Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to Game Last Mornings with Me Jeff Grub,
Speaker 1: your host from giant bomb dot com. Thank you for
Speaker 1: tuning in. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: the employees attempting to stand up to the EA acquisition
Speaker 1: and also saying goodbye to a legend. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: a good one because we have Jiana Chowell on the show.
Speaker 1: Jan how are you doing?
Speaker 2: I am still deep in internet woes Grub. It turns
Speaker 2: out when you have they have to move the fiber
Speaker 2: O and T machine to a different part of the house,
Speaker 2: all the beacons you got in the house also need
Speaker 2: to be repoed. Got meacons. We need to repoe the
Speaker 2: beacons and they have not been repolled efficiently. I assume
Speaker 2: you boys not getting all the Internet juice that he's
Speaker 2: paying for.
Speaker 1: Are you, like, when you're doing tests and packet tests
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, are are you seeing it obviously that
Speaker 1: there's an issue or is it more like there's some
Speaker 1: in stability in the machine that's even hard to notice
Speaker 1: during a speed test or something.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of you know, shots at the chuck
Speaker 2: for me observing him testing Internet at the SGF house
Speaker 2: and then like me just loosely trying to pick up
Speaker 2: on that. Sure, because when I'll run a speed test Grub,
Speaker 2: everything will look fine on paper. There's some type of
Speaker 2: instability going on somewhere down the chain, because yesterday before
Speaker 2: game this morning started with Lex, I ran a speed test.
Speaker 2: Everything looked kosher, and then the show went on and
Speaker 2: then it kind of got borked in the middle of it.
Speaker 2: So I'm not quite sure what is happening there. That
Speaker 2: being said, I'm not running hardwired, and I know that
Speaker 2: that is taboo. So everyone calmed down. I know, I know, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a new situation.
Speaker 1: Listen, I did a mini podcast on Wi Fi for
Speaker 1: a long time and no one ever yelled at me.
Speaker 1: Everyone yelled at me. It was everyone Sean and Mike
Speaker 1: never shut up. And it was hard to get an
Speaker 1: Ethernet cable down there. So I get it, so okay,
Speaker 1: But you do think you have like a pathway to
Speaker 1: like get into this all sorted, because to me, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh man, it's like to have to redo everything in
Speaker 1: this house to get internet to work. But like, do
Speaker 1: you feel you have a plan.
Speaker 2: The plan grub right now? Long?
Speaker 1: I No, that's that's a plan.
Speaker 2: I love that. You know you might might record.
Speaker 1: I guess it might require some like power, a powered
Speaker 1: Ethernet cable, but a long Ethernet cable actually should be fine.
Speaker 1: Ethernet's fine over like long distances. So yeah, especially if
Speaker 1: you get like a big like a big bandwidth one,
Speaker 1: a big uh what's it called gauge? Yeah, get the cat,
Speaker 1: get the cat eight in there. Spending way too much
Speaker 1: money on a cable, let's go.
Speaker 2: I'm going. I'm also gonna have to route it through
Speaker 2: like a switch. Also, not like a Nintendo switch, but
Speaker 2: a gigabit switch, just to make sure that the juice
Speaker 2: is preserved. It's going to be long boys, long boys, grub.
Speaker 1: Uh camski something. Have you watched the new season A Peacemaker?
Speaker 2: Ah?
Speaker 1: Yes, yes I have. What what do you think happened
Speaker 1: to John Cena's bald spot? Do you think they covered
Speaker 1: it up or do you think he did the Turkey.
Speaker 2: He went to Turkey? I think you think he probably
Speaker 2: went to Turkey. I think he actually talked about this
Speaker 2: in an interview because he did go to he'd made
Speaker 2: it okay cool, So yeah, when he went back for
Speaker 2: part of his retirement, tour, right, WWE people were kind
Speaker 2: of poking fun at his bald spot.
Speaker 1: Right, Yes, I felt bad for him for that, but
Speaker 1: it was it was also very glaring. It was hard
Speaker 1: not to comment on it.
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you, Michael Olier. He didn't go to Turkey.
Speaker 2: There was a guy in l A.
Speaker 1: I bet he was Turkish.
Speaker 2: But anyway, and yeah, you know, I understand that John
Speaker 2: Cena wants to preserve his hair for Hollywood, but you know,
Speaker 2: if you wanted to go shaved head, I think he'd
Speaker 2: be completely fine.
Speaker 1: That's oh yeah, for sure, he could pull off anything
Speaker 1: for that stuff. But it's like I definitely noticed Lom like,
Speaker 1: I bet there's some parts here where because apparently.
Speaker 2: Did it earlier this year.
Speaker 1: It said, okay, yeah he covered it in acting roles. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course you will, like why wouldn't you. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a that's a good show. Part of me is like,
Speaker 1: wish is that they could go a little bit deeper
Speaker 1: on some of the stuff they're doing. But I had
Speaker 1: a fun time with it. They you know, James Gunn
Speaker 1: gets me. So I enjoyed it all right, Although I'm
Speaker 1: halfway through the last episode, so maybe it gets really
Speaker 1: bad at the end. Who knows, we'll see.
Speaker 2: Ah, not my favorite season finale, grub, I'll just look
Speaker 2: at that. Fair enough.
Speaker 1: Well, let's find out.
Speaker 2: All right, let's explain what we do here.
Speaker 1: We're Giant Bomb Video Game dof This is independent games
Speaker 1: media out here on our own, but we have you.
Speaker 1: When you go to giant bomb dot com slash join,
Speaker 1: you become a premium member, and you help ensure that
Speaker 1: we can remain independent out here doing our thing, making
Speaker 1: the stuff we like to make, making the stuff you
Speaker 1: like to see. We're gonna be doing stuff like the
Speaker 1: Bombiton here at the end of the month, where we're
Speaker 1: gonna just kind of go all out at twenty four
Speaker 1: hour live stream October twenty seventh. I want to say, Jane,
Speaker 1: you told me yesterday. That's right, okay, Yes, October twenty seventh,
Speaker 1: starting at five pm that day. We can do stuff
Speaker 1: like that because we have you supporting us, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna try to set up a whole new year of
Speaker 1: support starting that day and really kind of kicking off
Speaker 1: some awesome stuff going forward. Of course, it also enables
Speaker 1: us to do stuff like SGF Game of the Year
Speaker 1: awards and stuff like that. So please go through a
Speaker 1: giant bomb dot com slash join become a premium member.
Speaker 1: It means the world to us. Thank you to everyone
Speaker 1: who has supported us so far. We notice it. And
Speaker 1: if you can't, just tell a friend, that's also awesome.
Speaker 1: We get it.
Speaker 2: As far as the show, oh please, yeah go sorry Greb.
Speaker 2: If you're an existing premium subscriber, here's ten podcast points
Speaker 2: for you.
Speaker 1: Shit, okay, As far as the show goes, most weekdays,
Speaker 1: I Jeff Greb will help piece your gaming life back together.
Speaker 1: That includes breaking news and maybe even some of our
Speaker 1: own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the
Speaker 1: input of a bona fide expert who will make me
Speaker 1: look smart. If you are watching live on Twitch welcome.
Speaker 1: You can always listen to the show later on podcast
Speaker 1: feeds by searching for Games Mornings, or find the RSS
Speaker 1: feed on GiantBomb dot com. You can all so catch
Speaker 1: the show later with chapters and timestamps ontimetamps, timestamps on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Hello YouTube and scout. All right, we have a lot
Speaker 1: to get into, so let's start the morning mess with
Speaker 1: Ballpit reviews.
Speaker 2: They have really started to roll in.
Speaker 1: Gene'll say up front, I am glad we're at a
Speaker 1: point where it's like a game like this that feels
Speaker 1: like it should have reviews, but I think at one
Speaker 1: point might not have because it's just like, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not from the major publishers necessarily, It's not one
Speaker 1: of those ones where like you just know to pay
Speaker 1: attention to it.
Speaker 2: I think we're past that people know to pick.
Speaker 1: Up on games like these. And it has quite a
Speaker 1: few reviews. It has an eighty six on Open Critic,
Speaker 1: doing very well, and people are people are talking a
Speaker 1: game about this one. They're talking some mess about how
Speaker 1: if you start it up, you're not gonna be able
Speaker 1: to put it down. And I just don't need another
Speaker 1: one of those. I'm scared of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Grub we got code for this fairly early, and
Speaker 2: I think they had to move the release of Ballpit
Speaker 2: because of a silk song. But I've played maybe a
Speaker 2: good two three hours of it and I have to
Speaker 2: remove myself from it. Rub.
Speaker 1: This is the this is the brick breaker on steroids, Arcanoid, Arcanoid, Yes, fantastic, it's.
Speaker 2: One of those, and I remember it may not have
Speaker 2: been Arcanoid, but they are in Arcanoid. Ad Jason game
Speaker 2: had come out on iOS years back, and I thought
Speaker 2: it was like Brick Breakers on on crack. I was wrong,
Speaker 2: because Ballpit is that. This is that Okay, it is
Speaker 2: that on it is and I say this positively, gang
Speaker 2: it is arcanoid on fentanyl because it is like that
Speaker 2: Bath Salt's body rush of like, oh, Okay, we're gonna
Speaker 2: not only break all these bricks, but we're gonna do
Speaker 2: more than that. We're gonna eat faces because we're on
Speaker 2: Bath Salts. Let's go. Yeah, yes, yeah. It runs great
Speaker 2: on Steam Deck as well. If folks curious about that.
Speaker 2: As far as how it runs on your Asis ally
Speaker 2: Roger X, fine, I don't know. Yeah this I am
Speaker 2: all for this surge of support for indie games getting
Speaker 2: like a ton of review coverage because it's not just Ballpit.
Speaker 2: There's like other titles that have come out in the
Speaker 2: wake of Silk Song, in the wake of Hades two that.
Speaker 1: Have actually gotten right, like Bla Feels like the one
Speaker 1: that really like cracked the code there where it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: we should be kind of perking up for these games,
Speaker 1: and now everyone that's sort of every game that is
Speaker 1: in this sort of bucket where it's like, oh, an
Speaker 1: Arcadie maybe action style not actually, but like Arcadie game
Speaker 1: that you could play forever that doesn't necessarily have unending
Speaker 1: just one of these games that you can lose a
Speaker 1: ton of time to. Yeah, people are showing up form,
Speaker 1: especially on the indie side, and that's that's fantastic to see.
Speaker 1: I do wonder it's like, you know, the we're hearing
Speaker 1: reports of people who make games in America in United
Speaker 1: in the United States talking about how, oh, this just
Speaker 1: isn't a job we could do here anymore. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have to move to other countries if we want to
Speaker 1: keep making games, because it's like they're just not they're
Speaker 1: laying us off and they're not hiring new people. And
Speaker 1: if I want to like get a job, all the
Speaker 1: jobs are in Scandinavia or Eastern Europe. I wonder if
Speaker 1: there could be like sort of a reset at some
Speaker 1: point to like figure out the right team size, to
Speaker 1: figure out the right sort of mix of budgets and
Speaker 1: scope based on maybe the success of a lot of
Speaker 1: games like this. I saw someone say, hey, like fund
Speaker 1: one hundred games for one hundred million dollars, and one
Speaker 1: of those is probably going to pop off and do
Speaker 1: three hundred million dollars and that pays for the whole thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, there's probably something to that. It's maybe
Speaker 1: not as simple as that. Of course it's not as
Speaker 1: simple as that, but that that in general, it's like
Speaker 1: I wonder, I wonder if it's even possible. I don't know,
Speaker 1: and it's or maybe it has to just continue coming
Speaker 1: from the indie space just because there's so many games
Speaker 1: and you kind of can't compete as a big company
Speaker 1: spending that much money making that many games.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think of games like Animal Animal, well Grub,
Speaker 2: and like how if that didn't have like the Dunkey push,
Speaker 2: I still think that would have succeeded it. But like
Speaker 2: having that that like Donkey stamp of approval definitely got
Speaker 2: in front of more eyeballs, hurt, did not hurt at all,
Speaker 2: And from my understanding, that is also a relatively small team.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, Grub. I do hope that indie
Speaker 2: devs kind of make the push forward, because that is
Speaker 2: a space that I've been more interested in. Like I
Speaker 2: you know, it's great that Battlefield six is doing well,
Speaker 2: but I am kind of like foaming at the mouth
Speaker 2: seeing all these like insane titles coming out of Steam
Speaker 2: next Fest. I'm upset that there's so much good stuff
Speaker 2: out there, but I definitely hope with Steam Dex being
Speaker 2: more of a thing and maybe, like the Asis rog
Speaker 2: Ex Boyfriend, if folks are picking that up and getting
Speaker 2: into the PC gaming space, that it opens their eyes
Speaker 2: to the beautiful world of indie games out there. And
Speaker 2: you know, I hope more also come out to the
Speaker 2: Switch too. There's there's a next Best demo that I
Speaker 2: wanted to check out tomorrow. I think it's like girly
Speaker 2: Pop forever. It's like a it's like a Doom clone
Speaker 2: but pop, no, no, no, just pink neon stuff. Don't
Speaker 2: stop girly pop. That sounds incredible.
Speaker 1: Actually that's a okay, Doom but girly but pink girly
Speaker 1: pop stuff, all right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And like, I just love that there's a space
Speaker 2: for that, and I hope that that stuff takes off.
Speaker 2: And you know, I was just trying to do like
Speaker 2: an evaluation in my head grub would I spend one
Speaker 2: thousand dollars on the Asis rog allyx And the answer
Speaker 2: is no now, but over time, I would love to
Speaker 2: spend one thousand dollars supporting. However, many indie games that
Speaker 2: will get me just because I don't know that space
Speaker 2: is more interesting and percolating more rather than like the
Speaker 2: Triple A space, at least for me personally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean clearly. And it's and the big companies
Speaker 1: don't seem like they have a grasp on it, you know,
Speaker 1: the private divisions that have come and gone. And there's
Speaker 1: a bunch of similar labels like that that the big
Speaker 1: publishers have tried and they just couldn't make it make sense.
Speaker 1: And the ones that do, ea, they're like they found
Speaker 1: they find the one that works, Joseph Feris, and they
Speaker 1: just kind of go back to that well over and
Speaker 1: over again, and they've stopped, like we don't get unraveled
Speaker 1: games anymore or whatever, So it's gonna have to come
Speaker 1: from somewhere else. Ballpit got a four out of five
Speaker 1: from Christian Donaland at Eurogamers said, Kenny's Sun's new game
Speaker 1: is a voguish excuse me, vogus spin on an art
Speaker 1: Atari classic and it rules in eighty out of one
Speaker 1: hundred from Robin Valentine at PC Gamers says, a roller
Speaker 1: coaster ride of ball bouncy and action that loves to
Speaker 1: break its own rules, and then a nine point five
Speaker 1: from Jeremy Duff at Gaming Nexus, who says Ballpit is
Speaker 1: a wildly inventive twist on a classic formula, blending brick
Speaker 1: briking with roguelike progression, RPG mechanics, and resource management into
Speaker 1: a chaotic, endlessly replayable experience. Thanks to a deep roster
Speaker 1: of characters, seemingly endless ball combinations, and a settlement system
Speaker 1: that evolves between runs, the game will sink its hooks
Speaker 1: into you and refuse to let you go. I gotta say,
Speaker 1: I do feel like it is not helpful advice, but
Speaker 1: still advice that people should probably take.
Speaker 2: If you're not into Rogue Lights, keep trying.
Speaker 1: I know, there's so many coming out, and these are
Speaker 1: the games that everyone keeps talking about, like like Absolum,
Speaker 1: this Hades two. It's just like there's an endless list
Speaker 1: of these massive roguelikes that in Rogue Lights that people
Speaker 1: keep bringing up. And I get why. Some people like,
Speaker 1: if you grew up playing narrative games, games that just
Speaker 1: have a beginning and an end, which I think a
Speaker 1: lot of our audience probably did. It's so like frustrating
Speaker 1: to feel like you lose progress. But there is a
Speaker 1: reason that these games keep popping off, and you will
Speaker 1: probably find one that is for you eventually, like that.
Speaker 1: You know again, like Sean didn't like Hades one, loves
Speaker 1: Hades two, and it's like that that happens, So just
Speaker 1: keep trying. I would say, you know, this one's fifteen dollars,
Speaker 1: maybe it's the one to take a risk on.
Speaker 2: And like you said, Greb, if you're into that narrative
Speaker 2: that carries over from run to run, there's something like
Speaker 2: Hades two that will document and have voice lines for
Speaker 2: virtually everything you ever do in that game. So there's that.
Speaker 2: But also if you're not into that isometric combat, there
Speaker 2: is something like megabunk. I finally tried it out. Come
Speaker 2: on kah oh crub, I hate Dan record. It's yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: I don't know, man, that game is immediately so sticky. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I just I had to put that one aside as well.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna focus on some other stuff instead, like breaking embargoes.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see here, EA employees slam fifty five
Speaker 1: million or fifty five billion dollar buyout in open letter.
Speaker 1: This is some Darren BoNT Us at GameSpot. In an
Speaker 1: open letter, EA employees have publicly criticized the company's proposed
Speaker 1: fifty five billion dollar sale to an investor consortium, warning
Speaker 1: that the deal could have dire consequences for the people
Speaker 1: who make EA's games. Well who cares about them, certainly
Speaker 1: not the people making the money here. The letter comes
Speaker 1: as a as EA prepares to go private under the
Speaker 1: new ownership of Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners, and God, I
Speaker 1: get this job, Jance, so I don't have to think
Speaker 1: about Jared Kushner. And somehow here we are Silver Lake
Speaker 1: and Saudi Arabia's public Investment Fund, pending regulatory approval. EA's
Speaker 1: success has been entirely driven by tens of thousands of
Speaker 1: thousands of EA's workers, whose creativity, skill and innovation made
Speaker 1: EA worth buying in the first place. Hell yes, Yet we,
Speaker 1: the very people who will be jeopardized as a result
Speaker 1: of this deal, were not represented at all when this
Speaker 1: a buyout was negotiated or discussed. The employees posted on
Speaker 1: the United Video Game Workers Union website referencing fears that
Speaker 1: EA will undergo mass layoffs as part of its plan
Speaker 1: to find and it's new debt, which is something we
Speaker 1: talked about, twenty billion dollars in debt that was used
Speaker 1: to buy this company being saddled on the company. It
Speaker 1: is a junk status loan, so it's like a B
Speaker 1: B plus B something like that. Basically just means it's
Speaker 1: going to have high interest rates. So it will be
Speaker 1: necessarily difficult to service that loan a billion dollars a
Speaker 1: year or more in interest payments. So yeah, that's going
Speaker 1: to be a challenge, and the expectation is EA will
Speaker 1: likely make cuts to be able to directly service that.
Speaker 1: And that's the whole point because the people who put
Speaker 1: the deal together will still get their money. The people
Speaker 1: who have the people who have the right the ownership
Speaker 1: stake right now, they're going to get the money when
Speaker 1: this deal closed. The people who are taking on the
Speaker 1: ownership will certainly be paying themselves huge bonuses for being
Speaker 1: awesome leaders and putting the deal together as well. You know,
Speaker 1: you know what, Actually, Jen, let's just read the next
Speaker 1: story as well and kind of bring it all into
Speaker 1: one thing here. US senators voice concerns over foreign influence
Speaker 1: and national security risks in Saudi funded EA acquisition. This
Speaker 1: is from Chriscullian at VGC. Two US senators have voiced
Speaker 1: their concerns about the upcoming acquisition of Electronic Arts by
Speaker 1: a group of private investors, including Saudi Arabia's Sovereign Wealth
Speaker 1: Public Investment Fund PIFF. It was announced last month that
Speaker 1: EA had entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired
Speaker 1: by an investor consortium composed of PIFF, Silver Lake, and
Speaker 1: Affinity Partners. The all cash transaction values EA at around
Speaker 1: fifty five billion dollars and we'll see the consortium acquiring
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of the company. In response to the news,
Speaker 1: United States Senators Richard Blumenthal or bluementhal I should Say
Speaker 1: and Elizabeth Warren have now questioned the deal, warning of
Speaker 1: potential security risks and foreign influence over the Saudi funded acquisition,
Speaker 1: and a letter to Secretary of the Treasury Scott Besant,
Speaker 1: who is a fucking tool who also serves as chair
Speaker 1: of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States,
Speaker 1: the two senators urged the committee to apply searching scrutiny
Speaker 1: to this unprecedented, unprecedented proposed to foreign privatization of a
Speaker 1: major American technology and entertainment company. Okay, Jan, So you know,
Speaker 1: when this deal got announced, we were I think I
Speaker 1: assume like there's kind of no way this doesn't go through.
Speaker 1: Jared Kushner's involved. Who's going to stand in the way,
Speaker 1: certainly not the United States government, I don't know. Saudi
Speaker 1: Arabia and security risks, that's that seems like a fair thing.
Speaker 1: They helped with nine to eleven. So yeah, that makes
Speaker 1: some sense to me that we should maybe be concerned
Speaker 1: about that. Do you think between the employees actually speaking
Speaker 1: up in this case something we haven't seen much of
Speaker 1: before with these major acquisitions, like the Activision employees were,
Speaker 1: I think kind of like, look, it's bad under Activision,
Speaker 1: maybe it could be better under Microsoft. Now I think
Speaker 1: obviously it was just as bad, if not worse on
Speaker 1: the Microsoft. We don't really know, we can't no for sure,
Speaker 1: but clearly it wasn't great. A lot of them got
Speaker 1: laid off, but they didn't know. I think they had
Speaker 1: some hope here. I think they, like everyone just sees
Speaker 1: like we are like just at on a base level,
Speaker 1: under risk of getting toys r ust where like, hey,
Speaker 1: because of that debt, this is we're just going to
Speaker 1: be strip mined of our value, and because we will
Speaker 1: be the biggest cost as labor, we will be the
Speaker 1: first to go. So we just we see the obvious
Speaker 1: risk to our livelihoods here. And then on top of
Speaker 1: that US senators being like, and now there's security risks.
Speaker 1: Do you think there's any chance that the steel he'll
Speaker 1: hits any roadbumps over the next couple of years.
Speaker 2: I hope it hits all of the bumps, and I
Speaker 2: hope one of the bumps is Jared Kushner, to be honest,
Speaker 2: because Greb like of course, like Eve, with this buyout,
Speaker 2: it's not like Saudi Arabia is going to supply any
Speaker 2: developmental talent. They would still be consuming the existing developers,
Speaker 2: but those developers are going to be the first ones
Speaker 2: in line to get cut to satisfy the loan. Like
Speaker 2: you mentioned, I honest to god, hope that this actually
Speaker 2: does pick up more steam and maybe the deal doesn't
Speaker 2: go through because there's it's it doesn't make sense to me,
Speaker 2: grub for this to get approved if the everyone on
Speaker 2: the inside is yelling and upset about it, if people
Speaker 2: on the a lot of people on the outside are
Speaker 2: upset about it, and what this could mean not only
Speaker 2: to like a one of the last remaining big American
Speaker 2: video game companies, but also just everything underneath it. What
Speaker 2: happens to Madden, Grub, do we not? Do we not
Speaker 2: get any football? Is all? Is it gonna be presented
Speaker 2: in Riod now? In a fancy stadium over there?
Speaker 1: There's gonna be an NFL game played in Riod within
Speaker 1: the next three years.
Speaker 2: Cool cool, one of one of America's past times over there.
Speaker 2: I guess everyone has a price tag, and I just
Speaker 2: I feel terrible for the devs that are being affected,
Speaker 2: and I'm very proud and happy and stand with them
Speaker 2: and speaking out against this, because of course they're not
Speaker 2: going to get factored into the situation. Everyone at the top,
Speaker 2: Like you said, Grub, they have several golden parachutes at
Speaker 2: this point surrounded like gold yeah. Yeah, And they're patting
Speaker 2: themselves on the back for like thinking, this is a
Speaker 2: great thing that they're doing because they are going to
Speaker 2: be able to get out scott free and completely fine.
Speaker 2: But this ruin, This could potentially, you know, ruin several
Speaker 2: different ip It could fuck up so many other games
Speaker 2: and just get Michael transactions shoved into it that don't
Speaker 2: need to be and then you know, like we've like
Speaker 2: we've mentioned several times the devs that are going to
Speaker 2: be affected. This is going to ruin lives.
Speaker 1: Yep uh. You know what I'm like thinking is maybe
Speaker 1: more likely. I don't know if it's likely, but more
Speaker 1: likely every day is in a couple of years, the
Speaker 1: new owners of maybe the Xbox hardware division will be
Speaker 1: in Saudi Arabia. That feels like something that could happen.
Speaker 1: I don't think Microsoft's gonna sell Call of Duty or
Speaker 1: Minecraft or anything like that, but if they are, if
Speaker 1: they lose interest in hardware or lose more interest in hardware,
Speaker 1: I could see them being like, let's bundle up the
Speaker 1: hardware side and send that over there and kind of
Speaker 1: and maybe even the Xbox name because Microsoft Gaming, like
Speaker 1: you know, Call of Duty, Minecraft, all the King stuff,
Speaker 1: Candy Crush, all that stuff's more valuable than the Xbox
Speaker 1: branding at this point. And it's not like Microsoft wouldn't
Speaker 1: still be able to use it. They probably would just
Speaker 1: like partner up with them going forward and use it
Speaker 1: as necessary. I could easily see that happening now. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's likely, but I could see them.
Speaker 1: I could see that being a path that happens, and
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, you know, every step we take of this,
Speaker 1: of more and more of the ownership being sort of
Speaker 1: consolidated in this one place where there is no regulatory
Speaker 1: oversight that would be really be possible, would all be
Speaker 1: private ownership. It just makes an already fraught industry feel
Speaker 1: even more like capable of toppling over.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Greb. This this ties into what we began the
Speaker 2: show with where it feels like the bigger titans in
Speaker 2: this industry are so fragile at this point that they
Speaker 2: are all on the verge of toppling over, and unfortunately
Speaker 2: the people are going to topple over or the people
Speaker 2: supporting them up, which is and you know, to be
Speaker 2: fair Grub, it's not just the devs, it's it's people
Speaker 2: on the PR side, marketing side, various, it teams, the
Speaker 2: poor people doing QA that have always got stepped on,
Speaker 2: that are going to continue to get stepped on, and
Speaker 2: like the everyone in the indie space has to navigate
Speaker 2: around these like titans falling over.
Speaker 1: Yep, exactly. Yeah, it's uh, you know, and I think
Speaker 1: that's why a company like EA makes the choices it makes,
Speaker 1: right now because they don't feel like there's any obvious
Speaker 1: pathway forward. That's something we talk about a lot where
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, what what's our strategy? What's our next strategy? Hey,
Speaker 1: can we come up with an idea of what our
Speaker 1: next five to ten years looks like? And because it's
Speaker 1: so dangerous and so a risky and unsure that like
Speaker 1: in anything could happen and you kind of they just
Speaker 1: feel like they got to take the money now, get
Speaker 1: the big buy out now. And here it is and
Speaker 1: all these employees going like, what about us? We did
Speaker 1: create this value? And E is of course gonna have
Speaker 1: no answer for that, because it's it doesn't matter. They
Speaker 1: don't care. They're getting their exit strategy right now, and
Speaker 1: that means not having to worry about all these people
Speaker 1: that are employed by EA. It's yeah, dark and grim.
Speaker 1: All right, let's let's take a break. We're gonna have
Speaker 1: a quick ad message when we get back. Plenty of
Speaker 1: more headlines to get into. If you want to skip
Speaker 1: out on these. Premium version of the audio show, premium
Speaker 1: version of the video show, you get that by going
Speaker 1: to giant bomb dot com slash premium or excuse me,
Speaker 1: Giant Bomb dot com, slash Join, become a premium member,
Speaker 1: will be right back.
Speaker 2: Rub It's okay, just look at it. Okay, it's fine.
Speaker 2: Wait wait, wait damn, what are you doing here? Oh?
Speaker 2: Like like existentially or what do you mean? No, Dan
Speaker 2: like here a giant bomb covering games? Oh? Oh what
Speaker 2: I do for a living? Okay, Well, I'm here because
Speaker 2: of Game Informer. That's right.
Speaker 3: Way back in nineteen ninety three, I saw a Game
Speaker 3: Informer magazine and subscribed for the first time, and it
Speaker 3: has been a huge part of my life ever since.
Speaker 3: From you know, working the register at Funkoland and selling
Speaker 3: subscriptions to starting working there full time in two thousand
Speaker 3: and nine. Game Informer has been there for me the
Speaker 3: whole time. They mean a ton to me, so it
Speaker 3: hurt me, just like I know it hurt a lot
Speaker 3: of you. When the unexpected news came down not too
Speaker 3: long ago that Game Informer was shutting down.
Speaker 2: But nay, fear not, I say that's right.
Speaker 3: Game Informer is back, and with one hundred percent of
Speaker 3: the staff that was there when it shut down.
Speaker 2: Now, Danny boy, I see that you're holding a magazine
Speaker 2: right there.
Speaker 3: Tell me about how that page feels I'm telling you,
Speaker 3: I have held hundreds up on hundreds of Game Informer
Speaker 3: magazines from nineteen ninety three to today, and this is,
Speaker 3: without a doubt the best. But I'm feeling this right now.
Speaker 3: This is this is a smooth cover, This is a thick,
Speaker 3: nice paper here, the print is just this is a
Speaker 3: wonderful quality print magazine. It makes my heart feel good.
Speaker 1: And I know that Game Informer is a team that
Speaker 1: I can rely on to say something substantial about games
Speaker 1: and the people who make them, because GI has a
Speaker 1: stellar crew of editors.
Speaker 2: These are people I love.
Speaker 1: To have on the couch at Giant Bomb at night
Speaker 1: over at Summer game Fest. It's people I can always
Speaker 1: rely to have something interesting to say. That's why I
Speaker 1: know when they have those excellent cover stories, just like
Speaker 1: they always did and always will continue to do. So
Speaker 1: it's going to be some of the best coverage in
Speaker 1: video games.
Speaker 2: And another fun bonus, Game Informer donates five percent of
Speaker 2: every subscription purchased directly to Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Speaker 3: You know, earlier this year the future seemed very uncertain
Speaker 3: for both Game Informer and Giant Bomb. That's putting it
Speaker 3: mildly and as someone whose life in gaming hobby has
Speaker 3: been greatly impacted by both of those outlets. I am
Speaker 3: thrilled that we are both back in doing our thing
Speaker 3: online and your podcast apps and in print in your hand.
Speaker 3: That is right, gaming news, reviews, everything in between sent
Speaker 3: straight to your mailbox every month. To subscribe, go to GameInformer,
Speaker 3: dot com, slash subscribe now.
Speaker 2: Magazines. All right, we're back. I believe Jam.
Speaker 1: When you turn away from the mic there a little bit,
Speaker 1: it's hard to hear you. So I think you kind
Speaker 1: of me in. I think we're back. So Game as Mornings,
Speaker 1: Jeff Grubb, Jiannachilla, I'm just gonna keep going.
Speaker 2: Here we are. Let's do this next story.
Speaker 1: Quantic Dream developer developing multiplayer title, and they also say
Speaker 1: Star Wars Eclipse development is ongoing. This is from Salamano
Speaker 1: at Kamatsu. Quantic Dream is developing a competitive multiplayer experience.
Speaker 1: Studio head David Cage said in a message on the
Speaker 1: company's official website. Is one of multiple games in the works,
Speaker 1: including the twenty twenty one announced Star Wars Eclipse, which
Speaker 1: Cage confirmed is ongoing. This new title may surprise our
Speaker 1: fans as it is very different from what we have
Speaker 1: done so far, Cage said, but taking risks, challenging ourselves,
Speaker 1: exploring new ways of playing and telling stories, and attempting
Speaker 1: what seems impossible, and also making that live service money.
Speaker 1: I might have added that has always been part of
Speaker 1: our DNA. Yeah, so I guess it's worth pointing out.
Speaker 1: Quantic Dream does those sort of narrative choose your own
Speaker 1: adventure style games in the past, the ones where like
Speaker 1: David Cage would send thirty thousand page scripts out to
Speaker 1: like outlets and they would always be blank. He's like,
Speaker 1: this is how many pages the script is. And he
Speaker 1: did that for like multiple games because games were always
Speaker 1: thirty thousand pages for some reason. And so this feels
Speaker 1: very different. The Star Wars Eclips game already felt different.
Speaker 1: That was supposed to be kind of an action game,
Speaker 1: a competitive multiplayer game, even more different than that. God, Jen,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I want to say, is there space
Speaker 1: you know if one of these things is different and
Speaker 1: can work. You know, that Arc Raiders games game, it
Speaker 1: feels like it's gonna pop off when it comes out.
Speaker 1: We'd be like, oh, is there another room for an
Speaker 1: extraction shooter? Having known nothing about Arc Raiders I would
Speaker 1: probably probably go, no, what are you doing? But I
Speaker 1: bet that game is gonna be just fine. So I
Speaker 1: guess the real question is do you want to see
Speaker 1: this from David Cage.
Speaker 2: No, not at all, and not because I no, he
Speaker 2: can't do it, Grub. I was gonna try and justify it,
Speaker 2: but this is not your bag, dog. This is like
Speaker 2: if we suddenly decided we wanted to gosh, I don't know,
Speaker 2: you know, Okay, maybe we wouldn't work because I feel
Speaker 2: like we could pivot into any any every scene. Oh
Speaker 2: yeah we will. We're built different. Yeah, yeah, we're We're
Speaker 2: loose like that, baby. But like David Page, just go
Speaker 2: stick to your weird oddly written pointing click not pointing
Speaker 2: click games. How, given the history of the studio Grub
Speaker 2: and let's just look at like the last couple of years,
Speaker 2: because it's it's Detroit Become Human, Beyond Two Souls, Heavy Rain,
Speaker 2: and then Fahrenheit, how does any of that translate to
Speaker 2: a multiplayer game? Yeah? To me, it sounds like the
Speaker 2: kind of thing where it's like you.
Speaker 1: Picked this because it's the thing you had to say
Speaker 1: to maybe continue to get funding. Like you probably like,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of funding out there, and going
Speaker 1: out there and saying hey, I'm David Cage and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do another David Cage game wasn't working. So instead
Speaker 1: you said the thing you needed to say to get
Speaker 1: the person to sign on the dotted line to get
Speaker 1: that cash. And you know, maybe that's not what happened here.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is what they really want to do. Either way, though,
Speaker 1: it feels like a move sort of dictated by a
Speaker 1: need to put out a game that is going to
Speaker 1: have a certain level of popularity to justify the studio.
Speaker 1: I'm also like confused about Star Wars Eclipse because that
Speaker 1: is a High Republic game. Jan a few years ago,
Speaker 1: a lucasfilm started up their like novel series of the
Speaker 1: High Republic, which is not the Old Republic but kind
Speaker 1: of the decent period right before the modern the movies.
Speaker 1: All the movies happened like a period of like nine
Speaker 1: hundred to one hundred years before those movies, And that
Speaker 1: is at the very least on pause, like they like
Speaker 1: finished up their their current arc. And to me, that's like, oh,
Speaker 1: because they probably want to reassess and maybe try something
Speaker 1: different and and see if like a different tactic will
Speaker 1: do better because I bet those books were middling successes
Speaker 1: at best. I saw I thought someone were very well written.
Speaker 1: I haven't read many of them, but the couple I
Speaker 1: have read, there's some that were good. But it's it's
Speaker 1: not a going concern in this moment. Now it could
Speaker 1: come back, but if it doesn't, is this game still
Speaker 1: going to be a high republic game? I mean, honestly,
Speaker 1: I keep going back to I still don't think this
Speaker 1: game ever really comes out, but they say it's he
Speaker 1: says it's ongoing.
Speaker 2: It's a weird one. Yeah, I have no idea, Greb.
Speaker 2: I also don't know what the uh temperature is for
Speaker 2: for Star Wars games. I mean, we see Outlaws right
Speaker 2: rolling pretty well, but then other Star Wars media not
Speaker 2: doing so hot. I mean, obviously and Or is critically acclaimed,
Speaker 2: but then you have stuff like Gosh, Skeleton Crew being.
Speaker 1: Kind of cay and again like really kind of just
Speaker 1: coming and going, no one really watching that. I really
Speaker 1: liked Acolyte, but currently pop in Acolyte for sure.
Speaker 2: Apparently my opinion and it being kind of popular didn't
Speaker 2: matter because of the Internet chuds out there. But whatever.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I I feel like Star Wars is such
Speaker 2: in a weird place grub and with Star Wars overall,
Speaker 2: the health of the IP being kind of weird, I
Speaker 2: don't think that necessarily helps the Quantic Dreams game at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we'll see. Uh, you know, you gotta kind
Speaker 1: of make take some bets and take some risks. I
Speaker 1: agree with that, and who knows, maybe maybe they'll surprises,
Speaker 1: you know, David h probably I actually isn't going to
Speaker 1: be in the trenches working on this all that much. Maybe,
Speaker 1: And there's you know, he's a French developer, right, they're
Speaker 1: in France. Maybe there's some ex Ubisoft people who want
Speaker 1: to go make a game kind of like they did
Speaker 1: with Expedition thirty three. And it's like, I've always wanted
Speaker 1: to make my this idea for a multiplayer shooter.
Speaker 2: Where can I do that?
Speaker 1: Well, David Cage is welcoming you home over here and
Speaker 1: let you pop an off. Maybe that's the story here. Again,
Speaker 1: that's just more than hopium at this point. We'll see.
Speaker 1: I I you know, if I were out there being like, hey,
Speaker 1: what do I want from David Cage next? I'm not
Speaker 1: necessarily a David Cage fan, but I would want another
Speaker 1: David Cage style game, Like, are they making.
Speaker 2: One of those?
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't even know if they have that confirmed.
Speaker 1: So weird.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at this point, Greb, I'm hitching my wagon to this.
Speaker 2: To Sam Barlow, I would rather play another Sam Barlow
Speaker 2: joint because I would like to play another Sam Barlow
Speaker 2: joint versus any thing David Cage is presented to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, I'm one with you on that.
Speaker 2: All right, let's keep going here.
Speaker 1: MLB the Show should be coming to PC, at least
Speaker 1: according to a job listing from Sony San Diego Studio.
Speaker 1: I always mix them up with Santa Monica. No, Sony
Speaker 1: San Diego Studio, which is the MLB team. They have
Speaker 1: a job hosting saying hey, we're looking for a triple
Speaker 1: A PC programmer developer and can you come help us
Speaker 1: out here? And so people are drawing the conclusion, naturally
Speaker 1: that this is for bringing MLB the Show to PC,
Speaker 1: which is something I think that they've said they were
Speaker 1: going to do before. And it's like, hey, remember when
Speaker 1: we have this game over a PlayStation, Well, now we're
Speaker 1: putting on Xbox and the Switch, and we're gonna also
Speaker 1: gonna put on PC someday. Well, it seems like that
Speaker 1: day might be coming up soon. I would like to
Speaker 1: see this. I like playing sports games on on Steam,
Speaker 1: and there's not a lot of the big ones actually
Speaker 1: aren't on there. You get mad Him, you don't get
Speaker 1: college football. You get NBA two K, but you don't
Speaker 1: get NHL. It's it's kind of along those lines, and
Speaker 1: I would love for all of them to be on there.
Speaker 1: I think a big part of it is PC is
Speaker 1: a little bit easier to go ahead and and and
Speaker 1: hack and get the cards you want and say something
Speaker 1: like Ultimate Team.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Now, is that what's happening? I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: bet it's more of a problem on PC than it
Speaker 1: is on consoles. And so when you do all the
Speaker 1: effort to build one of these games for PC, the
Speaker 1: hope would be like, well, and it makes just as
Speaker 1: much money as the other platforms do in terms of
Speaker 1: micro transactions. And maybe that doesn't always turn out to
Speaker 1: be the case. Uh, so they don't go through with it.
Speaker 1: I bet that's why NHL doesn't make the cut and
Speaker 1: things like that. But hey, I I'll play this on PC.
Speaker 1: I think finally, actually, I would love to have it
Speaker 1: on my steam Deck for example, for.
Speaker 2: Sure grub Yeah, sports everywhere. Also, folks that if you
Speaker 2: don't watch a sport, there's one for you out there,
Speaker 2: just like there's a roguelike out sure, that's.
Speaker 1: It's it's almost exactly the same thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a sports. Yeah. Don't let growing up and
Speaker 2: maybe possibly being bullied by a jock like Jeff Backel
Speaker 2: or a traumatize you from watching or partaking in a sport.
Speaker 2: Gang It's They're fun. It's okay.
Speaker 1: Teamwork is cool. Stand up to the back of ours
Speaker 1: of the world, everyone, all right. Sonic Grumble will finally
Speaker 1: launch in November. This is from Ben Lyons at Game Reactor.
Speaker 1: The saga of Sonic Rumbles seems to finally be coming
Speaker 1: to an end. The mobile Arcade Royale game has been
Speaker 1: development for a good while and had multiplayer multiple former
Speaker 1: release dates. I should say that we're each followed by delays.
Speaker 1: Now as we're edging closer to the end of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five saga as a firm the launch plans for
Speaker 1: the title once more, we're informed that Sonic Rumble will
Speaker 1: finally be coming to iOS and Android devices as soon
Speaker 1: as this November. We don't have a firm date beyond that,
Speaker 1: but around that time. So, yeah, this is the Fall
Speaker 1: Guys but Sonic sort of thing. And I've always thought, hey,
Speaker 1: that's interesting, although what was the game King of Meat
Speaker 1: is kind of like, hey, what if Fall Guys have
Speaker 1: and better controls?
Speaker 2: And it's like, oh, that removes all the juice.
Speaker 1: Now that's not King of Meat's only problems, but it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's something about the awkwardness of Fall Guys that actually
Speaker 1: makes that whole concept work. And I wonder if, like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just a bunch of characters who can run really fast,
Speaker 1: if that will feel make each level or each sort
Speaker 1: of run feel very samy. But that's me just sort
Speaker 1: of worrying about this concept because I'd like, just experience
Speaker 1: King of Meat.
Speaker 2: This should be fun, right, this should work? Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I do worry Grub because for the most part, I
Speaker 2: associate Sonic with speed and like pretty okay to good
Speaker 2: controls when it's at least in a two D format.
Speaker 1: Joel and Chats's Sonic hasts back control so it's not
Speaker 1: a problem, which that got me.
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, Joel, all right, Simmre down now simmredown. Sonic
Speaker 2: didn't do anything of you. But I don't know how
Speaker 2: that would translate into like a Fall of Guy's like
Speaker 2: game where it is supposed to be kind of clumsy
Speaker 2: and clunky, or at least that helps like that. I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: My recent experience makes me think that that is a
Speaker 1: huge part of making one of these round based platforming
Speaker 1: obstacle games interesting in the moment.
Speaker 2: If every player is just big the cat in robotic,
Speaker 2: in the robot.
Speaker 1: They're basically beans, Yeah, we clear it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just throw the bean like characters in, or as
Speaker 2: long as they make it obvious that it's like a
Speaker 2: Sonic puppet versus like shoot Sonic. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they could call this doctor Robonics mean being platforming
Speaker 1: machine and I would be in, Yeah, let's do that.
Speaker 1: Just make all the characters round. I would love it.
Speaker 2: I like this idea.
Speaker 1: I like the idea of the Battle Royale concept kind
Speaker 1: of getting deconstructed and then put back together in different
Speaker 1: ways for different genres. I still think Fall Guys is
Speaker 1: a really fun game, and I want to see Sonic
Speaker 1: do it. I would love to see Nintendo tackle this
Speaker 1: with like Mario yeah, or even like like maybe even
Speaker 1: like Kirby or something. I guess they did do with
Speaker 1: Kirby right a little bit. There was that four player
Speaker 1: Buffet Rush game or whatever it was called. That was okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was okay. The kids really had fun with
Speaker 1: that for a while, and I enjoyed playing with them.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's like that was that was definitely like
Speaker 1: a reduced version of this concept. They could do even
Speaker 1: more with them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there has to be some b team of characters
Speaker 2: that you could easily slot into, like a Fall Guys
Speaker 2: like game. Yeah, yeah, I hate that. My first two
Speaker 2: ideas are the minions and the rabbits.
Speaker 1: But well, minions, rabbits and pickmen. Put them all together
Speaker 1: in a game where they all race. Actually, that'd be fun.
Speaker 2: I would play a Fall Guys like if it was
Speaker 2: just the bigger Pickman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, minions, rabbit, Pickman, and the chow from the
Speaker 1: chow Garden.
Speaker 2: Okay, I thought you were going to try to do
Speaker 2: an FMK here grub. But there's four options. Now.
Speaker 1: I could never kill any of those. Absolutely not. All right,
Speaker 1: let's see here. Capcom needed to be convinced to bring
Speaker 1: Resident Evil one and two to Gog and these are
Speaker 1: the original Resident Evils the originals. This is from Chris
Speaker 1: String at The Game Business. A year ago, GOG released
Speaker 1: the original Resident Evil one, two, and three on its platform.
Speaker 1: And I mean the original ones, not the remix or
Speaker 1: the HDU remasters, but the games as they were, albeit
Speaker 1: with a few technical tweaks, especially to get them running
Speaker 1: on modern hardware. I was one of the people that
Speaker 1: spearheaded this project, says Marsian Pashinsky, Gog's senior business, business
Speaker 1: and development manager.
Speaker 2: Capcom.
Speaker 1: We're like, we have all those we have all those remakes.
Speaker 1: It's already the superior experience to those games, so they
Speaker 1: didn't really see the value in bringing back the vanilla versions.
Speaker 1: It took a lot of convincing that there's an audience
Speaker 1: that has a lot of memories about those games and
Speaker 1: would love to experience exactly those games again. Thankfully, we
Speaker 1: were able to convince them, and apparently it worked out.
Speaker 1: Those games did pretty well on GOG. I do find
Speaker 1: this frustrating jan that these publishers, even Capcom, have to
Speaker 1: be reminded that they're the nostalgia that powers the remakes
Speaker 1: for these games, so it makes them successful. Actually extends
Speaker 1: to the original versions as well, and you could probably
Speaker 1: keep doing more with even that stuff. Now, don't expect
Speaker 1: the biggest numbers, but just you know, do a little
Speaker 1: bit of effort or hand it over to Gog and
Speaker 1: see if they're willing to do it for you, so
Speaker 1: we can so one we can get these games and
Speaker 1: be able to purchase them again.
Speaker 2: But also just like basic preservation work, right, Yeah, the
Speaker 2: preservation aspect of it is immense for me grub Also
Speaker 2: like Capcom doesn't have to do anything really right, this
Speaker 2: is like not free money, but like a source of
Speaker 2: passive income that they could just rely on. If people
Speaker 2: are playing the remakes and they want to check out
Speaker 2: what is this a remake of? They can go back
Speaker 2: to the older game and it's right there for them.
Speaker 2: If you go to Gog and people in chowder Port,
Speaker 2: like a Ken versus RHEU is correct. That's why it
Speaker 2: places studios like night Dive or so great because of
Speaker 2: like preserving the Og game and then you know, putting
Speaker 2: a little bit of stank on it. Good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's like it doesn't even require all that
Speaker 1: extra effort that Night Dive does. It really can be
Speaker 1: just get it running, make sure it's you know, like
Speaker 1: when you boot it up. It doesn't have any funkiness
Speaker 1: to it, which is a lot of the stuff that
Speaker 1: Gog does, and that'll go a long way. And you know,
Speaker 1: those Resident Evil one, two, and three games on PC
Speaker 1: are also like curios, right because they're not exactly like
Speaker 1: the PlayStation versions that most people are going to remember.
Speaker 1: They have some of their own quirks that they're mostly
Speaker 1: the same game, but there's some differences and uh so, like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're interesting on their own, even separate from enabling people
Speaker 1: to go back and like have re experienced their memories
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's going to be like, oh, hey, how
Speaker 1: did these early PC ports Resident from Capcom even work
Speaker 1: in the first place? We can go experience it that way. Yeah, excellent,
Speaker 1: all right, real quick, I think we did get official
Speaker 1: numbers from Electronic Arts for Battlefield six seven million copies
Speaker 1: sold in three days, which we're pointing out that Alinia
Speaker 1: set six point five million before that point, so that
Speaker 1: does sound like that number was incredibly accurate. Let's see here,
Speaker 1: First and foremost, we went to thank our players, said
Speaker 1: Battlefield Studios general manager Byron Bead in a press release.
Speaker 1: Battlefield six was built with our fans from the initial
Speaker 1: concept through to the implementation of Battlefield Labs and into
Speaker 1: the record shattering open beta. We have been obsessed with
Speaker 1: player feedback. Together with our players, we've had a singular
Speaker 1: goal to craft the best battlefield ever. And this is
Speaker 1: just the beginning. Our first season of new content is
Speaker 1: just twelve days away.
Speaker 2: Let's see, did they.
Speaker 1: People, I'm just checking the new story right now, did
Speaker 1: they say anything about the Battle Royale, whether or that's
Speaker 1: going to pop off, because again I'm hearing that that
Speaker 1: could happen before the end of the month, So I
Speaker 1: wonder if that's something they start talking about very soon,
Speaker 1: although they are still in the immediate days after this
Speaker 1: game is out, and maybe that's something they want to
Speaker 1: talk about, just like right as it's about to happen.
Speaker 1: It could even be a shadow drop, because that worked
Speaker 1: out for Apex Legends, right, and that's been that's been
Speaker 1: AA's experience with this, so I could see them ago. Okay,
Speaker 1: nothing concrete, Thank you Alcoholocaust. All right, let's see here
Speaker 1: last story. This is a peaceful Trails that we're going
Speaker 1: to say to Tobobu Itagaki, who died at fifty eight.
Speaker 1: Itagaki the former Techno director who created the Dead or
Speaker 1: Alive series as well as the Modern Ninja guiding game series.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and four, passed away, he did post
Speaker 1: a message on Facebook that he entrusted to someone. Let's
Speaker 1: just read this. It starts with my last words, the
Speaker 1: light of my life is finally about to fade. The
Speaker 1: fact that this message has been posted means that the
Speaker 1: time has come at last. I am no longer in
Speaker 1: this world. My life was a series of battles. I
Speaker 1: kept on winning. I also caused a lot of trouble.
Speaker 1: I take pride in having fought through to the end
Speaker 1: according to my own convictions. I have no regrets. However,
Speaker 1: I am filled with sorrow that I was unable to
Speaker 1: deliver a new work to my fans. I'm sorry. That's
Speaker 1: how it is. So it goes to Minobu Itagaki. That's
Speaker 1: a yeah, it's definitely a but we can salute him there, Yeah,
Speaker 1: salutes and shad absolutely Itagaki was. I loved it Agaki.
Speaker 1: He's definitely some controversy association associated with him. But the
Speaker 1: thing I always liked was you would often hear this
Speaker 1: sort of characterization of Japanese people in Japanese development and
Speaker 1: very conservative, very professional. They don't know how to use
Speaker 1: any technology other than fax machines and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And then you would go meet these people who are
Speaker 1: actually responsible for these games, like it Agaki, and he
Speaker 1: was a rock star, and he was brash and would
Speaker 1: just like say it, how it is.
Speaker 2: That kind of guy.
Speaker 1: And it's like, this guy's in charge of Dead or
Speaker 1: Live and like, is one of the a prominent game developer.
Speaker 1: Why do people try to put this entire country of
Speaker 1: developers into a box when this guy's out here showing
Speaker 1: just how wrong that is. And I always appreciated that
Speaker 1: he was just always so himself, even if that his
Speaker 1: self was a bit of a character. He started, like
Speaker 1: I think his first game that he worked on was
Speaker 1: Super Technobile on Super Nintendo and shots Out. I'm wearing
Speaker 1: the shirt and honor him. That is a fantastic game.
Speaker 1: And he learned from the people that worked on the
Speaker 1: original Ninja guiding games. Took that was told by Techno,
Speaker 1: hey we want a game to compete with Virtual Fighter.
Speaker 1: He went and made Dead or Alive and then made
Speaker 1: the excellent Ninja Guiding games.
Speaker 2: So rest in peace.
Speaker 1: It Agaki fifty eight boy, Jan I'm closer to that
Speaker 1: than I am to twenty. That's I'm not just trying
Speaker 1: to make it about me, but boy, mortality, it just
Speaker 1: it's a thing that it can come for. When it
Speaker 1: starts hitting developers that are that I'm this familiar with,
Speaker 1: it always hits me pretty hard. Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I fifty eight is very young in the grand
Speaker 2: scheme of things. Grub Oh always one of those super
Speaker 2: cool devs that you would see in like magazine interviews
Speaker 2: or in like interviews that wound up on like early
Speaker 2: G four or you know, the dawn of games media
Speaker 2: on the Internet. You would just think, like, holy crap,
Speaker 2: this dude is swaggy as hell, and he makes dead
Speaker 2: or alive and he makes Ninja gate guided. This guy's cool,
Speaker 2: I want. And it's just a shame, grub It's just
Speaker 2: a shame that for him to pass so young. But
Speaker 2: I mean, his legacy I think is going to live
Speaker 2: on because damn yep, we all love ninjas and boobs yep.
Speaker 1: Shouts out to one of the progenitors of jiggle physics. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: He He also is a guy that knew how to
Speaker 1: play the media. Like the character the persona he was
Speaker 1: putting on was clearly to benefit like his games and
Speaker 1: heed like. He admitted that at points, I'll read this
Speaker 1: from the little he's a worker. Absolutely. It Agchi consistently
Speaker 1: gave harsh opinions on Namco's Techan games, mainly due to
Speaker 1: his grudge against the company for its insulting radio commercial
Speaker 1: on his Dead or Alive game, he stated he never
Speaker 1: forgotten an insult to his family and would retaliate with
Speaker 1: nuclear missiles more than one hundred times for that.
Speaker 2: This a lot, This along with the with his views,
Speaker 2: along with that this what were excuse me?
Speaker 1: This, along with what he views as Techan's stagnation in
Speaker 1: the fighting game genre starting with tech and four, led
Speaker 1: him to condemn the tech In series, placing it as
Speaker 1: his top five hated games, in spite of him stating
Speaker 1: tech and tech and two and tech and three were
Speaker 1: good games which his family enjoyed. In twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: series director Katsuhiro Harada revealed that Itagaki had apologized privately
Speaker 1: to Namco Bandai in two thousand and eight, saying he
Speaker 1: had respected tech In and its staff and that his
Speaker 1: aggressive language was part of a strategy to draw media attention,
Speaker 1: especially from gullible Western gaming outlets. Uh yeah, he knows
Speaker 1: what he knew what he was doing. And again I
Speaker 1: love that, like a worker is one hundred percent right,
Speaker 1: Jan that was a worker, and I gaming was much
Speaker 1: better for him, one.
Speaker 2: Hundred Fuck these chuds that we got Nowmont could never never,
Speaker 2: could never.
Speaker 1: Oh, Marino's got a link here in chat for people
Speaker 1: where here he is on PlayStation Underground before the quote
Speaker 1: unquote persona. Yeah, yeah, I love that a guy that
Speaker 1: knew what he was doing. Uh fifty eight. Uh he was,
Speaker 1: he was very cool. We're gonna miss Tobenubu Itagaki, all.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, real quick up j Fan sixty four in
Speaker 2: the twitch chat, which is that? I think that's just
Speaker 2: Jason Finelli linked a tweet from Herada eulogizing it has
Speaker 2: it's a very very lovely message, and I think it
Speaker 2: just shows how cool both of them were and are,
Speaker 2: and it has like maybe the sickest photo from yeah,
Speaker 2: nineties or two thousands of both of them.
Speaker 1: Man, Yeah, and fighting game developers are just so goddamn cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think I'm just I think I'm gonna maybe
Speaker 2: after the bombathon, I'm just gonna shed this persona and
Speaker 2: just lean into a dirt bag. Yeah, and we'll all know,
Speaker 2: you know, we'll all just yeah it.
Speaker 1: Agaki's final message that he sent to Harada was let's
Speaker 1: see her. I scrolled away, Let's go drinking. Let's make
Speaker 1: some noise soon. That's that's a dude, right, there's a
Speaker 1: major dude.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, once again, rest in peace, peaceful trails to Ittagaki
Speaker 1: from everyone at Giant bum.
Speaker 2: I hope physics up there and heaven free, big dog.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: All right, let's move on here.
Speaker 1: We do have a poll question now that we need
Speaker 1: to hit from yesterday's show. We go ahead and get
Speaker 1: where I was at with the results over there. Oh
Speaker 1: that's an opera. There we go. I'm going to refresh,
Speaker 1: make sure I have the most recent results, all right,
Speaker 1: now that you've seen reviews, are you getting the rog
Speaker 1: xbox ally or ally x? Ninety four percent say no,
Speaker 1: six percent say yes. And that's more than three thousand votes,
Speaker 1: so I mean, look, some people are being one over
Speaker 1: about it. That's not a huge number. But the thing
Speaker 1: is one thousand dollars and it was selling out, like
Speaker 1: you pointed it out on the show yesterday. With that
Speaker 1: Backlar and Dan did. The thing was selling out. It
Speaker 1: went I think it went up for sale again this morning.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's still available. People are going
Speaker 1: to buy this thing, and it will get improved through updates.
Speaker 1: I'm just not in a mood to spend one thousand
Speaker 1: dollars personally to go through that process. If it gets there,
Speaker 1: I will reconsider, but I bet by the time I
Speaker 1: do that, it'll be even more expensive because these things
Speaker 1: aren't getting.
Speaker 2: Cheaper, right, Greb, because now you're playing the game of
Speaker 2: chicken of do you get it now when it's already
Speaker 2: a high ticket item. Yeah, that's or it goes up
Speaker 2: in price. Yeah. I'm curious as to how many of
Speaker 2: these people voted in this poll before Dan and Bacclar's
Speaker 2: little tech stream where they kind of broke down the issues,
Speaker 2: not even issues, just like the quirks of the machine itself.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Dan's experience is going to be an ede case,
Speaker 1: but I don't think it's going to be. I think
Speaker 1: people are gonna have similar things. It won't be that
Speaker 1: exact problem because obviously that's that was just a review issue.
Speaker 1: But when you I think the point I'm trying to
Speaker 1: make is when you do encounter a problem on a
Speaker 1: device like this Windows handheld, solving it is especially frustrating
Speaker 1: going through the process is to figure out what app
Speaker 1: you're supposed to be into, what you're supposed to be
Speaker 1: even be fixing it's not just all one contained thing,
Speaker 1: and that is kind of that was my sort of
Speaker 1: floor there. I want them to take this full screen
Speaker 1: experience and make sure that everything that I need to
Speaker 1: do on this handheld can be done through that, so
Speaker 1: that I don't have to deal with the rest of
Speaker 1: Windows and I, of course I for Microsoft. That's a
Speaker 1: pretty high floor, but it's still my personal standard and
Speaker 1: I'm not going to lower the standard so Microsoft can
Speaker 1: clear it, especially when we could see it can be
Speaker 1: done on stuff like the Steam Deck, which is not
Speaker 1: perfect by any means, but in terms of picking up
Speaker 1: to a handheld device that does not have a keyboard,
Speaker 1: and I was gonna say it doesn't have a mouse,
Speaker 1: the steam Deck does have a trackpad, which is pretty
Speaker 1: handy better than a touchscreen for navigating an OS. But
Speaker 1: when you when you do have a problem in the
Speaker 1: Steam Deck, you actually don't need to boot up in
Speaker 1: the desktop mode, even though you can and can do
Speaker 1: stuff over there. If you want to get into the
Speaker 1: we with the thing. It does empower you to do that,
Speaker 1: but most people are never ever going to have to
Speaker 1: have that issue.
Speaker 2: Grub did you see howw people are digging into these
Speaker 2: and it and Microsoft Teams was pre installed on that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like, of course it is because it's
Speaker 1: just Windows. And it's like, it's not like I was
Speaker 1: expecting a more thoughtful version of Windows for this device,
Speaker 1: and it's like, no, it really is just Windows. And
Speaker 1: then this thing on top of it, which you know
Speaker 1: does make several important changes, but uh, Teams is still
Speaker 1: installed for a device that does not have a camera.
Speaker 1: Maybe it hasn't It probably has a microphone, so I
Speaker 1: guess you could use it to talk to people. But
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ, have used teams on one of these devices,
Speaker 1: and it's not like set up basio like your desktop,
Speaker 1: like plugged in with a keyboard and a mouse and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. You should be committed. It should be
Speaker 1: put away. I don't know. That's strange. All right, Uh,
Speaker 1: we have a new poll question. We'll get to it
Speaker 1: here and you actual let's just do it right now.
Speaker 1: Have you ever purchased an old game on God?
Speaker 2: Yes or no?
Speaker 1: Curious to see what the audience breakdown is on that.
Speaker 1: You know, it's definitely something where it's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I was looking for that game. I should just check out,
Speaker 1: and it's like, oh awesome, it is on here more
Speaker 1: often than it's not these days for me, which is
Speaker 1: fantastic stuff. We'll get the results of that, talk about
Speaker 1: it on Game Mess Mornings here on Giant Bomb tomorrow
Speaker 1: to finish up the week. Speaking of Giant Bomb, Jim
Speaker 1: got some stuff popping off today, including here in a
Speaker 1: little bit, me and Dan are gonna do this is
Speaker 1: the run. We're gonna be playing some capsulum.
Speaker 2: That's right. I stayed up like making a fun a
Speaker 2: little splash art for it. Fantastic choice. It's really messed up.
Speaker 2: It's really messed up. Instead of a hidden Mickey, there
Speaker 2: is a hidden Mikey in it. Man.
Speaker 1: That should be our thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm very excited about. And then after that, today
Speaker 2: we have a friend of the website, Danica Herrod, coming
Speaker 2: onto the voicemail dumb truck folks, We're gonna do everything
Speaker 2: we can to prevent Mikey from sharing his barbecue joke
Speaker 2: with her.
Speaker 1: Yep, we have the power to mute him, to kick
Speaker 1: him from calls, and we will exercise that power to
Speaker 1: protect base checked to everyone mostly at this point me though,
Speaker 1: I will go insane if I hear it again. All Right,
Speaker 1: Plenty more happening on the website tomorrow as well, so
Speaker 1: keep hanging out with us. We really appreciate everyone who
Speaker 1: has jan thank you so much for hanging out with
Speaker 1: me today and talking about video games. Man, I really
Speaker 1: appreciate it. It is the best way to start a Thursday.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for watching and listening. You are the
Speaker 1: best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good one,
Speaker 1: take care of yourself and goodbye.