[00:00:00] Oh, hi podcast listeners. There's many ways you can listen to the Reel Nerds Podcast. You can subscribe on iTunes. You can also subscribe on Stitcher Radio. You want to send us a Twitter message? You can do that. It's so easy, at Reel Nerds. Like us on Facebook, Reel Nerds Podcast. You can visit our website, realnerdspodcast.com, where there will be a lot of articles for you to not only read, but to listen to our previous shows. Do you like your stories told
[00:00:27] through pictures? And you can also follow us at realnerds on Instagram. You can also call us, 720-6nerds5. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show. Well, a real nerd knows who shot and a real nerd can follow the plot and a real nerd can put- Doesn't talk to a film! I'm sorry. Take it outside.
[00:01:01] ...knows who shot and a real- Welcome to Reel Nerds Podcast live at Denver Fan Expo. Even though that kind of sounds like I'm talking on the radio. We are with Cameron. Cameron, thanks for stopping by. Hello.
[00:01:25] I've- So, ran into you last year and then we ran into each other at- Was it All Seas? Was that the one we were at? It was All Seas Collectibles. Yeah. And now we're running into you here again. You know, us nerds run together. And- Flocks of a feather. Yeah. And we eventually just keep on crossing paths. We're on a first name basis now. Exactly. You're part of the clique, if I can borrow a wrestling term. Ooh.
[00:01:54] Are you a big DX fan? You know, I'm not a big DX fan anymore. It's more like the Bullet Clubs, the stables now. It's pretty good.
[00:02:06] Yeah. You know, I kind of feel out of wrestling, but I always catch it every once in a while. In fact, my little guy, his birthday last year, Raw, was in town. So I took him because it'll be fun. And Dominic Mysterio, I was really impressed with because he gets so much heat and how he can get people just to hate his guts. I go, I like this guy. You're like, wow, I want to be a villain just like that man.
[00:02:34] Yeah. Because I remember when I was watching wrestling and he was that little, like, punk kid. I guess he wasn't a punk, but Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio were wrestling for the parental rights of him. Yeah. So now that he's where he is, and then Rhea Ripley, that woman is quite the performer. You know what? And what I know about her is she's, like, the top person right now in female wrestling next to, like, Charlotte's player. Yeah.
[00:03:03] Yeah. So it was fun. But, yeah, about more of, like, a 1990s wrestling guy or, you know, the 80s. You know, everybody has a macho man. Have you ever seen, like, that underground wrestling stuff like JCW or Backyard Wrestling? Backyard, I remember because the VHSs were really popular when I was in high school. Weird. Yeah. That's cool. Yeah. I'm old, bro. I, you know, you only look, like, 30.
[00:03:30] That's good. I am 43, so I'll take that as a compliment. People say I look 25 all the time. I'm like, no, I'm 30. Yeah? Yeah. I still get carded. Hey, that's okay. See, when you get old, you get these Mr. Fantastic streaks of gray in your hair. You getting them? I got pepper. Yeah. I got the pepper look. Mine's cool because it is Mr. Fantastic. It's really in my temples, so it's cool. I tell my wife, she says, who is Mr. Fantastic, and I go, oh, she doesn't care.
[00:04:01] But it's okay. So, but let's talk about you. What brings you to Fan Expo? Was, last year, was it your first one or not? So, I've been going to Fan Expo for every year since I've been little, but I think mostly as a child, it was about like, oh, going with my dad. Yeah. Being like, oh my God, there's a celebrity.
[00:04:25] And now as an adult, it's like video games, meeting actors, or people that I remember being resonating with. Yeah, and you know, when you have your own money, it's easier to do what you want to do. Yeah. As you get older as a collector, the things you want just cost more money, I found. And then when you leave this place, you're like, what did I blow a grand on? Oh yeah, it's bad. You know, the one thing that is cool about having a booth is I don't blow money very fast because I'm stuck here.
[00:04:53] But if I was walking around for, you know, a couple hours, oh man, not good. You're like, I'm glad that I'm in this little contained area. Yeah, because I see all these amazing Spider-Mans I need, and it's all the old ones. And you know, they're minimum two, three hundred bucks. So if I was walking around too much, I'd have too many of them. What do you find is the most, or what is your weakest thing? Like if you're walking around right now and you're like, this is throwing money at it right now.
[00:05:22] You know, as I've gotten older, it's been commissioned work. So I still did one of those. But yeah, if I'm a sucker for Green Goblin, I'm a sucker for Spider-Man. So if I walk by and I see a Green Goblin piece or I see something with Spider-Man, I will stop. I might not buy it, but there's a chance I will. You're over here admiring it? Like, I like the streaks in this.
[00:05:51] I literally have, because I've counted them, 42 Green Goblin action figures. I have 71 Spider-Mans. And then just a bunch of random stuff too, because that's what I do. So same question. When you walk through here, what makes you stop? Luckily for me, it's right now Xbox games and VHS tapes. That's right, because, you know, sorry to interrupt you, but when I talked to you last,
[00:06:19] you're doing something unique with Xbox, and you should tell everybody about it. So I have over, well, as of yesterday, I have over 300 games. I want to play each and every one of them and keep the good ones, sell the bad ones. And you're trying to beat every single one, correct? Exactly. Which one is surprisingly good that you've played and you couldn't believe it?
[00:06:49] I mean, I know it's going to be hard because it's an Xbox, but, you know, try to humor me. Don't worry, PlayStation fan. I get it. So right now I'm playing Silent Hill Homecoming. Yeah. And it's considered one of the worst Silent Hill games on the generation, both PS3 and Xbox. It is surprisingly really good. Oh, you like it, huh? It is tense when it needs to be tense, and it is nerve-wracking at the least when it needs to be.
[00:07:17] And it's just like I'm walking down a hallway and nothing's going on. I go into a room, I pick up a key, walk out that door, and it's like, ah! I think I've had to stop one time because I got, like, scared. Really? And I'm like, yeah, I've had to close out of the whole game. And I'm like, damn. Yeah, you know, Silent Hill games are fun. The remake they did of Silent Hill 2 is really good. You know, I'm a Resident Evil guy. I think that Silent Hill, their story is really, really bizarre.
[00:07:47] Yeah. You know, I think that it might be the Japanese influence on them more so, where Resident Evils kind of pay homage to American horror and things like that. From an, what is it called, like an outsider's perspective of American horror movies? Yeah. Paying homage. Paying homage. Now, on the flip side of that, do you think a lot of horror movies today owe a lot to, like, video games or, like, Silent Hill's creators?
[00:08:14] I think in terms of how the horror is presented, yes. I think when you watch horror films now, I mean, when I was growing up, Friday the 13th were getting X ratings. And you watch them now and you go, this is getting an X rating? Because, I mean, you watch something like The Monkey or even, like, Walking Dead on TV, and they're literally, you know, pulling guts and stuff out of people.
[00:08:42] I think video games has helped with that because it's a medium that is so popular that people don't realize a game like, you know, Call of Duty generates a billion dollars its first weekend it's released. Yes. You know, or, you know, a Resident Evil game sells 40 million copies and that's a lot of people playing that game.
[00:09:10] And just to be fully transparent, I'm the video game buff and obviously the real nerds are movie buffs. So it's two different, it is two different languages sometimes. But, like, I was going to reference, like, Final Destination Bloodlines. I don't know how many people went into that movie or how much it made domestically or worldwide. But I would assume that it's kind of like your B-rated video games.
[00:09:36] They're making, like, $20,000 million or something, you know? Yeah, you know, horror movies have a tendency to kind of break through. Bloodlines, like you talked about, I think has made over $100 million, which is the highest for that franchise. But I think the accessibility of those, I think why people like them is because, like, it's an okay movie,
[00:10:00] but the event of, you know, each person dying, you know, there's some setup to it. A lot like a video game where it's, you go into a room, you know, you put a gem in this one statue and it turns and then the monsters come in. A lot of video games have influenced them in that, I think. Huh. Sorry to go off the rails. You're good. I actually came here with something that I wanted to talk to you personally about.
[00:10:30] And, sorry. You can. So how I met you was talking about physical media and the preservation of it and where to find those and where to go and how to keep it alive. Yeah. Now, I owe a lot of debt to you because I learned to myself that digital is not really a way to go. So as a video game collector, I was already collecting that stuff.
[00:10:54] But now I collect VHSs and I learned the importance of, like, you can't buy Cannibal Holocaust on Blu-ray. Yeah. Or at least a good copy of it. Or the story of Riccio. You can't get that on Blu-ray without paying $200. So, to me, I wanted to talk to you about the continuation of how to preserve legacy media
[00:11:18] and how the industry right now, both video games, movies, are moving away from that and how you feel personally and how two people in a, I don't know, four by four kind of booth can save it. Wow, that's a lot of pressure. I agree. You know, it's bucking tradition or trends right now.
[00:11:42] I just read consumer reports that 75% of all video games are downloaded now. But you lose something when you don't have it and you can't hold it. Even, you know, I have so many comics. I have so many movies. I have so many video games. So many action figures. You know, I'm starting to get into Lego building, too. And so much that, again, it's something you build with your hands.
[00:12:11] It's something that you have. You can't take my Galactus Lego set away from me. You know what I mean? You can't. Until they find a way to digitally print bricks. Yeah. You know, a perfect example is we're in our Friday the 13th theme booth. They released a Friday the 13th video game that has to be connected to a server at all times.
[00:12:34] Friday the 13th, about four years ago, longer than that, has been entangled in legal problems. Yes. So they kill the servers and now you can't play the game anymore. And being connected to the internet, while it's cool, it also really affects your ability to enjoy stuff. And I'm not a fan of that. And I agree with you. As I do, like, the Avengers game that they put out, they turned off the servers for that.
[00:13:04] And I know there's some legal battles going on. There's some, like, petitions right now that are getting huge amounts of fan support. Yes. Support and action.
[00:13:23] And it's going to put into law that those companies that make those digital games with time limits are going to have to, you know, give something back to the consumer because it's $70 to buy a game. It is. You're right. There is something. There is a movement starting for it. And, I mean, it was in Congress last year about, like, loots, too. Yep. Loot boxes. Because it is really kind of a detriment right now to games. I'm a big Mortal Kombat fan.
[00:13:53] And, you know, Mortal Kombat 1 is really fun. And you can grind it. But it ended up making a lot of people not happy because, well, you need to buy this skin. You need to buy this one. You need to get in-game currency. The only way you can unlock fatalities is if you grind and grind. I don't mind the grind because I like the game. But at the same time, it's, you know, to get the second fatality on everybody, you have to get every character to level 15. That's brutal. And you know what?
[00:14:21] They did do that thing that made everybody angry is they put in seasonal fatalities. Yep. And they were $1.99 each. Yeah. I did get them only because I got the collector's edition and it came with the dragon crystals already with it. But I'm not a big, I'm going to buy in-game currency because I think it just promotes this kind of style of gaming. And I'm not even blaming the developers.
[00:14:47] I'm guessing whether it's Call of Duty, whether it's Mortal Kombat, whomever it is, they make the game. The developers come up and say, hey, or the publishers, it's cool that you want this, but we need stuff that when people go online that we're going to charge $0.99, $1.99 to get. And it kind of, yeah. Mortal Kombat fans are some of the worst fans.
[00:15:12] And I'm one of them, but I'm not like they are where it's always negative. It's always this, that, this. I mean, even at the end of the day, if you don't get the fatalities, you still, I have not bought a costume or a skin. And I have, I mean, my Melina, I think she has 190 different skins. I want to see the game record save on it, too. I want to see it. It's like 250 hours.
[00:15:42] I think I'm at 170. Respectable. Yeah, not too bad. But, so if that bled into movies, right, where they go like, we're going to give you the base movie, but if you want to access all the bonus features, you have to pay like a dollar each. Yeah. Do you feel like that could be a possibility in the future? And if it is, what would be the outcome to moviegoers? That's a great question. I don't know.
[00:16:07] I don't have, studios like game publishers, they want to change your habits. They, and they have to some extent, you know, Elio is a Pixar movie that came out that didn't do that well. And part of the blame, people think, which sometimes doesn't track because Inside Out 2 made it over a billion dollars. But you don't make it special if you just release it on streaming.
[00:16:35] You don't make it special when you do something like that. So, I mean, I don't think I would pay a dollar for a behind the scenes thing. Having said that, I do buy collector's editions of movies that I don't mind. Just like, I had this actually talk with Brad about the Switch 2. So, the Switch 2, you know, the new Mario Kart is $80. I'm cool with games being expensive.
[00:17:03] If you give me the content immediately. Yeah. Don't charge me $80, $90, $100 like they're talking about for GTA 6. And then, oh, if you want these additional chapters, it's another $40. But that's, but the problem with that to me is like, they've been making half-batched games. Yeah. Where they don't work properly. And they're still saying, hey, can you give me like $100 for this game? And we promise eventually it'll be better. Oh, yeah. I agree.
[00:17:32] I mean, what's the last game, new game you've put in that didn't have several gigs of an update as soon as you booted up? Oh, man. Well, not one any recently. I don't have one. Yeah. I mean, even, I got Mario and Luigi Brothership for Switch. And it had a gig that had to be downloaded before you could play it. I'm sorry. No, iGame's fine. I'm a big fan.
[00:17:59] See, and I definitely feel like once you take, like you said, you buy collector's editions. Once you take away the physical item and you start going like, well, if you want the director's cut, the X-rated cut, here's the base movie. Here's the extras that we'll supply to you. And, you know, because it's a market that hasn't been tapped yet, like loot boxes or, at the time, battle passes. Yeah. I don't know how battle passes work.
[00:18:27] I got a bunch of them because I bought Suicide Squad, the collector's edition of it. I'm like, what is a battle pass? Can you explain it to me? I don't know what it is. So basically what it is is where they give you a pass and they go like, okay, if you play this game long enough and you get to, let's say, this level, then you unlock this cosmetic item or this emblem. And then if you purchase the premium, once you hit level five, you get like an exclusive skin.
[00:18:52] Or they give you ten levels, you get like another skin that's a little bit cooler than the last one. So it's a cosmetic pass that, so it's not a separate mission. It's while you play the game and the character levels up. Yes, exactly. It's kind of like if you had Skyrim and then they give you like a cool sword once you hit level five. I think I've already missed out on that because I know they turn those off too, I believe. Fortnite's a great example of it.
[00:19:22] So if you ever play Fortnite. Haven't. Well, good for you. I envy you. It's what every game now is based on, like your Call of Duties and Halos. They give you like a – I think it's more for engagement. So the more you play every day, the more you level up, the more you get cool rewards. And it's – I mean, for a kid, I bet that's really cool. But for somebody who's like me that wants to play a progressive story or enjoy like a narrative,
[00:19:50] it's very hard for me to get involved. That's why PlayStation's better. They have a lot more of those games. You want to get down to it right now? I'm down. Name me a game that's better than Uncharted. Gears. Halo. No. Tomb Raider. No. You don't think – Tomb Raider's great. The reboot is really awesome. But everything it owes is to Uncharted. But you don't think without Tomb Raider they are being Uncharted? Oh, 100% no.
[00:20:21] The – Naughty Dog is such a great game developer. I mean, I even love their Jack and Daxter games, which, I mean, are basically Super Mario 64, but with different characters. And I mean, I'm not being just a butt here, but I do think PlayStation is better at putting out single-player experience games. I'll agree with you.
[00:20:47] I think Xbox is better suited for first-person shooters and the online experience, where PlayStation is more of the action-adventure kind of games. And I think at its time, Xbox 360 had a lot of great games going for it at the time. You had Gears for the first time that had three, four sequels, and then they had Halo. I can get the remake of Gears of War on my PlayStation. Congratulations. I think Xbox gave up.
[00:21:16] I think they just were like, you know what? If we're not going to make consoles anymore, let's just publish our software everywhere else. Do you think they're trending towards that? I do. And it's very sad to me as an Xbox elitist to be like, why aren't I getting a new Jade Empire? Why am I not getting a new Brute Force? Why is Conker still locked away? I feel you. You know, it's really heartbreaking to see that they cancel Perfect Dark.
[00:21:44] And I was actually talking to Brad because Rare started as this little developer in Scotland. Yeah. Come closer to me. You know, and now they're closed. Yeah. And, you know, that was my childhood, whether it was GoldenEye, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Diddy Kong Racing, whatever it was. So the good news about that is they didn't shut down Rare. They just, they fired or let go of 30,000 people or whatever.
[00:22:12] And they were making a game called Everwilds. And they canceled that. So they're not publishing that game anymore. But if they really wanted to print out money, why can't we get a new Banjo-Kazooie? Yeah, I agree. Why can't we get a new Conker? Like, that's stuff that, but from what I learned in interviews that they were talking about, Rare wants to back away from those platformers and make, like, new games. That's why Sea of Thieves was so great. And I don't know.
[00:22:41] I know they closed down the cool, or they closed down a studio that was making Perfect Dark. I don't know the name of it right now. Yeah. But it's very sad to see that because, as you say, Sony makes very good first-person experiences, story-driven narratives. What does Xbox have? A couple third-person shooters. Sure. Or a couple old-school games that they fall back on. Yeah.
[00:23:09] And Nintendo's just Nintendo that lives in its own little entity. And very successful at it. I know. It's very weird. Yeah. I mean, I grew up on Nintendo. I love Nintendo. I think Mario is still the greatest video game character, and Super Mario Bros. is the greatest video game that's ever been made. And they do. And that's why I love the Paper Mario stuff. I love the Mario & Luigi stuff. And the Zelda. I think Nintendo just, yeah, they're their own thing. And you can, it's all about the experience with Nintendo.
[00:23:39] It's about having fun. Yeah, exactly. It's not, graphics aren't important to them. Even though their games look great. But they're not important to them. It's the gameplay and the experience. Do you think they care more about what their people are saying about their console now than they did two generations ago? I do. I mean, obviously because when, you know, they dropped the price of Mario Kart, it was $90 for the physical. And then they got big backlash, so they dropped it to $80. Which, I mean, that's still pretty expensive.
[00:24:09] But, hey, if they're going to have 30 racers and you're going to give me 100 horses. You're like, bring it to me. Exactly. It's cool. Just do it. So that's my only caveat with what they're doing now. But I want the game industry to survive. I want it to continue. So I'm not going to. I want it to crash. Oh, yeah? I really want it to crash so we could go to a new golden age of gaming. But I also wanted to stick around because Nintendo is making very good movies.
[00:24:41] They are. They're moving away from, like, they have a whole new thing going on where they put out the Mario Brothers movie. That's a cool movie. And now they're making a Zelda movie. Yeah. And it's like, okay, let's see where this goes. I want more of what you were just doing. Like, give me that. Yeah, and Nintendo is creative. They got it. It's fun. I love Nintendo. If you could have a video game movie of your choosing and one good actor to play the main character, what game and what actor?
[00:25:08] So if I had to choose one, it would be Metal Gear Solid to play Snake. Oh, man. There's that kid from Death Stranding 2 that they just put out. Yeah. They did his face model. He looks just like Solid Snake. I just don't remember his name. Yeah, that would be a really cool one. That's a great question. To know how to play him? I don't know. I don't know who I'd have to play him. I mean, he'd have to be someone older.
[00:25:37] Someone like, you know, they'd have to be, like, mid-40s. A little grizzled. Is it going to be part of canon? Or is it its own acting? I think if you could make a really cool movie of, you know, an elite soldier trying to get secrets and sneaking into, you know, Shadow Fox or whatever you want to call it. Jason Bourne. Yeah.
[00:26:05] I mean, someone like Matt Damon, I think, could pull off Solid Snake. Well, that would be really rad. Yeah. I mean, even, like, Keanu Reeves would be a good one. Oh, man. Can you imagine? Because, you know, Snake doesn't really say very much. So, you know, you just hate Keanu. But, yeah. What about you? What do you think would be a great video game movie? Oh, man. I would like an animated Super Smash Bros. movie. Okay. Yeah.
[00:26:32] And do, like, the premise of everybody's here and get that weird, or get Sonic involved in that. Okay. I'm on board. And I want all the animation styles from each movie to be different. Sweet. I'm on board. I want it. I feel like it'd be cool. Get a Kirby movie going, dude. Oh, man. You know what? That might be coming. You never know. And I'll be on the front row, and I'll just be like, all right, real nerds, let's talk. And then the headlines are going to say, you know what movie doesn't suck? Kirby.
[00:27:03] Who would have fought a little puffball? Yes. Bring so much love. He really does. Cameron, thanks for stopping by. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It was a fun talk. You're always welcome. We're always around. Yeah. I really enjoy talking to you, to Brad. It was fun. Oh, fuck Brad. Oh, me and Brad had a conversation about Elio and how he fell asleep through it. Oh, yeah. He falls asleep in every movie. Before I totally leave, have you seen Elio? I have.
[00:27:33] Did you cry during it? No. I did think it was a really cute movie, though. I cried at least twice. Yeah? Oh, tear-dricker. Yeah. It's a very cute movie. Yeah. It's one of those movies that what it means to be a family. Sometimes it's not the family you want. It's the family you get. But it's okay. I took it as no matter how alone that you might feel, there's always somebody there that's in your corner. Absolutely. That's a better way of saying it. Well, thank you for having me, Ryan.
[00:28:03] Thanks for stopping by. Appreciate it. Thanks for listening to Real Nerds Podcast, a Nebulous Visions production. Stream or download episodes, read articles at realnerdspodcast.com.
[00:28:30] Stream us on Apple or Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or iHeartRadio. Follow us on Facebook, Real Nerds Podcast. Twitter and Instagram, at Real Nerds. Watch us on YouTube, Real Nerds Podcast. Email us at realnerds at gmail.com. Call us at 720-6nerds5. Thank you to Sparks Mandrill, Mike at Plan 9 Studios, and Bolognium for all of our groovy theme songs. And that's how you fucking do it.