BasicallyIDoWrk on The Fall of Gaming | Flycast Ep. 183

When Marcel (BasicallyIDoWrk) joined the Flycast, he was already 50 hours deep into Pokémon Legends: Z-A — a game that launched just two days prior. "If you're on the spectrum, don't pick it up," he warned. The game, which he described as "Minecraft meets Animal Crossing with Pokémon," has no battling or catching. You just build habitats for Pokémon and they show up to live there. His first legendary encounter was Mewtwo. "I gotta be the best house in the world," he said. The conversation that followed — wandering through bikini barista shacks, reality TV disasters, ultra-marathon documentaries, and the slow death of multiplayer gaming — was less a structured interview and more a group of veteran creators trying to figure out what happened to the thing they used to love.

The Reality TV Detour

Marcel's detour into reality television came via a USA Network show called The Anonymous, which he described as "real life Among Us." Contestants lived together 24/7 while communicating through an anonymous emoji-based chat, voting someone off each night if nobody could identify who they were. Marcel finished second. The show was canceled after one season and removed from Peacock entirely. "I think I might have the only copy in existence," he said, having recorded it on YouTube TV.