Built to Play 41: Ghost Sounds

Built to Play explores new Nintendo games, the tricky world of Dota 2 and why we keep seeing the words "You Died" when we close our eyes.Danielle and Arman visited Nintendo of Canada to play upcoming titles like Mario Maker, Bayonetta 2 and Yoshi's Wooly World. But when it comes to Super Smash Bros. the two land on a bit of a competitive streak. Take a listen to hear more about the relative nudity of Pokemon, Toad's Batman voice, and genius robot design. If you want more in-depth coverage of these Nintendo games check out Daniel's write up from a few weeks back. You can hear us squabble over whether Bayonetta 2 is better than Smash Bros and if Goku is the greatest fighter of all time starting 1:06.Danielle finishes his masterpiece in Mario Maker, the Mario platformer level designer coming to the Wii U.Mobile online battle arena games like League of Legends are easily the most popular games on the planet, so we decided take a look into the fast-growing esport.Also known as MOBAs, games like League of Legends and Dota 2 are becoming a force in esports. The fourth annual Dota 2 championships back in July crowd-funded a $10.6 million prize pool, a bigger prize than the Super Bowl. Twenty million people watched the tournament, with as many as two million watching at the same time. League of Legends is still the most popular game in the genre, filling the Staples Centre in Los Angeles during its last tournament, but Dota 2 outranks it for the sheer amount of money on the table.Shane Perron of eSport Gaming Events hosted a viewing party  of the Dota 2 championships in one of the city's oldest theatres, the Regent. Shane says that hosting events like this can be sustainable, though it will take time. Hear him describe the viewing party they hosted at the Regent, why he's spent more than a 100 hours in Dota 2 and the challenges facing eSports Gaming Events starting 36:00.Meanwhile, a game's sounds can hang around long after we finish playing, according to a new study from Nottingham Trent University.Many players have made the mistake of playing games for too long. Say by accident you stayed up all night to beat a boss in Dark Souls, and wound up seeing the words "You Died" and hearing that evaporation sound over and over again. That's never happened to Danielle or Arman, considering they're absolute masters of that game, but for hypothetical sakes, let's all imagine. You turn off the game, head to bed, and right as you close your eyes, you hear the sound of your soul leaving your body. This strange phenomenon of lingering game sounds has been studied by the International Gaming Unit at Nottingham Trent University. Everything from the bloop of a portal opening to the ding when you collect a coins can hang around after gameplay, usually after a considerably long playtime. Sometimes it's music. Sometimes it's bullets. It's hard to say what triggers these sounds but they can seem like they're coming from outside of the body, reasonably freaking some people out. It's all part of a group of effects known as game transfer phenomena or GTP. Angelica Ortiz de Gortari is a psychologist and doctoral researcher studying GTP, who explains the sheer variety of lingering noises, images and behaviours. You can hear her describe her own experience with GTP, starting 47:00.We used a ton of music this week from the Free Music Archive.In our Nintendo segment, we used "Blanks," "Moondots and Polkabeams," and "Hundy Mil Tight" by Podington Bear. "Night Owl" by Broke for Free is our opening theme. "Hallon" by Christian Bjoerklund, "eeeoooww" by junior85, "Nana Veloz" by Crisopa, and "Sun Bum" by Monster Rally.Special thanks to Mark Asfar for filling in for the news on short notice. This episode was written and edited by Arman Aghbali.