Hot Button

Making it through to the end of the year just means it’s now closer to awards season! On our special two-parter, we discuss the absolute best of gaming in 2019 by running down the recently announced nominations featured in Geoff Keighley’s annual Game Awards show. Hear us list off the greats, category by category. What deserves to be there? What shouldn’t be there? Who do we want to win? Who do we...

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, a...

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’...

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. Lea...

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.

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...

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...

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 t...

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 c...

It didn’t take long after the invention of games for many to be centered around the idea of killing enemies, but what happens when a questionable developer makes one so grim, so tasteless, and so nihilistic that it risks even being able to be released at all? Find out how Hatred, an isometric shooter where you indiscriminately murder as many innocent people as possible, found it’s way for sale. De...

Our two-parter on the life and times of Randy Pitchford and company Gearbox concludes! This week, guest Melanie Grear returns to the studio and joins the crew in the rundown of where Battleborn went wrong, what took Borderlands 3 so long, and why Randy should probably not be allowed to have a Twitter account or visit Medieval Times.

Borderlands 3 is out today! And what better way is there to celebrate its launch than to dig into the history behind the franchise as well as the man most credited in bringing it to the world. This week returning guest Melanie Grear joins us in chronicling the life and times of eccentric game developer Randy Pitchford and how his studio Gearbox put themselves on the map, for better and for worse.

This week we are launching a new series! One that will host collections of shorter more bite-sized stories out there in the world of games. For our first batch of topics, we get into some noted crazy uses for the Playstation 3’s Cell Processor, talk about Australia’s cracking down on video game weed, and even cover what is universally called the biggest comeback in all of professional esports!

With Nintendo's ultimate backstab out of the way, Sony makes it move into the games industry. And we make our move into the final part of our Playstation series! Join us as we look into how that hot little gray box from the Walkman guys would be a vital tool for developers to help create games that’d shape the world for years to come. All while simply dominating the 5th generation of consoles in t...

It's hard to imagine the video games industry without Sony in it. But why did they join the console war in the first place? On part one of our two part episode on the Playstation, we cover Sony's deal with Nintendo to help them in the fight against Sega, and how that plan (with a little backstabbing) led to to the creation of Nintendo's biggest rival, as well as the creation of one of the best sel...

"It is a dark time for gamers. Although EA's reputation has been destroyed, executive troops have driven the gamer forces from their hidden base and pursued them across the internet...". Today we take a look at EA's Star Wars Battlefront II, and how a complete disconnect with their fan base and predatory business practices divided players and developers once again.

It’s time to dive back into the world of Dinohatten in Part II of our analysis of the Super Mario Bros. movie. This week we cover the film’s messy production, failed release, and renowned cult legacy! It’s a twisted story of booze filled accidents and last minute budget cuts. You’ll definitely want to hear just how these shenanigans concluded. And be sure to stick around for a little bonus at the...

You’ve heard us react to it, now listen to us talk about it! On part 1 of our plumber’s journey, we explore just how this mess of a project got started. Just who are our directors? Our writers? Where did the cast come from? And how did the producer even get this thing pitched and funded to begin with? It’s Nintendo meets Hollywood madness all wrapped up in a wacky early 90s package!

This week we’re gonna try something truly special. The HB crew is joined by guests Chelsie Romano, Mel Grear, and our one-of-a-kind audio wizard Jason Domenico in a screening of the Super Mario Bros. film... and we’re inviting you to sit down and watch with us!! That’s right. Play our audio commentary track alongside viewing this 1993 cyberpunk ‘classic’ and it’ll be like we’re right there with ya...

Have you ever gone to play an online game only to find out that a service like Xbox Live or PSN was down. This effects people all the time. Sometimes they are down for a few hours, or even a day. But what if they were down for an entire month? In 2011, that is exactly what went down with PSN, and we have all the information on when it happened, how it happened, and most importantly, who caused it...

How does the most expensive video game ever made release to lukewarm reviews? In Part 2 of our series on Bungie's epic space MMO Destiny, we cover more of the troubled development, and take a deeper dive into what went wrong in our own little post-mortem. What was cut last minute, what was shifted around, and how did most of the story and lore end up on a website instead of in the game?

Only a few times in a generation does a title change the way we play games, redefine a genre, and cements itself as one of the most groundbreaking and entertaining games of all time. That game of course is Halo, but those guys made another game called Destiny. In part 1 of our series on Bungie's new loot-driven massively multiplayer epic, we discuss the development, and the lead up to it's release...

Despite being released in 2011, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is still one of the most played video games on many platforms to this day. How is that possible? One word, Mods. Join us for the story of what happens when Skyrim developer Bethesda decides it’s time for them to profit off of the beloved free feature that has been keeping their game on top for so long.

It’s that time of the year again y’all! And no, I’m not talking about the Cricket World Cup. It’s E3 time! Join us today from a living room sofa as we break down each conference and game announcement day by day, along with all your favorite Twitch chat stirring moments. Everything from breathtaking Keanu to plucky Japanese presenters to doggies out on stage. We cover it all off script and unrehear...

This week we talk about everyone’s favorite Final Fantasy XIV feature, gentrification! That’s right, not even in video games can you escape the housing crisis. Special guest (and now ex-criminal land owner) Chelsie Romano runs us through the events of when one of the world’s most massive online RPG’s suddenly became a property rush hellfest. We got the inside scoop right here. Please look forward...