Game Changer season 8 has wrapped, meaning Dropout subscribers will have to wait until next spring to see what ways host and company CEO Sam Reich will torture his stable of comedians next. Reich has told Polygon before how he hopes to still be hosting Game Changer in his 60s, meaning Reich and co. will have to come up with quite a few new games if they want the show to last another couple of decades. Repeating games would make that task easy, and season 8 already proved that Game Changer has a perennial game samer on its hands: “Rulette.” However, in a new interview with Polygon, Reich says he’s “not convinced” “Rulette” is made for the long haul.
First played in season 7 with Jeremy Culhane, Anna Garcia, and Oscar Montoya, “Rulette” is ripe for chaos. Players wear velcro suits that get dotted with random rules they receive after spinning a giant, The Price Is Right-style wheel. They’re forced to obey those rules lest they lose points (rules might include being extra polite or not being able to use curse words).
Over on the r/Dropout and r/GameChangerTV subreddits, fans desired more “Rulette,” with some hoping it would turn into a full spinoff series. They partially got their wish with season 8’s game samer “Rulette 2,” which returns Garcia and teams her with Demi Adejuyigbe and Josh Ruben. The sequel is maybe even more chaotic than the first “Rulette,” and is easily one of the season’s best episodes. It’s no surprise fans called for even more “Rulette” after its second appearance, with someone saying they’d “pop a blood vessel” if it doesn’t spin off as a new show. (Sorry, friend — I don’t have good news for you.)
Reich has seen the demand for a “Rulette” show, but he’s not necessarily sold on the idea. “I’m not convinced that ‘Rulette’ doesn’t become repetitive once you’ve seen 10 episodes,” he says. “But, man, is it fun every time we do it.” He notes Josh Ruben’s “crashout” at the end of “Rulette 2” was one of his favorite moments from Season 8.
Reich and the Game Changer crew haven’t been shy about bringing back specific games, like “Sam Says.” “Make Some Noise” was also played a few times before being spun off into its own show. “Crowd Control” didn’t even have the chance to return as a game samer; its spinoff show was filmed before the Game Changer episode even aired.
When contemplating what games should return, Reich and his fellow producers have several questions they need to answer when examining the games.
“Most importantly, is this scalable? Is it still exciting after you’ve seen seven episodes of it?” Reich explains. “And that could do with the Game Changer episode’s popularity, but it could also do with, how different would these episodes be from each other? Or how repetitive?”
If every episode starts to feel repetitive — like Reich’s worry with more “Rulette” — it likely won’t work as its own show. Reich also has to consider the magic and spontaneity of comedy: “Do we feel like we captured alchemy here? The fact that the Game Changer episode was so good — was it lightning in a bottle? Or is it, by contrast to point number one, repeatable?”
Take Make Some Noise. It’s improv comedy in its simplest form, and endlessly repeatable. The “alchemy” of an episode comes from the groupings of comedians, and no two groups ever feel the same. Even returning groups like the Noise Boys (Brennen Lee Mulligan, Zac Oyama, and Ruben) never grow stale.
“Does this represent something on Dropout that we don’t have already?” is the last question Reich ponders. For “Rulette,” the answer might be no — play it too many times, and it might feel too close to the intersection of Game Changer and Make Some Noise.
‘I want Dropout to be really all over the place’
It’s been a year since Dropout launched a brand-new show in Crowd Control, but Reich promises more ideas and shows are “in the queue […] I just like it when we can do stuff that feels terrifyingly unique.”
With Make Some Noise and everything else Dropout has going on, like its first licensed content and a board game Kickstarter, Reich’s goal for the company remains clear.
“As far as Dropout is concerned, I want Dropout to be really all over the place in terms of what it’s trying.”