Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchDeep Blue vs. Kasparov: The Glitch That Broke a Chess Champion
Episode 11237
In May 1997 Garry Kasparov paced and sweated on a global stage after a chess computer made a move so strange he assumed it saw something beyond human…
2 days, 6 hours ago
Katamari Damacy: How a Sculptor Rolled Up the Video Game Industry
Episode 11236
A drunken cosmic king destroys every star in the sky and sends his five-centimeter-tall son to Earth with a sticky ball to rebuild the universe. This…
2 days, 6 hours ago
The Corrupted Blood Incident: World of Warcraft's Accidental Pandemic
Episode 11235
In September 2005 the capital cities of World of Warcraft filled with bones as a spell called Corrupted Blood escaped a raid dungeon and killed thous…
2 days, 6 hours ago
Pong: The Fake Assignment That Launched the Video Game Industry
Episode 11234
In August 1972 a strange wooden cabinet in a Sunnyvale bar stopped working, and the engineer who opened it found the coin mechanism jammed with quart…
2 days, 6 hours ago
The Virtual Boy: Nintendo's Red-Laser Flop and Its 2026 Revival
Episode 11233
In 1995 Nintendo asked players to press their faces into a heavy tabletop periscope and stare at glowing red lines while mirrors hummed against their…
2 days, 6 hours ago
Cyberpunk 2077: The Disastrous Launch and Unlikely Redemption
Episode 11232
Cyberpunk 2077 cost roughly $440 million to make, turned a profit on 8 million pre-orders before launch day, and then shipped so broken that Sony pul…
2 days, 6 hours ago
Candy Crush Saga: The Psychology Behind a $20 Billion Puzzle Game
Episode 11231
A free mobile game about swiping colored sweets has generated over $20 billion in lifetime revenue. This episode unpacks how developer King turned a …
2 days, 6 hours ago
Duck Hunt: How the NES Zapper Tricked Your TV and Made a Villain
Episode 11230
Duck Hunt looked like a simple shooting gallery, but the 1984 Nintendo classic hid a second player secretly steering the duck, a kill screen at round…
2 days, 6 hours ago
Hidden in the Code: The Secret History of Digital Easter Eggs
Episode 11229
Before cybersecurity was a buzzword, programmers were already hiding jokes, protests and signatures inside the machines they built. This episode trac…
2 days, 6 hours ago
The Nintendo Power Glove: Lab-Grade VR Gutted Into a $75 Toy
Episode 11228
In 1989, Nintendo's marketing promised kids a cyborg gauntlet straight out of RoboCop that would let them reach into the television. The Power Glove …
2 days, 6 hours ago