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For a moment, Dropout CEO and Game Changer host Sam Reich wondered if he could get away with not going to Topeka, Kansas.
The Game Changer season 8 episode “What’s the Catch” starts as if the episode is all about handing out prizes, but those prizes quickly get a “catch” that turns them into punishments. At one point, one of contestant Jacob Wysocki’s “prizes” turns into a private improv show where Sam drives him around. Eventually, it gets the catch of having to take place in Topeka, Kansas, and suddenly the tormentor also becomes the tormented. Reich and Wysocki are forced on a trip to Topeka for the most random improv show inside their rented car.
“There was a moment between Jacob and I after the fact where we talked about faking it,” Reich tells Polygon.
Dropout considered just pretending to go to Kansas for the bit, but worried that the Game Changer audience would know. Ultimately, Reich decided not to go down that path.
“I care about authenticity more than I prioritize a lot of other things,” Reich says. “I want for us to put on screen what actually happened.”
Despite it being an “absolute waste of time” for Dropout’s CEO to fly to middle-of-nowhere Kansas for a comedic bit, Reich knew he had to do it. “We’ve got no other choice,” he acknowledges. True to a midwest experience, Reich and Wysocki’s return trip was impacted by tornadoes in the area. But, hey, at least they got to see two dogs hanging out with a pig.
That Topeka trip was one of Reich’s favorite moments from Game Changer season 8. Other highlights include Lou Wilson’s dynamic with Phil, the random bystander, in “Don’t Wake Standards & Practices”; Josh’s crashout in “Rulette 2”; bringing in Ron Perlman for “Night Shift”; and all of “Count the Rice,” which is one of Reich’s “favorite episodes we’ve ever done.”
But Reich doesn’t have a ton of time to reminisce. As the very public-facing company CEO and the host of two of its marquee shows, Game Changer and Make Some Noise, he is a very busy man.
“There’s no off position on the content switch,” he says. “We must feed the beast at all times.”
Dropout’s content is all about comedy, and Game Changer is a shining example of that. A lot of its comedy comes from hilarious comedians just being their hilarious selves, but also from them learning, playing, and ultimately breaking the games Reich and crew throw their way.
“By the time we lob [a game] up for the players, there’s only so much that we can do to affect the outcome,” Reich says.
He describes himself as a perfectionist, and Game Changer is great for allowing him to get away from those perfectionist impulses.
“If I had a career in scripted [entertainment], I would be holding on so much more tightly to like the idea of perfection. Here, I just can’t,” Reich says. “The reason why the show is good for me is because it can’t be perfect.”
Game Changer has evolved over the years, and flows between two different principles: performance art and game design. Reich points to “Don’t Cry” and “Who Wants to Be Jacob Wysocki” as “pieces of performance art that we dressed up like games.” Going into season 8, Reich wanted to “flex” what he now knows about game design, and that really shines through in an episode like “Count the Rice,” which layers new, unexpected game mechanics at every turn as players discover they have to lose at each element before they can win the whole game in the end.
Sam Reich teases Game Changer season 9
The show’s ninth season starts filming in October, and Reich calls it “an acid trip” with a few games that the team has been wanting to do for a while.
“Some of them are just unexplainable,” he says. “We greenlit ideas that we have felt were too weird to do for so many seasons.” (Too weird? For Dropout? I don’t believe it.)
Reich considers himself very lucky with how much room he has to experiment and try out new ideas in Game Changer. Though every episode having to be something different poses a challenge, he has plenty of room to tackle that challenge, resulting in some off-the-wall games. “They’re really gonna test the audience’s weirdness appetite.”
Season 9 may swing back in the performance art direction for its episodes, but they’ll still be about games.
“They’re just really peculiar,” Reich says. “Surreal, in one word.”
