The Hidden Cost Of Making It In Hollywood

I was in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger, which movie? Yeah, what movies? I was at End of Day with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Basically, because I was funny and smart and looked different. I was getting a bunch of roles being the albino guy, villain guy in your email intro, the first words that were said were black, albino, and legally blind. Like, how does that impact your ability to make games? I would say that. All right, Victor, welcome, brother. It's good to have you. Thank you for having me. Happy to be here, having a good time. Feeling pretty cocky today, let me tell you, uh, because just 30 minutes ago I finished, uh, my application for a provisional patent, and I just clicked all the buttons, and it's all done now. So yeah, what, what can you talk about what you're patenting? Oh, totally. Now that it's, uh, now that it's patent pending, yeah. All right, what do we got? Um, so, I am working on a system to help.

Gamify a live broadcast. So like, you could say have a game show on TV and the audience could be playing along live, whoever is watching, and it's good for like game shows, it's good for like sports, like, imagine like as a game is progressing, you could pick fantasy players and as the game progressed, like, you know, your, your place would move forward and you could play on your phone while you're watching the game. It's just basically like a a a simple one too many gaming system for live broadcast. And I, I just patented because uh we've been talking to people about it. So if you win, what do you, is there money involved, or do you just get status or like, yeah, what happens? Oh, you mean, well, I can actually, I can actually tell you how, how I'm using it in our first like big test. OK. So in the first big test, we're doing, um, we're doing like a tic tac toe live game show and then. People play the tic tac toe game and when they get to like, you know, higher levels, it's an arcade game, it's a puzzle arcade game based on tic tac toe. And when people get to certain levels, people watching in the audience, um, we're doing it live in bars right now, so people watching in the audience, they've got an app on their phone and they can bet on with like stars or credits that they're given at the beginning, they're, they have no monetary value. OK, so they can bet on their credit with their credits, how far they think the person.

On stage is going to get in tic tac toe. So meanwhile, they're watching a show where one at a time people come up on stage, they're playing the tic tac toe arcade game and it's projected on the screen, so everybody can see what their moves are. And then people get to bet on how far they think they're going to get score-wise. On these little apps. And then the people who have the most credits at the end of the audience win like t-shirts and stuff like that. It's just like really nothing, nothing crazy. It just, it feels like gambling, but it's not, but it's just fun. It gives opportunities for, I guess, if different bars or whoever can offer whatever they want as prizes. Well, yeah, but the idea is not for bars, the idea is to be on television, so to do it like to millions of people at once. So that that everyone watching at home live can play some sort of game together. But you're saying that right now it's happening in bars already. You're patenting it for more mass market where it can be done with millions of people. I just registered the patent like, like 30 minutes ago.

That's right. So would it be on YouTube, Netflix, like where would it be exactly? So, so imagine this. Imagine like, imagine like if you were watching, uh, Jeopardy, right? You're watching Jeopardy, but it's a special live version of Jeopardy, and on the live version of Jeopardy, you could play along with them live and be scored, uh, with everybody else in the world. So the, the whole idea behind like my company High Score Game arcade is like, is like to have like a running leaderboard for everyone in the world. It's like, so everyone could compete against everyone else in the world. I'm really into that idea. I don't know why. But, but, uh, I know it's a super villain in you. That's why. But then, so like for the, for the, for the shows, like imagine if you're just like in an audience and you're competing against everybody else in the audience, and it's just fun, that's all. But so you would have to, it would have to be on live television, right? It would be, it would have to be on live television, or it could, you could also.

Run back a video live if the audience had no, if the audience had no knowledge of what they're about to see, for instance, like if you're, if it was like a movie premiere and the movie premiere was pre-recorded, pre-recorded, but then the audience could interact with it live if they have no, you know, if they have no knowledge of what's coming up bet on is this character gonna die at the end of the movie and you can place your bets live. Yeah, or do something. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have to be bets all the time. Like it could be anything. It could be, it could be someone solving a puzzle live on stage and you're solving the same puzzle. Honestly, that's kind of a good idea because you could sell that potentially to something like Netflix and say there's a show that like, you know, because everyone's so distracted when they watch shows now. Like no one can watch a show without flipping on their phone and it doesn't keep our attention. But if you knew, The show has like a little bit of a game. Now you're, you know, you're like more involved because you're like, yeah, look, we're just kind of sitting around with our friends playing while we're watching for a different reason. Yeah, instead of scrolling TikTok and Instagram while watching a show, you're playing a game while watching a show. Yeah, you just watch and it's part of the show, yeah, yeah, and this is like a lightweight system that anybody can use, meaning like, Meaning like we have versions of it that bars can use and, and any, any live streamer could use and then we have versions of it that we make we have versions of the patented, the, the patented larger system is the one that I was talking about which is made specifically for broadcasters.

That's cool. So how would it work for, so like say we did it podcasting, we did a live podcast and we gamified it. Do we come up with The games and we work with like your company. So I have, so I actually have a, I have a system where, so I have a, I have an arcade online with a bunch of games and so I have a system where like you can access those games and have your own like contests, right? You get your own QR code, your own leaderboard. And then you could just say, hey everybody, play this game, and it, and then you can, you can utilize any of the games in my arcade. We sell, we sell access to the system to bars for like, like $1000 for like a lifetime, you know, lifetime deal, so they could always, and as new games are added, they could add it. And then, and then it also collects emails for you, so you can like collect emails and you can connect it to your email program. So you could be like, you could either, you could either like on your broadcast, you could be like, hey. Let's play, you know, we're playing, uh, we're playing this, uh, Break Invaders game because I have a game called Break Invaders that have breakout of Space Invaders, and then let's play this Break Invader game. Anybody who gets a high score or gets a prize, and then everybody who even tries, you get their email address, and you can also put it on your postcards, and you could take it to conventions, and you could put it on a postcard in the convention, be like, hey, get, get 1000 points and get a t-shirt from our booth, you know, that's so that's actually super cool. It's a great idea. Do you make custom custom games?

Yeah Wow, super cool. We need a mushroom game. That would be, yeah, we may have to chat with you offline about a custom mushroom game. I think it's a great idea because now it's like, you know. Instead of like, hey, download 10 reasons, some free PDF bullshit to get your email, it's like do something cool, something interesting, something engaging it's like really, it's like really simple. Like it's, it's like, so when we, when we sell it to bars, we're just like, just tell people like, yeah, hey, get 1000 points and win a free beer, and then just everybody who tries in the neighborhood becomes like your potential customer. So, and if you have, and we, and you can put an actual this is. So, this is, this is really funny because like, um, I, I, I, I think when people meet me and they're like, this guy's a comedian, blah blah blah, his name's King Supernuts, you know, they're like, you know, he doesn't know what he's talking about, but I actually know what I'm talking about. So, like, especially about like creating a a product that really helps these type of businesses. So there's an actual number that you can put.

There's an actual number that you can put to how much an email is worth to a, a, uh, brick and mortar business or any business, based on like, um, how much a, a normal customer, uh, a normal converted customer is worth to your business, and the percentage of conversion, you know, and so that you get from your email list. And even if you get a low percentage of conversion, like say 2% from your email list, a A business like a bar, an email is worth like a lot of money. Like, because if you consistently email like one email a week or 22 emails a week and send people to events at your bar, it's worth like thousands and thousands of dollars. And once you get that email from one person in the neighborhood, you have it forever. Wait, so how did you get into this? Like, are you a developer or you just super interested in games, or is that just how your mind works? I like to make video games. I was, I like to make video games and I wanted to make a business around uh making video games. Uh, so I created high score Game Arcade, which is Really a business to business video game publisher. So like most, most video game publishers are bus are, are business to consumer, like, you know, game like Grand Theft Autos to consumer, right? But I focus on, uh, making tiny games and selling them to businesses for a lot of money.

And your main game though is TikTok, right? Like that tic tac toe TikTok. Currently I got TikTok brain. Currently we're doing the worldwide tic tac toe championship, and, and why are you doing it currently it's happening right now. Yes, it's happening right now. So we're, so we, so the worldwide tic tac toe championship game is live right now. It is about to be, it's about to start being released in stages. Over like the next 10 weeks, it will be in front of like 100 million unique users every month. How many people have played so far? Uh. Like, not, not a lot, like, like a few 1000 I would say. Where are people finding this? Like, how are you pushing it out? How do we get involved and play and see if we can see how smart we are? I want to prove to be the smartest person in the world, take over the world with you. So we have a partnership with this company called FRVR. Uh, it stands for forever, but they have no vowels in it. It's just one of those kooky tech names of spelling things. I thought it was fervor. Yeah, I know that's what everybody thinks, and it's forever anyway, so there's no vowels, but it doesn't matter. But they, so they're our distributor.

So we have a deal with them. They're the ones who distribute it to like, uh, Facebook Games and YouTube Games and all the other places where it gets to 100 million people. And so, so the game is going to be distributed to all those places. But the only source of truth for actually being on the worldwide high scoreboard is our site, which is high scoregame arcade.com. So on all the other sites, you can play the game and you can see, you can actually see like, you know, uh, who is, who are the top players in the world based on our leaderboard, but you can't get on the leaderboard unless you play on our site with our game that is like certified and, and hooked up to our clock and everything. You're like the Guinness. Of tic tac toe. So it doesn't, you can break the record, but it doesn't matter unless the Guinness rep is there and they gotta play on your site. Cool. Exactly. It's called the Worldwide High Score League, and, uh, I am the Grand commissioner and final boss. It's judge, jury, and executioner. Do you also currently hold the high score? No, I can't. I can't, I can't even like I'll make these games and then like these hardcore gamers like jump on and I can't.

Like I can, I'm pretty good in my own game, but like they're they spend so much time on it, it's like a, it's impossible. I cannot beat them. So when you, uh, when we first started talking in your email intro, the, the first words that were said were were black, albino, and legally blind. And so, That's how they started. They didn't have like a Normal like preposition at the front or something, you know, that was it. That was the subject line, black albino Legally blind. Obviously I had to open that email because they piqued my interest, um, but I'm curious, one, I guess how legally blind because like how does that impact your ability to make games? Uh, well, Well, I, I would say that I am, so legally blind just means that you're blind enough so that certain states won't give you a driver's license. For instance, I can get a driver's license in California but can't get one in New York. OK, so it's like, it's like you see to a certain level where they're like, OK, this is the cutoff, um, and it means that things are like blurry to me, but not like I can't see at all, right? And so.

The, the main answer to your question about how does it work with video games is, I just have a big computer screen. Great. Basically a zoom in. Are there any psychedelics you take to make your vision better? Um, I'm a, I love weed. That's not a psychedelic though. I love can't have psychedelic-ish vibes, but yeah, psychoactive classically, yeah, yeah, I, I like mushrooms. I, I really enjoy mushrooms. I went, I, I think I was talking to you recently when I said that I went to Eric Andre's, um, birthday party and then on mushrooms. Yeah, can you, can you tell a good story? Yeah, um, so Eric and Andre and I have been friends for like many, many years. Like, um, his His, uh, one of his first big appearances was in this, uh, Comedy Central special called the Awkward Comedy Show. And I was like the director and producer of that special. And then we we appeared in that together. And then we've just been friends ever since he went on and he like got really super famous.

Um, and, but like, you know, whenever he's in town and has a birthday party, he's always like, hey man, come to this birthday party. And then so his birthday party was at Xanadu, which is a roller skating rink in New York. And then I go to the roller skating rink with my friend, uh, Jasmine, and we're both on mushrooms. And then we, we take in mushrooms, and then we'd, we'd We, I don't know why you always do this, but you just like get so stupid. Like you take mushrooms, and then you're like, I don't feel anything and you take more, and then everything hits you. We did exactly that Taylor's oldest time. Yes. We, we did exactly that. And then when we got to the party, we, we got to the party, and um, First of all, Jasmine was high and could not skate. And then people were just like whipping around skating really fast, and she was afraid to go out. She did not skate at all. She bought skates, uh, didn't skate, and, uh, I skated for a little bit. And then as soon as the skating was over, uh, then they turned it into a dance floor, and then Eric shows up, and he grabs me from behind. I didn't know he was coming. He grabs me from behind, from behind, and he humps me from behind, which startles me cause I was on mushrooms.

Sounds like a classic Eric move too. Yes, uh, but then he But then he starts having a party with his like circus friends. I call him his circus friends, it's just like, like he has a bunch of people that like are, you know, leather people and dress up in costumes and dogs and stuff like that, and they're all like running around doing their thing. And then one lady was walking another lady who was dressed up as a dog, and then But I had to ask the one lady. I was like, Hey, can I pet your dog? And she was like, Yeah, as long as the dog does want to be pet. And so I asked the dog, Can I pet the dog? And the dog was like, and I was like, OK. And I weirdly petted the dog, but I wanted to do it cause I was like, Well, I'm here, might as well pet the sex dog, and uh. I don't know, it was just a good time. Uh, we had, we had VIP passes, uh, but I was afraid to use them to their full extent because I was like nervous, so. Yeah, you don't know what's behind the VIP door. Well, like we could have gone on stage with the, and been in the middle of all the circus people, and I didn't want to do that for sure.

Were there like special sealed off VIP areas? Yeah, and so there's probably some, some. Kooky stuff going on back there. I'm, I'm sure there could be. I didn't, I, I didn't go that deep. You weren't brave enough to go find out. No, I was just like, I was just like, I was just having a really good time. There were so many lights and colors. It was just like great, you know, it was fun. I was very relaxed. I didn't need to, I didn't need to, uh, do Eyes Wide Shut. Do you know how much mushrooms you take, or are you just kind of the guy that just grabs them and You know, just sends it. Yeah, I'm a grab and go guy. I don't really, um, I don't really know much about drugs, which is why I don't do them a lot. Like I, like I don't know the names of different weed strains. I just kind of like You know, experiment here and there, and I just don't go crazy with it. And then the same thing with mushrooms, like, I'll take mushrooms, like maybe once every 1 or 2 months, you know. Nothing too insane, but I just like, you know, but I did, but I don't want to put a lot of effort into learning about it because I'd really, you know, I don't.

I don't, uh, it's not the top of my to do list of stuff that I want to spend time learning about. I'd rather learn about making video games. Yeah, exactly, it might get in the way of taking over the world, like, leave that to the, you know, the servants, and they'll, they'll take care of that. What servants to learn about? Well, if you're gonna take over the world, don't you want servants? Psychedelic, uh, well, employees, I would say. I mean, yeah, I mean, here's the point of taking over the world if you're gonna employ people. Um, because then they'll be happy and less likely to overthrow you. He's a, he's a benevolent leader, Brent. Oh, just because if you took over the world, are you a benevolent leader? it's a ruse only, oh yeah, only time will tell. What I'm curious, what is the actual. Master plan the plot for world domination. You mentioned before we started recording, you're, you're gonna find a genius through tic tac toe. Walk us through like what's in your mind and how, how you're gonna Take over the world and, and then what happens when you do take over the world?

All right, well, well, there's a lot there. Do you also wanna know how I can find a genius through Tic Tac Toe? Yes. OK that's step one. That's step one. Find a genius. Why don't we, why don't we do that first? OK, so the, I can find a genius through tic tac toe. So the tic tac toe game that I created has, um, a heuristic engine, but basically it's like a chess engine that's just good at playing tic tac toe. OK, and so. And so The more you play the game, it measures your strategy. And so the, the better your fluid intelligence, the better you'll do at this game. It's like pattern recognition and a little bit of puzzle solving and strategy. It's kind of like speed chess, but the, but with speed chess or anything like that, the, um, barrier of entry is higher because of what you have to know about chess. But in this case, the barrier of entry is really, really low. The higher the score you get, the higher the score you get potentially, the, uh, Smarter you are.

And then now is this just standard 9 by 9 tic tac toe? Every time, well, tic tac toe standard is 3 by 33 3 by 9 total. Obviously I'm not the smartest man in the world, we already, yeah, damn it, I'm out. But, but it starts out 3 by 3, but also has 4 by 45 by 5, and 6 by 6. Oh shit, OK, yeah, so I was curious if it got bigger as complexity. Yes, it does. It does. That's why, that's actually the reason I had to create this engine, this like kind of like chess engine for tic tac toe, because um there's a different way to, there's a different way to play tic tac toe uh computationally. Uh, using an algorithm called Minimax, but the Minimax algorithm is too slow when you start to get to larger and larger boards. So I had to make a heuristic engine, which is basically the chess engine for specifically tic tac toe, in order for the system to be able to play larger boards. Bye everybody, you wanna keep on nerding out with me, just look me up.

I, I realize how deep I'm going into this. I think some people might be like, what are you talking about, dude? No, take us as sciencey as you can. Let's go down the rabbit hole. Yeah, the, the, the deeper the better. So at what point do you know you've found, you know, the one, like the, yeah, when did you find your Neo? Well, right now what I'm trying to figure out is the best way to not just judge on one play, but to judge on a series of plays somebody does over a series of over, over a specific time. So, I'm kind of designing what that uh system is going to be like that algorithm. And then I will publish that so that people can watch their progress as the contest goes forward. And is there a timed, like, are there timed moves like a chess game? Yes, OK, good. I was gonna say because otherwise people will be just uploading screenshots into chat GBT and then getting the high score that way.

Yeah, so like every time you do what we call a perfect move, which means you do the, the best strategy or or the best strategy that's available, then you get a star in the game, OK? And the more stars you get, you have to get a certain number of stars, perfect moves in order to move on to the next level. It's not, you can win, you can win or lose games and still get enough stars if you're playing well enough. Um, and then the system. Doesn't play perfect on purpose, so that you have a chance to, if you can spot it, take advantage of it not playing perfect. Have you set it up in a way that, so like, if I. Get my cloud to go into the browser and just play all day long, or like a cloud bot, like you have some way of, you know, restricting those things from happening, cause I imagine you could set up a cloud bot and just be like, learn and just play all day long. I don't know if it would actually do that well because yeah um yeah I don't know if it would actually do that well. I mean why do you think so? That's interesting because the speed at which Cloudbot just uses uses a web browser is not great just like, I mean that's like.

I mean, I mean, I, I couldn't even imagine it playing like Pac-Man. That's true, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. OK, so you'll have nothing about its intelligence. I'm just saying it doesn't have the, it's got a slow digital dexterity just yet, yeah, yeah, in time maybe. So you're gonna use, so step one of the master plan, phase one, find the smartest person on earth via the tic tac toe, find who can make the, the most. The most, most optimal moves essentially fluid brain algorithm, right? And so we're assuming there's a direct correlation between tic tac toe skill and Super genius, which, yeah, so I could be wrong, and that would be a big mistake. I don't think I'm wrong, but I could be. OK, I like it. Well, let's assume that we, we got the super genius. Then what happens? But how do you know just because they have fluid cognition or whatever you said, that that makes them actually smart.

What if they're just like really good at that one thing and then they don't know how to pay their taxes or whatever and you're like, dude, this guy can't. Do the shit I'm trying to employ. Well, that's the way everybody is. Everybody's good at one thing and stupid at other things. It's, that's the, that's the way it is across the board. So then you must have something you're implementing that's very much like tic tac toe. He's he has a tic tac toe, uh, master plan, master bomb that explodes when you beat the tic tac toe game. No, it's not like, um, what was that game? That reminds me of uh Uh, The last Starfighter, remember that movie. Yeah, that's, so this is, that's, that's really funny. Now that I think about it, it's kind of like my whole thing is heavily influenced by the last of Starfighter. That's a great movie. It is a great movie, but I'm basically doing, basically doing that. OK, so then what's the star fight, so you're training him to fly or do what? Um, well, I'm trying to further my own goal, which is, I want unlimited resources to make, uh, amazing art always, and to do things that, uh, help my friends and family be safe. Because, uh, yeah, I think that, I think that it's important, you know.

And so that's what I wanna do. And the easiest way to do that is to make money doing stuff that I, uh, I'm proud of and really enjoy, so it's easy to promote. Um, and that, and what requires, what that requires is a lot of just like, Uh, understanding clever ways to monetize things like in ways, in ways that people haven't thought of, and then when I do that, uh, When I do that, it just, it just takes a certain type of brain to do that. I'd like to find more people who can help me do that kind of thing. That's actually pretty smart. I like that. I, I feel like we, we could design a game and then you could use it when you hire employees, if you're trying to get into a higher education, you could use this for all kinds of interesting. Uh, ways of, you know, people meeting criteria for whatever you're trying to do. Yeah, absolutely. There's, there's all kinds of interesting things you can do, and then I'm a big fan of like games that are more than just like fluff, like I, I like games that are like either designed well, or they're like a visual feast or audio feast, you know, like, I like games that are like more polished, um, but I also like fun arcade games, and so.

Uh, I've, I've, I've often I do games that have ulterior motives than just like straight up gameplay, maybe they're like gameplay mixed with, you know, other things like an intelligence test. For instance, can you, have you thought of other intelligence tests? That you could build into games other than the one you're testing for with this game? Well, well, fluid intelligence actually, uh, could be attributed to a lot of different types of games, you know, cause like, once you learn the system and then Uh, it's a strategy game or puzzle game that gets harder, then you'd like fluid intelligence could be considered measured for those. The difference is right now though, is that most of those games, you have to learn so much before you actually get comfortable with that game. So the number of people who actually do play those games is much, much, much, much smaller than the people who would just pick up a game called tic tac toe and give it a shot. Yeah, you need a low barrier. I have a greater chance of finding that person because I'm going for a wider net. Yeah, you need a low barrier to entry. What's some of the art that you want to create that you just maybe don't have the ability to create? Like, do you have a, a project that you're, is like the thing that you really want to put together, but maybe it sounds like you need a lot of resources for that. And I want to create Realm of LARP season two. So I made a series called Realm of LARP. Do you know what LARP is? Live action roleplaying. Yeah, yeah.

OK, so I made a called a series called Realm of LARP, and then, uh, basically the series was me following around people when they're LARP, shooting it like it was Lord of the Rings, and then doing interviews between them where they were like, I should have been protecting the party, I should have been at the front, you know, that's, it's basically that I, I also, I also added visual effects to make them look more like, you know, what they're imagining. And then so I did a season of that. I licensed it to Legendary Pictures and Nerdist. And then that season is done. That was like 1314 years ago. Since then, people have been waiting for me to do season two. I haven't found anybody else who could pay for it, but if my, if, uh, if this worldwide tic tac toe championship goes really well, I'll have the money to fund season two myself. That's super rare. Can people watch the old season? Where are they, where can they watch the old season? Um, they can't watch the old season right now. We're taking the old season right now, we're, we're just starting to circulate it as a, um, as a, as a, as a feature documentary, because we took all the episodes and we sewed them together cause it's like 11 episodes, so it's like a 90 minute movie.

So you can't see. The old season right now, it's, it's taken down, but um you can see the trailer and a clip of the, like the 1st 9 minutes of the thing at realmofARP.com. That's red. I'll have to check it out. That's super cool. Yeah, let's go for it. Yeah, let's find it. So, you have a kind of an extensive background. I'm curious. Like, take us on the journey of sort of how you got into video games, cause I know you also wrote, you were a writer for Marvel, I believe, and Vice, and like you've done a lot of work in the creativity realm, in the creative realm. How did you get into video games specifically? Um, The truth is I was into video games first. So when I was in high school, um, I took a computer programming class, but I already knew how to program computers and took the class. So they, they let me make my own project and I turned in my first video game for that high school project. But then I went into improv and comedy entertainment.

And then moved to New York for for entertainment, and did that for a very long time, and that was all I did. And then I started producing television shows, and that was all I did for that, producing television and then doing stand up, and also writing for other people, like, you know, like, uh Marvel, New Yorker, just like, you know, just like kind of gun for hire creatively. Um, and then the pandemic happened and stopped a lot of stuff, and then I kind of drifted back into working with, uh, on some tech stuff, and That led also to working with video games again, uh, and then, uh, recently the video game aspect kind of started taking off. So there you go. So I just kind of do it all. I, and it's still like I'm kind of doing the same thing where it's like, I'm just, uh, You know, kind of like I do creatively, I can do very different kinds of art, and so, You know, it just depends on I guess what I'm really focused on at the time and what really is making me money as an artist.

Are you doing much stand up now still? Like, what's your days like, like spread between all these different creative projects? I have a weekly show called Summary of the Internet that I do in New York. It's a stand-up show. And we have like big names on it sometimes. I think the biggest name that came through recently was like Todd Barry. Do you know who that is, that comedian? Todd Barry? Yeah, the name sounds very familiar. Yeah, um, super, super funny. Um, and that's a show that I do in, in Bushwick in New York. Uh, this guy has a comedy club in the bottom of his, of his Airbnb. So, and then I do the show there, and it's really fun. It's weird. Do you have, uh, like, how, how does comedy feed into Like your creative inspiration for the like tech aspect of creating games and this tech side, do they kind of feed into each other at all, or are they completely separate creative acts in your mind? Of course, they fit into each other, definitely. I mean, I mean, let's put, put together these facts. I'm doing the worldwide tic tac toe championship, which is in itself absurd absurd. I'm the Grand commissioner of the Worldwide High Score League, which is a thing I made up as King Super nuts. Um, I, I mean, yes, there, there's definitely crossover.

That's all, have you gotten any of your comedy buddies to play yet and see how they do and like been surprised and they're like, dude, this guy's actually super smart. Um, we actually are going to do that. So right now, um, right now, remember when I just told you that like scenario of how we're doing Tic Tac Toe live on stage and people in the audience can work, you know, mess with it. So we're, we're, we're going to be doing some uh run throughs of that format. And when we do the run throughs, I want to have uh comedians and people that I know do it for these like kind of rough drafts. That's cool. I wonder if you could set it up. Have you ever done it like like a live TikTok just like in the tic tac toe in like parks and just have people gather around and just play outside, you know, like I, I want to do that too. We, we just started doing like it is a live thing with the projection because I just figured out that format because it really engages you, engages the audience. And so I'm just starting to go out and do stuff like that.

Yeah, I feel I'm like finding for place. I'm finding places to do that right now. I'd love to do it. different places. Yeah, like I think it'd be like a cool pop-up, right? Because like chess, a lot of like chess is played in parks and, you know, people gathered around. It's like got a community vibe to it. I think if you can bring that community vibe, that'd be super cool because I imagine if I was walking down the street and I was in a park and all of a sudden there's this giant projector and all these people are on beanbags watching tic tac toe, I'd be like, dude, I want to hang out. I love the, like the, hilarious aspect of that where you have a crowd around watching a screen and people are cheering and yelling and cussing like it's a sports match, and like one little X appears on screen and then the crowd goes wild, brawls are breaking out. Yeah, I'll, uh, I'll send you guys, so we, we did the first version in a bar, and we have some really fun clips from that where it's just like exactly that happening, like as a person was playing and they'd miss, they'd miss a win, then people at the bar like, no. So funny.

That's cool. What other games are you kind of have in development right now that you can talk about? Um Uh, let's see. I have a, I have a game called Dynamo Kingdom that is in development based on, based on a fake, uh, kingdom that I wanted to make. And then, and then we do have some stuff in development with other brands like, you know, I did that game, or at least I did a game with the Universal Pictures based on the movie The Northman. OK, um, um. Well, that's actually on our site right now. That's, that's already out. So I was like, that was actually one of the first big collaborations I did. Do you know the movie then, The Northman? Yeah. Yeah, so I made a, I made a video game based on that called Berserker, based on the scene in the game, in the movie where he was like being attacked in the woods, and so it's like a, it's a wave, it's a wave based game where you're being attacked in the woods by like a bunch of people, and then I had to work with the director uh from the Northman on that, um.

And I had to make sure that the 8 bit graphics were historically accurate clothing because of the director's wishes. That's hilarious. Yeah, it was crazy because I was just like, what? At first I was like so mad, but then I was like, uh, you know, it's his movie. I don't want to mess up. Like, I want, like, he wants a certain standard. I'm going to do that because like, I'm honored to work on it, blah, blah, blah, you know, I get it. What like, what's your top three favorite arcade games? The ones that you like, they just, they take the cake above all. Uh, I'd have to say Robotron is #1. OK, um, it's a twin shooter, my favorite. The Star Wars, the old vector graphics arcade game, um, that's #2, and then Dragon's Layer, is 3. Is Dragon, how's Dragon's Layer? Remind me how that game works. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's played from a laser disc. It's a cartoon. It's basically like a choose your own adventure cartoon game, really, yeah. What is it? OK, crazy. What platform is it like a standalone arcade game or, yeah, OK, yeah, it was arcade game. I love Double Dragon. That was a, it was a super fun game.

No, Double Dragon great, yeah, yeah, in Time Crisis. Oh yeah, Time Crisis was fantastic. Have you ever heard of this game called Cyberlip? No, it's so funny. So it's like a time crisis rip off, and it's called Cyberlip, and the, the villain, the main villain, um. It's called, I think you're fighting this, this computer called Cyberlip, and then you, you end up destroying the computer, and when you destroy the computer called Cyberlip, you end up, it was a trick and it was a trick and the Cyberlip was the only defense for this planet, and you basically destroyed the planet's defenses. You got tricked. Sorry. You blew up a planet. That's amazing. Way to go, dork. What do you say to people that think like video games is like a waste of time, it's bad for your brain, you know, it's, you know, like, you know, there's so much stuff out there, content, like people talking about like, oh, my boyfriend plays video games, like as if it's a waste of time. I'm sure you have like a really interesting perspective, obviously because you built a game that you're trying to launch across the world and Analyze people's brains and how smart they are. So, I imagine you have a deeper perspective on this.

Well, I mean, anything can be a waste of time. Anything that you do. Instead of engaging with the world can be a waste of time. So, but video games like video games, like anything, there's like, you know, ways to enjoy them, you know, that are not a waste of time, and I don't know, like, like what would that be? What? Like, how do I know I'm wasting time versus getting something out of it? Um, I, I can tell you what I get out of it, but I can't say what works for you. But that's why I'm curious is your perspective. Yeah, I, I like video games. I love making video games because like I feel like it combines like so many things. It combines like, you know, combines critical thinking, it combines art, it combines music, like it's a lot of stuff all at once, and I love making video games, and that is definitely an art. And then as far as playing video games, I I think that uh I like video games that are beautiful, I like video games that tell interesting stories, I like video games that are that have maybe puzzles. I like video games that have amazing scripts, like, I don't see the difference between enjoying a great video game or enjoying a great movies.

Like, and some, and you can, people will binge an entire episode, an entire season of, you know, some TV show, and spend 10 hours watching some TV show and not think of that as a waste of time depending on the show. Same thing with games, you know, like, You know, if I, if I wanna curl up on the weekend and watch all of Game of Thrones for 12 hours, uh, nobody's gonna care. And if I wanna curl up on the weekend and play Sonic for 12 hours, who cares, you know, like, I don't know. I, it's hard for me to say. Like, I don't know. I, I know what I like. I see what you're saying. It's like it depends on what you're getting out of it. If it's, if you're using it as an escapist type of thing where you're avoiding the world around you or you're, you're using it in an unhealthy anything in out of moderation is unhealthy, right? But yeah, if it's just a hobby and you do it and you do it in, in a reasonable amount of time that's not taking away from your work or your Social life or whatever, fuck it. Who cares? Live your life. It's America. Agreed. You said it way better than I did. Thank you. Anytime you can hire me as a as your surrogate. I, I would say in some ways video games are a lot more engaging. I mean, movies can be.

But I'd say video games, depending on the level too, you know, you have to, because at some point, sometimes you get so fatigued like you're trying to play a game and you're literally fatigued, like reading a book, or like eventually you just, your brain is kind of tired and like, uh, exercised kind of way, where movies just kind of like I'm just tired from keeping my eyes open. Some, I mean, unless it's really good dialogue, then, you know, you have to be able to be present, but Yeah, I feel video games is almost like in some ways a meditative practice because you have to be really engaged. You can't be on your phone, you know, you have to, you have to figure things out. Sometimes it's fucking annoying and it challenges your brain. You can literally feel your mind sometimes be tired, and yeah, I imagine it. I think it's more to me like reading a really good novel, what, what that would be like, because you get so deep into the story, but also at some point, You know, you walk away not feeling like you just scrolled TikTok for a bunch of hours and you're like, oh my God, my dopamine's gone. You literally feel like you kind of challenged your brain, like you exercised it.

Yeah, I think that could be. I mean, I, I don't know the whys of a lot of things. I kind of know like just You know, kind of what, what I, what works for me. I'm very much like I am. I hate, I hate when people tell other people what to do or how to do things, especially if they don't ask. So I never tell people like how to do stuff for real. I'm just like, You know, no, of course not, yeah. Yes, and so when you're saying like, when are video games good or bad for people, like, how I gonna, how can I even, why would I even want to put a statement onto the world that says, oh, this is where I think the line is, like, but who cares, you know, that's true I don't know for sure for anybody else. So I'm curious, how does comedy come into all this? Like when did you enter the comedy scene? What, what even inspired you to get up on stage for the first time? I had a teacher who said, Would you stop making jokes in class if you go on stage and try it for real on stage, I promise to give you an A. And then I did it. And then what grade were you in? I was, I was, uh, this is 12th grade, so I was like 1717, 18-ish. And then, um, I, I did a show. I did a 45 minute show. He and his wife were the only people who showed up.

Wait, you did a like a a 45 minute set or stand-up set as a as my final, yes. Damn, 45 minutes. That's, that's a full, that's a full comedy special. Do you still have some of that material? No, I'm not. It was, I was crazy. Like, I, I shouldn't have done that. Like I was, I was, I was, it was awful. Did you get him to laugh at all? Were there any, um, a little bit, but it's not, you know, it's not, it was not great. But then, so from that intense, horrible experience, you're like, this might be for me. Well, yeah, hold on. So did you do like some open mics to prepare, or was this your first time? OK. And along the open mic road, I found out that I was funny. And even though the show didn't have, like, like, even though the show only had him and his wife there, it's so funny that he forced his wife to come. I love that. It's great. That was it. That was their date night. And she, when they came home, she was fucking pissed. She was like, oh my God.

But I mean, I, I mean, there were a couple of good jokes there because like I did, like you said, I did go to open mics ahead of time and I found some jokes that it worked and I kind of strung them all together. I really didn't know what I was doing, but, you know, I did it. Yeah, and then from that, so you said you found out you were funny from those open mics. Did, did you have this sort of love at first sight moment with comedy, or did it start to grow on you the more you did it instead? I think that in in high school I started improv and that's what really got me into comedy because I really liked improv because you didn't have to prepare. And then, and then, uh, and then also like I was good at improv because I was just like clever and so I could stand out positively in an improv class. And then I started doing that. I actually got a job doing that professionally out of high school, like improv, and I was like making money doing improv with this group called Comedy Sports, which is, which is actually a national chain of comedy. Uh, oh, you know, comedy sports. Yeah, I know comedy sports. I was, I did a similar thing. I was in an improv group, made not a lot of money, but he got paid for a couple of gigs. It was called the tokens. And we did that, yeah, we did improv and that's, I loved it for the same reason because I hated memorizing scripts.

And I used to be an actor and I was like, this fucking sucks. I just want to get up on stage and be witty and turns out there's a whole genre of comedy for that called improv, so it's perfect. And then I got, I went from improv to stand up because my improv group went to Chicago for like a special audition for like HBO, the HBO HBO Aspen Comedy Festival when that was a thing. And then we bombed really hard. And then one of the producers said to me, hey, you should do stand up alone, because of that group that was down there, you know, you were very solid, so you should learn how to do stand-up, so you can showcase yourself by yourself. And then I was like, uh it seems to make sense, so I'll learn how to do stand up. And then I went back to stand up out of from improv, you know, so I went back to stand up. But now I'm hilarious. But what, what was that journey like? Like, did you feel like you learned quickly and it was just easy getting gigs and getting laughs and just kind of developed just progressively over time, or was it challenging for a while trying to figure out how to go from improv to like writing material, thinking of material?

No, actually, so I got basically I I started getting famous fast. And then I stopped doing that because I was getting famous in what I thought was the wrong way. And then I kind of started everything over. So when I first started, I moved to New York in 1997. By 1999, By 1999 I was in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger, a movie with Eddie Murphy. Really? Yeah, which movie? Yeah, what movies? Um, I was at End of Days with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Really? What did you ever see that movie? Yeah. Remember the guy who's on the subway's like, the devil's coming for you, Christine. That's me. I'm gonna go watch. I don't remember the movie that well, but yeah, yeah, but I'm, I'm in that movie. You can search for the subway scene in, in the days, and you'll see it immediately. And then. And um the Adventures of Pluto Nash, I'm one of the villains. Oh, sweet. Um, anyway, so, so, but then basically, because I was funny and smart, and looked different. I was getting a bunch of roles being the albino guy, villain guy, whatever. OK. And then I didn't like that.

Because I was like I'm an artist. I'm not crap. I mean straight up I've been saying this forever, but like I was like I wanna be, I would rather be Peter Dinklage than Vern Treuer. Mm And Vern Treuer, if you don't know, is mini me, yeah, yeah, and so like a serious actor versus like a Yeah, exactly, exactly, and so I was getting like all of these roles really fast, you know, like I moved in, I moved and within two years, like I, I was like. And then like, they're trying to line me up for other stuff, and I did like, I did like a I did like a lot of stuff. I did like um Uh, what's the name of that TV show? I didn't like a lot of random TV shows, but one of the biggest ones was, uh, My Name Is Earl. Oh yeah, nice. Yeah, yeah. So then when you just like stepped away, did you just stop doing stand up too, or you just said no to more movies and castings? Well, then I started doing, I started doing producing and writing because I wanted to like make it stuff that I could do, and I wanted to prove that I was like an artist, blah, blah, blah, and I did that for a while.

And I did that until I could not do producing or writing for other people anymore. Uh, well, I could do it, but I was like, I would rather work on my own projects and then I started developing my own IP and company about 10 years ago. That's cool, and, but you're still doing stand-up. Yes. And yeah, so you just like it's just a, it's just a part of you. You have your weekly show, you took it as far as you wanted, and you just kind of just, it's just part of your life. Well, no, I mean, actually, so right now the weekly show that I'm doing is connected to a brand that I own, uh, that we are, we're growing, we're actually trying to get a sponsorship with Mike's Hard Lemonade right now. So like, we're, so it's, so I'm still doing stand up, but I'm also doing stand up as part of a brand that I owned that I can grow. Oh, so like, tell me more about the show. Like, is there a special way it's structured or? Yeah, so I do a show. I do a show and every show I make sure that it's miked and miked and miked well and has cameras and is recorded, so that we can get, you know, great stand up clips from the show. It's, it's high value clips because I know a lot of professional comedians. We do this, we do the show about uh current events.

Um, so we've got, so now we're, we've got a bank of clips where these, the like, like really funny news clips stand up overperforms on social media. Like you put up a stand-up bit, you can. Good stand-up that you can make, you know, 500,000 views easily. This helps grow the brand, which is attached to a newsletter called Summary of the Internet. And what it does is every day I have AI research what's trending because it's always something that I always need to like figure out. And so I just made a report that is researched every day, and I just have a newsletter where I share that with people. That's so interesting. It's like multiple layers deep on what you're trying to pull off. Well, yeah, I mean, because, because for instance, the newsletter thing is really valuable. So I didn't, I did, basically, I set up, I set up a, um, it's, it's a daily deep research for what is trending, you know, across the, just basically what is everyone talking about across the internet. Then also, I've been logging the top Twitter trends, the top Uh, YouTube trends every day as well through APIs. So right now I have a database of that's over a year old of like everything that has been trending every single day, and then it's searchable, and there and there, and it, and it has sources. So like, every day it gets more and more valuable, and it, and once I set it up with AI I, I didn't have to do anything else again, I just, it, it just compounds its value every day.

And then are these clips from The comedy special that are attached to, like, are they being attached to the topical events in some way? Yeah, so, so we, we started shooting it. We haven't started editing them yet, but yeah, the idea is they're gonna be attached to the events, but they're also gonna be used in social media to as a clever way to do marketing because like, because like the cost of producing those. Clips and attaching the name Summer of the internet to it is actually much less than say the cost of running ads on Google or Facebook. And it makes me more famous as a comedian at the same time, growing the brand Summer of the Internet. Yeah, I think that's, that's, that's super smart. Have you looked back at the data it's collected so far and specifically like YouTube and seeing what has been trend trending or how often it changes or, yeah, like what, what have you noticed? I bet it's pretty interesting. Oh, I haven't dug deep into it yet, but, uh, but I, but I've definitely like, I've definitely like, right now we have like, uh, kind of like flashcards of things that are interesting that are happening with the data.

And then I've done a deep dive myself, but not just on YouTube. I was doing a lot of, a lot of the different stuff, so I wasn't really looking for trends specifically on YouTube. OK, just like just like, oh, yeah, I was just looking overall like, like, oh, you know, because I've been collecting this information, and I was trying to figure out like who would this be valuable to, and I was like, you know, like reporters or uh there's, there's all, there's all kinds of, all kinds of people actually that kind of like, you know, it works for. But do you have you noticed any specific trends like happening looking at all that stuff across social media? I have not. I've only been using it to collect the data and to make funny videos. OK, got it. Got it. Yeah, I, I would, I'd be super interested in subscribing and looking at all that stuff. It's pretty, it's super smart. You're a newsletter guy, always trying to collect people on the newsletter. Um, it's really valuable. Yeah, We don't have one. But we need one, and we're just trying to figure out how to like do like for my brain to like figure out how to do that stuff, that is not great, but I understand how valuable it is. Just think of it like a video game. Yeah, like video games, so what, yeah, you gotta beat the level and the level is collected email addresses.

Yeah, yeah, I get that. I just don't understand the like setting it up and all that stuff. I made this software so you can easily collect emails by throwing parties either online or in person. And so great, we're good at throwing parties, so we'll just do exactly. I, I used the, the software that is now available to the public. I used to use it to throw parties because when brands would pay me to make a video game and do activations around the video games, I would throw parties and then we would, I would have people playing against each other at the parties through my software that I made. And then, so you think emails still in the current day are the most valuable thing for a business? And why? Um, I think they're valuable, one, because Most people do communicate through email now. 2 people are more apt to give up their email than they are their phone number, um. It is, you can, you can decide the cadence of communication with your potential customer with email, like, if you're doing social media, you have to wait for the customer or the algorithm to tell the customer, hey, look at this again, uh, with email, you can decide when they see something.

Um, so, Like, there's actually been like research. I, it's actually on the website of the app, like you can see all this research, but like, it's 40 times more effective than social media. And it's uh it's so like, so and, and, and again, the thing is you can put a number on how much an email is worth to your business with a simple calculation. What is that calculation again? The calculation is the conversion rate of your audience when they're on your email list and the value of a conversion, like how much does a customer normally spend when they, you know, come through your Whatever conversion times lifetime value. Um, I would know, not lifetime value. OK, average, average order value. Yes, OK, average order value. Cool. Very cool. Well, this is, this is good. I mean, you've definitely convinced us on uh the value of building an email list, so we will get on it. Um, how do people find you and obviously, how do they play tic tac toe if they want to prove that they're the smartest in the world? How do they learn more about Victor?

If you want to prove that you're the smartest in the world, go to high scoregamercade.com. And play uh tic tac toe, the worldwide tic tac toe championship. Just show me what you got, that's it. And, and if, where else should they go cause you work B2B helping businesses develop. Games and all that stuff. Do you, are you taking people on for that as well? Yeah, but I will say this, like, it's, it starts at $20,000 a pop. So, OK, so don't come skipping around here with your crazy ideas without $20,000 everybody. Yeah, it's not like you just have some crazy, you know, you're like, I got a couple 100 bucks. I think you just make a game. Yeah, I know that's why I'm like not really, you know, it depends. Awesome, man. Well, we appreciate your time. That was super cool. Uh, do you ever come down to Austin, do any shows? You're thinking about bringing your show down to Austin? Yeah, actually, we're gonna do the Worldwide Tic Tac Toe Championship live in Austin. Um, we're trying to decide when that's gonna happen, probably in July.

OK, cool. Where is it on your website or not yet? Where are the? Where should we look to know exactly when that date will be and where? Oh, if you just, if just go, go play, just go play the Tic Tac Toe get on his email list and we'll, we'll email you and we'll tell you everything. Just, just try it once, check it out, sign up, and then we'll, uh, you'll be on the email list and you'll, you'll hear about it. Fantastic. Then we'll have a bag of, you know, uh, random amount of mushrooms that we'll give you and see what happens. Absolutely, I'm way into that. Match made in heaven, video games and mushrooms, they truly do go together. Amazing. Well, Victor, it's a pleasure to have you on. Thanks for spending your afternoon with us, my friend. Uh, no problem. Thank you for having us. Yeah, when you come to Austin, we'll have to do maybe like a live, maybe to set up a podcast and do a live thing together and chat with you and see how things have been going. I, I'd be 100%. Yeah, we'll do, let's do an update, update on the Tic Tac Toe championship. You got it. No problem.

Cool, man. We appreciate you. Cool. Thank you, brother. Bye-bye.