Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Mess Mornings with Me Jeff Grubb,
Speaker 1: your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for
Speaker 1: tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: a rough launch for a new PC game and executives
Speaker 1: are getting excited about streaming again. Oh no, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be a good one because we have Jason Bonelli on
Speaker 1: the show. Jason, how are you doing on Finelli Friday?
Speaker 2: It's a good Finelle Friday. Feeling good. Hope you are too.
Speaker 2: As you can see, I'm in my Philadelphia tuxedo going
Speaker 2: down to the ballpark this evening. It is a fine
Speaker 2: utly Wall of Fame night. Oh that's great. The most
Speaker 2: I think this is the most excited my wife has
Speaker 2: been to go to a baseball game in the regular
Speaker 2: season ever. We bought these tickets in March. This is
Speaker 2: our favorite player of all time. She is very, very
Speaker 2: excited to go see this. We are leaving for the
Speaker 2: ballpark at three point thirty for a six forty first
Speaker 2: pitch because she wants to see all of the pregame
Speaker 2: stuff and I am very much looking forward to it
Speaker 2: as well. Other than that, it's it's a normal time
Speaker 2: where you you were slowly creeping into the busy release season,
Speaker 2: but some of that seems to have leaked out and
Speaker 2: gotten to me.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I mean, I am, and there's no embargo on this
Speaker 2: so I can say this. I am currently reviewing Marvel
Speaker 2: took On for game Spot and Madden for IGN. So
Speaker 2: I went from nothing to everything in the span of
Speaker 2: two hours.
Speaker 3: It really is. Madden is always the one.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh yeah, review season his year, like that
Speaker 1: is all the games start coming out after that point.
Speaker 1: Alex and Bar always used to say that, and that's
Speaker 1: that's still true. We see John Madden, we see him
Speaker 1: see a shadow, and then that means it's time to
Speaker 1: get to get to work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead, Now this year, did you see Nicholas
Speaker 2: Cage as John Madden in those in those trailers?
Speaker 3: I've seen it a little bit. I need to, like, Yeah,
Speaker 3: I need is there a new trailer.
Speaker 2: I think something came out yesterday. I think it was
Speaker 2: the other day before something came out earlier this week
Speaker 2: that I haven't had a chance. I haven't a chance
Speaker 2: to see it yet either. I am oddly curious about
Speaker 2: that one. I really am. It's gonna be a weird
Speaker 2: one man.
Speaker 1: You're going to the baseball game, like remind me, Like the
Speaker 1: Tigers won like four or five since they traded Schooble,
Speaker 1: and I think the Dodgers maybe on a full losing
Speaker 1: strike since then.
Speaker 2: So uh, hopefully hopefully God's punishing them. That's all I
Speaker 2: can Maybe maybe it's him, Maybe it's not you, Maybe
Speaker 2: it's him.
Speaker 1: Absolutely it has to be what it is, all right.
Speaker 1: Let's see here, let's explain ourselves. We're Giant Bomb, a
Speaker 1: bunch of internet video game doofs is just doing fun
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Speaker 1: don't miss out on that. Join up right now so
Speaker 1: you could be a part of it going forward. We
Speaker 1: got a lot of cool stuff planned for sure. I'm
Speaker 1: I'm working on something myself right now I haven't told
Speaker 1: anybody about, but I'm like, I got a bunch of
Speaker 1: things I'm putting together, like trying to design a shirt
Speaker 1: and things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's gonna be fun. I'm gonna see legos you
Speaker 2: talked about last week. You finally build them.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's the Lego knives, and I'll make these guys
Speaker 1: fight together. It's gonna be great and we can all
Speaker 1: bet on it. It's gonna be a good time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1: As far as this show goes, most weekdays, I Jeff
Speaker 1: Greb will help piece your gaming life back together. That
Speaker 1: includes breaking news and maybe even some of our own
Speaker 1: original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input
Speaker 1: of a bona fide expert who will make me look smart.
Speaker 1: If you're watching live on twitch welcome, You can always
Speaker 1: listen to the show later on podcast feeds by searching
Speaker 1: for game Mes Mornings, or find the RSS feed on
Speaker 1: giant bomb dot com. You can also catch the show
Speaker 1: later with chapters and timestamps on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Hello YouTube. All right, we have a.
Speaker 1: Lot to get into, so let's start the morning mess
Speaker 1: with Marvel. Tocon launches to an abysmal forty four percent
Speaker 1: rating on Steam specifically. This is from Kenneth Shepper over
Speaker 1: at Kataku. I guess it's not too surprising that Marvel
Speaker 1: Tokon Fighting Souls. Arc system works new anime fighter pitting
Speaker 1: Marvel heroes against each other is having a rough launch
Speaker 1: on PC.
Speaker 3: The game's open beta.
Speaker 1: Struggled on the platform, and that was only a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks prior to yesterday's launch. The bad word of
Speaker 1: mouth has seemingly caught up to it, as the game
Speaker 1: has launched with just a little over half the day
Speaker 1: one players on Steam that Dragon Ball Fighter Z, also
Speaker 1: developed by Arc system Works had at launch in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Tocon's player count on Steam landed at around twenty four thousand.
Speaker 3: That's compares to the forty four thousand of Fighters Z.
Speaker 1: This is a Sony game, and thus it is also
Speaker 1: on PlayStation five, so it stands to reason that there's
Speaker 1: not a not insignificant number of people playing on the console.
Speaker 1: Since the open beta last month, players have been reporting
Speaker 1: the game is oddly very demanding on PC, which some
Speaker 1: have theorized maybe in part to the due to the
Speaker 1: game requiring a PlayStation network sign in and thus running
Speaker 1: more back end programs that are eating up CPU and memory.
Speaker 1: People also think that it's the anti chat. In conjunction
Speaker 1: with that, it seems to be a real, real demanding
Speaker 1: on everything. Kotaku's own test of the open beta, however,
Speaker 1: show the game is just demanding on its own. For instance,
Speaker 1: the game often hogged upwards of ninety five percent of
Speaker 1: my CPU and occasionally as much as five thousand megabytes
Speaker 1: of my PC's physical memory. Lewis Parker wrote for Kataku
Speaker 1: on of his experience with the beta, six separate versions
Speaker 1: of the PlayStation PC SDK runtime application also booted when
Speaker 1: starting the game, although these had very minimal impact on
Speaker 1: my CPU and memory. Now the full game is out,
Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like performance troubles have improved much in
Speaker 1: the two weeks since the testing phase. Linux users seem
Speaker 1: to be especially having trouble running the game at all.
Speaker 1: Just kind of won't basically won't boot for them. The
Speaker 1: game is horribly optimized and they should have pushed the
Speaker 1: game the push the PC, but released back until they
Speaker 1: figured this out. A Steam steam user review reads, I
Speaker 1: played Teken Street Fight Er six on Ultra and never
Speaker 1: to blow sixty frames per second. This is sad because
Speaker 1: I want to recommend this game due to the amount
Speaker 1: of fun it is, but realistically it's in such a
Speaker 1: bad spot at the moment. Wait for a hot fix
Speaker 1: before purchasing. This morning, Arc system Works put out a
Speaker 1: statement thinking fans for playing on launch day and noted
Speaker 1: is it is investigating problems with Token's PC version, but
Speaker 1: it didn't owe any specific issue it was looking into. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it seems it seems like a real unfortunate situation that
Speaker 1: these problems were widely known by people who were playing
Speaker 1: in those betas, widely reported. A lot of people are like, Okay,
Speaker 1: hopefully they get that fixed up before launch. They probably will.
Speaker 1: Here we are that didn't happen. The game seems pretty
Speaker 1: busted on PC in a lot of ways. I played
Speaker 1: it offline yesterday and that wasn't on the PC wasn't
Speaker 1: too bad.
Speaker 3: And I let the shaders go. I think that's a
Speaker 3: big part. Don't play.
Speaker 1: Let the shaders build themselves, pre build on the game first.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are probably having performance
Speaker 1: issues specifically because of that. But if you have a BVPC,
Speaker 1: you're probably like, I shouldn't need to really do that,
Speaker 1: like without like and expect to you know, maybe I
Speaker 1: won't get perfect performance, maybe there'll be some hitches here
Speaker 1: and there, but it's way worse than that according to
Speaker 1: a lot of people. And then this Linux thing that
Speaker 1: means this thing won't boot on Steam deck, it won't
Speaker 1: boot on Steam machines.
Speaker 3: You got a shiny new Steam machine.
Speaker 1: This thing gets released on Steam, you expect it to work,
Speaker 1: and it just doesn't.
Speaker 2: Kind of a mess. On PC, it seems like, yeah,
Speaker 2: which is a shame. I did find it interesting that
Speaker 2: review code did not go out until launch day for
Speaker 2: this one. Yeah A, now it makes sense, and be
Speaker 2: everyone I heard that got code it was all PlayStation code. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I am reviewing the game on PlayStation. That PlayStation five
Speaker 2: is my copy, and I have not had but one
Speaker 2: issue once the game downloaded. I will say, I don't
Speaker 2: know if they fixed this yet, but when it first
Speaker 2: when the codes first dropped at eleven am yesterday, if
Speaker 2: you installed the game on PlayStation, you would have gotten
Speaker 2: the play game right. And on PlayStation there's a difference
Speaker 2: between playing the game and when it's ready to play.
Speaker 2: But it's still downloading things. This said play game, which
Speaker 2: is usually the one hundred percent indicator, but it was
Speaker 2: still downloading things in the background. So if you went in,
Speaker 2: you chose your language, you confirmed what language you wanted
Speaker 2: the game to be in, and then it looped back
Speaker 2: into the booting and it just did that over and
Speaker 2: over again until everything installed. That was the only hitch
Speaker 2: that I have seen so far.
Speaker 1: And that that play early like, well, it's still downloading thing. God,
Speaker 1: I never trust that work. It almost never does. And
Speaker 1: I've been playing both offline and online. I found a
Speaker 1: group of good folks Kenny Shepherd, Jesse Vittelli, John Carson,
Speaker 1: and the like in a discord group last night. We
Speaker 1: were trading back and forth in the little I think
Speaker 1: it was. Ken made a room and then we all
Speaker 1: joined the room and there's four consoles in there, so
Speaker 1: eight people can play at a time, with one spectating
Speaker 1: waiting for the first one off. Really cool set up. There,
Speaker 1: no hitches at all. Play was playing games as if
Speaker 1: we were in the same room. Really really felt good.
Speaker 1: But I I just.
Speaker 2: I think there's still from a technical standpoint, it's frustrating
Speaker 2: because they saw all these things were coming into beta,
Speaker 2: they had the opportunity to delay, and they didn't. Are
Speaker 2: kind of working off the seat of their pants here,
Speaker 2: But I feel like with fighting games in particular, there
Speaker 2: has always been the sentiment that they are console heavy,
Speaker 2: and that has shifted. I feel like PC fighting games
Speaker 2: have really risen in the past maybe decade or so,
Speaker 2: definitely so to the to where they're I'm starting to
Speaker 2: consider them like the premiere platform for fighting games. So
Speaker 2: I don't I think that even our system works. So
Speaker 2: it has never been good at PC ports to begin with.
Speaker 2: Let's be fair, may even be surprised by how many
Speaker 2: people wanted to play this game on PC. And I
Speaker 2: also too, am wondering how much PlayStation's interference or maybe
Speaker 2: in the back end, as was mentioned here, might be
Speaker 2: having that issue too, because PlayStation was never good at
Speaker 2: PC ports either historically. It just seems like a perfect
Speaker 2: storm of subpar PC port capabilities has created this mess,
Speaker 2: and we're not sure when exactly we're going to be
Speaker 2: able to dig it day out.
Speaker 1: Of Yeah, and it does seem like, you know, to
Speaker 1: the point of the story, like no one ever really
Speaker 1: had any issues with playing these games or booting it
Speaker 1: up on Linux or whatever when it was Dragonball Fighter Z, right,
Speaker 1: that's all that stuff works just fine, And it does
Speaker 1: seem to be like, well, PlayStation is publishing this, there
Speaker 1: is the PlayStation, the PlayStation app has to launch, the
Speaker 1: PlayStation anticheat needs to be approved.
Speaker 3: Which you know, I think we're all.
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that the anti cheat is the exact thing
Speaker 1: that is preventing it from booting on Linux. Really, right,
Speaker 1: that's it. That's a story that's as old as as
Speaker 1: time at this point. So it's like that is just
Speaker 1: PlayStation not caring about that. I'm letting Arc system Works
Speaker 1: off the off the hook here a little bit. I
Speaker 1: don't know for sure, but this definitely seems mostly like
Speaker 1: PlayStation because when we look back at Arc system Works history, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: not perfect PC ports, but they have had issues like
Speaker 1: this before. I'll say, when I put it up on PC,
Speaker 1: I installed it. I didn't I didn't like not click
Speaker 1: any approval things, I didn't miss anything.
Speaker 3: I just installed it on Steam like normal.
Speaker 1: It didn't even install the PlayStation back end app, and
Speaker 1: then it yelled at me for not having that installed.
Speaker 3: It's hey, it's not installed. Where is it. I'm like,
Speaker 3: bitch on it. That's your job. It's about yeah, what
Speaker 3: are you doing here? Yeah, And if.
Speaker 2: People are trying trying to maybe say that PlayStation wasn't
Speaker 2: as involved as Arc system Works. Sure, Arc system Works
Speaker 2: developed the game, but when you boot this thing up,
Speaker 2: before you see the Arc system Works logo, you see
Speaker 2: the first party PlayStation logo with all of the symbols
Speaker 2: a mission game and it's a PlayStation game. Do not
Speaker 2: discount how much they are involved in this. So I
Speaker 2: am not surprised if it's that, If it's Arc system
Speaker 2: Works just not having as much experience. They do have experience,
Speaker 2: don't get me wrong, They've ported all these things, but
Speaker 2: they've always had sorts of hiccups. They've never been very
Speaker 2: good at the PC port. Again, that Perfect Storm just
Speaker 2: kind of revolving around which is which is a fun game.
Speaker 2: It's very unfortunate. As somebody said in chat, I wonder
Speaker 2: how long it's going to take them to dig out
Speaker 2: of this.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think like that Perfect Storm aspect is
Speaker 1: worth mentioning Jason, because it's like, sure.
Speaker 3: Maybe PlayStation is the source of these problems.
Speaker 1: Arc system Works ability to navigate them though is always likely.
Speaker 1: They haven't done this sort of thing before with PlayStation
Speaker 1: and getting the PlayStation stuff working on PC, and so
Speaker 1: it's like they're going to rely on Sony to come
Speaker 1: through on that, and maybe they don't even know exactly
Speaker 1: what they what they need from them because they haven't
Speaker 1: done that before and it's not like they're PC experts.
Speaker 1: So yeah, now I don't I'm hoping. I'm imagining this
Speaker 1: is not going to be a long term problem. They
Speaker 1: do get these things fixed pretty quickly. They want this
Speaker 1: game to do well on PC. They released it on
Speaker 1: PC for a reason, as you mentioned, that is a
Speaker 1: growing segment of the fighting game market is happening on
Speaker 1: that platform. So they can't let this forty four percent
Speaker 1: you know, mostly negative or like it's I think it's
Speaker 1: like fully negative rating on Steam.
Speaker 3: Stand that is something you have to do something.
Speaker 1: About because that is a scarlet letter this game will carry,
Speaker 1: and it will hurt the sales.
Speaker 3: Without a doubt, it'll hurt the sales.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you when they're going to have it ready
Speaker 2: by at the very least, you know, and that's going
Speaker 2: to be it's gonna be October eighth. You know why
Speaker 2: October eighth because EVO France is October ninth through eleven.
Speaker 2: Marvel Tokn is a feature game there, and oh they
Speaker 2: don't own Evo anymore, do they Now they don't own
Speaker 2: Evo any more. Well, still they don't want it to
Speaker 2: look bad on a on a public platform like that.
Speaker 1: And they're still very like, yeah, they're still very much
Speaker 1: involved in that where it's like they know the fighting
Speaker 1: game scene is super important, Like they just did that
Speaker 1: update for the PlayStation the PlayStation system where it's like, uh,
Speaker 1: like you can lock down the bluetooth so it's less
Speaker 1: interference when there's like fifteen PlayStations in a room together,
Speaker 1: so that when you're like at a fighting game tournament,
Speaker 1: things pair more easily or something like that. So so yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're aware of that. Well, okay, but what do
Speaker 1: you what do you said? You played some of the
Speaker 1: games so far. I know you're you're gonna you're trying
Speaker 1: to play it for review, So what do you think
Speaker 1: of it so far?
Speaker 2: I am really enjoying the fighting system once I train
Speaker 2: my brain to get out of the be first to
Speaker 2: hit every time. Marvel versus Capcom sort of approach that
Speaker 2: I used to take this one is like in Matt
Speaker 2: Marvel's Capcom three, you would have your your your combo
Speaker 2: progression light, light, medium, heavy, pop up and then go
Speaker 2: up from there. This one has more of a like
Speaker 2: you can do all lights, you can do all mediums,
Speaker 2: you can do all heavies. You can do light, medium, heavy,
Speaker 2: but you're not going to get as many hits out
Speaker 2: of it. You have to really work in the entire kit,
Speaker 2: plus the special moves which are done Smash Brother style
Speaker 2: press a button and a direction or press a button neutral,
Speaker 2: So that takes working that in to the speed of
Speaker 2: a Marvel fighting game like this. It's taken some adjustment,
Speaker 2: but not at the games detriment, at my own, detriment
Speaker 2: at my own to learn the new system. But once
Speaker 2: I got it down and I started figuring out characters
Speaker 2: that I am gelling with to create my four person team,
Speaker 2: it's really starting to sing. I like Penny Parker in
Speaker 2: her big Spider mach, I like Miss Marvel a lot.
Speaker 3: I like Black.
Speaker 2: Panther here, surey is really cool, and I'm still trying
Speaker 2: to find that fourth slot. It's magic at the moment,
Speaker 2: but I'm really feeling magic all that much. But I
Speaker 2: I really am enjoying my time with it. I have
Speaker 2: a lot more to dig into. I haven't done any
Speaker 2: of the campaign yet. I haven't done any broad online.
Speaker 2: I only did that room match. I went into the
Speaker 2: open lobby and it seemed to work fine. But I
Speaker 2: haven't done any of the like like just challenging a
Speaker 2: random person yet. But but so far, so good, so
Speaker 2: far in the like two three hours I had with
Speaker 2: it last night and a little bit this morning, so
Speaker 2: I'm feeling okay.
Speaker 1: I uh yeah, I just went through the tutorial and
Speaker 1: then I couldn't do any shit else because I didn't
Speaker 1: have the PlayStation things.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what do I do here?
Speaker 1: I think I might have to fully reinstall this game
Speaker 1: if that I have other a few games I could
Speaker 1: be playing, and I'm gonna go to bed and deal
Speaker 1: with I've wasps in my basement, Jason, That's what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I think it's okay. I like, I did.
Speaker 1: I got the toxic dust that I call it TI.
Speaker 3: I got them. It's called tempo dust. They're under my.
Speaker 1: Yeah exact, they're in my unright aluminum siding. And I
Speaker 1: got like a little bulb thing and sprayed that underneath
Speaker 1: the aluminum siding. And I'm like, I didn't really notice anything.
Speaker 1: And then I came in the basement and there were
Speaker 1: like four or five seemingly very confused wasps, like what
Speaker 1: is going on? And I guess that's normal. They like
Speaker 1: when that happens, they the hive collapses and they look
Speaker 1: for a place to go, and then they're there inside,
Speaker 1: and I googled it like, yeah, those ones are on
Speaker 1: borrow time. And then I woke up this morning and
Speaker 1: they were all dead, So problem solved. I dealt with
Speaker 1: that instead, basically, all right, let's.
Speaker 3: Keep going here.
Speaker 1: Machine Games in ID Software celebrate Quakes thirtieth anniversary with
Speaker 1: a brand new episode. This is pretty cool. Machine Games
Speaker 1: and ID released a Dawn of the Machine, a completely
Speaker 1: free new Quake campaign celebrating the original game's thirtieth anniversary.
Speaker 1: It has nineteen maps, secrets, a new soundtrack, time bending
Speaker 1: progression mechanics, and a new deathmatch map. It's available through
Speaker 1: the Modern Quake release across Xbox, PlayStation, PC, and Switch.
Speaker 1: Switch To plays it via backward compatibility.
Speaker 3: Cool, you know Quake on's happening.
Speaker 1: I hope that people are like finding a way to
Speaker 1: like still be very happy and have good vibes around
Speaker 1: that game despite what's happening over at ID with the
Speaker 1: layoffs recently, stuff like this It's like, yeah, man, they
Speaker 1: just do cool stuff with ID and ID games like Quake,
Speaker 1: these Matt packs, these episodes they've done for various games.
Speaker 1: They've done this for Quake, They've done this for Doom.
Speaker 1: Such a cool way to kind of keep that community
Speaker 1: happy and give them something to dig into. And this sounds,
Speaker 1: according to a lot of people who I think are
Speaker 1: like looked at it like very substantial.
Speaker 3: It's a neat thing to do, right.
Speaker 2: It is an interesting sort of approach to add new
Speaker 2: content to older games, in this case a very old game,
Speaker 2: but also like Ghost Recon wild Lands and know if
Speaker 2: you saw that Yesterday is getting a new expansion after
Speaker 2: being what that game's what they're celebrating the twenty fifth
Speaker 2: a diversity of the franchise. That particular game is twenty
Speaker 2: two thirteen. Yes, yeah, if memory serves so. I wonder
Speaker 2: if companies now are starting to figure out this nostalgia
Speaker 2: thing where they can just go in if they still
Speaker 2: have the source code, and keep adding to these older games,
Speaker 2: and maybe they can open up this new bit of revenue.
Speaker 2: And I hate to sound all cold and corporate about it,
Speaker 2: but this is Xbox. I kind of have to be
Speaker 2: I think it's really cool for the Quake fans and
Speaker 2: if it feels like that original game, if it emulates
Speaker 2: what they were feeling back when they were playing it
Speaker 2: the first time.
Speaker 3: Great it is also free? Is it free? Yes? So
Speaker 3: think that that's even better.
Speaker 2: You either get people to reinstall and start playing Quake again,
Speaker 2: or you get people who were curious to begin with
Speaker 2: to download it for the first time and play Quake,
Speaker 2: which they might have never done before, and that opens
Speaker 2: up the possibility of maybe expanding with a brand new Quake.
Speaker 2: Maybe that's one of the games in the pipeline. Who knows.
Speaker 2: I think this is really cool and more company should.
Speaker 1: And at the very least, and we've talked about Machine
Speaker 1: Games doing this sort of thing before with various d properties,
Speaker 1: especially Quake. It just keeps them sharp, right, Well, they
Speaker 1: just went back Machine Games. The team that's doing the
Speaker 1: new Wolf and Stein they did Idiana Jones. They just
Speaker 1: went back and made a bunch of new Quake levels,
Speaker 1: which you like.
Speaker 3: It just gets you in that.
Speaker 1: Design mindset of like, man, what would be cool for Quake,
Speaker 1: and it like if that's the team that eventually like
Speaker 1: does go back and does something new with Quake. Well, now,
Speaker 1: they have a lot of experience making Quake now, and
Speaker 1: it's it's not like this is fake experience or doesn't
Speaker 1: count because it's an expansion to an older game.
Speaker 3: It's that that's not how it works.
Speaker 1: This they made more Quake, and it's I think it
Speaker 1: will pay dividends in the future. I continue to think
Speaker 1: this is such a good idea good use of resources.
Speaker 1: When you have people that maybe aren't working on other stuff,
Speaker 1: get them, get them on a project like this so
Speaker 1: that they can stretch their legs. They can sort of
Speaker 1: like use those design muscles and really be like, hey,
Speaker 1: we have a demanding and discerning audio and when it
Speaker 1: comes to Quick, people who have been playing that game
Speaker 1: for a long time, what can we do to wow them?
Speaker 3: What can we do to impress them?
Speaker 1: And when they start thinking in that mindset, I think
Speaker 1: it really does challenge them to do something cool. And
Speaker 1: by all accounts from people who have played all the stuff,
Speaker 1: I played a handful of what Machine Games has done
Speaker 1: for these games, and I've been I was impressed. But
Speaker 1: people who are super into Quick seem to really love
Speaker 1: what Machine Games has done, and I think that speaks
Speaker 1: to their ability to kind of do anything with any
Speaker 1: of these games, but especially if they are the ones
Speaker 1: to take on Quake. We'll see what that really means.
Speaker 1: And boomer shooters are hot now right Ever since Dusk,
Speaker 1: I would say, since New Blake came out with Dusk,
Speaker 1: that seems to be a rising genre. Again, who who's
Speaker 1: to say they don't do this with Doom Could you
Speaker 1: imagine a new subsection of the original Doom engine that
Speaker 1: would be sweet.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to say that they did do something like that.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was Doomed too. I want to Doom Machine games.
Speaker 1: I feel like they did something like that, but maybe not.
Speaker 1: Maybe it was all quake. All right, let's uh, let's
Speaker 1: take a break at Actually, we're gonna take a quick break.
Speaker 1: Then we get back. We'll get to the rest of
Speaker 1: these headlines. If you want to skip out on these
Speaker 1: ad messages, we offer you a way to do that
Speaker 1: on giant bomb dot com. If you go to GiantBomb
Speaker 1: dot com slush join and become a premium member, you
Speaker 1: can find the ad free version of the show. There,
Speaker 1: go ahead, pick that up instead. We will be right back.
Speaker 1: All right, We're back. It's Game mess Mornings. Jeff Grub,
Speaker 1: Jason Finelli. Let's get into this next story here on
Speaker 1: Finelle Friday, Devolver Digital wants to go private again following
Speaker 1: a ninety five percent collapse in its share price. This
Speaker 1: is from John Walker at Kotaku. It seemed like an
Speaker 1: odd decision at the time when when indie publisher the
Speaker 1: Devolver Digital of Hotline Miami tell us principle Baby Steps
Speaker 1: Fame announced it was going to launch an IPO listing
Speaker 1: itself on the London Stock Exchanges Alternative Investment market in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, valued at nine hundred and fifty million dollars.
Speaker 1: Devolver CEO Douglas Morin said at the time, and IPO
Speaker 1: was the right choice for us to ensure our continued
Speaker 1: growth and support even more wonderful games today, Game Developers
Speaker 1: of reports the website Game Developer Reports Devolver intends to
Speaker 1: dlist and become a private company once more because the
Speaker 1: global video game industry has undergone a period of significant
Speaker 1: disruption and volatility. It also happens to be the case
Speaker 1: that the company's shares are currently valued at just forty
Speaker 1: five million dollars compared to that nine hundred fifty million
Speaker 1: dollar IPO. Colossal ninety five point three percent wipeout. In
Speaker 1: a statement posted to investors on August sixth, Devolver laid
Speaker 1: out it's planned to get delisted from the UK based
Speaker 1: Stock Exchange, as well as a proposed return of capital
Speaker 1: of up to five million of cash to qualifying shareholders
Speaker 1: and holders of depository interest by way of a tender offer,
Speaker 1: subject subject to approval by shareholders. This is a very
Speaker 1: different type of language for a company that is best
Speaker 1: known for its outlandish stunts, Maverick advertising campaigns and a
Speaker 1: deliberately offensive fictional CFO spokesperson in the form of Fork Parker.
Speaker 1: In a far more serious frame of mind, to Volver
Speaker 1: explained its rationale for this move to Volver is. During
Speaker 1: this time, navigated a number of operational market headwinds, including
Speaker 1: several impairments of under performing titles, amid an increasingly competitive
Speaker 1: and unpredictable market environment. As a publicly quoted company, Devolver
Speaker 1: has faced the ongoing challenge of delivering growth in line
Speaker 1: with market expectations despite those difficult sector conditions, resulting in
Speaker 1: evaluation disconnect that does not take account of the lifetime
Speaker 1: and longtail revenue delivery inherent of the video In the
Speaker 1: video game business, the company, this is no longer a quote.
Speaker 1: The company believes it will save one point six million
Speaker 1: dollars each year by going private again, and argues that
Speaker 1: its current share price, which has plunged to just seven
Speaker 1: point fifteen seven pounds I think or no, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: pence wow, Okay, seven point fifteen pence, So that's like
Speaker 1: ten cents overnight since the announcement. It's and then it's
Speaker 1: representative of deliverer's actual value. They said, that's not representive
Speaker 1: their actual value. Excuse me, okay, Jason. This is kind
Speaker 1: of where we're at in the industry right now, right
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. The sky's the limit. Why wouldn't you
Speaker 1: go public? That's like we are going to grow infinitely.
Speaker 1: Everyone thought that, The big companies thought that. The little
Speaker 1: companies thought that these middle of the road publishers that
Speaker 1: you know are not the PlayStations, but also are not
Speaker 1: just like scraping by one game at a time. Everyone
Speaker 1: thought that, and then the reality check comes in and
Speaker 1: now here we are that they have to find some
Speaker 1: other way of going forward, and it's like, yeah, going
Speaker 1: public actually never really made sense, and that is especially
Speaker 1: obvious in twenty twenty six, right.
Speaker 2: Correct, and they were riding the high as the article
Speaker 2: continues of Fall Guys the year before in twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: which is maybe number two on the list of COVID
Speaker 2: games behind Animal Crossing. Yeah, game, I don't think sees
Speaker 2: a success that it does if not for COVID. It's fun,
Speaker 2: don't get me wrong, but not where it was not
Speaker 2: even close.
Speaker 3: So I.
Speaker 2: Do understand why they're doing it now. I find them
Speaker 2: to be very fortunate to be able to still do
Speaker 2: this and not just fold because ninety five point three
Speaker 2: is a number I expect to hear when I turn
Speaker 2: on a radio station, not involving loss percentages for a
Speaker 2: video game company.
Speaker 3: So I.
Speaker 2: Hope that this works out for them. I hope that
Speaker 2: there's something not coming on behind the scenes where this
Speaker 2: might be too little, too late. But also probably didn't
Speaker 2: help that while yes, they published Fall Guys and it
Speaker 2: became very successful, Epic then bought Media Tonic and assumed
Speaker 2: all of that revenue, and then other than I mean,
Speaker 2: Devolver has always made good indie games, Don't get me wrong,
Speaker 2: They've been around for a very long time. I love
Speaker 2: Hotline Miami. I loved to hate Baby Steps as much
Speaker 2: as I enjoyed playing Baby Steps.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you could agree with that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I understand, But but they're indie games, and
Speaker 2: indie games, unless they are the breakout hit of the year,
Speaker 2: have a ceiling.
Speaker 3: They just do right.
Speaker 2: And and when you're specializing in a bunch of ceilings,
Speaker 2: one may break through, but the rest of them are
Speaker 2: just gonna sit and you're only gonna get so high.
Speaker 2: The floor might be high, but then the ceiling is
Speaker 2: still there and you just have to work within that
Speaker 2: house to keep the house metaphor going. I hope it
Speaker 2: works out.
Speaker 1: I do, yes, And it's like the metas changed right
Speaker 1: where it's like, you know this, Devolver Digital did specialize
Speaker 1: in like game ra ass games, and we're gonna put
Speaker 1: out some some really cool stuff that has a voice,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna recognize that voice. You're gonna see a
Speaker 1: game and be like, oh, this feels like a Devolver
Speaker 1: Digital game, and then you'll look at the badges and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, there's Devolver Digital.
Speaker 3: I knew it. And that definitely still has its place.
Speaker 1: But if you're talking about an ability to grow and
Speaker 1: make money, like you know, you look at a studio
Speaker 1: slash publisher sort of situation like Agrocrab, where it's like
Speaker 1: they have that the Crab, and they're like they're like, hey,
Speaker 1: now we're gonna make a peak this friends slop game.
Speaker 1: And now we're doing that, we have another one, the
Speaker 1: crash Out Crew, and they sort of just have these
Speaker 1: smash hits that like suddenly they have a way of
Speaker 1: replicating that, and it's like, oh, they found a way
Speaker 1: to have an indie game formula that doesn't have that
Speaker 1: ceiling that you were speaking speaking to. So Devolver hasn't
Speaker 1: really seemingly caught up to that, and I kind of did.
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily want them to. I want them to
Speaker 1: keep doing their thing, and it does seem like going private.
Speaker 1: They say, well, enable them to do that, but of
Speaker 1: course it's you know, they don't have much of a
Speaker 1: choice here either.
Speaker 2: Right, Somebody in chat. J. Cannon sixty four mentions to
Speaker 2: Madacci sold eight million cozy COVID games still popular. There's
Speaker 2: a big difference, my friend, between Toe Madocci Life and
Speaker 2: a ran new ip coming from Devolver Digital two. In
Speaker 2: fact one, Tomodacci, despite being in the lower portion of
Speaker 2: the portfolio, is a franchise, right It has had multiple games,
Speaker 2: multiple successful before. Yeah, yeah, right, not bad two And
Speaker 2: this is the important one. It has the Nintendo machine
Speaker 2: behind it. Devolver Digital does not have the Nintendo machine
Speaker 2: behind it, right, So that that marketing, the the you know,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying that Nintendo has the ability
Speaker 2: to make these smaller, more niche franchises into sales juggernauts
Speaker 2: because they also make the system. So these games are
Speaker 2: optimized for the system that they're coming out on. They're exclusives. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's apples and oranges if you ask me, so, I
Speaker 2: get it. I get where you're coming from. But it's
Speaker 2: apples and oranges.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think, like, you know, when we look at
Speaker 1: the peaks of the COVID boom that led to something
Speaker 1: like Animal Crossing doing very well, it's like, yeah, the
Speaker 1: a lot of those people did buy systems and they're
Speaker 1: still playing in Tomadachi Life was it's a switch one game,
Speaker 1: so that it did a benefit from that. Still, Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a marketing sort of manifestation of hey, if
Speaker 1: you're playing a game and you share stuff online, people
Speaker 1: will lap that stuff up. And that did get built
Speaker 1: up over COVID and and really has not gone away.
Speaker 3: So games could still take advantage of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, smaller, smaller publishers, Devolver don't really have have never
Speaker 1: really had access to that. That's not how that works
Speaker 1: for their games. Their games always worked on word of
Speaker 1: mouth from people who really play video games all the
Speaker 1: time and are looking for the next cool thing and
Speaker 1: like read game reviews and one know what, like actual
Speaker 1: critics are thinking of stuff and say, oh man, these
Speaker 1: Devolver games are getting good reviews. And that still has
Speaker 1: a pretty tough ceiling for sure.
Speaker 2: And if you want to get into where that word
Speaker 2: of mouth happened, it happened in game stores, it happened
Speaker 2: in you know, friend hangouts. Hey, you see groups, Yeah,
Speaker 2: Discord groups. Now all those Discord groups are probably playing
Speaker 2: the same live service game. They're playing Marathon, they're playing Fortnite,
Speaker 2: They're playing the games that are taking up the time.
Speaker 2: All roads lead back to that argument. Yes, I know,
Speaker 2: but it's just one. This is one other symptom of
Speaker 2: what is a well established issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when they're uh penny stocks though you know they
Speaker 1: don't last long on these stock exchanges, you have to
Speaker 1: sort of get the back, get the get the usually
Speaker 1: have to get back up above a dollar. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how it works in the London Stock Exchange, and
Speaker 1: it's it's far away from that in this moment, so
Speaker 1: they kind of just have no other choice. I'm glad
Speaker 1: this is not like and we're shutting down. I hope
Speaker 1: this is not a precursor to that or something like that.
Speaker 1: I Devolver feels like they could still make a lot
Speaker 1: of sense. Baby Steps was really i mean, was my
Speaker 1: game of the year, but also I felt like it
Speaker 1: was a pretty big hit.
Speaker 3: Is that Do they need like ten of those a year? Hopefully?
Speaker 1: Now, hopefully they could just find them here and there
Speaker 1: and then put out some other cool stuff and make
Speaker 1: that and make that work. But that is not going
Speaker 1: to lead to the kind of growth that the stock
Speaker 1: market is talking about. You know, you have to outperform
Speaker 1: the stock market, right because if you are one of
Speaker 1: these things, it's like, oh, this is the problem with
Speaker 1: Xbox is they were like, we're still growing, but we're
Speaker 1: growing slowly, and it's like, yeah, the return needs to
Speaker 1: be much bigger because someone can just go put their
Speaker 1: money into you know, a a an index fund or
Speaker 1: whatever that gets eight percent you know a year kind
Speaker 1: of automatically, and if you're not outperforming that, then what's
Speaker 1: the point. You're actually below the average and you don't
Speaker 1: make a lot of sense. So yeah, that's always going
Speaker 1: to be tough for these companies that don't have a
Speaker 1: lot of.
Speaker 3: Resources to work with. Yes, all right, let's shift over
Speaker 3: to Hollywood.
Speaker 1: The Legend of Zelda, a live action movie may have
Speaker 1: found it's Gannendorf. This is from Eddie McCoo at game Spot.
Speaker 1: The live action The Legend of Zelda movie from Sony,
Speaker 1: Pitchers and Nintendo has already cast its Link and Zelda,
Speaker 1: But what about all the other roles? A new report
Speaker 1: claims that Australian actor Uli Ladu Kefus for the TV
Speaker 1: series Young Rock, will play the villain Gannendorf. I think
Speaker 1: he played like twenty year old or eighteen year old
Speaker 1: Young Rocks.
Speaker 3: He was the titular Young Rock. Okay.
Speaker 1: He was like just straight like the like for the
Speaker 1: bulk of the story. It was h he was playing it.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure. Yah.
Speaker 2: When he was like up and coming, I think you
Speaker 2: said eighteen, twenty year old just getting started in wrestling.
Speaker 3: He was that guy. Okay.
Speaker 1: This is according to veteran Hollywood reporter Kyle Buchanan of
Speaker 1: The New York Times. He said he's been hearing that
Speaker 1: Latsu Kefu got the role, but it's not yet officially
Speaker 1: confirmed by the studio. Deadline also reported on the casting,
Speaker 1: going on to say he made a multi movie deal.
Speaker 1: In terms of confirmed casting, we already know that Bo
Speaker 1: Bragason is playing Zelda and Benjamin Evan Ainsworth is playing
Speaker 1: Link photos and links from the set appeared to suggest
Speaker 1: that Severance actor Dyken Lachman may be playing Empa.
Speaker 3: She looks just like Empa.
Speaker 1: So yeah, probably we have a follow up story on
Speaker 1: that here in a second. But yeah, they've not officially
Speaker 1: announced any of this yet. This stuff is starting to
Speaker 1: like get out there with suggest to me, like we
Speaker 1: gotta be weeks, months, days away from a trailer or
Speaker 1: a teaser something.
Speaker 3: What do you think.
Speaker 2: Let's not forget that the cast of the Super Mario movie,
Speaker 2: the first one was announced storing Anintendo direct, so we
Speaker 2: have that potentially September Nintendo direct time could be something
Speaker 2: that we could do because that came out in April.
Speaker 1: Not skipping that direct, there's no way they don't have
Speaker 1: a big direct when that price increase happens.
Speaker 3: So there's gonna be something there that has to be Yeah.
Speaker 2: So so, and I believe that the first Mario movie
Speaker 2: came out April first when it came out, so this
Speaker 2: is April thirty. If the timing length, so I the
Speaker 2: timing links. I just I did that to myself. Oh boys, wow,
Speaker 2: all right, but no, but first and foremost, this guy
Speaker 2: looks the part. He is a big imposing figure. Although
Speaker 2: in one of my slack chats, somebody was like, I
Speaker 2: thought Ganandorf was supposed to be an ugly krone and
Speaker 2: then he had to be corrected that Tears of the
Speaker 2: Kingdom Ganandorf could get it, and it sounds like it
Speaker 2: sounds like that's what they're going for here. But then yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean I think I think he if he can
Speaker 2: have this big, imposing Gannendorf, I will kill you sort of. Look,
Speaker 2: that's all he needs. I'm sure he can deliver the lines. Fine,
Speaker 2: he's not going to be Matt Mercer. Nobody's Matt Mercer.
Speaker 2: But as long as he is, you know, like stoic.
Speaker 3: And and and calm and imposing when he needs to be,
Speaker 3: and then psychotic when.
Speaker 2: He needs to be. If he has the look, that's
Speaker 2: ninety percent of it. As far as Ganandorf is concerned,
Speaker 2: I do agree that, Yeah, he just needs to be
Speaker 2: especially next to Bo Braggason and Benjamin Evan.
Speaker 3: Ainsworth, who are smaller, more presence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Dylan Locke, Dicken Dyke, and Dyken Diychen.
Speaker 3: I don't know, miss Casey, it does exactly that. That's
Speaker 3: one hundred percent perfect for input like she has real
Speaker 3: shoot elfears. It's crazy.
Speaker 2: Uh, but yeah, I get more and more excited about
Speaker 2: this movie as it approaches. I know I'm going to
Speaker 2: have to get over the hurdle of link speaking. Everyone's
Speaker 2: going to have to do that. He's going to talk, folks.
Speaker 2: They're not going to have a silent protagonist in the
Speaker 2: friggin movie. Just be ready for it. And once we
Speaker 2: get past that, I think we might have a cool
Speaker 2: movie on our hands.
Speaker 1: Yep, absolutely to that point. Sam Neil filmed the Legend
Speaker 1: of Zelda role prior to death. This is Sir Matt
Speaker 1: Grobar at Deadline. This is one of their exclusives. Earlier today,
Speaker 1: news broke that Australia's Uli Latu Quefu has landed the
Speaker 1: villain role of Gannendorf in the Legend of Zelda Movie
Speaker 1: from Nintendo and Sony. Now sources tell us that the
Speaker 1: late Sam Neil also will appear in the film. Reps
Speaker 1: for Sony couldn't be reached for comment, nor could Neil's
Speaker 1: former reps. The project, which wrapped in April, will mark
Speaker 1: one of Neil's final screen performances, if not the last.
Speaker 1: It's not yet clear who he plays. Neil died in
Speaker 1: or died on July thirteenth, at seventy eight. Other new
Speaker 1: additions to the Zelda movie include that when we mentioned
Speaker 1: Dyken Lachman and then the Handmaid's Handmaid Tales, Yvonne Strahovski
Speaker 1: she's gonna play an unnamed queen, so a little weird
Speaker 1: unnamed queen. Yeah, like because we haven't seen a lot
Speaker 1: of queen characters.
Speaker 3: Sort of.
Speaker 2: My camera's freaking now, I think this is uh no,
Speaker 2: you're right. Yeah, it's the Wasps, the Wasps Revenge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Max's Bedroom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Yvonne Strahovsky remind me she was Miranda Lawson
Speaker 2: in Mass Effect.
Speaker 3: That's correct. Yes, that's cool.
Speaker 2: Uh, that's a that's a cool pool And she's a
Speaker 2: random queen. Now are we have we decided? Are they
Speaker 2: following Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom.
Speaker 1: I think so we don't know yet, but like, no, no,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of us are kind of looking
Speaker 1: at what little information we have and we're gonna we're like,
Speaker 1: they are probably mostly pulling excuse me, from ocker En
Speaker 1: of Time and then filling in everything else from all
Speaker 1: the other games. And then I think this is like
Speaker 1: it would be like a tier list where they're mostly
Speaker 1: going to fill in from Breath of the Wie Like
Speaker 1: if they have to like fill in stuff visually, if aesthetically,
Speaker 1: if they have to like have a character have more
Speaker 1: of a backstory, they'll they'll kind of just pull from
Speaker 1: Breath of the Wild.
Speaker 2: But that, okay, that is my guess is trying to
Speaker 2: I'm trying to slot in where sam Neil could fit in.
Speaker 3: I mean, it could be like he could be the King, right,
Speaker 3: he could be.
Speaker 1: The like the king that shows up at the beginning
Speaker 1: of Breath of the Wild.
Speaker 2: Right, he would have made a great happy mask salesman.
Speaker 2: I want him to be I want him to be Tingle.
Speaker 2: I want to just put that man in the Tingle costume.
Speaker 3: Let him just Tingle.
Speaker 2: We talked, We've talked about this now, but I link's
Speaker 2: uncle from Link to the past.
Speaker 3: That's a good idea. Yeah for Sam Neil, that's a
Speaker 3: good point. Yeah, that's good. That is a that's a
Speaker 3: that's a good call. Chat.
Speaker 2: I'm now getting more excited to learn about this film. Right,
Speaker 2: It's always been there in the periphery, but like ever
Speaker 2: since again indor off announcement and now this, I'm like,
Speaker 2: all right, we are within a year. I didn't realize
Speaker 2: that we're within nine months eight months of this movie
Speaker 2: coming out.
Speaker 3: Let's let's go.
Speaker 2: Let's get this big price increase direct happening, get the
Speaker 2: cast announced in there, tell us who Keegan Michael Key
Speaker 2: is voicing in this one, and then let's let's do
Speaker 2: this thing.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I'm just hearing like, oh yeah, they got
Speaker 1: that Gannendorf guy for in a multi movie deal.
Speaker 3: They have faith in this. They they seem to think
Speaker 3: this thing is gonna work.
Speaker 1: I think they all everyone involved knows if it hits,
Speaker 1: it could hit big. This could be a massive fantasy
Speaker 1: money maker. And I do appreciate that they are kind
Speaker 1: of like just trying to make it as much like
Speaker 1: Lord of the Rings as possible in terms of the
Speaker 1: production where it's like, let's just go to New Zealand,
Speaker 1: let's get let's get a handful of actors from Australia
Speaker 1: and New Zealand to fill out our casts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that worked for them.
Speaker 2: I look forward to the YouTube channels that will arise
Speaker 2: after this movie comes out. Comparing Lord of the Ring
Speaker 2: shots and Zelda shots based on the scenery in the background.
Speaker 1: Resolutely, there's going to be there's gonna be overlap there
Speaker 1: for sure. All right, Take two had its earnings. Take
Speaker 1: two sticks to annual bookings. Outlook says it's on track
Speaker 1: for GTA six November launch.
Speaker 3: I think we could figure that out now.
Speaker 1: This is from Reuters, But basically the story here though
Speaker 1: is like they said pre orders are doing very well.
Speaker 1: They were like, hey, pre orders were like started and
Speaker 1: they're doing very well, extremely well. They didn't give any numbers.
Speaker 1: They did say that their first the first fiscal quarter
Speaker 1: into June thirtieth and netbookings stood at one point three
Speaker 1: nine billion, which was a touch above market estimates of
Speaker 1: one point three eight billion. A lot of people in
Speaker 1: mind were like, hey, grand theft Auto six pre orders
Speaker 1: has already made one point three nine billion.
Speaker 3: Dollars that's not that's not what that is. This is
Speaker 3: a different thing.
Speaker 1: In fact, most of the money for preordering has not
Speaker 1: happened yet, right like that that doesn't get processed until
Speaker 1: the game, Like ships from like Amazon or whatever, it
Speaker 1: doesn't get processed by you know, game stop and they
Speaker 1: take five dollars deposit, but they don't give that money
Speaker 1: over to them until the disc happened.
Speaker 3: Right stop doesn't sell games anymore.
Speaker 1: That's all right, yeah, right exactly, the Funko pop deposit.
Speaker 3: I meant to say.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so they're like, we're making money now and
Speaker 1: then we expect to make around like god, I think
Speaker 1: they put it at eight point two billion.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, here it is Take two set it.
Speaker 1: It expects fiscal two thousand or twenty twenty seven bookings
Speaker 1: of eight billion to eight point two billion. Analyst on
Speaker 1: average work expecting that number to be eight point eight
Speaker 1: six billion. So it's a little bit under what analysts thought.
Speaker 1: That is just take two being conservative. So they can
Speaker 1: really beat that number and look very strong. So they're
Speaker 1: on track to do you know, big things there. There
Speaker 1: were some other stuff here. They did talk about the
Speaker 1: price once more. Take two defense GTA six is eighty
Speaker 1: dollars price calls it phenomenal value. This is from Darren
Speaker 1: Bontus at game Spot. While most of Take two Interactive's
Speaker 1: games are priced at seventy dollars, which became a much
Speaker 1: more common MSRP for new releases from twenty twenty onwards,
Speaker 1: GTA six is one of a handful of titles that
Speaker 1: will retail for eighty dollars, a price that the publisher
Speaker 1: believes is a phenomenal value for the open world game.
Speaker 1: Speaking to investors following the release of Take Two's quarterly earnings,
Speaker 1: CEO Strauss Zelnick addressed a query about how the publisher
Speaker 1: had landed on an eighty dollars price point for GTA six.
Speaker 1: Zelnick echoed previous statements made regarding the value proposition of
Speaker 1: GTA six and how the publisher is aiming to over
Speaker 1: deliver on.
Speaker 3: The value attached to that title.
Speaker 1: Our goal is to deliver way more value to consumers
Speaker 1: than we charge them, Zelnick said. The truth is that
Speaker 1: the real cost of a triple A video game as
Speaker 1: a whole is a lot lower today than it was
Speaker 1: twenty years ago.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah. The same thing we've heard a bunch
Speaker 3: of times.
Speaker 1: But you know, new games from Take two have come
Speaker 1: out and have been priced at seventy dollars, like NBA
Speaker 1: two K twenty seven came out or got priced at
Speaker 1: least that's seventy dollars as opposed to the Grand Theft
Speaker 1: Auto six, which is eighty And I think they were
Speaker 1: asked about that as well.
Speaker 3: Not yeah, I mean Grand Theft Auto is different.
Speaker 1: He basically said, we had a lot of prices we
Speaker 1: could have chosen for Grand Theft Auto six, we went
Speaker 1: with eighty dollars, basically saying be happy it's only eighty
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of us are on there,
Speaker 1: and we know it could.
Speaker 3: Have been a lot more expensive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how do you think things are lining up for
Speaker 1: this game?
Speaker 3: For Take two?
Speaker 1: Like, where do you think the conversation is at with
Speaker 1: like the average person? Does it feel like, Yeah, people
Speaker 1: are just going to line up by this game for
Speaker 1: eighty dollars and it's going to be as big as
Speaker 1: everyone has proclaimed it's going to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean yeah, I don't know that it's going
Speaker 2: to be industry saving because the problems with the industry
Speaker 2: are outside of Takes two's purview. I know people like
Speaker 2: to say, Grand Theft Auto six is going to save
Speaker 2: video games.
Speaker 3: No it's not.
Speaker 2: It's going to keep Take two on the top of
Speaker 2: the shorts and that's about it. But I do think that,
Speaker 2: like we here in the bubble of video game coverage
Speaker 2: and industry and being so deeply entrenched into it, forget
Speaker 2: about the sheer popularity of this thing outside of the
Speaker 2: bubble with the casuals, to use a very derisive term.
Speaker 2: These people have been looking forward to this game since
Speaker 2: that first trailer. They some of these people may be
Speaker 2: a starting a thirty day free trial or no, they
Speaker 2: don't do free trials, maybe doing a month to month
Speaker 2: Netflix subscription now just so they can watch the thing
Speaker 2: six hours early in twenty days time and then canceling
Speaker 2: it again. Do not underestimate the power of the Grand
Speaker 2: Theft Auto fan. They are numerous, and they are dedicated.
Speaker 2: They would have come out for ninety dollars, they would
Speaker 2: have come out for one hundred. Some of them probably
Speaker 2: are coming out for one hundred and more with the
Speaker 2: Deluxe editions or whatever they are. I think it's one
Speaker 2: hundred and what. I don't know what they one is,
Speaker 2: I can't remember, but yeah.
Speaker 3: But yeah, this one.
Speaker 2: You're gonna get the people who haven't played a video game,
Speaker 2: who bought a PS five or Xbox at launch and
Speaker 2: they play Madden on it, and they play two K
Speaker 2: on it, and maybe Call of Duty as well. You're
Speaker 2: gonna get those people. There are a lot of those people.
Speaker 2: And then you're gonna get people who bought the PS
Speaker 2: five at launch for this and it has been sitting
Speaker 2: on a shelf for six years for this. They they
Speaker 2: exist and they are coming. Just seems to be huge, yes,
Speaker 2: and it's there. I just don't see any other way
Speaker 2: for it to play. It would be hysterical to me though.
Speaker 2: If this game came out for eighty dollars it was
Speaker 2: like a ten hour single player narrative.
Speaker 3: I would miss myself.
Speaker 2: But no, as far as phenomenal value, he's probably talking
Speaker 2: about price versus hours. I expect this a completionist run
Speaker 2: of this game to run what one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: two hundred, And that's being generous.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, I mean yeah, I think people get a
Speaker 3: lot of content outor a lot of content hot out
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: Two ended, and then it just kept going with a
Speaker 2: different protagonist for another twenty five hours. Who knows what
Speaker 2: the hell is going to happen here, So it's gonna
Speaker 2: be It's going to dominate headlines from I would say
Speaker 2: November first to Thanksgiving, maybe even Christmas. It's just going
Speaker 2: to be the game industry for the rest of twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six once it launches. And yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 2: all really elders to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just I'm definitely getting to a point where
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, I see that chad by You guys
Speaker 1: act like you're above it, not above it. It's just
Speaker 1: like we are so steeped and like this is the
Speaker 1: only game that matters. And that's kind of the it's
Speaker 1: the subtext to everything that's that is told to us
Speaker 1: when we look at any sort of date or anything
Speaker 1: like that, or when you do talk to people in
Speaker 1: the industry, everything revolves around it. And I think the
Speaker 1: last I mean, I think Grand Theft Dog games are
Speaker 1: fun for a bit.
Speaker 2: I don't think they're worth all this hoopla personally, That's
Speaker 2: just how I feel about them.
Speaker 1: But it's I'm excited to play it, just like I
Speaker 1: am any video game. But that's not the that's not
Speaker 1: the treatment that the game gets. It doesn't get the
Speaker 1: treat of like this is another video game. It is
Speaker 1: the you know, it's the Jesus, it's the Savior, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's the one thing that will not just save
Speaker 1: the industry, but it's the one game we're thinking or
Speaker 1: talking about. And uh, I I'm not.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: I'm like pretty immune to resenting it at this point
Speaker 1: because of that, Like, and Mike was like, God, I'm
Speaker 1: so sick of this, and I'm like, I fully get that,
Speaker 1: but I'm just like, I do the show and I
Speaker 1: have to talk about Grand Theft Auto six every day
Speaker 1: for the most part, And uh.
Speaker 3: So I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't resent it, but I'm definitely like, I don't
Speaker 1: have it on a pedestal in my heart.
Speaker 3: That's not where it goes. It's just another video game.
Speaker 2: To me, because you remember the times when it wasn't
Speaker 2: on a pedestal, like the first Grand Theft Auto come out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I played on Dreamcast at the friend's house
Speaker 1: and we were like, I think it was Dreamcast, might
Speaker 1: have been something else, but I think we're playing on Dreamcast,
Speaker 1: and uh Like, we were talking to each other and
Speaker 1: we're like, man, imagine if this game was like the
Speaker 1: camera was down there and it was three D, and
Speaker 1: we had the whole conversation describing what Grand Theft Auto
Speaker 1: three was going going to be to each other without
Speaker 1: any idea that they were doing that, and what happened
Speaker 1: was like, that's amazing they pulled off. This is truly
Speaker 1: like revolutionary and amazing. And we felt that way, like
Speaker 1: we felt that way about a dozens of other games
Speaker 1: in our time, and yeah, it's just like this is
Speaker 1: one that has done that for a lot of people
Speaker 1: in the mainstream, so it has this outsized effect.
Speaker 3: That's all. Listen.
Speaker 2: I'm just happy that one of the largest video game
Speaker 2: launches of all time is going to be led by
Speaker 2: a protagonist who shares my first name. Okay, I hope
Speaker 2: he's fully customizable, because if he is, I'm just going
Speaker 2: to self insert myself into this game and see what happens.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's and I love stress Zelnik being like
Speaker 2: phenomenal valuating what the hell are you going to say?
Speaker 3: No, this this game sucks, don't buy it? Of course?
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: He wasn't done though. Take two CEO predicts that will
Speaker 1: all be streaming our games in three years. This is
Speaker 1: from Rebecca Valentina could the high price of video game
Speaker 1: hardware and the looming thread of further increases is still
Speaker 1: casting a shadow over the future of gaming for consumers,
Speaker 1: and while video game executives generally are not folks you'd
Speaker 1: expect to be particularly fussed about these cost to increases,
Speaker 1: especially if they're profiting off them. The CEO of Take two,
Speaker 1: owner of Grand Theft, Auto of six Studio Rockstar Games,
Speaker 1: agrees that the price hikes are not a good thing. However,
Speaker 1: he's not too concerned because he believes we're all going
Speaker 1: to be streaming our games on other devices in three
Speaker 1: years anyway. This came from a lengthy answer Give It
Speaker 1: in Take Two's quarterly Earning's Call this Morning by Strauss Zelnick,
Speaker 1: in response to a question about the rising cost of hardware.
Speaker 1: He began his reply by saying that the rising cost
Speaker 1: of the rising price of hardware is not a good
Speaker 1: thing because it means fewer people will have machines on
Speaker 1: which to play games, but that it won't slow Take
Speaker 1: two down as a business because we're delivering experiences that
Speaker 1: people want. But Zelnick continued, let's see here he said. First,
Speaker 1: he pointed out that the world is increasingly moving to
Speaker 1: open systems, as demonstrated by the rise of PC gaming
Speaker 1: over the last time twenty years.
Speaker 3: It's been longer than that.
Speaker 1: And then he continued with the advent of streaming, which
Speaker 1: we really do believe is around the corner in terms
Speaker 1: of having something that's a low latency and really works
Speaker 1: well for consumers. Machines that weren't game machines before will
Speaker 1: become game machines. So without regard to what happens in
Speaker 1: the console business, which is of consequences to us, of course,
Speaker 1: we see the overall install based as a practical matter,
Speaker 1: growing materially and if you believe in streaming, to be clear,
Speaker 1: we really do, and I'm happy to put a timeline
Speaker 1: on it. I think we'll be in commercial streaming mode
Speaker 1: in three years, and by commercial I mean low latency
Speaker 1: that can ten x the effective install base. That doesn't
Speaker 1: mean we're going to ten x our revenue, and we
Speaker 1: wouldn't project that we would because obviously your aver avid
Speaker 1: consumers already have access to video game machines. But I
Speaker 1: do think it creates great opportunity for titles that are
Speaker 1: broadly desirable, even outside of core markets, and we do
Speaker 1: have titles like that.
Speaker 3: Obviously, I will.
Speaker 1: Say like this is like the number one best piece
Speaker 1: of evidence yet that Strauss like who is amidst this?
Speaker 3: Is not someone who plays video games.
Speaker 1: And not someone who plays Grand Theft Auto, cause, like
Speaker 1: what really made like Grand Theft Auto go around? It's
Speaker 1: a Grand Theft Auto online for sure, But it was
Speaker 1: also like the role play servers, which were mods and
Speaker 1: community controlled stuff you had to like install on you
Speaker 1: do stuff on your machine that you owned that you
Speaker 1: could do stuff too. You're streaming from the cloud and
Speaker 1: that is controlled by someone else and you kind of
Speaker 1: can't customize the experience. That is going to limit what happened.
Speaker 1: And then the game that does like take its place
Speaker 1: is gonna be one that you do just you have
Speaker 1: full control of. This is not how people have said,
Speaker 1: like with their money, with their time, with their behavior,
Speaker 1: This is not how they want to be playing video
Speaker 1: games streaming over the cloud. And it has been little
Speaker 1: latency before and that has not made a difference.
Speaker 2: No, yeah, uh talk to Luna. Did you even know
Speaker 2: Amazon Luna still exists?
Speaker 3: I forgot about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah it's there. Google State would like to have a
Speaker 2: word as well. Low latency cloud gaming will never succeed
Speaker 2: until the internet infrastructure of the country and the world
Speaker 2: is improved. Now granted, outside of the US it is
Speaker 2: already much better than it is here.
Speaker 3: But until.
Speaker 2: Little Timmy in rural Kansas whatever can play cloud games
Speaker 2: the same way he would as if he had the
Speaker 2: console in his living room, it's irrelevant. Yeah, none of
Speaker 2: this is irrelevant. And as Jason Schreyer pointed out, someone
Speaker 2: put in chat cool and Colin pointed out in chat
Speaker 2: Strauss said the same three year thing about streaming services
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen, so he just likes to say streaming
Speaker 2: in three years in the same thing.
Speaker 3: They just make him think that, Like if.
Speaker 1: You are an executive that doesn't play games and you
Speaker 1: do all the other medias because I'm sure he reads
Speaker 1: book I'm sure he watches movies, I'm sure he listens
Speaker 1: to music. He's like, well, it'll happen all over there,
Speaker 1: so it's gonna happen to happen here eventually, And it's like, right,
Speaker 1: I think the Yeah, the dynamism of video games comes
Speaker 1: from the fact that they are software that people can
Speaker 1: own on their machine and do fun things with. That
Speaker 1: is why people lean towards PC, and yeah, people pointed
Speaker 1: out absolutely, I've mentioned a million times Rockstar acquired the
Speaker 1: role playing server people, it acquired a lot of user
Speaker 1: generated content aspects of the community. That's that doesn't matter
Speaker 1: the like they're gonna they're not gonna be able to
Speaker 1: put like trademarked material in there. They're not gonna enable
Speaker 1: you to like do the craziest shit that you can do,
Speaker 1: and that will still come from the community, and you
Speaker 1: need to own the hardware to really do that unless
Speaker 1: you're gonna like have this PC in the cloud that
Speaker 1: you still have full control. If they're not gonna give
Speaker 1: you that, If it's gonna go cloud gaming, it's gonna
Speaker 1: be them controlling the experience. That's one of the reasons
Speaker 1: they want to do this. So the people that care
Speaker 1: enough to play a Grand Theft auto game care enough
Speaker 1: to own their own hardware.
Speaker 3: And that's not gonna change.
Speaker 2: No, it'll never change. And if this frustrates you, if
Speaker 2: it really makes you upset, unlike when he's opened his
Speaker 2: mouth before, you have an avenue in which to release
Speaker 2: this stress. You can log on to ww E two
Speaker 2: K twenty six and slam him through a fucking table.
Speaker 3: That's right, he.
Speaker 2: Put it, He put himself there, He did it to himself,
Speaker 2: and now you can go in and give him a
Speaker 2: stone close stunner or a rock bottom to your heart's content.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it does. It does. Just sound like that
Speaker 2: normal suit who has no friggin idea what's going on,
Speaker 2: doesn't he It's it's three years from now. We'll still
Speaker 2: be waiting for streaming three years from then, and that
Speaker 2: three years will just keep happening until the end of time. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the rest of us will be investing in retro hardware
Speaker 2: and emulator handhelds and playing our favorite games that way
Speaker 2: because we don't want to deal with you're streaming bullshit.
Speaker 3: That's right, all right, we should start wrapping the show up.
Speaker 1: Let's h and that's that's not the poll question. That's
Speaker 1: three Fighter explus Alpha music. Let me go over here instead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know right, it's a good soundtrack. Okay, have you
Speaker 1: purchased an EA game this year? That's the poll question
Speaker 1: that we need to catch up on. Yes or no?
Speaker 1: I said no, So did ninety percent of respond It's
Speaker 1: ten percent said yes. I bet that number does change
Speaker 1: when zero Company comes out. I bet a few more
Speaker 1: people end up buying an EA game in that moment. Otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, even people who were once super into the
Speaker 1: sports games a lot have checked out, So I know,
Speaker 1: I don't go back to them like years and years
Speaker 1: and years at a time. Maybe occasionally I we'll check
Speaker 1: them out, but years and years at a time, I'll
Speaker 1: skip out on them.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Janis scrolling through the comments as you say. That's three
Speaker 2: zero company comments comments just in this little scroll. So
Speaker 2: I think you're absolutely spot on about that.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's you know, it's former x Com people,
Speaker 1: it's Respawn people.
Speaker 3: You know. I might not have any.
Speaker 1: Love for EA, but I do like Respawn and the
Speaker 1: people that are still there. Even though it's like a
Speaker 1: lot of people that made the respund games that I
Speaker 1: truly love have moved on, there's still a lot of
Speaker 1: people that are still there and they're working with former
Speaker 1: x Com people to make a Star Wars Xcom style game.
Speaker 3: I will, And that's the rub. Right.
Speaker 2: You want to support the studios, you want to support
Speaker 2: the people making the game, but in order to do that,
Speaker 2: you have to play.
Speaker 3: The games for the people.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, no new poll question because we have the
Speaker 1: Bomb twelve. Instead, we'll get to that to wrap up
Speaker 1: the show, so let's take care of business otherwise, Jason,
Speaker 1: why don't you tell people where they could find you
Speaker 1: on the internet what you have going on and all
Speaker 1: that good stuff.
Speaker 2: Jasonfinelli dot Com on Blue Sky, big Man Finelle on Instagram.
Speaker 2: That's where I am most active on socials. As I
Speaker 2: mentioned at the top of the show, I will be
Speaker 2: reviewing Marvel to Con for Game Spot and Madden twenty
Speaker 2: seven for IGN, so look for that stuff coming out soon.
Speaker 2: In fact, one of those two might have a little
Speaker 2: in progress thing by the end of the day, so
Speaker 2: just keep an eye on that and I will share
Speaker 2: it as soon as it is ready. Otherwise, I had
Speaker 2: a bunch of the Magic on Amsterdam stuff. It's happening
Speaker 2: that that happened. That new set comes out today. The Hobbit,
Speaker 2: I don't know what's going to if I'm writing anything
Speaker 2: with that right there, but that's something I'm looking forward
Speaker 2: to Philly tonight. As I said, if you see me,
Speaker 2: please feel free to say hello. Somebody did on Monday.
Speaker 2: We were there on Monday for my Theater Groups show,
Speaker 2: so somebody came up and introduced themselves, said Weaver. Giant
Speaker 2: Bomb premium member Weaver Weber. I think it's we were
Speaker 2: introduced themselves, said hello, said love your stuff, level on
Speaker 2: your own with Jeff Grubb. Did it in front of
Speaker 2: my wife and kids, so now they move. I'm not
Speaker 2: making it up. Yeah you do this.
Speaker 1: Ammy brought up to me like it's happened a bunch,
Speaker 1: but like only a couple of times around Emmy. And
Speaker 1: it was like one time where we were at Disney
Speaker 1: and she like brought like that was a year ago.
Speaker 3: And she's like remember that. Do you like that? I'm like, yeah, sure,
Speaker 3: what do you think of it? She said, I like it? Okay,
Speaker 3: we'll get up Mike. My kids were slamming ice cream
Speaker 3: and they're like, what dad has fans. I'm like that
Speaker 3: I guess, but you know, Chase go say hide, I'm chased.
Speaker 3: That a huge giant bomb fan.
Speaker 2: So that happens, you'll hear an explosion from Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: That will that will be you'll sign an autograph for him?
Speaker 3: That would that would rule. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But yeah, that's that's what I got going on. That's
Speaker 2: what I'm doing and uh yeah, uh.
Speaker 3: M, fantastic, Like I said, thank you so much. As always, Jason.
Speaker 1: Let's see here uh Geian Bomb still, so we got
Speaker 1: some more stuff to do today in a little bit
Speaker 1: not too long from now.
Speaker 3: In fact, you don't have to maybe go anywhere. We
Speaker 3: might send you somewhere.
Speaker 1: But did just hang out on Giant Bomb as we
Speaker 1: get ready for the Giant Big Walk. We are going
Speaker 1: to play some more Big Walk today live. We're going
Speaker 1: to continue where we left off from the quick look.
Speaker 1: So if you watch that, we're going to pick up
Speaker 1: from there and we'll have multiicam perspective. Sean will be
Speaker 1: sort of jumping between all of our perspectives. We might
Speaker 1: have a few friends hop in. Kayla might be there,
Speaker 1: so we'll see how that goes. I kind of want
Speaker 1: to just put her in charge and have her all
Speaker 1: yell at us, because that's the best yeller.
Speaker 2: Every item you find is about to be punted into
Speaker 2: the sea.
Speaker 3: I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 1: I really had a good time playing this game. So
Speaker 1: two men, let's hang out together. Let's wrap up the
Speaker 1: week nice with that. Okay, let's see so that means
Speaker 1: it's time four the Bomb twelve. Everybody, these are the
Speaker 1: twelve games that really matter to people who are really
Speaker 1: playing video games. Let's go through here starting with number twelve,
Speaker 1: pop it back up on the list Final Fantasy fourteen
Speaker 1: because that is now on switch to I bet it'll
Speaker 1: be even higher next week. Actually, number eleven is Hades two.
Speaker 1: Number ten is Pathogenic. Number nine is Final Fantasy seven Rebirth.
Speaker 1: Number eight Big Walk again, that's another one I expect
Speaker 1: to be higher next week. Number seven is Zeno Blake
Speaker 1: Chronic two. Number six is Beast of Reincarnation. Number five
Speaker 1: is DNSCHA attack. Number four rising on the list is
Speaker 1: fox Quest two.
Speaker 2: Next week, well maybe not because a couple of games
Speaker 2: have come out this week, so maybe not, but next
Speaker 2: week you might have a picture of two in the
Speaker 2: top three of this thing.
Speaker 1: Fox Quest two is unstoppable, That's what we always say here.
Speaker 1: Number three Halo Combat Evolve. That did jump a big
Speaker 1: time from last week. And then number two is Marathon
Speaker 1: Still man, I need to spend more time with Marathon
Speaker 1: before we do Game of the Years what I've decided.
Speaker 1: And then number one Splittoon Raiders is just a fan favorite,
Speaker 1: is what I would say at.
Speaker 2: This point for that game. Yeah, people who are into
Speaker 2: it are super into it. A lot of people in
Speaker 2: the chat are questioning the choice of picture. Someone need
Speaker 2: to explain themselves.
Speaker 1: Alright, listen, that's not me, it's it's all on Jan,
Speaker 1: and Jan has his own proclivities. Judge them for it,
Speaker 1: all right, everybody that does it for the Bomb twelve.
Speaker 1: Although there's always a new Bomb twelve in the coming
Speaker 1: next week, next Friday, we'll have another one, and if
Speaker 1: you want to submit your game for that, go to
Speaker 1: giant bomb dot com. Scroll down on the right you
Speaker 1: could see all the games that are on this week's
Speaker 1: Bomb twelve. On the left there's a button that says
Speaker 1: vote here. You click that takes you to the Google
Speaker 1: form you could submit your game. I will collate all
Speaker 1: of that and get it ready for next week, and
Speaker 1: please do so. It's always great to see the hundreds
Speaker 1: of people who submit their game for the Bomb twelve
Speaker 1: so we could see what this community is into.
Speaker 3: I always appreciate it, all right.
Speaker 1: With that said, Jason Finelli, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: hanging out on a finale Friday, man, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Always happy to be here.
Speaker 1: Thank you, grub Thank you all for watching and listening.
Speaker 1: You're the best audience in game and you make it
Speaker 1: all worth it. Until next time, have a good one,
Speaker 1: good time, take care of yourself and goodbye.