Any Austin on the Hermeneutics of Video Games
Conversations with Tyler
Conversations with Tyler
4.8 • 2.4K Ratings
🗓️ 11 June 2025
⏱️ 66 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Any Austin has carved a unique niche for himself on YouTube: analyzing seemingly mundane or otherwise overlooked details in video games with the seriousness of an art critic examining Renaissance sculptures. With millions of viewers hanging on his every word about fluvial flows in Breath of the Wild or unemployment rates in the towns of Skyrim, Austin has become what Tyler calls "the very best in the world at the hermeneutics of infrastructure within video games." But Austin's deeper mission is teaching us to think analytically about everything we encounter, and to replace gaming culture's obsession with technical specs and comparative analysis with a deeper aesthetic appreciation that asks simply: what are we looking at, and what does it reveal?
Tyler and Austin explore the value of the YouTube algorithm, what he notices now about real-world infrastructure, whether he perceives glitches IRL, why AI-generated art is getting less interesting, how the value of historical context differs between artistic forms, an aesthetic abundance agenda for nuclear power, the trajectory of video game quality since the 80s, whether the pace of seminal game releases has slowed, the relative value of commentary to the games themselves, why virtual reality adds nothing meaningful to the gaming experience, what’s wrong with most video game analysis, what to eat in New Orleans, Tyler’s gaming history, and more.
Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video on the new dedicated CWT channel.
Recorded March 7th, 2025.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Jeff, a producer of conversations with Tyler, and I've got a quick announcement tied to today's guest. |
| 0:10.7 | Some of you might remember in my 2024 retrospective with Tyler that I mentioned a certain YouTuber whose work had really stuck with me. |
| 0:19.0 | Well, that person is today's guest who goes by Any Austin. |
| 0:24.1 | After the retrospective aired, |
| 0:26.2 | Any Austin and I got in touch leading to the conversation you're about to hear. |
| 0:30.7 | Now, I love Austin's work because he has a truly distinctive way |
| 0:35.0 | of looking at video games and virtual worlds, often focusing on their |
| 0:39.0 | physical infrastructure. And in doing so, he does something really cool, which is that he |
| 0:44.3 | helps us see things we might have missed and appreciate things more deeply than we otherwise |
| 0:50.5 | would have. It's a characteristic of his that fits perfectly with conversations with Tyler. |
| 0:56.0 | Before we recorded, I had lunch with Austin and we talked YouTube. |
| 1:00.0 | That conversation pushed me to make a change I'd been considering for a while, |
| 1:05.0 | namely giving conversations with Tyler its own YouTube channel. |
| 1:09.0 | It'll make the show easier to find and follow. Old videos will |
| 1:12.0 | still be on the Mercatus channel for now, but all new ones will be posted to the new channel |
| 1:16.4 | going forward. So check out YouTube.com slash at Cowan Convo's and please subscribe. I'm excited for |
| 1:24.3 | this next chapter of our YouTube journey, and it starts with today's episode featuring Annie Austin. |
| 1:30.9 | Speaking of, if you're into aesthetics, video games, physical infrastructure, do yourself a favor and check out his channel, too. |
| 1:38.3 | Now, on to the show. |
| 1:49.2 | Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, |
| 1:53.3 | bridging the gap between academic ideas and real-world problems. |
| 1:56.0 | Learn more at Mercatus.org. For a full transcript of every conversation enhanced with helpful links, |
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