Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Messive Mornings with Me Mike Minatti,
your host from giant bomb dot com, filling in for
Jeff Grub still on vacation. What a Lacy bomb? Can
you believe it? But that's all right, I'm here. Thanks
for tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna be talking
about the future of ed Obsidian and more fun fallout
from Xboxes shit show.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'm assuming they're all good. If we're talking about
the future, it's because things are looking good.
Speaker 1: Sorry, we have Lexi Letdy on this show. Lex How
are you doing.
Speaker 2: I've been living in the woods for the past few weeks.
Cat to catch me up on what's been going on.
Speaker 1: No, oh, gosh, it's bad. It's a yeah, Xbox has
done a thing, and there's lots of other things. I mean,
I suppose it's made it easy for me to have
things to talk about on the show this week because
there's just constant fallout from those layoffs. So studios splitting off,
and I mean, look, this isn't necessarily true, but it
looks like for some of those studios getting split off
or getting sold somewhere else again to go independ it
might have been preferable to what's happening to some of
these other studios.
Speaker 2: Mike, I will go a step further and say that
it was definitely preferable for some of these studios. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's wrap out there. We'll get into it.
But how are you doing, Lexi?
Speaker 2: I'm doing okay. I've been reviewing Assassin's Creed. I need
to roll credits on that. I'm on, like, I have a.
Speaker 1: Fun story about that one coming up too.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel good about that one. And my superstation works,
so fuck you. Yeah. Turns out turns out you just
have to be smart and then you can get it work.
Speaker 1: And it's broke in it's broken. I need a new one.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure it's user ever, Mike, Let's let's be real.
Come on, worked very hard on this hardware.
Speaker 1: I'm so mad about that. At least, I've been too
busy this week to even have to worry about it.
So that's okay.
Speaker 2: What will cheer you up is the one game that
I've actually put a little bit of time into his
Parasite EVE, and that game rules. Turns out that game
is awesome.
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about Parasite, but first I
see an interesting message from Sean saying Lexi's leaving out.
How many times she's messaged me about it? Oh yeah,
you had to get a little little tech support from
from Sean.
Speaker 2: There is that, right, Yeah, yeah you needed your brother.
Speaker 1: Oh so easy. Yeah. Hey, Parasite Eve absolulutely rules if
you like like PS one games, they haven't played that one,
because yeah I played that within last year, and god,
it still feels so unique and fresh despite being a
nineteen what ninety eight weird mix of survival horror and
RPG mechanics. God, that that game is just cool, man,
It is just Nido. It's Nino damn it.
Speaker 2: Remember when video games could be niho. They didn't have
to be the biggest thing in the world. They could
just be niche game. Capcom have kept that spirit alive
with like Pragmata, so you know, they had them Knitsugami,
which like, that's a game, that's a Nio game. Let's
bring games.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I'm going to make a company called Nido Games. Actually,
that's I like this now, all right, everyone, before we
get into things, let's explain ourselves. Be sure to go
to giant bomb dot com. Slash join, become a Premium member,
get access to some exclusive shows like This is the
Run Sewer Shark, Nine Lives of Mister staffa flease uh
and there's like.
Speaker 2: At an extra syllable to that. Every time you.
Speaker 1: Saya Fleas because it's that's the name, right, It's not
mistapha Lees just like the character from Cats, it's fleas
because it's a pun. It's an extra pun on top
of it. I do believe. I watch that show, I
kind of know what's going on. So, yeah, they made
a new I guess I shouldn't say any spoilers, but
they make very interesting, very handsome characters in that show. Uh.
Most weekdays, I well most weekdays, Jeff grow will help
piece your game light back together. This is not most weekdays.
You get me Mike Manaughty. That includes breaking news, maybe
even some of our own original reporting. For all these topics,
I'll get input from Adona Fyte expert. It will make
me look smart. You're watching live on twitch Welcome. You
can always listen to the show later on podcast feeds
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on giant bum dot com. We can also catch the
show later with chatters and timestamps on YouTube. Hello, Loutube,
we have a lot to get into it, so let's
start the show with big questions for Microsoft's intentions for
its software was by Dean Takahashia Games b. He said
the team at IS Software seems safe from the Xbox layoffs,
as the studio hadn't been a notified that was up
for closure or sale. But about half of the Microsoft's
own game studio was laid off on Monday as Xbox
announced three thousand, two hundred current and pending layoffs across
all of Xbox at least ninety two of one hundred
and eighty five full time employees, or so we're cut
more than fifty percent of the staff, according to what
I and I Is Dean Takoshi's case heard, but that
came as a surprise to many, considering the pioneering studio
had one of the biggest properties in the Xbox Hito
portfolio and the reinvigorated Doom franchise. This former employee say
the travesty the Xbox layoffs done and a rush are
evident in who was chosen when the x came the
blood baths, said one former employee. I was blindsided by
it the scale of it, and then kind of talking
about what they could be up to now the notes,
No one appears to be working on Quake. There was
a code named Fury, which was a project that game
director and studio code director Hugo Martin proposed in the
past as an original intellectual property that omits a sci
fi noir in Louisiana and Chicago. Gangsters had a modern
cyberpunk like feel. It had a concept called Gunfu combined
gunplay and martial arts. Game is supposed to feel a
lot like a John Wick movie, but it was not
formally greenlit for production. Team was also considering doing a
game based on Perfect Dark.
Speaker 2: So they've never tried that before.
Speaker 1: Right, so they're like, we can make Perfect Dark. I
guess boy, yeah, I don't think we're getting a Perfect
Dark game ever again if if, if not, just anytime
soon still. Another candidate was a Western style robot game
with a focus on survival, dubbed Ironwood. It was akin
to the world of West World and as far as
Doom goes, there were proposals to do multiplayer co op
and more doc and then you kind of I've seen
you know, there's another reporting and other murmurers online that
like it's it's been a lot of the people who
work on id tech like the engine that stuff that
are gonna let go. So it's like, oh, gosh, uh
is it gonna use unreo engine in the future instead
of in tech. There's worries that even oh, it's it
getting relegated to a support studio at this size. Uh,
I don't know how how do you read this? What
do you think is its software's future?
Speaker 2: Lex So, like, I think the big takeaway from this
is one it's a fucking travesty. The idea of like
having in software and in tech and that much institutional knowledge,
and that many people who are the best at their
craft in the industry working on games and working together
on a cutting end edge engine that people genuinely really
like and like was poised to be quite a good
independent engine. Should Xbox ever need to use an internal engine,
which hey based off the sounds an unreal engine six
that might be a useful thing to have in your
back pocket coming up. But also it speaks to the
disorganization of these cuts and how they have just been
focusing on depth and experience. These are some of the
most tenured people at Xbox Game Studios, and I think
that those are the people that, if you've been keeping
up with it, a lot of people at Microsoft have
basically stocks that vest and that's how they retain staff
is the longer you say there, the more you get
when you leave. And so it seems like a lot
of people who have been cut have been pretty senior.
And the way that Xbox or the Asher Sharma and
management have trained this is, oh, we're getting rid of
the rid of layers of management. The way that it
looks if you browse LinkedIn and you look at the
people who are now looking at for work, and you
look at the one notices of jobs that are that
have been like affected. These are people who are working
on the game's day to day. Like It's not a
bunch of middle management people sitting around doing nothing, firing
emails back and forth, not actually working on the game.
It is people with fundamental knowledge of how things work
and how to ship video games, which apparently Microsoft is
still in the business, are doing like I'm they claim
they they still want They claim that they still want
to have exclusive video games for their next console, which
will cost you over one thousand dollars probably, and they
need you to like want to buy that for some
fucking reason. And the only reason they could do that
is with exclusives. And also it just seems disorganized because
machine games so far as far as we know, has
not been affected by these layoffs. They might be in
that next group of layoffs, the further one thousand and
six hundred that's hanging over everyone.
Speaker 1: Right again, the other half of it all right.
Speaker 2: Like we're not fucking done. And the people working at
Machine games use in tech. That is what they build
their games on, is in tech. And so now all
the engineers that work on in tech and facilitate things
like Indiana Jones and the Wolfenstein games, which we know
there's a new Wolfenstein game in development, probably on in tech,
all those fucking engineers are no longer there to pick
up the phone and answer when they have a question. So, Mike,
I've been thinking a lot about this. Matt Bootywards the
head of Xbox Game Studios in the Phil Spenser era.
He is now the chief operation officer. In a lot
of the way that things have been positioned by Microsoft.
He has been kind of put forth as Asher Shama's
you know, experts in the gaming fuel to guide her, right,
is he just really fucking stupid.
Speaker 1: Right, because it's like you bring out no ither.
Speaker 2: What any any of the studios do, and it's just
blindly cushing because he's the guy who should be like
saying stop. He's the guy who should be saying like, no,
this is too close to the bone. You can't cut
these people.
Speaker 1: Right, like because you know, obviously just you know, first off,
cutting these people and laying them off when you're you know,
multi multi multi, multi multi billion Dark Company is discussing
the idea of ed making games in unreal is offensive, right,
Like maybe I'm old, Maybe I'm just old person. That's disgusting.
What the hell are you like talking about? How does
somebody not explain that? Dude? If as Chart doesn't understand
because she's a bit of an outsider, Brian Woo woo,
the Matt booty better explain that and how awful it is.
Speaker 2: And like Mike, to some extent, it is a fuddydruty thing,
but also it's a funny, dooty thing that like people
at these companies care about people working at IG are
proud to use intech and telling them that they're moving
off of in tech because they don't have any engineers left.
Is not going to boost fucking morale at that studio.
It's not going to make them more efficient to have
to skill up on a new tool, sessh after they've
spent the last decade making a trilogy on a different tool.
Speaker 1: Sessh. Like what I right?
Speaker 2: That's the thing because all of these cuts do not
have fucking direction. You look for any logic and any
semblance a sense in them, and there is none. It
is the things that the people that they are cushing
are the people that you would need to ship these
video games. It's not like cutting junior positions and pure
and all these different things that you could maybe you know,
get hired out to an external partner or something. It's
cutting people fundamental to like the process of organizing and
coming up with the fucking ideas of these games.
Speaker 1: You know. So big reason why that recent Doom trilogy
it feels so good is because they made a really
good engine, made engine that is suitable for these kind
of action based first person games. Uh, And to lose
that it's just gonna be weird. I mean, supposedly, the
part of the strategy is they're going to focus on
their biggest franchises.
Speaker 2: Is including Wolfenstein and Quake and Doom in that list
right in that.
Speaker 1: List, like, I'm so confused about that Quake thing. It's
like that that wasn't in the Astra Starma membo. That
wasn't like reporting I think by Jason Schreier, and I'm like,
where did Quake come from? Because it doesn't doesn't seem
like anybody cares about Quake. I care about Quake. I
to me, the most obvious thing in the world is
to just have it make a new Quake game. Doesn't
seem like that's happening. We want to play it super
safe and just have them make a new Doom game.
I guess. I guess there's that too, but it's not
going to be on in tech. It's just weird. These
are massive layoffs for a studio that has only ever
done good work. They've been they've been producing a time
when you know some of these other studios you'd be like, oh,
well they haven't released many games or they even received that. Well,
that's just not the case.
Speaker 2: Bred at three games in ten years is very impressive
bashing for a studio of that size, which was also
working on its own proprietary engine, Like that is extremely
efficient workflow and to be a little bit selfish yere,
there's also a part of me that is like, I
think something that people lose this is we talk a
lot about the projects that get canceled and the things
that we won't get to play now, and that is
like a very real tangible thing that we can be like, yeah,
we would have had that, and now it's not there,
and that feels like a thing that's gone. But all
of these layoffs happened to scenes and communities and groups
of people and it decimates the local industry. Without going
too much into detail, Romero Games was being financed by
Xbox for that game and it was a huge boon
for the Irish industry. People were excited about it. Everyone
felt good about it because that was a really exciting
project to have in the region. That money disappeared and
that project changed massively and a lot of that team
had to change too because the money just wasn't the
same by nature of nobody else has the same carf
as Microsoft, and like that set back the space. People
feel that in the Irish game dev community, and people
remember that in the space, and I think that, like,
if you're gonna be asher and you're gonna be making
these calls, you need to be aware that, like, ultimately
the people that you're laying off are probably gonna be
people who have to be your partners down the road
at some point. If you say, in this fucking business,
at some point you're gonna have to work with Tim
Schaeffer again, because it turns out that guy is pretty
fucking popular in the industry, Like, turns out he does
a lot of stuff and people have a pretty high
opinion of him, and so like it just seems like
this insane burning of goodwill at every single front. And
then occasionally they'll and we'll get onto it. They'll throw
out something like the Obsidian Fallout thing, which again is
something that I've seen people mainly on Twitter be like
about damn time, I've been waiting for this. They should
have done this years ago. And one, yeah, that's fucking right,
But two, like, do you think that any of the
people working at that studio now are going to be
in a good headspace, are going to feel supported. They
just lost fifty two of their close friends who work
at that studio and like, you know, the people they
had the project that they wanted to work on, or
the two projects in this case, Avowed and Josh Sawyer's
new IP have both been shelved and they've been told
they're going on to Fallout, which I'm sure there is
a certain amount of like, yeah, I would love to
work on Farllout. Everyone would love to work on Farout.
But like, these people were putting themselves into a piece
of ash and now you've just been like, actually, no,
fuck you, I don't know how you create good games
out of this environment. And that's what like, ultimately, that's
what Xbox needs. It doesn't need a lot of games,
it needs good games, and it needs games that will
get people to buy a fucking Xbox because apparently they're
in the market of selling hardware still, at least according
to them, And so like, how the fuck you meant
to make a good game in these conditions?
Speaker 1: Also, uh, it just it just released that expansion for
Doom the Dark Age is like a.
Speaker 2: Comple of weeks ago, literally yesterday, the Two Days expansion.
Speaker 1: It just feels like that unfortunately got like kind of
overshadowed by all of this stuff. And I bet that
also feels pretty terrible, all right, So yeah, let's talk
about a city in because this is from aighty robson
a VGC of Citi in cancels A vowed too to
focus on new Fallout. That's a coin to Bloomberg, which
claims that studio design director Josh Sawyer will home the
new project after shifting over from another plan, RPG, which
is said to have been similar structurally and thematically to
fall Out. Gretter report, I guess on a VOW two
was going well and it was on track to be
announced within the next year. However, it did not fit
with Xbox CEOs ashtasharmas a new strategy. Shift comes as
part of a major reset out of Sidian's pair and company, Xbox,
which plans to lay off thousands of workers and refocus
on its biggest franchises around a corner of Obsidians workforce
is said to have lost their jobs this week as
part of the cuts. According to a warn notice in
California seen by Game File, Obsidians losing fifty two workers,
including forty three base in its California offices in nine
in state remote workers in Blueberg interview of city and
head Fergus Urquhart published earlier this year. It was implied
that grounded To was a big hit for the studio,
but neither the Outer Worlds Too nor avowed met sales expectations,
you know. I mean, look, I was one of those
people you were talking about le Seie We're I think
years ago, I'm like, why don't you just have Obsidian
make the Fallout game? It We're always going to get here.
We kind of had to because it just never was
going to be acceptable for an Xbox or for frankly,
for a lot of people that Bethesda was going to
make Starfield for seven eight years more than that, then
make Outer Scrolls for seven eight years more than that,
and then they'll get to fall Out five. Right.
Speaker 2: I agree with you, But I think that like the
fact that it's a panic potion is the problem.
Speaker 1: Right, like this they should have been thought out more
carefully before and not part is this big panic thing
where maybe suddenly somebody was like, I'm sure Beatsa didn't
want this, right, I think I think it's uh and
it's an assumption, but I think it's safe to assume
that for a while, Bethesa, it's like we're going to
make the fallout and we're going to get there when
we get there, and they maybe had enough cachet to
to force that point. I think maybe finally there was
I don't know, pushback of why and saying like, no,
we're giving it to Obsidian. Uh, And it doesn't matter
what you think about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think, like you the it's a very
different way to come to the project. You know, you
come to the project as we're working on this thing
because we want to be working on it, or you
come to the project because it's make or break and
if we don't make a smash hish, we're all out
of a fucking job. Like that's that's the situation they've
been put in now, and weirdly enough, that's not usually
how you get grade ash. I think like Far Out
New Vegas is maybe the exception that proves that rule,
where all those people talk about that game as if
it was a fucking war, and they like speak about
like they would never do it again and then never
wish it upon their greatest enemies to go through that
game's development cycle, and you're just putting them down the
barrel of another harrowing development cycle. And like for as
much as people can put a Nintendo on a pedestal,
like people at Nintendo feel like they are going to
get pay right, is if they stay there and they
don't feel like they're going to be pushed out like this,
you know, and that manifests in the games where people
are happy going to work. It's a fucking insane concept, Mike.
Have you ever heard of this being happy going to
work and producing good work?
Speaker 1: That that what? That sounds wild? We haven't said they
cancel your game and you're forced to do what they
typed to know if there is, if there is a
loyal soldier at xbox Boy, has it been Obsidian who
has actually been able to release a lot of video
games according to you know, things like Grounded, which are
you know, done really well for.
Speaker 2: Them, maybe the only studio that like successfully fulfilled the
game pass mandate of population the service with multiple different
games in different genres for different types of players, and
like their reward is a quarter of them are laid off.
Speaker 1: So yeah, probably we're probably not going to see another Vow.
We're probably never going to see another Outer Worlds again.
Speaker 2: I would if you Yeah, if you haven't played those
games and you can get them for cheap, maybe without
giving Microsoft money. Go check them out because they're both excellent.
They're both really really good. Out of Wild's two was
one of my favorite games last year, do.
Speaker 1: You know, because yeah, Like I don't want to be
like this is I'm not trying to like pass and
blame onto consumers here, but I was always a little
shocked that About an Hour World Too weren't bigger hits.
I played those games, I'm like, wow, but all the
people who like those but games are going to really
like that. And I would just see a lot of
them be like this isn't quite there for me, or
this is missing that, or the writing's not as good,
and I'm like, oh.
Speaker 2: It is the problem for a video game to sell, well,
you need to do this thing called markish ish.
Speaker 1: That would probably help, huh.
Speaker 2: And Xbox kind of fucking gave up on that for
anything that wasn't Call of Judy last year. If you remember,
basically nothing got markasing money except for Call of Duty.
Like it's do you remember how little mark the ones
for that Senua game. Do you remember us all sitting
around and being like, hey, that sendu a games out
in a week and there's been like, right.
Speaker 1: It's like, aside from like showing up at like, you know,
their their showbase, that was Yeah, that was basically about it.
I I kind of feel like we're we're in a
bit of a post Starfield world in some ways with
a lot of these studios where at that time you
were still able to make the argument of hey, we
know we're we're known for these big franchises, We're going
to try something new here and maybe it's going to
be a new pillar. And that game didn't really do
particularly well, wasn't received particularly well, and it kind of
got them off of their schedule again by like a
decade to a point now where a lot of people
are going to look at that and and be like,
and I think that's where this we got to focus
on our big franchise things is coming from where we
can't afford for you guys to experiment with something new.
That is that means we're not going to get another
fallout or whatever for another decade. It's at a point
now where.
Speaker 2: I mean especially can't afford for you to experiment because
we have less studios now, right, And I.
Speaker 1: Just at this point I would expect but says the
next game after Elder Scroll six just be Outer Scroll seven, right,
I think it's just going to they might just become
exclusively in Outer School Studio, which is kind of where
they once were once upon a time. So uh yeah, yeah,
that's where we are. I do think it's a shame.
I like to vout it, you know. I bet that
they can make a good Fallout game. They've made the
best Fallout game probably Obsidian Dead and decision that.
Speaker 2: You always makes sense of speaking of people who have
you know, like carried the cross for and like done
the dirty work Josh Sawyer and the extended team out
of like Obsidian, the work that they have done on
different like skunk Works projects and getting things like of
Out was in development for seven years, Like I've heard
stories of what that game was originally going to be,
and it was a very fucking different game. And it
came out and it was fucking good. That doesn't happen often.
Speaker 1: Right, and it was good. God, that was good. I think,
I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, play those video games.
All right, let's take a quick break. We got got
more fun stuff to get into right after this. All right,
here's another fun headline. This one's from Tom Phillips at
IGN the elder Scroll six will suffer because of Xbox layoffs,
Bethesa staff say during delays, brunch and generational talent being
replaced by contractors.
Speaker 2: This is just the Hannibal Bows meme of him shooting
or Eric Andre shooting Hannibal Bows and eric Andre being like,
what would Bethesta do this to us?
Speaker 1: Why would bethes to do this? This week's devastating Xbox
lafts will have a substantial and cascading effect on Bethesa's
development of Voterscroll six. Multiple staff at the studio have
told IGN, speaking of condition of anonymity to protect their
careers and an enemy excuse me. Current informer staff have
told me that job losses across Bethesta Games studio locations
have removed more than fifty employees, including key high performing
people in the trenches building the company's long awaited Skyrim successor. This,
in turn, they say, as shattered morale, raise the risk
of future development crunch and increased the likelihood that the
game's already far off completion date will be delayed. Such
as the strength of feeling among the tight knit bethes
A team that on social media photos have been shared
of multiple makeshift celebration of service memorials displayed within the
company's opposes in Dallas, Texas and Rockville, Maryland. These feature
framed photographs of laid off workers arrange in the studios
common areas alongside bouquets of flowers. It's one of these
displaces has now been dismantled under orders of the company's
HR departments.
Speaker 2: I bet that fucking Adril rep is gonna be popular
at Christmas. I'm like, yeah, they're gonna the Christmas mix
is gonna be They're gonna have a great time.
Speaker 1: I Outer Scroll six to me has to be the
most high priority project happening with within almost any studio
that Xbox owns, right, like maybe outside of their Call
of Dutys and things like that. Outer Scroll six is
a big deal. If that hits, that's going to be
important for them. The idea that you would still even
lay off people working on that game and it's not and.
Speaker 2: Again bgs not a massive team, right, Fifty people is
a lot, especially when they like share some amount of
people who are still working on support for Starfield. As
far as I know, that game is still getting like
patches and updates. I know they're done with their main DLC,
but like BGS also oversees a lot of the ports
that they're portting that Oblivion game, so like there were
probably people touch it or the Oblivion thing to switch,
So like they have multiple irons in the fire. They're
not a one game studio. They're they're focused on that
one game, but.
Speaker 1: About to be they think they're about to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So like again you're right, like, other than
keeping Minecraft going and keeping Car of Duty popular, what
could be a higher profile game for Xbox right now
than the Elder Scrolls and apparently that can't save you.
And like again, the other part of all this, the
people who are left there still don't know if that's ish.
They don't know if there there's going to be a
second wave involving their company because the commune location has
been so shitty. Mike, I'm not sure if you've heard this.
Clarishy is a kindness and I read that somewhere and
it was it was really it was really informative. And
so like the fact that these people don't know if
there's they're going to be part of a second wave
still is like it's the equivalent of like mental warfare,
Like it's the kind of shit that you were doing
the Deer Hunter to fuck with someone.
Speaker 1: Right right, gosh, gosh again, bethes the Elder Scroll six.
It's gotta be the most appoiling. It still years off,
and this is a game that I can't remember when
they announced it. I think I remember when they announced it,
and people at that time were like, this game's not
coming out till twenty twenty two. I was like, that's crazy.
Come on, they wouldn't announced it if it was it's
going to take that long.
Speaker 2: Remember that that online E three where post Malone was like,
what are we gonna see the Elder Skull six?
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe chat say twenty right, twenty eighteen
it was announced. I mean, twenty twenty eight seems like
the earliest we could see this game. That's that's almost
being to sound optimistic.
Speaker 2: I would put money on that game not coming out
before like twenty twenty nine.
Speaker 1: I mean, that game could come out in the thirties,
which I hate say, but like it could, it could,
all right. Fire Marathon director says he settled a lawsuit
with Sony and been inserted into the credits by Andy
Robinson VGC. The former marathon director, Christopher Barrett, says he
has ended a lawsuit against Bunging playsteaching and had his
name inserted to the game's credits as part of the settlement. Barrett,
who was the original director of this year's marathon, had
his employment terminated by Bungeing in twenty twenty four after
more than twenty five years at the company for misconduct
court douguments. Sony alleged that Barrett had sent inappropriate messages
to female employees. Barrett denied the claims and called the
investigation that led to us firing as sham. Barrett later
sued Bungie and its pair company, Sony Interactive Entertainment, accusing
it of defamation and breach of contract. Notably, he alleged
Sony fired him in order to avoid paying him more
than forty five million and bonuses generated from its twenty
twenty two purchase of the studio. Writing on social media,
the game designer wrote that he was pleased to share
that Sonny, Bungie, and I have reached an agreement to
resolve the lawsuits.
Speaker 2: Is this like the closest we get to a good
news story? Now?
Speaker 1: I don't know because I think maybe, well because again
this guy, there's the misconduct and the inappropriate bestge feedball poys,
and it seems like this guy, uh maybe maybe sucks
and he got got paid. So no, probably not good.
Yeah yeah yeah, in fact, man, in fact, let's move on.
Oh no, uh. Next one, UBI sawt to Barcelona celebrates
all this here successful Uoby Saw Barcelona celebrates successful Assassin's
Creed Black Flag recinc To launch with layoffs. This is
by Tom Henderson at Insider Gaming. Despite Assassin's Creed Black
Flag Recinct being considered a successful launch by YUBISAF, fifty
one employees at Ubisa with Barcelona, many of whom worked
on the game, will be celebrating its launch by seeking
new employments. Announced on June tenth, fifty one employees at
Barcelona faced the layoffs, with those who spoke to Insider
Gaming saying the layoffs felt premeditated. We're going to happen
no matter how successful Assassin's Creed Black Flag Recinct was.
That's because Ubisoft tends to assign a new project to
teams well before they complete the current project, sometimes a
year in advance. However, despite the Barcelona team raising concerns
about not being assigned a new project. As far back
as summer twenty five, no such assignment was a given.
According to those familiar with how Assassins cre Black Flagracing
performed prior to launch, the game was highly successful in
terms of interest and pre orders. We also know now
that the game has gotten really good reviews. Yeah. Just
days after completing off its work on Black Flag Recincts,
the Barcelona team was disbanded, with fifty one employees laid off.
What the hell, I know it's a thing for Sunday Studios.
Be like, well, you've always downsized a bit after a project.
This is the first one of these kind of Assassin's
Creed remakes. There are so many other games in that
franchise that you could just point this team to to
do next. Assassin's Creed two and Brotherhood are beloved. They
never they got those bad remasters. Give that treatment to
those games or a syndicate is another one that people
really like. You could go and do that. Uh, they
seems to be there's so much game. Yeah, I like three.
It's a problem of mind.
Speaker 2: But look, yeah, Mike, you you like American history. We
know this about it.
Speaker 1: I do I like, I like our American American colonial history.
Speaker 2: Okay, interesting, Assassin's Creed three is the Mickey Mouse of
Assassin's Creed games, and so of course you likesh like,
don't know what.
Speaker 1: You mean by that, but agree, uh right, all right,
Uh so I don't. Yeah, this one just seems bananas
to me because it seems it looks like Black Flag
Recent is going to do very well.
Speaker 2: And yes, I mean, I will say it is a
mostly negative reviews on Steam right now, and that is
mostly around people are very unhappy with the DLC of
course game, which.
Speaker 1: Right, so yeah, so so they made a good game
and now it's gonna it's gonna get fucking sabotaged on
Steam in other places because the fucking publisher can't help
itself with that stupid bullshit. What I think it was
yesterday we were talking about the College Football Game adding
more DLC into its stuff and getting those people upset
to it's never fucking enough with these things. What do
we even need in Black Flags? It's a single player
pirate RPG. What are the I don't even want to
know what you're buying?
Speaker 2: Like, this is something that's going to come up in
my review it's the dumbest shit. It's the hell Fire
naval pack and the Sea Serpent character pack, you know,
those very pirashy looking things that have literal flames on
them like their magic. And so I it's something I've
talked about a few times on Blue Sky is. This
is something you're going to see a lot more of
over the next few years. You saw it with like
EA parun Or starting up a whole initiative to add
dynamic ads into their games. You have even seen it
with Nintendo finding ways to re up previously released games
up to eighty dollars, you know, with the Zeno Blade
rem or remasters and things like that. All of these
companies are finding major and minor ways to increase the
price of things ever so slightly, again and again and
again because they are all panicking that like right now,
they're looking at the numbers and young people aren't buying
consoles because of course they're not. They're almost one thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the market, that's the problem will get solved
real soon. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the market isn't growing, And if the market isn't growing,
the only way to make more money is to monetize
the people who are there, and in an even grimmer sense,
at some point that market's going to start to shrink
as people get old and people stop playing video games
because they have arthritis and they die, and these companies
will just keep on trying to increase the you know,
grub has talked about the k sha aphed economy. It's
that's what that's what this is. That's what this looks
like in motion. That's how this calcifies and forms. I do.
I hear anecdotal stories of like my godson is like young,
and he has a Nintendo Switch and he loves his switch,
and so I'm like, yes, there are still people. There's
still young people that want to play video games. I
want to play actual, real deal video games and not
just fucking roadblocks. But the most of the market has
been has managed to create an ecosystem that is incredibly
hostile towards a low barrier to entry for both young
people and people that don't have a lot of money
to throw around at these hardware devices. And this it's
a problem. It's it's a legitimate problem of how do
you get people in at the bottom end so that
you can make fans when they're young and then maybe
when they get old and older and they have jobs
and they have disposable income, they will spend money on
your game games.
Speaker 1: All the DLC if you bought all of it right
now for this game is eighty four dollars ninety one cents,
so it would cost more than the actual video game.
And it's just it's a bunch of the map pack.
What the hell is a map pack? What do you mean.
Speaker 2: Everything on the map is? They tell you what everything is.
Speaker 1: That's the game. If you're playing a census creat I
got bad news for you. That's the game, is that
you explore the map. That's what you decided up for
with these days.
Speaker 2: I didn't agree to that.
Speaker 1: Come on, Oh Jesus Christ, Yeah, no, you're absolutely right.
There's just going to continue to try to monetize that
stuper engaged hardcore audience, and more and more of them
are going to be turned off by it and just
continue to wait for sales. Play old games, and play
old games now are games that are ten years old
and don't look any worse or play any worse than
games today. Because we've had stagnation in so many parts
of the industry as well, whipped you do next up
you can now try. One of Nintendo's best switched to
games for Freeze is also by Andy robson VDC. Nintendo
has released a free demo for a switch to platforms.
Speaker 2: Good This is literally the good Feel News.
Speaker 1: There we go. Yeah, this is a demo for the
Yoshi game. Yeah So Den for Yoshi A serious book
available now in the Nintendo E Shop. The demo allows
users to shot the first chapter of the game, with
all progress able to be carried over to the full
game should you wish to purchase it. Developed by traditional
Modern Yoshi studio, Good Feel Just some Serious book was
released for switch To in May, introduces a puzzle twist
to the platformer. It's really this isn't the first time
Nintendo does this thing where a demo for a game
comes out a good bit after release. What do you
think that strategy is? Do you think that's always kind
of baked into the plan? You don't think is it
a sign that, like, oh maybe this is underperforming, Let's
release the demo and see if we can get some
more people interested in this one.
Speaker 2: It might not even be that's underforming. It might just
literally just be let's see if we can get more
people interested in this in a second wave, because like
that's that's so much a game's marching now is how
do you create waves? You know, how do you create
waves of interest? And like the most common one is
put it on sale, and Nintendo doesn't put things on sale.
So the easiest lever for them to pull is to,
you know, do an event or to have some kind
of new story around the game. And there's a demo
for this game is a pretty is something that will
get picked up as a new story, and so they
may as well do that after the game releases rather
than before it does, because like, ultimately, the people who
are going to buy that game day one are kind
of the people who are gonna buy that game day one,
whereas people who might you know, be kind of interested,
not that they they will wait and see even if
it is like even if the demo comes out before
the game, they will still wait and see ful of views.
They will still wait and seeful impressions, So like they
may as well wait in some ways.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, the chad thinking for Mindy, it was Donkey
Kong Bonanza that also sort of had this month's later
demo treatment, and that that game was probably always slaying. Well, see,
I bet you're racist about that second wave. And hey,
this game's neat. I like this game a lot more
than I thought I was going to. So if you
are curious about this one, yeah, check out that that demo.
Your progress will carry over to the full game. Getting
to play the first chapter. That's gonna give you a
pretty good idea of what the game is about, all right.
PERSONA four revival producer confirms some noteworthy character changes are coming.
This is by Heidi Clamps at game Spot speaking to
Anime Corner Wata from the team to discuss some changes
would be made to parts of the game, particularly with
regard to one specific character. We haven't changed anything core
about the characters, as Wata, but we're just sort of
brushed up the kinds of concern to make it stricture
it all fits and really is appropriate for the characters
and for the age that we live in now. We
haven't really changed anything about the story of the character's
thoughts or how they act. We just changed the way
we express some of this a little bit, mostly with Yoski. Really,
he's a little bit insensitive in terms of how he
treats outsiders sometimes I just want to point out the
outsiders are talking about our trans people and fat people.
We went to lighten that up and make it a
little more fitting for the world that we live in now.
He goes on to confirm that other hot topics social
lynks for characters like Kanji and now To will not
be altered. At base. Yoska has been criticized for being
somewhat abrasive, with some of his comments and actions kind
of places as homophobic yep. While some players see his
attitude in words as rather typical of a teenager struggling
with themselves, ours have found him to be repellent, it's
understandable why the team might want to rain Yosk in
a little.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean this is interesting insofar as they also
had to do this for Persona three, and solution for
Persona three was let's just not include the scene where
we're transphobic, And so I'm curious if they actually try
to deal with the problem of the character at hand
and actually readdress them, or if they just cut a
roundish Again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I don't like in this. In this game,
it's a bit more pre to the story with what
goes on with Kanji so I hope that they just
I hope they're more thoughtful than that. I am glad
of glad. I love Persona for YOSK was yeah, pretty
freaking awful. You just don't like that character really when
you're playing, Like even at top of like that, he's
kind of he's kind of whiny and pathetic, and a
lot of those Persona best Friend characters often sort of
actually suck, and I don't like them. I think they
actually I think they did a little work with June
Pey in three to make June Pey better. You pay
is probably already the best of them. I don't know,
but hey, yeah, edit the shit out of that. Go
go aeat, don't be like you know, don't don't worry.
I'm not that concerned about like the original intent and
things like that.
Speaker 2: And they're not being precious with you know, a lot
of the rest of the game, Like it's a completely
read on battle system, it's a completely read on art style,
so like, yeah, why not actually change parts of the
story if you're remaking the entire game from scratch? And
also like, yeah, I would like this to be better.
Speaker 1: I would yeah, absolutely, And again like I like Persona
four and I want Revival to kind of be like
the new definitive version of that game. What was seen
so far, I think it looks promising all right. Last
one here just a note that former VG twenty ver
seven editors wants a new publication called Respect, also by
Andy robson VGC, the former editorial leadership of British publication
VG twenty four seven have founded a new game's Spray
and Respect, which they say we'll offer a new independent voice,
increasingly shrieking games of media. Respect is news, reviews and
feature site managed by former VG twenty ver seven editor
chief in Europe, Gamer Editorial director Tom or A, former
VG twenty verse seven editor at large and RPG site
owner Alex Donald. Send you there you go. Another another
independent games media website is out there.
Speaker 2: And I can vouch about those people that they're both
good people. I've met Alex and hung out with Alex
a handful of events, and he's one of the most
knowledgeable people in this space and one of the most
experienced too at this point as well. So it's very
good to see him trying to get more voices out
there and try to get more, you know, good shit published.
Speaker 1: Alrighty, that does it for our headlines. Why don't we
get to the polls cleaning the poll from yesterday where
I asked everybody, have you played Mario Kart Tour? How
about how about you Lex? Did you play marik rt
Tour for mobile devices? Mike?
Speaker 2: You know how you put the secret third option in
there in this poll?
Speaker 1: Maybe I can't remember, Yeah, and that was for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's where I fall to. I think I did.
I have a friend at at start Menu who this
was their daily mobile game and they they played it
every single day for like years and years and years,
and like at some point they added a horizontal mode
to that you can play it horizontally now like you'd
actually want to. It's very weird that they're not doing
the ten dollars standalan thing for this game, because they
did it for Mario Run, and they did it for
Happy Home Designer.
Speaker 1: So for Pocket Camp, right yeah, Animal Crossing, so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pocket Camp. Yeah, and so it's it's very strange
that they're not doing it for this one. I assume
their logic behind it is, hey, all those tracks in
Mario Card eight Deluxe, but that's a bad logic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's really it's really freaking weird. You know,
Like one thing I was about the game had some
neat costumes. They're just being able to kind of, don't know,
pay and race around in some of those costumes that
might be neat.
Speaker 2: I know, doctor baby Walla Ouigi was fucked up. I
would not allow it. No, that's good that I would
not allow that motherfucker to operate on me. That guy
does not have a license to practice medicine.
Speaker 1: Dan absolutely would. Dan would be like heart transplant the
baby wall Luigi. Hell yeah, let's go for it, head transplant,
Let's do it. So Yeah, we asked the community if
they play Mario cart Tour. Sixty one percent just said no,
eight percent said yes and yeah, twelve percent said maybe
I can't members we're not a big Yeah.
Speaker 2: That is a not insignificant part of the pie shot there.
That's over tenth of people maybe having played that game
but genuinely can't.
Speaker 1: Remember, right right, And uh, we've got a new poll here,
and I forgot to put a question mark in and
that's gonna hat me, But here we go. Are you
excited for a new Fall game from Obsidian? Your choices
are yes, no, or not under the circumstances. There you go.
All alrighty uh, LEXI, thank you so much for joining
me today. Is anything you want to shout out or
point people towards.
Speaker 2: H Yeah, go follow me on blue skylex Loti dot
x y Z. I was on the Next Land of
Podcasts yesterday, so check that out. Those folks are lovely.
We only made fun of you for a little bit,
and I'm pretty sure it was off air.
Speaker 1: Oh. I was about to say, I like when people
talk about me, but now I can't even hear it,
so like, what the hell is the point? Damn it?
Speaker 2: I actually I think some of it was on air.
I told them about you having a very bad games
come when we hung out in the press room that
one time.
Speaker 1: Oh my Cron's paying Yeah I still have.
Speaker 2: And then you took the good German drugs and you
were suddenly very very good.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's really interesting. When I went to the drugs
the German drug store after that, and like was like,
do you guys have these? And I just bought a
bunch and I still have some at home because they
aren't FDA approved, you can't buy them here, but yeah,
I got some Busco pond plus or whatever that I
take an emergency still and uh boo ooh yeah, people
are going to uh games coming by, tell them to
get me some just go to the drug store, pick
me up some more.
Speaker 2: I love that. Like some people are like, oh, if
you're going to Japan, pick me up some like use games.
You're like, pick me up the dro the Clones.
Speaker 1: Drugs right right, which are like I think they're primarily
more for like menstrual problems, right, but it's all just
got cramps and things like that. Hey, it works out
for my keys. Uh, all right, everybody, we saw some
fun stuff coming up on Giant Bomb this week. Voicemail
Dump Truck. That's happening later today at one p m Eastern.
Will Crosby's going to be making his a dump Truck debut.
Everybody a Games Calm, Yeah, oh that's right. Yeah yeah yeah,
and we'll we'll we'll be there. I enjoyed Games Calm
when I was there that year. Definitely was a good time.
It's a big trip. It's a big trip. It's a
it's a big trip, but it's fun. Lots of you know,
I really liked I like Coach ber so that part
of it was always nice. Uh. Tomorrow, everybody, I'll be
back game as morning is with us, Jason Fonelli. Tomorrow.
Let's see what fresh hell awaits us then. Uh. And
we also have a upf of course later in the day,
and a new episode of sewer Shark. This is the
Run is gonna come out on Saturday. Probably gonna be
the Run, everybody, Right, You see how well I've been
doing so far. How could it not be.
Speaker 2: Playing that game for the next six months.
Speaker 1: That's for I like it, damn it. I don't care
what anyone else does. Sewer Shirk's cool.
Speaker 2: Okay, she doth protests too much.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make me mad at all. All right, everybody,
thank you again for watching. We'll catch you next time.
Bye bye,