A nostalgic trip to the past with 'Good Game, No Rematch'

I finished listening to the audiobook version of Mike Drucker's Good Game, No Rematch this week (read by the author himself), and it's a hilarious look at how video games shaped his life.

As someone who has loosely followed Drucker's comedy career over the last decade, it makes me really proud to see him publish this book and appear on late-night TV — but the funny thing is I don't really know him that well.

I first crossed paths with Drucker when he was working at IGN as a writer for a YouTube-based talk show, Up at Noon, around 2012 to 2013. I was just out of college and only recently figured out that I wanted to write about games for a living. Up at Noon was filmed with a live audience, and IGN would send out an online form every week for people to sign up.

I was part of a group of about a dozen or so people who'd always be there, and it was fun to have Drucker, Greg Miller, Brian Altano and other IGN folks talk to us while they put the show together. I'm sure it was stressful – Drucker says as much during the IGN chapter of the book – but it always looked like they had a blast working together. And that just convinced me even more that I'd made the right decision to pursue games writing.

No matter how I felt on a given week (and there were a lot of bad weeks as I struggled to get my foot into the industry), I knew I could always rely on Up at Noon to lift my spirits. I got to know the hosts, made new friends with the other folks in the audience, and sometimes met the developers and voice actors who were interviewed for the show.

My favorite moment: When I once showed up late to a taping, and inadvertently interrupted one of their comedy sketches. But instead of taking my seat in the audience like I usually did, Greg scolded me and slapped me pretty hard on camera. (Don't worry, I ended up getting my revenge just a few minutes later when I was given the chance to slap him back. Fun times!)

After Drucker left IGN to work for some high-profile comedy shows, I'd see his byline pop up on gaming essays, or in the credits of an award show like the DICE Awards. His gaming jokes are always sharp and brutal, and he takes his self-deprecating humor so far that sometimes you wonder if he's actually okay (he seems like it). I was always happy to recognize his work at random places over the years.

When I went to New York City in 2024 to visit some family, I stopped by the Upright Citizens Brigade to check out a few comedy shows, and to my surprise, Drucker was performing that night. It felt like a full circle moment in a way, seeing him work on the other side of the country after all these years.

All this to say: check out Good Game, No Rematch! There's a lot of funny stories about his time at Nintendo, his journey through the comedy scene, and a very touching chapter about a close friend of his – a comedian who I also followed on social media and had a few small interactions with – that floored me because I never knew her full story.