Latest / Respec: Video Game Ramblings / In-game advertising, generative AI in game dev, and is Shrek 2 the best film of all time? | Respec Ramblings 3

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In-game advertising, generative AI in game dev, and is Shrek 2 the best film of all time? | Respec Ramblings 3 · Respec: Video Game Ramblings

• 0:03
  It may not be coming home, but at least you can
• 0:06
  welcome us into your home with this week's edition
• 0:09
  of the Respect Ramblings podcast. With me, Alex
• 0:13
  Donaldson. With Tom Ory, who has left little
• 0:15
  to grace us with his presence here. And Dave
• 0:19
  Brooms and Rebecca Jones. We've got a four pack
• 0:23
  this week. Hello. How are you all doing? You
• 0:26
  all right? Yeah. I'd rather be in little, if
• 0:30
  I'm honest. At least it's not as warm as it has
• 0:34
  been now. So that's good. To see myself on camera.
• 0:40
  You can't believe you've got a hoodie on. I can't
• 0:42
  believe it. Yeah. It's crazy. That's a bit extreme.
• 0:46
  I've still got the air conditioner on. That's
• 0:47
  on brand, isn't it? Is that one piece? It is
• 0:49
  one piece. It is on brand, yeah. It's like, I
• 0:52
  can't get away from it, honestly. I've ruined
• 0:54
  my own life with it. No. Is it the thing everyone
• 0:58
  associates you with? Yeah. How do you feel about
• 1:02
  the Netflix one? It's all right. I think it's
• 1:07
  okay. That's what they used for the quote on
• 1:10
  the poster, didn't they? I'm pretty sure they
• 1:12
  said that. It's all right. People were like,
• 1:14
  oh my God, it must be decent. For the record,
• 1:19
  for like three years, I was making jokes about
• 1:21
  how it's going to ruin my life because everyone's
• 1:23
  going to be like, is this the shit you like,
• 1:25
  Dave? And I'm going to be like, oh, yes, it is.
• 1:28
  Fuck. But no, it was actually decent. So when
• 1:31
  they say, is this just shit you like Dave? I'm
• 1:33
  like, yeah, it is. Because it's obviously led
• 1:37
  to the Lego. Have you bought any of the Lego?
• 1:39
  No, no. I feel like it's because it's Netflix
• 1:43
  Lego and Netflix is just all right. The live
• 1:46
  action stuff. I love a good Lego pirate ship
• 1:49
  though. So there's some nice, that's a good synergy
• 1:52
  there. Lego pirate ships are the classic. I'm
• 1:55
  glad it's good. As someone who, because I was
• 1:59
  the guy who was like, give Cowboy Bebop a second
• 2:03
  season. Because I was like, I felt like if they'd
• 2:06
  given that a second set of episodes, it might
• 2:09
  have significantly improved. I didn't think it
• 2:11
  was total shite. I thought it was okay. But I
• 2:15
  think One Piece is undoubtedly better. But I
• 2:19
  wish Cowboy had gone for another season just
• 2:21
  to sort of see what they did. And that poor girl
• 2:26
  who got cast and then was in the Stinger at the
• 2:29
  end of the last episode and then never got to
• 2:30
  be in the show properly. Young actor as well.
• 2:35
  Netflix has done a lot of people dirty in a variety
• 2:38
  of ways. Well, we will see what happens with
• 2:42
  this Persona TV series. Oh my God, I forgot about
• 2:44
  that. Maybe we'll talk about that in a bit because
• 2:46
  we have got a bit of Persona to talk about today.
• 2:50
  How about you, Tom? What's your week been like?
• 2:53
  Not watching anime, whatever it is. Burn. Yeah,
• 3:00
  just mostly just doing like school runs and working
• 3:05
  in it. That's my life. Get ready for school.
• 3:08
  Go to school. Come back. Work. Get the kids from
• 3:11
  school. Cook dinner. Collapse. You won't be having
• 3:17
  to take anyone to school soon though, but then
• 3:18
  you'll be having to complain about the amount
• 3:20
  of noise. It's even worse. I'd much rather have
• 3:23
  the pain of the school run than have them here
• 3:25
  for six weeks. I love my children. You love them
• 3:30
  when they're not in the house. I just love them
• 3:33
  when they're sitting still watching TV. Actually,
• 3:37
  watching an iPad is better because then I can
• 3:39
  use the TV. Complete silence watching something.
• 3:43
  How long does that last for, on average? Two
• 3:45
  minutes. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, someone
• 3:52
  who doesn't have to worry about that, Rebecca,
• 3:53
  how are you doing? How's your week been? Yeah,
• 3:55
  good. No, I've been to the cinema three times
• 3:58
  this week just to take advantage of the air conditioning,
• 4:00
  as I was saying just before we started recording,
• 4:01
  so that's been nice. What did you see? I watched
• 4:05
  Evil Dead Burn. And then Obsession. And then
• 4:07
  I liked Evil Dead Burns so much I went to see
• 4:09
  that again because it was just really hot. And
• 4:10
  I missed the second post -credits scene the first
• 4:12
  time. It was very hot as in the film is hot or
• 4:15
  it was a hot day. It was a hot day and the film
• 4:17
  is about fire. So like in a way, psychologically,
• 4:20
  it maybe doesn't improve your sensation of it
• 4:23
  being really too warm. I didn't love The Last
• 4:25
  Evil Dead. I know everyone else loved it. I liked
• 4:28
  Rise. It's the one in the apartment, right? Yeah,
• 4:30
  Evil Dead Rise was the last one. I didn't love
• 4:31
  it. I didn't love the last one, but this one
• 4:34
  is this. I thought it was all right, but I really
• 4:35
  like this one. I think it's getting mixed reviews,
• 4:38
  but I personally thought it was very, very good.
• 4:41
  Maybe top three Evil Dead films of all time.
• 4:44
  Nothing's going to beat to An Army of Darkness,
• 4:46
  but could potentially, I think, beat the rest.
• 4:51
  So yeah, I recommend it. The only one Arm gets
• 4:52
  sliced off hideously. Does that happen? That
• 4:56
  sort of. Yeah, good. Yeah, there's definitely
• 4:58
  a lot of that sort of thing. Yeah. I've been
• 5:01
  meaning to watch that. I'm very bad at remembering
• 5:06
  who makes stuff, right? I'm very bad across everything.
• 5:09
  Apart from directors, certain directors I know,
• 5:11
  the games, I couldn't tell you who worked on
• 5:13
  any game. I know it's terrible. I just don't.
• 5:15
  It never goes into my head. So when people are
• 5:17
  like, oh, the such and such is making this, I'm
• 5:19
  like, it means nothing to me. The guy, one of
• 5:23
  the people that made one of the Evil Deads made
• 5:24
  that new Mummy film, right? And he's got his
• 5:27
  name on it. And I'm like, why have they put this
• 5:29
  random guy's name on this poster? The new new
• 5:32
  one. Oh, I thought for a second you were talking
• 5:34
  about the terrible Tom Cruise one. Oh, no. But
• 5:37
  I've been meaning to watch that because I watch
• 5:38
  terrible films all the time now because it's
• 5:42
  just what I do. But then it looks slightly too
• 5:46
  hideous even for me to watch. I don't know. I
• 5:49
  haven't seen it yet. If I do, I'll let you know.
• 5:53
  Your cinema adventure to get out of the heat
• 5:56
  was very different to mine because I went to
• 5:58
  see Toy Story and Moana. Oh, how were they? Moana
• 6:05
  shouldn't exist. And I love the first film and
• 6:09
  I even thought the second was okay. But I just
• 6:12
  don't know what. Well, we all know why this live
• 6:14
  action remake exists. It's to feed the declining
• 6:17
  ego of The Rock. but it's just it's got no ideas
• 6:24
  like i will actually be one of those people i'll
• 6:26
  defend like live action um live action like cinderella
• 6:31
  and and things like that because cinderella's
• 6:33
  good they at least have ideas was good i maintain
• 6:37
  beauty the beast too and um and aladdin as well
• 6:41
  like you know Say what you will, there's no replacing
• 6:43
  Robin Williams, but Will Smith comes in and does
• 6:47
  a Will Smith version of that character, which
• 6:49
  is fine. Whereas what you've got here is just
• 6:51
  this weird irony of they designed this amazing
• 6:55
  character and they based him on Dwayne Johnson's
• 7:00
  wrestling persona. and then they managed to get
• 7:03
  him to do the voice and they were thrilled about
• 7:05
  it and then he's done it in live action and it's
• 7:08
  like he can't harness that energy anymore oh
• 7:10
  no is it a bit of an elvis comes third in elvis
• 7:12
  impersonator contest type of situation yeah yeah
• 7:15
  yeah sort of um like he's obviously you know
• 7:18
  he's not that big anymore so he's wearing the
• 7:20
  he's wearing the suit and the suit looks sort
• 7:22
  of crap the hair looks terrible he's wearing
• 7:24
  a suit he's wearing like just CGI didn't completely
• 7:28
  to be huge then. I don't get it. Because one
• 7:30
  of the things I find odd is that in the cartoon
• 7:33
  version and CGI version, he's a big wide guy,
• 7:38
  right? He's massive. And then I thought that's
• 7:40
  why he didn't look as big because it was just
• 7:41
  The Rock. But if it's not actually even him,
• 7:44
  the footie, then what's the... I don't get it.
• 7:47
  I don't get why they CGI the live action remake
• 7:49
  so much. I should have got Greens in and put
• 7:50
  Rock's fat head on him. Look, he's probably bigger
• 7:52
  than The Rock. Is that true? He's being quiet,
• 7:59
  but he's just very modest. He won't admit to
• 8:01
  it. I mean, I might take the hoodie off in a
• 8:04
  minute. All right. That's for the after hours
• 8:07
  one, surely. Yeah, it depends how much I like
• 8:09
  it. You've got to pay money for that. And yeah,
• 8:12
  Toy Story 5, fine. Bitline 4, it is like they
• 8:18
  finished that story with the third one. However...
• 8:24
  There's a couple of moments in it where I felt
• 8:26
  a little twinge of emotion about kids today growing
• 8:31
  up with tablets and being absolutely horrendous
• 8:35
  to each other online. So it touches on all that
• 8:37
  stuff. But yeah, neither exactly lit my head
• 8:41
  on fire. I'm going to go and see The Odyssey
• 8:44
  at some point. I was trying to get IMAX 70 mil
• 8:47
  tickets and they're like sold out in the UK for
• 8:50
  like a solid month. which is insane really um
• 8:54
  so it might just have to be digital imax which
• 8:57
  sucks but there you go better than a normal screen
• 9:00
  anyway um right video games how about them video
• 9:04
  games um we've got a few new stories to talk
• 9:08
  about this week um so i guess let's just jump
• 9:12
  right into it um so i feel like Every week we've
• 9:18
  done this podcast, we've started off with a story
• 9:19
  that's vaguely a bummer, but here we go. There's
• 9:22
  been an interesting story about the Japan Online
• 9:24
  Game Association, which ran a survey of developers.
• 9:28
  And it came back and said 100 % of Japanese devs
• 9:32
  that were surveyed are using generative AI tools.
• 9:36
  Now, to be clear, this survey covers online -based
• 9:39
  games of all types. So that's PC, console, mobile,
• 9:43
  web browser, everything. And obviously it only
• 9:45
  consists of... these japanese -based devs and
• 9:49
  the ones that they actually chose to survey but
• 9:51
  it's a pretty big cross -section um and it's
• 9:56
  nevertheless huge numbers literally as i say
• 9:58
  100 said they were using it 94 said they were
• 10:02
  using google's gemini 70 84 sorry said they were
• 10:06
  using claude and 76 said they were using microsoft's
• 10:10
  co -pilot um so yeah it's for all the fight it
• 10:16
  does feel a bit like with uh the disc thing there's
• 10:20
  a foregone conclusion emerging don't you guys
• 10:23
  will be ripped apart by saying that we can't
• 10:26
  accept it um and like i i'm kind of like because
• 10:31
  my son is secondary school age right and he's
• 10:35
  like uh his ipad which is school they all have
• 10:39
  ipads at school um and they they've got all the
• 10:43
  ai tools on it right And they kind of like don't
• 10:47
  discourage it. And I'm like, and you can see
• 10:51
  it because he shared, he showed me some of the
• 10:52
  stuff that some other kids did and they've done
• 10:54
  reports, right? And it's so obviously like they
• 10:57
  put in, write a 400 word article on Joan of Arc
• 11:01
  or whatever, right? And it's so obvious to me
• 11:03
  that that's what they're doing. And that for
• 11:06
  my main issue with AI is that it's so like. Even
• 11:11
  if you take out the kind of what is art and are
• 11:13
  you even making art if you're just telling us
• 11:15
  that you're clearly not. But it's so limiting
• 11:18
  to development that I don't get how you could
• 11:23
  look at it and go, yes, this is good for the
• 11:24
  future. Because I'm getting my son, and it's
• 11:27
  going to sound like I'm a horrendous parent,
• 11:29
  but I'm getting him to write some reviews over
• 11:31
  the summer. Not to publish, but I want him to
• 11:34
  do something where actually he thinks about what
• 11:36
  he's doing. Because he tells me, I say I'm working
• 11:39
  on this. He's like. I could do that better. All
• 11:41
  right, then fine. You can try and write, like
• 11:44
  he's never written more than like a couple hundred
• 11:45
  words in his life, like a thousand words. It'd
• 11:47
  be like almost impossible. But I'm going to get
• 11:50
  him to write some actual reviews without using
• 11:52
  AI to show him that actually this isn't that
• 11:55
  easy. And also that he tries to do some actual
• 11:58
  thinking about stuff. Because I think that's
• 12:00
  the main issue I have with a lot of the ISO is
• 12:02
  that you just give something else your ability
• 12:04
  to think about anything, right? I mean, the fact
• 12:08
  that it's... 100 % of DES in this survey. I mean,
• 12:10
  I'd be interested to see if it's that different
• 12:13
  if they surveyed a lot of big American DES, right?
• 12:16
  It probably isn't, really, if you think about
• 12:18
  what they're actually using. I think it would
• 12:21
  be a bit. It depends which studios, right? Because
• 12:24
  if it's like, if they're opting, if they see
• 12:26
  it as it's like they shouldn't be using it and
• 12:31
  they want to make it clear they're not, then
• 12:33
  you get more uptake of people answering to say,
• 12:35
  no, we're not doing it. But it's this thing like,
• 12:38
  how would it change i don't know like is it ever
• 12:40
  going to be less than this because unless it
• 12:43
  actually affects sales i guess and most people
• 12:47
  don't have a clue that this is happening like
• 12:49
  we do because we're like in the bubble of everything
• 12:52
  going on but outside of it like the you say the
• 12:56
  average joe who doesn't walk into a shop and
• 12:58
  it doesn't exist but buys the game without thinking
• 13:00
  about it they just know it's the next call of
• 13:03
  duty they don't know it's been got AI posters
• 13:06
  in it, do they? They have no clue. No, I mean,
• 13:10
  I will say I think it's, there's a difference,
• 13:13
  there's a cultural difference emerging where
• 13:17
  in Japan it just isn't a hot topic issue like
• 13:22
  it is here. They are generally speaking just
• 13:25
  like, it's a tool. And also I think the interesting
• 13:30
  thing here is when you look at the tools that
• 13:32
  are being used, It's like 76 % saying they use
• 13:36
  Copilot. I have to imagine a lot of that is,
• 13:38
  is theoretical bullshit. You know, that's built
• 13:41
  into Word. That's built into Outlook. You know,
• 13:44
  a lot built into Teams. I mean, God, being completely
• 13:47
  honest, like I would never use AI for anything
• 13:50
  creative. You will never read a single shred
• 13:54
  of AI generated text on this website or see an
• 13:57
  AI generated image. However, I had to send an
• 14:00
  invoice yesterday and I opened Word. And when
• 14:03
  I opened Word, it came up with the Copilot sidebar,
• 14:06
  and I'd never done it before, but I was like,
• 14:07
  I wonder if this will work. And so on a blank
• 14:10
  document, I just typed into the Copilot thing,
• 14:12
  can you generate me an invoice? The invoice is
• 14:14
  to this company. It's for this amount. The services
• 14:18
  rendered was this, and my bank account details
• 14:20
  are this. And I pressed go, and then I tabbed
• 14:22
  off to do something else. And when I tabbed back,
• 14:25
  there was just a completed invoice. And I was
• 14:27
  like, okay. I sort of, you know, so I sort of
• 14:31
  see the... We're done. We're done. I'm leaving
• 14:34
  this podcast in protest. That's what I mean.
• 14:37
  Like if devs are using it for that, if devs are
• 14:40
  using it, you know, in let's say Capcom are using
• 14:43
  it and they're using it in all their email workflow
• 14:45
  and stuff like that in terms of staying across
• 14:47
  the teams, then I'm sort of like, okay, great.
• 14:51
  It's the artistry bit, right? I think that people
• 14:53
  have the big issue with. That's the main issue
• 14:55
  that I think all the AI use is like seen as terrible.
• 14:59
  And I agree is that when you've got, games being
• 15:03
  made where all the concept art is ai generated
• 15:06
  then it starts to make you think right what is
• 15:10
  this like is this actually is this what we want
• 15:12
  to be supporting paying money for etc um and
• 15:17
  when you see and it just looks shit right when
• 15:18
  you're playing a game and you get a poster on
• 15:21
  the wall when it's like clearly just been generated
• 15:23
  and has had no effort put into it whatsoever
• 15:25
  or like with cod you had all those was it the
• 15:28
  badges or the whatever it was, emblems, it just
• 15:33
  looks, particularly, I think it looks much worse
• 15:35
  when it's a massive game, right? Because you
• 15:37
  think they have money that's spent on this thing,
• 15:39
  and then you're paying for this, what is called
• 15:42
  slop, right? And I think some games, like we
• 15:46
  had Exhibition 33, got the name wrong, haven't
• 15:50
  I? Yeah, Clamskill, yeah. Clamskill, for some
• 15:53
  reason, couldn't remember it. Like, they admitted
• 15:55
  to using it, right? But I think they got away
• 15:58
  with it a bit because it was a smaller team.
• 16:02
  It was so beloved as well. Because actually,
• 16:04
  I think that's where the danger is. It's been
• 16:06
  proved on Steam that there's a correlation between
• 16:11
  if you have the AI disclosure on your game, you
• 16:15
  will sell less copies. But the people it tends
• 16:18
  to punish, if you've got an AI disclosure on
• 16:20
  Assassin's Creed, it probably doesn't make that
• 16:22
  much of a difference. Because in sheer volume,
• 16:25
  if you lose, you know, if you lose... 50 000
• 16:28
  people to drop you know drop in the drop in the
• 16:31
  ocean but if you're a smaller indie game and
• 16:34
  you lose 2 000 people you might have lost a huge
• 16:38
  chunk of the audience yeah that potentially is
• 16:40
  the audience of the smaller indie games so um
• 16:44
  yeah i i mean i'd be interested to know if this
• 16:48
  survey included japanese indie devs because i
• 16:50
  know that there has been quite a big pushback
• 16:51
  in japanese indie spaces against ai use which
• 16:54
  i think is maybe the big kind of cultural difference
• 16:58
  there is that yeah this does tally with what
• 17:00
  i've been hearing that like bigger studios is
• 17:03
  pretty much a non -issue at this point but i
• 17:05
  know like a lot of japanese indie devs and indie
• 17:08
  creators in other media as well are really pushing
• 17:11
  back against ai to the point of doing like hand
• 17:12
  -printed zines again so i mean it's just the
• 17:16
  ex -academic in me wants to have a look at the
• 17:18
  uh the methodology and detail of this of this
• 17:21
  report it would be interesting yeah i did well
• 17:23
  i looked into it but you could only buy it in
• 17:25
  paper format And it was also like nearly 50 quid
• 17:29
  by the time I had it shipped. And then it's all
• 17:31
  in Japanese, so I'd have to sit there either
• 17:33
  doing it really slowly myself or pay someone
• 17:35
  else to translate it. But yeah, it's interesting
• 17:39
  anyway. I thought it highlighted a difference
• 17:41
  in the attitude between Japan and the West, just
• 17:45
  in terms of, I think if you did this, I mean,
• 17:50
  Thomas said he didn't think it'd be that different,
• 17:51
  but I think if you did this survey on Western
• 17:53
  devs, i think a lot you'd have a lot you definitely
• 17:56
  wouldn't get 100 you might get maybe 70 and of
• 18:00
  the 30 you say they don't some of them i think
• 18:02
  would be lying it depends on whether you count
• 18:04
  administrative uses right which is as you said
• 18:07
  one of the big one of the big things that is
• 18:09
  kind of wiggle room even in how the questions
• 18:11
  asked potentially is are you using ai administratively
• 18:14
  yeah um any thoughts yeah a whole bunch um first
• 18:19
  of all I agree with exactly what Rebecca and
• 18:22
  you just said about administrative devices. If
• 18:25
  you say, here's my information, make invoice.
• 18:27
  Here's a bunch of information, assign it into
• 18:30
  a spreadsheet or a different type of document.
• 18:32
  Sure, whatever. Because the fact is, no one enjoys
• 18:35
  doing that bullshit anyway. But I remember playing
• 18:38
  Call of Duty, I don't know if it was Black Ops
• 18:40
  6 or 7, one of the more recent ones. And I remember
• 18:43
  going through those icons and emblems that we
• 18:45
  mentioned before. Like, you know, you press stage
• 18:47
  and you level up and there's like a million fucking
• 18:48
  emblems to unlock. I just scrolled all the way
• 18:51
  to the end and had a look at them. And I remember
• 18:52
  like a dog head Cerberus, like three dog heads.
• 18:55
  I don't know if they were pit bulls or whatever.
• 18:56
  And their mouth was wide open. And it's like
• 18:59
  each dog had different sets of teeth at the back
• 19:02
  or no sets of teeth. And it's like, okay, a human
• 19:05
  artist wouldn't do this. A human artist would
• 19:06
  be consistent, but AI is sort of generating it
• 19:08
  on the fly. And I was like... Part of me feels
• 19:11
  like it doesn't fucking matter because I think
• 19:14
  all of this content is shit anyway. It's like,
• 19:17
  I don't want to earn prestige 50. I just don't
• 19:20
  give a shit. Maybe that's just me. And then I
• 19:22
  look at something like Expedition 33 and we've
• 19:26
  got the beautifully rendered Lumiere, like a
• 19:28
  post -apocalyptic Paris fantasy sort of thing.
• 19:31
  And then when you get those AI posters in there,
• 19:34
  suddenly it's like, are you saying? it does it
• 19:37
  does matter because no longer is it the the shit
• 19:39
  content i don't care about this is the environment
• 19:41
  that's your setting for your game this incredible
• 19:44
  story and suddenly i do feel like that devalues
• 19:47
  the product heavily it's almost like call of
• 19:51
  duty is so full of crap anyway ai generated or
• 19:54
  otherwise it doesn't fucking matter but then
• 19:56
  when you want to make an actual piece of art
• 19:58
  something that isn't a commercial product which
• 20:01
  call of duty has been for many many years let's
• 20:02
  face it when you want to make something like
• 20:04
  expedition 33 and you want to say We made it
• 20:07
  with this, this and this. Bro, just fucking take
• 20:10
  some photographs. Just take some photographs.
• 20:12
  I remember playing Fire Emblem Warriors, the
• 20:16
  first one, and one of the levels in that game
• 20:18
  just has a stock photo of some pebbles for a
• 20:21
  ground texture. You can just see it. You're like,
• 20:24
  someone's just taken a picture of some pebbles
• 20:25
  in a river. There it is. Just fucking do that.
• 20:29
  Who gives a shit? That's so true. There's one
• 20:32
  that was driving me crazy, which was the Tomb
• 20:34
  Raider remake. news a few weeks ago about they've
• 20:37
  used generative AI for concept art in that. And
• 20:40
  I'm like, you, the IP holders of Tomb Raider,
• 20:42
  have 30 years of pictures of Lara Croft. You
• 20:45
  don't need... They have all the concept art.
• 20:49
  ...a redundant use of generative AI. It is to
• 20:52
  use AI to generate a picture of Lara Croft when
• 20:55
  you own the IP to Tomb Raider. That was just...
• 20:57
  What are we doing here? It's... Yeah, I mean,
• 21:02
  I don't know. To what... was just what you guys
• 21:05
  both just said right you would you know you could
• 21:08
  uh it's so a zero in on the point that you made
• 21:12
  brains about um you know does it matter that
• 21:17
  all that stuff sort of crap but also some of
• 21:21
  that that that crappy small background thing
• 21:23
  or thing that only a tiny percentage of the player
• 21:25
  base will see five years ago was someone's pride
• 21:29
  and joy And so it's a really good example. And
• 21:33
  someone will notice like a really good example.
• 21:35
  And it's funny, I'm going to use this as an example.
• 21:37
  And the irony is, I know, I mean, I don't know
• 21:40
  how they're using it, but I know Capcom is a
• 21:42
  company that is committed to integrating AI into
• 21:44
  its workflows. And I think the question is how
• 21:46
  they've been quite strong on saying we won't
• 21:48
  have it for us. And hopefully that stands. But
• 21:51
  in Resident Evil 9, when you're on the street
• 21:55
  in the starts bit, and I found myself just looking
• 21:59
  into the windows of the shops. And they had a
• 22:02
  sticker in one of the windows of one of the shops.
• 22:04
  And this sticker actually went viral a little
• 22:05
  bit around the game's release. It's one of those
• 22:07
  stickers you get in a restaurant window that's
• 22:09
  like, here's the banking we accept in here. And
• 22:12
  someone, you know, some artist at Capcom had
• 22:15
  gone, right, we need a legally distinct version
• 22:17
  of the Visa logo. And it was, so from a distance,
• 22:22
  you think it's the Visa logo. And so you end
• 22:24
  up with Viva and Amazing Express and Monster
• 22:28
  Card. um and all these great fake logos and you
• 22:33
  know someone spent a week on that some artists
• 22:35
  yeah and the danger is that's the sort of stuff
• 22:39
  that gets farmed out and that's where i it's
• 22:42
  going to be difficult because when i say it's
• 22:43
  sort of a foregone conclusion i think it's like
• 22:45
  when i look at that survey and it says 100 are
• 22:47
  using them i think the reaction of some people
• 22:50
  is instantly to kick up and be super angry and
• 22:52
  i think we need to have a little bit of nuance
• 22:56
  where we say It's acceptable if you're using
• 23:00
  it in your dev workflows to improve stuff. I
• 23:02
  was chatting to a guy who works in localization
• 23:03
  where he was like, no, this is really useful
• 23:06
  for us in terms of we can do a very quick machine
• 23:10
  translation. This is a smaller publisher that
• 23:12
  publishes a lot of densely texty. japanese rpgs
• 23:18
  and he was like we can use machine translation
• 23:20
  to do a quick translation and then we go in and
• 23:23
  then that allows testers to sort of go in and
• 23:25
  play the game and it works but then we obviously
• 23:28
  replace all that text with our hand translated
• 23:30
  stuff and that's a process that potentially um
• 23:33
  really shortens their dev times because they
• 23:35
  haven't got to wait for the final translation
• 23:38
  which can take six nine months before they begin
• 23:42
  doing western testing um And he was explaining,
• 23:46
  that makes perfect sense. But the key thing we
• 23:48
  need to try and get across, and I don't know
• 23:50
  how we get it across, is that if we, the end
• 23:54
  users, are looking at AI -generated stuff on
• 23:56
  screen in a final game, that shit's unacceptable.
• 23:59
  That's where I stand anyway. Yeah, no, I totally
• 24:03
  agree. To be fair, or to be clear, my point was
• 24:06
  that, like, I almost already expect slap from
• 24:11
  products. It's like when you watch an advert
• 24:13
  on TV and you see like an AI dog shit these days.
• 24:17
  What's that casino? And they've got all, they've
• 24:21
  had ads in the footballers. I don't want to advertise
• 24:22
  them. But like all their ads are 100 % AI, right?
• 24:26
  It's horrendous. You see, again, for me, that
• 24:31
  devalues a product, but it's also like, I feel
• 24:34
  like I'm just used to being given slop in front
• 24:38
  of my face for crap. And again, For video games,
• 24:41
  there's like, I joked about this on Blue Sky
• 24:43
  the other day, there's a spectrum of like art
• 24:46
  to product that each game releases on. And it's
• 24:49
  like the closer it is to product, the less of
• 24:52
  a shit I give. The closer it is to art, the more
• 24:54
  every detail matters. And it's a completely biased
• 24:58
  personal thing where the game lands on that fucking
• 25:00
  spectrum. Call of Duty's product, in case you
• 25:04
  weren't clear. But it's, yeah, I mean, I don't
• 25:08
  know. It's so everywhere in the sense that if
• 25:10
  I was to open up Facebook or Instagram and do
• 25:13
  the local feed, all the posters for the school
• 25:17
  summer fair and stuff are all bloody. All the
• 25:21
  pub World Cup posters have been AI generated,
• 25:23
  right? Apart from you get the very rare one that's
• 25:25
  drawn on a chalkboard or something, but they're
• 25:28
  so bad. I mean, I remember the Christmas ad,
• 25:31
  was it last year or the year before? That was
• 25:33
  AI generated. And it was like. I know like it's
• 25:36
  Coke and it's a product or whatever, but the
• 25:39
  Christmas ad with the truck and Father Christmas
• 25:41
  was a good advert, right? It made, it was part
• 25:44
  of, part of Christmas in a way. And then you've
• 25:46
  got this like AI generated beavers and rabbits
• 25:51
  or whatever else running around. It's like, this
• 25:53
  is just shit. This is utter shit. And I just
• 25:55
  started buying Lidl Coke from that point onwards.
• 25:59
  Lidl's probably even worse. I don't know anything
• 26:00
  about Lidl, but at least I'm not buying the product
• 26:02
  that. put out that terrible advert we gotta start
• 26:06
  getting little money for this podcast already
• 26:08
  i actually completely agree with tom and and
• 26:12
  uh again back on my little product vr rant i
• 26:15
  feel like the coke adverts were at one point
• 26:18
  a case of products financing art instead of what
• 26:23
  is now it's just all product slot yeah advertising
• 26:27
  you know is People don't think of it, but advertising
• 26:31
  has been for many years a bastion of a weird
• 26:35
  place for art. You know, in video games, the
• 26:37
  great example is those. Yeah. I thought you were
• 26:41
  going to go first light. No, well, yeah, to some
• 26:45
  degree. I mean, well, that will connect into
• 26:47
  our next topic, actually. But the, you know,
• 26:51
  the element of what I was getting at was the
• 26:56
  third place PlayStation adverts. You know, that
• 26:59
  was art, right? And would you get that now? I
• 27:01
  don't know. It feels like that's where we've
• 27:03
  got lost our way a little bit. And that's not
• 27:05
  just about AI. That's about the way we market
• 27:08
  things now. Like those third place adverts probably
• 27:11
  don't pass a focus group sniff test in 2026.
• 27:16
  That Xbox ad where he gets born and then ends
• 27:19
  up in the coffin, right? That's the best video
• 27:21
  game out of all time, I think. I think, probably.
• 27:25
  Like the mainstream TV ad. That got banned though,
• 27:28
  didn't it? Because it was considered too violent.
• 27:33
  Which is nothing violent. We're all going to
• 27:35
  die. Whoa. It's weird. Not me. I'm built different.
• 27:41
  But that's the sort of cheery stuff you can enjoy
• 27:44
  in this podcast is those sorts of reminders.
• 27:47
  Yeah. Just... Don't get me started. I used to
• 27:53
  be a goth. I'll be riffing on this for 10 minutes.
• 27:56
  Yes. Anyway, so that's the ATAR AI beat for this
• 27:59
  week. Next up, if it wasn't all cheery enough,
• 28:04
  EA's done a really interesting interview this
• 28:06
  week where their VP of Advertising and Sponsorship,
• 28:11
  a guy called Alexander Dow, did an interview
• 28:14
  with our good friend Christopher Dring on the
• 28:16
  game business, which is a business focus. So
• 28:20
  I highly recommend you check it out. But if you
• 28:21
  go in. Go in knowing it's not like this. It is
• 28:24
  for people in the industry, really. And they
• 28:28
  did an interview and Dow talked about EA's plans
• 28:32
  to sort of go big on and try to standardize in
• 28:36
  -game ads. And I thought this would be interesting
• 28:40
  for us to discuss because there's quite a lot
• 28:42
  of parallels, actually, for people who have run
• 28:44
  websites. And so I think I saw this presented
• 28:49
  by some news sites with headlines like EA. you
• 28:52
  know, are going to fill pump games full of ads.
• 28:55
  And actually then when I went and watched Chris's
• 28:57
  show, I was like, there's actually a bit more
• 28:59
  nuance to it than that, where basically what
• 29:04
  they're trying to do is EA has set up an internal
• 29:07
  ad agency over the last few months. And that
• 29:12
  agency is trying to standardize how in -game
• 29:16
  ads work. And so the reason I wanted to bring
• 29:19
  it up in this part is because that's very similar
• 29:21
  to, if you look at a website, right, if you are
• 29:23
  completely disconnected from all this and you
• 29:24
  turn your ad blocker off and you look at a website,
• 29:26
  you will notice that across the web, almost all
• 29:30
  websites have the same mix of what we would call
• 29:32
  units. They're roughly the same size and things
• 29:35
  like that. And so that's pretty standardized.
• 29:37
  And that concept doesn't exist in games. So,
• 29:40
  and they're talking mostly about sports games
• 29:42
  here, but the idea being if they're... doing
• 29:45
  the billboards in Madden and in FIFA and things
• 29:48
  like that. You have to do it individually on
• 29:51
  a game -to -game basis. It's quite difficult.
• 29:53
  There's no standardization. So they're trying
• 29:55
  to build standardization into it. And they're
• 29:59
  trying to tie that, in the case of EA, directly
• 30:03
  into Frostbite. So the idea is they can go to
• 30:05
  people and say to Coca -Cola, do you want to
• 30:07
  put your AI slop image on the side of the pitch
• 30:10
  in FIFA and stuff like that? which is probably
• 30:15
  a better way to do this. I mean, how do you guys
• 30:20
  feel about, I mean, actually the person I want
• 30:23
  to initially ask on this is they're talking only
• 30:26
  about sports games, but the one other game that
• 30:28
  they mentioned in the interview was the Sims.
• 30:32
  So how do you feel about this, Rebecca, as a
• 30:34
  big Sims fan? It's an interesting one, right?
• 30:37
  Because obviously this did get like a huge reaction
• 30:39
  out of the Sims community who are, to put it
• 30:41
  mildly, not happy at the moment with the direction
• 30:43
  that EA is taking, not only with the game, but
• 30:46
  with their business practices outside of the
• 30:47
  game. But this has led to a lot of people pointing
• 30:51
  out, well, product placement in the Sims has
• 30:52
  been going back since the original. They had
• 30:55
  tie -in events with McDonald's in like 2001,
• 30:57
  a year after the first game launched. It's not
• 30:59
  new to have... pepsi sponsorship they've had
• 31:05
  so many car companies tie in they have the ikea
• 31:08
  expansion yeah the ikea expansion which controversially
• 31:10
  was the only thing not included in the re -release
• 31:12
  of sims 2 last year which is just an interesting
• 31:14
  i was gonna say shout out to uh to steve hogarty
• 31:19
  for the best review of all time wasn't that the
• 31:22
  h &m crossover that was the h &m one which did
• 31:25
  they managed to retain the license for that one
• 31:27
  but not ikea which is wow I bet that's because
• 31:31
  IKEA's stock is so transient. I bet half the
• 31:34
  stuff in that pack can't be bought in real life
• 31:36
  anymore. To be honest though, the H &M stuff
• 31:38
  must have cycled out. They're both the same age.
• 31:41
  Yeah, so there's always been that element of
• 31:46
  tie -ins and crossovers. And I think for me,
• 31:50
  the main question would be taking aside the morality
• 31:53
  of where EA's money is going to go from now on.
• 31:57
  That's scandal. Scandal noted, but not part of
• 32:01
  this conversation. I would be interested to know
• 32:02
  if a standardization would affect how The Sims
• 32:04
  worked with these things, just because it's kind
• 32:07
  of always been quite creative. There's been different
• 32:09
  ways of incorporating different types of brands.
• 32:10
  Obviously, with a fashion brand, you can dress
• 32:12
  your characters in the clothes. You can decorate
• 32:14
  your house with the decor from IKEA or from another,
• 32:18
  you know. It would be kind of flattening to just
• 32:21
  see billboards in the game rather than sort of
• 32:24
  sponsored items actually appear in the game.
• 32:27
  That's where I'm sort of torn because I guess
• 32:31
  it depends on, like in a sports game, I'm like,
• 32:33
  actually, in a weird way, the sponsorships and
• 32:36
  the billboards are part of the experience. If
• 32:38
  you want to feel like you're in the stadium,
• 32:40
  the stadiums are full of that crap anyway. And
• 32:42
  FIFA and Madden and NBA, PBA Pro Bowling, whatever,
• 32:47
  they're all set in the real world. You're also
• 32:51
  doing stuff like, you know, if you're in Tiger
• 32:53
  Woods, not Tiger Woods anymore, but PGA Tour,
• 32:56
  you're... buying real clubs and stuff like that
• 33:00
  so all that stuff is part and parcel my issue
• 33:03
  is sort of along the lines of like the sims one
• 33:06
  of the things that's lovely about the sims and
• 33:07
  why i've never really liked the tie -ins is that
• 33:10
  it's like a weird facsimile of the real world
• 33:12
  and so they get kathy perry in but she doesn't
• 33:15
  sing in english she sings in simlish and so then
• 33:18
  if you're putting a billboard for coke or or
• 33:21
  whatever into town when you go into town in the
• 33:23
  sims are you not breaking that world a little
• 33:27
  bit isn't all the text supposed to be in simlish
• 33:29
  rather than english it usually is even with the
• 33:31
  tie -in stuff generally i think occasionally
• 33:34
  they've let a little bit of english slip through
• 33:36
  on like the machino um expansion from a few years
• 33:39
  ago that has machino's actual logo on it um but
• 33:44
  yeah it's usually done in that kind of sideways
• 33:47
  way and it would be a shame to see that by standardization,
• 33:51
  I think. The big brands don't need, the big brands
• 33:52
  can get away with it, right? You put the McDonald's
• 33:54
  arch on a post, they don't need any words, right?
• 33:56
  Yeah, you don't need to see the menu or whatever
• 33:57
  to know that that's being McDonald's and The
• 33:59
  Sims, right? And you have like a Sim character
• 34:00
  drinking a bottle of Coke. I mean, as long as
• 34:03
  it's not like the actual, I'm trying to think
• 34:06
  of like a current, like Jude Benningham drinking
• 34:08
  a bottle, he's probably sponsored by Pepsi, I
• 34:10
  don't know, drinking a bottle of Coke on a billboard.
• 34:13
  If it was the Sim version of him. Yeah, exactly.
• 34:15
  They've had real people be made into Sims for
• 34:18
  this sort of thing as well at the works. really
• 34:20
  well so I guess I'm on a sliding scale of like
• 34:23
  I'm fine if you like the ads are going to be
• 34:26
  there in FIFA anyway they actually sort of belong
• 34:28
  so if you want to build a system that's very
• 34:31
  similar to like the sort of ad marketplaces we
• 34:33
  have for websites for within games and dynamically
• 34:36
  deliver ads as long as they fit and you're not
• 34:39
  putting ads for dick pills or whatever on there
• 34:41
  then I think have at it but obviously I don't
• 34:44
  want to be seeing a billboard on the other end
• 34:46
  for Coca -Cola in the middle of mass effect yeah
• 34:51
  um but then you get a real you get a very realistic
• 34:53
  game like battlefield and it's like if you're
• 34:55
  in a city and and you're used to ruin city you
• 35:00
  know it's a city under under siege or whatever
• 35:02
  oh you know these games always do stuff like
• 35:05
  oh time square the russians are invading time
• 35:07
  square if you want to go and have the actual
• 35:09
  time square billboards i saw another mode okay
• 35:13
  with it i guess i guess it's the death stranding
• 35:16
  thing right it's like do you have an asset a
• 35:18
  generic asset in place to replace it with once
• 35:20
  the license expires because it's a shame when
• 35:22
  whole games get lost to this sort of thing but
• 35:25
  they what was it they had him drinking monster
• 35:27
  energy drink and when that license expired they
• 35:29
  had him drinking beer which is quite a different
• 35:30
  prospect from They didn't go generic energy drink.
• 35:34
  They went generic beer, which was... It means
• 35:36
  he got more cool. A choice, certainly. But this
• 35:40
  is why I said to Breens, when he said about James
• 35:42
  Bond earlier, I was like, well, this becomes
• 35:44
  relevant because then there's that, in first
• 35:46
  light, obviously, they've gone all in on that.
• 35:48
  Does he drink the Coke in the game? He doesn't
• 35:51
  drink the Coke, but in a very James Bond way,
• 35:54
  you've got the billboards show up in a few places
• 35:58
  and obviously you have the big moment when you're
• 36:00
  in the car chase and the Coke. delivery truck
• 36:02
  gets in your way. I'm against the Coke for reasons
• 36:05
  other than that it's sponsored. It's just, I
• 36:08
  don't understand a caffeine -free diet drink.
• 36:11
  I don't get it. Why would I choose to drink that
• 36:13
  drink? I don't think James Bond would drink it.
• 36:16
  That's my biggest issue with it. Well, I was
• 36:18
  quite surprised no beer sponsorship for that
• 36:20
  because Heineken had been James Bond's official
• 36:24
  beer and Heineken paid so much towards, I think
• 36:27
  it was Quantum of Solace, that they covered nearly
• 36:29
  half of its production budget. but he doesn't
• 36:34
  they've got him neck in pints but I was really
• 36:37
  surprised he didn't have a bottle of Heineken
• 36:39
  he just had a pint glass but yeah I guess what
• 36:43
  I'm saying is that's the other end right of like
• 36:45
  we've already had the debate about video games
• 36:48
  going up to 80 we're probably going to be in
• 36:50
  10 years having the debate about our video games
• 36:51
  going to go to 100 quid right and my opinion
• 36:55
  on it is a little bit well if games can make
• 36:58
  more money through product placement or whatever
• 37:00
  else then maybe we can keep the cost down maybe
• 37:05
  of course the most likely thing is these companies
• 37:07
  raise the price and include a lot of product
• 37:09
  placement no they do yeah they do but they'll
• 37:11
  do both right they're not gonna make you're not
• 37:13
  gonna pass the savings on that doesn't that's
• 37:15
  true yeah the other question for me is definitely
• 37:17
  especially thinking about the sims um I kind
• 37:21
  of assumed from what I've seen so far that ads
• 37:23
  are more likely to be in the launcher than in
• 37:25
  the game itself. And I think that also kind of
• 37:27
  makes a difference to me. Like I'm used to free
• 37:29
  -to -play game launchers with ads in them. People
• 37:33
  don't love it, but it's a lot less sort of obtrusive
• 37:38
  on your gaming experience than actually being
• 37:39
  in the game. And I do think that's a different
• 37:41
  thing. Can I suggest three instances where advertisements
• 37:48
  made a game better? Please, I would love to hear
• 37:51
  them. Research? Oh, coming on to this, you did
• 37:54
  research? I actually, actually, I've already
• 37:56
  forgotten one of the ones I was going to mention,
• 37:58
  so it might be two. Oh, no way. I've actually
• 38:02
  replaced my fucking second one. Let's go. First
• 38:05
  one, Burnout Paradise had the infamous Obama
• 38:09
  billboard. Infamous. Did it? It did, it had Obama
• 38:13
  in there. I've actually pulled up, if you just
• 38:16
  type in Obama burnout in Google, put on the images.
• 38:19
  Early voting has begun, voteforchange .com. Was
• 38:23
  that his 2008 campaign, I think? I'm not sure.
• 38:26
  So, legendary. I also want to shout out Pikmin
• 38:30
  2. Has Gerasel batteries in it, has a variety
• 38:33
  of Japanese snacks. They actually removed those
• 38:36
  in the Switch version and it did actually somehow
• 38:39
  remove something about the game. Some sort of
• 38:42
  quirky personality. It felt a little off, honestly.
• 38:45
  And then finally, of course, the one, the iconic,
• 38:49
  crazy taxi uh and and if you're not taking people
• 38:53
  to kfc in the new one then what's the point you're
• 38:56
  not you're not in fact it's one of those things
• 38:58
  i i hope i am getting into those guys i want
• 39:01
  to ask about that because it it's iconic but
• 39:05
  i get this that's what i mean about real world
• 39:07
  right it's like the bond stuff him having an
• 39:09
  omega watch rather than a generic watch makes
• 39:11
  a lot of sense um and i saw a lot of people like
• 39:14
  clipping a lot of games people Clipping that
• 39:17
  section where Q gets Bond the watch and you're
• 39:19
  choosing out of the box and go like, look at
• 39:22
  this disgraceful advert. And I was like, have
• 39:24
  you watched the fucking James Bond film before?
• 39:27
  Like, this is, or read one of the books indeed,
• 39:30
  because the books, a lot of the books are pages
• 39:32
  and pages of descriptions of, I still make scrambled
• 39:38
  eggs in the way that Ian Fleming describes them
• 39:40
  being made in those books. Every time I learn
• 39:42
  something new about you that I'm like, what the
• 39:45
  fuck? But the point is, is that that's an indelible
• 39:50
  part of the character. And I think so that's
• 39:51
  where product placement fits. And so if you can
• 39:53
  make it fit, then great. Which is why, you know,
• 39:56
  it fits in sports games. And burnout is a real
• 39:58
  life thing. I talked about this in relation to
• 40:02
  Sports Horizon, the new one, because I felt like
• 40:06
  its version of Japan was a bit less potent. Because...
• 40:13
  the fake versions of some of the most iconic
• 40:15
  things were quite weak. Like, so the Shibuya
• 40:19
  109 department store. They've got that building,
• 40:23
  but for some reason they don't put the number
• 40:25
  on the top, and the number is so big and so iconic.
• 40:29
  And even when they did that building in Kingdom
• 40:31
  Hearts, or the World End Review, sorry, they
• 40:33
  put 104 up there. They didn't want to get sued,
• 40:36
  so they didn't put 109 up there, but they put
• 40:37
  104 up there. And I'm just like... why doesn't
• 40:40
  this look right or like they've got a fake version
• 40:42
  of the joy sound karaoke sign that you see in
• 40:44
  a lot of places in built up places in japan and
• 40:47
  it really doesn't evoke it right so and that
• 40:51
  was one of those occasions when i looked at their
• 40:52
  game and i was like man they should have just
• 40:54
  gone out and signed the deals they needed to
• 40:56
  sign to have that iconography um but hey it's
• 40:59
  like that was it driver which driver game was
• 41:01
  it in london that recreated like t -mobile shops
• 41:04
  and stuff it's like the getaway Or was it The
• 41:08
  Getaway? Well, The Getaway is like a wonderful
• 41:10
  time capsule because they actually went and took
• 41:14
  photos on like, I believe on like wind -up disposable
• 41:18
  cameras of London. And they literally use those,
• 41:22
  scan those photos for the texture, like you were
• 41:24
  saying earlier. So it's like a time caption of
• 41:27
  certain bits of London with brands that have
• 41:29
  gone bust and shops that have closed. And I don't
• 41:31
  think they got the rights for most of those.
• 41:34
  They just fucking did it. Different era, isn't
• 41:36
  it? I don't, I just, I'm probably going to move
• 41:38
  on. But the advertising stuff, I'm probably going
• 41:42
  to get attacked for this, but it doesn't bother
• 41:44
  me at all. I do not care about any of it. Like
• 41:47
  even like. When I turn on an Xbox and it gives
• 41:51
  me an ad for something, I just click through
• 41:53
  it. I've moved on. It doesn't bother me at all.
• 41:56
  I get it's annoying to some people. It does not
• 41:58
  bother me. My son, we're watching films and he'll
• 42:00
  see someone with an iPad or something. He'll
• 42:01
  be like, sponsored by Apple. It's an iPad. It's
• 42:04
  an iPad. Or someone's using a Samsung phone.
• 42:07
  They paid to sponsor Samsung. And I'm like, I
• 42:10
  do not care. Like people in the real world use
• 42:14
  those things. It doesn't bother. I'd much rather
• 42:16
  they use a real thing. And maybe there's sponsorship
• 42:19
  to it. No, there isn't. Rather than some fake
• 42:22
  thing that takes you out of it because they're
• 42:24
  using some random unidentifiable phone or laptop
• 42:27
  or whatever. But I don't know. I just, I've got
• 42:30
  other things to worry about rather than if an
• 42:33
  advert appears while I'm driving down the road.
• 42:36
  I guess what I'm saying is if you're going to
• 42:39
  do the fake ads, you need to do them really well.
• 42:41
  Like GTA is the prime example of that, right?
• 42:44
  Where like GTA has created brands like Pisswasser
• 42:47
  and what's the delivery, the armored car company
• 42:53
  called Group 6. like they've created these brands
• 42:58
  that live in your head and have lived in your
• 43:00
  head for 20 years in the same way real brands
• 43:02
  do um so i think and it's sort of it's always
• 43:05
  amazed me and maybe it'll happen with gta6 but
• 43:08
  i'm like i can't believe that budweiser hasn't
• 43:11
  got or cause or someone hasn't gone to rockstar
• 43:14
  and said can we do a limited edition of bud that's
• 43:17
  got the piss wasso bland branding on it um but
• 43:21
  i guess that sort of breaks the um Does GTA have
• 43:24
  any real stuff? Does GTA Online have any real
• 43:28
  stuff, like actual real world stuff in it? No,
• 43:31
  but it's all, they've got their own. It feels
• 43:36
  like, imagine the money that they'd be being
• 43:39
  offered to get a billboard of like, I don't know,
• 43:42
  I don't know what the biggest household name
• 43:45
  brand is at the moment, but say like a beer I
• 43:49
  don't drink, a beer of some sort. Fosters, there
• 43:53
  you go. Fosters, does that exist still? Fosters?
• 43:56
  Yeah, Fosters. How much would they have to pay
• 43:57
  to get a billboard in GTA 6? You'd be talking
• 44:02
  like one of the biggest ad deals of all time,
• 44:04
  surely, to get that in there. But they're just
• 44:06
  presumably not doing it. I'm not saying they
• 44:09
  should, but it must be taking a lot to not do
• 44:12
  that because the money must be insane. There's
• 44:14
  going to be risk aversion on the part of the
• 44:16
  brand managers, though, which is going to be
• 44:17
  a big issue with things like GTA where it's always
• 44:19
  a bit... edgy with like the situations it's presenting
• 44:23
  the product in as well I was just thinking about
• 44:25
  the way to ruin some of my favorite movies is
• 44:28
  to watch the Knives Out films and realize that
• 44:33
  One of the rules of their product placement for
• 44:36
  computers, I can't remember what computer, I
• 44:38
  assume it's Apple, but I can't remember, is the
• 44:40
  killer is never allowed to touch an Apple product.
• 44:42
  And so if you just watch who never actually picks
• 44:45
  up an Apple product. I've not seen the new one
• 44:47
  yet. Well, don't look at what's an Apple product,
• 44:49
  for God's sake. Don't look at any logos. Your
• 44:53
  kid will be like, look, they're touching the
• 44:55
  Apple phone. Sponsored by Apple. Crazy. But yeah,
• 45:00
  I've heard that. is a rule that they've got in
• 45:05
  place. And now I'm like, I love these films.
• 45:06
  And I'm glad I didn't know that before I watched
• 45:08
  them. Yeah, that could be. But also, you've got
• 45:12
  the heady heights of Madame Webb's Pepsi sponsorship,
• 45:15
  which I think is the greatest bit of product
• 45:17
  placement I've ever seen. I love that film. It's
• 45:19
  terrible. And the villain gets killed by the
• 45:21
  Pepsi sign at the end. That's not a spoiler because
• 45:24
  no one cares about Madame Webb. Why not? Why
• 45:27
  not? Yeah, yeah. I'm not over that nice outfit.
• 45:34
  That film is proof that product placement works
• 45:36
  because the watch that Daniel Craig wears in
• 45:39
  the second one, I fell in love with so much when
• 45:44
  I watched that film that I bought that as my
• 45:46
  watch for my wedding. Nice. So that's proof that
• 45:51
  product placement does work on at least some
• 45:52
  looks. But to bring it back to the GTA thing,
• 45:54
  sorry, it's just like that risk aversion means
• 45:57
  that if you're showing, you know, car brands
• 45:58
  would presumably love a GTA. tie in except they're
• 46:01
  going to see the car get smashed up and that's
• 46:02
  probably against some brand bible somewhere for
• 46:05
  example sometimes it adds up as well though like
• 46:08
  i can tell you i know which is crazy that you
• 46:11
  make those connections but i know that the gta
• 46:13
  version of ford is rapid and i know that the
• 46:17
  gta version of lamborghini is pagasi because
• 46:21
  they've got those fakes and those fakes are so
• 46:23
  close to the real that you now yeah they become
• 46:25
  part of the like iconography of the game and
• 46:28
  Yeah, I want to tie this back to not only GTA,
• 46:32
  but again, my spectrum of product art. I'm going
• 46:35
  to throw it out there. I actually think single
• 46:38
  player GTA is closer to the art side of that
• 46:41
  spectrum and GTA Online is somehow closer to
• 46:44
  the product. So maybe it could actually work
• 46:48
  in like a GTA Online update the same way they
• 46:50
  threw in Eminem and Dr. Dre and shit. Yeah, maybe.
• 46:55
  I hope they don't because the GTA universe is
• 46:58
  so pure. And also the thing about the GTA brands,
• 47:01
  I just brought some of them up. A lot of them
• 47:03
  are so insulting. So like Monster Energy becomes
• 47:07
  junk energy in the GTA world. CNN becomes CNT.
• 47:15
  They're so subtle. What I love about them is
• 47:17
  how subtle they are. And so I don't think you
• 47:20
  can put... Yeah, I don't think you can put real
• 47:26
  brands in without compromising that. Call of
• 47:31
  Duty is righteous slaughter, isn't it? That's
• 47:33
  the GTA version of COD. So, yeah, I don't know.
• 47:39
  Anyway, we should probably move on from this
• 47:40
  advertising discussion. What else have we got?
• 47:44
  Briefly, there's going to be a network test for
• 47:49
  the Duskbloods. the From Software multiplayer
• 47:52
  game. There's a Switch 2 exclusive. That's going
• 47:55
  to be happening on August the 21st, so a little
• 47:57
  over a month from now for five days. There's
• 48:00
  one four -hour slot each day across the five
• 48:03
  days. They're at set times for the whole world,
• 48:06
  so you may find yourself having to wake up at
• 48:08
  silly o 'clock. That's pretty cool. You will
• 48:12
  need a Nintendo Switch Online subscription to
• 48:14
  do that, but that's quite exciting. Imagine waking
• 48:17
  up at 3 a .m. to play a video game. Imagine doing
• 48:21
  that. Might be doing it, mate. I might be doing
• 48:24
  it. Imagine being one of those people that wakes
• 48:25
  up at 3 a .m. to play a game when you could be
• 48:29
  asleep. I might wake up at 6 a .m. and catch
• 48:32
  the last hour, though. That's all right. That's
• 48:35
  more respectable. 3 a .m., though. I mean, goodness.
• 48:39
  I've guided Mystic Messenger. You can't scare
• 48:41
  me. That's work. You're being paid. That's a
• 48:46
  bit different. It wasn't a 3am. It wasn't a salary.
• 48:48
  Oh, okay. That's over now. Yeah, I was just saying
• 48:51
  it because I knew Alex probably would do it.
• 48:53
  I might do it. I'm pondering it. What I would
• 48:55
  say is I expect, to be clear, I do not know anything,
• 49:01
  but usually with Nintendo, if there's a playtest
• 49:04
  for this, I bet there will be some sort of media
• 49:07
  thing. Maybe Miyazaki will speak to some people.
• 49:10
  Maybe some media will see it, whatever. either
• 49:14
  slightly before or right after or right at the
• 49:16
  same time as this i think it's inevitable so
• 49:18
  hopefully we'll learn a bit more about the game
• 49:19
  before that happens the next major nintendo lego
• 49:24
  set has been revealed it's a 200 donkey kong
• 49:28
  arcade cabinet um coming out in august which
• 49:31
  seems like it was timed for the 45th anniversary
• 49:34
  of the original arcade cap it's pretty cool it's
• 49:39
  If it's anything like the Pac -Man one, it's
• 49:40
  probably going to have some sort of slightly
• 49:42
  playable element. Like in the Pac -Man one, you
• 49:44
  could crank it and they would move around the
• 49:46
  maze. Or you can attach it to one of the Lego
• 49:49
  motors. But 200's a lot. I feel like Lego need
• 49:56
  to understand that not all of these grown -up
• 49:59
  video game -related Lego sets need to be so expensive.
• 50:02
  They did a nice one recently where they did the
• 50:04
  Mega Drive. And that one was like 35 quid. and
• 50:08
  yeah it's like I like that I like that it was
• 50:10
  I like that it's cheaper but part of me was like
• 50:11
  this is one I might have paid actual good money
• 50:14
  for it's the one I wasn't bothered about the
• 50:17
  NES or anything else but a Mega Drive actually
• 50:19
  is something that I have fond memories of and
• 50:23
  I probably would have paid more for but we didn't
• 50:26
  get a proper one it's just that I know it's fine
• 50:28
  it's cheaper and like it's more of an impulse
• 50:30
  buy and I've never bought anything Lego that
• 50:32
  costs over like I bought the Fortnite Whatever
• 50:37
  that lizard thing is. No. Yes, the Battle Bus
• 50:40
  and the lizard thing for my son because he was
• 50:42
  desperate. That's all he wanted one year for
• 50:44
  Christmas. But I've never bought myself any expensive
• 50:48
  Lego. But a Mega Drive might have done. I think
• 50:52
  the weird thing about the way Lego works though
• 50:53
  is like you look at the Mega Drive versus the
• 50:55
  NES. The Mega Drive is about half the size of
• 50:58
  the NES. Yes. But it's obviously not half the
• 51:01
  price. The NES when that was out was I think
• 51:02
  220 quid. But the NES obviously came with the
• 51:05
  fake CRT TV as well with the beautiful scroll
• 51:08
  of Mario. And again, you could crank it and Mario
• 51:11
  would go across the level. And so I would say
• 51:13
  60 % of the parts budget of that went into the
• 51:16
  TV. And actually, if you just love the game console
• 51:19
  and you love the form of the game console and
• 51:21
  want a Lego version of that, the TV is completely
• 51:25
  superfluous. And so the Mega Drive is like they
• 51:27
  just made the console and they made it in a smaller
• 51:29
  form factor. So hopefully they'll do more of
• 51:31
  that. I mean, I will buy this. Donkey Kong cabinet,
• 51:34
  I am a slag for that sort of stuff. Have you
• 51:38
  bought all the Pokemon stuff? I haven't bought
• 51:40
  any. I bought Eevee, but I haven't bought any
• 51:43
  of the other Pokemon stuff. I was in Costco the
• 51:45
  other day and they had the Pikachu quite heavily
• 51:47
  reduced and I picked it up and I was like, even
• 51:51
  though it's heavily reduced, the face is bad.
• 51:55
  Whereas the one that's like the three together
• 51:57
  looks quite good, but... I saw it in the Lego
• 52:00
  store. I was like, who's got room for this anywhere
• 52:03
  in that house? I know if you're spending 600
• 52:05
  quid, you probably do have room, I guess. I'm
• 52:07
  going to keep an eye out for that one to go on
• 52:09
  sale because I would like to buy it, but I haven't
• 52:13
  got anywhere to put it. So it would go in the
• 52:15
  loft on the hope that one day I have a big enough
• 52:18
  house that I can display more stuff. They are
• 52:22
  slowly... Did you see the one that was revealed,
• 52:24
  the Pokeball? That was also revealed. And the
• 52:27
  Pokeball is pretty cool because it's sort of
• 52:29
  like, actually, it's up there, the Mario question
• 52:30
  mark block. I was thinking, yeah, I was going
• 52:31
  to say, it's like the Mario. Oh, nice. And if
• 52:33
  you haven't, so for the people listening, the
• 52:36
  Mario question mark block, it looks like the
• 52:38
  Mario question mark block, but it's actually
• 52:40
  like a diorama. So the block opens and it's got
• 52:43
  four of the levels and the castle from Mario
• 52:45
  64 inside in tiny, tiny build. And the Pokeball
• 52:49
  is sort of like that. So it's a Pokeball built
• 52:50
  out of Lego, but then you open it up and it's
• 52:52
  got like Professor Oak's lab and the free starters.
• 52:56
  I think Pikachu and Eevee as well, and Ash, well,
• 52:59
  Red, actually, because it's the video game version,
• 53:01
  so not Ash. So that's cool. Anyway, so more video
• 53:03
  game Lego. Seems like that is something that's
• 53:05
  going to continue, and I'm very interested to
• 53:08
  see what's going to be happening with Zelda as
• 53:11
  we get closer to the film. We also had the news
• 53:13
  yesterday that Hasbro are going to be making
• 53:16
  Zelda toys, which is exciting. There'll be some
• 53:20
  cool action figures, but also Hasbro having the
• 53:23
  Zelda license? Magic the Gathering? Feels like
• 53:28
  a natural jump from Final Fantasy and stuff.
• 53:31
  Yeah, it feels possible. They're going to put
• 53:32
  photos of the film characters on the cards. Is
• 53:35
  that what they're going to do? I mean, I'd hope
• 53:36
  they'd illustrate them. They're going to do photos.
• 53:41
  They're going to do the Star Trek route. Star
• 53:42
  Trek is the one, right? I don't follow Magic
• 53:45
  the Gathering. Is it Star Trek cards that have
• 53:47
  had the pictures and they look hideous? They're
• 53:49
  not pictures. They are drawn, but it's someone
• 53:51
  who's drawn to a photo reel standard. Oh, I see.
• 53:56
  I apologise. What else? Other quick stories.
• 54:01
  EU Commissioner for Democracy, Justice, Rule
• 54:03
  of Law and Consumer Protection has said the EU
• 54:06
  cannot stop Sony from ceasing game disc production.
• 54:12
  The commissioner said, quote, it does come down
• 54:14
  to commercial and contractual freedoms. Companies
• 54:17
  are free to offer games and services in the manner
• 54:19
  they see fit, unquote. So that locks off a potential
• 54:24
  pathway that people are looking at to stop that
• 54:26
  decision. The EU has also declined to propose
• 54:29
  a new law about preserving games when they get
• 54:32
  closed down. in response to the stop killing
• 54:35
  games petition but i do think there's probably
• 54:37
  road to run on that particular topic but i don't
• 54:40
  think there's any starter in um in in authorities
• 54:43
  telling people they've got to print discs um
• 54:47
  and on this same topic new wolverine trailer
• 54:51
  looks pretty sick cinematic game but i think
• 54:54
  that's going to be the first major test right
• 54:56
  for those saying they're boycotting sony and
• 54:59
  playstation they're gonna fold they've already
• 55:01
  folded just that's it it doesn't make a difference
• 55:03
  this will talk it happens every single time there's
• 55:07
  one of these things campaigns right famous meme
• 55:10
  the modern warfare 2 boycott where all the members
• 55:12
  of this team group are all playing modern warfare
• 55:13
  i always think that the issue with trying to
• 55:18
  boycott anything with video games is that most
• 55:20
  fandom spaces vastly underestimate just how many
• 55:23
  people are not constantly online and talking
• 55:25
  about the games that they play. The huge majority
• 55:28
  of players of any game are not involved in the
• 55:31
  fandom, don't know what the drama is, don't know
• 55:32
  what the company is doing and aren't even aware
• 55:34
  that there is a boycott to join. Which is not
• 55:36
  to say that most people don't absolutely back
• 55:39
  out of boycotts like the instant that they get
• 55:41
  interested in something because I do think that's
• 55:42
  also true. I think the disc stuff has cut through
• 55:45
  a bit because I literally heard two people talking
• 55:48
  about it in the supermarket the other day. Wow.
• 55:50
  And so I think that's cut through a bit. Was
• 55:53
  it Lidl or another supermarket? It was not Lidl.
• 55:55
  Are we allowed to mention other supermarkets?
• 55:57
  Oh, we already said Lidl. Sponsorship, if I say.
• 56:00
  I don't know. It was either Morrison's or Marks
• 56:02
  & Spencer's because they're next to each other
• 56:03
  and I always go to them both. I'm going to get
• 56:05
  a phone call now about that. Probably. Other
• 56:09
  little bits. Glenn Schofield has retired. So
• 56:12
  he's a bit of an industry legend. He's been around
• 56:14
  since 91. Worked on three Call of Duty titles,
• 56:18
  some of the later ones. most famous for dead
• 56:21
  space and most recently did uh calisto protocol
• 56:24
  i think it's interesting because he finished
• 56:26
  calisto and then there was a big gap and now
• 56:28
  he's retiring so i wonder did he try to do some
• 56:31
  stuff didn't he i saw he there was a few odd
• 56:34
  posts from him right about how he couldn't get
• 56:36
  funding and then he was doing some ai stuff maybe
• 56:39
  and it just seemed like it wasn't going anywhere
• 56:42
  so it seemed a little bit inevitable but yeah
• 56:44
  he's been around for a long time right has done
• 56:47
  some Like Dead Space probably, it's bizarre that
• 56:50
  he's worked on COD, but Dead Space is the one
• 56:52
  that stands out, right? But it did, like Dead
• 56:54
  Space, one of those games that I think over time
• 56:57
  became better somehow. Like it was a game that
• 57:01
  people liked at launch, but it wasn't loved as
• 57:03
  much as I think people think it was. And then
• 57:06
  it just gradually became this game that most
• 57:08
  people seem to rank as like one of the best action
• 57:11
  horror games. Do you have anything to say about
• 57:14
  Dead Space 4? Deafening development. That's some
• 57:21
  old law for people who know. But yeah, I mean,
• 57:25
  Glenn, I met him a few times, interviewed him
• 57:27
  a few times, I think, for games like World War
• 57:30
  II, stuff like that. Nice bloke. Wish him the
• 57:33
  very best. I think he's quite young for retirement,
• 57:35
  so we'll see. I wouldn't be surprised if maybe
• 57:38
  we see him back in. in some years when the industry
• 57:41
  perhaps is a bit more amenable to funding ideas,
• 57:43
  which it isn't right now. And lastly, some extra
• 57:47
  bits of Fallout from Xbox, finally. So I think
• 57:51
  you can see the tone of like, so they said, oh,
• 57:54
  Compulsion Games, we're letting you go. Well,
• 57:58
  they are letting them go. But now you've got
• 58:01
  like the CEO of Compulsion Games and others openly
• 58:03
  soliciting on LinkedIn. saying hey do you need
• 58:06
  people do you need manpower for your game you
• 58:09
  could subcontract us which is that's what they
• 58:12
  need to do and i really hope they get that word
• 58:14
  but that speaks to the the exit trajectory from
• 58:17
  xbox that they're having to do that speak that
• 58:19
  in order to get some money in speaks to um to
• 58:23
  the situation they've been put into hopefully
• 58:25
  that comes off well and they find people for
• 58:27
  those jobs it's unbelievable they've gone from
• 58:29
  winning a BAFTA to this so quickly even if the
• 58:33
  game's audience wasn't perhaps it's because they'd
• 58:35
  hoped and also the Elder Scrolls Online it's
• 58:38
  it's really become clear like almost all of that
• 58:42
  game's leadership has gone or is in the process
• 58:44
  of going they're going to be staying on there's
• 58:46
  going to be a transition period but they're having
• 58:49
  some of the more junior staff step up but I can't
• 58:52
  see how the plans they outlined for smaller updates
• 58:55
  but more often is now going to work. They only
• 58:58
  outlined that plan like six months ago and it
• 59:01
  seems like that already must be in the trash
• 59:04
  because like, I don't know, they've got enough
• 59:07
  people to physically do it. It's been a hell
• 59:10
  of a week for live service games generally. A
• 59:11
  lot of places are showing the cracks right now.
• 59:14
  I mean, we were talking about it the other day,
• 59:16
  Alex, and yeah, it's just... It feels like a
• 59:21
  watershed moment is coming up in live service
• 59:23
  just because of the precarity of the industry.
• 59:25
  And I think live service exposes those cracks
• 59:27
  a lot quicker and more publicly. Do we think
• 59:32
  that, you know, GTA comes out and then what do
• 59:35
  you reckon? What's our prediction? Six months,
• 59:37
  nine months for GTA Online? Until it launches.
• 59:41
  Within a year. Yeah. I could easily see it being
• 59:45
  a year later. Yeah, exactly a year later. But
• 59:48
  I think the issue they have is like, have they
• 59:51
  announced what's happening with the current duty
• 59:53
  online yet? Because it's like a big thing, right?
• 59:57
  There's a big deal. It's still huge, yeah. Do
• 59:59
  they just drop it or do they like... I mean,
• 1:00:01
  it's tricky, right? It's hugely expensive, but
• 1:00:05
  obviously the amount of money that makes, they've
• 1:00:07
  got the money. If they're really smart, the thing
• 1:00:09
  they do is they actually like port GTA 5 Liberty
• 1:00:16
  City into the new engine. And when you launch
• 1:00:20
  GTA Online, you have both maps and you let people
• 1:00:22
  carry over at least some of their progression.
• 1:00:26
  Surely there's got to be some connection is how
• 1:00:29
  I've been looking at it. Well, there was all
• 1:00:30
  sorts of leaks. Yeah. There was all sorts of
• 1:00:33
  leaks that they were going to port GTA 4 Liberty
• 1:00:35
  City into GTA Online and then that never happened.
• 1:00:40
  Yeah, there's got to be some sort of connection.
• 1:00:42
  You've got to try and... Yeah, it's been 13 years.
• 1:00:46
  People are so resistant to that sort of change.
• 1:00:50
  Surely many at least won't adopt a completely
• 1:00:54
  discrete GTA 6 online, especially if it kills
• 1:00:56
  GTA 5 online. They haven't spoken about it at
• 1:00:59
  all. Totally bonkers. Anyway, yes, we're running
• 1:01:05
  out of road here, running out of time. So quickly,
• 1:01:07
  just shout out some stuff that is on the site.
• 1:01:11
  So what is on the site? Obviously, first of all,
• 1:01:13
  Rebecca, you did a fantastic piece about love
• 1:01:16
  and deep space and all the stuff going on there.
• 1:01:19
  Do you want to talk a little bit about that?
• 1:01:23
  Yeah, I mean, my article is really long because
• 1:01:25
  it's a complex issue to get into. but essentially
• 1:01:28
  they seem to have cancelled the rest of the game
• 1:01:30
  effectively without much of a plan as to what
• 1:01:34
  replaces it due to a very nasty fan backlash
• 1:01:39
  that involved getting the CCP to investigate
• 1:01:41
  the studio. So obviously best wishes to all those
• 1:01:43
  devs. I hope it all works out well. It is a very
• 1:01:49
  weird thing to see even in gacha spaces which
• 1:01:52
  do have these big dramas blow up. I've never
• 1:01:54
  seen one. blow up this big for a game this big
• 1:01:56
  so it's quite unprecedented even for people who
• 1:01:59
  are kind of in that milieu to try and work out
• 1:02:02
  what's really going on um it's also just kind
• 1:02:04
  of sad because it was one of the few games that
• 1:02:06
  really was giving women a real foregrounded space
• 1:02:10
  within the games industry to kind of like be
• 1:02:13
  the focal audience of a game not just the um
• 1:02:18
  you know nice to have extras if you want to join
• 1:02:20
  in so i'm i'm sad to see it potentially like
• 1:02:24
  go out like this after do you think this could
• 1:02:28
  be the start of the start of the end then or
• 1:02:30
  it could be i mean there's a lot of factors that
• 1:02:34
  it depends i think that i mean worst case scenario
• 1:02:37
  the studio gets shut down because there's an
• 1:02:38
  ongoing ccp investigation which is obviously
• 1:02:40
  just dreadful on a human level never mind a game
• 1:02:43
  development level but there's also the fact that
• 1:02:46
  even if that kind of works out all right for
• 1:02:49
  them i don't see how they can now reintroduce
• 1:02:51
  the material they've been made to cut while under
• 1:02:55
  the threat of that increased scrutiny. In the
• 1:02:57
  meantime, they've lost a lot of revenue. They've
• 1:02:58
  put a lot of development money into something
• 1:03:00
  that now can't be released. It's a really hairy
• 1:03:03
  time for that studio. They have recently discontinued
• 1:03:06
  support for some of their older games. So maybe
• 1:03:07
  there's a little bit of a cushion there for the
• 1:03:09
  studio to keep developing on that money. They
• 1:03:12
  are not a very transparent studio, it's got to
• 1:03:14
  be said. So this is me trying to gather resources
• 1:03:16
  from wherever I can find them. But yeah, it's
• 1:03:20
  wild because despite, I mean, it's... these big
• 1:03:23
  online life service games there's always a lot
• 1:03:25
  of fans complaining about what they don't like
• 1:03:26
  but I've never seen it blow up from the usual
• 1:03:29
  grumblings but actually we're all having a really
• 1:03:30
  good time still two months ago to this and this
• 1:03:33
  has all happened in like the last three weeks
• 1:03:34
  it's been I've never seen anything like it and
• 1:03:38
  I've seen fandom drama blow up before so as I
• 1:03:41
  say just like my best wishes to all the devs
• 1:03:44
  I hope they're okay um it would be nice to see
• 1:03:46
  the game find its feet again but yeah it's um
• 1:03:51
  Please go read my article because I worked really
• 1:03:53
  hard on that and it took me ages. I'm really
• 1:03:55
  proud of it. Thank you. It's excellent. It's
• 1:03:58
  on the top of the site. Yeah, it's been crazy
• 1:03:59
  to see how this game has suffered a reputational
• 1:04:03
  collapse in record time. Yeah, it's really sad.
• 1:04:06
  It is genuinely really sad. There's a lot of
• 1:04:08
  it that I just don't think those devs could have
• 1:04:09
  predicted. how i think they knew that there would
• 1:04:12
  be backlash because there's always backlash whenever
• 1:04:14
  they do anything to an extent because what they've
• 1:04:17
  essentially done is like here are five characters
• 1:04:19
  fall in love with at least one of them and then
• 1:04:21
  you kind of get a little annoyed whenever one
• 1:04:22
  of the others gets any attention i saw someone
• 1:04:24
  um compare it to like when your sibling gets
• 1:04:27
  a birthday party sort of whenever one of the
• 1:04:29
  characters comes into focus the fans of the other
• 1:04:31
  characters sometimes get quite you have to buy
• 1:04:33
  the sibling a little present yeah exactly that's
• 1:04:36
  what you have to do otherwise but the thing is
• 1:04:39
  they do they they do do that when they when one
• 1:04:42
  character is getting focused the other characters
• 1:04:43
  do get little bits of like extra it it just it
• 1:04:48
  blew up to the point where it wasn't enough to
• 1:04:50
  you know stop all this from happening and then
• 1:04:53
  at some point someone kind of pushed the nuclear
• 1:04:54
  button and now it's all very uncertain what's
• 1:04:58
  going to happen yes one of the little bits on
• 1:05:04
  the side um there's uh Tom mourning the end of
• 1:05:09
  what looks like the end of physical games. I'm
• 1:05:11
  banging on about Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica
• 1:05:13
  and Tempin Bowling. So very me this week. There
• 1:05:18
  is a second part of Elden Ring piece if you want
• 1:05:21
  to see Tom suffer, which we love. Mostly it's...
• 1:05:26
  Yeah, we do. It's a lot of swearing. Like it's
• 1:05:29
  an unbelievable... If you follow me at all, you
• 1:05:33
  think I'm this passive... calm like person he's
• 1:05:36
  very nice quite polite in some ways and then
• 1:05:40
  i i play that game and i'm like i don't know
• 1:05:43
  what happens there's a bit where i kill this
• 1:05:45
  boss i don't even remember it happening that's
• 1:05:48
  where i called him like a prick or something
• 1:05:50
  it just happened i never say that in actual real
• 1:05:54
  life oh no that's Games bring it out in you.
• 1:05:57
  I say horrendous things to game characters that
• 1:05:59
  I would never say to a real person. It's not
• 1:06:01
  just you. What's been really sweet, though, has
• 1:06:03
  been being in a group chat with you and some
• 1:06:05
  other XVG people and Kelsey, who's still a Guide
• 1:06:09
  to Retreat Eurogamer and knows Elden Ring inside
• 1:06:11
  out. Watching her slowly walk you through some
• 1:06:14
  of this stuff on the back end of the conversation
• 1:06:16
  has been so lovely. Kelsey was like, drink flasks.
• 1:06:18
  And I was like, what's a flask? And it's the
• 1:06:21
  most basic thing in this game, right? And I was
• 1:06:23
  like... I assumed, I guess, that you just health.
• 1:06:26
  I don't know. I don't know what I thought happened
• 1:06:27
  to health. And then as soon as I knew about flask,
• 1:06:29
  I'm like flask, flask, flask, flask, constant
• 1:06:31
  flask, which also is a bad idea. I'll get there.
• 1:06:35
  Three years time. You've never played any Dark
• 1:06:38
  Souls before. I have, but it's like I got like
• 1:06:43
  the first Dark Souls. I got to this. There's
• 1:06:47
  like a ball. Yeah. And I got to this ball and
• 1:06:50
  that was it. Done, never played it ever again.
• 1:06:52
  Yeah, you've got to stab him in the ass. I just
• 1:06:54
  couldn't. I've had enough of this. And I've done
• 1:06:56
  like an hour of Bloodborne and I played this.
• 1:07:02
  I played Elden Ring at launch and I just looked
• 1:07:04
  around for about 10 minutes and that was it.
• 1:07:06
  So I've touched them. I did play loads of Mercury
• 1:07:11
  Steam's Blades of Fire. I think it's called Blades
• 1:07:16
  of Fire, which is a good game. Like, it's actually
• 1:07:19
  a good game. People didn't like it. I think it's
• 1:07:21
  a good game. I think you should check that out.
• 1:07:23
  It's very cheap now, I think, probably. But yeah,
• 1:07:25
  keep watching if you want to see more of it.
• 1:07:27
  I'll probably get fed up one day and just be
• 1:07:29
  dead, never another episode. But for now, it's
• 1:07:32
  every week. Hell yeah. Hope the journey, not
• 1:07:35
  the destination. Last but not least, let's quickly
• 1:07:39
  do a little bit of our retrospective. On this
• 1:07:42
  day, things that have happened this week in the
• 1:07:44
  past in the video game world. So... On the 13th,
• 1:07:49
  which we've just passed, Persona 3 turned 20
• 1:07:51
  years old, which brings us back around to what
• 1:07:54
  I mentioned earlier about the TV show that has
• 1:07:57
  been announced for Netflix. So Persona 3 is great.
• 1:08:00
  Can't believe it's 20. Sort of bonkers to think
• 1:08:03
  how Persona has grown since then. But, you know,
• 1:08:07
  with your One Piece hat on, what do you think
• 1:08:09
  they should do, Brains? My God. Oh, my God. I
• 1:08:16
  don't know. Do we go full teenage drama with
• 1:08:20
  it? Is that how we have to do it? Is that the
• 1:08:22
  only way this can work? Scooby -Doo via Sunnydale?
• 1:08:26
  I don't know. Well, I genuinely believe the Western
• 1:08:31
  version of Persona is literally just Riverdale
• 1:08:35
  and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina. So if
• 1:08:39
  you're doing Persona, what I would do is I, one,
• 1:08:42
  wouldn't set it in Japan because then you've
• 1:08:44
  got a separation from the rest of the lore. So
• 1:08:47
  you do the Fallout thing and you set it in the
• 1:08:49
  same universe and maybe like, you know, there's
• 1:08:52
  word about the Phantom Thieves and, you know,
• 1:08:55
  people having weird changes of heart in Japan
• 1:08:58
  and stuff like that. But you set it in the US
• 1:09:01
  or the UK or something and you literally make
• 1:09:04
  one of those slightly horny, very over the top
• 1:09:08
  teen shows, I think. Yeah, I think so. oh i'm
• 1:09:14
  it it gives me the fear it gives me the fear
• 1:09:19
  because like i feel like so much the connection
• 1:09:22
  i feel uh with the persona characters in the
• 1:09:24
  series is just from doing the routines making
• 1:09:28
  those decisions take your time who are you going
• 1:09:30
  to spend the time with you're going to do quests
• 1:09:32
  it's making those decisions that means it feels
• 1:09:36
  even more important that i bonded with the show
• 1:09:38
  giggle as opposed to the person at my part -time
• 1:09:41
  job And if you take that away and just have to
• 1:09:44
  watch it, I just have no idea. I have no idea
• 1:09:47
  how that translates. I'm willing to give it a
• 1:09:51
  chance though. If they've done this right, if
• 1:09:54
  they do this right, the only character, apart
• 1:09:57
  from the demons, the only character in this that
• 1:09:59
  is in the games will be Igor. If they do it right.
• 1:10:02
  If they end up in this world where they're trying
• 1:10:03
  to adapt one of the other games, which if you
• 1:10:06
  were going to adapt one of them, four is probably
• 1:10:08
  the one. in terms of the scale in terms of the
• 1:10:11
  scope it's manageable um but i really hope they
• 1:10:14
  just sort of just make make make riverdale i
• 1:10:18
  think you're right about eagle that's that's
• 1:10:20
  a good call that's well he's got to be in it
• 1:10:22
  right because you've got to have the velvet room
• 1:10:23
  those are the those are the elements of persona
• 1:10:25
  you've got to have but everything else you know
• 1:10:28
  um we don't need a we don't we don't need a bad
• 1:10:34
  like set in japan but but acted in english adaptation
• 1:10:39
  of one of the games. No. I've never played a
• 1:10:44
  Persona game. What did we do in here? Never.
• 1:10:48
  Never will, probably. I watched, no, it's not
• 1:10:52
  related, but I watched the Death Note film on
• 1:10:54
  Netflix. Okay. Terrible. Yeah, not very good.
• 1:10:57
  I've no idea what the original anime is like,
• 1:11:02
  but goodness, what an absolutely awful film that
• 1:11:09
  is. I don't understand. It's by the guy that
• 1:11:11
  made, is it Adam Wingard who made The Guest?
• 1:11:14
  Directed it. And Guest is really good. If you
• 1:11:16
  haven't seen The Guest, it's really good. You
• 1:11:18
  should watch it. Don't watch it without this.
• 1:11:20
  It's a good action film. Just whatever you're
• 1:11:23
  doing, just watch it. It's good. It's not that
• 1:11:25
  long, about 90 minutes probably. You could probably
• 1:11:27
  have a feature in Tom being forced to watch some
• 1:11:29
  anime. Yeah. I'm forced to watch enough shit
• 1:11:34
  already. Watch, apologies, I meant more like
• 1:11:40
  what I'm watching at home. I'm watching currently
• 1:11:42
  Zombies 4 on Disney+. That means I've watched
• 1:11:47
  Zombies 1, 2 and 3 already. And they've, spoilers,
• 1:11:53
  introduced vampires in 4, following the introduction
• 1:11:57
  of aliens in 3. And there's day walkers and the
• 1:12:03
  normal vampires. But the good thing about this,
• 1:12:05
  because it's a zombie, it's a Disney show. All
• 1:12:08
  these monsters and things just do nothing. They
• 1:12:11
  literally just, I'm a zombie. I'm quite strong.
• 1:12:14
  I'm a werewolf, but I don't turn into a werewolf.
• 1:12:16
  I'm a vampire, but literally nothing happens.
• 1:12:19
  I'm not really a vampire. It's just bizarre,
• 1:12:21
  but they do songs. You're watching this and you've
• 1:12:24
  never watched like Doctor Who. Doctor Who's garbage.
• 1:12:28
  But my kids, I watch stuff with my kids because
• 1:12:31
  I want that moment of peace where I could be
• 1:12:33
  on my phone, being miserable, pretending I'm
• 1:12:36
  watching the film. Are they watching Zombies
• 1:12:39
  4 or Descendants 3 or whatever else? Descendants
• 1:12:45
  is not good, by the way. I just don't know how
• 1:12:46
  you worked with Jim Trinker for so many years
• 1:12:48
  and never were forced to watch Doctor Who or
• 1:12:51
  Star Trek. I refuse. To be fair, Star Trek, I've
• 1:12:54
  watched all of Next Generation because everyone
• 1:12:56
  of a certain age watched it, right? Because it
• 1:12:58
  was on TV. So I've watched that, but I'm never
• 1:13:02
  watching Doctor Who. No one can make me. Speaking
• 1:13:05
  of other things, Tom will not ever play. So number
• 1:13:09
  one, Monster Hunter Generations is 10 this week,
• 1:13:12
  as is Inazuma 11 Strikers. It's a good one in
• 1:13:16
  that series. One that you have played, Tom. A
• 1:13:19
  year old today, and I think is aging well. Like
• 1:13:22
  after a year, I think of it very fondly still,
• 1:13:24
  Donkey Kong Bonanza. Yeah, I can't believe that's
• 1:13:27
  a year old. I can still remember writing about
• 1:13:33
  it. And it didn't seem a year ago. The excitement
• 1:13:37
  of reviewing that game and trading texts with
• 1:13:40
  other people reviewing that game as you got towards
• 1:13:43
  the very end of that game, where I know it's
• 1:13:46
  a year, but I won't get into specific spoilers,
• 1:13:48
  but where things start to happen that are of
• 1:13:50
  relevance to people with back pain is super strong,
• 1:13:57
  good memories. Yeah. This is a horrible list
• 1:14:01
  for you, Tom. Final Fantasy IV is 35. great game
• 1:14:06
  first atb game the legend of mystical ninja is
• 1:14:09
  35 not the one that i think of when i think of
• 1:14:11
  that series that's uh i think of the m64 one
• 1:14:14
  yeah star ocean the first game start of the series
• 1:14:18
  is 30 years old now i love star ocean because
• 1:14:21
  it's speaking of star trek it is what if star
• 1:14:24
  trek was a jrpg Is that the one they did the
• 1:14:27
  2D, 3D thing? Yes. Was that that one or was that
• 1:14:30
  a different, was that a brand new game? Was that
• 1:14:32
  a remake? It was a remake, not of that one, but
• 1:14:34
  of, was it 2? I can't remember. But yeah, that
• 1:14:38
  was a recent, but I like Star Ocean. I like Star
• 1:14:41
  Ocean 4 where you play like the most incompetent
• 1:14:45
  dickhead ever and you're flying from planet to
• 1:14:48
  planet and every planet you basically accidentally
• 1:14:51
  destroy it and genocide all the people that live
• 1:14:53
  there. It happens over and over again all game,
• 1:14:56
  and the game has no sense of self -awareness
• 1:14:58
  about this at all. Is Star Ocean the one that's
• 1:15:00
  got a character called Maverick Edge? Edge Maverick.
• 1:15:03
  Yeah, he's the one. He's the more what I'm talking
• 1:15:05
  about. I know stuff. I've never played this,
• 1:15:08
  but I know things. And Final Fantasy X is 25.
• 1:15:13
  Also a lovely, great game. One of the first games,
• 1:15:15
  I think, to make me genuinely upset. Sorry, you
• 1:15:20
  just made me feel really old. Yeah, 25 years
• 1:15:24
  old. I feel like I shouldn't remember things
• 1:15:28
  that happened 25 years ago, but there are some
• 1:15:31
  things we can never forget. No, no. I always
• 1:15:36
  hear those things that are like, oh, we're now
• 1:15:39
  closer to X than we were to Y. I think the recent
• 1:15:45
  one was Vice City, right, where it was like Vice
• 1:15:48
  City was released closer to the 80s than we are.
• 1:15:52
  to Vice City being released now, which is a horrendous,
• 1:15:57
  a horrendous truth. I don't like that. If Vice
• 1:16:02
  City, when you think about the gap between release
• 1:16:04
  and the game coming out and the nostalgia, if
• 1:16:08
  you were to release a game with a similar gap
• 1:16:10
  today as Vice City was then, you'd be releasing
• 1:16:13
  a game set in like the early 2000s. You know,
• 1:16:17
  it would be Blink -182 on the radio. It'd be
• 1:16:19
  post 9 -11, Rush Limbaugh, talk shows, all that
• 1:16:22
  sort of stuff, which is frightening. Is it just
• 1:16:25
  me or did we at some point skip like 90s nostalgia?
• 1:16:30
  I feel like for my entire life, it was like 80s
• 1:16:33
  nostalgia and then suddenly it was noughties.
• 1:16:35
  And I was like, I got in the car the other day
• 1:16:37
  and I never listened to the radio in the car.
• 1:16:39
  But my wife, for some reason, is a freak who
• 1:16:42
  sometimes likes to listen to the radio where
• 1:16:43
  I'm like anti -radio because I don't want to
• 1:16:45
  hear ads. Just put my Spotify on, please. Sure.
• 1:16:48
  And we're in the car and she's got a new car.
• 1:16:49
  And she's like, how the hell do I get onto the
• 1:16:51
  radio in this? So I showed her on the screen
• 1:16:53
  how to do it. And then he brought up the list
• 1:16:55
  of all the DAB radio sessions. And I couldn't
• 1:16:57
  believe there is now an absolute tens. So I think,
• 1:17:01
  you know, absolute 70s, absolute 80s, absolute
• 1:17:04
  90s. But we've now reached the point where, and
• 1:17:07
  I looked it up, it's relatively recently launched.
• 1:17:09
  We now have absolute tens because people have
• 1:17:11
  nostalgia. That's just Radio 1. No, it's not.
• 1:17:15
  That's the problem. That's Radio 2, if that,
• 1:17:19
  these days, right? It's horrendous. And I just
• 1:17:23
  looked at that and I was like, that is so messed
• 1:17:25
  up. But then when I began to think about it,
• 1:17:27
  I was like, to be fair, I remember listening
• 1:17:28
  to 80s radio stations in the car as a child.
• 1:17:32
  So I would have been listening to 80s nostalgia
• 1:17:34
  radio stations in like 1998. So I suppose by
• 1:17:39
  that logic, 10s radio is actually not even that
• 1:17:42
  close. yeah scary um i just want to say i feel
• 1:17:47
  like i'm nearly middle -aged not not quite there
• 1:17:50
  but i'm getting there uh and i still i'm still
• 1:17:55
  too young for the stuff in mixtape i'm throwing
• 1:17:57
  it way way back do you remember mixtape from
• 1:18:00
  from a few months back yeah i find it so weird
• 1:18:03
  how i'm nearly middle -aged i'm still too young
• 1:18:05
  to have nostalgia for whatever is happening in
• 1:18:07
  that game that is so strange to me we gotta stop
• 1:18:10
  letting 50 year olds have any sort of i think
• 1:18:13
  i've just i think it just about worked for me
• 1:18:15
  next tape like you're just just it's a weird
• 1:18:18
  list that soundtrack it's a good list but it
• 1:18:20
  is a weird list there's the stuff you put stan
• 1:18:23
  bush on it and it's fine i'm there like the touch
• 1:18:27
  is on it right so i'm like yeah 10 out of 10
• 1:18:29
  game. I'm not saying bad game. I'm just saying
• 1:18:32
  it wants to evoke nostalgia for a time period
• 1:18:35
  that you have to be way older than the average
• 1:18:37
  gamer to enjoy. I didn't even feel like it was
• 1:18:42
  trying to... I wasn't tapping into nostalgia
• 1:18:44
  as such. I just felt that it did a good job at
• 1:18:47
  making the people in it feel like they... We're
• 1:18:52
  having a good time. I wasn't nostalgic. I never
• 1:18:56
  went to bloody house parties or when my mates,
• 1:18:59
  we just used to ride bikes down one alley down
• 1:19:02
  the street and round one mini roundabout. That's
• 1:19:04
  all we did as kids. So I'm not nostalgic of what
• 1:19:07
  happened in that, but I did feel like they did
• 1:19:09
  a good job of making the people in it. work with
• 1:19:12
  with the soundtrack but yeah that's the thing
• 1:19:14
  i still need to play a mixtape but i always got
• 1:19:15
  the impression it was not trying to evoke everyone's
• 1:19:18
  nostalgia but trying to convey the devs nostalgia
• 1:19:20
  for that era so but i do need to play it because
• 1:19:23
  i do think some 90s nostalgia is coming up a
• 1:19:26
  little bit like lost records last year was another
• 1:19:29
  one that that was very very mid 90s and uh mostly
• 1:19:32
  i'm still as you say just a little bit too young
• 1:19:35
  for that to be my era of teen nostalgia but it
• 1:19:37
  is kind of nice to see the 90s coming in a little
• 1:19:40
  bit but i think you are right i think they're
• 1:19:42
  getting squeezed out between the very long tale
• 1:19:43
  of 80s nostalgia and the fact that early 2000s
• 1:19:46
  is coming in coming in hot i had very similar
• 1:19:49
  feelings about the first super mario movie uh
• 1:19:52
  super mario uh because it has songs like uh i
• 1:19:57
  need a hero and stuff and i said to my friend
• 1:19:59
  i was like why are all these songs so so old
• 1:20:01
  and he was like you need something for the parents
• 1:20:03
  i was like brother You're a parent. Right. This
• 1:20:06
  is the age of the parents. If you're taking a
• 1:20:08
  10 -year -old to the film, it's people in their
• 1:20:09
  mid -30s who are taking those kids. Yes. We're
• 1:20:11
  still too young for these songs. Our teen bands
• 1:20:14
  are the dad bands now. What? That's scary. I'm
• 1:20:17
  going to kick back on that specific example just
• 1:20:19
  a touch. It's not because I'm old. It's because,
• 1:20:22
  like, Holding Out for a Hero is, that's a song
• 1:20:27
  that had two lives. It had a life in the 80s.
• 1:20:29
  Yeah. And then it had a very different life in
• 1:20:31
  the 2000s. Because of Shrek 2? Because of Shrek.
• 1:20:34
  Yeah, because of Shane. And so there's a second
• 1:20:36
  wave of nostalgia for that song. It's the best
• 1:20:38
  moment of any film ever. Aha, take on me later,
• 1:20:42
  where they... It still annoys me. They cut out...
• 1:20:46
  So if you go and listen to the soundtrack of
• 1:20:47
  the Mario movie, there's a big difference where
• 1:20:49
  it's clear they always had a needle drop where
• 1:20:52
  they play Holding Out for a Hero because there's
• 1:20:54
  no written scored music for that. But the Donkey
• 1:20:57
  Kong arrival at the Kong area and they go on
• 1:21:02
  the car and ride. The composer, Brian Tyler,
• 1:21:07
  had scored that with a beautiful, beautiful,
• 1:21:10
  amazing arrangement of the Donkey Kong Country
• 1:21:12
  theme. And it's on the soundtrack and they obviously
• 1:21:15
  just dropped Aha over the top of it, which is
• 1:21:18
  a disgrace. And that was the one where you can
• 1:21:20
  tell someone with a clipboard went, it's been
• 1:21:23
  too long since a pop culture reference. I go,
• 1:21:27
  we'll put Aha over this sequence. Thankfully,
• 1:21:30
  they did a lot less of that in Mario 2. They
• 1:21:34
  had Notorious B .I .G., of all things, when Yoshi's
• 1:21:36
  walking through New York, but I think, is that
• 1:21:38
  the only one? Yeah, I think it was mostly video
• 1:21:44
  game -y remixes and inspired orchestral mixes,
• 1:21:47
  which were very good, by the way. Obviously,
• 1:21:51
  yeah, and Luigi sings That's Amore, but I think
• 1:21:55
  that's it, right? Anyway, yeah, yeah, that is...
• 1:22:00
  Are we agreeing Shrek 2 is the best film ever
• 1:22:03
  made? I haven't seen it in a long time, but I
• 1:22:06
  do remember the ending being really good. The
• 1:22:08
  end of Shrek 2 with the gingerbread man. I mean,
• 1:22:13
  I'll get too emotional. Where is it on the spectrum?
• 1:22:19
  It's a proper art. Actually, I think, yeah, Shrek
• 1:22:24
  2 is more on the art end. And now you've got
• 1:22:26
  this Shrek. You've got this. It's high art, right?
• 1:22:29
  But now you're at Shrek 5 and that's going to
• 1:22:34
  be fully on the product end. You see, the spectrum
• 1:22:37
  is important. It works for everything. Franchises
• 1:22:40
  travel along the spectrum. They do. Sometimes
• 1:22:42
  it bounces. Well, James Bond is one that has
• 1:22:46
  done that and then bounced back on a few occasions.
• 1:22:50
  So it went like that pretty much from Sean Connery.
• 1:22:54
  It bounces back with Lazenby and then goes all
• 1:22:57
  the way all through more and then bounces. So
• 1:22:59
  often actually, I suppose it resets with each
• 1:23:01
  bond, except Daniel Craig's kept it quite on
• 1:23:03
  the art level for the whole run. Anyway, we have
• 1:23:07
  kept people more than long enough. So that is
• 1:23:11
  it from us this week, except for, of course,
• 1:23:13
  if you're one of our backers on Patreon, we'll
• 1:23:17
  have a little bit of an after hours chat where
• 1:23:18
  we're going to talk about really exciting stuff.
• 1:23:22
  which is exclusive and secret. You can obviously
• 1:23:26
  support us, respec .net, for the website, to
• 1:23:29
  read the website. You can hit the link there
• 1:23:31
  to get to our Patreon, to get to our YouTube,
• 1:23:33
  to get to our social media channels. We're just
• 1:23:35
  starting out. Every follow helps. And of course,
• 1:23:38
  you can also go directly to patreon .com slash
• 1:23:40
  respecnet, R -E -S -P -E -C -N -E -T, to support
• 1:23:46
  us directly, which helps us, gives you a very
• 1:23:49
  warm, fuzzy feeling inside. and get you, as I
• 1:23:52
  said, some bonus content. And we're working on
• 1:23:54
  even more bonus stuff at the minute. We're just
• 1:23:57
  spinning that up, but you can expect more than
• 1:24:00
  just the extra podcasts in the future and in
• 1:24:04
  the coming weeks. So with all that said, Rebecca,
• 1:24:08
  Bridge, you got anything you want to plug or
• 1:24:10
  anything? You should read One Piece. I actually,
• 1:24:17
  I have been told by my podcast co -host that
• 1:24:19
  my mic cut out during my podcast plug in the
• 1:24:21
  last episode. So I will repeat that every two
• 1:24:24
  weeks. You can hear me on IndieVenturePodcast
• 1:24:26
  .co .uk if you want to hear people talk about
• 1:24:29
  indie games and get way overexcited about indie
• 1:24:31
  games and go on massive tangents. So there you
• 1:24:34
  go. IndieVenturePodcast .co .uk. I will just
• 1:24:37
  keep saying it so my mic doesn't cut out. That's
• 1:24:39
  why I said it as well. IndieVenturePodcast. IndieVenture.
• 1:24:43
  What's that? The IndieVenturePodcast? Thank you.
• 1:24:47
  Tom's not going to do it. Tom's going to be the
• 1:24:49
  one who won't do it. I don't get drawn into these
• 1:24:51
  peer pressure things. It's not peer pressure.
• 1:24:55
  It's just a friendly peer suggestion. What was
• 1:24:58
  it called again? IndieVenturePodcast .co .uk.
• 1:25:02
  Sorry, I got to say it again. It could be worse.
• 1:25:05
  It could be worse. Whenever Christian goes on
• 1:25:09
  BGC, we all deliberately mispronounce the name
• 1:25:12
  of his show. Oh, well, it was really sweet. One
• 1:25:15
  of my co -hosts got married last year and in
• 1:25:18
  his dad's speech at the wedding, he repeatedly
• 1:25:20
  referred to the podcast as the Indie Adventure
• 1:25:22
  Podcast, which we thought was so lovely. But
• 1:25:26
  imagine there's another podcast out there that
• 1:25:28
  was getting your referrals from that wedding.
• 1:25:30
  Possibly, quite possibly. All the aunts and uncles.
• 1:25:33
  I was kind of like, do we get like a different,
• 1:25:34
  do we get that domain name just to make sure?
• 1:25:36
  We should probably do that. Yes. With that then,
• 1:25:41
  everyone, we will see you next week. So thank
• 1:25:43
  you for joining us. Thank you, Tom, Rebecca,
• 1:25:47
  Breams. Say goodbye, everyone. Bye -bye. Bye
• 1:25:51
  -bye. Till next time. See ya.