Beat. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this for April third,
twenty twenty four. For the next hour or so, let me help
you sort through the world of gaming on Game Mess Mornings Live with me Jeff
Grubb. Today, we may get another Prince of Persia game very soon,
and the summer game mess season is upon us. But first please join me
and welcoming today's co host of Game Mess Mornings. It's Steven Spawn. Everybody.
Steve, how are you doing. Oh really, I'm supposed to make
noises? Yeah, Oh that's perfectly, I got it. Yes, that's
fantastic. Uh yeah those so. Yeah, Steve, it's been a minute
since we talked. How have you been what games you been playing recently?
How's it going. I'm doing really well. You know, it's it's it's
a feast er famine kind of time right now for gaming. Was a little
bit there's like, yeah, like N five games and then you're like winsor
of War games coming out. So I feel like I'm in the middle of
that backlog. I cannot get through all the games I want to play,
mostly because I can't escape Tarkov. I've been trying to escape it for a
long time. It keeps, it keeps pulling me back. I don't know,
I uh, well, that's I mean Tarkuff. I've never even been
able to get into an extraction shooter. Is Tarkoff still the one I should
go to if I have some curiosity about that genre? Absolutely? Yeah,
it's it's it's the one that sort of is becoming the dominant one over at
it. And the amount of people that watch Tarkov now too is just ridiculous.
Holy crap, there's tens of thousands of people in that category any day
of the week. Yes, it's it definitely seems like that that is the
maybe not the shooter genre du jore, but it seems like the one that
is the newest and freshest for a lot of people. After Battle Royals kind
of took over from traditional just common strike kind of games. So okay,
so it's not worth it for me to like go into the Call of Duty
one or something like that, like a simpler one. I should just cut
my teeth on tark Off. You know, it doesn't have the same The
one thing that a lot of them are missing that Tarkov has is that feared
It's almost like it's almost like having a horror game that you're playing with a
shooter. It's it's it's adrenaline constant. You know that is that is so
my jam too, because that's what that is. What I liked about Pubg
over a lot of the other ones is I felt actually scared him Pubg,
and I never feel never feel scared in Fortnite. Not that that's really a
knock against Fortnite. Fortnite's doing its own thing. But for me, I
did come for that adrenaline. That's it's the adrenaline rostassly. And you know
what the weird thing is, you you a good player, only lives sixty
at the time in Tarkoff, So when you actually have some kind of a
loot in your bag and you managed to get out with it, it is
a ridiculously good Hi. So all right, yep, it's gonna I'm gonna
have to make it happen. It's time now, especially now that things are
starting to slow down a little bit with with game releases, I feel like
I can make time for some of these things I imagined I would have is
go back and play. The great thing about Tarco is it wipes every six
months, and this one's like the best one that they've ever done. So
it's it's phenomenal. They're figuring out their player retention problem, which is great.
That's a that's a fantastic here. That's getting better than ever. Steve.
One of the reasons I had you on here is Lucy's just too lazy.
She went to some concert last night and she's like, she mentioned,
Steve's got something going on this week and maybe they'd be fun to have him
on to talk about it. You're having a charity gala this weekend. Tell
the people about that. What's that? Like? How did that get started?
I know this is the second annual one. How is it getting bigger
this year? How can people participate? Yeah? I appreciate you having me
on to talk about that. It's sort of my labor of love on gaming
and disability. Right, So we discovered during the pandemic it's it kind of
sucks when you can't go out to conventions. We can't get to these places,
and we came up with an idea is what if you could have all
the fun of a convention, but it was online and only online, And
so we put together this little app on gather Town that allows you to go
in and be the two D character, like a start dy Valley where you're
literally walking around this virtual environment entirely dedicated to all the things the able gamers
does helping people with disabilities be able to play games. It's phenomenal. Last
year, you know, we had Ninja, Brian drum nsp on there,
you know, doing the headlining, having DJs all night long, and it's
just it was just a giant party. It was just a giant celebration of
gaming and how we can all play together. It's phenomenal and I've been super
proud to be a part of it for the last two years. This is
year number two, which means that we can only do better than last year,
I think. So, you know, let's just keep making it better
every year and inviting people to come have a good time. We have a
bunch of influencers, a bunch of friends, you know, inviting people like
you to come along and be like, hey, I'm going to be there,
and then your fans get to go, oh wow, actually might get
to meet the Jeffs himself. Yes, and I'll definitely be there. That
sounds it sounds like a great time. It is. It's it's all online.
How do you make sure the environment feels like spontaneous and anything can happen
and you can meet anybody, you know. That's that's the beauty of the
online world is it's it's it really is a startering map in a lot of
ways. It's, uh, you know, people over here to talk to
you, you can walk through people, You're able to take part in events.
Last year, World the Warships put a freaking ship in the middle of
the map because why not, you know, it was great. They were
like, can you put a submarine in the water fountain. I'm like,
I don't think we could do that, but okay, maybe something so so
I ended up having a giant thing there. It's great. But yeah,
people from Logitech Voody Rangers, which we're having a lot of high level interest
this year in celebration. It's actually able gamers twentieth year. I think,
yeah, I don't I don't remember. It was like year two or three
that I met you. But we're old, my friend. It's yeah,
we've been doing this a while, so long time, yes, twenty years,
Holy moly. Okay, so let's uh, people are are hearing this,
they're interested, how can they participate? Where should they go? What
does it take to get into the gala? Go to ablegamers dot org slash
gala and you'll see this really cool page that tells you all about the entertainment
and what we're doing. Talks about amount of peers, but don't tell her
I has said that, and it shows off you know who's all going to
be there. And you can buy either a ticket for twenty five books or
there is a loop box that we've got for more support if you have a
couple of ex hieer dollars and you want some memorabilia. It's a really cool
box that has new and different stuff every year. This year our friends over
at Logitech coming in with some virtual goods that are only there for the first
hundred boxes. So once they're out there out and then it's just a lot
of bottle of lable gamers that you're paying for it, So I suggest you
go get your love sticks then. And the money that like funds the gala,
does that go into like a funding able gamers core mission? Is?
Is it like just all kind of pays itself forward. Yeah, this is
all just an event just to celebrate aable gamers and raise money for it at
the same time. Unfortunately, Stable Gamers is no different than any other charity
financially. It's been a hard year in the industry, the video game industry.
We all know this has been a hard year. So you know,
donations across the board for all charities are down. It's no different. Lable
Gamers and rather than doing a PBS style please give this kind of thing,
we just want to go celebrate, have a good time. The gaming community
has always done great taking care of us and making sure that the funding that
we need is there to help gamers who need the equipment that we provoke.
Yeah, there is a lot of I think reasons why I enjoy going to
events, but I do often think about, like how hard it was for
me to even be able to afford going to events early on in my career,
or even before I had a career, And I think this idea of
let's cut out all of that superfluous stuff, the stuff that does get in
the way, and try to virtualize it in the best way possible. It's
admirable. I'm glad you're doing this. I'm happy to participate, and I
can't wait. So thanks for coming on and talking about it. Steve again
one more time. Where should people go if they want to participate? Yeah,
go to ablegamers dot org slash Gala, let's find it out how to
buy a ticket, and you can see pictures and video from last year's event
to see how cool it is if you combine Zoom plus Starty Valley. Hell
yeah, all right, let's explain what we do here on this show most
weekdays, I, Jeff Greb, will help piece your gaming life back together.
That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own original reporting.
For all these topics, I'll get the input of a bona fide expert who
will make me look smart. If you are watching live on Twitch welcome.
You can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching for game
Mes Mornings, or find the RSS on giant bomb dot com. You can
also catch the show later chapters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello YouTube. All
right, we have a lot to get into, so let's start the morning
mess with sixty percent of playtime in twenty twenty three went to six year old
or older games, New data shows. This is from zax Swizen Akutaku,
a newly released game industry report by market researcher new Zoo shows that while the
PC and console market grew by two point six percent in twenty twenty three,
overall playtime decreased as gamers spent more and more time in a smaller list of
old games like Fortnite and League of Legends. On April second, new Zoo
released its second annual game industry Report, including a ton of data and information
on what people were playing and spending money on during twenty twenty three. According
to new Zoo's data, the PC and console game market grew and reached ninety
three point five billion dollars in revenue in twenty twenty three. That might seem
like good news, but drilling down into the data, it becomes clear that
it's only good news for a small number of publishers and developers. News new
Zoo's data shows that the top ten games on each platform, ranked by their
average number of monthly active users or maus, are filled with old, established
titles. Fortnite took the crown on all platforms, including Switch and PC.
The rest of the list include titles that won't surprise you, like Grand Theft,
Auto Five, Counter Strike Two, Roadblocks, Minecraft, Rocket League,
Apex, Legends, Fall Guys, Valorant, and Call of Duty. Across
Xbox and PlayStation consoles. Only one dedicated single player game crack the top ten,
and that was Starfield. Steve. I've talked about this new zero apart
in a couple places now I know that was they had a thing at GDC,
I think where they talked about this. People started picking it up yesterday.
I figured it's a good time now, like not to let the conversation
get by. I am a little bit worried about what I see in these
numbers, Steve. Where it feels like the sportification has come to gaming,
where people treat it as a hobby, and that is sort of hard to
ignore. So in sports, you know, we have established sports that people
choose as their hobby and it's very hard to introduce a new sport and people
away from those. It does happen people playing out pickleball. Yeah, sure,
that's out there and people are are getting interested in that for the first
time in some time. But for the most part, people you know,
like your kids go place, goes to play soccer, they go to play
something else like that. They they aren't like taking chances on something new and
strange and different. And now that gaming is this service based thing and so
many people are like getting on these things to spend time with their friends,
it feels very much like the same thing is happening here. Is that a
problem? Is that something where it's like you know that that? Is this
a natural endpoint for where gaming was headed? How do you feel about it?
Steve? You know number one, being a disabled AF person, I
don't understand pickleball. How am I supposed to hit the pickle when you throw
it at It doesn't make sense, Steve. No one understands pickleball. We're
all in that same boat. Okay, all right, I just wonder,
but you need a lot of hand eye coordination. I just eat the pickle.
I don't get it. You know, there is a thing here in
Pittsburgh called Picklesburg. You could come you get you all these you want for
an entire weekend. So that even sounds delightful. Not the cotton candy part.
That's weird anyway. So I think this is kind of just where gaming
is going. I mean, patch the list. When I was looking at
the graphic this morning, it's like, you know, Fortnite Rocket League,
the SIMS League, legends. You're literally naming off all the games that all
of my streamer friends are constantly playing, and it's hard to break out of
it, not only because you know, like you're saying that people wanting to
play it, but that's what they want to watch too. Like, if
you are someone who's a streamer and you're trying to go outside of these sopped
in, it is a hard road. It is a steep climb, Like
people just want to watch what they want to watch. Even the top of
the show talking about my game Tarkov is more than six years old, so
you know, it's it's it's something strange, and I kind of wonder in
my head sometimes, are we kind of at the playing the video game industry
as where movie start remaking themselves because they're running out of really great original ideas,
so they start rebooting. But it's really hard to do that in video
game land, you know. Yeah, I mean I think that, you
know, we definitely are in a place where like a lot of the big
companies are remaking a lot of their biggest games, I mean, but at
least they're doing it in kind of ways that are big and interestingly some of
them Capcom and then I think that funds their ability to take chances on some
other stuff, and we get Dragon's Dogma two, which does feel pretty original,
even though it's very similar to track Ands Dogma one in a lot of
ways. But it just it feels like this is it's inevitable at a certain
point that if you try to get you know, as many people playing a
handful of games as possible, because that's just economically that makes the most sense.
You want to have one big live service game that just can draw on
everybody that it takes up all the oxygen out of the room and it makes
it impossible to sort of escape its gravity. I think Map Piscatella from what
was once MPD now Sarkana refers to them as black hole games. It's just
because they're gravity as so great that nothing escapes them. And the thing about
a black hole is it just gets big. It gets bigger, and it
sucks him more, and it's like it becomes more difficult to escape its gravity
over time. It doesn't sort of weighing in power, so and it like
looking at the numbers, that continues to be the direction that things are going.
Now, is this really a concern? Is does this mean we get
fewer interesting games. I'm not so sure about that. I think what these
numbers say to the big companies is is your risks are riskier than ever.
So yeah, maybe fewer interesting games from the biggest companies, but I think
there's going to continue to be a bubbling up of indie games that really fill
in a lot of those gaps. So I'm not like, oh, like
walking around like Charlie Brown worried about the oh this is the individeo games.
But I do think like, hey, we are going to be in for
some lean years from the big companies that were accustomed to relea seeing the most
interesting games, or at least the biggest the most interesting games. Does that
sound right to you? You know, I think one of the things that
were looking at this a little bit off on is lesson than black holes.
It almost feels like it's more like bubbles is how we're used to seeing video
games. Right. It's like, take, for example, you mentioned pubbs
earlier, right, Nobody thought pubs could be taken down until one day nobody
played it. And that's kind of the way the video games seem to work.
As you got like this huge, huge bubble of amount of people that
want to play it, and then all of a sudden something else comes along
pops it, and then you have just the core audience in there, and
then everyone else sort of goes on to the next thing. And we're kind
of used to that. But it hasn't happened to Fortnite. It hasn't happened
to Minecraft, it hasn't happened to the SIMS, you know. But then
again, they're really good at bringing down their own games. For example,
SIMS five will replace SAMs four, so you know, but Fortnite, I
mean, I don't know, man, it's such a megabeast. I don't
know that you kill it. Yeah, And I think you're right. This
is I think we were just used to things working that way for so long
that a change in that way I think what I considered to be the natural
order of video games. But the one thing that's true about video games is
it's ever stable. Something's always going to replace it. And it's like,
you know, that was true for the first thirty forty almost fifty years of
video games, but the grand scheme of things that's not that long, especially
like you look at the way, like you know, movies has changed and
sort of settle into the way it works. It's like that took a long
time, and it's it's much longer, and it's even that's not that old
of a medium, but it's like maybe this is the new natural order,
like and as long for me, as long as there is a space like
that like Steam, for small teams or even relatively big teams to take chances
on from the indie space and have their own ideas and kind of do a
punk rock like we're just going to do our own thing and have the chance
to burst through with something that no one was expecting. I think one I'll
be happy because that there's plenty of games to keep me interested with that stuff,
while I also occasionally dive into something like a tark Off where I'm like,
I'm glad that these things have massive scenes and feel like a hobby and
I can hop in with people who are right there to either guide me or
to give me a hard time, whether either one. That's gonna be fun.
So it's like I'm glad that space exists. At the same time,
I need like interesting ideas for me, novelties like one of the big things
that has always kept gaming interesting, and I don't think that will necessarily go
away. I think they're gonna keep pumping out those games. So I'm feeling
pretty good. And I think the other side of that is the indie game
scene is still kind of where a lot of these interesting ideas that have taken
over the space did come from. I mean, Minecraft was certainly that roadblocks
kind of that, even like pubg establishing a Battle Royale was that. I
think Tarkov's not from some like, you know, a major publisher. So
yeah, I think that if the indie game scene can keep producing interesting ideas,
one of those actually could maybe break the grip that even something like Fortnite
has, although that's looking less and less likely all the time. I don't
know if the fe is gonna work the way that they want it to,
Like, you know, the fort Nite engine is amazing, But do you
think that we'll ever see another League of Legends, which, for those of
you who don't know, League of Legends spawned because of Doda, which spawned
out the world the work Craft three, So the whole one of the Warcraft
IP is really what started League of Legends in a very weird way. So
I don't know if we're going to see a daisy chain like that again.
You know, yeah, I think that. I think you're right. I
think that that sort of what was once the daisy chain out of the modern
scene from big established games has sort of migrated to let's just make our own
game and put it on Steam early access. So I think that the spirit
of that is probably still happening, it's just not working that same way.
And I think you're right that Fortnite Unreal in Fortnite is not going to be
the thing that creates that. Actually, you know, they're trying to be
roadblocks. I think the people that come to Fortnite have a certain expectation of
the games that they play, having a certain level of gene and quality to
it, and kind of the low fi gaming experience of roadblocks that would not
be a good match for what happens inside Fortnite. But I don't know.
We'll see. I've been wrong many times before, Steve. We'll see if
it happens again. What all right, it's shocking. I'm not trying.
I'm not hearing to frighten you. All right, let's move ahead here.
Sony is planning a PlayStation showcase next month. It's claimed this from Tom Ivan
at VGC. Sony's reportedly planning to hold a PlayStation product showcase next month.
That's according to Giant Bomb Buffoon Jeff Grubb, who said today he's heard a
bunch of times that either a PlayStation showcase or a state of play will take
place in May, following the news that Konami's Silent Hill to remake remake has
been classified by the ESRB. So, yeah, on the BombCast yesterday,
I mentioned that I've been hearing multiple times now there will be a PlayStation something
next month. It does sound like deleaning towards a showcase. They definitely did
a showcase last May, so it's not too shocking, although looking to patterns
is never a sure thing. And yeah, I think it something like a
Silent Hill two could show up there, although it could happen earlier. This
that's kind of unrelated. That's me guessing about Silent Hill two. But yeah,
I think PlayStation doing showcase in May is something of a relief I am.
I know that they said in a financial report Steve that they don't have
any major like franchise follow up sequels for coming from any of their first party
studios this year and that's their fiscal year, so through March of twenty twenty
five, and that could feel kind of barren, But that doesn't mean that
they don't have a lot of games that are either you know, from these
newer studios or partner games, you know, from Square Unix or whoever else.
They probably do have a number of games to talk about, and I
am I'm ready to hear about it. I think PlayStation's been kind of quiet
for some time, and coming out and saying here's what's happening for the rest
of this year, even if it isn't from our first party, will be
a relief. And I also I do keep hearing that there will be some
smaller first party games like that Astro game that is supposedly still happening this year,
and I am very excited about that. So, yeah, does a
PlayStation showcase sound right to you? Are you excited? Are you ready for
some games to get announce to your PlayStation five? You know? I think
the wild thing about PlayStation is it it almost feels like either you're a PlayStation
fan or else. Everything else your attention goes to Xbox Game Pass, and
that's that's sort of it, Like it is it at game Pass. Great,
I'm gonna play it. You know, the Sony entire ticket has been
a little lack luster the last couple of years. It's got a couple of
big hits, but then I don't know, it's it's almost like they're worrying
more not about quantity right now than quality. It seems like they have these
a lot of games that they put out there, and you don't see a
lot of mass market advertisement for them. It's I don't know, it kind
of boggles my mind a little bit where they've almost kind of fallen into they
want the journalists to get their message out there that the games exist, rather
than you don't see as many PlayStation ads as you see on television or Twitch,
you know, anymore, but you see a lot of your Xbox games.
So maybe that means they're going to start pushing them again. Yeah,
I definitely, I think I remember, I think it was Sony. It
might have been Take two, and I might be conflating these, but one
of these CEOs at the time, we're saying, you know that one of
our biggest costs isn't even labor, it's marketing. We spend so much on
marketing that we want to cut back on that to save a lot of money.
And you know, at this point, maybe the PlayStation five kind of
sells itself in a lot of ways, you know, I say that,
And then, of course we do know that the PlayStation five did not meet
it's very high expectations for the last fiscal year, but those were always super
inflated. It was never really going to reach those numbers when you look back
at it. So yeah, so it seems like PlayStations that can ride some
strength here and not have to spend a ton on marketing. But they also
I think the reality is they just haven't had a lot of games to market.
You know, the Spider Man they definitely have. There were a lot
of ads for Spider Man. Yeah, yeah, and then we came out
of that and it's like, well, and then what's next, and so
well they said flat out not much. I think once they have some new
ips to talk about, I think you start with the PlayStation showcase, Steve,
and then that ramps up to a summer advertising campaign to lead you into
the holidays. Does that sound right? That sounds about right to me.
I mean, you know, they just the Sunny Access controller, which I
got tick card in that marketing, and it was it was really cool to
work with the team. But those are like the big most major push I've
seen them do in a while. I think about now games like Rocket League
and whatnot that I would have never found out about it. It wasn't for
a friend playing it because they weren't really heavily advertised. And sometimes I kind
of wonder if a lot of us are trapped. Okay, so the lead
story was about how we all played the top ten games, right? But
is that because we only want to play the top ten? Or is that
because it's so hard to hear above the noise of all the games that are
released a game that you might truly love, you just might not know what
exists. Yeah, I mean I think it's both. I think it's a
big part of it. I mean, look at that content warning game that
came out this week. That was their their marketing STRATEGYI was, we are
going to be free for the first twenty four hours and then it's I think
it's like eight dollars after that or something around there, maybe maybe ten dollars,
but for that first twenty four hour it was free, and then I
think they probably partner with a lot of content creators, and the game was
downloaded something like six million times on that first day. Because actually, what
works is word of mouth, right, that's and but word of mouth is
a very difficult thing to get people upon it. The word of mouth is
friends spending their social currency with one another, and you don't do that for
something that you're not sure of, especially if you're gonna ask a friend to
spend money on something. So making your thing free is one good move on
that because people like, hey, get this, well it's still free,
it's limited time. That's what I did in our slack at work, am
I everyone just get this because we're probab gonna play it someday. I don't
want have to like track down codes for you. I still got I still
got codes because I knew these bastards wouldn't download it, and of course some
of them didn't, so I got a handful of codes for them. I
still I'll hand those out to you, Jan Jan. But it's like you
can't just repeatedly say, hey, buddy, get this other seventy dollars game
to play with me and maybe maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't.
You can only do that so many times. So the free to play games,
the sure things, the things that have been proven successes are the things
that continue to grow. And word of mouth as well. I think Steve
right absolutely word of mouth is how you sell a game. I mean,
when we did the GDC Awards thing two years ago and I got up on
stage, I literally called out Inscription as the night of the what we were
doing that night, because it had won like ninety five awards and it only
been running for like, I don't know, the show had been on for
five minutes. They already won that many awards. I didn't even know how
it was possible, but they kept waiting the whole time. And I think
that's kind of where we end up with the indie games. Is yet just
like really stand out one that comes above the rest, and that's all anybody
talks about. And again I think runaway success like that is great. Inscription
is a fantastic game. If you've never tried that, you should, But
at the same time, there's only so much air. I know a lot
of my friends in the author wor'll talk about it all the time, and
I kind of wonder if it's now in gaming too, where there are so
many random crappy books that come out that's someone putting no effort into They went
to show TVT and said write a book, and it was like okay,
and then wrote a book and then you publish it, right, And so
if you have to scan through all those in order to find the ones where
somebody poured their heart and soul for eight years, yeah, like you're really
easy to miss it accidentally. Yep, absolutely, it's uh. And I
think that comes back to like, so when people recommend something, they do
it with they do it with some hesitation, and you want to be very
careful about it, and so that that's a big hurdle to overcome in a
lot of ways. So, you know, coming back to PlayStation showcase,
this is I think PlayStation could talk to their audience. I think that that
audience is always ready for PlayStation say here are the games that matter. Sony
doesn't. But it doesn't feel like Sony always capitalizes on that, to be
honest. So we'll see, Hey, a showcase usually made some big stuff.
They also have that rumored PS five pro coming out later this year.
Maybe you know that apps off the end of a showcase, so there'll be
stuff to talk about. I just you know, I hope there's some fun
games, that's all. I'm all right, you know what. Actually,
we're gonna take a quick break when we get back. Plenty more headlines to
get to. Let's go ahead and hit that right now. See you soon,
everybody. All right, we are back and this was an interesting one.
Prince of Persia. There's a new Prince of Persia game from Dead Cell
devs coming, and that's according to a report. This story comes from Georgi
Yang at game Spot. A new Prince of Persia game is reportedly being developed
by Evil Empire, the studio behind Dead Cells. The game is reportedly called
The Rogue Prince of Persia and will be released in Steam Early Access. According
to a report from Insider Gaming, it's apparently a new Rogue light game,
and it's been in development for the last four years. The art style is
also reportedly inspired by Franco Belgian comics, which sounds incredible to me. While
it's reportedly slated to be released later this year year, it's unclear when it
will be officially announced. However, it could be revealed at the Triple I
Initiative showcased on April tenth, as Evil Empire will present its new project.
There, Steve, we just got a Prince of Persia game, and yet
this this doesn't bother me at all. I love the idea of a franchise.
I like getting you know, bang bang bang, multiple injuries from different
developers taking different ideas and different approaches to it. And a Rogue Light Prince
of Persia game sounds, especially from people who make Dead Cells the game I
really love, sounds very promising to me. How do you feel about this
approach of like, hey, we just we had our team make a Prince
of Persia game, and we have this indie studio making a Prince of Persia
game. Is that something that makes sense to you? I mean we just
talked about it, right, Why not let the indies hus a crack at
something, And especially in Rogue Light, Man, Rogue Lights and Rogue likes
are just one of my favorite genres. Saying it, they just added something
so new and fresh, especially if it has like a meta progression in it.
Oh man, Yeah me up on that. Stolln' micind of jams.
Anything where you can fail at a game quote a cool well also succeeding.
Yeah, those are something to mention that in the Prince of Persian world,
I mean it kind of the Rogui theme just kind of fits naturally, you
know, right. I mean again, a franchise is that's had time travel
a bunch of times rewinding. Yeah, you could easily see how that would
fit with like lore wise, but also yeah, just a good fit for
taking something that maybe looks a little bit like dead cells, applying that Prince
of Persia's skin, and then bring in some stuff that is very Prince of
Persia. Yeah, and I totally agree like the idea of when you fail
in a rogue light, but you feel like, Okay, I learned something,
so that's one piece of progression, and maybe there's a little bit of
metaprogression that I'm unlocking stuff that will be now showing up in the game later.
Those two things sort of tricked my mind into like feeding into one another.
It's like, oh, I'm progressing them unlocking stuff, and really I'm
progressing because I'm learning the game more. But those things like just fit together
really well and keep me attached to the game in a really strong way.
So I am very attracted to this idea. I'm also with you on the
let's let the indies have a crack at it. I go back to this
reference point a lot. But my favorite, I'm a Star Wars fan.
My favorite era of Star Wars video games was when they were putting out like
fifty a year, and they'll be like, oh, here's ten over on
this console, and here's a bunch on PC, and here's someone you can
only get on N sixty four. And that stuff is like, oh,
just a bunch of different developers taking different ideas and running with it. And
that still does kind of happen today with other franchises like Warhammer, Warmer.
There's a bunch of studios making stuff for them, And I'm like, why
is that approach not more common? And I hope this is the sign that
maybe that is happening. It probably isn't. This is probably just a quick,
little offshoot, but I wish it was more common. I think you
bring up the quaint essential example of putting out massive things is not a bad
thing. I mean a Warhammer puts out a new show, a figure,
a book, a comic, and a billboard every three minutes. Yep,
so exactly. People eat it up. Man. It's it's one of the
most you know, servants fandoms out there. I think if you're a Warhammer
said, you love Warhammer, so you know you'll buy everything they've got,
And it is strange. You're right, there aren't a lot of other ikes
that really dive into that. Even Marvel is pulled back saying, okay,
we're fatigue now. So you know they're they're down to three shows a year
now because they're afraid that they're tapping the market, right, they only have
one movie this year, Yeah, and it's and I mean, obviously there's
some sensitivity to making something that felt special no longer feel special. But I
mean, I don't know if I was getting an X Men ninety seven Beat
them Up, Arcade beat him Up this year from like an indie studio,
there's no way I'd be complaining that's exactly what I want, and then maybe
something else I wasn't expecting from a studio that's like taking the idea and twisting
on it, like, yeah, I don't know. I think obviously the
problem here seems to me that there aren't just endless studios out there pitching ideas
to these big publishers, and it's hard to like make these matches. But
I don't know. Figure it out. Figure it out, John Drake,
I don't know all right. Saber Interactive CEO says it's Star Wars Co Tour
remake is still alive and well. Yet again, this is from Chris Scullion
at VGC. The CEO of Saber Interactive, is confirmed that its remake of
Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic is still in active development. In an
interview with IGN, Matthew Karsch was asked to definitively confirmed that Saber was still
working on the game following it's split from a Bracer group last month. He
said, it's clear, and it's obvious that we're working on this. It's
been in the press numerous times. What I will say is the game is
alive and well, and we're dedicated to making sure we exceed consumer expectations.
Now, this is something that is partially happy. Part of this is partially
my fault. I have that story with my god that games sounds dead,
and then I corrected it the next day saying it sounds dead as far as
Sony's concerned. I don't know if the studio is still working on it.
And then of course Jason tryerh head that story is like now they're still working
at the studio. I don't know if it ever come out, but they're
still working on it. And now every time that anyone from from Saber talks
about anything, they have to answer that question, is that game still alive?
So my bad Saber, but I wish someone would ask the would have
asked them, Hey, what about Sony's involvement? Because this game originally got
announced at a Sony showcase and as a big Sony PlayStation partnership, whereas like
PlayStation is publishing this game, and again, as far as I've heard,
is now Sony wants nothing to do with it, and they've they've kind of
severed that. I'm a little confused about how that would work because it's like
I would assume there's a contract there, but maybe the game was maybe they
had like an out clause at some point they got out of it. But
as far as I'm aware, Sony wants nothing to do with this game anymore.
So what about that side of things? Still see them up in the
air. But for your part, Steve Kotor remake, they're still working on
it. They want to exceed consumer expectations, probably not coming out for several
more years. Are you excited? Is this something that you care about?
I liked the Nights of the Old Republic and I was a huge Star Wars
Old Republic MMO fan played that for yearing so I love that world. I
love that universe. But it's interesting to me to see when a publisher kind
of loses steam on something, how that can really affect, you know,
what happens to it. We just talked about marketing. You know, it's
a big thing, but yeah, I don't know whether or not there they'll
ever get done with it. But the thing is, Tots were used to
be that thing you just talked about where they just released another one every time
they felt like it. Like, you know, there's a billion Nights of
the Old Republic and we all liked all of them. So, you know,
maybe get back into just letting people grab a saber and go light some
stuff up. You know. Yep, that sounds real nice to me.
I'd like Saber Interactive. I continue to think that they do good work.
They are very busy. They got Space Marine two, They're supporting expeditions of
mud Runner game, they have several other projects. I believe that they can
make a good nights to the Old of Old Republic remake. If they have
the time and the budget, that is the bit concern, though it seems
like it would require a lot of money to make the game as it was
announced. We'll see though, if any studio can make it work. It
is that there's some technical wizards over there at Saber, so I'm hopeful.
New research suggests some gamers' eyes see more frames per second. This is from
Levi Winslow at Kotaku. Ever wondered how pro gamers get so well pro Sure,
it's the hours of grinding and practicing, mastering of game's systems and applying
them in a competitive and competitive situations. And yeah, it's the hours of
learning and studying, returning to the game's roots and watching the players that came
before. But also it may just be better eyeballs. According to a new
research out of Dublin, pro gamers see more images than others. As spotted
by The Guardian, Ireland's Trinity College Dublin recently published a paper in the peer
reviewed open access journal plos one. The research investigated a human characteristic called temporal
result, which measures our our eyes ability to discern between different visual signals and
influences our reaction speed to changes in our environment. As the paper found,
some people, when presented with a light that was flashing about thirty five times
per second, saw it as constantly lit. In other words, they could
not perceive the flashes, while others could see the light flashing even when the
frequency of flashes was greater than sixty times per second. In the same way
that video games can run at thirty frames per second or sixty frames per second,
this research suggests some people's eyes can see visual signals at either thirty images
per second or sixty images per second, and this impacts athletes and gamers specifically.
I think they tested this with like tennis players, and the ones that
had this higher visual resolution were, you know, tip tended to have a
better chance at playing tennis or something like that. And you know the way
that the conversation around frames per second happens. Steve this paper like sheds a
lot of light on why why that conversation is so weird sometimes where like some
people like, hey, no, I don't see the difference, and some
people are like I cannot stand looking at anything that is under sixty frames per
second. If a sixty frame. If a void bob was flashing at sixty
times per second and you saw that as flashing, that would be very annoying.
And I bet those people are especially sensitive. Does this sound right to
you? Are you someone that craves a higher frame rate or does it matter
to you? I like higher frame rates for sure, and I could see
where you know, this is just an adaptation of human physiology, but there
is begging those of profiling disabled. Guy. I'm telling you that it's wild
how your body sort of starts to make up for Yeah, you know what
you're lacking in one area, it strengthens the other. It sounds like an
a little less stale. But I can tell you one of my skills that
came in andy for gaming was I've been in a power wheelchair since I was
eight years old, so my brain has learned to see the world in geometry.
So when my arms were good enough that I could drive with a precision,
fast and inferious driver, I could walk into a room that I've never
seen before. They had a couch and an end table and some chairs.
I could literally look at the room, spin around and go backwards, park
into a spot and not hit a thing. Because my brain knew how to
do that. So when I translated that to things like Sony's games where you
did top down to the shooting had to bounce bullets off the walls in order
to hit people like pull shots, like, the geometry in my brain just
kicked right in because I had already been used to that kind of physics.
And I think that's probably where these kinds of things go as well. If
you're a natural born athlete or whatnot, it's probably not hard for your brain
to see in that kind of fast motion vision. Yeah, And I think
I think speaking of like something that you kind of if you're in an environment
where these things matter. If you are someone who's like playing tennis from a
young age and you do need to understand where the ball is going to go
next, being able to you know, looking at that over and over again,
you're probably going to become more accustomed to looking for tiny differences and that
probably increases your ability to see you know, frames per second or images per
second, however they want to describe it. I bet it's something that if
you look for it, if it's something that matters to you, if it's
something that matters to your hobby, you become more sensitive to it, so
and I'm sure at the same time there's also some natural born elements there for
sure. For me these days, Steve, forty five frames per second is
good. Playing a lot on the steam deck. If I can get forty
five frames per second, it looks pretty smooth to me, and I'm very
happy that that's the case, because I don't need to be pushing many more
polygons per second than what we already have. So I'm glad my steam deck
works in most cases because of that. But thirty frames per seconds still pretty
painful to me. I don't like it too much these days. It kind
of bums me out when a game runs at thirty frames per second. Yeah,
I mean, I imagine thirty. We used to be like, oh
my god, this is amazing, you know. Now we kind of look
at it as it's trash and it's it's It's funny how the way your expectations
move as the years go on. But I can I mean, I have
friends who you know are wanting monitors that you know have you know, up
to one thousand France for silver. You realize your brain can't actually comprehend that,
right, Like they're literally just making numbers at this point. Yeah,
and it's there is the very top esports athletes having like a three hundred and
sixty hrtz display that it does make a difference for them, but just then,
like, oh, the only people on earth that matters for are like
the top counter striking valorant players and having like just that tiny bit of extra
information of how a character is moving through a space, like that little crack
in the wall. Yeah, so you could see like that that like sliver
of them as opposed to like, oh, now the already half of them
has passed before they showed up in that sliver. Yeah, that can make
a difference, but it's really just you're not going to see the difference,
absolutely not. All right, moving on once again here, this is the
last week your three DS and We YOUU games will work online. This is
from georgiangat game Spot. On April eighth, at four pm Pacific times seven
pm Eastern online play and communication functionality for Nintendo three DS and We You will
shut down. These online services include co op leaderboard rankings and data distribution.
Back in October twenty twenty three, Nintendo announced that it would be shutting down
in early April and now we have a definitive date. There are a few
exceptions, such as Pokemon Bank and Poke Transporter, which will stay online for
the foreseeable future, but Nintendo clarified that they still may end at some point
as well. There's a bunch of other features that like spot Pass uses online
communications, so it will not be available after shutdown. However, Street Pass
uses a local communication, meaning that it'll still function. Thank god. This
is a bummer. I had a lot of fun playing some three DS games,
specifically online. Mario Kart seven was really a good time. I played
a ton of that. Super Mario Maker is an especially important game to me.
I I love that game and training levels with people and actually but mostly
I have in like, you know, one rival training levels back and forth
with me and I would play them. Uh that that was really special.
I got to go download those and make sure I can keep them and preserve
them on my local But I'm like, I'm like playing Super Mario Maker,
Steve, but I'm like looking at the way it works, and I'm like,
even if I say these levels locally, a lot of times it feels
like it's trying to communicate and talk to online before I can even get to
that menu. I hope that that functions once the once the servers are down
in the game, it just isn't fully broken. That would be devastating.
So yeah, it's it's an end of an era. Obviously, this was
always going to come to an end, but it still bumps me out.
Steve, how do you feel about it? Were you a big street passer?
Did you definitely a hug street passer? Yes, And it sounds like
street bass will still work. I guess we'll see. I don't know.
I knew people who would just pervently be running around pack started to street pass
as many humans as they possibly could. I remember them having a lot of
fun with it too. Three DS was not a particularly accessible console for me,
so I missed them a lot of that kind of fun. But from
my perspective, it was always interesting that it seemed like the three DS's main
hook was being able to do things with each other. So, you know,
closing down the online services and they're definitely trying to move people on for
sure. Yeah, and it's I'm sure that there's costs involved in costs with
like you know, customer support, like if someone has an issue and you're
like, why are we still supporting this thing? Or you have to have
a huge infrastructure behind the scenes, and maybe no one is using that customer
service stuff. So I get why these things deprecate over time, but yeah,
it's it's a bummer for me. And I have been playing Dan the
Reikert's levels that he made it Super Mario Maker, which are just true nightmares.
But people are really enjoying those streams, and I do have them all
downloaded locally, at least I think I do. I'm gonna double check today
everybody, but I hope that they still work because it would be a real
shame if those levels were lost. And I know we could like recreate them
in Super Mario Maker two, but we shouldn't have to do that. That's
that's things. We should just be able to continue to have it in the
port. That would wouldn't actually bring them up to the next generation. It's
Nintendo, right, that's the answer. Is this is just how Nintendo operates.
They don't like, you know, just no, just make make new
levels or go back to the old one and then well, actually we're shutting
down the old ones, so too bad. It's Nintendo and they don't care
that much about that sort of continuity. Uh, it's that is a negative
of that company. And you would think, you know, it can't be
too hard to create a tool that you just press a button and now it
works in Super Mario Maker two, and I bet it wouldn't be that hard.
But Nintendo just does not put efforts into those kinds of quality of life
online features. So it's a bummer as long as I can keep playing those
levels, though, I will keep playing them on Giant Bomb everybody, So
keep looking for to Mario Maker Morning mess Win available all right. A new
Mario RPG survey acknowledges existence of the Mario and Luigi series. This is from
Liam Doolan at Nintendo Life. Nintendo is reportedly sending out a survey that has
fans of certain Mario franchise is excited about what could be on the way.
As highlighted by Mario fans across multiple subreddits and social media, a new survey
not only acknowledges the paper Mario and Super Mario RPG titles, but also the
handheld series Mario and Luigi. Of course, just a handful of these questions
have already led to speculation that Mario and Luigi games could be making a return.
There are also many questions asking about the gameplay mechanics across each of these
series, with mention of the battlesystems, features and even characters. So this
is interesting because Mario Luigi's from a team called Alpha Dream. That studio shut
down because they put out a couple of Mario Luigi remasters and remakes at the
end of the three DS when the switch was out and everyone in the world
stopped buying three DS games, so those games did very early and the studio
had to shut down, which to me was always like, Nintendo, you
kind of did this team dirty. I know, you don't own their partner,
help them out and keep them going so you can keep making these games.
But again, no, Nintendo fucking weird a lot of times, and
so that studio went away, and I think the expectation is Mario Luigi goes
away with them. So now people see Mario Luigi in the survey and they're
getting their hopes up. I think, Steve, when I looked at the
survey, the sense I got is that Nintendo is looking for ideas that people
liked from all the Mario RPGs to inform how they make RPGs going forward.
For example, there were a couple of questions about, hey, do you
like when like Lee's ARPGs have new characters like Gino and Mallow from Super Mario
RPG? Or do you will only like it when they have familiar Mario characters
like Peach and Bowser, And there was options for like, I like new
characters, I like the familiar characters, or I like both equally. And
then another question was do you like it when these characters that are familiar behave
and look in a way that is consistent with how you expect them to behave
in other games, or it's okay if they act in unique and kind of
kookie ways. And these are definitely questions that have come up with the Mario
RPG franchise a series before where it was like, hey, it seems like
Meomoto doesn't like it when like the like a Koopa I was wearing a hoodie
or whatever, And now it feels like maybe they're softening on that, especially
depending on like how these survey questions pan out. I don't I'm not getting
my hopes up for a new Mario Luigi game. Steve I'm a huge Mario
Niji fan. I'm not getting my hopes up from that. I don't think
that a survey is a signaling that that's what happened, what is happening.
I don't know, what do you think? No, I don't think that
the surveys indicative of a particular title coming out. I think Nintendo is probably
trying to do their due diligence. I think that they are worried that,
you know, this is a new market, next generation coming up taking over,
you know what, what's gonna happen to Mario as we change into the
old guard like us, they're now in retirement homes playing our Super Mario you
know. Uh yeah, so well, the will the you know, the
next generation adapt to it and things they do like slash of your things they
do like the small micro transactions, you know, could we see a day
where you know, you can buy a little heavy for your Koopa on your
Nintendo store maybe so yeah, I could see where cosmetics are big. And
I think nintend they reckonize it. Yeah, And I think I think you're
right that they're like always looking into that younger audience. Nintendo is the one
major video video game company that has always been able to sort of renew itself
with new generations of players, where Sony and Microsoft seeming like hey, sometimes
they catch on, sometimes they don't. So Nintendo being like, hey,
how do you feel and then being like, oh, and we had you
sign in for the survey, so we know your demographics. And if you're
an old head, we know you're going to buy our shit no matter what.
But if you're a kid, that's actually what we care about. And
do you care if it's like a new character, do you like do you
want only Bowser and Princess Peach and Luigi and Mario in these games? And
if they say yes, I could see that really informing how Nintendo goes about
it. Absolutely. All right, let's see here, last story here,
kind of a quick thing coming to Xbox game Pass is Lego two K Drive,
EA Sports, PGA Tour, Harold Halibu and more. This for meggat
Spurt at Xbox Wire. My favorite part about coming soon to game Pass is
that it quickly turns into available today, and that includes a super hot mind
controlled Delete, which is coming to cloud console on PC. On game Pass.
There's a bunch of games returning to game Pass including Super Hot, Mind
Control, Delete, and some others. I guess that's what that's why it's
available today, and then the coming soon includes a Little Lego two K Drive,
Little Gator Game, EA Sports PGA Tour, Kona Botany manor Shadow of
the Two Raider Definitive Edition, and Harold Halibit. I'll tell you what,
Steve, That Harold Hallibate game looks very interesting to me. That's I'm glad
that that's on game Pass because it's one where I'm like, I fig it
looks interesting, but I maybe would wait for other people to tell me it's
a must play before I would dive into it. Being on game Pass,
maybe I'll just check it out and play it myself. But Harold Halibut is
that stop motion looking video game where it just actually looks like a stop motion
movie, but it's an interactive game, and I'm not sure how much like
you control the action. Maybe a lot of it is just like hey,
move a character over there, and it's like preset motions. But either way,
it looks fantastic. So I'm glad that's going to get a chance to
really catch on with a lot of people. And then I always like a
good golf game. So Ea Sports PGA two are showing up in here is
a good sign that a lot more people will end up playing that. But
yeah, how are you feeling about game Pass these days, Steve? I
mean, like we were talking about earlier. You know, it's a great
way to tryal things before you buy. It's a great way to see the
different games out there. I mean, you know me, I'm a huge
proponent of demos because you know, if you are a disabled person, you
may not be able to play a game, and you'll know within the first
three minutes, and that really sucks when you just spent seventy bucks for a
game and then you can't use it. Yeah, Bill, you know,
I'm a big fan of demos, and I think game Pass does that really
right. I don't know the financials of it, but I do know we
keep seeing some mega titles coming to the game Pass, so it must not
be quite the worst way to make a book as a studio. Yeah,
and now you see a lot of repeat customers, right. You see Sega
show up a lot of times with their games, and Capcom has had a
couple of games going there. I think it was Exo Primal in game Pass,
I think it was, and then and now they're you know, they're
back at it with that Path of the Goddess game, which is a single
player adventure game that has like a triple A budget, and Capcom is like,
yeah, we will put this new, brand new video game into Game
Past day one. To me, that continues to feel like a really big
deal, like a big publisher, a successful publisher like Capcom that knows how
to market a game, that knows that can build an audience with almost anything.
It's like, no, we had game Passes. Maybe the right way
for us to do that. It's a sign that I think something is working
there. At the same time, I don't know. I'm not sure about
game Passes long long term growth. It seems like it's reached all the gamers
it can reach. So I hope Microsoft's happy with it, because I continue
to be pretty happy with game Pass myself. Yeah. I mean, it's
the it's the Sega channel on steroids, right, that's right, that's right.
Did you ever use a channel? I never had a friend that holiday,
so I never got the chance to use it. Ill. Yeah,
I loved it because I was I don't think my mom when I was a
kid, says, go, I go to Blockbusters In the offense, She's
like, if I just get through the Sega channel, will you stopped?
And I'm like yes, So I take my thirty games a month. That's
incredible. All right, So let's get to the pole question from I believe
this is from Friday because we did the April Fool's episode on Monday where I
played Mario Maker instead. Are you going to try the Stellar Blade demo?
Thirty nine percent said yes, sixty one percent said no. I tried the
Stellar Blade demo. I thought that game was pretty fun, Steve. It
is. It's very much informed by a lot of other games, and that's
very obvious. It's got a lot of Near Automata, a lot of Bandetta,
a lot of Secero, a lot of Devil May Cry. And I
was talking to Sean who works with us here at Giant Bomb, and he
was like, yeah, I think people can kind of see what they what
they want to see in this game in terms of the gameplay mechanics. And
I definitely think that's true. I was definitely seeing a lot of sec Row,
he was seeing a lot of Devil May Cry. But yeah, I'm
also like not. I'm like a little surprised. It's like, you know,
the demos out there, it's like a big PlayStation exclusive. You know,
are people going to try it? Only thirty nine percent saying yes.
I wonder if this is a game that's going to need more word of mouth
going ahead? Is this something that you're interested in? On the other I've
learned about so literally literally hearing about it now. I mean that's again we
were talking about marketing and not finding out of the games. You know,
I didn't have a clue and I worked in the industry. So yeah,
so Stellar Blade is the one where if you see people arguing online about the
way women look in video games, this is the one. This is the
one that is getting people met and a lot of women are like, yeah,
we want to talk about this, and a lot of weird dudes are
getting very mad that anyone suggests that it's worth talking about, which is just
frustrating. So yeah, that's where we're at with all that. All right,
we have another pull question we're going to get to in a second.
Before we do that, Steve, why don't you tell people where they can
find you on the internet what you have going on and let's remind them once
more about the Able Gamers Gala. Yeah, people can find me Steven spawn
spelled just like it. Below the screen is Pohan just about anywhere, our
slightly defunked Twitter being the main place I like to hang. But you know
it's it's a muskrat village now, so take it as you will. But
the real reason that I'm here today and Jeff is putting up with me Shenandigans
is because of the Able Gamers Gala. The Gala is a really cool virtual
event if you think starby Valley meets Zoom, where you're gonna get to go
in and play in this two D environment where a bunch of your influencer friends
like you know, Little Simsey and Pirate Software and Jeff Grove are going to
be hanging out. So if you want to go hopefully bump into some of
your favorites, buy a ticket online Able Gamers dot org Slash Gala and come
check out all the festivities. We have a bartenders, livel unseeing character artists.
It's going to be a lot of fun. This is a big party
and it all supports gamers with disabilities. All proceeds going to support the missions
of able Gamers and let us keep the lights on fantastic again. Check that
out, everybody, ablegamers dot org slash Gala Dash twenty to twenty four if
you want to just go there. But yeah, just go to ablegamers dot
org. We'll be able to find it everybody. All right, let's see
here the new poll question is which actually did I come with the poll question
for today? You know, here's what I'm interested in. Now, did
you play If you played the Stellar Blade demo, did you like it or
not? Yes or no? And then of course I'll beody option there.
I know I really didn't play it, so we'll get that up for you.
We'll talk about that on the show tomorrow. Here on Giant Bombs,
speaking a Giant Bomb, what do we have going on? I think today
we are going to play some more tech in I'm going to get through the
story mode of tech and I believe at least get much deeper into it,
but will likely be able to see the end. And then there is no
Blake Club today. Dan and Jan are on their way to WrestleMania, So
instead we're going to do d Like Club, which is our series where we
pick a game that we think another one of our coworkers likes and we make
them play that. Mike is going to make me play Gamera for PlayStation one.
He thinks I'm going to like that game a lot. I did get
it ready, and I did take a peek at it, and it started
immediately with an incredible FMV in full English, and I am very excited about
it, everybody, So check that out. That'll be at like two thirty
ish three pm today tech and will happen when I'm able to get it going
again Jans out. We're figuring things out on the fly, and then tomorrow
expect the voicemail dump truck Friday. Well UPF and BCR lookout for all of
that. In the meantime, though, Steve Spawn, thank you so much
for spinning today talking with me about video games. Man. I really appreciate
it. Thank you for having me here. I appreciate to you. A
big fan of yours is always, and I'll look forward to seeing you Saturday
at four pm. Sounds good. Likewise, Steve, I'll be there.
Everyone else you should be there as well. Check out able gamers dot org.
All right, thank you, You're the best audience in gaming. Until
next time, have a good one, take care of yourself and goodbye.