Beating Video Games: Winning, Finishing, & Prolonging | S3:E14

The Gaming Persona podcast explores the idea of Beating Video Games. This week, we dived into the many ways players beat video games, with an in-depth look at the three main paths to success – Winning, Finishing, and Prolonging. We’ll discuss how players can achieve victory in a game by winning; what it takes to complete a game, from initial steps to finishing touches; and how prolonging a player’s time in the game world can provide an even more satisfying experience than simply winning or finishing. Join us as we take a journey through these various paths of gaming mastery on The Gaming Persona!

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Gaming Library:

Magic: The Gathering Arena, Final Fantasy Theatrythm: Final Bar Line, Dead Space, God of War Ragnarök, Final Fantasy XIV Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Pokémon Go, World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft Classic, Super Mario 3-D World, Tetris, Crash Bandicoot, Super Mario Bros., Horizon Zero Dawn, Horizon Forbidden West, The Last of Us

All right, what are we talking about for the world of video games today?

We’re going to be talking about Beating Video Games.

Beating Video Games: The Ordinary World

All right, that sounds so great. And we’re going to The Ordinary World where we share our everyday life through our games. All right, this topic, this topic. Okay. So before we get into our individual content of what we’re doing with video games, I want to give a shout out to our number one Patreon supporter, Brian, thank you so much for getting us started in Patreon. And you did get the episode last week, three days early. So anyone who doesn’t like ads or little tags or, or things that slow down your podcast listening, efficiency, just throw us a couple dollars, give us money. It really does help though, because like I said last week, our motivation for doing this is we’re trying to grow the show. And we’re trying to just do things that will get the Show More out into the internet and into people’s searches and make us more findable. Maybe get bigger and bigger guests to you know, at some point, maybe paying someone for an hour of their time is a good idea. I know that when people asked me to go to a conference, that’s the first thing I asked them about. So you know, these are things I’m thinking about. And thank you so much for getting us started. So what are both of you doing and video games since last time we got together?

So I have joined 2023 And I got a new phone. I got an iPhone 14 Plus! I had the iPhone eight. So it was it’s a huge change, I still had the phone with a button on it. So…

How are you liking that?

I missed the button. I miss it every day because the whole face ID thing is really annoying to me. I’m just not used to it. I prefer the fingerprint. But otherwise, it’s an incredible phone. And I’m really, really grateful. It was a Valentine’s Day present. So I have this new phone that doesn’t crash all the time. And like the battery life lasts more than a couple of hours. So I downloaded Magic the Gathering Arena on it.

Is that good game?

Yes. Well, it’s the same game that you play in the computer. But it’s a mobile version. It’s the exact same interface and everything. But obviously it looks better.

Yeah. Other than that some of the cards are different because there are some digital only cards that only exist in arena.

Yeah. Okay, so yeah, so that has been interesting, because all I ever want to do is play Magic on my phone now.

Well, thank you for putting your phone down and showing up for your podcast.

Oh, no problem. Yeah, so it’s been great. Might have been a mistake, but you know, we’ll see. And then other otherwise, I actually won’t be here for the next two weeks, not because I’ll be playing Magic on my phone. But because I am photographing on two different cruises. So I’m photographing on a Star Trek themed cruise. And then an 80s themed cruise back to back. So super excited about it. I’m really excited about the Star Trek cruise. Even though I have literally never seen an episode of the show. Now I’m even one not even one. I saw one of the movies of like the new or newish movies that were in sometime in the 2000s.

I must have been daydreaming. What did you say that you’ve never seen?

I’ve never seen one episode of Star Trek.

I don’t understand.

I have never seen it. Never. Not once. So I’ve seen so I kind of know the character like the main character names kind of…

Name a Star Trek character Jenny.

Huh. Picard. Right?

Right. Yeah.

Also Spock!

Spock. Right. And how many scenes do the two of those characters have together Jenny?

I would never know the answer to that.

How you say you saw the newer movies, but named Picard who had not in the movies.

I saw one of the newer movies. The first one that came out. And I do remember one of the Chris’s was Spock. I don’t really remember that.

Was Captain Kirk.

Oh, okay. There we go. One of them was in the movie. I am just I’m excited because it’s a fandom that I know nothing about. And I’m going to be on a ship. It’s a sold-out cruise first of all, and I’m going to be on a ship with 1000s of people who live eat and breathe Star Trek and I

Oh, I know. That’s, that’s why I’m trying to help you by just teaching you character names.

I’m sure it’ll be fun.

Watch out for that for the Ferengi.

Okay, so I bought a shirt. So it’s like a theme cruise. So each day has a different I don’t know not theme but like each day, there’s a different way you can dress up to participate. And as a photographer we’re like part of the crew part of the team that work on the ship so but we do like to dress up on some of the days and so I bought a shirt that said this is my lucky red shirt and actually understand what that means.

Okay, that’s good. So I don’t know if you are seeing the chat on Twitch Jenny but Shara has volunteered to hide in your luggage. Then, just join you in every activity and translate the Star Trek for you.

Oh my gosh. Can you speak clang on? Isn’t that a thing?

I think at this point just translating into English.

Oh, that would be so fun. I so one thing that I’m super excited about. So William Shatner is actually going to be on this cruise. Cool, which is super exciting. And I’m a little bit bummed because in the past, I think last year’s cruise, George Takei was on it. And that would have been incredible. I actually know who these people are.

So that’s good. All right. Gene, what have you been playing?

Yeah, I started playing Final Fantasy Theatrythm: Final Bar Line. And oh, how is it? It’s pretty fine. It’s if you play the 3ds ones. It’s a little simplified. But the sheer breadth of content is greater. So it’s more fun. Okay. It’s more fun, but yet less technical skill required because the whole stylus and having to draw things on the screen, you know, that’s gone.

Oh, wait. So it’s all done with the buttons now?

Buttons and joystick because there’s ones where you have to like to trace a line.

Yeah, that sounds terrible.

No, it’s not like super-fast. It says like, we’re going to play a scale follow this guy.

Okay, well, everyone that heard gene say that just remember that we all on this show have at least beyond amateur musical ability. So if you buy Final Fantasy Theatrythm: Final Bar Line, and it’s difficult, just disregard what Gene said about it not being a big deal.

Let’s don’t play any of the songs on Supreme difficulty. That’s just absurd, actually absurd.

That’s going to tie into our topic tonight. And I can easily see how. Okay, so last week, I gave the update that I was on chapter 10 of Dead Space. And I have beaten Dead Space. And I completed every side quest for the initial run through the game. So at some point in chapter 10 / 11, I realized I can use the tram to go anywhere on the ship that I want. So I decided to go get everything discovered that I could. And now I’m playing New Game Plus, which is even cooler, because I get to be on a permanent scavenger hunt to find the 12 markers that connect people to the evil god rock. And then I get the real ending instead of the really dumb one that you get for the initial playthrough. Now, if I haven’t played the original Dead Space so I don’t know if what I just said is insulting to the original players. But That ending was weak sauce. And I’m really hoping the new one or the new game plus ending where you have assembled all of the ritual stone markers is better, because you can’t really get worse than that ending. And I am terrible at aiming at small targets while hanging upside down. I discovered during the final boss fight. It just felt really frustrating.

One part of this remake is that they remove some like on fun segments. And some of it was parts where you’re like walking with your magnetized boots going like on 3d surfaces being like sideways and upside down while having to fight enemies and it’s so

Yeah, there’s none of that. Yeah, I never had to stand on a wall sideways. But if I did, the camera was still anchored behind me the same way.

Yeah, there’s a lot more flying antigravity segment instead of that.

Oh, that’s neat to know. I did like the Ishimura basketball game that you can try to play. I did not be the seventh level I only was able to beat the sixth. Then I feel like there is definitely a trophy attached to that. But I also know I’m probably never going to be impossible difficulty meaning I will not get the platinum trophy for this game anyway, so it’s okay. If I only beat six out of seven stages of zero gravity basketball. So that’s been a lot of fun. And I think that that wraps up our, the peering into our week with games.

 Beating Video Games: Call to Adventure

 So let’s go to our first content segment of the episode, The Call to Adventure so we can get into our topic for the week. So I went from never finishing any video games three months ago, to now I have completed God of War Ragnarök and Dead Space, in a one month stretch of time, I feel like I’m a completely new person. And so I’ve been thinking a lot about just that psychological shift of looking at a game and saying it’s okay for me to play it. It’s okay for me to stop working for a period of time, this evening, or during lunch or this afternoon. And just I need to finish this game because I want to put some website content, turn it into work, or I just want to enjoy it, or I want to talk about on the podcast. So there’s a lot of things that I’m challenging myself to do that result in fun being experienced, sometimes, and also you get to complete games when you actually sit down to play them. So I wanted to ask people, any people that I could come into contact with, when’s the last time you finished a video game? Because I remember I put a post out about the backlog of gaming about two months ago. And it got a lot of comments, but it wasn’t a voting thing. It was just a post, like, you can complete your backlog, just pick one game, and start playing it kind of thing have positive cognitive, mental health, right? And a lot of people responded to that and said, That’s impossible. And so I decided, well, let’s do that. But let’s vote. So I want to ask both of you what was voted on, and then we’ll discuss the results for our color adventure. So when is the last time you finish a video game? If we do this multiple choice? I put this week a month ago back in 2022. Or games can be finished, huh? So where are we at on this?

 I finish most games I start, unless the game is just not good.

Yeah, when you when you say things like that gene, I just see a math equation. But it’s like Gene greater than everyone.

I mean, like, the equation “Is this game worth my time?” What it would take to beat this game. And if I don’t have an / if there’s not a good experience to be had for me to get to the end of the game, then. No. Yeah, like, like back to Final Fantasy 14. Is it worth it for me to beat Sunken Temple of Qarn to get to get to Heavensward? Yes!

Bringing in the pre-episode chat. Oh, man, yes. Heavensward is an amazing expansion and it is included in the free to play part of the expansion or part of the game. I need to look up the quote and memorize it, so I can just drop it on people.

 I know. I know. I feel like I’m not a true Final Fantasy player. I don’t know that.

Jenny Where have you been on Sunday nights? I’m like, always there hoping you’ll show up?

I know. Um, where have I been? Everywhere. It’s been a very stressful busy time in my life in all areas. So.

Okay, well, where do you fall on the finishing a game question.

I don’t really play games that finish. So this this question, maybe when I was a kid, but probably not because I didn’t spend enough time to get there.

Okay, okay. Yeah. Well, I want to reframe the way you think about games really quick and see if this works. So the funny thing that happened to me on Twitter after posting this is one of the people who commented, which I haven’t had very much back and forth with them ever. So to me, they’re new and I’m probably new to them. But I am part of the current and creator program for Star Wars: The Old Republic still. So the current Community Manager for that game replied with a with a GIF. And so I think that that brought more awareness from the switch or community on Twitter that this poll is out there. And someone typed to me, I play a MMO game called Star Wars: The Old Republic, which is not really completable. And I also play Pokémon Go, which is endless. And I just looked at this message, and I was like, did I just get explained to like, what Star Wars: The Old Republic is? This is a new feeling. Oh, my gosh, I really have abandoned to this game. No. Oh. So everyone who hasn’t been listening to the other 96 episodes, my dissertation was on Star Wars, The Old Republic, getting personality types from the players and building their motivational profile with some psychological instruments. And identifying how different personalities are motivated to play that game that game only. So Tori is a really big part of the DNA of this show. So this question, which is not about soldiers, just about video games, and then someone explaining to me what Star Wars: The Old Republic is, I was just…

Well, you’re no longer Dr. SWTOR. So how are they supposed to know?

Read the most recent Peer-Reviewed publication from the Star Wars: The Old Republic research of Dr. Gameology

They could be my eternal fans and know who I am in the core of my being, I don’t know. Anyway, I actually don’t agree that you cannot beat Star Wars, The Old Republic. And I also do not agree that you cannot beat MMO games, but especially Star Wars, The Old Republic, because there are several expansions in that game that are designed to feel like the end of a large story. And that brings in the whole question of with an open-ended game, our motivations for playing it determine what the finish line is. And so for example, a lot of people have left Star Wars: The Old Republic, or other MMO games, World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy 14, whatever it is, because they crossed that finish line. And there’s nothing left that matters to them. That motivates them to play the game anymore. It goes back to what Gene said about is it worth my time to beat this game? And so there are games with stories and an end point and an end credit. But you get to see the end credits five different times and Final Fantasy 14 now. Yeah. So like if that’s not an ending than what is? So I think that the idea of when is a game finished is actually up for debate here. Even though my question characterizes it as being a very concrete idea.

Yeah, you can also decide yours for yourself that the game has ended. I know most like the top of MMOs I know most people that was into World of Warcraft for lore and story purposes. That is the story has died for them several expansions ago, because the writing, as you haven’t previously mentioned, has gotten so nonsensical.

Yeah, Mists of Pandaria was definitely the peak of World of Warcraft.

Yeah, they’re like that story for me ended on like, expansion three, that is the complete Warcraft story.

So which expansion is that? Is that like the Burning Crusades is the end or…

For a lot of people, it was Wrath of the Lich King.

That’s where WOW Classic is right now. Correct?

Yeah. Because for a lot of people that well that expansion did strange things to Arthas’s character, and of course Arthas is a big deal to a lot of people.

He’s such a big deal that I’m not even a WOW player and Arthas gets pages in my book. Pages! He’s such a cool video game character. RIP Arthas.

So what you are saying then that because I don’t really play Final Fantasy anymore because of life situations, that I finished the game?

Did you start Endwalker Jenny?

 No.

I think two years since you played the game.

I do. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it’s allows you have the desire to play the game and learn things about it, then the game not beaten for you.

I think that I think this is how I look at so tour now there is an expansion that I have never logged in and I haven’t played. The reason for that is actually people have told me there’s no story, we’ll finish the story in an hour. And it doesn’t add anything to the game. So I haven’t come back. And I don’t know if that’s true. Or if they’re just being mean, to the effort that BioWare put into the game.

So for a Bioware game, if you’re, if your storyline is even to that level, question, questionability, you’re in trouble.

Okay, well, according to our chat, I, both things I said are correct. It is true and those people are being mean. Okay, so we’re dealing with shades of grey, not extremes here. But I do feel like I finished Star Wars: The Old Republic, because everything that was available, when I stopped, I finished. And I felt very happy with where I decided to stop. And the fact that they keep going. That’s their business. So also, I feel like Star Wars is a really interesting thing to think about with this too. If you felt content at the end of Return of the Jedi, and you’re one of the people that’s like Disney bought it, I don’t care, Return of the Jedi is the end. You finished watching Star Wars. Right? Like, it doesn’t matter if there’s a Mandalorian or a sequel trilogy. You’re just at a place where you finished the product that you purchased, that you desired to interact with. So you know, if we change this to something that’s non-Star Wars and say something that does have an ending, like Super Mario 3-D World, right? If you buy the game, and you make it to world five, and you get to a tough level, and you just can’t get to the top of the flag without dying in a lava pit, and you walk away and you never finish that level. I think that the feeling, from an honesty perspective, will probably be different inside that player than a person who finished all available content and then walked away from a never-ending franchise. That’s my hypothesis. But I have two different sets of eyes and brains interacting with me right now. So what do we think?

I mean, I don’t I don’t see a problem with saying that a game doesn’t finish. Like I like the idea of a never-ending game.

Hmm, that’s interesting, too.

I think I never-ending games have a place. You know, you can play Tetris for theoretically forever until the game is faster than you can handle. But, but for a narrative-based game, yeah, it clearly needs parts of it, where it’s demarcated, like a Final Fantasy expansion. Like, the plot just goes on endlessly. Like “The Princess is in Another Castle.” Yeah.

I mean, that’s a very simple storyline, right. But like, these days, there’s so many different areas of AR Xia that you can delve into. Like, it’s like a never-ending pool of content to pull from, you know, yeah,

You can do fashion shows, become a professional gambler buy a house, you can raid and lose all your self-esteem. You could also theoretically raid and gain all your self-esteem. I don’t know what that’s like, but it’s possible.

Amazing Moment from Twitch.TV/DrGameology showcasing the fun of group content!

Beating Video Games: The Road of Trials

So I want to actually go into our next segment, where we face our challenges and discover our strengths on The Road of Trials. Because we have an interesting conference presentation on the philosophy of computer games from 2019 And there are some concepts that explain from a science-y and philosophical perspective, what does it even mean to finish a game? So we have three key words to review here for our episode, winning, finishing, and prolonging. And these three words are listed as the ultimate goals of a game. Right winning, finishing, and prolonging. So I think it would just be fun for all of us to share examples of when we’ve done these three actions in a game and just go through our memory banks and find moments where this is a moment that I won in a video game. So let’s start with that first one. What comes to mind?

I win at Magic all the time. Lately every day the game isn’t finished, but I do win.

Okay, that’s interesting, too, that I think a lot of times in my twitter poll, the people that voted are probably thinking that they finished a game that the game is complete. And that’s probably because the question says when’s the last time you finished a video game? Not when is the last time you won a video game? Yeah. And that dramatically changes what we’re thinking about for discussion.

Yeah, well, the game like Magic, like when I used to play it all the time arena. You know, you could you theoretically, you needed to win 10 times a day to get all the daily prizes. So yeah, that kind of game really skews the concept.

Yeah, for sure.

That just blows my mind that you can work a video game into your routine, like that. I can’t seem to ever stick to that. Like, I’ll wake up on a Monday morning and be like, I’m gonna do leveling roulette, as the initiation of my lunch break every day this week, so I can finish leveling Sage. And then it’s like, your journal expired? Because you haven’t played in nine days. It’s like “no!”

Yeah, in a game like Magic Arena. I really don’t pay attention to the dailies. I just kind of play winning when? Yeah, when I can.

I focus on having gold so that I don’t have to pay real money. Yeah, for fancy cards.

Yeah, that is I mean, I just started so I haven’t even I’m still like on very, very basic kind of decks that they gave me. So I haven’t gotten into like, super deep into it, where I look up good decks to build and start spending money and all that.

Yeah, yeah. Also, just to come up with cosmetic stuff. Everyone’s like, here’s a set of rare lands from like, 1982. Yeah. That was a goal. You can have a for free. Wow.

Well, for me, I’m thinking about winning. And on Sunday night for our stream, we went into Final Fantasy 14. We had a bunch of AIE people join a group with me. And I was playing Black Mage, of course. And we went into Hydaelyn extreme, which I hear was very difficult at the beginning of the Endwalker expansion. But we’ve had a couple of waves of raid bosses come out, which has made the gear level higher. So players like me are now no longer in need of massive fear responses to Hydaelyn. And we did really well and we got it to where we could farm her. And I got the mount. So I won in a lot of different ways there. I won a random roll on a very rare mount. And I learned a new boss fight. And I got to the point where several of the tough mechanics I do them correctly by the end of the night. And those are checking all the boxes of things that give me a feeling like “I won” in a video game.

 And so that brings us to the second term finishing a video game. So when I say you know we have finished this game, what are we generally thinking about moments from our time with games?

I mean, I would say doing everything in the game that’s worth doing, not necessarily doing everything in the game that there is the do button. Like say, like, wait for us God of War Ragnarök you could say I have learned all the lore in the game. That doesn’t mean I completed all those weird journal challenges of like kicking someone 50 times. That’s not lore. But I have experienced all the dialogue, you know, including the side quests where you learn about Faye and what she did, stuff like that.

For me, to finish a game is like, like single player games where there’s like a beginning and end to the story. And you reach the end.

Like KotET in Star Wars: The Old Republic.

I haven’t played that. But yes.

Wait, you didn’t do KotET?

Wait, no, I did KotFE but I don’t think I made it to KotET.

Okay, so for everyone, we just used lots of acronyms. There are two back-to-back expansions that are basically solo player expansions that happened around my dissertation years, Knights of the Fallen Empire, KotFE and Knights of the Eternal Throne, KotET.

I was thinking more like, like a game like Crash Bandicoot or something like, oh, yeah, there’s levels, and you’d be each level. And there’s a final level that you can be and then you finish the game.

Yeah, the first game that I ever finished, I think was Super Mario Brothers on the NES.

Yeah. I don’t know if I finish. I don’t have haven’t retained that memory.

Oh, well, I know that there are stages. I’ve never finished though because you use warp pipes. And you just put together a quick path to the end of the game and finish it. And then if you decide to play the game, beyond that point, you are prolonging the game, which is the third category ultimate goals for playing games. So what is a game where prolonging is something that you actually engaged in? That it’s over. But let’s keep doing something?

Well, there’s Magic on the brain, because that’s what we just talked about. But that draft, he’s got to keep going to get more packs.

Yeah, that’s very true.

I feel like Pokémon Go kind of fits into that unless you do somehow catch them all and have them all as a certain star rating that makes you happy with them and have all the shinies that you want. And you can hear all these extra addendums to what it means to finish this game, is the definition of prolonging.

Yeah. I mean, I think most MMOs would be considered games that you prolong.

Yes, I want to share something about the weird way my brain works, Jenny.

Well, if the idea is that at the end of the story, it’s done, then you can prolong it by doing a billion different things.

That’s true. Yeah. I actually feel like I have finished Pokémon Go though, because this is weird. This is me just stubbornly holding on to the Kanto region from my childhood. I just felt like the main the ultimate goal for me in Pokémon Go, is I want to have the first 151 Pokémon in my Pokédex. So you do the professor missions, you eventually get mu then they started letting you to show up and raid so I got a mu two when I went to a Chinese buffet one night. Like I went outside the buffet to go catch Mewtwo All right, and so then you get those two you have the you have the birds you have Moltres and Zapdos and Articuno. And then it just came down to Farfetched, I’m never going to be in Asia to catch Farfetched, but then they put the sword and shield Farfetched as catchable in the United States. When you catch that Farfetched, it fills in the Pokédex for any Farfetched. So that triggered the moment where now I have all 151 original Pokémon and I don’t really play anymore, because I kept going a little bit after that but I Just felt like, “I actually don’t care when I catch a new Pokémon anymore.” I don’t have that feeling it’s, it’s done for me like, I can walk away from this and feel like I finished what I set out to do.

So yeah, I can totally understand that because I mean, maybe it’s because I stopped watching the bulk my anime at some point in high school. But it’s like I stopped caring about any Pokémon after a certain point. It’s like, oh, you’re just a bundle of stats and moves for me. I don’t care about your existence.

You don’t want to catch an adorable ice cream cone that can battle people?

or a literal pile of trash.

So weird.

Why is there a literal pile of trash? I’m like, isn’t that the whole point of Muk?

You know, what, keychain or something?

Beating Video Games: The Ascent

Yeah, there’s a there’s a ring of keys. And anyway, I really do like poke him on, I am just sharing that the idea of winning and finishing and prolonging a game. A lot of game players probably give the power to determine what those words mean to the game developers. And I am just saying it might be better for you to take control of what those words mean yourself, and have an idea of what matters to me in this game. Because if you can decide that you can also decide what matters to you in life. And I think if you can do that, video games will actually start to make a difference in your life for the better, instead of just being something you do when you aren’t identifying other things to do. You know, like, I think it’s a really powerful medium for entertainment, and learning life lessons and self-discovery. I don’t actually know what it’s like to play games as just a empty escape to avoid something, really. And I know a lot of people do that. So the big question I’m faced with all the time in my work is how do I help someone who plays that way? Start getting some of this positive stuff out of their game and then decide to use it so that the rest of themself wakes up. So that should have been The Ascent!

Yeah, as you were speaking, I was like, he should have done The Ascent.

Beating Video Games: The Return

I said, All right. So very soon, we’re going to start I’m going I have to feel it inside myself when The Road of Trials is over. And The Ascent is happening. Because the goal of The Ascent is for me to drop the really big idea, and then send us into The Return. And I did that I just played the sound effect after while I’m explaining this. And now let’s go on The Return. So we can go back to our daily lives and take our next step forward. So that was a fun conversation about ending games. So let’s just, have we won on this conversation, finished it, or should we prolong it?

I think it’s a never-ending conversation.

Yeah, I think it’s prolonged so long as this podcast continues to exist.

Oh, man. Let’s talk about that. That’s so meta. I just want a few minutes on this. We are three episodes away from Episode 100. And wait is episode 100 actually going to happen when Jenny is pretending to like Star Trek?

No, I’ll be back for the assuming you do one each week that have gone March 15. Yeah, yes, that week, I will be here.

Awesome. All right. So where are we going to do?

We got to do something exciting.

Well, we could just prolong this conversation, and keep talking about all the way until March 15.

We should decide what we’re going to do you and start promoting it.

Okay, that sounds like a good idea. Until I realize I’m going to have to come up with more Instagram stories or something. I do set time aside now every morning to do social media. But the process of just creating one post it’s like at least 30 to 40 minutes because I go into Canva and then I have to take the content for the post to go with it, and then I have to decide if I want to make a stories version or just leave it as a post. I just, I just need to lower the bar.

Yeah, I was going to say so I just started promoting my sister’s business on Instagram. And I just created a bunch of different content, like I just have a library of Canva posts that I can pull from right now. And it took me like, a chunk of time to do but if you’re already in that mode, it makes it a lot easier to come up with a lot of different things. And then that’s a lot better than having to think of it on the fly, you know?

Yeah, I did start doing once a week I highlight a video game character that makes an appearance in the gamers journey. And just call them my character of the week. And this week is our boy from I think I say right Aloy from Horizon Forbidden West, because that game got added to PlayStation Plus this week, which is such a good deal. Everyone should just do PlayStation Plus, it’s such an amazing way to collect video games. And that game is awesome. So you can play both games in that series for free if you haven’t yet.

Oh, my brother just started that game. The new one.

Yeah, that’s I haven’t played them. It is it’s a gorgeous video game. So I now have four characters of the week I have Ellie / Joelle and Isaac from Dead Space. And so I’m trying to create posts that can be repurposed once the book comes out. So I’m trying to go through and find characters that get their stories highlighted in the in my video game telling of the monomyth.

So I have you might like this, I have an Excel spreadsheet with like my social media calendar for my sister’s business. And each tab has a different like, type of post. So I came up with a bunch of different types of posts. And then in each tab on the type of posts, I have like, like eight to 10 different, like actual posts with the caption and what the image would be or like whether I need to make a Canva or not. So it seems like that would be really helpful for what you’re trying to do.

I have a template from HootSuite, where you can upload like in bulk posts and schedule, but I don’t have time to do bulk social media posts. I just have to keep track of them and do them. Eventually I’ll turn around one day and be like wow, I have 500 posts – “How cool?” Okay, so when finish prolong Yeah, if these conversations sound fun to you, and you’re looking for some great people to play online games with check out AIE at aie-guild.org And I have one last quest for everyone to collect for the day. If you’re going to play feel like you win, and…

Continue the Journey

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