Hangin' With @BoardGameHangover | BGSS ep_017

0:00 But, I was a kid. I mean, nobody took me seriously. Mhm. Nobody still does, I think. Yeah. Uh nothing's changed.

0:06 When I think of Latvia, I don't think of anything, to be honest. I have no idea what Latvia is is like. So, what's the board game scene like? Do you still slide boxes? In my free time, for sure. But, no, no.

0:21 Wait. To be honest, sometimes when I filmed the like the b-rolls, if you watch really carefully, sometimes you can see like my little kids like arm placing a card. Really?

0:32 This This not official, but there are There is child labor in our channel. It has been. I Really? We nailed that one. That's interesting. Well, it's I have no idea.

0:42 It's like Milton? Is his name Milton Bradley? I have no idea. You You guessed Cleopatra last time. See, I haven't changed one bit. I have both the Anuses here. I'm so excited. Hey, let's go.

1:03 First off, thank you for being here. I Why did you say yes? It was really nice offer. Yeah. Yeah, not sure. No. Yeah, to be honest, one of those things where you had really nice schedule already already made. So, it was just a click of a button. So, it it was easy. No hassle with like scheduling and everything. So, Beautiful. Oh, that's what I was hoping for because there's been some pretty cool people that have said yes, and I just don't Maybe it's just a schedule. I don't know. It definitely helps. It definitely helps. I'm not lying. It does, yeah. We might start in a pretty like appropriate place for Board Game Hangover, which is with a dad joke. Are you ready? Oh, here we go. Let's go. Let's go. All right. Why did the meeple break up with the worker placement game?

1:52 Cuz it got replaced? Wrong.

1:57 Okay. You give up?

1:59 What is it? I'm tired of being honest with you. I'm tired of being put to work and never getting any action. Okay. [snorts]

2:09 Nice. Okay, so That's worthy of the standards. Yeah, I I was I was

2:14 standards. It's very bad. All right, so let's let's let's get serious here. All the way back to the beginning. When you're babies, no. So, what was the first board game with each of you that that really kind of caught you and maybe we'll start with Yiannis G. It's G and T, right? For the for the audience, G raise your hand. Beautiful. And T, there's the other one. Okay, great. Hello. Hello. What what Yiannis T, what caught you? Uh me, Eldritch Horror. Eldritch Horror was the first like really serious board game that I got into and just uh blew my mind. How how different and epic board games can be. So, that that one. Before that I played Catan like I I think everybody else. But uh but Eldritch was was something I was hooked and never looking back. Was it the theme? Like what was the thing that that really caught you?

3:12 Uh no. First of all, cooperative games. Still I really love cooperative games. That blew my mind that you can play cooperatively. Uh and second of all, just the like actions, the epicness, moving around, getting stuff, fighting monsters, uh all of those things that you could uh you could do there. So, yeah, everything. Actually, I'm not a big Cthulhu fan. I was going to ask like you do you not Do you like the the I guess IP technically? I guess it is an IP.

3:39 Uh it technically is. Um not a huge fan to surprise to many people. I I I I have nothing against it. I like it, but it's not like it's my favorite theme. Um Is Eldritch Horror still your favorite Cthulhu game? Game, probably. What else is there? Arkham Horror, right?

3:59 Arkham Horror, uh Cthulhu: Death May Die. Those are the two that jump out to me. Yeah, well Eldritch Eldritch For me it's still Eldritch, yeah. Yeah, Unfathomable if you have like 10 hours to play, you know, stuff like that. You okay? Do you still play Catan? Catan? Yeah, I actually have. I have a 3-year-old son now and uh and we're playing a bit of that. Uh well, not the full rules. Not the full rules, but uh but it's so simple that it actually works, yeah. You're throwing him in to Catan? That's that's

4:30 Yeah, yeah, but he's the one asking, all right? So so it's not my fault. For Catan in particular? Uh that was well, yeah, yeah. Well, any game

4:40 it's unfair because of the luck like everyone in the hobby says?

4:43 No, no, he does not care. He's just happy to build stuff. Robber is actually his favorite mechanism in that game, I think. He's laughing every time he's stealing something from me.

4:53 Oh, yeah. That that's that is that is the best. People give Catan a really hard time because of of that mechanism, but I mean there's luck in everything. I think it's like this, you know, there the luck along with it just being so popular that you know, us pretentious board game critics like to critique it. Uh other Yiannis, what was it Catan for you? Oh, go no, go ahead. Sorry, the delay is killing us. Yeah, yeah, there is a small lag there. Um no, no, I I just Yeah, usually when you get a lot of board games, then you're looking forward to less luck the better, right? But actually, I think it's massively successful because there is that luck element and most people will like it, though. Even though we gamers dislike it so much.

5:40 Yeah, I played it actually probably just only a year ago for the very first time and I was like, "Hey, this isn't so bad. This isn't this isn't bad at all. I don't know what the what everyone's so up in arms about. This was actually pretty fun. I I was just judging it and not wanting to play it until a buddy of mine, you know, uh uh suggested it when we were at like a double date at the house, and I didn't I didn't want to be that guy and just kind of like, "No, let's play something different." So. Uh Yiannis G, was it Was it Catan for you? Did Did you fall in like everyone else, all the other lemmings? Well, Yiannis G will know that nothing is simple, and especially my stories are never simple with me. So, I have to break it down in three eras. So, the first encounter with like some serious board games was uh Monopoly, way back way back when. Uh when spending 12 hours a day just playing a game was okay. We didn't have internet, uh we didn't have proper cable TV, so, you know, just spending a Saturday uh playing that was perfectly fine.

6:40 Uh then, the second coming was when I was like 13 or 14, I discovered Magic the Gathering. And that was like, "Wow, this this is something else entirely." And then, yes, the third coming was Catan, where like for a half a year me and my friends would get together every Friday evening and just like play for hours. That was like, "Wow, board games are so good." And then from there, I just uh yeah, discovered BoardGameGeek, and the rest is history. The most Other than Catan, the most common uh answer to that question, I think I've done 20 of these so far, is Magic. Magic seems to be an entry point for so many different people. How deep did you get into Magic? Oh, uh well, not that deep, but I played pre-releases, I played drafts, I I went to some local tournaments. So, I did a little bit, but I was a kid. I mean, nobody took me seriously.

7:36 Mhm. Nobody still does, I think. Uh nothing's changed. Anyway,

7:41 but yeah, yeah. So, so I Yeah, so I played quite a bit. Yeah, quite a bit with my friends. I think I was the most serious of them all cuz I'm so competitive. So, I really went like as much as I can do. But, my allowance was very small. So, couldn't get too many boosters and new cards. But, other than that, played as much as I could. That is the tough part about Magic. Magic is is is a rich person's game. It's kind of like golf, I think. First time I'm hearing this comparison. I just made it up right now. Just off the top of my head. That's how quick I am. All right. The two Jānis' from Latvia, how did you all Who wants to tell the story on how you all came together? You go, mister. Go. Go ahead.

8:27 No, no, no. You brought this together. I was Yeah, you started this, actually. Here we go. It's your fault. Now, you have to deal with the consequences. It is my fault. It is my fault, definitely. Um it was a lucky coincidence, for sure. Uh and um So, the I I really wanted to make a YouTube videos, but I wasn't sure about the theme. I really like board games, so it came together. And I When COVID hit, I started to think about a

8:59 [clears throat]

8:59 I I I want to do I actually want to do it. I started talking with my friends, and one of my friends actually said, "Hey, if you're doing this thing, there is Jānis G who's actually really, really into board games and knows more than anybody on in Latvia, for sure." So, so so So, yeah, I just I had to I had to ask him uh cuz we previously were working on some tiny projects, so I knew him. I asked him. He was very polite and didn't say no. And then then then then that's how it started. So, nothing too spectacular, but lucky coincidence, for sure. You didn't like come across each other in a in a cafe or anything like that. It was just the name match just made it made it make sense. To me, that would just be like, you know, I can't do that.

9:47 Like I I don't I can't have another Jānis overshadowing me on my channel. No, for sure. That that is a problem. Uh I I I tried to I tried to make sure the Jānis change his name, but uh he's very stubborn until now.

10:02 Uh but it's it's illegal to change uh one given name, Jānis. It's illegal to change to anything else here in Latvia. So Right. that's it. Now, is Jānis a very um a common name in Latvia? Yes. Uh it's John, essentially. Are there many Johns in the US? Yeah, I think less less so now, but yeah, you know, John was definitely very very popular. Uh okay, so somebody describe me the scene

10:28 thing here, yeah. Right. Describe me the the board game scene in Latvia. When I think of Latvia, I don't think of anything, to be honest. I have no idea what Latvia is is like. So, what's the board game scene like? You should come visit. It's really fun here. Uh but Jānis is an expert in on on on the board game scene here, so so so you go ahead. Oh, uh well, first of all, we're very small. Uh for those who don't know, Latvia is a teeny tiny country with less than 2 million people uh living here. And like half of those people live in our uh capital, uh which is where we're actually located, Riga. And uh on top of that, we play everything. You can definitely name a board game, and somebody here plays that game. But that might be just one person.

11:20 That's it. Uh nobody else, just this one person has this game, and he plays it. And somehow we're very divided in these small groups. Yeah, these small groups, where uh people don't can't really find each other that easily is my impression. We do get together from time to time. There are board game camps that happen every quarter that where people come together and play and then you can meet uh different people. Uh, we don't have any cafes really which is kind of sad. That would be a good place to meet people. But generally yeah. We play everything in very small amounts. Obviously family games like Catan are the most popular ones general for general public.

12:05 And yeah, Yiannis do you have anything to add? No, not really. I think you covered almost everything. Just a really fun community small one but a lot of lot of gamers here especially if you consider the that we're a really small country. Are they is it difficult to get games in Latvia and are they always English or are there translations? It's a little bit of both. Most obviously if you're talking about like gamers games like that's what we call the gamers games here which is something beyond Settlers. Beyond Settlers of Catan. Those are going to be 99% English. And for localized versions we have like the heaviest we might have localized is Wingspan. It doesn't really go beyond that for localizations because market is very small for that and it just doesn't make any sense to do that. Uh, but we do have a lot of localized family games like Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan, Flip Seven from the recent ones.

13:12 Cascadia. So so many these level you can see the pattern here when I'm naming these games. Yeah. Uh, so those usually get localized and uh available in Latvian or Estonian or Lithuanian depending where you are. Yeah. Did you early on pretty much say that? Go ahead Yiannis T. Sorry, with which state in which state are you based? I'm in Washington state.

13:40 a community there? I'm in Washington state. There's There's probably 10 board game cafes, FLGS's in in the area. So, it's it's pretty thriving. It does nothing but rain here. So, all we can do is play board games. So, hey Yeah, I get that. Yeah, I'm originally from San Diego which is incredibly sunny, beautiful weather all the time. So, I've spent the last 15 or so years of my life in the in the rain. And that's how I came to find board games cuz I was stuck inside. Yeah, we had we heard a very similar story about London. We were visiting like board game cafes in Europe and in London there's like a lot of board game cafes and even like famous ones. And they basically well, weather is one thing but the other one the apartments in London are so small that they don't have like really a lot of space to play games and that's why board game cafes are thriving there. So, the environment always kind of impacts the gaming universe, I guess.

14:46 Yeah, most of like the the the play spaces are totally dominated by TCGs like Magic and Pokemon and mostly Magic. Like those are by far the what is probably frankly keeping those things in business. People going and buying the cards but also just playing there. So, I would like to see when I walk into these places it filled with board gamers but it's typically filled with TCG players. Yeah, those darn Magic Magic players. Gamers are gamers. Yeah, gamers are gamers. Yeah, we got we got to get them we got to get them over. Yeah, those rich folk, those rich folk playing Magic the Gathering. All right, so you started the channel in 2020, I believe. Is this correct? Yeah, a long time ago. Well, if you say so. Yeah.

15:34 Okay, let's let's rephrase that. You started the You started the board the board game channel in 2020. Was there a gap or something, you know, a lot of creators I talked to you say that they they felt like something was missing. Board Game Bullocks was like no one There wasn't a how do you a hooligan uh footballer that spoke to him. He grew up in a rough neighborhood and, you know, everyone was too, you know, happy. Well, like you guys. You guys are You guys are happy. Was there something in the in the YouTube space that was missing that you were trying to fill other than being from Latvia? Most importantly, there weren't board game Latvian board game channels. That's That's the biggest gap. Um but also we thought I don't know what we thought. We just wanted to make content about board games, to be honest. And then on top of that, we thought how to make it entertaining and fun for us.

16:27 Like we like talking, but we needed something more. So, our like first thing that we figured was the whiteboards that that Okay, we going to like flip those whiteboards and then surprise each other, so there's some interaction there. Uh so, we were looking forward looking to do something a bit different. But but it was never like how we have to fill this space in the board game industry. It was just Let's have fun and see what happens. It's funny you say whiteboard cuz that is what caught me. I used to love those videos. I don't watch as much YouTube as I did anymore, but I don't believe I've seen you do those much anymore. You're kind of in a whole 'nother space now. It seems like you're much more mobile.

17:13 You're walking around the studio, not really anchored to a desk. Is that This is a conscious kind of evolution of your content? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Uh we want to do something we wanted to do something different. And I especially I'm I am someone who just can't do the same thing five years in a row. I want some change. I want something to do something fun for myself and challenge us. So I I torture Yiannis all the time with crazy ideas and uh and that's how we kind of changed the concept. We still have our whiteboards but uh from time to time. But we definitely try to do something that makes this like the sparks in our own head go off, right? Something that for us feels different and fun.

17:59 Does it feel more interesting to make that type of stuff instead of the the same video over and over again with a new top 10 list name? What do you think, Yiannis? It's it's a

18:09 [clears throat]

18:09 it's a like double-edged sword, yeah. Those are the best videos to make. Oh, they are by far. But uh how many how many, right? How many can you keep doing of those, right?

18:23 Right. Right. So and and And uh we that's that's one thing we kind of bounce off of is like we would like to include new games in these lists and keep doing those lists, but we can't play that many new games and not all of them land on those lists. And that kind of have might have been the push in the direction that uh T mentioned that we're trying new things and crazy things and just just because of uh how many of those all time lists can you do? That is something I have a difficulty with with the top 10. Some of my my best videos of all time uh are top 10 lists and I think it's probably the same same for you. But I come up with that is I I almost feel like I'm going to talk about the same games all the time. People are going to figure this out, and it's just it's also boring uh uh because I don't you know, you can't unless you're Tom Vasel, who when I interviewed him he I believe he said he had hundreds of top 10 lists that are like waiting to be made. And I can't even imagine that uh it's it's it's just not sustainable at all. How many games are you all playing a week that are new?

19:36 Uh It depends. We have Yeah, we have the game of the month uh videos that we do each month, and there usually are five games from each of us. So, we kind of make sure that we have five games each month that are different. But also, we want to like replay the games. So, we do try to play new games, but also it's a bit tiring. Sometimes we just want to play that old game that we really love. Uh so, we we And more and more we try to push ourselves to like replay some games, like talk about those games that we really love. It's it obviously it's not going to sell as well as top 10 best cooperative games that we have like talked about a million times. But uh it's something that we just do for ourselves. And also, like the viewers that keep watching us, like returning to our videos, I think uh they are more interested in like new stuff. So, so so so yeah. And not only new stuff, but like the mix of both is the Right. I guess the best best option.

20:39 But when I think about Board Game Hangover, I think about uh I don't know I don't know if innovating is too serious of a word, but you're you are doing different types of videos all the time, and it definitely seems like there was a change, and I think it was when you Yiannis T went full-time. Are you still full-time on the channel? I think I remember that video a while back. Yeah, so we one of those things that I keep pushing at all the time is like we we we're going to experiment, all right? I know these these things are successful, but we have to experiment. And Yiannis does also a lot of times has really great ideas what what else could we try except for game videos, all right? That's Yiannis now. Mhm. But other than that, but but generally but generally we try to experiment. And yes, when when when I went like full-time, I had those extra 10% more effort I could put into like doing newer stuff, more experimental stuff.

21:44 So so so yes, experiments are great and we definitely going to continue doing that. Yiannis G, do you feel comfortable in that space where you're constantly doing something different and trying to think about um you know, a different format or a different way of filming it? Uh well, first of all, innovative is a great word. Let's use that. And you can refer to us all the time as innovative. Thank you. That'd be great. Second thing is it's obviously harder. It's much safer and simpler just to do those top 10s, right? Top 10s and reviews. It's easy. We know how to do it. The only challenge is getting maybe new games. But sometimes even that, right?

22:29 Let's just rearrange those games and call it something else and here's another top 10. Yeah. Uh so innovating and creating new stuff is tough. First of all, we don't know how well it's going to go. I mean, one thing we know we're probably going to have a lot of fun doing that. That's also one of the main things that Yiannis G says is like we first thing we got to have fun doing that. Otherwise, what's the point, right? So we're going to have fun. That that's great. But how it's going to do and if our viewers are going to like it and is it going to have become a series and we're going to do second one? We have no idea. So, we have some pretty great successes and we've had pretty great uh failures. There's a There's an outdoor outdoor video that is legendary within our little uh Board Game Hangout community.

23:20 Yiannis's uh second kid was born last summer. And so, we had to do some videos while the dad was out, right? So, we were just kids left here at home and so, we got to do something and we thought that we could do this amazing outdoor video. We're going to go outside. We're going to shoot how we play. It's going to be shot on location. It's going to do great. It failed massively. It's just I think it would have been better not doing that video. I think that would have been a better choice. And then, just on a FYI, we did another video about war games, which we thought, "Well, we got to have two videos." And that did better. It just It's insane. So, we keep still keep referring as that as the lowest point for the channel. So, Uh that's why Yiannis uh Go ahead. Go ahead. No, I was saying it's funny you say that because I I was camping and I brought all these games and did a camping, you know, board game camping video as I was camping. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was just like, "Oh, I'm so excited about it." I was like, "How does anyone not like click on this thumbnail? There's a bear bear that's about to eat me. That's got to be super interesting." And then, when they're in it, like who doesn't want to see somebody camping talking about board games? Nobody wanted to see it. Nobody at all.

24:30 It turns out board gamers don't don't go outside.

24:34 Well, I thought maybe they'd want to live vicariously through me and like, "Wow, this guy is He's well-rounded. Uh he's he's going outside. He likes to hike. He you know, another side of of David." No. No Nobody Nobody cared. But, it's actually a really good thing that you did that video cuz two things. Number one, experiments are always There's this Mario effect, right? Cuz first time you do a Mario level, you probably are going to fail. And then you learn from that. That's still something you learn from and then do better. You next time know when to jump, right? So it's a learning lesson. Every single video that doesn't do good, it's a learning lesson. First of all, and second of all, sometimes the videos that don't do well views-wise are the best for community building. For example, recently we did uh best board games that came out in the '90s. And probably it would have been a better way we would would have done better if I would like uh say that it's like top 10 board games from the '90s, right? Top 10 video. But what I decided is I want to torture Yiannis, all right?

25:39 That's going to be fun for me. So I made it a trivia. So Yiannis had to answer like these questions about and try to guess what games those are. And it's super fun. For us it was like super fun. Uh and and and then in the comment section as well, uh I just saw that a lot more people engaged with that video who really cared about the '90s and it was like a nostalgic trip for them and trivia was great. So sometimes getting less views is not that bad if it builds that community feel. And especially if you get to do something you like, you enjoy it. And then uh it builds up your own confidence and your skills making videos. So it's not bad. The other video is not bad. We have an joke for that's running for 2 years straight. It's good. [clears throat] It's good experience.

26:24 Right. Yeah, I my learning was don't do any outside board game videos. Uh that was that was the first learning that I had. But I do agree with you, right? It's not always about the you know, getting the most views. The I think I have my largest video is like 150,000. It's a top It's a top nine list that I hated that video. And all I get is people on that commenting about how wrong I am. And it's just like a pain and it just keeps getting views, keeps getting views. And it's it honestly I don't want it to keep getting views. I want it just to stop.

26:56 And so it you know, ironically you're you're totally right. Like some of the the smaller ones I've done, especially the ones where I'm like sharing personal things and a lot of people kind of come through in the comments and and it and and you create like a real conversation. I think those those are the special ones to me. Those are the ones that like make me feel like I'm accomplishing something. You know, that that top 10 video that just crushes on the algorithm doesn't necessarily make me feel accomplished. You know, as as good as it is to see the subscribers, but you know, that's not everything.

27:28 For sure you have You also have to understand that there's not a lot of people in the world playing board games. In general it's not a huge audience, right? So so so the views don't matter that much cuz well there is a limit to that. But the community that you can build actually here because this is such a niche and people can share experiences and talk about it. That's actually something I think you should work more on cuz like top two things that have like the best two things that come have come out of the board game hangover is I met Yiannis and he's one of my best friends now. I don't know if if he agrees with that, but uh but there's no he hasn't doesn't have a choice. And the second thing is like communities. We have like board game hangover meetups in Riga. We meet people at Essen and somewhere and just these conversations also just in comments uh and just people having like real conversations and we can find like friends. Uh so that's a pretty cool thing to have uh to happen, right?

28:33 Talk a little bit about

28:34 Definitely. 100%. Talk a little bit about your rise in fame. I mean I don't remember you having 70,000 subscribers back when I found you. I Has there just been this huge influx of of new people to the channel or am I misremembering it? How has what's the growth curve been like for Board Game Hangover? Fame. Yeah, that's the new word.

28:57 Relative to the you're like Mr. Beast at 70k. Like it's it's uh you know it's it's insane. Well, it the growth is steady. That's one of the things we kind of track and I don't think there has been like a huge boost. It's been steadily growing slowly growing. The biggest boost I remember is that when we started out I woke up and was checking messages and that was like 5 and 1/2 years ago. And Yiannis messaged me, "We just got 100 subscribers overnight. This is crazy." And there was some kind of a Reddit post which Yeah, yeah, which mentioned like new channels and then they mentioned us and we got like 100 subscribers and we thought, "This is huge." Yeah, so that's that's the If you ask me what's your biggest like jump on subscribers, that's that's the one 5 and 1/2 years ago.

29:52 one. Yeah. That's Yeah, that that felt like the biggest biggest uh yeah. But uh but yeah, we have like steady climb of like 2,000 subscribers a month I think at this point. Uh so we slowly slowly slowly are climbing. Uh but again, it's it's more about not the subscribers, it's more about number one community and number two is like your latest video, right? So you're on YouTube right now you're as good as your latest video. So we always try to just kind of do ourselves or have fun and and show that fun on on on screen. So yeah, I mean to be honest, 70,000 doesn't mean feel much different than 20,000. It's still fun.

30:37 Yeah. Uh Yeah. Yeah. And and and yeah, so it's so it's that. Are you getting recognized at Essen as you walk around and and people wanting pictures and such? Yeah, we've had really good interactions. I think that was one of our my one of my favorite like experiences from Essen cuz I was afraid that people are going to like like just say hi and take a picture and and and or something, but actually we had really nice conversations there and people were really nice and and and and yeah, so we get recognized and I feel like we get recognized from people who actually watch us and and like our fans and yeah, so so it's a really really good experience with that. And it wasn't like everybody recognized that so we could could hide. That's good. You could hide. I don't know now like if you go again this year you might have to wear masks or something.

31:31 No, no, no, it's not it's not that bad as well. I think also board game community and our audience like mostly are not kids or something. Everybody is very respectful and also we're not we're not even close to like Tom Vasel's fame or or anything. We're very very casual. I mean did you but did you ever expect that? I could imagine being in Latvia being one of the first board game channels to really kind of blow up. Was that expected at all or has this been a surprise like this this rise in YouTube? Um hard to answer. I think and maybe Ants can correct me. But we are the we have the most subscribers from in the board game genre who are not native speakers, right?

32:24 So so that was a surprise.

32:26 I think so. That's a that's a good statistic but yeah, I think so cuz you might not have known but English is not Latvian national language.

32:38 I mean who knows and everyone knows, I think. But yeah, that's definitely that and well, I mean, we've never thought about it, right? We we always wanted to grow this channel so it can become a sustainable thing. So we can maybe pay some bills in the future, right? That's the dream. But we never thought about that. It's It's always like It's It always feels great when someone recognizes you, right? On the street or or or an accent. And and that's great, but that's not something we're like actively look out for. So it's like great to have and everyone should always stop and say hi if they want. A lot of people apologize. They're like, "Oh, sorry to disturb you." That's not a problem. I mean, we we we feel good if our community feels good, right?

33:29 So yeah, and it's just It's just It feels great and I hope it feels great for everyone, yeah, that way. But we've never really like thought about it really, yeah. We haven't Our business plan still doesn't include like signatures that you pay for. Maybe we should include that. We just have to figure out the the rate. What's the going rate? Yeah.

33:54 It well, it's it seems like growth was intentional at least based upon the the amount of effort you put into production from the very beginning. Was that That's what always stood out to me. That's why I started watching you a few years ago was the the production value. It's something that I I just tend to value a lot in in the stuff that I watch. It's not necessity, but it was It's clear that you all were taking this seriously pretty early on. Is that a conscious decision or is that just because Yianni you came from a photography videography background? Yeah, we that really helped. I mean, when the channel started then Yiannis definitely was the board game expert. I played board games and and love them, but Yiannis was the board game knowledge. And and my my expertise was was videos, right? Uh and then that really good well meshed together and so so for me it has always been about making the best video possible.

34:58 Um so I I also find it fun. Now we have Sides on our team, so so there's some somebody to to kind of like talk with about this these video like par- parameters and whatever like stuff and experiment more and I just find it fun to be honest. We never thought like we have to be have to make 4K videos with this this amount of like special effects or something, but we just wanted to make it look as good as possible. Well, it was clearly effort. Like I remember I can't remember what the video was, but I remember seeing you sliding a box across the the table like you know, a hundred times trying to get it to land in the perfect place. And for me I use you know, especially early on I used After Effects and stuff to for moving and I was like, "Why don't they just do that?" Like you know, just just just have it slide in like this. He's sitting there sliding it over and over, but it created a really cool effect and somebody has to really care about their content and the aesthetic to sit there and do stuff like that.

36:01 That's what stood out to me. For sure. I just to be honest, I suck at special effects. That that has never been like

36:10 my thing. Yeah. So I brute force it. And still to this day I feel like for example, we when we do reviews, we have our like ranking scale from hangover to must have games, right? And we completely moved towards like physical thing where we can place our like voting markers.

36:28 I noticed that. Yeah, because yeah, because it felt like more real, we could interact with it. [clears throat] And also then there's the editing part where well, Mr. Sizz doesn't have to add any like anything on top of it. So, it's quicker. Uh and and it just somehow feels more natural for me to slide that box and make it look good, add lights and so on rather than just have PNG picture slide there. Yeah. You can definitely make the PNG picture looks super cool and awesome. I just don't know how to I'm not that good. So, so so yeah, we we went with the natural way. And also I'm a little bit insane. I enjoy the I I enjoy the sliding part and hoping it fit it hits the mark.

37:13 still slide boxes? In my free time for sure. But no, no. Wait. But no, generally

37:20 we throw boxes. We we throw boxes. We graduated to throwing boxes around. Yeah. Yeah, I I used to rely heavily on um the edits, After Effects, all kinds of like you know, icons and I would literally animate the board game on there and I thought that was going to be the thing that like everyone like No, some of like like the cheapest easiest videos I've done are the ones that do the best. So, I don't know that people necessarily need the the special effects or whatever. They I think they they you know, they know when something feels new and interesting, they know when the voices are are natural and and believable. So, I think like authenticity is probably way more important, which I think you guys have a ton of. And I have noticed the use of physical props. And in fact, you were inspiring me. I was like, do I need a whiteboard? I think I might need a whiteboard. I was just watching something that you were doing. I was like, you know what? I might I might steal that from them. I just have to make sure I tell them I'm going to steal it from them while I interview. So, this is your notice. I think I might steal the chalkboard or those whiteboard or something from you.

38:24 Nilton. So much easier than After Effects and and just more, you know, more approachable, you know? But it's also uh it's creative. It doesn't have to take you 10 hours to create something like interesting and creative, um you know, it can be as easy as just having a really good idea or also just respecting your own time. You know, you're you're still going to get the same message across and um and also not just sitting in front of the camera stagnant like like I do or or many other creators, too. Um Yeah, it depends on

38:58 is easier for It is easier for us because uh we do have another person that lives behind the camera, the one you can't see, uh and that helps to do a lot of things you wouldn't be able to do. Yeah. Or at least not easily, right? So, that's another decision we made that we do need that one person because of two big reasons. One is because Yianni can't do everything. Otherwise, before that, he was he was responsible for the camera, he was responsible for the editing, he was responsible for the quality control, which included narrowing down the amount of dad jokes that I did every video. He had to cut out a lot of those. And uh so so it just adds uh more freedom to us. Obviously, that is another uh for the channel. We do pay Yianni a salary every month and uh uh but it does let us do more than we could do before.

40:01 Yeah, I thought maybe you were employing one of the kids or something cuz I did notice that somebody sitting there actually moving with the camera to create the depth in your shots and and and as other people are coming in and out, I was like, "How is that actually happening?" You know, they must they must be employing the kids for free. You know, that's that's probably what I would try to do first. To be honest, sometimes when I filmed the like B-rolls, if you watch really carefully, sometimes you can see like my little kids like arm placing a card or something.

40:30 Really? So, so this this not official, but there are there is child labor on our channel. It has been. I'm not proud of it.

40:39 Does Lautapelit care about child labor laws or is it pretty is it okay? No, no, no, we

40:46 we care. We care. So, you tried a bunch of different series. What's the series that like gives you guys the most enjoyment to make? Not necessarily the best performing. Yiannis, you go. Uh easy. Didn't even have to think long. Shelfies would have been my number one pick. It it it kind of covers a lot of things. First of all, we look at the communities' pictures of their shelves, collections, all that. Second is we have a competition between me and Yiannis there. We are quite competitive people even though Yiannis is like, "Oh, cooperative games this, cooperative games that." He's very competitive. Uh and it's just something something else entirely. And I really love doing those, but they don't get a lot of views. And so we've taken a break for them. We might bring them back in some other way or we'll see in the future, but I think that's the one I really like doing if I had to name one. When's the last time you did one of those?

41:50 Oh. A year ago?

41:53 A year maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's time. Maybe it's time bring it back. Yiannis [clears throat] T, what's what's what's gives you life? What what's your favorite series you do? Any crafting, anything that is more creative on the like real you actually take some board games that we love and then upgrade them. I think War of the My favorite series or video that we have ever done ever done was playing to insane. Yeah, and I just upgraded Cascadia and I took War of the Ring and and and and like had fun with it. Uh it's it's

42:25 Upgraded. It's it takes stupidly long. Like to make one of those it took like months. Uh well, or was it like a month or something to make, but it was so fun and also we didn't tell each other what we're going to do and then I surprised Yiannis with like a lot of things. And then just seeing his expression it felt so real and there was a story and everything and I would love to do those more of those, but it's like so impractical. We're definitely going to do those and we I'm pushing. It's my fault I'm pushing to do more of those. Yiannis already is going to say no way. [clears throat] Uh but but it's just super fun to do something completely different. Something that nobody has done and and also makes us make like makes the board games that we have better.

43:11 And for you David, what is your favorite series or video that you have done? These are these interviews. I said camping. These interviews. These are These are by far getting to meet people like you. This is brand new to me. You know, I've only only done well, I've been at a feverish pace, but I've done about 20 of them now. I did five this week. And it is so incredible meeting people from all over the world. I spoke to Danny Garcia in Spain yesterday. I'm going to speak to Zach at IV Studios in Tennessee right after this call. Like such cool stories are coming out of this and learning more about I talked to Jay Bernardo from Bezier and his time in Taiwan and Japanese game market. Like so many cool things are coming out where I was only a solo creator for for a couple years and just in my This is a shed in my backyard that I built out and just talking to this camera. So that by far has been the best. My least favorite are top 10 videos.

44:09 I do them to get views, uh but I try not to do them as much. They can be fun. They definitely can be fun, um but they're not They're not where I feel the most creative. Um I've I did a Lost Ruins of Arnak video, and this This is a question I have for you you all. It's like, "What's the most underrated video that you did?" And I did this incredible full Lost Ruins of Arnak. Uh went through all the expansion strategy. Just kind of like, if you want to know about Lost Ruins of Arnak, it's this video. I did majority of majority of it in After Effects. Easily 50 hours of of editing on this video. And it's got a few thousand views now, but it's just nobody cared about it. Probably cuz it's just an older game. It wasn't the hotness.

44:55 And I put every I was like, "You know, I'm going to really try this. Maybe this is this is where I want to be because it actually, you know, it was it was fun to do." But there's no way in hell I'm going to edit for 50 hours again and and get like, you know, nobody watches it because that is important to me. That's it's important that that people kind of like enjoy as much as it Some people don't look at content creation as art. It's It's It's my expression at least. So, that was really frustrating. Was there a a video for you all that like was I mean, maybe it's the outside video um that just really disappointed you and that you think is underrated to this day? Let me think. Hard to hard to like pinpoint one. Uh I think for you, the the the the one is the one where we had a €100 uh limit to buy a perfect board game collection. Just the one we did recently. I don't think Well, at least you've been mentioning it couple of times that saying, "Why isn't it doing so well? Was it the thumbnail? Was it the the name?" Yeah. I think maybe that one. Which one did you have in mind?

45:56 No, uh that one is really good one uh cuz I think like we basically did like a top 10 or something that sort of video just in a completely different like format. Of us competing who's going to make the best 100 euro collection. I thought it's just a fun content but definitely not enough people like clicked on it so maybe that one but I mean plenty insane in my mind it's worth million views so please people.

46:24 I mean I the concept of the the like having a budget and buying games is is always a good one. Um you know one I saw that I liked I don't know if you've heard of Table Knots but they did a basically a almost like a shoe box and it's like creating a board game collection that all fits in that one box. I thought that was it was really creative and they might have taken it from someone else I don't I don't know but really trying to think about not necessarily also size but then depth and the different types of scenarios you might be in. I just thought it was kind of like a fun conversation. Um but yeah I always enjoy those types of videos of like the the creating collections with constraints because that's so foreign to us. You know we just keep buying them.

47:10 100 euro what? Maybe a thousand maybe you do one with a thousand go bigger like the Mr. Beast a million dollar collection. We actually have a video that did really well was we created 2000 now 1000 euro collection versus 100 euros. A while back and then we shipped away the thousand euro collection to someone in the comments. Uh and that did pretty well. It was also a fun one so so so that definitely worked so thousand euro collection worked better. Yeah yeah you went too cheap 100 not that's what that's like one board game now. Right? Yeah not even that. Short video? No we just talked about two board games for 20 minutes it's fine. Yeah that would actually be kind of funny just as a gag like on an April Fool's Day to to do a collection video like that and just have one video. It's like 30 second one one game 30 seconds long.

48:06 Troll everyone. Get them all mad. I bet your I bet that your percentage watch time would be really high on that one. You know, it might get pushed might get pushed up a little more. What which one surprised you the most where you just thought there's no way that this was going to do good and it crushed. Like I I said that 150,000 view one. I was editing it thinking this is a piece of crap. I'm I I was awful. My presentation was bad. I almost didn't actually post it and now it's my number one video of all time which is kind of drives me nuts when I can edit for 50 hours on on one and it gets a couple thousand views. Where where was that that one for you all? Well, just recently with that Eternals board game review. Uh and it did really really well. And we didn't do anything special. Like we're doing doing the same kind of reviews for like a year almost or or close to that. And constantly improving it as well. So, we didn't expect it and we actually were thinking like maybe let's not do that.

49:06 Let's do like a top video or something. Uh but we like really wanted to talk about it and thought of what let's do it. What's the worst can happen? And actually really blew up. So, so yeah, it sometimes just surprises what works. Obviously, it's hot. Obviously, a lot of people talk about it. Obviously, the thumbnail maybe worked. Uh but it's a fun video. But it's it's like it's like any other of our reviews. We don't know which one will work. Um but uh but anyways, it we were really happy about people enjoying that one. Yeah, I was kind of surprised that that would do so well now. The timing seems off obviously. Like it had its moment. It sold out everywhere. You can't get it at all. It's it's I think you here in the States at least they're um Portland Game Collective I think is doing a localization, so there's technically a pre-order on it right now.

49:56 So, typically like if there's this really special window where you can't be too late in the window because everyone else has already done it. Uh but you and you want to be too early, but you have to find the game or get the game from a publisher or whatever. But, I guess maybe you let it cool off enough that then people got excited about it or it's just a phenomena that people uh can't get enough of. I don't know. I haven't played it, so. I think we formatted around like the words that are coming up. Like uh and that really worked and recently, no pun intended, talked about it. And so so it's kind of

50:30 you go. a mash of things and things that you kind of you cannot predict all those things. So, it's just sometimes luck up, obviously, but uh but it was still a fun video, so really nice. We were super happy it worked. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What Do you have one Yiannis uh that that surprised you? Well, yeah, that that that Eternals review would have been uh yeah, my pick as well. Because we yeah, like Yiannis said, we just it was almost an afterthought. And uh now it's like crushing it and it's just we have to figure out what what was the secret sauce there so so we can try to replicate it uh in our other reviews because we've been decreasing the amount of reviews uh considerably over time because I mean, we started it was like our main uh thing, uh tops and reviews.

51:23 But, since most of the time uh it's a very specific niche thing cuz we did a Twilight Struggle uh review recently and uh I'm very sad that it didn't do well. Where are all the fans? Come on. Go watch that video. Uh and and I'm sad it didn't do well. So, but then Eternals did just crazy good. So, it's uh very hard to understand

51:45 81,000 views in 13 days is insane. People, if you're watching this, go watch it. It's got to be good or it's click there's a clickbait thumbnail that uh

51:55 That works.

51:56 getting people. Yeah, it did. They do. They They They definitely can work. Uh Yianni, you mentioned Twilight Struggle. One of the struggles I've had is covering older board games. Some of the best board games that I will ever play have already been created. They're not on Kickstarter. They're in our our FLGSs right now. They're super easy to find. Yet, nobody wants to watch those videos. How do you balance that between creating the hotness or or or covering the hotness and covering your your actually your true loves? Or do you love the hotness? Like what's How do you balance all that? I think there needs to be a story, right? So, if you're want to talk about board games that are older and especially if they have been like covered to bits, if you go on YouTube and there is like a review from Dice Tower review from Shut Up and Sit Down before like 9 years ago.

52:48 Probably nobody will be looking for that game or if they see the view, they'll be like, "I've seen it already, right?" So, if you want to talk about like something older, then you should find a new like a new angle or like a story there so to make people care, all right? Sometimes people care if it's going to be a big game and I think if you're going to talk about like Brass: Birmingham, for example, uh a lot of people still will watch even though it's like covered because first of all, the new version's coming out. So, uh so and then it's always top 10 hotness. So, so you can find angles definitely still to talk about those games. It's just a lot more challenging than than just to jump on the hotness train. Um so, so it depends.

53:35 So, what was Why was the angle off on Twilight Struggle? I mean, granted, it still has 8,000 views, but you know, the the top 10 right in front of it has 43,000 and I fixed the second worst problem about board games has 39,000 right before it. Yeah. Uh well, I don't think we like found the right angle or right story about it. Mhm. Nothing rose like curiosity about it. People who like it already know they like it, I guess. Um so, it depends. Sometimes in like the brainstorming you feel like, "Okay, this is a cool angle." Uh but in reality it's not. It's a learning experience for sure. Yeah. So, yeah, what do you honest think?

54:20 Yeah, I mean, uh I think it's a just very niche game. Uh it's it's I think it's a scary game. Uh you just look at the cover and you're like you've heard it's a two-player game that covers Cold War and its history and it's just it's it's I think it's just not exciting for uh people who might even be wondering about the game. They're like, "Oh, wait, look at this. There's uh something else, fantasy, space, just more exciting theme." Uh so, I think that is the reason. I mean, um yeah, uh war games are very niche. Uh you have to you have to admit. It it they're I mean, board games in general is a very niche hobby and then with that within that niche there is uh another niche that are war games. So, if you want to go into that, you know, it's going to not do well. Even though I hoped it's going to do well. Yeah. I mean, it is niche.

55:14 do another war game video. Yeah.

55:16 It's interesting that though that there are so many creators now. Like when you started in 2020, that was probably the boom of a lot of people starting because it was you know, COVID and people were stuck at home. Um but now there's just so much coverage on so many different games and clearly and trying to distinguish yourselves you all have obviously succeeded, but is is difficult to do um and Twilight Struggle is competing against all of the stuff that's on Kickstarter that people just are so excited to get

55:47 or or learn about, and that that's really hard to overcome. Which do you do you all do Kickstarter coverage? Like previews or anything? Uh well, sometimes for example, we don't do like really previews. We're We're not We're not running after like Kickstarter like hotness or something. But if it's something like a game really really interests us, then we might, but that happens really rarely. For example, if Awaken Realms is is releasing Nemesis Retaliation a few years years ago, there we got a like a prototype and we're super excited to play that game, and we know that our audience is super interested in that, then we will cover it. But generally, we really don't do Kickstarter or try not to like really go wild on those cuz there's just too much.

56:40 Which is crazy because most channels that aren't kind of the legacy ones, Shut Up & Sit Down, that have been around forever, and and Dice Tower and such, most of them that do well are on previews. That's that's a really interesting pivot that you all have done, which is kind of counter. I think a lot of new creators feel pressure to try to get the get the the preview copy from publisher and get content out and do bend over backwards to to basically make commercials for people, which there's nothing bad about it, and there's there's definitely things that are exciting, but I just want to recognize that you all have kind of gone counter to what that that typical path is. Yeah, well Yeah, so You go No, no, go ahead. Go ahead. No, no, you go first.

57:33 Elderly go first.

57:34 Okay, fine. Yeah. Yeah, elderly always go first. A good one. Hey, I'm bald. Anyway. So, we a long time ago we decided not to take money from publishers for featuring specific board games. So, we will take money from board game adjacent like things like we've taken some from what was it? Geek and Sons, I think, sponsored us in some way. I don't think it was monetary, but I think they gave us a table.

58:08 Yeah, yeah, they gave us a table and then we're like basically if we have sponsors, they are unrelated to board game publishers. Yeah, in a per- in a perfect case that that is that is. Because we think if we start to take For example, same thing Nemesis Retaliation preview, they offered us a paid like a deal deal. But if we do that, then and if we do a review afterwards and we love the game, then we think that people are going to think that we're not honest enough cuz we got money from the company.

58:43 Some will, for sure. Yeah, yeah, and so we thought we'll just skip this part entirely so we can be honest about any board game that we do. And it goes the other way as well. I mean, we kind of took the money from these people and then we want to do an honest review. What What if we hate the game, right? And then we kind of ah So, it's like So, we thought let's just not do that and decide case by case. If we're excited about the game, let's do a preview which like Yiannis mentioned happens super rare, but Awaken Realms, if you're listening, we are already waiting for the Nemesis Legacy game in our mail, so any day will be good. Yeah.

59:24 Same here. Maybe I'll tag them in this video.

59:28 [clears throat]

59:28 Okay, so I this is where I wanted to get in because I I have a lot of respect for a channel your size, especially that says, "We won't take money from publishers." So, is that a blanket statement from here on forever? You'll never take money from publishers, or is this current state now? Well, we the only thing we're like thinking about on this like perspective. We are thinking about, "Hey, what if we make how to play channel, right? For board games." It's a separate thing. We have We have the games, we have the equipment, everything, and there's a separate channel for how to play videos, right? Uh

1:00:07 [clears throat]

1:00:07 and when you put all of that together, you're you're like, "Well, if that wants to survive, then probably the publishers are the only ones who are who can well give you money to for that to happen." So, so that's an interesting twist to it, which we are thinking about like maybe, but in general, it's it's it's a no, yeah. Um Yeah. So, never say never, for sure. Yeah.

1:00:33 But our like stance right now, we have never taken never taken [clears throat] money, and uh and for sure if you continue doing like reviews and stuff, doesn't feel right, yeah. Yeah, that's So, that's kind of where I'm at personally. I've never taken money from a publisher. I have been offered money, not a ton. Uh so, it's not like it's been a big like uh you know, a big sacrifice on my end. But now I'm to the point where there's demand in this show. There's the guests are are starting to kind of like contact me wanting to get on, but it takes a ton of time. Um and and I for it to be sustainable, like I said, I've done five this week. I'm really questioning, can it be [clears throat] crowdfunded, which is very difficult in a free uh content, you know, space? So, I'd love to hear your perspective on that. Or, do I do, you know, board game adjacent companies, but is there even enough of those to even sustain uh no. So, then do I

1:01:30 [clears throat]

1:01:30 do do publisher sponsors, but never review one of their games again as soon as they've been a sponsor? Like because I do have a hard time I bottom line, I'm going to say it right now. I would not I would not trust myself to be 100% impartial if I have a close relationship with the publisher. As much as it I consciously I'm going to try to do everything I can, but I think subconsciously you at least for me I'll speak, I could imagine myself maybe pulling a couple punches and still being able to like, you know, levy some criticism enough to, you know, to to to still be critical and and believable. Not that I I would ever try to like knowingly deceive an audience. I just feel like it's more complicated and it's really tough to separate those things. So, I'm struggling with that now. And so, I'd love to hear about your experience about having people crowd fund via like Patreon and has that been successful for you?

1:02:33 Uh so, a lot of questions there. First of all

1:02:36 ton, but yeah, how about it?

1:02:39 Yeah, well, first of all, let's start with the last one. Our community on Patreon and YouTube members is honestly the reason why we're still doing it. We love doing it. But, it's like physically impossible to do it at at this level if somebody's not like behind your back. And the and people there have been behind the our backs like for years now and we're so freaking thankful for them. Uh it's to be honest, our biggest income comes from our community and and it's it's it's not Honestly, there's not a lot of money in this industry. Just not. Yiannis is still not working full-time. To be honest, I I've been for most of this time I've been doing this full time for now year and a half or closing into two, I think. Yeah, uh and then uh I did not get any pay for the last two this year. Basically, I've been living for like my big savings and last week, I think I'm officially working at BoardGame Hangout. I signed a contract.

1:03:39 Wow. So, so

1:03:41 Congratulations. So, it's like 2 years of just just this being our like blood, sweat, and tears and love of board games. Uh and and and still the money that I I will get in my bank accounts uh is is not even close to something I would get in freelancing or something. So, there's not just just to burst the bubble, there's not a lot of money. And to to whatever like content creators you're watching, uh it's difficult to get this done and and make make these videos. So, just make sure that you do some if you enjoy the content, make sure you support what they do cuz by far that's the only way they will be able to do that in long term. Uh so, and and again, thank you to everybody who who who who likes our content and and and and helps us.

1:04:28 So, so community is big deal. Um and I Then the second question I I I'd say I completely respect if you like take preview copies and and money for that like money for that from publishers. I totally believe that people can be still like neutral and say what they they think about those games. So, so it's just our personal thing that we decided like let's let it rather not. Let's see what we can do and and and if we can do it without that. Um So, that's the thing. Uh But but definitely, it's much much trickier to do this without uh board game publishers cuz obviously, from all the people in the universe, uh board game publishers are the most people most interested at uh in showing off their games, right? Yeah, showing their games.

1:05:17 [clears throat]

1:05:18 It's tricky. Um, so was there Did I answer the question? I think I had a hundred questions. Oh, yeah, you That was great.

1:05:28 Yiannis G, do you have anything to add? Uh, I think you mentioned Kickstarter somewhere there and that's pile of questions. Yeah, yeah. So, that is a very good point. So, we've we've been thinking about it, but it is super scary cuz if we add all the costs and everything together, that's quite a big amount of money that we would need to run this operation for a year. So, what happens if we launch it and then don't get the amount we need? What do we like, that's it? Do we Hey guys, we said we need this and we didn't get this. So, that I guess we have to close channel. So, but we don't want to close the channel and so it's tricky. I think the only one who has managed to do that successfully is uh uh Tom Vassal. Yeah. Cuz he's doing it like every year and sometimes it's more, sometimes less. He does have a huge operation, right? He has so many people working for him and this giant studio. So, uh uh but yeah, nobody else I think comes close. I know a lot of content creators have tried this, but the amounts are very small and uh and and another thing is we would never have time to like they do the promos.

1:06:44 So, you have to contact the publishers, produce them, send them, ship them. When do you find time to do that? We are struggling to put out content as it is with all the planning and filming and playing the games and scheduling and families and it's just it's just insane. So, to narrow it down is just uh yeah, we'd like to do a Kickstarter sometime in the future when we're brave enough to to do that. Mhm, we're cowards. What's your stance on accepting review copies and how is that different from getting paid to you? So, we we get review copies. A lot of our videos are made based on getting review copies. We've done that for a while. Uh and um it's basically you have to understand that we really would not be able to do this without review cuz those games like cost that money and to talk about them sometimes they're not even available to to the public.

1:07:44 So, that's one thing and the other thing I'm always like thinking about it. A lot of my friends or or people around us say like, "Oh, you got this game for free. That's really nice." I'm like, "It's not really for free. I really work my butt off for 5 years."

1:08:00 All right, so the only thing I got for it is this review copy, all right? Um so so so there's that. So, that's obviously some people won't like it, that's fine, but we're always most important thing we're always honest. We never we we try to always say that it's a review copy. Maybe if we don't then we we just forgotten, but it's just in general uh in in general we're just very truthful with people and people understand it I think in this hobby that it's kind of okay, yeah. But, it depends. If you don't like it then then it's fine. We understand. Ask us in the comments and we'll tell you if it's a review copy. Yeah, no problem each time. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it it seems to be divisive. I ask all the creators this as well and what your answer is is the typical answer which is one in which I have which is you could never get the content the number of videos out and you know, you already are on a shoestring budget as you've have already mentioned being solely crowdfunded. If you it's kind of one of those things like if you want to see the content, I would need to get the review copy and that's just kind of the way it is. It's a necessary evil. Go ahead. Your honesty? Yeah.

1:09:18 Yeah, it's also a thing for example, if you get your first review copy, right? Then then maybe you feel inclined like it it's so special and thing and maybe that will change your mind. But once you get your 20th, 30th, 50th, at that point you're you're that that like kind of buzz about it is gone and you're like, that's a board game. Uh that I would like that I earned, right? So so I totally believe that it doesn't change my mind about the game in any way and I think a lot of times where well, you can see our content. A lot of times we plays board games in other collection. Well, I do. Mr. Jan's like likes every everything that looks like a board game. So So we're truthful and so so I don't feel like that's an issue really. But I think you also have to look from the perspective of publisher.

1:10:10 A lot of publishers want to get their game out. Just we don't care. Just short post, whatever you will do and we'll have to make these choices. We can't feature all the games and so I mean, they're willing to pay us money to do that. But we're we always say, we'll take a look at your game, but we promise never to feature it anywhere. I mean, we don't promise to feature it. We might feature it in some videos, but we never And then you make a decision, do you want to send us the game or not? Cuz and then obviously I'm not going to say that I'm helping or we are helping the publishers, but in a way we are, right? Just putting our game somewhere and sometimes even if it's like a bad thing, people find out about it. Otherwise, they would might never know. So I don't think it should be looked at as a payment for some kind of a work or whatever we do or more of a like people the publishers want you to feature your game somewhere. Just okay, you're not taking money. Okay, okay, okay, we'll still send it to you just uh you know, we hope you will feature it. Mhm. And we a lot of times we say no. We're like people say, well, we have this game we'd like you to feature it and we we make no promises and they say, well, we really want it then then just look at some other content creators who will promise you. That's what it's always the case. We're always 100% truthful. We never promise anything except again Awaken Realms, we promised to feature Nemesis Legacy on our channel 100%. Well, that was But other than that

1:11:40 uh Yeah, that's also something we learned along the way as well. But used to be like promised or something like said that yeah, we're going to feature it on so on, but life is life is life, yeah. And also I think you just have to know and understand that who's your kind of client or why are you making these videos, right? You're making them for your audience. And you're responsible for your audience to bring them uh the like review and talk about really truthfully about them. If if you're not then well, why are you like you're kind of letting down your audience. And for us it's like priority number one. So, doesn't matter if it's a review copy or not. I just here you go. You're watching uh we're you are our number one priority. Mhm.

1:12:33 Well, in all honesty, I think you said something interesting where it was like the the I don't know, the the excitement wears off after a while after you start to get review copy after review copy and like the value in your mind also starts to go down especially relative to the amount of work that you have to put in to do the video. So, if you were to actually have taken that for for payment, that's likely significantly less than minimum wage.

1:12:58 It's to go and and make the video, depending on maybe if it's Nemesis Legacy, maybe that would be worth it. If an all-in pledge on that's probably going to be pretty insane. But yeah, I think that's one thing that people don't really keep in mind because they're that's not their situation. Their situation is every one of these boxes is precious. Yours is you probably wouldn't have picked up a lot of these games off the shelf and bought them yourselves if they hadn't come in here and if we want to cover it, it needs to be sent in. So, I know that's it is it it's a tricky line and some people are passionate about it and I think it's a bigger issue only it could seem like a bigger issue because people can be loud about it in the comments and I as I've had these conversations, people kind of chime in, especially about review copies still being a form of payment and it's just I guess it's just a matter of perspective and people not understanding how much work it takes to do and how hard it is to to get people to support your channel via Patreon when they're getting the stuff for free anyways. And that's the to me, that's always been the tough thing to reconcile is is people complaining about that but also not supporting via Patreon. But you don't know who's who and and anyways, I I've I commend you for your approach to date on this. That's why I wanted to talk about this with you. Um because a channel like yours could make a lot of money if you did preview work and um but I would also imagine it wouldn't be

1:14:29 as fun as what you do and as creatively invigorating. So, that's what makes you so cool. So, I really hope that people go and support you with their dollars or what I what is it called in Latvia? What is what's the currency? Euros. Oh, it's just euros. Okay. All right. Well, we'll support you with your Euros. Yeah.

1:14:50 Boring. I was hoping for some really cool cool sounding money. Um so, yeah. It's one of the the I guess it's a series that I really like from an ethics perspective is games we play a lot and we still love. And also, secondly, the the I think you just did this where you re-reviewing or basically telling people do you still have it? Um one point Yiannis G you were doing I can't remember what the game was, but there was no game there because you sold it. That is so important because especially people in our position where we're playing a lot of these games, it's really easy to get high on a game, play it a couple times, tell your audience about it, they go and buy it, and then a year later you don't even have it in your collection and you have not played it again.

1:15:40 So, how do you think about that? And and why do you do that series of videos where you follow follow up on those reviews? It's exactly that because Yiannis D made us do it.

1:15:54 But but Yeah, the thing is that um life happens all the time. So, for example, I don't have a lot of space where to keep my games. If I had a lot of We have a one friend that that has I don't think ever gotten rid of a single game, right? He has all the games he's ever purchased in his life. He still has them on his shelf. I think he has the biggest collection in Latvia. So, shout out to Imants, yeah. That's a lot of times where we borrow games, actually. And and I mean I'm always honest if that I love the game. Sure, I have a short attention span, so yeah, Yiannis is correct on that one. But I just can't keep them all physically. And at some point I'll have to let something go. And at one point you'll all of the games might be the ones you love, but you just you always want to try a new one, right?

1:16:47 So, you have to let something go. Uh but sometimes yeah, I'll be overhyped like you said about a new game and like this is the best thing that's ever happened to me and 2 months later I'm like, nah, uh it was fine. But it's also that a successful game where you can get five or six plays and and love it. Like is that still a good game? Or is it does a game have to be evergreen forever for you to be really great? No, we love legacy games especially. I think uh Mhm. Um a lot Those those those games something completely different and that's fine. And we always talk about like one of my favorite games uh of all time is still King's Dilemma, but I played it last time like years ago and it slowly tripped out of the my uh all time list like videos because well, years passed and you obviously

1:17:37 kind of forget the hype. And it doesn't make it any much worse. It was one of the best like board game experiences I've had with my like friends and it doesn't make the game worse. Uh but uh definitely definitely that's a thing and I think uh it's we kind of have made this like split into parts. Games of the month are our like not maybe always first impressions, but after like few plays obviously we play five new games each month. And then those are few plays and then we uh play them somewhere. And then we have reviews where we have played them extensively and talk about them and then the RD series which are hey, these games after a year playing or so. So, it kind of you get you get the whole journey for those games and then you can see actually what happens cuz obviously we cannot play a game for a year and then make a content then we would make one video a year, right? Mhm.

1:18:31 Yeah, and uh I I'm glad Yiannis you mentioned experience cuz sometimes uh the game might be okay or good, but the experience I had with that game just elevates it all the way up, and then I'll play it later with somebody else, and it's just it's fine. I mean, I've had games in my life where I played them once, and I've never gone back just because I know it's never going to be as that as good as that one experience. For example, there's this game, older one from No, that's that's a good question. I think it still would be good going back, but there's a game from Gale Force 9 called Sons of Anarchy. It's a very old game based on a TV series. And one time we played, it was just making jokes all the time. They had these little plastic guns that we would put like behind our belts and just pull them out and just point at each other these little plastic And I mean, it was just such a great experience, and I know it's never going to happen again. So, in my mind, that game's going to be forever be like 10 out of 10, but that one time. And I'm I'm kind afraid to go back cuz I don't think it's going to be good. My my dad used to say, "You should never go back to a place where you used to be happy, right?" Cuz you might be disappointed.

1:19:39 So, yeah, and I played it only once, but if somebody asked me, I'm like, "It's 10 out of 10. It's amazing." So, there's always that factor, and I think board games more than anything is like very reliant on people with whom you play. That can make or break the game experience, yeah. That's such a good point.

1:20:00 Is there a David experience that you've had like where you don't are scared to go back to? Well, speaking about board games, I have

1:20:08 I went to my first convention at Dice Tower West, and excuse me, people, if you've heard this, I've told it on here many times, but we played I found this group of people I'd never met before. We all really gelled, especially around Take That. Nobody took it too seriously. We all like to jab each other back and forth. It was just a beautiful group. So, we played Lords of Vegas, and it was one of the most incredible experiences stealing each other's um casinos, making deals from one game to the next, having rivalries, and oh no, we're not I'm not going to take that out on you, and then you backstab them. It was this multi-day incredible experience with this game that I'm I and I I vowed to buy it because I felt like Lords of Vegas is one of the best games ever. I'm honestly scared to buy it. I haven't bought it yet because I think when I bring it home and I'm not playing it with everybody at Dice Tower West, especially also the atmosphere. I I tell the story is Saturday night, people are erupting everywhere in the hall. It's like the energy around everyone is just so great. Our table is probably erupting louder than everyone else. It's just was this magical experience. And yes, I am afraid to go buy Lords of Vegas cuz I don't think it'll ever be like that again. I and I'm also afraid to review it because I think I'm going to say it's the greatest game of all time and then if I were to play it against I'd go, it's pretty good, but you need those people there. That is such a good point.

1:21:34 Um often people will say like, "Oh, Arcs is the worst game ever. Root's the worst game ever." Um I've had plays of Arcs that are the worst game ever. I've had plays of Root that are the worst game ever. I've also had plays that are the best game ever. And it was related to the people at the table. Right? Like if you have people at the table that are complaining about the factions and they're hard to understand and I don't know how to do this or whatever it might be or even it's their first game. Like all of that matters. All of that is so important. And you know, people will go into the comments after I say I love Arcs and say, "Arcs is the worst game I've ever played. You're an idiot." Whatever it might be. It might be that honestly both of these things can be true. I can have had some of my best experiences ever with Arcs. I could have also I also had really bad experiences with Arcs as well. You know, some some just really where I knew I was losing from the very beginning and all I I the way I found I found a way to have fun by you know like you know trying to knock off whoever was leading. You know that was just like but I was with that same group we were playing on TTS after we met at Dice Tower West. So it was fun you know. So yeah definitely that is such a huge thing and I don't it's hard to have that come through in a review.

1:22:45 Right for have people understand the context of how you experience that game. I also think that's one of the problems with reviews. Is there so much context around how you experience the game? How many times have you played the game? What other games have you liked in the past that might be similar? What type of gamer are you in general? That starts to come through over time if people watch enough of your stuff. If they're watching one video from you they have no idea who you are. So it it it's difficult. How do you think about um uh the number of plays at least that you have to put a game through before reviewing it. Tom Vasel says he will not ever disclose that uh because it just gives people um ammo to go at him in the comments that he didn't play it enough. So how do you think about that?

1:23:34 Well first of all I completely agree about the experience thing. Uh and that's why also we usually form format our reviews based on what you might like or might not like like why this game might not be for you. Or why this game what are the best things for us and so on. So you kind of we try to avoid it but obviously the personal rating is the personal rating but we also define it as our personal rating doesn't mean it's it's the truth. You might like it might not like it but hopefully at least you watching our videos can can kind of notice what you personally could enjoy or not. So that's definitely the case as well as it's it's weird to maybe review board games cuz you can review tech or cars and there are these stats that you can just compare and then look how it looks and so on. So there's very like touchable things and then for board games it's like none of that. It's your experience and the people enjoy enjoyed playing it with you and so on.

1:24:34 That's that. And as as as for the plays, it really actually depends on the games, right? So if there are smaller games and the content like for example, let me check. One game, what is there? Like Take Time uh for example, it's a smaller game, right? And then to to do to review that, you have to play a lot of it cuz it's just like a 5-minute like sessions and and and just seeing that. But then for example, Nemesis: Retaliation where one session takes like 8 hours, but it's there's this whole experience and also people who play that will most likely play it more rarely, so they also will have these like like sessions and whole thing around it. So we would play that for example, we start out with like minimum, okay, we need three three times for example to play Nemesis: Retaliation to talk about it, but it's also more about okay, as do you feel like uh you know you know, you have that feeling you know what this game is about, what this game can provide. And and sometimes we have played game a lot of times and still what was the game? Oh, uh Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I remember playing with Yiannis and Yiannis asked me, are you ready to review? And I'm like I I'm not sure. I don't know what I think about cuz there are things that I love and things I don't love. I don't know the rating. So it really depends on from one game to game.

1:25:57 Was that the Unmatched version or the the old school minis? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know what I think about that game either. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I think to narrow it down, we will play it as many times as needed to feel ready to review it cuz yeah, the games are so many. Like simple card game you can play a couple of times and you're like, I know what's it's going to be each time. Sure, there are some factors, but it's going to be that. Then there's this huge campaign game which might have a really bad first scenario, but really great 10th scenario, right? So, you have to play through the whole thing [clears throat] to to really give a good impression of what it is and what it can be. So, yeah, yeah, for example, Queen's Dilemma right there. So, I mean you King's Dilemma was just okay for me until I got to the final session where it just like boom jumped up and it was great. And I've heard a lot of people the other way for from but for Pandemic Legacy season 1. They started playing, it's great, 10 out of 10, and then the ending is just meh. So, you know, and then that changes. So, depending on which period you review that, it might be up or might be down. So, those you have to play all the way through to review, and then some you can just give a couple of goes and you're like, I got it, yeah. That was the short version. It just comes to that.

1:27:14 Was that the short? No, no, there was just the intro. So,

1:27:17 let's start with Act one, go.

1:27:20 Yeah, but yeah, but just so we'll play it until we're like, okay, I know what how I feel about this game, right? I mean, it's all very subjective. Yes, we are like, this we we're kind of saying this is a must-have game, this is a fantastic game, but it's mostly for us. So, if you kind of can relate to us and have the same like likes and dislikes, then you should know what it is, but it's not 100% true all the time, yeah. Yeah, I do agree, it's a range. Um, I think three plays minimum is probably good on something that's super long. I I try to go with five. Uh, I felt There's certain games where I feel like I have to put in a ton of time. Elder Scrolls, I did a 100-hour review, and it was probably it was probably more just because even playing through that once doesn't scratch the surface on building your character and all the different combinations and all the different scenarios, which there is a wide variety of. Um so, I felt like I had to go deep on that. When people give like an impressions on something like that, I I just kind of like go, "It's tough to even like fairly give an impression." I mean, I guess it's it's valuable up to an extent, um but it's also just doesn't go If your first impressions is that it's awful, and maybe you're playing it wrong or you had some rules wrong or whatever it might be. Like, is that helpful for somebody?

1:28:39 Um you know, for you to share that. I I don't know. So, that's I try to think about that a lot and and kind of disclosing how much experience I've had with the game, because it is to me, that context is super important. Yeah, again, let's talk like your audience is the most important in all all of this. So, it's important that you uh present the game accurately, cuz they will be the ones then playing that game, right? So, you're kind of uh still, you might it might be fantastic has must have a fantastic game for you and they not like it, you're not responsible for that, but you're responsible for sharing your like real emotions and your real experience. Yeah, yeah, I'm saying, yeah. So, Yeah, when I would watch a review, I I don't care how many times that person has played. What I care is about what are the mechanisms, if there's something new that I haven't seen or interesting combination, and what did you feel when playing? What what were your emotions going through it? And if it was just one play, that's fine. I I want that one play with the same feelings that you went through.

1:29:43 Uh it doesn't matter for me how many times you've played. I mean, it's in the end, it's still my decision to to take the plunge and and yeah, so, I don't know why a lot of people are so hung up on that. I kind of get it, I guess, but uh yeah, I don't think it's just a number, right? Just like the age. Well, it's [clears throat] all about the the experience that you have. I think it's easy as a YouTuber to cuz you're incentivized for the more content you put out. And it's easier to put out more content if you play games less. And it it you get into this cycle of of wanting to stay relevant within the algorithm and and with other people and and have your your face seen. I just wonder how much experience is actually going into people's art.

1:30:31 And people that have spent years and years and many creators don't swing can't make the difference for a game. Some creators do. Some creators you say one thing about a game and it can completely sink it. Um it certainly can have it talked about on BGG really heavily. The positives can swing it all the way up to number one. Um you know, there's there's definitely some some real-time effects. So I just wonder about what our responsibility is not only to the the the user or to the the viewer but also to the publisher or even the the designer to play their game enough before sharing our our our thoughts. It I have mentioned this multiple times and people are very much worried about um you know, not worried about the publisher's feelings or the designer's feelings. Uh they just want, you know, you want want the fair perspective. But it's something I think about a lot as I started to meet people and realize that hey, these are just people that are super passionate about their craft. And there probably have been some games in the past that I didn't give a shot to that I then shared my my perspective on and I, you know, I don't know. I'm just trying to be as responsible as I can, I guess.

1:31:46 Yeah. That's totally understandable. Uh for me it's always the viewer first, so always honest. Uh but in this case for sure you have to play enough [clears throat] times to talk about the game, right? Or or maybe research enough. For example, we have the hardness video. Sometimes we haven't played that. We just close that, of course. But sometimes we just you have to research enough to know what you kind of talking about. Uh but but that I totally agree about that. But also when you review games, then like the publisher should not really be uh in your mind cuz you like publishers' [clears throat] feelings. I don't think so. Uh I think you have to have like your best interest always in your mind. And this maybe differs from me and Yiannis cuz Yiannis is a board game publisher, actually, and uh and has worked there.

1:32:37 So you your two cents are more important than mine. But in general, uh I think just be honest with your viewers. Uh that's the number one thing. And then uh obviously, don't maybe trash it for the sake of trashing. There are bad things. Tell about those bad things, but I know that a lot of people will just exaggerate because That will get you clicks. Yeah. And we we talked we talked with Yiannis bef- uh about like thumbnails and everything that we create as well. Negative thumbnails, for sure, will get more attention, right? If you make a thumbnail with the title board game suck, a lot of people will probably click on it. Then in the comments you will get Top 10 negative thumbnails will get clicks. That's the advice.

1:33:24 Well, mix those together. Perfect. Yeah, right. Top 10

1:33:28 games suck. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That will get 300,000 views.

1:33:33 Yeah, place on the thumbnail Brass: Birmingham and then all of those big ones. Those will get clicks, for sure. But then it's then it just just about like views, and that's not about the your audience and who's watching. You're not really truthful. Uh you go that way, for sure, uh but but just it doesn't make sense for me. Yeah. Um but uh but yeah, Yiannis, how how is it on the other side, on the publisher's side? Well, it's tricky. You always want the game to be featured somewhere, right? And then you're happy that it's being featured, but if it's a very bad review, you're like, "Oh boy, did that just kill the game? Is Is it over? Should we just stop the presses?" And I've talked to some So, I've I've done a little stint in like inventor relations at one board game company.

1:34:24 And then I've met designers who say that some reviewers have done negative reviews, which essentially killed the game out, right? It's like that's it. It's over. It never received a second printer. Nobody bought it, and it's done. And nobody's really to blame, right? Uh cuz uh we live in this age day and age where everyone's checking ratings. Everything's about ratings. I I feel like it's such a lost magical feeling these days that you would go into any store and buy, let's say, a book without checking the rating. Who can do that? Who can be brave enough these days do that? I mean, I'm not even brave enough. Exactly. Same thing for board games. And then yeah, and one one or two bad reviews might just kind of not give it enough of a chance.

1:35:11 But

1:35:11 But were they good board games if they got three bad reviews? Of course. Of course, most likely not. Most likely [clears throat] not. But yeah, it's it's tricky. I mean, we do have the responsibility to our viewer to give them an informed review where they can make the decision. We're we're not making anyone to buy or not to buy a game. It's just our opinion. This is how it works. You decide if if that's something you'd like to take a plunge at. Obviously, if it's a great, fantastic review, then it's going to be a bigger chance, but yeah. So, it's always tricky. And we have in the past, if we've really disliked the game, like like really really, we thought we're just not going to mention that at all. We're just nobody's going to gain from anything from that. They think you have the responsibility to go and talk about that game, but then other creators will say, "Well, I just have more fun talking about the stuff I'm excited about. I don't want to be I just like it's not it's not exciting for me to go and make a video just to trash somebody."

1:36:12 We most most of Go ahead. Uh in that case also you have to think about maybe if it's a big game that you had like a bad experience and so on, I think then it's important to also share your experience. And if that's game that people are interested in so on and then it's important to talk about those bad things. But if it's like a bad game nobody knows about and it's just bad, then then you there's really no point in watching it because like for people as well, why do you want to watch a bad review a bad board game that you should never like play or know about really. So, it they're like it's a balancing act for sure. I'm there should be like like you shouldn't shy away from doing bad reviews and we don't we do like bad ratings or something. If it's truthful and if we still think that hey this game is worth talking about for some reason or maybe it's other people will like it then then we also review it and like give those like for example okay or or can't recommend ratings.

1:37:20 It's also it depends on how we review games cuz we review this is the game, this is how it works, these things you might like, and these things we didn't like. That's why our personal rating is this. So, it's just giving a fair fair fair chance I guess to the game and to the audience as well. Yeah, but there's 100% not a formula that you can stick to. It's just it's always touch and go with the situation in the world, with the games, with the publishers, with you, your life. It's There's no clear formula that you should always play at this times. You should always do a bad review if you hated it, cuz you're That's your responsibility. It's It's more of an art than a science. Yeah. How about we lighten this up a little bit? It's a little negative, you know?

1:38:07 You all love You all love trivia, right? So, I went back I went back into your videos and I found some of the questions that you all have gotten wrong. And I want to know if you've learned.

1:38:22 We haven't. We haven't. No, we haven't.

1:38:24 We're going to see right now as we finish as we finish this up. Are Are we down? Yeah, for sure. Let's go. All right. So, we're going to warm up with some questions you actually have gotten right. We're going to see and I I don't know because my research only says Yiannis got it right or wrong. We know Yeah,

1:38:42 we don't know. Maybe you all can say that. But, all right. So, what is the name of the Monopoly Man? You You Somebody got this right in the in the past. Yiannis, you probably did that.

1:38:55 [clears throat]

1:38:55 Somebody Yiannis nailed it immediately.

1:38:57 Smith. Let's say Smith or something like that. Something something I Really? We nailed that one. That's interesting. Well, it's I have no idea. It's like Milton? Is his name Milton Bradley? I have no idea.

1:39:13 Rich Uncle Pennybags is the name?

1:39:16 Oh. All right. Pennybags. I Okay, now I remember. We had the multiple options to choose from. Yeah.

1:39:25 Well, I didn't get you. So, to be fair, I didn't give you that. So, there's no multiple options. You're just going to have to come up come up with these off the top of your head here. All right. So, in Dungeons and Dragons, what were the halflings originally called? Hobbits. Boom!

1:39:40 They copyright. You got it. There we go. Okay. Uh what does Jenga mean? In what language does it come from? Uh it's

1:39:49 It comes from an African uh No, it comes from an African language.

1:39:57 Uh or it comes from an African language, 100% and I think it means

1:40:03 It's It's either tower or or or stack or something like that. It's just like the literally describes what it is uh if I'm correct.

1:40:11 It is African, but no, you're wrong on the meaning. Yiannis T, do you want to take a crack at it? Uh foo building It's something super simple. It's something

1:40:24 Yeah. to build to build

1:40:26 I'm I'm going to give that to you. Swahili meaning to build Swahili What was the longest competitive chess game on record? I'll I'll give you options. 12, 24, 36, or 48 hours. It was long. It was long.

1:40:42 48 I'm going to say 48. 48 is good guess. Uh I'll go 24s. Like like let's spread the answers and then

1:40:51 Ding ding ding, 24. You you Yiannis T, you you are correct. So those were the [clears throat] easy ones though. So these are the ones that wow These are the ones that you've gotten wrong in the past. What was Yahtzee originally called when it was first invented? Yacht or something like that. Was it not?

1:41:11 I remember this question. I remember this question. I will say you're wrong. Yiannis said the Yahtzee game, which was wrong. originally Okay.

1:41:24 Um Uh but I think it's it was something I know I remember that that game was first played on yacht or yacht trips or something. That's where it was created. You're correct.

1:41:33 So it So it's like a yacht journey, some boat, something. It's something like that.

1:41:41 Yacht boat game. Okay. Y- yacht

1:41:43 Almost, you were the closest. Uh, the yacht game invented by a Canadian couple who played it on their yacht, later trademarked as Yahtzee by Edwin S. Lowe. Okay, we're getting we're getting close. I'm a little disappointed you're not quick on these, like you haven't learned them. Uh, you know, I now I don't know how seriously you take your trivia show. Yeah, it's a laugh. Because of my

1:42:05 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I'll give you more time. All right, so in what country was Risk invented? Ooh. Ooh. US? US.

1:42:15 I I wanted to say US as well. France,

1:42:17 the incorrect guess from last time. So, I'm going to give you another guess.

1:42:21 Is it France? Yes, France. That's it. Invented in 1957 by French filmmaker Albor- Albert Lamorisse. I know that's wrong. The same guy who made the Oscar-winning short film The Red Balloon. Okay.

1:42:38 On the box cover of Through the Ages, New Story of Civilization, four historical figures appear. Name all four of them. Okay.

1:42:47 Napoleon. Einstein. Caesar. Newton.

1:42:54 Uh. Not Newton. I'm going to

1:42:57 You were right. You got three.

1:42:58 Cleopatra. Cleopatra? No, no, no. There's no, no. There's two four gentlemen. Four gentlemen, I know that. You you

1:43:05 Cleopatra last time. See, I haven't changed one bit. Einstein, Caesar, Napoleon, and Sid Meier. No? No, no, no, no. He's He's on one of the cards. He's on one of the cards.

1:43:18 He's on the one of the cards, yeah. So, who's number four? My guess would be a scientist. Was he a scientist? No.

1:43:24 for a hint. Playwright.

1:43:25 a scientist. Playwright, Shakespeare. There you go. Shakespeare. All right. Yeah, we're not we're not getting sponsored. No, and it's the lag still. It's still the lag. All right, so how old is the oldest known board game? Bonus if you know the name. So it is from ancient times.

1:43:47 like 3,000 years. Ancient times, you guessed 4,000 last time and were wrong. Oh.

1:43:54 was but is it game of Ur? U R? No. It was something played in like caves or something like something super old.

1:44:03 Ancient Egypt. Well Yianni, you're our history buff. Let's go. It's all on you. I'm saying whatever he says.

1:44:11 I only play I'm I'm I Cult of the New is my thing. So how I don't care about chill games, yeah. I made a short on this on this video on this game actually. It did awful. So yeah, it wasn't the Cult of the New. Uh, so I Yianni, when when ancient Egypt Egypt uh was a thing? Exactly, I gave you the hint. I think they had a pretty good run though. Well, it was a ancient Egypt was during well, it ended during the Roman Empire. So it just before Christ was born. So like before so it's 2,000 2,000 years old?

1:44:45 All right, final answer? Let's go. 2,000 6,000 31.

1:44:51 5,000 years old Senet. 5,000 years older. Senet. Oh boy, we got to get that one. Mhm. Wait, do you have it somewhere? Do you have it actually? You said you did a video and it do you have it? No, I didn't I didn't have it. And I did it it was a one of those like After Effects like I was I was learning how to use the program. So I did it and it took me like 5 hours to do the 30-second short. That's pretty clever had two sequels. The first is twice as clever. What? Doplet so I'm I don't have the second. What's the third one called? I may have a I may have a wrong uh Clever cubed. Clever cubed

1:45:28 Clever cubed, there you go. That's good. You You You learned You learned there. Yeah. Um And then it's clever forever in case you want the fourth one.

1:45:38 There you go. Okay, then you're good. All right, so this one this one's tricky. This is a callback here. Which game is described like this? You're in an Asian-themed game where the goal is to gain control of a region by destroying all your competition or destroying the region itself so no one else can take it. Uh Uh Rising Sun? Rising Sun?

1:46:02 King of Tokyo.

1:46:03 King of Tokyo is correct. The uh Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yiannis, T, you got this wrong the first time and it was Risk Legacy you guessed. Which I don't know how that's Asian, but yeah. Yeah. It happens. All right. Yeah, these always put such a pressure on you that you feel like you know nothing and you're the dumbest person on planet Earth.

1:46:25 And that's what makes it fun. You're telling me they're not scripted? You guys don't do these scripted? No.

1:46:30 Like you script all the misses and the the cheeky guesses?

1:46:34 No, no, no. Maybe we should. Would be funnier maybe. I don't know. All right, which Reiner Knizia game published in 1990 was named the top-rated board game of 1990? A politics game where you control powerful Roman families. Uh Is it the You know this. It's It's the It's Yeah, I know. It's Quo Vadis Quo Quo Vadis? Right? It's the Quo Vadis first word. No? Yeah, you got this right the first time, but you needed two hints to get there. I got this first. You were just talking about the Roman Empire in the last guess. In the last question or Is it I guess it would be in the Senate question.

1:47:21 But is that Knizia game, really? It's not not Egypt. You were saying it was near the the Roman Empire. So, Roman Empire is your is your is your uh hint.

1:47:32 Okay. Uh wow, I should know this. It's a Knizia game, right? Yeah. About Roman Senate. There's like only one of those. Uh Well, I think Start naming Start naming all Knizia games. No, I was 100% sure. So, there's this game called Quo Vadis, right? You know that one, right?

1:47:55 I played that for Dice Tower the first time. I loved it. Yeah, and then it's based on a Knizia game that is actually about Roman Senate, and that's the only one I know. And I don't remember what it's called.

1:48:08 All right, I'm going to take that as you give up. Republic of Rome, 1990, Avalon Hill. But you shh No, but that's not Knizia game. 100% not a Knizia game. Republic of Rome is not a Knizia game. Aha, he tried to get us, Yiannis. He tried to get us.

1:48:26 is this I wonder if you said this wrong in the transcript. I had a bunch of transcript scripts that we analyzed, but anyways

1:48:32 Maybe. Well, the Republic of Rome was uh Uh Republic of Rome was featured in our '90s game video recently. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh and that game is by Let me quickly tell you. Uh it is by

1:48:48 like a Knizia game. Uh yeah, yeah, uh it is by

1:48:53 Garfield? Y- Yes. Yes. And Robert Haines uh it's by the game

1:49:01 to I'll let you off the hook on that one. This one's right. I know this one. I have the right answer and right question here. What was the top-rated board game in 1994? Fantasy Football literally played with orcs, elves, and Warhammer factions. Yiannis, you know this one. Take it. Blood You know this. Blood Bowl,

1:49:18 There we go. It was Your guess was Battle Balls before. Nice one. This one seems weird. I'm going to guess I'm going to skip that last one. You did it. You did it. You You've proven that you haven't fully learned from your past mistakes. Yes. That's a good lesson to learn.

1:49:41 Gentlemen, this has been uh really great. I really appreciate you being here. Uh everyone, you probably already follow them, but if you don't, Board Game Hangover, go check them out. I I would call you a top three channel for me. I don't know if it's one. I don't know if it's two if it's three. I don't want to name I'm not I'm not going to do that. I'm not Name the top now? No, that's You just You started it. You asked for it. We're not We're not leaving until you tell us the other two. So, like board games, they're consistently changing. And one of the things you're one of the the ones that I've been watching the longest that have stayed that high. A lot of them have like recycled content and it's just kind of like, "Oh, I don't I don't watch them so much anymore." Um one of my new favorites is The Grove. I just uh interviewed them. They are like a group of 12 friends that met in college and they do a bunch of content on their channel. They only have like 2,000 subscribers. I think they were just trying to get up to 2,000. And they're incredible. Really great production. You all might enjoy kind of what they do. Um so, I absolutely love them and I'm trying to think Another new one that's just exploded is or newer uh well way bigger than me already, Big Boss D. I don't know if you've seen uh those videos. Um very well uh articulated and interesting angles on on games. More kind of like the you know, the video essay type type videos.

1:51:13 Um, very very good. But I like you because I like your personalities just on camera. I don't know so much as we've talked. I have to see on that. And um, Just joking. Uh,

1:51:25 and I I like the fresh formats. So, uh, you all are great. And thanks for giving such a small channel a almost two hours. So, thank you for that. I appreciate it.

1:51:35 Right back at you. Right back at you. Also make awesome content. And hey, stop saying small channel. 8,000 is is great. We were at 8,000 we felt like the kings. I mean, it's most importantly are the like not the amount but what people you have behind you and and if you if they comment and you have a community I mean 8,000 feels great. Uh, so so Relative to what I started awesome content. Yeah. Thank Exactly. Every Yeah. And everyone is at 8 or 2,000 at one point. Dice Tower, no pun intended. Everyone was at that point at some time. So, the only way's up. But now but thank you so much for having us I mean You guys are crushing it.

1:52:17 You're so good. You're so good. Thanks. Thanks.

1:52:20 Thank you. You are so good. Throwing anything back. No, you're so good. You're so good. I hope we can play a game sometime. If you're ever back in the states, I know you were in the states at Chip Theory. Uh, if you ever come back, I'd I'd love to hang out. For sure. Come to Essen or or other conventions here in Europe and That is that is on my list. We'll see We'll see if I can get enough publishers to sponsor this this podcast. I can maybe afford to get it over there.

1:52:48 Okay. All right. By all means. It was fun. Thanks so much. Bye. Bye.