AI Summary
5 min read"When Did That Come Out?" — The Vergecast's Brutal Gadget Memory Quiz
The Vergecast hosts David Pierce, Nilay Patel, and Sean Hollister sat down for what sounded like a light game but turned into an unexpectedly emotional trip through gadget history. Producer Travis Larchuk built a game called "When Did That Come Out?" — a legally distinct riff on the card games Chronology and Timeline — where the trio had to place random gadgets on a shared timeline without knowing exactly where they fell.
The game worked simply: each player picked a category (phones, wearables, or "anything goes"), received a device, and had to say whether it came before or after the gadgets already on the board. A correct answer added the device to the timeline and earned a point. A wrong answer erased it from history entirely — or at least from the game. David Pierce finished last with four points, while Nilay and Sean tied at five. Pierce was the only player to get an answer wrong, placing the DJI Phantom after Snap Spectacles when it actually came out in 2013, three years earlier.
The Game Itself: Memory as a Historical Record
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:02) **Show Intro & Game Announcement** - David Pierce introduces the episode's main event: a gadget memory game produced by Travis Larchuk, inspired by TikTok-style ranking games.
- 2 (01:04) **News Segment: 90 Seconds on The Verge** - A rapid-fire news block covering Amazon price hikes, Netflix streaming partnerships, and a robot Olympics.
- 3 (03:01) **Ad Break** - Sponsored content for Monday.com, Vanta, and Comcast Business.
- 4 (04:05) **Game Setup: "When Did That Come Out?"** - The hosts (David, Nilay, Sean) and producer/game master Travis Larchuk introduce the timeline game, a legally distinct rip-off of the card games Chronology and Timeline.
- 5 (06:16) **Round 1, Turn 1: Nokia 9000 Communicator vs. Samsung Galaxy Fold** - Nilay correctly places the Galaxy Fold after the 1996 Nokia 9000 Communicator.
- 6 (06:50) **Round 1, Turn 2: Nokia Lumia 520** - David places the Lumia 520 between the Nokia 9000 (1996) and the Galaxy Fold (2019), correctly guessing it came out in 2013.
- 7 (07:37) **Round 1, Turn 3: Amazon Fire Phone** - Sean must place the Fire Phone on a timeline now holding 1996, 2013, and 2019.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Do you remember your first BlackBerry? Do you remember when that first BlackBerry launched? On this episode taped before David Pierce went on leave, producer Travis Larchuk leads David, Nilay, and The Verge’s Sean Hollister through a game of memory and history and a surprising amount of feelings tied to gadget launches.
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