Bargain Bin Gaymers

Jake from the Melbourne Gaymers is back on the couch, and this week the topic is one every adult gamer eventually runs into. You love games. Your partner does not. How do you make that work? Between the three of them there is a husband who throws the controller at Mario Party's random bonus stars, a boyfriend who claims to be a gamer but owns a PS5 and neither a TV nor a couch, and a partner who occasionally tinkers with a horror game alone because the host who bought it for him is too scared to watch. In this episode:The guilt problem. Davey games at 5:30am on weekends because he feels bad playing when Anthony is in the house, and admits most of that guilt is self imposed
Rot time, Mitch's term for sitting in the same room doing completely different things, and why it counts as quality time
Why handheld gaming changed all of this, and whether a dedicated games room is a dream or a trap
What happens when a partner is actively anti gaming, and how this podcast came out of that
Gaming as escapism, decompression and genuine emotional regulation, and how to explain that to someone who has never needed it
Booking it in. Davey has the GTA 6 release weekend blocked out in the shared family calendar
Teaching a partner who did not grow up gaming, including the moment Jake realised Adrian needed inverted controls
Finding games for your partner rather than dragging them into yours
Whether queer couples are better at this, and why
Mitch on designing his own Pokémon game, and telling his boyfriend about it
The big question: would you actually want a gamer partner? All three say no, and explain why
Why watching someone else play a game means you will never play it yourself
Housemates, shared TVs, and the other relationships nobody talks about
Plus advice at the end for anyone in a new relationship trying to work out how to have this conversation. Tell us where you land. Are you a gaming couple? Does your partner just like watching you play? Comment on YouTube or come and talk to us in the Discord.

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Heads up before you press play: this is a watch-along.

Davey and Mitch are commenting live on the Zelda 40th anniversary Nintendo Direct as it plays, so this one is best enjoyed on YouTube. The audio still works, but you will get a lot more out of watching it. Watch the video version: HERE

A bonus drop, recorded on the couch on a Saturday afternoon with Pike the dog, because Nintendo announced the Ocarina of Time remake during the week and there was no way of waiting until the next episode. The setup is the best one this show has: Davey has played Ocarina of Time more times than he can count, on the N64, on the Master Quest disc, on the Wii Virtual Console, on the 3DS and on Nintendo Switch Online. Mitch has never touched it. Before recording, Davey sat him down with the original on Switch Online, CRT filter on, and walked him through Kokiri Forest, Hyrule Field and Castle Town. Mitch's verdict on the 1998 version was, in a word, hideous. Then they watched the Direct together. In this episode:Why Ocarina of Time is the game that made Davey fall in love with gaming, and why Twilight Princess was Mitch's way in
Mitch's honest reaction to playing the N64 original for the first time in 2026, including a genuine appreciation for how individual every NPC in Castle Town is
The first look at Kokiri Forest, and why it stopped both of them dead
Child Link's new design, the doll-like face, and the glossiness debate
Camera control and manual jumping, and why both are a much bigger deal than they sound
The loading screens Nintendo kept deliberately, and whether being faithful is the real reason
Two minutes to dry off after a swim, and Navi's embroidered wings
The new item wheel replacing the C button hotkeys
Hyrule Field, Death Mountain actually looking like a volcano, and Castle Town giving off Fable meets D&D energy
The Threads of Time tapestry, a new way of tracking progress
The day night cycle now running inside towns
Being able to hum your ocarina songs instead of memorising button combinations, or order an actual ocarina peripheral
Voice acting in cutscenes, and the Zelda voice problem
The 40th anniversary concert coming to Melbourne next May
The special edition Switch 2 console and dock, already sold out, already being scalped
Out 5 November 2026. Both of them are more excited about this than GTA 6. Tell us what you think of Link's new design in the YouTube comments or in the Discord. Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fqC2FeHSUr
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Jake from the Melbourne Gaymers joins Davey and Mitch on the couch for the September yapisode, two vodka Cokes deep and ready to go. September is the business end of 2026 and there is a lot to get through. What we have been playing:Jake on Fallout 76, which is apparently good now, and replaying Halo one through five on Legendary in split screen
Mitch on Darksiders Warmastered Edition, Mark Hamill, and the sexy part of Catholicism. Plus a Bloodborne replay and the case for it being a top three game
Davey on picking up Grand Theft Auto 5 for $20 on disc at JB Hi-Fi, thirteen years after he last played it, and worrying he will be over GTA before November
Everspace 2 on Switch 2, the three endings of The Adventures of Elliot, and why Davey has turned on Duskfade after being excited about it
News of note:Mario Kart 8 Deluxe gets a surprise Switch 2 update out of nowhere, with 4K output and eight player split screen on one console
Gamescom, and everyone's picks: Stage Tour from the original Guitar Hero team, Rainbow Six Tactics, Gears of War E-Day, Crazy Taxi World Tour, Fable, RollerCoaster Tycoon, Silent Hill Townfall and more
Witcher 3 Remastered, free if you already own the game, and why CD Projekt Red has set a bar everyone else is falling short of
Mitch on the soulslike problem, and why he is done with games that rip off Dark Souls with barely a change of paint
The PlayStation State of Play, where the best part was the live chat. Sony killing physical media, the shift from buying to leasing, and a PlayStation 1 Lego set that is about as useful as a Blu-ray player in 2028
Xbox disc to digital, how it actually works, and whether it is a genuine consumer win or just warming us up for a digital only future
Delisted games, Pokémon Home behind a paywall, and what any of us actually own
Plus the full Release Radar for 8 to 22 September, and a Bargain Watchlist featuring A Plague Tale: Innocence at 90 percent off, Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2 for $50, and Inside for $3.50. Jake is back next episode to talk about gaming as adults with non gaming partners.

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Davey is flying solo one more time, and this week he is talking to someone building something that arguably should have existed years ago. Kevin is the founder of Gamily, a dating and friendship app built for gamers with LGBTQIA people front and centre. He built it with his husband Will and their co-founder Gabe, starting as a nights-and-weekends project during the pandemic, on the premise that the best way to get to know somebody is by playing with them. In this episode:
What Gamily is, who it is for, and the gap Kevin saw between apps for gay people, apps for straight people that merely allow gay people, and apps for nerds
Why there is both a dating mode and a friends mode, and why they are kept completely separate
Squeezing into a crowded dating app market, and why niche apps are having a moment
What people are actually looking for when they want a partner who games, and why being able to pretend together as adults is rarer than it should be
How the matching works, from the four games you are playing right now to unlimited favourites, board games and genres, with conversation starters built in
The technical challenge of designing gender identity properly, so it is not just man seeking man or man seeking woman
Why Gamily does not sell data, track users or run ads, and why that matters more when your users hold vulnerable identities
Where the app is now, why New York City is the current focus, and what it would take to reach Australia
Success stories so far, including a Valorant team and a queer streamer squad
The feedback that genuinely surprised him, and what it says about what people will trade for free
Why marketing turned out to be the hardest part, and the message that finally worked
Plus Kevin on EarthBound, The Binding of Isaac and Mario Kart, and a pile of shame that includes 80 hours of Elden Ring and 75 per cent of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Gamily is available now in the US and Canada at gamilyapp.com, and on Instagram at @gamilyapp. 

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A bonus drop. Davey and Mitch were not supposed to record this week, but Rockstar dropped a nearly 30 minute Grand Theft Auto 6 Extended Look on Netflix and there was no way around it. Recorded on Davey's couch on Sunday afternoon, immediately after watching it together. Unstructured, unfiltered, and genuinely conflicted. In this episode:The Netflix exclusive that lasted about six minutes before the whole thing was everywhere anyway
Mitch's verdict after his first viewing: consider him advertised, but not sold
Why it looks phenomenal, and why it also looks extremely familiar
The 30fps confirmation, the missing performance mode, and what "for now" tends to mean
The Watch Dogs effect, the Cyberpunk comparison, and whether a showcase is ever an honest picture of a finished game
Jason and Lucia, the seamless character swapping, and a relationship you have to actually maintain
The corrupt task force, Mendez, and GTA doing what GTA always does with law enforcement
Whether anything here is a genuine evolution or a very expensive GTA 5 that looks better
The bigger worry: a game this universal being used to push digital only, no physical, and the argument currently in court that buying a game does not mean owning it
Australian classification, and why drug use as a gameplay perk is still the line the board draws
GTA's tumultuous history with LGBTQIA representation, and what it means to release this game in 2026
Davey on week one of PlayStation Blackout, and the awkward timing of all this
Plus the real November question: GTA 6 or the Ocarina of Time remake? We want to hear from you. Are you a day one buyer? Is this enough of an evolution to be worth it? Leave a comment on YouTube or come and argue with us in the Discord.

Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fqC2FeHSUr
Support the BQN Network on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/bqn
Support BBG directly on Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bargainbingaymers