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games that involve dice, luck, and cardboard.

1:59

I'm your host, Jeff Kanata. It's well the two ends in

2:01

one tee and I am joined as always by my friend

2:03

slash co-host slash

2:06

nemesis The

2:08

guy who knows that I am

2:10

currently the sports version of Schrodinger's

2:12

cat My Super Bowl

2:14

hopes are both alive and dead in this moment Mr.

2:18

Christian Spicer. Hello Christian Hello

2:21

Jeff. Hello everyone. I am just hoping that my

2:23

team makes it to the little game I don't

2:25

think we give enough credit to the little it's

2:27

always the big game get the new TV for

2:29

the big game But as a

2:31

big fan of the little game the smallest

2:33

of the games. Yes a tiny I mean

2:36

you might get a miss it. Yeah, tiny

2:38

tiny game so small Maybe

2:41

they do even know they played it It's so

2:43

small that you could fit it on an NES

2:45

cart, you know, like that's how small the game is This

2:48

is a game on the head of a pin Tiny

2:52

tiny tiny game but very important to

2:54

me. So yeah, I'm excited Well, we

2:56

all have our our game sizes that

2:59

we enjoy ladies

3:01

and gentlemen Yes,

3:03

we are recording a little early

3:05

in the day so that I can root

3:07

for my 49ers Maybe maybe I'm

3:10

the happiest boy right now. Maybe maybe I'm the

3:12

saddest. You don't know I did push

3:14

to record I did push to record during the

3:16

game so we could get and our next oh,

3:18

come on Different

3:21

kind of podcasting experience But

3:26

yeah, you know ladies and gentlemen, you know

3:28

how I'm feeling right now I do not

3:30

yet know Hopefully I'm elated

3:33

Hopefully, you know Detroit

3:36

fans I understand you and I you

3:38

know in any other world I would be rooting with

3:41

and for you Not this

3:43

year and whoever came out the

3:45

victor today. I you

3:47

know I'm being

3:49

magnanimous now Hey, the

3:52

point of all this is that I'm saying

3:54

is that the upshot of us recording early

3:56

is that we get to have? one

3:58

of our favorite guests Back on the

4:01

show, you know, the DLC always stands for

4:03

your downloadable. Canada and your downloadable Christian, but

4:05

this week Whoo-hoo. I'm excited

4:08

because once again DLC stands

4:10

for dorsal

4:12

land contributor because

4:15

Dorsal is a fin and from Finland

4:18

It's the internet's own our friend

4:20

Patrick Beja back with us. Hello

4:22

Patrick. Hey, so nice to be

4:24

here I was listening to the

4:27

episode a couple of days ago three days ago

4:30

And as I was listening to

4:32

you talk about something

4:36

I got a message and I was driving and I

4:38

got a message and here you read it out loud

4:40

and it was you Hey,

4:43

would you like to be on the show and

4:45

I was like, yes I'm gonna

4:47

be able to talk about pal world and

4:49

that incredible controversy and then I kept listening

4:52

and then you had already covered it and

4:55

Hey, it's not going away. We can talk more about

4:57

it. I Guess I do

4:59

like to reach out to people as they're

5:01

listening just to correct things. I've said wrong,

5:04

you know Yeah, I don't know people It's

5:06

a lot of work all week long to

5:08

call each individual listener But I know we

5:10

get as a podcast creator to like people

5:13

think like oh you get aggregate about numbers

5:15

But no you get like specific like Patrick

5:17

is listening right now Also,

5:19

I should say hi to Susan in Nebraska.

5:21

Thank you. Hi We see you listening and

5:23

I have not yet called you Slow

5:28

it down no 2x speed half exceed you

5:30

got to give us time we got a

5:32

work to everybody to welcome I promise

5:36

All right. We got a we got a lot to get

5:38

to there are as as Patrick has indicated

5:40

There are some there's some juicy stories. There's some

5:42

interesting stuff happening in the games world and there's

5:44

lots of really cool games to discuss So

5:47

let's get right into it and start the

5:49

show the way we always do with story of

5:51

the week we Story

6:00

of the Week is the part of the

6:02

show where we make our case for the

6:04

most important stories that happen in the world

6:06

of games this week. You can always submit

6:08

stories for our consideration by sending us an

6:10

email to [email protected]. That's also where you can

6:12

send comments or questions, anything you'd like us

6:15

to know. We'd love hearing from you. [email protected].

6:20

You could also hang out in our

6:22

Discord and reach out to us and

6:24

other like-minded listeners by heading

6:26

over to the Discord 5x5 DLC. It's

6:30

a great place, really cool folks hanging out.

6:33

We urge you to take part, but Patrick, you

6:36

are our guest. So you get first pick of stories.

6:39

What would you consider to be your Story of

6:41

the Week? I can't

6:43

not go with Leios

6:46

at Riot and Blizzard

6:48

Activision specifically. I

6:51

am close to both

6:53

of those companies as I think you

6:55

both also are. I

6:57

have a lot to say. Some of

6:59

it might rub people the wrong way a little

7:01

bit, but then I'll bring it

7:04

around. I'll let you talk

7:06

about what's happening there. Yes,

7:10

unfortunately, this is one

7:12

of the biggest Stories of the Week and it is

7:14

yet another depressing

7:17

example of what

7:19

is happening in this industry right now. I

7:21

can't count the number of times

7:23

over the last year, two years, three years,

7:25

we've had stories on the show of

7:28

big layoffs that have made Story

7:30

of the Week. There have been even

7:32

more weeks where we haven't even talked about it

7:34

because it's become so common. But

7:37

yes, this week I feel like it hit

7:39

with such an impact.

7:44

Nearly 5,000 jobs have already

7:46

been lost in the video

7:48

game space and we're

7:50

not even out of the first month of 2024. As

7:54

you indicated, Patrick, it

7:56

is two companies, two

7:58

huge companies. Is. That.

8:00

You think? Are impervious to

8:03

this kind of thing? Well, Evidently nobody's

8:05

impervious to this kind of thing. And.

8:08

Of my on on one end

8:10

of Activision Blizzard would just got

8:12

acquired by Microsoft Microsoft. Just.

8:15

Became the most valuable company in

8:17

the history of humankind. Three.

8:20

Trillion dollar valuation. Not

8:23

like they're. Hurting for money one would

8:25

think. But. Ah,

8:28

and riot of course you know has a history

8:30

of. Printing. Money and

8:32

doing well. But this contraction

8:34

is happening throughout the games

8:36

industry and unfortunately. It.

8:38

Doesn't seem to be happening at the top

8:40

of these companies. It. Happens at

8:43

the bottom. And we

8:45

have seen so many. Friends

8:49

of ours, people we know, colleagues,

8:51

associates of people we admire working

8:53

at these companies posting on social

8:55

media that they have been affected.

8:59

Or it's heartbreaking to see this

9:01

kind of mass layoff happening. Microsoft.

9:06

Or I guess Microsoft Activision

9:08

Blizzard a leadoff nineteen hundred

9:10

employees this week. Riot.

9:13

Evidently affecting around eleven percent

9:15

of their workforce five hundred

9:18

and thirty roles globally. I

9:21

will get up to how this

9:23

is affecting the actual games which

9:25

is. Not. Insignificant.

9:28

But. Of course it's much more a

9:30

people issue. And. are hard

9:32

to that. all the folks affected. Our.

9:36

Own Lana be shinskie. You.

9:38

Know friend of show, part of the

9:40

Dlc family ah are paid Dlc colleagues.

9:43

She talked about this directly. She works

9:45

at Riot in the A leadership position

9:47

there and and to work at Blizzard

9:49

and used to work a Blizzard so

9:52

only one. It's. If there, Was

9:55

a cheap happily. Will say that

9:57

you know has not been on.

10:00

Made off but members of her team have and

10:02

she had this to say. Ah, on

10:04

the paid Dlc program wanted to play this

10:06

clip. So that

10:08

everyone could hear. You. Know what what

10:10

she's hoping for? A. Hopefully the reach of this

10:13

podcast can help some the folks affected and I

10:15

didn't want to just restated want to put it

10:17

in her own words. So he is Lana. I

10:20

don't know who's listening. I lost some incredible,

10:22

incredible people, one of which is on a

10:25

work visa. which means that if she does

10:27

not get employment again within the next sixty

10:29

days, she's going to be deported back to

10:31

Canada s and and of saying hey I

10:34

need some Physicists insists like usually implies or

10:36

the I guess. I'm

10:38

not listening. but if you are a developer

10:40

and you'll see the cell and you have

10:43

a spot I have. It

10:45

is it. Absolutely. Amazing amazing

10:47

person! Who

10:50

is a talented and curious

10:52

and thoughtful and knowledgeable developer.

10:54

Worked on amazing games. God

10:57

of War are both got of wars

10:59

m. S uses it as a

11:01

killer animator. I would love to connect you with

11:03

her so. Please Grammy! I'm in

11:05

the discord among the patriarch. I'm

11:07

on twitter, my email, eyes on

11:09

my link, then. Please.

11:12

Please have enough. Patrick.

11:14

You've also, as you mentioned, have

11:17

been an employee at Tabs at

11:19

Blizzard. It.

11:21

To me about though. The

11:24

people side of this and what

11:26

it really means as we've seen

11:28

this constant concierge contraction of the

11:30

games industry. So. I

11:33

I I will get back to the people side

11:35

of things and I apologize. I might be this

11:37

answer might be a little bit long winded. i've

11:41

been talking about this for a

11:43

few was a at on my

11:45

friend so so maybe some people

11:47

who listen to that might also

11:49

here repeats and i apologize for

11:51

that but i'll press preface this

11:53

by saved i live in finland

11:55

and in friends and i am

11:57

probably i would you know how

12:00

less leaning, those two other guys

12:02

on the podcast are, I'm probably

12:04

more less leaning because I

12:07

live in a country that's sane, where we have

12:09

social safety nets. And I'll get

12:11

back to that in a second. But

12:15

I want to say that first, because I

12:17

think, first of all, those two cases, Riot

12:19

and Blizzard, seem to me like

12:21

very different cases. And before

12:23

I even get to that, I want to mention

12:26

the fact that I think we lack a

12:28

lot of context when we talk about these layoffs

12:31

that keep happening, that have been happening

12:33

for the whole of last year, and

12:35

that keep happening this year at an

12:37

accelerated rate. And I say we lack

12:39

context because we keep saying, oh, there

12:41

are that many people laid off here,

12:43

that many people laid off here. And

12:45

I think most people don't know how many

12:47

people have been laid off. And

12:50

if that's a little bit,

12:52

or a lot for the industry, and

12:55

if it's more than the year before, now,

12:58

obviously, it's always a

13:00

tragedy, like, it's, again, especially in

13:02

the US, where it makes things

13:04

so difficult. But I

13:07

think we hear about it so much that people start

13:10

thinking, wow, how many people how much of

13:13

the industry has lost their jobs in

13:15

2023? Like, that's crazy.

13:18

Everyone's firing people all the time,

13:20

every company. And it

13:22

turns out, do you guys know

13:24

how many people were fired in 2023? We started

13:26

seeing numbers at the end of last year. So

13:30

I'm curious, do you guys know how many it was? I

13:33

think it's around 10,000, isn't it? Right. Correct.

13:35

Yeah. That's the best estimate we have.

13:37

And the industry from my very little

13:39

bit of research is about 600,000 people

13:42

in the world. So that's a

13:45

relatively small percentage, which isn't I

13:48

don't I'm not looking to diminish

13:52

The impact on the people, but it's a

13:54

very small percentage. I Went looking in France,

13:56

how many people are laid off last year,

13:58

usually. The on an average

14:01

year in every industry. I didn't get the

14:03

numbers for the video games industry, but it's

14:05

usually five percent in the video games industry.

14:07

It seems like last year was like two

14:09

percent baby. So and we don't know how

14:12

many it was in the previous years. I

14:14

couldn't get those numbers so I honestly don't

14:16

know if what happened last year and I

14:18

know it's shocking and I know people are

14:20

gonna get angry at me for this. I.

14:23

Don't know that a lot of people you

14:25

know compared to other years or compared to

14:28

other industries. Were laid

14:30

off and what bothers me is that

14:32

we don't have that context we don't

14:34

know and we should I think there's

14:36

they are excellent journalist who should do

14:38

and you know the research and of

14:41

i would like it to to have

14:43

that context now. And

14:46

again, I'm not trying to diminish anything

14:48

I think to understand and judge things

14:50

correctly. we should know what that means

14:52

in the case of lizards and riot.

14:57

Riots. Had. Launched

15:00

in too many different projects

15:02

which is something that the

15:04

seal says in in their

15:06

letter. Many

15:08

different projects. A few

15:10

of which did not pan out. And

15:14

I've been following this because ever since Arcane

15:16

came out or you'll have a sudden became

15:18

a fan of Riot. and as you mentioned,

15:20

I worked for Blizzard. I have a few

15:22

friends outside like this. I have a perfect

15:24

friends or acquaintances at Riot so I hope

15:26

that doesn't color my view. But I think

15:29

in the case of Riot. A

15:31

few. Things that I

15:33

had been following seemed like they weren't

15:35

working out. You know, they. They launched

15:38

a bunch of projects. They hired a

15:40

lot of people in the last few

15:42

years. They doubled headcount, which is also

15:45

a piece of data we don't have

15:47

about the games industry or the tech

15:49

industry. They hired a lot of people.

15:53

In the past few years and

15:55

it's to be you know the

15:57

order of of of the those.

16:00

Numbers is like they hired or know

16:02

five times more people than they are.

16:04

They are firing now five times Ill

16:06

last. Three years, you know,

16:08

So that's also piece of information that

16:10

important in the case of riot. They

16:13

doubled headcount in the last few years,

16:15

and they're now laying off ten percent

16:17

of the of the people. So. Perspective.

16:21

You know, doesn't mean that it's fun for

16:23

the ten percent and I'll get more into

16:25

that and in just a minute. But. I.

16:28

Think in the case of Riot,

16:30

you can understand that Riot Forge,

16:32

which was there department that was

16:35

working with. Indeed, it appears to

16:37

publish developed and published games within

16:39

the right universe. Which.

16:42

Didn't pan out. People did not buy

16:44

those games for a number of reasons

16:46

we could discuss, so I understand a

16:48

reduction in headcount there when they're trying

16:51

to refocus on gains that do work

16:53

out that do that players enjoy and

16:55

by and and spend time on. You.

16:59

Know you could argue that a company that

17:01

makes a lot of money to do not

17:03

fire anyone and that could be a discussion

17:05

to be had. but I think it's a

17:08

different discussion. So in the case of Riot.

17:11

It seems to me and they're also, do you

17:13

know? Unemployment benefits

17:15

and and health care and stuff

17:17

like that and help to be

17:20

help people find in yet another

17:22

job etc. It seems to me

17:24

like Riot has been doing things

17:26

properly or the one thing I

17:28

will say. Which. Is

17:30

a common thread in every. One.

17:33

Of those messages that the Ceos.

17:35

You. Know right down to

17:38

accompany the Laos is that

17:40

they are so sad. To.

17:42

Be firing people and they

17:45

take full responsibility for all

17:47

of that. Chair but they

17:49

never. Cut their. pay

17:51

rent you know is a few

17:53

japanese companies had that happen which

17:56

was notable but if you're really

17:58

sad if you're really taking responsibility,

18:00

you don't need to not get paid

18:02

at all for a year. Just

18:05

symbolically cut your pay a little bit.

18:07

That will, to me,

18:09

it feels like that's something that is

18:11

missing even from

18:14

Riot's messaging and actions, which I think

18:16

are on the higher tier of what

18:18

companies do in those circumstances. The

18:21

case of Microsoft is a little bit different.

18:24

They just bought a company. Of course, there are

18:26

going to be redundancies. We don't

18:28

know what was happening inside of

18:31

Blizzard. Maybe it was

18:33

necessary. I don't know. Maybe it was

18:35

like some games were not working out.

18:37

We're going to talk about the survival

18:39

game that was announced and

18:41

is now shut down. But

18:45

I don't know that they hired,

18:47

you know, it's not like they grew

18:49

exponentially in the last five years or three

18:51

years, and now they have to readjust. You

18:54

know, it doesn't seem like that to me.

18:56

Maybe it's the case. It doesn't seem like

18:58

that. I even think that just

19:01

before the purchase, Kotick cleaned

19:04

the bride a little bit and fired

19:07

people at Activision. So

19:10

this is it doesn't seem like

19:12

it's the same kind of dynamic. A

19:16

French YouTuber said,

19:19

you know, they're being fired

19:21

by Phil Spencer instead of

19:24

Kotick, so awesome acquisition there.

19:27

It's all better now that Kotick isn't

19:29

there anymore. So I understand that sentiment.

19:33

I'm a little bit less

19:37

sure about the justification of

19:39

the layoffs at Activision

19:41

Blizzard than I seem to be about Riot

19:43

because I think it seems a bit more,

19:46

I don't want to

19:48

say justified because that's an elegant, but understandable

19:51

at Riot. Now, the

19:54

most important thing in all of this, I

19:56

think, is that the Layoff

19:59

them. They'll.problem. I

20:02

think. The. Situation people

20:04

find themselves in when

20:06

they are leadoff. Is

20:09

an even bigger is the big

20:11

problem. I. Alluded

20:13

to the fact that we have social

20:15

safety nets in Europe. In every other

20:17

country than the Us, you know every

20:20

other big democracy has social safety nets.

20:23

Unemployment benefits, Social Security.

20:27

Free. Education. When.

20:29

You're fired and you don't have those

20:31

things. It's the end of the freakin'

20:34

world for you. That's. Why it's

20:36

such a pen? I mean, it's not fun

20:38

to be fired in France either. and certainly

20:40

you know where I'm not saying I had

20:42

no problem at all. Just fire every what.

20:44

we have very strict rules about how you

20:46

can fire people when and you know what

20:49

you do once you fire them and how

20:51

you can fire them. So Social Safety nets

20:53

I important, you're not going to get social

20:55

safety nets in the Us anytime soon. You

20:57

know who wasn't fired. In. This

20:59

round of layoffs at Active

21:02

at Blizzard At Activision Blizzard

21:04

the people who are unionized.

21:08

I. You know I keep. We

21:10

all keep saying it. And

21:12

people don't seem to be

21:15

listening now. People. In

21:17

the gaming industry. Look

21:19

at what happened at Activision Blizzard.

21:23

Those. Who weren't unionized? So.

21:25

Many of what I mean, some of

21:27

them were fired. If you're unionized which

21:29

Microsoft has, you know, signed a deal

21:31

with what is what is the union

21:34

Cw. A. Like

21:36

a neutrality deal where they're

21:38

very magnanimously magnetic, mislead saying

21:40

we will not break the

21:42

law and union bust Awesome

21:44

you can unionize do with

21:46

now. Before. The

21:49

next freaking round of layoffs. That

21:51

the youth he issue aren't a

21:54

union, you are a few disparate

21:56

voices. That. Is. Trying.

21:59

to be heard against someone or an

22:01

entity that holds the entirety of the

22:03

power. You will never

22:05

get something equitable out of

22:07

this deal if you're not

22:10

collectively bargaining. I

22:13

don't understand how we need to explain

22:15

those things again and again. You

22:18

are in companies where layoffs are happening.

22:20

Why are you not inquiring about

22:23

unions? Why? What is

22:28

the way the US has

22:30

demonized unions is

22:33

incredibly mind

22:36

boggling. I'm not the hugest

22:38

fans of unions in general. In France, they

22:40

are very powerful. In many countries, they are

22:42

very powerful. But I will never

22:44

tell you they don't need to exist. If they don't,

22:48

the people who hold the power can do anything

22:51

they want. It is insane

22:53

that more people aren't unionized in the

22:55

US. And some people, the discourse is,

22:57

oh, well, when you unionize, the businesses

22:59

don't work. You

23:01

both know that there is one

23:03

industry where everyone is unionized. It's

23:05

the movies

23:08

industry. I don't

23:10

think anyone will say, which is

23:12

the biggest movie industry in the

23:14

world? Well, OK, it's probably India.

23:16

Which is the second biggest movie industry

23:19

in the world? It's the US. I

23:21

think movies get made and get made

23:23

very well in the US. It

23:26

works very well. And unions

23:28

ensure that you get treated,

23:31

you know, as well

23:33

as you can when you're working and

23:36

when you're fired, when you're laid

23:38

off. So I think

23:41

it's time. I think at

23:43

the very least, at the very

23:45

least, the people at Activision Blizzard

23:48

and Microsoft should look at this.

23:50

There is a union within Activision

23:52

Blizzard. Get

23:56

in touch with them. Just inquire,

23:58

just like we talk about. tell you, hey, we have

24:01

a Patreon, just look at the page. You

24:03

don't have to commit, just check

24:05

it out, maybe you like it, just

24:08

give them a call, figure

24:11

out what they're about, and

24:14

maybe you'll think, hey, maybe

24:16

I'll join, and maybe you should. So

24:20

that's my very own indigestion.

24:22

Patrick, I think a

24:24

lot of wonderful points there. Christian,

24:26

I know you have strong thoughts about this as

24:28

well. So

24:32

I write a newsletter, it's usually pretty

24:34

upbeat and fairly

24:36

celebratory of the hobby that

24:38

I love. christianspicer.substack.com,

24:41

if folks want to read this one,

24:43

anyone can go and read it. The

24:46

one that I sent out last Friday is about these

24:48

layoffs, and from

24:50

the perspective of, I

24:52

don't have a fix, I don't

24:55

have an easy answer, I wish I could make

24:57

a YouTube video with

24:59

like five growth hacks, how to ensure that,

25:01

and I jump cut my way to success,

25:03

telling you how to live your life and

25:07

aren't the plants behind me gorgeous. I

25:09

don't have that, I don't have that

25:11

easy answer. What I have

25:13

is… But like and subscribe anyway. Don't

25:16

just like, mash that like button. I

25:19

want it to be potatoes, mashed and

25:21

with gravy and butter on it. I

25:25

have empathy as someone who

25:27

has been laid off

25:30

multiple times, once from a

25:32

game studio. Christian

25:37

and I just, you know, FYI,

25:39

both laid off from the same game

25:41

studio. But I was laid off first.

25:45

Well, I mean… That's

25:48

valuable, Christian. To

25:50

be fair, I was the one who laid you off

25:52

too. I was like, look, if it's

25:54

up between me and Jeff… Yeah, in fact, there weren't

25:56

even layoffs at the company. It was just… It

26:00

was just Tuesday and Christian was like, let's get rid of

26:02

Jeff. Do we need to cut costs? No, no. No,

26:05

my performance poor. No, he's falling out of

26:07

our pocket. Oh,

26:12

my people love that joke. Um, real

26:14

quick, I have empathy and it sucks.

26:19

And nothing I say will make it easier

26:21

or better for you. And Jeff and I

26:23

are joking right now about some of that

26:25

stuff, but I I

26:29

struggled a lot the first time around when

26:31

I was an attorney and I found another

26:33

job and I practiced for a long time

26:35

after that and I look back

26:37

and it's like, oh, there was the economic collapse

26:40

and the entire office of the

26:42

firm I was at went out of business and

26:45

blah, blah, blah, interest rates and all that

26:47

stuff. And I don't

26:49

know if this is true for everybody,

26:51

but it was, uh, it really shook

26:53

me and I was left with feelings

26:55

of inadequacy, even with all of those

26:58

rationalizations and some of

27:00

my friends that stayed

27:02

on a little longer. Like I said,

27:04

eventually that whole office went away, but

27:06

suffered from survivor's guilt and the lack

27:08

of trust with the company and what

27:11

that looks like. And so what

27:13

I want to say here to everybody listening to this is

27:15

I can't help you in

27:18

a way where like, let me get you a new job. I

27:20

wish I could, I can't, but I can be there for you.

27:23

If you just want to email me, I will read

27:25

it. I will listen and

27:28

I will give you a virtual hug the best way

27:30

I can. And that helped me a

27:32

lot. So I wanted to offer that to

27:34

folks that are maybe affected either in the video

27:36

game space or not. Um,

27:40

I'd be swearing a lot more if it wasn't on

27:42

this show. It sucks, uh, friends.

27:44

And, and I think to the specifics of

27:46

this, to pivot to that side of things,

27:49

I think Patrick, you made some great logical

27:52

points, um, especially at

27:54

the beginning and numbers and data and

27:56

this, that, and the other. There's

28:00

got to be a better way. You know, I don't care

28:02

if it is 0.01% of the workforce.

28:06

It frustrates me to no end, again, as a guy who

28:08

doesn't have the answer. It

28:10

frustrates me to no end, this idea of like,

28:12

well, the pandemic and we hired up this big

28:15

and we tried these things and they didn't work,

28:17

but now we're doing this and this is going

28:19

to work. And it's like,

28:21

bro, you're the same person who said the

28:23

one thing, who's now saying the other thing.

28:26

Get out of here. You don't get to have your

28:28

cake and eat it too. No, the

28:30

fire was hot and I told you to touch it.

28:33

That's my bad. But now this

28:35

dry ice touch that. Trust

28:37

me. It's

28:40

not like nothing works. And it's funny because

28:42

we talked about this on my friend show

28:44

a few days ago and someone said the

28:46

same thing. In the case of Riot, they

28:48

tried a lot of new things. Many of

28:51

them worked. You know, they're not firing

28:53

half the people. There

28:55

is a lot of new games from Riot and

28:57

a lot of new projects which were

29:00

successful. And I don't

29:02

know what the answer is either, but you can't

29:04

tell people, well, never hire anyone because you might

29:06

end up laying them off in

29:09

three years. So don't try anything. Just

29:11

do everything that you've been doing until

29:13

now and only hire when

29:15

it is absolutely certain that you will

29:17

never fire anyone. I'm

29:20

going back to a logical thing again, which

29:22

I understand is maybe not appropriate. Well,

29:25

let's frame it this way because we got

29:27

an email this week sent in to us

29:29

from Jeffrey who says, hey,

29:32

long time, first time I figured the Xbox layoffs would be

29:34

a story of the week. And I just wanted to write

29:36

in and get your thoughts on something you all mentioned just

29:39

about every week. Too many

29:41

games. Perhaps all these

29:43

big industry job cuts are the result

29:45

of too many games. The market is

29:48

flooded and even very good games can

29:50

easily get overlooked because there are just

29:52

too many other games drowning them out.

29:55

Is the industry simply providing some

29:57

necessary pullback from its excessive

29:59

supply? I'll take my answer off

30:01

the air. I think that

30:03

might be a useful direction to point

30:06

this conversation because you know, I am

30:09

just I'm right there with you guys in it.

30:11

You know, whinging about the

30:14

state of things and we can continue to do that.

30:17

But and

30:19

I don't think it's wasted time because

30:21

it is there is a human emotional element to this

30:23

that has to be acknowledged. But

30:26

having acknowledged it, is

30:28

there something to be said about the state

30:30

of the industry as a whole that

30:34

there's just it's

30:36

collapsing under the weight of of

30:39

these unrealistic expectations? Patrick,

30:42

do you have an opinion about that? I

30:45

mean, it's difficult to say we would

30:47

need to again data. We're

30:50

there is certainly too many games and

30:52

too many awesome great games, which

30:55

is the result, I think, of technology

30:57

enabling a lot more people to do

30:59

a lot more with a lot less

31:01

time and money. There

31:04

are a lot of indie devs who can

31:06

develop games that they couldn't have developed 10

31:08

years ago who can distribute them very easily

31:11

when they couldn't have before. So too

31:13

many games in itself is

31:15

the result of a good thing, which

31:18

is we can create awesome stuff with

31:20

less. We

31:22

don't need $15 million to create a game

31:24

of that quality. At

31:29

some point, if you know it keeps

31:31

exponentially increasing, then

31:34

we might get to a point where there are indeed

31:36

too many games. But I

31:38

don't know that we're there now. You could

31:40

say there's too much music. There's a lot

31:42

of, you know, awesome music

31:44

making bands and people who don't make it.

31:48

Interesting, again, piece of data is that

31:50

on Steam, there have

31:52

been an increase of games for

31:54

the past five years we went

31:57

from. It's like it's ridiculous. It's

31:59

2000 games. extra games out of 10,000

32:01

every year. And

32:04

you're like, oh, well, how can we

32:06

have time to play all of this?

32:08

Well, it turns out most of them

32:10

are like hobby projects, porn games, scams,

32:13

reskins, stuff like that. And

32:16

there was an interesting study by a marketing

32:18

guy who estimated that

32:20

the actual games have

32:22

been constant from 2017, I wanna say. I'll

32:27

try to dig it up and send it to

32:29

you guys. But I

32:32

mean, obviously, if there are more and more

32:34

excellent games every year at some point, it's

32:36

gonna have to, something's gonna have to break.

32:38

I don't know that we're there now because

32:40

we kept saying that for the

32:42

past, what, five years, we didn't think there are

32:44

too many games. And,

32:47

but I don't know that we

32:49

know what the answer is. I mean, maybe too many games

32:51

is the wrong way to put it, but I do think

32:53

there is, it seems

32:55

to me, from the outside

32:57

looking in, there does seem

33:00

to be this extraction contraction

33:02

pattern, that

33:05

these companies staff up huge and

33:08

then fire everybody and staff up

33:10

huge. And this speaks to exactly

33:12

what you said, Patrick, about the

33:14

necessity for unions because you

33:16

wouldn't be able to do that in a unionized

33:18

environment. That's not an easy thing to do is

33:20

just hire a bunch of people. And

33:23

that's the stories that really break your heart when you

33:25

read about this stuff is like you

33:27

were saying, hey, three months

33:29

ago, six months ago, X

33:32

number of people were hired, moved their

33:34

lives to this new place, uprooted

33:37

their, got this brand new job

33:39

and then it's, that

33:41

job is eliminated. Part

33:44

of that is the realities of life and

33:46

in capitalism, but also there

33:48

has to, as Christian said, there has to

33:50

be a better way, right? Just extraction contraction.

33:53

It's like, go ahead, guys. But in

33:56

this case, you're saying, what unions could

33:58

do, you could negotiate for. For example,

34:00

with a union, you can negotiate,

34:02

if you moved here less than a year

34:04

ago, we're going to pay for your relocation,

34:06

for example. Riots

34:08

very generously gave, I think, six

34:11

months' severance. Yeah,

34:15

well, that's great for the US, but six

34:17

months is not a lot of time. Maybe

34:19

a union could negotiate a year, maybe more

34:21

than that. These companies, and that's the other

34:23

part of it, make a lot

34:25

of money. I'm sure

34:27

Riot has a lot of money in the

34:30

bank they could use to give two years

34:32

of severance to those 500 people. The

34:37

reason it's not happening is maybe

34:39

I'm overextending my knowledge and it's not

34:41

possible, but I'm guessing a union would

34:43

make the conditions of those

34:45

layoffs better, not worse. And

34:49

again, Microsoft has a lot of money.

34:51

I'm not talking about the small companies

34:53

trapped for cash that's in bankruptcy mode.

34:57

And I don't think the layoffs would not

34:59

happen with a union.

35:02

I think they would happen in better conditions

35:04

for the workers. Again,

35:06

at those companies that make a huge

35:08

amount of money. So I

35:10

think that's part of the

35:13

answer there. Yeah. Christian

35:18

referenced it earlier. I

35:20

can't help but speak to this anecdotally

35:23

from my own experience, working

35:25

at a

35:27

company that will

35:29

remain nameless, but that

35:32

was flush and doing

35:34

well and profitable and staffed up and started

35:37

a bunch of projects. And then

35:39

none of those could get going and then fired

35:41

everybody. And it's just this cycle

35:44

that seems to be writ large in the video

35:46

game industry of boom and

35:49

bust, boom and bust, boom and bust. And

35:52

I don't know how you get out of it. I

35:54

don't think it's a bad thing. I don't

35:56

think the thing you get when

35:59

you're able to take risks is

36:01

that you can succeed. Again,

36:03

maybe I'm being

36:06

a broken record. For me, the most

36:08

problematic thing is not that some people

36:10

are getting fired, is the conditions. And

36:15

the way people are fired

36:18

in the US, especially,

36:20

especially, you know, it's not great

36:23

in other countries, is

36:28

not very humane. And

36:30

I'm no argument for there, obviously, obviously that,

36:32

I mean, that's an issue that is, I

36:34

think, a little out of our depth in

36:37

the video game podcast. You know, what

36:39

I'm, what keeps ringing

36:41

in my head is a company like Riot

36:43

saying, we're doing 47 new projects. And

36:47

then a year and a half later,

36:49

we're doing three projects. You know, it's

36:51

like that to me feels correctable,

36:54

right? Because there was,

36:57

in hindsight, it's easy to say,

37:00

but maybe it was always true that there was never gonna be

37:02

47 new projects. You

37:05

know, there was never gonna be a market

37:07

that could sustain 47 new

37:09

Riot projects. Again, obviously I'm

37:11

exaggerating, but that's what this

37:13

seems like, is like, hey, we're doing, we're staffing

37:15

up because we're doing this initiative where we got

37:18

all these new games and then you see this

37:20

one canceled out. And maybe that's just

37:22

how video game development works, where stuff doesn't work, as

37:24

you said, Patrick, but. And in the

37:26

case of Riot, which again, I've been following, you

37:30

had traditionally League of Legends and for

37:32

what, 10 years, they

37:34

were adapting the company to

37:36

the success of that game. Then they were

37:38

like, okay, we're good. Let's start

37:41

other things. And they have Wild

37:43

Rift, they have Legends of Runeterra,

37:45

they have Valrent. So

37:47

Legends of Runeterra didn't quite work out,

37:51

but Wild Rift works well. Playing

37:54

it, Valrent is a successful game.

37:57

Teamfight Tactics is working out. They brand

37:59

new. out with Riot Forge, which didn't

38:01

work out, but you know, they

38:04

have Arcane, which is a resounding

38:06

success. I don't think, as

38:09

frustrating as the situation be, I think

38:13

saying, well, you shouldn't

38:16

launch new projects or less, or like

38:18

how much is enough? Like you say

38:21

47, they had like five

38:23

different departments or six or

38:25

seven. And four are left

38:28

standing. Should they have guessed

38:31

which ones would work? I think they tried

38:33

all the ones that, you know, are difficult. Faced

38:41

with the harsh realities of this stuff, you

38:43

know, like Christian has articulated well, you know,

38:45

there has to be a better way and

38:48

yet it's not clear what that is. I'm

38:52

curious to hear what folks think about this

38:54

in the Discord and via

38:56

email, you know, and if there are folks affected,

38:59

certainly we are harkazot

39:01

you and hope that there's

39:05

a course correction and that makes

39:07

this kind of cycle

39:10

less severe, if maybe

39:12

not eliminated completely less severe. Because

39:15

1900 people's a lot. It's

39:17

a lot. And I want to re-infice, I've been

39:20

talking about it in a very cold

39:22

and analytical way. Again, I

39:24

have friends at Blizzard still,

39:27

not many that are left, but I have

39:29

friends. I know

39:31

the company, so it hits

39:33

me, I think, even more than some

39:35

other people. That is

39:37

obviously the most important thing, the people who

39:40

are affected. But you are asking the right

39:42

questions and I think that anybody listening will

39:45

understand that and not, you know, hold

39:47

that against you. All right, pivoting

39:51

somehow from that, Christian Spicer, what is your story

39:53

of the week? One

39:56

bookend to this and I

39:58

will hard pivot, but one, thing

40:00

that I did want to mention is I think part

40:02

of the problem is this idea and this is something

40:04

that I am part of this

40:07

machine with owning stock

40:09

and looking to retire the American way

40:11

by owning stock in the stock market.

40:13

But this idea of profits above everything

40:15

else. And I think

40:17

it was Carnegie way back in forever, you

40:19

know, the idea of what a business should

40:21

be or should be and who its duty

40:23

is to instead of it to its employees

40:25

or its two communities to shareholders above everyone

40:27

else. And most

40:30

of the Western world has adopted that

40:33

philosophy. And I think it's

40:35

problematic many ways in terms

40:37

of these types of layoffs. But I also

40:39

think in terms of destroying local communities and

40:42

creating places where people are numbers more

40:44

than people in communities are data points

40:46

on a spreadsheet instead of places where

40:48

people live and gather. Yay,

40:52

economic theory. It's fun, isn't

40:54

it? Speaking of economic theory,

40:56

Jeff, did

41:00

you all did you all hear about how Apple's

41:03

opening up their app store to

41:05

streaming services? Yeah, because the government

41:08

is forcing them to speaking

41:10

of economic theories that companies do

41:12

just because they want to did

41:14

you hear that there's going to

41:17

be a native most likely a

41:19

native GeForce Now and Xbox cloud

41:21

gaming app coming? Yes, because of

41:23

the EU's regulations on Apple and

41:27

how it runs its business. Apple

41:31

is very happily and willingly

41:33

and out of the anyway,

41:36

just get around to it. And it

41:38

was gonna happen. Yeah, it was gonna

41:40

happen that we are beginning to see

41:42

the early stages of their

41:45

transitioning app store rules and

41:47

regulations, which includes in the

41:50

EU, sorry, UK, I think the

41:52

UK is left out of this

41:54

because of Brexit. But in the

41:56

EU, allowing for alternative

41:58

app stores. itself, Epic

42:00

has said that Fortnite is going to come

42:02

back to iOS devices,

42:05

Fortnite through Epic versus instead of using

42:07

GeForce Now through a web browser or

42:09

something like that. And they're going to

42:12

do it through their own app store,

42:14

details TBD, because this stuff is still

42:16

kind of coming out. But

42:19

one of those things that is

42:21

a precursor to individual app stores

42:24

is Apple allowing

42:27

things like GeForce Now

42:29

and xCloud to exist

42:31

as standalone apps on

42:33

iOS. Previously that had been

42:35

the case, I don't know why I point to it, on

42:38

Android, like you can, I'm pointing at my Android phone. That

42:41

has been the case on Android where if I was going

42:43

to play GeForce Now, I open the app like I would

42:45

on my computer and it loads and I'm in and I

42:47

can pick my game. Whereas on iOS,

42:49

you have to do it through

42:51

the web. So I created the

42:53

web-based app on my home screen and

42:56

I would tap into that. It is through

42:58

the web. And so some of the features

43:00

are a little limited when you're doing it

43:02

that way. But Apple had said you can't

43:04

have a streaming service with all of these

43:06

games on it in our app

43:08

store. Or if you did, you would need

43:10

to individually submit each game and we would

43:12

need to review each and every game every

43:14

single time there's a new game, which

43:17

is an impossible task. There's

43:19

no way that xCloud, Microsoft is like,

43:21

here's our cloud gaming and we're adding this new game

43:23

and then it needs to go through its own certification

43:25

on the app store. Yeah, you

43:28

get to a situation where like, well, maybe that game is

43:30

available on the xBox

43:33

cloud on PC, but not it's

43:35

like it's just horrendous. Absolutely,

43:37

absolute nightmare. And so this is changing. And

43:39

I think this is going to be good

43:41

for consumers. I think it's going to be

43:43

good for gamers. I think it's

43:45

going to be good for how you access those things. I

43:48

do think that these changes are going to

43:50

be the beginning of a potential slippery slope

43:52

though, and one that Android

43:54

users have navigated pretty

43:57

well over the years. But I'm curious

43:59

to see. see how these bigger changes come

44:01

to iOS in terms of individual app

44:03

stores. And Spotify has

44:05

already said, I think it was in

44:08

a marketing or a financial

44:10

call like, yeah, now we can

44:12

sell more. What they

44:14

what they say, like more upshot sales or something.

44:17

It was like, now we can do tons of

44:19

pop ups for sales. You know, just like, oh,

44:21

not like this. This is not what I wanted.

44:24

I get a dedicated app full of ads,

44:27

microtransactions. What? But

44:29

at least it comes with Froggert, right? But

44:35

as a big fan of cloud gaming, I'm super

44:37

excited for this because I have kept an Android

44:39

phone around as my kind of

44:42

dedicated cloud gaming device when I'm, you

44:44

know, able to carry two phones. And

44:46

I'm excited to see parity in that space.

44:48

And to see what innovation will

44:50

come from this where folks are allowed to make

44:53

the best thing possible for that experience and for discoverability.

44:55

Like right now, if I were to tell Patrick, Patrick,

44:57

you got to try G force now

44:59

on your iPad. Okay, so you're going

45:02

to go to G force now.com. You got to log in.

45:04

Now you're going to hold you know, the little square with

45:06

the arrow on on it. You want to hold that you

45:08

want to long press it and you want to add it

45:10

to and it's like get out of here. No one's gonna

45:12

do that. So I'm stoked. But I'm aware of Pandora's box

45:14

as well. It's

45:17

so about the the

45:20

independent third party app stores

45:22

and app installs its cluster

45:24

F in the EU

45:27

as well because the way they're doing it, of

45:29

course, is protecting their business

45:31

model and complying with the

45:33

letter of the law in the

45:36

least possible spirit of the law

45:39

that they could. And it's the same

45:41

actually for a decision about third

45:43

party in app in app payment

45:45

systems in the US. They're saying

45:47

27% is the commission

45:51

will require for people who use third

45:53

party payment solutions. And

45:57

it's well anyway, that's neither here

45:59

nor there. But I'm not convinced

46:01

everything. You are on the perfect week

46:03

for this show though, Patrick. I love

46:05

getting the EU flavor, getting that spicy

46:07

European takes. Well, the payment

46:09

thing is in the US. Yeah.

46:13

And that is like the most

46:16

egregious way

46:19

to implement a judge's

46:21

decision I have ever

46:23

seen in tech. There

46:25

is so much bad faith

46:27

being created by this and it shows

46:29

how important the business is to Apple

46:31

of in-app payments and App Store. They

46:34

will defend it to the desk even

46:36

if it means everyone hates them, which

46:38

a lot of people already do. And

46:40

even if it means completely being hypocrites

46:42

on everything they've ever said before. Well,

46:44

that they're used to. But

46:48

yeah, the streaming is pretty cool. They're

46:53

doing it obviously because everyone else is, you

46:55

know, apps are going to enable this anyway.

46:57

So they're like, okay, well, it's going to

46:59

be on our platform anyway, so we'll enable

47:01

it. I'm

47:05

hopeful that it will get more people

47:07

to try out these

47:11

solutions. I

47:14

don't know how much more impactful it will

47:16

be in the midterm.

47:21

I'll certainly give it a go. There

47:24

are opportunities where it

47:26

was like maybe I'm wondering, I

47:28

don't know if it's possible on Apple TV.

47:30

I think that might be the most interesting

47:32

part of it. That would be great. All

47:35

I read when I saw this headline was put

47:37

it in my new Vision Pro. I

47:39

paid a lot of money for that thing. Please,

47:43

if you play video games on it. Oh,

47:46

God. Anyway,

47:49

yeah, it'll be interesting to see going forward.

47:51

I think this is a win for ease

47:53

of use when it comes to gaming streaming

47:55

services. All the other parts

47:57

of it are a huge question mark. But

48:00

we'll see. We shall see.

48:03

All right. My story of the week. It's

48:07

another bummer one. Can

48:09

I just quickly mention something positive? The

48:12

folks that made Demi-O are doing an official D&D VR

48:14

game. Very excited about that. I don't need to talk

48:16

about it. But it's a little positive. A little positive

48:18

story of the week. The thing I really want to

48:20

talk about. Now back to the show. Back to the

48:23

darkness. 2024 starting with them. Bang.

48:25

2024 starting with them. Bang.

48:30

You're headed to the wall. I

48:33

want to talk about this a lot because Patrick's here. Blizzard

48:36

fanboy like me. Former

48:38

Blizzard employee. One

48:40

of the fallouts of this contraction

48:42

of this firing of all these

48:44

people and reorganizing priorities

48:49

within Activision Blizzard is

48:52

that we heard that a long

48:54

promised Blizzard game,

48:56

notably a new IP for

48:58

them, they had been working

49:00

on this survival game that had been kind of

49:02

whispered about for a long time. It had been

49:05

reportedly in active development

49:07

for over six years with a team of

49:09

over 100 people working

49:11

on them. By the way, all of those

49:13

folks fired. This

49:16

project canceled and that entire team let go,

49:18

which is pretty wild. This

49:22

game, which was either codenamed

49:24

Odyssey or going to be called Odyssey.

49:27

I suspect it's codenamed Odyssey,

49:29

but it was going to be a new prong

49:31

in the Blizzard pantheon.

49:34

It was going to be a big,

49:36

big pillar. New IP, a new thing

49:38

going forward. Six years

49:40

of development. It was going to

49:42

be Blizzard doing what they do,

49:45

which is taking a genre that

49:47

had been already established and putting

49:49

that fine polish on it.

49:51

At least that's what their intention

49:53

was, was to take the survival

49:55

genre and make a Blizzard

49:57

type game in the way that they took

49:59

the. MMO that had already been around

50:01

with ever quest and Ultima online and they

50:04

made world of Warcraft with that Blizzard

50:06

polish That was their intent with the survival

50:08

genre with Odyssey. Now, we know six

50:10

years in completely

50:14

Dragged to the recycle bin on the desktop

50:17

Patrick this breaks my

50:19

heart Personally because

50:21

I have seen this a number of times with

50:24

Blizzard. They are not shy

50:27

about just trashing years and

50:29

years of work if they don't think they're

50:31

gonna make something very special and That's

50:34

one of the reasons I think Blizzard has had such

50:36

a great track record with projects is because They

50:39

have a very high standard and they're not gonna put out something even

50:41

though they've invested tens of millions

50:43

of dollars in it but

50:45

I also was excited about

50:48

this project and Looking very much

50:50

forward to hearing more about it and now

50:52

it will not be and we've seen that

50:54

happen so many times with these cool projects

50:57

Patrick your take Well,

51:00

my take is essentially the end of yours. I really

51:04

don't like the way this is being framed

51:06

because Trashing a project

51:08

that has cost a lot of money

51:11

and we don't know how Bad

51:13

it was going for the project Apparently

51:16

a lot of good work was being done by

51:18

a lot of talented people but

51:21

I'm guessing that Microsoft

51:24

you know if it was a

51:26

game that was awesome and that they could see Baking

51:29

a lot of money. They like

51:31

money. They wouldn't have canceled it

51:33

just because what they're being Evil

51:36

like they're cackling Phil is like how can

51:38

we be the most evil in his office

51:40

at the top of Microsoft tower? I'm

51:43

guessing the game had problems. We've heard a lot about

51:46

the technical issues that They

51:49

first had with unreal and then with

51:51

synapse which is their internal engine which

51:53

ended up not working out and

51:55

they were Apparently not very it

51:57

wasn't realistic the target of 2026

52:01

with it for release was not realistic according to

52:03

people on the team. Yeah, evidently they were trying

52:05

to get 100 players at once in

52:09

in these sessions and neither engine seemed to

52:11

be able to They worked

52:13

that out and there was some internal

52:15

strife with the team of some people

52:17

really wanting to use unreal others wanting

52:19

to use The internal synapse Blizzard engine.

52:21

Yeah, so yeah a lot of there's

52:24

I'm sure there are a lot of technical specifics

52:26

there because obviously Fortnite works with a

52:28

hundred people on the map, but the map was maybe

52:30

bigger anyway We don't know but yeah, the

52:33

point is the way this is being framed

52:35

is oh my god. Look at this horrible

52:38

thing that they're doing to this wonderful

52:41

game that would have happened and This

52:45

is what Blizzard is known for is what you were saying

52:48

not just trashing beautiful games but being

52:51

realistic about the quality of the game and

52:54

Not putting the game out if it

52:56

doesn't meet their standards of quality I

52:58

don't know that Blizzard distilled that Blizzard

53:01

but that move Seems

53:03

in line with that policy

53:07

And obviously it's tragic for the people and

53:09

the work that's already been done there Maybe

53:11

they could have recycled it like they did

53:14

tighten into Overwatch

53:17

there have been a number of projects some

53:19

of which we have not heard about that

53:21

Blizzard that never came to light Including you

53:23

know Starcraft ghost is the one that I

53:25

played it. I Played

53:28

it at e3. I had hands-on with Starcraft

53:30

goes and it was canceled and everyone was

53:32

sad but Yeah,

53:35

I I don't think I don't

53:37

see this for This

53:39

is the most Blizzard thing out of all this

53:42

whole story You know, this

53:44

is the most authentic like quality

53:46

Blizzard thing like old old School

53:49

Blizzard thing that we all admired thing

53:52

that we've heard and I don't understand

53:55

why people are painting

53:57

it as this other like

54:00

proof that look now they're horrible

54:02

and they're not even releasing this beautiful

54:04

game that everyone assumes would have been

54:07

awesome. I certainly don't have that position,

54:09

but I do think it's unfortunate

54:12

that yet again Blizzard

54:15

seems to just be refocusing on the

54:17

stuff they've already got. And

54:20

at a certain point, Overwatch

54:23

was a big new

54:25

IP and a big new thing, and that's a few

54:27

years in now. We

54:31

see this big initiative with this

54:33

plan of trilogies of wow

54:35

expansions, but I would love

54:39

for them to branch out and do

54:41

new stuff. Overwatch I think

54:43

is not doing great. Diablo

54:45

IV, yes, there'll be new seasons and

54:48

expansion. What's

54:50

on the horizon for Blizzard that's

54:53

really breaking new ground? This was

54:55

it as far as I'm aware. Maybe there's

54:57

things we don't know about, but six

54:59

years of development feels like not

55:02

insignificant. It's I think

55:04

since Overwatch. People

55:07

seem to point to Overwatch only, but Hearthstone

55:11

was a big deal. It was 2013. A

55:15

decade ago. Overwatch

55:17

was 2016. That's

55:20

a good pace. Unfortunately Heroes of the

55:22

Storm didn't work out, but that was also

55:24

something cool. Certainly

55:28

since Overwatch, let's say two

55:30

years after the release of Overwatch, we

55:34

haven't seen a lot of incredible, like

55:36

old school Blizzard, seems

55:38

like it's not around anymore.

55:40

And it's interesting to see that

55:42

Mike Ibarra, the president of Blizzard,

55:44

who was a former Microsoft employee,

55:46

was at BlizzCon saying, I will

55:49

be there until my death.

55:51

I love Blizzard. He arrived like

55:54

three years ago, four years ago,

55:57

and was named president of Blizzard App.

56:00

after the issues in 2021, the

56:02

harassment and toxicity things were came

56:04

to an end. He was an

56:06

outsider. But now he's back at

56:08

Microsoft. And three months after having

56:10

said, I will be there until

56:12

I die. He's like, Oh, I'm

56:14

happy to have done the transition. And

56:17

I'm leaving. It doesn't seem like he

56:19

wanted to leave. I don't

56:21

know what that says about whom. I

56:25

don't know, Microsoft didn't really like him. Why did

56:27

he leave Microsoft in the first place? Like, again,

56:29

there's interesting stuff to figure out there. Somebody's gonna

56:31

write a book at some point. Who's

56:34

gonna take his place? A

56:37

woman would be awesome. Just, you know, for

56:40

the principle of it. But there's,

56:43

there's a lot of things here that raise

56:46

questions for me. And this shuttering

56:49

of the project, I

56:52

wouldn't be too hasty to judge

56:55

it. Christian,

56:57

you have any thoughts? My

57:00

only thoughts on this is I'm shocked

57:02

at how recently they were hiring

57:04

for this game. Right. Dabbling

57:09

around in that space. We're hiring until we're firing. That's

57:11

the video continue. We're hiring until

57:13

we're shutting it down. I mean, very

57:15

recently they were staffing up for this

57:17

project. There were people saying I moved

57:19

four months ago for this project. And

57:21

now I'm fired. Like, that's where... It

57:25

does seem like anecdotally, based on timing of things

57:27

that I've seen, that it does seem like it

57:29

is part of a new company

57:32

owns this review of where things are.

57:34

Let's be honest. You know, how are

57:36

things shaking up? And or

57:38

the person whose pet project it was is

57:40

no longer the one calling the shots. And,

57:43

you know, John Carter is still gonna come out,

57:45

but we're not gonna advertise for it. John

57:49

Carter. John Carter. Yeah, sorry, John

57:51

Carter. It's

57:53

a bummer. It does feel

57:55

like six years in. We're gonna put this out in what,

57:57

2026? Oh, no, we're not gonna make 2026. Oh

58:00

really? Let's shut this all down.

58:02

We're shutting this whole thing down.

58:04

That's the short version. Survival

58:07

game. Six years ago, there weren't a

58:10

million of them. Great point too. You

58:13

know, I can see how the market

58:15

is not the same. I'm

58:18

going to talk about one this week that has

58:21

what I would consider to be pretty

58:23

good polish. All right. Speaking

58:25

of that, let's get into our

58:27

games that we have been playing. But first,

58:29

we'll take a quick break for a sponsor.

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In anticipation, vary. Terms apply. Alright,

59:34

let's talk about the games that are on

59:36

our playlist in a segment coincidentally

59:39

called the playlist. We

59:51

got some good games to talk about this week

59:53

in the playlist. Patrick, where would you like to

59:55

start? So many

59:58

things to talk about. I

1:00:00

have I have become I was

1:00:02

talking about my Love

1:00:05

for Riot games now. I have become a

1:00:07

League of Legends player This

1:00:11

is something I would never have thought I

1:00:13

would say in a million years but

1:00:17

following arcane Three

1:00:19

years ago was it I started

1:00:21

to get interested in In

1:00:23

League of Legends and I started playing League

1:00:25

of Legends wild rift Which is

1:00:27

a really awesome game and then a few

1:00:30

months ago I started following a

1:00:33

sports team an eSports team and

1:00:36

They played League of Legends and among

1:00:38

other games, which by the

1:00:40

way I don't know if you're sad or

1:00:42

happy now Jeff, but I'm definitely sad that

1:00:44

team is Carmen Corp 1

1:00:48

7 0 in the winter split in

1:00:50

League of Legends they

1:00:53

are so good in everything else so good

1:00:55

and I will still be behind them because

1:00:57

I've been following them for Essentially

1:00:59

three months, so I'm a lifelong You

1:01:05

bleed it no fair weather fan here,

1:01:07

I kind of feel like yeah, I'm

1:01:09

responsible for this for this spell It's

1:01:12

like 7 0 Every

1:01:15

anyway, this is not an eSports show, but

1:01:17

it was terrible I'll

1:01:19

be there Spring split will will

1:01:22

do it But so I

1:01:24

don't have time to play League of Legends as much as

1:01:26

I would like On PC

1:01:28

because every game you have to set aside the

1:01:30

whole hour and I have to So

1:01:33

that's not possible, but I

1:01:35

did come back to wild Rift This

1:01:39

is such an awesome game It is

1:01:41

like I played it a couple

1:01:43

of years ago quite a bit and you read

1:01:45

it now it's interesting because I have the contrast

1:01:47

between the PC game and the mobile game and

1:01:52

It captures so much

1:01:54

of what the PC game does

1:01:56

so well. It is such a

1:01:59

cool game game and I'm so

1:02:01

happy that they're not putting it out to

1:02:03

pasture with some other games

1:02:06

with that announcement. But

1:02:09

it is really really cool and

1:02:11

the difference is that it

1:02:13

is faster pace than League of

1:02:16

Legends PC but everything

1:02:18

that entails for gameplay is fascinating.

1:02:20

Like you get from one part

1:02:23

of the map to the other

1:02:25

more quickly. So vision is a

1:02:27

little bit less important so the

1:02:29

strategy around that is a little

1:02:31

bit less pushed

1:02:34

and so you get a game

1:02:36

that's more focused on team fights

1:02:38

and you know combat. But

1:02:41

the game is really cool. I'm not gonna, it's

1:02:43

an old game so I'm not going to talk

1:02:45

about it for too long. But Wild Rift if

1:02:47

you're curious about League of Legends just

1:02:50

go for it. It is easy,

1:02:52

accessible, everyone has it, it's on

1:02:55

mobile. Waiting for the

1:02:57

date comes to consoles maybe one day.

1:03:00

Very cool. Yeah I know you've been wanting

1:03:02

me to try this for literally years and

1:03:04

I have not done it. That's cool. You

1:03:06

know just to know what this thing is. It is

1:03:08

the biggest e-sport in the world. The

1:03:11

other game I wanted to mention in

1:03:14

passing is Warcraft Rumble and I

1:03:16

swear I didn't choose the two

1:03:19

companies that are confiring every one

1:03:21

that I, I'm

1:03:23

sorry but it's

1:03:25

not horrendous. Warcraft

1:03:29

Rumble not horrendous. Not horrendous. Put it

1:03:31

on the packaging. It's the

1:03:33

mobile game, it's essentially a tower

1:03:36

offense. It's

1:03:38

what's the Clash Royale? It's kind of a

1:03:40

riff on Clash Royale a little bit, a

1:03:42

bit more complex. It

1:03:45

works really well. I tried it

1:03:47

out a few months ago and

1:03:49

decided to pay for the account

1:03:52

unlock. You pay 20 bucks and

1:03:54

you get essentially increased rate of

1:03:56

experience and gold in in-game currency.

1:04:00

which make it much more viable for you

1:04:02

to progress through the game. It's a lifetime

1:04:04

unlock, so it's not something you have to

1:04:07

keep paying for. And I've been

1:04:09

playing it for about three, four months. And

1:04:12

I've been having fun. I play very short sessions.

1:04:14

This is essentially my, I don't

1:04:16

want to be doomscrolling right now game. I have three

1:04:18

minutes, so I'm going to play a couple of games.

1:04:21

Maybe just, you know, log in and get

1:04:23

the gold in the free thing for logging

1:04:26

in that you get. I'm

1:04:28

reaching the end of my run with that game. And,

1:04:35

you know, it's been, yeah, as I

1:04:37

said, three, four months. And I'm happy with the time

1:04:39

I had with it. It's a fun strategy game. You

1:04:41

really have to think sometimes it feels, you know, you

1:04:44

have that thing on a map where you

1:04:46

go in, you get destroyed, and you're

1:04:48

like, this is impossible. This is dumb. This is pay to

1:04:50

win, whatever. And

1:04:52

you just then look at the units that

1:04:54

are attacking you. What are their properties? Just

1:04:56

like in an RTS, you

1:04:58

know, tower defense games come from RTS.

1:05:00

So it's very, there are, there is

1:05:03

this legacy there. And

1:05:05

you say, okay, so I should build my deck

1:05:07

like this and have this type of unit. And

1:05:09

then all of a sudden, you know, you destroy

1:05:11

the map and think like, well, this is broken.

1:05:15

So it's fun. It's a good, I have

1:05:18

three minutes. What can I do instead

1:05:20

of scrolling Twitter game? Anything

1:05:23

that gets people off of that is positive in

1:05:25

my book. So that's Warcraft

1:05:28

Rumble. Yeah. But

1:05:30

the big release of the week, which I

1:05:32

know both you and Christian have been playing,

1:05:35

is Tekken 8. The

1:05:38

fighting game Renaissance continues. Or does it?

1:05:41

What is your feelings, Patrick,

1:05:43

about Tekken 8? Oh

1:05:45

my God, guys, I love Tekken

1:05:47

8 so much. Why has it taken us like an hour

1:05:50

and a half to get to Tekken 8? I

1:05:53

could talk about it for just

1:05:55

as long. It is awesome.

1:05:58

It is fantastic. everything

1:06:01

well. Well, almost everything. It

1:06:03

does many, many things well.

1:06:05

I love fighting

1:06:08

games. I'm an arcade,

1:06:11

a child of the arcades. I spent

1:06:14

a lot of time both in Europe

1:06:16

and in Japan when I lived in

1:06:18

Japan in arcades. And

1:06:20

Street Fighter 6 did things

1:06:22

that were popularizing,

1:06:24

again, a genre that was

1:06:27

king in the arcades back

1:06:29

then. And I thought

1:06:31

that Tekken could not reach those heights,

1:06:33

especially when they started talking about the

1:06:35

game and the communication was focused on

1:06:37

essentially what is, well, a

1:06:39

prettier version of Tekken 7. And

1:06:42

I thought, well, you know, that's...

1:06:45

I already have Tekken 7. But they

1:06:47

did add a lot of things and

1:06:49

it triumphs

1:06:51

in almost everything. The

1:06:57

story mode is fantastic.

1:07:00

It is essentially fast

1:07:04

and furious about fighting

1:07:06

games in anime genre in

1:07:09

its inane script. And

1:07:12

what happens in the game is ridiculous.

1:07:14

Like Tekken has always been a series

1:07:16

where the story, you

1:07:18

look at it and you laugh because it's so

1:07:21

dumb, as you do in Fast and Furious. They

1:07:24

dialed that to 11 in

1:07:26

Tekken 8. It's fantastic. It's super

1:07:28

dumb. It's super fun. It's very

1:07:30

accessible. It's very easy to get

1:07:32

into. Then

1:07:35

within the game, in game, you

1:07:37

know, the gameplay, you have two

1:07:39

modes of control. You

1:07:42

have classic mode, where you have

1:07:44

to press a button and do

1:07:47

a direction to do special moves. You

1:07:49

have combinations and sequences that can become

1:07:51

a little bit complicated. But then you

1:07:53

have... What's the name of that

1:07:55

mode? Easy

1:07:58

mode, easy input. I can't remember. but

1:08:00

you can activate it at any point,

1:08:02

including in that story

1:08:04

mode. You press a button

1:08:06

and then all you need to do is

1:08:08

press the same button many times and it

1:08:11

will do cool combos. It's a little bit

1:08:13

more involved than this, but essentially this is

1:08:15

what it is. This is not like the

1:08:17

Street Fighter VI modern

1:08:20

control scheme, which is supposed to

1:08:22

be competitive. And you can

1:08:24

choose to use the modern control scheme, which

1:08:26

is simpler than the classic scheme, but

1:08:29

it's competitive. It's a very seriously built

1:08:31

design thing so that you can choose

1:08:34

either of those modes. In Tekken, the easy

1:08:36

mode is not that. It's just a thing

1:08:38

for you to have fun and

1:08:40

it works. And you will play that story mode

1:08:43

and you can switch to that if you want

1:08:45

to. It is very

1:08:47

accessible and you play different characters

1:08:50

and you get the essentially fun,

1:08:54

I'll try it out experience. Then

1:08:57

you get into arcade quest, which

1:09:00

is really cool. You

1:09:02

have these little me like characters

1:09:04

in universe, which you

1:09:07

play one of them, you play as one of

1:09:09

them and they discover Tekken 8 and they get

1:09:11

into the local arcade

1:09:13

click. And there's

1:09:15

this one guy that teaches you how

1:09:18

to play the game. So they teach

1:09:20

you very literally how to play the

1:09:22

game with different features, different moves, different

1:09:25

properties of the game. Very slowly

1:09:27

they introduce stuff. You can play the

1:09:30

story mode and the arcade quest. Story

1:09:32

mode is about maybe five hours. Arcade

1:09:34

quest is a little bit longer, I think,

1:09:37

but you can play those two and have

1:09:39

a great Tekken experience without even getting into

1:09:41

the competitive side of it. The

1:09:44

game itself might seem like Tekken

1:09:46

7. It is 80%, it is

1:09:48

50% Tekken 7, but

1:09:51

they added a bunch of things on top

1:09:53

of it, which makes it so

1:09:56

much more fun, to me at

1:09:58

least. And I played it quite a bit. of

1:10:01

Tekken 7. This one I understand the mechanics of

1:10:03

the game so much more and how to play

1:10:05

and adapt to it and arrange

1:10:07

you know my gameplay to what's happening on

1:10:09

screen. It's incredible.

1:10:13

32 characters, only three new, but

1:10:15

the 32 it's a huge

1:10:17

number. Everyone is so different

1:10:20

and complex and has their own

1:10:22

gameplay within the game, almost everyone.

1:10:26

There's nothing not to love about this except

1:10:30

Street Fighter does the Battle

1:10:32

Hub mode which is the virtual arcade.

1:10:35

It's awesome. You go there, you see someone sitting

1:10:37

at a machine, you sit down and you play

1:10:39

against them. In

1:10:42

Tekken you have something that is taken

1:10:44

from arcade quest which is a huge

1:10:46

arcade and I was like awesome I'll go there

1:10:48

it will be the same thing except

1:10:51

no. When you sit down at

1:10:53

a machine at an arcade you're

1:10:55

just playing ranked with a random

1:10:57

person. You're not playing the person

1:10:59

that is sitting next to you

1:11:01

which is such a missed opportunity

1:11:03

because then you don't create it's

1:11:05

basically pointless. You don't create this

1:11:07

family rivalry because in

1:11:09

Street Fighter you go to the Battle Hub and

1:11:11

you actually play people and you're like oh you're

1:11:13

just a little bit stronger than me but I'll

1:11:15

get you and you play 10 games and finally

1:11:17

you get around and I think I saw said

1:11:19

something to that effect last time I was

1:11:22

here. In Tekken it doesn't work like that

1:11:24

and that's too bad but it's the only

1:11:26

thing that is not stellar

1:11:28

about Tekken 8. I love it. I can't

1:11:30

wait to play more of it. I don't

1:11:32

understand why I said yes to being on this

1:11:35

show when I could have been playing Tekken

1:11:37

8. Christian

1:11:42

you have also been playing Tekken 8 and

1:11:44

I thought I was gonna maybe sit this

1:11:46

one out as I have

1:11:48

with some recent fighting games but then I

1:11:50

saw that Prey Dogs Universal

1:11:53

VR mod for Unreal works with Tekken

1:11:55

8. You can play it in VR

1:11:58

so I might have to pick this one up on PC. But tell

1:12:00

me what your experience you do you agree

1:12:02

with Patrick that this is stellar?

1:12:06

nearly all the way through Wholeheartedly

1:12:09

I Tekken 8 is phenomenal.

1:12:12

It is incredible We are at a high water

1:12:14

park mark high water park high water mark. I

1:12:16

want to go to a high water park It's

1:12:18

like a regular water park, but like it's just But

1:12:24

if you're able to ride it out, it's great a

1:12:27

rising tide lifts all boats except for the ones with

1:12:29

leaky hulls They think Tekken

1:12:31

8 is Fantastic. I really

1:12:33

do think that we are in a golden

1:12:35

age of fighting games right now with you

1:12:37

know Mortal Kombat one has its People

1:12:40

have its issues with it and I think so those are fair

1:12:43

But Street Fighter 6 Tekken 8 and

1:12:45

also Mortal Kombat 1 and what we're seeing in the

1:12:47

space right now I think the

1:12:49

only thing holding fighting games back from

1:12:51

being kind of the pinnacle of Video

1:12:54

games in many regards is that they don't live

1:12:56

in arcades the same way So it's a different

1:12:59

experience versus in an arcade you kind of walk

1:13:01

by and you see it and you're drawn to

1:13:03

it And there's the one person there with the

1:13:05

bandana on who's dominating everybody and you put your

1:13:07

quarter up and you try there's that communal aspect

1:13:10

And I think Street Fighter 6 tries to recreate

1:13:12

some of that But it is just different when

1:13:14

you're at home and you don't know who's beating

1:13:16

your butt every time you play and you just

1:13:18

kind of Think you suck So

1:13:21

it kind of does it come with a bandana it

1:13:23

does it does come with a bandana and

1:13:25

like sweet attitudes So

1:13:28

I think that's what's missing from fighting games being

1:13:30

kind of the the peak of culture in terms

1:13:32

of conversation around games It is different when you're

1:13:35

by yourself and even if you're playing in excellent

1:13:37

ranked mode It just feels different to

1:13:39

lose half those matches at home versus at the

1:13:41

arcade and you see Susan or Gary or who

1:13:43

you know Like these people you see like oh

1:13:46

my gosh Gary's at the Tekken cabinet I'm

1:13:48

gonna go watch this and you saunter over and

1:13:51

you watch them beat somebody down But

1:13:53

Tekken 8 is incredible as you mentioned for

1:13:55

the mod. It is unreal. It's unreal 5.

1:13:58

I am playing on PC with

1:14:00

my beefy GP. It has

1:14:02

DLSS 2.0, not the

1:14:04

full 3.1 suite of technologies, but it is

1:14:07

2.0 enabled on PC if you have an

1:14:09

Nvidia card. Looks and runs great. I see

1:14:11

a couple of hitches here and there, but

1:14:13

usually it's on the character select screen and

1:14:16

then sometimes on character intro animations.

1:14:18

I would imagine that's something about

1:14:21

the engine transitioning between real time

1:14:23

into an animated cutscene or something

1:14:25

like that. I've also played it

1:14:27

on my Steam Deck. It works

1:14:29

great. It works fine, I should

1:14:32

say. Between the two, console's

1:14:34

better, but I've played many a match

1:14:36

against the CPU on my Steam Deck

1:14:38

and you're able to dial down the

1:14:40

settings and have it be a workable

1:14:42

experience. As Patrick mentioned, the

1:14:44

story mode, so I've probably

1:14:46

played seven hours of Tekken 8. We're recording a

1:14:48

smidge earlier than we normally do, so it probably

1:14:50

would have been 10 hours or longer

1:14:53

if we were recording at night. Everybody

1:14:55

doesn't want to be doing this and wants to be

1:14:58

playing Tekken 8. I get it. We

1:15:00

sacrificed our joy for yours, Jeff, so

1:15:02

you can hate watch a football game

1:15:04

unless they win, then that time was

1:15:06

worth it. Otherwise, you spent three hours

1:15:08

tense like, oh, this is fun. This

1:15:10

is fun. The

1:15:14

story is phenomenal. I have

1:15:16

played a lot of Tekken over the years,

1:15:18

but not all Tekken. I think the Tekken

1:15:20

I probably played the most is Tekken Advanced,

1:15:22

oddly enough, on the GBA. I was traveling

1:15:24

a lot when it came out and it's

1:15:26

a good Tekken. I played Tekken Tag, I

1:15:29

played the Tekken. Tekken 8 has a mode

1:15:31

where you can go through and get caught up on

1:15:33

the story. Fine,

1:15:35

maybe do that, but also maybe

1:15:38

don't because it's just so bombastic.

1:15:41

I know what the tiger man and the bear

1:15:43

man think about. Because they tell you. They give

1:15:45

you one line. They're like, you can't go against

1:15:47

them. Why? Because

1:15:51

they're this. And you're like, yeah, that's all

1:15:53

I need. Let them fight. The

1:15:57

tiger man is a tiger man. The

1:15:59

bear man. man is just a bear. He's

1:16:01

not just a bear man. It's actually on now.

1:16:03

Now I'm lost. Now I get confusing. You should

1:16:05

probably go back and

1:16:08

watch the story lead up. But it

1:16:10

is just so silly in the best

1:16:12

ways. You know, it feels very Final

1:16:16

Fantasy 16 in ways where

1:16:18

it is just so ridiculous, but taken seriously,

1:16:20

you know, like they don't wink at the

1:16:22

camera other than the fact that you're playing

1:16:25

as a panda bear or something like that,

1:16:27

you know, but like, just

1:16:29

bombastic and that the costumes

1:16:31

that Tekken's always had great

1:16:33

character outfits and the way they

1:16:35

look in a story mode. It's

1:16:37

never been sillier, but also better

1:16:39

because it's like when you see,

1:16:42

there's a reason why the first X-Men

1:16:44

movie put everybody in black leather, right?

1:16:46

Like, yes, it would have been

1:16:49

cool to see them in their iconic costumes. But

1:16:51

also, when you see people in their iconic costumes

1:16:53

in real life together next to each other, you're

1:16:55

like, this is weird. Like this, like you're walking

1:16:57

down the street and your shoulders are 30 feet

1:16:59

wide, like next to a normal person. You're like,

1:17:01

this is normal. This is how I act.

1:17:04

There's all of that stuff in it. It's

1:17:06

beautiful. It's dumb. But it also

1:17:08

does a good job of rotating you through

1:17:10

characters, giving a lot of series

1:17:12

regulars their moment to shine in

1:17:15

really cool ways, introduces

1:17:17

the new characters and fun story moments.

1:17:20

And then Arcade Quest, I think folks will

1:17:22

probably do that second, because oftentimes people get

1:17:24

excited about the story mode. But Arcade Quest

1:17:26

is where I would recommend folks start

1:17:29

if they're new to Tekken or it's been a while

1:17:31

because it does, as Patrick mentioned, a great job

1:17:34

teaching you Tekken. And

1:17:36

what I find so refreshing about coming back to Tekken,

1:17:38

I did not play seven, I think I maybe played

1:17:40

a little bit of six. I forget. It

1:17:43

was on PS4, maybe that was six. I

1:17:46

don't remember. But Tekken

1:17:48

is not a fireball, you

1:17:51

know, big special move, quote unquote fighting

1:17:53

game, the way Mortal Kombat and Street

1:17:55

Fighter are the buttons are for

1:17:58

most characters as always exception, but left

1:18:00

punch, right punch, left kick, right kick. So

1:18:02

one, two, three, four. And

1:18:05

you use them, you know, you can think

1:18:07

about Assassin's Creed with the way you used

1:18:09

to climb, like actually doing your

1:18:11

hands as you're moving up. And so left punch

1:18:14

is your the left hook that you throw and

1:18:16

then right is right and so on and so

1:18:18

forth. And so it's a closer

1:18:21

combat fighting game, that's something like Street

1:18:24

Fighter, where you can control space by

1:18:26

using your projectile. And so

1:18:28

so much of Tekken for years in

1:18:30

the competitive scene, it's a very defensive

1:18:33

game. Because when you close space, you're

1:18:35

looking for that frame gap, where you

1:18:37

can punish somebody, where you're able to

1:18:39

block their move. It's a

1:18:42

3d game, so you can shuffle around people, but

1:18:44

you're able to block their move and their frame is

1:18:46

open for you to go in to punish

1:18:49

them with your own combo. And so

1:18:51

a lot of times in the competitive space,

1:18:53

there's, you know, juking, starting a move, trying

1:18:55

to cancel out of it, how can you

1:18:58

start something that looks like a different

1:19:00

move characters have like 100 different moves, I'm

1:19:03

never going to learn them all, but like

1:19:05

looks like a move with a longer frame

1:19:07

animation that's actually shorter, so you can lure

1:19:09

somebody in. And so you get these very

1:19:11

heated defensive battles. And it seems like Tekken

1:19:13

8s approach has been how do we make

1:19:16

Tekken more offensive minded with the changes they've

1:19:18

made. And so at the very basic core,

1:19:20

they've buffed sidestepping, where you could

1:19:22

always sidestep, but so many moves would punish

1:19:24

you for that, whether it was a actual

1:19:26

three dimensional blow or not, or a sweep

1:19:28

that would still get hit

1:19:31

your hitbox in that moment to break your shuffle.

1:19:33

sidestepping is more effective now. And they've

1:19:36

added a heat mode, which

1:19:38

you start with full at the beginning of each round,

1:19:40

every round, your heat gauge is full. So it's not

1:19:42

like in Street Fighter, where you have to build up

1:19:44

your turbo, your heat gauge is full and ready to

1:19:46

go. And if you don't lose it, if

1:19:49

you don't lose it, if you don't use it, you lose it for

1:19:51

that round, like you should use it

1:19:53

every single round because next round it will be back.

1:19:56

And the heat mode makes you more

1:19:58

viable to be aggressive. aggressive. It

1:20:00

adds a few

1:20:02

things, but basically more to your combo

1:20:05

and it gives you a really cool

1:20:07

punishing special move that can break through

1:20:09

some other attacks. And so it allows

1:20:12

you to go in and be more aggressive in a way

1:20:14

that- And chip damage. It hasn't

1:20:16

had before, yes. And then chip damage, as

1:20:19

you block and take hits, you see your

1:20:22

health gauge go down, but it's not eliminated.

1:20:24

You're able to earn that health back if

1:20:27

you land blows on your

1:20:29

opponent. So you take- So incentivizing

1:20:31

offense. It's incentivizes offense, but it's

1:20:34

still, you're still very open. It's

1:20:36

not like one hit gives you that health back. It's

1:20:38

you got to then chip your way back to fill

1:20:40

it up. And if you mess up, you're going to

1:20:42

get punished and you lose all of that. And the

1:20:44

last thing that makes it more offensive is the

1:20:48

rage state is what they call it. And so

1:20:50

when you're down to what was it, Patrick, like

1:20:52

a quarter of your life left, a quarter of

1:20:54

your life. Yeah, something like that. You go into this

1:20:56

rage state and you can see it on your health bar

1:20:58

and it opens up a new

1:21:00

special move. I think just one per

1:21:03

character- Yeah, basically a super- Yeah. One

1:21:06

per character where you get very

1:21:08

angry. And it's

1:21:10

awesome. It's flashy looking. It can break through

1:21:13

some other offensive attacks back to

1:21:15

you. And it also-

1:21:18

Oh gosh,

1:21:21

there's one other thing that rage does, but it's just jumping out of

1:21:23

my head. But again, they're all an

1:21:25

effort of making it more offensive, which I think

1:21:27

is fascinating. And I'm very curious. I won't be

1:21:29

part of it because I won't be that competitive.

1:21:31

And I'm very curious to see how the competitive

1:21:34

scene does react to it long-term and

1:21:36

whether or not it really has people

1:21:38

flying off, running in

1:21:40

and engaging with people. And then from the

1:21:42

new characters, again, there's only three, but I

1:21:45

love Victor. He's the Frenchman

1:21:47

and he's so cool. He's like this

1:21:50

old silver fox spy tech dude

1:21:52

who has little knives and then also this

1:21:54

huge gun that he never uses, but he's

1:21:56

got this huge gun and then little knives.

1:21:58

He's a fighter. It's awesome.

1:22:01

It's awesome. You're talking

1:22:03

about the French guy. It's

1:22:05

funny, Law, which is one of the old

1:22:08

school characters in his intro, he looks at

1:22:10

the camera and he's like, Bruce Lee look

1:22:13

alike. And he looks at the camera and he's

1:22:15

like, I hate rich people. So

1:22:17

it makes me think of the French person.

1:22:21

But Rayna, the other

1:22:23

new character, is super

1:22:26

awesome. Azucena, the Peruvian,

1:22:29

which like does I want to

1:22:31

learn like when you dive into

1:22:33

one of the characters, it's like learning a whole

1:22:35

game. So I recommend you stick with one. Just

1:22:37

take one that you think looks cool. But

1:22:42

Azucena has a whole bunch of

1:22:45

escape, not escapes with like she dodges

1:22:47

all your all

1:22:50

the enemies strikes and she's like making fun

1:22:52

of you. And she's like, aha. It

1:22:55

seems like a lot of misdirects too,

1:22:57

where like it's like a fake into

1:22:59

one and then she comes the other

1:23:01

way. And it looks, this game looks

1:23:03

so badass. Like forget about everything we

1:23:05

just said, which is true, but forget

1:23:08

about all of it. If you want

1:23:10

to play a fighting game and have

1:23:12

immediate fun and look like you're doing

1:23:14

super cool fighting moves, pick up

1:23:16

Tekken 8. It is exactly that.

1:23:18

You will feel like a

1:23:21

badass from the get go. Don't

1:23:23

go fight people, you know, in ranked mode,

1:23:25

because especially at the beginning, all the pros

1:23:27

are like ranking up. You get destroyed every

1:23:30

other game. It will settle

1:23:32

down, but no, it just

1:23:34

press every button. It will look cool.

1:23:37

It's awesome. And you can play it in VR. Well,

1:23:39

I mean Tekken 7 could be played in VR.

1:23:42

Not a lot of people did. So I just

1:23:44

take, I take solace in knowing that I helped

1:23:46

the best, best players in the world achieve their

1:23:48

rank as they beat me. That

1:23:51

is our contribution. It's a fighting game. No,

1:23:53

it's a helping game. That's

1:23:58

Tekken 8. like it

1:24:00

is continuing this new golden

1:24:02

age of fighting games that we seem to

1:24:05

find ourselves in. Street Fighter VI and Tekken

1:24:07

8, it is incredible that

1:24:09

we saw those come back and

1:24:11

be as good as they are.

1:24:13

You know, they're 90 on

1:24:16

Metacritic games, 92, 90. Like, they are such...

1:24:20

I thought we would never see that time again.

1:24:22

And of course, not everyone is going to go

1:24:24

play fighting games, but some people will. And the

1:24:26

people who do are so

1:24:28

happy with the state of their favorite

1:24:32

niche genre right now. And they're stupid

1:24:34

in the best way. And I say

1:24:36

that with love. Like Mortal

1:24:39

Kombat included, Mortal Kombat has been stupid in the best

1:24:41

way for longer. The Street Fighter VI and Tekken 8

1:24:43

are so stupid and they wear their stupid on their

1:24:45

sleeve. And it's better because

1:24:47

of it. You have always told me

1:24:49

that that was a compliment as well.

1:24:52

And I don't know. I mean, it's

1:24:54

in the best way. You're fired. I

1:24:56

would love. Christian,

1:25:05

you have also been playing more Prince

1:25:07

of the Lost Crown, which we raved

1:25:09

about last week. I will

1:25:11

be brief. I rolled credits on Prince of the

1:25:13

Lost Crown. It took me just under 20 hours.

1:25:17

My completion percentage was shown at

1:25:19

low 70, 70%,

1:25:21

which I was kind of surprised by because I felt

1:25:23

like I was doing a lot of side stuff in

1:25:25

it as I was enjoying that world and that game.

1:25:27

Prince of the Lost Crown is

1:25:30

phenomenal. It is certainly one

1:25:32

of my favorite games I've played in

1:25:34

recent memory. I'm saying it again this week to

1:25:36

tell you to go pick it up because it's really

1:25:38

good. Some of those fights at the end get hard

1:25:40

though, like hard. But it's incredible.

1:25:43

I rolled credits. I'm super happy I did.

1:25:45

It's great. You know,

1:25:48

you were talking about too many games earlier. I

1:25:51

really want to play Prince of Persia. It

1:25:53

looks awesome. I played the demo. I loved

1:25:55

it. Maybe it's also because I have

1:25:57

two small kids, but I just I don't. have

1:26:00

time. It's not enough to be

1:26:02

an excellent to be a very good game

1:26:04

these days. You have to

1:26:06

be a fantastic game and appeal

1:26:09

to the person that might play

1:26:11

like yeah it's I

1:26:14

want to play. Yes we

1:26:17

need to get another one though I think we're gonna

1:26:20

need a new one that says too many kids. No

1:26:25

look I refuse to let

1:26:27

that be excuse. I'm

1:26:29

pretty sure my children ate this morning

1:26:32

and I've played plenty of Tekken like

1:26:35

I don't know where

1:26:37

they went but they seemed happy when they left. My

1:26:40

daughter has a jaguar head for a

1:26:42

head but I think it's because she

1:26:45

also likes Tekken so what do you do?

1:26:47

All right I gotta talk about a game

1:26:49

on my list another new game actually this

1:26:52

is early access release but I would say

1:26:54

the game that's old now Tekken and Prince

1:26:56

of Persia together. The new

1:26:58

survival game that's sweeping the nation where

1:27:00

you can create all kinds of no

1:27:04

it's not pow world I played a

1:27:06

little pow world last week but ah

1:27:08

it's not my game at all. 8 million

1:27:10

last week it was like what three people

1:27:13

love the pow world I don't understand it.

1:27:15

I'm sure many of those are game paths

1:27:17

though. Well no

1:27:19

it's like 8 million on steam. Did they

1:27:21

clarify? I think it was like 6 million

1:27:24

on steam. Anyway that's a lot of people

1:27:26

that are not on game. Okay back to

1:27:28

Tekken 8. It is so sad. I

1:27:31

want to tell you about a different survival game.

1:27:33

Listen I'm not

1:27:35

somebody that seeks out

1:27:37

survival games. Survival games I've dabbled

1:27:39

I've never fallen in love with

1:27:42

that. Survival games find you. You

1:27:45

don't seek them out. One of the reasons I was

1:27:47

excited about that Blizzard one was like hey maybe this

1:27:49

company will make the one that I

1:27:51

love you know will find a way to find to

1:27:53

refine it to a point where I love.

1:27:57

You know what else I haven't liked you guys is Breath

1:28:01

of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Do you

1:28:03

or else I haven't liked you guys? Oh,

1:28:05

also, mostly Christian. I really like that.

1:28:09

No, the... What

1:28:13

if I told you there was a game

1:28:15

that was basically a Valheim game

1:28:18

I couldn't get into, meets

1:28:21

Breath of the Wild game I couldn't get into,

1:28:23

and I'm super into it. I

1:28:27

don't know why this is the case. But

1:28:30

there's a game that just hit Early Access this

1:28:32

week. It's called Enshrouded. Enshrouded.

1:28:36

This is a really

1:28:38

cool game that

1:28:40

got it hooked into me really fast. And

1:28:43

I will cop to the fact that

1:28:47

I'm very shallow. Because I really

1:28:51

think, and I've kind of had

1:28:54

this realization dawn on me very slowly

1:28:56

over the last few years, as

1:28:58

I've looked at the things that have

1:29:00

turned me off and looked at the things

1:29:03

that have grabbed me. And

1:29:05

I realize that look

1:29:07

and feel plays

1:29:10

a huge part in my...

1:29:13

You know, this speaks exactly to what you just

1:29:15

said, Patrick. We're in this world of

1:29:17

too many games. We're in this world of so

1:29:20

many things are excellent. It used to be

1:29:22

all you had to be was excellent to

1:29:25

capture my attention, because excellence was

1:29:27

rare. Now,

1:29:29

excellence is commonplace.

1:29:32

The bar is

1:29:34

very high just for competence

1:29:36

in video. Games are really good,

1:29:38

well made now. I think much

1:29:40

more than they ever have been.

1:29:43

And so now I think because

1:29:45

I can't fall in love

1:29:47

with everything, my tastes

1:29:49

have refined and it's not

1:29:51

good enough to just be excellent. You have

1:29:53

to also sort of be in my wheelhouse,

1:29:57

appeal to my specific sensibilities. And

1:29:59

I think... look and feel really

1:30:02

play a big part in these

1:30:04

huge, especially these

1:30:06

games that demand a lot

1:30:08

of my time and attention.

1:30:11

They're not something I can dabble with. You really have to

1:30:13

commit to these worlds. And

1:30:15

Enshrouded nails

1:30:17

that right away. It is

1:30:19

an absolutely gorgeous game in

1:30:23

the way that Valheim just isn't to me.

1:30:25

Like I know that people enjoy that aesthetic

1:30:27

and I certainly respect the choice

1:30:29

of that aesthetic, but it never was

1:30:31

just a place I wanted to be

1:30:33

in, right? Enshrouded

1:30:35

is immediately a world

1:30:38

I'm curious about, I

1:30:41

enjoy exploring. I mean, even much more

1:30:43

to me, and again, no offense to

1:30:45

anybody, this is just me, but even

1:30:48

much more than Breath of the Wild and

1:30:50

Tears of the Kingdom. Those aren't places that

1:30:53

appeal to me aesthetically, the

1:30:55

feel of moving Link around in those

1:30:57

worlds just never was satisfying

1:31:00

to me on a fundamental base level. And

1:31:03

Enshrouded just immediately,

1:31:06

four seconds in, I'm thinking to

1:31:08

myself, wow, I like

1:31:11

being here. I like the way this character

1:31:13

moves. I like moving through this world. So

1:31:15

the idea of Enshrouded, the fiction is

1:31:17

pretty neat, although not spelled out for

1:31:19

you. It is really one of those

1:31:21

games where you have to engage

1:31:23

with it. A lot of the things people

1:31:26

say they like about Elden Ring, for example,

1:31:28

is that you have to engage with it

1:31:30

and be curious and be really paying attention

1:31:32

to all the context clues and little bits

1:31:35

of lore that are peppered throughout

1:31:37

the world. Such is

1:31:39

the case with Enshrouded, it does start with

1:31:41

a bit of a cutscene, but there really

1:31:43

aren't cutscenes as you move through the game.

1:31:45

It is much more the world explaining itself

1:31:48

to you. But you,

1:31:50

and so I'm not super clear on

1:31:52

exactly all of the lore here, but

1:31:54

you are birthed into this

1:31:57

world, you're born of fire. You

1:32:00

arrive in this world and it is a world

1:32:03

that is enshrouded in

1:32:05

certain areas in this very damaging

1:32:09

and toxic fog

1:32:12

And part of what you're doing

1:32:14

in enshrouded is delving into this

1:32:17

in these enshrouded areas and trying

1:32:19

to cleanse them certainly nothing new

1:32:21

there as far as video games have done stuff

1:32:24

similarly, but This is

1:32:26

a survival game in the sense that

1:32:28

you have lots of building and construction

1:32:31

options for you all the time, but not in

1:32:33

the sense that you're going to be Worrying

1:32:35

about your hunger or your thirst

1:32:38

or your sleep your exhaustion. Those

1:32:40

things are Are

1:32:42

not in the game you you

1:32:44

have the ability to eat and

1:32:46

drink but those only provide positive

1:32:48

things So when you eat

1:32:50

you get buffs in certain ways when you

1:32:52

drink you get buffs in certain ways You

1:32:54

have this ability to get rested Rewards

1:32:58

and fed rewards there isn't

1:33:00

penalties for them So already

1:33:02

one of the things that are is a

1:33:04

sticking point for me in survival games is sort

1:33:06

of eliminated I don't know about well Or

1:33:09

the Valheim was very additive where he wanted to

1:33:11

do this because you are stronger And then you

1:33:14

could do more cool stuff instead of I need

1:33:16

to do this Yeah, it's funny in World of Warcraft back in

1:33:23

2004 well before that when they were testing it

1:33:27

Initially the rested XP was not

1:33:29

rested XP It was that if

1:33:31

you gained more XP than that

1:33:33

amount you would get half XP and that

1:33:35

felt very bad So it

1:33:38

then switched it to actually you gain

1:33:40

double when you're rested and everyone loved

1:33:42

it Same thing

1:33:44

different way. Lizard brains are lizard

1:33:47

brains anyway, the Say

1:33:50

another thing I don't really like and still

1:33:52

don't like even in shrouded. I Want

1:33:57

to like building stuff in games

1:34:00

I just don't. I find it

1:34:02

extremely tedious to have to build

1:34:04

a house and Shredder does a lot of things

1:34:06

to Smooth those

1:34:08

rough edges in the sense that it's a voxel

1:34:10

game you can get really fine detailed and people

1:34:13

have made incredible stuff for

1:34:15

this game already like Extraordinary

1:34:17

mansions and these palatial castles and

1:34:19

just incredible stuff But

1:34:22

it also allows you you get into this

1:34:24

build mode and you get this you know

1:34:26

This cool hammer and put you into this

1:34:28

build mode where it'll give you you know

1:34:30

Pre-stock made like full walls and with doorways

1:34:32

cut out of it. And so it gives

1:34:34

you the shortcut to just Sort

1:34:37

of plug and play Lego style your buildings, but

1:34:39

I'm still I still just have

1:34:42

no interest in it. I Try

1:34:45

to motivate myself, but I find it so

1:34:47

tedious to build things But

1:34:49

you can kind of ignore that I mean, there's

1:34:51

a lot of cool stuff that you get from

1:34:54

building things you can set up, you

1:34:56

know Kind

1:34:58

of a factory where you're you know

1:35:00

self-sustained in ways that you wouldn't

1:35:02

be otherwise Much

1:35:05

more than that the game offers this huge

1:35:08

huge interesting world with different

1:35:10

biomes to explore

1:35:13

and there's literally no Vendors

1:35:18

No currency in this game

1:35:20

everything you acquire you

1:35:22

do by either crafting it or finding it

1:35:24

and You can get some

1:35:26

really rad stuff and there's a huge, you know

1:35:28

huge tech tree for and and there

1:35:30

are Ostensibly classes,

1:35:33

but you start classless you

1:35:35

start as a Empty vessel a

1:35:38

blank slate and it has a

1:35:40

very sort of path of exile style branching

1:35:44

skill tree Similar

1:35:47

to something in like Skyrim had something

1:35:49

similar where you

1:35:51

start putting points in skills and Eventually,

1:35:55

it leads you down a path

1:35:57

to a class. So you sort

1:35:59

of find your class by what

1:36:01

skills you invest in. And

1:36:04

there's lots of them, assassins, battle mage,

1:36:06

you know, lots of cool subclasses and

1:36:08

you can kind of theory craft your

1:36:10

way into some really cool

1:36:12

play styles. And there's, you

1:36:15

know, there's swords and axes and shields

1:36:17

and bows and arrows, but there's also

1:36:19

wands and staffs and magic. So you

1:36:22

can really create the kind

1:36:24

of play experience you want. And I find the

1:36:26

combat not fantastic,

1:36:29

not, oh my gosh, the combat

1:36:31

is what brought me to the game, but satisfying

1:36:34

and satisfying in the way that it

1:36:36

is specifically how

1:36:38

I want to be. And there's like hot

1:36:40

swap. So you can whittle

1:36:43

things down with ranged weapons and then swap

1:36:45

into a melee super quick. And you can,

1:36:47

it really is dynamic in that way. And

1:36:49

that it allows you to take

1:36:51

on the challenges the way you want to

1:36:53

and based on the cool stuff that you

1:36:56

have found. I love

1:37:01

the world. I love the challenge of the

1:37:03

world. So basically what you're doing is, you

1:37:07

know, you're building cool stuff, you're crafting

1:37:09

these neat things, you're finding these NPCs,

1:37:11

there's, I think I want to say

1:37:13

five or six NPCs that are hidden

1:37:15

in the world that you bring back

1:37:18

to your base and then they give

1:37:20

you new things that you can

1:37:22

craft because they're there. And they also give

1:37:24

you a little side quest to go and

1:37:26

do. And in order

1:37:29

to get the coolest stuff, you

1:37:31

need to venture into these shrouded

1:37:33

areas and get resources that only

1:37:35

exist there. And you're also going into these

1:37:37

shrouded areas to sort of cleanse them. You

1:37:39

find these trees, you chop down the tree,

1:37:41

it cleanses the area and gets rid of

1:37:43

the shroud. But as you

1:37:45

go into the shroud, it's killing you.

1:37:47

And you have literally a timer on

1:37:49

the screen for how long you can

1:37:51

be in the shroud. Again, another thing

1:37:53

that usually puts me off of games

1:37:55

big time. Timer on the screen. Hate

1:37:57

it. For some reason, and

1:38:00

shrouded, I'm into

1:38:02

the idea that like it is full

1:38:06

on push your luck. You're

1:38:09

choosing to step into the shroud, you've got

1:38:11

this much time, maybe there'll be

1:38:13

something you encounter inside the

1:38:15

shroud that resets

1:38:17

your timer. Sometimes you can find that

1:38:19

stuff, sometimes you can't. You

1:38:22

have ways to mitigate that and get, you know,

1:38:24

allow yourself to survive longer, but you

1:38:26

are pushing your luck and sometimes you have

1:38:28

to go deeper and deeper and deeper into

1:38:30

the shroud. You're walking down, you're like, oh

1:38:33

no, am I going to be able to get out of here?

1:38:35

Because it can't fast travel in the shroud. Am I going to

1:38:37

be able to cleanse this thing in time? And

1:38:39

then you're fighting the

1:38:41

last guardian, I

1:38:44

wouldn't say boss, but more like a, you know, a

1:38:46

tougher character that's right in front of the thing

1:38:48

you're trying to cleanse and you see that

1:38:50

tick, tick, tick and you're trying to fight

1:38:53

it and it raises the tension. That's exactly

1:38:55

why people put timers in

1:38:57

games and why some people like them.

1:38:59

I tend not to, but for some

1:39:01

reason here, it's kind of cool. It's kind

1:39:03

of cool. And again, I think

1:39:06

a lot of this is look and

1:39:08

feel. I just like being in this

1:39:10

place. I like, I mean, the game

1:39:12

is very, very pretty. The way the

1:39:14

construction stuff works with the voxel is

1:39:17

everything is integrated into the environment. So

1:39:19

even when you build something that wasn't

1:39:21

there or even cooler than that, you

1:39:23

can sort of red

1:39:26

faction esque just blast

1:39:28

into the side of a mountain

1:39:30

or knock a hole in

1:39:32

something. All of it when

1:39:35

you've done it looks

1:39:37

completely natural. Looks like the game was

1:39:39

always supposed to look like that. It

1:39:41

doesn't look like you stuck a goofy

1:39:44

thing you made on the side of a pretty

1:39:46

designer made part of the

1:39:49

game. It all looks beautiful.

1:39:51

And you know, these gorgeous

1:39:53

sunsets and everything is, I

1:39:55

mean, it, it supports super ultra ride. So

1:39:57

it's beautiful on my big monitor. It

1:40:00

supports DLSS. I'm playing it on PC. I think

1:40:02

it's only available on PC right now. It's in

1:40:04

early access Uh,

1:40:07

i'm playing on a bpgp, of course mileage

1:40:09

may vary but I think the game is

1:40:11

is really pretty it's super fun It's made

1:40:13

to be played with other people Uh,

1:40:15

so you could sort of have division of labor. You can be

1:40:17

like, hey I'm the person who's

1:40:20

building the base you guys go out and

1:40:22

do whatever or you can all do everything

1:40:24

together Uh, you have this

1:40:26

cool thing where you have a server.

1:40:29

So anybody on your server? I

1:40:31

mean it it rips off other

1:40:33

games I think unabashedly

1:40:37

One of the things that rips off from breath of

1:40:39

the wild is the pokemon Is

1:40:42

all the pokemon is pokemon with guns though? um

1:40:46

No is you go to the top of these

1:40:48

towers and that opens up parts of the map

1:40:50

But anybody on your server that has done that

1:40:52

it opens up the map for everybody on the

1:40:55

site. That's cool So it's rad. So

1:40:57

you can have like hey, you and me let's go do

1:40:59

this while you know Bill and

1:41:01

sally build a base where you can do that kind of

1:41:03

stuff if you choose to I think that's kind of neat

1:41:05

as well Another thing that rips

1:41:07

off from breath of the wild is the stamina system.

1:41:10

It has the circular little stamina meter that Means,

1:41:13

you know if you climb something your stamina goes

1:41:15

down if you you can build a hang glider

1:41:17

and a grappling hook Although the grappling

1:41:19

hook only works on grappling points not anywhere, which

1:41:21

is a bit of a bummer But anyway, so

1:41:23

it's ripping off lots of games, but

1:41:26

doing it with style. I think

1:41:28

uh, Really fun enemies cool

1:41:31

looking bad guys Neat

1:41:33

fights. I mean it's intense

1:41:36

if you die you drop some of your stuff

1:41:39

soul styles You have to go find your corpse to get

1:41:41

your stuff if you want it and

1:41:43

you're constantly just getting resources building

1:41:46

new stuff I

1:41:48

don't know. I mean it is a gameplay loop that I haven't

1:41:52

fallen in love with before but

1:41:54

in shrouded Has

1:41:56

made me really dig that gameplay

1:41:58

loop I you know

1:42:00

the game again is only in early access,

1:42:03

but there's a lot to it there already

1:42:05

And I think this game has

1:42:07

a bright future Because

1:42:09

you know they plan to add much more stuff.

1:42:11

I think there's four or five biomes already and

1:42:14

you know the map is big There's lots

1:42:16

of cool Things

1:42:19

to find and discover there's little

1:42:21

puzzles It's

1:42:24

it's a pretty neat It's like got a

1:42:26

full what feels like a

1:42:28

full role-playing adventure game layer and

1:42:31

the Build

1:42:33

stuff craft stuff layer, and they're

1:42:36

married really really well So

1:42:38

I am very high on enshrouded.