Quantic Dreams is Making a Multiplayer Game?

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