Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Games Mornings with me Mike Manati
filling in for Jeff Grubb, your host from giant bum
dot com. Thank you for tuning in. In this episode,
we're gonna be talking about Asha Sharma's new job, don't worry,
she's keeping the old one, and more Xbox Fallout gonna
be a good one because we have Jason Vanelli on
the show. Jason, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: I am I'm fine. Should be a nice calm affair
this morning where nothing will sound incredulous or stupid to
either of us. But no, in all seriousness, I'm okay.
I have been managing the week from hell, just like
everybody else. Thank God for Games Done Quick talk about
perfectly timed to be able to just kick back and
watch those folks do their thing. Shout out to Mike Tundrow.
I don't know if you knew. He is formerly from
six to one indis now the creative director at Games
Done Quick, doing us all a favor by giving us
stuff to watch in the midst of all this madness. No, yeah,
just a Tolbadouci life helps to still plugging through that.
My younger my younger daughter, I think has no joke.
One hundred and fifty two hundred hours. She just can't stop.
Oh wow, loves that game so much. That's been a
big hit here in the house as well. But yeah,
doing all right, Doing all right, mister Minatti. Very very
nice to see you in the chair for the first
time on this show with me.
Speaker 3: How are you I'm doing I'm doing all right.
Speaker 1: I also had some games done quick relief thanks to well.
That metroy Dread run was great. But also they read
my donation during it.
Speaker 2: I love when they do that.
Speaker 3: I know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: It's like I don't get enough of like people looking
at me or having to hear my name on the internet.
But even then I'm like, you know, I'm doing the
Leo pointing at the camera thing. I get all excited,
so that that made me pop.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a great run. The Old and Ring.
Speaker 1: They did a weird outer ring four players co ed
bront where they were just all like, all of them combined,
We're killing every single boss in the game.
Speaker 2: So that was and they had and they had if
you haven't seen it yet, they had a death link
so if one of them died, all of them died.
So if like if one person took a risk, it
could affect the entire run. It was crazy.
Speaker 1: It was a really, really really neat run. Ah, I'm
gonna look. I love Jeff Grubb, great guy. We're gonna
be happy when he's here again next week. I want
to I want to vents about one thing with him,
and I don't know some of you notice about him.
His organizational skills may not be the best. Do you
want to know the names for the different run of
show documents he has each week? For Monday, it's called
Monday Morning's mess run of show. Okay, so we have
a format there, right, No, the Wednesday document, it's simply
titled Wednesday Thursday Talking This Now Thursday gm M. And
then Fridays is Friday GMM run a show. None of
them are even remotely the same. It's like you went
out of his way to make each of them different.
Speaker 3: You know how hard it is to find these things.
Speaker 2: If I hadn't been doing this show now for almost
actually it's just about two years off and on, I
that would have I remember that infuriating me when I
first started. I just started searching by the day of
the week that it is, whatever, what day of the week,
is it? Okay, that's what I'm looking for, the rest.
Speaker 1: Of itself out, It's not just me. Part of me,
like parton mean, was to just change the titles here
and something organized. Oh yeahs, that'll mess them up so bad.
Speaker 3: I might. I might.
Speaker 1: I might run a poll at the end of the
show today, even though I know I'm not supposed to
it's Friday.
Speaker 3: I might do it anyways. I don't give a shit.
Speaker 2: Media.
Speaker 1: Uh, Okay, before we get into things, let's explain ourselves.
Most weekdays, Jeff Grebb will help piece your gaming life
back together.
Speaker 3: This is still not most weekdays, everybody. You got me.
Speaker 1: Instead, that includes breaking news and maybe even some of
our own original porting. For all these topics, I'll get
input from a bona fide expert who will make me
look smart.
Speaker 3: You are watching live on twitch Welcome.
Speaker 1: You can always listen to the show later on podcast
feeds by searching for game as boardings, or find the
RSS feed on giant bumb dot com. You also catch
a show later with chapters and timestams on YouTube.
Speaker 3: Hello bluetube. All right, we got a lot of got
a lot to get it too, So let's start the show.
Speaker 1: With Xbox CEO Asha Sharman named as advisor to the
US Federal Reserve on Jobs and productivity. This is by
Andy Robinson at VGC. The Federal Reserve is the central
banking system of the United States. On Thursday, it announced
the leadership and objectives of its five tasks Forces, established
to advance the content of monetary policy. Notably, Sharma was
named one of three advisor on the Productivity in Jobs
task Force, which the Federal Reserve says will be assessing,
among other things, the impact of AI. Going to a
news release, the task force will look at the economic
impact of new general purpose technologies, including artificial intelligence, to
inform the Federal Reserves policy judgments. It's unclear how the
appointments were made. Sharma is the only active CEO named
on the five task forces. However, the former CEO of Walmart,
Don McMillan, will advise on data. And I don't think
they mean the Star Trek character fason. Isn't Asha Sharma
already have a pretty important job that should be keeping
her busy.
Speaker 3: Does she have more people to fire or something?
Speaker 2: Yeah, she seems like she's got a full plate. I
hope she can manage it all, and she doesn't have
some copilot doing a lot of her work for her.
Speaker 3: Pilot. Will AI impact the economy?
Speaker 2: Not if anybody use it? Have you seen those usage
percentages out this week? Like three and a half four
percent of people are actually using the damn thing. Let's
keep those numbers down, folks. Yeah, this is a fox
in the hen House situation, isn't it?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: Hey, I trying to think.
Speaker 2: Tell us what you think of AI. I like it
because I make it. Oh great, everybody should use it.
What the fuck are we doing here? What are we
doing here? It's a Friday. I'm supposed to bring the thing,
bring people up. I can't. I mean, granted Linda McMahon
being on the board at all for education that the
Foxes have ruled the Henhouse for a very long time. Now,
let's be real, but this is just and I mean
the timing of it too, right. It's it's the end
of the same week where thirty two hundred jobs were coldly.
Speaker 1: Tho it's a been called so far we get to
wait for the other half. It's like a fun surprise.
Speaker 2: That's true, And it'll happen whenever it could. It could
be tomorrow, Jesus Christ, What can you say? What can
you say other than just shake your head vigorously and
wonder where the relief is going to come in?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: I mean because before the skate this Xbox assigment, she
worked on the AI stuff at Microsoft, and her company
is entirely dependent on the success of AI. But I
think that she can be honest and impartial, and an
advisory role like this is just absolutely bananas. I have
no idea what they're thinking.
Speaker 3: Now, all right.
Speaker 1: Ubi saw a response to Assassin's Creed Black Flag Recin
micro transactions backlash as sixty dollars Games arrived with eighty
five dollars worth of DLC is by Tom Phillips at Ijen.
Assassins Creed Black Flag Recin has faced a store or
me start on Steam Cute, We're the sixty dollars games.
Collection of optional extras totals eighty five dollars. Despite positive
reviews from critics, fans left scathing feedback on the game
Steam store page regarding the array of ten dollars cosmetic
packs available day one, addition to a five dollars map pack.
Speaker 3: Add on and now.
Speaker 1: This is a quote from a Ubisoft community spokesperson on Steam.
Speaker 3: We've seen your feedback since launching. We're reading all of it.
Thank you for.
Speaker 1: Caring this much about Black Flag resynct. Something about that
always cracks me up, Jason. Whatever, Like people are furious,
like fuck off, we hate you, shut up, and they
have to send some poor community manage out to be like,
thank you for caring.
Speaker 3: Uh, it's just like.
Speaker 2: You love our games. Please stop yelling at us.
Speaker 3: Right right, get the set? Like what guy out there?
Speaker 1: This kind of weird like uh, I don't know, like
escapegoat humility, sacrificial lamb practice, Like we.
Speaker 3: Love your passion.
Speaker 1: We know your passion is anger and if you could violence,
but it's great.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: The quote continues. We want to be clear on one point.
The Standard Edition is the full complete experience. Every mission,
every island, the full story, the complete world are all
there with nothing held back. The additional pecks are entirely
optional extras for players who want them, never requirement to
enjoy or complete the game.
Speaker 3: We'll keep listening as you play.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think everyone unders stood that part, Jason.
Speaker 3: It just is still kind of pretty shitty, right, Yes.
Speaker 2: Of course, especially again in a time where you Besoft
is no stranger to the layoffs. In fact, wasn't there
a story that now that the game is out, people
are already worried or they already have laid off A
couple of a handful of employees.
Speaker 3: Can cover that yesterday.
Speaker 1: There's been some layoffs already, even though you would imagine
that this team could just start working on a myriad
of other assassins.
Speaker 2: Remakes sure, right, So I get and the anchor is
fully justified. Don't get me wrong. I understand where they're
coming from from that it's a optional thing and you
don't have to do it, but it's a shit look.
It is not a good look to be putting out
as a group of content. It costs more than the
actual game itself. And then it says a map expansion
is one of them for five dollars a map pack
add on? What does that mean? How can it be
the complete world if there's a map pack add on?
Is the look of the map?
Speaker 3: What's I don't know.
Speaker 1: My assumption is that it just pinpoints everything on the
map right away.
Speaker 2: Oh, like an accelerator.
Speaker 3: Maybe I don't know. I guess I also don't know
what the hell they be by a map pack.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it is it call of duty? Are we
going to be able to play Edward Kenway on high Rise? Like?
What are you doing here?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 1: So yeah, my my hunt was correct, Chat saying, yet
just is a cheat that reveals all collectibots?
Speaker 2: Ways, okay, when.
Speaker 1: You're again, when you're playing one of these games, these
map games that Ubisoft makes, that's the game is going
around and trying to buy collection finding things.
Speaker 2: Not to mention, if you buy that five dollars map
pack add on, the next time you open up the map,
you're going to be so overwhelmed with the amount of
icons that are now on your screen you might just
have paralysis of indecision, put the game down and say
peace out, I can't do this anymore. Yeah, that's, as
somebody puts in chat, that's a downgrade. You're paying five
dollars to lessen the experience, because the whole point of
exploring as a pirate in the pirate ship is to explore,
find a random place, see what's in there? What can
you find? What sort of power ups can you give
yourself to help out in your quest? This is that's
a very dumb decision. But the other stuff cosmetics like
it won't be a blip on my radar because I'm
not an Assassin's Creed whale. I don't care what Edward
Kemway looks like. I care that he's swinging his sword
and assassinating people from behind, doing all that cool stuff.
I won't. This is for the people, the U be
Soft diehards, however, many remain hall ten of them or
whatever it is that want to help the studio out
for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: It's or the yeah isn't just charity because who is
possibly like, oh, yeah, I gotta have the dragon Storm
Naval pack. It that almost does feel like glorified charity
right right and.
Speaker 2: Then and then especially for you be Soft. What are
they making that they could put this towards it? It's
if you buy all these packs, are they finally going
to finish Assassin's Creed X and put that out for us?
Is that is that the deal? Do we have to
spend one hundred and forty five dollars on this sixty
dollars game to get the next game that we actually
want help us out here? It's it's a very bad look,
a very weird situation at a time where people are
already testy for obvious reasons, so this is just a
bit of an own goal. Maybe they've even done it
like sporadically, like one pack a week for eight weeks
and then it's all out two months from now, but
it came out in a steady stream that might have
lessened the blow a little bit. I know that the
early reviews for college football twenty seven we're dealing with
a similar thing where some of the modes are so packed,
or at least maybe they're not requiring you to buy
like XP boosts and stuff, but the way that they
have laid out the experience system is so grindy that
it's almost encouraging you to do these things. So people
are given EA a bunch of stuff too, as again
as deserved. It's just a bad time to be doing
these things, and they're doing it anyway, and they're getting
called out for it, as they should.
Speaker 1: Right now, even that call out period, I feel like
it's mostly passed because there was a yeah when at
one point yesterday it was like, oh the reviews say
like mostly negative, that's already at mostly positive. And also
the game reached like almost one hundred thousand concurrent players
on Steam it Asizs' Creed is a series that is
going to do very well on console as well. Now,
the flip side of that is, this game is going
to sell that well. It's this stuff really necessary, But
we know what it's about. It is about monetizing that
super passionate sect sector of Sizzes Creed fans. It's kind
of what all of these Triple A games are going
to lean to as they kind of failed to attract
significant numbers of new fans. It's going to be about
monetizing the most passionate current ones as much as possible.
The other aspect of it is this isn't unusual for
Ubisoft games and even a lot of other chuck Lay games.
There's a a part of me that wonders a little
bit how this one specifically broke containment as much as
it did there for a moment. But I think we
I think everyone is maybe just in a bit of
a sour mood in general and is extra sensitive to
how shitty this stuff is.
Speaker 3: Even if some.
Speaker 1: Of it seemed for a while we almost kind of
became a numb to it. I think that we are
all beginning to feel the pain again.
Speaker 2: Yes, I think Xbox's Little Adventure earlier this week has
reinvigorated some of the loudest voices in the room, so
that when something like this comes out, that's how it
breaks containment.
Speaker 3: Like you said, are you going to check this one out?
Speaker 2: Eventually? It was my second favorite Assassin's Creed on the
original run. Brotherhood still my favorite because I'm Italian, guys,
But yeah, I do want to get into this and
see the changes that they made.
Speaker 3: I am because I'm American.
Speaker 2: Yeah, good for you.
Speaker 3: It'll help it.
Speaker 2: The three conventions over there, all one hundred of you.
But no, I also like what I've read about how
they are. It seems like they're planning to connect shadows
to this with some extra little rifts that are all
around the world that sort of link that story together.
That interests me. I've always had a small curiosity for
the modern day timeline in Assassin's Creed. It went off
the rails for a while, and the fact that they
ended the core story of the those who came before
the issue in a comic book. It's so stupid. But
if they can sort of reinvigorate that a little bit
and make the gameplay of the actual games a little
more fun, a little more interesting. I think they could
get me back. So, yeah, how many give us a shot?
I just bought Shadows and switched to maybe after that,
I'll give this a shot.
Speaker 1: I think they're like the emphasizing that real world so
because I think one of the things with recinc Is
that they.
Speaker 3: Don't even have that in here anymore, that elementium.
Speaker 1: Especially because in Black Flag, a lot of that stuff
was story three as they started, and then it didn't
actually go anywhere because they kind of wrapped up a lot.
Speaker 3: Of it in three right before.
Speaker 2: This is the one where you were walking around the
Ubisoft Obsturgo studio, right right, you're just kind of and
Rogue had it as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're silent first person protagonist. It's just it's a weird.
It's a weird series in some ways.
Speaker 1: It's weird that I like, but it's it's it's messy
just from how quickly they had to make these things,
and it is kind of a miracle when one of
them is so good, like Black Flag.
Speaker 2: Sure, all right.
Speaker 1: John Carmick, response to ID software layoffs, admits Microsoft stewardship
claim aging badly. This is by Indie Robinson VGC. This
is a quote from John Carmack. I've been trying to
find something meanful to say about the ID Software layoffs.
My Microsoft will probably be a good steward of the brand.
Statement isn't aging well? This is certainly going to dampen
the mood of the founder reunion at quake Con next month.
Speaker 3: Both people don't know.
Speaker 1: John Carmick was a founder of it and did most
of the coding and whatnot for its earliest games, including
you know Doom. He continued, I'm sadden, but I can't
muster anger outrage over it. I don't have access to
the bucks, but I suspect that ID Software was a
marginal business from Microsoft's perspective. I mean, what isn't from
Microsoft's perspective. I believe the reports that Minecraft revenues have
been carrying several other studios to continue being produced long term,
games need to succeed, not just be beloved. Games are
competing with every other option for spending your at least
your time and money, and the competition is brutal. I
don't think there is any obvious path that would have
doubled the revenue from AID games, but they have gotten
more of a different pricing strategy. Could they have created
more things for fans to buy, like the would be
soft rout Could they have could they have cost effectively
marketed in a way that reach more players.
Speaker 3: That would have loved and bought the games?
Speaker 1: Could they have changed the game designs and brown the
appeal to more players about alienating existing ones. But they
have produced the games at a lower cost, faster, cheaper.
I really don't know the games and over yet, and
I hope the studio rallies through.
Speaker 3: Hmm.
Speaker 1: So this this whole statements, I think there are some
truth here, but a lot of it is a little
I think acting like all these dooming or some like
small little like cute hit only with megafans is a
little wild.
Speaker 3: Look, maybe the Dark Ages missed a little bit.
Speaker 1: Doom Eternal has over one hundred and twenty thousand reviews
on Steam. That's huge. You don't get that many reviews
and it's that very positive without reaching.
Speaker 3: A ton of players.
Speaker 1: Right, So these Doom games absolutely can reach a crazy
amount of people for whatever size that studio was, which
wasn't some like significantly huge studio size. You know, I
don't know what what are you taking away from from
all of this, Jason.
Speaker 2: So there was an extra paragraph in his statement that
was left out of the rundown. Here, I want to
just say the first line of that right now, you
can't rule out the possibility that executives are idiots, but
that shouldn't be your default belief. Well, John, I have
another quote for you. Better to be thought a fool
and say nothing than to open your mouth and remove
the doubt. What the fuck are you talking about? My man?
This is very victim blame me. It's very They should
have done more. It's their not their own fault. But hey,
I get it. It wasn't exactly the most successful thing,
so they had to go, Well then why couldn't it
spin off like Double Fine did. Why couldn't it have
the opportunity to try to find a buyer like Compulsion
and and the other one.
Speaker 1: I wonder part of the reasons because with Compulsion and
Double Find, when they did that, they give them the
IP and their games back, and they were I think
with those studios they're like, yeah, sure, there's there's no
way Microsoft is giving up the rights to Doom right.
Speaker 2: No. Never, It's one of the iconic gaming franchises. Most
iconic gaming franchises. Ever, they would never mean Wolfenstein too,
both of them.
Speaker 3: But they're not gonna give those back.
Speaker 2: Right, and it is it Indiana Jones or is that.
Speaker 3: Machine Games is? But they use in tech for that game, right,
they use the in tech?
Speaker 2: Okay, so I yeah, it all just the whole thing
seems completely unnecessary, which has been talked about numerous times
by people smarter than me. But this guy, who is
not smarter than me, as I am learning, uh, just
needs to shut the fuck up. Just this is just
it's shut the fuck up Friday, John Carmack, And you're invited.
Step back, stop talking. If you're gonna talk, take a
take a cue from your boy Romero. They say, you're sad,
your boy John Romero got it right and all that
and all it needs to all you need to know
about those two is Romero's own Blue Sky Carmack's on
X that there. Yeah, shut up Carmack, That's all I got.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I I I finally uh read
through Masters of Doone not too long ago, and this
is kind of the response I would have expected from him,
just what I learned about the fellow in that book.
You know, people love to go to this whole like, well,
games have to figure out way to reach more people,
and they're competing with everything, and maybe that'stuffs true. If
it is true, though, then pretty much all Triple A
gaming is good and maybe it is, like maybe it is.
But if those things are the case, there's not a
solution to those problems that I can think of. We
certainly aren't doing anything I can see to alleviate any
those problems. We are just continuing to drive people to
these cheaper, free to play mega platforms like Fortnite and
things like that. So I don't, like, I don't know
what you could do with with Doom the Dark Ages
is only make it reach more people. Except again, like
something grub and I say, where it's doing trilogies these days?
Speaker 3: That's hard.
Speaker 1: People seem to kind of lose attention and interest after
two games anymore these days. And maybe, like, if you're
also in the industry, maybe I am poor you to
maybe consider that.
Speaker 3: I suppose, but boy, I don't know.
Speaker 2: Apparently the DLC is catered to the hardcore Doom fans.
I haven't played it yet.
Speaker 3: Right, that thing got overshadowed this week.
Speaker 2: No hurry it came out what yesterday, right, I think.
Speaker 3: A couple of days ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, whatever it was, it was the same day for
the actual number of layoffs came out from the warn
Act game developer. I think is the one that got that.
People are saying. John Romero's statement have has humanity behind it,
and CarMax just feels cold. I guess that kind of
answers the questions of who authored what Romero I imagine
wrote his Carmack probably got gropped into it.
Speaker 3: Maybe, I mean it.
Speaker 1: It is kind of in his emotionless, robotic voice, So
I don't know, although I guess, hey, a I would
be pretty good at replicating that.
Speaker 3: What isn't it?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right, everybody, we are going to
take a quick break. We'll come back with the rest
of the headlines and the bomb twelve Hold tight, everybody,
all right, everybody, welcome back to Game Mess Mornings. Me
Jason Finelli is here as well. I just want to
touch on this that layoffs hit GameSpot again. This is
by Briley mcleoyd at after Matthews says layoffs once again
hit games out like GameSpot. On Thursday, owner Fandom cut
the site's entire commerce team, as well as Vice President
Games and Entertainment Chris Grant going to an affected worker
that cuts to commerce effects four staffers and five freelancers
who covered Deal's posts buying in pre order guides and
on occasion other topics. Layoffs are nothing new at game Spot,
with editor Mark Delady noting on Blue Skuyd that the
site has had five layoffs since Fandom purchase it alongside
other sites from previous owner Red Ventures in October twenty
twenty two. So I just want to say Jason that
I am thinking of those impacted by it. It sucks
and it is constantly disheartening to see the way that
games media has been kind of treated over the course
of receivers, and GameSpot has been bearing a lot of
that hurt in recent times.
Speaker 2: Yes, I have had the extremely good fortune to be
a game Spot freelancer for now five years. April of
twenty twenty one is when I started freelancing with them,
and I have seen the human reaction to stuff like
this now every time it's happened in the slack chats
and in the posts of people who are just dismayed
that this keeps happening, and my heart aches for them.
Good people, good lovely people both in the chat just
hanging out talking about the news and the h uh
material that they wrote or produced with the videos that
they put out just just wonderful, wonderful things. And it sucks.
It sucks to not have those voices anymore. It sucks
to not have a team who was brinding on the
commerce side. Those pre order guides are no joke, man,
The commerce articles are no joke between like, you know,
making sure the affiliate links are right and all the
information is correct, and everything's linking where it needs to go,
and and and and the product inform it. It takes
a lot of work, and those guys and girls were
doing incredible stuff there. Game Spot in particular, somebody wrote
this not me like you said, has bared a brunt
to this, not only from the layoff perspective, but being
passed around from corporate owner to corporate owner who clearly
struggles to understand what this business is now. Granted, there
are things happening around it that sort of affect the business.
Google's you know, oops, what's the algorithm going to do today?
Doesn't help. But there are good and thoughtful people on
that editorial team or that were on that editorial team
or entertainment team or commerce team, who have great things
to say, and now they will lose the what was
at one time the second largest platform for games. I
think that's fair when you say that.
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, I mean, I mean that's a part of it.
Speaker 1: You know, obviously that human alan is the most important
thing here, but GameSpot was gosh growing up as somebody
who was you know, online pretty early and loved going
to game websites, Yeah, GameSpot was first in my mind
for a very long time.
Speaker 3: I even over IGN.
Speaker 1: I remember IGEN kind of overtaking it in prominence there,
but GameSpot was always important.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I just the only other thing I'm going
to add is, as far as I know right now,
I am still part I was not one of those
freelancers because I'm not on the commerce team. I'm on
the news and features things. So as far as I
know right now, I am still part of that. And
I will continue as I can to wear that banner
for the people that aren't there anymore, who can't write
for it anymore, and I will miss them every day.
There are some names that I still wish that I
worked with that are moving on to better things, and
that content should be part of game Spot, and game
Spots should be huge, And because of decisions made outside
of the control of the people whose names are on
the bylines, they're not. And it sucks. I have a
lot of love for game Spot and Tam and what
he's doing there, and I hope that it can continue.
But it's just one more layer on this shit cake
that we were served this week and have been served
for the better part of three years.
Speaker 1: All right, Next up here, Bethesda union workers will hold
rallies next week protesting mass layoffs. This is by Rebecca
Valentine at Kotaku, but ays the Game Studios Union workers
are preparing for a major rally action next week in
protests of the recent wave of Xbox layoffs that impacted
four hundred and forty union workers across both Bethesda and Zenomax.
One BGS the CWA affiliated Bethesda Game Studios Union, which
represents workers behind games such as Fallout, Starfield, and the
Older Scrolls. It's planning marches outside the studios four locations
in Montreal, Canada, Rockville, Maryland, and in Austin and Dallas,
Texas on July fifteenth, at twelve thirty pm Eastern time.
Speaker 3: This is a quote.
Speaker 1: Now the company wants us to accept this as a
done deal and quietly disappear. We won't let that happen.
Our next steps are to mobilize. We need every single
member visible and unified that that. To that end, we
are announcing our Save our Devs march across all studios
on July fifteenth. We need to show management right now
that we mean business so they will properly take care
of our fellow coworkers today, I think twice before ever
attempting something like this again, stay strong, look out for
one another, and we look forward to seeing us all
together on the fifteenth. Joring to one BGS, a total
of four hundred and forty union positions were eliminated across
the Bethesiens MX unions during the mass layoffs. Earlier this week,
warn Act notices have offered further detail on the impact
of studios as a whole, revealing that ninety six individuals
at IS Software were let go, forty remote workers also
reporting into the Dallas studio in twenty two at BGS Austin,
as well as two hundred and thirteen employees at zenmx
Online in Maryland working on the other Scrolls Online, and
another one hundred and sixty six at zenmx Media. The
layoffs impacted a total of roughly sixteen hundred workers with
an Xbox loan, and forty eight hundred across all Microsoft together.
Another sixteen hundred layoffs are expected at Xbox in the
coming twelve months. Xbox has undergone at least one mass
layoff a year for the last three years. I mean,
you know they want to hang that sort of demicallys
above all of them about the you know, another sixteen
hundred layoffs coming out. Yeah, bucking get out there and
march and do something right.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, I could not endorse this any more. It's
about it's about time, Like we've it's it's it's overdue.
And the fact that Bethesda has the ability to organize
like this and get their people out there is a
wonderful thing. I would be there in Maryland, That's the
closest one. And I found out that a friend of
mine who I worked with at in the retail gaming
retail trenches in the late two thousands, who moved to
Maryland to join Bethesda, was indeed affected by this. Would
be standing next to her and her husband and all
of them if I could, but I will be sharing
whatever I can, shouting from my social media in support
of this, and I hope other studios get the message
that they can do this. I know that the execs,
the C suites, what have you believed that doing this
is dangerous to your job? But doing your job is
dangerous to your job at this point, so other what
other options do you have? Get out there, start screaming
and say, look, we're not going to put up with
this anymore. And if enough people do that, enough people
get the message, maybe maybe in some idyllic glass half
full world that I am envisioning in my head, things
will start to turn around. But right now, this is
all we can do, and I'm glad that they're doing.
Speaker 3: It right absolutely.
Speaker 1: You know, as far as the future slave for things
at Xbox, I struggle to think of one that should
be or could be more important than the Elder Scrolls six.
So you think that there would be pretty decent power
within Bethesda, and yet they are. You know, they've been
treated pretty pretty poorly in all of them. You know,
not that angs be treated fairly with these layoffs and
things like that. But all this coming to Bethesda, a
studio that you know, they aren't one that needed to
sell to Xbox, right, they could have They could have
probably been fine on their own.
Speaker 3: Perhaps for the most part.
Speaker 1: It wasn't like something like with Double Fine, where they
are like, yeah, if it was for Xbox, we probably
would have gone under. Bethesa was plenty big on its own.
But yeah, I hope that this sense some kind of message.
I mean, for crying out loud, they got to think
a little bit about the morale of these studios and
just how miserable everybody at Bethesda must be. And on
the other end of that, they're all looking at working
on games that aren't going to be coming out until
another five at most, so they're just going to be
in the freaking development minds for a long time with
this cloud kind of hanging over all of them. Seah,
absolutely get out there a march and demonstrate and try
to get a message across. I know it seems like
these people are all tone deaf oaths, but we still
got to get out there and do what we can.
Speaker 3: That's right, all right, mewtwo, here we go. Here's a fun,
fun one.
Speaker 1: Finally, Mew two takes over Times Squares Pokemon recreates the
original Pokemon Go trailer. This is by Jordan Miller VGC.
The Pokemon Company has recreated the first Pokemon Go trailer
for its tenth anniversary by taking over Times Square with
a mewtwo raid. As part of the Pokemon Go tenth
Anniversary celebration taking place in New York City, the Pokemon
Company took over several billboards in Manhattan's Times Square. Doing this,
Pokemon recreated the final shots of the original Pokemon Go
and Nasma trailer, which saw hundreds of players battling Mew
two in New York's FA names Hub. The event began
with the trainer playing across almost all the New York
landmarks name as screens. Following this, players and attens were
able to take on mewtwo in game receive a special
version of the Pokemon only available at the Timescore event
based took part in the Unity Rate, which sees thousands
of players take on one Pokemon. The event also marked
the introduction of Mega mewtwo X and Mega mewtwo Y
into the game. Players can take them on as part
of a new super Mega raids, which require high level
Pokemon Super Mega raids require eight or more trainers to participate.
And I don't know if you're saw an the videos
of this, Jason, but it looks it looks pretty freaking
neat it did it?
Speaker 2: Did? It looked like a lot of fun. I saw
a couple of reels on Instagram from a guy I
follow in UH in England May Place may Play TV.
It looked like they had blast and what a really
cool idea to recreate the UH the original trailer with
and then have them YouTube raid. I did see some
grumbling that there the Pokemon that they caught in there
is like specific to this event, and that specific Pokemon
will not be available anywhere else. So like, if you're
one of the few competitive Pokemon Go battle players, this
was the only way to get this mega.
Speaker 1: Mused, Yeah about those things, right, It's like, yeah, I
get that you feel like fomo, but it's gotta be
something special about being able to be at one of
these things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And if if I had known about it,
I might have tried to drive two hours and get
up there, But I haven't played Pokemon Go in probably
two or three years. And then that recent report that
you know that the data was being used for military drones.
Speaker 1: Kind of kept me, all right, this is my fun story, Jason,
this was my fun story.
Speaker 2: Damn it, no fun Friday. Not allowed to have fun
this week. I'm kidding, but no it In all honesty,
it looked like a blast of the people that are
playing it. It looked like a lot of fun. And
the fact that the Pokemon Company has the sway to
take over Times Square is pretty impressive if you ask me.
But hey, good for them. I hope that that special
Pokemon in there is everything that they want it to
be and more and they get to take it back
to their home regions and use it against their friends
or against the Pokemon in their communities. Good for them.
Speaker 1: I opened up I opened up Pokemon Go the first
time in a long time because I was at the
Cleveland Guardians game last week. I got there and it
was like, it's Pokemon Go day. I'm like, what what
do you mean it? So, I like all that met
was There's is Pikachu and Cubo and just kind of
on the screen constantly. And when I spun like things
in the game, sometimes I'll get a Cleveland Guardian's hat,
not as like a cosmetic, but as a currency, I
don't know what I was supposed to do with them.
And then during the hot Dog race, Pikachu showed up
and caution in against during that so yeah, so yeah
go day. That game is ten years old.
Speaker 3: Now. That's why I was ten years ago.
Speaker 1: Was that summer of twenty sixteen when we were all outside.
Speaker 3: Playing Pokemon Go. It feels like a million years ago now.
Speaker 2: It does. It does. Remember when everyone was out there
trespassing on people's lawns and in cemeteries and all that
stuff spoken about that Shit, what a summer that was.
I had just had a kid, so I wasn't going
too far. My daughter was born in April of that year,
So but I was. I caught a lot of Pokemon
in my backyard. I'll tell you that.
Speaker 3: Yes, a good Sure, it was a.
Speaker 2: Good run that game. That's a good run. And the
fact that it's still going strong ten years later. You
don't really see that much, if at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a few of the big mobile hits, and
the other ones managed to do it without the drone data,
So I guess even better job to them.
Speaker 3: I suppose. Sure they're also up to something nefarious.
Speaker 1: My Pokemon ghost story was that the one one day
we're all going to walk around our town. But before that,
we were watching Lord of the Rings and I got
to sad and excited during Gambal's speech about dying and
going to the afterlife that I did a bunch of shots.
Speaker 3: Bigs was just drunk and I started.
Speaker 1: I started yelling at the kids who were on the
Yellow team because I thought that that was a team
for losers. So yeah, so it's a little bit a
little bit of public belligerent intoxication from me that day.
Oh and then another friend had like a dog, and
the dog had an injured leg, so the dog was
in like a baby carriage.
Speaker 3: And I found this very funny in my state at
the time.
Speaker 1: So I maybe did a lot of pointing and laughing
at that match a moment.
Speaker 2: So you're yelling at a children and laughing at hurt dogs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, okay, all right.
Speaker 2: Mike, I can get it out, Mike mid I know
that's not there. It's not there.
Speaker 1: Shortly, the dog at home, God sleep, don't put them
in a baby carriage for the Pokemon go of that.
Speaker 2: Hey maybe he played two on the phone. Was he
shaking to catch the pokemon. Maybe the dog was having
a good time. You don't know, Mike, Believe.
Speaker 3: It or not. The dog looked miserable, all right.
Speaker 1: The last story here, this is a deeply odd state
of affairs. Tech experts slam activisions low fort Call of
Duty Black Ops PlayStation five port. This is by Wesley
yinpuol at ign talking about Digital Foundries. Video Activision's port
of the much loved Call of Duty Black Ops one
and two on Place of four and Places five immediately
raised eyebrows for their price for your dollars each, but
they come at a fire for the disappointing graphics performance too.
The tech experts at Digital Foundry have taken a look
at the port of the original twenty ten Black Ops
to PlayStation and had a few choice words to say
about the work Activision put into it. Chief among their
complaints the fact that Black Ops cot run at ten
EIGHTP not four K, despite being a sixteen year old
game that began life on the PlayStation three and Xbox
three sixty, knowingly that there's no anti aliasing. Digital Foundry
also criticized the frame rate, which is limited to sixty
hurts even on PlayStation five. A ten eighty P sixty
presentation would be potentially acceptable for the PlayStation four version,
and there is one before a brand new PS five conversion.
It's disappointingly poor and well below what the hard war
is capable of. Digital Foundry said they continue for a
native PS five title and a somewhat high profile port.
This is a deeply odd state of affairs. Even the
game's obvious visual blemishes are preserved. Shadow quality was necessarily
poor back in the day, but why preserve that problem
in the present day when so much more graphics horsepower
is available.
Speaker 3: There's one silver lining.
Speaker 1: The PS five and PS four versions are better than
the one currently accessible on Series X and sn X
Xbox one via backwards compatibility, which sticks to the original
Xbox three six year resolution of six hundred and eight P.
There are no Xbox enhancements at Oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is that is weird?
Speaker 1: Why are we why bother to bring out these two
old college against which are pretty beloved.
Speaker 3: And not do a little bit more work on them.
Speaker 2: Well, because people are going to blindly buy them, and
they're not going to realize that they're ship ports until
they're already playing them, and they're like, wait a minute,
This looks exactly the same as it did when I was,
you know, when it originally came out in twenty ten. Now,
is is that like it could have something to do
if it's the PS three port with the whole weird
PS three technology thing that kept metal gear solid for
under lock and key.
Speaker 1: Is this about the cell processor? Is that you're trying
to bring cell?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Is it that?
Speaker 2: Or did they just want to get out of port
that they knew that would make a bunch of money
with sight unseen no questions asked, Yeah, and that's what
they did. I think I think that I think the
latter has more to do with it, but the former
might be a way for them to spin it. I
don't know. I don't know that I am surprised by
anything that Activision and their superiors do. I've been saying
that about Activision for christ two decades now, probably, but
I don't know. I don't I wouldn't be surprised if
they cut We're told to cut corners or get it
out quick, just to you know, add a little bit
extra money to the coffers. That wouldn't surprise people at all.
Speaker 1: Right, And if that was the case, you can see
how can adyp sixty frames per second get there?
Speaker 3: And that's good enough?
Speaker 1: You can see that being the case, say I said,
based on a Digital Foundry video, a story, just an
article for Digital Foundry on this at the moment, yes.
Speaker 4: Real quick. I have a couple of things to add
this one because I was curious about this one, Mike.
This was now just like I think like a month ago,
was zero Fanfair would be Iron Galaxy just pourting it over.
I def might have mentioned it here on this show.
So it seems like this may have been quick and
dirty port job from Iron Galaxy, maybe low budget. Hence
wide's the most basic of ports Bosso I don't think
you mentioned the real kicker for this story. You have
to buy the DLC again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just wild for a game that's sixteen years old,
so right, each game costs forty dollars, and then there
is a separate season pass for both of them priced
at thirty So for both to get both these games
with all of the DLC, it's one hundred and forty dollars.
Who still charges the ind for the individual deals. This
is a weird trend that's been popping up again. Even
that what that new debt or alive release of six
was doing it? Yeah, yeah, what are we talking about
your game? If your game's over ten years old? Frankly,
if your games are five years old, you don't charge
with the DLC anymore. If you're making some new version
of it, that shit should just be there.
Speaker 2: Yes, it should. There's a reason they have complete additions,
right what especially for older games like this. If lies
of friggin' p can get a complete edition and that
game is what three years old, maybe why can't. I
This just smacks of cheap cash grab and I don't
like to use that term. I feel like it's overused
by the detractors of this industry, but this one does
not pass the smell test for that. I think it
absolutely is a quick and easy slap job just to
get some extra money in.
Speaker 1: There is like a massive discount on that if you're
a PlayStation Plus subscriber. So I don't know the point
is to get more people on that.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's incredibly weird and greedy, and yeah, these
absolutely seem very flickin easy. I'm glad Iron Galaxy is
getting work. I wish it was to make more Tony
Hawk stuff.
Speaker 2: But where's kick two?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Alrighty, that's it for our headlines. Let's uh still got
the results of yesterday's poll, which was our you excited
for a new Fallout game from Obsidian? Forty seven percent
that not under the circumstances, thirty percent said yes, in
sixteen percent said no.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's this weird situation, Jason, where I thought
for years it would make sense to just have Obsidian
make a new Fallout game, and we we finally got
there in the shittiest way possible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we did. And I am very resoundedly in the
forty seven percent. In any other circumstance, this would be
what took you so long? Now it's we know what
you're doing here, and that's a shame. This is a
dream project for many many people that the minds Well
then again, is it the mindes behind Fallout New Vegas?
Besides Josh Schuyer. How many of those people are still
there right because you've laid them off, So this could be.
It could be. I mean, if he's there, I expect
it'll still be fine. But they have a lot of
goodwill to make up before I will ever be excited
for frankly anything Xbox again, you know what I mean? Like,
it's it's this since like the end of Summer game Fest,
when it became abundantly clear what that glazed job was.
I have just had this very poor, poor opinion of
everything that's going on there, and it's going to take
a lot for them to write that ship, if they're
even interested in it. At this point, I almost hope
that the spin off or sell the Xbox brand and
get out of video games is what's going to happen.
It's not I know, yeah, that's what I want.
Speaker 3: And even then, who's gonna buy Xbox? Right?
Speaker 1: Because I have a few names in the short list
and I'm not particularly excited about any of those.
Speaker 3: Right, So all right, the bomb twelve.
Speaker 1: I don't have a fancy graphic for you all, but
I did have Groba text me, uh what what what
they are?
Speaker 3: So I'm just going to read those to you all.
Speaker 1: Right now, here we go, everybody, number these are the
video games that you are all playing or talking about,
as voted by you on giant bump dot com. Number
twelve is Hadies two. No, it's not what what this
document says. It is what the hell is this?
Speaker 3: What a three way tie?
Speaker 4: So I'm saying it's File Fantasies on remake, Mike.
Speaker 2: It's a three way time.
Speaker 3: Oh look at that.
Speaker 1: It is a three way tie. Okay. Oh and we
get to just pick one at that point. Yeah, okay, Yeah,
it's definitely Found Fancy seven remake. Good good call, good call,
Which also means I do want to say that Adventures
of Elliott was in that titlest thing. Also, that seems
pretty That seems a little early for that one to
fall off as much as it did for such a
new game.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Uh.
Speaker 1: Number eleven is terror Tech Legion. This is a This
will probably have been my pick for the Uh.
Speaker 2: I blame, not blame. I attribute its appearance on this
list specifically to Dan Reiker. He has done so much
free pure for that game. It looks incredible.
Speaker 1: Number ten is Dizzy, the Ultimate Cartoon Adventure of the
Egg the Egg.
Speaker 2: Game, Egg the Egg.
Speaker 3: Dizzy's on here? What the hell?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 3: Number nine is prag Mada.
Speaker 2: Bro Is that a Chuck house?
Speaker 3: Chuck? What's going on with that?
Speaker 4: It's gonna be fun to edit later, Thanks Chuck.
Speaker 1: What was the odd hill on that one up this
this show, didn't he Uh that was eight?
Speaker 3: Eight is fox Quest two. What the hell is that?
Speaker 2: Incredible?
Speaker 3: What the hell is that? Uh? Seven is from Phase
seven reburst. There you go.
Speaker 1: Uh, I think both those actually had pretty good steam sales.
Discouncers whether maybe showing up once again six is destiny
to so people? Yeah, going back to check that out.
When the guy the kind of final update which apparently
is a great update forer a game that will never
get another update again. Uh.
Speaker 3: Five is Star Fox yep, yep.
Speaker 1: I've enjoyed Star Fox QUI six. Four Forts of Horizon
six still doing very well there. Three is Marathon Boy
that seems pretty high still for Marathon. Two is Double
seven First Light. And one is Mina The Hollowerest. Though
our community they didn't get my memo that the game's mid.
Speaker 3: It's not mid you know other people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people seem to really still be hanging on too
min at the Hollowers. So that's good, that's nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to get back into that. I enjoyed
a lot of it, and then other things happened and
other games came out, so I have to I really
want to sit and dig into that one because as
much as I don't like the the game, unforgiving souls
like games like this. For some reason, putting it in
the game Boy color aesthetic has completely absolved any issues
I had with it, and now I just want to
play it all the time.
Speaker 3: So yeah, fox Quest two.
Speaker 1: In this game, you play as fuck and you get
to use crappy weapons and talk to horrible MPCs and
find the Bible crystals and explore my game and find
secrets and play further to see what the next part
of the game.
Speaker 4: I can't believe you don't know about Phil Salvador's own
fox Quest two.
Speaker 3: He is.
Speaker 4: He has been petitioning for this game to be on
the Bomb twelve for the past month, and you know what,
By golly, he's getting it there everywhere.
Speaker 1: Well, congratulations, well done, you did it. Uh alrighty here
Uh that's it, everybody, we did it.
Speaker 3: We got through. I wanted to apologize you guys for
using the wrong microphone. I'm Sean, I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: Thank you, Chuck guy the Ultimate Cartoon Adventure, So.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's why he was so so. It was the
wrong mic and he was screaming about dizzy.
Speaker 4: This Disney fan would come in here with the wrong
micropher are Dizzey fans, I mean mostly over in Europe?
Speaker 3: Aren't they all in Europe?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: The fucking egg. Uh everybody. Jeff Greb will be back
next week. I think.
Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe it was never coming back. I
hope he comes back. This is this shows this is hard,
this is hard work he does here. Uh, but happy
to fill in for him, even on even during this
week from.
Speaker 2: Did a good job. Thank you very much, it's very good.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you Jason for joining me today. Thank
you for all my guests this week for helping me
get through all of this. I hope you all have
great weekend. Everybody. We got you PF popping off in
a couple hours, so I believe we have a grab
bag of fun things planned for you all to see you.
Then you can have a great weekend. They'll see you
on Monday. Bye bye.
Speaker 3: Be thinking to St.