Speaker 1: You are listening to Video Games to the Max.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to another edition of Video Games to
Speaker 2: the Max. I am your host Sean Germer. Here with
Speaker 2: me today is Randy isbel.
Speaker 1: I'm here so that guess what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 2: Yes, we're going to talk about a lot of bad news,
Speaker 2: apparently so as Randy always gets the crappy deal of layoffs,
Speaker 2: layoffs and big layoffs, this time with Bungeee laying off
Speaker 2: people possibly restructuring more under something than they were for
Speaker 2: losing their autonomy, possibly as well losing a game they
Speaker 2: were making. Game Informer also close, which is bad news
Speaker 2: on the other side of things, close to the mass
Speaker 2: side of things. And Sue, he's just in a different department,
Speaker 2: and we do have games, but we both played Supermarket
Speaker 2: Simulator and we're both hooked on it, so at least
Speaker 2: we have a game to talk about that. It's not
Speaker 2: that more Eer Cars twenty five stuff about Xbox consoles.
Speaker 2: What's new with that? Or I guess what's old with
Speaker 2: that because it's the same same thing every time. But
Speaker 2: we'll get into all that stuff and more. You are
Speaker 2: listening to Video Games to the Max, all right, Well,
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and get this stuff out of the
Speaker 2: way here and do the housekeeping. If this is your
Speaker 2: first time listening, one hundred time listening, we do appreciate
Speaker 2: you just letting you know. Mark is not here because
Speaker 2: he had to go a last minute go help his
Speaker 2: mom with stuff, and she lives kind of away. So
Speaker 2: Randy is nice enough to you know, cover and fill
Speaker 2: in here and you, of course, you can always check
Speaker 2: him out and sometimes me and a few of our
Speaker 2: other friends over at Bad Brackets. So go watch Randy
Speaker 2: on YouTube, Go subscribe over there. It's a really fun show.
Speaker 2: If you like March Madness. You don't have to like sports.
Speaker 2: We've done a lot of video game ones over there
Speaker 2: or anything. Really, they've done all kinds of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we try to mix it up with whether it's
Speaker 1: food or TV or sports or video games. We debate
Speaker 1: at all and in the end it's just everyone gets
Speaker 1: mad at me at first, and then they get mad
Speaker 1: at each other throughout the show and they forget I exist.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, it's fun just seeing folks just get mad
Speaker 2: at each other and then get mad at Randy because
Speaker 2: he picked the thing that and everybody man so.
Speaker 1: Number Olympics was the one that just came out today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have another version of that episode if the way
Speaker 1: of the world loosens back up and people don't get
Speaker 1: so upset about edgy jokes because Robert Taylor had some
Speaker 1: singers that I had to cut. Let's just say that
Speaker 1: episode is about twice as long because we got into
Speaker 1: some hilarious conversations that are not okay.
Speaker 2: To but oh whoa, there you go, definitely gotta go.
Speaker 2: Maybe check it out for the juicy stuff.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, Also, if you subscribe to the on our side
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Speaker 2: get what we do here with the video games, which
Speaker 2: definitely you know you should watch for the video game stuff,
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Speaker 2: new anime stuff or news with anime or whatever, they
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Speaker 2: And also on the movies Entertainment TV side, rather than
Speaker 2: you're broadcasting your great over there, they got their Deadpool
Speaker 2: Overene review, which I did see that last week and
Speaker 2: it's great. Not going to go much further into that,
Speaker 2: and then they've got other reviews as well for things
Speaker 2: pretty much anytime there's a new movie that comes out,
Speaker 2: that's a fair note, they have the review out the
Speaker 2: next week, so definitely want to go check them out
Speaker 2: for that kind of thing. But all right, that's enough
Speaker 2: with the promoting. Let's go into Oh you also listen
Speaker 2: on podcasts. Shout also mentioned that as well. If you
Speaker 2: don't like watching on video and there's still so many
Speaker 2: all dinosaurs that are stuck on don't want to get
Speaker 2: on YouTube and watch the thing, you can listen on podcasts, which,
Speaker 2: you know what, I bought premium because I got tired
Speaker 2: of the ads and also it's a better music service
Speaker 2: than Spotify for like the same price. You can get
Speaker 2: everything Spotify has plus YouTube Premium. It's like a steal basically,
Speaker 2: So yeah, I got that. So I it's it's a
Speaker 2: podcast thing for me too, not just a video thing now,
Speaker 2: but I get you know, thirteen dollars is not cheap
Speaker 2: everybody at this point. So moving on here, let's start
Speaker 2: with some like good stuff first. Let's like get into
Speaker 2: the like, you know, sad stuff in a little bit,
Speaker 2: because there's funny of that in this episode, and I
Speaker 2: know some of y'all watch them, probably want to hear
Speaker 2: us talk about the bunch of stuff. But let's get
Speaker 2: into the cool, the nice stuff here just really quick
Speaker 2: before we get into our games. We're talking about if
Speaker 2: you want some free games or if you have PESGM plus,
Speaker 2: I guess you keep being subscribed. Starting tomorrow or August sixth,
Speaker 2: whenever you're listening to this, you can go pick up Lego,
Speaker 2: Star Wars, sky Wars, Skywalker Saga, five Nights of Freddy's
Speaker 2: Security Breach was isn't that? I think that was like
Speaker 2: last year, not sure the year before and also the
Speaker 2: year before a couple of years ago. A game I
Speaker 2: don't know if you played yet, Rainy, but it's up
Speaker 2: your alleye. It's a metro Vina ander Lily's Quietest of
Speaker 2: the Nights. You can check that out as well. It's
Speaker 2: a pretty good indie Metrovania. And they're making a second
Speaker 2: one also, so it must have done decently enough to
Speaker 2: warnt a second game. So those are available as of
Speaker 2: August sixth, and of course get your the ones from
Speaker 2: last month. Have you haven't gotten them yet before that ends?
Speaker 2: So let's talk about games we've been playing here, both
Speaker 2: of us so this game came out, it's in on
Speaker 2: the access. To be fair, it's only on Steam. It
Speaker 2: was on the phones originally, and I think once they
Speaker 2: put it on all the access on Steam, they removed
Speaker 2: it from the phone in order to get he put
Speaker 2: it by it on Steam. I'm assuming thirteen dollars Swain
Speaker 2: not that bad. Honestly, go get you know, like I said,
Speaker 2: a subscription for one of those treatment services for a month.
Speaker 2: You get a Supermarket Simulator, probably much more fun. So
Speaker 2: you're the one that got me hooked on this. I'm
Speaker 2: saying anything else, you know, And I know we don't see,
Speaker 2: but that's what happened to work with my laptop and
Speaker 2: worked decently. So I'll like, okay, let's let's stick with
Speaker 2: this year. So what made you want to play the game?
Speaker 2: And then like, what's your experience with it so far?
Speaker 1: Honestly, I don't watch like Marketplayer or those kind of
Speaker 1: streamers as much anymore. I mean, obviously I try to
Speaker 1: support them here and there and and kind of watch
Speaker 1: videos from time to time, and sometimes I'll just play
Speaker 1: a series that catches my eye. And Supermarket Simulator I
Speaker 1: started playing a week or maybe a couple more weeks
Speaker 1: than that. I watched it last week and just kind
Speaker 1: of got hooked on all the craziness. I like all
Speaker 1: of the weird management stuff that you have to do,
Speaker 1: and those kind of games for whatever reason. Every so
Speaker 1: often I'll get hooked on, like Powerwash Simulator absolutely got
Speaker 1: me hooked last year, and obviously that game has been
Speaker 1: out for a while. And there's just games that hooked
Speaker 1: me for whatever reason. And I watched him do it,
Speaker 1: and then I watched somebody who is way more advanced
Speaker 1: do it and saw the potential of how wild this
Speaker 1: game could get, and I went, all right, I have
Speaker 1: to to try it out. I will say real quick. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is only on Steam. There are copycats on PlayStation.
Speaker 1: Luckily the reviews were so bad that I didn't get
Speaker 1: tricked into buying them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw that too. Be careful there on the phones.
Speaker 2: There's also copycats to be careful to get the wrong one.
Speaker 1: Like you said, it's an early access game and it
Speaker 1: definitely has its bugs, especially if you have stalkers. They
Speaker 1: seem to get stuck all the time. Best way I've
Speaker 1: learned to fix that is just save and quit and
Speaker 1: come back. Usually the next day they will will kind
Speaker 1: of fix themselves or whatever. But there's a lot of
Speaker 1: times where your stalker guy just gives up and just
Speaker 1: hangs out in the warehouse because there's other ways to
Speaker 1: fix it. But that's just the best way I've learned
Speaker 1: how to do it. But no, it's just so much fun.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've gotten to the point where I don't
Speaker 1: even have to do the cashier stuff. I still will
Speaker 1: from time to time. It's kind of fun to do.
Speaker 1: But it has so much more then you really think,
Speaker 1: and they're just going to continue to add stuff to it.
Speaker 1: It's a wonderful time waster game. If you would love
Speaker 1: to listen to this show, or watch the show on
Speaker 1: YouTube or any other podcast stuff, or watch a movie,
Speaker 1: this is the perfect game just to kind of semi
Speaker 1: focus on and just waste hours, which I don't have
Speaker 1: that time to waste, but boy, have I found time.
Speaker 1: I've given up sleep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard that it's not so it gets strenuous
Speaker 2: when you get to like the later part where fully
Speaker 2: expanded and all that stuff. Because I actually think I
Speaker 2: saw some people that you can't you can't ever fully
Speaker 2: automate it, right like, you can't you have to be
Speaker 2: looking at it, you have to be doing something. So
Speaker 2: I think that's what I saw some Ney book complaining
Speaker 2: about the Like, I really do want it to be
Speaker 2: like a game that I can kind of just press
Speaker 2: a button and just watch it if I want to,
Speaker 2: and watch a movie or whatever when it gets in
Speaker 2: those later levels. But there's a lot of stuff going on,
Speaker 2: But you're right about at the beginning, when you have
Speaker 2: a small set of things to do, it is something
Speaker 2: you can kind of like have something on in the
Speaker 2: background and kind of like this, Okay, I'm going to
Speaker 2: manage it. I'm going to do this. And uh, I
Speaker 2: don't know if it's going to get more realistic as
Speaker 2: they keep adding things onto it, because like right now,
Speaker 2: you can just hit the E button to close the
Speaker 2: rightister and basically they're just sit there and they don't
Speaker 2: ever seem to like leave. It doesn't matter what time
Speaker 2: it is, right and you can go do other stuff
Speaker 2: while you do that. You can also hit escape and
Speaker 2: just hit and like just have it go on pause completely.
Speaker 2: But the one thing I found interesting is that I
Speaker 2: think right now, at least, I'm not sure if that's
Speaker 2: something they're going to change later, but it doesn't seem
Speaker 2: like even if you have like frozen stuff or freezer stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, the stuff that goes on the fridge, like
Speaker 2: it doesn't go bad if it sits there outside.
Speaker 1: Thank God.
Speaker 2: So yeah, thank god for that, because there's times where
Speaker 2: I'm like, you know, like this is this will not
Speaker 2: fit in here. I don't have another way to get
Speaker 2: it to work. But it is. It's like a really
Speaker 2: fun game. Like I'm not a big simulator person at all.
Speaker 2: I don't play those kind of games, but this game
Speaker 2: probably often because I have a lot of experience with
Speaker 2: working in grocery store kind of thing too, so I
Speaker 2: kind of like piqued my interest. But yeah, I just
Speaker 2: found it fun. And it's something like I'm gradually like
Speaker 2: I'm getting it even somebody doesn't play PC games. I
Speaker 2: was really slow at first, and I'm like, okay, I'm
Speaker 2: getting how quickly you can. And you have to do
Speaker 2: exact change sometimes and do all this stuff with a
Speaker 2: credit card and all that, so it's like no.
Speaker 1: Mini games and yeah, it's it's just mindless fun. You
Speaker 1: can really get in depth with it, which I love.
Speaker 1: And again they're going to continue to add stuff to it. Again,
Speaker 1: it's twelve thirteen dollars, so it's it doesn't break the
Speaker 1: bank to give it a try. If this is kind
Speaker 1: of up your alley. There's just those moments in this
Speaker 1: game that I absolutely love where it's like I go
Speaker 1: crazy on the stocking, like you upgrade the storage area
Speaker 1: or whatever. You go crazy. You've got some money to blow,
Speaker 1: and you're just like, all right, I'm gonna buy like
Speaker 1: two boxes of everything. And then you go out to
Speaker 1: the front and there's just boxes everywhere and the cars
Speaker 1: are just driving through them, and it's completely silly at
Speaker 1: that point. That's always fun. I've gotten to the point
Speaker 1: now where I have like toilet paper, and I joked
Speaker 1: with a buddy of mine who's also hooked on this game.
Speaker 1: Now that I swear this, I figured out where this
Speaker 1: game chronologically lands, as far as if we're trying to
Speaker 1: place it on a timeline, and this is March twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: it's right before COVID and everyone's freaking out about toilet paper.
Speaker 1: I cannot keep toilet paper stocked. It takes up a
Speaker 1: lot of room, and it seems like every time I
Speaker 1: feel like all right, I have a ton in storage,
Speaker 1: I look over and everything's empty. Like just toilet paper
Speaker 1: gets bought. But it's fun. It's just a silly game.
Speaker 1: It will not end up on a lot of game
Speaker 1: of the Year lists, but it's going to end up
Speaker 1: probably is one of my top played gamer hour wie.
Speaker 2: I mean it is. It does seem to be like
Speaker 2: the one that's kind of getting traction as the like
Speaker 2: the streamer game. Yeah right now, like you said, so,
Speaker 2: I mean that's probably I would say helping it at
Speaker 2: this point. And I mean that's that's cool too, if
Speaker 2: you can get any kind of traction that way. Another
Speaker 2: thing too, is like I have to I feel like
Speaker 2: I had to go in and research like how much
Speaker 2: convenience stores usually overpriced things so I can start making
Speaker 2: money because I was like, I'm gonna try to be
Speaker 2: like price constants to be nice to the people, and like, yo,
Speaker 2: every day is like a struggle to just order something.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, you know what, forget, this is not
Speaker 2: a real game. Start, you know with jacking up stuff.
Speaker 2: And so you know, it's a fun like just being
Speaker 2: able to to kind of figure out how you want
Speaker 2: to play and you know, do it on your own
Speaker 2: time for that so sure, well I know you also
Speaker 2: played a game that you know, I've talked about a
Speaker 2: few time on here Awa the last couple of weeks
Speaker 2: called so well it's twenty five. You had a few
Speaker 2: things you didn't think it was, You didn't rate it
Speaker 2: as highly as idea, you had more problems with it.
Speaker 2: So why do you think it's not as a it's
Speaker 2: not a great gasee that it is a good game.
Speaker 1: It's a good game. It's but it feels great because
Speaker 1: we haven't had it in eleven years. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's the deal. And I will not say, ea,
Speaker 1: cut corners. But there's a lot more Madden in this
Speaker 1: than I think a lot of people want to admit to.
Speaker 1: The gameplay is very Madenesque in ways. I think it
Speaker 1: helps that everything's spread out. Obviously in college football the
Speaker 1: hash marks are spread out, more so the players are
Speaker 1: spread out. I do love always store that people are like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, the offensive line is switch cheese. Well
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be. These are college kids. It's not
Speaker 1: going to be fantastic. That's not a gameplay issue. A
Speaker 1: skill level difference between college and pros. To me, that's fine.
Speaker 1: But I just feel like this is a good start.
Speaker 1: If they can continue to build and focus on the
Speaker 1: things that matter and not the stupid ultimate team stuff
Speaker 1: which they half asked. Thank god. It was like they
Speaker 1: throw it in because you have to throw it into
Speaker 1: a sports game these days. But it didn't seem like
Speaker 1: they put a lot of effort into it. But as
Speaker 1: long as they focus on road to Road to Glory
Speaker 1: and the franchise modes and continue to tweak recruiting a
Speaker 1: little bit and continue to get some get the FCS
Speaker 1: teams in there would be fantastic. As somebody that covers
Speaker 1: an FCS team for my actual job, it would be
Speaker 1: nice to be able to have those teams back in
Speaker 1: like they used to. But you can't ask for everything
Speaker 1: on the first go around. So that's where I'm at.
Speaker 1: I'm having a lot of fun. I'm still playing the game.
Speaker 1: I don't play it online because I don't want to
Speaker 1: get murdered. I'm not that good, But I just feel
Speaker 1: like this was a good start and if everybody just
Speaker 1: goes crazy about it and goes, oh my god, this
Speaker 1: is amazing, then this is the level of gameplay you're
Speaker 1: going to get the rest of time. EA is going
Speaker 1: to go all right, this is it cool? Let's now
Speaker 1: prioritize Ultimate Team and make all of the money. And
Speaker 1: there are definitely tweaks gameplay wise franchise wise. I would
Speaker 1: like to see some more iteration into the Road to
Speaker 1: Glory stuff with the non field stuff, to make that
Speaker 1: a little bit more interesting outside of the training and stuff.
Speaker 1: Just I remember the old games where we actually had
Speaker 1: to take silly quizzes to work on the GPA instead
Speaker 1: of hit stuff. So there's different goofy things that they
Speaker 1: can do. This is nowhere near a bad game. I
Speaker 1: just me personally played it and went so glad it's back.
Speaker 1: I can't wait for three years when it's really really
Speaker 1: good hopefully.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing is you're buying. You're buying this
Speaker 2: out a nostalagia of not having to have this game
Speaker 2: in a while. I mean, it is still cool that
Speaker 2: they got all one hundred and thirty four FBS schools
Speaker 2: in here. You know, I thought there was going to
Speaker 2: be schools missing. I thought they were going to do
Speaker 2: something like what you see with the Eya Sports FC,
Speaker 2: where some of the stools won't won't those sign deals
Speaker 2: for something else, so they're gonna be called something else
Speaker 2: that they're even in the game at all, so you
Speaker 2: know the fact that they got them all in there,
Speaker 2: they got the nil stuff in there, they got the
Speaker 2: naming stuff in there. I think it also hurts that
Speaker 2: Team Builder is not what it used to be, right,
Speaker 2: where you can't completely just make a team and change
Speaker 2: whatever you want on it and all that stuff. But
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people complaining about that that you
Speaker 2: can't you can't add in the rosters, you can't export
Speaker 2: them to Madden, so that that.
Speaker 1: Hurts a lot of that. I know you've talked about
Speaker 1: it on the show over the last couple of weeks
Speaker 1: as well. A lot of that is Nio based. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are concessions you have to make, right with the
Speaker 1: way that everything works now to even have this kind
Speaker 1: of game. Yeah, so yes, you cannot import rosters because
Speaker 1: the whole point was is players would get upset because
Speaker 1: they were in this game but not getting paid. So
Speaker 1: there are players out there that said, no, I don't
Speaker 1: want my six hundred dollars, do not put me in
Speaker 1: your game. And then people will go in there and
Speaker 1: put the name in and go look, ea, put them
Speaker 1: in the game, and then you have so that kind
Speaker 1: of stuff doesn't bother me. It would be cool to
Speaker 1: be able to import to Madden, but then do you
Speaker 1: have to pay them twice because they could possibly be
Speaker 1: both in the NCAA game and the Madden game, so
Speaker 1: financially that could be an issue as well. So there
Speaker 1: are things that we just have to go. You know what,
Speaker 1: this is not going to be how it was in
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen. And everything's fine as far as Team Builder,
Speaker 1: it's a lot like the Franchise mode and Road to Glory.
Speaker 1: It's fine for now. Everyone that's that's super upset needs
Speaker 1: to calm down because at least to have it and
Speaker 1: now they can build off of it for the next
Speaker 1: couple of years. But it is not one hundred percent perfect,
Speaker 1: and hopefully EA does not just go all right. It's there,
Speaker 1: so the same thing I think the biggest issue I've had,
Speaker 1: and again it's just talking out of both sides of
Speaker 1: my mouth, because it's something they now have the base
Speaker 1: forward now they can grow commentary's garbage. Commentary is so
Speaker 1: bad because all they've been able to do is record
Speaker 1: the basic stuff.
Speaker 2: Now that they have a lot of the Ree Davis
Speaker 2: team is way better than the Street team or whatever.
Speaker 1: But but the main thing is they've only been I mean,
Speaker 1: the amount of lines you have to record just to
Speaker 1: have the basic lines down is insane. So in a
Speaker 1: couple of years they won't have to go back and
Speaker 1: record most of them. Right there, they're now set, and
Speaker 1: now you can start getting into the the little one
Speaker 1: liners that they put in there about my thing is
Speaker 1: the same thing. I play m WIB the show all
Speaker 1: the time, and once you've played it for a couple
Speaker 1: of games, you're like, all right, the commentary can go
Speaker 1: on mute because it's basically the same stuff. But it's
Speaker 1: like it's literally one line for every school, Like it
Speaker 1: starts show, Oh look at the Patrick's ree, look at
Speaker 1: this school. It's great. The very next game is exact same.
Speaker 2: So oh yeah, there's not a lot of change in
Speaker 2: any of that stuff either.
Speaker 1: So hopefully over the next couple of years they can
Speaker 1: build off this commentary stuff and have more dynamic differences
Speaker 1: in those But again, it's it's a great start, but
Speaker 1: it's just a good football game. But I'm I'm with you,
Speaker 1: I'm so glad it's back. Hopefully they take a couple
Speaker 1: of steps forward next year and.
Speaker 2: We go from there and it is fun most to play.
Speaker 2: I never have a you know, not fun time with
Speaker 2: that game that they nailed the gameplay and that was
Speaker 2: the most important party.
Speaker 1: As long as you don't take that seriously. There are
Speaker 1: some weird ass things that happened in that game. I've
Speaker 1: had some weird tips that go crazy. Your players do
Speaker 1: some weird stuff. As long as you just go at
Speaker 1: a video game. I'm not doing this for a job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pursuit angles definitely need to get who like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, I mean, yeah, I get it. It's college.
Speaker 2: They really should feel like we're gonna have a big
Speaker 2: play all the time. But sometimes I'm just like, dude,
Speaker 2: really you couldn't catch up to them. You're right there.
Speaker 1: The amount of bo Jackson clips I've seen online. Yeah,
Speaker 1: run from end zone to end zone because everyone the
Speaker 1: pursuit angles are broken. But again, as long as you're
Speaker 1: having fun, I don't.
Speaker 2: Care exactly, that's the point anything else you've you play
Speaker 2: anything else.
Speaker 1: And honestly, nothing other than I'm gonna be the show,
Speaker 1: which we don't need to talk about. Because I continue
Speaker 1: to play that. It's really been a dry period, not
Speaker 1: because I mean obviously that the list of games are
Speaker 1: not way up there of the must play games, but
Speaker 1: even the ones that are kind of must play, I
Speaker 1: just I'm kind of in a transition personally. We just
Speaker 1: bought a house, just got married, just got a new job,
Speaker 1: so a lot of the free time has been working
Speaker 1: outside and in our backyard, and it's just it's one
Speaker 1: of those things, not to say I don't want to
Speaker 1: play some of these games that have come out, but
Speaker 1: it's just that you get into the those time periods
Speaker 1: or whatever or stages in your life, or you sit
Speaker 1: down and you go, all right, I don't want to
Speaker 1: play a game, and you just go to the comfort food,
Speaker 1: which right now for me is and will be the show.
Speaker 1: It's it's college football, now it's Supermarket Simulator. It's like
Speaker 1: I'm still playing as many like putting in the same
Speaker 1: amount of time in video games. But it's not I
Speaker 1: don't want to dive into a story. I don't want
Speaker 1: to get into something like there's been so many games
Speaker 1: I've downloaded, like all right, I'm gonna get into this
Speaker 1: and then I sit down and go or I could
Speaker 1: just play a game.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it's like either well, sometimes you only got
Speaker 2: that like one hour and you're like, oh, I don't
Speaker 2: want to really start this thing. And then when I
Speaker 2: if I get hooked, I can't keep playing, and U like,
Speaker 2: you know, every time I hear a review of it's
Speaker 2: I mentioned because it's on game Best Knittsugami Path of
Speaker 2: the God. That's a game that I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people didn't think much of. They thought it was
Speaker 2: just like the thing that Cap gone through a bone
Speaker 2: to that. Oh it's it's uh, you know, the indie
Speaker 2: type of thing that Cacom did, and they put it
Speaker 2: on game Pass knowing it wasn't going to do well,
Speaker 2: and it's like it's the thing that's been talked about
Speaker 2: constantly as the like, oh, this is the game you
Speaker 2: need to play. It's on game Pass right now. You know,
Speaker 2: over over flint Lock and the Dungeons of Hinderberg they
Speaker 2: probably had a lot more press. So it's and I'm
Speaker 2: sitting there going, Okay, I played the ny I liked it.
Speaker 2: I want to start it, and I'm like, let me
Speaker 2: go find something else because I don't want to get
Speaker 2: into that and I know I'm going to be like
Speaker 2: hours an hour. So but yeah, that's I think that's
Speaker 2: going to do it for us, talking about the actual
Speaker 2: games you played before we get into the the sour stuff.
Speaker 2: One more h you know, I know you're a big
Speaker 2: you're a big Star Wars fan, Randy. I mean, there's
Speaker 2: a there's a game coming out at the end of
Speaker 2: this month. It's it's been kind of highly you know,
Speaker 2: big time hype. Star Wars Outlaws. They've now revealed the
Speaker 2: DLC roadmap, and of course we already knew about the
Speaker 2: the the one that it has the job of the
Speaker 2: Hut DLC that you have you can only get if
Speaker 2: you get the season pass or the premium version. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I made everybody upset, which is understandable. You know, you
Speaker 2: don't want things locked away in higher price tiers, but
Speaker 2: they got to give you, I guess, a reason to
Speaker 2: to go buy that. They've also, you know, just revealed
Speaker 2: that there's gonna be other stuff in here. So it
Speaker 2: looks like three pieces of DLC is what they've announced
Speaker 2: so far, So like it's gonna be part of that
Speaker 2: season pass. UH wild Card is the first one. They're
Speaker 2: gonna get involved in some kind of tournament with Sabakh
Speaker 2: when you cross paths with him and UH you know
Speaker 2: you're gonna figure out what's going on with that Hunter's
Speaker 2: legacy in the cars all of ronin you get a
Speaker 2: bunch of cosmetic bundles along with This is the first
Speaker 2: story expansion, so you know there's gonna be a story
Speaker 2: expansion with with K and Crew and then the second
Speaker 2: story expansion called Pirate's Fortune. So does that entice you
Speaker 2: more that you know that you're gonna get more content
Speaker 2: along with the base game or no kind of for me?
Speaker 1: For me personally, no, I'm sure I've talked about it
Speaker 1: on the show before, but me and DOOC don't get along.
Speaker 1: So I have nothing against DC. It's good to have
Speaker 1: to get the more longevity for your game, But the
Speaker 1: amount of times where Adoc comes out and I go,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get back into this and I just don't.
Speaker 1: It's just so many times Adoc just goes off to
Speaker 1: the wayside for me and I don't play it. So
Speaker 1: it's great that they have a roadmap and they want
Speaker 1: to continue to add to this, but for single player games,
Speaker 1: it doesn't bother me either way. I just hope this
Speaker 1: game is good. I know that more and more people
Speaker 1: are getting more hands on time with it, which to
Speaker 1: me always kind of shifts to a way of saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, the developers really believe in their product and
Speaker 1: they want to get it out there, and they're not
Speaker 1: hiding it behind closed doors hoping that the review scores
Speaker 1: don't come out before their game comes out. But this
Speaker 1: is definitely on that edge of maybe this is the
Speaker 1: game that gets me back out of my comfort game
Speaker 1: zone and gets back into the story based games. There's
Speaker 1: a couple others that are coming out here soon that
Speaker 1: might also do that. But I have hopes for this game,
Speaker 1: and hopefully the DLC will will will help build its
Speaker 1: sales and stuff. But for me personally, I just I
Speaker 1: know myself and I'll forget about these deals.
Speaker 2: Yeah I've already because it's an eb Soft game, and
Speaker 2: because hey, you know what, they have this thing, they
Speaker 2: want us to use it. They're not shy about telling
Speaker 2: us that we should subscribe to it. I'm just gonna
Speaker 2: get it on the one month of it on the
Speaker 2: eub Soft Plus thing, just see how it goes if
Speaker 2: I like it. Because you know, open world games with
Speaker 2: me are kind of like hit and miss. Some of them.
Speaker 2: I really like a lot of them. I don't, so
Speaker 2: we'll see how it goes with this. Just because it's
Speaker 2: Star Wars, I want to try it out. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm hoping it's a good one too, because it's a
Speaker 2: different Star Wars game. Right, it's not Jedi related, it's
Speaker 2: not Battlefront or whatever. It's its own thing. And I
Speaker 2: like the fact that they allowed them to have their
Speaker 2: own kind of Star Wars game in that universe. But
Speaker 2: all right, enough kind of avoiding the inevitable, I guess here,
Speaker 2: let's start with the one that kind of probably affects
Speaker 2: us more as gamers and also folks that do the
Speaker 2: journalism side or have done it or do it, and
Speaker 2: you know you do it with sports now A game Informer, Yeah,
Speaker 2: after thirty three years, closes down a lot of folks
Speaker 2: first kind of not ours. I think both of us
Speaker 2: are in the generation where there's other ones like Nintendo
Speaker 2: Power and EGM and that kind of thing. But beyond us,
Speaker 2: a lot of people's first introduction to gaming magazines. What
Speaker 2: it's like to have that like inspiration for gaming journalism.
Speaker 2: I remember going to Game Stop and the first time
Speaker 2: that was ever a thing of I snatched up that
Speaker 2: pro card really fast because I wanted that gaming form magazine.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be able to know us and to
Speaker 2: get those twelve issues and read that stuff and know
Speaker 2: whether it was any Macnamuare or further along all the
Speaker 2: great writers and journalists that have come out of that publication.
Speaker 2: And then, of course, obviously when websites are a bigger thing,
Speaker 2: and they went on to do more about the website
Speaker 2: than about the magazine. But it's amazing that all these
Speaker 2: years they've kept the magazine around. They didn't just kill
Speaker 2: it and make it all about the website. But I
Speaker 2: was worried when they decided to unhook it from It's
Speaker 2: not that it was unhooked from it, but they started
Speaker 2: trying to promote their own thing of like, oh, you
Speaker 2: don't have to be part of game Stop in order
Speaker 2: to even though GameStop owns them, you don't have to
Speaker 2: be part of the game Stop Pro card thing. You
Speaker 2: can get it by itself. Which is funny because now
Speaker 2: they're basically giving away that I went and bought a
Speaker 2: I bought the Steam gift card with my because I
Speaker 2: have a GameStop credit card. If you use the game
Speaker 2: stock credit card to buy anything on online, they will
Speaker 2: give away a pro subscription team. It used to be
Speaker 2: that that was the real reason you were getting the
Speaker 2: proscription was not only because of the discounts and all
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, It was Gaming Former, right, That's
Speaker 2: that was the main draw. Then they unhooked it from that,
Speaker 2: they made it its own thing, because you know, there's
Speaker 2: a lot of people that didn't want to give game
Speaker 2: Stop money, understandably, especially now that Ryan Cohen is being
Speaker 2: he's the CEO, is being sued by bed Bath and
Speaker 2: Beyond for inside of training so or well it be
Speaker 2: by the government for for that whatever. But the whole
Speaker 2: point is it's a terrible thing to see games Gamingformer
Speaker 2: go down. Game stops still around, but like one of
Speaker 2: the few nice things or good things you when you
Speaker 2: associate the in game Stop was this and now it's gone.
Speaker 2: Do you have any memories of having a game form
Speaker 2: magazine at all.
Speaker 1: Or not the physical magazine, Like I obviously I go
Speaker 1: to the website and stuff, and that's where I know
Speaker 1: gam Informer, But I obviously watching kind of Funny and
Speaker 1: all these other podcasts talk about them getting shut down.
Speaker 1: I went kind of through my whatever memory banks still
Speaker 1: work in my old brain of getting game Informer, and
Speaker 1: I honestly don't remember ever getting a physical copy of
Speaker 1: that magazine. I was a Game Pro kid growing up,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure I bought some Game Informers throughout the years,
Speaker 1: just buying different things, just trying out different magazines, but
Speaker 1: Game Pro when we were younger, and you know, physical
Speaker 1: magazines were the thing that was more of my jam.
Speaker 1: But the fact that it was still going around as
Speaker 1: a physical release in some form for Game Stop was fantastic,
Speaker 1: and it was just kind of holding on to our
Speaker 1: childhood and having those physical magazines. And it was crazy
Speaker 1: to hear when they were shutting down how small that
Speaker 1: crew was that was putting all of that together on
Speaker 1: top of all the internet stuff. So the fact that
Speaker 1: you got to imagine how many hours a day put
Speaker 1: in just to put in the best product that they can,
Speaker 1: and you feel bad for them and hopefully they can
Speaker 1: get back on their feet and stuff. But the thing
Speaker 1: that surprises me more than anything is that they shut
Speaker 1: everything down, Like I am not surprised that they shut
Speaker 1: down the physical magazine portion, because yes, they were trying
Speaker 1: everything they could with it being tied to Game Stop
Speaker 1: and then not tied the Game Stop to try to
Speaker 1: get it out to more people. Listen, physical media just
Speaker 1: doesn't work anymore. I work in the newspaper business, all right,
Speaker 1: There is a newspaper in our area that just shut
Speaker 1: down last week, Right, it happens one of our sister
Speaker 1: papers that we put together for another area just moved
Speaker 1: to just two days a week of physical copies and
Speaker 1: everything else is on like things are waning down on
Speaker 1: all aspects of physical media. So that part doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 1: But the website had to still been doing okay, or
Speaker 1: the website could have done even better if you focused
Speaker 1: all of that energy on the website, and instead they
Speaker 1: shut it down on some stupid static screen and not
Speaker 1: even allow you to see the pass And that pisss
Speaker 1: me off more than anything. And the funny thing is,
Speaker 1: when we were talking about the games that we were playing,
Speaker 1: I instinctively, every time I'm on this show look up
Speaker 1: the video game release calendar just to kind of see
Speaker 1: what else is coming out for the stuff that we
Speaker 1: can have a conversation with. I go to Game Informer
Speaker 1: for that every single time, and instinctively went to that website,
Speaker 1: which obviously just goes to the static screen, and it
Speaker 1: just kind of put a hole in your heart because
Speaker 1: again I visit that website. The fact that they had
Speaker 1: to shut that down to absolutely sucks. I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: this is a even smaller group that does the stuff
Speaker 1: for W two M and you know, trying to get
Speaker 1: your feet on the ground. I used to be part
Speaker 1: of this and now I'm just kind of here to
Speaker 1: help when needed. But it's extremely difficult out there, and
Speaker 1: now that the big guys continue to kind of fall off,
Speaker 1: it's a scary world for this kind of business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, it's and that's that's so frustrated me the most,
Speaker 2: right because as somebody that that when you write for
Speaker 2: a website, even if you don't write there anymore, you
Speaker 2: want to be able to go back and find your
Speaker 2: stuff right that you wrote. You want to be able
Speaker 2: to say, look, hey, so and so, Hey, you know
Speaker 2: both of us have children. Hey, look here's this thing
Speaker 2: I wrote way back before you were born or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know, like it shows you off. It's something you
Speaker 2: always tell people, but it's like more and more the
Speaker 2: thing back up your stuff, and it's it's insane that
Speaker 2: this is a company, this is GameStop, game Stop is
Speaker 2: still existing. It's not going anywhere, like, at least not
Speaker 2: for now. It may go somewhere in a few years,
Speaker 2: we don't know. They continue to not be able to
Speaker 2: accommodate to the current situation where most people are buying
Speaker 2: games digitally and you have to like pray and hope
Speaker 2: that there's a new console or pro edition of a
Speaker 2: console to come out so you people will go to
Speaker 2: your tour at least for gaming stuff, you know. So
Speaker 2: like literally the last time I went to a game
Speaker 2: Stop was to buy any a hoodie that she wanted
Speaker 2: that that, you know, for her birthday that had Sonic
Speaker 2: on it, you know, it had it has something to
Speaker 2: do with games, but it's not I'm not buying an
Speaker 2: actual game. So most of my stuff that I do
Speaker 2: with game Stop is to buy stuff online, don't even
Speaker 2: go into the store. So and that's the most a
Speaker 2: lot of people's thing with game Stop is if you
Speaker 2: go into game Stop, you're not buying games there. You're
Speaker 2: you're buying like funk O pops and other stuff that
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with them, and it's it's sold
Speaker 2: a lot of it's solless, and it feels like that.
Speaker 2: And then this this thing that they put up that
Speaker 2: as Ben Hansen rightly pointed out, former a big time person,
Speaker 2: a gaming former you know now does Ben Max with
Speaker 2: a bunch of former gaming former folks as well? You know,
Speaker 2: he said, this is probably written by AI, and I
Speaker 2: wouldn't be surprised the fact that you couldn't even have
Speaker 2: somebody from the staff write this and and like put
Speaker 2: out something more heartfelt and felt like you cared about
Speaker 2: these people. Like it just it's game stops wholemo. We
Speaker 2: don't care. We just want to sell you this thing
Speaker 2: and make money. And it sucks because it's like these
Speaker 2: are real people that were working on skeleton crew, working
Speaker 2: seventy hour work weeks at a paper with such a
Speaker 2: you know, a magazine that was seventy percent done the
Speaker 2: last issue. They didn't even get to put that out.
Speaker 2: And and then a website and video because the YouTube
Speaker 2: channel still up there. But who knows that they're going
Speaker 2: to take that down? Oh well, so yeah, especially the
Speaker 2: YouTube channel. Go get go, get videos out of there,
Speaker 2: or do what you gotta do, because they make great
Speaker 2: video content as well. That's something they were doing a
Speaker 2: great job of too. They were branching out to video,
Speaker 2: they were doing a podcast, they were they had a
Speaker 2: lot of things going on. Alex ben Aigen was probably
Speaker 2: like the spearhead with that too, and Brian Shay he
Speaker 2: also didn't endo podcasts for them, Like it's it sucks
Speaker 2: because I don't know any of those people personally, like
Speaker 2: personally like none of them are my friends. But I
Speaker 2: see them, I you know, we I have you know,
Speaker 2: in journalist groups, and when you see them talking, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden to see everyone that has been
Speaker 2: a part of Gamingformer did anything for Gaming Form freelance
Speaker 2: wise or still work the game Informer, all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: the collective like screw you to game stop, to just
Speaker 2: kind of kill that magazine like that and the website
Speaker 2: and everything, and not to let them even give them
Speaker 2: like you couldn't give them a couple of days notice,
Speaker 2: a week notice to like get all their stuff off
Speaker 2: of there, or at.
Speaker 1: Least say, hey, you know the last magazine and still
Speaker 1: the next magazine is the very last one. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: moment that comes out, then we're shutting everything down and
Speaker 1: then you know, say you're goodbyes and stuff. But no,
Speaker 1: that's not how corporate thing work these days. It's they
Speaker 1: finally come up with a decision and then turn off
Speaker 1: the lights right now, get out kind.
Speaker 2: Of exactly, it's such a such a terrible thing, and
Speaker 2: hard goes out to all those folks that are now
Speaker 2: looking for work. It's like as if we don't have
Speaker 2: enough gaming journalists in like as Mandy mentioned, journalists in
Speaker 2: general looking for work, and then you know, now they
Speaker 2: have to either go freelance or have to go find
Speaker 2: something else, and it's it kind of kicks us this
Speaker 2: wave of well we've been talking about again, it's not
Speaker 2: just print and online stuff. As you know, IGN bought
Speaker 2: a bunch of of noteworthy gaming sites and then kind
Speaker 2: of also laid off people, and then IGN also just
Speaker 2: they just killed Humble bundles games last week as well,
Speaker 2: So like we're seeing this everywhere, and then this kind
Speaker 2: of goes into the major, next, major kind of story
Speaker 2: of Bungie, what's going on with them here with with
Speaker 2: not even involving really Destiny, because Destiny too is doing
Speaker 2: great after the final shape and it's sad to hear that.
Speaker 2: October twenty twenty three, so we're about two months away
Speaker 2: from when we would have had the one year anniversary
Speaker 2: of the last layoffs they did at Bungee and now
Speaker 2: here we go out of nowhere more layoffs at Bungee.
Speaker 2: They're at least one hundred and fifty five of their
Speaker 2: roles are going to be integrated into Sony Active Entertainment, which,
Speaker 2: if you don't remember, Sony bought them for a three
Speaker 2: point six billion and then use them as a consultancy
Speaker 2: firm basically for all their other live service projects. One
Speaker 2: of them did wonderful with hell Divers two. The rest
Speaker 2: of them seem to not be doing so hot, and
Speaker 2: Concord is the latest one that is not doing great.
Speaker 2: But they're going to lay off a big number of folks,
Speaker 2: around two hundred or so. And this also includes leadership
Speaker 2: as well, not fil leader that I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people want remove the Ceop Parsons. We'll get into
Speaker 2: that a little bit. But he Pete Parsons did go
Speaker 2: and write this, at least it wasn't an AI bot
Speaker 2: that wrote some of this. But he says that they've
Speaker 2: tried tirelessly to enify roles for as many people as
Speaker 2: possible and saving a great deal of talent that whatetherwise
Speaker 2: have been affected by the reduction enforced, and they are
Speaker 2: going to kind of push them into other roles in Sony.
Speaker 2: And also they're going to make a new studio out
Speaker 2: of their one of their incubation projects, an action game
Speaker 2: and a brand new science fantasy universe that's going to
Speaker 2: be formed within PlayStation studios, So they're going to have
Speaker 2: we'll have another studio. And this probably also means that
Speaker 2: I'm assuming Destiny was not Destiny, but Bungeie is going
Speaker 2: to be losing a lot more of their autonomy if
Speaker 2: they haven't lost all of it and become more of
Speaker 2: a Oh, we're just another studio inside Sony now, And
Speaker 2: that kind of feels weird because the whole point of
Speaker 2: this was that they were supposed to be autonomous. They
Speaker 2: were going to be multi platform. Marathon was going to
Speaker 2: appear on multiple systems, not just PlayStation. Right now, what
Speaker 2: does that mean for that PlayStation studio game. Does that
Speaker 2: mean that that's now only a Sony venture the time
Speaker 2: being or whatever. Lots of weird things. And also, I
Speaker 2: got to bring it up, but I don't think this
Speaker 2: really makes a big difference, because honestly, what one person
Speaker 2: does with their money, regardless of whether what we feel
Speaker 2: about it or not, it's their decision. But p Parts
Speaker 2: is coming under fire a lot for having a classic
Speaker 2: car collection that he's spending a lot of money on.
Speaker 2: Instead of using that money, I guess to give back
Speaker 2: to you know, to give back to their workers or
Speaker 2: invest more in will it never happened? Yeah, exactly, We're
Speaker 2: not going to take their money. Whether you feel like
Speaker 2: they should make that much or not, that's that's your
Speaker 2: own personal thing, and I understand that as well. We
Speaker 2: can have that conversation if you want. But this is
Speaker 2: the capitalist structure of the United States, and unfortunately CEOs
Speaker 2: always are going to make way more money than us workers.
Speaker 2: It's going to happen in every single job. So, but
Speaker 2: what do you think about all this? And do you
Speaker 2: think that somebody should like be wishing they didn't buy
Speaker 2: a bunch.
Speaker 1: Of I'm trying to think of the best way to
Speaker 1: answer the last part of that to Tony feel like
Speaker 1: they regretted buying that, No, because because in the end
Speaker 1: it's going to profit them. And now obviously things did
Speaker 1: not work out well for them as far as the
Speaker 1: online games went, and we talked about this many times,
Speaker 1: that the strategy was to have all these different live
Speaker 1: service games and then the last of us is going
Speaker 1: to have a life service game, and this is going
Speaker 1: to have a life service game, and then it has
Speaker 1: all fallen apart. How Divers worked out really well and
Speaker 1: has been fantastic, she said. Concorde has not had the
Speaker 1: best beta time, and we'll see how sales go when
Speaker 1: they go full launch. What is it later this month?
Speaker 1: I think? But no, it's like they have Bungee now
Speaker 1: and they're going to find a way to make it profitable.
Speaker 1: What's best for Sony Now, if it means cutting a
Speaker 1: bunch of little men out, it is not going to
Speaker 1: affect the top guys at all. They're going to come
Speaker 1: out with their statements and it's all going to be
Speaker 1: yes and yes it might actually, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to be that would say that the people on
Speaker 1: top have no hearts. I'm sure some of these decisions
Speaker 1: are difficult, but like you said, like if the decision
Speaker 1: is one less car that I can buy, or fifty
Speaker 1: people need to be cut from their jobs, They're going
Speaker 1: to cut the people dot the car. It's just how
Speaker 1: it works. They want to make sure that the business
Speaker 1: is profitable and they are getting as much money, if
Speaker 1: not more money, year after year. And unfortunately it means cutting.
Speaker 1: People talked about it with the game and Former thing,
Speaker 1: and we talk about it basically in any forms of
Speaker 1: life when when companies go out and buy other companies,
Speaker 1: it can go one of two ways, Like it could
Speaker 1: be a loving relationship that that really works out for
Speaker 1: both or the top company is going to consume the other.
Speaker 1: I mean, we talked about IGN buying up all these
Speaker 1: different brands and then spitting them out, like the parent
Speaker 1: companies of so many different video game publishers continue to
Speaker 1: do the same thing. We saw that a lot with
Speaker 1: a bunch of YouTube brands that like grocer Teeth bought
Speaker 1: a bunch of people, and then this company bought rooster
Speaker 1: Teeth and then they made them cut out all the
Speaker 1: small people there. It's like the same thing with video games.
Speaker 1: It's it's the more and more that.
Speaker 2: You have with the activism Blizzard, they laid off people.
Speaker 1: The more and more a company is owned by a company,
Speaker 1: which is owned by a company, which is owned by
Speaker 1: a company, the more down here is easy just to
Speaker 1: get laid off.
Speaker 2: But I think the bigger thing with this is that
Speaker 2: Bungie has been basically mismanaging itself for quite a while,
Speaker 2: and Sony basically saved their assets from being worse than
Speaker 2: they are now. Like if if Sony didn't buy them,
Speaker 2: they might be closing the entire Bungee Studio period. You know.
Speaker 1: But that's usually a reason why these happen. It's they go,
Speaker 1: we're great, we're great, we're great. Oh something went wrong
Speaker 1: and we don't know how to handle it. Please help us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And then is a lot of times you get helped
Speaker 1: for a little bit, and then in the end maybe
Speaker 1: the brand stays, but a lot of those people that
Speaker 1: were there are going to be no longer there.
Speaker 2: It's right, yeah, I mean another reason why that pe
Speaker 2: Parsons has been brought up, not just not just because
Speaker 2: of his spending habits, which you know that gets brought
Speaker 2: up when when you're a CEO that gets to stay
Speaker 2: there and a lot of the decisions come down to
Speaker 2: decisions you make, right, Destiny two has kind of been
Speaker 2: here and there, you know, a final shape apparently has
Speaker 2: been amazing as far as critical reception, and then like
Speaker 2: basically that a great end to they could technically go
Speaker 2: on and make a Destiny three. Now Destiny two's like
Speaker 2: story has kind of hit that final part, and it's
Speaker 2: a lot of people that have either formerly worked there
Speaker 2: or currently worked there. A lot of them are former
Speaker 2: employees that are basically saying, you know, you had Leonna ruper,
Speaker 2: talk about he's a liar, a thief, and so many
Speaker 2: things you can discuss publicly, you know, step down and
Speaker 2: without the giant Sony payout. This is not on Sony.
Speaker 2: This is squarely of failure of leadership, plain and simple.
Speaker 2: Former Destiny community manager Pete is a joke C suite
Speaker 2: taking accountability for any of this or still just withholding
Speaker 2: bonuses and then it'll be settled in the house. I mean,
Speaker 2: poor leadership has crushed one of the greatest Melopers of
Speaker 2: all time. Retire Pete. Damn. That isn't a damning thing
Speaker 2: from a former employee. I don't know what is. But seriously,
Speaker 2: I mean, Destiny has not been doing well. They mismanaged.
Speaker 2: They tried to make three games at once, so you know,
Speaker 2: they knew they were working on Marathon, but they were
Speaker 2: apparently working on another game called Payback, which is like
Speaker 2: a spinoff of Destiny that you could use the same character,
Speaker 2: but you're doing something else. It's not technically Destiny to
Speaker 2: and it's like, you know, you can blame the stuff
Speaker 2: when they were owned by Activision as okay, Activision is
Speaker 2: doing Activision things right where they have to make They
Speaker 2: couldn't just keep iterating on Destiny one. They had to
Speaker 2: make destiny too. They had to make physical expansions all
Speaker 2: the time. They couldn't just included into the thing. So
Speaker 2: they spun off and became their own thing that didn't
Speaker 2: do well enough for them. You heard about whenever they
Speaker 2: were acquired by Sony. At first they said they weren't
Speaker 2: going to be layoffs, and they were. Sony apparently had
Speaker 2: allocated a bunch of money so that they didn't have
Speaker 2: as many layoffs as they possibly could. And then here
Speaker 2: we are a second time, and it sucks to see
Speaker 2: that like all these supers in their jobs. And yeah,
Speaker 2: some of the leadership went down with the payback team
Speaker 2: that is apparently no longer being worked on and some
Speaker 2: other ones in these layoffs, but the people that probably
Speaker 2: should be falling on the sword for this are not
Speaker 2: and they're not going to as Look, this would be
Speaker 2: like saying Bobby Kotex should have been should have you know,
Speaker 2: resigned after the stuff that happened at the vision Budge,
Speaker 2: but he was not going to do that. In fact,
Speaker 2: he would let you know. He was so ingrained in
Speaker 2: that company that the border directors had to make sure
Speaker 2: that he he went on in with the Microsoft that
Speaker 2: division Blizzard merger, or they wouldn't sign off on it.
Speaker 2: So like this is to tell you that a lot
Speaker 2: of a lot of y'all that get mad. Look, I'm
Speaker 2: upset to I think all of us are upset. We
Speaker 2: want to see the person that is the reason why
Speaker 2: this has failed majorly, you know, take some credible for this.
Speaker 2: And yes, he wrote this statement, and yes he kind
Speaker 2: of said more things than normally you would say when
Speaker 2: you're talking about this happening, but he's still not taking
Speaker 2: as much of accountability as you would imagine. And again,
Speaker 2: it's like this whole thing about you know, listen, it
Speaker 2: is what it is. Guys like this guy is not
Speaker 2: gonna get taken out unless Hermann Holst, who's now running
Speaker 2: the studio apparently tells them, YO, get out of here.
Speaker 2: And even then he's probably got protections that prevent him
Speaker 2: from me for a certain amount of time.
Speaker 1: And yeah, listen, I don't work in the corporate world,
Speaker 1: and if I did, I'd be at the bottom rung
Speaker 1: of whatever ladder that is. But you have to assume
Speaker 1: that cutting off the bottom rung of a ladder of
Speaker 1: a company is a lot easier than replacing the broken
Speaker 1: run on a ladder that's in the middle. And that's
Speaker 1: just what companies are going to do. And maybe if
Speaker 1: this doesn't fix the financial issues for Bungie, maybe then
Speaker 1: they start making changes too, said management. But it's so
Speaker 1: much easier to go all right. And this is the
Speaker 1: big issue with with working and gaming. From what I
Speaker 1: have seen and from what I've heard, is the most
Speaker 1: dangerous time for you is once you're done with the project.
Speaker 1: Once you're done with the project, you're you're you're replaceable.
Speaker 1: It's like, all right, you're done with this because.
Speaker 2: You wind down automatically because you don't need that many
Speaker 2: people to just be kind of maintaining the game. And
Speaker 2: then not only that, but again, like you're trying to
Speaker 2: work on three projects with this number of people. You
Speaker 2: don't have enough people to be able to work on it.
Speaker 2: Why are you spinning off three projects? Oh, just because
Speaker 2: you think all of them are gonna make amazing amount
Speaker 2: of money. You abody have problems with Destiny Too, you're
Speaker 2: making Marathon, which okay, whatever, it's the game you used
Speaker 2: to make and you're gonna make it again to try
Speaker 2: to make a big deal. But the problem is the
Speaker 2: stratched shooters are like a dime a dozen right now,
Speaker 2: and you don't need another one.
Speaker 1: So listen. They try to learn from Telltale. You get
Speaker 1: popular for one thing, doesn't mean you need to have
Speaker 1: fifteenth things.
Speaker 2: But I mean, I get it. You also can't just
Speaker 2: make Destiny Too forever unless it's like Fortnite levels where
Speaker 2: like you can. But look at that. Look how many
Speaker 2: things they have to keep adding to Fortnite to make
Speaker 2: it continue to be relevant. And that's the thing Destiny two. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're great, you add all this story content or whatever,
Speaker 2: but it's like it's still not a behemoth like uh,
Speaker 2: Final Fantasy fourteen or even Wow is where It's like
Speaker 2: I feel like, yes, Destiny two has its players, Destiny
Speaker 2: two has its people that are die hard Destiny two
Speaker 2: or whatever, and but I feel like if Destiny two
Speaker 2: went away, would it I mean, I'm not talking about
Speaker 2: the people that are working on Destiny Too, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: talking about the players for Destiny two. They would just
Speaker 2: find another game to play, or another shooter to play
Speaker 2: or whatever. It's like, there are so many other ones
Speaker 2: out there. The eventually, when enough people play the Final
Speaker 2: Shape and they get through that, what's gonna happen. They're
Speaker 2: gonna probably stop playing that game. And it's like online
Speaker 2: service games as a whole or a cancer right now
Speaker 2: to the industry. And I think the uh one of
Speaker 2: the Power the Power community guy, which has has not
Speaker 2: been he's been very vocal about you need to be
Speaker 2: careful about playing the same game over and over because
Speaker 2: he's everybody keeps asking about, oh, was Powell to failure
Speaker 2: because they went from two million to six hundred thousand players, right,
Speaker 2: and he brings up, like, yo, listen, the problem that
Speaker 2: we have right now is that too many people are
Speaker 2: playing the same game over and over every day. And
Speaker 2: so he keeps telling people like Sony like Jim Ryan
Speaker 2: that we need to have twelve different live service games
Speaker 2: and we need to you know, be trying to have
Speaker 2: him call come out by like twenty twenty six or
Speaker 2: whatever and rush these things out because we need to
Speaker 2: like you know, the market with more of them, and
Speaker 2: then guess what happens. You're gonna keep telling all these
Speaker 2: publishers that live service is the way, and so indies
Speaker 2: and single player games and all that stuff keep dying,
Speaker 2: and all we're left with is the same game that
Speaker 2: you play over and over. So he brings up a
Speaker 2: good point, and I think this once again shows like
Speaker 2: where gaming is right now, where we're trying so hard
Speaker 2: to find the next fort nine that it's like the
Speaker 2: rest of the creativity and the great things that are
Speaker 2: about gaming are like getting kind of they're still there.
Speaker 2: Obviously they're still there, but they're getting lost in the whole. Damn.
Speaker 2: Gaming is just not making enough and we got to
Speaker 2: keep playing off of laying off, of laying off, and
Speaker 2: it's like where does that end? Where does that end?
Speaker 1: You said something that's really interesting to me talking about
Speaker 1: how people are only playing the one game, and we
Speaker 1: have to get them to play more games. So you
Speaker 1: need to come out with more and more life service games.
Speaker 1: But what's the goal of a life service game to
Speaker 1: be that one game that people play and continually come
Speaker 1: back to because you're continually bringing content to Now, if
Speaker 1: a company came out with a game plan like Sony
Speaker 1: was attempting to do, where you kind of were able
Speaker 1: to within your company have five or six life service games,
Speaker 1: because life service games do a thing if they catch
Speaker 1: on and you're not Fortnite or Apex legends like where
Speaker 1: you go completely wild for years. But Pow World people
Speaker 1: are saying, well, it's not a success anymore. Yes, it was.
Speaker 1: It was the top of the town for two months
Speaker 1: of a game that had zero interest going into it.
Speaker 1: But a life service games has this crazy peak and
Speaker 1: then it settles into the normal people that they and
Speaker 1: then you come out with your next content for your
Speaker 1: life service game and it'll bring people back for a
Speaker 1: little bit and then they'll die out. So if you're
Speaker 1: a Sony and I think what their main game plan
Speaker 1: was was have six to ten of these games that
Speaker 1: one would hit the wave and as it started to
Speaker 1: die down, their other game would catch the wave, and
Speaker 1: then those six games would then kind of have a
Speaker 1: revolving door of content and then all six games would
Speaker 1: kind of go in and out. But unfortunately you have
Speaker 1: this idea, but then the dip happens and you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's dead and you just shut the door. It's like no,
Speaker 1: it's like you have to catch the wave of it.
Speaker 1: Your contact comes out and you have like a month
Speaker 1: of just fantastic game plan, everyone's playing your game. Then
Speaker 1: they all move on, like there's so many I don't
Speaker 1: play with my groups of friends anymore. I've gotten old.
Speaker 1: I just played my single player stuff. But the people
Speaker 1: that I know that still really focus in on online
Speaker 1: gaming and play with their group of friends, they go
Speaker 1: through waves like it's Rocket League for two months. Still
Speaker 1: to this day, they'll play Rocket League for a little
Speaker 1: bit and then they'll move on to this game, and
Speaker 1: then they'll move on to this game. But unfortunately, there
Speaker 1: are some companies out there that win. It's their turn.
Speaker 1: It's oh my god, this is great. Now we're going
Speaker 1: to expand. Now we're going to create three more games
Speaker 1: like Bungee's talking about. It's fantastic, And then that wave
Speaker 1: of gamers move on to the next thing and they
Speaker 1: go shut it down. We're screwed. Instead of all right,
Speaker 1: now you have to build to your next turn, and
Speaker 1: you have to budget wisely that you can survive the
Speaker 1: lower parts of those waves. What are games going to
Speaker 1: do next year when Grand Theft Auto six comes out
Speaker 1: and everyone's wave crashes down for at least three months
Speaker 1: because granted six takes all of the time.
Speaker 2: Or it may not because they Granted five Online was
Speaker 2: so huge they didn't even make the DLC for it.
Speaker 2: So imagine what Granted Thought was six one. It's like, yeah, well,
Speaker 2: I mean, you're gonna have people that are just gonna
Speaker 2: play the game. That's gonna cause a shutdown. It's also
Speaker 2: gonna bring more people into gaming, which that's what they want.
Speaker 2: Right between the Switch two and Granted Thought was six,
Speaker 2: that's what they're hoping is gonna save gaming. And yes,
Speaker 2: it sucks if the Swiss SEO did not come out
Speaker 2: this year because they were hoping that that was gonna
Speaker 2: come out this year and kind of be the big
Speaker 2: boon that. I don't know what's going on with the
Speaker 2: PS five pro. People were hoping that's gonna be the thing,
Speaker 2: and that still hasn't even been. I guess that's either
Speaker 2: gonna be Games Calm or Tokyo Game Show. We'll see,
Speaker 2: but which games commons in a couple of weeks. But
Speaker 2: you know, look, I don't want to keep beating a
Speaker 2: dead horse. I think we all know how almost anybody
Speaker 2: that I I don't know, I don't know too many
Speaker 2: people I know they are out there. I see them talking.
Speaker 2: I could probably get somebody on the show that is
Speaker 2: a huge like online gamer and loves this stuff. Well,
Speaker 2: most of the people that you know are on here
Speaker 2: with me. We're kind of feel that same kind of
Speaker 2: vibe of you know what, it's still single player games
Speaker 2: for us. You have your multiplayer games that you play
Speaker 2: like you know, then he plays and will be the
Speaker 2: show that's a multiplayer game that's still going on. You know.
Speaker 2: Yay college football. I'm sure it is gonna do great.
Speaker 2: Madden does amazing numbers online as well boards FC.
Speaker 1: So yeah, listen, I'm forty. I know you're getting your forty.
Speaker 1: We've aged out for the most part, our generation has
Speaker 1: aged out of the online gaming circles. There's obviously still
Speaker 1: some that that that go around. I don't want to
Speaker 1: paint a broad brush on our generation, but then you
Speaker 1: look at my son's generation. He's sixteen years old. All
Speaker 1: he doesn't play a single player game, but all he
Speaker 1: plays is Minecraft and Roadblocks and those style of games,
Speaker 1: and he's not getting into all of these games that
Speaker 1: are trying to take over those realms. So obviously there's
Speaker 1: a twenty plus year gap of other generations that you're
Speaker 1: trying to catch on to and other styles of gamers.
Speaker 1: But it's a different, a difficult world to get a
Speaker 1: life service game to come in and stick and stay
Speaker 1: long term because there's only so many of those games
Speaker 1: that can stay on those pedestals, and most of them
Speaker 1: have been taken up.
Speaker 2: And then nobody anyway. That's this is why Microsoft's trying
Speaker 2: to get into the which you know, I'm going ahead
Speaker 2: and go into the next thing. That's why Microsoft's trying
Speaker 2: so hard to get into mobile gaming because what's still
Speaker 2: around that they own now Candy quis So and all
Speaker 2: the other king owned things that they now own. So like,
Speaker 2: that's that's why they're trying so hard to get into
Speaker 2: that set because those are automatic, automatic moneymakers that they get.
Speaker 2: This is why they're trying so hard with Call of
Speaker 2: Duty automatic moneymaker, right like, So that's what this is.
Speaker 2: This is why we're going into that direction, which you know,
Speaker 2: we all don't like us old school gamers are not
Speaker 2: big fans of it, but you can see why it's
Speaker 2: turning that way, and it is working for some folks.
Speaker 2: It's not working for everybody. And that's the thing. You're
Speaker 2: gonna have a lot more misses than hits, and forevery
Speaker 2: like my daughter likes to play among us in roadblocks,
Speaker 2: you know, those are her things. And those are two
Speaker 2: concurrent multiplayer games you gotta play all the time with
Speaker 2: your friends or whatever. You can get off of it
Speaker 2: and play something else or do something else. It's not
Speaker 2: this like uh, they're also not games that you got
Speaker 2: to feel like, oh man, I lost it. If. That's
Speaker 2: the problem with Destiny too as well, right is it's
Speaker 2: a it's sort of an MMO that they don't call
Speaker 2: an mmo. Is if you stop playing for a while,
Speaker 2: guess what happens, You're out of it. You can you
Speaker 2: no longer can play online or whatnot. So it's like
Speaker 2: that's an issue too. People don't have all that time
Speaker 2: to keep playing this game that goes on forever, and
Speaker 2: you lose it if you don't keep playing. So I
Speaker 2: think that by itself loses people as well. Whereas I
Speaker 2: think like something like Whole divers two works so well
Speaker 2: because it is a game that you can pop in
Speaker 2: with friends play and then you go on about your
Speaker 2: merry way, and then you can come in the next
Speaker 2: weekend and play again, you know whatever. But and and
Speaker 2: those games don't go away, like Fortnite, Call of Duty,
Speaker 2: all that they keep going black. Op six is about
Speaker 2: to come out in a couple months and that thing's
Speaker 2: gonna blow everyone out of the water again. So like
Speaker 2: that's the thing is, there's only so much pie to
Speaker 2: go around as uh as as you know, our friend
Speaker 2: the Rock would say, it's uh, it's It's something that
Speaker 2: Microsoft is also trying to get into with with game
Speaker 2: pass right. They're they're going into the subscription model. And
Speaker 2: never has there been more apparent than what's happening with
Speaker 2: their their Xbox console sales, which took a fort dip
Speaker 2: again for like the cause. I mean, they they rose
Speaker 2: up during like the holiday quarter, but after that a
Speaker 2: flatline basically, And all they're talking about is how much
Speaker 2: they went up in revenue for services and all that,
Speaker 2: which went up like sixty one percent, and then their
Speaker 2: gaming revenue went up. But you got to take off
Speaker 2: like forty four percent of that for or it's like
Speaker 2: forty eight percent, So they'd only be they'd be like
Speaker 2: down four percent if it wasn't for Activisi Blizard. But
Speaker 2: guess what they own them now, So whether you want
Speaker 2: to take them out of the numbers or not. That's
Speaker 2: your yes', your prerogative, but they are owned by Microsoft now,
Speaker 2: so they have a right to put them into the
Speaker 2: numbers that they want to. The whole point of this
Speaker 2: is that Amy Hood went out during a Q and
Speaker 2: A session of it. She was asked, like, where do
Speaker 2: xbos console sales factor into this? And she says that
Speaker 2: basically what they care more about is rising up in
Speaker 2: services and having games to basically further those services and
Speaker 2: keep growing those services. She doesn't really talk about that.
Speaker 2: They want to continue to grow in the console space,
Speaker 2: which is they've introduced the firestick, and they have cloud
Speaker 2: and they've they've made these other Xbox game pass tiers,
Speaker 2: because it's all about making game pass grow, right, whereas
Speaker 2: Sony and Nintendo are proving the opposite, right, Whereas they're
Speaker 2: more still about the console and the consoles are maybe
Speaker 2: PlayStations is not selling necessarily as much as they were
Speaker 2: at the beginning. They're eventually going to hit a plateau.
Speaker 2: The Swisses obviously hit a plateau, but that is a
Speaker 2: much older system at this point. You know, we're older,
Speaker 2: so we come from that old school of okay, you
Speaker 2: service the console. This is what this is for, you know,
Speaker 2: game Pass is kind of like we're going more towards
Speaker 2: the movie and TV part of it, of like, hey,
Speaker 2: subscribe your thing, play your games, do whatever. Do you
Speaker 2: think that if you're a console person at this point,
Speaker 2: if your Xbox only console owner, like, do you worry
Speaker 2: now about are we just gonna get the point when
Speaker 2: there's an Xbox all because this just keeps going down, or.
Speaker 1: Maybe eventually if they can get the technology to work
Speaker 1: and internet works better all over the world, where you know,
Speaker 1: you can actually stream these games. I've said it many
Speaker 1: times because we have this conversation that seems like every
Speaker 1: time I'm on because they continue to bring out more
Speaker 1: and more news about it. But they want it to
Speaker 1: be able where you can stream the games off of
Speaker 1: a different console onto your TV and then play it
Speaker 1: that way. I live in an area that's absolutely impossible
Speaker 1: to do. I mean, PlayStation doesn't, Xbox does it. And
Speaker 1: that's kind of what they want to do with the
Speaker 1: firestick is like, hey plug this in. All you need
Speaker 1: is a controller, sign up to our subscription service, and
Speaker 1: then move on. And a lot of people bag on
Speaker 1: Microsoft board. I'm not a Microsoft guy, but I don't
Speaker 1: because they're trying to go in a different direction than
Speaker 1: Nintendo and Sony, and I think when right now you're
Speaker 1: in third place in this battle, that's what you need
Speaker 1: to do is shift and then find a different avenue.
Speaker 1: They still have the consoles for those of us that
Speaker 1: want them, but they're trying to find different ways to
Speaker 1: reach people that don't want to buy this console to
Speaker 1: be able to still get into their game Pass subscription
Speaker 1: service and then forget they had it and then just
Speaker 1: bring in monthly revenue every cent year. Like subscription services
Speaker 1: have just gone way off the charts as far as ridiculousness,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Again, I'm in the sports media side
Speaker 1: of things again. I don't know if you've seen the
Speaker 1: new Combination Sports thing that's like forty three dollars a.
Speaker 2: Month, right you knew or whatever?
Speaker 1: Yet, Yeah, we are surpassed. Like we all cut cable
Speaker 1: because it got too expensive. Now all the streaming services
Speaker 1: are getting too expensive and they've spread out so much
Speaker 1: that by the time you get the things that you
Speaker 1: want to cover the interest you have, it it's because
Speaker 1: like we've ruined things like let's go back to basic
Speaker 1: cable where it was just simple. Now it we've complicated things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is getting to the point where you could
Speaker 2: literally probably like lower your Internet a little bit. I mean,
Speaker 2: I have a gig internet here, but I could probably
Speaker 2: like lower it to like five hundred. I need the
Speaker 2: gig internet for like what we do here with the
Speaker 2: streaming all that. But like if I lowered it enough,
Speaker 2: I could get a package where I got all of
Speaker 2: the cable channels that I need and still pay less
Speaker 2: than if I went and got YouTube TV and all
Speaker 2: this other stuff and and like, because that's the problem
Speaker 2: with like the ve new one, right, You're still missing
Speaker 2: NBC and CBS to get all your because then then
Speaker 2: you have to subscribe to they're they're streaming services as well.
Speaker 2: So it's like that's that's the problem. At least Xbox
Speaker 2: for the gaming side of it is a one stop
Speaker 2: shop for Microsoft stuff and thirty Party stuff and twenty
Speaker 2: bucks a month to me is still not in the
Speaker 2: bad section of it. To get all the stuff that
Speaker 2: they get or you get with it, it's still not bad.
Speaker 2: The problem is when you when you hear things like
Speaker 2: Soccer two delayed now avowed has been delayed to February
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four so far, the one game that has
Speaker 2: come out this entire year, Help A two kind of
Speaker 2: underwhelming for a lot of people. You suppose you still
Speaker 2: have Indiana Jones. We don't know if that's what they're
Speaker 2: gonna come out this year or not. Soccer to supposed
Speaker 2: you going to come out in November. But that's also
Speaker 2: like they don't own that. In three months, it's gonna
Speaker 2: go somewhere else. I forgot that what white stimulator. That's
Speaker 2: not a that's a niche thing, that's not gonna uh
Speaker 2: age of mythology is also a niche thing. It's not
Speaker 2: gonna do that. It's gonna do okay, but it's not
Speaker 2: gonna bring everybody here or a history un told same thing.
Speaker 2: So like the main driver you have right now is
Speaker 2: you better hope to God. Call of duty during brings
Speaker 2: people to like end mass a game pass, And the
Speaker 2: problem is that how many people are just gonna buy
Speaker 2: the game and not even subscribe a game pass. So
Speaker 2: it's like like then.
Speaker 1: You're getting Chetny Bock. I mean, yeah, that's that's the
Speaker 1: beauty of game passes. Like, well, I don't want to
Speaker 1: have game pass all right, that spends seventy bucks. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to spend seventy bucks. Seventy bucks is
Speaker 1: too much, all right, then subscribe to game passes twenty bucks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can you can stop subscribing the next
Speaker 2: month if you don't want to pay Call of Due anymore.
Speaker 1: So it's absolutely I mean, so it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that obviously game Pass is doing fine enough for
Speaker 1: Microsoft that they can go in this different direction and
Speaker 1: not really push console sales and they're not pushing games
Speaker 1: out early that become buggy messes just to try to
Speaker 1: get something on game Pass. So obviously, right, as much
Speaker 1: as it's frustrating as a gamer, business wise, it sounds
Speaker 1: like it's doing just fine for them. The way things
Speaker 1: are going now.
Speaker 2: That basicometer is going to be that it's gonna be
Speaker 2: called Duty. How many how many people can you get
Speaker 2: to subscribe with just Call of Duty? Because that's going
Speaker 2: to be your main game that you're going to push
Speaker 2: people to in a couple of months. Like all these
Speaker 2: all this little indie stuff is nice and whatever, but
Speaker 2: you know it's not going to draw people to subscribe.
Speaker 1: But that the whole thing on top of that is
Speaker 1: to try to spread things out and hopefully have enough
Speaker 1: of them where it's not spread out like it used
Speaker 1: to be with microsoftware as one game every year, but
Speaker 1: where you can have a pretty heavy hitter once a
Speaker 1: month every two months that keeps you going. All right,
Speaker 1: I have to have game Pass because I want to
Speaker 1: try this game. I mean, that's past the point you
Speaker 1: live off of I have subscribed to the game Pass
Speaker 1: and I forgot right, that's how you live.
Speaker 2: Well and and if you're an actual like that's my
Speaker 2: thing again about the whole like playing one game and
Speaker 2: that's all you do. Like Game Past is not for
Speaker 2: people to play one game and that's all you do, Like,
Speaker 2: it's for the people that are actually I want to
Speaker 2: play different games, right, and I want to get It's
Speaker 2: like Netflix, you have like your everything you know, and
Speaker 2: oh hey, I'm going to play this Kinitzugami game because
Speaker 2: it may not be my kind of game, but it's
Speaker 2: I have this service. Why not? Right, that's what they're
Speaker 2: banking on as well, Right, we're paying all this money
Speaker 2: is for you to oh why not? And then you
Speaker 2: what if they put super supermarket simulator on there, people
Speaker 2: are gonna let go nuts in and play it on
Speaker 2: it I mean they it's actually been good about getting
Speaker 2: those SIM games on there a lot because they know
Speaker 2: it'll attract people to go on there. But like, that's
Speaker 2: my thing is I worry about to what point do
Speaker 2: we get to where you might as well just say
Speaker 2: you're a third party publisher and stop with this nonsense
Speaker 2: of the we're still the console maker and all that
Speaker 2: stuff and stop. I mean, I know Phil has said it,
Speaker 2: but the problem is that Xbox has so much Oh,
Speaker 2: somebody says this, and then Phil comes and says this,
Speaker 2: and then Satia says this, and then Amy Hood says this,
Speaker 2: and then what I'm pretty sure Phil is gonna come
Speaker 2: and contradict Amy Hood in like a month and say, oh, no,
Speaker 2: we still care about consoles and whatever. Look, they still
Speaker 2: care about the console. This is coming because right now,
Speaker 2: like you said, everything, game pess doesn't work without the
Speaker 2: console because almost everybody's subscribed through game Pass has it
Speaker 2: because they have an Xbox console. Because PC game Pass
Speaker 2: they're they're freaking dashboard. Their store sucks. Okay, most people
Speaker 2: can't stand having to use Xbox's PC game Pass. So
Speaker 2: that's the problem that you you already tried to get
Speaker 2: the console person to move over to Ultimate by basically
Speaker 2: telling them that, oh, now if you only have the
Speaker 2: console thing, you can still get your Day one games,
Speaker 2: but you won't get online. So like, let's force you
Speaker 2: to move over to Ultimate or drop game Pass whatever,
Speaker 2: Like let's let's basically say that we're just trying to
Speaker 2: improve game Pass and we don't necessarily care so much
Speaker 2: if the console. So now they're Microsoft, they can afford
Speaker 2: the hit maybe, but eventually, like does somebody go, yo,
Speaker 2: can we keep affording this hit? Can we keep just
Speaker 2: saying that this is it's gonna pay off in the
Speaker 2: long run, Like maybe we never get that technology, but
Speaker 2: what about the next shin after that? Are they saying
Speaker 2: that basically PlayStation is not gonna have a PlayStation seven?
Speaker 2: Is that what they're banking on? Then Nintendo's gonna be
Speaker 2: on their own little island, and then PlayStation is not
Speaker 2: gonna have a PlayStation seven, so we don't have to
Speaker 2: worry about it either, Like do you think that that's what?
Speaker 2: Are we going to get to that point where position sits?
Speaker 2: Then Xbox whatever is the last one.
Speaker 1: But I don't think for Microsoft they care what Sony
Speaker 1: system or if they're going to kind of go in
Speaker 1: the same route. I honestly, I think Microsoft wants Sony
Speaker 1: to continue just throwing out PlayStation and having their games
Speaker 1: stuck on a box while they're trying to do other stuff.
Speaker 1: I think they're trying. They have not hit those numbers
Speaker 1: where they can just go screw consoles. We're done with
Speaker 1: them yet, but I think still long term that's where
Speaker 1: they want to go. Phil Spencer has to continue to
Speaker 1: come out and say no, we care about consoles, because
Speaker 1: if they cut the consoles out and this is the
Speaker 1: last generation, the numbers are going to take a big
Speaker 1: dip because not enough people have conformed to the PC
Speaker 1: Realm or the fire Stick Realm. But that's obviously where
Speaker 1: they want things to go long term. Now do we
Speaker 1: see another generation of Microsoft consoles, Probably because we're not
Speaker 1: quite there yet, But in ten years fifteen, I think
Speaker 1: Microsoft would love to go, we're done with consoles. They're
Speaker 1: too expensive, and it's too costly for us, and it's
Speaker 1: too costly for Because that's why I just look into
Speaker 1: the future, this is going to be Microsoft's steal. Consoles
Speaker 1: are too costly for you, right for you to have
Speaker 1: to spend six hundred dollars on a PlayStation seven or
Speaker 1: seven hundred dollars on a PlayStation seven or how wild
Speaker 1: is going to get by that. It's like, that's too
Speaker 1: costly for you. So come to the Microsoft game Pass
Speaker 1: family and spend what sixty bucks on a firestick and
Speaker 1: you can play all our games. You don't have to
Speaker 1: spend seven hundred dollars to be able to then buy
Speaker 1: our games. You just buy this thing and then you
Speaker 1: can play our games with our subscriptions. That's where they
Speaker 1: want to get to. Unfortunately for them, technology hasn't quite
Speaker 1: gotten to that point. But to me, I buy all
Speaker 1: these consoles. But if we get to that ecosystem where
Speaker 1: one of the three main players, and it's going to
Speaker 1: be Microsoft, says we're done with consoles, we're moving to this,
Speaker 1: then salute to them and hopefully it works out, and
Speaker 1: hopefully I have the internet the technology capabilities at that
Speaker 1: point to be able to play their games on whatever
Speaker 1: service they go into. And gaming changes all the time, right,
Speaker 1: we used to be on cards, now we're on CDs.
Speaker 1: Now we're just digitally downloading. Most like, there's so many
Speaker 1: things where a small thing will change, and we have
Speaker 1: this immediate reaction every single time, this is the worst
Speaker 1: thing possible, And then about six months later we're like,
Speaker 1: how did we ever live without this? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean people, look, I love I love having holding
Speaker 2: something in my hand as much as the next person.
Speaker 2: I'm like that with books still, I do not read
Speaker 2: a book off of a screen. But with games, it
Speaker 2: became a matter of convenience. It helped that we got
Speaker 2: you know, digital review codes stuff like that, so it
Speaker 2: made it easier for us to start getting used to
Speaker 2: the fact that, Okay, we're just gonna put this code in.
Speaker 2: It's going to But it's nice that I can just
Speaker 2: press a button and here's all my games, right. I
Speaker 2: don't have to like go take the disc and put
Speaker 2: it in and take it out and make sure you're back.
Speaker 1: Microsoft had that thing where you can have five games
Speaker 1: going all at once and you just hit about to
Speaker 1: resume your old games exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, figure, yep, you know that will continue to be
Speaker 2: a thing for a long time. So we'll well, I'm
Speaker 2: sure next time we'll talk about it again, because I'm
Speaker 2: sure we'll go But uh uh. The last thing here
Speaker 2: is another kind of symptom that's been happening with with games.
Speaker 2: Is that I think we're getting to the point maybe
Speaker 2: we're just remastering too much stuff. We're just we're just
Speaker 2: going into the section of everything doesn't need a remaster.
Speaker 2: And maybe perhaps this has been shown off by the
Speaker 2: fact that Braid Anniversary Edition that came out. Was it
Speaker 2: not too long ago on May fourteen? Uh, it's a
Speaker 2: remaster of a well loved indie game, But it was
Speaker 2: also at a time when indie games were like indie
Speaker 2: console games, we're starting to be This was XBOS Live
Speaker 2: arcade time. This was when it was really starting to
Speaker 2: be cool to kind of be indie. But it was
Speaker 2: It's not like now where you have an indie all
Speaker 2: the time, right, So the game, like now, it's kind
Speaker 2: of a dumb a dozen, But back then this was huge.
Speaker 2: And so one of the new things is that there's
Speaker 2: a fifteen hour commentary track by Jonathan Blow, the creator
Speaker 2: of the game, and he is asked in various clips
Speaker 2: that I guess span different parts of time in this
Speaker 2: where he talks about basically he goes from I don't
Speaker 2: know anything about how much it sold, to it sold
Speaker 2: horribly thirty four days later to it sold decently. If
Speaker 2: you compare it to Steam Jeff Mintor's game or the
Speaker 2: Atari fifty thing like old stuff, right, that's kind of
Speaker 2: like making it look new but not anything based off
Speaker 2: of what you need for it to keep the studio going.
Speaker 2: And then he keeps going saying they've been utterly terrible
Speaker 2: sixty eight days later, and that sounds horrid, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: you come out with this remaster, spent a lot of
Speaker 2: time in this remaster, and then it doesn't sell anything
Speaker 2: close to what you wanted to sell, and then you're
Speaker 2: almost like regretting you've been bothering making it. And it
Speaker 2: feels like it's another symptom of some people feel like
Speaker 2: what's the point of even doing games journalism or being
Speaker 2: in games because I'm eventually just gonna get laid off
Speaker 2: or I'm eventually gonna be sitting there looking for work.
Speaker 2: I'm eventually gonna be sitting there without a studio because
Speaker 2: my game didn't sell at all, because there's these forever
Speaker 2: games that keep existing and nobody buys as many games
Speaker 2: anymore or whatever. They only buy the big game. Like,
Speaker 2: what do you think may have been the issue with
Speaker 2: Braves remaster not selling well enough and doesn't have a
Speaker 2: point about like maybe I shouldn't have done this.
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't even know this was a thing till
Speaker 1: last week when you know, the new stuff came out
Speaker 1: that it did not so well because I didn't know
Speaker 1: it was a thing. I didn't know it came out like,
Speaker 1: you got to promote the thing that you make. And
Speaker 1: that's something I always struggle with with with any of
Speaker 1: my projects, is promoting myself for promoting bad brackets. Go
Speaker 1: check out bad Bracket. But you got to be able
Speaker 1: to promote this stuff. And yes, times have changed where
Speaker 1: we don't need these kind of anniversary additions as much.
Speaker 1: It is a cash grab for companies. Hey throw it
Speaker 1: out there, try to get some money from it. It's
Speaker 1: not a lot of work, and this will help pay
Speaker 1: for this other game we're doing. But it sounds the
Speaker 1: exact opposite for Braid, where they put in a lot
Speaker 1: of work and they did a commentary track, and they
Speaker 1: did all this stuff, and they basically had to rebuild
Speaker 1: the game because I guess the assets didn't weren't able
Speaker 1: to shift over to the new gen stuff, so they
Speaker 1: basically just rebuild Braids. So they put a ton of
Speaker 1: work into it, but nobody knew it was a thing,
Speaker 1: and those that did didn't care enough to pay for it,
Speaker 1: and that had to It's one of those weird things. Again,
Speaker 1: I'm far away from the actual business side of gaming,
Speaker 1: but I would like to know how much you get
Speaker 1: for putting your game on a game Pass or a
Speaker 1: PlayStation Plus, because I think a great anniversary edition would
Speaker 1: have been fantastic to throw on one, if not both
Speaker 1: of those services and just get the payday from Sony
Speaker 1: and Microsoft and get the name out there for your
Speaker 1: companies so you can promote the next game that you have.
Speaker 1: As you talked about at the beginning of this podcast,
Speaker 1: like this is a PlayStation Plus basically uses their three
Speaker 1: games a month service to kind of reinvigorate a game
Speaker 1: or get you hyped because of this game for something
Speaker 1: else that they're doing or for that company. And it's
Speaker 1: just kind of how things go. It's not a day
Speaker 1: and date thing like Microsoft. So a, hey, you know,
Speaker 1: the creator of Braid has this game that they're trying
Speaker 1: to make. Do you remember Braid, Well, they did this
Speaker 1: really wonderful thing with all this new commentary stuff, and
Speaker 1: you throw it on there, and yes, you don't get
Speaker 1: as many sales, but hopefully you get a decent kick.
Speaker 2: But it does cover some of the sales that you
Speaker 2: weren't going to get, and maybe eventually he does make
Speaker 2: a deal, especially with Microsoft, where you know he did
Speaker 2: kind of start out there with the three sixties. So yeah,
Speaker 2: maybe that works out for him, I hope. So I
Speaker 2: hate hearing these stories about games, but honestly, look, I
Speaker 2: do the monthly Here's what's coming out this month thing
Speaker 2: for Last Word on Gaming every month, and I can't
Speaker 2: tell you how many times I'm going through and going, oh,
Speaker 2: this is a remaster. Oh, I have no idea this
Speaker 2: game it existed, okay, or a definitive edition, or like, okay,
Speaker 2: we kind of know about this because the Limited Run
Speaker 2: has their showcase that they do, and Mark loves a
Speaker 2: crap out of this game a tamba.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I have not got it.
Speaker 2: I bet people that might buy that might sell more
Speaker 2: than Blow or not Blow, I might sell more than Braid.
Speaker 2: It's John. I'm getting the developer and the game computer.
Speaker 2: But there's also Star Wars Bounty Hunter remasters coming out
Speaker 2: the same freaking day. Uh. That's another one of those
Speaker 2: Aspire games. So take what you will, or it's already
Speaker 2: out by the way. I'm just I'm just bringing this up.
Speaker 2: Then you get more curious. Just a definitive edition, like
Speaker 2: I'm telling you guys, like a defenditive edition. A remaster
Speaker 2: or whatever comes out like constantly. Now it's not the
Speaker 2: special thing that it used to be. Fate State Night
Speaker 2: remaster comes out this week, yo, Like literally a remaster
Speaker 2: comes out every single week.
Speaker 1: So a remaster coming out.
Speaker 2: Yes, they've been doing that console, They've been remastering all
Speaker 2: those Semi Max now, you know. So it's like that's
Speaker 2: the thing is, you know. Unfortunately, unless you're a big deal,
Speaker 2: which you know again, Braid is kind of a big
Speaker 2: deal for back then, for you know, our generation of gamers,
Speaker 2: but not for the generation past us, right, they don't
Speaker 2: they don't care about that stuff. And I just don't
Speaker 2: think that there's nostalgia selves. But I just don't think
Speaker 2: there's enough nostalgia to warrant the amount of remasters that
Speaker 2: come out constantly. And just I feel like you never
Speaker 2: hear them talk about at all. And it's like, okay, yes,
Speaker 2: especially when you get like Nintendo coming out with remasters
Speaker 2: all the time, or you get Sony doing a second
Speaker 2: body of the Apple on PC with with their big
Speaker 2: games or whatever. It's like people only have enough money
Speaker 2: to go around, and I think, especially now when we're
Speaker 2: in a very constrained time period, these remasters perhaps are
Speaker 2: not like the best thing to go about unless you
Speaker 2: know for sure it is something that people have been
Speaker 2: clamoring for right and then thus they will buy it.
Speaker 2: But you know, I hate hearing that. I hate their
Speaker 2: Braid remaster did not do well, But I think we
Speaker 2: also shouldn't be that surprised.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not surprised at all. I'm with you. I'm
Speaker 1: a little disappointed. And I starting these masters that come out,
Speaker 1: and yes, this added the commentary stuff, but whereas just
Speaker 1: the one game, and it's like, okay, that's fine. I
Speaker 1: mean they did a lot of extra work to this.
Speaker 1: But I want to just sort something out there. Microsoft,
Speaker 1: if you're somehow listening to this and you're not tired
Speaker 1: of us, you know where Replay I thought did really
Speaker 1: well on the Xbox One. Can we get an Xbox
Speaker 1: Arcade replay to help out all these little indie developers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, ready to get going.
Speaker 1: So you get Super meat Boy, and you can get
Speaker 1: Braid and Limbo and all these games that really made
Speaker 1: Xbox ArKade that fantastic years ago, just one giant collection
Speaker 1: and then each of these little indie guys can and
Speaker 1: get a little bit of a kickback for it. Now
Speaker 1: that's something else. Fine because then you get a ton
Speaker 1: of games like you did replayed and you put the
Speaker 1: history of the games in it. I think that would
Speaker 1: be fantastic. But yeah, disappointing that this is just.
Speaker 2: I think it's also that even though the three Sea
Speaker 2: stores just shut down, Braid is available to be bought
Speaker 2: right the original brain so or you know, on some
Speaker 2: service probably, so it's like do I it's it's not
Speaker 2: one of these remasters where it's like okay, I can't
Speaker 2: buy it unless I buy this version, or it's not
Speaker 2: a significant upgrade to what already exists, so unless you
Speaker 2: just want to play it on switch for example, or
Speaker 2: you know something that it's not on. But I think
Speaker 2: that's a very small number, and unfortunately, it just it
Speaker 2: sucks to see that that happened. But since I was
Speaker 2: already talking about the games that are coming out this week,
Speaker 2: I guess really quick, so we can get out here,
Speaker 2: both of us have to go to work. What else
Speaker 2: is coming out this week. As I mentioned, the Face
Speaker 2: Day Night remaster is coming out. The Creatures of Ava,
Speaker 2: which is coming to game Pass, PC and Xbox, is
Speaker 2: that game that they showed off at that at the
Speaker 2: showcase that's like about can control of different animals or
Speaker 2: whatever and carrying them through this adventure game or whatnot.
Speaker 2: It looks really interesting. I might try it on game Pass,
Speaker 2: so you know, if that kind of struck your fancy,
Speaker 2: go for it. Cat Quest three, which honestly cat Quest
Speaker 2: two is really good, so I need to.
Speaker 1: Get back into cat Quest two. They put one in
Speaker 1: two both on the PlayStation, yes, and I platinumed cat
Speaker 1: Quest one and got into quack Quest two, which is
Speaker 1: harder for a little bit difficulty progress and I kind
Speaker 1: of got burnt out from the second one. But both
Speaker 1: both of those games are fantastic, So I'm excited to
Speaker 1: get into cat Quest three at some.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this one's a full on RPG with like ship combat,
Speaker 2: so this one maybe even up more up our alleys
Speaker 2: than the usual. You also get death Bound as well,
Speaker 2: which is like a multiplayer like co op action adventure game,
Speaker 2: so that might interest in people. There's also a demo
Speaker 2: available too for people. Steamwold Heists two, which another game
Speaker 2: that I would like, SteamWorld Heist, So I might look
Speaker 2: into this here. It looks like it's getting really good
Speaker 2: reviews as well, So if you like that first game,
Speaker 2: definitely go check this out for sure. And that Pokemon
Speaker 2: Mystery Dungeon Red Rescue that it's getting on the It's
Speaker 2: gonna be on switch Online, so if you have the
Speaker 2: GBA Switch Online, you can go pick that up too.
Speaker 2: And you know it's coming out to that Mandy we
Speaker 2: talked about earlier, Madden. Yeah, it's coming out, So thank you,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah in the same here you no, thank you. Uh,
Speaker 2: they keep trying to push you with that, Oh we
Speaker 2: made a big deal about franchise Mode this year or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, no, you didn't. You didn't do much there.
Speaker 2: Keep telling me about Roger Goodell in the draft. That's
Speaker 2: that's the only not gonna sell me on that. But
Speaker 2: you know, thank you Randy for being on this week.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you. Mark should be back next week.
Speaker 1: One of these times I get on and not have
Speaker 1: to talk about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully not. Hopefully one of these times, uh, Rannie
Speaker 2: will be on on an episode that's not like a
Speaker 2: special one. And we'll get to talk about that. It's
Speaker 2: not about layoffs. And until next week, everybody, you hope
Speaker 2: you if you enjoy what you heard or watched, go
Speaker 2: like subscribe, follow all that stuff, go lack of subscribe,
Speaker 2: bad brackets on YouTube as well. Help out Randy there,
Speaker 2: and I'll see you next week later