Latest / WASD and Beyond / Episode 252: The future of live service games!

Transcript

Episode 252: The future of live service games! · WASD and Beyond

• 0:16
  Boy, the world's crashing, boys. Oil is going up.
• 0:21
  Michigan's going into a state of emergency.
• 0:23
  Did you guys know that? No, we're not.
• 0:26
  Yes, we are. No, we're not.
• 0:28
  Yes, we are Gretchen Whitmer. Gretchen, Gretchen Whitmer is
• 0:32
  putting us into a state of emergency because gas prices are
• 0:34
  rising. And she's like, let's stop that.
• 0:38
  Oh, would you look at that? I don't know my own state's
• 0:40
  information. That's fine.
• 0:42
  I couldn't even tell you the last, like anything in the past
• 0:45
  year that are. So I'm about to have to like,
• 0:50
  walk around the sign that says will jerk you off for gas
• 0:54
  because it's getting expensive. Whoa.
• 0:57
  The what it's. What do you mean what?
• 1:00
  I'll put gloves on. I'm not gonna.
• 1:02
  Let you I'm trying to you're. Gonna be more subtle than that.
• 1:04
  That's that's prostitution. My gag.
• 1:05
  Yeah, that actually, yeah, that's.
• 1:07
  No, I'm not getting paid. The oil company gets paid
• 1:09
  because it's going right to the gas tank.
• 1:11
  Yeah, but you're still receiving good.
• 1:13
  But you're receiving pay for. Services rendered.
• 1:16
  Yeah, of the blowjob. I'll render something, but I'm
• 1:18
  not saying what I'm rendering. It's a cock.
• 1:25
  This is staying in. Right.
• 1:26
  Yes. Yes.
• 1:27
  OK, good. The funny thing is before you go
• 1:29
  on Evan, I had to fill out a survey for our show for us to be
• 1:33
  a part of a specific creator thing and they asked how would
• 1:38
  you rate your content and I said PG13.
• 1:41
  The follow up question was time out.
• 1:43
  The follow up question was do I think so?
• 1:46
  They said do you use adult language, discuss sexual themes
• 1:53
  or discuss like racy topics? And I went no.
• 1:57
  Check Check what? I was like, we're clean as a
• 2:03
  whistle. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:05
  Yeah, this is the episode. As long as you just don't listen
• 2:08
  to the episode, you'll be fine. We don't.
• 2:10
  Pay attention to it. We don't actually say anything
• 2:11
  at all. Skip the 1st 5 minutes of WAS
• 2:14
  and it's go. It goes into video games.
• 2:17
  Yeah, but it's definitely gotten off the rails.
• 2:21
  Wow. We're wasting the video games as
• 2:23
  well. Don't worry, I brought my
• 2:24
  smallest cup I could filled with the smallest amount.
• 2:27
  Since it's full. Very good.
• 2:29
  What could possibly go wrong? No, I was just, I, I'm not going
• 2:33
  to read the whole thing. I was just reading exactly what
• 2:35
  she was doing. But she's allowing for the sale
• 2:37
  of higher vapor pressure gas, which is typically 10 to $0.20
• 2:41
  cheaper. So my gas down the street would
• 2:43
  go from 389 to like three 79360 or 369 36, nice 369.
• 2:51
  I mean, I'll take that. Premium's over $5 right now.
• 2:54
  I was going to say, yeah, that's.
• 2:56
  It's all right. I just both my vehicles run on
• 2:59
  it. A premium.
• 3:02
  Yeah, dude. That would make sense.
• 3:03
  That would make sense. Pull your car up, do insurance
• 3:05
  fraud. Your truck and then you have the
• 3:07
  what was it? The genesis, right?
• 3:09
  No, well, I don't have my truck anymore.
• 3:11
  We just got rid of my truck and I got a 2017 Audi and fucker
• 3:16
  takes premium and I'm like God damn.
• 3:18
  First off, First off, I'm not in your life apparently.
• 3:23
  I guess we're not friends. What?
• 3:25
  Because I didn't know you did that.
• 3:28
  I don't know if anyone knew. I think Connor might have been
• 3:31
  the only person that knew. Cool.
• 3:33
  That's cool man. I didn't want to know.
• 3:34
  You got a new. Car.
• 3:35
  I didn't know. I'll call you the next time I
• 3:38
  take a shit too. Hey, man.
• 3:40
  I knew Amber was selling. You know what Nick on?
• 3:42
  Facebook, I asked if any of your sweat stains were on the seats
• 3:44
  or whatever, I asked her. Yeah, why don't you just, why
• 3:48
  don't you just call Brody the next time it's like 34° outside,
• 3:52
  so you have to sit in your Subaru and you have to wait for
• 3:54
  the light to come on so you can actually drive your car home.
• 3:57
  You talking to show off my car? Yeah, 100% I am.
• 4:00
  It's pretty funny. Now I feel like a bad person
• 4:03
  somehow during. During the winter, this year is
• 4:06
  so funny when I would just, I would get in my car, wait like 5
• 4:09
  minutes and then I would start driving.
• 4:11
  I'd look at Nick and he'd be just sitting there on his phone.
• 4:13
  He's just waiting for the light to come on because I won't let
• 4:15
  him drive otherwise. Because the worst was my
• 4:19
  bachelor party. That's like.
• 4:20
  It'll get warmer if you start driving.
• 4:22
  No, you can't. You can't.
• 4:24
  I know. But when my car just wouldn't
• 4:26
  start and like everyone was in the backseat and all you hear is
• 4:28
  big Kyle go. Because.
• 4:31
  My car wouldn't start. Yeah, my starter just blew.
• 4:34
  But like somehow, like I just kept cranking it and it went
• 4:38
  turned on and I was like, we're going out funny.
• 4:41
  Stuff. Oh right, this is the most WASD
• 4:46
  and beyond way to start AWASD and Beyond episode with all
• 4:51
  three hosts. Yes, welcome back everybody.
• 4:56
  We're host Nick Brody and Evan and this is the WASD and Beyond
• 5:01
  podcast. Before we get into it, we are
• 5:03
  sponsored by Final Boss and Doc long ago.
• 5:05
  Check them out links down below. If you like what you hear here,
• 5:09
  please follow us everywhere on social media that you can Beyond
• 5:12
  WASD, check out the spawn camp Co everywhere else you can check
• 5:17
  out. It came from screen box and roll
• 5:19
  for deception. Awesome shows.
• 5:21
  Check that out. If you also want to see our
• 5:23
  pretty faces head head on over to YouTube.
• 5:25
  I'm getting the uploads ready. It'll be there.
• 5:27
  It's kind of like the Dragons and George RR Martin's Game of
• 5:29
  Thrones. They are coming.
• 5:32
  Follow us like subscribe, show us to your friends, do all that
• 5:34
  cool stuff. Also, the I'm going to do a
• 5:37
  quick in memoriam thing here for Beau from Harm's Way and the
• 5:41
  Hard Lore podcast. Found out that he passed away
• 5:45
  today and this is serious right now.
• 5:47
  So if you are in a crisis, there are links down below to help you
• 5:54
  get the resources you need. Don't forget to check in on your
• 5:57
  friends, right? So it's important that everyone
• 6:00
  in these times stick together and by each other's sides.
• 6:03
  It's tough times right now, so if you need a shoulder to lean
• 6:06
  on, hit your friends up and check on your friends
• 6:08
  constantly. You are loved and we love you,
• 6:11
  so don't feel like you're alone in this.
• 6:13
  The world's tough enough. So rest in peace, Bo.
• 6:15
  That's a bummer and it was like a big bummer today for me.
• 6:19
  Love hard Lorepod and I love harm's way.
• 6:22
  Great stuff. So that sucked.
• 6:24
  But again, resources for that down below and now on to the
• 6:28
  show. I better transitions for that
• 6:32
  than usual. Yeah, that's still rough to
• 6:35
  follow up though. I mean, fuck, I don't know where
• 6:37
  to go for beer. But it's but you know, it's
• 6:40
  it's. I mean you.
• 6:40
  Have that you have that habit of this Yeah, it was good that you
• 6:43
  said it, but you. Do put me in a box.
• 6:44
  But I'm glad you did transitions.
• 6:47
  Yeah, no, it's important though. Surely that is important to
• 6:50
  remind people of if you're feeling bad, we hope we make you
• 6:53
  laugh. That is, that is like my pride
• 6:56
  and joy is that I know I can sometimes make people laugh, you
• 6:59
  know, like, you know, you heard me talking about jerking dudes
• 7:03
  off for gas money. So I'm not saying I've done it.
• 7:08
  I'm saying I if it comes, push the.
• 7:10
  You haven't said, you haven't done.
• 7:12
  It to be fair, I'll do it with a Nintendo Power Glove on.
• 7:16
  Well, now it's gaming related I guess.
• 7:17
  So it's podcast related. I don't know.
• 7:20
  Do you think Rob the robot, if you had direction, could take
• 7:23
  the little spinner discs and just drop it on the tip and let
• 7:26
  it go? Think about that.
• 7:31
  So I'm Bertie, what have you been playing recently?
• 7:35
  Let it stick. We'll talk at the end about
• 7:37
  that. Yeah, OK, God damn fucking hate
• 7:42
  trying to any who what's up? I have been playing the absolute
• 7:48
  shit out of book OPIA. I don't know exactly what my
• 7:53
  hour count is. I I actually have to switch
• 7:56
  right here. I'll see if I can figure it out.
• 7:59
  Holy shit guys, I really like this game.
• 8:03
  It's it's Animal Crossing but so much more.
• 8:08
  And as a kid who grew up playing like red and blue and, and going
• 8:13
  through the generations up until it's fucking probably dropped
• 8:17
  off around like after Ruby and and Sapphire and Emerald boy, it
• 8:25
  is just kind of magical getting to like interact with Pokémon in
• 8:29
  a way that you just really haven't because you know the.
• 8:33
  Gay freak. Huh.
• 8:35
  They talk to you, don't they? Because you're a Pokémon.
• 8:39
  They all have like personality and they, they come up and talk
• 8:43
  to you and like, they'll Sprint from across the map to come tell
• 8:47
  you something. It it's, it's very charming.
• 8:50
  It's a it's an adorable little like kind of just, I don't know,
• 8:55
  like obviously I don't think most Pokémon would be going
• 8:58
  around going yo, but that that's the way it's set up right and
• 9:03
  and and trying to appeal to obviously a younger audience and
• 9:06
  things like that. But boy, it is.
• 9:09
  Just it's so good. It's I was going to say.
• 9:11
  Didn't say Skippity. No, I have not heard Skippity.
• 9:14
  No. Maybe she walking around going
• 9:16
  not fucking kill it 6-7. Anyways.
• 9:20
  There's a ton of just really charming, like callbacks you
• 9:23
  get, you know, you get the, the, the badges or a version of the
• 9:28
  badges that you get through the original games.
• 9:31
  All of the, the Pokémon are, are just fantastic.
• 9:34
  Ditto can transform into a handful of them, as I'm sure
• 9:37
  you've seen, if you've seen anything from this game or like
• 9:40
  a portion of them at least. It's just there's there's a lot
• 9:44
  of love put into this in a way that I really didn't expect when
• 9:50
  I first saw it announced. I thought this game was going to
• 9:52
  suck. I was like, oh, cool, Animal
• 9:54
  Crossing, but Pokémon whatever. Like it's going to be some
• 9:57
  lifeless game free bullshit, right?
• 9:59
  But that is not what this is. They this is actually the team
• 10:03
  that did Dragon Quest builders and a lot of people love the
• 10:08
  Dragon Quest builders games. It has very similar set up as
• 10:11
  far as like what's your or how to do things like a, you know,
• 10:15
  you get a block and it's, it's like Minecraft also, right?
• 10:18
  Like, but yeah, you get a block. And so then you can make these
• 10:22
  homes. There's like pretty built homes
• 10:25
  that you can make and put Pokémon in there.
• 10:27
  You can make your own home and put Pokémon in there.
• 10:30
  Just that it's, it's really, really good.
• 10:32
  I I bet I'm trying to see OK I have 75 hours or more and bro
• 10:38
  just came out by too long ago. Shut up.
• 10:41
  That's so sick shut. Your format.
• 10:46
  Shut up. I have.
• 10:48
  Yeah, this. Is this it?
• 10:52
  It reminds me a lot of when Animal Crossing came out during
• 10:54
  COVID right where like everyone just sat around and played
• 10:58
  Animal Crossing except for I'm just sitting around even though
• 11:01
  I can leave my house now playing.
• 11:05
  I have sat in this desk on discord on my PC talking to you
• 11:10
  guys, sitting here with the kickstand up on my switch and a
• 11:13
  a pro controller in my hand just playing Pacopia while I was
• 11:17
  just. Playing, Yeah.
• 11:18
  That's like I it, it truly is something special.
• 11:20
  I am. I made it all the way through
• 11:22
  like the, the story and everything.
• 11:24
  And then I have circled back to basically this big open area
• 11:29
  that it gives you at one point. And I'm building that out and
• 11:32
  doing a bunch of things there. And I won't spoil anything
• 11:36
  obviously, because it hasn't been out all that long.
• 11:38
  But I mean, it's a game. I figured I'd get to the end and
• 11:42
  then start to kind of taper off. And I am tapering off a little
• 11:46
  bit. I'm not playing nearly as
• 11:47
  heavily as I was, but I I'm definitely still playing quite a
• 11:51
  bit. It's it's that I keep the Switch
• 11:54
  to beside me during the day. If I get a little bit of time,
• 11:57
  I'll sit there and play it like it.
• 11:58
  It's great. I love it.
• 12:00
  The other game that I have been playing is Final Fantasy 60.
• 12:06
  I've seen you pop into that. Yeah, it was.
• 12:09
  So that was a game that I picked up on PlayStation when I came
• 12:12
  out. I started playing, made it not
• 12:15
  very far into it and kind of just fell off, not so much
• 12:18
  because I didn't enjoy the game, but more so because it's all my
• 12:20
  PlayStation. And if I play on the
• 12:23
  PlayStation, I can't chat with everybody in the discord.
• 12:26
  And also, well, I can obviously after they they made that
• 12:31
  happen, but it's still not great.
• 12:32
  And also, I tend to fall asleep because there's a recliner out
• 12:35
  there where the PlayStation is so.
• 12:38
  And work for all and we will get audio of him if we can.
• 12:43
  Yeah, and it's happened and it it certainly exists.
• 12:47
  But yeah, I, it was a game that I've been waiting a long time
• 12:51
  for it to go on a steep enough sale that I could justify
• 12:55
  picking it up on. PCI went on sale with a really
• 12:59
  good it, it was the complete edition, so it included the DLCS
• 13:04
  and everything for a reasonable price.
• 13:06
  So I picked it up and have been playing through that again.
• 13:09
  I'm enjoying it a lot as far I understand why Final Fantasy
• 13:14
  fans don't really care for it because it's it's much more
• 13:17
  action and not really like your typical Final Fantasy.
• 13:21
  But I will say the story is pretty good so far that I'm and
• 13:25
  I'm enjoying that side of it and the combats Pretty simple and a
• 13:29
  little annoying where a lot of the enemies just take way too
• 13:32
  much damage to actually kill them, even if it's a fucking
• 13:35
  giant bee or whatever. But that being said, I will see
• 13:39
  this through. This is my like main PC game
• 13:42
  that I'm playing right now. So whenever I sit down with you
• 13:45
  guys, I'm probably playing this or we're playing some other
• 13:48
  multiplayer game, which brings me to my last one that I have
• 13:51
  only played. I don't know, maybe 45 minutes
• 13:54
  of which is reanimal Evan and I started playing through that
• 13:59
  it's very very good. It's fucking yeah.
• 14:05
  It's on the get go, yeah. You get like people's skin that
• 14:09
  just kind of slither around chasing you.
• 14:11
  It's fucking alarming and disturbing and all of the right
• 14:14
  ways, but it's very good. I'm enjoying it a lot and really
• 14:18
  excited to continue playing through that.
• 14:20
  Other than that, I'm going to shut the fuck up because I talk
• 14:23
  loud enough about Pocopia and what who's next, Who's next?
• 14:28
  Who wants to talk now? Nick, go ahead.
• 14:31
  Cool, I've been playing a couple different games so.
• 14:34
  Oh, OK, walk away, he had. To he had to physically.
• 14:36
  I'm joking. I'm joking.
• 14:37
  He had to physically. It's hot fucking here.
• 14:41
  I had to turn the fan on. I.
• 14:43
  Shut the door in this room so my children don't come in here
• 14:46
  running and screaming. I was like, oh sure.
• 14:49
  So I've been playing, obviously a lot of marathons, Still loving
• 14:52
  that game. I'm glad it's doing well.
• 14:55
  I'm glad people are enjoying it. I'm glad more people are hopping
• 14:57
  in to experience it. So cryo archive we've we've I've
• 15:01
  talked about on the show. It's wonderful, wonderful map
• 15:05
  insane that what Bungie's pulled off with this so that's sweet
• 15:10
  started playing Super Meat Boy last night Super Meat Boy 3D
• 15:14
  pardon love it. I do love it.
• 15:17
  However, not being able to change the camera perspective in
• 15:22
  a 3D game like this is very disorientating because there's a
• 15:28
  lot of moves you have to make in this game.
• 15:31
  With how fast Super Meat Boy can go and some of the obstacles it,
• 15:37
  you should be able to move and twist and turn the camera.
• 15:40
  I don't know why this isn't an option.
• 15:42
  This is a basic thing. If you're doing a 3D game like
• 15:45
  this platform or you should be able to move this camera, it
• 15:48
  would make the game is supposed to be hard.
• 15:50
  It's supposed to piss you off. I understand this that is
• 15:53
  unnecessary. Though yeah, the camera
• 15:55
  shouldn't be what's killing you and that right, right.
• 15:58
  I talked to you about that as well because I had played the
• 16:01
  demo during Nextfest and that was my biggest frustration with
• 16:05
  it. I had a lot of fun with the the
• 16:06
  levels where the camera wasn't so much of a problem, but when
• 16:10
  you're making a jump in that like 3D plane, like you go up
• 16:14
  side to side, everything looks fine and then you.
• 16:16
  Jump out. It's, it's fucking disorienting.
• 16:20
  You don't know how high you are. You don't know how low you are.
• 16:23
  Like, it's just it. It is very, very.
• 16:25
  Weird. It does the circle where you're
• 16:28
  landing either on a run, like a wall you can run on and stuff,
• 16:32
  but it's not enough because there is like a, a depth of
• 16:35
  field issue here where you really, like Brody said, you
• 16:38
  don't know really quite how high you are.
• 16:39
  So like you're like, oh, I'm going to hit that wall.
• 16:41
  Boom, you're over the wall. So you're at the end of level,
• 16:44
  You're over a wall, you die. You're in this game is you die,
• 16:47
  you start back over. So it's it's a hindrance they
• 16:50
  that needs to be addressed. People need to complain about
• 16:52
  that more. Other than that, I love it.
• 16:54
  I don't think it's soulless. I've seen a lot of people say
• 16:56
  it's soulless and because Edmund isn't involved in it, and I get
• 17:00
  that. But like I think the team behind
• 17:02
  this, it did do a great job bringing Super Meat Boy back to
• 17:06
  the main front lines here as a classic game.
• 17:09
  People love. I loved I've loved this game
• 17:11
  since it was on new grounds and I'm glad to play this version of
• 17:14
  it. I've been playing Legacy of Kane
• 17:18
  Defiance remaster as well. Having a blast.
• 17:23
  It's it. It runs great, looks fantastic,
• 17:26
  the story is just as compelling and gripping.
• 17:28
  Still waiting for our masks and stuff.
• 17:30
  Bit bot I understand what happened.
• 17:33
  They put out the thing and I'm like Yep no I get it.
• 17:37
  Still sucks though, I'd love to have.
• 17:40
  It sounds like they should be coming here soon.
• 17:43
  The. Last update I read it, it looks
• 17:45
  like it should be, hopefully very soon.
• 17:48
  But yeah, it was I, I, I, I was, I stopped looking and I'm like,
• 17:51
  it'll get here when it gets here.
• 17:54
  Yeah, no, Defiance Remastered is phenomenal.
• 17:57
  It's good stuff. If you've never played a Legacy
• 17:59
  of Cane game, I would recommend starting with this.
• 18:03
  You could start with the Legacy of Cane games and Soul Reaver,
• 18:08
  but I'm going to say this is the best remaster.
• 18:11
  You can get all of that story from this game.
• 18:15
  So if you're looking for an awesome puzzler, 3 platformer
• 18:21
  adventure action game, this is what you want to play.
• 18:25
  And it's violent, it's gruesome. There's so much awesome lore
• 18:29
  here, so hop on into that. But other than that, yeah,
• 18:31
  Marathon and all those games. Marathon's got its grips in on
• 18:34
  me, though. Multiplayer wise.
• 18:36
  That's the game that I'm sitting there going.
• 18:37
  Yeah, I know, I'm cracked out. I need to play more of this
• 18:40
  Bungie did a phenomenal job here.
• 18:42
  This is this is Bungie one O 1 and I and I, I cannot wait to
• 18:46
  talk about this later so Evan. To segue somewhat but still keep
• 18:52
  on with Marathon, it's not been one of the games I've played
• 18:55
  recently. I haven't played it for the past
• 18:57
  like week and 1/2 or so. However I have an issue to raise
• 19:01
  my score and fantasy critic has not gone up due to all the late
• 19:05
  positive reviews where they've given it a 90.
• 19:07
  And for that I say fuck you fantasy critic because damn I
• 19:11
  had a great pick and I only have like 6 points because of it now.
• 19:14
  I should have like, I think 90 is like what, 20 points or
• 19:18
  something like that, but. What's it actually sitting on an
• 19:20
  open critic though? So you gotta change the entire.
• 19:23
  Yeah, it uses open critic, so. I don't know.
• 19:27
  I don't know what it is. What's your?
• 19:29
  What's your thing? What's my Well, that's your
• 19:33
  question. What?
• 19:33
  Oh, you're Slop Studios, so it's nice.
• 19:36
  So you got 11 points from Marathon?
• 19:38
  11 Now did it go up? It didn't notify.
• 19:40
  Sitting at an 81 on open critic right now.
• 19:43
  Oh. Then it's great and I just
• 19:45
  didn't. See my out of 83 reviews.
• 19:47
  So then that is my bad. Fucking bitch.
• 19:50
  That's really good. You got house BI.
• 19:53
  Yeah, dude. God.
• 19:54
  You're such a shit head. I'm not.
• 19:56
  I had to go scorched earth after Steve decided to take GTA for
• 20:00
  me. I was.
• 20:00
  Going to say let's not turn our attention away from the real
• 20:03
  enemy here. God damn you, Darwin's paradox.
• 20:07
  I was fucking rooting for you. No actually like games I have
• 20:12
  been playing. Death training 2 on PC has been
• 20:16
  my my big game over the past couple weeks.
• 20:20
  It's just been a blast being able to to play it on my
• 20:24
  computer, talking with you guys, being able to to stream it for
• 20:27
  those who might want to check it out.
• 20:29
  But also just it has this it's it has the quality like a visual
• 20:36
  like style that I think like lasts.
• 20:41
  Like it just kind of like looks good.
• 20:43
  No matter what way you put it, it just kind of looks.
• 20:45
  Incredible. That's training, too.
• 20:47
  Yeah, that's training too. So like that's kind of what's
• 20:51
  just kept me coming back to it is like, no, but I want to, I
• 20:55
  want to do those orders where they don't really make a
• 20:57
  difference in the story, but I just want to deliver things.
• 20:59
  I want to just see the, you know, test myself, see how many
• 21:01
  deliveries I can take it once and deliver them across.
• 21:04
  But it's just been a fun time to play.
• 21:06
  Other than that, Crimson Desert I've put a little bit of time
• 21:10
  into. It's kind of frustrating me in
• 21:13
  the early stages, but that's mostly a me thing not.
• 21:16
  I think that's mainly all. I don't think it's just a you.
• 21:20
  Thing it's not, it's not just a me thing because yeah, I've seen
• 21:22
  I've seen a lot of people frustrated with it at the early
• 21:24
  start too. But like, like Noah, for
• 21:26
  instance, has has gotten really into it him and and and Logan
• 21:30
  and pride have gotten really into it and are just like
• 21:32
  powering through it. Whereas I feel like I, I'm kind
• 21:35
  of like I'm, I'm just stuck at a current moment where like I paid
• 21:40
  money to get a disguise to go in someplace and he told me like to
• 21:44
  take it. And then I like took it, but
• 21:47
  then it's not in my inventory so I can't equip it.
• 21:50
  And I'm just like, where is it? And I like follow him into the
• 21:54
  room he's in. And I'm looking all over trying
• 21:56
  to like loot stuff. And everything I loot is just
• 21:58
  like nonsense. It's things I don't need.
• 21:59
  And I'm just like, what is happening?
• 22:02
  Where do I need to go? But the combat has been
• 22:06
  incredible to say the least. There is nothing like fighting 7
• 22:10
  like people with swords, Shields and like maybe a giant slash
• 22:14
  troll that's like 7-8 feet tall and just like RK owing one of
• 22:20
  them and then clotheslining another that knocks down three
• 22:24
  more. It's just, it's hilarious.
• 22:26
  But yeah, I don't know. I've had just a blast playing
• 22:30
  those two games, honestly. And then I was out of town for a
• 22:34
  little bit. And then the only other game I
• 22:35
  played really has been Reanimal with that, with Brody, which,
• 22:38
  yeah, I played that with Noah when they had the demo going on.
• 22:42
  I think that was before next fest or maybe around the same
• 22:46
  time. He and I loved it.
• 22:49
  We played basically the exact same, you know, stuff that we
• 22:52
  played. We got a little further on
• 22:54
  Tuesday, but man, it's fun and I'm excited to see where it goes
• 22:59
  because it's, it's very unsettling, like you said, right
• 23:02
  from the get. So to see where they're going to
• 23:04
  go with it is is very exciting. My character is currently
• 23:07
  wearing a pig head. Yeah, you found a couple of
• 23:11
  different. Yeah, you found a couple of
• 23:13
  different, like like masks or whatever.
• 23:15
  I haven't found any. I don't know if that's by design
• 23:17
  or I just haven't found them for the boy yet.
• 23:19
  Like I I don't remember truly. Yeah, I assume I'm just I I'm
• 23:24
  the type of person that looks at every nook and cranny.
• 23:27
  That's the other one I found was essentially A nutsack if it was
• 23:31
  pointy. Yeah, that's basically what it
• 23:33
  was. Good, good.
• 23:36
  That was that pissed me off. What it is once you found the
• 23:39
  other one and you took that off, I couldn't pick the other one
• 23:41
  up. I was like, what the?
• 23:42
  Hell, Well, you can I I think it adds to our pool of masks and
• 23:46
  then you can pick. But I think only one of us could
• 23:49
  be wearing each specific mask at the same time.
• 23:52
  I think that makes sense. Rotate through so.
• 23:54
  That makes sense. We'll have to figure it out.
• 23:57
  But yeah, the other than that, like those have been my games
• 23:59
  honestly. And I've had a I've had a blast
• 24:00
  with all of this. They've been very fun.
• 24:02
  I'm excited to see where RE Animal goes because I'm curious
• 24:06
  if it gives us anything different after we complete the
• 24:08
  game. Like if you can play a different
• 24:10
  setting or difficulty that changes things for like Noah and
• 24:13
  I, cuz Noah wants to play through the whole game as well.
• 24:16
  So it'd be kind of fun to see what what we can do there.
• 24:19
  But yeah, those have really been my games that I've been playing.
• 24:24
  Oh. Yeah, yeah, buddy, we have a
• 24:27
  little bit, huh? What do you think?
• 24:29
  What? What do?
• 24:32
  You. He yelled at me.
• 24:33
  I'm sorry, what? Is happening.
• 24:36
  I don't know where. Where should we start?
• 24:38
  Where should we start? Is what I was going to say, but
• 24:40
  then you yelled at me. Well, I'll start with like
• 24:43
  something that everyone's talking about on Twitter right
• 24:45
  now, including like Insider Gaming and other news sources,
• 24:50
  supposedly Steam Deck 22028. That's a thing that's being
• 24:55
  discussed right now. That's pretty neat.
• 24:57
  OK, it's true, I think. Yeah, we.
• 25:00
  We still don't even have prices or anything or release date for
• 25:04
  the current steam stuff that is supposed.
• 25:06
  To Rams this year dropping hold the Hodor Hodor.
• 25:11
  Yeah, and it's it has dropped, just not enough.
• 25:15
  It's still like three times the price of what it should be.
• 25:18
  The the kit in my system I found at Micro Center for a grant last
• 25:22
  time I was. There, Yeah, I I peruse Walmart
• 25:27
  whenever I have to go in there just because they have like a
• 25:29
  very small section of PC. They don't know if they got.
• 25:32
  And they have no fucking idea. Yeah I've seen great deals at
• 25:35
  Walmart so I was like, I'll take a look.
• 25:37
  And they have 0 RAM and 0 SD or m.twos.
• 25:46
  Yeah. And like nothing like no, it
• 25:49
  there was some portable SSDs like those, my passports or
• 25:54
  whatever the fuck those are, and that was about it.
• 25:58
  But even those were marked up so fucking crazily that it's, it's,
• 26:02
  it's out of fucking control. It's a mess.
• 26:06
  It's getting better, but it's still a mess.
• 26:07
  And I'm sure it will never go back to what it was prior.
• 26:10
  Like it, it will still be marked up at least probably 20-30
• 26:14
  dollars when it finally settles. I hate it, it sucks.
• 26:18
  Yeah. Oh yeah.
• 26:19
  Unless it's like, unless it's like a huge, huge crash or
• 26:21
  something like that. And that's a whole other
• 26:23
  problem. That's a whole other can of
• 26:24
  worms at that point you're wearing.
• 26:26
  It is but. Ram at that point.
• 26:28
  Well, my, my hopeful in game for all of this is that essentially
• 26:33
  all of these places like Amazon and yeah, yeah, yeah, are going
• 26:37
  to build the fuck out of these AI data centers, right?
• 26:40
  And all of these companies that are like, we're not doing
• 26:44
  consumer fucking products anymore are going to have to
• 26:47
  come crawling back. And it'll be like, yeah, fuck
• 26:49
  yourself. And you know what?
• 26:52
  Crucial, which whatever the the parent company of Crucial is,
• 26:55
  fuck you. You were the first one to throw
• 26:57
  your goddamn sword in the fire here.
• 27:00
  Eat shit. Oh yeah, they they all they saw
• 27:03
  the dollar sign. Good RAM.
• 27:05
  They saw the dollar signs when they, when open AI and Amazon,
• 27:09
  you know, everybody came knocking and said, hey, we need
• 27:11
  all this. And yeah, so we'll see if that
• 27:12
  actually all ends up happening still.
• 27:15
  I mean. I, I, I wish as a community
• 27:18
  gamers could actually like, band together and do something
• 27:21
  decent. And when Crucial comes crawling
• 27:23
  back, they're just like, no, we won't buy that, we're going to
• 27:25
  buy Corsair or something instead.
• 27:27
  But they won't because they're fucking morons and.
• 27:30
  Yeah, no, just like, just like all gamers.
• 27:32
  Yeah, like every time. It's like vote with your wallet.
• 27:36
  Four people end up doing it right.
• 27:38
  Yeah, whatever. Right.
• 27:40
  Look at me, I bought some different fucking idiot.
• 27:43
  It's like OK. I think I have some.
• 27:46
  I think I have a Crucial SSD in my rig right now.
• 27:51
  I don't. I know, yeah.
• 27:53
  So like I'm I'm a traitor to the cause.
• 27:55
  So. We'll burn your house down.
• 27:56
  No, damn it, I shouldn't have said anything.
• 27:59
  ABBA fucking bastard, I called you a scab.
• 28:05
  Breaking the. Line bro.
• 28:07
  Don't be like that if I don't. Mind we'll see we'll see we're
• 28:09
  still waiting for the steam machine steam Controller and the
• 28:13
  frame so we'll. See controller at least.
• 28:16
  Like fuck. Just give us the price.
• 28:19
  RAM doesn't affect that. Come on.
• 28:22
  You know that it's all sitting in a warehouse.
• 28:25
  That is all but confirmed. I'm sure they're waiting to
• 28:28
  launch That aside the console, right?
• 28:31
  Maybe Gabe will come out and be like, we want it to be cheap
• 28:34
  enough for you all to get one and I'm going to go.
• 28:36
  Thank you, Papa Gaben. Thank you, Papa Gaben.
• 28:37
  Thank you, Papa Gaben. Yeah, we know that's what you're
• 28:40
  going to do. I'm buying that shit to anyone.
• 28:42
  You're out of your fucking God damn mind.
• 28:43
  And then I'm going to get Brody drunk the day before it releases
• 28:46
  or the day of release and he'll buy all of it except for the the
• 28:50
  the VR. Freddy, you have to.
• 28:53
  You have to be. He will, he will.
• 28:54
  I got him. He he and I were drunk when
• 28:56
  Steam Deck dropped. I become weak late at night when
• 29:00
  I drink and Nick starts going hey hey man, this is pretty
• 29:04
  cool. And Brody goes, I just want to,
• 29:07
  I just want to shed the good light of Papa Gaben on you.
• 29:10
  Well, the Steam Deck, it was sweet.
• 29:11
  He went. I bought it and I went.
• 29:14
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 29:17
  Money. He's, I don't know, the next day
• 29:18
  I had to explain to my wife that I just bought a $500 fucking
• 29:21
  handheld that now sits on my night stand and I don't do shit
• 29:25
  with. Night.
• 29:25
  How cool does it look? It's really cool.
• 29:29
  Yeah, full of that. Anyways, put a got a war skin on
• 29:31
  it. It's cool.
• 29:32
  Oh. There you go.
• 29:33
  Hell yeah. Nice.
• 29:35
  It runs really good on the steams of shit it actually does.
• 29:38
  Like I don't even have it on PC. In advance Amber, I am sorry for
• 29:45
  that when it happens. That is, that is so funny.
• 29:49
  Well, if you ever do get it on PC, I'll tell you it runs really
• 29:52
  good on the Steam Deck. I.
• 29:54
  Don't replay games. I already played it on Ragnarok.
• 29:57
  That's. Why I played, I played Ragnarok
• 29:59
  going around vacation one time and man, I was surprised.
• 30:01
  I was like, wow, I can actually like play this like I.
• 30:04
  Didn't watch steam deck. Oh yeah, it ran who?
• 30:07
  At your house? Oh, does Neil have a Steam Deck?
• 30:09
  Yeah, yeah, you got, yeah, you got not, not the OLED one.
• 30:14
  It's like one of the the the ones that you have.
• 30:16
  I think it's like the 500 gig one or whatever, something like.
• 30:19
  That yeah, I don't make those anymore.
• 30:20
  It's a it's a relic now. It was, I mean it was, it was a
• 30:24
  relatively good experience. It ran pretty good for being on
• 30:27
  that, on that screen. I talked to you guys when I was
• 30:29
  playing it. We were in that one house in
• 30:31
  soccer talk. It was good time.
• 30:35
  I maybe it was just, you know, I was investing and I'm gonna sell
• 30:39
  it there. You go now that.
• 30:40
  Rams through the roof. Yeah, I dwell.
• 30:42
  I'm a piece of. Shit, I love this thing, dude.
• 30:44
  I love it. Anyways, I'm pretty cool too.
• 30:49
  Nexon admits that the first Descendant has no staying
• 30:54
  powers. They won't want to crack this
• 30:55
  bad boy open. Sooner I feel like this should
• 30:57
  be yeah, this this should be a whole topic, right?
• 31:01
  So pretty much the big three news things we have today are
• 31:05
  all about live service games. Yes.
• 31:08
  And. Service episode.
• 31:09
  So so the general over arching topic is live service, how we
• 31:15
  feel about it, where we think it's going, what it what's going
• 31:18
  on here. So yes, we didn't put this.
• 31:20
  Episode together in 20 minutes prior.
• 31:24
  I tried man. It's going to turn out great.
• 31:28
  Yes, live service. Is Hot Awesome 26?
• 31:31
  How does that sound? Live service in 2026.
• 31:35
  You did just show up. I did just show up.
• 31:38
  Yeah, he just hopped in. As for for jokes and giggles.
• 31:42
  We're like, hey man, you're going to stay.
• 31:43
  And he goes, yeah. I said you like.
• 31:48
  So yes, the the first topic here is basically there was an
• 31:51
  interview with someone from Nexon, I don't know who, I
• 31:54
  didn't look into it that hard, but essentially Nexon
• 31:58
  acknowledges that they don't know what to do with the first
• 32:00
  descendant, which for those of you that do not know what the
• 32:03
  first descendant is, the first descendant was.
• 32:07
  It was the CEO, Jung Han Lee. Yeah, I wasn't even going to
• 32:11
  attempt that. I figured it was going to go
• 32:13
  poorly for me and everyone else involved.
• 32:16
  You're white as hell. Good job, Nick.
• 32:18
  I'm. Well aware, thank you.
• 32:23
  But yes, this game was a very what early game last year I want
• 32:29
  to say that came out and was like that.
• 32:33
  It was very. Gooner ish right off the game
• 32:36
  right one of the the primary characters, her name was Bunny
• 32:40
  and she had Bunny ears and wore skimpy outfits and it got Oh
• 32:45
  yeah, it got even worse as they started to release like these
• 32:49
  unlimited skins for them and it essentially the change the cash
• 32:54
  grab was, oh, you can you can earn the enough money in game to
• 32:59
  do it, but it's going to take you eternity to buy this one
• 33:02
  skin. But it had, it had kind of like
• 33:05
  a gotcha system where you could unlock different characters and
• 33:08
  then you could get different skins for them.
• 33:12
  But it played. It played what?
• 33:17
  He's he's seeing it for the first time.
• 33:21
  But it it it played similar to like a Destiny, right, where you
• 33:24
  had these like little strikes and raids and things going on
• 33:27
  where you had to go through and and complete various different
• 33:30
  missions. You would get a little bit of
• 33:31
  currency towards what you were trying to do.
• 33:33
  And then on top of that, you had to run like these high end,
• 33:36
  higher end raids in order to get there was RNG whether you'd get
• 33:41
  the item that you need at the end of it, which everyone
• 33:43
  fucking loves no one. And so you would just keep
• 33:47
  running this. But on top of that, in order to
• 33:49
  even run the raid, you had to have a certain currency to enter
• 33:52
  the raid. It was this whole like from top
• 33:55
  to bottom of this, this real, real rough currency system that
• 34:01
  all tied into everything. It was a nightmare.
• 34:03
  That being said, I did play, fuck, I think I played maybe 15
• 34:08
  hours of this over the course of probably, I don't know, a month,
• 34:11
  month and 1/2. It was, it was fine.
• 34:14
  It was soulless in the way that you.
• 34:18
  Yeah, in the way you would expect this to be soulless it
• 34:22
  was. And then the further you got
• 34:24
  into the game, the more you solve what it truly was, where
• 34:28
  it was this very cash grabby, like, Oh well, you could grind
• 34:32
  this out or you could spend it was like $50.00 for the skin,
• 34:38
  you know, that makes. Sense.
• 34:40
  Fuck that. Yeah, it was very, very
• 34:42
  expensive, which I mean, for a gotcha game, that's pretty par
• 34:46
  for the course, right? So basically Nexon has has now
• 34:50
  acknowledged that they don't know what to do with this, which
• 34:52
  is crazy because Destiny exists like you.
• 34:55
  You have a template for what you need to do.
• 34:58
  Just keep putting content, keep doing expansions like I it's
• 35:02
  not, it's not that difficult, but that.
• 35:04
  Better for the player. I saw another.
• 35:08
  But just better. Yeah, I saw another article that
• 35:12
  essentially was saying that this was considered a failure by
• 35:16
  Nexon. Which Nexon, for those of you
• 35:19
  who are not aware, has made a ton of games in the same vein to
• 35:22
  some extent, a lot of them being mobile, I believe.
• 35:26
  And they are very cash grabby. They they make a shit load of
• 35:29
  fucking money off of whales and someone who spends a fuck load
• 35:34
  of money in these games not off your typical person.
• 35:37
  So apparently the whales did not come in full force for this
• 35:40
  game, which I'm a little shocked, but it also only lived
• 35:43
  in the limelight for a pretty short period of time.
• 35:46
  Yeah. I mean, it was also, yeah, I, I
• 35:49
  saw something as well that was like it pulled people in at the
• 35:52
  initial point, but then it, it just, it failed to retain a lot
• 35:55
  of people. Yeah.
• 35:55
  So like, I'm sure that some of those wheels probably, you know,
• 35:59
  stopped by to check it out and they were like, I can get better
• 36:03
  value elsewhere type of thing. And they just, yeah, you know,
• 36:06
  they moved on and I played 87 minutes of it and I, I didn't
• 36:12
  really just it, it, it immediately was like, I don't
• 36:15
  know, I, I fell off of it pretty much right after the intro.
• 36:18
  I couldn't, I couldn't really do it even like I didn't care for
• 36:23
  any of the skins. I didn't care for the, the grind
• 36:25
  that they were basically showing me that I was going to do.
• 36:28
  I was just like, no man, like you don't have the, you don't
• 36:30
  have the gameplay to make up for it.
• 36:33
  Like if you had the gameplay that matched this, I could maybe
• 36:36
  suffer through it. But it's, I, I already don't
• 36:41
  like what I'm really playing and you asking me to put in this
• 36:43
  kind of time. It's just it's not going to
• 36:45
  work. So.
• 36:47
  It it's it's interesting too, though in in some regard, like
• 36:51
  in more of the broad scope of what what this topic is this
• 36:56
  live service in 2026, right yeah, we now have games that
• 37:01
  come out Genshin Impact right. For example, I know none of us
• 37:05
  are people who play Genshin Impact, but.
• 37:07
  No, we don't. But yeah, that's.
• 37:08
  That game has a huge cult falling that is, and that's not
• 37:16
  Even so much of like a gooner game.
• 37:19
  Like I would describe the first descendant, right?
• 37:21
  Like it is anime characters and some people have hard ONS for
• 37:24
  them, but whatever, right? That's neither here nor there,
• 37:27
  but it's not. Like it isn't stellar blade?
• 37:29
  Yeah, right. It it's a interesting take on
• 37:33
  what we have seen from life service games where now these
• 37:36
  life service games are these massive open world games with a
• 37:40
  shit load of content that you can technically access for free.
• 37:44
  Where the Winds meet is the one that came out at the end of last
• 37:49
  year that was like everything technically it's free.
• 37:53
  It's free to. Play oh, it's free oh, in my
• 37:55
  bed. Oh my bed.
• 37:56
  I I see it pop up on my homepage or whatever whenever I'm
• 38:00
  browsing, but now I never check it because it's not really my
• 38:03
  kind of game so. It's it's interesting to see
• 38:07
  that now. I'm, I'm sorry, I was just going
• 38:09
  to finish the thought there, but it's interesting to see that
• 38:13
  live service games have gone from something like I don't
• 38:16
  know, Overwatch 2 or Marvel rivals or something like that to
• 38:20
  now venturing into like gitchen impact.
• 38:22
  When it came out, it was being compared to Breath of the
• 38:24
  fucking Wild as far as like the the Breath of the Wild of the
• 38:30
  gotcha games, right? There was one that came out
• 38:33
  earlier this year called Ark Knight's Enfield.
• 38:36
  The same kind of concept where it's this large open world game,
• 38:39
  a fully complete game made and it's free to play.
• 38:44
  And the only way they make any money off of it is you buying
• 38:47
  skins or currency or something like that.
• 38:49
  So then they become very predatory and like what they
• 38:51
  give you and how to get things. And so it, it is interesting to
• 38:55
  see, but God, yeah, it's, it's wild.
• 38:59
  Go ahead, Nick. I am so sorry.
• 39:01
  Yo you're good. So the game on launch had
• 39:04
  264,000 players that night. OK.
• 39:09
  That was July 1st. Of 20. 24.
• 39:13
  Oh, OK. Two years ago, yeah.
• 39:15
  So then we travel down to August that drops to 58,000.
• 39:22
  OK, we that we move into, let's just go to 2026.
• 39:29
  Where they at 7:00? 1007 thousand players.
• 39:32
  Let's go to today. That's pretty thousand players
• 39:34
  Oh yeah. So right now they're boasting
• 39:36
  3000 players and well. That's after the news like this.
• 39:39
  So like, what was it? What was it on Sunday or
• 39:41
  Saturday last weekend? So it was, yeah, I come.
• 39:44
  Sorry, I didn't mean to be. Shaking my camera.
• 39:51
  I can't. Well, I mean, we know it's
• 39:55
  somewhere between 7000 and 3000, right?
• 39:58
  Probably. So Sunday 5006 thousand.
• 40:01
  OK, so it is, it's you. Know what though?
• 40:03
  It goes like this all the time. Yeah, but it only hits the 5000
• 40:07
  nowadays, which for a game like this, with what they're trying
• 40:09
  to boast, is bad, right? Like that is.
• 40:13
  And also for what bad Nexon is like which yes they need money.
• 40:18
  I, I don't know what kind of serious content they added,
• 40:23
  right? Like I said, I, I, I played it
• 40:25
  for maybe a little bit in the first month and it had a decent
• 40:30
  enough time with it, but I, I could see the writing on the
• 40:33
  wall of what it was and I was like, I'm good, right?
• 40:36
  Right. I, I'm curious.
• 40:38
  I I mean it clearly they have not been able to add enough
• 40:40
  content to keep people invested over over time, which is what a
• 40:46
  live service really has to have. I mean, you have your, your
• 40:51
  examples, like your marvel rivals or your Overwatch to now
• 40:56
  branded back to Overwatch because why the fuck not?
• 41:00
  Which is, which is predominantly just adding characters, right?
• 41:04
  Maybe a new map here and there, but like it's a character, it's
• 41:07
  a map and that's pretty much all the content.
• 41:09
  The core gameplay doesn't change.
• 41:11
  They don't add anything like a little PvP events or whatever it
• 41:15
  may be. Clearly Nexon was not able to
• 41:18
  provide that, which is insane to me because that's their fucking
• 41:21
  bread and butter and they couldn't do the simple fucking
• 41:23
  thing. They know what to do, right?
• 41:26
  Exactly. Here we are.
• 41:27
  Yeah, yeah, here we fucking are. It just is what it is, man.
• 41:31
  A game like this dude, where you're relying on unfortunately,
• 41:36
  like the gullibility of players. Eventually it gets caught and
• 41:40
  people start to get wise on it. They go, I don't want to play
• 41:43
  this shit. There's better shit out there to
• 41:44
  play, which is good. I mean, yeah.
• 41:48
  Which leads us into oh go on, go on.
• 41:51
  I was just going to say it's kind of the nature of it, right?
• 41:53
  Like unfortunately, like there's so many games coming out every
• 41:57
  fucking week and some of them are free to play, some of them
• 42:01
  are not. But regardless, you're always
• 42:03
  fighting for gamers attention. Like that's, that's the core of
• 42:06
  it. Well, and you know, and that
• 42:09
  leads us to success, right? Because we can just jump into
• 42:13
  marathon now. This is a game that people
• 42:18
  really wanted to fail, very, very badly fail.
• 42:23
  I can see Nicky's arms crossed. Yeah, baby on the baby on the
• 42:28
  throne. The numbers aren't like
• 42:30
  fantastic when it comes to Steam DB, right?
• 42:33
  So on Steam, we can we now we know right now that there's
• 42:38
  36,015 players. OK, that's fine.
• 42:42
  The game peaked at 88,337. It's estimated though the game
• 42:47
  did sell 1.2 million copies across everywhere, and it seems
• 42:57
  like the console base for this game is probably where it's at.
• 43:00
  Is what is what I'm thinking here.
• 43:02
  And that's and that's great because guess what there is
• 43:04
  basically I don't is ARC on console.
• 43:08
  No. So then it's from what I
• 43:12
  understand it then it's basically one of the only
• 43:14
  extraction shooters. On console it would be.
• 43:17
  One of no arc Raiders is on is on.
• 43:19
  PlayStation eight, I was going to say, yeah, that's.
• 43:21
  Yeah, OK, OK. I didn't know that.
• 43:23
  So but that's that's great because that gives some
• 43:28
  extraction shooter competition in the console space.
• 43:30
  But also, like, that's fine with me because Marathon has the
• 43:35
  style of gunplay that because it's Bungie that it doesn't
• 43:41
  really, you know, matter to me if you're on a controller,
• 43:43
  right? If you're playing on an yeah.
• 43:44
  I'm going to Shrek. As a as APC player, I'm still
• 43:47
  going to have fun, you know, even if I lose like I'm going to
• 43:49
  like yeah, I'll probably still get you if I'm paying.
• 43:52
  Attention there. Keep it, keep it still.
• 43:54
  What was that face I saw you make?
• 43:55
  What? Brody, I saw I was going to
• 43:58
  Shrek you. Brody made a face.
• 43:59
  What was that? I just a face dude.
• 44:05
  Good. Wow.
• 44:05
  I don't, I don't know what that actually means.
• 44:11
  I think it's fuck years or so. Yeah, it does.
• 44:15
  Yeah. It doesn't mean anything that
• 44:16
  bad. No, like, like I will say that
• 44:21
  has been the primary motivator for me in playing that game has
• 44:25
  been I I wish it was like there's mixed bags, right?
• 44:29
  That community has a lot of like from what I see, a lot of people
• 44:31
  who want it to be a PVE only game, a lot of people who really
• 44:34
  like the PvP aspect. I am kind of in the middle where
• 44:38
  it's like, I think they should just Bungie should, if they're
• 44:40
  really dedicated to this, go all out, Give us a single player,
• 44:44
  give us this, let us do some sort of mini game where it's a
• 44:47
  team death match or something. Because like you guys have some
• 44:50
  great gum play here, as Bungie always does.
• 44:53
  And it's a shame to waste it on one game mode in my opinion.
• 44:59
  Does that make does that make sense?
• 45:00
  Like like it's just me wanting more from this but.
• 45:03
  Like, and here you go. Because Bungie has doubled down.
• 45:07
  Yeah. And so they've committed.
• 45:09
  And they're committed for years to come.
• 45:11
  So Destiny players, here's your roses.
• 45:14
  Go rest and shit. Or in Destiny two.
• 45:16
  Sorry about your luck. Except for project.
• 45:19
  What is it called? Legend or whatever.
• 45:21
  They still have one more thing planned, right?
• 45:23
  It's going to be Destiny 3 of some sort, yeah.
• 45:25
  It's going to be Destiny 3. So stop crying.
• 45:27
  Stop crying. Well, and I imagine you're going
• 45:30
  to get more votes, right? Like if that's part of the
• 45:34
  carrot on the stick kind of thing where they they say, hey,
• 45:38
  this is what we have at launch. They get people invested and
• 45:41
  then when they stick, their player count count starts to
• 45:43
  kind of go down a little bit. Oh hey, by the way, we added an
• 45:46
  arena fight mode and now this feels like fucking Halo back in
• 45:49
  the day. Right.
• 45:50
  And everyone's going to freak when they do.
• 45:52
  Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
• 45:53
  Honestly, that would be the kind of shit that would get me
• 45:55
  invested because I'm not an extraction shooter guy, but.
• 45:58
  Right, but you sucker. Very good arena shooter.
• 46:01
  Well, supposedly there are plans for it, and if the plans come to
• 46:05
  fruition, they're just going to be on the maps.
• 46:09
  Yeah, of course they're. As they are, they're.
• 46:11
  Just going to, they're going to go and take a square out of a
• 46:14
  map and be like, here you go. And we don't have splitkit
• 46:17
  anymore. Sorry, I wanted to just bring up
• 46:20
  another live service game that hasn't been.
• 46:23
  Well, they shot themselves in the face, He.
• 46:26
  Shot that game he did but like also I don't know like that game
• 46:30
  I think has always garnered a lot of interest from guys like
• 46:32
  us maybe like because I know we've played both the original
• 46:36
  and the second we. Were all really good at split
• 46:38
  gate honestly. Yeah, we were.
• 46:39
  But like it just didn't have the player count like it just it's
• 46:44
  that. We.
• 46:45
  We only played it like the night that it came out and they were
• 46:47
  like, hey, it's out right now and like, I don't think.
• 46:49
  We were already really fucking drunk.
• 46:52
  And we were kicking ass. We were having a great big time
• 46:55
  sweet. But like, yeah, we didn't
• 46:57
  actually play much more than that, which is kind of a bummer
• 46:59
  because if you load that game up now, which like I, I think I did
• 47:02
  a couple months ago, actually has a lot of like customization,
• 47:07
  but it does, it does actually have a lot of progression to it.
• 47:10
  But yeah, I mean, I'm cool with that if Marathon does that.
• 47:13
  And that's and that's fine. I think that it would still be
• 47:15
  great for them to do something as a single player experience
• 47:17
  though, because there's a lot of war here that they've been doing
• 47:20
  a great job of world building. But at the same time I
• 47:24
  understand how difficult and expensive it probably is.
• 47:30
  You already have the voice actors do.
• 47:32
  You want to play a game real quick?
• 47:34
  Do I want to what? Play a game.
• 47:37
  Yeah, yeah. What's the game?
• 47:39
  Guess what? The current players in Split
• 47:42
  Gate, Arena Reloaded or whatever.
• 47:45
  The oh I OK wait, hold on. So I want to, I want to pause
• 47:47
  here and give my reasoning, because before you answer, Brody
• 47:50
  gave a really disgusted face before he spoke, which makes me
• 47:54
  feel like it is. I bet you will not even guess
• 47:58
  this I'd. Be between 6 and 700.
• 48:02
  OK. All right, Evan, what do?
• 48:04
  You got. What do you got?
• 48:06
  I'm going to say, I'm going to say like 300, three, 180.
• 48:13
  You piece of shit. Did he really?
• 48:15
  Did he really? How many?
• 48:16
  How many people? It is 695 right now.
• 48:19
  You know. 706 on a 24 hour peak. That's bad it.
• 48:24
  Has not gotten above 1000 a long time.
• 48:30
  That's crazy. Hot, even.
• 48:32
  That's well. That's wild cuz it's honestly
• 48:35
  still not a bad game. Does that does that mean that
• 48:37
  people really just don't like extract?
• 48:39
  Like or not extraction shooters, but like arena shooters.
• 48:40
  Like arena shooters? No, there's just not been a.
• 48:43
  How many people are in well done?
• 48:44
  How many people are in fucking Quake champions right now?
• 48:47
  Cuz that's the that's the longest running arena shooter We
• 48:50
  can compare it to a. 124 people. Jesus.
• 48:55
  Still going, baby. Wettiest motherfucking dungeon.
• 48:58
  Dwellers. Oh, it's, oh, it's not a dying,
• 49:01
  it's not a dying genre. There's 12 people.
• 49:04
  Unreal 12. People.
• 49:06
  So just to also frame a little bit of like a point of reference
• 49:11
  here, right? So EA recently came out and said
• 49:15
  that Battlefield 6 was a flop more or less and they fired like
• 49:21
  half of their fucking people. It is still currently sitting at
• 49:26
  36,000 players 824, a 24 hour peak of 48,000 and the all time
• 49:35
  peak on Steam DB was 747,000 fucking players and it's
• 49:41
  considered a flop by year. Well, and you know what?
• 49:44
  Though it Detron, Call of Duty. Sorry, Nick.
• 49:47
  I'm sorry. $70 Game no. No, no, keep, continue.
• 49:50
  Here's my thing. But you're going to say.
• 49:51
  That's why I'm happy with Bungie going, hey, we're doubling down.
• 49:55
  Yeah, it's we're not done. We're not Concorde 3.
• 49:58
  They didn't say that. But like people like this is
• 50:00
  Concorde 3. This is Concorde 3.
• 50:02
  No, it's not. This game has substance to it.
• 50:05
  This there's a lot going on in Marathon that I think people are
• 50:08
  coming back to and people are seeing the video.
• 50:10
  The beauty here is Bungie is doing such a good marketing job
• 50:14
  and good lore job because they've been janitoring the lore
• 50:18
  phenomenally. So people are getting drip fed
• 50:21
  who Durandal is, who Leela is, who Taiko the fucking UESC
• 50:26
  officer, all of this cool stuff, the fucking demos in the
• 50:30
  marathon and all that shit. It's also ANYWAYS, but yeah.
• 50:34
  Sorry, go ahead. But like, that's why Marathon
• 50:37
  feels special. That and it's not predatory to
• 50:42
  open this game up yet. It is not.
• 50:45
  It is not. I'll agree with Nick 100%, but
• 50:47
  you don't even realize the reward.
• 50:49
  It's at the far bottom. It says store under everything
• 50:53
  else and it's so like. Your main, sorry again to cut
• 50:58
  you off, but like you're like as someone who does not know
• 51:01
  anything about Marathon, your main thing that you see is
• 51:05
  entirely about your your contracts, your your faction
• 51:09
  reps and all that sort of stuff like that is your loadout.
• 51:14
  It's like I think that's what it is it's loadout factions rewards
• 51:19
  pass in smaller font underneath both of them and then options.
• 51:23
  It is it is like in that same. So but at the end of the day, at
• 51:29
  the end of the day, I, I, it doesn't matter to me.
• 51:33
  I am way more invested like you said in in the story and I'm
• 51:37
  saying that as someone who has not cared about any of the
• 51:39
  marathon stuff prior to this game coming out.
• 51:42
  Like 100% it does. It does not feel predatory in
• 51:46
  the way that so many other like games can do that like like COD
• 51:51
  when you loaded up, Battlefield 6 when you loaded up.
• 51:54
  That was really funny for. The YouTube video.
• 51:57
  Correct me if I'm wrong, Birdie, but Marvel Rivals does the same
• 52:00
  thing, as well as Overwatch, where they immediately inundate
• 52:03
  you with basically an ad of like, hey, here's the battle
• 52:05
  pass. And it's like this, like I think
• 52:08
  this might do that. And you hit escape and then it's
• 52:10
  like that's it. You're don't don't worry about
• 52:13
  it. It they don't, they don't get
• 52:14
  you at any other point and and it's just you.
• 52:17
  Know in the same vein, which is also kind of crazy to me.
• 52:22
  Deadlock is currently the 13th most played game on.
• 52:29
  Steam and we haven't played it once and.
• 52:30
  Like it's not even technically announced if they're just
• 52:33
  letting people play it. It has no skins.
• 52:38
  It is. There is no store.
• 52:41
  It is the 13th most played game. It has 10,000 more players than
• 52:45
  Overwatch does right now. That's so funny.
• 52:48
  Deadlock has you do it. You.
• 52:50
  Yeah. I I never hear anyone talk about
• 52:53
  this fucking game it's insane to me.
• 52:56
  It's crazy. I love deadlock.
• 52:56
  Deadlock is going dude if you look it up like the hero shooter
• 53:00
  mobile thing. People love deadlock.
• 53:02
  I know I just mean like the general public, right?
• 53:06
  Like, no one's talking about this fucking game, which is
• 53:09
  crazy because it's it's gorgeous.
• 53:11
  What they've done there is fantastic, but.
• 53:14
  I haven't done it yet. Now they're adding a.
• 53:16
  Ready to give it a go? They're they're adding like a
• 53:18
  death match to it as well are. They that would be fun.
• 53:20
  Oh, they're like Arena from Smite.
• 53:22
  They added a 3V3. Oh yeah.
• 53:24
  So that's that's that's clash from Smite, I think is what that
• 53:27
  that was. I played it before.
• 53:28
  Yeah. He who shall not be named.
• 53:30
  But like that. But that's with deadlock, man.
• 53:32
  Like we'll get back to Marathon, but like what?
• 53:35
  What Valve is doing with Deadlock is so beautiful because
• 53:39
  they're like, it doesn't exist. And then people found the, the,
• 53:42
  the, the, the website. You can just sign up to like be
• 53:45
  a part of the message board. And then Tyler Mcvicker was
• 53:48
  like, Oh yeah, maybe there's Discord.
• 53:50
  Everyone found the Discord was like, let me in.
• 53:53
  And then one Saturday morning, Julian went, I got in and I can
• 53:57
  send out codes. And then we were all like send
• 53:59
  everybody codes at the. Yeah.
• 54:01
  But like basically Valve has still not Valve has not
• 54:04
  acknowledged it. They're not talking about that.
• 54:08
  It's their IP. They're like, what's that?
• 54:11
  What? What do you mean?
• 54:14
  It's like it might be looking at Landon going, I don't know who
• 54:17
  you are. It's funny as hell, though.
• 54:20
  I, I kind of love it for that, right?
• 54:22
  It's just this this goofy little thing, but they're running.
• 54:26
  More for it too with the risk of rain, like risk of rain is going
• 54:29
  to be in deadlock. That's what Risk of Rain 3 is
• 54:32
  going to be inside of Deadlock. They're adding a risk RAID mode
• 54:36
  in Deadlock. A rogue light that actually.
• 54:38
  Be really cool. That'll be cool.
• 54:41
  And it's free, sorry. And it's free and just to not to
• 54:45
  bring the mood down here, but for our last little tidbit
• 54:49
  before we actually get into our general ideal of of how we're
• 54:53
  feeling on this. So the my God, I I this is like
• 55:00
  right up Evans Alley, honestly, but.
• 55:01
  I'll. Go ahead and do it, yeah.
• 55:03
  No, this is go ahead. OK, you're fine.
• 55:06
  The Last of Us Online was cancelled, obviously, as
• 55:12
  everyone is well aware, and it was 80% complete after, I
• 55:18
  assume, five to four to five years of development probably.
• 55:23
  Just released the build. 80% complete and Sony decided it was
• 55:29
  a better decision to pull the plug on it then to pursue it.
• 55:34
  Mind you, Sony was also the company who picked up how many
• 55:38
  different studios in an effort to go specifically after live
• 55:42
  action or sorry, a live service games and then pulled a plug on
• 55:48
  one of their largest I PS I may I say I don't under.
• 55:54
  I don't under. Fun.
• 55:54
  Let let, let Nick go, and then I'll give, I'll, I'll give my.
• 55:57
  Classes, the last one I want to rewind to Fast forward as fast
• 56:00
  as we can. I do believe Marathon was going
• 56:03
  to be a single player game. So damn, I'm out.
• 56:05
  No, no, listen, I believe it was going to be a single player game
• 56:08
  and then Sony. Initially, right?
• 56:10
  Well, I think it was going to be.
• 56:11
  I think it should have been destiny like where it could be
• 56:14
  single player but also. Mobile, that would have been
• 56:15
  fine. It would have been great 100.
• 56:17
  Percent. Sony went extraction I would
• 56:19
  require service and then they went that's your game now and
• 56:23
  buncha went OK. Fuck, you got me.
• 56:25
  And now, because if you look at Marathon back when we were
• 56:29
  playing the alphas and betas to now, they got their shit
• 56:33
  together right before release, right?
• 56:34
  Because. They didn't have their shit
• 56:35
  together at all. Astonishing, by the way, mind
• 56:38
  you, like I again, I never wished for this game to fail.
• 56:41
  I actually wanted it to be good. I also just knew I'm not an
• 56:44
  extraction shooter guy and what I played of that original alpha
• 56:47
  was fucking rough and not fun to play.
• 56:51
  And when when you guys got back into the beta and you're like,
• 56:55
  yeah, it's actually good now, I was like, I have a hard time
• 56:59
  believing that, especially from Nick.
• 57:01
  No offense to you, Nick. I just know how you get about
• 57:03
  things that you love. I'm a Glazer.
• 57:06
  You are a Glazer. You are.
• 57:07
  Regardless of whether it's good, bad or indifferent, you're just
• 57:10
  you. You'll just.
• 57:11
  Yeah, absolutely. It's fucking amazing.
• 57:13
  Like your words hard to take. I I.
• 57:16
  Just I can't. But when I'm right, I'm right.
• 57:19
  So yeah, that that's how being right works.
• 57:24
  Exactly. Bernie's Bernie's right in in,
• 57:28
  you know, consequence to what he just said.
• 57:30
  He's right, he's right. He was right.
• 57:32
  I hate I'm right, but I'm. Right, like we know there are
• 57:34
  things we can't say, such as I am going to kill, you're pretty.
• 57:42
  I I hear him laughing. He's like, please don't finish
• 57:45
  that statement. I'm not going to say I'm going
• 57:46
  to kill them. Stop.
• 57:49
  Stop it. Stop it.
• 57:51
  Quit your giggling. I will.
• 57:53
  I will tell, I will tell. I'm saying that I'm not telling
• 57:56
  you that. I'm just saying that I'm just.
• 57:57
  You can't. Say that that you can't say
• 57:59
  you're going to kill the. God damn it.
• 58:03
  You know. What's even worse is to show a
• 58:05
  diagram. Totally legal.
• 58:09
  Totally legal. Totally legal anyways.
• 58:11
  Anyways, Last of Us. So President's A.
• 58:15
  Weird guy, huh? As Bertie said, Jesus.
• 58:21
  I'm going to have Secret Service kicking my shit shut.
• 58:25
  The fuck up you're going to stop talking you're.
• 58:28
  Going to the veins in my head are just robbing right now.
• 58:31
  Everybody here is stressed. Whacker.
• 58:34
  Yeah. Uh huh, Uh huh.
• 58:38
  Jesus. I got to go.
• 58:40
  I got to go. There was a knock on my door.
• 58:48
  Holy shit. Man.
• 58:51
  Derailed. Yeah, so as as Bertie had, as
• 58:54
  Bertie had talked about or brought up The Last of Us
• 58:58
  online, which I think it would have just been called like The
• 59:00
  Last of Us factions as the game, right.
• 59:03
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Nick, are you OK?
• 59:05
  I'm. Listening not.
• 59:07
  Yeah, I'm listening, he says, not looking at the camera.
• 59:13
  Yeah, it got it got cancelled when it was Yeah, basically
• 59:17
  nearing completion and somebody decided to to cancel it.
• 59:23
  But also from the the article that Kotaku had wrote, this was
• 59:28
  a. This is a quote from Vinnett
• 59:31
  Agarwal, who was a director on the project, who has since left
• 59:35
  Naughty Dog to move to Japan and founded a new studio.
• 59:39
  He sat down for a lengthy interview with Lance E Lee to
• 59:42
  talk about his life and career, and when the last When the topic
• 59:46
  of The Last of Us Online came up, he revealed that the game
• 59:50
  was around 80% completed before it was cancelled.
• 59:55
  He also gave some insights into Sony's misguided live service
• 59:58
  pivot, which he says the company started pushing her in 2020 at
• 1:00:01
  the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as online games became
• 1:00:04
  a way for people to connect with their friends while quarantine
• 1:00:06
  in their homes. As restrictions have loosened
• 1:00:09
  people who aren't playing online games as much as they were, and
• 1:00:12
  as such all that investment into Forever games was pulled back.
• 1:00:16
  This is a quote, I believe, from him in this interview.
• 1:00:20
  Basically, at one point, a decision had to be made, OK,
• 1:00:23
  make this game or make the next game that Neil Druckman was
• 1:00:25
  directing the president of the company.
• 1:00:27
  And so kind of naturally, you can understand what happened
• 1:00:30
  there. They had to pick the game
• 1:00:32
  Exactly. They had to they had to pick.
• 1:00:35
  And here's where it gets worse. They had to pick the they had to
• 1:00:37
  pick the game that was kind of the bread and butter of the
• 1:00:40
  studio rather than this experimental game that I was
• 1:00:42
  working on that I believe was going to be really big but
• 1:00:44
  unfortunately couldn't see the light of day.
• 1:00:46
  That was a devastating moment for me because I spent seven
• 1:00:49
  years working on that game and it was sold.
• 1:00:50
  Crushing. I remember honestly finding out
• 1:00:52
  that it's getting cancelled 24 hours.
• 1:00:54
  Yeah, seven years. He found out.
• 1:00:56
  He remembers finding out that it was getting cancelled 24 hours
• 1:00:59
  before it was announced to the public.
• 1:01:01
  So he was given a day's time to let him know that like 7 years
• 1:01:06
  of your. Life.
• 1:01:06
  Also Neil Druckman can suck his own Dick and the next game he
• 1:01:10
  puts out what so. So here's my thing.
• 1:01:13
  I'm not even the Last of Us fan but God damn.
• 1:01:16
  Dude. So here's the thing, as someone
• 1:01:17
  who is a Last of Us fan, I will say that the idea of this game
• 1:01:22
  was very exciting for a Last of Us, a Last of Us player, because
• 1:01:27
  for anybody, the factions line survival game it in the fucking
• 1:01:31
  the thing. Yeah, that's The thing is that
• 1:01:33
  factions was in the first Last of Us slept on by a lot of
• 1:01:36
  people because it was already a single player game.
• 1:01:38
  And you know, you're just not going to get that same kind of
• 1:01:41
  numbers in a single player game compared to, you know,
• 1:01:43
  Battlefield or COD. But like, on top of that, you're
• 1:01:46
  going to get even less people are going to be invested into
• 1:01:48
  the multiplayer like side piece essentially of a single player
• 1:01:53
  title that's like acclaimed for it, single player.
• 1:01:56
  But the idea was there. The idea was there and that was
• 1:02:00
  cool. And the idea that they were
• 1:02:02
  going to make an entire game around it where you would see
• 1:02:05
  different areas that have been ravaged by the the virus and
• 1:02:09
  where you might even essentially think of what I would assume
• 1:02:12
  they'd like to make which or what they were trying to make,
• 1:02:15
  which is essentially a marathon, but in the Last of Us universe,
• 1:02:18
  so. Slash Daisy.
• 1:02:20
  You're you're a survivor and you're fighting other scavenger
• 1:02:23
  slash survivors along with AI clickers or infected or scabs.
• 1:02:30
  You know, other enemies. Sony just.
• 1:02:32
  Made bungee like this and they just, they, they killed it.
• 1:02:36
  And honestly, it sounds like according to that quote, sounds
• 1:02:39
  like they killed it mostly in favor because this guy had more
• 1:02:41
  weight because obviously he's the president who has directed
• 1:02:44
  the critically acclaimed Last of Us Part 2.
• 1:02:46
  And that's someone who loves that game to death and has the
• 1:02:49
  collector's edition of that game.
• 1:02:51
  It is a fantastic game. You as a as someone who is
• 1:02:56
  creative, I don't think you get to have one great game and then
• 1:02:59
  ride that as your coattails for every other project you make.
• 1:03:02
  You have to prove yourself. Again, watch him.
• 1:03:05
  I know he tries. He, he, I, I've seen him it, it,
• 1:03:08
  it like it's so. Funny pulls his tiny Dick out
• 1:03:10
  and every meeting. Goes wrong.
• 1:03:12
  It was at like I think it was at the Emmys or something like
• 1:03:15
  that. It was it was this, it was this
• 1:03:17
  most recent one where Last of Us 2 was nominated.
• 1:03:19
  And he like walked up and like where they take pictures of
• 1:03:22
  everybody and somebody was recording it.
• 1:03:25
  Nobody took a photo of him. And I was like, yeah, I was
• 1:03:27
  like, who cares? You're the video game guy.
• 1:03:30
  You're. Not you're the video game guy.
• 1:03:32
  TV guy. You weren't gonna you weren't
• 1:03:34
  gonna have a success, successful pivot with with your show.
• 1:03:36
  And like at the end of the day, your second season of the show
• 1:03:39
  completely butchered it anyway. Like, yeah, you, you ruined
• 1:03:42
  that. So like, that's my thing is that
• 1:03:44
  he said something recently, just like just very recently, where
• 1:03:48
  he had talked about how there's still a little more gas left in
• 1:03:51
  the tank for The Last of Us. And I was like, just just leave
• 1:03:57
  it. Everyone thought it was done
• 1:03:59
  after the first game. And it would have been fine if
• 1:04:02
  they had been done with it after the first game.
• 1:04:03
  Genuinely, it would have. Been and it's even better that
• 1:04:05
  it's done after the second because then it's like OK cool
• 1:04:08
  she's now it's. The second rap, the second one,
• 1:04:11
  you can really just interpret yourself however you want to and
• 1:04:14
  that's a great like that's how that is.
• 1:04:17
  I'm sorry. The third game I play as three
• 1:04:20
  different people well. It's like, it's like, who am I
• 1:04:22
  gonna play in the third game? Are you gonna make it completely
• 1:04:25
  different or are you gonna make? Me play if you wanna do that.
• 1:04:28
  Bro, I swear to God, if they are like, hey, it's The Last of Us 3
• 1:04:31
  and I'm playing JJ, I'm gonna kill myself.
• 1:04:33
  I'm gonna be like. Listen, if it's like.
• 1:04:35
  I'm not playing the fucking baby.
• 1:04:36
  Survivor thing that'd be cool like you're.
• 1:04:38
  On that, they're not gonna do that because because it's it's
• 1:04:41
  not gonna be called the last three.
• 1:04:42
  It's gonna be called The Last of Us Part 3, which means there's
• 1:04:45
  going to be yeah, conclusion of and it's yeah, there's going.
• 1:04:48
  To be a conclusion cause two years ago that made a billion
• 1:04:50
  dollars, you have to make a fourth.
• 1:04:52
  Ellie's going to, Ellie's going to.
• 1:04:54
  Ellie's going to kill herself to like save Abby and Abby's going
• 1:04:57
  to. Become the bullet's going to
• 1:04:58
  ricochet over her. Brain and Abby's going to become
• 1:05:00
  the next immune human being and she's going to save the earth
• 1:05:03
  for some stupid bullshit. I don't know.
• 1:05:04
  Like Ellie's going to be a dad. Sorry I hated.
• 1:05:11
  I hated that I stopped watching the show as soon as I heard her
• 1:05:14
  say that. I was like they fundamentally.
• 1:05:15
  Watch that. Listen, we're not those guys who
• 1:05:18
  cared when everyone else was beaming out.
• 1:05:21
  I'm like, can't be that bad. Then I watched.
• 1:05:23
  I went. Oh, it wasn't that bad.
• 1:05:24
  It's that. Bad, it's that bad.
• 1:05:26
  But it's there's multiple reasons people misunderstand
• 1:05:30
  that. And it's because as people who
• 1:05:32
  have played the game, you fundamentally miss who Ellie is
• 1:05:36
  in that moment. And for people who have, for
• 1:05:39
  people who have they missed? Who she was throughout the
• 1:05:41
  entire thing and I haven't even played The Last of Us but I can
• 1:05:45
  completely tell. Like she was entirely mistyped.
• 1:05:49
  Like all of the directing going into that was wrong.
• 1:05:52
  The problem was they, they thought that she had to be
• 1:05:55
  likable. And, and The thing is, is that's
• 1:05:57
  the beauty of the second game is that you play, you play as her
• 1:06:01
  through basically 70% of that game.
• 1:06:04
  And through that 70%, you just learn to dislike her more, her
• 1:06:08
  more because she just can't stop obsessing.
• 1:06:11
  And you just kind of get disgusted by that as time goes
• 1:06:15
  on. And, and it's any consolation, I
• 1:06:17
  felt the same way during the show.
• 1:06:19
  That's fair, but the the show did it the wrong way where it's
• 1:06:23
  like you're just so sick of seeing her where is like, I
• 1:06:27
  think if they had made her more true to the game, she would have
• 1:06:29
  been more compelling. But also, and Nick and I think
• 1:06:32
  said this maybe probably not on the not on the podcast prior to
• 1:06:36
  the second season, we were saying they probably should have
• 1:06:40
  recast because Bella Ramsey does not look older the way Ellie
• 1:06:45
  looks older. You could, you could have pulled
• 1:06:47
  this off to me. Look how old Ellie.
• 1:06:49
  Is now Kaylee, Kaylee Spanny, who is the lead of Alien Romulus
• 1:06:52
  the the Grass. Too.
• 1:06:54
  She would have been a perfect Ellie for season 2.
• 1:06:56
  It would have been absolutely fantastic.
• 1:06:59
  And then just keep keep the brutality.
• 1:07:01
  She's a she. She becomes the way I often see
• 1:07:05
  the second game on a replay is watching, playing as Ellie
• 1:07:11
  through the the second game is seeing Joel when he was his
• 1:07:16
  worst, when he was younger and you don't see, and that's 20
• 1:07:19
  year time span. Like that's kind of how I like
• 1:07:22
  to envision that, where it's like you're seeing her version
• 1:07:26
  of what she thought he would do. So it's arguably worse.
• 1:07:30
  But yeah, no, that's all I have to say.
• 1:07:33
  OK, let's see, that's a different episode.
• 1:07:35
  Yeah I know, that's all I was going to say, but either way,
• 1:07:38
  fuck that live. Service game?
• 1:07:39
  Oh yeah? Well not fuck that live service
• 1:07:42
  game. That could have been a great
• 1:07:43
  live. Service that could have.
• 1:07:44
  Been great it it would have been Daisy ass guy.
• 1:07:47
  I assume not. Not so much extraction shooter.
• 1:07:50
  I think it would have been a survival type of game.
• 1:07:54
  Almost 4, almost Fallout. 76 right, but in a cooler and less.
• 1:07:59
  Janky fucked up. With, yeah, maybe I could see, I
• 1:08:03
  could see that. I don't know.
• 1:08:04
  I think the idea of like doing it sort of like not an
• 1:08:07
  extraction shooter, but something in that style with a
• 1:08:10
  bigger map like Daisy would be pretty.
• 1:08:12
  Sick, but if they had been working on it for seven years.
• 1:08:14
  Extraction shooters. That's that's a fairly a thing.
• 1:08:17
  Yeah. So I don't think that was the
• 1:08:19
  route they were going. I I I almost.
• 1:08:21
  Keep Fallout 76. Good for those nights.
• 1:08:25
  That's crazy. That's better than wow.
• 1:08:27
  That's better. That's better than not.
• 1:08:28
  Wow. But that's better than No, no,
• 1:08:29
  no. No, no, it's like rap.
• 1:08:31
  Bet it's not no? No, no, stop, stop.
• 1:08:34
  I take it back. I didn't mean it.
• 1:08:36
  I didn't mean it in the first. Place we don't, we don't want
• 1:08:38
  that. We don't want that.
• 1:08:39
  Smoke. I don't want that smoke at all.
• 1:08:40
  No, I'm sorry. I apologize.
• 1:08:42
  I meant to say more than whatever the game you guys were
• 1:08:45
  talking about just before. What did you say that had 600 or
• 1:08:51
  640? What was it?
• 1:08:53
  First? Not first.
• 1:08:54
  Oh, what was it? Got Damn.
• 1:08:58
  Split gate. Thank you.
• 1:08:59
  Split gate. Split gate.
• 1:09:01
  Yeah. Thank you.
• 1:09:01
  My brain just shut down. Yeah, I know I can.
• 1:09:03
  Really forgot about it. How?
• 1:09:06
  Does Pub G still have 100,000 people playing it?
• 1:09:09
  India. That's not surprising in China.
• 1:09:11
  China, China, China, India and China.
• 1:09:13
  Oh yeah, both actually. India is, I believe, bigger on
• 1:09:17
  the mobile game. Yes.
• 1:09:19
  That would make sense. Any who so to to kind of put a a
• 1:09:26
  bow on this to some extent, right, like let's what are what
• 1:09:32
  are your personal feelings and also your assumption on where
• 1:09:37
  the direction of live service games are going?
• 1:09:43
  So for me, if you look at Marathon, I would say that's a
• 1:09:47
  good direction. I would say that's a positive
• 1:09:50
  direction in the live service games fear.
• 1:09:55
  Can I can I posit a question before you continue?
• 1:09:57
  Yes, yes, please do. How is it sustainable with no
• 1:10:01
  realistic store, no realistic cosmetics, no way to continue to
• 1:10:07
  keep the lights on? So there there is a ton of there
• 1:10:11
  there is not a ton yet. Aside from the $40 price tag I
• 1:10:14
  guess. Sorry.
• 1:10:14
  So there is, there is the store you do get cosmetic, you can buy
• 1:10:18
  the cosmetics in bundles so far. So that is the so far I
• 1:10:23
  guarantee. And they've been updating slowly
• 1:10:26
  with more cosmetic packs. So I think they're going to keep
• 1:10:30
  doing that, but it's not going to be aggressive so far.
• 1:10:35
  But I like that. I feel like it's not predatory
• 1:10:37
  if, if, if Bungie can set the precedent here going, hey, we
• 1:10:41
  can do this, We can make our money because the budget for
• 1:10:44
  Marathon was somewhere between 200 and $250 million, which is
• 1:10:49
  don't Even so. That's a whole other probably.
• 1:10:51
  Because they started on something and had to rework.
• 1:10:55
  It to make absolutely exactly so with that being said, I think if
• 1:11:01
  you I think if they set the precedent now going you can do
• 1:11:05
  this. It may not get the quote UN
• 1:11:08
  quote numbers, but it is right because like we don't know the
• 1:11:12
  console numbers. We know the steam numbers.
• 1:11:14
  We and the steam numbers are fine.
• 1:11:17
  And you'll pretty much never find out the console numbers.
• 1:11:20
  Yeah, yeah, you're never. PlayStation is better than Xbox
• 1:11:24
  but you still never get like a clear cut answer.
• 1:11:27
  No, but I do think the way Marathon is doing it is good.
• 1:11:30
  It's not predatory. It is.
• 1:11:33
  And the the thing with this live service game, Marathon, they
• 1:11:38
  have been this team behind. Marathon gets all the roses in
• 1:11:42
  the world. The minute the community goes,
• 1:11:44
  we want to try this Marathon goes, OK, let's try that.
• 1:11:48
  So duos, they've tried duos on every map except for cryo so
• 1:11:53
  far. There's many people like we want
• 1:11:56
  to play duos. We want to try duos on Perimeter
• 1:11:59
  Outpost and Dire Marsh. They've gone, OK, let's do it
• 1:12:02
  one week at a time. First week was perimeter and
• 1:12:05
  people went, this is sick, keep that in.
• 1:12:08
  OK, we got to keep testing it, but how about we try Dire Marsh
• 1:12:11
  and they went down the ladder, but they're trying, they're
• 1:12:13
  updating, they're fixing bugs that I've never even
• 1:12:16
  encountered. They're just adding more
• 1:12:20
  balance. Like they're on top of their
• 1:12:22
  shit so far. And if this is the precedent
• 1:12:25
  that budgie can we know what Bungie does?
• 1:12:28
  They they they're very strong at 1st and then Bungie goes you're
• 1:12:32
  like 18 or something, right? You can get your own house.
• 1:12:35
  So like that's the problem with Bungie.
• 1:12:38
  But if they, that's the. Scariest part about this game
• 1:12:41
  for me is someone who played a fuck load of destiny and a shit
• 1:12:45
  load of destiny too. I'm very scared.
• 1:12:49
  But it's the the start of it here is something very pretty in
• 1:12:54
  my opinion. And if Bungie can just fucking
• 1:12:57
  on Bungie for a minute and go, let's do this.
• 1:13:00
  We got this because now a lot of the haters, like the serious
• 1:13:06
  people online who were like this is never going to work are
• 1:13:09
  reposting their this is never going to work tweets going just
• 1:13:13
  kidding. I was wrong.
• 1:13:15
  Here's more content. Yes, exactly.
• 1:13:17
  But like I, I like the state that's in, but for the most
• 1:13:23
  part, I still think live service is predatory.
• 1:13:26
  I still think most of these live service games are here today,
• 1:13:29
  gone tomorrow. And I don't, I don't understand
• 1:13:35
  what the bigger companies expect, because when a game
• 1:13:38
  releases and you go, well, I want OK, Battlefield, EA wanted
• 1:13:43
  how many players, 100 million players in a year or something
• 1:13:45
  like that. Yeah, something like that.
• 1:13:48
  What that's that's the what? It's not sustainable.
• 1:13:52
  It's. Just not that's not a thing, no.
• 1:13:54
  So I think that the I understand wanting to get the profit back,
• 1:13:59
  but at the same time, people love these games that you're
• 1:14:03
  releasing for the most part. Let these games live, let them
• 1:14:06
  breathe. I think if Concord could have
• 1:14:08
  gotten a breath of air, it may have fixed itself.
• 1:14:12
  You mean Highgard? But the way that thing was
• 1:14:13
  marketed and done, those that team had, I think so he.
• 1:14:17
  Doesn't mean Highgard. Thing no.
• 1:14:18
  No, he does not mean Highgard. See, The funny thing is that it
• 1:14:21
  applies to both. Because it applies to both
• 1:14:24
  Highgard. Highgard, Highgard, kind of
• 1:14:27
  Highgard could have gone the same way, but it was kind of,
• 1:14:29
  I'm not defending it, but it was.
• 1:14:31
  I think that fucking Game Awards thing.
• 1:14:35
  That was in his. Back.
• 1:14:36
  Yeah, that's a poison. It was a poison arrow dude.
• 1:14:39
  Yes, but also would it have ever even gotten any attention?
• 1:14:43
  No, in a landscape that there's thousands of games.
• 1:14:47
  Coming, I think every week. I think it wouldn't have if they
• 1:14:49
  had done their original plan where it was just silent release
• 1:14:52
  it, I think it would get back. It wouldn't have gotten any
• 1:14:55
  attention until. They just split.
• 1:14:57
  Dropped it, but they wouldn't have dropped it probably until
• 1:14:59
  later this year. You got to forget you're, you're
• 1:15:02
  entirely forgetting the fact that Apex came from the studio
• 1:15:05
  that made Titanfall, right? Yeah, fucking.
• 1:15:09
  Studio. No, no, no.
• 1:15:10
  Yeah, it's not like. This this studio was.
• 1:15:12
  Made apex yeah, which is yeah, that's like what you're saying
• 1:15:16
  Bernie, like that's the. Studio.
• 1:15:18
  Had this is. Nothing.
• 1:15:20
  Other than. The fact.
• 1:15:21
  That he was from? Yeah, exactly.
• 1:15:24
  It's also like they had no one had ever heard of this game
• 1:15:29
  until the game Awards. Like no one, no one even knew
• 1:15:32
  this existed, right? 100%.
• 1:15:35
  They their their marketing strategy, regardless of being
• 1:15:40
  the last thing at the the game awards, which was not even them
• 1:15:43
  like that was Keely, right? They wanted to be in the game
• 1:15:46
  awards, but not necessarily in that position.
• 1:15:48
  Like they they didn't ask for that, but at the same token,
• 1:15:51
  like nobody knew of this game, this game in the current state
• 1:15:55
  that it was in. If it would have released,
• 1:15:58
  nobody would have even batted a fucking eye at it.
• 1:16:00
  Oh no, not at all. Not at all, you know.
• 1:16:04
  So it's kind of AI don't know, right?
• 1:16:07
  Like they they. Yeah.
• 1:16:09
  For me, oh God, sorry, no, no to end to.
• 1:16:13
  End my shit dude. I still don't like most live
• 1:16:16
  service games. I think the practice has been
• 1:16:20
  scummy so far in this industry. I think they've abused A
• 1:16:24
  audience that is susceptible to mass stupidity.
• 1:16:28
  I think gamers as a whole are stupid.
• 1:16:32
  I think you're all stupid and you fall for a lot of shit that
• 1:16:37
  you shouldn't necessarily fall for, including myself.
• 1:16:40
  So I'm stupid. That's the quote.
• 1:16:42
  Of was this year is gamers you're all stupid.
• 1:16:45
  I'm stupid you're all stupid. I'm stupid.
• 1:16:49
  Yes, that's. Great, put it on a T-shirt.
• 1:16:52
  You get cool things like Arc, you get cool things like
• 1:16:56
  Marathon from time to time. And it takes the community as
• 1:17:01
  gamers to not let these things. If you start seeing a game fail
• 1:17:06
  by the company, not by us players, 'cause the outrage, we
• 1:17:11
  don't want this to end. What are you doing?
• 1:17:13
  But people don't do that because they'd rather just go failed.
• 1:17:17
  So it's, it's weird. I, I don't like live services,
• 1:17:21
  but there are a couple of these games where I'm like, this is
• 1:17:23
  good, let this breathe. So I don't know.
• 1:17:27
  Don't be predatory. I think that stop with that.
• 1:17:29
  Shit, not how that works unfortunately.
• 1:17:31
  I know I I. Think that I think that it's
• 1:17:33
  very much a, I think that it's very much a, a game by game
• 1:17:38
  basis like you said, right. Like there will be some games
• 1:17:41
  that do have a good live service model.
• 1:17:42
  There will be others that don't. Like I think that the
• 1:17:45
  interesting thing with Battlefields is that when they
• 1:17:48
  were doing the premium edition, which is not a live service
• 1:17:50
  model, that was for those who don't know, the premium edition
• 1:17:54
  was for Battlefield 3-4 Hardline and one essentially it was
• 1:17:59
  $60.00 for the regular edition of the game and you paid $60.00
• 1:18:04
  more if you wanted the premium. If you bought, say the
• 1:18:08
  Battlefield 4 Premium edition, you paid $120.00 and you got the
• 1:18:13
  game with five DLC packs. Those DLC packs came two weeks
• 1:18:18
  early compared to regular players that did not pay for it.
• 1:18:22
  You got with those packs 4 to 5 maps, 4 to 5 weapons, 4 to 5
• 1:18:28
  gadgets, among other things like little goodies that they wanted
• 1:18:32
  to sprinkle in assignments and things like that.
• 1:18:35
  And then even throughout the game's life cycle, they added
• 1:18:38
  two or three more maps, slash DLC and.
• 1:18:42
  Toilet BRB. To just put that in perspective,
• 1:18:45
  that is what Battlefield 4 gave and by three months after
• 1:18:49
  Battlefield 4 came out, the first DLC dropped its bench.
• 1:18:52
  That which meant that after three months after the the 4th
• 1:18:56
  game came out, 5 new maps were available, whereas now we are in
• 1:19:01
  the what 3rd 6th month of Battlefield 6 and we've got.
• 1:19:07
  About six months, yeah. Six months we've gotten how many
• 1:19:10
  maps? 34 I want to say full.
• 1:19:15
  Three, but some of them maybe 4, but I think the.
• 1:19:19
  Four a couple. Of them are limited to like team
• 1:19:22
  death match essentially right? Like, yes, very, very small maps
• 1:19:26
  or like the night maps. That is true.
• 1:19:29
  Maps. That is, that is what it is.
• 1:19:30
  Because only. Two large full scale maps, which
• 1:19:33
  is what battlefield they were fucking known for.
• 1:19:36
  There was the oil fields and the California map for the first
• 1:19:40
  season and then. They Oh, I guess there's there
• 1:19:41
  was. There was contaminated and then
• 1:19:44
  the night raid map for the second season that is currently
• 1:19:46
  going on right now. So yes, like you said, it was
• 1:19:48
  essentially 3 conquest, like standard Battlefield maps and
• 1:19:52
  then one that is exclusively, yeah, team deathmatch or like
• 1:19:56
  close quarters game modes. So like, I think there's
• 1:19:59
  something to be said about that because people are complaining
• 1:20:01
  about Battlefield as a live service game because there's
• 1:20:03
  less content, because there's not enough happening, there's
• 1:20:06
  not enough content going on, and that's why it's losing its
• 1:20:09
  player base. Battlefield dethroned Call of
• 1:20:13
  Duty last year as like the biggest shooter or the best
• 1:20:15
  selling shooter in the year for the United States or I think,
• 1:20:18
  for the world. No small task.
• 1:20:20
  Which is not an yeah, it is not an easy thing to do, especially
• 1:20:24
  for Battlefield because even when Battlefield 4 and one and
• 1:20:27
  all those really older like classic Battlefields, I'm I say
• 1:20:30
  classic now because we're, you know, essentially 10 years out,
• 1:20:33
  more than 10 years out from Battlefield 4 at this point.
• 1:20:37
  Those games didn't. Those games did not Bad company.
• 1:20:40
  Right. Yeah, because I I think the same
• 1:20:42
  thing when I say Battlefield. It's all right.
• 1:20:44
  I think the same. Don't worry about it.
• 1:20:46
  I. I love bad company too.
• 1:20:47
  I have a lot of a lot of great memories from it.
• 1:20:49
  But like, that's a great example of like, I just think that like
• 1:20:53
  the live service works for some games and then others.
• 1:20:55
  I think there should be a different model like and it's
• 1:20:58
  hard to to justify that because the live service model is all
• 1:21:01
  that most games and developers have, right?
• 1:21:04
  Especially for shooters, right? Unless you're in, what else do
• 1:21:07
  you do for a shooter? Right, exactly.
• 1:21:09
  Like it's like, here's my question, I guess.
• 1:21:13
  Why not do some sort of premium edition where maybe you don't
• 1:21:16
  charge people $60.00 more, but maybe $20 more and you do that?
• 1:21:19
  Money over a time. That's that's fair, I guess.
• 1:21:22
  But like, I, I question that, like if you can't, you can't say
• 1:21:28
  that you want Battlefield to have 100 million players and
• 1:21:31
  then continuously like screw your games over because I don't
• 1:21:34
  think you're going to continue. You're never going to get that
• 1:21:35
  number because people just won't stay invested.
• 1:21:37
  So I think there's a, what I, what I'm trying to imply is like
• 1:21:41
  if you did some sort of premium where you had that sort of model
• 1:21:44
  of like preconceived DLC that was already planned, worked on
• 1:21:48
  down the line for the first year.
• 1:21:50
  And then you switch to a live, almost like a delayed live
• 1:21:53
  service, if that makes sense. Like you had a, a year of
• 1:21:56
  preconceived content that was already worked on to sustain and
• 1:21:59
  sort of build that base. And then we switched to a live
• 1:22:03
  service that like kind of goes off of what people are
• 1:22:06
  interested in. I don't know, maybe just the
• 1:22:08
  solution, but like. From my perspective that makes
• 1:22:12
  the most sense, right? So basically like from I'm
• 1:22:16
  thinking very business. Businessy, yeah, sure, for sure,
• 1:22:21
  which is a good perspective. You get people into Battlefield,
• 1:22:25
  right, $70 price tag, People buy that $70 price tag, good to go.
• 1:22:29
  You got for if, if you were to do the premium where it's
• 1:22:35
  essentially like, oh, you get all of the DLCS or this and
• 1:22:38
  that. So now you get people to buy $40
• 1:22:40
  game or $40 on top of that or $50 or whatever it may be,
• 1:22:44
  right? So, so now you're going from
• 1:22:46
  $70.00 to $120.00. Now you've damn near almost
• 1:22:51
  doubled your money. Not quite, but so now you have
• 1:22:54
  people locked into it, you're not relying on them to actually
• 1:22:57
  stay around and you already have their fucking money.
• 1:23:01
  Unfortunately I'm again putting on the business side of my
• 1:23:04
  brain, which is slightly evil and not great and people like
• 1:23:09
  it, but it is what it is. So now you have people for an
• 1:23:13
  extra $50.00 that whether they stay or go, you have their money
• 1:23:18
  already and you're fucking locked in.
• 1:23:20
  Now if you were to on top of that at just cosmetics or
• 1:23:25
  whatever, maybe now you're going to make your money.
• 1:23:27
  But alternatively, if you think that you can maintain the player
• 1:23:33
  base, you do with the battle pass system, which is what we
• 1:23:37
  see so commonly these days where it's like, OK, a battle pass is
• 1:23:40
  10 bucks. People are like, oh, it's $10.
• 1:23:42
  That's basically free, right, Right.
• 1:23:44
  That's that's the thinking. We already sold that from that
• 1:23:48
  that one studio that was like, yeah, peak.
• 1:23:50
  They're like, yeah, $7.00 is. Basically $5.
• 1:23:53
  Eight dollars is $5 basically. 10.
• 1:23:55
  Dollars. Yeah, honestly, they, they were
• 1:23:58
  so fucking spot on. They were never heard a truer
• 1:24:00
  comment in my fucking life. It was beautiful.
• 1:24:03
  It was perfect. Same, same thing applies to
• 1:24:05
  this, right, $10 they're like, ah, that's basically $5.
• 1:24:09
  That's, that's fine. That's that's a fucking coffee
• 1:24:11
  from Starbucks or whatever it may be like, yeah, sure.
• 1:24:15
  So they buy the battle pass. Now they bounce out, they go
• 1:24:19
  play something different. They don't finish the battle
• 1:24:21
  pass. They and but then they're like,
• 1:24:22
  oh shit, a new battle pass is coming out.
• 1:24:24
  I'll buy that battle pass. That's $20 you got them for 20
• 1:24:28
  bucks now and it's like, oh, well, I released a cool skin and
• 1:24:31
  it's like, oh, that, that is pretty cool.
• 1:24:33
  Here's another $20. That's This is why they don't do
• 1:24:37
  the premium right, because backpasses have proven to make
• 1:24:40
  it make more money, but also the, the, the, the formula was
• 1:24:46
  essentially not originated, but perfected by something like
• 1:24:51
  Fortnite. Fortnite does this, this very,
• 1:24:56
  very clever and very, very predatory thing where they go in
• 1:24:59
  and they go, listen, you can earn almost enough to buy
• 1:25:03
  another battle pass. So you go in here, you play
• 1:25:06
  through the battle pass for free or you purchase it and you get
• 1:25:10
  almost enough currency to buy the next one.
• 1:25:12
  But now you have to buy a little bit of currency and now you have
• 1:25:14
  a little bit leftover. What do you do?
• 1:25:15
  Come on, you're like, hey, there's this really cool skin or
• 1:25:19
  this really cool dance or whatever it may be in the shop
• 1:25:22
  right now, like. It.
• 1:25:24
  You could buy it. It's pretty cool.
• 1:25:26
  So all of these companies are looking at Fortnite, who has
• 1:25:29
  been the fucking granddaddy of all of this for for all intents
• 1:25:33
  and purposes, right? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:25:35
  Other games have done it, but gotcha games are notorious for
• 1:25:38
  it as well. But Fortnite perfected this in a
• 1:25:41
  way that is so infectious that now Battlefield looks at it and
• 1:25:45
  it's like, oh, well, we're going to do battle passes.
• 1:25:47
  Overwatch looked at it and was like, hey, fuck our loot box
• 1:25:50
  system because we're also getting banned from doing that
• 1:25:53
  in the EU anyway, we're going to go to a battle pass system.
• 1:25:56
  So they do the battle pass system.
• 1:25:58
  Marvel Rivals does a battle pass system.
• 1:26:00
  So clearly people are making fucking money off of this battle
• 1:26:04
  pass system. They don't want to miss out this
• 1:26:06
  this time limited thing that locks you into be that FOMO of
• 1:26:12
  like, yeah, you don't want to miss out on on whatever this may
• 1:26:14
  be like, oh shit, if I don't get the skin right now, I'll never
• 1:26:17
  be able to get it again. And even then, some of them have
• 1:26:23
  been kind of smart. And Marvel Rivals is the one
• 1:26:25
  that's sketchy about this. And and it's clever how they did
• 1:26:28
  this again. So you look at something like,
• 1:26:32
  I'm trying to think of what the first one was that did this that
• 1:26:35
  I was actually very impressed with.
• 1:26:36
  So essentially, you buy the battle pass and you own it
• 1:26:39
  forever and you come back. Yeah, I think Halo Infinite hell
• 1:26:41
  divers too. Or or Yeah.
• 1:26:43
  It was Halo Infinite. It was Halo Infinite that
• 1:26:45
  started that. Yep.
• 1:26:47
  So Halo Infinite did this thing where you can buy the battle
• 1:26:50
  pass and you own it forever. You can always come back and
• 1:26:53
  earn the things in that pass. If if you earn a certain amount
• 1:26:55
  of credits and you don't like things in the current past going
• 1:26:58
  on, that's fine. You can go back and finish the
• 1:27:00
  pass that you had. So then what did I say the
• 1:27:06
  second one was that did that? Hell, divers.
• 1:27:08
  Just. Hell Divers.
• 1:27:10
  Hell divers did the same thing. Very cool the way Hell Divers
• 1:27:14
  does it. I actually really, really like
• 1:27:16
  it there. I think it works exceptionally
• 1:27:18
  well. The battle passes are actually
• 1:27:20
  available to purchase even after the event has ended and then you
• 1:27:24
  can go back in and buy them, which is cool.
• 1:27:27
  Now you get to something like a Marvel Rivals where they have
• 1:27:31
  implemented the same thing but you only it is a struggle to get
• 1:27:36
  extra currency to finish those previous battle passes.
• 1:27:39
  So now you have purchased that battle pass, you can technically
• 1:27:42
  finish it at any time, but you will almost permanently be
• 1:27:46
  locked behind a certain wall of being able to earn enough
• 1:27:51
  currency to finish said battle passes.
• 1:27:53
  If you left one that was not finished enough, it could take
• 1:27:57
  you Four Seasons to actually finish.
• 1:27:59
  Finish it before you finish that season plus the season prior
• 1:28:02
  that you missed. Yeah.
• 1:28:06
  So all of these are very clever in how they are designed.
• 1:28:11
  They are designed. I don't know if anybody else has
• 1:28:13
  watched Mythic Quest. They are designed by a Brad.
• 1:28:18
  I have not but I, I I will have to watch it now and.
• 1:28:21
  Remember, I'm not watching Mythic Quest, but I know what
• 1:28:24
  you're talking about. Brad is the guy who says how can
• 1:28:27
  we milk this player base for everything?
• 1:28:30
  They are OK. I know they are the ones that
• 1:28:32
  would look at a battlefield premium and go ha I bet we can
• 1:28:37
  do this instead. But in the instance of a
• 1:28:40
  battlefield, they probably had a bunch of people buy the game.
• 1:28:44
  They had a bunch of people buy in in significantly less people
• 1:28:48
  buy the first season pass and they did not acknowledge that
• 1:28:52
  this game was a flop until the 2nd battle pass.
• 1:28:56
  The second time that they tried to release a a battle pass and
• 1:29:00
  get people to purchase it was the first time that they
• 1:29:03
  acknowledged this game was a flop because if they would have
• 1:29:06
  would have released premium and people would have bought
• 1:29:09
  premium, they would have made more money than what they made
• 1:29:12
  doing the battle pass system. And that's why it's a flop.
• 1:29:16
  Not to go on a long winded thing, but that that is the
• 1:29:20
  thinking that I have always had about how these live service
• 1:29:24
  games function for sure. So that being said, I'll give my
• 1:29:27
  quick thoughts here so we can wrap this up.
• 1:29:30
  I think battle passes are I, I know I I fucking.
• 1:29:34
  Went on a. So I don't hate them inherently.
• 1:29:39
  I think some battle passes are OK.
• 1:29:41
  I think some of them are bad. I think the way Hell Divers does
• 1:29:44
  it is great. I think the way Marvel Rivals
• 1:29:47
  does it is mostly OK. But with that, what I kind of
• 1:29:53
  talked about earlier there live service games I think as a whole
• 1:29:57
  are a very, very hard thing to pull off in 2026.
• 1:30:02
  I think that the idea of releasing a game well outside of
• 1:30:07
  the budget of what you think you would make from original sales
• 1:30:12
  is very hard. Somebody they made Battlefield
• 1:30:15
  6. Clearly it needed to make more
• 1:30:17
  money than what they sold, even though it's sold exceptionally
• 1:30:20
  well. Yes.
• 1:30:22
  Yeah. And so they needed the live
• 1:30:24
  service function of it to recoup those costs and it did not or it
• 1:30:28
  did not make enough to justify what they put into it.
• 1:30:31
  So that is something that a $70 fucking game with a live service
• 1:30:37
  function as well as skins and everything else that are
• 1:30:39
  available for purchase was not able to complete.
• 1:30:42
  So they clearly spent way too much money on the development of
• 1:30:45
  this game, which is bad. It's it's just bad.
• 1:30:52
  The way gotcha games go about it is fucking rough.
• 1:30:55
  It's brutal. There's some games that do it a
• 1:30:57
  little bit better and make it a little bit more generous so you
• 1:31:00
  can actually get what you want out of something or or at least
• 1:31:03
  get enough to keep you sustained and playing the game.
• 1:31:07
  You look at something like Overwatch.
• 1:31:10
  Overwatch has been doing pretty good.
• 1:31:12
  It got a little bit of a revival and that's cool.
• 1:31:16
  I look at something like Marathon.
• 1:31:21
  Marathon is one that concerns me.
• 1:31:23
  I know they say they're in it for the long haul, but it does
• 1:31:25
  not have the player base to sustain said long haul.
• 1:31:29
  And I have been a fan of bungee games for a while now and I
• 1:31:33
  understand how that all plays out and I am very scared for the
• 1:31:37
  future of that game. I wish that was not the case.
• 1:31:41
  I wish it would have came out more like a Destiny and I think
• 1:31:43
  it would have captured a lot more attention.
• 1:31:45
  The player base that it currently has is not bad, but
• 1:31:48
  you look at something like Ark and what's crazy to me about Ark
• 1:31:52
  is Ark has actually captured the attention of the casual player
• 1:31:57
  base. People I work with are not the
• 1:31:59
  people who would typically be playing something like Escape
• 1:32:03
  from Tarkov. They are not.
• 1:32:06
  They have never even heard of marathon, I can guarantee you,
• 1:32:10
  but. They're playing Ark.
• 1:32:11
  But they play Ark, that's cool. Play Ark.
• 1:32:13
  Marathon's geared towards the Daisy escape from Tarkov because
• 1:32:17
  it. Marathon.
• 1:32:18
  Is what promotes it promotes you being.
• 1:32:23
  Hardcore it it it promotes you well The thing is too is that
• 1:32:26
  marathon does not require you to be hardcore in the way that
• 1:32:29
  Daisy or Tarkov does right You're not hardcore is can mean
• 1:32:33
  different things to different people hardcore to me you're.
• 1:32:35
  Supposed to kill everybody you see.
• 1:32:37
  Hardcore to me, though, would often mean like when you say
• 1:32:39
  hardcore extraction shooter, I think of so I think of Oh, I got
• 1:32:43
  to. Eat.
• 1:32:43
  I got to. Drink, I got to have medicine.
• 1:32:45
  I got to have different medicine for different problems.
• 1:32:47
  But marathon is not Marathon is not hardcore, but it is combat
• 1:32:53
  focused. You are meant to get in fights
• 1:32:55
  with people you are not. Arc is not the same.
• 1:32:58
  Arc is more of like, hey, I'm a random, you're a random.
• 1:33:02
  Why don't we fight this group to this group of arcs together and
• 1:33:05
  we can we can split the loot. It's more, as Bertie said, like
• 1:33:09
  casual, friendly in that it's not necessarily as aggressive.
• 1:33:15
  Which I think a lot of is more the player base than the actual
• 1:33:18
  game design. 100% I I agree with you.
• 1:33:20
  I think I've said that from the very beginning.
• 1:33:22
  I think 100% the reason that arc is player friendly is because
• 1:33:26
  the player base itself is player friendly.
• 1:33:29
  Because they totally would have pivoted to PvP if people were
• 1:33:34
  fighting each other, but they're not.
• 1:33:35
  People like ARC because it's not like that.
• 1:33:38
  And they announced that they actually would put you in groups
• 1:33:42
  or in games with you. Would get matched.
• 1:33:45
  And so now people I, I, I have, again, the people I work with
• 1:33:50
  are what I would consider normies.
• 1:33:52
  Let's be entirely honest. They are the group that would be
• 1:33:54
  playing Call of Duty every year or whatever it may be.
• 1:33:57
  Don't right whatever the whatever the normie games.
• 1:33:59
  Yeah. But whatever I play.
• 1:34:00
  Some normie games but I also play some awful fucking wall
• 1:34:03
  shit. Like first, if I brought up
• 1:34:05
  Mugenics to any of the people that I work, they'd go be like,
• 1:34:09
  what are you fucking talking about?
• 1:34:11
  They say what so this is. Yeah, this is the normie player
• 1:34:14
  base that is well aware of the fact that you get match made
• 1:34:18
  with people based on your play style.
• 1:34:21
  Whether that's true or not, I sure.
• 1:34:24
  But these people, I have heard them talking about it and being
• 1:34:27
  like, man, I didn't want to kill this person because I was scared
• 1:34:31
  that I'd start getting matched up with people that killed other
• 1:34:33
  people. And I don't want that.
• 1:34:35
  I I'm not, I'm not trying to be that.
• 1:34:37
  And then meanwhile, I have other people that I work with that are
• 1:34:40
  like, yeah, man, I tried to be collaborative with these people.
• 1:34:42
  And then I shot them in the back of the head and I was like,
• 1:34:44
  you're. A piece of shit, You're a piece
• 1:34:46
  of shit. Second off, but that that's the
• 1:34:50
  kind of interaction that has happened here, right?
• 1:34:52
  Like I have not heard somebody talk about Call of Duty at work
• 1:34:56
  in a very long time, but I have heard everyone talk about arc.
• 1:35:00
  Everyone talks about arc. People who don't play games
• 1:35:05
  really talk about Arc. I don't talk about Ark because
• 1:35:08
  I'm like, Nah, that's not for me.
• 1:35:10
  But meanwhile my, my buddies that I work with that are like,
• 1:35:14
  yeah, I, I play Call of Duty and Madden every year or like, yeah,
• 1:35:17
  I bought ARK and it's really, it's the best fucking game.
• 1:35:20
  You should play it dog and this and that.
• 1:35:22
  Like, yeah, OK. But it's, it's it's fascinating,
• 1:35:26
  right, how they managed to capture that.
• 1:35:28
  But Marathon is managing to capture you guys.
• 1:35:33
  Yeah, yeah. It is.
• 1:35:35
  I don't know. It's crazy, but the player base
• 1:35:38
  that navigated to it and whether Art got that because they beat
• 1:35:42
  Bungie to the punch, I don't know.
• 1:35:45
  Yeah, Bungie had delay. Bungie wasn't ready.
• 1:35:48
  Marathon was there. Here's some.
• 1:35:50
  Ark was there. Here's some food for thought
• 1:35:51
  before we we end this year real quick.
• 1:35:53
  I want y'all. I want y'all to think about
• 1:35:55
  because we're going to do a follow up live service episode,
• 1:35:57
  I'm sure, this year, later this year, yeah.
• 1:36:00
  How do we think GTA Online is going to handle the transition
• 1:36:04
  to GTA 6 and how do you add? How do we think?
• 1:36:07
  How to just find out? Yeah, they're prepping the
• 1:36:09
  servers right now. Yeah, it'll be fun, Yeah.
• 1:36:11
  OK, I I don't even worry about it in any way, shape or form.
• 1:36:16
  It it they. Have another year until it
• 1:36:17
  releases anyways. It could be rocky as fuck and
• 1:36:21
  people won't care that we saw that with GTA5.
• 1:36:25
  It's not as much about people, but like there's that's a huge
• 1:36:27
  revenue stream they have and they want to make sure it's
• 1:36:30
  perfect, right, like. It's not going to happen until
• 1:36:33
  mid 2027. I wouldn't doubt that the delay,
• 1:36:35
  I think it's solely for online. Yeah, I do.
• 1:36:39
  I think it's going. To take well, I, I believe the
• 1:36:40
  delay was solely for online, but I don't know.
• 1:36:43
  Because here's the thing, they've developed a lot of this,
• 1:36:45
  they've developed a lot of this as a single player thing.
• 1:36:48
  So that's what I'm saying is, but that's The thing is what are
• 1:36:51
  you doing? Do you not shut down GTA Online
• 1:36:54
  until next summer then at that point?
• 1:36:56
  They're going to transition it. Yeah, I know.
• 1:36:58
  No they I I guarantee they will keep GTA5 online for a while.
• 1:37:04
  That's what I'm like. As long as they got probably a
• 1:37:06
  year and a half to two years before they actually sunset it.
• 1:37:08
  Because there's going to be people who don't pick up GTA6
• 1:37:11
  initially. Not very many, because obviously
• 1:37:13
  this is going to be like the highest selling game of fucking.
• 1:37:16
  Ever. But I guarantee they will keep
• 1:37:21
  that service alive for a while, especially until they get enough
• 1:37:25
  content into online. I bet the delays have been
• 1:37:28
  solely for online to make sure everything was functioning
• 1:37:31
  properly and to make sure they can make money.
• 1:37:34
  But I also agree with Nick, they will delay the the online
• 1:37:39
  function of GTA 6 because they want people to actually play
• 1:37:43
  through the single story. I agree with that too.
• 1:37:46
  Yeah, they did that with RTO Two.
• 1:37:48
  Yeah, they did the same, but it won't be.
• 1:37:49
  Very long. It'll probably be a month.
• 1:37:52
  RTR 2. RTR 2.
• 1:37:53
  I think a year. I don't think it'll be a year.
• 1:37:56
  GTA5 Online was like GTA5 Online was like a month.
• 1:38:00
  I I would, I would and it didn't.
• 1:38:02
  Work, but it was it. It was pretty fucking broken.
• 1:38:05
  Was it a month after? RDR 2 was a month.
• 1:38:09
  GTA5 was probably probably. GTA5 was I think actually
• 1:38:15
  probably. Thought it was a year later.
• 1:38:16
  No, no, no, a year is way. Oh, I'm thinking about PC.
• 1:38:19
  I'm thinking about PC. That's my bad, they're on PC
• 1:38:23
  ports. At the end of the day, yeah.
• 1:38:24
  I think it's online. I think it's gonna be, I think
• 1:38:27
  it's gonna be very interesting how Rockstar handles this whole
• 1:38:29
  thing. Holy shit G sorry just a before
• 1:38:33
  you go off here, GTA5 Online was released two weeks after the
• 1:38:37
  initial real on state. That's crazy.
• 1:38:39
  Initial initial. Guys, let it let let the single
• 1:38:42
  player simmer. That's like, I want them to let
• 1:38:45
  the single player simmer and I'm curious, yeah, to see how they
• 1:38:48
  they handle the whole transition because you want.
• 1:38:51
  To know something funny. What?
• 1:38:54
  Never played GTA Online. You don't play video games.
• 1:38:57
  You, I don't know how you run this show.
• 1:39:00
  You don't. You don't, no, you don't.
• 1:39:03
  You play video games from like before You and I were both born,
• 1:39:06
  which is like the 1800s because you're like.
• 1:39:08
  You guys better get your points across because we got video
• 1:39:10
  games to. Play.
• 1:39:11
  I'm done. I, I, I have nothing else to
• 1:39:13
  say. I'm I'm happy.
• 1:39:14
  Thank you for having me on. I appreciate you all.
• 1:39:17
  I think live service is a nightmare and it's.
• 1:39:19
  Going to not my show, it's going.
• 1:39:20
  To it's going to, to some extent plop belly up.
• 1:39:25
  Not entirely, but it's it's, it's going to change.
• 1:39:30
  There's no way that this is sustainable.
• 1:39:32
  There's too many games coming out at any time taking
• 1:39:34
  everybody's attention, and there's no way that a live
• 1:39:36
  service game can function this way other than your big heavy
• 1:39:40
  hitters like Overwatch and Marvel Rivals, which every
• 1:39:42
  developer hopes that they have, but they just don't.
• 1:39:45
  They just don't. I'm sorry.
• 1:39:46
  And then studios get shut down. Thank you all.
• 1:39:49
  Here we are. Nightmare.
• 1:39:51
  Good nightmare, give me Titanfall Three God damn it.
• 1:39:55
  Thank you give me. Half Life 3.
• 1:39:56
  Thank you. Fuck off I.
• 1:40:00
  Had to do it all right, all this episode released Saturday
• 1:40:04
  because I didn't expect us to go almost two hours.
• 1:40:06
  I'm not editing a one hour 40 minute thing tonight.
• 1:40:11
  I'm sorry. I'm sorry, not really.
• 1:40:13
  I loved every minute of this. We have fun on WAC.
• 1:40:15
  Mii went on a very long ramble and I.
• 1:40:18
  I like listening. I like listening to you.
• 1:40:20
  I just have a lot to say I like listening to.
• 1:40:22
  The song good, it's fun. Good Brody's also been on hiatus
• 1:40:25
  from the show for a couple of weeks.
• 1:40:27
  To I have not been on the show for a while, I.
• 1:40:29
  Had a lot to say, that's true. So with that being said,
• 1:40:32
  everybody, this will be releasing Saturday for your
• 1:40:34
  Saturday morning nice Saturday morning episode.
• 1:40:39
  We will see you guys on Saturday from there on out.
• 1:40:42
  We got a lot of shit coming out from Screen Box and WSD Beyond
• 1:40:46
  and Roll for Deceptions coming back very soon.
• 1:40:48
  Great for all that stuff. I'm hoping next week.
• 1:40:52
  I'm sick very good check out the sponsors final boss obviously in
• 1:40:57
  doc Longy. Check out again screen box.
• 1:41:00
  It came from screen box and roll for deception.
• 1:41:02
  Follow like, subscribe, YouTube, Twitter everywhere you can find
• 1:41:06
  us all links down below till next week guys take it easy, be
• 1:41:08
  safe, say something. Bye.
• 1:41:14
  Bye, goodnight.