Ep. 04: Bestor on Decks

This week Kyle and JD are joined by Nick Bestor, a PhD candidate studying card games and licensing in the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin, for a rollicking journey through card games. Bestor talks about the journey that led him to studying card games professionally, from not knowing how to play the Pokémon Trading Card Game and living in Japan, to critiquing the My Little Pony Collectible Card Game rulebook, Hearthstone's Pity Time, gaming adjacency, transmedia, and how card games engender an emotional intimacy with a franchise's world that's unique in comparison to books, movies, video games, etc.

Stuff we mentioned...
Pokémon Trading Card Game
"Millenial Monsters: Japanese Toys and the Global Imagination" by Anne Allison
Magic The Gathering
Warhammer 40,000: Conquest
Game of Thrones LCG
Hearthstone
My Little Pony Collectible Card Game
PityTracker (a way to keep track of Hearthstone's pity timer)
The term "Gaming Adjacent" comes from "Drafting an Army: The Playful Pastime of Warhammer 40,000" by Marcus Carter, Martin Gibbs, and Mitchell Harrop
World of Warcraft
Polygon Monster Factory
Mass Effect Trilogy
Cinema Excelsior Podcast

JD (The Broad)
Website: GamingBroadly.com
Twitter: @JayDeeCepticon
Instagram: @JayDeeCepticon

Kyle (The Cast)
Website: KyleArmstrong.com
Twitter: @kyl_armstrong
Instagram: @kyl_armstrong
Youtube: Bounce House

Nick Bestor (The Guest)
Twitter: @bestorb
Podcast: Cinema Excelsior

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