Yo remembered dummy beer. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this
for the next hour or so. Let me help you sort through the world
of gaming on Game Mess Mornings Live with Me Jeff Grub Today, Sonic's true
enemy is sadness, and hyenas are the dolphins of the land. But first
join me and welcome me today's co host to Game Mess Mornings. It's Jano
Choa from Giant Bomb. Everybody, I really love that rooster calling and the
intro there me too, gets me going, and all the standby abusing just
like the yummy yummy and all that stuff just kind of stringed in there.
It's really good stuff. I'm very I'm very into it. But then yeah,
the cock call, it's morning, it's time to talk about video games.
I'm really into it as well. So so Jan, you've been getting
back onto your running schedules. What you were telling me, how's that?
How's that going for you? Because I'm I just moved, and I was
right before we moved, I was on a great schedule of getting on the
treadmill, setting it to that really high angle and setting it to like three
point five miles per hour and just going for like twenty thirty minutes. I
was doing that every day, and it's like, Okay, this is like
really good for me. It's the right amount of time I can like commit
to this, and it's it's like hard enough that I feel like it's a
really good workout. But I brought the treadmill and everything, so it's here,
it's set up in the basement, and I have not gotten back on
that yet, So like, what got you back on I think having a
little bit more time now, you know, with more folks on staff,
don't have to worry about all the plates spinning or the house being on fire.
So I was like, you know what, everyone got it today,
I'm just gonna take a quick, like half hour go for a run.
And then I got ten minutes into it and I felt like I was going
to die. Yeah, right, exactly, That's what I'm like. It's
also, we've gone from Colorado dry what heat, to living ten feet from
lakey Year and I might as well live inside of lakey or how humid it
is here. And so my wife, who works out every day is like
talking about like it's much harder here. I'm like, okay, well,
I gotta brace myself and get back into it. But I don't know.
I'll fight some time for that after we talk about video games. So before
we get into the game mess, it's explain ourselves and what we do here
each week, weekday, I, Jeff Greb, will help piece your gaming
life back together. That includes bringing you breaking news, the catch up where
we discuss the biggest topics of the day, and maybe even bring some of
our original reporting from GameSpot myself elsewhere. We'll see for all these topics,
I will get the input of a bona fide expert who will make me look
smart. That's that's Jano Chowa and if I'm just prepending. And of course,
if you are watching live on twitch, welcome, we appreciate that.
But you can also listen to the show on audio feeds. You can find
the pod podcast feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings, or find the r
rss on giant bomb dot com. You can also catch the show later with
chapters and time stamps on YouTube. And if if you're watching there, hit
that like button. It helps people find the show. Alright, let's let's
get into this mess and news. I feel like there's only one place to
start here and it was with my apology to Hyenas everywhere for not immediately recognizing
that that's what that sound was. Jan do you know what I'm talking about?
Here? Were you paying attention to? Okay? All right? So
yes, I tuned into the game mess morning yesterday and hearing you and Lucy
argue about a sound and then her low key dissing you, yes, about
Elphins. Oh yeah, totally warmed my heart. Yeah, it seemed about
right. And you know what, in the end, she was proven once
again to be correct about that. I'll read this this headline here. This
is Hyenas is a new multiplayer sci fi heist shooter from the team behind Alien
Isolation. This is by Gray spin Fell at game Spot, Creative Assembly,
the strategy game giant and creator of Total War, and publisher Sega have announced
a new game, Hyenas. Hyenas is a team based shooter tasking player with
robbing high tech vaults on massive space freighters and then escaping the scene of the
crime. In concept, Hyenas is a Battle Royal adjacent drawing from Apex Legends
and Hunt Showdown. Each match has fifteen players split into three teams of five
and let's say in Players also have to contend with NPC enemies and security systems.
Since the game takes place in space, some areas are in zero gravity,
others have a zero gravity switch, allowing players to get the upper hand
on enemies or get themselves into a whole lot of trouble. The goal is
to pick up as much loot as possible, but rather than money or precious
metals, the loot is made up of pop culture artifacts. A Sonic figuring,
a Rubic's Cube, and various New York City related memorabilia. All make
it appearance in Hyena's debut trailers. So just sounds like you are going to
collect a bunch of junk and apparently it's worth something in this magical future.
To me, this actually sounds like that Viking game that came out and no
one cared about a little bit ago, where it was like two groups of
Vikings and then they were all player characters, and then there was a treasure
inside the building and the two groups had to like get inside the building and
get the same treasure, and then the treasure was guarded by ai AI MPCs,
and then occasionally if the two teams ran into each other, they would
fight each other, but mostly was about trying to like find ways to sneak
into this building. It sounds pretty similar to that, so I'm I'm like,
okay, I like, I guess I like some of this, this
concept, but also a team based shooter in space, and especially after that
that Jeff Keaeley show, a lot of these things are feeling very very familiar
and well run territory at this point, Jam, what do you think?
Yeah, I just scanned through the trailer now and it I don't know what
to make of it because I believe you had said that IGN had said that
this was supposed to be framed as like a show stealer type of game.
That's right, that's correct. And I don't know if it's quite still on
the show, because hey, it's it's kind of late to the show.
Uh, and and be you know, if you showed me this, if
I rewatch this trailer maybe a week two weeks down the line, I don't
think i'd remember it, right because of how stylistic it is, but not
in a not in a standout way, you know, Yeah, I think
it is. I don't know, a lot of it feels very wrote to
me, like we are you're doing things that are familiar. It looks familiar
it and and then the ways that it doesn't it kind of just is generic.
And and that's why it still is very famili because it's like this just
looks like, you know, stand in video game that we could get from
anybody. You know, they've been working on this game. I think they
said for four years. And I imagine you know at that time in the
past like that, like you know that this this idea probably felt a little
bit different that long ago, where it's like, Okay, there isn't a
lot of these games, and now there's a lot of ways to go online
with your friends and cause mayhem and interact. I mean, we like Gracier
just listed two games. There's that Viking game, but there's a million different
like Battle Royal on Battle royalogjacent games. And I get the urge to be
like, Okay, there is definitely something more we could do with this concept
if we just put our own spin on it. Uh and maybe the right
maybe once we play this, we will be convinced. And that's that's the
case for any game. But looking at the trailer, looking at what they're
they're promising here and it doesn't help that they did make those big lofty set
those They set those lofty expectations saying this is gonna be the steal, the
show stealing thing. But coming out of it, seeing the trailer, I'm
just like, I'm not I'm not feeling the urge to be like, oh,
I have to play this now. This is the kind of thing where
I'm gonna have to wait and see what other people say. I'll let other
people try it, and if a big swelling momentum happens where everyone's like,
oh, yeah, everyone's playing this and it's the greatest, it's the top
thing on Steam right now. Yeah, I'll check in on it. But
right now I'm ready to I'm already ready to forget it. Yeah. I'd
be happy to be wrong by by all means, because I'd want all games
to be successful in an ideal world. Right. I lost my train of
thought. Oh, oh, okay. I don't mean to disparage the developers,
because four years is a very long term of working and plugging time into
a game. But I say this, I don't mean to be mean,
but I understand this reminds me of a vague This looks like it would be
a random Ubisoft game that dies like six to eight months after launch, right,
one of those ones that just feels like, you know, they announced
it, like we're trying this thing because it's a trend and we put it
out, we're not exactly sure where it's gonna go, and if it doesn't
go anywhere, it'll just get yeah, get shuffle, shuffle to the side.
Now. Still, I think I'm glad that Sega's like letting Creative Assembly
do something like this. Creative Assembly has been a team that has done a
lot of strategy stuff and that's where they've been they focus all their energies for
the most part, and it's it's like okay, now they are letting them
stretch their legs and try something new. And from that, from that perspective,
I really hope it is a success for them. And you know,
I think this concept fifteen players split into three teams robbing spaceships should be like
something that I'm totally into that is like okay, you know, just there's
not like I'm not worried about a one hundred people, but like there's gonna
be a lot of tension there where you're like, okay, where is the
other team, like we could we could take out these NPCs, or should
we set up and let the other team take out these NPC's and then we
you know, ambush them. Like there's just so much cool potential there for
for gameplay interactions and interactions between the computer opponents and the human opponents, and
then you know, you're you are getting sonic dolls and that's the reward there,
and that's like a cool concept as well. There's a lot of things
that should be working for me, but it's I don't know, looking at
the trailer, it was not clicking, So it's like that there's a disconnect
here somewhere. And usually my stance of these things is that that's okay in
early trailers if one second, because I'm still always reserving judgment until i get
my hands on it. Even for trailers that wow me, it's like,
hey, yeah, I'm wowed by the trailer, and that's a different thing
than the video game I'm going to be playing later. Those feelings I have
now have little to do with howde'll feel later. So I'll either I'm gonna
wait around to what people say. If it gets any buzz, I'll check
it out and it might set myself and who knows him, Maybe I'll fall
in love with him all right? Then next up, this is a from
Ian Flynn, who's one of the writers on the Sonic series. Sonic Frontiers
is themed around melancholy, with Sonics never to say die attitude put to the
test. This is by Sicker at my Nintendo News. Sonic the Hedgehog writer
Ian Flynn has talked to IgM about the upcoming Sonic Frontiers game, which is
scheduled to be released on current platforms including the Nintendo Switch later this year.
He said that the mysterious Sonic Frontiers has provided him with a very different approach
to what he has been used to writing writing in the past, and that
it is centered around the feeling of melancholy and getting through that positively. He
went on to say that it is about how the tragedies of the past have
caught up with Sonic, which has led him to his new adventure in Frontiers.
Sonic must remain strong in order to rescue his friends and collect stolen Chaos
emeralds. And here's what mister Flynn had to say. Specifically, Sonic Tales
and Amy embark for the Starfell Islands to investigate the disappearance of the Chaos Emeralds.
Things take a turn for the for the dramatic immediately, and Sonics is
left alone with a lot of questions. This is the plot of I'm Sorry.
This is the plot of Super Mario Sunshine. The story. The story
is his journey to uncover all the mysteries of the islands, rescue his friends,
and discover how everything ties together. Should Sonic be allowed to be sad?
Jan Ochoa answer the question, He's he's what in his thirties now,
Yeah, everyone like we're all sad. That's true. Maybe maybe Sonic should
say I don't know, it's just it's weird, like okay, maybe it's
trying to make it more relatable, I guess, But also just feels like
Sonic doesn't feel equipped to like, Okay, he's gonna he's just gonna be
positive through all this sadness and the world is destroyed around him, but he's
got the positive attitude and that's what the themes of this game. And I'm
like, okay, well, I just I want to see fun zones.
That's what I come to Sonic for. Yeah, you know, I feel
bad that I I feel that Sonic can't convey proper emotion and convey like loss
and empathy because he just goes fast that he doesn't experience all these emotions.
It's like if your house was on fire and a clown showed up. That's
what it's like. That's what it feels like. There was just like for
no other reason than the clown is just like I need to I need to
find out if I could still be happy while your house is on fire.
I'm like, okay, all right, clown right. That's what it feels
like to me. I mean because like there's there have been other anthropomore animal
like protagonists that can make you feel things like the Ratchet and Clack games are
very successful in that of like oh I feel for you, or like little
robot adjacent things, but Sonic, I just don't. I don't, no,
no. And I think that ties in with like how much more bummed
out I am with the overall look of the game from what we've seen so
far and what I've seen over people's shoulders at Summer Game Fest, where now
hearing that this is the tone they're going for, they're definitely nailing it.
But I don't think that tone is for me. Also, they have a
sad hedgehog. Just give it the shad shadow. Yeah, let's shadow be
deal with it. Yeah, exactly. It's to me, this feels like
we built this game and this is what the world looks like, and now
we're gonna put Sonic into it. Now, hey, writer, come up
with the solution for why stuff is like this is this way? And it's
like, wow, that looks really drab and sad. So I guess we're
gonna have it be a sad, drab world and Sonic is going to be
the light that stands against the shadow. And maybe that's way. Maybe he'll
stand and gets shadow of the Hedgehog. Maybe he will, he will show
up. But yeah, it just was slapped onto the back end and not
sort of the vision like the story we're talking about Final Fantasy sixteen having like
this real clear vision of what it wants to be. And you could tell
that just by looking at the trailers and the way the developers talk about the
game. I do not get that sense from Sonic Frontiers. No, no,
not at all. I might my interest may be turned around and put
back on the game if perhaps they release like a trailer with like a sad
bastard cover of something and then it ends up like a robotic or whoever,
just going like you can't run for your problem somehow that eggman has returned.
Uh well, I mean, what what sad bastard version of a Michael Jackson
song could they use for this game. Let's just use py t because he's
gonna kis a lady again. There we go. Speaking of Michael Jackson kissing
ladies and Sonic the Hedgehog, Eugenaka confirms that Michael Jackson wrote music for Sonic
the Hedgehog three. This is by Darren bom Thus. I think this is
from game spot as well. The late Michael Jackson's involvement in the creation of
Sonic the Hedgehog three's soundtrack has been a long running rumor in gaming circles,
and one that co creator Sonics Blue Blue Blur has confirmed. With the release
of Sonic Origins, a compilation of classic Sonic games from modern platforms. Veteran
game designer game developer Eugenaka commented on how Sonic the Hedgehog three's original soundtrack was
missing from the game. He tweeted, oh my god, the music for
Sonic three has changed even though Sega Official uses Michael Jackson's music, people are
upset about this. Eugenaka is clearly kind of a little bit upset about this.
I just want to play a little clip here for everybody of of like
what this sounds like? Is this really what we y'all are dying on a
hell for? Okay, come on, everybody, what are we talking about?
Eric? This is the thing you're missing? Are okay? That part
right there actually is kind of nice now, but I don't think they can
hear it. Oh, okay, hang on, I'm gonna get it.
I'll fix hang on. Let's see. Ah, here comes everybody, it
d there we go. So this is it? This is the thing,
right? This is what you like? Yeah? I love this all right?
Uh that let me wrap this one back up. That's that's one of
the songs that's been seen. There's a handful of others, but it's not
I don't know. To me, this is not a great loss for a
Sonic three. But I don't know how jan you loving that was? Where
you feeling that? I was feeling that, But I don't necessarily need to
feel that anymore after hearing that again. Let's see he According to creative director
a creative officer taka Ashi Azuka. New tracks are arranged by composer June Sinno.
Have replaced Sonic three soundtrack. As much of your game's original score has
been left in an unusable state. When we're going back and trying to recreate
all these games from thirty plus years ago, you get a lot of old
data that's not really usable, Azuka told euro Gamer, and music was one
of those things. We had to dig up a lot of that old dat
tapes in order to get the musics dat tapes. Sorry, no, I
understand, to get that music that was on all these games, and June
Sinyo went in and had to recreate in a modern format the music that they
could put on Sonic three and Knuckles as a final product. Now that's probably
only maybe half true, where it's like, yeah, it's yeah, it's
maybe it's difficult to get some of these things, but you always just rip
it off the rom there's ways to do that. This is for the most
part, this is probably just having to do with Michael Jackson and not wanting
to have the Michael Jackson music in there anymore. Right on top of that,
maybe having to pay whatever fees they have to pay to the Michael Jackson
a state, I'd assume, and chattis iping toky Mickey points out then when
when you Junaka says that Sega Sonic Official was using the music, it was
the TikTok account for Sonic Official using Michael Jackson music. So it's like they're,
Okay, we're using Michael Jackson music over there, but they don't want
to keep it in Sonic three. But yeah, this has been a long
rumored thing, like where it was never confirmed, at least now officially.
I think it was always kind of like a soft confirmed. People knew for
sure that Michael Jackson had worked on it, but Sega had never confirmed it
themselves. Well, yeah, that that seems to be the case, and
that seems to be the reason they're taking it out of the game. Xbox
Cloud Gaming will receive keyboard and mouse support. This is by Grace Benfel game
spot Grace showing up a lot today. As has been hinted before, Xbox
Cloud Streaming will add mouse and keyboard support to its streaming service. This comes
several years after the addition of mouse and keyboard support to Xbox consoles. The
long anticipated feature was real during a developer focus talk delivered by Morgan Brown,
a software engineer at Xbox. During the presentation, Brown outlined find how the
Xbox Cloud Gaming team plans to reduce latency and assist developers and optimizing their games
resolution and graphics for streaming. He clarified that mouse and keyboard support for Xbox
Cloud Gaming is coming and that developers should work on adding it to their games.
It will light up in streaming once we finished adding it. He stated,
Xbox Cloud Gaming supports Xbox games specifically, so you won't be able to
use the mouse and keyboard for PC games. It's just going to be the
Xbox versions that now work with mouse and keyboard games, So if you're like
playing on your phone, like, it's still going to be the Xbox versions.
However, this feature does eliminate the need to have a compatible controller in
addition to a compatible device, so if you have keyboard and mouse on your
laptop or whatever, you could at least begin playing many of these games,
even if you don't have a touch screen for example. So this is not
for me, but I can imagine there are like Xbox Cloud streamings coming online
around the world and in territories that have traditionally have had a hard time getting
consoles, Like there's territories throughout South America with huge tariffs that cause make these
new systems cost thousands of dollars relatively, And it's the kind of thing where
it's like, oh, they could just get online with the computer they already
have. What's like now they need a controller and they're gonna have a hard
time even tracking that down in many cases. So they already have a keyboard
and mouse. They're ready to go. So that's a pretty cool addition.
Yeah. Yeah, the idea of adding more different inputs to cloud gaming kinds
of kind of sounds terrifying. Sure, but you know, I'm glad when
they do add support for stuff because I know there's a good chunk of people
that are very jazz and they're like ringing their bells like it's mighty here.
Yeah, And it's the kind of thing where it's like anytime, like the
problem with cloud streaming is that last mile problem inside people's homes, Like it's
they can set up the infrastructure, the backbone of the internet and prove all
that stuff. They can put a data center down the street from your house,
but once it gets to your house, what happens then? Do you
have the device that can put it on your TV or TV that can display
it? And even if you do, are you comfortable like picking up the
controller and attaching it with Bluetooth through your TV? In many cases, I
think for a lot of people it's like that's too much work. I'm just
gonna watch Netflix like that, that last mile probably just has just enough friction
that I think it's going to prevent a lot of people from getting in a
cloud gaming until it just becomes second nature. And anytime they can reduce that
friction by just saying well that works, that works, and this works,
and now mouse and keyboard works on top of that, it should improve it.
But it's gonna be gains of inches here and there over time. And
Microsoft seems to understand that they're like in this for the long haul, so
it's like they don't expect any one of these things to be like, well,
and now cloud gaming is the thing for everybody, So it's cool that
they're doing this. Yeah, speaking of Xbox, the Xbox documentary just won
an Emmy. You can now you can watch this for free. It's a
bit on YouTube. But this is by Chris Carter Destructoid. In case you
missed it, there's a six episode Xbox documentary out now that deals with the
history of the console line, from the germination of the idea as a brand,
through the success of Halo into the Red Rig of Death up until now.
It's called Power on the Story of Xbox, and it's an interesting It's
interesting that since that it's officially sanctioned, so it has all this like inside
information, but also doesn't hold back for all its efforts. That actually just
won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Single Camera Editing, adding another award to the
production team's repertoire. Now, Jan you've had some uh but run ins with
TV production is a Daytime Emmy reel. Yes, okay, there have been
multiple podcasts that are on YouTube and stuff that have won Daytime Emmys. I
think I think it's only a matter of time till Gamess Mornings, Brings Brings,
Brings One Home to Giant Bomb. Yes, it's just any any day
now if I want a Daytime Emmy, then it's definitely real. Like that's
at that point we know for sure it's real and oh yeah, it would
never be skeptical of the concept. Ever again, Uh, let's see this.
This is the last news story we have here, this one. Thanks
for the person who sent this to me. I didn't put your name down
here, but thank you, every It was a good one to point out
a destiny YouTuber who allegedly impersonated Bungee as being sued by the studio for seven
point seven million dollars by Tom Ivan at VGC. Bungee is seeking over seven
point six five million dollars in damages from my destiny YouTuber who allegedly and persue
of the company in order to issue a series of bogus DMCA strikes against fellow
content creators. This is a wild one, everybody. So just I got
some tweets here from someone who is the victim of this person, and you
just got to see him to believe him. In a revision of its original
complaint, which was spotted by the Gamer Post, the defendant has been named
as Nick Minor aka YouTube Lord Nazo. This is now The original complaint was
Bungee also suing YouTube and saying YouTube, your system is way too easy to
exploit and you need to take responsibility for this. So then everyone's like yes,
please, thank you for doing this, Bungee. But now they're also
naming the person who took advantage of the system. Last is. In December,
the YouTube channel of Lordo was issued a takedown notice after publishing music from
the original soundtrack for the Destiny expansion, the Take in King, which Bungee
said infringed copyrights and violated his policy on fan use of intellectual property. Rather
than remove the video, Miner is alleged to have left it online until YouTube
deleted in January. Bungee claims that, seemingly in retaliation for all of that,
Minor created fake Gmail accounts in order to pose as the studio's brand protection
vendor CSC and send out a wave of fraudulent takedown notices targeting videos posted by
members of the Destiny community, including my name is bife Aztec Cross the Phoenix,
and Prometheum. And then he also basically went in and gaslet everyone in
this community. So let me get these these tweets here. This is wild.
So if this is from one of the people who was targeted by him,
Owen Spence, he said he invited us to a discord to talk about
this, and he said stuff like and I'll read this for people listening to
the Universion. This is from Lord Nazo in this discord. The fact that
it's that easy makes it very likely for someone to just abuse the system.
Hell, you could make a Google account right now, go to YouTube studio
and submit a takedown request on any video you want. Yep. YouTube has
the most bullshit copyright takedown system ever. It's so brain dead simple that even
a child could submit a takedown and request without needing any proof of authorization.
I believe someone is impersonating him. I still don't think it's CSC. And
it's like, again, this is the person who is doing all of this
basically just telling on themselves. Uh, this is this is I get that,
like U like the serial killers always want to be caught, is like
this thing that happens in movies. But this feels like, please catch me.
I'm doing this exact thing right, Like it's one hundred percent that right,
Like I'm getting away with it. I'm gonna leave some breadcrumb trails here.
And I get the idiot and I get that he's like mad at Bungee
for targeting him and then not targeting some of these other creators like that's what
it seems like this was happening here. He's like, I'm gonna go claim
these other things that are doing the same thing I was doing and they're not
getting in trouble. But then like he's like, oh well, YouTube system
is so bright, Like YouTube system being easy to exploit was never a problem
for him. It only became a problem when he, at least in this
group of people, when he started doing it to other people. His beef
was always with Bungee, like, you know, singling him out or whatever.
He were like. Also in this discord, I mean, anyone could
make an email like first first name, last name at gmail dot com.
It's definitely a fraud. Uh yeah, it's the people like and then he
said to everyone else, Yeah, it's the people like us who suffered,
the little guys or just anyone a fewer the two hundred and fifty thousand YouTube
subscribers and one hundred thousand Twitter followers, excuse me. This is the person
that Owen Spence, who was targeted here, says that they feel betrayed and
unbelievably upset that someone we knew and trusted would do this. Literally, almost
all Destiny music on YouTube is gone because of this. Yeah, Jesus,
that's a wild thing. That's the epitome of like one bad apple ruining the
bunch. But like in this case, like now we're going to uproot the
whole tree and destroy this whole orchard. Yep, what ass I'm sorry,
But when you have to, you have to. Uh. It's the kind
of Yeah, it's kind of thing like people to get to do retaliation.
Human beings have this sense of like it's worth it at all costs, Like
I'll hurt myself and others if I could just get that sweet taste of revenge.
And it's but it's the kind of thing where like once people have like
have a chance to step outside themselves and see how they're behaving, they're like,
Okay, no, we have to stop this. This is of course
not acceptable, and really it's not worth what it's doing to me. It
just seems like, nowhere along the line did this person have that internal like
reflection on their behavior. Yeah, I mean I hope that I hope that
Bungee is able to get some punishment for this person. Really, though,
the main issue here continues to be that YouTube system is so easy to exploit,
and YouTube does not seem interested in fixing that at all, because who
are they at risk of being sued by more? It is by the copyright
holders, not by someone who gets struck by a fraudulent copyright claim. Bungee
is trying to reverse that and put the pressure in a different directions so that
YouTube's like, oh, well, now we are getting sued for this flaw
in our system, so now we do have motivation to fix it. Who
knows if that actually ends up happening, but that should be the case,
right, yeah, one percent. It's you know, we live on YouTube,
and thankfully we don't live and die based on YouTube numbers and performance there.
But like there have been multiple times where even just posting a video,
we'll get it like a copyright claim and it will have, as far as
I can tell, nothing that could be considered a copyright infringement. But somehow
even trying to bring it back to YouTube and say like, yo, we
need you to remove this from this video, only to reach it like a
blank or just like a bot, and you just run in a circles like
the bot, misunderstanding you, right, and never getting redirected to an actual
person. It's it's incredibly frustrating. So yeah, and for folks that made
their living on being like a destiny YouTuber or content creator, it's this must
be like an absolute nightmare and just incredibly disheartening. Yeah again, what an
ass, Yes, a complete ass. In my in my experience with YouTube,
I've had issues where I would make a video and then someone else would
use clips to that video, and then they would turn on their the bot
to like, you know, content I d and then my video would get
flagged. I'm like, are you are you kidding me? Like that's yeah,
like it just should never work that way. That's incredibly inconvenient at the
like the minimum and sort of like aggressive and unnecessarily like pushing people off your
platform like at the maximum. And it's like, uh, but YouTube has
so many content creators that just sort of have continue to push through that they're
like, hey, if we you know, frustrate one or two and they
get burned out because they're dealing with these awful systems, well there's always another
one to fill their spot. It's kind of how it feels. So and
it's like, really, there's not a lot of other options out there for
if you want to create video content on the web and get decently paid.
There is one basic option and it is YouTube. Yeah, all right,
let's see, let's jan It's time for the catchup. It's time to talk
about what everyone is talking about in video games. And the first thing I
wanted to talk about with you here is GPU prices seem to be normal,
Like it almost feels like we might get to a point where GPU prices again
going on sale again. I wanted to add, like, obviously this is
about like the cryptocrash and the economy crashing in some ways, but mostly about
the crypto crash and people who were mining realizing well, it's no longer worth
it to buy new ones, and really it might be now might be the
right time to sell the old ones and try to maximize the return on that
investment because the coins we're getting from mining aren't worth much anymore. So there's
a lot of secondhand ones on the market. But also if you go into
a store, there's a good chance you're going to see a lot of video
cards at the very least, and often in the m D cards as well.
Are you in the market to buy something now because it's easier. I
am am intrigued now because I feel like this. I hate feeling that this
is a bubble that is going to burst, but I definitely feel like this
grace period of like oh, these are actually available and some of them are
going on sale is I don't want. I hope it doesn't quickly disappear,
but I feel like it will. So it's it's kind of forcing me to
think of like, well, gosh, now like this may actually be the
time to upgrade. And I've seen like a bunch of photos floating around of
people posting like I don't think it's a fry as, but like an electronics
store where the case is just full of GPUs and everything, and I was
like, oh man, that looks great. I couldn't think about all the
things I can encode. I could force everyone to start recording in four K
and it'd be the worst. It's but I could do it. You could
now, and now is the time, and you like you. The suggestion
you made there that this is temporary, I think is probably accurate because I
remember the last time we got to this point with video cards, where like
this is not the first wave of crypto absorbing all the cards and making them
really hard to come by, like that happened like several years ago, and
then there was this reprieve where there was like the price dipped and then we
all thought, oh, well that's it, everything's back to normal, and
then it got even worse the next time. To me, I think there's
no reason to assume that that that won't happen again, and so if you
are in the market for a card, I would just pull the trigger right
now. I know the RTX four thousand series is coming out soon, and
we can hope and pray that that launch will be like we'll get the sort
of we'll be in this part of this reprieve where it'll be a launch where
you can actually go into a store and buy one of those. I just
would not expect that at any moment the stuff could change and if you need
a card, now, buy a card now. It's what I would say
for sure. The implication of this that I'm incredibly happy about is not just
the crypto bros being sad that this market is drawing up, but also for
the environment, because gosh, I'm sure we've all seen our fair share of
like photos of crypto farms where it is just wall to wall shelves of computers
just running fans twenty four hours a day. So I'm glad that you know
that these GPUs are not being or going into the right hands. Yes,
absolutely, Like it's gonna mean these things were made for people to play games.
People find another use for it, and the companies, I mean,
obviously we're taking advantage of it to a certain extent, and it's but the
market was never prepared for this, and it was never really going to be
able to handle it, and it just left people in a situation where it's
like, Hey, I really want to use these cards and I'm going to
play games on it, and then when I'm done with it, I'm going
to like hand it off to like, you know, a cousin, and
then I'll buy a new one. And what happens here instead is someone's going
to just run at twenty four seven pump that those carbon emissions in the atmosphere
for no reason other than create imaginary currency, and then they are going to
sell this decrepit card that has completely been just run through the mill, and
then they're gonna sell to someone as it's like it's basically new, and they're
gonna take advantage of someone else on the market and Uh, yeah, it's
it's a shame, and I'm glad that it's it's seeming like, at least
for now, it's coming to somewhat of an end. And again, I
just I'm not gonna believe that it's gonna last forever. You know, something
that also doesn't last forever. The summer sales are either start to begun or
they're about to begin, whether that's on Steam, PlayStation and Xbox as well.
I believe the PlayStation sale just began and the Steam sale is supposed to
begin today. I've seen a lot of good deals on these Do you when
these things happen? Do you run to the stores? I'm like, Okay,
what can I get? Or do you kind of just like have one
or two games in mind, Like once that's on sale, I'll buy that
and then I'll just dip out. I've taken something I've started doing a lot
of It is just like wish listing a poop ton of stuff, whether or
not I like really really want it, or it's something that I've had my
eye on in the past, or I just need to circle back to it.
So whenever the Steam sales pop off, and especially with Q three right
around the corner Jeff Grubb and that sweet steam Deck maybe coming home to me
soon. I'm getting ready and I'm gearing up, you know. I remember
all these talks of people with their Steam libraries and their backlogs being up out
the wazoo, and I kind of want that, Like I don't need to
play Metal Gear Solid five again. But it was like five bucks the other
day. I'm like, this guy, just get it. Maybe we'll play
through it when the steam Deck comes. Maybe we won't. It runs really
well on the steam Deck, I'll say that much. It's it's real good.
I mean, yeah, I think, honestly, this might be the
first Steam sale to even get that steam Deck bump where people are thinking along
the same lines of you as you. It's like either I have it or
I'm about to get it, and I want to make sure that my Steam
library is ready to go. I mean, this is clearly what valves strategy
with the steam Deck has been, where they're like, hey, we have
like the tech is in the right spot. These chips can run cool and
efficient and powerful all at the same time, and we can put it into
a form factor where it's easy to to make it into a handheld whatever that's
there. The problem was always the pricing, and that's why other companies were
like, we're gonna kind of sell the somewhat less powerful version of these chips,
and this handel gaming PC is still going to be more than a thousand
dollars. Valves incentives are completely different. They just want to sell a lot
of video games, and they don't and from video games from anybody, not
just Valve games. So if it's on Steam, they're gonna get their money
for it. So they're like, let's get a system out there that can
appeal to a different audience and maybe make a different audience spend even more on
you see games. I mean, I think it's really really gonna work,
and it might be a boost to this this this Steam summer sale, I
think so, uh yeah, definitely. I think that For me, I've
gotten to a point in my gaming career where these summer sales usually can buy
and I'm like, I have most most of these games now. If I
haven't one of the previous sales, I'm either getting them for work or whatever,
or at this point I've learned my lesson of like I often don't even
play them now if it's such a good price, Like if it's anything with
a single digit price, right, like just that integer is very appealing.
Five dollars for a game that used to be sixty dollars. It's hard at
that point to say now. And that's where I usually fall into it.
That's like games that are six seven years old. I'm like, if I
really wanted to play them, why haven't I played them yet? And yet?
But still, once the deal gets into my eye turned into Paul Reichert,
I'm like, well, it's a deal, so I gotta buy it.
So, yeah, it's a Poggers dealt deal. Yes, Yeah,
what's your what's your greatest Pogger's video game deal you ever got? Oh?
Gosh. I think it was probably Jade Empire for ninety nine cents, which
I felt like a criminal getting, yes, because it was the Steam version.
I believe it was Steam version. It might have been on gog and
just because in my head, you know, I'm thinking I'm doing the mental
math of like ninety nine cents, Like how can I not get that?
I bought like a iPhone app for ninety nine cents once, and you know,
I got maybe ten minutes of enjoyment out of that. I could probably
get ten hours of enjoyment out of Jade Empire with ninety nine cents. And
I'll tell you, Greb, I did not play yet, but I never
fired it up. I had all the intent too, Yeah exactly. I
mean these days, like it's very easy to like be even like ninety nine
cents, like because you can get so many games for free, like on
Twitch and on Amazon, and then as part of like subscriptions, it's like
even like a good deal isn't quite as spicy as it once was. My
most Pogger's gaming deal, though, was I was at I think it was
Sam's Club or Costco one of those, and and I was going through like
the book section, and somehow there was just this random three DS game Tom
Clancy Shadow Wars for the three DS, and it's I'm like, oh,
this looks like one of those turn based strategy games that I like, I'm
into that. And then I look at the price and it was like seven
dollars. And this is a point where no three DS game that was new
at a store should be at that price. Like that was like way less
than you would even pay for like secondhand games at at Games Games Stop,
and so I'm like, oh, I'm definitely gonna get this. It's probably
not gonna work. But I took at the register and they just didn't say
anything, and it was seven dollars. I'm all right, And then that
was the game that lived in my three DS for the rest of it's in
life, because I got all the rest of my games digitally, so I
just had Tom Clancy Shadow Wars and I just actually just saw it in the
drawerback over there and send the drawer now. So I actually did take out
of my three DS recently because my kids wanted to play Mario Kart together,
so I had to two three ds is and I have the one that has
the digital copy, and then I bought another version so they could play together
and that worked out well. Uh but yeah, that was that was my
most Pogger's deal. Incredible. Okay, here's the heads up. Some players
are having trouble beating Cotur two, not because of its difficulty on switch,
but because of a bug that is causing all progress to stop Aspire. The
team that is responsible for the port is they're working on a fix, but
they also provided a workaround and it's pretty a wild thing, but apparently this
works. So before the cut scene that is causing the problem, you need
to navigate to the party's selection screen. There you can triple click the left
thumb stick, which brings up a cheap menu for the game built into the
game. Select warp and travel to oz n D five O four and warp
to a random location and do not head to the Merchant corridor because another crash
occurs there. Okay, yeah, so this ivan Listen Quodo two always had
a lot of issues. Next to the old Hope To always had a lot
of problems, this sounds especially buggy though. So the good news here is
that the crash was previously thought to have affected all players of the Switch version,
is clarified to Axios that only a small number of players were encountering the
crash. So you want to roll the dice there, You're probably still gonna
be fine, But you could also just wait for them to fix it.
And it's They've been doing a good job of fixing the games they've been putting
out on Switch, so I'm hopeful for that. All right, How are
you feeling about playing like old games to get ported the Switch now? Especially
with the Steam deck imminent for you. I you know, I I think
I care less now about them coming onto the switch, especially knowing that I'll
eventually get my hands on a Steam deck, like I thought multiple times about,
like, oh maybe unless it's like a first party joint, right,
because I have probably bought all of the Trails in the Sky and uh gosh,
the Trails of Steel. Cold Steel, yes, cold Steel. Because
I'm like, you know, I hear Michael him talking big game about it,
and I'm like, I should, I should probably get into this that
I don't care so much about them coming out of the switch because I feel
like the Steam deck will just enable me to play all these old JRPG's that
I don't need to play. Yeah, it's uh, I still think I
like the way they're off the packaged on the switch. Like Star Wars Racer.
I tried to get that on Steam and it's like, oh, okay,
this like this is like an older version of this game and it's not
working quite right. So it's like they basically made it all. They spruced
it up and made sure it's just gonna run on the switch. So I
just got it there. I paid for it there, and that was fine,
but overall, you know, Steam has so many more games and so
many more options, and the Steam Deck is more powerful, and so they
run right, and then if I want to, if I really want to
play a specific game, the emulation options are just so robust on the Steam
Deck that, yeah, I mean, I can talk about how good the
Steam deck is for I have talked about how good the Steam deck is for
forever, and I will continue to do so. When you get yours jam,
we should definitely just do a stream where we just set it up,
we'll do some crimes on it. It'll be really great, it'll be really
lovely, and then we'll shoot some hoops after. Then we'll shoot some hoops
after exactly just you and me, so no one can like to ball us
and just be like, yeah, two mediocre basketball players. Yeah, all
right, let's get to the question of the day. Everybody. Yesterday,
I asked does your interest in the game increase when it goes from paid to
free to play? And only thirty two percent about thirty three percent said yes,
and sixty and sixty seven percent said no, So two thirds no.
I guess I'm not too surprised by this, especially because the audience that I'm
probably speaking to is a lot of people who have not preconceived notions, but
notions of what a free to play game is going to be, and it's
gonna be very different than the games they grew up on. They have an
idea of like what they want a game to be, and when you go
to a free to play game, what's like, this is going to be
a thing that's trying to manipulate me into spending money. And they're correct.
There's just an audience of people who are like, well, that's better than
paying for money up front, and I think gets a different audience than what
I'm speaking to. But still I think that there's a reason developers continue to
go this path. Like the reason I asked this question is Fall Guys.
Fall Guys is the game that you know. It was premium priced and it
just sort of it didn't seem like it was completely fallen off a hill,
but it also seemed like, Okay, this is going to rejuvenate it,
and the servers went down, more people were playing than ever. Of course,
it was also ported to Xbox and switching that was a huge part of
it, but going free to play ensure that that launch was really big for
them. So where are you at with this? Jen? When you when
you first play a game and you you know, you get it for work
or whatever, you buy it, and then it goes free to play,
and now there's another chance to get in there and there's more people playing,
does that make you want to check back in on it? It? I
think it will depend on a game by game basis, because war Frame has
war Frame always been free to play. War Frame has always been free to
play, yes, right, well, uh so like war Frame like with
that always being free to play, but being such a deep lore hole to
dive into been intimidating. But for something like Knockout City where I initially invested
a lot of time some friends and then hearing that it went free to play,
I'm like, oh cool, I could ease myself back into it because
there's more people probably at similar levels to me. So it will depend on
the game. Or sometimes when it's something like Final Fantasy fourteen where it's like,
oh cool, I can really try out this game and then if I
really really like it, I can dive in all the way that I want
to. But for something like Fall Guys, if it wasn't for work,
purposes. I don't know if I would check it out again, because I
feel like I'd already gone everything I needed to get out of Fall guys,
and you know, I haven't been paying too close attention to it, so
they could have added a bunch of new stuff, like I don't know,
maybe the little Jelly Bean boys play basketball. Now, that's what I need
to get excited. That's why I need to get out of bed in the
morning. Absolutely, it's for me. It's always about like the Discord and
the people I play games with and trying to set up game nights or friends
and family and being like, Hey, this game is twenty bucks. Do
you want to come play it with me? That's one thing that I'm like
usually gonna steer clear of, but when I get a chance where I'm like,
Okay, this game is free. All you have to do is hit
this one button. And if you don't want to do that, that's fine.
I get it, like you're basically, but if you do want to
play with us, you don't spend any money, and that's much more.
That's much easier for me to have that conversation with people. And I don't
feel guilty being like hey, because a lot of Like again, I get
a lot of games for work. It's like so easy for me, like,
come play with me, Come spend your money to play a game with
me and entertain me. I don't like. I don't like saying that stuff.
So it's like, instead, I'm like, when it's free to play,
it's like, Okay, this is an opportunity to expand the group of
people I'm playing with beyond the people I know bought the game. So I
like that. And Fall Guests is a game I've enjoyed and I have checked
in on occasionally over the last year or wherever it's been out. But this
is like a huge opportunity for me be like, Okay, here is a
lightning rod where I know a bunch of people are gonna be playing. I
know a bunch of people are going to be interested in for the for the
first time because of the poor and because it's free to play, and so
I'm going to, you know, go in there and check it out again.
And then that's why plan. Although we were going to stream the custom
games on Friday, it turned it sounds like they shut off Custom Games.
I don't know if they turned it back on. So yeah, we're gonna
have to look into that, so maybe maybe we'll have to rework upf But
if they turn it back on by Friday, yeah, we'll figure it out
absolutely. But if they get it working, we will still do it.
I would love to do that. It sounds like a good time. I
feel like what has replaced free to play games within my friend's circle, specifically,
it's just game pass right where you know exactly right, Like I had
a friend that was not necessarily into a left or Dead Back for bloodstyle game,
but because he already had game Pass, he was like, all right,
well I'll try it out. I'll download it, and then you know,
we would up beating the whole thing together. Right, So I think
you're right about free to play still having a weird connotation in people's heads where
it's like, oh, well I don't want to play that then because they're
going to try and charge me a bunch of money down the line, versus
I guess the weird upfront cost of game Pass and that being a easier pill
to swallow, because I mean, like I've played, I've played hours again
should impact and I got lucky where I didn't actually drop any money in to
get more roles. I dropped money in because I wanted to support the developers
and be like, hey, good job, thank you for making this.
Yeah, and it's the kind of thing where I am I get why people
are kind of those connotations of free to play games and they're hesitant and and
all that stuff. But when it's when when it's these people that like that
are not subscribe to game pass, it's like this is one way to get
them in. But game passing, you're right, has been become this other
thing of Okay, I know it is a cost each month, but we
often play games together and have a good time. And if we just consider
this the price of having fun and we kind of built it in into our
expectations, I think it's easier to manage that. And then when a game
comes along and you convinced them to play it, it is at that point
it's they just spent their time and they just download it, and so if
things go don't aren't great, and they don't have a good time and they
don't enjoy the game. While the pain points are very small there, it
is okay, well we've just done on installed, we just won't play it
again, and we're not thinking about, Oh, I just spent sixty dollars
on this, Jeff, the next time you ask me to play a game
with you, I'm going to reconsider, like whether or not even want to
do that, even though we often do have fun. Still that this just
cost me money because you talked to me into spending this money. And again
that's just my own guilt associated with it. But but yeah, you're right.
Game Pass has a very similar effect, and it's one of the things
that I think is really good about it. And now you know, I
think the way PlayStation Plus works now, it's going to be very similar for
a lot of people. Even if it isn't a lot of Day one Sony
games, I think they're still going to keep up like Day one, smaller
third party games and then a huge library of catalog stuff that's going to be
really good for a lot of people. Like I had a group of friends
that gave me guff because I asked them to buy Uno and it was like
one ninety nine, uh exactly. We could play Uno together and then I
had to miss the game night because you know, life events and whatnot.
Uh, And then they were very upset with me about making them spend one
ninety nine, right, and I and I realized, like okay, all
right, sure, sure one ninety nine adds up down the line, but
like y'all pay for like so many different subscription states, and like you like
dropping the bucket here or you get like like really like one ninety nine is
so cheap, like compared to like you know, going to get a drink
from somewhere, and it's like that's you know, it could be three four
or five six dollars. And but we just for some reason, I know,
games and and entertainment stuff that we're not like associated with like sustenance.
I suppose we just think about it as like, okay, every dial there
hurts that much more, and one dollars hurts, two dollars really hurts,
let alone sixty dollars. Right, The chat brings up an excellent point.
One ninety nine is cheaper than actual UNO. Like yes, Deck of Cards.
Absolutely, yes, you can go to target and find UNO for like
what like like yeah, like ten dollars or something like that. I don't
know how much does UNO cost these days. Probably still make a lot of
money off that, Yeah, I look it up right now. While he's
doing that let's talk about our question for tomorrow. I will put this up
on my Twitter feed. Should Sonic Games be sad? I want you to
tell me that. You tell me should Sonic Games be sad? Yes?
Or no? I will put that on the Twitter feed at some point whenever
I remember to do that today. All right, how much does it cost?
Jana Choa, Jeff Grebb, what what did you say again? I
said nine ninety nine? Well, uh, egg on almost both of our
faces because I thought it was going to be around the same price. Five
sixty nine. Okay, fair enough. Yeah, printing costs. I bet
it's gonna I bet it's gonna go up in print, the retro edition five
ninety nine. Oooh okay, that actually thirty cents to get that. Those
nostalgia and lives. Absolutely it's I suppose, yeah, printing stuff's not.
It's one of those commodities at this point. You know, have you ever
played Duo the sequel to Uno? No, I'm not playing. I know.
I've seen it at Target a couple of times, and I'm like that
seems like that seems weird. I mean, they're trying to make it happen.
Maybe I bet it has not happened. I bet it's not taken off.
If anyone knows anyone who's ever played oh is it? It's not Dose?
Maybe this dose, it could be dope. That makes more sense.
Yes, So if you played Dose or duo, whatever it's called, let
me know, let me know how much fun you had. Jen, We're
gonna wrap up the show, but I need to know what is happening on
Giant Bomb later today and for the rest of the week. Oh boy,
Well, yesterday there was an obscene amount of content popping off. You and
five other members of the crew played through quite a big chunk of team and
t Shredders revenge. That quick look is now live on the site. An
episode of Jeff Jeff's One Punch Jeff, I forget what the actual title off
the show is. I Apologize another album or another arcade pit not an episode
of Game Mess Mornings from yesterday with Lucy James. Yes, watch that one.
It was a lot of fun. Today we've got another episode of the
Voicemail Dump Truck tomorrow, another episode of Game Mess Morning, the finale of
Run to the Hills, and in another episode of UPF two cap off the
week, and you know there's a little there's a little note and a little
uh, a little calendar today, Yeah, a little note. What is
this? What does this say? It says I think that everyone is attractive,
very attractive, all day long, very very attractive. Now, all
this is subject to change, except for that You're you're gonna be attractive all
day all right, are subject to change. You made you know. After
two pm, some people just going so all right, Jane, thank you
so much for this today. I really appreciate that you're coming in here on
Thursday's helping me out talk about the news. It's always a good time Thursday.
Yeah, I'm thursdays too. With that though we are out, I
want to thank everybody for listening. This show is only as good as the
people watching. It's what I always say. I've always said that, and
I'm going to keep saying that. So until the next morning, mess have
a good one, take care of yourself, and goodbye.