Episode Intro

The intro for this episode was performed by Morgan Ritson. You may remember him from Ten Minutes of TV Time. As you can hear, he’s a bloody good voice artist and you should reach out to him for your projects.

Players

Squidge

Jay

JasonM

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This episode is part of a series of interviews with the folks from Lost in Cult. To find all of the other episodes in the series, see this page

Show Notes

Squidge had a philosophical question for us all, as the episode opened:

Squidge's Avatar Squidge

What am I doing here? I could have still been in bed

Something for the great philosophical minds to ponder on, for sure. It’s also a point that Jason - our illustrious guest for the episode - brings up:

JasonM's Avatar JasonM

I’m knackered. I wanna get back in bed, like Squidge here

Why was everyone

except for Jay

tired? Because it we recorded this episode on a Monday morning. in fact,

A screenshot of the user interface for the application we use to record our podcast episodes, showing that we recorded this episode on August 23rd, 2021 - more than a month before it was released
See?

Perhaps we should have recorded this episode in bed. Who can say?

remember our contact page? Seems relevant to bring it up, for no real reason at all

Our guest this week is Jason Maddison, one of the people behind Lost in Cult, and an all-round nice guy. We’ve actually chatted with Jason earlier this year, in a bonus episode that we put out called “lock-on Volume 1 - A Discussion on Passion”

at the time of writing, that bonus episode doesn’t have a show notes page, but we’re working on it

Back then (March 20th, 2021), the kickstarter for volume 001 was just coming to a close and we’d asked both Jason and Jon Doyle to talk with us about the passion that they have for preserving physical media, [lock-on], and what they had in mind for it.

At the time of recording this episode, the kickstarter for volume 002 was wrapping up, so we wanted to get Jason back on the show to talk about it, his piece from volume 001 (called “I have lived”), and what volume 002 might have in store.

If you’re brand new to the show

why not subscribe? It’s completely free to do so

then you might be interested in our previous episode: Chief Andrew is Lost in Cult. This was an interview and catch-up with our friend Andrew Dickinson, who also happens to be the Editor-in-Chief for Lost in Cult.

We wanted to let Jason describe what [lock-on] is, in his own words:

JasonM's Avatar JasonM

[lock-on] is a curious beast…I’m the sort that likes to collect gaming art books, even if it’s fan art or unofficial art… So what we have here is a kind of hybrid of an art book but also, what I felt like was an academic journal. And being someone who works at a university with academics, and working on university journals, I felt like we’re on to something here.

And after a lengthy discussion on the genesis of the project

which included Jason meeting Jon Doyle, the Kickstart campaign starting, being so popular that the Twitter algorithm started to slow them down, bringing Andrew on board, and finally shipping the first issue

Jason asked for our viewpoints on the project. To be fair, these photos really sum up our feelings about volume 001:

Due to the recent changes at Twitter, we are unable to embed tweets at this time. We apologise for the inconvenience.

Jay's Avatar Jay

I’ve got to say that I still haven’t finished reading through it, because… normally when I have a paperback, I’ve got it cracked open and laying flat. But I’m looking at the quality of the paper and the print and stuff like that, and I’m thinking that if I break this - it would take a lot to do it - but if I break this somehow, I can’t get another one. So the hardback copy has stayed in the bubble wrap that it was delivered in.

JasonM's Avatar JasonM

This is something that should be opened and experienced… and a lot of effort has gone into creating this.

But what about the future of the publication? Well, the kickstarter campaign for volume 002 was still on going at the time of recording

it has since closed, rather successfully

and it was on track to do much better than anyone had imagined:

JasonM's Avatar JasonM

[for volume 001] it took us about a month to get to 17k [pounds in funding]. Within about six days, [the kickstarter campaign for volume 002 is] already at about £30,000.00… and Andrew told me that [volume 002 was] fully funded within 18 hours, and as a gaming magazine on kickstarter we had the biggest opening three days [of any product] on kickstarter.

Wow! Just wow!

So why not go check out the Lost in Cult store, and see if you can pick up a copy?

The following is a promo-spot for the Starfleet Leadership Academy podcast. Reach out today, if you’d like your promo included in a future episode of the podcast

Leadership, the final frontier.

These are the voyages of the Starfleet Leadership Academy. Its ongoing mission: to develop leaders through Star Trek. To boldly go where no podcast has gone before.

A Star Trek podcast told through the lens of leadership development.

Subscribe today! The Starfleet Leadership Academy.

Jason’s Article: I Have Lived

We wanted to talk to Jason about the piece he had penned for volume 001, called “I Have Lived” and how impactful it was on both of us to have read that article

Squidge's Avatar Squidge

Thanks for the feels, by the way

check the header image for this post, for a low-res version of the article

For those who haven’t read his piece, Jason describes it as

JasonM's Avatar JasonM

Video games are one of the most powerful mediums for story telling… you come across people who say "it’s just a video game,"… when Jon talked to me about it, he said, "when you talk about video games, you have that emotional weight to what you’re saying. And I want you to write something about all that baggage and emotion, because of the place that you’ve come from."

I always remember an advert that Sony London put out called "double life"…people from all walks of life talking about their live with the PlayStation. They go through their normal life, but at night they go to these fantastical worlds. And I wanted to write about how I have lived, and how I’ve played these games and gone on these journeys.

A lot of people, when they were kids, had holidays and had lots of things. I didn’t have that. My Mum raised me on my own. And people say, "You didn’t have holidays? You haven’t lived!" Well, I have lived!

There’s not enough talk about the storyline of a game, the experience of a game. There’s too much d*ck waving about graphics and the console wars. I feel like certain video games helped raised me, improve my emotional growth, and set my moral compass. They can be great emotional tools for education.

I wanted to tell people that, "this, the experience, is what it’s all about. It’s about games being fun, and going into a new world"

I always remember an advert that Sony London put out called "double life"…people from all walks of life talking about their live with the PlayStation. They go through their normal life, but at night they go to these fantastical worlds. And I wanted to write about how I have lived, and how I’ve played these games and gone on these journeys.

A lot of people, when they were kids, had holidays and had lots of things. I didn’t have that. My Mum raised me on my own. And people say, "You didn’t have holidays? You haven’t lived!" Well, I have lived!

There’s not enough talk about the storyline of a game, the experience of a game. There’s too much d*ck waving about graphics and the console wars. I feel like certain video games helped raised me, improve my emotional growth, and set my moral compass. They can be great emotional tools for education.

I wanted to tell people that, "this, the experience, is what it’s all about. It’s about games being fun, and going into a new world" ` author=“JasonM”>}}

And he is completely right. #weHaveLived

The following is a promo-spot for Jay’s appearance on the Gamerhood Podcast. Reach out today, if you’d like your promo included in a future episode of the podcast

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to jump in and let you know that I was recently (as of the time of releasing this episode) on a show called "The Gamerhood Podcast". I’d recommend this show for gamers who are also parents, regardless of your gender identity or the role you play in the lives of any children you have. Each of the episodes revolves around the gaming and fatherhood advice of the guests, and there are some truly amazing nuggets of information in each episode.

Anyway, I was on episode 23 - "Be The Soundboard w/ Podcast Guru GaProgMan". Definitely go check it out, and I’ll leave a link directly to it in the show notes. In the episode we talked about my system for only playing one game at a time (and how difficult that is), some advice for podcasters, and there are plenty of tangents too - because I know that you all love those.

So definitely check the show notes for a link.

Anyway, back to the show.

- Jay

And this started a discussion with Jason, Squidge and Jay about the graphics vs gameplay argument - Squide even brings up his favourite Resident Evil game (Gaiden), which a LOT of people would like not play, BECAUSE it’s for an older console.

But is it a generational thing? Are the younger gamers

for context, everyone on this episode is in their 30

more focussed on graphics rather than gameplay, story and experience? Jason brings up the NES classic, and talks about the fact that he didn’t have a NES which meant that he didn’t really have any nostalgia for it. But he does have a certain level of nostalgia for the classic Resident Evil titles, even though the later games have more up-to-date and immersive graphics.

JasonM's Avatar JasonM

It’s not just about the graphics. It’s about the gameplay and the atmosphere.

Which leads to us having a conversation about the topics that Jay brought up in one of his rants: Graphics vs Gameplay

here’s a link to that rant

which revolves around a single quote:

no ray tracing: literally unplayable

- some guy

Which is a nothing argument, because a lack of ray tracing doesn’t actually take away from the experience of the game.

Also, the technobable is meaningless because the PS5 and Xbox Series X have the same specifications

minus two model numbers for one of the components included in both

so let’s drop that as an excuse as to why one game is better than any other.

Music

Links to the music used in the podcast can be found below. Definitely check them out, because they're amazing tracks by awesome musicians.

All copyrighted material contained within this podcast is the property of their respective rights owners. Please see the above list for copyright details pertaining to music used.

Games Covered

We mentioned 31 games in this podcast. In the following order, those games where: