games
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For years, licensed games were often met with eye rolls and broken dreams. The general consensus in the gaming community was that licensed games are universally awful. As the years have gone on, we’ve noticed a gradual trend towards quality to the point where we have to ask: Are licensed games generally good now? Despite all the groupthink and nays…
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Episode 44 - Preserving Gaming’s Past
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At the beginning of our gaming life, our entire focus was on what’s next. Little thought was given to the games of yesterday, as graphics and processing power forged ahead by leaps and bounds. With several console generations behind us, we’ve reached a point as a gaming community where we need to ask ourselves how we want to preserve classic games.…
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Episode 43 - The Greatest Generation: The Super Nintendo Era
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For those of us in the hobby in the early 90’s, we experienced a gaming nirvana that we talk about to this day: The Super Nintendo. During this generation, Nintendo and 3rd parties created a string of hits so big that they became the template by which all other games in the genre are measured. Nearly 25 years later, many modern releases, despite th…
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Episode 42 - Do You Even Game, Brah? The BCG vs. Hard Games
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There was a time in our gamer lives that we could devote an entire summer vacation to mastering a challenging game. If we wanted to climb the mountain, it was usually only a matter of time before we reached the peak. Nowadays, the Business Casual Gamer has everything but time, and achieving mastery over notoriously hard games is sometimes impossibl…
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Episode 41 - The Thrill of the Chase: Collecting Rare Video Game Items
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We’ve all had that one rare video game item we wanted to own. The unicorn. But how do you take the step from dreaming about owning a rare item to actually finding it and buying it? In this episode, Aaron and Chris talk about some of our experiences buying rare video game items and offer some wisdom on how to effectively locate and buy them. In the …
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Episode 40 - Favorite Games 11-20 (The Almost Top 10)
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In the very first episode of the Business Casual Gamers podcast, we walked you through each of our top 10 video games of all time lists. We’ve received a lot of feedback and requests to keep going and continue the list. After a lot of discussion and careful consideration, we’re going to take you through a journey of our top 20 games of all time. We…
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Episode 39 - Is Finishing Games Required?
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There was a time in gaming where the rolling credits, a bit of wrap-up story text, and a “The End” screen was the ultimate accomplishment in gaming. Chris and Aaron both prided themselves on “finishing” the games they bought and in some cases delving further to find every easter egg imaginable. Nowadays, we’re much more likely to see an Uninstall s…
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Episode 38 - Dealing with Disappointment in Gaming
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When you play games as long as we have, you’ve no doubt dealt with some disappointment along the way. Disappointment comes in many forms, but learning to deal with that disappointment is key if you want to enjoy the hobby over the long term and avoid being “that person” on the internetz giving games zeroes and boycotting the developer. In this epis…
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Episode 37 - The Role of DLC in Gaming
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When we started gaming, the game on the cartridge that you bought was the finished product. If you wanted more, you crossed your fingers that the game got a sequel. Fast forward to the current generation, it seems that a popular game is never truly finished - always another map pack, new character, or side story to purchase and explore. The era of …
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Episode 36 - The Outsourcing of Game Development
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When we got into the hobby, credit screens in video games were often short enough to memorize. It’s a big part of the reason we all know about the Miyamotos and Sakaguchis of the world alongside the entire Mortal Kombat development team (Noob Saibot!). Nowadays, credit screens often exceed the actually length of the game ending and are so bloated t…
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Episode 35 - How We Choose the Games We Play and Collect
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By now you’re probably well aware of our “Business Casual Gamers” mindset, focusing on maximizing the entertaining gaming time while trying to keep our professional and family lives in order. In many ways, managing that balance can be rather tricky, especially with the wide range of good (and bad) games available in the market. So we thought it’d b…
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Episode 34 - Chrono Trigger vs. I Am Setsuna: Setsuna’s in a Pickle
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If you’ve been following us on Twitter (@biscasualgamers), you’ll know that Aaron and Chris have been going back and forth on the value of I Am Setsuna over a game from which it was clearly inspired, Chrono Trigger. This gave us an idea for a different type of BCG episode where the gamers compare and contrast two similar games, drawing out the best…
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Episode 33 - Business Casual Gamers and the Bro Shooter
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For many of us Business Casual Gamers, the traditional, online first-person shooter—lovingly referred to as the “bro shooter”— isn’t really our cup of tea. What once used to be rewarding and fun has now devolved into pure frustration. There is, however, an upside to this harrowing tale: there are still many great first-person, single player experie…
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Episode 32 - BCG Hall of Fame: Final Fantasy 6
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Final Fantasy 6 is undoubtedly one of the best games in history, and arguably the best on the SNES. The game itself has been discussed in many forums throughout the years, but we think there’s even more to this exceptional game that’s gone continually overlooked. In the second installment of the BCG Hall of Fame, Aaron and Chris focus on the often …
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Open world is all the rage right now. It’s hard to go a month without a large franchise releasing a new game with a self-described “vast and open” world. But what does that really mean? How has this genre been defined, and where is it going? What makes these kinds of games fun? In this episode, Chris and Aaron discuss the concept of open world game…
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Episode 30 - How We Acquire Games
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How did you pick up your last game? Did you buy physical media, or did you grab it online? Used or new? The modern state games acquisition is truly diverse and uplifting; however, it haven’t always been a lot of options. In this episode, Aaron and Chris cover the multiple ways we acquire games: in the past, present, and what is expected for the fut…
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Episode 29 - BCG Hall of Fame: Diablo III
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Diablo III was, and continues to be, one of the most popular games in history. Despite some hiccups early in its lifetime, Blizzard has managed to continually refine the game to truly exhibit some of the most redeeming and exceptional qualities a gamer could desire. In our first entry in the BCG Hall of Fame series covering the best gaming has to o…
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Episode 28 - The Demise of Local Multiplayer?
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When you hear that a game has multiplayer, what do you think? Online matchmaking, or local multiplayer? For those that grew up before Xbox Live and PSN, you may think of sitting on a couch playing a good co-op beat-em-up. Those types of games seem to be fewer and farther between in modern games. Why is that? Are we slowly witnessing what will ultim…
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Episode 27 - The State of Gaming: PC
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You’ve heard our previous State of Gaming podcasts covering Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Sega. You couldn’t help be feel like something was missing, right? We did too. We knew it all along, but the PC has been such an integral part of gaming over the last four decades. The result of many different players and stakeholders, the PC has brought us s…
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