It's the wrong button. I hit the run button. Tam. Let's go
there, there we go. It's the internet. You're busy. Let's do
this for December fifteenth, twenty twenty three. For the next hour or so,
let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Games Morning's Live
with Me Jeff Grubb. Today, PlayStation canceled one of its few publicly announced
projects, and the Game Awards set a new record. But first, please
join me and welcome me today's co host the Game Mess Mornings. It's tamor
Husseining everybody. Tam, how are you doing. I'm here. I am
ready for Dregs Day. I'm always ready for Dregs Day. I am the
dreg We are together, we drags. We are drags and I forever shall
drag. Yeah, listen to Judge Dregs. Judge Dregs. I want that
aren't real bad? Everybody get that as Tam, please immediately. Yeah,
you know, there is like the big story today and then everything else Dregs
Day. It's how it goes sometimes. We'll get into all of it pretty
soon, but we're wrapping up the year. I think all of our Game
of the Year content is behind us. Over Game Spot as well. I
saw you guys hand the award to the Valerian guys. That was really that
was a really nice moment. I'm glad you were able to do that.
But are you like, okay now I can play what I want or are
you still catching up on games that you feel you want to play from this
year? Man? So I am still doing a little bit of both.
So there's a bunch of games that I know that I would want to sink
way more time into. Like Pizza Tower. I only played a little bit.
I got enough of it to make a good kind of like, uh
have a good understanding of it, so I can factor into end of your
discussions. But I just need that random Stimps game in my life a bit
more that. I also want to go and finish up yause the guide in
the Man Who Raised His Name. I want to finish that up. I
still haven't. I've still got bits of Lives of p that I need to
wrap up as well that I want to do. So I'm playing a mixture
of games I want to. I want to tick off some major ones to
say, I might try and finish Tears of the Kingdom. Where Where Where
did you leave that off at I fell off like I did that thing,
and I can't stop myself from doing it. But I know it's why it
always kills it for me. I don't stick to the main the critical path,
the golden path, and I think that's why I burn out pretty quickly.
I end up doing a lot of the other things where it's like,
oh, I'm going to unlock all the towers before i even go to the
first you know, I'm going to bring up all of these seeds first,
and then by the time it's like by the time I'm ready to play,
I'm like, I'm done with this, man. Yeah, you have to
just embrace the the op like in Pigment for the Dan Door is like,
oh, optimizing your perfect play in Tears of the Kingdom, you have to
play the exact opposite. You just got to take it as it comes and
go with the flow a little bit there. And that means, oh,
you have an idea about what you're going to do when you get distracted,
go do that thing, and then use that to bring you back to the
critical path. That's definitely true. I think I got two or three of
the tiers or memories or whatever the hell they were called. Yeah, I
did two of the dungeons getting the tears. Those memories through the tiers is
the thing. I do recommend everyone at least try to do that because that
will kind of keep you on a straight and arrow a little bit. And
I like the story that gets portrayed there. I think there's some really cool
moments and then that culminates at the end with the one of the better momentes
and Zelda. It's really emotional, I'll say, at the very least.
Yeah, the thing that I got called up in was the then Undersea.
Yes, the underground is just what I call it. Yes, Yeah,
I ended up exploring that way too much. Yeah. It's like our our
friend, well, I'm sure you know him, Andrew Goldfarb who works Sucker
Punch. He he basically completed the game without touching the main question before starting
it, so he had everything and then he started the main quest and it
was weird for him. He's like, I've already done this, what are
you talking about? Identitly had some moments like that where I'm like, I've
been there and did that whole thing that you're trying to tell me you and
they're like, oh, okay, well then I guess just go talk to
this person. All right, Yeah, I wish I could live that life,
but yeah, I'm I want to play a bit of that. There's
a bunch of other games that I want to play. I also just want
to read a bit. And yeah, I've got a pile up of books,
and I've got anime that I need to watch still night in chat,
says Kirie and Tim actually have a thing in common, but no spiders.
I know what that thing is. We've never done crimes. It's right,
I's ever done crime, and its little angels is how we describe both of
you. M hm uh, you know what. Let's explain what we do
here most weekdays, I, Jeff Gravel, help piece your gaming life back
together. That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting.
For all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide expert
who will make me look smart. If you were watching live on twitch,
welcome, You can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by search
for Game This Morning, or find the RSS on giant bomb dot com.
You can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube Hello YouTube,
YouTube All right, We got a lot to get into, so let's
start the morning mess with the Last of Us multiplayer game has been canceled.
Naughty Dog says it will focus on single player games. This comes from Mark
Delaney at GameSpot. The Last of US multiplayer project, which Naughty Dog says
it had been calling the Last of Us Online internally, has been canceled.
The studio revealed the news in a blog post, citing the game's ambitious ambitions
as being so big that it would require the full attention of the studio,
thereby taking any part of the team off of narrative driven single player games,
the likes of which have been Naughty Dog's mo up to this point. Here's
a quote. In ramping up the full production, the massive scope of our
ambition became clear. The statement reads, in part, to release and support
the Last US Online, we'd have to put all of our studios resources behind
supporting post launch content for years to come, severely impacting development on future single
player games. So we had two paths in front of us become a solely
live service game studio, or continue to focus on single player narrative games that
have to find Naughty Dog's heritage obviously, tam they chose to go with the
single player games. If that's your choice, that's probably the right decision.
At a certain point you're like, man, how do you kind of force
yourself into this corner? And I get that a little bit as well,
But what do you think about all this? I mean, it makes perfect
sense. The thing that has me on edge is did they scale up to
make this game? And does that mean that now that they're canceled it,
they need to scale back down hopefully now? And what we mean by that
is will there be layoffs for this? Yeah? And right now it's hot
for video game developers and people working there, as in people are getting laid
off a lot. This is the kind of time of year where people do
get laid off unfortunately. Yeah, and that a few companies, some companies
try and do it quietly and hide that layoff under different other news or in
between other news. So this is definitely want to keep an eye on.
My hope is that there are no layoffs and that Naughty Dog Studio, as
big as it is and is as successful as it is, is able to
retain the talent it brought on and pivot it into making the games that they
say that they are special they are specialists at making and the fans want and
if that is the case, then I think this is a pretty good assessment
it takes. It shows a measure of self reflection that very few other developers
and publishers have. Usually we see developers doubling down. And there's a good
chance where when you see a games as a service live service thing happening,
most people can look at that, just even on paper, and go that's
probably not gonna work. Man. Yeah. And the fact that they've looked
at their game which could have worked. I'm sure of all the life service
games, Last of Us Online would have been one that popped off pretty hard
for a while and they went, yeah, but what means that we won't
be able to do this other thing that we really want to do and really
are good at doing. And let's be clear, Sony sees a value,
a business value in letting Naughty Dog do that, because they don't just make
single player games that they release and then they're done. They make single player
games that they released that impact the culture of video games and then extend beyond
video games themselves. HBO's Last of Us TV series huge for them now untried
it was a movie not necessarily huge, but nevertheless more immediate impact. They
would rather get that out of Naughty Dog and not really kind of upset the
c's right now then risks so much on a life service game. I think
that's that's right. I agree that if this is the choice you're facing,
this is the decision you have to make the cultural impact of those games the
sort of you know, posterification. You could put those games on posters for
your PlayStation five, on the sides of buses and it will make a big
impact. And you're kind of rolling the dice with an online live service game
about whether or not that's going to become the thing you need it to be.
And in order to see if that can happen, They're right, they
would have to dedicate a ton of resources to that. It would be all
consuming, and I think that's probably what Bungeie came and told them, like,
hey, the game you have is fun, but you're not accounting for
doing things the Naughty Dog way for a live service game has a whole other
implications than doing it for a game that you're going to put out as a
product, and you can eventually put behind you. Yes, yes, the
Last of Us part too takes a ton of years to make you guys,
took a very long time of that. It costs a lot of money.
Yeah, but it's still very different because once you put that out, Yeah,
there's some updates, you'll have some DLC down the line, sure,
but you are able to look ahead in a way you just won't be able
to do. This thing will be an anchor around your neck, and that's
a risk of its own. Even at this point, even after all this
investment. You know, we could say what took them so long to come
to this decision? You're right, A lot of other developers, a lot
of other publishers would have just pushed through it, would have put it out
there and would have been like, man, we should have canceled this earlier.
We should have just abandoned this when we really knew what it was going
to take. But we were like, maybe maybe maybe they're not saying maybe
here they know what works for them, And I think that's pretty good now.
I think you know. The other question is, man, why don't
we live in a world where a multiplayer mode in the Last of Us,
the way it worked previously, could just could have just happened. Why aren't
we getting those anymore? And I mean we get that as well, But
what do you think, Tam, Yeah, I mean again, like let's
look back at what that multiplayer mode was. It was fun, it was
a surprise for a lot of people, but in terms of like business return,
it wasn't super great and it had like a limited lifespan at the risk
of devaluing, you know, the work and the love that people have.
I enjoyed factions or whatever it was. It's called factions, right, I
think, Yeah, I enjoyed that for a while too, but they were
very much of an era where multiplayer was tacked on to take a box to
a lot of those and some of them were really good as in factions,
but some of them are like whatever, like they were just there just to
be there. And we got lucky with factions and then that is what people
really like, uh, caught onto and like really hitch their wagon term like
we want more of this that I don't think can happen these days because it's
a similar thing, like you have to set up a kind of separate team
to work on that stuff or even I remember when this was happening there were
people would out source the multiplayer mode other developers, right right, And and
I don't think that we're in a kind of landscape of development where that's feasible
unless you are collaborating in a meaningful way and are going to have a future
path on this multiplayer mode. Throw Away multiplayer modes are a thing of the
past these days. You either commit or you don't. And if you commit,
you are committing for potentially forever and into that thing, because if it
succeeds, that's all people are gonna want. The business model dictates that that
is what people will chase, like as in the on the kind of like
corporate side, because a successful live service game is a constant stream of money,
which when you tell them, all right, we're done with live service
now, that's a hard thing to pivot away from. Like you you're going
to be stuck in that world forever. So you don't do one of these
and then peace out for a little bit. I feel like you have to
commit entirely. It kind of sucks, But yeah, those kind of like
it's weird. I have a weird nostalgic fondness for throw away multiplayer mode.
Now I think about the remember the Biostruck one yep, that was a metrid
prime to had the multiplayer mode kind of one. Melgi had themt bit and
we get and we get like you're right, like back then it was it
was it was checking a box. It was also trying to stem people from
returning the game or not returning it. But like selling it used on the
secondary market. Oh, they're gonna play it a little bit longer, and
that increases our profits because that means there's fewer secondary games or second hand games
on the market, so more people are buying it new. Uh, they
were doing that math, but now they're like the calculus is, do we
spend a lot of money, a lot more money that it would cost today
to make a mode like that than it did back then to try to stop
people from selling their game, or do we try to make it a live
service mode separate from everything that can make you know, ideally, if it
pops off infinite money. And so they're looking at that and it's in that
world. Even just doing these modes at all anymore, it doesn't make a
lot of sense adding that huge extra cost having to outsource to teams, and
there's not like a lot of teams out there, Like, there's just not
a list of people who are like, oh, we're not doing anything,
sure you want to come hire us? It's like, no, you are
competing for their time and they've got five other projects they're working on. So
yeah, we just live in a world where that stuff doesn't make a lot
of sense anymore. Metric Prime four mean comes out, you know whenever,
that's not going to have a multiplayer mode in it, right, Tam,
I don't think so. I think Nintendo is going to be very very careful
about the games that they add multiplayer to these days. Yep. And I
just again, like Metro Prime, I feel like also was one of those
games where it's like, wouldn't it be nice? Everyone expects us, let's
do it, but actually it had very little impact. It was like fun
for a laugh. But yeah, I don't think so. I think I
think that game has had enough of a rocky road that they don't want to
add more pitfalls to it. Agreed for sure. I guess the last few
things here with the Naughty Dog, what do they what's the next game for
them? Do you think it's Last of Us Part three? I think it's
a mixture of Last of Us and Uncharted where Nathan Drake gets infected by other
virus and uh you already here first? Everybody go right the story? Yeah,
I would. I would love to see them do something completely you know,
different. I think they probably have that in the works, right,
something completely different that's probably in the world. Yeah. I like a character
driven I just don't know what like. I Initially I was like sci fi,
but I'm just too much right now. And then I was like,
they could probably pull off a really interesting like Game of Thrones style game in
FANTASYE we got so much of that, I don't know. Make a car
racer. There we go. That's what I really wanted. Did they were
they? Were they the ones that made Crash Team Racing or did they outsource
that? I don't think that that was them. Let me Crash Team Racing
again. It's pretty good. I might be wrong. I have no member.
I do not know for sure at all. Oh it was it was
by them? Wow? Okay, all right, we'll follow it up Crash
Team Racing too. Design of designed by Evan Wells. Autist Barb brofel Brucetraani
is on this. Bring it back. Go call Phil Spencer and say we
need Crash back to make Crash Team Racing too. Crash Team Racing, Phil
Spencer. Yeah, they own Crash now, right, Yeah, yep,
Jesus get on this. Yeah, okay, give us I I yeah,
I don't know what they're gonna do, but I would listen. I would
welcome a kart racer. Let's make it happen. I guess I won't be
surprised if the next game for them actually is the last was Part three,
just because that ends up being like the Path of Least Resistance at a certain
point. But I think they will have something new and different ready to go,
not soon after that, maybe even before. We'll see, all right,
next story. The Game Awards set a new viewership record. We'll stop
out. Royal two. There you go. Did you like that first one?
I don't know, absolutely good one. There you go. They did
say that like, for all the work they did for this, they applied
like it will improve the technology of our games going forward, But they didn't
say like, oh, we're going to use this to make a different kind
of multiplayer mode. They made it sound like they're not going to do anything
multiplayer at all going forward. So yeah, uh, all right, Yeah,
the Game Awards set of viewership record. This is from Jonas Maki at
Game Reactor. If you were watching the Game Awards last week, you weren't
alone. As revealed by the founder, producer, and host Jeff Keeley,
this was actually the most watched the Game Awards ever, with a whopping one
hundred and eighteen million global live streams. Amongst the highlights was Sega delivering the
return of several Leagues, legacy franchises, Kojima taking the stage for OD and
more. Yeah. I mean you cannot deny the success of getting eyeballs on
game trailers and the awards that Jeff keey is accomplished here, right, Like
that's a huge, huge number. Yeah, my man knows what he's doing,
and it is let's be real for a little bit, Like there has
been criticisms. Everyone's got criticisms of the Game Awards, and I'm going to
say some stuff that might sound like I'm defending what Jeff did, and I'm
not trying to defend it. I've made my position very clear on it.
I put up an article yesterday which was like involves over three hundred developers quoted
in it, but like, thank you. I appreciate it, but like
Jeff is very, very receptive to feedback. That's one thing that I can
very confidently say about him. And his heart is also in the right place.
And now everyone calls him the Pope and all that kind of stuff.
He I have. I have spoken to him a few times. I have
seen other people speak to him. I have seen I've spoken to people who
have worked with him on the Game Awards, and everyone says he gives a
shit about this stuff. So baseline, I feel like he's he is aware
of what has happened to this year. I also feel like he is the
person who has the best grasp of what it takes to reach these numbers.
And unfortunately, or maybe not unfortunately, but like the realities of the situation
is everything that you see and chances are pissing you off, is what needs
to happen to make this kind of story happen, Like this record viewership is
because in part of factors like having celebrities that are annoying to us and that
kind of stuff, the tricky part is finding the balance and making it better.
That's the thing where it's That's the thing where I know Jeff is probably
like shit, I need to focus a bit more on that. And and
that is I think once it's never going to be perfect. It will never
be perfect when we when we say when we let the developers talk for too
long, I remember this. I've seen it in other developer in other awards
ceremonies. I have seen people go with these people are talking too long,
show me something, of course. I mean that was with what's the name
from God of War the year before Chris Judge, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then when they when they show Austrailers, the people are like,
you know, rightly, so let developer speak. I think there's it needs
to be a balance. It's hard to find. I think Jeff is going
to keep trying to find it, and I probably he's probably going to make
mistakes going forward. For me, the important thing is that he keeps at
it and the team keeps at it. Because I talked about it on spot
on it the game was has an important place now more than ever that E
three is gone, and like you can see the impact that it has it
had and it could potentially have when stories like this come out where it's like
record viewers. You know, there were one hundred and eighteen million people globally
live streaming this. That is a lot of potential for the video game industry
to do good. We just have to find a way to make it a
little less serving of others and a little more of ourselves a bit and showing
ourselves. I say ourselves as if I make the games, but like I'm
speaking as a voice for people who make the games, as someone who loves
those games and the work they do, making them feel a little more special
than Anthony Mackie or seemingly talking about his fucking broken leg. I don't give
a shit about it, yep, that kind of stuff. Yeah, and
I think I agree. I think the shape it's like a puddle, right,
we like look at the puddle. If you were like a puddle suddenly
came a lot to life, it would be like, oh my god,
it's a miracle. This thing had to be shaped exactly like this for me
to be like this. And it's like, no, that's not how it
works. Things sort of just water just fills in the space and it takes
the shape of what it needs to take to exist, and it's that's the
game Awards is just sort of filling in the space. It needs to fill
in to be what it needs to be to be financially feasible and to get
eyeballs. It just is almost nature taking its course at a certain point.
So the thing where it's like the balance absolutely. So I'm not saying don't
have simuli up there, maybe not Semulu, but but but if you do
have a celebrity up there, just put a game developer next to them,
and I think for me, that's like half the battle one already. So
yeah, and I agree. The reason we can keep saying these criticisms and
not feel like it's hopeless is that Jeff Keey does listen. I've also spoken
to him, but he's like asked for feedback before, and it's like,
yeah, most people don't do that, and you do see year to year
he implements and sometimes he overcorrects, and I think that's kind of what happened
this year, over correcting on the length of the speeches and being worried about
keeping a good pacing to the show, something that is a difficult thing to
pull off. So I also like feel like the I like it when celebrities
come up and they talk about the games that they like. Yes, well
it's it's never meaningful in any way. Right. The person who, like
Jordan Peel, came up right and he was speaking to Kajima. I am
on record as being a fucking Kajima pervert, like I love everything he does.
I vibe with his work, you know, I am a fan of
Kajima. Jordan Pill comes up. I'm like, oh shit, Jordan Peele.
They're doing that thing that they were gonna do it. And then they
talk and I cannot tell you how empty those words are. They literally said
nothing, and they were pointing at each other and going, this guy,
man, this guy. It's like, you don't need to tell me that
Kajima is is. The guy is one hundred and thirty million people out there
or whatever listening, But you also haven't told them anything about Kajima, Like
they don't talk about it. The person who, I mean, like the
best he got was like talking about Metal Solid two, but like, tell
me why, like speak about why this partnership is good instead of just like,
yeah, man, we're gonna do partnership. It's gonna be sick,
it's gonna be awesome. You had nothing interesting say. It was. This
was just a stunt, and that's fine, you can have a stunt,
but don't have a stunt for ten minutes. The most impactful, the most
impactful celebrity talking about their video game history moment was Abbo Bucker Salim, who
showed off his new game. And he obviously is known by knows for Raised
by Wolves and and he's in Game of Thrones, I believe, And he's
on a bunch of different things, right, and that is the thing that
was the moment for us. That was like, oh, that was awesome.
He was in tears and like talking about video games and how he loved
them, and it was meaningful. Said we're looking for meaning moment. Yeah,
yeah, that was a good use of celebrities. So good on Jeff
for making that happen and giving them platform we don't need. We don't need,
we don't need Jordan Peel glazing up ka and we don't need like maybe,
like you know, twelve celebrities. He maybe pair it back a little
bit. But again, if you don't want to pair it back, Jeff,
that's fine. Just put developers on the stage too, that's all.
There are interesting developers. We're worried about them being boring. Well, you
have the celebrity next to them, they could be entertaining and let the developer
be boring up there. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Well,
again, there's a very c there is a path to improvement that I
know Jeff can see and is always looking for, right and I am extremely
hopeful that the next year will be much better balanced. Again, it's not
going to be perfect. We'll find something else to complain about, and that's
good. That's a curse Jeff has placed on himself, but I know that
he'll improve it. The other side of things, in terms of the games
getting revealed, getting eyeballs on that stuff, unmitigated success. No caveats there
are. It works exactly as advertised to the people who are paying to get
their stuff in that show, and it seems clearly worth it. Everyone who
I've asked about it sort of on background be like, hey, is it
worth it? Like yes, we tell like I'll talk to pr like they
say, we tell all our clients if you have a chance to put something
in the game awards, it's worth it, go for it. Yeah,
it could be expensive, but it's it's an expense that makes a lot of
sense in a lot of ways. So on that side of things, it
was I think a lot of the ouncements were very impressive and entertaining and exciting,
so it's like, yeah, all that stuff's working. This really does
feel like Winter e three, and the criticisms can be reserved for the game
awards side of things. Speaking of like getting attention by being in the game
awards, Alan Wake two has sold an estimated eight hundred and fifty thousand copies
on console. This comes from Magnus grot Anderson at Game Reactor. Neither Remedy
nor Epic Games have yet to comment on how Alan Wake two has performed in
terms of sales. This could be due to a number of reasons, but
in the absence of official figures, analysts have begun to speculate, and that's
where that number comes from. That comes from Peers Harding Roles, who is
an analyst at Ampere Analysis, who says they estimated it sold around eight hundred
and fifty thousand copies. But we've seen in the past a game do well
at the game Awards and then get a big bump, And I guess that's
my question here. You think, like we're going to see alan Wake two
kind of continue to have a lot of momentum coming out of the end of
the year. I think it's gonna have a little momentum going forward. I
just did like a quick search and Alan Wake two was released in Europe on
like twenty May twenty ten, and then we have a story in March of
twenty fifteen where it had reached four point five million units for sale, and
it's like a different world, right, this game. There are no physical
copies of this game, right, not currently? No? Right, no,
no, no, that's I mean that's a big uphill climb on its
own. Not being on shelves actually does still hurt games a lot. Yeah,
I think that it definitely does. And who knows going forward, We
don't know the details of this deal. Epic has a big hand in that,
yep, and like we want sales to be high, but there's also
factors beyond how much of game sales that that are that there are fact contributing
factors into whether a game is a success, especially for a situation where Epic
is getting involved to publish it, publishing it, it's physical, it's yeah,
they numbers real quick are console only, so this doesn't include however it's
sold on epic. This is estimated for Xbox and PlayStation. Yeah, And
like I'm not saying this is the case, but for epic sales, like
you know, astronomical sales may not be the metric they're interested in. It
may be a case of like epic game store adoption, yes, what you
win for epic game store Yeah yeah, or even like just perception like this
is a major moment for epic games, like as a business to be like,
oh shit, they funded a game that you know would never have else
never else get made, got made, and it popped off and it's award
winning. I definitely feel like it's going to continue to sell and sell very
well. I agree. I wouldn't be surprised if there is I'm speculating entirely
here that there's some sort of like clause in the contract or a time based
kind of agreement in the contract where it's like, after this time has expired,
you can work out a deal with someone to make a physical version of
this, And I don't know, they go to it like a limited run
games or something like that, or another publisher, and I just like,
do you want to puy out the physical version of this? And I probably
will end up. I think that will end up seeing ount Know Wake two
on shelves. Yeah, if they did the ballers Gate three route, where
it's like you can get a physical version that is only as a collector's edition
starting at eighty dollars, I think they could do that with alan Wick two.
I think there's enough adoration for alan Wake that that would appeal to that
audience for sure. But I mean, yeah, I think there will be
a significant bump coming out of the game awards. You know, it didn't
win Game of the Year, but it was on stage a lot. It
did win several awards, and I think that we saw with What It Takes
two right, got to like seven million copies sold or something like that.
Now that's a more affordable game if the price was lower for that one.
But still it's like that that sold really well. I would hope that alan
Way two could have a similar trajectory. Probably not gonna get seven million copies
sold, but if you can like get up there into several million copies,
I think that would be great for this and it deserves it. Yeah,
I've seen a few people asking how does that compare to Control last time?
Like a December ninth twenty twenty. GameSpot has a story that says fifteen months
after launch, it had sold over two million copies, so it took about
fifteen months control to get there. I think this could be two three million
copies in that same timeframe. Yeah. Yeah, And by the time that
story was reported, we were aware of the aw expansion as well, so
they had done some extra stuff to extra work to it. I feel very
confident like that it will continue to sell and it will, you know,
net out to be a huge benefit for them to be this award winning and
exposed on the Game Awards. Yep. And I think the word of mouth
is super positive, and I think that's just going to continue pushing it.
All Right, We're gonna take a quick break. When we get back,
we have a lot more news right after this. All Right, we're back,
and like I said, we've got more news. While it looks like
the Busted GTA Trilogy is much better on mobile. This is from Zack Swizen
at Kotaku. Fans jumping into the newly released mobile ports of Grand Theft Auto
the Trilogy the Definitive Edition games are discovering something surprising. It seems to include
improved visual settings that more closely match the look of the original PlayStation two games,
as well as new bug fixes. That's good news, but folks are
wondering if these improvements will make the leap back to other platforms in the future.
They have not so far. In November, Rockstar Games and Netflix announced
that the highly criticized Definitive editions of GTA three, Vice City, and San
Andreas would be arriving on mobile devices in December. The games would be included
in Netflix Growing Game Library, letting anyone with a subscription access them on iOS
or Android at no extra costs. The reaction was mostly a lot of shrugging
from fans who feel like the Definitive Edition version. So these beloved PS two
era open world games are still in bad shape two years after release on console
and PC, but yeah, people started diving into this and say it looks
better now. The big problem with the Definitive editions in terms of the visuals
TAM was that they seem to use a lot of let's just call them development
assist tools but AI tools that tried to upres many of the textures and the
character models, and it ended up coming out fuzzy on the other side,
and looking pretty rough. Trying to get things back to looking like the ORIGINALPS
two game should be the goal, because you could just upraise a lot of
that stuff the normal way and not lose a ton of the detail, which
they did. So it's nice to hear that this happened. But hopefully this
stuff does come back to the other versions. Do you think that's possible or
Netflix's weirdness going to get in the way here. No, I think it
is a possibility. Whether it actually it happens remains to be seen, but
I would like that. I mean, I think there's a good case for
it to happen, especially given the renewed and I don't want to say renewed
it because I don't think there's every ever a interest in Grand right. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, but like a a kind of reignited nostalgia for those
old games in light of the Grand Theft six trailer, which is popping off
like crazy. I imagine rock Star is thinking we clean up these old games
again, you know. But then again, I'm sure that those versions that
we said were busted sold like one trillion copies probably or whatever. Yeah,
but like a Rockstar has shown it kind of it's slow and kind of like
very far in between. But Rockstar has shown an interest in improving their old
games post fact, post release, so I wouldn't be surprised if it pops
up eventually. The iPhone or whatever Netflix Star approach isn't my chosen way of
playing those games, course, so I do hope that they make their way
back into the other versions of it so I can enjoy them for like an
hour each on a console with a controller or something like that. But yeah,
I don't know. I hope. So there's a little bunch of people
who could be real piste off if that happens. If it doesn't happen,
Yeah, it's the kind of thing where it can never tell. Like rock
Stars very busy making their game right, and so this stuff feels like,
yeah, someone at Rockstar's paying attention to this, but a lot of it's
probably just Take two two k not too but Take two sort of like overseeing
some of these things and like do they just want these things farted out?
And that seemed to be what happened with the Definitive edition this time. Apparently,
a potscoll on Chat says that ex Team BONDI staff members were on a
team that did this specific port and that's why it's better around. That is
interesting. I'm like, oh, that's that's going team Team Bondi is l
E Noir, right, yeah, and that team's no longer going concern,
but yes, so that's that's pretty neat and that does show like, oh,
they maybe found the right people to actually work on it and show some
sort of guidance in terms of stewarding classic Grand Theft Auto games in some way
that wasn't being stewarded before. But yeah, I think Grand Theft Auto is
something that they want to be treated with a certain level of respect, and
that means they need to treat it with a certain level of respect. So
I think you're right. They will backpoard all these improvements in some way in
some time, maybe not right away, and again, who knows what the
deal is, Like Netflix could have some hand in this, and so that
could take some time as well, because it's like, oh Netflix fiels ownership
of this, so six months and then we can port that stuff. That
would be weird, but Netflix is a weird sort of entry into the gaming
space, and so it's hard to predict what that would be. Like.
Ubisoft just to listit a game without warning, and it will kill its servers
next year. This is certain, zachs ys in a Kotaku once again shout
out to Zach. Ubisofts The Crew, which was released in twenty fourteen for
Xbox three, sixty, Xbox one and plays PlayStation four and PC, was
really twenty fourteen. Man, it has been delisted without warning. Its servers
will shut off next year two and because the game is an always online experience,
ubisoftists confirmed that it will become unplayable once that happens. The Crew is
a massive, open world driving game set in a digital but not the scale
recreation of the United States of America. While its narrative was a weird melodrum
had a tale of car gangs and criminals, the real reason to play The
Crew was to go on road trips across the Ubisoft Ivory towers squished but charming
recreation of the USA. Yeah, so they're basically this game. I don't
think you could buy it at all anymore. And and yes, and the
servers are going to shut down here pretty soon the next year. It's like,
yeah, and then the game is just going to go away. Uh.
In an ideal world, tam there is a way to like flip a
switch and make the games like be like, Okay, here's an offline mode
so you can keep playing. This doesn't feel like we're anywhere close to that
being a kind of work that these companies are going to put into it,
right, No, capitalism will never allow that to happen, huh, Like
people will never give up these these kind of like these experiences. Let it's
it's so weird because like, on the one hand, I'm like, who
fucking cares, right, it's the crew. There's the crew to us out
there now, and the crew Motiffests is also out there so you can play
different kind of games. But also there are probably like a people that really
love the Crew and are still super into it right now and really want that
to exist in some way or another, or like people who have nostalgia for
it because they've played it when it came out. But yeah, I do
wish, for preservation's sake, that you know, when it came time,
that they would just like be like, we released this into the world,
good luck, keep it alive, have fun, and and the fact that
they don't do that just means that people who are technically deemed pirates or like
hackers, I will do the work and for them more, more and more.
I'm like God speed you hackers. Thank you for your work, Thank
you for your service. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your
service. These come I'm never gonna sanction it, They'll never do it officially.
So I have nothing but love and support for you who are doing this
stuff. Yep, you are doing the work these companies never would and you
do it just because you love it, and that's some powerful stuff. So
yeah, I'm right there with you. Three D Realms hit with the latest
round of Embracer layoffs. This is from Stephen Mills at Destructoid. According to
three D Realms founder Scott Miller, the Danish development company is the latest to
be hit with layoffs from parent company Embracer Group. Miller confirmed that several sources
from the company told him that at least half of the company had been laid
off. Three D Realms has had quite a few recent releases, including Iron
Fury, Aftershock, Ripout, the Kinderman Remedy, and Kingpin reloaded. Embracer
Group acquire three D Realms in twenty twenty one. This continues the almost weekly
trend of Embraser Group enacting layoffs, with over nine hundred employees losing their jobs
just this year at the hands of Embracer alone. According to an interim report
by Embracer, the layoffs are due to a reduced number of projects across the
board, all while posting a thirteen percent increase in net sales this year.
The Bracer can acquire these nuts, that's what they can. Just jump up
my butt. They are really doing okay, and you fucking lose it and
now we see what it's really about. Also, stop laying people off like
that, you really ip, I will. I will immediately give it like
it's just a hot dog and handshake. Get the work there you go,
Yeah, I'll buy you just to give it to Crystal Dynamics for free.
Yeah, I mean, we know Embracers are fucking mess there there. It's
been a question is and I asked this question because I am I'm a stupid
idiot on the internet that doesn't really know that way, kind of know a
little bit, but like, where were the checks and balances to stop this
from happening? Yeah, Like I get the feeling, or at least I
imagine people will be like everything was above board. They were acquiring you know
these kind of assets through legal means. Where is this setting precedent now?
Like is there the impact of this should at least be used to set precedent
where you know in a similar way that non you know, competition laws exist
to avoid singular companies becoming outsized in power in a certain like field. Why
doesn't that happen in an acquisition based situation that needs to be there now?
Because they Brakeshaw has fucked this industry is industry? Yes, yeah, so
badly that some of those people I would argue should go to jail, like
it is insane. The lives they have ruined is is unbelievable, Like someone
needs to go in there. And this is the only time I'm willing to
support cops, okay, fucking arrests these people, Like we actually would like
to speak to the manager so you can butt them up. I am the
caaren Now let's get our haircut. Let's get in there and see the manager.
But like you know, there's just some like grubby losers at the top,
not you, grubby, greedy, greedy losers like CEO executives at the
top that everything on this investment deal that they were waiting for and bought everything
up like those other people that need to be reprimanded and and like punished for
this because like yeah, like you said, they they they are are crater
in this industry that people will spend years recovering from if at all. Yep,
I mean, we know the answer about why there's no checks and balances,
and when we like just think about it for a second, we know
it's it's because the governments are afraid of getting the way of being like like,
Okay, you started this company, you want to sell to someone else,
I guess you should be allowed to do that, And they're afraid to
be like, well, what's gonna happen next? What about all the people
that work here? And clearly this is the prime example of how it can
go bad and how it can actually be severely detrimental to an overall marketplace.
And yeah, maybe the answer is not to step in, but maybe the
answer is to slow them up a little bit so they could not have swallowed
up so much so quickly, to the point where it's like there was no
plan, especially if things start going wrong, especially if money becomes more more
unaffordable to borrow, and now they're fucked net sales are up thirteen percent.
They've had multiple blockbusters this year, multiple millions selling games embraced or group pass,
and this is where we're at with this company. They're like, this
is a fucking disaster. Between this and like the HBO, like Warner Brothers
stuff where they're just like we've created this. Now what just killer in front
of your eyes? I It's like, what the fuck is happening in this
world? What is going on? This is like capitalism gone just absolutely sick
hole mode on everyone. I don't know, man, it's just terrifying,
Like these corporations need to be stopped. We need Johnny Silverhand. Yeah,
yeah, let's take care of these corpos all right. Over half of Call
of Duty Modern Warfare two players have used the game's accessibility settings. This is
from se Doster at GameSpot. A new blog from Activision details some of Call
of Duty Modern Warfare three's current accessibility settings, and it also provides statistics that
show nearly half of the player base customize their settings using the accessibility options in
last year's Call of Duty Well. The main focus of the blog is to
highlight the accessibility settings from Modern Warfare three. Activision provides a few interesting statistics
for last year's Modern Warfare two, revealing more than half of all players adjusted
the graphical accessibility settings. This includes making changes to motion blur, field of
view, and camera movement. More than forty percent of Modern Warfare two players
customize their dead zone input as well. This year's Modern Warfare three includes the
same accessibility options, but pushes the range of customization even further with brand new
features such as the stick tester for a better adjustment of the analog stick dead
zone input, the graphical high contrast mode, and the low motor strain setting.
Every time anyone complains about adding accessibilities modes, like in reminding, almost
certainly you've used something that would qualify as accessibility right close captions a million things.
Having the ability to invert your stick for me is an accessibility setting.
Yeah, it's just how my brain works. Like that's at a certain points,
if we're adjusting for the way my brain has been built, that's accessibility.
So the idea of expanding it make that, making that more and better
and more inclusive, Clearly that's the way it should be, and it's a
call of duty. Being a prime example of that is fantastic because that's like
the game right, yeah, yeah, like dead zones, like FLV all
this kind of stuff is people take your foot granted as like cool video game
feature. Actually it's like no, those are also helping people and making games
more accessible for them, so get behind it. Like there's no downside to
improving accessibility. There is literally none is It doesn't impact you in any way.
It creates options for other people, and if you don't need it,
you can ignore it. It's not an issue. I'm glad that you know.
I feel like, like you said, a game and a franchise like
quality, you should be leading the way in accessibility because then you know,
it blazes the trail for other developers to do the same and ensure that they
are spending the appropriate amount of time, energy, resources, that kind of
stuff, researching what needs to happen and then implementing it so as a whole,
the industry can move forward and kind of like open its doors to people
from all walks of life to play video games and that just only strengthens the
medium as a whole. Agreed, And I think we'll continue to see the
benefits of it. For me, it's like I'll be playing a game that
has a really good accessibility and or or like it's bigged into the UI at
a certain point where like the way they're presenting information to me, it's like,
oh, they're thinking about people who are better at reading, better at
listening, better at whatever, and they're giving you multiple pathways to learn how
the game works. And for me, as someone severely ADHD, that's a
god send. It's like, Okay, multiple pathways is the only way I
can really get this stuff to be ingrained inside of me. And so it
feels like, Okay, if it's benefiting the one percent of people that you're
like, oh, why are we doing this? Only one percent of players
are like this, I guarantee it's making the game better for you as well.
And important to remember final store here, it's to quick you know.
Heads up Sweak a game is now available for Nintendo Switch Online members as a
game trial. If you want to try out that thing that everyone's been talking
about and everyone's been playing on Twitch, you could just go try it now.
It's going to be I think it's a game trap weekend. I guarantee
this is what's going to happen when you download and play. You're going to
play it and go like yes, all right again and then and then you're
playing more and be like yes, yes, good, yeah, dancing like
super into it suddenly out of nowhere. So but I'm gonna try it.
I have not played it yet, so I'm going to look into this.
It's fine, Like, I don't know what the entire WA is losing this
shit over. I'm a huge lover of Wamelons as well, Like, so
I have a big guy I am. I am a mark for this.
Yeah, And I was like, audience, yeah it's me. I'm like,
yeah, it's all right. It was fun chances that's how he feels
about connections connected. I like connections a lot, but we definitely maybe pucked
it up a bit more than it needed. All right. Poll question,
let's bring that up. This is from yesterday. Do you want a multiplayer
Spider Verse game from Insomniac in addition to Spider Man three and Wolverine? Nineteen
percent said yes, eighty one percent said no. Tam, the rumors are
maybe that Spider Verse thing that's in the leaked documentation out of Insomniac could be
referring to the multiplayer project that Insomniac says it is working on Somnia needs to
have a word with NOI dogs see what's going on? Yeah, see how
that grows for you? Like on paper, makes sense? I think,
I yeah, maybe we don't need that. You don't need to do it.
I think it could work. But stop making live service games. Yeah,
so stop so much destiny. Look at Bungeee is probably one of the
most successful ones. They're getting their ass is clapped right now, and it's
just like, why is everyone just so set on this ship? Man?
You'll hands to every developer out there, You'll never be Fortnite. Take it
from me. Trust now. You don't know me, I don't know you.
You probably don't need to trust me. But listen, you're never going
to be for you look at a Fortnite and we're going to be that.
You know you can't. Actually it's only one. When water Warcraft was Kingship,
no one could be water Warcraft yep, okay, And now Fortnite is
Kingship. No one's going to be Fortnite. You're done, you're cook.
Don't try it, all right? That does for the last time's Paul,
We have a new pole put up here in a second. In the meantime,
though, before we get to that, Tam, what do you have
going on? What do you want to tell the people? Where can they
find you on the internet? All that good stuff. People, I think
thank you're very pretty. I think you smell nice. I think you're very
smart, and I think you should be kind to yourself and love yourself.
What we do we have going on? We are going to be playing Lethal
Company, Yes we are, and that is going to be a mess.
I imagine that should be fun. So we're gonna do that a bit later
on. And then we also have bomb Costs for Vengeance happening this afternoon,
and that is gonna be a fun one. You should tune in for that.
Yeah, it's gonna be our our music episode. That reminds me I
got a turbushon if you're listening, add the Pizza Tower theme song in there.
Yeah, it's some of the best music of the year for sure.
We got we got the big Dog Sean handling it. It's gonna be fun.
Yep, it's gonna be a good time. Yeah, packed as to
day. Yeah, thank you. Sean is here. Great. Let's see
what was gonna mention? Oh yes, Marino and Chad just said that community
Voting for Game of the Year will start on Monday. Make sure you check
that out. I think that it happens on the forums, right Marino,
So sign in, go ahead and do some voting there. Mike is going
to be doing his part of uh uh the what's the what's our charity thing?
God, I can't slip my mind. Thank you, extra Life.
He's gonna be doing his Extra Life stream tomorrow. It's going to be Kingdom
mixed. Miss. I think he's basically Kingdom Hearts for a Yeah, yeah,
there it is. No, that's how I feel too. I agree.
Uh. We're gonna be publishing guest lists fairly soon as well. Right,
Guest lists are coming in hot and heavy, and those will begin getting
put up maybe at the end of next week, but definitely over the holidays,
So look out for that. When you see those, make sure you
share them everywhere so that it's floods of the internet. Yeah, there's there's
some fun fun friends. Uh uh that's sent over there was so far,
so it'll be good now, all right, I think that's gonna do it.
Uh. In an hour from now is when we're gonna start lethal companies,
So we'll rate somebody here in a second. Everybody, if you're watching
live uh. In the meantime, though, Tam, thank you so much
for watching U. Sorry, know what's up. Someone called Todd Howard just
appeared in the chats. Todd Howard was in the chat earlier answering questions and
God, They're like, why why did you add maps the game earlier?
And Todd says the astronauts didn't land on the moon with maps, which I
actually don't think it's true. I really love and people role playing the Yeah
we got on my other podcast, I got people give me super chats and
it's Jim Ryan and Shiroboto and they like snipe back and forth with each other.
I think it might be the same person. The role playing is fantastic.
Everyone to thank Todd how I love you man, You're the best.
Tam. Thank you so much for spending today talking with me about video games.
Man, I really appreciate it. Thank you for having me. I
love Dreg's day. I love talking to the Big dog, my homie Jeff
Grubb. Thank you, Tam, and I love you all. Have a
good weekend. Everyone. We love you all. You're the best audience in
gaming. Until next time, have a good one, take care of yourself
and goodbye. That's why Paul few mouties and chats sometimes as well.