Helone. Welcome to Giant Bomb at Night Live from Los Angeles. We are
here for you to talk about Game of the Year, talk about the whole
year, hanging out. We got a bunch of friends, are gonna be
here through of the entire night. We're gonna hang out, have a good
time. Looking forward to bringing you a bunch of panels. I'm your host,
Jeff Grubb from Giant Bomb. A couple of notes before we get started.
We're brought to you by RGG Studios like a dragon, infinite wealth.
This wouldn't be possible without that them. I really appreciate them coming in and
give them us that support. This is like a special one off thing.
We do these kinds of things in the summer. We never thought we'd be
able to do one during the holidays and kind of meeting up the Game of
the Year. It all came together last minute because of that support. So
thank you to them. Thank you to NZXT at our live show, which
I don't think tickets are still available, but if you remaining to buy tickets,
go do it right now. If you're gonna try to walk up the
door, it's just not gonna work for you. But if you go to
the show, or if you go buy tickets right now, you might still
have a chance. But in c X is gonna be giving away a computer
at that. Thank you to them. Thank you to point from my cool
jacket. Just ask them do we have jacket? Yeah? They were like,
we were like, can we have some jacket? Yeah? Yeah,
And they were like, yeah, we're going to pay them and they were
like, just give them money to charity. So we gave the money to
charity. So thanking them to them, She shout out to their charity.
Thanks, thank you so much. Friends here. Yeah, actually your jacket
was so cool. You puss your microphone exactly. Yeah, it's not even
clipped ball. Really, this, this entire show is gonna be powered by
Jan picks on my microphone and these two crotches right here behind me. So
these guys, Yeah, don't do that. I said, don't do that.
You said don't do that. Oh God, thanks for help. Jan.
All right, let's introduce this first pan. All I've got a bunch
of friends hanging out with me. Uh, Jake Beldino, how are you
doing that? You are like you got you're the fifth person to ask no
joke. Absolutely, you want to fight Lucy for if you're happy to be
here. Thank you, Lucy James. Hi, how are you doing?
I'm doing great. That's my standing right there. Yeah. Yeah, that
was the first thing you said when you got here. It's like, that's
mine. Yeah, I didn't even ask. Yeah, absolutely, I'm so
polite a fife. How about you. I feel great because I get to
keep the coolest of all the things that we got. In my opinion,
it was all very cool. And thank you very much again to like a
dragon infant wealth for making this all possible. But I'm keeping the sign.
Yeah, I mean it's just going to be part of the set for forever.
But you know, we something we've always really wanted on this set is
some nice backlight and what what better way than having this great practical It's great,
it's it's fantastic. How do you feel about it? Michael Hyam,
blow that back light out? Yeah that wasn't planned. Sorry, that's just
who I am. That's just who I am. I know something meditated with
you. I know it is some more of saying how are you doing?
Saying next to him, I'm going to absorb some of the CCO. That's
why you put me in back. You know what I'm saying, Yes,
is your Can I get like a mug or something? No, we'll think
about it. If you're a good boy, come later your home check.
Let's start with you how you feel about video games this year? Can I
talk about the Avatar game with you? Guys? How much time do we
have? You want to play? It's literally on or Dora heads. Yeah,
we should tell the story. We were at a previous events for Summer
Game first and we're in this video for Avatar and the Ubisoft presentation starts and
it's a deadly serious presentation. Yeah, it's got Jim Cameron what's he there?
And the very capable So I'm saying with me, Lucy and Jake sitting
down and the very capable you. He's like, of course everyone knows that
Jake sually led the revote on Hallelujah Mountain and I just I was Jake is
like this, yeah, yeah, yeah, this man is into it is
legit. Well he's correct, he's objectively correct about it on Avatar. This
man's an Avatar Mark. I'm telling you, it's it's uh, it's it's
sweet, like it's it's got a lot of the you know, open world
stuff I'm really sick of. But but it's cool to be blue, like
so that it has the Kermit s that has sixty nine, it has the
it has like the movie moments like you know, getting your bird your ikron
if you will and no, there's just getting your bird up those of us
who are not, Yeah, like we need to prove it, you know,
like you do the whole thing and you do like the you like do
the ritual. The music swells and like it has a lot of those like
really cool. Do you start the game as like a human person? You
play as an actual apole and then growing that sport? Okay, no difference
is please do you have the Yeah all the time and they show because it's
all the time, so like you get to see them grab it and you
see the coming and like grab grab, yeah you blow the back, like
yeah, absolutely. Can I ask you you the villain? Do you think
that it looks a lot likes right? I didn't even think of that,
but yes, yeah, I'm just saying what are they doing there? Who's
No. If I was making a game, I would also put my boss
in there as the villain, like yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it.
But it's it's cool. I just like the It's like it's that game
that like at the very end of the year usually like gets lost in the
scuffle. But I think like some people who are like really obsessed with that
two thousand and nine game are gonna like this one because that was that one
was kind of like jacked up, but some people really loved it because they
loved the movie and they got like, so this is like way better than
that. The world is insane. Yes, it's weirdly a perfect time for
that game to come out. I agree, yeah, because it's not it's
not gonna win any awards or doing anything like that. Like it may be
a winning award, but like no one's like looking for innovation out of this
Avatar game. So and we always talk about how games that come out in
this period usually get lost and that's why they don't succeed. But this is
a license game that as soon as it's on shelf, it's it's like it's
good for a year or two or whatever. So this seems like the perfect
time for them to put that out and be like we don't have to worry
about that. We'll check in with it in a year's time and it would
have sold like eight million copies that the normal is gonna see this on the
shelf. Yeah, and they're going to that's that's the Christmas game. I'm
not interested in this game at all, but I am fascinating. I know,
I know, but because it went with my with my shirt, No,
but I am. I really want to know more about Jake and your
journey to Pandora today. So you're named off the Jake, how does he
what's here is the White Saviors? Like, yeah, oh my god,
share it with you later, Okay, Yeah, I'm just happy to Worthington's
getting work. I think he's He was in The Terminator, the Weird One.
Yeah, he was also in uh wasn't in the Unibomber series. I
think he was like the detective in the I think that was He was really
good. It was really good in Under the Battery of Heaven about the Oh
yeah, yeah, it was good too. I think it was on maybe
Discovery or something. It was on some very random network. I was I
was doing a show at the time. We're keeping up with a bunch of
different TV shows, and that was one of the ones that we chose to
cover for one just I feel like I said that that drill to it.
You don't, under any circumstances have to give it to the unibom. Yes,
Jake, I mean you want to talk a little bit more about the
game, But do you enjoy it like you were having a good time with
it? It's yeah, it's definitely like my my critical brain is like,
yeah, I think it's fun to turn that off sometimes, right, exactly,
like seven out of ten goes down real good after like a month and
a half of trying to play all the games of the year, Yes,
right, yeah, and it hit exactly like RoboCop did. I mean,
I love robo Cop more so that was different, but it was the same
thing where it's like, this game's definitely like, got some weird things I
don't like, but I am here to just be blue. I knew that
yourself. It was soon seal gang whoaverne no no no no no no no
no no no no no no no no no. That I believe that's is
that? Susio? Is that what that is? It depends on how you
ask. If you ask me and janis Bostos, okay, if you ask
anyone of Latin origin, it is uh yeah, what's the what's the friend
zone? The show? Hoo are you getting canceled right now? Yo?
Hey, I don't know. Yeah, this is this is all chances everybody.
Yeah, you can't cancel. You can cancel me maybe, Lucy James,
how are you doing? Yeah, I don't listen. I had a
good time playing video games this year, and then I had to do a
daily news show and I was like, huh, this industry seems kind of
whack. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's been one uh huh, And
I'm like, but it's it's because the reality on the ground feels very different
than when like you're looking at all these games, like they're all very good,
and they're all selling, and everyone seems really happy to spend a lot
of money on this stuff. I don't know, does that change how you
feel when you go to cover games, like like, oh, we have
to keep in mind that there are real people behind these things, and we
want to maybe put that first and foremost. I mean, I kind of
I guess we're in a very privileged position, all of us, because we
all beaten all the time. Goddamn it, We've meet talks all the time,
and so you kind of have more of that insight into the realities of
making games and how difficult it is. And then this year has just been
so brutal that I don't know about you guys that like I cannot just like
pick up a game and not see or hear or think about what's gone into
making it and the reality of the ship show that has been this year and
capitalism in general. Absolutely, do you have a favorite game that you think
got forgotten other than Poulterers Kate three? Of course, no one's talking about
favorite game that no one's talking about. I want more people to be talking
about Dredge always Cosmo though, like fifty times I don't know what it is.
Oh, let her, you came to the right person. Yeah,
tell me about Zach Gage and his team. So they basically take those newspaper
classic games like doing Zudoku and they make apps like Beautiful clean, taking the
idea of like the everyday puzzle and then just making this beautiful clap. They've
made a newspaper game platform and so every day you'd log in, there's a
bunch of different puzzles changes every day. They are leaderboards you can get your
friends in, and it's just so's the words of ta Hikoro's simple and clean
and it's beautiful, and it's just I love puzzles, man like genuine I'm
the I'm the sticker who pays five bucks a month for New York Times.
We did Connections today as a little team exercise. Actions. Today's one was
bullshit. Jeff Bakla almost almost cried, don't make me have to say that
I got it perfect right away. You could say it, go ahead,
I just did perfect. He did it. But he also did it in
difficulty order, which was the most impressing. Yep, that was lucky.
I normally a terrible that game. So there you go. There's my dirty
secret. And how are you feeling about video games in twenty twenty three?
It is, as you say, like such a mixed thing because I think
that there were so many unbelievable games this year. You know, it was
one of those things when the Game of the Year nominations came out, it
was like, oh, some games that I've played that I thought were fantastic
are not nominated for End of the Year, like you know, Yellow four.
But at the same time, there were so many extremely good games.
But there is an acute awareness behind the human cost not to be a total
bummer, but you know it's I mean, it's like good to take stock
of that thing. Yeah, right, a little bit where it's like,
yeah, it's it's easy to go into the Game Awards to be like let's
celebrate and yeah, I don't. I know a lot of people like asking
Jeff Keey like acknowledge this, this and this and this and this, and
it's like some of those things should definitely acknowledged. But it's like it's hard,
yeah, because you want to be just selling video games at sham point
because that's how he makes money and it but it's when people are getting laid
off of work. Destiny story that came up, Yeah, amazing job to
read always yes early on a jam bumps like which word are you reading?
My Readvalentine. She always gets the good angles and she's just doing the good
hard work. But yeah, it's uh, it's it's good to like just
taste stock in the look back and kind of figure out is the industry in
a healthy place overall? It feels like it probably secretly is. Headlines don't
make it feel though you know they don't. But what I will say was
a real positive this year in gaming is the Saxonist level of the characters.
Oh yes, yeah, I mean yeah, we're obviously like this is a
game that comes out next year, but we are literally, you know,
we're just wrepping these guys. Yeah, we're hot. Guy. Yeah,
you love you love sureless men. Oh yeah, I mean, you know,
like Balder's Gate, very satisfying. You know, I hooked up with
a lot of different are you. Are you in a Darian sickle of course?
Yeah? Yeah, gang yeah, Michael Ham, how do you feel
about sex and games? How do you think about all the fucking Yo?
There needs to be more smashing and videos? Me. You play Smash bro
the smash smash mall bros. That's the younger. The franchise just got revealed.
That shit better have hot coffee off the bat im trying to boy,
no files, I need that organic hot coffee. Put the game shark away.
I just put it up front. Give it to me, you know
what I'm saying. Yeah, my Game of the Year did not have any
smashing in it. Uh? Whoa, Actually no, what was your O?
Pat Traveler too? Let me tell you, but let me talk to
you. Let me talk to you about a game that got snubbed at the
game. Yeah, that was my I feel pretty salty about that. That's
your number one except on GameSpot dot com, one of the top ten games
of twenty other real game of the year. Yeah, you know what I'm
saying. Uh No, the one thing that I'm I usually don't get salty
about the war shows because you know, I know what they are, you
know, no big deal. But best Music or Best Soundtrack, it did
not get nominated for that. Listen, who knows who might rush rush the
stage this year? I mean watching Michael High, I heard you were planning
a sick out mine, so I was or I am, okay, so
you see it tomorrow, but rushed the station. I love this. Everyone
was talking about his crazy security this year. I hope the security is like
in the last year. Keeley learned like some runs up. He just like
handles it so bad. At some point I gotta take care of I wanted
to be like the scene in Wayne's World too, where he opens the door
and there's like Commando's training and stuff like this opens doors, like everyone,
look, this is what you'll deal with presenting the game awards Commando. Yes,
that's usually how the ceremony opens, it's just you. You get a
look at the behind the scenes of the commandos who are all gearing up exactly
to the game. How have you could help You used to work at defense,
right Yeah? Yeah, no, no, no, So I was
I was like looking up. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be talking
to people. I should do a little bit of background LinkedIn, you know.
I was actually I was writing I Am for you. I was like
going through your old tweets, your early tweets, and I wrote this one
down. I only feel safe around Filipinos. It was, that's up if
you can help my boy out. I wrote that down. I'm like,
what about even gonna do with that? I'm like, I'll just I'll just
say it. Yeah, just go for it. If you're if you all
are at the game wards and you're Filipino, sit next to me. Please,
I feel safe even if you're not, Like I feel safe around Filipinos
too, Like, damn you did you feel safe? I feel great?
Yeah, I feel safe always around Michael Home. Yeah. Absolutely. How
you feel about games in twenty twenty three? Oh man, I mean I
think it's the same story, like it is a mess in so many different
ways. I feel like it's it's a challenge that has It feels like one
of those like monumental years where it's make or break for the industry in a
lot of ways, where it's like, you know, it's it's coming off
the pandemic and then that that caused people to behave in certain ways from a
business perspective and like a hr perspective, whatever it may be, and now
the economic side of it is coming in. There's all a bunch of compounding
things where and then AI the rise of AI, and then AI is starting
to creep into development and acting and all that kind of stuff. It feels
like the challenges that video games and video games creators face our multitude right now,
and it feels like there's a very good chance that things could plode or
explode, But it also feels like there's a bunch of developers that are set
up for success in a lot of ways that could become the model for you
know, how other companies bigger now do it. It feels like now there's
a long discussion. It always has been like the double A market has gone.
People don't make double A games, and it's because double A developers vanished
for a really long time, and now we have like almost NDIE developers are
graduating to double A developers and they go on their back year, and a
lot of those developers, like you, they have much better kind of working
practices and also scope scale, and they function on a business level that isn't
driven by capitalists, you know, and the CEOs that are always trying to
hit milestone metrics to at the expense of the people who are actually doing the
day to day work. So it feels like there's enough of them that they
could not fill in the gap, because I don't want to say a gap
is going to be created, but like there's still a very solid, healthy
foundation to the video game world, and I think this year has been really
good example of that, considering like our Game of the Year has got a
bunch of different contenders in discussion. It wasn't just you know, Baldersgate,
Alan Wake Zelda. We had Cocun, we had Dredge, we had Octopath
Traveler, which is from a bigger developer, you know, but still we
had a hit Man, Freelancer, an independent studio. If you think about
it, there's enough of those that are still, like I feel like now
more than ever, mid tier Indye tiers can kick it alongside top tiers because
top tier, in the struggle to make more and more money, they're being
safer and safer, and the mid tier and Indye tier are really where the
good stuff is happening now. Like the most interesting games are like cocuon Chance
of Scenari trend, that kind of stuff. Everything else is like, as
much as we love Alan Wake, it's still and that is probably like the
worst example of it because it's an idea with crazy, you know, crazy
ideas and a lot of risks, and same with balders Gate, but pretty
much everything else is like, yeah, I kind of expected it. It's
a good execution. So I feel like it's not a great place right now.
But I don't think it's all doom and gloom. I think we've got
enough safety. It's that there's going to be people who fight and like really
struggle to keep the industry healthy. I think it's like what you're describing as
like the system that all these developers exist in, it is always moving,
and like, yeah, so that that space that you're talking about that a
lot of these smaller students are moving into, they are they may have better
practices right now. I don't think that necessarily will last, but what will
happen is new studios will come up under ease them and they continue to fill
up that space and it kind of all flows upward. And it's like,
as long as there is an end goal of like, hey there's money at
the top, we're going to keep kind of growing. And that infinite growth
is is like it's you know, it's it's interesting because I feel like there
is a parallel in terms of what's going on within the gaming industry that is
also happening across entertainment, you know, in film and television. And it
was things like with the sack striking, with the writers strike, the companies
that were getting granted these waivers because they were like, sure, will agree
to the terms and conditions. Were the indie production Yes, And it feels
like the indie game companies are Yes, they are yeah, exactly. Yeah.
The business model has changed in a way as well right now, Like
you don't entirely need these giant publishers to fund everything you have Kickstarter, you
have you know, smaller companies. Yeah. Yeah. Figure also like companies
like for example, yeah, private division Devolver, who their goal isn't to
make every game a call of duty. The goal is to find small wins
in different places, and I feel like that is an important part of it.
But also I think these days developers are a little more savvy in how
they handle their own IP and the potential that affords them. You know,
a studio like Supermassive, for example, they made Hades. They are easily
one of the biggest developers right now because of the game that they made,
but their team is still relatively small and they hold that IP. So you
know, when a Netflix Netflix comes along and they're like, we want to
we want to turn Hades into an anime or something like that. That's a
new that's a new revenue pipeline just for them. Like it doesn't go through
a publisher, takes a lot of that money and then it trickles down to
these developers and over time that kind of ends up in them falling apart.
It's like the greediest people are being punished right now, and there's a sweetness
to that retribution. The sad part of it is whoas who pays for it.
The people who are paying for other people who doing the hardest work are
the least deserving of that punishment, like for it comes downwards. My hope
is like these people will also realize that now more than ever, it's so
viable to set up your own little thing and figure something out right. I
mean, money's not as cheap as it was, so it's like a little
bit more difficult. But there's still a lot of investment happening because a lot
of these investors believe that hits can happen, and it's a hit driven business.
When we talk about hades, it's like a big hit taking off that
works. I think that when we go a tier down, I think it
still mostly works. But even if you might not have Netflix knocking at your
door, but you probably can work your way up to that time. But
I mean, I think the idea that the democratization of tools has happened.
We are fully here. Anyone could start. We're going to keep getting a
lot of games, and if that's your primary concern, you don't have to
worry about anything. If you didn't go a step deeper and like you start
worrying about the people, the system feels a little bit more broken than it
even does in movies and television, where it's like it's understood you're going from
one gig to another. You have that big industry wide union that understands that
you are not going to have a permanent job at a lot of these places.
And it's like, secretly the gaming industry is built that way where for
a very long time, it was, especially when it was in the pre
order era, where it's like, hey, you got all the pre order
money. Now we got all that money and we're done making the game,
goodbye. You're now laid off. And it's like that's changed a little bit.
And the hope was live service games would come in and really paced over
that and enable these people to keep these jobs for longer. Obviously that's not
working, so it's like there is unanswered questions. I think overall, you're
right, that's like it still feels like things are mostly working, even it's
like we don't wear at a low side for a lot of sen in it.
My major concern is like how it looks to people who are trying to
get into the industry. Now I can actually tell you that. So a
friend of mine works for charity in the UK and she works with like getting
young people into the workplace. She hit me up before I went on holiday
to Amstam and she was like, Hey, I'm goingly looking to get some
you know, get the kids involved in making games. I'm going to voice
note you a bunch of stuff. Can you reply to this when you get
back from your holiday and listen to the voice note? And then it was
like saying all that like details, and I sent her a big thing back.
I was like, yeah, we can do this these people and she
went, yep, we saw what the landscape looks like and we are not
encouraging kids to get into it right now. That's that's the hardest part of
it, because like the thing that everyone is seeing is the biggest companies imploding
the embraces, the EA's that kind of stuff, and that is what that's
because that's what it hits the headlines, right That's the stuff that we report
on. We don't report as much on the successes that we don't know.
We still don't know. We don't net is I don't know where the net
is. Positive Everyone who's like looking at and assessing can I make a real
goal making video games? They see the big skyscrapers on fire. They don't
see that like at the ground level there's really nice little cafes and you know
that kind of. But then there's also from the UK this week the changes
to immigration laws. Yes, that's gonna let's explain, like what that is.
It's basically the changing immigration to basically say that if I think it's your
partner has to earn forty and a half thousand GBP. Oh no, so
what it was before it was like twenty one thousand. It's allocating, that's
point. So in terms of junior level roles, like all my friends who
are in the UK development and like this is no, this is right,
And twenty one thousand was already hard to reach on its so moving it up
to thirty eight and a half basically going to make it impossible. And this
is going to cause a difficulty in hiring people from outside the UK essentially with
junior roles too, like you need to have that experience and obviously you need
to be compensated for it, but there you want to be an attractive place
to work, and it's like you want to be like an impossible place to
work and it's gone. That's where the UK's headed, right is because of
the Tories. Yeah yeah, man, that's the official position of Giant bombime
Bomb say get a stepstone, jump on my butt, That's what I say.
But yeah, like it seems like a very down segment. The games
this year have been incredible, we say every year, but one of the
best years in video gaming history totally and like it's it's not. I think
the big takeaway is like it's games on all levels that we can really appreciate.
The Ballders games and all awakes, the Robocops and the Exo Primals remates.
Yeah, the Rema made the Avatars the Weeks, like you said in
the Humanity and Chances Incenar and both of those just hit me so hard.
I like even you know, like the Dead Space remake that hits so good
audio, very easy to forget. Yeah, so there are amazing games being
made across the spectrum. The human cost is devastating and it's sad. I
just feel like it. I'm not saying like, oh, we should ignore
it, but like there is hope to be had in the industry as well.
Yeah, I think you're right then to say to just straight to say
that the camera it's not dooming gloom, like there bad things are happening.
We're acknowledging we should acknowledge that we should push back against it. I also
want to say there's been an incredible outpouring of community, like every time one
of these awful layoffs happen, Like there's like groups on linked in the slack
this discord trying to get people roles and like offering things like hey, I'll
go for your resume, or I'll look at your portfolio for you. I'll
have a free mentoring session around so like, there are also these people in
the community who are like build these people. I will say, though,
please, I'm as someone who has experience in looking for places to work at
various points in my life, is that the more you see layoffs more often
than you see expansion from companies who are willing to hire. So at least
right now and in like the immediate future, there are fewer jobs and there
are people who are keeping And that comes back to like the macroeconomic stuff.
This is probably happening across all industries. We're noticing it and gaming, but
it's real and like these companies are not being cavalier with how they're spending money.
I mean, I go back to the Bungee story and like how they
are shrinking all of their benefits and it's a hiring freeze and they're not paying
for travel anymore. And they had like monthly knitting classes now they're quarterly and
stuff like that. It's like to take that extrapl like that to the rest
of the industry. That's what's happening, whether it's making games or covering games
or whatever anything related to that. So yeah, it's it could be.
It could be discouraging if you are a young person trying to look to get
into one of these traditional jobs. It also makes like the next couple of
days really interesting in a weird way. Like we pull out our Game of
the Year top ten and announced in our Game of the Year list, which
was written by pretty much everyone on staff, Like it begins with, hey,
this industry is sucking right now, but like we have to acknowledge that
while also being excited about these games, and it's not easy to do that,
and we have to do it again with the Game Awards. We're all
going to be excited about this show that's going to happen and we get probably
to see exciting reveals and the lay of the land for the next few for
the next year, but in the back of it was always going to be
that like at what costs? Yeah, you know. It's one of those
things though, where you need to find the joy in the darkness so that
you can still acknowledge the WS. It's like playing Sonic six. Yeah,
the darkest thing imaginable. Let's turn this around. Let's turn this around.
We're gonna turn this around. We're gonna turn this around, and I'm gonna
ask Jake, what is your Hidden Gem of thee I actually had a Martian
I kind of wanted to derail things a little bit. Please, does David
the Diver do sex? I didn't just smashed diving into a few things.
Name I'm trying so hard not to say it does doesn't smash, but I
do want to know what you're a hidden Gem of the Year is because I
watched a lot of your videos and you always like to talk about the big
games, but I know you're playing stuff on the side as well. I
hate to sound like a like a Lucy, but it's stretch. I'm sorry,
I don't want to read I totally know it's dredged. Dredge. It
was definitely like just a vibes based game that I really like that was the
or else recommendation that was it was that's right, it was Yeah, and
then you got on it and you told me and yeah, sure enough.
I think I think just the compelling hook of it's a fishing game. You
go out on your boat, but it's mysterious. Yeah. And there's like
a you know, residental for inventory management mini games. Yeah. Yeah,
it was like it was that it was the steam deck, like having the
fresh steam playing that in bed, like it was just it really hit for
me. Thank you for I want everyone's hitting gyms. Yeah, the hitting
gym they want to go with. My game of the Year is just managing
your inventory and resume before you did. You know there's a game entirely about
that. Yeah. I do. I obsessively manage my inventory. Anytime I
accidentally hit the auto sort button, it ruins. Yeah. Everything. Who
is auto sorting this? They are psychopaths auto sorted. I did it once.
I'm like, what if I just hit it once and then I did
ship and then I just started horrible. Oh no no, well I I
respect it, but I can't do it. No, You're right, I'm
a psychopath, writ the first psychopath. There's there's this really great uh indie
game that came out around Halloween time called Kill the Princess and it was and
it was and it was fun because it was like you you're kind of like
told like, oh, okay, this is like what your objective is,
but there's a lot of decision making involved. I'm going to make a note
of Yeah, it's really fun. It is a trip. Yeah. I
played it at pats and and everyone just like walking by just started looking at
it. Yeah, yeah, can I say one more please? El paso?
Elsewhere is your ja? It is so later and say okay, yeah,
well I would looked it up because that's how I pronounced that first.
Yeah. I was like I watched an interview with him and he said to
Lavier and he didn't prect them, like all right, there we go.
We got it. Not more of times I said Gregovin's name wrong when I
was like interviewing him around hating wasn't anything. Greg is the sweetest question why?
And I was like, I was like, we got it. He
didn't correct me, and then I was like, we have to do a
pick up for my managing game spots. Greg sounds great. He was at
it in chiefs before. Yeah, yeah, of course, of course,
yeah, a little statue of that, Tim, you have a degree in
psychology. I want to know how often do you deploy that against me?
A degree? I've got a degree in law study. I'm sorry, I've
got a degree in law and I have got a qualification in psychology. That's
she's got the primary psychology. And this is why I always feel like you
guys manipulated me. Do a very good job at it. That's what we
do. Serious. How does that like become useful for you? I feel
like for me, like the legal staff, so side of it is useful
in my day to day work because I have to read US Immigration, US
the immigration immigration my previous lawyers, I caught your mistakes. Don't do that
again. But also like we read NDA's day to day and like I also
apply it amply in Phoenix, right, which is perfect simulation of how law
works. Obviously, the psychology part of it is really interesting. I do
think about it like psychology, like Lucy can attest to this, Like they
teach you like theories and ideas and that kind of stuff more than they teach
you like how to think about people like holistically, and there is there was
a point where I was studying where I was like branching off. It felt
a little more holistic and how to and that's where they kind of talk about
like therapy and how the human brain works and how you can be manipulated or
like you know, responses and that kind of stuff. That's the kind of
stuff that I really like, and I feel it comes more, it becomes
more interesting when I'm playing a game and I'm like, oh, I get
why this line was written this way, because it's like trying to appeal to
this element of like my psychology or the game of psyche or personality psyche,
but like Lucy can speak way better to the psychology part of it. Psychology
for me is basically the fact that you cannot trust your memory at all.
Your memory can be manipulated so easily. This is in my everyday life,
but genuinely, when I were not here, you're misremembering this right now.
The biggest thing for me from my psychology degree, because I also didn't really
like doing it, was a big follow the money because every time you'd have
to read a psychological study, it would always be who funny? Every single
time? Every single time, and you would always have to bring that up,
like, well, this one was funded by this university or this uh,
this donor gave money towards with some sort of interesting like yeah, another
company. And so every time I don't think when you're giving money to do
something, you're ever affected by anything that doesn't sound right. Thing. Every
time one of those bullshit video game violence studies come though, like I always
look at where the money came from, but also the research methods because some
of them are bonkers because you can't replicate stuff properly. You can't real life
and A controls it, and so I'm just like, that doesn't make any
sense. A good intersection of the law and the psychology part of it that
only really happened once in video games in a direct way was Elenois. I
really wish, Yeah, I really wish like someone took another crack that,
even rock Star, because like for us, like everyone was like, oh,
you're reading body language and you're reading like you're thinking about like the prosceidual.
I find that stuff very fast. Sometimes in Illinois, the problem was
the problem was went to exaggerated, like it was like I didn't do this
well. They they didn't make it work for people who don't did not study.
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like there's a really interesting game to be
made about like subtle, like the technology has advanced to where we can have
like these really like nuanced facial expressions. Having another game that is like that
good like in terms of like presentation and intricate in terms of like mechanics that
is about like reading body language and figure out psyche. Let me tell you
about like the dragon's capata. Yeah, that's the kind of stuff like like
a chance of scenario like for language. I want that for for like psychology
and leading people, but I also wanted for like economics. One of my
favorite games is a Tingles rosy Rupee Land game that never came out here.
It's fun spin off of It's weird spin off of Cell Day, and the
whole idea is you need to go up to characters and they have something you
need to buy from them. They don't tell you how much it costs.
You have to guess how much you need to spend on it. If you
don't give them enough, they just take your money and you don't get to
get the thing what you kind of it's like one of the you're the owner
of a shop in and off PG. Yeah, and you like sell someone
if you might be give definitely one like that. Yeah, there's but yeah,
and I love that idea of like messing around with like the psychology of
economics and things like that. That's uh. I had a lot of fun
with Eco. Not the one everyone's thinking of. It's the multiplayer one that's
like Minecraft, Like like I set up, I upset up my own shop
and there my own company store, enforced all my employees who are other real
players to shop my store, and then I caused an economic collapse in that
game because I wanted to move to a different currency. It's like being able
to manipulate stuff like that and think about like stuff like a psychology and economics
in games because I think these are untapped like potential ideas that we're going to
get a lot more of them, like when you're doing insider trading and animal
crossing. Yes, yes, I love I love this shit. Lucy,
I got I got a question for you. Tell me about your blonde era
the blurb. Yeah, so so before I worked at GameSpot because I'll have
been in a game sport for ten years in July, which damn, I
used to work for a TV company called Jinks with g not to be confused
with the clothing gis. You'd be surprised off of me about that. And
I used to host the flagship show called The I didn't name it, no
responsibility. I had no input in the graphics of the show either, but
for a while, because I would have I was in my early twenties at
the time, I was like, I'm going to change my hair all the
time. So I had pink, purple red for a very long time,
red red or like human being red, all the above. Everything changed.
Yeah, I remember you talking about mast with red hair. I forgot that
was Danny's video. Yeah. Yeah, being Depressed Masha is one of the
best of press games ever. Yeah, all timing else, I'm like,
what, like, was that like you wanted to express yourself or did you
feel a need to do that because you're going to be TV and you're a
woman talking about games and you had to like stick out or something like that.
You know, I don't know why I did it. I think it
genuinely was just face because well, actually because I went to I went to
a Tory school, and you weren't to have those Newcastle. I went to
a private school, but it's just like this university. This was from age
ten to eighteen. Hey, that sounds crazy. That sounds crazy that they
have those. I'm sorry. It meant that I couldn't experiment with anything like
your Your uniform was under scripted me all the time, take up and I
actually I don't know what they are, but I mean I I genuinely had
a great time about school. I loved it, but it meant that there
was as a golf skater kids, I couldn't do ship at school. When
I moved out and went to UNI, I was like, I don't think
I want And what that was was ruin my hair, like because I also
didn't have the money to do it properly and like get all the flexible side
red hair. Lucy was the first time I met Lucy and it was the
coldest I've ever seen anyone. Look was it blond hair? It was worse.
It was silver, silver hair. Silver here for one day. Because
so in the UK, I don't know if this happens in America A lot.
You'll walk down the street and a hairdresser will come out and to a
fight. Happened to me in the US. This happened to be in the
UK, Thank you, I wish. Yeah. Well, they come out
all the time and they're like, hey, we need to test dying.
We'll give you a free hair cut. That happened all the times I lived
in hairdress and so this woman was like, okay, I'll give you a
really good hair and die job. And I was like, well, okay,
I actually have a very big professional hosting gig, which was the launch
of the PlayStation four yeah, twenty thirteen, and I was like, you
cannot mess my hair. Oh no, and she God love it. For
that one night my hair was silver. It was gorgeous. Bread. However,
after that because I didn't know how to take care of it, and
she bleached it three times in one day. Yeah, Oh my god,
I look like Priss from Blade Runner because it just went and it was miserable
and it was the coldest. It was like a midnight launch as well.
It was November, yeah, so it was so cold. I was out
there covering it for a different outlet. You were covering it for Sonya,
was it? Yeah? So, and I remember like walking around, I
was like taking this game. No, no, I was doing it for
CVG yeah, Computing Video Against which is now VGC. Shout out to Andy
and the crew there. Way he is. So I was covering it,
and my my attempt at covering it was I found a I found across the
road from the venue was this framing store where you'd go and take like shit,
you weren't framed. And so what they had is they had these like
really nice frames as like their displays, but every single one was filled with
like a Hollywood A list celebrity. So what I started doing was taking real
close up pictures of them and saying, oh my god, ex celebrity is
at the PlayStation four lords and that was our entire twittery. Meanwhile, this
he is like doing like normal good interviews, And at one point I saw
and she was like hi, like shaking, and I was like we met
briefly at the Assassin's Creed. Yeah yeah, And I was like, are
you're right? It's just like cool as cree black, like yeah yeah.
And then I just went back to like taking pictures of celebrities and being like,
oh my god, it's here's Rond's there and people were like, oh
ship these Rusiden's a gamer. I was like yeah, yes, yeah,
acted surprise that a hairdresser came out at you and was like, Hey,
I'm gonna get a haircut. But that happened to me on the airport on
the way here, which is why I got an airport haircut. Wow,
it looks good. I thought they did a pretty good What happened? I
just I was walking past the hair cutting place and the guy sitting there talking
on his phone. He's like, you're next to me like that, and
I walk past, I to like fifty more feet. I'm like, he's
right, I am next, and I went back in. I'm like,
you fix up the side. That is exactly what happened to eat you.
Yeah, but I'll take the money forever. Yeah, yeah, let's go.
Do you usually just go with it and do stuff like that. That's
like getting lobster at a diner. Yeah, yeah, airport haircut. Usually
go with that, Yeah, lobster me had a dime. Yeah, I
would eat lobster a dinner. I get a sushi at a gas station.
So White Castle, you ever have a clamstrips at White Coupe? Would?
Yeah? Yeah, they're not every They're not in every white Castle, but
a class White Castle. Do you think you go he said you're next,
because he looked at you and when that guy needs a haircut, or do
you think he was like, oh, that's the person who was in here
earlier and saw in my eyes that I glanced over. It's like I knew
in my soul I needed a haircut and I could sense it because he did
it to other people, created hair That was his gambit. He would just
say to everyone, your next, ye speaking of not everyone, I don't
like that in an airport though they were playing Don't See the Reaper like that
is a song. Don't play that at airport. Don't play that in airport.
Speaking of gambits, my Gem of the Shadow gambit and incredible stuff that
is on my list to play next. Sang absolute banger. Sadly the studio
yet down. They shut down and then they released some DLC. They were
like, bye, guys, we worked on there and it was like one
more like we're burnt down, but you sense that it's like hard to keep
it. That's what comes from it's hot. But that game is phenomenal.
It's so good. Like to give a quick shout out to a base for
the unbound shouts. It's all my Southeast Asians after you know what I'm saying.
Hey, we out here at the Game Awards. We got three future
class people from Southeast Asia. Gang. I believe that the seasons are getting
it is what I've been told. Thanks everybody for hanging out with this first
segment. We're gonna be right back after about fifteen minutes or so. I'm
gonna go Clam Sam slam some White Castle are something else. I can't do
that. Clam slam clams. That's crazy. Say we do here. We're
okay, Clam Slama. Welcome back Giant Bomb at Night Live for our Game
of the Year spectacular lot going on this week. Glad you're spending tonight with
us looking at the wrong camera again. You don't have to give me that
look. I know where's the tali light. Here's my ope, it's not
that whippe. All right, everything make it gun. Yeah, Welcome back
everybody. I'm Jeff Grub, brought to you by these protes right behind me
like a dragon, infinite wealth. Take a shout out to everybody I've been
watching so far. We're gonna have another great panel. Got a lot of
friends joining me, including Listenerconte. How are you doing I'm so good.
Should I do this shot right now? Yes? Okay? Ready? Who
is? Yeah? Thanks for joining us, Jim Glennon, I've just met
you five seconds ago. I'm thanks for having me. I'm glad you're here.
Absolutely, Brittany Johnson, I've seen you sit to San Diego. I
know dream that was a good time. Absolutely, it was like we were
like off in our own little corner making stuff happen. Yeah. Absolutely.
Steve Sailor's back, Jeff, good to see you. Good to see you
too, Stay goold to see anything? Really, but I'm starting early,
folcus. Let's go. We got show kittles from Scotty Dance. How you
doing? But hey, I'm good. I don't know where to look either,
do I look at you? I don't worry about that. There's no
cameras, no one's there's nothing. Yes, this is just for me.
This is I think my dad is watching this. Dad, my dad.
I'm gonna make a correction here a second. And then Drake, what are
you doing here? There are friends? And then I'm here, Yes,
early night. It's six o'clock. It's m where I'm from, so it's
it's only six o'clock. It's nice for people with kids exactly. Speaking of
kids, a correction, Addie, I don't eat lobster that her favorite animal
is lobster. I said I would eat a lobster. I absolutely would not.
Your kid watch this contact she's watching it. Yeah, well, just
going to bed. Yeah, I want to eat the lobsters, I promise.
All right, let's move on. Yeah, so what's let's start with
you? Oh yeah, yeah. How are you doing? How you feel
about video games? I mean, they're gaming, you know, the games
are gaming. We were saying before we came out here, like we really
don't know what to expect from whatever a Kili's gonna pull out this year,
you know, like people are throwing everything out there. Well, I'm seeing
comments on things that are like new Gears, like just totally off the wall
stuff, you know what I mean, And I don't. I don't really
know what to expect. And I've also never been to the Game Awards,
So you're going, I'm going it's fine. Yeah, I'm going. It's
a good time. I went to the first one in Las Vegas. Yeah,
I'm very excited to go and judge everyone. Yeah, I'm gonna be
happier just sitting here watching it at home tomorrow, but we go at least
once. Yeah, No, I need to go once and say I did
so I'm excited. I'm very excited. Can we do the pro tip?
Though? It's on East Coast time so it starts a four thirty here,
so eat something before you go, because they serve food and drinks but you
can't take them to your seat. Yeah. And I was like a prison
experiment where they make you buy a thirty dollars package whizzlers and they're like eat
it all at one the walk you died, came out there, you stay
out there, close down the bar like halfway through. Yeah, I dare
try to be on edibles at the gameboy. Yeah, okay, yeah,
I don't dare that. Yeah, the hold gods the bass guard performance will
be screaming, I'm gonna ahead of you and pop up the jump scairs now
please don't. I gotta get my dosages. Listen. I'm glad that you're
here because I was like looking in everybody make sure I had like something to
say. And I noticed in one of your profiles you said you play inverted
and you can explain why it's the correct way to play. Don't give me
the okay, okay, okay, judgment the correct I cannot believe you came
from me so aggressive. I'm inverted as well. You are allies, I
you know, bread and butter. For me was always shooters, first person
shooters, and it always made sense to me if I was embodying the body
that I was playing and I'm looking up that I would pull back just like
my head would move. And I've got pushed forward just like my head would
move. And it's then left and right, the inverted left and right.
I know, but I give some people bite, but at this point in
my life, I can't do that anymore. But because I think it's on
the nose right, left and right. Yeah, for me, it's just
the joystick. The left joystick is the top of my head. Yeah.
We settled this, and no one can ever to this. Inverted controls is
also an accessibility option. So I'm just going to say, if you think
otherwise, you're ablest, and I'll thank you. Steve to Demos and they
don't have the inverted thing. I'm like, you guys know I can't play
your game now. Like I'm just going to be like, and you're gonna
be like and we have footage capture for you, and like it's going to
be me staring at the floor. I can't figure it out being so bad.
And when I swap with my partner, he has the like swapped back
to regular and he's like like fuck, and like, yeah, I don't
know. It just makes sense to me. It always does. I mean,
if I need someone to blame at this point, I blamed me Amoto
because all those early three D Mario games were inverted. Yes, especially Sunshine
where it's like, oh no, we're gonna invert everything. You're basical gonna
be walking back, where it's like, yeah, we don't care. So
yeah, he made me the freak I am today, and so blame him
godlike double O seven, yeah, oh my, and like that's where that
was. Yeah, that's where the violence came out in me. Really became
angry. Angry gamer moments started then and have continued ever since. But a
flight sim with a joystick is naturally inverted, So do you revert the invert?
You know that recently some games have started doing not inverted as the fault
for flight Wait. In the last couple of years, there's been several games
that have done that. I'm like deeply upset by that because they're like,
because there are children who are like no, I want to go up when
I press up with a with a hold like actually, I mean yeah,
yeah, an emergency. The only one who put up Oh gosh, rights,
how things of Katako they're great. I mean, gents, here about
getting that. You have to say it's great, it's great, fantastic.
It is editor editor in chief. Yeah, after many years at Inverse,
I became aware of you and then and then took over Kataku and now you're
running it with an iron fist, right, I would like to think of
it as like an iron fist with a velvet gloves. Sure. Yeah,
another style choice will be critiqued on tomorrow night, and with the master.
I'm afraid of being yelled at about what I would never out sternly worded,
just say stern. But I just said that Phil Spencer dresses like my dad
and he goes to get bagels. You're right, That's all I said,
And I know that he can. We've talked about this a bit, but
I think the new blazer and like logo T shirt thing is like a supple
leather jacket. To Howard, where are leather jackets right now. Like I
love a leather jack jacket. Yeah, I love a leather jacket. I
like them big and long. I see a leather jacket, I'm like,
I can't get here. My laughter is not that I can pull it off
my or that you could pull My laughter was our leather jackets. Cool.
That's what this show is, Drake. You found out that's going to be
the default this year. A lot of supple leather jackets person at Summer game
Fest, and I was like, that looks like a really well made leather
jacket. Does he have multiple versions of that brown jacket? One hundred percent
breaks that in for him. It looks so nice and supple. Okay,
on the ground, the CEO of video always has a different leather jacket every
times to do gpu. It's a new leather jacket. I'm like that.
It's just got a whole room full of them. I'm sure. Yeah,
yeah. I mean I think anyone can wear whatever they want, just have
some personality that's fun. I'm gonna wear a blazer, but I'm gonna wear
a sweater underneath. That's what I'm gonna do. Yeah, nothing, that's
that's way better. You and what you bring to the fashion table, because
it's you, do you know what I mean? That's like, well everyone
else just being like T shirt and blazer, that's what you should that's not
you. That can't just be you. You have to have I really think
this every day, like the true like my privileges and just like white male
privilege, I get to just be Jeff Grubb and no one ever questions it.
It's like no, like a white guy could do something else. It
never reflects on me. Ever. I'm just Jeff. Yeah, oh my
god, one one and on. Just out live them all. That's job.
Yeah, that's Jeff. Yeah. To see what Jeff is wearing,
Yeah, me too. It's gonna sneakers. I just want his sneakers to
actually match his outfit. Do you see his live stream today? He was
wearing now a button up shirt and he looked like he was about to go
to like get arrained for like a misdemeanor. He's a fashion dude. Wear's
good sneakers, but often as sneakers, I don't think match that clock that
I knew the designer of his blazer during the Summer Games fust and he didn't
wear the matching pan I don't really understand he's got to be styling him.
Shock literally call me like I've offered it. I do it for free.
I've done it. I get that. Call me, call me perfect,
Jim. What's the idea with kataky what happens next? Sam? You press
up and then you just steer it straight. But like, I think it's
exciting that you, like you come in new blood and what are there's some
new ideas or is it just like you have a good idea of what Katato
already is and you're happy to express that. Yeah, I mean I heard
Kataku for twenty years, you know, like I want us to go back
to kind of like the glory days, the heyday, you know, like
I want us to still be like smart and sharp and authoritative, but most
of all authentic. I think that's why people come to kataky. It was
just that sense of like you are getting some real unvarnished, unvarnished something.
So yeah, you know, I'll just keep doing what we do. Well.
Yeah, is it nice to be like in a place where it's not
about access journalism, it's about being yourselves and like just Kotaku can make a
statement and it's it's Kotaku, so it's going to matter. Yeah, yeah,
I mean that is that is very different than what I'm used to.
To be honest, it was always like it inverse. You know, I'm
really proud of the work we did there, but we were, you know,
less well known, whereas you know, Katoking, you can you can
put anything on the front page. Someone's going to read it. Or we
had we had a gift of the jiggle physics and Balderskate. But what it
was good, it was cut above the dingle. But the imply you know
what it was. It was they weren't implying in the text headline. I
read the as we get blocked in our in our CMS if we try and
post a curse words, so we have to post it. Who decides the
list of curse words? Not me? Who is you? Span Feller would
be a curse apologize Brittany? How are you doing? We? Like I
said, we found that out San Diego. You did an excellent job.
I'm seeing way better job than I'm doing right now. You appreciate that you
you still have like a big presence in esports. How are you feeling about
that whole scene right now? Sports is in a rough place. It's been
an interesting year, but I think there's an ebb and flow to everything.
So you know, we're this week we get to celebrate gaming and not Jesse
sports, So it's a nice little break away from everything. Yeah, overall,
like like gaming feels like it's in a strong place in many ways,
it feels like it's in a precarious place in a lot of others. Yes,
did you feel that, Like when you look at you're assle a voice
actor, do you feel like, oh, like roles are still out there
right easy to come by? And then does that translate to like esports when
you're like, hey, I'm also looking for gigs in esports, I'm auditioning
more than I ever have for a video game. Actually that has not gone
anywhere. I would say it's a little different. You know, there's not
as many events happening in esports, so whenever we're looking for talent or whenever
you know, there's any sort of tournaments or productions, they kind of been
downscaled. But no matter what, the content is still needed and still out
there. The demand is still there, so they're still happening, but it
just won't you know, it's holidays so it probably won't happen until what is
great. Yeah, but you feel like like it's like ready to reload esports
in a way. Yes, I think everyone is needing like just like a
nice reset. Yeah yeah I could. I could see that. Steve,
how are you deserted? I'm no good? Yeah, yeah, here,
glad to be here. Yeah, I keep telling I I was looking at
you can tell about radio free Zion. Oh god, you're going that far
back? Yeah, okay, So if anyone remembers the game The Matrix Online,
we all do. I was I'm a John Drake's The Matrix Online.
Oh yeah, yeah, No, we don't know. Oh okay, I'm
I'm a big Matrix fan, like I've always been. Making is my favorite
movie. And I will say that the trilogy is good if you watch it
as a whole individually, I can understand why where people have issues with it.
But I was a big Matrix fan, so I was, like I
found out on The Matrix Online. I jumped in and during the beta there
was a bunch of people in the community that created its own community run radio
station. This is back in like two thousand and five or so. This
is like win amp day. Yeah, it's like you are. And so
they created this station called Radio free Zion. And at the time, I
wasn't even really like interested in broadcasting anything like that at all, but I
was like I was. I saw it and I was like, oh,
I just need to audition to be a DJ, and I did and I
got in. My DJ name was DJ Snowball. I had that nickname sent.
I was like four years old and I was like the literally the first
night I streamed was like this kind of like big party that was across a
whole bunch of different servers. I was streaming for five thousand people and in
two thousand and five, that's a lot of people. And it's yeah,
it solidified, like I loved doing it so much that and actually going into
the end of the beta, they actually created this sort of like apocalypse event
when they were developers were shutting off the servers for when the game launched,
and they created this sort of like the whole world was kind of like falling
apart. Everyone was being crumpled up in like the pieces of paper. It
was like eyeballs in the sky. That was like like the moon turn red
and ray freeze On basically turned it into like a War of the World's type
scenario, and we were jumping from different people in different servers just basically like
recounting what was happening. And we actually got like a bunch of swag from
the studio and a personalized letter basis saying like thanks for making the end of
like then a beta event like way better than we ever thought. And yeah,
it was what got me into literally what I'm doing today. So Patris
Online had like like a pretty climactic inning, right, like essentially the ending
of the of the game was the ending of the beta. They basically kind
of like folded it in together, but it was the whole thing. Was
I loved about it was because it was supposedly canon to the movies, so
the Wachowski's were writing it, and there was a lot of stuff that was
happening, Like the very beginning was like Morpheus turned into basically a terrorist because
the machines were turning Neo's body again, Like it was just like it was
a whole and then you actually were able to it was cool. So I
wish actually games would do this now, especially like in the like my favorite
game, which is Destiny. Well maybe not so much anymore. But so
they would actually have people on the development team come in and play the characters
from the movie, so you could actually be able to chat with Morpheus and
they would respond back because it's a human person running it. So we he
was like I got to be able to chat with Morpheus and Trinity and Niobi
and it was like really cool just to to be able to kind of have
fun with it. So yeah, it was great. Hey, don't get
at it, and he's trying to fix the air conditioner. That more than
anything else, God of mind got him. So you get the podcast,
you get the bug, right, you want to like do more hosting.
You wanted to like, like how did that turn into like your career and
anything. So it actually turned into a radio career. I went into school
for radio and I was in the radio voice today. Yeah, I wasn't
ready for like twelve years, working mostly behind the scenes, like doing a
lot of digital stuff, and then I was doing sort of YouTube stuff on
the side from like twenty fifteen and then basically started going into more accessibility stuff.
I got laid off from the from the radio station in twenty nineteen,
so just before when everyone got to work from home I started off early the
year before and I was like, you know what, I'm going to give
this video game stuff a shot. So you know, I'm basically got into
my late thirties. I'm actually turning forty next week, so this is great.
HBD. Sean, how are things over at Skydance Interactive skuy Dance Interact.
You're creative director. I am the VP of creative What does that mean?
It's very special? Yeah, well, I'm a very special no.
I I oversee both of our internal studio teams. So I've got art,
animation, audio design, and narrative and we're making some sweet VR games among
other things. Yeah, I'm like so hot and cold on VR right now,
like a hot face because IVE got the Quest three. I love it.
It's it's hot, it's really good. It's really good. It's like
really well done. You don't have to give me looks because I'm hot for
VR. Hot. Yeah, it's hot hot, Yeah, exactly like red
Eyes and having worked out in MVR a lot over the years, you can
get pretty hot. Yeah yeah, yeah, go I'm hot from VR.
Yeah yeah. Oh yeah. But what's what's it like on the ground making
your games right now? Because I feel like probably like maybe a year ago,
like this seems like a tough space. It's tough. But is it
feel more promising today or is it still like you're gritting it out. Oh.
I to me, it's it's like we haven't even seen the peak of
it. Yeah, I think it's I do think it's a little bit hills
and valleys as we go between hardware releases, and there are certain gaps I
think between like major game releases, like we saw over fifty titles released in
the last month and a half alone along with Quest three, So you get
these moments where it's like, hey, there's not a lot of games coming
out, and then it's like, please stop the games from coming out,
and there's too many. I can't play them. But I mean we've got
Saints and Centers like being upgrading and enhanced for the Quest three that's coming January
sixteenth, and like, I think you're going to see a lot of Quest
three enhancements and new games coming for a long time to come now. A
little bit like like tablets where like kids get them for Christmas and then they're
like ready to do games like the next month or so Christmas day, we
see more active users on Christmas in the day after like than any other day
of the year. It's it's massive and the audience keeps growing, right,
there's a really the games that come out and hit, like Walking to the
Saints and Centers did hit for a long time because there's always new people coming
in that haven't played VR. They're looking for, Hey, what games are
good and they hear like, oh, Saints and Sinners beat Saber, like
these are the things that we want to check out the year conditions all stop
sweating, they're playing get the most beautible sentence in the English Absolutely. How
do you think about or how do you feel about Sony's a PSVR in that
initiative or do you think I know about it? Don't about? Yeah?
No, I love the PSBR two. Yeah. I think PSVR two is
the most premium VR experience that you can get in terms of like you want
the highest end. It's got eye tracking with fhoviated rendering, which sounds like
a bunch of geeks speak it's amazing, but it turns into yeah, what
you're looking at gets rendered at a higher fidelity, and that means that you
get like super smooth but super beautiful graphics. The Resident Evil four VR upgrade
is coming out this week. This week, I think I'm working this week
or next week. PSBR two it's it's an incredible piece of hardware. There's
things that you can do on PSVR two that you can't do on any other
hardware. But then it's also you know, Quest three, you can go
untethered, and it's a much cheaper entry level for someone who doesn't have a
PS five already to come in and play games. That's what it's where the
Quest three really gums with the Steam streaming and the wireless with that and yeah,
connecting over like six giga hurts Wi Fi. That's huge. Worked,
that's huge. By the way, I mean to think that we've come to
a point where VR as an ecosystem, it was such a walled garden,
and it still is in a lot of ways between platforms. But to have
Steam VR native linked on the Quest, that's that's a seven years ago that
was impossible to imagine. How do you feel about like when you do have
a game and it's ready to go and you're trying to get attention a couple
years ago through more like a lot of VR specific video game coverage websites.
Yeah, and now a lot of them aren't there anymore. Is it harder
and difficult discouraging? I mean, I think if you look at games like
Arizona Sunshine Too, which just just is launching tomorrow, like there's mainstream coverage
of that, you know, front page of IGN reviewing it. So I
think what we're seeing is there's still VR specific sites that that are catering to
that hardcore VR audience, but you've definitely got a lot more mainstream coverage too.
It just seems like it's like it's just going to be another thing that
gets covered by It's another it's another platform, Yeah, it's it's another thing.
And I think that the number of experiences that are coming out in the
next couple of years is going to bring in broader and broader audiences because people
are figuring out like the exciting thing about VR. Like I've been a convert
for a long time. Sure, I wrote an article for Polygon back in
like twenty seventeen about how playing Beats Theaver helped me get over a back injury,
and like, ever since then, I've been evangelical about it. But
I'm not just drinking the kool aid Like, having worked in games for almost
fifteen years now, I've gotten to be a part of really amazing titles.
But this is the first time that I get to work in an area where
like there's new ground to break in a way that there just hasn't been like
this. This is to me, it's the dawn of the three D era
in the late nineties. It's it's you know, the break into the console
era that the NS represented, Like this is this is a big opportunity to
like actually pioneer some games they create, create something new. How does like
the structure work at sky dances it You guys are hiring developers, the contract
and developers, you have your own internal development teams. We've got we've got
internal development teams, like we work with outside support studios and stuff like that
as well. And then you know we're expanding into publishing initiatives in the future
and stuff like that. And then you know there's our our sister company,
Sky Nancy and Media. But Amy Hennay over there making some awesome stuff that
I cannot talk about. Some of Literally a bullet will rip through the wall
if I if I speak, the dots come up on it. You know.
Yeah, we've we've got we've got a pretty pretty awesome team. I
mean the same team that worked on Walking Down Saints and Centers. They're building
one new game that I can't talk about in the Behemoth, which is coming
out next year, that I'm like super stoked to share with everyone, Like
we'll be back to talk about and that was gonna be pretty dope, very
cool. Drake, What the hell is the funds are? What are you
doing? Like that hip hop guy like you Nard Warring right now? The
funds at Harvard? So I went that was your job, that was my
job title. I did go to Harvard, Guest, Let's do you know
why? You should have known? Because with the name like John Drake is
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, why else would you be a Cambridge Yeah. It
was the main point between Mit and Harvard. It's in Central Square. It
was now it's the Financial Issues PROSPCT. But I don't work there anymore.
Uh No. And then all all the people there were like from the music
scene in Boston. So I went to Harvard, but I spent all my
time producing theater and playing in a rock band, running a record label,
and touring and booking shows the Middle East, and now the Middle East is
like torn down ship. Yes, yeah, I was a touring musician for
a long time, and so anyway, I finished school for you. So
my bandmates we were making records. They took their senior year off to a
gap year, and I finished my four year school and then I stay in
town for the year after that. But I needed a job. I was
booking clubs in the city and they had a fellowship where they hired a recent
graduates who run like campus life programing. So I brought a carnival to all
Harvard Yard. I drove bumper cars over three hundred fifty year old steps for
in the yard and the hot Yeah. Yeah, And I got screened up
by Peter Gummbs, like the nine year old reverend, what are you doing?
And I was like, we have to bumper concob I booked Third Eye
Blind to play a concert. Yeah. I opened a bar on campus.
It was great anyway, it was a bar on campus. A bar on
campus, And was that the one in the law school. No, it's
close to law school though. So I stuck around Boston. The was way
stick around bus for sure. Then I fell backwards into video games and have
been stuck ever since, which is that's how we all got here New York
County for television. And then that was the last writers strike and they were
like, don't move here. Everything is bad. And then I was like,
I guess I could be a PR associate because I have an IVY degree.
They won't call me in assistant writing press wiss And my boss at the
time said, I'm gonna work on print media because that's what's important. Handle
he's online, blow future through the demos. And my job was like cutting
boxes for rock band bundles that came two to a box, taking the top
one out, putting it in a new box, cutting the box down and
tapping his shot and then mailing the people. And that's what my very expensive
education paper. You brought a Carnival to Harvard. You were literally literally a
Harvard Carnie. I was a Harvard Carnie. Yeah. I was on people
at a microphone on my shoulder. So you understand the purshoot work, all
the Carnie language. Well, yeah, the Carnie ladus became wrestling language dialogue.
Yeah, that's fine. Is that why I'm here. I'm here to
talk about my like twenty years ago, I don't know. I realized that
this is a food. You guys have a full lie down food. I've
never said that. I really took a nap here and I was like,
is this where Jeff is staying? Yes, I watched like that. I
think so it looks like eventually you did say you would be watching from home
here tomorrow, so I wonder if this was home said this is home.
Now. I know you should have fun one. It's like going It's like
how I feel about going to Paris, Like I want you to go once.
I don't. Yeah, I don't go back. What's your question,
Drake? Do you sit on your back you're supposed to? I can't,
Okay, I asked you a question. What do you do if you're sleeping
on your back and your leg and your legs are out, Are your feet
straight up? Are they tipped forward or are they split off the side.
That's when you're getting like a yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, doing
this relat Yeah yeah. Covers don't bother but I don't sleep on that would
yeah, I'm like very but it bothers me that there's pressure downwards like you're
in a car hotel. Be it's on just like it's going on thinking about
this last night. But you have to back like doctor's orders post. But
I'm worried that my legs being turned out like big perfect. You know,
about to wear a thing like sleep. Yeah, I've tried. It's not
it's a whole. I can't wear to make you sweaty socker feet, so
I should wear life. But also yeah, constantly feeling awkward. Do you
you like when your legs exploded at packs when you did the thing that's my
left achilles, No, it's my right knee. I was live on stage
during pass rest no help paramedic with the heart. I was in Austin,
so I knew where to go. So my achilles exploded and she was playing
a paramedic in the rest angelike fields and she ran up and I was like,
Danielle, I think I ruptured. I think I broke my ankle.
She's like, you know, she took her stethoscope off and listened to my
ankle and went, he's fine. I ran away. I was like,
I'm not doing thought it was ever hair walk and she's like and then they
carded me off in a stretch and she's like, oh shit, you were
not fucking around. Was like, no, I'm not fun anyway. And
then and then Tara Bruna from Tera Bruneau Pierre. I had to drive me
to New York because my flight was out of New York and I couldn't take
the train which I was going to take Tanbrook Angle and there was no Sarmmer
got slowed in New York for four x days with a ruptured achilles. I
jumped Zoe Quinn was playing my vampire butler and she won her match, and
I jumped with my White Eye credit card for my three. I jumped in
celebration and I landed and I thought, actually Dan Riker had had jumped behind
me and landed on my ankle because I heard a pop and I fell and
I turned around. He was seventy behind me. I was like, and
that was fine. And then I took a step and I tried to lift
my toe up and I was like nope, and I'm like, let me
talk. People on the ground taking their long I did a microphone and wow,
fashion blind, I'm still the fucking chimp. They never took the belt
off the Roman raised. They got nothing on me. Maybe in my office.
The leak of heels belt is in my office really work. Yeah,
people don't understand it at all. It's Disney, the American I'm sure we
speaking of Disney. How are things like kid left? I do care?
Last time we talked, we're like, oh, I still developers to make
all my games. You still winding about? Absolutely not what I said last
time games development. We said so many games, were like, we have
so many more ideas if I always have ideas, I'm an idea guy.
Everyone loves the idea guy. Yeahs the our developers, right thing us?
No, we have a we had a great year. I'm talking about trying
to write a top ten for the site. I push it together of all
games that we published the published it. Yeah, it's great. Island check
in. Check in in a week and a half for John Drake's top ten
shill games. Uh, go back to Giant Bond dot com and be out
of free subscription. Probably on sale at some point during the holidays. No,
yeah, it's it's been a good year at the Island. Is nominated
our Mickey and Friends co op platform switch. No, I'm your Family of
the Year. Be sure we'll lose the Nintendo for something. Last year,
dream Like Valley lost to Mario versus Rabbits, which is not a family game.
It's a hardcore tactics game with two characters. That's not a family game.
Think about when you're voting gone, just that family. We had a
room for some reason, and you're like, family, you should expose your
children to this with violence made by Italian developers and you're getting this year doesn't
even have Italian Yeah front on each Ye you're right anyway, So you know
we're twelve At what time is it? We are five and a half hours
away from Avatar Frontiers of Pandora. You can play it right now platform,
you got it? That's that is a large very. This is a mouse.
If you take this off, you can put on a table and access
a mouse. It's really cute. Yes, it's my kiddy cat. His
name is what's the frame rate you get for Avatar? Okay, didn't see
how wicked is by game? Yeah? There we have to Its happened in
Jenn Survivors nominated for stuff. Our friends across the hall in Marble have spider
Man, tea, rocking and rolling names, some full stuff. You know,
we're we're stuff in development development. Yeah, it will do something at
the show tomorrow. You don't have to say. But I mean, I'm
not telling you anything. I'll be at the show tomorrow. You'll get the
bullet. We'll rip through the wall. It's the same person. Yeah,
I'm not happy about it. I'm going to make you drink with me.
Come come afterwards. She's down with She's down in like actual good seats.
I'm in the oops. I thought we were gonna tickets, but we had
to buy tickets after the fact. I had to take They wouldn't let us
sit together. Just see whatever you want, like and also that's always been
fine except for I guess that kid who ran on stage lest year. So
now they're gonna be two years in a row. The game. Wait,
I think I think I saw that, like confirmed they have like actual L
A P D there this year versus just like off duty cars. So I
actually like this. Last year, my seat was like second row on the
aisle and it was the best seat like I ever had. But I couldn't
get that this year. I asked for like for acceensibility, but they're like,
we can't get you that close to the front because the heightened were They
saying, no one can get that close. Basically the closest I'm able to
get is like it's like seven rows back. Reggie has a whole road of
himself. Most important resource if he has like a first class cabin where you
can down. I love a beer. Beer, please dark. I was
vamping to give you time. I'll do whatever. Well. I've been making
what are they called spaghettes. I've been making your lovely bartender make me spaghettes.
Really, what is a spaghette? Spaghett is usually a Miller high life
where you drink it's in a bottle. You drink the neck out and then
you fill the neck with apparel. It's delicious. It's like an adult Shirley
Highlights. Yes, I will you will be sold on this forever. I
want to take when you get back out there, I will do that.
I'll make it for you. Drink, get on Twitter and damp. Someone
do it the right way. Someone figure drinking your guest. I don't.
I'll make star get it. Actually, you look, You guys should do
what like what Andy Cohen does and watch what happens, like when he has
a bar behind hot bart Yeah, he has a hot bartender every time he
does something, and you should. You should get that next time, we'll
just do it out there. So I have the hot bartender, yeah bart
saying the hot bartender when we got you love yeah, yeah, yeah,
Yeah. You gotta get You gotta get a like a very himbo who doesn't
know how to make drinks behind you at the martin get like you have with
your these guys. Yeah, make you whatever and put it in front of
you and be like, I need exactly what you said. Crazy guys talking
second guy, do you know I swear to God on my grandpa'sand like he
just passed a squally. I miss you. I caught those men, thank
you so much. I caught those men bouncing their titties at each other when
no one was talking to they were getting They were standing silently, eyes locked,
and they weren't just I can't do it. They were bouncing. There
was no one around them, and I was like, if I had that,
then you didn't take it. I took a pig of them and one
we needed more to do. There was a kind of like a way where
So ripped. We keep trying to get him for the show. He's big
time in us. Yeah. It was wild. Those guys they were They're
like insanely. I don't like incomprehensibly ripped. Ye. But they also do
the Hollywood thing, which is they thank you, they dehydrate before they do
these big events. Then they drink a diec. That's what he looks super
bad. I heard. I heard that was the trick. It's like,
you dehydrate, can you drink like a coke or a diet coke or something
suddenly get all vascular. You're just loving these Yeah, that's how they did
the top fall. Like its fascinating, honestly, Like I know that it's
some people like in comments make fun of me because they're like, why are
you talking about seeing Oscar Isaac Dick and balls on the plane, And I'm
like, so, I think exactly. I think. You know, we
spent a long time in this industry seeing a lot of scantily clad women and
I'm really okay with seeing which time with objectifying men. And you know what,
you can put that on my two stone. I can say in my
career, like like we're heing in games. There was one time where I
had to give a note that was if we were going to have jiggly bear
breasts, we must match them with jiggly swinging penises. Thank you. That's
the HBO R. That's the rule. That's the rule. Equal opportunity,
unity, real rule. Didn't really a flight here. I started scenes from
a marriage hearing about Oscar Isaac Dick because I knew it was in it.
So this is why I worried about videos. You guys know that was it
was a very well received the thing because the Witcher when they did their their
next show, oh yeah, they accidentally patched in like a high deaf and
high reds like texture odd, and it included very realistic vagina truly like landing
strip like those those bulus those cow keeping up with. They went to a
salon and I swear I won't say who. I won't, but someone from
cd CDPR came up to me when I was last year and said, in
this adorable polish accent, you really gave us a hard time with the vaginas,
And all I can think about was that that should happen more. But
like with also Dick and Ball's exactly what. Yeah, you can't just clam
slam. We also thanks watching everybody. Oh oh my gosh, wow,
we're there, We're there. They fixed the air conditioner. I've never been
more excited about anything in my entire life. It feels great in here.
I've got energy, I got my second wind. Let's fucking go. Thank
you to infinite well like a dragon for supporting us, making this well possible
once to get. Thank you to n c XT and come to our show
on Saturday or watch it live. I think it was the big beats.
I need to keep saying. I'm gonna forget as we get later that night,
I'm gonna keep forgetting. They're gonna keep reminding me. I got more
friends with me. I will. Actually, first, I got my drink
that has like I don't know, elcibate it for me. It's got something
in there on the lip and it's very very good. I hope I'm not
being spiked right now. Actually I don't care. Let's make it happen.
Jake Steinberg, how are you doing. I'm doing well. Yeah. Yeah,
we're you know, not no games here, No they're not allowed,
no, no no, but we're talking about games, and I feel like
I just want everybody to know that in person, everyone here is so attractive.
Yes, it's like shocking. I think like twitch compression must add like
Oh yeah, it's totally. It's the most handsome industry. I completely agree.
Yeah, game explained. I want to just make sure I make some
saying that some people know Jake from Game explaining Jake from Philadelphia. Whatever.
Whatever, Yeah, whatever, keep Adams? What up? How you sat
on your head? What do you mean that's a Knick's head, That's a
Nicks head. I turned it back because we were bringing it back. You
know, what the hell? Nobody asks you nothing? So many w's.
How can you wrap a team that hasn't won in fifty years? Wow?
I can't here looking for love and all the wrong places. Nob got dumbs.
We have a decent squad, fired Rendel fan, and even I feel
kind of bad, and I'm saying I'm trying to I'm trying to steal your
dude from from for your squad. Actually, I'm like, I can take
him beat then we're good. Yeah, I got it all. But good
to see y'all. Goods here in Paris. How are you doing Paris,
Lily? I haven't doing fantastic, sir. It dawned on me, this
is the second time you and I have seen each other in person, and
it's literally the same. I think you were in the same seat last time.
Yeah, so it's like it's like we don't know outside of here,
we'll never will never happened, just gonna be this. But that's what you
know. For you, you know, I am repping the Los Angeles Lakers.
Actually a championship work. So if you want to know what it feels
like to actually win, just just keep sitting next to him. I mean,
look, I'm not going to talk about Lebron and and all the you
know, weird things that he's been into and you know, stealing, stealing
children, stealing children's blood, keep himself young all the time, those internet
pages. Who you gotta do? Graham Reid, thanks for joining us,
man, thanks for having me. Yeah, absolutely, I'm glad to make
it. A game developer, you've been busy. You got a game this
year, right club. Yes, absolutely, it's one of the meaning to
get around to you. It got my vibe, it's got a good look.
Thank you. You need to leave and go play and then yeah,
you know what, you guys handle this yourself. I'm gonna do that.
Dalli Damovski side questions own you know, baby, Dolly, I was going
to go to Eisenhower the same high. Yeah, move because we're like from
the same exact area. I'm from twenty four miles. Yeah, absolutely there
and check of treating at your house probably probably, yeah, almost certainly.
I just want to bring up they're talking about winning and losing organizations wrapping my
Detroit Pistons, sad boys who are atrocious this year, probably been. But
the Lions are not atrocious, so if it is. But yeah, otherwise,
Hey, you know what, we got a young squad they're learning watch
Philadelphia on on. I think they could be Philadelphia. I saw hurts not
put up in them? What do you mean usaw hearts? What the push
is over here? That's done, Jake, Let's start with you man,
how I feel it about video games in twenty twenty three. Uh, video
games are good, video games are inclusive and special. And it's tough because
we have obviously one of the toughest years to kind of like witness as somebody
in games right because not only are we watching like historical layoffs happen across the
industry, I think there's also just a bit of a push happening right now
for people to use the voices, use the power they have to talk about
things that do matter, to use these platforms that matter and to like talk
about them through our games. And I think, like, you see this
stuff happening in beautiful ways in games that you don't even expect to see it
in, like in a triple A Sony game, maybe their biggest release of
year, Spider and two. This is a game where like it's inclusivity and
its diversity is important, and it champions in it not just in its messaging,
but like in its gameplay systems, and like that is that is like
a crazy thing that I don't think was really happening, But forre like this
year, well, I think it shows that the conversation has some effect.
Over time. It got to Sony, like to one of the biggest producers
in the industry, and it's kind of we can kind of make fun of
it. But if you remember way back when in twenty eighteen, when the
first Spider Man game came out, there was this whole conversation about how there
was so much allegiance to cops in that game in a time where anti cops
sentiment was really riling up, and in this game they changed that conversation.
Now, did they stick the landing not quite it's a little goofy, but
it's goofy in the way that their game is. And I think the fact
that they even tried, they listened and said, let's change our messaging,
that's impressive. I think two things are happening at the same time, a
corporation is cynically trying to capitalize on where things are trenching, and the same
time, real people inside these companies actually care about what's happening and they're the
ones actually making that happen. It's like both can be true and we can
recognize it, and we can also champion the people that are trying to make
it happen totally. And the fact that we are able to push the conversation
in that direction actually get a corporation get a product to materially change that's that's
you know, a product of social media, a product of where the press
is right now, and it's something that I think is really emblematic of the
modern era of gaming. This conversation between the consumer and the creator that has
never been at the level that it is now. So that's something that's really
cool to see. And I think like in the future, wondering, you
know, with all the stuff going on now, I do wonder like how
it's going to snowball, how it's going to keep going. Where is the
natural conclusion for this conversation? Yeah? Yeah, God, you think people
are being listened to for real by these corporations? Or where is it?
Whe's your temperature? How? Mean? It depends, right, I think
it depends on the kind of games that we're talking about. It depends on
the kind of corporate structures we see, It depends on the outreach in the
content creative space, which has also been a really interestant conversation about where that
is actually happening as opposed to the lip service of you kind of as seen
from some years prior. So it winds up being this really interesting pushing poll
where the output that we wind up seeing has gotten more woken the best ways,
which is great, which I think is fantastic. I think the conversations
that are happening that actually kind of move that conversation forward are still kind of
tiptoeing around here, right, So, like we'll see some things happen in
game content, well, we will still see a lack of representation behind the
scenes in the games that are being a madried like Black folks still make up
two percent two to three percent in the gaming industry. That's still a conversation
that is still getting a chance to move. But we see that a lot
of the content pulls from those cultures all the time. So it's that kind
of conversation of like where does it live? Do you guys feel like it
is going to go back and forth. There's still going to be this push
a poll where the content is reflecting this because it's good business, right,
be more diverse int your business. You're going to make more money so that
the audiences want that. I mean, I think we see this in hollywod
It all the time, like they'll fast furious that it's very diverse casts five
hundred million dollars. I mean, movies aren't doing that anymore, but it
was when it was at its most diverse. The markets want that, and
then that happens, that succeeds, and then people stop again and say,
well, to keep having the conversation. Are the people responsible for this as
diverse as what we're seeing on the screen, right? That's happening. Yeah,
But I think there's a balance too, even in that conversation right where
you'll see the move up. Right, We'll use the football analogy. Right,
we're moving down the field, getting close to the end zone with some
of the conversations that we're seeing, and then we'll have a penalty hit.
And then we'll go back a little bit. When you see you shut up,
we'll have a penalty hit. Where now you see the culture kind of
talk about it in certain ways, right, like even g six right,
women protagonists, Latina in the space. Everyone's like, well, I don't
know if I can put like parts of the community you say, I don't
know if that like the incentivized monetization on Twitter, pushing those guys at the
top because they know they're going to make amunt a lot of money by making
people mad. I think that there's a balance of that conversation too, right,
Like I think there is always I always think of culture as a reflection.
I think of the conversation is always reflection on the culture is in some
ways right. Those folks may not necessarily be the ones who will jump on
Twitter, but they may be the ones that when you go and hang out,
you know, get get a purse that gets clutched a little bit closer,
or you know, you're moving into space and some of the some of
those pieces then kind of show themselves in the ways that we classically and kind
of always seen discrimination happen. But I do think that what we're seeing in
some of those spaces that we hadn't seen before is companies like Rockstar dig in
and do that kind of work. Even in five with what's his name the
black character in that game after guy's name or not, Trevor just blinked on
it, but like that character, Yeah, we know, we know the
black guy, but but yeah, I know I had to do it.
It was me, but it was But even that character was a characterture of
black culture, right. But the pieces that were in there, in facts
in his crew and the folks that were in there specifically talk to those parts
of the culture that a lot of folks actually resonate with. And I think
those parts are the most important because people were seen in the making of those
characters. There was some layers of that that felt very true to folks who
were in those hoods and people were in those neighborhoods. So we're getting this
interesting mix of the energy that we know is there and has always been there,
that is now kind of filtering itself into the greater culture, and then
the greater culture is catching up in the game space, right, so yeah,
it gets pushed ford a little bit. Yeah, these guys from from
like Scotland or whatever the hell rock stars at They're like, we're gonna do
a little anthropology in America, and right like, it succeeds and then that
hopefully creates more opportunity. Is that the idea, I mean, the hope
is there. I mean I think you know, urban cultures have driven everything
forever, right like, it's been the hottest thing that the course has been
for in that space and entertaining for a long period of time. It is
interesting to see how folks are now attaching themselves to it and using that.
But I still think that there's a space that is missing where games are still
common and terry on some of those pieces, but they still haven't fully uh
kind of jumped that that that chasm of Okay, so now we'll see a
studio that is run by POC folks and all these folks and there, I
mean, there are some that are out there now that that are that are
making some really good strides and they're they're doing brilliant work and they're going to
be doing some brilliant work, but it hasn't really hit that zeitgeist moment yet
where you know what I'm saying. But it's like, even even with Graham's
work, which is brilliant, there there there are very few large studios,
medium even medium sized studios that are running that way right. So I think
it winds up being where folks like Graham and other folks like that who are
doing network solo with other teams and kind of collaborating, collaborating, are pushing
that conversation forward to say, you know, we are making really dope stuff
here, and now you need that other layer. When you get that kind
of mass production, not mass production, but mass kind of critical critical mass,
that'll push that into a space where those studios then get to make the
thing that everyone has been talking about, Like that's been the conversation with the
Black Panther game and stuff like that, is like, that's the first thing
that people were talking Paris. You're gonna jump in. You want to jump
in its literally because I'm not going yeah I can't, but no, but
you touched on the black Panther thing. That was something that I was going
to bring up because I think that is a perfect symbol of the problem that
we have in this industry right now when it comes to enabling more people of
color, more people of women into positions. There's two of them. There's
there's two Black Panther gainst me Amy HNNCK Studio, right, and that's two
opportunities, right. What's reality on the ground that game and I think more
than the Amy Henning game, But either one doesn't matter. But I think
it's it's gonna be an important period of time when that game comes out,
how it's received, Like when you think about the Black Panther movie, when
that came out, how important that was to to my community. I mean,
it was literally an event. So that game needs to be the same
thing it does. And you need to have people in the room, especially
the leadership room, and there was, right, there was, and you
need that for the game as well. And I know they're making stripes for
that and they're hiring, there's various people are coming in. But that's part
of the problem that that's an exception to the rule. We don't see and
I'm just gonna get it real. You don't see enough of us in there.
And and it Honestly, it starts at the child level gaining the proper
skills because one thing you know, and we know, social media is at
nightmare. But the one argument whenever you bring this up is well, you
just got to hire the best people. I agree. I agree, you
hire the best people. But we need to enable more people of color,
more more women, to get the skills necessary to be the best people so
that they can be hired to be in there. Nobody wants a handout.
Nobody's saying just hire someone to hire them because of the color of their skin
or their gender. You want skilled people. But part of the problem is
we're not setting up enough programs when kids are at the teenage level to say,
hey, I want to learn how to code, I want to learn
program management or whatever the case may be, to you know, have the
type of game development job that's going to be able to make these kind of
games. Because I don't think enough people that look like us have that skill
set, because they're not encouraged to get it at the age. My son
as an example, and I'm throwing them under the bus. He's seventeen.
I am on him constantly about learning how to code. I don't want to
do that. Why, I'm like, boy, trust me, I don't
learn learn it. Yes, even if you never use it, to have
that skill in your back pocket, because you never know when it's gonna you
know, you're gonna need it. Yeah, did you get the sense that
there was a moment there where it's like, yeah, of course we're all
these DEI initiatives, we have all these things where we're trying to make a
more diversity, and now that look and look what's happening. Thank you,
that's exactly what's happened that they're the first the ghost ago. Yeah. I
mean, and it's not just at a couple of places. It feels like
industry wide sold all that breaks. I worked, and that's it's it's a
real real deal of what that means. I was working. I was working
in the di layer of a riot for a couple of years and it was
a struggle to get some of those conversations through some of the layers that were
there. And we in the head of that department was a black woman,
So it's it changes a lot of the conversations that go along with that.
And I think speaking to what Pastor's talking about with with you know, getting
his son to code the things that a lot of folks are kind of pushing
through the layers of DEI and and and a lot of those those talking points
and very important initiatives is about how do you break that barrier between the socioeconomic
parts that we know we are there and the culturals like guys pieces that you
need to kind of move things forward. Like for me, one of the
things I was dying to get done or try to get done. And you
know, again as a person who's working there for all a couple of years,
it's a very hard thing to do was to make the case of like
why is league not a thing in you know, schools and the right like
why is that not an initiative tech in the hood? I mean, I
mean, look, but that's a big part of the conversation to it.
And you're right, right, like the index very highly and some of some
of those spaces are the fighting game communities and and and sportsas and also horror
games and alas. But it is a space in which you need some of
those companies to say we're going to spend resources in some of these neighborhoods to
build up some of those esports leagues and some of those esports layers that are
that are not only going to touch that cultural layer that will get people to
be excited about it, but also do that other work of teaching you that
gateway drug of what it's like to be in tech and to be encoding spaces
and do that kind of work, right. I mean, it just it
feels like that's where we're back in the rut where it's like they're no longer
going to like stop making products for minorities and for other cultures. They're happy
to get your money. That's what they're very happy with. That fundation that's
not going away. So the conversation is now like, well, can we
make some money for that's as well? Shouldn't that be part of the conversation
as well? Hank Fols like we kind of like got up the hill a
little bit and rolled back a little bit. It's where it feels like that
that to make I mean, it seems like we went through this period of
time where COVID's going on and there's a lot of free money going around,
especially for corporations. Yes, and then you have this corporate leadership who's spending
recklessly and now that things are getting a little bit tighter. It's like,
Okay, who are the first people to go? And it's so obviously they
show their hand every time about who is important here, You're gonna make the
thing. It was like, we did not have messages in our movies.
We need to make good stories. It's like, what are you saying?
And it's always the people actually making the product who get punished and it's such
a shame. Like like parents, I like the whole idea of hiring the
best person for the job, right, but nothing in life is a meritocracy,
you know what I mean. It's like this is like in the same
year that we are, we're cutting like race based affirmative action, but we're
not doing anything the legacy admissions. Right, It's like you know, it's
we see you can see through it because they're not trying to hide it,
right, Yeah, they know exactly what they're doing. That was the goal,
and that's where we're at. Yeah, And I really feel like the
power of a lot of these diversity initiatives. It's like a mirror breaking and
you don't even really know it until it hits you. And I know that
I like, as somebody that has an immense amount of white privilege. I
didn't know what I was missing out on until I grew up in a bi
level household and then mom's a Cuban immigrant, and the first time I played
the Miles Morales game, I'm hearing his mom speak in that house, I
was like, oh my god, it's something like the house I grew up
in. And I didn't even know I was missing that. And I want
people to have that moment. I want, like that should be out there
for everybody. Yeah. Absolutely, rand you started making games while living in
Jamaica, right, No, no, no, you lived a Jamaica through
high school, right all throughout school, and then you came here and start
learning to make the games late or what. So I didn't even know making
games was an option when I was in high school. Because even I feel
like even the hare that I did to teach you maybe know they do,
but it'll teach about programming, that'll teach about with game developments. And I
thought that was something that big companies in and then came here did like motion
graphics and that kind of stuff. And then it's one day my friend shouted
to Bobby. He was like, Hey, this is a global game jam
and we just did that and I realized, oh, there's tools, there's
unity, there's like all these other programs that you can use to make games.
But there still wasn't anyone that looked like me, or even just any
real standouts in this that I could look up to, you know, and
no, I feel like between me, between like Exalivator and Nelson, like
all these different people we're trying to it's not just making good games, but
also trying to be a face for the youth to actually see, hey,
you can make games. It is that one one part to that because like
in my day job, I work in cybersecurity, I do info sex,
right, and it's that same thing. There's not a lot of mes running
around there, right, So there wasn't that personal look up to the inspire
to be. I was very lucky, fortunate enough to have a mentor that
you taught me and got me to wear I am. But to your point,
people like yourself Exavier are very important. But I also think at the
leadership level is very important to see that too. And I've said it before,
I'll say it again. That's why seeing someone like Sarah Bond is very
important in our community because look, I mean, the hell she's the president
now, I mean that's inspiring to go, oh wow, I can go
do That's I just can't inspire. Right, it's a lesson like it is
that which she provides an example. We all get a certain point. We
all just learned by example. Way from having kids is the way I behave
the way they're going to behave. And that's true in every scenario. And
if you see someone you're like that you can't relate to, You're not necessarily
going to mirror their behavior. But if you see someone who's like, oh,
oh I could behave that way, I could be someone's mentor, right,
I mean, do you feel like you have the opportunity to do that?
Now? Are there people coming up beneath you in your space that you
feel like you go you could potentially mentor? Or is it like maybe the
latter's not getting passed down in some ways? I mean there are some for
sure, I would say for me and I'm freaking nobody, but it's like
I definitely try to. Like you know, Danny Pin, you've had you've
had got you on here before. He mentored me, He helped me early
on. So the things that he taught me. I definitely try and pass
along to the quote unquote next generation of creators that are coming up, like,
hey, here's what I learned. Hey, look, we didn't have
these tools, we didn't have this access or this is how you deal with
pr this is this is how it works on the inside. When you you
may think what you see on Twitter is one thing. No, no,
no, no, it works this way. I try to pass those lessons
along, but not everybody listens nor later. Yeah, but I would even
say, and not that I'm a mentor to Khalif or whatever, but I
also think it's very I'm saying that's no. My point is we are peers
to each other, but you know, we rib each other and have fun
and all that. But the point is we always try to look out for
each other, and we're always like you said, you know, hey,
the secret is everyone's doing that. I'm looking out for my boy, yes,
exactly all the time. And it's like that. I think that's what
keeps you know, the right tide lifts all botes, not list a few
votes around you. That's what you and everyone's doing that. So it's like
someone needs to get to that point in the first place to start doing that
and then needs to be a chain reaction. And I think the relationship you
have online when you ask, you feel like you're trying to be yourselves in
a way that's like showing the people that they can be themselves exactly. You
don't have to hide who you are exactly. You're ribbing your friends. That's
part of it too, and it's good to be that way, right because
I mean, you know, just just being completely candid here, I mean,
you know, I've been very fortunate that I've been able to work with
Xbox, I've hosted events, I've done stuff like that. I don't see
a lot of other people, you know, Kalief have had the same opportunities,
And him and I are close in that way because we can kind of
relate to that and also the same fact that we want to see more people
of color hosting events and doing things like this. It's not just about me,
it's not just about Khalif. It's about we want to quote unquote and
inspire someone else to be able to have that opportunity as well, and not
happening, not enough anyways, And I don't know what the answer is to
make that happen. Other than we need more Sarah Bonds in the leadership room,
right, have a voice that can kind of make stuff like that happen.
Yeah, it was that's slow, hard. You feel like that's happening,
But obviously it's happening because people keep pushing, right, You're trying to
make that happen. Nally, I mentioned sidequesting. Well, before we get
I just want to chime in real quickly. I mean, I'm on the
coolest couch. Well, look, get the folks that aren't here. I'm
i am so Eastern European. I'm I'm Feda. I'm white. Like you
mentioned something, you and I grew up, you know, kind of in
that same same area, upper middle class, heavily white, very wit.
You know there were any immigrants that were Eastern European immigrants. Go, now
the demographic is starting to change. I'm seeing more and more. You know,
growing up, it was Nintendo and Sega and EA sports and cover athletes
and you know, Commando and demand was white. You know, So it's
that's all we were exposed to the indie space right now, even in Detroit
area, you know, even guy like this guy right here, the stuff
that's coming out of folks. I mean Detroit Aeriel Knight had an awesome the
last couple of years. You know, we've got to kind of see his
his stuff grow up. For me, as a white dude who lives in
a who lives in the you know, Midwest, that stuff is inspiring me.
I am these four dudes right here. They may not know, but
they're all mentoring me when I follow them online and pick up things, and
I'm like, oh, you know, I wasn't exposed to this stuff growing
up. I'm exposed to it now. And I'm yeah, and I'm exposing
my daughter to it. And my daughter goes to a school that's now much
more multi ethnic, much more open. They're learning stuff like Minecraft, which
is baby coating, I guess in a weird way to say. They're learning
who coding rope blocks. They're into rope block and it's people from all different
backgrounds in their school. You know, Fortnite. I hate to bring up.
I mean I've bring up Fortnite because back in the day, we had
to pay, you know, get to have money to buy video games.
Otherwise you run it up for Blockbuster and you kept don't tell anybody. But
now you know, Fortnit's on on this device in my pocket for you now,
right, and so everybody can play. So there is this great level
of accessibility to unity, to development tools that's starting to at least at sort
of this ground level area, starting to level a little bit of that playing
field. I mean that's why. I mean I thought that would go nicely
into side questioning, where like, you work with a lot of young writers,
and I think you do. You are the person I said when someone
says says, hey, I want to get in the industry, I want
to like get some bylines, I want to get some experience. Might go
to Dolly talk to him, and then he's got to get like five thousand
emails. Yes, And I'm like, you get to your baby. I'm
like, yeah, it's his problem now, but like if you get in
there, he'll help you get a lot of people have come from side questing
and go on to do other writing and other places. It's happened over and
over again. What's your responsibility in that equation or is it just to provide
like a home that feels somewhat like a potential jumping back. I like call
it a home because you know, community, you guys talk about community in
one of the earlier segments. Community is so important in the industry right now.
I mean, we have the big Community Award coming up tomorrow night.
But community within smaller spaces, within groups, within discord, within servers,
you get a group of people together that start to know each other and start
to respect each other and bounce ideas off each other. Like whenever you send
somebody our ray, they'll hop in or we'll be okay, come into the
discord, post some of your stuff, We'll give you some pointers, We'll
introduce you to some folks. Here's who you should here's who you should follow,
you know, online to kind of keep in touch with the gaming information.
Then like, I'm only doing it because you're a lad fan, you
know, keep and we beat you the last time. And it's providing people
home as sort of this small community and family, I think. And then
once you get to that point, you start to trust other people, right
you start, okay, I trust police, I trust Graham, I like
what they're saying, I like what they're writing. I'm understanding things from a
different perspective. And then that open people up and then you know, then
they start to write more open and eventually I ended up coming back around to
you and end up working at a venture places. Yeah. Yeah, they
happen a couple of times. Yeah, Bream when you got started and you
were like, Hey, I'm gonna do this game jam and I'm going to
learn these tools. Maybe they were similar to tools you learned when you're doing
motion graphics in some ways, but like in terms of like the people resources
around you, was that there was that available to you. Yeah, thank
I mean we all hate Twito, no, but I meant but because of
I had access to everybody, Like I my mentors were like ram Smell,
Mike, like those like legends for black littletter term and especially around me,
like I mean Mike too, but like because Rami is from he's not a
wide developer, you know. And just having these dis questions with these people
looking up to them and having them kind of guide me through the industry,
the business side especially, then it's like thank God. Yeah, basically,
I mean I wouldn't be here for some for Twitter, Yeah, absolutely,
Yeah made it happen. So now we're here. Yeah, now now we're
here. Exactly did you find it with people? Not likely Twitter anymore?
Have you found a way to pass it along. I mean, yeah,
like so for me, it's even though we don't like you were still all
on Twitter, but then there's all these all the social media. There's TikTok,
their threads. I've been trying to unsuccessfully right now, but I've been
trying to like get my YouTube going. Sure, it's because I want people
to. It's so strange, like I there's so many popular YouTube channels that
are faceless, but I feel I feel obligate to show my face just because
you know, I don't see anybody that's like yeah, and I feel it's
kind of unfair for me not to do that, which I don't. I
don't show my face. I mean, did you feel like it's like not
just your face, like your voice to make an accent. Then that's someone
I don't hear very often in the video game space. And it's like,
I think coming out there and putting that out front is important, right.
That was never for the bit, even when I went to college at some
friends who would kind of like walter it on accents, But I just make
people learn to honestas yeah, because I'm not going to change my accent just
because I'm in a different you know. Yeah, No, that's that's awesome.
Actually, yeah, that's powerful. I'm ry. Yeah. How are
you guys feeling otherwise about games this year? Are we feeling like, Nope,
it could be so up and down. I think that a lot of
good games getting made, and then we see all the headlines and it feels
rough and feel like I mean, we talked about a lot tonight, but
it's like it does feel like the important topic where hey, it is the
way gaming is heading sustainable? I mean, how do you feel theirs?
I don't know. And that's that's the scary part is I don't know because
you want to say yes, obviously, but they're successful, they're selling it
should be sustainable, right, because because the way I phrase it is,
I look at twenty twenty three is easily top three best gaming years ever,
I feel that way, But it's also one of the worst years ever at
the same time, and we've seen so many incredible games all the way from
the top of the Triple A all the way down to the indie level.
But then you see all these mass layoffs are happening, and you know,
you even mentioned it earlier talking about COVID. There was free money, there
was all this mass hiring and that is what's happening, and now we're seeing
the consolidation of it. But is this is this it? Are we going
to go into twenty twenty four and it's going to stabilize out and now we're
going to see game you know, so we don't have to worry about this
happening again or is it just a cycle? That's my worry when I look
at this. Another thing that I worry about is, you know, we're
talking about all these great games, and we're talking about diversity from the indie
level, it's the Triple A level. I'm worried more specifically at the Triple
A level, more companies playing it safe because they're tightening the while it's like
like there's an indie game and I'm blanking on the names. They just talk
about it during the day of the debt. Is today where it's it's drag
Race, you know, it's like, you know, there's no way in
hell that's happening at the triple A level. We all know that, but
thank god there's a game like that. But will a Triple A level game
company publisher take a risk of something? But in the sense that like we
were heading in that direction of Overruch was like, Hey, we are going
to have all this very diverse cast, and we're gonna make a big deal
about after their sexuality, or at least just put a stick in the ground
and say this is what it is. Deal with it. And now it's
like over Roger's got bigger problems than worrying about their characters being diverse. We've
done to make a game that makes money, and it's like, oh,
yeah, of course we all get that, but it also feels like,
why is this the thing we're losing? Why does it feel like we're losing
this battle? Right? Yeah, it's tough because games aren't intervacuum, right,
and we're like in a society that rewards certain people more than rewards others.
And until we have like equity in our society at large, you're not
going to see this kind of stuff float to the top at the speed I
think we might want it. It's systemic, so yeah, of course,
but I think like some of the better stuff maybe that's happening in gaming is
that there are always like trends that I think people in games probably push back
on, and I feel like maybe this year it does kind of feel like
the companies are turning the corner on the live service thing. Oh yeah,
feel like that's kind of wow. Yeah, turned the corner. I think
that's our perspective. We away from it. For them, it's a retreat,
sure, yes, And I think like it's funny. I remember I
was just thinking about we covered the Batman Arkham game that just came out on
Switch, right, and like when those games first came out, they were
some of the biggest, Like I remember getting those season passes, Remember how
extensive they were, how crazy that was, And we don't do that anymore.
And it's uh, and you know, there is a funny bringing up
Batman. There is like a big live service game kind of coming out next
year. You have suicide question. I actually I actually think that game might
be good. Oh that's gonna be very fun. I think, yeah,
yeah, I think that game would be good. But but yeah, it
does feel like that was something that everybody was chasing for a little while.
It seemed very attractive, but it also seemed like it was a corporate drive.
I mean, it felt like it answered a lot of the problems,
right, Like we talked about this earlier where it's like you know the high
tight low tide of pre orders, and they're like, it's very hard to
predict income from these big, massive games that spent all this money on,
So we have to have other options that can make consistent money, regular things
that we could predict this game is going to make about that much that month
when we release this content. We understand that we know the metrics, we
know how it's going to work. And that was true until we got to
a certain critical mask of there's too many of these people are are coming back,
they are retreating themselves after COVID in many ways. So it's like,
yeah, and I mean, we can't overstate the macroeconomic reality of money is
more expensive, Like that always goes back to that is affecting everything. It's
just what are our solutions to this new problem of we're not so sure about
things? We're not sure? The big thing is like the disconnect from reality
of these games are very successful, they are selling, they're very good,
and then we turn around and it's like all these companies seem very scared and
very skettish of taking risks because well, then you just release a game that
was Awesomeame Embracer had multiple relatively big hits this year, and there is no
connection between that and the way they're behaving as a company, because the reality
is like they were making money for these games and that goes to a pile
over here, and then really they're paying with the cheap the cheap account that
they were getting from borrowing money and that's gone, and it's like, well,
that seems like a bad idea. Why was that the way you're working.
It's like, because they were, they had a chance to borrow a
lot of money, make big risks, and that was how you're supposed to
run your company. And it's like that, maybe things aren't sustainable in a
lot of ways, but it does seem like it's the game's fault. It's
like we had the games figured out. There's something else happening. Well,
but I'm sorry. I was just gonna say the thing that scares me the
most, like the Bungee news that came out today. You know, how
much is true not true, But but the thing Rebecca's article that scared me
the most is the fact that if Bungie was still independent and this was happening,
Bungie couldn't be going away. That's scary. One of the most legendary
studios we've ever had, all the games. You know, I've been a
Destiny guy since day one, and sure I've been in term of trouble jumping
in that game, is my understanding. So wow, some raids you have
some issues. I see somebody's been following somebody information. I got sources,
that's why. Point like, that's a game that I've been playing since twenty
fourteen. Sure I've slowed down on it too, which obviously is part of
the issue that they're having. But that's crazy to think that they may have
had a lull the past few years, right, and that's enough to just
shutter them. I think that feels I have a hard time understanding. Yeah,
and I'm sure if I got to look at the books and be like
okay, but it's like just from the gut check of like, oh,
this is made one of the biggest games, most successful. Yeah, my
service games ever. You are literally the experts to the point where Sony is
buying you for your expertise. Yes, and even you can't figure it out,
which I think is the real problem of My Service right, No one
really has it figured out. It is a working process that changes every single
day. And there's another layer of that too that I've been mulling over a
lot, which has been the industry layer of it is very important, and
we need to triple down on the conversation that's happening there because the money is
not meeting the actual news of the day in that way, like would you
talk about it, embrace there. But even in the community that live service
is a dirty word now, yes, yeah, like it is a thing
now that if you say live service, people freaking out, Yes, and
they are not excited about your product anymore. I don't know how you re
educate the audience in that gamers and now, so what I'm saying we are
the ones educating. We are telling these companies what we will accept. And
it's gone that the cat is out of the bag, the tooth faces out
of the tube. There's no fixing it. It is. They're going to
have to do the next thing. That's what happened with the season passes and
the ten dollars online passes and all this stuff, and the obviously the loop
boxes. These things still exist in little pockets here and there, but they're
clearly no longer the answer the way they were once. Of these companies because
we got savvy. We understand what's happening to us. We understand how we're
being manipulated, and it is this continual push and pull that's happening all over
the place where where they see what they can get away with. It works
for a little bit, and then we're like, oh, oh, is
it going to all be like this? No, we can see through what
you're trying to do with two of us to take our money. Here's our
answer. No, think you figure something else out. Yeah, well,
I mean, I'll even say shameless plug. I interviewed three four three today
talking about Halo Infinite and brought up the battle pass that they've had, because
while they've had some brilliant ideas with it, they've had some really poor ones
when it comes to actual pricing and the monetization of it. And it was
pretty pretty open about it, like, yeah, they got to figure it
out, they got to listen to the community, they got to be agile
to change it as needed, because guess what, Halo Infinite lives on monetization
as a live service. For you to play a game, you have to
monetize it. But here's a wild thing about that, right in terms of
that conversation are re educating the audience, right, Halo Infinite has one of
the better vet past systems gaming that's not good enough And if that's not good
enough, then I don't know where that lands for folks, because then what
do you do. There's an intentification happening with like these subscriptions across like most
industries, right because you see it happening too, where like consumers are being
taken advantage with things like Netflix, you know what I mean. Sure,
it's like the service starts to go, Okay, We've we've got the audience
that we have, We've saturated the market in a way. Now we have
to figure out how we're going to make more money off of these people.
PlayStation Plus goes up. You know, the amount of the same product you're
now you're paying more for it. And I feel like that is kind of
like inherently connected to the way that these live service games work, right,
because you have that captive audience and it's like, Okay, how are we
going to get more out of these people? Yeah, it's it's a little
bit. I mean, I got my face eating on Twitter the other day
because I was like, there's a part of this equation that is also on
the consumer sure to say I don't need to be in this space and do
this now man, and people get mad at you when i's a stream of
making consumers realize their place in the market. Maybe like I think about it
all the time, but I'm who my game as mornings. That's that they
don't like, I'm not gonna I can't say it the way you said it
right, you will get your face eating. So you have to like subtly
suggest our behaviors have an effect. And I always make it clear it's the
system we are for sure, these things are symptoms of the system that we're
in that we had no we didn't never signed off on it, we never
agreed to it. We were born into it. But let's still recognize that
our behaviors affect these companies and what the way they do things. But isn't
part of the issue. And this isn't just live service, just gaming as
a whole as it lives today at the triple A level. I'm talking more
specifically. These games cost so freaking much to make right, takes so long,
and it's like in development, the money, it's about the risk and
now right right that's what we're talking about, right, Yeah, do you
guys feel I'm curious what this panel thinks about this. I've been wondering now
if like the desperation to have a big hit because you have a studio like
Larian right who it's like a kind of a model to look at. But
if that doesn't work out the way they want it to work out, They're
they're gone. So I wonder if there is kind of a reflex there now
to play it safe with the kind of games that will come out in the
PA. But see, that goes back to what I was saying earlier,
Like I'm just going to take as an example. I don't think they're completely
gone, but Carlyysto Protocol as an example, right, we all had super
high hopes for it. Clearly didn't sell the way that it should. Mortals
of Avian is it's another one where expensive to make, great idea, very
expensive to make, and you've seen mass layoffs scale back significantly. I think
of one. Oh my god, I'm blanking on the name now because he's
a he's at Marcus Ledo, he's at EA now his studio, right,
God, why can't I think in the name of the Yeah, that game
came out during during the height of the pandemic, like in the summer,
nobody played it. That studio gone. Well. That's the thing though,
too, is like the window of opportunities to stay in the mix, yeah,
is infinitely small. And it's so hard to predict. I mean,
what we say hit dripped business. I also people like recognize fully what that
entails. It is it's a hit droom business. And we say that because
we don't know what's going to be a hit, right. It's so hard
to predict and and and even like the ones who were like mortals, a
vague on paper should be able to make someone phone right, right, But
it's like I just got uh, you know, there was bad marketing,
there was a hard position the name. You don't really know. Plenty of
games had names that are shitty and have done just fine. So it's like
your bullet most of the Kingdom hearts games. So yeah, no over two
days makes perfect. You just don't know the war. But there's also sets
of game shock right now because there's so many games coming out right, I
can guarantee you guys, every one of our top five, our top ten
is going to be completely different. You may have one, maybe two games
that we loved that are the same this year. But because this is how
many folks are going to have, like Dredge in their top five, there's
gonna be a lot of yeah. And so there were so many games this
year. I think a lot of people were like, I don't even know
what you know what? People go back to Final Fantasy remake because I'm safe
and I'll wait till things shake out. That from the from the player aspect,
but from from my aspect of I was I was in shock this year.
Like Baller's Gate three, Starfield, I just now started playing Starfield because
I'm finally over Balder's Gay three and I'm still not play Balls three. But
that's the point you're like, Okay, what do I do now? I'm
missing? You know, my backlog is through the roof, especially as someone
who's you know, a lot of us gamers grew from the teens to those
of us who are in our thirties and forties and fifties who don't have the
time like we used to anymore, and I think that could be a part
of it. I don't get Parson just joking, Buddy, wearing those media
for a reason age, but even something like as huge as Zelousers in the
Kingdom, I think I was surprised. How I don't think that game had
the legs that I was expecting it to have in the zeitgeist, I think.
I mean, so it's like it is, I say this all the
time and on my shows, but I'm gonna repeat it. Like, there's
this thing where all the Mattress stores are on the same corner. There's three
Matches stores right at each other, Like, what's going on there? They
wandering money? It's like, no, it turns out that's actually good business.
When you put all the cardioships next to each other. There's a diamond
district in the city. You put all the same things right next to each
other, because it turns out every single all those businesses make more money.
Obviously, though there is a limit to that. Those stores figured out there's
two Matters stores, there's not seventy Matters stores right next to each other.
And we're at a point where it's like, oh no, in video gaming,
there are seventy Mattress stores next to each other, and someone's gonna fall
off and it gets work. And this is the thing that publishers can't account
for how are gamers feeling about their budgets and stuff like that. They just
they're operating on timelines that are five or six years or that can't even enter
the conversation. And you're and you're moving on timelines that have already moved,
right. So, like the conversation around games that are now being made or
started were made a couple of years ago that were starting to jump off that
live service model, that model has already shifted, yep. So like when
those games wind up coming out, what does that mean for those games on
launch? And what does that mean for the conversations that This is why,
this is why you see rock Steady and Warner Brothers getting out ahead with Suicide
Squad. Hey, here play it right now. We're gonna have you know,
videos with the Dead's talking about it, you know, because they want
to change that narrative. So I think we touched on a lot of points
and we're gonna wrap it up soon. But I mean sustainable like something.
If it does feel like that, maybe someone's gonna break. But I think
the underlying health of the industry actually is pretty good. But there is at
the highest level it feels like, man, there's room for Rocks starting to
make a three hundred million dollar game and then everyone's is everyone not gonna have
to compete with that? That seems impossible? Go ahead. I'm sorry,
you know, I'm gonna say I mean indies, and I know there's really
no double A game publishers as much as they used to, but you're seeing
the Indian kind of level. I hate, you know, we say rising
type, but the indies really are helping bring a lot of great new experiences
to you know, to the medium it was supposed to. Yeah, it's
it. There's less of a risk for I mean there's more risk for an
individual and small teams on an indie, but there's less of a risk.
But in places like America where they want health insist exactly, so you know
there, you know, I feel like there's to me, the the industry's
hit this point where it's so big right now that it's caught up to being
as big and as nasty as every other giant industry out there. And it's
like, I hate to say it, get used to it because this is
the way it's going to be for a long time, But get used to
it. But at the same time, there's incredible optimism with that because the
industry is so big. It's like, now we've got awesome indies coming,
we got do have great Triple A games coming. Just sucks that we have
people losing jobs, but the actual end product is fantastic. Yeah. I
think the point of positivity that I have is that the next billion dollar game
And this is another thing I say all the time will come out of nowhere,
and that doesn't happen, that doesn't happen in other industries. You know,
we got Lethal what it was, Lethal League Legal Company, Yes,
thank you, lease the company happening right now. So I have a touch
biggest thing on Steam out of nowhere that does not happen in another game.
The best analogy I have with that is and whatever year E three this was.
I remember E three were literally because I knew the guys at Epic were
like not begging, but like, hey, will you please come up into
our meeting room and see this Fortnite game that we're making. And literally the
next year I had a big all right, well we're gonna get out of
here for this one. We'll be back with another panel about fifteen minutes.
Thanks boys, really appreciate it. Good, great conversation. Welcome back to
John Bomb at Night Live in Los Angeles for our game to the year spectacular.
It's gonna culminate this weekend. Be sure to tune in. We're brought
to you by Like a Dragon Infinite. Well, thank you to them,
Thank you to my guests. You're joining me my next panel. All my
good friends are here. Shannon Law, you're back six months. Every six
months, We're gonna make this happen. Amazing. I love to see it.
Thanks for having me absolutely, Thanks for coming. Then, Star once
again, kind of once again, once again, want to make you make
it sound like I'm a rash again annoying, lovely to be here, Jeff,
thank you so much for making me feel welcome. Yeah, sure,
Red forwards here though. I'm very excited about you. That's great. More
excited than Ben's great. Great, that's all. That's my bar. It's
like, that's great. I'm so excited to be here. This is the
best. Harris Ferris, that's me. Here's Harris Fortnite. I believe it's
actually the road game play now season five is really good. It is,
Yeah, it's really good. It cuts this right now yeah, that's romantic.
This is so high it is. Oh, speaking of the trains in
Fortnite. So here, Nelson Junior, how you doing? I'm doing great?
You wanting this? Man, I'm glad to make this happen, glad
to be here. Absolutely, And raymy Benson, how's going? I am
also a rash all. Yeah, doing great things. I mean I didn't
turn it off. Is it working? We don't know it's on, but
it's dead again. Okay, you're gonna have to. We just changed the
batteries too, so have you turn Is there a battery still shortage in America?
Yes? Yeah, As a Canadian, we have a lot of batteries.
You know, we love batteries. Tell us more about those. I
know. That's what I'm saying. You can't tell the American audience that you
have an excess of recent I have just caused for you Canadian here. I
am worked in defense. He'll send the missiles after you. Better be careful.
Absolutely, you've got a new job, right, Yes, I so
last time I was here, I was, you know, looking and freelancing.
And yes I am now the w gaming editor at Inverse. Yeah.
Yes, it means like some of the freelancers in there and around are now
working for me. So it's goods cool, it's a good time. Yeah.
I mean, what's it been like kind of like transitioning into this position
of power. Yeah yeah, I'm usually trying to be more humble than that.
Yeah, okay, okay, well yeah, I know it's pretty too
late for me now. I like it's good to like support writers and like
work on the reporting skills and kind of like mentor them and just like further
along the art of like writing about the craft of making video games rather than
previously I was just like out there reporting and talking to people. Now do
a combination of things. It's fun. What's the what's the like sort of
the balance in terms of skills that are required to do that different kind of
reporting. Yeah, it's just like going to a lot of meetings with a
lot of other people at the company and so they all get to meet me,
and then just like doing as many calls as possible to squeezing everything in.
So I'm going to see all the top publishers and councilmakers tomorrow hopefully.
But it's like just sitting at the GW Marriott lobby basically for like hours in
coffee meetings is what my life is now. Ben Are you upset with Taylor
Swift for taking your spot as Person of the Year? Are you setting me
up on like a lot of Swifties? Actually I just watched Miss American and
he's a great documentary. Would watch Is she's a national trashy of course?
Treasure? Yeah, no, it's it's it's a real show. It's always
been between me and Taylor. But you know, she just shifted a few
more records than I did. It's been a good year though, right,
Like Vince Starr, you you know what you're doing? Yeah right, yeah,
Like people like you have a presence online that is beyond charming and people
love it. Was it something that you are consciously crafting or is it like,
no, I'm having fun, I'm having fun. Yeah, Like it's
I've kind of described my relationship with the Internet as like like an English pantomime
where like I play So I play a very serious character in Final Fantasy sixteen.
That's the platform in which people have come to know me. But I'm
not a very serious person and I enjoy the play. And so I found
like Twitter in particular to be this amazing. That's not an amazing place,
an awful, awful place, but I describe it. It's like it's a
burning building that I'm having a house party in. And I've loved the kind
of the call and response. You put stuff out to the audience like it,
do they not? And it's been amazing to see how many fans of
the games and people who don't even play Final Fancy come and enjoy it.
And I love being an idiot, like it was quite a risk pretending to
be Mario, do you know what I mean? But people still think that
maybe I might be in with a shot. I'm not in with a shot.
It's it's great. I love it, and I love being silly.
I love being a goof, and it's it's a cool thing that people are
enjoying it. Is it? Do you get like a long leach? Because
in a lot of ways was early on it was like, well this has
been start representing Final Fantasy. Yeah, the squirtings there be like what are
you doing out there? Like no, it's no squirrest mind, like they
can see that. As I think I may have said this in the last
time I was here. As long as they don't mind that I ruined the
brand, you know, And I'm not going out and I'm not trying to
go and be canceled, and I'm not going to try and do anything that's
massively extreme or very controversial. I'm just being myself. And like, I
don't think I've got any skeletons in my closet, please don't look. But
it's yeah, they've been. They've been really really amazing, and I'm thankful
that they let me do it, but also maybe they don't have to because
it's not like I'm going around being like I'm Clive, even when those skits
where I am Clive, but it's it's cool. There was one where I
did a sketch with Doug Cockle, who plays GARYL of Rivia, and so
it's Clive and GARYL take the same contract and then they go out so stupid
and I and I and I sent it to Doug and he went, that's
cool. Maybe I can't do this bit and I went, no, you
can't. But then he added in a bit where he like licks his own
sword and he went and he went, don't put that in, And I
put it, of course, and it is great, Like it's really really
some slash fick about that before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But like Doug when when we did the sketch with Geryl, like he just
had all you know, he's been Geryl for years, so he has all
the witcher gear. So he like pulled out like these th these two procer
replica Witcher's swords. He had like all of this stuff. And whenever I
get someone to do these stupid sketches, I'll say, can you give me
like twelve minutes of raw footage, Like give me all the different versions of
this line so we can play around with it and just improv around it.
And Doug gave me some gold. There are twelve minutes of Doug Cockle doing
some girl stuff that should not be on the internet. And it's it's fun
and I think people have seen that. It's play and I love playing.
Yeah, once you have all this power, are you going to use it
to get revenge on Remedy for miscrediting you in Quantum Break? But they got
people single art with a single art. Yeah, so it was a mistake.
It spelled wrong. Yeah, so we like to credit ourselves today to
make sure y. Yeah, no, I'm going to hunt some leg down
at the game was going to be here. No. I spoke to him
earlier and just was very sick a fantic and like, yes, sir,
you're but yeah, my first of a job I did was Quantum Break and
it was like additional voices in Quantum Break, and yeah, they credited.
It's the only credit of my IMDb that is, my name is spelt wrong,
so it's as dark as been start it for Quantum Break, I thought,
no, I'm going to spell my wrong, like I prefer it's spelled
incorrectly this time. And I'm like, I'm pretty sure they just miss misspelled
it. But I'm like, what they say it as Ben Stars this other
stage name probably not to be honest. They're knowing the Remedy Verse and how
deep it goes. You know they're going to bring that back. It's going
to be a whole thing. Yeah, it's just like you possessed by a
dark presence. We're playing the long game with that. Yeah. Yeah to
me in control to confirmed with one R. We need you on inverse dot
com for that. We need to talking about I'll do it. Yeah,
great, well business dealing, Yeah, it happens. We're here on the
couch red Ford's because of people who just gained more and more power. Oh
is this my legacy? Accumulate power? Okay, you know, I mean
I really know you just you keep like ascending and it seems like it's working
out. How are you feeling about it? The ascension has you know that
airs a little thinner up here. But you know, this ascension hasn't been
great for a two levels. But it's been fun. It's been you know,
a lot of people trusted me with some pretty cool things. And now
I actually, you know, caught up with Ben and now he's in warfame,
so that's pretty cool to No, actually, no, r, it's
just been stuff I take. I have two rs in my name. As
I'm growing more power, I can't share those ours. Exactly. It's like
a fous team pact. It's like you can be in the game, but
I take the exactly. It's a sacrifice. We almost the alphabet comes to
collect from all of us. So yeah, well sure, you guys have
had a long over digital streams. Yeah, ye, yeah, oh yeah.
I work on war frames. Yeah, that's my job. And you
have a long history of showing up. The Game of War was like working
with Jeff and like get in that show he's Canadian, so like every now
and then it's like who's gonna who's gonna be the Canadian up there with me?
So it's it's you know, it's just like we do our they do,
they really do. And you know, we always have tried to do
our own warframes thing, and the game Wars has always been a really good
spot for us because we typically it takes us a whole year to make an
update and then you know, it's December, so we were like, well
we could promoter update at the Game Awards. So we usually just show up,
say a word or two about what we're at atually working on, and
then next thing, you know, Jeffy will bring us on stage, which
may or may not know it is happening tomorrow. You'll see us tomorrow at
the game boards. I think that's like you guys can say like yeah,
yeah, oh yeah, we're on stage then, you know, so we'll
be there on People aren't going to want to miss it, right, I
would imagine they'd be fools to miss there. Yeah, I'll look for everyone
in the crowd or the digital crowd. Is it the woman igno? The
whole thing. You can't you just take a drink the whole time. Just
make make a lot of Yeah, Like, I'm so glad working is not
nominated for anything. You can just he nominate if it's funny. Well you
are not us doesn't intend. What I'm hearing is you're going to steal the
alphabet from it. That's right. We are letter takers. That's it's like
an undertaker, but only for sounds like a wool frame expansion. The letter
takers. The business is being business is being done. Yeah, what's it?
What's it actually like day to day? Like when it's rehearsals and like
going up on stage and having a limited amount of time, Like is it
stressful or is it? Yeah, I'm screwed up. Every year it's been
awesome, so I haven't left. Every year I make some type of egregious
error, so I'm sure tomorrow will be no different. Did you? Is
it, Brilli? An error? Is this something only you notice? Well,
if you ask our community, I call them losers. The one year,
this is a real problem. When the first number one, I don't
understand. I was so nervous and I was like fucking morons. No,
no, I said, my PR person told me, I have to tell
the world, there's twenty six million registered users of war for In, I
said, we have twenty six million registered losers. And I remember this is
my first This was twenty sixteen, so I was about a fledgling and that
has not left the community for quite little's such a T shirt though, I
want a loser T shirt. The next day, like, I embraced it,
So you had it ready knew that the next dev stream, which to
me, I was measured in dev streams because I have no life outside my
job. So yeah, I had. I had a loser shirt added to
my wardrobe about him. A couple of days that video got recommended to me.
You know, there was Aiden Can Literally there's like a six minute clip
of six second clip if you're just saying that just because I've been like,
I've been watching so much Warframe stuff recently and I just came for the recommend
Why would you watch warm, I don't know, because I wanted to again
in touch with so at the very least, no one here tonight will have
a worse show than me saying registered losers. And my first Gateboards appearance about
eight years and that's iconic clue. It was at this point I've embraced it.
But I remember my like megan O back she was filming the team was
like, oh my god, whar friends on the game Wars for the first
time ever? And they were all filming from their own And I say it
and I just hear the whole room gong. Yeah, so that makes it
even better though, Really? Yeah, can I ask you? Do you
want to should we do this? What color is indigo? No? No,
you know that's that's the will shoot there. But yeah, I'm not
going to go on it to keep going, keep going, keep going,
keep going. Work you like that one. The next war frame is going
to have a real high heel. I looked at it today and are you
a blue or violet? I was originally purple violet, and I think I've
come around to it's mostly blue. You are one of us. You are
correct? Act okay, Google, you guys talking about color, I'm the
wrong guy. What color is? I just wanted to of course purple?
Okay, blueish purple? You can't see blueish purple because we're trying to have
like a hard line between is one of Shannon? You're right taking colors?
Yeah, Primary schools are basically my food source. I don't eat children Are
you sure? I'm looking forward to what comes next after registered Losers? Yeah,
I don't eat children's shirts, answering all the questions are asking me,
Oh no, I want to do so much damage to my company, Harris.
Yeah, what are you going up to? Hey? How's it going?
It's going pretty good? How about you? Cool? Yeah? I
work at an awesome company called Good Trouble. We are making a like accessible
arts because, like RTS games are really hard to get into these days,
and we want to make a game that like both like accessible and approachable and
like medically accessible in every single possible way we can like bring people into RTS
as we want to do that. Yeah, So it feels like marts is
a genre that is waiting for something like that. It's like people want it
to come back. They're like, we're waiting for the one that's going to
be worth their time investment. Is that something you guys recognize? Right?
I I feel like the RTS genre has gotten more and more niche as time
has gone on. And like I remember, like growing up, my older
brother would play nothing but Command and Conquer, and he would not consider himself
a gamer. He would just play command of concor and like, imagine trying
to get someone who's like not into video games at all playing in rts these
days. It's really hard. Yeah, And so like even beyond that,
like our main goal is accessibility. Our founder Armand, who's watching a high
arment, Hey loser interview letters Those are fine now, ok? Yeah,
so this strategy game power Match. You know, Armand has this incredible story
of you know, being in the hospital in his teens making warcraft mods and
wanting to share them with you know, all the other kids around him,
and for you know, reasons of you know, dexterity or you know vision
or this and that, you know, they couldn't get into the game.
So we are making this game where those kids can have something to play in
the strategy world. We're exaled, are you Are you working with him on
this or oh I wish not? Yeah? Yeah, sign know, we
only work together on being super duper best friends. That was my confusion.
That makes sense to ask. Yeah, we're like really tight. Yeah,
I've lived in this man's home. He didn't, He didn't he live stid
there. Yeah, you know it depends on that. You're definitely clearly he
didn't. Yeah, Harris, it doesn't seem like RTS is though, there's
gonna be like a lot of games in that space. Tooom, how do
you predict a way to stand out? Great question, Like I feel every
RTS that is like we were entering an RTS renaissance, which is like right,
a lot of like the StarCraft deps left starting their own studios. They're
making it happen. Yes, and all these games are super inspired by RTS
as a like genre and as a like oh we can like look at this
exact one inspiration and make the spiritual success to to that, we want to
go like a little bit diagonal from that and say, like, we are
making a strategy game that is real time, but it is not like the
games you played before. So we're working on some super secret awesome systems that
like separate these things from what you would like consider to be an RTS things
like super action heavy APM kind of stuff where you see the screen teleporting all
over in competitive star Craft. We want to like eliminate that and just make
it about like how can I use my brain to strategize and win a game?
And yeah, excellent, Yeah, And Zalegor, what have you been
up to that a lot of things. That's a big question. M h.
This year, I've been a big answer. Let's make it up.
I've been in games for fifteen years this year. Wait, you started when
you were like ten. I pretended to be an adult on the internet to
get my first jobs. This is how we connected. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, that's a that's a shared foundation. You've also we both Oh,
it's a lot of I g and and thinking I was a grown adult.
I'll go yeah, hey, everybody look at there eventually, but yeah,
I means so. So fifteen years, fifteen years in games, started as
a journalist, eight years in game development, and I think I've hit my
eighty eighth game I've worked on at this point. So the question isn't what
I'm doing, it's what am I not doing? Well? Someone please let
me go to sleep. So what was it been recently? I know you
didn't you released a game this year that everyone's been playing, right, Yeah,
yeah, so there's been too one of which that they haven't been playing
because we danced a little bit too close to the sun. The first game
we released this year was Sunshine Shuffle, which got temporarily banned from the Nintendo
Shop for allegedly promoting child gambling. Oh okay, and if you look at
the Ted talks and all of them, I always end up with we aren't
teaching children to gamble, which meant that when I tried to defend myself that
was an extensive process. Ah yeah, that makes a problem. So that
was a Parkadi at the inventory Spiritual Successor, which is also a true crime
drama where adorable animals talk about robbing a bank fourteen years ago. The other
game that released this here is al Paso Elsewhere right, which is a thank
you Yes that cloud could be let's let's try that again. Yeah yeah,
oh my god, what she's happening? Yeah, so I'm hyped up that
Maxipaine Spiritual Successor retro third person shooter. A black vampire hunter goes into a
demension shifting hotel to destroy the monster he loved before she ends the world.
Yeah. It has an original hip hop horror albums VI. Oh yeah,
it's I'm like I was trying to place it in like like, yes,
I've seen this game. I've seen it on TikTok a bunch because there are
people setting their music to it and playing that game now, So yes,
really got got Yes, absolutely, that's awesome, and I'm like and then
I, oh, yeah, this is that All Pass elsewhere that I think
Jan was telling me about or someone. Yeah, yeah, Jams told me
about this, and so I was like, okay, yeah, I'm gonna
check this out. And then I'm like, well, I got a million
hours of boulders Gate three to play first, So yeah, All three is
such a good game exactly, but yeah, now I'm gonna make time for
it. But yeah, so that, I mean people have been talking about
so elsewhere. That's pretty cool, right, It's really cool. We expected
to get sixes and sevens because we made a game that made very precise choices.
You don't immediately think, right, supernatural, hip hop, horror when
you think of Max Pain. But nonetheless, we wanted to not show people
what they fell in love with before, but what kind of like the stuff
that Harris and co. Are doing, what the things they've loved could evolve
into next. And seeing people really connect with that has been such a gratifying
experience. On top of that, I got to talk this year about working
on Magic Gathering in Sount Park, snow Day and all these incredible projects with
a lot of amazing teams. I'm deeply grateful for despite a rough year in
games, still being here and still sticking in it. Yeah, I mean
it feels to the kind of thing where like strong choice is something that is
a benefit at this point, right, you want to there's so many games,
so many people making games. Clearly that's part of the issue, is
like it's hard to stand out, so strong choices is probably beneficial to that,
right, Yeah, I think that at this point the idea of just
making a game that hits an audience, right is what kills studios more so
than anything. You see this with live service games all the time, where
they're like, you play Destiny, right, you want to play a new
thing and it doesn't seem like there's stuff to chew into there. And there's
really talented people who did it. There's an immense amount of investment that occurred
there, but nonetheless the game doesn't feel like there is something you can chew
into, and right, I think it's really notable that a lot of the
Game of the Year candidates we're talking about now, stuff like Final Fantasy sixteen,
stuff like The Balder Skate three and Allen Wack two. Every single game
that is really landing with people. This year does a gigantic called Shot Tears
of the Kingdom throwing out all the tools you had before and reliving that magic
in a new way with entirely new set of tools. People connect with it,
and I hope that we see more of that as the game's industry moves
into twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five. Do you think it's that as
players that were connect with specificity where it's like the creator has a certain idea
of what they want and we recognize that and now we get a chance to
play around with it and bring ourselves to it. But it's easier to do
that if we're latching onto something that seems like a strong choice in a game.
I think so because I play a lot of seven out of tens from
the early two thousands and seven out of tens absolutely yeah. And those games,
even when they didn't sell, well, maybe they weren't critically appreciating their
time. Def Jam Fight for en Y is one of the best games of
all time. The idea that they nonetheless took swings, They had a different
control system. There was something in them that was broken and flawed, but
it was nonetheless, something you even attached to is so important, And I
think players are reacting now to game shaped objects where it plays just like you
would want a metro a Veina to play, It looks just like you want
a Metro aveain In to look. But you're asking where the team's heart is,
because these teams always have heart. It's just a matter of how much
they're allowed to display it and how much time and resources they've been given to
show that vision. So I think people want to chew into something that's very
human because we're vampires fundamentally drinking each other's life worst. But also at the
end of the day, players and devs are all just humans trying to connect
with each other. And that's where I think that, like there's a re
relationship that needs to get rebuilt because a lot of players are feeling abandoned touching
these game shaped objects and not seeing the humanity behind them, and to a
degree not having the vocabulary to express that. They're looking for people to be
specific and human to them. Ramy's that reflects your experience, Yeah, yeah,
yeah, like working at respond how is that is that something like where
you guys have that conversation about Hey, we want to put our heart into
the things that we're putting out there. Yeah, I would have said no,
I would yeah, let's be clear. Yeah yeah, yeah, no,
no, no, there's uh, there's only so much you can do
in given time, given resources, so that there there's always a lot of
yeah what what what what are these things you take? And when do you
take them? And cost? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, but I guess
yeah to your question, Yeah, yeah, you last time you were on
the Giant BPCU, I don't know this last time one of the times you
were on the Giant MP couch. Yes. You always made up that you
being from Alaska and ship yeah back yeah, and now you but you are
in the southern California, right. That feels like two very different places.
But now you've been here a long time, right as of yesterday, I've
been here eighteen years. Yeah, So what's it like making games and Southern
California seems like a thing that not hard? Yeah, well so I moved
here because because this is where a lot of dannistry was especially back then.
Yes, yeah, and there just kind of twice the cool thing. So
the the team mon now like we got people from all over like Canada,
England, like we're because the pandemic is still able to hire all over the
place, and we wouldn't have that team if they the people who just would
never moved to Los Angeles because you either want to live here you don't.
Uh. And so it's been I don't know, Yeah, it's it's been
great. Just happened having people to work. I mean, is that a
change that you could ever foresee being able to be undone having remote work and
you're in your studio. It works like we need this now. Yeah,
but we we literally couldn't couldn't have the same team, Like our our art
directory was amazing easy East in Chicago, Like there's no way we'd be like,
all right, come on to one spot so we can all smell each
other. That's happening now. But it's like people always think, I think
they imagine we're losing something because we're not in the same space. But I
don't. Do you feel that there's anything really lost? I mean it's different,
like differ it doesn't have different challenges. When when when we went,
you know, because it was all of a sudden, it was like everyone
go home for a week haha. And and as we as we shipped into
Like I had never been on slap before, and we've never really been on
Zoom and stuff, and now we had to we had to make it work.
And and it was weird because I realized I was suddenly that was very
unaware there are two people shared novels with and and like, okay, I'm
now way less aware of what they're doing every day, which makes sense,
but like, oh shit, I didn't know how I didn't know what I
didn't know. Like now I was just way more aware of what everyone else
is doing. And it's honestly just different challenge. Yeah, you have to
be engaged in a different way, right, yeah. Yeah, as as
someone that respawned, Are you guys sick of hearing by Titan Fall three and
the love for wanting more titan Ful or is it like you understand you Oh
that's the yeah, it can be yeah yeah, yeah, I love I
love general robots. Yeah yeah right, yeah. We was nice to see
the sort of resurgence of Titan Fall over the last couple of months where like
they like spiked really high for there for a while. We went back and
played it and had a great time, like yeah, yeah, and I've
gone kids in there. The Internet can't compete with them, ask about titan
Fall stuff, fantastic that. Yeah, I'm like, I'm glad they're doing
the work so we don't have to cool. Yeah, let's see Shannon,
what do you expect to happen with like the game awards? You you like
your favorite that you're pulling for. Yeah, No, so that's year.
We have like a huge well, we have a lot of freelancers, a
huge team. And then I'm like asking them, like I can't project what's
gonna happen. We're saying like there might be a new singing game because Sego
was teasing something. I don't know, if you wanted to go through all
of them. There's a sure ending too. Yeah, more and more about
that, I could totally show up. Yeah, personally, I think Hades
two we should get more of that. I would love to see more from
Super Giant and yeah, and then there's also uh a Fable. I think
Fable has Yeah, need to know more. Yeah, I think like their
next scheme is definitely held Blay two over at Microsoft. But it's yeah,
but it's like we'll tell us about what's after that and after that a little
bit because we've wen'ys seen help Bay too a few times, so yeah,
they want to show that again. I want to see something else as well.
I feel like the fans have been waiting for new fielble for a long
time. So yeah, those are the things I'm like expecting. And then
Jeff Kelly promised like fewer world premieres, right, So yeah, with that,
I think he's I think he was just trying to like acknowledge like the
language is weird around world premieres, where it's like it's hard to be like,
what's a world premiere? A lot of these things have shown up in
other places where they get talked about, like a lot of lot of times
companies are announcing games so they can attract talent and stuff, so it's like
these things have been officially announced, they just haven't been shown before. So
that's going to happen here at the Game Awards. Yeah. I think people
were meaming him for a while so because like, all right, no more
announcing world premiere. But he might say here's a trailer. Yeah, like
trailer, I guess like world world's world premiere as you call it. World
premiers say they see the English, no world I think I think the thing
is like, well, world's premiere is they devalue things that aren't is in
like we should only value this thing if it's your first time we've ever seen
it, as opposed to the idea that game development takes a long long time.
And so you go, well, if this isn't a world premiere,
then there's no point me right, And it's like, you know, the
reality is this is a show where he is trying to make money, so
he is like his customers are a lot of times developers looking to get showcased,
and it's like, yeah, well, like why can't can we get
the world premiere tech? He's like, well, technically it's not. It's
like why even have that there so you couldn't buy it. It was a
weird thing that happened over the past couple of years, which was there's going
to be thirty six world premieres, Like what does that even mean? And
the people start judging it on this bizarre thing, and I think there has
been so much more of a healthy discourse about what's going to show up at
the game or was this year? Because that isn't there? And I also
think that maybe we're at year where people who are excited to see what wins
Game of the Year. Yeah, I actually think it's it's the first time,
maybe just in my experience, where people want know what's going to win,
because people are pulling for their favorite because it has been games wise anyway,
a year to celebrate a product that we've all consumed, and people want
to see their favorites. When you stop one for Resue before. I love
Residue Before. It's my favorite game of the year. But I do like,
listen, I just finished Allan Wait two and gush to the entire remedy
team and it's well. At the sam Lake, I was like, I
love your video game, Please please build my name right. But I think
the great thing about the six games that are up for it is every single
one of them is worthy depending on your experiences with them. I do think
game awards awards in general are silly because it's like, how do you quantify
someone's own personal experience with something like how are you saying that my experience with
the game is more valuable than someone else's. But I think it has been
such a brilliant year that showcases different types of games, and the six games
that are up are all worthy of being read presented in that way. Yeah,
Ben, I would tend to agree with you because I went around my
achieve and asked them, like, I think boulders Gate three is gonna win
for sure, and they were like, actually, no, we think ellen
Wick two has a good chance as well. We love ellong Wik two.
So I don't know about you, but like, yeah, at this point,
I really don't know. I would think I would put my money on
boulders k three, but yeah, but yeah, ellen Wait two had a
really good timing there at the end of the year, going to like surge
at the right time. I think Zelda will still get a lot of love,
but probably will have a hard time winning after the both Breath of the
Wild one. So yeah, but I'm like, I'm excited about it,
like it's and it's it's fun. When we're doing our Game to the Year
awards, it's like it's fun to talk about this stuff because we're going to
go in and we're going to do our Eurovision style voting and like, I
don't know, Yeah, you're by the way, the your vision voting system
in general, for your visions on contest, it's one of the most exciting
if you haven't ever watched Eurovision, just go and watch one. It's the
weirdest thing ever. But the voting system is just oh, chef's kiss hysic.
You know, it's exactly how we're doing it. Abscribe it to someone
that has neither euro nor Vision. Country is a vote and they can like
we do. They have a whole list they go up to on the stage
and we are giving our first place twelve points to this the final round of
Quicklash. That's the American taking. It's just they just draw it out to
make it more to that. There's a lot. If we've oversimplified, there
is a lot. But I'm not going to go onto the intricacies of the
Univision voting system because it goes on for like five hours. But it's a
great it's a great thing. Cool. Yes that I think video games are
great. And also when it comes to when it comes to this year,
Okay, one game is going to be called the Game Awards Game of the
Year. But I mean I've just been like hugging Michael Hyam outside for basically
putting Octopod Traveler Too on their top ten Game to the Year, because I
think that there are so many games that people are going to take away in
the next ten year, is that are going to change someone's life with de
fine how they exist. I'm a massive fan of Cocoon, like I Thinkon
is the game for me that made me real a video games. This year,
I've kind of fell out of love with them a little bit, and
then they went, here is this simple game that is a simplicancy done to
its fullest, and it's like, how do we explore this idea continuously going
inside of itself? And I'm thankful for that for having that experience, right.
I had that with Chance of SNAr where it's like I am, oh,
someone's making games for my kind of brain where I feel like, oh,
this is something where it's like we want the game to mostly exist in
your brain and feel like you're completely in control of the learning the understanding of
how it functions. And it's like that's so powerful to me. And it's
like, oh, we're gonna get were probably gonna get a lot more of
that because that's kind of what Overden did. There's a couple of handful other
games that operate in that same way. It's like, oh, we're on
the cusp of this becoming a whole genre to itself, and it's so exciting,
especially because you have the Sorry I was just gonna say, you have
the lead time of games where Triple A games have to take five to eight
years now, and the games are starting to edge up there as well.
So if you look at the time from Overden, we're about dues. We
aren't for that, and that's why you got like Curse of the Golden Idol.
I think that was last year, yes, and that's directly following in
those footsteps Andreas on later tonight actually from Case of the Golden Idol. So
yeah, yeah, one of my favorite games last year. Yeah, exactly.
It's like we were the War where is people don't know, Wow,
that game there, it's here the games we got do you say that?
Like A Dragon has got to be like the highest budget, like high concept,
high like you were not shooting most of the time in all way too,
and I like was taken by that, Like I think it's so taken.
That's the bad guys. Yeah, it's you spend so much time,
you know, messing with wakes like corkboard, and so I'm just cordboard and
there's so much non shooting stuff in alan Awaker. You know, I've never
seen again in that high budget kind of make you not shoot things for so
long. Yeah. Yeah, really, it's almost like the game doesn't want
you to play it like a survival horror. It just wants to just to
let you play the game. And then, by the way, sometimes you'll
have to do some fighting, it just doesn't give you enough AMO to do
it anyway. Sure, yeah, yeah, that was quite a frustration when
I would get into fights not have enough hamo and say, oh man,
I wish I could corkboard these guys for death, but just change the scene,
did you? I got to go back. I don't think that a
game gets enough credit for, like you know, if we're talking about like
Titanfall, right, titan Fall two amazing for a number of reasons, but
a level in which you can literally just change the scene in front of your
right snap between that it's time thing Alan Wait two does that, and like
it's so incredible. Never stopped. I never stopped being amazed at every time.
I'd like tap on that keyboard and then bam, it just changes the
scene in front of you. It changes the geography, it changes the tone.
Is just the lighting within seconds, and I'm like, I don't think
we give it enough credit for even that on top of the fact that it
is this kind of singular vision that is so unique and it's using a lot
of tools to do one thing. Yeah, it's a technically masterful it is
narratively so adventurous, and it's an amazing experience. Yeah, going back to
what za Lavia was saying about, like, you know, this game like
the year Game of the Year nominees, I think they're all like pushing the
envelope forward of like what video games can be and what they could be going
forward. And I think that alan Wick too, Like I interviewed the Creep
director Sam Lake, and he was saying that he gives up something when he's
letting the gamer, the player, decide when to switch between Osaga or alan
Wick. But he's also getting in return of the ability to like give that
player that full experience. They can have that agency to explore the world on
their own. And that's the same thing that like many games do anyway,
where you don't have a director telling the story and setting like the scene ends
here, coff Hair now next character and alan Wick two is just so much
more of like that open narrative experience that you were saying, Then, do
you guys think that you know, speaking of the long lead time, do
you think we get an industry that is going to be looking at allan Way
two as a way of doing things or is that intimidating to a certain kind
of studio intimidating but also looking forward to seeing the Alloway two spiritual successors in
ten years. Yeah, I mean a lot of the studios will try yeah,
right, Yeah, but it's also seems like you do have to have
that strong vision. You have to like again the many tools trying to do
one thing that's difficult if you don't have someone who knows exactly what they're going
for, right, and a lot of it as a flex because alan Way
two is only a game you can make with that team after having the experience
for doing this type of thing, like over twenty years, right, Palterers
Kate three is an example of a team building that up for over twenty years
and being a culmination and like building a taste for wanting that kind of game
of like I know a little bit of what I'm gonna get from remedy,
and maybe I want more of it and like they've done that time and time
again. It's like, now that's culminating in this alle way two where it's
like, no, we know exactly what we want for a remedy and they're
delivering it in a way that's better than ever refect. I don't want to
like, like, I think that we've spoken about a lot of games here
and there's one gaming game of the year that we haven't spoken about, which
is Spider Man two, and I think it speaks to that. Right,
we take that completely for granted how technically incredible that game is, because we're
going, WHOA just seen it in that, We've seen it in Spider Man,
We've seen it in you know, we just go that what that game
achieved talking about culmination of like them building and creating on something and no,
it doesn't take kind of like the same creative leaps in that way. But
you think about like what that is now for like it's it's built on the
Arkham series, it's built on itself, and it's created what is not just
a tech technical achievement also narrative from performance wise, like what Ury Lowenfelt is
doing in that game, and that is absolutely incredible you can feel the insomniac
DNA. Going back to like there are moments of Spider Man where you can
feel brashitting clang right, you can feel infamous, and then in that you
can feel psycho right like these I've got the red studio right, bunches.
Sorry, okay, you have the rest of you. I said the wrong
name. So many sort of the studios look alike. It's a lot like
Days Gone. I feel like that I'm riding a bike e reading the hog
exactly. Yeah, there's a look to the PlayStation exclusive. I see what
you're saying. Yeah, yeah, I just want to be like, don't
leave about Spider Man two. And I think we do take it for granted
a little bit because it doesn't seem to take this massive swings in the same
with aland wait does or was going to get I was going to get that
guy? Here you go. But yeah, I do think it's it's an
amazing achievement and it is again the same thing, a culmination of years and
years and years of you know, refining their craft and creating something that we
know, you know, like Spider Man two nominated for Game of the Year,
Spider Man one was not. I don't think it was. Yeah,
And it was like it didn't win a lot of Game of the Years,
and it's like for me, it was like, that's a studio just doing
the work making a game. Ask game, and it's like, but we
have a certain expectation per Game of the year. Spider Man. Spider Man
was in Red Dead two, Got a War. Yeah right, Spider Spider
spider Man was crazy with spider I said, and I'm not kidding, well,
like Spiders around was the same. It's God of War, Red Dead
Redemption too. So course the conversation. But that's like in one game,
but I always coming next to Fortnite. Yeah, yeah, right, that's
whatever. I think that those games are the ones that set the tone for
what's expected for game year and what Spider Man is doing something else. It
was also like it's sold like twenty million copies. It's like the best nine
out of ten you're ever going to play. That was kind of the rhetoric
and Sony game empes, and I think that's what insomny I got right,
is they make the best nine out of tens are ever going to play?
That was that that seemed to be the rhetoric around it. Is it ever
actually going to get like a ninety above metacritics, it's ever going to be
that ten out of ten and this one did, and it did and it's
amazing and yeah, completely did you know it? We all know it won't
win for the same reason that tis the Kingdom probably won't win. Well,
I mean, or we've said the games were mentioned Super Mario Brothers Wonder a
game is going to get the same boat. Yes, yes, it yeah,
yeah, but I mean it's like that game is doing a very specific
thing that we've seen before, but it's you know, there's some like from
software inspired multiplayer stuff in there that's like amazing, And it's like for me,
I don't know if I had a better experience playing games this year than
Mario Wonder when I just like look at like, oh, we raced in
a bunch of levels, and well I want a bunch so obviously that helps,
but it's like, I don't know, just have those experiences in sharing
it with someone for the first time. It's like, oh man, I'm
playing to Mario and I'm this is a complete stranger and we're experiencing these levels
together. And I know games have done that before, but there's something different
when the context is now Mario that was really powerful. So yeah, yeah,
I mean I think it goes back to games aren't doing a lot.
A lot of games are being figured out, and a lot of great,
great studios are doing great things, and it's a really good year for games,
and it's like, man, we go back to is it sustainable?
I think for the kinds of games we're getting from these studios, yes,
clearly. It's like, man, while the question marks are still out there,
I think most part, I mean, gaming's got it mostly in a
good place. One last thing to mention as far as like really cool games
that got made this year and I Survivor, Yes, I'm playing that right
now. I was on that team. They didn't fantastic. I'm very,
very very proud of them. You shouldn't weren't on the team. I was
not yet. Yeah. Oh not on that too. I don't want to
take credit because I know they did really really well, that you inspired them,
of course. Yeah, yeah, I'm there whenever they're feeling down.
Yeah, on the zoom call. It's like a Tim Schaeffer credit in a
Star Wars racer where it's like, did not actively sabotage the game. Yeah,
all right on that, we're gonna get out of here. Thanks for
hanging out with me, friends, appreciate, except for you Ben. You
know what you did till next time. Ever, in about fifteen minutes,
we'll see it then, fine, I love so Apparently it's Sonic the Hedgehog.
You run fast. This is the strategy that broke in here that long
to say that we're back live Giant Bomb Los Angeles Game of the Year,
spectacular. Thank you every pretty to tune it in. It's been a great
night so far. Got a couple more panels for you brought to you.
Thank thankfully, probably like a dragon infit it well, thanks to these guys
right here. The crotches of hours will be referred to them all night.
They're still with me, and they will be all night. As Willis's next
panel, Hanging Out with Me started with ashta crawl. How's it going man?
Hey? Yeah? You doing man? Pretty good? Glad you're here.
Yeah, yeah, yes, you're one of our returning guests from six
months ago. Yes, yeah, it was a Save Studios name duck.
Actually, I'm very happy to see that the duck was still there. Yeah,
but most of what we had last time, Gone Duck remained David Kim.
Yeah you got you guys worked together, right, Yes, yeah,
we'll get into a little bit, but yeah, I treat you day.
Yeah forne Yeah absolutely, thanks for the night. Yeah, anytime, lots
of hours from Sega. Yessy here, I invited you before I had any
idea that Saga's sponsor anywhere. It looks weird, but I'm here. I
don't care. Yeah, I'm happy or here as well. Yeah, Andres
claps right, yeah, ye, and you are the developer of the Case
of the Golden Idol. Yeah cool. Also yes, one of my favorite
games. Seriously, I was a huge fan. Absolutely, and then set
Roseneth rose in. Yeah. From one of the developers of Pacific Drive Drive
Yes, and Alexander Dracottah Drake Cot. Yes, I'm so I'm telling these
people right before, like this is thet hid of the night where the names
are just gonna slip out of the play, just right out of the ear.
Start with you, Ash, how are things going? You got like
you've got a new job since last time? Right I did? I did
we know the last job had left and had joined Uncapped Games. Uncapped Games
is a studio that was founded about two and a half years ago by David
Kim. He was the lead multiplayer designer on StarCraft two uh, and he's
a senior game director over at un Captain. We're looking to really revolutionize the
RTS genre, but we're still working on things at the moment. But yeah,
we're we've just basically been starting to build out the rest of the publishing
org. So that's why I was hired on to kind of had that up.
Yeah, what's uh, publish your work? I know, I knew
what's that look like From a business side, that's like your community, your
brand, marketing, performance marketing, PR. From there, there's some other
things like data analysis and things of that nature too, so we're more of
the business side of the development team. So yeah, I found it there.
We go, all right, yeah, when you when you're now analysis
analyzing excuse me, the data? What to say right now? For RTSs?
What's say now? For artists? I think that the genre has had
a bit of a quiet time, so I say it, but we're looking
to change that a little bit. And I think that, you know,
we have a lot of let's call it inspirations from the different genre from and
that inspiration, I would say is actually for us as our ambition. If
you think about something like what World of Warcraft did for MMOs, what League
of Legends for mobives, or what personal different card games. I think our
goal was to really see if we can try and do the same thing for
the artis Ghana and bring it back in a big way. And David and
our incredible development team have been working really hard. So you can actually expound
about that a little bit more if you want. Yeah, absolutely, So,
Like I mean when you got started with like was the vision, like,
man, there was a good timeh StarCraft two was happening, and I
want to bring that back or is it there more to it? So it's
a little bit different, but I do want to say StarCraft two was one
of my I guess the favorite game of all time for me kind of thing.
Yeah, But when I was working on StarCraft two, maybe for almost
ten years now, I've been kind of wanting to take a stab that kind
of that game design of that next game, one that not only appeals to
arts players but also everyone else, many players who may have been intimidated by
an arts game kind of thing. Right, So when this opportunity came up
to kind of take that stab. I just had to do it right.
Like I love Blizzard, right, Like I've been there thirteen and a half
years, So it was kind of like a big first world problem, you
can say. Right, on the one hand, my favorite game company of
all time working there, I'm super happy there kind of thing. Right on
the other it's like, ah, but this was my dream for the last
ten years. I really have to go for a kind of thing, right,
And I kind of want to say, I think the making something like
this it's really about core individuals who really have their own area expertise, and
these individuals coming together as a team that makes something like this happen, right.
And we've been really kind of heads down trying to build a game that
is ready for the public player testing so that we can get to I guess
the real fun part where the I guess the magic really happens where we work
together with the community, the player base, and we really nail down what
do we get right, what do you get wrong? Things like that.
So this is where we've been at. But it's been super exciting so far,
and like I guess, looking at next year, getting ready for that.
I guess public player testing, it's super exciting times, I guess,
right, like the stream's coming true kind of thing. Yeah, And like
we were just talking to another arts developer and like saying, it does feel
like a genre that is primed to come back in a big way. Like
people didn't get sick of RTS is they were just like there was nothing left
for them, Like the barrel had been scraped, Like I want more?
Where is it? How do you sort of navigate that? Yeah. One
thing I'd say too, is like it's really exciting to see some of the
other developers have their take on what the RT genre is. I think we
have a very different take in that we want to try to expand to as
large of an audience as possible. And I mean, I kind of tell
you since I've been on the team, seeing the passion of the development team
that has a tremendous amount of experience. We've got members in our team like
over thirty percent that were part of that Craft series of development at Blizzard,
whether that's Warcraft or StarCraft, and then so many others that worked on different
games. I don't know if you want to expound upon that a little bit,
but yeah, yeah, for sure. Maybe before that, I kind
of want to add, so the reason why I think you bring up a
good point, right, the reason why I think it is primed for like
a return or whatever you want to consurgence, I guess yes, because I
guess my personal take is if you look at a traditional arts game, right,
and I told you, like one of my favorite games of all time
in StarCraft two, one of my top three games of all time is StarCraft
one kind of thing, right, But when I look at those games and
look at the difficulty of like you have to I always say, like,
you have to practice these drills for number of years X number of years,
then you can experience the core fund kind of thing, right, And I
just have a hard time believing that that is the peak of RTS kind of
thing, right, So if you want to take that next step where players
can get to that core fund much faster than any other arts game ever made
before, things like that, and then going back to what you were saying,
it also goes back to one of the things that I was saying,
which is, at the end of the day, making a good game,
I think that their minimum piece is specific core Individuals have the area of expertise,
especially within this one space kind of thing. So I guess we can
name Mini here, right, But one of them, I guess is Luke
Manchini. He's one of our concept artists on the team, and the story
behind him is quite interesting to me, right because at Blizzard back then,
like I don't know, twenty ten or something like this, right, I've
never seen anyone be poached by Blizard because at that time, I want to
say, like Blizer was kind of at the top of the food n Yeah,
so we were all like dying to get to Blacher, like even with
a pay cut, even with a title cut kind of thing like. That
was the atmosphere. And then this guy like Blizer poached, like he asked
him to like the company asked him to join Blizier kind of thing, right.
And then the other fun story is in twenty eleven, when we were
working on StarCraft Hard the Swarm expansion, he asked me like, hey,
would you like to pick when I'm going to dry at bliz Con in my
drying demo session kind of thing, right, And I'm like, oh,
I'd be so honored, right, because you're my favorite concept artists at the
whole company. Kind of thing, right, And so I picked the hell
That, which was one of the hardest form units. He threw that,
and he gave me a file of it. I put it on my desktop
and today, like twelve years later, it is still on my desktop.
Ending right, that's how much I respect his or religious skills kind of thing
right. Anything other examples, Yeah, the only thing I would say there
is that with so many people that are passionate about this genre that I've worked
on those games as well as things like Minecraft Legends more recently, or a
Company of Heroes. The idea is taking some of the principles that have been
done in the past, but then finding the ways moving forward to make the
genre relevant. I think that's what you were talking about earlier, moving forward
and making it so that as many people can enjoy it as possible. And
you know, I think we're poised to do that. We have some work
to do, but we're looking really hard to see how we can incorporate the
community and work with them. And right here, that does that mean like
early access and like I'm kind of just taking it easy or is that still
to be determined. I think there's a process that we're reviewing right now,
you run to roll things out and we'll we work with and will it makes
sense, But we'll be talking about that pretty soon. But right now we're
just excited playing the internal builds and then having a bunch of fun. Yeah,
for sure, Alexa, there's been a lot of Sonic games. What's
going on over Yeah, we had a really good year this year. Yeah.
Yeah, the Apple Arcade game just came out, Like what was that?
Like? What was it like? Kind of making that happen? How
is it different when it's promoting something like that. Yeah, that campaign was
actually really interesting to work with. Apple is a great partner. They were
super smoothly. I was brought on not late in campaign, but we were
brought in. That was pretty quick in terms of a gang in campaign.
And I know, we announced November first and then we launched a little over
a month later, So it was a pretty quick turnaround, is it.
It doesn't seem like there do anything wrong with that these days? Right,
a quick turnaround on a game announcement getting released the back of the day.
It was like, no, two years. We got to build preors,
pre orders for Forever and that's the whole the whole game needs to happen right
there on that first weekend. Now it's like, nope, we're gonna tell
you about it, and you're gonna be excited about it. And here it
is a couple of months later. In this case, was less than that.
But it's like it doesn't seem like it hurts the game in any way,
right, No, No, And I think we knew that we had
a good game, solid game, and Sega hard Light is pretty good games
and pretty good track record forces, so it was they were amazing to work
with as well, and so they made the whole process very easy also.
And yeah, it has been amazing to see the reception I think, Yeah,
launching yesterday, Yeah, seeing everybody just be extremely happy, and yeah,
looking forward to see all their reactions. Yeah, for sure. Is
it kind I think where it's because it's on a device, devices like phones
that are so accessible that it's like, oh, a lot of us just
take care of it, takes care of itself. Where it's like it's going
to be right in front of people. We just got to remind them.
I think that. But also it is pretty on the go in terms of
you can play on your phone, you can also play on the Mac.
You can play on the Apple TV. I played on the Apple TV with
the controller and it played amazing. It was super smooth. And I think
also being able to play on the iPad to the iPhone, just having that
accessibility and that being able to take it on the go, it just makes
it even more accessible to be andres when it comes to getting attention to a
case of the Golden Idol in the first place, what was that process?
Like? That was horrible? We we we when we didn't publisher, we
build a demo and we decided okay. Uh. In the past, I've
made many mistakes where we've been building a game like for one year or two
years, and then it flops and then you build the next one for one
two years. This time I said, okay, you're gonna build no more
than four months development and then we validate and if it if it doesn't work,
we throw it out, like like, let's be very fail fast,
so build the demo. Honest. I tried marketing on the internet, going
posting in Facebook groups that it's discords and like, very minimal traction, little
interest those developer these cod groups, there are only developers who want to show
their game, right, No, nobody wants to see any other game,
and I'm kind of like I know of the struggle of months. It is
also very difficult to communicate for the games about because the main action happens in
your cab. It's not very visual. You can't make a fun gift out
of yeah all the niles right, Like gifts are like a game dev Gift
Saturday or whatever, where it's like, if your game shows off good in
a gift, that's half the battle right there. And the game doesn't show
off good and gifts, right, it just doesn't. It doesn't. Yeah,
I tried. I tried, like like a montage like, oh,
there's a dead body, who's the guilty one buttler that on? That doesn't
what nobody cares And we almost gave up, but then we thought, huh,
all this stay next first around the corner, let's wait for that.
And after that one some pickup appeared, and then we decided, okay,
we need to publisher and the luckily Lucas Pope had and losked us and publishers
got interested and yeah, and then plays that courted us and we like them
as well. What was it? How did Lucas find game? Lucas Pope
I sent him an email. Uh, it was also kind of like wild
idea, like sure, the game is heavily influenced by it. But then
so I sent him, Hey, he has a game influenced by your He
responded the same day, not a couple like, I think five or four
hours later, and said, oh, I played it. Oh it's really
good. I like your ideas. And I was like Smith and I really
needed that model boost after all that struggle failing to market it. That's like
not something you can write down at a textbook about how to get a game
pad right. Just talk to Lucas po That's not an object, but it's
like it does show that you have to just try a bunch of different things
and you never know what's going to work right. Because if that had not
happened, if Lucas Pope had not responded, what do you think would have
happened with the game? Who knows? Yeah, I don't know how much
of an effect it had, sure unpublished decision, But if I had had
to give an advice at this point, I think reaching out to starts is
definitely due because many are super excessive and I'm super nice, and secondly,
reach out to communities which like similar games because like over than that love that
adventure games, so that it also like tracked. Well uh yeah, these
are a few things that worked out of this months of misery. Yeah.
So when it comes to like the game is it does find some success and
it gets attention and you're like, okay, now we're going to support it.
How you like come to the decision to make DLC and things like that.
I think it's kind of like this easy, cheap way out. Okay,
we need to do something next. We're not going to build a new
game right out of the box site like we have a game here, Let's
build a dl say. I think when you don't know what to do,
you just build a l like this. It's all the first in the game.
Most of the time, we don't know what's doing. How's the experience
getting attention for that different than the first time around? Getting attention for the
game? Was it a lot easier? People like oh I do want to
see this now? They were they coming to you? Uh, I think
it's getting easier. Yeah, so I'm maybe because there are some champions like
like Josh like like he just takes anything. So so now yeah, now
people actually some people know what's what's gold to night. Also, these got
thing easy, hopefully go get easier and easier. Seth, you guys have
been on the grind of showing up Pacific Drive. We saw you guys at
packs. H. What's that been? Like, how's it going? What
lessons learned? Things like that? H? Great? Yeah, Packs was
great. We showed the game at Packs Stand PACKSWS this year, and you
know, it's the first time that we're gonna getting the game into like the
public stands in a serious way, and that's that's always really exciting. And
the experience we put together for that is like not not even really the full
game loop. It's just like dumping players right into a level and like get
in the car and go, because you know, you want people to see
the exciting stuff pretty quick. And you know, in the lead up to
each of those shows, we would be heavily testing the game and having the
whole team like bang on this twenty minute demo and on day five of doing
that, like people are having new experiences, even with like a relatively small
amount of randomness within that experience, and just like getting to see the ways
that this game really generates stories and and kind of right is an engine pun
intended for a drama and comedy has been really really exciting, and you know,
it speaks for itself, like you know, Alex and all the visuals
he's put together, I think gets a lot of people in the door,
like it's it's pretty eye catching. But then when you get your hands on
it and feel kind of the way to the car and feel it spin out
and forget to put the parking brake on and watch it roll down a hill
as you're trying to collect some resources, it just it just sort of like
immediately is sticky in that way, and like you realize how how many exciting
and horrible adventures you can have with this car. Right, the game first
got revealed, if I'm remembering right in a PlayStation state of play, Yes,
yeah, when you got the packs and you were showing the game up,
how many people were like, oh, I remember seeing this in the
state of play, And how many people are like, no, I'm just
here for packs. This is my first time seeing it. It says a
pretty good mix, Like we definitely have folks that have started following the game
when we first revealed it, right, but it's you know, it's packs
right, there's so many people, especially like PEX West. This year was
huge. Yeah, there were a lot of folks coming to check out the
game, and you know, I don't know what it is. Some folks
adamantly did not even want to hear about it from us and just wanted to
sit down, sure, check out the game, figure out what it was
and was it. You guys built a build that could support that, so
the people just sit down and figure it out on their own. You guys
were ready for that. Yeah, yeah, you know it's funny like as
we were get getting the build ready and figuring out what this deema was,
like, a lot of the members of our team like wanted to really kind
of curate what that experience was. And so my background is that previously had
worked or not most recently, but previously worked on Don't Starve and got a
lot of experience from that of just like you can trust players a lot and
just let them find their fun. Like they'll they'll find whatever aspect of the
game is appealing to them and pull on that thread and like, you know,
you want to you want to like have have kind of a pop at
the end of the demo, like make it make an exciting climax, but
it's like if a player wants to see the car turn around, go into
the gas station and spend ten minutes rooting around in containers and searching for stuff.
Great, that's I'm and you know it takes a little bit of uh
experience and stupidity maybe to be comfortable with that, but it paid dividends in
this case. Like you know, we were seeing like seeing people come back
and playing it multiple times and like really challenging themselves to uh make make a
successful run or or like you know, like if they get a nitro boost,
like see what kind of fun they can have with that. You know
there there are people trying to do like no no gas pedal runs sure,
and stuff like that got me thinking. So like when it comes down to
what's goin analyzing the data of like okay, we had successive packs that people
enjoyed it. What does what does that turn into? Does that turn in
word of mouth? Can you measure that? I mean you can definitely track
some things right like the steam wishless or some sure like that we can see,
but the uh, you know, on the on the flip side,
it is like watching our community girl, like we have we have a community
discord watching that just grow in size and people, especially after those events,
starting to share what it was like to play the game whatever that didn't have
that opportunity, and that's super exciting. But then, you know, on
the flip side is on the developer side, right, So we got to
see a bunch of people play the game, but it was revealing. It's
revealing and surprising and fun and scary and and you know that gets you know,
information for us to go back, and we ended up just making a
giant page where you know, folks that we're working at the show, we're
just like watch people play, like, oh, it's someone was struggling with
this thing, and we can take that and go back and make it a
little bit better. What was the big thing when you guys got back to
oh, first thing I want to fix is this, or first thing I
want to build on is this? Was it was reinforcement of like issues that
we've known and been there, Like, you know, this game is hideously
complex and there's like so many different actions and a lot of them are context
sensitive, so lots of players with our old control scheme, we've now addressed
this we're just like trying to get into the car and ripping the door off
because that button was overloaded. So just like seeing how commonly that was happening
was was clarifying in terms of like, Okay, like this this isn't really
a muscle memory thing. Like you know, we as developers have a pretty
easy time with it relatively speaking, but this is clearly something that needs to
be kind of buffed out. And you know, like you're asking about how
that sort of manifests at the show, A lot of it is is that
word of mouth stuff. And though we don't want players ripping their doors off
as they get it the car, like, there's an element to which like
that is actually helpful in like when you create your own accidents, you're less
angry about it. It's it's your story, right, you get you get
to tell it. Yeah, absolutely so, so you know, and with
our setting as well, it's like this irradiated exclusion zone, so that gives
us a lot of space to be like that's not a bug, it's own
stuff. Yeah sure, yeah totally so so then yeah, what what's next
for you guys when it comes to like figure out what it's there? It's
ready to Yeah, yeah, we're insert right now. So in the home
stretch, especially to release safe twenty second Yeah, man, wow right around
the corner. Yeah, that's exa. I think it feels like there's no
stage space to put out games anymore where there's gonna a million other ones,
you guys, Like, so what you got to put a game out at
a certain time, right, you got to just pick a date and gup
we are day and date with another pretty high profile like survival crafting game.
I think some of the forest is up there, like one point on trying
to the same day one too great, perfect, Yeah, exactly right.
There's there are going to be more when you just have to do it,
you know, Like I think to a degree, it's it's a little bit
of like a rising tide lifts all boats. Like sure each game is offering
their own thing and and like certainly for us with a Pacific drive, like
we're offering something pretty unique. There's no one else is an eighties station wagon
that is your exo suit effectively, uh in terms of like where where the
survival mechanics sit. So we we feel pretty pretty comfortable with with that aspect
of like carved out our kind of corner of this survival survival crafting stuff and
we're excited to get into players' hands. Yeah. Do you guys feel the
same way with the rts, where like, hey, if two more RTSs
pop off before we even get ours out, that's actually a good thing in
some ways. Do you feel that way or not? I think, like
I said earlier, it's possible to see everybody else's taken, especially with the
genre, to get excitement back into the space again, and those that have
maybe or even pro players, So those that there's a general community that he
used to enjoy those types of games, seeing the fervor coming back is really
cool, and like I think he's still great. Like Rising Tides, you
know, like I think if everybody kind of brings their own perspective. But
yeah, I think we said earlier it's like Rise doesn't live with theft all
boats. It lifts the boats like right around you. But if you're in
that same genre that those are the boats right around you. Yeah, totally
so then so yeah, like if these games are are popping off work,
they are successful. It do you like, Hey, this is a community
now and obviously there's a huge arts community already, but it seems like a
lot of maybe are disenfranchised, where like they're not making games from anymore.
Uh. While you try to make a game that is appealing to people who
have been intimidated by artists in the past, how do you make sure it
still appeals to people like you? Yeah? Yeah, And I think that's
a great question, and it's what we've been trying to take a stab at
ourselves for I guess two and a half years now, and I guess before
I answer that one, Like, one thing that makes me kind of jealous
where you guys are at is like, man, like I really wanted to
get that state where we're working together with the community make the game better and
better, because that's the true test kind of thing. I I watched Lucy
play when we sat down, and you guys seem like this is awesome,
Like people here playing the game, you can tell it's like a good moment
for the cycle. Yeah. Yeah. But with that said, though,
going back to I guess your question, for us, it's really about locating
the core fund of what makes an arts fun kind of thing right and really
amplifying that and really bringing say, like when you play a game of arts,
traditional arts game right, I love it. But on the flip side,
I wonder about something like, but how long does it actually take to
get to the core fund of this same that I'm playing? Right? How
much like build up? Is there like maybe five minutes in a game like
the StarCraft two longer in a game like Agement Empires, et cetera. Right,
So, but I think this is kind of a true test of like,
can we get players there much faster, much more frequently game to game
in right, and focus their attention from game to game on exactly the core
fund and nothing else. Really, this is kind of a goal that we
have, right, Right. Is there some concern when you explain that to
hardcore fans that are we going to lose the depth? Are we going to
lose the hours and hours I can invest in this? I don't think so,
because our goal is to maintain all of the fun factors of rts.
So, for example, right, we have we're working on a game that
has all the more most important parts of an arts that makes an arts kind
of like things like economy management, taking this way for this advantage, taking
that other way for this other advantage, expanding to increase my income rate so
that I can have a bigger army, or choosing not to do any of
those things and then choosing to build a big army and then going for an
attack and make something happen that way, et cetera. Right, So,
as long as we have I guess arts game, which we do right,
and there are I guess many examples within our own team of five people,
so it's a pretty small sample size. It goes back to why I'm so
jealous that kind of thing, right, But within our team we have quite
a lot of hardcore RTS players as well as players who've never tried rtsts before
kind of thing right, And so this is kind of the first I guess
small scale test, and from that point of view, I feel like like
I'm a super hardcore artist player kind of thing right, And it satisfies me
just as well as it satisfies someone like Mason on our team who's never played
rtsts before joining our team, and then he's like gotten quite good at the
game even, right, So like the fact that he's gotten good at the
game shows how much he plays, shows how much he loves and enjoys the
game. I literally like playing the internal fall asleep thinking about any strategy let
me put this way into you, the first time you played NBA JAM,
Yeah, it still felt like basketball as a basketball game, sure, but
it had all the core fun elements of why you like playing a stimulation basketball
game or Angel ninety four even from back in the days. So invoking that
feeling to our audience from an art perspective, yeah, I think this kind
of our north star. Yeah, yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Is is there like a key challenge when you when you describe that now
I want to apply that to RTS. Is there something that's like this is
a hard hunt to go? It's all hard, Yeah, and that's why
we've been even though we've been like heads down, like doing nothing else but
focusing on this, it's still taking us whatever two and a half years plus,
right, Like we're almost there, I think, to that public testing
stage, but not quite there yet. So like you can kind of imagine
how tough that's been. Kind of thing, right, And maybe I guess
easiest way to say it is something that you mentioned earlier on right, Like
what we're really trying to do is do something like what Wow did for the
MMO space, something like Hartstone did for the CCG space. But this game
is a RTS game that's trying to do that same sort of thing, right,
Yeah. Do you have people that were making MMOs like EverQuest or Dark
Age of Camelot and even those. When you think about what Wow did with
a lot of the game systems, it streamlined a lot of that process so
that more people could enjoy it. And I think that again, that's kind
of our north star what we're going to do here. There is a lot
of people who now who have taken Blizzard and work at that experience and now
started their own studios. Do you think that's a good thing in the industry,
that all this talent is now maybe spread out a little bit more and
trying a bunch of different things on their own. Absolutely. Yeah. I
think it's the democratization of ideas. Yeah. At this point and with the
you know, from the publishing point of perspective, I think that there's so
many more outlets and opportunities for you to be able to get your idea.
Sure, and I think in twenty twenty three, the amount of ideas that
kind of resonate within a big company or publisher before can now have an outlet
for some of those more smaller game ideas, but also medium sized, bigger
ones that everybody can really participate and resonate with, the with the communities that
actually gravitate towards those. So yeah, I think it's it's wonderful that all
those you know, I started my career almost twenty years ago at Blizzard too,
right, Like we have a lot of reference for everything that comes through.
But I think there's an opportunity for us to all take that next stage
of what we want to do in our careers. I mean, maybe this
is too inside and it's okay you guys want to talk about, but like,
what's it like like for funding these days? Is it like a little
bit different this year than last year's or enough money out there to make this
all makes sense? Ought to be very clear, we're not a indie studio.
We actually are under the light Speed division of ten Cents, and you
know they've been one old provided us a lot of resources. Yeah. Yeah,
maybe only one thing I would add is we're sort of like a startup
in terms of I guess the freedom that we get in terms of autonomy,
pushing our dreams, building up like something like a publishing from scratch, Like
this is quite a startup like Big, right, Right, But we don't
really have any of the difficulties that a true startup might have in terms of
my funding. We don't have to worry about any of that, right,
we're at it big. There's a lot of different developers that are coming from
a blizzard, from a riot and that are going through those pains. Yeah,
And I think, and we've talked with many of our peers in industry
about that, and I think a good team, a good idea, will
find the funding it makes sense for them to do. So. Yeah,
And what you described there, that's what I've heard about ten Cent is that
it's like, yeah, good, they would invest, they'll give you the
money, but don't let you figure it out on your own. For the
most part, has that been the experience for us on the game side,
absolutely, right, Yeah, and that has been I guess there's always prosent
difficulty, of course, no matter where you're working at, right, But
I want to say this exact thing is the biggest pro I think by far,
Andreas. I imagine that when you have to QA a game like case
of the Golden Idol, Actually I can't imagine what that's even like you set
yourself a game people playing mostly in their head, So how do you see
what's happening when they're playing the game and something's not working. Yeah, testing
it is tough, but firstly, what's really nice? So if me and
as we create in your scenario, we already know we can't test it because
we know the answers right, So we are forced to pest, which which
means we need to plan. Now people who haven't played it, showed them
and see what happens. I wouldn't say that we had a nice, like
clear framework how we evaluated the but we did like very classical like the players
you get the build, you joint, share your screen, you play,
We invite you to share your emotions, reactions, but mostly we just see
like what are the actions, what what they are looking at, how they
are focussing. And most of the time it's I'd say it's intuition, like
you have ideas of what's the perfect flow, what what what what what?
What the game should feel nicely, and then you check, oh, this
was figured out too easy, like that they ignored all this part of the
game, jump to the solution, and okay, we need to make things
a bit harder. Or this part like is way too confusing, like they
are starting invent their own crazy theory. Is this this is not working,
So we use terms whether we need to simplify or whether we need to obfuscate.
And secondly, one thing which we were definitely looking at when testing the
game was ideally the most exciting part is the last tame players figured out like
one experience where oh, I know, okay, this is the victim,
this is the killer, and now I'm stuck for one hour figuring out like
what kind of belt bottle he has hold? The technicality like that that that's
the bad experience. But the good experience is that at the end you suddenly
realize and you have this AHA moment which is allowed a hud sound, which
you actually I actually count a haf on a set of favor moments. And
the more that they reframed the whole situation, not all of our scenarios,
not like that. But but that's like the Holy Day, Yeah, that's
what you're aiming for. But for me, it's like, I mean,
maybe this is true for all QA and all testing of games, but it's
like, Okay, that person did that, they experienced it. That person
could be very different from the next person in the place, and they might
do have a different experience. And now it's well, who's going to be
more representative of the average player? Is there such a thing as an average
player? I mean, I don't know. Yeah, that's a tough question
because I mean, we have a small in the studio. Game is aniche
experience, and in the end we didn't use any metrics. We introduced some
metics gathering, but we didn't look at it. In the end, we
mostly relied on this over sort of I don't know, intuitive evaluation of If
we have three playsts which felt oh, this was good, this is what
we wanted, then we've just moved on. And I think it's fine because
the game is where they can't cofted, which means that we will be flawed.
Then maybe it's part of the Sure, Yeah, that makes sense,
and it makes me think of something else. We'll start with you Lex on
this. When you are doing your job communicating what's happening with the games to
the public, how much of the job is taking the sentiment of community back
to the developers, back to the company and explaining this is what people were
happy with, this is what they're not what's that like. Yeah, that's
a large part of the job just in general in public relations. Even when
I was agency side at the beginning of my career, it was a lot
of gathering sentiment from press and making sure it was a very objective report so
that we could pass it back to the client. And it's the same when
you're in house as well. That everyone wants to know like the collective sentiment
and thoughts of everybody, So it's good to be able to report that back.
Yeah, it's I mean, how you suppose that to you guys as
developers when like you get that data back with the information or are you guys
keeping track of it? Like this is how people feel about things. It's
like how much is data matter? How much is that intuition matter? Or
spaceically when I'm wondering, it's everything is there's insights in general, right,
whether it's community sentiment, whether it's actual data specific to a court, gameplay
loop or from a metric of comedy people were reaching. Community I managine as
a two way street is incredibly important and sightful for everything that we do.
And also just keep a pulse on whether you have that general good north star
and direction that you're kind of going, yeah, yeah, I have pretty
strong thoughts on this one, but maybe an easy way to say it,
I think, is this right if it's not going to be this extreme,
right, Sure, in a realistic situation, but if you only had these
one of these two extreme choices, right, one is the data all looks
so great and perfect, right, but the player percession is so bad right.
And on the under extreme end you have data looks pretty horrible, right,
like like nothing is working well, but the player percession is that this
is the best game ever, right, Which would you rather choose? Right?
And this is why I believe, like it's not just about waiting for
like your peer person, community person, etcetera. Laid back. I honestly
believe game designers should go out of their way to maybe include the core and
the most passionate people within the player community. And I guess share the knowledge
that we have as game developers who have the inside info kind of thing.
Right. And I'm not just saying this from a theoretical point of view.
I actually tried it on StarCraft two for a little over three years, right,
So before we tried it, just to sum it up, the set
the player sentiment in the community was the most dedicated, most passionate players were
saying something like st two that it's like a meme you can look it up
on Google kind of thing, and then they spell it the aed game or
aem or something like this. Right, So we managed to turn it from
that to having positive discussions around how to make the game better. And I
think so I had a theory, which I believe I've proven now, and
the theory was these guys are the same as are some of our own members
who have really strong and passionate opinions, but they're just not hers. So
there's a frame very angry, is why they're saying stuff like this, Right,
Sure, But if you're just honest, transparent and work with them,
like as I guess we would with another fellow developer on the team kind of
thing, Right, if we share all the information, be as transparent as
possible, have those in depth, I guess, even design core game design
discussions with the community, then I think a lot of people will act the
same as whatever that angry developer on your team might act, which is,
yeah, like the mindset is going to be focused on how what do I
do? What can I do to make the game better kind of thing,
right, it's providing context. Right. I think once everybody has context,
it leads to a transparent discussion, right. And I think when you can
do that with your community, just as you can with our internal call of
the team and unction, is there a risk of I'll use Smash Brothers as
an example instead of I think job is one to overwatch Smash Brothers is there's
an esports community, there is the more casual community. I think if you
where the success of Smash Brothers comes from, I think a fighting game fan
will be like, it's because it's a fighting game, and the party party
game player person will be like, no, it's a fun party game and
maybe the never never show up between meat or whatever however you say that,
But it's like, how do you balance that? How do you balance like
the hardcore versus someone who is going to spend money or your game but maybe
not a million hours When you just said it, like if you ask someone
the true question, the true answer to that question is when you're asking Nintendo
what matters to them as nor start, where their goals are for the community,
and how they're satisfying both. Now, some developer, some publishers may
not always hit that bar all the time, but I think the more that
you listen, the more that you're taking all of your let's call the listening
post, whether it be data, whether it be context, whether it be
that passionate discussion, and taking the totality of that to have a genuine response
back and focus where it may make the most sense of what needs attention at
this very moment to find that right balance. And also it does depend on
your goals, right Sure, some games are really catering towards a specific hardcore
esports environment, or some maybe catering to it more of a casual environment.
I used to do, I mean the game is bring up examples. I
was one of the sports users on Call of Duty, which it was such
a massive, causual game, but then the esports community for Call of Duty
had very specific requirements of how they think is the most competitive right of the
game, but never to the two like you said to me, So finding
that barometer what could be reaching what was making the games success of a mass
audience, but also getting towards what makes it competitive for the competitive audience was
a balance That is very difficult to do, but you try to find the
you know, the most you can by listening. And maybe the answer is
you do have to listen to both, like one hundred percent that just both
every every apure and find the medium. Right, Obviously there's more than two
we ad it's like that simplification. Yeah, And just to be clear,
what I'm getting at is whether it's a hardcore esport UH favoring player that you
have, or whether it's someone who prefers the opposite. I guess what I'm
getting at is I don't think it matters, right, Like, what matters
more is kind of getting as many of the really dedicated, passionate players out
there who are willing to work together with the dev team to make the game
better. So, like an easy example, is this, right, what
makes the most successful biggest sport, Like that's what esport focused player would want
in their favorite game. Kind of thing right, And I don't think that
is the answer to that question. I don't think that is isolating or alienating
the masses who love playing your game. Kind of thing right, The bigger
the game, the bigger the esport, I think is an easy summary.
We can make kind of thing right. So if we are very honest and
transparent even with that crowd, the reasons why these other players are important too,
and then you guys are like everyone's important. And if enough players out
there can understand like exactly what I guess the high level goals are what we
are working together is things like this, then I think we can set up
an environment. And again, like I feel like I've seen this on StarCraft
too when I any kind of thing, right, so I believe it really
works. It's just about giving players the respect, the honest, transparency,
being honest, et cetera right to make this happen. And it's not easy,
obviously, right, but I do think it's possible to be. And
this is what I'm getting at when when I say, treat the players who
are the most dedicated and the most helpful as if they are kind of even
designers on your own team urping, right, yeah, and moving the ego,
what also say absolutely and then think what you're describing is like, ideally
it's like a nesting doll or like a vin diagram that has a lot of
overlapping, right, And you can there's a small part in there that you're
communicating, but hopefully that's contained within the bigger one. And they aren't separating,
And that's probably an art to that as well, bring them along for
the journey to help those that are yours, dedicated and passionate that may be
very hardcore, right, that to help understand the perspective of how it helps
the entire community, right, I mean with StarCraft too, there probably was
a lot of like mass audiences where it's aspirational will play like the top players,
and so that would make a lot of sense in there. Look,
it's very vertical, but I mean we heard Andrea say like, oh,
yeah, we built data, but we'd even look at it. Is that
experience familiar to you guys? Yeah, I mean we like have some reporting,
but it's not not our kind of lead. Sure is it kind of
good to have to be like yeah, I see that, But this now
I understand why my gut is right? Is is there something there I personally
find that much more helpful? Like I mean, obviously the data is helpful,
like it's it's context and it is information, but like games and play
are fundamentally like an empathetic thing, like it's it's a human thing, it's
a social thing, and I think that's that's like a lot of where what
they're saying like this, this sort of inviting people in and demystifying stuff comes
from of like hey, like I'm I'm coming at this from as a designer,
and like here's my kind of human perspective and the experiences I'm trying to
offer you. And you know, any six whole game like Smash Brothers,
you're saying, we'll meet you where you are, right, And that is
why that game like really works at both those levels because it's the NBA gammification
of and and you know, even even Goldennidel, like you get that that
like momentum build of like he's heating up, You've got a clue, You've
got a clue, he's on fire, you got the you got the answer,
and and just like giving people that that sort of like abstraction of an
experience. And we do it too with like taking care of a car and
being a car mechanic, and like we we kind of atomize some of those
interactions of like taking out a door is just a button press. It's not
we're not my summer car. We're not turning individual screws. But it gets
you into that fantasy and it like invites you in and meets you where you
are, and uh, you know, our game has a lot going on,
but you can turn off whatever aspects you want if you just want to
have a Sunday Drive kind of experience. I think I think so much of
it is sort of a a and observational in that way, at least for
how I approach it, because you can have all the data in the world,
but you can't measure that like flow state that right, that like sort
of abstraction of an experience of like feeling like an NBA player or feeling like
a car mechanic, or feeling like an awesome StarCraft player. Even if you're
like, you know, just just like stomp, come stopping and like not
actually doing all that well, like you can still have have that experience and
sort of enjoyment. And I think we're like, we're all kind of saying
the same thing. A lot of the game is in people's heads, and
it's like that you can't measure. Yeah, you can't measure that part of
it. So I am panel excellent, one of the best catches of the
night, my favorite so far. Thank you everybody for watching. We're gonna
have a couple more. Stick with us. We'll be right back after this
boom. We're back already, and I got a bunch of strangers with me.
I'm gonna find out names right now. I'm excited. I hope you
are too. Thanks to like a dragon if it. Well for supporting us
tonight. Thank you for watching. It's been a lot of fun. Let's
keep it going. My friend and yours. Jeff Becklar, How are you,
Jeff? I'm pretty good? Jeff? Okay, great? Moving on,
like, what are you doing here? Which funny is the evil double?
Oh? So many crimes he's got like he's trying to look evil,
but it's me all the way for sure. Yeah, it's a bait and
switch. Yeah, everyone thinks it's him. By actually him makes a lot
of sense. Sam Lake, I'm glad you're here. How you doing.
I'm doing good? Thank you? Absolutely fun to be here. Yeah,
well it's gonna be a good time. Kyle Rowley, how are you doing.
I'm good. That's good. Spots are at the door. You're not
allowed in unless you're How did you get behind and ask me any questions if
you're not so well? Now you're tempting me. Okay, how you doing
good? Thank you? I don't know how I ended up here. I
don't know how I got here. So that's the giant bomb experience. Yeah,
the reaction that we have when we cut to you in live action when
you're like Tans and Lucier here as well, there's that facial expression now count
as the second iconic remedy. Facial expression. Yeah. I feel like that
one goes in the like annals of history. Yeah, yeah, congrats team
both the camera which one the middle one? I guess? Yeah? There
you go, There you go, Sam, when you're giving them direction on
like making that face, what do you say to him? Or you just
make a face at him? Scared but cool, that's what it used to
be. No, it's just scared. It's scared. Yeah, you guys
must be feeling pretty good. Right, it's like releasing the game, getting
out behind you and now that means a little bit of a victory lap,
right. Yeah. Yeah it feels good. Right, I think it feels
good. But I feel like it's been how many of years? Thirteen years
view stuffing like that. He's been on it. For me, it's five.
It's like, okay, we've done it, and I'm like, oh
my life is empty and I don't know what I'm doing with my life anymore?
What's what's what's the person life empty nest syndrome? Like the kid is
I fluttered out of the nets and all that like that? Yeah? Yeah,
how is it from like an actress point of view? Because like when
you complete project as becaus this, you have that same kind of emptiness.
So I did, but I had it before already, all right, yeah,
oh yeah months ago. So yeah, but I feel the final shot
it's been after you that's gonna happen. Yeah, yeah, that's still there's
still stuffy exciting. Yeah yeah, but after that, I means that something
like if I were you, I would not be able to help it.
Think about that and get excited. Is it something you think about a lot,
like, oh, award show, that's pretty cool, It's very cool.
Yeah, yeah, it's very cool. We've got some cool stuff going
on there. Yeah, it's gonna be nice. Yeah, absolutely, Sam,
you guys got a lot of games still happening. But is it like
do you get a chance to take a break after a game releases or is
it just like lots of phone calls back like hey, how are things at
the office or what? Yeah, I tried to take two weeks off,
but I was working every day. Yeah, man, really just a bit.
Yeah yeah, something related to work every day. Yeah yeah. Still
there will be more time off next year. Yeah, yeah for sure.
Yeah, we're still working on post content. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
so we're working on that at the moment. So what I want to
know is, like I was talking to Simonis Amount and Kyle, you both
say everyone says it, but like when you're making a game, you stop
consuming and enjoying things a lot of the time. It's not playing games.
What is at the top of your list or lists to now experience Now that
you're you have a little more time. Same for you. I'm sure you're
in a similar situation games, games, or movies. What is like the
thing that you're like, Oh, I want to finally sit down and do
this thing. I know you read a lot, so it sounds like it
sounds really generic, but I really need to play Bob this game thing.
Yeah, especially after that. Yeah, I'm thinking, Wow, for sure,
I'll be thinking hard creating a character playing it over holidays. Yes,
it's yeah, I mean I haven't I haven't played any games in a year
or something. Then, yeah, I have not been able to read read
books for a while. It just has felt impossible. Yeah, and I'm
really really looking forward to finding it again and being able to focus what happens
there when, because for me, it's like that I always use the stove
metaphor of like I have four burners on the stove, and I have worked
here in family here, and then like one or two hobbies on the back
burner. But probably not like when books get pushed off, do you get
have to like kind of nudge something else out of the way to make time
for something like that again, something you like a lot, or just sleep
enough not to fall of sleep. Yeah, right, sleeping is actually the
biggest burner. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. So I mean when
you guys travel out to La, you guys are out here for summer.
Came fist showing off the game? Now, does this feel like an end
cap of like, hey, we're here, We're gonna be at the Game
Awards tomorrow, hopefully the fun things happen there. Is it like I feel
like a journey accumminating in some way? Yeah, I mean we announced the
game at the Game of Oh yeah, yeah, so it does feel like
right, book, Yeah, hopefully not stuck in a little. It's not
litis spoiled. That's why give them a handshack. What's the worst scheduling for
you? Like, because I imagine like you're you're an actor, you show
up on set, are you on call? Hey we need more from you?
Yeah? I went way Yeah unfortunately, Yeah, ashamed of that.
Yeah. Yeah, place like during three years for me for an wig two
right, So I would do projects in between, and you know, have
problems. Yeah, the hair is a problem because yeahs now does that?
Does that bother you a lot? Like I wish the hair was right?
Is that something you're thinking about a lot when you're doing a role. It's
tricky because I would do projects at the same time, so it would be
like I had a mustache in one one role and then I couldn't have any
facial hair and for the performance capture and we would have to look at the
calendars and like find a date. Yeah, like I need three weeks to
grow the beard back or three weeks. Good, squeeze it out, squeeze
it out. Everybody's good at something. I mean down, get the beard
down. Even three months to get something like this an impossible schedule for that,
I'm Pakistani, give me that. Yeah, and shooting like shooting too
much, say in otel room scenes, which is all Yoka doing wrong with
the standing on the other side. First we had to do Alan Wake simply
because of the beer, right, and and once that was done on lunch
break shaved it all. That must be the most delicate shave you could possibly
do. I mean, you don't want to cut yourself. Something's going to
happen every game we had a professional Yeah, everything is delicate. With Thomas
saying is that is that something about it? You if the hair's not right
or something like that, You're like, we got to make it work.
There are excellent professional people looking after it. It is. It is contle
from live action to pas cinematics and where the character is in the progression for
the game, right, because as we change Wake's appearance as you're progressing through,
So like me, we're like, wait, what part what's wait mean
to look like? When's shooting this live action stuff and then trying to match
it from the game, right, But I mean that that comes with using
live action, right. At a certain point, you have to just accept
things aren't going to be perfect. It's going to be good enough. Well,
that's what I'm asking to say. It could be perfect. Like when
you are watching like the dailies. I don't know if you call them dailies
and game development, but if you're watching the dealers where you're like, I'm
noticing this and it's going to bother me, even though most people probably won't
notice. So does it get to you? I mean, it's it's it's
not just that, it's you know, us looking at the game. Yeah,
perfectionism, Yeah, yeah, I mean I also like live action is
very interesting because we obviously done live action before in Quantum Break, of course,
and actually even in previous anaweight games. But when we were doing Quantum
Break, you know, for Ana Weight two, you know, there was
a nice balance between like trying to build the sets in the game and then
trying to match them in the live action, and we did a lot of
that for Quantum Break. For Anima too, we built those All that stuff
was kind of done in Finland, so we had our own production house.
It was kind of more integrated with Quantent Break was slightly more separate. I
remember there was a time in Quantum Break where we had to kind of like
they were trying to match our sets from the game to the live action,
and we accidentally left a prop in the game which was white box, which
means it was just a white, white asset with no textures on it.
And we send them the reference and then we came they came back with the
shot and there was a white there was a white lamp. Actually, actually
they thought that it's some sort of like design right, something to finish we
don't know, like here or whatever, but they actually kind of like and
then they just built a white asset because we forgot to texture it in the
game. So like you know, those kind of like making sure the sets
match between the live action and the game is difficult, but there's a lot
it was. I think it went pretty well for actually for way too.
Yeah, for sure. But these guys being perfectionists anyway, they're like very
they know what they're looking for, and they didn't know what they want.
But still, you guys are able to sort of keep an open mind and
take things from like from an actress for example. It's been great because you
can come up right with ideas and it's a lot of idea, but there
are always a lot of two new ideas and you can try out things,
and so it's a it's a great sort of a working atmosphere in that sense
as well. So something I always wonder about game development, like playing games
is obviously about play and having the chance to express yourself as a player.
I can imagine making games, there's something like you want to maintain some of
that play in the creation process, right, And that's as an actor,
that's what you're literally doing. You are playing, absolutely yeah, and you
reflect that is that does that come into your work when you're building the whole
idea in the first place, Well, like it's always it's it's a tone
of iteration, it's it. And there can be so many reasons why an
idea we trying to put in doesn't end up working or ends up being autoscope
or impossible to do. So constantly you need to keep an open mind and
and like what I've found is the best attitude is Okay, we wanted to
do this, we can't do this. We need to figure something out.
This is an opportunity to make it better. It's an opportunity to make it
better. Like when when when suddenly you can't treat something, it can lead
into something better. And that you wouldn't have thought of I'm not even sure
like if we should say this, but like, actually a lot of the
live action stuff in Anime two came because I was just saying it yesterday.
Yeah okay. We were like, we were like, oh, we can't
do this many cinematics in this game. And we were like, okay,
well, actually Sam was like, okay, we'll figure out way to make
because we said that we had a story one as to tell and we knew
we needed excem minutes to kind of tell it, but we couldn't do it
all in gameplay, so we kind of started utilizing things about your live action.
And that's kind of how that stuff all came about, really from from
constraints on production. We were all already doing live action, but like an
idea on like okay, let's let's do clearly more and and and find find
even better ways of integrating it. And and that's a great example of when
you run into an obstacle, it can lead into ideas that you might I
mean, the worst situation, as contradictory as it sounds, is you have
no limitations, right because when you are forced to work in a in an
environment, when when where there are then you need could be created, and
that's where often the best ideas come from you. I mean, I mean
there's a double edged thing where it's software and in art. What you guys
are making this it is a piece of software and it's art, and it
seems like it creates so many more opportunities because how do you solve any problem
that comes up? You can do it through film naking, include, do
it through game design, do it through some technical trip. It's how do
you decide what's the best I mean it was it was. It was the
same for even the like the sequence to musical sequence we have in the game.
Originally we wanted to do that. What the idea was there would actually
be all like in the game and it was like more like a theater with
like physical assets in the game moving around. And then we were like,
oh that's not possible, So like we're like, okay, how can we
We still want to do it, but we need to figure out way to
do it. And that's kind of where we started. Live action. Like
action became exactly so like and then that any any problem by like action,
which said I was on a toilet paper, but like and again it came
about from the same thing of constraints on the production side. If we're not
being able to do what wesially what we're going to do, and I feel
like it actually ends up it ended up better this way than had we tried
to do it the other way again, So you know, I think that,
you know, I think that's why it's important to have that push pull
from creative and production and schedule and budget kind of like all working together versus
like just credit do whatever you want wherever an exem my budget. We those
constraints help us a way to come up interesting and innative innotive ways to solve
problems. But it's just a theory because we are never in the situation where
I the budget. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great. Really really,
I don't know, ye ignore everything that we said limited budget, that unlimited
budget I'm interested in. Like obviously this has been it feels like the culmination
of kind of remedies idea is for a long time. You know, you've
got there's almost like a lineage to the ideas that has here an execution.
It feels like a really impressive expression of what you guys have always tried to
do at this stage, do you lean harder into that or are you now
like we did the thing that we've been building up to for a really long
time. Let's try and establish a brand new identity or figure out ways of
making games that doesn't lean upon the things that we have done up until this
point. I think that we are only getting started. Nice. I don't
know what that means. It was like all the people that guess be likes
going like what what? Actually didn't say that. I do get it though,
when you say like you got you got something right, You've got something
and it's working in obviously you've had it for a long time, but it
does. It just keeps getting better. So why not? Yeah? Do
you do you have the itch to stay in like an almost acting role?
Now? Have you been bitten by that? Yeah? Yeah, that's the
thing. Like as a creator gave me wonderful, wonderful advice along the way,
Like I I was really struggling early on on and and and he gave
me. Really we had a long chat. I went to him like damn,
this is hard, and yeah it was great. Was just here's a
shot of whiskey. There you go. Yeah, but you did such a
great job. Yeah, I was gonna say, like, yeah, it's
a little depressing. It sounds like you could do it all. Sam.
Was there a moment where it clicked, like what was the turning point for
you? Uh, remember to breathe. Honest, that's a good shot,
the kind of like the kind of short film last right. I think that
that helped in the sense of like, you've done all of the stuff before
that, before we did that that shoot, so yeah, it's you.
Kind of like his acting skill kind of increased as we were going through the
production. By time we got for that bit, he was like, really
good. I think that actually most people are like, oh shit, some
can had and we see it on the screen too. I I am getting
the wrap up sign though, So I'm sorry that we have to cut this
so short. Exactly. They're going to beat me up here if I don't
get you guys out of here. Thank you guys so much. This was
excellent. We can make this happening. It was a last minute thing.
We're lucky to have this time with you. Thank you so much. Absolutely,
we'll be right back with the last segment. Everybody, thanks for watching
so far. Stick with us a little bit longer. It's gonna be great.
Thank you, thank you, Beckar. What have we done speaking to
my nipples? My nipples are miked up and that's how you talk to me
now, Yeah, it is. I like seeing this part of you.
Yeah, this is to be honest. Hello, I'm gonna just say hi
to HR when they watched this later, Hey, this is our last segment
and I got the chuckle fox meet the buckos yeah or Mary kish belly my
niked Jan got wow like I started doing the one hand trying to because you
mentioned that it's get on your finger gets used to anything. I could do
it. It's hard for me. I don't want to be like, oh
I'm a man, I can do it, no problem. I struggle a
little bit. Dan records here as well. Hello, Hello, yeah,
yes, uh we got Dan for this. We got Daan for this.
He's usually so yeah hard. I looked him up with the Boom books.
That's parts unknown. I don't know what that means. Pish, How you
doing, I'm doing great, Thanks for having absolutely Thanks for coming back.
Boy, We're not even doing that before. Okay all the shows have been
canceled. Welcome Becklar. You you didn't get this experience summer game. First,
how do you feel about what we've done here today? I think it's
amazing. I think I speak to his chest. I think it's amazing.
I think bang, I am actually gonna talk about this in my end.
It's part of the team and we're going watch. Oh no, god,
he's not. He's not. Even Mike Ever told him we don't have for
you, and he was like, I'm gonna sit on the arm chair.
This is beautiful. I wouldn't have it any other way. Yeah, I
haven't been out there. There were a lot of people out there. Yeah,
yeah, cocky what I mean in this weather it's hard to get people
off seventy degrees? What? Wait? A shot a shoot about the weather
said, okay, okay, you're working, it's working, all right.
Is this inclement? No? This is it's actually it's well, it's inclement
in so far as that it's fucked up. It shouldn't be this. Wait
wait, that is that how you pronounce that word? Dam? I've been
saying in climate, I mean the logic, because climate, if you're talking
about whether there's this is not as bad as Clippard. I'll say that Harry
wrote a clipboard all night, so we should know. There is a photo
that Jeff back is intentional. There's there's a there's a photo that Jeff Beckler
has on his phone of me explaining the logic tom A Fife and Emma Fife's
face is like, you're you are so right, jam you can let him
cook, Yes, let him she let me cook. Has a gift for
making the person they're talking to you feel like they're so right. And I
think that that's really that is one of the one of the main superpowers.
Mike Armand just said that you could tell me to stop jerking off, cure
you. So what if you've been a good boy today, you can do
whatever you United States? I thought, America, Yeah, you know what
you gotta do. I don't know what a blast zone here? Oh my
god, you will get what you make it. So yeah, no water,
I would do that. That went bad for me last time. Birthday
could be in water world. Okay, get a job, no, no,
what, just walk down this path. What do you mean you want
to be in water? I want to be explain you want to be in
the room where it happens. I don't think anymore. We got to be
royalty. I want to be in it. I don't want to be any
the people caught the fall because I do that. I want to do that.
You do mister before you fall off to Dan was trying to bargain with
me. He's like, Mike, I'll say any Disney thing you want,
I'll do whatever you any movie. Just jump out of a plane with me.
I made it. I made it. Whatever, jump out of the
play in Minnesota. Just I know you're not going to do it. Humor
him, What is the most Disney thing you could make him do? They
would go Disney David Ruder could get me that room in the castle. They
only said, like celebrities, the dream suite. I will still probably not
jump out of. How do I get in a dream suite? What do
you have to do? You can make it. The dream suite is not
in the castle, it's above Pirates of the Caribbean. Okay, that's a
different thing we're thinking about there too. There's we cannot have this argument.
This cannot happen here, guys. I came in here with two drinks.
I think I could make the argument that he once make us. He made
a call. That's the argument. Mary, I didn't love the way either
want to draw him up big, like an actual grown up today. Well,
I said, you've come a long way since last year. He had
choosing everything. Seven minutes trying to get Mike MANAUGHTI to try Barada, and
I think that that's not weird. I had that thing. It was persona
I hate it and it was good as hell. It was great and I
never had idiots brought I had. I don't look cheese whatever, but all
that it was would beat beats that. It was not a strong flavor.
It was fuss. No. I don't care what the play, but the
color was upsetting. You have a great jolly rancher. I know we're putting
Mike in his place, but let's be clear. Before we got there,
he was like worried about eating anything, and he left me like that was
great time. When I was when I was literally planning the menu, I
was like, is Michael he didn't eat? He said so, and he
like literally d m me and he's like, what's the fucking deal on dinner?
It was not that aggressive, it was not I just said, what's
the well. I was also confused because I thought we were going to a
place, but then I had to fill out a Google form that's a great
Google Well was great, Nikki. You can ask you something. Did you
to send me the Google form because you trusted I would just eat stuff like
a normal an adult. That is literally exactly because I noticed, like I
didn't know was individual things or if we were voting. Okay, so here's
people having Yeah yeah, wait, I don't know what happened here, tell
me, yeah, I made the Google form right every time, I'm just
oh, that's what I did. At the fan by Richard, I made
a Google form and then I didn't take any of the people contrib and I
was like, here's what I was money. It was, yeah, it
was ten cents money. Can you believe it's only two days on my birthday?
Sorry? I can't. He really picked a spot, yeah, so
don't let her do this. So I was like, oh, I'm going
to pick the top two that everyone picked and then tie breakers. I made
the decision. I really So the corondo was a tie with something else that
I didn't want. Did I not get my Carnelis because I got I had
chicken? So next to me it was my I want salary. That everybody
that's the big full size back together. Yeah, it's like it's like a
twin with it's a twin with ambitions. CO is easy nice. Actually I
slept great, that would be real. Well, I have my sea pep
now, so I didn't snore at least that's cute, do you guys?
Every sea PEPs are regular, They're pretty you got you got the you got
the faces. When you say, Mike knows, he knows, I know.
But you said you're pretty quiet. No, the sea pat is pretty
quiet. Yes. Oh yeah. It took us on things like a relative.
No, No, I want to know good goods. Not worried about
this. Yeah, I'm like, I'm not letting Mike make the person Why?
And Marry asked us, I'm let like make the first movie and I'm
tot clothed everything. I look at the negotiations of stuff. He says,
you don't mind if I sleep with my box. I'm not slipping on a
T shirt? What am I car? Two characters like, I'm not swimming
with pants on. Like, I'm like, no, I sleep so fucking
hot, but I have to be clothed because if I'm not clothed when I
sleep, you sw I don't know what they say, you know, maybe
the poor bearant? Are you straight? But I don't know. No,
this is a lie or work. This is exactly And I'm like, okay,
that's fine. I'm like, should pretty well. This will not bother
me at all. That's the truth. I thought. I put on my
pajama pants a T shirt and I slept like that and I fell right to
sleep. So how did it work? Did you guys do like opposite size?
Like no, no, no, I'm not gonnat smelling feet. No,
I respect too much for that. Do you think your feet are the
problem in this equation? Was I was a little spook? Was family put
quack Auga over huge? Yeah? You don't think Wacocka was already over?
Well? Like you know, it was like good mid carter Interconminental championship run.
Maybe the situational fit picture. Yeah about way back? How are you
doing, Jeff? Yeah, yeah, I was gonna like someone else's your
damon got back to him. What do you think I'm wearing to bed tonight?
I got a hot little number for you. I got it's surprising today
And Jeff in my you know boxers, it's like that was really impressive that
you interviewed, Like Sam, that's so cute and so intimate. You should
do that. I don't want to work network. I GOTPN you guys say,
let me watch good Night to each Other before you fell asleep, Like
Mikey, it's cute. I'm going a Mikey, that's cute. A little
that's really clue you like get all in there, stuggle in, yeah,
like like the Han solo put Luke Skywalker in. Then the game of Chicken
began. I'm not on my Disney trip. I saw a Milkbusters where they
like made a tanton. I thought about it. No, that was before
me. That was exciting. Yeah, they did kind of a bad job
and to like almost that's why I didn't work Jane. Wasn't me that with
Jan's bout around and so wee should be asking where is Jan? That's how
I'm always asking where Jan is? The answer is always sers I know,
yeah, oh Ship, he's feeling unsafe. He found to cool and that's
fine. Where are you going coming out? You're about come be mine?
Please absolutely, Michael want to say some problematic things about Italian Michael, Italian
young, everybody ever being a problematic figure. I'll come You's nice comis on
you, guys, think the win Game of the Year tomorrow. Yeah,
I think that had a lot of momento. But now, like Alan Wait
came and really surprised everybody. I'm saying about them. It's like Times person
of the year. You know, it's not sure we're bad necessarily i'st person
of the year exactly. The norm is that the first not like facts that
time, the time till nine eleven, it's got it matter bad person that's
column call them is your person of the year, like a dude. Okay,
let me genuinely, here's my understanding and tell me if I'm sure I
saw the movies. I tried to read the first book. Yeah, my
understanding is do you mean like the Fellowship Fellow? My understanding this my genuine
understanding. Gollum was like a shoot dude. And then then he got the
ring and he got all fucked up. That's it, that's it really right
now. Yeah, yeah, I just want to I don't a lot about
it. I want to get through. I had that right time. That
helped you. Okay, But here's the important thing that happened after that he
was in a game again. For all of his means were ripped directly from
Prince of Persia, sands and time. That's really funny. Wait that game?
I still I'm not doing. Get moving on. Can't gollum vote?
I wish you wouldn't he actually democracy? When he takes the ring off?
Does he turned into a dude again? Is he like? No, he
doesn't have the ring? Is there any going back? No? No,
he's too fun. It's just like, what's your how take us for a
birthday? You want to be today? Okay? It's like people that have
been like eat like a metheatics. That's like stop doing math and work out
and not. Its okay. We have to talk to each other. We
have to talk to each other. It's confident. Is this cross talk?
Not like what I bet the pretty barny? Hey if I have a problem
that my license expires on my birthday? No, okay, why is the
first day? No? You have to wait birthday every like like Friday,
like like before you need to fly. Going to be fine with that as
long as it's in the window. So my license is currently inspired you take
care. I didn't think about that. I mean the my license is currently
yeah, well that dates fast approach back. Every time you take your license
out, you're like, oh, better make sure it's like no one tells
the state of Ohio. But I still have an Ohio learner's people. I'm
sure I scheduled are you fourteen in the photos? Because like if it expires
in Colorado before you move the other state, like you have to like take
the test again. And I think the tests are like four months round.
You can take a test. I can't play that far ahead. I can't
play a week ahead anymore. That never happened too much. Remember that guy
almost ran over when we went to Cleveland last time, Man, I knew
you would remember that. I mean putting this up news that part of the
windshield where like the bar is okay, I almost ran a guy over.
He felt real bad about what were we doing? I haven't told I had
the Tommy Mouhammad Disney we were you were figuring mail for game. That's the
biggest high play. I had to take me to Margaritaville because I won some
made up game show on our podcast. We have made up game shows.
That's your whole m O wants who wants to go to Margaritaville until I wont
But even if you won, I was the host, but you but either
way you would have had to go to Margarita. Ya. We wanted to
go like corporated, like the paper. Okay, okay, it's a just
want to take a second. Aready got say that? I think drug emmaculate.
I can't believe this three more times? Does it? Yeah? I
wouldn't know. I was home playing Sandwich playing. You know, I really
like doing this. This is like big part of this, Like, hey,
you didn't like doing this, re the right, that'd be a little
bit mean, but no, I like you much. Yeah, this is
a big part of like why I want to do this In the first place.
We work at Giant Bomb is like, hey, I think those Giant
Bomb at night things are pretty cool. I would like them to keep happening.
And the amount of work that people have done to ensure that happens is
really heartwarming to me. It means so much that people have like, hey,
yeah, no it's important to you. It's important to me too,
Let's make it happen. So yeah, it just means the world. Thank
you everybody. Also, is what makes you so good at your job because
you acknowledge that there's hard work on all ends and I'm not working art,
so someone must but you want It's just because you're wearing a sweater doesn't mean
you're not. I don't know. Maybe yeah, maybe, I don't know.
It is it is unbelievable, Like now this is the we all celebrate
chefugh Crabit section of the program. But it's like it is legitimately so difficult
to maintain a smattering of people. Obviously, this set of chuckle Fox,
this set of fuck is is different, right, Like we know each other,
like who had met each other four feet away from here, come in
and like making everybody feel comfortable and safe my birthday. You can't go three
seconds man between two crouches all. It's exactly like, I'm glad I don't
have any standis in my house. I think they would scare me yea walking
room and think it was I'm sorry, sure I put over a chair.
I'm afraid of stuff I know is already in the house and I have a
standy or my brother has Sandy and Keita from Atlantis and is room for a
while. I have been cat scared by my own cats. Fucked. I
had one of the undertaker. I never had a closing ship at the movie
theater. I'd come home and like one of the morning my mom or my
sisters would have moved it directly in front of my bedroom door. I'd walk
in. Thank you so much. Take here for welcoming to welcoming me to
my own what we were notorious for scaring Mike Maharty with a cutout of Obama.
And when when Marty got married, we t Moore brought the cutout and
his own wedding. He got scared. Mike Minorty's from upstate New York.
They're all scared of Obama up there. You never expected at your wedding.
God, I forgot you were there. I was standing wow, way wait,
wait, wait, Pitler, he's all right about please signed up back
going there to I think I've seen over here a little bit. Are you
show her? You're not talking about man? I'm sorry, dodge his name
and be we're all looking for the guy who did this. I don't know
what we do now. I don't like it's Zach left that. Oh there's
nobody loves the shoes perfect forever. Yeah, yeah, the show. I
can't believe that. Okays the show? Okay yeah special special shout outs twelve
million podcast points to Zach. Yeah, it's going to point out. Okay,
he's going. He's literally gone in here. I don't know how we
get out of hell. We'll go to the hours, we'll top ten ghost.
Oh yeah, wait, hold on please, trying to a bit o.
He's hold on everybody banana bread, banana bread, than you can't find
Zach. He's gonna see what happened and if Zach is still with us.
But what was it like actually getting like Sam Lake and them, like were
they like just getting ready to go and they were already he was already aware.
I think Lucy might have talked to him. I saw I was going
down to the Yeah, yeah, I was going to the gym this morning
in the elevator and it was just meet and Sam Lake and I'm just like
on my gym clothes and he's in a full like suit and everything. I'm
like, hey, congrats on the air. And then he's like, oh,
and I asked Jim on business trips. Yeah, it's the only time
I go to the gym I do. I try to look professional, like,
oh, I care about my body. It's the only time I put
on loutions. I never remember, but then when it's there, like I
should probably say I got three bottles care. I'm not trying to. I
can't remember that I'm going to use it, or use lotion for that matter.
Let me bring that plenty for you. I'm gonna change you to it.
After this, I'll take my teeth out of totally. How much money
is in your wall? So I got a new happened? It's a foot
will go right there. I'm in danger. I want to get married your
survival tips from my house next week. Oh yeah, if you need to
vomit uncontrollably, go right on top of the basement stairs and no one uses
and you go through like a wounded animal and just let it go. He
flew to my house to vomit and shipped for twenty four hours and thirty hours.
Yeah, and not eat that all because I couldn't. Can everyone just
appreciating the case. Fabulous fucking body suit? Yeah? What what are they?
They're not jumpers? They're up jump and there's a jump. Okay,
what's the one that shorts rappers? I want to pull off ropers? You
could do it literally nothing A little bit of hearts allow, yes, but
pull off exactly. We should get some courage and parts for for next year,
we should get matching roppers. Yes, that's okay. Yeah, like
all of us are just YouTube, all of us, those dads having where
they're like, my stupid wife brought me. Can we can we get matching
like shirts like we're in Disney World. We can do that if you wear
the rompers. Oh yeah, SUTs a rapper, you know, and you'll
find like a Onesie. Give me more, Yeah, like a Onesie but
without the parts. Yes, what's the bull? Some thing you ever tried
to do? You're learning at on everybody. You don't need to answer anymore.
Yeah, the young bucks where rappers all the time. Oh like the
os sorry, the like as they're casual clothes. They went rompers like my
expensive Nike shoes just to feel something. Yeah of course, yeah that's everyone
Snike shoes, Cuba think you thinking photos. Well, we're alive on the
air. Anything goes, anything goes. It's the last segment. There really
are no long rus not sing anything started to do. No, I do
have a drinking anything goes at the idiot Michael, tell me more about the
theme drinks we had because I got sure, so we had a drink for
infinitely. You have it over here you get them innue. Yeah, you
have one for each of the game of your nomine Surprisingly, the re was
the best drink. Shout out to Ben Daughters the drinks for us to consume,
and I brought them and Grubs told one of them comment here that the
you got the al one there and I'm drinking they are like a dragon drink.
That's a lot where the chef would put together a theme dinner of like
this. This course is going to come out the part of the movie and
then we're gonna have theme drinks as well. It was the best fatty fancy.
I went to an anime award show and they had themed drinks and they
had a ury on ice and it was what it makes a lot of Yeah,
the other one would make as much sense. Did she get my hero
academia? The beverage doesn't make a lot? Well, I mean it can
have like like to believe that's about school. Yeah, it's like X Men.
Yeah cool, you're in here the whole time. Really cool? Ye?
All bank godard on Twitch. Oh wait, these aren't puns. This
is the Spider Man drinks. No, it's allers Hard on the Place starring
Alan. Week two familiar with my favorite actor Alan to hell Tom makes too,
but he's up there. Yeah. I told Sam Link that I got
scared because my cat jumped, and he went, that's not my fault.
Yeah, that's right. No, no, no, you can't brew that.
You can't prove that. You can't prove that. You can't prove anything.
Podcast hear about anything. You can't prove anything, milk, nobody can
prove anything. Nobody can prove anything. I hate. This is his fault
for making Pew pressure me into doing it that way. I was gonna open
it like, yeah, this is a dear episode. Didn't can show up
and my deer as well as like a dragon infinite wealthy. You can't come
in here putting up with us. I think we really go. Mary,
thank you, thank you so much, Thank you Mary. Sorry they never
forget. No apology isn't enough. Mary. I appreciate you here. I
deal with all of like for it looks very hurt right now. I'm normal,
I'm normal and I'm regular. I can ride a bike again. I've
never wanted to know how to write a bike and I'm not going to start
now. Voice actor and war friend oh ship, wait what relation? It
definitely wasn't a joke, okay, but you was. I'm a work about
black Shot, and I'm like, that would be a great game for a
war friend, quack Shot. You're a game designer and a voice act Cripple
double. Yes, that's a game you got right there. Yeah, I
think you have a distinct voice and it would lend itself well to like characters
that are like coming out of pushes. Yeah, someone that would see in
a parking garage. Give me a take. Ye, I know what a
but you look pretty nice. I just want to say that your day,
Yeah about like an animated I hold your car window. I want to talk
to. On the one hand, I know I said on the podcast that
he wasn't even on to defend himself and he had Hamburglar energy. But on
the other hand, it was his birthday week, his birthday. It's like
Hamburglar and for real, Like, I'm why is he brought up? He
brought up Hitler, He's brought up. You can't just say that somebody did
your secret regular historic tragedy bring up. There's too much of a deep cut
that it does become offensive. Somebody about Jesus what, No, No,
okay, this is one of the legitimately basic superstart. This is one of
the actually my favorite crazy there's a there's a brought up to this live and
joy because it's not gonna be our company. There's a ride at California Adventure
that is currently themed after Monsters in Monster that Extreme Fact. That used to
be a ride where you got in a cab and then you chase celebrities or
limo sorry yeah you and you chase celebrities around and then this gowhere maybe we
can't do that, and nobody liked it, Like the right sucks you just
like then there's Drew Carrey, but he's still there all Drew Cary, my
mail, Drew, leave me alone. Disney spent all this money making these
very realistic representations, like these figures animatronics of all of these celebrities. But
they were like, we spent all this money, they still do move.
What's the solution. We're wreathingming the right tomorrow the zink. We'll put them
all in the yellow suit. That yellow has Matt suits. So when you
go through the ride, it's all just the same actors. They've literally just
put suits on them. You go through there, Drew carry is still there.
You go through one room and there's a guy doing a karate and that's
just Jackie Chip. Wait, so like legally is Drew Carrey seeing royalties of
this not anymore? No? Was the last year mar Harry in a yellow
suit? Curious a Disney thought? By the way, Yeah, I love
that. Should try and normalize. Oh yeah, we'll see who is the
coolest dress? Jesse elbow, elbow, We're gone. If it works your
hand, you're doing it wrong. It's this is this people too far over
people? Wait, make him do it right first? This you gotta do
this throw? Was that good? Yeah? Okay, alright, daddy's that
good? Scream? Don't be reckless? You over your pants? Yeah,
now you can do you gotta do it up those Yeah, but nothing to
do. Look, someone has to put that up. And that person's name
is Mike manaughty because we got yelled at this place. Seems to be good
for nine am tomorrow. So that's on it isn't is it? Yeah,
that's not referred to. I'm using this studio. Okay, you're here too,
you're here to I have to do we're game speed. Oh yeah,
yes, the studio is just like on the door and a bear might kill
you in a minute. Mike, who is the coolest Disney adults? Absolutely
grub Thank God. I don't know what to say. I guess clearly.
I haven't know what all night, but uh, thanks for watching. It
means a ton once again, like I'm saying this for this is that no
one told me to say this part. I don't have to say the beginning
seconds thanks to leg and dragging infinite Well this would not have happened without that.
So thanks, baby, it is the x T. If you are
still trying to get tickets, they're probably sold out. I've been a few.
There's a couple left, like literally a baby's whisper. But watch it
live. We're gonna be streaming it. Hang out with us tomorrow morning.
We're gonna be streaming our whittling down process. Watch that. Come hang out
with us. Thanks for hanging out with us tonight. For everybody from Giant
Bomb, I don't know, it's just ast tha, goodbye together, thanks
for watching everybody. Goodbye over there to turn it off, so everyone wondering,
shut up right your hand. There we go. There my do do
it. I don't know which one's to black out. I would just keep
waving. Are we clear yet? We're doing here we go on now, We're now