“The Rise of Multiplayer” Wants to Show How Games Became Where We Hang Out
I had the pleasure of hosting a conversation with director Michael Hoanshelt and producer Garrett Woods about their upcoming feature documentary, The Rise of Multiplayer. It’s a film built during nights and weekends over three years, and it asks a big question that sounds simple: how did multiplayer become the social glue for so many of us?
They’ve already spoken with folks from ArenaNet, Epic, and Microsoft/343, and they’re lining up a Kickstarter for late 2025 to finish the job. The stretch goal: head to Korea to trace esports back to StarCraft: Brood War.
To read either the abridged or the full transcript of the interview, scroll down.
What Multiplayer Means to Us
We started with personal memories of multiplayer in our youth. Michael went right to Halo: Combat Evolved with his brother on the original Xbox, doing co-op runs through easy, normal, then Legendary, the two of them a little spooked by The Flood, and totally hooked by that sense of accomplishing something together. I felt that one in my bones. I told them my own Halo story, the Xbox my dad brought home, the way that one disc set the rhythm for years, and we laughed about the early-2000s era when some of us even learned real-world tricks by staring at Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater.
Garrett’s first picture of multiplayer was pure couch chaos: GoldenEye 007 split-screen on N64 and the sacred “no screen-looking” pact that no one kept. Then it was StarCraft and Warcraft III over dial-up, that game-killer phone ring anyone from back then remembers.
The Core of the Film: Social Connection
As the project matured, Michael and Garrett kept returning to one theme: multiplayer is about people first. Their working title early on was “Making Multiplayer Mainstream,” but interviews nudged the focus toward what players and devs actually value, which is that moment-to-moment connectedness.
Garrett put it simply: communities form even around single-player games through speedrunning, streaming, and forums. The pull isn’t an abstract “feature set,” but rather “the connection between people.”
There’s a striking moment from their ArenaNet sit-down that reframed things for them. As Michael recalled, dev Colin Johansson argued that we rarely think of Fortnite or Minecraft as “social media,” yet for millions, those are the primary platforms where friendships are made and maintained. That idea of games as lived social spaces became an anchor for the film.
Proof It Changed the World? Start With GPUs… and Keep Going
The team doesn’t want to make a tech doc, but they also don’t want to hand-wave the knock-on effects. One thread they plan to follow with Kickstarter support: how relentless demand from games pushed GPUs forward, which later powered the AI boom. That’s a traceable line from Mario Kart to modern data centers, exactly the sort of “hidden in plain sight” story the film likes.
And because social impact isn’t just hardware and headlines, they’re collecting personal stories. Stories of college esports teams where students found belonging, or siblings who still call each other by loading into a new hero shooter. Garrett told me they even heard about someone who barely gamed before college, then found a social home through Valorant and Overwatch.
Toxicity, Tools, and Human Beings on the Other Side of the Screen
They didn’t skip the messy bits. Moderation at MMO scale is hard. The film looks at tooling that groups toxic players together or limits comms, and we discussed gentler nudges like Rocket League’s preset quick-chats that make “Nice shot” frictionless and flame wars harder.
Michael stressed another aim: humanizing developers. He mentioned interviewees who’ve received threats. The film wants to pull back the curtain and show that most devs are just players trying to build good spaces for other players. That empathy piece is part of the story they’re telling.
Futurecasting: AI-Shaped Worlds and “Play Outside” Multiplayer
When I asked where multiplayer goes next, Michael pointed at generative AI, not the buzzword, but the possibility of tailored play, where systems spin up encounters that reflect your choices and group dynamics. He’s curious about how that could make social play feel more personal, not less.
Garrett brought up Pokémon GO and its community festivals not as a one-off novelty, but as a model for how games can bend space and time so that digital groups become physical gatherings. He thinks AR will keep widening the palette of “how we play together,” even if most of us never strap on a full VR rig.
Why Korea Still Matters to the Story
Their Kickstarter stretch goal is a Korea trip. It isn’t sightseeing. It’s roots work. If you’re mapping modern esports, you eventually hit PC bangs and televised Brood War. The team wants those spaces and voices in the film so the past isn’t summarized, but seen and understood.
OK, But What Will Backers Actually Enable?
The doc is already thick with interviews, but the Kickstarter lets them pursue focused shoots: streamers, esports coaches, psychologists; more B-roll at events; and deeper reporting on the big threads — social systems, community stories, and the tech that quietly re-shaped the world. That next phase sharpens a film that’s moved from “everything multiplayer” to a clear thesis about people.
One More Match Before We Log Off
The Rise of Multiplayer isn’t proposing a neat theory so much as gathering lived proof: from Halo couch runs and N64 “no screen-looking” rules, to digital festivals in city parks, to teams of devs trying to keep the chat usable. It argues that the social web we actually use is often a game lobby, and it asks us to treat that space, and each other, with a little more care.
Condensed Transcript — Edited for Length & Clarity
AJ (intro): I welcome director Michael Hoanshelt and producer Garrett Woods to talk about The Rise of Multiplayer, a first feature three years in the making. They’ve interviewed folks from ArenaNet, Epic, and Microsoft/343, and they’re launching a Kickstarter in early September 2025; a stretch goal sends them to Korea to trace modern esports back to StarCraft: Brood War.
AJ: What does multiplayer mean to you personally?
Michael: He recalls co-op Halo: Combat Evolved runs with his brother—working up through difficulties, getting spooked by The Flood—and how that era bled into Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and learning tricks by watching animations before YouTube was big.
Garrett: He paints the classic GoldenEye 007 split-screen picture (and the eternal “no screen-looking” rule), then early online memories with StarCraft and Warcraft III on dial-up—games dropped the moment someone picked up the phone.
AJ: This is your first feature. When did the story “click,” and what gave you the confidence to tackle it?
Michael: The project began as a practical “let’s actually make a movie” decision—documentary felt achievable given his interview experience and Garrett’s proximity to games through his brother in the industry. The early working title was “Making Multiplayer Mainstream,” with the cheeky logline “it’s all the rage and nobody knows about it.” Three years of interviews refined the focus.
Garrett: As the interviews stacked up, the thesis narrowed: the real subject is social connection—how people design, play, and form communities in multiplayer spaces.
AJ: You also “follow the tech.” In your interviews—like with Microsoft’s Andy Montgomery—you sketch a line from player demand to GPUs to wider AI progress. How far have you taken that thread?
Michael: It’s a thread they want to investigate further; that’s one reason for the Kickstarter—more time and access to go deeper on knock-on effects beyond games.
Garrett: The team’s Seattle base helped—short travel, lots of studios nearby—and credibility improved once they could show a reel; outreach got easier with proof of concept.
AJ: What kind of documentary is this—character-driven or topical? How did you pick subtopics (MMOs, MOBAs, couch co-op, esports, etc.)?
Garrett: It’s topical. Early interviews cast a wide net—LAN memories, dev process, community habits—and that iterative interviewing pushed the film toward a dual lens: social connection and the technology that enables it at scale.
AJ: Let’s talk moderation and friction. How are teams tackling toxicity?
Garrett: Tooling matters: better detection and penalties, and even systems that quietly match toxic players together while letting polite players avoid them—one pragmatic approach they’ve heard from interviewees.
Michael: A key aim is to humanize developers—some interviewees reported receiving threats. The film wants to show the people behind the screen, not just the systems.
AJ: Why is a Korea shoot essential?
Garrett: PC rooms, StarCraft culture, Busan-scale tournaments—those spaces seeded a national moment that helped shape global esports. They have on-the-ground connections and want the story told by people who were there.
AJ: What will backers actually enable, and how close are you?
Michael: Focused shoots to round out the social side—streamers, esports figures, psychologists—and stronger event B-roll. The doc has a solid interview base; funding lets them refine and deepen.
Garrett: The production goal after funding is roughly seven months of shooting, then post and a push to streaming. Perks emphasize community: a developer-diary tier with Discord/Q&As, merch (including an esports jersey), and premiere experiences at higher tiers.
AJ (outro): I thank them for the early-morning chat and flag that the Kickstarter goes live in early September 2025; we’ll link it once it’s up.
Full Transcript — The Rise of Multiplayer
AJ Churchill
Alright, hello! Welcome to the Outsider Gaming Podcast. I’m your host, AJ Churchill. Today we’re talking with director Michael Hohenschelt and producer Garrett Woods. They have the team behind the movie The Rise of Multiplayer. It’s the first feature three years in the making for them, built while they juggled professional videography work, full-time work apart from this project. And the film asks a simple question with a big answer.
How did multiplayer games become the social fabric for so many of us all around the world? The team, the two of them have already sat down with people from ArenaNet, the creators of Guild Wars, Epic Games, the makers of Fortnite, Microsoft slash 343 Studios or Halo Studios, and they’re launching a Kickstarter in early September 2025 to bring their project across the finish line with streaming distribution in their sites as well.
If they hit their stretch goal, they will head to Korea to trace modern esports back all the way to Starcraft Brood War. The film is The Rise of Multiplayer. Michael Garrett, welcome to the show.
Michael Hoanshelt
Thank you.
Garrett Woods
Thank you.
AJ Churchill
So, starting off a little bit before we get to the movie, when you guys think of multiplayer in your own lives, like what comes to mind? I don’t know if there’s a feeling, a memory, a game, a person, maybe you guys can take me there.
Michael Hoanshelt
So you wanna go first Garrett? Okay, I’ll go. For me, I remember playing Halo Combat Evolved on the original Xbox with my brother. And that for sure is probably some of the best memories for me. Just doing a co-op campaign and we would try to beat the game together. And I just remember, I don’t know, it just brought a camaraderie between us.
Garrett Woods
I don’t know, might be you want to answer first?
Michael Hoanshelt
And we would try on the easy mode, then we’d do medium, then legendary or whatever the hardest mode was. And it was just super cool to be able to achieve something together. And even that game itself is just crazy because they have the flood and stuff, which is like zombies or something, I don’t know. But that was cool because it was scary and me and my brother were a little scared. were like, what’s going on?
Yeah, man, I don’t know that game like really sticks out to me for sure. Like the X, the original Xbox spent a lot of time on that. I played a lot. Excuse me. I played a lot of like Tony Hawk Pro Skater for the PlayStation. That was a lot of fun. And that was a time where like skateboarding was like big in the early 2000s. So I think that led to like me wanting to hang out with more skateboarder people and stuff like that. So like it was really interesting because
Michael Hoanshelt
I would even like learn some like skateboarding tricks from the game somehow. I’d like watch how the characters were like animated and I would like try to copy it. Cause like, I think that was like probably before YouTube was like really big. So I wasn’t like looking up YouTube videos and like how to skateboard and stuff. So in a weird way, like I was learning from the game. and then yeah, so that was definitely really big for me.
Michael Hoanshelt
played a lot of the Dragon Ball Z games for the PlayStation as well. Those were really, really fun. Spent a lot of time in those bad boys. So yeah, I think that’s just a little bit of what I got into.
AJ Churchill
Amazing. when you said Combat Evolved, that was literally like the first… I remember when my dad brought my brother home an Xbox and we had one game. was Halo, Combat Evolved. And so that basically, for me as well, defined…
AJ Churchill
Probably like a good six years of my life from like middle school all the way to the end of high school brought my friends together and actually I played Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2. That was that was also a lot of fun. It’s interesting that you mentioned how you were like learning from the game learning skateboarding moves from from this from that game. I’ve read about like real professional football soccer players who
will literally like learn moves from their avatars like within the FIFA games or I guess now FC, I forget the name, they changed it. But yeah, Garrett, you what does multiplayer mean to you as the producer of this film and in your life? What does it bring to you?
Michael Hoanshelt
Wow.
Garrett Woods
Yeah, I actually have three older brothers. So when I grew up, there’s always video games in our house. We’re always playing together, different types of games. think probably one of my oldest memories of multiplayer with them was GoldenEye actually on Nintendo 64. So we would play split screen and there’s always a like a battle and say, hey, no, no, no, no screen looking or looking at what I’m doing or whatever.
And there’s always lots of banter back and forth. So that was a lot of fun for me growing up. another early online multiplayer game I played was StarCraft 1 and Warcraft 3. Since, again, I have older brothers, I got into it when I was pretty young, actually, playing with them. And it was fun playing online in the dial-up days.
Garrett Woods
And my goodness, dial up internet was not the best for online, but it worked, it did its job. So, but yeah, anytime anybody picked up the phone, it’s just like, guess there goes my game and I lost. well.
AJ Churchill
-huh. That’s amazing.
I was born and raised in Brazil. I don’t remember going through that dial-up phase in Brazil, but my dad is American and I would go up to northern Michigan. And northern Michigan was completely wild. There was 500 people and 1,000 deer in the place that we would go to. So there was dial-up internet. It was the exact same problem all the time. In fact, only got internet good enough to game probably three years ago there, personally. Other people in northern Michigan.
Michael Hoanshelt
Thanks.
AJ Churchill
I’m sure got it before that. So this is your guys’s first feature, am I right?
And you both have worked full time in the corporate video space for, that’s what you guys do, and you’re both self-taught. So what was it that gave you guys the confidence to go out and tell this story, tackle this big cultural history of multiplayer games? Like, when did you feel like, okay, we have to make this? Maybe Michael, you can go first.
Michael Hoanshelt
Yeah, mean from my perspective, think it was Garrett and I were just talking and we’re like, hey, like, we want to make a movie and movies are really hard to make, like very hard. And I think something we’re like, okay, like maybe we do documentary. That’d be cool. It’s a little easier. That’s I have a lot of experience in like interviewing people and like doing that thing. And Garrett was like, well, like, what if we do video games?
it’s like we live in Seattle his brother works in the video game industry and like it sorry, I have a phone going. I don’t know why. I apologize for that.
AJ Churchill
it’s all good. This has like really good cancellation. I barely even noticed it.
Michael Hoanshelt
great. We’re good. apologies for that. basically, yeah, Garrett was like, Hey, like my brother works in the gaming industry. We live in the area. Like, what if we tried doing something around that and we kicked around some ideas and stuff. Okay. Like what’s it about? And I think Garrett, you were the one that came up with the first like one page treatment for this, right. So the multiplayer thing. and I think, our original title or the working title was.
Garrett Woods
That’s right.
Michael Hoanshelt
making multiplayer mainstream was the thing. Garrett came up with a really cool log line was, it’s all the rage and nobody knows about it. So there was something along those lines. So it was an interesting take. It was like, Hey, like, let’s talk about this multiplayer thing. Like no one’s really like super talking about it in terms of like a documentary, like what could we do? And, and I can, Garrett, if you want to like fill in anything you can, but
I think it’s been like three years since our first interview and it’s been a grind in the sense of like we’ll reach out to people, maybe not hear anything or we’ll interview somebody. And it’s just such a big topic. It’s taken so like, it’s taken us three years to really nail down like what the story is for us and like how much we want to focus on the social side of whatnot. anyways, Garrett, if you want to add in, feel free.
Garrett Woods
So just like Michael said, we just came up with an original treatment and the original title, Making Multiplayer Mainstream. When it came up with that title, was mostly about how multiplayer is like so ingrained now in the fabric of gaming and gaming culture. Even some of the biggest games on like Twitch and stuff are multiplayer games. A lot of e-sports games like
Fortnite or Valorant or League of Legends, lots of different multiplayer games. So there’s something that draws people to multiplayer even more so often than I single player games these days. And so we really wanted to investigate that. And since my oldest brother, as Michael said, is in the video game industry, I thought maybe we can get some connections from him and we’ll just see how it goes. We’ll try to get some interviews and get somewhere with it.
And so he helped us out. He did me a solid by putting out our casting call and that got us started with us from the first people that we interviewed. And then from there, we started just interviewing different people by networking through the people that we had already interviewed. Cause when they saw what we were doing and saw this not only a positive message about video games, but also just the fact that they could relate and they’re like,
Michael Hoanshelt
So. Okay.
Garrett Woods
man, I remember the couch co-op days and oh yeah, I played this game with my brother or this game with my sister or whatever. It’s like these people really understood what we were going for and so they were really happy to help us and it was just really awesome seeing that. And so over time we developed the idea more and more and just doing this on the side and we finally really dissected, okay, what is multiplayer? What is the thing that we really want to focus on? Because we could go anywhere with this.
And so we came up with this core concept that we have now, which is about the social connection really behind multiplayer video games and that perspective from developers and what they their hopes and aspirations about what they want to make, what experience they want to make for players experiencing these games together as a community. So yeah, that’s just what we’ve gotten.
Michael Hoanshelt
So. So
Garrett Woods
over the years, so it’s just been a grind, like Michael said.
AJ Churchill
Alright, so Garrett, you mentioned that your brother works at Riot and how much that helped you unlock a few doors and get the first interviews rolling. I don’t know if you can mention like if there was any interview that for you as the producer was the hardest to unlock. Has it gotten easier over time as the project has progressed? Maybe you could talk a little bit about how you went about sourcing your interviews.
Garrett Woods
Yeah, that’s a really good question actually. So the first interviews that we got came directly from my brother’s network on LinkedIn. So he posted our casting call basically after we put it up there and people just saw it and they’re like, oh, what’s this? I’m interested. so we got a couple of interviews. I think first one that we got was actually Christian Allen film.
Epic Games, Red Storm, he’s been in a couple different studios and he ended up being a really fantastic interview. He obviously does a lot of stuff about video games super cool. He has got a lot of really cool experiences. So doing that interview, I think really helped encourage us because we’re like, man, there’s a really good story here and man, if we just get the right connections, we can really do something really cool. So from there, we started trying to network
more with people that we were meeting not only through the interviews that we had, but also Michael actually started working. That’s when he started working at his current like marketing firm some time after that. And he got a few connections actually through that that helped encourage us and kept us thinking, let’s see what we can do. And then as we started filming more people from my brother, as well as just from networking and stuff.
We had more footage that we could show people so we’re like, okay now this isn’t just like some Cool idea or whatever. It’s like who are these random people asking me to do some documentary? I don’t know what you’re talking about It actually became really easy to reach out to people because they’re like, hey check this out It’s what we’ve done so far this is we’re going for and what we want to do What do you think about it? And people are like, oh wow, this is actually really cool I actually like this idea a lot and so when people had like this visual representation of what we were doing
People could see the vision. They’re like, okay, I can get behind that. I can be part of that. That’s really cool. So that made it way easier. Once we got the first number of interviews going and yeah, it’s just been going a lot smoothies since then. have so many other connections we haven’t even pursued just because we have so many people now in terms of our network that we’re just trying to figure out, okay,
Garrett Woods
We’re the first people we need to reach out to once we try and get this Kickstarter app, we get funny or whatever. What are we going to do? What’s the first step after that? Because we just have a lot of connections now, which is really awesome. So went from a little bit of a famine to now we’re like overwhelmed a little bit by how much people are excited about it. But that really encourages us, especially as filmmakers, because we can see how people really believe in the message and the vision of what we’re doing, which is really cool.
I’m glad it resonates so much with people.
AJ Churchill
That’s awesome. So you guys are based in the Pacific Northwest, your brother’s over there at Riot. You’re surrounded by studios and kind the e-sports scene. How did this region shape what you were able to film? Could you have made this film if you guys lived in Los Angeles or some other city? Michael?
Michael Hoanshelt
You broke up a tiny bit. Do you mind restating the question?
AJ Churchill
Yeah, yeah. So I mentioned that you guys are based in the Pacific Northwest. You’re surrounded by tons of studios, e-sports scenes. Could this film have been made if you guys lived in LA or some other place, maybe without that Riot connection?
Michael Hoanshelt
Michael Hoanshelt
Yeah, I don’t know. it probably would have been way harder. Like, honestly, it’s super interesting, like, how many people, like, we just might know through like one or two points of connection that work in video games. It’s crazy. Like, I think that, like, since the tech space is so big up here, like, for an example, I was out at dinner with my wife at a restaurant in Seattle. And like, I overheard the person next to me, like, mentioned that he worked in video games. And I was like,
Okay, I want to shoot my shot here. if it’s like the right time and appropriate, I just want to be like, hey, like I’m working on this project. So anyways, I ended up doing that. And it turned out this guy, like he’s worked on the Lord of the Rings games, like he’s worked on Forza, like he’s a character artist. And he’s worked out all these like big studios and it’s just like, man, like I imagine it’s similar to like living in Los Angeles and you like run into like filmmakers or something. But up here, it’s just like,
So many people know, like, I feel like everyone we know probably knows somebody that works in video games or at least a couple points of connections down. and I think that’s been very, very helpful for us from like a production side. We don’t really have to travel much. Seattle is like less than an hour for both of us. So when we’re doing interviews and stuff, it’s not like we have to drive like three or four hours and do an interview or B roll or see a studio. so I think that’s been really big for us is one.
We don’t have to travel. We don’t have to fly anywhere. Everything’s here. And like from a point of like making connections, it hasn’t been too difficult. the biggest thing like Garrett mentioned was like a little bit of credibility because as people are working professionals they may not want to like they don’t know what we’re going to do with the footage. So they may be like, well, like, I don’t know what’s the project about? because in the beginning, the project could have been about anything.
But now that we’re more solidified in our story and just the approach, I think that makes it easier for that. So hopefully I didn’t ramble too much. yeah, definitely our area has been huge for us, for sure.
AJ Churchill
Not at all.
AJ Churchill
Very interesting. So.
as you guys, as we’ve already covered, there’s so many modes of multiplayer gaming. You’ve got your multiplayer online battle arenas, MOBAs, League of Legends, Dota. You have massively multiplayer online games, MMOs, World of Warcraft or Guild Wars. Then you’ve got Esports, FIFA, Rocket League, local co-op games, couch co-op games, split screen, asynchronous strategy games, synchronous strategy games. How did you guys…
choose where to focus all your time and research for this film. Was it dependent on the people that you’re able to interview or was it more you decided we want to focus on this area or are you just doing broad spectrum? Like what multiplayer games does the rise of multiplayer tackle, Garrett?
Garrett Woods
Yeah, that’s a good question. our approach, usually the way documentary filmmaking goes is there’s usually two types of documentaries primarily that people create, which is either human interest story, we follow like a key character or key person, or you do something topical. So some specific topic and you get experts around a topic or whatever you want to talk about to tell that story. So
When we making this, we were thinking, I don’t know if I want to do like a human interest story. Let’s do something topical. And we had done some research about seeing one of the documentaries about the new games people have already created because we wanted to make something different. We didn’t want to make something that’s already been made somewhere. So once we looked at the other documentaries out there, we decided, okay, well, we want to try to approach this topically, but we need to
net focus in on this whole multiplayer idea. I feel like there’s something in it that we want to approach. And at first, we didn’t know what that was. We were unclear about, what in multiplayer did we want to focus on? So when we started doing interviews, we asked specific questions about certain topics. So we asked people about like their favorite memories from like lamb party or couch co-op gaming or whatever. And then we asked them about development because we were focusing a lot on developers. We wanted to hear this insider baseball about what did they do every day? Like, is, what does it look like to make video games now? And what are your experiences in the past making video games? And so when we started doing that, we started hearing really cool stories and really cool perspectives that actually helped us as we were listening to this guide the message toward
asking more more focused questions in the further interviews that we did. as we went along the next interview would be even more focused or would have certain things that we remember asking that were like, yeah, we should ask that again, or maybe we should change this question or whatever. So over time we went from this really broad spectrum idea down to this more like narrow focus idea around this social connection part.
And originally it wasn’t, we didn’t know what that was what it was going to be about, but we were like, social connection. That’s the thing that I think will resonate the most with people because isn’t that what multiplayer is? It’s about connecting with other people, right? That’s like the core premise of the whole thing. And then not only that, we thought how, one interesting part about it is the technology. Like how is that even enabled? How could people even play like an MMORPG? Like you were saying like Guild Wars. How did they even make that?
possible like how are you putting thousands of people on a server and how are you making these really complex video games so Over time we basically have narrowed off our focus a lot more on this dual perspective of the social part and the technology part about this the social thing we call video games and one thing that I think really helped us the most and might contest to this is
One of the people that we interviewed at ArenaNet, Colin Johansson, when we were asking him about, do you think this is kind like a new social media or whatever? Because that’s one of the ideas that we had gotten while we were doing interviews. And he said, actually, I think video games started social media. I think they pioneered this whole idea of social media. Video games were doing this way before anything else. And it’s just like Michael was saying, like, he was learning.
Garrett Woods
how to do skateboard moves on a video game before YouTube was a thing. just the whole idea behind video game guilds and friends and all this types of stuff and games even going all the way back to Starcraft 1 and Starcraft 3, I remember having people on my friends list or whatever and playing with different people. You can create communities literally around these video games. And that was before social media really took off.
That’s just something that I think really helped us to understand, okay, this is a really cool idea. I think we need to focus on this concept that video games are the pioneer of this full social media and creating communities online thing. I think that’s really unique and really cool. so ever since then, we’ve of just been developing that concept basically around the film.
AJ Churchill
That was a very interesting comment that I saw in your guys’ trailer about how multiplayer gaming was the prototype for then social media, friend groups and that thing. I had never thought of that. That’s really fascinating. You mentioned that a big part of your guys’ film, apart from the social focus of it, is…
The technological side and you guys interviewed Andy Montgomery from Microsoft’s like AI and Azure team and he drew a line from the GPU, the graphics arms race in games to a virtuous cycle where player demand pushes graphics, better GPUs expand what developers can build and then those gains spill into maybe AI and other fields.
So in your guys’ reporting, in your documentary, have you found out how does that cycle actually work? Like the game to real AI or even other tech pipeline.
I don’t know if Michael wants to take this or Garrett.
Michael Hoanshelt
Yeah, I can go and then Garrett if you want to touch on it again. Honestly, we haven’t gotten the chance to really dive into this too much yet. And this is I don’t know if I’m skipping too far forward, but this is one of the reasons for the Kickstarter too, is to allow us to really dive into some of these facets of this huge topic? It’s, yeah, I’m trying to think, is Andy the only one that’s really mentioned it Garrett? Is that right?
Garrett Woods
I think Thomas, so we talked to Thomas too and he mentioned the GPUs and stuff like that.
Michael Hoanshelt
Yeah, we talked to Thomas a little bit, that’s true. Yeah. But more specifically from like a non-game developer perspective, Andy’s like the only one, I think. But anyways, it is really interesting to me and Garrett, because it’s like, how many, in like what areas of life has video games touched, like either directly or indirectly that are like massively changing the way that we just live life?
or even just like I don’t know if we can credit video games to like chat GBT, but like maybe video games played a part in that. And that’s pretty crazy. And that’s going to shake up like who knows it might change industries and might get rid of industries. have no idea, but that’s definitely an area that we’re really excited to dive into.
Garrett Woods
one thing I’ll say is that, with the technology side, specifically with things that are more on the hyper technical side, like AI and stuff like that. Just like Michael said, we haven’t dove too much into that side. We’ve done a lot more about like the game development the technical part of that. But we do want to touch on some of these topics that orbit around video games, because I think that that’s like the bigger picture, right? Video games are like a touchstone.
of social aspects and connection interculture. And there’s so many things that orbit around that though that people don’t think about. That that again, it’s all the rage, nobody knows about it, right? Like there’s very few people who probably know that video games actually help develop GPUs because it pushed this continuous iteration and development of more powerful GPUs for videos or for video games and graphics rendering that ended up creating these powerful
computer components that can now be used in these AI server farms, neural networks, all that stuff. And that’s super crazy to think about that. You’re like, video games, this little thing I was doing playing Mario Kart when I was a kid or whatever is like somehow shaping the world and how we do industry and stuff. That’s crazy to think about. But it makes a lot of sense. There’s a lot of like funding there and a lot of money. And it’s just
AJ Churchill
That is crazy.
Garrett Woods
It’s obviously where people have this demand and stuff in video games, I think is only going to increase for one. were looking at the statistics or whatever about there’s a lobbying agency who does stuff for like video game developers for Congress and stuff in the United States. when there’s statistics, is that over half the world is going to be gamers or has become gamers and it’s only going to increase. And I’m like, wow, that’s crazy. It’s like,
50 % of the wars are just playing video games. Now I understand how big of a thing this is. This is really big. yeah, just industries and stuff like that developing because of video games. think that’s going to be a really interesting component to our feature film that I think we’ll want to touch on. as the bigger picture, like messaging or concepts.
Michael Hoanshelt
you
AJ Churchill
Mm-. No, it’s, I think that’s, it’s really interesting to see just how widespread this is. I was mentioning to you guys off the recording that I live in Tashkent, Uzbekistan right now, and it’s really cool to, it’s crazy how many LAN…
like land houses I see. was born and raised in Brazil. Land houses were a big part of my youth going with my friends to play Counter-Strike and Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Vietnam, like whatever they had there. And it feels like now, like even a place like Uzbekistan, that’s a developing country, there’s so many of these places because people can’t really afford
maybe a personal computer of their own, but they really want to play. And so people congregate in these land houses, these internet cafes to game with each other. And it’s awesome. I actually haven’t been to one yet, but I’m going to before I leave here. So you guys mentioned, we’ve talked about how the technology that enables multiplayer games and gaming in general has potentially changed the world through the development of GPUs that then,
led to the development of AI and making that possible. But maybe talking about the social side, like if a skeptic asked for proof of the claim that you guys make that multiplayer changed the world, what would you guys show them?
Michael Hoanshelt
Yeah, mean, I think, Garrett touched on it when we interviewed Colin Johansson. I think that was like a turning point for me because when he like directly compared like video games to social media, I was just like, this is crazy. and something that we ask now in terms of questions for developers is like when you think of social media, you think of Instagram, you think of Facebook.
Snapchat I’m sure there’s a lot of others, but you never think of like Fortnite or Minecraft as like social media like how many millions of like people play these games? It’s insane and they have their primary social interactions over these games and I think a lot of people, maybe older generations may think that video games waste time or like you’re not social on them or you’re just inside or whatever, but I think
There’s so many stories out there that we want to capture of people that either have met friends or loved ones over video games and have deepened relationships through that. Even some people work on their social skills through playing video games. So it’s not only just a numbers thing, which I think is important, but just showing the scale of how many people are interacting on these platforms.
But it’s also like there are individual stories that I hope we get to capture through the film of people like literally working on their social skills through playing video games and through interacting with people. So yeah, I don’t know if Garrett, if you want to touch on that too.
Garrett Woods
Yeah, there’s a lot of really cool things about this social component of video games because there’s lots of different expressions of that. There’s people who obviously, streaming’s really big nowadays, right? Like there’s lots of people who will just watch someone else play a video game and actually creates a like a center point for people to gather around. It’s like a campfire, right? Like everybody gather around the campfire and talk about the newest WoW update or whatever whatever people are playing.
And that’s just really cool that people can now socialize around video games. But more so to the point that Michael is making of people playing these video games, interacting with each other. You can see games like Fortnite. They have millions of people who play these games. That’s just crazy. There’s literally people playing the same game together. And I know that from having siblings, just growing up and playing
games online is really a way to stay connected with like your friends and family members. Like I still play video games with my brothers online together. We play like Marvel rivals and stuff because that’s just a way of staying connected, especially not living together anymore. It’s just become a way of like it’s almost like a phone call, but more interactive because we get to do something together and it’s just a lot of fun. So.
I think that there’s these personal stories like Michael said that are really powerful. we’ve definitely talked to people who’ve shared really cool stories like the people at the University of Washington. interviewed their esports team and they were sharing how even I think one of the girls who was on the team, she was saying how she didn’t even play video games very much except for like Roblox and stuff. And then when she got to college, she actually started
Garrett Woods
She joined the eSports team and actually started connecting with people through playing games like Valorant and Overwatch and all these other things. And that became like a social outlet for her that she did discovered even though she would play very casually growing up. even games in that competitive sense are really almost about community. And I think that’s really cool. There’s always this community aspect to many of these things, like even speed running, you would think.
Okay, well, single player games are single player games, but actually people take single player games and make them multiplayer. That’s such a crazy idea. It’s like people like taking like Dark Souls or they’re taking like Zelda or whatever. And they’re like, okay, let’s see who can be the best at this game. And then they create communities around speed running this specific game and finding the exploits or if you don’t want to do an exploit, know, like how it can do like a glitchless run or whatever. It’s like.
Garrett Woods
It’s really cool just seeing how people build these communities even around these single player experiences. It’s really something to see all this connection between people. So yeah, I’d say for older generations who might not quite understand that, I actually hope that our documentary in some way can show them behind the scenes from the younger generation, what it is playing video games. It’s more than just sitting in your room.
Isolated playing games actually probably you hanging out with your friends on the weekend No creating up a creating a squad or whatever and playing fortnight or playing Valorant or whatever so
AJ Churchill
Mm-. No, that’s amazing. mean here my most of my family is like basically in the same time zone as you guys are like 12 hours difference and so something that I did not factor in when I Moved here was that I was gonna have such a I was gonna miss playing games with my friends so much like
Rocket League, FIFA, strategy games like Hearts of Iron we would play online, but it’s just so hard to schedule that and there’s, for like the latency dependent games like Rocket League and that thing, it’s just so hard from Central Asia to play and I miss it so much and I did not realize how much I was gonna miss that, know, because it was just an excuse to hang out with your friends and you don’t realize until you really consciously are like, get that taken away from you.
important that was in my life.
I want to ask you guys to play Oracle for a bit. Now that you guys have talked to so many visionaries and people working at the cutting edge of of multiplayer technology and whatnot, like where do each of you see multiplayer games and multiplayer in general as a concept like headed in the next five, 10 years or even beyond that? Michael, maybe you can, you want to go first.
Michael Hoanshelt
That’s a great question.
Michael Hoanshelt
I just see it becoming more and more like integrated with everyday life like it’s pretty much already has been, but I think with like phones and stuff getting a lot more powerful, I think people will have probably more complex social multiplayer experiences like just there I think actually something interesting is with generative AI.
I was talking to a developer and he was saying they’re implementing that into games. So games are going to become much more customized to your, literally your unique experience, which is really interesting. So you’re going to have more options to like, if you make a choice, then I think the game will literally generate in real time, like new experiences for you. I don’t know what that means, but I think that’s probably going to be something definitely to consider.
Yeah, I don’t know. I feel like it’s already pretty integrated with like everyday life, but I think maybe just across like different age groups because like if you have the people that grew up with online multiplayer, when they become like the older generation, and then you have like kids that basically were born into it, I think that’ll be really interesting. Like it’ll be almost like the way that like American football is here in the States, like everyone just as a football team, they watch or whatever, like it’s everybody, but not everyone has like an eSports team or something.
Michael Hoanshelt
So like potentially it might get to that point to where it’s like physical sports in a sense. But I think the biggest thing is what really piques my interest is the generative AI thing. I think that’s really interesting because being able to curate a more tailored like experience for you. I think that’s super interesting. There’s like something there.
AJ Churchill
Mm-. Garrett, your predictions for the future of multiplayer.
Garrett Woods
Yeah, so one thing that is really interesting to me is the expressions of multiplayer becoming more complex and more interesting and engaging. So one the best examples that I have is Pokemon Go. And Pokemon Go is taking a multiplayer video game that you play on your phone and creating real life interactions with different locations and geography and stuff like that. And it’s just such a cool idea.
that people are really using it almost as just a means to connect in real life with other players and stuff. And it’s just super cool to see the communities and stuff. But like they have a Pokemon Fest, the Pokemon Go Fest like every year and even to this day. And there’s tons of people who still play this game. And it’s just cool seeing all the interactions and stuff that people have, especially here in Washington. We have Nintendo up here.
There’s lots of different like experiences and stuff that people go to for like Pokemon and stuff. I also think that with that, that games are going to probably going to, they’re probably going to continue in that direction. They’re going to continue creating these fun new experiences basically for multiplayer, like people interacting in different new ways with each other. Obviously there’s a lot of people who,
think that VR is cool and there’s also augmented reality, that’s becoming more popular. I don’t know if our video game outlets are gonna become fully immersed like VR. I think a lot of people probably get sick, like motion sickness and stuff like that. And I don’t know if that’s everybody’s thing, but just having the different expressions though, of being so many different options of how to play multiplayer or how to interact, I think it’ll just increase the variety.
Garrett Woods
I was talking about speedrunning, that’s just one outlet, and also streaming and gathering great games that way. Obviously, Pokemon Go, but people are going to start playing AR more and they’re going to start having these fun experiences in real life, playing with their friends, different forms of video games that we haven’t seen before. I think at the end of the day, it’s always going to come back down to this one thing, I think, which is
the connection between people. think this whole social connection thing is not just a cool idea in video games. I think it’s what video games are about. I honestly think that that’s why so many people, even with single player games, will gravitate toward communities around those games. Talking on forums or asking people for advice on, how do you this boss in this game? Or how do you do this? Or how do you do that? It’s like, it’s not just
like a afterthought, it’s really what it’s all about. So for me, I think looking in the future, I would say that there’s probably going to be a continued push toward more community and more connectedness between people because that’s what people really want. They want just ways to hang out with their friends or their family or whatever. And yeah, there’s going to be cool new unique experiences, maybe even with AI like Michael was saying, but at the end of the day, I think people are going to want this
type of human, tangible connection with other people, I think that will just be always a mainstay of what makes video games video games.
AJ Churchill
Yeah, that’s I think that makes total sense, especially nowadays where it’s so easy to get we thought…
I think we thought that social media would bring people together, but my personal opinion is that it’s just completely ripped a lot of people apart. Maybe with the exception of messaging apps like WhatsApp or Discord. I think those small groups are maybe a bit more positive. But yeah, there’s this human desire to just be with your friends, to be with people that like the same things, that want to watch or do the same things.
So yeah, interesting perspectives on the future of multiplayer games. So you guys want to film in Korea, you’ve called it the birthplace of modern e-sports. Are there any stories there that you guys feel are essential? Like, why can’t you tell this story honestly about multiplayer games without those stories?
Garrett Woods
Yeah, I can start off with that topic since there’s a connection here that’s actually really interesting. I have a friend actually who’s a filmmaker who actually lives in Korea because he was born there. He worked at one of the biggest Korean companies before their merger, is CJ E So it’s CJ Entertainment and music.
produced all sorts of different TV shows and stuff like that. And with the rise of K-dramas and stuff like that nowadays, there’s a lot of people know about them and those companies. But one interesting thing for me is growing up, people always talked about how Korea, like, they’re like, oh yeah, dude, did see that one guy or do that about one guy? No, he’s so good or whatever. You would always hear about Korean players in the competitive sports.
Especially because I played Starcraft. So I played Starcraft 1. That was like the game that created the whole esports in Korea. If about the history, have, like you’re talking about these land rooms, they have PC rooms, what they’re called, it’s like PC room. And these PC rooms have just tons and tons of computers set up. And so people would come and play together, Starcraft 1? And so my friend Chris actually was sharing with me that…
the story about that because he actually was there and he actually was a part of that and he’s telling me about the different fun like a competitive aspects of that like people like in the community would just gather around these PC rooms even people you wouldn’t think like
your professor or whatever and they would come together, they would play together these video games because it became like a whole fad for the whole country. And they had a huge like tournament stuff in like Busan, which is like in the southern part of the peninsula. And it’s just really cool to hear about that story. So for me, that’s really inspiring. Like, wow, that’s just a really cool story. But also I know from being a gamer for a lot of my life, just how important Korea is and the e-sports scene.
Garrett Woods
So having that connection, I think, makes it easy to want to film there. I think that’s a huge part of making this documentary. In the first place, it’s networking. think having the connections is important to telling the right stories. having a connection there makes it easier. But not only that, again, I think that this particular story is really important because e-sports is a huge part of what drives some of the biggest games.
If you look at Valorant and League of Legends, those games thrive on e-sports. Like that whole basis of them is around e-sports. Like if that wasn’t a component to them, I don’t think they would be as big as they are. I really don’t. I think that that’s why they’re so pervasive. So I think not telling the story of e-sports would be a miss in the multiplayer space, but also I think specifically
Telling the story of how these things came to be is really important to us because that’s the reason that we’re interviewing developers and stuff, is we want to hear those stories of like, what was it like to how it came to what it is today? And we want to hear that development because I think that’s a lot of stuff that people are, one, they’re interested in because they’re like, oh yeah, man, I do play a lot of e-sports games like that and stuff like that. Okay, I wonder how that happens. know, people are curious about that. But also I think that especially because of the place that eSports has in modern gaming. I think it’s just really important to tell that story. yeah, really want to Michael can follow up, but I really think that it’s important to capture these early eras of different aspects of multiplayer, like eSports, from the people who were there, from the people who were a part of those movements. I think that that’s something that’s not only unique from like a storytelling standpoint,
especially for like a documentary, like getting to see the people who are like these icons of that, those movements or culture is really important to really understanding the story for what it is. But also I think it’s very captivating to audiences in general. I think people want to know, know, who, like, yeah, who are the people who started this thing or who were the people who were so critical in making it the way it is now that I’ve.
Garrett Woods
play games like this I want your whoo-hoo dude made those decisions
Michael Hoanshelt
Yeah, no, that was really well said. I think, yeah, the biggest thing for me is why. Like, why did it get so big there? And like, I’m curious on like, was it is it like a, I don’t know if foreshadow is the right word, I’m not sure. But like, is it like, were they just ahead of the times? And like, why is that? And like, what’s that mean globally? Like, in like 30, 40, 50 years, like is what they’re doing going to be like, really be global so.
I think that’s the biggest, most interesting thing to me is why and like, is it like a cultural thing? Is it like, did they just have the technology to do it or like what made them so passionate about it? Even like being able to fill up stadiums with people. this is nuts? Like, you you think of the Superbowl and that’s just normal, right? But like they basically have those for video games. like what? Like to watch people play video games. But we do the same thing to watch physical sports?
So I’m definitely interested in the why? And if I may, you had a comment about social media being like like, I don’t know what you said, was it tearing people apart or being divisive? I do want to mention that I feel like with the video games, definitely is a lot of toxic behavior in it as well. Like really, like a lot. But I think what’s so special about video games when we make that comparison with social media is like, I think when they do bring people together, it’s really, really meaningful.
and like you bring them together for like a joint effort it’s like you bring like people together, they work on a mission together, they play a game together whereas like, I think a lot of social media can be like, yeah, you’re bringing people with like the same ideals but sometimes you can be in like an echo chamber and sometimes you only hear what you want to hear and it really can be divisive and I think tear people apart. But I think, I think what makes video games so special is they really just bring
it brings everyone together just for like the cause of like just playing the game and just for the love of a game. And I think that’s really cool. So I just wanted to bounce onto that again. So.
AJ Churchill
Yeah, no, thank you for bringing that up. I was actually curious to know if you guys were going to try to tackle…
the toxicity that does happen in some gaming communities and maybe certain types of games, groups within those games. Is that something that’s gonna be touched on in the film or are you guys focusing more on like the positive connection or is it really just about connection in general? Both of those, positive and negative.
Michael Hoanshelt
Yeah, I think we have to to like do it justice, to do the story justice. I think honestly, we’re probably not going to focus on it a whole lot because we just want to see like how has multiplayer gaming permeated into society is the main thing. But we should talk about toxicity because when you have something that’s so integrated into society, you’re going to have a reflection of just where humanity is at, at the time. So we’ll probably look at it in that regard of like.
Hey, this is just a reflection of humans. So it’s going to be messy. It’s going to be pretty rough and pretty dark. But what’s really cool is that we’ve talked to developers a lot on how they combat that. Like what are some things that they actually implement into their games to stop people from being as toxic as they could be? And Garrett, if you want to dive into that, that’d be cool.
Garrett Woods
Yeah, just like Mike said, it’s like with humans being connected in such an immersive way like this, like there’s always going to be some like darkness there. But I think the light shines a lot brighter than the darkness, especially in video games. think that’s the positives far out of the negatives. Like people have just incredible stories about how they like one of the people we’re talking to at arena mentioned how there’s people who were in the hospital and they connected
with people through video games, through their games, through Guild Wars 2, with other people. And that’s what really gave them that continued drive to keep getting better almost because they had hope and gave them hope in a way. Having this social outlet. And those types of stories, I think, really outweigh the negative components. But like Michael was saying,
even with negative things, there is a push to try and resolve that to some degree, or at least mitigate it. one of the things that Tony, which is another person that we were speaking to, he’s a developer, he was at 343. And he mentioned how in video games like League of Legends and stuff, they have like the tribunal system and stuff that they had before. have, developers constantly trying to push and create new.
types of systems to deal with toxicity in a more effective way. And you can see this is probably especially true for the biggest games because you only have more and more people interacting. There’s going to be more and more instances of things like this happening that are negative. So we have to figure out how to deal with that because developers can only handle like personally so many things. And if you’re
Trying to monitor a game like World of Warcraft. my gosh, there’s just so many people. It’s like it’s gonna be very difficult to monitor all the toxicity. So I think the technology is actually surprisingly a part that plays a huge role in helping the social to become better here because technology in a way is as people create better better systems for not only identifying toxicity.
Garrett Woods
but also basically penalizing toxicity in games. I think that’ll only become more effective basically in trying to mitigate how often these types of things happen. some, I don’t know who said it, but there’s one of the developers we were talking to was talking about how even there might be some types of systems that supposedly in some games where they basically put toxic people.
in the same lobby with each other and let people who are more polite play with each other. there’s different ways of letting people figure out how to play the game at least in a way that’s not going to ruin everybody else’s experience.
AJ Churchill
I love that idea.
Mm-. Yeah me personally in in rocket league I think they tackled that problem just very simply they make it so much easier to chat just where they’re pre-selected chats like nice shot and great save and that thing and then if you want to type something in you got to like get your keyboard and type it in and
And then can just turn off chat entirely. So I’m interesting. It’ll be interesting to watch your guys’ movie and to see the different ways that they’re tackling that. So, well, to wrap up, why don’t you tell us all a little bit about the Kickstarter? Maybe what you guys intend for backers to receive, what their support would unlock, and how close are you guys to your finish line for this film in general?
Michael Hoanshelt
Yeah, I do want to mention one more thing on the toxic thing. I think another, another really cool thing for us is that we really want to like humanize developers with this film. So I think a lot of times developers can get a lot of heat online and a lot like it’s Thomas Stone. He’s a, he’s a guy that we interviewed. He’s done like cast Minors E and stuff. And he was saying that he would get like death threats and stuff like online. It’s just.
AJ Churchill
Sure, sure, sure, go ahead.
Michael Hoanshelt
Pretty crazy, so I think our hope is to humanize developers. They’re just gamers, most of them. They’re just like the players, but they just got into making games. So I think that’s really cool as we get to pull back the curtain, show the behind the scenes, and just show that they’re just normal people, just doing the best they can. There are obviously bad people in every aspect, but I just wanted to mention that.
for sure, because that’s a big part for us. But in terms of Kickstarter and whatnot, think how far along are we? the thing with documentaries is that we have a decent amount of interviews so far, but what we’re really hoping to do with the Kickstarter is to be able to like hone in on particular areas. Cause in the beginning of our production, we just said, Hey, if you work in video games, we want to talk to you. So we would interview like most of what we have are like game designers.
and people in that aspect, but we wanna dive into more of the social side as well. We wanna get streamers, people that are into e-sports. We have one e-sports coach, which was cool, but even more than that would be awesome. I wanna talk to psychologists. we have a therapist, so that was really dope, but if we can dive into that a little bit as well. the hope for me for the KickStars is to be able to get more focused with some of our interviews.
And we want to be able to capture really compelling visuals too, like B-roll. So if we can go to events, different like gaming, like expos and things like that. But yeah, I think that sums it up for me, Garrett.
Garrett Woods
So the to know a little bit more about the Kickstarter. So, yeah, one of the main goals is to help us to obviously dial in on specific topics so we can focus more on actually building the story out that we’ve discovered along the way. We have some aspects of that already, which you’ve talked about today, but we also I think that getting community support will really make that super possible. I think that’s really essential to what we’re doing. more about in terms of the campaign itself.
Yeah, we are really close, I think, actually hopefully making a feature film. Our goal is to, once we get funded, to try and finish up all the shooting and stuff in probably seven months. And then we’ll spend time trying to finish it out and then we’ll try to get it on streaming services. So we’re looking for probably a year after successful funding. In terms of tiers and rewards and all that stuff, just about the campaign itself.
We really wanted to hone in and focus on that concept of community. So I think the second lowest tier, we have like a developer diary perk. So basically you can come along with us for the ride and join our Discord community and basically just follow along as we talk to the community and do like Q &As and stuff like that.
and just share about the actual filmmaking process so people feel like they’re really a part of the team who is making the film. Because obviously their support is super pivotal in making this even possible. in terms of mid tiers, there’s different packages with merchandise and stuff like that, so like t-shirts and stuff. And one of the cool perks that we came up with was like…
what if we did an eSports jersey? Oh, that’d be cool. Okay, let’s do an eSports jersey around the rise of multiplayer for people. And so that’s one of cool concepts that we came out with. yeah, in the highest tiers for people who want to support us in that way, we have very unique, cool perks and experiences like coming up to the premiere, giving you guys tickets to come see the person in an actual theater. Just…
Garrett Woods
lots of really cool things. So once that goes live, we’ll be able to see all the different details of that. And hopefully, people will join us for the ride. Come have fun and see the rise of multiplayer together and see what it really becomes, though. Thank you very much for having us. We appreciate it.
AJ Churchill
No, thank you guys. This is a, this sounds like an amazing project honestly, and I am looking forward personally to watching it. So yeah, thank you guys so much. I know it’s 6 a.m. They’re now 7 for you guys. I really appreciate you getting up early and doing this with me. This has been really, really fun.
It’s the rise of multiplayer as the film coming together right now. Their Kickstarter is launching in early September of this year, 2025, probably in the next few weeks. We’ll put a link to it in the show notes once it’s out. Michael, Garrett, thank you guys so much for hanging out and best of luck finishing up this awesome sounding movie.
Michael Hoanshelt
Oh, thank you. It was nice to meet you.
Garrett Woods
Thanks.
AJ Churchill
Nice to meet you.
