Hot Button

Episode 51: I Have a Mouth, and I Must Scream... But Only with Hazard Pay - Video Game Voice Actor Strike

Performance is one of the greatest advancements video games have made in the past 20 years. Voice acting went from an afterthought of development to a vital piece of delivering a top quality story. However, what happens when those hard-working actors feel highly mistreated? Their union SAG-AFTRA steps in! On this episode, we cover their fight for better working conditions, higher pay, residuals, and actual protections for the craft. We’re gonna tell you all about how that fight went, and why you probably didn’t even notice the longest dispute for rights the union had ever been a part of!

Episode 50: Hot Button Year-One Edition

It’s our one-year anniversary! Can you believe we have been doing this for 50 whole episodes now? Us either! Which is why today we are gonna take a trip down memory lane and run through our library of topics starting from our first release all the way through to the present. Hear how we update stories that need to be updated, fix mistakes that need to be fixed, and make jokes that we somehow didn’t get to before. It’s our “where are they now?” episode and even our sound guy is here to celebrate!

Episode 49: World of Warcraft's Corrupted Blood Incident

Plagues are not new subject matter to video games. Many a fictional post-apocalyptic world starts with a plague. But what happens when the world's biggest MMO accidentally introduces a plague that kills off a ton of it's lower level players, almost making the game unplayable? On this episode we are joined by MMO expert Dan Bittner, as we break down World of Warcraft's Corrupted Blood Incident. Learn how a simple bug in a new raid led to players running through the skeleton covered streets of Orgrimmar and Stormwind in a panic. And how these player’s reactions not only changed the world of Azeroth, but also the way Epidemiologists study the spread of disease IRL.

Episode 48: Tales from EVE Online

This week we discuss a group known for its lying, backstabbing, racketeering, piracy, war for profit, and corporate greed. No, not Congress, the players of the infamous mmorpg EVE Online. We talk a bit of history, some of its several thousand player battles, and a few of it's more frighteningly dedicated members.

Episode 47: Itchy Tasty - The Origins of Resident Evil

Halloween is just around the corner, so what do you say we close out the end of our spooky scary series by exploring the origins of gaming’s most spooky scary series. This week we enter the world of survival horror to discover just how the Resident Evil franchise was born and how zombies would see their biggest revival in pop culture yet. It’s a story that might go back much further than you think!

Episode 46: Kowloon’s Curious Kusoge - Hong Kong 97

Our Hot Button Halloween series trucks on with one of the greatest mysteries of the retro gaming underground, Hong Kong 97’! An unlicensed Super Famicom title that featured terrible gameplay, stolen artwork, gross politics, and the inclusion of an actual dead body to boot. Who made this? Why did they make this? Was the corpse real? It’s a full investigation here on the show today as we dig through the entire history of the infamous title, beginning to end!
 Note: This episode was recorded a month ago and is not related to the current controversies surrounding game company Blizzard and their stances on the state of Hong Kong’s ongoing fight for independence. We do plan on covering these such events in the future.

Episode 45: Superstition Bowl - The Madden Curse

Its the second week in October, which means it’s time for more spooky Hot Button episodes! And with football season in full swing, what better topic to cover than the infamous Madden Curse? Is being on the cover of America’s most popular sports game a career ending decision? Or is football just an incredibly dangerous sport with a ton of superstitious fans? Follow along as we check in on some of the former cover athletes to find out.

Episode 44: Sinneslöschen's Ladder - The Polybius Conspiracy

It’s Halloween time y’all! And what better way is there for us to celebrate here at Hot Button than by doing an entire month of topics connecting video games with the world of horror. Our first entry this week is about one of the industry’s biggest urban legends, Polybius. A mysterious arcade cabinet said to have plagued children back in the early 1980s. Was it a top secret government project to control their minds? Or was it just a harmless rumor born out of the days of early internet trickery? The truth might actually be scarier than you think.