Those of you who have been paying attention will probably have heard the scuttlebutt about the whole Link gender swapping issue that arose over the past week. I wrote a post about it myself, as did Eri and other members of the community. Later, it was clear that though the discussion was a good one, it was stretched out over so many different websites that we should probably combine all of the thoughts into a podcast. I ran a poll, our fans voted and we ended up rolling with it. So we talk about gender swapping of Link and other iconic characters, in video games, movies, and comic books. Later we also relate the same sort of ideas toward the changing of ethnicities as well. I'm pretty sure there's some dick jokes in there as well, but that's nothing new. We ended the debate 1-1, so I guess we'll have to run another round the next time there's a hotbutton issue that me and Eri at least partially disagree on. Enjoy the rant. We'll be back in a week.

E3 2016 is here, and as is tradition here on Couch Podatoes, we're talking all about it and getting hyped for the next big things in video games! Just like the past two years, we're talking about the games we're most excited about, and gushing over what we're hoping to see more of. Prior to recording this show the Electronic Arts conference was streamed live from Twitch, and we start off the show by talking about what we saw during that presentation. Afterwards we jump into our expectations for the rest of the show, part of which is happening this evening, and the rest over the next couple of days. That's the bulk of the show for this week, but we'll be back in 7 days or less with another trip to Doone's Digital Frontier, so don't miss out!

Tacktix is back to tackle another issue, and this time he's brining to light some issues with the "Can't Catch Up" myth, along with presenting his "90/10" rule. You'll have to listen to the episode to know what he means by all of this, but the TLDR version is that this has to do with PvE gear treadmills along with the issue of gear in PvP engagements. We tackle these issues and have some witty banter about the games we've been playing lately as well. Check it out and let us know what your thoughts are!

Welcome back to another episode of the show. This weekend I spent some time out of town, and we didn't really plan around that so I ended up just slapping together a short show for your listening pleasure. I talk about some free-to-play fuckery, announce the NBI, and cover some idiocy on the internet. I won't say more or else I'll spoil the show, as it's rather short. Talking to yourself is rather weird but I hope it ended up sounding alright in the end! We'll be back next week with our regularly scheduled news show. Until then, enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend!

We're back with another episode of "Hot Podtatoe Headlines!" This week we've gathered up a bunch of news stories from around the web, and the overall theme seems to deal with video game movie adaptations. We spend a chunk of time on that, and then dive into some of the biggest recent releases, DLCs, and some other smaller nuanced stories that have come up as of late. It's all over the place, and yet still distinctly podtatoe flavored. We're also starting to look forward to our 100th episode which *should* be occurring in August provided we don't miss any weeks between now and then. We think we've come up with a cool way to have some audience interaction, by recording live and allowing audience feedback/questions. If that sounds like something you'd be interested in, let us know! We'd love to have an AMA or something like that with live on the spot questions and comments from our audience.

Welcome back y'all! We had a supergroup episode planned for this week, where Eri and myself would not only be joined by Doone, but also Tacktix. Unfortunately Eri's Internet has been out for a while, so she was unable to join us. As a result we changed the topic up a bit because the show we had planned was her brainchild. Still, we settled on talking about consequences in gaming, relating it to both in-game communities but also real life. There were some recent news stories that coincided well with the topic as well, so they were peppered among the discussion. We also had some issues with the recording software, which is nothing new for podcasters, so we ended up splicing a couple different takes together into one cohesive package. We tried out the Zencastr software which was rather reliable and may be what we use in the future, provided it continues to impress. Anyway, take a listen and as always thanks for your support!

Welcome back to weekly shows! As I mentioned the other day on Twitter, we are going back to a weekly schedule after a couple of months of biweekly shows.

"So, it's been a couple of months that @couchpodtatoes has been operating on a bi-weekly schedule. This was due in part to busy schedules. It's also hard coming up with something fresh to discuss every week. I know I was feeling a bit of fatigue when it came to being creative. We had an answer... we went biweekly and took on another co-host. But now we're feeling re-energized. I personally was missing doing it every week. I love talking with my co-hosts. We also had some positive feedback recently and want to keep things going strong for our fans. So I'm happy to announce that Couch Podtatoes is going back to a weekly schedule. We'll have something new for you this weekend, so keep an eye out for that. Our biweekly shows will remain the same with our other hosts. Thanks for dealing with our shit while we figured things out! And sorry for the spam!"

With that said, this is our first news/current events show, and we talk about everything and the kitchen sink. We also brought "Idiots on the Internet" back from the dead, and talk about a particularly infamous League of Legends streamer who was recently banned by Riot. Otherwise, it's our usual rants and rambles. Let us know what you guys think about the new format ideas!

Welcome back to another episode of the show. We're back with Tacktix for an in-depth discussion about Cynicism and how it can relate to gaming. We tackle how some of us feel that we have become more cynical with age, how skepticism, apathy and other factors can affect our moods towards gaming itself, the industry and our communities. We round it out with how cynicism and trust are related. Of course, we also talk a bit about what we've been playing lately too. Check it out, and let us know what you think!

For this episode we are taking a look back at a topic we've covered before, though it was way back in our fifth episode. The topic is diversity, but whereas we were just cutting our teeth on the topic back then, this time around we're asking: "How are we doing?" We touch on some recent news stories, politics, and a bunch of other things along with talking about what we've been playing. Doone's back with us for this discussion, and we have some fun, share some laughs, and dig deep into the big issues of the day. A pretty typical Couch Podtatoes episode :)

I announced officially in a recent post that the Couch Podtatoes podcast would be dropping to a biweekly schedule. In all honesty, I could probably still manage to squeeze out an episode a week, but I've been feeling like the show needed a change of direction for a while now. Most of the positive feedback we've received has been in response to shows where we had guests. Doone has been a permanent guest with us from the beginning, and we've had many other guests throughout the years, but I thought it would be prudent to pick up another guest host and it just so happened to coincide with our busier schedules which lead to the drop in frequency. Tacktix, the author of the Tough Love Critic blog (see links below) has been ranting over on his blog about various topics for some time now. He mentioned to me at one point thinking about doing a podcast, so I thought I'd give him an outlet to rant on ours. Once a month, just like Doone, we'll have Tacktix joining us and bringing something new and interesting to the table, or in the case of this week's show, a sort-of update on several topics we have touched on in the past. This means the show will have 3 hosts each episode, two of which are rotating. A third person seems to add to the dynamic in a way that keeps things interesting, and as our chemistry builds with Tacktix I think we'll be able to put out two very high quality shows per month. If time allows, we may go back to doing weekly shows, but I'm going to roll with this schedule for the time being. Also, it's likely that with our new recording schedule, shows won't be posted til Saturdays from now on. Thanks for bearing with us while we figured all this stuff out!

As for this espisode, we're talking about the decline or death of AAA MMOs, and the rise of indie/niche ones. We talk about other gaming odds and ends and how the market in general affects the MMO industry. Thanks for listening! We'll see you in two weeks!

Doone's back for another round of the Digital Frontier. This time around we're diving into the topic of love and sex. It was supposed to happen sometime in February since he likes to call that "the month of love" but all of us have had really busy schedules so we've been on a sort of bi-weekly schedule for the show recently. This is something I considered doing from now on, dropping to a bi-weekly schedule, but after talking about it with Eri we decided we want to stick to the weekly schedule. So thanks for bearing with us this past month, we're going to nail down a new schedule and keep it going. We're nearing two years of the show already, and it would be a shame to let it dwindle into obscurity. So yeah, it's an interesting topic and we had some fun recording it. Hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as we did. We'll see you again in a week.

I should actually be posting episode 81 by now, but due to some scheduling difficulties and yet another recording mishap, we managed to be a week late posting episode 80. Had something gone better, I would have gotten number 81 out around now. Doone was supposed to record with us again last Friday, but then I went out of town and Eri wasn't able to connect with him. Then on Sunday I managed to get Wilhelm from The Ancient Gaming Noob on as a guest and the three of us attempted to record the show, but my recording program decided not to record anything. Thankfully Wilhelm was a good sport and I managed to connect with him Tuesday evening to record this episode, though due to time zones we couldn't get Eri on at the same time. We still managed to have a lengthy discussion about the first year of Daybreak Games and the highs and lows that came along with it. As a fellow Norrath lover, we gushed about the glory days of EQ for a while as well.

Overall it was a fun show, hope you all enjoy it after the long wait. We'll hopefully get back on schedule for next week as well. Until then.

Doone's back for another round of the Digital Frontier. This time around we're diving into the topic of historical accuracy in games, and how this can be troublesome. In some cases it feels like we're being lied to, and in some cases big portions of the truth are omitted to avoid offending people. It's a touchy subject but we look at it from all angles. I also think I should make mention that I picked up a new headset recently, and this is the first time using it to record, so any feedback you have on my sound quality would be appreciated! That's all for this week. Up next is another episode of Doone's Digital Frontier as he has another topic he wants to share for the month of February. We'll see you then!

This week we're diving into the topic of Collectibles. First we talk a bit about what we've been playing as usual, then we get into the discussion about things we've collected personally, and trends we've observed in our culture and the marketplace. It seems like we aren't really big collectors outside of collecting ALL THE GAEMZ, but we'd love to hear from you guys and what you're passionate about collecting.