The Experience Points Podcast Jorge Albor, Scott Juster, Experience Points

The only thing hotter than this summer's weather is this collection of spicy takes.  This week, we use Polygon's collection of provocative opinions as a jumping off point to revisit some of the fundamental arguments that started us down this wacky path.  Will we ever figure out what art is and do video games qualify?  Maybe the real art is the fun we've had arguing along the way.

Just in time for the Steam Summer Sale, Valve has dropped three lists of the most popular games played on the Steam Deck. These lists are updated in real time and reflect some trends in the industry. This week on the show, we run down the lists and share some of our favorite games on the Steam Deck - including a remaster of a classic: Riven.

It's Elden Ring and The Shadow of the Erdtree time and with it comes the predictable discussion about difficulty in games.  I guess it makes sense that a game about making looping runs through a punishing world gets people fired up, but I still think it's hilarious that people seem to be surprised at how hard these games continue to be.  And thanks to a new interview with Hidetaka Miyazaki, we can be certain that this difficulty is not only intentional, but also pursued out of respect to players.  This week, we dissect some of his comments and consider the long-term legacy of his design sensibilities.

The definitely NOT E3 window of events is over with one more big set of announcements. This week on the podcast, we discuss some exciting games coming to the Nintendo Switch - THIS YEAR!
Show Notes:
- Music by Brad Sucks

Now that the great collapse of the E3 ecosystem is well and truly complete, we're beginning to see saplings spring from the ashes.  And it's not just a few; Summer Game Fest and the numerous other publisher-specific, indie, PC, and various thematic conferences have quickly formed a forest and are spreading the video game news over the wind like a dense cloud of pollen.  This week we take our antihistamines and dive into some of the many game announcements we've seen over the past couple weeks.

This week on the EXP Podcast, in between Sony's announcements and Xbox's big news, we discuss the state of big budget first-party exclusives and what the future of publishing massively expensive games might look like.
Show notes:
"You can’t make AAA games for just one platform anymore" by Oli Welsh via Polygon Music by Brad Sucks