 It's no secret that a lot of the entertainment landscape has been pretty weak over the past year. And with so little production in 2020, there's not a ton of stuff coming out to look forward to. But fortunately, there have been a number of new streaming shows that have come out recently that are worth checking out. Like Mythic Quest, which is a brilliant show on Apple TV created by Rob McElhaney and Charlie Day. We might also know from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and by Megan Gantz, who wrote and produced for Modern Family and Community. The show just wrapped an excellent second season that was, in my opinion, even better than the first. It's witty and full of specific, well-developed characters. It has a ton of depth and heart, even given its insane setting inside the world of video game development. It balances the idea of smart and stupid in comedy almost perfectly. And it was responsible for what was probably the single most creative and moving piece of peak pandemic content that anyone produced. More importantly, there are a number of themes and ideas in the show that are entirely worth talking about, starting with the common belief that art and commerce are inherently opposed to each other. It also manages to make interesting and valid points about the culture of the video game and entertainment industries, the problems with making decisions based on political correctness instead of merit, the absurdity of identity politics, and the difference between complaining and creating. The show even contains a ton of great lessons about creativity, entrepreneurship, and building the right mentality for a successful career. Fair warning, there will be spoilers for both the plot and for specific scenes, so if you haven't seen it yet, please pause this video, watch two seasons of streaming TV, and come right back so that we can talk about Mythic Quest on today's episode of Out of Frame. Alright, let's start with a quick synopsis of the show. Mythic Quest is a comedy series about a chaotic video game studio starring show creator Rob McElhaney as Ayan Grimm, a visionary egomaniac, I mean, creative director who leads the development of the world's most successful massive multiplayer online role-playing game, or MMORPG. The series opens with the launch and reception of their first-ever expansion, Raven's Banquet. I have a ton of great things to say about the show's overall production, but the best part about it is its ensemble of consistently interesting, well-written, relatable, and often hilarious characters. There's lead developer Poppy Lee, executive producer David Brittlesby, David's assistant Joe, director of monetization Brad Bakshi, the two game testers Dana and Rachel, and head writer C.W. Longbottom, played by acting legend F. Murray Abraham. I think it's brilliant. The first season introduces us to each of these characters and focuses on the interplay between creating a great game in the opinion of the designers, providing a gameplay experience that players love, and making sure that the game is actually profitable so the thousands of people who participated in its production and maintenance continue to have jobs and get to make more video games in the future. A lot of the series deals with some of the more surreal aspects of the modern entertainment world, like the idea that a 14-year-old YouTuber can make or break the financial success of a new expansion, but the greatest tension usually revolves around the clash between Iron, Poppy, and Brad, over which features are creative, necessary, good additions to the game, and which are just a crass attempt at bringing in more money. This is an age-old battle between creators and financiers. The tension between art and commerce is real, but in my experience as someone who has spent his entire adult life in creative careers, it's also usually unnecessary. The second episode of Mythic Quest is aptly named The Casino. Brad proposes a new addition to the game that Poppy lows, in part because it doesn't fit the fantasy aesthetic and setting, but also because, to her, it just seems gross. They fight about it, and Poppy loses her cool. It's an artless money grab that has no connection to the game. Okay, well, this is a great opportunity to unify, right? Spruce it up, make it fit, the perfect fusion of art and commerce. Brad, you know what? In a lot of ways, you are The Casino. A soulless money suck in the middle of an enchanted forest. We don't need that, and we don't need you. For a lot of reasons, Brad is one of my favorite characters on the show. He's kind of a chaotic evil presence, and incredibly Machiavellian in his interaction with everyone else in the company, but he's also perfectly upfront about his goals and motives, which makes him really entertaining to watch. After their fight, Brad decides to teach Poppy a lesson about the importance of in-game monetization by turning off prices for loot and giving away all the best stuff for free. This probably should go without saying, but if there's no revenue coming in from the loot in Raven's Banquet, then the people who work on Mythic Quest don't get paid. You don't have the money to pay for a full programming team, so they left. But not only that, without prices, there's no way to identify the value of different types of goods inside the game's economy, which means that legendary items that are meant to be uncommon in the game suddenly pop up everywhere, creating a bunch of OP noobs and ruining the experience of the game itself. We've talked about this a million times on Outer Frame, but prices are incentives wrapped in knowledge. They help us navigate a world of limited resources and unlimited wants. Through prices, we learn which goods and services are more or less valuable, which businesses are doing a good or a poor job of serving their customers. Consumers learn when they need to reduce their consumption of scarce goods, and when it's okay to use more, businesses learn when they need to roll back or amp up their rate of production, and entrepreneurs have a means of seeing gaps in the market that need to be filled with new products, processes, and ideas. They're incredibly important, and recreating real-world scarcity inside an MMORPG economy not only ensures that the game has a revenue stream coming in to support new expansions like Raven's Banquet, but also helps players inside the game understand the relative value of different types of content. Most in-game MMORPG economies aren't perfect analogs for real life, in part because many game companies set prices, but they're pretty close. And once you get into the secondary exchange markets in games like WoW, Minecraft, or presumably Mythic Quest, where users are trading directly with each other, prices are often entirely set by the voluntary interaction of the players themselves, inside markets that are much more free from top-down intervention than most of the ones that exist in the real world. Economists and educators even use these kinds of games in their research and classrooms. One of the crazier aspects of my life creating these kinds of video essays and responding to people on YouTube is how often I have to explain the basics of how money and prices actually work. Understanding this stuff is really important, and I'm personally happy that gaming can be an entry point into market economies for those who are willing to think about it in a little more depth. But anyway, back in the world of Mythic Quest, Ion and CW figure out how to merge Brad's financial interests with Poppy's concerns about maintaining the integrity of the game while appeasing longtime fans at the same time. They accomplish this by creating a new story arc where they promise to dramatically reveal the identity of a mysterious non-player character called The Masked Man, who has been randomly taking or giving loot to players that interact with him for years. Fans had long been demanding to know who he was, and it actually makes some sense to have his domain be a casino. So, they redesign the casino to fit the aesthetic of the game and make it the Masked Man's lair, thus merging Brad's new revenue-generating ideas into an intriguing storyline. It's the kind of solution to a multifaceted problem that people at the intersection of art and commerce are often called on to discover. And getting good at coming up with these kinds of answers is what makes it possible for people to have longevity in creative careers. Guys, it's the perfect fusion of art and commerce. But Ion, don't you hate Brad? Hate him? Oh yeah, I do hate him. Yeah, I feel nothing for him. He's a sociopath. But the money that he brings in makes the whole game actually run. You get that, right? She kind of doesn't, though. In spite of being a principal at a major game studio like Mythic Quest, Poppy doesn't really have a handle on why monetization is important. Instead, she seems to think that she can ignore things that bring money into the game and still continue to have a large programming team working for her, executing her vision and building the technology and features that she thinks are cool. But that's not how any of this works. Quoting the late, great George Mason University economist, Walter Williams, We might think of dollars as being certificates of performance. The better I serve my fellow man and the higher the value he places on that service, the more certificates of performance he gives me. The more certificates I earn, the greater my claim on the goods my fellow man produces. That's the morality of the market. In order for one to have a claim on what his fellow man produces, he must first serve him. Money solves several problems in society. For one thing, using a shared, well-established monetary system helps facilitate trust between trading partners by ensuring that both sides have a consistent way to measure the value of whatever they're exchanging. But more importantly, money allows us to overcome a major issue with barter economies that economists call the double coincidence of wants. If Poppy wasn't able to pay her employees in money, she'd have to find goods and services to barter that each individual person wanted or needed at that moment. Likewise, if the millions of players who play Mythic Quest weren't able to trade money for the time they spend in the game, they'd all have to magically figure out what I and Poppy and everyone else at the company wanted and try to provide it for them directly. Needless to say, that's silly and impossible. And it's why we use money instead. But of course, the necessity and benefit of money doesn't make it any less of a challenge for artists and creators to find the balance between making what they want and making what can actually be sold. And that's really why Poppy and Ion hate Brad. This art versus commerce theme comes back in a massive way a few episodes later. Dark Quiet Death is a full-on flashback to another game company formed in the 1990s by a couple named Doc and Bean, played beautifully by Jake Johnson and Kristen Miliotti. The whole episode is incredibly heartfelt, doesn't feature any of the other characters, and it seems totally disconnected from the main story. Although in reality, it's actually foreshadowing challenges to come for Mythic Quest as a game studio. It's also a perfect lesson in creative entrepreneurship. Doc and Bean meet in a video game store, and upon realizing that they don't actually like any of the games there, decide to create their own. This is the way a lot of entrepreneurial journeys begin, with a personal sense of dissatisfaction about the state of some part of the world. Apologies for the shameless self-promo here, but as Bioshock creator Ken Levine said during our recent livestream conversation, if you're not making something that you think is cool, it's very hard to create value for the gamer, but at the end of the day, without them, there is no game. There is no artwork, there is nothing, and so I'm very concerned, and I'm always thinking about the person I'm making this for. If you're not making something that at least makes you happy, it's hard to imagine it making anyone else happy. But just because you like what you've made doesn't mean anyone else will. And in a free society, other people can't, or at least shouldn't be forced into supporting your work, no matter how much you hope they do. It's your potential customers, not you, who will ultimately determine the success or failure of the product you create. So you can't make art that's only for yourself and expect to make a living as a creator. And it's that fact, not the existence of money or the need for a product to be monetized that creates the art versus commerce tension we've been talking about. Unfortunately, that can be hard to really grok for a lot of artists. So they assume that it's the money guys who are the villains. Instead of stepping back and questioning whether or not they're simply investing a ton of time and resources, creating something that no one else is willing to buy with their certificates of performance. I get it. After all, the idea that maybe the work you're so passionate about isn't really adding much value to society isn't exactly fun or easy to accept. So instead of entertaining that possibility, a lot of people are prone to blaming their audience for not knowing greatness when they see it. Or they get mad at the beam counters who often end up being the ones delivering the bad news. Of course, that doesn't mean the money people are always right either. The villain in the Dark Quiet Death episode is DQD's brand manager Tom, played by Jeffrey Owens. Tom is constantly pushing Doc and especially being towards more and more changes that will make the game more commercially viable, appeal to a wider audience, and appease their parent company in Montreal. But he doesn't really get or fully care about the artistic intent behind the game. So his suggestions would often sacrifice the elements that make Dark Quiet Death unique. He is fairly successful, however, so over a roughly five-year period, the sequels to their simple, dark, gothic idea end up becoming nothing more than clones of Resident Evil. This isn't what Bean set out to make, nor is it what players loved about the original game. Bean is right. But like Poppy, she's also ignoring the major trade-offs involved. This scene is so important, and it captures perhaps the most direct conflict between art and commerce. Doc promises Bean that they're going to be able to hold onto their vision exactly as it always was while growing the company. He's wrong. They can't. The truth is, Dark Quiet Death could have remained a quirky series with a small audience, and maybe Bean would have been happier if it had. But it wouldn't have been able to expand the studio, and it would have been harder for Doc and Bean to develop new games. This is a real trade-off. Eventually, the concessions add up to a game that is totally different than what Bean set out to create, and she has to walk away from her own creation. The whole episode is poignant and sad, and it really pushes the idea that commercial incentives get in the way of true creativity. But I think what really happened is that Doc and Bean had mismatched goals and expectations. Art and commerce don't have to clash the way these episodes of Mythic Quest suggest. But in order to understand why, there are a couple other aspects of the show we need to talk about first. What follows will be a bit of a departure from everything we've spent most of this episode talking about so far, but I promise it'll all come together in the end. Some of the best and funniest scenes in Mythic Quest revolve around its essentially anti-woke take on entitlement culture. Although nearly every character in the series has their moments of petty or grand narcissism, perhaps the most entitled and self-absorbed person on the show is actually Rachel, played by Ashley Birch. Rachel is a politically outspoken lesbian who constantly complains about oppression and the patriarchy, while not really spending any of her time focused on developing her personality or skills. Weirdly, I don't say this is a bad thing. She's an incredibly clear, relatable, and well-written character. She's just also frequently irritating to most of her coworkers. Now that I have your attention, I'd actually like to use my platform to talk about something kind of important. In other words, Rachel is kind of a caricature of an obnoxiously woke, Gen Z activist. Throughout season one, her main story arc is all about her trying to work up the courage to tell Dana, who is generally way cooler and more chill, that she's attracted to her. The show doesn't play this for laughs or mock their relationship, nor does it make Rachel and Dana into avatars for the entire gay community. In fact, Mythic Quest treats all its characters like actual people. Not a lot of shows do that anymore, but I think it's why the writers, including Ashley Birch, by the way, avoid the temptation to protect Rachel and her ideology from criticism. Rachel is a good person. She's usually well-meaning, generally cheerful, and I find myself rooting for her. But the show doesn't give her a pass for her worst tendencies. From the very first episode, she's repeatedly taken to task for being demanding and obnoxious. When Rachel finally works up the courage to ask Dana out, it's a big win for her when they start dating. But Dana has aspirations of becoming more than a mid-level tester at a video game company. And as she starts to think about her future, Dana decides she wants to learn how to code, so she applies to Berkeley's computer science program and leaves her job with Rachel to go work for Poppy. This in turn sends Rachel into some kind of existential crisis where, feeling left behind, she decides to demand a better career for herself. But unlike Dana, Rachel seems to be more interested in the demand and her underlying sense of entitlement than she is in actually creating value for Mythic Quest. She wants success in the video game industry, but she doesn't really want to work for it or accept the trade-offs that come with it. This all comes to a head when she finds herself driving Ayan back to the studio. Remember, Ayan is a big deal in the gaming world, and probably her boss's boss's boss. But she spends pretty much the entire time whining until Ayan breaks. She has no idea. Rachel hasn't spent any time figuring that out, so by the time she and Ayan get back to the studio, she still hasn't taken advantage of the huge opportunity she has right in front of her. And keep in mind that she's someone who works for one of the top game studios in the world, which means that for all her claims of oppression, Rachel is already in an enviable position that millions of people would do anything to be in. She's kind of the person who tells other people to check their privilege but can't even see her own. Finally, just as Ayan is about to leave, she says. Turns out, complaining is a lot easier than creating. And that's where all this stuff comes back together. The battle between art and commerce is often truly a battle between the artist's desire to command unlimited resources with zero tradeoffs or accountability and the hard limits of reality. Many people want the freedom that comes with total creative control but don't want the responsibility of having to worry about creating anything that is actually profitable. To be honest, this has always seemed incredibly selfish to me. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of instances where the pressure to create something profitable results in artistic concessions that aren't worth making. And as an artist, it's always going to be up to you to decide where to draw that line. The money guys certainly won't do it for you. But anyone who dreams of an artistic career needs to realize that they will never be able to sustain that kind of lifestyle without genuinely creating value for their clients, employers, and most importantly, their audiences. Wining won't make you a better creator, but it may very well cost you clients and close the door on potential opportunities. Thriving in a creative career is hard. And speaking as someone who has hired writers, editors, designers, and all sorts of other artists over the last several years, it's actually pretty tough to find great collaborators. Unfortunately, it's really easy to find people who brag about skills they don't really have, or people who are skilled but don't have the work ethic, reliability, or even a good attitude. More recently, it's become shockingly common to find people who, like Rachel, demand to be included or hired simply because of the identity group they belong to. Sadly, that's been a fairly effective strategy in some corners of the entertainment industry. Of course, rejecting meritocracy in favor of identity politics hasn't resulted in either better or more profitable content, so please, don't be one of those people. Instead, be someone who understands that everyone should be hired and can have a solid career as an artist or as anything else based on how much value they bring to the table. You need to have confidence in your own vision, yes, but you also need humility and enough perseverance to develop your craft. You need to test your creations in the marketplace so you truly understand whether or not your work is actually enjoyed by other people, and you need to be willing to learn from price signals, changing course if necessary. Then, you need to demonstrate that you can get right back out there and do it all again. And by the way, if you don't want to do all that, if you don't want to accept the kinds of trade-offs that are necessary to have a great career as a professional in the creative arts, that's totally fine. Let it be your hobby. You can make whatever you want for yourself, you'll never be beholden to the brads or toms of the world, and you don't even have to know what you want to accomplish. Your art will just be for you to enjoy, and there's nothing wrong with that. No judgment. Just don't expect to find a massive audience and become a multimillionaire or build a giant studio, and don't try to force other people to support you. The most successful professionals are the ones who find a way to not only create the kinds of art they personally love, but who also see themselves as entrepreneurs who actually have to pay attention and respond to market signals. They embrace the clash between art and commerce instead of pointlessly complaining about it. So if you want to be able to make a living in a creative field, and if you want to create content that will reach millions of people, learn to see creativity and commerce not as opposites or enemies, but as partners working hand in hand. Hey everybody, thanks for watching this episode of Out of Frame. A lot of the advice I ended up giving in this episode is themed around creativity, but in reality I think it applies to pretty much any career you could ever hope to get. The more you learn to see your job as creating value for other people, the more success you're going to have. I'd love to talk about your career goals and dreams in the comments. And if you want to participate in even more conversation, join us on Discord. Also, check out our weekly behind-the-scenes podcast. We discuss movies, TV, books, and other content we usually don't get into on this series. And for those of you who support the show on Patreon or SubscribeStar, we do special bonus content where we answer Q&A. Supporters also get a private channel on Discord, free swag, and access to other cool stuff. So if you love what we do, please consider a monthly contribution. And speaking of our supporters, I want to give a special shout out to our Associate Producers. To Connor McGowan, Richard Lawrence, Matt Tabor, and Vegas Starlight, thank you. 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