I finally confronted him..

We have a very important guest.

Asmongold, how you doing man?

I'm doing great, how about you? I've seen your videos on and off for the last 10 years. And now I'm talking to you. That's odd.

10 freaking years?

Yeah.

That's crazy that you know, you've been watching this stuff for that long. Now hold on a second. Hold on.

Yeah.

When you say you've been watching my videos. You're right. Are you actually watching my videos? Are you watching the detractors?

I'm watching videos of you.

So the question, I guess my question for you is overall, after watching me for 10 years, what is your impression? Because I hear things all the time, but I hear it from a very isolated group.

And I'm curious as someone who's been an outsider watching this kind of content, like, what do you think? Well, I mean like, you know, the videos that I see, I mean, let's be honest. I mean, I'm sure you've seen a few of them, right? And a lot of people have opinions about the way that you stream. And especially about the way that you finance your streams. That's been a lot of people asking about this. Before we get that I we got to get something straight okay what can I just say it can I just can is it alright if I just like we just talk like straight yeah okay so whenever

you went on stream and you accidentally got caught jerking off you got suspended

by twitch right no what I was not streaming on twitch I was streaming on YouTube so you weren't streaming on twitch when that happened no I was I was actually not a twitch streamer at that time I was only streaming on YouTube and I nothing happened at all I had zero repercussions for it because it wasn't there was no nudity there was no sound it was just my old face basically right right of course. And so...

Why don't you stream on Twitch?

It's a good question.

I mean, don't- wouldn't you just make more money? Like, I mean, you're streaming on Kik, you're streaming on YouTube. Like, I mean, at least on Twitch, like, at least make some money from ads. But like, if you're streaming on YouTube, how the fuck do you make any money? Cause like, you're gonna get like fucking super chats maybe. Or like a subscription. But that's about it, right?

Uhh, no. I mean I get ad revenue on every stream that I do on YouTube.

Yeah, but it's not like-

As if it were a video playing. Yeah, it's not like Twitch though. Twitch pays way more. Twitch pays way more for ads?

They still do. They still do. If you, if you're not like me, like for me, I like talking about, uh, politics and so I get paid about three cents a day, but if you don't do that, you get thousands of dollars. I mean, if you get enough viewers.

Yeah.

Well, I did, I did stream on Twitch for a while. Why'd you stop and uh? well, I stopped in 2021 because I

Buy detractors in 2021 actually put together this package of stuff

That was like clips of me from over a decade before so yeah, I started you know I've been I've been streaming since 2008 okay Well, that streaming, excuse me. I've been a YouTuber since 2008. And back then, it was the Wild West and everyone said and did whatever they wanted to try to get, like, shock value out of the audience. You know, back then my audience was all teenagers, so I'm doing, like, over-the-top sexualized dialogue about women's tits in the video game all the time. And I'm doing racial commentary, like like racial jokes and stuff like that. Yeah, I did that a couple of days ago.

Well, there you go. See, I did it 15 years ago and people found it back then funny. Today, they find it offensive.

No, they don't.

And so, well, you're right, but at the same time-

You gotta bring those back. There's the wiki culture aspect. There are there are annoying Karen's on the internet that are like that. You're right. You're right. No, it's true And then 2008 they were not on the internet now they are

That's right. Yes, so so in 2021 my distractors put together this package like clips from 2010 You know, there was this one time I did a little demo playthrough of a game called dead space 2 You probably have heard of it. Yes. And I made Nazi jokes. Terrible, right? But I made Nazi jokes. So they take that and then they take a comment about me saying something, something racial about Asians or something. And it's all like 15 years old. And they sent it to everyone.

They sent it to Teespring I had a partnership with. They sent it to the Twitch partner program team. They sent it to everyone twitch partner program team they sent it to everyone and in 2021 context all these teams looked at this and said oh this guy's a horrible racist bigot and like overnight in like 2021 I got kicked out of everything I got kicked out of the twitch partner program I got kicked off teespring I got kicked off of every one of these pop-up services you know how

you get pop-ups on your stream for contributions they all canceled me they all said oh you're offensive you You're cancelled and I'm like For what like what did I do and they'd be like, oh well you said hateful things What did I say? Cuz I haven't done this kind of content since like 2010 Yeah, so what the hell are you talking about and twitch specifically their lawyers wrote me back and said oh We actually me back and said, Oh, we actually don't have any legal obligation to say what you did wrong.

And we're actually not going to tell you what you did wrong at all. If you want to reapply for the partner program, come back in a year, but too bad. Okay. And I was like, how could I ever improve my content? Make sure that I'm in line with your platforms terms of service. If you don't tell me what I actually did wrong and their

Attitude was we don't care too bad, and I was like alright Well, I'll see if then if I can still make some money streaming on Twitch even without the partner program So I provide another month I was streaming on Twitch, and I was just trying to take in like tips and contributions and stuff like that One day I'm streaming the game returnal, you remember that game? Yes. And you know, you remember how high action that game was, like there's shit flying at you from every direction.

Yeah, there was a lot of shit going on, yeah.

Very frenetic. So in the middle of me playing it, I'm reading something off the screen and I get attacked from the side and I'm like, Oh shit, blah blah blah, and I like got tongue tied. Did you accidentally say the N-word? No, it sounded almost like I did, but I definitely didn't say it. Cause I wasn't, I was reading the screen. You could see what I was actually trying to say

when I got interrupted. And they suspended me. And I'm like, how could you suspend me? I didn't do anything. Oh, well you said the N-word. I was like, no, I don't want to stream on a platform where number

one at any moment, you're going to accuse me of being like a hateful bigot. Yeah. But then you won't justify what you're saying. You won't even send me evidence of me doing anything wrong, violating your terms. And you take away my ability to monetize my streams. That's number one. And then on top of that, even if I try to survive and make a living otherwise, like, okay, I'll just take tips or whatever, then you're gonna suspend me on a whim for something I literally didn't do

because my trolls flagged the stream. And at that point I said, I don't wanna be here anymore. And I stepped away and ever since I've been a full-time YouTube streamer, and for the last year I've also co-streamed on Kick, and that's howprofessional. And at a moment's notice, they're going to cancel me

when I didn't do anything wrong.

I'm going to be honest. So like, do you think that you were a victim of cancel culture?

I was a victim of a group of people on the internet who really don't like me taking advantage of cancel culture.

Well, that's kind of based. It is. I mean, now, I mean, things have changed a lot since then. 2021 was a different universe, as I'm sure that you know. But so you're talking about, I know that some of my viewers might not be familiar with this. You're talking about this term detractors. Can you expand on that?

So there's a difference between an internet troll and a detractor. Okay, internet troll is just someone who like wants to make fun of ya, razz you every once in a while, you know. A detractor is someone who is like absolutely dedicated to your downfall.

Okay.

Someone who spends untold amounts of time watching and stalking your content, trying to nitpick, trying to find flaws in your character so that then they can highlight them and try to make you look bad for personal gain.

That's what I consider attractive. So do you think that they really want you to fail or do they just want to, like, I think that they want to keep you down but they don't want you to fail because if they, if, it's like, kind of like harvesting a crop in a way, right? Because like if they totally get rid of your content, then as you said, they're not going to make any fucking money. So they've they actually they want you to succeed, but just in a very, very limited way, right?

I would say to some extent, you're absolutely correct. A lot of them that is their game. The problem is, it's not necessarily the people making the content That's the problem right people that watch their content. Oh, they don't understand the context So I'm the problem and then they come after me. Oh, no, not you. I'm saying like some of their like diehard fans Yeah have done some pretty fucked up stuff to me and my family and not me I'm talking anyone who's considered a lol cow on the internet or whatever the extent that these people go, they don't understand that, okay this is all a joke,

let's make fun of them, let's make some money on it. Listen, that goes hand in hand, I get that, but if then you're going to try to go out of your way to get me to lose my livelihood completely, you're actually going to try to harass people in real life, to try to stalk people in real life. That's when it gets crazy. So it's kind of like professional wrestling,

right? Where it's like some people like they understand that it's kind of a joke and it's for fun and you know like there's like tongue-in-cheek humor to it but there's some people that take it too far. I would agree with that statement, yes. And while we're on the topic of wrestling there has been... Hold on one second. Preface it.

I'm not going to preface it. I want to say something different before we start. Because here's the problem which you may not be aware of. By the way, I want to thank you for giving me this platform to speak with you today. Thanks for coming on.

You have a ridiculous amount of viewership. This is awesome that I get to actually talk with you and say my piece. Thank you for that. Of course. FYI, I'm in a unique situation. I have so many detractors, okay, that when you react to my stuff, you watch a detractor video or whatever, you might think, hey, well, this is cool.

I'm giving Phil the rub, right? I'm watching some of Phil's content today. Maybe some people will head over and check him out or whatever and that's a positive outcome from you watching my content. Yes. The problem here is that's not the case because my detractors every single day live restream my streams illegally. Okay, it's not like they're adding commentary or criticism. They're just live restreaming just to say, hey, watch it over here so Phil doesn't make any money or get any attention. They steal my content.

Right now, they're ripping this video and they will have it on their channel before I can have it live on mine. So the problem is you watch the content and they say, oh, DSP, let me go find them. And they go to YouTube, they type in DSP and all they get in the search is my detractor.

It's about you being an idiot, basically, right?

They can never find my channel. Yeah. Find my channel. Yeah, like there was a case in point earlier this year. There was a guy in the fighting game community He had heard one of my takes on the recent Street Fighter game and he responded to it But he couldn't find my actual content. He only found the detractor clips that looked like shit, you know They're all fuzzy right and he's like I want to talk to Phil Can anyone tell me what his real channel is and no one could could even tell him my real channel. So, well I just searched DSP myself.

So DSP tries it memeology 101. Is this your main channel?

That is not me.

Okay, that's not your main channel. Okay, uh, let's scroll down. Uh, how about Raw Phil? Is that your main channel? Nope, he's my number one thief. Okay, well here's another one. I even recognize this name duty streams this one also isn't your main channel either right nope these are all my detract okay? All right, mighty D. This isn't you is it?

No, okay Let's see I Okay, robust urban garlic All right, this is again. Not you all right I think so so so I think that you're actually right about this. I I don't wear The snort Burnell snort Burnell. That's you

Well, I I do snort sometimes on the stream, but no that's not my channel sadly

So you know, so you snorted before on the stream and this is oh, this has got to be Photoshop Yeah, okay. It is that that one's Photoshop. All right. That looks like my hair, not yours.

And could I actually tell people my channel? So if they want to check it out, they have an opportunity. You know what chance?

I mean, we're not going to find it here. So I think you have to.

OK, my main channel where I stream every single day, well almost every day, it's usually around five to six days a week. It's youtube.com slash DSP Gaming, okay? My channel is so old, you don't need the at symbol to find it. It's actually hard-coded DSP Gaming, it's been around for 15 plus years. And there's tons of content, I mean this thing

is like a repository of ridiculous amounts of game play-thrs that I've done. Um, I do have another channel that's DSP React. That one is at DSP React. That one I don't use that much. I do fast food reviews on there. So if you want to check that out, you can.

But it's DSP Gaming is where you can find me. So if anyone's watching this, hey, I just want to give the guy a look. Please actually watch the content you know it'll be nice instead of just the detractors getting a rub. Okay all right so so basically these detractors have completely taken over your YouTube algorithm and now nobody actually watches you like you're a well-known figure on the internet

but nobody actually watches you.

You're right right now more people are watching the restreams of my stream than my stream.

How did this happen?

A combination of factors, the big one that actually sunk my channel was that in 2015, this is 10 years ago.

Yeah.

A detractor hit me with a whole bunch of false copyright strikes. And this is when the copyright strike thing was really abusable.

Yeah.

I was a partner with Machinima Network back then, and they had a meeting with YouTube about it and YouTube says to Machinima, Phil needs to delete any videos on his channel where these detractors could actually hit him with a false copyright strike. Whenever I was

asking about the detractors, why do you think that you have detractors?

See, there's a million reasons why and listen, I'm not gonna. Are any of them your fault? Why do you think that you have detractors?

See, there's a million reasons why. And listen, I'm not gonna-

Are any of them your fault?

Oh yeah, that's exactly what I was just gonna say. I was gonna say, there's no way that I'm gonna say it's never my fault or it's not my fault. This all started back in around 2011 and 2012. All right. Okay, so for a little bit of history lesson,

I started on YouTube in 2008. I started doing this for a living in 2011. And at one point I was actually one of the bigger, not the biggest, but one of the bigger let's players on YouTube. Okay, I was getting 10 to 20 million views a month on my main channel at that time.

And what happened was I thought, I got too big in my own head. I got a big in my own head. I got a big ego. Okay, I thought my content's the best, right? It's the best playthroughs out there. And people started to throw me criticism. And like, Phil, dude, it's 2011.

You're not even doing direct capture. You're using a camera to record your TV. What are you, stupid? Like, you're making money. Why don't you go this and do that to improve? And I was very stubborn. I basically would always like clap back and argue. And I'd be like, no, my content's good as it is.

I know I like to do it the way I do it. I'm not going to listen to any criticism or whatever.

Yeah.

So what ended up happening is one person made a video called This is How You Don't Play. And I'm sure you've seen some of these. I've been watching them. I've seen them. The Tractor content. Yeah. So the original one, I believe, was Metal Gear Solid 2. And this video was just a montage of me sucking at the game.

Every stupid thing I did, every mistake I made, every dumb piece of commentary I said, all thrown into one. It was a very entertaining video. People loved it. And it got like a million views on YouTube. So me being very stupid and big headed back then. Yes. Did I respond positively and be like, wow, that's great.

Maybe I should buy into this. Maybe I'll make my own videos razzing myself or whatever. Yeah, no, I'm an idiot. I'm a big headed, you know, stubborn idiot. And instead I start like getting pissed at the guy. I start insulting him, saying he's stealing my content.

He did that without my permission. But aren't you doing that now? Didn't you just doing that now? Like, cause the detractors, you're saying that they were re-uploading your content and they're doing the same thing? Cause you just said that like three, 10 minutes ago.

You're right. And the difference is today, they're doing absolutely nothing transformative whatsoever. They are literally just stealing the content And like that raw Phil channel you just mentioned, all he does is rip my shit plain and just puts it on his channel. He's not making a criticism, he's not reviewing my content, he's just fucking stealing it. You know? That's the difference between today and back then.

Back then, this is how you don't play, 100%, today in context, it's a great video, it's totally a transformative work, he had the right to make it. But now I've grown and I understand that. Back then I was an asshole. Okay, so I basically came across to the internet as this elitist asshole. I'm better than you, I know what I'm doing.

And I basically, I became the butt of everyone's joke. All of a sudden it was more fun to laugh at Phil than with Phil. And so this big movement started. You know? That's how it began.

It was a movement against you. And so you think that you kind of egg this on by just kind of being a, you know, kind of being, I guess like, you know, oppositional to what people would say and having an ego, etc. That's pretty much how it happened? Absolutely. It's that beginning portion of that was my fault 100%. So what about now though? Like why do they because like I've seen a number of these videos and I'll admit it does seem like you ask for money a lot.

It seems like you do it a lot like so because like for example, here's the thing. Well, like okay, so there was a donation goal for you to wear a hat

Yes, yes

Yes Please continue So, so how does that work right how much How much money was it? What kind of hat was it? Was the chat able to decide it? How does a hat goal work?

I had cheered rewards for a few years there. I'd say three, four years almost, probably. Where every stream I would have, if I hit a certain threshold of support, I would put on a hat of your choice. I would put on a vest of your choice. The vest was a big one Oh, okay for a long time

I was hitting a goal and I would put on a vest and people freaked out I had like 10 different vests that I would put on during the stream The running joke was when you go tune into one of these booby it the other way you give me money. I'm gonna put shit on Okay. All right. I like that sounds good

So the DSP is vestry comes to a miserable and this and this is from five years ago So you've been doing these vest streaks for a while

The vet the vest streak was when the vest started which was early that year and it lasted like maybe four or five months Then after yeah, it was just an ongoing thing that I would do. We didn't always hit a goal and I didn't always do that. Like I wouldn't always put on a vest or I would only be if I hit a goal of support for a stream or something like that. Just a silly thing to do with the viewers.

And that I would say that was until about a year and a half ago. It's probably when I tired of it. It was just stupid. I got to the point where it's old and it's just, you know, it's played out. It was silly for a while. But then a lot of the times you have people come to the stream and the only reason they're there is because, oh, can we get

the vest goal today? Well, it's not really why I'm streaming. So it is like an e-girl. What's that? It is like an e-girl. They're there to see if she's gonna wear the bikini Yeah, yeah in some ways you're absolutely right. I would say so yeah, it was the opposite thing But yeah, I don't like that and I got tired of them I don't want to do that

I want to I want to be making streams where people are showing up because they like the content I'm doing whether it's the game Play through or just hanging out with me a podcast whatever it is if I'm putting on a vest today. I think that's stupid. So it was that people, it was that the vest content was too popular. At one point, like you're talking about the vest streak. Yeah. There were entire streams where like the entire chat is like, is he going to hit the goal? Right. Where is the vest? The vest. I was like, guys, I'm playing a game.

Can we like fucking talk about the game I'm playing over here?

I'm tired of this shit. There's tons of girls that are like that on Twitch too. No, it's very common. And, uh, you know, people, uh, you know, objectify you and they're not there for the game. They're there for you and it's weird and, you know, absolutely. So what about the hat though? Do you still do the hat goals?

No, that's all. Like I said, I ph a stupid event called Indivestance Day, where if we hit milestones of support again, I would put on a hat and a vest again. It was like a throwback event. And I said, you guys want to do it once a year? We'll do it once a year as a silly celebration.

But I'm past doing that stuff.

So you've divested from the vest streams. I think that's probably a good idea. So now basically, instead of paying people to, instead of paying you to put on a vest, what do they pay you for now? Just for nothing?

Just, yeah, just to support the stream. Cause they like the content. And they want to see it continue. Here's the difference though. And again, this is the people that used to criticize me. They had a fair point. And now I think things have changed. Right? You get I don't know.

Actually, can you see me on camera? Like, I can see you.

Yes. Okay, with the turkey in the background. Yeah. Yeah. As

you can see, I you know, I put some money into my set. Recently I upgraded everything the cameras now nice HD quality and everything. I before that I mean, I was in a lot of financial problems. I couldn't really afford to do anything that was high quality. So I was always the guy who made a living streaming, but his stream looked like shit.

Right. Right. Yeah.

So now people have seen in the last year, year and a half, people started supporting me in droves. I was like, I'm going to show you if you actually support me, I'm going to I'm going to do the. I got two PCs now so I can pump out You know high quality gameplay and do these streams co-streaming all the days I mean we're talking about upgrading again later this week I'm looking I'm gonna look at Black Friday deals and possibly like you know upgrade my desk and stuff like that

But that's the thing like people like the content enough that they want to support it It's not about oh, I want to see him put on a vest anymore, I just like Phil and I want his content to continue and to improve. So they just give you money because they like you, basically. Because they like the content, and some of them I'm sure like me too.

Alright, well that's pretty good, yeah, okay, that makes sense.

And so, you've done this for a long time, you said you're in financial troubles, how's your financial situation now? Is that something you don't really talk about on stream? I'm not going to talk about anything specific because sadly with these people how obsessed they are with me Yes, if I give them a single piece of information, they'll try to find a way to Datamine it and find out shit. They've gotten into counts of mine before they didn't really mess up stuff. Okay, but yeah general Today I am way better off than I have been in a very, very long time. I even said to everyone just the other day, it looks like this year is probably the best year financially that I've had in over a decade. Wow. Like no lie.

All right. Well, that's pretty good. So speaking of accounts and everything, there's been a lot of people that looked into a WWE wrestling gacha game account and they think that it's your account I think the name of it if I remember correctly because I saw the video on it. I'll admit was called down from the rafters Is this something that?

You did

Yes, well, I'll tell the whole story for you. Go ahead this way. All right, the audience will hear it and actually get the real story So yeah, WWE champions is one of many mobile games that I've played over the years. Okay, I actually played some before, like WWE Supercard. That was another one that I spent a lot of money on. How much?

And this is a, oh, in Supercard, I don't know. See the thing is I've never added it together. It's thousands upon thousands of dollars.

I'll just say that right now. Thousands could be 400,000, it could be 3,000.

It's definitely not 400,000, that's for sure.

But like, if you had to give a guess.

I would have nothing if I spent $400,000 on these games.

Okay.

Okay, but, you know, yeah, it's definitely thousands and thousands of dollars. I don't know. I never sit down and look and add it together or anything like if you had to guess but You really want me to guess I want you to guess All right to be to be okay, let's put it in perspective when I used to play WWE supercard

Yeah

To even get the reward at the end of the event to complete the event you had to spend something like $700

So they made you spend on it

You had to what do you mean? They made me know I chose to spend. Okay. Okay. All right good

All right, cuz I've seen some gotcha games, right? Why you get some people on that Genshin impact game They think that they're in love with the characters so you can never be sure. All right. All right, go ahead continue

I chose to spend the money and you know, okay bad, you know, yes at one point I was way overspending on these games. The only reason that WWE Champions is the one they bring up is because that's the one that they think they had the information, they've got the red-handed, they caught me in all of that. They got you, yeah. I played WWE Champions, I own an account that was called One Thing, I changed the name to

Down From The Rafters, I spent a lot of money on it, and then years ago I sold it. I got rid of it because I couldn't play it anymore because these people were actually harassing me so much trying to play it. They got me kicked out of every faction that I tried to join. They were trying to like data mine fucking discord servers and shit to figure out if I ever talked to anyone. I had enough. Yeah. So I sold it at a ridiculous discount. I just got rid of it. Now to this day how much was the down from the rafters account how much money did you spend on that account total like?

Again, just ballpark

Okay, let's think I'll try to ballpark yeah, I will uh

$10,000 I

Would say well hold on cuz okay WWE champions started in 2017 Okay, that's what the game actually began.

It's eight years.

You couldn't really. You couldn't really spend too much money in the early days. It was more like two, three years in that they changed it. And then all of a sudden you could start spending a lot of money.

Uh-huh.

And it was about a year, year and a half that I really spent too much. Yeah, I mean, I probably spent $10,000 on that game. $20,000. That's a maybe.

$25,000.

Probably not.

$30,000.

Definitely not.

Okay, all right, so it's between probably 15 and $25,000. Does that sound pretty accurate?

Okay.

All right, that's good. So that's a lot of money to spend on a game like that and

Why did you why did you decide to play that game instead of like?

Genshin Impact or Wuthering Waves or Honkai Star Rail? What what really what was the I guess like you're a fan of wrestling? I

Was a fan of wrestling. I had already played WWE supercard I got tired of it and I started moving over to like other games and for the record You know, I do play other mobile games too It's just that this is the one of the ones that people focus- what's that?

Have you ever played Uma Musume?

No

Oh man

Okay so you're playing all the bad mobile games then

Hahaha

Yeah what is this?

Which one is that? Is that the horse racing one? Yeah it's the horse game Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha they harassed me and for years, admittedly, I lied about it publicly. I just outright lied about it on stream saying, no, I don't play that game. No, that's not me. So were you embarrassed about it? I was embarrassed about it to at one point, I would argue I knew I was overspending on it, but I kept doing it anyway. You know what I mean? Like it was bad. And so why am I talking about this publicly on my streams when my streams have nothing to do with this whatsoever? My streams are gameplay playthroughs and you know vlogging. There's really no reason at all For me to be talking about this stuff publicly, but it keeps getting brought up like constantly in my content

So I know yeah, you're just I just don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm like, no, I didn't do it Fuck this shut Shut up. You know, I get all angry. And of course, again, kind of similar to 10 years ago with the this is how you don't play thing. Instead of playing it cool, instead of, you know, being calm, I have that angry reaction. And that's what people want, right? That's the laugh cow reaction that you want. And then I, it just extrapolates, you know, you say no once. That is probably your account now. We have more information. Oh my god. It's still coming up all right now To tell you where we are today. Yes, okay. I don't play WWE champions anymore. I quit. I'm done

I haven't played that game in months, and I'm done with it entirely. What did your wife think about you playing the game?

How did she feel about you spending that much money? She knew. Um, did she know? Like if you asked if I were to ask her how much money does she think that you spent on that game? What would what would the answer? What would the number that she would give you be?

She would probably say like thousands is what she would.

Yeah, but like we're going back to this like, okay, so probably like, okay, but she'll probably assume that it would be a lot less than what you did spend I Don't know you don't know okay. I never I never told so so she never got upset about you playing these games or anything like that

No, okay

So you did this and they found out that it was your game because I saw you played Then after it kind of got exposed and you admitted it you actually ended up playing the WWE champions on your stream, right?

Oh, you mean when uh when Jasper was over here and I took a picture but the Oh, no, you're talking about when last year when I actually played the game on stream

Yeah, that's what you're talking about because I I'm gonna be honest. I've never seen you happier than whenever you were playing WWE champions on stream like this like you were more locked in and excited about that game than like like you were more happy you were happier about

that than you were about Elden Ring. Eh, cause Elden Ring's alright. It's a bra. The thing is with with a game like that okay and with any game any game that has this uh this factor of right risk reward, right? Oh, you're gonna do a poll. Are you gonna get the good poll or whatever? You hype it up.

For that stream, I was way hyping it up because people have been talking about this shit for so long. Here's my opportunity to take this shit that I've been eating for years and turn it into something positive

that my viewers are into and everything. And it worked, you know, there was a few streams there where people were excited. They were supporting the stream in droves. Hey, do more pulls.

Okay.

So, but the thing is, and here's the truth, it died out after like a month and a half. No one cared about it.

People get tired of watching it. Yeah. There's like a novelty to it.

No, I've done gotcha games on stream too. You quit the game though. To be frank, oh yeah, and that's like actually that was what kind of got me realizing this is stupid. Like it's just a waste of time, waste of money. Not I'm not addicted to it anymore. At one point I would argue, yeah, I was at a point and not like I said, not just champions, but before that there was supercard.

Yeah, I was kind of addicted, dropping $700 to play in an event, you know, like what the hell am I doing? But I'm out of that now I don't do that anymore. I don't play that game. I'll be honest. I do play a couple mobile games We're gonna barely spend on them at all. Oh, I'm definitely not gonna say because oh These people will go harass the okay me banned from the account and they'll data mine it and do all kinds of fucked-up shit I definitely am not going to say. So why do you think they're so mad at you?

Why are they so mad? Yes. And all these viewers. They're very angry.

In general or in regards to WWE champions?

Just in general. So I feel like there's a lot of these people, like, I mean, they really are upset about the fact that you are you. They don't like that.

They don't like me? No.

And they don't like that I am me. You're right. You're absolutely right. Why are they so mad?

Again, it's a good question because if you ask each and every one of them, I think they'll all have an answer, but the answer is just a meme. And then when you analyze the meme and you're like, well, do you actually know the truth behind what you're saying about Phil? You'll be like, well, no, it's just what the detractor said. I saw the video, you know? So I would love to hear, you know, actual people who aren't the detractors who are

making this content to profit from it, but actual people who maybe watch their content to say to me, why is it that we don't like Phil so much? Okay, you said you've been watching this stuff for 10 years.

Yeah, I'm gonna give you my answer. And it's not that I don't like you, by the way. I think you're fine, I think it's funny. I get the, I get it, right? But you ask for money a lot. Like, cause like, I'll see like like there'll be a new video and it'll pop up on my YouTube recommended

on my smart TV and it will just show up. And it's like, there's a new one like every day and it's you talking about people like meeting a sub goal, kick, recently there was one about people on kick that weren't supporting the stream as well and supporting the stream is giving money.

And I feel like it's a very, very common thing. And like, so how how many times a day do you think you mention the amount of like people like something in relation to you receiving money?

It depends. Every time I receive something, I do a shout out. So you could argue besides the time someone someone contributes I'm talking about it.

Well like whenever you make a call, how often do you make a call to action or draw attention to the fact that you can donate money to your stream?

Like what do you think your ratio is? Uh well, what do you mean? Like just number of mentions? Do you mean the percentage of the actual stream? I mean I don't know. Because I stream a lot. I stream every day from around 11 30 a.m. till around 4 p.m. And then I have a second stream that starts around like 6 37 and that goes till like 10. Okay. So you're talking about eight hours of streaming a day. Yeah. All right. Every morning when I start, I bring it up. I'll say, oh, here, here's where we are with our goals for the week. And, you know, here's what we're doing today with this and that. And here's how you can contribute.

And then, you know, during the course of if I'm doing a podcast or whatever, I might bring it up like halfway through the podcast or near the end of the show if we're near hitting a goal. Yeah. Like let's say, I don't think they mind it. It's okay. No, everyone loves a cute animal. But let's say for example

we're getting close to a goal. Oh, we're at 100 bucks out of the 150 goal for today. I'm gonna bring it up and say, hey, we're there. We're in the home stretch, guys. Hey, please contribute if you like the content. You know? And now, the thing is, I also tend- my audience is here every day, I ham it up sometimes. I do it as a joke, I'll like overly go overboard on purpose, and the audience knows it's a joke. But someone who clips it out of context and throws it out there,

Look what Phil did today!

Yeah.

I can't believe- the audience is laughing at it. They're having fun with it, they know I'm not serious, They know that so they like that what you're saying is they like you begging for money

They think it's funny. They want you. Do you think that they want you to do it? Do they want me to ask for contributions actively? Yes. No, but they want me to succeed. Okay

They want me to be successful. For example, there was a day I actually tested it out once did I ask for a contribution during an entire day?

So you went a whole day without asking for money Yes There was a day I actually tested it out. Not once did I ask for a contribution during an entire day.

So you went a whole day without asking for money? Yes. I made 30 bucks.

Well, what's the average that you make? Okay, that's fine. But like what's the average though? Like...

Yeah a day

Each stream that I do I travel goal of 150 bucks, and I stream twice a day so you want $300 a day I

Would like that I don't always get it. I do sometimes and that's nice when I do

What are what's the what's the ratio that you get $300 in a day? Like, what percent? Do you get it half the time? 20% of the time?

I would have to analyze. I would say today, I actually get it more often than not. Wow. It didn't used to be like that. It used to be a lot worse. And then what happened is in the last year and a half, I admitted to the WWE Champions thing.

I apologized to everyone for lying over the years. I said, listen, it's in the past. I'm not doing that stuff anymore. As you can see, my money is actually going towards the set. It's going towards the business. It's going towards important things.

Yeah.

You know, I'm out of financial distress. Thanks to you guys. Thank you so very much. I'm so grateful that my tunnel that I was in there. Yeah. And they're they're coming out and supporting the content because of it. And I'm very grateful for it.

But what happens is the detractors clip these moments of and say, oh, see, all he does is eBay all day and he makes twenty dollars a stream. That's not true at all. I'm actually doing where I am right now. So if you're doing really well, why do you keep begging? Because that's how it works. That's the formula.

So it's like basically you have to keep doing- You think that the more that you ask for money, the more money you get?

Not necessarily.

Okay, but there's like a min-max level of that, where it's like you can get at a certain point, you ask the optimum amount of times and you get the optimum amount of money is that basically it?

There's like a ratio?

Yes and no because for me what I find is it really depends on what I'm doing like I've been around since 2008 right so I have a variety of viewers who come for specific things like I do variety content complete different kinds of games so there might be someone who comes by only when I play an RPG or someone who only comes by when I play an FPS yeah if I stand there and I just keep asking that audience over and over it might necessarily it might not work or it could be that there's someone who's like oh crap that's right

Phil streaming and you know today I want to support him and so you're like

reminding them to give you money you You're like, oh they might have forgotten and let's like, oh shit I forgot I had to give them five dollars. Yes and and to be clear because

I see the reason you're making okay and it's fine I get it. Did you know? Yes. That before I became a full-time streamer in 2017 that I was not someone who asked for contributions at all. In fact I was not someone who asked for contributions at all. In fact, I was staunchly against it and I criticized it.

So why just, why? I mean, I guess so, so like what happened? So I guess like you, you had another job.

No, no, no, no, no. So you weren't employed. I was, I lost, I was laid off from an office job that I had in 2010. Okay. job that I had in 2010. Then I tried to make YouTube my living and it worked. And that started in 2011. So from 2011 to 2017, the majority of my income was just ad revenue on videos on YouTube. And I wasn't doing streaming where I was asking for subs, asking for memberships, asking for super chats, asking for tips. I did have a Patreon at one point that I was using for like side

projects and things. But for the most part-

Would you shout out the Patreon?

No, I don't even- I barely use the Patreon anymore. It's like a legacy thing, so it's not even worth shouting out.

So basically for a long time you weren't asking for money, but then I guess like so whenever you're- I'm assuming, you know, like the way that the timeline you're explaining it to me is It seems like the reason why you started asking for money Was probably because you got demonetized? And like your YouTube revenue got fucked up? Is that what I'm assuming?

It wasn't demonetization It was a combination of factors I had already mentioned the copyright strike thing in 2015 So my channel was always one of the highest ranked gaming channels on YouTube for a long time And then in 2015 I got hit with all these false copyright strikes. Machinima slash YouTube told me to delete a bunch of videos.

So I did. And my channel got thrown right out of the recommended algorithm. Like every fall, I used to call it the hardcore gaming season. All the big triple A games come out in the fall. Right. And so I get a giant boost of views that year. I was removed from the

algorithm. I had no additional viewers whatsoever in the fall. It was like flat. And so my revenue tanked. And I struggled for about two years there to try to stay afloat, still just trying to do ad revenue. I couldn't do it. It just continued this continued this plateau. And I couldn't get any views from the algorithm anymore. It was kind of like my legacy viewers kept watching me. And that was it. So then I became a full time live streamer in 2017.

And then I started with the whole yes, the e-begging, whatever you want to call it. And I've been successful doing that for quite a while now.

Yeah, it seems that way. I mean, $300 a day is a lot of money. I mean, your channel, the DSP gaming channel was in 2010. And you said you were uploading since 2008. So yeah, where was the original channel?

The original channel was is just called dark side fill. Oh, that's really primitive stuff. That's old stuff. That's my original content, just camera. I wasn't even on camera in that content. You know, it was just kind of like recording my screen with a camera. Those are my oldest playthroughs.

Is that channel still active?

It is active. It's not even monetized. It's just legacy content. If you want to go check it out, it's like two and a half years where I did it as a hobby. I started before you could monetize gameplay videos. You can't even make a dollar on a gameplay video.

So I had passion for it. I liked doing it as a hobby for two and a half years. And then in 2010, I said, I want to kind of do it a little bit more seriously. That Dark Side Phil channel had gotten on a false copyright strike.

And I said, let me start fresh. I'll make a new channel. So I did, and that's when DSP Gaming started in 2010.

Well, there was an accusation like people had that like you told people to click ads and that's one of the reasons why you had your ad revenue taken away.

Did you do that?

So here's the story. Okay. 2009, I did my first face reveal video.

Okay.

Like Dream. All right, not exactly. Okay. Okay. Go ahead. But, but similar, like people never thought that I would look like this. They saw, they always say my voice doesn't match the body. Like my voice, like I look different than I sound,

I guess. Right. So they were like shocked or whatever. Now keep in mind back then, I was not making any money doing any of this. I didn't have monetized videos, but people liked my content. I'd been doing it for just about a year and people wanted to see more.

Can you play this game? Can you get this console? Can you do this? And I was like, well, I can't monetize my gameplay videos, but what I could do is do like a vlogging channel and see if I can get that into the YouTube partner program.

And it worked, it did. Like I got it monetized and all I was doing over there was a few vlogs every week D I think this is when I actually started the DSP tries it series where I started like taste testing food and stuff like That you know, it's just like try anything because I could monetize that channel make a few extra bucks didn't make a lot of money But hey any every buck counts when this is your hobby and you're just trying to buy games and sure dance You know your hobby so I did the face reveal video in and in the video I brought up, hey, you know, I don't make any money on the gameplay, but if you were to go over to the vlogging channel and watch the videos and click the ads,

you would help me out. Yeah, I actively said that 100%. It's in black and white. You can see it right now. It wasn't, like, intentional. Like, at that point, I didn't even know that that was a problem. Okay? know that that was a problem. OK, now here's where the narrative is broken, because my detractors will say, well, that's why you had all these

financial problems, because you lost your monetization on YouTube. Yeah, I lost I lost my monetization on YouTube in December of 2010. That video was put up in like early to mid 2009. I had nothing to do with that video at all. OK, here's what really happened. OK, I was working a full time office job and that was my real income.

That's where I was paying my mortgage with and everything. OK, I got laid off in October 2010 and there was no other jobs like in that sector. Like basically the economy.

Well, that was during the 2008 recession.

Yeah, of course It was a recession, right? I was like, dude, I just bought a condo and I'm like, how am I gonna pay my mortgage? I don't have a job What am I gonna do? Go get two, three part-time jobs, you know?

Sure

So I said, alright guys, here's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna try to figure this out But in the meantime I'm gonna, please, you know, let's, let's go watch my content over there. And in one month, I went from making like $500 on ad revenue to like $15,000. Okay.

Oh, wow. Okay. So you're making $15,000 a month at some point.

Yes, that was a 2010, late 2010. Now this is the personal AdSense through YouTube. You were balling. Okay, that's pretty good. And then the next month I made $18,000. Wow. And YouTube said there's something wrong here. How can this guy overnight go from making $500,000 to $13,000 to $18,000? This doesn't make sense. And they suspended my AdSense account and said, we think that there's invalid clicking activity. We think that you have people who are going to your ads and just going crazy on them

because they feel bad for you because you lost your job.

So it's kind of like the vest thing, right? Or like everybody wanted, and the vest thing was so popular that you had to stop it. And it's the same thing with YouTube. That like, it's a suffering from success. You came up too fast and they weren't ready for it.

In that case, absolutely. Yeah. That's exactly what happened is people felt bad. Back then I was like the underdog. Everyone liked my content and wanted to support me because I lost my job and they all went overboard.

And I lost my AdSense at that time later on, years later, I got it unsuspended and everything after a time period had passed but that's when I ended up having to go get partnered with another company like Machinima to make revenue on YouTube again

So okay, so all that happened and now like are you getting ad revenue on YouTube and everything is fine, right? Yes. Oh, yeah Okay, so everything's totally okay. There's no issues anymore And so you so well if I understand this so like, okay So you were not asking for money because you were getting ad revenue and now you're getting ad revenue Still and you still ask for money Is it just because it's not as much as it used to be? Is that pretty much it?

Like, would there ever be like, theoretically, right? If you got $15,000 a month now, because like, also, do you increase the amount of money that you try to get per year, like based off of inflation? Because I saw a video of like you asking for $300 and this was like two years ago it's gone up a lot since then right so

like it should be like $315.

No I mean it's it's all just like kind of a an arbitrary thing I'm not sitting here with a calculator trying to figure out exactly what should be made what does I've tried different amounts.

How long have you how long have you done the $300 goal?

uh Was two years ago, right? I mean, it was two years ago. And so I mean like when did when do you start doing it?

The $300 goal yeah two streams of 150 that was definitely this year. Now, previously I've tried other things. I've tried- I've done streams for just a hundred. There's a YouTube video with a title that says that you've been doing it for two years ago.

Well, again, I've changed the amount.

Okay. No, I've changed the amounts over the years. Sometimes it was a hundred. There were times that it was two hundred. It's gone up and down based on what the market will bear, essentially. So it is for inflation. Okay. You got to test it. You got to see what people are willing to support with. You know what I mean?

Right.

For the record, you're talking about the ad revenue thing. Do I have ad revenue right now? Yes, I do. Is it anywhere near what I used to make? Absolutely not. The ad revenue is tanked because my views are way low because steals my content. Yeah. So I don't get a lot of views on my content anymore. My own content. The thing is, everyone knows DSP. Everyone watches DSP. They just don't watch

DSP on DSP gaming. They watch it everywhere else. So I don't make anything when you watch me. You know what I mean? Yeah. So the ad revenue is kind of a, it's nice to have a little bit of side income, but that's nothing like what it used to be back then. We're talking 10 years ago. Everyone watched DSP on DSP gaming. I was making 10,000, 20,000 views on a gameplay video, just a raw gameplay video, you know, now I make a few hundred. So it's pretty insane that the decline there

cause people rip it right away. They restream it live, they put it on their channel before I even have a chance to get someone to watch it online.

I mean, there's a video here and it has almost 5 million views and it's about you.

Oh yeah.

Darks from Turkey Tom. It's a two hour, this is longer than, I think it might be longer than the two towers. Lord of the Rings.

Oh there's a four hour documentary from last year from June the King and I reacted to that whole thing.

Wow. Okay. So yeah alright, so there's been a lot of these and yeah, by the way, it should be $325 now if you had started it two years ago. That's right, yeah. So it should be a little bit higher.

So if you were making, let's say $15,000, is there, let's just say, is there a number that's like, you know, semi-reasonable that you would get to and you would say, okay I'm now making this much money on my streams I don't need to ask people for money anymore. Like is there ever going to be a universe where you stop asking for money?

That's a good question, but okay, let's think of this reasonably right like

Cost of living. Okay, so the answer is no

No, it's not true. Okay, here's... I've said this before, people have said to me...

Go ahead.

Listen, I know you... People have asked me questions like this. Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. One question that they ask me all the time, Phil, right now, let's say you won 10, 20 million dollars. That's pretty good.

Would you still stream?

And the answer that I say, yes, I would still stream. It would be way decreased, way decreased from what I do now. I wouldn't be doing six days a week. Maybe I do two, three days a week because I like doing it, but it would basically be my hobby. I would not accept contributions or if I accepted contributions, I would donate them all because I don't need the money. I'm, you know, $20 million.

I'm probably good for the rest of my life.

Yeah.

I don't worry about, I don't need to fucking do nothing, you know? So that's it. Like, I love what I do. I do it for the passion of doing it. I'm not doing it to sit here and beg all day. didn't have to ask you guys for anything. It was awesome back in the day before the channel got screwed up. Yeah.

The views plummeted and the ad revenue plummeted. It was just about making, playing the games. But now what's happened is I've changed my content. Now I'm a more social streamer. Uh-huh. Now a lot of the times it's more about hanging out

and having a good time and conversing rather than the game. of the more popular things I do are not necessarily like difficult games. It'll be like a chill game, a game where we're just sitting back and talking and relaxing when I play. You have that social element. And then people say, hey, well, I really like what we did today. We hung out. We had a good time here. Here's a contribution as opposed to, you know, oh, here's a video you watched.

And I made ad revenue on it because you like you and they're gonna give you money. Okay. Yeah, sure I mean, I think that's the way streaming generally works. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. I mean And and you you do exist inside of an ecosystem with other people that are similar to you Who would you say like kind of has the same type of detractors that you have? Oh

Yeah, I mean you're just talking about the lolcow universe. I didn't want to use that word, but yeah. But that's, listen, the thing is, I used to be so angry when people called me a lolcow, but now I understand if you're a lolcow it's not because of your choice, it's because people have made you a lolcow. Like they have chosen to try to elicit a kind of reaction from you. They're gonna try to get your goat every day on stream. And you're human, you're going to give them that reaction every once in a while. That's what they want. Now you're a lollipop. They got the laugh out of you. Right? Right.

So you can do you can call me a lollipop. I don't care. Oh, or something but okay yeah no it's fine no so in truth unless I'm dude I'm not gonna get offended at anything

yeah yeah I get it

unless you say I'm a murderer or something

yeah probably not

um as far as I know um so uh okay well what do you think about I'm gonna give you some names and I'm curious to get your opinion on some of these guys what do you think about

Wings of Redemption

mmhm, in general? Or is he similar to me? Like, just in general?

Would you consider him kind of similar to you?

In the situation that he's in with people who harass him every day, restream his stuff, steal his stuff, yes. We are similar in that regard, correct. Not the content we put out or the issues that people have with us. I think the issues they have with us are completely different. But the fact that they do the same, they try to elicit the response from him. They try to harass him.

They try to mess with his income. Yeah, it's similar there.

OK, well, what about Boogie? Boogie2988?

Yeah, I don't know. To be frank, I don't know much about him. I know the content he used to make, and I don't know what level of harassment or detractors he's had. I haven't really followed him that well to even really answer that question fairly. But to my understanding, yes, he's a Laocao, and he's part of the whole Laocao live universe and all of that, that they

do their content.

So what about Loti or God?

Yeah. So what about Loti or God? Yeah, he again, he has a community very similar where they they datamined his stuff to find things that he's said and done. Child support, memes, things, the child support joke and all of that.

So you know about it even?

Yeah, of course.

Who in the lolcow universe deserves to be in the universe the least?

The least?

Yeah. Oh man.

Like, who is the most unfairly treated?

Asmongold, to be honest with you, I don't follow this stuff. I don't, like, unlike a lot of these people who they get like into it, cause they try to like profit from it or ride with it, I try to just stay out of it.

I've always said like, there's this big vortex around me. I'm kind of like the eye of the storm, but I don't pay attention to the storm. I'm just trying to do my own thing on stream every day. I want to stay out of the toxic shit. I don't want to try to benefit from the drama.

I don't even want to talk other people. You don't really talk about other people. Like I've seen a couple of clips of you talking about me, but this is like over the last three years, right? So like, it's not really that often.

And like, especially for somebody brings someone brings you up or yeah, of course, bring up an LTG, then I'll respond. But in general, it's a very them, almost never. I would almost never do that and I don't react to content like that either, very rarely.

Okay, so that's kind of a good thing I would say. Have you ever thought about doing that? Like starting like a lolcal podcast or like making more drama videos or anything like that? Or is it just not something that's interesting to you?

Well first off, I mean Keemstar wanted me to be part of the LolliKal podcast before it started.

What do you think about Keemstar?

I think Keemstar is a smart guy in that he knows how to make content that people will watch and support. Yeah. I don't necessarily agree with the content he makes, but that doesn't mean that I have to. Like, I can say, okay, that's not for me, but respect to the guy who actually was successful doing that content, right? I used to be a hater.

I used to actually hate on that content and be a jerk about it. But now I'm like, why am I going to be a hater? I shouldn't be a hater. Who do you hate? Who do I hate?

Yes.

When I create a person?

Who do you hate? Whose content do you watch that makes you mad?

No one. I don't hate watch content at all. So, alright, what about, how much do you know about pirate software? Very little. Do you know what happened with pirates? Alright, can you explain it to me? For what I'm to understand, I guess Pirate Software was someone who said that he worked at Blizzard.

I guess he did. He did.

And so he became this like big respected game dev. He was making an indie game for a long time. And I guess he kept making promises that he was going to release this part of the game, this part of the game. And he kept making excuses why he wasn't doing it, even though it was like crowdfunded and everything. And then come to find out, over the years,

his web of lies kind of unraveled, that half the shit that he was saying, why the game wasn't being delivered was not true. And then I guess, for what I'm not understanding, again, I could be wrong, you correct me if I'm wrong, because this is a very broad understanding. I guess people always thought he was really good at MMOs because he worked at Activision Blizzard

and then he played World of Warcraft and he like made critical errors and sucked at it and then he blamed everyone else so people hated him for it. Kind of sounds a little similar to kind of my early days when like I was always saying all my shit doesn't stink I'm like conceited and everything and then I you know got angry when people criticized me so I you know I kind of see like a little parallel there.

Maybe do you have any advice for him?

Oh, well, I don't know what happened to him. What's going on with him at this?

I don't know.

I think he's he's kind of honestly, I respect Thor. I think Thor's a great guy. But, you know, he went a big wow guy. I used to be at least. And so I was curious, like, kind of like what your abbreviated version of it was compared to like what somebody like me knows that is a purveyor and all drama slop and garbage. And so, yeah, I think that you're definitely like kind of on

point with that. And yeah, you were right about all of this. I mean, I would say so. Yeah. I mean, I would say so, yeah. And so what advice would you give somebody who is making content and wants to avoid being a wall cow?

Oh man. For me, I've been doing this for so long. There was no track record of people who had done content like I was doing to follow. There was no blueprint, there was no doing to follow. There was no blueprint. There was no history to follow.

So you didn't know what was right. Back in the day, I would say and do whatever the hell I wanted. I'm never going to get in trouble for this. Here we are 15 years later. People are trying to cancel me for something I said in 2010, acting like I said it yesterday. It's ridiculous. So what I would say is, today if you're a content creator, you actually have examples that you can look at and you can analyze,

and you can see what's worked and what hasn't. You can look at someone like me, someone like Boogie, someone like Wings, someone like LTG, whoever you want to say is the lollacow of the day, Pirate Software. Whoever your favorite one is. Exactly, and see the mistakes they've made and learn from them. Take these people's life experiences and try to do stuff better because for someone like

me, I was considered an innovator back in the day. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. And now, you know, here we are, I'm in the situation I'm in. I'm like, with that. Sure

Yeah, no, it makes sense. I mean there's been a number of clips I've seen About the tears have you seen the one with the tears of the kingdom?

Tears of the kingdom. Oh, okay. Let me think Zelda. So that was the one the meme I'm trying to remember the meme because remember there's always a meme about me. Wasn't the meme that I sucked at doing the puzzles with the building shit, and I was like, it was like I was smashing my head against the wall trying to solve the puzzles,

while other people would solve it like super quick or something like that. I think that was the meme anyway.

Yeah, that was about it.

Yeah, for me, here's me. I'm ass backwards. If there's something that simple, I can't do it. It's like, I'm a dunce. I'll have a square peg and I'm trying to shove it into a round hole, right? But then you'll present me with the most complex puzzle or hard boss fight and I'll beat it like second try. It's weird, like I'm just like opposite.

Okay, okay, so... Uh, how many tries did it take you to beat Moenia in Elden Ring?

A two it was half a stream

And then another stream. I think it was four hours. Okay. All right. I mean that's probably that's probably on par I would say

and um, yeah, so you can okay, go ahead the final boss of Sekiro

Isshin three Three try- three tries. 15 minutes.

Okay. Alright, that's respectable. It is. Alright, that's pretty good.

It's just dumb. Why? Why? I don't know. I just- I destroyed him.

So sometimes- sometimes you're really good at games, sometimes you're not. And it's just like- that's just I guess kind of like a- like your- your way of thinking is different, so sometimes you'll immediately pick up on something, and other times you won't even be able to figure out the ball pressure plate thing. Is that pretty much accurate?

Exactly! Exactly right, I would say, for sure. People like watching my streams because they completely get to see this weird take on shit that they're like, how does he get into these situations, but then how did he fucking do that so quick?

You know? Okay yeah so I haven't seen the Sekiro thing I'm gonna have to look at it again and uh apparently there's Battlefield 6 was

another one uh that oh I did terrible at that game. I'm also currently doing awful at Call of Duty I can't fucking play it this year for the kill to save my life I can't I'm sucking horribly at it

Yeah no I don't blame you I mean so is I mean, it's very interesting to talk to you about it because I mean, I've heard about a lot of these stories. Like I've seen the detractor videos and I've seen a lot of this stuff. Do you wish that the detractors would stop making videos about you?

No, because it's their right. It is their right within the law to make a transformative work about me sure and to criticize me or to make Fun of me, that's fine Yeah, what I don't want and what is illegal and should stop immediately is people who are live restreaming me right now Because they're not adding anything It's they're literally illegally stealing the content and making views and money on it people who rip my shit raw and just put it up illegally, that has to stop.

But I can't stop it because I can't be issuing lawsuits up, down, left, and right. I don't make that much money to be doing that. And plus, I don't want to tie up courts with these shit with how many people are out there doing it. So that needs to stop.

The transformative work stuff, I have no problems with.

Go for it.

So would you, if you could, would you claim their ad revenue for yourself?

If there was a way to do it, but to my knowledge, and maybe you know different from me, you need to be with a partner network, and the partner network works with YouTube to do it. I'm not with a partner network. I'm on my own, you know, AdSense account.

Okay, alright, well that makes sense. I mean, I'm curious, like obviously I've asked you a lot. Do you have any questions you have for me?

Sure, absolutely. Go ahead. Thank you. By the way. Yeah, I just to make to be clear here I'm not offended at anything you asked I think that was great questioning, you know, and I think that you were very fair and you were very respectful I try to be yeah, of course, I try as much as I can go ahead Go ahead. I know that once I go off the stream. You'll probably laugh about it and talk shit about me

Well, I mean it depends on if I see the tears of the kingdom clip again

I mean, let's be honest. I don't care if you talk shit about me I don't but the thing is I've had some bad situations with snaking where a couple years ago I was on a podcast the way that they spun it was. So we're going to have you on this podcast. We're going to interrogate you. And then after that, we're going to have you on as a guest and we're going to do all kinds of fun stuff. So yeah, initially it might be negative, but then after that,

it's going to be positive.

Okay.

They completely reneged on it. After they did it, they basically snaked me and they turned it into this three Making fun of me milking my detractors money. It was really fucked up All right So I appreciate that you have actually given me the chance to just come and talk to you know to you Sure audience and I think that it was a fun conversation. I do I enjoyed the questions you asked I don't think that anything was unfair or you know inflammatory. I try not to be right

I mean, I think that's you I try to ask the questions that you know, I have and other people have etc. Yeah, sure

What questions you have for me? Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so here's a question I got for you honest question You're huge, right? I don't even know like your viewership because I don't watch you to be honest. Yeah, then again, I don't don't take offense you or anything like that. So on an average day it seems like, man, your formula of content creation is way different from mine. Like you just kind of sit down and you roll with it, whatever your people are presenting you on a stream, you're just kind of like reacting to whatever the news of the day is or whatever, which is so different from what I do. So for example, let's say on a random day you choose to watch a DSP hate clip from a detractor.

There's a new one you want to watch. Yes.

Right.

When you watch that clip, do you actually 100% believe everything you're seeing? Or do you think that maybe this could be a spin or a taken out of context kind of a situation? Because I mean, my impression is that a lot of people just watch it for the lulls right for the laughs But they don't realize that maybe what they're watching isn't necessarily the whole truth

So it depends on the clip I mean I think that like for example with like putting the balls and the thing with the tears of the kingdom I think that you actually fuck that up. I Do am I right I

Don't specifically remember when I was doing it the first time okay, but I think that that was actually one of the puzzles I did have problems, okay, so you did all right

So I mean there was that and also like I mean sometimes like you've gotten mad at Elden Ring I think that the majority of those times were probably legitimate. Like you were probably actually mad. Let me think. Besides that, I watched you play Donkey Kong and you got hit by basically every spiky thing. I think you probably did you do that on? I bet like you didn't do that on purpose, did you?

I didn't do that on purpose. Now, of course, taken out of context, that's like one of the two times of the entire game you need to surf on that object That's it the game literally introduces this and you never use it again So it's like here's the one time you need it learn it on the fly. Oh shit Okay So of course they're gonna have me fail and that's what they put online not the fact that oh

Never had to use it again in the game. So obviously I failed at it. So it was the game's fault? No, it's not necessarily the game's fault. But I mean my reaction is legitimate. I'm upset.

Okay, so alright. And what about, I mean Mario Kart was crazy, huh?

Ha ha ha ha ha!

I do not like this new Mario Kart. I do not like this new Mario Kart, man. I don't. Okay. So Mario Kart was a little bit more of a struggle.

Okay.

Yeah. Mario Kart back in the day, there was a combination. It was about your skill of driving and knowing the tracks and items. This new Mario Kart, in my opinion, people could disagree. Mario Kart World is about the items.

Like, that's it. Like, there's entire strategies where all you do is bank items and then spam them at the end of a race and you go from like last place to first. And I just don't like that about Mario Kart World. I wish that the game was more skillful and if you drove well you'd be rewarded for it. In general that doesn't seem to be the case with that game

being someone who's played quite a lot of these over the years, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm no expert. I'm not an e-sports guy into freaking Mario Kart, but that's it made me rage. It made me go crazy because I want a skillful game. I want a game where I'm driving while I get rewarded for it, not punished because someone had a godlike item and

bypasses me at the last minute. So a lot'm not even really sure so yeah, those are like but okay So I guess I was right at least about all those and I do think that I mean the asking for money thing Definitely you do it a lot. I definitely think you do it a lot, but You know, it's like that's the way somebody's gonna do their stream. I mean, fuck, like I'm asked, not my problem, right?

Here's the question.

Okay, go ahead.

Here's the question. Your honest answer to this, please.

I'll give you an honest answer.

You've seen the clips of how I ask for contributions on my streams and everything. I've just told you in general, more often than not, I actually hit these goals.

Yes.

Okay? So if I have an audience that comes to my stream every day, enjoys the content enough to support it, doesn't mind me asking like that, is there a problem?

Well, I mean I think that you're introducing a bit of a fallacy there, aren't you? Because there are a lot of people that also don't like it. So you're kind of comparing it to an unknown. So like if you're not doing it and you're not asking for the money, there's not really a control group that you can look at and say, okay, well, with me doing this, I'm making this much money, but if I stopped doing it, I would make a different amount of money.

But I already told you that I tried that.

I did, I had a day where I did not ask, and I made 30 bucks. I mean, would you really say that doing it for a day would be a good point to kind of stop? I mean, is that really like, I mean, I get it, it's something, right? But like in a general sense, I feel like, and also, I mean, do you think that it's worth the negative sentiment and negativity where people have this perception of you of like being a beggar and like, cause

you're, it's hard to measure the negative effect of that because you don't know how many people choose not to watch because of something like that. Right? So it's, it's very hard for you to come, like not you, but like for a person to come to a conclusion with that answer because it's just impossible to know. That's what I would say.

Okay. Now in regards to what you're saying here. because it's just impossible to know. That's what I would say. OK, now. In regards to what you're saying here, OK, you're saying basically, maybe if I didn't ever ask for contributions, I'd actually get more viewers or whatever.

I think it would. Yeah, yeah.

But but here's the thing, and this is I've been there. Maybe I know you have the tractors, too. I just don't know.

Everybody, every streamer has detractors. Yeah, right for me.

Okay, if I right now, cold turkey said to my audience, guess what, guys, I'm never going to ask for a contribution ever

again.

All right. And I literally did it and I never did it. That moment, my detractors would move on to another thing that they don't like about me, and that would become the next meme. And the reason that I know that, they've already done it tons of times.

Like with the wrestling game.

Exactly, that was a thing for a big time. It is still a thing. Now, because last year I admitted to it, it's in the past, now it's the begging. That's the new thing. So now the begging is the problem. But what about all the other streamers who ask for contributions? Oh, that's fine, but because DSP does it it's not good

Right just because of me because I'm doing it anyone else can do it. It's fine You can have entire people who are based on doing things on their streams that you think are immoral or whatever That's okay. But if DSP asks for contributions be another thing and another thing and that's the thing I Don't care and this may be shocking to people I don't care about People who don't like me

Understandable I mean, I'm the same way. I have a lot of people that don't like me and you just got to deal with it Yeah, I don't

I'm not here to appease these people because these people are never gonna come to my stream and support the content Uh-huh, they don't care. They just they're just there to either make fun of me or make a buck by making fun of me So therefore why do I give a shit what they say? I'm doing good. I'm hitting my goals. I'm doing well for myself Why do I care that someone says that I beg too much? My audience doesn't so why do I care if my audience outright said to me right now, Phil, you're really you're going overboard. This is ridiculous.

And they have done that to be fair.

And did you did you dial it back?

Yeah, of course. Correct. Right? You got to adjust on the fly. You got to listen. Yeah, constructive criticism. And you have to adjust. You can't just keep doing the wrong thing because if I was doing the wrong thing, I wouldn't be successful Uh-huh, but I am I'm hitting my goals. I'm doing well Like I said, this is one of the best year probably the best year in ten years that I've had How am I doing something wrong? You know, I'm making by or making do the only way that I can you know

Like we just talked about some other people we talked about boogie and wings Yeah found success by actually kind of stepping away from their individual content and doing a whole lolcow focus show. They basically made a public spectacle of themselves. They embarrassed themselves to make money and it worked. You know, Wings has actually outright said, dude I made money like a doctor now I have money in the bank so I don't have to worry so much about my normal stream. I don't ever want to do that. I want to just... Good for him. Good, exactly.

Yeah. Actually, I had him on the show about a month ago and I commended him. I said, sir, you are, you need praise for that because I couldn't do that. I'm the kind of guy, if I was put in that situation because I was offered to be on that show. Yeah. I can't, like, I would hate the content I'm putting out, and I would feel like I'm a detriment to human existence because I put out crap. I put out slop, I put out this drama content that just doesn't add anything.

Well how do you feel about my content?

As opposed to...

See, I don't know, I legit, to be honest with you, don't watch your content. So I don't know to what extent... I've heard that when you react to stuff, you laugh at it more than like you're not when you watch a detractive video of mine You're not between like wow Phil is a piece of garbage and a piece of shit and fuck that guy You don't do that. You just kind of laugh at me and say ah, he sucks at the game, whatever and you move on to the next Yeah, I don't think So you never have been banned from Twitch? No, I've had those like little quick suspensions.

Okay, so you've been suspended from Twitch, but you've never been permanently banned? And you've closed the account. So like theoretically, you could open your account right now and stream on Twitch if you chose to?

That's right.

Okay. And you just don't do that because you just don't think it's lucrative or for whatever other reason, because you can't make any money because you got kicked out of the partner program.

Not even that, because I could reapply and probably get back in. Yeah. But number one, once you've been treated like that, why go back to that situation? I'm good on YouTube, I'm doing good on kick. Why would I go to a situation where at a moment's notice, someone's gonna say I did something I didn't do and then shut me down again, right?

But in addition, I do have a philosophical problem with Twitch, I do. Like I've seen over the years.

What do you think about Twitch?

How this website?

Sure.

When I started streaming on Twitch, Twitch was for gamers. Twitch was supposed to be a place where this is the place if you're a gamer to be, it's a gaming culture, stream game playthroughs and all of that. And then during the time that I was there, which was around five years, I saw this place go to this sharp decline of make money no matter what, doesn't matter what kind of content it is, doesn't matter if it's degenerate, slutty content. You know, the people who are doing sexualized apps on stream and they're on the main page of Twitch a kid could see that

Yeah, and that's what's being pushed on the main page of Twitch and I see this I see unfair treatment of streamers on Twitch Where one streamer says it does one thing and is treated incredibly harshly by their team and another person Literally says and does the same thing or worse slap on the wrist or absolutely no repercussions whatsoever

Yeah, I don't stand for that at all that actually gets me so much literally says and does the same thing or worse, slap on the wrist, there are absolutely no repercussions whatsoever.

Yeah. I don't stand for that at all. That actually gets me so much. I would never stand to make content on a platform like that. That's going to not be fair. Okay, I'm sorry.

I just, I can't, I feel like I was mistreated in 2021. They are coming down on me saying that I'm a hateful person, hateful content. What content? Tell me what I did to spurn this reaction. We don't have to legally. Well, then I don't have to use your business.

Fucking based, honestly. Like, I'm gonna be real. Have you seen some of the recent Twitch controversies?

Indeed I have. Yes, I do still follow some of those did he shot the dog or not um

It appears he did I don't know if he did but it appears he did

All right that settles it

Let me think if there's any more of them that have happened recently like I think that twitch so you don't like how twitch has turned into kind of like a Kind of social cuz like I mean to be've nerfed the e-girls a lot. Like all of those girls that used to be in like pools and you know, like selling bath water and stuff. Like, I don't know.

Writing inflatable pickle ricks.

Yeah, yeah, I know her. Yeah, yeah, for sure. That was Asian bunny and Amarath. Oh, I know. And yeah, they did very well. And so, yeah, but now they've been massively nerfed and you hardly see any of those people doing any well at all.

I don't really hardly see them at all. And so Twitch, I think that they kind of got rid of that with a lot of the cases, but you kind of have an ideological problem against Twitch, basically, right?

Absolutely.

Like, again, why are there streamers on Twitch that say and do things that you, you would, that's cancelable. That's actually really bad what they're saying. They're calling action against a group of people or whatever. Yeah. And then someone else says something way tamer.

Oh, suspension. That, how is that fair? I don't, I just don't understand.

I've been wondering that for a long time.

Yeah. I've been wondering that for a long time Yeah, they have a select group of people that they like and they have a select group of people. They don't like I'm aware

Yes Yeah, I mean, I think it's pretty bad I mean, do you think that do you see a world where you would ever go back to twitch? Like would they have to apologize to you? Like what what do you think it would take?

There there is a way that I would go back to Twitch. If Dan Clancy stepped down and there was new management, then I would go back to Twitch. That's about it. So you want that guy gone. I have no confidence in the people who are running that business that they're doing the right things or will ever change for the better. Like, take a look at the reaction to what happened to TwitchCon.

They essentially have someone there who really doesn't want to be there, but they say, well, you got to kind of be there for the contract. Where's the security? Where do you know? Where is the attention to care for these people who you're making be there? Because they're your talent.

Yeah.

And then what actually have they done in response to what happened at TwitchCon? Well, they lied about it. Apology. Yeah, exactly. First, they lied. You're right. They lied and said it didn't happen like that. Then they doubled down. Oh, no, no. Then there's an apology.

Now, didn't this just happen a day or two ago? We did a $100,000 donation. Okay, great. But what did you do change your culture change the security what I don't care what money you threw because you have big Dollars fix the fucking problems, then maybe people will be happy Why do you avoid the problems people call them out for this shit all the time?

And they don't actually address the problems, so I'm not gonna go back Twitch here's really what irks me okay? Yeah, go ahead On Twitch, I'm a gamer. I want to stream at good quality. Twitch kept coming to my streams telling me, my bitrate's too high. I said, I'm streaming 720p and it's choppy. Oh, your bitrate's too high.

What the fuck?

Oh, because you got taken out of the partner program, so you had the shitty bitrate.

Well, this was actually before then. This is before there was a bit rates based on that. It was just in general, everyone had the same criteria. So then you would go over to a bigger streamer. They're streaming 1080p high ass bit rate. No one complains about them, but they come in to yell at me.

Yeah.

Now, recently, I believe you can probably confirm this. Is it true that Twitch finally started increasing their bit rate criteria so you could stream at better quality?

I think that they have it to be like, they guarantee an 8K bitrate, but beyond that, it's like you can stream at a higher quality, but they don't guarantee that it will actually like kind of go through. I mean, you know, probably better than I do,

like YouTube bitrate is way better, right? I mean, you can stream at like 15k bitrate, 12k bitrate. And at that point you're hitting diminishing returns anyway. So like, that's more than enough.

So the reason I bring this up, Twitch is supposed to be a site that was around gaming, gaming community. They were the worst fucking bitrate for the longest time. So if you streamed games on there, they looked like ass. So it was contradictory to what their whole philosophy supposedly was.

If I go to YouTube, I can do twice the quality for my audience.

Yeah.

Why am I staying on Twitch? It, you know, like it just, it's ass backwards the way they think. And they dodge every issue. They push the issue to the side. We're so sorry that happened. Here's a donation.

Did you fix the issue? Yeah. Here's a donation. Fuck you, man. I'm not going back there.

So you're just not gonna put up with that bullshit. You don't want to deal with that anymore. You're beyond that. That's another point in your life.

I don't need to be walking on eggshells every moment I'm streaming

that some idiot mass reported me for something I out of it. Fuck that. I'm done with that. Yeah, I mean, I remember I streamed Final Fantasy 16 and my bitrate was so bad, you could barely even see what was happening. And it was insane. Yeah, like it was like you were playing it on like a Nokia phone or something like that. So yeah, it was just dog shit. I mean, I get it. I totally understand it. Do you mind if I take a second? I gotta use the bathroom. Go for it. Okay. Alright. Give me a sec. Be right back.

Alright.

Is he gone? Alright, so now I'm gonna tell you all what I really think about Asmongold. Behind his back. He is... I'm just kidding. I'm not gonna do it. For real, I just want everyone watching, thank you for watching. I mean, apparently there's great viewership I don't know my stream has great viewership

I'm sure Asmins has pretty good viewership and the fact that you guys were actually talking to him about getting me on In the last week was really nice of everyone to actually try to give me a chance to talk I hope you guys are enjoying the conversation again, whether you like me or hate me. It's all good. Really it is. It's all good. Just, you know, I just want to do my own thing. I just want to be left alone. I don't want to be in this lol cow circle bullshit that they pull me into every day. And I hope that you'll check out my channel if you're interested. If you're not, it's all good.

Hope you guys are liking it. My stream of course says that it's going good, but I don't know in general what everyone actually thinks. I can only see what my stream chat says. They're having a good time. It seems so. There's 41,000 people watching on Aspen Gold stream right now. Just slightly viewership than I usually get.

Is that it?

Only 41,000.

Wow, bro, like we're falling off. Slightly bigger than me.

Just a little bit.

Okay. You're falling off! You're only slightly bigger than me. Yeah, yeah. Okay?

I mean, the thing is, Twitch has been dying too. Like the viewership and popularity of the platform has gone down massively. So yeah, I'm not sure, maybe you're right. Maybe you are right to jump ship and you're on another platform now and you're doing relatively well. So you're financially stable, everything's's oh go ahead. No go ahead

You were talking about twitch earlier that yes, very profitable to be on twitch of course But why do you say that because when I was on twitch? I'm not exaggerating now I made less for each sub I got the bits I go the bits I guess you get a hundred percent of the bits that they throw you right that's true You do get all the tech with the membership or the the subs definitely you made I guess you get 100% of the bits that they throw you, right? That's true, you do get all the bits.

Technically.

But the membership, or the subs, definitely you made half, right? You get half of a sub. On YouTube you make more, on Kick you make way more. I don't know why you're saying that it's so much more lucrative to stream on Twitch because I never experience that. That's another reason why I don't see why I would go back. I don't see the big financial boon that I would get.

Well, I mean, for me back in the day, like with the amount of money, like on my main channel, like we were, I mean, I can just say it, right? I was making on Twitch, like couple hundred thousand, few hundred thousand dollars a month, right? And so, it was a lot of money. That was like really not even running ads or anything like that But and like that's if you do run ads and you know, you have you watching etc

But like it has gone down massively like they basically just took a zero off of my earnings and you know I changed my channel etc. Right but like you're right that kick pays a lot better. So yeah, you've got the yeah Yeah, the kick partner program as well, which does extremely well. So I got a question for you.

Go ahead. Yes.

Do you think kick is sustainable and they can keep doing what they're doing? Because, man, they are paying well, and I don't know how they're doing.

Well, I mean, it's pretty obvious how they're doing it. They're using kick as a loss leader for stake, and then they're paying for it. Why? The losses that people lose in gambling. That's how they're doing it. We're getting paid from people that are too stupid to figure out math and play slots. That's how it happens. That's what's happening. Yeah.

I mean, that's, hey, hey, that's the way it goes, right? I mean, it's a redistribution of wealth. You don't know how to do math? That's too bad.

I'm just curious how long there for them to keep it going? Do they think it's gonna blow up eventually and be the place that will be profitable?

I think that there's probably, so like my expectation, and this is what they've said publicly, is that there are some people that maliciously use the KICK incentive program, and in doing so,

they will probably kind of remove some people out of it that are taking advantage of it or view botting in order to get a higher ratio of payment. And, you know, you saw recently people complaining about that. Is it sustainable? Oh, here's the thing, right?

Is that in the Bible, they're talking about gambling and we still have gambling. It's not going away. Yeah, it's not going away. It will not go. Fair enough point. That's a good point. Because for a long time I was very very against gambling.

And now I don't give a shit. I mean I've lost the battle. I've lost the war. Like I don't gamble. I'm not really a big gambling guy. But a lot of other people love to do it. And if they want to do it

and then I get paid for it that sounds pretty good to me. And you're getting paid for it too. I am. I got.

I'm in the KCIP program. I'm getting the ridiculous amount of revenue from each sub over there. And now there's kicks. So, you know, yeah, I'm making bank on it too, to be honest. Because people say to me, why am I on kick? I only get like one third of the amount of viewership on kick that I do on YouTube. I'm like, you probably still make a lot of money on there, right?

Yeah, it's paying. Yeah. Paying decent. You know, it's it's less of a hassle, even though there's a lot of trolls and stuff that I get on there. It doesn't bother me. Let them talk over there and hey, I'm making the money.

Who cares? Right? Yeah. about streaming on YouTube as well. Like I might talk to them about like trying to like kind of make it better, especially with like the DMCA things that happen and, you know, the auto takedowns. And if they were able to do that and lock that down,

I'd probably stream on YouTube also. So it just really kind of depends. But yeah, I mean, do you have any other questions for me?

Because I've asked you a lot. Yeah, go ahead. I don't have much much like targeted to you. Yeah, I know you're a gamer. You're a gamer like me, dude. I am. And so we have a lot. I think we do have a lot in common, just probably not specific to certain genres of game. But like to pick your brain like this year, we gaming.

What do you how do you think gaming was this year in general? great year for games like like I know I guess you had reacted to the Game Awards nominees. In general, what did you think? Do you think these are good games this year that got in it or do you

think that we're on a downward trend? What do you think there? I think that gaming right now is better than it ever has been because there are less barriers to entry for people to publish and release video games without having to go through a publisher, a console, or any sort of a gatekeeping system. So all you really need to do is just be able to make a video game and release it on Steam. So you've had games like Megabonk, for example.

Did you play Megabonk?

I did not play Megabonk. People have asked me to do it. I might.

Yeah, it's a good game, right? And so there's a lot of games like that. There's games like Ball Pit, which I mean, wasn't really an indie game. It was published, but you know, it was made by an individual guy. And there are a lot of instances where I actually think that like, did you, did you play Expedition 33?

Oh, yes, I did.

Did you, what do you think is game of the year?

Okay. Okay, I don't want to spoil because I do have my own Game of the Year awards at the end of the year, so I'm not going to spoil my audience. But everyone knows that probably top three games for me this year were, you know, either Expedition 33, Hollow Knight Silksong, or this is a big one that no one knows, Blueprints.

Oh yeah, yeah, that was the puzzle game. That was an indie game.

Yes.

Okay, so yeah, you all right. So you've played a lot of those games. I think gaming now is amazing and I never run out of video games to play like anybody who's unhappy with video games nowadays. I think is a retard.

Phil, are you are you retarded?

Are you are you happy with games?

A year ago? I became a PC gamer, so now I have a gaming PC and I can play anything I want, and I'm loving gaming right now. This is the best, this is, like I said, best year I've had, bar none in over a decade. I used to be stuck on console, because I couldn't afford a good gaming PC.

Oh wow.

Now I have one, and I can, I've, it's like the whole new world, the doors have opened. doors of you've come out of the cave of being like a console caveman yeah no I

make a lot of people that are like that honestly it's very common it's awesome

and I agree with you yeah I had more fun this year playing every game that was not from a triple-a studio uh-huh than anything I played from a triple-a studio every game I played that was triple-a was like disappointment mid boring samey shit not putting effort in And then the other thing that gets me to is they all I feel I mean maybe you don't agree I think they lie about it like they just Ubisoft just came out there like oh yeah Assassin's Creed shadows did really well for us in what fucking universe well

Well, it's talking about that game. It's manipulative language So like whenever they said Assassin's Creed shadows did very well They were including Assassin's Creed shadows in the blanket statement that Assassin's Creed was doing well categorically as a franchise and the like the the frame of reference that they were using like the analytical point they were using were the amount of people that they were using, like the analytical point they were using, were the amount of people that were logged in and playing the game based off of the amount of hours

that they were playing. So it wasn't actually anything about the sales of the game. It wasn't anything about the amount of actual players of the game necessarily. It was like a third level, second order, fucking metric that they were using.

And in my opinion, I think it's very obvious, right? If they, if, if Assassin's Creed was actually doing very well and Ubisoft was doing very well, very well, they, their stock wouldn't have gone down 90% in five years, right? It would have gone back up.

Yeah.

And it hasn't been going back up because it's, it's a shitty company.

I mean, did you play Assassin's Creed Shadows? For about 10 hours, I could not stomach it any further and I deleted it. I had enough. I was so bored.

I mean, I kind of agree with you, if you want me to be honest. Like I did the same thing. Like I did it, like I did a few of them and then I realized like the entire world scaled with you and there was like no real sense of progression. And like, after you play the game for an hour, you've pretty much played the entire game. And then I just stopped.

Yeah, I just lost interest and I didn't really care.

I also like games that you're supposed to be an assassin. And what you do is you go inside the enemy base and kill like 72 people. Yeah, because that's what assassins do, right? They just wipe out entire armies in one swoop. realistic to Feudal Japan and how they were doing it back then. Yeah, right. Of course. Yeah. Because with this game, I don't know. What do you think about the statement

that Phil Spencer made a little bit ago? He said, gaming is now in a slump. Like, we're in a decline, a slump, a crash, and that's why, like, our games and our studios aren't doing well.

Do you think gaming is in a slump right now? I think his brand of gaming is. I think that Xbox, like, I mean, if you, I mean, look at like all of the Xbox franchises, like Doom, The Dark Ages didn't really do extremely well. Like, I don't think it got nominated for anything in the game awards even,

like it was just pretty much released and forgotten instantly because it was bad. You also have Halo, which like, I mean, I don't know how they still have 343, like they rebranded to Halo Studios, but I think a lot of same people are there. Like basically Xbox is like, in my opinion, I think Xbox has the most consumer friendly business model.

Like, I mean, this is prior to like them increasing the game pass price by a lot. But besides that, I actually think they have a very consumer-friendly business model but the problem is that they are also one of these publishers that release these really complex games and these really over-designed games like these you know quote AAA games and they're just dog shit and so I think

Xbox having a problem with that is really I mean Phil Spencer is right if you're talking about AAA video games like Like, I think he is right, but the problem is like a lot of the AAA games are... They're so involved and they're so over-designed. And I think that they're really designed by committee. And so they're set up basically to fail because you don't have any sort of cohesive vision for them. That's really the reason why I think that it fell apart. And I think that's why Xbox, like, you know, Game Pass, that's why he's saying that about it.

I completely agree with you. It seems like we're in like mind on a lot of this stuff because I hear him say shit like that. And I'm like, dude, you're in charge of a major part of gaming. If gaming's in a slump, who's responsible?

Yeah, Xbox is one of the biggest ones. How on earth can he just be like, oh no, it's gaming is the slump, that's what's going on. Dude, just passing the buck. I mean, in truth, if that was the case, we wouldn't have had Expedition 33 selling a ridiculous amount of copies and Silksong doing well,

even though it's a relatively smaller scale game. We have games that are doing well, it's just not the big AAA games anymore. And that's a good thing. It's not your games, yeah, exactly. Competition, right, spurns creativity and spurns improvement. So now the big guys who used to always have the money

print for them every year are like, oh shit, it's not printing anymore. Now we have to try again.

Well, they're not able to. It's because the people that work at these studios are fucking incompetent. Like the executives don't know anything. I think that a lot of the developers and the writers are morons. Like it's just people that are totally fucking like, just completely out of it all the way down. Like I think it's like a structural problem and that's why you see new studios

like what you're saying, like Stanfall Entertainment or any of these other ones that are doing very well. And I think that really you have like, it's the same studio like Warhorse Studios that made Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, also very successful studio. Many of these studios do great and that's fine,

but I think that a lot of them kind of, there's like a, I think it's like a corporate entropy where you just keep adding more and more people to the project and it ends up like basically turning it into like this immovable mass. And I think that's what happened

with Assassin's Creed Shadows, and it's what's happened with a number of other games, like Star Wars Outlaws, or Dragon Age Valeguard, or something like that.

Starfield has an infamous story where a game dev who no longer works there said they needed a chair designed for a cut scene, and literally had to submit the request for the chair to a department to design the chair, but then had to get two department sign-offs to get the chair design, and then they had to wait like two months, so they're literally

their work was held up for two months to get a fucking chair made for a scene. How is that game development?

Like, I think you're like, well, I mean, did you play Starfield?

It's awful. I mean, did you play Starfield? It's awful.

It's a piece of shit. Absolute piece of shit game. Yeah, I played it a lot and I hated it. I hated like I'd say like 95% of playing the game and I played it for like 70 hours.

It's like someone what I say now about these modern companies, what they're doing is they got a good original game. They got a fallout or they've got an old Assassin's Creed, right? But the people who made it aren't there anymore So what happens is the new team they put that game down on a photocopier and they photocopy it Then they got to make another one So they take the photocopy of the photocopy and they photocopy that

So what happens is the quality of each copy goes down down down and now oh, let's play Starfield. It's the hot new Bethesda game. What the fuck is this? It plays nothing like anything that I liked from Fallout or Elder Scrolls. How did they fuck this up so bad? Because these aren't the same people. Their talent's gone. They're just copying what their predecessors did.

Are you familiar with the metaphor of, like, the ship of Theseus? Have you ever heard of that? I have, but it's not coming to mind. Okay, so basically it's the question of if you replace every single board except for one board on a ship of the original ship Is it still the ship that it originally was? Is it still the ship of Theseus? And I think that's what's happened with a lot of these studios

Is that the only person that's still working there that was working there whenever they made good games is the janitor. And everybody else, yeah, everybody else is gone. So, yeah, no, I think you're totally right about that. And I think it's just, it's probably going to keep getting worse, too, if you want me to be honest. Like, a lot of these studios, I think that the way they hire people is embarrassing. I think that just, in general, like, the kind of people that they bring on the teams like you're a bit older than I am but like I I hate the people that are around my age like I'm 35 like that make video games like that quirky millennial millennial dog shit oh my god I hate it so much and it's just so

fucking cringe and now they're writing video games makes me crazy. Do you do you honestly think that Bethesda will ever put out another good game again?

No.

Of course not like no. I mean like the thing is that they already fucked up. I think they fucked up with Fallout the recent Fallout they fucked up with Starfield like I mean, they're going to make Elder Scrolls 6 good. I don't really see like why, why would anybody think that?

I mean, again, now I'm looking forward, and I'm hoping to be wrong, but the fact is that their formula for doing things is— it's dated. It's a dated formula, and I don't really see them being able to innovate. I think that the best thing that they've done in the last ten years is re-release something that they did 20 years ago. That's not very good.

Right. And their revenue stream sadly when something like Starfield fails is, let's just do some more expansions for Fallout 76 or Elder Scrolls Online. This whole formula

of now every game that's going to be profitable has to be this

on- Seasonal content, DLC

live service. It, LC live service. It's nuts. It's killing gaming and somehow we're not realizing this like the best games of the year aren't live service games ever. So why are we like rewarding these games? Why are we sinking billions of dollars into GTA online when

it took so long for GTA 6 to come out? That's why it took so long to come out. And it's still not out.

It's one of the reasons, I mean, I think for sure, like I don't hate live service games categorically, but I think that you're right, that a lot of companies do kind of fall victim to falling for the idea of, oh, we'll just make the game live service.

And I think what happens really is that these video games you know it costs like 300 million dollars to make the game so you're just realistically not going to make that sale that money back through just like box sales so like they have to like kind of like basically uh i don't know reinforce the sales with battle passes or with pre-order bonuses or with expansions or dlc or like free bundles or not free but like you know paid bundles and like gotcha characters and stuff like this so I think that's what happens

right is they run out of money that they can make just like from like basically it's like you know you're gonna at most sell like maybe three million copies of this game well you know three million times like 60 even right that's 180 million so like if you're getting that's assuming that you make 100% of the profit, which you're obviously not going to, but like even if you do, and your game is $300 million, okay, well, you're

still like over $100 million down. So yeah, I think that's what happens is that these companies, they're, they're, they're too big to succeed.

Exactly. Yeah, grown too big for their own britches, they spend too much, and then, gee, I wonder why it took so long for that game to come out and then it's inferior. Oh, now we didn't make the money. Well, you should have just made a good game that didn't take $300 million. And then, you know, what really I love about this year, Glare Obscure being so good. And it's former game devs from Ubisoft who said, fuck Ubisoft, this company sucks, and they left and made a better game than Ubisoft could ever put out. It just blows my mind and I'm happy for that. I want more of that, for sure.

I think more of them should leave. You're absolutely right. I totally agree with you. I hope that it continues. I really do. And I think that it will also. I think that people are just tired of playing the same old, you know, like, boring, like, you know, played out slop. And I felt this way. I don't even know about some of these other games that recently have come out. Like I enjoyed like maybe like one or like two, like really decent games.

Like I like Kingdom Come Deliverance, too, even though it was hard for me to get into it. But like other than that, a lot of these other games, I just really couldn't get into them because I thought they were garbage. Like even, like honestly, I would even say Monster Hunter Wilds I think had development problems. And it's like, I hope Capcom doesn't have that happen, but like now, I mean, did you play Dragon's Dogma 2?

I played Dragon's Dogma 2, of that. So I kind of dropped it after a bit. Yeah, it didn't really run well on PC either. Oh really?

Yeah, not really. I mean, like, unless you had like a super, like, I mean, I, like I have a really expensive computer. So like, obviously I was able to run it, but like people had tons of performance issues. also Monster Hunter Wilds not doing well, that doesn't look very good, right? Doesn't look very good at all. So yeah, I think that even big studios like that are having it happen, which is like Capcom,

I would say is like one of those gold standard companies. And I think that like, what really happened is that, like I always go back to this one point where Elon Musk fired 80% of people on Twitter and the website didn't change. And I think that really goes to show, and like what your story was with Starfield,

that really goes to show where their priorities are. And I think that it's just like a corporate entropy where they just hire more middle management. Middle management hires more people to manage the middle managers. And then there's just so many of them

that before you know it, that's the end.

Yeah. So yeah. I completely agree.

Wow.

We are of like mind on gaming, man. I seriously like everything you're saying I've said on my stream. Yeah. I mean, it's pretty cool. If you play games, yeah.

I appreciate it.

Do you want to know the truth, man? Can I drop a little bomb here? I don't get to have these fucking conversations because everyone hates me for no reason. Alright? Everyone literally fucking hates my guts. I can't get anyone to have a normal conversation about anything because all they ever want to talk about is WWE champions

and e-begging and this drama shit. This is a fun conversation and I would love to have these kind of conversations so thank you for allowing me to have a little bit of fun today without just having to talk to my viewers. Having to talk to someone else, another creator, is awesome. It is really a great experience.

Sure. I mean, like, I'll probably be bringing back a podcast that I'm doing sometime soon, and maybe you can come on that, right? And we can get, you know, some of your opinions on gaming. I think that could be fun.

What do you think about that? 1 million percent I'm there dude. You've been, this has been a great time. You've been awesome to me and I really appreciate you giving me a fair shake. It's been an awesome experience.

I try to, I try to give everybody a fair shake and I try to, you know, like hear their side of the story, et cetera. So yeah, man, I really do appreciate you coming on and everything I know obviously has audience is bored with me. Get me off the fucking screen.

We'll talk about the drama.

Well, you've got the cat on now, so it's OK. And so, of course.

There you go.

And so, no, I mean, I do really appreciate you coming on and doing everything live and in front of a big audience like this. It's commendable and talking about it. Thank you. Thank you so much. Really. Thanks to everyone.

The audience sounds like the audience really enjoyed it too. Thank you guys for watching again. It's youtube.com slash DSP gaming. That's how you actually see me. Not the detractor. If you just search online on YouTube, you won't find me.

You have to go to the channel directly. You, I think, stream at exactly the same time that I do during the day. Yeah, yeah. I go live in the day and then by the time, like, because you're probably the same way, right? I mean, you have shit that you want to do in the evening. And so, like, you stream during the day and then, like, you finish it. And then now you've got, like, the evening to do whatever you want.

Yeah, what I do some time with my wife, usually have like a meal. And then I actually have a late stream. So if anyone is interested in checking out my stuff and not interfering with Asmin's content, I do a late stream every night around seven o'clock, 7.30 PM Pacific time, if you're interested.

And that's also on your DSP Gaming channel?

That's on DSP Gaming. playing Tormented Souls 2. Okay. Continuing on with that play through if anyone's interested. So swing on by, you're welcome.

Well, thanks man. I really appreciate you coming on and I'll actually be very curious to see what the reactions to this are. I'm extremely curious. Me too.

Yeah, I don't know.

Everyone thought that once again, the toxic people, Aspen Gold, all he wants to do is he wants to snake fill and he wants to be awful. He's gonna have detractors appearing and people... I never got that impression of you at all. I don't know why people are saying that shit. Maybe they were just trying to scare me out of it and to not do it.

Yeah.

But like, you always seem like a level-headed dude who has fair takes, and I was like, dude, it big like what do they think's gonna happen I mean

I'm gonna fight or something. Yeah. Well, I mean it's like, you know You spend all day and you know You watch content that you totally believe and you treat it like wrestling and you believe wrestling is real too And you know you do that for a long enough time and you're gonna have a very distorted view on the world, to say the least. So yeah, no, I totally get it, and I think it's pretty common. Usually, like, talking to somebody, you find out that you have more in common than you have not in common with them, even whenever it's somebody that you might have

a certain impression about, and you talk to somebody and it's like, well, most people can usually get along, right?

Right. Alright, now that being said, when are we gonna are we gonna have a high profile boxing match for $50? Oh, I don't know about that. Okay.

Fuck that. I've already lost enough of my fucking teeth. I don't need to lose the last few of them. Okay So yeah, no, no, absolutely not But uh, yeah, i'm gonna get back to it. I really appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely

Thank you very much and guys dsp gaming on youtube and also kick right? That's what it's a DSP gaming real on kick. Oh, stole my name before I could get the name. Okay, DSP gaming real on kick if you want to check me out there. I co stream. Okay, got

it. All right, man. Well, thanks a lot. I really appreciate it. And we'll keep in touch and I'll talk to you later, man.

Absolutely. Thank you so much, man. All right. I'll see you

later. Peace.

Man. Waymore base than I thought yeah, did you guys did you guys like it was that enjoyable? I don't usually do I don't really bring people on very often right I I don't do that But I thought you know like this is you know a special occasion. It's a very special occasion So I had to do it, and I hope you guys had fun. You should talk to people more ah

that's that's

Really funny, that's that's what a funny guy. We've got a joker in chat. That's great. Huh, how about that?