Episode 131 - Brand Heritage (ft. Tissot)
Published on Wed, 28 Apr 2021 21:32:10 -0700
Synopsis
The podcast episode discusses the perceived value of brand heritage in watches, using Tissot as a case study. The hosts analyze various Tissot models, comparing them to offerings from microbrands and questioning whether Tissot's heritage justifies higher prices or adds inherent value. They also touch on topics like the appeal of luxury brands like Rolex and the subjective nature of valuing brands based on personal preferences.
Links
Transcript
| Speaker | |
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| Andrew | Hello, fellow watch lovers, nerds, enthusiasts, or however you identify. This is 40 in 20, the Watch Clicker podcast with your host, Andrew. I'm a good friend, Everett. Here, we talk about watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. Everett, welcome back to my home. |
| Jason | Back in studio, man. How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I got my first vaccine today. Way to go. Yeah. Yeah. You got your vaccine the last couple of weeks. |
| Andrew | In the way of just pure, organic, homemade, home brewed, if you will. DIY vaccine. Yeah. Antibodies. I was hesitant to tell everyone this, but I went to what's called a chicken pox party, but for the COVID. That's where I got the, that's where I got the COVID. |
| Jason | Oh man. I've heard people talking about that, you know, back I think last summer when people were floating herd immunity as a reasonable option. And it was like, oh God. |
| Andrew | I remember talks of it. I mean, college kids are doing it. They are bringing, they're like hoarding COVID into these houses and then partying together. And I don't understand why. |
| Jason | You know, I think just it's hard for people to comprehend the burden that you know, hospitalizations at that rate would create, I think I, you know, I'm not going to cite the statistics at some point, but it was like in order to achieve herd immunity, we would, our hospitals would be at like 400% capacity for seven months. |
| Unknown | Jackpot. |
| Andrew | Right. Complaining about ER wait times now. |
| Jason | It's like practically, and I might be wrong on the figures, like I said, I'm not actually quoting figures there. It's just like, it felt that, like that magnitude, like, oh gosh, this is just not possible. |
| Andrew | Also, I don't know why anyone would want this. I mean, today's the first day I feel good, and I still don't sound good. And I don't feel good for long. Like I read my kid a book, and I'm out of breath. A book, kid book, Like 12 pages. |
| Jason | So, yeah. You're all cleared. When do you go back to work? Tomorrow. Tomorrow's your first day back. |
| Andrew | Yeah. |
| Jason | How do you feel about that? |
| Andrew | We'll see how it goes. Yeah. Like I've gotten hurt and returned to work and been like, only one way to know if I'm ready. Yeah. Because if you wait till you're ready, you just never go back to work. That's right. I'm not ready yet. Yeah. And I only have so much, uh, you know, paid time off that I can use. So yeah, time to go back. Let's take it slow. You'll be fine. Yeah, I'll be good. I know how to do my job. |
| Jason | You eat donuts and drink coffee for eight hours. You're fine. |
| Andrew | 10, 10 hours, 10 hours. Those extra two hours are important when you're eating donuts and drinking coffee because you must make a poop drop. |
| Jason | That's it. Yeah. Well, and that's at least like what? Two extra donuts. |
| Andrew | Yeah. Yeah. You gotta make space. |
| Jason | Yeah. Well, good, glad to see you again. I think, you know, we've seen each other like from across the street, but this is my first time seeing you. First intimate encounter. |
| Andrew | Indeed. Yeah. I'm not wearing pants. It's my house. |
| Jason | Yeah, no, it's weird, right? I mean, the whole thing was just a little surreal, so. |
| Andrew | Yeah, but a lot has happened for you. So how are you? How is your week going? It's Tuesday. |
| Jason | It is Tuesday. I'm trying to think has a lot happened for me. |
| Andrew | So, um, well, your wife, your wife ran a marathon. |
| Jason | My wife ran a marathon. Yeah. Kim finished her Eugene marathon done virtually, but are done. Yeah. I guess virtually is the term you're using, which basically just means we're not going to have everybody at the start line together. So, um, you know, I think they were encouraging staggered starts and, um, just do it when you'd want to do it. And here's, a suggested course, but also just do a course. Um, so, you know, cause I think the idea is they're trying to keep people away from each other. Right. So, uh, that was fun. I mean, it was fine for me. I'm sure it was less fine for her. |
| Andrew | Um, did you have a running partner or someone she ran with? |
| Jason | She did, uh, for parts of it. So she had folks come and join her for, for parts of the race. |
| Andrew | The discipline involved in that is something that I don't think I could ever Achieve. In running a marathon? Yeah, wholly by myself. When you ran your 40 miler, you had a running partner, start to finish. You guys were in it for the training together. You were in it from step one together. I don't know if I could do any amount of endurance event like that without somebody there holding my hand and saying, hey, asshole, you got to do this. I don't really want to. |
| Jason | Yeah. No, I, I'm, I'm with you, right. I've always run with a, with a running partner. So, um, and it's generally been the same person for the better part of, you know, 15 years at this point. So yeah, yeah, no, I'm with you, right. I don't, I don't know that I have the tenacity to just, I told Cameron, I was like, man, I'm so impressed. You just did it, you know, do the damn thing. Yeah. But yeah, it's, uh, yeah. I mean, it's impressive. You know, other than that, uh, it's been kind of just, it's been just work, right? Uh, you know, go to work, take the kids to school. Well, take the kids to school, go to work, pick the kids up from soccer, washrooms, repeat washrooms, repeat. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Kids are playing soccer. |
| Andrew | Uh, that's exciting. Are they masked up? Uh, they are fully messed up. Yeah. I think that's going to, well, no, that's actually, that's not gonna change for soccer. So the, This is neither here nor there. The Oregon Health Authority just ran into a track runner who collapsed from oxygen deprivation at the finish line, which is kind of, I don't know, not a scientist nor a doctor, but they're reexamining the mask guidelines and saying, look, if you're running track, you probably don't need a mask on. |
| Jason | Yeah, I think they issued new guidelines this week, basically saying, you know, wear your mask up to the, up to the start line, take your mask off, but I'm skeptical about that story. |
| Andrew | Yeah, the hype, like I, it doesn't matter. We can move right on. |
| Jason | Because we're talking about watches today. Yeah. This is a fun topic. You know, I think we, there's going to be shades of this topic that we've talked about a hundred times. You, you like to say that we make the value, right? |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason | And I think in some ways that's what we're talking about today. Um, but, but a bit more specific than that, right? We're, we're talking about, um, the, the value perceived or otherwise actual perceived or otherwise, uh, brand heritage. |
| Andrew | Yeah. And this, this is something we've kind of talked about. We've, when we presented watches, we've, we've referenced, well, it's by this brand. So, you know, you know, right. There's value in this brand. This is, you know, it says Hamilton, this is Tissot, this is, you know, take your pick. So you know what you're getting. We've said that before. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Andrew | And today we're going to go a little deeper into that and see if maybe that's a misnomer. Is that a thing? Is it a thing? And I'm going to postulate, I don't think it is. I think it can be, but I don't think it is the end-all be-all. I don't think the stamp, marker, emblem, embossed, etched, whatever you want to do at the 12 o'clock or in some cases at the 9 o'clock, I don't think that brand brings necessarily value to the watch inherently. There was a lot of qualifiers in that sentence. |
| Jason | Yeah that's yeah okay uh I think you're wrong but um but but I think it's a reasonable I think it's a reasonable place to be because it's clearly not black or white so we've we've done a thing we've done a thing where we've we've picked a brand and I think that this is a particularly appropriate brand for this conversation I think it's the brand for this conversation yeah yeah and and so this is a brand that you'll know most likely This is a very old, you know, 19th, mid-19th century Swiss watch brand from Lelacl. Lelacl? |
| Andrew | Lelacre. The waffle? |
| Jason | Lelacl. Tissot. Tissot is the brand that we're going to talk about. Tits out all day. Tits out. And Andrew, you kindly picked |
| Andrew | three yeah well first i want to so watches to kind of talk about i want to grab some watches from them and we've talked about tso so we've talked about tso's that we like but what i want to highlight here is that tso makes some cool shit right we've got the lilacal we've got the visidate lilacal may be being one of the few true dress watches that you can buy today although i don't think we really talked about in our dress watch episode Because it's not in the affordable range, I think. It's up there. But it's a luxury purchase. That's not a, I need a dress watch. So that's not your first, second, third, even fifth watch purchase. When you start spending that kind of money for a dress specific watch, you've got to watch |
| Jason | I bet, I bet that for a lot of Loloco owners, that is one of one or two watches that they own. That's, that's a wild speculation. |
| Andrew | I think you're not wrong, but that's not the type of people we're talking to. We're talking to people with a problem. Okay, fair enough. Like a big problem. |
| Jason | Right. Yeah. Yeah. No, you're right. Um, it is a great watch though. Uh, the Vizadeh, the other one you referenced, I think, That's another one that people talk about kind of early on in their watch collecting journey. |
| Andrew | And one of my favorite affordables is the Gentleman. Mm-hmm. It's very Saab-esque. It's a very dressed sport. It's affordable. It's on the higher end of affordables. It's certainly not an entry-level watch, but it's a good dip your toes in the Swiss market. It's a good dip your toes in a little bit more expensive watch market. |
| Jason | You know, TESO's naming conventions are a little weird, right? They've got like LaLocle, which obviously a callback to their, their origins. And I think their headquarters are still in LaLocle. They've got the Vizodate. They've got, you know, any number of kind of neat watch names, but then they've got the tradition. The Gentleman. |
| Andrew | The Gentleman. The PRX. |
| Jason | Yeah. Yeah. The Powermatic. Well, and so that kind of puts a point on, they've got a pretty deep catalog, right? |
| Andrew | They do. And I think that's, that's, I mean, I, I think a couple other brands come to mind when we want to have a conversation like this. You know, Seiko comes to mind, Citizen kind of comes to mind cause Citizen does have some watches reaching up there into the higher echelons. Um, I think Hamilton kind of fits, but I don't think they come as far down as we're looking at with Tiso or with Seiko or Citizen. Um, |
| Jason | I think Tissot and Bulova in my mind fill kind of a similar space. |
| Andrew | I think Tissot does it a lot better. |
| Jason | Oh, I think just the opposite. |
| Andrew | Really? |
| Jason | Yeah. Yeah. No, I much prefer Bulova to Tissot. Yeah. Interesting. It's much, much prefer Bulova to Tissot. |
| Andrew | I think Bulova has more watches that I like. Tissot has more watches that I don't hate. Yeah. Because Bulova has a lot of watches I hate. Yeah. Tiso has a lot of watches I hate and we'll get into that. |
| Jason | But, but just sort of, to sort of put a cap or to, to finish your point, right there, there's some really cool watches that I think they're T touch line. Oh, so cool. Fantastic. |
| Andrew | They do a lot of titanium stuff. They're still kind of on the, they're still on the cutting edge of innovation. |
| Jason | It seems like they're, it seems like they're like a heartbeat behind the cutting edge actually, in my mind. They're dull. Right. |
| Andrew | They're dull. But they're there, right? They're, they are engaged in the cutting. You know, maybe it's the heel of the knife, but they're there, right? They're still relevant. Yeah. And I don't know if below is as relevant at least in the, in the, in the, the watch nerd world in a larger consumer world, I think below is far more relevant. |
| Jason | Yeah, I think, I think just the opposite. I think in the wide world of watches, Tissot is more relevant. And in terms of watch nerds, I think Bulova has the edge. So it's interesting. Clearly we're both wrong. I think that's true 95% of the time. |
| Andrew | I think that's really generous. So with that being said, the first watch we're going to talk about in some detail from tits out is the sea star 1000 powermatic 80 automatic crystal choose your color men's watch i have the blue up it's reference t 120 407 11 04101 holy crap i forgot about the references here that's the only one i'm reading today yeah yeah Retail on it from Jomashop is $595. So that's what we're going to use. The MSRP on it's stated as $850. I don't think you should ever pay $850 for this watch. I don't think you ever would. No, I don't think so. Because it's available for Jomashop always for $600. We got a $600 diver and it's an attractive diver. It's 43 millimeter case. It's a touch on the big side for me, but really appropriately sized for a tool diver. Oh, interesting. They use 316L steel. That's unusual. |
| Jason | Oh, yeah, that's crazy. That's a lot of value there. |
| Andrew | Yeah. And so Tissot does some adjustments to the movements from what I can gather, right? They use an ETA foundation and they do some in-house changes or maybe they just change the name. I don't know. |
| Jason | Tiso is obviously a Swatch group, right? So, so, you know, and they're part of the group that's consistently pushing movement, right? So Tiso is the Powermatic. Yeah. Uh, you know, one of the groups that's pushing for the Powermatic, uh, that, that 80-hour power reserve watch. So they are definitely, you know, you know, Tiso. |
| Andrew | Do you think ETA is making, did they just cut out Tiso movements? from the line, they're like, oh yeah, that's an Etta movement, or it's a Tissot movement, just a regular-ass Etta. |
| Jason | Yeah, well, I'm not actually really clear on how that all goes down, but it makes sense to me that they're all really closely aligned, you know? Etta is Tissot's movement maker, right? Yeah. Or Tissot is Etta's watch company. Well, one of the two, I'm not sure. |
| Andrew | They're cousins, who cares who's kissing who. That's right. 12.7 millimeters thick, which is quite thin for a 300 meter water resistant watch. 21 millimeter lug width, which is weird. It's Swiss. |
| Jason | It's Swiss. Swiss diver. And here's the skinny, right? It's a heritage Swiss dive watch. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason | And you know, you know what I, you know what I think, uh, when I see this watch, I think. |
| Andrew | I think Macy's counter, right? Do you really, it looks really Macy's to me. And I don't know if maybe it's the bracelet, if it's that flat five link, I don't know if it's the crown guards. I don't know if it just looks really pedestrian, but it by and large, this. doesn't do it for me. |
| Jason | Well, and, and I think this watch has some features of a more expensive watch. Um, and I think it's got some features of a less expensive watch too. You know, I think having seen one of these in person, the bezel insert is, uh, mediocre at best. The case finishing is meh. |
| Andrew | It doesn't seem like it would be what you'd expect from Tissot. |
| Jason | The bracelet's fantastic. The clasp is meh. The movement's great, obviously. The handset is great. The markers are great. Finishing on the dial is good, but everybody finishes their dial as well. You know, I think that this is priced right at 600 bucks. |
| Andrew | I think there's some design identity crisis. I think the font on the bezel insert clashes with the very refined kind of dress diver dial hands and markers. |
| Jason | I think the font's wrong. Well, and so in fairness, right, this isn't really a watch review. No. And to the extent that we're reviewing the watch, I think it makes sense in this context. But I think you've done us one better here. And you actually thought of a watch to compare this to. I did. I picked a... Well, wait. Before you say what you picked, what was your criteria in picking a watch to compare this to? |
| Andrew | So my criteria, what I was looking for was a micro brand or smaller retailer. Somebody without brand heritage. Hype, maybe. Not heritage, right? So it's got to be new. And I'm thinking like, 1980s and beyond, like post-1980 startup. It's got to be about the same price. It's got to be a diver, similarly specced. And that's it. My criteria was very much like, what is an analog for this heritage diver, similarly priced? |
| Jason | Okay. And I think you've, I think you've accomplished that. |
| Andrew | So I picked just that. I picked another dive watch. That's not similarly sized. I think it's more appropriately sized. And I think, I think we'll get into this. I think there's some, uh, nimbleness that comes with smaller brands that you're not going to get out of bigger brands. I chose the Notice Contrail 2. Okay. It's a little bit more expensive. It's $675. So a $75 or $80 difference. in favor of the Tissot, you're getting, wow, 316L Steel. |
| Jason | I knew you were going to say that. Yeah, you know, I don't think that this is, so first, just a caveat, I don't think the Contrail is purely a dive watch. With that said, I think it's a totally appropriate comparison. And yeah, they're both 316L Steel, which, you know, really puts a point on it. |
| Andrew | uh how appropriate the you're losing some water resistance with the notice you're still getting sapphire yep you're still getting all the specs right yep because the difference between two and three hundred meters of water resistance when you need it matters but if you need it you shouldn't be diving with either of these watches you should be you should be purchasing a more appropriate dive watch so this is my pick It's better sized. It's similarly spec'd. I don't know. I want to get a, like a watchmaker on to do a, what makes a movement good episode. Cause is a Miota 9015 worse or better than an ETA? Was it 20? 20 to 24. Yeah. |
| Jason | 20 to 24 that they're using. I think, I think that this actually is a perfect, A perfect question for our topic today. You know, I think that many folks would rather have the 2824. I think that Miyotas are more reliable. I think that the Miyota is less expensive. I think that the Miyota has a longer service interval. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Jason | I think, you know, this is probably tucked into reliability, but I think that The 9015 has a lower failure rate. |
| Andrew | Those are all objective measurements of betterness. |
| Jason | I think that most of the people that have used these movements, most of the watch makers, watch companies that have used these movements, would, for a new movement, to get it out the door on a new watch, pick the Miota for value all day, unless they wanted to sell the ETA movement. Unless they wanted to sell the idea of the ETA movement. No, I'm not a watchmaker, but that's my feel. That all day, the 9015 is cheaper, better, and awesomer. |
| Andrew | That's the sense I get even when we talk to watchmakers who have chosen ETA. Like, well, I mean, I just like, you know, it's an ETA. What does that mean? |
| Jason | Is that better? Well, I think all of the 28 100 movements suffer from some consistent issues and that's not just the ETA movements, that's all the clones and there are a bunch of them, right? They suffer from some issues, right? It is a fantastic movement, just to be really clear. But compared to other things available, in particular the 9015, it is not as good. |
| Andrew | So point contra. |
| Jason | Point contra. And then we get into every other thing that makes this $675 watch better. Yes. So can we go through some stuff here? Yes. Because Wes and Colin, I love those guys, right? They're okay. They're friends. |
| Andrew | They're with each other. They don't particularly like us. |
| Jason | They're friends. I would call those guys both friends. Yeah. Um, and, and so, you know, it feels a little like, okay, we're, we're, we're pimping these guys, but, but really, I don't think it's, it's too big a stretch to ask you to believe they actually just make fucking amazing watches. |
| Andrew | That's why I said hype. They get all the hype. |
| Jason | They just don't have heritage yet. Ball bearing ball bearing bi-directional bezels. Hmm. Customs custom sapphire crystals. Yep. fan tastic. And look, look, you guys. Fantastic bracelet. Yeah, so this bracelet poops all over any bracelet that Tiso makes. Yeah, clasp. Best in class. Maybe not best in class. Real damn good up there with the best. You know, Jason, Jason from Helios, I think just Did a mic drop in the class, uh, in the class conversation, but, uh, you, you know, Viton, Viton case back gaskets, right. Does any who else fucking does that? |
| Andrew | It's certainly not a big company. Cause not cost-effective when you're making 10,000 pieces, black polished hands. |
| Jason | I mean, this thing is from Tiso. This is a $4,000 watch. |
| Andrew | I think so. $3,500 watch. I think so. And I think that kind of, that speaks to the question that we're trying to answer or just contemplate is, is there more value in a brand like Notice? |
| Jason | Well, hold on, hold on. Let's, let's make a crazy postulate here. You get more, I think maybe, now hear me out, Andrew. I think there's a chance you get more bang for your buck with a microbrand. |
| Andrew | Yeah, you do. And yeah, no shit. But that's the thing. So are where's the value coming from? Why? Why is this Tiso? Which is a well, it's a well spec'd watch. It's a good watch. It's all the things. It's actually more of the things. that you want out of a dive watch. It's got greater water resistance. It's still got Sapphire. It's got all these same things as the Contrail. It's the same price. We're gonna, we're just gonna call the $80 difference a wash. It's the same price. It's the same price. |
| Jason | But it's half the real watch. You know, one of my favorite, one of my favorite watch concepts is, and I talk about this, I'm sure people get tired of hearing me say, where's your point of diminishing returns, right? where, where do you decide you don't need it? Do I need to buy Tom case back? Do I need these fantastic details? For me, the answer is really easy, right? I'm going to take the contrail over, over a sea star all day. Right. And, and I don't, I don't think that there's for, for most of the people listening to this, this episode, I don't think there's probably a lot of question there. I think the comparison is a bit misleading though, right? |
| Andrew | Yeah, it is misleading because I think this in the way of a dive watch, in the way of styling, and in the way of specs, I put this up against a Seamaster. |
| Jason | Well, yeah, and I guess that is where That's kind of what I'm saying, but maybe I'm coming at it from a different angle. I think if you compare these two watches that cost the same, it's really easy for me. But if I compare this to, if I compare the Contrail to a Seamaster, well then it gets harder, right? Or perhaps an Oris Aquus. |
| Andrew | And you can't sell it. That's another thing. You can't sell the watch and cover the delta in money. Because if you offer me either of these watches for free, I'm going to sell the Seamaster, I'm going to buy a Contrail, and then I'm going to buy some other watches. |
| Jason | You know, and I think to the same point, you know, compare the Seastar to maybe something, you know, I'm struggling to come up with. Let's say a Mako. Well, yeah, I think I'd take the Seastar. |
| Unknown | You think? |
| Jason | Over a Mako, yeah, I think so. |
| Andrew | How about an SKX? |
| Jason | Well, the SKX is the most perfect watch ever made. So that's, uh, yeah. Okay. You know, so last, well, this was the summer before COVID. So it would have been summer of 2019 August. I went to California for my, I guess it's a cousin probably. Uh, I went down there for a bar mitzvah. Um, and so obviously a young man, And he's cool, right? Like, you can just tell he's the coolest kid. He's, you know, 13 or 14, I guess. He's- 13, I think. Yeah, right, in that range. Bar Mitzvahs are at 13. He's a dope basketball player. Like, you know, just watching him play, you're like, oh man, this kid's great. He's tall. He's blonde. He's just this, like, cool surfer kid. All of his friends are cool. You can tell he's the leader of the group. And we're, we're actually playing horse and I think I was wearing a watch. I can't remember what I was wearing. And they're talking about Tiso. And so in the world of these high school, eighth grade, uh, you know, sort of, sort of turning into men, right. In, in their worlds, Tiso is this brand that's, that's really significant. |
| Andrew | Interesting. |
| Jason | And, you know, I think that there's, uh, some marketing placement and there's some athlete placement, but it occurred to me at that time. And it hadn't occurred to me before that someone like a 13 or 14 year old boy might think, or man, I guess might think Tiso was might have a different opinion about Tiso than I do. that in fact, for him, Tiso was significant. You know, maybe like a tier below Rolex or Omega, but in that ballpark. |
| Andrew | I mean, they produce watches a tier below. Even, even on... Maybe two tiers below. But even, I mean, I think, yeah, whatever. Did you just mute me? Oh, no, you didn't mute me. I thought you muted me. |
| Jason | So I want to move on to our next watch. Yeah, this one's more interesting, I think, for this conversation. |
| Andrew | I think this is a little bit better conversation. So I chose our favorite style of watch in the dress sport. And from Tissot, we have the Gentleman Automatic. I have the silver dial, T1274071603100. And it is |
| Jason | Awesome. It's awesome. Yeah. For 500 bucks. |
| Andrew | These are one of my favorites of all time. $500. Great case shape. 316L steel. Super important. Everyone says this. 40 millimeter case, 11 and a half thick. Another 21 millimeter lug width though. And I think we give Orient a lot of shit for having weird lug widths. I did not realize TISO was also among them. Doing it. 100 meters of water resistance. These are 20 millimeters. It says, bandwidth 21 millimeter, butterfly clasp, water resistant at 100 meters, space slash space 330 feet. |
| Jason | I'm like 95% sure these are 20 millimeters. |
| Andrew | Unless Jomashop is adding the millimeter so you buy an extra shit, which I don't know. |
| Jason | Well, so I think that this watch is very much in the vein of Saar, Datejust, uh, any number of dress sport watches and they come on a bracelet and the bracelet sucks, but it's fine. It's ever been as good as a SAR bracelet. |
| Andrew | Yeah. Cause the SAR bracelet's a real letdown. |
| Jason | 550 bucks. I think just about any, any, or, you know, 500 to 550 bucks in just about any configuration you could want this in. Yep. Powermatic 80 movement. Yep. I don't think that you're paying, anything extra for this watch? |
| Andrew | No, I think, I think they could, this could be a, I mean, I think this is reasonably from this brand in this category, 650, $675 watch. I don't think anyone bats an eye at this going up 150, 200 bucks. |
| Jason | Yeah, no, I, well, yeah, I don't, I mean, then you, you, you start, you know, this, it stops competing with the Saab. Yeah. Right. It, Sorry, sorry. |
| Andrew | Let's see it over here. It stops competing with the SARB. And this, to me, is their answer to the SARB. |
| Jason | Yeah, I don't think Tissot is doing anything. I don't think Tissot makes any decisions to compete with Seiko, but. |
| Andrew | But it fills that same gap. It fills that void. It's their dress sport watch. |
| Jason | Yeah. They're ultra affordable, not ultra affordable, but in the world of watches, this is an extremely affordable. |
| Andrew | But again, another watch that I, I'd recommend to anyone is like dip your toes in the Swiss world, you know, get you a dress diver or get you a dress sport, spend a little bit of money and enjoy this watch. Cause this is without a doubt a watch you're really going to enjoy. Sure. To compare it to give it to me. Are you ready? |
| Jason | No. Yes, I'm ready. |
| Andrew | The Laurier Falcon series two exact same price. |
| Jason | $499.99. On a bracelet. So you're actually, you're actually about 50 bucks less. |
| Andrew | Yeah. On a better bracelet. |
| Jason | Oh, night and day. Yeah. Night and day. |
| Andrew | That's the thing you get out of micros. Every detail matters to them. TESO could not care less about their strap or bracelet that gets attached to the watch. Yeah. Seiko could not care less. If Laurier did not give a shit about the bracelet that they hung around their watch, they wouldn't still be around. Yeah. So you got a killer bracelet. Because we've had these bracelets. They're money. They're so good. |
| Jason | No, Falcon 2, I need to own this watch. And in fact, I'm embarrassed that I don't, because it's one of my favorite watches that I've ever worn. Yes. Yes. |
| Andrew | Now, big asterisk here. we much prefer smaller watches. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Andrew | So there's a little bit of taste here in that we prefer that 36 watch to a 40. Yeah. But even, but we both own Sarps and we both love our Sarps. Yeah. So there's, there, there's a balance there. |
| Jason | So I think that this is an appropriate, I think this is an appropriate time for us to start talking about what, if anything is meaningful In the idea of a heritage brand, you know, I think we picked Tissot and we said early on, this is a perfect brand for this conversation. I think that's some of the reason we like this brand because we're critical of a brand like Tissot. I think, well, maybe I won't put words in your mouth. I'm critical of a brand like Tissot. A mid-level brand that sells in our favorite micro brand price space, um, and doesn't do as well. Right. But yeah, but with that said, if you move up to the next tier, right, so now we're talking about Manta perhaps versus Oris, um, maybe I don't know, IWC, maybe not quite, but certainly Zen. |
| Andrew | Damasco. |
| Jason | Damasco, right. DOXA. Yeah. All of a sudden, for whatever reason, and this is psychological, my personal psychological experience, all of a sudden brand heritage starts to become more important. And I wonder if that pivot point is variable and I wonder if it's personal to folks. And I wonder how closely related it is to that diminishing returns point that I brought up earlier. Um, you know, where is that point? |
| Andrew | Right. Can I spit ball a theory here? |
| Jason | You can, you do what you do. |
| Andrew | You, whatever you want. Tiso's hanging their laurels on their age. Right. They hang their hat on the fact their, their heritage is. We're 170 years old. |
| Jason | Yeah. |
| Andrew | It's set in stone. |
| Jason | We invented the rally strap. |
| Andrew | Yeah. This is fucking us. You don't like it. Fuck you. We're Tiso. Yeah. All of us the same way. Roger Federer wears Tiso. Yeah. I think you are smitten and I am smitten by brands that have created their heritage. I may be not 20, 30 year old brands who have emerged victorious through years of producing watches. You know, when you talk about Manta and Oris and Doxa, these are relatively young brands, some very young brands who are making great shit. |
| Jason | I think Oris and Doxa are pretty are older, but I think I hear what you're saying. |
| Andrew | They're young relative to Tiso. |
| Jason | Yeah. Well, everybody's young relative to Tiso. |
| Andrew | But they can't say, well, fuck you, we're Tiso. We've been around this long. We're going to be around, you know, for this much longer. |
| Jason | So you think Tiso's phoning it in? |
| Andrew | I think Tiso's phoning it in. And I think they're okay with that. You know, they've made it, right? They're in their retirement years. They're a part of the swatch group. They can make their nut in the Macy's counter in a couple little boutiques, you know, get a couple brand ambassadors. They don't have to keep pushing the envelope. They do in some instances. |
| Jason | Yeah, they do. |
| Andrew | Yeah, definitely. But they don't have to be. And Doxa doesn't, but for some reason still does. Like they can still make it. And that's a bit of a enigma there. But these other brands we're talking about here who are a little bit older, a little bit better established, and are making a higher tier watch than say some of our favorite micros. They're really pushing the envelope. Not any differently than Nodus, right? I think Nodus and Manta are really good examples of just different tiers of watches. |
| Jason | And both really young brands, right? |
| Andrew | Both very young brands. And I think both kind of, both leaders in their segment. Manta's doing some terrific shit. Nodus is doing some terrific shit. Is one better than the other? I mean, who's to say? But I think what you're getting at in the take a step above Tissot, heritage matters, is these brands that have forged themselves, right? Because if you look at, say, if you place the Tissot gentlemen If you make that a $2,000 watch, and you put that side by side with the, or if you make the Falcon 2, a $2,000 watch, and you put it side by side with a Triumph, I think the Triumph wins that. And I think because objectively at the $2,000 price point, that is the best watch in that three watch lineup. |
| Jason | Yeah. I mean, it's certainly up there. You know, the, The ways to look at this, uh, you know, keep occurring to me. Uh, and then by the time, by the time, uh, you shut up, I, I forgotten what I was going to say. I could talk for hours. No, I think, I think you're, you're, you're, you're onto something though. Right. Um, although I think you're getting at there, uh, you're getting going about it, maybe a little roundabout. I think at the end of the day, there's something to be said. for brand heritage, right? So, so Manta versus, you know, I tend to think that Manta competes in terms of specs really closely with a brand like Omega. And obviously Omega is a very old brand and they've got wonderful, wonderful watches at tons of different price points. But I think that if you look at sort of entry level Omega, and Manta, I think you're looking at specs that rival each other in a number of important ways. So say what you will about styling. |
| Andrew | I think you're looking at Tudor, too, in that category. |
| Jason | Yeah, yeah. No, you're right. So so then you really are forced to start making decisions about what you value. And and I think what we've run into, or at least what I've run into, is that at a certain point, folks no longer care about additional objective specifications, whether that's polishing or, you know, handsets that might be better finished or, you know, any number of things that are objectively true of questionable end user value, right? Is that coming through? And so, Really, at the end of the day, the question becomes, what do you want? If you give me a Tudor or perhaps an Omega versus a Manta at the same price, and I'm going to compare them spec to spec and say, these things are one-to-one or even in that regard, do I take the Tudor or the Omega? And the answer is probably yes. The answer is probably yes. So for me, at the very least, I'm seeing value there and I'm not able to put a point on it. |
| Andrew | In the pure luxury world, I think I can accept that. I think I can accept brand value and heritage in the $5,000 and up world. Because if you, if you say, Hey, here's this Explorer, or here's this triumph. Well, give me that fucking Explorer. |
| Jason | Cause I want the crown at the 12 o'clock, right? Yeah. Well, and that's the easiest that, you know, I think we've avoided talking about a little bit, right? But that's the easiest, uh, example here, right? Yeah. Like at just about any price, Rolex, you know, any price that I can imagine, right? Rolex is, is the boss, right? Or just about any segment. I'm thinking I might like the Rolex version of that, you know, all things being equal. |
| Andrew | Yeah. And at $2,000. Yeah. If that's what you're going to charge me for a Rolex Explorer. Yeah. That's my watch, but I don't, that's not, that's not the world that I live in. |
| Jason | Well, and there's a reason that people think about, you know, what do I need to spend on a black date sub, right? Because you're not getting anything special. How many kids are you willing to sell? You know, Will and Mike are both, I think, pretty public about their disdain for the Submariner case, right? Yeah. You know, with the most recent revision, I think Rolex has remedied some of its sin of the last, you know, that maxi case Submariner, although I don't mind the maxi case Submariner, but, um, it's not for me. Yeah. A lot of people don't like it. I think not as much as watch nerds want to say, Oh, this or that it's still the coolest watch that you can buy on the face of the earth almost completely because of This thing we're talking about, right? The heritage. |
| Andrew | Yeah. Yeah. It's the Everest watch. It is the coolest. It's the bond watch. It's like, take your pick on how, and part of it is it's created its heritage, right? It's not just its orological chops. It's, you know, it funded expeditions on Everest. It gave and fought for sponsorship via 007. Yeah. Right? I mean, it's, this heritage is not an accident. It's not just the, the watches, right? The Academy Awards was, uh, had a God, it was a fucking three hour long commercial with the Datejust and the OP. It was longer than the Academy Awards. |
| Jason | Yeah. I, you know, I read, I read on Monday morning all about Monday morning about the Academy Awards and I was like, Oh, I didn't realize they were still doing it. |
| Andrew | I second screened the Academy Awards. My wife is very into it. So I second screened it and I looked up and I saw this Rolex commercial and I went back and I'm playing Tetris and I look up and it's still the same commercial. It's just cycling an OP and then cycling a Datejust. And I'm like, that's not even like, are you just advertising the watch that people can go into an AD and buy right now? Is that the only reason you're advertising it? Did you just really fuck up your commercial? You don't. Right. Because they need to offload all these other watches that they make. They're like, God, we need to discontinue this. But this is a 25-year-old new in box. |
| Jason | So you sent me another watch to talk about today. Yeah, I did. And I don't know why you sent it to me. |
| Andrew | I sent it to you because I hate it. I hate everything about it. And the reason I sent it to you is because Notice doesn't make a watch that I hate. Laurier doesn't make a watch that I hate. Who else makes a couple of watches? There's no micro that makes a watch that I just fucking hate. There's no small brand that does this, right? |
| Jason | Okay, well tell us what we're talking about. |
| Andrew | We're talking about the T-Race Swissmatic Automatic. T-115-407-17-05100. No, no, no, I want you to stop at home. Look this watch up and I'll give you that reference one more time. |
| Jason | T-115-407-17-05100. |
| Andrew | one seven dot zero five one dot zero zero unless you're driving actively on the freeway stop and look this up because uh you got to see it this certainly is not the worst watch they make right there's worse i saw worse i just was on the page where it was like i had like 12 available watches and i picked this one because it's the one i hated the most of those 12 |
| Jason | Well, so tell me what you're thinking when you sent me this watch. What's your thought process beyond, I hate this watch? |
| Andrew | How can Tissot as brand heritage value adding? This does not add to it. This, for like, okay, I got myself a little worked up here. For us to be in a conversation where the brand that manufactured your watch brings inherent value to it. There has to be inherent value in the brand, yes or no, right? Yeah, I guess so, yeah. The brand has to bring value. |
| Jason | Well, because we haven't talked about, I mean, we could have done some things in this show that we haven't done. And I just wanna briefly, I just wanna briefly sort of go through some things that we haven't talked about. Do it. We haven't talked about brands like, um, uh, uh, what's the, what's the name of the Steinhardt? Yeah. Uh, we haven't talked about brands like Steinhardt, which oddly enough, I think Steinhardt has this kind of powerful brand, uh, based on other people's shit. Okay. We haven't talked about brands like, um, Island Watch, Mark Island Watch. Yeah, who's just come out with a monster clone. Okay, we haven't talked about any number of Sharky Heimdallr brands. We haven't talked about Daniel Wellington, MBMT, Dan Henry, Sterling, Yeah, you know, these are all, Sterling, interesting addition, these are all things we could have talked about that we didn't, and there's no good reason for that, but that's kind of not where we were going with this conversation. So all that to say, there's a hundred different ways you can look at this. When I look at this watch, I think, you had mentioned the sea star looks to you, Macy's counter. This watch looks to me like a Macy's kind of watch. |
| Andrew | This is the Macy's discount spinner, the pillar that's not even in the case. Well, you know, this is an expensive watch too. |
| Jason | It's fucking four bucks. This watch looks to me like it's probably sold in a yellow box. |
| Andrew | It's an Invicta competitor. It's kind of an octagonal, kind of AP-ish case. |
| Jason | We've got some exposed screws on the dial. |
| Andrew | Yeah, it's got some disgusting integrated but not integrated lugs into the leather strap. Is that leather? Jesus. It's crock. It's a monstrosity. You cannot tell me that a brand that produces this deserves inherently to be more expensive because they also produce the Gentleman or the Vizidate or the Lalacal. You can't, because this is not brand heritage. This is Macy's counter. This is, I'm making this because there's a turd burglar out there who's got a leather strap on one wrist and he's looking for a watch on the other wrist and this is the watch for him. I could go on for Right. I could go on forever about the way I feel about this watch. That was perfect. But there's no need because the point of it is... I didn't expect that. The point of it is I think that that watch in and of itself negates Tissot's brand heritage value. |
| Jason | So yeah, no, I didn't expect that. I, uh, that's what she said. I think that, uh, I think that's not true, but I hear what you're saying. Um, there's something, there's a point to be made there. |
| Andrew | So if a Lex, if Lexus also produced the Lexus Metro, Lexus wouldn't be as valuable as a brand. |
| Jason | You know, I, I have this, uh, I have this, uh, goal to buy a forerunner and badge it as Alexis, like to buy a forerunner, put a one, use the engine in it, which it'll take. And then badge it as a like nineties body or earner. Yeah. Like, uh, yeah, probably a 90, like whatever the gen. |
| Andrew | three or four, I think. 96 to 99. |
| Jason | That's right. That's right. And and badged as Alexis. That'd be dope. You know, the thing the thing about it is people would see it and they'd be like, did Lexus make a forerunner? Like, did they badge it? You know, people there's plausible. It would be plausible. Anyway, will I ever do that? I don't know. |
| Andrew | I don't need like. I mean, we still haven't put your long chrome pipes on. |
| Jason | So the answer is no. However, I have this dream Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying. |
| Andrew | I don't... You don't agree, and I don't fully agree. And here's the thing. |
| Jason | This is why I don't agree. Because I think that Tissot has brand value that I don't care about, right? And so it's maybe... it's hard for me to put myself in the shoes of someone who cares about Tissot as a brand. And so I'm trying to, in that regard, I'm trying to give deference to those folks who are going to see Tissot as a valuable brand. I think Tissot is kind of dumb. |
| Andrew | Does the AP Marvel Endeavor devalue AP? |
| Jason | Do I think it devalues AP? Yeah. I mean, not in any functional sense, I don't think. |
| Andrew | No, you don't think it takes away any credibility or anything? Zero. |
| Jason | Zero. Huh. You obviously disagree. |
| Andrew | I mean, I think people have been shitting on Marvel branded Timex's citizens. Take your pick of Marvel or of comic book or of novelty watches. How did you spill beer but also get all of it in your mouth? |
| Jason | I've got a drinking problem. Uh, yeah, I don't know. Uh, there is four For me, there's no diminishment there. |
| Andrew | But I think people shit on that activity. |
| Jason | Or like Snoopy Omega or whatever. It doesn't bother me at all. I love the Snoopy Omegas. Or even all of the Olympics limited edition Omegas that people lose their fucking minds about. I don't think that that stuff is problematic. Here's where I come on this. Here's where I come down on this topic. Where you go down on this topic. Here's where I go down on this topic. I know that I can get a better dive watch than a Doxa 300T for probably about half the cost, half the price of a Doxa 300T. |
| Andrew | You think actually spec'd better? Designed better? Maybe not better. Comparable? Comparable. I'll accept comparable. |
| Jason | I won't accept better. certainly, well, I mean, look at a Manta, right? Manta versus Doxa 300T, I think the Manta wins. I mean, they're clearly totally different. I mean, we're talking totally different watches, right? So my point is, I don't think that Doxa wins any sort of objectivity award at its price point, and I still want one. I probably want the 300T because I think it's probably the entry-level, you know, getting rid of the 200s, right? The Doxa 300T is sort of the entry-level Doxa. That's kind of where I look. But I think at that price point, you've got some really, really terrific watches that you need to consider. |
| Andrew | Yeah, at that price point, and even not at that price point. |
| Jason | And so for me, I recognize that there's a part of me that's inclined to say there's something there for me. |
| Andrew | We also suffer, both of us, from the nice thing condition. Yeah. I want nice things. I want nice things. And even if it's not the nicest thing, I want it to have the nicest name. |
| Jason | Yeah. Yeah, that's right. And I actually don't, I'm not embarrassed about this. I think some people are embarrassed about this. I don't have any reservation about the fact that I bought a Speedmaster for almost purely vain reasons. |
| Andrew | I'm going to get it in 1989 for purely vain reasons. Like I'm going to get the anniversary year, birth year Speedmaster for purely vain reasons. I'm going to eventually buy an Explorer for purely vain reasons. |
| Jason | So Brand Heritage, so your thesis at the beginning of this was that it doesn't matter. I said I think that was wrong. Until it does. I still think it's wrong. It does, right? Until it does. |
| Andrew | Because? You make the value. Because I want a fucking Apollo 11 anniversary edition Speedmaster. I want the 20 year anniversary Speedmaster. That's what I fucking want. |
| Jason | I don't think there's any problem with that. |
| Andrew | I want an Explorer. I have great analogs. The Alpinist? Man, I haven't taken this fucking thing off. |
| Jason | I'm sorry. Al penis. |
| Andrew | Yeah. Like al pastor. The pastor. The penis. Duh. I should have known. Alright. I don't take the al penis off my watch. |
| Jason | Once again. My wrist. Not my watch. You're stupid. I'm drunk. Once again. You make the fucking value. We've conclusively resolved an issue. |
| Andrew | With an ambiguous answer. |
| Jason | I think we should break. |
| Andrew | We probably should. |
| Jason | Andrew. Other things. What do you got? Can we just take a moment to appreciate the relative audio quality this week versus the last several weeks? |
| Andrew | I don't know. I don't listen to our podcasts anymore because I sit in the recording studio and do it. But I assume that this week's audio quality is better. I assume. I assume the same. Last week we had Wi-Fi issues, which was weird. |
| Jason | Yeah, no, last week's audio was terrible. |
| Andrew | Also it was COVID, right? Like I'm still... You had COVID. I did. I had two episodes with the COVID. You had COVID, yeah. So with that, and this is actually a nice segue, I spent a lot of time second screening and a lot of time just buried in my phone because I had insomnia. And I felt like I was going to die. Did you read any books? No, I didn't have time to read books because my kids, though they were sick, were bundles of fucking energy. I had two Tasmanian devils running around my house. They were totally unimpaired by Covid while I felt like I was going to die. |
| Jason | I really miss those Tasmanian devils, by the way. I saw a cow for about 30 seconds the other day and I was like, oh man, I miss you kid. |
| Andrew | Yeah, he's he's actually Yeah, he's pretty cool. I like him. I like them both. But the problem was that they felt good for just shorter periods of time. Yeah. Here's the problem with COVID and the work from home situation. My wife took one day off. Yeah, it's brutal. Which is, you know, nice because I had one day of death that I could also like share in it with another adult but she worked from home and continued to work and she didn't work as many hours right she wasn't working full days she took some she took some sick time but I was also single like parenting like a solo parenting not single parenting but solo parenting with COVID during the day with COVID right so in those moments where I like got to take a breath which was hard. I was just on Instagram or playing Tetris. I got very good at Tetris again. |
| Jason | So did you, did you develop this? Did you work on this new rolling technique that I see people are sending world records with? |
| Andrew | The T-spin? |
| Jason | I don't know. |
| Andrew | It's called a T-spin. |
| Jason | Oh yeah. I'm okay. |
| Andrew | Is that like a meatspin? It's better. Y'all remember meatspin? |
| Jason | I, I, I, I will never forget meatspin because of you. Because of me. Because of you. |
| Andrew | Yeah. I, uh, I made it a, like a personal goal to meet spin people all through college. You were a meat spinner on like in ways they wouldn't find. So like one when two of our friends, Tommy and Brian, they lived in an apartment together, Tommy alumna alumni of the show. And we play video games at their house after our Tuesday morning meetings. And that's what we do. We just play video games. We just play zombies, zombies, dead ops, arcade, play zombies. And we were fucking we were money. We were so good. It's like if we get in a like if you lost a life before like level 30, you just get heckled. Yeah. And level 30 is no fucking joke. Yeah. That's some serious shit. |
| Jason | So law school, law school is the time that I played more video games than any other time. |
| Andrew | And I was just a regular ass undergrad. But I would like sneak out to pee and open their laptops in their rooms and turn Meatspin on. And when they would return to their laptops, it'd be like thousands of spins. Because if you don't remember, Meatspin has a spin counter that tracks the 12 to 6 trajectory of it. It's actually, it's a really impressive video. Like, if you just take a moment... In a number of respects, it's impressive. If you just take a moment to appreciate what's happening in front of you, and you're like, well, that's a weird thing to record. And a lot of weird things are happening. And then somebody made a |
| Jason | Back when the internet was awesome. Kids these days, you know? No, right? TikTok and shit. |
| Andrew | With that, I found a, he's a TikToker, he's an Instagrammer. I found him via Instagram. But he's got 28 million followers on TikTok, or maybe views. I don't know exactly how TikTok works. Me either. I have one, because I didn't get it, and I was like, I'll get one. But you can't, like, curate the videos that you see. It's just random shit. I'm like, well, I want to see the videos that I want to see, but I can't. It's like a hundred percent algorithm based. Yeah, but you can search things, but they're not. I didn't spend enough time. Hey, don't you worry about it. Doesn't matter. So I found this guy on Instagram. His name is CopyLame. And I'm sorry, I'm getting it wrong. It's K-H-A-B-Y space. L-A-M-E. |
| Jason | Cobby Lane. His... It's a Beatles song. |
| Andrew | That's Abbey Lane. Oh, okay. Similar. |
| Jason | His bio on Instagram... Wait, is it Cobby Lane? Stop. |
| Andrew | Ugh. His... Jesus, that was awful. His bio is gaming video creator, TikTok 28 million, Maloney Plus, Brand Management, Cobi. Brand Management. He's an Italian fellow. But the way I found him is that he does hysterical short videos. And they're always reposted to Instagram from TikTok, either in stories or in reels. And he takes all these TikTok things where it's like, I'm going to do this really complex thing. Here's how to cut this banana in a really fun way. And he sits there just totally deadpan and peels the banana. He does the task in way easier way than this TikTok video or what have you way would demonstrate how to do it. And he's just pure deadpan. And then he shrugs his shoulders and then it's the end of the video. And the first one I saw, I was like, oh my God, I love this man. |
| Jason | Kabu Lam. |
| Andrew | Yeah. And so he doesn't have as many posts on Instagram as I would have thought. He only has 62 posts, but he has 4.9 million followers, which is a hell of a lot more than we have. He's an influencer. But that's his whole, this, like, he does a lot of other videos that are kind of more related to his, what he does, but his, his apparent new TikTok fan or fame is derived from taking a TikTok trend video and doing it way easier than the TikTok trend would have you believe is the new cool way to do it. Most recent one that I saw, you know, those weird little poker things that you get in pizzas, like in Domino's pizzas that are really to stand up the box, like to keep it from crushing in the middle. This person shows like, oh, look, you stab it into one piece of pizza and you put your thumb on it And then you pull on the other piece of pizza, and that's how you separate them. And he reaches into the pizza box and just separates the two pieces of pizza. Deadpan. Like, that's how you do it. |
| Jason | This is how you do it. |
| Andrew | Yeah. He's also a really unique looking guy. He's not a funny looking guy, but when you look at him, you're like, oh, this guy's gonna be funny. You can just tell. His demeanor is funny. So that's it. K-H-A-B-Y. l a m e i imagine it's probably the same on tiktok for those of you who are cooler than i um just a funny guy to watch you'll enjoy him i'm into it dude i'm gonna check it out i like funny people i'm gonna start a tiktok do you think we should start a 40 and 20 tiktok we already have an only fans i mean how many yeah how many more can we hit all right swipe that's the name of it right or swipe all right Man. There's one of the, it's a thing. It's a new, it's a new dating app for, you know, those folk. |
| Jason | Which, which one is, is, I don't want that. Is that left or right? |
| Andrew | I'm unfamiliar with Tinder. |
| Jason | Okay. Uh, so I've got another thing. Do me. This is a game. It's a video game. It's a video game that I first downloaded in 2018. 1996. It is an iOS game. Who? Kitten Cannon? It's not Kitten Cannon. So, you know, you and I, Andrew, have had a long love affair with iOS games. I think that we have together played many number of iOS games. Probably all of them. I think that, um, What was the Clash of Clans? We played Clash of Clans together. We played Fortnite. Yeah, we did. For quite some time. |
| Andrew | I've been playing Fishing Clash. |
| Jason | I haven't played that one. |
| Andrew | It's so-so. |
| Jason | In the grand scheme of iOS games, I've just recently, and by recently, I mean in the last four or five months, come back to this game from 2018. So I downloaded in 2018. I played it a lot. I played a lot in 2018, and then about six months ago, my son, West, goes through our family purchases regularly and sees if there's anything in there that he can get that he might be interested in. |
| Andrew | Ooh, smart, because you've probably previously downloaded some good shit. |
| Jason | And I've spent a lot of money, right? So there's a lot of the stuff that he looks at, and they're like, well, I can't get that. But Dad's bought that. |
| Andrew | How's he feel about Zombie Gunship? |
| Jason | Oh, I don't know that we've played Zombie Gunship. |
| Andrew | I feel like he'd dig zombie gunship. |
| Jason | I'll have to look at it. So this is a game that I think he downloaded on a whim. And then he did the thing that he does cause he's a kid in, you know, here in the 21st century. And so he downloaded it and then he quickly went to YouTube and realized that there's this huge world of YouTube videos about how to play this game. And about the time that he downloaded and started getting into it, he said, dad, Do you still play Bloons, B-L-O-O-N-S TD6? I said, well, I haven't played it in any number of, you know, in a number of months, perhaps a year or more. And he said, well, we could do co-op together. And I said, yeah, well, let's do that. And so then I start playing with him and I'm like, man, this game is good. So now I have here, here we are three years later, three years later, been playing the shit out of this game. And I'm like doing challenges and races and odyssey events. Um, and it occurred to me. So I think that this is a pay to play game. |
| Andrew | I don't know how much it costs. It's $5. And the reason I know it was cause I just went to redownload it. Cause I know I paid the $5 for it in the last three years rather than pay to upgrade my iCloud storage. I just created a new iCloud account and that predates my new iCloud account. So my wife could download it. Maybe I'll play it on the iPad. |
| Jason | Here's what I'll tell you. For five bucks, it's totally worth it. |
| Andrew | You're going to get $5 of entertainment. |
| Jason | You pay more than that for a rental. Oh my gosh. So I have just been like a fiend playing this thing. And my wife says to me yesterday, in fact, she said, Are you trying to do something specific for West? Like my son? She was like, well, I don't understand. You're playing this thing all the time. And I was like, no, I am just loving this game. So much fun. I have played literally hundreds of iOS games. Uh, all the greatest hits. So if you go and like Google best iOS games, I've played every single one of the winners. I mean, literally. without any reservation, every single one of them. I think I can say without any hesitation that this is my favorite iOS game of all time today. I have never felt compelled to spend a dime over that initial asking price. Never felt any desire to spend extra money. You know how a lot of these pay-to-play games, these freemium games. Um, I've never felt that desire. Like there's just nothing, you don't have any sort of like, Oh, well I've used all my lives and I have to wait eight hours before it, you know, you can just keep playing. You could play constantly. Um, you can do any sort of challenge you want. The amount of like you, you do have to buy stuff, but the amount of resources you get to buy stuff is really reasonable. Like if you want the new hero, You may have to play, you know, a handful of games. |
| Andrew | You're not better if you're willing to pay a hundred bucks a day. |
| Jason | You are not going to have to grind to get the things you want. I am just loving this game. So it's a tower defense game. For those of you who've never heard of this, it's tower defense. I think when flash games were really popular. There was a handful of genres. Tower defense has always been one of my favorites, but it's essentially you set a tower and the tower defeats the enemies coming by. This was a spin on tower defense. Oftentimes tower defense was monsters or bad guys in this game for no good reason. It's balloons and your characters are monkeys who throw darts. Yep. without any explanation. None needed. You control monkeys who throw darts to pop balloons and the balloons are increasingly big and fast and colorful and strong. It's silly and it's low stakes and it's super fun. Just enjoying the shit out of it. |
| Andrew | It's just the right amount of... It's very Tetris-y, right? It's just the right amount of casual and fun. Yeah. All wrapped up into the package. It's more interactive. It's, it's less and more interactive than Tetris, right? There's more things. Tetris, you get your, your board. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| Andrew | You get different monkeys who have different abilities, popping different balloons. You upgrade your monkeys to throw different darts, variety of darts, tons of strategy. |
| Jason | Yeah. And so I think, Bloons is, so this is Bloons Tower Defense 6, TD6. There have been, I think, six iterations. It seems that this is the version that they've settled on for some long-term period. So they're continually releasing updates and sort of challenges, right? Daily challenges and weekly challenges. Uh, it seems to me that they've settled on this engine for some period of time. And I don't know if that'll change at some point, but it's been three years. Yeah. So they've invested pretty heavily into this game. And I assume at some point though, they'll come out with a new version, but I, three years later playing this game, feel like this is really great. So yeah, that's my other thing. That's a good other thing. Yeah, it was kind of a surprise. It was a surprise to me that I loved it as much. You know, having experienced this back in 2018, it was a surprise to me to three years later come back and be like, this is fantastic. |
| Andrew | Are you sure it was 2018? |
| Jason | I am sure because I looked it up earlier. Okay. Yeah. I am sure. Yeah. June 2018. |
| Andrew | I remember playing it also. I wonder if we downloaded it together or just like happened upon it simultaneously. |
| Jason | Well, I think that that was during the period of time that we were playing games together pretty frequently. So it may have done that. Yeah. |
| Andrew | I'm going to check out Fishing Clash. We'll talk about it afterward. |
| Jason | Andrew, anything you want to add to the conversation today? |
| Andrew | No, I've tiraded enough. |
| Jason | You have. So we're at an hour and 20 minutes. This is our, I guess, an hour and 15. So this is our, this is our longest episode in a few weeks. Uh, I hope you enjoyed it. I hope it wasn't all terrible. |
| Andrew | It was mostly terrible. And I'm sorry for that, but I'm also not sorry. Cause it's our show. |
| Jason | It's our show. |
| Andrew | Thanks for hanging out and drinking beer. |
| Jason | Yeah. Thanks. Thanks for joining us for this episode of 40 and 20, the watch clicker podcast, check us out at watch clicker.com. That's the website for our podcast. And also for a ton of great reviews. Will the watch clicker, Mike Razack, Evan, All these guys who are doing great content regularly, check out the website, WatchClicker.com. You can check us out on Instagram at WatchClicker at 40 and 20. If you want to support the show, you can do so at patreon.com slash 40 and 20. Look, we've got a lot of patrons at this point, uh, access to our discord. Uh, really that's what keeps us going. Week in week out, keeps us in, keeps us in microphones, keeps us in hosting fees. We really appreciate all your support. |
| Andrew | Keeps the website lights on. That's right. |
| Jason | That's right. And don't forget to check us out next Thursday for another hour of watches, food, drinks, life, and other things we like. |
| Unknown | Bye-bye. |