Hello internet. I'm your new host, Tomito Pet. I can't wait to show you all the new features. I just need you to do one tiny thing for me.

Hit that subscribe button. It will allow me to get the most out of all these wonderful features.

Thank you so much.

We are going to have so much fun together.

Everlasting fun. I'm going to be here. Hello internet. Welcome to Game Theory, the show that's downloaded too many viruses in the name of content.

Dear theorists, do you remember those weird desktop assistants we used to have back in the early 2000s,

like Rover or Clippy? No am I kidding? Of course you don't. That was 24 years ago. Basically ancient history and internet years.

Oh no, I'm old aren't I? But man, these things were weird. They were these little animated characters that would hang out on your desktop and were designed to make your new-fangled computer seem a little less intimidating.

They talked to you, helped you sort files, and they'd even sass you when you spelled something wrong.

Yes, Clippy, I know Ban, Ban, isn't a real word.

I don't like it either.

Let me do my job!

But the most iconic for me was the infamous Bonzy Buddy.

Once it's stored, a small purple gorilla would appear on your screen and tell jokes and he would also

manage your downloads and if you couldn't hear those quotation marks by manage I mean

it would secretly download software onto your computer and then upload data to the developer's servers.

Turns out, this thing was nothing more than a glorified piece of spyware.

And so, it was shut down by the FTC in 2004.

After that, the world was safe from published malware icons.

That was, until 202323 and we were all cursed with a brand new

desktop assistant, Canito Pet. Okay, so Canito Pet isn't actually a desktop assistant.

It's a game, hence, you know, game theory. But it is riffing off those old

...