Welcome to episode forty four or the Game Spot after Dark podcast, Game Spots,
Official Chill Hype via podcast. I am Tamara Hussein, joined by Michael
him Yo, What up, Jordan Remain Hello, and Alessandro Flai. All
Right, how's it going? Everyone doing the best we can in these times?
The best? I think the appropriate response is like a really deep inhale
and then a really long exhale. I think that captures every kind of range
of emotion necessary for now. So we usually have a segment on the podcast
if anyone is new to it, called the Chris from Dayton, Ohio segment.
Now it's usually for newcomers. Sandro, your this is your first time
appearing on this podcast, that you'll have to do this. Jordan, I
have been in this podcast, but I don't think the Chris from Daton,
Ohio segment existed. I say, I think the last time I was on
the podcast, number was still in this single digit. So yeah, I
want to say, so we'll start with Jordan and the Chris from Dayton,
Ohio segment. Segment is effectively a summation of who you are, what you
do, and what you like. So let us know what you're into.
Wolf. Uh. Well, I am the one of the associate editors on
the news team at game Spot, so you might not necessarily see me around
all that often. I'm kind of like mix into the normal news coverage,
but if you pay attention to the anime and apex legend stuff on the website,
those are kind of like my beats. And whenever something Xbox related comes
up, I usually touch it in some capacity because I'm an ex Spox boy.
I have a PlayStation, I have a Switch, but I am one
of those like final die hards in the office who still plays most of their
games on Xbox. And yeah, that's I assume that's everything that you're looking
for, Like, like, how like how much information are we talking?
Like life story do you want? Like when I was first walking, it
was like, what would you say? Are your are your favorite games?
Like top three favorite games of all time? Top three favorite games would be
Titan Fall two, Mass Effect too, and damn, oh god, this
is hard. I really think got one more, man, I am beginning
to go. Let's let's let's just complete let's complete the pattern here Assassin's Creed
to all twos. Okay, at Sandro, who are you? What do
you do here? What do you like? What are your favorite three favorite
games of all time? Cool? Him? I'm Alissandro like two Moor said,
this is my first time being on I'm an editor at game Spot.
I basically do a little bit of everything. Uh. I used to do
a lot of traveling before we you know, all went into quarantine. I'm
basically the guy that helps, uh, you know, sort of coordinate upcoming
opportunities and you know, sort of I basically keep everyone in the loop for
what's happening or what will happen. So yeah, I mean I basically write
features. I occasionally write news. I've been in the industry for about nine
years this year actually, and actually a few days ago was my third year
at game Spot. So uh yeah, no, it's a it's been a
it's been an interesting ride. But but yeah, top three games unless I
missed a question there, no, no, no, okay, uh yeah,
the Original Devil May Cry, Uh, Final Fantasy twelve and you know
what, uh Street Fighter at three third Strike nice? Wow, three solid
games. That Final Fantasy twelve. I did not know that about you even
a whole new light. Well, I mean it's a it's a great Final
Fantasy game honestly and deserves more credit like than it actually got. I'm actually
glad that Zodiac Age you know edition came out because I think more peoples are
giving it its due. So yeah, it's it's it's easily the best No
Wars game I ever created. That's that's fair. That that's how I say
yes. If you haven't played twelve Zodiac a jo on switch is pretty much
essentially it's amazing. It's got fast forward, need fast forward. They also
put an update where you can reset your classes, which was which is a
big thing. So I'm actually in doing like a revisit in that game.
So yeah, I'm like part of the way for it, and it's fantastic.
All right. Speaking of what we're playing, him Michael, him,
what you've been doing. I am reporting in on the latest games to hit
video game worlds. So first thing I'll probably talk about is Valeriant. I
am in the process of reviewing Valeriant just launched on Tuesday, and I was
I played a lot of the betas and it was a pretty known quantity at
that point, and not much has changed, Like the core game is still
pretty much what you played in the beta. Things have been refined obviously,
the the bug fixes, the tweaks, the like the patch notes, log
is huge, and a lot of smaller things to kind of round out the
game. But I mean, I feel pretty much the same way as I
did in the beta. There's a new map that is frequently put into the
rotation and it's it's pretty much your standard like CSCO style map. Overall,
Valeriant is very much like your cs GOO style game with hero powers and stuff
like that. And that that's all to say that it's very good. Like,
the thing about Valeriant is that, yes, it's emulating the cs formula
very much with very heavy overwatched tones. But the thing I like about it
is that it executes it extremely well. It's like really tight. And that's
not an easy thing to pull off because at its core is a very precise
game in terms of balance and how you play and how you're supposed to play
the game to succeed is a very you know, it's it's very specific way
to play those styles of games, and Valerie does it really well. I'm
not gonna say it like breaks new ground or anything, because it is very
much borrowing from three separate games. It's just a really well done mishmash of
those things. But I'm gonna obviously I'm gonna be giving it a lot more
time, coming through strategies, try out all the new all the different agents
a column, not heroes agents, because I mainly play like three different ones.
But there's an overall I think eleven right now, and that's a lot
of work before I have final thoughts. But I'm working on putting up a
review in progress, maybe by the time this podcast goes up, or a
little bit later, but it's definitely I'm trying to hit this weekend to have
a review in progress. So yeah, I'm you know, hit me up
if you want to know about Valerie. Are you curious about Valerie at all?
It's too hard for me. I can't play. Yeah, I mean,
like I love CS I played. It's probably still the game I put
the most amount of hours into. So I played Valerine and I really enjoyed
what I played. It was parts of it I found like required a little
more polish, if you know what I mean, Like some of the sound
effects, some of the visual kind of stuff like whenever an enemy uses like
that fog type ability. That was an area It just looks like someone's dumped
like like a turd on on that and it's spinning. Yeah, and it
looks rotting someone's dumped it and then stirring it. Like that's That's the one
thing I'll say about Valeriine is that its presentation is severely lacking. Like you
go from Overwatch to Valerie, from Apex to like any other service style shooter
that has hero types in them, Valerie is severely lacking. Like I go
into Apex, I'm like excited about the character select screen that like you yeah,
exactly, Like you buy animations intro animation characters and your title cards and
their poses and all that stuff, and that's that's a very exciting part.
Like why can't wait to like deck out Crypto and like the the dopest K
pop jacket uh, like duo tone jackets and shit like that. That's that's
exciting. Valerie's got none of that. The characters, it's it's weird.
I feel like it's like, yes, it has a diverse roster, but
their personalities are so like not there that it kind of doesn't matter in a
way. And that's unfortunate. But I am you know, these games are
in the state right now, That's how I feel. But of course these
games are always evolving. But yeah, like what Tam is saying about,
like the graphical presentation, like, yeah, this is made to be a
low spec game that can play on old computers. But even if you crank
everything up to high settings, like, it doesn't look all that different and
it's it looks bland and a bits like rough, but it works, is
what I'll say. So yeah, functional, if not very very functional,
but other than that's well speaking of dated games that look dated. Also a
Fantasy Star Online too, you know, I got you know. PSL two
is is fun, It's it's good. I'm also in the process of reviewing
that. That's a little bit up in the air in terms of timing for
that. I need to talk to Callie about that. Brother. It's like
your third review, like back to back or something like that. That's like
fourth or fifth or something. I love reviewing games, man, But yeah,
PSO two is it's gonna it is messy. That game is very messy
like old. It's old, but it's like the quality of life and UI
stuff has not changed at all, Like it's been around for ten years and
that ship has not been touched for ten years. So you go into the
game and you're like, what the what am I supposed to click on?
How do I click on it? How do I access that menu? What
is this quest? How do I can't join a party until before I take
a quest? And I can't go Like there's so many things about PSO two
that should that you would expect to be refined in a game that comes on
in twenty twenty, but this being like props to it to being very true
to what it was in twenty ten. It's just like, hey, here's
a localized version of what that was. It's fun, though, I'll say
that much, but I see it's I think I think PSL two is,
if anything, a fantastic example or like a kind of something to have there
that shows you how far MMOs have come, Like if you if you want
to see, like you know, that's a good way to do it.
Look, I play that game and then play literally any modern Yeah, big
facts. But yeah, it's still fun at its core, but it's it's
dated in so many ways, but there is like this, there is this
like Dreamcast era Sega charm to it. I think a lot of it has
to do with the like the presentation style and like the character models, the
way the environments look feel like a very high res detailed version of a Dreamcast
era game. I mean that's also because like Fantasy Star Online one is also
of that time, so that makes sense. There are a lot of cool
things around the edges, but I think I need to spend a lot more
time in PSO two to kind of figure that out, more so than Valeriant
at this point. So I'm going to be doing that all through the weekend.
And there's another MMO that I'm going to be playing over the weekend for
play for all that. I mean, I'm not going to talk about it
just because you know that stuff is still in works. But man, I
got my SI, I got a lot of video games, man we go,
you got a lot going on. So bless you. Bless you for
making the attempt trying not man, Valerie Effort, No no, no puns
for you, Bro Jordan, what you've been playing well doing. I'm always
playing Apex. I'm literally never stopping playing Apex. I think like there was
a brief period in season one where I stopped playing because there was just no
new content coming out. But about a week before season two started and July
of last year, I basically just made sure that I played like an hour
or two every single day. And that's that's my life. I just I
just play Apex Legends, and I keep bugging you Tam and Chris to write
about Apex Legends, haven't the numbers Man? Yeah? I love Apex Legends
so much. It's like one of the most proudly diverse games ever. Like
going back to your whole like character thing, how a lot of hero shooters
are kind of iffy and stuff, Like the Apex Legends has such good heroes
and such a diverse roster of them, and like, how many games out
there can you just point to that have a roster like this outside of like
Overwatch because overwatched it at first. It feels very natural to me, Like
I think, I like we said that in the twenty nineteen Game of the
Year discussions that like, yeah, it's like Gibraltar's my boy, Cryptos my
boy. You know, there's a lot of women of color included in there
too, but it feels natural, like, oh shit, like y'all are
doing it right. I think there's some conversations around Lobo's design, though,
I think a lot of Latin X folks are chiming in on the like the
authenticity, but also the like we see a lot of the like that we've
we've seen ourselves in this way many times in media before. Like it's it's
I'm not it's not like a stereotypical, uh example of the but it's it's
media has portrayed Puerto Rican woman like this a lot. It says a lot
that you can point out at least one other character who is pretty much the
same, like when whenever when she showed up, pretty much everyone who plays
over Watch went, And that's that's a that's kind of a problem. Also,
speaking of Valerie too, just added a new character I forgot what her
name is, Raina and lady Yeah, and everyone's like, that's that's sombrero.
But like they're they're continually playing into this uh like this sort of criminal
esque uh Latino women, and it's like kind of all right, we've we've
been down this road before. We can we can be a little bit more
creative in how we represent uh little like represent Latino women in games. But
yeah, Apex go off and then and then you're playing Rocket League. I
I am I feel really bad because Peter was always trying to get me to
play Rocket League with him and Rob like before he left, and sometimes I
would play and sometimes we're like, no, I want to play more Apex
and I have no idea why. But like two weeks ago, I was
just thinking, you know, Rocket League is pretty fun. I should I
should try playing that game again. And I've just been playing it for like
a good hour, like every single day. I'm like, oh, I'm
back in Rocket League now, Like I took a year and a half break
and now I'm just back in it for whatever reason. And what a stupidly
simple game that is so addictive to play. It's pretty fantastic. I need
to get back into it. I played like we played in the tournament me,
Lucy and Dave Jewett in in the UK, and then that was the
last time I played it. Like I put so much energy into getting good
for a tournament, and then once I was done, I was like years
running, man. Rocket League's been out there for about five years at this
point, Jordan's out there. I think I'm just like Michael, You're telling
me all the time I got to play Persona. Jake's all the time telling
me that I got to play which are three and I'm just I need a
break from those really long story driven games, Like I just know. I
just the multiplayer games where like I play a match and it's just done in
like five to ten minutes. I'm like, cool, that was awesome.
I'm gonna do that like one or two more times and then I'm done for
the day. Like I can't do that if I play Persona five Royal.
You said that. What did you say? It's like, oh, you
don't have or you need to take a break from playing long story driven games.
Bro, you need to need to just do it. It'll it's rewarding.
You be rewarded. You know. I have it. It's on my
PS four, it's downloaded, I bought it. It's there. I just
love it. No, I feel you though, like having those Paletate cleanseror
type games. Ever since I got a Project Diva Houtsmiko on switch. I
just look at my switch and I pick it up and like, I wanna
play a couple songs, then play five songs, then play ten songs,
then play twenty songs, and I'm like, wow, now I don't have
time to play the game. That I was supposed to be playing, So
I understand, man, Alessandra, what are you currently playing? Yeah,
I've actually gone for a revisit to a Assassin's Creed origins. Like I actually
reviewed the game like what almost three years ago now end up as my first
time coming back to it. I've been playing on PC, and you know,
it's I feel like I'm I think I feel like I like the game
a lot more now than I did before, like mostly because just just how
much like the setting itself is just just so fantastic, and I still think
it's one of the best like achievements of the serious Assassin's Creed, Like you
know, just a just so much level of detail and craft went into it,
and you know, I'm just like really blown away. It's still even
now, like three years later, I'm still blowing away by that setting.
And uh, you know, I still feel weird about how funky like the
our action RPG elements are in that game, especially considering you can't, like,
uh, you know, is to kill someone with the assassin the hit
and blade like at the beginning once you get it, so you know,
I'm still sort of wrestling with it in some cases, but you know,
I mean that's setting, man is just so so good. Then you know,
like, well, our friend Jordan might have a little I've been telling
you people just get the second DLC and you I'm still very I'm still very
early on, but you know, I'm like I remember Jordan mentioning then I'm
like, you know, I gotta, I gotta do this because like this
is just sort of like becoming untenable, like you know, just trying to
you know, basically do the same like sort of actions you would do another
Assassin's Creed games, but you know, you sort of like hit the wall
of like, well, your your character doesn't have this particular stat or you
don't have this particular item or equipment. So I'm like, all right,
like I'm just looking forward to that moment where I can actually do you know,
the DLC missions and sort of like just skip to that, you know,
to get that stuff out of the way. So yeah, are you
are you finding yourself like consistently stopping and taking screenshots because I also started,
like a lot of people started Assassin Squate origins again, and I put a
lot of time into the game just recently, and a lot of that time
has spent taking screenshots. I actually did that when I was reviewing the game
so much time, like you know, like you know sort of like taking
screenshots using the photo mode and like it's i mean just even now on PC
it looks even better than it did like before. So just I like just
climbing up and just finding like a good spot for me back to just sort
of purge himself on sort of like thinking with zoom out the camera and just
get a good angle. Like it's great, Like you know, just again
that's setting is just so fantastic. And also Baieck is such a great character,
like and I are they are they are so they they be smashing all
the time, like you know, like they're dynamic. Is it feels a
genuine in a way that like because every time you come to her and you're
like okay, like we got to do this mission, we got assassinate this
uh this one fool, and then they're like all right, goodbye, my
love, and then it's like okay, we'll smash real quick. Yeah.
It's like it's like damn, yeah, okay. They're like rid or dive
with each other. When I think of like good video game comple couple like
it's by a like if you hopefully if things so, if things go away,
we will have the voices of Bike and I as part of game supposed
to play for all. They were originally supposed to be tomorrow, but due
to some circumstances we've had to shift it and we're currently rearranging so Things Crossed
will have them involved. But yeah, you're also playing Alessandro Streets of Rage
four. I am yeah, I just I've beaten the game like five times,
lay, I'm just like I'm just taking control of each character, like
you know it. The game really isn't that long, so it's not like
too much of like a time zinc, but I mean it's I mean,
the game just feels so good, like you know, I mean the guy's
making it Lozard Cube and a Guard Crush, like they just did a great
job of not only respecting the original games, like particularly the Streets of Rage
two, which the game is sort of like sort of framed modeled after and
on the mechanical level, but also just the being insane like sort of art
style, like you know, I know, people are a little bummed out,
like it's not you know, sort of the sprite work, like you
know, Jennis style sprite work, but it is I mean just the game
just has so much personality too. And then like my one of my favorite
levels in the game is where you sort of like fight through like an art
gallery that's like you know, sort of like half destroyed and like you know,
you see like you know, really vivid like pop arts sort of like
coming from the background, like you know, it's in like a lot of
neon life sort of illuminating the battles and stuff, and it's it's a really
cool game. Like you know, I'm it's easily like one of my top
ten favorites of this year. So yeah, I was like every time we
repreviewed it, like a couple of times throughout it's uh before it's released,
and every time we played it at like packs and stuff, we're all like,
damn, that's that's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, we are,
it's pretty good. Damn good. Yeah. We actually got to play it
with the developers at packs at Painston. We did like four player co op
and there's that moment were almost got like like one hundred hits and I was
like, I'll tell you everyone, we're capturing right now. It was yeah,
I mean, that was a lot of fun, like you know,
just then I'm glad. I'm so glad they the final game turned out to
be just just amazing awesome. And then Porland's three. Right, Oh yeah,
I'm playing this game called Borderland three. You're still playing this game.
We don't have to spend but Jordan review and Asandra has played like a hundred
times more than has every time I walked past. Back in the day when
we still had desks and waiting officers, I've seen playing and I'm just like,
I was like, why why you do? Now? We can't give
him ship though, because he's at home playing it. According to Epic Games
like Client I played to, I'm not I'm really looking at it right now.
Actually I'm I've played up to twelve days. It says that's too much.
Just really quickly, just really quickly. I just want to say that,
you know, I admit the story is not great. I think it
has some really weird like choices and humor. I can say it's probably that
it is clearly the family guy of video games as far as like you know,
as far as like you know, what it tries to do with pop
culture, and like you know, trying to make some you know, cute
jokes with like you know, two movies or whatever. But the shooting and
the loot drive. Loot Drive is just it's great. Like that's why I
keep coming back to it. It's agree with you, But like, what
are you doing? Like what content are you playing? Are you just playing
with this characters? There's four characters and you know they each I have to
get them all to like a top level, so I can, you know,
try to get as much loot as I can. So it's I'm already
maxed out with the Flack, who's the last character. So every other character
is already maxed level at this point, but except Flack. So well,
I mean, you know, you do you man, as long as it
makes you happy. I'm doing me. I'm playing twelve. I played twelve
worth of last three. I think that's the math. Yeah that is,
let's just move on. I say, we can move on. You guys
wanted to know that's that's our fault. So I have been playing loads of
percent five Royal Royal Royal damn fantastic game takes a game that was exceptional and
pretty much makes it perfect. I think, absolutely loving it and then I'm
rewatching Avatar the last airben there because you know it's also perfect. It's perfect
as well. Yeah, and I've seen that show many times and I feel
like I've gone and recommended it into enough people now that I'm like, I
should, I should put my money why my mouth is, and also watch
it against watch it like watch it. Last I spoke to her is watching
it. I think once Lucy returns, she'll talk about it as well,
because she's currently watching it. I think there's the plan to do a spoiler
cast with me, you, Lucy, and Chair and Kelly Kelly. Kelly
Kelly. The first one was like, hey, look this is perfect.
It's perfect. It's perfect. It is, so we'll do that. But
yeah, it is fantastic. Beyond that, I've been mainly focusing on play
for All, which leads us into the kind of topics of discussion for this
week. A lot of stuff has happened over the last week in terms of
gaming news. There's been events that have come and gone, the biggest one
being the PlayStation five reveal event, which was set for Thursday. That's right,
yeah, Thursday, and has now been canceled. I think it's not
as important to talk about in the minetia of the events that are canceled more
than why it was canceled. So I think it's a good opportunity to have
that discussion and reflect upon that. Obviously, we're talking about the Black Lives
Matter movement. You know, there's the awful events around the brutality towards George
Floyd and the resulting movement that has come out has you know, for want
of a better phrase, swept the nation. But yeah, so the events
in gaming are rightly so stepping the side for those discussions to happen. So
PlayStation five reveil event has been, you know, kind of put on the
back burner. I think it feels like I need to insert a question in
here to create a discussion, and the only question you can really ask is
a bad question, which is do you think that was the right decision?
That's not the question I want to ask, But I just want to throw
to you guys and let you say your piece and what's happening and how you
feel about it, and why do you think it's important? Because there might
be some people who are listening to this that we hope and we know that
the people that listen to this or podcasts are people that support and have open
minds and are very welcoming and have open hearts to this stuff. But there
might be a person who doesn't understand what's going on. So for those people,
you know, say your pieces and and you know, how do you
feel about this what's going on? And the fact that these companies are being
vocal. What's it like to finally see a lot of these companies step out
and be like, yeah, this is important to us. Well, I
mean, it's it's it's basically just like a culmination of the perfect storm,
you know, like all of these feelings and emotions. Like it's not like
all of a sudden, let's care about black lives matter, Like there have
been protests, there have been people's out about it. There have been people
of color and specifically black people talking about this in our industry and other industries
for years and years long before me, Like I'm the youngest one here,
I'm twenty six. Like my rage hasn't like festered to like the quiet anger
yet I'm not old enough yet for that to have happened. But just given
the fact that something like this could have happened while everyone's stuck at home because
of COVID nineteen, while Trump is president, while it's the summer, so
it's really like hottest, Like all of these things have kind of like boiled
together to create this like boiling point to the extent that people are like,
Okay, we need to take stock and really look at this. And I
would have liked if we could have like just taken stockman, like, you
know, we should actually talk about these issues and come up with solutions without
another black person being shot by a police officer. But here we are.
The conversation is happening. Again. It's a good conversation to have. I
feel like there isn't easy like answer to whether or not this was a good
step to take. I hope that the people listening to this kind of agree
that this was a good step to take. But at the very least,
like the conversation is happening, and it's a conversation that we've had a dozen
times before, And honestly, I'm just worried that it's going to be a
conversation that we're going to have dozens of times in the future. But I
hope I'm wrong if I made Yeah, just a common sentiment I saw was
that a lot of people were sort of looking forward to the event as a
sort of like a break from like a lot of what's been happening just that
even before this, like you know, what happened with a George Flynn,
George Floyd. Just you know, I'm on one end, I can understand
that sort of mindset. But at the same time, this isn't the I
mean, this isn't the time for escapism, you know, I mean,
this is a time where we everyone needs to listen, you know, to
people that really need to be heard. And you know, I I do
appreciate that, uh, that PlayStation you know, Sony decided that this this
event wasn't there the right time. It wasn't the right time to do this
event, and uh but at the same time, I do feel like for
the audience in general, I do feel like it's important for you know,
as Jordan said, just to you know, listen to the people, listen
to you know, the communities, like the people that have been trying to
be heard, you know, just trying to you know, have their voice,
you know, in the community as well. So that on one end,
that's why I really appreciate, you know, just the fact that we're
just last few days we're trying to you know, sort of prop up people
like you know within our you know, the games industry, like you know,
uh, you know, writers of color, content creators of color,
like you know, Clif Adams from a spawn on me and uh uh you
know Blessing from kind of Funny, who has just been fantastic. It's been
really great seeing him sort of blow up and like, you know, really
you know, make a name for himself. And even you, Jordan,
I mean, you're you're you've really you know, just you've been here for
two years. I mean you've you've been just a fantastic like addition to the
team, and you know, just uh, I think it's important for people
to recognize that, you know, there are people of you know, a
certain perspective that you know that have a voice, and you know that perspective
is needed and that perspective is necessary, and that that's something that people will
need to you know, sort of listen more to. So yeah, that's
kind of what I was, That's kind of what I've been feeling the last
few days, if that makes sense. So yeah, yeah, I mean
when Tam and I kicked off the play for All event on Monday, and
we had to stream where we we got a really sudden shift towards to support
Black Lives Matter with the Play for All event, which I'm more than happy
that we're doing, like like yo, we're let's let's like, let's do
this. This is this is like invigorating for for us to make that move
for donations and all that, and it was, it was. It was
a little weird though, because like I was, I was actually down here
in Oakland when I got like a Slack message saying we're shifting. We would
we want to have you on talk about these talk about these issues live on
air, and I'm like, yes, I I think I can articulate that
the reason with the audience that you know why we are making the shift and
why it makes sense and why we should partake in the fight for black justice.
And you know, I would we say this many times, like Tam
and I are non black people of color, So that's an important perspective to
internalize for us, because you know, we like the term ally should be
we shouldn't need to say that we should already be allies by default, but
we need to turn that into like, okay, yes we agree that black
justice is a thing that needs to be fought for, and but we need
to turn that into action. So there's a lot of ways to support,
you know, monetarily with bail funds for people who are protesting, giving to
Black Lives Matter, because that's an actual organized movement. That's you know,
you'll see a lot of like bad actors co opting that Black Lives matter as
like, oh, it's just like a bunch of it's not organized, it's
just people trying to cause chaos. Like nah, it's an organized movement and
they're making changes. And I say this all time too, is that like
yo, if you like all like I will not even say it, but
all lives won't matter until black lives matter. Everyone's been making like a lot
of good people have been making. The analogy is that like you know,
if you go to a doctor and you have a broken bone, you know
doctor is not going to look at all your bones. You're gonna look at
the one that that needs attention, that the one that's hurting. Like,
yes, of course all of your bones matter. Yes, that is a
given. No one needs to say that, pay attention to the one is
hurting, and support like make sure that you make things right there. So
that's that's how people should feel about Black Lives Matter. I know the after
Dark audiences they're very good people and like they're very receptive to us. But
I just want to make sure that the folks who do listen to after Dark
understand one where we stand, of course, but also too if they're if
they have any hesitancy in supporting Black Lives Matter and the protests that have happened
in fifty states. When was the last time that something happened in all fifty
states at one time? Globally too, you see it all around the globe,
is that people are protesting, taking to the streets, and there's there's
a reason why that's happening. And I hope that everyone who listens to this
podcast can get behind that. You know, we're obviously doing a fundraiser,
but uh, and we're trying to use our platform to draw attention and that's
that's really important. And I hope that you know, it's it doesn't stop
at donations. It you know, internalize what you're being, what you're learning,
and take that and continue that. And for us, like you know,
obviously, like white people, y'all need to keep y'all folks in check
and let let let them know, like what your role is in this,
Like this isn't Black people shouldn't have to be fighting on their own for this.
And then like even like for people of color, like listen, Filipino,
older Filipinos can be racist as fun. I'm gonna keep it real with
you, Like an older generation has internalized colonialism in a big way and it's
a big problem. And I think we need to realize that, you know,
people of color can be racist towards black people too, and it's a
reality we need to face. And for us who who are obviously like want
to fight against that, we need to take that into our own communities,
like we need to we need to communicate that to our own people as well
to get them on board, to change their minds, to make them realize
that this is something that they should be fighting for. Two and not to
be racist as shit. Like that's like it's it's easy, but it's very
hard to get through to some people, and like I need to do that,
Like I text my friends. I'm having conversations like my mom and my
my other parents about this, Like because I got to text, like why
are you down in the protests, like because like this is some shit we
need to do, Like why why are you? Like why are you pressing
me on this? Like yeah, I don't know. It hurts. It
hurts, dude, Like I mean, like what, Like what's there?
There's a there's a generation of it's the same within like not Pakistani, yeah,
Pakistanian, like Muslim communities as well, where it's like, because you're
not the target, they don't feel A lot of people may not feel the
need to get involved. And I'm sure there's a lot of listeners that have
situations that are similar with family members or friends, and often it just takes
you to remind them of the smaller that the discrimination that they might have had,
or their parents might have spoken about in their lives. That is a
fraction of what is happening to black people right now. Like must Oftimes,
for example, have gone through some stuff themselves, and I found it powerful
in speaking to my friends and family just reminding them of how they felt in
a moment when someone was screaming terrorists at them as they walk down the street,
in the way that I have had that pain that you felt. Imagine
if that wasn't just a thing that you could walk away from and it stuck
with you for maybe a few days. Imagine if that moment escalated every single
time and your life was on the line. And that's that's that's kind of
what has helped break through to some people. And it's important for even if
you're not colored, to remember that those are moments of danger that you feel
have felt in your life. You know, you know, the real ones.
They pop up in your mind and they horrify you. Like when you
remember those circumstances and the context around it, they can make you feel like
in trouble again. Imagine if that was your every single day, if that
was your moment, the moment you walk to, the moment you slept,
every single day you were you had to prepare yourself to expect one of those
every day. That's no way to live man's and you owe it to yourself
and you owe it to the people around you to stand up and say something
and yeah, it's it's just essential. It's not a thing that you should
be thinking about doing. You just need to do. And that's meant the
big reason why we introduced not introduced, but we felt it was necessary to
have the Black Lives Matter kind of fundraiser element to play for all. It
was something that came together very very quickly. But it was not a discussion.
It wasn't whether we should do this, It was how can we do
this as quickly as possible? And the result is what you're getting now.
It's not as elegant as everything as we would perhaps want it to be.
We're still kind of pivoting on things we're introducing. You know, we started
with one donation method and then we had to kind of fold in another one
on top so we could actually track the thing. The money is still all
going to Black Lives Matter, and now we can track it so and you
know, the articles that are coming together a very last minute, Like Jordan,
bless him, he worked until like nine pm to kind of get that
article up because then I got to do to I mean, like I was,
I was there, whether you trying to make sure. I was like
please, I'm sorry, Like I felt bad because it was on a day
that we told everyone, don't write, don't work, You're not doing anything.
All we're going to do today is amplify black voices. And that's what
we tried to do. But in order to do that. The day before,
we had to prepare an article to show to show people that we're going
to do that and give people something to read and Jordan to point on that,
and then the follow up article where we've been inviting people to reach out
to us on Twitter and suggest names of black creators and voices that we could
highlight, and then we put them all in a separate article that's on site
as well, and you should seek it out and follow those people, watch
their streams. They all have valuable, unique perspectives. But that came together
a very not last minute, but in a rush. But that's kind of
what Playful All has been and it's what it's needed to be and we're going
to continue to push that over the coming six weeks and beyond. I think
the one thing that's important to note is like game Spot as a team is
diverse. I think you guys feel the same way, where this matters to
every single one of us, and we will continue to push on this and
highlight how important it is for us to amplify these black voices and support black
voices and members of the community and black people as a whole. Yeah,
especially when it when it comes to like black people in the industry, Like,
obviously our audience is gonna be gravitating towards gaming. And there are a
lot of black voices in gaming who have been doing this for a very long
time. And I've been following them because I mean because they're they're they're great
creators, but they're all like having my timeline full with all these perspectives over
time gives you perspective. You learn from just following, like simply following on
the work. That's like the bare minimum you can do is like listen,
listen to them. It might like not everything is going to be about race
or LGBTQ issues or things like that, but just their perspective on anything else
on games like Death Stranding or on Apex like Assandro and Jordan, Like just
having listening to their perspective, seeing it and normalizing that if you haven't already,
is like that's a step everyone should be taking. And that's kind of
like why I think it's valuable that like, Okay, yeah, I I
follow them, but I need to let other folks know that y'all should be
following them too, and uh yeah, over time, it's very much like
taught me a lot and I talked to calif Adams about that too, and
on Spawn on Me, which you all should be following as well. That
you know, it's very important to diversify your your your timeline and people you
follow, especially like black women in in gaming, Like you gotta seek them
out too, for all sorts of reasons. But you will. You'll learn
a lot and get like valuable perspective on games. Yeah, but you got
to make sure that you like as a caveat, like make sure that you
reach out to the diverse voices in the right way. There's a very unfortunate
trend in I can really only speak to the gaming industry because it's the one
that I know the best, but I'm sure that it extends to others to
profit off of the pain of minorities, especially people of color, especially woman
where if you have a game that handles race, or has a game that
handles gender or anything that could be considered a minority, to let someone of
color or a woman or another minority to cover this game, for them to
provide their perspective, kind of knowing that the article that they will write,
though will be insightful, will also be the type of article that like the
Internet being the Internet is going to jump on and is going to get mad
clicks and be very popular. It's easy to see how you can use someone's
diversity to you benefit yourself and kind of still pat yourself on the back by
saying like, oh, I did something that I allowed this black voice to
speak out about this black person in the video game. And that's really not
the right way to go about it. I always tell people, like,
it's much less about diversity as it is about inclusivity, Like that's one of
the things I appreciate most about games, what like are there more ways that
we could improve our diversity quota? Absolutely? But it is also a site
that I joined, and it's not like on the very first day, Tam
and Chris like sat down with me and like, okay, Jordan, how
many like black video games do you want to write about? Like they didn't
just immediately jump on that for me to cover. It's like cover whatever you
want, and if a story presents itself that ties into who you are,
will support you when you want to pitch it and critique it and offer our
feedback and we'll work through it and then the article will come out. And
that's a good way to handle that situation, and that only comes if you
have a lot of people who are diverse like on your staff. Like,
one of the things that I've kind of like seen that annoys me like just
a little bit is the aspect that when giant, huge Triple A games come
out, like the go To, they only get like one or two codes
given to each outlet. It's always been this way, it will probably continue
to always be this way, and they do it, I assume they do
it this way just to make sure that the game doesn't leak or anything like
that, but by only one or two codes going out to people, when
it's Giant Triple A games, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Last of
a Cyberpunk, usually the people who are going to review those games are the
reviews editor, the managing editor, or the editor in chief, the people
that the site trust the most to handle those giant games. And the fact
of the matter is most of those people across their industry are white. Like
black people don't get very high up in the grand scheme of things when it
comes to these websites. So you have to pull in these diverse voices,
but then you have to keep them around long enough and promote them long enough
so that when a giant game like Last of Us Part two or Cyberpunk twenty
seventy seven comes around, they're in a position to then analyze that game and
possibly get something out of it that they're white counterparts. Might not am I
saying like, oh, there's every black person should have reviewed Last of Us?
Like No, obviously not, Like That's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm just saying, like, just looking at Twitter, you can see
that a majority of the people reviewing that game are white, So a majority
of the reviews will be from a white perspective, which maybe won't matter.
Maybe Last of Us Part two doesn't look at race in any conceivable way,
shape or form, but it is something to at least consider that. Are
we basically setting ourselves up for failure if we just have the same core group
of people reviewing the same games over and over and over again, and you
have you have to attract those voices in first. You have to promote them
up and give them a chance if you want things to change for sure.
And uh, you know, just one thing that you know, I just
really think is important is that you know a lot of these you know article
I like a features about the black perspective. You know, they get they
tend to you know, become more relevant with age, Like I noticed that
you know from US Gamer, from Jeffrey Russo about black journalists in the games
industry, like a you know, that's especially relevant right now, like just
thinking about it, like you know, and especially seeing like you know,
just especially over the last few days, you know, how many just you
know, the wealth of you know, sort of black perspective there is within
our industry, like you know, amount of writers and content creators there are,
and you know it is you know, it's especially frustrating to see that,
you know, they haven't been given that opportunity even though they have the
talent, they have the following, they have their own personal following, and
you know, but it's like you know again, it's just in a lot
of ways, it just focuses on like I guess, our our system where
you know, the big fish tend to get a lot of the attention or
whatever. But but even like you know, for us, like I can
I feel like I can speak for us, like we we do think about
like you know, a lot articles like this, you know, focusing on
the black perspective, you know, other you know, kind of groups from
minority groups or you know, like I remember our one of our last features,
Beatings and what in the office, like we were pitching around ideas.
You know, it wasn't necessarily themed around you know obviously black history or other
or whatever. It was just in the now we were thinking about our own
perspecture experiences now like you know, it was like, you know, just
actually an article I thought about, like you know, I was really trying
to get going but just didn't work out for a variety of reasons. Was
you know, what it means for a video game to have a strong black
lead. And you know, and uh I touched a bit on that like
in the past with a far Cry article which got repromoted the last few days.
And as I Jordan said, and like sometimes there's an article that just
sort of picks up, maybe it gets a lot of attention, you know,
maybe in some ways you may not expect. But you know, I
still feel strongly about that article because it was my experience, and it was
an experience that maybe a lot of people really you know sort of wouldn't necessarily
think of, like when they play a big budget game like that, you
know, like, you know, that's something I think of and I'm sure
that something a lot of people would think of as well, Like you know,
what is what's it like playing Farcry five as a black character, and
you know that that made me feel very anxious and honestly, after just seeing
how things went last two years, I feel like I was on the money
without article, but you know, it was just it's it's a trip,
like you know, just seeing how things have turned out, and you know,
I do feel like one of the greatest things about video games, not
only were the fact that you know, obviously it's you know, it's about
bringing people together, but you know the level of escapism and an offer.
But at the same time, you know, as I said earlier, it's
important just to listen, you know, to you know, different perspectives on
the escapism that we sort of like dive into, Like you know, because
I remember with Cyberpunk, like people were showed concerns about how they portrayed people
of color in that game, and uh, you know I I preview the
game and I felt that it felt the same way too, Like you know,
I is this like, you know, is it doing the right thing.
Like I understand it's an extrapolation of our current times, but you know,
I mean, obviously things aren't you know things, It's important to have
like a different perspective in the making of the games as well. And you
know, I I wish, you know, uh developers would keep that in
mind. But you know, I feel like the only way to do that
is to have more people of color, you know, women especially more women
especially, you know, to be able to have their experiences with the games
that we spend so much time with, you know, heard and you know,
and you know, just and again like you for our listeners, like
you know, I you know that our desire to have more of these you
know sort of experiences is there is just you know again just it's a it's
it's very tricky trying to you know, trying to you know, be able
to bring in enough people, you know, just to find the right opportunities
to do it. So yeah, I mean that's yeah, I IM sorry.
I was saying this just recently in light of its very inside baseball,
but in light of a certain tweet, I will say straight up that you
know, I I think that you know, the at least how I feel
is at the root of the problem, or a one of the roots of
the problem is that we don't have black and people of color in decision making
positions. Now, I'm not saying that we should be made bosses, straight
up, I'm not saying that we need to be executives. Yeah, I
like to say, yo, I could barely handle my shit. Please don't
make me in charge of other people's shit. But what I'm what I'm trying
to say with that is that we see a lot of like as as well
intentioned as it might be, we see messages fucked up all the time at
its core, and people get dragged for them and they face the consequences because
because of that, and the root of the problem is that you don't have
people with perspective in decision making positions. And like I said, I want,
I want to be bossed. But what I mean by that is that
we need to be in on those conversations. We need to be able to
influence how those things are communicated. So y'all don't fuck it up, and
you come from a genuine place rather than being like, oh, I'm white,
I have I'm so ignorant, please educate me, Like, no,
that's that's you shouldn't be saying that, bro, Like you should be proactive
in that, and we can be the ones to tell you, like,
no, don't say that, don't say that. This is do this first,
all right, we have this, like think about this first, and
if we're in the room with those conversations, then it would do it would
do them a lot of favors. Man, like a thirty second conversation like
just be right, hey, is this a good idea to do? We'll
look at and be like like no, or yeah, sure, you can
probably do that. I think the big the only thing only good can come
from surrounding yourself with unique perspectives that you don't have. That's the there is
no downside to it. You learn and you open your mind up to different
ways of thinking, and that extends to everything, like not just decisions that
need to be made, whether you're on a corporate ladder and you're thinking about
whether a tweet should or shouldn't go out, that it doesn't just benefit that,
it's you as a gamer. We want to try and make this applicable
to our audience, which are people that love games. There's probably things happening
in the games that you play on a day to day basis that you just
have no clue about, and by surrounding yourself, following speaking to reading the
work of people who have unique voices that come from unique perspectives, the only
thing you're doing is making yourself smarter, finding new nuances to games that you
probably already have played, no love, just like whatever it may be,
and then improving games as a whole. The upside of supporting colored people,
black people, black voices, you know, non black people of color voices
is everything gets better everything And the way you do that is by surrounding yourself
with them and speaking to them and pushing them forward, letting them lead the
way. And that's what Play for All is about. That's what Black Lives
Matter is about, and that's what we want to support. And you can
do that in so many ways. You can read Jordan's article is Art Calls,
where there's literature on how you can educate yourself about the struggles that black
people face, and there's also links there to black creators. Everything you need
is not everything, but a lot of what you need is there. The
springboard is there for you to jump off of use it, and then you
can help it please, and you can go to bit dot l y forward,
slash gs hyphen BLM and donate. That's that's our that's our Black Lives
Matter donation link. We're going to be using it, you know, throughout
their six weeks. You don't have to use our one. If there's another
one, go and find it and use it. We're not saying we're not
getting anything out of this. Ultimately, our goal is to support the cause.
If you want to go directly to them and not use our bit lee
link. All that we're doing is tracking it through that so we know,
but go and just support the core, support the movement, and trust us.
Like I'm like Michael said, I'm not a person you know, I'm
a black. I'm not a black person. I'm a person of color,
same with I am. But everything that Alessandro has said today, everything that
Jordan has said today, we all one hundred percent agree with. We're all
back and they have been saying things get better if you support those voices to
do that. Having said that, I think we're going to end the podcast
here. Ordinarily we would have a questions listener questions sections. We do have.
We have questions from the audience and they're great, and they are.
They've been sent in through to Afterdok podcast at games but dot com and also
on our discord channel, so that if you want to get access, hit
myself up or I Am, or Jake or John Luke or anyone else that
is on the GameSpot team, or we can get you in. They are
of a certain tone though, the tone being they're lighthearted. Some of them
they you know, talk about what stuff you like in outside of games and
very much not in line with the tone of what's happening right now. So
I think it is worth pushing those questions to next week so we can leave
you with the message that you should support Black Lives matter. You should read
up on the perspectives that are important and do your best to educate yourself,
support those people, and do the same for the people around you. Jordan,
where can people find you? On Twitter? They can find me at
j M r am Ee for basically just a bunch of stupid anime and apex
legend shit him where you're at and what you've got, You can find me
and all of my bullshit at Michael P. Higham on Twitter, and yeah,
engage with the things I say or do or don't because I get nervous
when people follow me, and then I'll be like, oh damn, now
I gotta shit. It makes me nervous, but a I appreciate it.
But yeah, we're follow all of us. We're all doing great work.
Play for All is popping off, and a lot of people are putting a
lot of time and effort into those things and just everything on site. Like
everyone's putting in a lot of good work. So you know, it's not
about me follow game spotting all the people around and check out that that article
that Jordan and all of us pitched in to see check out those perspectives that
you may not have had otherwise, Calesandro, Why people can people find you
what you got? Yeah? You can find me on Twitter at a flor
A f I L A r I. I basically share some of my articles
but also the great articles from other outlets as well, and she'll also share
a lot of political stuff. So that gets on your nerves too bad.
So yeah, it's yeah, it's like I said, it's important for you
know, people to listen to people that you know aren't like them. You
know that that perspective is important, and you know it's more than ever especially
so uh yeah, yeah. We also have like Michael said, we have
Played for All happening with our charity event. I've been helping to more schedule
some stuff for that. We've got some really cool stuff happening like the next
few weeks, so I can tell you it's it's going to be pretty dope.
And yeah, I'm looking forward to the finals whatever we're doing with Final
Fantasy whatever in the coming weeks. Yes, yeah, that's it. You
can find me on Twitter. Two more h currently working on Play for All,
So please watch and support Black Lives Matter, donate if you can,
and we're also raising money for healthcare workers in COVID relief and the links to
support those are on our sites. We will have regular charity streams every day
unless there's a press conference that day, but usually between twelve and two pt.
It's fun stuff, all going, all the money going towards good causes,
So please watch and we'll catch you again next week. Goodbye, pe Hi