Yo, got me bad. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do
this for March fifteenth, twenty twenty four. For the next hour or so,
let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Game Best Mornings
Live with me Jeff Grubb Today, the return of a fan favorite game isn't
going great and respond dev's report getting hit by major layoffs. But first,
please join me and welcoming today's co host to Game Best Mornings. It's two
more. Who's saying, everybody, Tam, how are you feeling? I
am feeling good? And if you were listening to the pre show, you
will know that was a lie. Well, I'm glad you could stole lot
to the people so effectively. I bought it and you just told me that
thirty seconds ago, so ckly good at it. I will say, it's
been another busy week. I'm looking forward to getting to the weekend. I'm
gonna be spending time with some games, so I'm just that's gonna be what
I'm doing still, but just being able to do that during the day,
kickback and play some stuff for a bit. And I already like did my
chores for this week, like getting the house cleaned up, and like stuff.
I was like, oh, I was gonna put that off to the
weekend. I got a lot of a lot of that stuff done, So
I'm set up for a relaxing weekend if I so choose to do that.
But Sundays I've got I've got one day because Sunday's Day of the devs,
right god, yeah, man, and then straight into GDC for a week.
My understanding is you've got a really relaxing GDC schedule almost nothing, nothing
booked like that. Yeah, it's a cake walk. Yeah. Since since
we're basically leaving on Wednesday night Thursday morning for packs, correct, right,
let's cram all of GDC into two or three days and then we got a
back we got packs later that week. Everybody, which you're not going it'll
be all. It'll a lot of fun, yes, absolutely, yea for
those we just we show up to our panels, we do our thing,
and then you know, say hi to people who are nice to us.
I think it's great. So I think we're planning to like walk the show
floor as well. So if you see us, please please please don't come
anywhere near us. Yeah, how dare you look at me? Also,
we do need to come near us so that we can get video messages for
a voicemail dump truck that we're doing live. So if you have a question
and you want to get potentially on voicemail dump truck live at packs, let
us know. We'll record your short and sweet messages for that. I cannot
be held responsible if you come near me and somehow become lactose. Yeah,
right, isn't it. I prove the most contagious I would believe. I
mean everyone is lactose intolerance, So yeah, you know what to say if
if someone accidentally folts on you, you are like us intolerance. So I
can't promise anything. Let's explain. Let's explain what we do here other other
than fart and be lactose intolerant most week days, I Jeff Grevell hell piece
of gaming life back together that includes breaking news and maybe even some of our
own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input of a
bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If you were watching live
on twitch Welcome, you can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds
by searching for Game mess Mornings, or find the RSS on giant bomb dot
com. You can also catch the show later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.
Hello YouTube, I love YouTube. All right, we have a lot
to get into, so let's start the morning mess with Star Wars Battlefront Classic
Condition debuts to stuffed servers and angry players. This is from Kevin Purdy at
Ours Technica. The latest version of Star Wars Battlefront released by Electronic Electronic Arts,
was so stuffed full of loot boxes and play to win blah blah blah
that people got very mad at that game. And people have been waiting for
this one to return, and so people were very happy when it did,
and now it's having issues of its own. Around ten am Eastern, this
is the author here. I decided to kick the exhaust ports on the Ion
Thrust myself. The game asked me to register my copy on launch, which
timed out when I tried to do so. Moving on, I chose Battlefront
two Karabia profile, then requested an online quick match. The result was an
air message cannot join session is full. Not that I had selected a particular
session, mind you. I encountered the same air two or three more times,
then decided to try the first Battlefront game instead. I did get into
one match and play it to conclusion a loss on my side. Feeling lucky,
I jumped into another quick battle and made it through a few deaths,
only to get stuck during the countdown to responding, and it got stuck at
one. People are encounting are encountering a lot of different issues with this re
release of these games, which I say re release tam because they are not
really remasters. This is a collection of the two thousand and five Battlefront two
and whenever Battlefront one came out, and they're just re released mostly as as
with a few quality of life improvements here or there. It's those games,
but they are there are a lot of issues, which is like connecting,
and the big problems was at launch there were about twenty thousand people trying to
play, and the game had three official servers set up which could support about
two hundred total players at any more time. I just got a hey,
no, you know that is I am unwilling to believe that was a mistake.
I am only allowing myself to believe this was intentional either because they were
like all just all just the three and see what happened and then add to
it if it looks like we need more, oh sure, or like,
I what is EA doing with that license? Man? Just like this is
such a bad look, like this is a beloved collection of games, and
I don't think he is involved in this one at all. This one seems
like it's all on a spire, which oh yeah, sorry, not Aspire,
not Aspire my bad. Yeah, it's a I always I'm still like
my brain connect eh oh yeah, of course to stall wars right now.
Well, they mean they do well you asked what he is doing start They
just canceled another Star Wars. Can that's what they do. They're doing something
else, They're doings in a different way, yes, but like what is
inspired there? Like you cannot screw this up like it is. You are
everything that people get mad about now, and the level of mad they get
is probably something they could have predicted. It is also weird that it's a
sixty gigabyte install. Sixty gigabytes for two PS two era games Xbox era games.
That is weird whatever that that does happen these days. But the servers
they did by the next day get a lot more servers up and running when
we played we did this for for tn T yesterday for Thursday Night throw Down
here on John Bond, which is a lot of fun. I had a
good time and had almost no issues. And the issues I did have was
for one of the matches, Sean was hosting it and his game crashed,
so we all got kicked out and had to get back again. But after
playing for about an hour and a half, almost two hours, that was
the one thing that I noticed that I didn't notice anything else, but that
was us I think, connecting peer to peer to Sean, so we weren't
using any of the official servers or quick matches or matchmaking or going to the
server list and picking some random public thing, so that probably helped. But
you know, from my experience, it was mostly fine. I had a
good time playing the game, and I still worked the way you would want
them to. I saw a video of someone positive of the PlayStation version,
and it looked busted, like the textures were just not there, and it
was like parts of the map were like purple and black checkered, and it
looked like it looked unfinished, and I was like, oh, wow,
they really haven't to go a time with this one. And then I saw
it online. I was like, oh, the servers are screwed up,
and I'm just like, okay, you this is the kind of thing where
I feel like people will also be very mad immediately and probably drop it.
Like if you if you want to, yes, if you wanted to maintain
a like an actual player base, you need to come out of the door
swinging. But like with this, people are gonna be like, well,
I got fucking scammed. I'm gonna get a refund and move on with my
life. I think so too, like what you're doing. I mean,
it doesn't help that the game is pretty expensive for a collection of older games
that haven't really been remastered. I believe it's it was like thirty five dollars
and that might I think that might have been on sale, but it was.
You know, it's at least thirty five dollars to get this game new,
and that is I think that is exacerbating it. I was when I
was playing with Jan and Sewn yesterday we were talking about this, and it's
like, I think a lot of people are kind of jumping off that price,
and any sort of problem is really heightened by that, where like I
spent a ton of money on this for what it is, so everything's gonna
annoy me that much more, and I am going to rush to go get
a refund, which people are. That's fair. I get that, And
Aspire has a bit of reputation for doing this with the Star Wars games.
Aspires has a long history of porting things to Mac. Recently, they have
been doing these remasters and re releases mostly of Star Wars games, putting them
out on the Switch, putting up, putting them back out on PC,
and frequently some like not every single time, but most of them have had
some sort of issue, at least for the first couple of weeks. I
think Commando what's the Star Wars Commandos? Is that? Is that what it's
called, the one with the Commando Cheppers? Yeah? Yeah, that one
like had some serious performance issues on the switch, and again we're talking about
an Xbox era game Republic Commandos. Thank you, Dunk. And I think
maybe the good news is, on one hand, a Spire probably will get
this stuff fixed up. They did immediately add a bunch more servers. But
dam I think you're right. I don't think you necessarily bounce back if the
first impression here for a lot of people is that's expensive and it's broken.
I am just going to skip out on this. And also, I don't
think it helps that this is something primarily driven by nostalgia. It's it's I
think it's still a fun game. I had a good time. I think
people are going to go back to him and be like, Okay, I
mean it is still that game, and they haven't made a ton of improvements,
so I think it is easy to go. I will just keep that
in my memory and not actually go back to it. Did John have a
good time? I think so. I think jan you had a pretty good
time. Yeah, it seemed like he was having a really great time.
You know. It's the kind of thing where when you when you got you
know, Mike Minatti trolling you and killing you every chance he gets, you
can only have so much fun. But no Chancy to be having a pretty
good time. Wonderful. Uh. And I'm as someone who has talked crap
about that game, because people always like want to like, hey, no,
that's one of the best Star Wars games ever, and I'm like,
it's okay, I'm coming out of be like okay, it's it's better than
okay. It's a fun game. But I just still say all those friends
have got a really low bar. Well, listen, we know that Apex
Legends developer Respawn has been hit by e A layoffs. This is from Cameron
co at GameSpot. Not even the creators of Apex Legends, EA's premier shooter
are safe from recent industry layoffs, with multiple members of the team confirming on
social media that develop a Respond has been affected. They're not personally personally let
go. Respond level designer Aaron Stump confirmed the layoffs had hit the team in
a post on Twitter, the Apex team was hit with layoffs today, Stump
said, it sucks seeing some of the people I've worked with for almost three
years now get let go. Hopefully they land on their feet sooner rather than
later. Peter Stewart, a senior writer at Respawn, additionally confirmed the news.
Rough day at EA, Stuart said on Twitter, rough day at Respond.
Although I'm thankful to be safe, my thoughts are with everyone affected by
the ongoing layoffs, and if there's any way I can help or signal boost,
I will do do so. There's some confusion here whether these are new
layoffs or this is still part of the layoffs that EA was talking about a
few weeks ago. Regardless, at the time when those layoffs were announced by
EA, it seemed like Respond mostly went unscathed other than having their Star Wars
game canceled. The way the story went at the time was the Star Wars
game, the first person shooter that everyone at Respond really likes and everyone who
who's played it thinks it was amazing. It was very frustrated got canceled.
That game got canceled because because EA was trying to reduce their budgets and they're
like, we're not going to put the budget into that game for the next
two years to finish it and put it out and whatever. But the people
that worked on the game would get would be able to get reassigned to other
teams inside of EA. They'd go work back on Apex Legends, there's other
projects at Respawn, and then there's other projects throughout EA that they would work
on. And now it's like, oh, well, yeah, but not
everybody. We're gonna still lay off some people at RESPOND, and so now
Respond being affected by this, and it feels like, damn. When we
look at these layoffs, it's it's indiscriminate to a point, but it also
feels like every team is potentially at risk of these layoffs. Even the studio
inside of EA that was like the poster child. It was the hey,
they are doing things right, and we want everyone INSIDEBA to be like Respawn,
even they are affected by this. That's where the industry is at right
now. Yeah. I mean if if a developer that has made two incredibly
well received and commercially successful Star Wars games, that also made one of the
precious few games as a service title which basically strengthened and kind of became a
pillar, a foundational pillar of the genre and has continued to be super successful,
can't avoid these layoffs and can't avoid the economics of the detrimental economics of
video games. Who is safe right Surely no one like Respawn is one of
those developers where on paper you would think they're untouchable right now because they're putting
out banger after banger. They have AX Apex is doing really well. The
interest level is still high on it, the quality is still super high,
and there's a lot of people that are really into Apex still. And if
they can't like reassign these people to something else, like you know, we're
working on a bunch of new projects let's just put you over there. If
they can't do that, that is a very dire situation. Yeah, and
I wonder what the future of RESPOND looks like. I think we just saw
you know, Stig asbus and who did leave Respond a few months ago,
but he started up his studio and Stig it was the director of the first
Star Wars Jedi games, the first two of those, and he brought many
key people with him. And that is not some new phenomenon with Respond.
There have been multiple times where new studios have popped up in the orbit of
respond or from people who's whose stock has vested at at EA. Once they
got acquired and they went off to start their own thing with investment from from
wherever, and they took a lot of people from Respond with them. And
I think there's a potential here where it's like that studio is still has a
ton of talent, still has a ton of great people there. But EA
might just be like, well, you know, the Apex Legends was great,
but that's we're looking towards the end of that now, and we'll Respond
be able to create some new thing in the future. And they might have
lost the face somehow, which is a kind of absurd, because EA,
when it tried to like oversee stuff with Dice and Battlefield and get all these
other games into a situation that looked anything close to what Apex Legends did,
it would always stumble and fail. And then meanwhile Respond was over there doing
its own thing and doing things its way. That's a big thing that happened
there. It was like Apex Legends came out of Respond building games their way
of prototype and for a long time making sure you have something great and then
enacting on that and make it something that was commercially viable. And EA was,
oh, my god, you know what, You're right, we've been
doing things wrong. Vince Sampello, leader of Respawn. You are now moving
up the chain. We want you to make the rest of ya look like
that. And now they get, you know, a little bit far away
from that, and it's like it's reverting left and right back to EA just
being scared of every possible risk, scared of reinvesting in Apex Legends. And
now the people that made all the money that kept EA sort of standing up
right over the last couple of years are as always with these stories paying the
price. It's frustrating Yeah, that sucks. Next up, Saber COO confirms
development status of three games after embrace Or sale raises doubts. This is from
Chris Scullion at VGC, The chief operating officer of Saber, has confirmed the
ongoing development of three of its games after its recent sale from Embrace Group led
to questions being asked about their status. In a post on Twitter, Tim
Willitts confirmed that Warhammer forty K, Space Marine two, John Carpenter's Toxic Commando,
and Jurassic Park Survival are all still in development. I've received a lot
of questions concerning the status of some of our previously announced projects now that Saber
has separated from Embracer. Will Its wrote, I'm happy to confirm we're still
working on a number of titles, including Warhammer forty K, Space Marine two,
John Carpenter's Toxic Commando, and Jurassic Park Survival. We're so excited about
these titles and can't wait to share more with everyone soon. Space Marine two
was set to release this past winter, but it was announced in November it
had been significantly delayed. The game is now set to release on September ninth
of this year. John Carpenter's Toxic Commando is a cooperative first person shooter in
which players have to destroy the Sludge God, an evil creature that can turn
people into zombies. The game will use Sabers Swarm engine and will be released
in twenty twenty four on console and PC, and then announced in December.
Jurassic Park Survival is a single player action adventure game set in the day after
the events of Steven Spielberg's nineteen ninety three film. It was officially confirmed earlier
today that Embracer Hell that's separate from that. Yes, so Sabers spun off
from Embracer after Embracer bought them. We talked about that earlier this week a
couple of times, but people have been like, Okay, so what's happening
with these games. I think it's mostly good news for these games because Saber
is a proven studio at being able to ship products that it announces. It's
not, uh, that doesn't mean that they're always going to ship with,
you know, the highest quality, but they do. Sometimes they do ship
with the highest quality, and sometimes they say, Okay, this is going
to take some time to get to where it needs to be, but at
the very least people were excited about something like Jurassic Park survival A. Well,
yeah, I mean, listen, I like the concept. You don't
think the concept is good like Jurassic Park, but alien isolation, like,
that's a good idea. Name the lost goo Jurassic Parking. Okay, well
listen, that's aside from the that's not fair one Jurassic parkat that's okay,
the the Jurassic Park of parks. Builder games? Were those good? I
didn't play them. Tam helped me out here. None tell you. I
still think the idea of an alien isolation but with a Vlassar raptor is a
fantastic idea. I think that's on paper good. But Drassic Parking video games
have been taken l since the beginning of time. So you just hit any
think that has John Williams music. Dam I hate this, Listen, that's
true. I I firstly, I just want us to return to Sludge God.
What's going on? And then I I never, like really have seen
Toxic command I google Toxic Commando Sludge God, and the first thing is a
normal day for obsidian ceo Leon Dorsey becomes horrific when his search for clean energy
accidentally awakens an ancient sludgie evil. Oh man, that's an allegory. Don't
wake ancient sludgy evil. Just give us fall Out New Vegas. Yeah,
the Obsidian CEO of and CEO. Yeah, this is what everyone wants.
What are you doing there? Mess around with green energy? I like Saber.
I'm a Saber fan. You're right about Durassic Park games. You know
what. That one for the three D O was pretty okay where you get
taste by of a loss of rafter and it's kind of doing this funky little
dance behind me with man. That was good. That's funny. I I
feel like, I'm glad that these are still in production. Yes, I
am of these games. I am very very excited about Space Marine too,
the rest of them. I'm glad they're in production for people who are excited
about those games. But yeah, so yeah, yeah, yeah, say.
It was a good studio, and I'm glad that they're kind of like
taking more projects on of their own, you know what I mean. It's
of being like, oh, yeah, we your your first past shooter to
the PC. Please don't yes, we we we put what you're on the
switch. This was a lot of very hard work. Please don't complain about
the way it looks. It shouldn't be possible. Yeah we Hey guys,
we created a We pulled off a miracle. Please. Yeah, this wine
is bill. It's like I turned it. Yeah water, I mean war
dude used to be war War on other platforms. So yes, Sabers got
a ton of studios still after this deal, including so Nimble Giant who does
Star Trek Infinite three D Realms, Uh, Iron Fury, that Sandbak Strategies,
New World Interactive, which makes Insurgency, Slipgate, Iron Works which makes
Graven which I'm unfamiliar with, mad Head Games Scars above, also unfamiliar with
that Fractured Bite, which worked on the Borderline, Borderlands, Legendary Collection,
Lawns, border Loan, Borderlando. Know me, Jeff Grubb, where is
Kate Middleton? She's dead? Okay? Cool? You had her first.
You know all those people that going to overdrive whenever Jeff Grub reports something,
I need you to do that, right, yeah, Jeff Grubb reports?
Uh dead? Please everyone just spread it far and that would be a good
nice treat for my weekend. What make it happen? Yeah, I'm like
you saw as it would be great if that's if it was a reset aer
post and then that's where it bloomed out of too, that would be fantastic.
Uh. Like you said, I like Sam Saber, all these teams
that they have underneath them when they're like also a publisher, and the fact
that this deal where they were able to extract themselves from Embracer and then continue
to make most of these games that that have a lot of people excited mostly
good news here, and I think they stand a much better chance of putting
these games out and like making a profit on their own than they ever did
under Embracer. Right Space Marine two comes out in tam Let's say that game
sells a million two million copies. That is nothing to Embracer that has all
this debt because they messed up so bad. The fact that a game could
be really successful and it would do nothing for them, This team on their
own with you know, private investment, that that's a really strong number for
a game like that. So I think they're in a much better situation than
they were. Listen, I wish nothing but the worst things on Embrace always.
Yeah, I mean I feel like I feel like not enough bad things
have happened to the people responsible for what Embracer's done're gonna go to where Kate
Middleton is. That's not really a death right, everybody. I don't think,
yes, that's that's what happened. Pocket Pair is in talks to bring
Power World to new platforms. It's from Tom Ivan at VGC. Pocket Pair
has said it's in discussions to bring its smash hit Powerworld to additional platforms.
Released in January via Steam Early Access and Xbox Game Preview, Power World attracted
twenty five million players in its first month, according to the studio. While
he didn't specify if the game could come to PlayStation, Nintendo, or mobile
devices in the future, Pocket Pair CEO and game director to Kuro Musobi told
Bloomberg the company is in talks to bring it to more platforms. I think
it's going to be on PlayStation by the end of the year. Oh yeah,
oh yeah, I very likely. I don't mean this to be disparaging
or even like doubt into it. Like this feels like the kind of game
that's got like a moment. It's going to have a moment where it needs
to maximize you know, the interest and also the potential of it becoming a
long term thing that sticks around. And one of the crucial ways you do
that is ubiquity, Like you make that available for every Yeah, you grow
the audience. That's a way to rapidly grow the audience, revitalize interest,
and thus make a stronger case and justification for injecting new content in which obviously
requires resources, money, investment, that kind of stuff. So I I'm
not surprised at saying of this. I would certainly expect it to be on
various other platforms as quickly as possible. Yeah, Like I think PlayStation by
the end of this year, you know, switch to it once that's out
is a possibility. Sure, do you think it shows up on switch or
do you think I think one company is like standing there with a gun and
being like, I date you. That's a good that's a good question.
I actually don't know. Yeah, I think Nintendo would be like, your
money's green, we'll take Yeah, we'll take We'll take thirty percent of this
money. But yeah, maybe not with the Pokemon Company stuff. I think,
you know, Digimon's been on there and all these other games, Robopond
and all that stuff. We're on Tame Boy. So I wonder how Nintendo
feels actually or how salty they really feel about this game. But I think
by the time the switch twos out and they would be ready to run this
game on there, the moment you were talking about might have passed, So
PlayStation by the end of this year and then maybe mobile early next year or
something like that. I bet they're working on a mobile version. Yeah,
yeah, joy, I expect a mobile version all right. Former Pokemon lawyer
says fundraising and press coverage lead to fan project takedowns. This is from Chris
Scullion at VGC, The former chief lawyer for the Pokemon Company, says fan
projects are more likely to be taken down if they get press coverage and start
making money. In an interview with Aftermath, former Pokemon General counsel Don McGowan
was asked how the Pokemon Company finds fan projects before issuing them with the cease
and desist orders. McGowan replied to the press that the press often did the
work for him, because when a fan project becomes popular, it's coverage will
likely gain more attention. This is this is the literal quote and why I
saw this. I wanted to crawl into a cave short, short answer.
Thanks to you, folks. I would be sitting at my office minding my
own business when someone from the company would send me a link to a news
article, and I would I would still all cross it myself. Yeah,
oh my god, that is so funny. Yeah, it's like, yeah,
okay, right, you're definitely right, man. I love that.
He's basically like you guys have been snitchings forever. You you're just professional knocks
for the pocon company and you didn't know it sucks. That's almost certainly what
happened to Like another Metroid to remake that felt like that was one where it
was operating under the radio so long, then everyone reported on it, and
then a week later it was gone. It was gone. Yeah, all
right, new rule everyone, do not report or do not draw too much
attention to Nintendo remakes. Now that we have established this, if you are
out there remaking Mother three, yep, don't tell anyone. Just stfu Friday,
everybody. That's that's how we're doing it. Don't tell anyone. Okay,
don't tell anyone anyone. Don't worry about it. And and I got
a copy of another Metro two remake on my drive. If anyone. Let's
see here. The most played Steam Deck games list is full of amazing time
thinks. This is from Nicole Carpenter at Polygon. Is Balder's Gate three playable
on the Steam Deck? That's a resounding yes from Steam Deck owners Larry and
Studio's twenty twenty three hit is the most played game on the handheld gaming device,
according to Valve's list of the top one hundred games played on Steam Deck.
The Steam deck might not be the most ideal place to play a humongous
game like Balder's Gate three doesn't look great and small texts could be hard to
read, but it's place it's placed at the top of the charts shows just
how much players will put up with to play their fer favorite fervert their favorite
games on the go ferver girns on their ger Balder's Gate three rules, even
if your Steam deck is on the verge of overheating. Honestly, I looked
at this list tam Balder's Gate three is hardly the game where I'm like,
well, how hard people eve been playing that on the Steam It works very
well, all right. I know multiple people who play purely only exclusively on
Steam Deck, and an old steam Deck. Actually had my old Steam Deck
and I gave it to a friend purely so she could play bold As Game
three on it, and she's having a wonderful time. It works like there
are games on here where I mean, like elden Ring. I played all,
almost all. I played one hundred and fifty hours of elden Ring on
the Steam decks. I first got it disgusting, Yes, immediately, five
frames per second. Damn, that's the good day. I remember. I
think I said this before. I remember when the elder Ring reviews were happening
at the same time as Steam decks went out for review and one day I
was like, I'm gonna try this and it was like, oh, this
works pretty well. And then the next day I feel like someone at a
valve just behind the scenes saw how many reviewers tried it on on Steam decks,
and like the next day there was like a update out for Steam Deck
that was like and it optimized just and was it just like an update,
Like it was like this like targeted thing where elden Ring would run better in
some ways than it done on anything else, because earlier it was wild Eldern
was having those stuttering issues where It's like the the the shaders were getting compiled
while you were playing the game, and so that was like, We're just
going to compile the shaders and put that in the steam Deck update for you,
and it's a whoa, you could do that role good. It was
so funny. I was like, Oh, these guys, they're hitching the
wagon. Tell yeah smartly. So it is still in the top ten here
for most played games on the Steam Deck, as is games like Vampire Survivors,
Dave the Diver is near near the top here, Hogwarts, Legacy,
Pow World, Cyberpunk twenty seventy seven, Grand Theft Auto five, Stardow Valley,
things like that. Hades is on there. I the one that like
stood out to me because I've tried to play this on the steam Deck and
it's I feel like it's really unplayable in terms of its frame rate. Is
a Star Wars Jedi Survivor? How are people playing that on there? That's
it does not work for me. I'm wondering maybe maybe got an update and
works better. It's the last time I tried it, but I doubt that
game's still rough. Do you know what this story reminded me of? One
of my favorite headlines from recently, and I don't mean this to be mocking,
I just it is. It is like a sign of how news gets
written and picked up in this day and age. It's the story about the
headline is dream like Valley Devs making a life sim RPG set in boulders Gate
three universe, which is really funny because what is effectively happening is they're making
a D and D game. Yeah, it's just really funny to be I
love that. I saw that and I was like, I see why that
happened, and I'm very amusing. That's fun. What do you play?
What was the game you've played the most on your steam deck? Oh?
On my steam deck, so I played a wild amount of Older Ring obviously.
I also played a bunch of Dog Souls three, which works really well
on it. And then beyond that, I think it was Vampire Survivors.
Oh. I'm playing a lot of Bilateral right now, but I'm kind of
splitting that time between the Roger ally and the Switch Switch now the steam deck
oled, but yeah, I think that was. I played some of the
secur on there. It was good. I think that's everything that stands out
right now. Yeah, yeah, I've elden Ring God, what was the
big game in the last year that I played a ton of on there,
because it's like, uh yeah, Rice Evil four. I played all of
it on the steam Deck and it worked really well actually, and that was
a great way to do it. And now I remember, I think I
had this subconscious thing where I don't play very many like big budget, like
heavy games on it, and I just I think I need to get over
that because my brain is always like it automatically does the calculations in the background.
It's like, oh, it's probably want work, but like it apparently
can run resvenueill for so I should just you know, get on with that.
And it looks good on the on the o led screen. It really
does. Apparently like Cyberpunk is fine on it, so right, they have
a they have a in the setting through Cyberpunk just of Steam steam Deck like
preset graphics option, which a lot of these games will just like do that
for you, but they'd like, actually just name it and they call it
out. Hey, you're playing on steam Deck, select this on Cyberpunk,
and that's pretty cool. Yeah, I've been like jumping in and out Cyberpunk
still I think I might switch over to the steam Deck. I do wonder
if if Dragon's Dogma two will be steam Deck friendly, because that will be
that will pop off pretty hard. Then we'll see I think, you know,
we have the early reports and how it's running on console. It seems
pretty heavy on there, so we'll see it. We'll see how it does.
I bet eventually they'll get it there, but who knows. I remember
what it was. It was. It was like a Dragon Infinite Wealth.
That's the way I played all of that, like near really like eighty hours
on the steam Deck, and that that was a really good experience. I
you know, you can stream games from your computer. I don't know how
like that. I've never really been able to keep that flow going because what
happens is is like I'll be playing it and I'll be like, Okay,
I'm thirty minutes in and I got to do something, so I'll put my
steam Deck to sleep, and then in the back of my mind, it's
like that game is just running on my computer right now, waiting for me
to come back to it, and that drives me crazy. And and then
I do cut back to it and it doesn't like necessarily like jump right back
in the like connection will break. So it's like it's just not ideal.
Nah, I'm not about streaming games from PC. I just I just I
feel like my internet is good, but also like if even the slightest issue
happens, I'm just like, oh my god, my internet is broken.
I just can't deal with that anxiety. Yeah I was. I was streaming
a game the other day to the steam Deck, just trying it, trying
to get myself to like it, and it was really chunky and it's like,
oh, yeah, I'm not connected to the right wife and that's annoying.
And then I got connected to the six G and it's like, now
it's smooth as butter. It looks really great. So it's like the actual
tech of streaming it to the steam Deck, that stuff is all great now
for me with this specific specific setup that I have now, But it's still
I'm most of the time like it's just not. The thing I like about
having games on the steam Deck is I want to play a game, I'm
gonna pick up my Steam Deck. I turn it on, and nine times
out of ten, the game that I was just playing is still running.
It pops right back up and I continue with it, and I can keep
that momentum going because I'm like, oh, yeah, I was playing this
game. I'll just keep playing that. I don't have to select game or
get you know, analysis prowlyssis trying to decide what I should be doing next.
I'm just gonna go right back to what I was doing, and that's
what got me through like a Dragon and eld Ring and all that other stuff.
And if you kind of throw any w rench you to that work,
we're into those works of oh, it's gonna break the connection and I got
to go get it up and running on the PC again. Remotely. I
feel like it's just not going to be the same thing for me, So
yeah, you know, I just remember I did play a decent amount of
stream Fire that works really well on the Steam deck. Yeah, especially if
you can like obviously connect some sort of like device to it and just be
like, oh, I'm gonna play on a controller or an ARCA stick whatever
whatever. It's fun. But I like jumped in and hung around and training
mode for a bit. I think Techan is okay on it as well,
But yeah, fine games are fun on there. Yeah, Teken, it
was one I was gonna play more of on there, but I started playing
that on the on the the stick, the leverless stick, and I'm like,
I don't want to mess that up by learning the control controls on a
pad instead. I one of those for techn as well, and I need
to play it. It's it's a really good game for that. All right,
we're gonna take a quick break. We'll we get back a couple more
headlines, and then we'll bring it out here for the weekend. Everybody right
back after this. All right, we're back, and Epic boss Tim Sweeney
called Valve execs asshole over Steam platform fees. This from Tom Ivan at VGC
ahead of the Epic Game Stores launch in twenty eighteen. Epic Games boss Timsweeney
called Valve executive's assholes in a heated email concerning platform fees. Valve has traditionally
taken a thirty percent share of game sales on Steam, although in October twenty
eighteen, it introduced a revenue share tier system, which offers more developers of
their games. It offers more if developers meet certain sales thresholds That includes seventy
five percent and twenty five percent, which with seventy five percent going to developer
on games that earn more than ten million dollars, and the net switches up
to eighty slash twenty, so eighty percent goes to developers for games that make
more than fifty million dollars. The move seemingly riled Sweeney, whose company would
launch Epic Game Store in December twenty eighteen with a eighty eight slash twelve revenue
split, with eighty eight percent going to developers, as spotted by Game discover
Co. The email in question has been made public as part of the discovery
phase of the antitrust lawsuit filed against Valve by developer woolf Fire. Right now,
U assholes are telling the world that the strong and powerful get special terms
while thirty percent is for the little people, Sweeney wrote in a message to
Valve boss Gabe Nowell and Eric Johnson, one of the company's business development executives.
We're all in for prolonged battle of Apple tries to keep their monopoly in
thirty percent by cutting backroom deals with big publishers to keep them quiet. Why
not give all developers a better deal? What better way is there to commence
Apple quickly that their model is now totally totally untenable, you know, first
weird as sweety is, and as much as I think he goes about these
things the wrong way, this was the thing that always struck me about that
progressive sort of split that Steam had, where it's like, why do the
small developers have to pay more of their revenue to you? Shouldn't it be
the other way around, or something like that. Are special exemptions for like
really small teams that are going to sell ten thousand copies? Why can't we
give them more money? I yeah, so I Sweeney rightfully called that out.
But this is how he handles everything. He's just like, you're an
asshole, I'm gonna sue you. And it's not too surprising that, like
I mean this in the most charitable and lovable way possible, he's the world's
most powerful nerd or one of you, and he's going to act like one
of the world's most powerful nerds, right and fight other powerful nerds in the
least sort of way possible so that he can become the more powerful nerd,
which is what he's trying to do. Like, and it just so happens
along the way that sometimes like they the things that he advocates for are on
point and can be like beneficial to the industry. And I think, like
the the major thing is like he clearly The thing that I come to come
back to is like he clearly wants to make the industry better. It's just
so unfortunate that every kind of like way that he tries to do it,
it can be read in a very like h doing this to benefit Epic games
kind of like angle where everything looks like, oh, yeah, you want
this because you own epic games, or like you put your significant investor and
a significant a significant founder have a stake in Epic games. That's why you
you want this to happen. But yeah, I get it, and you
know what, he's getting the job done. So if his approach is to
act like a it's going to flame everyone on the internet like he's a Reddit
user, fair play man, do do it whatever you want. Yeah,
for you. Honestly, I like emailing executives calling the massholes way more than
I like him trying to do the whole hashtag free fortnite, Let's mobilize this
army of children. Cure's an advertisement that mocks Apple's nineteen eighty four ad.
Aren't isn't that cool? And it's like no one cared why. Yeah,
this is when you when you like get the marketing team on your campaign,
that's when everyone goes, shut up, man, you're you're you're rich too.
But if you're out there being like eat my ass gay new people are
like, hell yeah, brother, that's that's just cool. I think the
issue like, oh, it's benefiting epic. I think it even goes deeper
than that, where it's like it is clear. A lot of times these
are like personal grievances. This is Tim Sweeney got annoyed at someone, and
then he got angry at someone, and now he is going to enact his
revenge by suing or any of these other things. And it's at like and
then and then he does stuff in a way that's like, oh, I'm
a cheeky little boy. I'm gonna put I'm gonna put out a game a
link so you can like download our games off of the App Store or whatever.
And it's like, you know that this is going to get you kicked
off. It's against the rules. He's like, yeah, I do know.
I'm doing it on purpose so that we can get in a fight and
say, oh, man, Okay this, you don't have to do the
theatrics. Just frigging sue him. Just be an adult about this. But
whatever if and then if you're not going to be an adult email on the
calm of a prick, that's that's cool too. I would I would love
it if Gabe Newel, having basically been out of the spotlight for so long,
just released another like a knife showcase video right now, right, just
like hair all my knives, no reason, just putting this out there.
Look how big this knife is. How big this knife is the nerd version
of a disk track, just like, yeah, exactly. And then like
maybe if we're lucky, we get like like Stall Wars Kids style, like
him holding two That would be so fucking good, Like if he did that,
and then like it ended with like the epic game splash screen or something
like that. He's so funny, all right, last story here. Sonic
and Angry Birds are crossing over in five mobile games for the next week.
This is from Chris Calling at VGC. As announced on the official Sonic the
Hedgehog YouTube channel, the following five mobile games get crossover events starting today.
Angry Birds Too, Angry Birds, Dream Blast, Angry Birds Friends, Sonic
Dash, and Sonic Forces Speed at each like it does he need to pay
rent? Well, what's going on? Okay? I was I read this
story very brief this morning because I was running behind, and I put this
in here mostly because I'm like, that's They're like, this is the biggest
crossover game at the end of the year. I'm like, oh, honey,
no it's not. But did Sega buye Rovio? I think Sega bought
Rovio? Right? Is that what happened? Like I think I remember that.
No, sure they did. I think they did a partner ship.
Oh they did they bought Okay, yeah, oh my god. I just
put that out on my brain. Yeah, Like we definitely talked about on
the show. And then I was seeing the story, I'm like, what
the hell, what are they talking? And then I was like, I
think they bought Rovio and that must be what this is. Okay, oh
fine, right? This was this the idea like Birds to raise the profile
Sonic. I. If this doesn't do well, I just want to be
in the room when the executive look at you and go like, yeah,
a mistake. No, Like yeah, okay, so LEXI is like what
you should really be doing here is all the other cares like, Okay,
yeah, I get you do Sonic first, it's Sonic whatever. But I
do want to see Cure You and Iachi band in in Angry Birds. I
do not want leave them, leave my boys out of the I want to
see angry birds in like a dragon. I'll take that. I will take.
I will take. What I will take is you're walking around like Yokohama
or like I don't know any of the games, and then there's just a
bird there and you get to beat the ebbing loving ship out of angry bird.
You do. It's it's going to be just a game where you're like
you're gonna throw the angry bird at something, but it's gonna be extremely comically
violent. I think that would be that would be really fun. How are
you feeling about Sega these days? I'm so up and down with them.
I'm excited for that. Like they had that moment where they they had that
moment where they're like, hey, we've been away, I hit the gym,
I've been eating well, I saw a stylist, and I'm back with
a new golden axe, the new streets of rage. I've got crazy taxi
come in and look at me. I'm hot again, and I was like,
damn, blow up. I'm still waiting to see what comes of it,
but I'm excited at that part of it. The rest of it,
I am like, I like Atlas Atlas rules, but that's about it.
Yeah, I am. I have let myself, let Sonic go. I've
made that piece. I was a Saga kid when I grew up. I
loved Sonic so much. And now I'm just like, wherever you are,
Sonic, I hope you're doing okay, but you know, stay the fuck
away from me. I mean one of the places he is like they've finished
filming on the third Sonic movie that's coming fast. You know. It's like
they're in a good place with these things in a lot of ways. And
yet you're right, I don't like I don't like thinking about the Sonic game
too much. That last Sonic game of the two D one was a real
stinker. What Sonic, That Sonic neuro Automatic game that was out there was
Sonic for teens, which like my kids all the times and work for that.
I felt like I was being gas lit by the entire world by that.
By that when that game come out, where everyone was like, this
is really good. And I played it and I was like, what's going
on? People? Okay, what the fuck is going on? I think
is okay, but I get what I do understand that. It's like it
was like, oh, it's people have been like so just abused by Sonic
so long. Part of it this barely functional, fucking drab looking I was
so unfun game. It's people are like, yes, it's not. It
is on the mount rushmore games that like that are real products that look like
YouTube videos of kid remakes Sonic and unreal exactly, it's exactly that. And
then like people are like, oh, yeah, it's got this part of
the game where it's just unplayable. Huh yeah, what it's fine. You
know when my kids playing they need help with it. I'm like this,
this is all right. I would rather be playing Sonic Frontiers than Sonic All
Stars or whatever that was. Yeah. Yeah, Sonic Mania was was incredible.
So that now that's that's a long time I was. I was on
every now and then I'll be like, yeah, it's only cool, but
its Frontier is just everyone grow up, get out of here with that,
all right, So let's let's get to the pole question, which I'll get
set up here in the second. Well, I get that set up,
damn. Want you want to tell people where they can find you on the
internet, what you have going on, or if you wanted to leave you
alone? Tom that too, You know what, I always want to be
left alone. But I'm also on the internet, you know. I'm on
Twitter at tomorrow, age on Twitch at tomorrow. I swear to God,
I'm going to be streaming soon. I keep like, you know, same,
finding little bits and things to like cueak and do that kind of business.
I also need to figure out what I'm gonna Oh, I there's only
so many times I can play through Securo before people are like, do you
play any other games? And the answer is no, but definitively yeah,
definitely. But yeah, maybe maybe I'll stream Sonic Frontiers. That could be
fun. Okay, this whole questions bested me up. Yeah, play Sonic
Frontiers. You're not allowed to stop until one get the platinum on it and
then something else we got We've got upf It's no, we've got yeah,
yeah, we have got replaced the Bilatro and then BCO has happened. That's
right, We're gonna be BombCast Revenge. It's everybody. We will get a
we'll talk about some stuff that's like we can catch up on this week,
and then we're gonna do amount rush more of wrestling games that is that is
not I'm excited about that. I hope war Zone is on there because I
love war Zone and I am making the submission right now. The deaf Jam
games count as wrestling game. Okay, they count as the best wrestling game.
And if there isn't at least one Deaf Jam Vendetta if that isn't on,
no way, Fight for New York, Fight for New York. If
that isn't on there, I personally will delete the Giant bomb cms. Okay,
what can do dances? It's not eligible, so you might want you
might have them the old m I think it's eligible, but maybe him.
How do I ban him? Oh yeah, you can? You can do
his count all right, Paul. Question, have you ever heard of Monopoly?
Go tam? Have you ever heard of the game Monopoly? Go?
Let me? I don't think so. It made two billion dollars in ten
months ten months? Excuse me, billion dollars in ten months. Is this
like the latest thing, like the hit man go I wish, I wish
that they would deserve three billion dollars. The duck is murdering everyone on the
the Temple's just out there doing work. It is it's going to jail for
harassing people. It's just it's just another mobile game. Whatever. But it
made two billion dollars to ten months, and I'm like, I never heard
of this. This is weird. Apparently I'm just missing the bout because fifty
two percent respondents said yes they had heard of it. Oh no, forty
eight percent said they haven't. You have turned this. They turned Monopoly into
a full game. Oh, explore the city. Yes, it's wild,
explore the world. What people say, Tracy Parker theirs? Okay, what's
Tracey got to say about this? Probably can say but nice and relaxing.
Love it. Dylan Buchanan says, what a creative game. Love this.
No comma is about English, said Fons Twists on the board game. They
have only three reviews and one million percent fake. No shot that anyone's writing
the new pole question community is Sonic Cross Angry where it's the crossover event of
the year, Yes, sir, yes, or of course yes, I
don't know. Make Sonic a Monopoly game. There you go. You did.
There probably is a Sonic Monopoly board game, right, do you Sega
Monopoly? Where you have like Sonic? You've got a taxi from Crazy Taxi
Sonic column from column from Colin. Probably Sonic as border on the streets of
rageous punching buildings. Sega Monopoly, Yeah, hook it up. I didn't
sa Monopoly, Monopology Mono. The only thing I'm getting is Monopoly was on
the Sega Masters fair enough, all right. Well, if they haven't made
one yet, they'll make one eventually. They make monopoly games out of everything,
and Sonic crosses over anything. Apparently there is a Monopoly Sonic the Hedgehog
board game. It's called any Gamers on the Hedgehog Edition board game. There
it is. Okay, there you go. All right. I think we're
gonna wrap it up. Tam. Thank you so much for spinning today talk
with me about video games. I really appreciate it. Man. Thank you
for having me everyone as always, love to see everyone. We'll be back
soon. We'll be back soon. You see our asses up packs next week?
Yes, look out, look out for us at packs. It's gonna
be a good time. And people are like, hey, like, I'm
gonna be a pas, Like what's going on? I don't know where I'm
gonna be, but we will find some way. Why we're right here right
now if you want to meet up and stuff like that, and then we
have some other plans for things, so we'll keep you guys all post it
on that. Yeah, well just keep If you see us, wave,
come up to us, say hello, Yeah, there's a giant bomb as
loud as you can. Yeah, yeah, just say that, Oh my
god is giant bomb and then play that me. Yeah. Thanks for watching
everybody, buddy. Until next time, have a good one, take care
of yourself. Goodbye. You the best audience in gaming