[Podcast] Gaming With the Moms #14: Thank You Mr. Iwata

It’s a week of sadness and celebration as we remember Satoru Iwata, the Nintendo CEO who passed away this week. Thank you, Mr. Iwata! Nicole, Linda, Simone, and Courtney also cover the news, what they’re playing, and a question from a gamer dad with an 11-month-old baby.

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News

• Nicole’s favorite story this week: the founding of Motive Studios by two great women, Jade Raymond and Amy Hennig. They’re going to make a Star Wars game! Nicole gets in her name-drop. Actually two! Garry Whitta’s sci-fi novel, “Abomination,” is out. And Nicole met Jade Raymond when Jade was working as a correspondent for Electric Playground, a Canadian show about video games, and Nicole was working on PR for Death Jr.
• Simone talks about the D23 Expo 2015, “the ultimate Disney fan event” in Anaheim Aug. 14–16. She’s actually really excited about the Disney Infinity Toy Box.
• Amazon is offering 3D toys of your favorite game characters, but so far they’ve only licensed three games, though. Unfortunately the Smite characters are all “side-boob and deep cleavage”and fully clothed males. But 3D printing is so cool! These shouldn’t be confused with the toys-to-life toys, like amiibos, which by the way can be worth a lot of money if they’re rare.
• Final Girls is a browser game that puts you in a trauma support group. And the therapist is Ellen Ripley from the Alien movies. We’re relieved to know Carrie is doing well. She’s just moved in with her girlfriend and she’s starting a catering business. Nicole makes a gross joke.
• Comcast is starting a game-streaming service. They’re trying to appeal to families and add value to Comcast television, since they’re shedding subscribers as a result of the competition from streaming boxes like Chromecast and video game consoles. Simone thinks the best game on the service is Peggle Nights.

Thank You Mr. Iwata

Satoru Iwata, President and CEO of Nintendo

We take some time to remember and appreciate the life of the Satoru Iwata. We’re very sad. Mr. Iwata was the president and CEO of Nintendo. He died this week at the age of 55. He was only the fourth president of Nintendo, which started more than 100 years ago as a card-game company. Courtney provides a touching short biography of Mr. Iwata and talks about the history of Nintendo during his tenure. There has been an outpouring of love and admiration on the internet. (We’ve gathered some heartwarming tributes in a post.) We also talk about the things we appreciated the most from Mr. Iwata’s time at Nintendo: Nintendo Direct, the Legend of Zelda game series, and Iwata’s initiative for making video games accessible to people of all ages.

What We Played

• Simone played a bunch of Alphabear and also Minecraft with her Minecraft-expert roommate Emmett Scout. Simone taught dad Curtis Vredenburg to play Minecraft and made a video about it (below), but playing with Emmett was more fun because Emmett is REALLY good at Minecraft.

• Courtney played Threes on her phone, the single-player campaign on Splatoon, and she’s downloaded the Card Wars Adventure Time app.
• Nicole played some Alphabear and Viva Pinata and…wait for it…Hearthstone.
• Linda played a little DOTA 2 and League of Legends in preparation for going to The International, the big DOTA 2 tourney in Seattle in August. (The prize pool is up to $15 million.)

Q&A

Austen is a gamer dad, but he finds it hard to find time to game while he has an 11-month-old baby. Do we have any answers? Nicole says, “Austen, I am sorry…it’s kind of what happens.” Linda says, “I never got any sleep the first five years my kids were alive…you’ll be able to game more when they get older.” Simone (not a parent, by the way), suggests working out gaming time with your partner. We all hope Austen gets more gaming time soon. We wish we could fix this for you, Austen, hang in there and enjoy your baby as much as you can! Oh, and here is a link to an article on Gaiam that might help more than we did in the podcast. 🙂

Linda’s son Chris when he was a year old. Yes, that’s cake in his hair.

Credits

This podcast was recorded in the studios of the Jack Straw Cultural Center in Seattle. The music is by Pat Goodwin at Novelty Shop Creative. Nicole Tanner, Linda Breneman, Courtney Holmes, and Simone de Rochefort participated in this podcast. Thanks for listening and if you liked this episode, please rate us on iTunes!